Chris Stevens’ Last Words

by Matthew Vadum


 

Obama administration emails leaked to news organizations about last month’s terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, paint a shocking picture of the administration’s incompetence and callousness.

During the military-style assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi on Sept. 11, the eleventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, four American officials died, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens. On the day of the attack, a few hours before he was raped and murdered by adherents of the so-called religion of peace, Stevens wrote in an email that a local Libyan commander in Benghazi “expressed growing frustration with police and security forces (who were too weak to keep the country secure) …”

It was a sad, prescient understatement.

For two weeks after the attack the Obama administration said over and over and over again that the incident in Benghazi was inspired by a low-quality anti-Islam video on YouTube. Eventually the administration acknowledged it was a terrorist attack.

But those who have been following the disturbing developments in Libya with an open mind know the Obama administration has been lying about what happened there from the start.

The most charitable conclusion one can draw is that during the attack the Obama White House froze under pressure, unable or unwilling to act, as the president geared up for a fundraising event in fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada.

The less charitable, but more likely conclusion, is that the White House made a conscious, calculated decision to let American officials perish overseas, fully expecting the incurious pro-Obama media to ignore what really happened.

We now know that U.S. officials monitored an audio feed of the Benghazi attack in real time, as CBS News reported. During the attack, U.S. forces were in place in nearby Sicily, an hour or so away, but the order to fly to Benghazi in an attempt to rescue the besieged staff at the consulate never came.

That order was never issued by President Obama, probably because he knew it would reveal his policy of appeasement towards Islamic totalitarians to be in shambles as the Middle East and North Africa fell into the hands of America’s enemies.

Former CIA officer Clare M. Lopez, now a senior fellow at the Center for Security Policy, said Stevens knew al-Qaeda was targeting him but he lacked adequate security.

The Benghazi saga is a massive scandal, Lopez told Glenn Beck. “It’s huge, first of all, because we’ve got four dead Americans,” she said. “That’s the worst part of it all and nobody went to their assistance.”

Intelligence chief James Clapper, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and David Petraeus all know what really happened in Benghazi, Lopez opined.

“This has to be brought out. This has to be made known to the public. That this is going on and that our administration was not only working with the bad guys, was working with al-Qaeda linked militias and jihadis to overthrow [President Bashar Hafez] Assad in Syria, but that they let our mission go down. They let our ambassador and others die. In real time, watching it happen, and they didn’t do anything about it,” Lopez said.

The Benghazi post-mortem cover-up appears to have been orchestrated by Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett, investigative journalist Ed Klein told Andrew Wilkow on TheBlaze TV on Wednesday.

“In addition to Valerie Jarrett, the CIA got cables, the Department of Defense got cables, the NSA got cables during the attack on Benghazi, in addition to the emails that have since been made public. We know that there are cables that we haven’t seen yet confirming the State Department cable that this was an al-Qaeda linked attack.”

Klein said Clinton has documentary evidence that she previously asked for more security in Benghazi but that she won’t release it because it would torpedo Obama’s reelection bid and infuriate Democrats she might want to call upon should she run for president herself in 2016.

The late ambassador was painfully aware that Benghazi had been on the verge of exploding for some time. In a diplomatic cable in June, Stevens noted that “Islamic extremism” was on the rise and that “the Al-Qaeda flag” was flying over buildings outside Benghazi.

As the Washington Times reports, Stevens also wrote that attacks in Libya “targeting international organizations and foreign interests” were on the rise. An attack in June on the Benghazi mission blew a hole in a security wall, he indicated.

“Libyan security officials purport to have launched investigations,” Stevens wrote. One of those officials “shared his private opinion that the attacks were the work of extremists who are opposed to Western influence in Libya.”

“A number of local contacts agreed, noting that Islamic extremism appears to be on the rise in eastern Libya and that the Al-Qaeda flag has been spotted several times flying over government buildings and training facilities” approximately 100 miles east of Benghazi, the ambassador wrote.

In a cable dated Aug. 8, Stevens expressed concern that the “absence of significant deterrence” had “contributed to a security vacuum.”

As ABC News reported, a State Department email dated May 3, 2012, showed the department turned down a request from officials in Libya to retain a DC-3 airplane to help with security. Stevens was copied on the email.

A spokesman for the House Oversight Committee said the “State Department’s naive determination to follow rigid bureaucratic policies, instead of making common sense decisions that took the serious threat of terrorism conveyed by those on the ground into account, appears to have been a significant factor in the Benghazi Consulate’s lack of preparedness.”

As previously reported, leaked State Department emails dated Sept. 11, 2012, that were published this week show officials knew soon after the attack that Ansar al-Sharia, a Libyan terrorist group linked to al-Qaeda, had claimed responsibility for the assault on the consulate.

The emails found their way to as many as 400 U.S. national security, military, and diplomatic officials during the attack. The electronic missives were time-stamped in Eastern time and often bore the subheading SBU, which stands for “Sensitive But Unclassified.”

The initial email from 4:05 p.m. contains the subject header: “U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi Under Attack (SBU).”

“The Regional Security Officer reports the diplomatic mission is under attack,” read the email. “Embassy Tripoli reports approximately 20 armed people fired shots; explosions have been heard as well. Ambassador Stevens, who is currently in Benghazi, and four COM personnel are in the compound safe haven. The 17th of February militia is providing security support … The operations Center will provide updates as available.”

A second email stamped 4:54 p.m. contains “Update 1: U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi (SBU)” as a subject line. “Embassy Tripoli reports the firing at the U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi has stopped and the compound has been cleared. A response team is on site attempting to locate COM personnel.”

A third email stamped 6:07 p.m. features a subject line reading “Update 2: Ansar al-Sharia Claims Responsibility for Benghazi Attack (SBU).”

“Embassy Tripoli reports the group claimed responsibility on Facebook and Twitter and has called for an attack on Embassy Tripoli,” it indicates.

Strangely, or perhaps not so strangely in the Age of Obama, America’s mainstream media has shown little interest in the atrocities in Libya as it focuses on silly distractions like what Mitt Romney really, secretly, truly, in his little capitalist heart made of coal, may have meant when he used the incomplete phrase “binders full of women” in the heat of an intense presidential debate.

Not much media attention has focused on the fact that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s handpicked chairman of the Department of State’s investigation of the Benghazi atrocities is an apologist for Islamic terrorism who has a cozy relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.

As Frontpage Magazine was first to report this week, the chairman, former Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering, participated in a panel discussion Tuesday night in Washington, D.C. on “what role the faith community can play in fighting Islamophobia,” a make-believe mental illness. The term is used the same way American leftists use the word “racist” to shut down debate.

Many of those few journalists who are following the Benghazi story are in full-on damage control mode in order to help their hero, President Obama, win reelection.

