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Mohamed Jufrie: Failure Of Opposition To Let Voters Have Their Cake And Eat It Let To Their Dismal Showing At The Polls

Much has been said about the last GE, or rather its result. A combination of factors – from LKY’s passing to newly minted citizens, right down to the bookies who predicted PAP’s loss in many constituencies which alarmed many voters.One important factor which many failed to mention was the failure of the opposition to give voters what they wanted ie to have their cake and eat it.

Singaporeans are very smart indeed. What is the use of having the cake and not getting to eat it?

Simply speaking the voters wanted the PAP to still be the governing party and at the same time they want a strong opposition presence. The alternative parties were just not ready. When they heard minister Khaw Boon Wan’s threat that the PAP might not be able to form the government they panicked and decided to play it safe. They went for the cake even if they end up not getting to eat it.

Had the opposition been smart enough they would have executed the By Election Effect Strategy (BEES as we described it some years ago) to let the PAP form the government on Nomination Day by contesting less than 50% of the seats. Just like we did in 1991 when the opposition won an unprecedented 4 seats – 3 SDP and Low Thia Khiang for the WP.

Had we repeated the BEES voters would not have been threatened and would have voted for the more credible candidates without fear. The credible opposition candidates could then prove themselves worthy of the peoples’ support and gone on to prepare themselves for future elections to win more seats and by then would be on their way to ready themselves for government in subsequent elections.

Voters now get the cake but cannot get to eat it because the PAP would not let them. Just watch.

Source: Mohamed Jufrie Bin Mahmood

October 22, 2015
Indonesian Coordinating Minister For Politics, Law and Security: Singapore’s One Aircraft Offer Is “Insulting”

JAKARTA — Singapore’s offer in September of only “one aircraft” to Indonesia to help fight forest fires that have caused thick haze to descend around the region was “insulting”, said Indonesian Coordinating Minister for Politics, Law and Security Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan.

Speaking in an interview last Friday (Oct 16) with the country’s Tempo magazine, Mr Luhut defended Indonesia’s perceived tardiness in putting out the fires and in accepting foreign aid.

“During the dry season, peatlands tend to be very flammable. When we bombard the land with water to put out the flames, they just come out again. So I get a headache when people get upset. What are we supposed to do?” he replied when asked why this year’s forest fires are worse than those of last year’s.

“Then someone asks why we didn’t accept the assistance offered earlier. There are many reasons for that. Firstly, we wanted to try and do it on our own. Secondly, we didn’t realise the process would be so long. Thirdly, (Singapore) offered only one aircraft. It was insulting.”

In September, Singapore offered a C-130 aircraft for cloud-seeding operations, a Chinook helicopter with a water bucket for aerial fire-fighting, and up to two C-130 aircraft to ferry the Singapore Civil Defence Force fire-fighting assistance team.

Mr Luhut’s comments in the latest issue of the magazine came after Indonesia finally accepted help from Singapore on Oct 7 after repeatedly declining offers of help for weeks. Singapore Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen had even flown to Jakarta at the end of September to meet his Indonesian counterpart at one of the meetings. During his visit, Dr Ng also met Mr Luhut.

On October 11, aircraft from Singapore and Malaysia began water-bombing missions to put out the raging fires in South Sumatra.

Singapore sent a Republic of Singapore Armed Forces (RSAF) Chinook helicopter with a 5,000-litre heli-bucket and 34 SAF personnel to help fight the ongoing forest fires, together with a six-man Disaster Assistance and Rescue Team from the Singapore Civil Defence Force. Two RSAF C-130 aircraft were also deployed to transport SAF and SCDF personnel.

In an interview on Oct 7, Indonesian Cabinet Secretary Pramono Anung told CNN Indonesia that Jakarta had earlier rejected Singapore’s offers of assistance because it was concerned that the city state would claim credit for solving the problem, despite being worried about the rapidly deteriorating situation.

In the Tempo interview, Mr Luhut also pledged to confiscate the land and revoke the licences of big companies that practise illegal burning next year.

