Ten out of the 15 countries with the worst religious freedom abuses are Muslim, according to the recently released U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) 2013 Annual Report identifying the status of religious freedom throughout the world, and citing countries that are the least tolerant of religious freedom.

IRFA requires the President of the United States, who has delegated this authority to the Secretary of State, to designate as “countries of particular concern,” or CPCs, those governments that have engaged in or tolerated “particularly severe” violations of religious freedom.

IRFA defines “particularly severe” violations as ones that are “systematic, ongoing, and egregious,” including acts such as torture, prolonged detention without charges, disappearances, or “other flagrant denial[s] of the right to life, liberty, or the security of persons.”

After a country is designated a CPC, the President is required by law to take action to remedy the situation, or to invoke a waiver if circumstances warrant (As the late JFK put it: He may be an SOB, but he’s our SOB).

For the 2013 Annual Report, USCIRF recommends that the Secretary of State re-designate the following eight countries as CPCs: Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Uzbekistan.

USCIRF also finds that seven other countries meet the CPC threshold and should be so designated: Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Vietnam.

USCIRF also places countries on its Tier 2 list, where the country is on the threshold of a CPC status, meaning that the violations engaged in or tolerated by the government are particularly severe and that at least one, but not all three, of the elements of the “systematic, ongoing, egregious” standard is met.

The Tier 2 designation provides advance warning of negative trends that could develop into severe violations of religious freedom, thereby giving policymakers an opportunity to engage early and increasing the likelihood of preventing or diminishing the violations. USCIRF has concluded that the following eight countries meet the Tier 2 standard in this reporting period: Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Cuba, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Laos, and Russia.

But not to worry – the State Department has issued indefinite waivers on taking any action against Uzbekistan and Saudi Arabia. As a result of these waivers, the United States has not implemented any policy response tied to the CPC designation for either country.

Gives a whole new meaning to the slogan “Freedom must be earned.”

In Egypt, the government has failed to protect Coptic Christians, who comprise 10 percent of the country’s 90 million people. The Copts have been tortured and killed and individuals continue to be prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned for “contempt” or “defamation” of religion (Islam).

Somebody should start boycotting Egyptian products…

In Iran, religious freedom for minorities has deteriorated over the last year, a bad year for the Baha’is, Christians, and Sufi Muslims. The Report details that, “physical attacks, harassment, detention, arrests, and imprisonment” intensified.

Jews, Armenian and Assyrian Christians, and Zoroastrians have faced harassment, intimidation, discrimination, arrests, and imprisonment. Anyone who has dissented against the government, a theocratic republic, including Majority Shi’i and minority Sunni Muslims, have been intimidated, harassed, and detained. Several dissidents and human rights defenders have been sentenced to death and executed for “waging war against God.”

Human sacrifice, that must be their god’s favorite pastime.

Saudi Arabia’s Education Ministry has warned students to steer clear of what it called “suspicious websites,” an apparent reference to the Hebrew University site that has attracted Saudi students.

The ministry’s spokesman, Dr. Muhammad Al-Hayzan, said the certificates from such institutions will not be accredited by the ministry. “Students have other alternatives. One of them is they can join the Saudi Electronic University,” he added.

The Nocamels.com website reported last week that Hebrew University has started giving free courses in cooperation with global partners who help it promote these courses. The university claimed that its online courses on neurology and the brain attracted over 40,000 students all over the world, including Saudi Arabia.

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who is Prime Minister Netanyahu’s de facto “peace process minister,” is in Washington for talks with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who is fresh from winning a supposed “concession” from the Arab League for the American-sponsored peace process.

Kerry has come up with a proposal to adopt most of the Saudi 2002 Peace Initiative, which is virtually everything that Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has demanded.

Kerry’s mission is to make a deal. Getting Israel and the Palestinian Authority to agree on the final status of an independent Arab country under the aegis of the Palestinian Authority would be a glorious triumph for Kerry, possibly the stepping stone to the White House in  2016.

To get there, he is taking the course of least resistance, meaning the Israeli government.

Enter his real peace partner, Tzipi Livni.

Prime Minister Netanyahu holds the portfolio of Foreign Minister until there is a court decision on whether Avigdor Lieberman is guilty of fraud or can return to his former post. In the meantime, Netanyahu hurriedly bought Livni’s tiny party of six Knesset Members into the government by granting her the responsibility for handling the American effort for Palestinian Authority peace talks, one of Livni’s pet hobbies.

She and Kerry have the same goal, a deal at any cost with the prize of international admiration.

He came away from a meeting with the Arab League last week and tried to sell Israel a bill of goods of the Great Concession: The Arab supposedly are prepared to amend the Saudi 2002 Peace Initiative and back “land swaps,” meaning Israel would have their approval for sovereignty over a small amount of the land that was restored to the country in the Six-Day War in 1967.

