The Price for Refusing to Kill Your Gang-Raped Child

by Frank Crimi

A Pakistani family is under brutal assault for refusing to murder their daughter for being a victim of rape. The case serves to underscore Pakistan’s malevolent role as the world epicenter of “honor killings.”

Kainat Soomro was 13-years old when she was kidnapped in 2007 near the Pakistan town of Dadu and viciously gang raped for three days by four Muslim men. While fortunate enough to finally escape her captors, Kainat’s ordeal was tragically just beginning.

Despite being the victim of rape, Kainat was instead declared to be a kari, or “black female,” by tribal elders in her town for having the temerity to have sex outside of marriage. As a consequence of that decree, Kainat’s family was expected to subject her to an honor killing.

However, despite the pressure to murder Kainat, her family refused. As Kainat later pointed out, “It is the tradition, but if the family doesn’t permit it, then it won’t happen. My father, my brothers, my mom didn’t allow it.”

Instead, her family opted for a saner and less barbaric route by seeking to have Kainat’s rapists prosecuted for their heinous acts. Unhappily for the Soomro family, that decision would subject the family to years of sustained attacks and beatings by fanatical fellow Muslims, assaults that eventually drove the Soomros into a grim state of poverty.

Unfortunately, despite the Soomro family’s heroic efforts to spare their daughter’s life, Kainat’s rapists were acquitted in May 2010 after a local judge declared her sole testimony as an “alleged rape survivor” to be insufficient. Regrettably, the anguish of that court decision only deepened a month later when Kainat’s brother was murdered by unknown assailants, ostensibly for the sin of having the audacity to defend his sister during her trial.

Now, 17-years-old, Kainat and her family remain undeterred. To that end, they are petitioning higher Pakistani courts to appeal the ruling in her case. However, beset by severe pressure to withdraw her appeal, the Soomros remain under attack by men affiliated with her rapists, men who recently vandalized their apartment, beat the father and brother with iron rods and threatened to kill Kainat.

Sadly, the decision by the Soomros to resist community efforts and not kill their daughter remains the exception to the rule in Pakistan. The sad reality is that more often than not, Pakistani families stand eagerly ready to murder their wives and daughters for any “damage” they may have done to the perceived “honor” of the family.

That “damage” can occur when a woman has the misfortune of being raped; marries a man of her own choosing; has any contact with an unrelated male; dates a Christian; openly flirts; or adopts Western ways of dress and behavior.

While in most cases husbands, fathers or brothers of the offending women in question commit the murders, in some cases, tribal councils decide that the woman should be killed and, as such, send men to execute her.

According to the United Nations, about 5,000 honor killings take place each year, most of which take place in Muslim countries in the Middle East and South Asia. For its part, Pakistan accounts for nearly 20 percent of those killings, nearly 1,000 a year, the most of any nation. Honor killing incidents in Pakistan reported in 2011 have included one girl burned alive, five girls dying from acid attacks, and four girls tortured to death.

Recent Pakistani honor killings have also included a 15-year old girl strangled to death by her uncle for suspicion of having sex with a Christian; a 21-year-old woman electrocuted to death by her family for secretly marrying a man they disapproved; and a Pakistani man shooting down six of his teenaged daughters on suspicion they were involved in relationships with older boys in the neighborhood.

In fact, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), 46% of all female murders in Pakistan are considered to be honor killings. As a spokeswoman for the Pakistani Women’s Rights organization, Aurat Foundation, said, “Incidents involving murder of women for honor have increased to alarming proportions.”

Of course, it should be noted that the number of honor killings are probably much higher than the numbers actually reported. Either most murders go unreported or family members of the victims simply report the girls as having committed suicide.

Part of the reason for Pakistan’s increase in honor killings, according to an HRCP spokesman, stems from the simple fact that “people are getting away with it,” noting that “only 20 percent of cases are brought to justice.”

That deplorable result may arise from Pakistan’s penal code which treats honor killings as murder, but also allows the family of the victim to pardon the murderer, who is usually a relative who committed the murder on the family’s behalf.

Yet, it’s certainly not too surprising that Pakistan’s judicial system has been slow to react to the horrific abuses being hurled at Pakistani women. The Executive Director of the Centre for Peace and Civil Society notes that domestic violence is not explicitly prohibited in Pakistani domestic law. In fact, Pakistan is the only South Asian country that has yet to pass a law on domestic violence.

So, given a lack of support from Pakistan’s judiciary and fearful of reprisals launched at them by family and community members, most Pakistani women do not report instances of abuse.

The result has been, according to a 2011 report on Pakistan by Amnesty International, an explosion of rampant “gender-based violence, including rape, forced marriages, honor killings, acid attacks and other forms of domestic violence.”

Not surprisingly, such high levels of violence have led to an estimated 90 percent of all Pakistani women having experienced some form of domestic abuse in their lives. As Gulnar Tabussum, spokeswoman for Women’s Action Forum said, “The status of women is low and also brutality is growing by the day.”

That sad fact was perhaps best expressed recently by a young Muslim man from Pakistan’s Kurdistan region, an area in which it has been reported that in September of 2011, 25 women alone were murdered under the guise of honor killings. According to the man, “Here is man’s world. If you are man, Kurdistan is a nice place, but if you are a woman, it is a tragedy.”

Sadly, for Kainat Soomro and millions of other Pakistani women and girls, life in all of Pakistan is one never-ending tragedy.

Frank Crimi

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/10/10/the-price-for-refusing-to-kill-your-gang-raped-child/

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

French Suburbs Becoming 'Separate Islamic Societies'

by Soeren Kern

France's decrepit city suburbs are becoming 'separate Islamic societies' cut off from the state, according to a major new study that examines the spread of Islam in France.

Muslim immigrants are increasingly rejecting French values and identity and instead are immersing themselves in Islam, according to the report, which also warns that Islamic Sharia law is rapidly displacing French civil law in many parts of suburban Paris.

The 2,200-page report, "Banlieue de la République" (Suburbs of the Republic), is the result of a one-year research effort into the four "i's" that comprise the heart of the debate over French national identity: Islam, immigration, identity and insecurity.

The report was commissioned by the influential French think tank L'Institut Montaigne, and directed by Gilles Kepel, a well-known political scientist and specialist in the Muslim world, together with five other French researchers.

The authors of the report show that France, which has between five and six million Muslims (France has the largest Muslim population in European Union), is on the brink of a major social explosion because of the failure of Muslims to integrate into French society.

The report also shows how the problem is being exacerbated by radical Muslim leaders who are promoting the social marginalization of Muslim immigrants in order to create a parallel Muslim society in France that is ruled by Sharia law.

The research was primarily carried out in Clichy-sous-Bois and Montfermeil, two suburbs in north-eastern Paris that were ground zero for Muslim riots in 2005. Clichy and Montfermeil form part of the district of Seine-Saint-Denis, which has one of the highest concentrations of Muslims in France.

Seine-Saint-Denis, which the report describes as a "wasteland of de-industrialization," is home to more than 600,000 Muslims (primarily from North and West Africa) out of a total population of 1.4 million.

"In some areas, a third of the population of the town does not hold French nationality, and many residents are drawn to an Islamic identity," the report says.

The study says that Muslim religious institutions and practices are increasingly displacing those of the state and the French Republic, which has a strong secular tradition.

