Can the Dubai Model Inspire Arabs? - Daniel Pipes

by Daniel Pipes

At a time of civil wars in Libya, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq, of Islamist rule in Turkey and Iran, and of looming catastrophe in Egypt, Jordan, and Pakistan, the small, privileged emirates offer a way forward based on globalization and compromise.

DUBAI – At a time of civil war, anarchy, extremism, and impoverishment in the Middle East, the city-states of Dubai and Abu Dhabi stand out as the places where Arabic speakers are flourishing, innovating, and offering a model for moving forward.

But can it last? I recently visited the United Arab Emirates to seek answers.

To begin with, some basic facts: Once called the Trucial States by British imperialists, the UAE consists of seven small monarchies bordering the Persian Gulf. They banded together in 1971, as the British retreated, to form a single federation.

The country has been doubly blessed: oil and gas abundance along with a smart and commercially-minded group of leaders. The former gives the country immense resources, the latter keeps it out of harm's way, free of ideological extremism, with a focus on the economy. The result looks and feels like a basically happy place, especially as the lot of immigrant laborers is improving.

To me, perhaps the UAE's most noteworthy feature is the entrepôt quality of Dubai, which resembles a Middle Eastern version of Hong Kong. I was also impressed by the innovative religious spirit (where else does one find prayer rooms separated by gender?) and the cultural playfulness (building condos that resemble Yemeni-style high-rises, wearing traditional clothing one day and Western style the next).

But count the ways the country stands vulnerable:

Demographics: Due to phenomenal growth in immigration, the UAE population has a doubled to nearly 10 million in about nine years, making it much larger than neighboring states such as Oman and Kuwait. Only about one of nine residents are nationals; the other eight are expatriates, with 55 percent coming from South Asia. While currently quiescent, one can imagine their discontent and rebelliousness should the good times end.

Economy: Thanks to fracking, the Chinese economic slow-down, and other factors, UAE oil revenue has gone down from US$75 billion to $48 billion since 2010. Even in a country with about a trillion U.S. dollars of reserves, this trend causes pain, especially if it continues for many years.

Courtesy of Paul Rivlin.

Environmental: Dubai has the amazing statistic of desalinating 98.8 percent of its water even as the UAE has the highest per-capita consumption of water in the world. Obviously, this makes the country extraordinarily susceptible to hydrological crisis.

Regional: Nestled about 400 miles from Iraq, 100 miles from Iran, and sharing a border with Saudi Arabia, UAE could be invaded, occupied, and annexed as readily as Kuwait was by Saddam Hussein's Iraq 25 years ago. Not to be forgotten: on the eve of independence in 1971, the shah of Iran seized three UAE islands.

Sunni Islamism: Although the authorities have firmly kept domestic extremists under control, they remain in place, biding their time, waiting for an opportunity to lash out.

Intensely aware of these dangers, the rulers have adopted two intelligent strategies. One links the country to the outside world via sports events (I was in town during a Formula 1 car race), cultural connections (I attended a talk at New York University's Abu Dhabi campus), tourism (see my selfie atop the world's highest building), and international organizations (the International Renewable Energy Agency, or IRENA, recently opened its doors in Abu Dhabi). In combination, these activities send a signal that the UAE is not just a spoiled, self-indulgent artifice but a place with aspirations to contribute as well as consume, that it deserves support.

The second is to master the fine art of compromise. In foreign policy, this means not adopting the Saudis' total anti-Iran focus or the Egyptians' total anti-Muslim Brotherhood focus, but balancing the two. It also means accepting an Israeli mission to IRENA but insisting on it not having a larger significance.

In domestic policy, compromise means allowing liquor stores to function but hiding them away under false names and requiring a permit from the police to purchase booze. It also means signs in hotels that permit bikinis but prohibit public displays of affection.

Once you can find it, this Abu Dhabi liquor store, High Spirits, is well stocked.

At a time of civil wars in Libya, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq, of Islamist rule in Turkey and Iran, and of looming catastrophe in Egypt, Jordan, and Pakistan, the small, privileged emirates offer a way forward based on globalization and compromise. Will others pay them heed? Will they survive the many dangers ahead?

I hope so, for the UAE offers a path ahead to a region badly needing just that.
 

 

Mr. Pipes (DanielPipes.org, @DanielPipes) is president of the Middle East Forum. © 2015 by Daniel Pipes. All rights reserved.

Daniel Pipes

Source: http://www.danielpipes.org/16387/will-dubai-good-times-last

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

IDF braces for Islamic State attack on northern border - Lilach Shoval

by Lilach Shoval

Army on high alert for possible terrorist attacks by Shuhada al-Yarmouk Brigades, affiliated with Islamic State, or other jihadist groups such as Nusra Front, affiliated with al-Qaida • Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot tours northern border.

From left: Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot, Galilee Division Commander Brig. Gen. Amir Baram, and GOC Northern Command Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi on the northern border, Wednesday | Photo credit: IDF Spokesperson's Unit

The Israeli military is preparing for the possibility of a significant terrorist attack by jihadist radicals, including the Islamic State-affiliated Shuhada al-Yarmouk Brigades, on the Israel-Syria border. The army is also on high alert for possible strategic terrorist attacks by other global jihadist groups such as the Nusra Front, which is affiliated with al-Qaida.

Based on the modus operandi of the Nusra Front and Islamic State, the Israel Defense Forces examined several possible ways these groups could act against Israel. One scenario for an attack, according to the assessments, is smuggling explosives-laden vehicles into Israel. Additionally, officials were not negating the possibility of a terrorist ground force infiltrating Israel, firing anti-tank missiles at Israeli targets, planting explosive devices and launching rockets.

The Shuhada al-Yarmouk Brigades controls the border area shared by Jordan, Israel and Syria, extending over around 10 kilometers (6.2 miles). According to estimates, the organization comprises some 600 fighters who impose their will on some 40,000 locals. The organization itself is surrounded by numerous other rebel groups with which it is fighting, including the Nusra Front, and is "besieged" in a type of enclave in the southern Syrian Golan Heights.

Aside from the Shuhada al-Yarmouk Brigades, Israel is also closely monitoring the many additional rebel groups fighting one another on the Syrian Golan, which control about 90% of the area bordering Israel.

At this stage, Israel believes that these groups' resources are not focused on Israel, but the situation could change in the future because they consider the Jewish state an enemy. These concerns were highlighted over the weekend following a recorded speech by Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in which he threatened Israel directly.

With regard to Lebanon, the IDF has refused to comment officially about its increased deployment along the northern border, following Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah's threats to avenge the assassination of the terrorist Samir Kuntar, killed last week in Damascus. 

However, it appears the IDF has taken Nasrallah's proclamations very seriously, using its electronic surveillance units to keep close track of the Shiite terrorist organization and its movements. 

Amid the tense atmosphere, Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot, accompanied by GOC Northern Command Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, toured the Golan and Upper Galilee areas on Wednesday. During the tour, Eizenkot visited several outposts along the border.

