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THINK-ISRAEL |
| THINK-ISRAEL features essays and commentaries that provide context for current events in Israel. The war Islam is waging against Israel and the West is top priority. We report on global anti-Semitism, Islamism and creeping Sharia.We aim to make sense of what's going on. |
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A billion seconds ago it was 1959. A billion minutes ago, the year
was 1 A.D. A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone
Age.
If you make one dollar every second, you will have a million dollars in twelve days. You will be a billionaire in 32 years. It will take you more than 31,000 years to make a trillion dollars. The politicians can spend that much in a Washington minute. |
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We are told that there is a difference between extremist Islam and
peaceloving normal Islam.
Judging by their behavior, Muslims are anti-West, anti-Democracy, anti-Christian, anti-Jewish, anti-Buddhist, and anti-Hindu. Muslims are involved in 25 of some 30 conflicts going on in the world: in Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, Cyprus, East Timor, India, Indonesia (2 provinces), Kashmir, Kazakastan, Kosovo, Kurdistan, Macedonia, the Middle East, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Somalia, Sudan, Russia-Chechnya, Tajikistan, Thailand, Uganda and Uzbekistan. Doesn't this mean that extremist Islam is the norm and normal Islam is extremely rare? |
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"The Palestinian people does not
exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for
continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab
unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians,
Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical
reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people,
since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a
distinct 'Palestinian people' to oppose Zionism.
"For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa. While as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan." (PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein, March 31, 1977, interview with the Dutch newspaper Trouw.) [The Palestinian leadership, including Ahmed Shukar and Yasir Arafat, has openly admitted Palestinian "peoplehood" is a fraud; read this.] |
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The total for all the 22 Arab League
countries is 6,145,389 square miles (SM). By comparison, all 50 states of
the United States have a total of 3,787,318 SM. Israel has
8,463 SM, about one-sixth of that of the State of Michigan.
Iran, Turkey, Pakistan and Afghanistan are Muslim but not Arab and are
not included.
World Arab population: 300 million; World Jewish population: 13.6 million; Israel's Jewish population: 5.4 million. (reference: Dr. Wilbert Simkovitz, http://dehai.org/archives/dehai_news_archive/apr04/ 0223.htmldehai.org/archives/dehai_news_archive/apr04/0223.html) |
| "It has no heart. It has no spine. Its mouth serves as its anus. It has a diffuse net of nerves instead of a brain. Is it a jelly fish or an Israeli politician? Pick one. Whichever one you picked, you were right." (Eliezar Edwards, June 20, 2005) |
| To Israeli Secularists: You want a normal country, like everybody else? I will tell you how. Forget ads featuring bikini-clad hotsies. Forget promoting "alternative" life styles. The secret is to adopt the right attitude. A normal country doesn't give up an inch of land that belongs to it. A normal country doesn't let its citizens go hungry while it feeds its enemy and gives them medical care. A normal country doesn't let foreigners take over its holy sites Hebron, the Temple Mount, Joseph's Tomb. Looking at what counts, it's the religious Jews of Samaria and Judea and the Golan that are acting normal, not you. (Eliezar Edwards, March 20, 2008) |
| Some 900,000 Jews left behind $300 billion in assets when they were forced to flee for their lives from the Arab countries in the 1940s. They hold deeds for five times Israel's size. (Independent Media Centre, Winnipeg) |
| A Palestinian State? You want that? OK. BUT not in Israel. No way. Not now. Not ever. Put this Arab state in Dubai or Kuwait or Saudi Arabia or Libya or Syria. Make it big. Fill it with the Po' Arab "refugees". And with the Arabs of Gaza and Samaria and Judea (AKA West Bank). And treasonous Arabs who have Israeli citizenship. Build a big fence around it. Let them learn to develop the infrastructure of a state. Or let them destroy themselves, if that's what they prefer. If they ever become civilized, then it's time to consider letting them join the human race. (Eliezar Edwards, August, 2008) [For an early excellent solution, read Eli E. Hertz, "The U.S. Congress in 1922," here.] |