For example, French schools, which are rigorously non-religious, have traditionally been seen as having the role of training and socializing young citizens in the secular values of the French Republic. However, many Muslim pupils refuse to integrate and often boycott school dinners if the food is not halal [religiously permitted in Islam], the report says.

The survey also points to differing social attitudes when it comes to marriage, for example. The report says that although most people in France do not object to mixed marriages, "in the suburbs we were surprised to find a very large proportion of Muslim respondents who said they were opposed to marriages with non-Muslims."

The researchers also looked into the reasons behind the 2005 riots, which they said had called into question modern France's founding myth, namely "the implicit shared belief that the nation was always able to integrate people."

Islamic values are replacing those of a French Republic which has failed to deliver on its promise of "equality," the report says, and the residents of the suburbs increasingly do not see themselves as French.

But the report adds that the French state is not primarily to blame for this and that many Muslim immigrants simply do not want to integrate into French society.

Although resentment in the poor suburbs has social roots (primarily a lack of jobs), the report says the rioters expressed frustration in a vocabulary that is "borrowed from Islam's semantic register."

The report points out that the suburbs of Clichy and Montfermeil have been at the center of one of France's biggest urban renewal projects. Many physical barriers to integration have been removed, and efforts have been made to plug the area into public transport networks and improve public safety.

Nevertheless, low educational achievement is endemic among the Muslim population. This, in turn, is turning France into a "divided nation." Most Muslim youth are "not employable." More than 20% of the residents of Clichy and Montfermeil leave school without a diploma (about 150,000 people per year), according to the report. The unemployment rate for Muslim youth in the suburbs of Paris is around 43%.

These drop-outs enter a cycle of social exclusion negatively shapes their lives and those of their children. Many Muslim youth turn to "deviant behaviors across the range of incivilities in a parallel economy in which drug trafficking is the most prominent."

"One is struck by the high birth rates among newly arrived families from the African Sahel. The mothers work long hours and their young children are under-supervised by the education system, thus threatening their social integration," the report says.

Islam is filling the void. The authors of the study are taken aback at the explosion of the halal market in France in recent years and also point out that the term halal has been greatly expanded in its definition. The survey question "do you respect the halal?" highlights the "complexity of different meanings of the word, which in its most restrictive sense means only the dimension of the forbidden food, but may also include a code of conduct, standards and an expression of dominant values, separating the 'halal' from 'haram,' the lawful or unlawful in many aspects of society."

The report also describes a proliferation of mosques and prayer rooms in the suburbs. The religious orientations of the mosques are heavily influenced by the national origin of the founder or president of a given mosque.

Islam in Clichy-Montfermeil is structured around two major poles: one pole involves the Tabligh ("spreading of Islam") movement which is focused on "re-socializing" Muslims on the lower rungs of the socio-economic ladder.

The Tabligh movement arrived in Clichy-Montfermeil in the 1980s in the midst of mass unemployment and drugs. Tabligh preachers built their social legitimacy by providing a moral regeneration of young people in distress around a rigorous practice of the precepts of Islam.

The other pole revolves around the figure of the Tunisian imam Dhaou Meskine, who was involved in the launch of Union of Islamic Organizations in France (UIOF). The UOIF, which represents the majority of the 2,100 registered mosques in France, is closely tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, which aims to extend Islamic law throughout France.

Meskine also participated in the formation of the Union of Muslim Associations (UAM93), a Muslim lobby group that aims to mobilize Muslims to elect candidates in local elections around Islamic issues. UAM93 has been pushing for the construction of a mega-mosque in Seine-Saint-Denis, although that project has run into difficulties due to a power struggle between Algerian, Moroccan and Turkish immigrants.

The report describes a "new sociology of Muslim believers" that is composed mainly of undereducated low-income immigrants who depend on financial support from Morocco or Turkey, countries that are pursuing their own objectives in France.

The authors of the study also point to a contradiction among Muslims who live in the suburbs: they do not want the French state to interfere in matters relating to Islam, but they also expect the state to improve their lot in life.

The report closes with a warning: "France's future depends on its ability to re-integrate the suburbs into the national project."

Soeren Kern is Senior Fellow for Transatlantic Relations at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group.

Source: http://www.hudson-ny.org/2487/french-suburbs-islamic-societies

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

Mufti of Syria Threatens to Activate Suicide Bombers in Europe and the U.S.

by MEMRI

To view this clip on MEMRI TV, visit http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/3142.htm.

Ahmad Badr Al-Din Hassoun: "The moment the first missile hits Syria, all the sons and daughters of Lebanon and Syria will set out to become martyrdom-seekers in Europe and on Palestinian soil. I say to all of Europe and to the U.S.: We will prepare martyrdom-seekers who are already among you, if you bomb Syria or Lebanon. From now on, it will be 'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, and he who dealt the first blow is more unjust,' and you are the ones who have done us an injustice.

"I say to every Arab and to every human being: Do not think that the people who will commit martyrdom in France, Britain, or the U.S., will be Arabs and Muslims. They will be a new Jules Jammal or a new Muhammad Al-Durrah. They will all be like the righteous [of the past]. I beg you not to come near our country." [...]

MEMRI (The Middle East Media Research Institute)

Source: http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/3142.htm.

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

Egypt: Destroying Churches, One at a Time

by Raymond Ibrahim

What clearer sign that Egypt is turning rabidly Islamist than the fact that hardly a few weeks go by without a church being destroyed, or without protesting Christians being attacked and slaughtered by the military?

The latest chaos in Egypt—where the military opened fire on unarmed Christians and repeatedly ran armored vehicles over them, killing dozens—originates in Edfu, a onetime tourist destination renowned for its pharaonic antiquities, but now known as the latest region to see a church destroyed by a Muslim mob.

This church attack is itself eye-opening as to the situation in Egypt. To sum, St. George Coptic church, built nearly a century ago, was so dilapidated that the local council and governor of Aswan approved renovating it, and signed off on the design.

It was not long before local Muslims began complaining, making various demands, including that the church be devoid of crosses and bells—even though the permit approved them—citing that "the Cross irritates Muslims and their children."

Coptic leaders had no choice but to acquiesce, "pointing to the fact that the church was rebuilt legally, and any concessions on the part of the church was done for the love for the country, which is passing through a difficult phase."

Acquiescence breeds more demands: Muslim leaders next insisted that the very dome of the church be removed—so that the building might not even resemble a church—and that it be referred to as a "hospitality home." Arguing that removal of the dome would likely collapse the church, the bishop refused.

The foreboding cries of "Allahu Akbar!" began: Muslims threatened to raze the church and build a mosque in its place; Copts were "forbidden to leave their homes or buy food until they remove the dome of St. George's Church"; many starved for weeks.

Then, after Friday prayers on Sept. 31, some three thousand Muslims rampaged the church, torched it, and demolished the dome; flames from the wreckage burned nearby Coptic homes, which were further ransacked by rioting Muslims.

This account of anti-church sentiment in Egypt offers several conclusions:

First, the obvious: animosity for churches, demands that they be left to crumble, demands to remove crosses and stifle bells, are an integral part of Islamic history and dogma. That church attacks in Egypt always occur on Friday, Islam's "holy day," and are always accompanied by religious cries of "Allahu Akbar!" should be evidence enough of the Islamist context of these attacks.

