Jihadists in Sinai continued their war against Egypt Saturday evening and killed three soldiers and wounded four others in the northern Sinai.

Egyptian military spokesman said soldiers staged counter attacks on Saturday, killing 39 jihadists and destroying two vehicles loaded with bombs.

Islamic State (ISIS) supporters have claimed responsibility for the Grad rocket attack north of Be’er Sheva last week and have issued a 48-hour ultimatum to Hamas to halt its crackdown against them.

The Islamic Jihad originally said it was behind the missile attack, the first beyond the Gaza Belt area since the war against Hamas last summer.

It is not known if the ISIS cells in Gaza are directly linked to the parent organization, but the fact that they have claimed responsibility for the rocket attack indicates they are active are staging a propaganda campaign to attract more recruits.

They have not said what they will do if Hamas does not “withdraw the attacks” against them” in two days, but Hamas clearly is worried.

It has set up checkpoints within Gaza City the past month following several explosions that have been attributed to ISIS cells.

Jihadists blame Hamas for being “soft” on Israel and for not imposing Islamic law on Gaza.

Hamas finally has found an enemy it fears. The terrorist organization always has been able to draw Israel into wars and then escape with its life. No matter how much damage Israel causes to its infrastructure, Hamas always springs back to life.

Its corruption has kept civilians at their mercy, creating exactly the conditions that make an organization like ISIS even more appealing than Islamic Jihad and other terrorist groups that simply are a re-make of Hamas.

The Islamic State is different. It operates out of fear, and anyone who does not have the will to fight back becomes its slave. Whoever does fight back has to be willing to be beheaded.

There is nothing more that ISIS would like than to behead an Israeli, and an Arab probably would be preferred in order to scare other Arabs into fighting Israel.

Egypt has banished Hamas, but one Israel security official told a Births newspaper that the presence of the ISIS in Gaza may force Cairo, as well as Israel, to carry out back-door cooperation with Hamas to squash ISIS.

There is one thing all of those calling for Israel to stop building settlements and take chances for peace with the Palestinians are ignoring. That ‘thing’ is ISIS. What is so puzzling is that it is so obvious! Now more than ever.

As much as I am opposed to settlement building right now, (for reasons I’m not going to get into here) they are not the real impediment to peace. Anyone who has been paying even the slightest bit of attention would see the proverbial ‘Elephant in the Room’. Which is radical Fundamentalist Islam.

As I have said many times, I am in favor of making peace with the Arabs and am willing to pay a price for it. My reasons are simple. I want to see an end to the hostilities. I want to see an end to terrorists blowing themselves up in crowded areas in Israel. I want to see an end to rockets being fired at her. I do not want to see any more Jews being tortured and butchered; kidnapped or maimed.

I want there to be peace between two peoples so that each can get on with their lives without fear. Without one people subjugating another. Without one people needing to resort to harsh measures against the other for security reasons. I want that to end and am willing to pay the price of even an Oslo Accord type solution if that would guarantee a peace between 2 peoples sharing a border. A peace similar to what the United States has with Canada.

But as I have also said, that is currently a pipe dream so remote that it is pure folly to even suggest it.

But the nations of the world – including the United States (under the leadership of the Obama administration) think that it is still possible even in today’s terrorist climate. If only Israel would stop building settlements and ‘take chances’ for peace – they say.

This ‘song and dance’ may have made sense to the world pre 9/11 (Although not to those of us who knew what radical Islam was long before that – Israel having had its share of suicide attacks.) After 9/11 however, it should have been obvious to everyone what the real impediment to peace is. It is not settlements. It is the mindset of the devout Fundamentalist Muslim in the Arab world. It is from their ranks that the 9/11 terrorists were recruited. One may recall all the rejoicing in the Arab street after 9/11. It was the devout Burka clad Muslim women that were handing out candy to children while the masses were cheering in the street.

It should have been clear then that Israel’s existence was not the real issue. That Islamic fundamentalism was. And for a while I thought the all of the American people would finally get it… and understand what Israel’s needs are all about and why they need to take the security measures that end up being so harsh on the Palestinian people.

