If One Extremist Gunman Can Do So Much Damage in America, How About Ten Million Such People In The Middle East?

by Barry Rubin

When one crazed or ideologically obsessed gunman starts shooting in Arizona, people condemn him and start bemoaning their society. How about a place with ten million people like that who are treated as heroes?

America this week is awash in a huge and passionate debate over whether angry political disagreements and harsh criticisms of certain views or groups inspired the attack on an American congresswoman (Jewish and a strong supporter of Israel, by the way). I'm not going to enter into that argument right now but I want to point out the Middle Eastern ramifications of what's going on here.

Every day for more than a half century, Arabs and Muslims have been inundated every day with hatred for Israel, America, the West, Jews, and often Christians. You can read transcripts of Syrian broadcasts or Palestinian speeches from 50 years ago that sound just like what was said in the same places yesterday by powerful and/or respectable figures and institutions.

Let's say that the proportion of lies, slanders, and incitement in the American discourse is one-tenth of one percent of all the words spoken on controversial issues. The equivalent figure for the Middle East is well over 95 percent.

In addition to that tone, there is also virtually not only a lack of balance but an absence of the other side altogether.

And in addition to those two points, the level of factual accuracy has a huge gap (though, admittedly, that gap has been narrowing in recent years as Western standards decline).

And in addition to those three points, where extremists tend to be marginal in the United States, they are in control--either politically or at least rhetorically--throughout most of the Arabic-speaking and Muslim-majority worlds.

Thus, the level of incitement, imbalance, lies, and the hegemony of hatred in that part of the world towers above that in the West like the World Trade Center towers over an anthill.

Oh, the World Trade Center doesn't exist any more. Well, that has something to do with this situation, too, doesn't it?

Or to put it another way, in the Middle East, the crackpot is more credible than the rational or factual.

I won't take your time with lots of examples but one might start with the widespread belief that the U.S. government or Israel carried out the September 11 attacks coupled with the belief-held often by the same people-that it was a great thing to do. Or all the ridiculous conspiracy theories about Israel, as in the cases mentioned here.

Here's one of many such items that come across my desk each day. Al-Hayat al-Jadida, the official newspaper of the PA,

has articles, the most recent being December 31 and January 4, accusing Israel of planning to destroy the al-Aqsa mosque. In the newspaper's words, Israel's projects in Jerusalem "are part of [the efforts] causing the collapse of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, in order to establish Solomon's Temple upon its ruins."

The al-Aqsa Institute for Religious Affairs, which the PA controls, accuses Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu of being behind this "Satanic plot."

Or, this one: All mothers undoubtedly love their children but only in Iran there's now a special day when mothers take their babies to a ceremony where they vow to make them martyrs in Jihad. (Funny, contrary to what is taught in Western schools they don't define Jihad as inner spiritual striving.) And not many mothers in Western democratic states hold celebrations after their kids blow themselves up in an attempt to murder as many civilians as possible.

Now, let me ask some questions:

--If America is horrified in claiming that a tiny amount of mostly marginal extremism inspires one mad man to murder six people and try to kill a politician, how much violence can be traced to hundreds of thousands of mosques, media, teachers, and mainstream politicians daily preaching hatred literally millions of times a day?

--If the discourse throughout the Arabic-speaking world, Iran, increasingly in Turkey, and generally in Muslim-majority countries is almost 100 percent incitement, how can there be partners for peace or a hope of stability? What good do concessions do when the next day the culture of incitement and hatred goes on at full speed?

--If the degree of anti-Western, anti-American, anti-Jewish, and anti-Christian incitement is 100,000 times more intense and mainstream than any "Islamophobic" discourse in the West, while mitigating discourse-i.e., empathy, positive images, etc., toward "the other"-is one thousandth of a percent less, then which of these phenomenon is a greater threat and problem?

--And why should the overwhelming majority of Western schools, media, academics, officials, and so on pretend that the above facts don't exist?

Or let me put it more graphically: If a man goes out to shoot a politician whose policies he doesn't like then in America he is likely to be insane. If a man goes out to shoot members of an ethnic or other group he doesn't like, then in America (unless perhaps he's an Islamist terrorist), he is considered a terrorist or someone committing a hate crime.

But in the Middle East, people are almost considered insane if they do NOT do these things, or at least support others performing such deeds. And as public opinion polls demonstrate, those are not considered to be evil, marginal lunatics but heroes whose example should be followed.

Might this indicate that the proportion of self-flagellation over self-defense in the Western world is a tad too high?

Might this indicate in some way that there are certain differences in some other societies that make them think and act a bit different from Western democracies?


PS: The logical outcome of this is the Fort Hood massacre where the terrorist yelled "Allahu Akhbar!" as he shot down Americans, yet we were told to draw no conclusion from this or the mountain of evidence that he was a revolutionary Islamist.

I have not yet heard that the murderer in Tucson chanted, "Rush Limbaugh Akhbar!" even once.

Original URL: http://www.gloria-center.org/gloria/2011/01/one-extremist-gunman-can-do-so-much-damage

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal.