Because there was a lull in this animosity from the colonial era to just a few decades ago, most Westerners, deeming events closer to their time and space more representative of reality, incorrectly assume that church toleration is the rule, not the exception in Islamic history, which has more frequently been draconian to churches, and is back: "the Muslim Brotherhood announced immediately after the revolution that it is impossible to build any new church in Egypt, and churches which are demolished should never be rebuilt, as well as no crosses over churches or bells to be rung."

This is also why Muslim authorities are complacent, if not complicit. According to witnesses, security forces, which were present during the Edfu attack, "stood there watching." Worse, Edfu's Intelligence Unit chief was seen directing the mob destroying the church.

As for the governor of Aswan, he appeared on State TV and "denied any church being torched," calling it a "guest home" (a common tactic to excuse the destruction of churches). He even justified the incident by arguing that the church contractor made the building three meters higher than he permitted: "Copts made a mistake and had to be punished, and Muslims did nothing but set things right, end of story."

Equally telling is that perpetrators of church attacks are seldom if ever punished. Even if sometimes the most rabid church-destroying Muslims get "detained," it is usually for show, as they are released in days, hailed back home as heroes (this, too, goes back to Muslim dogma, which naturally sides with Muslims over infidels).

This year alone has seen the New Year church attack, which left 23 dead; the destruction of the ancient church of Sool, where Muslims "played soccer" with its sacred relics; the Imbaba attacks, where several churches were set aflame; and now Edfu, wherein, as usual "none of the attackers were arrested."

Indeed, three days after Edfu, Muslims attacked yet another church.

Aware that they are untouchable, at least when it comes to making infidel Christians miserable, anti-Christian Muslims have a simple strategy: destroy churches, even if one at a time, safe in the knowledge that, not only will they not be prosecuted, but Egypt's military and security apparatus will punish the infidel victims should they dare to protest.

Raymond Ibrahim, a widely published Islam-specialist, is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Source: http://www.meforum.org/3065/egypt-destroying-churches

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

It Isn’t Israel in Danger of Disappearing, It’s The People Who Think That Way

by Barry Rubin

“…never send to know for whom the bell tolls

It tolls for thee.”

–John Dunne

Rome, Italy

I’m standing on the edge of the Roman Forum, by the Arch of Titus. This is the marble structure built by the Empire to commemorate the capture of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple about 1941 years ago. Legionnaires are shown carrying off the Menorah and other items from the sanctuary. The inhabitants are sold into slavery, The Jews are finished.

Well, not really. Today, the great empire has long vanished and Israel is not just a living country but by every social, economic, and security standard a successful country.

In the late 1960s, more than 40 years ago, the Palestinian and Arab leaders were certain that Israel would not survive. The fact that they were completely wrong has not prevented a whole new rash of contemporary speculations.

The PLO view, shared by virtually all Arabs at the time, was very clearly defined. The two main points boil down to the following. First, Israel would not survive because there was no real basis for such a state and people. Second, the Arabs would destroy it using various strategies.

Here is the ultimate quote from Yasir Arafat in1968—that’s 43 years ago–on why this would work:

Terrorism would “create and maintain an atmosphere of strain and anxiety that will force the Zionists to realize that it is impossible for them to live in Israel….The Israelis have one great fear, the fear of casualties….”

The PLO’s attacks would “prevent immigration and encourage emigration….to destroy tourism, to prevent immigrants becoming attached to the land, to weaken the Israeli economy and to divert the greater part of it to security requirements.” This would “inevitably” prevent Israel’s consolidation and bring its disintegration. The final step would be “a quick blow by the regular armies at the right moment” to finish Israel off.

All of these things failed. More immigrants came than expected and were successfully integrated. People weren’t frightened into fleeing. Casualties were absorbed and limited. The country became economically successful and militarily victorious. Thus, today Israel is stronger—far stronger—than ever.

And who were the biggest losers in this conflict? Naturally, Israel has lost a great deal, especially in lives. But the biggest losers have been the Arabs who wasted resources, lost more lives, faced repeated humiliations, and ended up with dictatorship and stagnant societies. And they will be the biggest losers if they spend the next 60 years playing the same game.

And if Arab states that were relatively united and had a superpower sponsor couldn’t destroy Israel in 60 years how are they going to do so today? With Israel outpacing its neighbors on every index of social and economic development, with so much oil money spent without really advancing Arab societies, who has the advantage today?

Remember what happened in 1948. True, all the Arab states invaded the new state of Israel But they didn’t coordinate with each other and all wanted to grab territory for themselves. With Iran and Turkey all jostling for power and leadership today, the conflict and disorder is intensified.

Yet now there is a revival of the claim—sometimes among ill-informed well-wishers, more often among antagonistic haters—that Israel might not survive. This is based partly on wishful thinking, partly on ignorance. Underlying these factors, however, is a basic disbelief that Jews are a people and can be a state.

And that reflects a lack of knowledge—often among Western Jews themselves—about Jewish history as well as a naïve acceptance of anti-Israel propaganda, claims that have proven to be false for decades.

Actually, then, the shoe is on the other foot entirely from what is being claimed. It is not Israel’s existence that is threatened but that of its adversaries and in some ways of Western Europe, too.

Its enemy neighbors and near-neighbors are about to embark on a decades’-long horrifying series of civil wars: Islamists against Arab nationalists; Sunni against Shia Muslims; economic collapse; and much more. Syria is on the verge of an inter-communal bloodbath; Egypt faces not some bright new economic dawn but a terrible reckoning. At some point the oil will run out with much of that wealth squandered. Recent discoveries even suggest that Israel itself will be a rising exporter of petroleum and natural gas.

Periodically, some radical Muslim writes that if only each Muslim would kill one Jew then Israel would vanish. High hopes are held for nuclear weapons that Iran still doesn’t have. But such schemes never get off the ground. Indeed, it is Arab nationalism that is endangered with extinction under a wave of revolutionary Islamism. By leaving the path of pragmatism for that of doctrinaire Islamism, Turkey is likely to lose the success it enjoyed for so many decades.

There is not one regime in a Muslim-majority country that should feel confident about its future; not one such state whose continued existence can be taken for granted.

In contrast, there are only two ways Israel might perhaps disappear. First, it might happen if Arabs and Muslims dropped radicalism, ideology, and bickering to concentrate on technological and economic progress for 50 years, only then turning on Israel. That would require, for example, the Palestinians quickly dropping all of their rejectionism and demands to make a compromise agreement with Israel that they had no intention of keeping.

Yet quite the opposite is happening now. It is radicalism, not pragmatic development strategies that is in control. Besides, the problem is that a focus on material development and moderate democracy would erode Arab and Muslim tempers to the point that they would no longer want to engage in such a foolish and futile life-and-death struggle, which is why the Islamists reject that approach.

The other way Israel might be wiped off the map is if its leaders heeded the advice they are getting from the West. That’s the irony of the situation. Those stubborn, stiff-necked people are not going to doom themselves by implementing the mistaken ideas told to them by Western media, experts, intellectuals, and governments who claim such policies are the road to safety.

Part of the problem here is that all too many Western intellectuals no longer believe in fighting—or even sacrificing–for your country; patriotic pride or nationalism or religion; or even the nation-state itself. Consequently, while many Arabs and Muslims don’t believe Israel can exist because of contempt for Jews and belief in the superiority of their nations and religion, many Westerners now believe in the wickedness of their countries and religion and the unviability of the national model.