For example, confirmation bias-afflicted Mother Jones reporter Adam Serwer, long a reliably useful idiot in the service of Obama, argued yesterday that a single Middle East analyst’s newly discovered skepticism about one of the State Department emails sent during the attack invalidated all criticism of the administration’s handling of the Benghazi saga.

Because no record could be found on social media websites of al-Qaeda linked terrorist group Ansar al-Sharia claiming responsibility for the massacre, the group couldn’t possibly be tied to the attack, Serwer wrote in a piece containing the in-your-face headline, “GOP’s Benghazi Smoking Gun Goes Up in Smoke.”

Nothing to see here. Move along.

Matthew Vadum

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/matthew-vadum/chris-stevens-last-words/

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

Tackling the Totalitarianism of Islam

by Eileen F. Toplansky

As the Arab Spring model implodes in the Middle East, it is even more urgent that the West understand that behind this ongoing violence is the inexorable Muslim adherence to sharia law.  Sharia is the unremitting lodestar for their actions.

In his latest magisterial work, entitled Sharia versus Freedom: The Legacy of Islamic Totalitarianism, Dr. Andrew Bostom adds another enlightening tome to supplement The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims (2005) and The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism (2008).

Honest scholarship in our politically correct world is a hard commodity to find.  Thus, a debt is owed to Bostom for his continuing contributions as he give numerous examples to prove that it is the "centrality of Islamic jihadism" (26) that motivates, inspires, instigates, arouses, and stirs its adherents toward the unrelenting goal of a global caliphate.  During the recent Ramadan, for example, there were 260 jihad attacks in 23 countries, with 1,209 dead and 1,910 critically injured.  The so-called religion of peace is extraordinarily bloody, yet leaders of the free world prevaricate about its violence. 

The culture of death, destruction, and deceit that is Islam is painstakingly exposed by Bostom.  The deep and abiding anti-Jewish animus in Islam is shown to be integral to Islam.  Neither a byproduct of Western anti-Semitism nor a result of alleged Western imperialism, to say nothing of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Muslim-inspired anti-Jewish sentiment actually dates back to before 869 A.D.

Bostom affirms that this legacy of "Muslim anti-Jewish hatred and violence" is not some aberrant vision of radical Islam, but rather is "rooted in mainstream, orthodox Islamic teachings" (83).  Bostom explodes the oft-repeated idea that "Islam's society's hostility is non-theological" and "not related to any specific Islamic doctrine" (74).  He proves that, a thousand years before any "serious colonial penetration of the region" (38) could influence views about Jews, there is evidence that Jews were hated by the Muslims because they stubbornly denied Muhammad's message.

In fact, the Jews of the period even "coined their own terms for hatred directed at them by Muslims" (38).  Jews used the terms sinuth for Muslim hatred of Jews and sone for the Muslim hater, thus confirming that Islamic anti-Jewish hatred existed a millennium ago.

Another myth central to the discussion of Islam is that Jews and Christians -- i.e., dhimmis -- were well-treated.  Blasting the oft-repeated notion of cordial Muslim relations toward Jewish and Christian subjects in Muslim-dominated Spain, Bostom cites one pogrom after another within the Muslim world, and he underscores that Koran 9:111 "provides an unequivocal, celebratory invocation of martyrdom during jihad" (82).

Repeatedly, Bostom examines the "contract of the jizya" or "dhimma," which "encompasses ... obligatory and recommended obligations for the conquered non-Muslim" (70).  In the last thirty years, Europe has not withstood the onslaught of Muslims, who deliberately do not assimilate into society, who demand that the countries in which they reside bend to Islamic will, who hysterically call for sharia-imposed judicial decisions, who have made sharia-controlled zones that even police are afraid to enter, who have relegated women to second-class status, and who intimidate and threaten their host governments with violence. 

As Bostom emphasizes, each time that Islam gains ascendancy in an area, such transition to dhimmi status results in enslavement, forcible conversion to Islam, and death to the non-believer.

It is no exaggeration to state that there is an ongoing ideological war against the West.  In only thirty years, European support for "common Euro-Arab positions" now finds itself in a perpetual state of "dhimmitude and rabid Judeophobia" (170).  For example, Muslims living in Germany believe that the "German Constitution [is] irreconcilable" with the Koran (172).  Muslim immigrants who demand European welfare benefits actually view these entitlements as a form of jizya to be paid by dhimmis, aka the host country (188).  

Particularly revelatory is the chapter entitled "Sayonara Shari'a: Japanese Lessons, Lost?," where Bostom relates that after World War II, "under stern American guidance" (440), Japan was forced to delegitimize its state religion of Shintoism.  In other words, the state would no longer be able to impose religious belief; nonetheless, the practice of Shintoism as a "private, demilitarized, and depoliticized personal faith" was protected (441).  Individual religious liberty was maintained but could not be imposed upon the general populace.

Sadly, this lesson, which produced a vibrant Japanese reconstruction while protecting individual rights, has been entirely ignored following the U.S.-led military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Rather than neutralizing the bellicose religious-political-economic creed of Islam, we have actually helped to promote sharia imposition. 

How galling it is to learn that there is a tried and true antidote to counter the totalitarianism of state-imposed religion, but that the West ignores it?  It is vital to note that there "has never been a sharia state in history that has not discriminated ... against the non Muslims (and Muslim women) under its suzerainty" (447).

Islam refuses to reform.  Thus, it consigns its followers as well as non-Muslims to an existence where no "freedom of conscience" can occur.  The modern-day sermons of jihadists receive their script lines from the ideas of a thousand years ago.  Islam, by its very nature, is unyielding. 

Freedom of religion, freedom of press, freedom of speech, assembly, or petition -- all of which are cardinal ideas enshrined in the American Bill of Rights -- simply do not exist, will never be permitted, and are tantamount to sacrilege within the Islamic world.  In fact, dhimmis possess no rights. 

Islamic law and American law are antithetical.  There can be no conciliation because sharia "compromises the tradition of equality for all under the law."  Sharia consists of draconian punishments such as stoning for adultery and homosexuality, death for apostasy, amputation of hands and feet for highway robbery, and lashing for drinking wine.

Lest one minimize the Koranic influence in the political Islamic world, it should be "noted that Koran 3:112 is featured before the preamble to Hamas's foundational covenant" (76).  This verse is related to Koranic verses 5:60 and 5:78, which describe the Jews' transformation into apes and swine (5:60).  And at Palestinian Media Watch, one can read about the demonization of Jews through these vicious canards.  Furthermore, as Bostom points out, the Iranian theocracy sanctions Jew-hatred through its national teacher training programs (78). 

Bostom enlightens the reader with background information about the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin el-Husseini, who played a pivotal role in Hitler's Final Solution.  This non-Aryan was warmly welcomed (243) by Hitler because both men had the same goals: worldwide domination and the extermination of Jews. 