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Muslims and Truth

by Benny Morris

Coptic Pope Shenouda III called for "calm" in the wake of the New Year's Day bombing outside the church in Alexandria, in which twenty-three members of his flock were murdered and dozens were injured. And he explicitly avoided condemning the presumed perpetrators, Egyptian Muslims, his neighbors.

Technically, this makes sense. The investigators have not yet arrested, let alone charged, anyone—and quite possibly never will.

But, of course, a deeper logic was at work. The Coptic leader does not want to rile, and aggravate tensions with, the surrounding dominant sea of Egyptian Muslims (though, more bravely, some of his flock took to the streets of Cairo and Alexandria and clashed with the police who, they charged, had done and were doing too little to protect them).

I can also understand Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who, in a knee-jerk reaction, attributed the attack to unnamed "foreign" elements. He too prefers not to point at extremist Egyptian Muslims as the responsible party; he too worries about riling the Islamists.

Somewhat more surprising is Pope Benedict XVI, who sees all the world's Christians, including the Middle East's, as his wards. Of course, he condemned the attack, as well as the series of murderous attacks which immediately preceded it against Christians in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq. But he too avoided explicitly condemning "Muslims" as the guilty party (much as Western leaders regularly vaguely speak of "international terrorism" without mentioning "Islam" or "Islamists" in this connection, as if other religious groups, say Buddhists or Hindus or animists, are also commonly engaged in this unleasant pursuit.)

So the forthrightness and explicitness of these very same Muslims, when attributing blame, is truly noteworthy. No mealy-mouthed spokesmen here.

Take Sheikh Muhammad Rashid Qabbani, Lebanon's Grand Mufti. He immediately announced: "This assault [on the Copts in Alexandria] . . . is not an individual internal Egyptian act, but a criminal act with Zionist . . . fingerprints. [They] want to sow hatred among Muslims and Coptic Christians."

Or take the spokesman of the Egyptian Bar Association: "The Mossad carried out the operation in a natural reaction to the latest uncovering of an Israeli espionage network."

Or a spokesman for the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, Munim Abu al Fattouh Abdel: It could not have been Egyptians. Perhaps it was the Mossad or someone else interested in sabotaging Egypt.

Iranian TV put it more definitively: the Mossad. "It goes without saying that no Muslim . . . will ever commit such an inhuman act." (Surely, this one must have been said tongue in cheek?)

These accusations are, of course, risible. But they raise a serious question. What are the bounds of credulity in the mendacity-ridden Muslim societies of the Middle East? Can preachers and spokesmen say anything, however outlandish, and expect the masses to eat it up? Is there no limit to what the infidel can be accused of—and to the expectation that the charge will stick?

Which raises the still more profound question: What are the long-term prospects for peaceful cohabitation on planet Earth between us in the West and these Muslim societies in which truth has absolutely no traction or importance, where the masses will believe—ask any pollster—that the CIA or the Mossad knocked down the Twin Towers on 9\11?

Original URL: http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/muslims-truth-4685

Benny Morris

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Europe Needs a Parliamentary Inquiry on NGO Funding

by Gerald Steinberg

The EU, which preaches democracy and good government to others, blatantly violates the basic rules of funding transparency and open debate.

For more than nine years – since the notorious NGO Forum of the 2001 Durban conference – I have been researching the biases, political campaigns and funding of groups that claim to promote human rights. Before NGO Monitor was founded, no one was examining these important centers of political influence, questioning their claims and agendas or revealing their donors. And while others have joined the debate, we are still the only research framework focusing on the credibility, biases and funding of political NGOs.

Based on this experience, I question whether the establishment of an inquiry by the Knesset into the funding of the most virulent political NGOs involved in delegitimization will help shed light or encourage informed criticism in this area.

The brief and stormy discussion in the Knesset last week demonstrated the intense political nature of this initiative, and the ease with which substantive research is pushed aside by simplistic slogans, from both ends of the ideological spectrum. For the Right, NGOs that use the language of human rights are all portrayed as enemies of Israel, without distinction, while the Left (including NGO officials) seeks to prevent all criticism and debate as “anti-democratic.”

When MK Faina Kirschenbaum (Israel Beiteinu) introduced the motion to establish the parliamentary inquiry, she claimed that Arab governments and terror groups are among the major funders of the NGOs responsible for “lawfare” campaigns that seek to label Israelis as “war criminals.”

NGO Monitor has not found documented evidence for either claim, although it is possible that such secret funding exists.

IN CONTRAST, we have shown the massive and often secret funding for highly political NGOs from European governments, and the European Union in particular. Europe, which preaches democracy and good government to others, blatantly violates the basic rules of funding transparency and open debate. An impenetrable shroud of secrecy hides all aspects of the processes by which the EU funds groups such as Yesh Din, Adalah, PCATI and many Palestinian groups.

And much of this European money is used to promote lawfare, as well as boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) – the two primary expressions of the NGO Durban strategy of “complete international isolation of Israel.”

The cost of European secrecy in funding for political NGOs was recently revealed by NGO Monitor and The Jerusalem Post, when the Dutch government was found to be supporting the intensely anti-Israel (and often anti-Semitic) actions of Electronic Intifada via a church-based humanitarian framework (ICCO). The Dutch foreign minister was surprised by the revelation that his own government was fuelling the Arab-Israel conflict, and there are many more such examples in Holland and throughout Europe.

