Showing posts with label vetting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vetting. Show all posts

Sunday, April 15, 2018

Looking Back At My Aliyah To Israel and Now

The culture of Lebanon  reflects their warlike behavior.
This is a sculpture in Bint Jbeil, Lebanon of missiles aimed at Israel.
Syria has the real missiles aimed at Israel.  I remember
Major Hadad of the Christian Lebanon Militia  who helped guard Israel's border from terrorists.
Look at what has happened to it today.  Hezbollah terrorists have taken over Lebanon. Palestinian Gazans are acting out dangerously in every manner.  
Nadene Goldfoot                                                   
Syrian scud missiles aimed at Israel 
Syria had missiles lined up facing Israel since the 80's, probably bought from
Russia.
Israel and Russia have had several chats about this of  late.  

                                                                         
The Golan Heights are so close to Safed, where I had lived.
Missiles from Syria are only 3 miles away from Golan Heights.
It's only 31.3 miles from Safed to Golan Heights. 
North Korea's ICBM missile range is anywhere from 4,000 to 8,100 miles.
It was 38 years ago in 1980 that I made aliyah to Israel.  That same year, my friend, Jack, was born in Damascus, Syria.  The distance between us was only 222.7 miles via highway M5.  Coming from Portland, Oregon, that's like comparing Portland's  driving distance  to  Mt. Vernon, Washington, which is 234.51 miles or 203.78 in nautical miles.

I tried very hard to get him into Israel when he became a refugee from the Syrian Civil War in 2012 which caused him to seek sanctuary in Egypt. That's when I met him on facebook, of all places.

 His desire to live in Israel was  because he was led to believe that his birth mother was a Jewish woman who was a friend of his Muslim father.  She had lived in the segregated Jewish Quarter on "Jew Street.'  Since he had been little, he had insisted on attending
his local Christian school, which he did until time to transfer to high school. He wanted to live a Jewish life, and not the life Damascus had to offer.

  When that seemed impossible to get him into Israel, I tried very hard to get him into the USA as a refugee, which he was.  This turned out to be impossible.  It was at a time that Obama was in office.  I did everything I could think of, contacting immigration lawyers, going to the local immigration center, speaking with those that decided who was eligible, contacting my local senator, and contacting the Jewish community.  Nothing helped.  He was a single young man.
The map above shows the distance from Portland, Oregon to Mt. Vernon, Washington which is 234.51 miles. 
Right now Turkey, Iran and Russia are situated in Syria  taking it over.
Their plan of course is to be able to attack Israel next.  It was bad enough with just
Assad in power with thousands of missiles pointed towards Israel.  Russia has been there for many years because Jack learned a little Russian from them being there.

Syrian refugees living in Egypt have been exiled and had  to seek other places to live.  Egypt's 

population was overly crowded for their own resources anyway.  There was no future

for refugees in Egypt.  Even Jack  as an educated man had problems.  Syrians going to Egypt had no problems with the language as the United States is confronted with.  They all spoke Arabic, just had different accents.  
                                                                           
Listening to Madeline Albright on CNN this morning, I hear even her not understanding
how taking in refugees at this time in history is quite different from taking in refugees at 
other periods, which, by the way, was always almost impossible for Jews because of the 
inhumane anti-Semitism that has existed since Roman days.  I don't remember anyone ever raising the riot-act because Jews were being mistreated when they couldn't enter any country when refugees from the Holocaust.  She herself lost many of her family members in the Holocaust and can't see the differences between them and today's refugees who could have been the axis  powers, terrorists themselves instead of those whose lives were being taken.  There wasn't that problem in the 2nd World War.  
                                                                     
        
This time, most single male refugees in particular could be members of terrorist groups or 
drug pushers;anoather of our problems where  people have entered who would bring harm to Americans.  Never before in history have 
refugees needed to be screened for their honesty in just wanting to have a chance to live.  
There's no way that my friend Jack can prove his honesty since all his records have been 
destroyed in the destruction happening in Syria.  He needs his college transcripts, diploma,
job qualifications, birth certificate, things we all would need.  How can he prove his innocence
in not being involved with terrorism?  How can the USA vet such people from this country?  I only hope that one day he'll get the chance to try.  

