Ignoring History’s Lessons on Hate.

Anti-Semites once again get a free pass from Foggy Bottom.

 

By Rafael Medoff

In recent weeks, the State Department watered down a report on North Korean repression, dropped China from its annual list of the world's worst human rights violators, and conspicuously omitted the Palestinian Authority from its report on anti-Semitism around the world. Anybody notice a pattern here?

 

Last month, at the request of Assistant Secretary of State Glyn Davies, a U.S. report on conditions in North Korea omitted the adjective "repressive" and dropped a line noting that public executions are "on the rise." Davies feared that telling the truth might adversely affect the ongoing U.S.-led talks with North Korea. He wrote: "[I] hope given the Secretary's priority on the six-party talks, we can sacrifice a few adjectives for the cause."

 

Two weeks later, the State Department's annual human-rights report omitted China from its list of the world's worst rights violators, a designation Beijing had received in previous years. Human rights groups were understandably up in arms. Human Rights Watch said it has found "a sharp uptick in human rights violations directed related to preparations for the Olympics," while Reporters Without Borders warned that U.S. officials "are depriving themselves of yet another effective way to pressure China, without having achieved any goodwill gesture from Beijing." What, then, was the State Department's motive in rewarding the Chinese regime? Hard to say, because at a March 11 press conference, Assistant Secretary of State Jonathan Farrar offered no clear explanation and dodged questions about whether Foggy Bottom is helping China improve its image in advance of this summer's Beijing Olympics.

 

Now it is the Palestinian Authority's turn to benefit from the State Department's excessive generosity. On March 13, State released an 84-page report on "Contemporary Global Anti-Semitism." While describing anti-Semitic incidents in various countries around the world, the report was oddly reticent when it came to the territories controlled by the Palestinian Authority.

 

The report did include several references to Hamas, which rules Gaza. It noted that Hamas treats the anti-Semitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion as fact (p. 21); denies the Holocaust (pp. 23 and 24); and broadcasts hateful TV shows aimed at children (p. 56) "in the West Bank and Gaza." From the latter reference, a reader might mistakenly assume that Hamas rules both areas. In fact, Hamas rules only Gaza while the Palestinian Authority, under Mahmoud Abbas, controls the West Bank region. Yet Abbas and the PA, whom the U.S. favors and finances, managed to escape blame for the anti-Semitism that it promotes with no less energy.

 

The omission is especially surprising because just a few days ago, the American Jewish Committee released a study showing the PA's schoolbooks characterize Jews in "hateful" and "derogatory" language, cite the Protocols of Elders of Zion as a legitimate source of historical information, and omit any mention of the Holocaust. (State's report did contain one vague mention of the fact that in the 1990s, Holocaust denial "became commonplace in popular media in the Middle East, particularly in the Palestinian Authority" — without any acknowledgment that most of that so-called "popular media" is government-controlled).

 

The State Department's report defined anti-Semitism as including "allegations about Jews such as . . . Jews controlling the media" and "drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to the Nazis" (pp. 6-7). Yet among the numerous anti-Semitic cartoons that the report reprints, one did not find, for example, the August 13, 2007 cartoon in the official PA newspaper, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, of a hook-nosed Jew with prominent side-curls controlling the Arab media, or the March 4 cartoon, titled "Gaza's Holocaust," featuring an Israeli attack helicopter with its propeller in the shape of a swastika. (Expanding on that theme, a new Holocaust Exhibit has just opened in Gaza, featuring depictions of Israel throwing Arab babies into crematoria.

 

Those who are familiar with the State Department's policies during the actual Holocaust may be tempted to recall its habit of employing linguistic sleight-of-hand for the sake of political objectives.

 

In December 1942, the British government, in response to domestic pressure, suggested to Washington that the Allies issue a joint statement verifying and condemning Nazi Germany's mass murder of Jews. The State Department at first resisted the proposal, fearing that "the various Governments of the United Nations [the Allies] would expose themselves to increased pressure from all sides to do something more specific in order to aid these people." Telling the truth or saving innocent lives was less important than avoiding pressure to help refugees.

 

Ultimately the Roosevelt administration decided to go along with the proposed statement, but only after watering down the language.  For example, the proposed phrase "reports from Europe which leave no doubt" (that mass murder was underway) was whittled down to just "numerous reports from Europe."

 

In a similar vein, the statement issued after the Allies' tripartite summit in Moscow in October 1943, drafted by the State Department, threatened postwar punishment for Nazi war crimes against conquered populations, mentioning "French, Dutch, Belgian or Norwegian hostages . . . Cretan peasants . . . the people of Poland" — but not Jews. The State Department feared that giving too much attention to the suffering of the Jews would increase pressure on the U.S. to take them in.

 

Today some State Department officials apparently fear that focusing too much negative attention on North Korea, China, or the Palestinian Authority might undermine U.S. relations with those regimes. But the experience of the 1940s demonstrates that downplaying abuses by totalitarian regimes does little to persuade those regimes to improve their behavior. Today, despite the State Department's kid-gloves approach, Tibetan monks are being beaten by the Chinese police and Palestinian Arab schoolchildren are still being taught with anti-Semitic textbooks. Will the State Department now finally learn from the mistakes it made 65 years ago?

 

Rafael Medoff is director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies and author of the forthcoming Blowing the Whistle on Genocide: Josiah E. DuBois, Jr. and the Struggle for an American Response to the Holocaust.

 

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

 

Should Egypt embrace Iran's overtures?

By Claudia Schwartz

 

After almost 30 years of mutual tension, Iran is taking steps to improve its ties with Egypt. The Islamic Republic cut off contacts following the Camp David peace treaty signed between Egypt and Israel. Antagonism intensified when Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi was granted asylum by Anwar Sadat and later Iran named a street in memory of the Egyptian president's assassin, Khaled Islambouli. Iran's hostility to the United States and Egypt's close alliance with Washington is a further impediment to normalization.

The stirrings of rapprochement have included diplomatic meetings between representatives of the two countries - most significantly the visit to Cairo at the end of last year of Ali Larijani, a senior adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and a landmark telephone conversation between Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This diplomacy has been bolstered by the restoration of some economic and cultural ties.

Iran's overtures to Egypt mirror its broader regional strategy, namely courting the Sunni Arab world. This comes in response to the Bush administration's attempt to consolidate an anti-Iranian Sunni bloc in the Middle East, which formed a significant part of President George W. Bush's recent tour of the region. Iran's efforts have led to a thaw with leading Sunni Arab countries, allowing Ahmadinejad's attendance at the last Gulf Cooperation Council summit in Qatar, his journey to Mecca for the annual pilgrimage, and his visit to Baghdad on Sunday. In the words of Iranian presidential adviser Samarej Hashemi, renewed relations with Egypt would mean "the enemies of Islam and Islamic unity would be segregated."

Egypt, being one of America's strongest Middle East allies, provides fertile ground in which Iran can plant seeds to consolidate its gains in the Arab world. However, despite positive beginnings, there remain obstacles in the way of renewed friendship. Tehran's support for the Syrian-backed Lebanese opposition and its meddling in the Gaza Strip through Hamas and Islamic Jihad are major hurdles that Iran and Egypt must cross.

The current political climate is tense, amid signs tha Mubarak will not participate in the forthcoming Arab League summit in Damascus unless the Lebanese crisis is resolved. Egypt and Saudi Arabia believe Syria is blocking efforts to allow the election of a new Lebanese president. They have both been disappointed with Iran, which has paramount influence over Hizbullah, for doing nothing to help find a resolution. News reports suggest that Iran remains deeply reluctant to cross Syria in Lebanon.

