Netanyahu: “Erdogan is a butcher.”

Turkey’s President Erdogan called Israel a terrorist state and Bibi Netanyahu a terrorist after the incident along the Gaza-Israel border that saw Israeli snipers kill a number of violent Palestinian protestors as well as injuring over a 1000 more.  The protests, a creation of Hamas, were meant to crash through the security fence between Gaza and Israel.  The deaths of some of the more violent protestors has  caused an uproar across the Arab world.

“I strongly condemn the Israeli government over its inhumane attack,” Erdogan said of Friday’s incidents along the Gaza border. “Have you heard any noteworthy objections to the massacre by Israel that happened yesterday in Gaza from those who criticize the Afrin operation? This is the biggest proof of insincerity of those who fixate on us but say nothing about Israel using heavy weapons to attack people who are protesting on their own lands.”

Bibi Netanyahu responded:

“Erdogan is not used to people responding to him, but he should start getting used to it. Anyone who occupies northern Cyprus, invades the Kurdish strip and slaughters citizens in Afrin, should not lecture us about values and ethics.”

This war of words holds significance.  With Turkey’s claim that Israel is a terrorist state, Erdogan is seemingly using the same rhetoric to justify his invasion of Afrin.  Afterall, for Erdogan, all Kurds are terrorists. Now Israel too has become a terrorist state, worthy of invasion.  Of course, Turkey is not invading Israel tomorrow, but it is attemtping to undermine it every chance it gets.

Bibi’s statement about Cyprus and Afrin is not just some empty phrase, but rather a statement of great magnitude.  Netanyahu has now become the first leader to point out in clear terms what Erdogan’s actions in Afrin really are…genocide.

The continuing realignment in the Middle East has begun to create chaos with a number of actors scrambling to pick sides. Donald Trump has clearly decided to pull the USA out of the mess, but that has only created more of a mess. Bibi’s statement about the Kurds and Cyprus is a hint of the role that Israel appears ready and willing to take on. This of course pits the Jewish state on a collision course with Turkey who has delusions of returning to the golden age of the Ottoman Empire.

True leadership is far more about standing up for the truth than conquering distant lands.  Turkey has for far too long gotten away with brutally suppressing indigenous minorities under the guise of anti-terror operations. Erdogan may believe he can bring Turkey back to its former glory, but Israel is not the same Israel and the Jews who were both poor and unorganized when living under Turkish rule have now in the most miraculous ways returned to their ancient homeland to create one of the most successful nations in the world.

The future of the Middle East is dependent on Israel reestablishing itself as the compass and leader of the region. Bibi’s reaction to Erdogan is a hopeful first step to making this happen.

Israel Must Stand With the Kurds Against Turkey

There are times that we cannot afford to remain silent.  We who witnessed our own people nearly wiped out just over 70 years ago know that feeling of an impending genocide.  Perhaps this is due to our collective PTSD or something engrained in us since our forced expulsion from the Land of Israel by the Romans nearly 2000 years ago.

President Erdogan of Turkey fashions himself as a sort of neo-Sultan ready to lead Turkey to a new golden age. Part of this golden age is a drive to wipe out those who Erdogan finds in his way.  For Erdogan, no other group exposes Turkey as an autocratic, racist power as the Kurds do and this is exactly why Erdogan and the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) are hell-bent at wiping them out where ever they are.

Last week’s successful invasion and defacto occupation by the TAF and their FSA allies under orders from Ankara represent our generation’s Sudetenland.  Sudetenland was Hitler’s first stop in conquering much of Europe and the world powers in 1938 did nothing actionable to stop him.  Erdogan’s wife has already stated that her husband intends to settle 500,000 Syrians and other Arabs in the once Kurdish majority city of Afrin.  This is not only a clear case of ethnic cleansing and indiscriminate killing of men, women, and children, it is a violation of the Geneva Convention.

Erdogan will not settle for just Afrin.  Due to the United States’ unwillingness to stop the “mad-man” in Ankara they have grown his appetite for more.

Not only has Erdogan promised to enter Manbij, which is a majority Kurdish populated city in Syria to the east of Afrin, he is even threatening to enter Sinjar in Iraq as he claims the terrorist group PKK is there.

“We told the central government to resolve the problem. Or we may will enter Sinjar and wipe the PKK terrorists out overnight. They told us that they would give us information, but we have not received any information so far. If this process lasts long, a new Olive Branch operation can be launched,” he stressed.

Erdogan has also indicated that he will push further south in Syria.

“We made our decision and entered the field. In short time, we will control Tal Rifaat and end the operation [Olive Branch],” Erdogan said in Trabzon, according to the Turkish news outlet, Ahval.