Lilach Shoval

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=30801

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

Russian Imperialism Meets Illusions of Ottoman Grandeur - Burak Bekdil

by Burak Bekdil

• Earlier in 2015, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that he found it difficult to understand what Russia was doing in Syria, since "it does not even border Syria."
• By that logic, Turkey should not be "doing anything" in the Palestinian territories, Somalia, Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan or any of the non-bordering lands into which its neo-Ottoman impulses have pushed it.

In a 2012 speech, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, then foreign minister, predicted that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's days in power were numbered and that he would depart "within months or weeks." Almost three and a half years have passed, with Assad still in power, and Davutoglu keeps on making one passionate speech after another about the fate of Syria.

Turkey's failure to devise a credible policy on Syria has made the country's leaders nervous. Both Davutoglu and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have lately resorted to more aggressive, but less convincing, rhetoric on Syria. The new rhetoric features many aspects of a Sunni Islamist thinking blended with illusions of Ottoman grandeur.

On December 22, Davutoglu said, "Syrian soil is not, and will not be, part of Russia's imperialistic goals." That was a relief to know! All the same, Davutoglu could have been more direct and honest if he said that: "Syrian soil will not be part of Russia's imperialistic goals because we want it to be part of Turkey's pro-Sunni, neo-Ottoman imperialistic goals."

It is obvious that Davutoglu's concern is not about a neighboring territory becoming a theater of war before it serves any foreign nation's imperialistic goals. His concern, rather, is that neighboring soil will become a theater of war and serve a pro-Shiite's imperialist goals. Hardly surprising.

"What," Davutoglu asked Russia, "is the basis of your presence in Syria?" The Russians could unconvincingly reply to this unconvincing question: "Fighting terror, in general, and ISIL in particular."

But then Davutoglu claims that the Russian military hits more "moderates" (read: merely jihadist killers, not to be mixed with jihadist barbarians who behead people and cheerfully release their videos). Translation: more Islamist targets and fewer ISIL targets.

A legitimate question to ask the Turkish prime minister might be: What is the basis of "moderate" Islamists' presence in Syria -- especially when we know that a clear majority of the "moderate" fighters are not even Syrians. According to Turkish police records, they are mainly Chinese Uighurs, several Europeans and even one from Trinidad and Tobago.

Could the basis be the religious bond? Could Prime Minister Davutoglu have politely reminded the Russians that the "moderate" fighters are Muslim whereas Russia is not? But then, one should ask, using Davutoglu's logic, "What is the basis of the U.S.-led Western coalition's airstrikes in Syria?" Since when are the Americans, British, Germans and French Muslims?

In Turkish thinking, there is just one difference between non-Muslim Russia's presence in Syria and non-Muslim allies' presence: The non-Muslim Russians seriously threaten the advancement of our pro-Sunni sectarian war in the Levant, whereas the non-Muslim allies can be instrumental in favor of it. Hence Turkey's selective objection to some of the non-Muslim players in Syria.

Earlier in 2015, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that he found it difficult to understand what Russia was doing in Syria, since "it does not even border Syria." By that logic, Turkey should not be "doing anything" in the Palestinian territories, Somalia, Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan or any of the non-bordering lands into which its neo-Ottoman impulses have pushed it over the past several years. By the same logic, also, Turkey should be objecting to any allied (non-Muslim) intervention in Syria, or to any Qatari or Saudi (non-bordering) intervention in the Syrian theater.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that he found it difficult to understand what Russia was doing in Syria, since "it does not even border Syria." Pictured: Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) with then Prime Minister Erdogan, meeting in Istanbul on December 3, 2012. (Image source: kremlin.ru)

In the unrealistic imperial Turkish psyche, only Turkey and the countries that pursue regional ambitions convergent with Turkey's can have any legitimate right to design or re-design the former Ottoman lands.

Such self-righteous and assertive thinking can hardly comply with international law. The Turks and their imperial ambitions have already been declared unwelcome in Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. Nor would such ambitions be welcomed in any former Ottoman land to Turkey's west. But if, as Turkey's Islamists are programmed to believe, "historical and geographical bonds" give a foreign nation the right to design a polity in another nation, what better justification could the Russians have had for their post-imperial designs in Crimea?

When they have a moment of distraction from their wars against Western values, the West, Israel, Jews or infidels, the Sunni and Shiite Islamists in the Middle East fight subtle-looking (but less subtle than they think) and cunning (but less cunning than they think) wars and proxy wars, and accuse each other of pursuing sectarian policies. Turkey's rulers are no exception.
  

Burak Bekdil, based in Ankara, is a Turkish columnist for the Hürriyet Daily and a Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Source:  http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7145/russian-imperialism-ottoman-grandeur

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

Israel could develop a fighter aircraft – the problem is money - Maj. Gen. (res.) David Ivry

by Maj. Gen. (res.) David Ivry

The design process of the Arie continued until 1979 through a total investment of US$ 40 million from IAI’s own capital. This aircraft was never actually developed.

In the summer of 1967, at the outset of the Six-Day War, the Government of France imposed an embargo on the supply of arms to Israel, and cancelled a transaction involving the supply of Mirage-5 fighter aircraft that were to be delivered to Israel as of December 1967. This embargo threatened Israel’s ability to defend itself, and the Israel Ministry of Defense consequently decided to assign the highest priority to the design and manufacture of a fighter aircraft – a “Blue and White” product by IAI.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Israel manufactured the Nesher fighter aircraft that were based on the French Mirage design. These aircraft were supplied to IAF until 1974. In the early 1970s, concurrently with the manufacture of the Nesher aircraft, an effort to characterize and design a more advanced fighter aircraft was initiated. The new aircraft was designated Kfir.

As far back as mid-1974, just before the development of the Kfir aircraft was completed and serial production began, IAI proposed to develop an advanced fighter aircraft designated Arie. In 1975, the commander of IAF in those days, Maj. Gen. Benny Peled, authorized the planning of the new aircraft. The aircraft was intended to be the spearhead of the IAF OrBat in the 1980s, alongside (and possibly instead of) the US-made F-15 and F-16. The design process of the Arie continued until 1979 through a total investment of US$ 40 million from IAI’s own capital. This aircraft was never actually developed.

The Birth of the Lavi

Over the course of 1979, the Israeli defense establishment reviewed the future OrBat of IAF. The decision makers faced three alternatives regarding the acquisition of fighter aircraft: to develop and manufacture an original Israeli fighter; to participate in the manufacture of a US-made fighter or to base the OrBat of IAF exclusively on aircraft acquired overseas.

In those days, the US government established a special team to consolidate the American position regarding the various alternatives for the new fighter aircraft of the IAF, including the alternative of jointly manufacturing a new fighter for IAF in the 1980s. The US team was intended to complete its work in early 1980. This proposal was not reviewed in depth, as stated by the report of the State Comptroller, who investigated the issue.

