US Aid to Israel’s Enemies

by David Meir-Levi

In a previous article, this writer initiated an inquiry into the topic of US aid to Israel. As adumbrated there, it is clear that the USA and Israel enjoy a special relationship, a tight alliance based on more than mere political expediency. The USA gives Israel political support and c. $3 billion per year, and Israel gives the USA political support, financial reciprocity and very significant benefits in the areas of military intelligence, ordnance and operations. Many of our most outstanding political leaders agree. Yet critics of Israel, most prominent among them being the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA) and Professors John Mearscheimer and Stephen Walt, complain that the USA gives too much money to Israel and that the special relationship is in reality a liability for the USA.

But these critics fail to take into consideration the proverbial other side of the coin. On one hand, the USA reaps the enormous benefits of financial reciprocity as Israel spends most of its US aid money in the USA, Israeli military intelligence worth more than “five CIAs,” and operational support which has been likened to a US aircraft carrier which cannot sink and which requires no American military personnel. And this was no exaggeration. See here, here, here and here for a detailed assessment of Israel’s military support for the USA in the Eastern Mediterranean; and for the history of Israel’s intelligence support see Wolf

Blitzer’s Between Washington and Jerusalem (New York, Oxford University Press​, 1986). A few examples, among many, are the Soviet MiG 21 that the Mossad smuggled out of the former USSR, and a variety of Soviet weapons systems (including the 122-mm. and 130-mm. artillery and T-72 tanks), all offered free of charge to US military intelligence.

Maj. Gen. George J. Keegan, former head of U.S. Air Force intelligence, stated that America’s military defense capability “owes more to the Israeli intelligence input than it does to any single source of intelligence.” While a dollar figure on such benefits is hard to pin down, Keegan put the number at somewhere between $50 billion and $80 billion: a balance of trade very much in America’s favor. A. F. K. Organsi, professor of political science at the University of Michigan, offers a bit more conservative estimate in his The $36 Billion Bargain: Strategy and Politics in the U.S. Assistance to Israel (New York, Columbia University Press, 1990).

On the other hand, what benefits does the USA reap from its financial and political support of Muslim countries, especially those which are the avowed enemies of Israel? It is important to recall that the goals of billions of US dollars to foreign countries is to advance pro-US policies, to constrain anti-US elements, to promote regional stability, to prevent terrorist armies from establishing operational bases, and to prevent WMD proliferation. A brief review of the past decade’s US aid to Muslim countries will demonstrate the frightening degree to which those goals have not been achieved.

The most extreme case is Pakistan. Zalmay Khalilzad, former US Ambassador to Pakistan, recently reported that Pakistan helps the Taliban! In fact, Pakistani support is a major reason why the Taliban have been successful in outmaneuvering our troops and carrying out a series of high-profile assassinations of senior Afghan officials. Pakistani military and intelligence services (ISI) assist the Taliban, while the Pakistani government offers “implausible denials” of its complicity in Taliban military operations against the USA. Pakistani support for the Taliban could well deal America a “major strategic blow” in its war in Afghanistan. Pakistan’s support for American enemies in Afghanistan could be “the difference between victory and defeat” according to Mr. Khalilzad.

Admiral Michael Mullen​, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, went even further. On September 21 he told the Senate Armed Services Committee (and on September 28 he told the world, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal) that the Taliban’s supreme military and political command, and other terrorist organizations, not only operate with impunity against US troops from within Pakistan, but they are in reality Pakistan’s proxies, carrying out Pakistani orders when they attack Afghan and American troops and civilians. Both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta have recently made similar accusations. And this is not a new issue. Although unnoted in western mainstream media, the Pakistani army itself has carried out a number of attacks against Afghan troops and police in Afghanistan since February of this year. John Brennan, counterterrorism advisor to the White House, defined Pakistan as an enemy of the U.S.A. back in 2001, during a live interview on CBS.

Pakistan receives almost $2 billion in US aid annually and uses some if that money to kill our troops and support our enemies. What kind of trade balance is that?

Egypt is another example of a negative imbalance of trade. Over the past 30 years, America has given Egypt almost $40 billion, $10 billion of that in the last 5 years as the annual sums rose to about $2 billion a year. Yet, former President Hosni Mubarak supported Sadam Hussein in the first Gulf war, undermined US war efforts by uniting Arab opposition and supporting French and German anti-US initiatives, and by violating post-war sanctions on Iraq. During the last decade of his rule, Mubarak worked with Russia to expand Egypt’s nuclear technologies, undermined US peace-making strategies in Sudan, exacerbated the Eritrea-Ethiopia conflict, and opposed US sanctions on Iraq prior to the 2^nd Gulf war. Despite Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel, Mubarak has led anti-Israel initiatives at the UN and has provided safe passage for terrorists and weapons smuggled into the Gaza Strip.

Professor Fuad Ajami summarized the mood in Egypt after 9.11.01:

“On September 11, 2001​, there was an unmistakable sense of glee and little sorrow among upper-class Egyptians for (the USA) — only satisfaction that America had gotten its comeuppance….The United States could grant generous aid to the Egyptian state, but there would be no dampening of the anti-American fury of the Egyptian political class….There would be no open embrace of America, and no public defense of it….”

And this is a country that we long considered our chief ally in the Muslim world.

Things don’t look much better now that Egypt has enjoyed its “Arab Spring.” If the Muslim Brotherhood​ comes out on top in the promised elections, it is likely that the USA, despite its tens of billions of dollars of aid, will see Egypt become its chief enemy in the Muslim world. None the less, President Obama recently unveiled a plan to forgive over $1 billion in Egyptian debt, on top of an additional $2 billion in direct aid. It is important to recall that the Muslim Brotherhood has direct ties to numerous Arab terror groups and its Egyptian branch founded Hamas in 1988. This is another obvious case of good billions after bad.

The situation is similar in other Muslim countries.

In 2009 the USA distributed about $45 billion to more than 180 countries, 41 of which are Muslim countries. Seven of the top eleven recipients were Arab or Muslim countries: Afghanistan was #1 with $8.8 billion, then Iraq with $2.3 billion, and Egypt tied with Pakistan for $1.8 billion each. Sudan received $1.2 billion, the Palestinian Authority received $1billion, and Jordan received $816 million. The total to the top eleven was of $17.7 billion.

Over the past ten years, the seven Muslim countries listed above received more than $136 billion. Almost two-thirds of American aid money for 2012 is earmarked for Muslim countries, and about one-half of that goes to Arab countries.

America has been amazingly generous to many Arab and Muslim countries over the past few decades. Yet America is still viewed quite unfavorably in almost all of the Arab world, and in much (but not all) of the Muslim world; and Arab governments routinely vote against the USA in the UN. On average, Muslim countries vote against the USA c.75% of the time. The worst offenders are Syria (87%), Lebanon (80%), Egypt (79%), Libya (76%), Pakistan (75%), and Saudi Arabia (73%). Even Jordan, perhaps the most westernized of all Muslim countries, voted against the USA 60% of the time; yet it will be the happy recipient of $4.5 billion in US aid in 2012.

