Muslim Gangs Enforce Sharia Law in London

by Soeren Kern

"This is not-so-Great Britain, this is a Muslim area. We are vigilantes implementing Islam upon your own necks." — Member, Muslim London Patrol

Muslim gangs have been filmed loitering on streets in London and demanding that passersby conform to Islamic Sharia law.

The self-proclaimed vigilantes, who call themselves Muslim London Patrol, are seen in several videos abusing people for drinking alcohol, for showing too much flesh and for being homosexual.

In one three-and-a-half minute video posted on YouTube on January 17, a number of hooded men are seen repeatedly shouting "this is a Muslim area" towards non-Muslim passers-by.

In the footage, which was shot at night on the weekend of January 12/13 on a mobile phone, in what is believed to be Whitechapel in east London, one gang member is seen telling a young woman who is wearing a short skirt, "you cannot dress like that in a Muslim area, this is a Muslim area."

A few moments later, the vigilantes confront a man carrying a can of beer, telling him "no alcohol is allowed." They then force him to empty out the contents of the can on the sidewalk. One gang member shouts: "Get him to pour it out, pour it out, Muslim area. Alcohol bad. This is a Muslim area. This area is a Muslim area. No drink in this area." He continues: "What this is, is a Muslim Patrol. We are Muslims and we patrol the area. Forbidden … evil. Alcohol is evil. No alcohol. Yes? Have a good day."

A few moments later, the vigilantes accost a woman who, referring to the imposition of Sharia law in the neighborhood exclaims, "I cannot believe it!" The Muslims respond: "We do not care if you believe it or not."

At another point, one gang member admonishes another gang member not to allow non-Muslims to pass along the sidewalk in front of a mosque. He shouts: "You need to control this area and forbid these people from dressing like this and exposing themselves outside the mosque." A few moments later, a gang member accosts two non-Muslims who are passing by. "Remove yourself away from the mosque. Go away now. This is a Muslim area. Muslim patrol. Muslim patrol. Move away from the mosque."

Another Muslim then shouts: "This is democracy, this is freedom, this is secularism, move away from the mosque. We clearly need Islam. Go away and don't come back. Don't come back. Keep your mouth closed."

Next the men then accost a woman passerby. "We do not respect dolls who disobey God, we don't respect them." The woman, stunned, responds, "I am so appalled." The men reply: "We don't care if you are appalled at all." She says: "This is Great Britain." The men reply: "This is not-so-Great Britain, this is a Muslim area. We are vigilantes implementing Islam upon your own necks."

In another video, Muslims are seen harassing a man they perceive to be a homosexual. They aggressively pursue the man and shout at him, "Hello mate, don't you know this is a Muslim area. Why are you dressed like that for." The man responds: "Why are you bothering me." The Muslims respond: "You are walking in a Muslim area dressed like a fag, mate. You need to get out of here." Clearly terrified, the man responds, "I am getting out of here." The Muslims respond, "Get out of here quicker then. You're dirty mate. Admit you're dirty. You're gay, mate. Get out of here, you bloody fag."

The vigilante video follows another clip in which Muslim vigilantes protest against advertisements for push-up bras by High Street retailer H&M. In the three minute video they say: "The Muslims have taken it upon themselves to command the good and forbid the evil and cover up these naked people." They then show a number of advertisements for the product which have been sprayed over and also film themselves pouring petrol over one advertisement and setting it on fire.

In a fourth video, uploaded onto YouTube on January 23, one day after two gang members were arrested by London police, members of Muslim London Patrol are defiant. As the video opens, men are heard shouting, "Allah is the greatest! Islam is here, whether you like it or not. We are here! We are here!" What we need is Islam! What we need is Sharia!"

The video continues: "We are the Muslim Patrol. We are in north London, we are in south London, in east London and west London. We command good and forbid evil. Islam is here in London. [Prime Minister] David Cameron, Mr. Police Officer, whether you like it or not, we will command good and forbid evil. You will never get us. You can go to hell! This is not a Christian country. To hell with Christianity. Isa [Jesus] was a messenger of Allah. Muslim Patrol will never die. Allah is great! Allah is great! We are coming!"

In a January 23 interview with the online newspaper International Business Times, Anjem Choudary, a radical preacher who has long called for Sharia law to be implemented in Britain and other European countries, defended the gang, saying Muslims are simply trying to rid London of prostitution and drunkenness.

According to Choudary, "The practice of Muslims going out and forbidding evil is not new. There is a prevalence of prostitution and drunkenness in London and the police are not dealing with it. The problem is so widespread that I'm not surprised more Muslims are not taking it into their hands. The area [Whitechapel] is a Muslim area so for them to say these things are not allowed is correct. They should be commended for their actions."

He added: "This is a wake-up call for society to ask 'where are we headed?' There is a clash between Islam and liberal democracy in hotspots areas of London."

Choudary has previously led a campaign, known as the Islamic Emirates Project, to turn twelve British cities -- including what he calls "Londonistan" -- into independent Islamic states. The so-called Islamic Emirates would function as autonomous enclaves, ruled by Islamic Sharia law, and operated entirely outside British jurisprudence. 


Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook.

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3555/sharia-law-london

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

Dore Gold: The North African threat to Europe

by Dore Gold

Not long after the French offensive against African jihadists in Mali got underway, a leader of one of the offshoots of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) declared that his organization would "strike at the heart of France." AQIM attacked French embassies and most recently a gas facility in Algeria, where it took hostages. But was it ready to move its war against the West to the territories of the European states as well and thus pose a real threat to their security? 

The fact is that for some time European leaders have been looking at the growth of al-Qaida in North Africa with real concern. After Islamist extremists took control of northern Mali last year, converting it into a terrorist sanctuary, EU heads of state met in Oct. 2012, and issued a statement characterizing the crisis in Mali as "an immediate threat" to Europe itself. French President Francois Hollande said he believed that AQIM was planning to use Mali as a launching pad for an attack on French soil. This month German Chancellor Angela Merkel added her voice to this view of the crisis in Mali, saying that "terrorism in Mali, or in the north of Mali, is a threat not just to Africa but also to Europe." 

