The Great Error of Israeli Normalization

by Daniel Greenfield

Israel has celebrated its 63rd independence day, but it is a hollow celebration in a country that is less independent than it has been in decades. Rather than working within regional and global realities, its leaders instead fanatically pursue normalization and stabilization. But normalcy and stability are illusions in the Middle East, as the past few months have reminded us.

Pursuing stability with unstable regimes is doomed from the start. Normalization relies on peace achieved through agreements with Arab leaders. But such agreements are always hostage to the corruption of the Arab governments and their desperate need for bigoted populism. Even an agreement with the relatively stable Egypt was not able to outlast a single government. The less stable Palestinian Authority breaks agreements as soon as it signs them.

The Camp David Accords, jewel of the normalization crown, have proven to be worthless. The Oslo Accords were discredited in far less time than that. Had Israel given in to pressure and exchanged the Golan Heights for a peace treaty with Syria-- that agreement would no longer be worth the paper it was written on. And yet in January, the Obama Administration was aggressively pushing Israel to turn over the Golan Heights, for which so many IDF soldiers gave their lives, for exactly that.

Arab leaders don't understand the Western obsession with treaties. Nor do they consider them to be binding in any way. To them an accord or an agreement is nothing but a statement of their interests, which becomes obsolete the moment their interests change. There is no such thing as a permanent peace agreement that binds nations and peoples. All treaties with Arab leaders are signed with individuals and their families. They do not represent any permanent reconciliation or normalization. That can only be achieved through intermarriage and complete cultural blending.

Arabs view the Israeli pursuit of peace as insecurity. When Israel talks about how much it wants peace, it loses face. The Arabs view such talk as a sign of weakness, an admission of guilt by thieves who now want to strike a bargain to avoid what's coming to them, or a disingenuous claim to cover up plans for war.

The culture of the Shouk, the middle-eastern bazaar, is the bluff and the mind game. To assert a lie confidently is to strengthen your bargaining position, to speak the truth softly is to be thought a liar. Everyone knows what they want, but no one comes right out and says it. No one but a tourist or a sucker. If you come out and say that you want peace, then you're either a sucker, a coward or looking for an excuse to start a war. Arab states assume all three things about Israel. Often at the same time. Because our behavior confuses them as badly as they confuse us.

Israel demonstrates superior force and then sues for peace. It surrenders to terrorists and then it bombs them. It retreats and then talks about a permanent settlement. Arab behavior often looks crazy to outsiders, but our behavior looks much more crazy to them. We think that they say one thing and do another. They think the same thing about us. And with good cause.

Arab leaders speak the language of the region. Israeli leaders speak some bizarre Western dialect that is foreign to the region and its sensibilities. Arab leaders assume that foreign diplomats who don't understand that what they say isn't what they mean are either idiots or being disingenuous. Confused? You're now an honorary diplomat. And Western emissaries either end up believing everything they hear to not believing anything they hear. But their problem is that they confuse the poetry of the words with the content of the message.

Israel pursuing the mirage of permanent peace and brotherhood is one of the dumber things they have ever encountered. There is no such thing in the region. The Arabs hate the Persians. The Sunnis hate the Shiites. The Egyptians hate the Saudis. Bedouin clans that live side by side for centuries have blood feuds that have gone on for centuries. Look at Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Bahrain, any Arab country under a microscope and you see a whirling mass of smaller entities who only stop fighting when a stronger force gets in the way.

Everyone in the Middle East hates everyone else, and will go on feeling that way until the end of time. The only way to stop your neighbor from cutting your throat, stealing your car or making off with your daughter-- is to threaten to do the same thing to him. And worse.

Israeli leaders of another generation understood this regional reality. But the distance between the men who drained the swamps and fought bandits, and the men who live enclosed in the massive population density of the Tel Aviv Metropolitan Area, up there with London, Moscow, Tokyo and Rio De Janiero, has grown too great. They are intimately familiar with Tel Aviv, Paris and Brussels. But they have no understanding whatsoever of the people they live among.

Urbanization in civilizations means that the people who have the most awareness of an external threat, are cut off from the centers of power. Too many Israelis have come to think of Arabs as people like them who happen to speak a different language. Cousins they just don't get along with. Few would have been stupid enough to make that mistake seventy years ago. But insularity, multicultural propaganda and the popularity of surface elements of Arab culture have made it ubiquitous.

The New Middle East is a fairy bubble born out of that myth. And no matter how many times it bursts, there are still those who chase after it.

There can be no permanent peace or normalization with the Arab world, except within the context of regional realities. Those realities are that Arab leaders are obligated to publicly hate Israel, while privately cooperating on issues of mutual interest. Any written treaty is worthless, but oral agreements can work, so long as they benefit both sides. The Arab Street will go on hating Israel, as they have hated religious minorities and anyone who is different from them in any way. There will be no brand new Middle East, just the same old one as before.

The difference between the Middle East as it was and as it is, is window dressing. These are still borderline feudal societies with the important families controlling the land and the government. And the peasants having barely enough to tie their shoes together with. The Arab world consists of ramshackle post-colonial governments run by powerful families. The parliaments and ministers, the bureaucrats and officers, are generally the sons of powerful families, their nephews, distant cousins, and anyone else who can be counted on to be loyal to the tribe. Whether the men at the top call themselves sheiks or colonels, they rely on the support of that oligarchy, and rule through some combination of bribery and armed force. The Arab Spring is nothing more than prominent families and religious factions fighting it out for supremacy.

If Israel is to survive in the Middle East, it will only be able to do by accepting those realities, and maintaining its existence by demonstrating and using the power it has. The only normalcy and stability it can have is that the Arabs will accept that it is not going anywhere. Something that had already been accomplished in the late seventies, only to be trashed by bleeding heart leftists in the nineties. Only by making it clear that it will not be destroyed, undermined or bullied into giving up, will that reassert itself.

The State of Israel exists in a violent and unstable part of the world. That violence will be part of its reality for as long as it is there. There should be no more land for peace or peace initiatives of any kind. They do far more harm than good. Like any bad neighborhood, the only thing to do is secure your property, keep watch over it, move along anyone who doesn't belong there, and keep a weapon handy at all times. Only then can you reach a limited understanding with the local gangs and even gain their respect. That is the regional reality. You don't achieve regional normalization by signing a few accords and turning over some land. Instead you do it by turning your presence into an indisputable fact. And if you work with that regional reality, then the regional reality will work with you.

Source: http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2011/05/great-error-of-israeli-normalization.html

Daniel Greenfield

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

Hamas and Fatah: Different Tactics, Same Jihad

by Robert Spencer

George Wallace famously said long ago that there wasn’t a dime’s worth of difference between the Republican and Democratic parties, and that is even more true of Fatah and Hamas. Now that Hamas and Fatah have signed a reconciliation agreement, the entire State Department strategy for dealing with the Palestinians is in ruins – not that anyone has noticed.

