The Illusion of Obama's Bin Laden Raid Situation Room Leadership

by Mara Zebest

Apparently, my previous article on the famous "Situation Room" photo tapped a nationwide nerve. The response ranged from some eye-opening tips on other photos to a few perplexed criticisms as to the motivation for Photoshopping a Situation Room photo.

The answer to that latter question can be summed up in one simple thought: To hide the truth. Obama was out golfing while the OBL mission was unfolding, and the administration needed the Situation Room photo op for public perception -- to give the illusion that he's presidential.

Obama's entire "Composite Presidency" and administration are orchestrated in this fashion. Not only is the photo's legitimacy in question, but so is the narrative illusion behind it. Obama knew of OBL's location for a year and refused to act. The CIA admits that there was "no live video feed," as implied by the iconic White House photo. It is anyone's guess what the captive audience was looking at, but it wasn't the OBL raid. It was recently reported that a highly lawyered CYA memo was drafted that made it clear that the military would take all blame for any errors, while Obama would claim all glory for successes. Not surprisingly, the real heroes seem to have a problem with this form of spiking the ball and using our brave SEALs for political gain. Why would Obama need to Photoshop the Situation Room photos? For the same reason behind everything else he does: to influence perception in which everything is about Obama.

As a follow-up to the previous article, a second "Situation Room" photo will be the target of discussion here. For those who would like to download the image, a high-resolution version can be found here. This White House Flickr link is a great place to check for high-resolution sizes of many of the White House photo sets released.

At first glance, the image overwhelms the viewer with a massive backside of Obama's jacket -- oddly oversized shoulders and arms supporting another small-head redux. Any more photos like this, and one might start speculating that Jeebs is the inspiration.

In all fairness, the initial impression leads the eye to believe that the beige fabric under the right armpit belongs to Robert Gates' pants (standing near Obama on the right). However, if that were the case, then who would be attached to the pant leg under the left armpit? It's not intuitively obvious, and it takes the viewer a little time to eventually come to a conclusion that these fabric strips are side panels built into the jacket design. Maybe the New York Times found the presence of this fabric an odd distraction as well -- and the reason behind their cropped version.

Even with this oddity solved, the image is not without significant problems. Moving up the Iron Man-like shoulders to the blurry Jeebs-sized head, zoom in for an extreme close-up of the right neck edge and ear. The right edge of the neck is missing a small but important piece -- it suffers a disappearing act as it approaches the jacket edge and displays a transparent gap (where a phone sitting on the desk can be seen through the neck).

The right ear is also inconsistent along the defining edge. The top ear rim edge is blurry but still clearly visible (similar to the left ear edge), but as the eye travels down around the right ear edge, an abrupt chunk is taken away from the outer ear rim, and the remaining pixel edge transition is significantly sharper (less blurry) for the lower portion.

Shifting to a different image section, it appears that there is a floating hand among the Situation Room attendees. Just to verify that a body wasn't being eclipsed by the folks in front, it seemed reasonable to obtain some answers by examining the reflections in the monitors on the wall behind them. By applying an image adjustment to lighten all the color values in the monitors, the reflection detail becomes more pronounced and easier to discern. Keep in mind that the adjustment applied to the monitors will distort color values -- thus the shirt that appears white could be the blue-shirted man seen in the photo. That said, the man in the reflection has his hand in front -- near his chin -- not at his back. The curvature of the fingers appears different from that of the floating hand's, as well as the fact that it is a man in the reflection, while the floating hand displays feminine characteristics.

The blue-shirted man standing in the room does not appear to be a match for the man in the reflection. So if the reflection is not the blue-shirted man, but rather an eclipsed individual, then where is the blue-shirted man found in the reflection? Wouldn't he be seen in front of the eclipsed individual (within the reflection)? Conversely, if the floating hand does not match the reflected man's hand, then where in the room is the reflected man (whose hand is near the chin)? Not to mention that the body for the floating hand has still not been accounted for via the reflection.

In case you were wondering how the people in the room translate to the rear monitor reflections, a capture is provided for your evaluation. Keep in mind that the reflections are at angles similar to looking in a mirror and viewing information at the opposing angle.

Shifting gears to the first "Situation Room" photo, found here, a few more problems were neglected in the last article.

Is there another transparency issue when zoomed in tight to Gates' face? Clinton's jacket pattern can be seen deep into Gates' pupil. The wisp of hair induced transparency near Gates' forehead may be a contrived attempt when contrasted with the stark clarity in Clinton's hair (sitting next to Gates) and a similar contrived transparency near the same wisp of hair found on Gates in the Obama "huge back" photo.

A dashed line in the capture shows the area that resembles a masking attempt to give a natural illusion.

A final note focuses on the blurred photo in front of Hillary Clinton, in which the White House narrative offered the explanation that the blur was necessary to hide sensitive material. Fair enough. However, how is it that this supposedly sensitive document was obscured, while the binder sitting on Hillary's lap is left

untouched? The first line printed at the top of the binder clearly states "TOP SECRET CODEWORD NOFORN" with a second line message "FOR USE IN WHITE HOUSE SITUATION ROOM ONLY." Keep in mind that the codename for the OBL mission was leaked as "Geronimo," so this is obviously a different codeword. Is this another disturbing attempt to casually release confidential information to our enemies? In light of numerous stories, most recently the secret-under-the-radar program to release Taliban detainees -- it's not hard to get the feeling that the mission of this administration is to sabotage the safety and sovereignty of this nation rather than protect it.

