America – Worse Than Europe on Islam?

by Bruce Bawer

It seems long ago. When I wrote my 2006 book While Europe Slept, I was confident that America was all but immune to the forces that were bringing Europe down. In the book, I spoke of “a philosophical gulf” between Europe and the U.S. that “sometimes seemed as wide as the Atlantic itself.” It was Europe that had appeased and buckled under to Hitler in the name of peace; it was Americans who had crossed the ocean to crush him in the name of freedom. On some level, Europeans still thought like serfs, viewing the state as their protector; in America, every man was a king, and the government worked for us. Europeans wouldn’t give up their long vacations for anything; Americans didn’t mind putting in long hours in order to get ahead. Europeans, seduced by multiculturalism, thought of themselves and others as members of groups; Americans saw everybody as an individual with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Europeans cherished their welfare states; Americans, their freedom.

As for Islam, Europe gave its Muslim newcomers everything, asked nothing, and encouraged and even welcomed separatist enclaves in which their so-called “new countrymen” could remain outsiders forever, in return for which the Europeans fully expected a lifetime supply of loving gratitude; the U.S., for its part, believed firmly in integration, for which it had always had a special gift, demanding that newcomers work, obey the law, learn the language, and respect the country’s founding values, and in return genuinely viewed them as authentic Americans – as, indeed, did the newcomers themselves.

As I say, it seems long ago. I’ve long since come to understand that most of those quaint distinctions just don’t hold anymore. Saudi-funded American “experts” on the Middle East and their allies in the American media have spread pretty lies about Islam throughout American society. Some of America’s most influential legal minds argue tirelessly for the acceptance of sharia in American jurisprudence and for the watering down of the First Amendment where speech about Islam is concerned. The State Department is run by people who have been lying to themselves for years about Islam, the Muslim Brotherhood, you name it, and who are eager to come to some accommodation with the Islamic world on the question of what Americans should and should not be allowed to say about the religion of peace. Top-level figures in the U.S. military preferred to treat the Fort Hood jihadist as a psychiatric case. The so-called Department of Homeland Security is in the hands of people all too many of whom would like to pretend, if at all possible, that acts of terror committed on American soil are just ordinary crimes. From Hollywood to Broadway, from the art galleries to the news media, self-censorship about Islam rules the day. In short, America is at least as susceptible as Europe to the steady accumulation of Islamic power.

As I say, I arrived at this recognition some years ago, and it is, in fact, the theme of my 2009 book Surrender. Nonetheless, I experienced something not unlike a revelation about these matters when I interviewed the heroic Ayaan Hirsi Ali onstage a couple of weeks ago at David Horowitz’s Restoration Weekend. As most Front Page readers are doubtless well aware, Ayaan was born in Somalia, raised as an ardent Muslim there and in Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, and Kenya, secured political asylum in the Netherlands in 1992, lost her faith on 9/11, was elected in 2003 to the Dutch Parliament, and in that position became a staggeringly eloquent, brave, and highly admired critic of Islam – only to relocate to America in 2006 after certain government colleagues, perturbed by her “polarizing” views, basically forced her out. In the U.S., Ayaan, who now has several important and bestselling books under her belt, became not only a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute but a wife and mother – and an indefatigable and inspiring public speaker whose invaluable insights about Islam are welcomed by audiences around the country and the world. I was honored to be asked to interview her in front of the sizable and enthusiastic crowd that turned up to hear her in Palm Beach.

As always, Ayaan had many valuable things to say that afternoon. But what especially struck me were her answers to my questions about America and Europe. When she first came to America, she told me, she was overwhelmed by the generous reception she received from the mainstream media, as compared to the condescension with which Dutch journalists so often treated her: she was interviewed on CNN and 60 Minutes, got a positive review in the New York Times, appeared on Bill Maher. Her initial impression was that in America, “the sun shines every day when it comes to shedding light on Islam.”

She now, alas, sees things very differently. “You’re not supposed to use the word jihad….The United States of America does not recognize Islamic terrorism. It’s called ‘violent extremism.’  That is worse than Europe – any country in Europe.” In Europe, she noted, there’s at least “some form of recognition” on the part of officials that terrorist acts are connected in some way to Islam; American leaders, however, prefer the most absurd kind of euphemism. “’Violent extremism’ is the biggest joke of the twenty-first century,” she charged. “The biggest semantic – the most cynical joke of the twenty-first century.” For Ayaan, all this is beyond lamentable, for back when she was living in the Netherlands, America was “the example” for her and others who cherished liberty. It’s for this reason, she said, that it’s so distressing “to see the developments here” in recent years. If America isn’t going to be America any more, she wondered, where is there for freedom-loving people to go?
To be sure, Ayaan insisted on the continuing reality of “American exceptionalism.” The problem, she lamented, is that too many Americans (President Obama among them) fail to recognize the specialness of America – of what it is, and of what it has given the world. Even after living in the West for two decades, Ayaan said, she’s still awed by all the little day-to-day things that make up a free life. The problem is that most Americans take all those little things for granted. They simply can’t “perceive possession of these basic freedoms as something that can be taken away from then.” They don’t realize that their freedom, historically speaking, is an “anomaly”; they don’t understand that it can “evaporate” – and fast.

Ayaan compared the gradual decline in Americans’ appreciation for freedom to the decay that a family business can undergo over, say, four generations (one thought immediately, of course, of Thomas Mann’s novel Buddenbrooks), as the industrious founders are succeeded in turn by increasingly decadent and indifferent descendants who are used to the money rolling in. Those who reject the idea of “American exceptionalism,” Ayaan pronounced, are, by doing so, simply identifying themselves as members of that fourth generation – as, that is, the decadent and undeserving heirs of a precious legacy that they didn’t earn, don’t value, and are unwilling to take risks, make sacrifices, or exert themselves to preserve for their progeny.

