Fethullah G?len's Grand Ambition Part I I I

 

Turkey's Islamist Danger

by Rachel Sharon-Krespin

3^rd  part of 3

The Fifth Estate

If the police, military, and courts might normally protect rule-of-law from within official Turkish government structures, there might still be an external check to abuse of power in the Turkish media. The Turkish media has traditionally been relentless in its reporting of abuses of power and corruption. Soon after assuming office, however, Erdoğan proved intolerant of the concept of a free press. The AKP government has systematically sought to create a media monopoly to speak with one voice and on behalf of the government. Erdoğan lashes out at media organs that he does not control. In his first term, Erdoğan brought more than a hundred lawsuits against sixty-three journalists in sixteen publications, against many writers, as well as the leaders and members of parliament of all opposition parties. The number of lawsuits may be far greater. In 2008, Erdoğan declined to answer a parliamentary inquiry by a Democratic Left Party deputy demanding information on how many lawsuits Erdoğan had initiated against journalists—claiming that such information was in the realm of his private life."[42] Most of Erdoğan's lawsuits against journalists involve criticism that any other democracy would consider legitimate. In 2005, for example, he sued Cumhuriyet cartoonist Musa Kart for depicting him as a cat entangled in a ball of string. Last year, he sued the LeMan weekly humor magazine for ridiculing him in its January 30, 2008 cover.[43]

Erdoğan lost some of his lawsuits, and courts threw out others, but the effect has nonetheless been chilling. Journalists know that not only does the prime minister seek to make them financially liable for any criticism, but that the AKP might even seek to assume control of their publications. During AKP's 6-year rule, the government has seized control of several media outlets and subsequently sold them to pro-AKP holdings affiliated with the Gülen community. In April 2007, for example, the governmental Saving Deposit Insurance Fund (Tasarruf Mevduatı Sigorta Fonu, TMSF) seized Sabah-ATV, Turkey's second largest media group in a predawn raid. The TMSF, staffed by Erdoğan appointees, then sold the group to Çalık Holding, the CEO of which is Erdoğan's son-in-law. Çalık financed the purchase with public funds taken as loans from two state-owned banks and by partnering with a newly-founded, Qatar-based media company that bought 25 percent of Sabah shares. It was Abdullah Gül who introduced Ahmet Çalık to Qatari Emir Hamad bin Khalifa during his January 2008 visit in Syria; Çalık also accompanied Gül in February and Erdoğan in April when they visited Qatar. Media reports indicated that other consortiums that had initially shown interest in purchasing Sabah-ATV with their own money pulled out of the tender shortly before the bid after Erdoğan contacted them, leaving Çalik the sole bidder.[44] Sabah has since become a strong advocate of the AKP government. In September 2008, Erdoğan demanded all party members and aides boycott newspapers owned by the Doğan Media Group after it reported on laundering of money to Islamist charities.[45]

Excluding the Islamist television and radio stations, newspapers such as Zaman, Sabah, Yeni Şafak, Türkiye, Star, Bugün, Vakit, and Taraf all have AKP and/or Gülen-affiliated ownership. By circulation, such papers represent at least 40 percent of all newspaper sales in Turkey.[46]

What Are Gülen's Intentions?

Conglomerates have long had a dominant position in Turkish society. Secular businessmen such as Aydın Doğan and Mehmet Emin Karamehmet have interests not only in industry but also in media, the banking sector, and even education. Never before, though, has a single individual started a movement that seeks to transform Turkish society so fundamentally. Gülen now wields a vocal partisan media; a vast network of loyal bureaucrats; partisan universities and academia; partisan prosecutors and judges; partisan security and intelligence agencies; partisan capitalists, business associations, NGOs, and labor unions; and partisan teachers, doctors, and hospitals. What makes Gülen so dangerous? Gülen's own teaching and sermons provide the best answers.

In 1999, Turkish television aired footage of Gülen delivering sermons to a crowd of followers in which he revealed his aspirations for an Islamist Turkey ruled by Shari'a (Islamic law) as well as the methods that should be used to attain that goal. In the sermons, he said:

You must move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing your existence until you reach all the power centers … until the conditions are ripe, they [the followers] must continue like this. If they do something prematurely, the world will crush our heads, and Muslims will suffer everywhere, like in the tragedies in Algeria, like in 1982 [in] Syria … like in the yearly disasters and tragedies in Egypt. The time is not yet right. You must wait for the time when you are complete and conditions are ripe, until we can shoulder the entire world and carry it … You must wait until such time as you have gotten all the state power, until you have brought to your side all the power of the constitutional institutions in Turkey … Until that time, any step taken would be too early—like breaking an egg without waiting the full forty days for it to hatch. It would be like killing the chick inside. The work to be done is [in] confronting the world. Now, I have expressed my feelings and thoughts to you all—in confidence … trusting your loyalty and secrecy. I know that when you leave here—[just] as you discard your empty juice boxes, you must discard the thoughts and the feelings that I expressed here.

He continued,

When everything was closed and all doors were locked, our houses of isik [light] assumed a mission greater than that of older times. In the past, some of the duties of these houses were carried out by madrasas [Islamic schools], some by schools, some by tekkes [Islamist lodges] … These isik homes had to be the schools, had to be madrasas, [had to be] tekkes all at the same time. The permission did not come from the state, or the state's laws, or the people who govern us. The permission was given by God … who wanted His name learned and talked about, studied, and discussed in those houses, as it used to be in the mosques.[47]

In another sermon, Gülen said,

Now it is a painful spring that we live in. A nation is being born again. A nation of millions [is] being born—one that will live for long centuries, God willing … It is being born with its own culture, its own civilization. If giving birth to one person is so painful, the birth of millions cannot be pain-free. Naturally we will suffer pain. It won't be easy for a nation that has accepted atheism, has accepted materialism, a nation accustomed to running away from itself, to come back riding on its horse. It will not be easy, but it is worth all our suffering and the sacrifices.[48]

And, in yet another sermon, he declared,

The philosophy of our service is that we open a house somewhere and, with the patience of a spider, we lay our web to wait for people to get caught in the web; and we teach those who do. We don't lay the web to eat or consume them but to show them the way to their resurrection, to blow life into their dead bodies and souls, to give them a life.[49]

Many Gülen supporters and members of the Islamist media affiliated with the cemaat suggested the sermons were somehow forged[50] but the denials are unconvincing given the video footage and reports by Gülen movement defectors.

