ISIS Snuffs Out Ancient Christianity - Raymond Ibrahim

by Raymond Ibrahim


Originally published by the Gatestone Institute.

During the Islamic State’s June invasion and consolidation of Mosul, Iraq–where Christians have been present since the first century—numerous atrocities against them were committed. Accordingly, the region is now reportedly empty of Christian presence.

Among other things, the Islamic State reinstituted the collection of jizya, the tribute conquered Christians (and Jews) were historically required to pay in order not to be killed in accordance with Koran 9:29. In one instance, three Islamic State members burst into the home of a Christian family, demanding the jizya-money. When the father of the house pleaded that he did not have the money, the intruders raped his wife and daughter in front of him. The man was reportedly so traumatized that he committed suicide. Four other Christian women were killed for not wearing the Islamic veil.

Soon after taking over Mosul, the Islamic State also announced that it would destroy all Christian places of worship. Several churches were burned, including the Armenian church near the Al Salam hospital and the Church of the Holy Spirit, which was first looted and desecrated. A large Virgin Mary statue disappeared.

Among the many Christians missing are two nuns from the Daughters of Mary Order, who managed an orphanage for girls in Mosul. It is believed they have been kidnapped.

The rest of June’s roundup of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed by theme and country alphabetical order, not necessarily according to severity.

Church Attacks and Slaughters 

Indonesia: Another Catholic community was attacked in the world’s largest Muslim-population country. The Parish of the Sacred Heart in Pugeran, in the South of Yogyakarta, was targeted by three different groups of unknown assailants riding motorcycles during the first morning Mass. The incident coincided with the start of Ramadan, Islam’s holy month, which often sees a rise in hostility for religious minorities. The attackers, who were dressed in black and covered their faces with masks, broke through the parish gates shouting “Allah is great,” Islam’s historic war-cry. They attacked some Christian objects and posters placed by members of the local Catholic community. Weeks earlier, on May 30, “Islamic extremists attacked a group of Catholics gathered in prayer, beating up the community leader; a week later, Pastor Niko, leader of the Protestant Christian community, was targeted by extremists ‘accused’ of having set up an ‘illegal’ house of prayer without permission,” reports Asia News: “Indonesia is the most populous Muslim nation in the world. Increasingly however, it has become the scene of attacks or episodes of intolerance against minorities, whether they are Christians, Ahmadi Muslims or belong to other faiths.”

Kenya:Approximately 50 militants from Somalia’s Islamic Al Shabaab (“the youth”) network attacked two hotels, a police station and other buildings in Mpeketoni, a predominantly Christian town on Kenya’s coast during the night of Sunday June 15. They chanted “Allahu Akbar” and killed whoever could not recite verses from the Koran. The militants reportedly also went door-to-door asking residents their religion and killed them if they answered “Christian.”More than 57 people were killed. Among them were six children of church pastors.

Nigeria:Suspected Boko Haram jihadis killed nine Christians during June 1 Sunday church service, hours before a bombing of a Christian area in neighboring Adamawa state resulted in nearly 50 deaths.At least 10 gunmen attacked the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria during worship in Attagara village. The jihadis killed nine Christian members who were volunteering as security for the rest of the congregation during service.Another Christian church in Central State Plateau was set ablaze by armed men who also killed at least eight Christian worshippers. According to the Italian news agency, AGI, “The police made their statement, saying that for now they have not assigned the blame for the action, even though the MO and the aims of the attack lead to presuming it was the work by the Boko Haram Islamic Fundamentalists, who have killed thousands of people since 2009.” Speaking about the June 1 church attack, one area Christian leader said the attackers were a small part of 200 assailants who have invaded Attagara and other predominantly Christian villages around Gwoza the past two weeks, destroying homes and churches:“Our church in Attagara was attacked also on Sunday,” said Dr. Rebecca Dali. “There have been 24-hour-a-day attacks on Christian communities of Attagara, Hawul, and Gwoshe around the Gwoza mountains…. The Boko Haram Islamists have destroyed 36 churches in Gwoza area, including that of Attagara attacked on Sunday. We now have only two churches that have not been affected.”

Sudan: Authorities in North Khartoum demolished another church building, that of the Sudanese Church of Christ. Bulldozers came and demolished the church just one day after authorities gave verbal notice of the decision during the congregation’s Sunday worship service the previous day.   Congregation members stood by watching their church razed to the ground. About 70 security personnel armed with guns and tear gas stood by threatening anyone who dared to interfere or protest.   “They wanted to beat us or throw tear gas on us,” said one congregation member. Authorities gave no clear reason why the church, which has stood since 1983 and which has all the legal paperwork, was being destroyed. According to Rev. Kwa Shamal, the church’s pastor who questioned the commissioner, “They did not want us to ask many questions on why they were demolishing our church.” Because the government refuses to grant the church any compensation, “We will have to pray in a makeshift tent next Sunday” along the road, said the pastor.

Attacks on Christian Freedom: Apostasy and Blasphemy

Afghanistan: The New York Times told the story of “Josef,” a Muslim convert to Christianity who is on the run from Afghani family members looking to slay him.   The apostate from Islam lives in a 10-by-10 dilapidated room, his few worldly possessions a tattered Bible and wooden cross with the Sermon on the Mount written on it: “Josef’s brother-in-law Ibrahim arrived in Kabul recently, leaving behind his family and business in Pakistan, to hunt down the apostate and kill him. Reached by telephone, Ibrahim, who uses only one name, offered a reporter for The New York Times $20,000 to tell him where Josef was hiding.‘If I find him, once we are done with him, I will kill his son as well, because his son is a bastard,’ Ibrahim said, referring to Josef’s 3-year-old child. ‘He is not from a Muslim father.’” Earlier, when Ibrahim first discovered Josef’s conversion to Christianity, he and his family attacked the convert, tied his hands and feet and were going to slaughter him until the father intervened calling for time to investigate matters, which Josef used to escape. Having had a long spiritual journey and closely studying all religions, the Christian convert says that “Even if I get killed, I won’t convert back.”