Ayaan recalled people she’d known in Somalia and Ethiopia who, out of fear, had only discussed ticklish matters “behind closed doors” with those whom they fully trusted. In the Netherlands, she was dismayed to watch the very Dutchmen who’d taught her the ABCs of freedom morphing into versions of her acquaintances in the Horn of Africa, scared to breathe a word about Islam lest their careers be endangered. And then she moved to Washington, D.C., the capital of the free world and, she thought, the world’s last, best hope (not to mention the final stop on her long pilgrimage) – only to catch some of her colleagues there behaving in exactly the same dispiriting way: “You wait until someone you suspect of reporting you goes out of the room and then you have your honest conversation. Essentially these are no longer open societies.”

Ayaan’s message to America was clear: “We’re deteriorating. We’re becoming like the rest of the world, instead of the rest of the world becoming like us.” A sobering thought. But the words I haven’t quite been able to get out of my mind since our interview are the ones about America’s refusal to “recognize Islamic terrorism” – namely, Ayaan’s flat statement that our leaders’ failure to face the simple truth makes America “worse than Europe – any country in Europe.” When, in the last year of the last century, I first encountered Muslim enclaves in Amsterdam and saw the whole future nightmare of Europe unfolding in my mind’s eye, I never imagined I’d be hearing such words about America – and nodding in dour agreement.

Bruce Bawer

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/bruce-bawer/america-worse-than-europe-on-islam/

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

The Dark Knights of Human Rights

by Itai Reuveni

Just over two weeks ago, there was a report about a Jewish woman in Iran who, for years, had been harassed by her Muslim neighbors who demanded that she evacuate her home to make room for a mosque. The woman was ultimately stabbed to death, and her body dismembered. 

About a month ago, an Iranian human rights activist of Arab descent was tortured to death at a notorious Iranian prison. Add to that the testimony of a senior Revolutionary Guards officer who defected to the U.S., indicating that every woman who is sentenced to death in Iran is first raped so that she won't enter heaven a virgin. 

These are just a handful of examples out of thousands of human rights violations in Iran. This raises a disturbing question: Where are the human rights organizations? Where are the condemnation campaigns and calls for boycotts? Where are the threats to take senior Iranian officials to the International Court of Justice? Where are the enormous budgets? Shouldn't there be lobbies crowding the halls of the U.N. and EU institutions? 

The concept of "human rights" — founded on universal principles — has lost its moral significance and has now become merely a tool utilized by nongovernmental organizations as a means of obtaining political objectives. This exploitation, compounded by the blatant disregard for any facts that do not fall into line with the activists' views, encourages nations like Iran to keep doing what they are doing. Human rights organizations have been commandeered by a handful of extremists who seek to advance a political ideology rather than protecting the world's citizens, whether they are Iranian or Syrian, Palestinian or Israeli.

Iran is usually mentioned in the context of a security threat. The various organizations are only reminded of Iran in the context of Israel. There are nearly no campaigns for human rights in Iran — you can count the ones that do exist on the fingers of one hand. And so Iran, where, according to its president, there are no homosexuals or lesbians (and if there are, they are hanged in the city square), and where acid is squirted on protesters, and where men and women are raped in prison, and where the national sports are soccer and stoning people, keeps on abusing human rights. For their part, the human rights organizations argue that they don't have the resources to take action within a closed society. Why take a risk when you can protest in Bil'in in the morning and have a beer in Tel Aviv that same afternoon?

These organizations fail to realize that human rights are inextricably linked to the strength of a society, even when said society exists under a sadistic tyrannical regime. Many people may find this surprising, but there is a strong, flourishing civil society in Iran, with a long, rich history of organizing: from the 1890 Tobacco Protest to the struggles over the constitution and the country's oil, through to the 1979 Islamic Revolution all the way to the 2009 Iranian Election Protests and the creation of the Iranian Green Movement. This is a country with a rich social history and with a fascinating language and culture. But its freedom-seeking citizens have been abandoned by the knights of human rights, the knights who populate those organizations with the enormous budgets of hundreds of millions of dollars and with worldwide infrastructure and with ideologically motivated activists. These organizations allocate a large portion of their resources to the one-sided cheerleading squad for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in complete disproportion to all the other human rights violations around the world. 

For example: Robert Bernstein, the founder of Human Rights Watch, harshly criticized the very organization he founded in a New York Times op-ed several years ago. Bernstein criticized the organization for ignoring human rights violations in closed societies, for its anti-Israeli bias and for "issuing reports on the Israeli-Arab conflict that are helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state." He wrote this op-ed after a 2009 fundraising event in Saudi Arabia, organized by Human Rights Watch, in which anti-Israel rhetoric was used to raise money. That same year, a senior organization official visited Libya and praised Moammar Gadhafi's son, calling him a reformer and leader of the Libyan Spring. 

Today, international Human Rights Day, the human rights organizations need to do some soul searching and really check whether the allocation of their resources truly reflects the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted by the U.N. on Dec. 10, 1948). They need to ask themselves whether the concentration of efforts to bash Israel and the disregard for violations in other countries truly contributes to the human rights of any group, or rather serves to alienate the public, to belittle the concept of human rights and to encourage rights violations in places like Iran. 

If we honestly care about human rights, we must liberate the concept from the hands of those who have tried to commandeer it.

Itai Reuveni is a researcher for NGO Monitor.

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=3032

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

What does Hamas want?

by Elliott Abrams

Frequently I have found that when I mention the odious Hamas “Charter” as the best insight into the group’s current goals, the response is that the charter is nearly 25 years old and doesn’t mean much nowadays.