 

U.S. Government Support for Gülen?

Many Turkish analysts believe that, prior to Erdoğan's election, Gülen and his supporters in the U.S. government helped obtain an invitation to the White House for him at a time when Erdoğan was banned from politics in Turkey due to his Islamist activities—an event viewed as a U.S. endorsement ahead of the 2002 Turkish elections. That the U.S. government and, specifically, the Central Intelligence Agency support the Gülen movement is conventional wisdom among Turkey's secular elite even though no hard evidence exists to support such allegations.

When Turkish secularists are asked to defend the view that Gülen enjoys U.S. support, they often point to his almost 20-year residence in eastern Pennsylvania. After the Supreme Court of Appeals in Turkey (Yargıtay) confirmed on June 24, 2008, a lower court's ruling to acquit Gülen on charges that he organized an illegal terrorist organization to overthrow the secular government in Turkey, Gülen won another legal battle, this time in the United States. A federal court reversed U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service decisions that would have denied Gülen's application for permanent residency in the United States on the basis that Gülen did not fit the criteria as someone with "extraordinary ability in the field of education." The Department of Homeland Security characterized Gülen as neither an expert in the field of education nor an educator but rather as "the leader of a large and influential religious and political movement with immense commercial holdings."[51]

While the court ruling that allowed Gülen to remain in the United States may provide fodder for Turkish analysts who suggest U.S. support for Gülen, the process is actually more revealing. Indeed, the U.S. government noted that much of the acclaim Gülen touts is sponsored or financed by his own movement. Gülen attached twenty-nine letters of reference to his June 18, 2008 motion, mostly from theologians or Turkish political figures close to or affiliated with his organization. John Esposito, founding director of the Saudi-financed Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, who, after receiving donations from the Gülen movement sponsored a conference in his honor, also supplied a reference. Two former CIA officials, George Fidas and Graham Fuller, and former U.S. ambassador to Turkey Morton Abramowitz also supplied references.

The letters may have worked. On July 16, 2008, U.S. district judge Stewart Dalzell issued a memorandum and order granting Gülen's motion for partial summary judgment and ordering the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service to approve his petition for alien worker status as an alien of extraordinary ability by August 1, 2008. The court found that the immigration examiner improperly concluded that the field of education was the only statutory category in which Gülen's accomplishments could fit and that Gülen's accomplishments in such fields as theology, political science, and Islamic studies should also be considered. The court further determined that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service Administrative Appeals Office erred in concluding that Gülen's work was not "scholarly" by applying an unduly narrow definition of the term. Finally, with regard to the statutory requirement that the applicant show that his or her entry into the United States would substantially benefit the United States, the court found that Gülen had met the requirement.[52]

Regardless of the legal rationale behind his current stay, the U.S. decision to grant Gülen residency will enable his movement to continue to imply Washington's endorsement as the AKP and its Fethullahist supporters seek to push Turkey further away from the secularism upon which it was built.

Conclusions

Gülen enjoys the support of many friends, ideological fellow-travelers, and co-opted journalists and academics. Too often, concern over Gülen's activities is dismissed in the Turkish, U.S., and European media as mere paranoia. When Turkey's chief prosecutor indicted the AKP for attempting to undermine the secular constitution, the pro-Islamist media in Turkey along with Western diplomats and journalists dismissed the case as an "undemocratic judicial coup."[53] Yet at the same time, many of the same outlets and officials have hailed the Ergenekon indictment, assuming a dichotomy between Islamism and democracy on one hand, and secularism and fascism on the other.[54] The repeated branding in Islamist outlets of Turkey's Islamists as "reformist democrats" and of modern, secular Turks as "fundamentalists" has to be one of the most offensive but sadly effective lies in modern politics.

Indeed, Turkey has never seen a single incident of attacks on pious Muslims for fasting during Ramadan, whereas in recent years there have been many incidents of attacks on less-observant Turks for drinking alcohol or not fasting.[55] While women who cover their heads in the Islamic manner can move freely in any area of the country, uncovered women are increasingly unwelcome in certain regions and are often attacked.[56]

Contrary to the impression prevalent in the West—that the conflict is between religious Muslims and "anti-religion, secular Kemalists"—the fact remains that the majority of Turks, secular included, are traditional and observant Muslims many of whom define themselves primarily as "Muslims first."[57] While the Turkish constitution recognizes all Turkish citizens as "Turks," the dominant sentiment in the country has always been that in order to be considered a Turk, one must be Muslim. The complete absence of any non-Muslim governor, ambassador, or military or police officer attests to the prevalence of Islam's dominance in the Turkish establishment. Therefore, it appears Gülen is not fighting for more individual freedoms but to free Islam from the confines of the mosque and the private domain of individuals and to bring it to the public arena, to govern every aspect of life in the country.[58] AKP leaders, including Gül and Erdoğan, have repeatedly expressed their opposition to the "imprisonment of Islam in the mosque," demanding that it be present everywhere as a lifestyle. Most Turks vividly remember statements by AKP leaders not long ago rejecting the definition of secularism as "separation of mosque and state." Gül has slammed "secularism" on many occasions, including during a November 27, 1995 interview with The Guardian. What Turkey's Islamists really want is to remove the founding principles of the Turkish Republic. So long as U.S. and Western officials fail to recognize that Gülen's rhetoric of tolerance is only skin-deep, they may be setting the stage for a dialogue, albeit not of religious tolerance, but rather to find an answer to the question, "Who lost Turkey?"

Rachel Sharon-Krespin is the director of the Turkish Media Project at the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Washington D.C.

