The Deranged World of Cynthia McKinney

by Rich Trzupek

Former United States Representative Cynthia McKinney is at it again: spouting nonsense on the world stage and lending aid and comfort to America’s enemies via an apparently never-ending stream of ridiculous and unfounded pronouncements. McKinney took her show on the road to the Middle East, where she fanned the flames of American hatred by telling Muslims living in Libya and Iran that the United States is exactly what they believe it is: a fat, bloated nation controlled by Israel that exploits the poor in order to line the pockets of the wealthy.

Appearing on Libyan state television, McKinney said that the United States had no business being involved in the conflict there, especially given the way that Obama administration is exploiting America’s poor.

“Under the economic policies of the Obama administration, those who have the least are losing the most. And those who have the most are getting even more,” she said. “The situation in the United States is becoming more dire for average ordinary Americans, and the last thing we need to do is to spend money on death, destruction and war.”

That’s classic McKinney of course. As a Congresswoman, she never displayed the slightest understanding of economics, nor did she show the even the faintest interest in learning about how modern economies function. Her job, as she saw it, was to secure the largest possible piece of the juicy federal pie for her district – period. And so, if real unemployment in America has been stuck over fifteen per cent throughout the Obama administration, the only conclusion McKinney is capable of coming to grips with is that the administration is passing out too many goodies to the wrong people.

Yet, ignoring the realities of free market economics was just the tip of the iceberg. McKinney saved her most outrageous statements for the people of the nation that represents the most dangerous and powerful threat to peace in the Middle East: Iran. In an interview on Iranian state TV, she threw Israel under the bus and stoked Muslim anti-American paranoia at the same time.

McKinney expressed outrage and disgust because the American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC) expected her to sign a pledge to support Israel before they would consider sending her donations for her campaigns. This is of course common practice for any number of PACs, left, right or in the middle. At a minimum, PACs expect you to answer a questionnaire so they can determine how reliable your vote will be. Quite often, they ask candidates to sign pledges that formalize their commitment.

Anybody familiar with American politics understands that this is the way fundraising works, all across the board, for better or for worse. But, one must assume that the Iranian interviewer and her audience aren’t at all familiar with American-style politics and fund-raising. Accordingly, a person discussing something like a pledge to AIPAC surely has a moral obligation to put those kind of fund-raising tools into proper context. Not so with Cynthia McKinney.

As the interview develops, it’s clear that the interviewer believes that signing the AIPAC pledge is a requirement for anyone running for Congress and that signing this pledge is a unique – and therefore sinister – occurrence in American politics. McKinney plays right into the paranoia, making it sound like if you don’t support Israel, you can’t get possibly get any money and therefore can’t be elected to public office:

McKinney: You make a commitment that you would vote to support the military superiority of Israel that the economic assistant that Israel wants that you would vote to provide that.

Press TV: This is not a question for the Congress people serving that they are representing or they are supposed to be representing the people of the United States not a foreign country and yet they have to pledge allegiance to a foreign state? No one questions this?

McKinney: That is what I was asked to do and I made it public.

Any American interviewer worth their salt would have asked the logical next question: “Ms. McKinney, if you can’t get elected without big campaign contributions and if you can’t get big campaign contributions without committing to support the military superiority of Israel, how did you manage to get elected six times? You must have got campaign contributions from somewhere.”

Because she was appearing on television in a totalitarian state with a tame interviewer, that question would never be asked. The point of the exercise was to demonize Israel as much as possible and to fan the flames of anti-American hatred and paranoia as much as possible, and the facts be damned. It’s hard to believe that McKinney could be a bigger embarrassment out of office than she was when served in Congress, but that’s proving to be the case. The administration and Congress need to denounce her in the strongest possible terms, before she does even more damage to American and Israeli interests throughout the world.

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/05/26/cynthia-mckinney-stokes-anti-semitism-anti-americanism/

Rich Trzupek

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

Egypt Comes Out for Hamas

by Robert Spencer

In one of the clearest signs yet that the “Arab Spring” in post-Mubarak Egypt heralds a resurgent Islamic supremacism rather than a flowering of Western-style pluralism and democracy, Egyptian officials announced Wednesday that they were reopening the Rafah crossing this Saturday.

The Rafah crossing is the only official point of entry into Gaza other than from inside Israel. Egypt closed it for good in 2007 after Hamas took power in Gaza, as part of its uneasy observance of the Camp David Accords maintaining peace with Israel. The Rafah crossing had been an easy route into Israel for jihadis and their weapons suppliers who, for obvious reasons, wanted to avoid Israeli scrutiny.

But now it appears that peace with Israel is no longer such a high priority; instead, the new government in Egypt appears to be more concerned with accommodating Israel’s jihadist enemies. Egyptian officials announced that the Rafah crossing was being reopened in order to “end the status of the Palestinian division and achieve national reconciliation.”

The reopening of the Rafah crossing is just the latest indication that Egypt is heading toward becoming a Sharia state that is pursuing war with Israel. Man-on-the-street interviews conducted during the uprising against Mubarak more than once found ordinary Egyptians explaining to clueless and incredulous reporters from the likes of CNN that one of their principal beefs with Mubarak was that he maintained peace with Israel. “He is supporting Israel. Israel is our enemy,” protesters explained to the journalists who had come out looking for ringing declarations of love for democracy and pluralism. Instead, they heard that “if people are free in Egypt…they gonna destroy Israel.” Many of the demonstrators carried posters of Mubarak defaced with a Star of David drawn on his forehead.

In January, Mohamed Ghanem, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, said in an interview on Iran’s Al-Alam television station that Egypt should prepare to go to war with Israel. That same month, Iran’s Press TV interviewed an Egyptian international lawyer Marwan al-Ashaal. Al-Ashaal explained the popular discontent with Mubarak as a direct consequence of his keeping the peace with Israel: “Currently the Egyptians demand a new rule for the country, a new government, a new leader. The American-Egyptian relationships were based on Israeli security and I think Mubarak has been very dedicated to Israeli security more even than to his own people’s security or the national interests.” Al-Ashaal asserted that “we see the deals with Israel that provoked people and took them to the edge.” And he declared that Egypt is “never going to be a friend of Israel.”

Then there was the delirious welcome accorded the Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual father, the Egyptian Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi. In February one of the biggest and most enthusiastic crowds of the entire Egyptian revolution thronged to Cairo’s Tahrir Square to hear Qaradawi, who outdoes even the most Hitlerian Islamic clerics in his Jew-hatred and bloodlust. Former London Mayor Ken Livingstone welcomed Qaradawi to the city in 2004 and praised him repeatedly; during that visit Qaradawi explained to the BBC that suicide attacks against Israelis did not actually constitute suicide at all, but rather “martyrdom in the name of God.” In January 2009, during a Friday sermon broadcast on Al Jazeera, he prayed that Allah would kill all the Jews: “Oh Allah, take this oppressive, Jewish, Zionist band of people. Oh Allah, do not spare a single one of them. Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them, down to the very last one.” He also declared: “Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the people [Jews] who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by Hitler.”

That is the man who, by the record of the welcome Egyptians gave him in Tahrir Square that day, best embodies the spirit of the “Arab Spring.”

And so last week the Tunisian Muslim Brotherhood leader Rachid Ghannouchi was much more perspicacious than Western analysts when he predicted that the “Arab Spring” would lead to the destruction of Israel. For every day brings new advances toward power in Egypt by the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic supremacist groups allied with it. Once they finally attain that power, there is no indication whatsoever that they have any inclination to keep the peace with Israel that has prevailed, however uneasily, for the last thirty years; indeed, there is abundant indication to the contrary.

The Rafah crossing is just the beginning. Watch for more belligerence from Egypt toward Israel, and more Egyptian moves that redound to the benefit of Hamas. After all, Hamas styles itself in its charter as the Muslim Brotherhood for Palestine; why wouldn’t its sister organization in Egypt be interested in lending it a helping hand? And as it does so, it inches the Middle East and the world ever closer to the inevitable conflagration.

