US threatened hefty fines to make Yahoo hand over user data

The US government in 2008 threatened to fine Yahoo Inc. $250,000 a day if it failed to turn over customer data to intelligence agencies, according to documents unsealed on Thursday.

The documents shed new light on how the government dealt with US Internet companies that were reluctant to comply with orders from the secretive US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which rules on government requests to conduct surveillance for national security issues.

Yahoo lost the battle, which experts say helped pave the way for the Prism surveillance program revealed last summer by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.

"It's always been a little bit behind the curtain as to what Internet companies do when they actually receive these requests. Now we have evidence that Yahoo did in fact fight this battle and look at considerable fines as a consequence of not disclosing the data," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

"It tells us how very serious the Bush administration was about trying to get the Internet firms to turn over this data. Until the disclosure, it was mostly hearsay that they were willing to impose these penalties."

"That's heavy handed," he added, referring to the threat of fines.

In brief, terrorism has proved to be a successful tactic. It works. That’s why ISIS engages in it.

ISIS fighter. (photo credit:REUTERS)

The international community seems to have been caught off guard by the brutality of ISIS.  The beheading of two Americans, the murder of many Christians and Muslims, and the widespread support for these brutal killers has taken the world by surprise.  But we should have anticipated this, because for the last half century, the international community has rewarded precisely the kind of behavior by ISIS we now condemn.  In brief, terrorism has proved to be a successful tactic.  It works.  That’s why ISIS engages in it.  That’ why Al Qaeda engages in it.  That’s why Boko Haram engages in it.  That’s why the Taliban engages in it.  And that’s why Hamas engages in it. 

Compare the visibility and success of groups that employ terrorism as the main tactic for responding to their grievances, with comparably aggrieved groups that reject terrorism.  Hamas is more popular than ever among Palestinians following their kidnapping and murder of three Israeli schoolchildren, their brutal slaughter of the Fogel family, and their deployment of rockets and tunnels against civilians from civilian areas.  The same is true of Hezbollah. 

Now comes ISIS which is quickly becoming the terrorist group of choice for disaffected radicals, because their brutality is now in the headlines.

Contrast these successes with the failure of the Tibetan people to achieve any progress in their quest to end an occupation even longer than the one Israel is accused of maintaining.  The world demands statehood for the Palestinians, while allowing the Kurds to remain stateless despite treaty obligations and other promises.  Why?  Is it because the Kurds have rarely engaged in terrorism, whereas the Palestinians have specialized in it since the establishment of the Palestine Liberation Organization in the early 1960s—and even before that? 

Success begets emulation, and the success of terrorist organizations is spreading quickly.  No one should be surprised. 

ISIS has already achieved success as a result of their brutal terrorist acts.  Millions of dollars has been paid to them as ransom for hostages.  They have used this money to recruit more members.  Now other Muslim terrorist groups want to join forces with them, because they have shown that within the world of brutal terrorism, they stand out for their unmitigated and televised brutality. 

Consider the following hypothetical situation.  A new group with a serious grievance hires an immoral or amoral consulting firm to advise them on the most effective tactic for achieving their goals.  Such a consulting group might well recommend that they emulate Hamas, ISIS, Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, rather than the Tibetans or Kurds.  This advice would of course be immoral but it would be truthful as a matter of simple cost-benefit analysis. 

In the end, the only way to defeat terrorism is to reverse the cost-benefit calculus.  This would require an international agreement whereby every country in the world would pledge to refuse to give in to terrorists, to pay ransom to terrorists, to legitimate terrorist organizations or to treat them as morally and politically equivalent to the democracies they are fighting.  It would also require that no country release captured terrorists from custody and that they place them on trial or extradite them to a country that will.

We are doing exactly the opposite today.  World leaders, such as Jimmy Carter and Desmond Tutu, demand that we treat Hamas, which is indistinguishable in its overall brutality from ISIS, as a legitimate political organization.  The United Nations General Assembly grants statehood to a group that began as a terrorist organization and continues to honor terrorists who murdered children.  The Nobel Peace Prize Committee honors Yassir Arafat, the Godfather of terrorism, who persisted in this tactic until the day he died.  European countries pay ransom to terrorists.  Any many European nations—Italy, Germany, Great Britain and others—have freed terrorists, including mass murderers, who have returned to lives of terror.  Even Israel has engaged in prisoner exchanges with terrorist groups. 

It is one thing to negotiate—directly or indirectly—with terrorists who hold innocent people as hostages.  Such negotiation may be a necessary evil.  Democratic nations are sometimes forced to negotiate with the Mafia, the Ku Klux Klan and other criminal gangs.  But we should never honor or legitimate them, as we have done with Palestinian terrorists.  Nor should the world condemn and place on trial democracies that fight against terrorist organizations which use their own civilians as human shields.  The current misguided approach to terrorism is a prescription for emulation and repetition of terrorism as the tactic of choice. 

