The New York Times’ Charlie Brown

by Bruce Thornton

For decades now too many Western politicians, diplomats, and pundits have played Charlie Brown to the Palestinians’ Lucy. No matter how many times the Arabs have invited Westerners to kick the football of “land for peace,” only to jerk the ball away at the last minute, there remains no end of Westerners eager to line up and take another try no matter how many times they land flat on their backs.

Thomas Friedman might hold the record for falling for this trick. Just recently he endorsed a call by jailed terrorist murderer Marwan Barghouti for a “non-violent” uprising against Israel “with civil disobedience or boycotts of Israel, Israeli settlements or Israeli products.” Friedman does have one condition for his support: that the Palestinians present “a detailed map of the final two-state settlement they are seeking.” In the same column, Friedman also endorsed the view that creating a Palestinian state can create peace and stability by providing an alternative “model” to the Islamist states coming into being as a result of the “Arab Spring” uprisings: “the rise of Islamists in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Syria, Israelis and Palestinians” create “a greater incentive than ever to create an alternative model in the West Bank — a Singapore — to show that they [Israelis and Arabs], together, can give birth to a Palestinian state where Arab Muslims and Christians, men and women, can thrive in a secular, but religiously respectful, free-market, democratic context, next to a Jewish state.”

No better example of the persistent hold of received wisdom and unexamined assumptions can be found than Friedman’s column. The biggest assumption, of course, is that a critical mass of ordinary Palestinian Arabs––as opposed to the duplicitous or Westernized elites Friedman talks to––want a state more than they want to destroy Israel. If we attend to deeds rather than deceitful words, the evidence that the destruction of Israel trumps acquiring a state is overwhelming. For starters, Palestinians have squandered every opportunity to create their own state, beginning with the U.N.’s 1947 partition plan. As Efraim Karsh writes of the rise of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, “Had Arafat set the PLO from the start on the path to peace and reconciliation, instead of turning it into one of the most murderous terrorist organizations in modern times, a Palestinian state could have been established in the late 1960s or the early 1970s; in 1979 as a corollary to the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty; by May 1999 as part of the Oslo Process; or at the very latest with the Camp David summit of July 2000.”

And why have the Palestinians consistently rejected these opportunities for a state? One simple reason: an absolute rejection of the legitimacy of Israel and its right to exist. This rejection of Israel is obvious in the non-negotiable demand of a “right of return” for the ever-growing number of “refugees,” a demand that if granted would create a demographic WMD that would destroy Israel as a Jewish state. Nor is this rejection of Israel a consequence of Arafat’s failures as a leader, as compared to the “moderate” Mahmoud Abbas: “For all their drastically different personalities and political styles,” Karsh writes, “Arafat and Abbas are warp and woof of the same fabric: dogmatic PLO veterans who have never eschewed their commitment to Israel’s destruction and who have viewed the ‘peace process’ as the continuation by other means of their lifelong war.”

Thus in the 2007 Annapolis Conference, when Israeli president Ehud Olmert offered a Palestinian state on 97% of the West Bank on the condition of Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, Abbas turned him down, demanding again the “right of return,” the euphemism for the slow-motion demographic destruction of Israel. So too in 2009, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded recognition of Israel as a condition for negotiations, Abbas responded, “A Jewish state, what does that suppose to mean? You can call yourselves as you like, but I don’t accept it and I say so publicly.” Netanyahu’s repeat offer a few months later was scorned throughout the Arab world. American “ally” Hosni Mubarak said that “no one will support this appeal in Egypt or elsewhere.” Chief Palestinian “peace negotiator” Saeb Erekat said that Netanyahu “will have to wait 1,000 years before he finds one Palestinian who will go along with him.” In August of that year, as Karsh concludes this history of rejection, Fatah’s general congress “reaffirmed its long-standing commitment to the ‘armed struggle’ as ‘a strategy, not tactic . . . in the battle for liberation and for the elimination of the Zionist presence. This struggle will not stop until the Zionist entity is eliminated and Palestine is liberated.’” Given this six-decade-long irredentist history, what sort of “detailed map of the final two-state settlement” does Friedman think the Palestinians will offer to earn his endorsement of their protests?