It behooves the West to learn from the past.  Bostom discusses the experiences of Whittaker Chambers (497) and Arthur Koestler (508), who initially succumbed to the alleged idealism of communism only to speak out once this dream of utopia revealed itself to be one of the most horrific periods in human history.  Chambers in his book Witness writes a searing expose of communism, and we would be well-served to perceive the similarities between communism's rejection of freedom and Islam's totalitarian system.  Bolshevism and Islam share a fanatical worldview and are "impervious to reason."

Those who fell under the spell of communism soon learned of the dimension of its absolute control.  Millions of people were killed under Stalin.  Deliberate mass starvation coupled with purges and slavery were the hallmarks of communism.  Intellectual reasoning was destroyed.  The same thing happens in the Muslim-dominated world.  Muslims refuse to become citizens of Western countries because for them, the world, in all its entirety, is to be conquered.  Where they reside is secondary, as it is the "strong port" from which an Islamic attack is launched.  Islam, like communism, is an ideology that "is fiercely paranoid [and] conspiratorial" (505).

The jihadist is counting on American ignorance of the ideas in the Koran and of the overarching history of Muslim conquest.  As Andrew McCarthy has explained, the jihadists "make Islam appear unthreatening to limn its detractors as irrational and unracist" (47).  Thus, the jihadist controls the narrative.

Ex-communists enlightened us about the horrors of communism.  Muslim apostates keep warning us about the dangers of Islam.  Yet we ignore it "at our existential peril."  Bostom proves that any sort of Muslim dialogue or interfaith discourse is pointless because Islam permits no other way of thinking.  At Al Azhar, the center of Islamic studies, a 2008 paper was presented that concluded with the following:

... Muslim dialogue with Jews in Italy is only possible once Israel has been eliminated.

Thus, genocide is a holy duty for the practicing Muslim, as dictated by the Koran and other theological sources of Islam.

Islamic law is totalitarianism.  There can be no freedom in the Western sense of the word, since the "Islamic understanding of 'freedom,' or hurriyya means perfect slavery" (524), and this slavery is between Allah the master and his human slaves.

It is vital that the West never forget that taqiyya, the Muslim doctrine that allows lying in certain circumstances, and tawriya, a doctrine that allows lying in virtually all circumstances, are permitted as long as they advance sharia. 

As Bostom explains, Muslims who emigrate to Europe and America have the same determination to modify and change their host countries' laws and cultural mores.  They wish to "supersede Western conceptions of human rights" with sharia.  Thus, "[u]nder the rule of Islam, there is no equality among people.  Absolutely not" (123).

Why do so many express surprise about Islamic global intentions when repeatedly, Muslim leaders exhort their followers and state that "Islam will return to Europe as a conqueror" (133)?  There is abundant evidence that Muslim leaders wish to transplant the draconian, stultifying laws of sharia onto the world. 

The Nazis murdered six million Jews and destroyed millions of other groups during WWII.  Under Stalin, Communism was responsible for the death of 20 million human beings.  Islam has the same global aspirations.  Andrew Bostom's indefatigable quest to educate is monumental.  To receive such an encyclopedic edification is a gift.  To use it as a vantage point for action is an obligation.  To do less means that we will go down the road to dhimmitude, just as the imam wants. 

Eileen F. Toplansky can be reached at middlemarch18@gmail.com.

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/10/tackling_the_totalitarianism_of_islam.html

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

Freedom House Downgrades Israel, Based on Palestinian Deceit

by Lee Kaplan

This self-appointed, proclaimed monitor of freedom, not only cites Arab and radical propaganda taken off the internet as fact, with no checking, in order to declare Israel less free, but condemns the Jewish State for protecting itself from the terrorist organization, Hamas.

In a clear distortion of information, the once prestigious Freedom House, a not-for-profit organization that purports to monitor which societies in the world are truly free, appears deliberately to have omitted and misrepresented easily verifiable information in what can only be seen as an attempt to downgrade Israel from "free" to "partly free." This self-appointed, proclaimed monitor of freedom, itself only partly-free, not only cites Arab and radical propaganda taken as fact, with no checking, off the internet, to declare Israel as less free, but condemns it for protecting itself from daily bombardments of the terrorist organization, Hamas. Last week, in 24 hours alone, over 80 rockets were fired on a city in Israel's south, "Can you imagine, one writer asks," if even one rocket were fired on Washington, London, Paris or Moscow?"

While on the surface that might not seem a calamity, these falsehoods follow a pattern -- as with Human Rights Watch [see www.NGO-Monitor.org for details] or the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) -- maliciously and recklessly to distort the situation of human rights in the Middle East in general, and Israel in particular, apparently for no other purpose than to defame the only democracy in the Middle East, one which is daily threatened with eradication.

The ISM operates as a human shield for terrorist groups; it works cooperatively with Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the PFLP. The Palestinians have found a formula of deception to put a good face on their terrorism sponsors' irredentist movement. They now claim they represent humanitarianism and freedom when in reality they promote the takeover goals of totalitarianism, arresting journalists wholesale and inciting violence from government-controlled media. A vast number of websites -- some have even crept into the classrooms of American colleges -- now claim to have valid research and have reversed the facts behind just who represents genuine freedom, and who is seeking the destruction of a free and democratic state, Israel, to install a new totalitarian one in its place.

Among its many reports which explain the downgrade of certain states' freedom rankings, the one about Israel not only distorts history but even reverses facts, when describing who has rights to pray on the Temple Mount.

According to the report, "Citing security concerns, Israel occasionally restricts Muslim worshippers' access to the Temple Mount, or Haram al-Sharif, in Jerusalem. In October 2011, Jewish extremists burned and vandalized a mosque in the northern village of Tuba-Zangariya, leading to protests by hundreds of residents and minor clashes with police."

The report makes no mention that Israel gave complete administrative control of the Temple Mount, the Jews' holiest shrine, to the Waqf, the Muslim religious administration, in 1967. The Waqf does not allow any Jewish praying on the Mount, even arresting Jews who dare to move their lips or even close their eyes, for fear they might be praying. The Waqf also relies on the Israeli police, many of whom are Arabs and not Jews, to enforce this edict. Muslims are not restricted from praying on the Mount, except on high Muslim holidays, when the police -- after they had determined that younger males are more inclined to violence -- sometimes admit males only over the age of 40 to prevent riots and attacks on the police. In any event, as on many earlier occasions, when Arab worshippers have attacked the police, the number of worshippers admitted on Muslim high holidays days would be restricted for normal crowd control.

For Freedom House to try and suggest that Jews are keeping Muslims from praying on the Temple Mount is disingenuous, if not libelous, and reveals at best a substandard level of competence.

As for the mosque burning incident, this was not a government-sponsored crime, but conducted by individuals who are being sought by the Israeli police for arrest and prosecution; yet Freedom House would have its readers believe this was a government-sanctioned attack. Prosecutors in Israel prosecute any Jews who attack or deface Muslim shrines and Jews go to jail. This is tantamount to falsely suggesting Klansmen who burned black churches in the Jim Crow South were carrying out US government functions.