So let’s not be surprised when a group like ISIS learns the tragic lesson of history and emulates success and visibility rather than failure and invisibility.  ISIS is doing exactly what the immoral consulting firm would advise it to do.  So we shouldn’t be surprised.  Instead we should reverse course and develop responses to terrorism that never allow this tactic to succeed.  Terrorists must never be allowed to win, as they are, unfortunately, doing today. 

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Bibi ... call this freeze now !

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By Zalmi Unsdorfer

9/5/2014, 12:09 PM

Zalmi Unsdorfer

Zalmi Unsdorfer is a Religious Zionist and Chairman of Likud-Herut UK....

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“ Citizens of Israel …
I may not be a religious man but I still feel it’s appropriate to give thanks to the Almighty for delivering us from the evil which has assailed our people over the last two months and for opening our eyes to the murderous plans of Hamas for a tunnel-led massacre of our southern families during the upcoming Rosh Hashana holiday.
The stunning success of our Iron Dome missile defence system prompted one terrorist leader to cry: “Their God is grabbing our rockets out of the sky!”
Well, if our enemies believe so strongly in our God, who am I not to?
The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights has lamented that there was no Iron Dome protection for the people of Gaza.
I say there was!
It was OUR Iron Dome which saved thousands of Gaza citizens. If Hamas rockets had reached their targets in our cities, our schools and our airport we would have been obliged to immediately flatten Gaza in the same way as Britain, America and Russia have carpet-bombed other parts of the world for a lot less than basic survival.
I would like to thank the American people and Congress for their partnership in our Iron Dome project and for the other support which is so essential to maintaining our qualitative edge over the enemies which surround us.
At the same time I am pained by the decision of the Obama administration to sign an eleven billion dollar arms deal with Qatar, which is the outspoken patron and paymaster of Hamas and host of its leader Khaled Mashaal. I believe the American people would not have approved such a deal if they knew the truth about Qatar. Even more painful was to find out that this record-breaking arms deal was signed just 6 weeks ago when rockets funded by the Emir of Qatar were being fired indiscriminately on our people.
But now to the main part of my message today.
Five years ago I stood at Bar Ilan university in Tel Aviv and declared my support for a Two-State Solution; a demilitarized Palestinian state living side-by-side with our Jewish state. I did so at great political risk, causing deep divisions within my Likud party which are still not healed. Since that time I have made further sacrifices including settlement freezes and, most painfully, by releasing hundreds of unrepentant killers of our people.
Ask me what I have received in return – and the answer is zero.
In truth it is less than zero. After all these concessions and the confidence-building measures requested by our American friends and members of the Quartet, I was rewarded with a peace treaty not between me and Mr Abbas, but between Mr Abbas and Hamas. This was followed by aggressive moves by Mr Abbas to force statehood on us through applications to UN bodies. And all that whilst his new allies were quietly tunnelling towards a bloody massacre of our citizens in the South.
We have watched as every inch of territory given away by us in the cause of peace has been planted with weapons for our annihilation. Now that I have witnessed the very real threat to Ben Gurion Airport from as far away as Gaza, I am simply not prepared to take the same risk in the West Bank, literally underneath the glidepath.
Einstein defined insanity as repeating the same process again and again and expecting a different result. We are not so insane as to risk the lives of millions of our citizens in the narrow coastal strip or compromise our air travel and vital commercial links by repeating the mistakes of South Lebanon and Gaza in the West Bank.
Therefore, in contrast to the many West Bank freezes I have imposed on our own people in the vain hope of genuine reciprocity, I am here to announce a different kind of freeze. This is a freeze on the Two State Solution.
Since my 2009 speech, I have watched the Arab world turned upside down.  Whilst the ‘Arab Spring’ unsettled 2/3rds of the Arab states in the region, its effects have loomed largest in our nearest neighbours. To the south we have seen Egypt go through two government overthrows. To the north we see the Syrian civil war enter its 4th year with a death toll of 180,000 and a refugee count now surpassing 3 million.
And that Syrian conflict has spawned the new phenomenon of ISIS which has destabilised Iraq and now seriously threatens our eastern neighbour Jordan.
Even before the Gaza rocket war it would have been a gross understatement to say that life in this neighbourhood is not the same as it was when I made that speech in 2009.
During the Gaza conflict we saw the true and genocidal face of Hamas, not just against us but to its own people in their open use of women and children as human shields and the sacrificing of their lives just to grab headlines. ISIS shows the same scant regard for the lives of innocents and now uses the most graphic forms of killing to grab even greater media attention.
Life will soon be returning to normal in Gaza. And normal means the reopening of UN schools whose Hamas staffers have never stopped teaching Jew-hatred to eternalise this conflict.
So I am freezing all talk and negotiation of a Two-State Solution for the next 12 months to give Mr Abbas the chance to prove he is not with Hamas and ISIS or just another puppet of Iran, Qatar or the Muslim Brotherhood.
He can make a start by eradicating all incitement from classrooms under his control and from TV programming.  Just 12 months without the poisoning of children’s minds is capable of making a major impact for the good. I want to see Mr Abbas cancel his pact with Hamas and withdraw his applications to UN bodies seeking imposed solutions as if we genuinely did not exist.  I want him to recognise our existence as a Jewish state in its biblical homeland. Most of all I want to see him take sides between the darkness of Hamas, Hezbullah and ISIS and the bright future that awaits a people committing itself to peace in word and deed.
Ladies and gentlemen, my 2009 speech was delivered at Bar Ilan University in Tel Aviv.
This time I have chosen to address you from the University of Ariel in Samaria, otherwise known as the West Bank. I do so to emphasise that this area is no less legal Israeli territory than Tel Aviv. Its legitimacy ranks two thousand years ahead of America’s claim to Indian Arizona or Britain’s claim to Celtic Cornwall.
Israel was our homeland centuries before the birth of Islam. And for as long as the Bible remains a bestseller, our title deed is secure.
Whilst this is and remains OUR land, we have a generous spirit and are prepared to share it in peace with our neighbours. Just as we opened the holy sites in Jerusalem to all the world’s faiths for the first time in centuries.
But we will share this land only with people who demonstrate we can trust them.
Such people will not have a charter to annihilate us. Such people will not be partners to those who rocket our cities.  Such people will not name their streets after terrorists. And above all, such people will recognise and respect us for who we are.
I hope to return to this podium in a year from now and be able to report progress in all these areas. If not I shall come anyway, just to revisit the students and remind them that this is our God-given land and that we shall never again be removed from it. 
Shana Tova.  May we be blessed with a more peaceful New Year.  ”