| What is ironic is that Israel belongs exclusively to the Jews by International Law. (Google Think-Israel for articles by Howard Grief, Yoram Shifftan, etc., for the legal basis of Israel's ownership of Israel and the Territories.) So why do the Arabs insist the land is theirs? Because the Jews have been so crazy for peace, they have been willing to share, to give up pieces of their tiny country, for a piece of paper. The Arabs created a phony people in 1964, called the "Palestinians" and blanketed the world with the mantra that they were the Palestinians and Palestine was theirs. There has not ever been a country or a state called Palestine. There have been Palestinians. During the British Mandate from 1922 to 1948 the Jews called where they lived Palestine. They played music in the Palestine Philharmonic. They read the Palestine Post (now the Jerusalem Post.) As the Palestine Brigade, they fought in the British Army in World War 2. The Arabs also fought hard for Hitler (Eliezar Edwards, December, 2008.) |
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"... during the late 1940s, more than 40 million refuges around the
world were resettled, except for one people. They [Palestinian arabs] remain defined as
refugees, wallowing 60 years later in 59 UNRWA refugee camps, financed
by $400 million contributed annually by nations of the world to
nurture the promise of the "right of return" to Arab neighborhoods and
Arab villages from 1948 that no longer exist." (Noam Bedein, Jerusalem
Post, January 6, 2009.)
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| "Land for Peace" is a medicine based on the wrong diagnosis. The war against Israel is not a territorial conflict and thus can not be solved with territorial concessions. Giving away an area does not help. Hamas cum suis are not fighting for pieces of land but for the total final victory of Islam, to which the rapid destruction of Israel is only a transitional stage. The conflict is jihad, the violent duty of every Muslim. Israel is located on the fault line of the dar-al-Islam and dar-al-Harb. To Islam, all of Israel is occupied territory and Tel Aviv is as much a "settlement" as was Netzarim. (Geert Wilders and Martin Bosma, "Land for peace doesn't work", Gates of Vienna Blogspot, January 6, 2009) |
| "By 1920 the Ottoman Empire had exercised undisputed sovereignty over Palestine for 400 years. In Article 95 of the treaty of Sevres, that sovereignty was transferred to England in trust for a national homeland for the jews. The local Arabs had never exercised sovereignty over Palestine and so they lost nothing. Their rights were fully protected by a provisio in the grant: '...it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine...'. The proviso has been fully observed by the Israelis. Since 1950 the Arabs have built some 261 new settlements in Judea and Samaria more than twice as many as the Jews, but you never hear of them. They fill them with Arabs from Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan and by the grace of God they become Palestinians. Allahu Akbar! The Arabs call Judea "the West Bank' because they would look silly claiming that Jews are illegally living in Judea." (Comment by Wallace Brand on Martin Peretz "Narrative Dissonance" The New Republic, July 1, 2009) |
| Within less than a century, between 7 million and 10 million Balkan refugees have been uprooted from their homes. After WW2, between 12-16 million Germans were forced out of Sudentenland (Czechoslovakia), Romania, Hungary and Poland into Germany; many of them had not supported the Nazis during the war. 14 million people were exchanged between Hindu India and Moslem Pakistan. In 1994, 540,000 Moslems fled Christian Armenia for Azerbaijan and 360,000 Armenian Christians fled Azerbaijan for Armenia. As Israel did with the Jewish refugees from Arab countries, Armenia absorbed the Christian refugees, while just like the Arab refugees from Israel the Moslem refugees languish in Azerbaijani refugee camps. From the late '80s on, 75,000 non-Moslem blacks from Mauritania were exiled to Senegal and Mali, while 75,000 Arabs fled to Mauritania. Ethnic conflicts in the Sudan continue between Muslim Arabs and black animists in the South; and between Muslim Arabs and black Muslims in Darfur. 