Mara Zebest is a graphic artist and co-author for a number of Adobe product books, including the Inside Photoshop series, which typically exceeded 1,000 pages, published in at least ten different languages around the world. She is also tech editor for numerous books for both Adobe and Microsoft products and has worked closely with the Cold Case Posse (CCP) for Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) in providing evidence on Obama's forged birth certificate.

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/05/the_illusion_of_obamas_bin_laden_raid_situation_room_leadership.html

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

The Man Who Would Rule Egypt

by Mark Tapson

Egypt, the original heart of the Arab Spring, goes to the polls this Wednesday and Thursday to elect a new president, and the Obama administration’s favored choice, Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, may emerge the victor. “He could be the president who puts Egypt on a path towards genuine democracy,” says one U.S. official. But the self-styled “liberal” Islamist is no moderate.

One of the two front-running candidates (along with Amr Moussa, 75, a former foreign minister under Mubarak and most recently secretary-general of the Arab League), Fotouh, 61, is a doctor and former member of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose political party took nearly 50 percent of the seats in parliamentary elections and is the best-organized political force in the country. He served for 25 years in the Brotherhood’s leadership body before being expelled last year when he defied the group’s leaders to run for the presidency.

Fotouh is described as a reformist member of the organization, and as such has received support from younger Brothers, even though the Brotherhood is putting forth its own candidate, Mohammed Morsi. Fotouh is viewed as more liberal than the other Islamists in the race, prompting comparisons to Turkey’s Recep Erdogan. That would be the same Erdogan who proclaimed that “there is no moderate Islam,” who advised Turkish immigrants in Europe that “assimilation is a crime against humanity,” who has taken an increasingly bellicose stance toward Israel – and who is a favorite of Obama in the Middle East.

“Aboul Fotouh has said that he wants to be the Erdogan of Egypt, and I think that U.S. relations with Turkey may be a good example of what we could expect,” says Stephen McInerney, executive director of the Project on Middle East Democracy. In that case, what we can expect is an increasingly militant fundamentalist regime hostile to Israel.

In addition to some Muslim Brothers, Fotouh has also received support from ultra-fundamentalist Salafis, who are competing with the Brotherhood. Since the Arab Spring revolution, the Salafis won nearly a quarter of the parliamentary seats, surprising the unprepared Brothers with their strong showing.

Now, in response to the success of Fotouh’s campaign and his Salafi backing, the Brotherhood has ramped up its religious rhetoric to draw Salafis to Morsi’s support. At a recent rally near Cairo University, speaker after speaker cast Morsi as the only true Islamist candidate and the one who would ensure the implementation of sharia. The clear message is that Fotouh is not Islamic enough.

They need not be concerned about that. An avowed radical in his youth, Fatouh helped found the terrorist organization Al-Gama’a Al-Islamiyya, which now endorses his candidacy, and spent five years in Mubarak’s prisons alongside such figures as al Qaeda’s Dr. al-Zawahiri. Newsweek points out that some Egyptians are casting a suspicious eye on his split from the Brotherhood, and are accusing Fotouh of downplaying his Islamist tendencies.

The Washington Institute’s Eric Trager, who interviewed him last year, said that “the notion that Aboul Fotouh is some kind of progressive is farcical.” Said Sadek, a political sociologist at the American University in Cairo, says electing Fotouh would be the equivalent of establishing a theocratic state. “He didn’t renounce the ideas of the Moslem Brotherhood even when he was jailed by Mubarak,” says Sadek . “You’re telling me he’s different now?”

GLORIA Center Middle East expert Barry Rubin notes that the Obama administration is unconcerned about Aboul Fotouh’s aggressively Islamist comments – for example, that Israel is racist, an enemy of Egypt, and an illegitimate occupier – as mere “campaign rhetoric.” The assumption is that the reality of governance will make a moderate out of Fotouh, as it does for American politicians. Rubin points out that similar wishful thinking about extremists has never played out that way historically in the real world.

In an interview last year, Aboul Fotouh apparently betrayed himself as a 9/11 “truther”; he was quoted as claiming about the 9/11 attacks that “It was too big an operation… They [the United States] didn’t bring this crime before the U.S. justice system until now. Why? Because it’s part of a conspiracy.” Needless to say, it doesn’t bode well for Egypt-U.S. relations to be dealing with an Arab conspiracy theorist.

In an al-Jazeera interview, Fotouh called for the Brotherhood to work toward full legalization and transparency, but he claims that he is “against the Muslim Brotherhood’s participation in party politics. The Brotherhood should not become a political party nor should it have a political party.” At the same time, he also believes that “none of the Brotherhood’s goals or their practices are illegitimate. In fact, their aims and their methods are very much legitimate.”

Questioned in the interview about what kind of state Egypt would be under his leadership, Fotouh played up his liberal side:

First, Islam does not recognize a theocratic state… A civilian state according to Islamic thought must have a constitution written by the people which defines the roles and responsibilities of all authoritative bodies. You can call this a modern state, a civilian state, a democratic state…

Asked how such an Islamic state would relate to its Christian or atheist citizens, he replied that an Islamic state embraces all its citizens, and said an Egyptian Christian would enjoy the same rights and responsibilities as a Muslim: “There is no difference. Islam does not discriminate based on gender, religion, color, and the new constitution must not either.” On a radio show, one of the hosts identified herself as Christian and asked about the second-class status of her people in Egypt; he responded vaguely, “Nations rise only if there is justice. Otherwise there will be no development.”

