Palestinians seek UN Security Council resolution declaring West Bank settlements illegal

This is not the first time we heard rumblings coming from Abbas
regarding going to the UN or going to the ICC or going to speak to God personally to seek assistance in stopping Israel's illegal expansion, but he always backs down or it proves futile going against America. He is weak and feckless. Having said that, I can see him trying to get something out of Obama in his last year. This should be interesting. I highly doubt Obama will do anything at the UN that in any way puts Israel in legal jeopardy over settlements or any other illegal activities they are involved with in the occupied territories. What is interesting,  recently we heard his Ambassador to Israel, Mr. Shapiro, make critical comments of how the settlers go unpunished when they are involved in violence or hooliganism against the Palestinians.
Maybe that was a warning shot across the bows. Stay tuned.
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As Palestinian leadership works to muster international support, Netanyahu set to discuss  matter with Kerry and Biden in Davos amid fears regarding U.S. veto.

By Barak Ravid and Jack Khoury | Jan. 21, 2016 | 8:24 AM |  8

The Palestinian Authority is trying to advance a resolution in the UN Security Council that will condemn the settlements in the West Bank and declare them illegal under international law and an obstacle to peace. Senior Palestinian and Israeli officials say that the PA has been in contact with France, Spain and Egypt, all members of the Security Council, to get them to draw up such a resolution and support it. Several weeks ago Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki visited Paris, where he met with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and discussed submitting such a resolution. Fabius himself has been weighing such a move for several months, and raised it for the first time at a meeting of the foreign ministers of the Middle East Quartet (United States, Russia, UN and EU) that took place on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly at the end of September. Ten days ago Maliki visited Cairo and discussed the move with Egyptian Foreign Minister Samech Shoukry. Egypt recently became a member of the Security Council, replacing Jordan as a representative of the Arab world. While in Cairo, Maliki also met with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir and updated him on his discussions with Fabius in Paris. Maliki asked Jubeir to pressure France to advance the resolution in the Security Council.

At the same time, PLO Executive Committee secretary Saeb Erakat met with Arab League Secretary- General Nabil Elaraby to begin discussing a draft resolution that would get Arab support. This week Maliki was in Madrid to discuss the resolution with his Spanish counterpart. Israel fears that Fabius will want to advance a Palestinian-related resolution as one of the last things he does before leaving his post in a few weeks. Senior Israeli diplomats who recently visited Paris said that the message they got from senior French Foreign Ministry officials was that no decision has been made on submitting a Security Council resolution – neither on the settlements nor on principles for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

On the other hand, the French inserted a clause into the resolution on distinguishing Israel from the settlements adopted by the EU foreign ministers earlier this week, calling for the weighing of actions in the UN Security Council in an effort to formulate a multilateral approach to the peace process. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is in Davos for the annual World Economic Forum, will be meeting on the sidelines of that conference Thursday with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and will have a separate meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. Palestinian efforts to advance resolutions 

in the Security Council are expected to be discussed.

The big question mark is what the U.S. position will be. The White House hasn’t yet decided whether to resume involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian issue during the last year of President Barack Obama’s term. Meetings at the White House and the State Department have come up with various proposals but 

Obama has yet to hold any discussions on the matter.

Senior Israeli officials noted that Jerusalem fears that during his last year in office Obama may not veto a resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian issue in the Security Council, particularly given the increasing U.S. 

criticism of Israeli settlement policy. Palestinians, on the other hand, believe America will scuttle any resolution on settlements, either by pressuring member countries to vote against it, or by vetoing it.

In February 2011 the United States vetoed a similar resolution on the settlements, even though the wording of the resolution was almost totally congruent with the administration position on the issue. 

Since then the United States has blocked at least three efforts to pass Security Council resolutions on the Palestinian issue. In 2012, it was a Palestinian-Arab initiative to vote on accepting Palestine as a full member of the UN; in 2014 it was a French initiative to advance a resolution that would present principles for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the third time, also in 2014, 

it was a Jordanian-Palestinian effort to advance a similar resolution, which came to a vote but was defeated without the United States having to veto it.

