Crime and Punishment

by Sally Zahav


In Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov, the protagonist, murders an old pawn-broker, and steals some of her valuables, convinced that his life is inherently more valuable than hers, and that he would be able to do good deeds with the money that he stole from her, justifying the killing of the "insignificant", but rich old lady.

From Wikipedia:

"Raskolnikov argues that with the pawnbroker's money he can perform good deeds to counterbalance the crime, while ridding the world of a worthless vermin. He also commits this murder to test his own hypothesis that some people are naturally capable of such things, and even have the right to do them. Several times throughout the novel, Raskolnikov justifies his actions by connecting himself mentally with Napolean Bonaparte, believing that murder is permissible in pursuit of a higher purpose."

Recently, four American lives were violently snuffed out in Benghazi, Libya. It is now known who is responsible for the slaughter, but there is still an attempt to hide or distort the details of the event. But by now, as a result of the steady stream of facts that are revealed day by day, we know that in all of the various factors involved, there is a common thread of incompetence and disorganization at best. And indirectly, behind it all, in one way or another, inescapably looms the image of the president of the United States, Barack Obama.

Of course, no one in the White House, State Department or various security forces is guilty of murder, but neither are the hands of the president and his close advisers clean of the innocent American blood that has been spilled. 

"Our hands did not shed this blood"

Deuteronomy 21 (1-9) reads, “If, in the land that the L-rd your G-d is assigning you to possess, someone slain is found lying in the open, the identity of the slayer not being known, your elders and magistrates shall go out and measure the distances from the corpse to the nearby towns. The elders of the town nearest to the corpse shall then take a heifer which has never been worked, which has never pulled in a yoke; and the elders of that town shall bring the heifer down to an overflowing wadi, which is not tilled or sown. There, in the wadi, they shall break the heifer’s neck. … And they shall make this declaration: ‘Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it done. Absolve, O L-rd, Your people Israel, whom You redeemed, and do not let guilt for the blood of the innocent remain among Your people Israel.’ And, they, will be absolved of blood-guilt. Thus, you will remove from your midst guilt for the blood of the innocent, for you will be doing what is right in the sight of the L-rd.”

We are told that the elders are not necessarily suspected of having killed the victim. But it is enough that the elders were aware that someone was in need of provision or protection and did not offer it, to bring guilt upon them.  It is their responsibility to be aware of threatening situations, both to the group and, as much as is reasonable, to individuals.

So if responsible parties know that someone is in need or in danger and refrain from providing him with what he needs in order to protect or sustain him, those parties are, according to this passage in Deuteronomy, responsible to a certain extent for the evil that may ensue.

We are told that there was live video feed of the ongoing attack in Benghazi streaming straight into the situation room of the White House in real-time. "Nor did our eyes see it done". Where was President Obama when this live feed was streaming into the White House situation room? Was he observing what transpired or was he busy with "more important" matters? Either way, according to what we know now, he cannot escape indirect responsibility for the slaughter, or at least for the lack of a serious attempt to avert it.

And this is the question that finally arises like a noxious gas from this mire of obfuscation: Why? Why did Obama not issue orders to aid those under attack? We know that there were operational resources available that could have helped. Why was the level of security not increased prior to the September 11 attack, since the embassy had been attacked twice before the fatal attack. Why, so long after the event, were there so many different versions of what really happened?

One hypothesis is that after having issued the order to kill bin Laden, (over the objections of the presidential adviser-in-chief Valerie Jarrett), Obama used that event to try to convince the American people that al-Qaeda, and therefore terrorism in general, had taken a very serious setback. In fact, on October 9 of this year, only four weeks after the September 11 attack, he simplistically stated that  "Al-Qaeda is on its heels".  

Also, Obama and his administration had also been keen to represent the so-called "Arab Spring" as a positive phenomenon that would eventually yield regimes in the Middle East based on democratic, Western values, despite evidence to the contrary, for instance, the rise of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. As a consequence, we are forced to conclude that  either our commander-in-chief is woefully uninformed or he simply intended to lead the American people to believe something that he knew was not true. Take your pick.

Since, as conventional [anti-]wisdom has it, Obama's strength is in foreign policy, if it became evident that al-Qaeda had not been subdued, or that the "Arab Spring" had spawned some very ugly and dangerous weeds, why, it might harm his chances for reelection. And Obama's reelection is precisely the holy grail which, apparently, justifies almost any sin or sacrifice. Obfuscation, outright lying, procrastination, stonewalling, refraining to send aid to save human life, sacrificing the political careers of others - all of these sacrifices and ethical transgressions were justified to advance the sacred goal of Obama's reelection, because, as the Obama disciples would have it, only he is capable of bringing light, truth, hope and prosperity to humanity.  But for many of us, the glittering magic Obama charm that was supposed to be capable of  working miracles has turned out to be nothing but ashes.

In the "Old" Testament, it is written:

"צדק צדק תרדוף". Literally, it means "justice, justice you will pursue". Interpreters of the Torah relate to the repetition of the word "justice" and explain it by saying that the deeper meaning of this phrase is, "pursue justice, but use just means to do so". In other words, the end does not justify the means. Even when a goal is very worthwhile, we are enjoined to pursue it only by ethical means.

Value of Human Life in Judaism

Judaism has stringent laws governing the observance of the Sabbath. We refrain from actively using any electrical device, riding in a vehicle or even on an animal, cooking, writing, and so forth. But if there is a doubt that human life is endangered, we are not only permitted to break the laws of the Sabbath, we are commanded to do so, even if there is only a remote chance that the act will indeed save a life. (Contrast this with the case that occurred in Saudi Arabia in March 2002 - reported by the BBC,  when school girls were prevented from leaving a burning building because they were "not properly dressed". According to the BBC report, "fifteen girls died in the blaze and more than 50 others were injured".)

The value of human life sits squarely at the basis of what we call the "Judeo-Christian" system of values. What value system does Barack Obama subscribe to, that allows what appears to be the callous and preventable sacrifice of human life for political gain?