Iran's interference on the Palestinian scene, particularly its support for Hamas and Islamic Jihad, has also marred Iranian-Egyptian relations. The recent Hamas border breach with Egypt, which heightened Cairo's internal security fears, was but one facet of the two countries' disagreement over how to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Another is that Egypt remains committed to peace with Israel, while Iran rejects Israel's right to exist.

Egypt's need for American aid is another obstacle. The United States, which provides Egypt with $1.3 billion annually, will not take kindly to improved Egyptian-Iranian relations. Following Congress' withholding of $100 million as a result of Egypt's failure to prevent weapons smuggling into Gaza, Cairo will be careful before risking watering down further US financial support.

For Israel, strengthened Egyptian-Iranian relations are a worrying prospect too. Not only does Israel fear a concomitant cooling in its relation with Egypt - on which it relies to be its main mediator in the Arab world - but it is also fearful that if ties improve between Cairo and Tehran, Egypt would be less able to counterbalance Iran's interference in South Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza, through its support for Hizbullah and militant Palestinian groups.

Egypt must hedge its bets when it comes to Iran. In the short term, it cannot rely on the US to contain the Islamic Republic, particularly after the release last year of a US National Intelligence Estimate asserting that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003. At the same time, the Egyptians are uncertain that better relations with Iran will push it to reduce its meddling in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, or help resolve the Lebanese crisis.

Taking into account the likely repercussions of a rapprochement, full diplomatic relations between the two countries would be asymmetrical: They would serve Iran to Egypt's detriment. Iran would profit from a renewed stance in the Sunni world and a weakening of American efforts to isolate it. Egypt, in turn, would lose American confidence, face a more destabilized situation in Gaza, and may find itself partly neutralized in how to respond to Iranian actions. In a worst-case scenario, Iran would gain latitude to divide the Arab countries and pursue its efforts to become a regional power.

That's why an improvement in relations between Egypt and Iran, while it might deliver change in the region, might not deliver the kinds of changes that necessarily elicit optimism.

 

Claudia Schwartz is a Legacy Heritage fellow at the Transatlantic Institute.

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

 

 

The Gaza Prison Camp.

By  Nonie Darwish

"Gaza conditions at '40-year low'" the BBC headlined last week. Rarely a week goes by without a politician or organization deploring the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip. But I do not hear anyone describe its root cause: 60 years of Arab policy aimed at maintaining Palestinians as stateless refugees in order to pressure Israel.

I lived in Gaza as a child in the 1950s when Egypt conducted guerrilla-style operations against Israel from Gaza, then under Egyptian control. My father commanded these operations, carried out by "fedayeen," (which means, "self sacrifice"). This became the frontline of Arab Jihad against Israel. My father was killed by Israel in a targeted assassination in 1956.

Today the Gaza Strip, now under the control of Hamas, has become the Gaza prison camp for 1.5 million Palestinians and continues to serve as the launching pad for attacks against Israeli citizens.

This is the legacy of the Arab world's Palestinian refugee policy, started 60 years ago, when the Arab League implemented special laws regarding Palestinians that all Arab countries had to abide by. Arab countries could not absorb Palestinians. Even if a Palestinian married a citizen of an Arab country, that Palestinian could not become a citizen of his or her spouse's country. A Palestinian can be born, live and die in an Arab country, but never gain its citizenship. Even now I receive e-mails from Palestinians telling me they cannot have a Syrian passport, for example, and must remain Palestinian even though they have never set foot in the West Bank or Gaza. Forcing the Palestinian identity on them is designed to perpetuate the Palestinian refugee status. Palestinians have been used and abused by Arab nations, and by Palestinian terrorists, for the purpose of destroying Israel.

The 22 Arab states certainly do not have a shortage of land. Many surrounding Arab areas, such as the Sinai Peninsula, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, are very sparsely populated. But absorbing Palestinians would end their refugee status and their desire to harm Israel.

Arab wealth, which is increasing dramatically because of skyrocketing oil prices, is not used to improve the lives, infrastructure and economy of the people of the West Bank and Gaza. Instead, it supports terror groups who reject Israel's existence and oppose peace with Israel. The average Gaza man has a better employment opportunity if he joins Hamas.

Gazans' breach of their checkpoint with Egypt in January, orchestrated by Hamas, is a result of the Palestinian refugee policy. The checkpoints on the Arab side of Gaza could not keep the inmates inside. The Arab plan to overpopulate Gaza exploded in the wrong direction. After this explosion, Suleiman Awwad, an Egyptian administration spokesman, said, "Egypt is a respected state, its border cannot be breached and its soldiers should not be lobbed with stones." In other words, Egypt is not like Israel, which is a disrespected state. Gazans should not direct the violence at Egypt, only at Israel. This is Arab conventional wisdom.

Last month Hamas threatened to bring 40,000 Palestinians, primarily children and women, to the Gaza border with Israel to protest Israel's restrictions on Gaza. Some Hamas leaders hinted they would send these protestors to breach the border, once again demonstrating that the Palestinian terrorists have no qualms about endangering the lives of innocent people -- Israelis or Palestinians. Fortunately, only 5,000 showed up.

But Hamas did succeed two days later in killing an Israeli: a 47 year-old father of four during a rocket attack from Gaza while he was sitting in his car next to Sapir College near Sderot. Two weeks earlier, two Israeli brothers, Osher and Rami Twito, ages 8 and 19, were seriously injured by a rocket from Gaza while buying their father a birthday present. Osher's left leg had to be amputated.

Israel completely left Gaza in August 2005. In May and June 2007, Hamas waged war against its Palestinian brothers in Fatah to gain control of Gaza. Hamas intensified its rockets attacks on Israeli towns, compelling Israel to take economic and military measures against Gaza. Hamas has become a danger not only to Israel, but to Palestinians and to neighboring Arab countries, as well. Nevertheless, the Arab world still refuses to see its role in creating this monster. It is difficult to find a similar situation in human history: the intentional creation of a refugee status for a million and a half people, sustained for 60 years. The Arab world has cut its nose to spite its face.

The world needs to understand that this dangerous mess started when 22 Arab countries agreed to create a human prison called the Gaza Strip. Arabs claim they love the Palestinian people, but they seem more interested in sacrificing them. It is time for the Arab world to open their side of the borders and absorb the Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza who wish to be absorbed. It is time for the Arab world to truly help the Palestinians, not use them.

Nonie Darwish, who grew up in Cairo and Gaza City, is the author of, "Now They Call me Infidel."

 

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

 

What a Pentagon review of 600,000 Iraqi documents tells us. Part I

by Stephen F. Hayes

1st part of 2

This ought to be big news. Throughout the early and mid-1990s, Saddam Hussein actively supported an influential terrorist group headed by the man who is now al Qaeda's second-in-command, according to an exhaustive study issued last week by the Pentagon. "Saddam supported groups that either associated directly with al Qaeda (such as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, led at one time by bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri) or that generally shared al Qaeda's stated goals and objectives." According to the Pentagon study, Egyptian Islamic Jihad was one of many jihadist groups that Iraq's former dictator funded, trained, equipped, and armed.

The study was commissioned by the Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Virginia, and produced by analysts at the Institute for Defense Analyses, a federally funded military think tank. It is entitled "Iraqi Perspectives Project: Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents." The study is based on a review of some 600,000 documents captured in postwar Iraq. Those "documents" include letters, memos, computer files, audiotapes, and videotapes produced by Saddam Hussein's regime, especially his intelligence services. The analysis section of the study covers 59 pages. The appendices, which include copies of some of the captured documents and translations, put the entire study at approximately 1,600 pages.