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

 

[1] Can Dündar, Milliyet (Istanbul), June 21, 2007; Reha Muhtar, Vatan (Istanbul), June 22, 2007.
[2] Milliyet, Mar. 10, 2008; Hürriyet (Istanbul), Mar. 10, 2008.
[3] Helen Rose Ebaugh and Dogan Koc, "Funding Gülen-Inspired Good Works: Demonstrating and Generating Commitment to the Movement," fgulen.com, Oct. 27, 2007.
[4] Merdan Yanardağ, Fethullah Gülen Hareketinin Perde Arkasi, Turkiye Nasil Kusatildi? (Istanbul: yah Beyaz Yayın, 2006), based on interviews with Nurettin Veren on Kanaltürk television, June 26, July 3, 2006.
[5] "Fethullah Gülen Is an Islamic Scholar and Peace Activist," International Conference on Fethullah Gülen, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, Nov. 2007; J. J. Rogers, "Giants of Light: Fethullah Gülen and Meister Eckhart in Dialogue," The University of Texas, San Antonio, Tex., Nov. 3, 2007.
[6] See for example, Rogers, "Giants of Light"; USA Today, July 18, 2008.
[7] Bülent Aras, "Turkish Islam's Moderate Face," Middle East Quarterly, Sept. 1998, pp. 23-9.
[8] Anadolu Ajansı (Ankara), Feb. 10, 1998.

[9] Booklets on Anatolian Sufism with citations from Mevlana Celleddin Rumi distributed at the "Muslim World in Transition: Contributions of the Gulen Movement" conference, London, Oct. 25 – 27, 2007.
[10] Aland Mizell, "Clash of Civilizations versus Interfaith Dialogue: The Theories of Huntington and Gulen," KurdishMedia.com, Dec. 31, 2007; idem, "Are Islam and Kemalism Compatible? How Two Systems Have Impacted the Kurdish Question?" Iraq Updates, Nov. 28, 2007.
[11] Interview with Nurettin Veren, Kanaltürk television, June 26, 2006.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Sabah (Istanbul), Dec. 30, 2004.
[14] Veren interview, Kanaltürk, June 26, 2006.
[15] Cumhuriyet (Istanbul), Dec. 23, 2007.
[16] Bayram Balcı, "Central Asia: Fethullah Gulen's Missionary Schools," Oct. 2001.
[17] Interview with Merdan Yanardağ, Gerçek Gündem (Istanbul), Nov. 20, 2006.
[18] Hürriyet, Apr. 11, 2008.
[19] Erik-Jan Zürcher, "Kamermeerderheid Eist Onderzoek Naar Turkse Beweging," NOVA documentary, July 4, 2008.
[20] Cumhuriyet, July 9, 2008; Netherlands Information Services, July 11, 2008.
[21] Yanardağ, Fethullah Gülen Hareketinin Perde Arkasi, Turkiye Nasil Kusatildi?
[22] Adil Serdar Saçan, interview, Kanaltürk, July 3, 2006.
[23] Ibid.
[24] Samanyolu television, Oct. 13, 2008.
[25] See, for example, Michael Rubin, "Erdogan, Ergenekon, and the Struggle for Turkey," Mideast Monitor, Aug. 2008.
[26] Yanardağ interview, Gerçek Gündem, Nov. 20, 2006.
[27] Vatan, June 2, 2008; Hürriyet, June 2, 2008.
[28] "SOK! Tuggeneral Munir Erten den SOK aciklamalar!" accessed Oct. 27, 2008.
[29] "Sok Video! Cumhuriyet Savcisi Salim Demirci," accessed Oct. 27, 2008.
[30] Vakit (Istanbul), June 14, 2008.
[31] Vatan, June 2, 2008; Hürriyet, June 2, 2008.
[32] BBC News, Feb. 4, 2008; Frank Hyland, "Investigation of Turkey's 'Deep State' Ergenekon Plot Spreads to Military," Global Terrorism Analysis, Jamestown Foundation, July 16, 2008.
[33] Reuters, May 1, 2008; Sendika.org, Labornet Turkey, May 1, 2008; Vatan, May 1, 2, 2008; Milliyet, May 1, 2, 2008; Hürriyet, May 1, 2, 2008
[34] Vatan, May 2, 2008; Milliyet, May 2, 2008; Hürriyet, May 2, 8, 2008.
[35] Hürriyet, Feb. 28, 2008.
[36] Milliyet, May 14, 2008.
[37] Yanardağ, Fethullah Gülen Hareketinin Perde Arkasi, Turkiye Nasil Kusatildi?
[38] "Turkish Judiciary at War with AKP Government to Defend Its Independence," MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 1520, Mar. 27, 2007.
[39] "The AKP Government's Attempt to Move Turkey from Secularism to Islamism (Part I): The Clash with Turkey's Universities," MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 1014, Nov. 1, 2005; "Professor from Van University in Turkey Commits Suicide after Five Months in Jail without Trial," MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 1025, Nov. 18, 2005.
[40] Zaman (Istanbul), Apr. 18, 2008.
[41] Odatv.com, May 30, 2008; Hürriyet, June 13, 2008; Akşam (Istanbul), June 16, 2008.
[42] Radikal (Istanbul), Apr. 7, 2008.
[43] Hürriyet, Oct. 21, 2008.
[44] Hürriyet, May 14, 2008.
[45] Hürriyet, Sept. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 2008.
[46] Milliyet, July 14, 2008; Cumhuriyet, July 15, 2008
[47] Turkish channel ATV, June 18, 1999.
[48] Ibid.
[49] Ibid.; "The Upcoming Elections in Turkey (2): The AKP's Political Power Base," MEMRI Inquiry and Analysis No. 375, July 19, 2007.
[50] Sabah, Jan. 2, 3, 2005.
[51] "Fethullah Gulen v. Michael Chertoff, Secretary, U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security, et al," Case 2:07-cv-02148-SD, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
[52] Ibid.
[53] Turkish Daily News (Ankara), Mar. 16, 2008; Vakit, June 7, 9, 2008; Yeni Şafak (Istanbul), June 9, 2008.
[54] Mustafa Akyol, "The Threat Is Secular Fundamentalism," International Herald Tribune, May 4, 2007; "Islam Will Modernize—If Secular Fundamentalists Allow," Turkish Daily News, May 15, 2007; "Mr. Logoglu Is Wrong, Considerably Wrong about Turkey," Turkish Daily News, May 24, 2007.
[55] Vatan, Aug. 21, 2008; Turkish Daily News, Sept. 23, 2008.
[56] Hürriyet, Feb. 14, 2008; Milliyet, Feb. 14, 2008; Vatan, Feb. 14, 2008, Cumhuriyet, Feb. 14, 2008.
[57] Yeni Şafak, July 7, 2006.
[58] "Turkish PM Erdogan in Speech during Term as Istanbul Mayor Attacks Turkey's Constitution, Describing It as 'A Huge Lie': 'Sovereignty Belongs Unconditionally and Always To Allah'; 'One Cannot Be a Muslim and Secular,'" MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 1596, May 23, 2007.