In return, Israel would fork over an equal amount of land that has been part of the country since 1948.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheik al-Thani, whose kingdom has been unusually aggressive in handing out fat checks to Hamas and is pouring money into Arab areas of Jerusalem as well as the Palestinian Authority, led the Arab League delegation.

He agreed that perhaps – maybe if this and maybe if that, and if Israel behaves – the League could agree to “minor” land swaps.

For Kerry, this was a big concession. He “broke” the back of the Arabs and all that is left for him to do is tell Israel it is the best thing for the country since felafel.

“The Arab League delegation affirmed … the two-state solution on the basis of the 4th of June 1967 line, with the (possibility) of comparable and mutual agreed minor swap of the land,” he declared.

Of course, no one has any idea of what “minor” land swaps could mean, but you can rest your bottom dinar it does not mean that Israel would retain Gush Etzion. Maaleh Adumim? Maybe. Maybe not.

Perhaps the Jerusalem neighborhoods of Ramot, French Hill, Pisgat Ze’ev and Talpiot, among others? Could be.

And Gilo? Probably not.

It does not matter now. The most important thing for Kerry and Livni, his one-woman Israeli government fan club, is to talk it up. It does not matter to them that Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal already has rejected the idea. But they can take of him later and drop Hamas from the list of outlawed terrorist organizations, make it a legal terrorist group, and everything will be just fine.

Livni said the Qatari prime minister’s grand concession of possibly, just maybe, agreeing to a  minor land swap was “very positive news.”

And what would land would Israel give up in this “minor” swap. Most likely, enough land to link Gaza with Judea and Samaria.

Of course there is one not so minor point that Kerry has forgotten. Actually, he has not forgotten because the State Dept. does not know any better.

What Israeli Arab in his right mind would give up all the benefits and security he gets from the Israeli government and become subjects of the Palestinian Authority in order to help Kerry’s political career?

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel toed the official Obama administration line Sunday in his first visit to Israel in his new post, repeating the mantra” Israel has the right to defend itself.”

If anyone wants to interpret that as just a banal and superfluous statement, he made it clear that he is not ignorant of the danger to Israel of an Iranian nuclear weapon. He told reporters en route to Israel that a multi-billion dollar arms deal with Israel sends “another very clear signal to Iran,” although he did not note that Iran so far has not understood “signals.”

As is de rigueur for a maiden official visit to Issue, Hagel dutifully visited the Yad VaShem Holocaust Memorial Museum and Center, where he not so profoundly declared of the Holocaust, “It is reality. It happened.”

The Washington Post on Sunday called his visit a “charm offensive” to dispel the unusually vocal and often acid criticism of him before the Senate agreed to accept his nomination as Secretary of Defense.

For a man who once said the “Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here,” Hagel so far has done a good job of showing how much he really loves the Tribe. If he doesn’t love Jews, at least he needs us.

Then again, the United States also needs the Arabs.

Whether that need is for security or for the military-industrial complex in the United States is another question. Whatever the answer, the fact is his trip is aimed at sealing multi-billion dollar agreement for buying weapons not only with Israel but also with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Click here to understand if Israel really needs or can afford the weapons.

Behind the words of love and money for a possible war, Hagel does not hide a basic disagreement between the United States and Israel – the timing of a military strike on Iran, if necessary.

He insist negotiations, which so far have been a bad act, sanctions can alter Iran’s nuclear plans. Sanctions have definitely had an impact on Iran’s economy but not on its race for a nuclear weapon, which, according to the Ahmadinejad regime, exists only in the wild imagination of the Zionist enemy.

By the time Hagel returns to Washington, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are expected to have signed up for to buy enough F-16 fighter jets and advanced missiles that can be launched from the air to scare the dickens out of any normal country that threaten others.

The Obama administration is still trying to hope that Iran will be a normal country.

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel is starting a weeklong visit to the Middle East, concluding a year of secret negotiations over a $10 billion arms deal involving Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The deal includes American made missiles, warplanes and troop transports, to help each country in facing threats from Iran.

The NY Times quoted a senior administration official who said the goal of the new deal is “not just to boost Israel’s capabilities, but also to boost the capabilities of our Persian Gulf partners so they, too, would be able to address the Iranian threat — and also provide a greater network of coordinated assets around the region to handle a range of contingencies.”

When Chuck Hagel leaves the region, he will also, supposedly, answer the puzzling riddle of how can Israel afford to spend even more billions of dollars, when her entire $3 billion in U.S. military aid is already spoken for. In everybody’s mind, there can be only one answer: Israel will ask the U.S. to pay the U.S. whatever it takes, so Israel can get the new, really shiny stuff.

Highest on Israel’s shopping list for things it couldn’t possibly pay for out of its own shrinking budget: new missiles designed to take out the enemy’s air-defense radar, and then, also, advanced radar for Israeli warplanes, and don’t forget new refueling tanker planes. In short, it’s all the stuff you need if you’re going out to bomb the nuclear facilities of an unnamed country a thousand miles away.

