A Canadian-based business family is not waiting for a terror attack before tightening security: the Ghermezian Brothers have already taken measures to prevent an attack. The four brothers – Eskandar, Nader, Raphael and Bahman – own a construction and real estate empire in addition to the shopping malls developed by the family patriarch, Jacob Ghermezian, who died in 2000.

The preparations came in response to a call to jihad against “American and Jewish-owned” shopping malls made in a video by the Al Qaeda-linked Somali terrorist group al-Shabaab over the weekend.

The Jewish Iranian-Canadian family is known for having developed some of the world’s largest shopping malls, and is no stranger to the need for security; its West Edmonton Mall in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada has already put security measures into place to prevent an attack.

Edmonton Deputy Police Chief Brian Simpson told CTV News, “West Edmonton mall is very safe; I also feel that this community is very safe,” Jewish Business News reported.

In Bloomington, Minnesota, the family’s Mall of America stands out as the largest shopping mall in the United States – which made it one of the top targets for al-Shabaab. The terror group even provided the coordinates for its “Muslim brethren” in the West to more easily be able to find the shopping mall, in order to be able to attack it.

The Somali al-Shabaab terror group linked to Al Qaeda has called on Muslims in the West to “answer the call” and attack “American and Jewish-owned” shopping malls in the UK, US and Canada.

In the 77-minute video the speaker, whose face was covered, said, “We call upon our Muslim brothers, particularly those in the West, to answer the call of Allah and target the disbelievers wherever they are,” said a speaker wearing a military jacket, face covered.

Suggesting the Mall of America – the largest mall in the United States – the speaker displayed coordinates for the site on the screen. The “twin cities” of S. Paul and Minneapolis are home to the largest population of Somali immigrants in the U.S. More than a few are known to have traveled from there to the Mideast and Africa to fight with radical Islamist terrorists.

The threat has become a raison d’etre for America’s Department of Homeland Security, which was slated for shutdown this week.

DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson said Sunday that the propaganda video released Saturday by al-Shabaab, made clear “why I need a budget.” The video also called for attacks on Oxford Street in London and two Westfield Malls in Stratford and White City as well as Canada’s West Edmonton Mall in Alberta – the largest shopping mall in North America.

In an interview over the weekend on CNN, Johnson said “It’s absurd that we’re even having this conversation about Congress’s inability to fund homeland security in these challenging times.”

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told his British counterpart Phillip Hammond Saturday he is worried that the Palestinian Authority might go belly-up might be cause for Mahmoud Abbas to cease security coordination with Israel.

Hammon, like every other leader in the European Union,  also should be worried because a bankrupt Palestinian Authority would prove to the citizens in the European Union that their countries have thrown billions of dollars down the drain by keeping Abbas’ regime solvent.

The State Dept. has repeatedly said that Israel should resume turning over to the Palestinian Authority more than $100 million in tax revenues it collects each month on goods that are sent into Judea and Samaria.

The PA owes the Israel Electric Corp. hundreds of millions of dollars for electricity, which is reason enough to withhold the tax revenues. Israel always has resumed the payments until Abbas’ move last year to join the International Criminal Court.

Abbas has repeatedly threatened on different occasions and for different reasons to halt security coordination with Israel, a move that only would hasten the downfall of the Palestinian Authority. Without the help of the IDF, anarchy would reign, so no matter what Abbas does, he loses.

Kerry’s spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters last week:

It’s true we’re very concerned about the continued viability of the Palestinian Authority if they do not receive funds soon, either in terms of the resumption of monthly Israeli transfers of Palestinian tax revenues or additional donor assistance….

If the Palestinian Authority ceases security coordination or even decides to disband, as they have said they may do as early as the first week of March if they do not receive additional revenues, we could be faced with a crisis that could gravely impact both the Palestinians and the Israelis with potentially serious ripple effects either – elsewhere in the region.

If the deal with Iran is so good, why hide it?

That’s the latest point driven home by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu as he continues to warn American legislators and world leaders against signing a deal being discussed with Iran over nuclear development activity.

The U.S. is being far more cautious in its updates to Israel on the progress of the talks taking place over the deal, apparently in response to Netanyahu’s determination to move forward with an invitation to address Congress on the issue on March 3.

The “P5+1 talks with Tehran” are scheduled to conclude – so far, apparently with an agreement in place – on March 24. Israel’s national elections will have already been held a few days earlier, on March 17.

Netanyahu contended Sunday in comments at the annual meeting of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, held in Jerusalem, that Israel has a right to know the details of the agreement being discussed – since the Jewish State is the nation that will be most threatened by a nuclear Iran.

“If there is someone who thinks it is a good deal, why is there a need to hide it?” Netanyahu pointed out. The U.S. has gone mum on details of “sensitive information about the Iran talks,” according to a report by David Ignatius of the Washington Post, keeping Israel out of the loop out of concern that Netanyahu’s office had leaked “sensitive details” of the U.S. position.

Among the information no longer being share are details such as the number of uranium enrichment centrifuges that Tehran will be allowed to keep running – a delicate point that could mean the difference between life and death for the Jewish State.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had some grim words of warning Sunday in his statement at the start of the weekly cabinet session.

