Israel: Arab MKS 'Deliberately Spread Dangerous Libel'

by Chana Ya'ar

Israeli spokesman Mark Regev strongly condemned Arab MK Ahmed Tibi's remarks in Doha, calling his statements “dangerous libel.”

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev strongly condemned statements made by Arab Mks Ahmed Tibi and Taleb El-Sana in Doha on Sunday.

The two lawmakers, both of whom draw salaries supported by Israeli taxpayers, are listed as representatives of “Palestine” at the International Conference for Defense of Jerusalem in Qatar.

Both Israeli Arab MKs made statements to the Qatari media claiming that Israel is an “occupying power” in the holy city. El-Sana warned that Israel is threatening the existence of the al-Aqsa mosque, located in Jerusalem's Old City.

“Anyone who states there is a threat to the al-Aqsa mosque is deliberately spreading a dangerous libel,” Regev stated bluntly in a conversation with Arutz Sheva on Sunday night.

The spokesman for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Regev then went even further. “This behavior is both dishonest and irresponsible, and should be condemned,” he said flatly.

However, Regev sidestepped the question on the legality of the two Israeli lawmakers' presence in an enemy nation, in a forum that aligns itself against the State of Israel, listed as official representatives of a hostile entity.

“They are both Knesset members,” he pointed out. “Ask the Speaker of the Knesset. That is the correct address for that question.”

Several efforts to reach spokespersons for Speaker Reuven Rivlin immediately following the conversation with Regev, however, met with failure. A female aide who was reached, after hearing the question, informed Arutz Sheva that “at this hour, the office is closed.”

The conference, jointly organized by Qatar and the Arab League, is aimed at reinforcing Jerusalem as the capital of a hoped-for independent Arab nation, to be created from the Palestinian Authority.

Chana Ya'ar

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/153172#.T0qRnnmK7Fo

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Bolton, Glenn Beck Honor Gush Katif

by Elad Benari

More than 600 people attended this past Wednesday’s Gush Katif dinner in New York. Speakers included Glenn Beck, John Bolton.

More than 600 people attended this past Wednesday’s Gush Katif dinner in Crown Heights, New York.

The dinner was organized by the Gush Katif Museum in Jerusalem and was endorsed by a number of leading Jewish organizations including, Americans For a Safe Israel (AFSI) and The World Committee for the Land of Israel.

The Gush Katif Museum has undertaken the task of memorializing the history of Gush Katif, from the time of the Hasmoneans until the 2005 disengagement plan when residents were evicted from their homes.

The speakers at Wednesday’s dinner included former United States Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, conservative media personality and ardent Israel supporter, Glenn Beck, Congressman Lee Terry of Nebraska, and comedian Jackie Mason.

Beck, who delivered the keynote address, did not leave the audience indifferent. The passionate radio host repeatedly urged his audience to take seriously the threats of the Arabs who want to annihilate Israel, and asked them not to underestimate leaders like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose public calls to wipe Israel off the map are similar to remarks made by Adolf Hitler in the days of Nazi Germany.

Beck recalled his visit to the Auschwitz death camp, where he met a gentile woman who saved no less than 500 Jews by providing them with food, despite the fact that had she been caught, she and her family would have been put to death. Beck said that all freedom-loving people in the world should learn from the same woman and stand alongside the Land of Israel. He added that the threats against Israel cannot be ignored by saying, “It cannot happen.”

Congressman Lee Terry spoke of his visit to Israel and the active role he plays in Washington to help the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.

Bolton gave the audience an overview of the steps Iran has been taking to achieve a nuclear bomb. He was critical of the line taken by the Obama administration on the Iranian issue and said that instead of backing Israel up and providing it with assistance in an attack on the Islamic Republic, Obama does everything in his power to prevent Israel from attacking the country’s nuclear facilities.

Bolton’s comments were made just two days before the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released a new report which reveals that Iran has significantly increased its uranium enrichment.

In the report, the IAEA expressed concerns over Iran’s nuclear intentions, saying that there is “serious concern” that Iran is headed towards the development of nuclear weapons. The report also said that Iran's uranium enrichment process has only gained momentum in the last few months.

Other speakers at Wednesday evening’s Gush Katif dinner included Rabbi Shalom Dov Wolpe and the director of the Gush Katif Museum, Shlomo Wassertil.

Elad Benari

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/153136#.T0qNLnmK7Fo

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Secretary Clinton Needs Her Own Margaret Thatcher Moment

by Farid Ghadry

Secretary Hillary Clinton is pressing the security forces protecting Assad to mount a coup against Assad himself. This is a sign of desperation that diplomacy is running out of options.

Credit her for her resolve to see Assad ousted even though the diplomats surrounding her are still holding on to the belief that if they cannot find a solution, maybe “Begging” will work.

Honestly, begging tyranny!! If the US is not bowing to tyranny, it is begging it. Can the great US stoop any lower?

I do not know who the Near East advisors to Secretary Clinton are but knowing she is tougher than she looks, Secretary Clinton is in dire need for her Margaret Thatcher moment today. She needs to stand-up to her advisors and to stop listening to John Kerry first before losing her prestige to begging tyrants. She needs to relinquish diplomacy in favor of the military to save her legacy. In fact, she is on course for another “Assad is a Reformer” tragic act. That’s my advice for her.

You want Assad to fall? Order the CIA to divert some of its Pakistani or Afghani Drones to strike a missile or two on the Assad’s Palace overlooking Damascus and some of his weapon depots.

And start arming Syrians to free the country.

Nothing like the smell of gun powder to release the grey matter to your brain.