Even more delusional, however, is Friedman’s idea of a Palestinian state becoming a Middle East “Singapore,” where “Arab Muslims and Christians, men and women, can thrive in a secular, but religiously respectful, free-market, democratic context, next to a Jewish state.” Where does Friedman find in any Muslim Middle East country the cultural or religious foundations for such a state? Where in the region is there even a “secular” state? The recent revolts have eliminated the barely secular state like Egypt. Turkey has been secularizing for eight decades, and it’s becoming more Islamist, not less. Or where are Christians “respectfully” treated? On the contrary, they are fast disappearing from the regions of Christianity’s birth, those few remaining subject to increasing violence and persecution. More broadly, where in Islam can Friedman find the foundational principles of liberal democracy, such as separation of church and state, recognition of universal human rights, secular law, or free speech? And if a “partly free” regime, as Freedom House calls it, like Singapore is Friedman’s model, where can he find in Islam the intellectual freedom and dynamism, scientific rationalism, respect for contracts and laws apart from tribe or sect, and all the other constituents of a free-market economy? Surely if an Islamic state could achieve these boons that Friedman believes a Palestinian state would provide, the region wouldn’t be the intellectually stagnant and intolerant, repressive backwater that it is.

A Palestinian state has always been the Arab pretext for attacking Israel, one that plays to Western goods like nationalist self-determination that are not native to Islam, or exploits Western self-loathing based on the presumed historical sins of imperialism and colonialism. The hatred of Jews, however, can be found throughout Islamic theology and history, justified as the proper response to those who rejected Allah and his prophet. And it can be found everywhere in the Muslim Middle East, including the West Bank, where anti-Semitic eliminationist rhetoric is commonplace in government media and school curricula. To believe that Palestinian rejection of Israel is a consequence of “settlements” or “refugees” or the lack of a state instead of reflecting this long, theologically sanctioned, anti-Jewish tradition requires a leap of faith that would, like Charlie Brown’s, be funny if it wasn’t so deadly.

Bruce Thornton

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/04/06/the-new-york-times%E2%80%99-charlie-brown/

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

Short Supply, Not Middle East Tensions, Push up Oil Prices

by David P. Goldman

"Right now the key thing that is driving higher gas prices is actually the world's oil markets and uncertainty about what's going on in Iran and the Middle East, and that's adding a $20 or $30 premium to oil prices," President Obama said March 23. It's complete and utter nonsense. Oil is trading in lockstep with expectations for economic growth, as reflected in stock prices. There's not a shred of evidence that geopolitical uncertainty has added a penny to the oil price. Obama's $20 to $30 per barrel risk premium is a number pulled out of a hat, without a shred of empirical support. In effect, the President is blaming Israel for high oil prices.

On April, 3, Vice-President Biden blamed higher oil prices on "talk about war with Iran"; fear that Iran might "take out the Saudi oil fields and Bahraini oil fields"; the Arab Spring movement; "war in Libya"; the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood; and a potential for unforeseen political unrest, such as "chaos in Russia." It's all complete and utter nonsense. Oil prices are going up because the world economy is consuming more oil and supply has not increased to meet the demand – in part because the Obama administration discourages North American energy development, most recently by stopping the proposed Keystone pipeline from Canada. It's easier to blame foreign phantoms for high gas prices at the pump than the administration's business-killing politics

One might argue that the market should price strategic risk into the oil price, but the fact is that markets are not especially good at assigning prices to possible events whose probability can't be measured.

Chart 1: Oil Price vs. S&P 500, Past Three Years

Source: Bloomberg

During the past three years, oil prices have tracked equity prices almost perfectly, with a regression coefficient of nearly 90%. (For statisticians, the correlation of daily percentage changes in the two markets is 51%). Equity prices embody expectations of future economic growth, and higher growth means more demand for oil. If oil supply cannot keep up with demand—because the Obama administration has restricted development, among other factors—the oil price goes up.

If it walks like a duck, flies like a duck, quacks like a duck and correlates in first differences, we can say with confidence that it is a duck. The price of oil tracks economic growth expectations. Growth expectations, moreover, provide such a complete explanation of oil prices that it is statistically absurd to seek for another reason.

There are even stronger grounds to reject Obama's unsubstantiated, self-serving claims about a supposed risk premium in the oil price. Oil price risk is traded every day, in the form of options on the oil price. A hedger or speculator can buy the right to purchase oil at a fixed price over a specified time period. The price of oil options expresses the market's perception of risk of a big move in the cost of oil.

Traders express option prices in terms of "implied volatility," that is, the probability of a big move—the more likely the price is to move, the costlier the option. An implied volatility of 20% for a 12-month option, for example, means the market assigns a probability of about two-thirds that the price will move by 20% in either direction.

Chart 2: S&P 500 Risk vs. Oil Risk

Source: Bloomberg

The cost of hedging against changes in the oil price tracks the cost of hedging the S&P 500 just as closely as oil prices track stock prices. What's more, the cost of hedging against an oil price spike is trading at a three-year low.

