How the World Saved Hamas 20 Years Ago

by Daniel Greenfield


The conclusion of Israel’s campaign against Hamas, complete with an enforced ceasefire and a victory for the Islamic terrorist group, should come as no surprise at all. Long before the blockade of Gaza, the terrorist group’s greatest weapon was the sympathy of the world.
Twenty years ago, on December 1992, Israeli forces responded to Hamas atrocities by arresting over a thousand Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists and deporting 415 of them into Lebanon.

Among those expelled were two co-founders of Hamas, the current Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, and several top military commanders; members of a terrorist movement whose charter listed theocracy and genocide as its goals. Their expulsion from the country was a comparatively mild response, considering that many of them would later be killed by Israel in targeted strikes over the next decade.

The expulsion of top Hamas leaders from Israel would have made it difficult for the terrorist group to continue its operations in Gaza and the West Bank. It would have dampened their strategic use of terrorism and made it easier to implement a peace plan. Only a madman would have objected to it.
Or so one might think.

The United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 799 which “strongly” condemned the deportation of “hundreds of Palestinian civilians” and expressed “its firm opposition to any such deportation by Israel”. It further demanded that Israel “ensure the safe and immediate return to the occupied territories of all those deported.” United Nations Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali called for taking “whatever measures are necessary” to compel Israel to take back the terrorists.

Among the countries voting for Resolution 799 was the United States, which had not blinked at Kuwait’s post-war expulsion of 200,000 Palestinians, but had hinted at sanctions against Israel over the expulsion of 415 terrorists.

Meanwhile in a year which had seen numerous massacres and atrocities, not least of these taking place in Afghanistan during the sieges of Kabul where the various factions targeted schools and rounded up enemy civilians into shipping containers and then set those containers on fire, the tragic plight of the terrorists became the leading human rights issue of the day.

In a story headlined, “Deporting the Hope for Peace”, Newsweek sympathetically described the Hamas terrorists “shivering in the cold.” The New York Times reached for the poetic describing the hillside they were camped out on as “desolate”; though it’s hard to see how desolate it could have been when it was surrounded by reporters. The Christian Science Monitor wrote of them huddling “under heavy rain.” The media spent more time providing weather updates from Lebanon than it did covering the local weather.

The Red Cross brought in three truckloads of food, blankets and tents until the Hamas terrorists were living better than many Hurricane Sandy victims are today.  The Christian Science Monitor wrote sadly of a mechanical digger excavating a sanitation area for them among “jagged rocks”. The Associated Press provided detailed coverage of their cases of diarrhea turning the bowel movements of Islamist terrorists into an item worthy of international coverage.

Despite the truckloads of supplies, a few days later Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, the future leader of Hamas, described by the Associated Press only as a Gaza physician, demanded that the UN and the Red Cross bring them food, water and fuel because they were already starving and forced to fast to stay alive. The media breathlessly reported that the temperature had dropped to below freezing and the men were on the verge of death.

In reality, the deported terrorists had food and water brought in from local villages and their “desolate hillside” would become an enclave of television sets, fax machines, copy machines, cell phones, a fridge filled with soda and a satellite dish beaming Iranian television shows to  them. Rantissi, who would later boast, “By Allah, we will not leave one Jew alive in Palestine” was living better than many of his victims.

One Associated Press story described a deportee eating a breakfast of jam, cheese and bread or beans and chickpeas with lemon sauce, and then a lunch of tuna fish or sardines, and then complaining, “I’m so sick of this food. I eat only to stay alive.”

Bill Clinton said that while he understood Israeli concerns over Hamas, “which is apparently bent on terrorist activities of all kinds”, he was opposed to Israel actually deporting the terrorists. American and European officials continued to pressure Israel and the media continued to run stories on what they described as the “crisis of the deportees” while bemoaning that there was no coverage of the subject, even while they were incessantly covering it.

Eventually everyone got what they wanted. Israel agreed to take the terrorists back and the terrorists agreed to return, citing as their chief reason, insufficient TV coverage of their antics.

The Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists returned to Israel and twenty years of terror and war followed.  Peace would have likely been unworkable in any event, but it became far more unworkable when an Islamist terrorist group with a conveyor belt of suicide bombers and close ties to Islamist movements around the world was introduced back into the mix.

For months international diplomats and correspondents had insisted that the path to peace required returning Hamas’ leadership to Israel. Their path to peace made actual peace impossible. Israel could have non-violently expelled Hamas leaders; instead it was forced to assassinate them one by one, usually with collateral damage, which the same correspondents and diplomats then bemoaned.

Each concession that Israel made to terrorism sharpened the violence that would come in the next encounter as the terrorists grew stronger and Israel became more desperate to stop the escalating violence. Each time diplomats and reporters rewarded Hamas, rivers of blood flowed across the land.

Twenty years ago the media and the diplomats did exactly what they did now. They turned Hamas into victims and pressured Israel to resolve the situation. After enough pressure Israel complied, Hamas won and war became once again inevitable.

Hamas is still around because the diplomats and the media want them around.  That is as true today as it was twenty years ago.

Daniel Greenfield

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/how-the-world-saved-hamas-20-years-ago/

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

The Islamist Regime’s Game Plan for Egypt

by Barry Rubin


What’s been happening in Egypt this week is as important as the revolution that overthrew the old regime almost two years ago. A new dictator has arrived, and while the Muslim Brotherhood’s overturning of democracy was totally predictable, Western policymakers walked right into the trap. They even helped build it.