For years, the Bush administration and then the Obama administration have worked from the premise that Fatah and its Palestinian Authority governments were the “moderates” that merited backing against the “extremists” of Hamas. It was a myopic, simplistic and naïve analysis from the beginning, and now it has been definitively exposed as such.

In reality, both groups share the same Islamic outlook towards Israel that makes peaceful coexistence with the Jewish State impossible. Both believe that no state ruled by non-Muslims on what they consider Muslim land has any legitimacy; there are no theological differences between them, but only relatively minor differences of strategy and of strictness in their observance of Islamic law that mainly arise from Fatah’s origins in Sixties-era socialism as opposed to Hamas’s birth as an explicitly Islamic movement. Fatah is also more inclined to be patient, while Hamas tends to be significantly less so. Fatah is willing to make deals with the Infidels as stepping stones to greater progress toward the ultimate goal; Hamas tends to see such deals as trimming, and prefers not to compromise even temporarily.

Thus the Hamas Charter, which was promulgated in 1988, quotes Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, saying that “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.” The PLO’s Palestine National Charter is twenty years older. It doesn’t mention Islam at all, but it nonetheless enunciates the same goal in different language: “The liberation of Palestine, from an Arab viewpoint, is a national (qawmi) duty and it attempts to repel the Zionist and imperialist aggression against the Arab homeland, and aims at the elimination of Zionism in Palestine.” This language was never revised even after the PLO recognized Israel in 1993.

The PLO Charter’s talk of “imperialist aggression” is redolent of the socialist milieu in which the PLO/Fatah was born. Over the years, however, this gave way to a steadily more Islamic perspective. Yasir Arafat began his career railing about imperialism and ended it calling for jihad. This trajectory reflected the resurgence of Islam as a political force; Saddam Hussein and other Arab leaders followed the same course over the same decades. Thus, while Hamas, which is an acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement, was founded in the 1980s by Muslims who believed that the PLO was giving short shrift to the Islamic aspect of the Arab war against Israel, over the years, the distinctions between the two groups have become increasingly blurred.

For example, according to Palestinian Media Watch, last November the official Palestinian Authority television network broadcast a song by a jihadist singer named Amar Hasan, including these lyrics that deftly blend the old Arab nationalism of the PLO with the new and prevailing jihadist sentiment:

My brother! The oppressors [Israelis] have gone too far.
Therefore Jihad is a right, and self-sacrifice is a right.
Shall we let them steal the Arab nature -
the patriarchal glory and rule?
And only through the sound of the sword
They respond, with voice or echo.
Draw from the sheath your sword;
And let it not return.
My brother, my brother, Oh proud Arab
Today is our moment, not tomorrow.
My brother, the time of our nation’s sunrise has arrived,
[the time] for you to repel those who are misled
And bring renaissance to Islam.

This was by no means an isolated incident. In June 2010, the host of a children’s show on government-sanctioned Palestinian Authority television interviewed the four-year old son of a jihadist who was being held in an Israeli prison. The host asked the child: “The Jews are our enemies, right?” The boy agreed, of course.

In another notorious program, a mother cast the death of her son who had been killed in an Israeli defense action in terms of Islamic jihad theology: “We had always hoped for his [my son's] Martyrdom (Shahada), knowing he wanted to die as a Martyr (Shahid). Every time he went out, we would say to him, ‘May Allah be with you.’ We knew that he wanted to die as a Martyr. Praise to Allah, he sought Martyrdom, and he achieved it. My message to every mother is to sacrifice her child for Palestine.”

Not to be outdone, Hamas TV in January 2010 demonized Israeli settlers by depicting one exulting: “the most delicious thing is to kill Palestinians and drink their blood.” Fatah, meanwhile, tried to prove that it was just as bloodthirsty and murderous as Hamas, which used to celebrate its murders of Israeli civilians on its website as part of its “Glory Record” until it decided to try to win over international opinion by portraying itself as the beleaguered victim. In the summer of 2009, a Palestinian Authority television show featured a student who was aligned with Fatah taunting a Hamas-linked teacher for not killing enough Israelis: “Since Hamas seized power, we haven’t heard of any Martyrdom operation [suicide-bombing].” The student goes on to boast that “the first shot was fired by the PLO; the first Jihad was carried out by the PLO, with all the other factions – but Hamas always opposed.”

A senior leader of “moderate” Fatah, Muhammad Dahlan, let the cat out of the bag in March 2009 when he declared: “They always say that the Fatah movement wants Hamas to recognize Israel. This is a gross deception. And I want to say for the thousandth time, in my own name and in the name of all of my fellow members of the Fatah movement: We do not demand that the Hamas movement recognize Israel. On the contrary, we demand of the Hamas movement not to recognize Israel, because the Fatah movement does not recognize Israel, even today. [...] Therefore, no one can compete with us. We of the Fatah do not recognize Israel; we recognized [corrects himself] recognize that which the PLO recognized, but that does not obligate us as a Palestinian resistance faction.”

In other words, the PLO’s recognition of Israel was a sham to deceive the West; even Fatah, the largest faction of the PLO today, doesn’t consider itself obligated to abide by it, and thus it does not supersede the words of the Palestine National Charter that essentially call for the complete obliteration of Israel. This imperative has only been made clearer by the new alliance with Fatah and Hamas. They are coming together to wage their jihad against Israel more effectively.

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/06/02/hamas-and-fatah-different-tactics-same-jihad/

Robert Spencer

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

Jewish Rights to "Palestine" According to International Law

Egypt's Revolution: What Happened?

by Tarek Heggy

A Description of What Happened:

There is a point at which a popular uprising -- or any popular movement - must be described as a revolution, and that is when it succeeds in rallying huge numbers under its banner and when it produces effects and brings about changes that impact strongly on the reality on the ground. The first condition was fully satisfied in the movement that began on January 25^th, 2011: the number of Egyptian men and women who took to the streets to demand change ran into the millions. While Tahrir square was the scene of million-plus demonstrations in Cairo over many days, the size of countrywide demonstrations over several days ran to more than ten million.. Even taking into account the difference in the size of the population, the numbers were proportionally far greater than those who participated in the 1919 revolution or those who took to the streets in support of the army takeover on July 23rd, 1952. They were even far greater than the mass demonstrations which toppled the socialist era in the countries making up what was known as the eastern bloc. Thus the quantitative aspect attests to the fact that we witnessed the largest popular movement in Egypt's modern history, as well as one of the largest in the history of the world over the last two centuries.

As to the second condition that qualifies a movement to be called a revolution, namely, the effects it produces and the changes it brings about, there is no doubt that what began in Egypt on January 25^th, 2011 brought about (and continues to bring about) huge and radical changes in Egyptian reality, the most important being the overthrow of the head of a regime that ruled Egypt with increasing repression for thirty years, attaining in the last ten one of the worst forms of an alliance between power and wealth.

