Are President Obama’s Actions Hostile to Jews and Israel?

by Morton A. Klein and Dr. Daniel Mandel

Is President Obama hostile to Jews and Israel? Let’s look at the evidence.

Last week, the Obama Administration issued talking points for the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, where it referred to those struck by terrorism “whether in New York or Nairobi, Bali or Belfast, Mumbai or Manila, or Lahore or London.” Conspicuously absent was the name of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem or Sderot, which have been hit by terrorists, not once, but numerous times.

As a single instance, this omission might be unremarkable. In fact, however, omitting mention of Israel fits a pattern. When running for President, then-Senator Obama​ referred in his July 2008 Berlin speech to the need to “dismantle the [terrorist] networks that have struck in Madrid and Amman; in London and Bali; in Washington and New York.” Again, no Israel.

It seems hard to believe that these omissions could be anything other than intentional. After all, Israel has been a primary target of terrorists throughout the past decade. Almost 2,000 Israelis have been murdered by terrorists in this period and over 10,000 maimed or disfigured. In per capita terms, far more Israelis have been murdered by terrorists than Americans were murdered in 9/11.

Obama also omits Israel in other contexts. Thus, when Haiti was struck by a calamitous earthquake in January 2010, Israel’s relief efforts were exceptional, only matched by those of the United States, and were singled out for praise by former President Clinton​. However, in praising these relief efforts, Obama omitted any mention of Israel, saying only that “help continues to flow in, not just from the United States but from Brazil, Mexico, Canada, France, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic, among others.”

While Obama has more or less consistently failed to hold accountable or penalize the PA for incitement to violence against Israel, he has been emphatic and repetitive attacking Jewish housing projects in eastern Jerusalem as an obstacle to peace. His Administration has used the terms “condemn,” an “insult” and an “affront” when expressing disagreement with Israel on this issue, terms never used about other allies.

That Obama blames Israel, not the Palestinians, for the absence of peace is obvious. In a January 2010 interview, despite Israel’s acceptance in-principle of a Palestinian state, readiness to negotiate and instituting an unprecedented 10-month Jewish construction freeze in Judea and Samaria, Obama said Israel had made no “bold gestures.”

In a March 2011 meeting with Jewish leaders, Obama contended that “Israel’s [Palestinian] partner is sincere in wanting a peaceful settlement,” while asking his Jewish interlocutors to “speak to your Israeli friends and relatives and search your souls to determine how badly do you really want peace … Israelis think this peace process is overrated.”

Note also the contrast between his holiday messages to Jews and to Muslims.

In his Rosh Hashanah message last year, Obama only once referred to ‘Jews,’ not once to ‘Judaism,’ promoted a Palestinian state, and never mentioned the extraordinary contributions of Jews to the U.S.

In contrast, in his August 2010 Ramadan Message, Obama referred to ‘Muslims’ six times and to ‘Islam’ twice, stated that “American Muslims have made extraordinary contributions to our country,” and praised “Islam’s role in advancing justice, progress, tolerance, and the dignity of all human beings … a faith known for great diversity and racial equality.” Here, Obama, made no reference to what Muslims must do to achieve peace with Israel.

There are many other indicators of Obama evincing discomfort around Jewish matters. When, in May 2010, Obama signed the Daniel Pearl​ Press Freedom Act, he did not mention that Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter, was beheaded by Islamist terrorists because he was a Jew and that he was forced to state in the video recorded of his gruesome murder that he was an American Jew. Instead, Obama merely referred to Pearl’s “loss.”

And let’s not forget Obama’s June 2009 Cairo speech, in which he compared the circumstances of Palestinians under Israeli rule to Jews under the Nazis and blacks under Apartheid. Nor his September 2009 UN speech, in which Obama “couple[d] unwavering commitment to Israel” with Israel “respecting the legitimate claims and rights of the Palestinians.”

These incidents, some important, some less so, have assumed a troubling pattern. They suggest that President Obama has a distaste or even hostility towards Jews and Israel. But should we be surprised? He spent twenty years absorbing the anti-Israel sermons of Pastor Jeremiah Wright, whom Obama has called a “great man,” his “friend” and “mentor.”

Morton A. Klein is National President of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA). Dr. Daniel Mandel is Director of the ZOA’s Center for Middle East Policy.

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/09/12/are-president-obama%E2%80%99s-actions-hostile-to-jews-and-israel/

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

Winning the Battle Against Al-Qaeda, Losing the War Against Jihad

by Raymond Ibrahim

So long as the West focuses on names and faces in the so-called "war on terror"—as opposed to focusing on ideas and motivations—so long will it possibly win battles, even as it slowly loses the war.

As we approach the ten-year anniversary of 9/11, we win another battle with the recent slaying of al-Qaeda's number 2. According to the Associated Press, "U.S. and Pakistani officials said Saturday that al-Qaida's second-in-command, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, has been killed in Pakistan, delivering another big blow to a terrorist group that the U.S. believes to be on the verge of defeat."

Splendid news. However, some context:

Before Osama bin Laden, the face of al-Qaeda, was killed, it made sense to announce, by way of prelude, the killing of various al-Qaeda members, such as Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, Abu Ayub al-Masri , Abu Laith al-Libi, the notorious Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and any number of other "Abus" (and "Ibns"); it also made sense to exult, even if with hyperbolic headlines—"al-Qaeda receives devastating blow"—by way of saying the noose is tightening around bin Laden, who was next.