As we know, Raskolnikov is ultimately led to atonement and redemption by his tormented  conscience. One wonders how president Obama is sleeping these days. And if his sleep is indeed disturbed, is it because he mourns the possible impending loss of the presidency, or because he is pained by our disillusionment in him, reflected in the daily polls? Does he regret the loss of trust that the American people had in him? The disappointment we feel when, expecting the transparency that he promised us, we are presented with murky opacity instead? Is it because he knows that we have finally seen through his false narrative and his policy of appeasement?  Or is it the knowledge that as a result of his incompetence and lack of leadership, four courageous human beings have been lost in the inferno that was Benghazi on September 11, 2012 without even an to attempt by the "elders" to rescue them.

Sally Zahav

Source:Middle East and Terrorism

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

The Rationale for the Racism Canard

by Jonathan S. Tobin


Last week, John Sununu lost his perch as one of the Mitt Romney campaign’s leading cable news talking head surrogates when he surmised that the reason former Secretary of State Colin Powell endorsed President Obama again this year is because both men are African-American. While, as I wrote, there were other, perhaps more compelling reasons for Powell to back the president, liberals seized on Sununu’s statement as evidence of Republican racism. The race theme resurfaced again yesterday when liberal blogger Andrew Sullivan said on ABC’s “This Week” that the potential return of Virginia and Florida to the Republican column this year (along with likely GOP pickup North Carolina that he failed to mention) would mean the revival of “the Confederacy.”

Sullivan’s rather simplistic thesis was quickly shot down by George Will who pointed out that it was more likely that the whites who voted for Obama in 2008 but who won’t this year are judging the president on his performance in office rather than having become racist in the last four years. That’s obvious, but the willingness to jump on Sununu and to start talking about the Confederacy is no accident. In an election in which the president seems to be losing independents, Democrats desperately need voters to think more about Barack Obama’s historic status as the first African-American president and less about the record that he can’t run on. The president’s difficult electoral predicament is not a function of prejudice but the fact that more Americans are looking beyond race rather than obsessing about it.


Race is the original sin of American history, and anyone who attempted to argue that it no longer plays a role in our society is being disingenuous. But while the 2008 election did not mean it disappeared, it did remove it as an explanation for the voting behavior of the majority of Americans. While it is possible that some people will not vote for the president because of prejudice against his race, it is hardly a sign of bias to notice that there are many Americans — both white and black — who believe the symbolism of his ascendancy to the presidency is an act of historic justice that is an argument in itself for voting for Obama. Indeed, the president has very little to recommend his re-election other than party loyalty on the part of Democrats and lingering good feelings about what happened in 2008.

By contrast, Sununu is not a particularly sympathetic figure, and there are those of us who still bitterly recall that when he was the governor of New Hampshire he was the only U.S. governor who refused to repudiate the United Nations’ infamous “Zionism is Racism” resolution. But rehashing his past, including the ethical problems that led the first President Bush to fire him from his post as White House chief of staff, as the New York Times’ Charles Blow did this past weekend during the course of a column that attempted to first brand Sununu a racist and then to smear Romney as one by association, tells us more about the Obama campaign than it does about the GOP. That canard is a disreputable political tactic and nothing more.

The remarkable thing about both the 2008 and the 2012 elections is how unremarkable we have come to see the idea of an African-American running for and then serving as president. The decline in the president’s fortune has nothing to do with the revival of prejudice but is, instead, a result of the sober judgment of a significant portion of white Americans that the man they voted for in 2008 has not merited re-election. Republicans are asking the American people to assess the president on his record, not his race. It is, unfortunately, the Democrats who are the ones who are attempting inject race into the campaign.

Jonathan S. Tobin

Source: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/10/29/the-rationale-for-the-racism-canard-obama-sunun/

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

'The Panetta Doctrine?' Americans on their Own if Attacked

by Rick Moran


I think Goldberg has it about right:

It seems obvious that Panetta is trying protect Obama from responsibility for the administration's Benghazi response. I don't think that works. The decision to outsource the call is still a presidential decision. 

But there are two problems bigger problems with the Panetta doctrine. First, Panetta says they didn't have real-time information. Uh, if having a live video feed and real-time reports from assets on the ground for hours doesn't count as real-time information, what does? And if, as rumors suggest, the drones monitoring the situation were armed, the idea that the administration was trying to avoid some kind of "black hawk down" situation seems incomprehensible. 

Which brings us to the second, I think bigger, problem with the Panetta doctrine. If the circumstances in Libya didn't meet the "enough information" threshold for a rescue attempt or some other form of intervention, then what does? And, note, Panetta & Co. make it sound as if the decision to let the Americans on the scene twist in the wind was sort of a no-brainer, not a difficult decision. So what happened in Libya didn't even come close to the threshold for intervention. 

What does that mean? Well, it seems to me that any embassy or consulate subjected to a surprise attack will likely catch the administration off guard. That's why they call them "surprise attacks," after all. According to the Panetta doctrine, the very essence of what makes a surprise attack a surprise attack likely precludes any commitment of U.S. forces to repel it. The message to our diplomats and troops: You're on your own. The message to terrorists: As long as you keep your attacks minimally confusing, you win.  
That's outrageous.

No doubt there was concern about killing innocent civilians in any military assistance we would have sent. But seriously, how many civilians were hanging around when the terrorists were firing mortars, launching RPG's, and firing with automatic weapons at the CIA Annex - or the consulate for that matter? 

As for our soldiers walking into a trap, we're talking about a dozen special forces operators; they are trained to avoid traps and even turn the traps back onto their attackers. Besides, we probably wouldn't have needed boots on the ground at that point. Some close air support would have probably worked out fine.

The "Panetta Doctrine" doesn't pass the smell test and would appear to be a transparent attempt to excuse administration inaction in trying to rescue our diplomats.

Rick Moran

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/10/the_panetta_doctrine_americans_on_their_own_if_attacked.html

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

Anti-Wilders Mob Goes Mad

by Bruce Bawer

 

The other day I wrote here about a Norwegian TV documentary – to use the term very loosely – in which Robert Spencer, the consummate Islam critic and expert, was expertly demonized.  The program showed him in Stockholm last summer, addressing an outdoor audience from a platform.  While he stood there in suit and tie, his demeanor entirely calm and reasonable, and delivered his talk – or tried to – a violent mob a few feet away spewed out its venom: “Fucking racists! No racists in our streets!”

Meanwhile a small army of riot police struggled to hold them back. It was not easy.