“The Lavi project began in the early 1980s. We were in the course of the IAF five-year acquisition plan,” recounts Maj. Gen. (res.) David Ivry. “I was the commander of IAF, Ezer Weizman was Minister of Defense, Raful (Rafael Eitan) was IDF Chief of Staff. We sought a replacement for the Phantom fighters. We never mentioned an Israeli-made aircraft. We regarded the Kfir as a platform that could be improved further.”

In that year, IAI came up with a proposal designated "Layout 33" – it was not yet designated "Lavi". The aircraft in that proposal, contrary to the Arie, was to be a single-engine, small and inexpensive design that would replace the ageing Kfir and Skyhawk aircraft that IAF intended to phase out. In terms of its position within the IAF OrBat, the Lavi was intended to be a "complementary" aircraft. It was not to be designed for air superiority missions but mainly for strike and airspace defense missions, to be employed alongside the more advanced F-15, F-16 and F-18 fighters. The decision to develop the Lavi aircraft was made in February 1980 by Ezer Weizman, who was Minister of Defense in those days.

“The general atmosphere in the State of Israel was that we should aspire for defense independence, including a locally-manufactured fighter aircraft,” Ivry continues. “(Originally) it was a very small aircraft that IAI claimed would replace the Skyhawk. That aircraft was too small and could not carry the munitions we wanted. My feeling was that we needed to acquire aircraft that offered a more substantial carrying capacity to a longer distance. I felt that our future challenges would involve longer distances. In the new characterization, we opted for a larger engine”.

Apparently, the problem with the Lavi project was not about technological know-how, but about money – and a lot of it. In December 1980, IAI submitted a long-term work plan and budget for the development effort which amounted to US$ 805.9 million (in 1980 prices). “Israel has no problem developing a fighter aircraft, neither back then, nor today. The problem is money,” says Ivry. “A country of 8 million citizens cannot develop a fighter aircraft. We are not the USA, Russia or China.

“There is one other point that needs to be clarified in this context. In reality, there is no such thing as defense or economic independence. Even the USA depends on (the supply of) titanium from Russia. No country is truly independent. You cannot do everything on your own. The USA is more independent than any other country, that much is true, but it is still relative. Even when you consider the Lavi aircraft project, the engine was American.

“The State of Israel should retain its qualitative advantage, and that can be achieved by upgrading certain elements of the platform, like upgrading the ECM (suit) and the Radar. The important thing is for us to have the necessary infrastructures – mainly laboratories. If we have such infrastructure in this country, we will be able to retain the primary elements that would provide us with the advantage on the battlefield.”

With regard to the Lavi project, Ivry reveals that no one had the money for it. “At the outset of the project, no one had calculated how much it would cost and where the money would come from. A larger aircraft costs more. The IDF (authorities) strongly opposed the Lavi project as they did not want anyone touching the defense budget,” says Ivry. “As far as I was concerned, as commander of IAF, I wanted a good aircraft. If they could provide me with an Israeli-made aircraft – excellent. Eventually, the money was raised by Moshe Arens, who managed to obtain assistance from the USA for the development of the aircraft. On average, the USA invested US$ 450 million in the Lavi project each year, of which US$ 200 million were invested in Israel, and all the rest in the USA.

“It is important to point out that the idea was not to shake off our dependence on the USA. Back then, the USA did not believe that we were able to develop a fighter aircraft (and that is why they gave us the money). (As far as they were concerned,) the money was intended to ‘let them play with it’. When the project began to shape up, the Americans realized that we were going toward highly advanced concepts. The American industries realized that we were going to have an aircraft that would be superior to the F-16 of those days, and started to oppose the project. The US industries could not understand why the USA financed an aircraft that would compete with the F-16.”

In 1982, a project administration was established at IMOD under Brig. Gen. Amos Lapidot, and the aircraft that started to shape up was not bad at all. Until the termination of the Lavi project in 1987, three prototypes were developed. “We made amazing progress with regard to the trial method. We established a large computer center that promptly analyzed all of the data received from the aircraft during the test flight and compared them to the planning, so we could make corrections during the actual test. In other words – we managed to do more in the context of the same flight. That shortened our trials significantly,” explains Ivry.

“We also developed a passive and active airborne Radar, electronic systems and even the pilot helmet currently manufactured by Elbit Systems was conceived in those days. These were all Israeli designs. Some of the manufacturing was carried out in the USA. We had a suitable conceptual infrastructure in Israel, but we lacked the laboratory infrastructure and other elements that were necessary for the development of the aircraft. The money for the Lavi project was invested in those elements, and served the State of Israel long after that project had been eliminated. For example – laboratories for the development of airborne Radars. The total investment in the Lavi project amounted to US$ 1.5 billion until the stage when the first two prototypes actually flew. That gave a tremendous boost to the defense industries.”

The Lavi flew for the first time in December 1986. In that year, the Americans began asking questions. Dov Zakheim, US Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Planning and Resources, ruled out that Israel had underestimated the aircraft development cost, and that in effect its cost would reach US$ 22.1 million. Israel estimated the cost of the aircraft to be about US$ 17 million.

Overseas, Tom Jones, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Northrop, sent a letter to George Schultz, US Secretary of State, and to Casper Weinberger, US Secretary of Defense, claiming that it was ironic for the USA to financially support an Israeli rather than an American aircraft. In those days, Northrop was developing the F-20 aircraft. Both officials, who were swayed by the pressure exerted by the US defense industries, sent letters to Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

“The Deputy Secretary of State arrived with all sorts of ideas in order to exert pressure to terminate the project. They spoke to us about additional funding for the Arrow, for the submarines and for other projects,” says Ivry. “There was also an offer for a price of US$ 14.9 million for the F-16. Naturally, they forgot to mention that those were 1978 figures. The Lavi turned out to be more expensive. Subsequently, the price of the F-16 rose to US$ 21 million. The game was about how many aircraft the IAF needed. The calculations were based on a minimum of 210 and a maximum of 300 (aircraft). The IDF said that if we wanted more money, the project should be defined as a national project and the money should not be taken from the defense budget.

“The Americans did not officially demanded that we terminate the project. They stated very subtly that we would not be able to implement the project, mainly owing to the financing problem. There were diplomatic letters with an implied threat between the lines that they would stop their aid. The letters were sent to Rabin, who was Minister of Defense in those days. Even before the year ended, IAI demanded an additional US$ 50 million per year for the project, on top of the American money. The funds were to come from the national budget, and that raised the threshold of the opposition to the project.”

The Termination of the Lavi Project

On August 30, 1987, by a single vote (12 against 11), the Shamir government decided to stop the Lavi project. “Admittedly, the project was terminated on the vote of (Minister of Health Shoshana Arbeli) Almozlino, but that was just the tip of the iceberg,” says Ivry. “Under the surface, several processes had drained into the same spot. If that had not happened at that time, the USA would have shut off the financing for the project some time later. Anyone who says that the project was terminated because of her (Minister Almozlino) misses the bigger picture.”

