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Under Fire From G.O.P., Obama Defends Response to Terror Attacks - The New York Times - 0 views

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  • explained that his refusal to redeploy large numbers of troops to the region was rooted in the grim assumption that the casualties and costs would rival the worst of the Iraq war.
  • realizes that he was slow to respond to public fears after terrorist attacks in Paris and California, acknowledging that his low-key approach led Americans to worry that he was not doing enough to keep the country safe.
  • defense of his approach came as Republican presidential candidates have been branding him as weak and competing in their calls for more robust action to combat the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.
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  • especially exasperated with Mr. Trump, who has called for a temporary ban on Muslims’ entering the United States.
  • Mr. Obama said that it was “understandable” that Americans were concerned, but that they should be reassured.
  • Mr. Obama claimed progress in pushing back the Islamic State, also called ISIS or ISIL, through a strategy of airstrikes combined with Special Operations raids and support for local forces on the ground.
  • Moreover, he added, part of the group’s strategy is to draw the United States into a broader military entanglement in the region.
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Starvation in Syria 'a war crime,' U.N. chief says - CNN.com - 0 views

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  • Ali was 16 years old and badly malnourished.Workers for UNICEF
  • The city is controlled by rebels and under siege by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad
  • The UNICEF team screened the children they found in the hospital. They found 22 children under the age of 5 suffering from malnutrition, according to a statement Friday from Hanaa Singer, the organization's representative in Syria.
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  • "The people we met in Madaya were exhausted and extremely frail," Singer said. "Doctors were emotionally distressed and mentally drained
  • No plans to evacuate the starving
  • He spoke after U.N. convoys had finally arrived in Syrian towns to deliver food to malnourished residents
  • "Let me be clear: The use of starvation as a weapon of war is a war crime," he said. "All sides -- including the Syrian government, which has the primary responsibility to protect Syrians -- are committing this and other atrocious acts prohibited under international humanitarian law.
  • The starvation here is no act of God -- not the result of drought or flooding or crop failure.
  • "The people we met in Madaya were exhausted and extremely frail," Singer said. "Doctors were emotionally distressed and mentally drained, working 'round the clock with very limited resources to provide treatment to children and people in need. It is simply unacceptable that this is happening in the 21st century.
  • Workers for UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund, met him
  • The UNICEF team screened the children they found in the hospital. They found 22 children under the age of 5 suffering from malnutrition, according to a statement Friday from Hanaa Singer, the organization's representative in Syria.
  • The use of starvation as a weapon in Syria is "a war crime," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Thursday.
  • In al-Fouaa and Kefraya, two towns in the country's northwest, about 20,000 have been suffering under a rebel blockade, said Dibeh Fakhr,
  • Thursday evening, delivering desperately needed food and humanitarian supplies to residents, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.
  • "We now meet the families to talk about their needs," he said on Twitter.
  • Earlier Thursday, the Madaya-bound convoy of 44 trucks arrived on the outskirts of the city, in a mountainous area 25 kilometers
  • More than 250,000 Syrians -- mostly civilians -- have been killed, according to the United Nations. About 10.5 million Syrians have fled their homes
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Robert Gates calls for joint effort to fight ISIS - LA Times - 0 views

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  • resident Obama’s efforts against the Islamic State should be “sped up and intensified,”
  • “Those two really do have to be onboard or we have to be onboard with them in terms of priorities,”
  • Turkey and Saudi Arabia, Gates noted, “are united in the fact that Assad has to go before you can make any real progress against ISIS.
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  • The Saudis fear a rising Iran, and Turkey feels threatened by ethnic Kurds. Yet the Kurds and Iran are fighting against ISIS — and Russia has intervened militarily in Syria to bolster Assad.
  • We obviously have some strong allies like France,”
  • We need to understand who is going to be critical to what is happening in Syria, itself.
  • Two Republican U.S. senators, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona, reiterated their call for Obama to deploy thousands of U.S. troops to fight ISIS in Syria and Iraq, in partnership with “regional” allies.
  • “We will turn to Assad and say, 'You must go,’’’
  • "Russia and Iran will be on the outside looking in to an entire regional army. … They will fold like a cheap suit.’’
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Ramadi: Islamic State 'Tortured Men' Until They 'Cried Like Women' - 0 views