French intelligence experts have traced the rise of jihadist forces in Mali and the rest of North Africa. Apparently, Pakistani and Afghan preachers began arriving in 2002-3 in Mali and Niger along with international jihadists who fled Afghanistan after the U.S. intervention drove them out. In other words, the rise of jihadist elements in these African countries was not just a local phenomenon, but rather linked to the original al-Qaida network. 

By 2007, al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb was formed from an extremist offshoot of the Groupe Islamique Armee (GIA) that had fought in the Algerian Civil War in the 1990s. In March 2012, jihadist forces took over the northern two-thirds of Mali, converting it into a new African Afghanistan. Since 2009, the growing jihadi presence in West Africa spilled over into Mali's neighbor, Niger, which also happens to be the sixth largest producer of uranium ore in the world.

The idea of launching attacks against the West was already proposed by the forerunners of AQIM. On Dec. 24, 1994, four terrorists from the GIA hijacked an Air France airbus that took off from Algiers and was bound for Paris. In what looked like a rehearsal for 9/11 (there was no connection between the two events) their plan was to use the French aircraft as a missile and crash it into the Eiffel Tower with all the passengers on board. French gendarme stormed the aircraft in Marseilles and eliminated the GIA team. In 1995, GIA killed eight people and injured 100 in a bomb attack on the Paris Metro.

The idea that radical Islamic organizations seek to target the West should not come as a surprise. It has been a prevalent theme in their writings, especially in the Muslim Brotherhood from which many of the leaders of al-Qaida emerged. Hassan al-Bana, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood wrote that after the establishment of the Islamic state in Egypt, the struggle against the West must continue: "We will not stop at this point, but will pursue this evil force to its own lands, invade its Western heartland ..." In the same way, Muhammad Akef, the former Supreme Guide of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood declared in 2004 his "complete faith that Islam will invade Europe and America." Western apologists often ignore these hard-line positions, but they undoubtedly influenced the political education of younger generations of jihadists, who later operationalized them. 

The U.S. has not seen the new North African threat as intensely as the Europeans. The New York Times ran a story on Jan. 18 entitled "U.S. Sees Hazy Threat from Mali Militants." The newspaper reported that during Congressional testimony last June a State Department official played down the threat from what was happening in Mali, saying that AQIM "has not threatened to attack the U.S. homeland." Another view, coming out of the Pentagon, points to the role of AQIM in the attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, in which four Americans were killed, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens. 

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton put forward a more urgent view of recent developments in North Africa during testimony before Congressional committees on Jan. 23 when she said: "... the instability in Mali has created an expanding safe haven for terrorists who look to extend their influence and plot further attacks of the kind we just saw last week in Algeria." 

That a new region-wide threat is emerging was underscored by the report by Algeria's prime minister, Abdelmalik Sellal, who said that the seizure of hostages at the Algerian gas plant appears to have been conducted by terrorists who crossed into Algeria from Northern Mali. There are also indications now that this operation received logistical support from Islamist militias in eastern Libya. It is only a short leap from the emergence of a new region-wide al-Qaida infrastructure in North Africa, that crosses international borders, to a direct threat to Europe itself. Apparently, France already understands that this is what is at stake, but it is not fully appreciated that widely. 

The difficult point that Western analysts just do not understand is the blind hatred of the West as a whole among all the jihadist organizations, associated with al-Qaida. Many times in Europe it is hoped that by taking a more critical position against Israel, European diplomats can lower the flames of radical Islamic rage against them. But these policies simply don't work because the jihadists' readiness to attack the West comes from a desire to eradicate Western civilization and not from the pronouncements of Catherine Ashton or any other senior European official either for or against Israel.

Dore Gold

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=3313

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

Israel is still a red state

by Yoram Ettinger

The political system

The January 22, 2013 Israeli election highlighted the urgent need to overhaul Israel's entire political system, not just the proportional electoral system.

Thirty-four parties participated in the proportional election, and 12 parties (including anti-Israel parties) will be represented in the next unicameral 120-member legislature, the Knesset. The more fragmented the Knesset, the more difficult it is for the prime minister to establish — and to manage — the governing multiparty coalition. The Israeli political system is replete with mid-size and small parties, devoid of any large parties. Therefore, the political system tends to be volatile and unmanageable, lending itself to short-lived governments and early elections.

The proliferation of political parties reflects voters' frustration with the political system, which is top heavy on freedom of association and expression, but very low on accountability — by elected officials — to the constituent. While voters elect parties, they do not directly elect their representatives, who are therefore not constrained by an effective system of checks and balances and separation of powers (e.g., legislators are also members of the executive). Loyalty to the leaders of their parties supersedes loyalty to their constituents. 

Hawks vs. Doves

While the January 2013 campaign rarely referred to national security issues, it underlined — once again — Israel's hawkish majority. The hawkish bloc of Likud-Beytenu (31 seats), Yisrael Beytenu (12 seats), Shas (11 seats) and United Torah Judaism (7 seats) is bolstered by Yesh Atid (19 seats) which owes some of its seats to support by moderate hawks. Yesh Atid's leader, Yair Lapid, made a commitment — at Ariel University in Samaria — to maintain Israeli control of the settlement blocs and oppose the re-partitioning of Jerusalem.

The hawkish Knesset majority reflects the frustration caused by the 20-year-old Oslo Process. Most Israelis do not trust the Palestinian Authority and do not believe in the viability of further concessions to the Palestinians. The number of Israeli hawks exceeds the number of centrists, which exceeds the number of doves. The most dovish party (Meretz) is represented by 6 seats, the mildly dovish Labor by 15 seats and the centrists Yesh Atid (19) and The Movement (6) by a total of 25 seats.

It's the domestic agenda, stupid!

Irrespective of the boiling Arab Street and Israel's recent war against Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip, the disillusionment with the "peace process" catapulted the domestic agenda to dominance. 