Netanyahu noted that major world powers and Iran are “galloping towards an agreement that will enable Iran to arm itself with nuclear weapons” and will endanger the security of the State of Israel.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif held private talks over the weekend, Netanyahu said, after which they announced they intend to complete a framework agreement by the end of March.

Israel’s response, he said, will be to stop what he called a “bad and dangerous agreement.”

The prime minister underscored that Israel will “do everything and will take any action to foil this agreement that will place a heavy cloud over the future of the State of Israel and its security.”

It is precisely for this reason the Democratic party and U.S. President Barack Obama have worked to derail the prime minister’s scheduled address to a joint session of the Congress set for March 3. The speech falls at the end of the same week Netanyahu is slated to appear at the annual AIPAC (American Israeli Political Action Committee) conference in Washington DC, and just two weeks prior to Israel’s national elections on March 17.

The deadline for talks between world powers and Tehran over a rollback on Iran’s nuclear technology activities is March 31. The Obama administration is deeply committed to seeing some signed agreement emerge from those talks, apparently regardless of its cost to the Jewish State.

Iran has repeatedly vowed to wipe Israel off the world map. Any agreement that allows Iran to continue to enrich uranium – thereby enabling it to achieve an atomic weapon – presents an existential risk to Israel.

Is the Obama administration tampering with Israel’s electoral process? Top U.S. officials met on Saturday in Munich with opposition leader and Labor party chairman Isaac Herzog, a candidate in the upcoming election.

U.S. President Barack Obama and senior White House staff repeatedly have claimed the upcoming Israeli national elections were too close to allow American administration officials to meet with Israeli candidates, including the prime minister.

Just a matter of policy, after all.

So how does that fit with a meeting between Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry, and Isaac Herzog? Of course, the meeting was not “formally” scheduled and there were no photo ops.

The two American leaders both have said they will skip Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of Congress on March 3 specifically because the date runs too close to Israel’s elections.

Herzog also managed to squeeze in meetings with European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier on the sidelines of the security conference.

Following the talks in Munich, Herzog told Israel’s Channel 10 news that Netanyahu “won’t get to meet with a single American official on this visit – not from the National Security Agency, not from the White House, not from the State Department. It’s a complete boycott. Even if that’s not stated, that’s the story.”

And what a story it is. A complete endorsement of Labor party candidate Isaac Herzog, for whom the White House is clearly campaigning, along with the European Union.

One might be tempted to think that U.S. President Barack Obama is fiddling with Israeli politics. Tampering, even, with help from the European Union.

But isn’t that illegal?

Jordan vowed to chased the Islamic State (ISIS) “wherever they are” in Iraq as well as in Syria while President Barack Obama is afraid to be more aggressive in the face of Congressional ambivalence.

Following Thursday’s raids by Jordan that hit ISIS training centers and weapons storage sites, Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh told Fox News:

We said we are going to take this all the way, we are going to go after them wherever they are and we’re doing that.They’re in Iraq and they are in Syria and therefore you have to target them wherever they are.

U.S. military aircraft provided intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance to Jordan.

Jordan has a stronger reason than the United Starts to attack ISIS because the terrorist organization controls parts of two countries on Amman’s borders, and Kong Abdullah does not have to deal with the Constitution, Congress and leftist media. However, the ISIS has been a golden opportunity for President Obama to show the world that the United States still is a world leader.

The U.S. Air Force has joined the strike force. That helps Obama “spread the blame” but he also will to spread the credit when ISIS finally is defeated.

Most Americans favor the U.S. Air Force’s bombing of ISIS targets, and Obama has the back of the Western world, shocked by ISIS barbarity. The ISIS is an easier target than a country with established leaders, such as Syrian president  Bashar al-Assad, but Obama reflects the timidity of an American that has lost its confidence.

Previous presidents have launched military attacks on Serbia, Panama, Grenada, and even the Korean War was carried out without Congressional approval. Obama authorized bombing Libya without asking Congress.

Obama has not relied on his presidential power to  bomb the ISIS to smithereens.

Instead, he has been leaning on previous authorization from Congress to support the American participation in the war on terror.

Despite polls that show backing for U.S. bombing missions against ISIS, Americans are paralyzed by dumb, costly and useless wars, dating back to the war in Vietnam and including the supposed “defeat” of terror in Iraq and Afghanistan.

President Obama is prepared to ask Congress for specific authority to bomb the ISIS, but Congress is doing a good of talking. Wimpy Democrats want a time frame that would place a deadline so that military operations won’t drag on like previous wars.

Republican House Speaker John Boehner put the onus on the president to convince the American people. He said Thursday:

His actions are going to be an important part of trying for us to get the votes to actually pass an authorization. This is not going to be an easy lift.

Democrats are hesitant and want any authorization to be limited for three years, while most  Republicans want a broader authorization.

Republican Sen. John McCain said Thursday, “Overall, there’s still no strategy from this administration as to how to combat ISIS.”

Secretary of Defense nominee Ashton Carter told McCain at a Senate hearing on Wednesday that he “absolutely” believes the U.S. needs an ISIS strategy, but he disappointed McCain when asked for specifics.

“I think the strategy connects ends and means…to strengthen” Iraq’s security forces…and to try to build the forces to keep them defeated” in Syria, he said.

McCain shot back, “Well, it doesn’t sound like a strategy to me.”