In that context, the words of Hamas’ two top leaders in the past few weeks deserve attention.

On Nov. 26, Mahmoud Zahar (a Hamas co-founder and influential leader) said the following: “Anyone who wants to liberate Palestine by complaining [to the International Criminal Court] — I will send him handkerchiefs to wipe his tears. Whoever wants to really liberate Palestine should pick up a gun.”

Khaled Mashaal, the top political leader of Hamas, visited Gaza for the first time this weekend. Here are some of his remarks to a mass rally celebrating Hamas’ 25th anniversary:

"Palestine, from the river to the sea, from north to south, is our land. Not an inch of it can be conceded. We cannot recognize the legitimacy of Israel’s occupation of Palestine. There is no legitimacy to occupation, and therefore no legitimacy for Israel, no matter how long it will take. Liberating Palestine, all of Palestine, is a duty, a right and a goal … we will liberate [Jerusalem] inch by inch, stone by stone, Islamic and Christian holy places. Israel has no right in Jerusalem. ..."

In regard to the recent U.N. vote granting Palestine the status of a nonmember state, Mashaal said: "Liberation first, then the state. The real state is the product of liberation, not the product of negotiations. Holy war and armed resistance are the real and right path to liberation and recovery of rights."

All these remarks suggest that the mentality that produced the charter, a venomous anti-Semitic document that makes compromise impossible, remains dominant. For that reason, I wonder why anyone who seeks peace would promote reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas and seek to bring Hamas into the governing of the PLO and the Palestinian Authority. Given Hamas’ goals, such a role for the terrorist group would make Israeli-Palestinian cooperation impossible — not just peace negotiations but the day-to-day cooperation that currently exists with respect to the West Bank.

The words of Mashaal and Zahar are also a reminder of why Hamas persists, year after year, in firing rockets, mortars, and missiles at civilian targets in Israel. Hamas commits terrorist acts because it is wedded to violence and terror, and believes that it is fully justified in pursuing its goal of driving the Jews out of what they call “Israel” and Hamas calls “Palestine.” Mashaal's claim that “not an inch of it can be conceded” and Zahar’s urging to “pick up a gun” demonstrate yet again what Hamas wants and how it plans to get there.

Elliott Abrams  is a senior fellow for Middle East Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. This piece is reprinted with permission and can be found on Abrams' blog “Pressure Points” here.

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=3034

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

Should Israel Let the Palestinian Authority Fail?

by P. David Hornik

…our people have witnessed, and continue to witness, an unprecedented intensification of military assaults, the blockade, settlement activities and ethnic cleansing, particularly in Occupied East Jerusalem, and mass arrests, attacks by settlers and other practices by which this Israeli occupation is becoming synonymous with an apartheid system of colonial occupation, which institutionalizes the plague of racism and entrenches hatred and incitement.

What permits the Israeli government to blatantly continue with its aggressive policies and the perpetration of war crimes stems from its conviction that it is above the law and that it has immunity from accountability and consequences….

Thus Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas characterized Israel in speaking to the UN General Assembly on November 29, part of his successful bid for the West Bank and Gaza to be recognized by that body as a “state.” His words were consistent with incendiary calumnies heaped on Israel throughout the Arab world and in much of the Muslim world.

There is, though, a difference: that it is Israel that keeps Abbas and his PA afloat. Along with the United States and the European Union, Israel gives Abbas the financial support without which his institutions would collapse. And it is Israeli security forces in the West Bank, in cooperation—at least until recently—with Abbas’s own security forces, that keep the West Bank from being taken over by Gaza-based Hamas.

This radical instance of biting the hand that feeds one naturally raises the question of whether Israel has to keep sustaining an entity that shows its gratitude by attacking it diplomatically and cultivating generations of hatred. The question is further sharpened by a recent escalation of anti-Israeli violence in the West Bank (see here, here, and here) amid reports that PA security forces have stopped arresting Hamas operatives there and “no longer seem…motivated to curb their activities in the area.”

One of Israel’s sharper analysts—Prof. Efraim Inbar, director of Bar-Ilan University’s Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (BESA)—says: enough already.

Interviewed by Israel’s Besheva Hebrew-language weekly (translation here) the same week that Abbas gave his General Assembly address, Inbar said he was “not too upset” by Abbas’s UN move. He explained:

The Palestinian Authority is a fictional entity. It continues to exist only because of the IDF, and if we are not there, Hamas will take over take the place. I’m not sure it is right for us to continue to support the Palestinian Authority. We should let it fall apart….

Inbar went on to note that the Palestinian Authority “makes claims against us…runs an anti-Israel campaign all over the world…educates its people toward hatred of Israel…. We have to let them fail.”
When the interviewer noted the “concern that Hamas will take over the area,” Inbar responded:

We will not allow Hamas to take over the area. We will rule…. We should prepare to put up with some disturbances, and stop paying lip service to the paradigm of two states for two peoples. It simply does not work because there is no partner on the other side.

Asked whether, in terms of international law, Israel would not still be held responsible for the Palestinian population, Inbar replied:

There’s no need for us to be responsible for them. I am not prepared to be responsible for the food that comes or does not come to them. It’s their problem, not ours. What, must I take care of the whole world? We left their big cities in 1996 and that’s it…. If they want to be nice to us then we’ll help them, if not then we won’t…. Yes. There would be international pressure and we will withstand it. If the Europeans want to help them, let them help them…. We should not help our enemies.

It should be noted, first, that right after Inbar’s interview and Abbas’s speech, the Netanyahu government took two measures: announcing stepped-up building plans in parts of Jerusalem and the West Bank, including the heavily contested E1 area near Jerusalem; and suspending the month’s transfer of tax payments to the PA, using the money instead to pay the PA’s enormous debt to the Israel Electric Corporation.