“In those days, about 5,000 people were working on the project directly. The IDF authorities said they could find employment for all those directly involved in the project. The State of Israel used some of the funds that continued to flow into the project from the USA to finance the severance pay. At that time, the entire defense industry experienced a violent jolt, not just IAI. During that period, the defense industry of Israel shrank almost by half, but became more business-oriented.

“The Lavi project propelled the industry to a higher league, with regard to the business thinking aspect as well as to the aspect of the R&D infrastructure established in Israel,” explains Ivry. “When we started out, I could not understand how we would manage to do it. There was no money. Toward the end of the project, I even had a chance to fly the Lavi, and it was a shame having to terminate the project. We truly achieved a very nice result. The Lavi made a contribution to the industry that has lasted to this day. Thanks to the Lavi project, the industry could undertake aircraft upgrading projects overseas, structured knowledge centers were established by the industries and various measures were developed that are still in service in IDF to this day.”

Maj. Gen. (res.) David Ivry

Source: http://www.israeldefense.co.il/en/content/%E2%80%9Cisrael-has-no-problem-developing-fighter-aircraft-%E2%80%93-problem-money%E2%80%9D

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

Iran Executes Three Iranians Every Day; The West Rewards It - Judith Bergman

by Judith Bergman

• "Death sentences in Iran are particularly disturbing because they are invariably imposed by courts that are completely lacking in independence and impartiality. They are imposed either for vaguely worded or overly broad offences, or for acts that should not be criminalized at all, let alone attract the death penalty. Trials in Iran are deeply flawed, detainees are often denied access to lawyers in the investigative stage, and there are inadequate procedures for appeal, pardon and commutation" -- From a July 2015 Amnesty International report.
• How ironic that Europeans have no problem stuffing themselves with syrupy Iranian dates exported by this regime, knowing full well that there are thousands of prisoners are being tortured in Iran while awaiting their executions.
• Amnesty International reports that in the fall of 2015, cartoonist Atena Farghadani was forced to undergo a "virginity and pregnancy test" prior to her trial. The charge? "Illegitimate sexual relations," for having shaken hands with her lawyer.
• Iran nevertheless won a top seat on the U.N.'s Commission on the Status of Women in April 2014. Not a single UN member, not even the US, objected.
  

On the UN's Human Rights Day, observed December 10, an Iranian woman was sentenced to death by stoning in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran is believed to have imposed death by stoning on at least 150 people, according to the International Committees against Execution and Stoning.
"Stoning," Iranian human rights activist Shabnam Assadollahi said, "is an act of torture. There are 15 countries in which stoning is either practiced and authorized by law or tolerated. One of those 15 countries is Iran. The last known execution by stoning was in 2009. In Iran under the Islamic law, stonings, hangings, and executions are legal torture.

"In Islam under Sharia law, the stoning (Rajm) is commonly used as a form of capital punishment, called Hudud," Assadollahi explained.

"Under the Islamic Law, it is the ordained penalty in cases of adultery committed by a married man or married woman with others who are not her/his legal partner. Stoning is carried out by a crowd of Muslims who follow the Sharia law by throwing stones (small and large) at a convicted person until she or he is killed. The international community must pressure Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, Pakistan, and other countries where stoning is legally carried or tolerated. Why cannot the public loudly cry out and advocate for women oppressed by those regimes?"

Instead of cries of outrage, the West, in the wake of the nuclear "deal" Iran has not even signed, has been scrambling to ingratiate itself with the Iranian regime. Countries such as France, Germany, Austria and Switzerland have barely been able to contain themselves at the prospect of doing business with them. It has been years since the Europeans could legally engage in trade with the murderous regime of the mullahs, who still cry, "Death to Israel, Death to America" -- the "Little Satan" and the "Great Satan' -- and they have not been wasting time.

In fact, the P5+1 negotiators (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) had just finished signing the "deal" with themselves, when Germany's Vice Chancellor, Sigmar Gabriel, hurried himself and a group of representatives from German companies and industry groups onto a plane for a visit to Iran.

The French Foreign Minister, Laurent Fabius, who usually knows better, likewise, found it "... completely normal that after this historic deal was signed, France and Iran should restart normal relations."

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said that it is "completely normal that after this historic [nuclear] deal was signed, France and Iran should restart normal relations." Left, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif hugs Fabius at the close of nuclear talks in Geneva, Nov. 23, 2014. Right: A public execution in Iran.

Before the sanctions took effect in 2011, French companies such as Renault and Peugeot were making billions of euros from their involvement with Iran's auto industry. Similarly, the French company Total was heavily involved in the oil sector. France was evidently not going to miss a beat in bringing this lucrative trade back to la République.

How ironic that the country of "liberté, egalité and fraternité" finds it "completely normal" to have normal diplomatic and trade relations with a country that treats its own citizens, especially women, worse than the mud under the mullah's feet; that executes whoever disagrees with the regime, and that hangs homosexuals from cranes. How ironic that Europeans have no problem stuffing themselves with syrupy Iranian dates exported by this smiling regime, knowing full well that there are thousands of Iranian prisoners being tortured in Iranian prisons while awaiting their execution day.

Iranian authorities are believed to have executed 694 people between January 1 and July 15, 2015 -- an average of three executions a day. Since the election of the "moderate" President Hassan Rouhani in 2013, the number of executions has markedly gone up. According to a July 2015 Amnesty International report:

"Death sentences in Iran are particularly disturbing because they are invariably imposed by courts that are completely lacking in independence and impartiality. They are imposed either for vaguely worded or overly broad offences, or for acts that should not be criminalized at all, let alone attract the death penalty. Trials in Iran are deeply flawed, detainees are often denied access to lawyers in the investigative stage, and there are inadequate procedures for appeal, pardon and commutation."

The report goes on to state that the majority of those put to death in 2015 were people from disadvantaged backgrounds, who were convicted on drug charges. "This is in direct breach of international law, which restricts the use of the death penalty to only the 'most serious crimes' – those involving intentional killing. Drug-related offences do not meet this threshold."

Among those executed in Iran this year are members of ethnic and religious minorities convicted of "enmity against God" and "corruption on earth." These include Kurdish political prisoners and Sunni Muslims. On August 26, 2015, Behrouz Alkhani, a 30-year-old man from Iran's Kurdish minority, was executed despite awaiting the outcome of a Supreme Court appeal.

Iran is the second most prolific executioner in the world after China, according to Amnesty International's latest global death penalty report.

Iran also tops the global list statistically for executioners of juvenile offenders, even though it is a state party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, both of which prohibit the imposition of the death penalty against persons who were below 18 years of age at the time of the crime, without exception. (Of course Iran was also a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which it also violated repeatedly.) Iran continues to impose the death penalty against juvenile offenders, frequently deferring the execution until after they pass the age of 18. In 2015, at least four juvenile offenders are believed to have been executed: Javad Saberi, Vazir Amroddin, Samad Zahabi and Fatemeh Salbehi.