“This haze problem is also about injustice. When a company controls 2.8 million hectares of land, where is the justice? Then there are those who own 600,000 hectares of land but own not a single fire extinguisher. Should the government be dousing fires all the time? If we call it a national disaster, they will benefit by it.”

Source: www.todayonline.com

October 22, 2015
Malaysian Opposition Will Scrap High Speed Rail Project If Elected

Malaysia’s opposition alliance said yesterday it will scrap a planned High Speed Rail (HSR) line between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur if it won federal power, and replace it with a railway connecting two key cities in East Malaysia – Tawau in Sabah and Kuching in Sarawak.

The proposal to ditch the HSR project and pump the estimated RM35 billion (S$11 billion) saved into East Malaysia was presented by Pakatan Harapan (PH) on the sidelines of a Parliament session, ahead of Prime Minister Najib Razak’s tabling of the 2016 Budget tomorrow.

The opposition claimed the HSR line would largely benefit only those working in and around Kuala Lumpur and in Singapore, and that the project is unnecessary at this point because Kuala Lumpur and Singapore are already served by excellent air and road links.

Selangor MP Ong Kian Ming, a member of PH’s Budget drafting committee, argued that the HSR would likely cost more than a rail network linking Sabah and Sarawak, and would significantly add to Malaysia’s debt levels if both were to be built together.

“HSR is not as important given that there are many cheaper and affordable options to travel between Malaysia and Singapore. The multiplier effects would be lower compared to a new railway network in East Malaysia and hence, the preference for the second cheaper and more necessary rail project,” he told The Straits Times.

Sabah and Sarawak have long been stronghold states of the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition. With Sarawak state polls to be called by next year, the move by the opposition is seen as a concerted play for East Malaysian votes. National elections are due in 2018.

Democratic Action Party chairman Tan Kok Wai said the new railway and other financial benefits to be allocated to Sabah and Sarawak in the opposition’s “alternative Budget”, are meant to develop the two states “long neglected” by BN.

The HSR plan has gained traction, with about 150 firms responding to Malaysia’s Land Public Transport Commission and Singapore’s Land Transport Authority’s Request For Information exercise this month.

Source: www.straitstimes.com

October 22, 2015
Philadelphia Group Lobbies State Lawmakers Against Anti-Muslim Bias

HARRISBURG – Highlighting what they say is a national increase in anti-Muslim bias, triggered in part by the rhetoric of some Republican presidential candidates, about 50 amateur lobbyists affiliated with the Philadelphia chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations converged at the state capitol to pitch lawmakers on a range of social issues.

Armed with a talking-points memo and posters emblazoned with “I am a proud American Muslim” and “Islamophobia = Racism,” the members of the advocacy group fanned out for office visits with legislators and their staffs.

Some of the men wore beards and knitted skullcaps. Some of the women wore hijabs. They spoke about anti-Arab bigotry, the Syrian refugee crisis, the movement to have two major Muslim fast days recognized as school holidays in Philadelphia, three state Senate bills that would affect the price of in-state college tuition, eligibility for driver’s licenses, and employment opportunities for authorized and undocumented immigrants.

Three- and four-person teams visited the offices of Philadelphia-area lawmakers Louise Bishop, Lawrence Farnese Jr., Dominic Pileggi, Vincent Hughes, and others.

The group that visited Rep. Kevin Schreiber (D., York) included Abdallah Abououf, a pharmacy technician, of Hummelstown; his wife, Mona Elkony; and their infant son, Yusuf.

“Three months old and already a lobbyist?” Schreiber teased, drawing a laugh.

Schreiber turned serious when he noted that candid discussions with American Muslims exercising their democratic rights need to be part of any dialogue about a better society.

Jacob Bender, the first Jewish director of a CAIR affiliate, said the event, which was billed as “Muslim Capitol Day,” was designed to bring together a diverse coalition that included a rabbi, an imam, an ordained minister, civil rights organization leaders, and lawmakers to proclaim, “We will no longer allow the Muslim community and Islam to be stereotyped, marginalized, and vilified.”

