Never mind the 'Brotherhood': Obama funds Egypt

by Andrew C. McCarthy

In October 2010, on the eve of the Islamic revolution that the media fancies as “the Arab Spring,” the Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood called for jihad against the United States.

You might think that this all but unnoticed bombshell would be of some importance to policymakers in Washington. It was not. It is not. This week, the Obama administration quietly released $1.5 billion in foreign aid to the new Egyptian government, now dominated by a Brotherhood-led coalition in parliament — soon to be joined by an Ikhwan (i.e., Brotherhood) luminary as president.

It is not easy to find the announcement. With the legacy media having joined the Obama reelection campaign, we must turn for such news to outlets like the Kuwait News Agency. There, we learn that, having dug our nation into a $16 trillion debt hole, President Obama has nevertheless decided to borrow more money from unfriendly powers like China so he can give it to an outfit that views the United States as an enemy to be destroyed.

This pot of gold for Islamic supremacists is the spoils of a Brotherhood charm offensive. Given the organization’s unabashed goals and hostility towards the West, it was U.S. policy, until recently, to avoid formal contacts with the Brotherhood — although agents of the intelligence community and the State Department have long engaged in off-line communications with individual MB members. By contrast, the Obama administration from its first days has embraced the Ikhwan — both the mothership, whose leaders were invited to attend Obama’s 2009 speech in Cairo despite its then-status as a banned organization under Egyptian law, and the Brotherhood’s American satellites, which have been invited to advise administration policymakers despite their notorious record of championing violent jihadists and repressive sharia.

Obama has overlooked the MB’s intimate ties to Hamas, which self-identifies as the Ikhwan’s Palestinian branch and is formally designated a terrorist organization under American law. Administration officials have absurdly portrayed the Brothers as “secular” and “moderate,” although the organization, from its founding in the 1920s, has never retreated an inch from its professed mission to establish Islam’s global hegemony.

The administration further hailed the Brotherhood’s triumph in post-Mubarak legislative elections and made a point of abandoning the policy against formal MB contacts — though, in now-familiar Obama fashion, it simultaneously claimed that this “outreach” broke no new ground. And this week, the White House hosted a Brotherhood delegation to “broaden our engagement” with Egypt’s new political actors, as an administration spokesman put it. In this, Obama officials were quick to exploit the cover they’ve gotten from the transnational-progressive wing of the Republican party: The administration spokesman stressed that “Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham and others have met with members of the MB during their visits to Egypt.”

The useful-idiot brigade also includes the “House Democracy Partnership,” a bipartisan cadre of congressmen that traipsed over to Egypt on its recent tour of the “Arab Spring” countries. On the agenda was a confab with Khairat el-Shater, the Brotherhood’s newly announced presidential candidate.

Shater is Washington’s new darling. That much is clear from an unintentionally hilarious dispatch from the New York Times’ David Kirkpatrick, who portrays the Brotherhood as America’s “indispensable ally against Egypt’s ultraconservatives.” Sure, they may be the world’s leading exemplar of what Kirkpatrick gently calls “political Islam,” but our policy geniuses reckon the Brothers are much to be preferred over the “Salafis” — reputedly, the more hardcore Islamic supremacists. As the Times elaborates, the Obama administration is alarmed by the rise of a charismatic Salafist, Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, who has shot to second place in the polls. Shater, the theory goes, could overtake Ismail and lead Egypt in the Brotherhood’s more “pragmatic direction.”

Andrew C. McCarthy

Source: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/295501/obama-funds-egyptian-government-andrew-c-mccarthy

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

Monthly Summary of Attacks on Israel – March 2012

by shabak

March 2012 has seen a significant increase in the number of attacks compared to February: 229 attacks, as opposed to 100 in February.

The main increase is in attacks emanating from the Gaza Strip: 157 attacks, compared to 31 in February. The surge in the number of attacks was brought about by the escalation in southern Israel; during the recent round of violence more than 200 rockets and mortar shells were fired towards Israel.

Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem maintained a similar level of attacks: 43 attacks (compared to 42 in February) in Judea and Samaria, and 29 attacks in Jerusalem (compared to 27 in February).

Six persons were inured in terrorist attacks conducted this month: two security personnel by a stabbing attack in Judea (March 8) and Jerusalem (March 15) and four foreign workers (March 10) as a result of rocket launchings towards Israel.

Data regarding terror attacks in March 2012

Following is a regional distribution of attacks:

157 attacks in the Gaza Strip (31 in February); 43 attacks in the Judea and Samaria (42 in February); 29 attacks in Jerusalem (27 in February).
Jerusalem and the Judea and Samaria area: Most attacks executed in March (70 out of 72) were in the form of firebombs (February: 67 out of 69).

