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August 2016

Review: Uri Bar-Joseph, ‘The Angel: The Egyptian Spy Who Saved Israel’ David Isaac

‘The Angel: The Egyptian Spy Who Saved Israel’ by Uri Bar-Joseph is a book that should be required reading—as a terrible warning—for everyone involved in intelligence. It is the tale of how an intelligence agency, despite having the best information imaginable, can still get it wrong. Bar-Joseph recounts how, prior to the Yom Kippur War of 1973 when Israel suffered a near-fatal blow, Israel had been given detailed knowledge of Egypt’s plans thanks “to an exceptionally rare situation in the history of espionage: the direct assistant to the leader of a country preparing to launch an attack on its enemy was a secret agent on behalf of that enemy.”

That secret agent was Ashraf Marwan, the son-in-law of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and a trusted confidante of his successor, Anwar Sadat. Bar-Joseph, a professor of political science at the University of Haifa, himself a veteran of the war, has the ideal background to write this book. His earlier effort, The Watchman Fell Asleep, took a broad view of the intelligence failures leading up to the Yom Kippur War; it is considered the most important study on the subject and won the Israeli Political Science Association Best Book Award in 2002. In The Angel, ably translated by David Hazony, Bar-Joseph focuses exclusively on the story of the spy central to the drama and the ossified thinking that prevented Israel from taking advantage of the secrets he provided.

In the summer of 1970, Marwan simply consulted the phone book and called the Israeli Embassy from a London telephone booth to offer his services. It took a second phone call five months later for Mossad agents to wake up to the fact that they were being offered what a former Mossad chief would call “the greatest source we have ever had.”

What was Marwan’s motivation? Bar-Joseph hazards some conjectures. Nasser, unusually for an Arab leader, was immune to financial corruption and had no intention of allowing his ambitious son-in-law to use his new family connections to enrich himself. He disliked Marwan and, when his daughter refused his order to divorce him, put him in a job with little pay or scope. But while the desire to get back at Nasser and improve his finances might explain his initial decision, as Bar-Joseph notes, it does not explain why Marwan spied for Israel after Nasser’s death. Marwan’s situation radically improved after he backed Sadat in the face of an attempted palace coup d’état; from then on he enjoyed a key role in Sadat’s inner circle. Bar-Joseph suggests instead that Marwan had a need to live dangerously and seek out risk, almost like an adrenaline junkie. Whatever his motives, writes Bar-Joseph, the cornucopia of information that poured forth from him, the most important concerning the Egyptian military, “went far beyond anything [the Israelis] had known. It was unprecedented in its quality.”

SYRIAN REFUGEES IN AMERICA? BY ED ZIEGLER

The world has a serious problem, that of the massive number of refugees fleeing middle eastern war torn countries. The vast majority of these refugees are Syrian and Iraqi Muslims while non-Muslims constitute less than three percent.

Some countries refuse to admit refugees. Lebanon and Jordan shut their borders to Syrians in 2014. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, United-Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait and Oman will not take a single refugee because of the crime and violence threat to their safety, as Jihadist terrorists hide among those fleeing.

After the Paris attacks, Poland said, ” Forget about taking in refugees.” Turkey has ended its open door policy of admitting Syrian refugees. Last autumn, Hungarian soldiers sealed her border with barbed wire. By refusing to issue visas, Egypt effectively closed its borders to Syrian refugees. Switzerland’s pertaining to Muslims is ” If you reject our customs, we will reject your application.” On the other hand Slovakia is OK taking in Syrians – as long as they’re not Muslim.

The massive migration is due to warring Islamic factions with ISIS as the main aggressor. ISIS has declared that it is restoring the Islamic Caliphate naming Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as Caliph and designated him as political leader. ISIS is attempting to establish itself, by force if needed, as the leader of one Islamic world, worldwide Muslim movement with no national boundaries.

EU Migrant Situation Creating Multiple Flashpoints Across the Continent Amidst Growing Domestic Terror Insurgency By Patrick Poole

The passivity that European governments showed last year as hundreds of thousands of migrants flooded the continent appears to be bearing dire consequences as a long catalogue of incidents occurred over the past week.

Most notably, an American was stabbed to death on the streets of London and several more injured by a Somali man with a Norwegian passport who had been living in the UK since 2002.

And in Belgium, an Algerian man, whom the Islamic State credited as one of its “soldiers,” attacked and wounded two female police officers with a machete earlier today in Charleroi, screaming “Allahu Akbar.” And an entire neighborhood has been evacuated today in Liege after a Turkish man was spotted roaming the streets with a machete.

Since January 2015, there have been 17 terrorist attacks across Europe, killing 258 people and injuring hundreds more. Less than a month ago in Nice, France, on July 14, a Tunisian man, Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, ran over and killed 85 and injured 208 more during a Bastille Day celebration.

In April, the House Homeland Security Committee released its European Terror Threat Snapshot showing that there have been 35 attempted terror attacks by ISIS in Europe since 2014, with 22 of them in 2015 — an average of 2 per month.