3 t0 4 million black farmers of Darfur have fled Arab-dominated Khartoum, where some 200,000 to 400,000 black Muslims have already been killed. Cyprus has been split between Christian Greeks and Moslem Turks; this included a population exchange, where 200,000 Greeks and 50,000 Turks were shifted. Even before Israel became a state and increasingly after that, more than 800,000 Jews were forced to flee the Arab countries, where many of them had lived way before the Arabs Conquest; most of them came to Israel. Starting even before the Arabs invaded Israel when it became a state in 1948, Arabs left to avoid the coming war, fled in fear incited by their own press or were forced by their leaders to leave Israel. The Arabs claim 650,000-750,000 up to a million refugees, while the UN Acting Mediator in October, 1948 (unispal.un.org) set it at 472,000, of which 360,000 required aid (UNRWA is now supporting 4.5 million of their "descendants".) Of all the refugees, only these Arabs have demanded the right of return. (Data mostly taken from Ben-Dror Yemini, MidEast Truth Forum, January 15, 2009. See also the Addendum here.) |
| "In the 61 years since Israel was founded on one-sixth of one percent of land in that area described as land of the Arab world, there has not been a moment of peace for Israel, not as peace is properly understood. How many Americans understand that when Israel was founded in 1948, no Palestinian state was invaded, no Palestinian state was destroyed? There had not been a Palestinian geographic entity since between the departure of the Romans and the arrival of British rule. How many know that the West Bank, referred to by the president as 'occupied territory,' by inference occupied Palestinian territory, is under international law an unallocated portion of the Palestine Mandate rightfully occupied by Israel, because it occupied it in repelling aggression that came from that territory in 1967?" (George Will, speech at Claremont Review of Books dinner, July 2009). |
| "The officer who decided to assign a Palestinian Islamist supporter of suicide bombers to provide psychological counseling to American soldiers should have his head examined." (Dry Bones political cartoon, November 9, 2009) |
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Speaking of the Religion of Peace, REMEMBER
the MUSLIM bombing of PanAm Flight 103, 12/21/88 the MUSLIM bombing of the World Trade Center in 2/26/93 the MUSLIM bombing of the Marine Barracks in Lebanon, 10/23/83 the MUSLIM bombing of Khobar Towers, U.S. Barracks Saudi Arabia, 6/25/88 the MUSLIM bombing of U.S. Embassies-Nairobi & Dar es Salaam, Africa, 8/10/98 the MUSLIM attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon & (probably) the White House or Congress on 9/11/01 the MUSLIM bombings of 4 commuter trains in Madrid 3/11/04 the MUSLIM murders of at least 368 children in Beslan, Russia 9/1/004 the MUSLIM murders of at least 1500 Israelis since Oslo was signed 9/13/93, with tens of thousands wounded many maimed for life! all the AMERICAN and other lives who were lost in those vicious MUSLIM attacks. Islamic Terrorists Have Carried Out More Than 14,374 terror attacks since 9/11/01. [TheReligionofPeace.com] (Debbie Schlussel Nov 12, 2009) |
| "This year [2009] the Religion of Peace racked up well over 1600 dead bodies and 291 deadly terror attacks in 17 countries across the globe during its holiest month." (English Kaffir website) |
| "[When dealing with] areas of great threat or immiseration or both: Rwanda, Darfur, Tibet, Chechnya, North Korea, Zimbabwe, the Congo or Iran On these the UN has the patience of a stone but only some of its energy. But torpid as is its nature, and comatose as are its eternal deliberations, on one subject, and toward one state, the United Nations acquires a strange and uniquely transformative power. Bring Israel under its gaze and the diplomatic sloths at UN headquarters morph into the swiftest of gazelles. From lotus-eaters to adrenalin junkies in the twinkling of an eye. Quite amazing, really. (Rex Murphy National Post, June 5, 2010) |
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JULY-AUGUST, 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PRECISION-GUIDED OR INDISCRIMINATE? NGO REPORTING ON COMPLIANCE WITH THE LAWS OF ARMED CONFLICT
In this seminal investigation, Asher Fredman asks: How accurate are
Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in their conclusions when judged
by objective standards?