President Mursi has now declared his ability to rule by decree. The key concept is that he can do everything to protect the revolution. In doing so, he is defining the revolution — as the Iranian revolution of 1978-1979, which was made by a broad coalition of forces, soon after became defined — as an Islamist revolution.

One could call the Islamist strategy a short march through the institutions. Once Islamists take power — in Iran, the Gaza Strip, Turkey, and perhaps too in Syria — that is only the beginning of the story. They systematically do a fundamental transformation.

The media, or at least a large part of it, is tamed. The draft constitution written by the Brotherhood and Salafists allows the government to shut down any newspaper or television station by decree. The courts are made impotent and judges replaced. Mursi’s decree said he could ignore any court decision.

At a November 18 press conference, a few days before Mursi issued his decree, the leading secular-oriented representatives in the constitution-writing constituent assembly resigned, charging the new document would enshrine Sharia law. The problem was not the statement in Article 2 about Sharia being the main source of Egyptian legislation but rather later provisions making it clear that Islamist-controlled institutions would interpret precisely what that meant. Amr Moussa, former foreign minister and Arab League secretary-general, said the new constitution would bring disaster for Egypt. Abdel Meguid called this combination “Taliban-like.”

Scattered secularist forces, Coptic Christians, liberals or the remnants of the old regime, and modern-minded women do not pose a real threat to the regime. They are not violent, not organized, and not flush with cash. They can expect no material international support. There will be no civil war between the moderates and the Islamists, the suppression of one by the other. The Salafists are itching for confrontation; the Muslim Brotherhood is patient. But when Salafists harass women or stab secularists or attack churches, the Brotherhood-controlled government will do nothing to protect the victims.

Of critical importance for Egypt is control over the religious infrastructure: the ministry of Waqf that supervises huge amounts of money in Islamic foundations; the office of qadi, the chief Islamist jurist; al-Azhar University, the most important institution defining Islam in the Muslim world; which clerics get to go on television or have their own shoes; and appointments of preachers in every public mosque in the country.

Many clerics are not moderate but most are not systematic Islamists. Soon they will be or at least talk as if they were. Revolutionary Islamism will become in Egypt merely normative Islam. Thus is the endless debate in the West about the nature of Islam — religion of peace or religion of terrorism? — short-circuited and made even more irrelevant. The real power is not what the texts say but who interprets them. And the Islamists will do the interpreting.

While the judges are still holding out bravely, only the army has real power to counter the Islamist revolution transforming the most important country in the Arabic-speaking world into the instrument of the leading international anti-Western, anti-American, and antisemitic organization. It doesn’t matter how nicely Mursi spoke to Obama any more than, say, how Lenin — who moderated Soviet policy in the 1920s to consolidate the regime and get Western help — did in his day.

What is going on inside Egypt’s army, the last remaining institution that could offer resistance? We don’t really know, but there are certainly some important indications. In theory, the army is the only force that can challenge the Muslim Brotherhood’s drive to transform Egypt into an Islamist state. But why should we believe the officers want to engage in such a battle?

Under the leadership of a secret society called the Free Officers, Egypt’s army overturned the monarchy in 1952 in a virtually bloodless coup. Yet while Egypt was for decades thereafter ruled by the resulting regime, the military government soon became a military-backed government. Officers either moved over to civilian offices or, if they opposed the regime, were purged.

Aside from doing its professional duties, the new generation of officers turned to money-making. The Egyptian army became a vast economic enterprise, with its own farms, factories, and housing estates. It was not a political interest group, and certainly not an ideological organization, but an economic enterprise.

During the more recent revolution, the army’s main concern was its own corporate interests — especially control over the military budget, the choice of its leaders, and those business activities. Over and over again the Western mass media and governments spoke as if they were dealing with a South American army that wanted to rule the country. It was portrayed as repressive and potentially tyrannical. By definition, all civilians — especially the Muslim Brotherhood — were good guys against the supposed military would-be dictators.

This was far from the truth. The military was eager to get out of power as long as its narrow interests were preserved. One of its biggest fears was becoming unpopular. That’s why it didn’t crack down in 2011 on behalf of the Mubarak regime and didn’t do so very much when it was in the transitional military council. To put it bluntly, the army wasn’t the bad guys but, relatively speaking, among the good guys.

Now, however, that moment is past. Partly under international pressure, it gave power to an elected president without securing a single one of its demands. So much for the tyrannical generals. Scores of top officers resigned and they are now being replaced by the choices of one man, the president.

Who is Mursi going to appoint to head the new Egyptian army? Given the lack of Islamist sympathizers at the top — there is much debate over how many there are among more junior officers — he needs to put in place opportunists. These would be men who in exchange for their rank and privileges will do his bidding. That is what’s happening now; the Islamist high command should come later.

Lacking any ideological orientation against revolutionary Islamism; without charismatic leadership; not at all united, and in a sense fat and greedy; without any foreign encouragement; and not wanting to shoot down its own people and set off a civil war, the Egyptian army is not a bulwark against the country becoming an Islamist dictatorship. If the Islamists could overcome a far more coherent and ideologically anti-Islamist military in Turkey so easily, there’s no reason to think a similar process won’t happen in Egypt, too.

What are the red lines for the army? First and foremost that nobody touch their economic empire and cut their budget. Mursi isn’t stupid enough to get into trouble on that issue.