The Israeli constituency expects the next governing coalition to forge a domestic common denominator, notwithstanding deep national security and foreign policy disagreements among the coalition parties. The key issues that preoccupy most constituents are the need to prevent a global-like economic meltdown; carefully manage severe budget cuts; buttress the middle class; reform the housing market; introduce significant rental housing; expedite the integration of ultra-Orthodox youth into military conscription; and overhaul the entire political system. Averting the threat of a nuclear Iran is the only front-seat national security issue. 

The Arab constituent

The traditionally low turnout of Israeli Arabs during national election derives from their disillusionment with the preoccupation of the Arab parties with Israel-bashing, rather than with pressing domestic Arab concerns: crime, drugs, education, employment and infrastructure. In defiance of the Arab League which urged Israeli Arabs to vote to weaken the Jewish state, the Arab turnout was only 57 percent (Jewish turnout was a disappointing 67%), compared with more than 80% Arab turnout during municipal elections. 

The discrepancy between rank and file Israeli Arabs on one hand and the Israeli Arab parties on the other hand is widening as the Israelization process of Israeli Arabs takes roots. Israeli Arabs are rapidly integrated into Israel's medical, pharmaceutical, banking, industrial, commercial, agricultural, cultural, sports and political infrastructures. While many Israeli Arabs express their frustration by abstention, an increasing number votes for non-Arab Israeli parties. The relative representation of the Arab parties (11 out of 120 Knesset members) is substantially lower than their proportion in the population (18%).

Winners and Losers

"Kick the rascals out" dominated the January 2013 election and highlighted the major winners, producing an unprecedented wave of new legislators: around 50 new Knesset members, a 40% turnover! The 19 members of Lapid's party — all freshmen — and the 12 members of Bennett's party — mostly freshmen — represent the new wave sweeping the Knesset.

The Knesset is the youngest ever with a record number of women (26) and settlers (17).

While Prime Minister Netanyahu will launch his third term in office, he lost 25% of his party's Knesset representation, reduced to 31 — from 42 — seats. However, Netanyahu can snatch a victory out of the jaws of defeat by adhering to the voice of the constituents and forming a domestic-driven coalition with a game-changing domestic agenda.

Yoram Ettinger

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=3315

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

The Diversity Cult’s Attack on the Military

by Arnold Ahlert


 

Center for Military Readiness (CMR) president Elaine Donnelly continues to challenge outgoing Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s elimination of the ban against women serving in combat. A 42-page report, “Defense Department ‘Diversity’ Push for Women In Land Combat” is a no-holds-barred assessment of the pitfalls that attend women serving in combat units. In a memo released Monday, Donnelly reveals why the report is necessary. “Secretary Panetta is making this move on his way out the door, cutting Congress, and the American people out of the decision-making process…Congress…should schedule long-overdue hearings that examine the full consequences of imposing gender-based ‘diversity metrics’ on infantry battalions,” it reads.

The report begins by revealing the Obama administration began accelerating the effort to increase military “diversity” in February 2012, when a Defense Department report officially repealed the “collocation” rule that had been circumvented without authorization since 2004. In other words, despite a 1994 ban on women operating in locations near combat units, the rule was being routinely ignored–for diversity’s sake.

As the Pentagon continued to move forward with its plan, it began following the recommendations made by the Military Leadership Diversity Commission (MLDC), a committee established by Congress comprised of military and civilian diversity “experts.” In 2011, they released a report, ”From Representation to Inclusion: Diversity Leadership for the 21st Century Military,” that sought to explain the rationale behind the push for greater diversity. ”The Commission found that top military leaders are representative neither of the population they serve nor of the forces they lead. The extent to which racial/ethnic minorities and women are underrepresented varies across the Services, but the Commission found, on average, low racial/ethnic minority and female representation among senior military officers,” it stated.

Regarding women, this outlook reveals why the Pentagon feels it has become necessary to allow women to go into combat. The CMR report explains. “Since ground combat experience often (but not always) improves chances of promotion to general officer and senior enlisted ranks, the MLDC is recommending that female officers and enlisted personnel be ordered (not allowed) to serve in ‘tip of the spear’ units involved in direct ground combat.” Thus, the MLDC “has recommended that women be assigned to infantry units at the battalion level, primarily to promote career opportunities and promotions for a few female officers to three- and four-star rank.”

As CMR’s report rightly notes, this turns the entire purpose of what the military is supposed to be about on its head. Diversity is not being pursued to improve military readiness as much as it is being pursued to improve the career chances of what amounts to a handful of women in the higher echelons of the military command structure. As a result, the military is prepared to embrace the circular reasoning of “diversity metrics” designed to obscure the genuine differences that exist between men and women, in order to reach predetermined outcomes that allow more women to be assigned to combat units. This in turn enhances their prospects for career advancement, which will undoubtedly be used as rationale to promote the idea that no real differences exist between the sexes.

Thus we get the essence of radical feminism, the idea that man and women are equal in every respect, even if it means “fudging” some realities to get there. As the CMR’s report reveals, that’s exactly what the Pentagon has done, noting that physical capability tests measuring common skills “have been scaled back from six to three and adjusted to reduce physical demands and improve women’s achievement scores.”

The CMR report goes on to outline many drawbacks of women in combat, but the most significant aspect of it concerns a test conducted by the Marines to evaluate whether women could meet the same physical capabilities expected of men. They intended to collect data from 90 women as part of the evaluation process, but only two volunteered to be part of the grueling Infantry Officer Course at Quantico, Va. Both women failed to pass it. Speaking to Front Page, Donnelly reveals that several sources have given her information about the other aspects of the test. Yet she notes that the results of the test have not been released to the public, despite what Leon Panetta said yesterday when he officially announced the lifting of the ban:

Women have shown great courage and sacrifice on and off the battlefield, contributed in unprecedented ways to the military’s mission and proven their ability to serve in an expanding number of roles,” Panetta said at a Pentagon news conference. “The department’s goal in rescinding the rule is to ensure that the mission is met with the best-qualified and most capable people, regardless of gender.

“If the tests conducted by the Marines confirm what Panetta said, then why haven’t they been released?” wonders Donnelly. “And if they don’t, then what is he doing?” Both questions deserve an answer, yet one suspects that the Obama administration has already provided it. Leon Panetta is a lame duck on his way out. As a result, the likelihood of him having to explain anything–including his role in the Benghazi debacle which this latest action pushes even further below the media radar–is virtually nil. Furthermore, putting women in combat has obscured the far bigger issue: this president’s appetite for naked power grabs is getting out of hand.

