December 5, 2015 The Simon Wiesenthal Center Vs Geert Wilders Luke Ford No sacred cows.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center Vs Geert Wilders

Posted on December 5, 2015 by Luke Ford

Geert Wilders is one of the giants of our age. He puts his life at risk to save Holland and Europe from conquest by Muslims. Of course the Simon Wiesenthal Center hates him. Wilders is on the side of Western civilization which the SWC is on a jihad to destroy.

From 2011:

The Dutch right-wing populist Geert Wilders is a self-proclaimed ally of the USA and Israel, but when it comes to important issues there appears to be some rather painful disagreements. Wikileaks provides us with some interesting information in this case. The Guardian published in December 2010 US embassy cables which makes clear that the love between Wilders and the USA is not mutual. Wilders is called a “golden pompadoured maverick.” Wilders is “no friend of the US.” because he opposes the war in Aghanistan, NATO-operations outside Europe, the Joint Strike Fighter-project, Turkey’s entrance in the EU, the empowerment of the EU at the cost of national interest, “and, most troubling, he forments fear and hatred of immigrants.” The passage is a reminder that the US foreign policy actively seeks a non-White Europe and the end of national sovereignties within Europe.

It is true that Wilders has pledged allegiance to Israel and the Jewish people, but this relationship is recently under strain. The Simon Wiesenthal Center of Los Angeles (SWC) is calling for urgent action against the ban on ritual slaughter proposed by Wilders’ party and an increasing portion in Dutch Parliament. The SWC is even implicitly branding Wilders as an anti-Semite of the worst kind: “Historically the banning of Shechita was often used by anti-Semites to spread their hateful, and in the case of Nazi Germany, their genocidal agenda.” The spokesman of Wilders’ party Dion Graus said they would not back down on ritual slaughter, because the suffering of animals is more important than the appetite of humans.

The SWC statement is a wonderful example of Jewish inability to come to grips with its own traditions. “The Jewish people, through its Torah and Judaic teachings dating back thousands of years has always been taught that it is sinful to inflict unnecessary pain on any living thing or to take any life unnecessarily.” Except that kosher slaughter does indeed inflict unnecessary pain. So kosher slaughter is incompatible with Jewish teachings?

Wilders’ party basically aimed at the Muslim community with the proposed ban on ritual slaugther, which did not yet pass the vote in Parliament, but it touches on an embarassing public secret: the Jewish religion has more in common with Islam than with Christianity. Jews and Muslims both have similar food laws and rites of passages, like circumcision. Moreover they see their Semitic tongue and scripture as sacred and they both claim descent from Abraham. In this light it is ironic to see the Dutch Christian parties in defence of ritual slaughter against the self-proclaimed friend of Israel and enemy of Islam. It is even more ironic to observe that the political parties who have basically no support among Dutch Jews (and Muslims) are defending their interests.

Posted in Europe, Holland, Islam, Simon Wiesenthal | Comments Off

Simon Wiesenthal Center Policing Web, Gets Rid Content It Does Not Like Through Partnership With Google, Twitter, Facebook

Posted on December 5, 2015 by Luke Ford

Yahoo reports:

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Facebook, Google and Twitter are stepping up efforts to combat online propaganda and recruiting by Islamic militants, but the Internet companies are doing it quietly to avoid the perception that they are helping the authorities police the Web.
On Friday, Facebook Inc said it took down a profile that the company believed belonged to San Bernardino shooter Tashfeen Malik, who with her husband is accused of killing 14 people in a mass shooting that the FBI is investigating as an “act of terrorism.”
Just a day earlier, the French prime minister and European Commission officials met separately with Facebook, Google, Twitter Inc and other companies to demand faster action on what the commission called “online terrorism incitement and hate speech.”
The Internet companies described their policies as straightforward: they ban certain types of content in accordance with their own terms of service, and require court orders to remove or block anything beyond that. Anyone can report, or flag, content for review and possible removal.
But the truth is far more subtle and complicated. According to former employees, Facebook, Google and Twitter all worry that if they are public about their true level of cooperation with Western law enforcement agencies, they will face endless demands for similar action from countries around the world…
Facebook said it banned this year any content praising terrorists.
Google’s YouTube has expanded a little-known “Trusted Flagger” program, allowing groups ranging from a British anti-terror police unit to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a human rights organization, to flag large numbers of videos as problematic and get immediate action.
A Google spokeswoman declined to say how many trusted flaggers there were, but said the vast majority were individuals chosen based on their past accuracy in identifying content that violated YouTube’s policies. No U.S. government agencies were part of the program, though some non-profit U.S. entities have joined in the past year, she said.
“There’s no Wizard of Oz syndrome. We send stuff in and we get an answer,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, head of the Wiesenthal Center’s Digital Terrorism and Hate project.