Similar distortions also abound in the Freedom House report on educational matters. Two paragraphs in particular are disturbing; they state,

Legislation passed in March 2011 requires the state to fine or withdraw funds from local authorities and other state-funded groups that hold events marking Al-Nakba on Israeli independence day; that support armed resistance or "racism" against Israel; or that desecrate the state flag or national symbols. Both Arab rights and freedom of expression groups criticized the law as an unnecessary and provocative restriction.
In July, the Knesset passed the so-called Boycott Law, which exposes Israeli individuals and groups to civil lawsuits if they advocate an economic, cultural, or academic boycott of the State of Israel or West Bank settlements, even without clear proof of financial damage. Petitions filed against the law were pending at year's end.

The article does not explain that Al-Nakba in Arabic refers to the founding of Israel as a "catastrophe" for the Arabs living in Israel. The "Arab rights" and "freedom of expression groups" (unnamed) which opposed the new law all advocate the destruction and replacement of the Jewish state by an Arab-dominated one which would not have religious or gender-based freedom, the same as other Arab states in the region. The boycott of Israel is even opposed by the Palestinian Authority government-in-the-making; it is a continuation of the Arab League's unending declared financial war on Israel, a war that began in 1922. Israel does not prohibit individuals from making such statements advocating destruction of the Jewish state, only the lawsuit rights of victims who pay Israeli taxpayer money to pay for it as a function of government.

The website IsraCampus has demonstrated repeatedly that Israel's academic institutions have been turned into a breeding ground of subversives who openly call for the dismantling of the Jewish state. Israel's top educational authority recently called in a board of inquiry of world renowned education experts to determine if the Political Science Department at Ben Gurion University was living up to academic standards. The nonpartisan committee determined that the department was little more than a place to recruit activists who call for the end of the Jewish state -- and that the department had no redeeming academic standards. But Freedom House would have readers believe this to be an erosion of freedom. How Freedom House could consider it a "violation of freedom" for the Israeli government to refuse to fund with taxpayer money groups on campus that "support armed resistance," better known as terrorism, is unfathomable. It has never, for example, objected to the US prohibiting funds being sent to Al Qaeda.

While Freedom House places the US as the most free country in the world, it knows the US would never allow Soviet propaganda courses to be taught in US schools during the height of the Cold War at taxpayer expense, yet faults Israel for trying to control a fifth column that is well-financed by Arab oil money and even the EU.

The Freedom House report could best be described a "lying by omission" to its readers. This is a clever way of not telling direct lies, but of leaving out just enough information to convey a false impression. The report even condemns Israel for restricting pro-Arab press reporters during the war in Gaza, when these are the same false sources for information on which Freedom House relies. The Goldstone Report, later retracted by Goldstone himself as full of falsehoods, is a perfect example of this.

Such intentional omissions can be found even in the report's "history" of the region that states,

Israel was formed in 1948 from part of the British-ruled mandate of Palestine, which had been created by the League of Nations following World War I. A 1947 UN partition plan dividing Palestine into two states, Jewish and Arab, was rejected by the Arab Higher Committee and the Arab League, and Israel's 1948 declaration of independence led to war with a coalition of Arab countries. While Israel maintained its sovereignty and expanded its borders, Jordan (then known as Transjordan) seized East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and Egypt took control of the Gaza Strip.

It is curious how the above paragraph, ostensibly true, was worded. While it mentions the Arabs rejected the UN Partition Plan, it does not mention at all that Israel accepted the Plan (although it gave Israel far less land, mostly desert, than the original mandate) and it blames the Jews' declaration of independence as the cause of the war rather than the five Arab countries invading Israel on the day of its birth to try to kill the new nation before it could even begin. No place is it mentioned that these armies attacked the new Jewish state first, costing the lives of 6,000 Jews. And no place does it mention that to this day, both the PLO and Hamas charters call for the obliteration of Israel in a language filled with religious and ethnic fanaticism against Jews. Jewish communities in the West Bank and Gaza were wiped out in 1948, including in the walled old city of Jerusalem, which was seized by Jordan, and were retaken by Israel only in 1967. Freedom House fails to mention that Transjordan was supposed to be part of Israel but was gifted by the British to the Hashemite dynasty to settle a feud with the Saudis. Although Israel slightly expanded its borders, it also lost territory in that war, notably in Gaza and the West Bank.

Further distortions include the reversal of the situation with religious shrines inside Israel and in the Palestinian Authority (not Israel proper, and subject to final peace negotiations between the parties). The Report states that Israel does not protect access to Muslim shrines when the reverse is true: it fails to mention, for example, that the Old Testament's Joseph's Tomb in Shechem/Nablus was attacked, turned into a green canopied mosque, and that its rabbi literally torn to shreds, its Torah burned, and that an Arab Druze IDF soldier bled to death when Arab rioters prevented emergency medical personnel from reaching him during further Arab riots, before the Jewish shrine was completely overrun. Only recently, an Orthodox Jew caught praying at Joseph's Tomb was shot and killed by a Palestinian policeman.

For Freedom House to downgrade Israel as "less free," given the reality on the ground, one has to wonder at the non-profit's objectivity and research capabilities. Was such "lying by omission" simply errors due to sloppy research on the Internet that relied on Palestinian and ISM propaganda websites? Or was it possibly the result of donations from Arab or Muslim special interest groups? Repeated attempts to contact Freedom House about these discrepancies were ignored.

This is not the first time Freedom House has collided with the truth. In 2006, a member of its Board of Trustees, ironically the current president of the Gatestone Institute, resigned over a vote by the Board that would require every report, before being released, to be approved by all members of the Board of Trustees – a form of censorship. The decision was occasioned by a report, "Update: Saudi Arabia's Curriculum of Intolerance," written by Nina Shea of the Center for Religious Freedom (then a semi-autonomous a branch of Freedom House, but which also, after the vote, parted company with the organization). Shea's report was written at the request of Muslims in America who had brought her copies of the official Saudi Textbooks in Islamic schools in America. They claimed they were concerned about the hatred and violence toward people of other religions that was being promoted in these textbooks, and wanted it exposed. After the report was released, however, a member of the Board at the time, Farooq Kathwari, CEO of Ethan Allen Interiors, Inc., was apparently approached by Dr. Faroque Khan, a founding member of the Mosque and Islamic Center of Long Island, in Westbury, New York. Khan seems to have determined that Shea's report did not reflect favorably on the Muslim community and therefore, unlike the Muslims who had originally approached Shea, instead approached Kathwari to see if Shea's report could be suppressed. The Board evidently agreed with Dr. Khan.

Sadly, the integrity of a once-venerable organization, which claims to promote freedom throughout the world, is now more than suspect, as the supposed guardians of freedom work overtime to empower totalitarian movements and regimes.