In thinking about Israel, both these opposite arguments amount to the same thing. Yet they tell more about those having these ideas than about Israel.

When a European cabinet minister says his country has no distinct culture and another urges the locals to be nice to Muslims so they will reciprocate after they take over; when a European country’s counterintelligence chief .tells me his country has no future, and a quartet of professors from another remark to me over cocktails that they believe their country is finished, is it Israel that is in danger of collapse?

Who’s really facing the abyss? That doesn’t mean destruction will come to Europe’s existing states and societies but it does mean they are more likely to go than Israel is. You want to talk about demographic threats? In Europe, the majority is often having children at half the rate needed for mere replacement of the existing native population..

Yet all of this also shows why Israel is the key to understanding today’s world. Israel’s survival shows that democratic societies can fight and defeat dictators and totalitarian ideologies, Western religions do have a continuing place in Western societies and nation-states are still a viable—perhaps the most viable—way to organize many political structures.

That’s precisely why so many are working so hard to demonize and discredit Israel. If people in the West understand what Israel is and what it is doing, they will comprehend the value of those approaches and values. And if they understand how Israel is lied about and mistreated they will comprehend much wider problems with the people, ideas, and institutions governing their own lives today.

Incidentally, do you know what the Roman Empire did with the Temple treasures? It melted them down, sold the gold, and used the money to build the Colisseum, where bloodshed distracted people from their material and spiritual deprivation. Somewhere in there is an analogy to the twenty-first century world.

Barry Rubin

Source: http://www.gloria-center.org/2011/10/it-isn%e2%80%99t-israel-in-danger-of-disappearing-it%e2%80%99s-the-people-who-think-that-way/

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

Defeating Islamism at Home

by Amil Imani

President Obama keeps saying that we are not at war with Islam. I will concede that we are not at war with Muslims in general -- but we are certainly at war with Islamists, who pick and choose selectively from the Quran to promote their hideous agenda. While the Islamists use the parts of their holy book that suits them, we, defenders of liberty, adhere to every word of the Bill of Rights and the United States Constitution in the battle against Islamic tyranny.

Those Muslims who are citizens are entitled to live here and enjoy the beneficence of this great country to the fullest of a citizen's rights. At the same time, we have every right and even a responsibility to be concerned about the danger of Islamism to our way of life -- a way of free people to live peacefully and respectfully with one another without in any way posing threats to the fundamental ideals that birthed this nation and have sustained it to the present.

Muslims are not our enemies. Islamism is. Below are some specific suggestions on how to defeat Islamism at home.

Don't Kill the Patient; Eradicate the Disease

A Muslim is the patient. Islamism is the disease. The overwhelming majority of Muslims contract the virus of Islamism at an early age, when they are most vulnerable. Once this virus takes hold, it completely destroys the individual's cognitive immune system, or else it makes it most difficult for the person to see the pathology. Islamism is jihadist and intolerant of the "other," and it is rooted in the most base beliefs and practices.

Defeat Creeping Sharia Law

I cannot overstate the dangers of sharia law and its insidious creeping nature. Sharia law is a monumental threat to our laws, the grantors of our liberty. No effort should be spared in denying the stone-age misogynistic body of Islamic laws from invading our legal system.

In infidel lands, the slow-acting yet deadly cancer of invasive sharia is wedged into laws by powerful moneyed Islamic organizations coaxing and greasing the politicians to issue ordinances or legislate seemingly harmless provisions. Islamic organizations and clerics who have a vested interest begin their sharia campaign by asking for an ordinance or legislation for seemingly inconsequential things, such as requiring stores to clearly designate and completely separate halal food and meat from the non-halal. What is important here is that ordinances and laws like this are the beginning of getting the government into the business of enforcing sharia law. Before long, there will be no way out.

Islamism is a hydra, and every head of this deadly creature, no matter how small, must be severed and the wound cauterized. If not, before long, we end up in the same irreversible and horrible mess that countries such as Great Britain find themselves in, with full sharia law and sharia courts.

Sharia law is also creeping in through the courts. Sadly, some judges are just as corruptible as politicians and are amenable to powerful Islamic influences for handling cases before them. The center for security policy evaluated "50 appellate court cases from 23 states that involve conflicts between sharia (Islamic law) and American state law. The analysis finds that sharia has been applied or formally recognized in state court decisions, in conflict with the Constitution and state public policy."

The First Amendment states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." In contrast to many countries, this nation of all nations, the United States of America, has always adhered to the separation of religion and the state. Our national, state, and local governments, as well as the judiciary, should neither support nor persecute any religion. Judges in particular should completely refrain from legislating sharia from the bench.

Don't Do as Islamists Do

Don't vilify, persecute, or even harass Muslims. They are entitled to be treated fairly, although they sometimes don't feel that they should also treat non-Muslims fairly. Believers in liberty want the God-given gift for all of mankind and not just for themselves. We want Muslims to be free also, without threatening our liberty. First and foremost, we must do what we can to empower them to exercise their gift of reason and free will and cast off the shackles of their radical beliefs. We must remain true to our Pledge of Allegiance: "liberty and justice for all."

Don't Lie about Islam

Lying and dissimulation is taqiyya, ordained and practiced by Muhammad, for use by Muslims only when dealing with infidels. Muslims have the patent and copyright on this shameful practice, and the non-Muslims have no need for it. You use lies when you aim to deceive, when you are ashamed of something, or when you wish to distort things. Free people have no need for the abhorrent practice. The contents of the Quran that feed Islamism are all the support you need.

Be Firm but Kind

Do honor to your conviction, a conviction worth defending with unshakeable resolve, yet with kindness. Avoid belligerence when challenging Muslims. Sincere kindness works much better than hostile confrontation. Attacking a person's belief can often backfire and serve further to confirm him in the ideology. Challenging individual Muslims with an open mind and heart is much more likely to succeed in making them rethink the pathological belief and hopefully discard it.

Don't Believe the Sanitized Versions of Islam

Paid mercenaries, Islamic apologists, and many others trip over each other, overwhelming us with distorted and highly sanitized versions of Islam. The distortions and lies are frequently so blatant that we take them as truth, particularly when our own presidents have thrown them at us. Islam is a religion of peace; they keep telling us. Yet it is not, and it has never been. Study the facts. Read the Quran, study the Sunna and Hadith from Islam's own historical documents, and find out for yourself why Islam is not what its apologists claim. You need nothing more. Their very own sacred book and other records are your best proof to reason with Muslims and help them leave the fold.

Drain Islam's Source of Funds

Money is the lifeblood of every enterprise. Islamist organizations get much of their financial life force from oil sold to the kafir world by oil-bloated Islamic countries. We, the kafir, are literally financing our own destruction by heedlessly continuing our addiction to foreign oil. We are forced to buy oil from our very enemies, because oil is oil. If we boycott the oil from the Persian Gulf area, then we have to buy it elsewhere unless we buckle down and do what we must to become self-sufficient in energy. We do indeed have the resources to become energy self-sufficient, but we don't seem to have the will.

Challenge Professors, Preachers, and Individual Muslims

Don't get cowed by professors. Challenge them to document their claims, and provide them with your own evidence that clearly falsifies this propaganda. Visit mosques and Islamic centers and do the same without being discourteous or belligerent. Do the same with Muslims you know or meet. Many of these people are very hard nuts to crack. Yet we must crack them if we're to slowly wipe out Islamism from our homeland.

