Tuesday morning, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) released an anti-Semitic bombshell. It decreed that all EU member states must affix special labels to Jewish-made Israeli “foodstuffs” produced beyond Israel’s 1949 armistice and exported to EU member states. The ruling was made in response to a lawsuit brought before a French court by Psagot winery, located north of Jerusalem.

Psagot’s manager Yaakov Berg was represented by a consortium of attorneys led by Brooke Goldstein, the founder and executive director of the Lawfare Project in New York. The focus of the Lawfare Project’s work is defending Israel and Jews from discrimination.

Israeli political leaders and American Jewish leaders roundly and rightly condemned the court ruling as anti-Israel, biased and anti-Semitic.

Psagot brought suit before a French administrative court to appeal a 2016 French regulation requiring the special labeling of Jewish-made Israeli foods produced beyond the 1949 armistice lines. Psagot and its attorneys argued before the French court that the French regulation contradicted European law by imposing illegal trade barriers. The French court referred the issue to the ECJ in the form of two questions: does EU law require EU states to impose discriminatory labeling requirements on Jewish-made products from the disputed territories, and, if it doesn’t, does EU law still permit member states to adopt such labeling requirements on their own.

Israel and Psagot never stood a chance of getting justice at the ECJ

In late June of this year, the urgency of the entreaties grew.

According to ECJ procedure, before the judges render their verdict, the court’s advocate general publishes his recommended verdict. It is rare for the court to rule in a manner that contradicts its advocate general’s recommendation. In late June, the advocate general recommended answering that it is obligatory for EU member states to affix discriminatory labels to Israeli Jewish imports from Israeli territory beyond the 1949 armistice lines.

Once his recommendation was published, any residual hope the ECJ would act in accordance with international trade law and reject the proposed discriminatory labelling policy was extinguished.

But then, with or without the advocate general’s recommendation, Israel and Psagot never stood a chance of getting justice at the ECJ. Before it is a judicial body, the ECJ is a political arm of the EU whose job it is to uphold EU policies and strengthen EU institutions.

The EU’s policy towards Israel has been clear for a very long time.

For decades, the EU has been waging a hostile campaign against Israel. The goals of its campaign are to call Israel’s right to exist into question, weaken Israel economically and politically, and strengthen Israel’s enemies at Israel’s expense. The EU wages its campaign through political, diplomatic and economic warfare.

Non-governmental organizations registered in Israel and financed and directed by the European Union and its member states are strategic weapons in this campaign

Non-governmental organizations registered in Israel and financed and directed by the European Union and its member states are strategic weapons in this campaign. These European-financed and directed Israeli registered and staffed NGOs routinely submit petitions to Israel’s High Court of Justice whose purpose is to stymie the government’s ability to implement duly promulgated policies and undermine the IDF’s ability to defend the country.

At the UN, EU member states vote against Israel and for its enemies as a general practice. They support UN bodies including the UN Human Rights Committee, UNRWA and UNESCO that routinely and maliciously target Israel.

The EU leverages its trade and scientific cooperation with Israel to normalize boycotts of Israeli companies, institutions and Jewish citizens who operate beyond the 1949 armistice lines.

As for Europe’s support for Israel’s enemies, led by Germany, the EU refuses to walk away from the nuclear deal with Iran, or reinstate economic sanctions against Iran in light of its open material breaches of the limitations the nuclear deal placed on its nuclear activities.

So too, led by Germany, the EU refuses to designate all arms of Hezbollah as a terror group. This pro-Hezbollah policy has the deadly result of enabling the Iranian-controlled terror group to operate and raise money openly in Europe.

Both of these policies, which pave Iran’s way to a nuclear arsenal and empower its foreign legion are hostile acts towards Israel.

Then there is the EU’s adulation of the Palestinians. EU institutions do not merely legitimize Palestinian terror groups, including Hamas and the PFLP. They enthusiastically embrace them. For instance, the European parliament has repeatedly hosted senior Palestinian terrorists. It has given standing ovations to senior Palestinian officials including Mahmoud Abbas as they revived medieval antisemitic blood libels. Abbas for instance, accused Israeli Jews of deliberately poisoning wells.