Egypt: Islamic vindication against Coptic Christians accused of “blasphemy” and “apostasy” was in the air all throughout the month of June in President Sisi’s not so “new” Egypt. First, Kerolos Shouky Attallah, a young Coptic Christian man accused of blaspheming Islam for simply “liking” an Arabic-language Facebook page administered by an anonymous group of Christian converts, was sentenced to six years in prison.   According to Attallah’s attorney, the Copt did not make any comments on the site, share any of the postings or upload anything to it, and removed his name from the page once he realized that it might offend Muslims. In the hours preceding the sentencing, a rioting mob burned down several Christian-owned shops in the area near Luxor. Safwat Samaan, chairman of Nation Without Borders, a human rights and development group headquartered in Luxor, said “The sentence today was a shock not just to Kerolos but to everyone who uses Facebook in Egypt. Any person who uses Facebook in Egypt and presses ‘Like’ on any page … can be put into prison for six years.” Also, An Egyptian appeals court upheld a blasphemy conviction against Dimyana Abdel-Nour, a Coptic Christian teacher, and sentenced her to six months, overturning an earlier ruling that only imposed a fine. The appellate court in Luxor ruled that the elementary school teacher had insulted Islam in front of her pupils. Last year, three 10-year-old Muslim children complained to their parents that the Coptic teacher showed disgust for Islam when discussing it in class.And Bishoy Armia Boulous—more notoriously known as Mohammed Hegazy, the first Egyptian ever to try legally to change his religious identity from Muslim to Christian on his official ID—was sentenced to five years in prison. (Years earlier, when he first tried to change his ID, he was also imprisoned and tortured.) The judge cited “disturbing the peace by broadcasting false information” as the reason for sentencing the apostate, who in the weeks before was documenting political unrest in Egypt brought on by numerous Muslim extremist attacks on Christians. The exact section of the nation’s criminal code that Boulous allegedly violated was not released. According to Boulous’ lawyer, the real reason he was charged and sentenced is because he abandoned Islam and became a Christian: “The officer who arrested him, when he found that he hadn’t committed a crime, made up things to keep him in prison so he could be sentenced,” said the lawyer.

Uganda: After Muslim family members tried to poison a relative who converted to Christianity, and failed, he was attacked again by Muslims who killed his young daughter. On June 16, four men barged into the home of Hassan Muwanguzi—a former sheikh who converted to Christianity in 2003—with one shouting, “Today we shall kill you—you have been a trouble-maker and are not respecting our prophet’s religion.” He fled into a room, thinking they would not hurt his daughter, Grace Baruka. But then he heard the 12-year-old girl’s cries, as the Muslim invaders were strangling her. When he came out of the room they seized him: “They hit me with a blunt object, and I fell down. I just woke up and saw neighbors surrounding me while wailing, saying that my daughter is in critical condition.” Neighbors took Grace to a clinic but she was declared dead upon arrival. Muwanguzi has suffered greatly for embracing Christianity: first he lost his wife and job as a schoolteacher after his conversion; then an aunt tried to poison him by putting insecticide in his tea; and now his 12-year-old daughter has been killed. Lamented the former Muslim in tears to Morning Star News: “I am regretting why I survived the poisoning. God could have allowed me to die. My daughter has died, and I am now mourning for her death as well [as] have pain all over my body.”

Dhimmitude

Lebanon: The Abra Municipality, a predominantly Christian suburb in the coastal city of Sidon, released a memo urging all citizens—the majority of whom are Christian—to respect observant Muslims during Ramadan and abstain from eating in public.In his memo, Mayor Walid Nicolas al-Mchantaf stressed the importance of showing consideration during the holy month and refraining from dining at restaurants and cafes during the fasting period, which begins at sunrise and ends at sunset. A large Muslim community exists in the town and has been in the spotlight since last year’s violent clashes between Islamic gunmen and the Lebanese Army.

Germany: Muslims were granted their own section at the cemetery in the Hessian town of Seligenstadt. And they have been allowed to conduct Islamic ceremonies, in which the corpse is wrapped in cloths and buried facing Mecca. Now these same Islamic communities, including Ahmadiyyas, are demanding that Christian symbols and crosses in the cemetery be removed or covered up during Islamic funerals.

United Kingdom: The National Health Services suspended a Christian health worker on full pay for nine months for praying with a Muslim colleague. Victoria Wasteney, a senior occupational therapist, was also accused of “bullying” the colleague after giving her a book about a Muslim woman who converts to Christianity. According to Wasteney, her relationship with the Muslim woman was friendly and sometimes intimidate, as the Muslim female often came to her for support; the Christian health worker did not think that she was behaving coercively or disrespectfully.   Andrea Williams, the chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, said the case demonstrated that “the NHS is increasingly dominated by a suffocating liberal agenda that chooses to bend over backwards to accommodate certain beliefs but punishes the Christian.”

About this Series

The persecution of Christians in the Islamic world has become endemic.  Accordingly, “Muslim Persecution of Christians” was developed to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of persecution that surface each month. It serves two purposes:

1)    To document that which the mainstream media does not: the habitual, if not chronic, persecution of Christians.

2)    To show that such persecution is not “random,” but systematic and interrelated—that it is rooted in a worldview inspired by Islamic Sharia.

Accordingly, whatever the anecdote of persecution, it typically fits under a specific theme, including hatred for churches and other Christian symbols; apostasy, blasphemy, and proselytism laws that criminalize and sometimes punish with death those who “offend” Islam; sexual abuse of Christian women; forced conversions to Islam;  theft and plunder in lieu of jizya (financial tribute expected from non-Muslims); overall expectations for Christians to behave like cowed dhimmis, or third-class, “tolerated” citizens; and simple violence and murder. Sometimes it is a combination thereof.

Because these accounts of persecution span different ethnicities, languages, and locales—from Morocco in the West, to Indonesia in the East—it should be clear that one thing alone binds them: Islam—whether the strict application of Islamic Sharia law, or the supremacist culture born of it.

Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a Judith Friedman Rosen Writing Fellow at the Middle East Forum and a CBN News contributor. He is the author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians (2013) and The Al Qaeda Reader (2007).

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/raymond-ibrahim/isis-snuffs-out-ancient-christianity/

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

A Lesson on Free Speech and Sharia in Knoxville - Andrew Harrod

by Andrew Harrod





A recent legal victory by Freedom X upheld the right of private citizens to discuss openly sharia law at a Knoxville, Tennessee, high school. "This is a victory for free speech," Freedom X's PresidentWilliam J. Becker rightly explained, in yet another instructive example of Islamists seeking to subvert the United States Constitution's First Amendment.