About Egypt’s relation with Israel, he replied that his country would maintain its treaty with Israel, “but it will be revised. The articles in it which are in Egypt’s interests will be kept, and those that are detrimental to Egypt’s interests will be taken out.” So much for compromise.

As Egypt’s election date arrives, Western observers are optimistic that Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh’s moderate nature will prevail – just as they once were optimistic about the moderate nature of the Arab Spring.

Mark Tapson

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/05/23/the-man-who-would-rule-egypt/

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

Catholics vs. Obama

by Arnold Ahlert

On Monday, 43 Roman Catholic organizations filed lawsuits in a dozen different federal courts, challenging the Obama administration’s mandate requiring insurance coverage for “preventive health services” inimical to their faith. The litigation represents the latest stage of a battle that began January 20th, when the administration announced that the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act would require Catholic institutions and individual Catholic employers to provide contraception, sterilization and abortifacient drugs to all of their employees. The Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services Departments are being sued by Jones Day, a law firm representing all the plaintiffs pro bono. “We have tried negotiations with the administration and legislation with the Congress — and we’ll keep at it — but there’s still no fix,” said Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan in a statement.

Cardinal Dolan further illuminated the Church’s position on “CBS This Morning” yesterday. “They tell us if you’re really going be considered a church, if you’re going to be really exempt from these demands of the government, well, you have to propagate your Catholic faith and everything you do, you can serve only Catholics and employ only Catholics,” Dolan said. ”We’re like, wait a minute, when did the government get in the business of defining for us the extent of our ministry?”

Perhaps the best answer to that question would be Friday, February 10th, when the administration claimed they would “accommodate” Catholic concerns with a “compromise,” whereby insurance providers would provide coverage for the disputed services. It was initially well received by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, who called it “a first step in the right direction.” Twenty-four hours later the compromise was rejected. “In the case where the employee and insurer agree to add the objectionable coverage, that coverage is still provided as a part of the objecting employer’s plan, financed in the same way as the rest of the coverage offered by the objecting employer. This, too, raises serious moral concerns,” the Bishops decided.

At that juncture, the administration managed to peel away some of the more left-leaning Catholic organizations, such as Catholic Charities, the Catholic Health Association, which represents Catholic hospitals across the country, as well as individual Catholic Democrats and other liberals who applauded the ostensible compromise. James Salt, executive director of Catholics United, a liberal advocacy group aligned with the administration, castigated the bishops, whose “blanket opposition appears to serve the interests of a political agenda, not the needs of the American people.” Apparently for Mr. Salt and other like-minded thinkers, it is Catholics who have a political agenda, not a federal government that mandates that they violate their religious beliefs.

During the next phase of the battle, a hopelessly compromised mainstream media not only took the Obama administration’s side on the issue, but amplified it into a “war on women.” A Washington Post column by Sally Quinn claimed “Jesus would be rolling over in his grave if he hadn’t already left it,” because Vatican bishops issued a report critical of nuns who aligned themselves with President Obama on the issue of birth control mandates. The New York Times’ Maureen Dowd was equally apoplectic. “It has become a habit for the church to go after women,” she wrote, further noting that church leadership “never recoiled in horror from pedophilia, yet it recoils in horror from outspoken nuns.” OpEdNews columnist Gregory Paul contended that “the Catholic patriarchy is engaged in a global conspiracy to deny women their reproductive rights.”

The common thread? Like so many progressives, these three and countless others believe the Church should accommodate a “more enlightened” (read progressive) ideology, even where that ideology is utterly antithetical to Catholic tenets. For genuine Catholics, that kind of reasoning is exactly backwards. Yet it is precisely this same backward reasoning that animates an Obama administration willing to “negotiate” its way around that part of the First Amendment that doesn’t fully “accommodate” ObamaCare.

Soon after that, the Catholic war on women became the Republican war on women. A Georgetown law student named Sandra Fluke got her 15 minutes of fame bemoaning the fact that the Catholic university didn’t provide her and her classmates with free birth control, further arguing that free contraceptives were “a natural human right.” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius accused Republicans of wanting to “roll back the last 50 years in progress women have made in comprehensive health care in America.” Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) trolled for campaign donations to counter Republicans’ “unprecedented assault on women’s rights.”

For a short time, the attacks on both the Church and Republicans seemed like a worthwhile gambit. Yet as time went on, the “war” began to lose steam. No doubt that loss was abetted by non-contraceptive issues, such as Hilary Rosen’s thoughtless attack on Ann Romney for “never working a day in her life,” or the fact that the feminist-promoting president pays female White House employees 18% less than their male counterparts.

Nevertheless, the erosion has become considerable. New polls reveal that Mr. Obama has lost support among both women and Catholics. In March, the president ostensibly had a commanding 2-to-1 lead over Mitt Romney among women. According to a CBS poll conducted May 11-13, Mitt Romney now holds a 46-43 percent edge over Mr. Obama. A Pew Survey shows that the 53-44 percent advantage Mr. Obama enjoyed over Mr. Romney in March had turned into a 50-45 percent edge for Mr. Romney in April.

Thus it would seem that the administration, despite all of its self-assured smugness, is on the losing side of a war they themselves initiated. Moreover, they have made no movement away from the mandate that was finalized on February 12. It is scheduled to go into effect on August 1st, with a “safe harbor” provision for some organizations until August 1, 2013. In a bit of comic relief, Cardinal Dolan referred to this provision as “a year in which we’re supposed to figure out how we can violate our consciences.”

