Has Ilhan Omar imported the ideology of a Somali dictator into the heart of American politics?

Studying the politics of Ilhan Omar I am struck by how similar they are to that of the brutal dictator, Siad Barre, who governed Somalia with an iron fist when she was young girl in that country.

When Barre seized power in a coup d’etat in 1969, following the assassination of the president, Ali Shermarke, he built a new political order, a one-party regime built on a mix of Communism and a local form of political Islam.

He abrogated the constitution within hours of his coup, and ruled the country by decree until he had time to redraft a new constitution.

Are we not hearing calls to repeal parts of the US Constitution by members of the new left in American politics?

The United Nations profile of Siad Barre explained, “The theoretical underpinning of the state ideology combined aspects of the Qur’an with the influence of Marx, Lenin, Mao, and Mussolini, but Siad Barre was pragmatic in its application. ‘Socialism is not a religion,’ Barre explained, ‘It is a political principle to organize government and manage production.’”

An organized Socialist government managing production is the underpinning of the new left of the Democratic party being promoted by Ilhan Omar.

When Barre grabbed power, Marxist sympathies were not deep-rooted in Somalia. In order to achieve his political goal, the dictator denigrated the opposition, did away with the previous governments law enforcement, replacing it with his own tough enforcement police and military rule.

Sound like the tactics of the radical left today in America.

We hear calls of the radicals within the Democratic Party to abolish ICE. We see the deliberate demoralization of the police force in major cities controlled by the Democratic Party as part of that process.

Ilhan Omar never explained what she meant when she described her father, a central influence in her life, as the Somali “teacher of teachers.”

It was a telling remark.

In Somalia, Siad Barre introduced a nationwide indoctrination campaign. He appointed teacher trainers whose job it was to indoctrinate the government-run education system into the dictator’s Koranic-Marxist-Leninist ideology.

This radical Red-Green political agenda can be found both in Britain with Jeremy Corbyn’s associations with Islamist forces, including the IHRC in Britain, Hamas, Hezbollah and Palestinian terrorists abroad.

We see it with Ilhan Omar who goes on fund-raising junkets not for the Democratic Party but for CAIR, the American branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and a co-conspirator for Hamas.

In Somalia, Barre moved from rule control to thought control. Civil servants were required to attend reorientation courses that combined professional training with the regime’s political indoctrination. Anyone found incompetent or politically resistance was fired.

The propaganda ministry reached into national broadcasting and local communities with loudspeaker announcements blasting the dictator’s political ideology in town squares. The regime’s brainwashing continued as they raped, robbed and ruined their country which descended into civil war.

Ilhan Omar may blame America for the turmoil in Somalia but it was the Barre regime with his accolade of apparatchiks that brought about the destruction of that country.

The regime set out to destroy traditional social structures and reduce the opposition to powerlessness by imposing its central control over the country. They depended on a compliant media.

Human Rights Watch issued a report entitled, “Somalia. A Government at war with its own People.”

The United Nations Development Programme declared, “The 21-year regime of Siad Barre had one of the worst human rights records in Africa.”

The UN report on Somalia stated, “The newly formed Ministry of Information and National Guidance set up local political education bureaus to execute the government’s message to the people and used Somalia’s print and broadcasting media for the ‘success of the socialist, revolutionary road.’”

These bureaus required teacher trainers to retrain teachers into the ideology of the regime.

It is legitimate to ask, was Ilhan Omar’s father, the teacher of teachers, part of, perhaps a leader in, the political education system in the service of a brutal genocidal dictator?

Was he the Josef Goebbels of the Somali regime? The opposition certainly did not have teacher trainers.

The slogan of the Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party was “social justice” and “scientific socialism” as they delivered an intolerant national injustice.

There was a mass dismissal of non-compliant civil servants in 1974. Ilhan Omar’s father apparently kept his job.

And what was the connection between Nur Said Elmi and Mohammed Omar in Somalia?

Ilhan Omar’s remark that her “very privileged life suddenly came to a halt” in Somalia reveals something significant.

As the civil war raged in Somalia, including torture, mass murder and the genocide of the opposition Isaaq tribe, no one in the people’s opposition to Siad Barre lived “privileged lives” in secure compounds.

Was it a coincidence that the Said Elmi family did not flee from their “privileged lives” in their sheltered compound in Mogadishu until just before the fall of the Barre regime?

Did Ilhan Omar’s father actively side with the war criminal Barre, or did he side with the people?

To me, at least, the answer is clear.

Another slip of the tongue, this time by Ilhan’s sister, Sahra, is telling.  Following Ilhan’s election to Congress, Sahra celebrated by congratulating their father who, she claimed, was a “great political strategist and fundraiser,” and that Ilhan Omar’s victory “would not have been possible without him.”

One wonders where this talent and aptitude came from. Could it have derived from his professional experience in Somalia and his contacts with the Somali community in America, many of whom may have been on the side of the war criminal, Barre?

Is America turning a blind eye to people who entered the United States illegally and who aided and abetted a murderous regime?

Would it be disqualifying to have someone sit on the US Foreign Affairs Committee who is under the paternal political and ideological guidance of someone who could have been close to the top of a Marxist-Islamist dictatorship? 

Why hasn’t the genocide committed by the Siad Barre regime, and all those culpable in the human rights and war crimes committed in Somalia, ever come before the International Court of Justice?

