The great refugee Scam.

 

by Shmuel Katz

The writer, a co-founder with Menachem Begin of the Herut Party and member of the first Knesset, died earlier this year.  He was a biographer and essayist.

 

The story of the Arabs who left the coastal areas of Palestine in the spring of 1948 encapsulates one of the great international frauds of the 20th century. The Arabs are the only declared "refugees" who became refugees by the initiative of their own leaders. The concoction of the monstrous charge that it was the Jews who had driven out the Arabs of Palestine was a strategic decision made by the leaders of the Arab League months after the Arabs' flight.

The Arab "refugees" were not driven out by anyone. The vast majority left at the order or exhortation of their leaders - always with the same reassurance - that it would help the Arab states in the war they were about to launch to destroy the State of Israel.

The fabrication can most easily be detected by the simple circumstance that at the time the alleged expulsion of the Arabs by Zionists was in progress, nobody noticed it.

Foreign newspapermen abounded in the country, in daily contact with all sides - and they did, in fact, write about the flight of the Arabs, but even those most hostile to the Jews saw nothing to suggest that the flight was not voluntary.

In the three months that the major part of the flight took place, the London Times, a newspaper most notably hostile to Zionism, published 11 leading articles on the situation in Palestine, in addition to extensive news reports. In none was there even a remote hint that the Zionists were driving Arabs from their homes.

---

"Zionists" are in hot pursuit? Hardly!

 

"Ethnic Cleansing?" No Way!

 

Widespread Massacres? Not a chance!

---

Even more pertinent: No Arab spokesman made such a charge. At the height of the flight, the Palestinian Arabs' chief representative at the United Nations, Jamal Husseini, made a long political statement (on April 27) that was not lacking in hostility toward the Zionists; he did not mention refugees. Three weeks later (while the flight was still in progress) the secretary-general of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, made a fiercely worded political statement on Palestine; it contained not a word about refugees.

Why did they leave? Monsignor George Hakim, then Greek Catholic bishop of Galilee, the leading Christian personality in Palestine for many years, told a Beirut newspaper, Sada al-Janub, in the summer of 1948: "The refugees were confident that their absence would not last long, and that they would return within a week or two. Their leaders had promised them that the Arab armies would crush the `Zionist gangs' very quickly, and that there was no need for panic or fear of a long exile."

The initiative for the flight was indeed no secret. One of the famous American newspapermen of the time, Kenneth Bilby, who had covered Palestine for years, explained the Arab leaders' rationale for the flight in his book New Star in the East, published in 1950:  "Let the Arabs flee into neighboring countries. It would serve to arouse the other Arab countries to greater effort, and when the Arab invasion struck the Palestinians could return to their homes and be compensated with the property of Jews driven into the sea."

There is also the piquant report in the files of the British police at Haifa, of how the leaders of the Jewish community pleaded with the leaders of the Arab community not to leave Haifa, and how the Arabs refused. There is too, in the annals of the UN Security Council, a speech by Jamal Husseini heaping praise on the Arabs of Haifa for refusing to stay put and insisting adamantly on leaving their homes. The British police then kindly provided transport and helped the Haifa Arabs across the Lebanese and Transjordanian borders.

When, four months after the invasion, the prospect of the flightlings' retuning "in a few weeks" had faded, there were some recriminations. Emil Ghoury, a member of the Palestinian Arabs' national leadership, said in an interview with the Beirut newspaper, Daily Telegraph: "I don't want to impugn anybody, but only to help the refugees. The fact that there are these refugees is the direct consequence of the action of the Arab states in opposing partition and the Jewish state.

"The Arab states agreed upon this policy unanimously, and they must share in the solution of the problem."

The policy adopted inside the country was emphasized by the leaders of the invasion. The prime minister of Iraq, Nuri Said, thundered: "We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews seek shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died down."

One of the Arabs who fled later succinctly summarized the story of the refugees in the Jordanian newspaper Al-Difaa: "The Arab governments told us: Get out so that we can get in. So we got out, but they did not get in."

Later, after the fighting began, many Arab villagers who believed the false rumors of a massacre at the village of Deir Yassin "panicked and fled ignominiously before they were threatened by the progress of the war." So wrote the British general Sir John Glubb, who commanded the Transjordanian army. Throughout the war there were two incidents - at Ramle and Lod - in which a number of Arab civilians were driven out of their homes by Israeli soldiers.

The total number of Arabs who evacuated, even according to the British Mandate's statistics, could not have been more than 420,000. This figure conforms roughly also to the figure published from Arab sources, and by the UN.

The central, horribly cruel fact is that the Arab states - who had brought about their plight - denied them residence rights; and the idea was born that they should be left in camps and used as a weapon for Israel's destruction. "The return of the refugees," said president Nasser of Egypt years later, "will mean the end of Israel."

It was in the immediate aftermath of the war that the refugee scam was developed into an international operation. As soon as the UN Disaster Relief Organization started providing food, shelter, clothing and medical attention to the Arabs who had fled Palestine, a mass of needy Arabs descended on the camps from all over the Arab states. The organization had no machinery for identification; so the arrivals simply signed the register as refugees and received the free aid.

Already in December 1948, the director of the Relief Organization, Sir Rafael Cilento, reported he was feeding 750,000 "refugees." By July 1949 the UN reported a round million.

The Red Cross International Committee joined the party. It pressed for the recognition of any destitute Arab in Palestine as a refugee. Thus about 100,000 were added to the list.

To add a touch of mordant humor, the Red Cross authority wrote about the additional people that: "It would be senseless to force them to abandon their homes to be able to get food as refugees."

So these people stayed at home, received their free services there, and were added to the rolls of the refugees.