Farid Ghadry

Source: http://ghadry.com/2012/02/26/secretary-clinton-needs-her-own-margaret-thatcher-moment/

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

The Jihad Against Bengali

by Janet Levy

Every February 21, a little-known observance occurs: International Mother Language Day. Created in 2000 to promote and encourage the diversity of language, this benign and idealistic-sounding commemoration actually marks a bloody day in 1952 when an Islamic minority shot and killed university students protesting the imposition of an Islamic language, Urdu, on a Bengali-speaking majority in Pakistan.

The students who died that day understood that forced reconfiguration of a language can have cataclysmic and devastating effects on a society. Community identification can be shifted, populations and their practices repressed, and the established rhythm of daily life disrupted.

In the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent, Muslims have for centuries used Arabic languages as part of their jihad against Christians and Hindus. A blatant example of this phenomenon occurred in 8^th century Coptic-speaking Egypt when Muslims conquered the Christian nation and designated Arabic as the sole administrative language. Coptic, which had flourished as a literary and liturgical language, was purposely denigrated by the Muslim conquerors and eventually prohibited in favor of Arabic, the language of Mohammed. Today, Copts continue to be besieged by the Muslim majority in Egypt, and only a few hundred people speak the Coptic language.

A similar struggle occurs with the Bengali language. Although the student deaths of 1952 sparked a successful movement to create an independent Bangladesh, the majority Muslim population in that country persecutes Hindus and is Islamizing the Bengali language itself as a sort of linguistic Muslim jihad which has been going on for centuries.

History - Urdu vs. Bengali

Beginning almost 900 years ago, Urdu, a language associated with Muslims in India and Pakistan, was appropriated from Sanskrit-based Hindi over centuries of conquests by Persian, Arabic, and Turkic Muslims. To create Urdu, the Muslim conquerors took Hindi and Islamicized it by injecting new words, changing existing words, and writing the language in Arabic script. By de-Sanskritizing Hindi to develop Urdu, Muslim rulers de-Hinduized the language as a way of diminishing the infidel faith. As Latin is to Christianity, Sanskrit defines Hinduism and is the language of Hindu clerics and scriptures.

In 1948, shortly after Pakistan gained independence from the British government, the newly installed Islamic government declared Urdu the official language of West and East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. At the time, Sanskrit-based Bengali was the language of the vast majority of Bengalis, the inhabitants of East Pakistan, both Hindus and Muslims.

The Urdu language edict created great hardship for Hindus and Bengali-speaking Muslims who were not particularly proficient in Urdu. Although Bengalis were a majority linguistic group, under the Urdu language requirement they faced discrimination and experienced alienation from mainstream Pakistani society. Both Bengali Hindus and Muslims had difficulty finding employment and were discouraged from joining the Army, an important affiliation conferring social standing in Pakistan.

Bengali Language Movement

At the time when the Urdu language mandate was introduced, Muslims in Bangladesh were being pressured to become more Muslim in practice, to Islamicize the region, and to join Urdu Islamic political parties in Pakistan. Bengali Muslims resisted, as they had a cultural affinity to Bengali and felt they were not getting their fair share of power in Pakistani politics relative to their numbers. Out of the six major linguistic groups -- Bengali, Urdu, Sindi, Punjabi, Pastho, and Baloch -- Bengali was the largest in Pakistan. Bengali Muslims came from a distinctly different cultural background from the Muslims in West Pakistan and had little in common with the other groups except Islam. To thwart Bengali domination, the other linguistic groups banded together to reduce the influence of the Muslims of East Pakistan, thus isolating the Bengali Muslims.

After the declaration of Urdu as the official language, extensive protests erupted amongst the Bengali-speaking majority of East Pakistan, both Hindu and Muslim. Due to the rising tensions and demonstrations against the new law, the government outlawed all public meetings and rallies.

On February 21, 1952, students protested the language edict and called for a general strike. Amidst peaceful protests, the police fired on protesters and killed several students. In 1956 following numerous protests over the years, the government relented and granted official status to the Bengali language.

The Bengali Language Movement strengthened the national identity of Bengalis living in Pakistan and eventually led to Bangladesh's war for independence from Pakistan in 1971. Suffering greatly from Muslim persecution, at least 20 million Hindus fled to India from East Pakistan from 1947-1971. About one million Hindus were killed. In the fight for independence in 1971, Muslims killed an additional 2.5 million Hindus. Also during the conflict, the Pakistan Army bulldozed one of the most famous Hindu temples in the Indian subcontinent, believed to be over 1,000 years old.

In 1971, Hindus were declared enemies of the state of Pakistan and the government instituted the Enemy Property Act. False allegations were made by the Muslim government that Hindus were spies for India, and their property was confiscated. Following the independence of Bangladesh, the newly installed Muslim government retained the Pakistani law, merely changing its name to the Vested Property Act. Approximately 75% of Hindu land in the area has been confiscated over time.

The Jihad against Bengali

Today, Hindus in Bangladesh and throughout the Indian subcontinent are reluctant to make demands in a majority Muslim country. They typically remain silent about grievances, as they have little hope of equitable resolutions under Muslim control. Their activities are limited, and they regularly face discrimination. They are accountable to their Muslim masters, have fewer rights, and their movements are restricted. It is not uncommon for a Muslim to stop and question a Hindu in transit, inquire of his travel plans, and demand to see his documents as well as the money he is carrying, which can be extorted with impunity.

Yet, ironically, the Bengali Language Movement is commemorated each year in Bangladesh on February 21 primarily by Bengali Muslims, who hold rallies across the country. This same Muslim majority which allows the oppression of Hindus in Bangladesh is also Islamizing the Bengali language. They have de-Hinduized certain words in their ongoing attempt to eradicate infidel Hindu culture. For example, the Bengali word for "deity" has been replaced by a word that means "Allah" in Farsi, and the word for "water" has been substituted with an Urdu word. An indigenous flowering tree named "Krishnachura," referring to a flower worn in the headdress of the Hindu deity, has been renamed by Muslims to "Mohammed Chura."