Distribution of attacks according to regions and pattern profile:

Following is a distribution of attacks in March 2012 according to regions:

The Gaza Strip – 157 attacks: 137 rocket launchings; 19 mortar shell launchings; 1 explosive device.

Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem – 72 attacks: 2 stabbing; 70 firebombs (29 in Jerusalem).

High-trajectory launchings from the Gaza Strip

Throughout March 2012, 173 rockets and 19 mortar shells were launched towards Israel (in 156 attacks), compared to 36 rockets and 1 mortar shells in February (in 28 attacks).

shabak

Source: http://www.shabak.gov.il/English/EnTerrorData/Reports/Pages/March2012report-en.aspx

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Mofaz: 'Palestinians Should get 100% of their Territorial Demands'

by Yoni Hirsch and Mati Tuchfeld

Kadima Chairman MK Shaul Mofaz gets flak from Right and his own party for interview given to The New York Times • Kadima MK Schneller: He who goes back to the warm embrace of the Left...cannot be prime minister.

"It is in Israel’s interest that a Palestinian state be created," MK Shaul Mofaz told the New York Times. | Photo credit: Lior Mizrahi

In a New York Times profile on Friday, new Kadima Chairman and opposition leader MK Shaul Mofaz outlined what he believes should be Israel's new public agenda.

In the article entitled "Defying an Image With a Tilt to the Left," Mofaz is quoted as saying that while he believes Israel should keep its current settlement blocs, the Palestinians should get 100 percent of their territorial demands met via land swaps. He claimed that security and border issues could be settled through negotiations within a year.

Then, according to Mofaz, Israel could divest its resources from the settlements and into social issues. “I have four children, two of them married, and three grandchildren. My kids are among the young couples that can’t make ends meet. They work hard and can’t finish the month. In Israel of 2012, only part of the population enjoys the fruit of the country’s economic growth. The rich get richer and the poor poorer.”

The U.S. is Israel's greatest strategic asset, according to Mofaz. He also believes that current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks too much on the current Iranian issue, noting however that should the use of force become necessary “God forbid the American president decides not to attack.” If Netanyahu has to attack on his own, Mofaz said he would support him. But he does not believe that will happen.

Members of Israel's Right were harshly critical of the interview. "Kadima headed by Mofaz is the same old party under a different guise," said MK Ofir Akunis, chairman of the Likud's rapid response team. "It is a leftist party willing to retreat and fold before every Palestinian demand. When Mr. Mofaz says that 100 percent of the Palestinian demands should be met, he is taking the same stance as his Kadima predecessor. A non-demilitarized Palestinian state based on 1967 lines and partitioning Jerusalem. If that's how he intends to open negotiations, it is better not to think about how they would end."

The chairman of the Knesset's Economic Affairs Committee MK Carmel Shama-Hacohen (Likud) also spoke out against what he sarcastically described as Mofaz's "generosity."

"Since MK Mofaz was elected to lead the fifth-largest party according to polls, he has not stopped handing out gifts. And now he is handing out parts of Israel as a gift to the Palestinians, who refuse to negotiate with us."

"Anyone who is willing to give the Palestinians 100 percent of their territorial demands, while they simultaneously use force against tens of thousands of Israelis - is not worthy of being prime minister of Israel. But no need to worry, with a platform like that he will never be elected." said Yesha Council [the council of the Jewish communities of Judea, Samaria and Gaza] Chairman Danny Dayan.

Mofaz sustained criticism from his own camp as well. "He who returns to the warm bosom of the Left, where Tzipi Livni was, is disconnected from the majority of the public and cannot be prime minister. The real test is to see if Mofaz wants to capture the sane center-right or the Left," said MK Otniel Schneller (Kadima).

Yoni Hirsch and Mati Tuchfeld

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=3871

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Netanyahu Lays Down Three Demands for Iran Talks

by Herb Keinon

During meeting with Italian counterpart Monti, PM says Tehran must stop enriching uranium, remove already enriched uranium, and close underground nuclear facility, warns Iran using the talks to "stall and deceive."

With talks between the world's powers and Iran due to begin later this week, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said that the demands on Iran need to be clear: stop enriching uranium, remove already enriched uranium, and close the underground Fordow nuclear facility near Qom.

Netanyahu's comments came during a meeting with visiting Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti.

The prime minister, who said that the Iranians were using the talks to "stall and deceive," said Israel would follow them carefully.

Netanyahu's demands varied slightly from what he said last month in Ottawa, where he did not say that all enriched uranium had to be removed, but only that enriched beyond 3.5%.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak, however, has put the bar a little lower, saying that all uranium the Iranians possess that is enriched beyond 20% needed to be taken out of the country, but that they could retain a small amount of 3.5% enriched uranium. He also called for an end to Iranian enrichment, and a closure of the Qom facility.

Earlier in the day, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman also related to Iran during his meeting with Monti saying that Israel has "no problem" with the Iranian people, and until the Islamic revolution in 1979 had friendly ties with that country.