An abstract that describes the study reads, in part:

Because Saddam's security organizations and Osama bin Laden's terrorist network operated with similar aims (at least in the short term), considerable overlap was inevitable when monitoring, contacting, financing, and training the same outside groups. This created both the appearance of and, in some way, a 'de facto' link between the organizations. At times, these organizations would work together in pursuit of shared goals but still maintain their autonomy and independence because of innate caution and mutual distrust. Though the execution of Iraqi terror plots was not always successful, evidence shows that Saddam's use of terrorist tactics and his support for terrorist groups remained strong up until the collapse of the regime."

Among the study's other notable findings:

       In 1993, as Osama bin Laden's fighters battled Americans in Somalia, Saddam Hussein personally ordered the formation of an Iraqi terrorist group to join the battle there.

       For more than two decades, the Iraqi regime trained non-Iraqi jihadists in training camps throughout Iraq.

       According to a 1993 internal Iraqi intelligence memo, the regime was supporting a secret Islamic Palestinian organization dedicated to "armed jihad against the Americans and Western interests."

       In the 1990s, Iraq's military intelligence directorate trained and equipped "Sudanese fighters."

       In 1998, the Iraqi regime offered "financial and moral support" to a new group of jihadists in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq.

       In 2002, the year before the war began, the Iraqi regime hosted in Iraq a series of 13 conferences for non-Iraqi jihadist groups.

       That same year, a branch of the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) issued hundreds of Iraqi passports for known terrorists.

There is much, much more. Documents reveal that the regime stockpiled bombmaking materials in Iraqi embassies around the world and targeted Western journalists for assassination. In July 2001, an Iraqi Intelligence agent described an al Qaeda affiliate in Bahrain, the Army of Muhammad, as "under the wings of bin Laden." Although the organization "is an offshoot of bin Laden," the fact that it has a different name "can be a way of camouflaging the organization." The agent is told to deal with the al Qaeda group according to "priorities previously established."

In describing the relations between the Army of Muhammad and the Iraqi regime, the authors of the Pentagon study come to this conclusion: "Captured documents reveal that the regime was willing to co-opt or support organizations it knew to be part of al Qaeda--as long as that organization's near-term goals supported Saddam's long-term vision."

As I said, this ought to be big news. And, in a way, it was. A headline in the New York Times, a cursory item in the Washington Post, and stories on NPR and ABC News reported that the study showed no links between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.

How can a study offering an unprecedented look into the closed regime of a brutal dictator, with over 1,600 pages of "strong evidence that links the regime of Saddam Hussein to regional and global terrorism," in the words of its authors, receive a wave-of-the-hand dismissal from America's most prestigious news outlets? All it took was a leak to a gullible reporter, one misleading line in the study's executive summary, a boneheaded Pentagon press office, an incompetent White House, and widespread journalistic negligence.

On Monday, March 10, 2008, Warren P. Strobel, a reporter from the McClatchy News Service first reported that the new Pentagon study was coming. "An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist network." McClatchy is a newspaper chain that serves many of America's largest cities. The national security reporters in its Washington bureau have earned a reputation as reliable outlets for anti-Bush administration spin on intelligence. Strobel quoted a "U.S. official familiar with the report" who told him that the search of Iraqi documents yielded no evidence of a "direct operational link" between Iraq and al Qaeda. Strobel used the rest of the article to attempt to demonstrate that this undermined the Bush administration's prewar claims with regard to Iraq and terrorism.

With the study not scheduled for release for two more days, this article shaped subsequent coverage, which was no doubt the leaker's purpose. Stories from other media outlets tracked McClatchy very closely but began to incorporate a highly misleading phrase taken from the executive summary: "This study found no 'smoking gun' (i.e. direct connection) between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda." This is how the Washington Post wrote it up:

An examination of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents, audio and video records collected by U.S. forces since the March 2003 invasion has concluded that there is 'no smoking gun' supporting the Bush administration's prewar assertion of an 'operational relationship' between Saddam Hussein and the al-Qaeda terrorist network, sources familiar with the study said."

Much of the confusion might have been avoided if the Bush administration had done anything to promote the study. An early version of the Pentagon study was provided to National Security Adviser Steve Hadley more than a year ago, before November 2006. In recent weeks, as the Pentagon handled the rollout of the study, Hadley was tasked with briefing President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. It's unclear whether he shared the study with President Bush, and NSC officials did not respond to repeated requests for comment. But sources close to Cheney say the vice president was blindsided.

After the erroneous report from McClatchy, two officials involved with the study became very concerned about the misreporting of its contents. One of them said in an interview that he found the media coverage of the study "disappointing." Another, James Lacey, expressed his concern in an email to Karen Finn in the Pentagon press office, who was handling the rollout of the study. On Tuesday, the day before it was scheduled for release, Lacey wrote: "1. The story has been leaked. 2. ABC News is doing a story based on the executive summary tonight. 3. The Washington Post is doing a story based on rumors they heard from ABC News. The document is being misrepresented. I recommend we put [it] out and on a website immediately."

Finn declined, saying that members of Congress had not been told the study was coming. "Despite the leak, there are Congressional notifications and then an official public release. This should not be posted on the web until these actions are complete."

Still under the misimpression that the Pentagon study undermined the case for war, McClatchy's Warren Strobel saw this bureaucratic infighting as a conspiracy to suppress the study:

The Pentagon on Wednesday canceled plans for broad public release of a study that found no pre-Iraq war link between late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the al Qaida terrorist network. . . . The reversal highlighted the politically sensitive nature of its conclusions, which were first reported Monday by McClatchy.

In making their case for invading Iraq in 2002 and 2003, President Bush and his top national security aides claimed that Saddam's regime had ties to Osama bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist network.

But the study, based on more than 600,000 captured documents, including audio and video files, found that while Saddam sponsored terrorism, particularly against opponents of his regime and against Israel, there was no evidence of an al Qaida link.

An examination of the rest of the study makes the White House decision to ignore the Pentagon study even more curious. The first section explores "Terror as an Instrument of State Power" and describes documents detailing Fedayeen Saddam terrorist training camps in Iraq. Graduates of the terror training camps would be dispatched to sensitive sites to carry out their assassinations and bombings. In May 1999, the regime plotted an operation code named "Blessed July" in which the top graduates of the terrorist training courses would be sent to London, Iran, and Kurdistan to conduct assassinations and bombings.

A separate set of documents presents, according to the Pentagon study, "evidence of logistical preparation for terrorist operations in other nations, including those in the West." In one letter, a director of the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) responds to a request from Saddam for an inventory of weapons stockpiled in Iraqi embassies throughout the world. The terrorist tools include missile launchers and missiles, "American missile launchers," explosive materials, TNT, plastic explosive charges, Kalashnikov rifles, and "booby-trapped suitcases."

The July 2002 Iraqi memo describes how these weapons were distributed to the operatives in embassies.

Between the year 2000 and 2002 explosive materials were transported to embassies outside Iraq for special work, upon the approval of the Director of the Iraqi Intelligence Service. The responsibility for these materials is in the hands of heads of stations. Some of these materials were transported in the political mail carriers [Diplomatic Pouch]. Some of these materials were transported by car in booby-trapped briefcases.

Saddam also recruited non-Iraqi jihadists to serve as suicide bombers on behalf of the Iraqi regime. According to the study, captured documents "indicate that as early as January 1998, the scheduling of suicide volunteers was routine enough to warrant not only a national-level policy letter but a formal schedule--during summer vacation--built around maximizing availability of Arab citizens in Iraq on Saddam-funded scholarships."