Elaine Donnelly reinforces that argument along with her own contentions in a statement released recently:

Following orders from President Barack Obama, lame-duck Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has recklessly announced unilateral nullification of direct ground combat exemptions that are important to the majority of military women who serve in the enlisted ranks. Secretary Panetta has excluded Congress and the American people from the decision-making process, and imposed a radical ‘diversity’ agenda on our military without disclosing the data and results of extensive research on the subject of women in land combat that the Marine Corps conducted last year. Congress should insist on seeing data gathered during the Marines’ research, and conduct immediate oversight hearings before harmful policies imposed by the outgoing Secretary of Defense become de facto law.

Thanks to the Left’s slanderous “war on women” campaign, which has paralyzed rational debate on such matters, don’t count on a single member of Congress rising to the occasion.


Arnold Ahlert

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/the-diversity-cults-attack-on-the-military/

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

No Mere Existence for Israel

by Andrew E. Harrod

Inauguration weekend has come and gone, and with it the preceding "No Blank Check for Israel" rally on Saturday, January 19, 2013. Rally participants first assembled in Farragut Square to hear various speakers and then marched through adjoining streets to Pennsylvania Avenue between Lafayette Square and the White House where President Barack Obama two days later reviewed the inauguration parade. The central demand of the rally was to "condition" American aid to Israel upon respect for human rights. Although presented in terms of human rights, the rally's speakers and participants cast grave doubts on the willingness of Arabs in the Middle East to make peace with a Jewish state of Israel now having survived over 60 years of conflict.

An amateur video of the rally available online (I appear viewed from behind at 6:00 wearing a light blue sweater and khaki slacks) clearly indicates the participants' sentiments towards Israel. The master of ceremonies for the event, Radio Rahim, for example, condemned American support for Israeli "war crimes" perpetrated against "innocent, defenseless people" as well as, for good measure, "genocide." Rahim later warmed up the crowd with chants of "No to the dark side, no to apartheid." Rahim suggested that American support for such Israeli "apartheid" flowed naturally from an America founded upon racism in which a "racist ideology still works through the veins of the system." Continuing this racism meme two days before the Martin Luther King holiday, one of the event speakers, Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), cast American-financed Israeli security policies in terms of a "triplet of evil" of racism, poverty, and militarism opposed by King. Although Bennis described Israeli "apartheid" as distinct from its infamous South African namesake, Israel still deserved this appellation, as there "people who are Jews are privileged" and both cases "are in violation of international law."

Also making an appearance accompanied by his wife Cindy was Craig Corrie, the father of Rachel Corrie, who died on March 16, 2003, when an Israeli army bulldozer crushed her while she protested the destruction of Palestinian homes (the Israeli military and judiciary have ruled the killing accidental, not intentional, as alleged by the Corries). Corrie compared sending military aid to Israel in the name of peace as "making about as much sense as sending four cases of beer to a fraternity to encourage sobriety." An introductory webpage for the website of the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace & Justice founded by her parents, meanwhile, describes Israel in terms of "apartheid" as well.

Other speakers were universally hostile to Israel and its continued American aid. Rev. Graylan Hagler of Washington, DC's Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ condemned that there had been a "silence for too long" while "business machinery" continued "to grind down the hopes of people" in the Palestinian territories as a "corporate press" looked away. While Martin Luther King, meanwhile, "had a dream, Obama has a drone." Philip Farah of the Washington Interfaith Alliance for Middle East Peace (WIAMEP) said that the rally was about "people who do not know how to say no to war." In case anyone was confused by the rally's message, Najla Said, the daughter of Edward Said, declared that the "facts are simple" in the Arab-Israeli conflict while comparing civilian casualties during Israeli military action to the Newtown, Connecticut, shooting. Rahim as well stated during one of his "dark side" chants that "apartheid here is Israel, just in case you didn't know."
Examination of the crowd indicated that they would be receptive to the speakers. Copies of the Socialist Worker were available for the taking on a handout table. One sign held by a rally participant called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a "war criminal" while another sign listing the internet address of Occupy AIPAC declared "America First, Not Israel." One individual wore a National Lawyers Guild hat while someone from the other side of the political spectrum wore a Ron Paul button. Members of Code Pink, one of the event's organizers, were also present in their trademark color. 

Shelley Fudge from the DC chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, another event supporter, spoke of Israeli "Judiazation" of Jerusalem, prompting one rally participant to cry out "Arianization." During the march to the White House, the demonstrators chanted "Viva Palestina/Long live Palestine" along with "Free, Free Palestine" and "Resistance is justified when people are occupied."

Personal interviews with rally participants during the march and on Pennsylvania Avenue did nothing to change impressions of the rally. Asked about an average annual American aid of $2 billion since the 1979 peace with Israel to Egypt, the second largest American aid recipient after Israel, for example, one Palestinian-American noted that Egypt's much larger population meant that Egyptians per capita received much less aid than Israelis. Left out of this reply, though, was any understanding of the American interest in such aid, as opposed to that of the recipients. Indeed, as David Meir-Levy has analyzed in various online articles at FrontPage Magazine, America reaps many benefits from aid to Israel, in contrast to the more questionable merit of aid bestowed on many Muslim-majority nations such as Egypt. Discussions of per capita international aid to Palestinians being significantly larger than the post-World War II Marshall Plan in Europe, meanwhile, merely brought the response that the Palestinians had nothing to show for this aid not because of Palestinian misuse but because of Israeli destruction.

Most surprisingly, rally participants seemed to question the very existence of Israel. Another Palestinian-American participant in the march rejected any reference to Jews as a people with a historic homeland in Israel, seeing them merely as diverse adherents of a religion scattered across the world who had imposed themselves as foreigners upon an Arab territory. My initial Palestinian-American conversation partner described Zionism as a "fanatical religious movement" that supposedly disrupted a tolerant, multi-faith Middle East and provoked in turn the development of militant Islam. Accordingly, these Palestinian-Americans as well as other participants in the march found nothing shocking in my references to the May 27, 2010, statements by the Lebanese-American journalist Helen Thomas that Israel's Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine" and "go home" to Germany and Poland.