Israel's problem, he said, is with the "extreme ayatollahs" leading that country.

Beyond the nuclear problem, Liberman said, Iran also radiates a message of violence and complete disregard for international norms, evident over the last few months in the violent takeover of the British embassy in Tehran, the plan to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in the US, support for Syrian President Bashar Assad's ruthless regime, and the death sense imposed on a Muslim who converted to Christianity.

Herb Keinon

Source: http://www.jpost.com/IranianThreat/News/Article.aspx?id=265308

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Israel's Survival and American Assistance: It's Been Done Before

by Lee A. Heilig

Ben Stein has offered an easily readable and cogent piece on a stratagem for dealing with the looming menace of a nuclear-armed Iran. Mr. Stein, in writing for the American Spectator, has made a compelling case for American involvement in helping secure Israel from nuclear calamity. And it is a strategy that doesn't embroil us in another shooting war. The brilliance of Stein's idea comes from its simplicity and reliance upon the success of similar actions taken in the not-so-distant past.

While America was by all accounts an economic and military powerhouse in 1973, we did not enjoy nearly the level of relative military hegemony then as we do today. By many measures, the former Soviet Union held quantitative advantages in weapon systems that would overwhelm us in a conventional slugfest, or obliterate us in a nuclear exchange. The lack of an overwhelming military advantage and a belligerent USSR did not stop President Nixon from doing the indispensably vital and right thing by arming the Israeli Defense Forces in their dark hour of need. Even in the face of escalated Soviet military readiness and threats, President Nixon rushed military aid to Israel that helped turn the tide of the Yom Kippur War and secure Israel's victory.

All this was accomplished, as Stein points out, in the context of a highly intelligent and sophisticated foreign policy aimed at reducing the Soviet Union's worldwide threat. While Nixon courted the People's Republic of China as a strategic partner in the containment of Russian expansionism, he found creative military, economic, and diplomatic avenues to confound the Kremlin. Nixon's was a strategy of adult vision and far-reaching American interests. The success and sophistication of his foreign policy still amaze historians and political scientists alike. That President Nixon was able to achieve such dramatic successes in the military and domestic tumult of the Viet Nam Conflict gives even greater credence to his mastery of events. The Nixonian foreign policy of the early 1970s set the stage for the triumph of Reaganism in the 1980s, 1990s and beyond. Sadly, it is a foreign policy of a bygone era, when adults populated our national government.

Stein suggests that we can learn from our past and materially provide Israel all that she might lack in the conduct of pre-emptive attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities. The point here is not to debate the intentions or capabilities of the Iranian government. That government and its spokesmen have made their intentions clear. The point is to make sure that Israel does not have to suffer the unthinkable -- a nuclear strike on her soil. The ability to remove that very real, existential threat is readily available. Moreover, our participation need not require risking the lives of any American military personnel. The supply of advanced C⁴I, satellite imagery, refueling assets, advanced bunker-busting munitions, and other material support to Israel would send a commandingly clear message to the hostile Arab (and Persian) world that no attack upon our friend and ally will ever be tolerated. If and when the pre-emptive attack on Iran becomes necessary, the American aid would provide game-changing advantages to the IDF and help assure their success. Again, direct American personnel exposure would be minimal or non-existent. It is an arrangement that should be favored by those in foreign policy circles who are so risk-averse that even minimal casualties anticipated in a military operation are considered too great for commitment to the operation. It is the liberals' ideal of American military intervention. Then again, it is not -- for this was not their idea.

The glaring recalcitrance toward Israel by this Obama administration continually finds new and inventive ways to express itself. The most recent example of Obama's thinly veiled contempt for our ally came earlier in a shocking report by Mark Perry, writing for the periodical Foreign Policy. In a March 28 article entitled "Israel's Secret Staging Ground," Perry reported:

In particular, four senior diplomats and military intelligence officers say that the United States has concluded that Israel has recently been granted access to airbases on Iran's northern border. To do what, exactly, is not clear. "The Israelis have bought an airfield," a senior administration official told me in early February, "and the airfield is called Azerbaijan."... "We're watching what Iran does closely," one of the U.S. sources, an intelligence officer engaged in assessing the ramifications of a prospective Israeli attack confirmed. "But we're now watching what Israel is doing in Azerbaijan. And we're not happy about it."