There is no concern in Torah with stopping “hate speech” and there is no concern in the Jewish tradition with coercing gentiles in gentile countries into not saying anything bigoted or racist or homophobic or Islamophobic.

REPORT OCT. 15, 2015:

Major Jewish Group Urges Social Media Giants to Bar Palestinian Calls ‘to Terrorist Murder’ Against Israelis
Jewish human rights group the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) exhorted social media giants including YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter to ban postings “celebrating and encouraging the continuing wave of stabbings by Palestinians across Israel.”
The widely available social media platforms have come under fire as reports surfaced indicating that many of the Palestinian perpetrators of this past weeks string of deadly and near-fatal terrorist attacks in Israel against Israelis have mobilized or perhaps been radicalized by videos, games, articles and posts on the Internet encouraging violence, terrorism and hate crimes against Jews.
Rabbis Marvin Hier and Abraham Cooper, Dean and Founder and Associate Dean of the SWC, respectively, said that “social networks have been used by terrorists and their supporters to celebrate and incite deadly continuous attacks on Jewish men, women, and children across Israel.”
“We are urging Social Networking giants led by Twitter, YouTube and Facebook to take steps to stop the use of their powerful platforms to spread the terror campaign against Israelis. While Facebook and YouTube have responded to our requests and have removed some of the worst postings, Twitter continues to serve as a key weapon to launch 24/7 calls for more murder, mayhem and violence against the citizens of the Jewish state,” said Cooper, who also directs the Center’s Digital Terrorism and Hate Project.
One of the biggest challenges surrounding the abundance of hate speech on social media is that until netizens find and flag content, the hateful or inciting material goes unnoticed by moderators and therefore remains circulating the web.
Israeli Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Emmanuel Nachshon recalled for The Algemeiner on Thursday that, when it comes to banning violent and inciting material from social media, these “sites cannot do anything of this sort in advance.
“They react to what is reported by other users and then flagged. So, for every film they remove, another one crops up,” he said. Such flagging policy is indeed the modus operandi for all the major social media sites — Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, etc. — which in many ways leaves policing in the hands of users, with the websites merely making the final decision as to whether something reported constitutes hate speech or not.
The Wiesenthal Center meanwhile placed most of the blame for the recent surge in violence nationwide across Israel on the Palestinian Authority and its president, Mahmoud Abbas.
“Mr. Abbas has validated the worst falsehoods about non-existent threats by Israel against the Al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount,” the Center exclaimed. “So long as there are no consequences for this Palestinian campaign of hatred and violence from the international community, led by the US and EU, Israel will be left to struggle to protect her citizens on her own against an onslaught of ancient barbarity promoted by the newest 21st Century technologies.”

From Wiesenthal.com:

Survivors of the Nazi Holocaust affiliated with the Simon Wiesenthal Center have launched a plea to FACEBOOK to deny access to their powerful social networking platform to anyone promoting denial of history’s most document crime. A recent letter from survivors of death camps and ghettos read in part;
We, the undersigned, are Holocaust Survivors who saw our parents, children and loved ones brutally murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust. We are writing to you to protest Facebook’s policy that categorizes Holocaust denial as “free speech,” rather than the shameless, cynical and hateful propaganda that it is.
Listen to the voices of Holocaust Survivors. We volunteer and speak at the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) and the Museum of Tolerance (MOT), where we have shared our personal testimonies with millions of visitors and youth. As individuals who are both victims of and witnesses to the truth of the horrors and hate of that time period, we are deeply hurt and offended by your policy that protects Holocaust denial as speech. Above all else, Holocaust denial, in any form, is a desecration of our suffering the suffering and martyrdom of our murdered parents, brothers and sisters.
Do not permit Holocaust denial any platform on Facebook to preach its inherentmessage of lies and hate. By allowing this hate propaganda on Facebook, you are exposing the public and, in particular, youth to the anti-Semitism which fueled the Holocaust. Please correct this terrible error in judgment before our generation passes away… (To read letter click here)
In an initial response, a Vice-President of Facebook offered to “keep the dialogue open” on the matter but re-stated his company’s position:”… we also think it’s important to maintain consistency in our policies, which don’t generally prohibit people from making statements about historical events, no matter how ignorant the statement or how awful the event.”
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, an expert on Digital Hate and Terrorism, who often briefs online companies like Facebook, Google and Yahoo on such issues criticized Facebook’s stance, “I cannot however emphasize enough how wrong Facebook’s policy on Holocaust Denial is. A review of denial sites currently active on Facebook confirm that it is not mere speech but that it constitutes at its core a platform for bigotry and hatred of Jews, dead and alive. That is how notorious Holocaust deniers, and anti-Semites continue to Facebook’s social networking service in multiple languages.
“We will continue to urge Facebook officials to reflect on the pain and suffering their policy is causing victims of the Shoah. For these aging heroes, every posting by deniers labels them, not victims of history’s greatest crime, but liars and thieves,” Cooper said.
The Wiesenthal Center is urging Holocaust survivors and their families to join the Witness to the Truth campaign by emailing their family’s name and brief details, if possible to [email protected] – to add to the existing roster of names.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).
For more information, please contact the Center’s Public Relations Department, 310-553-9036, join the Center on Facebook, www.facebook.com/simonwiesenthalcenter, or follow @simonwiesenthal for news updates sent direct to your Twitter page or mobile device.

So according to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, propaganda does not enjoy free speech protection nor does anything the SWC regards as hateful or bigoted.

Why should the historical record of WWII, including the killing of Jews, be immune from revisionist challenges? This is un-American.

“As individuals who are both victims of and witnesses to the truth of the horrors and hate of that time period, we are deeply hurt and offended by your policy that protects Holocaust denial as speech.”

Why should hurt feelings restrict free speech?

“We will continue to urge Facebook officials to reflect on the pain and suffering their policy is causing victims of the Shoah. For these aging heroes, every posting by deniers labels them, not victims of history’s greatest crime, but liars and thieves,” Cooper said.

Why is the Holocaust history’s greatest crime? What about the killing of tens of millions of non-Jews? Why is the killing of Jews worse than the killing of gentiles?

From Wiesenthal.com:

Social Media Must Do More To Thwart Subculture Of Hate Fueling Lone Wolf Terrorism – Simon Wiesenthal Center Debuts 2012 Digital Hate Report
New York, NY March 27, 2012 — Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and one of the leading experts in the analysis of cyberspace extremism released the 14th Annual Digital Terror & Hate Report and digital application (APP) Monday at the New York Tolerance Museum. Dr. William Vendley, Religions tor Peace Secretary General, and Mark Weitzman, Director of Simon Wiesenthal Center International Taskforce against Terrorism and Hate, accompanied him for the unveiling.
The release of Digital Terrorism and Hate Project’s (DTH) new Digital Terror and Hate password-sensitive APP coincides with the release of the DTH 2012 report, and is designed for law enforcement, government agencies, and policymakers. While cyber hate is on the rise, fewer than half of all law enforcement agencies (47%) have a social media policy, according to a recent police survey.
The 2012 DTH Report is based on approximately 15,000 problematic Web sites, social networking pages, forums and newer online technology games and apps. The interactive report presented the latest trends of how terrorist and hate groups manipulate and leverage internet technologies. The recent Toulouse France attack was sighted to illustrate the subculture of hate formed online. “The perpetrator in the horrific attack in Toulouse France may have learned how to create a bomb in Afghanistan, but he supercharged his hate from the internet” said Rabbi Cooper.
“Social networking companies’ commitment to deter the use of their services by terrorists and bigots is uneven. If social media outlets were to receive grades, they would receive the following: Youtube (C-), Facebook (A-), and Twitter (N/A)” stated Rabbi Cooper. “If the world is going to effectively deal with the growing threat from Lone Wolf terrorists, the social media companies lead by Facebook, Google, YouTube, and Twitter must do more.”
Major interfaith leader Dr. William Vendley, concerned about the online targeting of religious minorities said, “None of the religious communities are immune from hatred. Today every religious community needs to build solidarity across all religious borders to reject both religiously based and targeted violence. Religions for Peace (NGO at United Nations) advances that solidarity in more than 90 countries around the world. We are pleased to be in partnership with Simon Wiesenthal Center.”