Lee Kaplan

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3416/freedom-house-israel

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

Jordan's Next Leader?

by Mudar Zahran

Al-Rantisi claims in his article that "The US government and its intelligence services will support the Muslim Brotherhood goals of coming to power." The Muslim Brotherhood dismissed Al-Rantisi's claims and sued him for damages. Nonetheless, Al-Rantisi stick by the claims he had made when questioned by Al Arabiyya.

It might be helpful now to start wondering what sort of ideas Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood, and its leader, Controller General Sheikh Hamam Sai'd, will advance if they seize power in Jordan -- possibly with the blessing and encouragement of the United States.

Sheikh Sai'd, of Palestinian origin, was elected to the leadership if Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood in 2008 by its hardline faction. They support a partnership with Hamas and the overthrow of Middle Eastern leaders who side with the United States.

The prominent Jordanian journalist, Osama Al-Rantisi, published an article on July 14, 2011, in the Jordanian daily newspaper, Al-ghad, in which he alleged that Sai'd had held a meeting in Turkey with "recently-retired officers from the CIA and the internal counter-intelligence and security agency, the MI5."

This was followed by Al-Arabiya TV Network, which also ran an article on its website on May 22, 2012, detailing allegations made by Al-Rantisi that: "Dr. Hammam Sai'd and former Egyptian Brotherhood leader Dr. Kamal Halbawi had met last June [of 2011] in Istanbul, Turkey with former CIA deputy director Steven Kappes, and former MI5 chief Eliza Manningham-Buller."

Al-Rantisi goes on to say that both Kappes and Manningham-Buller pledged in the meeting that, "The US government and its intelligence services will support the Muslim brotherhood goals of coming to power," and "urging them [Muslim Brotherhood members] to fight terrorism and to establish peace with Israel".

Presumably, each side thinks it will co-opt the other, and neither side will budge. After all, if the US has tolerated the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, why not also in Jordan?

Not surprisingly, the Muslim Brotherhood dismissed Al-Rantisi's claims and sued him for damages. Nonethless, Al-Rantisi stuck by the claims he had made when questioned by Al-Arabiya, alleging his information was based on "unofficial minutes of that alleged meeting" between Hamam Sai'd and the officers mentioned above.

Sheikh Sai'd's son, Anes Sai'd. recently released a video on YouTube speaking of his woes with his father and with the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood. The video provides a nightmarish glimpse of the Muslim Brotherhood's top man in Jordan, and only intensifies the fears of the liberal and secular Jordanians of an Egyptian-like Muslim Brotherhood takeover.

In the video, Anes describes his father as "an unfair, licentious and corrupt person;" he also details cruelties to which his father allegedly subjected him. He goes on to describe the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan as "trading in religion."

Anes starts by affirming his identity and exhibiting his academic qualifications: "Peace on all, my name is Anes Hammam Sai'd, an architect. I graduated top of my class from the University of Jordan in 1996; I run a design office with a partner and I have passed the qualifications exam of the Union [of Jordanian Engineers]." Anes then describes himself as a Baathist – from the secular pan-Arab nationalist movement, which shares the Islamists' hatred for Israel, but opposes the establishment of an Islamist state.

Shortly after that, Anes starts criticizing the Muslim Brotherhood, the organization his father in Jordan controls. "The Muslim Brotherhood movement in Jordan is political child's play; in Egypt they [the Muslim Brotherhood] were tortured, executed, beaten and imprisoned; here the Jordanian Muslim brotherhood uses the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and the Jordanian regime's tolerance for them, to gain popularity…In Egypt, the basic thing to do is either to stay at home or do something useful that changes things for the best. But here, joining a protest or a march to say, 'I am the Muslim Brotherhood, I am the opposition,' this is the utmost stupidity, nonsense and children's play; it is trading with religion, they [the Muslim Brotherhood] are trading with religion, they have not been elected, they were appointed."

Anes concludes by affirming that he thinks he would be hurt by the Muslim Brotherhood: "All that I said here, they [the Muslim Brotherhood] know is true. I swear to God if I am to say this in public I would be hanged, they would hang me in downtown Amman; all the harsh conditions I have endured and the hard days I have been through have made me cling more to life, and God is my witness that I forgive the Muslim Brotherhood in this life and the afterlife."

To verify the video, the author contacted one of Hamam Sai'd's family friends, who now resides in the United Kingdom, and who went to school with Anes. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, he confirmed that the person in the video was actually Hamam Sai'd's son, Anes, and added that he was not shocked at all by the video: "His father has always been harsh and crude to him and everyone else who enters his circle, and he is indeed a very manipulative man who plays well on words."

While Anes might seem as if he is just a son angry at his father, it is important to bear in mind that his father head Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood, and that his father is deeply radical.

Hamam Sai'd also recently headed the Muslim Brotherhood-Jordanian delegation to Cairo to discuss the possibility of Egypt's resuming the supply of natural gas to Jordan – a supply that had been interrupted after Mubarak was toppled. Jordan's Foreign Minister, Nasser Jodeh, described the visit as the result of a "discussion" between the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood and the Jordanian government.

A US Embassy Amman cable, made public by Wikileaks, reported that Hamam Sa'id, "in a posting on the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood website, wrote, "[The Muslim Brotherhood] has become an idea...it is no longer just a movement or group. No legislation will succeed in eliminating or abolishing it. Those who imagine that laws can curb the Brotherhood's activity are deluding themselves."

Another US Embassy Amman cable from March 2008, made public by Wikileaks, shows that the US Embassy in Amman has been in touch with Hammam Sa'id's close ally, Saud Abu Mahfouz, who—according to the leaked cable—told the US Embassy Amman political officers that Hammam Sai'd was "his Shaykh," as well as other senior members of Hamam Sai'd's associates.

The cable also affirms that, "The future of the Islamist movement in Jordan" is with Hammam Sai'd's religious conservatives, in addition to other conservative Islamist political activists; at the same time the cable highlights the admiration Hammam Sai'd's Islamist followers have for him.

It would be illuminating to know what further communication there has been, and is today, between the U.S. administration and the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood.

If the US administration continues to tolerate the Muslim Brotherhood's hijacking of the Arab Spring revolution, it appears that Hammam Sai'd holds serious political weight with the Islamists in Jordan, and seemingly knows how to attract followers, despite failing to impress his son.

With a US administration that has such a pronounced record of appeasing Islamists, it is not unlikely that Hamam Sai'd will be accepted and tolerated by the US establishment -- at the expense of moderate Jordanians and the secular Jordanian opposition.

Mudar Zahran

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3413/jordan-next-leader

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

Why Economic Development As a Panacea for Middle East Problems is a Myth

by Barry Rubin


A reader asks:

I agree that democracy and economic development are not panaceas for the Middle East, just as they are not for any other location on the planet. But aren’t they a start? And since it is possible to chew gum and walk at the same time, does it hurt to at least pay lip service to doing things to bring the rest of the Middle East into the 21st Century? And what would those things be in your opinion?