As anticipated, denials, accusations, and counter-accusations have since followed in the wake of the Foreign Policy report. The administration now denies any knowledge of alleged Israeli dealings with the Azerbaijani government in Baku. Clearly, someone in State Department or Defense Department circles leaked the story. The accompanying question is, "Why?" If we are to assume the veracity of the story's details, it would seem logical that the IDF is seeking a forward operating base that could help alleviate the refueling and rearming demands of its F-15 and F-16 strike fighters in any proposed attack plan against Iranian nuclear facilities. That this inherently risky diplomatic venture on the part of the Israeli (and Azerbaijani) government is made necessary seems to speak in ancillary fashion to the conditions between the U.S. and Israeli governments as well. If administration officials are leaking highly classified information such as this, on what could be a run-up to armed conflict between Israel and Iran, it portends that the president is attempting to derail the possible Israeli attack before it begins. This development, taken at face value, indicates that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has already determined that he cannot expect meaningful assistance from the Obama administration in what the IDF considers a mission for national survival.

Often, and many times rightfully, prudence and sober reflection before committing U.S. forces to military action are greatly advisable. War by its very nature is a destructive and terrible thing. If we can provide combat air assets to Libyan rebel forces; if our State Department can debate the merits of now providing material support to Syrian rebels; if we can intervene in the internecine warfare of the former Yugoslavia; then I believe we can assist our close friend and the only truly democratized nation in the whole of the Middle East region. Liberal supporters of U.S. involvement in the aforementioned conflicts are hard-pressed to establish a meaningful reason in support of those interventions. Yet have we not endured a decade of the shrill droning of the same liberal elitists as they caterwaul about American military operations against Iraq and Afghanistan -- two nations that arguably posed a clear and present danger to our national security? Will it take the loss of Tel Aviv or Haifa and hundreds of thousands of Israelis for this administration to finally consider doing what is right?

Lee A. Heilig

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/04/israels_survival_and_american_assistance_its_been_done_before.html

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

War in the Middle East May Be Inevitable

by Neil Snyder

Moshe Arens is one of the most knowledgeable people in Israel today. He understands Israel's predicament as well as anyone, and that includes Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Arens has served as Israel's minister of defense and minister of foreign affairs, so when he speaks, we should pay careful attention. On Tuesday, Arens explained the true meaning of Shaul Mofaz's March 27 victory over Tzipi Livni for leadership of the Kadima Party:

Of course Shaul Mofaz won, and Tzipi Livni lost. But there was much more to the Kadima primary race than that. It was the "two-state solution," at the forefront of Israeli political discourse for a number of years, that lost. It was the offer of more concessions to the Palestinians, whose most prominent advocate was former Kadima chairwoman, MK Tzipi Livni, that went down in defeat. The concession offers made by then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and by then-Foreign Minister Livni to then-senior Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qureia were left in the dust in last week's Kadima primary. That was the verdict implicitly delivered by Kadima party members, a verdict that echoed the feelings of many Israelis.

According to Arens, the Israeli public's mood has changed dramatically as a result of the failure to achieve anything that even resembles peace despite repeated unilateral efforts by the Israeli government to win the cooperation of Palestinian leaders. To buttress his point, Arens discussed these failed attempts to move the peace process forward:

1. The Oslo Peace Accords: Arens calls them "an abject failure."

2. Ehud Barak's unilateral withdrawal from Southern Lebanon in 2000: it led to the Second Lebanon War in 2006.

3. Barak's attempt to buy off Yasser Arafat by offering him the Temple Mount and much more in Jerusalem: Arafat flatly rejected the offer and launched "an unprecedented wave of terror against Israeli civilians."

4. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's unilateral withdrawal from Gush Katif in the Gaza Strip: it was a "grave mistake" because it led to "Hamas taking control of the Gaza Strip and the subsequent rain of rockets on southern Israel."

5. The Arab Spring: it brought "Islamic fundamentalist rule to the Arab world" and "strengthened the skepticism of many Israelis regarding the presumed advantages of offering territorial concessions to our Arab neighbors."

Those are good reasons for the Israeli public's mood change. Since the Oslo Peace Process began in 1993 and movement toward a "two-state solution" got underway in earnest, Israel has made concession after concession, and in return they have received nothing but rejection and more terrorist activity. According to Arens:

The election that returned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to power three years ago was a clear indication of a growing disenchantment with the much-vaunted "peace process" among many Israelis. Livni's defeat in the Kadima primary gave a stamp of approval to this trend, which has contributed to the surprising stability of the Netanyahu government. The current Knesset may yet set an Israeli longevity record. The strength of the political parties claiming that concessions will pave the path to peace is steadily dwindling.

The Israeli public is finally waking up to reality. They desire peace because they have been at war, either declared or undeclared, since Israel was reborn as a state in 1948, and they are growing weary, but their Arab Muslim neighbors are committed to the eventual overthrow of the tiny Jewish state. More than three decades ago, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat explained what is taking place as clearly as anyone could have:

Since we cannot defeat Israel in war we do this in stages. We take any and every territory that we can of Palestine, and establish sovereignty there, and we use it as a springboard to take more. When the time comes, we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel. (Yasser Arafat speaking on Jordanian television, September 13, 1993 -- the same day the Oslo Peace Accord ceremony was held in Washington, D.C.)

