The Only Book On Palestinian History You Will Ever Need To Read - Ari Lieberman

by Ari Lieberman

A historian counters mendacity with powerful satire.

There have been many books written on Palestinian identity and history but none are as scholarly and authoritative as Assaf A. Voll’s “A History of the Palestinian People, From Ancient Times to the Modern Era.” Voll’s exhaustive account of Palestinian history is summed up in 120 fact-filled pages brimming with substantive information that most will find useful.

University students working under harsh time constraints will find the book particularly suitable because it can be read cover-to-cover in a matter of seconds. That’s because all the pages are blank save for a quote in the beginning of the book attributed to the Seinfeld character George Costanza – “Just remember, it’s not a lie if you believe it.”

One comical reviewer at Amazon amusingly noted that the Voll’s book was plagiarized. “The work is identical to the book, Everything Men Know About Women: 25th Anniversary Edition,” said the reviewer. The reviewer is correct but the author’s transgression is minor compared to fantastical mendacity propagated by those pretending to be historians and academics at some of the world’s top universities.

The notion of “Palestinian history” is farcical and Voll’s understated but illuminating point unabashedly exposes this abject lie. The name “Palestine” is an invented name concocted by the Roman Emperor Hadrian.

In 132 CE, the Jews of Judea (alternatively known as Eretz Israel) launched an open revolt against Roman occupation of their land. Led by its charismatic leader, Simon Bar Kochva, the anti-Roman insurgency nearly succeeded, as evidenced by archaeological discoveries and historical accounts but was ultimately suppressed some three years later after intense and bitter fighting.

Hadrian was keenly aware and understood that the Jews could never be defeated by force of arms alone. He believed that in order to defeat the Jews, he needed to break their spirit as well. He therefore embarked on a bitter campaign of severing the Jewish nexus to the Land of Israel. Among his many cruel edicts was the renaming of the city of Jerusalem to “Aelia Capitolina” and the Land of Israel to “Palestine.” While the former name was never accepted, the latter abominable renaming unfortunately stuck and over time supplanted the land’s historical and original naming.

To be clear, there has never in the history of mankind been a Palestinian state, a Palestinian capital, a distinct Palestinian language, currency or culture. In December 2011, Newt Gingrich noted this indisputable fact and made the following observation;

“Remember there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire. And I think that we've had an invented Palestinian people, who are in fact Arabs, and were historically part of the Arab community…”

Gingrich was widely criticized for his politically incorrect but historically accurate statement but none of his critics were able to upend the veracity of his comment. Ironically, Arab leaders have occasionally voiced opinions similar to those expressed by Gingrich. Those opinions were of course made in Arabic to Arabic audiences but they were nonetheless made.

In a revealing 1977 interview with the Dutch newspaper Trouw, PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein stated,

“The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct 'Palestinian people' to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa. While as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.”

In 2012, a Gaza-based Hamas government official named Fathi Hammad noted the following while pleading for Egyptian oil;

“Every Palestinian…throughout Palestine can prove his Arab roots, whether from Saudi Arabia or Yemen or anywhere…personally, half my family is Egyptian, we are all like that.” Hammad continued, “Brothers, half the Palestinians are Egyptian and the other half are Saudis…Who are the Palestinians?” he asked rhetorically. “We have families called al-Masri whose roots are Egyptian, Egyptian! We are Egyptian! We are Arab! We are Muslim!” Hammad’s rant was curiously and conspicuously devoid of any reference to an independent Palestinian identity and that is because there simply isn’t any.

As Zahir Muhsein candidly notes, the notion of Palestinian nationalism began as a tactic following the Arab defeat of 1948. Prior to that time, most Arabs living in mandatory Palestine thought of themselves as either subjects of the Ottoman Empire or citizens of Greater Syria. The rest were transient workers from the vast Arab and Muslim expanse lured to the area by better fortunes fostered as a result of increased Jewish economic activity and business expansion.

Arabs residing in Gaza and the so-called West Bank from 1948 to 1967 had no problem living under Egyptian and Jordanian occupation. But the very notion of Jews occupying a centimeter of “Arab soil” was considered an abomination and an affront to Arab and Muslim honor.

Assaf Voll’s satirical account of Palestinian history is a book about nothing. It is nevertheless a forceful repudiation of those in academia, the media and elsewhere wishing to perpetuate historical inaccuracies to advance mendacious narratives. If there is to be a peaceful solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, we must start by recognizing and acknowledging certain unwavering and perhaps unpleasant truths, and chief among them is the myth of Palestinian history.

Ari Lieberman is an attorney and former prosecutor who has authored numerous articles and publications on matters concerning the Middle East and is considered an authority on geo-political and military developments affecting the region.

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/267086/only-book-palestinian-history-you-will-ever-need-ari-lieberman

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Google's YouTube - Soap Box for Terrorists - Ruthie Blum

by Ruthie Blum

In spite of Tube's earlier promises, MEMRI found that most of the videos it had flagged, beginning in 2010, remained online two and three years later.

• If anyone still doubted at that point the connection between terrorism and Google's video platform, the Daily Telegraph revealed that British counterterrorism police had been monitoring a cell of ISIS "wannabes" since March, and recorded its members discussing how to use YouTube to plot a vehicular ramming and stabbing attack in London. Terrorists have learned that YouTube can be as deadly a weapon as knives and cars.
• YouTube and Google, by posting such videos, are effectively being accessories to murder. They are also inviting class-action lawsuits from families and individuals victimized by terrorism. They need to be held criminally liable for aiding and abetting mass murder.
• In Arabic with French subtitles, the clip lauds terrorists "martyred for Allah." User comments include: "beautiful... may Allah give us all the knowledge and power to accelerate our imams." In other words, the pictures of smiling terrorists and their dead bodies serve as an inspiration to young Muslims seeking Paradise through martyrdom. This is not theoretical. According to the website Wired UK, as of June 5, there were 535 terrorist attacks around the world -- with 3,635 fatalities -- since the beginning of 2017 alone.