Iran is scheduled to be reviewed by the Committee on the Rights of the Child on January 11-12, 2016. The Committee has already expressed deep concerns about the use of death penalty against juvenile offenders and asked Iran to provide information on the progress and outcome of the cases of juvenile offenders undergoing re-trial.

Despite all the atrocities that Iran commits towards its citizens, women hold a special place of denigration and humiliation in Iranian society. Young women are reported brutally arrested by the thousand every week for not wearing a "proper hijab." A woman in Iran is de facto first her father's property, then after marriage, her husband's property. According to the UN Secretary General's February 2015 Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Iran, child marriage is prevalent. The legal age of marriage for girls is 13; some as young as 9 may be married by permission of the court. In 2011, about 48,580 girls between the age of 10 and 14 were married; in 2012, there were at least 1,537 girls under the age of 10 who were reportedly married. Pedophilia is thereby widespread and legal.

Married women may not work, attend sporting events or leave the country without their husband's permission. When arrested, they suffer unspeakable torture in prison. Rape is commonly used as torture in prison against both women and men.

Forced "virginity testing" is also commonly used in prison, a serious violation of international law. It violates women's and girls' human rights to physical integrity, dignity, privacy and right to be free from torture and cruel and inhuman and degrading treatment. According to Amnesty International, satirical cartoonist Atena Farghadani, held in prison since January 2015, was sentenced in June 2015 to twelve years and nine months in prison for her peaceful activism, including meeting with families of political prisoners, and for drawing a satirical cartoon depicting legislators as monkeys, cows, and other animals. The cartoon was to protest a bill that sought to criminalize voluntary sterilization and restrict access to contraception and family planning services.

In December 2014, when Farghadani was out on bail, she released a video message on YouTube, detailing how female prison guards at Evin prison had beaten her, verbally abused her and forced her to strip naked for body searches. She was rearrested in January 2015, and in the fall of 2015 she was forced to undergo a "virginity and pregnancy test" prior to her trial. The charge? "Illegitimate sexual relations" for having shaken hands with her lawyer.

Iran nevertheless won a top seat on the U.N.'s Commission on the Status of Women in April 2014. Not a single UN member, not even the US, objected, to that election.

An exhaustive account of the atrocities that the Iranian regime continues to commit against its own people would require volumes. Nevertheless, the West, seems to remain unfazed in furthering its lucrative relations with the murderous regime.

Those politicians and executives scrambling to do business with the mullahs should realize that Iran's intercontinental ballistic missiles can tomorrow be aimed at them. Those who comfort themselves with the thought that Iran only wants to annihilate Israel might do well to think again. Iran has tested a two-stage solid-fuel missile, the Sejjil-2, with a range of more than 2,000 km, allowing it to target southeastern Europe. In addition, Iran recently unveiled the Soumar cruise missile, reportedly a reverse-engineered version of the Russia's Raduga Kh-55 -- which was designed as a nuclear delivery system. It has a claimed range of 2,500-3,000 km.

Nevertheless, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has acceded to Iran's demands to close its 12-year investigation into whether Iran had a secret nuclear weapons program. The IAEA produced a report earlier this month that strongly suggested Iran did have a nuclear weapons program for the years up until 2003.

The West clearly not only fails to care about the plight of the Iranians -- it does not even care about its own populations being within Iranian missile range.

Judith Bergman is a writer, columnist, lawyer and political analyst.

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7137/iran-executions

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

'Normalization' with Turkey? No thank you - Ari Soffer

by Ari Soffer

Rapprochement with Turkey at this time and under the current terms would be a momentous, humiliating and self-defeating mistake for the State of Israel.

What a shame. Just as it seemed we might put everything behind us, Turkey has once again spurned its erstwhile ally Israel by, not for the first time, leveling conditions it knows the Jewish state can never accept in return for the holy grail of "normalization."

Lifting the blockade of Gaza - which has been ruled as legal by the UN and which is crucial for Israel's security - as demanded by Ankara, would obviously mark a total surrender by Israel from a diplomatic perspective, while placing Israelis at an acceptable risk of attack from terrorists armed with previously-inaccessible, sophisticated weaponry.

It is a condition which even the Netanyahu government - which is apparently keen to get back into bed with the Erdogan regime - cannot accept.

How sad - we were so close. But who knows, perhaps there's still a chance of rapprochement? At least, that's what Israel's foreign ministry apparently thinks.

Well, let's hope not. Rapprochement with Turkey at this time and under the current terms would be a momentous, humiliating and self-defeating mistake for the State of Israel. We can only thank God that, once again, we have been saved from ourselves by the sheer spitefulness and arrogance of our foes - at least for now.

No, our foes are not the Turkish people per se - although the fact that they have repeatedly voted in an anti-Semitic, Islamist demagogue and his clique, who were the ones who so dramatically and deliberately torpedoed their country's relations with us in the first place, doesn't exactly emanate goodwill.

But in the mustachioed, suited Islamists of the ruling AKP, Israel has a foe no less vicious, and only slightly less dangerous than the bearded, robed mullahs of Tehran.

It is a government which has not merely spewed a regular rhetorical stream of anti-Israel bile, while its officials air anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Rhetoric aside, Erdogan's Turkey has been home for several years now to Hamas's most lethal terrorist masterminds, allowing them to plot their genocide of the Jewish state under state protection and largess, while openly endorsing and supporting the terrorist group throughout its wars and terror campaigns against the citizens of Israel.

Then consider the alleged deal under consideration, details of which have been gradually leaked by Israeli officials, most likely in an attempt to test the Israeli public's reactions.

The one thing which is certainly a condition for Israeli-Turkish rapprochement - being the only detail Ankara and Jerusalem have both publicly acknowledged - is an official apology and handsome compensation package to the families of the Islamist extremists who attacked IDF soldiers aboard the Mavi Marmara in 2010.

This is likely what Israeli foreign ministry Director-General Dore Gold meant, when he claimed in a recent interview with a Saudi paper that "some points have already been finalized and others are still being discussed, but things are on track."

This condition is itself an indication of the barely-concealed enmity harbored towards Israel by the Turkish government. Remember, the Islamists in question were killed while staging a violent attack on Israeli forces - which left several soldiers seriously wounded - and were all members of an extremist organization (the IHH) which even Turkish police have said has clear links to Al Qaeda.

(Of course, this latter point matters not to a Turkish government which has brazenly backed Al Qaeda-affiliated jihadists in Syria - but I digress.)

What's more, the Marmara attack was only possible with the Turkish government's cooperation - the flotilla launched its final leg from Turkish shores amid much fanfare and official government support. If anything, it is the Turks who should be apologizing for enabling a flagrant violation of Israeli sovereignty and a violent, near-lethal assault on our soldiers.