Peace for us means the destruction of Israel. We are preparing for an all-out war, a war which will last for generations. Since January 1965, when Fatah was born, we have become the most dangerous enemy that Israel has[.] ... We shall not rest until the day when we return to our home, and until we destroy Israel. (El Mundo, Caracas, Venezuela, February 11, 1980)

Even though Arafat died in 2004, the Palestinians are following his playbook to the letter. They are simply biding their time, taking what Israel gives them, offering nothing in return, and waiting for the day when "the Arab nations ... join us for the final blow against Israel[,]" just as Arafat said. But the Middle East situation is more complicated than that:

• An increasingly belligerent Iran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons and long-range missiles to deliver them despite assurances to the contrary, is attempting to establish hegemony over the Middle East and North Africa, and has declared that it intends to "wipe Israel off the map."
• China is siding with Iran and attempting to increase its influence in the Middle East.
• Unrest in Syria is rapidly developing into a full-blown civil war despite former Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan's efforts to bring an end to the fighting, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad may not survive, and Islamists are positioning themselves to take control.
• Russia is flexing its muscles in the Middle East, siding with Iran and Syria, and challenging Western powers, most notably the United States.
• President Obama is perceived as weak in the Middle East, thus emboldening Islamists throughout the region and Russia and China.
• Egypt is poised to elect an Islamist president, and Egypt's parliament has declared that Israel is Egypt's "number one enemy."
• Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is leading his nation down an Islamist path and trying to re-establish the Ottoman Empire. In the process, he is turning against Israel and winning accolades from the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

These facts help to explain why there is growing skepticism among Israeli citizens about the prospects for peace in the Middle East, and they cause bleak reality to come into crystal-clear focus. That's why Israelis are turning away from Tzipi Livni and politicians in Israel like her who preach peace despite the mounting evidence. As unpleasant and undesirable as this may seem, the Israeli people are realizing that now is the time to plan for war, because it may be inevitable.

Neil Snyder is a chaired professor emeritus at the University of Virginia. His blog, SnyderTalk.com, is posted daily.

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/04/war_in_the_middle_east_may_be_inevitable.html

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

Obama Master of Political Deceit

by Thomas Sowell

One of the highly developed talents of President Barack Obama is the ability to say things that are demonstrably false, and make them sound not only plausible but inspiring.

That talent was displayed just this week when he was asked whether he thought the Supreme Court would uphold ObamaCare as constitutional or strike it down as unconstitutional.

He replied: “I’m confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.”

But how unprecedented would it actually be if the Supreme Court declared a law unconstitutional if it was passed by “a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress”?

The Supreme Court has been doing precisely that for 209 years!

Nor is it likely that Barack Obama has never heard of it. He has a degree from the Harvard law school and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago law school. In what must be one of the most famous Supreme Court cases in history — Marbury v. Madison in 1803 — Chief Justice John Marshall established the principle that the Supreme Court can declare acts of Congress null and void if these acts violate the Constitution.

They have been doing so for more than two centuries. It is the foundation of American constitutional law. There is no way that Barack Obama has never heard of it or really believes it to be “unprecedented” after two centuries of countless precedents.

In short, he is simply lying.

Now there are different kinds of liars. If we must have lying Presidents of the United States, I prefer that they be like Richard Nixon. You could just look at him and tell that he was lying.

But Obama is much smoother. On this and on many other issues, you would have to know what the facts are to know that he is lying. He is obviously counting on the fact that, in this era of dumbed-down education, many people have no clue as to what the facts are.

He is also counting on something else — namely, that the pro-Obama media will not expose his lies.

One of the many ways of lying smoothly is to simply redefine words.

Barack Obama is a master at that as well.

In the comment on the case pending before the Supreme Court, President Obama said that he wanted to remind “conservative commentators” that they have complained about “judicial activism” — which he redefines as the idea that “an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law.”

First of all, every law that the Supreme Court has overturned for the past 209 years since Marbury v. Madison was “a duly constituted and passed law.”

Second, the “judicial activism” that conservatives have complained about was judges making rulings based on how they felt personally about the issue at hand, rather than about what the Constitution of the United States said.

In recent years, great efforts have been made to redefine “judicial activism” in terms of judges declaring laws unconstitutional, instead of “deferring” to Congress or other government institutions.

But what is the Constitution’s Bill of Rights supposed to protect the ordinary citizen from? Government institutions! If judges are to defer to the very institutions that the Bill of Rights tries to protect the citizen from, what is the point of having a Bill of Rights?

As for Supreme Court justices being unelected, that has been true since the Constitution was created. That was done deliberately, so that they could render their judgments without fear of political repercussions. If unelected Supreme Court justices are to automatically defer to elected officials, that again raises the question of why they are there at all.