A local Knoxville chapter of ACT! for America began the case by arranging an April 24 evening town hall at Farragut High School (FHS). The event featured Dr. Bill French, Center for the Study of Political Islam founder under the pen name Warner, and Matt Bonner, regional director of the Crescent Project, a Christian evangelization ministry for Muslims. They intended to address the encroachment in America of sharia, vaguely described in one online report as "Islamic laws governing worship and lifestyle." Becker correctly clarifies that "Sharia is incompatible with our constitutional and legal protections" in numerous ways.

Both local and national Muslims groups, however, greeted the event with harsh opposition. Abdel Rahman Murphy, a Muslim chaplain at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, emailed then FHS principal Mike F. Reynolds on April 8 requesting the event's cancellation. The town hall flyer had "kind of an aggressive tone," Murphy argued to reporters. "Feel free hosting" the event "anywhere else by renting out a banquet hall," Murphy added, "but to host it at a public place…is not comfortable for the rest of us."

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a radical faux civil rights group and an unindicted terrorism financing coconspirator, also objected. An April 11 CAIR news release publicized a letter by CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper to FHS the previous day that "vilifies…French, Bonner and ACT! for America" with a "false attribution" of "anti-Muslim hate" refuted by Becker's complaint. "We support the First Amendment right to free speech—even…hate speech used by these speakers," Hooper argued. The "need for a safe and inclusive learning environment," though, makes a "school…not the proper setting."

Principal Reynolds' April 10 letter to Knox County Schools Superintendent James P. McIntyre, Jr. shared Hooper's sentiments. "Groups promoting hate rather than tolerance" would have the event "serve as a public forum for harassment and bullying practices that contradict the open-minded, academic discussion we seek to…foster at" FHS, Murphy wrote. The event would generate "little positive press or educational benefit," yet "polarize our community" when "deemed ours by association." Concerns of "potential backlash" and "future security threats" from "retaliation of opposing groups" existed. These "expressed concerns…about…disruption" from an event unsuitable for "a safe, healthy and comfortable learning environment" caused McIntyre to rescind ACT!'s invitation in an April 11 letter to its Knoxville chapter leaders.

A Knoxville school official was "happy to announce" ACT!'s uninviting. Hooper boasted of the school's decision, arguing that "this event in a public school would send an implicit message of endorsement for the bigoted views of the speakers." Knoxville schools must "remain a safe place for all students," concurred Remziya Suleyman from the Tennessee-based Muslim organization, American Center for Outreach.

The Knoxville ACT! chapter's president John Peach held the event in a church, not seeking other public venues for fear of another cancellation. "Sharia is not well-understood and we wanted to inform the public" as "concerned Americans," Peach said. An "American…should" not "be afraid to speak out on public matters in a public forum."

Peach noted that Muslim groups such as the Saudi-backed Muslim Students Association, meanwhile, could openly operate unopposed at the University of Tennessee Knoxville campus. "If it's right for Muslims to host events in tax-funded public facilities, then what is wrong with a group of citizens wanting the same," he asked. "This is a great example of what Sharia Law is doing to America."

On August 4^th, Peach and French with Becker as counsel sued the school district for violating his First Amendment constitutionally protected rights. "It is unfortunate we have to educate the educators," Becker stated in filing the lawsuit to coincide with the school year opening, but the First Amendment's "freedom of speech…distinguishes America from Muslim nations." "CAIR and other terror-affiliated groups are exploiting our laws," Becker analyzed, "to erode…freedom of speech…part and parcel of a greater plan" for an "Islamic caliphate." "Unfortunately…as Muslim activists play the victim card," this trend will grow, even though blasphemy laws are unconstitutional.

Because "litigation would have been futile," Becker rejoiced, the school's attorneys settled just 21 days after his filing. An "undifferentiated fear or apprehension of disturbance is not enough to overcome" the "hazardous freedom" that "is the basis of our national strength," the 1969 United States Supreme Court Tinker v. Des Moines School District decision cited by Becker held. In addition to paying plaintiff attorney fees and costs, a new school district policy states that "[a]pproval for use of school buildings and property will not be withheld based upon the content of the message or viewpoint of the applicant."

As with a prior June 2014 Chicago CAIR lead protest involving another instance of ACT! using public facilities for an anti-Sharia program, America's First Amendment protections have stopped those who would inhibit open discussion of Islam. Vague "hate" or "disruption" claims have not silenced indirectly in America speech censored directly in majority-Muslim countries or "multicultural" sensitive Europe. The Knoxville case, a precedent that will not remained unnoticed, has shown groups like CAIR that Americans will not hesitate to defend free speech under assault even in the land of the free.

This article was commissioned by The Legal Project, an activity of the Middle East Forum.


Andrew Harrod

Source: http://www.legal-project.org/4336/a-lesson-on-free-speech-and-sharia-in-knoxville

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

Obama's pressure only begins with Iran - Richard Baehr

by Richard Baehr

In the last few days, it has become clearer that the Obama administration's ‎obsession over turning Iran into an ally, or at least no longer a foe, is the single ‎highest foreign policy objective for the White House. This new engagement with ‎the Iranians has included cooperation in the current fight with the Islamic State group in Iraq and ‎Syria, and the continuing negotiations over Iran's nuclear program. 

The ‎importance of Iran to the administration became more evident when Deputy ‎National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes was caught on tape telling a group of ‎progressive advocates invited to the White House that a nuclear deal with Iran was ‎as big a deal for President Barack Obama in his second term, as passage of Obamacare was for the ‎first term. ‎

‎"Bottom line is, this is the best opportunity we've had ‎to resolve the Iranian issue diplomatically, certainly ‎since President Obama came to office, and probably ‎since the beginning of the Iraq war," Rhodes said. "So ‎no small opportunity, it's a big deal. This is probably ‎the biggest thing President Obama will do in his ‎second term on foreign policy. This is health care for ‎us, just to put it in context."‎

The comparison of the Iranian track with the administration's "all-in" commitment ‎to securing congressional approval for his health care reform legislation, is an ‎ominous sign. Within the administration, some of the savviest voices with long ‎experience in working with Congress, such as then-Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, ‎urged the president not to gamble on a big health care reform package in 2009-‎‎2010. The proposed Affordable Care Act was already drawing enormous political ‎fire from Republicans and the newly formed tea party movement, and major ‎elements of the bill seemed to be unworkable or unduly complex. But the president ‎decided, based it seems on the advice of others more ideologically attuned to his ‎politics (e.g., White House adviser Valerie Jarrett), to "go big," and to try to be more ‎‎"transformative." In the end, the legislation passed, but the electoral fallout in 2010 ‎proved a disaster for Democrats in the congressional midterms. 