The problem is not risk, but supply. When demand increases, we observe in Chart 3, prices trend to rise faster than demand, because supply is relative inelastic (it can't quickly expand to meet additional consumption). The only way to reduce gas prices is to drill for more oil.

Chart 3: Oil Price vs. Global Oil Demand, 2011 to 2012

David P. Goldman

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/2995/oil-supply-prices

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

Anti-Israel Incitement Pops Up On the Left

by Jonathan S. Tobin

Democrats got a reminder of just what the far left wing of their party is thinking these days when a debate among contenders for their party’s nomination in the race to replace retiring Senator Joe Lieberman was overshadowed by vicious anti-Israel rhetoric on the part of one of the candidates. Candidate Lee Whitnum called frontrunner Rep. Chris Murphy a “whore” because of his support for Israel. She also referred to another candidate as “ignorant” during the course of the debate that was televised by the local NBC affiliate.

Whitnum, the sole focus of whose campaign is hatred of Israel, is a marginal player at best in a Democratic race that centers on the competition between Murphy and former Connecticut Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz. But her ability to get on the stage and spout bile against the Jewish state and its supporters is something of a victory for the Occupy AIPAC crowd and a warning to both Democrats and Republicans about their obligation to denounce anti-Semitic agitators who seek to worm their way into the mainstream.

Whitnum’s candidacy is more or less the embodiment of the Walt-Mearsheimer conspiracy theories. She is obsessed with AIPAC and Zionism and spends a great deal of space on her campaign website trying unsuccessfully to assert that she is not an anti-Semite. But at least she comes by her bias honestly. According to her biography, her father was a British military officer who served in Palestine during the 1940s when the U.K. was preventing Jews from immigrating to their homeland and assisting Arabs in their efforts to prevent Israel’s birth.

Murphy rightly denounced Whitnum’s comments saying, “This is in our national security interest, ultimately in the interest of U.S. taxpayers to have a strong relationship with Israel and I think it is worth saying on this stage that a lot of her comments have been out of bounds and over the line.” He also said he was reconsidering his support for allowing marginal candidates access to the debates.

Support for Israel in the United States is bipartisan and encompasses a broad coalition of members of both parties including liberals and conservatives. But the virus of hate is alive and well on the margins, especially the far left where, as the Occupy Wall Street protests proved, Jew-hatred seems not far below the surface.

Jonathan S. Tobin

Source: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/04/06/anti-israel-incitement-on-the-left/

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

Dems Turn Passover Into Obama Worship

by Jonathan S. Tobin

One of the most disturbing aspects of modern American Jewish life is the almost obsessive desire of many Jews to universalize every aspect of Jewish belief while downplaying the original meanings of customs and ritual. Leftist Rabbi Arthur Waskow help set this in motion decades ago with his “Freedom Seder” in which he hijacked the Haggadah recited by Jews on Passover to promote other causes. Since then, transposing the seder in order to morph the Jewish holiday that celebrates the freedom of the Jewish people into something that has nothing to do with the Jews and Judaism has become so commonplace it is something of a cliché.

This year, there are more egregious examples of this trend. The National Jewish Democratic Council has published a new version of the “Four Questions” from the Haggadah that is a paean, not to the liberation of the Jews from Egypt, but to the wonders of Barack Obama, to whom the NJDC directs Americans to express thanks rather than their Creator. One need only read the NJDC’s questions to understand their desperation to make up for three years of Israel-bashing by President Obama as well as to get a feel for the attitude of the group toward the president that can only be characterized as worshipful.

The president’s shaky record on Israel — which was made all too clear by the constant fights and sniping against the Jewish state that only abated once his re-election campaign began — has made it imperative for Democrats to pretend as if the administration’s stands on Jerusalem, the 1967 borders and years of failed engagement with Iran never happened. They can rightly claim he has not trashed the alliance with Israel and has even done the right thing at the United Nations and continued to fund programs begun under his predecessor like the Iron Dome missile defense system (which Obama falsely claims credit for initiating). He has also said all the right things about stopping Iran’s nuclear threat though his actions (and a series of insidious leaks from his staffers) have demonstrated that he is more concerned about stopping Israel from defending itself than actually doing something about Iran.

The NJDC’s questions also attempt to use Passover to promote their party’s stands on ObamaCare and the defense of entitlement spending that is bankrupting the nation. There is nothing wrong with Democrats taking those positions if that’s what they believe, but the attempt to link these partisan stands on divisive issues — about which Jews as well as non-Jews can disagree — with Judaism is absurd.

An old joke about Reform Judaism had it that the movement’s concept of the faith was merely the Democratic Party Platform with holidays thrown in. As unfair as such a characterization was, it appears the NJDC wants to go it one better by attempting to transform Jewish holidays into partisan talking points. Such things show no respect for Judaism by trivializing the Exodus as merely an excuse for political rhetoric.