In mid-March this year, major companies began withdrawing or reducing advertising from Google Inc., the owner of YouTube, for allowing their brand names to pop up alongside videos promoting jihad, a new report released on June 15 by the Middle East Research Media Institute (MEMRI) reveals.

According to the report -- which documents the failure of Google to remove jihadi content that MEMRI volunteered to assist in flagging -- thus far, AT&T, Verizon, Johnson & Johnson, Enterprise Holdings and GSK are among the companies pulling their ads from the platform. Google responded by promising to be more aggressive in ensuring brand safety of ad placements.

Then came the Westminster attack. On March 22, 2017, Khalid Masood rammed his car into pedestrians -- killing four people and wounding dozens of others – then stabbed an unarmed police officer to death.

Exactly two months later, on May 22, Salman Ramadan Abedi detonated a shrapnel-laden homemade bomb at the Manchester Arena, after a concert by American singer Ariana Grande. The blast killed 22 people and wounded more than 100 others.

On June 3, ahead of Britain's general election five days later, Khuram Shazad Butt, Rachid Redouane and Youssef Zaghba murdered eight people and wounded 48 others in a combined van-ramming and stabbing attack on London Bridge.

On June 6, Britain's three main political parties pulled their campaign advertisements from YouTube, after realizing that they were placed in or alongside jihadi videos.

If anyone still doubted at that point the connection between terrorism and Google's video platform, the Daily Telegraph revealed that British counterterrorism police had been monitoring a cell of ISIS "wannabes" since March, and recorded its members discussing how to use YouTube to plot a vehicular ramming and stabbing attack in London.

Appallingly, the surveillance did nothing to prevent the carnage. It did provide further evidence, however, that jihadis purposely use the major online platform to spread their message and recruit soldiers in their war against the West and any Muslims deemed "infidels." Terrorists have learned that YouTube can be as deadly a weapon as cars and knives.

Nor could Google claim that it is unaware of the increasing pernicious use of its platform, or that it lacks the algorithmic tools to monitor YouTube's massive traffic – involving 1.3 billion users and 300 hours of video uploaded every minute.

In the first place, complaints about jihadi content have been lodged by individuals and organizations for years. Secondly, Google vowed to tackle the problem through a flagging feature that alerts YouTube to material that "promotes terrorism." Furthermore, YouTube itself claims: "Our staff reviews flagged videos 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to determine whether they violate our Community Guidelines."

In 2010, five years after YouTube's inception, MEMRI Executive Director Steven Stalinsky met with Google and YouTube free-speech attorneys and other company officials to discuss this issue in detail and offer assistance in monitoring jihadi online activity. Nevertheless, despite YouTube's assurances, it has continued to serve as a virtual soap box for radical imams and recruiters of "martyrs" for missions against both general and specific targets.

During that period seven years ago, MEMRI also presented findings to members of Congress from both sides of the aisle, resulting in written appeals from both Democrats and Republicans to YouTube CEO Chad Hurley to take the matter seriously and do something about it.

In spite of Tube's earlier promises, MEMRI found that most of the videos it had flagged, beginning in 2010, remained online two and three years later.

The breakdown was as follows:

Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and 9/11 attack glorification videos – 100 were flagged, 58 remained online.
Yemeni-American Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki videos – 127 were flagged, 111 remained online.
Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri videos – 125 were flagged, 57 remained online.

More recently, of the 115 videos that MEMRI flagged on YouTube in 2015, 69 remained active as of February 27, 2017. Many are still online to this day. Some are so gruesome that the MEMRI report includes a warning to readers about "graphic images."

One example is a clip titled: "A Martyr From the Taliban Laughs and Utters the Two Declarations [Of Faith] Before He is Martyred." Posted on July 5, 2011 -- and viewed by nearly three million people -- it shows a terrorist welcoming death with a smile on his face. The comments beneath the video are all in Arabic.

Another, titled "Shuhada (Martyrs) Of Islam, Look They Are Smiling In Death," was posted on September 22, 2009, with the YouTube disclaimer, "This video may be inappropriate for some users," and the user option: "I understand and wish to proceed." In Arabic with French subtitles, the clip lauds terrorists "martyred for Allah." User comments include: "beautiful... may Allah give us all the knowledge and power to accelerate our imams." In other words, the pictures of smiling terrorists and their dead bodies serve as an inspiration to young Muslims seeking Paradise through martyrdom.

A screenshot from one of the terror-supporting jihadi videos on YouTube that was flagged by MEMRI. The video remains on YouTube to this day.

This is not theoretical. According to the website Wired UK, as of June 5, there were 535 terrorist attacks around the world -- with 3,635 fatalities -- since the beginning of 2017 alone. It is only because the bulk of these attacks took place in countries such as Nigeria, Yemen, Somalia and Bangladesh -- and involved Muslims killing other Muslims -- that they were barely reported, and even less noticed, in the West.

Whenever a Western country is targeted successfully, however, the issue of global jihad hits the headlines – and now threatens to hurt the coffers of social media giants that have been acting as enablers. According to analyst firm Nomura Instinet, YouTube could lose $750 million in advertising revenue this year, as a result of its "funding" of terrorism and, in effect, enabling of wide-scale murder. Although this figure would not put Google in the red, it represents a protest on the part of users increasingly concerned about international security.

In what was clearly a move to counteract the latest outcry about jihadi videos on YouTube, Google announced on June 18 that it was introducing a "four-step plan" to "fight terrorism online," referring specifically to ISIS propaganda.

In an op-ed in the Financial Times and a subsequent post on "Google in Europe," Google General Counsel Kent Walker wrote:

"Terrorism is an attack on open societies, and addressing the threat posed by violence and hate is a critical challenge for us all. Google and YouTube are committed to being part of the solution. We are working with government, law enforcement and civil society groups to tackle the problem of violent extremism online. There should be no place for terrorist content on our services.
While we and others have worked for years to identify and remove content that violates our policies, the uncomfortable truth is that we, as an industry, must acknowledge that more needs to be done. Now."