However, with the killing of bin Laden—the snakes head, the face of terror, the heart of al-Qaeda—it is becoming a bit redundant for the administration to continue boasting over the killing of yet one more al-Qaeda member; just as it is redundant to continue asserting that al-Qaeda is on the "verge of defeat."

After all, any number of analysts insisted that with the killing of bin Laden, al-Qaeda was as good as dead, thereby implying that whether this or that member gets killed is irrelevant. Peter Bergen, for example, declared that "Killing bin Laden is the end of the war on terror. We can just sort of announce that right now…. It's time to move on."

More to the point: the administration's inordinate focus and optimism over the killing of the latest al-Qaeda member (one can place past and future names here ___) ultimately exposes its myopic approach—an approach that tries to localize the problem, to give it a face, to treat it as a temporal and tangible entity that can be defeated through arms.

The unfortunate fact is that, even if al-Qaeda were totally eradicated tomorrow, the terror threat to the West would hardly recede, since al-Qaeda has never been the source of the threat, but simply one of its manifestations. The AP report obliquely reflects this: "Senior al-Qaida figures have been killed before, only to be replaced," even as the Obama administration is optimistic that "victory" is at hand.

To get a better perspective on the overall significance of the latest killing of an al-Qaeda member, consider how at the turn of the 20^th century, the Islamic world was rushing to emulate the victorious and confident West—best exemplified by the Ottoman empire itself, the preserver and enforcer of Islam, rejecting its Muslim past and embracing secularism under Ataturk. Today, 100 years later, the Muslim world has largely rejected secularism and is reclaiming its Islamic—including jihadist—heritage, lashing out in a manifold of ways.

Consider how many Islamist leaders, organizations, and terrorists have come and gone in the 20^th century alone—many killed like bin Laden—only for the conflict between Islam and the West to continue growing by the day.

It's in this context that the Obama administration audaciously evokes the word "victory," simply because yet another jihadist has been killed.

This, of course, is to be expected, considering the administration, which has a tendency to censor words—and thus knowledge—concerning the nature of the threat, just released a much vaunted policy paper on countering terrorism that never once uses the word "Islam(ism)" or "radical Islam," while myopically fixating on al-Qaeda, one of countless jihadist organizations that seek to subjugate the West.

Despite its narrow approach, the administration itself has inadvertently conceded to the existential nature of the threat, as it has begun to acknowledge that lone wolf terrorists—jihadists who have no connection to al-Qaeda other than that they share the same worldview—are a greater threat.

As Attorney General Eric Holder put it, "the threat has changed … to worrying about people in the United States, American citizens—raised here, born here, and who for whatever reason, have decided that they are going to become radicalized and take up arms against the nation in which they were born."

Note how Holder ignores the most important factor to understanding and ultimately defeating jihadists—their motivation—by dismissing it as "whatever reason." Even so, the administration's acknowledgement of the lone wolf jihad proves one thing: it is doctrinal ideologies floating among Muslims around the world—not just the caves of al-Qaeda—that create terror threats.

So when Counterterrorism chief John Brennan says that "Taking him out of commission is huge. There's not another bin Laden out there. I don't know if there's another Atiyah Abd al-Rahman out there"—he can rest assured that while those two are gone, countless are the no-names out to emulate them, in a myriad of ways.

To conclude, by all means, target and kill terrorists, singly and collectively, and rejoice over it; but keep in mind that even if al-Qaeda were expunged from existence, while that would be a battle well won, it would not be the end of the war, which has been prosecuted in various forms and frequencies for fourteen centuries, and will not end with the elimination of this or that individual or organization.

Raymond Ibrahim, an Islam specialist and author of The Al Qaeda Reader, is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Source: http://www.meforum.org/3037/battle-al-qaeda-jihad

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

Al-Qaida in Pakistan: Down, But Not Out

by IPT News

A senior al-Qaida leader who planned and executed international operations for the terrorist group was arrested last week by Pakistani security forces with help from U.S. intelligence agencies. Younis al-Mauritani, who was instructed by Osama bin Laden to attack economic targets in the United States, Europe and Australia, was captured along with two associates in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta, long known to be a militant hotbed and Taliban stronghold.

"He was planning to target United States economic interests including gas/oil pipelines, power generating dams and strike ships/oil tankers through explosive laden speed boats in international waters," the Pakistani military said in a statement following Mauritani's capture.

The capture of Mauritani coming so close on the heels of last month's killing of al-Qaida's second-in-command, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, in a CIA drone strike marks another major blow to core AQ leadership in Pakistan.

Al-Qaida has seen a rapid thinning of its senior ranks in recent months with the slaying of Osama bin Laden by Navy SEALs in May and the death of Ilyas Kashmiri in a predator strike in early June.

Al-Qaida has enjoyed a safe haven along Pakistan's border region with Afghanistan since the Taliban's downfall in 2001. From bases in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), Baluchistan and the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), al-Qaida has been able to plan attacks in partnership with its regional affiliates. The central leadership, based out of the mountainous tribal belt of northwest Pakistan bordering Afghanistan, recruits and trains operatives and disseminates jihadist propaganda. It also provides funding, training and weapons to its local franchises in Yemen, Somalia, and other countries.

It also has used the region's lawless environment to foster jihad in Pakistan, undercutting the credibility of a key U.S. ally in the region. Don Rassler, an associate at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, believes the al-Qaida core is laying greater emphasis on fueling militant activity in Pakistan. "A review of al-Qaida's statements pertaining to Pakistan, militant activity in the country, and the alliances al-Qaida has fostered among Pakistani factions reveals that the group is acting to shape Pakistan's militant environment and foster jihad against the Pakistani government," Rassler writes.