Passover is the occasion for Jews to remember their liberation from Egypt and to embrace not only the gift of freedom but also the ability to worship God and His laws as a people. While seders are appropriate moments to remember those in need as well as other Jewish communities — such as that in Israel — which are assailed by foes, it is not the time to be delivering obsequious paeans to American politicians, no matter which party they belong to. That sort of absurd distortion of the festival of freedom bears a closer resemblance to idol worship than it does to Judaism.

Jonathan S. Tobin

Source: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/04/06/dems-turn-passover-into-obama-worship/

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

CIA: Iran Expands Program But No Nukes?

by Jonathan S. Tobin

The evidence of a major expansion of Iran’s nuclear program is a matter of record as far as the CIA is concerned, but the spy agency is still claiming Tehran hasn’t decided to build a bomb. Yesterday, COMMENTARY contributor Bill Gertz wrote in the Washington Free Beacon about the CIA’s official report to Congress on arms proliferation which was delivered in February but which hasn’t come to the attention of the public until now. The report states the bare facts about Iran’s program that are by now a matter of public knowledge since the International Atomic Energy Agency has been putting out regular bulletins about their damning findings.

The acknowledged facts are these: the Iranians have expanded their nuclear infrastructure and continued nuclear enrichment. They have constructed advanced nuclear centrifuges and bringing them online. Even more ominously, a new underground nuclear facility at Fordow has begun production of “near-20 percent enriched uranium,” the material that can be used to produce bombs. But as Gertz noted, the CIA’s report did not note the questions raised by the IAEA about weaponization research that is believed to be going on in Iran.

That omission is a crucial point in evaluating the CIA’s stance on Iran’s nuclear program. The agency has grudgingly noted the way Iran has proceeded with its nuclear build-up. But it is still sticking to its largely discredited 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that claims the Iranians are not building a bomb. In order to maintain that stance, it must ignore or downplay any evidence that points to weaponization.

As even the New York Times noted last month, American intelligence is still recovering from the black eye it received from its mistakes about Iraq’s weapons stockpile. But the agency’s decision to try to avoid making the same mistake on Iran has led them to buy into an equally fallacious mindset. Moreover, criticisms that the Iraq intelligence was influenced by the politics of the Bush administration is more than matched by the pressure coming from the Obama White House to downplay worries over Iran’s nukes that lend weight to calls for more action and less talk about the threat.

While American intelligence may have been guilty of overselling the threat from Iraq, it now appears to be doing everything possible to avoid taking the blame for a confrontation with Iran. But what the spooks seem to be forgetting is that as bad as the spanking over its Iraq errors was, it will be nothing compared to the anger that will come down on them should their optimistic assessments about Iran be proven false. Moreover, as bare bones as the CIA’s latest report may be, it contains enough to be someday thrown in their faces as proof that they knew the nature of the Iranian threat but refused for political or institutional reasons to draw the right conclusions.

Jonathan S. Tobin

Source: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/04/05/cia-iran-expands-program-but-no-nukes/

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

Another Unforced Obama Error on Egypt

by Jonathan S. Tobin

Yesterday, I wrote about the Obama administration’s decision to back the Muslim Brotherhood’s bid for a monopoly on power in Egypt. The rationale behind this startling decision was the possibility that an even more extreme Islamist appeared likely to win the upcoming presidential election. But now it appears that the candidacy of Sheik Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, the Salafi leader who appeared to be taking the country by storm, is in jeopardy.

If so, and the possibility that the most radical Islamist in the race will not be running Egypt has receded, the question for Washington is how President Obama’s foreign policy team — which met this week with a delegation of radical Islamists from the Brotherhood in the White House — proposes to walk back their latest unforced error on Egypt? Given the dangers that would accrue from the Brotherhood adding the presidency to their control of Egypt’s new parliament, it looks as if the administration has given sanction to a development that will alter the political landscape of the Middle East in a manner that will severely diminish American influence and increase the possibility of more Islamist violence against Israel.

The problems of Sheik Ismail provide a bit of comic relief to an otherwise grim situation in Cairo. The radical leader is an ardent foe of the United States, but it appears that his mother, who went to California to be with Ismail’s sister who had previously immigrated there, obtained American citizenship before she died. If so, that would contravene a law passed last year that mandated that the parents of any Egyptian president must not have any other passport. Should the charge be true and Ismail is forced to leave the contest, that would be a huge victory for the Brotherhood and their candidate, wealthy businessman Khairat Al Shater.