The steps Walker listed were: increasing the use of technology to identify terrorism-related videos; increasing the number of independent experts in YouTube's "Trusted Flagger" program; making it harder for videos that do not strictly violate YouTube's "community standards," but which contain extremist content, to be located on the site; and implementing a "Redirect Method," to send viewers in search of radical content to videos that debunk jihadi recruitment messages.

Robert Spencer, of Jihad Watch, responded wryly to these ostensibly new measures, including those that MEMRI found have not been implemented over the years in any case:

"Google says it will put 'warnings on those videos and make them harder to find.' Ten to one these warnings will end up going not on jihad videos, but on anti-jihad videos."

Monetary pressure and public outcries are the methods used in democratic countries to force Google to remove content that endangers lives. (Totalitarian regimes, such as that of North Korea and Iran, simply ban YouTube.)

There is a greater problem, however, which cannot be solved by monetary or technological means. The cultural (or multicultural) climate that has swept the West is clouding the definitions of "incitement," "terrorism" and "extremism" in relation to radical Islam.

It is this willful vagueness that has provided Google and YouTube with a cloak against accusations that they are contributing to the spread of global jihad.

YouTube claims to be engaging in the "delicate balancing act" of supporting free expression while countering

"content that promotes or condones violence against individuals or groups based on race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, nationality, veteran status, or sexual orientation/gender identity, or whose primary purpose is inciting hatred on the basis of these core characteristics... if the primary purpose is to attack a protected group, the content crosses the line."

The message of jihad itself, which is being conveyed via video to potential Islamist terrorists the world over, clearly and concretely meets each of these criteria. However, since Muslims are treated in the West as a "protected group," it has become safer to rail against and attempt to combat "Islamophobia" than Islamists.

This is exactly what has been happening since the June 19 attack on worshipers exiting the Finsbury Park Mosque in north London. The perpetrator, Darren Osborne -- a Briton who hates Muslims and set out to kill as many as possible -- is being denounced as an "Islamophobe" who was influenced by anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.K.

As Andrew C. McCarthy argued after the attack, however:

"'Islamophobia' is a smear label dreamed up by the Muslim Brotherhood, designed to demagogue any legitimate concern about Islamic doctrine as irrational fear and, of course, as racism. The man who carried out the mosque attack is ... is a vile specimen of anti-Muslim hatred, [but] his hatred does not render Islamophobia real. It does not convert into hysteria our worries that a sizable percentage of Muslims — for reasons that are easily knowable if one simply reads scripture and listens to renowned sharia jurists — construes Islam to endorse violence against non-Muslims and to command the imposition of oppressive sharia."

It is this atmosphere, in which liberals adopt concepts created by Islamist radicals to invert terrorism and its victims, which has allowed Google and YouTube to get away with promoting jihad for a profit, while disingenuously hiding behind the banner of free speech.

Their lip service is no longer acceptable. From now on, if they do not keep their word about combating terrorism, they must be held criminally liable for aiding and abetting mass murder.

Ruthie Blum is a journalist and author of "To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, and the 'Arab Spring.'"

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10561/youtube-terrorists

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Kurdistan: From Referendum to the Road to Independence - Dr. Edy Cohen

by Dr. Edy Cohen

On September 25, a referendum will be held on the future of the Kurdistan region of Iraq. The vote will decide whether autonomous Kurdistan should disengage from Iraq and become an independent state or remain within the Iraqi state.

Greater Zab River near Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan, Wikipedia

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 507, June 24, 2017

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: On September 25, a referendum will be held on the future of the Kurdistan region of Iraq. The vote will decide whether autonomous Kurdistan should disengage from Iraq and become an independent state or remain within the Iraqi state. The referendum will be the Iraqi Kurds’ first concrete step towards the realization of the more than century-long dream of an independent Kurdish state.

After WWI, the victorious powers promised independence for the Kurds. This did not materialize, however, mainly due to the opposition of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey.

Since then, the Kurds have suffered persecution and oppression in the countries where they reside: Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey. The Kurds now constitute the largest national group in the world without a state to call their own.

Since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the Kurds have enjoyed a broad autonomy that has rekindled their aspiration for independence. This aspiration gained great momentum due to the considerable assistance provided by the Peshmerga, the Kurdish military militia, to the war effort against ISIS, without which the Iraqi army would not have succeeded in liberating the Mosul area from the Islamist terrorist organization. But there is a certain irony to the Iraqi victories in Kurdistan: they led to a mini-crisis between the Baghdad government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) over the revival of Kurdish national aspirations.

On this subject, it seems there has been no change in the position of the current Iraqi government in relation to that of its predecessors. According to the central government and Iraqi public figures who oppose Kurdish independence, the Kurds – like Assyrians, Yazidis, and Turkmens – are an inseparable part of Iraqi society who must not disengage from the Iraqi motherland.

Moreover, harsh disputes exist between the KRG and the Iraqi government over oil ownership in Kurdistan and the reimbursement of funds demanded by the government for the sale of that oil. Unexpected support on this matter was recently received from Saudi Arabia, which sought to take revenge on Ankara for its support of Qatar.

As for Israel, while there is a thunderous official silence on the subject, there is no doubt that Jerusalem would support an independent Kurdish state. About three years ago, Prime Minister Netanyahu declared Israel’s support for the establishment of such a state in the part of Iraq where Kurdish autonomy is today. “We must support the Kurds’ aspirations for independence; they deserve it,” Netanyahu declared in a speech at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.

