Gaza Suffers Drop in Foreign Aid over Syrian War

by The Associated Press and Israel Hayom Staff

Iran reduces cash transfers to Hamas because the Palestinian faction refuses to side with Syrian regime • Arab charities also shift focus from Gaza to Syria • Over 1,500 people fleeing Syria arrived in Gaza since last year, with hundreds more en route.

In this Tuesday, June 11, photo, Bassel Shunar (right) works at his new "Damashki" bakery in Gaza City | Photo credit: AP

A refugee from Syria recently opened a bakery in Gaza City, drawing long lines of customers eager to taste meat and cheese pastries with the special flavors of Damascus -- a rare bright spot in the long shadow that the Syrian civil war is casting over the Strip.

The conflict in Syria, some 300 kilometers (190 miles) away, is increasingly hurting Hamas-ruled Gaza financially, according to several officials in the group and in Islamic charities.

They say Iran, an ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad and a former major financial backer of Hamas, has reduced monthly cash transfers because Hamas refuses to side with the Syrian regime.

Islamic charities abroad that used to donate heavily to Gaza have been redirecting some of their aid to Syria, forcing local charities to scale back programs, aid officials said.

"All of Gaza is suffering from this," said Noha Zaki of Gaza City's Amal orphanage, home to 100 children. Zaki said donations to her charity are down by 50 percent.

In a further costly twist, more than 1,500 people fleeing the fighting in Syria, most with family ties to Gaza, have arrived in the coastal territory since last year, with hundreds more en route.

Bassel Shunar, co-owner of the new bakery "Damashki" or "The Guy from Damascus," enjoyed a soft landing. But aid officials say they have trouble finding jobs and homes for other newcomers in crowded, impoverished Gaza.

Hamas finance minister Ziad Zaza acknowledged government money problems but blamed long-running Israeli restrictions at Gaza's borders. He denied his government receives money from Iran and claimed donations from abroad are still in the normal range of $5 million to $12 million a month.

Since its founding in 1987, Hamas has operated an above ground political wing and a secret military wing. The Sunni Muslim movement, viewed as a terrorist group by the West, is secretive about its finances. It has released only partial information about the spending of the Gaza government it formed after overrunning the territory in 2007.

After the popular uprising against Assad erupted in March 2011, Hamas quickly felt the reverberations.

Hamas leaders in exile, including politburo chief Khaled Mashaal, were based in Damascus then, but became increasingly uncomfortable with Assad's crackdown on Syria's Sunni majority. Hamas itself is also Sunni. Assad and key members of his regime are Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

Assad, a longtime Hamas patron, demanded that the group show support for his regime. Instead, Mashaal and others left Damascus in early 2012. Mashaal moved to Qatar, part of the Saudi-led Gulf Arab bloc that opposes efforts by Shiite Iran to expand its influence.

Iran was not happy. But it did not cut ties with Hamas, which is a key to Iran's regional ambitions, including setting up armed bridgeheads on Israel's borders.

As recently as November, after a bout of Israel-Gaza fighting, Mashaal thanked Iran for its support. Hamas hard-liner Mahmoud Zahar at that time challenged Gulf States to "compete with Iran in giving us weapons and money."

Iran has reduced Gaza funding in recent months, according to an Arab diplomat and three senior Hamas figures, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters on the issue.

Their estimates of Iranian cash transfers before the cutbacks ranged from $120 million to $370 million a year.

A Hamas member who provided the lower estimate said Iran has scaled back payments by 60 percent. The Arab diplomat said Iran still finances the Hamas military wing, but also increased funding for Islamic Jihad, a smaller terrorist group that occasionally fires rockets from Gaza, challenging Hamas' informal truce with Israel.

Zaza, the Gaza finance minister, blamed current money woes on Israel's border restrictions, which were at their tightest after the 2007 Hamas takeover of the territory, but have eased in recent years.

Zaza said spending cuts began two years ago, affecting every ministry, but did not explain why it became necessary at that time since the Israeli border blockade was in place well before then.

As part of the belt-tightening, ministries were ordered to slash operating costs by 50%, including cutting back on stationery, travel and gas allowances.

Hamas is still able to cover the government payroll -- 41,000 civil servants and members of the security forces and 10,800 participants in a job-creation program.

The wage bill alone is $37 million a month, in addition to $4 million in other operating costs, post-cutbacks, compared with local monthly revenues of $18 million, according to Zaza. He did not say how the deficit is being covered.

Meanwhile, Osama Kurd, coordinator of some 200 Islamic charities in Gaza, said there has been a sharp drop in donations from abroad because more aid is going to Syria. He would not give the annual amount in donations.

Abdel Qader al-Attar of the Islamic Charity, the largest such group in Gaza, said foreign support has decreased by more than 30%.

"The Syria crisis has affected aid to the poor in Gaza," he said. "Our donors in the Gulf and in Europe told me clearly they have shifted part of their aid to Syria."

The shift is also apparent in the Arab world. In Kuwait, charities operate trailers near supermarkets. Billboards on the trailers used to appeal for help for Gaza but now have switched to Syria.

Nael Assad of the Kuwait-based International Islamic Charity Organization said donations to Gaza have dropped, and that most of the aid goes to Syria. He did not provide figures. The main Turkish charity, IHH, said it has not cut back in Gaza.

Shunar, the bakery owner, arrived 10 weeks ago with his Gaza-born wife. Shunar grew up in the Yarmouk refugee camp near Damascus and said he earned a good living with a home-decorating business.

The 45-year-old said he would like to return to Syria, despite the thriving business he recently opened in Gaza, using most of his savings.

Hassan Awad, 43, an English teacher from the Syrian coastal town of Latakia, also dreams of going back to Syria. Awad, his wife and three children were taken in by his Gaza relatives six months ago, and he has found temporary work as a translator.

It is hard to get used to cramped quarters in Gaza City's Sheik Radwan neighborhood, he said. But given the violence, a return to his hometown is unlikely.

"It's very crowded in Gaza, but what shall we do?" he said.

