The Arabs’ Betrayal of the Palestinians

by Joseph Puder


 

At least one Palestinian leader is honest enough to blame his “brotherly” Arab states for the cash crisis faced by the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah.  PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, in an interview with the Associated Press on Sunday, January 6, 2013 complained of an “unprecedented financial crisis” in the PA, largely due to the “Arab countries’ failure to dispatch promised millions of dollars in aid.”  Ironically, it is the Jewish state of Israel that the Palestinians regularly vilify and seek to destroy, which hitherto, provided the financial wherewithal to the PA by transferring $100 million in tax rebates to Ramallah, an amount that covers a third of the PA monthly operating costs.

On November 29, 2012, the U.N. General Assembly upgraded the Palestinian status to non-member observer state, and last week the U.N. changed the way it refers to Palestinians from merely being “Palestine” to the “State of Palestine.”  Israel hoped to negotiate in good faith with the Palestinian Authority and its President, Mahmoud Abbas, but the Palestinians circumvented the peace process by going directly to the U.N. in defiance of the Obama administration and Israel. That resulted in Israel cutting off subventions of $100 million to the PA coffers.  The Israeli government withheld the money to settle the PA debt to Israeli companies.

Mahmoud Abbas, not content with changing how the U.N. now refers to Palestine, has ordered the words “Palestinian Authority,” the current operative designation, to be changed to the “State of Palestine” on all public documents in Palestinian-controlled areas, including ID cards, driver licenses, and passports.

While Abbas is busy with conferring new titles on his PA, his Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has to deal with the PA insolvency.  The 22-nation Arab League promised to make up the funds Israel cut off in December.  Mohammed Sobeih, an Arab League official, claimed that letters have gone out to individual member states, urging them to pay the promised $100 million.  Fayyad, however, contended that PA financial problems rest with the delinquent Arab donors who failed to fulfill their pledge of support in accordance with Arab League resolutions.  Fayyad made it clear that the EU and the U.S. have delivered on their commitments to the Palestinians, but he accuses the Arab states of not meeting their pledges.

The Arab states have stuck to the familiar rhetoric of Western responsibility for the Palestinian plight, and therefore the West should pay for the Palestinian Authority upkeep as well as the Palestinian Arab refugees cared for by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).  In fact, it was the Palestinian leadership and leaders of Arab states that encouraged the Palestinian plight in 1948, and are largely responsible for the Palestinian refugee problem.  The Arab states moreover, refused to absorb the Palestinians, and have used them for propaganda purposes.  Kuwait has expelled 450,000 Palestinians in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War, while Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria have refrained from giving the Palestinians citizenship.  It is the same Arab states who have encouraged the Palestinians to resist accommodation with the Jewish State, and gave lip-service to the Palestinian cause, while they fall short on deeds when it comes to helping the Palestinians.

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy 2005 report revealed that “Arab states pledged $999 million in aid for 2004, of which $572 million was pledged by Arab members of OPEC (other than Iraq). Only $107 million of this aid was actually delivered. That left $892 million still owed by Arab states, including $467 million from OPEC members (other than Iraq).  The largest amounts pledged, but not delivered, were from Libya ($148 million), Kuwait ($140 million), Iraq ($132 million pledged while Saddam Hussein was still in power), Egypt ($105 million), and Algeria ($86 million).”

According to Fayyad, the PA has reached a critical point at which it is unable to pay the salaries of about 150,000 government employees.  Fayyad pointed out to the Associated Press that as a result of the crunch, the number of poor Palestinians will increase to 50% of the PA population. Additionally, private banks will no longer extend loans to the government, while the PA deficit is effectively over $1.5 billion.

The Palestinian Authority or as Mahmoud Abbas wants it called, the “State of Palestine” is unsustainable without foreign support.  Not being endowed with oil or any other natural resources, the Palestinians, led by Yasser Arafat, aggravated their situation further by launching an Intifada against Israel in September, 2000.  It resulted in Israel restricting Palestinian movement, including work permits inside Israel, and impacted trade.  The PA depends on foreign aid and is seemingly unable to wean itself off.

At the core of the PA economic problems is the use of public sector employment as a mechanism for political patronage as well as local job creation.  The public sector alone continues to expand while investments in the private sector are virtually non-existent; this causes an imbalance that outstrips fiscal revenues.

A World Bank report (December 2004) concluded that the PA “needs to reinvigorate its program of governance reform in order to create an internal environment more attractive to private investors.  Doing that will require that the PA complete the cycle of popular elections it has embarked on, control lawlessness, develop a solid judicial system and address concerns about transparency and corruption.”

As America is edging toward a financial cliff, and the EU-zone is in deep financial trouble, it is time to demand that the Arab/Muslim world take care of the Palestinians’ financial needs.  America and the Europeans can no longer afford to be on a “guilt trip,” and pay the lion’s share of the PA budget.  This was concluded long before the 2008 recession hit America and the West.  The late Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA), a senior member of the House International Relations Committee, said (February 10, 2005) that he would “condition U.S. aid to the Palestinians on oil-rich Arab ‘deadbeats’ making good on their own promised contributions.”  Rep. Lantos’ statement was endorsed by the former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger who said, “I think it is reasonable that the surrounding Arab states that have resources should at least match U.S. support.”

Pan-Arabism is a figment of the imagination with respect to the Palestinians. The plight of the Palestinians is used by the Arab regimes only when it can promote their political ends.  These regimes champion the Palestinian cause mostly as a way to attack Israel. This serves to draw away attention from the misery of their people, and conversely, hide the success of the tiny Jewish state.  The Arab regimes refuse to criticize one another or admit to their ill treatment of the Palestinians, and their hypocrisy is revealed in the deafening silence when the plight of the Palestinians no longer suits their needs. The Arab antagonism towards integrating Palestinian refugees into their societies has led to the denial of basic Palestinian rights to work and live, and in some cases has culminated in the outright violent expulsion of Palestinian families.