But this is nothing for the United States to cheer about. Though the White House may be buying into the Brotherhood’s assurances of moderation and devotion to peace and stability, a closer look at Al Shater reveals that the Islamist group hasn’t really changed its stripes. As Bret Stephens wrote earlier this week in the Wall Street Journal, the Brotherhood candidate is anything but moderate on the question of Middle East peace and doesn’t sound like someone the White House should be rolling out the red carpet for:

On the subject of Israel, Mr. Shater noted that the killing of Hamas’s Ahmed Yassin was “a heinous crime corresponding to the perfidious nature of the Zionist enemy.” As for negotiating with Israel, he called it “mindless”: “The only way” to deal with the Jewish state, he insisted, “is jihad.” He faulted “the enemies of Islam” for trying to “distort and remove [jihad] from the hearts and minds and souls of Muslims.” He blasted the U.S. for preventing “the Islamic nation in its entirety” from eliminating “the usurper Zionist enemy.”

Moreover, although as Stephens notes, some of the things the candidate says are pleasing to Western ears, there’s no denying his goal is to impose Islam on every aspect of Egyptian society. If, in the most optimistic scenario, the Brotherhood wants to emulate Turkey rather than Iran, that means the transformation of a secular Western ally into an Islamist nation that will always be hostile to U.S. interests and peace.

Yet, by diving into the election and giving the Brotherhood its seal of approval, the White House may have once again undermined any hope that the military or secular moderates could hold off the Islamist surge.

The list of administration errors on Egypt is long. It refused to promote democracy or human rights while Hosni Mubarak still ruled, but then compounded that error by quickly dumping Mubarak. It repeated that pattern by seeking to attack the military government that succeeded Mubarak and then appeased them by continuing the aid in the face of provocations. Now, it has put its chips on the Brotherhood even though there is still a chance it can be stopped. After all this, the only question is what Obama blunder will be next?

Jonathan S. Tobin

Source: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/04/05/another-unforced-obama-error-on-egypt/

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

U.S. Government and Media Cheer Muslim Brotherhood Regime in Egypt

by Barry Rubin

A year ago we were told that Egypt was going to become a moderate democratic state ruled by hip Facebook kids. Now we are told that we should be grateful Egypt is going to become a moderate Islamist republic ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Western media and governments have made terrible mistakes that will destabilize the Middle East — even more — for the rest of our lives, oppress tens of millions of people, cause tens of thousands to flee their countries, and cause thousands to die.

Here is the prime example of that situation at this moment.

As the Muslim Brotherhood openly bids for a monopoly of power in Egypt, the U.S. government is once again supporting the Brotherhood rather than the moderates or army. The Muslim Brotherhood, you see, is supposedly fighting the Salafists, so they are the “good Islamists.” It is like backing a Stalinist Communist Party to keep the Trotskyites out of power, even though the former group is the real threat.

The Muslim Brotherhood, breaking previous promises, is running a candidate for president of Egypt: Deputy Supreme Guide Khairat el-Shater. Shater wasn’t even at the press conference announcing his candidacy. Supreme Guide Muhammad al-Badie — the true architect of Egypt’s 2011 revolution, though few in the West understand this — read a letter by Shater saying he was merely complying with the Brotherhood’s decision.

“We decided that Egypt now needs a candidate from us,” said Mohamed el-Morsi, president of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party. But he added, “We have no desire at all to monopolize power.”

As for not seeking to monopolize power? That’s what the Brotherhood gave as an explanation when it was only running candidates for a small portion of seats, then half of them, then every one. Each time, they explained they weren’t running a candidate for president because they didn’t want a monopoly on power.

How can the Brotherhood hold the presidency, control parliament, and write the constitution, and still not have a monopoly on power?

The New York Times has basically endorsed el-Shater and the Brotherhood, calling him “the group’s most important internal advocate for moderation and modernization,” and adding that “many American officials who have met with Mr. Shater … have praised his moderation, business savvy and effectiveness.”

It sums him up as “a conservative but a pragmatist,” which is more than it will probably grant Mitt Romney.

The newspaper does briefly report that Egyptian liberals are getting suspicious about the Brotherhood, and that Shater helped kick “moderates” out of the group. But it quickly recovers, explaining that Egyptians have nothing to complain about since they will have a choice between — what I will call — supposedly “liberal” Shariah, “moderate” Shariah, and “hardline Shariah” candidates:

The Brotherhood’s entry into the race also turns the election into a debate over the future of the Islamist political movement that is sure to resonate in the region. Mr. Shater faces Islamist rivals to his left and right — one a more liberal former Brotherhood leader (Aboul Fotouh), the other an ultraconservative Salafist.

Not exactly.