The Associated Press and Israel Hayom Staff

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=10011

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

Are you Willing to Die for your Freedom?

by Shane Clark

Before we even got the whole picture detailing exactly how widespread the government's phone tracking efforts were, we were hit with news of the NSA PRISM program. The details are still being uncovered and debates and questions concerning both programs abound, but the most important question doesn't concern the leaker, the morality of leaking, the consequences of living in the information age, or the efficacy of the program.

The most important question in this new world of electronic Big Brother is not new at all. It is simply this: Are you willing to die for your freedom?

The unstated notion through all of the discussions I have heard is that we have to be safe, we have to have these or similar programs to keep us safe. I reject that unquestioning philosophy. The government has a responsibility to protect us, yes, but the entire reason we instituted the federal government was to secure greater liberty. Our safety is not the only concern that must be satisfied, our liberty must also be protected.

The trade-off is not as dramatic as it was for the veterans throughout our history. We do not have to choose between death and freedom, but merely between dramatically-decreased freedom -- a much-altered relationship between government and citizen (or subject) -- on the one hand or restoring freedom at the cost of a very slightly increased threat of death on the other.

Why is the risk slight? Because it's not as if this is the only program possible to counter acts of terror. Repealing this program and the notions of government that enabled it will not destroy our security. We've had security and counter-terror programs before this, and we have other programs and agencies working overseas and abroad to keep us safe even now. There have been failures under the old system and failures under this new program. Most of those failures, be they 9/11 or the Boston Marathon bombing, stemmed not from a lack of intelligence but from political correctness -- not following up even though the terrorists paid cash one way with no luggage, were from countries of heightened risk, made six-month trips abroad, were mentioned specifically by foreign intelligence organizations, etc.

We should not expand government's reach into, and power over, our lives. Moreover, every one of the last several terror attacks have been lone wolves with no affiliation to Al-Qaeda. How many phone calls does a lone wolf need to plant a bomb or start a forest fire somewhere?

I'm willing to die for my freedom. I'm certainly willing to take the slightly-increased risk of dying in a terrorist attack that ostensibly will result from the government not sifting my email and monitoring all my calls and banking activity and who knows what else.

At this point, I'm becoming convinced it's not worth it. We're groping children and Korean War vets in airports as part of an expensive show of security. We're teaching our kids to put up with government intrusion into our lives. On my most recent flight, I saw a father help his 5-year-old son remove his shoes and show him where to put them, how to remove his belt, how to wait his turn, how to go through security and comply with routine government searches.

It's not worth the toll on our freedom and our veneration of freedom. Proper understanding of freedom is learned, not inherited, and we are poisoning the next generation's conception of the relationship of the government and the individual. We must end the constant expansion of government power and kill the idea that government can and should expand at will.

We also are among the casualties in this war. This struggle is bigger than terrorism; it is an ideological struggle against the West and terrorism is merely the preferred method of those engaging us. But if it's an ideological struggle and we are casualties in the war, perhaps in a way we also are combatants. We fight when we defend freedom and liberty in our culture.

It's been said that the object in war is not to die for your country, but to make the other guy die for his. The soldier merely has to be willing to die in pursuit of that effort. In this new, distributed struggle, it is not our responsibility to die for our freedom, only perhaps to maintain the full measure of our natural liberties and be willing to die in that pursuit.

The soldier can easily avoid dying in battle by never going into battle in the first place, by violating his commission and honor and brothers and giving up all that he is. A free citizen may avoid being the victim of terrorism, but at similar cost.

My great-grandfather exited his Higgins boat onto Omaha Beach in the second wave on D-Day. He and those around him waded through the blood and floating remains of the first wave of soldiers, facing the screams of the dying, taking the beach amidst mortar, sniper, machine gun, and artillery fire. Shouldn't we be willing to do the same? Isn't freedom cheap even at that high a price? We do not face any danger potentially harmful as what they charged into. So facing so much less, should we give away our liberty?

Revolutionary General John Stark wrote "Live free or die." It is now the state motto of New Hampshire. Do we believe it any longer? I want to have the autonomy that includes privacy, freedom from arbitrary and warrantless government searches, freedom from being a child the government nannies in every way. I want to live free, and if that means a world in which I have an increased chance of dying, I gladly accept that. As General Stark's complete toast stated: Live free or die: Death is not the worst of evils.

Shane Clark

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/06/are_you_willing_to_die_for_your_freedom.html

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

“Islamic Science” or Islamic Propaganda?

by Bruce Bawer

For years now, as we all know, newspapers, magazines, and book publishers around the Western world have shrunk from publishing texts that touch on some of the more uncomfortable truths about Islam, preferring instead to give us all but idyllic accounts of Muslim history and belief and hagiographies of its prophet. Similarly, film, TV, and theater producers have gotten into the habit of scrubbing scripts free of anything that might be considered critical of Islam, even as they’ve given the green light to one project after another that has done a thoroughgoing job of whitewashing the Religion of Peace.

Museums, too, have played this same timid game, quietly removing centuries-old images of Muhammed from display and putting them into storage for fear of offending believers. Meanwhile, museumgoers have been treated to shows that are sheer Islamic propaganda.

Last year, Nick Cohen wrote in the Observer about one such exhibition that was then on display at the British Museum. It professed to present an informed view of the history of the Hajj – the pilgrimage to Mecca – going all the way back to Muhammed. But, as Cohen observed, the museum’s version of Muhammed’s life stuck to “the authorised version of ‘religious scholars,’” ignoring actual findings by real historians. It also excluded “evidence that might embarrass the Saudi royal family,” such as the fact that those royals have “wrecked Mecca,” destroying “the remnants of the 7th-century city.”

Why should the British Museum be so concerned about Saudi sensitivities? Simple: because a Saudi library was the museum’s partner in putting on the exhibition; because Saudi authorities had loaned key items to the show; and because financial sponsorship had been provided by (or through?) a bank that “issues sharia-compliant loans.”

The exhibition dropped other things down the memory hole, too. It included no mention of terrorist acts that have occurred during the Hajj. Nor did it acknowledge “the stampedes, bridge collapses and fires that have claimed the lives of thousands of pilgrims” year after year. When asked by Cohen about these major omissions, museum officials “waffled” that such details “did not fit into the exhibition’s remit.”