For Bengali Hindus, the battle to preserve their language and culture appears to have been a pyrrhic victory, and a temporary one at that. With constant attacks on their businesses, homes, and temples sanctioned by the Vested Property Act, their numbers have diminished from one-third of the population at the time of partition to fewer than 10% today. Ultimately, their language has become less representative of their culture and religious beliefs, they cower to the demands of the Muslim majority, and they continue to face grave threats to their survival. The Bengali jihad may ultimately reduce the Hindus to the fate of the Copts, and the celebration of Mother Language Day may actually finally honor a language far removed from its Hindu and Sanskrit roots and now, instead, symbolic of Muslim expansionism.

Janet Levy

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/02/the_jihad_against_bengali.html

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

The Silence Regarding the Persecution of Christians

by Robert Weissberg

In case you haven't noticed, thousands -- perhaps millions -- of Christians living in Muslim nations are being prosecuted, even brutally murdered. For example, in Nigeria in 2011, the Muslim extremist group Boko Haram killed 510 Christians and destroyed more than 350 churches using guns, gasoline bombs, and even machetes, all the while shouting "Allahu akbar" ("God is great"). On Christmas Day alone they slaughtered 42 Catholics. Similar attacks have occurred in Iraq (our "ally"), where since 2003 more than 900 Iraqi Christians have died from terrorist attacks in Baghdad alone while half of all Iraqi Christians have fled the country (see here and here).

Details aside, this violent persecution is much the same in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia (home to one million Christian guest workers), Sudan, Egypt, Yemen, Iran, and Indonesia. According to a Pew Forum study, Christians are being persecuted in 131 of the world's 193 countries (200 million according to the World Evangelical Alliance). (These data are reported in David Aikman, "The Worldwide Attack on Christians" Commentary, February 2012). Syria may be the next venue for attacking Christians if the Assad regime falls. And there is nothing on the horizon that suggests that anti-Christian violence will recede.

With the exception of admitting a handful of Egyptian Copts fleeing prosecution, the official U.S. reaction has been limited to verbal condemnation. Speaking at a January 15, 2010 conference marking International Religious Freedom Day, Obama offered up some vacuous boilerplate: "[O]ur freedom to practice our faith and follow our consciences is central to our ability to live in harmony." In fact, the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act requires that the promotion of religious freedom worldwide be a part of U.S. foreign policy, but the Obama administration has yet to take a single step under this Act (see here).

Given America's celebrated history of providing sanctuary to those persecuted for their religious beliefs, this inaction is bewildering. To be sure, the U.S. need not emulate Israel, which provides automatic refuge to any Jew escaping danger, but surely the subject deserves at least some discussion -- yet none is forthcoming.

This silence has multiple roots, but one in particular lurks powerfully in the background: thanks to our welfare state and automatic racial preferences, millions of these Christian refugees would excessively burden already over-stressed government budgets, so better to let such people languish abroad. In crass economic terms, the economic and educational befits that would immediately flow to these Nigerians, Pakistanis, Iraqis, Egyptians, and all the rest make them too expensive to import. Today's galloping "compassion" for the less fortunate at home may now impose a death sentence for Christians abroad.

Some background. Until the 1960s, the burden of absorbing religious refugees was hardly cost-free but still light by today's standards. In the last half of the nineteenth century, for example, millions of Jews escaped Russian anti-Semitic pogroms, and while their arrival did burden government somewhat (e.g., additional policing), costs overwhelmingly fell on the immigrants themselves. As with their predecessors, Eastern European Jews relied on religious organizations plus self-help groups for everything from small business loans to funeral expenses. There was nothing that even remotely resembled today's safety net; it was sink or swim.

Moreover, the adjustment costs were widely and correctly viewed as temporary. Most of these refugees soon found work, began to assimilate (especially by learning English), and within a generation were contributing to the common good. T hose who found the U.S. too daunting returned home. Of the utmost importance, Jews fleeing pogroms, like the German and Irish refugees before them, were not greeted dockside by activists teaching new arrivals how to exploit government benefits and master the victimhood game. No new arrival believed that a slice of the economic pie was already waiting for him thanks to bean-counting government bureaucrats promoting "fairness."

Today, this age-old pattern is far iffier. Some groups -- notably the South Vietnamese, Indians, and Chinese -- assimilate relatively quickly and become economically productive. In other instances, however, immigrant populations, regardless of motives for immigrating, struggle to adapt and become long-term financial liabilities. For example, since the early 1990s, refugees from Somalia have been settling in Minneapolis, MN, where they stubbornly lag behind economically and educationally (in 2010 82% lived at or below the poverty line, and two-thirds lacked a high school diploma). Even more disturbing, several of these Somali newcomers have turned to terrorism. A similar problem with 2,000 Somali immigrants occurred in Lewiston, ME, where they though brought violence and swelling welfare rolls, educational problems, and myriad health issues. And while these Somalis may not fully grasp U.S. culture, they have acclimated well enough to request a Department of Justice investigation into possible discrimination in Lewiston. (For additional statistics on immigration and welfare use, see here).

The issue is not Somalis per se or, for that matter, the success or failure of any other recent immigrant group. It is axiomatic that, as in the past, some will outperform others. What has changed, however, is the downside risk. Nineteenth-century immigrants from Ireland and Italy, for example, only slowly moved up the economic ladder, but -- and here's the key point -- the cost of modest progress was not a public burden. A struggling Irish family of the 1850s relied on family, friends, private charities, and the Catholic Church, not government-supplied food stamps, subsidized housing, free school meals, Medicaid, government-paid vocational training, Supplemental Social Income (SSI), or preferences in college admission for a "historically under-served" minority. If an immigrant back then suffered from, say, alcoholism or mental illness, he or she might turn to the a priest, not a government-paid therapist. (Technically, today's immigrants who are judged likely to become public charges should be denied visas, but in practice this requirement is easily circumvented. See here.)