Pakistan has seen a dramatic increase in the scale and number of al-Qaida sponsored terrorist attacks during the past decade, including a series targeting high-ranking political leaders and other government targets.

• Senior al-Qaida operative Abu Faraj al-Libbi who was captured in Pakistan in 2005 was alleged to be behind the two assassinations attempts against President Pervez Musharraf in December 2003.

• Pakistan's political leadership, including the president, prime minister, as well as leaders of its armed forces, escaped a truck bomb attack on Islamabad's Marriott hotel in September 2008. An American intelligence officer said the attack "bears all the hallmarks of a terrorist operation carried out by al-Qaida or its associates."

• The Times of India reported in June 2009 that several al-Qaida leaders had come in to Pakistan from Iraq to carry out attacks against senior political leaders including President Asif Ali Zardari.

  · In May, al-Qaida terrorists attacked a Pakistani naval air base in the southern port city of Karachi after talks with Pakistani military officials failed to secure the release of naval officers arrested for suspected ties to the terrorist group.

In addition, al-Qaida has used its "media prowess and ideological authority" to undermine the authority of the Pakistani state and its support for the U.S.-led war effort in the region.

In a videotaped message released August 2008, al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri criticized Musharraf for ordering the July 2007 army offensive on the Lal Masjid or Red Mosque complex following its takeover by Islamic militants.

"Pervez [Musharraf] has insulted and compromised Pakistan's sovereignty by allowing the CIA and FBI to operate freely in Pakistan and arrest, interrogate, torture, deport and detain any person, whether Pakistani or not, for as long as they like, thus turning the Pakistani army and security agencies into hunting dogs in the contemporary crusade," Zawahiri said. He also alleged that Pakistan was "virtually ruled from the American Embassy."

Building alliances among local jihadi groups

Al-Qaida also plays a critical role in helping build alliances among disparate Pakistani militant groups that either opposed each other or had conflicting goals. This bolsters their ability to launch international attacks against the United States and its allies.

For example, some rival Pakistan Taliban factions were in violent conflict with each other frustrating al-Qaida's efforts to carry out attacks against U.S.-led NATO troops in Afghanistan. In early 2009, Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, who shared close ties with bin Laden, mediated a truce between the rival factions and also helped create an umbrella group called Shura Ittihad-ul-Mujahideen (Council of United Holy Warriors). Soon after the council's creation, al-Qaida's media channel al-Shabaab released a video interview with Mullah Nazir, one of the leaders of the Pakistan Taliban. In the interview, Nazir upheld the peace agreement among the rival factions: "We [the Pakistan Taliban] have forgotten all our differences and merged this alliance as one. There shall be no more disputes in the future."

The Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP) is a coalition of militant groups in the tribal areas and is a key ally of al-Qaida. "Our main aim is to target the U.S. allies in Afghanistan but the government of Pakistan's ill-strategy has made us launch a defensive jihad in Pakistan," spokesman Maulvi Omar announced just after the TTP's creation in December 2007. Since then:

• The TTP is suspected to be behind the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

• In May 2010, Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad was charged in connection with the failed plot to bomb Times Square in New York. He trained with and received financial support from the TTP.

• The TTP has also been involved in attacks on American targets in the region. TTP leader Qari Hussain, who was designated by the State Department earlier this year, helped train the Jordanian militant who attacked a top CIA base in Khost, Afghanistan, in December 2009 killing seven Americans. The TTP was also reported to be behind the April 2010 suicide attack on the U.S. consulate in Pakistan's northwestern capital city of Peshawar.

The Harkat ul-Jihad al-Islami (HuJI), an al-Qaida ally in Pakistan, was implicated in the March 2006 bombing of the U.S. consulate in the Pakistani port city of Karachi. U.S. diplomat David Foy was among four people killed in the attack. Former HuJI commander Ilyas Kashmiri, who was killed in a U.S. drone attack in June, was involved in the suicide bomb attack on the CIA base in Afghanistan. Kashmiri also commanded al-Qaida's deadly 313 Brigade.

Al-Qaida also shares close ties with the Haqqani Network. The Haqqani Network, based out of North Waziristan, the tribal belt in Pakistan along the border with Afghanistan, constitutes the principal faction of the Afghan Taliban. This jihadi network patronized by al-Qaida has launched several attacks against U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan and is considered a major deterrent to peace in the region. It is led by senior Afghan rebel Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son, Sirajuddin Haqqani.

Attacking the United States and International Targets

In February 2010, then-Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair told the Senate Intelligence Committee that America remained vulnerable to threats from al-Qaida core. "We judge that al-Qaida maintains its intent to attack the Homeland—preferably with a large scale operation that would cause mass casualties, harm the U.S. economy, or both," Blair said.

Although al-Qaida has morphed from a hierarchical organization with a large operating budget, to a largely ideological movement following the 2001 American invasion of Afghanistan, the group "retains the capability to recruit, train, and deploy operatives to mount some kind of an attack against the Homeland," he added.

In addition to the U.S. homeland, al-Qaida and its affiliates and allies continue to pose a threat to U.S. partners overseas, including Europe.