Predictably, the president and his team made sure that the extension for ‎negotiations with Iran by the P5+1, carried through November 24, three weeks ‎after the current midterm elections. The president and his team are delusional ‎about many things, but likely not so delusional that they are unaware that there ‎will be heavy skepticism about any nuclear deal with Iran, if it happens in the next ‎few weeks, from many corners. First and foremost, the skeptics and critics will ‎include members of the U.S. Senate, primarily Republicans, but also some ‎Democrats. This will be especially the case if the president follows through on what ‎seems to be his current plan to bypass the Senate and its responsibilities to ‎approve treaties, by claiming that any agreement with Iran is a multiparty ‎agreement, but not a treaty. Israel and several Sunni Arab nations are likely to be ‎very nervous about any deal with Iran that will undoubtedly be way oversold by ‎the administration in terms of any restrictions it actually places in the path for Iran ‎to a bomb. Given their suspicions about Iranian intentions, their history with ‎Iranian provocations, and the low likelihood Iran will behave in accordance with ‎any agreement it signs, these nations will likely see any deal as a surrender, ‎providing substantial sanctions relief to Iran in exchange for promises of a ‎continued slowdown in Iran's nuclear program, a slowdown reversible in short ‎order if the Iranians choose to break the deal.‎

The president receives very low approval scores for his management of foreign ‎policy, particularly as it relates to border security, immigration policy, the Ebola ‎outbreak, and ISIS. The Obama team thought they could coast to a nuclear deal ‎with Iran on the back of a string of "successes" -- the withdrawal from Iraq, the ‎coming withdrawal from Afghanistan, the killing of Osama bin Laden, and their hoped for ‎peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians. Things have gone south on every ‎front. Rather than peace, this summer saw another battle between Israel and ‎Hamas, this one longer and with heavier casualties than the previous two. The ‎Obama team has been busy at work for six years, trying to reorient and transform ‎American domestic politics vis-a-vis the Arab-Israeli conflict and Israeli-Palestinian ‎relations. In this, he has largely succeeded outside of Congress, as left-leaning ‎media, academic and religious groups and Democratic partisans are now far ‎harsher toward Israel than was the case six years ago. The Democrats in ‎Congress have been pressured by the George Soros-backed lobbying group J ‎Street to support a policy of more administration pressure on ‎Israel for concessions to the Palestinians. So far few have formally abandoned their ‎ties to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee for J Street, but pressure from activists is continuing. 

When Democrats and Republicans in the Senate were signing on for a new ‎sanctions bill for Iran in case the negotiations broke down a year back, the heavy ‎pressure for Democrats to back off came directly from the White House in its usual ‎heavy-handed fashion, not from J Street. ‎

It now seems likely that the president may use both the Iranian track and the ‎stalled Israeli-Palestinian negotiations to try to squeeze Israel to get at least some ‎of what it wants on both fronts. The Palestinian Authority has threatened to go to ‎the United Nations and demand a Palestinian state be established by a certain date, ‎effectively killing the possibility of any negotiated arrangement with Israel that ‎might achieve this. The Palestinians and their allies on the Security Council could ‎force the United States to use a veto to block such an action. The possibility of an ‎American abstention, which would allow such a resolution to pass, may be part of ‎the messaging that has been going on between the two countries in recent weeks. ‎The White House is clearly nervous that fierce opposition by Israel to what would ‎in almost all likelihood be a pathetically weak nuclear deal with Iran (they get ‎something substantive -- sanctions relief -- while the West gets almost nothing) could inspire ‎more pushback from Congress, and lead to a public relations problem for the ‎White House. ‎

It is in this light that Jeffrey Goldberg's article in The Atlantic, wherein senior ‎administration officials go on the record (though anonymously) to call Prime Minister Benjamin ‎Netanyahu a coward and a chickenshit should be seen. The White ‎House is making clear that Israel would be foolish to view the United States at this point as its backstop and defender. There will have to be give for ‎Israel to get. With no more elections facing the Obama team after November 4, the ‎White House will be at liberty to let the president show Israel where it stands if it ‎defies his will. Challenge him on the nuclear deal and there will be repercussions. ‎Continue to build Jewish housing in areas Obama thinks should be off limits, and ‎America might join with its European allies in U.N. condemnations. ‎Negotiate with the Palestinians and offer more to them or the administration will ‎lay out publicly its own plans, which are sure to resemble Saeb Erekat's. 

There is no government that this administration has treated as rudely and ‎cavalierly as Israel in its first six years. Undoubtedly, the worst is yet to come. Maybe unbeknownst to the ‎president, who seems to get his counsel from those who think he should have his ‎likeness sculpted on Mount Rushmore, there is still widespread support for Israel ‎among Americans. Despite the media coverage of the recent war in Gaza, which ‎primarily emphasized Palestinian civilian casualties, every public opinion survey ‎still indicates strong support for Israel, though predictably it has weakened among younger Americans ‎‎(who are more racially diverse) and those on the Left, particularly while fighting is ‎going on. ‎

If the president wants to launch a frontal assault on Israel, and makes clear his ‎abandonment of the traditional alliance and ties between the two countries, it will ‎not go down smoothly. There are many who understand that the strength of the ‎ties that bind are a lot tougher than a narcissistic president in legacy-building mode ‎at Israel's expense. Obama will leave office and a new president, less ‎transformative but almost certainly more capable, will then have to pick up the ‎many pieces left shattered. An Iran with the bomb, however, is a different kind of ‎humpty-dumpty, and the next White House occupant may find that permanent ‎damage has been done. Iran has not changed, but America under Obama has. ‎Obama's pressure on Israel not to strike Iran before the 2012 presidential election ‎may have aided Obama's re-election effort but it damaged Israel's prospects for ‎keeping Iran from going nuclear. The president has once again shown Netanyahu his "appreciation," this time with the childish name-calling by ‎his aides. We are in for an ugly confrontation, and Israel will soon find out the ‎identity of its real American friends and whether they are willing to take on the ‎president. Hopefully, a few more of them will be elected on November 4.