As a result, the European-funded, NGO-led assault on the legitimacy of Israel, as well as the double standards and false allegations of “war crimes,” is continuing. In addition, these actions undermine the universality of human rights norms and convert these moral principles into convenient political weapons. Universal jurisdiction statutes in Europe, and mechanisms such as the International Criminal Court, which were designed to bring genocidal dictators to justice, have been stripped of any significance through the cynical attempts to label Israeli leaders as “war criminals.”

A parliamentary inquiry into abuses of NGO funding would be most useful in the European context, since this is the source of the money provided for lawfare, BDS and other forms of anti- Israel incitement. Unfortunately, the European officials responsible for these practices have clung to the secrecy, and refuse to allow critical analyses of their NGO funding policies.

Original URL: http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=202868

Gerald Steinberg is president of NGO Monitor, a research institution that tracks NGOs.

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PM Disagrees With Claim Iran Won't Get Bomb Until 2015

by Herb Keinon

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu stepped back on Tuesday from former Mossad head Meir Dagan’s appraisal that Iran will not get nuclear weapons until the middle of the decade.

These were “only” intelligence assessments and should be seen as such, he said.

“I think that intelligence estimates are exactly that, estimates,” Netanyahu said. “They range from best case to worst case possibilities, and there is a range there, there is room for differing assessments.”

Speaking at the prime minister’s annual press conference with the foreign press, Netanyahu made clear that he believed the Iranian threat had not in any way become less acute, and reiterated what he said two months ago in New Orleans – and for which he was chastised publicly by US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates – that sanctions needed to be backed up by a viable and serious military option.

Since the US-led sanctions against Iran were aimed at changing the Iranian government’s determination to obtain nuclear arms, “those sanctions have not yet achieved their objective,” the prime minister said. “I think they [the sanctions] should be strictly enforced and materially strengthened.”

Netanyahu said “the only chance these sanctions will achieve their objectives would be to couple them with an understanding from Iran that if they [the sanctions] don’t achieve their goal, they would be followed by a credible military option.”

Netanyahu, clearly unhappy with the idea that the world has somehow gained a great deal more time to deal with Teheran, said that the only time the Iranians halted their nuclear program over the last 15 years was in 2003, after the US invasion of Iraq, when they feared American military action. The diplomatic process with the Palestinians would be halted, and the vital interests of almost every Arab government in the region would be threatened, were the Iranian nuclear program not stopped, he said.

Regarding the recent escalation in Gaza, Netanyahu said that Hamas and the other organizations there “shelling and rocketing Israel” will “make a terrible mistake to test our will to defend our people; I think they will make a terrible, terrible mistake.”

Turning to the diplomatic process with the Palestinians, he said that 2011 would reveal “who is seriously interested in peace in the region.”

The prime minister spoke against what he said was the conventional wisdom – that the Palestinian Authority wanted peace, while he and his government were not interested – saying that while Israel had taken a number of steps to further the process along, the Palestinians had done nothing.

Netanyahu enumerated the steps he has taken: calling for direct negotiations; removing hundreds of West Bank roadblocks to allow the economy there to flourish; accepting the two-state vision in his speech at Bar-Ilan University; agreeing to a 10-month settlement freeze; and then agreeing to another three-month freeze after negotiating the conditions with the Americans.

The reason this additional freeze did not go into effect, he said, was not because there was no agreement with the US, but because the US decided that the additional freeze would do nothing to move the process forward.

“What is preventing the advent of peace negotiations is that the Palestinians are doing everything in their power to avoid them,” he said. “This is the simple truth.”

Only his government would “be trusted by the public” to deliver a peace agreement that would ensure security and Palestinian recognition of Israel, and the Palestinians were making a mistake walking away from talks with him, he said.

As far as the Syrian track was concerned, Netanyahu said that the peace agreement with Egypt was reached only after Anwar Sadat took Egypt out of the Soviet camp. A similar break from Iran would be necessary for Syrian President Bashar Assad to make peace with Israel, Netanyahu said, adding that he did not see “any clear willingness” on the part of Damascus to change its relationship with Teheran.

Netanyahu deflected charges that a bad, undemocratic wind was blowing through the country, noting that he had immediately condemned a call last month by rabbis not to sell or rent apartments to Arabs.

“I am committed to Israel as a Jewish, democratic state, with democratic values,” he said, adding that his swift condemnation of the rabbis’ call demonstrated the country’s values.

By contrast, he said, 10 minutes away in Ramallah there is a law on the PA books calling for the death penalty to anyone who sells property to Jews.

“Isn’t that worth reporting?” he asked.

Original URL: http://www.jpost.com/VideoArticles/Article.aspx?id=203161

Herb Keinon

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Why Palestinians Want to be Israeli Citizens

by Jackson Diehl

One of the givens of the Middle East peace process is that Palestinians are eager to be free of rule by Israel and to live in a state of their own. That's why a new poll of the Arabs of East Jerusalem is striking: It shows that more of those people actually would prefer to be citizens of Israel than of a Palestinian state.