The demand that Israel should apologize for its soldiers defending their own lives - and in the process the lives of all Israeli citizens, whose security is served by the maintenance of the blockade the Islamists sought to break - should be considered an unacceptable slap in the face. It's not just a disgraceful betrayal of our soldiers - such a craven apology would merely invite further such attacks. It would also broadcast a more fundamental signal of weakness throughout the region, framing Israel as the local whipping-boy: if you put enough pressure, hold out for long enough, and then dangle a carrot or two, the mighty Jewish state, desperate for friends, will eventually give in to your demands.

In the politics of the Middle East the currency of honor and respect is as valuable for a country's deterrence as its technical military capabilities. This, alas, is a fact our leaders seem stubbornly determined to ignore. Each time our enemies attack us, and lose, we reward them by agreeing to go back to square one in exchange for token agreements we all know will be broken as soon as it becomes expedient to do so.

And what would Israel get in return? That is rather less clear, not least because Turkish officials have in recent days denied what Israeli reports had claimed as the main elements of a normalization agreement. Ties with Hamas are not on the chopping block, while negotiations over a multi-billion dollar natural gas deal are apparently only to begin after any eventual normalization agreement, according to a recent report in Haaretz. Meanwhile, Hamas's terrorist kingpin Salah al-Arouri - who has been behind nearly every single major terrorist plot in Judea and Samaria in recent years, as well as the kidnap and murder of three Israeli teenagers in 2014 which he proudly gloated about - reportedly left Turkey months ago, leaving claims by Israeli officials that his expulsion was part of the deal looking somewhat contrived.

Of course, the very notion that the AKP - the Turkish version of the Muslim Brotherhood - would be open to dropping its Palestinian cousin Hamas seemed far-fetched to begin with. But even if we assume that Turkey's denials are all a political ploy or the result of a sudden about-face, and that such a deal was in fact on the table, none of these "gains" would be of particular value to Israel, certainly not in exchange for an "alliance" with a government as unreliable as Erdogan's. 

Expelling Hamas leaders - the incentive most commonly touted to the Israeli media - would pose no more than a minor, temporary inconvenience for the world's richest terrorist organization after ISIS. Viable alternatives for a safe haven would include Qatar, home of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal himself; and of course, if all else fails, there's always Iran.

The vague suggestion of a Turkish-Israeli "strategic alliance" in view of supposedly mutual regional threats is perhaps more laughable still.

Erdogan may be an enemy of Bashar al-Assad, but the Syrian dictator and his army are hardly a threat to Israel. As for the Sunni jihadis Ankara has claimed to be combating (by bombing the Kurds who are fighting them, naturally): Turkey's support for Al Nusra (Al Qaeda) and other Islamist rebels is one of the Syrian civil war's worst-kept secrets - as is his government's blind eye towards, if not indirect support of, ISIS operatives both along the Syria-Turkey border as well as within his own country.

More importantly, however, is the fact that neither the Syrian army nor Al Nusra or even ISIS (despite the latter's exceptional PR) currently pose an immediate threat to Israel. Hamas does - and its leadership is still warmly embraced by Turkey and, as is clear from the ongoing, intimate tet-a-tets between the two ideological cousins, still will be regardless of the geographic relocation of individual operatives.

Neither does a weakened Ankara, squeezed by an aggressive Russia and an emboldened Iran, and alienated by its own arrogant, failed neo-Ottoman foreign policy experiment, represent much of a bulwark against Tehran. In contrast, the increasingly determined Arab gulf states - led by Saudi Arabia - have shown far more flexibility and far less open hostility towards a relationship with Israel, albeit a semi-covert one.

The Kurds, too - who Erdogan's forces are currently butchering to deafening international silence - represent a far more convincing ally in the fight against both Sunni and Shia jihadism, if only Jerusalem woke up to Kurdistan's immense strategic potential as more than just a source of cheap oil.

Which brings us to the final talking-point surrounding the "normalization" initiative: the prospect of a multi-billion dollar gas pipeline to export Israel's natural gas deposits to an energy-hungry Turkey.

For a start, Turkey isn't the only country in the world looking to buy natural gas, and Israel should certainly not be so quick to embrace as toxic a regime as Erdogan's in exchange for such a deal.

More crucially, this aspect of the talks highlights the very reason why prospects of "normalization" have so magically advanced over the past few weeks.

55% of Turkey's natural gas imports are currently provided by Russia, and with relations with Moscow rapidly deteriorating it can't be ruled out that a vengeful Putin would use that dependency to apply yet further pressure, or even move to withdraw it altogether. Hence, an increasingly isolated Turkey is looking for alternatives - which, thanks to a series of misjudged foreign policy decisions, are in short supply in the Middle East.

Yet if Erdogan is indeed so desperate to source an alternative provider that he is turning to the hated Zionists for salvation then why, to quote Netanyahu himself, is the Israeli government negotiating like a western tourist in a Persian (or Turkish) bazaar? Why should we be capitulating to Ankara's terms, instead of demanding Turkey hands over those Hamas terrorists still living there, stops supporting anti-Israel terrorists and ends its anti-Israel incitement? 

And then there is Russia. At a time when ties between Jerusalem and Moscow are burgeoning - economically and militarily - why risk snubbing Putin by cosying up to his newest public enemy number one?

Instead of hoping for a return to the past in a Middle East that will never be the same again, Israel should look to the future. As I have argued previously, Israel is not a vassal state dependent on the goodwill of others, but a regional power in its own right - one that is fully capable of putting Erdogan's feet to the fire.

And if, as is likely, he opts to continue supporting Israel's sworn enemies, I'm sure the Kurds would be happy to repay the favor.

Ari Soffer

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/18146#.VoPurFKzdds

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

Anti-Israel hate-mongering in the Netherlands - Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld

by Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld

An in depth report of one European country's surge in anti-Semitism. One can extrapolate.

Nowadays the Netherlands is proving an abundant source for anti-Semitism and anti-Israel hate mongering. We will limit ourselves here to several recent events and incidents concerning Israel. These occurred against the backdrop of an opinion poll which found that 38% of the Dutch population believe that Israel is conducting a war of extermination against the Palestinians.[1] This and other radical lies concerning Israel reflect the result of the widespread anti-Israel incitement in the Netherlands by left of center parties, numerous media outlets, various NGOs, some Christian groups and many others.

In October Youness Ouaali, a Turkish-Dutch representative of a Salafi charity World Wide Relief,[2] suggested on his website that visiting Israeli tourists should be beaten up. Pauw, a leading Dutch talk shows invited him to explain his thoughts.[3] A few days later the same talk show invited Constant Kusters, the leader of the NVU, a tiny extreme right-wing party. Deputy Prime Minister Lodewijk Asscher, a Labor party member, said in Parliament, “I was shocked to see a neo-Nazi representing concerned citizens on television.” [4] No such response was forthcoming from Asscher with regard to the incitement to beat up Israelis.