Who says Abraham Cooper is a leading expert in anything? The SWC?

“Social networking companies’ commitment to deter the use of their services by terrorists and bigots is uneven. If social media outlets were to receive grades, they would receive the following: Youtube (C-), Facebook (A-), and Twitter (N/A)” stated Rabbi Cooper.

So bigots should not be allowed to use social media? Who decides what is bigotry? The SWC? Rabbi Cooper? I could read vast swathes of the Torah to any fair-minded observer and he would likely consider it bigoted. Does the SWC want to declare Torah hate speech? Of course not. The Simon Wiesenthal Center does not care about bigotry and hate speech except when it is directed against Jews (and those who are useful flunkies). The SWC sees everything through the prism of what is good for Jews. It does not stand for any universal principles except to the extent they are useful for Jews at the moment.

The SWC, along with the ADL and the SPLC, are radical organizations bent on destroying non-Jewish forms of nationalism. They’re playing a vicious game to destroy cohesion among the gentiles.

Here is an excerpt from the Talmud. Please tell me if this is hate speech.

Onkelos son of Kolonikos … went and raised Titus from the dead by magical arts, and asked him; ‘Who is most in repute in the [other] world? He replied: Israel. What then, he said, about joining them? He said: Their observances are burdensome and you will not be able to carry them out. Go and attack them in that world and you will be at the top as it is written, Her adversaries are become the head etc.; whoever harasses Israel becomes head. He asked him: What is your punishment [in the other world]? He replied: What I decreed for myself. Every day my ashes are collected and sentence is passed on me and I am burnt and my ashes are scattered over the seven seas. He then went and raised Balaam by incantations. He asked him: Who is in repute in the other world? He replied: Israel. What then, he said, about joining them? He replied: Thou shalt not seek their peace nor their prosperity all thy days for ever. He then asked: What is your punishment? He replied: With boiling hot semen. He then went and raised by incantations Jesus [in Vilna edition: “the sinners of Israel”; “Jesus” appears in Munich 95 and Vatican 140 manuscripts and “he went and brought up Jesus the Nazarene” (Editions or MSs: Vatican 130)]. He asked them: Who is in repute in the other world? They replied: Israel. What about joining them? They replied: Seek their welfare, seek not their harm. Whoever touches them touches the apple of his eye. He said: What is your punishment? They replied: With boiling hot excrement, since a Master has said: Whoever mocks at the words of the Sages is punished with boiling hot excrement. Observe the difference between the sinners of Israel and the prophets of the other nations who worship idols. It has been taught: Note from this incident how serious a thing it is to put a man to shame, for God espoused the cause of Bar Kamza and destroyed His House and burnt His Temple.
— Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 56b-57a

So when the Talmud pictures Jesus — the god of the goyim — suffering for eternity in boiling hot excrement, is that hate speech? Asking for a friend.

I’m not arguing that Jews and Judaism are bad or nasty or bigoted. I’m just arguing that it is normal, natural and healthy for all strongly identifying in-groups such as Jews and Muslims to have negative feelings towards out-groups.

Rabbi Jack Abramowitz writes for the Orthodox Union:

There are six things that the Torah commands us to remember. Optimally, these verses should be recited out loud each day and their meanings should be considered…
3. Amalek’s Evil Attack Remember what Amalek did to you on the journey when you left Egypt. They met you on the way and ambushed those who were lagging behind. You were tired and exhausted, but they did not fear God. Therefore, when Hashem your God relieves you from your enemies in the land that He will give you to possess, you must erase the memory of Amalek from beneath heaven. Do not forget. (Devarim 25:17-19) Amalek is different from other nations that attacked Israel in that we are commanded to eradicate them. Why should they be punished more harshly than Egypt, which oppressed the Jews for hundreds of years? One reason is because Amalek “did not fear God.” They dared to make war not just with the Jews, but with God Himself!