Richard Baehr

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=10463

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

Iran Remains the Greatest Challenge in U.S.-Israel Relations - Maj. Gen. Yaacov Amidror

by Maj. Gen. (res.) Yaacov Amidror


BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 276

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: If a “permanent agreement” with Iran fails to guarantee the bare minimum safeguards against Iran’s nuclearization that Israel feels is necessary, Israel will have to rethink its policy and avoid being influenced by the fact that its closest ally signed an unacceptable agreement with Iran. Israel will have to defend itself by itself, as U.S. President Barack Obama once said – with everything that doing so entails. This would truly put the relationship between Israel and the U.S. to the test.

In recent days, following the impolite and inappropriate personal attack against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the American press, from the mouths of high-ranking officials in Washington, relations between Israel and the U.S. have deteriorated to an all-time low. It is time to put things back in proportion, in light of the severity of the American remarks.

The relationship with the U.S., Israel’s biggest and most important ally, is unique. This relationship has had its highs and lows. For example, the U.S. did nothing to delay the extermination of Jews during World War II, but supported the establishment of the State of Israel and was the first to recognize it. The U.S. opted not to aid Israel during the 1948 War of Independence and banned the sale of arms to the fledgling country, but since the 1960s it has been supplying Israel with weapons almost exclusively.

Every year, the Americans give Israel a gift of approximately $3.5 billion dollars for its defense needs (three-quarters of which are to be used only for purchases from the U.S.) and Israel uses this gift to fund the Israel Defense Forces’ everyday needs and to ensure that the army grows stronger and stronger. But the American contribution to Israel’s security is not just monetary. The U.S. partners with Israel in the development of anti-missile technology; there is robust intelligence cooperation between the two countries, in which each country contributes greatly to the other; and the exchange of ideas on professional issues between the commanders of the Israeli and the American armies is inspiring and extremely important to both sides.

The U.S. is obviously committed to ensuring that Israel maintains a significant military advantage over its neighbors, and they are trying very hard to fulfill that commitment.

But Israel does not have to accept every U.S. demand.

The U.S.’s friendship is important to Israel in the diplomatic realm as well. Without U.S. support in the international arena, and especially in the U.N. Security Council, Israel would be in a very difficult position today, to the point of diplomatic and economic isolation. The American support stands out in practical matters, like in the recognition of the red shield of David as an internationally recognized medical symbol, but also in other matters, such as the revocation of the U.N. resolution equating Zionism with racism, or staving off the world’s criticism of Israel’s nuclear program.

The U.S. understands the significance of Israel being the only democratic nation in the region – a stable nation that the U.S. can rely on in a time of crisis but also a nation it can cooperate with on a day-to-day basis in the fields of intelligence and counter-terrorism (in a way that has so far contributed greatly to the U.S.). Both countries share similar values and the people of both countries harbor warm feelings toward the other.

So is it true that because of this important support, to the point of dependency in certain areas, that Israel needs to accept every American demand? Not at all. But blatantly ignoring U.S. demands, or insulting American figures with undiplomatic language, or making remarks about the U.S.’s policies and conduct, is entirely unhelpful. In fact, it is detrimental to the relations between the two allies. More polite dialogue and less insulting remarks would ultimately serve Israel’s interests best. The arrogant behavior and declarations on Israel’s part point to a lack of understanding of the American psyche, and come across as disrespectful to the U.S. and its leaders. At the same time, the remarks made by senior Washington spokespeople against Netanyahu also point to a deep lack of understanding of the Israeli frame of mind. These are two proud nations, and mutual insults are not helping either one. In that respect, the most recent press briefing in Washington crossed every line.
So can Israel rely on the U.S.?

In the near future, following the U.S.-led talks, both countries will have to grapple with the implications of the agreement between Iran and world powers. The Americans have brought the Iranians to the negotiating table, after imposing unprecedented sanctions and recruiting the Europeans to follow suit. The Europeans, to some extent, feared Israel’s response should they refuse to take strong action against Iran. However, at the negotiating table, the U.S. has created the impression that the ultimate agreement is more important to them than it is to the Iranians, and that they would do anything to avoid resorting to the military option (which has been aggressively promoted by order of the current president). Furthermore, the Iranians have now caught on to the weakness of the American position, and in the wake of the U.S.’s efforts to combat the Islamic State group, the Iranians feel even stronger. The very thing we were afraid of, and that Israel warned the Americans against, is now happening: The U.S.’s attention has been diverted elsewhere and the Iranians are taking advantage of that to the fullest.

The longer the U.S. remains in Iraq and Syria, the more it becomes amenable to easing the terms it is willing to offer Iran and the more likely it becomes that an agreement with Iran will be reached. If that happens, it will have to be studied very carefully. Such an agreement needs to be judged against the criterion set by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry himself, when he said that a bad deal would be worse than no deal.

A bad deal would truly put the relationship between Israel and the U.S. to the test. During the course of the negotiations, even when Israel deemed the interim agreement unacceptable, Israel made sure not to interfere in the process. But if the permanent agreement fails to guarantee the bare minimum that Israel feels is necessary, it will have to rethink its policy. Israel will have to act in its best interest and avoid being influenced by the fact that its closest ally signed an agreement with Iran. If it turns out unequivocally that Israel cannot rely on anyone on this matter of enormous importance to its security and even its existence, then it will have to defend itself by itself, like U.S. President Barack Obama once said – with everything that doing so entails.

The greatest challenge will be handling this crisis within the confines of Israeli-American relations. How much of Israel’s concerns should it divulge to and confide in Washington? What should Israel share and what should Israel conceal? What does Israel have to do, despite the disagreements, and what should Israel avoid doing because of the disagreements?

There are endless questions that would arise should the U.S. pose Israel with a dangerous fait accompli on Iran – the issue Israel defines as the most sensitive on the agenda. At that point, the elimination of the Iranian threat will become the top priority, overriding any other consideration.


BESA Center Perspectives Papers are published through the generosity of the Greg Rosshandler Family

A version of this article was published on October 31, 2014 in Israel Hayom.