And speaking of Libya, Admiral James Stavridis, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, and the commander of the U.S. European Command told the U.S. Senate that el-Qaeda and Hezbollah fighters are among the Libyan rebels currently receiving support from the US and its NATO allies. This was confirmed by one of the Libyan rebel officers, Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, who leads one of the el-Qaeda units.

And then we have the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas. Since the 1993 Oslo Accords, the PA has received over $4 billion in direct US aid. American taxpayers’ money, thoroughly documented by the Congressional Research Service and others, along with funds from the UK, EU, Japan, India, and the World Bank, flow directly into the PA’s general fund. Once there, its uses cannot be traced. Cash is fungible, corruption is rife, and Arafat kept the records in a little black book (literally) in his shirt pocket! Under Abbas things have improved; but even if American dollars are not being used directly to support terrorist activities or enrich the personal bank accounts of terrorists or government officials, they are most assuredly freeing up other money elsewhere in the PA and Hamas budgets to go directly to the costs of fielding various terrorist armies.

One example of the very troublesome possibility that American aid is funding Palestinian terrorism is the case of American support for Palestinian universities.

Millions of dollars in U.S. foreign aid have been given in the past several years to two Palestinian universities, one of them controlled by Hamas, which have participated in the advocacy, support or glorification of terrorism. The funding, principally in scholarships to individual students, is being eyed by several members of Congress and their aides, including Rep. Gary Ackerman (Dem. NY), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East, who says that this aid may violate U.S. law.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has provided more than $140,000 in assistance to the Hamas-controlled Islamic University in Gaza, including scholarships to 49 of its students, since Congress changed the law in 2004 to restrict aid to entities or individuals “involved in or advocating terrorist activity.”

USAID also gave $2.3 million last year to the Al-Quds University, in Gaza City, which is controlled by Hamas and has student groups affiliated with Hamas and other designated terrorist organizations on campus. This university was founded by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, former leader of Hamas, who used it as a base of operations; and it is now serving in that same capacity for Ismail Haniyeh, Prime Minister of the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip. For details on USAID’s indirect support for terrorism see here, here, here, and here.

But perhaps most outrageous of all, almost half of the aid received by the PA this year will go to pay the salaries of almost 5, 500 terrorists held in Israeli prisons.

Over the past decade, billions of American tax-payer dollars flowed into the coffers of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority to indirectly support Palestinian terrorists, and to directly fund universities where Hamas operatives recruit and have bases of operations. This year the lion’s share of American largesse will enrich the bank accounts of incarcerated terrorists and mass murderers. Yet, the Obama administration is lobbying Congress to unblock the $ 200 million in aid for the PA that was frozen when President Abbas asked for UN recognition.

American aid to Israel saves American lives, enhances our ability to confront our enemies, improves our military intelligence, and supports our only stable and reliable ally in the Middle East; even as the majority of that aid flows back into the American economy.

American aid to Muslim countries supports our enemies, assists them to kill our own soldiers, funds the countries that seek our destruction, and pays the salaries of terrorists and mass murderers. There is no evidence that a penny of that aid is ever spent for American goods or services. As Cal Thomas put it: “U.S. aid to Muslim nations is not paying us any dividends.”

Notes:

[1] The most infamous of late being Walt and Mearsheimer, http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/john-mearsheimer/the-israel-lobby (and see http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=376&PID=0&IID=1795 for a very thorough rebuttal); and Thomas Stauffer in The Christian Science Monitor, Dec. 9, 2002,

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1209/p16s01-wmgn.html (and see http://honestreporting.com/u-s-aid-to-israel/?mobile=1 for a very thorough rebuttal); Stephen Zunes in The Jerusalem Fund, Feb., 2001, http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/www.thejerusalemfund.org/carryover/pubs/20010201ftr.html; Scott McConnel, “The Special Relationship with Israel: Is it worth the Cost?,” Middle East Policy Council Archive, http://www.mepc.org/journal/middle-east-policy-archives/special-relationship-israel; and a variety of articles over the last few years condemning Israel and urging the USA to end its support, financial and political, for Israel in The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA), and especially the August, 2008 edition, http://www.highbeam.com/publications/the-washington-report-on-middle-east-affairs-p61470/august-2008.

David Meir-Levi

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/10/13/us-aid-to-israel%e2%80%99s-enemies/

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

Is Israel Its Own Worst Enemy? – No!

by David Meir-Levi

Below is an open letter to Nicholas Kristof regarding his New York Times column of October 5, 2011, “Is Israel its own worst Enemy?”

Dear Mr. Kristof,

Your essay of October 5 in the New York Times​, “Is Israel its own worst enemy?” raised several questions.

You reference “the Palestinian Cause.” What is the Palestinian cause? Arafat used to assert that it was ending Israeli occupation and getting his state. Remember Marwan Barghouti’s moving op-ed in the Washington Post back in 2002? (“Want Security? End the Occupation”). But let’s recall that Palestinian leaders have always been candid with their own, while selling us the bill of goods that we want to hear. The Hajj Amin el-Husseini, Jerusalem’s “Grand Mufti” back in the Mandate era (1922-1947), minced no words about his end game: the annihilation of the Jews of Palestine. Hence his alliance with Hitler and his plans for a concentration camp, replete with gas chambers and crematoria, in Nablus.

And Arafat, while speaking plaintively to us about occupation and the destitute Palestinians who have only their bodies with which to fight (hoping that such a deceitful concept would justify suicide bombers, and that we would not notice the 50 tons of armament on the Karine A), ranted to his followers in Arabic : Jihad, Jihad, Jihad; a million martyr; from the River to the Sea Palestine will be free (no room for Israel in that scenario); the goal is not peace, the goal is victory and victory is the destruction of Israel.

Hamas is worse. Not only does the Hamas Covenant commit to the destruction of Israel, but also their leaders exhort to the annihilation of every Jew in “Palestine.”

And now, after two intifadas and thousands of qasam rockets and thousands of Israelis and Palestinians dead and thousands more wounded or maimed for life, Abbas goes to the UN and tells the world that getting his state will not end the conflict. Instead, having his state will enable him to pursue the conflict more efficaciously.

So obviously the “Palestinian cause” is NOT the end of the occupation and the creation of a Palestinian state. The end is the destruction of Israel and the annihilation of its Jews….and the Palestinian leaders tell us this themselves, in the NY Times​ and in the UN and on their own radio and TV and newspapers and with hate-teach in their schools and hate-preach in their mosques. These are not “radicals” or “extremists,” a few weirdoes whose crank ideas are out of step with their own society. These are the President of the PA, its Ambassador to Lebanon, the rulers of Hamas, the highest imams (Muslim spiritual leaders) of the Palestinian people, the directors of the PA’s ministry of education, etc.

You harshly critique Prime Minister Netanyahu’s hard line on settlements. But are the “settlements” the cause for the violence?