Why are the taxpayers paying their salaries and housing them in an expensive marble building — just so that they can go along to get along?

It would be hard to become nostalgic about Richard Nixon, who was forced to resign in disgrace. But at least you could tell when he was lying. Obama’s lies are just as big but not as visible, and the media that exposed Nixon is covering for Obama.

Thomas Sowell

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/04/06/obama-master-of-political-deceit/

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

Arabs Uniting Again Against Israel

by David Meir-Levi

Last month the present writer reported briefly on the Qatar Conference that took place in Doha, capital of Qatar, at the end of February, discussing one aspect of the conference as an anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hate-fest. In light of the March 30^th “Global March to Jerusalem,” it is time to re-visit the Qatar Conference and examine its probable long-term impact.

The participants and agenda of the “International Conference for the Defense of occupied Jerusalem” displayed an unprecedented broad spectrum of the Arab and Muslim nations and organizations, uniting in Qatar for the sole purpose of strategizing new ways to destroy Israel. Unusual, but not surprising, was the official presence of representatives from the UN and Iran, the American and UK Muslim Brotherhood organizations, an Israeli Hamas leader, and Neturei Karta rabbis, who, despite their much ballyhooed sympathies for the Palestinian cause, were brutally beaten by Arab marchers. Unofficial attendees included EU leaders and U.S. and European academics.

One of Israel’s greatest advantages in its fight for survival against the 64-year long Arab war to destroy the Jewish state has been Arab disunity. For that reason alone, the Doha Conference deserves special notice by virtue of the event’s successfully hosting Sunni and Shi’ite, Arab and Iranian, participants for whom the old Arab proverb, “my enemy’s enemy is my friend,” took on new meaning.

The conference featured four themes: the legal status of Jerusalem and its holy places under “Israeli occupation,” the Arab identity of the city, Israeli crimes against the Muslim world by its efforts to “judaize” Jerusalem and how to combat these efforts, and appropriate measures to engage civil society in the struggle to maintain the Arab character of the city. In addition to vilification of Zionism and demonization of Israel, most of the conference focused on strategies to “rescue Jerusalem” from Israel. This new “rescue Jerusalem” theme may be the result of recent statements by some Hamas leaders and Abu-Youssef el-Qaradawi, a Muslim Brotherhood leader, in which Israel’s “tampering with el-Aqsa” becomes a new casus belli for the Muslim world.

Over the past six years, the Muslim Brotherhood has sponsored a series of such conferences to develop strategies to delegitimize and vilify Israel, many of them in Turkey and with the cooperation of the Turkish government: apparently part of the new Turkish government’s interest in becoming a new nexus for the Muslim world, a nexus whose first priority is the destruction of Israel.

According to its website, the concept of a “Global March to Jerusalem” (GM2J) has been discussed for decades; but the eventof Friday, March 30, was born a year earlier in discussions among the organizers of the Asian Caravan to Gaza, which will useTurkey as its port of departure for its as yet unrealized blockade-busting voyage to Gaza.

The Asian Caravan to Gaza has close connections with the Muslim Brotherhood, as do the Global March organizers[i]; and the Muslim Brotherhood leaders were key players in the Qatar conference. It is probably no coincidence, therefore, that a year after the Asian Caravan folks began discussing it, and only a month after the Qatar conference focused on “rescuing Jerusalem,” we witnessed close to 20,000 people massing on Israel’s borders on Friday, March 30, to rescue Jerusalem from Israel’s “judaization” of the future capitol of “Palestine.”

There was ample news coverage and analysis in the weeks leading up to the march,[ii] with speculation about how Israel would handle this massive civilian, yet hostile, breach of its borders. There was somewhat more limited coverage of the event itself in mainstream media, perhaps because it drew nowhere near the two million participants of which organizers boasted in the days leading up to the event. There was some violence and one fatality, but the Israeli security forces effectively used non-lethal riot-control techniques and hi-tech interference to dampen mob enthusiasm; and Jordanian, Lebanese and Egyptian forces prevented marchers’ access to the Israeli borders.

In light of the unexpectedly poor turnout and relatively uneventful nature of the event, several post-mortem analysts have declared it a “dud” and “fizzled instead of sizzled.” None the less, the GM2J website declared the event a major success, acknowledging the poor turnout but stressing the broad-spectrum participation of people from 84 nations across the globe. They have a point. After all, 20,000 people is still a lot of people, even though it is a mere one percent of the organizers’expected 2,000,000; and the participation of representatives from 84 nations does justify calling it a global march.

But there is another reason why this even was indeed a major victory for the Arab cause and a set-back for the Jewish state: it looks like it is the first in a new series of anti-Israel tactics.