Further keep in mind that using religious persecution as the test for admitting immigrants probably undermines eventual economic progress, since immigrants admitted solely according to religious status are unlikely to possess the typical émigré virtues of a strong work ethic and ambition. In the meanwhile, no helping hand is necessarily extended to self-selecting, smarter, more ambitious newcomers.

So imagine what might happen if the Obama administration decides, in an act of Christian compassion, to admit 10,000 Christian Nigerians fearing for their lives. The best possible outcome would be that after some initial adjustment, these Nigerians become economically productive Americans independent of cradle-to-grave government-funded assistance. But the downside could be a long-term financial disaster: decades of public welfare, millions in federal educational and housing assistance and city budgets overwhelmed with medical and policing costs, with these grateful (though troublesome) refugees all the while adding little to the nation's economy.

The political downside may even be worse. Welcoming immigrants who do succeed (e.g., the Chinese) tends to yield few enduring political benefits. Yes, the children of recently arrived Chinese have energized the U.S. computer industry, but try to extract political credit (i.e., votes) for that accomplishment. But imagine if the Obama administration resettled the 10,000 Nigerian Christians in California. The upshot might be even more welfare spending, ethnic strife, gang-related crime, and lowered property values while the children of these newcomers receive preferential treatment in admission to Berkeley and UCLA. (And these calculations do not factor in the possible negative reaction from groups currently disproportionately reliant on government largess.)

It is easy to see why the U.S. once easily extended a helping hand to those persecuted for their religious beliefs. Back then, even if the welcomed group added little, the downside was modest. Today, however, thanks to the welfare state, the potential costs can be immense at a time when existing entitlements grow increasingly unaffordable. Perhaps Christian threatened overseas should pray for an end to the American welfare state.

Robert Weissberg

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/02/the_silence_regarding_the_persecution_of_christians.html

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Why is Obama in Bed with the Muslim Brotherhood?

by Ted Belman

Dr. Essam Abdallah, an Egyptian liberal intellectual, in an article published last October in the leading liberal pan-Arab journal Elaph, refers to certain reports coming out of Washington:

These reports reveal the depth of the below-the-surface coordination between the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), Hamas, Hezbollah, the Iranian regime and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Syria, Tunisia, Libya and Jordan. This bloc of regimes and organizations is now becoming the greatest Islamist radical lobby ever to penetrate and infiltrate the White House, Congress, the State Department and the main decision making centers of the US government. All of this is happening at a time when the US government is going through its most strategically dangerous period in modern times because of its need to confront the Iranian Mullahs regime, which is expanding in the Middle East, as well as penetrating the United States, via powerful and influential allies.

Abdallah alleged that "the popular revolts in the Arab world -- and the Obama Administration's position towards them -- were determined by political battles between various pressure groups in Washington."

He followed up with another article this month in which he asks:

[W]hy isn't the West in general and the United States Administration in particular clearly and forcefully supporting our civil societies and particularly the secular democrats of the region? Why were the bureaucracies in Washington and in Brussels partnering with Islamists in the region and not with their natural allies the democracy promoting political forces?

Steve Emerson of the Investigative Project on Terrorism said of this article: "This is one of the most important articles I have read in years." He then made allegations of his own:

It was just revealed two days ago that FBI Director Mueller secretly met on February 8 at FBI headquarters with a coalition of groups including various Islamist and militant Arabic groups who in the past have defended Hamas and Hizballah and have also issued blatantly anti-Semitic statements. At this meeting, the FBI revealed that it had removed more than 1000 presentations and curricula on Islam from FBI offices around the country that was deemed "offensive." The FBI did not reveal what criteria was used to determine why material was considered "offensive" but knowledgeable law enforcement sources have told the IPT that it was these radical groups who made that determination. Moreover, numerous FBI agents have confirmed that from now on, FBI headquarters has banned all FBI offices from inviting any counter-terrorist specialists who are considered "anti-Islam" by Muslim Brotherhood front groups.

This comes as no surprise to me. In August of 2011, after making the case, I wrote, "To my mind, the alliance between the Obama administration and the Muslim Brotherhood is the cornerstone of Obama's New Middle East policy."

The most damning bit of evidence was reported by Herb London in his article, "U.S. Betrays Syria's Opposition":

In an effort to understand and placate Syrian opposition groups, Secretary Clinton invited them to a meeting in Washington. Most of those invited, however, have links to the Muslim Brotherhood. Missing from the invitations are Kurdish leaders, Sunni liberals, Assyrians and Christian spokesmen. According to various reports the State Department made a deal with Turkey and Muslim Brotherhood representatives either to share power with Assad to stabilize the government, or replace him if this effort fails. One organization, the Syrian Democracy Council (SDC), an opposition group composed of diverse ethnic and religious organizations, including Alawis, Aramaic Christians, Druze and Assyrians was conspicuously -- and no coincidentally -- omitted from the invitation list.

Caroline Glick wrote in August of last year:

What these observers fail to recognize is that Erdogan's interests in a post-Assad Syria have little in common with US interests. Erdogan will seek to ensure the continued disenfranchisement of Syria's Kurdish minority. And he will work towards the Islamification of Syria through the Muslim Brotherhood.

This week Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held a private meeting with these brave democrats. Why didn't she hold a public meeting? Why hasn't Obama welcomed them to the White House?"