The overall result of the rally was to leave a pessimistic impression upon any objective observer concerning future prospects for Arab-Israeli peace. All rally participants showed no reservation about demonizing Israel with comparisons to German Nazism, American racism, and, of course, South African apartheid. Yet as the pro-Israeli Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) has documented in detail, many allegations of Israeli mistreatment of Palestinian Arabs both within and without Israel are unsubstantiated.

The reality of Israeli-Arabs in particular, Karsh's colleague Daniel Pipes discovered in Israel, is that they are "intensely conflicted about living in a Jewish polity." While these Arabs resent the inherently Jewish nature of Israel expressed, for example, in a Jewish "Law of Return" allowing global Jewish immigration at will in Israel, they appreciate the domestic peace and prosperity of Israel's free society in which Arabs have obtained considerable societal success as equal citizens. In the end, Karsh notes that Israeli-Arabs "enjoy more formal prerogatives than ethnic minorities anywhere else in the world." Consequently, Israeli-Arabs "immediately voice their indignation" when Israeli policymakers suggest transferring Israeli-Arab towns to any new Palestinian state as part of a peace agreement involving Israeli-Palestinian territorial exchange. Palestinians living in East Jerusalem who enjoy Israeli social benefits and unhindered travel throughout Israel also show a preference for becoming Israeli, and not Palestinians, citizens in the future.

Such factual nuances apparently did not disturb the demonstrators in Farragut Square, who had clear black/white understandings of Jewish perpetrators and Arab victims. Although many in the crowd would claim to limit their opposition to Israel to nonviolent means analogous to those used by the mainstream global anti-apartheid movement in the past, the crowds' sentiments would not rule out a group like Hamas resorting to force against Israel. While Israeli uses of force always incited condemnations of "genocide", "ethnic cleansing", "war crimes", and "terrorism" from various rally participants, no one appeared to recognize any terrorism on the part of Arab forces in the region. While crowd participants complained about aid to Israel, they seemed to have no reservations about aid to terrorism-supporting groups like Hamas and the PA or the now MB-dominated Egyptian government.

Such views went in tandem with an abiding rejection of Israel's legitimacy as a free Jewish nation-state even after over 60 years of its successful existence despite all adversity. If people in Washington, DC, supported by 15 left-leaning Christian organizations, can hold such views, the Arabs in the region must have even more negative opinions of Israel. Future peace prospects for Israel must be bleak.

Andrew E. Harrod

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/01/no_mere_existence_for_israel.html

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

What is Obama hiding?

by Ed Lasky


The least transparent administration in modern history is ignoring bipartisan calls to appoint watchdogs who protect taxpayers and enforce the law. Why?

The Washington Post reports:

A bipartisan group of senators is urging President Obama to quickly fill vacant inspectors general slots at six agencies.
A letter from members of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to Obama says there are vacancies at the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Interior, Labor and State, in addition to the Agency for International Development.
"Every year, Inspectors General identify billions of dollars in potential savings, including savings from improved management practices and fines and repayments resulting from investigations," the letter said. "The value of the Inspectors General goes beyond dollars; these offices also help reveal and prosecute wrongdoing, and promote the integrity of government. They provide invaluable support to Congressional budgeting and oversight work. Inspectors General are an essential component of government oversight."

As I have written over the years, Inspectors General are the taxpayers' best friends in Washington. They monitor the operations of federal agencies to ensure laws and regulations are followed, efficiency achieved and fraud and waste are prevented. They also have the potential to embarrass presidents with disclosures that their administrations are poorly managed and that the Presidents appointments are incompetent. 


The Senators, who include Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma, a longtime champion of taxpayers), do not - with all due respect - "get" Obama.


President Obama does not want to be "graded." He can depend on a reliably pro-Obama media who has always graded him on a curve. He does not want any Inspectors Generals to monitor what he is doing around the nation and dare have the temerity to disclose problems with his administration.


Therefore, he long ago started a war on Inspectors General  who might disclose such scandals as massive waste in Medicare, or fraud and wretched management in Obama's trillion dollar stimulus bill; the manipulation of data and waste in the Troubled Asset relief Program that led to Neil Barofsky ( a lifelong Democrat) being vilified by Obama's staffers; the firing and character assassination of Inspector General Walpin for daring to report that Obama's friend and the mayor of Sacramento, Kevin Johnson, was ripping off federal taxpayers by having grantees under that program do such things as wash his car.


President Obama even attempted early in his term ("never let a crisis go to waste") to create a brand new program - along with its $30 billion-dollar budget - that would not be subject to any oversight by any Inspector General (see "Obama, the Chicago Boys, and their $30 Billion Dollar Slush Fund")!


For the same reasons, Obama and his allies in the media and in Washington have long been at war with Congressman Darrell Issa, Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, who has built up a "one-man investigative machine aimed straight at the Obama presidency."


Obama's aversion to criticism is well-known. However, taxpayers who are paying the price for his mismanagement (and worse) need people to represent their interests. These are Inspectors General, who are the Unsung Heroes in Washington.


However, because they serve taxpayers and refuse to become servile under President Obama, they are not heroes to Obama - they are more akin to enemies.


And that is why he has zero interest in filling vacancies in the offices of Inspectors General. Indeed, they may be the only government employees (other than those serving in the military) who President Obama does not want on the government payroll.

Ed Lasky

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/01/what_is_obama_hiding.html

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

What Happened to Sweden?

by Michael Curtis

Once a moral superpower, Sweden cannot now claim to be seen as even a moral or tolerant place.

Just as Raoul Wallenberg remains as an example of courage, Sweden's Mayor of Malmo, Ilmar Reepalu, a Social Democrat who has held the office for 17 years, does not.