The welfare of the Palestinian people depends on responsible leaders able to focus on economic prosperity instead of seeking to eliminate the Jewish state.  In fact, only close economic cooperation with Israel, which entails an end to terror and hate by the Palestinians, will bring about economic growth and political stability.  It will also end Palestinian dependency on Western charity and on the Arab states that failed them.


Joseph Puder

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2013/joseph-puder/why-the-arab-states-have-failed-the-palestinians/

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

A World Without America

by Frank Gaffney, Jr.

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly declared that "a world without America is not only desirable, it is achievable."  While that sentiment won't be embraced in President Obama's inaugural address next week, all other things being equal, it seems likely to be the practical effect of his second term.

Of course, Iran's regime seeks a world literally without America.  More to the point, Ahmadinejad and the mullahs in Tehran are working tirelessly to secure the means by which to accomplish that goal.  Specifically, they have or are developing the ability to engage in devastating electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attacks, biological warfare and other asymmetric terrorist strikes.  

For his part, Barack Obama seems to have in mind bringing about a world without America in a geo-strategic sense.  As Mark Steyn notes in a characteristically brilliant essay in National Review Online (http://www.nationalreview.com/author/200428/latest), that would be "Obamacare's other shoe." It would amount to a "fundamental transformation" of America's place in the world, evidently intended to be the President's second-act counterpart to the socialist transformation of this country that dominated his first term. 

That agenda is strongly evident in Mr. Obama's choices for key national security cabinet positions: John Kerry at the State Department, Chuck Hagel at Defense and John Brennan at the CIA.  The three are, like the President, imbued with a post-American, post-sovereignty, post-constitutional, transnationalist outlook.  In his administration, it would appear that their mission would be, as the American Enterprise Institute's Danielle Pletka puts it, to manage the United States' decline. 

Having addressed previously in this space the serious problems with the judgment, records and policy proclivities of Messrs. Hagel (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/dec/17/hagel-a-dangerous-choice-for-defense/) and Kerry (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jan/2/hold-kerry-accountable-senate-should-not-gloss-ove/), let's consider those of John Brennan to further illustrate the syndrome. 

Brennan is a textbook example of a U.S. official who has "gone native."  He speaks Arabic and was formerly the top CIA officer in Saudi Arabia.  He has shown himself to be deeply sympathetic to Islamists -- for example, excusing and dissembling about their commitment to jihad and the necessity of not offending them. 

After President Obama himself, John Brennan is, arguably, the single most important enabler of the Islamic supremacists' agenda in government today. In his role as Homeland Security Advisor to the President -- a position that does not require Senate confirmation and that he was given as a consolation prize when it became clear that he might not be confirmable as CIA director back in 2009 -- Brennan has helped legitimate, empower, fund, arm and embolden them abroad, and embraced and appeased them here at home. 

Of particular concern is the fact that John Brennan has presided over: the policy of engaging the Muslim Brotherhood, which has consequently been portrayed by a politicized intelligence community as "largely secular" and "eschewing violence"; the shredding of training briefings and the proscribing of trainers that might upset Muslims by telling the truth about shariah and the jihad it commands; the penetration of U.S. agencies by Muslim Brotherhood-associated individuals as employees and/or senior advisors; and misrepresentations to Congress about the true, jihadist character of the attack that killed four Americans in Benghazi last September 11th. 

Of particular concern is the prospect that Team Obama's second-term team will, if confirmed, be even more insistent than their predecessors on engaging Iran.  Make no mistake about it:  The practical effect will be to buy the regime in Tehran the last few months it evidently needs to achieve what it has sought for decades: the means to have the world not only bereft of America's leadership and stabilizing force, but to neutralize and perhaps eliminate the United States as a 21st Century society.

Ordinarily, a president should be given wide latitude by the Senate to appoint those he wants to staff his administration.  This is no ordinary time, though, and this is no ordinary president or administration.  The circumstances are such that a Team Obama that is pursuing so dangerous a policy course must be challenged and impeded, not encouraged and abetted. 

The Senate's constitutional responsibility to confirm senior executive branch appointees is one of the few it hasn't compromised, or allowed the president to expropriate.  It must exercise its authority to assure "quality control" with respect to his picks for top national security cabinet posts. 

Indeed, the fact that President Obama seeks not one or two, but three individuals who share his determination to achieve the radical and dangerous national security transformation he seeks in his second term demands that Senators defy him.  After all, should the Senate fail to object to this trajectory by rigorously debating and defeating any -- and preferably all -- of these problematic choices, its members risk not only allowing, but becoming party to, the realization of a world without America.

Frank Gaffney, Jr.

Source: http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/p19181.xml

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

France Takes the Lead in Mali

by Max Boot


Vive la France.

What else can one say to the news that the French are using their military might to push back al-Qaeda-linked Islamist rebels who have taken control of northern Mali–a vast region bigger than France itself? While the United Nations passed toothless resolutions and the U.S. expressed concern but did nothing, France’s President, Francois Hollande, acted. He has dispatched some 400 troops backed by helicopter gunships and fighter aircraft to stop the rebel advance, which threatened to engulf the part of Mali still held by the ramshackle government. The U.S., UK, and other allies are providing non-lethal assistance, but it is very much a French show.

This could well be a harbinger of things to come: Given the “lead from behind” doctrine that animates the current American administration, and the declining defense capabilities of Britain, France may well be left as the Western power on the front lines of the fight against Islamist extremism. This move is certainly in keeping with France’s traditionally activist role in its former African colonies–something that Hollande promised to abandon but now seems to be embracing.