Some examples of recent al-Qaida sponsored international attacks include:

Afghan-American Najibullah Zazi pleaded guilty to plotting to set off bombs in New York's subway system in September 2009. The plot was reportedly hatched by al-Qaida's senior leadership in Pakistan. Zazi received explosives training at an al-Qaida camp in Pakistan.

In January 2009, an American-born Bryant Neal Vinas traveled to Pakistan and trained in explosives in an al-Qaida training camp. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to kill Americans and to providing material support to al-Qaida. after taking part in a missile attack against a U.S. base in Afghanistan. Vinas also admitted to authorities his role in helping al-Qaida plan an attack against the Long Island Rail Road in New York.

In September 2010, Western intelligence sources uncovered a "Mumbai-style" al-Qaida plot that allegedly called for simultaneous terror attacks on multiple European cities in the U.S., France, and Germany.

Although the al-Qaida core retains the capability to launch deadly attacks, its command and control capabilities appear to have been substantially weakened, following recent losses in its senior leadership.

"Al-Qaida is definitely on its back foot in the region," Heritage Foundation South Asia expert Lisa Curtis told the IPT following the killing of Atiyah abd al-Rahman al-Libi. The United States needs to work with Pakistani authorities to crack down on local jihadi groups tied to al-Qaida such as Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT), Harkat ul-Mujahideen (HuM), and HuJI, she added, "because they essentially remain intact and able to continue their operations."

IPT News (The Investigative Project on Terrorism)

Source: http://www.investigativeproject.org/3164/al-qaida-in-pakistan-down-but-not-out

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

Analysis: Financial Crisis May Destroy PA

by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

The Palestinian Authority’s growth has been fueled by handouts, but the World Bank reports that dry financial wells may cause an “acute fiscal crisis.”

The latest report, which contradicts previous glowing accounts of how the Palestinian Authority (PA) can maintain itself as stable country, warns of an economic slowdown in the PA, primarily due to the lack of donor countries fulfilling their pledges to fork over billions of dollars to Ramallah.

The World Bank also cited Israel’s security checkpoints as a reason for the PA’s financial problems, but unlike previous reports, the security measures were mentioned as a secondary problem.

Foreign donors, particularly the European Union, have pumped hundreds of millions of dollars to pay Arabs to take over land that had been under Israeli control until the mid-90s. Thousands of Arabs living in Judea and Samaria have received new vehicles to help them criss-cross the country, often skirting Israeli checkpoints that are designed to halt illegal smuggling of poultry, eggs and vegetables as well as to stop terrorists.

The World Bank noted that contributions to the PA from Arab countries in the first half of this year were only one-third of the amount in 2010 and slightly more than 15 percent of the $62 million donated in 2009.

The World Bank does not mention the new financial crisis that is spreading over Europe, threatening to bankrupt Greece and other countries.

Slow growth and the possibility of a recession in Europe could further hamper the ability of the European Union to financial the PA, which has been reliant on it for paying salaries to its inflated work force.

A fiscal crisis could undermine the "promise of...institution-building measures,” according to the World Bank.

"Ultimately, in order for the Palestinian Authority to sustain the reform momentum and its achievements in institution-building, remaining Israeli restrictions must be lifted," the report said. However, the major roadblock is the PA itself, by virtue of the four-year-old split between Ramallah, headed by Fatah leader and PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, and Gaza, ruled by its de facto Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas.

Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/147786#.Tm35HWqL2Jk

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

Why the Muslim Beard Bodes Trouble

by Raymond Ibrahim

To develop a thorough understanding of Islam, one must learn to "connect the dots." For instance, Muslims who adhere to non problematic aspects of Islam, indirectly indicate their acceptance of problematic aspects of Islam—such as enmity for infidels, death for apostates, subjugation for women, and so on.

Consider the Muslim beard. Because Muhammad wanted his Muslims to look different from infidel Christians and Jews, he ordered them to "trim closely the moustache and grow the beard." Accordingly, all Sunni schools of law maintain that it is forbidden, a "major sin," for men to shave their beards—unless, of course, it is part of a stratagem against the infidel, in which case it is permissible.

Prior to Ramadan, Islamic leaders in Egypt called for a million men to grow their beards and show Egypt's adherence to Muhammad's commands. Popular and enthusiastic preachers such as Muhammad Hassan went as far as to pray for the day when 80 million Egyptians grew their beards (a figure that presumably includes women and children, as 80 million is the size of Egypt's entire population).

Amr Adib, a popular talk show host on Cairo Today, mocked this call for a "million man beard" with his trademark sarcasm: "This is a great endeavor! After all, a man with a beard can never be a thug, can never rape a woman in the street, can never set a church on fire, can never fight and quarrel, can never steal, and can never be dishonest!"

He and his Egyptian viewers know quite well that it is precisely those Muslims who most closely follow the minutia of Muhammad—the Salafists—that are most prone to violence and deceit, which were also advocated by the prophet. Towards the end of the program, Adib spoke seriously, ominously, saying this issue is not about growing a beard, but rather, "once you grow your beard, you give proof of your commitment and fealty to everything in Islam."