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  • Recently liberated Ramadi citizens are telling media the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) tortured them and used them as human shields when Iraqi forces moved into the city.
  • The Islamic State forced out Iraqi forces in Ramadi in mid-May 2015. The militants stole weapons and captured the military headquarters. They then murdered anyone “loyal to the government.”
  • As Iraqi forces moved in during December, the Islamic State grew paranoid and used the civilians as human shields. One man said the militants forced people to remain in their houses and could only leave with permission.
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  • “They come to the house and take the children and accuse them of being spies,” stated another source. “If the mom cries and gets upset at them, they accuse of her [sic] being a spy too and take her to the jail and later kill her.”
  • However, the forces insisted the area is not 100% safe. They withdrew 635 residents to nearby Habbaniyah, but there are many areas that still contain terrorists. The officials arrested 12 alleged militants who attempted to escape by blending in with the civilians.
  • Terrorism expert Michael Pregent said it is normal for the Islamic State to execute fighters who lose valuable territories. They did the same thing when militants lost Tikrit.
  • “They continue to lose territory, we’ve seen a growing number of defections and a rise in the number of alleged internal spies – many of whom they have killed mercilessly without demonstrating significant evidence of internal espionage,” said Clint Watts, Fox fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, adding: ISIS pattern of internal killings looks remarkably similar to al Shabaab’s decline in Somalia. As Shabaab lost ground and defectors increased, internal killings and harsher punishments were meted out across the terror group further accelerating the loss of local popular support.
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Why some conservatives say Donald Trump's talk is fascist - CNNPolitics.com - 0 views

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shared by qkirkpatrick on 16 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • But it was after Trump started calling for stronger surveillance of Muslim-Americans in the aftermath of the Paris terrorist attacks that a handful of conservatives ventured to call Trump's rhetoric something much more dangerous: fascism.
  • Since launching his campaign this summer, the billionaire real estate magnate has regularly deployed inflammatory rhetoric about immigrants -- particularly regarding Latinos -- and repeatedly raised the alarm about foreigners entering the country. That has escalated following the series of shooting rampages and explosions in Paris this month allegedly perpetrated by ISIS and amid a national debate over accepting Syrian refugees.
  • "Trump is a fascist. And that's not a term I use loosely or often. But he's earned it," tweeted Max Boot, a conservative fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who is advising Marco Rubio.
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  • "Fascism sometimes becomes an attribute to describe someone that is intolerant or totalitarian or even racist," said Federico Finchelstein, an expert on fascism at the New School who said Trump is better described a populist. "When dealing with an important part of the nation such as Hispanics, I think he definitely fits those categories."
  • At a Trump campaign rally in Birmingham, Alabama, a black protester was physically attacked by a handful of Trump fans in the crowd. Video captured by CNN shows the man being shoved to the ground, punched and at one point even kicked. The next day, Trump drew fierce backlash when he said that perhaps "he should have been roughed up."
  • "We had the same thing happening in Germany in the 1920s with people being roughed up by the Brownshirts and they deserved it because they were Jews and Marxists and radicals and dissidents and gypsies — that was what Hitler was saying," Ross said. "I'm not saying Trump is Hitler, but the logic of condoning violence against those who oppose you -- you can imagine, a man who would condone it as a candidate -- what would he do as an official president?"
  • "He's good at making astonishing speeches that make people sit up and take notice. So there's some of that manipulation of public emotions that is visible with Trump," Paxton said. "Hitler and Mussolini -- no one had ever seen public rallies like the meetings they'd have. People were absolutely mesmerized."
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Iran Complies With Nuclear Deal; Sanctions Are Lifted - The New York Times - 0 views