The poll, conducted in November, may be something of an embarrassment to Palestinian political leaders, who lately have been insisting that Israel should stop expanding settlements in the eastern half of Jerusalem -- in effect giving up any claim to it -- as a precondition for the resumption of peace negotiations. This week the demolition of a hotel in an Arab neighborhood in preparation for the construction of Jewish housing prompted fresh criticism of Israel from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, while a leaked memo from European Union diplomats stationed in the city proposed that EU governments recognize East Jerusalem as the capital of the future Palestinian state.

The awkward fact is that the 270,000 Arabs who live in East Jerusalem may not be very enthusiastic about joining Palestine. The survey, which was designed and supervised by former State Department Middle East researcher David Pollock, found that only 30 percent said they would prefer to be citizens of Palestine in a two-state solution, while 35 percent said they would choose Israeli citizenship. (The rest said they didn't know or refused to answer.) Forty percent said they would consider moving to another neighborhood in order to become a citizen of Israel rather than Palestine, and 54 percent said that if their neighborhood were assigned to Israel, they would not move to Palestine.

The reasons for these attitudes are pretty understandable, even healthy. Arabs say they prefer Israel's jobs, schools, health care and welfare benefits to those of a Palestinian state -- and their nationalism is not strong enough for them to set aside these advantages in order to live in an Arab country. The East Jerusalemites don't much love Israel -- they say they suffer from discrimination. But they seem to like what it has to offer. Remarkably, 56 percent said they traveled inside Israel at least once a week; 60 percent said access to its Mediterranean beaches was "very important" or "moderately important" to them.

"Quite clearly there is a discrepancy between people's attitudes and the assumption that Palestinian neighborhoods should be part of Palestine," said Pollock, whose work was sponsored by Pechter Middle East polls and the Council on Foreign Relations. "That's not actually what the people want."

It's important to note that East Jerusalem Palestinians are different from West Bank or Gaza Palestinians -- they live on Israel's side of its West Bank barrier and hold "blue cards" that allow them access to Israeli jobs, health care, and welfare payments. Many are middle class by Middle Eastern standards -- 44 percent of those surveyed had household incomes of more than $1,300 per month. Broadly, they resemble Israel's Arab citizens, who have also been shown in polls to prefer remaining in Israel to joining a Palestinian state.

The East Jerusalemites do have one thing in common with other Palestinians, as well as Israelis: They are pessimistic about the current peace process. More than 40 percent said that even if Israelis and Palestinians signed a peace deal and East Jerusalem became the capital of a new state, some Palestinian militants would certainly or probably continue an armed struggle against Israel. And fully 64 percent said it was very likely or somewhat likely that if the current negotiations collapse, there will be a new intifada, or uprising by Palestinians, including those in Jerusalem.

The bottom line messages seem to be that peace talks are essential to prevent violence, but that even success won't lead to total peace; and that a lot of Palestinians would prefer to live near, but not in, a Palestinian state. [Ed: We disagree with this point. Saying that there will be violence if the peace talks fail does not automatically indicate that there must be peace talks. It may mean that it is best not to begin peace talks if they are likely to fail.]

Original URL:http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2011/01/_one_of_the_givens.html

Jackson Diehl

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Classroom Jihad

by Ryan Mauro

Controversy has erupted at California’s Claremont McKenna College after a student journalist exposed how the head of the Middle East Studies Department, Dr. Bassam Frangieh, is an open supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah. The college has responded by pretending his record of praising the terrorist groups doesn’t exist and editing Frangieh’s Wikipedia entry.

Charles C. Johnson of The Claremont Independent has done extensive research on Frangieh, including having his Arabic works translated. Johnson tells FrontPage that more incriminating material is on the way, but what has already been discovered is nothing less than shocking.

In May of 2006, Frangieh congratulated Hamas on winning the Palestinian elections, saying, “I wonder what else would the Arabs have without Hamas and Hezbollah? Nothing. Except humiliation.” He said that he “view[s] Hamas with great pleasure” and even went so far as to say, “Hamas might be able to produce the beginning of salvation.” This lavish praise cannot be denied, clarified or downplayed. It is clear that Frangieh is an unabashed supporter of the terrorist group.

He also supports specific acts of terrorism. He signed a petition in 2006 describing Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel, which included the firing of rockets on civilians and the kidnapping of soldiers, as a “heroic operation.” The document referred to Israel as a “Zionist killing machine” that is “motivated by historical ambitions…[and] a racist supremacist ideology that denigrates the indigenous population, their culture, and their very existence.”

It describes Hezbollah as the “Lebanese Resistance” and asks the Lebanese government to enlist it as its army. The petition also demands that the international community boycott Israeli products, cut off diplomatic ties and even boycott Israeli academic and scientific institutions that do not condemn the invasion of Lebanon.

Frangieh also wrote an essay in 2000 titled, “Modern Arabic Poetry: Vision and Reality” that praises an extremist poet named Abd al-Rahim Mahmud, whose poetry has made its way into Palestinian and Saudi textbooks designed to indoctrinate the youth into supporting terrorism and hatred. Two of his most popular poems, “The Martyr” and “A Call to Jihad,” are particularly admired by terrorists.