Thus - and by other more expectable means of humanistic falsification we have, in the third generation, a large amorphous mass of Arabs, all of them comfortably lumped together in official UN lists as Arab refugees, described as "victims of Israeli aggression" and demanding the right of "return."

While everybody in Israel has rejected the Arab demand for accepting the return of the "refugees," the government has not rejected the idea that if negotiations for a settlement take place the problem of the refugees will be discussed. Moreover, there has been talk of "compensation" by Israel.

There have even been voices suggesting the return of a "symbolic few" of the refugees. Israel must, from the outset and forever, unequivocally reject such ideas.

 

Just Say "No!"

 

Once and for all, Israel must remind whoever has to be reminded that the responsibility for the displaced Arabs lies wholly and absolutely on the shoulders of the Arab states. Their utterly unprovoked invasion of the territory of Israel in May 1948 was a crime.

 

Its declared intent was a crime. Six thousand Israel citizens were killed in that war, and thousands of others were injured. It was the Arab states that called on the Arab population to evacuate, all in order to facilitate accomplishment of their evil purpose.

 

It is a hutzpa of historical dimensions and significance to ask Israel to even discuss giving an inch or paying a penny of the price of the refugee problem. And it is dangerous for any Israeli spokesman to even agree to take part in any discussion of the subject - at any forum or in any context whatsoever.

 

Indeed, the Israeli government should long ago have declared - but even now it is not too late: "We shall not participate in any discussion of the so-called refugee problem. This is a problem the Arab nation must solve for itself in its own spacious territories."

 

 

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

 

Middle East still not ready for democracy.

 

by Barry Rubin

 

Democracy is a great idea; open elections are ideally the best way to choose governments; dialogue with everyone is wonderful in theory. But in the Middle East, unfortunately, as a policy this would be a disaster.

It is not Western policy but local conditions which are going to determine whether there will be democracy in the Arabic-speaking world. In my book, The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), I analyze both the debate and the existing groups. The assessment must be pessimistic.

Would we like to see liberal democracy and moderation prevail with rising living standards and more freedom? Of course, but the real question is what effect certain policies would have.

The Western debate gets stranger and stranger. Among the policymaking classes, there's a prevailing view that the Bush administration was a disaster. The rather misleading description for those who advocated a US policy of promoting democracy and overthrowing dictators — "neo-conservative" — has become among such people a curse word implying stupid and evil.

Why, then, does the debate seem to be between those who now run most Western governments and want to engage with the worst, most dangerous extremists and those who want to promote democracy by opening up the political process to the... worst, most dangerous extremists?

 

WHATEVER BECAME of good old-fashioned realism, the breakfast of champions in diplomacy for centuries? Realism, a term that has been hijacked lately far more than Islam, means to base a policy on the actually existing situation rather than one's wish-list, building alliances on the basis of common interests. It does not mean embracing your worst enemies while kicking those with common interests in the groin. Nor does it mean acting like the nerdy kid groveling in the hope that it will make the popular guys like him. And it also doesn't mean ignoring adversaries' ideologies and goals.

Is it really so hard to understand that US policy should be based on working closely with Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Iraq, Lebanon (moderates, not Iranian-Syrian agents), Saudi Arabia and the smaller Gulf emirates? Is it really so hard to understand that US policy should also be based on combating Iran, Syria, Sudan, Hizbullah, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhoods, as well as al-Qaida?

We saw what happened in Iran after experts predicted in 1978 that anything would be better than the shah and that moderates would inevitably prevail.

We saw what happened with the Palestinian elections, for while Fatah was no prize, Hamas is far worse and eager for bloodshed. We are about to see what will happen with Lebanese elections which are nominally democratic but influenced by Iranian-Syrian money and intimidation, as a government emerges likely to lead Lebanon into the Iranian bloc.

In Turkey, the several-times-elected AK regime, although still presented internationally as a model moderate Muslim government, is engaged in systematically Islamizing institutions and taking the country down a road leading closer to Teheran than to Washington.

 

I DO NOT LIKE saying this because I know many courageous liberal dissidents and would like them to win. US and Western policy should always press for their rights, against their imprisonment.

But why should the United States pursue a policy that we have every reason to believe will be catastrophic: namely, pushing for a situation in which radical Islamists are more likely to take over.

Examples have been given of people who might be expected to be liberal preferring to back Islamist parties. But Egypt is virtually the only place this seems to be happening. Elsewhere, people who might be expected to be liberal are supporting the existing regimes out of fear of Islamists. I think that Egypt is a misleading case for that reason. And in Egypt, the leading "liberal" group has now been taken over by the Muslim Brotherhood and spouts a very radical anti-American line.

Do we really want to contribute to subverting the Egyptian regime, with all its faults, and making the Brotherhood more powerful? The reaction is arrogance on the part of the radicals and despair among the moderates. The liberals conclude, you hear this all the time in Turkey, that America wants the Islamists to win.

I don't prefer this situation. I don't like it. But in a world where Islamists seek to overthrow nationalists, in which an Iranian-Syrian led alliance is trying to gain hegemony in much of the region, I feel that Western policy needs to back the regimes against the revolutionaries.

There are some ethnic or religious communities which have an interest in supporting a moderate democratic approach. At present, this includes Iraqi Kurds and Shi'ites; Lebanese Sunni Arabs, Christians and Druse; and the Berbers of the Maghreb. These are, however, special cases.

There are also very systematic campaigns to fool well-intentioned, gullible Westerners. These are often carried out by having moderate statements in English directed to a foreign audience and revolutionary extremist ones in Arabic directed at one's own society. The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has created a very nicely done English-language Web site that would make it seem the organization is something between the Democratic Party and the March of Dimes.