LOYALTY TO ISLAM IS PRIMARY. IT HAS NO BORDERS, NO EXCEPTIONS
The word Copt means Egyptian. The Copts are the "real"
Egyptians, the natives. They converted to Christianity sometime in the
first century A.D. They predate the Arab invasion, tracing their
ancestry back to the days of the pyramids. They are against
intermarriage but their numbers have been reduced because of forced
conversions to Islam. Today they constitute some 10% of the Egyptian
population. Ashraf Ramelah is a Copt. He uses his experience as a Copt
to make us understand the danger of allowing the erection of the
Ground Zero mosque that is intended by its builders to be a symbol of
Islamic triumph. It is not a symbol of shame or contrition; it is not
intended to honor the victims or 9/11 or to show ecumenical
brotherhood. In Egypt the Copts are subjected to active hostility and
fear-inducing brutality by the Muslim clergy and the Egyptian
government. Ramelah spells out some of the restrictions forced on the
Copts living in Egypt, a relatively secular country as Arab countries
go. To prevent Sharia tyranny in America, we should nip the initial
attacks such as the erection of the Ground Zero mosque
in the bud.
ISRAEL AND THE FLOTILLA: ON THE DANGERS OF A BINARY VIEW
Qanta Ahmed is a thoughtful Muslim who quietly contemplates moral
issues and doesn't exude hate. This may not mean much when weighed
against the number of Arabs who smash the skulls of Jewish babies or
the mullahs who preach bizarre sex and approve massacres. She may be
invisible among ordinary Muslims who applaud terrorism and hate
everyone. But it is good to know that a mind such as Qanta Ahmed's
exists. She describes a modern-day (im)morality play in which muslims
and media rage at "Israel as monolithic villain devoid of conscience".
This obsessive rage is misdirected; Muslims should be examining their
own actions and the depravity in the Arab world. But in today's skewed
visualization, a handful of deaths on the Gaza flotilla are reason
enough to label Israel's blockade a war crime, while the massacre of
Muslims by Muslims isn't worth newsprint. She suggests that the hate
propelling the Muslims will eventually harm them. But I fear that
before that happens, too many other people will suffer.
FAILED ZIONISM LIBERAL UTOPIANISM AND THE ABANDONMENT OF ISRAEL
Leftists Utopians condemn Israel's minimalist military responses while
they excuse sustained and ugly aggression by the Arabs, the putative
victims of the designated villian, the Jewish state. Topsy has become
turvy, and turvy topsy. In this essay, D.L. Adams asks why this is so.
Factual ignorance and emotional denial certainly play strong roles.
The idealogues of the Left have cast their lot with the 'Palestinian
underdog' and just don't hear what the jihadists plainly say, no
matter how loudly and how often the Muslims reassure us they plan on
destroying Israel as first stage in the conquest of the West in order
that the Caliphate be reestablished. Hence. as Adams points out,
"American liberalism in its present form is not compatible with
Zionism."
WOEFULLY IGNORANT OR WILLFULLY MISLEADING?
Martin Sherman examines Peter Beinart's assertion that "American Jews,
especially the yourger generation, is turning their backs on Israel."
For Beinert, this is praiseworthy, for he sees Israel as "violent and
inhuman." Since so many of Beinert's statements are contrary to fact,
it is possible he is just ignorant and surprisingly shallow. As
example, he portrays the expulsion of the Arab squatters living in
Jewish houses and paying no rent as nasty the Jews were kicked out
or killed when Jordan invaded eastern Jerusalem in 1948. He ignores
that the real victims the Jews who want their houses back have
been forced to go through expensive and prolonged lawsuits in Israeli
courts that contrary to what you might assume make a practice of
favoring the Arabs. This is hardly the way to further the reader's
understanding of what's going on. In the tradition of other
anti-Israel writers, Jew and non-Jew, a pimple on Israel's face is
viewed as much more ugly than a pus-filled carbuncle on the face of
any other country and the prescription for removing the pimple is to
slice off most of Israel's face. Perhaps, as Sherman suggests,
Beinart's real problem is not ignorance but malevolence. And if
American Jews accept evaluations of Israel such as Beinart's, it is no
wonder they become unsympathetic to the Jewish state.