While Egyptians instinctively understand how fealty to the Muslim beard evinces fealty, or at least acceptance, to all those other things Muhammad commanded, even in fuzzy Western op-eds, the connection sometimes peeks out. Consider the following excerpt from a recent New York Times piece titled "Behold the Mighty Beard, a Badge of Piety and Religious Belonging":

[A]ll over the Muslim world, the full beard has come to connote piety and spiritual fervor. It is such a powerful cultural signifier, in fact, that it inspires non-Muslims, too…. Of course, the beard is only a sign of righteousness. It is no guarantor, as Mr. Zulfiqar [a Muslim interviewee] reminds us: "I recall one gentleman who came back from a trip to Pakistan and remarked to me, 'I learned one thing: the longer the beard, the bigger the crook.' His anticipation was people with big beards would be really honest, but he kept meeting people lying to him." [emphasis mine]

The italicized portion speaks for itself. Whereas the Muslim beard represents piety, some people, mostly Westerners, are shocked to find that those who wear it are often "crooks" and "liars." In Islam, however, outer signs of religiosity on the one hand, and corruption and deceit on the other, are compatible. After all, the same source—Muhammad, as recorded in the hadith—that tells Muslims to grow a beard also advocates deception and all sorts of other practices antithetical to Western notions of piety.

The hijab, or headscarf, which cloaks Muslim women, also on Muhammad's command, produces the same symbiosis. Tawfik Hamid, a former aspiring jihadist and acquaintance of al-Qaeda leader Ayman Zawahiri, accurately observes that "the proliferation of the hijab is strongly correlated with increased terrorism…. Terrorism became much more frequent in such societies as Indonesia, Egypt, Algeria, and the U.K. after the hijab became prevalent among Muslim women living in those communities."

The question is simple: Why do some Muslim men wear the prescribed beard and why do some Muslim women wear the prescribed hijab? Most Muslims would say they do so because Muhammad commanded them to in the hadith.

Yet if such Muslims meticulously follow the minor, "outer" things of Islam simply because their prophet made a few utterances concerning them in the hadith, logically speaking, does that not indicate that they also follow, or at the very least accept as legitimate, the major, "inner" themes Muhammad constantly emphasized in the hadith—such as enmity for and deceit of the infidel, and, when capable, perpetual jihad?

Raymond Ibrahim an Islam specialist and author of The Al Qaeda Reader, is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Source: http://www.meforum.org/3035/muslim-beard

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

Terror's Evolving Threat: The Al-Qaida Network in 2011

by IPT News

In addition to shock and grief, fear gripped Americans in the hours and days after the World Trade Center and Pentagon were attacked by al-Qaida terrorists in hijacked airliners. The next attack seemed imminent and of even more horrifying magnitude.

Ten years later, American officials can barely contain their confidence that a sustained program of drone attacks, arrests and the May 2 killing of Osama bin Laden may have knocked al-Qaida down for the count.

"We can take great pride that since 9/11 we have achieved very significant success in going after al-Qaida, in going after al-Qaida's leadership," Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Tuesday after visiting the new 9/11 memorial at Ground Zero.

Some of that enthusiasm has been checked with reports of a credible, but unconfirmed plot involving three suspects hoping to set off bombs in Washington or New York on the 10^th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

But last weekend's arrest in Pakistan of top operative Younis al Mauritani, as he reportedly plotted attacks on American economic interests, including oil pipelines, is considered to be yet another major blow to the terrorist organization. Days earlier, a drone strike killed the latest in a series of No. 2 al-Qaida leaders.

Before reports of the new plot surfaced, White House talking points advised government officials to "minimize references to Al Qaeda" in comments surrounding the 10^th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Weakened militarily and ignored in the mostly peaceful Arab Spring revolutions, the organization, they say, is becoming irrelevant.

That's not just politicians bantering.

Concern over a new potential plot notwithstanding, Bin Laden's death, and additional gains made since, offers "the prospect of a strategic defeat, if you will, a strategic dismantling, of al-Qa'ida," Gen. David Petraeus said in July, when he was head of American forces in Afghanistan.

"If they're worrying about their security ... they're going to have less time to plot and plan," White House terrorism advisor John Brennan said earlier this month. "They're going to be constantly looking over their shoulder or up in the air or wherever, and it really has disrupted their operational cadence and ability to carry out attacks."

Sadly, al-Qaeda's murderous ideology remains alive and well, inspiring a series of "lone wolf" jihadists who to carry out seek mass killings on their own, and through a growing number of al-Qaeda offshoots, or franchises.

"We have definitely weakened Al Qaida," U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., told CNN last weekend. "But I think it's very important for us to understand that the enemy that we face in this war on terrorism is not a particular group, Al Qaida. It is an ideology, a violent ideology of what I call Islamist extremism," said Lieberman.

"And it appears in a lot of different names, in a lot of different places, and sometimes through lone wolves here in the United States. And that's why, unfortunately, this particular unconventional war is going to go on for a while."

Thus far, aggressive steps by law enforcement officials have interdicted budding terrorist plots, largely through the use of sting operations. Though Islamist organizations and others cry entrapment, the sting approach has stopped a number of people willing to push the button to detonate explosives in hopes of creating mass casualties. Many have admitted their guilt.

The United States has seen a spate of potential lone wolf attacks, many influenced by al-Qaida propaganda, starting in 2009. Some were thwarted by law enforcement sting operations, while others were uncomfortably close to killing innocent Americans.

Two of those plots claimed American lives. Army psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan shot and killed 13 people at Ft. Hood, Tex. on Nov. 5, 2009. Hasan had exchanged emails with a radical al-Qaida cleric named Anwar al-Awlaki. Awlaki, born in New Mexico, is an example of an American who adopted radical Islamist ideology.

Four months earlier, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhmmad, a convert to Islam, opened fire on a Little Rock Army recruiting office, killing a private and wounding a second. He was sentenced to life in prison in July after pleading guilty in the case.