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/05/26/egypt-comes-out-for-hamas/

Robert Spencer

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

Tom Friedman: Bring Tahrir Square to Jerusalem

by Phyllis Chesler

This week, Tom Friedman more than earned his keep at The New York Times by essentially calling for the “non-violent” destruction of the Jewish State. I am not exaggerating. Wait until you read exactly what he’s written in his column: “Lessons From Tahrir Square.”

First, Friedman calls for a “Tahrir Square alternative” in terms of the Israel-“Palestine” impasse.

Tahrir Square? Did the man sleep through journalist Lara Logan’s mass gang rape there? Does he view such a mob as “peaceful” or “non-violent?” Does he not understand that the young Egyptian Wael Gonim has, perhaps unintentionally, paved the way for the far more organized Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists to assume power? Does Friedman actually believe that the Islamist factions at war with each other and with their overlords, chieftains, and dictators, are all engaged in “non-violent” social change?

Friedman does not focus on Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh, Libya’s Moammar Qaddafi or Bahrain’s King Hamad Bin Isa Al Khalifa —all of whom have been shooting down their own people in cold blood in the streets. He does not call for people of good will to “nonviolently” go and face these evil men down. No. Instead, listen to Friedman’s clarion call. He suggests that we should:

Announce that every Friday from today forward will be ‘Peace Day,’ and have thousands of West Bank Palestinians march nonviolently to Jerusalem, carrying two things — an olive branch in one hand and a sign in Hebrew and Arabic in the other. The sign should say: ‘Two states for two peoples. We, the Palestinian people, offer the Jewish people a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders — with mutually agreed adjustments — including Jerusalem, where the Arabs will control their neighborhoods and the Jews theirs.”

If Palestinians peacefully march to Jerusalem by the thousands every Friday with a clear peace message, it would become a global news event. Every network in the world would be there. Trust me, it would stimulate a real peace debate within Israel — especially if Palestinians invited youth delegations from around the Arab world to join the marches, carrying the Saudi peace initiative in Hebrew and Arabic. Israeli Jews and Arabs should be invited to march as well. Together, the marchers could draw up their own peace maps and upload them onto YouTube as a way of telling their leaders what Egyptian youth said to President Hosni Mubarak: “We’re not going to let you waste another day of our lives with your tired mantras and maneuvering.”

Alright, the man’s a regular Gandhi, hand him his dhoti (loincloth). However, why doesn’t Friedman also call for an international delegation to march to Sderot to serve as human shields against Hamas rockets? Why did he never call for thousands of peaceniks to “nonviolently” board Israeli buses during the heart of the Second Intifada — a new group of Freedom Riders to give innocent Israelis freedom from savage, bloody death? Why doesn’t Friedman call for Western supporters of the Arab Spring to swarm over Syria’s or Libya’s borders holding signs calling for Assad’s and Qaddafi’s ouster?

Thomas Friedman and Hosni Mubarak both came to power in 1981 (Friedman joined the Times that year). Mubarak is now on trial for murder. Friedman should be on trial for murdering the truth. Alas, we live in America and in times in which the Big Lie is granted every academic and free speech right and the truth goes begging.

No one is less qualified to speak in support of the “Arab Spring” than Friedman who, on September 9, 2009, argued that America’s “one-party democracy” is worse than China’s “one-party autocracy.” As Martin Peretz has recently described him: “He wishes America were China, almost the way some native fascists like Charles Lindbergh wanted America to be like Germany and the way ignorant but ‘idealistic’ oodles of American intellectuals and radical Jewish immigrants wanted the country to be like Soviet Russia.”

Friedman views Israel as having “all the leverage,” as somehow capable of turning the tsunami of global Jew hatred right around. He scorns Netanyahu for refusing to use the “leverage” he now presumably has to strike a peace deal with the Palestinians. Has Friedman talked to Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas, lately, or, for that matter, to his paymaster, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Has Friedman found them trustworthy, flexible, “non-violent?”

I find it chilling that Friedman calls for these “non-violent” marchers to do so “every Friday.” Is he unaware that violent jihad is often waged right after Friday Muslim religious services? Equally troubling is Friedman’s failure to understand how vulnerable Israel is geographically. Does the man even own a map of the region? Israel is vulnerable in the north (Lebanon, Hezbollah/Iran and Syria/Iran); Israel is vulnerable in the south (Gaza/Hamas/Iran and a potentially Islamist Egypt); Israel is vulnerable in the east given the “Palestinian” launching of suicide bombers from the West Bank. If, in addition, Jordan turns hostile, Israel is rendered further vulnerable and absolutely must command the Jordan Valley in order to protect Tel Aviv and Ben Gurion International airport.

What is Friedman really doing? Like Tony Kushner and many other Jews, Friedman also wants to be ahead of the curve when they come for the Jews. He wants to be the Jew who is spared because he is known for having condemned “Israeli apartheid” and the “Jewish apartheid state.” The burden of defending Israel merely by telling the truth is simply too much for the Friedmans and the Kushners to bear.

They refuse to condemn real apartheid—as it is practiced among Muslims and in Arab lands. It is far safer to condemn the Jewish State and to call for activists to “nonviolently” march against it. These marchers can be certain that Jewish soldiers will not shoot them down like dogs. They can be sure that the world and the wind will be at their backs. Were they to surge into Syria or Libya, they would be dead.

This way, they hope to avoid being beheaded, and in fact, decorated as heroes. They are not self-hating Jews. They are rank opportunists, mere conformists, extreme cowards.

Source: http://www.phyllis-chesler.com/1002/tom-friedman-tahrir-square-jerusalem; http://frontpagemag.com/2011/05/26/tom-friedman-bring-tahrir-square-to-jerusalem/

Phyllis Chesler

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

China Warns U.S.: 'Any Attack on Pakistan Would Be Construed As an Attack on China' – Evolving Pakistani-Chinese Alliance to Face the U.S./India

by Tufail Ahmad and Y. Carmon

On May 18, 2011, Pakistani and Chinese officials sign bilateral agreements in Shanghai while Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao look on (Image courtesy: Roznama Express, Pakistan, May 19, 2011)

Introduction

In an analysis titled "A Looming Super Power Clash Triggered by Pakistan" (published on February 15, 2011), we pointed out to the rapidly growing danger of a U.S.-Pakistan clash which will involve – in addition to the Unite States, China and Pakistan – India, Russia, NATO powers, and other powers in the region.[1]

In the past few months, the U.S.-Pakistani relations further deteriorated into an open sabotage of the CIA work in Pakistan by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

On May 17-20, 2011, this process took an escalating turn with the visit of Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to China. The China visit was described by Pakistan's Information and Broadcasting Minister Dr. Firdous Ashiq Awan as "historical" and one that "would certainly open a new chapter in China-Pakistan relations under the new international environment and historical conditions."[2]

Gilani's four-day China visit acquired an unprecedented international importance in the wake of the May 2, 2011, killing of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in a U.S. operation in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad.

Pakistani leaders saw bin Laden's killing in a unilateral U.S. operation as a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty and national dignity, while U.S. politicians and media suspected that there was complicity on the part of the Pakistani military's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in providing the Al-Qaeda leader with a safe hideout for years in Abbottabad, right next to a Pakistani military academy.

Amid this explosive situation, the Gilani visit was seen as a move to protect Pakistan from possible measures taken by the U.S. against it and to undercut the U.S. and Indian influence in the region, which is perceived by Pakistan as a years-long threat to Pakistan's national security. While Pakistan and China have been long-standing allies, a fundamental shift can now be observed in their strategic relationship, which is characterized by bolstering their military and other relations and by the huge rupture in Pakistani-U.S. relations.