Just as the poorly attended but ground-breaking anti-Israel conference at Harvard created a new front in the campus warsagainst Israel, so too the GM2J and its backers and organizers, from the Asian Caravan and the Muslim Brotherhood to the Qatar Conference and Neturei Karta, can all rejoice in their new tactic: the mass mobilization of civilians in unarmed and non-violent hostile activity.

The wars have failed, the terrorism has failed, boycotts and divestments and sanctions have failed, American vetoes haveprevented Arab sponsored anti-Israel resolutions from succeeding in the UN Security Council, and most of the western public has begun to lose interest in the endless relentless rhetoric of Palestinian victimhood at the hands of their supposedly oppressive Israeli occupiers. So now is the time for some new and improved creativity. Since the “free Gaza” flotillas fizzled and the plans for an airborne blockade-busting event never got off the ground, the creative thinkers behind the strategies of the annihilate-Israel crowd have come up with this visionary break-through idea: unarmed civilians by the thousands or tens of thousands, violating Israel’s borders and marching on Jerusalem – a new front in the endless war.

Israel handled this one well, there were not enough marchers, and the Arab countries bordering Israel did not cooperate. So now the GM2J knows what kinks need working out before the next global march; and now, at last, they can look forward to some global Muslim unity, as demonstrated at the Qatar conference, in support of their new tactic.

Notes:

[i] And see also http://globalmbreport.org/?p=5932 ; http://globalmbreport.org/?p=5787; and http://globalmbreport.org/?p=5645 (reporting on a left wing European website, http://www.antiimperialista.org/gmj_europe, which invites Europeans to join with the Muslim Brotherhood and other organizers to march on Jerusalem).

[ii] http://frontpagemag.com/2012/03/28/the-global-march-to-jerusalem/?utm_source=FrontPage+Magazine&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=5701a467f2-Mailchimp_FrontPageMag; http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/03/reverend-jeremiah-wright-leads-global-march-to-jerusalem-protesters-throw-firebombs-rocks-at-police-video/; http://arabnews.com/opinion/columns/article599335.ece ; http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/03/29/international/i081339D56.DTL#ixzz1qXpgaGNZ and http://issuu.com/jewishvoice/docs/201203, for example.

David Meir-Levi

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/04/06/arabs-uniting-again-against-israel/

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

Syrian Disinformation About Christian Persecution

by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi, Oskar Svadkovsky and Phillip Smyth

Recent reports out of Syria have warned of the ethnic cleansing of 90 percent of the Christian population of Homs, the city that has been ravaged by the conflict between Assad's forces and armed opposition groups since the uprising against the regime began in February last year. The responsibility for the mass killings and expulsions has been pinned on an armed opposition group known as the "Al-Faruq Brigade."

This claim first gained wide distribution in a report published on March 21 by Agenzia Fides (the official Vatican news agency), which declared its source to be "a note sent to Fides by some sources in the Syrian Orthodox Church."

Fides added that "in the 'Faruq Brigade,' note other sources, there seems [sic] to be armed elements of various Wahhabi groups and mercenaries from Libya and Iraq."

The claim of 90 percent ethnic cleansing can actually be traced to a report put out on March 13 by an online Arabic outlet known as Al-Haqiqa (Arabic for "the truth").

A quick Google search reveals that the original memo sent to Fides by the church leaders had been copy-pasted almost down to the last word from the SyriaTruth site, which is notorious for its pro-regime propaganda. Officials of the Syrian Church did not confirm the story with anybody in Homs before sending out the memo. They must have presumed that the SyriaTruth writers did.

As a matter of fact, Al-Haqiqa had already been taken to task by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), which specifically referred to its reporting of extensive Al-Qaida and international jihadist presence among the Syrian opposition as "bogus."

Shortly after publishing the memo, Fides began backpedaling, in an attempt to mitigate the impact of the original report. [1] Later, it released another report quoting the "Jesuits of Homs," who told the outlet that there were no cases to their knowledge of Christians being forced out of their homes by Islamists.

Homs happens to be around 30 kilometers from the border with Lebanon, which is home to a large and relatively powerful Christian community, making it a natural destination for Christian refugees - indeed, around 20,000 Iraqi Christians have found safety there since the 2003 invasion. Nevertheless, there has been no reported upsurge in Syrian Christian refugees to Lebanon in recent weeks. On March 8, the Christian Science Monitor reported a few thousand Syrian refugees fled to Lebanon - mostly Sunnis from the Bab Amr quarter of Homs.

Understandably, Christians have fled their homes amid fears of being caught in the crossfire. According to a report in Lebanon's Daily Star, some Christians have been temporarily forced out of their homes by Sunni fighters, but only because they needed space to fight government forces; further, contrary to the claims of the Al-Haqiqa report, the fighters allowed the Christians to take what they needed.