In his essay, he said that even if Arab poets blew themselves up, it would not force the change he feels is necessary in the region. “For real change to come about, thousands of people will have to die; thousands must martyr themselves. It appears that only massive revolution will succeed in overturning the corrupt regimes of the Arab world,” he writes.

Though Frangieh views all the Arab regimes as corrupt, one stands out among him as the best: Saddam Hussein. He says the dictator “really did something for his country” and “wasn’t a thief,” though he is quick to add that this doesn’t mean he is defending Hussein’s brutality.

Frangieh also espouses wild conspiracy theories. In 2007, he signed a petition condemning a resolution that would divide Iraq into three sectarian-based autonomous regions as a “Zionist plot.” It described the war in Iraq as “barbaric” and hatched by “cowboys” seeking the country’s wealth. Like other anti-American conspiracy theorists and Islamic extremists, he sees U.S. foreign policy as secretly orchestrated by Zionist imperialists with evil motives.

He has also been active in trying to book speakers that share his views, such as Syria’s ambassador. He also worked with the Muslim Students Association to have Zaid Shakir speak, who the New York Times reported in 2006 “said he hoped that one day the United States would be a Muslim country ruled by Islamic law.” He also espouses 9/11 conspiracy theories and condemns America’s “demonization” of Osama Bin Laden, the Taliban, Hugo Chavez, Saddam Hussein and others. Shakir even said that he opposes the hijacking of civilian airliners, but “if you hijack an airplane filled with the 82^nd Airborne, that’s something else.”

Charles Johnson told FrontPage that he will soon release additional material related to Frangieh and that he is working to get statements from experts on anti-Semitism to join his cause. “I want the school to say if they will defend the academic freedom of someone who supports anti-Semitic terrorist organizations,” he said. Johnson also says that questions are going to be raised about Frangieh’s academic integrity.

Frangieh’s wife, Aleta Wenger, also works at the college as its “executive director for international programs” and other positions that give her influence over the awarding of scholarships and fellowships, including the Fulbright Award. She supported the activists trying to break the Israeli blockade on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and sees Israel as so wicked that it might bomb the American University of Beirut.

Johnson said that he is encouraged thus far by the reaction on campus to his work. “Numerous faculty members in numerous departments are supportive,” he said.

FrontPage was told by Claremont McKenna College that Professor Frangieh was unavailable for an interview because he had to meet a deadline for an article. The college has put out a statement on the matter that says, “the College does not agree with the student’s opinion that Professor Frangieh supports terrorism. In addition, Professor Frangieh has specifically and emphatically denied that he supports terrorism, or any acts of terrorism by any organization.” The college’s vice president of public affairs and communication reacted by deleting information about Frangieh’s support for terrorism from his Wikipedia page.

Claremont McKenna is wrong to assume that a condemnation of the vague term of “terrorism” means he is not an extremist. Frangieh obviously would not include Hamas and Hezbollah under the definition of “terrorist organizations” if he supports them. His denial is unconvincing and meaningless given his record.

Students at Claremont McKenna and their families should be outraged that their tuition is going to fund a Middle East Studies Department led by a supporter of terrorism. It is time for the community to demand that the college explain why it still employs Professor Frangieh even after having Charles C. Johnson do the research it should have done long ago.

Original URL: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/01/12/classroom-jihad/

Ryan Mauro

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Syria’s War on the Kurds

by Eric Bruneau

Tensions are increasing in Syria. Despite the efficiency of its internal security services, President al-Assad’s Ba’ath regime faces growing dissent from the Kurds. Although they have been successfully silenced during decades, a series of events recently attracted the attention of the outside world to their fate.

There was the case of the thirty-three Kurdish demonstrators who occupied the Syrian embassy in Brussels in 2005; then there was the spectacular odyssey of the one hundred and twenty-three Syrian Kurds who landed in Corsica on November 22, 2010, and the controversy following their handling by the French Government. There has also been the month-long protest held in front of Cyprus’ interior ministry by one hundred and fifty or so refugees to obtain status, and a hunger strike in front of the Danish Parliament in October by Kurds fearing deportation. Their different experiences – from court hearings to trials, from detention centres to shelters, the botched legal actions from authorities or the evacuations by anti-riot police – come as profound reflections of the repression they endure in their own country.

During the last five years or so, the increasing marginalization of Kurds seems to have become a matter of national security in the eyes of the Syrian regime. The emergence of an autonomous Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq is seen with anxiety by the neighbouring countries, themselves entangled in conflicts with their own Kurdish populations, and Syria feels threatened by a risk of contagion.

“Things definitely worsened after 2003,” confirms M. al-Youssef, an exiled member of the Syrian Kurd Unity Party (PYKS). “The Kurds and their political parties are now accused of being separatists, and so this makes them the prime target of the Arab nationalim at the core of Ba’ath ideology.” The Qamishli massacre in 2004, the countless reports of arbitrary arrests and brutalities perpetrated by the internal security patrols in the Kurdish provinces, are many examples of an increased repression.