Both candidates in the presidential election debates spoke of economic development as a top priority in their Middle East policy. This sounds good to voters but is pretty meaningless.
A typical example of this meme is given by Obama in his June 4, 2009 Cairo speech:

We … know that military power alone is not going to solve the problems in Afghanistan and Pakistan. That’s why we plan to invest $1.5 billion each year over the next five years to partner with Pakistanis to build schools and hospitals, roads and businesses, and hundreds of millions to help those who’ve been displaced. That’s why we are providing more than $2.8 billion to help Afghans develop their economy and deliver services that people depend on.

But almost four years later, none of this massive expenditure has either changed the situation in those countries or even brought much benefit to their people.

A Western viewer might accept Obama’s claim that people just want good jobs, nice housing, and higher living standards for themselves and their children. Yet the appeals of radical ideology overcome material considerations. There are lots of people who would like their children to grow up to be suicide bombers or prefer piety to prosperity. Even though many don’t think that way, they might be persuaded that radicalism is the best route to better lives. Ayatollah Khomeini dismissively referred to this theory shortly after he took power in Iran by remarking that the West seemed to think the Iranian Islamist revolution was “about the price of watermelons” but that wasn’t true at all. And finally, when people and rulers see no real way to achieve prosperity, both the governments and the masses will turn to demagoguery, scapegoating, and foreign adventures.

It does make sense to the Western mind that material conditions will determine the political beliefs and loyalties of Arabs and Iranians. Yet over the span of the last century things have simply not turned out that way in practice. This was partly due to the fact that nobody  delivered major increases in living standards except in the Gulf Arab states like Saudi Arabia, and in those places it was a highly traditional and religious way of life being reinforced.

Elsewhere governments mustered loyalty not by making the pie bigger, but by controlling who got what. So if you had the option, material well-being for the urban middle-class and certain ethnic segments meant supporting the dictatorship and getting some reward. That will also apply if the dictatorship is an Islamist one, which can offer spiritual exaltation as well. And at least for some years many voters — where people have the opportunity to choose — will believe that Islamism is the best chance for a stable, just, and relatively prosperous society.

Countries are not prepared for progress due to ideology, worldview, institutions, political culture, and many other factors. In particular, the presence of such large and powerful radical forces — willing, even eager, to use violence — is a huge problem. Demagoguery is potent. Such factors can override the kind of materialistic orientation and enlightened self-interest that Westerners expect, and that underpin the belief that democracy can provide stable polities and ensure moderation.

It should be stressed that every country is different. In general, though, the problem with economic development is that it does not trump politics. The countries of the region can be divided into those that have oil wealth and those that don’t. The wealthy countries don’t need American programs to engage in economic development. In some cases, radicalism and instability keep getting in the way. In others — think of Iran or Iraq under Saddam — economic development is managed within the framework of an extremist regime and ideology.

It is true that the wealth of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates have made them more cautious and — often in practice but not in rhetoric or domestic policy — more pragmatic. But one must be cautious here. Saudi Arabia’s wealth and the high living standards of many citizens has not made the country a paragon of democratic values at home and moderation abroad.

Saudi money has been used to spread Islamism and to back radical Islamists, most notably in contemporary Syria and in Iraq a few years ago. Qatar has aligned itself with Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood, engaging in mischief as far afield as Libya. Iraq and Algeria need stability but the problem is not economic development as such but merely pumping more oil and doing something about bureaucracy and corruption.

Certainly, though, these countries do not need Western governments to promote economic development.

Radical regimes, like Libya under Muammar al-Qaddafi, Iraq under Saddam Hussein, or Islamist Iran use some of their wealth for development and much of it for projects like building nuclear weapons and subverting their neighbors.

So regarding the wealthy countries there isn’t much for the West to do in promoting economic development. What about the non-oil states? Let’s look at the specific cases. Lebanon, famous for its merchants, had a self-made multi-millionaire as prime minister who focused on economic development. But he was forced out and assassinated. Internal conflict, ideology, and engagement in foreign adventures wrecked the chance for economic development.

The same applies even more to the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip, which is more interested in fighting Israel than in raising living standards. How can the West help when the local impetus is lacking?

This brings us to Egypt. The truth is that Egypt has a lot of people but few resources and a terrible structural and cultural situation regarding work. Here’s one example. A leading British supermarket chain opened stores in Egypt. Traditionalists, radicals, and competitors (the owners of small stores) spread rumors that the supermarket company backed Israel and was anti-Muslim. Despite the store’s efforts at denial and appeasement, the pressure became so great that it had to close and leave the country.

In a Muslim Brotherhood-ruled Egypt, with Salafists engaging in anarchic violence, is U.S.-backed economic development going to make any differences? As for the Palestinian Authority, vast amounts of aid money have flowed in and despite some apparent successes — a lot of luxury apartments have been built and people kept employed in the government bureaucracy — no lasting progress has been made. A lot of the money has ended up in the political leaders’ foreign bank accounts. At any time, Hamas could take over or the Fatah-led regime turn back to a war against Israel.

Economic development sounds good, but in practice it is more a way to keep Western citizens happy than to make a real difference in the Middle East.

For example, when discussing his economic development policy in the foreign policy presidential debate, Obama cited his government’s “organizing entrepreneurship conferences.” And in reality a lot of the money is simply a payoff to local regimes or a way to shore them up. It has nothing to do with real development.

The story of the battle of factions and corrupt leaders in the Palestinian Authority over awarding a mobile phone contract; how EU-financed public housing turned into luxury apartments to reward regime supporters; or the sabotage against building an improved sewer system in the Gaza Strip — even though foreign aid was paying for the whole project — are wonderful case studies in how economic development campaigns that look good in the West amount to a joke on the ground.

There are, however, three countries that could benefit from economic development efforts if they were to be focused. Those are Tunisia, Morocco, and Jordan. Tunisia, of course, is currently ruled by an Islamist-dominated regime. Whether that government will remain cautious or turn increasingly radical — pressed on by rampaging Salafists — is not clear. Strengthening the moderate forces in Tunisia, which are more proportionately substantial than in any other Arabic-speaking country, is a worthwhile effort but it might not work.

Ironically, Morocco and Jordan are led by moderate regimes threatened by a public opinion that is often radicalized due to poverty. Even there, however, this is not the sole factor. Jordan, for example, has a powerful opposition Brotherhood and a potentially radicalized Palestinian majority. The Palestinians who came there after being expelled from Kuwait in 1991 (because of the PLO’s support for Saddam Hussein’s invasion) brought in a lot of riches and business skills. Amman has become a much wealthier city but Jordanians generally don’t seem to have benefitted much.

But Jordan is relatively small, weak, and doesn’t cause trouble, while Morocco is not a factor in the region’s international affairs. So the places where a real economic development effort could really make a difference get neglected. For a while, the Saudis talked about admitting Jordan to the rich man’s club, the Gulf Cooperation Council, and giving a billion dollars in aid. But nothing came of it in the end.