If the West engages with Hamas, Hizbullah and the Muslim Brotherhoods, while working to create a situation in which these groups can compete for power more effectively, the results will be disastrous both for the West and for the Arabs who become victims of the resulting Islamist regimes. No argument, no matter how sincerely heartfelt or superficially clever, alters that fact. That is a tragedy, but in policy terms it is also a necessity to deal with the reality of Middle East polities and societies.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, Interdisciplinary Center, and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs. His latest book is "The Truth About  Syria".

 

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

 

Iran targets the US.

 

by  Yoram Ettinger

The prevention of a nuclear Iran constitutes a top US national security priority. It sheds light on a special aspect of US-Israel relationship: defiance of mutual threats.

Iran pursues nuclear capabilities to advance strategic goals, which are led by the super-goal: hegemony over the Persian Gulf and its natural resources. Those who undermine the super-goal are considered super-enemies, targeted by super-capabilities. Hence, Teheran would use its nuclear power/threat, first and foremost, to force the US and NATO out of the Gulf and the Indian Ocean. It would then turn it against Iraq - its arch rival since the seventh century - and against Saudi Arabia, which is considered an apostate regime. All Gulf states are perceived by Iran as a key prize, required in order to control the flow and the price of oil and to bankroll its megalomaniac regional and global aspirations (e.g. leading Islam's drive to dominate the globe).

The Jewish state constitutes a non-Gulf basin target for Iran, not a primary target. Moreover, Israel is expected to retaliate in a traumatic manner, which would paralyze much of Iran's military and civilian infrastructure. Therefore, Iran would not sacrifice its super-goal (forcing the US out of the Gulf and subjugating the Gulf states) on the altar of a secondary-goal (obliterating the Jewish state).

For the US and Israel, the preferred option against Iran is preemption rather than retaliation. Recent precedents suggest that the two countries benefit from leveraging each other's unique experience, as well as from bold unilateral military action against rogue threats.

In September 2007, the IAF destroyed a Syrian-North Korean nuclear plant, extending the US's strategic arm. It provided the US with vital information on Russian air defense systems, which are also employed by Iran. It bolstered the US posture of deterrence and refuted the claim that US-Israel relations have been shaped by political expediency.

In 1981, Israel destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor, providing the US with a conventional option in 1991 and 2003, preventing a mega-billion dollar, mega-casualty nuclear war. In 1970, while the US was bogged down in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, Israel forced the rollback of a pro-Soviet Syrian invasion of pro-US Jordan. It prevented a pro-Soviet "domino effect" into the Persian Gulf, which would have shattered US economy.

In 2009, Israel shares with the US its battle-tested experience in combating Palestinian and Hizbullah terrorism, which are the role model of anti-US Islamic terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan. US GIs benefit from Israel's battle tactics against car bombs, improvised explosive devices and homicide bombing. An Israel-like ally in the Persian Gulf would have spared the need to dispatch US troops to Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

Former Secretary of State and NATO commander Alexander Haig refers to the Jewish state as the largest cost-effective, combat-experienced US aircraft carrier that does not require US personnel, cannot be sunk and is located in a most critical region for US national security interests.

While the US has been Israel's indispensable ally, Israel's battle experience has been integrated into the US defense industry. For example, the F-16 includes more than 600 Israeli modifications, sparing the US a mega-billion dollar and a multi-year research and development budget. A litany of state-of-the-art US military systems have been upgraded in a similar manner, enhancing US national and homeland security and expanding US employment and exports.

Iran's nuclear threat is a symptom of endemic Middle East violent unpredictability and Muslim hostility toward Western democracies. It calls for an upgraded US-Israel win-win relationship, which requires a strong Israel as a national security producer. A weak Israel, pushed into a nine-15 mile sliver along the Mediterranean, pressured to concede the mountain ridges of Judea, Samaria and the Golan Heights, relying on foreign troops and guarantees, would become a national security consumer. It would be a burden rather than an asset to the US in a bad neighborhood, which is crucial for vital US interests.

Iran would benefit from an ineffective Israel. However, the US would have to deploy to the eastern flank of the Mediterranean real aircraft carriers and tens of thousands of US servicemen, costing scores of billions of dollars annually, denied the benefits of Israel - the largest US aircraft carrier, which does not require a single US sailor.

 

 

Yoram Ettinger

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

 

 

An Arab-Made Misery.

 

by Nonie Darwish

International donors pledged almost $4.5 billion in aid for Gaza earlier this month. It has been very painful for me to witness over the past few years the deteriorating humanitarian situation in that narrow strip where I lived as a child in the 1950s.

The media tend to attribute Gaza's decline solely to Israeli military and economic actions against Hamas. But such a myopic analysis ignores the problem's root cause: 60 years of Arab policy aimed at cementing the Palestinian people's status as stateless refugees in order to use their suffering as a weapon against Israel.

As a child in Gaza in the 1950s, I experienced the early results of this policy. Egypt, which then controlled the territory, conducted guerrilla-style operations against Israel from Gaza. My father commanded these operations, carried out by Palestinian fedayeen, Arabic for "self-sacrifice." Back then, Gaza was already the front line of the Arab jihad against Israel. My father was assassinated by Israeli forces in 1956.

It was in those years that the Arab League started its Palestinian refugee policy. Arab countries implemented special laws designed to make it impossible to integrate the Palestinian refugees from the 1948 Arab war against Israel. Even descendants of Palestinian refugees who are born in another Arab country and live there their entire lives can never gain that country's passport. Even if they marry a citizen of an Arab country, they cannot become citizens of their spouse's country. They must remain "Palestinian" even though they may have never set foot in the West Bank or Gaza.

This policy of forcing a Palestinian identity on these people for eternity and condemning them to a miserable life in a refugee camp was designed to perpetuate and exacerbate the Palestinian refugee crisis.