Second, those who attack the military with guns must be dealt with harshly. Mursi is willing to crack down on those extremely radical Salafist groups — notably in the Sinai — who shoot Egyptian soldiers rather than just restricting themselves to attacks on Israel.

Third, the preservation of U.S. military aid. No worries there; it would take a lot for the Obama administration to cut off this assistance. The regime can go far toward suppressing women and Christians, making clear it is helping the forces seeking to wipe Israel off the map, subverting other Arabic-speaking countries, and setting up a dictatorship without having to worry about losing the aid.

Finally, will the Egyptian military constantly refuse to take steps that might entangle it in a war with Israel? Here is the most likely hope of restraint though Mursi isn’t eager for such a direct conflict either. The danger, however, is not so much an executive decision to go to war but a slow slide into conflict. Along the way, Egypt can be permissive toward those staging cross-border attacks on Israel; allow Egyptian volunteers in large numbers to go to the Gaza Strip to fight; and allow lots of weapons in the Gaza Strip. Small-scale border clashes or a future Israel-Hamas war could move things in that direction.

For the time being, however, as indicated by the ceasefire, Egypt’s new regime doesn’t want a conflict either. Consolidating its power within the country and creating a new order that will last for decades is a big task. All the institutions must be transformed, a constitution finalized and adopted, billions of dollars of foreign aid begged, oppositions tamed. As an indication, the radical nationalist regime in the 1950s spent three years at that task before turning toward an attempt to dominate the region.

Patience and practical sense of how to proceed to accomplish radical objectives should not be mistaken for moderation. The Middle East will still be there to Islamize, Israel will be there to destroy, and American influence will be there to eliminate when Mursi is ready.

[See also my article, "Who Won the Latest Hamas-Israel War."]

This article was originally published on PJMedia.

Barry Rubin

Source: http://www.gloria-center.org/2012/11/the-islamist-regime%E2%80%99s-game-plan-for-egypt/

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

Syrian Kurds Form Unified Army, Call for Federalism

by Shirzad Shikhani


Erbil, Asharq Al-Awsat – A Syrian-Kurdish source, speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat on the condition of anonymity, revealed that “Kurdish forces represented in the People’s Council of West Kurdistan and the Kurdish National Council arrived in Erbil to pave the way for the unification of fighters inside Syria’s Kurdish regions, to establish a popular army as an alternative to the armed militias that have run the security situation in Syria for a number of months”.


This group of Kurdish parties and forces, along with coordinating bodies, met in Erbil a few days ago to reach an agreement on unifying Kurdish efforts. This is in order to confront the threats that Kurdish regions are currently facing from Salafi groups, who in recent days have engaged in military confrontations with members of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, which effectively controls the situation on the ground in Syria’s Kurdish cities.

A leading Kurdish source informed Asharq Al-Awsat that “talks were conducted in Erbil under the auspices of the leaders of the Kurdistan region. These talks brought about a consensus to activate the remainder of an earlier agreement signed by the two Kurdish councils (the People’s Council of West Kurdistan and the Kurdish National Council) several months ago in Erbil, known as the Hewlêr [Kurdish name for Erbil] Agreement”.

The source stressed that “a comprehensive review was conducted of developments since that agreement was signed, as well as discussions about what has been accomplished and what remains in progress. Developments on the ground that have taken place in the region, namely the radical [Salafi] Islamist forces intensifying their confrontation with the Kurdish people in Syrian cities, necessitates the accelerated implementation of the rest of the agreement’s terms. Thus we reached an agreement to unite our armed forces inside Syria and to link them to the Kurdish Supreme Committee that represents both councils and the coordinating bodies”.

The source added that “there was also an agreement to increase the number of members in the Kurdish Supreme Committee to 21 members from each council. Each council now provides 16 of its own members in addition to 5 further members drafted from the coordinating bodies or independents”.

On the military front, the Kurdish source informed Asharq Al-Awsat that “it was agreed that a new armed force will be formed to replace the existing forces - formed previously by the Kurdish Democratic Union Party - who currently run the security situation in the liberated Kurdish cities. The new force will also consist of armed elements affiliated to that party, but in addition to 650 young Syrians who were previously trained in Iraqi Kurdistan. This force will be tasked with defending the liberated Kurdish regions in cooperation with all other parties, and it will also be ready to contribute to the liberation of the rest of the Kurdish cities and regions, should this be necessary”.

The source added that “this new joint force will be the nucleus of a wider local entity that will take over security operations and fill the vacuum that is left after the fall of the ruling regime in Damascus”.

In terms of politics, the source said that “the latest Erbil meeting raised democratic slogans for an independent Syria and for federalism in West Kurdistan. Furthermore, the Kurdish Supreme Committee, consisting of the People’s Council of West Kurdistan, the Kurdish National Council and local coordinating bodies should be the sole legitimate representative of the Kurdish people in Syria”.


Shirzad Shikhani

Source: http://www.asharq-e.com/news.asp?section=1&id=31947

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

The Coming Sharia State of Egypt

by Theodore Shoebat

 

Egypt has now a modern pharaoh, named Muhammad Morsi, and with him as the sole ruler, the country will ultimately become an official Sharia state. Sharia is already enforced to some degree, but now that the Muslim Brotherhood is expanding its power, it will implement the edicts of its constitution, the Koran, to is fullest capacity.