The God factor

August 31, 2014, 12:34 pm 53

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Yoel Meltzer Yoel Meltzer is a freelance writer who made aliyah in 1996. A former New Yorker, he currently lives with … [More]

A major difference between the two sides involved in the ongoing conflict in Gaza is that while Hamas is fighting for what they believe to be a sense of justice, Israel is fighting to restore calm (“quiet will be met with quiet”). Moreover, although we can say that Hamas’s justice is warped or based upon lies and evil, it doesn’t matter. They believe in something and they’re ready to die for it while the Jewish leaders of Israel, descendants of spiritual giants who brought faith and monotheism to the world, for the most part don’t believe in anything beyond achieving peace and quiet in order to live a comfortable pseudo-American lifestyle.

Unfortunately, this outlook on the part of Israel is not new and in fact was partly responsible for its unilateral disengagement from Gaza nine years ago. In addition to the obvious connection between the mistaken claim that Israel’s security would improve as a result of it removing all Jewish presence from Gaza and the Hamas missile threat that has intensified ever since – a strategically costly blunder that those responsible for its promotion have yet to apologize – there is another sad irony from that affair which is directly related to the current hostilities.

While in the present situation many Jews living close to Gaza are choosing to flee of their own volition, as part of the Disengagement Israel decided to forcibly remove thousands of Jews from their homes. What is more, unlike those who are currently abandoning their homes, those who were expelled from Gaza were for the most part faith-oriented people who had a strong sense of mission and therefore didn’t budge despite all the hardships they endured at the hands of the Arabs. Once they were removed, however, the soft underbelly of Israel became fully exposed to the Gaza menace with the understandable result that many normal, everyday Jews have simply packed up their bags and headed north.

This tragic lesson should be remembered the next time the Israeli authorities want to systematically crack down on the “hard-core settlers” in places like Yitzhar or Bat Ayin since any attempt to weaken those Jews with the strongest of faith will only help our enemies.

In light of the above, it’s becoming clearer every day that what is sorely missing from Israel is the “God factor”. In other words, although some of us remain individual “religious Jews” in our own private lives and in our own limited world, the broader nation is not jointly striving to be holy or united around a higher mission. As a result, God is relegated to the realm of the individual which is essentially a continuation of Judaism of the exile.

A case in point is the fact that in the endless press conferences and news reports over the past two months the word “God” was conspicuously absent from the lips of nearly every Israeli politician and media commentator. For them God is simply irrelevant on a national level.