Cut to Oslo, Norway, a year later. Tomorrow, an exhibition entitled “Sultans of Science: Islamic Science Rediscovered” will open at the Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology (an independent institution, but one that receives considerable financial support from the Norwegian state). According to the museum, “Sultans of Science” is “the largest science exhibition that has ever been seen in Norway.” Although, over the last few years, it has been on display in venues “in New Jersey, South Africa, Toronto, Edmonton, San Jose, Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia,” this marks its first appearance anywhere in Europe. “We are proud to bring this exhibition to Norway and delighted to unfold the knowledge of a great civilization which will be an engaging and educating experience for our visitors,” museum director Hans Weinberger said in a press release.

On its website, the museum invites adults and children alike to come see “Sultans of Science” and thus “get acquainted with an important scientific legacy from Islamic culture.” Singing the praises of “the golden age of Islamic science,” during which “science was encouraged and supported” by “the great Islamic caliphates,” the museum’s website informs us that “the development of European culture was…directly influenced by Islamic culture,” but that the traces of this influence were eventually, and tragically, “erased.” Simply put, the purpose of this show is to acquaint Western audiences with the riches of Islamic science and its immense impact on Western science and technology.

In short: a giant tsunami of propaganda is about to hit Norway.

Needless to say, there are two main points to be made whenever the words “Islam” and “science” come up. The first is that Islamic culture, like none other on earth, has proven to be a remarkably powerful impediment to the development of anything remotely deserving of the name of science. The second point, a corollary of the first, is that the relatively few worthy scientific discoveries and inventions for which Islamic cultures can take credit have occurred in spite of, and not because of, any identifiable “Islamic” influence.

To put it bluntly, you could count all the Muslim winners of Nobel Prizes in science on one hand and have enough fingers left to crochet. This simple, straightforward fact is, in and of itself, a dramatic indictment of Islam, underscoring its intrinsic intellectual backwardness, its refusal to compromise in the slightest its foundation of primitive superstition, and the extraordinary degree to which it manages to suppress the inborn human curiosity about the natural principles that undergird the real world’s workings. But the whole aim of “Sultans of Science” is plainly to suggest precisely the opposite – not only that Islam and science can productively coexist, but that Islam, in all its wondrous glory, has ever since its beginnings proven to be rich and fertile soil for the flowering of scientific ideas and technological innovation.

Who’s behind this boatload of B.S.? Was it put together, as most traveling museum exhibitions are, by a legitimate museum of international standing? Was it curated by a respected, credentialed historian of science? Well, no. Officially anyway, the exhibition was created, and is sponsored, by an outfit called MTE Studios, which describes itself as “a specialized consultancy firm focused on themed architecture and interactive learning experiences.” Indeed, “Sultans of Science” is said to be the “traveling version” of an exhibition that is on permanent display in a mall in Dubai and that MTE put together in partnership with an institution called the Research House for Islamic Studies & Heritage Revival. (The website of the Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology, by the way, links to an MTE press release that, making even great claims for Islamic science than does the museum’s own website, refers to “the remarkable achievements of Muslim civilization” and promises that Europeans who drop in on “Sultans of Science” will “be amazed to learn about the significant role the Islamic scholars have played in modern science, from astronomy to medicine to engineering to navigation and optics.”)

What’s the deal with MTE Studios? Based in both Dubai and Capetown, South Africa, it seems to enjoy a very close working relationship with a number of Muslim governments. For example, it runs the Bahrain Science Centre on behalf of the Bahraini state. It represented the United Arab Emirates at a 2010 conference in Malaysia on Islamic science. And it was commissioned by the Saudis to create a museum of Islamic science and technology at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology – a museum that would appear to be a model, more or less, for both the Dubai mall installation and the much-traveled international exhibition that is about to open in Oslo. Indeed, this would appear to be only one of a number of projects (including something called the “BUILD A CITY” Activity Zone at the Riyadh Science Oasis) on which MTE would appear to have collaborated intimately with the Saudis. Make of that connection what you will.

Mischievous disinformation about history on a massive scale is always unsettling. But here’s the most disturbing part of this particular story. A few Norwegians who are, presumably, aware of the exceedingly small overlap betweep the history of Islam and the history of science, and/or understandably troubled about MTE’s Saudi and other ties, and/or curious (also understandably) to know exactly who is paying for this very expensive-sounding exhibition, have posted polite and reasonable questions at the Facebook page of the Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology. But their queries have met with something less than a friendly and responsive welcome from the museum – an institution that is nominally devoted, after all, to knowledge and learning. On the contrary, on Wednesday afternoon, in what is certainly a first in my own Facebook experience, the museum posted a stern statement on its Facebook page that reads as follows:

We are now closing the page for the day [yes, “closing the page”!], but it will open again tomorrow, Thursday, at 9 A.M. Hold on to your comments until then. If this page is spammed in the meanwhile, or if anyone engages in unfair debates or propaganda, these comments will be removed from the page and those responsible will be reported to Facebook. We want to have an open debate, in which there is room for more people! So weigh your words – and have a peaceful afternoon and evening.

Note, if you will, that blatant Orwellian contradiction between the museum’s claim to welcome “open debate” and its threat to shut down any debate it doesn’t care for. And note, too, the hint of menace in that injunction to “weigh your words.” Here’s a screen capture of this odious posting:

In other words, a major Norwegian museum is threatening to report to Facebook anyone who dares to express concern about (among other things) its eager and unquestioning involvement in the dissemination of shameless Islamic propaganda, its partnership with a firm whose strongest ties are with Islamic dictatorships, and the possibility that it has had unsavory financial dealings with the most repellent of all those dictatorships.