To look at those faces twisted with hatred – those human beings transformed into ferocious beasts, filled with savage indignation and, by all indications, prepared to tear their fellowman limb from limb – was to stare into the very heart of contemporary Europe’s darkness.  It’s one thing to read about the history of Europe from the storming of the Bastille to the present day; it’s another thing to see the most cataclysmic, psychopathic turning points of the last couple of centuries vividly mirrored, as it were, before one’s eyes.

How different were those faces in Stockholm, after all, from the faces one might have seen in the streets of Paris during the Reign of Terror?  This mob rage didn’t come from nowhere: it’s the product of history.  Those rioters in Stockholm were the descendants of Robespierre and the enragés, the heirs to their unquenchable bloodthirstiness; and the rage in their eyes was testimony to the enduring destructive power of pure fanatical ideology, which, time and again since 1789, has turned Europe into a madhouse.

Looking into the eyes of those protesters, one could scarcely doubt that if they could push their way past those cops and get their hands on Spencer, they’d do as much harm to him as they could.  And yet, remarkably, while Frode Nielsen, the “journalist” who made this “documentary,” didn’t try to hide these people’s violence from us, he didn’t breathe so much as a word in condemnation of it.  On the contrary: if silence betokens approval, he approved.  Indeed, even as we watched those rioters raging rabidly at Spencer, Nielsen took pains to spell out for us who the real extremist was – Spencer, naturally.

Needless to say, if Nielsen had paused for just two or three minutes to provide an honest overview of Spencer’s work, the whole premise of his documentary would’ve come crashing down; it would’ve become clear to every viewer that Spencer is the very opposite of what Nielsen, and those rioters, would have us believe.  Yet that wasn’t what Nielsen wanted; he wanted his viewers to see Spencer as a force for evil.  And he apparently wanted them to understand, too, that those barbaric demonstrators were the Good Guys – decent, delicate souls who’d been driven to extreme conduct by a vile American provocateur.  If they were capable of violence, it was violence in the name of virtue.

Spencer’s Stockholm visit took place last summer.  Last Saturday, another one of the men who are routinely characterized by the likes of Nielsen as a contemporary force for evil, Geert Wilders, gave a talk in another Swedish city, Malmö.  On Sunday, a website posted an account by the Danish politician and jurist Aia Fog of what happened when she and three other women arrived at the sports complex where Wilders was scheduled to speak.  They came in a taxi, Fog wrote, but because of police barricades were obliged to walk 200 yards to the entrance.  The cops were out in force; and, as it happened, the protesters were shouting the exact same slogan that greeted Spencer in Stockholm: “No racists in our streets!”

One difference between that demo and this one, however, was that this time around the police weren’t holding the protesters back.  The cops were over here, the demonstrators over there – which meant that Fog and her friends had to make their way through the mob in order to get into the venue.  As they were doing so, some of the protesters apparently recognized one of Fog’s companions, the high-profile journalist Katrine Winkel Holm – who is a columnist for Jyllands-Posten, a founder of the Danish Free Press Society, and a director of Danish state TV and radio.  “Racist!” they shouted.  “Go home, we have border controls for you!” And they screamed at Fog: “Fat fascist pig!”
“Katrine starts to argue with them,” recalled Fog,

but it’s completely futile, and soon I pull her arm and tell her to drop it, so we can get through the crowd and go in.  And then it happens very quickly: Katrine and I are suddenly isolated from Kit and Trine, and I’m surrounded by AFA.

AFA is Antifascistisk Aktion – one of those European groups that call themselves anti-fascists but that, in everything they do and say, are textbook totalitarians.  Fog wasn’t sure that these guys were members of AFA, but they sure looked the part:

Danish men in their twenties, with black hoodies and small ugly tattoos….extremely threatening – not just in their attitude (which is furious, hateful – and just waiting to be permitted to strike), but also physically: I’m completely surrounded by 4-5 of them who not only block my way, but who push me hard with their shoulders, knocking me off balance. Then I feel a blow to the back of my head, and then another – this time not so hard, which in the end turns out to be an egg hurled at my neck.

Though the Swedish police were nearby, they were too far away to see any of this, and so didn’t come to anybody’s aid.  In any case, the four women made it safely into the venue – and when, moments later, concerned about the safety of other attendees, they stepped outside to see whether the police had managed to create a secure “corridor” through which people could pass through the mob unmolested, the cops told them to go back inside, “because we were ‘provoking’ [the protesters] by our presence.” Ah, that word – provoked.  (Indeed, after Wilders’s speech was over, a Swedish journalist asked Fog if she had “provoked” anybody before the egg was thrown at her.)

So much fury!  So many men bullying women in the name of human sensitivity!  It’s all supposed to be about “Islamophobia,” of course – about defending innocent, put-upon Muslims from their racist oppressors.  But scratch these self-styled friends of Islam and what you’ll find is the heirs to Europe’s most poisonous, dehumanizing dreams – men and women who are the sworn enemies of that messy, imperfect thing, human freedom, and who’ll never shake off their dangerous, blind faith in the utopian promise of authoritarian ideology.  So it stands, alas, in much of Europe in the year 2012.  To know anything about the history of the last few generations on this beleaguered continent is to realize that none of this insanity is new – and that every bit of it is, shall we say, profoundly inauspicious.

Bruce Bawer

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/bruce-bawer/anti-wilders-mob-goes-mad/

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

Benghazi and the Lethal Price of Arming Jihadists

by Arnold Ahlert



Over the weekend, the newest, and by far the most disturbing, revelations surrounding the Benghazi attack were revealed. Several sources have pointed to the possibility that a major CIA gun-running operation aimed at arming anti-Assad Al-Qaeda-affiliated forces was in danger of being exposed. If true, the information casts an even more devastating pall over the Benghazi terrorist attack and the administration’s botched handling of the region.

The decision to stand down as the Benghazi terrorist attack was underway was met with extreme opposition from the inside. The Washington Times‘s James Robbins, citing a source inside the military, reveals that General Carter Ham, commander of U.S. Africa Command, who got the same emails requesting help received by the White House, put a rapid response team together and notified the Pentagon it was ready to go. He was ordered to stay put. “His response was to screw it, he was going to help anyhow,” writes Robbins. “Within 30 seconds to a minute after making the move to respond, his second in command apprehended General Ham and told him that he was now relieved of his command.”

If true, Ham has apparently decided he wants no part of the responsibility for the decision not to help those in harm’s way. He is not alone. As the Weekly Standard‘s Bill Kristol revealed late Friday, a spokesperson, “presumably at the direction of CIA director David Petraeus,” released the following statement: ”No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate.”