In addition to toppling the head of state, the revolution shook the regime to its roots, even though many of its component elements not only still remain among us but are actively engaged in fomenting what can only be described as a counterrevolution. There is therefore no disputing the fact that the events which began in Egypt were a great, even a glorious, revolution. It was also a "white" revolution: the only blood spilt was at the hands of the regime and its cohorts, including a number of loyalist business tycoons.

Thus the January revolution in Egypt deserves the praise heaped on it by a large number of world leaders who did not stop at describing it as a great revolution but went on to talk admiringly of its resolve, dedication, brilliant organization and peacefulness. Some went as far as to propose that the Egyptian revolution be included as a subject on the curricula of their higher educational institutions.

Background to and Reasons for the Revolution:

Although no one can deny that the first half of President Mubarak's rule (1981 -1996) was marked by political repression and economic and social stagnation, there was no momentum for a revolution against the president as long as he was ruling Egypt on his own. During the second half of his period in power, however, his family, notably his wife and younger son, began to take an active part in ruling Egypt, involving themselves in all spheres of activity. The son established an oligarchy between some prominent members of the political power structure and a number of business tycoons. The influence and power of this coalition grew until it became the real ruler on the internal front (leaving foreign policy to the president). During those years, political repression and financial corruption attained levels never before experienced by Egyptians in their modern history. The coalition committed its fatal mistake in 2010 when the president's younger son helped the secretary-general of the ruling party (the president's party), Safwat Sherif, a man despised by all Egyptians, and the wealthy tycoon Ahmed Ezz, the son's close associate, to forge election results twice. The first time was for the Shura (upper house) elections; the second (and this was the more important) was for the People's Assembly elections, when they took over 98% of the seats for their followers, leaving 2% for the rest of Egypt. As far as the Egyptian people were concerned, this was the straw that broke the camel's back.

When the president succumbed to pressure from his family, specifically from his wife and younger son during the second half of his period in power, he set in motion a process that was to bring about his downfall. He began by allowing them to participate with him in managing the country's political, economic, social, cultural and educational affairs, gradually allowing them to virtually take over the running of the country while reserving for himself the foreign affairs portfolio. This led to the formation of an unholy alliance between power and money that engendered corruption in all spheres of life for a full decade and a half, culminating in the unprecedented rigging of the parliamentary elections. A few weeks after this latest chapter in the rampant corruption perpetuated by the coalition between power and money under Mubarak's rule, the flood gates of revolution

Was the Revolution Expected?

As someone who has lectured widely, I believe I am in a position to confirm that all the experts on the region believed Egypt was headed for a revolution. However, all of them (as well as the writer of this article) expected it to come either from the slums or the mosques. This proved not to be the case. The revolution was launched by young men and women of the middle class, most of them university graduates and all of them adept in the use of modern communications technology. Their grasp of this technology, notably the Internet, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, provided them with a contemporary understanding of two concepts. The first is citizenship; the second the role of government. Most of the members of the computer generation have a better understanding of the rights of citizens than previous generations. At the same time, they know that governments are there to serve, not to rule; and they can clearly see the difference between governments that serve in advanced countries and those that rule in countries like Egypt.

January 25^th, 2011:

In defiance of state security arsenals and an interior ministry swollen from 100,000 men in 1981 to over a million at the beginning of 2011, and despite extensive wiretapping and eavesdropping on all forms of electronic and tele­communications and tight state control over much of the media, the January Revolution was a well-organized movement from the start. Armed with a steely determination, people succeeded in mustering a mass following that was remarkably united across class, age and sectarian lines. These features of the revolution deserve to be studied in depth. They also deserve to be highly praised. When the police state shut off access to Facebook and the Internet, then text messages on cell phones and finally cell phones themselves, their attempts to abort the revolution backfired as popular indignation sparked even wider protests. A respectable state, one that respects its people, would never resort to such shameful acts; those who ordered the social media blackout must be brought to justice.

Despite the regime's best efforts, however, the revolution flowed on as relentlessly as if it were following a detailed musical score. In the final analysis, science defeated a primitive power structure out of touch with the realities of the age. The leaders of the Kifaya movement told me of their frustration over the years because of their inability to mobilize even a thousand people for a demonstration. Then out of the blue, as it were, the January 25^th generation miraculously managed to organize a 1000-strong demonstration that swelled in just four days to a one-million strong revolution in Tahrir Square. These youngsters had simply managed to break the fear barrier, and they believed in themselves and in their message. At the same time, they knew that although their enemy appeared strong, it was in fact extremely weak.

A Revolution for Freedom, Not Bread:

While no one disputes the importance of ensuring decent living standards for all citizens, 'dignity" and "freedom," not "bread" and "job' were the catchwords and triggers of the revolution. there is a relationship between dignity and freedom on the one hand and bread and jobs on the other that the revolution's youth understood full well: The failure to provide all Egyptian citizens with decent living standards is the direct result of a political system that denied freedom to its people and stripped them of their dignity. People who enjoy freedom with dignity participate in political life; they can change their rulers and the rules by which they are governed, and eventually reach a stage in which all citizens enjoy equal rights to decent living standards with all that this term implies: housing, food, the right to marry and to found a family, medical treatment, and so on.

The Demands of the Revolution:

The demands of the revolution were predominantly political: freedom, dignity, participation and social justice. They were also limited to the domestic front. The revolutionaries did not attempt to deceive people with rousing slogans related to matters outside the national borders. Their main concern was to reform the country, not the world. Prioritizing goals and placing them in the right sequence is a sign of emotional maturity and mental equilibrium.

Secularism of the Revolution:

From the very first moment until the overthrow of the head of the regime, the revolution was purely secular in all its aspects. On the few occasions when some of the protesters attempted to raise religious slogans the majority would shout them down with cries of "secular…..secular".

Among the many achievements of this great revolution was that it exposed the real weight of the government of president Mubarak, of the opposition parties formed during his years in office and of the Muslim Brotherhood. The revolution showed the whole world that although there can be no denying the existence and influence of the Muslim Brotherhood, the regime had deliberately exaggerated its weight to frighten the world into believing Mubarak was the only alternative to a takeover by political Islam.

The Days of the Revolution:

Countless articles and books are sure to be written about the days of the revolution and the incidents that revealed the admirable qualities of the Egyptian people. However, as an eyewitness who was often in Tahrir Square during the revolution, I should like to record those aspects of the revolution that impressed me most. First, the Egyptian people focused on their goals with an iron resolve and an unwavering determination that many thought they had lost forever. Second, the prevailing mood in Tahrir square was marked by a degree of camaraderie, solidarity, harmony and warmth unprecedented in gatherings of this size and diversity anywhere in the world. Third, the heroism of the revolutionaries in standing up to the brutal force brought to bear on them by the regime, which attacked its people with weapons, cars, hired thugs on horseback and camels, Molotov cocktails and snipers. For close to three weeks the revolutionaries stood firm against these unrelenting attacks, displaying a fortitude as solid as the granite so beloved by the ancient Egyptians. When the history of this revolution is written it should record for posterity the crimes committed by the Mubarak regime against the peaceful protesters, such as its attempt to dispel them by launching a barbaric attack on Tahrir square using state security forces, a large number of former convicts and rampaging horses and camels normally used by tourists. The attack was orchestrated and funded by elements belonging to the two wings of the power establishment: the political and the financial. These people should spend their remaining days in prison, after being tried before regular courts of law, not the military tribunals the Mubarak regime used to try civilians.