Besides, the claims of straightforward ethnic cleansing by Islamist militants do not add up, because that is not how jihadist groups deal with Christians. For example, the standard practice in Iraq for jihadist groups like Al-Qaida - renowned in Iraq for its brutality - is to first demand jizya, which is a "poll-tax" imposed on Christian and Jewish minorities, in traditional Islamic theology. [2]

If the minorities fail to pay jizya, they face bomb attacks or other violence. Yet the reports in Al-Haqiqa and Fides make no reference to imposition of jizya.

There is little reason to doubt the motivation of Vatican and church leaders, who after Iraq have become extremely worried about the fate of the remaining Christian communities in the Middle East.

Yet, over-the-top, sensationalist reporting by SyriaTruth and similarly pro-regime sites, combined with church leaders both in Syria and abroad responding by crying wolf before confirming the news, makes for an explosive and dangerous mix, with the potential of turning unfounded rumors or deliberate disinformation into self-fulfilling prophecies.

With the death toll in Syria running in the thousands, and many times more wounded or tortured during the heavy crackdown by security forces on this predominantly Sunni uprising, there is a steady buildup of anger and frustration on the Sunni street with regard to the position of Syrian minorities, who often either are supportive of the regime or have adopted an "on the fence" approach.

As the rebels are reportedly running out of ammunition in many areas, the opposition leaders are pinning their last hope on the international community. News in the global media about Syrian Christians disseminating such reports about their Muslim neighbors can easily become the last straw that will break the back of the camel of sectarian coexistence.

The Vatican and the local church leaders, preoccupied with the protection of their communities in Syria, may have the best intentions in the world. But when they fall for such sites as SyriaTruth, it is tempting to diagnose their case as one of "With such protectors, who needs Islamists!"

Footnotes

[1] In particular, the wording of the original version was changed from "there is 'an ongoing ethnic cleansing of Christians,' carried out by members of the 'Faruq Brigade'" to "carried out by some Islamist members of..."; and from "the 'Faruq Brigade' is run by armed elements of Al-Qa'ida and various Wahhabi groups and includes mercenaries from Libya and Iraq" to "In the 'Faruq Brigade', note other sources, there seems to be armed elements of ...and mercenaries from …"

[2] Observe in the demographic maps of Baghdad that over time one starts to see the emergence of a few predominantly Christian areas, especially in southern Baghdad. The Islamist militant groups would expel or kill without reservation Muslims of the rival sect but allow Christians to remain while extorting jizya from them, in accordance with traditional interpretations of Qur'an 9:29.

Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi is a student at Brasenose College, Oxford University, and an Adjunct Fellow at the Middle East Forum. Oskar Svadkovsky is a computer networking professional based in Tel Aviv and the owner of the "Happy Arab News Service" blog. Phillip Smyth is a journalist and researcher specializing in Middle Eastern affairs. He travels regularly in the region.

Source: http://www.meforum.org/3208/syria-christian-persecution

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

PLO Dismisses Call to Dismantle PA

by Khaled Abu Toameh

Senior Palestinian officials say suggestion that PA be dissolved in order to pressure Netanyahu into action "political suicide."

The PLO on Saturday dismissed a call by former minister, MK and peace negotiator Yossi Beilin to dismantle the Palestinian Authority.

Beilin, in an article published in Foreign Policy magazine, called on PA President Mahmoud Abbas to dissolve the PA and “return daily control to Israel.”

Addressing Abbas, Beilin wrote: “Do not let Prime Minister [Binyamin] Netanyahu hide behind the fig leaf of the Palestinian Authority – impose upon him, once again, the responsibility for the fate of 4 million Palestinians.”

The PA was established in 1994 as part of the Oslo Accords as an interim body to oversee the Palestinian territories while final status negotiations between the PLO and Israel would take place.

Beilin also accused US President Barack Obama of pressuring Abbas to maintain the status quo in the peace process.

“It is a mistake to agree to Obama’s request, and you [Abbas] can rectify this,” he wrote.

Hana Amireh, member of the PLO Executive Committee, dismissed Beilin’s call, saying it would be tantamount to “political suicide.”

Amireh said the PA had a transitional role to bring the Palestinians to an independent state and achieve their rights.

A PA official in Ramallah said over the weekend that dissolving the PA was not not an option.

The official denied that Abbas had any plans to dismantle the PA because of the stalemate in the peace process.

Abbas is planning to send a letter to Netanyahu in the coming days that does not include such a threat, the official told The Jerusalem Post.

The letter, he added, would hold Israel fully responsible for the current stalemate because of its refusal to stop construction in the settlements and east Jerusalem neighborhoods and accept the pre-1967 lines as the future borders of a Palestinian state.

Abbas’s letter, which will be delivered to Netanyahu by PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, will also demand the release of Palestinians who were imprisoned before the signing of the Oslo Accords nearly two decades ago, the official noted.

Khaled Abu Toameh

Source: http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=265193

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