Is that hate speech?

Posted in ADL, Censorship, Holocaust, Judaism, Simon Wiesenthal | Comments Off

Our Leaders: We Just Have to live With Muslim Attacks

Posted on December 5, 2015 by Luke Ford

From today’s New York Times:

While it would be a worrisome intelligence failure if the government missed obvious warning signs, William McCants, a former State Department official who worked on countering violent extremism, said the alternative — that there were no signs at all — would be worse. “It would mean that ISIS fans are learning to be less vocal in their fandom to avoid detection, making them much harder to identify and stop an attack,” said Mr. McCants, author of “The ISIS Apocalypse,” a new history of the Islamic State.As a result, the San Bernardino massacre may presage a bitter new reality in the United States. “It’ll gradually dawn on people,” said Bruce Jones, a former United Nations official and the director of foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, “that we’ll be living for a long time with the possibility of low-level attacks that can never be predicted and can rarely be prevented.”

I guess we could accept countless Muslim attacks on us or we could get serious.

I think it would lovely if whites in the West had at least half as much group loyalty as blacks, Jews and Muslims.

Posted in America, Islam | Comments Off

Jews & The 2003 Iraq War

Posted on December 5, 2015 by Luke Ford

American Jews had a more skeptical view than regular Americans about the wisdom of invading Iraq in 2003, and yet the major Jewish organizations were pushing the war, just another example of how Jewish elites are out of touch with the sentiments of regular Jews.

Torah Jews aka Orthodox Jews are obsessed with study and observance of Torah and the safety of their children and of their communities. They don’t spend much time lobbying gentile countries, not on going to war with Iraq, and not on other matters as well.

The more Jews study Torah, the less likely they are to concern themselves with gentile politics.

There is nothing inherent in Jewish genes and in Jewish texts to predispose Jews towards any particular politics in gentile lands (so long as Jews are free to study and live out their tradition).

The more Jews study Torah, the less likely they are to enlist in the armed forces and the less likely they are to become professional lobbyists and media tycoons.

Posted in ADL, AIPAC, Iraq, Jews, Neoconservatives | Comments Off

Americans Wake Up

Posted on December 4, 2015 by Luke Ford

Posted in America | Comments Off

The Beyonce Love Doll Controversy

Posted on December 4, 2015 by Luke Ford

If only James Deen had one of these, he wouldn’t have needed to rape anybody.

From Amazon.com: “She ain’t no beyonce! she’s a blow-up bee-yatch who’s crazy in love with cock! you don’t have to put a ring on this pumped-up pop diva to make her all yours though–just add air and this bootylicious babe is your date for the night! don’t let her seductive smile and good-girl reputation fool you–her three love holes are begging to be filled with your man meat! make her hit the high note while you tap that ass from behind! rap star boyfriend not included.”

Daily Mail: Fraternity sparks outrage after posing with black ‘Beyoncé’ sex doll in racist Christmas card

A fraternity at the University of Pennsylvania has been accused of racism after including a black blow-up sex-doll in their annual Christmas card.
The picture meant to send holiday greetings from the Phi Delta Theta fraternity sparked outrage when recipients spotted the black doll among the overwhelmingly white group of young men.
The Phi Delta Theta fraternity has now been forced to apologise for the Christmas card, saying that there was ‘no justification for this act of poor judgement’.
The picture was posted on the Phi Delta Theta’s Facebook and shows 29 young University of Pennsylvania students posing in what appears to be a lounge room.
Among the young smiling men with their arms on each other’s shoulders is a plastic blow-up sex doll.

SOUL protests with fake slave auctioning block in front of Phi Delt house

Locust Walk was transformed into a slave auctioning block on Friday afternoon as part of a protest led by Students Organizing for Unity and Liberation.

In front of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity house, a member of the group stood on a box with plastic chains around her neck, reciting a poem directed toward the members of the fraternity, calling them out for their choice to feature a black blow-up sex doll in their holiday photo last December.

“When you walk on Locust, you’re not supposed to feel the violence that is this house,” College senior Victoria Ford, the student reciting the poem, said.