When I checked the museum’s Facebook page on Thursday evening, I found only one exchange that touched on such questions. Addressing a reader’s question as to whether the exhibition is sponsored by Saudi Arabia, the museum employee who responded insisted that “the exhibition is self-financed” (whatever that is supposed to mean) and referred to MTE as the show’s “producer” (a somewhat odd way to refer to the people who put together a museum exhibition). As a friend of mine pointed out, since the present exhibition is apparently, at the very least, based in large part on one that was created on commission for Saudi Arabia, and is essentiallly identical to another exhibition that is currently on display at a mall in Dubai, it doesn’t really matter whether or not the Saudis are direct sponsors of this show or whether the Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology has received cash or any other form of direct or indirect support from them or the United Arab Emirates or anyone else; the fact is that the show in Oslo is, to all intents and purposes, the product of Saudi and Emirate propaganda funding.

Somebody on Facebook had the following to say about this vexing situation: “A public institution that threatens to report critics to Facebook administrators…that’s something I never would have thought possible in Norway.” Well, we’d all better get used to it – or start making a lot of noise about this nasty business in other public fora before they get closed down, too.

Bruce Bawer

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2013/bruce-bawer/islamic-science/

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

Mordechai Kedar: The "Sushi" is Heating up

by Mordechai Kedar

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

Among scholars of the Middle East, the term "sushi" is used as a shorthand for the expression, "Sunni-Shi'a". Anyone interested in the history of Islam knows that the seeds of the Sunni-Shi'a conflict were planted the moment that Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, closed his eyes forever in the year 632 CE, without leaving a mechanism for choosing a successor to lead the nation. The conflict that developed as a result, has become an open, bloody battle over the years, and it has been a thread in the fabric of Islamic history throughout all of its 1400 years.  This conflict has facets on many levels: personal, familial, political and religious. The battle between the two factions of Islam is "for the whole pot", and it continues to this very day.

In modern times, attempts have been made to bridge over the conflict and to find common ground between the factions of Islam in order to create a sense of calm between the factions, on the basis of which it will be possible to manage states such as Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, where the two factions live side by side, Shi'ites and Sunnis, in one state. Even the Egyptian Sheikh Dr. Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who is the Mufti (religious arbiter) of the Emirate of Qatar, has expressed himself both verbally and in writing about the need to find a way to "bring the schools of thought closer together", as if Shi'a is another legitimate school of thought, in addition to the four Sunni schools: Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i and Hanbali. In the good old days they used to call the Shi'a faction the "Jafari school" after one of the fathers of Shi'a.

The Golden Age between the Sunni and Shi'a was the year 2006, as a result of the Second Lebanon War, when Hizb'Allah managed to create the impression that it had won a "divine victory" over Israel. After all, Hasan Nasrallah had survived despite 33 days of heavy Israeli attacks, some of which were aimed at him personally. Hizb'Allah was compared with the armies of the Arab countries, which had failed in all of their attempts to destroy the state of Israel, and were defeated by Israel's army in only six days in 1967. As a result of the Second Lebanon War, Hasan Nasrallah declared in every public arena - especially in his  al-Manar ("the beacon") television channel - that the victory belongs to the whole Arab and Islamic nation, and in this way, he created for himself the image of being the only leader in the Middle East who knows what to do and does the right things, ignoring the objections of the infidel West and its paltry servants, meaning most of the rulers of the Arab states. Bashar Asad declared that Hizb'Allah's way is the only way to fight and the only method that can defeat the Zionist enemy.

During the war in the summer of 2006, great crowds of people of the Middle East erupted in emotional demonstrations where pictures of Hasan Nasrallah were held high, and those who wanted to make a point also carried pictures of Bashar Asad, the great supporter of Hizb'Allah. It was convenient for everyone - including religious figures such as Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi - to ignore the fact that Hizb'Allah was a Shi'ite group, backed up by Iran, because if the Sunni Hamas movement ended up in the same boat with Hizb'Allah what evil could possibly have sprung from the Lebanese "al-Muqawama wal-mumana'a" ("Resistance and Defense") movement, which supports all of the "liberation movements" regardless of religious sect? The al-Jazeera channel, which serves as a mouthpiece for the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood movement, embraced Hizb'Allah and dedicated many hours of positive programming to it, and in many Islamic societies - including Israel's - more than a few people crossed over from the Sunni side of Islam to the Shi'a. Only a small group of Saudi religious authorities were not overcome by the waves of sympathy for Hizb'Allah. They always view the Shi'ite dominance of Lebanon, as well as its influence on the collective Arab discourse, negatively.

But the enthusiasm for Hizb'Allah has not survived the storm that has been buffeting the Middle East ever since December 2010, known romantically in the media as "the Arab Spring", as if presently in the Middle East, the birds are chirping, the trees are budding, the flowers are blooming, the butterflies are fluttering, people are smiling and there is an air of rising optimism. The vicious war that has been raging in Syria since March 2011 has cost so far at least one hundred thousand fatalities and many thousands of wounded, has made millions of Syrians into displaced persons within their land and into refugees in neighboring lands, and  Hizb'Allah is totally engaged in fighting this dirty war in support of the Asad regime. Information about the involvement of Hizb'Allah in the fighting has been leaking out for more than a year. At first they buried their fallen in temporary graveyards in the Valley of Lebanon, near the border with Syria, to avoid holding funerals in residential areas, thereby disclosing  Hizb'Allah's involvement in the events in Syria. Because of the need for secrecy, the families of the fallen were forbidden to observe rites of mourning and memorial services when the fighters died. 

With time, the picture has changed, and Hizb'Allah can no longer hide its involvement in the battles in Syria. In an effort to shore up his popularity, Nasrallah tried to say that the Hizb'Allah forces were in Syria only to defend a number of "Lebanese" villages, but some of those who heard this story understood that Hizb'Allah was actually defending Shi'ite villages  from attacks by the Sunni rebels. This story crumbled when faced with the reality that was reported by the media, describing Hizb'Allah as an integral part of the Asad regime's fighting effort. For the past year, public criticism of Hizb'Allah has increased in the Arab world because of its involvement in the murder of Syrians, and matters came to a head about a month ago, with the attack on the town of al-Qusayr, which is located on the border between Syria and Lebanon, and serves as a bridge for the transfer of support, weapons, ammunition and fighters from the Sunni area of Tripoli in Lebanon to the rebels in Syria. The rebels took control of al-Qusayr about a year ago, which enabled them to drive a wedge between the area of Damascus, the capital, and the Alawite area in the northwest of the country. From the photographs and the reports of the battle for Qusayr during the past month, it seems that it was Hizb'Allah and not the Syrian army that was fighting for the town.