Unfortunately, without ideas such as the “will of God” or the collective mission of the Jewish people having any bearing on the decisions of Israeli leaders or on the subsequent direction of the nation, Israel will forever be stuck in a box of “they kill, we kill, they kill” with no way out.

With the influence and power of Islam growing in the region and in the world, Israel is literally digging its own grave by continuing to forsake God, the same God who brought his people home after a long and bitter two-thousand year exile.

Read more: The God factor | Yoel Meltzer | The Blogs | The Times of Israel http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-god-factor-2/#ixzz3CKdjjQyo
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No Holds Barred: ‘The New York Times’ censors our anti-ISIS ad

People deserve to know the extreme danger civilization faces from monstrous, stone-age groups like ISIS and Hamas that are visiting new brutality on an increasingly vulnerable world.

Islamic State terrorist and James Foley. (photo credit:YOUTUBE SCREENSHOT)

“America reinforces its values and thus its security by being transparent about even the worst abuses of those values, not by hiding the evidence deep in a file drawer.”

This sentence is from a New York Times editorial of August 30, 2014. The editorial was written in response to a decision by Federal district court Judge Alvin Hellerstein forcing the Obama administration to justify why it will not release approximately 2,000 photos that allegedly document abuse by the American military and investigators in Iraq and Afghanistan, which begs the question of why The New York Times forced us to remove a photograph of a hooded ISIS executioner holding a knife while standing by American journalist James Foley. (A copy of the ad is available at www.shmuley.com)

We were forced to remove the photograph and replace it with one without a knife in order to have the ad appear this Tuesday in the Times.

Why did the Times condemn the American government for trying to suppress images of alleged abuse on the part of the American military, while it seeks to suppress the horrors of the world’s most monstrous terrorist organization, which decapitates Americans?

But even that was a lot better than The Los Angeles Times that demanded the removal also of a second image which depicted Hamas terrorists standing alongside hooded “collaborators” which they were about to execute. The Telegraph in London demanded the same in order for the ad to be published.

Even The Wall Street Journal demanded the picture with the knife be replaced.

The only publication that accepted the ad as is was The Washington Post, where it will also appear on Tuesday.

Strangest of all, however, was the Los Angeles Times, which first told us that we could not use either image and that they would have to be replaced, only to later tell us that they would publish the ad as is if we reduced the images’ size.

As of this writing, we have not acceded to their request.

We found all of these demands to be mystifying. The New York Times will publish the most awful Abu Ghraib photos – as it should – but will not publish a picture of an ISIS terrorist holding a knife standing alongside an American. The Wall Street Journal, whose excellent editorial page has been consistently supportive of Israel and has advocated strong military action against ISIS, also objected to the image.

The purpose of our ad was to demonstrate the symmetry between the two terrorist organizations ISIS and Hamas, both of which are bloodthirsty death cults that glorify public executions of innocent individuals.

Even the Nazis tried to hide their crimes, detonating the gas chambers at Auschwitz just days before its liberation by the Red Army in January 1945.

Likewise, the Sonderkommando, the Jewish inmates charged with disposing the bodies from the gas chambers in the crematoria, were labeled by the Nazis as “geheimnisträger” – bearers of secrets – and were therefore warehoused apart from the other camp inmates. The Nazis did everything to ensure that the Sonderkommandos’ knowledge of genocide did not reach the outside world. So they gassed the Sonderkommandos approximately every four months, replacing them with new Jewish inmates who would shortly receive the same fate. Almost no Sonderkommandos survived the war.

ISIS and Hamas are different, regularly posting pictures and videos of their monstrous crimes on the Internet, taking pride in their brutality, with the dual aims of instilling fear in their enemies and recruiting other barbarians to join them.

Yet, rather than educating their readers as to the vile nature of these groups, the Los Angeles Times told us it could not publish the photos as it might upset their readers and provoke a backlash.

Yet most of these publications published gruesome pictures of Palestinian children suffering from what they said were Israeli military strikes against the Hamas terrorists. Why would they not also publish pictures of Palestinians who were about to be executed without trial by Hamas?

Even stranger is the fact that The Los Angeles Times rejected the images of Foley and the knife-wielding terrorist in our ads yet used the exact same image on their website twice, once in a picture gallery, and the second time in a video.

The Times of London rejected our ad with Elie Wiesel accusing Hamas of child sacrifice, and also rejected our subsequent ad detailing new UN chief Israel investigator William Schabas’ relationship with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Iran. The Guardian courageously published our Wiesel ad but then succumbed to huge pressure and complaints. In the days after our ad appeared they published a public letter, written by notable British Israel-haters, that read in part:

“We write to condemn the decision to print a wildly inaccurate and inflammatory advert from supporters of the State of Israel branding the Palestinian resistance as ‘child killers.’”