The Dramatic Collapse of the Egyptian Police:

The revolution's early days witnessed a dramatic collapse of the Egyptian police force on which the former regime had spent tens of billions of pounds and which it had furnished with arms and equipment more suited to an army than a police force. The regime had also expanded its membership to over a million officers, patrolmen, policemen and conscripts. As the revolution unfolded, we saw the fall of this colossal organization, whose motto had been changed by its former chief, the deposed interior minister, from "to serve the people" to "to serve the regime." The brutality of the police force against the men and women of Egypt was what brought it to its knees. Still, I believe there were, and still are, honorable men in the police force who genuinely want to serve the nation and its citizens to the best of their ability. The leaders of this organization (the successive interior ministers appointed by Mubarak) and their leader (Mubarak himself), however, changed the orientation of this national organization, which shifted its main focus from security against crime to political security under the leadership of a succession of mediocre men with corrupt intentions.

I speak from personal experience, having come to know all the interior ministers who served in the last thirty years. It was these men, with their narrow vision and lack of any cultural dimension, who masterminded the incidents that were attributed to sectarian strife. Moreover, they used the emergency law for one purpose only: to protect the head of the regime, not Egypt and the Egyptian people. Many of the top cadres in the interior ministry over the least three decades helped the head of the regime propagate the big lie of his presidency: that his regime was the only alternative to the Islamist bogeymen. Given the absence of a cultural dimension in their makeup, and lacking a sense of history, the police leaderships brandished the Islamist threat to frighten the outside world and their own people into accepting the use of police measures exclusively, without any attempt to deal with the cultural or political dimensions of the phenomenon. The police measures to which they resorted were often illegal, marked by excessive force, downright brutality and a total disregard for basic human rights. In my opinion, all the blame should be directed against the head of the interior ministry, not against its officers and soldiers. They are sons of Egypt whose only fault is the policies, orientations and objectives that governed them in general, and Habib el-Adly in particular.

The Coalition of Power and Money:

Much can and should be revealed in detail to the Egyptian people about the negative features at every level of the past three decades.. But the worst of all, the one that impacted most negatively on their lives, was the coalition formed in the second half of the Mubarak presidency, from 1996 until January 25^th, 2011, between some members of the power elite and a number of wealthy businessmen.

In the first half of the former president's years in power the coalition did not exist; it only began to take shape upon his younger son's return from Britain. The members of the coalition soon came to monopolize the country's political and economic life. They infiltrated the ruling party and, in addition to their control over the party as a whole, formed a powerful group within it that they called the Policies Committee. They then moved on to infiltrate a number of vital sectors. In the space of a few years, most banks were headed by coalition members. Their tentacles spread to the media, with many of their members placed at the head of leading press establishments and TV channels, so there would be no little influence on Egyptian public opinion.

At a later stage, the influence of this coalition spread to other important institutions, notably the universities. This was the curse that destroyed the Mubarak presidency and engendered the revolutionary spirit in the hearts and minds of Egypt's youth, who rose to bring one of the worst chapters in the country's modern history to an end.

No one can deny that the Egyptian people are performing a great service for their country and future generations by insisting on opening the political and economic files of the ousted regime and pushing for a thorough investigation into the many violations it committed which could, if the public prosecutor finds grounds for legal proceedings, lead to the incarceration of their perpetrators.

Anyone who violated the law in any way, anyone who plundered Egypt in any way, anyone who spread corruption in Egypt over the last three decades should be punished. In this connection, the definition of corruption must extend to include fortunes made by reason of connections to the power establishment.

The Regime's Concessions in Face of the Tidal Wave of Revolution:

It would seem that two factors, namely, a stupefyingly long period in power and a poor cultural formation, rendered the leaders of the former regime unable to understand the reality, magnitude, orientations, strength and determination of the January 25^th revolution. This lack of understanding made some of them believe they were facing "demonstrations" that could be quelled through a carrot-and-stick approach. This meant using security measures while making some concessions, like removing the Nazif cabinet, then appointing a vice-president -- to fill a post the former president claimed that for a quarter of a century he had tried and failed to find someone worthy of occupying. The regime then announced first that the president, then that his son, would not be running in the presidential election in September 2011; removed the leadership of the National Democratic Party, the most hated institution in the country, then delegated some of the president's powers to the vice-president. These concessions attest to an unnerved regime's failure to understand what was happening. A revolution does not stop when a few crumbs, large or small, are thrown its way.

We must thank the president's son for forming the power/money coalition because had it not been for this particular outrage, the anger of the people would not have reached the critical mass necessary to spark a revolution that seemed to go against the nature of the Egyptians, who are noted for their resilient and fatalistic attitude to whatever the fates throw at them.

We must also thank those who failed to understand what happened on January 25^th, 2011. Because had they realized what was really going on, even more innocent blood would have been spilt.

This in no way makes the regime's murder of more than three hundred Egyptian men and women any less horrifying; those who committed those crimes must be tried and executed.

The Former President's Speeches During the Revolution:

The three speeches delivered by the president during the revolution were most revealing in the way he thinks of his country and his people. The speeches showed an extreme stubbornness that can only be found in people with limited emotional abilities. They also revealed that the president sees himself as a benefactor who deserves gratitude for the many favors he bestowed on Egypt.

In all three speeches, he spoke down to the people, dispalying an arrogance that he had hitherto been careful to mask. The speeches showed an amazing detachment from reality. Not once did he refer to what was happening as a revolution; not once did he refer to the coalition between power and money that led to the revolution; not once did he refer to the rigging of the parliamentary elections, which was a slap in the face to the Egyptians. Nor did he utter a word of apology to the people for the crimes committed against them before and during the revolution. He did not apologize for the more than 300 peaceful protestors killed by his regime. Moreover, his speeches always came hours behind schedule, yet another sign of his lack of respect for his people. The last speech he made 24 hours before stepping down was the worst ever since he became president of Egypt on October 14^th, 1981. Analysts and commentators will have much to say about the speeches and the lessons to be drawn from them.