The TAF, who are known for their brutality towards non-Turks cannot be trusted to simply pinpoint their attacks on would-be terrorists.  In fact many of the so-called terrorists Erdogan killed in Afrin were women and children as evidenced by the countless videos and pictures streaming from Afrin city.

It is obvious that the USA lacks the will to intervene on the Kurds behalf.  Russia and Syria seem not to want to be bothered by Turkey’s drive to create a new Ottoman Empire.  Iran clearly is thankful it is Turkey that is will to finally put down the Kurds.  There seems to be one that cares enough to stop the growing Turkish genocidal menace.

This is where Israel must rise up and take the leadership mantle it is meant to have.  On all other matters in the Middle East Israel is respected as a leader.  We as Jews know what it means to be hunted down and murdered.  It is time to demand that the government in Jerusalem break ties with Turkey as a first action and warning to Erdogan that more will come unless he ceases his attacks on the Kurds.

The IDF should try to find a way to supply intelligence, humanitarian supplies, and even military equipment to the both the Syrian Kurds and the Kurds in northern Iraq.  Israeli leadership has been used to undertaking these missions covertly. It may be time to show the world what it means to stand against evil.  The Kurds have always stood with Israel and they appear to be the only other group of people in the Middle East that are genuinely forward thinking and capable of building a successful society.

Now is the time for Israel to lead.

LOST TRIBES RETURN: My Brothers the Igbo

During our exile from the Land of Israel we yearned to find our lost brothers, known as the Ten Lost Tribes who were exiled from Samaria in stages 2700 years ago by the Assyrians. Most scholars agree that just like the Bible says, the exiled Israelites were brought east to today’s Pashtun territory straddling the Durand line of Afghanistand and Pakistan.

The following verse in Kings describes the area.

2 Kings 17:6: “In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria. He settled them in Halah, in Gozan on the Habor River and in the towns of the Medes.”

According to Nadav Sofy an activist for reuniting the Bani Yisrael of the Pashtun with the rest of Israel, “The area of the Pashtun is the only area in the world that shares these descriptions.”  While it is true that the area of the Pashtun as well as even areas of Kurdistan and north in the Caucus seems to mirror the above verse, there were three expulsions of Israelites by the Assyrians and probably more.

Nearly two years ago I wrote a post insinuating that the Pashtun had the only accurate claim to the title of Lost Tribes of Israel.  Others with Jewish affinity I have argued come from the Persian period that witnessed thousands across the empire ranging from India to South Sudan join the Jewish people.

While I still believe the Persian period is a great explanation on how Jewish customs are found across this large diverse number of regions, it does not take in consideration west African Jewry.

The Talmud in tractate Sanhedrin page 94a asks where the Lost Tribes were sent to.  The first opinion is Africa and the second opinion is the mountains of Shlug, who most scholars indicate are the Caucus Mountains, directly north of the Kurdistan region in Turkey.

So which opinion is right?  I believe it is entirely possible like in other “disagreements” in the Talmud that both opinions may be right.  Remember, the Assyrians exiled the northern Israelites in stages and it is also clear their empire stretched across a vast area from Africa to what is today is Persia.  Interestingly enough it roughly mimics the Persian Empire that rose 250 years later.  It is entirely possible that the Assyrians split the Tribes up and sent them to the Caucuses, Afghanistan and yes Africa.

 

Where in Africa?

Let’s assume the most likely place for the initial expulsion was south or even southwest of Egypt, which was known as Cush or today’s southern Sudan.  From there the tribes would have spread out some moving as has been proven into the Gondor region of northern Ethiopia and the others would have travelled slowly.  In time they moved west and eventually reached what is today known as eastern Nigeria or by the Igbos as Igboland or Biara.


The Igbo are a decentralized group of clans that have a tradition that they migrated from a northern area and are of the tribes of  Ephraim, Naphtali, Menasseh, Levi, Zebulun and Gad.  The British recorded how the Igbo kept circumcision, stayed away from impure meat, practiced biblical purity laws and much more. Their oral traditions are called Omenana, “what to do in the Land.”

Of course, many of the Igbo traditions and oral memory was decimated during the Atlantic slave trade, which the Igbo became an outsized portion of due to their stubborness in the face of their colonial masters. With their conversion to Christianity, many Igbo began to gravitate to Saturday as being the true Sabbath after insisting that was the tradition of their forefathers.

With activists like Daniel Lis, Remy Ilona, and more, the Igbo are quickly finding the ancient origins of their traditions seem to lie in the Bible itself.

With an increased interest by many in Israel to find out lost brothers across the world, the Igbo are literally screaming for recognition. Change is hard. Acceptance of the other is perhaps the greatest test to our need for unity.  We find ourselves in the End of Days where we are to witness the reconnection and merger of the staffs of Judah and Efraim.  We, the descendents of Judah have always expected the Tribes to be in one location and would appear like us, but that was an expectation born out of a faulty notion of our global tribal unit and own experiences.  The fact is the Tribes are scattered throughout the world and it is time we accept their yearning to return and act as the facilitator for their homecoming.