EXPOSING HOW POST-ZIONISTS MANIPULATE HISTORY
Ever read a book or a gang-up of books, proving something you know in
your bones is wrong? The aguments dazzle and seem too weighty to push
aside. It is only later that you have that 'hey-wait-a-minute'
moment, when you notice a gap, an inconsistency, a puzzling omission.
This is roughly what has happened to the history of newly-reborn
Israel and its 1948 war of survival, when it was attacked by Its arab
neighbors, intent on destroying the non-Muslim state. The story was
told accurately at first. Then the New Historians revised the
interpretation of these events and announced that the original version
was a myth. The issue was not, they declared, Israel's remarkable
accomplishment: redeeming Jewish land and constructing a free and
democratic Jewish state in a relatively short amount of time. The
issue was that through no fault of their own, the local Arabs suffered
severely in 1948 and it was all because of what Israel did
intentionally. Using the New Historian Benny Morris as both focus and
foil, Avi Becker recounts distortions, misinterpretations and
down-right lies told by the New Historians. What made these whoppers
so pernicious is that Israel was cast as a figure of evil, which
needed to atone for its sins. It was put on the defensive in political
negotiations. These accusations were eventually used to try to
delegitimize Israel. Benny Morris was a key figure in framing the
features of the New History; he fashioned a strong base on which
others constructed ever more-outlandish interpetations. It is ironic
that it would be Morris who later put a stop to this nonsense by
supplying the information the New Historians had omitted namely,
the unswerving hatred of the Arab toward other religions and that the
Arabs saw the 1948 War as just another battle in their religious Jihad
over the centuries to become top dog. Ironic. And tragic. For the
truth is just beginning to crack the cement of lies cast around the
historic events. It doesn't help that many readers, who were, for
their own reasons, so eager to accept the New Historians' lies, will
be just as motivated to ignore the truth.
LOSING TURKEY TO THE ISLAMISTS
Since the Turkish P.M.Recep Tayyip Erdogan took power in 2002, his AKP party
has been turning Turkey from a secular society into an anti-Western
Islamic state, whose ambition is to become the leader of the Islamic
world. Nevertheless, the EU and the American administration
have the fantasy that the Turkish military Turkey's strongest
proponent of secularism is the threat to the West, not the AKP.
Western leadership considers the new Turkey neo-Ottoman. Barbara
Lerner demolishes this notion, pointing out that the AKP has adopted
the standard Islamic cliches for showing animosity to the West and
Israel and is encouraging the Turks to adopt a more uniform Islamic
way of life, one more in conformity with the general hate-filled
Islamic ideology pervasive in the Middle East. In contrast, under the
Ottomans, providing the subject people Muslim, Christian, Jew --
paid the required tribute, they pretty much governed their own
communities. This led to multiple patterns of governance, multiple
ways to express the various cultures, different living conditions and
some opportunity for upward mobility. Turkey was relatively
open under the Ottomans and in this way the Ottomans served as a
model for Atatürk, not Erdogan.
RETHINKING SECURITY IN THE NEW NUCLEAR AGE
There's little argument that it is important to find alternative
sources of energy to to reduce dependency on fossil fuel, particularly
when the major suppliers are unstable theocracies in an unstable part
of the world. From that point of view, nuclear energy has many
advantages. And indeed non-military nuclear reactors are beginning to
proliferate. Andrew McKillop explores some of the less pleasant
possibilities that deserve serious thought before we commit to
an extreme makeover. What happens if a reactor is attacked with
conventional weapons during a convential war? How are nuclear products
maintained and stored? What about the interdependence of civil and
military nuclear installations? Given the finite amount of initial
material, the solution is usually to advocate building Fast Breeder
Reactors, which can create more fuel than is consumed in the process
of making the fuel. But this creates another set of problems. As the
waste plutonium accumulates, it becomes harder to keep it safe and out
of the hands of terrorists; and it is increasingly susceptible to
outside attack. How do we define national security under these new
conditions?