Recall that the PLO was formed in 1964. There were no “settlements” then, except the “settlements” of Tel Aviv and Haifa and the rest of down-town Israel. None the less, Arafat and his cronies vowed to end the occupation, wipe Israel off the map, replace it with Palestine, and kill its Jews. Keep in mind that the original version of the “PLO Covenant” (1964, Article 24) stated specifically: “This Organization does not exercise any regional sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, in the Gaza Strip or the Himmah area”. Since the PLO’s original Covenant explicitly recognized Judea, Samaria, and the eastern portion of Jerusalem, and Gaza as belonging to other Arab states, the only “homeland” it sought to “liberate” in 1964 was the State of Israel. However, the PLO revised its Covenant on July 17, 1968, a year after the Six-Day War​, to remove the operative language of Article 24, thereby asserting for the first time ever a “Palestinian” claim of sovereignty to the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This area was not part of the “Palestinian Homeland” in 1964 when it was under Jordanian sovereignty; but when it came under Israeli sovereignty it suddenly took on a new faux-historic status.

Palestinian leader tell us, perhaps without meaning to, that settlements are not the problem. Note too that good old fashioned concept central to western logic: cause and effect. Cause must come before effect. The West Bank “settlements” cannot be the cause of the terrorism and the hatred and the violence because all of those existed before there were any West Bank “settlements;” nor have these bleak and tragic attributes abated in the slightest with the end of all Israeli “settlements” in the Gaza Strip.

This radical concept, that the “settlements are not the problem,” was validated by none other than a member of the Palestinian National Council, Zahir Muhse’in, in his interview with the Amsterdam-based newspaper “Trouw”^[i] in 1977:

“The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct ‘Palestinian people’ to oppose Zionism. For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.”

So Mr. Muhse’in tells us that it is not the “settlements,” it is not the water rights, it is not the borders, it is not Jerusalem, and it is not even the so-called “Palestinian refugees” that stoke the violence. The violence comes from the unabashed, unrelenting, and unmitigated commitment of Arab leaders to destroy Israel. The concepts “Palestinian People” and “Historic Palestine” and “Palestinian national self-determination” are all hoaxes, fictions invented to facilitate the Arab terrorist destruction of Israel and to legitimize the terrorism.

So what you call Prime Minister Netanyahu’s “hard line” decisions about “settlements” are in reality the reasoned and rational realpolitik of Israel’s leaders’ need to face intractable Arab genocidal enmity.

I was quite taken aback by your suggestion that “nothing is more corrosive (to the peace process) than Israel’s growth of settlements.” Are you serious?

I most sincerely urge you to reassess that statement. Recall, for example, the c. 10,000 qasam rockets from the Gaza Strip after Israel unilaterally and unconditionally vacated the Strip in a globally unprecedented peace-making gesture; or Abbas’ promise to escalate the conflict after he gets his state from the UN; or the cold-blooded murder of Israeli civilians near Eilat just a few weeks ago by terrorists infiltrating from the Sinai peninsula, or the brutal murder of a father and infant son in the West Bank just a few days ago; not to mention Hamas’ endless relentless diatribe of annihilation and rhetoric of genocide. Bombings and arson and kidnapping and torture and murder and attempted mass murder and threatening genocide are far more corrosive to peace than building apartments.

So, is Israel its own worst enemy? No! Mr. Kristof, it is not. It should be rather obvious that Israel’s worst enemies now are Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood​, Hamas, Hezbollah, Fatah, the PLO, Islamic Jihad, the PFLP, the DFLP, the PFLP-GC, Ansar al-Islam, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade​, al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya, al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, Jayyish al-Jihad, and Sayyif Allah, to mention just a few. Next in line as worst enemies are the Arab confrontation states, quiescent now that they are engaged in their “Arab Spring,” but ever ready to scapegoat and demonize Israel; and, were there ever to be even a reasonable hope of victory, to attack Israel with all the vigor they could muster.

Then comes Turkey, once a sotto voce ally of Israel; but since the ascent of its Islamist government led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a development which you seem not to have noticed, given your assertion that Turkey is “…Israel’s most important friend in the region” (but don’t feel too bad, our own Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta seems also not to have noticed), it has officially declared war on Israel by announcing that it will send Turkish warships into Israel’s coastal waters to support flotillas of wannabe blockade-busters heading for the Gaza Strip.

The tragic and bitter reality is that the so-called Palestinian national movement is the only one of its kind in the entire world and across all of world history whose only operative paradigm is terrorism, and whose unique and unrepentant goal is the destruction of a sovereign state and the genocide of its Jews. If these terrorists would lay down their weapons, there would be no more violence. If Israel would lay down her weapons, there would be no more Israel.

David Meir-Levi

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/10/11/is-israel-its-own-worst-enemy-%e2%80%93-no/

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

The Battle That Saved the Christian West

by Mariano Navarro

What some call “the battle that saved the Christian West” took place 440 years ago October 7^th. It is a historical event of such importance — and of such relevance to the struggles of today — that I would be remiss not to mention it. Sadly, a cursory look on-line indicates that few people — save military historians, some traditionalist Catholics and a few rarae aves — seem to know much about it.

At about 11:00 a.m. October 7th in 1571, 300 Ottoman ships from Turkey clashed with a scraggly alliance of European naval armies in the tranquil waters between the Albanian coast and the Peloponnesus. Under the command of the 25-year-old Don Juan of Austria​, the illegitimate son of Charles V and half-brother of Philip II of Spain​, some 212 Christian ships from Genoa, Venice and Spain — as well from the Papal States and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta — had formed the “Holy League” to stop the advance of the Ottoman Armada.

After it was over five hours later, 35,000 Moslem Turks were dead and about 15,000 Christian slaves had been freed from the bowels of their stinking galleons. Vastly outnumbered, the forces of Christendom had only lost 7,000 men.

The importance of this battle should not be overlooked. For years, fierce Ottoman forces had been raiding and terrorizing Christian communities around the Mediterranean, taking young men and women as slaves, and slaughtering those they had no use for. Under the red crescent of Allah’s armies, the Turks had terrorized the eastern outposts of European civilization. What happened that day in the Gulf of Lepanto (today known as the Gulf of Corinth) was nothing less than the defense of Europe against a 16^th century Islamic jihad.

The parallels to today are obvious. The West — perhaps no longer publicly Christian but still built on the foundations and institutions that grew out of Christendom — now faces a similar threat. But, like before, when the rulers of England and France had refused to join the Holy League, many European powers today still refuse to take steps to protect their way of life. And, like before, some European states are even complicit in encouraging and financing Islamic states.

Lepanto’s importance arises not out of the simplistic “clash of civilizations” argument. Rather, the battle — and the atrocities and massacres carried out by the Ottomans, in the years preceding the battle — are solemn reminders that Islamic jihad does not respond to compromise or diplomatic efforts. Nor will it stop until the whole world is subjugated under the name of Allah.

On the 440^th anniversary of such an important event in the history of the West, we should remember that the same forces that threatened us then, threaten us now. Unfortunately, today they not only exist as external threats, but are internal as well.