This analysis reviews the multi-dimensional elements of the rapidly growing alignment of Pakistan with China to face an anticipated stand-off – and even an open armed clash – with the U.S./India.

The Military Dimension

a) Chinese Commitment to Defend Pakistan

Pakistan is now engineering a seismic shift in its overall relationships by aligning itself with China to counterbalance the U.S. and India. China, on its part, also expressed its own interest in aligning with Pakistan.

After the Abbottabad operation, which indicated that there might have been Pakistani government/ISI complicity in hiding bin Laden, Pakistan feared that the U.S. could carry out a similar unilateral operation targeting the Pakistani nuclear installations.[3] China was the first country, and perhaps the only one, to express its support for Pakistan's stability. Soon after the Abbottabad operation, China "indicated it will... back its long-term strategic ally's efforts to maintain stability."[4]

During Gilani's visit, China gave indications of how it is willing to underwrite Pakistan's sovereignty and stability. According to a May 19, 2011, Pakistani daily report, "China... warned in unequivocal terms that any attack on Pakistan would be construed as an attack on China..."[5] The report, citing highly placed diplomatic sources in Beijing, noted: "Beijing has advised Washington to respect Pakistan's sovereignty... and this was formally conveyed to the United States at last week's China-U.S. strategic dialogue and economic talks."[6]

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, who was in Washington for the U.S.-China talks in mid-May 2011, conveyed the Chinese "feelings" to the U.S., and this point was disclosed by Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao himself during his two-hour-long formal talks with Prime Minister Gilani at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.[7]

b) Air and Naval Cooperation

During Prime Minister Gilani's visit, China agreed to "immediately" provide Pakistan with 50 new JF-17 Thunder multi-role fighter planes for Pakistan's air force.[8] Although this agreement for these fighter planes was signed earlier, Islamabad and Beijing are also discussing the supply of J-20 Stealth and Xiaolong/FC-1 multi-purpose light fighter aircraft to Pakistan.[9]

In recent years, joint Pakistani-Chinese naval cooperation has strengthened, involving a contract with China to build four warships that will carry missiles and heavy weapons.[10] The first Chinese-built F-22P Frigate was inducted into the Pakistan Navy in July 2009.[11]

The Chinese frigates, which are medium-sized warships, are equipped with surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles and anti-submarine helicopters. Admiral Noman Bashir, the Chief of Pakistan Navy, has stated that Pakistan hopes to buy bigger ships with more firepower from China, such as 4,000-ton class frigates.[12]

In an interview with China Daily in July 2010, Admiral Bashir said: "The friendship between China and Pakistan is greater than the Himalayas and deeper than the Ocean. We already made progress in air force and other areas, now we should further and expand the cooperation in Navy, a broadly-based relation."[13] He also commented on the expansion of Pakistan's naval cooperation with China, stating: "We [Pakistan Navy] can provide facilities, ports, logistics, maintenance among other things..."[14]

During Gilani's May 17-20 visit, Pakistan asked China to build a naval base at Gwadar, in addition to the commercial port there. Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar, the Pakistani defense minister who accompanied Gilani to China, said: "we would be more grateful to the Chinese government if a naval base was... constructed at the site of Gwadar."[15]

The Pakistani defense minister also commented on the nature of Pakistan-China relationship, stating: "China is an all-weather friend and the closest ally of Pakistan, and it could be judged from the fact that in whichever sectors Pakistan requested assistance during... [Prime Minister Gilani's] recent visit to China, they immediately agreed."[16]

According to a Pakistani daily report, "China is the main arms supplier to Pakistan..."[17]

c) Deployment of Chinese Troops in Pakistani Kashmir

In 2010, international media reports revealed that more than 11,000 Chinese troops have been stationed in Gilgit Baltistan, an ethnically different region in Pakistan that had traditionally been part of Jammu & Kashmir. Chinese military engineers have previously helped Pakistan, but this time the Chinese soldiers are building concrete residential houses and are opening branches of Chinese banks.[18]

In 2011, it was revealed that the presence of the Chinese troops is not limited within Gilgit Baltistan but they have moved into Pakistani Kashmir along India.

In May 2011, Indian intelligence agencies reported that they have "credible evidence" that Chinese troops are also based in the Pakistani side of Jammu & Kashmir, which is divided by the Line of Control (LoC) between Pakistan and India.[19]

The website of The Times of India daily reported that several hundreds of Chinese working in Pakistani Kashmir are engineers of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) of China while the Indian intelligence agencies are "verifying if these Chinese military engineers are engaged in some sort of military construction like bunkers."[20]

A warning was issued in April 2011 by Lt.-General K. T. Parnaik, the Commander of the Indian Army's Northern Command (which oversees Kashmir), that India faces a threat from the Chinese troops based in Pakistani Kashmir who could be deployed on the Line of Control against India.[21] This is perhaps the first time that a serving Indian Army general has publicly voiced concern over a Chinese military threat to India in Kashmir.[22]

d) The Chinese Military Interest Geared against the U.S. in Af-Pak Theater

While the deployment of Chinese troops in Pakistani Kashmir is understandable in view of past rivalries and wars between China and India, the Chinese military interest in the Pakistani-Afghan border and in the routes through which American supplies go to Afghanistan shows that the Chinese interest is also geared against the U.S.

The Chinese military leadership has recently been assessing the implications of a likely U.S. military incursion into the Pakistani tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, which so far had not been of any strategic interest to China.

In October 2010, a high-level delegation of the Chinese Army visited the Landikotal Army Garrison in Khyber Agency last October. The Chinese team comprised five high-ranking officials led by Director General of the People's Liberation Army Major General Yan Hu.[23]

Commenting on the importance of the Chinese military team's visit, an October 29, 2010, report in The News daily stated: "The delegation stayed in Landikotal for several hours amid tight security. All the link roads and Torkham Gate were blocked to the public. NATO supply remained suspended during the delegation's visit to [nearby] Michini Checkpost."

e) China Funding Pakistani Nuclear Knowhow

Over the past few decades, China has funded and has technologically supported the Pakistani nuclear program.

On May 12, 2011, Pakistan's third nuclear electric power plant went operational. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, while inaugurating the Chashma Nuclear Power Plant Unit-1 (CHASNUPP-2), located near Chashma Barrage on the left bank of River Indus, 32 kilometres south of the town of Mianwali, paid tributes to China's support. "Today is a proud day for Pakistan and for Pakistan's civil nuclear energy program... It is yet another illustrious example of the Pakistan-China cooperation in the field of nuclear science and technology," Gilani said.[24]

Two more nuclear plants, C-3 and C-4, are already under construction at the site.[25]

India has expressed concern that the Pakistani nuclear strategy is aimed at building low-yield, tactical nuclear weapons which can be used in case of skirmishes at the Pakistani border with India.

A May 19, 2011, Indian media report warned that Pakistan is building its fourth reactor at the Khushab military facility and Pakistan has now acquired the capability to add 8-10 such nuclear weapons every year.[26]

"The figure [regarding the Pakistani nuclear weapons] is likely to go up considerably once the new reactor becomes operational in less than two years. Latest satellite images revealed recently that Pakistan has expedited work on the fourth reactor, a plutonium producing facility," the report said.[27]

S. D. Pradhan, former chief of India's joint intelligence committee, who has closely monitored Pakistan's nuclear-weapon program, commented on the Pakistani drive to produce plutonium bombs, stating: "They are following the Chinese model of having low-yield nuclear weapons. Pakistan believes these weapons will provide it a flexible response in case of an escalation with India..."[28]

f) Chinese Radars for Pakistan

After the killing of bin Laden, Pakistani media reports had indicated that Pakistan's radar system was jammed by the U.S. in order to carry out the operation. During Gilani's visit, China offered to upgrade Pakistan's radar system and satellite technology.[29]

During a visit to the China Academy of Space Technology in Beijing on May 20, the Pakistani prime minister was briefed on the latest Chinese radar systems and satellite technology; and it is expected that Pakistan would get 10 state-of-the-art radar systems and satellite technologies.[30]

g) Cooperation in Satellites & Missiles

According to a Pakistani media report, the two countries have also agreed to step up work on Pakistan's satellite currently being built in China, which is scheduled for launch on August 14, 2011, the Independence Day of Pakistan. The satellite will supply "multifarious data" to Pakistan.[31]

Pakistan claims that its missile program is developed indigenously, though the missile technologies are thought to have been provided by North Korea, a Chinese ally.