Incomprehension .. Bluster .. Stubbornness – Downfall:

As the revolution unfolded, so too did a soap opera, starring the regime, play out in several episodes. The first was entitled "incomprehension," which led to the second, entitled "bluster." Those was followed by "stubbornness," a quality the former president was proud to admit to. This soap opera helped the revolution and the revolutionaries, who achieved their first victory when they heard the former president announce he was stepping down. The word "first" describes that victory, as the revolution has other objectives not been fully realized yet, but no less important than the removal of the head of the regime

The Downfall of the Head … The Regime Has Been Weakened, Not Toppled:

There is no doubt that the January 25^th revolution succeeded on two counts:

It brought down the head of the regime and dealt a debilitating blow to the regime itself. But not all the regime's symbols and officials have gone away, nor has the spirit of the Mubarak era or the methods and aims of state institutions. These might be the only alternative to chaos and a political vacuum. But the next six months are what will determine whether the regime, even greatly weakened as it is and with its head removed, will spawn a new regime in the same mold and with the same characteristics, or whether the armed forces, the great hope of the Egyptian people, will succeed in administering matters in a way that will lead us to the beginning of an entirely new era on 14^th October this year -- an era in which Egyptians will enjoy real political freedoms and participate in shaping their present and future in which corruption will retreat, and with it, the dominance of the power-and-money coalition; an era in which we will see a rotation of power, where leaders can be changed and held accountable, and governments are there only to serve the people.

The Armed Forces:

There is no doubt that the armed forces protected the revolution and the people as a whole from many evils which the head of the regime and the leaders of a number of his political and security agencies would not have hesitated to visit on them in order to remain in power. The armed forces protected Egypt from internal fighting and destruction; and all their decisions and actions testify to their patriotism and love for the people, as well as their determination to safeguard the public utilities and wealth of Egypt. The hope now is that the army will hand over power to a president elected in free and fair elections, and to a civilian government of competent individuals so that we can start a new and better era, with greater freedom, trust and transparency, an era in which everyone is accountable.

Source: http://www.hudson-ny.org/2140/egypt-revolution-what-happened

Tarek Heggy

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

Terror Ties of the MSA

by Frontpagemag.com

CBN exposes how the MSA serves as a terror factory inside campuses across North America:

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/06/01/expose-of-muslim-students-association/

Frontpagemag.com

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

Israel Faces New Flotilla Threat

by P. David Hornik

It was a year ago on Tuesday that Israeli naval commandos intercepted the Mavi Marmara, one of a convoy of six ships that had sailed from Turkey with the aim of breaking Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza. The commandos, attacked with metal bars, clubs, and knives by a mob of jihadists from the terror-linked IHH organization, fought for their lives and killed nine of the assailants—sparking yet another round of international Israel-bashing and investigations.

Now, a year later, the same IHH is, along with the Free Gaza Movement, organizing another flotilla—and it’s supposed to set sail for Gaza toward the end of June.

On Tuesday, Israel’s Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, which is connected to military intelligence, published an explosive exposé on the new flotilla. IHH leader Bülent Yildirim and another senior figure in the organization, Hüseyin Oruç, say this one will be much larger—numbering 15 ships, including the Mavi Marmara again, and a total of 1500 passengers.

As with last year’s flotilla, the non-Turkish contingent can be expected to consist of leftist-NGO and other Western fellow travelers of the jihad, largely under the Free Gaza Movement’s aegis. Yildirim says members of Arab parliaments and anti-Israeli “Jews from around the globe” will also be on board.

The IHH claims that this time none of the passengers will have weapons, and that it is prepared for UN or European observers to inspect the flotilla’s cargo. The Meir Amit Center expresses “skepticism,” noting that

for the previous flotilla IHH also claimed that the luggage of the passengers aboard the Mavi Marmara had been inspected by the Turkish authorities as they boarded the ship in Istanbul. In reality, the “inspection,” if it was indeed carried out, was meaningless, because many weapons were loaded aboard the ship, as was military equipment and tools for making improvised weapons.

Some other reasons for skepticism that this new flotilla will be a pacific one:

• Shaheeds. In its major propaganda campaign for the new flotilla, the IHH has been “glamoriz[ing] the memory of the nine shaheeds… killed aboard the Mavi Marmara [last year], and instilling hatred for Israel.” Yildirim has also “made various incendiary speeches in which he stressed IHH’s determination to proceed with the flotilla, even at the price of additional shaheeds.”

• A “surprise.” In speeches, IHH members have also warned Israel that there will be a “surprise” this time. The Meir Amit Center thinks this could refer to a plane being sent to Gaza. “In a speech [Yildirim] gave on April 7, 2011, at a memorial service for the…Mavi Marmara [operatives], he said that the Gaza Strip would also be reached by air” and that “the organization was in the process of acquiring a plane[.]”

• The nature of the IHH. As the Meir Amit Center noted in an earlier bulletin, the IHH is a radically anti-Western, Islamist group “which in the past provided support for the global jihad.” In a May 5 press conference with other Turkish Islamist organizations in an Istanbul suburb, the IHH denounced the killing of Osama bin Laden by the United States. In a speech two months before the embarking of last year’s flotilla, Yildirim said: “the United States is killing Muslims…. NATO forces are killing Muslims…. China is killing Muslims…. Israel is killing Muslims…. A Muslim cannot be defeated by oppressors and infidels…. The day we agree to be the slaves of the West [is the day] we taste defeat…. If the owners of Al-Quds [Jerusalem] are Muslims, control of the world will be in Muslim hands.”

Israel is indeed not counting on any pacifism from the next flotilla. Israeli media have been reporting that Flotilla 13—the same naval-commando force that boarded the Mavi Marmara last year—has called up all of its reserves and been training intensively with the air force to confront the new threat. On Tuesday, it was further reported that Israel is preparing “surprises” of its own, and that—while the goal is to take over the ships nonviolently—“soldiers were under order to use force to neutralize armed danger and neutralize attackers if necessary.”

As Israeli chief of staff Benny Gantz noted, “The flotilla’s organizers want to provoke us, not to provide aid to Gaza. There is no humanitarian problem; hundreds of trucks of food and supplies enter Gaza every day.” Gaza’s situation was further eased by Egypt’s opening of the Rafah crossing this week, and the sole purpose of Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza is to stop weapons from reaching Hamas, the anti-Israeli terror organization that runs it and repeatedly shells Israeli communities.

Israel has been striving hard to drive those points home on the diplomatic front, and so far with some success. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has asked governments to discourage activists from launching the new flotilla, and the United States and the European Union have also come out against it.

And where is Turkey in all this? The answer is that Turkey is not only doing nothing to discourage the venture but is, in effect, the force behind it.

As the Meir Amit Center notes in the same exposé, the “IHH and the flotilla project receive political, propaganda and logistical support from the Turkish government[.]” In a TV interview on May 21, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu stated that “Turkey will give the necessary response to any repeated act of provocation by Israel on the high seas.” There could be no clearer endorsement of the new flotilla than that open threat.

If the expanded, 15-ship flotilla sails as planned, then, the stakes will be high. Turkey, which not long ago had close strategic ties with Israel, has under the Islamic AKP government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan been moving steadily toward hostility. With Israel also facing threats from civilian marches and a hostile post-Mubarak Egypt, its immediate environs are potentially explosive. Strong Western backing for Israel in defending itself against this second Turkish flotilla would send the right signal of resolve against the mounting jihadist tide. But it is hard to be optimistic.