That is why the Battle of Lepanto​ may be worth remembering every year, especially in this time of modern Islamic terrorism. It is not an ancient and irrelevant skirmish between long-forgotten armies, but a decisive event that saved European Christendom — and, thus, the West — from alien forces bent on its destruction.

Various events have taken place around the world to commemorate the anniversary. In Rome, for example, the non-profit Lepanto Center — headed by the erudite Roberto de Mattei — organized an evening roundtable. With presentations by Italian Admiral Ezio Ferrante and Professor Massimo de Leonardis, among others, the event emphasized the importance of the battle — and perhaps raised awareness of the threat we face today. There were also special Masses celebrated in Europe, the US and Australia.

We can also still read great accounts of the battle. G. K. Chesterton famously memorialized the battle in his 1911 poem, “Lepanto.” But that has been forgotten, too. And the Jesuit priest Luis Coloma wrote a short 1912 account, viewable here with images of famous paintings of the battle. There is also an excellent 12-page conference booklet titled Lepanto: A Category of the Spirit that can be viewed on-line. And the command ship of Don Juan of Austria​ can still be viewed, fully-restored, at the Naval Museum of Barcelona (Spain).

But, generally, it is a pity to realize how little has been written about the famous battle. Of the few articles that have been written about it, for example, only those by Michael Novak (2006) and Christopher Check (2007) are worth reading. A cumbersome, over-written account of the battle was also written by Harry W. Crocker III; but it is a slog.

In 2006, Count Niccoló Capponi, a military historian in Florence (Italy) published the eminently readable, if detailed, Victory of the West: The Great Christian-Muslim Clash at the Battle of Lepanto (De Capo Press), which was favorably reviewed by Victor Davis Hanson in First Things and Daniel Johnson in The New Criterion.

Save for these, and a few awkward posts at different Catholic websites, there is lamentably very little out there.

Western elites continue to downplay the threat of radical Islam and continue to seek “peaceful coexistence,” suggesting approaches that will avoid military conflict. The suggestion is that dialogue, diplomacy and tolerance will somehow disarm radical Islamism.

Perhaps it might be worth recalling the words of the young Don Juan, who, in the final moments before the battle started on that fateful October 7^th, was counseled that there was still time to avoid a full battle. As Christopher Check recounts:

“Gentlemen,” he said, looking around at his military commanders, “the time for counsel has passed. Now is the time for war.”

Mariano Navarro

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/10/11/the-battle-that-saved-the-christian-west/

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

Obama Administration Rejects Anti-Islamist Muslim

by Ryan Mauro

Fifteen months ago, an anti-Islamist Muslim named Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser was nominated to join the State Department’s Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. As a devout Muslim who has courageously confronted the Muslim Brotherhood networks in America, there could be no better choice. However, Jasser went through an arduous screening process only to be unexpectedly denied by the Obama administration.

Dr. Jasser is the president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, an anti-Islamist activist group that promotes a version of Islam compatible with American values. He served in the U.S. Navy for 11 years and rejects any justifications for terrorism. He was the narrator for “Third Jihad,” the hit documentary that has educated countless Americans about the Islamist threat. For this, he has been criticized by the Muslim Brotherhood fronts like the Council on American-Islamic Relations that he fearlessly confronts. Congressman Keith Ellison accuses him of playing into the hands of anti-Muslim haters just to make money.

“[We] advocate for the ideas of gender equality, genuine religious pluralism, and an unwavering preference of the secular state and a secular law over the Islamic state among other central ideas in modernity,” his organization’s website says.

He testified during Rep. Peter King’s hearings on the lack of cooperation from the Muslim community in rooting out extremism. He also sits on the board of the American Islamic Congress, an organization with over 2,000 supporters in the U.S. and a $780,000 annual budget. The moderate Muslim group rejects Sharia-based governance and advocates separation of mosque and state. It has started four university chapters to compete with the Muslim Students Association, a Muslim Brotherhood front, and has even opened up an office in Egypt. One program is called “No Buts” and it encourages Muslims to reject any rationalization for acts of terrorism.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell recognized Jasser’s importance in the ideological struggle and nominated him for the State Department’s U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. He went through a seemingly endless series of interviews and paperwork submissions, successfully passing each stage and receiving a top-secret security clearance. This 15-month process has finally come to an end with Jasser simply being told that he has been “removed from consideration.” Senator Jon Kyl says that “the Obama administration has chosen to sideline Dr. Jasser.”

It is puzzling that the Obama administration would deny Dr. Jasser the spotlight. His family came to America from Syria, drawn to our country’s freedom and opportunity. He joined the U.S. military and is a successful doctor. The only plausible explanations are that this is payback for his criticism of the administration and that his Muslim Brotherhood foes used their ties to the administration to block his nomination.

It makes sense that the Islamist networks in America would want to marginalize Jasser. He threatens their hold on the Muslim-American community and for the first time, they face competition. Gallup conducted a poll recently that found that only 24% of Muslim-American men and 19% of Muslim-American women feel represented by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society of North America, the Muslim Public Affairs Council and the Islamic Circle of North America. Nearly half of Muslim-American adults oppose mosque involvement in politics. This means there is a wide opening for someone like Jasser to threaten the Muslim Brotherhood​ network’s support.

It is not easy for anti-Islamist Muslims like Dr. Jasser to put themselves out front. As Jamie Glazov recently wrote, an Iraqi-American in St. Louis who wrote an Arabic poem about the horrors of the Holocaust and his affection for the Jewish people was assaulted on August 14. His was called an infidel, stabbed and had a Star of David carved into his back. The FBI​ informant whose information foiled the planned attack on Fort Dix has been rejected by his Muslim community because he “betrayed a brother.”

A poll from 2007 shows that 28 percent of Muslim-Americans do not believe Arabs carried out the 9/11 attacks and 32 percent refused to answer or were unsure. More than half do not believe the War on Terror is a “sincere effort to reduce terrorism.” Journalist Ronald Kessler has reported on the difficulties FBI agents have had in winning cooperation from parts of the American-Muslim community because “it’s part of their culture that they want to settle the problem within their own communities.” One FBI agent told him how a Muslim group would not take a photo with the FBI director because of the backlash its leader feared.

It is more important than ever that the State Department calibrate its role in countering the Islamist ideology. The Arab Spring is allowing the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists to rear their ugly heads and make their cases to the masses. The West needs friends like Dr. Zuhdi Jasser to stand up to them. By inexplicably denying Jasser, the Obama administration has done the Islamists a favor.

Ryan Mauro

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/10/11/obama-administration-rejects-anti-islamist-muslim/

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

Fatah's Double-Talk

by Khaled Abu Toameh

The conflicting messages coming from Fatah cast serious doubts about the faction's true intentions. Moreover, these messages create the impression that there is not much of a difference between the Western-backed Fatah and Hamas.

Fatah's double-talk is not a new phenomenon. Anyone who speaks Arabic and English can easily notice the conflicting messages made by the faction's leaders and representatives. Fatah's strategy has always been to tell the outside world one thing and Palestinians a completely different thing.