Muhammad spent time in Yemen and claimed to be a part of al-Qaida's franchise there, writing that he committed a "jihadi attack on infidel forces." Evidence showed he also scouted other targets for attack, including a child care center, a Baptist church and Jewish organizations. He even shot at what he thought was the home of a Nashville rabbi. He told police that he was angry at American soldiers, just as he would be at "anyone who was doing this to our religion."

Almost two years later, Army Pfc. Naser Abdo was arrested in Killeen, Tex. and charged with possessing an unregistered weapon. Abdo, who had a copy of bomb-making instructions from al-Qaida's magazine, Inspire, told police that "he intended to conduct an attack against Killeen and Ft. Hood."

In May 2010, Pakistani American Faisal Shahzad left an explosives-filled Nissan Pathfinder in Times Square and attempted to detonate it remotely. His attempt failed, and a bystander reported the smoking car to the police. The FBI estimated that the bomb, had it detonated properly, could have killed thousands. The al-Qaida-linked Pakistani Taliban was later confirmed to have underwritten the plot.

Last fall, sting operations revealed lone wolves were willing and ready to detonate explosives at a military recruiting center in Maryland, near the D.C. Metrorail and at a tree-lighting ceremony in Portland, Ore.

Attacks like those both plotted and carried out on Fort Hood underscore Lieberman's remarks that the war on terrorism is a war on a violent "ideology" that can inspire lone actors.

But a failed attack on Christmas Day 2009 demonstrated that al-Qaida still has the ability to orchestrate, not just inspire, attacks.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to detonate a bomb in a plot designed by the Yemeni-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) aboard a Detroit airliner. The attack demonstrated what a U.S. government report would later conclude.

The 2010 State Department Country Reports on Terrorism found that al-Qaida's core in Pakistan has become weaker, while al-Qaida's franchises, especially AQAP, have grown stronger. Al-Qaida "remained the preeminent terrorist threat to the United States in 2010," said the report. The group "developed stronger relationships with its affiliates in the Middle East, North Africa…"

AQAP was also behind a 2010 plot targeting cargo flights headed from Yemen to the United States.

IPT News

Source: http://www.investigativeproject.org/3161/terror-evolving-threat-the-al-qaida-network-in

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

Why 'Christian' Persecution?

by Raymond Ibrahim

Some are asking why my new monthly series, "Muslim Persecution of Christians," wherein I collate and assess some of the atrocities committed by Muslims against Christians, does not include the persecution of other religious minority groups; others are suggesting I broaden my scope to include all minorities, for instance, homosexuals.

Of course other minority groups—essentially any religion other than Islam (or even the wrong kind of Islam, e.g., Shi'ism, Sufism)—experience persecution in the Muslim world. Accordingly, others qualified in the particulars of the various religions and civilizations persecuted by Islam are encouraged to collate and comment on them, monthly or otherwise.

That said, a series documenting the persecution of Christians under Islam is necessary for several reasons:

First, most religious persecution in the Muslim world is by far directed against Christians. Several reasons account for this, for starters, sheer numbers: from Morocco in the west, to Pakistan in the east, and throughout most of Africa, wherever Muslims make a majority, there are more Christians than other religious minorities; this tends to be true even along Islam's periphery, like Indonesia, which also has a significant Buddhist and Hindu presence.

These large numbers are not simply a reflection of proselytization, but the fact that much of what is today called "the Muslim world" stands atop land that was seized by force and conquest from Christians, whose descendants still remain, sometimes in large numbers, such as Egypt, where the indigenous Copts make millions (unlike the Jews, who managed to make it back to their ancestral homeland, these Christians are already on their homeland and have nowhere to go).

Moreover, by collating and tracing the same patterns of abuse regarding all things intrinsically Christian—people, churches, crosses, Bibles—one can better highlight and articulate the issue as a distinct phenomenon, which it is.

It is true that Muslim aggression and violence knows no bound and is regularly directed against all non-Muslims in general. But it is equally true that the wider the scope, the more the net catches, the more generic the anecdotes become, the more they are liable to be dismissed by the mainstream as a product of non-ideological factors (from poverty to politics)—even though that is not the case.

On the other hand, by focusing on one group, one phenomenon, one can more clearly and unequivocally connect the dots, present a more focused case.

For example, while Muslim animus for Israel is interconnected to Muslim animus for Christians and others, it should be, and is, highlighted as a distinct phenomenon to be acknowledged and rectified. Were one to lump Israel with the rest of the "others" on Islam's hit list—Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Sufis, homosexuals, et al—without giving it any special attention, focus would be lost on the particulars of its fight, its history, and all the other aspects that make its conflict singular.

Accordingly, even though connecting the various manifestations of Muslim aggression is useful, particularly as it provides the big picture, when certain arenas reach a fever pitch, there is no wrong that they be highlighted separately, say, through one monthly report.

There are, of course, practical issues to consider as well: a document collating all Muslim aggression and persecution would not only be too cumbersome and long to read, but redundant; better simply to visit Jihad Watch for a comprehensive survey of Islam's daily doings.

Finally, one needs to be knowledgeable of the history and civilizations of the peoples being persecuted in order to do them justice, to demonstrate historical continuity, show past precedents, connect the dots, etc. And while I'm intimately acquainted with the particulars of Muslim-Christian interactions—historically, theologically, even personally—I'm less so with the particulars of, say, Muslim-Buddhist interactions.