So was the Arab policy of overpopulating Gaza. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, whose main political support comes from Arab countries, encourages high birth rates by rewarding families with many children. Yasser Arafat said the Palestinian woman's womb was his best weapon.

Arab countries always push for classifying as many Palestinians as possible as "refugees." As a result, about one-third of the Palestinians in Gaza still live in refugee camps. For 60 years, Palestinians have been used and abused by Arab regimes and Palestinian terrorists in their fight against Israel.

Now it is Hamas, an Islamist terror organization supported by Iran, which is using and abusing Palestinians for this purpose. While Hamas leaders hid in the well-stocked bunkers and tunnels they prepared before they provoked Israel into attacking them, Palestinian civilians were exposed and caught in the deadly crossfire between Hamas and Israeli soldiers.

As a result of 60 years of this Arab policy, Gaza has become a prison camp for 1.5 million Palestinians. Both Israel and Egypt are fearful of terrorist infiltration from Gaza -- all the more so since Hamas took over -- and have always maintained tight controls over their borders with Gaza. The Palestinians continue to endure hardships because Gaza continues to serve as the launching pad for terror attacks against Israeli citizens. Those attacks come in the form of Hamas missiles that indiscriminately target Israeli kindergartens, homes and businesses.

And Hamas continued these attacks more than two years after Israel withdrew from Gaza in the hope that this step would begin the process of building a Palestinian state, eventually leading to a peaceful, two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There was no "cycle of violence" then, no justification for anything other than peace and prosperity. But instead, Hamas chose Islamic jihad. Gazans' and Israelis' hopes have been met with misery for Palestinians and missiles for Israelis.

Hamas, an Iran proxy, has become a danger not only to Israel, but also to Palestinians as well as to neighboring Arab states, who fear the spread of radical Islam could destabilize their countries.

Arabs claim they love the Palestinian people, but they seem more interested in sacrificing them. If they really loved their Palestinian brethren, they'd pressure Hamas to stop firing missiles at Israel. In the longer term, the Arab world must end the Palestinians' refugee status and thereby their desire to harm Israel. It's time for the 22 Arab countries to open their borders and absorb the Palestinians of Gaza who wish to start a new life. It is time for the Arab world to truly help the Palestinians, not use them.

 

 

Mrs. Darwish, who grew up in Gaza City and Cairo, is the author, most recently, of "Cruel and Usual Punishment," (Thomas Nelson, 2009).

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

 

Why Palestinians Prefer Hamas.

 

by Khaled Abu Toameh

The Americans and Europeans have poured billions of dollars on the Palestinian Authority in the past three years with the hope of "empowering the moderates and undermining the radicals" among the Palestinians.

The move came in the aftermath of Hamas's rise to power in the January 2006 parliamentary election and its subsequent takeover of the entire Gaza Strip a year later.

The hope in Washington and a number of European capitals was that the money invested in West Bank areas that are under the control of the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority would dissuade the Palestinians from supporting Hamas.

But this week the international community was once again reminded that the policy of financing moderates with the goal of undermining radicals is no longer relevant in this part of the world.

The latest public opinion polls published in the West Bank and Gaza Strip show that Hamas's popularity has sharply increased despite the transfer of funds to Mahmoud Abbas's authority.

According to the polls, a majority of Palestinians prefer Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh over Abbas and would vote for him if elections were held these days in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

How come the billions of dollars haven't persuaded the Palestinians that Fatah is better than Hamas?

And how is it that a majority of Palestinians continue to support Hamas despite the miseries and disasters that the Islamic movement has brought on them?

There are several reasons why Hamas's popularity is on the rise.

The first reason is the anti-Israel incitement in the Palestinian media in particular and the Arab media in general, as well as in the mosques and educational institutions. This is in addition to the fiery rhetoric of Palestinian spokesmen - from both Fatah and Hamas.

The money coming mostly from the Americans and Europeans cannot have a moderating effect on the Palestinians when they are being told, on a daily basis, that Israel is evil, does not want peace and should not be allowed to exist in the Middle East.

The second reason why a majority of Palestinians continue to back Hamas can be attributed to the fact that they do not see Fatah as a viable alternative.

Fatah lost the 2006 election largely because of its leaders' financial corruption and incompetence. Since then, it has failed to implement real reforms or get rid of former Yasser Arafat cronies and icons of financial corruption and mismanagement.

Nor has Fatah drawn the conclusions from its expulsion from the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007. Fatah should have embarked on a soul-searching process to find out why its men ran away from the Gaza Strip in 2007, handing the area to Hamas. No one in Fatah has paid a price for this blunder.

Fatah leaders have been so busy squabbling with each other that they cannot even agree on a date to hold the internal elections that may pave the way for the emergence of a new leadership. The last time Fatah held such elections was 20 years ago.

Why should any Palestinian vote again for the same Fatah people whom he voted out three years ago if they have not changed or learned from their mistakes?

The third reason for Hamas's growing popularity is the Americans' public support for Fatah. The more the Americans and Israelis embrace Fatah, the more they discredit the faction in the eyes of many Palestinians.

As far as many Palestinians are concerned, the Americans are not honest brokers because, they argue, the US remains completely biased in favor of Israel.

US meddling in Palestinian affairs is the fourth reason behind Hamas's increased popularity. The biggest mistake that the Americans made after Hamas won the 2006 election was to go the Fatah people who lost the vote and give them money and weapons so that they could bring down the Hamas regime.

For nearly 18 months, Fatah, backed by the US and other European countries, tried to undermine the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip. These attempts served as a boomerang, further boosting Hamas's standing. In the end, not only did Fatah fail, but it was kicked out of the Gaza Strip.