There are, however, sharp limits to French capabilities, which is why France is not intervening in Syria, much as it would like to: Bashar Assad’s regime is still powerful enough that it would require an American lead to take on its air defenses. France also lacks surveillance, airlift, and aerial refueling capabilities, all of which are being provided in Mali by the U.S., UK, and other European states.

Important as the French intervention is to block further advances by Malian extremists, France will find it harder to exit than to enter this conflict. Air strikes and the like can temporarily stymie a powerful army of guerrilla fighters but cannot defeat it. That requires boots on the ground for a prolonged period of time to reestablish control.

In Mali, the French hope that force will be provided by Ecowas, the Economic Community of West African States, which is moving up plans to deploy 2,000 peacekeepers. However, given the woeful historic performance of African peacekeeping forces in countries such as Somalia, it is clear that Ecowas, to be effective, will require considerable buttressing from France and other Western states for some time to come. France will also have to work with the U.S. and other states to train up and arm the ineffective armed forces of Mali itself–and to somehow avoid the fiasco of the last training program, run by the U.S., which resulted in units defecting to the Islamists and others overthrowing Mali’s elected leader.

That is undeniably a burden, and one that France would understandably prefer to avoid. But given the alternative–allowing al-Qaeda affiliates to gain control of a major African country–a long-term commitment would appear to be the lesser evil here.



Max Boot

Source: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2013/01/14/france-takes-the-lead-in-mali/

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

Iran Built Listening Stations in Golan to Spy on Israel

by Israel Hayom Staff

New report released by U.S. Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office says two Iranian-Syrian signals-intelligence stations established by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards have been active in Syria since 2006 • Stations used mainly to provide Hezbollah with intel over Israel.

Hezbollah works to gather intelligence on Israel every day. Pictured is a Hezbollah outpost that was hit by IDF artillery in the Second Lebanon War. Photo credit: IDF Spokesperson

Iran has been using signals-intelligence stations in the Golan Heights to spy on Israel since 2006, according to a report released last month by the U.S. Department of Defense's Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office (CTTSO). 

The report, titled, “Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security: A Profile," was prepared by the Library of Congress for the CTTSO and was released in Dec. 2012.

It says, "Two Iranian-Syrian SIGINT stations funded by the IRGC reportedly have been active since 2006, one in the al-Jazirah region in northern Syria and the other on the Golan Heights."

Iran was reportedly planning to set up two additional signals intelligence stations in northern Syria, designed mainly to provide information on Israel to Hezbollah, the report says.

The report further notes that Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) provides Hezbollah with logistical and material support and uses Hezbollah as a proxy in its intelligence operations. Support for Hezbollah is usually delivered via Iranian diplomatic auspices. 

MOIS also works together with the Iranian Foreign Ministry to conduct operations abroad, and relies on Iranian embassies for intelligence gathering.

Quoting an assessment on Iran’s intelligence services from the 1990s, the CTTSO report says, "The largest European Al-Qods [Quds] facility was in the Iranian Embassy in Germany. The embassy’s third floor had twenty Qods [Quds] employees coordinating terrorist activities in Europe … Recently, major operational centers were established in Bulgaria, and Al-Qods [Quds] has attempted to establish another operational facility in Milan.”

The report said the Quds Force conducts covert military and paramilitary actions outside of Iran, including assassinations and training of militant groups.

Parts of the CTTSO report rely on an earlier report on Iranian intelligence produced by the British Defence Forum, a British thinktank, in Dec. 2011.

Israel Hayom Staff

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=7049

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

Unnatural Partners

by C. Hart

Iranian leaders are trying to form a new alliance with Egypt, holding diplomatic talks with the goal of bringing the Persian State out of international isolation. On February 7, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadenijad will attend a summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Cairo. This follows on the heels of consultations between Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi and Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi who met earlier this week. Reportedly, there were also secret talks between one of Morsi's political advisors and the commander of the Iranian Quds Force regarding security and intelligence cooperation between both countries. 

Earlier this month, Egyptian ambassador to Lebanon Ashraf Hamdy claimed that Egypt would pursue a relationship with Iran's proxy, Hezbollah. This is part of a new regional policy that Egypt is forming in order to reclaim its position as the leader of the Arab world. Because of the revolution against former President Hosni Mubarak and the instability in Egypt that followed, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have taken on the role as overseers. But now that is changing as Morsi consolidates his power in Egypt while reaching out to Middle Eastern countries.

Since the Arab Spring, and the ousting of Mubarak, Iran has continually tried to improve relations with Egypt. Zvi Mazel, former Israeli ambassador to Egypt and current Research Fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, says that though Morsi is a Sunni and Ahmadenijad is a Shiite, "for them, Islamic solidarity is more important and they will try to reach an understanding between them... In the long run, they will try to create an Islamic circle in the Middle East, facing the West." 

Mazel implies that Egypt is negotiating with Iran because the Iranians have too much influence, especially in Iraq and Syria. Morsi's political backing in his own nation is the Moslem Brotherhood. According to Mazel, "The Moslem Brotherhood needs peace and calm in order to get Egypt stable, in their own way, by imposing Islamic law, Sharia.... They don't need a confrontation with Iran. This is the main reason they will try to have compromised relations with Iran. And, they will, at the same time, try to create an Islamic country and improve the economy."

The Moslem Brotherhood has been the main Sunni power benefitting from the Arab Spring which began in Tunisia in December 2010, and moved to Egypt in January 2011. Their goal is to gradually take control of the Arab Middle East, while at the same time, maintaining an understanding with Persian Iran. Mazel says that for Egypt it is not about the Sunni-Shiite divide. "This is not the time to fight against Iran, if they can reach a kind of agreement with Iran about the sphere of influence."