On April 29, 2011, Pakistan conducted a successful flight test of the cruise missile, Hatf-8. The nuclear-capable Hatf-8 (Ra'ad) missile, which has a range of over 350 kilometers, has been developed exclusively for launch from aerial platforms.[32] According to a report, the cruise missile has stealth capabilities and is a low altitude, terrain-hugging missile with high maneuverability.[33]

Earlier that month, Pakistan also conducted the first test of a surface-to-surface ballistic missile Hatf-9 (Nasr).[34]

The Economic Dimension

a) Integration of Pakistani Economy with China

China is investing in all sectors of the Pakistani economy on a major scale. Pakistan has also expressed its goal to align the Pakistani economy with China.

During Gilani's visit, the two countries explored ways of bolstering economic ties, including the establishment of the trans-border economic zones, instituting integrated border management systems, and working together on the intra-regional and trans-regional economic and development agenda, corporate sector interaction in joint projects, opening of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) branches in Pakistan, finalization of the currency swap arrangement, and more.

In Beijing, Prime Minister Gilani stated that Pakistan will be forging deeper economic engagement with China. Gilani said that Pakistan is determined to take all necessary measures for closer economic integration with China, stating: "The free trade agreement, the joint five-year economic program, the joint investment companies and the ongoing cooperation in the financial and banking sectors, great interaction between our capital markets, robust defense and defense production cooperation are but a few example of the direction that our strategic cooperation partnership has taken."[35]

b) Boosting Bilateral Trade in Short Term

Pakistan and China are rapidly boosting their economic ties and bilateral trade.

As per statistics presented in May 2011 before the National Assembly (the Lower House of the Pakistani Parliament), between March 2005 and December 2010, China collaborated in six different projects worth $2.7 billion, providing technical and financial support.[36] The two countries are now pressing ahead in the areas of trade, banking, ports, roads, and railways.

In 2010, the total volume of Pakistan-China trade rose by $2 billion to approximately $8.7 billion.[37] Compared to 2009, a 37 percent jump was seen in Pakistani exports to China year on while Chinese exports to Pakistan increased by 28 percent.[38]

During his China visit, Prime Minister Gilani said that measures are being implemented to increase Pakistan's trade volume with China to $15 billion a year by 2013.[39]

c) Pakistan's Encouragement of Chinese Investment

Pakistan is encouraging Chinese investments in different areas of the Pakistani economy and is seeking incentives for Pakistani businessmen in China, notably in the Kashgar Special Economic Zone, which is a few hundred kilometers from Pakistan's border.

In May 2011, a 50-member Chinese economic delegation led by Muhametmin Yashen (Muhammad Amin Yasin), the Deputy Director General of the Standing Committee of the People's Congress of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, visited Islamabad. In the Pakistani capital, Pakistani leaders advised the Chinese team that China could tap the one-trillion dollar Halal foods industry by providing special incentives to Pakistani businessmen to invest in the Kashgar Special Economic Zone.[40]

Pakistani business leader Raza Khan told the Chinese delegation that they should explore opportunities in sectors like finance, banking, power, alternative energy, information technology, engineering goods, textile machinery, agriculture, agro-based industry, food, fruit processing, packaging, livestock, dairy farming, and real estate sectors.[41]

c) China Gives $1.7 Billion Loan for Lahore's Rail System

The Export-Import Bank of China recently agreed to give Pakistan a loan of $1.7 billion for the development of a train system in Lahore. Khawaja Ahmed Hassan, chairman of the Lahore Transport Company, said: "The bank agreed to lend us the money with a two-year grace period, and our aim is to get it at 6% interest."[42]

It should be noted that Lahore is the capital of Punjab, the most influential Pakistani province, whose government cancelled six agreements with the U.S. in the fields of health, education, and waste management in protest against the Abbottabad operation.[43]

The Diplomatic Dimension

During Prime Minister Gilani's visit to Beijing, China's top leaders expressed support for Pakistan in the wake of the Abbottabad operation. At his meeting with Gilani, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao announced that China is sending a special envoy to Islamabad to express solidarity with Pakistan at this crucial period in its history.

On May 19, 2011, Jia Qinglin, the chief of the powerful Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), declared that Pakistan will never be left in the lurch and the strategic cooperation between the two countries will be taken to new heights. "No matter how the global situation may change, the resolve and determination of the government and the people of China in developing its friendly relations with Pakistan will never be swayed," Jia Qinglin said at a reception held in honor of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.[44]

Noting that China has always given priority to developing cooperation with Pakistan, Jia Qinglin said, "China will stand together with Pakistan to seize the opportunity presented by the 60th anniversary [celebrations of bilateral ties]. We want to carry forward our tradition of friendship in all areas of our strategic partnership and cooperation and take our bilateral ties to a higher plane."[45]

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, during his meeting with Gilani in Beijing, assured Pakistan of China's "all-weather friendship," stating: "I wish to stress here that no matter what changes might take place in the international landscape, China and Pakistan will remain forever good neighbors, good friends, good partners and good brothers... I do believe that this visit will give a strong boost to the friendship and cooperation between our two countries and take that friendship and cooperation to a new high."[46]

Implications for the U.S., India, Afghanistan

a) The U.S.

Pakistan's bolstering of its relations with China is aimed at countering the U.S. influence in the region. Pakistan's highest defense forum, the Defense Committee of the Cabinet (DCC) which met under Prime Minister Gilani on May 12, 2011, reviewed its relations with the U.S. in the wake of the Abbottabad operation, which it called a "violation of Pakistan's sovereignty" and agreed to redefine Pakistan's cooperation with the U.S. "in accordance with Pakistan's national interests and the aspirations of the people."[47]

Among those who attended the meeting were: Senior Minister for Defense Production Ch. Pervaiz Elahi; Finance Minister Dr. Abdul Hafeez Shaikh; Interior Minister Rehman Malik; Information and Broadcasting Minister Dr. Firdous Ashiq Awan, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Khalid Shamim Wynne, Pakistan Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Rao Qamar Suleman, Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir, Defense Secretary Lt. Gen. (retired) Syed Athar Ali, and other senior officials.

According to a report in the Urdu-language daily Roznama Ummat, the top Pakistani military leadership has decided to teach the U.S. a strong lesson.[48] The report said that a decision to this effect was taken at a meeting at the General Headquarters of Pakistan Army in Rawalpindi, following which the military officials met with Pakistani President Asif Zardari and other civilian government leaders to apprise them of their thinking.[49]

The decision to teach the U.S. a strong lesson could be the Pakistani Army's realignment with China. However, it could also be a provocative move on the part of Pakistan with Chinese backing to damage America's position in South Asia, and potentially against India and Afghanistan. Such a provocation could trigger a super power clash.[50]

b) India

India's civilian and military leaders have consistently expressed concern over the deepening military ties between Pakistan and China, as well as over the deployment of Chinese troops inside Pakistani Kashmir, a territory claimed by India. India fears that its security is undermined by China's military support to Pakistan, both in Kashmir and against mainland India.