Ilhan Omar and her father can produce evidence of his role in the Somali civil war? Why have they been totally silent about the burning issue?

There may be no there three, but surely an investigation is warranted into the roles played by the senior members of the Said Elmi-Omar families in Somalia under Barre? She talks about her grandfather, but not of her father. Why? Especially if he is such a great political strategist.

It is clear that the political ideology of Ilhan Omar is not too far removed from that of the Siad Barre in Somalia.  There are signs of a Red-Green alliance emerging out of Democratic politics. Perhaps a part of that derives from Somali politics.
Ilhan Omar hails from a country that never saw a Jew yet was steeped in anti-Semitism. 
Omar never met a Jew in Somalia, nor in Kenya. She barely met a Jew in her Somali-community in Minnesota. Yet, she is a virile anti-Semite. It is a well-known cultural affliction throughout the Middle East.
Is Ilhan Omar the second generation of a family attempting to subvert the democratic system of their respective countries?

Does America really want that inflicted on the greatest democracy in the world in which the opposition party is increasingly tilting radically left?

Barry Shaw is the International Public Diplomacy Director of the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies and an expert on contemporary anti-Semitism. He is the author of 'Fighting Hamas, BDS and Anti-Semitism.'

Which side of the Somali conflict was Ilhan Omar’s father on?

As an Israeli strategist, I have a vested professional interest in exposing the truth about Ilhan Omar and her growing gang of conspirators who intend to be even more harmful to Israel.

They are trouble to Israel and a danger to the United States.

Growing within the Democratic Party is a Red-Green alliance, an American version of the Somali Revolutionary Party of the brutal dictator, Siad Barre, that was based on a melding of Marxist and Islamic theories - the Red of Communism and the Green of Islam.

In Somalia, it was a one party system that nationalized industry and the banks as they established a big government policy promoted as social progress, equality and justice.  

Isn’t this what we are hearing from the radical wing of the Democratic Party?

In Somalia, a brutal, intolerant regime brainwashed its people with education programs, broadcasting propaganda over the radio and loudspeakers in public squares, in the schools and mosques. Its failure led to abject poverty and a civil war that included genocide and torture.

As public discontent grew due to the worsening economic situation, the regime cracked down on protest. They arrested, tortured and executed thousands. The propaganda machine blamed the people, calling them traitors. They also blamed the outside world, mainly America, as a corrupt and cruel regime brought the country to bankruptcy.

Those inside and close to the corrupt dictatorship lived privileged lives in wealthy and secure compounds. Those who opposed the regime were hounded, lived in fear and increasing poverty.

Ilhan Omar’s family were among the privileged class in Somalia. She admitted it in her statement that when the regime fell her “very privileged life came to a halt.”

Only those close to, and actively involved in, the regime enjoyed this lifestyle.

Ilhan Omar blames the United States for the ruin of her country, but the Africa Committee of Human Rights Watch wrote a report titled, “Somalia. A Government at war with its own people.”

The UN Development Program wrote that “The 21-year regime of Siad Barre had one of the worst human rights records in Africa.”

An estimated 60,000 people were killed by the regime in the year 1988-1989.

Yet Ilhan Omar has never condemned this Marxist-Islamist nightmare of a regime.

Ilhan has said that her father, who is an influential character in her life, was a “teacher of teachers” in Somalia.

Siad Barre had an extensive and expensive indoctrination campaign.

A teacher of teachers in a regime with a dominant indoctrination program meant educating instructors, teachers and students in Marxist socialist economic theories linked to the principles of Islam, the political and theological tenants of the big government policies of the Somalia Revolutionary Party.

The regime set up the infrastructure to reach the masses, brainwashing them with the message of the regime, and denouncing those who opposed the regime as traitors.

Judicial Watch has lodged a complaint with Congress to investigate the potential immigration, marriage and tax frauds perpetrated by Congresswomen, Ilhan Omar, who site in the influential US Foreign Affairs Committee.

Part of that investigation should get to the bottom of the reports that Ilhan Omar is really Ilhan Said Elmi and that the Omars helped the Said Elmis into America under the fraud that they are part of their extended family, and they did so because, had US immigration known about Ilhan’s father’s connection to the Somali war criminal, they would never had been allowed entry.

To back up this claim, evidence is available showing that other members of Ilhan’s immediate family left Kenya and gained entry into Britain using their correct family name of Said Elmi, that she has a London-based sister, Leila, who goes by the surname of Said Elmi, that she has another sister, Sahra, who returned to Kenya and works under the name of Said Elmi, and, despite her denial of Ahmed, she has two brothers, Mohamad and Ahmed, who use the family name Said Elmi.

Has anyone investigated the roles played in Somalia by the head of the Omar-Said Elmi families before they entered the United States?

Did the Omars know the Said Elmis in Mogadishu due to both families being intimately involved with the regime?

Was her father, as is being claimed, the political commissar under the Communist dictator responsible for the political ideological aspects of the Red-Green revolution in Somalia?

Did they bring their Red-Green ideologies with them into the United States?

Ilhan Omar was not involved in any of this in Somalia. She was just a young girl. But why does she keep the name Omar when other members of her family go by the original family name of Nur Said Elmi? And why do her political theories reflect those of the Barre regime?