Remember that the United States gave tens of billions of dollars in aid to Egypt without getting gratitude or popular moderation. Similarly, the United States gave or helped organize an effort for the Palestinians that constituted the most aid money given per person in history. Yet this brought neither progress on the peace process, a transformation in Palestinian thinking, or gratitude.

At any rate, while “economic development” sounds like a great idea, a fine way of making people happy, getting them to love America, and undermining radicalism, in practice it isn’t so effective.

This article was originally published on PJMedia.

Barry Rubin

Source: http://www.gloria-center.org/2012/10/why-economic-development-as-a-panacea-for-middle-east-problems-is-a-myth/

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

Beersheba Schools Closed as Grad rockets Strike City

by Israel Hayom Staff

Grad rocket near Beersheba. [Archive] | Photo credit: Dudu Grunshpan

Two Grad rockets fired from the Gaza Strip exploded near Beersheba on Sunday morning, prompting Mayor Ruvik Danilovich to close down the city's schools for the day. 

Both rockets hit unpopulated areas and caused no injuries or damage. Local residents said they clearly heard the explosions. Two early-warning sirens went off across the city during the course of the morning, urging residents to enter fortified rooms and bomb shelters. 

In an interview with Army Radio, Danilovich said, "In recent years, missiles were fired directly into educational facilities while they were empty. We are not protected, and as long as there is not full protection within the education system, I will put human life first." 

Earlier Sunday morning, Israeli military forces along the Gaza Strip border fence were targeted with a salvo of mortar shells. The Israel Defense Forces identified a launch squad preparing to fire rockets into Israel and the Israel Air Force carried out a subsequent airstrike. 

Gaza health official Ashraf al-Kidra said the early morning strike killed one Palestinian man and wounded another. The identity of the dead Palestinian was not immediately known. 

The IDF Spokesperson's Unit later said forces had launched another air attack that also targeted a rocket launching site. No casualties were reported in the second airstrike.

Meanwhile, during the weekly cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that the government was ready to provide rocket protection and fortifications for a wider radius from the strip. 

"Today we are about to make the decision to complete the fortification of the southern communities," he told his cabinet. "Until now, residents of the south living up to 4.5 kilometers (2.8 miles) from the Gaza Strip have been given full protection. The addition of the Iron Dome missile defense system provides protection to communities 7 kilometers (4.3 miles) from the strip and beyond. We are left with the area in between." 

"In this middle area, schools have been fortified, and today we are deciding to fully fortify all structures, homes [and] residences, and this will obviously grant security to residents of the south," Netanyahu said. "We are doing this because the vulnerability to short-range rocket attacks is far greater in the area surrounding the Gaza Strip than anywhere else. I think that this will answer the needs and hopes the residents of the south have had for a long time."

The prime minister's proposal was unanimously approved by the cabinet. The cost of completing fortifications in the region comes to about 270 million shekels ($70 million). The cabinet authorized Netanyahu to come up with a source of funding within 30 days without having to bring the subject to a second vote.

Subsequently, The Jewish Agency for Israel announced Sunday that it will provide 40 million shekels for the fortification of houses between 4.5 to 7km from the Gaza Strip. 

The funds will be used to build protected rooms in residential housing in the area. The protected spaces will be built by the Jewish Agency’s subsidiary company, Amigour, which is responsible today for the building of 5,000 protected spaces in Sderot and other communities in the Gaza area. 

In addition to the contribution from The Jewish Agency for Israel, the cabinet approved an additional allocation to be spread over three years for the building of protected spaces in the Gaza area. 

Jewish and Israeli leaders attending the Jewish Agency’s Board of Governors in Tel Aviv were briefed on the decision. The Board of Governors meets three times a year to hold in depth strategic discussions about issues affecting the Jewish world.

Israel Hayom Staff

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=6224

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

Pamela Geller: Darkness Descending in England

by Pamela Geller

The arrest of over 53 people in the United Kingdom is the beginning of the end for once-great Britain.  The leaders of the English Defence League (EDL), Tommy Robinson and Kevin Carroll, were among those arrested, as well as Paul Weston of the British Freedom Party (BFP).  I spoke with Kevin Carroll about his recent arrest and that of Robinson and Weston, and he told me the appalling details.

Carroll told me that British authorities tried everything in the book to stop him from running for police and crime commissioner (PCC) for the Bedfordshire Police Authority.  Nonetheless, he officially won the right to run for PCC last Friday.  But then, the very next day, British authorities carried out these mass arrests of EDL and BFP members, stripping them and forcing them to wear white paper overalls like those given to incarcerated terrorists.  They were allowed no phone calls.

Meanwhile, British police raided the homes of Carroll, Robinson, and three others who had been arrested.  "They absolutely ransacked mine," Carroll told me.  "They smashed the door off and wrecked my home.  They took my only vehicle, with all the tools of my trade inside, and impounded it, as well as Tommy's car."  The police, the bomb squad, forensics teams, and sniffer dogs spent seven and a half hours stripping Carroll's van to the bone.  "When they finished," he said, "they found nothing!  They loaded it up with bugs and GPS monitors and threw everything in the back; it looks like it's been in a blender."

After smashing the door to Carroll's home off its hinges, police officials repaired it, got a locksmith to put on a new lock, and left with the new keys, leaving Carroll locked out of his own home.  When Carroll was released, still wearing his white paper prison suit, it was dark and raining; true to form, police officials offered him no transportation, even though it was late at night on a Sunday.

Robinson is being held in Wandsworth prison, an old and antiquated structure with a large population of Muslim prisoners.  Weston was arrested and later released without charge for refusing to leave a reception area without information about Robinson.  And it is clear why officials would not want that information to get out: not only has Robinson been placed with the general prison population instead of segregated for his own protection, but prison officials have even put him in a cell with hostile Muslims.  He was allowed to call his wife Jenna, and he told her that he knew it was going to be "lively" in the cell.  That was an understatement: prison officials have deliberately put Robinson in physical danger and even imperiled his life.  Carroll contacted a high-ranking police official to request that Robinson be segregated, and she received a promise that he would be, but it hasn't happened yet -- and Robinson has even been denied bail.

"They are really coming at us with everything," Carroll told me.  "I'm even on police bail at the moment for 'conspiracy to cause a public nuisance.'"  This is a politically motivated and trumped up charge, but in Britain it can carry a life sentence.

According to Carroll, Robinson was incarcerated for leaving the United Kingdom and entering the United States fraudulently for our September 11, 2012 Stop Islamization of Nations free speech conference in New York City.  Robinson could get twelve to eighteen months in prison just for that.  "They are really turning up the heat here, Pamela," said Carroll.  "They are going after all of us, especially Tommy and me."  The EDL said in a statement: "Tommy has been dragged from one court to another -- almost always without any serious chance of conviction -- simply in order to help disrupt our activities and to prevent us from voicing our legitimate concerns about the spread of Islamic extremism."