 

Government Policies Stifle Talk of Islam.

 

by David J. Rusin

When President Roosevelt addressed Congress after Pearl Harbor, he cited Japan fifteen times in a speech of five hundred words. When President Bush did the same after 9/11, he uttered "Islam" or "Muslim" more sparingly — just eleven times in a speech of three thousand words. And when Senators Obama and McCain spoke at the respective conventions and debates, asking to be entrusted with America's security, not a single reference to Islam could be found.

"Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about," noted linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf. Based on the language used by Western governments, one must conclude that they do not want anybody thinking about the fundamental role that Islam plays in the conflict with Muslim radicals. If this self-imposed straitjacket hinders discussion of a foe that wishes to subjugate the world under Shari'a law, then we have little chance of knowing him. And as Sun Tzu observed, only by knowing the enemy can he be defeated.

The seeds of this silence were planted even while rescue teams picked through the smoldering wreckage of Ground Zero. Given the intensity of those weeks, it is no surprise that words and actions would set the tone for years to come. More often than not, however, the wrong words were spoken, the wrong actions were undertaken, and the wrong tone was set. Three events in particular stand out.

First, there was the aforementioned September 20, 2001, speech to Congress. By reiterating the "war on terror" phraseology that he had introduced on the day of the attacks, Bush defined the conflict in terms of a tactic (terrorism) rather than a strategic enemy (radical Islam). Moreover, of the references to Muslims and their faith, many sought to convince Americans that there was but a tenuous link between Islam and 9/11. His claim that "the terrorists practice a fringe form of Islamic extremism that has been rejected by Muslim scholars and the vast majority of Muslim clerics" remains an egregious example of happy talk displacing reality.

The second sign arrived days later when Operation Infinite Justice became Operation Enduring Freedom. Connecting the change to fallout from Bush's hastily retracted "crusade" remark, the BBC reported that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld "said the administration had quickly reconsidered the original name because, in the Islamic faith, such finality is considered something provided only by God." While the initial title of the military response to 9/11 was less than inspiring, its modification foreshadowed how Muslim sensibilities, both real and imagined, would wield veto power over language at the highest of levels.

The third domino fell when Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi voiced an undeniable truth. "We must be aware of the superiority of our civilization," he stated on September 26, 2001, "a system that has guaranteed well-being, respect for human rights, and — in contrast with Islamic countries — respect for religious and political rights, a system that has as its value understanding of diversity and tolerance." Criticism rained down on him for daring to assert that nations which uphold basic freedoms are preferable to those which do not. Soon an emasculated Berlusconi was testifying to his "deep respect" for the "great" religion of Islam — and a promising opportunity to define the ideological parameters of the war had been lost.

Seven years on, those seeds — watered by Western leaders' intermittent praise of the "religion of peace and love" — have matured into a thicket of government policies and "suggestions" designed to remove Islam from official discourse.

British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has come to epitomize this newspeak, declaring in January 2008 that terrorism would henceforth be known as "anti-Islamic activity," since "there is nothing Islamic about the wish to terrorize" — jihadists' claims to the contrary. The Home Office soon confirmed that phrases like "Islamic extremism" had been jettisoned due to fears that they inflame Muslims. Previously the Foreign Office had asked ministers to stop alluding to the "war on terror" for the same reason. Yet if terrorism is "anti-Islamic activity," would not the "war on terror" be pro-Islamic?

To keep everybody on message — and away from Islam — Smith's Home Office assembled a phrasebook that, according to the Guardian, "tells civil servants not to use terms such as ‘Islamist extremism' or ‘jihadi-fundamentalist,' but instead to refer to violent extremism and criminal murderers or thugs." The European Union has instituted similar guidelines, instructing government spokesmen to utilize "non-offensive" phrases when making statements and to avoid "jihad" or "Islamic."

The language police have infiltrated key U.S. agencies as well. "Terminology to Define the Terrorists: Recommendations from American Muslims," a January 2008 Department of Homeland Security paper, begins by professing that the government's words "must accurately identify the nature of the challenges that face our generation." But then it proceeds to do just the opposite, urging "caution in using terms such as ‘jihadist,' ‘Islamic terrorist,' ‘Islamist,' and ‘holy warrior,'" based on the assumption that such words help legitimize radicals and offend moderates. By the way, "moderate Muslim" is out too. DHS has refused to reveal which "influential Muslim Americans" — "moderate" or otherwise — were consulted for the project.

The National Counterterrorism Center soon developed a follow-up document, "Words That Work and Words That Don't: A Guide for Counterterrorism Communication," advising on how to "describe terrorists who invoke Islamic theology." Bullet points such as "Don't Invoke Islam" and "Don't Harp on Muslim Identity" make it clear that religion is to be swept under the rug. The recommendations have been adopted by the State Department and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has led by example, eliminating references to jihad from her public comments.

It is not just words intended for mass consumption that have been suppressed. The case of Major Stephen Coughlin demonstrates how political correctness threatens to disarm policymakers behind closed doors. In early 2008, Coughlin, an expert on jihad warfare, was released from his post with the Joint Staff after feuding with a Muslim official who, as Bill Gertz reported, had wanted him "to take a softer line on Islam and Islamic law elements that promote extremism." Central to the dispute was Coughlin's weighty thesis, "To Our Great Detriment": Ignoring What Extremists Say About Jihad, which contends that "we do not understand the Islamic components" of the present conflict — a situation that many inside and outside of government work to perpetuate.

There are, however, hints that a backlash is brewing. A recent study by the Inspectorate of Constabulary and Audit Commission finds that the ambiguous terminology favored by the British Home Office is hampering efforts to fight domestic radicalization. "Switching language … causes confusion," one local council head bemoans in the document. Another suggests that the guidelines have led people to say nothing because they are "worried about saying the wrong thing" and being called "racist." Instead, many officials express "a preference for plain speaking so that issues could be dealt with openly rather than being avoided or disguised as something else."