ISIS destroys Iraq's oldest Christian Monastery

Iraq’s Oldest Christian Monastery Reduced to Field of Rubble

St. Elijah’s monastery stood as a place of worship for 1,400 years

ENLARGE

In this Nov. 7, 2008 photo, U.S. Army soldiers tour St. Elijah's Monastery on Forward Operating Base Marez in Mosul, Iraq. PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS

Associated Press

Jan. 20, 2016 5:50 a.m. ET

ERBIL, Iraq—Satellite photos obtained by the Associated Press confirm what church leaders and Middle East preservationists had feared: the oldest Christian monastery in Iraq has been reduced to a field of rubble, yet another victim of Islamic State group’s relentless destruction of heritage sites it considers heretical.

St. Elijah’s Monastery stood as a place of worship for 1,400 years, including most recently for U.S. troops. In earlier millennia, generations of monks tucked candles in the niches, prayed in the chapel, worshiped at the altar. The Greek letters chi and rho, representing the first two letters of Christ’s name, were carved near the entrance.

This month, at the request of the AP, satellite imagery firmDigitalGlobe tasked a high resolution camera to grab photos of the site, and then pulled earlier images of the same spot.

Before it was razed, a partially restored, 27,000-square-foot stone and mortar building stood fortresslike on a hill above Mosul. Although the roof was largely missing, it had 26 distinctive rooms including a sanctuary and chapel. One month later photos show “that the stone walls have been literally pulverized,” said imagery analystStephen Wood, chief executive of Allsource Analysis, who pinpointed the destruction between August and September 2014.

“Bulldozers, heavy equipment, sledgehammers, possibly explosives turned those stone walls into this field of gray-white dust. They destroyed it completely,” he said from his Colorado offices.

ENLARGE

U.S. Army soldiers tour St. Elijah's Monastery in this Nov. 7, 2008, photo. PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS

On the other side of the world, in his office in exile, in Erbil, Iraq, Catholic priest Rev. Paul Thabit Habib, 39, stared in disbelief at the before- and after- images.

“Our Christian history in Mosul is being barbarically leveled,” he said in Arabic. “We see it as an attempt to expel us from Iraq, eliminating and finishing our existence in this land.”

‘Our Christian history in Mosul is being barbarically leveled. We see it as an attempt to expel us from Iraq, eliminating and finishing our existence in this land.’

—Rev. Paul Thabit Habib

The Islamic State group, which now controls large parts of Iraq and Syria, has killed thousands of civilians in the past two years. Along the way, its fighters have destroyed whatever they consider contrary to their interpretation of Islam.

St. Elijah’s joins a growing list of more than 100 religious and historic sites looted and destroyed, including mosques, temples, tombs, shrines and churches. Ancient monuments in the cities of Nineveh, Palmyra and Hatra are in ruins. Museums and libraries have been pillaged, books burned, artwork crushed—or trafficked.

U.S. troops and advisers had worked to protect and honor the monastery, a hopeful endeavor in a violent place and time.

“I would imagine that many people are feeling like, ’What were the last 10 years for if these guys can go in and destroy everything?’” said U.S. Army reserve Col. Mary Prophit, who was deployed there in 2004 and again in 2009.

ENLARGE

This photo taken in the 1920s shows a ceremony at the Mar Matai monastery in Mosul, Iraq, where a Christian community thrived for centuries. PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS

Built in 590, tragedy struck at St. Elijah’s in 1743, when as many as 150 monks who refused to convert to Islam were massacred by a Persian general. In 2003 St. Elijah’s shuddered again—this time a wall was smashed by a tank turret blown off in battle. Iraqi troops had already moved in, dumping garbage in the cistern. The U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division took control, painting over ancient murals and scrawling their division’s “Screaming Eagle,” on the walls. Then a U.S. military chaplain, recognizing its significance, began a preservation initiative.

Roman Catholic Army chaplain Jeffrey Whorton, who celebrated Mass on the monastery’s altar, was grief-stricken at its loss.

“Why we treat each other like this is beyond me,” he said. “Elijah the prophet must be weeping.”

Copyright 2016 the Associated Press.

All-Female Christian Militia Takes on ISIS in Syria

All-Female Christian Militia Takes on ISIS in Syria

AFP/Reuters/Getty Images)

Babylonia has no regrets about leaving behind her two children and her job as a hairdresser to join a Christian female militia battling against the Islamic State group in Syria.