Today there is a coalition of Syrian opposition figures that include all ethnic groups in Syria. Their representatives have been banging the doors of the corridors of power in Washington and beyond. Yet the same Western leaders who were so eager to recognize the Libyan opposition despite the presence of al Qaeda terrorists in the opposition tent have refused to publicly embrace Syrian regime opponents that seek a democratic, federal Syria that will live at peace with Israel and embrace liberal policies.

By refusing to embrace liberal, multi-ethnic regime opponents, the administration is all but ensuring the success of the Turkish bid to install the Muslim Brotherhood in power if Assad is overthrown.

The Syrian Democratic Coalition (SDC), above mentioned, is self-described thus:

The Syrian Democratic Coalition (SDC) is an emerging coalition of diverse Syrian organizations coming together to help bring an end to the Assad regime and promote the transformation of Syria into a secular democracy based in liberty. The coalition is founded upon a belief in the separation of religion from state and is dedicated to establishing a new constitution and transparent federal republic in Syria, based in reason that equally protects minority rights, promotes gender equality, and embraces the rights and liberties of every individual as enumerated in the United Nations Declaration for Human Rights. This growing coalition crosses all ethnic, religious and tribal lines to represent all Syrians. It currently includes members of Save Syria Now!, the Kurdistan National Assembly of Syria, the Union of Syrian Arab Tribes and the Syrian Christian Democratic Movement.

Sherkoh Abbas is secretary general of the Syria Democracy Council and president of the Kurdistan National Assembly of Syria. I first met him when he invited me to be a director of the American Kurdish Friendship League some five years ago.

Recently, he confided in me that in all his dealings with the State Department over the last two years, no interest was shown in his coalition, and instead, he was continually pressed to support the Syrian National Council (SNC), made up of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists and Arabists. He believes that the U.S. is working with Salafi groups, and the Turkish government, to create an opposition in Syria that is strictly Islamist. Such an opposition would serve Turkish economic interests in Syria and keep the Kurdish issue dormant in Turkey as well as in Syria.

For the last six months at least, Obama has been cultivating a relationship with PM Erdoğan of Turkey. The budding relationship prompted Barry Rubin to ask, "Why Is an Anti-American Islamist, Obama's Favorite ME Leader?"

According to Sherkoh Abbas, one faction of the SDC had family connections in various Gulf States at the highest level and went to them for financial support. They were turned down, as Obama had instructed them to give money only to the SNC.

Nevertheless, the SDC is gaining traction amongst the Kurds, Druze, Sunnis, Christians, and even the Alawites. This is so because these various minorities are beginning to think of a post-Assad Syria, and they all want a region of their own. They have expressed their willingness to be secular, democratic, and a friend of Israel and will be asked to commit to this in writing. They don't want Islamism or Arabism. They prefer peace, freedom, and prosperity. So why isn't Obama embracing them?

The Obama administration is totally in sync with the Muslim Brotherhood. At the renowned Herzlia Conference this year, I met Salman Shalkh, one of the speakers from Qatar. We had a long conversation in which he kept pushing for the Saudi Plan to be embraced by Israel. This is the plan that Obama is committed to -- i.e., '67 borders with mutually agreed-upon swaps.

Shalkh argued that Israel should talk to Hamas, and I countered, "What's the point? We have nothing to offer to them." Shalkh was also an apologist for the Muslim Brotherhood. These arguments should be expected from someone from Qatar. Unfortunately, the same arguments are being made by the White House. It is instructive to note that Shalkh is director of the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar, the Arab offshoot of the Brookings Institute that has so much influence with the State Department. He told me that he was one of the people who drafted the Roadmap on behalf of the State Department. I told him that it didn't surprise me and suggested that he probably drafted the Saudi Peace Plan for them as well.

What is going on now in American foreign policy is not so much a product of the Islamist lobby fueled by both the Muslim Brotherhood and the gulf states as it is a product of a strategic alliance that has existed between the U.S. and the gulf states led by Saudi Arabia since before Israel declared her independence. Unfortunately, President Obama, with his overt outreach to Islam, Muslims, and the Muslim Brotherhood, has taken it to another level.

It would appear that the ideas expressed by Mearsheimer and Walt in their book, The Israel Lobby, are being embraced by both the State Department and the White House. These include the idea that the Israel lobby is too strong for America's good and that Israel is a liability to America.

But the truth is otherwise, as John R. MacArthur pointed out in 2007, in "The Vast Power of the Saudi Lobby":

Somehow, though, I can't shake the idea that the Israel lobby, no matter how powerful, isn't all it is cracked up to be, particularly where it concerns the Bush administrations past and present. Indeed, when I think of pernicious foreign lobbies with disproportionate sway over American politics, I can't see past Saudi Arabia and its royal house, led by King Abdullah.

This article is a classic and should be read in full.

Obama has decidedly moved from an alliance with Israel to an alliance with the Islamists.

MK Aryeh Eldad, in a speech given in the fall in the U.S., when Israel was intending to act against Iran militarily, said word came down from the White House that "if you act alone, you will remain alone." Because Israel is so dependent on the U.S. for resupply of weapons and munitions in a prolonged war, this threat changed the calculus immediately. It is true that when Mahmoud Abbas was threatening to go to the U.N. for recognition, the Obama administration lobbied around the world for negative votes. But at the same time, Obama threatened Netanyahu that Obama would withhold his veto if Israel took punitive action against the PA by annexing some of the territories or by withholding funds. Finally, he used the same threat to get Israel to instruct AIPAC to lobby Congress not to punish the PA by withholding U.S. funds.

Over the last six months, Israel has been warned by a succession of senior military and administration officials not to attack Iran, at this time, all in the name of giving sanctions a chance. But who believes that sanctions will stop Iran? And who believes that that the U.S. will in the end attack Iran to stop them?

So while Obama is supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, he is keeping Israel under his thumb.