We've had bad experiences with refugees of late, and they come from either Mexico or have 
been extremist Muslims.  We're wary of more than one type of refugee.  What we've had a lot of are English speakers.  It seems that everyone voicing an opinion on TV has an accent showing they weren't born in this country.  Immigration has not come to a standstill.   
                                                                           
It was in 70 CE that the Romans, who had taken Jerusalem, burned down the Temple and the city
and took many Jews prisoner, marching them to Rome as slaves along with all the Temple booty. 
Jews were no longer allowed in Judah, which had been the southern end of Israel,  but many managed to hide out there, anyway.  This happened 1948 years ago.  It was in  May 1948 CE that Israel was reborn again, amazingly.

 Celebrating this remarkable date is what's causing the Palestinian rioters in Gaza to demonstrate with their madness.  They don't just demonstrate like teachers in the states wanting raises, they are violent!      The picture below tells of their reason to demonstrate. They still, after 70 years, have not accepted the fact that Israel exists and is there to stay.  Of course they're being fed a different history from the true facts, like the fact that there was never a country of Palestine; or that it's only the name of land named by the Romans and held by the Ottoman Empire who lost it, or that it was the land that Israel and Judah sat on for 3,000 years since Joshua.                     
                                                                     
The Jews with Moses numbered 650,000 at his last census on the Exodus from Egypt to Canaan.
The Jewish population  in May 1948 CE at the time of Israel's creation was 600,000.  For 2,000 years, Jews have had to wait to regain their homeland. For 2,000 years, they have been the scapegoats of every country they've lived in; some more, others less.  Whatever the foreign religion has been or whatever style political power it has been, they've all used the Jews as scapegoats to their problems.
All the while, through all their disasters, they've maintained their own religious beliefs of Judaism.
                                                                   
       
That was the joy I found in living in Israel.  Here is a picture of the Safed's Old City Inn.  Safed is one of the oldest cities in Israel, on top of a mountain at about the same height as Jerusalem.   It was unique to have my neighbors practicing the same religion as our family, or the stores really prepared for Passover.  Restaurants were kosher.  For an American from the West, it was unbelievable.  This city is so picturesque, and even has an artist's quarter with tons of galleries.  

I lived in a government  building where Jews and Muslims lived.  Once I had a horrible problem of a broken pipe in the building causing a river of water to enter my basement apartment and immediately an Israeli woman who spoke only Hebrew and Arabic and an Arab woman came to my aid.  All three of us were fighting the onslaught of water.  They could speak to each other but I couldn't say much at all.  What an experience that was!  We all faced the danger of being surrounded by crazed enemies  and wild situations together. 
                                                                           
In 2012, I met my Syrian friend, Jack on Facebook,  and from that and skyping and chatting a lot and taking notes, I became very interested in the plight he had found himself in.  My book that I finally wrote is full of Syrian facts from those days  that I had dug out from newspapers, books and articles including what they were doing with chemicals found that were used to kill people. It may be amateurishly written, but is loaded with some very interesting details through the eyes of his family reacting to what I had discovered.  

I had left Israel after watching  Israeli TV for 5 years where I saw TV streaming in from Syria and Lebanon.  I saw Syrian soldiers doing a horrible thing where they were biting animals!  I guess they were trying to scare anyone watching as to how ferocious they were, and indeed, they were behaving in such a primitive manner that I about  threw up.   From that experience to meeting Jack, who couldn't kill a fly, who was exemplary of the most humane person I've met, was quite a stretch.  I guess every country contains all kinds, but it's really hard to find people we do admire, like who I had met.  

.      
References: https://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-backed-forces-could-be-3-miles-from-israel-under-syria-deal-report/
https://www.wired.com/story/north-koreas-missile-test-puts-entire-us-in-range/
 "Israel Destroyed Russian Shipment of Anti-Ship Missiles to Syria (Eschatology Watch)"
Messages From A Syrian Jew Trapped In Egypt by Nadene Goldfoot 





Wednesday, February 8, 2017

Seven Countries Needing 90 Day Immigration Wait

Nadene Goldfoot                                            

President Trump wants 7 countries to wait for 90 days before being received as immigrants  for a better vetting procedure to be developed.  He's having a hard time with the Judicial system to agree with him.  The 7 countries include failed states without enough information for the vetters.   They are:
Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. They were listed in a 2016 Law about immigration visas as "countries of concern" by the Obama administration.  Coincidentally, they are also Muslim majority states of which there are a total of 48.