The fierce-looking 36-year-old in fatigues from the Syriac Christian minority in the northeast believes she is making the future safe for her children.

"I miss Limar and Gabriella and worry that they must be hungry, thirsty and cold. But I try to tell them I'm fighting to protect their future," she told AFP.

Babylonia belongs to a small, recently created battalion of Syriac Christian women in Hasakeh province who are fighting IS.

They are following in the footsteps of Syria's other main female force battling the jihadists – the women of the YPJ, the female counterpart to the Kurdish People's Protection Units or YPG.

So far the new force is small, with around 50 graduates so far from its training camp in the town of Al-Qahtaniyah, also known as Kabre Hyore in Syriac, and Tirbespi in Kurdish.

But the "Female Protection Forces of the Land Between the Two Rivers" – the area between the Tigris and Euphrates waterways historically inhabited by Syriacs – is teeming with women eager to prove their worth against IS.

It was actually Babylonia's husband who encouraged her to leave Limar, nine, and six-year-old Gabriella and join the unit whose first recruits graduated in August.

Himself a fighter, he urged her to take up arms to "fight against the idea that the Syriac woman is good for nothing except housekeeping and make-up", she said.

"I'm a practicing Christian and thinking about my children makes me stronger and more determined in my fight against Daesh," added Babylonia, using the Arabic acronym for IS.

Syriac Christians belong to the eastern Christian tradition and pray in Aramaic. They include both Orthodox and Catholic branches, and constitute around 15 percent of Syria's 1.2 million Christians.

Before the conflict began in March 2011, Christians from some 11 different sects made up around five percent of the population.

The unit's first major action was alongside the newly created Syrian Democratic Forces, a coalition of Kurdish, Arab and Christian fighters, which recently recaptured the strategic town of Al-Hol.

Kevin Whitson January 18, 2016 

These Christian Women Were Tired Of Being Terrorized By ISIS, So They Turned The Tables BIG Time

If it were a Hollywood movie, some might say, it couldn’t be more dramatic.

All-female brigades of Christian fighters are taking on ISIS and all-female ISIS brigades of suicide bombers. In a storyline arguably meant more for a script, the true-to-life actions of the Female Protection Forces of the Land Between the Two Rivers are making head-waves against ISIS forces. The Syriac Christians Brigade is an all-female fighting force made up of Syrian Christian women and mothers who refuse to submit to ISIS, or Daesh as they like to call them.

The women all speak and pray in Aramaic, the native language of Jesus of Nazareth from the Bible. In contrast to the suicide bombers that some female ISIS recruits aspire to become, the Syriac Christians Brigade hopes to hone their battle skills, with some even desiring to become snipers.

Some of the women were encouraged to become fighters by their husbands who also serve as soldiers. “I’m a practicing Christian, and thinking about my children makes me stronger and more determined in my fight against Daesh (ISIS),” said a female fighter named Babylonia. Her husband encouraged her to fight “against the idea that the Syriac woman is good for nothing except housekeeping and make-up.”

Remembering the massacres in 1915 of Syriac, Assyrian and Chaldean Christians was a good enough reason for some of the females to join the fight against ISIS. Eighteen-year-old Ithraa told AFP that “We are a community that is oppressed by others,” and that she and her female comrades hope to prevent “a new massacre like that committed by the Ottomans… when they tried to erase our Christian and Syriac identity.”

As Western Journalism has reported, ISIS fighters fear being killed by a woman on the battlefield. According to the tradition followed by these terrorists, death at the hand of a female is a one-way ticket to hell.


Source:Newsmax.com
  http://www.westernjournalism.com/

Christian village in Iraq bombed by Turkish army.

More bad news for Christians in Iraq. The Turks seem to care little for their safety as they blindly seek to destroy the Kurds at any cost. The Arab Christians are getting it from all directions. Will America express any outrage or continue to remain silent? The crimes against Christians have reached genocidal levels and no one in the West seems to care? -------------------------------------------------------- Iraq: Christian village bombed by Turkish army

Monday, January 18, 2016 6:42 pm.