It works like this: The Brotherhood puts its organization, prestige, and voting base behind one candidate; the Salafist party puts the same behind another. So where will the “liberal” Islamist end up at the polls? Well here’s a hint: in the parliamentary elections, the Brotherhood got almost 50 percent, the Salafists received 25 percent, and the liberal Islamic party got … 1 percent.

While Shater is now defined as the “good guy,” the bad guy is Hazem Salah Abu Ismail. Indeed, the Times explains, even the U.S. government backs Shater since he is needed to beat Abu Ismail. This is why “the United States offered signs of tacit approval over the weekend when the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest Islamic group, broke its pledge not to field its own candidate.”

This argument is pure nonsense. After all, if the Brotherhood had thrown its support behind a nationalist or moderate non-Islamist candidate, that person would have buried Abu Ismail in a landslide!

Abu Ismail is evil because he is “an old-school Islamist” who wants to abolish Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel, treat the United States as Iran does, and take away women’s rights.

In contrast, though, Shater is new, a media star, pragmatic, and a moderate Islamist who wants to abolish Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel, treat the United States as Iran does, and take away women’s rights.

It is one thing to back a pro-American dictator or army who may be oppressive at home. It is another thing to back moderate democracy advocates who may be weak and lose. But how can U.S. policy back an anti-American extremist who will be oppressive at home and trample on U.S. interests?

How can the New York Times call the anti-American, anti-Semitic, genocide-advocating, anti-woman, and anti-Christian Brotherhood merely a “religious and anti-colonialist movement”? How can the Washington Post, whose coverage is better, refer to the Brotherhood as a “long-oppressed Islamist group”?

Meanwhile, the non-Islamist moderates continue to commit political suicide. Their latest brilliant move is to embrace that old Arab strategy that has always proven to be disastrous: the boycott. They discovered that the 100 members of parliament chosen to write a new constitution were almost all Islamists. That shouldn’t be surprising, since these two parties have 75 percent in the lower house and even more in the upper house.

So now instead of fighting tooth and claw over every sentence of the new constitution, forcing the Islamists to make some compromises — or at least, if they refuse, to become exposed for their true nature — the moderates have walked out entirely.

Between a catastrophic U.S. policy and a dumb-as-rocks Egyptian moderate strategy, Egypt should be an Islamist state in practice within one year. Then the Middle East is set for decades of turmoil while the United States faces its worst setback in the region since Iran’s revolution more than three decades ago.

Barry Rubin

Source: http://pjmedia.com/barryrubin/2012/04/03/u-s-government-and-media-backs-muslim-brotherhood-candidate-for-president-of-egypt-what-could-go-wrong/

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

MB Presidential Candidate Pledges to Implement Sharia in Egypt

by Andrew G. Bostom

As reported by The Washington Post today (4/4/12), recently announced Muslim Brotherhood (MB) candidate for the Egyptian Presidency, Dr. Khairat Al-Shater, Deputy Chairman of the MB, has affirmed his commitment to implementing Sharia -- Islamic Law -- in post-Mubarak Egypt.

Yesterday (Tuesday 4/3/12) El-Shater met with the Jurisprudence Commission for Rights and Reform. This umbrella group of Islamic scholars, including MB and Salafist party representatives, was established after last year's uprising against President Hosni Mubarak as a coalition to represent the popular traditionalist Islamic political factions. According to the Post report,

The group, called the Jurisprudence Commission for Rights and Reform, said in a posting on its Facebook page that el-Shater promised that, if elected, he would form a council of clerics to review legislation to ensure it adheres to Islamic Shariah law.

Predictably, the Post also reports, "A Brotherhood spokesman could not immediately confirm the offer."

Al-Shater's promise to the Jurisprudence Commission for Rights and Reform served as a reminder of the MB's 2007 political platform that included a similar provision, mandating that parliament consult with a religious council of clerics when drafting legislation to assure compliance with Islam's religio-political totalitarian Sharia. Salient features of the 2007 180-page draft platform included the proposed the establishment of the Supreme Council of Clerics, to whom the Egyptian president and legislative branches must defer on issues of conformity to the Sharia. The platform document also stated that women and non-Muslims were barred from serving as president of Egypt, and further stipulated that international agreements signed by past governments -- including the 1979 Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty -- were to be reexamined and brought to a public referendum.