Isi Leibler takes exception to all this and reminds everyone:

[T]his organization [The Muslim Brotherhood] represents one of the most fanatical and dangerous of the radical Islamist groups in the region, with a dark record of violence and terrorism imbedded in its DNA. It is rabidly anti-Western, anti-Christian, antisemitic, committed to imposing sharia law and a global Caliphate - and willing to employ any means to further its objectives.

Many would argue that Obama is also "anti-Western, anti-Christian[, and] antisemitic." Judging by his policies, they would be right.

Ted Belman

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/02/why_is_obama_in_bed_with_the_muslim_brotherhood.html

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Abbas's Peace Process

by Ayman Masri

Abbas's peace process will only lead to a Palestinian government or state controlled by Iran or the Muslim Brotherhood.

Who says there are no peace talks going on in the Middle East?

The peace process is underway in the Middle East, but not between Israel and the Palestinians. The only peace talks that are taking place these days are between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Abbas has chosen to talk to the enemies of peace who want to destroy Israel and replace it with an Iranian-backed Islamist state. On the one hand, he says he supports the two-state solution. On the other hand, however, he is seeking to form an alliance with all those who are vehemently opposed to the two-state solution.

Just last week Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, during a high-profile visit to his friends in Tehran, reiterated his wish to "liberate Palestine from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River. Those who think that Hamas and Islamic Jihad would ever recognize the right of a Jewish state to exist are engaged in self-deception and are living in a world of fantasy.

Abbas spent the past few days in Egypt negotiating with Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other radical Palestinian groups that are strongly opposed to any peace process with Israel. He held lengthy talks with Hamas's Khaled Mashaal and Islamic Jihad's Ramadan Shallah about ways of achieving "national reconciliation and unity" among Palestinians.

The peace talks between Abbas and the radicals will not bring about a two-state solution. This is a dangerous process that will facilitate Hamas's takeover of the Palestinian Authority, whether through violence or free elections.

Abbas is working hard to convince the radical Palestinian groups to agree to the formation of a Palestinian unity government under his leadership. He seems to be naive enough to think that Hamas or Islamic Jihad or the Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine would change their ideologies and strategies and abandon their dream of wiping Israel off the face of the earth.

Some Westerners also appear to be naive enough to support Abbas's peace process with radicals and terrorists. This is the same Abbas who for the past few years has refused to sit and talk with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about achieving peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas prefers to talk to Muslim fundamentalists instead of negotiating with Israel about achieving peace in the region.

But Abbas's peace process with the radicals will only embolden Hamas and Islamic Jihad. This is a peace process that will eventually lead to the creation of a Palestinian government or state that would be controlled by Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Muslim Brotherhood.

If the US and EU want peace, they should be urging Abbas to negotiate with Israel, not with those who openly call for the destruction of another state and have aligned themselves with Iran.

If Abbas truly wanted a two-state solution, he would be negotiating with Israel. By preferring to negotiate with the enemies of peace, Abbas is sending a message that he, too, does not want a two-state solution.

Ayman Masri

Source: http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/2878/abbas-peace-process

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Friends Seminary Plays Bait and Switch on Anti-Semitism

by Alan M. Dershowitz

Friends Seminary "crossed the line from preaching anti-Zionism to tolerating anti-Semitism."

The Friends Seminary of New York, which invited the notorious anti-Semite, Gilad Atzmon, to one of its classes, and assigned its students to read his hate-filled writings, has now backed out of an agreement to invite me to the school to talk to the students about the evils of anti-Semitism. The Headmaster of the Friends Seminary, a school which is supposed to be committed to honesty and integrity, has broken his solemn promise to me, and to members of its own community, to allow its students to hear both sides of an issue which really has only one side: namely, the illegitimacy of bringing hate mongers into high school classrooms.

After I exposed the original invitations to Gilad Atzmon—who justifies the burning down of synagogues as "reasonable" response to Jewish efforts to "control the world"—the Headmaster of the school agreed to several things. First, he would speak at an assembly to the students about the evils of anti-Semitism; second, he would assign my essay to the students who were assigned Atzmon's essay; and third, he would invite me to address the students. He has now broken each of these promises.

Students who were at the assembly have confirmed that the speakers only made things worse. The teacher who invited Atzmon talked about what a great musician he was. The Headmaster was defensive about how his words were manipulated and justified bringing Atzmon based on Quaker principles. Apparently the word anti-Semitism was never once mentioned during this meeting. My article was not assigned to the students; a citation was sent to them saying that I wanted students to read its content.

When I wrote to the Headmaster complaining about these breaches, they used my letter as an excuse for canceling my appearance. The real reason was almost certainly pressure from hard-left members of his faculty and others.

Let's be clear what this means. The school was unwilling to cancel Atzmon's appearance, even after learning that he was virulent anti-Semite who questions the Holocaust but believes that it may be true that Jews kill Christians to use their blood for religious purposes. But they have canceled my appearance because they didn't like the tone of a private letter that I wrote to them that was critical of the Headmaster's failure to comply with his promises. I ended my letter with the following words: "Please assure me that I am wrong about my judgment about you. I really would like to see this move forward in a positive direction, but you are not helping. The ultimate sufferers are your students, who are being taught the wrong values that will serve them poorly in college and in life."

The values that Headmaster Bo Lauder is imbuing to his students are deception, breach of promise, toleration of anti-Semitism and an unwillingness to present all sides of an issue. In the end, the Headmaster is showing tremendous distrust of his students by refusing to allow them to hear another side of the issue, by canceling my promised appearance, by not assigning my essay and by continuing to be defensive regarding the dreadful mistake of judgment he made in allowing Atzmon to teach his students.

