Was the Malaysian Pilot a 'Political Fanatic' as The Sunday Daily Mail Claims? And, if so, is that Fact Pertinent?

The pilot of missing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 was a "strident" supporter of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, the Daily Mail on Sunday reported.

Hours before the plane took off, Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah reportedly attended a session of Ibrahim's long-running court proceedings. His colleagues said the captain was preoccupied with Ibrahim's trial.

The British tabloid said its own investigation of the pilot showed him to be a "political fanatic" and that he kept a makeshift flight simulator in his private home.

If the name Ibrahim is slightly familiar it is because he is a former deputy premier of Malaysia. 

He broke with the ruling Barisan Nasional Party and founded an anti-corruption reformist Islamic movement. 

He has been involved in lengthy proceedings following his imprisonment for alleged corruption and homosexual activity-- such activity is formally illegal.

Ibrahim is currently out on bail and the leader of the Malaysian parliamentary opposition. He is planning to run for re-election in his constituency on March 23.

Though viewed as a moderate— Ibrahim is prominently supported in the U.S. by Al Gore— he has spoken darkly of a conspiracy between the Malaysian government, the United States and Israel. He said that the Jews were manipulating Malaysian foreign policy. 

This Ibrahim angle may explain why the Malaysian authorities have been so cagey about releasing information.

Even if it proves a dead end -- it might have proved explosive so they may have wanted to be cautious. 

At its outset, Ibrahim's movement received Saudi funding, according to the Israel-based Gloria Center. His International Institute of Islamic Thought is a front group for the Muslim Brotherhood, according to Discover The Networks.

Investigator are examining the possibility that the pilot's political and religious leanings are somehow related to the plane's disappearance. 

How running a plane into the ocean helps Ibrahim's cause is not easily apparent. 

But then, why did First Officer Gameel Al-Batouti of EgyptAir Flight 990 possibly drive his Boeing 767-300ER into Long Island Sound in October 1999?

But to Zaharie. He had been with the airline since 1981 and a captain for about 10 years. 

The background of co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid is also being investigated in light of photographs showing that he unlawfully allowed female passengers into the cockpit on a previous flight.

Additionally, reportsalso emerged of the presence of an aviation engineer among the passengers, according to The New York Times.

Meanwhile, the Sunday Telegraph 

reported -- and here I think this is a stretch -- that Saajid Muhammad Badat, a British-born al-Qaida informant, told British authorities that he was aware of a long-standing plot by a group of Malaysians— one of whom reportedly was a pilot— to  hijack and airliner. 

Badat said he once supplied the cell with a shoe bomb and that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, now being held in Guantánamo, was the plot's original organizer.

State Department Goes Wobbly on 'Jewish State'

A Palestinian Arab newspaper has reportedly quoted State Department Spokeswoman Jen Psaki as saying the United States does not necessarily expect Palestinian Arabs to accept that Israel has a right to exist in the Middle East as the state of the Jewish people.

Psaki was interviewed by the Arabic-language Al-Quds newspaper on Saturday.

According to multiple Israeli press reports, Psaki said, "The American position is clear, Israel is a Jewish state. However, we do not see a need that both sides recognize this position as part of the final agreement."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu maintains that the Palestinian refusal to recognize the legitimacy of the return of the Jewish people to Israel is at the core of the conflict. The rejectionism signals that that even if the more moderate Palestinian faction signed a peace accord with Israel they would see it as only a temporary expediency – while adhering to the position that Jews have no right to a nation state in the Middle East.   

Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, who is based in the West Bank, is scheduled to arrive in Washington on March 17 for meetings with President Barack Obama and other administration officials.

His opposition to accepting the right of a Jewish state in the Middle East is the same as that of the Palestinian Hamas leadership which governs in Gaza.

Psaki also reportedly said that a "framework agreement" outlining the future direction of the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority has not yet been finalized.

The current round of talks began in July 2013 under heavy Obama administration pressure on both sides. The administration pressured Israel to release hundreds of terrorists -- a factor that explains the uptick in security dangers including on Road 443.

The release of the Gilad Schalit prisoners has already caused major damage to security and deterrence.

At any rate, neither side wanted these talks. If nothing else they agreed that talking would be pointless. The Palestinian Arab "minimum" was well beyond anything Israel could accept. 

Indeed, forced talks that collapse in failure were likely to de-stabilize the Arab street and lead to dashed hopes and increased violence.

But the administration and the Europeans opted for the illusion of momentum.

The administration said that it hoped to wrap up a deal by April 2014. 

That now appears, shall we say, unlikely. 

As a fallback, the State Department wanted to have the two sides initial a "framework agreement" that, based on agreed parameters, would carry the talks past April.

But the two sides can't even agree on that -- certainly not for signature.

Now, according to an Israel Radio on Friday, the U.S. is trying to come up with wording for a "framework agreement" that is satisfactory to the sides though neither Arabs nor Israelis would have to formally endorse it.