Over thirty years ago, in 1979, Hava Lazarus-Yafeh described the perverse phenomenon -- borne of complete Western rejection -- that nevertheless caused an "amalgamation" of Islamic and Western values in the warped political language of Islam's contemporary theocrats. The Muslim Brotherhood -- then and now -- represents the apotheosis of that totalitarian Islamic trend:

When calling for an Islamic totalitarian Republic, wherein the ulama [scholars of Islam] hoped to restore God's will in history, they used Western concepts of democracy, liberty, equality etc.... All of these contemporary religious leaders in Islam were raised and nourished by the literary activity of the Modernists who consciously blurred the differences between East and West. Hence we may understand the unintelligible [note: to Westerners with their wits about them!] phenomenon of the Muslim Brotherhood, for example, talking about Islamic democracy and freedom while cultivating a vision of an Islamic State, which is certainly a far cry from any Western democracy.

Andrew G. Bostom

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/04/mb_presidential_candidate_pledges_to_implement_sharia_in_egypt.html

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

Sharia in America — on The Glazov Gang

by Jamie Glazov

Robert Spencer, Bruce Thornton and Nonie Darwish recently joined The Glazov Gang to discuss The Islamic War on Free Speech in America. All three parts of this three-part series can be found below. Part I deals with The Islamic War on Free Speech in America, Part II focuses on Trayvon Martin, Race Hustlers and Media Bias and Part III sheds light on Robert Spencer’s new book: Did Muhammad Exist?

Part I:

Part II:

Part III:

Jamie Glazov

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/04/05/sharia-in-america-on-the-glazov-gang/

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

Obama’s Knife in Israel’s Back

by David Meir-Levi

In his March 28^th article, “Israel’s Secret Staging Ground,” in Foreign Policy, Mark Perry revealed previously secret information about Israel’s dealings with Azerbaijan; and many are now of the opinion that his article was in reality Obama’s knife in Israel’s back. According to Perry, four unnamed senior diplomats and military intelligence officers leaked information indicating that Israel has purchased air force bases in Azerbaijan for use in preparation for an attack on Iran.

The likelihood that it is mere coincidence that four senior diplomatic and military intelligence sources separately leaked the same information at the same time is very small. So John Bolton holds Obama responsible. Bolton suggests that because Obama’s private efforts to prevent an Israeli attack on Iran have failed, he decided to ratchet up the pressure on Israel by revealing sensitive, secret information that, once available to Iran, will make an Israeli offensive less likely to succeed, and thus be a deterrent to such an offensive.[1] This is surely not the sort of thing that a head of state does to an ally; but it might be the sort of thing that an unconscionably Machiavellian President running for re-election might do if he perceives that an Israeli strike on Iran might be a political liability for him.

The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry denies any collusion with Israel, and, indeed, Azerbaijan is a rather unlikely ally for the Jewish state; but Wikileaks gives a solid basis for such collusion, the motivation for which may be Azerbaijan’s perception of Iran as an existential enemy.

Some Israeli analysts deride the very idea that Israel could be in league with Azerbaijan for a variety of strategic and tactical, military, logistical and political reasons, including the fact that an Iranian revenge attack on Azerbaijan’s oil production facilities could easily destroy the country’s entire economy.

But these commentators all miss the point. It does not matter whether or not the information is correct. Those who leaked it presumably thought that it was. It does not matter that the President says that he did not knife Israel in the back and has “no interest” in leaks of this kind, or that “…the US is crawling with thousands of intelligence and former intelligence officials.” The buck stops at Obama’s desk. He is the Commander-in-Chief of those thousands. Yet his response is dismissive, nonchalant, and insouciant: hardly the appropriate attitude when an ally’s secret defensive plans have been compromised, with potentially existential consequences.

In the context of a broader perspective this incident takes on rather dire dimensions, as it is the latest in a long line of anti-Israel statements and actions originating with Obama or with those working close to him.

This past February Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told Iran that he thinks Israel will strike as early as April. So Israel’s ally tells Israel’s enemy when Israel will strike. Surely, for Iran, this is “news you can use.” Was this just a gaff, or was it an intentional leak meant to undermine Israel’s military options? Panetta answers to Obama, but Obama seems to be insouciant, saying nothing.

Another problem regarding Obama’s silence is the recent flap about a State Department official’s refusal to acknowledge that Jerusalem is the official capital of Israel. This official is not to blame. She was merely conforming to the directives of her employer, the U.S. Department of State, which, despite Congress’ Jerusalem embassy act of 1995, and the recent Supreme Court decision recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, continues to ignore U.S. law. The State Department answers to the President, and the President is silent, insouciant, on this issue.

But he did have something to say about the status of Jerusalem on the White House website. Not too long ago Obama himself ordered the removal of all references to “Jerusalem, Israel” from the White House website, replacing them with “Jerusalem.” What could be Obama’s motive for divesting Israel of its capital, and Jerusalem of its Jewish state? Connecting some recent dots will offer an answer to that question.