Maj. Gen. (res.) Yaacov Amidror is the Greg and Anne Rosshandler Senior Fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, and former national security advisor to the Prime Minister. 


Source: http://besacenter.org/uncategorized/greatest-challenge-still-ahead/

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

A challenge to Ed Milliband: Would you protect Great Britain against terrorism? - Alan Dershowitz

by Alan Dershowitz

Dershowitz challenges Ed Milliband to criticize Great British troops for “the killing of innocent... civilians” in their wars against terrorists.

Ed Milliband, who is the leader of Great Britain’s Labor Party, wants to become prime minister following the next general election. But recent statements he has made about Israel’s incursion into Gaza raise serious questions about his capacity to govern, and especially about his ability and willingness to protect the citizens of Great Britain against the threats posed by Islamic State (IS) and other Islamic terrorist groups.

Milliband strongly criticized British Prime Minister David Cameron, arguing that he was “wrong not to have opposed Israel’s incursion into Gaza.”

It’s not clear whether this ill-advised statement was merely a political cheap shot or whether it reflects Milliband’s actual views regarding a nation’s need to defend its citizens against terrorism.

Recall that Israel’s “incursion” into Gaza occurred only after Hamas had sent death squads into Israeli territory using its network of close to 40 sophisticated tunnels illegally dug under the Gaza-Israeli border.

According to Israeli intelligence sources, Israel concluded that unless it shut down these tunnels of death Hamas was planning to send hundreds of terrorists into Israel to kill and kidnap civilians and soldiers.

I was in one of those tunnels just before Israel’s incursion into Gaza. A Beduin tracker who worked for the Israel Defense Forces discovered an air hole which led Israeli soldiers to finding the hidden exit to the tunnel, which was in close proximity to an Israeli kindergarten attended by over 50 children.

The purpose of this tunnel was to kill and/or kidnap as many of these children as possible.

As soon as I entered the sophisticated tunnel, with railroad tracks, communications equipment and places to store explosives, it became clear to me that Israel would have to send troops into Gaza to find the entrances to such tunnels and destroy them.

Israel knew where some of the entrances were because its satellites could track the removal of large amounts of dirt. But even Israel’s most sophisticated devices could not track the direction of the tunnels or their numerous secret exit points.

Some of the tunnels had several entrance and exit points – offshoots of the main underground shaft between Gaza and Israel. These tunnels could not be destroyed from the air. Nor could their exit points be found. The only two options were allowing them to continue to exist, thus endangering thousands of Israelis; or ordering an incursion into Gaza, designed to locate and destroy the tunnels from their entrance points.

Israel did not send troops into Gaza in order to stop the thousands of rockets Hamas was firing at its cities, towns and airport. It relied instead on its Iron Dome, which was only 85 percent effective, on its network of shelters located in and around every populated area, and its GPS-guided missile attacks against the rocket launchers. It was the discovery of so large a network of tunnels and the reality that Israel had no technology comparable to Iron Dome to prevent them from being used against its citizens that led Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finally to order the ground incursion.

My challenge to Ed Milliband: What would you have done if you were the prime minister of a country that faced comparable threats? It is easy to criticize the British prime minister for not having opposed Israel’s incursion into Gaza but, as The New York Times reported (10/23/14), Milliband “did not outline an alternative security response.”

Now he must. Would he have waited for dozens of death squads with hundreds of terrorists to enter Israel and wreak havoc on cities, towns and kibbutzim near the Gaza border? Would he have tried to attack the tunnel entrances from the air, despite the fact that many of them were located in mosques, schools, hospitals, private homes and densely populated civilian areas? The question British voters should ask is: What would prime minister Ed Milliband have done? What would he do if Britain were faced with comparable threats? His country, unlike tiny Israel, is an island separated from its traditional enemies by bodies of water. But one can imagine Scottish independent radicals digging tunnels into northeastern England. Or Irish radicals firing rockets into English cities on the West Coast? As opposition leader would Milliband criticize the current prime minister for trying to stop these attacks against British civilians? As prime minister would he do nothing and simply call for a cease-fire and the resumption of talks, as he did with regard to the Israeli-Hamas conflict?

Milliband also rebuked Cameron for his “silence on the killing of innocent Palestinian civilians caused by Israel’s military action.” But Milliband himself has remained silent on Hamas’ deliberate use of human shields that has been the main cause for why Palestinian civilians were killed. As British military expert Richard Kemp said, “No army in the world acts with as much discretion and great care as the IDF in order to minimize damage. The US and the UK are careful, but not as much as Israel.”

Kemp then provided specific ratios: “Israel’s ratio [of] military casualties in Operation Protective Edge was only one-fourth of the average in warfare around the world. [D]uring the operation, there was approximately one civilian casualty for every terrorist killed by the IDF, whereas the average in the world is four civilians for every combatant, and that, when taking into consideration Hamas’s use of human shields, this shows how careful the IDF is.”

I challenge Ed Milliband to criticize Great British troops for “the killing of innocent... civilians” in their wars against terrorists.

I await answers from the man who would be Great Britain’s next prime minister – answers that assure British voters that he is neither a hypocrite nor a leader unwilling to do what has to be done to protect his countrymen from terrorism.
A shorter version of this op-ed was published by The Times of London.


Alan Dershowitz

Source: http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/A-challenge-to-Ed-Milliband-Would-you-protect-Great-Britain-against-terrorism-380582

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

Islamist Campaign Donors Overwhelmingly Back Democrats - David J. Rusin

by David J. Rusin


An analysis of federal campaign contributions finds that key figures at six of America's most prominent Islamist organizations have favored Democrats over Republicans by a ratio of 12 to 1 since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. This trend began with multiple donations to Cynthia McKinney dated September 11, 2001, reversing a previous pattern that had seen Islamist officials spend slightly more on Republicans. Their preference for Democrats has solidified during the past 13 years and shows no signs of waning. What does this say about the politicians who benefit from Islamist largesse?

Islamist Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum, recently launched Islamist Money in Politics (IMIP), to monitor Islamists' influence in the halls of power, inform the public about which politicians accept their tainted money, and hold accountable those who do. IMIP's inaugural data release focuses on the national organizations of six Islamist entities — the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), Muslim Alliance in North America (MANA), Muslim American Society (MAS), and Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) — as well as CAIR's many local chapters.