Naturally, the worldwide diplomatic condemnation was unanimous and particularly nasty from Europe with its burgeoning Muslim populations and tight commercial ties with Arab states. To its credit, the Netanyahu government said it was going ahead with the measures anyway, though to what extent the building plans for E1 are just declaratory or will really be fulfilled remains to be seen.

Second, Inbar’s interview is not, of course, a systematic position paper and leaves some questions open—particularly whether Israel’s retaking full security control of the West Bank would pass the cost-benefit test. Israel’s security establishment has reportedly told Netanyahu such a redeployment would add some $3.15 billion to Israel’s annual budget—at a time when Israel’s fiscal discipline is the envy of most of the West and a paramount Israeli interest.

On the other hand, if the current disturbances continue and Abbas’s forces continue to prove useless or actively collusive with Hamas, Israel will have little choice but to crack down and this question may answer itself.

Third, barring such a scenario, Netanyahu—a cautious leader who faces much graver security challenges from the Syrian and, most of all, Iranian directions, and wants to get along as much as possible with a difficult occupant of the White House for another four years—is not likely to take any drastic steps toward the PA for the time being, even if he emerges from Israel’s January 22 elections with a more hawkish coalition.

Still, the questions Inbar raises are acute. Israel faces a morally upside-down world where it is damned for taking military, economic, or any other steps against sworn enemies who, in turn, are coddled and excused. The question is how long, as the PA keeps biting its helping hand, Israel can engage in morally upside-down behavior.

P. David Hornik

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/davidhornik/should-israel-let-the-palestinian-authority-fail/

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

Azerbaijan Gets Islam and Politics Right

by Joseph Klein

 

The Republic of Azerbaijan and the Islamic Republic of Iran are both Muslim majority countries with largely Shiite populations. They share a common border and common heritage. However, they represent diametrically opposed approaches to the relationship between religion and government.

Iran is ruled by fanatical anti-Western and anti-Israeli mullahs. It is a theocracy where a fundamentalist Islamic ideology strictly governs all aspects of public and private life.

Azerbaijan – a majority-Turkic and Muslim country – is located at a crucial geostrategic crossroads in the South Caucasus between Russia, Iran and Turkey. It is a Western-leaning secular state that separates government and mosque and is religiously tolerant. Although Azerbaijan is 95% Muslim in population, Azerbaijan is not officially a Muslim country governed  by Islamic law.

“Azerbaijan’s secularism, religious tolerance, economic growth, and Western oriented foreign policy now form a model for the freedom loving people trapped in Iran,” wrote S.R. Sobhani, CEO, Caspian Group. “A successfully modernized Muslim state north of its border spells danger for Iran’s theocracy.”

In fact, Azerbaijan is even supplanting its neighbor Turkey as the best model of  a secular alternative for the Muslim world.  Turkey, under the rule of the religiously conservative Islamist Justice and Development Party and its leader Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has turned its back on the secular vision Mustafa Kemal Ataturk had in mind when he founded the modern nation-state of Turkey on the ashes of the collapsed Ottoman empire. Azerbaijan would be more welcoming to Ataturk today than his own homeland.

This is not to say that Azerbaijan comes anywhere close to resembling a Western-style democracy. Far from it. It was, after all, part of the Soviet Union until it achieved its independence in 1991.  Some bad habits die hard.

In the CIA’s most recent report on Azerbaijan, it described Azerbaijan’s political system this way: “Corruption in the country is ubiquitous, and the government, which eliminated presidential term limits in a 2009 referendum, has been accused of authoritarianism.”

Azerbaijan’s record with respect to freedom of speech and assembly is also problematic.
However, within the universe of Muslim majority countries, and certainly in comparison with its neighbor Iran, Azerbaijan is downright modern in its approach to freedom of religion.

In Azerbaijan, religious leaders may not simultaneously serve in public office and in positions of religious leadership. Under the constitution, persons have the right to choose and change religious affiliation and beliefs (including atheism), and to join or establish the religious group of their choice. The Law on Freedom of Religion expressly prohibits the government from interfering in the religious activities of any individual or group, although religious organizations must be registered by the government in order to be able to maintain a bank account, rent property, and generally act as a legal entity. The government is also concerned about ensuring that Iranian style theocracy, Saudi Arabian-style Wahabism or the Muslim Brotherhood’s method of fusing Islamism and politics are not imported into Azerbaijan.

Religious instruction is not mandatory in Azerbaijan. Article 6 of the Law on Freedom of Religion stipulates that the state educational system is “separate” from religion.

“It is not about Islam, but whether or not to be oppressed because of religion,” Azerbaijani ambassador to the United States Elin Suleymanov explained. “It is not a question of the presence of Islam or its absence,” he added.  What Azerbaijan rejects is the notion that “religion and ideology must dominate in the government and the political system. Oppression for religious views is unacceptable – we support freedom of religion.”

The founder of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, saw himself, and the “supreme” religious leaders who followed him, as the guardians of Islamic purity, which required a government under their stewardship that is run in strict accordance with sharia law.  Khomeini believed that “non-Muslims of any religion or creed are najess (impure).” Non-Muslims’ impurity relegates them to second class status, if not outright persecution.

All aspects of public and private life in Iran are dictated through the prism of Islamic law and ideology as defined by its supreme religious leader.  Education is a tool to help in the indoctrination of Shiite Islam for future generations. Freedom House concluded that the government of Iran is “teaching the country’s children to discriminate against women and minorities, to view non-Muslims with suspicion if not contempt, and to perpetuate the regime’s theocratic ideology.”