In the face of the EU’s implacable, long standing and steadily expanding efforts to harm Israel, the notion Israel can reasonably expect to ever receive a fair hearing from any EU body is ridiculous.

Stunningly, even after their defeat at the ECJ, the Psagot winery and its legal team refuse to accept this truth. In an interview Tuesday with JNS news service, Goldstein said that Europe itself is the verdict’s biggest loser.

In her words, “The ruling opens the floodgates where consumers in any EU country will be able to insist that any consideration important to them before they purchase a product – whether social, political, environmental or other – will have to be included on the labeling of any product being imported. Not just from Israel.”

This is untrue. The verdict – like the EU’s legally unsupported claim that Israeli “settlements” built beyond the 1949 armistice lines are illegal – is not general. It is very specific. It applies only to Israel. The ECJ’s ruling will not be applied on behalf of vegans and Tibetans. Everyone knows it was directed against Israel and its Jewish citizens alone. The verdict was political, not legal.

For all that, Justice Ministry and Foreign Ministry officials are wrong to attack the Psagot winery and its attorneys for their willful blindness. They themselves are afflicted by the same impairment.

In their contacts with the EU, its agencies and aligned organizations, government officials act on the basis of the mistaken belief that it is possible to convince the Europeans to abandon their hostile positions against Israel through reasoning and evidence. Perhaps the best example of this misguided Israeli practice is the respect Israel accords the prosecutors at the International Criminal Court (ICC).

ICC investigators are currently preparing charges against Israelis for so-called war crimes on the basis of false accusations submitted by the Palestinians. The Palestinian complaints relate both to the IDF’s military activities and to settlement activities carried out by the Israeli government and Israeli citizens.

Government officials have to abandon their delusion that Europe is Israel’s enlightened ally with whom Israel can reason

According to government officials, the reason Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is preventing the evacuation of the illegal Palestinian outpost Khan al-Ahmar despite the fact that the High Court of Justice ordered its dismantlement over a year ago is fear that implementing the court decision will subject Israel to war crimes charges at the ICC.

In September 2018, the Trump administration announced that it was ending all cooperation with the ICC due to its political nature and its institutional hostility towards the United States and Israel.

Following this announcement, the US denied a visa to an ICC prosecutor scheduled to visit the US to investigate complaints submitted to the ICC against US soldiers for actions they allegedly perpetrated in Afghanistan.

Shortly after the policy was presented, the State Department announced it was ordering the closure of the PLO representative office in Washington, DC due to the PLO’s refusal to withdraw the complaints it submitted to the ICC against Israel.

Unlike the Americans, Israel continues its dialogue with the ICC prosecutor and permits the prosecutor’s representatives to enter Israel in the hopes of convincing the ICC of Israel’s innocence. But the fact the ICC is even giving a hearing, let along proceeding, with its investigations of false accusations against Israel is proof that it is a hostile body. It will never give a fair hearing to Israel.

Just as permitting the inherently hostile ECJ adjudicate issues related to Israeli Jewish exports from Israeli-controlled territory was a mistake that harmed Israel, so Israel’s legitimization of the ICC will come back to haunt it.

Berg, Goldstein and their associates insist that they were compelled to act because the Israeli government refused to lift a finger against the EU. Their allegation of government inaction is valid. The government has an obligation to aggressively respond to Europe’s hostile behavior.

To this end, the time has come to end the tax-exempt status of hostile European-funded and directed NGOs.

It is also time for Israel to act in the legal arena in jurisdictions that are not inherently hostile to the Jewish state. For instance, Israel should seek justice against the EU’s hostile and unfair trade practices at the World Trade Organization’s arbitration bodies and in US courts.

But before Israel can do any of these things, government officials have to abandon their delusion that Europe is Israel’s enlightened ally with whom Israel can reason.

Europe is not enlightened and it is not Israel’s ally. It is not susceptible to reason and evidence.

It is a hostile post-national governing structure that is conducting political, diplomatic and economic warfare against Israel to harm the Jewish state and assist its enemies.