This bloody battle was the straw that broke the Sunni camel's back. Since al-Qusayr fell into Hizb'Allah's hands, all the dams of criticism have burst, and the religious authorities of Sunni Islam have been attacking Hizb'Allah with their sharpest arrows of Islamic rhetoric, tipped with deadly venom. The expression they use as the name of the organization is "Hizb al-Shitan" - "the party of Satan" - hinting at the passage from the Qur'an "The party of Satan are the losers" (Sura 58, Verse 19), which is the opposite of the name "Hizb 'Allah" - "the party of Allah" - which is also based on the Qur'an (Sura 5, Verse 56). In homilies given in the mosques and in the media, Yusuf al-Qaradawi calls on all Muslims, male and female, to wage jihad against Hizb'Allah in Syria, and openly accuses Hizb'Allah and the Iranians of wanting to devour all of the Muslim countries. He accuses them of being infidels and of hiding their true identity.

Qaradawi does not restrain his tongue. He speaks with contempt about the change in the Syrian constitution that allowed Bashar Asad to succeed his father in 2000 when he was 34 years old, despite the fact that until then, the president was required to be at least 40 years old. He even mentions the original name of the Asad family - "al-wahsh" - which means "wild beast". Qaradawi calls on all the Islamic sages of the world to gather in Cairo on Thursday of this week, to discuss how to deal with the Shi'ites in general and Iran and Hizb'Allah in particular, and to take decisions on the matter. He views the ascent of Sunni Islam to power in Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and Yemen as a blessing, in addition to Gaza, which he visited recently.

Qaradawi clearly admits that he erred in 2006 about Hizb'Allah, and was fooled by its religious appearance. Qaradawi praises the religious sages of Saudi Arabia who even then, in the days of the Second Lebanon War, were right about Hizb'Allah and did not fall into the trap that Nasrallah had set for the Arab and Islamic world. He asked for pardon and forgiveness from those sages for supporting Hizb'Allah against their judgment.

But Qaradawi is not alone. When 1200 Kuwaiti jihadists were about to leave Kuwait and go to Syria to join the jihad against Hizb'Allah, the Kuwaiti Sheikh Shafi al-'Ajami encouraged them to slaughter their enemy and asked the jihadists to save ten Hizb'Allah fighters for him to have the pleasure of beheading personally.

Even Sheikh Ra'ed Salah, head of the northern branch of the Islamic movement in Israel, openly speaks against Hizb'Allah, which acts against "our brothers" in Syria. It is important for us to remember that "our brothers" to Sheikh Ra'ad Salah might be the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, but could also be the Palestinian refugees in Syria, several hundred of whom were killed and injured in battles between Asad and his opposition, and many thousands of whom fled to Jordan and Lebanon.

In Iraq as well

The increasing tension between the Sunni and Shi'a takes its toll in Iraq as well. In the month of May this year, more than a thousand men, women and children were killed in Sunni attacks against Shi'ites, and in revenge attacks of Shi'ites against Sunnis. The increasing tension between the factions in Iraq has generated mutual declarations, each side against the other: "You had better get out of Iraq before it is too late", meaning before our knives separate your heads from your shoulders. Iran arms and equips the Iraqi army as well as the Shi'ite militias such as the Mahdi Army, while Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the Emirates support the Sunni minority with weapons, ammunition and funds. The "sushi" tension in the Land of the Two Rivers is increasing and a conflagration resulting in an all-out civil war is apparently just a matter of time.

And Lebanon

Many Lebanese object to the activity of Hizb'Allah in Syria because they fear that the civil war will overflow from Syria into Lebanon, and they will be its victims. This week the Sunnis held a demonstration in front of the Iranian embassy in Beirut where the demonstrators called on Iran to bring Hizb'Allah out of Syria. Armed Hizb'Allah activists attacked the demonstrators with clubs and sticks and beat one of them to death. The fighting continues in Tripoli in the north of Lebanon between the Sunni neighborhood of Bab al-Tabana and Jabal Mohsen, whose residents are Alawite, and this week too, people were injured there.  About two weeks ago Grad rockets fell in a southern neighborhood of Beirut, a Hizb'Allah stronghold, and all signs point to a "sushi" heating up in the Land of the Cedars too.

There are reports that Hizb'Allah has demanded the Hamas movement to take its people out of Lebanon because Hamas no longer supports Hizb'Allah.

The Sunni-Shi'a tension might result in a conflagration in many countries: Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and perhaps even Turkey, which also has a significant Shi'ite minority.

In Israel, we must take into account that in the Middle East the rule "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" does not always work. Just because the Sunnis and the Shi'ites relate to each other with hostility and hatred, that doesn't result in love for Israel. In the best case, it may lead to a short-term coalition between Israel and Sunni countries such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, but we cannot rely on such a coalition, because we are still the "Zionist entity" which, according to Islam - Sunni and Shi'a alike - has no right to exist.

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Dr. Kedar is available for lectures

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

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

Additional articles by Dr. Kedar

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

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

The Caliphate on the Horizon

by Dr. Reuven Berko

The latest reports out of Syria on the successes of Iran, Hezbollah and the Syrian regime in their push to regain control of the country, with Russian backing, are creating the false impression that the opposition's time is up. 

The truth, however, is that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is fighting for his life in Syria, far afield from his home in the Dahiya neighborhood of south Beirut. As the Syrian regime goes, so goes Nasrallah. If Syrian President Bashar Assad loses, Nasrallah and the remnants of his organization, exhausted from the fighting, will be targeted by the powers in Lebanon. In an act of desperation, Nasrallah is enlisting children, while evacuating his wounded and dead from the Syrian front.

Shiites, along with Nasrallah's rivals, are wondering how much longer he can continue fighting in Syria at the behest of the Iranians. This question is also being asked about the small Alawite minority in Syria (and about other small minorities as well), fighting for its survival while sacrificing its best sons and officers. It appears that resilience and the ability to endure hardships will be the basic determining factors inside Syria.