Unfortunately not long after 9/11 some started saying that if not for Israel none of this would have happened. The Muslim extremists only attacked the US on 9/11 because of its support for the Jewish State. That it was Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians under its occupation that caused 9/11. While most Americans did understand the truth, there were plenty of people that somehow ignored it and simply painted Israel as occupying tyrants that were torturing the poor helpless and innocent Palestinian underdog for simply existing.

This is the mindset of some of academia. Universities are filled with Palestinian academics and their sympathizers who preach hatred of Israel to their students. It is also the mindset of the BDS movement that advocates Boycotting, Divestment from, and Sanctioning the State of Israel because of their treatment of Palestinians.

The murderer of four people, including two Jews from Tel Aviv, in the attack last May on the Jewish Museum in Brussels was an ISIS terrorist who was one of the captors and torturers of James Foley, Steve Sotloff and a French journalist, who was released and now had identified the killer.

The terrorist is Medhi Nemmouche, a French citizen who is to go on trial in Belgium on Friday for the murders at the museum. He was arrested several days after the terrorist attack, and he fought for the Islamic State (ISIS) in 2013 only three weeks after he was released from prison, where he served five years for armed robbery.

The immediate reaction of Brussels officials after the attack was typical of the head in the sand illusion that makes believe that many terrorists are “lone wolves,” that many attacks on Jews or Jewish institutions are just a coincidence and that the radical Islamic movement in Europe does not threaten to overthrow the entire continent.

The fact that at that time of his arrest he had a white sheet emblazoned with the name of the ISIS clearly indicates Nemmouche, even if he acted alone, was not just some jihadist who woke up one morning and decided to become a terrorist.

Anti-Semitism in France is rampant. Considering that the motive was “open” was a denial of reality.

Nemmouche was identified by French journalist Nicolas Henin as the terrorist who attacked the museum. The fact that he is a French citizen belies the false belief among many European leaders that the jihadists are imports.

“The accused gunman is also French, increasing fears in Europe over European citizens’ ties to extremist groups,” National Public Radio reported. French authorities estimate that nearly 1,000 other people from France have joined the jihadists in Syria, and every one of them, unless they are killed first, could be the next Nemmouche.

Henin, who was kidnapped in Syria in 2013 and held for almost a year, said that Nemmouche was only one of several French citizens who were in charge of the prison where he was held.

The journalist has known for some time that one of his captors was Nemmouche but did not say anything in order to protect other Westerners held by ISIS. He broke his silence after Le Monde reported that investigators have linked the killer with ISIS, which really should not be a surprise considering that the sheet with the name ISIS n it at the time of his arrest was widely reported.

“When Nemmouche wasn’t singing, he tortured,” Henin wrote in Le Point. “The torture lasted the night, up until the dawn prayer,” when radical Muslims appeal to Allah to give them the strength for more barbarism.

Europe’s “everything is just dandy” mirage is its own death sentence. Nemmouche used his French citizenship to return to enter Belgium from Germany and is “a perfect example of the difficulty in tracking European jihadists, reported NPR’s Eleanor Beardsley.

Henin’s lawyer Marie-Laure Ingouf told AFP that “Nemmouche was one of his jailers. All the hostages confirm this. They lived alongside him for several months.”

Henin spent part of his time as hostage along with journalists Foley and Sotloff, who were beheaded by ISIS in the past two weeks. He added that it was clear to him and others in captivity that Nemmouche did not leave Syria in order to become a good citizen.

“It seemed to us that he did not leave for Syria because of some grand ideals but, above all, to make his mark, to carry out a murderous path that he had traced,” Henin said.

Beware! Beheading is rapidly becoming the new fashion method for terrorists. The Islamic State’s methods are spreading very quickly to other geographic arenas in the Middle East and Africa.

In the past couple of weeks we have heard about cases of beheading in numerous other countries. There have been such cases reported in Lebanon, in the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, and in Nigeria as well, the latter carried out by the Boko Haram group who kidnapped hundreds of Christian girls for slaves several months ago.

Unfortunately the media – especially the social media – has no doubt played a major role in exporting the idea of beheading from Iraq and Syria to other parts of the world.

Reports of the incidents zip around the world with each new beheading, although such barbaric methods are not new. Journalist James Foley was not the first victim. And journalist Steve Sotloff, a Jewish Israeli-American dual citizen who hid both his Judaism and his Israeli citizenship, just joined his beheaded colleague.