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/06/01/israel-faces-new-flotilla-threat/

P. David Hornik

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Have Christians Gone Overboard in Outreach to Muslims?

by David J. Rusin

In the Muslim world, Islamists increasingly target Christians for persecution; in the Western world, Christians increasingly target Muslims for outreach. Extending a hand to followers of Islam can be praiseworthy, but the lengths to which some Christians have gone may come as a shock. Consider a few recent cases on the congregational level:

• Muslims using churches for prayer. Last year, Muslims awaiting construction of their mosque accepted a neighborly offer to pray at Heartsong Church in Cordova, Tennessee. An analogous arrangement exists at Aldersgate United Methodist Church in Alexandria, Virginia. (Interestingly, each of the two Islamic communities is stained by radicalism: the first via Yasir Qadhi and the second via ICNA.) Opposition has grown rapidly, with Anglican priest Mark Durie contending that Muslim worship has "no place in a Christian church" due to Islam's differing view of Jesus and prayers that chide Christianity.

• Christians distributing Korans. In response to Christian pastor Terry Jones burning the Islamic holy book on March 20, leaders of Salt Lake City's Wasatch Presbyterian Church pooled their money to purchase Korans, which later were passed out for free at an area store. This was done to help "push back against the lunatic fringe," said Russell Fericks of the church's governing board. "We're not afraid of the truth," he added.

• Joint Christian-Muslim worship. On May 22, St. John's Episcopal Church in Montclair, New Jersey, held an interfaith service that reportedly began with the Muslim call to prayer and incorporated readings from the Koran — even during Communion. "I've grown concerned about the demonization of Muslims. I want Montclair to develop an understanding of the religion," Rev. Andrew Butler explained.

• Half church, half mosque. A project in the Stockholm suburbs aims to graft a mosque onto an existing church. Bishop Bengt Wadensjö of the Church of Sweden, which owns the property, recently described this as a way to "demonstrate how people can get along together regardless of culture, language, or faith." The plan is to renovate the current facility, expand space rented by Catholics, sell land to a Muslim group, build an adjacent mosque, and link the structures through a "communal foyer" to create "God's House."

In addition, peculiar examples of individual Christian leaders reaching out to Muslims by mixing their faith with Islam include a Dutch Catholic bishop urging everyone to call God "Allah" in 2007, an American emergent church pastor joining the Ramadan fast in 2009, and an Episcopal minister in Missouri practicing aspects of Islam during this year's Lent.

There is nothing wrong with outreach to Muslims. However, when pursued in ways that come off as highly deferential and spiritually confused, it can embolden Islamists by suggesting that Christians are uncertain and weak. Encouraging tolerance of Muslims is laudable, but the unreciprocated trend of Christians effectively promoting Islam is troubling.

Source: http://www.islamist-watch.org/blog/2011/05/have-christians-gone-overboard-in-outreach-to

David J. Rusin

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Raped and Ransacked in the Muslim World

by Raymond Ibrahim

Huwaini: "When I want a sex-slave, I go to the market and pick whichever female I desire and buy her"

Plundering the possessions, lives, and dignity of Christians in the Islamic world: is this a random affair, a product of the West's favorite offenders—poverty, ignorance, grievance—or is it systematic, complete with ideological backing?

Consider the very latest from the Muslim world:

• Pakistan: Muslim landowners used tractors to plough over a Christian cemetery in order to seize the land illegally. A young Christian mother was raped by six men. "In both cases, police covered up for the culprits."
• Iraq: A Christian youth was kidnapped and decapitated: his family could not pay the €70,000 ransom demanded by his abductors. "The murder was meant to intimidate Christians so that in the future they will more readily pay ransom demands."
• Egypt: Christian girls continue to be abducted and forced into conversion or concubinage (which amount to the same thing) and "kept as virtual slaves."

None of this is surprising listening to popular Muslim preacher Abu Ishaq al-Huwaini:

If only we can conduct a jihadist invasion at least once a year or if possible twice or three times, then many people on earth would become Muslims. And if anyone prevents our dawa or stands in our way, then we must kill them or take as hostage and confiscate their wealth, women and children. Such battles will fill the pockets of the Mujahid who can return home with 3 or 4 slaves, 3 or 4 women and 3 or 4 children. This can be a profitable business if you multiply each head by 300 or 400 dirham. This can be like financial shelter whereby a jihadist, in time of financial need, can always sell one of these heads (meaning slavery) [translated by Nonie Darwish; original Arabic recording here].

Huwaini actually made these scandalous assertions some eighteen years ago. But because they were only recently exposed, he was invited to "clarify" his position on Hikma TV last week. Amazingly, though he began by saying his words were "taken out of context," he nonetheless reasserted, in even more blunt language, that Islam justifies plundering, enslaving, and raping the infidel. (Al Youm 7 has the entire interview, excerpts of which I translate below.)

According to Huwaini, after Muslims invade and conquer a non-Muslim nation—in the course of waging an offensive jihad—the properties and persons of those infidels who refuse to convert or pay jizya and live as subjugated dhimmis, are to be seized as ghanima or "spoils of war."

Huwaini cited the Koran as his authority—boasting that it has an entire chapter named "spoils"—and the sunna of Muhammad, specifically as recorded in the famous Sahih Muslim hadith wherein the prophet ordered the Muslim armies to offer non-Muslims three choices: conversion, subjugation, or death/enslavement.

Huwaini said that infidel captives, the "spoils of war," are to be distributed among the Muslim combatants (i.e., jihadists) and taken to "the slave market, where slave-girls and concubines are sold." He referred to these latter by their dehumanizing name in the Koran, ma malakat aymanukum—"what your right hands possess"—in this context, sex-slaves: "You go to the market and buy her, and she becomes like your legal mate—though without a contract, a guardian, or any of that stuff—and this is agreed upon by the ulema."

"In other words," Huwaini concluded, "when I want a sex-slave, I go to the market and pick whichever female I desire and buy her."

Lest Muslims begin attacking all and sundry, however, Huwaini was careful to stress that Islam forbids Muslims from plundering and enslaving nominal or even "heretical" Muslims, such as Shias. He used the Iran-Iraq war as an example, saying that a Sunni man is not permitted to enslave and abuse a Shia woman, "for she is still a Muslim and thus considered free."

Unfortunately Huwaini's position is not "radical." One is reminded of when Sheikh Gamal Qutb was asked on live TV if Islam permits men to rape their female captives. The one-time grand mufti of Islam's most authoritative university, Al Azhar—the institution that once gave us the "adult breast-feeding" fatwa—refused to answer and, when pressed, became hostile and stormed off the set.

Let us now return to the atrocities that opened this article and ask: In light of the above, is it any wonder that Christians under Islam are routinely raped and ransacked, even as the "humanitarian" West yawns?

Source: http://www.meforum.org/2920/raped-and-ransacked-in-the-muslim-world

Raymond Ibrahim is associate director of the Middle East Forum

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Islamic Schools of Child Sexual Abuse

by Frank Crimi

Recently released American diplomatic cables have revealed Saudi Arabian and United Arab Emirate donors to be spending $100 million a year to fund a Pakistani network of jihadist religious schools. While these Islamic schools — known as madrassas — are better known as places to recruit and train young boys and girls as terrorist fighters and suicide bombers, they have other equally disturbing uses.