Perhaps the most disturbing statement, however, came from Abbas Zaki, who is also a senior member of the Fatah Central Committee and the former PLO ambassador to Lebanon. On the same day that Mahmoud Abbas delivered his speech at the UN on September 23, Zaki declared on Al-Jazeera that "the greater goal cannot be accomplished in one go..If Israel withdraws from Jerusalem, evacuates the 650,000 settlers and dismantles the wall, what will become of Israel: It will come to an end. If we say that we want to eliminate Israel, it's not acceptable to say this. Don't say these things to the world. Keep it to yourself."

So while the Palestinian president was telling the world that the Palestinians support the two-state solution, one of his representatives was telling Palestinians and the Arab world that Fatah has not given up its dream of destroying the Jewish state.

The latest example was provided by Tawfik Tirawi, member of the Fatah Central Committee and a former commander of the Palestinian Authority's General Intelligence Force.

Tirawi told university students earlier this week that Fatah has never "thrown aside the rifle" – an indication that the faction could resume the "armed struggle option" against Israel.

His statement contradicts assurances by other Fatah leaders that they have completely abandoned the path of violence and seek a peaceful solution with Israel.

Tirawi also told the university students that the Palestinians consider the US their number one enemy because of Washington's ongoing support for Israel.

Again, this remarks stands contradicts declarations by Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas and his aides to the effect that the Palestinians do not want a clash with the US and seek to continue working with the US Administration to achieve peace in the Middle East.

Other Fatah leaders, including Nabil Sha'ath, Abbas Zaki and Mohammed Dahlan, have also gone on record as saying that their faction has never recognized Israel's right to exist. They argue that it was the PLO, and not Fatah, that accepted the two-state solution when it signed the Oslo Accords in 1993.

These officials are ignoring the fact that Fatah is the largest faction of the PLO. Statements by some top Fatah leaders suggest that the Palestinian faction continues to speak in more than one voice

Fatah leaders have yet to distance themselves from the statements made by Tirawi, Sha'ath and Zaki. Failing to do so will not only damage the faction's credibility, but also put into question its credibility as a true partner for peace.

Khaled Abu Toameh

Source: http://www.hudson-ny.org/2493/fatah-double-talk

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

The Revisionist History of Sari Nusseibeh

by Efraim Karsh

Sari Nusseibeh has done it again. In an article titled "Why Israel Can't be a 'Jewish State,'" published on the Jewish New Year of all dates, the supposedly moderate president of al-Quds University goes to great lengths to explain why Jews, unlike any other nation on earth, are undeserving of statehood.

"[T]he idea of a 'Jewish State' is logically and morally problematic because of its legal, religious, historical and social implications," he wrote. "The implications of this term therefore need to be spelled out, and we are sure that once they are, most people – and most Israeli citizens, we trust – will not accept these implications."

Not that this should have come as a surprise. For decades, Nusseibeh has tirelessly advanced the "one-state solution" – a euphemistic formula that proposes the replacement of Israel by a country, theoretically comprising the whole of historic Palestine, in which Jews will be reduced to the status of a permanent minority.

This advocacy of the destruction of a long-existing state, established by an internationally recognized act of national self-determination, has hardly dented Nusseibeh's "moderate" credentials. That can be partly explained by the desperate yearning among Jews and their supporters worldwide for Palestinian and Arab peace partners. That desire dates back to the 1920s and the 1930s, despite countless setbacks and disillusionments. It is also a corollary of the narcissist and patronizing mesmerization among educated westerners with the "noble savage" in general, and the Westernized native in particular. With his posh Jerusalem high school education, his Oxford and Harvard degrees and impeccable western demeanor, Nusseibeh, like cultured Arabs and Muslims before him, represents the ultimate product of the "white man's civilizing mission," a contemporary replica of George Antonius, the Cambridge-educated Syrian political activist who was the toast of the British chattering classes in Palestine and beyond during the 1930s.

I was personally privy to this feting during a London meeting in the spring of 1989. I was then a senior fellow at Tel Aviv University's Jafee Center for Strategic Studies, and like many well intentioned Israelis at the time and since, we aspired to lay the ground for Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation through secret talks with Palestinian interlocutors, including members of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, then an outlawed organization in Israel. The group we met was headed by Faisal Husseini, then the PLO's most senior official in the disputed territories, flanked by Nusseibeh and a few prominent London-based Palestinian academics.

The meeting was pleasant and informative enough, with the courteous British hosts going out of their way to keep their Palestinian guests sweet. Yet I was taken aback when Nusseibeh, the celebrated epitome of Palestinian moderation, turned out to be the most extreme member of the group. Dismissing out of hand the two-state solution – Israel and a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip – he sang the praise of the "one-state paradigm," demanding the incorporation of the West Bank and Gaza population into the Jewish state as full-fledged citizens, to be followed by Palestinian "refugees" from the neighboring Arab states and beyond.

In subsequent years, Nusseibeh would pay customary lip service to the two-state solution while consistently questioning the very legitimacy of the state with which he ostensibly wished to make peace. On a few occasions he even let the mask drop, unveiling his true agenda. In the late 1990s, for example, he told an old Oxford friend that "one day, in the near or further future, all this [Israel and Palestine] will be one binational state. It's just a question of how we get there."

In an April 2005 debate at Dartmouth College, Nusseibeh advocated the creation of a bi-national state as the only viable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.

"We will have spent 100 years killing and fighting each other, doing our best to avoid a one-state solution, and we will find ourselves in that exact situation in 40 or 50 years," he argued.

IN A 2007 political memoir Nusseibeh missed no opportunity to denigrate and delegitimize the Jewish state through sharp, short, often subtle yet always false readings of history.

He does this in spades in his latest article. A Jewish state cannot exist, he argues, because "no state in the world is – or can be in practice – ethnically or religiously homogenous." But the Jewish state that has existed for over 63 years has never been, nor aspired to be, totally homogenous: unlike the Palestinian Arab leadership which, since the early 1920s to date, has insisted on a Judenrein Palestine. Rather, Israel has been home to diverse religious and ethnic minorities accounting for nearly 20 percent of its total population.

As David Ben-Gurion told the leadership of his own (Mapai) party in 1947, the non-Jews in the Jewish state "will be equal citizens; equal in everything without any exception; that is, the state will be their state as well."

Nusseibeh claims that a Jewish state must by definition be either a theocracy or an apartheid state, and that its Jewish nature opens the door to legally reducing its substantial non-Jewish minority (whose very existence he previously denied) "to second-class citizens (or perhaps even stripping them of their citizenship and other rights)." This, too, flies in the face of Israel's 63-year history, where Arabs have enjoyed full equality before the law, and have been endowed with the full spectrum of democratic rights – including the right to vote for and serve in all state institutions.

In fact, from the designation of Arabic as an official language, to the recognition of non-Jewish religious holidays as legal resting days for their respective communities, to the granting of educational, cultural, judicial, and religious autonomy, Arabs in Israel enjoy more formal prerogatives than ethnic minorities anywhere in the democratic world.