The treatment of Baha’is, who are members of a small nineteenth century religious sect with adherents in both Azerbaijan and Iran, illustrates the sharp contrast between Azerbaijan’s more religiously tolerant secular model and the rigid, theocratic model practiced by the Iranian regime.

In Azerbaijan, since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, the modern Bahá’í population, centered in Baku (the capital of Azerbaijan), has been revitalized. In 1992, the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’ís of Azerbaijan was elected, after having been effectively disbanded since 1938. In 1993 the Governing Board of the Ministry of Justice of the Azerbaijan Republic gave official permission for the functioning of the Baha’í Community of Baku.

By contrast, since the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Baha’is living in Iran have been subjected to arbitrary arrests, beatings, torture, executions, and discrimination in access to education, employment and government benefits. Members of the Baha’i community in Iran are the most persecuted religious minority in the Islamic Republic, according to the UN special rapporteur for human rights in Iran, Ahmed Shaheed.

Although Baha’is actually revere the prophet Mohammed and regard the Koran as a divinely revealed book, the Iranian regime considers them apostates because their religion was established after Islam and they recognize other prophets who came after Mohammed. Moreover, Baha’is believe in a direct relationship between the individual and God, removing the command and control role of cleric authority in all aspects of public and private life that characterizes the Iranian theocracy. 

Consequently, Iranian textbooks refer to the Baha’i religion as a “false sect” and accuse Baha’is of being tools of foreign powers.

Jews have had a long thriving history of residence in Iran, dating back to the Babylonian exile in the middle of the first millennium B.C.E.  But since the Islamic revolution in 1979, the Jewish population has declined, according to some estimates, by as much as 75 percent.  While Judaism is officially recognized as a religious minority in the Islamic Republic of Iran, which entitles Jews to certain rights such as parliamentary representation and to celebrate their own religious holidays, Jews are regularly persecuted and discriminated against in their daily lives.  Despite early promises by Ayatollah Khomeini to distinguish between Zionism as a political ideology to be expunged and Judaism as a religion to be acknowledged, that distinction has blurred.  In July 2012, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said: “My dear ones! Islam is a world religion and god has only one religion, that of Islam, he did not send Judaism or Christianity; Abraham was a harbinger of Islam, as were Moses and Jesus!”

Although Azerbaijan is 95% Muslim, it also is home to one of the most flourishing Jewish communities in the Muslim world.  There are three synagogues in Baku, and an active Jewish community with schools and cultural centers. Moshe Becker, a Jewish leader from Azerbaijan, said that in Azerbaijan “there has been no anti-Semitism and we live very peacefully, even cooperating with our Muslim and Christian brothers.”

Iran is particularly irked at Azerbaijan’s close diplomatic relationship with Israel, which commenced in 1992. “We share the same view of the world, I guess,” said Israel’s ambassador to Azerbaijan, Michael Lotem, in an interview earlier this year with the BBC about the Azerbaijan-Israeli relationship. “For us Israelis to find a Muslim country which is so open, so friendly, so progressive, is not something the Israelis take for granted.”

Azerbaijan authorities broke up what they said was an Iranian plot to kill Israeli Ambassador Lotem in January 2012. Within a month or so after that episode, Azerbaijan’s National Security Ministry announced the foiling of another Iranian plot to attack the Israeli and U.S. embassies in the Azerbaijan capital of Baku.

Shiite and Sunni fundamentalism is triumphing throughout much of the Muslim world today. Even countries that some regard as “moderate” such as Turkey and Indonesia are feeling the chill of the spreading Islamist winter.  Indeed, Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan himself said several years ago that “Turkey is not a country where moderate Islam prevails.”

Azerbaijan, with all of its imperfections, may be the one green shoot of secularism and moderate Islam in this bleak winter landscape.

Joseph Klein

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/joseph-klein/azerbaijan-gets-islam-and-politics-right/

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

Egypt's Opposition Rejects Constitutional Referendum

by Reuters

Egyptian protesters push army soldiers standing guard in front of the presidential palace in Cairo, Egypt. (AP)

Egyptian protesters scuffle with army soldiers near the presidential palace in Cairo, Egypt. (AP)

Masks of Guy Fawkes are displayed by a street vendor in the previously sealed off precinct in front of the Egyptian presidential palace in Cairo. (AFP)

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's main opposition coalition rejected on Sunday Islamist President Mohamed Mursi's plan for a constitutional referendum this week, saying it risked dragging the country into "violent confrontation".


Mursi's decision on Saturday to retract a decree awarding himself wide powers failed to placate opponents who accused him of plunging Egypt deeper into crisis by refusing to postpone the vote on a constitution shaped by Islamists.

"We are against this process from start to finish," Hussein Abdel Ghani, spokesman of the National Salvation Front, told a news conference, calling for more street protests on Tuesday.

The Front's main leaders - Nobel peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, former Foreign Minister Amr Moussa and leftist Hamdeen Sabahy - did not attend the event.

Hundreds of protesters milled around Mursi's palace, despite tanks, barbed wire and other barriers installed last week after clashes between Islamists and their rivals killed seven people.
"Holding a referendum now in the absence of security reflects haste and an absence of a sense of responsibility on the part of the regime, which risks pushing the country towards violent confrontation," a statement from the Front said.

The Muslim Brotherhood, which propelled Mursi from obscurity to power, urged the opposition to accept the referendum's verdict.
Islamists say the vote will seal a democratic transition that began when a popular uprising toppled Hosni Mubarak 22 months ago after three decades of military-backed one-man rule.

Their liberal, leftist and Christian adversaries say the document being fast-tracked through could threaten freedoms and fails to embrace the diversity of Egypt's 83 million people.