Somali refugees in Britain and America can be placed in one of two camps. Those who served the regime, and those who opposed it.

Were the Omars and Elmis on the side of the regime? Human Rights Watch issued a comprehensive report of the atrocities of the Barre regime. Hundreds of witnesses gave evidence of war and human rights crimes of the regime. The influential Omars and Said Elmis were not among them. They have been silent about their life and experiences in war-torn Somalia.

Which side were they on?
The dictator, or the people?

Barry Shaw is the International Public Diplomacy Director at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.

He is the author of ‘Fighting Hamas, BDS and Anti-Semitism,’ exposing the anti-Semitism behind every aspect of Palestinian support and anti-Israel behavior.

Who is Ilhan Omar?

Ilhan Omar is the new US Congresswoman that has Jews and Israel concerned following her anti-Semitic outbursts since entering Congress. Following her insults about Jews and their money, their “dual loyalty,” and her perception that Israel is evil and has “hypnotized the world,” both Jews and Israel have real concerns about the political influence of a Somali-American who is sitting on the influential US Foreign Affairs Committee.

It seems to most observers that Ilhan Omar, who has been joined by Palestinian Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, known in the media as ‘The Squad,’ is leading the agenda of the Democratic Party as they collectively storm press conferences with hate speech and to announce radical new policies.  Anyone, including the hierarchy of their own party, who stand in the way of this foursome is accused of being a racist and against “women of color” and minorities. Nancy Pelosi is, figuratively, the head of the Democratic Party, but she and the rest of the leadership are breathlessly trying to keep up with these young radical firebrands, even as they try to appease them by echoing their support of their Socialist policies but stop short of denouncing Omar’s anti-Semitic rhetoric.

Emboldened by the media coverage, and the quivering response of the Democratic establishment, Ilhan Omar announced that she will be joined by Rashida Tlaib, a passionate hater of Israel, in a delegation to visit Israel and the Palestinian territories in the near future.

So, who is Ilhan Omar?

The truth is Ilhan Omar is not Ilhan Omar.

In 1995, Ilhan entered the US as a fraudulent member of the Omar family. This is not her genetic family. The Omar family is an unrelated family that illegally gifted her asylum into the United States.

Ilhan’s real family name is Said. Her family fled war-torn, lawless and impoverished Somalia when she was a child. They lived in a refugee camp in Kenya, and entered the United States illegally.The Omars allowed Ilhan, her sister, Sahra, and her father, Nur Said, to illegally use their family name to apply for asylum as extended members of the Omar family. 

Ilhan’s biological family split up. Ilhan’s three other siblings, using their real names, managed to receive asylum in the UK. Ilhan’s brother, Ahmed, later used Elmi as his surname.

Until today, Ilhan “Omar” will not reveal the real names of her biological family.Other scandals, hovers over Ilhan “Omar.” That of bigamy and further infringements of immigration and tax laws. She leaves a complicated trail of unusual (an understatement) marital escapades.

In 2002, at the age of nineteen, Ilhan “Omar” married Ahmed Hirsi.  They married, she claims, in the “faith tradition,” meaning an Islamic marriage, in Minnesota. She did not file any official paperwork so she was not legally married to Hirsi, under US law.

Ilhan and Hirsi had two children before they decided to divorce. They divorced in their faith-based tradition. As they were not legally married there was no deed to file divorce proceedings. In other words, she had two children out of wedlock.

It is worth pausing to remind ourselves that this was happening in the United States, not Somalia or Kenya.

A year after her divorce, Ilhan, now aged twenty-six, legally married Ahmed Elmi, aged 23. This was not a faith-based marriage, but a legal marriage.Ilhan describes Elmi as “a British citizen.” It is believed that Ahmed Elmi was her brother who had arrived in the States from Britain, but without proper immigration papers.According to the Star Tribune, Elmi went to high school in St. Paul and later North Dakota State University.

Two years later, in 2011, Ilhan and Elmi divorce in a faith-based ceremony. They did not file papers or apply to divorce legally. In other words, according to US law they were still officially married. In 2012, Ilhan “Omar” returns to Ahmed Hirsi, the father of her two children. They had a third child while she was still legally married to Elmi.

Why did she go through this rigmarole? Was it love? Or was it something else?There are strong claims that the Ahmed Elmi, with whom she remained married for roughly a two-year period, was her British-based brother, and that the marriage was manufactured to enable him to obtain American immigration status. If proven, this would have been the second time that Ilhan “Omar” defrauded the US immigration system.In 2013, Ilhan “Omar” was elected to the Minnesota State House as a Democrat.

In 2014 and 2015, Ilhan and Hirsi filed joint tax returns, but they were not legally married. She was still legally married to Elmi, her brother, with whom she did not file any tax forms.

In 2016, when Ilhan “Omar” decided to run for Congress her campaign released details of her genetic family, but only issued the first names of six of her siblings, with no family name.  Ahmed Elmi/Said was not included on that list.

In 2017, Ilhan legally divorced Elmi. Elmi had returned to live in Britain.

In 2018, before she was elected to Congress, she legally married Ahmed Hirsi.

Ilhan “Omar” has said that tales of her marriages were “baseless rumors” and “crazy internet stuff,” but she refuses to disclose full details of her genetic family including full names, or the identity of her brother, Ahmed, and a politically compliant mainstream media refuse to investigate this intriguing story.