Small wonder that whenever an Israeli politician proposes the inclusion of some frontier Israeli-Arab settlements in the future Palestinian state, as part of a land exchange within the framework of a peace agreement, the residents of these localities immediately voice their indignation. Moreover, recent surveys show that more Palestinians in east Jerusalem, who are entitled to Israeli social benefits and are free to travel across Israel's pre-1967 borders, would rather become citizens of the Jewish state than citizens of a new Palestinian one.

But Nusseibeh is not someone to be bothered by the facts. His is the misconception, prevalent among Arabs and Muslims, that Jews are a religious community and not a nation deserving of statehood.

Hence, instead of insisting on being accepted for what it has been for 63 years, or what the UN partition resolution envisaged it to be, Israel should shed its Jewish identity and become "a civil, democratic, and pluralistic state whose official religion is Judaism" like many of its Arab neighbors which have Islam as their official religion "but grant equal civil rights to all citizens."

This of course is the complete inverse of the truth.

The Jewish state is a civil, democratic and pluralistic society, something that none of its Arab neighbors can stake a claim to. On the contrary, precisely because Islam is enshrined as state religion throughout the Middle East, the non-Muslim minorities have been denied "equal civil rights" and have instead been reduced to the historic dhimmi status whereby they can at best enjoy certain religious freedoms in return for a distinctly inferior existence, and at worst suffer from systematic persecution and oppression.

And this is the "one-state paradigm" offered by Nusseibeh to Israel's Jewish citizens.

Efraim Karsh is research professor of Middle East and Mediterranean Studies at King's College London, director of the Middle East Forum (Philadelphia) and author, most recently, of Palestine Betrayed.

Source: http://www.meforum.org/3068/sari-nusseibeh-revisionist-history

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

The Egyptian Military's Crimes Against Humanity

by Raymond Ibrahim

Sunday, the Egyptian military opened fire on thousands of Christians protesting in Maspero, Cairo. In the words of one Christian eyewitness, armored vehicles "came at great speed and drove into the crowds, going backwards and forwards, mowing people under their wheels. The most horrible scene was when one of the vehicles ran over a Copt's [Christian's] head, causing his brain to explode and blood was all over the place. We got a clear message today that we are no first class citizens."

Various numbers of casualties have been given; AINA asserts that at least 35 Christians were massacred, many beyond recognition, and over 300 wounded; hundreds are still missing. Graphic pictures of some of the slain can be seen here.

Of course, you would not know any of this following the Western mainstream media (MSM). Conditioned to always appear "fair and balanced"—especially when the incidents being reported are neither—the MSM is giving the impression that the conflict consisted of equal violence and equal intolerance from both the military and "militant" Christians—or, to use the MSM's favorite, and increasingly meaningless, euphemism, "sectarian strife," conjuring up images of equally armed, equally militant factions fighting for supremacy.

Meanwhile, the MSM avoids the most obvious aspect of the conflict: religion, as Muslims—yet again—mow down infidel minorities for all to see.

While the military dictatorship cleanses Egypt of its Christian minority, the Egyptian media only depict images and "information" that comport with that agenda—all, of course, while naïve, gullible, or lazy Western reporters lap it up. State news, for example, asserted that armed Christians were on the offensive, killing three soldiers, injuring twenty, and burning state property—wanton lies, according to many eyewitnesses—yet perfectly in line with the MSM's obsession never to portray Muslims as aggressors.

Accordingly, these distortions were unhesitatingly regurgitated by the MSM. The BBC's headline was "Egypt troops dead after Coptic church protest in Cairo" [since changed]—as if that was the relevant news; the report's opening sentence highlighted Christian protesters "clashing with security forces, with army vehicles burning outside the state television building," again, portraying the protesters as the aggressors.

Even Fox News had its readers sympathizing with Egypt's military, even as it was busy massacring Christian citizens: the report told of an Egyptian soldier "collapsing in tears" as Christians "attacked" his fellow soldier. Of course, watching nearly 20 members of the police beating, dragging, and kicking a Christian for protesting the burning of his church—all while shouting slogans like "You infidel son of a bitch"—might counterbalance Fox News's weeping soldier.

After asking "Why have we seen an upsurge in sectarian violence this year?" a new CNN article titled "Egypt's Tensions Explained" does anything but that. After stating that "the reasons are not clear"—code for "the reasons are not politically correct"—it blames "those opposed to democratic changes" and "efforts by extreme Islamist groups to resist attempts by the Copts to establish more churches"—again, careful to portray the Copts as somehow equally responsible as the Islamists who murder them.

And, as usual, while mentioning the numbers of dead and injured, the MSM devoutly refuses to indicate who the dead are: after all, the overwhelming majority are Christians, and that fact would throw a wrench in their "balanced" portrayal of equal culpability.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, where objectivity is not at the mercy of ingrained relativism, political correctness, or the chronic need always to depict Islam in a positive light, eye-witnesses are describing these events as "war crimes" perpetrated by an Islamist-inclined regime against the nation's native Christians. Dr. Imad Gad, for instance, Strategy Expert at the Ahram Center, denounced the military's "crimes against humanity," even as he witnessed them during a live phone interview.

What sparked these latest crimes against humanity in Egypt? Why were Christians protesting in the first place? The answers to these questions only further validate the notion that Muslim persecution of Christians—whether perpetrated by the local mosque or the state—is a fact of life in Egypt.

Days ago, thousands of Muslims attacked and destroyed yet another church, in Edfu—following the New Year church attack, which left 23 dead, the destruction and desecration of the ancient church in Sool, and the Imbaba attacks, which saw several churches set aflame. In all of these wanton attacks, not one of the Muslim perpetrators were prosecuted by the Egyptian regime.

In the recent Edfu church attack, security forces "stood there watching," the Intelligence Unit chief of the region was seen directing the mob destroying the church. The governor himself 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."

The irony is that Christians went to demonstrate in Maspero because that is where Egyptian media are located, and they sought to get the world's attention, highlight the nonstop abuses they are suffering. Not only were they massacred for their trouble, but they were portrayed as the "aggressors" by the same media they vainly hoped would reveal their predicament to the world.

Meanwhile, the international community sits idly by. Despite the fact that the U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom recommended that the U.S. government classify Egypt as a "country of particular concern"; despite the fact that several Egyptian churches have been destroyed with impunity in the last few months; despite the fact that any rational person could have read the writing on the wall—despite all this, the State Department failed even to cite Egypt as a "country of particular concern" in its religious freedom report.

Such journalistic and international dereliction of duty makes them complicit in the crimes, accessories to the massacres, and violators of the very notion of human rights they obscenely claim to advance.

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.

Raymond Ibrahim

Source: http://www.hudson-ny.org/2496/egypt-crimes-against-humanity

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

Why Most of The Mass Media Can’t Report Honestly on Israel—Or Other Middle East Issues

by Barry Rubin

Underlying any other factor regarding attitudes toward Israel in the Media-University-Government (MUG) complex is the programmatic and ideological problem faced in honestly understanding and explaining Israel’s behavior.