"Dozens of Syrian refugees already living in the Unites States may have ties to terrorism and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is downplaying it, claiming federal agents missed “possible derogatory information” about the immigrants due to “a lapse in vetting.” Among those who slipped through the cracks is a man who failed a polygraph test after applying to work at a U.S. military installation and another who communicated with an Islamic State leader.
                                                                         
Iran:  Iran is the one country I am most concerned about.  They call the USA "Big Satan" and Israel "Little Satan" and have pulled the wool over Obama's Administration with the nuclear energy deal.  They now have missiles that can easily reach Israel.  In other words, they are not a friendly country. They used to be called Persia.  They are part of Asia. Persia had been Babylonia who conquered it by Cyrus in 538 BCE.  The Shiite form of Islam was highly intolerant in theory and practice and remains so today.  Jews were treated worse than in other parts of the Moslem world and were under all sorts of restrictions..  Jews were persecuted and forced conversions took place in the 17th century.  Nadir Shah softened this when he came to power from 1736 to 47. Jews began to emigrate to Israel in big numbers in 1948.   However, by the 19th century, Persian Jewry was among the most depressed in the world.  Although Jews were no persecuted after the Khomeini revolution in 1978 from the Shah's former rule, Jews felt uncomfortable under the strict Islamic regime and left for Israel and the West.  In 1978 the Jewish population was 80,000.  By 1989 it had dropped to 20,000.

Not being Arabs, Iran has the 6th largest populated country in the Middle East. In 2011 they had a 76,923,300 population made up of 98% Shi'a Muslims.  It is a religious Islamic state with 545,000 active troops at the ready.  It's a country run by the Ayatollah, a religious leader who is autocratic.  When the people demonstrated once, Nadia was shot and killed in the crowd.  Iran deals in state-sponsored terrorism  Since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the government of Iran has been accused by members of the international community of funding, providing equipment, weapons, training and giving sanctuary to terrorists.
The United States State Department describes Iran as an “active state sponsor of terrorism.” Former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice elaborated stating, "Iran has been the country that has been in many ways a kind of central banker for terrorism in important regions like Lebanon through Hezbollah in the Middle East, in the Palestinian Territories, and we have deep concerns about what Iran is doing in the south of Iraq."

Iraq has become the Islamic state for ISIS.  It's also called the Islamic state of Iraq and Syria.   It was the 11th largest state  in 2011 with 31,234,000 population, but many have become refugees now.  They had been made up of 97% Shi'a and Sunni Muslims.  Iraq had been a secular state.  Iraq was formerly called Mesopotamia.  It was conquered by the Arabs in 637.  They are part of Asia. The Ottoman Empire took over the land in 1534 and Turks dominated until 1917 after WWI when the British took over.  Iraq became independent in 1932 and then persecuted the Jews killing hundreds in Baghdad or wounded them in a pogrom in 1941 during a revolt.  Iraq Jews were airlifted to Israel in Operation Ezra and Nehemiah but their property left there was all confiscated.  123,500 reached Israel since 1948. Some Jews had to stay for personal reasons and were severely restricted.  By 1991 there were only 150 Jews left in Baghdad and they had one synagogue to attend they had kept open.
3/2/17 Update:  Trump has now taken it off the list of the 7 countries on the 3 month ban from entering while creating a better screening program.
"
  • 153,714 internally displaced persons (IDPs) currently displaced from Mosul and surrounding areas
  • 19,242 UNHCR kits of core relief items (CRIs) distributed to families in camps, assisting some 107,000 IDPs from Mosul and surrounding areas
  • 5,775 family plots are currently occupied out of 11,497 family plots (for some 60,000 people) in UNHCR built camps that are ready to receive IDPs displaced from Mosul corridor
  • 3 million IDPs since January 2014
  • 245,000 Iraqi refugees hosted by neighbouring countries in the region
  • 11,451 Iraqis received in Al Hol camp in Syria since 17 October 2016
Libya is the 29th largest state with 6,173,579 population made up of 97% Sunni Muslims.  Islam is the state religion.  They are located in northern Africa.  Its Jewish population of 30,000 had left in 1948 for Israel. Demonstrations against the remaining 6,000 Jews happened in 1967 and they all left shortly thereafter.  Added late.