The above timeline was given by her campaign headquarters.

However, Minnesota State found campaign fund violations by Ilhan “Omar” including in the tax documents she filed with Ahmed Hirsi while she was legally married to Ahmed Elmi.

There are also perjury allegations against her.  During her divorce proceedings, she claimed the absence of her spouse as her grounds for divorce.  She claimed, under oath, that she had not had contact with Elmi since 2011, but her social media posts showed them together in London in 2014.

That post was deleted when Ilhan “Omar” began running for office.

There are clearly more questions than answers about Ilhan “Omar’s” honesty. There are clear signs that she broke immigration and tax laws.

Ilhan “Omar” should be thoroughly investigated before she comes to further slander Israel and Jews.

But, if the Democratic Party did not have the integrity to sanction her over her abusive anti-Semitic and anti-Israel language, it is highly unlikely that they will take her to task about her potentially fraudulent behavior going back to the time she set foot on American soil and until today.

She is, after all, the future of the Democratic Party.

Barry Shaw is the International Public Diplomacy Director at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.  He is the author of ‘Fighting Hamas, BDS and Anti-Semitism.”

Israel is the next target for “The Squad.” How rapidly has America fallen.

The new radical force in American politics has come to be represented by what is called “The Squad”, four new and radical Democratic congresswomen who have used their sex and their ethnicity as a battering ram to force themselves and their radical policies at the center of their party. Anyone who stands in their way is condemned as a racist, even members of their own party including former Vice President, Joe Biden, and House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi.

Pelosi said, in a conversation with New York Times columnist, Maureen Dowd, after the four women voted against a Democratic bill for border funding, “These people have they public whatever. There are four of them, and that’s how many votes they got.”

Dowd referred to Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and Ayanna Pressley as “the Squad.”  Pelosi flippantly under-estimated them.

Fox News host, Laura Ingraham, identified them as “the four horsewomen of the apocalypse” as early as last November.

They spread hate and division, even anti-Semitism and disdain for America but, in Pressley’s words, they think they are “creating a more equitable world.” This is the corruption of thought of these new policy makers who think they are doing justice as they express hateful, racist and divisive remarks.

Where did these people come from, and are there more?

They are the product of the fraud factory that is the American campus, a breeding ground where radical professors and lecturers are pumping out indoctrinated activists off a conveyor belt of ideas to become the next generation opinion, influence and policy makers.

The academic battleground of ideas has been lost to the pragmatic, truly liberal and certainly the conservative educators. Academia has become dogma.

Faculties for formative ideas have been hijacked by the thought-control manipulators producing the AOCs, Omars, Tlaibs and Pressleys. There are many more following them out of the incubator of incitement and into positions of power.

They have found easy paths to power, whether it be in the social and print media or in politics. Both compliment and collaborate together in the one cause.

Politically, they have found the Democratic Party to be easy prey, particularly after an embarrassing defeat in the 2016 Presidential elections. The disillusioned party, bereft of direction or cause, was wide open to radical forces.

The freshmen come trained, nurtured and strategized by crafty spin-masters and operators with nasty ideas to, in Obama’s words, “radically change America.”

AOC’s chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, looks like an Indian Harry Potter, but he is the American version of Seamus Milne, the not-so shadowy Strategy and Communication Director who pulls the strings of Britain’s Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, and who formulates his policies and campaigns. It is not by coincidence that both left-wing parties have a growing anti-Semitism and anti-Israel problem.

What motivates Chakarabarti can be found on the T-shirt he used to wear as he operated AOC’s successful run for Congress. It depicted the face of Subhas Chandra Bose, an Indian who once dreamed of grabbing power in India. It was during the Second World War and Bose went to Nazi Germany to gain their support. Bose’s ideological statements included, “Freedom is not given, it must be taken,” and “No real change in history can be achieved in discussion.” On other words, power must be taken.

Bose died before he could execute his power grab, but this is the political philosophy and motivation of the key strategist of the new Democrats, a disciple of Bose.

One would think that this is the complete antithesis of American values, but It is the next stage of Obama’s stated aim to “fundamentally change America.”

Supporting Chakarabarti is Cenk Uygar, a Turkish-American, the creator of The Young Turks which, among other things, broadcasts a radical “progressive” agenda and active plan for America. Not “The Young Americans.” It’s The Young Turks for Uygar.

Uygar is also the founder of the Justice Democrats which calls itself a political action committee to progress their radical policies.  Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar have said they are “extensions” of this movement.

Behind these dynamic operators is money.  Uygar has an estimate five million dollars, but George Soros is one of the prime financiers of the radical agenda within the Democratic Party. According to Media Research Center, Soros’s The Media Consortium reaches nearly three hundred million people a month. Soros funds nearly every major left-wing media source in the United States. It is the propaganda arm of the political action strategists.

This new movement is not confined to the Democratic Party.

Just as Corbyn receives active support from pro-Palestinian, Hate-Israel, groups in the UK that includes the Islamic Human Rights Council, so in America the support includes the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) who are actively emboldening their new political recruits. Leaders of CAIR can be seen marching through the halls of power in Congress. Ilhan Omar was the main attraction at fund-raising events for Islamic Relief, an organization with deep ties to groups that advocate terrorism against Israel, and for CAIR, a group that was named as a co-conspirator in a major Hamas terror-funding incident. Can you imagine a sign that reads 'Building Jewish Power for 2020'?