Are we witnessing a new repressive campaign aimed at the Kurds, along the lines of the 1962 “special census,” or the building of the “Arab belt” along the Turkish border? Some new dispositions have been adopted recently. The Presidential Decree no.49, passed on the November 10, 2008, places the al-Hasakah province, where most of the Kurds are living, under military rule. To buy or sell a property, a license must now be obtained from the military security directorate and the political activities department.

According to Kurd opposition representatives and human rights activists, the procedure is not applied in the Arab provinces, and has been designed exclusively for the Kurdish areas. It not only prevents Kurds from establishing themselves in their native province, but also prevents any kind of investment and development. The economic breakdown so engineered pushes Kurds to leave the province, were they are replaced by Arab colonialists. They will find themselves isolated in Arab-populated parts of Syria, where their identity will be progressively dissolved.

But why is there a new phase in repression, especially now? It looks as though the Ba’ath regime is now facing a new generation of militants, more radical and more militant than their predecessors. Some of the Syrian Kurdish political groups are not asking merely for the Kurds to be granted full citizenship who were ostracized by the 1962 “special census.” They are demanding more. At the time M. al-Youssef was giving the interview, in the last days of December 2009, three members of the PYKS executive committee were arrested alongside a prominent activist. They were arrested after a Party conference during which they called for autonomy. The Democratic Union Party – PYD recent Congress in October, was held under the theme “Forward with Autonomy.” Messages were passed to jailed PYD members, with promises that Party members would not be arrested if the Party lowered its demands, and the arrest of Central Committee member Issa Ibrahim Hesso just after the October congress, demonstrates the regime’s concerns with the re-vindication of “autonomy.”

In this context, the new developments in Turkey, with the prolongation of the ceasefire and the rumors about opening of negotiations, are not good news for the Syrian government. As long as the war lasts, Syria remains a useful ally for the Turks. Their strategy of encirclement, aiming at isolating the PKK rebels in their mountains, requires Syrian co-operation. A press release from an Anatolian news agency (mentioned in Today’s Zaman online edition from the 17/06/2010), talking about military operations by the Syrian army in the Kurdish provinces and resulting in the death of 11 PKK fighters, has been dismissed as a manipulation. The journalist Newaf Khalil, who spoke to the BBC the July 1, 2010, said that the idea was to entice Syria to join the ongoing offensive against the PKK and PJAK, and to assimilate the Syrian Kurdish political activists into the insurgents, so making them legitimate military targets. The promises of amnesties and regularization of status that have been made at several opportunities by President al-Assad, appear as attempts to encourage the one thousand six hundred Syrian Kurds fighting in the PKK’s army to desert ranks and so break the organization’s military force.

Worryingly for Damascus, numerous Syrian Kurds have previously joined the PKK (Fehman Huseyin, commander of the PKK army, is a Syrian). Would those well-trained men and women be tempted to take back the weapons they laid down and resume the fight in Syria rather than in south-eastern Turkey? Nothing indicated anything like this, and representatives from the PYD, who share with the PKK a common ideology and similar goals, insist on their determination to achieve their objectives by peaceful means. Nonetheless, this supposed “threat” can be used as a pretext for a new step in repression.

Original URL:http://frontpagemag.com/2011/01/12/syrias-war-on-the-kurds/

Eric Bruneau

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

Spanish Government Sponsors PA TV ad calling for Boycott of All Israeli Products

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

Last week Palestinian Authority TV started broadcasting an ad promoting the boycott of all Israeli products.

The ad is sponsored by the Spanish government, the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and AECID - the Spanish governmental humanitarian aid development (Click to view).

The TV ad opens as a Palestinian boy enters a store and overhears a conversation. A customer informs the shopkeeper that "they're plastering the city with advertisements about boycotting Israeli goods." The shopkeeper argues that he has to offer Israeli goods because the Palestinian customers demand it. The customer agrees adding that "Israeli products are better than the local products."

The shopkeeper then ask the boy him what he wants. The boy looks at the Israeli products in the store and says: "I want Israeli chips." He takes the chips, walks to the door, and then hears gunfire, presumably from Israeli soldiers, and he decides that he will not buy Israeli goods. He looks to each side, drops the chips on the floor, returns to the shopkeeper and says: "I don't want the Israeli product, I want the Palestinian product."

The ad ends with this text on the screen:

"Don't prolong the occupation's life upon our land,"

while displaying the logo of the Palestinian NGO Health Work Committees, followed by the logos of the ad's sponsors:

"The Spanish government, the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and AECID (Spanish governmental humanitarian aid development), ACSUR (a Spanish non-profit organization), and Canaan Joint Development Project for Jerusalem (Palestinian)."

The following is the full description and transcript of the PA TV ad calling for boycott of all Israeli products sponsored by Spain:

A boy enters a store and overhears a conversation.
Customer to shopkeeper: "Do you see them? They're plastering the city with advertisements about boycotting Israeli goods."
Shopkeeper: "I can't not bring in [Israeli products], because people ask for them."
Customer: "Israeli products are better than the local products."
Shopkeeper to the boy: "What do you want?"
Boy, after looking at Israeli products: "I want Israeli chips."
He takes the chips, walks to the door, and hears gunfire. He looks around, drops the chips on the floor, returns to the shopkeeper and says: "I don't want the Israeli product, I want the Palestinian product."