One of the two annual Kristallnacht memorial meetings has become a regular event for incitement against Israel. It is organized by a group that hides its real views behind the innocuous-sounding name of “Platform for anti-Racism.” This year it invited the anti-Israel Arab MK Haneen Zoabi to speak.[5] The meeting took place next to the Amsterdam monument for the Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust, and prompted a petition asking the Amsterdam Mayor and aldermen to no longer give permission to the monument’s desecration through such anti-Israel gatherings.[6]

In 2015 a number of schoolbooks were published in The Netherlands containing distortions of Israel’s history and activities. These schoolbooks create bias against Israel among pupils by means of bogus information. In May Noordhoff Uitgevers released a history book for vocational high schools, which puts forward the suggestive claim that David Ben Gurion declared Israeli statehood only after “Jewish militias carried out murders in Arab villages, and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled and settled in refugee camps across the border.” The book makes no mention of any of the many documented Arab atrocities toward Israelis, both over many years prior to Israel’s inception, and during the war of Independence itself. [7]

Several months later, another Dutch publisher, Thieme Meulenhoff, released a high school textbook on the Middle East, which claimed that the Balfour Declaration, promising a homeland in British Mandatory Palestine for the Jews, was an attempt to woo Jewish bankers to invest in British war efforts.[8]

The same firm also published a geography textbook. Likoed Nederland, a Dutch pro-Israel organization, discovered thirty-nine obvious errors in the twelve pages about Israel. These included the lie that the Jews refused the UN’s 1947 partition plan when the opposite was true: the Arab nations refused it.[9]

In July 2015, Bert Koenders, the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs placed a wreath at Yad Vashem. In the guestbook he wrote “discrimination and anti-Semitism are still alive today. We owe it to the millions who were murdered in the Holocaust to continue to fight this evil through remembering the past and by educating today.”[10]

However, when a motion to counter anti-Semitism within the educational system was brought in Parliament, Koenders’ Labor party, the junior partner in the government, opposed it.  He has also firmly backed the labeling of 'West Bank' and the Golan products by the European Union. This is a typical anti-Israel version of classic anti-Semitic double standards.[11]

In June 2015 an anti-Israel debate took place at the major Amsterdam Free University organized in coordination with the SRP, the Dutch Students for Justice in Palestine. The theme of this was Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. Only BDS supporters were allowed to speak freely. Opponents were booed. At the end of the meeting, Jaap de Winter, the President of the University’s Board, summarized this extremely biased discussion as “a nice debate which befits the Free University.”[12]

The Amsterdam municipal council voted recently in favor of collaboration with Tel Aviv and Ramallah.[13] The mayor of Amsterdam Eberhard Van der Laan, a member of the Labor Party, is rightly proud of his parents, who were resistance activists and helped Jews during the German occupation.[14] This did not prevent him, however, from supporting the twinning of Amsterdam and Ramallah, a city where murders of Jews are a frequent occasion for official glorification.[15] The municipal council imposed various constraints with regard to collaboration with Tel Aviv, but collaboration with Ramallah apparently required no preconditions.[16] This story in itself merits a separate article.

Van der Laan’s Labor Party colleague Ahmed Aboutaleb, mayor of Rotterdam, prepared a trade mission to Israel. It was opposed in the municipal council by the extreme left Socialist Party, the Green Left party and a Muslim party NIDA. Aboutaleb responded that the possibility of such a visit was still being looked into.[17] Later in the year he visited Saudi Arabia. The Socialist Party and two other parties opposed it. The Green Left and NIDA apparently did not mind.[18]

The reality in the Netherlands is such that most probably in a few months more can be published on the same subject, as fresh examples on hate mongering against and Israel in the Netherlands are emerging even as this article is being written.
Sources:

[1] library.fes.de/pdf-files/do/07908-20110311.pdf.

[2] Carel Brendel, “Woordvoerder World Wide Relief roept op om toeristen total loss te slaan,” CarelBrendel.nl, 15 October 2015.

[3] Shari Deira, “Man roept op tot mishandelen Israëliërs, uitgenodigd door Pauw,” Elsevier,16 October 2015.

[4] “Asscher windt zich op over 'neonazi' bij Pauw,” NOS, 29 October 2015.

[5] Esther Voet, “Spreek me niet van waardigheid, meneer Van der Laan…,” Jalta, 9 November 2015.

[6] “Joden in Verzet tegen misbruik van het verzetsmonument te Amsterdam,” GoPetition, 2 November 2015.

[7] “Israeli Embassy slams ‘outrageous’ Dutch textbook,” Times of Israel, 27 May 2015.

[8]  “Dutch textbook: Britain endorsed Zionism to gain favor with Jewish bankers,” The Jerusalem Post, 10 September 2015.

[9] “Tweede schoolboek van ThiemeMeulenhoff boordevol fouten,” Likoed Nederland,” 16 September 2015. [Dutch]

[10] Yad Vashem Jerusalem, volume 78, October 2015.

[11] “Koenders zet etikettering weer op agenda,” Telegraaf, 20 November 2014.

[12] “Israël-vrije VU?” N.I.W., 18 June 2015.

[13] Roelf Jan Duin, “Gemeenteraad akkoord met samenwerking Ramallah en Tel Aviv,” Parool, 6 November 2015.

[14] Rob Rombouts, “Eberhard van der Laan eert op de Dam ook zijn eigen ouders,” Parool, 5 May 2014.

[15] “PA Names Ramallah Street After Hamas Terror Mastermind,” Haaretz, 7 April 2010.

[16] Elise Friedmann, “Amsterdamse gemeenteraad voor uitgeklede samenwerking Tel Aviv,” Cidi, 6 November 2015.

[17] Mark Hoogstad, “Aboutaleb moet afzien van bezoek aan Israel,” AD.nl, 21 July 2015.

[18] Mark Hoogstad, “Aboutaleb geeft hypocriet signaal af,” AD.nl, 27 November 2015.

Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/18147#.VoPtvlKzddt

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

Progressive “Thought-Blockers”: Islamophobia - Bruce Thornton

by Bruce Thornton

A deadly belief-system.

[To order David Horowitz and Robert Spencer's pamphlet "Islamophobia: Thought Crime of the Totalitarian Future," click here.]


A few days before the San Bernardino shootings, President Obama reacted to Donald Trump’s proposal to bar Muslims entry into the U.S. by saying, “It is the responsibility of all Americans––of every faith––to reject discrimination.  It is our responsibility to reject religious tests on who we admit into this country . . . Muslim Americans are our friends and our neighbors, our co-workers, our sports heroes.” Attorney General Loretta Lynch went even further. In an address at the Muslim Advocates dinner, she commented,

“Now obviously this is a country that is based on free speech, but when it edges towards violence, when we see the potential for someone . . . lifting that mantle of anti-Muslim rhetoric, or, as we saw after 9/11, violence against individuals who may not even be Muslims but may be perceived to be Muslims . . . When we see that, we will take action”––or as she warns, “They will be prosecuted.”

How is [it] that Muslims have become “snowflakes” like those pampered college students so traumatized by opposing points of view that they need “safe spaces” from speech they don’t like, and demand scrapping the First Amendment? For an answer, look to another progressive “thought-blocker,” “Islamophobia.”