The Islamists in Syria are armed, primarily with patience. They are cognizant of these considerations and explain their manifest to all those who feel that Assad's fall is "a journey from the known to the unknown." The Islamist leadership has a clear doctrine. 

The leader of the rebel group Soqour Al Sham Brigades, Hassan Aboud, recently gave an interview. Heavily armed and dressed in khaki fatigues, Aboud spoke with chilling tranquility, declaring that his first order of business was against Iran (until its ultimate expulsion from Syria) and the destruction of Hezbollah, "who will return from the battlefield to Lebanon, where they came from, dead." The bearded sheikh isn't impressed by the regime's recent gains. His demeanor exudes patience and a confidence that Islam (the Sunni version) will prevail. 

Aboud's agenda is the foundation of an Islamic caliphate, with its center in Greater Syria. According to Aboud, the artificial states created by the West in the Middle East, within the framework of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, have disintegrated, ushering in the current return of the great Islamic state. Iraq, in Aboud's view, will be part of the future Islamic Syria, after the Shiites there are defeated. Along with the Iranians, the Russians will also be driven out of Syria and its ports.

Aboud's declarations point to the alienation between the other Islamist movements fighting in Syria, as well as between the secular elements in the Free Syrian Army. Indeed, Aboud rejects the participation of former Syrian military commanders, those who have defected, in the country's future leadership and denies them any piece of the future government pie -- because they are "outsiders." 

He does not conceal his Islamist agenda, which stipulates that Syria is only the beginning. The destruction of Israel, the enemy of the Islamic nation, is the next objective. After this the Islamic mission will focus on the rest of the world. 

It is now easier to understand why the Syrian opposition is divided over sitting down at the negotiating table for any future talks with the regime over the country's fate, and why the superpowers are concerned about supporting it. It appears the sides will continue to fight over who will lead the country in the future, all the while laying waste to that very country.

From an Israeli and global perspective, Assad is bad and the Islamist revolutionaries are no better, and it doesn't truly make a difference who survives. What is strange about the current situation, in which the artificially created Arab states are crumbling, is that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry wants to grant the terrorist Hamas movement the ability to create yet another Islamist state, which is predicated on the stated goal of destroying Israel.

Dr. Reuven Berko

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=4641

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

The West’s New Syrian War

by Barry Rubin


One day people will ask how the United States and several European countries became involved in mass killings, genocide, corruption, arms smuggling, and the creation of another anti-Western and regionally destabilizing government. Even if a single Western soldier is never sent, the West is on the verge of serious intervention in Syria. The choices are unpalatable and decisions are very tough to make but it appears to be still another in a long history of Western leaps in the dark, not based on a real consideration of the consequences.

At least people should be more aware of the dangers. As I entitled a previous book on Iran (Paved with Good Intentions), the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. People are dying and suffering in Syria. That’s true. But will this make more people or fewer people die and suffer?

So now we are seeing the trial balloons rise. As the Bashar al-Assad regime proves to be holding on—but not recapturing the country or winning the war—the West is panicked into sending aid to the rebels.  In fact, the government is merely holding the northwest area (where the ruling Alawite group lives), the region along the Lebanese border (with Hizballah’s help), Damascus (where the best troops are based and there is a favorable strategic situation in the army holding the high ground), and part of Aleppo. It seems that U.S. decisionmakers are panicking over these relatively small gains. If the Syrian army plus Hizballah tries to advance too far it will stretch its resources then and face a successful rebel counteroffensive.

Understandably, the opposition is demanding arms. If the opposition did not consist mostly of al-Qaida, the Salafists, and the Muslim Brotherhood, that would be a good idea perhaps. But since the opposition is overwhelmingly radical—even the official “moderate” opposition politicians are mostly Muslim Brotherhood—this is a tragedy in which the West does not have a great incentive to say “yes.”

President Barack Obama is said to be close to sending weapons to carefully chosen rebel units who are moderates. Now, pay close attention here. The Western options for giving assistance are:

The Syrian Islamic Liberation Front. This is Muslim Brotherhood type people including, most importantly, the Farouk Brigades from the Homs area and Aleppo’s Tawhid Brigade. Around 50-60,000 fighters in total who are autonomous.

Do you want to give arms to them? Weapons that might soon end up in the hands of (other) terrorists? Weapons to be turned against not only Israel, but Jordan, Saudi Arabia, U.S. diplomats, and who knows who else?

Or perhaps you like the Syrian Islamic Front (SIF), an alliance of more hardline Islamist forces, including Ahrar al-Sham from the north.  Ahrar al-Sham is probably around 15,000 fighters. The SIF as a whole probably around 25,000.   These people are Salafists meaning that the Brotherhood is too moderate for them. They are the kind of people who attack churches in Egypt, who want to wage jihad alongside Hamas, and so on.

Do you want to arm them so they can establish another Sharia state?

How about Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda franchise with around 6,000 fighters and reportedly the fastest growing militia.

Want to give guns to those who committed the September 11, 2001, attacks and the Benghazi attack?

Of course not! You want the Free Syrian Army (FSA), headed by the untested General Salim Idris, who Senator John McCain met with. Now those are moderates who, after all, are just led by former officers in the repressive, historically anti-American Syrian army. And the FSA is just not a serious factor in military terms.  The West will say it supports the FSA; the FSA will be pushed aside by an Islamist regime if it wins, its Western-supplied weapons seized even during the course of the war. Moderates–even if we define radical Arab nationalists as moderates–don’t have the troops on the ground. It’s too late to organize and train a moderate force now. That should have been done two years ago.

On the political level, U.S. pressure failed to force the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated exile leadership to add the real political moderates! Even as financial aid is being (temporarily?) withheld the “official” opposition won’t expand its base. How about withholding all money and aid until they yield or choosing a new official leadership?  If the United States can’t stop–or doesn’t want to–the Brotherhood from dominating an exile leadership how is it ever going to do after a victory in the civil war?