This is was foreshadowed months ago when counter-revolutionaries were crucified in front of the presidential palace, since these type of executions are demanded in the Koran where it states that:

“The punishment of anyone who fight against Allah and His apostle and do mischief in the land is to be killed or crucified or to have their hands and feet from opposite ends or be banished from the land.” (Quran: The table spread)

That Egypt will become a Sharia state is most clearly shown in Egyptian politics itself. In September of this year, Egypt’s justice Hossam Ghariani, President of the Supreme Judicial Council, said in a video that the Egyptian people were demanding Sharia, and that to enforce it would be the correct choice:

The country did not have a desire to enforce Islamic Sharia, ok you want Islamic Sharia then elect the ones who will enforce it. Do the Egyptian people want the law man to enforce Islamic Sharia? Yes, the majority of the Egyptian people want to enforce Islamic Sharia. There were conferences that were held to put into the law [Shariah] edicts. The previous government was foreign to us, it did not want to enforce Sharia. Why? Do the enforcers of Sharia want to rob the country? This is not correct. Let us then fix the Egyptian Constitution without worry. We trust the Egyptian people to do the right thing, Allah willing.

Dr. Mohamed Yousry Salameh, the Executive Member of the Al-Dostur, founded by Mohamed ElBaradei, the father of the Egyptian Revolution, stated that the party needed to push the Muslim Brotherhood to begin an implementation of Sharia in Egypt:

So who is now stopping us from enforcing Sharia, including all its edicts as you all want? Answer: its the president, and his party [the Muslim Brotherhood]. It is he, after all who is in power… so what do they have to stop this [Sharia]? Answer: nothing. …They are some who say that the society is not ready for this [Sharia], but this is a statement if I said it, or so and so said it, they will peel his skin alive, while if others [the Muslim Brotherhood] say it is alright.

The statement implies that the only thing keeping Egypt from being a Sharia state was the Muslim Brotherhood itself. Now that Morsi has taken the position of dictator, it is now quite clear that the full enforcement of Sharia is on its way soon. The Christians will be massacred by orders from the state itself, and it will be happily done not only by government officers and soldiers, but by the Egyptian people themselves. Egypt will not be ruled under full dictatorship, but also by mob rule.

Tyranny is founded in the masses, and it is the great majority of the Egyptian people who want Sharia, and therefore it will be them who will take part greatly in killing Christians or any moderate Egyptians.

The people are to blame for this coming tyranny in Egypt; they wanted the ousting of Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafist to rule, and Sharia to become the rule of the land. The current protest being done by Morsi’s rivals are irrelevant at this point, since there is nothing that can be done once Islamism seizes a nation. Most of the people wanted Sharia, and now they are going to taste it.

Theodore Shoebat is the author of the book, For God or For Tyranny.

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/theodore-shoebat/the-coming-sharia-state-of-egypt/

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

David's Sling Successfully Intercepts Missile for First Time

by Lilach Shoval and Israel Hayom Staff

Israeli, U.S. missile defense agencies complete successful test of the David's Sling system by intercepting medium-range missile • David's Sling to provide Israel with additional layer of protection against ballistic missiles, Defense Ministry says.

The David's Sling anti-missile system fires its Stunner missile to intercept an incoming rocket. |Photo credit: Defense Ministry

Following the success of Iron Dome in protecting the public from rocket attacks, Israel's Missile Defense Organization and the U.S. Missile Defense Agency completed a successful test of the David's Sling system (also known as Magic Wand) by intercepting a medium-range missile, the Defense Ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

The initial round of development testing of the David's Sling system has concluded and it is estimated that the system will be operationally ready in 2014.

The David's Sling system is designed to provide Israel with an additional layer of protection against medium- and long-range ballistic missiles, the Defense Ministry statement said, "resulting in an improvement in the State of Israel’s defense architecture against missile threats."

David's Sling joins the Iron Dome anti-missile defense system, which proved its effectiveness in intercepting missiles during the last round of escalation in the south, as well as the Arrow 2 missile defense program and the Arrow 3 system which is currently under development.

The interception test was conducted recently at an experimental range in the Negev, in cooperation with the U.S., which has provided most of the funding for the program.

The test was conducted by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems in conjunction with Raytheon, an American defense contractor, and more tests are expected in the near future.

A senior official at the Defense Ministry said on Sunday, "During the experiment, a missile imitating a relevant threat to Israel was intercepted using the help of a system of sensors. The interceptor missile was launched and hit the bull's eye. Success [in this experiment] enables further development of the project. The system has a remarkable ability to intercept short and longer-range rockets, and in the future may be able to intercept other means of threat."

According to the official, the David's Sling is not like the Iron Dome in that the latter requires several batteries to defend the whole country, whereas one David's Sling installation provides nationwide protection. 

The radar system which it uses is similar to the new radar system used by the Iron Dome, but the cost of each David's Sling interceptor missile is higher than that of the Iron Dome interceptor missiles.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak also issued a statement on Sunday in which he praised defense industry employees involved in the development of the David's Sling, and said that advancing the project would add a significant layer of protection to Israel's multilayered defense program.

According to Barak, "The great success of the Iron Dome makes clear, beyond any doubt, the immense importance of missile defense systems. Israel is a world leader in this field thanks to defense industry employees."

Lilach Shoval and Israel Hayom Staff

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=6529

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

Hezbollah Says Could Hit All of Israel in Future War

by Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff

Hezbollah leader warned Israel that it could hit targets "from Kiryat Shmona to Eilat" • Hezbollah warned that any Israeli attack against the nuclear facilities of its patron Iran would inflame the Middle East — though it has not specified its own response.