Obama himself is stonewalling. During a Friday interview in Denver, the president revealed he was determined to postpone any revelation about Benghazi until after the election. “The election has nothing to do with four brave Americans getting killed and us wanting to find out exactly what happened,” said Obama in answer to questions about possible denials of aid, and whether it’s fair that Americans will have to wait until after the election to find out the results of an investigation. On Saturday, Obama upped the ante, telling ”Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough that “if we find out there was a big breakdown and somebody didn’t do their job, they’ll be held accountable. Ultimately as Commander-in-Chief I am responsible and I don’t shy away from that responsibility.”

Several sources have come up with explosive answers accounting for the administration’s reticence.

According to WND’s Aaron Klein, “Egyptian security officials” revealed that Ambassador Christopher Stevens “played a central role in recruiting jihadists to fight Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria.” Stevens was reportedly a key contact for Saudi Arabian officials, who wanted to recruit fighters from North Africa and Libya, and send them to Syria by way of Turkey. The recruits were ostensibly screened by U.S. security organizations, and anyone thought to have engaged in fighting against Americans, including those who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, were not sent to engage Assad’s regime.

Yet as Klein further notes, reality is far different. The rebels the administration armed to fight Gaddafi, as well as those we may have armed to fight Assad, do include al-Qaeda members, and fighters from other jihadist groups as well.

As to the nature of the arms themselves, an October 6 report by the New York Times’ Robert Worth reveals that “Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been funneling money and small arms to Syria’s rebels but have refused to provide heavier weapons, such as shoulder-fired missiles, that could allow opposition fighters to bring down government aircraft, take out armored vehicles and turn the war’s tide.” The reason they have refused to provide more lethal weapons to the rebels is partly because “they have been discouraged by the United States, which fears the heavier weapons could end up in the hands of terrorists.”

Yet as Business Insider reveals ”there’s growing evidence that U.S. agents–particularly murdered ambassador Chris Stevens–were at least aware of heavy weapons moving from Libya to jihadist Syrian rebels” (italic mine) and that, beginning in March 2011, Stevens was “working directly with Abdelhakim Belhadj of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group–a group that has now disbanded, with some fighters reportedly participating in the attack that took Stevens’ life.” In November 2011, the Daily Telegraph reported that “Belhadj, head of the Tripoli Military Council and the former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, ‘met with Free Syrian Army leaders in Istanbul and on the border with Turkey,’ said a military official working with Mr Belhadj.” Reportedly, many of the militia groups that helped oust Gaddafi were eager to export their revolution to Syria.

Three days after the attack in Benghazi, it was revealed that ”a Libyan ship carrying the largest consignment of weapons for Syria…has docked in Turkey,” with a cargo that “weighed 400 tons and included SA-7 surface-to-air anti-craft missiles and rocket-propelled grenades.” Business Insider speculates the weapons came “most likely from Muammar Gaddafi’s stock of about 20,000 portable heat-seeking missiles–the bulk of them SA-7s–that the Libyan leader obtained from the former Eastern bloc.”

The Insider then reaches a devastating conclusion. “And if the new Libyan government was sending seasoned Islamic fighters and 400 tons of heavy weapons to Syria through a port in southern Turkey–a deal brokered by Stevens’ primary Libyan contact (meaning Belhadj) during the Libyan revolution–then the governments of Turkey and the U.S. surely knew about it.”

But not just Turkey and the U.S. Canada Free Press columnist Doug Hagmann,  citing a ”well placed source with extensive knowledge about the attack,” claims that “Russia was fully aware of this operation and warned the U.S. not to engage in the destabilization of Syria, as doing so would endanger (Russian) national security interests.” He further asserts that Stevens’ final meeting in Benghazi on September 11 was with ”his Turkish counterpart, who reportedly warned Stevens that the (gun-running) operation was compromised.”

That the administration was helping to arm the worst elements in the region — jihadist rebels also at war with the United States — may explain the administration’s vigorous stonewalling to date. Far from just a diplomatic mission in Libya, the evidence suggests that one of the explicit functions of the U.S. “consulate” was to oversee the transfer of Libyan weapons from the Gaddafi regime’s stockpile, including to the opposition in Syria.

“In short, it seems President Obama has been engaged in gun-walking on a massive scale,” Center for Security Policy president Frank Gaffney explains in the Washington Times. “The effect has been to equip America’s enemies to wage jihad not only against regimes it once claimed were our friends, but inevitably against us and our allies, as well. That would explain his administration’s desperate, and now-failing, bid to mislead the voters through the serial deflections of Benghazigate.”

But with the mainstream media refusing to press Obama and other administration officials on the facts surrounding the attack, it is unlikely there will be a breakthrough any time soon. If more concrete information emerges, it will certainly be after the election. In that case, win or lose, the Obama administration will face much more limited consequences for its lethal decisions.

Arnold Ahlert

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/arnold-ahlert/arming-jihadists-backfires-in-benghazi//

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

Palestinian Elections: Which Fatah Won?

by Khaled Abu Toameh

Abbas does not have a mandate even from his own Fatah faction, to embark on any significant political move, such as signing a peace treaty with Israel or or applying for membership for a Palestinian State at the UN. Had Hamas participated in the elections, turnout would have been higher, and the Islamist movement would easily have defeated a divided Fatah. Instead of going to New York next month, Abbas should stay in Ramallah and work toward reuniting and reforming Fatah before his political rivals drive him out.

Fatah leaders were quick to declare victory in the October 20 local elections in the West Bank.

But the results of the vote for 93 municipal and village councils show that the vote was anything but a victory.

True, in some cities and villages, Fatah did win a majority of seats.

But this is not the same Fatah that Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas and the old guard leadership of the faction had backed.

Boycotted by Hamas, this was an election where Abbas's veteran Fatah leadership mainly competed with Fatah candidates who decided to run on an independent ticket.

In the end, the Fatah "rebels" scored major victories in important cities, such as Jenin, Nablus and Ramallah, as well as many villages.

Abbas and the veteran Fatah leadership tried up to the last minute to dissuade the disgruntled members of his faction from running as independents, but to no avail.

The Fatah Central Committee, a body dominated by Abbas loyalists, later decided to expel all the Fatah candidates who insisted on running in the election separately.