The Headmaster may believe that by breaking his promises, he has ended this issue. Let him be absolute certain, that, as I wrote in my letter to him: "This issue will not go away, and nor will I. Misled once, shame on you. Misled twice, shame on me." Unless I am invited to address the students inside of the school, I will appear outside of the school, where I will hand out my essays to those students who are willing to read them and will address those students who have an interest in hearing a response to anti-Semitism. I am also considering inviting parents, students and other members of the Friends Seminary community to an event, in a venue outside of the school, where these issues can be discussed openly and candidly. Headmaster Lauder may be able to keep me physically outside of his school, but he will not be able to stop my ideas from reaching his community. The truth does not respect artificial boundaries.

The Friends Seminary, like other elite schools around the country, teaches our future leaders. Many Friends Schools around the country have espoused strongly anti-Israel policies for years. The Friends Seminary in New York itself has a rabidly anti-Israel history teacher on its faculty, who propagandizes his students against Israel in the classroom, and who has a picture of Anne Frank wearing a Palestinian headdress on his website. The school has and is again planning to take its students on trips to the Middle East that present a one-sided perspective. Now they have crossed the line from preaching anti-Zionism to tolerating anti-Semitism. I will not remain silent in the face of the Friends Seminary's double standard and neither should you.

Alan M. Dershowitz

Source: http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/2881/friends-seminary-anti-semitism

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Mordechai Kedar: The Real Thing

by Mordechai Kedar

Many ideologies have passed over the Mediterranean Sea on their way to the Arab world, and each time a new ideology arrived, many thought that it would be the ideology, with a capital 'I' that will unite, organize, form and lead the Arab world into European-style modernity. The nationalism (loyalty of the individual to his ethnic group) that was awakened in Europe after the "Spring of Nations" (1848) was known as "Komiya", patriotism, in the Arab world, which is expressed by connection and loyalty to the homeland. Pan-Slavism was transformed into pan-Arabism; European socialism was adopted by the Arab world under the name of "Ba'ath"; Communism was also imported and was known as "Shayoo'aya" and even Nazi ideas that arrived in the years of the thirties took hold among some modern Arab intellectuals. One example is Muhammad Anwar al-Sa'adat, who was head of the Egyptian Nazi movement, and was later to become the president of Egypt.

All of these ideas were buzzing in the public arena in the Middle East within the last hundred years, and observers from outside - mainly the officials of the colonial offices of the British Empire - thought that European modernity had arrived to the Middle East and had settled among its peoples through the modern ideologies that were imported in the mouths and in the pens of those enlightened Arabs who were educated in the Sorbonne, Oxford, Yale and Harvard. On the basis of these ideologies - so the British, French and Italian colonial officials hoped - nation-states will emerge as happened in Europe, and these nation-states will supply a focal point for identity, social adhesion and national consciousness for the masses in the Middle East (though nobody asked these people if they at all wished to adopt the social methods and ideologies of the European states).

But this didn't happen. The masses of the Middle East, for the most part, remained loyal to their tribe, ethnic group, religious group or sect and rejected all of the ideas that were imported from the West. The cornerstone of Middle Eastern culture was and remains tribal culture, that which Europeans thought it possible to eliminate by means of a few articles in the newspaper or speeches on the radio. Today we address our words to the loyalty of the peoples of the Middle East to their traditional frameworks.

Afghanistan

The source of this miserable country's problems is the fact that the British included within it eleven different ethnic groups: Kyrgyz, Turkmen, Nuristani, Pamiri, Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, Aimak, and Baloch. These groups share very little in common, because they have different languages, different world views, different customs, different leadership, different goals, and, in short: these peoples are so different from one another that they don't even speak the same language. It's also important to note that none of these groups is called "Afghani". So is it surprising that this state is a failed state, and that no one manages to stabilize it? Throughout this state's history, foreigners have tried to bring these ethnic groups together into some kind of basic cooperation, but the experiments have all failed. It is a wonder to me that the world continues to resuscitate this dead political body, which should have been divided into its ethnic parts long ago.

Iraq

This unfortunate state is torn and divided along four axes:
The ethnic axis: In Iraq there are four ethnic groups: Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen and Persians.

The Tribal Axis: The population in Iraq comprises approximately seventy tribes, each one of which functions as if it were an ethnic group. The sons of these tribes do not marry the daughters of another tribe, because they don't trust them, and therefore also tend not to open a business with another tribe. Each tribe has its own dialect, and in Iraq some of the tribes have their own flag and hymn, which are not connected to the flag and hymn of Iraq.

The Religious Axis:
In Iraq there are a large number of religions: Muslim, Christian, a few dozen Jews, Tsavaaim, Mandaean, Zoroastrians, Bahai, Yazidi and more.The Muslims see the members of other religions as heretics.

The Sectarian Axis: The religions are divided: The Muslims are divided into Sunni, Shia, Salafi and Sufi; the Christians have about eight different sects.

Thus, Iraq is "blessed" with all of the four axes of division that are known in the Middle East. Is it a wonder that this state is hemorrhaging?

Libya:

Because Libya is entirely within the Sahara desert where there is almost no water at all, the population is divided into small tribes; in Libya there are about 140 different tribes. After they succeeded in overthrowing Qadhaffi, the tribes are now fighting one another.

Jordan:

In Jordan, about one quarter of the population is Bedouin, and three quarters are "Palestinian", meaning farmers and city people who do not want to be Bedouins and cannot be Bedouins, and therefore they are now trying to split off from the regime, (which anyway is headed by a family that the Saudis threw out ninety years ago) and to establish for themselves an "alternative homeland", that is, a different Palestine, in addition to that which they hope will arise between the sea and the Jordan River. This is the reason that Jordan's King Abdullah comes to Washington each month: primarily to urge President Obama to exert pressure on Israel to establish a Palestinian state in Gaza, Judea and Samaria. If a state such as this will arise, then the King will be able to say to his citizens: "The Palestinian State already exists" and the king will then be able to exile to that Palestinian state anyone in Jordan who speaks about an "alternative homeland". In this way he hopes to survive on his throne.