This statement received a harsh response from Nuri al-Maliki, former prime minister of Iraq (2006-14), who repeatedly told the media pejoratively that Kurdistan would be a “second Israel.” When Israeli reporters arrived in Iraq to cover the war on ISIS, Maliki did not hide his anger. Many other Iraqi leaders besides Maliki accuse the president of the Kurdish autonomous region, Massoud Barzani, of collaborating with Israel, thereby hinting at the military assistance given by Israel in the 1960s and 1970s to the Kurds under the leadership of Mustafa Barzani (Massoud’s father) in their war against the central government.

Few countries support a referendum and the granting of independence to the Kurdish people in their state. The Kurdish region, which has no sea outlet and is surrounded by enemies, shares a border with Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey. These countries, especially Iran and Turkey, all strongly oppose the establishment of a Kurdish state. They fear, like Maliki, that Kurdistan – which has managed to build a friendly island of calm and stability in an area surrounded by enemies and war – will indeed become that distasteful thing, a “second Israel.” This expression has been used extensively in recent years whenever the issue of Kurdistan’s independence has made headlines.

It is entirely possible that the Iranians and the Turks will try to derail the referendum and divide the Kurdish factions.

For its part, Israel has an economic and security interest in supporting a Kurdish state. In view of the profusion of jihadist militias in Syria and Iraq, Jerusalem must be involved in developments in Kurdistan. It would be in Israel’s interest for the IDF to train and instruct Peshmerga soldiers in any future Kurdish state. One could go further – it might be sensible to build an air force base in Kurdistan for the state’s protection. Moreover, the independent Kurdish state may well allow the restitution of its former Jewish population, driven from Iraq for its plundered property, thus setting an important precedent for future Arab-Israeli peace agreements.

Beyond these vital interests, the people of Israel greatly sympathize with the just struggle of the Kurds. There are many commonalities between the Kurdish people and the Jewish people, both of whom have suffered continuous long-term persecution and are scattered throughout the world.

Iran, Turkey, and the Arab states will never support the independence of Kurdistan. The Kurds must lose no time after the referendum in declaring their disengagement from Iraq and the establishment of the independent state of Kurdistan.

In all probability, the state of Kurdistan will be an island of stability that is respectful of human rights. It will therefore differ substantially from the countries surrounding it. The Trump administration should support the referendum and the independence of the Kurdistan region and its disengagement from Iraq, since this development is of interest to the entire region.

The Kurdish people must have a state of their own, and the sooner the better. The international community should support the independence of Kurdistan, not only the establishment of a Palestinian state. Self-determination and independence should be the prerogative of all peoples, not a principle selectively applied.


BESA Center Perspectives Papers are published through the generosity of the Greg Rosshandler Family


Dr. Edy Cohen is author of the book The Holocaust in the Eyes of Mahmoud Abbas (Hebrew).

Source: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/kurdistan-referendum/

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Europe Surrenders to Radical Islam - Guy Millière

by Guy Millière

Faces are sad but no trace of anger is visible. The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, a Muslim, gives a speech emphasizing against all evidence that the killers' ideas have nothing to do with Islam.

• In spite of three attacks in three months, Britain does not seem to be choosing the path of vigilance and determination. June is not even over but the media barely talk about terrorism any more.
• Then, in the early hours of June 19, a man who acted alone drove a van into a crowd of Muslims leaving Finsbury Park Mosque in London: the main "threat" to the British right now was soon presented in several newspapers as "Islamophobia".
• Decolonization added the idea that the Europeans had oppressed other peoples and were guilty of crimes they now had to redeem. There was no mention of how, throughout history, recruits to Islam had colonized the great Christian Byzantine Empire, Greece, Sicily, Corsica, North Africa and the Middle East, most of the Balkans and eastern Europe, Hungary, northern Cyprus and Spain.
• While most jihadist movements were banned by the British government, more discreet organizations have emerged and demurely sent the same message. The Islamic Forum for Europe, for example, depicts itself as "peaceful", but many of those it invites to speak are anything but that. The Islamic Human Rights Commission uses the language of defending human rights to disseminate violent statements against the Jews and the West.

London, June 5, 2017. A minute of silence is held at Potters Field Park, next to the City Hall, to pay tribute to the victims of the London Bridge jihadist attack three days before. Those who came have brought flowers, candles and signs bearing the usual words: "unity", "peace" and "love". Faces are sad but no trace of anger is visible. The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, a Muslim, gives a speech emphasizing against all evidence that the killers' ideas have nothing to do with Islam.

A few hours after the attack, Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May also refuses to incriminate Islam, but dares to speak of "Islamic extremism". She was immediately accused of "dividing" the country. On election day, June 8, her Conservative party lost the majority in the House of Commons. Jeremy Corbyn, a pro-terrorist, "democratic socialist", who demands the end of British participation in the campaign against the Islamic State (ISIS), led the Labour party to thirty more seats than it had earlier. In spite of three attacks in three months, Britain does not seem to choose the path of vigilance and determination. June is not even over but the media barely talk about terrorism any more. A devastating fire destroyed a building in North Kensington, killing scores of residents. Mourning the victims seems to have completely erased all memory of those killed in the terrorist attacks.

Then, in the early hours of June 19, a man who acted alone drove a van into a crowd of Muslims leaving Finsbury Park Mosque in London: the main "threat" to the British right now was soon presented in several newspapers as "Islamophobia".

The United Kingdom is not the main Muslim country in Europe, but it is the country where, for decades, Islamists could comfortably call for jihad and murder. Although most jihadist movements were banned by the British government, more discreet organizations have emerged and demurely spread the same message. The Islamic Forum for Europe, for example, depicts itself as "peaceful", but many of those it invites to speak are anything but that. One was Anwar al-Awlaki, who for years planned al-Qaeda operations until he was killed in Yemen in 2011 in an American drone strike. The Islamic Human Rights Commission uses the language of defending human rights to disseminate violent statements against Jews and the West.