The results of the elections show that many of the Fatah candidates who were dismissed scored significant victories. Candidates who were expelled from Fatah defeated those who expelled them: Abbas and old guard Fatah leaders.

Even in places where Abbas's Fatah candidates won, the vote was on the basis of clan affiliation. Many Palestinians voted for Abbas's Fatah candidates not because they were satisfied with the old guard leadership of Fatah, but simply because the candidate happened to belong to their clan.

What is perhaps most worrying for Abbas is the fact that a large number of his policemen and security officers voted for the dissident Fatah candidates who ran against the Palestinian Authority's nominees.

Moreover, low voter turnout in many cities and villages is seen as a sign of indifference on the part of Palestinians in the West Bank. Palestinian analysts are convinced that had Hamas participated in the elections, turnout would have been much higher and the Islamist movement would easily have defeated a divided Fatah.

The low turnout and the success of Fatah rebels in the elections should be seen as a vote of no-confidence in Abbas and the old guard leadership of his ruling faction.

For decades, Abbas and his veteran loyalists in Fatah have blocked the emergence of fresh and younger leaders – something that has seriously affected Fatah's credibility. Failure to reform Fatah and get rid of corrupt officials has also driven many Palestinians away from Abbas and his loyalists.

Abbas's term in office expired in January 2009, but this has not stopped him from continuing to cling to power. In wake of the results of the local elections, it has become obvious that Abbas does not have a mandate -- even from his Fatah faction -- to embark on any significant political move, such as signing a peace treaty with Israel or applying for membership for a Palestinian state in the UN.

Instead of going to New York next month to ask for Palestinian membership, Abbas should stay in Ramallah and work toward reuniting and reforming Fatah before his political rivals drive him and his veteran loyalists out of office.

Khaled Abu Toameh

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3419/palestinian-elections-fatah

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

The Real Islamophobia

by Sam Westrop

"Islamophobia" is not, as claimed by some critics, just a concept invented by Islamist organizations to distract from their own fundamentalism; it is is a form of prejudice, exacerbated by governments, university faculties, the media and even interfaith groups. The greatest threat to moderate Islam and its assimilation with democratic values are those people who, too fearful to make a stand against radical Islamists, ignore the pleas of pro-Western Muslims and instead choose to "engage" with the extremists. Real Islamophobes are those who abandon secular Muslims and turn a blind eye to the human rights violations committed against innocent Muslims by Islamist governments and terror groups.

Many critics of the West's policy in the Middle East and Western attitudes towards the Islamic faith are keen to invoke Edward Said's theory of Orientalism, which posits that our study of the East is unavoidably distorted by the West's inherent ideological biases. It is clear, however, that if such an absolute predisposition exists, through their support for "moderate" Islamists and rejection of secular Muslim liberals, the Europeans who regard themselves as defenders of the East are the true perpetrators of such prejudice.

For example, in claiming Islam and Islamism as one and the same, by painting criticism of Islamism as bigoted, and by defining multi-culturalism as cultural relativism, when innocent Muslims are slaughtered by their co-religionists, Western comment or criticism is condemned as Islamophobic intolerance.

Defining the question of Islamophobia is especially critical in Europe. There, Islamophobia is dishonestly claimed by many to be that to question or comment on virtually any tenets of Islam is a wicked, bigoted act. By accepting discussion of religion as "Islamophobic," we provide a dangerous legitimacy to the claims of extremists within the Islamic community, while we abandon those Muslims who desire a reform or modernization within Islam, and greater assimilation with Western society.

Over the last few decades, a number of people have been charged with inciting religious hatred, or "abusing" free speech. During the Rushdie affair, the violent fury in Britain unleashed against a work of literature and its author was chiefly organized by Islamist factions within British Muslim groups, which later formed the core of the Muslim Council of Britain. Politicians and journalists across the spectrum, and even the British Chief Rabbi, suggested that Rushdie and the Iranian Ayatollah who prescribed the Indian writer's murder were equally guilty of "abusing free speech." Everyone should be concerned at such distortion. It is impossible to abuse free speech: the right to free expression guarantees the act of abuse itself – that is, the right to criticize anything and everything.

In America, unrestrained scorn of religious belief is far better established as the proudly enshrined right of the free citizen. In the US, as long as one does not incite violence against specific persons, it is legal for an individual to speak his mind about anything, whether as a member of a Muslim Brotherhood group or even a neo-Nazi organization.

There are several things Islamophobia is not. The first is ugly, straightforward anti-Muslim bigotry, such as the violent attacks by the incensed mob in the street or the shopkeeper who refuses to serve a particular customer. Such bigotry is not born out of fear; it is just thuggery. Additionally, those who claim criticism of religious ideals as "Islamophobic" are guilty of dangerously trivializing genuine anti-Muslim violence.

Further, the term cannot be applied to those Muslims who oppose religious extremism. This may seem odd, but Jonathan Steele, writing in the Guardian last October, did just that when he suggested that Muslim Tunisians who did not vote for Ennahda, the Islamist party, were themselves guilty of Islamophobia.

Real Islamophobia does apply, however, to those who legitimize extremists and "hate-preachers" as persons representative of the Islamic faith. When, for example, the British politician Ken Livingstone embraced the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader Yusuf Al-Qaradawi and proclaimed him to be the "voice of Islam," he insulted Muslims all around the World. Those who adhere to the Islamic faith suddenly found that a non-Muslim politician was forcing upon them the responsibility of a hate-preacher who believes Jews and homosexuals should be purged from society. What could be more detrimental to Muslims than such an imposed obstacle to real reformation and enlightenment within their faith?

In 2011, the British Government's review of the PREVENT program, the state-funded counter-extremism initiative, declared that providing taxpayers' money to moderate Islamists in order to calm the "extreme" Islamists had not worked all that well. The Government's report noted that "there have been cases where groups whom we would now consider to support an extremist ideology have received funding." This came as no surprise to leading counter-extremism activists, who have long-warned about Islamist organizations taking advantage of Government funding for "interfaith" schemes – money and moral legitimacy to which extremists quickly sign-up in order to shroud their more nefarious activities.