Lebanon's Hezbollah supporters gesture as they march during a ceremony to mark Ashura in Beirut's suburbs, on Nov. 25. | Photo credit: Reuters

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah warned Israel on Sunday that thousands of rockets would rain down on Tel Aviv and cities across the Jewish state if it attacked Lebanon.

Speaking four days after the cease-fire which ended a week of conflict between Israel and the Islamist Hamas rulers of Gaza, Nasrallah said Hezbollah's response to any attack would dwarf the rocket fire launched from Palestinian territories.

"Israel, which was shaken by a handful of Fajr-5 rockets during eight days — how would it cope with thousands of rockets which would fall on Tel Aviv and other (cities) ... if it attacked Lebanon?" Nasrallah said.

The Fajr-5s, with a range of 75 kilometers (45 miles) — able to strike Tel Aviv or Jerusalem — and 175-kilogram (386-pound) warheads, are the most powerful and long-range rockets to have been fired from Gaza.

But Hezbollah, which fought Israel to a standstill in a 34-day war six years ago, says it has been re-arming since then and has a far deadlier arsenal than Hamas. Nasrallah has said Hezbollah could kill tens of thousands of people and strike anywhere inside Israel if hostilities break out again.

"If the confrontation with the Gaza Strip ... had a range of 40 to 70 kilometers, the battle with us will range over the whole of occupied Palestine — from the Lebanese border to the Jordanian border, to the Red Sea," Nasrallah said.

Hezbollah could hit targets "from Kiryat Shmona — and let the Israelis listen carefully — from Kiryat Shmona to Eilat," he said, referring to Israel's northernmost town on the Lebanese border to the Red Sea port 286 miles (461 kilometers) further south.

The movement has warned that any Israeli attack against the nuclear facilities of its patron Iran, which has armed and funded the Lebanese Shiite Muslim terrorist group, would inflame the Middle East — though it has not specified its own response.

In a move it said showed it could penetrate deep inside Israeli defenses, it flew a drone over Israel last month. The drone was shot down after flying 25 miles (40 kilometers) into southern Israel.

Israel says its Iron Dome missile defence system knocked out 90 percent of the rockets fired from Gaza which were on course to hit populated areas.

TENS OF THOUSANDS MARK ASHURA

Nasrallah, who has lived in hiding since 2006 to avoid assassination by Israel, was speaking by video link to tens of thousands of Shiite faithful in southern Beirut commemorating Ashura, the day when the Prophet Muhammad's grandson Hussein was killed in battle 13 centuries ago.

Wearing a black turban and robes in a sign of mourning, the 52-year-old cleric said his Shiite movement wanted to prevent sectarian tension in Lebanon — fuelled by the civil war in Syria — plunging his country into renewed conflict.

"We want to avert strife and Israel is our only enemy. We have no enemies in Lebanon," Nasrallah said.

Many Sunni Muslim political leaders blamed Hezbollah's ally Syria for last month's bomb attack which killed a top intelligence official and plunged Lebanon into political crisis.

The opposition March 14 coalition blamed Syria for the assassination and called on the Lebanese government, dominated by allies of Hezbollah and Syria, to quit.

Sporadic clashes have erupted since then, including a shootout in the southern city of Sidon two weeks ago when three people were killed after supporters of a Sunni cleric tried to tear down Shiite Ashura banners.

On Saturday the army said it arrested five people and seized 450 grams (1 pound) of explosives in Nabatiyeh on the eve of an Ashura march in the southern Lebanese town which was attended by thousands of Shiite mourners, many striking their heads with blades to draw blood to mark the tragedy of Hussein's death.

Security sources said the arrested men were Syrians suspected of planning an attack on the Ashura processions but Nasrallah, speaking late on Saturday, suggested they were trying to send arms to the conflict in Syria.

"We already know that many Syrians arrive in Lebanon to buy weapons," he said. "Neither weather nor rain can frighten us, nor can explosions or security threats stand between us and Imam Hussein."

Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=6532

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

Is Abbas About To Join Hamas?

by Khaled Abu Toameh

It now remains to be seen whether Hamas will forgive Abbas for "collaborating" with Israel, and join forces with him.

As of last week, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will think twice before he condemns any rocket or terror attack on Israel.

Alarmed by Hamas's growing popularity among Palestinians, especially in wake of its purported "victory," Abbas appears to have completely changed his attitude toward the Islamist movement and its terror attacks against Israel.

Abbas's new attitude toward Hamas has prompted some Palestinians to wonder, quite sarcastically, whether he was planning to grow a beard and join the Islamist movement.

They pointed out that this was the same Abbas who, on more than one occasion, had accused Hamas of plotting to assassinate him and topple his regime in the West Bank. They also noted that this was the same Abbas whom Hamas had expelled from the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007.

Abbas was one of the first Arab leaders to congratulate Hamas on its "victory" over Israel during the recent eight-day confrontation.

Hamas announced that Abbas phoned its prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, one day after the Egyptian-brokered cease-fire went into effect to "congratulate him on Hamas's victory and offer condolences for the martyrs."

Abbas's phone call to the Hamas leader did not come as a surprise.

Since the beginning of the Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip, Abbas has been begging Hamas to forget about its differences with his Fatah faction and agree to "national unity."