Madrassas have been cited as major links to terrorist organizations, providing militant groups juvenile recruits, organizational bases, transit points and military training. While wealthy Arab donors have long been suspected of funding them, the diplomatic documents also pointed to direct active support by both the Saudi Arabian and UAE governments.

Most of the funds in question were sent to madrassas in Pakistan’s Punjab province. Despite a reputation as the most moderate of Pakistani provinces, reports from 2008 have claimed anywhere from 5,000 to 9,000 Punjab children to be fighting in Afghanistan.

In either case, the Pakistanis, according to the cables, reportedly turned a fearful blind eye to the issue, stating “The provincial and federal governments, while fully aware of the problem, appear to fear direct confrontation with these extremist groups.”

According to the cable the juveniles — as young as age 8 — were being recruited from mostly large, poverty stricken families. As such, each child’s family would receive a $6500 compensation as well as “God’s favor,” if the child happened to be martyred along the way.

Once enrolled in the madrassa, children would then be isolated from direct contact with the outside world and “taught sectarian extremism and hatred for non-Muslims.” After several months of indoctrination, they would then be sent to more established training camps before going on to wage jihad, either as combat insurgents or as suicide bombers.

So successful are madrassas as jihad producers that it has been reported that all the leaders and cadres of the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), and Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT); 90 percent of the Taliban’s leaders and cadres; and 70 percent of the leaders and cadres of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM) and the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) are madrassa alumni.

As centers of anti-Western hate, madrassas litter the entire Muslim world, but the ones in Pakistan are the most extensive and well organized. While Pakistan’s government accounts for 11,221 registered madrassas, the estimates of unregistered madrassas range from 20,000 to 45,000 with a student population between 1.1 and to 1.9 million.

Moreover, Pakistan’s Islamic jihadist schools are home to the largest contingent of foreign nationals, hailing from such places as Afghanistan, Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar, Uzbekistan, Chechnya, Yemen, Somalia, Bangladesh, Tanzania, Australia, Western Europe and North America.

Of course, not all madrassa graduates go back to their respective countries as motivated jihadi terrorists. Instead, they utilize a clerical role in the mosques of their respective countries to preach hatred against the West and the killing of Jews and Christians.

However, one former madrassa graduate said that there are distinct differences between the types of graduate the madrassas actually produce. To that end, a madrassa is more prone to graduate “cannon fodder for the Taliban and local sectarian thugs” and not technically literate terrorists who “plan al Qaeda operations around the world.”

Part of that result comes from the economically and technology stagnant background of most madrassa recruits. Unfortunately, the other part comes from the fact that many madrassas have less to do with promoting jihad than in promoting the sexual predilections of its leaders.

Despite its reputation as a jihad incubator, many argue that madrassas are nothing more than fronts for a serial collection of sexual predators and pedophiles, places where beatings, rape and imprisonment are common.

For example, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan claimed one 11-year old boy was routinely beaten with iron rods at a madrassa in the northern Pakistani city of Faisalabad and was chained when he tried to escape. While the madrassa teacher denied the torture allegations, he did admit “it is a practice to chain students.”

Disturbing recent reports from some of Pakistan’s madrassas include a 12-year old boy scarred with a hot iron for refusing sexual advances by a teacher; a 14-year old boy drenched in acid for refusing sexual intercourse with a cleric; and a 3-year old sexually assaulted by a teacher.

Compounding the horrific issue is that some of the children’s parents often don’t know the true intent of his child’s madrassa. One man recently sent his 16 year old to the Qayum Jan madrassa in northwest Pakistan thinking he was going to graduate as a “Muslim service provider” only to receive news that his son had gone off to kill himself as a suicide bomber.

One illiterate father had thought he had signed a document giving his family “charity money” but instead had signed a marriage certificate betrothing his 9-year old daughter to the head cleric of her school.

While Asma Jehanghir, chairwoman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, has said “The mullahs think they are above the law… We have to break this wall of silence.”

It’s much easier said then done. As one Pakistani official said, “It’s often easier to tackle Islamic militants than to confront the cultural taboo on publicly airing alleged sex crimes and challenging influential clerics.”

To illustrate that point, one 13-year old Pakistani boy who had complained of being sodomized for several weeks by an instructor, reported the incident when doctors found signs of sodomy on his body. However, when the cleric in question was taken into custody, several hundred of his supporters stormed the jail and secured his release.

While Arab fundamentalists believe that their financing of madrassas constitute a well-placed investment in the destruction of the West, it has also sustained the corruption and destruction of an entire generation of their own children. Sadly, it’s a price they are more than willing to pay.

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/05/31/funding-islamic-schools-of-child-sexual-abuse/

Frank Crimi

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Where Obama is Leading Israel

by Caroline B. Glick

In the aftermath of US President Barack Obama’s May 19 speech on the Middle East, his supporters argued that the policy toward Israel and the Palestinians that Obama outlined in that speech was not anti-Israel. As they presented it, Obama’s assertion that peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians must be based on the 1967 lines with agreed swaps does not mark a substantive departure from the positions adopted by his predecessors in the Oval Office.

But this claim is exposed as a lie by previous administration statements. On November 25, 2009, in response to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s acceptance of Obama’s demand for a 10-month moratorium on Jewish property rights in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, the State Department issued the following statement: “Today’s announcement by the Government of Israel helps move forward toward resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

We believe that through good-faith negotiations the parties can mutually agree on an outcome which ends the conflict and reconciles the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meet Israeli security requirements.”

In his speech, Obama stated: “The United States believes... the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states.”

That is, he took “the Palestinian goal” and made it the US’s goal. It is hard to imagine a more radically anti-Israel policy shift than that.

And that wasn’t Obama’s only radically anti-Israel policy shift. Until his May 19 speech, the US agreed with Israel that the issue of borders is only one of many – including the Palestinians’ rejection of Israel’s right to exist, their demand to inundate Israel with millions of foreign Arab immigrants, their demand for control over Israel’s water supply and Jerusalem – that have to be sorted out in negotiations. The joint US-Israeli position was that until all of these issues were resolved, none of them were resolved.

The Palestinians, on the other hand, claim that before they will discuss any of these other issues, Israel has to first agree to accept the indefensible 1967 boundaries as its permanent borders. This position allows the Palestinians to essentially maintain their policy of demanding that Israel make unreciprocated concessions that then serve as the starting point for further unreciprocated concessions.

It is a position that is antithetical to peace. And on May 19, by stipulating that Israel must accept the Palestinian position on borders as a precondition for negotiations, Obama adopted it as US policy.

SINCE THAT speech, Obama has taken a series of steps that only reinforce the sense that he is the most hostile US president Israel has ever faced. Indeed, when taken together, these steps raise concern that Obama may actually constitute a grave threat to Israel.