Rashida Tlaib has personal friends that include Ramea Odeh, a convicted terrorist murderer of two Israeli students, Mohammad Ali who stabbed three Israelis, and other rabidly anti-Semitic Israel haters.

Tlaib wraps herself around a Palestinian flag when elected to Congress and then accuses American Jews of having "dual loyalty."

This Red-Green alliance between hard left politics and political Islam, the merging of radical ideas, the organizational power and money, the marshalling of grassroots activism including getting voters to the polling booths, is where the radical left meets political Islamists as they march together to gain power. Theologically, the Islamists will never become members of secular political parties in Britain and America, but they will place their candidates into positions of political power, vote for them and ensure they do their bidding once elected.

This new political force has rapidly gained ground in the United States where the Democratic establishment has been caught off guard and unable to present a coherent opposition to this powerful and organized momentum. Pelosi made the fatal mistake of appeasing them, only to discover when she objected to their policies she was accused by them of being a racist. Now she is unable to wrest power back from them.

Joan Ryan, who resigned as a Labour Member of Parliament over her party’s rampant anti-Semitism, delivered a stark warning to the AIPAC Conference last May on how quickly things can change. She told America, “I would never have believed just three years ago that the party which backed a Jewish homeland would sink so low so fast.”

This is now happening in America to a Democratic Party, a party that was unable to affirmatively condemn the anti-Semitic and anti-Israel rhetoric of Omar and Tlaib and is now paying the price for their negligence.

What is next for “The Squad”?

They intend to lead a delegation to Israel. Actually, they intend to lead it to “Palestine.” They are not coming to advance peace or cooperation. They will be doing it to advance hate and confrontation. 

This will become a diplomatic embarrassment for the United States, both for the current Administration and for a Democratic Party that will be severely challenged trying to prevent such a visit. If American politicians fail to stop this visit, the Israeli government will be left with the diplomatic headache of whether to allow or prevent a visitation of hostile US Congressional representatives and their guests coming to advance their Palestinian agenda.

It will be an official Gaza Flotilla without the boats. And what if they are accompanied by Linda Sarsour?

The visit will be made all the more embarrassing when it is led by Ilhan Omar who sits on the US Foreign Affairs Committee and Rashida Tlaib who draped herself not in an American flag but in a Palestinian flag when elected to Congress.

How rapidly America has fallen.

Barry Shaw is the International Public Diplomacy Director at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies. He is the author of ‘Fighting Hamas, BDS and Anti-Semitism.’

BDS destroys Palestinian lives and hopes. An example.

A few years back, a massive BDS campaign was mounted to close down the SodaStream factory in Mishor Adumim in Judea not far from Maale Adumim, an area sometimes called part of the West Bank.

Despite the factory that makes carbonated drinks employing seven hundred Palestinian Arabs who worked alongside, and sometimes over, their Jewish co-workers, this island of cooperation and progress was seen as an abomination by the anti-peace BDS Movement and the anti-normalization leaders of the Palestinian Authority.

And so they conducted a loud and expensive propaganda and incitement campaign against SodaStream.

SodaStream’s CEO, Daniel Birnbaum, had ambitions to enlarge his factory to employ even more Palestinians. His Palestinian workers received salaries in advance of normal Palestinian wages. They also enjoyed Israeli social welfare benefits, and several earned promotions as supervisors, a promotion that came with wage improvements.

To BDS and the corrupt PA, this was a sin, a crime that had to be prevented.

Birnbaum saw that it would not be possible to advance his ambitious business plan in Mishor Adumim, so he moved his factory to the Negev and began to employ Jews from Beer Sheba and the local Bedouin.

SodaStream grew. Their products increased in popularity, and the carbonated drink-maker was acquired by PepsiCo for a figure of $3.2 billion.

As part of this windfall, Birnbaum gave handsome bonuses to his workers.

The losers in this story are the Palestinian workers who went from being proud and well-paid participants in the SodaStream success to dire unemployment thanks to the exerted efforts of BDS activists aided and abetted by the Palestinian Authority.

They must have watched in envy and sadness as SodaStream spent ninety million shekels to expand its Negev factory and took on more employees.

In July, Ramon Luis Laguarta, the chairman and CEO of PepsiCo, visited Israel and reported that SodaStream was recording faster growth than expected since its acquisition by Pepsi.

To add acid into the wounds inflicted on the unemployed Palestinian workers by BDS, SodaStream employees will share approximately $23.5 million in cash and equity awards as a result of the improved performance. This is in addition to the $12.5 million for employees not participating in SodaStream’s equity plans.

Palestinian workers were denied this financial windfall by the BDS Movement who considered the transfer of SodaStream as a success.

BDS creates nothing. It does nothing to advance peace.

BDS destroys Palestinian lives and hopes.

Barry Shaw in the International Public Diplomacy Director at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.  Author of ‘BDS for IDIOTS.’  

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Who pays for the Palestinian propaganda & incitement campaigns that lead to their "Pay to Slay" reward system?

The Palestinian Authority are not only not stopping their 'Pay to Slay' policy of financially rewarding their terrorist killers, they are beginning to double their salaries!