In the meantime, a number of developments will take place, including a Supreme Court decision on ObamaCare next month; the introduction by Marco Rubio (R-FL) of a new Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 2012 designed to counter the ObamaCare mandate; the Catholic lawsuits; and last but not least, the general election in November.

Progressives and their media enablers have endeavored mightily to make this dispute about women’s rights. That is, quite simply, a lie. There is no more a “right” to contraception, which is cheap and widely available, than there is to cigarettes and beer, which are equally so. It is yet another effort by this administration to expand the reach of government, this time into the religious arena, and forcibly conscript people of faith to do the state’s bidding. If it succeeds, such people will have one of two choices. They can abandon their ability to administer services in education, health care, charities, and social services to government bureaucracies — or they can abandon their religion. Cardinal Dolan explained the implications. “Never before have we faced this kind of challenge to our ability to engage in the public square as people of faith.”

Not in America. But the history of other nations is replete with horror tales of socialists, Marxists and other assorted totalitarians who have sought to drive religion from the public square, or eliminate it completely. Why? Ironically, such efforts have invariably been associated with creating Socialist Utopias or a workers paradises. Just as ironically, no group of Americans has labored harder for “separation of church and state” than progressives — until it interferes with their sense of entitlement.

The archdiocese of Washington, D.C. illuminates the reason for the litigation. “This lawsuit is about an unprecedented attack by the federal government on one of America’s most cherished freedoms: the freedom to practice one’s religion without government interference,” it says on a special website created for the occasion. “It is not about whether people have access to certain services; it is about whether the government may force religious institutions and individuals to facilitate and fund services which violate their religious beliefs.”

Amen to that.

Arnold Ahlert

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/05/23/suing-for-religious-freedom/

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

Top Saudi Cleric: Ban Christian Churches in Arabia

by Irfan Al-Alawi

"How could the grand mufti issue a fatwa of such importance behind the back of his king?"

In late April of this year, the Wahhabi grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdul Aziz Ibn Abdullah Aal Ash-Sheikh, who controls all Sunni Muslim clerics in the desert kingdom, announced that girls could be forced into marriage at age 10 or 12, without their consent, by contractual arrangement between families.

Aal Ash-Sheikh delivered this opinion in an address to faculty at the Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University in Riyadh – known to ordinary Saudis as "the terrorist factory." Aal Ash-Sheikh said, "Our mothers and grandmothers got married when they were barely 12. Good upbringing makes a girl ready to perform all marital duties at that age."

The Saudi chief cleric then proceeded to conflict with repeated promises of the Saudi King, Abdullah, to foster interfaith respect and dialogue, by calling, in mid-March, for the destruction of all Christian churches in the Arabian Peninsula. Responding to a query in Kuwait by Muslim clerics affiliated with the "Revival of Islamic Heritage Society," favorable to Wahhabism, Aal Ash-Sheikh based his argument on a weakly-transmitted hadith, or oral commentary on the life of Muhammad, in which the Prophet allegedly mandated that there should not be "two religions" in Arabia.

"How could the grand mufti issue a fatwa of such importance behind the back of his king? We see a contradiction between the dialogue being practiced, the efforts of the king and those of his top mufti," said leaders of the Catholic Bishops' Conference in Vienna, where, with the cooperation of Austria and Spain, Saudi foreign minister Saud al-Faisal had inaugurated the "King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue" in 2011.

Aal Ash-Sheikh owes his position to his lineal descent from the 18^th century religious ideologue, Muhammad Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab, after whom the ultra-fundamentalist, ultra-exclusivist Wahhabi sect – the official and sole recognized Islamic interpretation in Saudi Arabia – is named. The family of Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab has, for generations, intermarried with the royal Al-Saud clan. Along with their claims to a "pure Islam" imitative of the Prophet Muhammad, Wahhabis are known for their violent hatred of spiritual Sufism, of Shia Muslims, and for their hostility to non-Muslims. It must be emphasized that Wahhabi shariah is new, representing a break with traditional Muslim jurisprudence and a radical innovation in Islamic law.

In Muslim lands and Muslim minority communities around the world, radical Islamist tendencies following, or imitating, Wahhabism have gained new energy in the aftermath of the faded "Arab Spring." As the pro-democracy mobilizations in Arab lands have resulted instead in victories for the radical Muslim Brotherhood in Tunisia, Morocco, and Egypt, and with the increasing prominence of radical groups in Egypt, Syria, Libya and Yemen, an Bahrain, Islamist victories have coincided with a new offensive among South Asian Muslims by Deobandis, precursors of the Taliban, and allied with the Saudi Wahhabis.

In Nigeria, a similarly extremist, Wahhabi-oriented group, the "Boko Haram" [literally, "Western Education is a Sin"] has spread terror, especially targeting Christians, across the Muslim north.

According to the British Broadcasting Corporation, "Boko Haram" has murdered 1,000 people since its appearance in the country in 2009; is crossing Nigeria's borders into the neighbouring state of Chad, and threatening Niger and Cameroon -- as well as having links with Al-Qaida in the regional branch of the terror-force founded by the late Osama Bin Laden, which claims the entire Islamic Maghreb, or western North Africa,

Nigerian Islamist fanatics have demonstrated two features in common with Saudi Wahhabism: hatred of Christians and contempt for women. The contempt for women is exemplified by marriages to underage females by the former governor of Zamfara State in northwestern Nigeria, and now a federal senator, known as Sani: Alhaji Ahmad Sani Yariman Bakura.