In 2008, the Conservative MP Paul Goodman questioned the British government's support for the Lokahi Foundation, which runs a University interfaith project named Campusalam. Several hundred thousand pounds of taxpayers' money was given to the Foundation, which has previously associated itself with Muslim Brotherhood groups such as the Cordoba Foundation and IslamExpo. The Islamist academic Tariq Ramadan, whom the US has previously refused a visa, is on Lokahi's advisory board. The journalist Lee Smith has described Mr Ramadan – who has referred to the terrorist attacks of September 11th, Bali and Madrid as nothing more than "interventions" -- as a cold-blooded Islamist whose "cry of death to the West is a quieter and gentler jihad, but it's still jihad."

It is not just Government that is susceptible to exploitation. Rabbi Wittenberg, a prominent Jewish leader in Britain, recently defended his interfaith work with the East London Mosque and an interfaith group called London Citizens. The deputy chair of London Citizens is Junaid Ahmed, who has referred to senior Hamas terrorist Ismail Haniyeh as "our leader".

As for the East London Mosque, it is considered by many critics to be one of the most extreme religious institutions in Europe: one does not have to look far back through its events to find speakers who denounce women, Jews and homosexuals. Featured guests have included Sheikh Saad al-Beraik, who once stated:

"Muslim Brothers in Palestine, do not have any mercy neither compassion on the Jews, their blood, their money, their flesh. Their women are yours to take, legitimately. God made them yours. Why don't you enslave their women? Why don't you wage jihad? Why don't you pillage them?"

Wittenberg responded to criticism of his collaboration with these groups by opining, "We have to take risks to engage with each other. The Jewish community will be far weaker if we all shelter within a comfort zone labeled 'They all hate us out there'."

By choosing to "engage," Wittenberg legitimizes the extremists as the warranted representatives of London's Muslim population. The original task of these Jewish groups was interfaith dialogue, but conversely, by embracing the extremists within British Islam, Wittenberg has only succeeded in isolating all those Muslims who would have otherwise been delighted to enjoy authentically close relations with the British Jewish Community.

In 2010, Gita Sahgal, a human rights activist and writer, was forced to leave Amnesty International because of the organization's continuing support for the jihadist Moazzam Begg and his Islamist organization, Cage Prisoners. Sahgal accurately described Begg as "Britain's most famous supporter of the Taliban."

Meanwhile, Muslim activists dedicated to promoting an Islam that is compatible with liberal democratic ideals are shunned. It would appear that this is because government, non-profit groups and much of the media consider truly liberal Muslims to be an anomaly; and that by embracing the enlightened Muslim voice, opinion-makers fear alienating vast sections of the general Muslim population. This is nothing more than the racism of low expectations.

After extremists organized a backlash against the Danish cartoonists, the Muslim MP Naser Khader formed, with the support of leading liberal Danish Muslims, an organization called "Democratic Muslims." This new group declared its support for liberal democracy and a secular Denmark, in which Islam could flourish as the private faith of the free individual. Yet when James Cain, the US ambassador to Denmark, invited Muslim community leaders to celebrate the an Iftar meal during the Muslim month of Ramadan, he refused to include the liberal members of Democratic Muslims. Instead, he chose photo opportunities with many of the same anti-Western Muslim leaders who preached hatred and, in response to the cartoon crisis, encouraged violence.

Almost immediately after Democratic Muslims was founded, a leading Danish researcher accused the group of "monopolizing democracy" - a criticism that was never leveled at the extremists who, during the cartoon crisis, promoted themselves as the unelected and unaccountable leaders of the Danish Muslim community. The real Islamophobia thinks that advocates of liberty and democracy cannot be 'real Muslims'.

In fact, Toger Seidenfaden, editor of Politiken, a Danish newspaper that condemned the publication of the Mohammed cartoons, has used this very term. When Naser Khader told Seidenfaden that he did not find the cartoons insulting, Seidenfaden replied: "But you are not a real Muslim". Anti-Muslim activists have also claimed that those Muslims who fight extremism and support secularism are somehow not "real" Muslims – the implication being they are not cruel enough.

Whether these denials, from both the Left and Right, stem from the 'racism of low expectations' or genuine sympathy for religious supremacism, for the moderate Muslim population such marginalization is frightening It seems to render them powerless, with attention given only to the extremists, presumably in an effort to persuade them to be otherwise.

This is the real Islamophobia: the fear of directly addressing and challenging the extremism manifest within the Islamic community -- to the point where we will even ignore the pleas of moderate Muslims who have dedicated themselves to the ideals of reason, self-criticism and pluralism.

The fight against Islamic extremism, including the dispute over the limits of free expression, can only become a more pressing problem in the future. Most recently, the protests in the Middle East over the anti-Islam YouTube film The Innocence of Muslims and the cartoons published by the French magazine Charlie Hebdo seem both to be harbingers of further anguished debate over the conflict between truly free expression and the limits self-imposed by many Europeans' misguided perception of others' cultural, religious and racial sensitivities.

The conflict is confused, and each side uses the terms of debate interchangeably. In response to concern over the anti-homosexual, anti-Jewish and misogynist lectures given by Islamist hate preachers at British universities, the faculty increasingly invokes the right to free speech in defense of such rhetoric, but not in opposition to it. However, this skewed appeal to the ideas of Locke and Stuart Mill is not so much a rediscovery of Enlightenment values, but rather just another act of submission to only one side. Instead of challenging extremism and hatred on their own university campuses, the faculties, by their inaction, are complicit with it -- they enable it and embolden it.

When the hate-preacher Yusuf Chambers recently spoke at the University of York, for instance, the faculty, in response to uproar from gay rights and women's rights activists, insisted that the event should go ahead but that a faculty member should be present. The University cited the importance of allowing students to challenge Chambers' views -- including his support for the stoning of adulterous women and the execution of homosexuals -- through a calm and rational platform. This would have worked perfectly, if the University had not, at the event itself, attempted to ban any questions challenging Chambers' bigoted views.

Additionally, the Student Union suggested that Chambers' right to free speech somehow precluded others' right to freely criticize or protest. In a rather depressing illustration of the real Islamophobia, Leon Morris, a student union officer, declared: "I wish for the society to cancel the event, but in openly protesting, we endanger those students who may feel vulnerable as a minority student."

Government, universities, interfaith groups, and community organizations must rethink their approach. Pro-Western Muslims are waiting for people to reach out to them, not censor them. It would help to defend liberal values, not selectively invoke them. It would help to forge strong links with those who seek to bring about greater enlightenment within the Islamic faith, and counter all those who work to threaten the liberties of Muslims, Christians, Jews and everyone else. 