So that’s not a solution either. Because the FSA is closely aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood forces. Many of its soldiers are Brotherhood, Salafists, or even al-Qaida sympathizers. Some have even been defecting to al-Qaida, presumably with their weapons. The FSA is not ideologically moderate, consistent, or—except for its officers—anti-Islamists. And it is very weak, weaker even then the al-Qaida supporters.

Yet that’s not all. Given the mixing up of the groups and their strategic requirements, a weapons’ system that is given to the FSA may easily end up in the hands of the Syrian Islamic Liberation Front, Syrian Islamic Front, or Jabhat al-Nusra. That may happen due to the necessities of war or sheer bribery or defections.

And when the war is over or deadlocked, those arms are going to flow out of Syria to every terrorist group in the world.

Finally, how many arms will be needed to bring a rebel victory? You can predict what will happen: more and more will be demanded; if just a bigger force is supplied the rebels will promise victory. It’s a slippery slope. And then will the need for direct intervention be demanded since just the supply of weapons alone isn’t sufficient? How directly is the United States willing to confront Russia, Iran, and Hizballah? Is it prepared to do so? Maybe it should be but it’s not.

So the supposedly simple concept—alas, two years too late—of let’s support the moderates doesn’t mean much anymore. Granted if you want to find the least bad solution, backing the FSA sounds good. In the end, though, what will actually happen?

Ethnic massacres? How is the United States going to stop them? The Alawites, Shia (there are a few) Muslims, and Christians are in the greatest danger, so is anyone not sufficiently a pious Sunni Muslim, and perhaps also Kurds and Druze. The FSA cannot or will not prevent massive killings.

Wasn’t it UN Ambassador Samantha Powers the genocide expert (which shows how little you need to know to be hailed as an expert) who talked about “responsibility to protect?” Didn’t she, and U.S. government policy begin by talking about saving Libyan civilians and end with a Libyan murder of American officials?

Meanwhile the UN has asked for $5 billion in humanitarian aid to Syria, much of which will go to neighboring countries to help refugees. There are now said to be 1.6 million refugees with that number perhaps to double by the end of the year. The need is desperate. Up to one-half the population of the country needs help.

But who would administer that help? Presumably, no aid would be handed out to the regime to use in areas it controls so other than Jordan, Turkey, and Lebanon to help refugees the money would end up in the hands of al-Qaida, the Salafists, and the Muslim Brotherhood to steal, pay their own people salaries, and use to consolidate their power over different areas.

The United States is considering taking in hundreds of thousands of people who would probably be mostly resettled in California, Illinois, Florida, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. Power and National Security Council director Susan Rice are known to favor receiving many refugees.

Yet the policy is based on an illusion. Let’s say that weapons are given to the rebels. Will they win the war? Will that reduce civilian casualties? Which side will kill more people? Is a rebel victory going to make Syria a better place, more of a democracy? How many more refugees would a rebel victory generate? Say about 30 percent are Alawites, Christians, and Druze who would be oppressed by a rebel triumph, as would relatively secular Sunni urban middle class Muslims. They might flee the country. How many new wars will come out of the Syrian civil war?

This does not in any way mean one should want the Assad regime—which is a pro-Iran, pro-Hizballah, oppressive and anti-American government—to win. Yet it isn’t winning the war but merely making local gains to control the minimum territory for its survival.

Let’s put it this way: a U.S. and Western intervention in Syria is more problematic than the interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya put together. It very well might produce a worse political solution than in Egypt (where cabinet members discuss how the United States is an enemy against which war might be waged) or Tunisia. It can almost be guaranteed to be worse than Iraq.

This is a very dangerous, risky, and likely failed policy that is being set in motion here.

Published on PJMEDIA


Barry Rubin

Source: http://www.gloria-center.org/2013/06/the-wests-new-syrian-war/

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

Barry Rubin: How to Understand Islamism: Read What its Leaders Really Say

by Barry Rubin

To read Yusuf al-Qaradawi’s 1984 book, Islamic Education and Hasan al-Bana, is to get an Islamic education. Nobody should be allowed to talk about Islam or political Islamism without having read this or similar texts. Just as Marx claimed in the “Communist Manifesto” for his movement, the Islamists, too, disdain to conceal their aims. Yet those who don’t read their actual texts, speeches, and debates but only their public relations’ misinformation know nothing.

It’s easy to see why al-Qaradawi is the leading Sunni Islamist thinker in the world today, the spiritual guide behind Egypt’s Islamist revolution. He knows how to express his ideas clearly and persuasively. Here is his depiction of the Muslim world before the rise of revolutionary Islamism to power and prominence:

‘’Just imagine a waste land which has no sign of leaf or tulip or hyacinth far and wide, but which blossoms forth immediately with the first sprinkle of the rains of blessing, and fields of flowers begin to bloom. Lifeblood starts circulating in its lifeless body…..
“The condition of the Muslim nation was like a wasteland in the middle of the fourteenth century Hijri (mid-nineteenth century). The pillars of caliphate had broken which was the last display of unity under the fiag of Islamic belief. Islamic countries were breathing their last under the talons of capitalist countries like Britain, France and others, so much so that Holland, whose population was [small] dominating over the ten million strong population of Indonesia with the help of force and weapon. It had spoilt the face of Islamic decrees and putting Quran behind was busily engaged in its disrespect. Blind imitation of self-made Western laws and appreciation of foreign values had set over the lives of Muslims. The youths and lovers of new culture who were bearers of the so-called modern culture were particular victims of this. Western domination upon the field of education and means of communication was producing heaps of Westernized `Khan Bahadur” (honorable people) whose names were no doubt Islamic but brains were West-bred.’”

There is a huge amount to analyze in this passage. Notice his different angle on what for the Western author would be a tale of Western imperialism and on the technological and organizational backwardness of Muslim peoples. Al-Qaradawi does not put the emphasis on Western strength or even injustice but on Muslim weakness. He does not flinch from facing the humiliations of the situation. He promises–as the Arab nationalists did sixty years ago–that his doctrine will bring rapid development and tremendous power. Like Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev once said, al-Qaradawi pledges to the West, “”We will bury you.”