Representatives of two other Sharia states, Saudi Arabia and Sudan, appeared with Sani when he announced the imposition of a new legal system of Wahhabi law in Zamfara in 2009 [Radical Islam's Rules: The Worldwide Spread of Extreme Shari'a Law, by Paul Marshall, Freedom House, Washington DC, 2005]. Following the Saudi paradigm in focusing on standards for public conduct, Sani created a religious morals militia, the "Joint Islamic Aid Group" or "yanagaji," similar to the Saudi "mutawiyin" or morals patrols. The adoption of Wahhabi Sharia law in Zamfara included a ban on trade in alcohol, movie houses and video sales, a prohibition on women riding motorcycles, and gender segregation in public conveyances – all strictures enforced by the "yanagaji," who "arrest" alleged violators and hand them over to the police.

Sani, it was disclosed in 2010 – in violation of the 2003 Nigerian Child Rights Act, which bans betrothal or marriage of girls under the age of 18 – had also apparently paid USD $100,000 to marry an unnamed 13-year old Egyptian girl, reported to be the daughter of Sani's Egyptian driver, in a wedding celebrated at the national mosque of Abuja, the Nigerian capital.

Local media noted that Sani had divorced one of his four wives to make room for the Egyptian girl in a wedding that would have been illegal in Egypt, where the "bride" would be considered a minor.

"What we are concerned with," the President of the Women's Medical Association and Nigerian women's advocate, Mma Wokocha, told the BBC, "is that our minors, the girl child, should be allowed to mature, before going into marriage…. This very evil act should not be seen to be perpetrated by one of our distinguished legislators."

Representatives of the United Nations condemned the marriage; the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) told its Nigerian office it would conduct an examination of the case, and the Nigerian Senate was charged with investigating Sani's wedding to the Egyptian 13-year old. Sani had earlier been accused, in 2006, of marrying a girl of 15, but Nigeria's National Agency for Prohibition of Traffic in Persons and Other Related Matters announced in 2010 that it lacked evidence to file a complaint against Sani, and shifted responsibility for the inquiry to the country's attorney general. No legal proceeding against the Nigerian senator has been sustained.

Although Saudi Arabia is, of course, different from Egypt or Nigeria – notwithstanding the signatures of all three to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) – the Saudi chief cleric, Aal Ash-Sheikh, has apparently has had no comment on an issue raised in the case: the physiological and psychological capacity of female children to fulfill the demands of marriage. Islamic radicals simply claim that in approving such relationships they emulate Muhammad's marriage to the allegedly-underaged Aisha, although Aisha's age at the time of her marriage to Muhammad cannot be confirmed in any contemporary records. More importantly, various practices of the Arabs at the time of Islam's emergence have since been abandoned. With the coming of Islam to Arabia, the terrible habit of female infanticide was abolished and the right of women to divorce was introduced.

Aside from condemnation by Christian representatives, Aal Ash-Sheikh's "advice" calling for the destruction of all Christian churches was rejected by the Kuwait Minister of Religious Endowments, Jamal Al-Shahab. The Kuwaiti official affirmed that "the constitution of Kuwait guarantees its citizens [freedom of] religion and worship.… Demolishing churches and forbidding the members of the Christian community from worshipping [according to their belief] contravenes the state's laws and regulations." Aal Ash-Sheikh's stance was also condemned by Al-Azhar, the Sunni University in Cairo, and by Mehmet Görmez, head of the Turkish Religious Affairs Directorate (Diyanet).

Except for the closed Islamic cities of Mecca and Medina, the Arabian Peninsula has been shared with Christians and Jews throughout most of Islamic history. A shuttered Christian church and graveyard exist in Jedda, the Saudi commercial capital, near Mecca. Jews have a long history of residence in Yemen and Hadhramawt, in southern Arabia, as well as in Bahrain, where a synagogue still functions. Christian churches, Hindu temples and Buddhist shrines are found in Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, and Yemen. Some 3.5 million Christians live in the Gulf countries, including indigenous Arab Christians, Catholic migrant workers from the Philippines, India, and South Korea, and Western expatriate technicians and business representatives.

Despite widespread claims that King Abdullah and Aal Ash-Sheikh are close, the Wahhabi clerical caste has always resisted even the most limited reforms. Although rumors that Aal Ash-Sheikh's announcement was meant to undermine the position of King Abdullah cannot be excluded, to this day Aal Ash-Sheikh's opinion on Christian churches in the Arabian Peninsula has never been released or publicized anywhere inside Saudi Arabia.

Irfan Al-Alawi

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3073/saudi-fatwa-ban-christian-churches

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

Fatah and Hamas Lie to Their People

by Khaled Abu Toameh

It is much easier for Mahmud Abbas to reach a deal with Israel than with Hamas, whose ultimate goal is to get rid of both Fatah and Israel. Instead of wasting his time on meaningless efforts to achieve unity with Hamas, it would be better for Abbas to devote his energies and time to making peace with Israel.

Over the past five years, Hamas and Fatah have lied many times to their people about ending their power struggle, which has resulted in the creation of two separate Palestinian entities in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Fatah and Hamas have been killing, torturing and imprisoning each other's supporters since 2007, when the Islamist movement seized full control over the Gaza Strip and forced the Fatah out.

Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, Qatar and the Tunisia have tried over the past few years to persuade Fatah and Hamas to end the war, but all efforts have thus far been unsuccessful.