The most flamboyant radical preachers have all but disappeared. The most famous among them, Anjem Choudary, was recently sentenced to five years and six months in prison for his open support of the Islamic State, but hundreds of imams throughout the country continue similar work. No-go zones, forbidden to the "infidels", continue to grow in big cities, and sharia courts continue to dispense a form of justice parallel to, but different from, the national one. Khuram Shazad Butt, one of the three London Bridge terrorists, could raise the Islamic State flag in front of cameras, be the main character of a documentary on jihad in Britain and still be considered "low priority" by the police. Salman Abedi, the Manchester killer, travelled to Libya and Syria for training before he decided to act; he could easily cross borders without being stopped.

The most famous of Britain's radical Islamic preachers, Anjem Choudary (pictured holding the microphone), was recently sentenced to five years and six months in prison for his open support of the Islamic State, but hundreds of imams throughout the country continue similar work. (Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images)

Attempts to sound an alarm are rare, and quickly dismissed. Left-wing British politicians long ago chose to look the other way and indulge in complicity. Conservatives did not do much to help, either: after the uproar sparked by Enoch Powell's "Rivers of Blood" speech in 1968, British conservatives avoided the subject and became almost as complacent as their political opponents. In 2002, while portraying Islamism as the "new Bolshevism", Margaret Thatcher noted that "most Muslims deplore" terrorism. She described the "jihadist danger" without saying a single word on radical Muslims spreading Islamism in her own country.

In 2015, David Cameron said, "We need far more Muslim men and women at the head of British companies, more Muslim soldiers at the highest command posts, more Muslims in parliament, Muslims in a position of leadership and authority". He did not mention those who were joining jihad in London even as he was speaking.

When he was at the head of Britain's UKIP party, Nigel Farage said that there is a Muslim "fifth column" in the country. He was ferociously criticized for these words. Paul Weston, chairman of the GB Liberty party, was arrested by the police in 2014 for reading in public a text on Islam written by Winston Churchill. One wonders how Churchill would be regarded today.

Britain -- in spite of the Brexit referendum and even though it is more undermined by Islamization than most other European countries -- is fully imbued with a European, defeatist state of mind that corrodes its existence and is present throughout Europe.

At the end of World War II, Europe was exhausted and largely destroyed. The idea that prevailed among politicians was that it was necessary to make a clean sweep of the past. Nazism was described as the rotten fruit of nationalism and military power, and the only war that seemed to have to be waged was a war against war itself. Decolonization added the idea that the Europeans had oppressed other peoples and were guilty of crimes they now had to redeem. There was no mention of how, throughout history, recruits to Islam had colonized the great Christian Byzantine Empire, Greece, Sicily, Corsica, North Africa and the Middle East, most of the Balkans and eastern Europe, Hungary, northern Cyprus and Spain. Cultural relativism gained ground. The anti-Western revision of history gradually gained ground in media, culture, politics and education.

Immigrants from the Muslim world arrived in increasing numbers. They were not encouraged to integrate or respect the countries to which they came. In school, their children were told that European powers had misbehaved towards the Muslim world and that Muslim culture was at least as respectable as the Western one, maybe even more

Muslim districts emerged. Radical Islam spread. Whole neighborhoods came under the control of gangs and imams.

When violence erupted and riots took place, European politicians chose to placate them. European populations sometimes tried to resist, but they were constantly told that criticism of immigration and Islam is "racist". They were intimidated, pushed to shut up.

What is happening now in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe is merely a continuation.

European political leaders all know that radical Islam has swept throughout the continent, that hundreds of Muslim areas are under Islamic control, that thousands of potential jihadists are there, hidden among the immigrants and ready to murder, and that the police are overwhelmed.

They know that radical Islam has declared war on the Western world and that it is a real war. They see that they are prisoners of a situation they no longer control and that reversing the course of events would involve drastic actions they are not ready to take, such as closing thousands of mosques, taking back lost territories by force, arresting thousands of suspects, and deporting foreign jihadists.

They are aware that an apparently unstoppable replacement of population is underway in Europe and that there will be more attacks. They speak as if to limit the damage, not prevent it.

European populations also see what is happening. They watch as entire areas of European cities become foreign zones on European soil; they view the attacks, the wounded, the corpses. It seems as if they have simply lost the will to fight. They seem to have chosen preemptive surrender.

British political commentator Douglas Murray writes in his important new book, The Strange Death of Europe: "Europe is committing suicide. Or at least its leaders have decided to commit suicide". He then wonders if the Europeans will agree to go along with what is happening. For the moment, it seems, the answer is yes.

Guy Millière, a professor at the University of Paris, is the author of 27 books on France and Europe.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10574/europe-radical-islam

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Yes, It Is All About Islam - Bruce Bawer

by Bruce Bawer

Ibn Warraq takes on the apologists' lies.

Douglas Murray, whose book The Strange Death of Europe I applauded here the other day, has called him “one of the great heroes of our time.” I fully agree. His name – or, at least, his pen name – is Ibn Warraq, and he's the author of such important and eloquent works as Why I Am Not a Muslim (which I wrote about here eleven years ago), Why the West Is Best (which I reviewed here five years ago), and What the Koran Really Says. Born in India and educated in Britain, Warraq began criticizing Islam in print during the 1988-89 Satanic Verses controversy, when he was appalled by the failure of celebrated writers and intellectuals to defend Salman Rushdie's freedom of speech. Warraq, who was then based in France and now lives in the U.S., has been publishing books on Islam ever since, and is one of the essential contemporary authors on the subject, courageously telling ugly truths about a religion – an ideology – that has been swathed in pretty lies.

His new book, The Islam in Islamic Terrorism: The Importance of Beliefs, Ideas, and Ideology, is (if it doesn't sound a bit odd to put it this way) a godsend – a comprehensive answer to every one of those duplicitous politicians, lily-livered journalists, and slimy professional “experts” and “consultants” who tirelessly insist that Muslim terrorists have hijacked a peaceful faith. Some of us don't need to be told that this “Religion of Peace” stuff is arrant nonsense; but innumerable apologists continue to absolve Islam itself of guilt for violent terror, and tens of millions of people in the West continue to buy their bull – some because they are themselves so pure of heart that they simply can't believe any religion would actually preach violence, and others because admitting the facts would make them feel like bigots.