Define and Defend Freedom of Religion

Freedom of religion is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it grants the diverse people of this nation the right to worship according to their beliefs. On the other, it becomes a license for Islamist clerics to preach hate about the non-Muslims and indoctrinate their young in the intolerant, violent, and jihadist doctrine of Islamism. Thousands of mosques, Islamic centers, and university academic departments dot the land with thousands of preachers, politicians, and paid professors pushing Islam. We must make it a criminal offense to preach hate under the rubric of religion or to misrepresent and lie about religion.

Disturbingly, powerful Muslim organizations are working hard to enact legislation that would make any honest criticism of Islam a criminal offense. They aim to muzzle us from speaking the truth about Islam. Speaking this truth, they claim, is a hate crime and should be punished.

Islamic clerics have a huge vested interest in Islam. They make a very good living with lifetime job security. They do all they can to keep the charade going. And so do all the others who sing the praises of Islam. We must make sure that they do not practice dispensing misinformation and disinformation, that they do not fan the fire of hatred for non-Muslims, while succeeding in preventing us from exposing Islam's true nature.

Islam is a religion of peace? That's not the way it's operating in Muslim lands, with the daily free-for-all mayhem and massacres. If Muslims want to have a place in the home of the free, they must -- they absolutely must -- live by the rules of this nation that welcomed them and abandon the attempts at subverting our cherished way of life and replacing it with theirs.

Retaining What Is Human

We believe that the Creator has endowed human beings, both men and women equally, with the gift of intellect. We believe that women are every bit coequals of men in every sphere of life, and we reject Islam's specific dogma that a woman is worth one half of a man. We also believe that all humans are endowed with a measure of freedom to think, choose, and act. As individuals, we are responsible for the manner in which we use these resources -- for the good or for the bad.

Islamic doctrine is diametrically in conflict with the above belief. According to Islam, the individual is a mere choice-less vessel in the hand of the all-everything, Allah. Islam strips the individual of self-reliance and replaces it with unconditional surrender to Allah. Not a leaf falls without Allah so decreeing, asserts the Quran unequivocally. "Insha'Allah" (Allah decreeing, Allah ordaining, or Allah willing) precedes every commitment of the faithful Muslim. It is all up to Allah, as Muslims are led to believe. No wonder the Islamic world is in such a chronic state of backwardness. Muslims sit around waiting for Allah to decree and even do everything. It is a true belief of nihilism.

Resist Multiculturalism

For a variety of reasons, during the past decades, Western societies opened their doors to a flood of Muslims from Islamic lands. In so doing, they aimed to make the newcomers feel at home, retain their way of life, and live in harmony with the indigenous population. But good-heartedness not only failed, but it boomeranged and severely hurt the welcoming hosts.

It is wonderful to be charitable. It is great to be good-hearted. But being charitable to and accommodating evil can empower evil to tear out your good heart.

Islamism and jihadism are on the rampage, often to the detriment of Muslims themselves. We don't want to repeat European mistakes. We want no multicultural fantasy to create a nightmare reality. Muslims who live here must become part and parcel of America, just like all the other diverse people who have come to this wonderful land. Muslims must abide by and honor the same values and laws that have made this nation a beneficent refuge for all people.

Challenge All Politicians

The naked truth is that politicians are paid agents. They do and say what gets them elected and keeps them in office. As a voter and fund contributor, you are important. Let your representatives know how you feel and how you are going to treat them if they sell their services and become Islam enablers. Hold them accountable at all levels of government, from the local city council to the occupier of the White House.

Conclusion

In short, we have a great country, troubled by numerous challenges. We can ill afford to become complacent or disheartened. If we band together in a common cause with devotion to our nation's principles and values, we can meet and defeat any threat of any type or magnitude. Past generations of Americans have always done so successfully, and this generation of Americans must do no less.

Amil Imani

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/10/defeating_islamism_at_home.html

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

Israel's Jewish Character Is Her Truth; the Rest Is Just Commentary

by Matthew M. Hausman

A bill was introduced in the Knesset last year to amend Israel's Oath of Allegiance to require all new immigrants to swear their loyalty to a "Jewish and democratic" state. The bill does not represent any great ideological shift, but rather is consistent with Israel's Declaration of Independence and Basic Laws, which refer to her as a Jewish state multiple times and have the force and effect of a constitutional mandate.

Nevertheless, the proposed amendment has been roundly condemned by the political left and liberal press in Israel and abroad, with many commentators opining that it is incompatible with democratic principles. This assertion is nonsense, however, and serves only to camouflage the post-Zionist, anti-Zionist, or anti-Israel sentiments of the proposal's critics. It also betrays an ignorance regarding the fundamentals of democratic governance. In no way does official acknowledgment of Israel's Jewish character compromise the individual rights and liberties of Israeli citizens, nor does it inhibit the electoral process or the workings of her representative government.

The real issue for Israel's critics is not the wording of the oath of allegiance. Any sovereign nation has the right to require new citizens to pledge allegiance to its national values. Indeed, naturalized immigrants in the United States are required to swear an oath to the Constitution as if it were holy writ. No, the real cause for progressive discomfort is Israel's perceived audacity in proclaiming her essence as a Jewish state premised on Jewish values. None of Israel's detractors would think to condemn Arab-Muslim countries that base their governments on Islamic law, or Jordan for enacting Nazi-like laws prohibiting Jews from citizenship (not that Jews would desire to be Jordanian citizens), or the Saudis for prohibiting Jews entry to the Arabian peninsula, or the Palestinian Authority for openly inciting anti-Semitic hatred and supporting terrorism, calling for Israel's destruction, and seeking to create a state through ethnic cleansing.

On the contrary, liberal commentators and pundits are conspicuously silent in the face of persistent Arab-Muslim rejectionism, racism, and anti-Semitism, and they compound the perfidy of their silence by engaging in a secular form of taqiyya in order to disparage Jewish historical claims, and thereby Israel's legitimacy. The pervasive anti-Israel bias of progressive political society is reflected in its disingenuous defense of sharia as a benign expression of Islamic faith, its tendency to minimize the risk of Islamist terrorism comparatively by claiming that Christian extremism actually poses a greater threat to democracy, and its assurances of Arab-Muslim moderation despite the Palestinians' stated goals of destroying Israel and exterminating her people.

Progressive criticism of the amendment to Israel's oath does not arise out of any genuine concern for democratic values. Rather, it is fueled by the desire to delegitimize Israel by impugning her historical foundations, particularly as they are expressed in traditional Jewish nationalism and modern political Zionism. The pathological urge to belittle Jewish historical rights is, after all, the true motivation for the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement and coordinated international efforts to cast Israel as a pariah state. That is the crux of progressive displeasure with the proposed change to the citizenship oath, and this becomes painfully clear when the bogus threat to democracy is fully parsed and deconstructed.

The most obvious red herring is the claim that requiring citizens to acknowledge Israel's Jewish character and Zionist roots would be inconsistent with American democratic ideals. The comparison is inapposite because the American system is the product of convergent historical forces unique to the American experience. American-style democracy exists only in the United States and is distinct from political systems found anywhere else -- including Israel. However, to the extent that the United States is held up as the standard by which all other political systems and institutions are measured, it would be fair to question what really constitutes American democracy, and whether today's political reality reflects the original intent of the founding fathers.