Over the weekend of 16-17 January, Turkish troops bombed the Iraqi village of Sharanish, located on the border with Turkey, in the governorate of Dohuk, inhabited by Christians, Chaldeans and Assyrians. The bombings spread panic among the population, who were forced to flee to the city of Zakho during the night, in bitterly cold weather conditions and heavy snow. The Patriarchate of Babylon of the Chaldeans, announced what had happened and has strongly condemned the Turkish military action, calling it "totally unjustified." It has also appealed to the Iraqi Kurdistan autonomous government to take "the necessary measures to defend its citizens."  The attack was carried out "under the pretext of the fight against the positions of the Kurdish PKK" the Patriarchate said in a statement. In the 1980s, the town was completely devastated during the military campaigns carried out by the Iraqi army against the Kurds. After the end of Saddam Hussein's regime some of the original Christian population had returned to live in the village, partly to escape the anti-Christian violence which was more frequent in the urban areas of Baghdad and Mosul. The village is also home to dozens of new Christian families who fled from the Nineveh plain in 2014, before the advance of IS fighters.  Last August, Sharanish and other villages in the Qandil mountains inhabited by Christians were targets of air raids during the military operations carried out in that area by the Kurdish army against the Kurds of the PKK. Source: http://www.indcatholicnews.com/news.php?viewStory=29244

Russian forces will remain in Syria “indefinitely”

I'm not sure how to react to Russia's long term stay in Syria. My issue is mostly against the principle of foreign intervention. I rarely support American interventionism but since we don't live in a ideal world where superpowers don't intervene in the affairs of smaller states, the reality is much more complicated. The West is portraying Russian aims as mainly propping up the Assad regime and maintaining it's "satellite state".  That is true, Russia wants to maintain what little influence it has left in that region but aside from the geopolitical maneuvering, Russia is doing something good that goes far and beyond the Assad regime. The West are ignoring what the fall of Assad actually means. His tribe the Alawite if he falls will likely face a genocidal onslaught from Sunni extremists. ISIS has already made it's intentions abundantly clear regarding any non-Sunni Muslims. They have already slaughtered or ethnically cleansed all minority groups in the region that they crossed paths with. Therefore, I am grateful that Russia has stepped up to protect these minorities - including the Christians - from the genocidal onslaught of ISIS. It should be noted historically Alawites are a integral  part of that region. They even had a state, albeit controlled by France under mandate - the Alawite state existed from 1920 to 1936 after the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

Russian forces will remain in Syria “indefinitely,” according to a newly published agreement between Moscow and Damascus. Details of the agreement regulating the Russian-Syrian military alliance emerged as Moscow announced its mission in the country would now include “humanitarian operations", a term that appeared to refer to aid drops over regime-held territory. Russia began air strikes in support of Syrian government forces on September 30 last year, in what the Kremlin has described as a war on the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil). But Western governments say the campaign appears to be aimed at propping up the embattled regime of Bashar Assad, the Syrian president.

In public statements, Russian officials have said the deployment will continue only until regime forces complete “offensive operations” and against Isil and other rebel groups.

Israeli soldier praised for shooting protesters in video footage

JAN. 13, 2016 5:29 P.M. (UPDATED: JAN. 13, 2016 6:59 P.M.)

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Israeli soldiers aim towards Palestinian youths during clashes in the West Bank town of Hebron on Oct. 4, 2015. (AFP/Hazem Bader, File)

The footage includes several snippets of conversation between two people said to be Israeli soldiers, one a sniper and the other his commanding officer, as they discuss opening fire on Palestinian protesters.

In one early scene, the officer congratulates the sniper for shooting a Palestinian "in his butt." In other scenes, he repeatedly says:
"Wow, very cool," after the sniper shoot and hits protesters.

"Come on, you are allowed to shoot," the officer urges the sniper, after which the sniper fires a shot and says: "I got him! I got him!"

In a later scene, the officer asks: "Did you hit him?" to which the sniper replies: "Of course I did, bro."

A final scene shows the men climbing into an Israeli military jeep, appearing to show the interior of the vehicle. The authenticity of the video footage could not initially be confirmed. An Israeli army spokesperson said she was looking into the reports. Both local and international rights groups have repeatedly criticized the Israeli army for its excessive use of force and for killing and wounding Palestinians who did not pose an imminent threat. Thousands of Palestinian protesters have been wounded by Israeli forces since a wave of unrest swept the occupied Palestinian territory in October.

Source: Ma'an.com