"ACT OF WAR"

Mursi had given some ground on Saturday when he annulled the fiercely contested decree issued on November 22 that gave him extra powers and shielded his decisions from judicial review.

But some measures taken under the decree remain in force and the president has insisted the referendum go ahead on December 15.

Liberal opposition leader Ahmed Said earlier described the race to a referendum as an "act of war" against Egyptians.

Egypt is torn between Islamists, who were suppressed for decades, and their rivals, who fear religious conservatives want to squeeze out other voices and restrict social freedoms. Many Egyptians just crave stability and economic recovery.

Brotherhood spokesman Mahmoud Ghozlan said the scrapping of Mursi's decree had removed any reason for controversy.
"We ask others to announce their acceptance of the referendum result," he said on the group's Facebook page, asking whether the opposition would accept "the basics of democracy".

The cancellation of Mursi's decree, announced after a "national dialogue" on Saturday boycotted by almost all the president's critics, has not bridged a deep political divide.

Prime Minister Hisham Kandil, a technocrat with Islamist leanings, said the referendum was the best test of opinion.

"The people are the makers of the future as long as they have the freedom to resort to the ballot box in a democratic, free and fair vote," he said in a cabinet statement.

But opposition factions, uncertain of their ability to vote down the constitution against the Islamists' organisational muscle, want the document redrafted before any vote.

"A constitution without consensus can't go to a referendum," said Hermes Fawzi, 28, a protester outside the palace. "It's not logical that just one part of society makes the constitution."

DIALOGUE

Egypt tipped into turmoil after Mursi grabbed powers to stop any court action aimed at hindering the transition. An assembly led by the Brotherhood and other Islamists then swiftly approved the constitution it had spent six months drafting.

Opponents, including minority Christians, had already quit the assembly in dismay, saying their voices were being ignored.

After the dialogue hosted by Mursi, a spokesman announced that the president had issued a new decree whose first article "cancels the constitutional declaration" of November 22. He said the referendum could not be delayed for legal reasons.

The decree ignited more than two weeks of sometimes violent protests and counter-rallies in Egypt. Mursi's foes have chanted for his downfall. Islamists fear a plot to oust the most populous Arab nation's first freely-elected leader.

Islamists reckon they can win the referendum and, once the new constitution is in place, a parliamentary election about two months later. The Islamist-led lower house elected this year was dissolved after a few months by a court order.

Investors appeared relieved after Mursi rescinded his decree, sending Egyptian stocks 4.4 percent higher on Sunday. Markets are awaiting approval of a $4.8 billion IMF loan later this month designed to support the budget and economic reforms.

The military, which led Egypt's transition for 16 turbulent months after Mubarak fell, told feuding factions on Saturday that only dialogue could avert "catastrophe". But a military source said these remarks did not herald an army takeover.


Reuters

Source: http://www.asharq-e.com/news.asp?section=1&id=32112

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

Israel Has No Other Alternative But the Alternative it Has is a Good One

by Barry Rubin

 

The Palestinian leadership, abetted by many Western governments, has now torn up every agreement it made with Israel. Once the efforts of two decades of negotiations—including irrevocable Israeli compromises in giving the Palestinian Authority control over territory, its own armed forces, dismantling settlements, and permitting billions of dollars of foreign aid to the Palestinians—were destroyed, the world has decided to focus the blame on Israel approving the construction of 3000 apartments.

In 1993, Israel signed an agreement with the PLO to make peace in the Israel-Palestinian conflict. The accord, known as the Oslo agreement, included the following passage in Article 31:

“Neither side shall initiate or take any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations.”

By essentially unilaterally declaring the existence of an Arab Palestine, the world has abrogated that agreement.

What is shocking is not just that this has happened but there has been no discussion much less hesitation by dozens of countries to destroy an agreement that they hitherto supported. Indeed, a study of the history of this agreement shows clearly that the Palestinian side prevented the accord from succeeding, most obviously by permitting and carrying out continuing terrorism and rejecting Israeli offers for a Palestinian state with its capital in east Jerusalem both in the 2000 Camp David summit and in the ensuing offer conveyed by President Bill Clinton at the end of that year.

Read the whole article

Barry Rubin

Source: http://rubinreports.blogspot.co.il/2012/12/israel-has-no-other-alternative-but.html

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

Germany: Image of Islam 'Devastating'

by Soeren Kern

The most sobering finding is that 46% of Turks say they hope that one day Germany will have more Muslims than Christians.

Germans are overwhelmingly mistrustful of Islam and Muslim immigration, according to a new research survey, which concludes that the image of Islam in Germany is "devastating."

The findings -- which corroborate the conclusions of other recent studies -- show a growing divide between ordinary Germans, who are concerned about the consequences of mass immigration from Muslim countries, and Germany's political elites, who are determined to build a "multicultural" society at any cost.

The 28-page study, "Fear of the East in the West" [Die Furcht vor dem Morgenland im Abendland], was produced by the Allensbach Institute for Public Opinion Research, and was published by the center-right German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on November 21.

Those who participated in the survey were asked to choose which of 21 statements about Islam most closely reflect their own views.

The research shows that more than half of the German population believes that Islam is prone to violence (64%); has a tendency toward revenge and retaliation (60%); is obsessed with proselytizing others (56%); and strives for political influence (56%).

More than 80% of Germans believe that Islam deprives women of their rights, and 70% say Islam is associated with religious fanaticism and radicalism.

By contrast, only 13% of Germans associate Islam with love for neighbors, 12% with charity and 7% with openness and tolerance.

The high level of mistrust of Islam in Germany is also reflected in other questions. For example, 44% of those surveyed answered "yes" to the question, "Do you think there will be serious conflict between the Western Christian culture and the Arab Muslim culture in the future?" In addition, one quarter of respondents say they believe that such conflict already exists at the current time.