The truth is that America's founders never set out to create a direct democracy, but instead sought to establish a republic based on constitutional principles. This intent was clearly articulated in Article 4, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution, which states: "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican form of Government." Though the distinctions are blurred today, there is a world of difference between republican and democratic forms of government. A constitutional republic is a representative government based on constitutional principles, whether written or unwritten, in which federal power is limited and divided among executive, legislative, and judicial branches and wherein individual rights and liberties are held to be inviolate. This differs from a direct or pure democracy, wherein citizens have a direct hand in governmental decision-making, and in which individual rights and liberties give way to majority rule. It also differs from representative democracy in which electoral constituents choose leaders to govern and legislate in their interest, at least theoretically.

The founding fathers envisioned a system in which individual rights and liberties would be paramount, states' rights would be respected, and federal powers would be limited. Thus, they were very suspicious of pure democracy, in which personal freedoms could be sacrificed for the perceived common good and in which the determination of community standards could be influenced or dictated by mob rule. This distrust was best summed up by Benjamin Franklin who, when asked what form of government the Constitution established, replied: "A Republic, if you can keep it." Consistent with Franklin's reservations, James Madison in the Federalist Papers expressed the following view regarding democracy:

[D]emocracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would at the same time be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions. (Federalist No. 10, November 22, 1787.)

These sentiments were echoed consistently by many early American luminaries, including Alexander Hamilton and John Jay.

The American system has evolved since its early days into a constitutional democracy that juggles inalienable rights, personal liberties, and communal obligations, and which features an electoral system that combines direct elections and indirect representational voting. While citizens elect their local and federal representatives directly, they choose their president through an electoral college. The popular vote determines only the electors, who in turn formally select the president. Voter input is far more attenuated in the legislative arena, in which elected representatives write and enact legislation. Although those elected are supposed to represent the interests of their constituents, they often fail to do so. Thus, the American system is not a pure democracy, but rather a hybrid incorporating direct and indirect elections, representational legislation, and constitutionally protected rights and obligations.

Given that the American system combines democratic and republican elements but is neither a pure democracy nor a classic republic, it's not always clear what its advocates mean when they extol the virtues of American democracy over any other scheme of government. Is it the elevation of individual rights and liberties (which is actually a hallmark of the republican form of government), or is it the right to select leaders and legislators through free and fair elections? And if certain rights are held to be inalienable regardless of the common good, are the self-appointed guardians of Western democracy really advancing democratic ideals at all, or instead the idealized trappings of those ideals, or perhaps purely republican principles?

These nagging questions come into sharper focus when other kinds of democracies are considered. England, for example, has a constitutional monarchy that incorporates many democratic elements, yet it differs fundamentally from the American system. Its constitution is not written, but instead is derived from various laws, principles, and documents said to form the basis of its political society. This "unwritten constitution" includes the Magna Carta, which is premised upon, among other things, the institution of the monarchy and the presumption of its divine agency. Such foundations, however, seem inherently inconsistent with democratic government.

Although England has a parliamentary legislative system, its Parliament was not always an entirely democratic institution. Whereas the House of Commons is selected through an electoral process, the House of Lords is a purely hereditary body immune to the vicissitudes of electoral politics. Though the power of the House of Lords has been diminished nearly to irrelevance, its continued existence as an institutional symbol is as inconsistent with democratic and constitutional ideals as is the concept of a divinely ordained monarchy. And yet, despite the incorporation of such imperious elements in its governmental structure, England's democratic credentials are rarely impugned, and certainly not with the same venom often reserved for Israel.

And what of democracy in the Muslim world? Some Muslim countries, such as Malaysia, are hailed as democratic simply because they have nominal constitutions and parliamentary bodies. However, individual rights and freedoms are generally subservient to Islamic law as applied by Sharia courts, and there is no separation between religion and state. Although Malaysia's national constitution ostensibly guarantees religious freedom, for example, it also proclaims Islam to be the national religion, and requires citizens to be Muslim in order to be considered ethnic Malaysians. Moreover, those who no longer consider themselves "believers" are not permitted simply to leave Islam. Only one Malaysian state officially permits conversion out of Islam, and only then after an exhausting application process that requires a year of counseling with a mufti followed by court approval, which is usually denied. Other states consider apostasy a crime that is punishable under sharia.

Clearly, governmental restrictions on matters of faith are inconsistent with either constitutional republics or democracies, but instead are more characteristic of totalitarian or theocratic regimes. Despite the severe restrictions they impose on individual rights and freedoms, so-called Islamic democracies do not rouse the ire of those liberal watchdogs who feel compelled to criticize every perceived Israeli assault on democratic principles. Ironically, the political left tends to empathize with Islamic states despite their lack of respect for the rights, liberties, and institutions that are the touchstones of liberal democracy.

In evaluating whether expressions of Zionism or official acknowledgments of Jewish values are compatible with democracy, it is first necessary to determine which political ideals provide the yardstick for measurement. Clearly, pure democracy is unattainable because it is predicated upon direct majority rule, which is subject to no checks and balances and can lead to the suppression of minority rights by a dictatorial majority. The United States is not a pure democracy, but rather seems to define itself by its emphasis on constitutional rights and liberties, although it has in the past restricted the same in order to protect national security or to preserve the public order.

Nevertheless, if individual rights and liberties are considered the cornerstones of the American system, then Israel measures up well. Israel has an open electoral system in which Arabs and Jews vote, run for office, and participate in government; and in certain ways, her system is perhaps even more open than that in the United States. Indeed, the Knesset has Arab members who voice anti-government and anti-Jewish rhetoric, openly sympathize with Israel's enemies, and engage in seditious conduct that would likely constitute treason in the United States. It is difficult to imagine U.S. congressmen advocating the destruction of the United Sates from the floors of the Senate or House of Representatives, particularly in light of the oath of office obligating them to uphold and defend the Constitution. Absurdly, however, such conduct by Arab MKs seems to be tolerated in Israel.

In addition, Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel generally live where they want and derive benefit from the same government policies and programs regarding public health, welfare, and infrastructure. Because Israeli Arabs are exempt from military service, however, they actually receive for free the same benefits for which Israeli Jews must pay with their national service. Thus, they receive identical benefits without shouldering any national responsibility. Although Arab advocates claim that they are second-class citizens in Israeli society, there is no dispute that Israeli Arabs enjoy the highest standard of living, the lowest infant mortality rates, the longest life expectancy, and the highest literacy rates of any Arab population in the Mideast.

There is likewise no dispute that Israel guarantees free speech, freedom of religion, and equal rights for women even though she has been in a constant state of war since 1948. It would certainly be easier for Israel -- and perhaps wiser -- to curtail those rights that compromise her national security. Certainly, other countries have done so, including the United States, where restrictions have been imposed on the right to speak, protest, and assemble in order to preserve national security during wartime. The U.S. government has also enacted seemingly draconian anti-sedition statutes, such as the Alien Enemies Act, which permits the government -- with little or no due process -- to deport resident aliens whose native countries are at war with the United States. From the days of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson to those of Abraham Lincoln and later Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, far more people have been arrested and jailed for seditious speech and suspected enemy allegiances in the United States than have ever been detained in Israel.