Hamas terrorist, Husam al-Qawasmi, currently serving three life sentences for masterminding the abduction and killing of 3 Israeli teenagers, Gil-Ad Shaer, Eyal Yifrah and Naftali Fraenkel, will have his salary doubled to 4,000 shekels a month paid by the PA out of monies donated to them by governments, institution and supporting European and Christian charities.

As Maurice Hirsch, head of legal strategies at Palestinian Media Watch, who personally dealt with the prosecution against Qawasmi following his arrest, said, "For the PA it doesn't matter if you belong to Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad or Fatah, whether you murdered children, women or the elderly. What is important is that you were involved in terrorism against Israelis."

As part of the Palestinian Authority's 'Pay to Slay' policy, it doesn't matter if you are live or dead. You still get paid according to the number of Jews killed. In the case of dead terrorists, his money goes to his family. It's the Palestinian perversion of life insurance. It's called "death insurance." A Palestinian commitment to pay your family if you are killed and go the join your 72 virgins in terrorist heaven.

According to a 2014 Daily Telegraph report, the PA used $90M of British aid to pay convicted terrorists in 2013. The figure must be considerably higher since.

According to a JCPA report, the annual figure of the PA "Pay to Slay' reward budget for 2016 was $300M.

One must consider that, behind this payment system, is a heavily financed education, propaganda and incitement campaign that brainwashes Palestinian Arabs to go out and slaughter Jews. Who pays for that? No one has studied how this is financed and from where that money derives.

As US Middle East envoy, Jason Greenblatt, so rightly said, "Again and again, the PA ignores the graciously (some would say 'stupidly') donate assistance for the Palestinians by INCREASING its finding of its DESPICABLE 'Pay to Slay' program by over 11% in the first months of 2019. Why do the donor countries tolerate this?"

A good question. The answer is they do it either malevolently, a wink and a nod to the Palestinian killing of Israeli Jews, or they are so knotted to their misconception that the Palestinian Authority is really a moderate peace partner, the only one that can deliver peace.

Either or, they are totally wrong on both counts.

Barry Shaw is the International Public Diplomacy Director at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies. He is the author of "Fighting Hamas, BDS and Anti-Semitism.'

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Free Zion! Our new defiant slogan.

I was reading an article in the Jerusalem Post about the nearly discovered Pilgrimage Road. This is the pathway that Jewish pilgrims took to the ancient Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

They stumbled across this site by accident.

A rusty water pipe had burst in Silwan, a place where, after 1948, Arabs had moved into the homes of Yemenite Jews forced to flee by marauding Arab rioters and the invading Jordanian army as the nascent state of Israel perilously held on to territory by its fingertips when aggressive Arab armies launched a war of annihilation against the new Jewish state.

In the 1880s, the Jews of Yemen had begun to make their perilous way on foot to Jerusalem, a messianic journey drawn by the magnet of the Jewish Temple. Their pilgrimage trek took them half a year. They arrived destitute but elated to make their new homes in Silwan within touching distance of all that was sacred to their soul by the Old City walls.

By 1910, they had sufficient money to purchase a scratch of ground on the Mount of Olives to bury their dead. They lived in relative peace alongside their Muslim and Christian neighbors until the deadly Arab pogrom initiated by the infamous Jew-hating Mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini. Over a three-year period between 1936-1939, hundreds of Jews were killed and many more injured throughout pre-state Palestine.

Living under threat, the Yemenite community in Silwan were evacuated for their safety by the Jewish National Committee and, by 1945, no Jews remained in Silwan.

When the Jordanian Army conquered Jerusalem, they forced the Jews out of the Old City, including the Silwan Jews, and destroyed synagogues and yeshivas. The Jordanians dug up the Jewish gravestones on the Mount of Olives and used them as paving stones in Jerusalem.

Arab families began to occupy Jewish homes, including those in Silwan. Properties and farming land were stolen from absentee Jews by the Arabs without registering ownership.

The area remained under Jordanian occupation until 1967 when Israel succeeded in liberating the territory when yet another war of Arab aggression was forced on the Jewish state by Arab armies.

Today, it remains a contentious area as Jewish organizations fight to re-establish Jewish ownership and a Jewish presence in Silwan. Part of that effort includes the extensive archeological projects that constantly uncovers startling evidence of a three millennia Jewish sovereignty including the City of David, the residence of King David, the water channels that provided water to the Old City and to the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, and the pools that were the cleansing stations for Jewish pilgrims before their ascent to the holy shrine.

The most recent discovery is the Pilgrimage Road, the walkway that took the masses from the mikveh known as the Pool of Siloam in Silwan up to the Jewish Temple. It was along this road that ancient Jewish scholars strode to fulfill their religious obligations at the Temple. Jesus must have walked along this road.

The site was opened with great fanfare on June 30, 2019. It further enhances Israel’s justified sovereignty over Jerusalem. The archaeologically-proven site is further evidence of the Jewish presence two thousand years ago, before the start of Islam.

Documentary narration of a history has been verified by artefacts found at the site, including catapult projectiles used against the Jewish rebels as the Romans were killing Jews and destroying Judaism’s most holy site.

A significant discovery was made at the site in November 2016. Coins minted during this period was uncovered. These coins were minted by Jews about to do battle against the mighty Roman invaders.