To report truthfully would require comprehending and communicating the following two paragraphs:

–Most Israelis believe, on the basis of their experience during the 1990s’ Oslo era and with the “peace process” generally, that Palestinian leaders cannot and will not make peace, and that most Arabs and Muslims still want to destroy Israel. As a result, they explain, past Israeli concessions have made Israel’s situation worse, risks to show that Israel wants peace have not persuaded onlookers, withdrawals from territory have only led to that territory being used to launch attacks on Israel.

–In justifying their stance, Israelis cite the extremism of Iran; the advances of Hamas and Hizballah; the growing radicalism and Islamist influence in the Egyptian revolution, and other such factors. In addition, they worry that the Obama Administration policy is undermining Israel and enabling a growing extremism in the region. This is a prevailing viewpoint across the political spectrum.

I could have chosen to make additional points but this shows the main factors. Since the Israeli argument is so cogent and backed by facts and observable realities, it would be dangerously persuasive to those who actually get to hear it.

Instead, the muggers of MUG must insist:

–Peace would be easily and quickly obtained if not for Israel’s policies.

–Settlements and not Arab/Muslim positions are the factor preventing peace, even though it could be pointed out that if the Palestinians made peace all the settlements on their territory would be removed.

–If Israel only had a different government the peace process would rapidly advance.

–Obama and his supporters want to save Israel in spite of itself and they, not Israel’ own leadership, knows what’s best for the country.

–Israelis “know” that Obama is right which is why public opinion polls, statements, and evidence to the contrary is suppressed or spun away. American Jews can support anti-Israel policies in the firm belief that they are really “pro-Israel” policies.

–They have only replaced demonizing the “other” with romanticizing the “other.” Never underestimate the importance of ignorance or of its common form—believing that other people think and act just like themselves. The “great experts” really know very little about the issues. (I could give you a long and amusing list on that point.)

–It is far more pleasant to believe that conflict can be made to disappear, hatreds quenched. If they are all our fault than we can easily fix them.

(No sooner did I write this that up pops a great example of the genre! It’s all Israel’s fault, Netanyahu never showed he wanted peace, blah, blah, blah.)

Or, in short, “Why do they hate us?” because we’ve behaved so badly but we can fix it by behaving properly.

Consequently, the systematic misrepresentation isn’t because these people are mean or that they hate Israel as such (well, actually, a lot of academics but relatively few journalists or government officials do) but because their worldview and political line–including 100 percent support for Obama–requires it.

Equally, their systematic view that revolutionary Islamism isn’t a real threat but just a marginal movement of those who misunderstand Islam and want to hijack it, requires it. Equally, their systematic view that to portray certain peoples as hardline, intransigent, “irrational,” etc., is a form of racism and Islamophobia.

I constantly receive letters from Iranians, Turks, Lebanese, Egyptians, and Syrians about their despair at losing their country, being oppressed, or seeing so much bloodshed in their struggle for democracy and to avoid being crushed by Islamist or radical nationalist dictatorships.

Genuinely moderate Muslims in the West have similar complaints and experiences. One case that typifies many is of a courageous man who is shunned by the politicians, virtually barred from the two mosques in his small city, and sees those who threaten him being praised in the media and feted by local politicians.

These people often have similar symptoms. They are depressed, often closed [sic] to tears, deeply frustrated and bewildered. What makes their lot even more bitter is the lack of sympathy for the Western MUG that praises their enemies (and all of ours) at the same time. They, too, are victims of the same syndrome that Israel suffers from.

One of the worst things in life is for someone to wake up and discover he’s been supporting evil. Indeed, not only an evil in the abstract but forces and ideas that threaten his own freedom and happiness. A lot of people in the West have already woken up but many more need to do so.

Barry Rubin

Source: http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/2011/09/29/why-most-of-the-mass-media-cant-report-honestly-on-israel%e2%80%94or-other-middle-east-issues/

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

Stealth Jihad Invades Columbia University (Again)

by JanSuzanne Krasner

Columbia University students, along with others on the campus, will be able to get a good look at "stealth jihad" in action as the "Students for Justice in Palestine" (SJP) hold a three-day training program next weekend on campus.

The attraction being used to seduce the students to this event is a rapper named "Immortal Technique," who, according to claims made by the National Conference on Jewish Affairs (NCJA), is an entertainer "who extols and incites violence and criminality, spews brutal anti-American vitriol, and is a condemner of Israel ... and a fan of the Nation of Islam, among other repellent views."

The event is to take place on October 14-16. Organizers hope to raise $30,000 in preparation for the upcoming 2012 national campus event called "Israel Apartheid Week" that has been held the past seven years in February or March. When one enters their website, the most prominent message that appears alongside the face of Hatem Bazian, Professor at UC Berkeley and Chair of American Muslims for Palestine National, is "America's college students are at the cutting edge of the global free Palestine movement in the US and across the globe and they are making a difference."

Scrolling the site, one finds quotes from individuals and organizations that proudly attest to the success of the SPJ. The list includes several professors from highly acclaimed universities, lecturers, authors and journalists, founders and organizers of anti-Israeli movements like BDS, and a human rights attorney. Most striking is the endorsement by the Free Gaza Movement that reads: "Organizations such as the student movement, SJP, are an integral part of the non-violent revolution now sweeping the world."

Folks, it couldn't be any clearer as to what is happening on our college campuses.

Under the guise of Israel-bashing, it is really our country that has become the target of attacks at universities across the U.S., but most students don't realize that. The creation of the SJP organization at UC Berkeley in the early '90s has now grown to a national movement where anti-Israeli supporters argue that "Israeli Apartheid" is analogous to the anti-Apartheid student mobilizations some decades ago directed at South Africa.

Their claim can't be farther from the truth, but that is another subject. However, it must be said that the delegitimization of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state (where Arabs are also permitted to be citizens) must be contrasted against the SJP's demand for a state for Palestinians (where 45% of its Palestinian residents will be denied citizenship), where no Jews can live. It seems like SJP should be looking in a mirror to see what apartheid really looks like.

In an effort to stop Columbia from allowing this event, the NCJA is asking in its recently released "Action Alert" why "President Bollinger and the Board are turning Columbia, a university once known for its rigor and academic excellence, into one that instead is gaining the reputation of sell-out to ugly hatred and flaccid standards." Furthermore, the NCJA believes that the SJP event "violates Columbia University's own code of 'Civil Behavior and Community Standards' as written[.]"

It is expected that in and out of the classroom, on and off campus, each student in the School of General Studies will act in an honest way and will respect the rights of others. Freedom of expression is an essential part of University life, but it does not include intimidation, threats of violence, or the inducement of others to engage in violence or in conduct which harasses others. Conduct which threatens or harasses others because of their race, sex, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or for any other reason is unacceptable and will be dealt with very severely. For all to benefit from the diversity to be found at Columbia, all must live up to these standards.