I therefore leave it to others to highlight the various minority groups' plights—ideally not merely by listing the various anecdotes, but by demonstrating continuity for that particular group's history with Islam.

Raymond Ibrahim

Source: http://www.meforum.org/3036/why-christian-persecution

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

NY Times Blames Israel for Attack on Cairo Embassy

by Leo Rennert

In its September 11 edition, the New York Times runs a front-page article by Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner, which, instead of blaming fanatical Egyptian rioters, assigns the biggest share of blame to Israel for the violent attack on its Cairo Embassy and the forced departure of its diplomatic staff ("Beyond Cairo, Israel Sensing A Wider Siege -- Embassy Assault a Sign of a Mideast in Flux")

In full gloom-and-doom mode, Bronner paints a dark picture of an "increasingly isolated" Israel with "limited and poor options" amid rising anti-Israel sentiment in neighboring countries.

Pouring more salt on the wound, Bronner opines that Israel largely brought these problems upon itself -- a clear case of blaming the offended rather than the offender.

As part of his dump-on-Israel slant, Bronner trots out as his first analyst Aluf Benn, editor-in-chief of the leftist Israeli newspaper Haaretz, who accuses Prime Minister Netanyahu of "not having done a thing to mitigate the fallout from confrontations in which Israeli forces killed Egyptian and Turkish citizens." (Bronner is referring to three Egyptian soldiers killed along the Sinai border while Israel was pursuing terrorists who had just killed Israelis near Eilat, and to Israel's refusal to apologize for last year's raid on a bockade-running Turkish ship, in which nine violent Turkish extremists were killed when they launched brutal attacks on Israeli commandos boarding the ship)

In the same blame-Israel vein, Bronner writes that "since the start of the Arab uprisings, internal critics and foreign friends, including the United States, have urged Israel to take bold, conciliatory steps toward the Palestinians."

While Bronner gives top prominence to Aluf Benn, the Haaretz editor, as his expert-in-chief, he fails to inform readers that Haaretz, editorially and in much of its news coverage, has a far-left agenda that assigns full blame to Israel for tensions with the Palestinians and none to the rejectionist agenda of Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority. Haaretz also advocates extreme appeasement concessions as its solution to the conflict.

The real Haaretz was spotlighted four years ago, when editor David Landau -- an Aluf Benn predecessor -- disgraced the paper during a meeting of Israeli journalists with then-Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, telling her that the U.S. ought to "rape" Israel -- to force a final, one-sided settlement on the Jewish state. Landau even bragged about his disgusting comment, telling Jewish Week editor Gary Rosenblatt that "it had always been my wet dream to address the secretary of state on vital matters."

From such fetid quarters, Bronner plumbs his wisdom.

Bronner, however, is not content with using only Haaretz to spread the Times' appeasement agenda. He follows his quote from Aluf Benn with a comment by Daniel Ben-Simon, a Knesset member of the left-leaning Labor Party, who has his own peculiar recipe for Netanyahu -- "If he joined the vote (at the UN) for a Palestinian state instead of fighting it, that would be the best thing he could do for us in the Arab world." Just imagine! Forget all about negotiating a peace deal; just have Israel sign its own suicide pact at the UN and the conflict will be a goner.

Toward the end of his piece, Bronner acknowledges that "some here say Israel is again being made a scapegoat, this time for unfulfilled revolutionary promises" However, it's a view Bronner immediately rejects -- in favor of "another interpretation, and it is the predominant one abroad -- Muslims, Arabs and indeed many around the globe believe Israel is unjustly occupying Palestinian territories, and they are furious at Israel for it."

As if his own push for immediate Israeli recognition of a Palestinian state hasn't yet sunk in, Bronner makes it doubly clear in his final paragraph with a quote from another Labor Party member, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, who argues "The world is tired of this conflict and angry at us because we are viewed as conquerors, ruling over another people. If I were Bibi Netanyahu, I would recognize a Palestinian state."

What Bronner fails to tell Times readers is that these all are views of a small minority of Israelis, If they were put to a vote in the Knesset, they would be soundly defeated. The Israeli electorate, more in tune with reality and what's best for Israel's security, also would reject it out of hand at the ballot box. Even the out-of-power Kadima Party, which got the highest number of votes in the last election, would have none of it.

In sum, a far-left appeasement tract by Bronner, disguised as front-page "news."

Leo Rennert

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/09/ny_times_blames_israel_for_attack_on_cairo_embassy.html

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

9/11 Ten Years After

by Frontpagemag.com

In his important pamphlet, 9-11 Ten Years Later, Marc Thiessen asks the critical questions. Are we still safe? Are the important safeguards that the Bush administration put in place after the attack still there to keep us safe? Has President Obama made us more vulnerable to another attack?

Thiessen, who was working at the Pentagon on 9/11, believes that he has. Yes, Osama bin Laden was killed on Obama’s watch. But instead of getting a medal for their achievement, the officials who uncovered the intelligence that led us to Osama bin Laden were given subpoenas. On his second day in office, Obama shut down the CIA’s high-value interrogation program. His Justice Department then reopened criminal investigations into the conduct of CIA interrogators.