So long as our leaders and our officials refuse to accept this basic truth, we will continue to experience defeat and discrimination as individuals and collectively at the hands of our European “friends.”

20. 

Pelosi’s Projection

A throwback to the Democrats’ great imposter.

Thu Nov 21, 2019 

In Adam Schiff’s “impeachment palooza,” as one Republican called it, not a single witness has flagged an impeachable offence on the part of President Trump. As the smears, hearsay and lies surge onward, an offstage player has provided the key to all mysteries of the 2016 election and beyond.

After former ambassador Marie Yvanovitch failed to signal any bribery or crime on the part of the president, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi promptly targeted President Trump. “I think part of it is his own insecurity as an imposter,” Pelosi told CBS. “I think he knows full well that he’s in that office way over his head. And so he has to diminish everyone else.”

Nancy’s keyword was “imposter,” a person posing as someone he is not. That profile hardly fits the current president of the United States.

Donald Trump has been a public figure for decades, putting up buildings, staging boxing matches, and appearing on television. Nobody has suggested that Donald J. Trump ever posed as somebody else, and nobody can point to mysteries in his ancestry. All that, and more, does apply to his predecessor in the White House.

The junior senator from Illinois, a virtual unknown, claimed that his father was a Kenyan goatherd who went to school in a tin-roof shack. That story came from the 1995 Dreams from My Father, which official biographer David Garrow proclaimed a novel and the author a “composite character.” That was apparent to the most casual reader of the Dreams book, which claims the Kenyan “bequeathed his name” to the Hawaiian-born American, and called him a “prop” in someone else’s narrative.

In all his writing from 1958-1964, the Kenyan Barack H. Obama makes no mention of an American wife and son. Barry, as his mother named him, was adopted by Lolo Soetoro, the Indonesian student his mother Ann Dunham married, and raised in Indonesia.

The Dreams account gives more attention to “Frank” than the Kenyan, and the 2017 Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama, Garrow acknowledges that “Frank” is Frank Marshall Davis, a Stalinist and Soviet agent with an FBI file a mile long. With his beloved Communist Frank “politically radioactive,” rising star Barry needed the historical fiction of the Kenyan if he sought higher office.

The false notion that he was born in Kenya originated with the Clinton campaign in 2008, hoping to discredit Barry as a presidential candidate. The establishment media accepted Barry’s narrative and smeared as “birthers” anyone curious about his background. Toward the end of Rising Star, Garrow cites an unnamed reporter that Obama and his “narrator” David Axelrod made up the story, which was “not entirely true.”

In 2012, Paul Kengor’s The Communist showed the “remarkable similarities” between the politics of the Dreams author and Frank Marshall Davis. Also in 2012, Joel Gilbert’s Dreams from My Real Father, documented the remarkable physical similarities between the president and his beloved Frank. Republican candidate Mitt Romney ignored this material and would later call candidate Trump a “a phony, a fraud.” So Romney accepted the historical fiction and duly lost the election.

Back in 2008, the composite character set out to “fundamentally transform” the United States, already a top-heavy welfare state from the New Deal and Great Society programs. The 2008 winner transformed it into a state where the outgoing president picks his successor and deploys the deep state to clear her from any criminal charges and then attack her opponent.

That is the drama playing out since Donald Trump took the oath of office, first in the Russia hoax under Robert Mueller and now the Ukraine hoax under Adam Schiff.  As recent events confirm, leftist Democrats project onto others what they themselves are doing.

Democrats colluded with Russia, and charge that Trump did that. Democrats colluded with Ukraine and charge that Trump did that, and so forth. At the nadir of the absurdity, Nancy Pelosi tags president Trump an “imposter,”  more than a hint that Democrats have one of their own.

The composite character told the world the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam. He assured Russian boss Dimitry Medvedev he would have “more flexibility” after the election and essentially gave the Russians everything they wanted. He deployed the deep state against political opponents and on his watch the economy barely had a pulse. So the people had good cause to reject his successor.

In what is now a criminal probe, Attorney General William Barr has John Durham looking into the 2016 election. Anti-Trump FBI drones Strzok and Page were on record that president Obama wanted to know “everything we’re doing.” And POTUS 44 was a recipient of emails sent through Hillary Clinton’s unsecure server, another reason the former First Lady had them destroyed.