The NCJA is taking a lead to express the frustration felt by many about the excuses Columbia University's representatives have used in the past to explain the school's political activities:

Of course we will not be surprised to hear from President Bollinger and the Board that this is just a "student group" and the university is "not involved" and that this is "the free expression of ideas," intellectual freedom" or even "art." But we can no longer accept these excuses for what appears to be pure hatred and efforts to intimidate pro-Israel Jewish students and others who do not agree with SPJ's views. We need to know if Columbia University is providing any financial or other support to SJP and this event, including providing the building in which Immortal Technique is performing.

American parents and alumni (not to mention all who believe in our democratic republic), it is time to recognize how Islamism is encroaching on our society with its patient, systematic plan to infiltrate from within and slowly end democracy as we know it. The Muslim Brotherhood actively supports and finances student organizations like SJP and the Muslim Student Association (MSA). Islamists have found that invading Western culture through its educational institutions is an extremely effective strategy to spread the word of Allah.

The Muslim Brotherhood's three-stage blueprint for covert jihad, written in the early 1920s, still has the power to inspire many Muslims to continue their required participation in a "non-violent jihad." The first stage of this plan calls for the spread of the Islamic message through propaganda, media, confrontation, and character assassination of opponents, and the training of messengers of Islam in the form of professors and lecturers to reach schools, mosques, and public facilities. Keeping this in mind helps to put a clear perspective on this "training event' at Columbia University, as well as appreciating the true mission of Islamists.

The NCJA also questions Hillel, the organization for Jewish campus life, as to why "they are failing to stand up against hatred and the incitement of violence against Israel and Israel supporters." Considering the lack of interest or courage in the Columbia University's community towards this event, the NCJA is reaching out for public support.

First, they are asking for individuals to contact the Office of the President Lee Bollinger in NYC by calling (212) 854-9970, by sending a fax to (212) 854-9973, or by sending an e-mail to officeofthepresident@columbia.edu. You can also call the university's chapter of Hillel at (202) 449-6500 and voice your anger that they are not protecting Columbia's Jewish and non-Muslim students. If people make their disapproval known, they will have the power to change the situation.

In recognition that both the SJP and the SMA are making formidable strides to further an Islamic radical agenda on our American youth, the NCJA is also forming an "Education and Campus Life Task Force" to address these concerns on campuses around the country.

Readers, now is the time to take action to prevent the "stealth jihad" disguised as "freedom-fighting" from continuing to reach our children through the hate-filled rhetoric promoted by these Muslim student associations and the professors and lecturers that carry their message of hate.

JanSuzanne Krasner

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

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

Iran’s 2012 Jihad in Iraq

by Ryan Mauro

Moqtada al-Sadr is back and is thirsty for the blood of American soldiers in Iraq. The Iranian-backed cleric says he will revive his Mehdi Army militia and starting on January 1, 2012, he’s coming after every single one of the 3 to 4,000 U.S. soldiers remaining in Iraq.

On October 4, all of Iraq’s political parties but one agreed that U.S. trainers should be asked to stay past the 2011 deadline for withdrawal. The Iraqi government did not, however, agreed to give them immunity from prosecution as demanded by the U.S. The faction dissenting was the Sadrist bloc, the followers of Moqtada al-Sadr. He has vowed to attack any American soldier on Iraqi soil come 2012, even if they are trainers and not combat soldiers. The Obama Administration envisions reducing forces to 3-4,000, rebuffing the request of General Lloyd Austin to have 14-18,000 troops.

Al-Sadr has shown what he is capable of. He led a radical Shiite uprising that nearly threw the country into civil war, and has positioned himself as a powerful force in Iraqi politics. At its height, his Mehdi Army was 60,000-strong, far more than the force Al-Qaeda in Iraq mustered. Since he disbanded the militia, splinter groups have kept fighting. He went to Iran around the time of the 2007 surge, where he began studying in Qom to receive the title of Grand Ayatollah. With that addition to his resume, he has returned to Iraq to expel U.S. forces and become the religious leader of the Iraqi Shiites.

The U.S. military detected a mobilization of Al-Sadr’s forces in the south earlier this year when they attacked rival Shiites. The rhetoric of Moqtada al-Sadr became more and more heated. He threatened to “escalate military resistance” and one of his aides said, “We are all time bombs and detonators at the hands of Moqtada al-Sadr.” His website published a letter from a supporter expressing his eagerness to become a martyr once the jihad is declared and that no public property or civilians will be targeted. Al-Sadr’s response was to thank him.

Iranian proxies increased their attacks on U.S. forces when summer began. Kataib Hezbollah, whose leader resides in Iran, used Iranian arms. Two other proxies, the Promised Day Brigade and Asaib Ahl al-Haq, took credit for a string of rocket and mortar firings. The death toll for the month was the highest since 2008. Defense Secretary Panetta and General Lloyd Austin, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, spoke cryptically about how they’d respond. In August, the Iranian-backed attacks significantly declined. The Iranians backed down, but they also must have sensed that it was better to wait until 2012 when there are less American soldiers and attacks will be more acceptable.

It is unknown if al-Sadr can assemble the force he did before, but Iranian-backed proxies can make up the difference. Kaitab Hezbollah numbers only 1,000, but its training by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and armaments make it a threatening force. Asaib Ahl al-Haq gets $5 million every single month, along with weapons, from the Iranian regime. Al-Sadr and these proxies will capitalize upon the anger of Iraqis who disagree with the prolonged stay of the U.S. military.

Moqtada al-Sadr can also cause massive political instability by undermining the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The massive protests in February against government inefficiency were a symptom of discontent. The Sadrists helped al-Maliki win a second term, but will never forget how he ordered the Iraqi military to crush the Mehdi Army. The Sadrists have 40 deputies in parliament and seven ministers in al-Maliki’s government. By withdrawing support for the unity government, he can cause a major political crisis and potentially bring al-Maliki down if he does not bend to his will.

The U.S. is putting together a covert campaign to deal with Iranian meddling as troop levels decrease. Reportedly, this will include secret operations to stop arms shipments to Iranian proxies. Some officials want the campaign to be regional in scope, targeting Iranian support to the Syrian government and terrorist groups outside of Iraq. The administration rejected this idea, and is limiting operations to Iraq.

The Iranian jihad could compel the Sunnis to again take up arms, perhaps embracing militias and Islamic extremists like Al-Qaeda in Iraq. The New York Times​ interviewed Iraqis around the country and found that many are afraid of Iranian domination. As a result, Iraqi public opinion has warmed up to the idea of extending the stay of American forces. However, this is not a large majority and so Iran’s proxies will have plenty of anger to use to their advantage. Iraqi Shiite opinion is very hostile to Iranian meddling, but a desire to expel U.S. forces among could override this hostility for some. Much will depend upon what the pro-withdrawal Shiites feel are appropriate means and whether it is worth rewarding Iran with greater influence.

Iraq gets little attention these days, but if Moqtada al-Sadr and his Iranian patrons have their way, that will suddenly and dramatically change beginning on January 1, 2012.

Ryan Mauro

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/10/10/iran%e2%80%99s-2012-jihad-in-iraq/

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