We have already seen what Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi did to Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. We saw what happened to British soldier Lee Rigby in the streets of London.

Now, I am afraid, beheading has become a fashion; an acceptable, legitimate, ‘regular’ method of jihad.

The Western silence is shocking. Everyone says it is “there” and not “here.” “Who cares about ‘them’?” “Let them kill each other.”

Where are the demonstrations against the beheading of the Yazidis? Where is the support for the Christians in Nigeria? Where are all the moderate Muslims? Why don’t we hear their condemnation of this ‘fashion’ of beheading?

The world is sleep-walking!!

Be warned: if the world continues to simply bat helplessly away in deafening silence, beheading will become a fashion in “our” place as well. If will cross continents and oceans, and no place will remain immune.

Wake up before it’s too late. I hope and pray I am wrong; but I fear that I am only too right.

(Reposted with permission from author’s website)
Moderate truth-teller Daniel Pipes (Dream) has further moderated his stance on Islam by actually entertaining the idea of “Moderate Islamism”, with Andrew C. McCarthy- whom I’ve debated about this– giving it some credence. We’ve gone from Naming the Enemy -Nazism, Communism- to Renaming the Enemy – “Islamic Totalitarianism”, “Radical Islam”, “Islamism”, etc,. all to the enemy’s benefit. This is Unacceptable, especially during wartime. If you’re afraid to name the problem- Islam- then you can’t fight it effectively, and the enemy wants this to continue forever. I’m once again posting my argument for why we should Always Call Islam Islam:

I wrote the following piece – Calling Islam “Islam” – a few years ago, and I think it’s worth posting again. I notice that after each Islamic attack against us, people begin to use more proper terminology to identify the enemy, which is crucial in eventually defeating the enemy. I recall watching panel discussions after 9/11, with each panelist using a different term to describe the enemy we face. That annoyed the hell out of me as I think it’s incredibly important to identify the proper terms when speaking about our enemy, and to NEVER create terms, for whatever reason. To me, the only difference between “Islamism” and Islam is three letters. Below I try my best to make the case why we should always call Islam “Islam.”

Western intellectuals and commentators refer to the enemy’s ideology as:
“Islamic Fundamentalism,” “Islamic Extremism,” “Totalitarian Islam,” “Islamofascism,” “Political Islam,” “Militant Islam,” “Bin Ladenism,” “Islamonazism,” “Radical Islam,” “Islamism,” etc….

The enemy calls it “Islam.”

Imagine, if during past wars, we used terms such as “Radical Nazism,” “Extremist Shinto” and “Militant Communism.” The implication would be that there are good versions of those ideologies, which would then lead some to seek out “moderate” Nazis. Those who use terms other than “Islam” create the impression that it’s some variant of Islam that’s behind the enemy that we’re facing. A term such as “Militant Islam” is redundant, but our politicians continue praising Islam as if it were their own religion. Bush told us “Islam is peace” — after 2,996 Americans were murdered in its name. He maintained that illusion throughout his two terms, and never allowed our soldiers to defeat the enemy. And now we have Obama, who tells us, from Egypt:

“I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.”

If only he felt that way about America. Washington’s defense of Islam has trumped the defense of America and this dereliction of duty could well be called “Islamgate.”

Islam is a political religion; the idea of a separation of Mosque and State is unheard of in the Muslim world. Islam has a doctrine of warfare, Jihad, which is fought in order to establish Islamic (“Sharia”) Law, which is, by nature, totalitarian. Sharia Law calls for, among other things: the dehumanization of women; the flogging/stoning/killing of adulterers; and the killing of homosexuals, apostates and critics of Islam. All of this is part of orthodox Islam, not some “extremist” form of it. If jihadists were actually “perverting a great religion,” Muslims would have been able to discredit them on Islamic grounds and they would have done so by now. The reason they can’t is because jihadists are acting according to the words of Allah, the Muslim God. From the Koran:

“Slay the idolators wherever you find them…” Chapter 9, verse 5

“When you encounter the unbelievers, strike off their heads until you have made a great slaughter among them….” Ch. 47:4

Beyond the doctrine, there is the historical figure of Mohammad, who, more than anyone, defines Islam. How would you judge a man who lies, cheats, steals, rapes and murders as a way of life? This evil man is Islam’s ideal man, Mohammad. Whatever he said and did is deemed moral by virtue of the fact that he said it and did it. It’s no accident that the only morality that could sanction his behavior was his own. Nor is it an accident that Muslims who model themselves after him are the most violent.