Leaders of Hamas and Fatah keep talking about the need to end the power struggle and achieve "national unity," saying this would serve the interests of the Palestinians.

Almost every few weeks, these leaders meet in one of the Arab capitals and announce that they have struck a "unity deal" that would bring peace and unity to the Palestinians.

But the Palestinians seem to have lost confidence in both Fatah and Hamas and are no longer taking the talk about reconciliation and unity seriously.

Each time Fatah and Hamas announce a new unity agreement, Palestinians react with skepticism and indifference.

Earlier this year, the two parties announced a unity agreement in Doha, Qatar, but never managed to implement it on the ground.

This week, representatives of Fatah and Hamas met in Cairo and announced another agreement -- this time to implement the previous Doha agreement.

Many Palestinian scoffed at the latest agreement, which was reached under pressure from the Egyptian authorities.

It now remains to be seen whether Fatah and Hamas would be able to carry out the new agreement to implement the previous one. Most Palestinians believe they already know the answer.

In many ways, the status quo seems to be convenient for Fatah and Hamas. Fatah has a mini state in the West Bank and is benefiting from hundreds of millions of dollars that are poured by international donors on Salam Fayyad's government.

Hamas, for its part, is happy that it has exclusive control over the entire Gaza Strip, which has been turned into an independent Islamic emirate. The last thing that Hamas wants is to bring Fatah back to the Gaza Strip. Similarly, Fatah is not keen on seeing Hamas gain power in the West Bank.

Any unity agreement signed between Fatah and Hamas will be fake and is intended only to appease the Palestinian public and absorb criticism. It is much easier for Mahmoud Abbas to reach a deal with Israel than with Hamas, whose ultimate goal is to get rid of both Fatah and Israel.

Instead of wasting his time on meaningless efforts to achieve unity with Hamas, it would be better for Abbas to devote his energies and time to making peace with Israel.

Khaled Abu Toameh

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3072/fatah-hamas-lie

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

The Fraudulence of Obama

by Peter Wehner

To understand the fundamental fraudulence of Barack Obama, consider just one issue: his relationship with lobbyists.

In arguably the most important speech of the campaign, the Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Iowa in 2007, Obama said, “[Lobbyists] have not funded my campaign, they will not work in my White House.…” Upon taking office, Obama made quite a show of announcing new ethics rules barring lobbyists from working in the administration on issues that fell under their lobbying bailiwick. Yet Obama immediately allowed waivers for lobbyists working on issues that fell under their lobbying bailiwick.

But that’s not all. During the 2008 campaign, Obama said this:

I intend to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over, that they had not funded my campaigns, and from my first day as president, I will launch the most sweeping ethics reform in U.S. history. We will make government more open, more accountable and more responsive to the problems of the American people.

When speaking about the destructive power of lobbyists in a town hall meeting in Bristol, Virginia, Obama was emphatic: ““We are going to change how Washington works. They will not run our party. They will not run our White House. They will not drown out the views of the American people.” And in August, 2008, Obama said this: ““I suffer from the same original sin of all politicians, which is we’’ve got to raise money. But my argument has been and will continue to be that the disproportionate influence of lobbyists and special interest is a problem in Washington and in state capitals.”

Now let’s judge Obama’s words against his actions, with the help of a Washington Post story.

Here’s how the story begins:

Before 9 a.m., a group of lobbyists began showing up at the White House security gates with the chief executives of their companies, all of whom serve on President Obama’s jobs council, to be checked in for a roundtable with the president. At 1 p.m., a dozen representatives from the meat industry arrived for a briefing in the New Executive Office Building. At 3 p.m., a handful of lobbyists were lining up for a ceremony honoring the 2011 World Series champions, the St. Louis Cardinals. And at 4 p.m., a lobbyist for Goldman Sachs arrived in the Old Executive Office Building for a meeting with Alan B. Krueger, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.

It was an unremarkable January day, with a steady stream of lobbyists among the thousands of daily visitors to the White House and the surrounding executive office buildings, according to a Washington Post analysis of visitor logs released by the administration… The visitor logs for Jan. 17 – one of the most recent days available – show that the lobbying industry Obama has vowed to constrain is a regular presence at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. The records also suggest that lobbyists with personal connections to the White House enjoy the easiest access.

Now hypocrisy is not an unknown quality in a politician. But what sets Obama apart from almost everyone else is the lengths Obama goes to in order to portray himself as morally superior to the rest of the political class even as he acts in ways that completely shatter his claims. He reminds me of the minister who cannot help from condemning the very sin to which he is beholden. And so as recently as last month Obama was saying, “A lot of folks see the amounts of money that are being spent and the special interests that dominate and the lobbyists that always have access, and they say to themselves, maybe I don’t count.”

What’s impossible to know is the degree to which Obama is alarmingly cynical or the degree to which he is alarmingly self-deluded. Whatever the case, he is a man whose words mean nothing. Nothing at all.

Peter Wehner

Source: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/05/22/fraudulence-of-obama-and-lobbyists/

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Obama’s Bain Hypocrisy

by Alana Goodman

ABC News reports that one of Obama’s top bundlers, Bain Capital executive Jonathan Lavine, actually appears to have had much more of a connection to the Ampad plant-closing issue than Mitt Romney did:

The Obama campaign’s latest attack tells the story of workers at an Indiana office supply company who lost their jobs after a Bain-owned company named American Pad & Paper (Ampad) took over their company and drove it out of business.