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  • The United States and European nations lifted oil and financial sanctions on Iran and released roughly $100 billion of its assets after international inspectors concluded that the country had followed through on promises to dismantle large sections of its nuclear program.
  • Five Americans, including a Washington Post reporter, Jason Rezaian, were released by Iran hours before the nuclear accord was implemented.
  • Early on Sunday, a senior United States official confirmed that “our detained U.S. citizens have been released and that those who wished to depart Iran have left.”
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  • “Iran has undertaken significant steps that many people — and I do mean many — doubted would ever come to pass,” Secretary of State John Kerry said Saturday evening at the headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which earlier issued a report detailing how Iran had shipped 98 percent of its fuel to Russia, dismantled more than 12,000 centrifuges so they could not enrich uranium, and poured cement into the core of a reactor designed to produce plutonium.
  • The release of the “unjustly detained” Americans, as Mr. Kerry put it, came at some cost: Seven Iranians, either convicted or charged with breaking American embargoes, were released in the prisoner swap, and 14 others were removed from international wanted lists.
  • They particularly object to the release of about $100 billion in frozen assets — mostly from past oil sales — that Iran will now control, and the end of American and European restrictions on trade that had been imposed as part of the American-led effort to stop the program.
  • In Tehran and Washington, political battles are still being fought over the merits and dangers of moving toward normal interchanges between two countries that have been avowed adversaries for more than three decades.
  • But Mr. Kerry suggested that the nuclear deal had broken the cycle of hostility, enabling the secret negotiations that led up to the hostage swap.
  • “Critics will continue to attack the deal for giving away too much to Tehran,” said R. Nicholas Burns, who started the sanctions against Iran that were lifted Saturday as the No. 3 official in the State Department during the George W. Bush administration.
  • A copy of the proposed sanction leaked three weeks ago, and the Obama administration pulled it back — perhaps to avoid torpedoing the prisoner swap and the completion of the nuclear deal. Negotiations to win the release of Mr. Rezaian, who had covered the nuclear talks before he was imprisoned on vague charges, were an open secret: Mr. Kerry often alluded to the fact that he was working on the issue behind the scenes.
  • Then, several weeks ago the Iranians leaked news that they were interested in a swap of their own citizens, which American officials said was an outrageous demand, because they had been indicted or convicted in a truly independent court system.
  • The result was two parallel races underway — one involving implementing the nuclear deal, the other to get the prisoner swap done while the moment was ripe.
  • For example, the United States and Iran were struggling late Saturday to define details of what kind of “advanced centrifuges” Iran will be able to develop nearly a decade from now — the kind of definitional difference that can undermine an accord.
  • The result was that Mr. Kerry and Mr. Zarif veered from the monumental significance of what they were accomplishing — an end to a decade of open hostility — to the minutiae of uranium enrichment.
  • But Iran has something it desperately needs: Billions in cash, at a time oil shipments have been cut by more than half because of the sanctions, and below $30-a-barrel prices mean huge cuts in national revenue.
  • senior American official said Saturday that Iran will be able to access about $50 billion of a reported $100 billion in holdings abroad, though others have used higher estimates. The official said Iran will likely need to keep much of those assets abroad to facilitate international trade.
  • The Obama administration on Saturday also removed 400 Iranians and others from its sanctions list and took other steps to lift selected restrictions on interactions with Iran
  • Under the new rules put in place, the United States will no longer sanction foreign individuals or firms for buying oil and gas from Iran. The American trade embargo remains in place, but the government will permit certain limited business activities with Iran, such as selling or purchasing Iranian food and carpets and American commercial aircraft and parts.
  • It is unclear what will happen after the passing of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has protected and often fueled the hardliners — but permitted these talks to go ahead.
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U.S. Imposes New Sanctions Over Iran Missile Tests - The New York Times - 0 views