On May 19, 2011, Indian Defense Minister A. K. Antony expressed concern over China's decision to "immediately" provide 50 new JF-17 Thunder multi-role warplanes, stating: "It is a matter of serious concern for us. The main thing is, we have to increase our capability..."[51]

In mid-May 2011, Lieutenant-General K. T. Parnaik, Commander of the Indian Army's Northern Command, warned against "deep collaboration in weapon delivery" between Pakistan and China.[52] He also spoke of China's strategic moves in Pakistan, stating: "China is helping Pakistan in building a road from the Khunjerab Pass [on Chinese border with Pakistan] to Gwadar Port besides other infrastructure projects like dams very close to the Line of Control (LoC)."[53]

In a recent article, former Indian Army chief General (retired) V. P. Malik warned that Pakistan and China are articulating "joint interest" against India. He stated: "Though the Chinese army would not point guns towards our posts on the LoC [Line of Control in Kashmir], the fact that they are there reflects their 'joint' interest and enhancement of strategic and operational preparedness on the LoC along with Pakistan."[54]

India is reassessing the altered threat matrix in the wake of the Pakistani-Chinese defense collaboration. At a recent meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Indian Army Chief General V. K. Singh presented a three-pronged strategy to counter China's growing presence in the Tibet Autonomous Region and in Pakistani Kashmir. The strategy calls for a dedicated mountain strike corps, significant enhancement in the army's tactical airlift capability, and improvement in the border infrastructure along the border with China.[55]

India has also expressed concern over the support of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to the Taliban in Afghanistan, especially the Haqqani Network. It fears that with China supporting the Pakistani military establishment, efforts to defeat the Taliban-led terrorism in Afghanistan may not succeed, especially after the U.S. withdraws its troops from Afghanistan.

c) Afghanistan

Afghanistan is too weak a state to articulate its independent position on growing military and non-military relations between China and Pakistan, whose support to the Taliban militants has been the cause of terrorism in Afghanistan over the past few decades.

As a result of Chinese-Pakistani military collaboration, the interests of Afghanistan as well as the U.S. and Indian interests in the country could be adversely affected, especially in view of the Pakistani military's use of the Taliban organizations as strategic assets working in the interests of Pakistan.

Parallel to the ISI-backed Taliban surge in terror attacks in Afghanistan, the Pakistani government has mounted a diplomatic offensive in Kabul.

On April 16, 2011, almost the entire top Pakistani leadership arrived in Kabul to hold bilateral talks with the Afghan government. Among those who came to the meeting were: Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik, Pakistani Junior Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, Pakistani Defense Minister Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar, as well as Pakistan Army chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani and Lt.-Gen. Shuja Pasha, the chief of Pakistani military's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), whose involvement in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks has come up before a New York court.

During the day-long talks, it was decided to establish a two-tier Afghanistan-Pakistan Joint Commission, an unprecedented move that facilitates the presence of Pakistan Army chief General Kayani and ISI chief Lt.-Gen. Shuja Pasha on the commission, enabling them a greater role in molding Afghanistan's internal affairs and foreign policies. It was perhaps the first time that the Pakistani military has formally managed to embed itself in a mechanism that allows it to shape the future of Afghanistan.

According to an Afghan media report, some of the written demands made by Prime Minister Gilani at the meeting included: "Pakistan should be consulted on the training and number of Afghan forces; Pakistan's share in Afghan mines and development projects should be cleared; implementation of Pakistani strategies in future governments in Afghanistan, recruitment of Pakistani cadres in the [Afghan] government institutions [should be ensured]; and Pakistan should be kept aware of any sort of agreement between Afghanistan and its Western allies, including the U.S. and NATO..."[56]

Of all these demands by Pakistan, Gilani's demand to appoint Pakistani officials in Afghan government institutions is a Pakistani attempt to undermine Afghanistan's independence in the long run. It should be noted here that during the Taliban rule, some Pakistani nationals worked in the Taliban-led Afghan government institutions.

These demands reflect a clear intention on the part of Pakistan to subjugate Afghanistan to Pakistani rule. Following the April 16 talks, Afghan analysts accused Pakistan of violating diplomatic norms by demanding major concessions from Afghanistan. According to a report in the Pashtu-language Khedmatgar Wrazpanra, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told President Karzai that the U.S. has been defeated in the region and so it is better for Pakistan and Afghanistan to prefer China as a strategic ally in the region.[57] According to the report, Gilani also said that it is better for Afghanistan not to allow a long-term presence of the U.S. forces in the country.[58]

According to another report on the Afghan website shamshadtv.tv, former Afghan politician Sulaiman Layaq commented on the Pakistani strategic move in Afghanistan, stating: "Pakistani government supposes Afghanistan as a Pakistani colony..."[59]

This escalation in the Pakistani state's behavior towards Afghanistan contains all the elements and dangers of a direct clash between Pakistan and Afghanistan; and as a result, almost inevitable triggering of a larger-scale clash in which even a single spark could involve all the regional and international powers present in the South Asian region.

* Tufail Ahmad is Director of MEMRI's South Asia Studies Project (www.memri.org/sasp); Y. Carmon is President of MEMRI

[1] See A Looming Super Power Clash Triggered by Pakistan, MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis Series No. 665, February 15, 2011 (http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/840/4999.htm)
[2] www.app.com.pk (Pakistan), May 19, 2011.
[3] After the Abbottabad operation, Pakistani media reports regularly articulated a national concern for the security of the Pakistani nuclear installations.
[4] The Hindu (India), May 3, 2011.
[5] The News (Pakistan), May 19, 2011.
[6] The News (Pakistan), May 19, 2011.
[7] The News (Pakistan), May 19, 2011.
[8] The News (Pakistan), May 19, 2011.
[9] The News (Pakistan), May 19, 2011. The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) sees itself as aligned against the U.S. and its other Western allies. According to a November 18, 2010, report on the website of The Nation newspaper (www.nation.com.pk), Pakistan Air Force Air Chief Marshal Rao Qamar Suleman stated: ''The PAF has no plans to install Western devices and weapons on the aircraft for the time being.’’
[10] The News (Pakistan), July 16, 2010.
[11] Daily Times (Pakistan), July 31, 2009.
[12] www.chinadaily.com.cn (China), July 22, 2010.
[13] www.chinadaily.com.cn (China), July 22, 2010.
[14] www.chinadaily.com.cn (China), July 22, 2010.
[15] www.chinapost.com.tw (Taiwan), May 23, 2011.
[16] www.chinapost.com.tw (Taiwan), May 23, 2011.
[17] www.tribune.com.pk (Pakistan), May 18, 2011.
[18] These details are based on a survey report carried out by renowned Kashmiri writer Dr. Shabir Choudhry who led a team of researchers to Gilgit Baltistan and Pakistani Kashmir in October 2010. See: Kashmiri Writer Examines the Strategic Implications of China's Military Presence in Kashmir Region, MEMRI Special Dispatches Series No. 3772, April 19, 2011.
[19] www.timesofindia.com (India), May 12, 2011.
[20] www.timesofindia.com (India), May 12, 2011.
[21] www.timesofindia.com (India), April 6, 2011.
[22] www.timesofindia.com (India), April 6, 2011. While speaking about the Chinese-Pakistani threat to India from Pakistani Kashmir, Lt.-Gen. Parnaik said: "we hear many people today who are concerned about the complicity of the Chinese if there were to be hostilities between India and Pakistan."
[23] The News (Pakistan), October 29, 2010.
[24] Daily Times (Pakistan), May 13, 2011.
[25] Daily Times (Pakistan), May 13, 2011.
[26] www.timesofindia.com (India), May 19, 2011.
[27] www.timesofindia.com (India), May 19, 2011.
[28] www.timesofindia.com (India), May 19, 2011.
[29] www.onlinenews.com.pk (Pakistan), May 20, 2011.
[30] www.onlinenews.com.pk (Pakistan), May 20, 2011.
[31] The News (Pakistan), May 19, 2011.
[32] The Express Tribune (Pakistan), April 30, 2011.
[33] The Express Tribune (Pakistan), April 30, 2011.
[34] These missile tests are just a few of the scores of missile tests carried out by Pakistani military in recent years.
[35] Daily Times (Pakistan), May 20, 2011.
[36] www.app.com.pk (Pakistan), May 11, 2011.
[37] www.app.com.pk (Pakistan), April 25, 2011.
[38] The News (Pakistan), May 19, 2011.
[39] The News (Pakistan), May 19, 2011.
[40] www.thefinancialdaily.com (Pakistan), May 13, 2011.
[41] www.thefinancialdaily.com (Pakistan), May 13, 2011.
[42] Daily Times (Pakistan), April 28, 2011.
[43] www.dawn.com (Pakistan), May 20, 2011.
[44] Dawn (Pakistan), May 20, 2011.
[45] Dawn (Pakistan), May 20, 2011.
[46] www.tribune.com.pk (Pakistan), May 18, 2011.
[47] The News (Pakistan), May 13, 2011.
[48] Roznama Ummat (Pakistan), May 5, 2011. The decision was taken just days after the May 2, 2011, Abbottabad operation by the U.S.
[49] Roznama Ummat (Pakistan), May 5, 2011.
[50] The Pakistani military’s moves against the U.S. are part of Pakistani strategy to counter the U.S. According to an April 28, 2011, report in The Express Tribune daily, a few days before the Abbottabad operation, Salman Bashir, the Pakistani foreign secretary, visited China. The visit was planned in the context of the Pakistan-China strategic dialogue mechanism between the two foreign ministries. "But official sources [in Islamabad] confirmed that the foreign secretary's visit to China was prompted by the recent rise in tensions between Pakistan and the United States due to a series of events, including the Raymond Davis affair and a U.S. drone strike that killed dozens of civilians in Pakistan's tribal districts." The report also noted that Salman Bashir is a "strong advocate of seeking realignments and has presented a detailed analysis to the government regarding a reduction in dependence on the U.S. by reaching out to the Chinese."