In addition Israel will also buy the V-22 Osprey troop transport aircraft, which combines the functionality of a conventional helicopter with the long-range, high-speed cruise performance of a turboprop aircraft.

If you ask me, Israel needs these units like it needs a hole in the head. Besides the fact that they’ve had a terrible reputation, rife with corruption (a Marine Lieutenant Colonel was kicked off the service after it was discovered he fixed reports to favor the new aircraft), Israel is not facing the troop transport issues the U.S. military does around the globe. It’s a whole lot cheaper to fly the troops across the border in any direction on good, old fashioned choppers, than to utilize and maintain these unwieldy behemoths. But since the entire U.S. military aid to Israel program is, essentially, intended to support jobs creation on Long Island and in Washington State, what do I care.

They accused former President GW Bush of being an irresponsible spendthrift when he invested trillions of dollars of money we didn’t have in invading and destroying the only enemy of Iranian expansionism in the region – Saddam Hussein. But, as it turns out, the president was smarter than we thought. By making Iran the undeniable bully of the Middle east, utilizing Shiite power in Iraq to bolster its own, now U.S. military industrial companies are able to cash in on the new market and sell everybody in the region those state-of-the-art American mega weapons. USA! USA!

“This year the United States provided $3.1 billion in foreign military financing to Israel, the highest the United States has ever provided,” a Pentagon official said. In addition, the United States provides about $300 million in missile defense to Israel, he noted.

Elsewhere in the region, in 2010 Saudi Arabia agreed to purchase 84 F-15 tactical fighters in a deal worth $29.4 billion, the official said, and the first F-15s have rolled off the line in St. Louis and are undergoing flight testing at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.

During Hagel’s trip, the UAE is expected to move forward with the purchase of 25 F-16 Block 60 Desert Falcon fighters manufactured by Lockheed Martin in Fort Worth, Texas. The expected value of the sale is $425 billion, the official said.

The United Arab Emirates wants to buy 26 F-16 warplanes, at $5 billion, and they also need those precision missiles that can be launched from those same jets at distant ground targets. Saudi Arabia is also in for them advanced missile.

The deal with Israel was in discussion over the past year between former defense secretary Leon E. Panetta and former defense minister Ehud Barak. The Times reports the two had 18 additional telephone discussions on the arms deal. After being sworn in as the new defense secretary, Hagel’s first face-to-face discussion with any foreign counterpart was with Barak, to get the deal done. When Hagel starts will move to finalize the arms deal with Barak’s successor, Moshe Yaalon.

Steve Emerson broke the shocking news last night that the Saudi national, Abdul al-Harbi, who was first questioned in the Boston bombing, is going to be deported on ”national security grounds.” He is from a very powerful Saudi family with many terrorist ties. Abdul al-Harbi is a devout Muslim from Medina.

I said that it takes longer than 15 hours to investigate all of Abdul al-Harbi’s relatives, friends, acquaintances, and business and school friends.

Perhaps a quick look at the Arabic sources should raise the eyebrows of every American relative to the extent of the problem at hand. Many from Al-Harbi’s clan are steeped in terrorism and are members of Al-Qaeda. Out of a list of 85 terrorists listed by the Saudi government shows several of Al-Harbi clan to have been active fighters in Al-Qaeda[.]

When I heard he was from a very powerful Saudi family, I worried about this kind of thing happening.

Secretary of State Kerry’s meeting with the Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal was abruptly closedto the press the day Abdul al-Harbi was being questioned. There is no doubt in my mind that this was discussed.

Today’s embarassing display of rolling incompetence and badly mangled leaks led to numerous cancellations of press conferences, mis-identified suspects, promises of imminent arrest, walking back the arrest announcement, and more. They said they would release a statement and then said they wouldn’t.

Very smelly.

Visit Atlas Shrugs.

Police are questioning a Saudi Arabian national for the terrorist attack on the Boston Marathon that killed at least three people, one of them an eight-year-old boy, and wounded 140 others Monday. More than a dozen are in critical condition, an indication that the death toll may rise. The bombs were packed with ball bearings, designed to cause maximum physical damage. Victims lost dozens of limbs in the twin bombings.

The suspect is 20 years old, in the United States on a students’ visa, and is under guard at the Boston hospital where he is being treated for severe burns. He was detained approximately two hours after the bombing at the finish line. CBS News reported that Boston police have  a video of a man bringing multiple backpacks to the location of the blast.

Boston police Tuesday morning searched an apartment in a Boston suburb as part of the investigation.

However, Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis insisted,  “There is no suspect. There are people we’re talking to.”

President Barack Obama was unable to utter the word “terror” in his initial reaction to the bombings, as if doing so would be an admission that the United States is so secure that it is unthinkable that terrorists could operate in the country.