In addition, a U.S. Central Command "red team" has produced "Freedom of Speech in Jihad Analysis: Debunking the Myth of Offensive Words," a report that questions policies aimed at downplaying connections between Islam and terrorism. "While there is concern that we not label all Muslims as Islamist terrorists," it argues, "it is proper to address certain aspects of violence as uniquely Islamic. … The fact is our enemies cite the sources of Islam as the foundation of their global jihad. We are left with the responsibility of portraying our enemies in an honest and accurate fashion."

President-elect Obama would be wise to build on this momentum. First, he should order a top-down review of the language that government agencies employ to describe Islamists and the war they wage on the West. Second, in a nod to critics of the Homeland Security document, he should pledge greater transparency with regard to the individuals and organizations invited to help shape the lexicon.

Confucius warned that "if language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant; if what is said is not what is meant, then what must be done remains undone." There is much that remains undone in the struggle against Islamism, both violent and nonviolent. The West cannot afford to compound these challenges by labeling them imprecisely.

David J. Rusin is a research associate at Islamist Watch and a Philadelphia-based editor for Pajamas Media. He holds a Ph.D. in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Pennsylvania.

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

 

Harvard Law Professor Condemns Hamas War Crimes Against Arabs.

 

The Hamas War Crime Strategy

by Alan Dershowitz

As Israel persists in its military efforts--by ground, air and sea--to protect its citizens from deadly Hamas rockets, and as protests against Israel increase around the world, the success of the abominable Hamas double war crime strategy becomes evident.  The strategy is as simple as it is cynical: provoke Israel by playing Russian roulette with its children, firing rockets at kindergartens, playgrounds and hospitals; hide behind its own civilians when firing at Israeli civilians; refuse to build bunkers for its own civilians; have the TV cameras ready to transmit every image of dead Palestinians, especially children; exaggerate the number of civilians killed by including as "children" Hamas fighters who are 16 or 17 years old and as "women," female terrorists.

Hamas itself has a name for this.  They call it "the CNN strategy" (this is not to criticize CNN or any other objective news source for doing its job; it is to criticize Hamas for exploiting the freedom of press which it forbids in Gaza).  The CNN strategy is working because decent people all over the world are naturally sickened by images of dead and injured children.  When they see such images repeatedly flashed across TV screens, they tend to react emotionally.  Rather than asking why these children are dying and who is to blame for putting them in harms way, the average viewer, regardless of their political or ideological perspective, wants to see the killing stopped.  They blame those whose weapons directly caused the deaths, rather than those who provoked the violence by deliberately targeting civilians.  They forget the usual rules of morality and law.  For example, when a murderer takes a hostage and fires from behind his human shield, and a policeman, in an effort to stop the shooting accidentally kills the hostage, the law of every country holds the hostage taker guilty of murder even though the policeman fired the fatal shot.  The same is true of the law of war.  The use of human shields, in the way Hamas uses the civilian population of Gaza, is a war crime--as is its firing of rockets at Israeli civilians.  Every human shield that is killed by Israeli self defense measures is the responsibility of Hamas, but you wouldn't know that from watching the media coverage.

The CNN strategy seems to work better, at least in some parts of the world, against Israel that it would against other nations.  There are many more protests--and fury--directed against Israel when it inadvertently kills fewer than 100 civilians in a just war of self defense, than against Arab and Muslim nations and groups that deliberately kill far more civilians for no legitimate reason.  It isn't the nature of the victims, since more Arabs and Muslim civilians are killed every day in Africa and the Mid East by Arab and Muslim governments and groups with little or no protests.  (For example, on the first day of Israel's ground attack, approximately 30 Palestinians, almost all Hamas combatants, were killed. On the same day an Islamic suicide bomber blew herself up in a mosque in Iraq, killing 40 innocent Muslims.  No protests.  Little media coverage.)  It isn't the nature of the killings, since Israel goes to extraordinary lengths to avoid killing civilians--if for no other reason than that it hurts their cause--while Hamas does everything in its power to force Israel to kill Palestinian civilians by firing its missiles from densely populated civilian areas and refusing to build shelters for its civilians.  It isn't the nature of the conflict, because Israel is fighting a limited war of self defense designed to protect its own civilians from rocket attacks, while most of those killed by Arabs and Muslims are killed in genocidal and tribal warfare with no legitimate aim.  The world simply doesn't seem to care when Arabs and Muslims kill large numbers of other Arabs and Muslims, but a qualitatively different standard seems to apply when the Jewish state kills even a relatively small number of Muslims and Arabs in a war of self defense.

The international community doesn't even seem to care when Palestinian children are killed by rocket fire--unless it is from Israeli rockets.  The day before the recent outbreak, Hamas fired an anti-personnel rocket at Israeli civilians but the rocket fell short of its target and killed two Palestinian girls.  Yet there was virtually no coverage and absolutely no protests against these "collateral" civilian deaths.  Hamas refused to allow TV cameras to show these dead Palestinian children, who were killed by their own rockets. Nor have there been protests against the cold blooded murders by Hamas and its supporters of dozens of Palestinian civilians who allegedly "collaborated" withIsrael.  Indeed Hamas and Fatah have killed far more Palestinian civilians over the past several years than have the Israeli, but you wouldn't know that from the media, the United Nations or protesters who focus selectively on only those deaths caused by Israeli military actions.

The protestors who fill the streets of London, Paris and San Francisco were nowhere to be seen when hundreds of Jewish children were murdered by Palestinian terrorists over the years.

Moreover, the number of civilians killed by Israel is almost always exaggerated.  First, it widely assumed that if a victim is a "child" or a "woman", he or she is necessarily a civilian. Consider the following report in Thursday's NY Times: "Hospital officials in Gaza said that of the more than 390 people killed by Israeli fighter planes since Saturday, 38 were children and 25 women."  Some of these children and women were certainly civilians but others were equally certainly combatants: Hamas often uses 14, 15, 16 and 17 year olds as well as women as terrorists.  Israel is entitled, under international law, to treat these children and women as the combatants they have become.  Hamas cannot, out of one side of its mouth, boast that it recruits children and women to become terrorists, and then, out of the other side of its mouth, complain when Israel takes them at their word.  The media should look closely and critically at the number of claimed civilian victims before accepting self-serving and self-contradictory exaggerations.