At the same time, Morsi needs the Brotherhood to build a force around him, internally in Egypt, in order to protect his political interests. He cannot trust the Egyptian standing army; and, he is vastly unpopular with secular Egyptians who have not accepted the new Egyptian constitution or the referendum. They have protested that it was done by a consensus of only a majority of Islamists, and they are afraid that the Brotherhood will crack down on their freedoms by instituting Sharia Law. If the constitution is not agreed upon by 75-80% of the Egyptian population, Mazel says it is not a legitimate constitution. He explained why a majority of Egyptians will continue to put down the constitution in its current form, and why it must be abolished and rewritten.

"They are afraid the Moslem Brotherhood will falsify and cheat and take over. The Brotherhood will do everything to win the election... The Moslem Brotherhood means business. They mean to stay in power. They are not going to quit power. They are not going to a fair election in the future. They are putting their people in every government ministry."
In the meantime, Egypt will continue to be unstable because the opposition is strong. Will Morsi fall? Mazel says, "No", because the Moslem Brotherhood that backs Morsi is made up of fanatic Islamists. He believes they will continue to use tactics to scare the Egyptian people that are opposed to Morsi's rule. "There will be violence, but Morsi will stay as is."

Morsi realizes that there are also opposing forces against him in non-Islamic countries. He's reaching out to his moderate Arab neighbors in order to maintain good relations, while also hoping for Iran's backing. He is trying to gain the legitimacy that he has lost in Egypt, deferring accusations against him, hoping he can rule effectively in the midst of chaos and instability at home. 


C. Hart reports on political, diplomatic, and military issues as they relate to Israel, the Middle East, and the international community.

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/01/unnatural_partners.html

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

China’s Contribution to Syria

by Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed



It seems the Chinese have finally felt some remorse for the horrific massacres committed by the Syrian regime against children, and the displacement of millions of starving people, by presenting a cheque for $50,000. Yes, that’s right, China, a powerful country that holds investments worth a trillion dollars in US banks, and sells $130 billion worth of goods in Gulf markets in a year, could only give the Syrian refugees $50,000. Yet along with Russia, China has protected the al-Assad regime and paved the way for its killings by vetoing U.N. Security Council resolutions.

At least the Russians are explicit in their hostility towards the Syrians. They have provided the Syrian regime with fuel and arms and printed its currency. China, however, hides behind Russia at the Security Council, whilst also enabling al-Assad to commit his massacres.

What can the Syrians do with such an amount? What wounds will $50,000 heal?

Yet the smoke and mirrors and insults do not only stem from China but also from the Arab League, which has set off a few verbal fireworks despite having failed to achieve a single positive ever since Nabil Elaraby became Secretary General. The league, even though historically known for its incapability and fragile stances, has never before reached such lows. Its positions, at least the statements made, were always clearer, stronger and more vocal on issues relating to Palestine, Lebanon, post-occupation Kuwait, Somalia and Sudan.

Elaraby’s league is an organization with no color, taste or smell. I have several times tried to understand how Elaraby thinks and what he aims to achieve. Which political game could he possibly be playing? The truth is I cannot understand him. Yesterday, he confused me further as he spoke of sending peacekeeping troops to carry out a political transition process in Syria.

Even if these were Arab peacekeeping troops sanctioned by a UN Security Council resolution, how could they be sent to Syria? What peace is there for them to keep? Fighter jets are shelling people from afar and the rebels are retaliating in the dark. There are no two opposing sides as in a civil war or a battle fought between two armies. There is not even a peace treaty to maintain. Could Elaraby be kind enough to explain to us his great idea that he, along with other ministers, keeps on repeating?

The Arab League’s position is shameful. It is hiding behind the stances of Arab governments in solidarity with the al-Assad regime such as those of Algeria, Sudan and Iraq, as well as Egypt to a lesser extent.

Elaraby has to realize that al-Assad’s game has ended and that his regime is disintegrating. The Arab League and governments like Algeria’s no longer need to waste time under new excuses. They granted al-Assad the cover as well as the time and now the number of those slaughtered by the Syrian regime has reached more than 60,000 – most of whom were unarmed civilians. We all know well that al-Assad will not allow peace or relief troops. Therefore, what Elaraby and his partners are suggesting is just a mockery against the Syrian people and an underestimation of us all.

As the countdown for the Syrian regime begins, some, like China, will try to forge positions by registering themselves as donors for the Syrian people. China only sent $50,000 so it will be remembered as one that stood by the Syrians. Yet this is the same China that participated in the slaughter of these people from a distance, from its permanent seat at the UN Security Council.



Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed

Source: http://www.asharq-e.com/news.asp?section=2&id=32549

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Chuck Hagel - It's the Anti-Americanism, Stupid

by Caroline Glick

Chuck Hagel hates Jews. Or should I say, he hates Jews who think that Jews have rights and that their rights should be defended, in Israel by the government and the IDF, in America by Israel's supporters.

As I mentioned before, it is not at all surprising that Obama appointed Hagel, and I see little  chance that the Senate will reject his appointment. Israel and its American friends however can take heart that Israel will not be Hagel's chief concern. 

Hagel -- and Obama -- have bigger fish to fry than Israel. They are looking to take on the US military. They will slash military budgets, they will slash pensions and medical benefits for veterans in order to save a couple dollars and demoralize the military. They will unilaterally disarm the US to the point where America's antiquated nuclear arsenal will become a complete joke. And I don't see the military capable of stopping it. Anyone remember the F-22? 

I find the whole Israel angle on Hagel irritating because of this. Yes, Hagel will be bad to Israel. But we can minimize the damage by diversifying our own arsenal and weaning ourselves off of US military handouts that only serve as work subsidies for US military contractors at the expense of Israeli ones.Moreover, for years that military aid has been a corrupting force on Israel's general staff. I've been advocating ending US military aid to Israel for more than a decade, but better late than wait until we find ourselves at war and out of spare parts because Hagel and Obama won't sign the requisition orders to Boeing and Lockheed.