By putting the talks between Israel and the PLO on the front burner rather than dealing with Iran, and by simply ignoring that with Hamas in control of Gaza, a deal with the PLO is anyway pointless -- the US has wasted its diplomatic capital.

On the Palestinian conflict with Israel, this administration has managed to get it all wrong.

Sally Bercovic's Moving Talk on Life, Death and Meaning

This is absolutely worth watching:

http://www.jhub.org.uk/jdov/portfolio/six-feet-under/


Copy & paste link:

http://www.jhub.org.uk/jdov/portfolio/six-feet-under/

Watching America From 6,000 Miles Away: Two Tea Party Conservatives Mark the Movement's Fifth Anniversary

Marking the fifth anniversary of the tea party movement, conservative U.S. Fox TV personality Sean Hannity interviewed conservative syndicated firebrand columnist Ann Coulter Wednesday on his Fox News Channel program.

Hannity led off by saying that he sees the tea party as "stronger than ever."

Coulter made a distinction between "fantastic" grass roots tea party supporters who helped bring about a Republican-controlled House in 2010, and "conmen and scamsters" who have arisen to trick "good Americans" into sending them money.

She maintained that "rich groups" going after "establishment Republicans" had their own agenda.

"The key word is 'Republicans,'" she said.  

The only way to repeal Obamacare is to elect a Republican majority, she said. Coulter recommended Thomas Sowell's Wednesday column to the Hannity audience in which he writes: "The Republican establishment's criticisms of [Texas] Senator [Ted] Cruz are criticisms of his rule-or-ruin strategy, which can destroy whatever chance Republicans have of taking back the Senate in 2014 and taking back the White House in 2016." 

Hannity replied, "I disagree – because I read the column."

He said the establishment disappointed him and lacked a winning vision.

Coulter insisted success— in repealing Obamacare as well as other issues— depended on a big GOP win. None of Obama's policies will "fall on their own" unless they are rescinded by a Republican-controlled congress.

Hannity held firm that the establishment had not fought sufficiently hard to overcome the president's policies.

"Give them a majority," Coulter countered. "Give them a majority!"

Hannity expressed skepticism. If the Republicans gain control of the congress "then what are they going to tell us? 'Give us the presidency. Then we can really do something.'"

She answered that if it were not for "shysters and con men" Republicans would have already been in control of the Senate.

Hannity shot back that the establishment is the problem and that their opponents are pressing for sticking to principles.

In wrapping up, Coulter asserted that the anti-establishment forces were not genuinely opposed to immigration amnesty.

She urged the audience not to donate to the Senate Conservatives Fund.

British Museum Expert: 'Real' Noah's Ark Would Have Been Round

A 3,700-year-old cuneiform text has the British Museum's top specialist on ancient Mesopotamian inscriptions convinced that Noah's Ark was most likely huge, round, made of wickerwork rope, and watertight material, http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/jan/24/babylonian-tablet-noah-ark-constructed-british-museum the Guardian reported.

The http://blog.britishmuseum.org/2014/01/24/was-the-ark-round-a-babylonian-description-discovered/ expert, Irving Finkel, who decoded the weather-beaten clay tablet, with its 60 lines of tidy text, is one of the few scholars alive today who knows how to decipher script recorded on cuneiform or clay tablets.

Finkel is convinced this particular clay tablet is "one of the most important human documents ever discovered," the Guardian reported.

As for the craft described in the Book of Genesis, "I am 107 percent convinced the ark never existed," he said.

All civilizations have the myths. What is key, it seems to me, is what they say about the values of the particular civilization.

Finkel believes the idea that inspired the Biblical flood story originated in Mesopotamia. 

The authors of the Hebrew Bible were moved by hearing flood stories during their exile in Babylonia after the destruction of Jerusalem's First Temple in 586 BC.

Mesopotamia corresponds to today's Iraq, and smaller parts of Iran, Syria, Turkey, and Kuwait. Babylon was an ancient city of Mesopotamia.

"The flood story in Genesis basically overlaps with the Babylonian story. The two are interdependent, cut from the same cloth. The Judean intelligentsia knew Babylon's folk tales, but gave them a Jewish twist. The same holds for the similarity between the baby-in-the-bulrushes story of Moses and the story of the Assyrian king Sargon, whose mother also placed him in a reed basket," Finkel http://elliotjager.blogspot.co.il/2010/09/meeting-irving-finkel.html told me several years ago when I interviewed him here in Jerusalem.

The tablet Finkel analyzed is the only one found so far that offers precise dimensions and directions on how to construct the ark— which it says should be circular. The commands call for an ark that would be almost as big as a British soccer field, the Guardian reports.

Finkel does not say the craft actually existed but believes similar though smaller vessels did ply ancient waters, according to the Guardian. 

The tablet, which will be put on display at the British Museum, was first shown to Finkel in 2008 by Douglas Simmons, whose father, Leonard, brought it home to England after service in the Middle East with the Royal Air Force.