Carroll's bail hearing is set for November 30, which gives him just two weeks after the November 15 elections to prepare his defense.  Anyone who can vote for Bedfordshire police authority commissioner and who loves freedom should vote for Kevin Carroll; it could be your last hope to preserve the freedom of speech and the principle of the equality of rights for all people in Britain.

Clearly the establishment elites in Britain are extremely worried that Carroll might win and upset the entrenched culture of accommodation to Islam and sharia; in fact, one of the briefs in Carroll's case actually stated that this was why he was arrested -- because he is running for PCC.  The dhimmi elites understand that this could be the beginning of their end.  "The police," said Carroll, "are out to finish us on behalf of the establishment."

This is a defining moment in British history, as significant as any major turning point.  It is in many respects like the Night of the Long Knives, which marked the point of no return from Nazism for Germany.  With these outrageous and politically motivated arrests, Britain has entered a dark and dangerous new era.  Said Weston: "The full power of the State appears to be concentrating on shutting down any political dissent.  This does not really feel like a democratic country anymore."

Carroll is organizing a demonstration outside Wandsworth prison this coming Saturday morning.  All free citizens in Britain should be there.  And is there no one is the political establishment in the U.K. who has any decency, integrity, or spine?  No one who will stand up against these outrages?

Pamela Geller is the publisher of AtlasShrugs.com and the author of the WND Books title Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance.

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/10/darkness_descending_in_england.html

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

Mordechai Kedar: Congratulations to Hamas

by Mordechai Kedar



The visit of the Emir of Qatar to the Gaza Strip is certainly an important landmark on the course that the Hamas movement has been advancing since it took over the Strip in June of 2007. Hamas is trying its utmost to establish the independence of the Gaza Strip, vis à vis the PLO, the Palestinian Authority, Israel, Egypt, the Arab world and everyplace else as well. They are not giving up the ideology of jihad against Israel, but they have temporarily hung it up on the wall, near the trigger finger and the cross-hair, and they busy themselves with building: infrastructures, roads, institutions, the economy, general industry, military industry and military power. All of these we have been considered internal, local matters, and the leaders of the Arab world did not come to give proper respect to the leaders of Hamas. The first that arrived was the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, the strongest and most influential person in the Arab world, and perhaps even in the whole world. In his pocket are  many billions, and in his hand is the most weighty and dangerous cudgel that exists today in the Arab world: the al-Jazeera channel, which, ever since it was established towards the end of 1996, has continuously incited the Arab masses against the dictators that ruled them, against Israel, against the United States and against the West in general. al-Jazeera's agenda overlaps that of the Muslim Brotherhood, and everything it has done over the years was aimed toward promoting the Brotherhood to bring them to power in the Arab states, after the dictators were eliminated.

The first success was in Gaza, where Hamas took over more than five years ago. The second success was Tunisia, where the elimination of President bin Ali in January 2011 allowed the Islamist al-Nahda movement to take over the state. But the high point of al-Jazeera's success was, and still is, Egypt.

Sheikh Hamad was the one who pushed NATO to get involved in Libya against Qadhaffi, and brought the Libyan Islamists to the corridors of fragile power in the state of the desert tribes overflowing with oil. Sheikh Hamad is behind the Free Syrian Army, which is a group of Islamist militias who are fighting to remove the heretical 'Alawite regime from Syria and to impose radical Islam upon it.

The visit of Sheikh Hamad in Gaza is a pat on the shoulder to the Hamas people, a shot of legitimacy to their rule, an infusion of 400 million dollars into the budgetary veins and another nail in the coffins of the  PLO and the Palestinian Authority. In the opinion of Sheikh Hamad, King Abbas is dead, long live the new king, Ismail Haniye.

In Israel, they still don't understand what is happening. The state department condemns the Qatari Sheikh's visit in Gaza, because the bleeding hearts of the state department prefer to close matters with the PLO and Abu Mazen, since they still dream that he will deal with Hamas "without the oversight of the Supreme Court or human rights organizations". They fell asleep when the Oslo Accords were signed and still have not awakened.

The Office of the Prime Minister, on the other hand, is quiet and does not react. Apparently they understand the true interests of Israel better: To continue the dismantling of the Palestinian Authority into its components, and to continue the split that Sheikh Hamad very much encouraged with his support of Hamas, to the detriment, of course, of the PLO, the PA and Abu Mazen.

If Israel wants to survive, it must say a special prayer of thanks to the King of the world for the visit of Sheikh Hamad to Gaza, and it must continue the process of dismantling that Hamas began - also in Judea and Samaria, by establishing seven separate independent emirates in the seven cities: Jericho, Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarem, Qalqilya and the Arab part of Hebron. Israel must keep the entirety of the rural expanse in its possession, to ensure that the mountains will not become Hamas Mountains and the hills will not become Hizb'Allah Hills. This is how 90 percent of the Arab residents of Judea and Samaria will be free from Israeli rule and Israel will be relieved of including 90 percent of them within its political system, but Israel will keep in its possession more than 90 percent of the territory.

This is the long-term Israeli interest, and thus will Zion be redeemed.


Read more about Dr. Kedar's plan for the Palestinian Emirates

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

Dr. Kedar is available for lectures in the U.S. and Canada 

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

Translated from Hebrew by Sally Zahav with the permission of the author.

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

• The Enemy in the Tent 
• Hizb'Allah Gets Trashed
• Turkey Becomes Entangled
• The End of Oslo - and a Glimmer of Hope
• Sic Transit Gloria Mundi
•  The Terror of the Alawites Becomes Reality 
• The Turban Burns on the Head of the Liar
• The Sectarian Genie
• Diplomacy of Rabbis
• King Mursi the First
• Terror on the Border - Who is the Actual Victim?
• Christians of the Middle East - Endangered Communities
• Total Destruction
• On Academia, Politics and Survival in the Middle East
• Tribal Democracy
• Jordan and Radical Islam
• The Brothers and the Muslms
• What's Next for Saudi Arabia?
• An Open Letter to President Asad
• The Suffering of Africa - Sins of Europe - Guilt of Israel
• What Drives Turkey?
• Engulfed by Fear
• The Syrian Crisis Spills Over into Lebanon
• The Frustrated Intellectual
• Syria, Iraq, the Gulf and the Iranian Tentacles
• The Failure of the Palestinian Venture
• Is Islam the Solution?
• Radical Islam in Africa
• What's Really Going on in Gaza?
• The Alternative Homeland
• The Real Thing
• The Division of Syria
• The Death Throes of the Lion
• An Old Governmental System in Formation
• Frustration and Extortion
• Thank You, Hamas
• Drums of War in the Gulf
• 2011: The Year of the Arab Winter
• And This is the Gate of Heaven
• In the Shadow of the Rising Islamic Crescent
• Who Stole My Revolution
• The Noose Tightens
• The Desert of Death
• Jihad Forever

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

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