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  • U.S. Imposes New Sanctions Over Iran Missile Tests
  • he Obama administration announced Sunday that it was imposing new, more limited sanctions on some Iranian citizens and companies for violating United Nations resolutions against ballistic missile tests.
  • after a Swiss plane carrying Americans freed by the Iranian authorities departed Tehran.
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  • new sanctions on those involved with Iran’s recent ballistic missile tests conducted in violation of United Nations restrictions, but he did not elaborate or dwell on that dispute.
  • “We have a rare chance to pursue a new path, a different, better future that delivers progress for both our peoples and the wider world,” said Mr. Obama,
  • But Mr. Obama vowed to continue monitoring Iran’s nuclear program to ensure it does not cheat and said he would work to restrain any aggressive behavior by Iran, including terrorist activity and human rights abuses.
  • The release of the Americans came a day after Iran and the United States concluded delicate negotiations on a prisoner exchange tied indirectly to the completion of a nuclear agreement.
  • optics of the back-to-back sanctions announcements might seem to suggest that Washington was imposing new measures to make up for those that were lifted Saturday, they are actually nowhere near comparable.
  • The action taken Saturday allowed Iran to re-enter the world’s oil markets;
  • The new sanctions are mostly aimed at individuals and some small companies accused of shipping crucial technologies to Iran,
  • in addition to the completion of the nuclear deal and the prisoner swap, the United States and Iran had resolved a three-decade-old financial dispute.
  • Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, did not address the prisoner swap on Sunday. At a news conference, he said that since the sanctions were lifted, the door had opened for foreign investments in the country, even by American companies.
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Triumph or Travesty, US-Iran Ties Warming Over Nuclear Deal - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ap-iran-prisoner-release.html politics history culture Nuclear deal
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  • Diplomatic triumph or travesty, America's relationship with one of its most intractable foes took two giant leaps forward this weekend when Iran released four Americans in a prisoner swap after locking in last summer's nuclear deal and receiving some $100 billion in sanctions relief.
  • Speaking from the White House, Obama on Sunday hailed the "historic progress through diplomacy," long the centerpiece of his foreign policy vision, instead of another war in the Middle East.
  • The Islamic Republic released the prisoners in exchange for pardons or charges dropped against seven Iranians — six of whom hold dual U.S. citizenship — serving time for or accused of sanctions violations in the United States
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  • The International Atomic Energy Agency's declaration unlocked some $100 billion in frozen Iranian assets overseas, and potentially even greater economic benefits through suspended oil, trade and financial sanctions by the U.S. and European Union.
  • One of the last hiccups that delayed the Americans' departure was an Iranian military official's misunderstanding about Rezaian's wife and mother joining him on the flight. After Kerry spoke to Zarif, permission was granted.
  • Israel remains steadfastly opposed to the Iran deal and any rapprochement with Tehran. Sunni Saudi Arabia has had tension with Iran since executing a Shiite cleric on Jan. 2, which led to a severing of diplomatic ties between the two.
  • qkirkpatrick on 17 Jan 16
     
    The relations between Iran and the US continue to get better after decades of hating one another.
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Reports: ISIS kills scores in eastern Syria massacre - CNN.com - 0 views

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  • Conflicting reports emerged Saturday after ISIS reportedly attacked a village in eastern Syrian and killed many people.
  • At least 42 ISIS fighters died, the London-based activist group said.
  • SANA said ISIS militants killed about 300 residents of the village. Most of the victims were women, children and seniors
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3 American contractors missing in Iraq - CNN.com - 0 views

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  • The contractors were taken away in a convoy consisting of several vehicles, said the source, who talked to CNN on condition of anonymity as he is not authorized to speak to the media.
  • "We are working with the full cooperation of the Iraqi authorities to locate and recover the individuals," spokesman John Kirby said in a statement.
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Netanyahu Asserts Israel Will Be Iran's Watchdog - The New York Times - 0 views

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  • Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel warned on Sunday that his nation would ensure that Tehran never obtains nuclear weapons, while also taking credit for keeping Iran from already having them.
  • Mr. Netanyahu has been an open and vocal opponent of the deal with Iran.
  • “Israel’s policy has been and will remain exactly what it has been: not to allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.”
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  • “What is clear is that Iran will now have more resources to dedicate to their terrorism and aggression in the region and in the world, and Israel is prepared to deal with any threat,” he said.
  • Mr. Netanyahu believes, as he said in a statement issued late Saturday, when it became clear that the United Nations would accept Iran’s partial dismantling of its nuclear infrastructure in what has been called “implementation day,” that “Iran has not relinquished its ambition to obtain nuclear weapons.”
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The killing of Syria (Opinion) - CNN.com - 0 views