“Let’s look into Obama the way they’ve looked at me from day one,” President Trump said in July. “They could look into the book deal that President Obama made. Let’s subpoena all of his records.” Plenty to see here, and much more interesting for the public than Schiff’s Stalinist show-trial.

The former Barry Soetoro, according to his official biographer a composite character in a fictional narrative, is the only president to have two identities. Barack Obama is the only imposter to occupy the White House. As President Trump likes to say, this should never happen again.

* * *

Photo by Gage Skidmore.

21. 

Fahreddin Paşa, ‘Kutsal Emanetler’i tüm zorluklara rağmen İstanbul’a getirdi!

Medine Müdafaası ile tanınan “çöl kaplanı” lakaplı Fahreddin Paşa’nın kahramanlıkları yıllardır tarih sayfalarını süslüyor.

Fahrettin Paşa (Ömer Fahreddin Türkkan) 1868’de Bulgaristan’ın Rusçuk şehrinde dünyaya geldi. 93 Harbi’nden sonra ailesiyle birlikte İstanbul’a yerleşti. Mekteb-i Harbiye’yi birincilikle bitirdi. Erkan-ı Harbiye Mektebi’nden sonra 1891’de Kurmay Yüzbaşı rütbesiyle göreve başladı. Balkan Savaşı’nda Çatalca savunmasında ve Edirne’nin geri alınışında hizmet etti.

 

I. Dünya Savaşı başladığında 4. Ordu’ya bağlı 12. Kolordu komutanı olarak Musul’da bulunan Fahrettin Paşa, 1915’te 4. Ordu komutan vekilliğine getirildi. Urfa, Zeytun, Musadağı ve Haçin’deki Ermeni isyanlarını bastırdı. 1916’da 4. Ordu komutanı Cemal Paşa tarafından Medine’deki Hicaz Kuvve-i Seferiyesi komutanlığına atandı. İngilizlerin desteğinde isyana girişen Şerif Hüseyin’in ordusuna karşı, kısıtlı imkanlara rağmen yaptığı Medine Müdafaası büyük takdir topladı. Türk orduları kuzeye doğru geri çekilmeye başlamışken etrafındaki Türk birlikleriyle irtibatı tamamen kesilen Fahreddin Paşa, şehri savunmaya devam etti.

 

Osmanlı Devleti, 30 Ekim 1918’de Mondros Mütarekesini imzalayarak I. Dünya Savaşından çekildi. Osmanlı devletinin teslim olmasından sonra 72 gün daha Medine’yi savunmaya devam eden Fahreddin Paşa, yiyecek, ilaç ve cephanenin bitmesi nedeniyle 13 Ocak 1919’da savunmayı durdurdu. Böylece Medine’de 400 seneden beri süren Türk hakimiyeti sona erdi.

 

İngilizler tarafından “Çöl Kaplanı” ismi verilen Fahreddin Paşa, savaş esiri olarak önce Mısır’a daha sonra da Malta’ya gönderildi. 8 Nisan 1921’de Malta’dan kurtulduktan sonra Kurtuluş Savaşı’na katılmak üzere Ankara’ya geldi. Başkomutan Gazi Mustafa Kemal Paşa tarafından Güney cephesinde Fransız Ordusu’na karşı savaşan Türk kuvvetlerini birleştirmekle görevlendirildi. Fransızlarla Ankara Antlaşması’nın imzalanmasıyla güneyde savaş sona erince, 9 Kasım 1921’de TBMM tarafından Kabil Büyükelçiliği’ne atanan Fahreddin Paşa, Türk-Afgan dostluğunun gelişmesinde önemli rol oynadı.

 

1936’da ordudan emekli olan Fahreddin Paşa, 22 Kasım 1948’de bir tren yolculuğu sırasında Eskişehir yakınlarında kalp krizi geçirerek vefat etti. Vasiyeti üzerine Aşiyan Mezarlığına defnedildi.