Unlike Israel, the US military cannot minimize the damage that Hagel and Obama will cause. America's capabilities will suffer at the hands of the duly reelected Commander in Chief and his duly appointed Defense Secretary. The only chance to dodge that bullet was on Election Day and the American people blew it.

By making this a story about Hagel the anti-Semite, nice senators like Lindsey Graham and John McCain are obfuscating the main problem. The main reason Hagel shouldn't be appointed is not because he hates Israel. It is because he hates a strong America. 

But then, that is why Obama appointed him. The American people in their wisdom, reelected Obama despite the fact that he wants to cut America down to size, strangle the economy in regulations and unaffordable welfare handouts and then gut its military. By making Hagel's appointment about Israel all his opponents are doing is giving Hagel and his supporters new excuses for sticking it to Israel. 

It was Obama and his supporters that started the myth that Netanyahu was interfering in the elections, even though he did no such thing. All Netanyahu did was welcome Romney to Israel during the campaign, just as Olmert welcomed then senator Obama to Israel before the 2008 elections. 

Obama, Hagel and their army of media outlets and operatives are setting Israel up to take the blame for everything they do and in the process seeking to demonize Israel's prime minister before the American people. The campaign against Hagel the anti-Semite just plays into that while hiding the real problem which is that he is anti-American.

NOTABLY, AT the same time that the US electorate decided they'd had it with being the indispensable nation and so reelected a man who said the US is as exceptional as Greece, Israelis have decided we've had enough with trying to pretend we're nothing special. 

Next week we're going to vote and it is already clear that Israel is in the midst of the Second Zionist Revolution. The first Zionist revolution was a socialist revolution. The second Zionist revolution is Jewish. Israel is coming into its own. Judaism is flourishing, changing, living and breathing here like it never has anywhere since the destruction of the Second Commonwealth. The secular Left has been eclipsed by the Jewish Right. I don't call it the religious Right because that is too limiting. What's happening isn't just about religion, it's about everything and that is why non-observant hipsters in Tel Aviv are voting for the Jewish Home party. Non-observant and observant Jews are joining forces and the anti-religious are being left behind.

As my content editor at Latma Avishai Ivri explained to me a couple weeks ago, all the polling data we're seeing is largely worthless because it is based on calls to landlines and most young Israelis don't have landlines. Two thirds of the Jewish Home party's voters are under 40 and the party is polling at 14-18 seats in polls that under-represent their supporters. I don't pretend to know how the election results are going to look but it is clear that a massive change has occurred in the last few years and it will only become more pronounced in the coming years. Next week's election will be the first formal expression of this change.  

Some fear that Netanyahu will take his electoral victory, throw it in the garbage and replay Sharon's perfidy, by spitting on his voters and his party and forming a narrow coalition with the far Left in order to appease the anti-Semites in Washington. But I don't see that happening. First, Netanyahu isn't as shameless as Sharon and he doesn't seem to have the dictatorial impulses Sharon suffered from. 

Second, I don't think he has the people in Likud that would let him go that route. Sharon had Olmert and Livni who were happy to toss their values out the window for job promotions. Netanyahu is the head of the most right wing Likud list ever. The lefties he pushed into the cabinet despite his party members' objections last time around - Dan Meridor, Benny Begin and Michael Eitan -- were obliterated in the primaries. Netanyahu can't bring them in this time, even if he wants to. So that means he doesn't really have the ability to abandon his base, even if he wanted to. And again, I don't think he'd want to.

What all of this means is that beginning next month, we are in all likelihood going to see a post-American US government squaring off against the first genuinely Jewish Israeli government ever. I don't know what will happen when they meet. But I know it will be great material for my column. 

Oh, and for Latma. Here's a song we produced two weeks ago that I believe gives voice to the public mood today. (Yes, I've been remiss in posting our shows, sorry, I have been busy. But my next entry is Latma's last two episodes.)

I do apologize for taking a leave of absence from the Jerusalem Post. I miss writing my columns as much as you miss reading them. 

But I hope when you buy (multiple copies of) my book later this year, you will say that it was time well spent away from you. 

Oh, and one last thing, if you are an American Jew and trying to figure out who to contribute your money to, here's a good litmus test: Hagel. Is organization X (say, for instance, AIPAC), voicing opposition to Hagel or are they supporting him, or are they sitting on the fence? If it's one of the latter two, tear up the check. 

And no, this doesn't contradict my point about Israel not being the problem with Hagel. He is an anti-Semite. And for American Jewish groups to remain silent about his appointment is worse than irresponsible. It is treacherous. My point about Hagel being anti-American is that the groups that should be leading the campaign against him are the American Legion and the Veterans' of Foreign Wars not AIPAC and the ADL, not that AIPAC and the ADL should be silent.

Caroline Glick

Source: http://www.carolineglick.com/e/2013/01/chuck-hagel---its-the-anti-ame.php

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

Many of the Worst Anti-Semites Are European

by Guy Millière

Many even have good consciences and feel they are on the side of The Good. If they would begin began to read some books on history, they will see that anti-Semites have always thought they were on the side of The Good.

A few days ago, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, one of the leading Jewish human rights organizations today, published its "Top 10" list of the world's worst anti-Semitic/anti-Israel slurs. The usual suspects are named and in the top spots : Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran; Mohammed Badie, the "moral guide" of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt; and Louis Farrakhan, the leader in the US of the Nation of Islam. It is not exactly a secret that the hatred of Jews and Israel has permeated Iran's "Islamic revolution" from the beginning; that the doctrine of the Muslim Brotherhood is radically anti-Semitic, and that Louis Farrakhan himself is an obsessive anti-Semite who has described Hitler several times as a "very great man."