The clay tablet also portrays islands beyond the known world. The text says, that is where  the remains of the ark can be found.

Finkel details his flood theory in a book due out on Jan. 30, "The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood."

"Take Aways" From Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Session with Foreign Journalists Thursday Evening Jan. 18 Jerusalem

Economy

He's gearing up for next week's trip to Davos. Spoke about Israel as being safe, free and technically advanced.

His Davos speech will be entitled "Israel: Innovation Nation"

Israel committed to Negev and Galilee development.

Moving forward with rail link between Eilat and Ashdod – Red-Med link. Way to move Asian goods to Europe [via containers].

Committed to relocating advanced military bases to Beersheba.

[by prearrangement took one of just three questions from Xinhua] Israel is working on easing export restrictions to China.  Planning to offer China test desalination project for one Chinese city. Israel leads in this technology. Then, maybe, scale up to other cities.

Cyber warfare

Israel moving its biggest cyber defense bases to Negev.

Safe secure cyber environment is everyone's interest.

Beersheba will be capital of cyber efforts in years to come- the cyber capital of Israel – maybe bigger than that…

Security

Israel faces three challenges: Iran, Iran's Hezbollah proxy, Iran's Hamas and Islamic Jihad Proxy

Iranian nukes: "We will prevent it" by ever means possible.

Jordan

On Thursday's lightening, surprise visit with King Abdullah of Jordan in Amman:  It was an "excellent" meeting. The PM [in reply to query from Arab journalist, also by prearrangement] did not want to characterize Jordan's position on a continued Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley.

Israel's relation with Jordan also based on peace and security.

 Palestinians

In Gaza: Israel will not accept "drip" & "drizzle" of rocket attacks. [Air Force retaliating as he spoke for attack aimed at Ashkelon.]  

Negotiations with PA: The main component of a Lasting Peace is Israeli Security. Otherwise it will unravel.

Jerusalem does not want a Hamasstan in Judea and Samaria [West Bank]

We're seeing an "Afghanistan" evolving in Syria.

There is a Hezbollahstan in Lebanon.

Myths: That the core of the ME conflict is the Palestinian Arab problem; that "settlements" are the core of the Palestinian-Israel conflict; that a Palestinian state is what is holding up peace.

Why did they attack us between 1948 – 1967 when there  were no settlements?

Why attack us after we pulled out of Gaza?

Israel is ready for a Palestinian state.

The Palestinians are not ready for a Jewish state.

An accord with Palestinians is contingent on (1) security and (2) recognition of Jewish state [in any boundaries].

In answer to [prearranged question from BBC] question about why release of Arab terrorists is invariably linked to building [within existing] settlements.

Must Jews live in settlement clusters. No new settlements are being announced, only some dwellings within existing settlements.

Netanyahu expressed irritation with EU calling in Israeli ambassadors after settlement-building announcement. "When was the last time the EU called in Palestinian ambassadors to talk about incitement?"

Or the involvement of Palestinian Authority security personnel in anti-civilian attacks against Israelis?

It is significant to Israel that Palestinians are not being held accountable for their behavior.

[Continued construction] "This was part of the understanding.  It was the deal. Unwritten. But everybody knew it."

This is not an obstacle. What do the Arabs wants an ethnically cleansed state?

##ENDS##

Despite Vast Resources Poured into the Effort , UK Islamist Extremists Snub Non-Violence Prison Program

I found this interesting but hardly surprising.

A British government program aimed at rehabilitating radical Muslim prisoners so that they abandon their philosophy of violence has largely failed, according to Sky News. 

The majority of prisoners convicted on terrorism charges related to their Islamist beliefs have refused to participate.

There are about 150 convicted terrorists in British prisons, 110 of them have rejected taking part in the "Contest" program. Contest seeks to persuade them to reconsider their beliefs and reject violence.

The prisoners hold views that are "very fanatical" and "entrenched," rooted in certainty that "it is the correct worldview and anybody who opposes it is the enemy of God," said Dr. Usama Hasan of the Quilliam Foundation. The group is partly funded by the British government.

Contest is part of a larger effort to counter radicalism among the country's 1.6 million Muslims. 

Britain says it invests significant resources in "stopping people from supporting terrorism," according to a 2013 government report. London provides funding to community-based Muslim groups to help them counter militant Islamic propaganda and "offer alternative views" to "vulnerable target audiences."

Government sources told Sky News that none of the hardcore "jihadist" in the prison system, among them Abdullah Ahmed Ali who had conspired to blow up airliners with liquid explosives, consented to participate in the anti-extremism initiative.

Some 40 prisoners, mostly lower level "foot soldiers" are presently enrolled in the program. However, 30 offenders who completed their sentences and did not take part in the program are now back on the streets, Sky News reported.

The Contest prison program is modeled after one pioneered in Saudi Arabia.

Something tells me the Saudi instructors are more persuasive.