 

 “Kutsal toprakların kaybedilmesine gönlü razı olmuyor”

Medine Müdafiği Fahreddin Paşa’nın hayatını ölümünün 71. yılında AA’ ya anlatan Medipol Üniversitesi Öğretim Üyesi Prof. Dr. Mehmet İpşirli, paşanın şerefli komutanlar zincirinin önemli halkalarından biri olduğunu belirtti.

Prof. Dr. İpşirli, Fahreddin Paşa’nın İngilizlerin desteği ile ayaklanan Şerif Hüseyin’in ordusuna karşı kutsal toprakları savunurken çok büyük zorluklarla karşılaştığını vurgulayarak, şöyle konuştu: 

“Düşman amansız bastırıyordu. İngilizler, Şerif Hüseyin’i halifelik vereceklerini söyleyerek kışkırtıyordu. İlk kez Müslüman bir devlet, Gayrimüslüm bir devlet ile anlaşarak, Osmanlı’ya savaş açtı. Bu kışkırtmada en etkili isimlerden biri de İngiliz casus Lawrence oldu. Fahreddin Paşa, yaklaşık 3 yıl boyunca destansı bir mücadeleyle düşmana karşı koydu. Hastalık, açlık, gibi çeşitli zorluklarla karşılaştı.

Hatta açlığa karşı çekirge yemek zorunda kaldılar. En üzücü tarafı da kendi askerlerinin de bu zorluklar karşısında baş kaldırmasıydı. Mondros Mütarekesinin imzalanmasının ardından kendisine dön emri verilse de ‘Allah’ın emri, peygamberin rızası ve padişahın iradesi devam ettiği sürece burayı savunurum.’ dedi. Padişah iradesine rağmen geri çekilmek istememesinin nedeni isyan değil, kutsal toprakların Müslümanların elinden alınmasından rahatsız olmasıdır. Emir gelse bile kutsal toprakların kaybedilmesine gönlü razı olmadı. İngilizlerin eline geçmesin diye Medine’deki kutsal emanetleri, ihtiyacı olmasına rağmen 2 bin askerle İstanbul’a gönderdi.”

İngilizlerin kışkırtmasıyla Osmanlı’ya saldıran Şerif Hüseyin’in de sonunda bu ihanetinin bedelini ödediğini anlatan İpşirli, “İngilizler onu da aldattılar, vaat ettikleri hiçbir şeyi kendisine vermediler. Perişan bir vaziyette yaptıklarına bin pişman olarak ortada kaldı.” dedi.

Prof. Dr. İpşirli, Fahrettin Paşa’nın uzun bir mücadeleden sonra teslim olmak zorunda kaldığını dile getirerek, “İngilizler kendisini önce Mısır’a daha sonda Malta’ya sürdü. Daha sonra Mal’tan kurtulup Berlin’e giderek, Enver Paşa ile bir araya geldi. Moskova’da Ruslarla mücadele konusunda Enver Paşa kendisinden yardım istedi.  Daha sonra Milli Mücadele döneminde Atatürk ile canı pahasına davaya hizmet etti. ” dedi.

“Kutsal emanetlerin düşmanın eline geçmesine izin vermedi”

Tarihçi-yazar Azmi Özcan da Fahreddin Paşa’nın tarihteki kahraman unvanına en layık isimlerinden biri olduğunu belirterek, sözlerini şöyle sürdürdü:

“Kendisi çok ibretlik olaylara imza atan bir kahramandır. Günümüze kadar devam eden bir destanın lideridir. Fahreddin Paşa denince ilk akla gelen, mukaddes emanetleri İstanbul’a intikal ettirmesidir. Eğer bugün Topkapı Sarayında o değerli eşyaları görebilme imkanına sahipsek bunu tamamen Fahreddin Paşa’ya borçluyuz. O kadar zor durumda iken bile 2 bin askerini kutsal emanetleri sağ salim İstanbul’a götürmeleri için görevlendirdi. Kutsal emanetlerin düşmanın eline geçmesine izin vermedi. Sadece bu hassasiyeti için bile kendisine çok şey borçluyuz. Medine Müdafaası sıradan bir cephenin müdafaası olarak değerlendirilemez. Medine Müdafaası, Türklere emanet edilen İslam tarihinin taçlandığı sayfalardan biri olarak değerlendirilmelidir.