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  • The United Nations says 42,000 people in the area are at risk of starvation. And they make up only a fraction of the 400,000 in similar situations in other towns -- and millions more struggling in hard-to-reach areas -- because of the country's civil war, which is about to mark its five-year anniversary. Millions more Syrians have become refugees abroad.When a conflict lasts this long, when reports about the suffering it is inflicting become a relentless wave of depressing news, and when the forces at play are this complicated, many people are tempted to turn
  • The truth is that this war is not about to end anytime soon. It is a conflict in which the various sides are fighting for power, for territory, for sectarian advantage, for religion and ideology, but one in which no one seems to be fighting for the interests of the Syrian people themselves.Killing civilians, starving them, is a now common military tactic in the Syrian war.
  • The United Nations says it wants "unimpeded humanitarian access" to reach everyone who needs help in Syria. The latest word from the Assad regime is that it will allow food convoys. But pressure must be exerted so he keeps his word, and prevents the crisis from reoccurring here or elsewhere. One convoy, as we have already seen, does not end the siege.Assad has laid siege to other places before, notably Yarmouk, a Palestinian camp, and Eastern Ghouta, in the suburbs of Damascus. Yet for some reason the plight of the residents never seemed to reach the level of international concern expressed over fighting in Gaza or the actions of ISIS.
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  • Just like the videos of children choking on chlorine gas, or of desperate relatives trying to dig their families from the rubble of homes demolished by Assad's barrel bombs, the images of starvation in Madaya are making their way across Syria and the Middle East. Those images are likely radicalizing the population, firing up emotions and creating pressure on other regimes to take action. They also add to the enmity between (pro-Assad, Shiite) Iran and (anti-Assad, Sunni) Saudi Arabia, fueling the fury that makes young men want to join violent sectarian groups, which in turn helps expand the ranks of extremist groups like ISIS.
  • is fueling the rage that keeps this conflict burning and growing. It is extreme human suffering that is helping to solidify a most extreme ideology, one filled with hatred and mistrust, one that is spilling out of Syria -- across the Middle East and into the streets of Paris and San Bernardino, California.
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Jihadi John: The bourgeois terrorist - CNN.com - 0 views

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  • Emwazi poses something of a problem for the Obama administration's narrative about who becomes a terrorist and why. Last week, the administration hosted a three-day conference on "Countering Violent Extremism," which is a government euphemism for how best to deal with Islamist terrorism.
  • Obama said that "we have to address grievances terrorists exploit, including economic grievances."
  • he President did acknowledge that terrorists can be rich like Osama bin Laden, who was the son of a Sau
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  • di construction magnate and attended the top high school and the best university in Saudi Arabia. It's hard to imagine someone with more opportunities
  • But, in fact, Osama bin Laden is more the rule than the exception. Take not only Emwazi/Jihadi John, but also the notorious British terrorist, Omar Sheikh, who attended the London School of Economics and who kidnapped American journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan in 2002.
  • Similarly, in his important 2004 book "Understanding Terror Networks," psychiatrist Marc Sageman, a former CIA case officer, examined the backgrounds of 172 militants who were part of al Qaeda or a similar group. Just under half were professionals; two-thirds were either middle or upper class and had gone to college; indeed, several had doctorates.
  • Significantly, we found that, of those who did attend college and/or graduate school, 58% attained scientific or technical degrees. Emwazi/Jihadi John reportedly studied computer programming, which makes him typical of the anti-Western jihadist terrorists we examine
  • The fact is, working stiffs with few opportunities and scant education are generally too busy getting by to engage in revolutionary projects to remake society.
  • Post-9/11 research demonstrating that Islamist terrorism is mostly a pursuit of the middle class echoed an important study about Egyptian militants that was undertaken by the French academic Gilles Kepel during the mid-1980s.
  • The conclusion, based on a survey of all the published literature, was that there were only a few "major exceptions to the middle- and upper-class origins of terrorist groups."
  • ISIS may be a perversion of Islam, but Islamic it is, just as Christian beliefs about the sanctity of the unborn child explain why some Christian fundamentalists attack abortion clinics and doctors. But, of course, murderous Christian fundamentalists are not killing many thousands of civilians a year. More than 80% of the world's terrorist attacks take place in five Muslim-majority countries
  • will kill in the name of their god, an all-too-common phenomenon across human history.
  • ISIS and like-minded groups and their fellow travelers are not representative of the vast majority of the world's Muslims, their ideology is rooted in Salafist ultra-fundamentalist interpretations of Islam, and indeed they can point to verses in the Quran that can be interpreted to support their worldview.
  • In other words, coming out of Khorasan, an area that now encompasses Afghanistan, will come an army that includes the Mahdi, the Islamic savior of the world. The parent organization of ISIS was al Qaeda, which, of course, was headquartered in Afghanistan at the time of the 9/11 attacks.
  • religious group and nationality that they perceive as standing in their way. ISIS recruits also believe that we are in the end times, and they are best understood as members of an Islamist apocalyptic death cult.
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Deir Ezzor: Hundreds may be dead after ISIS abductions - CNN.com - 1 views