The advertisement ends by displaying the text: "Don't prolong the occupation's life upon our land," with the logo of the Palestinian NGO Health Work Committees, followed by the logos of the ad's sponsors:
The Spanish government,
the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs
AECID (Spanish governmental humanitarian aid development),
ACSUR (a Spanish non-profit organization),
Canaan Joint Development Project for Jerusalem (Palestinian).

[PA TV (Fatah), Jan. 5, 2010]

This originally appeared on Palestinian Media Watch (www.pmw.org) on January 11, 2011

Original URL:http://www.hudson-ny.org/1795/spanish-government-pa-boycott-israeli-products

Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

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

Recognition of Palestine by Latin American States But No Aid, No Money, No Jobs

by Anna Mahjar-Barducci

Since early December, when Brazil took the initiative of recognizing a Palestinian State within the 1967 borders, other Latin American countries have followed in Brazil's steps: Argentina, Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and most recently Chile. Ecuador and Uruguay have said they will open Palestinian embassies this spring.

Brazil became also the first country in the Americas to host a Palestinian Embassy on December 31, 2010, when Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas laid the first stone of what it will be the future embassy in Brasilia. However, the politically-motivated gesture of former Brazilian President Lula da Silva toward the Palestinians seems not to have had an equivalent when it came time to give real humanitarian aid towards the Palestinian people. According to an Iranian news agency, Ahlul Bayt:

"Hundreds of Palestinian refugees forced out of their homes in war-torn Iraq and settled eventually in Brazil have complained of the miserable conditions they and their families are experiencing because no one is taking care of them."

In an appeal they sent to international human rights institutions, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees [UNHCR], the refugees asserted that they have not tasted the meaning of living since they arrived in Brazil two years ago, adding that many of them suffer from chronic diseases but that no adequate medical attention was given to them. […] The refugees confirmed they could not manage their own affairs: poor economic condition and inadequate job opportunities in Brazil have made them unable to find job and live independently.

As far as the inauguration of the Palestinian embassy in Brazil is concerned, the Iranian news agency asserts that "the refugees underscored that officials of the embassy did not even bother themselves to pay a visit to the refugees despite the persistent appeals they are sending to them to look into their situation". Hence, the recognition of a Palestinian State by Lula da Silva does not seem motivated by caring about the Palestinian people, but maybe more by the old lefty anti-Israeli sentiment.

From the press:

• Chile recognizes Palestinian state
• Uruguay to recognize Palestine in March 2011
• Palestinian FM on Chile's recognition of Palestine
• Ecuador to open Palestinian Embassy
• European countries to upgrade diplomatic Palestinian representation offices
• After Argentina's recognition of Palestine, Abbas supports Buenos Aires in island dispute
• Palestine opens embassy in Brasilia
• Photos of the Palestinian embassy's inauguration in Brasilia

January 7, 2011

Chile recognizes Palestinian state

On Friday [January 7], [Chile's] Foreign Minister Alfredo Moreno announced that Chilean President Sebastian Pinera's government has officially recognized Palestine as a state based on the 1967 borders.

"The government of Chile has adopted the resolution today [Friday, January 7] recognizing the existence of the state of Palestine as a free, independent and sovereign state," he said, reading a Foreign Ministry declaration.

He added that President Pinera plans to visit Israel and the Palestinian territories on March 4 and 5. […]

Uruguay to recognize Palestine in March 2011

In December 2010, Brazil, Argentina, and Bolivia recognized Palestine as an independent state. […] Last month, Uruguay announced that it would recognize Palestine in March 2011.

On December 31, Acting Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas said that the recognition of the Palestinian state by several Latin American nations would force the US and Israel to return to negotiations. […] Press TV (Iran)

January 7, 2011

Palestinian FM on Chile's recognition of Palestine

Riyadh Al-Maliki, the Palestinian minister of foreign affairs, told the Voice of Palestine Radio that [Chilean President] Pinera announced late Thursday [January 6] that the leaders of country's political parties "recognize the state of Palestine."

Al-Maliki said the announcement came two days after the Chilean senate passed a resolution calling on Pinera to recognize Palestine.

The minister added that the recognition came after a request by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during his meeting with Pinera in Brazil early last week. […] Al-Maliki said that Pinera is due to visit the West Bank in three months.

Ecuador to open Palestinian Embassy

He also announced the opening of a Palestinian embassy in Ecuador, which already declared its recognition of a Palestinian state. Uruguay also announced that it planned to join Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia in recognizing a Palestinian state, and Al-Maliki said that the country would formally do it in March 2011. […]

European countries to upgrade diplomatic Palestinian representation offices

The Palestinian foreign minister said that European countries are expected to upgrade the level of diplomatic Palestinian representation offices, but not to the level of embassies. "The level of representation will be developed to a diplomatic mission and the head of the mission will be called ambassador, similar to recent steps by Spain and France," Al-Maliki added.