Theissen shows how the capture and “enhanced interrogation” of high value targets such as Kahlid Sheikh Mohammed kept us safe for a decade by patiently developing information and putting it together with other intelligence gathered in the field to kill or capture terror leaders working to repeat 9/11 on an even more spectacular scale. According to senior intelligence officials who talked with Theissen, a former colleague, well over half of the information our government learned about al-Qaeda after 9/11 — how it operates, how it moves money, how it communicates, how it recruits operatives, how it picks targets, how it plans and carries out attacks — came from the interrogation of terrorists in CIA custody. Now, thanks to the President, that capacity has been lost. Consider that for a moment: without this capability, more than half of what we knew about the enemy would have disappeared.

By dismantling those tools, President Obama is risking catastrophic consequences. The president has, by his own admission, forced the CIA to operate with one hand tied behind its back. He has, by his own admission, made the agency’s job of protecting us from terror harder. And he says that this is okay. Marc Theissen shows in this shocking pamphlet that it’s not.

Frontpagemag.com

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/09/09/9-11-ten-years-after/

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

A Sectarian Issue

by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi

As Gaddafi's regime crumbles, speculation has started to arise over whether the Syrian opposition will now be emboldened in their struggle against Assad. Naturally, this raises the question of precisely what course the unrest in Syria will take. Is it a general uprising against the repressive Baathist regime, or is it really a sectarian affair, pitting minority Shi'a Alawites against a Sunni majority, while Christians generally side with the former and Kurds with the latter?

Rather than assessing anecdotal evidence from within Syria, it might be more instructive to look at how the country's neighbors view the instability. Indeed, it is particularly striking that division of opinion about Syria is based on entirely sectarian grounds.

Start off with the case of Iraq. It is of course in Iraq's interests to see the Assad regime embroiled in turmoil, for not only has Assad facilitated the infiltration of foreign Sunni insurgents into the country until the unrest, but Syria has also been a destination of choice for many Iraqi refugees -- particularly Christians who comprise 5 percent of Iraq's population but 40 percent of refugees -- fleeing from violence within their homeland since the 2003 invasion.

With the onset of the protests in Syria, Iraqi refugees have begun returning home, a development that is vital if Iraq is not going to suffer from problems of "brain drain" that could severely impede the nation's economic development.

However, Iraq's political elite does not view the Syrian unrest in these terms. Instead, we witness the Shi'a politicians standing with Assad, while the Sunni and Kurdish parliamentarians openly back the opposition. For example, in light of events in Syria, the Shi'ite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has warned that "Zionism and Israel" are poised to take advantage of the instability caused by the protests to bring about the "disintegration and internal erosion of the Arab countries."

Since his gaining a second term in power last December, al-Maliki has cultivated close economic and diplomatic ties with Assad, as the latter was eventually persuaded by Iran to back al-Maliki rather than Ayad Allawi​ for the premier. Meanwhile, the radical Shi'ite cleric and key "ally" of al-Maliki -- Muqtada al-Sadr -- called Assad a "brother" for opposing the United States, and said that events in Syria are very different from the "popular revolutions" in Tunisia and Egypt.

As for the Sunnis, a clear case in point is Osama al-Nujaifi, a prominent member from Mosul of Allawi's Sunni-dominated al-Iraqiya bloc and speaker for the Iraqi parliament. He strongly denounced the repression of protests by Assad, and called on him to "stop the bleeding" for the sake of the Syrian people.

Likewise, in Lebanon it is noteworthy how the traditionally pro-Syrian factions have divided between Christians and Shi'a on the one hand as opposed to the Sunnis on the other. While as-Safir newspaper -- a publication affiliated with pro-Syrian Sunnis -- calls on the Syrian regime to cease using force against demonstrators, Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah​ backs Assad (although his deputy Na'im Qassem, in a rather mild tone, advised the regime to exercise restraint in utilizing violence against the protestors), as does Michel Aoun​ of the pro-Syrian Maronite faction known as the "Free Patriotic Movement."

We further have the example of George Saliba, the Syriac Orthodox bishop of Lebanon. Although unaffiliated with a political party, his interview with ad-Dunya TV last month had the Syrian unrest in mind when he characterized protests across the region as part of a Jewish conspiracy.

Besides reflecting his own anti-Semitism, the fact that he should believe there is a conspiracy at all is clearly tied to his belief that the Assad regime serves as the protector of Syrian Christians.

In a somewhat similar vein, the Melkite Greek patriarch Gregory III Laham, based in Damascus, has repeatedly warned that the demonstrations against Assad are being hijacked by "armed criminals" and other unidentified sinister forces.

Finally, we turn to the "resistance" bloc more generally. In July, I had wondered whether Turkey could abandon the bloc in light of intensifying tensions with Iran over what to do about Syria. In fact, Turkey could well establish a buffer zone inside Syria soon to prevent a refugee crisis along its southern border.

Nevertheless, as Barry Rubin correctly explained to me, the issue is not that Turkey is "leaving" the resistance bloc, but simply joining the Sunni side of it, together with Hamas, which has also condemned Assad's repression of the protests and has consequently lost at least a significant proportion of financial support from Iran.

All this evidence therefore suggests that the conflict in Syria is indeed a sectarian issue. After all, what do we know about events inside Syria that the country's neighbors don't? The implications of such a conclusion do not bode well for Syria's future. Many pundits have recently wondered whether Libya could be "another Iraq." Yet it is highly unlikely that Libya, sparsely populated and vast as it is, could ever witness anything like the bloody sectarian fighting my relatives lived through in the Baghdad civil war in 2006. They should really be asking such questions of Syria.

Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi is a student at Brasenose College, Oxford University, and an intern at the Middle East Forum.

Source: http://www.meforum.org/3032/a-sectarian-issue

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