Many Palestinians continue to sympathize with Hamas because they see the movement as a victim of a US-led conspiracy to bring down a democratically-elected government. For these Palestinians, the last war in the Gaza Strip was launched in the context of this conspiracy and not in response to the firing of rockets and mortars at Israel.

Finally, the latest efforts by Fatah to form a joint government with Hamas are seen by many Palestinians as evidence that the Islamic movement is a legitimate and important player in the region. The way these Palestinians see it is that Fatah and its leaders are now begging Hamas to accept the idea of a unity government after having failed to get rid of the movement or undermine its power.

If anything, the results of the public opinion polls show that, more than 15 years after the beginning of the peace process between Israel and the PLO, there is still a majority of Palestinians who support Hamas and its radical ideology. The results also show that a majority of Palestinians are still not prepared to make far-reaching concessions for the sake of a peace treaty with Israel.

The notion that economic prosperity and "bribes" can buy moderation has again proved to be untrue. American and European money will never turn the Palestinians into Israel-lovers. The change has to come from the Palestinians themselves. Ironically, with the help of the American and European funding, the Palestinians have raised an entire generation on the glorification of suicide bombers and hatred for Israel and Western values.

 

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

 

AMERICA 'MOVES TOWARDS ABANDONMENT OF ISRAEL'

 

IsraelNN Staff

 

An unnamed former highly-placed U.S.intelligence official has broken silence and says that America may soon be abandoning Israel in favor of the Arabs. "This is just the beginning", he said, "Israel could be about to lose the support of the United States."

 

The source made these remarks in an exclusive interview with Douglas J. Hagmann, the director of the Northeast Intelligence Network, which is comprised of veteran licensed professional investigators, analysts, military affairs specialists and researchers. The group has combined their resources to provide accurate and well-sourced information via their website.

 

 Hagmann appeared on Israel National Radio's Weekend Edition with host Tamar Yonah. When questioned about the possible abandonment of Israel by America, Hagmann told Yonah, "The Obama administration is no friend to Israel, is no friend to the Jews in America and is no friend to democracy or freedom in America.  .Just by his very appointments, we can see him filling positions of power with people who are anti-Semitic, who want to see Israel essentially dissolved as a nation, if not by diplomacy, then certainly by war."

 

 In his report, the unnamed intelligence source told Hagmann, "I have every reason to believe, based on what I've seen at my level of [security] clearance especially over the last several years, that Israel will soon be completely on their own. or worse." He explained this would happen "when our administration provides more support to Arab countries [with] financial and military aid, undercutting Israel's defense efforts all while pushing Israel to succumb to the pressure of unreasonable demands designed to end with their political annihilation as a nation."  

 

 Haggman told Yonah that this official broke silence because he had already retired from his highly placed position, and because of his knowledge of the NIN's (Northeast Intelligence Network) position as pro-Israel and the way it valued the relationship between Israel and America. Another reason, he said, was his own perception of the Biblical aspect of this scenario developing.

 

 The intelligence officer explained that the  turnover of American policy towards Israel could occur through a manner that he dubbed 'malicious intelligence," which Haggman defined as information that is taken from its raw form. I then is morphed into something else to promote different interests, "where intelligence and politics meet and often collide," he said.  A method "that has been molded and massaged to advance the agendas of a select few," he elaborated.

 

 In the case of the relationship between America and Israel, he noted, malicious intelligence is being used to turn over the U.S. to a more anti-Israel policy and forge ahead with a more pro-PA or pro-Islamist one.  

 

 Hagmann told Yonah in the radio interview, "A perfect example of this is when there was a shooting in Seattle a couple of years ago at a Jewish center. The police were ordered by the city officials and by the Federal Government, basically, to not protect the synagogues and other Jewish centers in Seattle, but to have protection details [instead] at the mosques in Seattle."

 

 U.S. administrations have apparently been following a policy of abandoning Israel for several years, according to Hagmann's report.  His interview with the intelligence official cited "the 2005 surrender of Gush Katif to the Palestinian Authority as one critical example of the slow dismantlement of Israel as a viable nation. Despite critical intelligence outlining in every possible manner imaginable that this would be a disastrous move leading to the events we are seeing today [rocket and missile fire on Israel], it was done anyway," he stated.

 

 In the report that Hagmann posted on the NIN (Northeast Intelligence Network) he cited one of his sources explaining,  "Now you can see where intelligence and politics meet and often collide,. " the Obama administration is being purposely filled with people who are truly anti-Israel, either because of their own financial interests or a larger globalist agenda that does not  include Israel, or for that matter, the United States as a sovereign nation. 

 

 "Whatever the reason, the anti-Israel, pro-Islamist policy makers will be appointed or have already infiltrated nearly all levels of the U.S. government. These are the people who place anti-Semitic references in school textbooks, promote revisionist history regarding Islam, 9/11, and are the same people who allow or even promote the Islamic agendas in all aspects of Western society, especially the restrictions on speech against Islam. 

 

 "With regard to the latter, note that the United Nations is quite involved in forcing the restriction of "hate speech" and the implementation of global standards, some that have already been adapted by European nations," noted the source.  

 

Hagmann reports that "the Middle East will be the site of 'the coming war,' and Israel will be at its epicenter. If we survive as a nation, the U.S. will not be on the side of righteousness in this war, instead turning our back to - or our guns against - our only true friend in the Middle East - Israel," he said.

 

Israel - a challenge to Islam?