Sam Westrop is Associate Director at the Institute for Middle Eastern Democracy, and blogs at the Jerusalem Post on the symbiotic relationship between far-Left, far-Right and Islamist extremism. He can contacted at samwestrop@instmed.org

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3417/real-islamophobia

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

More than 15 Rockets Explode in Israel Overnight

by Israel Hayom Staff

Hamas terrorists continue to fire rockets into Israel. | Photo credit: AP

Terrorist rocket fire continued overnight Sunday with over 15 rockets exploding in Israeli communities bordering the Gaza Strip, no one was injured and there was no damage to structures. Hamas' military wing, Izzedine al-Qassam, took responsibility for the attacks.

Following the rocket fire on Beersheba on Sunday morning, terrorists fired mortars at IDF troops near the Gaza Strip border fence. The IDF responded with airstrikes on terrorist facilities in the Gaza Strip. Army Radio reported that one Hamas operative was killed and another wounded in the airstrikes.

Despite the renewed hostilities, schools in Beersheba were open on Monday and operated as usual.

Beersheba Mayor Ruvik Danilovich closed down the city's schools on Sunday when two Grad rockets fired from the Gaza Strip exploded near the city that morning.

Both rockets hit unpopulated areas and caused no injuries or damage. Local residents said they clearly heard the explosions. Two early-warning sirens went off across the city during the course of the morning, urging residents to enter fortified rooms and bomb shelters.

In an interview with Army Radio, Danilovich said, "In recent years, missiles were fired directly into educational facilities while they were empty. We are not protected, and as long as there is not full protection within the education system, I will put human life first."

Israel Hayom Staff

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=6237

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

Stand Down Obama and Biden, Stand Down

by Clarice Feldman

Normally, I have no difficulty writing this column. I see it as a way to provide busy readers a coherent narrative of the best of the week's most important news -- largely as reported by the alternative media and ignored by its richer, fatter and lazier media opposition.
This week is sadly different. The latest news coming out about the murder of our ambassador and three other brave Americans in Ben Ghazi is so horrifying and shocking I can take no pleasure in writing about it. It's still largely unreported by the legacy media. Fox News has been a leader and there's been some coverage at CNN by Anderson Cooper, but PBS and the alphabets have been doing their best to keep from you the incompetence, treachery and outrageous behavior of the President, Vice President, Secretaries of State and Defense.

Luckily, their "firewall" -- blaming the tragedy on a hapless producer of a video trailer, the CIA, and lower level State Department officials -- seem (as one might have predicted, and I did), to result in numerous leaks to the press, undercutting that pack of lies.

In summary fashion, here's what we learned last week:

1. The security situation in Ben Ghazi had been growing steadily worse.
2. Ambassador Stevens had requested additional security and had indicated he feared for his life.
3. The request for additional security was rejected and, in fact, a significant portion of the existing U.S. guard force was removed before 9/11 when any reasonable person would have anticipated they'd be most needed.

Along with those facts here's what we learned this week from Jennifer Griffin at Fox News
[A]n urgent request from the CIA annex for military back-up during the attack on the U.S. Consulate and subsequent attack several hours later was denied by U.S. officials -- who also told the CIA operators twice to "stand down" rather than help the ambassador's team when shots were heard at approximately 9:40 p.m. in Benghazi on Sept. 11. [snip]

Woods and at least two others ignored those orders and made their way to the Consulate which at that point was on fire. Shots were exchanged. The quick reaction force from the CIA annex evacuated those who remained at the Consulate and Sean Smith, who had been killed in the initial attack. They could not find the ambassador and returned to the CIA annex at about midnight. 

At that point, they called again for military support and help because they were taking fire at the CIA safe house, or annex. The request was denied. There were no communications problems at the annex, according those present at the compound. The team was in constant radio contact with their headquarters. In fact, at least one member of the team was on the roof of the annex manning a heavy machine gun when mortars were fired at the CIA compound. The security officer had a laser on the target that was firing and repeatedly requested back-up support from a Spectre gunship, which is commonly used by U.S. Special Operations forces to provide support to Special Operations teams on the ground involved in intense firefights. The fighting at the CIA annex went on for more than four hours -- enough time for any planes based in Sigonella Air base, just 480 miles away, to arrive. Fox News has also learned that two separate Tier One Special operations forces were told to wait, among them Delta Force operators[.]

In the simplest of terms, we knew there was general danger and had made inadequate security arrangements. When those arrangements failed (as they were almost certain to) we had a number of opportunities to protect the Ambassador and others -- nearby military support, assistance from a nearby Spectre gunship and from teams stationed 2 hours away at Sigonella Air Base, All of this help was denied as coldly as the earlier requests for additional security and 4 Americans were murdered, giving our enemies an unwarranted victory .

The Spectre gunship (AC-130U) alone would seem to have done the trick:

There were two AC-130Us deployed to Libya in March as part of Operation Unified Protector.

The AC-130U is a very effective third-generation fire-support aircraft, capable of continuous and extremely accurate fire onto multiple targets. It has been used numerous times in Iraq and Afghanistan to save pinned-down allied forces, and has even been credited with the surrender of the Taliban city of Konduz

It was purpose-built for a select number of specific mission types, including point-defense against enemy attack. It was literally built for the kind of mission it could have engaged in over Benghazi, if the Administration had let it fire. As the excerpt above clearly shows, we had assets on the ground "painting" the targets with the laser.

An AC-130U flies in a counter-clockwise "pivot turn" around the target, with the weapons all aimed out the left side of the aircraft.

There are two state-of-the-art fire-control systems (FCSs) in a AC-130U, using television sensors, infrared sensors and synthetic aperture strike radar. These fire control systems can see through the dark of night, clouds, and smoke.

The two FCSs on the AC-130U control a 25mm gatling gun for area suppression, a precision 40mm cannon, and a 105mm cannon which can engage hard targets.
What this means is that we have the forces in the air and on the ground to have stopped the attack at any point, eliminating the terrorists, and saving American lives.

While the administration still is dancing around about the issue of the video trailer, Defense Secretary Panetta offered up this really unpersuasive defense for the order of nearby aid to "stand down" and the refusal to call in support from Sigonella or the Spectre gunship:

But the basic principle here... is that you don't deploy forces into harm's way without knowing what's going on.