Names of important personnel, both current and former, were mined from the groups' Internal Revenue Service filings and/or website listings, some going back more than a decade. The Federal Election Commission's online database, which spans the late 1990s to the present, was then searched for donations to candidates, joint fundraising committees, relevant political action committees, and parties. IMIP employed biographical information to select only those contributions that could reasonably be attributed to the individuals of interest, rejecting ones likely to have been made by unrelated persons who share their names. See IMIP's description of methodology for details and a discussion of the challenges.

As of now, the IMIP database tabulates nearly $700,000 in donations. Surely many more people and contributions remain to be added, but the data already constitute a large and representative sample that is sufficient for an initial pass at quantifying Islamists' political affinities.

First, who contributes? Major donors tend to be board members rather than staffers. While many of the biggest contributors maintain relatively low public profiles, several are quite familiar. With outlays totaling $56,800, the most generous funder of politicians in IMIP's database is Kenny Gamble, who goes by Luqman Abdul Haqq in his position on MANA's governing body. An Islamist-aligned music and real estate mogul, Gamble is tied to the "Islamic paramilitary boys group" known as the Jawala Scouts and has been accused of working to build a self-contained "black Muslim enclave" in South Philadelphia. Also among the top 20 donors are CAIR executive director Nihad Awad, who has contributed under numerous variants of his name; former MAS president and current CAIR national board member Esam Omeish, who resigned from a Virginia immigration panel in 2007 after a video emerged of his speech touting the Palestinians' embrace of "the jihad way" against Israel; and Zead Ramadan, the CAIR-New York board member who unsuccessfully ran for New York City Council in 2013.

With regard to recipients, the Democratic Party dominates. Leading the all-time list by vacuuming up close to one in every five dollars is Keith Ellison, the Islamist-leaning Muslim congressman from Minnesota who has a long history of collaborating with Islamist groups. Barack Obama, whose policies have been popular with Islamists, comes in second when direct contributions are combined with those sent to joint fundraising committees associated with his 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns. Third is Cynthia McKinney, the far-left former congresswoman from Georgia who peddled conspiracy theories and harsh critiques of U.S. foreign policy in the wake of 9/11; that she ranks so high despite the fact that most donations to her were collected during a one-year, post-9/11 window testifies to Islamists' endorsement of her adversarial stance at the outset of America's military response to Islamic terrorism. Fourth is Indiana's André Carson, the second Muslim congressman to be elected; he told attendees at the 2012 ICNA–MAS convention that educators should model American schools after Islamic madrassas. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee rounds out the top five.

However, Democrats did not always prevail in the battle for Islamist cash. According to IMIP's current data, Republicans actually received about 15 percent more Islamist-related contributions than Democrats did over the several years prior to 9/11. The Islamists' favorite Republican of that period was Californian Tom Campbell, who contested a Senate seat in 2000. Campbell's warm relationships with radical Muslims, such as terror operative Sami al-Arian, are thoroughly documented. Further, although IMIP features only a handful of entries from the 2000 presidential race, there is more money for George W. Bush than for Al Gore. This is not a surprise because Bush won the backing of the American Muslim Political Coordination Committee, an Islamist-heavy coalition.

But 9/11 and the subsequent Republican-led war on terror changed everything, even the destination of Islamist money. IMIP detects the first hints of a sharp left turn in the form of donations to Cynthia McKinney from three Islamist figures, including Nihad Awad, on September 11, 2001 — undoubtedly before the Bush administration had a chance to do much to upset the self-proclaimed guardians of the Muslim community in the post-9/11 era. IMIP records no other contribution to any recipient within two weeks in either direction, making the date seem less coincidental. Many more donations would be routed to McKinney from Islamists' wallets in the months to come. Over the 365 days that followed the 9/11 attacks, IMIP measures an 8-to-1 ratio of contributions in the Democrats' favor. A majority of them flowed to McKinney.

This pro-Democratic tilt has continued to the present. Based on contributions now cataloged by IMIP, Democrats outraised Republicans by a factor of 4.8 from 2003 to 2006, 29.7 from 2007 to 2010, and 17.5 from 2011 to 2014. The two most recent blocks reflect the impact of Islamist enthusiasm for Obama's White House runs. As for the last three Republican presidential nominees, IMIP has located no contributions to Bush's 2004 campaign, none to John McCain's in 2008, and just one to Mitt Romney for $1,000 ahead of the 2012 primaries. Overall, the people in IMIP's sample have donated 12 times as much to Democrats since September 11, 2001.

Islamist-affiliated individuals presumably support Democrats for the same reason that other subsets of Americans throw their weight behind certain politicians and parties: they expect Democrats to support them, at least at the level of providing the best political landscape in which to pursue their objectives. But as Daniel Pipes points out, we are not dealing here with professionals attempting to "tweak the tax code" to their advantage or even a minority population striving to secure equal rights. Islamists intend to alter the fabric of the liberal democratic system, a goal characterized by the Muslim Brotherhood, in a memorandum outlining its North American strategy, as "a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within," culminating in Islamic rule.

Each of the six groups analyzed by IMIP is connected to the Brotherhood or its dream of institutionalizing Shari'a. ICNA, ISNA, and the Islamic Association for Palestine, CAIR's immediate predecessor, appear on the Brotherhood's 1991 "list of our organizations and the organizations of our friends." Both CAIR and ISNA were designated as unindicted co-conspirators in the trial of the Holy Land Foundation, a charity convicted of bankrolling Hamas, the Brotherhood's Palestinian wing. Prosecutors classified CAIR among the "individuals/entities who are and/or were members of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood's Palestine Committee and/or its organizations"; they named ISNA as one of the "individuals/entities who are and/or were members of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood." 
Furthermore, according to a brief filed by the government in a separate case, "MAS was founded as the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America." Two Muslim Brothers also formed MPAC. Finally, MANA is helmed by radical cleric Siraj Wahhaj, who has spoken of replacing the Constitution with Islamic law.

Because the various board members and staffers researched by IMIP have participated in defining and executing the ideological agendas of the above groups, their campaign contributions are a matter of concern. This is not to suggest that the dollar amounts uncovered thus far — quite small by American standards — are tipping any elections. But even in modest quantities, money can purchase political access and open the doors of influence. When it comes to the agents of radical Islam, these doors must be barred shut.