Until recently, Abbas used to mock Hamas's rockets, calling them "ineffective." It is not that Abbas was opposed to the idea of launching rockets at Israel; rather, his position was based on the argument that these rockets were not inflicting enough casualties and damage on the Israeli side.

Over the past few years, Abbas had publicly denounced Hamas for providing Israel with an "excuse" to attack the Gaza Strip by launching the "ineffective" rockets at Israeli cities and towns.

But during the last confrontation, Abbas did not utter a word against Hamas and other radical groups in the Gaza Strip.

Instead, he chose to issue strong condemnations against Israel, holding it fully responsible for initiating the violence.

In public statements, Abbas and his top aides in the West Bank accused Israel of perpetrating "war crimes" by targeting "innocent civilians." They also heaped praise on Hamas and Islamic Jihad for their "steadfastness in the face of Israeli aggression."

Not once did Abbas and his aides denounce Hamas and Islamic Jihad for firing rockets at Israel. The rockets, from their perspective, were no longer "ineffective" because this time they were extracting a heavy price from Israel.

As soon as the cease-fire went into effect, Abbas's top Fatah officials joined Hamas supporters in the Gaza Strip who took to the streets to celebrate "victory" over Israel.

Zakariya al-Agha, a senior Fatah leader, praised Hamas and Islamic Jihad for launching rockets at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv "until Israel asked for a cease-fire."

Abbas Zaki, another Fatah official, boasted that Abbas and the Fatah leadership in the West Bank had helped provide "political justification" for the rocket attacks against Israel.

Until the last round of violence, Abbas considered Hamas to be his number one enemy. That view was why his security forces had been waging a relentless crackdown on Hamas supporters in the West Bank.

Obviously, Abbas has now changed his policy and Hamas is no longer a threat to him and his regime. Now he will have to stop arresting -- and torturing -- Hamas members in the West Bank in the hope that the Islamist movement will forgive him for "collaborating" with Israel.

It now remains to be seen whether Hamas will forgive Abbas for his "sins," and join forces with him.

Khaled Abu Toameh

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3466/abbas-hamas

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

"Obey The Prophet, Even If He Tells You To Kill"

by Raymond Ibrahim

Just as, in the West, a general's orders – including to kill – are not to be questioned, so in Islam, according to Qaradawi, the "Godfather" of the Muslim Brotherhood, are Mohammed's orders not open to question by 1.5 billion soldiers, Islam's "soldiers."

Dr. Yusuf al-Qaradawi — the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood who is now helping Egypt draft its new constitution, head of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, and author of over 100 books on Muslim doctrine — maintains that Muslims must obey the commands of Islam's prophet, even to murder. This is the same Dr. Qaradawi that American academics such as Georgetown professor John Esposito praise for engaging in a "reformist interpretation of Islam and its relationship to democracy, pluralism, and human rights."

Qaradawi made this declaration, missed in the West, two years ago on his popular Arabic program, Al-Sharia wa Al-Haya ("Sharia and Life"), broadcast worldwide by al-Jazeera to an estimated audience of 60 million.

Towards the end of the show, the host asked Qaradawi what he thought of the fact that Sheikh Admad Hassoun, the Grand Mufti of Syria, had earlier said to an American delegation: "If [Muslim prophet] Muhammad asked me to reject Christianity or Judaism, I would have rejected him." Visibly agitated, Qaradawi answered as follows:

No scholar of Islam, or even an average Muslim would ever say such words. If you believe that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah, then you must obey him—for he does not command except that which is good. So, even if he tells you to kill, you must— … The story about our prophet Musa [Moses], when al-Khidr killed the boy and Musa said "you killed and you did!," But then he [Khidr] revealed why he killed the boy, and why he punctured the boat. So we cannot distort the facts in order to please the people. Let the people be satisfied with the Truth [Sharia teachings], not the false.

Syria's grand mufti said many other things concerning goodwill for Christians that roused Qaradawi's ire. Addressing a large Christian gathering in Syria, where he was a guest speaker, for instance, he insisted that there were no differences between Christians and Muslims:

If Christianity is about believing in one God, so I believe in one God; if Christianity is about believing in Jesus, so I believe in Jesus; if Christianity is about believing in the New Testament, so I believe in the New Testament; if Christianity is about believing in the Old Testament, so I believe in the Old Testament; if Christianity is about believing that Mary was a pure virgin, so I believe she was a pure virgin, untouched by man; and if Christianity is about believing in the resurrection, so I believe in the resurrection—so what is the difference between me and Christians?

Qaradawi offered to correct Muslim doctrine in response to this otherwise egalitarian talk, confirming that, yes, Islam believes all these things—but according to its own narratives, not the ones recorded in the Bible, which, as the Quran teaches, have been distorted. Hence, if Muslims believe all those things that the Syrian grand mufti mentioned, they do not believe in the fundamentals of Christianity—including the Trinity, Christ's divinity or resurrection, and atonement of sins—hence they reject Christianity, as understood and practiced by over a billion Christians.

As for believing in the Old and New Testaments, the Quran claims that, once upon a time there were "true" versions, but that the current texts — which are older than the Quran itself—were "corrupted" to include, for examples, the fundamentals of Christianity. Thus the only "authentic" remnants of Christianity and Judaism are the ones Muhammad narrated in the Quran—where we meet many characters whose names are familiar, such as Isa [Jesus], but he a very different "Jesus": the Quran's Jesus was never crucified and will return to break all Christian crucifixes and kill all pigs.