The Igbo, like our brothers in Afghanistan are a test for our stubborness to see reality and past the color barrier we have sponged up from our travels in Europe.  Redemption is as much about our own inner tranformation as it is about bringing home the exiles of our people. In this regard, our ability to see passed our brothers’ skin color as well as our work at bringing them home is also apart of our own inner transformation. This transformation will ultimately lead to a reconfigured Israel that is the ultimate revelation of the Creator’s kingship in the world.

 

 

Turkey is the Enemy to Watch Out For

As the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) have now unofficially invaded, occupied, and essentially stolen Afrin City from its indigenous inhabitants, the Syrian Kurds, it is important to understand the implications of this for the Middle East and specifically Israel.  The Israeli government has spent more than a decade convincing the world and most importantly the United States that Iran is the most dangerous threat to Israel. In fact, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came back from his meetings with Trump explaining that their meeting centered on Iran.

While it is true Iran poses an existential threat to Israel by way of its ballistic missile program and sponsorship of Hezbollah, its armed forces are still considered very inadequate as compared to Israel’s. Once again, this is not to say Iran should be ignored, especially since they are run by the Ayatollahs.

With all of Iran’s nastiness and genocidal aspirations, they have yet to accomplish what Erdogan has done in Afrin.  Not only has he destroyed ethnically cleansed its Kurdish occupants, but Erdogan seems to actually revel in the complete destruction of the Kurdish city.  This is why Turkey is dangerous.  Erdogan wants and desires to restore the Ottoman Empire to its full glory and will stop at nothing to do so, including mass ethnic cleansing and genocide.

Unlike Iran, Turkey is a NATO member and hosts the US airforce that is needed in the region to finish off ISIS and face off against Russian and Iranian expansion.  Erdogan knows the US won’t be able to move it’s airbase in the short run and so has a free hand to murder civilians and occupy the territory of others.

Erdogan has made it clear. Afrin is only the beginning.  After he has finished killing as many Kurds as he can he will move on and wipe out more and then head south to conquer Damascus and then the ultimate prize, Jerusalem.

Last summer the Turkish Foreign Ministry invoked the Ottoman Empire in connection to Jerusalem: “At the Ottoman era, communities belonging to different religions and sects lived in peaceful coexistence and enjoyed freedom of worship for centuries. In this context, Jews would be expected to know best and appreciate the unique tolerance during the Ottoman era.”

Of course Turkey failed to mention the oppressive policies against Jews in Jerusalem by the Turkish authorities as well as the purposeful flooding of the Land of Israel of hundreds of thousands of non-indigenous peoples by the Ottomans to offset the growing Jewish population.  In fact, one can say that the British learned from the Turks on effective measures on one hand to utiize the Jewish influx of economic know-how and on the other how to rile up the Arab street against the Jewish population.

If the world does not stop Erdogan, what is going on in Afrin will only the beginning.  This is why it is important to take a stand.  Israel needs to lead the way on this.  First, the Kurds have always been pro-Israel and friendly to the Jews.  Furthermore, the Kurds are an open society that makes a point of cherishing personal freedom.  What Erdogan is doing is wiping out an entire culture and if that is allowed nothing will stop him coming after Israel when he is done.

Israel can pressure the US to finally pick a side in this fight and stop back stabbing the Kurds.  It is true Iran is dangerous and may even be true that switching gears at this moment may muddy the ater, but the alternative is far worse.

 

[Watch] YEHUDA GLICK: “We are witnessing Biblical Prophecy being fulfilled!”

I had the opportunity today to sit with MK Rabbi Yehuda Glick in the Knesset for a discussion on his views of Redemption, Peace, and Jerusalem.  Glick is perhaps the most recognized leader of the movement to allow freedom of worship on the Temple Mount.  He is both determined and completely optimistic regarding Israel and global peace.

Although a resident of Otniel in the Southern Hebron Hills, he is a peace advocate that supports a One State Solution that will give the Palestinian Arabs full human rights. His initiative Jerusalem of Peace, makes Jerusalem the key to world peace.

Rabbi Glick is a force who sees his unplanned Knesset entry as a a sign from G-D to help bring global redemption through freedom of worship on the Temple Mount and the promotion of the indigenous rights of the Jewish people in their historic homeland of Israel

WATCH BELOW

Yehuda Glick Live in the Knesset: Jerusalem, Redemption, and Peace

Sitting with Yehudah Glick in the The Knesset – הכנסת #Knesst discussing the future of #Israel and #Jerusalem and his project www.jerusalemofpeace.com

Posted by Israel Rising on Tuesday, March 6, 2018