But, apart from a Brazilian cartoonist whose drawings resemble those found in the anti-Semitic press in Europe in the 1930s, all the others mentioned are European. Nikolaos Michaloliakos, the founder of the Greek neo-Nazi party, Golden Dawn, a man who denies the existence of the Holocaust in front of enthusiastic crowds, appears in the report beside Marton Gyongyosi, a leader of the far right Jobbik Party in Hungary, who said in front of Parliament that the government should "draw up a list of Jews representing a national security risk for the country". A Norwegian convert to Islam, Trond Ali Linstad, owner of a website warning readers to "beware the Jews" and condoning suicide bombing, is named, as well as Oleg Tyagnibok, founder of the "All Ukrainian" Svoboda Party, who called for purges of the Jews living in Ukraine; and German journalist Jakob Augstein, writing for Der Spiegel online, who was described by another German journalist, Die Welt columnist Henryk M. Broder, as a "pure anti-Semite, who only missed the opportunity to make his career with the Gestapo because he was born after the war".

None of those who are mentioned protested, except the German journalist, who said what many Jew haters in Europe constantly repeat: that he is not an anti-Semite, that he just despises Israel. But, in the reading what he wrote -- Jewish fundamentalists "follow the law of revenge," the Israeli government is "insane" and "keeps the world on a leash with an ever-swelling war chant" -- it is possible to have doubts.

Anti-Semitism is rising again in Europe, and it it is rising fast. Many others -- politicians, activists, journalists and writers -- could be on the list. The anti-Semitism in Hungary, the Ukraine, and Greece is mostly the old-style anti-Semitism, which carries essentially National Socialist themes, in Norway, Sweden, Belgium, and the Netherlands, however, what permeates the air is more and more an Islamic anti-Semitism; and converts such as Trond Ali Lindstad play a more and more important role in disseminating the hatred of Jews now spreading in Europe. A third component is taking an increasingly significant place, the aim of which seems to be a noxious general context : anti-Semitism hiding under the mask of "anti-Zionism".

In some ways, Jakob Augstein was right to protest : he is not the only one to do what he does and to write what he writes. He belongs to a trend so dominant in Europe now that to European readers, his articles seem normal. Many in Europe are so contemptuous of Israel that they do not even discern anymore that they are contemptuous. They do not even see that the words they readily use to describe Israel -- and the Israelis -- are from the vocabulary used in the 1930s to describe Jews. They often borrow their words from the Islamic anti-Israeli propaganda without seeing that these words were borrowed by the Islamist movements from the Nazis.

An anti-Semitic and "anti-Zionist" nebula takes shape, in which old style anti-Semitism, Islamic anti-Semitism and "anti-Zionism" coexist and interpenetrate.

It is dangerous to be a Jew today in Europe. And it is very unsafe to defend Israel. Jews who take care to be discreet can live an almost normal life. Jews who are visibly Jews take more risks. Jews who defend Israel take extreme risks.

Organizations that are supposed to fight anti-Semitism see only one kind of anti-Semitism: the old-style one. They almost never speak of Islamic anti-Semitism. They even lull themselves into the belief that "anti-Zionism" is not an anti-Semitism. Their undertakings, therefore, are doomed to defeat.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center's "Top 10" list was not quoted or commented on in Europe, except in Germany, where all the friends of Jakob Augstein and Der Spiegel expressed their indignation, and said that the list was "preposterous" and "baseless ." A column published on January 7th in Der Spiegel online speaks of a "scandal," and blames Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean of the Center, who established the final version of the list, for refusing to debate Jakob Augstein. Cooper said that Augstein first had to "publicly apologize for the statements that earned him his designation." Der Spiegel answers that Abraham Cooper's demands are absurd and "seem to stem from a different world."

Abraham Cooper's demands do stem from a different world: in the United States, people such as Louis Farrakhan are still the exception; and journalists who write what Jakob Augstein writes are published mostly in extremist journals, not in mainstream publications. Europe has never really drawn the lessons from her past.

Anti-Semitism has been present on the European continent for nearly two millennia. It seemed to disappear after the Holocaust, but was apparently just hidden. It returns, in full light. Most of those who embody it do not even try to disguise what they think. Others dress it in new rags. Many even have good consciences and are sure they are on the side of The Good. If they would begin to read some books on history, they will see that anti-Semites have always thought they were on the side of The Good.


Guy Millière

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3538/european-anti-semites

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

Cyprus: Russia's Next Lunch?

by Peter Martino

Cypriot banks cater almost exclusively to Russian oligarchs; as a consequence, tiny Cyprus is Russia's largest foreign investor. The impending fall of the Assad regime in Syria is forcing Russian President Vladimir Putin to look for an alternative to Tartus [for Russia's naval base] – leaving him with only one option: Cyprus.

Cyprus's banks are on the brink of collapse. As a result of a crisis that began in Greece, and as one of the 17 European countries that use the euro as their currency, Cyprus, a victim of the euro's domino effect, is being dragged down by the eurocrisis, along with the entire southern rim of the eurozone. Since last spring, Cyprus, a small country with barely one million inhabitants, has been negotiating with the other members of the eurozone about a financial bailout. When Greece was given an 85% haircut on its debts, the Cypriot banks suffered heavy losses on top of the huge losses already incurred as a result of a domestic real estate bubble. To stay afloat, Cyprus's banks currently need some €17 bn ($23 bn) -- an immense sum for a country with a 2011 GDP of only €19 bn ($25 bn) and a contracting economy.

Cyprus's fortune, however, is its location. It is the easternmost island in the Mediterranean and of considerable strategic importance. Cyprus is like a huge aircraft carrier situated in front of Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Egypt. In addition, huge offshore fields of gas and perhaps oil have recently been discovered in Cypriot territorial waters.