Judged against this historical backdrop, those gadflies who claim that adding a few simple words to Israel's oath of citizenship will somehow bring down democracy are disingenuous and hypocritical. One wonders how they can be so consumed with Israel's alleged indiscretions and yet ignore the totalitarian and theocratic tendencies of the nations comprising the Arab-Muslim world.

Lost in all the biased discourse is the simple truth meant to be conveyed by the proposed change to the oath, which is that Israel's existence is justified precisely because she is a Jewish nation in the ancient homeland. No other sovereign nation existed in this land from the time of the Dispersion to the reestablishment of the modern state. Accordingly, Israel's existence is not predicated on whether she is democratic or republican, liberal or conservative. Rather, Israel exists as the homeland of an ancient people that maintained its national identity, religious integrity and connection to its land throughout the millennia. This connection is corporeal as well as spiritual and remains unbroken to the present day.

Regardless of the technical form of her government, Israel is first and foremost a Jewish nation. She is not a melting pot, but rather a patchwork where individual and minority rights are respected as long as they do not threaten her security and continuity as a Jewish state. No other country is expected to court national suicide by sacrificing its needs and ideals to placate hostile critics and enemies who are opposed to its very existence. Therefore, Israel must not indulge those who denigrate her existence and call for her destruction. Instead, she should rejoice in her history as the homeland of the Jewish People and her mission as their national refuge. When all is said and done, Israel's Jewish character is her truth, and the rest is just commentary.

Matthew M. Hausman is an attorney in New York State.

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/10/israels_jewish_character_is_her_truth_the_rest_is_just_commentary.html

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

Iran Scooping Up African Uranium

by Anna Mahjar-Barducci

The blossoming of the Arab Spring was not a good news for Iran. Teheran finds itself confronting the possibility of losing important allies, such as Syria, and of losing the chance to become a hegemonic power in the region. Iran is therefore looking around the globe for new partners that could politically and economically support the regime. The Iranian government has made significant strides in Latin America, helping to embolden the anti-American bloc of Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Cuba and Nicaragua, while gaining sympathies in countries such as Brazil and Argentina.

Teheran, to secure support, is now trying to diversify its allies, and Africa represents the latest continent to be conquered. As the United States has been ignoring these developments, these Iranian activities pursued by Iranian officials in Africa -- including a coordinated diplomatic, economic, and military strategy in African countries such as Sudan, Zimbabwe and Eritrea -- have been growing unchecked.

While Iran has launched an impressive number of development projects in Africa, business is never separated from ideology. This is particularly clear in Sudan where, according to Sanam Vakil, an expert on Iran at the Johns Hopkins University, "Iran has been successful in strengthening ties with Sudan because the two countries have an ideological link. They are standing up against the West and imperialism."

If left unchecked, Iran's thrust into Africa might do at least as much damage as it is doing in Latin America. Iran is not exactly an altruistic power: its aid is always conditional, and its conditions always run against the West. At the very least, new allies in Africa can provide support in international forums for Iran;s nuclear weapons research program and in circumventing UN sanctions. In a darker scenario, Iran might use these new-found friends to launch terror attacks against Western interests.

If the US continues to ignore Iran's silent and patient growing global ambitions, particularly in Africa and Latin America, Teheran will, in the long run, have the upper hand. On one side, Iran will be able to threaten the US from Latin America, on the other side, Iran will have a strong foothold in Europe's backdoor: Africa.

Sudan

After participating in the 66th United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York, Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, went for a long official visit to Sudan to further strengthen relations there.. According to the Agence France Presse, Ahmadinejad said during the visit that Iran and Sudan were standing together as "defenders of Islam" in the face of pressure from the West: "Iran and Sudan will stand together as defenders of the Islamic world and the independence of the region," Ahmadinejad maintained, adding that "both countries are facing pressure from the colonialists, who want to impose things that affect our people negatively. They are trying to apply pressure on independent states because they do not want them to be strong."

Iran and Sudan are both facing international sanctions, Iran because of its nuclear program, and Sudan because of its crimes against humanity in Darfur. The media outlet Sudan Tribune reports that in a speech delivered before a crowd of youths in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, Ahmadinejad criticized the United States and Europe for taking the riches of the black continent: "They stole the riches of Africa," he said. "Despite this wealth, we see poverty and deprivation."

Fars News wrote that Ahmadinejad described the two countries' ties as "brotherly, deep and stable," and went on to note that, "[h]aving a deep and shared understanding of the current historical juncture and developments, the two countries are seeking to increase their cooperation at all levels and without any restrictions." The Sudanese President, Omar al-Bashir, for his part, underlined the significance of the relations between Iran and Sudan, and stated that his "country, that owns rich natural resources, has opened all ways of cooperation to Iran so that the two countries can benefit from these resources in the interest of their nations and the entire Islamic Ummah [Nation of Islam] through partnership and joint cooperation."The Sudanese president also stated that, "Sudan will defend the Iranian nation's nuclear rights in all circles."

Zimbabwe

In February 2011, the Associated Press noted that according to an intelligence report, Iran is expanding its covert global search "for the uranium it needs for its nuclear activities, and a key focus is Zimbabwe." A month later, during a visit to Teheran, Zimbabwe's Foreign Minister, Simbarashe Mumbengegwi, said his country is willing to cooperate with Iran on uranium mining. "Zimbabwe has rich uranium reserves," he said, "but is faced with a shortage of funds and does not possess the technical knowledge and equipment needed for extracting rich uranium ore […] If we can work together on uranium mining, it will improve the economic situation of both countries."

In April, the Sunday Telegraph reported that Iran had struck a "secret deal with Zimbabwe to mine its untapped uranium reserves in a move to secure raw material for its steadily expanding nuclear program." The British paper explained that "in return for supplying oil, which Zimbabwe desperately needs to keep its faltering economy moving, Iran has been promised access to potentially huge deposits of uranium ore – which can be converted into the basic fuel for nuclear power or enriched to make a nuclear bomb."

Mauritania

Before leaving for the UN meeting in New York. Ahmadinejad stopped in Mauritania, where he discussed the latest developments in the Middle East and North Africa, and emphasized the "necessity of establishing an international system based on justice and respect for the rights of all nations." He also stated that although Mauritania is rich in natural resources, Western countries "have exploited their national assets and imposed poverty." Mauritania's president announced his country's support, according to Iran's Press TV, for Tehran's nuclear program.

Eritrea

As Eritrean President Isayas Afewerki's dictatorship has transformed the country into a center of tyranny and despair, the Eritrean opposition media, Asmarino, noted that Iranian forces are stationed in the Red Sea Port of Assab, where they could be of serious danger to Israel. The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) had also reported, as early as 2008, that "Eritrea has granted Iran total control of the Red Sea port of Assab," adding that Iranian submarines "deployed troops, weapons and long-range missiles... under the pretext of defending the local oil refinery." Other media outlets have also stated that Eritrea was hosting military bases for the Iranian Revolutionary guards. Radio France Internationale (RFI) remarked that "Iran has not chosen the port of Assab randomly. In case of a conflict with the West over the nuclear question, Tehran would be in a position to carry out a 'maritime jihad'."

Future visits

Iranian First Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi announced that in mid-November he will visit Kenya and Tanzania. Rahimi recently visited Cuba and Ecuador in the framework of Iran's policy of strengthening relations with Latin America. Now, it is Africa's turn.

Iran is already an observing member of the African Union (AU); as reported by Fars News, Teheran is considered one of the AU's strategic partners and is believed to have as a priority the promotion of its economic and political ties with African states.