Another question concerns the term "Clash of Civilizations," a concept which states that cultural and religious identity will be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world.

The survey shows that 43% of Germans say they believe such a clash is taking place. According to the authors of the report, this represents a majority because only 34% of Germans explicitly disagree with the theory.

In addition, only 36% of Germans believe that Christianity and Islam can live together peacefully side-by-side. Moreover, 53% think that there will always be serious conflicts between these two religions.

As for relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in Germany, respondents are highly pessimistic. In response to the question, "Do you think tensions in relations with Muslims will grow in Germany in the near future and should we be worried about it," nearly half of all Germans (48%) answered "yes" to the question; only 29% of Germans say they see no threat.

The majority of Germans are also firmly opposed to appeasing Muslims and Islam. Only 27% of Germans say there should be a ban on speech that could insult or provoke Muslims. A clear majority of Germans (52%) are explicitly opposed to such restrictions on free speech.

By contrast, 39% of Germans say they believe there should be a ban on the construction of minarets, similar to the ban in Switzerland.

Nearly half of Germans (47%) agree with the statement, "Although it is a personal choice, I do not like to see a woman wearing a scarf on her head."

The survey shows that Germans are overwhelmingly opposed to recent attempts by politicians to describe Islam as an integral part of German culture.

Only 22% of Germans say they agree with the statement, "Islam and Christianity are equally German," while two-thirds (64%) say they completely disagree.

Even when this question is reformulated (as German President Joachim Gauck has recently done) to read, "The Muslims who live here are part of Germany," only 29% of Germans say they agree. A relative majority, 47% of Germans, explicitly reject the idea that Muslims are part of Germany.

Although German elites have worked hard to portray all critics of Islam as belonging to the "far right," this survey and many others provide ample empirical evidence that voters from across the political spectrum are concerned about the spread of Islam in Germany.

An opinion survey, for example, called "Perception and Acceptance of Religious Diversity," conducted by the University of Münster in partnership with the TNS Emnid political polling firm, shows that only 34% of the West Germans and 26% of the East Germans have a positive view of Muslims. Fewer than 5% of the Germans think Islam is a tolerant religion, and only 30% say they approve of the building of mosques. The number of Germans who approve of the building of minarets or the introduction of Muslim holidays is even lower.

Fewer than 10% of the West Germans and 5% of the East Germans say that Islam is a peaceful religion. More than 40% of Germans believe that the practice of Islam should be restricted.

Only 20% of Germans believe that Islam is suitable for the Western world. Significantly, more than 80% of Germans agree with the statement, "Muslims must adapt to our culture." (More than one million immigrants living permanently in Germany cannot speak German.)

Another survey, "Global Views on Immigration," conducted by the London-based Ipsos global research firm, found that more than half the Germans believe "there are too many immigrants" in their country.

In response to the polling question, "Would you say that immigration has generally had a positive or negative impact," 54% of Germans said the impact has been negative. Nearly 60% of Germans agree with the survey statement "Immigration has placed too much pressure on public services."

Another report, "Muslim-Western Tensions Persist," published by the Washington, DC-based Pew Research Center, shows that 61% of Germans believe their relations with Muslims are bad. The poll also says that 72% of Germans believe Muslims in their countries do not want to integrate; and that 79% of Germans believe Islam is "the most violent" religion. More than two-thirds of Germans are worried about Islamic extremists in their country.

A separate poll conducted by the Pew Global Attitudes Project states that 71% of Germans believe Islamic veils should be banned in public, including in schools, hospitals and government offices.

Another survey, published by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, a think-tank linked to the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), found that 55% of Germans believe that Arabs are "unpleasant," and over 33% believe the country is being "overrun" by immigrants. The study also noted that "far-right attitudes" are not isolated at the extremes of German society, but to a large degree are "at the center of it."

Although these surveys clearly and consistently show that most Germans are worried about the impact that unrestricted Muslim immigration is having on their daily lives, German politicians continue to promote the rise of Islam in Germany.

Hamburg, for instance, the second-largest city in Germany, concluded on November 13 a "historic treaty" with its Muslim communities that grants Muslims broad new rights and privileges but does little to encourage their integration into German society.

The agreement, signed by Hamburg's Socialist Mayor Olaf Scholz and the leaders of four Muslim umbrella groups, has been praised by the proponents of multiculturalism for putting the northern port city's estimated 200,000 Muslims on an equal footing with Christian residents.

On November 30, the northern German city of Bremen followed Hamburg's lead by concluding its own treaty [Staatsvertrag] with the local Muslim community. The Socialist mayor of Bremen, Jens Böhrnsen, said the treaty reflects "mutual recognition and respect of mutual values."

Critics, however, say the agreements, the first of their kind in Germany, will boost the growing influence of Islam in the country by encouraging the perpetuation of a Muslim parallel society.

These fears have been substantiated by a recent report which found that nearly half of all Turks living in Germany say they hope there will be more Muslims than Christians in Germany in the future. (Germany has Western Europe's second-biggest Muslim population after France, with Turks comprising the single biggest minority.)

The 103-page study, "German-Turkish Life and Values" (abridged version in German here), was jointly produced by the Berlin-based INFO polling institute and the Antalya, Turkey-based Liljeberg research firm, and was released to the general public in August 2012.

The study found that Islam is becoming an increasingly important component of the value structure of Turks in Germany, especially among the younger generation of Turkish-Germans, who hold religious views that are more radical than those held by their parents.

Almost all Turks surveyed (95%) said it is absolutely necessary for them to preserve their Turkish identity, and 62% said they would rather be around Turks than around Germans. Only 39% of Turks said that Germans are trustworthy.