Here’s what the Obama web video doesn’t mention: A top Obama donor and fundraiser had a much more direct tie to the controversy and actually served on the board of directors at Richardson, Texas-based Ampad, which makes office paper products….

Lavine started working for Bain in 1993. He was one of three Bain executives who served on the board of directors of Ampad for several years, a post he held until 1999. Here’s a news release announcing his departure from the company in April 1999.

Lavine’s placement on the board of Ampad suggests he had a more direct role than Romney in the series of events surrounding the layoffs, labor disputes and eventual bankruptcy of the Marion, Ind., factory featured in the Obama campaign video.

Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt gave ABC an evasive response when asked about the contradiction:

“No one aside from Mitt Romney is running for president highlighting their tenure as a corporate buyout specialist as one of job creation,” LaBolt said. “The president has support from business leaders across industries who have seen him pull the economy back from the brink of another depression.”

True, Romney is the only candidate running as a turnaround artist and job-creator. But Obama is also the only candidate running on the claim that Bain Capital is a greedy company that bulldozed smaller businesses and destroyed lives. If that’s the centerpiece of his reelection strategy – and so far it sounds like it is – isn’t it noteworthy that he’s taking large donations from Bain leadership?

It’s not just donations, either. Lavine’s name appeared six times on the White House visitor logs since Obama took office, including a meeting with Rahm Emanuel in 2009. Lavine and two other Bain executives, Josh Bekenstein and Mark Nunnelly, were also invited to a White House event encouraging the private sector to invest in community-oriented non-profits in 2009. In a speech at the event, Obama called on the attending business leaders to “provide that critical seed capital to launch these ideas”:

So all of this represents a new kind of partnership between government and the non-profit sector. But I can tell you right now, that partnership isn’t complete, and it won’t be successful, without help from the private sector. And that’s why I’m glad that there are some deep pockets in the audience here — foundations, corporations, and individuals. You need to be part of this effort, as well. And that’s my challenge to the private sector today.

Note that Lavine, Bekenstein and Nunnelly were all top Bain executives during Romney’s tenure and remain so today. The fact that the White House invited them to an event to encourage them to invest in vital non-profits seems to contradict the White House’s current claim that Bain had a history of destroying companies it invested in.

Alana Goodman

Source: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/05/22/obama-bain-hypocrisy/

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Shifting U.N. Language Threatens U.S. Free Speech

by Daniel E. Rogel

The body representing the world's Muslim nations, the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC), has shifted its strategy for limiting free speech about Islam before the United Nations Human Rights Council. A move away from language about limiting "defamation of religions" and toward preventing "religious hatred," has "easily duped" the West into adopting the OIC's agenda of limiting discussion about Islam, reports Ann Snyder for the Gatestone Institute.

The OIC pressed for "speech-restrictive" resolutions on religion in U.N. forums for more than a decade. Ratification of these U.N. resolutions would have internationalized anti-blasphemy laws found in Muslim-majority countries.

Western nations resisted such attempts, arguing that the laws criminalized free speech. The move could also result in international prosecution of Westerners for criticizing practices by some Islamists, just as similar laws have been used against Middle East Christians.

The OIC adjusted its strategy accordingly, but not its goal. It dropped calls to criminalize the "defamation of religions" and now relies on interpreting pre-existing language in the U.N.'s International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [ICCPR], Article 20(2). The United States Senate ratified the ICCPR in 1992 but with an explicit reservation against the article, which would have made "any advocacy of national, racial, or religious hatred…prohibited by law."

The new U.N. Human Rights Council Resolution 16/18 "condemns any advocacy of religious hatred against individuals that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence" using "print, audio-visual or electronic media or any other means." It "bears a striking resemblance" to new legal restrictions on "hate speech" in Europe that has been used to prosecute alleged offenders, writes Snyder, a senior fellow at the Middle East Forum's The Legal Project.

Despite the obvious similarities of language and implementation, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton "applauded" the compromise and described the efforts as beginning "to overcome the false divide that pits religious sensitivities against freedom of expression."

Daniel E. Rogel

Source: http://www.investigativeproject.org/3585/shifting-un-language-threatens-us-free-speech

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Yemeni Jewish Community Leader Murdered

by Daniel E. Rogel

A leader of the Yemeni Jewish community was stabbed to death in that nation's capital after a Muslim man accused him of witchcraft, the Jerusalem Post reports. The incident is the latest in a series of incidents around the Arab world which have threatened and uprooted the region's small remaining Jewish communities.

Yehya Zindani, the son of murderer leader Aharon Zindani, described the attacker as a "well-known person who says my father has ruined and bewitched him." The murderer, described by a Zindani family friend as a "member of al-Qaida," stabbed the Jewish leader 12 times before he was stopped by a group of local men.

Aharon Zindani had returned to Yemen after immigrating to Israel, rejoining the small Jewish community in the Yemeni capital Sana'a, which numbers around 80 people. Many of those living in the capital moved there from the Yemeni town of Raidah in December 2008, following threats from Islamist extremists and the murder of Jewish teacher Masha al-Nahari.

In the Arab world's largest remaining Jewish communities, in Morocco and Tunisia, the recent rise of Islamist politicians has awakened dormant anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitic chants at a Tunisian rally, welcoming Hamas' prime minister, prompted Tunisian Islamist politician Rachid Ghannouchi to apologize to the concerned local Jews. He, like many Islamists, claims that Zionism is the problem not Jewry, even if the distinction is often blurred.

While the hate hasn't scattered the lingering remnants, it has raised the sense of alarm.