Rabiya Khan, an activist from York, cited two instances of recent Republican candidate rhetoric that she said fanned the flames of bias: Donald Trump’s failure to correct the record when a person at a town-hall meeting prefaced a pejorative question about President Obama with the false statement that Obama is a Muslim; and Ben Carson’s statement that he personally could not support a Muslim for president.

Addressing the whole group at the end of the day, Rep. Jordan Harris, a Democrat, whose South and Southwest Philadelphia district has a large and growing Muslim population, said:

“The reality is this: Christian, Muslim, Jew, and Gentile, we all want the same thing. We want safe streets. We want schools that educate our children. . . . There is no place in this commonwealth for hatred of any kind. . . . We must call out racism every chance we get. If any of us are silent when we hear the jokes, when we see the legislation, we are all guilty. . . . Dr. King once said, ‘Our day begins to end when we begin to become silent on the things that matter.’ ”

Source: www.philly.com

October 22, 2015
Benjamin Netanyahu Distorts History, Claims Mufti Of Jerusalem Instigated Adolf Hitler To Terminate Jews

REUTERS — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu provoked controversy on Wednesday, hours before a visit to Germany, by saying the former Muslim elder in Jerusalem convinced Adolf Hitler to exterminate the Jews.

In a speech to the Zionist Congress late on Tuesday, Netanyahu referred to a series of attacks by Muslims against Jews in Palestine during the 1920s that he said were instigated by the then Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini.

Husseini famously flew to visit Hitler in Berlin in 1941, and Netanyahu said that meeting was instrumental in the Nazi leader’s decision to launch a campaign to annihilate the Jews.

“Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews,” Netanyahu said in the speech. “And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said, ‘If you expel them, they’ll all come here.’

“‘So what should I do with them?’” Netanyahu said Hitler asked the mufti, who responded: “Burn them.”

Netanyahu, whose father was an eminent historian, was quickly harangued by opposition politicians and experts on the Holocaust who said he was distorting the historical record.

Palestinian officials said Netanyahu appeared to be absolving Hitler of the murder of six million Jews in order to lay the blame on Muslims. Twitter was awash with criticism.

“It is a sad day in history when the leader of the Israeli government hates his neighbor so much that he is willing to absolve the most notorious war criminal in history, Adolf Hitler, of the murder of six million Jews,” Saeb Erekat, the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s secretary general, said.

“Mr Netanyahu should stop using this human tragedy to score points for his political end,” said Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator with the Israelis.

Even Netanyahu’s defense minister, close ally Moshe Yaalon, said the prime minister had got it wrong.

“It certainly wasn’t (Husseini) who invented the Final Solution,” Yaalon told Israel’s Army Radio. “That was the evil brainchild of Hitler himself.”

It is not clear what sources Netanyahu was relying on for his comments. A 1947 book “The Mufti of Jerusalem” and a newspaper report at the time said a former Hitler deputy had testified at the Nuremberg war crimes trials that Husseini had plotted with the Nazi leader to rid Europe of its Jews.

Husseini was sought for war crimes but never appeared at the Nuremberg proceedings and later died in Cairo.

HISTORICAL RECORD

But the point several historians made was that Netanyahu was distorting timelines and drawing false conclusions.

The meeting between Husseini and Hitler in Berlin took place on November 28, 1941. More than two years earlier, in January 1939, Hitler had addressed the Reichstag and talked clearly about his determination to exterminate the Jewish race.

“To say that the mufti was the first to mention to Hitler the idea to kill or burn the Jews is not correct,” Dina Porat, a professor at Tel Aviv University and the chief historian of Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust museum, told Israel Radio.

“The idea to rid the world of the Jews was a central theme in Hitler’s ideology a long, long time before he met the mufti.”

Porat and others pointed out that the murder of the Jews began in June 1941. Even if the mufti wanted the Final Solution to be expanded, he wasn’t the one who came up with the idea.

“For somebody who knows something about history and grew up in the house of historian Professor Benzion Netanyahu, he should know well,” Porat said of the prime minister. “But in my humble opinion, to say that the mufti gave Hitler the idea is wrong.

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

October 22, 2015