Last October, around 300 people assembled in Raoul Wallenberg Square in Malmo, to join in solidarity the few Jews of Malmo, now numbering about 600, whose community center had just suffered an explosion, and whose cemetery had just been desecrated by antisemitic graffiti. At the same time as this demonstration, on the other side of Malmo, a celebration was talking place to commemorate the birth of Raoul Wallenberg, who, in Hungary in1944, saved thousands of Jews, from being sent to their death in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. From July 9, 1944 until his arrest by the Soviet army on January 17, 1945 at the age of 32, Wallenberg issued "protective passports" to thousands of Jews and rented 32 buildings, which he declared diplomatic facilities. He used diplomacy, bribery and blackmail to provide Jews with immunity from arrest. He persuaded General Schmidthuber, the Commander of the German Army in Hungary, to cancel Adolf Eichmann's plan to attack the Jewish ghetto and slaughter the 70,000 Jews there. About 120,000 Jews survived in Hungary alone as a result of Wallenberg's efforts.

The courage of Wallenberg is disappointingly absent in Sweden today. Once a moral superpower, Sweden cannot now claim to be seen as even an open or tolerant place. Instead, it has become a haven for antisemitic behavior, as well as anti-Israel activity, by both Muslim activists and various political groups. Members of the Swedish parliament have attended supposedly "anti-Israel" rallies, which quickly descended into occasions for competitive antisemitic rhetoric.

Jews are being "harassed and physically attacked," by "people from the Middle East," according to Malmo resident, Fredrik Sieradzik, in an interview with the Austrian paper, Die Presse. "Malmo," he said, "is a place to move away from."

Sweden is now a country where orthodox Jews are afraid to wear a skullcap, and where the largest tabloid paper, Aftonbladet, libelously claimed, in an August 2009 article, that Israeli soldiers were taking the organs of dead Palestinians. When the city of Malmo in 2009 hosted a tennis match between Sweden and Israel, no spectators were allowed for "reasons of security."

The individual most conspicuous in the denial of this reality is the mayor of Malmo, Ilmar Reepalu,. This reality consists of attacks on Jews in a city where the Jewish population has been reduced from 2,000 to about 600; where Molotov cocktails are thrown at Jewish funeral chapels, and antisemitic graffiti is scrawled throughout the town. The mayor nevertheless denies the increase in antisemitism there. When he does allude to the subject, he argues that the violence comes from right wing extremists, not from Muslims who now make up a considerable part of his Malmo population.

Reepalu asserts that "We accept neither Zionism nor antisemitism. They are extremes that put themselves above other groups, and believe they have a lower value." Of the small Malmo Jewish community, he says: "I would wish for the Jewish community to denounce Israeli violations against the civilian population of Gaza. Instead, it decides to hold a demonstration [in reality a pro-peace rally] which could send the wrong signals." Reepalu speaks of Israeli "genocide" in Gaza.

Reepalu, as is common with people in other countries in Europe in their fails to consider that government, laws and human rights partly exists to protect the minority from the majority. He blames the local Jews' use of free speech and freedom of assembly for attacks on them: If only the Jews would stop speaking and gathering peacefully, the distorted logic goes, no one would be attacking them. Historically, the opposite is true: even when Jews remained quiet, and spent years in hiding, as many often did, the only acceptable form of behavior, apparently, was not to exist.

After years of unremitting antisemitic activity in Malmo, many Jews have either left or are thinking of leaving, largely for Stockholm, England or Israel. Reepalu's comment was : "There have not been any attacks on Jewish people, and if Jews want to move to Israel that is not a matter for Malmo." From time to time the mayor has claimed that his views were misrepresented, but the full recordings, published on the website of the paper Skanska Dagbladet, make clear that they were not.

One can only hope that the memory of Raoul Wallenberg, the exemplification of Sweden's height as a moral superpower, may lead some of those exercising power in Sweden to deal with the forces of accelerating bigotry at their doorstep, and their own bigotry inside. 


Michael Curtis is author of Should Israel Exist? A Sovereign Nation under Attack by the International Community.

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3554/what-happened-to-sweden

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

'Iran would definitely use nuclear weapon on Israel'

by JPost.com Staff

Former Iranian diplomat tells Ch. 2 Tehran will have know-how to make bomb in a year, adds Venezuela provides Iran with uranium.

Mohammed Razza Hidari, former Iranian diplomat.  

Photo: Screenshot Channel 2

 

If Iran makes a nuclear bomb "it would definitely use it against Israel or against any other enemy state," a former representative of the Iranian Foreign Ministry said in an exclusive interview aired on Friday on Channel 2 television.

"The [Iranian] regime thinks that if it has several atom bombs, it will grant it an insurance policy," Mohammed Razza Hidari said. "They believe that if [they have a nuclear weapon], the world would treat them the way it treats North Korea."

He also warned that if Iran is allowed to stall for more time, "it will have the knowledge to make a nuclear bomb in less than a year."

Hidari, who was stationed at the Tehran International Airport and supervised many of the incoming flights, told Channel 2's Enrique Zimmerman that Venezuela provides uranium for Iran's nuclear program.

"Venezuela buys weapons from criminals and sends them to Iran," Hidari told Channel 2. "Among the things sent were, for example, uranium purchased from mob organizations and sent to the Islamic republic."


During his tenure at the airport, Hidari saw "many groups of Hezbollah men who came to Iran to acquire knowledge, among other things."

He also revealed the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps were in contact with terror organizations in Iraq and Afghanistan, that were linked to the Taliban and to al-Qaida.

Hidari also served as the Iranian envoy in several different countries, among them Georgia and Norway. There, he worked to recruit Western nuclear scientists by promising them a hefty salary.

Two years ago Hidari defected after seeing the Tehran regime suppress opposition protests by slaughtering citizens, and went into hiding in Oslo, Norway, where he works to overthrow Iran's Islamic regime.

"[The West] should impose political sanctions on Iran [such as] closing all Iranian embassies, and not allowing Iranian ministers to visit other countries, like they did with the Apartheid regime," Hidari concluded.