Apparently an online UK petition against our ad was signed by over 100,000 people, which just goes to show the impact that a single pro-Israel ad can make in a country that is now experiencing a tsunami of anti-Semitism.

Needless to say, both the Times and The Guardian rejected our anti-ISIS ad, which is also curious given that Foley’s terrorist executioner is widely believed to be British-born. A senior UK government source told The Sunday Times that the leading suspect is Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, a 23-year-old rapper-turned-terrorist who is known to fellow militants as “Jihadi John.” Recently, Bary posted a gruesome online picture of himself holding a severed head.

The people of the UK deserve to know the horrors that are allegedly being perpetrated by their citizens.

And that’s what makes the rejection of our ad by so many publications even more bizarre. Over the last few days there have been countless beheadings perpetrated by extremist Islamic organizations all over the Middle East. There was the beheading of Lebanese soldiers by ISIS, the videos of which were posted on the Internet. It was one of the most horrible things I have ever watched and immediately called to mind the savage slaying of Daniel Pearl. Then there were the decapitations in Egypt of four alleged Israeli “Mossad spies” in copycat videos that echoed the vile ISIS postings.

Through all this, rather than convey to Western audiences the extent of the danger posed by these barbaric groups, the world’s leading publications instead contort themselves with Victorian prudery around our ad and the image of a terrorist holding a knife.

People deserve to know the extreme danger civilization faces from monstrous, stone-age groups like ISIS and Hamas that are visiting new brutality on an increasingly vulnerable world.

The author, “America’s rabbi,” whom The Washington Post calls “the most famous rabbi in America,” is the founder of This World: The Values Network, the world’s leading organization promoting universal Jewish values in politics, culture and the media. The international best-selling author of 30 books, he has recently published Kosher Lust: Love is Not the Answer. Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.

And this, posted at one of our favorite sites, Liberal Logic 101.

As America Has Done to Israel by John Mcternan

Zephaniah 2:8,9 I have heard the reproach of Moab, and the revilings of the children of Ammon, whereby they have reproached my people, and magnified themselves against their border. Therefore as I live, saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Surely Moab shall be as Sodom, and the children of Ammon as Gomorrah, even the breeding of nettles, and saltpits, and a perpetual desolation: the residue of my people shall spoil them, and the remnant of my people shall possess them.

It is very clear from the Bible that God does not want any nation to alter or touch the borders of Israel. God gave this land to the Jews by an everlasting covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. There are warnings of destruction for touching these borders.

Since 1991, every US president pressured Israel to divide the land and Jerusalem. America greatly suffered with awesome disasters hitting America at the very time of this pressure. I document this in my book As America Has Done to Israel.

It seems this pressure by America is now coming to a head. At the very time Kerry is pressuring Israel to divide the land and Jerusalem, there are reports of ISIS coming across the US southern border to attack America. In light of the timing of this event, I believe in the near future a massive terrorist attack is going to strike America at the very time Obama is pressuring Israel to divide the land and especially Jerusalem. All of God’s warning signs are now pointing to this.

Malachi 1:4,5 Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places; thus saith the LORD of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them, The border of wickedness, and, The people against whom the LORD hath indignation for ever. And your eyes shall see, and ye shall say, The LORD will be magnified from the border of Israel.

Are you spiritually prepared for what is coming to America?

1Thess 1:10 And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.

Feds’ Bulletin Describes Threat of Imminent Terrorist Attack on Southern Border 08/29/14 Did God raise up Obama to open America’s southern border for judgment? It appears this is the case.

“Islamic terrorist groups are operating in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez and planning to attack the United States with car bombs or other vehicle born improvised explosive devices (VBIED). High-level federal law enforcement, intelligence and other sources have confirmed to Judicial Watch that a warning bulletin for an imminent terrorist attack on the border has been issued.  Agents across a number of Homeland Security, Justice and Defense agencies have all been placed on alert and instructed to aggressively work all possible leads and sources concerning this imminent terrorist threat.”

What will happen to America when they meet to divide Israel?

Abbas Says US Agreed to ‘Palestine’ Along ’67 Borders’ 08/29/14 Watch what happens when Kerry goes to Israel to pressure for the dividing of the land. America is now all set up for judgment.

“Abbas’s actual statements from the recent interview were that the US expressed its support for establishing a Palestinian state along the “1967 borders,” adding that all that was left was to sketch up the final border lines, The clarification that the US agreed to establishing “Palestine” along the “1967 borders” in fact does not signify such a major change of rhetoric from US President Barack Obama’s administration. Back in 2011, Obama said in a speech “we believe the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps.” In that same speech, he said “Palestinians…(have been) suffering the humiliation of occupation.”