By any objective count, the number of genuinely innocent civilians killed by the Israeli Air Force in Gaza is lower than the collateral deaths caused by any nation in a comparable situation.  Hamas does everything in its power to provoke Israel into killing as many Palestinian civilians as possible, in order to generate condemnation against the Jewish state. They have gone so far as firing rockets from Palestinian schoolyards and hiding their terrorists in Palestinian maternity wards.  Lest there be any doubt about the willingness of Hamas to expose their families to martyrdom, remember that the Hamas terrorist leader recently killed in an Israeli air attack sent his own son to be a suicide bomber and then refused to allow his family to leave their house even after learning that he and his house had been placed on the list of military targets.

Nor is this double standard - applied to Israel on the one hand, and Arab and Muslim nations and groups on the other hand - limited to the current situation in Gaza.  It has provided an excuse for the international community to remain silent in the face of massive human rights violations including genocides perpetrated by Arabs and Muslims around the world for years. Many of those who protest Israeli self-defense actions remain silent in the face of real genocides--such as that in Darfur.

The reality is that the elected and de facto government of Gaza has declared war against Israel.  Under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, they have committed an "armed attack" against the Jewish state.  The Hamas charter calls for Israel's total destruction. Under international law, Israel is entitled to take whatever military action is necessary to repel that attack and stop the rockets.  It must seek to minimize civilian deaths consistent with the legitimate military goal, and it is doing precisely that, despite Hamas efforts to maximize civilian deaths on both sides.

The best outcome for purposes of producing peace would be the destruction or substantial weakening of Hamas, which rejects the two-state solution.  Israel and the Palestinian Authority could then agree on a peace that would end both the Israeli occupation and the rocketing of Israeli civilians.

Mr. Dershowitz is a law professor at Harvard. His latest book is "The Case Against Israel's Enemies" (Wiley, 2008).

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

 

The only choice...

 

Victory is the key word not peace, because peace is not an option in this part of the world, and because there is only one solution to terror : a military solution. You do not talk to terrorists, you fight and defeat them. Victory is needed to prove to the Muslims in general and the Arabs in particular that against their ethos of death stands the ethos of life, protected by the arms of democracies that are resolved to punish them where it hurts most. We should remember the words of Mr. Churchil :

 

"We shall fight on the seas and oceans we shall fight with growing confidence… we shall fight in the fields and in the streets…we shall fight in the hills…we shall never surrender."

 

 Winston Churchill 4 June 1940  

 

 

To know who you or your children will have to fight just open :

 

http://www.memritv.org/video.html

 

Gaza: "Killing Children is Wrong"

 

By Mike Cohen

"We hold these truths to be self-evident" says the American Declaration of Independence and, indeed, what could be more obvious than the above statement? But is there anything "right," for example, about a child born with mental or physical handicaps? "Ah," you will doubtless counter, "One (the child) is often unavoidable, unless you can detect it and believe in abortions, whereas the other (Gaza operation) is the direct result of a human action."

In an ideal world there would be no suffering for innocents, but, alas, our world is not an ideal world. "Wrong," in my opinion, does not mean "unjustifiable." This is not mere sophistry but is at the heart of the present Gaza conflict. I chose the killing of a child as being the worst aspect of the ongoing war.

The suffering of so many civilians as a result of the Israeli attack is appalling and has had a devastating effect on Israel's image. No amount of counter argument and statistics will diminish the shock on the part of the neutral observer -- let alone anti-Israel and/or anti Semitic onlookers. How is, then, that I, as someone who loves children – as a father and grandfather, could have the temerity to justify such things? To be fair, I have no doubt that if I were to see the bodies at close hand, I would be deeply disturbed. Woe to anyone who could remain indifferent to such sights!

Nevertheless, as an Israeli, I am convinced that we had no reasonable alternative, and if you will bear with me, I'll try to explain.

Yesterday the U.N. Security Council voted almost unanimously for a resolution which in our opinion was one-sided. How many of those countries which voted for the resolution would have tolerated eight years of rocket attacks on their civilians from a neighboring country?

Imagine a sustained missile attack over eight years launched from the Mexican side of the border on San Diego, for example, or from Scotland on Carlisle. Yes, it's hard to imagine. That's why all the spectators find it so easy to take the moral high ground, express their horror and try to organize humanitarian aid --because it is not their innocent men, women and children who have been living under the threat of a mortar or Qassam that can destroy their lives if they can't get themselves and their children to the relative safety within 15-60 seconds, depending on where they live.

Let's be less imaginative: how many tears were shed after the Allies bombed German cities and killed hundreds of thousands of civilians as a result of the Nazi raids on Britain? They didn't cry then and I doubt if they feel remorse today. The Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated areas in the world. The Hamas deliberately fire from urban centres to draw fire on their own towns to fuel the propaganda fire against Israel. They are good at it ! We have the choice of doing nothing or trying to stop them by force, while trying to minimize damage and death to non-combatants. We sometimes phone people's houses to warn them to evacuate before attacking a block of flats from which they are launching missiles, for example. We have no quarrel with the people of Gaza and have our own interest in avoiding harm done to them. A recent visitor to friends of mine in Israel asked innocently, "But can't you resolve these problems without bloodshed?" If only we could ! When we cause the deaths of innocents it is regrettable and no one I know rejoices at their deaths. On the other side of the border are those who deliberately set out to cause maximum suffering of military and civilians alike. It is their publicly declared aim to exterminate us --as is that of the President of Iran. How can you negotiate that?

Finally the question of proportionality. There is a clear disproportion in the number of deaths on both sides. This is not for lack of motivation, but because -- till now, their missiles are very basic, though Iran is doing its best to supply them with longer-range weapons. We cannot afford to exchange life for life; this is not our approach; we do not promise seventy virgins if you sacrifice yourself for Allah. We recently bombed the home of a Hamas leader, who preached that kind of hatred and who sent his own son on a suicide mission. With him died, I think, all of his family.

We believe in life. If only all that money poured into Gaza had been used constructively instead of arms purchases, the standard of living would have risen. For years thousands of workers would cross every day to work in Israel. I can remember some who worked in our home. It was a symbiotic relationship. We needed workers; they needed work. What went wrong? They started sending in suicide bombers, so we closed the border.