The second section of the Pentagon study concerns "State Relationships with Terrorist Groups." An IIS document dated March 18, 1993, lists nine terrorist "organizations that our agency [IIS] cooperates with and have relations with various elements in many parts of the Arab world and who also have the expertise to carry out assignments" on behalf of the regime. Several well-known Palestinian terrorist organizations make the list, including Abu Nidal's Fatah-Revolutionary Council and Abu Abbas's Palestinian Liberation Front. Another group, the secret "Renewal and Jihad Organization" is described this way in the Iraqi memo:

It believes in armed jihad against the Americans and Western interests. They also believe our leader [Saddam Hussein], may God protect him, is the true leader in the war against the infidels. The organization's leaders live in Jordan when they visited Iraq two months ago they demonstrated a willingness to carry out operations against American interests at any time."

Other groups listed in the Iraqi memo include the "Islamic Scholars Group" and the "Pakistan Scholars Group. "

There are two terrorist organizations on the Iraqi Intelligence list that deserve special consideration: the Afghani Islamic Party of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad of Ayman al Zawahiri.

This IIS document provides this description of the Afghani Islamic Party:

It was founded in 1974 when its leader [Gulbuddin Hekmatyar] escaped from Afghanistan to Pakistan. It is considered one of the extreme political religious movements against the West, and one of the strongest Sunni parties in Afghanistan. The organization relies on financial support from Iraq and we have had good relations with Hikmatyar since 1989.

In his book Holy War, Inc., Peter Bergen, a terrorism analyst who has long been skeptical of Iraq-al Qaeda connections, describes Hekmatyar as Osama bin Laden's "alter ego." Bergen writes: "Bin Laden and Hekmatyar worked closely together. During the early 1990s al-Qaeda's training camps in the Khost region of eastern Afghanistan were situated in an area controlled by Hekmatyar's party."

It's worth dwelling for a moment on that set of facts. An internal Iraqi Intelligence document reports that Iraqis have "good relations" with Hekmatyar and that his organization "relies on financial support from Iraq." At precisely the same time, Hekmatyar "worked closely" with Osama bin Laden and his Afghani Islamic Party hosted "al Qaeda's terrorist training camps" in eastern Afghanistan.

The IIS document also reveals that Saddam was funding another close ally of bin Laden, the EIJ organization of Ayman al Zawahiri.

In a meeting in the Sudan we agreed to renew our relations with the Islamic Jihad Organization in Egypt. Our information on the group is as follows:

It was established in 1979.

Its goal is to apply the Islamic shari'a law and establish Islamic rule.

It is considered one of the most brutal Egyptian organizations. It carried out numerous successful operations, including the assassination of [Egyptian President Anwar] Sadat.

We have previously met with the organization's representative and we agreed on a plan to carry out commando operations against the Egyptian regime.

Zawahiri arrived in Afghanistan in the mid-1980s, and "from the start he concentrated his efforts on getting close to bin Laden," according to Lawrence Wright, in The Looming Tower. The leaders of EIJ quickly became leaders of bin Laden's organizations. "He soon succeeded in placing trusted members of Islamic Jihad in key positions around bin Laden," Wright reported in the definitive profile of Zawahiri, published in the New Yorker in September 2002. "According to the Islamist attorney Montasser al-Zayat, 'Zawahiri completely controlled bin Laden. The largest share of bin Laden's financial support went to Zawahiri and the Jihad organization."

Later, Wright describes the founding of al Qaeda.

Stephen F. Hayes

What a Pentagon review of 600,000 Iraqi documents tells us.

by Stephen F. Hayes

2nd  part of 2

Toward the end of 1989, a meeting took place in the Afghan town of Khost at a mujahideen camp. A Sudanese fighter named Jamal al-Fadl was among the participants, and he later testified about the event in a New York courtroom during one of the trials connected with the 1998 bombing of the American embassies in East Africa. According to Fadl, the meeting was attended by ten men--four or five of them Egyptians, including Zawahiri. Fadl told the court that the chairman of the meeting, an Iraqi known as Abu Ayoub, proposed the formation of a new organization that would wage jihad beyond the borders of Afghanistan. There was some dispute about the name, but ultimately the new organization came to be called Al Qaeda--the Base. The alliance was conceived as a loose affiliation among individual mujahideen and established groups, and was dominated by Egyptian Islamic Jihad. The ultimate boss, however, was Osama bin Laden, who held the checkbook.

Once again, it's worth dwelling on these facts for a moment. In 1989, Ayman al Zawahiri attended the founding meeting of al Qaeda. He was literally present at the creation, and his EIJ "dominated" the new organization headed by Osama bin Laden.

In the early 1990s, Zawahiri and bin Laden moved their operations to Sudan. After a fundraising trip to the United States in the spring of 1993, Zawahiri returned to Sudan where, again according to Wright, he "began working more closely with bin Laden, and most of the Egyptian members of Islamic Jihad went on the Al Qaeda payroll." Although some members of EIJ were skeptical of bin Laden and his global aspirations, Zawahiri sought a de facto merger with al Qaeda. One of his top assistants would later say Zawahiri had told him that "joining with bin Laden [was] the only solution to keeping the Jihad organization alive."

Again, at precisely the same time Zawahiri was "joining with bin Laden," the spring of 1993, he was being funded by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. As Zawahiri's jihadists trained in al Qaeda camps in Sudan, his representative to Iraq was planning "commando operations" against the Egyptian government with the IIS.

Another captured Iraqi document from early 1993 "reports on contact with a large number of terrorist groups in the region, including those that maintained an office or liaison in Iraq." In the same folder is a memo from Saddam Hussein to a member of his Revolutionary Council ordering the formation of "a group to start hunting Americans present on Arab soil, especially Somalia." A second memo to the director of the IIS, instructs him to revise the plan for "operations inside Somalia."

More recently, captured "annual reports" of the IIS reveal support for terrorist organizations in the months leading up the U.S. invasion in March 2003. According to the Pentagon study, "the IIS hosted thirteen conferences in 2002 for a number of Palestinian and other organizations, including delegations from the Islamic Jihad Movement and the Director General for the Popular Movement for the Liberation of al-Ahwaz." The same annual report "also notes that among the 699 passports, renewals and other official documentation that the IIS issued, many were issued to known members of terrorist organizations."

The Pentagon study goes on to describe captured documents that instruct the IIS to maintain contact with all manner of Arab movement and others that "reveal that later IIS activities went beyond just maintaining contact." Throughout the 1990s, the Iraqi regime's General Military Intelligence Directorate "was training Sudanese fighters inside Iraq."

The second section of the Pentagon study also discusses captured documents related to the Islamic Resistance organization in Kurdistan from 1998 and 1999. The documents show that the Iraqi regime provided "financial and moral support" to members of the group, which would later become part of the al Qaeda affiliate in the region, Ansar al Islam.

The third section of the Pentagon study is called "Iraq and Terrorism: Three Cases." One of the cases is that of the Army of Muhammad, the al Qaeda affiliate in Bahrain. A series of memoranda order an Iraqi Intelligence operative in Bahrain to explore a relationship with its leaders. On July 9, 2001, the agent reports back: "Information available to us is that the group is under the wings of bin Laden. They receive their directions from Yemen. Their objectives are the same as bin Laden." Later, he lists the organization's objectives.

Jihad in the name of God

Striking the embassies and other Jewish and American interests anywhere in the world.

Attacking the American and British military bases in the Arab land.

Striking American embassies and interests unless the Americans pull out their forces from the Arab lands and discontinue their support for Israel.

Disrupting oil exports [to] the Americans from Arab countries and threatening tankers carrying oil to them.

A separate memo reveals that the Army of Muhammad has requested assistance from Iraq. The study authors summarize the response by writing, "the local IIS station has been told to deal with them in accordance with priorities previously established. The IIS agent goes on to inform the Director that 'this organization is an offshoot of bin Laden, but that their objectives are similar but with different names that can be a way of camouflaging the organization.'"