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  • Hundreds may be dead after ISIS abductions in Deir Ezzor
  • The city of Deir Ezzor in northern Syria has seen more than its share of conflict and suffering since the Syrian insurgency began
  • The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported Sunday that at least 400 civilians -- including families of pro-regime fighters -- had been abducted by ISIS during the latest fighting and taken to the surrounding countryside.
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  • There is no way to independently verify the reports by the Observatory and SANA; other opposition outlets have put the number of casualties lower.
  • The Observatory also reported Saturday that ISIS had killed or executed some 50 soldiers and 85 civilians during its offensive against al-Bagaliyeh.
  • Fighting between government and ISIS forces continued Monday, the Observatory reported.
  • The ISIS-affiliated news agency Aamaq said Sunday that 167 regime fighters had been killed and many more wounded. A video released by ISIS Sunday purported to show heavy artillery and tanks being used as well as abandoned regime positions.
  • Neighborhoods where the regime is holding out have been under siege by ISIS for a year, with medical supplies and food scarce and generators the only source of electricity. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has reported massive price inflation, as products had to be smuggled across the Euphrates River.
  • ISIS has stepped up offensives against several of these areas.
  • several neighborhoods, capturing and killing dozens of Syrian soldiers but also seizing many civilians, according to reports from activists.
  • As ISIS has gone on the offensive, Russia has stepped up its support for the regime in and around the city.
  • As the situation has worsened, some civilians have managed to escape the city, which had nearly 1.5 million inhabitants before the Syrian conflict began
  • Most of the city has been controlled by ISIS for well over a year, but some neighborhoods and the military airport to the south have remained in the hands of the regime
  • Most of the city has been controlled by ISIS for well over a year, but some neighborhoods and the military airport to the south have remained in the hands of the regime
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Opinion | American Jews and Israeli Jews Are Headed for a Messy Breakup - The New York ... - 0 views