Many apologists insist that violence in the name of Islam is a relatively recent development; Warraq makes it crystal clear that it's prescribed in the Koran and has been practiced from the outset. Since 9/11, apologists have attributed Islamic terrorism to such “root causes” as poverty, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, U.S. foreign policy, Western imperialism, and the Crusades – anything but Islam itself. About this determination to formulate sophisticated answers to a question that the terrorists themselves have already answered repeatedly and definitively, Warraq observes that “[t]he centrality of religion in the Islamic world is something that Western liberals fail to understand or take seriously.” This isn't just true; it's one of the tragic realities of our time.

One by one, Warraq expertly shreds every one of the apologists' fake “explanations” for terror. Imperialism? Warraq reminds us that Muslims, too, have been imperialists, destroying “thousands of churches, synagogues, and temples...in a most brutal fashion” and exterminating “whole civilizations such as the Pre-Islamic cultures of Iran (Zoroastrians) and the Assyrians.” Saudi Arabia, homeland of fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers, “was never colonized by the West” but was, rather, part of an Islamic empire – namely the Ottoman Empire, governed by Turks from Constantinople. If those Saudis were spurred by a rage at empire, why not fly a plane into the Hagia Sophia?

No, as Warraq demonstrates, there's no way around it: Islamic terrorism is jihad. And jihad is a founding Islamic concept. The apologists, of course, have their own line on this one, too: under true Islam, they say, the word jihad denotes an inner spiritual process, and has nothing to do with violence; when terrorists use the word to describe their depredations, they're distorting the word and the faith. Warraq, citing a wide range of scholarly sources – both Western and Islamic, some recent and some dating back to the eighth century – puts that fulsome falsehood firmly in its place: yes, jihad can be used to mean an inner struggle, but in the Koran and Hadith, and in key texts ever since, it always refers, above all, to the sacred obligation to advance Islam by means of armed action against unbelievers.

Warraq also gives us a sweeping – but succinct – lesson in the history of jihad, beginning with Muhammed's own conquests, then moving on to ninth- through eleventh-century Baghdad, seventeenth-century Constantinople, eighteenth-century Saudi Arabia, and so on, right up to today's Muslim Brotherhood. Of course the apologists (Barack Obama among them) would have us believe that the Muslim Brotherhood is moderate and non-violent; Warraq establishes that throughout its existence, to the contrary, the Brotherhood has preached Holy War, period. Then there's the Nazis. Some apologists argue that Islam was just peachy until some of its leaders got chummy with Hitler and were infected by his love of violent world conquest and Jew-hatred; Warraq establishes that if Islamic higher-ups cozied up to the Nazis, it was because their totalitarian, exterminationist doctrines were already extremely similar.

Warraq also introduces us to a 1979 book that has been called “the most influential treatise on why Jihad is necessary and how it must be fought.” Written by one Brigadier S. K. Malik, The Qur'anic Concept of War won the endorsement of no less a jihad enthusiast than the late Pakistani president Zia al-Haq. A brief sample: “The Quranic military strategy...enjoins us to prepare ourselves for war to the utmost in order to strike terror into the hearts of the enemies....[The Koran] gives us a distinctive concept of total war. It wants both the nation and the individual to be at war 'in toto,' that is, with all their spiritual moral and physical resources.” In addition to Malik's tome, Warraq reads (so we don't have to) several other vile works that have also inspired the suicide-vest set – a veritable library of holy hate.

Warraq sums up his book's point as follows: “jihad is essential for the spread of Islam, and it is a duty incumbent on all Muslims until Islam covers the whole surface of the earth.” And what's essential for the West's survival is for us infidels to face up to the fact that nothing is more integral to Islam than that monstrous duty. If Islamic terror is, as apologists assert, a reaction to some action by the West, that action is, as Warraq points out, nothing more or less than our failure to “accept the Koran as a blueprint for a model society.” However much the talking heads may insist otherwise, it was Islam's explicit call for jihadist conquest, and nothing else, that motivated 9/11 and 7/7, Atocha and Nice, Bataclan and Ariana Grande. If we insist on clinging to lies about these atrocities – and thereby lose our freedom – it won't be because Ibn Warraq hasn't nobly and bravely shouted the truth from the rooftops.

Bruce Bawer is the author of “While Europe Slept,” “Surrender,” and "The Victims' Revolution." His novel "The Alhambra" has just been published.

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/267078/yes-it-all-about-islam-bruce-bawer

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Israel, American Jewry and Trump’s GOP - Caroline Glick

by Caroline Glick

If the US administration keeps moving forward on this trajectory, it can do far more than suspend funding for one terrorism-supporting Palestinian NGO.

Earlier this month Norway, Denmark and Switzerland did something surprising.

Norway announced that it was demanding the return of its money from the Palestinian Human Rights and Humanitarian Law Secretariat, for the latter’s funding of a Palestinian women’s group that built a youth center near Nablus named for PLO mass murderer Dalal Mughrabi.

Denmark followed, announcing it was cutting off all funding to the group.

And last week, the Swiss parliament passed a resolution directing the government to amend Swiss law to block funding of NGOs “involved in racist, antisemitic or hate incitement actions.”

For years, the Israeli government has been urging these and other European governments to stop funding such groups, to no avail. What explains their abrupt change of heart? 

In two words: Donald Trump.

For years, the Obama administration quietly encouraged the Europeans to fund these groups and to ratchet up their anti-Israel positions. Doing so, the former administration believed, would coerce Israel to make concessions to the PLO.

But now, Trump and his advisers are delivering the opposite message. And, as the actions by Denmark, Norway and Switzerland show, the new message is beginning to be received.

If the US administration keeps moving forward on this trajectory, it can do far more than suspend funding for one terrorism-supporting Palestinian NGO. It can shut down the entire BDS industry before Trump finishes his current term in office.