No remotely mainstream politician would knowingly accept, let alone get away with accepting, contributions from a leader of a white supremacist organization. Why should it be any different for a leader of an Islamic supremacist organization? Those who represent the American people or seek to do so, especially in federal offices that oversee counterterrorism and foreign affairs, need to begin saying no to funds from these problematic sources. Islamist Money in Politics is a first step in nudging candidates and parties toward the right decision — and, where that fails, empowering voters to make informed choices of their own about politicians who wittingly or unwittingly legitimize, enable, or embolden America's enemies.


David J. Rusin is a research fellow at Islamist Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum.

Source: http://www.islamist-watch.org/17912/islamist-campaign-donors-overwhelmingly-back

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

Egypt's War on Terrorism: World's Double Standards - Khaled Abu Toameh

by Khaled Abu Toameh

Egypt's crackdown in Sinai once again exposes the double standards of the international community toward the war on terrorism. While it is fine for Egypt to demolish hundreds of houses and forcibly transfer thousands of people in the name of the war on terrorism, Israel is not allowed to fire back at those who launch rockets and missiles at its civilians.
The Egyptians have finally realized that the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip has become one of the region's main exporters of terrorism.
What is perhaps more worrying is the fear that the security clampdown in Egypt will drive Hamas and other terror groups in the Gaza Strip to resume their attacks on Israel.
Needless to say, the international community will continue to ignore Egypt's bulldozing hundreds of houses and the forcible eviction of hundreds of people in Sinai.

Three months after the military conformation between Hamas and Israel, the Egyptians are also waging their own war on terrorism in north Sinai.

But Egypt's war, which began after Islamist terrorists butchered 33 Egyptian soldiers, does not seem to worry the international community and human rights organizations, at least not as much as Israel's operation to stop rockets and missiles from being fired into it from the Gaza Strip.

The Egyptian army's security crackdown includes the demolition of hundreds of houses along the border with the Gaza Strip and the transfer of thousands of people to new locations.

A building is blown up by Egypt's army as part of an operation to clear all buildings out of a "buffer zone," along Egypt's border with the Gaza Strip. (Image source: PressTV video screenshot)

Egypt's goal is to establish a security buffer zone along its shared border with the Gaza Strip in order to prevent terrorists from using smuggling tunnels to launch attacks on Egyptian soldiers and civilians. In other words, the Egyptians are tightening the blockade on the Gaza Strip and collectively punishing the Palestinians living there, not only Hamas.

All this is happening before eyes of the international community and media. Nonetheless, the UN Security Council has not been asked to hold an emergency meeting to condemn what some Egyptian human rights activists describe as the "transfer" and "displacement" of hundreds of families in Sinai.

Egyptian lawyer and human rights activist Gamal Eid said that the Egyptian security measures were "unconstitutional." He noted that Article 63 of the Egyptian constitution prohibits the forcible and arbitrary transfer of citizens in all forms.

Egyptian security experts warned this week that the "displacement" of Sinai residents would not stop terrorist attacks on the Egyptian police and army.

Former General Safwat al-Zayyat said he expected the terrorists to intensify their attacks not only in Sinai but also in other parts of Egypt, including Cairo, to prove that the Egyptian army's measures are ineffective. He also predicted that the transfer of thousands of families and the demolition of their homes would play into the hands of the terrorists.

Egyptian activist Massad Abu Fajr wrote on his Facebook page that the forcible eviction of families from their homes in Egypt was tantamount to a "declaration of war by the Egyptian authorities" on the three largest and powerful clans in Sinai. He too predicted that the security crackdown would boomerang and further strengthen the terrorists.

But what is perhaps more worrying is the fear that the unprecedented security clampdown in Egypt will drive Hamas and other terror groups in the Gaza Strip to resume their attacks on Israel.

The Egyptians, of course, are entitled to wage a ruthless war on the various terror groups that have long been operating in Sinai. However, by tightening the blockade on the Gaza Strip, the Egyptians are also giving Hamas and Islamic Jihad an excuse to resume their attacks on Israel.

The two Palestinian terror groups are not going to retaliate by attacking Egypt. They know that Egypt's response to such an attack would be more severe than Israel's military response. That explains why Hamas and other Palestinian groups have been cautious in their response to Egypt's measures -- no condemnations or protests thus far.

In fact, Hamas is already in a state of panic in the wake of allegations by some Egyptians that Palestinians from the Gaza Strip were involved in the killing of the soldiers in Sinai.

Once again, Egyptian journalists are calling on their president to go after Hamas in response to the Sinai attack. A previous attack on Egyptian soldiers in Sinai earlier this year prompted similar calls.

Reham Noaman, a prominent Egyptian journalist, called on Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to "crush" Hamas and its armed wing, Ezaddin al-Qassam. "Israel is not better than us," she said. "When Israel wants to hit Hamas because of a rocket that is not worth a penny, it does not seek permission from the Security Council."

The Egyptians have finally realized that the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip has become one of the region's main exporters of terrorism. Israel reached this conclusion several years ago, when Hamas and other terror groups began firing rockets and missiles at Israeli communities.

The Egyptians have also come to learn that the smuggling tunnels along their shared border with the Gaza Strip work in both directions. In the past, the Egyptians believed that the tunnels were being used only to smuggle weapons into the Gaza Strip. Now, however, they are convinced that these tunnels are also being used to smuggle weapons and terrorists out of the Gaza Strip.

Now that the Egyptians have chosen completely to seal off their border with the Gaza Strip, the chances of another military confrontation between Hamas and Israel have increased. Hamas will undoubtedly try to break out of its increased isolation by initiating another war with Israel.

The Egyptians, for their part, are not going to mind if another war breaks out between the Palestinians and Israel -- as long as the military confrontation is taking place on the other side of the Gaza Strip's border with Egypt.

And of course, the international community will once again rush to accuse Israel of "genocide" against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Needless to say, the international community will continue to ignore Egypt's bulldozing hundreds of homes and the forcible eviction of thousands of people in Sinai.

If anything, the Egyptian security crackdown in Sinai has once again exposed the double standards of the international community toward the war on terrorism. While it is fine for Egypt to demolish hundreds of houses and forcibly transfer thousands of people in the name of the war on terrorism, Israel is not allowed to fire back at those who launch rockets and missiles at its civilians.


Khaled Abu Toameh

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4839/egypt-terrorism-double-standards

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