 

 

Judging by their behavior, Muslims are anti-West, anti-Democracy, anti-Christian, anti-Buddhist, and anti-Hindu but even more they hate Jews. Muslims are involved in 25 of some 30 conflicts going on in the world: in Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, Cyprus, East Timor, India, Indonesia (2 provinces), Kashmir, Kazakastan, Kosovo, Kurdistan, Macedonia, the Middle East, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Somalia, Sudan, Russia-Chechnya, Tajikistan, Thailand, Uganda and Uzbekistan. But why do Muslims hate Jews? In the Islamic view, Islam came into the world to replace Judaism and Christianity, not to live side by side with them. And here, all of a sudden, the Jews are coming from exile and building their state again and G-d forbid they also regained Jerusalem." Judaism is thus regaining its meaning, and Islam is challenged by this, the Bar-Ilan professor Kedar explained. "The mere existence of the State of Israel and the fact that we are in Jerusalem is some kind of challenge to the legitimacy of Islam in their eyes".

To mesure the level of Muslim hate towards Jews just open :

http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/2042.htm

 

Consult also :

http://israelagainstterror.blogspot.com/2009/01/terrible-shame.html

 

 

Muslim Strategies to Convert Western Christians. Part I

 

by Uriya Shavit and Frederic Wiesenbach

 

1^st part of 2

The conversion of Christians in Europe and the United States to Islam has become a matter of debate in some Western countries. Muslim scholars have called on immigrant Muslims to become involved in summoning non-Muslims to their faith. Indeed, the call on Muslim migrants to proselytize has become central in contemporary Islamic writings, not only in books, but also in sermons—many online on YouTube—and others on DVDs, and Islamic websites. The strategies that the global Islamic media uses to promote conversion of Christians to Islam illustrate both the perceptions of Islamists and can expose themes to defend and promote in cultural and public diplomacy.

 

Background

The history of Muslim-Christian relations is to some extent that of two civilizations championing a universalistic message and competing for world domination. In the early phases of this struggle, as demonstrated by Bernard Lewis, Islam was more tolerant: In Muslim lands conquered by Christians, Christianity was imposed by force, and Muslims were sooner or later forced to choose between conversion, exile, and death; in Christian lands conquered by Muslims, Christians were tolerated alongside Jews as "People of the Book." One reason for this difference in attitude was that Muslims considered Christ a precursor while Christians considered Muhammad an impostor. In Muslim eyes, Christianity had some truth in it; in Christian eyes, Islam was completely false.[1] Today, the balance of tolerance has dramatically reversed: In the West, freedom of religion allows for people of all faiths to convince others that theirs is the one and only truth; on the other hand, in some Muslim societies, non-Muslims are prosecuted, and promotion of other religions is a punishable offense.

Exact data on the number of converts to Islam in the West is incomplete because conversions are not always recorded. While the data do not suggest a massive wave of new believers, there are enough to matter. In Germany, statisticians estimated that several thousand Christians convert to Islam every year.[2] In Spain, the number of converts reached around 20,000 in 2006,[3] and in the United Kingdom, perhaps 14,000 had converted by 2006.[4] In the United States, perhaps 20,000 to 25,000 people a year convert to Islam. The number of converts significantly increased in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attack, although it is not yet certain that the conversion surge in the United States has continued.[5]

While the data do not suggest that conversions can fundamentally change existing European demographics, they do highlight the challenge of conflicting values for Western democracies. Freedom of religion guarantees every person the right to convince or be convinced that a different faith than his own is true; however, some Muslim converts reject the very liberal foundations that allow them to operate freely. And the same Muslims who accept conversions to their faith may not accept conversion away from it. When even a very small percentage of converts to Islam turn fanatic, there is a very real security risk, not only in the state of residence but also in every country with which that state enjoys reciprocal visa-free travel. Indeed, this is a major reason why the U.S. Department of Homeland Security now requests pre-screening even for travelers from countries not requiring visas prior to travel to the United States.[6]

 

Immigration for Proselytization

Many Sunni scholars urge their co-religionists in the West to spread the word of God actively. The call to convert, which increased along with the number of permanent Muslim immigrants to Europe, is part of a larger framework of identity and duties constructed by Sunni religious scholars in the Arab world since the 1970s. Islamic scholars found that to ban or ignore mass Muslim migration would only alienate immigrants. Instead, they focused on strengthening the immigrants' Muslim identity while using them in the service of Islam. They called upon Muslim immigrants to consider themselves part of a global Muslim nation; to legitimize their presence in non-Muslim lands by acting as ideal Muslims; to build Muslim institutions such as mosques and charity organizations; to serve the political interests of Muslims worldwide; and to proselytize.[7]

Writing about the "duties of Muslims living in the West," Egyptian-born Yusuf al-Qaradhawi, perhaps the most influential contemporary Sunni jurist, wrote:

Muslims in the West ought to be sincere callers to their religion. They should keep in mind that calling others to Islam is not only restricted to scholars and sheikhs, but it goes far to encompass every committed Muslim. As we see scholars and sheikhs delivering khutbas [sermons] and lectures, writing books to defend Islam, it is no wonder to find lay Muslims practicing da'wa [spreading Islam] while employing wisdom and fair exhortation.[8]

Muhammad al-Ghazali (1917-96), a renowned Egyptian religious scholar, a leading figure in the Muslim Brotherhood movement and the head of da'wa for Egypt's ministry of religious endowments, expressed the hope that the hundreds of thousands of Muslim immigrants "will not only maintain their religion, but become pioneers in spreading it, if only the Muslim umma (nation) wished for that and worked for that to happen."[9]

Hamdi Hassan, a professor of media studies at al-Azhar University in Cairo, wrote that the Muslim presence in Europe is an example of Muslim proselytizing turning from the defensive mode that characterized it during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to a new mode of expansion.[10]

In Saudi writings, these notions of proselytizing acquire a militant, confrontational tone. One source of these writings is the Saudi scholar Safr al-Hawali, who has invoked the need to conquer the West with da'wa, using terms unequivocal in their combativeness:

And if one would ask: Why should we not invade Korea and Japan [as the Muslims have] human resources for da'wa? … to this someone else would answer: No, we should direct [the human resources for da'wa] to Europe and America. Who is right? The one who says the West. Why? Because [the West] is the enemy whose depth we must penetrate … It is the enemy who will attack us and is more dangerous to us.[11]

The call on Muslim immigrants to Islamize Westerners finds resonance in some works by Western Muslims. Muhammad al-Qadi al-'Umrani is a Sunni Muslim living in the Netherlands, who wrote a Ph.D. dissertation at King Muhammad I University in Morocco on migration. He invokes the conversion of "a considerable number of Westerners" to Islam as one positive result of migration and contends that migration for the purposes of commerce and da'wa has been proven throughout history to be a constructive contribution to the spread of Islam.[12]

 

Islamic Internet Proselytizing

Internet sites operated by Muslim scholars and organizations play an important role in encouraging the conversion of Christians. This role is part of an embrace and use of the Internet as a medium in the service of Islam. While policymakers have focused most attention in recent years on jihadi websites, these attract comparatively little traffic.[13] While the most widely viewed Islamic websites are not jihadi, they do, nonetheless, often include hateful depictions of the West.

Muslim scholars traditionally reacted to new technologies—especially those developed in the West—with skepticism, fearing that such new innovations could bring more harm than good to Muslims. Printing machines entered the Ottoman Empire three centuries after they were first introduced in Europe. Scholars regarded them as bid'a, an unlawful innovation, and it took the Napoleonic conquest of Egypt in 1798 to allow acknowledgment of their merit. While liberalizing forms of interpretation have allowed more flexible approaches for some Muslim scholars since the late nineteenth century, this has not been the case in Saudi Arabia. During the 1920s, Saudi scholars protested King 'Abd al-'Aziz Ibn Saud's decision to use wireless communication, claiming it was devilish.[14] The introduction of television broadcasts in the 1960s also caused outrage.

The attitude towards the Internet has proved quite different. Even the strictest Wahhabi scholars have legitimized the Internet—and launched their personal websites. Clerics understand that the Internet is a crucial arena in the fight for the souls and minds of the younger generation, and also that the Internet can be better controlled and screened compared to other media technologies. Using the Internet for Islamic purposes was not only permitted by scholars, even strict Wahhabi ones, but even encouraged.

Ja'far Sheikh Idris, a Sudanese professor of theology, wrote in 1999 that new technologies allow Muslims to spread da'wa more easily and are, indeed, proof that Islam is the true religion (for only God could have known fourteen centuries ago that the day would come when the world would turn into one global village, needing only one global prophet—Muhammad). However, these new technologies also allow non-Muslims to do the same with their ideas; indeed, at this point in time, the West enjoys better capabilities in making use of these technologies and might weaken Muslims' beliefs through them. But these risks, argued Idris, do not deny the merits of the Internet; they only emphasize the need for Muslims to further utilize these technologies in the service of Islam.[15]

 

Analyzing Convert Narrations

Some Internet sites created by Muslim scholars and organizations reserve significant space for literature on Christians converting to Islam. Conversion efforts are promoted also by print media,[16] books,[17] and DVDs,[18] but the Internet shines as an especially effective medium.[19]

Islamic Internet sites promote conversion in several ways: basic introductions to Islam; basic information for non-Muslims who wish to convert; news celebrating Islam as the world's and the West's fastest growing religion; and guides instructing Muslims in the West on how to bring others to Islam. Such guidelines are at times detailed and have the ring of marketing expertise.

A key method Internet sites use to promote conversions is through the testimonies of former Christians who have converted to Islam. Perhaps the most famous conversion narrative is The Autobiography of Malcolm X, the American black nationalist, who described his early life as one of gambling, doing drugs, and dating many women amid crime-ridden neighborhoods in Boston. After conversion, he headed the Nation of Islam and then, after pilgrimage to Mecca, found true Islam. What the Internet has done is replicate and mass produce the genre, allowing Islamists to bombard the audience with narratives, each with enough variation in personal stories so as to allow a greater opportunity for readers to identify with one narrative or another.

These narratives play a dual role: To a potential non-Muslim audience, they serve as apologia celebrating different aspects of Islam's superiority over Christianity. They aim to prove that any difficulties faced during the process of conversion may be overcome. The other role narratives play is to reassure Muslims that their religion is the true one and to educate them on tactics of persuasion in bringing non-Muslims to Islam.

A connecting thread for many narratives on conversion, suggested directly or indirectly, is the concept of reversion: the idea that everyone is born in a natural state of Islam—a state of submission to the will of God—which is corrupted by family and society and that rather than converting away from something, coming to accept Islam is reverting to that original human state.[20] The way to Islam is thus depicted as natural, almost obvious, rather than rebellious or exotic.

 

Strategies of Persuasion

It is one thing to make conversion a goal. It is quite another to fulfill it. Studies on conversion to Christian sects found that only one of a thousand approaches by proselytizers resulted in conversion.[21] Eighty narratives of converts to Islam appearing on the most widely-accessed global Muslim Internet sites and two other Islamic web sites of lesser popularity, analyzed for the purpose of this study, demonstrate several arguments and strategies. While it is difficult to quantify narratives as they appear continuously, they do not differ significantly, and these eighty are representative.