To understand what can and ought to be done, it is first important to understand the nature of the BDS movement. Under the catchphrase BDS, two separate campaigns against Israel and against Jews are being carried out.

The first BDS campaign is a campaign of economic warfare. The focal point of that campaign is Europe. The purpose of the campaign is to harm Israel’s economy by enacting discriminatory, anti-Israel trade policies and encouraging unofficial consumer and business boycotts of Israeli firms and products.

The US Congress can end this economic war against Israel by passing laws penalizing European states for engaging in trade practices that breach the World Trade Organization treaties. The US Treasury Department can also push strongly and effectively for such an end in its trade negotiations with the EU. The Treasury Department can also investigate whether and how EU trade practices toward Israel constitute unlawful barriers to trade.

Unlike the situation in Europe, where the BDS economic war against Israel is fairly advanced, efforts in the US to mount economic boycotts of Israel hit an iceberg early on due to the swift preemptive actions taken by state legislatures.

In 2015, then-South Carolina governor Nikki Haley became the first governor to sign a law barring her state government from doing business or investing in companies that boycott Israel. Last week Kansas became the 21st US state to pass an anti-BDS law along the same lines. Last month, all 50 state governors declared opposition to BDS.

The second BDS campaign being carried out against Israel is a form of political and social warfare.

Its epicenter is US academia. Its purpose is to erode US support for Israel, by making it politically unacceptable and socially devastating to publicly voice support for Israel on college campuses and more generally in leftist circles.

As is the case with the economic BDS campaign, the best way to defeat political BDS is through state and federal government action. If state and federal governments withheld funding to universities and colleges that permit BDS groups to operate on their campuses, campus administrators, who to date have refused to lift a finger against these hate groups, would be forced into action.

If the US Education and Justice departments opened civil rights investigations against major BDS groups for antisemitic bigotry, campus administrators would finally begin banning them from their campuses.

For many Israelis, the notion that defeating BDS is a job for the US government rather than for grassroots, American Jewish activists, will come as a surprise.

When Israelis think about the BDS movement, they tend to think that the American Jewish community is the place to turn for assistance.

This is not merely incorrect.

As two studies published in the last few weeks show, the notion that Israel can look to the American Jewish community for help with anything is becoming increasingly dubious.

To be sure, there are several American Jewish groups that devote massive resources to combating BDS on campuses. But their actions are tactical.

They fight specific BDS resolutions coming to votes before student councils. They train pro-Israel students to defend Israel to their peers.

While helpful, none of these actions constitutes a serious challenge to the movement.

On a strategic level, the effective moves made to date against BDS have been initiated by Republicans.

Alan Clemmons, the South Carolina lawmaker who initiated the anti-BDS bill in his statehouse and has since gone on to spearhead the state government anti-BDS drive nationally, is a Christian Zionist.

Clemmons didn’t act out of concern for South Carolinian Jews. The Jewish community of South Carolina numbers a mere 20,000 members. The state-by-state anti-economic BDS campaign is neither the brainchild of any major Jewish group nor the product of their efforts.

So, too, to the extent that the Trump administration and the Republican-controlled Congress take action to defeat BDS on campuses and in Europe, they won’t be answering the call of their Jewish constituents. American Jews vote overwhelmingly for the increasingly anti-Israel Democratic Party. And while making up a mere 2% of the US population, American Jews contributed 50% of the donations to the Democratic Party in the 2016 elections.

This then brings us to the two studies of the American Jewish community and its future trajectory.

The first study was published by the Jewish Agency’s Jewish People Policy Institute. It analyzes the data from the 2013 Pew survey of American Jewish attitudes. The Pew survey demonstrated that the Jewish identity of American Jews is growing increasingly attenuated and superficial.

Famously, the study noted that while 19% of American Jews said that they view observance of Jewish law as an essential part of their Jewish identity, 42% said they viewed having a good sense of humor as an essential part of their Jewish identity.

The JPPI study analyzed the Pew data regarding rates of marriage and childbearing among American Jews aged 24-54. The study started with the data on intermarriage. Sixty percent of non-haredi American Jews are married to non-Jews. A mere 32% of married American Jews are raising their children as Jewish to some degree.

From there, the JPPI study considered marriage and childbirth rates in general. It works out that a mere 50% of American Jews between 24 and 54 are married. And a mere 40% of American Jews between those ages have children living with them. In other words, the majority of adult American Jews are childless. 

The JPPI study tells us two important things.

First, in the coming years there will be far fewer American Jews. Second, among those who are Jewish, their Jewish identity will continue to weaken.

Clearly, it would be unwise for Israel to believe that it can depend on such a community to secure its interests in the US for the long haul.

The second study shows that not only can Israel not expect the American Jewish community to help it maintain its alliance with the US. The number of American Jews willing to spearhead anti-Israel campaigns is likely to grow in the coming years.

The second study was produced by Brand Israel, a group of public relations experts that for the past decade has been trying to change the way young Americans think about Israel. The idea was to discuss aspects of Israel that have nothing to do with the Palestinians, with an emphasis on Israel as a hi-tech power. The hope was that by branding Israel as the Start-Up Nation, leftists, who support the Palestinians, would still support Israel.

Fern Oppenheim, one of the leaders of Brand Israel, presented the conclusions of an analysis of the group’s work at the Herzliya Conference this week and discussed them with the media. It works out that the PR campaign backfired.

Far from inspiring increased support for Israel, Oppenheim argued that the hi-tech-centric branding campaign made leftist American Jews even more anti-Israel. She related that over the past decade, there has been an 18-point drop in support for Israel among US Jewish students.

To remedy the situation, which she referred to as “devastating,” Oppenheim recommended changing the conversation from hi-tech to “shared values.”

The problem with Oppenheim’s recommendation is that it ignores the problem.