The photo went viral at the time after students expressed outrage at the inclusion of the doll, something many students felt was racially insensitive and potentially sexist. Students in the fraternity claimed the doll was meant to be a joke gift during the fraternity’s Secret Santa exchange, and was marketed as resembling Beyoncé.

“For four months, I have walked in front of this house and have lost all sense of worth,” Ford said. “No more.”

Posted in Blacks | Comments Off

What’s your favorite part of every Islamic slaughter?

Posted on December 4, 2015 by Luke Ford

* “My favorite part of every terrorist slaughter is being righteously lectured by CAIR while the bodies are still cooling.”

* The higher the bodies are piled, the higher the horse CAIR and its minions sit upon while accusing America of being the “real killers.”

* In a way, the guy who made fun of Syed’s beard is the real culprit here.

* I am sick of this regular cycle of Muslim terrorist attack followed by Muslim grievance-mongering and accusation-throwing.

* “Terrorism” seems to me to be violence that demands political change. Is this that? What change is demanded? Or is this just “war?”

* From Red State:

Syed Farook’s Family Has Hired a Crazy, Conspiracy-theory Addled Lawyer

I haven’t really wanted to comment on this because I try not to judge how a family handles its grief at the loss of a family member. However, the family has hired two lawyers, at least one of whom appears to be a stark raving conspiracy nut. These two yahoos have been on virtually every media outlet in the entire world today, and it’s time to at least acknowledge that they are not helping. Of course, I’m not entirely sure what the family’s goal is at this point.

It is beyond caveat, according to the testimony of basically infinity witnesses, that both Farook and his wife exchanged fire with police when police attempted to stop them in the now-infamous black SUV. Moreover, the trail of evidence that led them to Farook came from a tip from a worker at the County office, and when police looked into Farook they found that he had rented the black SUV that witnesses had clearly indicated the shooters had left the scene in. Even if you discount all the evidence found by police (as conspiracy theorists are wont to do), then you are left with overwhelming testimony by innocent bystanders that these two were responsible for the shootings in San Bernardino.

Now, they’re both dead at this point and thus not going to ever face trial. Only a crazy person would attempt to sue the city for their wrongful deaths, given what has occurred. So I am not sure what the end game is here for these attorneys, but right now they are making themselves and the Farook family seem like kooks.

Posted in Islam | Comments Off

WEHT: South L.A. student finds a different world at Cal

Posted on December 4, 2015 by Luke Ford

Los Angeles Times Aug. 26, 2013:

Kashawn Campbell overcame many obstacles to become a straight-A student. But his freshman year at UC Berkeley shook him to the core.
School had always been his safe harbor.
Growing up in one of South Los Angeles’ bleakest, most violent neighborhoods, he learned about the world by watching “Jeopardy” and willed himself to become a straight-A student.
His teachers and his classmates at Jefferson High all rooted for the slight and hopeful African American teenager. He was named the prom king, the most likely to succeed, the senior class salutatorian. He was accepted to UC Berkeley, one of the nation’s most renowned public universities.
A semester later, Kashawn Campbell sat inside a cramped room on a dorm floor that Cal reserves for black students. It was early January, and he stared nervously at his first college transcript.
There wasn’t much good to see.

How’s Kashawn doing today?

From his Twitter: “I am a current UC Berkeley student who wants to change the world with the art of theater and dance. I’m a huge wrestling fan of WWE. Time to enjoy life!”

Posted in Blacks | Comments Off

The Visa Waiver Program

Posted on December 4, 2015 by Luke Ford

BY COLEEN ROWLEY AND GEORGIANNE NIENABER:

All the hyped political angst regarding the possible resettling of a few thousand Syrian refugees stands in stark contrast to the relative lack of congressional concern about the equally, if not more inherently problematic Visa Waiver Program (VWP). This long-standing, historically-proven dangerous, but little understood Department of Homeland Security (DHS)-administered program, allowed 21,231,396 foreign visitors from 38 countries to pass through U.S. ports of entry with minimal to no screening according to 2013 official records (the most recent data published). The numbers should give pause, since visitors admitted each year via the VWP are over 2000 times greater than the “up to 10,000” refugees proposed a few months ago by President Obama for eventual resettlement in the U.S. The number of VWP entrants is nearly 20,000 times greater than the 1,300 Syrians previously allowed into the U.S. since the conflict began over four years ago. The VWP program allows 300 times more foreign visitors into the U.S. than refugees from all countries combined.