We never learn what those "previous priorities" were and thus what, if anything, came of these talks. But it is instructive that the operative in Bahrain understood the importance of disguising relations with al Qaeda and that the director of IIS, knowing that the group was affiliated with bin Laden and sought to attack Americans, seemed more interested in continuing the relationship than in ending it.

The fourth and final section of the Pentagon study is called "The Business of Terror." The authors write: "An example of indirect cooperation is the movement led by Osama bin Laden. During the 1990s, both Saddam and bin Laden wanted the West, particularly the United States, out of Muslim lands (or in the view of Saddam, the "Arab nation"). . . . In pursuit of their own separate but surprisingly 'parallel' visions, Saddam and bin Laden often found a common enemy in the United States."

They further note that Saddam's security organizations and bin Laden's network

were recruiting within the same demographic, spouting much of the same rhetoric, and promoting a common historical narrative that promised a return to a glorious past. That these movements (pan-Arab and pan-Islamic) had many similarities and strategic parallels does not mean they saw themselves in that light. Nevertheless, these similarities created more than just the appearance of cooperation. Common interests, even without common cause, increased the aggregate terror threat.

As much as we have learned from this impressive collection of documents, it is only a fraction of what we will know in 10, 20, or 50 years. The authors themselves acknowledge the limits of their work.

In fact, there are several captured Iraqi documents that have been authenticated by the U.S. government that were not included in the study but add to the picture it sketches. One document, authenticated by the Defense Intelligence Agency and first reported on 60 Minutes, is dated March 28, 1992. It describes Osama bin Laden as an Iraqi intelligence asset "in good contact" with the IIS station in Syria.

Another Iraqi document, this one from the mid-1990s, was first reported in the New York Times on June 25, 2004. Authenticated by a Pentagon and intelligence working group, the document was titled "Iraqi Effort to Cooperate with Saudi Opposition Groups and Individuals." The working group concluded that it "corroborates and expands on previous reporting" on contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda. It revealed that a Sudanese government official met with Uday Hussein and the director of the IIS in 1994 and reported that bin Laden was willing to meet in Sudan. Bin Laden, according to the Iraqi document, was then "approached by our side" after "presidential approval" for the liaison was given. The former head of Iraqi Intelligence Directorate 4 met with bin Laden on February 19, 1995. The document further states that bin Laden "had some reservations about being labeled an Iraqi operative"--a comment that suggests the possibility had been discussed.

Bin Laden requested that Iraq's state-run television network broadcast anti-Saudi propaganda, and the document indicates that the Iraqis agreed to do this. The al Qaeda leader also proposed "joint operations against foreign forces" in Saudi Arabia. There is no Iraqi response provided in the documents. When bin Laden left Sudan for Afghanistan in May 1996, the Iraqis sought "other channels through which to handle the relationship, in light of his current location." The IIS memo directs that "cooperation between the two organizations should be allowed to develop freely through discussion and agreement."

In another instance, the new Pentagon study makes reference to captured documents detailing the Iraqi relationship with Abu Sayyaf, the al Qaeda affiliate in the Philippines founded by Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law. But the Pentagon study does not mention the most significant element of those documents, first reported in these pages. In a memo from Ambassador Salah Samarmad to the Secondary Policy Directorate of the Iraqi Foreign Ministry, we learn that the Iraqi regime had been funding and equipping Abu Sayyaf, which had been responsible for a series of high-profile kidnappings. The Iraqi operative informs Baghdad that such support had been suspended. "The kidnappers were formerly (from the previous year) receiving money and purchasing combat weapons. From now on we (IIS) are not giving them this opportunity and are not on speaking terms with them." That support would resume soon enough, and shortly before the war a high-ranking Iraqi diplomat named Hisham Hussein would be expelled from the Philippines after his cell phone number appeared on an Abu Sayyaf cell phone used to detonate a bomb.

What's happening here is obvious. Military historians and terrorism analysts are engaged in a good faith effort to review the captured documents from the Iraqi regime and provide a dispassionate, fact-based examination of Saddam Hussein's long support of jihadist terrorism. Most reporters don't care. They are trapped in a world where the Bush administration lied to the country about an Iraq-al Qaeda connection, and no amount of evidence to the contrary--not even the words of the fallen Iraqi regime itself--can convince them to reexamine their mistaken assumptions.

Bush administration officials, meanwhile, tell us that the Iraq war is the central front in the war on terror and that American national security depends on winning there. And yet they are too busy or too tired or too lazy to correct these fundamental misperceptions about the case for war, the most important decision of the Bush presidency.

What good is the truth if nobody knows it?

Stephen F. Hayes is a senior writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

© Copyright 2008, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved.

Report Details Saddam's Terrorist Ties.

BY ELI LAKE

WASHINGTON — A Pentagon review of about 600,000 documents captured in the Iraq war attests to Saddam Hussein's willingness to use terrorism to target Americans and work closely with jihadist organizations throughout the Middle East.

The report, released this week by the Institute for Defense Analyses, says it found no "smoking gun" linking Iraq operationally to Al Qaeda. But it does say Saddam collaborated with known Al Qaeda affiliates and a wider constellation of Islamist terror groups.

The report, titled "Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents," finds that:

• The Iraqi Intelligence Service in a 1993 memo to Saddam agreed on a plan to train commandos from Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the group that assassinated Anwar Sadat and was founded by Al Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

• In the same year, Saddam ordered his intelligence service to "form a group to start hunting Americans present on Arab soil; especially Somalia." At the time, Al Qaeda was working with warlords against American forces there.

• Saddam's intelligence services maintained extensive support networks for a wide range of Palestinian Arab terrorist organizations, including but not limited to Hamas. Among the other Palestinian groups Saddam supported at the time was Force 17, the private army loyal to Yasser Arafat.

• Beginning in 1999, Iraq's intelligence service began providing "financial and moral support" for a small radical Islamist Kurdish sect the report does not name. A Kurdish Islamist group called Ansar al Islam in 2002 would try to assassinate the regional prime minister in the eastern Kurdish region, Barham Salih.

• In 2001, Saddam's intelligence service drafted a manual titled "Lessons in Secret Organization and Jihad Work—How to Organize and Overthrow the Saudi Royal Family." In the same year, his intelligence service submitted names of 10 volunteer "martyrs" for operations inside the Kingdom.

• In 2000, Iraq sent a suicide bomber through Northern Iraq who intended to travel to London to assassinate Ahmad Chalabi, at the time an Iraqi opposition leader who would later go on to be an Iraqi deputy prime minister. The mission was aborted after the bomber could not obtain a visa to enter the United Kingdom.

The report finds that Abdul Rahman Yasin, who is wanted by the FBI for mixing the chemicals for the 1993 World Center Attack, was a prisoner, and not a guest, in Iraq. An audio file of Saddam cited by the report indicates that the Iraqi dictator did not trust him and at one point said that he thought his testimony was too "organized." Saddam said on an audio file cited by the report that he suspected that the first attack could be the work of either Israel or American intelligence, or perhaps a Saudi or Egyptian faction.

The report also undercuts the claim made by many on the left and many at the CIA that Saddam, as a national socialist, was incapable of supporting or collaborating with the Islamist al Qaeda. The report concludes that instead Iraq's relationship with Osama bin Laden's organization was similar to the relationship between the rival Colombian cocaine cartels in the 1990s. Both were rivals in some sense for market share, but also allies when it came to expanding the size of the overall market.

The Pentagon study finds, "Recognizing Iraq as a second, or parallel, 'terror cartel' that was simultaneously threatened by and somewhat aligned with its rival helps to explain the evidence emerging from the detritus of Saddam's regime."