Online posts show ISIS eyeing Mexican border 08/29/14 God warned America over and over of the coming judgment, but so few listened. It is as if, collectively, the believers in America lost the fear of God.

Joel 3:19,20 Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom shall be a desolate wilderness, for the violence against the children of Judah, because they have shed innocent blood in their land. But Judah shall dwell for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation.

Fundamentally Freund: From World War II Nazis to World War III jihadis

By allowing Nazism to fester and grow, and by sitting on the sidelines as it consolidated its power and pushed beyond international borders, the Western world had made a nearly fatal mistake.

A Polish guard of honor during ceremony September 1 in front of the Westerplatte monument erected where first shots of World War II were fired on September 1, 1939. (photo credit:REUTERS)

This week marks a significant anniversary, one that carries with it some crucial lessons as the West confronts the mounting danger posed by the Muslim jihadis of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

It was 75 years ago, at 4:45 a.m. on September 1, 1939, that a German warship fired on Polish troops stationed at the Westerplatte Fort in the port city of Danzig (Gdansk), signifying the start of World War II.

It was a cataclysm that would engulf the globe, killing more than 50 million human beings while permanently altering the international order.

And, according to Britain’s wartime prime minister Winston Churchill, it was one that should never have had to been fought.

In the preface to The Gathering Storm, the first of his monumental six-volume account of World War II, Churchill relates the following story: “One day, President Roosevelt told me that he was asking publicly for suggestions about what the war should be called. I said at once, ‘The Unnecessary War.’ There never was a war more easy to stop than that which has just wrecked what was left of the world from the previous struggle.”

Summarizing his thesis, Churchill said that he would proceed to explain “How the English-speaking peoples through their unwisdom, carelessness, and good nature allowed the wicked to rearm.”

Indeed, through their dithering, the Western powers had allowed Germany to re-equip itself after its defeat in World War I, a process that could have been stopped at any time through force and determination.

And when German chancellor Adolf Hitler launched his expansionist enterprise in March 1936 by seizing the Rhineland and remilitarizing it in violation of the Treaty of Versailles, which had ended the previous global conflict, nothing was done to stop him.

From there, the road to the March 1938 Anschluss in Austria, followed by the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia and on to full-scale war, was short and inevitable.

After such a calamitous series of events, one would have assumed that the international community would have learned its lesson.

By allowing Nazism to fester and grow, and by sitting on the sidelines as it consolidated its power and pushed beyond international borders, the Western world had made a nearly fatal mistake.

And yet, it appears that the same shortsightedness, lack of purpose and sense of urgency in the face of the ISIS threat are once again threatening to breed a disaster of epic proportions.

Nowhere is this negligence on greater display than in Washington itself, where President Barack Obama has spent more time pondering which golf club to use on the green than how much force to deploy in Iraq and Syria.

Consider the following: In the January 27 issue of The New Yorker magazine, shortly after ISIS had captured the Iraqi town of Falluja just 69 km west of Baghdad, Obama compared the terrorist group to a junior varsity (JV) basketball team masquerading as professional NBA team.

“The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a JV team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant,” Obama said, adding, “I think there is a distinction between the capacity and reach of a bin-Laden and a network that is actively planning major terrorist plots against the homeland versus jihadis who are engaged in various local power struggles and disputes, often sectarian.”

While the White House subsequently tried to “clarify” Obama’s remarks, it was clear that he was belittling the aptitude and capability of ISIS.

In subsequent months, as ISIS proceeded to capture Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, as well as large swathes of neighboring Syria, it quickly became clear just how misguided the commander-in-chief’s analysis had been.

As syndicated columnist Jonah Goldberg recently noted regarding ISIS, “that same junior varsity team controls more territory than any terrorist organization in history, has some 5,000 battle-hardened jihadists with Western passports, hundreds of millions of dollars at its disposal and is earning millions more every day by selling oil on the black market.”

Nonetheless, despite the organization’s rapid growth, and the clear and present danger that it poses to the West, Obama has yet to figure out what to do.

As he acknowledged in remarks to reporters last Thursday, “I don’t want to put the cart before the horse, we don’t have a strategy yet.”

Just what exactly is Obama waiting for? Today’s jihadis pose a threat to Western civilization no less ominous than that of last century’s Nazis. With their totalitarian ideology and ruthless brutality, they are bent on global domination.