Friday’s Yediot Aharonot reported on the dimensions of the threat Obama may pose to the Jewish state. The paper’s account was based on administration and Congressional sources. The story discussed Obama’s plans to contend with the Palestinian plan to pass a resolution at the UN General Assembly in September endorsing Palestinian statehood in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and Gaza.

According to Yediot, during his meeting with Obama on May 20, Netanyahu argued that in light of the Palestinians’ automatic majority support at the General Assembly, there was no way to avoid the resolution.

Netanyahu reportedly explained that the move would not be a disaster. The General Assembly overwhelmingly endorsed the PLO’s declaration of independence in 1988.

And the sky still hasn’t fallen.

Obama reportedly was unconvinced. For him, it is unacceptable to be in a position of standing alone with Israel voting against the Palestinian resolution. Obama’s distaste for standing with Israel was demonstrated in February when a visibly frustrated US Ambassador Susan Rice was forced by Congressional pressure to veto the Palestinians’ Security Council draft resolution condemning Israel for refusing to prohibit Jews from building in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria.

Yediot’s report asserts that Obama refused to brief Netanyahu on the steps his administration is taking to avert such an unpalatable option. What the paper did report was how George Mitchell – Obama’s Middle East envoy until his resignation last week – recommended Obama proceed on this issue.

According to Yediot, Mitchell recommended that Obama work with the Europeans to draft a series of anti-Israel resolutions for the UN Security Council to pass. Among other things, these resolutions, which Mitchell said would be “painful for Israel,” would include an assertion that Jewish building in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria is illegal.

That is, Mitchell recommended that Obama adopt as US policy at the Security Council past Palestinian demands that Congress forced Obama to reject just months ago at the Security Council. The notion is that by doing so, Obama could convince the Palestinians to water down the even more radically anti-Israel positions they are advancing today at the UN General Assembly that Congressional pressure prevents him from supporting.

Since General Assembly resolutions have no legal weight and Security Council resolutions do carry weight, Mitchell’s policy represents the most anti-Israel policy ever raised by a senior US official. Unfortunately Obama’s actions since last week suggest that he has adopted the gist of Mitchell’s policy recommendations.

First there was his speech before AIPAC. Among other things, Obama used the international campaign to delegitimize Israel’s right to exist as a justification for his policies of demanding that Israel capitulate to the Palestinians’ demands, which he has now officially adopted as US policy.

As he put it, “there is a reason why the Palestinians are pursuing their interests at the United Nations. They recognize that there is an impatience with the peace process – or the absence of one. Not just in the Arab world, but in Latin America, in Europe, and in Asia. That impatience is growing, and is already manifesting itself in capitals around the world.”

From AIPAC, Obama moved on to Europe. There he joined forces with European governments in an attempt to gang up on Israel at the G8 meeting.

Obama sought to turn his embrace of the Palestinian negotiating position into the consensus position of the G8. His move was scuttled by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who refused to accept any resolution that made mention of borders without mentioning the Palestinian demand to destroy Israel through Arab immigration, Israel’s right to defensible borders, or the Palestinians’ refusal to accept Israel’s right to exist.

If Harper had not stood by Israel, the G8’s anti-Israel resolution endorsing the Palestinian negotiating position could have formed the basis of a US-sponsored anti-Israel Security Council resolution.

Israelis planning their summer trips should put Canada at the top of their lists.

THE FINAL step Obama has taken to solidify the impression that he does not have Israel’s best interests at heart, is actually something he has not done. Over the past week, Fatah leaders of the US-backed Palestinian Authority have made a series of statements that put paid any thought that they are interested in peace with Israel or differ substantively from their partners in Hamas.

At the Arab League meeting in Qatar on Saturday, PA President Mahmoud Abbas said the Palestinian state “will be free of all Jews.”

Last week the US-supported Abbas denied the Jewish connection to the land of Israel and claimed absurdly that the Palestinians were 9,000 years old.

Equally incriminating, in an interview last week with Aaron Lerner from the IMRA newsgathering website, Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath said that now that Hamas was the co-leader of the PA with Fatah, responsibility for continuing to hold IDF St.-Sgt. Gilad Schalit hostage devolved from Hamas to the PA. And the PA would continue to hold him hostage.

Shaath’s statement makes clear that rather than moderating Hamas, the Fatah-Hamas unity deal is transforming Fatah into Hamas.

And yet, Obama has had nothing to say about any of this.

Obama’s now undeniable antipathy for Israel and his apparent willingness to use his power as American president to harm Israel at the UN and elsewhere guarantee that for the duration of his tenure in office, Israel will face unprecedented threats to its security. This disturbing reality ought to focus the attention of all Israelis and of the American Jewish community. With the leader of the free world now openly siding with forces bent on Israel’s destruction, the need for unity has become acute.

MADDENINGLY, HOWEVER, at this time of unprecedented danger we see the Israeli media have joined ranks with Kadima in siding with Obama against Israel in a joint bid to bring down Netanyahu’s government. Yediot Aharonot, Maariv, Haaretz, Channel 2, Channel 10, Army Radio and Israel Radio’s coverage of Netanyahu’s visit and its aftermath was dominated by condemnations of the prime minister, and praise for Obama and opposition leader Tzipi Livni, who called for Netanyahu to resign.

The fact that polling data showed that only 12 percent of Jewish Israelis regard Obama as pro-Israeli and that the overwhelming majority of the public with an opinion believes Netanyahu’s visit was a success made absolutely no impression on the media. The wall-to-wall condemnations of Netanyahu by the Israeli media lend the impression that Israel’s leading reporters and commentators are committed to demoralizing the public into believing that Israel has no option other than surrender.

Then there is the American Jewish leadership. And at this critical time in US-Israel relations, the American Jewish leadership is either silent or siding with Obama. Right after Obama’s shocking speech on May 19, the Anti-Defamation League released a statement endorsing it. Stand With Us congratulated Obama for his AIPAC speech.

With the notable exceptions of the Zionist Organization of America and the Committee for Accuracy in Middle Eastern Reporting in America (CAMERA), leaders of American Jewish organizations have refused to condemn Obama’s anti-Israel positions.

Their silence becomes all the more enraging when placed against the massive support Israel receives from rank-and-file American Jews. In a survey of American Jews taken by CAMERA on May 16-17, between 75% and 95% of American Jews supported Israel’s position on defensible borders, Jerusalem, Palestinian “refugees,” Palestinian recognition of Israel’s right to exist and the right of Jews to live in a Palestinian state.

The refusal of most American Jewish leaders, the Israeli media and Kadima to condemn Obama today makes you wonder if there is anything the US president could do to convince them to break ranks and stand with Israel and with the vast majority of their fellow Jews. But it is more than a source of wonder. It is a reason to be frightened. Because Obama’s actions over the past two weeks make clear to anyone willing to see that in the age of Obama, silence is dangerous.

Source: https://mail.google.com/mail/?hl=en&shva=1#inbox/1304602c33d93e6e

Caroline B. Glick

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