This made-up thought-crime is not a response to an epidemic of Muslim persecution in America. Sixty percent of anti-religious hate crimes are directed at Jews, not Muslims. Nor is it penance for historical crimes committed by Christians and Jews against Muslims, whether those are imperialism, colonialism, or Israel’s defense of its nation against incessant violence. Islam’s record of slaughter, enslavement, and occupation far eclipses that of the West.

Rather, “Islamophobia” is the product of peculiarly modern bad ideas. It surfaced in 1997 in a report by a British think-tank, the Runnymede Trust. The purpose was to explain the social dysfunctions and problems of British Muslims, which were laid at the feet of “anti-Islamic bias” that encouraged discrimination, hate crimes against Muslims, and distortions of Islam in the media and popular culture. In 2004 the Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia––notice how the name begs the question––concluded that England was “institutionally Islamophobic.” Facts of illiberal Muslim behavior such as its unequal treatment of women, intolerance of other faiths, and radical mosques preaching intolerance and jihad were ignored.

So where does “Islamophobia” come from? Start with the suffix “phobia,” from the Greek word for “fear.” This is a vaguely Freudian psychological idea referring to an irrational fear that reflects not reality but repression of unsavory or frightening impulses. After all, fearing a dangerous black widow spider is not irrational. Fearing a harmless brown recluse is. The suffix as used in other ideological smears like “homophobia” or “xenophobia” always implies that the fear is baseless, and has more to do with irrational neuroses and bigotry than genuine threats.  “Islamophobia,” then, begs a huge question, for it is perfectly rational to fear a danger like terrorist violence justified by religious doctrine.

Thus the purveyors of this epithet have to downplay or minimize the very real threat of jihadist violence, reducing people’s reactions and demands for improved security to a mental problem. The president implied as much in his recent comments purged from a New York Times interview, when he said “he did not see enough cable television to fully appreciate the anxiety after the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino,” implying that people were reacting to ginned up scare-stories on Fox News rather than a real threat. He added to this analysis when on NPR he claimed ISIS was not an “existential threat,” and said its real danger is “making us forget who we are” and our “values,” which obviously means in part irrationally indulging in anti-Muslim bigotry and “Islamophobia” out of neurotic fears stoked by Donald Trump.

More important than two-bit Freudianism for the currency of “Islamophobia” has been the work of Edward Said, the main source of most of the malign ideas that poison our discourse on Islam with self-loathing and dismissal of reality. The colonial West, according to Said in Orientalism, invented the Muslim “other” as inferior and violent in order to justify Western dominance of the region, creating a “Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the orient.” In a later book Said argued that the Muslim terrorist was another “other” fabricated to create “both a peculiarly immediate sense of hostility and a coarse, on the whole unnuanced attitude toward Islam,” the purpose of which is to serve “national and corporate needs.” These needs created the “highly exaggerated stereotypes” of Muslims highjacking airplanes and blowing up buildings. As Lee Smith points out, Said set the terms of how journalists and intellectuals talked about Islam and Muslims––as the crude “other” invented to mask Western oppression and “Islamophobia.” The reflexive self-loathing and guilt that lie at the heart of “Islamophobia” found their most influential enabler in Said’s work.

The fear of being “Islamophobic” in part explains the whitewashing flattery of Islam that has characterized the government even before 9/11. In the late 90s, when Osama bin Laden was already waging war on America, Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State Madeleine Albright gushed that Islam is a “faith that honors consultation, cherishes peace, and has as one of its fundamental principles the inherent equality of all who embrace it.” George Bush said that Islam’s “teachings are good and peaceful” and that terrorists like bin Laden “blaspheme the name of Allah.” And of course Barack Obama has been the most fulsome and groveling in his praise of Islam. He carefully says “the Prophet Mohammed” and “Holy Koran,” while never saying “Our Lord Jesus Christ” or “Holy Bible.” He has leached traditional Islamic doctrines from the motives driving jihadists, and regularly condemns “Islamophobia” as a greater threat to America than Muslim terrorist violence. But the top prize for such myopic pandering to Muslims goes to ex-Army Chief of Staff George W. Casey, who responded to the 2009 Fort Hood jihadist attack that killed 13 by saying, “As horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse.”

The worst consequence of the “Islamophobia” phobia has been the distortion of our analyses of the jihadists’ motives. The specious psychology of the apologists holds that the insults or policies born of “Islamophobia” offend Muslims and create more terrorists. Or as Obama said of Trump’s proposal to screen Muslims entering the country, “plays into the hands of groups like ISIL,” for “when we travel down that road, we lose.” Hillary Clinton has played this same card, calling Donald Trump ISIS’ “greatest recruiter” and “recruitment poster,” and falsely claiming that Trump is used in ISIS recruitment videos. Thus her constant calls to cater to Muslims in America, who she sees as genuine, peaceful Muslims, and thus our natural allies against the “hijackers” like ISIS. “We must work more closely with Muslim-Americans,” Clinton said recently, “not demonize them” or make them “feel left out or marginalized” since they’re trying “to stop radicalization.” Of course she ignores the fact that CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the most influential Muslim lobby in America, continually apologizes and rationalizes jihadist terror, and encourages Muslims not to cooperate with the FBI.

“Islamophobia” is not just intellectually incoherent and loaded with cringing self-hatred. It is deadly.  In order not to wound Muslim sensibilities and create a “backlash,” egregious rules of engagement are imposed on our warriors that sacrifice their lives by proscribing the destruction of mosques and dwellings harboring arsenals and snipers; common sense calls to limit Syrian economic immigrants are rejected; government security training documents are purged of references to Islamic jihadist doctrines; Guantanamo is demonized as a “recruiter” for terrorists from which actual terrorists must be released; Orwellian Newspeak is employed to “disappear” the precedents for terror in Islamic scripture and practice; and radical mosques and imams in America are given free rein to proselytize and recruit.

We’ve been at this tactic of flattery for decades, and there’s no evidence it works. America is no more liked among Middle Eastern Muslims today than when George Bush left office. Terrorist groups have multiplied and spread despite our anxious protestations of our admiration for their religion, even as we ignore the genocide of Christians in the Middle East. Jihadism is strong and growing, attracting thousands of Western Muslims to the fight against the infidel. And jihad, abetted by the anxiety over “Islamophobia,” is winning the hearts and minds of the youth demographic. As the Atlantic reports, globally jihad is “cool,” a false but glamorous promise of redeeming violence and transcendent meaning powerfully attractive in a Western world marked by anomic secularism and trivial hedonism.
“Islamophobia” blocks clear thinking. It ignores the traditional Islamic motives that drive jihadists, trivializing them into wayward teens who “act out” because their self-esteem has been damaged by insensitive adults, and who merely need their self-esteem boosted by recognition of how wonderful their religion and culture are. A foreign policy based on such pop-psychological superstitions is one doomed to fail.

Bruce Thornton is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/261257/progressive-thought-blockers-islamophobia-bruce-thornton

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