JPost.com Staff

Source: http://www.jpost.com/IranianThreat/News/Article.aspx?id=300983

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

Where’s the Outrage on Morsi’s Hate?

by Jonathan S. Tobin


As we noted last week, Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi’s attempt to explain his anti-Semitic and anti-American televised rant to a group of visiting American senators was that his claim that Israelis were “the descendants of apes and pigs” was taken out of context. That was bad enough but as it turns out the first reports about the meeting fell far short of conveying just how offensive Morsi’s rationalization of hate was. As Josh Rogin reported yesterday at Foreign Policy’s blog The Cable, Senator Chris Coons of Delaware who was at the meeting said the Morsi implied that Jewish control of the media was the reason why he was being called to account for his hate speech.

This calls into question not just the continuing U.S. aid to the Muslim Brotherhood government headed by Morsi but the determination of the senatorial delegation, including its leader John McCain, to continue their support for the flow of more than a billion dollars in American taxpayer money to a hatemonger. The details of the meeting make it hard to understand how McCain could continue to justify such American support when the explanation for the Morsi rant is actually worse than the original anti-Semitic smears.

According to Coons:

“He was attempting to explain himself … then he said, ‘Well, I think we all know that the media in the United States has made a big deal of this and we know the media of the United States is controlled by certain forces and they don’t view me favorably,’” Coons said.
The Cable asked Coons if Morsi specifically named the Jews as the forces that control the American media. Coons said all the senators believed the implication was obvious.
“He did not say [the Jews], but I watched as the other senators physically recoiled, as did I,” he said. “I thought it was impossible to draw any other conclusion.”
“The meeting then took a very sharply negative turn for some time. It really threatened to cause the entire meeting to come apart so that we could not continue,” Coons said.
Multiple senators impressed upon Morsi that if he was saying the criticisms of his comments were due to the Jews in the media, that statement was potentially even more offensive than his original comments from 2010.
“[Morsi] did not say the Jewish community was making a big deal of this, but he said something [to the effect] that the only conclusion you could read was that he was implying it,” Coons said. “The conversation got so heated that eventually Senator McCain said to the group, ‘OK, we’ve pressed him as hard as we can while being in the boundaries of diplomacy,’” Coons said. “We then went on to discuss a whole range of other topics.”

This raises some serious questions about both U.S. policy and the priorities of those who took part in the meeting.

One has to wonder why it is that a week went by without any of those present at the meeting calling out Morsi for this latest outrage. Did those who kept quiet about this, including McCain, think that Morsi raising the issue of unnamed groups — an obvious reference to Jews — manipulating the media was immaterial to the question of whether U.S. aid to Egypt should continue? Or did they decide that it was unhelpful to their goal of maintaining the U.S. embrace of the Brotherhood for this story to get out sooner?

This revelation makes it imperative that all those present clarify their positions about a policy that requires American taxpayers to go on funding a government that is beginning to rival Iran as a source of anti-Semitic invective. Under Morsi, Egypt is neither a U.S. ally nor a friend. It is a tyrannical regime that has not only subverted the promise of the Arab Spring but also has the potential to be a major source of instability in the region.

If Morsi wants to keep his American money, he’s going to have to do better than to blame his problems on the Jews. And if the senators who attended this meeting and the administration that is determined to keep coddling the Brotherhood wish to justify their position, they are going to have to explain to the American people how giving billions to Morsi is compatible with our values or interests.


Jonathan S. Tobin

Source: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2013/01/25/more-anti-semitism-from-mohammedmorsi/


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

One of Obama’s Power Grabs Slapped Down

by John Steele Gordon


President Obama suffered a serious embarrassment today when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia unanimously ruled that he overstepped his constitutional powers when he used recess appointments to name three members to the National Labor Relations Board on January 4th, 2012.

Although the Senate was holding pro forma sessions, Obama said that it was really in recess because it was conducting no business over the 20-day Christmas break. In other words, Obama sought to establish the principle that he, not the Senate, was entitled to decide when the Senate was in session.

Were he to prevail in this assertion of presidential power, it would have gutted the Senate’s power to advice and consent to nominations to executive posts and thus eliminated one of the Constitution’s carefully designed checks on executive power.


The administration will most likely appeal to the Supreme Court. But that Court could let the lower court’s decision stand simply by refusing to grant a writ of certiorari, which is necessary to appeal most cases to the high court. The fact that the ruling from a three-judge panel was unanimous greatly increases the chances that the court will not “grant cert,” to use the jargon of the court.

Assuming this decision stands, all the decisions of the NLRB since January 4th, 2012, will be void. His appointment of Richard Cordray head to the new, and very powerful Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, made at the same time, and being challenged in a separate case, would also fall.

Presidents have increasingly used recess appointments to get around Senate obstruction, usually a filibuster. But this use of the power was brazen as Obama had only just nominated the men and the Senate had not had any time in which to act.


John Steele Gordon

Source: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2013/01/25/obamas-power-grab-slapped-down-nlr/

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

Mordechai Kedar: Judgement Day in Africa

by Mordechai Kedar

Read the article in the original עברית

Read the article in Italiano (translated by Yehudit Weisz, edited by Angelo Pezzana)

 
Ten months ago, in March of 2012, we spoke from this honorable platform about the awakening of radical Islam in Africa. We noted at the time that in the countries of North Africa - Morocco, Algeria, Libya and Tunisia - the organization called "al-Qaeda of the Maghreb" operates, and from time to time kidnaps and murders tourists and professional people such as  engineers who come to these countries as tourists or to perform specific functions. Our conclusion at that time was,"The population of Africa is involved in a series of disputes with a tribal background, and in which the Islamist and ethnic components play an important, and sometimes critical part. The combination of Saudi Arabian money, Wahhabi propaganda, the presence of terror organizations and wide distribution of weapons (some of which disappeared from weapons storehouses of the Libyan army as a result of the fall of Qadhaffi), does not contribute to the easing of relations between various groups of the African population, and developing trends also do not indicate a tendency toward calm."

The events in Algeria last week are the proof of what was already apparent: an area that is neglected by the government will become a hothouse for terror. Most of the territory of Algeria, which is more than ten times the size of Israel, is located in the vast, largely unpopulated Sahara Desert. There are  small concentrations of population situated near sources of livelihood such as  a spring or a well, and recently, mines and sources of energy - oil and gas. These clusters are isolated and exposed to armed groups that roam the area freely, propounding slogans and messages characteristic of al-Qaeda.