[51] www.dnaindia.com (India), May 20, 2011.
[52] www.indiablooms.com (India), May 15, 2011.
[53] www.indiablooms.com (India), May 15, 2011.
[54] www.hindustantimes.com (India), May 12, 2011.
[55] www.indiatoday.in (India), May 19, 2011. [56] www.tolonews.com (Afghanistan), April 19, 2011.
[57] Khedmatgar Wrazpanra (Afghanistan), April 30, 2011.

[58] Khedmatgar Wrazpanra (Afghanistan), April 30, 2011.

[59] www.shamshadtv.tv (Afghanistan), April 30, 2011.

Source: http://www.thememriblog.org/blog_personal/en/37922.htm

Tufail Ahmad and Y. Carmon

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

Islamists Target Egypt's Christians

by IPT News

Egypt's Arab Spring has become a nightmare for the nation's 2,000-year-old Coptic Christian community, now the terror target of choice for Islamist radicals. Christians' "personal security has gotten much worse" since the February ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, says Nina Shea of the Hudson Institute, who monitors the situation of religious minorities in the Muslim world.

Christian homes, businesses and churches have come under increasing attack from militant Islamists, with many of the assaults coming shortly after angry sermons given at Friday prayers. The sermons inciting the violence often come from Salafist imams subsidized by the Egyptian government.

Since February, violent Islamists have exploited an atmosphere of "lawlessness" to assert that they are in control, said Coptic American activist Michael Meunier. Meunier, who is currently visiting Egypt, told the Investigative Project on Terrorism that the government's refusal to challenge anti-Christian violence has "provided a way out to criminals and encouraged violent attacks."

Prominent examples of violence directed against Egyptian Christians include:

• On May 7, a Salafi Muslim mob, angered by a false rumor that Christians had abducted a Muslim woman, attacked Christian churches and homes in Cairo's Imbaba district. At least 12 people were killed and hundreds more wounded in the attack and ensuing street battles between the Salafis and Copts.

The Copts requested help from the Egyptian Army, but soldiers didn't arrive until four and a half hours later. Watch video here.

• On May 14, Islamist mobs attacked Christian demonstrators holding a sit-in in downtown Cairo to protest the May 7 attacks in Imbaba. Attackers threw rocks, tossed gasoline bombs, burned cars and charged at the demonstrators. Christians said more than 100 people were injured in the attack and ensuing street brawls that erupted. Riot police initially stood by while the violence took place.

• A church in Soul, Egypt was destroyed by hammer-wielding Islamists in March. The attackers were angry about a relationship between a Muslim woman and a Christian man.

• That same month, witnesses said 500 Christians in Cairo were surrounded by several thousand Muslims. Young men set nearby apartment buildings and a factory on fire. Christians who witnessed the incident said soldiers stood by for hours while the violence occurred.

• In the southern Egyptian city of Qena, a Christian accused of having a relationship with a Muslim woman had his ear cut off. The victim, Ayman Mitry, blamed Salafis. He said they called him a "kafir" (infidel) and tried to spit on a cross tattooed on his wrist. The military tried to mediate reconciliation between the perpetrators and the victim.

• The Egyptian Army has reportedly attacked Christians and their churches. Christian activists say that in February, soldiers assaulted a Coptic Orthodox monastery in al-Natroun, 68 miles north of Cairo, with small arms, heavy machine guns and armored personnel carriers in order to bulldoze a wall. A monk and six church workers were shot and wounded in the attack. The Army said the monastery had failed to obtain the proper permits.

• Also in February, the Army attacked another monastery in Al Fayoum, 80 miles southwest of Cairo, to destroy a security wall built to keep out criminals. The military claimed the wall had been built on land set aside for a nature preserve.

Since Mubarak's fall, the Egyptian government has repeatedly failed to take action against Muslim militants involved in anti-Christian violence including the destruction of churches, Muenier said. Instead of sending the Egyptian Army in to protect Christians, the government forces Christians to negotiate rebuilding issues with "fanatical" Muslim clerics who are not acting in good faith.

Shea sees the violence as part of a larger pattern of marginalization of Egyptian Christians that has gone hand-in-hand with the growing power of the Muslim Brotherhood and more militant Salafist groups. If current patterns continue, "I expect Egypt to become more and more like Iran," she said.

The result is going to be "an Islamic awakening" in which the state "uses its coercive powers" to induce conformity with Shariah law, Shea told the IPT. The major victims will be Christians and non-Islamist Muslims who don't want to conform to the rigid religious ideology of the Brotherhood and the Salafists.

Islamists have taken some steps to soften their public image. These include the announcement that the Freedom and Justice Party, formed by the Brotherhood, had chosen a Christian to be vice-president. Meunier termed the move "window-dressing" and expressed skepticism that the Brotherhood would permit non-Muslims to gain a position of genuine influence in the party.

Coptic Christians and their supporters say the government's response to violence and coercion has worsened their plight. In Egypt, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) found "serious, widespread and long-standing human rights violations against religious minorities," said Shea, a USCIRF commissioner.

For years, Egypt's response to the violence has been to conduct "reconciliation" sessions between Muslims and Christians. In its 2009 human rights report, the State Department found that those sessions "prevented the prosecution of perpetrators of crimes against Copts and precluded their recourse to the judicial system for restitution." This situation "contributed to a climate of impunity that encouraged further assaults."

The Egyptian government "goes through the motions of taking action," Shea said. The policy consists of getting "the Christians to shake hands with the people who attack them."

But the reconciliation panels remain a part of the Egypt's response to Muslim-on-Christian violence. For example, after the axe-wielding mob destroyed the church in Soul to avenge a relationship between a Christian man and a Muslim woman, Coptic and Muslim families held a reconciliation meeting. They decided that the Christian (whose house had been torched by the mob) would have to leave town.

The problems are further exacerbated by discriminatory Egyptian laws that make it very difficult for Christians to rebuild churches and bar teaching the Coptic language in Egyptian schools.