For the 13 years that Mohammad failed to spread Islam by non-violent means, he was not so much peaceful as he was powerless. It was only through criminal activity and with the help of a large gang of followers that he managed to gain power. But he wanted his moral pretense too, so he changed Islam to reflect the fact that the only way it could survive was through force. And so, acting on Allah’s conveniently timed “revelation” that Islam can and should be spread by the sword, Mohammad led an army of Muslims across Arabia in the first jihad. From then on, violence became Islam’s way in the world. And today, acting on Mohammad’s words, “War is deceit” — in the sense that Muslims use earlier “peaceful” verses from the Koran as a weapon against the ignorance and good will of their victims. Those “peaceful” passages in the Koran were abrogated by later passages calling for eternal war against those who do not submit to Islam. How Mohammad spread Islam influenced the content of its doctrine and therefore tells us exactly what Islam means.
Note also that the only reason we’re talking about Islam is because we’ve been forced to by its jihad. And where are Islam’s “conscientious objectors”? Nowhere to be found, for even lax Muslims have been silent against jihad. But that doesn’t stop desperate Westerners from pointing to them as representives of “Moderate Islam.”

Far from being a personal faith, Islam is a collectivist ideology that rejects a live-and-let-live attitude towards non-Muslims. And while the jihadists may not represent all Muslims, they do represent Islam. In the end, most Muslims have proven themselves to be mere sheep to their jihadist wolves, irrelevant as allies in this war. Recovering Muslims call the enemy’s ideology “Islam,” and they dismiss the idea of “Moderate Islam” as they would the idea of “Moderate Evil.” When, based on his actions, Mohammad would be described today as a “Muslim Extremist,” then non-violent Muslims should condemn their prophet and their religion, not those who point it out.

Islam is the enemy’s ideology and evading that fact only helps its agents get away with more murder than they would otherwise. Western politicians have sold us out, so it’s up to the rest of us to defend our way of life by understanding Islam and telling the truth about it in whatever way we can. If we can’t even call Islam by its name, how the hell are we going to defend ourselves against its true believers? One could argue that we’d be better off if the West would just choose one of the many terms currently used for the enemy’s ideology. For my part, I call the enemy what they are, “Jihadists,” and our response, “The War on Jihad.” But behind it all, it’s Islam that makes the enemy tick.
Despite my frustrations with the refusal of many to call Islam “Islam,” I know that those who speak out against Jihad put themselves in danger, and I respect their courage. But it’s important that we acknowledge Islam’s place in the threat we face and say so without equivocation. Not saying “Islam” helps Islam and hurts us. So let’s begin calling the enemy’s ideology by its name. Let’s start calling Islam “Islam.”

Below is my response to those critics, especially Muslims and Leftists, who make the issue about Muslims and not Islam; who always allege that critics of Islam are condemning 1.5 billion people, that Muslims are good people and innocent, etc., etc. So here’s an excerpt from my piece Non-Muslim Muslims and the Jihad Against the West (aka My Name is Bosch and I’m a Recovered Muslim):

For those who want to make this about Muslims and not Islam, here are some of my thoughts on that:

First, my name is Bosch and I’m a recovered Muslim, so I have some insight into this, coupled with the fact that I studied Islam as if my life depended on it after 9/11.

There is Islam and there are Muslims. Muslims who take Islam seriously are at war with us and Muslims who don’t aren’t. But that doesn’t mean we should consider these reluctant Muslims allies against Jihad. I’ve been around Muslims my entire life and most of them truly don’t care about Islam. The problem I have with many of these essentially non-Muslim Muslims, especially in the middle of this war being waged on us by their more consistent co-religionists, is that they give the enemy cover. They force us to play a game of Muslim Roulette since we can’t tell which Muslim is going to blow himself up until he does. And their indifference about the evil being committed in the name of their religion is a big reason why their reputation is where it is.

So while I understand that most Muslims are not at war with us, they’ve proven in their silence and inaction against jihad that they’re not on our side either, and there’s nothing we can say or do to change that. We just have to finally accept it and stop expecting them to come around, while doing our best to kill those who are trying to kill us.