Sudan:

In July, 2011, Sudan was officially divided into two states: North Sudan and South Sudan. The North is ruled by Arab Muslims, while most of the population in the suburbs is Christian and Animist (Pagan). The Darfur region has been seeking independence for years, and another region, Kordofan - seeks to secede from the Northern state and be included into the framework of the periphery.

Yemen:

Twenty years ago, two states were merged: The Republic of South Yemen, and North Yemen. Today, most of the demonstrations that are held in the cities of the South - Aden, Taiz and Ibb - are held because of the demand to renew their independence, that is, to divide the state on a tribal basis.

Syria:

Syria is another hapless state in which there are several ethnic groups: Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen; and a few religious groups: Muslims, Christians, a few remaining Jews, Alawites and Druze. The Muslims are divided into Sunni and Shia - Ismaili, and a few Christian sects. The Islamists see all of them, especially the Alawites, as heretics. The problem of the Alawites being in power is not only because they are only a tenth of the residents of Syria, but also because they are heretics, who must, according to Islam, choose Islam or be slaughtered.

Bahrain:

Bahrain is an island in the Persian Gulf, most of whose residents are Persian Shi'ites. But power is held by a minority, an Arab Sunni tribe that the British brought in order to rule the Shi'ites. During the past several years - mainly in 2011 - we have seen many demonstrations, wounded and fatalities.


The Palestinians:

Gaza is a separate state from Ramallah, and I think that the romance between them will not last many days, because of the cultural differences between the Bedouin of Gaza and the intelligentsia of Ramallah. A different "head". The sons of Hebron do not marry the daughters of Nablus, and the sons of Qalqilya don't marry the daughters of Jericho, because of the tribalism that flows in their veins.

Iran:

The population of this state is composed of Persians, Azeri, Kurds, Balochi, Arabs and Turkmen, and would have broken up long ago if it had not been a dictatorship: secular in the days of the Shah and religious in the days of the Ayatollahs, since 1978. The Iranian public is secular up to its ears, and many Iranians have no idea at all how the inside of a mosque looks. As the religious oppression increases, the religious level of the people decreases, and with it, the legitimacy of the regime.

Turkey:

The population of Turkey comprises Turkmen, Kurds, and Arabs, and the Kurds have been fighting for independence for many years. Recently, as a result of the slaughter of Muslims that the Alawites are carrying out in Syria, the Muslims in Turkey have begun to kill Alawites in revenge. Erdogan is furious about the abuses of Bishar also for this, because the last thing that Erdogan needs is to have an additional internal front in his country, between the Muslims and the Alawites.

Most of the states in our area comprise groups of different sorts: ethnic, tribal, religious, and sectarian, and many are the eternal conflicts among them; that's why these are failed states. In the Arab Middle East, there is only one group of stable states: the states of the Gulf: Kuwait, Qatar, and the seven states of the United Emirates. Each of these are stable for one reason and one reason only: each of these states is a state of one tribe, that represents only itself. In these states there are no elections for a national leader because the leadership is traditional, accepted and legitimate, therefore there is no reason for elections.

From all that is stated above, one clear conclusion can be drawn: if for demographic reasons Israel wants to exclude from citizenship as many Arabs as possible, we must establish seven city-states for the Arabs in Judea and Samaria: Jericho, Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarem, Qalqilya and the Arab section of Hebron. The "eight state solution" - Gaza and seven in Judea and Samaria - is the only plan that is based on the clear sociology of the region, not on rosy, but impractical dreams of a "two state solution", which should have been ditched a long time ago, both because of the Palestinian non-compliance with conditions of existing agreements and mainly because it is not sociologically suited to the Middle East. Instead of establishing a failed Palestinian state that will have internal conflicts, it is preferable to establish eight emirates that are based on Arab tribes, with Israel keeping the rural area forever, so that it will not turn into Hamas Heights.

Tribalism in the Middle East is the "real thing", and the population of the area is miserable because of the foreign ideologies that have penetrated into it. Any real and workable solution must be based upon this sociological fact: upon tribalism and loyalty to traditional religious and sectarian frameworks.

===============

Dr. Mordechai Kedar (Mordechai.Kedar@biu.ac.il) is an Israeli scholar of Arabic and Islam, a lecturer at Bar-Ilan University and the director of the Center for the Study of the Middle East and Islam (under formation), Bar Ilan University, Israel. He specializes in Islamic ideology and movements, the political discourse of Arab countries, the Arabic mass media, and the Syrian domestic arena.

Translated from Hebrew by Sally.

Links to Dr. Kedar's recent articles on this blog:

• The Division of Syria
• The Death Throes of the Lion
• Mordechai Kedar: An Old Governmental System in FormationFrustration and Extortion
• Thank You, Hamas
• Drums of War in the Gulf

Source: The article is published in the framework of the Center for the Study of the Middle East and Islam (under formation), Bar Ilan University, Israel. Also published in Makor Rishon, a Hebrew weekly newspaper.

Iranian Christian Pastor Faces Imminent Death (2.23.12)

by Lisa Daftari

[sz: Although Rev. Franklin Graham states that Youcef Nadarkhani was never a Muslim, according to Islamic law, any child born to a Muslim father is automatically a Muslim, just as according to Jewish law, any child born to a Jewish mother is automatically Jewish. So the claim that Youcef Nadarkhani was never a Muslim is only partially correct. He may never have been a practicing Muslim, but is nevertheless defined as Muslim according to Islamic law, since he was born to a Muslim father.]

Lisa Daftari

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/02/22/iran-court-convicts-christian-pastor-convert-to-death/

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.