The coins feature a menorah and bore the inscription, "Two Years to the Great  Revolt," a message that the struggle for Zion was not over. This was the clarion call of  the Jewish rebels to defy and oppose the foreign rule of Rome. More such coins have been found recently in the archeological excavations at this site with the slogan “For the Redemption of Zion" emblazoned on them.

The coins have come to be called the “Free Zion” coins. 

This is the spirit in which the Pilgrimage Road and everything connected to the contemporary Jewish struggle to re-constitute not only the Jewish narrative but our Jewish sovereignty on this land and in our capital is based.

It is also the cry for our battle against our haters and delegitimizers, the contemporary versions of the Romans.

Compared to the evident presence of Jews dating back three millennia to today, evidence that we were the ones that created, not conquered or destroyed ancient artefacts as the Jordanians and the Palestinian Arabs have done in Jerusalem, but cherished and preserved them, no matter what dynasty they are.

The Palestinians, despite their bluster, have no history of sovereignty, no ancient deeds of ownership. Their “history” is a myth, a fiction dredged up by dark malevolent minds to block the light of inspection onto genuine Jewish legitimacy and heritage.

Today, there is a call to “Free Palestine.” They advance the argument that this Palestine must be “from the river to the sea.”  Yet they cannot find one ancient coin, one artefact, one proven fact to show that a sovereign Palestine ever existed, anywhere.

Against their history bluster there is only one crystal clear answer. Prior to the establishment of the State of Israel, going back in history as far as you can go, there was only one other legitimate sovereignty in the land of Israel, and that was Judea. Judea, where the word Jews derives.

Today, Israel is the third Jewish state to exist in this geographical area. There has never been a non-Jewish sovereign state in the Land of Israel. All other rulers and occupiers were foreigners, including the Arabs. In fact, the Jewish people established their nationhood in the Land of Israel two thousand years before the rise of Islam. The last sovereign power to rule the Land of Israel before the current State of Israel was established in 1948 was the Davidic dynasty, hence the added importance of the recent discoveries in the City of David.

So today we must raise the cry that is found on that tiny coin that speaks to us from two thousand years ago.

Free Zion!

I propose that a banner is raised.  A banner carrying the image of that defiant Jewish coin and the words “Free Zion!”

This banner, badge, flag, emblem, icon, should we displayed by every Zionist, every pro-Israel activist be they Jewish, Christian, Muslim, secular supporters of truth, of Jewish self-determination, and the right of Israel to exist in peace in our historic and legitimate land.

Barry Shaw is the International Public Diplomacy Director at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies,

He is a write, speaker and author of ‘Fighting Hamas, BDS and Anti-Semitism,’ ‘BDS for IDIOTS,’ and ‘1917, From Palestine to the Land of Israel.’

Richard Dreyfuss doesn’t like to be called a hypocrite - but he is.

Actor Richard Dreyfuss told the Hollywood Reporter that he’s become less Jewish, though he admits to feeling good as a “cultural Jew.” And he doesn't like to be called a hypocrite, despite all the personal scandals surrounding him

If that makes him happy in the Hollywood bubble good luck to him, but what upsets me is when he slaps Israelis living in the Jewish state, while being willing to celebrate a Jewish history “of being oppressed.”

In answer to a question on the rise of anti-Semitism around the world and the parallel rise of anti-Zionism, Dreyfuss answered, “Anti-Semitism is on the rise, yes, but we should be more afraid of Jews not behaving like Jews. Jews are given quite an extremely detailed lesson in how to be Jewish, and that's a good thing. It's not to be taken lightly. We'll sound very much like our own worst enemies in trying to protect Zionism and protect our own reputations. We really do need to explore what it means to be Jewish and not let it go away.”

He went on to say, “I’m very proud of being Jewish and I'm very proud of being a cultural Jew. But most Jews are willing to celebrate their own history of being oppressed, and then they'll get up and oppress other people. so, I don't want Jews to do that.”

I guess the oppression of being a Jew in Hollywood must be unbearable, but Dreyfuss obviously has the courage to suck it up and take it. It’s the Jews of Israel he can’t stand. He considers us the Jews who oppress others, of not behaving like Jews.

 He clearly understands little of the complexity of the Middle East and the precarious position of Israeli Jews living as we do in our compressed bubble of three hundred and sixty degrees of violent Jew-hatred expressing itself in gruesome murders on a regular basis for a hundred years. He hasn’t reasoned that perhaps it is them that are oppressing us.

Yes, we are in a conflict, but it is not of our making. God knows, we have tried, repeatedly, to make peace. The conflict in ongoing because the conflict has been the making of those who hate Jews. They do not want to make peace with us. They only want peace without us. Their words, not mine.

Those who will not walk in our shoes, like the Jew Dreyfuss, but who publicly complain about us and not those that come to kill us become the influential useful idiots in the service of our enemy.

Dreyfuss, in his secular philosophical Hollywood mood, talks of Jews as” a great moral template,” justifying his pride in being a detached Jew. Yes, we are, but he is not willing to grant the courageous Israeli Jew, ready to defend his fellow Jew with his life, the same moral template.

Instead, he moralizes that “Antisemitism is on the rise, yes, but we should be more afraid of Jews not behaving like Jews.”

In Dreyfuss’s less Jewish world, it’s OK for Jews to live in Beverly Hills but not in Judea and Samaria, Hebron, or Jerusalem. What sort of “great moral template” is this? This is a reasonable argument for Dreyfuss? A Jew-free Palestine? Surrendering to Islamic anti-semitism?