Cyprus is also the place where the Arab Spring meets the Eurocrisis. The Syrian port of Tartus hosts Russia's only naval base in the Mediterranean. The impending fall of the Assad regime in Syria is forcing Russian President Vladimir Putin to look for an alternative to Tartus -- leaving him with only one option: Cyprus.

Politically and economically, Russia and Cyprus are already tied closely together. Cyprus's President. Demetris Christofias, is the leader of the Cypriot Communist Party. He met his wife during his studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow in the 1960s. When Russia became "capitalist," the ties between the two countries became even closer. Thousands of wealthy Russians have put their "black money" in Cypriot banks. Although Cyprus joined the eurozone in 2008, its banks have almost no clients from other EU countries. With the exception of Greece, with which the Greek-speaking Cypriots share close cultural and historic ties, Cypriot banks cater almost exclusively to Russian oligarchs; as a consequence, tiny Cyprus is Russia's largest foreign investor.

In November 2011, Cyprus was bailed out by a €2.5 bn loan from Russia. The eurocrisis has since deepened and more money is now urgently needed. Last June, Cyprus turned to the European Union (EU), the eurozone's European Central Bank (ECB) and the IMF, asking for emergency aid of at least €10 bn. In return, however, the EU, ECB and IMF – the so-called Troika – have asked Cyprus to reform its economy. Negotiations over these "structural reforms," such as privatization of state-owned enterprises and reduction of wages, have been dragging on for almost eight months.

No agreement could be reached between the ruling Cypriot Communists, who refused to implement the reforms demanded by the Troika, and Germany, the euro's major paymaster. Next fall, general elections will be held in Germany. With an electorate that is tired of bailing out banks and governments in Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain in order to save the euro – a currency which many Germans feel was forced upon them – Chancellor Angela Merkel is reluctant to come to Cyprus's aid.

Last November, a leaked intelligence report of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), the German equivalent of the CIA, made matters even more difficult for Merkel. The report asserted that a bailout of Cyprus would boil down to using German taxpayers' money to save the funds of rich Russians, who deposited up to €26 bn in "black money" in Cypriot banks, which are now on the brink of bankruptcy. The BND accuses Cyprus of creating a fertile ground for Russian money laundering, a charge further exacerbated by the ease with which Russian oligarchs can obtain Cypriot nationality and thus gain automatic access to all the EU member states. The BND said 80 oligarchs have managed to gain access this way to the entire EU.

As the financial blog Testosterone Pit writes: "Taxpayers in other countries, including those in the US – via the US contribution to the IMF – will be asked to [bail out] tiny Cyprus." However, given that Chancellor Merkel has already decided that the euro must be saved at all costs, she has no other option but to bail out Cyprus, including the investments of Russian oligarchs.

In all likelihood, the Cypriot bailout is to be agreed on in principle at a meeting in Brussels next week, and formally approved on February 10. Meanwhile, Cypriot Finance Minister Vassos Shiarly has indicated that Russia might be asked to join the efforts to save Cyprus if the EU approves the bailout. "First there must be an EU agreement, then we might ask them [Russia] to join," Shiarly said.

Some think that it is in Putin's interest to do so, to avoid investigations into the role of Cypriot banks in Russian money laundering. However, Russia's strategic geopolitical interests are a much more important reason for Russia to gain a foothold in Cyprus.

The same applies to Israel. The Jewish state and Cyprus are also currently strengthening their ties. Israel is seeking to work with Cyprus on national gas exploration and extraction. The Cypriot-Israeli rapprochement has already angered Turkey, which is bullying both Nicosia and Jerusalem.

Israel is also collaborating with Cyprus in the EurAsia Interconnector project. This is a undersea cable which will link Israel with Cyprus. The 286-kilometer link will be the world's longest undersea power cable in the world.

If Europe fails to bail Cyprus out, there are at least two countries, Russia and Israel, for whom it makes political, economic and strategic sense to step in. Indeed, while a monetary union between different nations makes little sense, a monetary union between the Cypriot currency and the Israeli shekel would make more sense than the current conflictious monetary marriage between the Cypriots and the Europeans.


Peter Martino

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3539/cyprus-russia

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

Norway’s Happy Lies on Muslim Immigration

by Bruce Bawer

 

Should one laugh or cry? That perennial question raised itself yet again on January 10 when Norway’s purported newspaper of record, Aftenposten, ran what several readers, in the comments field, quite properly dismissed as a shameless piece of propaganda that, as one of them put it, “stinks” of the “red-green agenda.” The headline: “People with immigrant backgrounds are becoming more like the rest [of us].” The article was based entirely on data from Statistics Norway, the government statistics bureau. Although that agency has a long record of massaging its numbers and serving up frankly absurd prognoses in order to make it look as if Islamic immigration into Norway is less of a fiasco than the average Norwegian man-in-the-street knows it is, Aftenposten‘s reporters, Kjersti Nipen, Øystein Aldridge, and Kjetil Østli, passed them on in the usual reverently unquestioning fashion.

“In some areas immigrants are becoming more like us,” they quoted Statistics Norway researcher Lars Østby as saying, “but there are few areas in which the population without immigrant backgrounds are being influenced by immigrants.” This was, first of all, a highly bemusing claim, given that a crucial element of the rhetoric churned out by the professional boosters of immigration – Islamic immigration in particular – has long been that the influx into Norway of persons with radically different cultural backgrounds enrich the country in extraordinary ways. Could it be that at least some of the longtime purveyors of that line decided that it wasn’t working, and decided instead to try the more modest argument that immigration is a neutral phenomenon that doesn’t really affect the native population one way or the other?