It is this Muslim proclivity to create "parallel" characters, based on biblical figures, that explains Qaradawi's justification to murder people in blind obedience to the prophet. His reference to "Musa," is a reference to a story—possibly rooted in the 3^rd century Alexander Romance and popularized by the 1970s martial arts movie, Circle of Iron—which, nonetheless, occurs in Quran, and so must be accepted literally.

According to the Quran's narrative (18:65-82), Musa seeks out al-Khidr—"the Green Man," who possesses powers of sight—and asks if he may follow him and learn from him. Al-Khidr reluctantly agrees, on condition that Musa not question anything he, the Green Man, does, until such time as the latter chooses to reveal the significance of his actions.

The Green Man, however, does strange things—such as randomly killing a young boy and destroying the boat that belonged to the people who helped give them passage—to which Musa demands immediate answers. The Green Man eventually explains that he killed the boy because his parents were good Muslims, while the boy was an infidel who would have burdened them with his transgressions; and he destroyed the boat of the good people because a king was about to seize it anyway.

Further, just as Islam introduced a parallel universe inhabited by figures based on Christianity and Judaism, it also introduced a parallel system of ethics and morality—one, as the Quran's Green Man shows, not to be questioned.

Just as a Western general's orders—including to kill—are not open to question by his soldiers, so, in Islam, according to Qaradawi, one of Islam's most authoritative voices, are the orders of Muhammad not open to question by the world's 1.5 billion Muslims, Islam's "soldiers." 

Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3461/qaradawi-murder

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

Springtime for Morsi

by Melanie Phillips


Democracy demonstrators have been clashing with police on the streets of Cairo now for three days in protest at the assumption by Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi of dictatorial powers. Of course, when they last took to the streets against President Mubarak and his dictatorial powers, US President Obama and UK Prime Minister Cameron helped get rid of him. So now that Morsi has become a dictator the Egyptian masses can expect them to do the same, yes? Er no, of course not – because Obama and Cameron helped put Morsi into power. 

So what have they said now that Springtime for Morsi has become Winter for Egyptian Democracy? Are they embarrassed about what they’ve done? Are they contrite about the mess they’ve made and the danger they’ve so massively increased for the west by helping  install the Muslim Brotherhood, which aims to destroy the west, in a country with enormous strategic importance for the west? 

On the BBC TV Andrew Marr show this morning, the UK Foreign Secretary Dr Pangloss William Hague showed his massive grasp of these geopolitical implications by breezily waving all this away saying well, there’s bound to be a few setbacks but we must keep faith with the Egyptian movement for democracy and the Arab Spring is still on course. Which is about as brazen as you can get in trying to pretend that black is white. What Hague really wanted to say instead was that what all this showed was that it was even more important than ever before to get the Israel–Palestinian peace process back on track, because that was absolutely fundamental to absolutely everything. 

So reassuring that Britain’s Foreign Secretary has such a grip on reality.

As for Obama, all his administration has said about its Egyptian protégé springing into dictator mode is something about the need to resolve differences peacefully and democratically. As the Egyptian masses riot, Obama has not condemned this snuffing out of their freedoms. 

So when it’s an Egyptian dictator who is a kind of ally of the west, Obama and Cameron say he’s an obstacle to democracy and human rights and get rid of him. When it’s an Egyptian dictator who supports the Muslim Brotherhood and the extinction of democracy and human rights by a theocratic tyranny, the Arab Spring is still on course to achieve democracy.

Question of the moment, of course, is whether Obama knew Morsi was about to do this before Hillary Clinton anointed Morsi as Keeper of the Hamas Ceasefire. Because it looks awfully as if there was some kind of quid pro quo here – you know, like ‘I’ll keep Hamas quiet for a while, Barack, just so’s you can twist Netanyahu’s arms out of his sockets and call off his invasion provided you turn a blind eye to the fact that I’m now going to become a tyrant, thanks so much’. And if that wasn’t what happened, then you might think Obama would now be pretty sore that Morsi has made him look either a lethally dangerous idiot or else a lethally dangerous Brotherhood sympathiser (perish either thought).

But now Morsi is saying he’s only going to be a dictator for a little while, until Egypt gets its new constitution. So that’s all right them.

•  A strategic game-changer?

Various folk have observed that Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence system is a military game-changer, altering the strategic balance between Israel and the countries that want to exterminate it. This piece by Akiva Hamilton in the Jerusalem Post is particularly informative and sharp. He says that Iron Dome defends not just against short range missiles but is already well on the way to achieving what a further medium-range missile defence system aims to achieve, and with a very high and continually improving level of accuracy. 

Also, the supposedly prohibitive cost for Israel from Iron Dome is actually far lower than is commonly thought – while the cost of the missiles for those trying to murder Jews with them is ruinously high. Hamilton writes:

‘The strategic implications are that the current rocket-based terror strategy of Hamas and Hezbollah has been rendered both ineffective and economically unsustainable. I estimate it is currently costing Hamas (and thus its patron Iran) around $5m. (500 rockets at $10,000 each) to murder a single Israeli. When Iron Dome reaches 95% interception rate these figures will double and at 97.5% they will double again.

‘Moreover, most rockets miss and Iron Dome ignores them. Indeed, this strategy will bankrupt Iran even more quickly than President Reagan’s “Star Wars” missile defense strategy bankrupted the Soviet Union.’ 