"A wave of citizen journalism swept Libya in the months following media predator Muammar Gaddafi’s overthrow in 2011 but the new-found enthusiasm was brought to an early end by the decline in the political and security situation. The open conflict between rival governments in Tobruk in the east and Tripoli in the west from 2014 onwards resulted in climate of complete impunity for crimes of violence and abuses against professional and non-professional journalists." 
Violence continues here.  ISIS is in the country.  

On 8 January, an ISIS member captured by the LNA stated on Libyan television that Tunisian journalists Sofiane Chourabi and Nadher Guetari, who have been missing in Libya since 2014, are both dead. Documents found by the LNA during their raids in Ganfuda over the last two weeks appear to show that the decision to kill the journalists was made by ISIS clerics, and that both were executed in Derna.

Somalia is the 25th largest state with 9,558,666 population and with 100% Sunni Muslims.  It is also an Islamic State situated in northern Africa.  No Jews had settled here.  Added late.

"Somalia is facing a “very real risk” of famine, with more than 6 million people, half its population, facing acute food insecurity in the country, three UN agencies have warned.
Humanitarian groups in Somalia cautioned there was a “small window” to stop a repeat of the 2011 famine, when an estimated 260,000 people starved to death in the country after a slow response from donors."
This state has produced the terrorists called Al Shabab.  They have turned into a global terror threat.  "Since its 2003 creation as a breakaway unit of Somali militant Islamists, al Shabab — Arabic for "the youth" — has grown into one of the world's most notorious terror groups, drawing support and recruits from around the world, including Somali immigrants in America.
Now aligned with al Qaeda, al Shabab has conducted deadly attacks across its homeland, but also against neighboring countries who've joined the fight against it. That includes Kenya, where al Shabab members stormed the campus of Garissa University College on Thursday, killing scores of Christians and a 2013 siege where gunmen opened fire inside an upscale shopping mall, leaving more than 60 dead".

Sudan is the 8th largest state with 43,939,598 population of 70% Sunni Muslims.  They do not list their state as being secular or religious.  Nothing is listed for their religion.  Jews have visited here since remote times.  In 1885, the Mahdi forced all Jews and Christians to convert to Islam.  The community dated from the end of the 19th century, but few Jews live there now.

"Terrorism in Sudan has occurred in Sudan since the recent war. Sudanese government, however, persists in fighting against terrorism in the country.
Sudan has made progress in shutting down terrorism inside its borders. Sudan’s terrorist connection is not new and the country has been on the United States list of state sponsors of terrorism since August 1993. Sudan has been under diplomatic sanctions by the United Nations since 1996.
Sudan is in a strategic position to export its Islamic revolution because of its borders with both Egypt and Libya and with six African countries, including Ethiopia, which has a large and impoverished Muslim population.
Terrorism was introduced to Sudan in the early 1990s when Osama Bin Ladin and his followers came to the country and built a training camp infrastructure as well as setting up a business and finance network

Syria had been the 17th largest state with 22,505,000 population of 90% Sunni Muslims and most likely the rest Christians, but they also have turned to becoming refugees or have been killed. One recent entry said Syria has 21.1 million population now.   Damascus seems to be in good shape, but Aleppo is in ruins.  Syria also lists nothing for their state religion.  Syria was called Aram in Bible days, and people moved back and forth between Syria and Israel then.  The Damascus Blood Libel event happened in 1840, showing how anti-Semitism had developed there.  Jews finally obtained equal right in 1920 in Syria due to the French holding their mandate after WWI.  They lost them during WWII under the Vichy regime.  This caused Jewish immigration to Lebanon, Israel and the USA.  Judith Feld Carr rescued most of the Jews of Syria in 1990s with the promise to Assad to take them to the USA and not Israel.  They had been living deplorably in a Jewish ghetto with restrictions of all possibilities.  Many were actually kept in prisons.  Syria's Assad is still in power, being backed by Iran and Russia.