ISRAELI DEMOGRAPHICS 101. E PLURIBUS UNUM
This seemingly simple essay condenses a large amount of information on
the demographic characteristics of Israeli society. Norman
Berdichevsky provides a framework for the interactions and history of
some of the major components of Israeli society. He tracks the ongoing
integration of the groups the "Zionist ideal of Kibbutz uMizug
haGaluyot (Ingathering and Mixing of the Exiles)" He points out
that much of the bad-mouthing of Israel comes from Marxists, "at a
loss to explain the survival of the Jewish people and their
reconstitution as a nation." According to Marxist doctrine, this
wasn't supposed to happen. More generally, national differences
everywhere were supposed to disappear, and a working class with
solidly working-class concerns emerge. Israel's non-conformity to
theory apparently is particularly galling.
IT'S ABOUT SHARIA: NEWT GINGRICH
RESETS OUR NATIONAL-SECURITY DEBATE
This
morning
ISRAEL'S RULING CLASS
In a recent article Angelo Codevilla pointed out that America's
elitist ruling class politicians, bureaucrats and the policy
establishment thinks much the same despite surface differences in
politics and is committed to gaining still more power. It doesn't much
much like the rest of America, which prefers smaller government and
more individualism. In this essay Caroline Glick applies Codevilla's
thesis to the ruling class in Israel, which perverts the will of the
majority on behalf of "world opinion" and sometimes in actual
collusion with foreign governments. Some of these have actually
committed treason, as in the recent example where a trio of far left
ex-IDF officers conspired with Obama's agent so that USA could know
and have arguments ready to counter Netanyahu's arguments. They "and
their leader Yossi Beilin are always working with the Americans and
Europeans to force Israel to maintain allegiance to the failed land
for peace paradigm." Israel has little margin for error. It is a small
country surrounded by hostile neighbors that have the support of the
U.N., the E.U. and the American administration. Hence, the
mischief-making of this unpatriotic internal elite leadership could
have dire consequences.
THE MEDIA'S ANTI-SEMITIC HATE MACHINE
How well Daniel Greenfield explains how anti-semitism is justified,
despite the fact that the Arabs are the ones waging the war against
Israel: "by linking Islamic terrorism to some form of Israeli
provocation, and from there to the support for Israel by American Jews
the same media which would commit seppuku rather than blame
Muslims for Islamic terrorism, instead blames Jews for Islamic
terrorism." The amazing thing is that this brain-dead logic works, as
it has in previous periods of anti-semitic media attack. We can't have
the Arabs humiliated the poor dears were terribly frustrated when
they wanted to kill off the new-born state of Israel and couldn't hack
it. Curious, the fact that the Jews had a kingdom in the ME in ancient
time that's too long ago. The fact that in the last 60 years,
the Jews have fought back the Arab invaders and took back land that
was theirs anyways by international law is unacceptable because
conquest in modern times is unacceptable. The Arabs came and conquered
the land in the 7th Century A.D. ah, that's just right. Not too old, not too new. What the media are really saying is that the Jews are a thorn in the side of an Arab entity in the Middle East that would otherwise be a unified people ready to conquer the West. This is Intolerable. The Jews surviving, that is. Not the conquest of the West.
THE MUSLIM MOSQUE: A STATE WITHIN A STATE
When resistence to the Ground Zero Mosque became vocal, damage control
was instituted. The name of the mosque was changed. With no change in
architecture the mosque became a cultural center. And the word went
out that mosques were necessary for Muslims to practice their
religion, just as every other religious group has its type of
religious housing. That seems reasonable enough. But as Vijay Kumar
demonstrates, the mosque isn't primarily for religious practice. it has had
political significance ever since Mohammed, when he conquered Mecca,
took over an ancient temple, the Kabah, which had been used by many
faiths, and declared it exclusively Muslim. As Kumar points out, "A
mosque in the United States is a command and control center of a
foreign political and military state that seeks the overthrow of our
government, and an Imam in a mosque is a political and military
representative of a foreign state that calls for the overthrow of the
United States." Islam demands tolerance for itself in host countries
but will not tolerate other religions in countries it controls.