Another problem with Muslims who aren’t very Muslim is that they lead some among us to conclude that they must be practicing a more enlightened form of Islam. They’re not. They’re “practicing” life in non-Muslim countries, where they are free to live as they choose. But their “Islam” is not the Islam. There’s no separate ideology apart from Islam that’s being practiced by these Muslims in name only, there’s no such thing as “Western Islam”.

Non-observant Muslims are not our problem, but neither are they the solution to our problem. Our problem is Islam and its most consistent practitioners. There is nothing in Islam that stays the hand of Muslims who want to kill non-Muslims. If an individual Muslim is personally peaceful, it’s not because of Islam, it’s because of his individual choice, which is why I often say that your average Muslim is morally superior to Mohammad, to their own religion. The very rare Muslim who helps us against Jihad is acting against his religion, but that doesn’t stop some among us from thinking that his choice somehow shines a good light on Islam. It doesn’t. A good Muslim according to us is a bad Muslim according to Islam.

Posted by Samantha Power on Twitter:

Samantha Power‏
@AmbassadorPower

Daniel Pearl’s story is reminder that individual accountability & reconciliation are required to break cycles of violence. @DanielPearlFNDN

Last night, the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations, the Daniel Pearl Foundation and the Yitzhak Rabin Hillel Center for Jewish Life at UCLA proudly presented the 2013-14 Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture, featuring Samantha Power, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, with an introduction by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. Dignified, right? Black tie? Check. Very clear right and wrong – check. So what happened?

In one instant, in a flash of unintended honesty, Ambassador Powers showed she learned absolutely nothing, but I mean zero, zilch, nada, from the Daniel Pearl tragedy. She showed that she is as unqualified to give the Daniel Pearl annual speech as, I don’t know, Noam Chomsky, maybe.

Daniel Pearl is in the category of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria kind of historical figures, whose life’s achievements tend to be blurred over the years, until, eventually, they are remembered only for their final few moments. The Archduke will be forever remembered as the man whose assassination by a radical in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, ushered in the First World War.

Daniel Pearl was the Wall Street Journal brave hearted reporter who was kidnapped and executed by a jihadist group calling itself the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty. Pearl was decapitated on video after 9 days of captivity. He will be forever honored for his unabashed statement, on camera: “My name is Daniel Pearl, I am an American Jew.”

Millions of us have been deeply disturbed by the Daniel Pearl murder. It touched so many previously universal assumptions and turned them upside down: the assumption that no one wants to hurt the press, since everybody wants good press for themselves – wrong; the assumption that when criminals are showing their victims on video it is to extract some kind of ransom, and so as long as the video is running, the victim is safe – wrong; and, of course, the ultimate assumption, that every enemy has a cause over which we can eventually bargain with them, until we meet half way – really, really wrong.

The fact is, millions of us have walked away from the Daniel Pearl execution with the universal conviction that the only way to go now must be to annihilate these bastards, until they’re all dead and gone. It was a Churchill in Dunkirk moment, following which the old bulldog gave his heroic “we shall fight them on the beaches” speech. Just as there was no possibility to negotiate with Hitler in 1940, there’s no negotiating with the jihadists. They are enemies of humanity and must all be exterminated – that’s what the entire civilized world took from the Pearl beheading.

Well, not the entire civilized world, as it turns out.

I don’t have a copy of what U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations Samantha Power told the good folks at UCLA last night. She probably touched all the bases. But I do have her tweets in front of me, and they’re stunning.

The first one is totally on the money, no problem there:

We must be vigilant in protecting the rights of the press. 2013 = 2nd highest # of journalist deaths and arrests all-time. @DanielPearlFNDN

To those of you who don’t speak fluent Tweet, Powers is citing herself at the foundation speech, giving her followers the gist of her message. And, of course, it’s unacceptable that close allies of the United States, such as Turkey and the Palestinian Authority, have been detaining journalists, photographers and even people making unflattering Facebook entries.

She was called on it, of course, by a few of her Tweeter followers:

RDPinRVA: That’s pretty rich coming from an appointee of an administration committed to limiting the press’ freedom.

Casey Kim: You’re part of the same administration who just suggested brining in the FCC to monitor newsrooms.