Sometimes it seems the government wears a proud suit of armor in la-la land, re-living a 1950s cover of the Saturday Evening Post, an exterior that lulls people into thinking that there are no rotten apples in the American pie.

The president indeed had to be careful not label the attack “terror” before being sure. “We still do not know who did this or why. And people shouldn’t jump to conclusions before we have all the facts,” Obama said. “But make no mistake, we will get to the bottom of this, and we will find out who did this; we’ll find out why they did this.”

It will take a thorough investigation to find out what ever every person not in a State Dept. straight jacket knows – the terrorist or terrorists who carried out the attack want to destroy the United States.

The White House later stated that the attack was “an act of terror.” It took an hour to put aside the possibility that a mentally ill person blew up peoples; limbs. It too an hour to discard the original report that a gas line had accidentally burst.

American media, remaining politically correct not to insult Islam and inflame Muslim anger, God forbid,  have not reminded citizens that Saudi Arabian radical Islamic fundamentalists were involved in the 9/11 attacks.

A total of five bombs were found in the Boston area, including one that exploded at the John F. Kennedy library, causing no injuries.

The timing of the attack, coincidental or not with “Patriot’s Day,” underlines the motives of the international terrorist campaign against the non-Muslim West.

But the official thinking, such it is called, is that everything is just fine while Rome, make that Washington, is burning.

”Federal officials tonight say there is no reason to think that this is part of any larger threat,” NBC reported. “At this point they believe it is confined to Boston, but a meeting tonight will decide whether any kind of national alert will be sent out.”

Tactically, the attack very likely was not part of a “larger threat”, just an “isolated” incident, just like the 1993 bomb in the basement of the World Trade Center, killing six people and wounding more than 1,000 others;

And just like the “isolated incident” in Oklahoma Cavity in 1995, when a car bomb killed 168 people;

And just like the 9/11 attacks; and just like the 2012 car bomb that was discovered in Times Square but failed to detonate’

And just like the isolated bombs placed in 2010 on two cargo planes bound from Yemen to the United States;

And just like the 2011 pipe bomb that was discovered along the route of the Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial march in Spokane, Wash.

Officials are well aware that there is a worldwide of terror. They know very well that the attacks on the Boston Marathon are not “isolated” incidents.

But it is more important for officials, from the president on down, to maintain a mood of calm, to show Americans they are in control.

But they aren’t.

The Palestinian Authority revealed Monday that it refused to agree with visiting U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s request to change a “few words” in the 2002 Saudi Peace Initiative.

The Saudi peace plan promises “normalization” of relations with Israel – without express recognition of the country – in return for Israel’s retreating back to the 1949 Temporary Armistice Lines that existed until 1967 and accepting the immigration of several million foreign Arabs.

Even the most leftist of Israelis, except for those really on the fringe of the fringe, have rejected the demand for allowing a flood of Arabs to destroy the Jewish character of the country.

But Kerry is undaunted.

In typical State Dept. tunnel thinking, he dug up the Saudi Peace Plan in an effort win the support of the Arab League and, according to senior PA negotiator Saeb Erekat, asked Ramallah to make a small compromise in the wording.

“Kerry asked us to change a few words in the Arab Peace Initiative but we refused,” Erekat told the Voice of Palestine radio station Sunday, according to the Washington Post.

The Palestinian Authority really has no reason to compromise.

PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has carefully carried out a one-track-mind strategy for eight years, replacing Yasser Arafat’s pistol on the belt with a suit and tie and globetrotting to win international support.

While official Palestinian Authority media honor suicide bombers and without a wink show Arabs in Judea, Samaria and Gaza maps of Palestine with borders of the Mediterranean Coast and the Jordan River, Abbas has played along with the Bush administrations without committing to anything.

Feeling full confidence that he no longer needs the United States, Abbas went to the United Nations in November and won his long-sought recognition, although only in a resolution, that recognizes all of his demands without recognizing Israel as a Jewish state.

Kerry is trying to turn back the point of no return, and even after Erekat said he turned him down, the Secretary of State, was seen in Israel without blindfolders on Monday even though he said he sees “a road ahead” on the two-state solution for peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Kerry met President Shimon Peres on Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day and participated in the national wreath-laying ceremony at Yad VaShem.

Invoking the same evangelical-like tone of President Barack Obama when he visit Israel last month, Kerry said, “You have to believe in the possibilities to be able to get there. You and I believe in them and I’m convinced there is a road ahead.”

The road ahead for Abbas is elsewhere.

While Kerry was solemnly saying that the wailing sirens of Yom HaShoah had a “profound impact” on him, Abbas, whose doctoral thesis was on Holocaust denial, was on his way to Qatar to meet with Arab League diplomats for the next step on how to negotiate without negotiating.