To a mostly Jewish AIPAC audience on June 4, 2008, front-running Presidential candidate Obama announced that “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided.” But only a few days later, after being assailed by Arab-American and Palestinian spokespersons, he told a mostly Arab audience that “…it’s going to be up to the parties to negotiate.” [2] To which audience did he lie?

But as the world had already learned a few months earlier, he was willing to divide not only Jerusalem, but all of Israel. In January, 2008, Obama said he supported the division of Israel into two parts by a Palestinian state.[3] This stunning comment came as Obama, struggling to articulate his stance on key Mideast issues, asserted that “The Palestinians have a legitimate concern that a state have a contiguous coherent mass that would allow the state to function effectively.” Was Obama not aware that a land corridor between Gaza and the West Bank would effectively cut Israel in half, making it incoherent and non-contiguous, divided into northern and southern portions? Was this merely the gaff of an inexperienced, flustered and geographically challenged presidential candidate trying to accommodate Arab-American voters, or was Obama stating a priority that presaged a series of later presidential anti-Israel words and deeds?

Looking back a bit further into Obama’s not-too-distant past, one may be able to find the likely answer to these questions.

During his presidential campaign (2007-08) he revealed to the press the names of those to whom he would look for guidance on Middle East issues, his “brain trust” as it were: Zbigniew Brzezinski, Anthony Lake, Susan Rice, Bettylu Saltzman, Robert Malley,[4] and Samantha Power, among others – a dream team for the anti-Israel crowd at home and abroad. Given his choice of advisors, it was not difficult to predict that he would be no friend of Israel.

And speaking of advisors, let’s recall Obama’s mentor and spiritual guide, the Reverend Dr. Jeremiah Wright who glad-handed and honored the notorious anti-Israel and anti-Jewish and anti-homosexual Louis Farrakhan, and who is still active in anti-Israel activities with his most recent participation in the planning of the “Global March on Jerusalem” (GMJ). Did Obama sit in Wright’s fire-and-brimstone anti-Israel church and never inhale?

It is also important to recall Obama’s comfort and conviviality with Arab and Arab-American anti-Israel leaders[5], some of whom saw him as a friend of “Palestine” whom they could trust to take strong pro-Palestinian positions once in the White House. Such leaders included the likes of Edward Said, Rashid Khalidi and Ali Abunimah. Obama’s attendance at a vociferously anti-Israel celebration with these and other Palestinian-American leaders back in 2003 was apparently something of a political embarrassment to Obama during his election campaign, so much so that The Los Angeles Times withheld the video of his participation.

It was at this event that Obama is said to have told Ali Abunimah not to press him about Palestinian issues, explaining that he would be able to do more for the Palestinians once he is elected a U.S. Senator. Obama later denied saying that, but Abunimah never publicly retracted the statement and alluded to it several times in public appearances where he expressed his disappointment in Obama’s positive statements about Israel.

Obama’s comment to Abunimah was an eerie precursor to his recent “hot mike” gaff with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Just as he did not want his voting constituency to know what he planned to do for the Palestinians once elected to the U.S. Senate, so too does he not want the American public to know what sort of flexibility toward Russia he looks forward to, regarding missile defenses, once elected to his second term as President. Obviously in both cases the nature of this post-election flexibility is something that, if known, would reduce his chances of being elected.

Given the above, it may be premature to suggest that Obama wants Iran to win, but clearly he wants Israel to lose.

Notes:

[1] See http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0%2c7340%2cL-4209836%2c00.html for a comprehensive summary of the damage that this leak may cause for Israel. For the most detailed, in-depth and objective summary and analysis of the issue of why an Israeli attack on Iran may create problems for the USA and constitute a liability for the President see http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/R42443.pdf .

[2] The video of that speech is no longer available on line but see excerpts at http://obamalies.net/obama-flip-flops-on-jeruselem.html ; and for the flip-flop when speaking to Arab audiences see: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2008/06/obama-backtracks-on-jerusalem.html and http://hotair.com/archives/2008/06/05/another-obama-flip-flop-jerusalem/.

[3] Originally published with video in Israel Insider, Jan. 29, 2008. The article and video are no longer on line, but available at http://focusonjerusalem.com/newsroom90.html .

[4] But see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Malley for a summary of his defenders on the issue of his attitude toward Israel.

[5] For details of Obama’s connections to radical Islam, CAIR and Farrakhan see http://www.danielpipes.org/5983/obama-would-fail-security-clearance; http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2008/10/more-on-the-links-between-obama-and ; http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/29709_Terrorist_Fundraisers_for_Obama; and http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3602 (for his wife’s connections too).

David Meir-Levi

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/04/05/obama-betrays-israel-why-are-we-surprised/

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