Young American Jews aren’t turning against Israel because their values are different from Israeli values. By and large, they have the same values as Israeli society. And if they know anything about Israel, they know that their values aren’t in conflict with Israeli values.

Young American Jews are turning on Israel for two reasons. First, they don’t care that they are Jewish and as a consequence, see no reason to stick their necks out on Israel’s behalf.

And second, due in large part to the political BDS campaign on college campuses, supporting Israel requires them to endanger or relinquish their ideological home on the Left. Since their leftist identities are far stronger than their Jewish identities, young American Jews are joining the BDS mob in increasing numbers.

This then brings us back to BDS.

The only way to diminish the groundswell of American Jews who are becoming hostile toward Israel is to defeat the forces of political BDS on campuses. To do this, Israel should turn not to the Jewish community but to evangelical Christians, the Trump administration and the Republican-controlled Congress.

As for the American Jews, Israel needs to stop viewing the community as a resource and begin to view it as a community in crisis. To this end, the most significant contribution Israel can make to the American Jewish community – particularly to non-Orthodox American Jews – is to encourage them to make aliya. Assuming that current trends will continue, the only way non-Orthodox American Jews can have faith their grandchildren will be Jewish is for a significant number of them to make aliya.

No, this won’t appeal to all American Jews. But nothing Israel does will. Israel’s job isn’t to reach the unreachable. It is to protect its alliance with the US and to help the Jews that remain in the room. 

Originally published in he Jerusalem Post. 


Caroline Glick

Source: http://carolineglick.com/israel-american-jewry-and-trumps-gop/

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Arab states issue ultimatum to Qatar - Rick Moran

by Rick Moran

This is a dispute that has been simmering for years, according to the UAE ambassador.

The crisis in the Gulf over Qatar's ties to terrorism and Iran took an even more serious turn as Arab states issued an ultimatum to Doha demanding that it close the propaganda media outlet Al Jazeera, cut ties with Iran, remove a Turkish military base, and pay reparations.

Qatar is not expected to comply with any of these demands.

Reuters:

Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates have sent a 13-point list of demands apparently aimed at dismantling their tiny but wealthy neighbor's two-decade-old interventionist foreign policy which has incensed them. Kuwait is helping mediate the dispute.
A Qatari government spokesman said Doha was reviewing the list of demands and that a formal response would be made by the foreign ministry and delivered to Kuwait, but added that the demands were not reasonable or actionable.
"This list of demands confirms what Qatar has said from the beginning – the illegal blockade has nothing to do with combating terrorism, it is about limiting Qatar's sovereignty, and outsourcing our foreign policy," Sheikh Saif al-Thani director of Qatar's government communications office, said in a statement.
A Qatar semi-government human rights body said the demands were a violation of human rights conventions and should not be accepted by Qatar.
Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani had said on Monday that Qatar would not negotiate with the four states until economic, diplomatic and travel ties cut this month were restored.
The countries that imposed the sanctions accuse Qatar of funding terrorism, fomenting regional unrest and drawing too close to their enemy Iran. Qatar rejects those accusations and says it is being punished for straying from its neighbors' backing for authoritarian hereditary and military rulers.
The uncompromising demands leave little prospect for a quick end to the biggest diplomatic crisis for years between Sunni Arab Gulf states, regional analysts said.
"The demands are so aggressive that it makes it close to impossible to currently see a resolution of that conflict," said Olivier Jakob, a strategist at Switzerland-based oil consultancy Petromatrix.
Ibrahim Fraihat, Conflict Resolution Professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, forecast a prolonged stand-off.
Qatar will reject the demands as a "non-starter", he said, and its neighbors had already escalated as far as they were likely to go. "Military action remains unlikely at the moment so the outcome after the deadline would be a political stalemate[.]"

The four Sunni Arab states have boycotted Qatari products and the country's government-run airline. 

This is a dispute that has been simmering for years, according to the UAE ambassador.

Fox News:

Al Otaiba: This is a consistent pattern of behavior [by Qatar]. Let me start by telling you what it is not-- what it's not is an overreaction; it's not a hasty decision. It's not something that we came to in a rush.
Al Otaiba: So to point out some context, three years ago, we had a meeting in Riyadh under the leadership of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. In that meeting we had a confrontation essentially… and the leadership of Qatar, Emir Tamim [bin Hamad Al Thani], signed a document that pledged that he will stop and refrain from doing all the things that we've been complaining about.
Al Otaiba: The document has been released to the member countries. I don't think it's ever been released to the public, but the same things that we have said he has violated, are the same things that we are complaining about now, which are support for terrorist and extremist, meddling in our internal affairs, and using their media to attack us and incite. ...
James Rosen: Is it possible that it derives from philosophical wellspring or theological wellspring?
Al Otaiba: It's one of two things: it's either an ideological proximity to extremism, to terrorism, political Islam, groups like Hamas, groups like the Muslim Brotherhood who live opening in Qatar or it's hedging. It's opportunism. It's perhaps seeking to play a larger role in a region where Qatar is not allowed to play a larger role because of their size.

President Trump has taken credit for the crackdown on Qatar by Arab states. The ambassador confirmed that:

Al Otaiba: I think the excitement we see in President Trump is really because he addresses our two core problems in a very straight forward way. Our two problems in the region are two threats: are Iran and extremism, and on both of those situations President Trump has indicated that he wants to tackle those head on. You can look at the Cabinet around President Trump and you would feel very relieved. I think for any president of the United States, this foreign policy team could be considered the dream team. I mean [Defense] Secretary Maddis, Secretary [of State] Tillerson and [CIA] Director Pompeo, [National Security Adviser] General McMaster…These are very, very serious people.

Military action by the Sunni Arab states against Qatar is not likely, but a protracted political crisis in the region is not in the interest of the United States. Qatar seems determined to continue funding terrorism and cozying up to Iran. Until it can be persuaded otherwise, the crisis will only get worse.

Rick Moran

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/06/arab_states_issue_ultimatum_to_qatar.html

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