There are several Islamic interest web portals involved in catalyzing conversion, among other activities. Islamway.com, launched in August 1998, is the world's most popular Islamic website, according to the web traffic-ranking company, Alexa.com,[22] and offers content mainly in Arabic and in English from the 'Asir region in southern Saudi Arabia. Its vast fatwa (religious edict) bank suggests it is dominated by the Wahhabi school. IslamOnline.net, one of the world's most popular Muslim websites, launched in June 1997 and offers content in Arabic and in English. Yusuf al-Qaradhawi serves as head of the supervising committee. The Islamic Garden, launched in March 2001 and operating from Cairo, is a basic English-language site focusing on introductory contents; and diewahrereligion.de, a German-language site operating from Cologne, associated with the mass-converter Pierre Vogel, who studied Islam in Saudi Arabia, has some resonance with young German Muslims.

The narratives associated with these four websites divide generally into three sections. First, the narrator explains why he was discontent with Christianity or with his life in general; then, he depicts how he first came to learn about Islam; and, finally, he glorifies the merits of Islam. Narrations seem to depict real life experiences, emotions, and convictions and are rich with biographical details, some of which relate to sensitive personal issues such as crises in marital life. This creates an impression of authenticity and generates empathy, allowing the reader to forget that the confession is part of a larger project to persuade that Islam is a true religion.

Scholars studying conversion find that spiritual poverty is a frequent condition prior to conversion, and a sense of closing the distance to God is the result of embracing a new religion.[23] The online narratives by converts to Islam, much like the autobiography of Malcolm X, reflect this. Converts commonly begin with depictions of the agonizing lives they had before they found Islam. In narrating their religious affiliation prior to conversion, two main story lines are common: that of converts who were Christians either because they were coerced or because of opportunistic consideration, and that of converts who were strictly practicing Christians but developed grave doubts about their faith.

While an uneasy relationship with Christianity varies in its consequences and reasoning, all narrators describe practicing Christianity in their early life as a result of their social background, rather than from a self-made spiritual choice. Asserting the concept that every person is born a Muslim and only society corrupts him serves to rationalize the conversion process. The former relation to Christianity is depicted as having more to do with culture, tradition, and society than with true personal faith.

While secularism, and even atheism, is an option in Western societies, it hardly finds resonance in these narratives. Lacking empirical evidence, it is impossible to determine whether this background of religiosity reflects the overall reality of converts or an editorial decision made by site managers. However, because a wider spectrum of backgrounds would support the claim of these sites regarding Islam's universality, there is reason to believe the common religious background is not an editorial manipulation.

In detailing doubts that clouded them, often from an early age, converts whose relation to Christianity was profound describe how they gradually developed an understanding that Christianity is an inherently irrational religion. They invoke a variety of disagreements with several Christian dogmas: the concept of God as a human being; the concept of the Trinity; the concept of sainthood; and the concept of original sin. Discrepancies in the Old and New Testaments are also mentioned by several narrators.

 

Convert Narratives

On IslamOnline.net, convert Abu Mohammed Abdullah Yousef offers non-Muslims a simple challenge: "You Are a Muslim, You Just Don't Know It Yet." Abu Mohammed describes a post-World War II, English childhood in a strictly Catholic home. Religion was one of his favorite subjects in school, and at the age of eleven, he earned a scholarship for a Jesuit boarding school. However, at school he began to notice "the inconsistencies between what was taught in religious lessons and what was taught in history classes." He could not understand how the infallibility of the pope was commensurate with the changing of old rulings by new popes. [24] Of course, such changing interpretations are not unique to Christianity. Within Shi'i Islam, followers must find new sources of emulation when the Grand Ayatollah whom they follow passes away; this might mandate revision in the interpretation followed. And, of course, while Sunni leaders may not claim infallibility, Sunni scholars dispute among each other the authenticity of hadiths (narratives of the Prophet).

Another depicts Islam as a remedy to the growing secularization of Western life, which Christianity fails to fill. Hayat Anne Collins Osman, an American whose age is not specified, writes in "Could I Speak with God Directly" on IslamOnline.net that she was raised at a time when "Americans were more religious than they are now." Her parents were involved in a church community, and they often invited priests to their home. In junior high school, she attended a Bible study program for many years. However, the more she learned her Bible, the more she doubted it. The idea of original sin did not make sense to her: "I had a baby brother, and I knew that babies were not sinful." The concept of the Trinity also troubled her: "How could God have three parts, one of which was human?"[25]

Converts to Islam describe a range of circumstances for their conversions. They mention hostile Western media portrayals of Islam that encouraged them to further their knowledge; Muslim friends, colleagues, and neighbors who introduced them to Islam; falling in love with Muslims; incidental meetings; and traveling to Muslim countries.

While circumstances differ, four themes are repeated:

First, the converts knew nothing, or almost nothing, about the true foundations of Islam before embracing it.

Second, converts were not drawn to Islam because of any material benefit or social pressure.

Third, narrators present the path to Islam as an individual quest and never as a group experience.

Fourth, converts say that they were introduced to Islam by individual Muslims, most commonly ones without formal religious training but with a simple desire to share the truth with others.

In describing how negative press and social prejudices had the counter-effect of introducing Islam as the true religion, the narratives turn weakness into strength. It is God's will that Islam spreads; thus, attempts to dishonor it in the West are bound only to promote it. Such is the narrative of David Pradarelli, whose age is not mentioned and whose story appears on IslamOnline.net under the title "Finding the Truth." He testifies to having been raised as a Roman Catholic, who always had "deep fascination with the spiritualities of other cultures." Spending some time in the Catholic Franciscan order, Pradarelli was disappointed in what he describes as the order's arrogance and hypocrisy. Once he had left the order, he began searching for a way to find God. Then, "I decided to research Islam for myself and draw my own conclusions. What I found paled all the negative images that the satanic media spewed forth. I found a religion deep in love and spiritual truth, and constant God-mindfulness."[26]

Uriya Shavit and Frederic Wiesenbach

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