Of those entering under the VWP: 293,217 came from Belgium; 1,804,035 from France; and 512,299 from Sweden.[1] Even before the more recent Charlie Hebdo and November 13th attacks in Paris, it was known that the United Kingdom, France, Belgium and Sweden were emerging [2] as home bases for Islamic extremists joining ISIL. So do these countries, among others in the waiver program, offer potentially easy access to the United States for some of their increasingly radicalized citizens now supporting known terrorist organizations?

Visa Waiver Program: What we know and don’t know

We suggested last year in the Huffington Post[3] that the United States has a gaping hole in its DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) monitoring. There had been little public discussion of the VWP,[4] a program that thirty-eight countries currently participate in. Participating countries agree to loosen travel restrictions in order to encourage tourism, trade and business travel.

Before traveling to the U.S. by sea or air, VWP participants must fill out an Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) form online. It costs a modest $14 and assumes that the applicant is telling the truth about previous visa denials and run-ins with the law.

Since November 2014, new information,[5] including additional passport data, contact information, and potential names or aliases, is required. Once the applicant has the ESTA application completed, he/she needs no other paperwork other than a valid passport from one of the participating countries.

“Upon landing in the U.S.,” according to the optimistic March 2015 testimony [6] of the Director of the Heritage Foundation Steven P. Bucci, “individuals must provide biographic and biometric information that is checked against additional sets of biometric databases controlled by DHS (Automated Biometric Identification System or IDENT) and the FBI (Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System or IAFIS). The individual is once again checked through TECS, the ATS, and the APIS and undergoes additional inspection if necessary. At any point in this process, security officials can prevent an individual from entering the U.S. if they are deemed a security risk or ineligible for travel to the U.S.” Bucci testified before the Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security, Committee on Homeland Security, in the United States House of Representatives.

Bucci’s description makes it sound like a “robust screening process” but what we don’t know, what is critically missing from his rosy prognosis, is how many of the over 1.1 million terrorist suspects that have made it onto key “terrorist watchlists” can be conclusively identified by biometric data alone, as Bucci’s testimony suggests.

Could it be more likely that the only real barrier to entrance to the United States is the Customs and Border Protection officer at the port of entry, who stamps the passport, with or without a few questions, and with little means of verification? Unless a match comes up with someone entered on the Terrorist Watch List or the no-fly list, the VWP traveler is free to enter for up to 90 days or vanish underground. The Heritage Foundation Director’s testimony included the impressively complicated chart below about how the VWP system is supposed to work, but the chart raises as many questions as it answers. It certainly doesn’t answer the most important questions about the actual effectiveness of the watch listing, checking and flagging process.

The ESTA regulations also have gaping enforcement holes. In 2010 (the latest data available), 364,000 [7] travelers were able to travel under the VWP program without even the minimum verified ESTA approval by airlines, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO). No one knows to what extent these passengers presented a security risk or if they left the country after the required 90 day limit on their stays.

Historically, it must be noted that al Qaeda- aligned terrorists have already used the VWP to gain access to soft targets in the U.S. French citizen and later convicted 9-11 participant Zacarias Moussaoui traveled on the VWP before he enrolled in Oklahoma and Minneapolis flight training schools prior to 9-11. Richard Reid, the “Shoebomber,” along with Ahmed Ajaj, also traveled on the VWP. In December 2001 Reid used an Amsterdam-issued British passport to board an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami. In a separate incident, border agents caught Ajaj with bomb making materials and a cheat sheet explaining how to lie to border officials. Ajaj was using a Swedish passport on the VWP.

Ramzi Yousef, one of the main perpetrators of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a co-conspirator in the Bojinka [8] (airline bombing) plot to blow up 11 American jumbo jets, used the VWP on a fraudulent British passport.

Yousef had boarded in Peshawar with a fraudulent British passport, presumably with no U.S. visa, and when he arrived at JFK, presented an Iraqi passport in his own name, with no visa. Yousef was sent to secondary inspections where he requested political asylum; he was released on his own recognizance and went on to finish organizing the WTC bombing.