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  • Yossi Klein Halevi, the American-born Israeli author, has framed this moment starkly: Israeli Jews believe deeply that President Trump recognizes their existential threats. In scuttling the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal, which many Israelis saw as imperiling their security, in moving the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, in basically doing whatever the government of Benjamin Netanyahu asks, they see a president of the United States acting to save their lives.
  • American Jews, in contrast, see President Trump as their existential threat, a leader who they believe has stoked nationalist bigotry, stirred anti-Semitism and, time and time again, failed to renounce the violent hatred swirling around his political movement. The F.B.I. reports that hate crimes in the United States jumped 17 percent in 2017, with a 37 percent spike in crimes against Jews and Jewish institutions.
  • When neither side sees the other as caring for its basic well-being, “that is a gulf that cannot be bridged,
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  • In a historical stroke with resonance today, American Jewish leaders gathered in Pittsburgh in 1885 to produce what is known as the Pittsburgh Platform, a new theology for an American Judaism, less focused on a Messianic return to the land of Israel and more on fixing a broken world, the concept of Tikkun Olam. Jews, the rabbi behind the platform urged, must achieve God’s purpose by “living and working in and with the world.”
  • For a faith that for thousands of years was insular and self-contained, its people often in mandated ghettos, praying for the Messiah to return them to the Promised Land, this was a radical notion. But for most American Jews, it is now accepted as a tenet of their religion: building a better, more equal, more tolerant world now, where they live.
  • Last summer, when a Conservative rabbi in Haifa was hauled in for questioning by the Israeli police after he officiated at a non-Orthodox wedding, it was too much for Rabbi Steven Wernick, chief executive of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the umbrella organization of the Conservative movement in North America.
  • “I do not believe we can talk about a ‘gap’ between Israel and the Diaspora,” Rabbi Wernick wrote in a letter to the Israeli government. “It is now a ‘canyon.’”My rabbi in Washington, Daniel Zemel, said in despair during Kol Nidre, the Yom Kippur evening service, this fall: “For the first time in my life, I feel a genuine threat to my life in Israel. This is not an external threat. It is an internal threat from nationalists and racists.”
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Opinion | Yes, the President Bears Blame for the Terror From the Right - The New York T... - 0 views

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  • For years, conservatives have rightly pointed out that Islamist terrorists don’t spring from an ideological or cultural vacuum. It usually takes a village, real, virtual or proverbial, to make an Islamist terrorist — one composed of hate-spewing imams, TV programs saturated with anti-Semitic and anti-Western conspiracy theories, neighborhood vigilantes enforcing fundamentalist religious strictures, and political leaders excusing, reflecting or disseminating many of the same beliefs and attitudes.
  • Conservatives used to understand the danger. Why care about social formalities, modes of dress, niceties of speech, qualities of restraint? Not simply because manners make the man, although they do, but because manners also shape political cultures
  • What are the villages from which Sayoc and Bowers hailed? For Sayoc it was the real-world villages of the Trump rally, with its mob-like intensity and unquestioning fidelity to one supreme leader. For Bowers, it was the virtual villages of Twitter and alt-right social networks, digitally connecting angry loners who follow nobody.
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  • Just so with the Trumpist and alt-right villages. Different methods and values — but not altogether different. Both draw on similarly cramped ideas about nationhood and sovereignty. Both see political opponents as enemies and immigrants as invaders. Both are susceptible to conspiracy theories. And both feed off the same incessant background noise of Trump-speak. “Lock her up.” “Enemy of the American people.” “Illegal alien mob.”
  • In other words: the criminalization of political opposition, the vilification of the media, and the demonization of foreigners
  • At some point, the distance between word and deed becomes short. And then they are joined, as they were last week
  • The villagers are rarely terrorists themselves. They often condemn terrorism. Sometimes they are its victims. Yet they also provide the soil in which the seeds of terror germinate.
  • How does a conservative movement that is supposed to believe that every healthy society needs powerful moral guardrails give itself over to a president whose every other utterance cheerfully knocks those guardrails down?
  • Abe Foxman, the former longtime head of the Anti-Defamation League, precisely expresses the president’s level of responsibility for what happened in Pittsburgh.
  • “Pittsburgh is not Trump,” Foxman says. “It’s also Trump.” Trump, he adds, is not an anti-Semite. But fanning one set of hatreds against immigrants has a way of fanning others
  • Turning to last year’s neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville, Foxman says of Trump, “He didn’t create them. He didn’t write their script. He didn’t give them the brown shirts. But he emboldened them. He gave them the chutzpah, that it’s O.K.
  • “And when he had an opportunity to put it down,” Foxman adds, “he didn’t.” The blood that flowed in Pittsburgh is on his hands, also
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