Fahreddin Paşa, Medine’yi Hz. Muhammed’in türbesini ve sahabenin emanetini düşmana teslim eden bir komutan olarak tarihe geçmek istemediği için savunmaya devam etti. Bu savunma, insanlık tarihine iftar vesikası olarak geçmiştir. Tam 2 yıl 7 ay dışarıdan hiçbir yardım gelmeksizin tamamen kendi imkanlarıyla mücadelesini sürdürdü. Tarihe, bir açlık, sabır, tahammül ve fedakarlık olayı olarak geçmiştir bu savunma. Birçok kaynakta bu açlığa susuzluğa çekirge yiyerek katlandıkları yazar.”

Özcan, bu kahramanlık destanının yeni nesillere anlatılması gerektiğini vurgulayarak, “Bunun için konuyla ilgili sinema gibi çeşitli sanatsal çalışmalar yapılabilir. Zira o savunmada çok dramatik sahneler yaşandı. Kendisine İstanbul’dan teslim ol çağrısı gelmesine rağmen, askerlerine ‘Ben Hz. Muhammed’in türbesini ve kutsal emanetleri düşmana teslim edemem.’ dedi. Fahreddin Paşa, son dönem Osmanlı tarihinin en büyük kahramanlarından biri olarak mazide yerini aldı. O olmasaydı kutsal emanetlerinin Topkapı’da değil de belki İngiltere’de sergilendiğini görecektik. Dolayısıyla sadece Türklerin değil bütün Müslümanların onurunu korumak bakımından da çok önemli bir görev yaptı. Bize de büyük bir onur bıraktı.” şeklinde konuştu.

 “Hayatının beyaz perdeye aktarılmasından mutlu oluruz” 

Fahreddin Paşa’nın torunu Zeki Türkkan da dedesinin Medine müdafaası konusunda gösterdiği kahramanlığın hem İslam hem de Türk tarihinde önemli bir yere sahip olduğunu vurgulayarak, “Medine İslam dünyası için çok önemliydi. Medine’nin müdafaasında Fahreddin Paşa’nın gösterdiği kahramanlık, Halide Edip Adıvar’ın Sultanahmet’de yaptı mitinglerde, ‘Medine hala direniyor’ şeklinde dillendiriliyor.  Direnmenin bir sembolü oluyor Medine.” diye konuştu.

Dedelerinin hayatıyla ilgili film yapmanın çok istendiğini hatta yönetmen Metin Erksan’ın bir senaryo bile hazırladığını anlatan Türkkan, bu projenin bir türlü hayata geçmediğini ama dedelerinin hayatının beyaz perdeye aktarılmasından çok mutlu olacaklarını söyledi.

Ömer Fahreddin Türkkan da aile sohbetlerinde dedelerinin kahramanlıklarını dinleyerek büyüdüklerini belirterek, mücadele ettiği İngiliz casus Lawrence’ın bile yazdığı bir kitapta dedesinden övgüyle bahsettiğini dile getirdi.

Ayşegül Konuk ise dedeleriyle gurur duyduklarını dile getirerek, “Ölümünün üzerinden 71 yıl geçmesine rağmen hala saygıyla anılması bizleri çok duygulandırıyor ve onurlandırıyor. Kendisi vefat ettiğinde henüz 2 yaşındaydım pek bir hatıram olamadı ama tarih kitaplarında onun kahramanlıklarını okudukça ailecek gurur duyuyoruz.” dedi.

22. 

23.

ΚΑΝΕΙΣ ΚΑΛΟΣ ΔΕΝ ΧΑΝΕΤΑΙ!.. ΑΧΑΧΑΧΑΧΑΧΑΧΑ!..

Ο Αντγος ε.α Ιωάννης Ηλιόπουλος, νέος Διοικητής του ΓΝΑ “ΚΑΤ – ΕΚΑ“

 

Ο Στρατηγός Γρηγόρης Ρουμάνης Διοικητής του Γενικού Νοσοκομείου Ρόδου