And if allowed to continue gaining steam, as the Nazis were able to do throughout the 1930s, groups such as ISIS, al-Qaida, Hamas and other Islamic jihadis will be far more difficult to stop.

While British Prime Minister David Cameron on Friday came out with a forceful warning regarding ISIS and growing Islamic extremism, Washington has yet to show any signs that it will heed his counsel.

There is still time to stop ISIS and other groups, before they expand still further into Lebanon, Jordan and elsewhere. But the longer Obama fiddles, the more the Middle East will burn.

So as we recall the events of 75 years ago this week, it is worth remembering Churchill’s unsettling conclusion that “the tragedy of the Second World War could have been prevented,” but “the malice of the wicked was reinforced by the weakness of the virtuous.”

After all, it was the act of waiting too long which led to World War II against the Nazis.

And the longer the West waits now, the sooner it will find itself having to wage World War III against the jihadis.

We must nip this danger in the bud, before it is too late.

The Unfinished War by Caroline Glick

Israel must use whatever means it has to scuttle US attempts to pass any resolution related to Gaza at UN Security Council.

Hamas supporters celebrate with people what they said was a victory over Israel in Gaza City, August 27. (photo credit:REUTERS)

The war with Hamas is not over. What we are experiencing today is a temporary cease-fire.

The most basic reason the war is not over is because Hamas has no existence outside its war against the Jewish state. Hamas exists to obliterate Israel. The goal of each round of fighting is to soften Israel up for the next round.

Hamas will only stop fighting when it is defeated. And Israel did not defeat Hamas.

Not only did Israel not defeat Hamas, according to Haaretz, senior IDF commanders are now lobbying the government to enable Hamas to credibly claim victory.

According to Amos Harel, senior IDF commanders want Israel to bow to Hamas’s demands for open borders with Israel and for the steady transfer of funds to Hamas’s treasury.

Harel quoted a senior IDF source who said that if Israel doesn’t give in to Hamas’s demands for open borders, Hamas will renew its attacks at the end of September.

In the senior commander’s words, “If we can assist [Hamas] by expanding fishing grounds and easing restrictions on border crossings of people and goods into and from Israel, this will help maintain the quiet.”

So to delay the next Hamas onslaught against us, the IDF is lobbying the government to surrender to Hamas.

This behavior demonstrates two basic truths about Hamas’s war against Israel.

First, it is impossible for Israel to deter Hamas, but Hamas has apparently deterred the IDF General Staff.

During Operation Protective Edge Hamas absorbed massive blows to its war machine. The IDF destroyed Hamas’s offensive tunnels that penetrated into Israel. It destroyed thousands of Hamas’s rockets, missiles and launchers. It killed hundreds of Hamas fighters, including some top commanders.

And yet, less than a week into the cease-fire, the IDF prefers to capitulate to Hamas’s demands, and so allow Hamas to recoup its losses, rather than face its depleted forces on the ground in four weeks.

In other words, despite the blows it suffered, it is Hamas that has deterred the IDF.

Harel’s report is just the most recent indication that the IDF senior command echelon is Hamas’s ace in the hole. Throughout the war, news reports revealed that under Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz, the General Staff refused to present the security cabinet with any viable plan to defeat Hamas. And now, having failed to defeat Hamas, they insist that it is Israel that should surrender.

Hamas went to war with Israel because its back was up against the wall. Due to Egypt’s decision a year ago to seal its borders with Gaza, Hamas lost the ability to expand its arsenal, fuel Gaza’s smuggling-based economy and pay its terrorists their salaries.

Its leadership figured that the best way to reopen its supply lines was by going to war against Israel. The risk-averse behavior of the General Staff both during the war and today tell Hamas’s leadership that they were right.

The General Staff’s behavior isn’t the only reason that Hamas thinks aggression is the way to go. The US and Europe have gone out of their way, both during the fighting and today, to show Hamas that they are right to attack Israel.

US President Barack Obama adopted Hamas’s demand for open borders as the official position of the US government almost at the outset of the conflict.

He sought to replace Hamas foe Egypt as mediator with Hamas’s principle state sponsors Qatar and Turkey.

Under Obama the Federal Aviation Administration instituted a discriminatory and unwarranted flight ban on Israel. The repercussions of that move continue to harm Israel’s economy.

Today, the US and the EU are working together at the UN Security Council to draft a resolution that would see the deployment of international military forces to Gaza. The defined role of the force would be to oversee Gaza’s demilitarization, seemingly in line with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s demand.

But the notion that UN forces would take any steps to disarm Hamas is absurd. The minute such forces arrive in Gaza they will become human shields preventing Israel from defending itself against Hamas aggression. If they are deployed to Gaza, then in the next round of Hamas’s war against the Jews, IDF troops will have to constrain their offensive operations still further to avoid killing Western forces.