A long time skeptic of the connection between al Qaeda and Iraq and a former CIA senior Iraq analyst, Judith Yaphe yesterday said, "I think the report indicates that Saddam was willing to work with almost any group be it nationalist or Islamic, that was willing to work for his objectives. But in the long term he did not trust many of the Islamist groups, especially those linked to Saudi Arabia or Iran." She added, "He really did want to get anti-American operations going. The fact that they had little success shows in part their incompetence and unwilling surrogates."

A former Bush administration official who was a member of the counter-terrorism evaluation group that analyzed terror networks and links between terrorists and states, David Wurmser, said he felt the report began to vindicate his point of view.

"This is the beginning of the process of exposing Saddam's involvement in Islamic terror. But it is only the beginning. Time and declassification I'm sure will reveal yet more," he said. "Even so, this report is damning to those who doubted Saddam Hussein's involvement with Jihadist terrorist groups. It devastates one of the central myths plaguing our government prior to 9-11, that a Jihadist group would not cooperate with a secular regime and vice versa."

The report concludes that Saddam until the final months of his regime was willing to attack America. Its conclusion asks "Is there anything in the captured archives to indicate that Saddam had the will to use his terrorist capabilities directly against the United States?" It goes on, "Judging from Saddam's statements before the 1991 Gulf War with the United States, the answer is yes." As for after the Gulf War, the report states, "The rise of Islamist fundamentalism in the region gave Saddam the opportunity to make terrorism, one of the few tools remaining in Saddam's 'coercion' tool box." It goes on, "Evidence that was uncovered and analyzed attests to the existence of a terrorist capability and a willingness to use it until the day Saddam was forced to flee Baghdad by Coalition forces." The report does note that it is unclear whether Saddam would have authorized terrorism against American targets in the final months of his regime before Operation Iraqi Freedom five years ago. "The answer to the question of Saddam's will in the final months in power remains elusive," it says.

ELI LAKE

 

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

 

ON THE RIGHTS OF ‘SETTLERS’

BY SHMUEL KATZ    

US Ambassador Richard Jones was recently reported to have asked Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch about the legal status of the "settlements."

This is indeed a subject which has long been neglected - or simply ignored. The answer to the question is a simple one, but in view of the obfuscation which has for years gathered around it, it is essential to examine its roots.

THEY LIE COMFORTABLY IN THE TEXT OF THE MANDATE FOR PALESTINE WHICH WAS CONFERRED ON BRITAIN IN 1922 BY THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

The Mandate's objective was to facilitate the "reconstitution" of the Jewish National Home in Palestine. It was intended to serve as the legal instrument for implementing Britain's 1917 Balfour Declaration. The essential obligations of the mandatory were to facilitate the immigration of Jews and encourage their "close settlement" on the land, including state and waste lands. (In accordance with the Balfour Declaration, "the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities" were to be protected.)

The vision of the Balfour Declaration was encapsulated a couple of years later by cabinet minister Winston Churchill, who wrote that "a Jewish state will arise in our day on the banks of the Jordan."

At that time, too, the League of Nations conferred on Britain a Mandate for Mesopotamia (Iraq); and Mandates for Syria and Lebanon were conferred on France, presaging the establishment of sovereign Arab states.

Thus did the Allied nations complete the sharing out of the territories they had captured from the Turks in the Great War of 1914-1918.

ADDED UP, these Arab states-to-be accounted for some 99 percent of the total conquered area.

In its capture during the war it may be said the Arabs themselves played practically no part. The so-called Arab Revolt against the Turks, heavily financed by Britain and brilliantly portrayed by T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia), did not in fact take place at all. Eighty percent of the Arabs who fought in the war did so on the side of the Turks.

The Jewish people not only fielded a Jewish fighting legion in Palestine, but also a most effective intelligence service in Palestine and Syria.

Nevertheless, when peace came Arab voices were raised against the British undertaking to the Jews. Balfour admonished them. He pointed out that it was the British who had established an independent sovereignty in Hejaz (the Mandates came two years later), and he added: "I hope they will remember that it is we who desire in Mesopotamia to prepare the way for the future of a self-governing Arab state and I hope that, understanding all that, they will not grudge that small notch being given to the people who for all these hundreds of years have been separated from it."

Yet - in 1922 at the last moment, the British inserted a clause (Number 25) excluding the

provision of the Jewish National Home from the area east of the Jordan River.

Zionist protest went unheeded; and so the almost-empty eastern Palestine, renamed Transjordan, ultimately became the Kingdom of Jordan, adding another state to the tremendous Arab domain.

THE FACT THAT IT WAS A PALESTINIAN STATE COULD NOT BE ERASED, NOR THAT THE MAJORITY OF ITS INHABITANTS HAVE COME FROM WESTERN PALESTINE.

Thus was executed the first partition of the Land of Israel.THE STATUS of Jewish settlement in what remained of Palestine remained unaffected. But as the years went by, the steady British retreat from their obligations, particularly by severe limitations on Jewish immigration, finally led to the White Paper of 1939. Apart from new land laws, it projected that Jewish immigration would be allowed at 15,000 souls a year for five years and then completely frozen.

There would be no Jewish National Home. There would be an Arab majority, and some form of British overlordship to protect Jewish minority interests.

The White Paper, fiercely attacked in Parliament, was passed - by a reduced majority.

But any change in British policy in Mandatory Palestine was subject to the approval of the League of Nations. The League, it was true, had for some years already been seen as an effete body, but its constitutional authority had remained intact. For monitoring the progress of the various mandates it maintained a kind of watchdog commission, and considered any proposed changes in the terms of the Mandate only if approved by the Mandate Commission.

WHEN IN 1939 THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT SUBMITTED THE WHITE PAPER TO THE COMMISSION, IT REFUSED ITS APPROVAL ON THE GROUNDS THAT IT DID NOT CONFORM TO THE TERMS OF THE MANDATE.

Angry British Foreign Office senior officials exchanged notes and discussed among themselves the desperate policy of proposing a change in the Mandate itself. But they were stymied. It was too late - nearly the end of August 1939, and on the first of September World War II broke out. The Council of the League of Nations never met again. With it died the White Paper.

The Mandate remained the defining document for governing Palestine.

THE BRITISH government, frustrated, did not relent.

It launched a bitter campaign, using diplomatic channels in Europe to prevent Jews escaping and employing the Royal Navy to intercept boats carrying Jewish refugees from Europe and prevent their reaching the Jewish National Home.

Indeed, when Churchill was prime minister he wrote in an internal instruction that "the White Paper stands."

The Mandate, however, with its injunction to assist Jewish settlement, remained intact and after World War II was "inherited" by the United Nations.

It was a period of considerable unrest which, despite much repressive effort, the British could not subdue.

Under the pressure of a highly effective Jewish underground fighting force (and consequent reactive political pressure at home) the Labor government finally returned the Mandate to the UN (in the spring of 1947).

The UN, in a dramatic special session, in effect accepted Britain's resignation and later that year decided to recommend the partition of Palestine between Jews and Arabs.

(NOT PALESTINIANS. NOBODY HAD HEARD OF SUCH A SEPARATE ENTITY.)

The Arab states rejected that offer.

THUS PALESTINE, WITH THE RIGHTS OF JEWISH SETTLEMENT, REMAINED UNDIVIDED AS THE JEWISH STATE BETWEEN THE JORDAN AND THE MEDITERRANEAN.

The Arab refusal was not a whim. The idea of a non-Arab state (and specifically a hated Jewish state) "in the heart of the Arab world" was anathema to them. It was reflected by a claim of possession of the whole country.

Immediately after the UN session, the League of Arab States decided to go to war to destroy the Jewish state at birth.

In the meantime a preliminary campaign of terror was launched against the Jewish community.

Then on May 14, 1948, the day the British left, five well-armed Arab states - Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq - invaded the country.