Kenya's government stated that is urging Iranian investments.Iran's interest in Kenya, however, goes in other directions. The Ahlul Bayt News Agency wrote that the Kenyan Shia cleric, Morteza Morteza, said that "the number of Shia Muslims has sharply increased, and a lot of Kenyans became familiar with this honorable school of thought."

In the meantime, in Teheran, the Iranian Speaker of the Palriament, Ali Larijani, met with former Tanzanian former president, Ali Hassan Mwinyi, and with the Speaker of the Tanzanian House of Representative, Pandu Ameir Kificho. The two Tanzanian politicians had gone to Iran to attend the Fifth International Conference on the Palestinian Intifada. On that occasion, Larijani maintained that the development of relations with Africa was one of Iran's priorities.

Anna Mahjar-Barducci

Source: http://www.hudson-ny.org/2478/iran-africa-uranium

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

Palestinians' Shoe-Throwing Extortion

by Khaled Abu Toameh

American diplomats who arrived in Ramallah this week were greeted by angry Palestinian protesters who shouted anti-US slogans and hurled shoes -- the Palestinian Authority claims it was only one pair of shoes -- at their armored vehicles.

The message that the Palestinian Authority is hoping to send through this message to the Americans and others: If you do not endorse our position and if you cut off financial aid, we will turn against you. In one word, it is called extortion.

The problem is not so much with the diplomats as with their governments that allow themselves to be exposed to this extortion time and again. Apparently they like being blackmailed. Instead of demanding changes in behavior, then paying only after the changes have been successfully completed, the governments always seem to pay up front with no demands, and then look surprised when there are no changes and each time the ransom demand goes up.

The US diplomats came to Ramallah to hold a reception in honor of Palestinian partner organizations and US Government exchange program alumni. The American diplomats who were targeted this week were naive enough to think that Palestinians in Ramallah would welcome them with roses and a red carpet.

If anything, this incident shows that US government officials have not been reading the writing on the wall -- namely that the US is viewed by many Palestinians as an enemy, mainly because of its support for Israel. In this specific case, the writing was so big that most Palestinian journalists knew in advance about the planned anti-US protest outside the restaurant.

Scores of Palestinian protesters who gathered outside the Snowbar Restaurant where the reception was being held hurled abuse also at Palestinian journalists who had been invited to the event, urging them to boycott it in protest against the "hostile" policy of the US Administration, and to let the diplomats know that unless their demands were met, there would be more shoe-throwing..

The incident is an indication of growing anti-US sentiments among Palestinians following the US Administration's opposition to Mahmoud Abbas's unilateral statehood bid at the UN and Congress's decision to block financial aid to the Palestinians.

The humiliating shoe-throwing incident came as no surprise in wake of the Palestinian Authority's increased condemnation of President Barack Obama and his administration.

In recent weeks, Palestinian Authority officials have been encouraging Palestinians to stage anti-US demonstrations and rallies to condemn Washington's "bias" in favor of Israel.

Palestinian Authority media outlets, including some that had benefited from US and EU financial aid and training, have also been taking part in the incitement against Washington's policies.

Following the incident in Ramallah, Palestinian Authority officials echoed this message when they "warned" that there was growing resentment among Palestinians in particular and Arabs in general over the Obama Administration's refusal to endorse the Palestinian position and abandon its continued support for Israel.

The officials also pointed out that many Palestinians were angry and worried because of reports that Congress was blocking financial aid to the Palestinians. "Thousands of people are about to lose their jobs, especially those who have been working with USAID-financed projects," complained one official. "We understand the frustration of our people with the US Administration and there is nothing we, as the Palestinian Authority, could do about it."

Moreover, a campaign launched on Facebook by Palestinian political activists days before the event urged Palestinian invitees to boycott the reception and called for a demonstration to condemn the US. Obviously, the US diplomats either did not know about the Facebook campaign or chose to ignore it out of a conviction that they would not be attacked because they were coming to help Palestinians.

What the Americans do not understand is that all the money in the world will not help them win the hearts and minds of a majority of Arabs and Muslims. True, the money does have a short-term moderating effect on the Palestinians. But once Washington says what is considered the wrong thing, as the was the case with the statehood bid, or threatens to suspend financial aid, it should expect more shoes to fly in the face of US diplomats.

Khaled Abu Toameh

Source: http://www.hudson-ny.org/2483/palestinians-shoe-throwing-extortion

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

Iranian E-Book: 'The Holocaust – The Jews' Greatest Lie'

by Y. Mansharof & A. Savyon

For years, the Iranian regime has used Holocaust denial as a key means of challenging the establishment of the State of Israel, thereby denying its right to exist. The regime has promoted this policy in statements by its senior officials, by enlisting government media organs, and through a range of web-based activities. For example, at a 2009 conference in Tehran in support of the Palestinians, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei linked these two issues by saying that "the Zionists occupied Palestine under the pretext of the Holocaust," and complained that the Western governments and the Western and Zionist media tolerated no questions about the truth of the Holocaust: "The intolerance shown by the Western and Zionist media and pro-Zionist governments toward even the mere posing of any question concerning the Holocaust — which served as an excuse for the usurpation of Palestine — and research on the topic, is one of the signs of [the West's] nervousness and uncertainty."

At the forefront of Iranian and worldwide Holocaust denial as a means of delegitimizing Israel stands Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who said in January 2009 that "breaking the padlock of the Holocaust and reexamining it will be tantamount to cutting the vital arteries of the Zionist regime." Similarly, in an August 26, 2011 speech in Tehran on the occasion of Qods Day, he declared that "the Holocaust is one of the greatest lies" ever told. In an interview with Portuguese RTP television in early September 2011, Ahmadinejad once again challenged the Holocaust, saying that "if the Holocaust happened at all, it happened in Europe; thus, for the Palestinians to pay the price for it is unjustified." He added that the Holocaust was used as a "political game by the imperialists to control the region."

Other prominent figures in the Iranian regime who have been party to this Holocaust denial policy include Hossein Shariatmadari, editor of the Iranian daily Kayhan and an associate of Khamenei, who said, "The Holocaust, or the slaughter of Jews during World War II by German Nazis, is a myth and a contrived story."

In an article published by the Iranian news agency Fars on October 1, 2011, Foreign Ministry official Mohammad Hassan Ghadiri Abyane, formerly Iran's ambassador to Austria and Mexico, said that a Red Cross official in Mexico had told him that "the total number of those killed in the Nazi detention camps... was 200,000, and most of them were not Jews.' Abyane added he had asked the Red Cross official to publish this information, but the latter had refused on the grounds that it was classified. Abyane urged Iran and other countries, as well as international organizations, to pressure the Red Cross to publish the names of those killed in the Nazi detention camps, in order to refute the Zionists' "false claims" about the killing of six million Jews.

The Iranian regime harnesses the country's media organs for propagating Holocaust denial, for example through the production of independent films on the topic, and provides a forum to Holocaust deniers from the Arab world and the West. In addition, the regime permits online activity aimed at disseminating Holocaust denial, for instance by the website Holocartoons.com and the website of the World War II Society (formerly known as The Adolf Hitler Society), which publish books on the topic.

To read the full report, visit http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/5705.htm.

Y. Mansharof & A. Savyon

Source: http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/5705.htm

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