One of these groups, which calls itself the "Signed-in-Blood", under the command of Mukhtar Belmukhtar, and numbering about forty fighters, carried out the attack on the gas drilling installation in 'Ayn Aminas, abducted about 700 workers, some of whom were European, and held them as hostages. The subsequent attack of the Algerian army on the gas installation caused 55 fatalities: 32 terrorists and 23 hostages, and freed 685 Algerian workers and 107 foreign workers. The attackers, who arrived in several all-terrain vehicles, used heavy machine guns, rocket launchers, grenades and personal weapons, and a number of Algerian soldiers were killed and wounded in the course of the battle with them.

The world, especially the European countries, severely criticized the clumsy and unprofessional way that the Algerians dealt with the matter. In response, the government of Algeria defends itself with the claim that if they had not acted quickly and decisively, the number of victims would have been far greater.

But the question that naturally arises from this is why a gas production facility was attacked, and  what motivates the terror organizations to harm especially Algeria. The answer has to do with the developments of recent years in North Africa. The dictators of these states rule their oppressed peoples by the use of force. When Libya fell, along with it fell the doctrine that guided the West, which holds that these dictators will deal in the accepted way in Africa (with determination and ruthlessness) with terrorist elements such as al-Qaeda of the Maghreb, who roam the area, threatening to overthrow the fragile regimes and establish upon their ruins Islamic states that will then export terrorism to the more affluent parts of the world.

Radical Islamic agents are involved up to their necks in the wars of Mali and Somalia and in battles that are being waged in Libya, Tunisia, Niger, Nigeria and in Kenya. The murder of the American ambassador in Libya last September was only one example of these groups' activities. The governmental chaos that reigns in these countries creates a situation that allows the jihadi organizations to control vast territories, which serve them  as a base for organization, storage of armaments and training,so that they can continue their efforts to bring down the African states, whose illegitimate boundaries were demarcated by colonialism, with the aim of dismantling the nation of Islam into small, weak units. 

European workers who come to the African countries are perceived as an offshoot of colonialism, because their whole task - in the eyes of the jihadists - is to strengthen Western  hegemony over the peoples of Africa, on their habitat and their natural resources, to employ and exploit them and turn them again into slaves of the smug and arrogant West. That is why these organizations abduct European workers; it is to discourage other Europeans from coming. And the ransom money paid by the companies greases the wheels of these jihadi organizations. They spend the infidels' money on acquisition of weapons, ammunition, communications equipment, navigation equipment and vehicles, and the money also allows the organizations to purchase collaborative activity from other groups among the population, and to bribe governmental officials and military and intelligence personnel.

Another important detail is the fact that the jihadist groups are not unified; on the contrary, they compete with each other. The leader of al-Qaeda of the Maghreb, Abdul Hamid abu Zaid, prefers small-scale subversive actions, like terror attacks and abductions, more than wide-scale actions with many casualties such as that which was carried out by Belmukhtar in the gas facility in Algeria. Abu Zaid believes that large-scale actions such as 9/11 2001 could provoke the West into large-scale action against the jihadists, similar to that in Afghanistan, while small actions such as blowing up the American embassy in Nairobi the capital of Kenya, and in Dar a-Salam the capital of Tanzania (August 1998) achieve the goal without giving the West a reason to launch wide-scale, destructive military operations.

 Dilemmas in the West

The question for the governments of the United States, France and other NATO countries is what to do about these developments in Africa. Clearly, if the Islamist organizations are left alone, they will establish "Islamic Emirates" in Africa, which will export terror like Afghanistan did after Usama bin Laden took over. On the other hand, the continuing failure of the West to bring a legitimate, effective and stable regime to Afghanistan and Iraq proves that Westerners cannot cure the ills of these countries by spreading ideas of democracy.

France took initiative three weeks ago and became involved in the war being conducted in Mali using French air and ground forces.Will France succeed to free the two thirds of the territory of Mali that are today under the control of radical Islamists? Perhaps, but the achievement will be short-lived, because a) the jihadists can easily move to other places where there is no French army, and b) as long as people remain living in the area, the radical Islamists can hide among them, and emerge to attack the occupying forces.

In Washington there are deep differences of opinion: the pentagon and Defense Department understand that if the United States doesn't deal with the problem of Africa at its core, African jihad will spill over into Europe and the united States, and then the United States will be forced to become involved, as happened in Afghanistan, and therefore it is better to take care of the problem while it is still small. The White House and State Department, on the other hand, are very much against any military involvement in Africa because the president and the diplomats think that American occupation is the main factor that agitates and radicalizes the relationships between the United States and other countries, and the action of American soldiers on African soil - which may deteriorate into severe violence, with fatalities and wounded - will only damage the American image and arouse opposition to the West and the renewed Western colonialist hegemony in Africa; American solders will be wounded and return to the United States in coffins and the chances to sell the African peoples on American-made democracy will decrease.

The White House and American State Department prefer to send weapons, equipment and money to existing heads of state to help them stand strong against the attacks of the Islamist militias, to help their armies by supplying intelligence, just as NATO helped the rebels against Qadhaffi with attacks from the air, without a single Western soldier setting foot on Libyan soil. But there is some doubt as to whether support such as weapons, ammunition, equipment and money actually reach the intended hands, because the governments in the African states are infiltrated by hostile agents, who collaborate behind the scenes with the jihadists, and the bribery and protectionism that exist within those governmental systems supported by the West, arouse the rage of the jihadists even without the involvement of Western soldiers.

Implications for Europe

The increasingly complex jihadist muddle in Africa raises concern about harm to the stability of Europe, because African and Muslim immigrants who live in Europe might damage the infrastructures of the host countries in revenge for the Western activities in Africa, and this may cause severe harm to the economy of Europe, which is in poor shape to begin with. The status of European Jews might be harmed also, because peculiarly, Africans and Muslims might direct their rage against the Jews.

  ===============

Dr. Kedar is available for lectures

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 permission from the author.

Additional articles by Dr. Kedar

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 author.