The losses Israel sustained in that war of nine months exceeded, in proportion of population, the losses sustained by Britain and America in World War I. The invasion success was limited not only by the inordinate valor of the youth of Israel, but in time by the supply of much-needed arms by Czechoslovakia (with Soviet permission) and France.

*HOWEVER, Jordan succeeded in holding on to the eastern highlands (primarily Judea and Samaria) and then even presumptuously announced their annexation.

*Egypt captured the Gaza "Strip."

*IT IS NOT IRRELEVANT TO MENTION THAT IN THE NEXT 19 YEARS OF JORDANIAN AND
EGYPTIAN OCCUPATION, NEITHER JORDAN NOR EGYPT PROPOSED, NOR DID THE PALESTINIAN ARABS DEMAND FROM JORDAN AND EGYPT, THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A PALESTINIAN STATE.

*TO THE CONTRARY, PALESTINIAN ARAB TERROR CONTINUED TO OPERATE AS BEFORE AGAINST ISRAEL.

Then in 1967, Egypt, Syria and Jordan again attacked Israel, again with the repeated announcement that the objective was its "annihilation." Israel turned the tables and won the war.

Soon after that victory, Israel offered the Arabs to hand them all the territory it had regained, in return for peace.

AT A CONFERENCE IN KHARTOUM THE UNANIMOUS ARAB REPLY WAS: NO NEGOTIATIONS. NO PEACE. NO RECOGNITION.

So once again Jewish settlement rights had been endangered, and once again had
been saved by Arab intransigence.

It was shortly afterward that the movement of Jewish settlers was launched. It is noteworthy that the last defining document that underwrites the legality was the Geneva Convention of 1949. It dealt with occupied territories. Its second clause, stating its scope, makes it clear that it does not apply to the Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria - because Jordan was not a sovereign possessor but an illegal invader, and similarly was Egypt an illegal invader of Gaza.

ISRAEL LIBERATED BOTH AREAS, RESTORING THEM TO THE TERRITORY OF THE PALESTINE MANDATE OF 1922.

From the point of view of international law these settlers are as legal as any resident of Manhattan or of Shreveport, Louisiana.

SHMUEL KATZ    

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

 

 

 

Fatah's Embrace of Islamism. Part I

by Ido Zelkovitz

 

1^st part of 2

 

Many U.S. and European diplomats contrast Fatah's Palestinian nationalism with Hamas's Islamism. At a November 28, 2007 press conference, U.S. national security advisor Stephen Hadley praised Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas and cited President George W. Bush's argument that "Hamas, Hezbollah, and Al-Qaeda [are] different faces of the same evil: a radical ideology seeking to impose its world-view throughout the Middle East and beyond."[1] But, while Fatah, the core of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), may have its roots in the revolutionary, secular-oriented ideologies of the 1960s and 1970s,[2] Islamist discourse is also integral to the movement.[3] Indeed, even as Western diplomats seek to bolster Fatah's Abbas as an alternative to Hamas, they underestimate the degree to which Palestinian nationalism now intertwines itself with Islam.[4] Since the 2000 Palestinian uprising, Fatah has fused national and religious symbols in order to

use Islam as an instrument of mobilization.[5]

 

Fatah Imagery in the Twentieth Century

In the 1970s, Fatah graphic art promoted the culture of armed struggle which was at the heart of Fatah's ideology. This enabled Fatah to mobilize the masses in the absence of a solid ideology among the divided and faction-ridden Palestinian society. Its imagery and texts sanctified violent struggle as the miracle cure for Palestinian problems. From the everyday struggle, they believed, would grow the formulas and theories for their ideology in the future.[6]

 

Before the outbreak of the second intifada, a Palestinian public opinion survey (conducted between November 1997 and March 1999) revealed that 87.6 percent of Fatah supporters believed Islam should play a major role in the future life of Palestinian society, and 80 percent said that any future Palestinian state should be run according to Islamic law.[7]

 

Fatah was the dominant political movement in the West Bank and Gaza from the Oslo-sanctioned return of PLO leader Yasir Arafat in 1994 until at least 2000. In September 2000, the Palestinians launched an uprising and unleashed a wave of terrorist attacks, which they named the "Al-Aqsa" intifada. Fatah re-branded its armed wing—previously known as the Storm, Al-'Asifa[8]—calling it Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a name chosen to bolster both Palestinian claims to Jerusalem and Fatah's religious claims. In one of the brigades' earliest proclamations, its members said they fought for independence, and national and religious values.[9]

 

Previously, Palestinian figures embraced the sectarian diversity of Palestinian Arabs, especially for the Western audience. For example, in a London press conference, Yasir Arafat said that "according to our religiousness, Christians should be mentioned before the Muslims," which was in the context of the suffering of the Palestinian people as a result of the intifada.[10] But today Palestinian society emphasizes Muslim supremacy. Fatah expresses its new Islamist discourse not only in educational and cultural terms but also in its embrace of suicide bombing—"self-martyrdom" (istishad)—as a tactic.

Fatah infused its icons with religious imagery in support of its fighters and suicide bombers. A proclamation in memory of Suhail 'Ali Bakr, an Al-Aqsa member responsible for producing and launching rockets and killed in a February 7, 2007 Israeli air strike, combined the traditional colors of the Islamic jihad flag with the black-and-white checkered headscarf (kaffiyeh), long the symbol of the Fatah movement.

 

Fatah has embraced Islamist discourse for several reasons. First, competition with Hamas led its leaders to invoke Islam as a way to create a system of symbols and images that, combined with the national struggle, would fuse past and present and pave the way to an ideal future.

 

In the mid-1980s, Fatah established satellite groups with an Islamic appearance in response to the activities of Islamic Jihad.[11] Then, as Hamas became a competitor in the run-up to and after the outbreak of the second intifada, Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades printed a Qur'anic verse on their banner that read, "Fight against them! God will chastise them by your hands, and will bring disgrace upon them, and will succor you against them; and He will soothe the bosoms of those who believe."[12] It is no coincidence that Hamas used the same verse on its proclamations during the first intifada.[13]

 

Even Arafat embraced religious reference. Arafat often used the language of the Qur'an to mobilize the Palestinians,[14] especially during times of war. For example, on July 22, 1981,[15] in the months before the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Arafat told his followers, "Permission (to fight) is granted to those who are being persecuted, since injustice has befallen them, and God is certainly able to support them. They were evicted from their homes unjustly, for no reason other than saying, 'Our lord is Allah.'"[16] Arafat then cites the Qu'ran to promise the afterlife to those who fight for God and Palestine:

 

God has bought from the believers their lives and their money in exchange for Paradise. Thus, they fight in the cause of God, willing to kill and get killed. Such is His truthful pledge in the Torah, the Gospel, and the Qur'an—and who fulfills His pledge better than God? You shall rejoice in making such an exchange. This is the greatest triumph.[17]

 

In response to allegations that the Israeli army planned to deport him from the West Bank and Gaza, in 2002, he said, "They will not take me captive or prisoner, or expel [me], but as a martyr, martyr, martyr. O God, give me martyrdom." He then quoted the Prophet Muhammad:

 

There still exists a group in my nation that preserves its religion, vanquishes its enemy, and is not harmed by any one who attacks it, and its people are the victors, due to God's strength. It was said [to the Prophet Muhammad], "O Messenger of God, where are they and who are [these people]?" The Prophet answered:

"They are in Jerusalem and its surroundings, and they are at the forefront until Judgment Day."[18]

 

In many ways, Arafat paved the way for the growth of Islamism within Fatah.

 

Second, given Israel's military dominance, Fatah may have embraced Islamism to counterbalance its technological weakness. Faith can be a useful counterweight to science and technology. During the Iran-Iraq war and in subsequent Arab suicide bombing campaigns, Islam provided the motivation for young fighters to confront technologically superior enemies, which conventional forces usually refrain from fighting.