The old adage about truth being the first casualty in war is as true as ever. I have given you our side of the story, and it is natural for the outsider to treat it as such. There is always another side. It is not black and white, but I believe
that it is far whiter this side of the border. But all these arguments count for little against the evidence of one's eyes when looking at the war footage.

Nevertheless when people threaten to exterminate us, history has taught us to take the future threat seriously. That's why we're in Gaza.

Years ago we spoke to friends who live in a small English village about the threat of Moslem fundamentalists. "Not our Moslems!" was her reply. That was before 9/11 and the London bombers. It's true the overwhelming majority of Moslems are not terrorists, but the overwhelming majority of terrorists are also Moslems. Today it's us -- and tomorrow …?

Mike Cohen - Mike and Marianne Cohen live in Ra'anana. Mike Cohen is a veteran of the Yom Kippur war.

Original content is Copyright by the author 2009.

 

If there is ONE single article about the war of the M-E you MUST read, this is the ONE!

What Israel Fights for in Gaza

And Why You Should Care

by Carlos

January 9, 2009 - As the conflict in Gaza continues into its second week, much of the world's attention is focused on Israel as perpetrator of a monstrous act of aggression. Israel's actions in Gaza have been called everything from "disproportionate" to "genocide." What Israel is now doing in Gaza baffles many who are simply trying to make sense out of what is going on.

The conflict reached a critical point on Tuesday when a school in Gaza was hit by an Israeli shell. About 40 Palestinians died, among them some children. Condemnation of Israel rose to deafening levels. "How can any civilized country do such a thing?" many are wondering. And so it is important to state clearly just what Israel is fighting for, and why we should care about it too.

 

1. Israel is fighting to protect its citizens

During the past seven years Palestinian terrorists in Gaza fired over 4,000 rockets at population centers in southern Israel, and an equal number of mortar bombs: over 8,000 attacks total. Sometimes these rockets are dismissed as "home-made" weapons that do little damage. Nothing could be further from the truth. Hamas is now using battle-grade Grad missiles smuggled from Iran and China, and aiming them at civilians. These projectiles can reach as far as Ashdod and Be'er Sheva and their range keeps increasing, as well as their payloads. Not only have many buildings been heavily damaged, people have been wounded and killed. On the same day the Gaza school was hit a Katyusha rocket slammed into Gedera, 25 miles north of Gaza and only 18 miles from Tel Aviv, injuring a baby.

The population of southern Israel has been traumatized and already one third of the residents of Sderot have fled, as have many others. Many business have been ruined. Children are stricken with fear and cannot learn in school. There was no international protest. There was no action by the UN. Yet firing missiles on civilians is not just terrorism, it's a war crime. Hamas's objective seems to be to make southern Israel uninhabitable. With help from Hezbollah in the north it hopes to shrink Israel, small as it is, eventually into nothing.

Israel's choice was to allow missiles of increasing power to bombard its cities, or to try to stop it. If this happened in your town, how would you want to respond?

 

2. Israel is fighting anti-human values that threaten everyone

One particular incident, not even a violent one, captures the spirit of Hamas. Last month at a rally Hamas featured a demonstrator dressed like kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, begging in Hebrew to return home. "I miss my Mom and Dad," cried the mock Shalit.

This contempt for human feeling is just a symptom of the anti-spiritual values that motivate Hamas. The institutionalization of hatred that permeates Palestinian society, thanks to Palestinian leadership in general and Hamas in particular, is extensively documented. This includes poisoning the minds of children practically from the cradle, teaching them that Jews are subhuman, even using children's TV to incite hatred and broadcasting sermons calling Jews "monkeys and pigs."

Hamas is often praised for providing "social services." But this is no humanitarian gesture. It promotes financial dependence on Hamas and gives Hamas a platform for radicalizing the public and undermining moderate Palestinian leaders. In return for these services, loyalty to Hamas is expected. Through these services and through the schools Hamas can influence an entire generation of children. It promotes death in the name of religion and idealizes the martyr. One Gaza psychologist said: "Martyrdom has become an ambition for our children. If they had a proper education in a normal environment, they won't have looked for a value in death."

Besides mentioning the above, in his report on the Hamas system of indoctrination Matthew Levitt further describes Hamas's culture of death:

In 2001, the Islamic Society in Gaza held a graduation ceremony for the 1,650 children who attend its forty-one kindergartens. Photographs of the graduation ceremony show preschool age children wearing military uniforms and carrying mock rifles; a five-year-old girl dips her hands in red paint to mimic the bloodied hands Palestinians proudly displayed after the lynching of two Israelis in Ramallah; another child is dressed as Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yasin and surrounded by other children costumed as suicide bombers.

There is no more potent weapon than the mind of a child.

Ín Hamas-run Gaza, hatred is an industry. And that industry produces people like a 21-year-old "militant" who came to Shifa hospital in Gaza City to treat his wounded leg.

"Hurry, I must get back so I can keep fighting," he told the doctor.

The doctor informed him he would have to wait, because others more seriously wounded needed attention. These included a teenage girl screaming in pain from a leg wound, an elderly man soaked in blood, and a man with a serious head injury.

But he couldn't wait. "We are fighting the Israelis," he insisted. "When we fire we run, but they hit back so fast. We run into the houses to get away." All through this exchange he was smiling.

"Why are you so happy?" asked a reporter who was present. "Look around you. Don’t you see the misery that you are helping to cause? Don’t you see that these people are hurting?”

"But I am from the people, too," he replied, his smile widening. "They lost their loved ones as martyrs. They should be happy. I want to be a martyr, too."

This is a culture of death. "We desire death as much as you desire life." The Hamas warrior wants to die for his religion, and so should all Palestinians. Thus Hamas is only too willing to sacrifice fellow Palestinians for the cause. So Hamas fighters mount mortars and anti-aircraft guns on civilian rooftops, where they know Israelis are going to return fire. They position rocket launchers near civilian houses, schools, and mosques. Videos exist proving this.