"Syria was the world's deadliest country for journalists in 2014, says Reporters Without Borders.  Islamic State jihadists "enforce an information dictatorship" in the areas they control.

In Syria, the group, ISIS,  has conducted ground attacks on both government forces and opposition factions. By December 2015, the Islamic State covered a vast landlocked territory in western Iraq and eastern Syria, with a population estimate of 2.8–8 million people,  where it enforces its interpretation of sharia law. ISIL is now believed to be operational in 18 countries across the world, including Afghanistan and Pakistan, with "aspiring branches" in Mali, Egypt, Somalia, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

Yemen is the 16th most populated country with 23,580,000 population of 99% Sunni and Shi'a Musims.  They are an Islamic state.  It is situated in SW  Arabia and was home to my favorite Israeli songstress, Ofra Haza before immigrating with her family to Israel.  Jews living here go back to the times of the 1st Temple.  It was another Arab country that had many restrictions on the Jews and were persecuted, but the Jews became excellent silversmiths anyway.  In the early 19th century there were 30,000 Jews living here. By 1948 there were 18,000 Yemenite Jews living in Palestine.  About the whole JEwish community, numbering about 46,000  were taken to Israel in Operation Magic Carpet.  There were sill some 1,400 Jews remaining in Yemen.  Added late.

In its war on terrorism in Yemen, the US government describes Yemen as "an important partner in the global war on terrorism".  There have been attacks on civilian targets and tourists, and there was a cargo-plane bomb plot in 2010. Counter-terrorism operations have been conducted by the Yemeni police and the Yemeni and US military.   An estimated 98 US drone attacks were conducted in Yemen from 2002 to 2015: 41 in 2012, 26 in 2013 and 14 in 2014.

"The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, John McCain,  said Wednesday that the objective of last week's Navy SEALs raid in Yemen was in part to capture al Qaeda terrorists. Military officials did not dispute his statement, despite their comments earlier in the week that the purpose was to gather intelligence.

Update: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=wm#inbox/15a2980ebb360bdd, war ready to break out over Yemen.  USA-Iran fighting over it.   in Debka newsletter. 

"Anwar al-Awlaki (also spelled al-Aulaqi, al-Awlaqi; Arabic: Ø£Ù†ÙˆØ± العولقي‎‎ Anwar al-‘AwlaqÄ«; April 21, 1971 – September 30, 2011) was an American  and Yemeni imam and Islamic lecturer. U.S. government officials allege that he was a senior recruiter and motivator who was involved in planning terrorist operations for the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda,] and he became the first United States citizen to be targeted and killed by a U.S. drone strike.  Barack Obama ordered the strike.


Yemen, the poorest country in the region, is home to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, which most recently claimed responsibility for the massacre of journalists at the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris. It's one of the world's biggest exporters of terrorism.
AQAP is benefiting hugely from the current conflict in Yemen.
Gunfire could be heard throughout the capital, Sanaa, on Tuesday, as CNN's Nick Paton Walsh reported that security there was tenuous.
On Monday night, unknown assailants fired shots at a U.S. Embassy vehicle in the city, the embassy said. It has said it's prepared to evacuate but no orders have been given.

Resource:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Musim-majority_countries, printed 2011
  Messages From a Syrian Jew Trapped in Egypt by Nadene Goldfoot
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://reliefweb.int/report/iraq/iraq-situation-flash-update-8-february-2017
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-14703856
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Syria
http://fox6now.com/2017/01/29/iraq-syria-iran-libya-somalia-sudan-yemen-how-pres-trumps-administration-chose-countries-in-immigration-order/
http://jihadology.net/2017/01/11/weekly-eye-on-isis-in-libya-update-january-10-2017/
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/feb/03/somalia-famine-fears-un-call-immediate-massive-reaction
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/how-somalias-al-shabab-grew-global-terror-threat-n334856
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_and_state-sponsored_terrorism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_Levant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_Sudan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_Yemen
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-27/feds-blame-lapse-vetting-admitting-syrian-refugees-terrorist-ties
http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/19/asia/yemen-explainer/
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-travel-iraq-idUSKBN16836H