Islamism is a formula to turn inferiority into superiority, to make the Muslim world number one in the world. It uses religion and is formed by key themes in Islam but ultimately it has nothing to do with religion as such. This is a political movement.

Al-Qaradawi is not upset by recent U.S. policy but by Western policy for well over a century. This bitterness is not going to be conciliated. The problem is not in Western actions—which any way cannot be undone—but with the interpretation of these actions. They are seen as rooted in a desire to destroy Islam, as being based on a permanent enmity, and no gesture by contemporary Western leaders can lead to the end of this view. On the contrary, such things will be interpreted through the prism of this view, as a trick or a sign of retreat and weakness.

Moreover, al-Qaradawi does not talk about the need for urbanization, the equality of women, modern education, and greater freedom as the solution. Indeed, his view is totally contrary to a leftist or liberal or nationalist Muslim who would stress the need to borrow any ideas and methods other than purely technological ones, from the West in order to gain equality and even superiority. Think of how Asia has succeeded–Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and now even China–through eagerness to blend borrowings, adaptation, and its own historic culture. No, for al-Qaradawi the issue is completely one of the abandonment of Islam.

Equally, while defeat in World War Two taught Japan to forget about military conquest and China’s decades of relative failure taught it to change course, al-Qaradawi favors blood and violence, revolution and tottalitarianism.

Note, too, that al-Qaradawi is far more sophisticated than a demagogic firebrand. He does not criticize the Muslims who wanted to become Westernized. Rather he feels sorry for them, calling them “victims.” That’s how one builds a movement with a wider base of support, though the actual Islamists in the field rarely show such a tolerant pity.

Moreover, as a man of religion, al-Qaradawi feels no need—at least consciously so—to create a new ideology. Indeed, human action is not at all the fountainhead of their view of history: Nevertheless, al-Qaradawi refers to the movement as revolutionary. He knows that its goal is to seize state power and then use that position and the compulsion it offers to transform the society.

“When circumstances reached this limit, God’s will came into action. He took over the responsibility of the protection of Islam….To revive Islam, to put life in the dead spirit of the nation, and to carry it to the climax of success and development He chose Hasan-al-Banna who laid the foundation of the [Muslim Brotherhood] movement.”

This passage is notable for claiming that al-Banna was divinely inspired, literally a prophet. If Muslim Brotherhood supporters honestly believe that they certainly cannot deviate from diamond-hard hatred of Christians, Jews, and the West. Yet there is an important clue here, too. To say that al-Banna was divinely inspired implies that he altered Islam, moved it in a different direction. This would be an admission of heresy since Muhammad is supposed to be the last of the divinely-inspired prophets.

Here is a weakness of the movement. For a long time, conservative, traditional Muslims did view Islamism as heresy, but as it gains hegemony there are fewer and fewer such people. In Syria, for example, non-Islamist pious traditionalists in rural areas were transformed into Islamists. The combination of Westerners saying that Islam is merely plagued by a few extremists and those who say that Islam is inevitably radical keeps people from understanding this all-important reality.

Western observers often take for granted or discount the seriousness of a movement claiming that it is a direct instrument of God’s will. They are used to subverting far weaker contemporary Western religious impulses or look at those from the past that crumbled in a test of wills with rationalism, modernism, material interests, and personal hypocrisy.

Yet if it is sincerely and profoundly believed that one’s worldview is a product of divine will—an attitude that not a single leader or party in any industrialized state does—has profound implications. It means that you don’t sell out, get seduced  by materialistic lusts, or moderate your ideas and goals, except as a conscious, short-term tactical expedient that you reverse at the first possible opportunity.

The West has not dealt with such a situation of a sincerely held, radical ideology that motivates people  for a long time. Our contemporary memory of Communism is as a decayed, cynical movement. The favorite media story about Western religious figures is the expose of their sexual or financial deeds that betray their public beliefs. Even in regard to the Nazis, there were many Germans who didn’t back the movement, even if they never resisted it, and fascism, while rooted in Germany’s political culture, was also so shallowly hegemonic that it totally disappeared after 1945. Islamism doesn’t disappear after defeat, though perhaps it will do so after decades of Muslims experiencing Islamism in power.

Perhaps the last such true confrontation was with Japan in World War Two, a culture where almost everyone deeply believed in the ideology and was willing to give his life for it.  I am not saying here that all Muslims support Islamism or that Islamism is the “proper” interpretation of Islam. One can see how in Iran the fact of life under a Sharia regime for three decades plus has eroded the base of support there for that doctrine. Rather, my point is that Islamism must be taken seriously as a sincere movement and not just some rhetoric that nobody believes and is not led by people who are just looking for a bribe or a prostitute.

The suicide bomber has become the symbol of that characteristic which used to be called “fanaticism” and can now merely be summarized as people who really believe what they say and intend to do what they declare even unto death. Al-Qaradawi recognizes this point and writes, “If discourse is but verbal and the characters of such persons are free from those principles which he is propagating, then such invitations [to support these ideas] dash against the ears and become empty echoes.”(p. 4).

In other words, people will not follow leaders who prove to be corrupt hypocrites. And part of being a corrupt hypocrite is to compromise on such goals as creating a Shariah state, driving Western influence out of the region, and wiping Israel off the map. Of course, a leader is still free to set his course, pulling back at times when conditions are unfavorable, avoiding battles that would obviously be lost (though the Islamist might be too confident of winning despite the objective balance of forces), not antagonizing the masses unnecessarily, and forming alliances with others when necessary.

As with Lenin, the question is how well Islamist politicians this strategy. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood has pushed too hard, too fast, though still it has come a long way. What is remarkable is that unlike the opponents of Communism, the opponents of Islamism have barely begun their attempt to understand and educate others on this ideology.

It should be stressed that the key challenge is not to cite passages from original Muslim theology to “prove” that Islam is always unchanging and inflexible—though understanding the roots of the radicals’ ideological appeal is important—or to ignore Islam as a factor completely but to look at the movement’s modern strategy and tactics. This task has barely begun.

Published on PJMEDIA

Barry Rubin

Source: http://www.gloria-center.org/2013/06/how-to-understand-islamism-read-what-its-leaders-really-say/

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