Shea warned it is a mistake to think that the effects of continued marginalization of Coptic Christians will be confined to Egypt. An Egyptian society unwilling to tolerate the Copts likely will be hostile to a Jewish state in the region, and that could have troubling consequences for Egypt's peace treaty with Israel. With that in mind, Shea urged that Washington speak out more forcefully on behalf of embattled minorities like the Copts.

Muslim Brotherhood, Salafis Join Forces

More ominous still is the news that the Muslim Brotherhood has formed a political alliance with radical Salafis.

Brotherhood representatives joined representatives of Gama'a al-Islamiya in announcing they would form a coalition in September's parliamentary elections in order to combat secular forces in Egypt. "God's words must rule and Islam must be in the hearts of the citizens," said Osama Hafez, a spokesman for the group.

Gama'a representatives have called have called for the establishment of a medieval-style virtue police "to arrest those who commit immoral acts."

Gama'a al-Islamiya says it has renounced violence, but the organization's long history of jihad makes many skeptical.

Members of the group were involved in the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. In the 1990s, its leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, merged his faction of Gama'a with al-Qaida. Its spiritual leader is Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, currently serving a life sentence in the United States for his involvement in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a plot to blow up other New York-area landmarks including the United Nations building and the Lincoln and Holland tunnels; the George Washington Bridge; and the New York office of the FBI.

Between January 1996 and November 1997, Gama'a carried out multiple terrorist attacks targeting Christians and foreign tourists in Egypt, killing more than 100 people. The most deadly of these occurred on November 18, 1997, when it massacred at least 58 people, most of them tourists, in Luxor.

Following the Luxor massacre, President Hosni Mubarak's government launched a harsh crackdown against the group, killing or jailing many of its members. That forced the group to split into factions, one of which was Zawahiri's armed wing that joined al-Qaida. Another faction consisted of ex-terrorists who renounced violence.

But the "moderate" faction of Gama'a apparently regards bin Laden as a victim of American perfidy. At a conference earlier this month, Gama'a representative, Abbud al-Zumar, suggested that Christians and Muslims were both to blame for the Imbaba violence and said bin Laden is a victim of his U.S. enemies. Zumar warned Arabs about U.S. arrogance in dealing with Arab Islamic nations.

Meunier expressed skepticism about recent efforts by Islamists to cast themselves as supporters of nonviolence and moderation. Salafist "leaders and clerics" can be found "all over YouTube with videos encouraging their followers to attack churches and Christians," he said. Although the videos have been turned over to the Egyptian military, "there seems to be no will at this stage to arrest" the individuals behind the attacks, Meunier said.

The military's unwillingness to act against Islamists does not come as a total surprise given its connections with organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood. Writing in Middle East Quarterly, Egyptian activist Cynthia Farahat points to numerous actions the Egyptian Supreme Council of the Armed Forces since Mubarak's ouster that have been favorable to Islamists and discriminatory against minority Christians.

According to Farahat, the council has made decisions to arrest a secular liberal blogger and sentence him to three years in prison; at the same time, it freed Col. Aboud al-Zomor, described as the "mastermind" of Sadat's assassination. It issued a declaration making sharia "the principal source of legislation" and has failed to prosecute "Muslims responsible for hate crimes against Christians."

This pattern isn't accidental. Farahat marshals arguments to show that for close to 60 years, the Muslim Brotherhood has exercised a surprising degree of power by working with the Egyptian military. She argues that in the short run, the real question "is not whether the Muslim Brotherhood will seize power, but whether it will continue to hold it, either directly or by proxy."

Islamist organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood "don't want to take responsibility for the results of the ideology of hatred" that they are advocating, Shea said. If the Egyptian government and military are unwilling to confront this reality, Islamism will continue gaining in strength, with dark consequences for Egypt.

Source: http://www.investigativeproject.org/2904/islamists-target-egypt-christians

IPT News

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

Home-Made Nakba

by Mordechai Kedar

The word nakba in Arabic means an enormous, gigantic tragedy, a catastrophe. This is the word used in the Arab-Islamic discourse to denote the start of the “Palestine” calamity, in which Islam’s Holy Land of Palestine fell captive in a modern-day Crusade to Zionism, the emissary of European imperialism. When Israel's 1948 War of Independence ended, six hundred thousand Arabs, formerly of Palestine/Eretz Israel, remained in refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Judea and Samaria (under Jordanian occupation), the Gaza Strip (under Egyptian occupation), Egypt and Libya.

The catastrophe was indeed great and its dimensions stemmed not only from the physical disaster that befell the Arabs, but – and perhaps primarily – from the psychological tragedy that has accompanied the physical for sixty-three years: Israel survived the War of Independence and the later wars it was forced into. It succeeded, developed, expanded and flourished while the Palestinians were left with only a shattered dream. Israel became a success while they failed, and jealousy is driving them mad. Jealousy begets hatred; the greater the jealousy, the more intense the hatred. The State of Israel is the mirror in which the Arabs perceive their failure; while the Jewish people celebrates its sixty-three years of renewed independence, after 1940 years of exile, they mark sixty-three years of continuous shortcomings.

To an extent, the years of struggle against Zionism served to unite the Arabs in Palestine /Eretz Israel under the leadership of Haj Amin el-Husseini, who was wanted by the British for his activities. He recruited tens of thousands of Balkan Muslims for the SS in order to prevent European Jews from entering Eretz Israel mainly by guarding the railway bridges on which Hungarian Jews were transported to their deaths in 1944 by the Nazis. Many, including some of us, Israelis, are unaware of this point: the leader of Palestine’s Arabs was part of the machinery of destruction used to murder European Jewry. Nevertheless, Husseini and his Nazi patrons failed and Israel was established three years after their defeat.

On November 29, 1947, when the results of the United Nations General Assembly vote on the Partition Plan (designed to settle the Jews of Eretz Israel in three cantons – the Negev desert and two narrow strips along the coastal plain and the Galilee panhandle) were publicized, the Jews danced joyously in the streets, celebrating the great historic achievement. The Arabs strongly opposed the decision and were furious that the “theft of Palestine” had received an international seal of approval. The differences between the Arab and the Jewish approaches were evident already then: a positive, constructive and optimistic approach on the part of the Jews, and a negative, destructive attitude adopted by the Arabs – destructive towards the Jews, but no less destructive towards themselves.

The most outstanding example of these different approaches is the timing of the declaration of the state: The Jews did not wait even one day despite all the difficulties – particularly a brutal war and lack of control over wide areas of land – and declared their state’s independence immediately upon the conclusion of the mandate, and even earlier: since May 15th fell on Shabbat, the declaration occurred a day earlier, on Friday May 14th, in order to avoid desecration of Shabbat. By contrast, according to their interpretation of the Oslo Accords, the Palestinians could have declared independence as early as mid-1999; nevertheless, twelve years later they have yet to establish a state. Their declaration of independence in November 1988 was in name only and was of no practical significance, except for the PLO head's stationery, which refers to the “President of the State of Palestine”.

The Palestinians have identified almost five hundred towns, villages, cities and neighborhoods that fell into Zionist hands. A great deal of property was confiscated by the Government of Israel, primarily under the provisions of the 1950 Absentees’ Property Law; in their place were built kibbutzim, moshavim, towns and cities until, in most cases, no trace of evidence remained to indicate that they had been Arab land prior to the War of Independence. The people of Israel dried up swamps and erected communities, while the Palestinians remained in refugee camps. The immigrant transit camps in Israel disappeared during the 1950s and Jewish immigrants created a new, optimistic Israeli society; the Arabs, however, remain in refugee camps to this day, "branded" by their host countries so that they do not integrate into their populations. Israel built a new society, which has, over the years, rid itself of the Jewish Diaspora mentality and increasingly bridged the cultural gaps among the various groups which have returned to their homeland from the four corners of the earth. The desire to achieve economic independence powered the wheels of Israel’s economy and brought it to the forefront of the developed world. Israeli industry expanded into all types of products; Israeli technology is world-renowned; the shekel is one of the world’s strong currencies. The Palestinians, on the other hand, have made a vocation of their refugee status, developed beggary into an art and transformed their misery into a tool used to weigh on the conscience of the world.