 

Third, Islam may have provided a useful glue to overcome factionalization within Fatah. The second intifada left Fatah beset by internal divisions and rivalries. The clan and sub-clan nature of Palestinian-Arab society compounded the problem.[19] Arafat empowered the biggest clans and extended families as a counterweight to the rising, young, local leadership from the "new middle class."[20] Bodies which rely on a sub-national identity in the broader framework of a national movement need an additional element to broaden their power base. Islam provided a useful mechanism by which to hold the clans together.

Islam also provided Fatah a much-needed makeover. Implanted as a political entity in the West Bank and Gaza after the 1993 Oslo accords, by 2000, Fatah was associated with corruption in the minds of many Palestinians.[21] An Islamist patina enabled Fatah to create an image of incorruptibility, purity, and devotion to jihad.

 

The Oslo process enabled the Palestinian Authority to develop a formal armed force. Arafat built ten separate security apparatuses, each headed by loyalists.[22] For example, Amin al-Hindi led General Intelligence, and Faisal Abu Sharkh led Presidential Security.[23]

 

On September 28, 2000, followers of Marwan Barghouti, a West Bank Fatah leader convicted on May 20, 2004, of five counts of murder, formed the core of Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades.[24] The brigades' operations are decentralized, in part because of the tension between the young guard, born in the West Bank and Gaza, and Fatah's old guard, who spent most of their lives overseas.[25] Islam provided a bond to hold the factions together and, unlike Palestinian nationalism, also allowed the group to establish links to non-Palestinian movements under the banner of Islamic solidarity. Zakaria Zubaydi, the chief commander of Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades in the Jenin area, for example, said that his group receives funds from Hezbollah.[26]

 

Fatah Factions Discover Islam

The change in the discourse can be seen in the case of the Fatah Hawks who, during the first intifada, both spearheaded the Fatah fight against Israel in the Gaza Strip and fought against Hamas activists. The Hawks, who had earlier represented themselves as a national element fighting against the extreme Islamist movement, [27] today boast that, upon "God's great name," they "will protect the beautiful Islamic land of Palestine."[28]

 

Hawks' communiqués abound in Islamic discourse. Reference to "pure soil" is also a frequent motif in Hawks' statements as the group seeks to claim the land of Israel as exclusive Muslim property. Their statements often speak about "the Arabic and Islamic people," tying Fatah to a struggle greater than just Gaza and the West Bank.[29]

 

Visual material about the Hawks also testifies to the importance of Islam in their ethos. The profession of faith and the cry of "God is Great," both of which fighters recite on their way to jihad, appear on their flag.

 

On their shield, the Hawks also use visuals, such as the Dome of the Rock, which reflect Palestinian folklore as national symbols. From the dome arises a map of Palestine, incorporating all of Israel and colored green to represent Islam. That the map rises from the dome suggests a reference to Muhammad's nocturnal ascent to heaven. While the Qur'an does not mention Jerusalem, and the Arabs built Al-Aqsa mosque more than fifty years after Muhammad's death,[30] Muslims commonly consider it the site of Muhammad's night journey to heaven. Above the image is a Qur'anic verse, "When God's Succor Comes, and Victory."[31] The Arabic term nasr, which appears at the pinnacle of the Fatah shield, has two meanings:

"salvation" and "victory." Fatah seeks to intertwine the two even further with its slogan, "Revolution until Victory" (thawra hata' an-nasr).

 

The Shahid Ahmad Abu'r-Rish Brigades, a Fatah faction centered in the Khan Yunis and Rafah areas, also accord Islam a central role. The brigades acknowledge a close relationship with Hamas based both on shared religious principles and on having fought together "in the trenches against the enemies of the motherland and religion."[32] On their Internet site, they call themselves Ansar al-Islam (Supporters of Islam), an expression that refers to the companions of Muhammad in Medina.[33]

 

The Abu'r-Rish Brigades declare their aims to be not only the liberation of Palestine but also exaltation of God and flying the flag of Islam. They explain, "We believe that Allah is God, and Islam is our faith, for the Prophet is a model and teacher for us, for our way is the way of the jihad for the sake of Allah."[34] This slogan, which mirrors one used by the Muslim Brotherhood, is now a staple of Fatah demonstrations in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.[35] They also use the Arabic hijra calendar.

 

On an earlier home page, the brigades appealed to religious emotion, portraying the Qur'an and the Dome of the Rock on a green background. This page was shut down by the Canadian government in mid-2006 after a Canadian court accused the Abu'r-Rish Brigades of terrorism.[36] Like their mother organization, the Fatah Hawks, they created a motif of a map of undivided Palestine in green above the Dome of the Rock, denoting the whole of Palestine as a waqf, or religious endowment. Crossed Kalashnikov rifles signify fulfillment of the goal of liberating the land through jihad—through armed struggle against the Israeli presence. The Abu'r-Rish Brigades forbid any Western solution involving compromise with Israel. They mix classical Fatah discourse describing Israel as a branch of Western imperialism[37] with Islamic terminology and suggest jihad to be the only solution to the Palestinian question.[38] This policy is reflected in the Qur'anic quotes: "O ye who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors. They are but friends and protectors to each other."[39] By this quote they portray themselves as a nationalist-Islamic force that stands against the "imperialist-infidel" conspiracy to divide Palestine.

 

The Clear Victory Brigades, whose name in Arabic derives from the Qur'an,[40] call for the continuation of the struggle by means of the word and the rifle and seek both moral reckoning and the preservation of social values now in decline.[41] The use of names indicating the Islamic roots of Fatah falls into a pattern reminiscent of the first intifada when the political struggle between Fatah and Hamas was expressed in part through Fatah graffiti bearing a religious complexion: "Allah is my Lord; Islam is my faith; the Qur'an is my book; to the Ka'ba, I turn in prayer; Muhammad is my prophet; Fatah is my movement," or "There is no god but Allah—thus we have always believed (Fatah, Nablus)," and "Fatah everywhere—even in the Qur'an."[42]

 

The Holy Warriors Brigade, active in the Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City, was created from within Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades after the death of Jihad 'Amarin, one of the founders of the brigades in the Gaza Strip. Abu al-Sheikh, one of its activists, said the name symbolizes "those who stand for the Islamic ideal within Fatah, which is a movement with a variety of modes of action (ijtihadat). We have no connection with any other movement, despite our good relations with the other Palestinian organizations."[43]

 

The Pioneers of the Army of the People—The Brigade of the Return—is another clear example of the mixing of religious and national symbols. Its banner also features a green map of repartition Palestine and an image of the Dome of the Rock with crossed rifle-barrels. Accompanying the banner is the Qur'anic verse, "Kill those who fight you everywhere."[44] Its members devote themselves to liberation of land "completely under the aegis of God and in the fulfillment of His commandments."[45]

 

The picture of an activist of the faction sitting on what appears to be a rostrum reflects the depth of the blending of the symbols (see Figure 6): Behind the activist hangs a Palestinian flag decorated with the Muslim profession of faith, next to which is the logo of Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. A Pioneers of the Army of the People flag covers the table. The activist himself chose to be photographed reading the Qur'an with weapons

placed beside him.

 

Despite their internecine struggles for prestige, all of these Fatah factions duplicate certain symbols: the Dome of the Rock and a green map of Palestine. Quotations from the Qur'an cement the link between religion and Palestinian nationalism. Yunus Karim, a senior Fatah member imprisoned in Israel for twenty-five years for the murder of an Israeli soldier, complained that the new generation of Fatah fighters know about jihad but

only learn about Fatah's philosophy when in prison.[46]

 

Ido Zelkovitz