Daniel E. Rogel

Source: http://www.investigativeproject.org/3588/yemeni-jewish-community-leader-murdered

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Europe's Wrongheaded Austerity Policies

by Peter Martino

The irony is that the austerity policies of the past years have been imposed at the behest of the unelected, leftist authorities in Brussels on center-right governments in the EU member states. The electorates are punishing their center-right governments by voting in center-left politicians who promise to end the austerity policies and "tax the rich" – a course that will make matters even worse.

Austerity -- what governments are currently experiencing in Europe – can be a bad thing. It is a well-known basic economic theory that when politicians try to slash the government budget by taxing citizens rather than by cutting government expenditure, they only harm the economy, which results in less tax income and worsens the situation. In the early 1970s, economist Arthur Laffer visualized it by drawing a curve on a napkin, indicating that from a certain point on, higher taxes result in less government income. When taxes are raised even further, the economy begins to contract.

A typical example can currently be seen in the Netherlands. The country's economy has not grown in the last three quarters. Pressured by the European Union, austerity policies were introduced in 2010. Last April, the government fell when the Freedom Party of Geert Wilders refused to back a new austerity package of €11.5 billion, of which only €4 billion was to come from cutting expenditures and €7.5 billion was expected to come from raising taxes. The new austerity round was nevertheless imposed by the EU, which insisted that the Netherlands trim its budget deficit to 3% of BBP in 2013. Geert Wilders was right to have refused to go along with the latest plans. Not only will the amount of €7.5 billion in new taxes in all likelihood not be reached, but the Dutch economy will be hampered even more.

Last January, Standard & Poor's warned the Netherlands that its credit rating could be lowered if its growth kept declining. S&P warned that the Dutch austerity policies risked "becoming self-defeating, as domestic demands fall in line with consumers' rising concerns about job security and disposable incomes, eroding national tax revenues."

Geert Wilders' party is expected to do well in next September's general elections. The electorate agrees with his rejection of the austerity package. Like Mr. Wilders, it blames the EU authorities in Brussels for imposing these policies on the Netherlands.

The same phenomenon can be seen all over Europe, with electorates in revolt against EU-imposed austerity everywhere. The rising unpopularity of governments that are trying to cut back their deficits has worried the IMF. Earlier this month, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said that the IMF is aware that fiscal austerity holds back growth and that the effects are worse in an economic downturn. This is, however, only a half-truth. As no one, not even the state, can indefinitely continue to spend more money than he receives, cutting government expenditure – hence austerity – is badly needed. The problem is that the austerity policies are targeting not the institution which is living beyond its means -- namely the government -- but the taxpayers. As Europeans are already suffering tax levels that are almost twice as high as those in the U.S., it is only natural that the voters are in revolt.

The irony is that the austerity policies of the past years have been imposed at the behest of the unelected liberal, leftist authorities in Brussels on center-right governments in the EU member states. The electorates are punishing their center-right governments by voting in center-left politicians who promise to end the austerity policies and "tax the rich" -- a course that will make matters even worse.

The Dutch are lucky to have Geert Wilders; but the French, who lack an equivalent of Mr. Wilders, quite understandably voted President Nicolas Sarkozy out because they disagreed with his austerity policy. However, they voted the Socialist François Hollande in, who will undoubtedly only heighten the problem.

The same phenomenon can be witnessed in the United Kingdom. Two years ago, the Conservative David Cameron managed to oust Labour. Today, polls predict that if elections were to be held now, Labour would beat the Conservatives with a margin of 10%. David Cameron is fortunate that Labour leader Ed Miliband is unpopular or the margin might be even larger.

What did Cameron do wrong? He, too, made tax payers pay for austerity. One of the first things Mr. Cameron did was to raise Britain's top tax rate to 50%. The result was that the tax revenue from Britain's highest income group fell. Another thing Cameron did was to raise sales taxes. VAT – or Value Added Tax – rose from 17.5 to 20%, the highest level ever, as part of Cameron's effort to bring down the country's budget deficit.

The VAT rise, the government said, was a tough, but necessary step in getting Britain back on the road to economic recovery. The Dutch government has just announced it will raise the VAT from 19% to 21%, a measure which Mr. Wilders, who wants to lower it to 18%, vigorously opposes. Earlier, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, too, had raised the VAT in Germany from 16% to 19% as part of her efforts to fill holes in public spending; Mrs. Merkel is also expected to fare badly in next year's general elections.

Early this month, the British Conservatives suffered widespread losses in local elections as voters punished the party for austerity measures and a stalled economy. A poll among members of Cameron's own party revealed that they see the tax rises on ordinary families as one of the biggest barriers to Cameron's reelection. Ever so often, Mr. Cameron expresses his approval of taxing people even more. "Taxes must rise to reform elderly care," he said. "Green taxes must increase in order to protect the environment."

Austerity policies, which consist mainly of extra taxes, not only keep the European governments from finding long-term solutions to their overspending, while worsening the economic situation; they also make these government increasingly unpopular. Almost 40 years after Arthur Laffer drew his famous curve on a napkin, one wonders why European politicians, keep closing their eyes to an evident truth, and put in place incentives for growth. But then even their American colleagues often do not want to see this truth.

President Obama's efforts at the G8 meeting last Saturday to help Merkel and Hollande reach a consensus on how to proceed will not help. Merkel and Hollande do not need to reach a consensus on how to proceed; they need to reverse course.

Peter Martino

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3069/europe-austerity-policies

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