Despite the fact that both Youssef and Ajaj were caught [9] in 1992 with numerous false passports, Youssef was not even detained, but was released in the U.S., and Ajaj was also later released. These egregious examples all occurred before or shortly after “9-11 changed everything.” Some of these problems were likely remedied, but no one knows if the post 9-11 collection and management of “big data” did not create new snafus.

A 2004 OIG evaluation [10] of the VWP still found significant problems and asked for reforms in 14 areas. One reform involved development of a process to check all Lost and Stolen Passport (LASP) data provided by participating VWP governments against entry and exit data in U.S. systems.

A 2014 report [11], prepared for Congress by the Congressional Research Service, says the 2008 reform mandates, which were required because of the 2004 OIG evaluation, are not complete. DHS has completed the pilot programs, but according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), “DHS cannot reliably commit to when and how the work will be accomplished to deliver a comprehensive exit solution to its almost 300 ports of entry.”

2012 testimony [12] to the GAO by Rebecca Gambler, Acting Director of Homeland Security and Justice, revealed that data is being collected by some VWP countries but not shared by any.

As of January 2011, 18 of the 36 Visa Waiver Program countries had met the PCSC (Preventing Combating Serious Crime) and information-sharing agreement requirement, but the networking modifications and system upgrades required to enable this information sharing to take place have not been completed for any Visa Waiver Program countries.

COMMENTS:

* Since the arrest and conviction of America’s mass-spy, Jonathan Pollard, the 52 pro-Israel Jewish organizations led by AIPAC has been campaigning for allowing Israelis to enter the United States without a visa under the ‘Visa Waiver Program’ is being resisted by American intelligence agencies for the same reason. Why?

On May 6, 2014, ‘Newsweek’ published an article in which its investigative reporter Jeff Stein claimed that Israel spies on the United States more than any US ally does and these activities have reached a ‘terrifying’ level.

Israel’s espionage activities in America are unrivaled and unseemly; counterspies have told members of the House Judiciary and Foreign Affairs committees, going far beyond activities by other close allies, such as Germany, France, the UK and Japan. A congressional staffer familiar with a briefing last January called the testimony “very sobering…alarming…even terrifying.” Another staffer called it “damaging.”

* A huge concern is the fact that many non-Europeans, read non-White, now hold European passports and the US government foolishly does not racially profile.

Real Europeans entering without a visa was not a problem. We should learn from Israel and the way they deal with entry into their country.

* I’ve been a staunch critic of the “Top Secret America” Total Information Awareness” plan from start, and long before Snowden’s disclosures. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/coleen-rowley/how-top-secret-america-mi_b_811049.html I wrote this just a couple days after Snowden’s disclosures: http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/11/opinion/rowley-nsa-surveillance/index.html and most recently this in the Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/28/bigger-haystack-harder-terrorist-communication-future-attacks

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The Torah and the Transgendered

Posted on December 4, 2015 by Luke Ford

Dennis Prager writes: …Torah prohibits men from wearing women’s clothing, and women from wearing male garb. For the Torah, the distinction between men and women is fundamental to creating civilization. When the human being is created, the Torah emphasizes: “Male and female He created them.” And that distinction is made manifest in the commandments against men and women wearing the clothing of the opposite sex.
But for most modern Jews, the Torah’s male-female distinction is anachronistic at best and bigoted at worst.
That is, of course, what much of secular society now believes. Therefore, men who feel that they are women — even if they remain fully male anatomically and biologically — are now admitted to all-women’s colleges. And a biological and anatomical male can play on women’s sports teams, thereby depriving a natural woman of a place on the team and giving their team an unfair advantage in almost any sport.
Likewise, a Southern California synagogue has hired as its director of education a biological female rabbi who identifies as male, wears masculine clothing, is referred to as male and insists on being called by her/his given female name. Obviously, the congregation and the rabbi believe that the Torah’s view on gender distinction is irrelevant.
So, then, here is the question: How do Jews who support ending gender distinctions — electing boys as homecoming queens, admitting males who believe themselves to be females into high school girls’ locker rooms and into all-women colleges, allowing anatomical males to play on women’s sports teams, hiring as rabbis females who identify as males and yet insist on being called by a female name — know that they are right?

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