Hamas also fired at Israel from a location immediately next to the school where so many died last Tuesday. An Associated Press report published in the Guardian states that there are witnesses: "Two residents of the area who spoke with the Associated Press by telephone said they saw a small group of militants firing mortar rounds from a street near the school." As the "militant" said in the Gaza hospital: "When we fire we run, but they hit back so fast." Hamas knew that the school would be hit once it started firing from such close proximity.

Hamas uses its own people as human shields - clearly a war crime - because it considers them martyrs to the cause, and because it knows there is no more effective way to bring down pressure on Israel than to pile up Palestinian casualties. Israel does not want to kill civilians. It even treats wounded Palestinians in Israeli hospitals. Israel looks bad because "so few" of its own citizens have died (how many deaths does it take to be "enough"?). Thousands of Israelis would have died had bomb shelters and warning alarms not been provided for their safety, and had they kept their schools open while the rockets flew. Even though Hamas constructed a network of 500 tunnels to make weapons smuggling easy, it has not built a single bomb shelter for the Palestinians. Instead, Hamas operatives gather people onto rooftops of buildings they think Israel is going to hit.

The Israeli army even found a map showing that Hamas deliberately places sniper positions near mosques and plants bombs at the entrances of civilian homes. One large bomb was placed near a gas station. Had it gone off, the gas station would have gone up with it and civilians certainly would have died.

This is the Hamas culture of death, and it is winning the propaganda war, because people either don't know about it or can't bring themselves to believe it. But it is real, and it is why everyone should care about the outcome in Gaza. Not only is the Hamas culture of death set on destroying Israel, it is destroying the Palestinians. No matter where in the world we live, we cannot afford this culture of death to prevail. There must be peace in the Middle East, with great efforts made by both sides, but before that can happen this culture of death must be exposed and discredited.

 

3. Israel is fighting for its life

The relative casualty count in this conflict is deceptive. There is a story the numbers don't tell. The story is told by the rockets, how they are changing and morphing into continually more powerful versions of themselves. The story is told by pronouncements of Hamas that the world ignores, stating in its Charter that "Israel, by virtue of its being Jewish and of having a Jewish population, defies Islam and the Muslims" (Article 28), and that "Israel will rise and will remain erect until Islam eliminates it as it had eliminated its predecessors" (Preamble). The only "occupation" Hamas really cares about is the occupation by Israel of any space on the planet.

The rocket fire from Gaza has been progressing. The first Qassams could only reach as far as Sderot. Then Israelis were shocked when they felt the rockets hitting Ashkelon. The newer missiles can reach as far as Ashdod and Be'er Sheva, and have even hit close to Tel Aviv. Including the threat from Hezbollah on the north, another Iran proxy sworn to Israel's destruction, soon all of Israel will be within missile range, and all it will take to finish off the country will be an order from Tehran.

This is why Israel feels it must stop the missile threat now. The longer it waits, the more powerful and accurate the missiles become, and the day will arrive when even the bomb shelters won't be able to keep the casualties down.

But what about appealing to the humanity of Hamas? Why not reason with them, negotiate with them? Here is Hamas's answer, from its Charter (Article 32): "Leaving the circle of conflict with Israel is a major act of treason and it will bring curse on its perpetrators." As long as Hamas is granted any legitimacy, the conflict cannot end because for Hamas, ending it would violate a sacred principle.

Appeal to Hamas's humanity? Hamas's value system is completely anti-humanistic. It represents a reversal of basic human values. Where we place life, Hamas places death - as Hamas, like al-Qaeda, never tires of reminding us. For Hamas death is a virtue and murder meritorious, winning the approval of God. With this poisonous anti-spiritual culture of death Hamas is destroying the Palestinian people, and those who claim to care about the Palestinians should be the first ones out there denouncing Hamas. Those who care about Middle East peace should desire the repudiation of Hamas and everything it stands for, so that the real issues between Israel and the Palestinians can be addressed. The precedent of "land for rockets" that Hamas has set is destroying any possibility of a two-state solution. Israel's withdrawal from Gaza resulted in war on its southern cities. As long as Israel is convinced that further withdrawals will put more of its cities in danger, there will be no further withdrawals and there will be no peace process.

And those who live anywhere in the world and who care about spirituality and about life must shudder at the prospect of the Hamas death culture not only dominating the Palestinians but extending its influence and power once Israel has finally been destroyed.

Carlos

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

Sources:

Associated Press. "Hamas Parades Mock Gilad Shalit Before Crowd of Thousands in Gaza." Ha'aretz, December 14, 2008.

Barzak, Ibrahim and Jason Keyser (Associated Press writers). "Gaza Truce Proposed After Israeli Shell Kills 30." Guardian.co.uk, January 7, 2009.

El-Khodary, Taghreed. "Fighter Sees His Paradise in Gaza’s Pain." New York Times, January 8, 2009.

El-Khodary, Taghreed and Isabel Kershner. "Israeli Shells Kill 40 at Gaza U.N. School." New York Times, January 6, 2009.

IDF Spokesperson's Office. Mortar Bombs Shot from UN School in Gaza. Video, October 29, 2007.

IDF Spokesperson's Office. Precision Airstrikes on Hamas Terror Targets. Video, January 7, 2009.

Katz, Yakov. "IDF Unveils Hamas Map Seized in Gaza." Jerusalem Post, January 8, 2009.

Levinson, Charles. "The Hamas Terror War Against Israel." Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, January 1, 2009.

Levitt, Matthew. "Teaching Terror: How Hamas Radicalizes Palestinian Society." Washington Institute for Near East Policy, February 12, 2007.

Levitt, Matthew. "Teaching Terror: How Hamas Radicalizes Palestinian Society." Washington Institute for Near East Policy, February 12, 2007.

Hamas "performance"

 

Hamas rocket attacks on Israel have increased in tandem with European and UN assistance. Rocket fire from Gaza into Israel increased more than 500 percent in the year following Hamas' rise to power, and almost doubled again in 2008, as 1,730 rockets and twice as many mortar rounds struck Israel. Diplomats interceded to promote peace, but during each period of truce, Hamas rearmed with more sophisticated weaponry. In light of the escalating attacks on Israel, the United States is understandably reluctant to demand Israel cease defending itself, especially after urging Israel's initial withdraw from Gaza. In order to realize what is the meaning of living under rocket fire just open :

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5b1aeMky90