In this neck of the woods, Mr. Dreyfuss, Jews not behaving like Jews are those that do not go meekly to our death, but stand up against those determined to kill us out of an intense desire to remove us from the face of the earth. 

We are not the defenseless Jews of the Diaspora, the inquisitions, the pogroms, the Shoah. We are no longer Jews behaving like the type of Jew Dreyfuss refers to.  There was no “great moral template” in that history. Only tragedy, sadness and shame.

Richard Dreyfuss told the Hollywood Reporter that he is related to Alfred Dreyfuss. Was there a great moral template in Dreyfuss’s namesake in France, put on military trial and convicted for treason in 1894 to cover the blame of other French officers because he was, as a Jew, a convenient scapegoat?

I think not.

We Israeli Jews are the first Jews in two thousand years who say “Never Again!” and mean it while holding out our hand in peace, a hand that has been lethally rejected since 1948. 

Richard Dreyfuss said, “Most Jews are willing to celebrate their own history of being oppressed...” 

We Israeli Jews do not take pride in a Jewish history of being oppressed, even as we find ourselves under daily threat from across our southern, northern and eastern borders on a daily basis. 

We take pride in building a nation and a people with the courage and ability to stand firm against all enemies. Again, for the first time in two thousand years of our history.

If the actor interprets that as us “oppressing others” then we have a disagreement.  The Israeli perspective is our willingness to let others govern their own lives until such time as they elect leaders willing to accept our Jewish right to exist in this dangerous neighborhood.

Here in Israel, we know what “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” looks like, and it’s no Hollywood movie.

Richard Dreyfuss is busy promoting his new movie, “Astronaut.” Here in Israel, our heads are not in space but grounded in the ugly reality of a dangerous Middle East.

In the Hollywood Reporter article, Dreyfuss rebutted the accusation against him of being a hypocrite after an incident with a woman, his assistant, who accused him of exposing himself in front of her,  while claiming not to notice, on a separate occasion that his son was being groped by Kevin Spacey in his presence in his hotel room.
Apparently, that’s the latest Hollywood gossip. These Hollywood types are so into themselves they don't notice the abuse they inflict on others, or even the abuse that is being inflicted on people near and dear to them.
How can they have any possible space to notice the reality of the Middle East and the perilous lives and abuses inflicted on Israeli Jews.
Dreyfuss said “I was accused of being a hypocrite by someone who I had known and worked with and had respect for. And I don’t buy what she said as valid at all.”

No doubt, the less Jewish Dreyfuss with a great Jewish template will equally reject my claim that he is a hypocrite when it comes to taking cheap shots against Israeli Jews living under very real existential threats.

Until he comes to Israel and engages in close encounters of the first kind with Jews trying to stay alive with aliens who hate us, he will remain, for me, a hypocrite living in a Hollywood bubble.

Barry Shaw is the author of ‘Fighting Hamas, BDS and Anti-Semitism.’

The anti-Israel, Palestine-supporting, LGBT community should reconsider their position.

According to a survey conducted by the Arab Barometer research network during LGBT Pride month in June 2019 for BBC Arabic News revealed shocking facts about the depth of homophobia in the Arab world.
Their wide survey included the Middle East and North Africa.
The BBC reported that "acceptance of homosexuality varies but is low or extremely low across the region."
Algeria scored the highest but at a low 21% tolerance to same-sex relations. They were followed by Morocco with 21%.
But the greatest degree of intolerance of all the groupings to gay and lesbian relationships was found among the Palestinians whose rights have been championed by many in the Western LGBT community.
The survey found that only 5% of Palestinians tolerated same-sex relations

making them the most intolerant group across the region against the gay community.
Jordan scored almost as badly with only a 7% degree of tolerance.
The most surprising statistic was the low 6% found in Lebanon, a country that is considered as being more socially liberal. Apparently this is not so and the low mark could be an indicator of the rising Islamic influence of Hezbollah in Lebanese society.
Lack of access meant that the survey did not include Iran where at least 6,000 gays and lesbians have been executed since the Islamic Revolution. 
At a press conference with the German Foreign Minister, Heiko Mass in June, the Iranian Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, has the gall to say publicly that his country executes gays because of "moral principles."

But so do the Palestinians.

In this survey only Palestinians living in the West Bank were included in the research. Had the survey included the Gaza Strip the figure of 5% would have been even lower.
Hamas enforces a deadly form of homophobia in the Strip. Gays are gruesomely executed in Gaza. 34 year-old, Mahmoud Ishtiwi, was shot three times in the chest on charges of engaging in gay sex. The fact that he was a Hamas commander who hated Jews and Israel didn't save him. Others have been thrown off rooftops.
One thing is common knowledge in Palestinian society. If you are gay in Gaza you either stay in the closet or escape to Tel Aviv.
Richard Grenell, the gay US Ambassador to Germany, is leading the campaign to end the criminalization and persecution of LGBT members in Middle Eastern societies.

The Western LGBT community could take a courageous step by reassessing their position regarding the Palestinian attitude against them and become much more affirmatively active in highlighting the predicament of gays in Palestinian society by promoting the tolerance and freedom afforded their members within Israeli society as an example to the rest of the region.

Barry Shaw is the International Public Diplomacy Director at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.