THE HIDDEN COSTS OF JEW-BAITING IN ENGLAND
As Muslims take over London, demanding special treatment, forcing the
local communities to conform to their requirements, expanding
territory that they alone control and where they determine "dress and
behavior codes", it is curious that the English journalists,
academics, jurors show little overt concern or protest. Instead,
they displace their anger on the Jews, perhaps because there is no
penalty for baiting Jews, no danger in demonizing Israel. Conversely
they are careful how they behave towards the Muslims and rarely
criticize them openly there's both fear of physical harm and fear
of being called islamaphobic by their peers. As Landes notes, "By
failing to denounce toxic Muslim communitarianism and instead
adopting its shrill discourse of demonization about Jews, Brits feed
the monster that devours them." The Jews may be the first victims of
the Muslim takeover; they won't be the last.
WIKIPEDIA'S JEWISH PROBLEM
It's pointless urging the ignorant to get the facts when their
resources are tainted from the getgo. We've discovered MacMillian's
encyclopedia is er...er.. unreliable. Wikipedia is not actually
acceptable as a certified source, but it has the advantage of being
free, so it is popular. But, as the saying goes, there really aren't
any free lunches. The cost is that the unscrupulous can as easily
write the "facts" as the conscientous and unbiased. And civility isn't
a requirement. This is fertile ground for pro-palestinians with a
political agenda and little concern for accuracy. Karin McQuillan
shares with us her personal experience attempting to insert her very
accurate article on how the New York Times handled news of the
Holocaust during World War 2 so badly that one can only call it
willful negligance, if not outright cooperation with the Nazi killing
machine. They knew about the camps, the killings, the horrors. They
barely wrote of it as news or editorialized it. McQuillan discovered
her article was not considered worthy of inclusion in Wiki by some
very hostile editors. As one reader commented, "so basically Wikipedia functions like the UN."
THE GAZA FLOTILLA CONFRONTATION: FACTS VS. THE ACADEMICIANS
David Meir-Levi provides us with an excellent summation of the facts
about the Mavi Marmara, the Gaza flotilla ship that was outfitted with
mercenaries and weaponry and prepped to do battle. In addition, as his
points out, Hamas refused to take the rather cruddy "humanitarian" aid
and out-of-date medication unless they had control of its distribution
and non-distribution. Curiously, it is a bunch of pro-Palestinian
academics who deny the obvious or distorted facts so obvious that even
the U.N. has acknowledged them. As Meir-Levi says, "... it is
reasonable to ask: why are these professors so obsessed with Israel
even as they ignore egregious crimes of other states and non-state
actors? This is an important question, because it seems clear that
that obsession is what has driven their misleading assessment of the
Mavi Marmara attack, and their consequent condemnation of
Israel."
THE NAKBA OBSESSION: THE PALESTINIAN NATIONAL NARRATIVE IS THE BIGGEST OBSTACLE TO PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Why are the Arab refugees different from all other refugees? Why do
all refugees have one U.N. agency (UNHCR) to help them survive the
crisis and resettle them after a brief time and these Arab
refugees have their own dedicated U.N. agency (UNRWA) that has fed,
educated and medicated them and their descendents and discouraged
resettlement? Why have all other refugees fled from countries that
include all the religions but Jewish and the Arab refugees are
the only ones that ran from the Jewish state? Is the explanation that
these Arab refugees (now declared to be the Palestinian people) are
the only weapon Islam has to try to deny the Jews their homeland? Is
that why compared to true refugees they live high off the hog
(oops, make that lamb) not just in the refugee camps scattered in the
Arab countries but in Gaza and the West Bank, foot soldiers in an
campaign conducted by a wide number of disparate groups that can not
admit in their politically-correct milieu that they hate Jews. In this
essay, Sol Stern discusses the Nakba the Ur-legend that
bolsters the fantasy that the innocent Palestinians were forceably
cast out from their garden of Eden into wretchedness by a foreign
force, (twirl the mustache, here) international Zionism.