At the same time, 87% of those surveyed said they believe that German society should make a greater effort to be considerate of the customs and traditions of Turkish immigrants.

Of those Turks surveyed, 72% believe that Islam is the only true religion; 18% say Jews are inferior people and 10% say Christians are inferior. Most Turks (55%) believe that Germany should build more mosques.

Arguably the most sobering finding of the study is that 46% of Turks say they hope that Germany will one day have more Muslims than Christians. 

Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook.

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3487/germany-fear-east-west

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

Iran: "The Supporting Pole of the Regime's Tent is Bent"

by Stephen Schwartz

Repressive Iranian institutions consider "having 'compassion' for a Muslim woman in prison to be 'acting against national security,' and 'insulting the Supreme Leader.'" The call of the Iranian dissidents should not go unanswered.

Nasrin Soutoudeh, a human rights lawyer in theocratic Iran, announced on December 4th that she would end a hunger strike she had carried out for 49 days from her cell in Tehran's infamous Evin Prison. Her offenses had been to act as a court defender of opposition political figures and activists, as well as for juveniles condemned to death for crimes committed when they were under age 18.

Soutoudeh, now nearly fifty, was sentenced last year to 11 years' imprisonment, and barred from work in the field of law. On appeal, her term was reduced to six years. During her sustained act of defiance, Nasrin Soutoudeh consumed only water mixed with sugar and salts. Her weight fell to 95 pounds; her health became fragile.

She concluded her starvation protest after the Iranian dictatorship acceded to her main demand: that a travel ban be lifted from her 12-year old daughter Mehraveh. Soutoudeh also initiated the fast to dramatize the bad conditions under which she is held. Her husband, Reza Khandan, remains restricted in his movements by order of the regime.

In a statement from Norway, the International Organization to Preserve Human Rights in Iran (IOPHR) pointed out that official Iranian media has accused local spiritual Sufis of supporting Soutoudeh as part of an alleged foreign conspiracy to subvert the Tehran authorities. IOPHR warns that on this basis, Sufis are vulnerable to false trials and imprisonment. According to Sufis and human rights monitors, the repressive Iranian institutions consider "having 'compassion' for a Muslim woman in prison to be 'acting against national security,' 'disturbing public order" and 'insulting the Supreme Leader'," a post currently held by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

IOPHR identifies the persecution of Nasrin Soutoudeh and the Sufis with a sinister "think tank," the "Islamic Center for the Study of Religions and their Different Interpretations" located in Qom, the headquarters of theological radicalism in Iran. As one of several such institutions with similar titles and the same goal – penetration of Western academic circles and dissemination of Iranian state ideology – this "Center," through one of its Persian-language publications, Markaz Didban (Center Watch), has attacked Soutoudeh.

According to IOPHR, Ayatollah Muhammad Reza Mahdavi Kani, chairman of the Assembly of Experts, which names the Supreme Leader, has admitted that "the supporting pole of the regime's tent is bent." By this, Kani is said to recognize that conflicts between the personal, doctrinal, and political factions within the Islamist government have undermined its credibility. Entities such as the "Islamic Center for the Study of Religions and their Different Interpretations" harm Iranian stability more than any actions by dissidents by sowing intrigues and fear at all levels of society.

Meanwhile, IOPHR states, Ali Larijani, Khamenei's "national security expert," and promoter to the world of the Iranian nuclear program, travels daily to Damascus and Beirut to "maintain the status quo" embodied in the bloodthirsty Syrian dictatorship of Bashar Al-Assad and the Lebanese government dominated by the terror group, Hezbollah.

IOPHR has appealed for aid and cooperation from other international institutions; it seems to wish to use the great potential of public opinion outside Iran as a platform for a major global effort to expose conditions in the Iranian prisons. IOPHR describes Tehran's penal establishments as torture houses and dungeons run by stubborn and self-interested bureaucrats answerable to nobody – not even to the higher strata of clerical power.

The human rights activists and Sufis have praised the example provided by Nasrin Soutoudeh in her deliberate refusal of food. The call of the Iranian dissenters should not go unanswered. Demonstrations and conferences are overdue in Western and other foreign capitals, especially in Europe, the United States, and Canada. The Iranian usurpers should learn that while their internal contradictions and quarrels threaten to bring their tent down on their heads, the world is watching. Inevitably, the doors of Evin Prison and Tehran's other houses of cruelty and degradation must be opened.

Stephen Schwartz

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3486/iran-human-rights

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Catherine Ashton

by Eli E. Hertz

Catherine Ashton

European Union Foreign Affairs Chief

About Palestinian children:

“We have recognized the potential of the  youth of Palestine. Against all the odds, [These Palestinian children] continue to learn, to work, to dream and aspire to a better future... and it is to them that we should look and to them we should listen and it is to them that I pay tribute.”

Brussels, March 19, 2012.

 
 

​

What kind of a society consciously and purposely sacrifices its own youth for political gain and tactical advantage? Today the overwhelming majority of Palestinian Arabs nurture a blind hatred of Israel. They created a cultural milieu of vengeance, violence and death - preparing their children to be sacrifices in a death cult. Proud parents dress up their toddlers not in clown costumes, but with suicide belts, and countless others celebrate their children’s deaths with traditional sweet holiday cakes and candies.

Indeed, Palestinian children continue to learn, work, dream and aspire for a better future - but that future is void of the state of Israel and the Jewish people. Only when their textbooks cease to preach hate and stop using gruesome examples of killing Jews can we even begin to think of a promising future for these children, and for the region as a whole.
Eli E. Hertz

Source: www.mythsandfacts.org

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