In other words, the deployment of such a force in Gaza will make it all but impossible for Israel to fight Hamas in the future.

The current discussions at the Security Council tell Hamas it is winning.

By attacking Israel, the genocidal jihadist group won the support of the West. At the UN today the US and the EU are crafting a resolution that will allow it to attack Israel from behind Western human shields.

So between the IDF General Staff and the West, Hamas now knows that all they have to do to survive, thrive and expand their war on Israel, is shake the tree. Something will fall out that will reward their aggression.

If they pay any price at all, it will involve nothing more than the death of the civilians of Gaza. And Hamas leaders couldn’t care less. For them, the death of civilians is yet another means of attacking Israel.

Facing this dire state of affairs, our leadership must dedicate itself today to preparing for the next round of war.

To this end, Israel must begin acting in three areas, now.

First, Israel must use whatever means it has at its disposal to scuttle the US’s attempts to pass any resolution related to Gaza at the UN Security Council.

Second, the government must clean the stables in the IDF General Staff.

Gantz is due to complete his tour of duty in February. Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon need to use his departure as an opportunity to replace not only Gantz but several other senior generals. Their replacements must be commanders who understand that the role of the IDF is to win wars, not lose them.

To date, Netanyahu and Ya’alon have given no indication of their intentions. Senior ministers and the public should use both the General Staff’s support for surrender and its lack of strategic ambition and tactical imagination during the war as a means of pressuring Netanyahu and Ya’alon to conduct a major shakeup of the General Staff.

Finally, the time has come for Israel to expand its military industries.

During the war both the US and European governments placed obstructions in the path of IDF resupply.

Israel cannot remain dependent on undependable foreign military suppliers. Israel needs to develop its own production lines, starting immediately.

We have the technology. We have the economic wherewithal. And we have the external markets to cover the costs of development.

True, this is a long-term undertaking.

But it has to begin now.

Residents of the south are livid at the government for opting for a ceasefire rather than mounting a full invasion of Gaza and dismantling Hamas piece by piece, terrorist by terrorist. As they see it, Operation Protective Edge failed to bring them the security they deserve and require to lead normal lives.

There is much validity to their claims. Hamas’s declarations of victory would sound far more disingenuous if the IDF’s leadership wasn’t intent on proving them right.

Their celebrations would ring hollow and even pathetic if the Americans and Europeans weren’t laboring to set up a mechanism to prevent Israel from fighting in the future.

As it stands, the only way for our leaders to prove their credibility now is by rejecting Hamas’s demand for open borders, even if doing so will require us to go back into battle in a month. After we have seen what Hamas is capable of, the notion that we should allow them to resupply and so rebuild and expand their military capabilities is simply outrageous.

Every general even obliquely tied to this initiative should be given his walking papers.

So too, our leaders need to demonstrate that they understand the nature of the diplomatic battlefield whose contours are being designed in Washington as well as Europe. To meet this threat, we must devise a clear plan to scuttle the cease-fire initiative at the Security Council, and we must diminish our dependence on our unreliable defense partners by building our own production lines.

Absent these responses, it is difficult to see how we will weather the next rapidly approaching storm. Absent these responses it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the time has come for new elections.

'This is the price we pay for being here,' says father of 72nd Israeli killed in Gaza war, Sgt. Shahar Shalev.

By Uzi Baruch, Gil Ronen

First Publish: 8/31/2014, 10:04 PM

Shahar Shalev

Family photo

Shimon Shalev, father of paratrooper Sgt. Shahar Shalev hy”d, spoke Sunday about his son, who succumbed to his wounds today after being critically wounded during Operation Protective Edge.
"We received our boy for one and a half months as a gift,” he said, “because his friends were killed in that battle and we had the time to say goodbye to him. This is the price for our being here, it is the kind of price that has to be paid and there is no alternative, unfortunately. “
"Shahar wanted to serve in the Paratroopers and was happy that he made it to the unit,” Shalev recalled. “From what we understand from his friends and commanders, he did good work on the battlefield.”
"He was a boy with blue eyes, like the sea,” Shahar's mother, Naomi, said. “ He liked to collect friends, both older and younger than him.”
Naomi said that Shahar was beloved by his friends, who came to visit him in the hospital after he was wounded. “In recent weeks, many friends came; everyone loved him very much. He always wanted to enlist to an elite unit and he always did the maximum.”
"G-d wanted him," the father said. "We have nothing to add."
Shahar Shalev's funeral will be held Monday at 5:30 p.m., in the regional cemetery at Hispin. He is survived by his parents and six brothers and sisters.