According to the minister, Britain promised the PA to study steps and procedures to boost the status of the Palestinian representation office in London. The EU said in December that it will recognize the Palestinian state "when appropriate." The United States said that the Palestinian state should be a result of a negotiated solution with Israel.

Arab News (Saudi Arabia)

January 3, 2011

After Argentina's recognition of Palestine, Abbas supports Buenos Aires in island dispute

The Argentine Foreign Affairs Minister on Sunday [January 2] thanked President Mahmoud Abbas for his support in the country's dispute over the Malvinas Islands, occupied by British forces in 1833.

Marking the 178th anniversary of the islands' occupation on Monday, the Argentinean representative to the Palestinian Authority pointed to similarities between the Malvinas Islands and Palestine. Both countries were under unfair and anachronistic occupation, the Ramallah-based office said, and both cases revealed double standards in the implementation of UN resolutions. Further, foreign powers were exploiting the resources of both territories, the representative office said. […] Ma'an (Palestinian news agency)

January 1, 2011

Palestine opens embassy in Brasilia

The Palestinian embassy's inauguration in Brasilia. (Source: Agencia Brasil)

Brazil was among the first and most important Latin American countries to recognize a sovereign Palestinian state. A number of other Latin American countries have also recognized Palestine as a state, such as Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. […]

Abbas, who is in Brazil to attend the inauguration ceremony of President-elect Dilma Rousseff on January 1, 2011, laid the cornerstone of the new Palestinian Embassy on Friday [December 31, 2010] on land donated by the Brazilian government in the same district as other diplomatic missions.

Doves were released during the ceremony to represent peace. Following the ceremony, Abbas met outgoing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and thanked him for the country's recognition of Palestinian statehood. […] Press TV (Iran)

Original URL: http://www.hudson-ny.org/1793/recognition-of-palestine-latin-american-states

Anna Mahjar-Barducci

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

Radical Muslims in America All the Benefits and Still Turning to Jihad

by Raymond Ibrahim

Recent remarks by Attorney General Eric Holder on the threat posed by "radicalized" American Muslims are revealing—not just because of what they say regarding the domestic situation, but for their international implications as well. According to Holder:

"[T]he threat is real, the threat is different, the threat is constant. The threat has changed … to worrying about people in the United States, American citizens—raised here, born here, and who for whatever reason, have decided that they are going to become radicalized and take up arms against the nation in which they were born. It is one of the things that keeps me up at night. You didn't worry about this even two years ago—about individuals, about Americans, to the extent that we now do." Holder noted that while he was confident in the United States' counter-terrorism efforts, Americans "have to be prepared for potentially bad news…. The terrorists only have to be successful once."

Holder's assertion that "the terrorists only have to be successful once" has important implications: aside from the obvious—that it only takes one strike to create devastation on U.S. soil—it is also a reminder that when people argue that most American Muslims are moderate, and only a few are radical, it does not help our security. It took nineteen to commit 9/11; and we have already seen that some American Muslims are radical. According to Holder, in the last two years, 50 of the 126 people charged with terrorism were U.S. citizens.

Conversely, Holder's point that "You didn't worry about this even two years ago—about individuals, about Americans, to the extent that we now do," is odd. Why should Americans not have been a worry two years ago? Anyone even moderately familiar with Islamist ideology knows that it allows for absolutely no national allegiance. The notion that some American Muslims could become radicalized should have been a concern since 9/11—nearly a decade ago, not two years ago. It should have been a concern when it became obvious that American Muslims—like John Walker Lindh, Gregory Patterson, Levar Washington, Kevin James, Christopher Paul and Jose Padilla—were turning to violent jihad.

More significantly, the fact that Americans are being radicalized not only bodes ill for U.S. security; it also suggests that American efforts in the Muslim world are doomed to failure. Consider: if American Muslims, who enjoy Western benefits—including democracy, liberty, prosperity, and freedom of expression—are still being radicalized, why then do we insist that importing these same benefits to the Muslim world will eliminate its even more ingrained form of "radicalization"?

After all, the mainstream position, the only one evoked by politicians, both Democrat and Republican, is that all the sacrifices America makes in the Muslim world (Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.), will pay off once Muslims discover how wonderful Western ways are, and happily slough off their Islamist veneer, which, as the theory goes, is a product of—you guessed it—a lack of democracy, liberty, prosperity, and freedom of expression. Yet here are American Muslims, immersed in the bounties of the West—and still do they turn to violent jihad.

In short, America needs to rethink its strategy for the war on terrorism—both at home and abroad. Domestically, this means cracking down without compunction on anything that smacks of Islamist activity, without fear of being "politically incorrect;" it means better monitoring of jihadist websites which play a major role in radicalizing American Muslims, such as Inspire (which was started by a North Carolina Muslim); and it means exercising prudence when granting visas to people from dubious backgrounds. Internationally, it means understanding that the one solution to war promoted by most Western politicians—spreading Western values and ways of governance—is no solution at all.

Original URL:http://www.meforum.org/2818/radical-muslims-in-america

Raymond Ibrahim is associate director of the Middle East Forum, author of The Al Qaeda Reader, and guest lecturer at the National Defense Intelligence College.

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