One imagines that Østby’s assertion came as something of a surprise to more than a few ethnic Norwegians who in recent years, thanks to Muslim perpetrators, have ended up in Statistics Norway’s database of rapes, gay-bashings, and other such offenses whose numbers in certain parts of the country have climbed steadily along with the Muslim populations of those areas. Ditto the many people who have felt compelled to move their families out of various Oslo neighborhoods in order to protect their kids from increasing gang violence and to be able to send them to schools that aren’t hotbeds of bullying, harassment, and worse. (It is perhaps worth noting that in addition to Østby, Aftenposten‘s reporters interviewed a staffer at Norwegian Social Research who managed to come up with exactly one specific way in which immigrants may be influencing Norwegians: in Oslo’s immigrant neighborhoods, she said, young Norwegians, perhaps in imitation of their Koran-observant neighbors, are drinking less alcohol. In short: if there is any impact, it’s utterly benign.)

Among those who should have raised their eyebrows at Østby’s statement were the editors of Aftenposten itself, whose archives, after all, are packed with news stories that flatly contradict his pretty picture of today’s multicultural Norway. Only three days earlier, for example, that newspaper ran an article about a new government report which, among much else, recommends that Islamic worship services be permitted in public schools and argues that schoolteachers shouldn’t criticize Muslims’ objections to sexual equality. (To push them on this matter, the head of the report committee insisted, would be to violate their religious freedom.)

Among the specific claims made in the January 10 article was that both “marriage immigration” and fertility rates are down among the Norwegian-born children of immigrants. Anyone familiar with Statistics Norway’s usual sleight-of-hand would quickly have noticed that Østby and his scribes at Aftenposten didn’t label the immigrants they are discussing with the word “Muslim” or even, more broadly, with the term “non-Western,” which would include many Vietnamese, Chinese, and other non-Muslim Asians who, for the most part, have integrated splendidly into Norwegian society. No, they used the catchall word “immigrant,” which of course covers everyone from Danes and Swedes to Americans and Brits. Most important statistically, perhaps, it also embraces Poles and other Eastern Europeans, who, in recent years, have poured into Norway to work in construction and similar trades, providing wily statisticians with figures that allow them to draw glowing conclusions about immigrant employment, crime, family size, and the like – and thus whitewash Muslim immigration.

Østby further contended that the children of immigrants are now going to college in higher-than-average numbers – which is good news for those benighted souls who still cling to the assumption that education and the acceptance of Western values go hand in glove. For a cogent wake-up call on this front, one needed only to turn from Aftenposten‘s January 10 article to a piece by Hege Storhaug posted on the same day at Sappho, the website of the Danish Free Press Society. It began as follows: “Islamization [in Norway] is moving faster year by year…But academia and politicians can’t (or won’t?) puncture the aching abscess.” Without mentioning Østby or Statistics Norway by name, Storhaug tidily shot down the widespread illusion that education is a cure for Islam’s ills by pointing out that the pro-jihadist student group Islam Net, based at University College of Oslo, boasts 2000 paying members. Yes, more and more children of Muslim immigrants are getting higher educations – and more and more of them are joining an organization that segregates men and women, calls non-believers kuffur, and looks forward to a future in which Norway will be part of a sharia-governed European caliphate.

Storhaug took her readers on a brief tour of organized Islam in Norway (a country, remember, with only five million inhabitants, including maybe 100,000 Muslims): the Islamic Cultural Centre, a branch of the Jamaat-i-Islami movement, which is considered extreme even in Pakistan, has 3500 members; the Tawfiq Islamic Center, which supports the terrorists of Al-Shabab, has 5400; Oslo’s Rabita mosque, run by a disciple of Holocaust fan Yusuf al-Qaradawi, has 2500; Minhaj ul-Quran, whose founder has said that any critic of Muhammed, whether “Muslim, Jew, Christian, infidel, man, or woman, will be executed like a dog,” has 3000.

For a clear picture of just how Islam has influenced Norway – and is preparing to influence it in the future – one had only to watch the NRK news-discussion program Dagsnytt 18, also (as it happens) on January 10. The topic was this: Islam Net (see above) had invited a famous Islamic scholar to Norway to give a talk under its auspices. Audun Lysbakken, head of the Socialist Left Party, was concerned that this scholar supports such “barbaric” practices as stoning adulteresses, and had asked Islam Net (pretty please) to disinvite him. On Dagsnytt 18 that evening, you could see Lysbakken meekly repeating his polite request, all the while assuring everyone that he fully respected Islam Net’s freedom of speech (a freedom that, he and other politicians stridently insisted after the Breivik atrocities, should be denied to the critics of Islam). Sitting beside Lysbakken in the NRK studio was Islam Net leader Fahad Qureishi, who, with not an ounce of meekness in his body, passionately dressed Lysbakken down, instructing him that what he called “barbaric” is, in fact, Islam itself, and in using the word barbaric Lysbakken was calling the Prophet himself (“peace be upon him”) barbaric – an act that was plainly, in Qureishi’s view, the very gravest of offenses. Lysbakken, he warned portentously, should choose his words more carefully.

Rarely, if ever, have Norwegians been vouchsafed so concise and vivid a foretaste of what awaits them, or their posterity, if they continue to let their country be governed by the dangerous self-delusions of Lars Østby and his ilk. I’d encourage you to watch the Dagsnytt 18 segment yourself (which begins about 25 minutes into the show). It doesn’t really matter all that much if you don’t understand Norwegian: the steely look in Qureishi’s eyes, the authoritarian tone of his voice, and the feeble, pathetic, baffled reactions to his incendiary tirade by Lysbakken and the program host tell you all you need to know.

Bruce Bawer

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2013/bruce-bawer/norways-happy-lies-on-muslim-immigration/

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