Peter O’Brien :Warmism’s Seal of Approval

Most what we are expected to believe about climate change is presented by the media, which makes last night’s ’60Minutes’ worth noting — not for its insights about Antarctica, as there were none — but for the gullible vacuity of reporters and producers who should know better

Let’s say you run an eco-tourist operation involved in providing adventure tours in Antarctica. One of your main lines of business might be using your specially equipped yacht ‘Australis’ to host legions of scientists studying the effect of climate change. But getting late in the season, business starts to dry up and expensively fitted out yachts that charter at over $4,000 (poa) per day for a minimum 21-day trip to Antarctica don’t pay for themselves if siting beside the dock in Ushuaia.

The Charter School Advantage In New York City, some students are making huge achievement gains.

Mayor Bill de Blasio is touting a huge improvement in New York City student test scores this year as evidence that his progressive policies are succeeding. “I can’t stop smiling,” gushed schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña. Their dirty little secret is that charter schools are driving the city’s academic progress.

According to new state testing data, citywide student proficiency increased this year on average by 7.6 percentage points in English and 1.2 percentage points in math to 38% and 36.4%, respectively. Some have attributed the city’s gains, which mirror those statewide, to shorter and easier tests.

Yet strikingly, proficiency at charter schools this year jumped 13.7 percentage points in English and 4.5 percentage points in math to 43% and 47%, respectively. In other words, charter students have improved by two to four times as much as the citywide average.

A recent analysis by Families for Excellent Schools found that New York City charters, whose student populations are more than 90% black and Hispanic, raised their local community school district proficiency rates by 13%. More than 70% of charters outperformed local district schools in math and English. Black and Hispanic students who attended charters scored 73% higher than their counterparts at district-run schools. CONTINUE AT SITE

Clinton Short-Circuits the Truth To avoid admitting that she lied, Hillary offers a ‘master class in obfuscation.’ By L. Gordon Crovitz

About two-thirds of voters say Hillary Clinton isn’t “honest or trustworthy,” which in most elections would be decisive. With so much media focus on Donald Trump, it’s worth parsing Mrs. Clinton’s most recent efforts to persuade voters of her honesty.

Late last month, Fox News’s Chris Wallace played clips of Mrs. Clinton’s statements over the past year about her unsecure home email server. Then he said to her: “After a long investigation, FBI Director James Comey said none of those things that you told the American public were true.”

Mrs. Clinton’s reply: “Director Comey said that my answers were truthful.”

Not even close. Mrs. Clinton denied sending or receiving classified email, but Mr. Comey told Congress: “There was classified material emailed.” Mrs. Clinton claimed there was “nothing marked classified”; Mr. Comey testified: “That’s not true.” He cited more than 100 classified emails, 36 of them top secret. “There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position or in the position of those with whom she was corresponding about the matters should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation,” Mr. Comey said.

Judea and Samaria in a Region of Failed States by David P. Goldman

With the collapse of several artificial nation-states created by the victors of the First World War, the entire region from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf has entered a prolonged period of instability. The Syrian and Libyan states have ceased to exist; the Iraqi State is near collapse; the Lebanese state is hostage to Iran; the Turkish state has just survived a military coup and is descending into authoritarian rule; and Saudi Arabia will not be able to buy domestic peace much longer if oil prices remain low. Egypt survived a revolution and counterrevolution to return to the status quo of military rule, but depends on subsidies from the Gulf States.

Non-state actors now occupy the political and military space left vacant by the collapse or decline of nation-states. That is emphatically true in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, and increasingly true in Turrkey. The most fanatical and determined of these actors play the decisive role—Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria and the Iran-backed Shi’ite militias in Iraq, and ISIS and al-Qaeda in Iraq and Syria. Ethnic and sectarian divisions that were contained by the region’s autocracies have turned into vehicles for existential war.

Thought of the Day – “Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump” Sydney Williams

The Seven Social Sins, as given in a sermon by Frederick Lewis Donaldson

at Westminster Abbey, London, March 20, 1925

“Wealth Without Work

Pleasure Without Conscience

Knowledge Without Character

Commerce Without Morality

Science Without Humanity

Worship Without Sacrifice

Politics Without Principle”

The above quote seems appropriate when meanness and partisanship have replaced respect and collaboration, when cronyism substitutes for service. Nowhere are these characteristics so apparent as with the two candidates our major parties have chosen as their standard bearers.

It is why so many despair at our options. The world is a dangerous place. Capitalism, which has done more to lift people out of poverty over the past two hundred years, is under siege. Western economies are underperforming. Political correctness is pervasive. Divisiveness is ubiquitous: between rich and poor, black and white, Muslims against Christians and Jews, liberals versus conservatives. The list goes on. And who have we nominated to address these problems? A loud-mouthed real estate developer and TV personality and a scheming, duplicitous politician whose lies and corruption exceed anything we’ve seen.

RUTHIE BLUM: THE POLITICS OF EDUCATION

The politics of educationhttp://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=16895 Leave it to the Palestinian Authority and the leaders of Israel’s haredi community never to miss an opportunity to hinder the populations they supposedly represent. On Sunday, after the announcement that extra funding was going to be funneled into east Jerusalem schools that offer the Israeli curriculum, the PA Education Ministry […]

The “Anti-Normalization” Campaign and Israel’s Right to Exist by Khaled Abu Toameh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8656/anti-normalization-israel For many Arabs and Muslims, the conflict with Israel is not about a withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines. These opponents have no intention of recognizing Israel’s right to exist, even if it allows for the creation of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. A leading […]