From its inception, Israel broke up all the Jewish armed groups that had been operating prior to the establishment of the State: the Haganah, the Irgun (Etzel) and the Lehi were disbanded and their arms were confiscated. Events came to a head in June of 1948, when the Altalena, a ship carrying Etzel weapons needed for the battle over Jerusalem, was sunk. Ben Gurion, acting out of a sense of state primacy would not even sanction this arms shipment. Without debating whether or not Ben Gurion acted justifiably, it is undeniable that Israel survived its first few years, which were immeasurably more difficult than any in its history, because the nation acted "as one person", if not always "with one heart". State primacy triumphed over factionalism, and the State gained ascendancy over all the groups under its wing, including those imposed by force. The Palestinians, by comparison, became progressively more splintered; one after another, there arose armed groups such as al-Qawmiyun al-Arab, al-Feda’iyun, al-Sa’iqa, al-’Asifa, Fatah, the Popular Front, the Democratic Front, the Arab Liberation Front, Islamic Jihad, Hamas, and many others. Not only did these groups not cooperate; they often fought one another and spilled each other's blood. The last round of violence occurred in June 2007 when Hamas' militias took over the Gaza strip, mercilessly shooting Palestinian Authority security personnel and hurling to the street those who had fled to the upper floors of multistory buildings.

Immediately after its establishment, the State of Israel was awarded international recognition and joined the United Nations as a member state. Israel has never been involved in war against a non-Arab or non-Islamic country, and there have even been talks about its joining NATO. The Palestinians, by contrast, have become embroiled in strife with everyone around them, and their Arab "brethren" have killed far more of them than have been casualties of their conflict with Israel: in September 1970, the Jordanian army killed approximately 20,000 Palestinians because they managed to dominate large areas in the North of the country; in August 1976, the Syrian army butchered thousands of Palestinians at Tel al-Za’tar; in September 1982, the Lebanese Christian militias killed hundreds of Palestinians in Beirut's Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps (these killings are attributed to Israel because IDF forces were in the vicinity and allowed the Maronites freedom of action); in August 1990, the Iraqi army invaded Kuwait and destroyed the country, with Arafat supporting Saddam Hussein wholeheartedly. When Kuwait was liberated in March 1991, the Kuwaitis expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who had been working in Kuwait for many years, in revenge for the latter's support of Hussein; Libya banished thousands of Palestinians from its territory after the signing of the Oslo accords in 1993; in April 2003, immediately after Saddam Hussein was toppled, hundreds of knife-wielding Iraqis burst into Baghdadi Palestinian homes in order to exact revenge for years of Palestinian support of Hussein, and four new Palestinian refugee camps were created as a result.

The citizens of Israel – both Jewish and Arab – enjoy equal rights under the law, while the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon have not been awarded citizenship to this day. Moreover, the Lebanese constitution expressly specifies that Palestinian refugees will never gain citizenship, even though some of them emigrated from Lebanon to Israel prior to the War of Independence (1948), primarily in order to work in then-developing Haifa and in various Jewish communities established in Northern Israel, such as Rosh Pina, Ilaniya, Zichron Yaacov and others. For more than sixty years, Lebanese law has barred Palestinian refugees from employment in close to seventy different professions. This discriminatory list of forbidden professions has recently been shortened to about twenty different occupations; no one on earth has uttered a single word about this blatant discrimination. By contrast, an Arab in Israel can study and work in any profession he or she wishes to engage in. No wonder then that Arabs make every effort to live in Israel, be it via fictitious "visa marriages" to Israeli Arab women or by infiltrating the borders, primarily in the South.

The bottom line is that the People of Israel have, during sixty three years of independence, gone from strength to strength in spite of the wars, the difficulties and the uncertainties, while the Palestinians have blundered along, going from bad to worse. For sixty three years, the Arabs have imposed on the Palestinians, and the latter have imposed on themselves, a Nakba of their own making. The May 15th breach of the border fence by hundreds symbolized more than anything else the contrast between them and Israel. They are empty-handed, lacking all, while Israel is an ordered and structured state which can even show restraint in its dealings with them.

A Glimpse into the Future

Through the end of 2010, it was universally understood that in the Arab world the ruler controls the army, the police and the intelligence services; he can at will fire into a crowd, kidnap people from their homes, rob them of their human rights and civil liberties, torture them or hang them in the public square. Events of the last six months have radically altered the perception of strength and weakness in the Middle East. The protests in Tunisia and Egypt have succeeded in doing what rampant violence – including the assassination of Sadat – failed to do until now. Sadat's murder ended his life, but changed nothing in Egypt; Mubarak was no different than Sadat when it came to quality of life for the citizenry. By contrast, nonviolent demonstrations, in which close to eight hundred Egyptians lost their lives, brought an end to the rule of the "Free Officers" and may yet bring an end to Mubarak's life after he stands trial for the killing of protesters.

The new atmosphere in the Middle East enables unarmed masses to successfully confront and topple dictators. The "exposed body" demonstration, against which governments are seemingly powerless, is the new unconventional weapon being wielded by unemployed, frustrated youths. Following the successes enjoyed by the Tunisians and the Egyptians, the Libyans, Yemenis and Syrians are also attempting to use this weapon against their rulers, and are paying a heavy price in blood as a result. The Palestinians – the refugees and those living in Judea and Samaria – have turned this weapon on Israel as well.

Using the modern social media, Facebook and Twitter, any group can organize in spite of government opposition, and rebel leaders can operate without their identities being exposed. Many Facebook groups have been created to call for the third intifada, and the question is not if this will occur, but when and under what circumstances.

But it is impossible to separate the events of May 15th from internal considerations, both Syrian and Lebanese. The Syrian government will do all in its power to divert the camera lenses away – even temporarily – from Dar’a, Homs, Banias and the mass killings being perpetrated by the regime. A confluence of interests between the government and refugees in Syria led to the provocation at Majdal Shams, as it is evident to all that dozens of buses crowded with protesters could not approach the border fences without the collusion and consent of the Syrian army, consent that would not be given without a green light from the President's office in Damascus.

Lebanon, with its chronic internal difficulties, oscillates between a pseudo-Western democracy and an Iranian-like theocracy and is uncertain about its path. On the one hand, there is a burning desire to be rid of four hundred thousand Palestinian refugees who have suffered humiliation and oppression at the hands of the Lebanese elite since 1948; there are, thus, some who encourage the Palestinians to march en masse toward the border fence with Israel. On the other hand, the Lebanese are fearful of heating up the border with Israel; memories of the Lebanon war (2006) deter many in the Land of the Cedars from war with the "Zionist entity". Iranian influence is also not strong enough to push Lebanon into igniting the Israeli border, and I am not certain that the Iranians are interested in detonating the Lebanese grenade at this juncture; they may prefer to retain that option for more difficult times, if and when a confrontation occurs between Iran and the West over its nuclear program.

The events which began on May 15 have yet to run their course. The dynamics of Middle Eastern protests are such that they tend to intensify, albeit in fits and starts. Both world and Arab media have forgotten the protests for now, which will anger the Palestinians and motivate them to replicate the events of May 15th. Israel must be resolute, but its actions need to be measured and restrained since a high death toll will only fan the flames of trouble. It is imperative that Israel not share the defendants' dock with dictators. Israel must act wisely and cautiously, using non-lethal methods to quell disturbances, as mass killings at the borders, in particular those surrounding Gaza, will deflect world attention from the internal conflicts in Arab countries and put the "right of return" squarely on the international agenda.

Source: Center for the Study of the Middle East and Islam (under formation), Bar-Ilan University

Mordechai Kedar

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