Should there be a fire at his home or a holdup as he walks the street, I hope Panetta doesn't run into rescue personnel who share that view. In any event, the point was inapplicable on the facts. There was, as the Fox report makes clear, more than sufficient information upon which to act.

Bgates says it  best:

There's a basic principle here, and the basic principle is that you don't deploy forces into harm's way without knowing what's going on, without having some real-time information about what's taking place

There was real-time information about what was taking place. American citizens at the scene observed what was going on and passed along an executive summary which summarized current conditions, extrapolated existing trends into the future and suggested an action plan, roughly: "They are shooting at us, and you need to send help or we are all going to die." [snip]

Dem rules for jet use: Armed assault on US embassy? Wait and gather more info. Need to get Sen Brown to DC to pass stimulus? GOGOGO!

These reports are troublesome enough, but they were to be capped before week's end by the account given by  Charles Woods, father of Tyrone Woods one of the Special forces men murdered in this assault:

He said the President was cold and appeared unsympathetic at the ceremony at which the bodies of the slain were returned. Secretary Clinton  whispered that the administration was going to have the producer of the film trailer arrested, showing she was still playing the lying game and, at the same time, demonstrating  the administration's utter disregard for the Free Speech guarantees of the Constitution. But that wasn't the worst of it. The rock bottom of sleaziness was the question asked by the Vice President:

"Did your son always have balls the size of cue balls?"

Stand Down, Obama and your administration.  All of you. Stand Down. You've failed to carry out your responsibilities of office. You treated American lives, including that of an ambassador -- the official representative of your country -- with utter disregard for their safety. You've lied to us about this tragedy so many times and in so many ways you can no longer credibly lead. You're crass and vulgar and without regard for truth, law or common decency and deserve to be drummed out of office.

Clarice Feldman

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/10/stand_down_obama_and_biden_stand_down.html

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

How the Media Construct Myths

by Enza Ferreri


Sometimes we wonder how it is possible that the public believes so easily what the media and the elites tell them, about Islam and its threat, for instance.

I've gained an insight into this by watching the second presidential debate on the TV, after which the media have on the whole immediately screamed victory for Obama because the biased CNN moderator Candy Crowley has wrongly taken the President's side on the question of how he (mis)handled the Benghazi consulate assault, although she later backtracked.

I distinctly heard Candy Crowley say “He did call it an act of terror. It did as well take two weeks... so Governor Romney is right" or something to that effect, but for a while I thought I had imagined this because no-one seemed to have noticed it.

When even Crowley herself explicitly confirmed and repeated that sentence: “I did turn around right after that and say ‘but you are totally correct that they spent two weeks telling us this was about a tape'...he [Romney] was right in the main I just think he picked the wrong word”, I believed that the question was now settled, that the media could be economical with the truth but not go as far as telling an outright lie.

I must have been naïve, because the next day many media outlets were repeating that Romney got it wrong.

Day by day the evidence is mounting that Obama knew within 24 hours that this was a jihad attack but kept saying it was because of the Muhammad video to cover the failure of his Middle East policies. Even during the same debate he pointed out that he kept his promise of getting Osama bin Laden, as if to imply that al-Qaeda had been defeated.

In fact, “former CIA Director Porter Goss told Fox News that, especially in North Africa, Al Qaeda is 'much stronger' and 'spreading out' throughout the region.”

It is clearer to me now how myths are created by press and broadcasting networks. A little bit at a time, like Chinese whispers: something gets reported in the media with a little subtraction or addition of "facts", then gets repeated with more changes, and so on. In the end, all these misrepresentations accumulate and become an avalanche.

They start by a small distortion here, followed by a minor alteration of the facts there. Gradually. So, unless you have been a very, very attentive reader, listener or viewer -- or, more likely, somebody who has followed a particular event or subject for a length of time -- you won't realize that what started as A, by slow and stealth transformations, has become B, non-A.

For example, newspapers have been using the expression "anti-Muslim" for the AFDI's subway ads, rather than "anti-jihad". That is intended to subtly instil doubts in readers' minds.

The media add a single piece of the puzzle a day to their complete picture of fabrications. They don't tell you abruptly and overnight that the Muslim Brotherhood is a nice, peace-loving, tolerant organization; no, they insinuate one day that they have renounced violence, they imply the week after that they have changed their radical positions of yore and in a few months, lo and behold, what was a dangerous Islamist association has been transformed into an ally of the West and upholder of freedom and democracy, in a sleight of hand worthy of the best prestidigitator.

What I think happened is that Obama or some-one in his team, easily predicting that during the presidential debate Romney would criticize Obama on his dealing of the Benghazi consulate attack, counted on the fact that Romney had not read the transcript of the speech given by the President in the Rose Garden the day after the assault, because it did not matter, that speech's exact wording is less important than the entire message sent by the President, which was that the attack was a consequence of the Innocence of Muslims film.

So the Obama camp tried and, with the help of the media, succeeded in spinning this story as if Obama in the Rose Garden had actually called the Benghazi assault "acts of terror", whereas in fact he hadn't. He did use the expression "acts of terror" in a general sense, as a conclusion towards the end of the speech, without a specific reference to the incident occurred the previous day in Libya.
He said: "No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for."

But when he was talking about that incident specifically, he called it "this type of senseless violence", "brutal acts", and "this attack": no mention of terrorism. "Senseless violence" indeed clearly refers to the reactions to the Muhammad film, since terrorism is violence with a planned objective. That the President did not attribute it to an act of terror is the right interpretation to give to his words in light of his insistence in the following two weeks in blaming the eruption of violence in the Muslim world, from Libya to Pakistan, on the YouTube movie.

As I said, I don't think that all this matters so much per se. What is important is the whole message, posture and policies.

But this is a useful lesson to learn in how the media exercise their deception.

The good news is that people are less and less accepting of this state of affairs. UK newspapers’ sales have been falling for quite some time, and The Guardian/Observer in particular have seen their readership decline, reporting last August an annual loss of around £54m, to the point that both newspapers (The Observer is The Guardian’s Sunday sister paper) are now “seriously discussing” an end to their print edition.

Enza Ferreri is an Italian-born, London-based author and journalist. She has been a London correspondent for several Italian magazines and newspapers, including Panorama, L'Espresso, La Repubblica.


Source: http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/10/how-the-media-construct-myths.html

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