What a wonderful thought.

Melanie Phillips

Source: http://melaniephillips.com/real-news-bulletin-about-the-middle-east

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

When Rockets Are Just ‘Bee Stings’ For The Washington Post

by Petra Marquardt-Bigman

You can safely bet the ranch on it: When a Washington Post writer dismisses thousands of rockets as not much more than “bee stings” on a “bear’s behind,” the country that is targeted with these rockets is Israel.

The callous dismissal of the roughly 12 000 rockets and mortars that have been raining down on Israel’s south and its 1 million residents in the past 12 years – yes, on average a thousand attacks a year – is all the more outrageous when you consider that it comes from the Washington Post’s ombudsman Patrick Pexton. Officially, Pexton “represents readers who have concerns or complaints on topics including accuracy, fairness, ethics and the news-gathering process. He also serves as The Post’s internal critic and strives to promote public understanding of the newspaper, its Web site and journalism more generally.”

With his response to criticism of a recent front page photograph showing a grief-stricken father from Gaza holding the shrouded body of his infant son, Pexton certainly succeeded in giving the public a glimpse of the multiple biases that apparently guide his own work when it comes to Israel’s efforts to defend its citizens against bombs and terrorism.

First it is noteworthy that Pexton emphasizes that the criticism came from “Jewish groups and American Jews” – which of course makes one wonder if all the individuals who protested the photo indeed mentioned that they were Jewish.

Secondly, it is worthwhile pondering Pexton’s principal defense of the photo, which he gives right at the outset of his article:

“A photograph may be worth a thousand words, but even at its most revealing it never tells an entire story. It is the capture of a single moment, a split-second version of the truth. But if it is an effective photograph, it moves the viewer toward a larger truth.”

It is not entirely clear from Pexton’s article what exactly he regards as the “larger truth,” but he later on notes that the controversial photo “depicted […] the horrific cost to innocents on both sides of the violence in the Middle East.”

However, this seemingly “balanced” statement inevitably acquires a purely perfunctory character when Pexton then claims that, while being “disruptive and traumatic,” the “overwhelming majority of rockets fired from Gaza are like bee stings on the Israeli bear’s behind. These rockets are unguided and erratic, and they carry very small explosive payloads; they generally fall in open areas, causing little damage and fewer injuries.”

It is also noteworthy that Pexton links in his first paragraph to a Washington Post article on “The Israeli-Palestinian politics of a bloodied child’s photo.”

As the following screenshot shows, this article features three images: the first on the left is the photo that was the controversial choice for the Washington Post’s front page; the one in the middle is an injured Israeli infant, and the third photo is again from a boy killed in Gaza who was rushed to Gaza’s Shifa Hospital just when Egypt’s Prime Minister was visiting there with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

One could argue that there is a “larger truth” here – but it’s a truth that isn’t revealed by the three pictures, and it isn’t spelled out by the Washington Post.

This larger truth is that ultimately, all three children were victims of Hamas.

This is most obviously true for the injured Israeli infant; but it is also true for the boy in the third picture, who, as blogger Elder of Ziyon has documented, was killed by one of the more than 150 Hamas rockets that crashed back into Gaza.

Even in the case that was featured on the Washington Post front page, it is by no means clear that the son of Jihad Masharawi was killed by Israeli fire. As again Elder of Ziyon has pointed out, there are many reasons to question the uncritically accepted claims that Masharawi’s home was hit by an Israeli missile – and it is most definitely untrue to assert that it was deliberately “targeted” by the IDF if it was just a civilian residence.

But whatever ordinance struck the Masharawi home, the unfortunate truth is that the family’s apartment is located in the al-Zaytoun neighborhood where Hamas chose to conceal a launching site for the long-range missiles fired at the metropolitan Tel Aviv area and Jerusalem. Acting with the same open cynicism, Hamas also launched a missile on Jerusalem from the vicinity of Gaza’s Shifa Hospital; and there are many more similar incidents that have been documented and reported.

As Alan Dershowitz has argued:

“so long as Hamas continues to fire rockets from densely populated civilian areas, rather than from the many open areas outside of Gaza City, this cynical tactic—which constitutes a double war crime—will guarantee that some Palestinian women and children will be killed.”

And this is the larger truth that the Washington Post and most mainstream media outlets tend to ignore: Hamas hides among Gaza’s civilians to launch rockets on Israeli civilians, and no matter on which side civilians are killed and wounded as a result, Hamas can claim “success”: there will be open celebrations when Israelis are terrorized, wounded or killed; and when civilians in Gaza are the victims, Hamas can count on the media to spread dramatic images that feed the myth of a brutal und utterly “disproportionate” Israeli response to something that, after all, is mostly “like bee stings on the Israeli bear’s behind.”

Last but not least, it’s worthwhile to note that the image of a bear stung by bees echoes an Aesop fable for children – and unsurprisingly, the bear is the aggressor, while the bees valiantly (and successfully) defend their honey. Pexton’s Israeli bear stung by Palestinian bees seems to be just another reflection of the bias that obviously mars the judgment of the Washington Post’s ombudsman when it comes to Israel. Hamas will love the image, because after all, the cause of the bees is just, and they win against the bear.

Petra Marquardt-Bigman

Source: http://www.algemeiner.com/2012/11/25/when-rockets-are-just-%E2%80%98bee-stings%E2%80%99-for-the-washington-post/

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