ASSESSING ISLAM'S REACH: AN INTERVIEW WITH DANIEL PIPES
In this interview, Daniel Pipes comments on several aspects of Muslim
global activity: the large and aggressive immigration of Muslims into
Europe; Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons; and Arab harrassment
of Jews, Christians and non-conformist Muslims. A serious problem is
that there is no common ground in interpreting Muslim behavior.
Explanations range from the optimistic belief that terrorism is due a
few bad guys who are atypical of Islam to the assertion that "Islam
itself is the problem. ..., with jihad, honor killings, and the like.
Islam is itself evil and problematic." It certainly doesn't encourage
Muslims to conform to the mores of their host countries when
academics and even governments ignore radical Muslim behavior and,
instead, persecute those who fight for Western values.
ALBERT THE ALLIGATOR AND THE BRITISH AMBASSADOR
Barry Rubin makes a strong case that "... nowadays, the most common
way of dealing with radicalism, repression, terrorism, and such things
in the Third World is to blame it on democratic states so often
victimized by such issues." Rubin points out this view ignores the
reality: no matter how conciliatory Israel and the West are,
"incitement and indoctrination will continue at the same level from
those who hate Israel because it exists." To blame the West is
actually to patronize the other side. It implies we believe the
Muslim world "is merely a blank screen or mirror, reflecting back what
we do." It implies that the other side is incapable of setting its own
goals. Muslims are often brutally and viciously evil because of their
culture and upbringing. They need to change their world view.
We don't need to accept responsibility for it.
LEBANON: AYATOLLAH FADLALLAH'S DEATH AND THE EXPANSION OF IRANIAN HEGEMONY
Shimon Shapira provides us with an analytical perspective on the life
of the recently-deceased Shiite religious leader, Sayyed Muhammed
Hussein Fadlallah. He is praised in the West as a peaceful scholar,
moral and progressive. In actuality, "[h]e played a leading role in
the increasing Islamic radicalization of Lebanese Shiites and laid the
foundations for Hizbullah's ideology of violent struggle against the
West and Israel." True, he did speak out against wife-beating and
rejected the authority of Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on religious
grounds, but these hardly nullify his commitment to jihad against
Israel and the West and his condonning the murder of Jewish youngsters
massacred as they sat studying in their Yeshiva. He was both
dedicated and persuasive doing psych-ops among the Shi'ites in
Southern Lebanon on behalf of Iran-owned Hizbollah. Without irony, we
can say he was as peaceful as his religion; the word "peaceful" no
more fitted him than it fits his religion.
THE TRUTH ABOUT "PALESTINE"
Nowadays many a propagandist talks about Palestine as if such a
sovereign political entity exists anywhere except in the fancy-filled
illogic of Jew-haters. It doesn't exist. What's more. It never did.
The fallback position of these Jew-haters when forced to admit the
facts is: but the land belongs to the natives that were driven out
or marginalized when Israel became a state. Again, this is wrong.
Some 90-95% of these natives started coming into the land
after the Jews and the Brits started creating economic
opportunities. Steven Simpson provides us with an excellent history of
the development of the "Palestine" myth, which has become one of the
more important ways to attack the legitimacy of the Jewish state.
Unlike Palestine, the legitimacy of Israel is warranted by history,
morality, international law and the rules of conquest.
HOLLOW MEN
Lee Smith inquires why so many Western intellectuals admire terrorist
organizations. The 'he loved his mother' defense is often used:
Hezbollah and Hamas provide social services; Mullah Fadlalah was sort
of pro-feminist, so let's forget he loved suicide-bombers and hated
Israel. What is worrisome is not just that they despise Israel but
that their ideas could go mainstream. As Smith notes, "all the massive
and popular evil of the last century started among a small ideological
elite." Their attitude is surprising given that intellectuals provided
much of the manpower of the early settlers. Hebrew owes its ability to
deal with the modern world because an intellectual created new labels
and definitions from it. The miracle of rebirth of the Jewish
nation-state has grandeur, even if it isn't the violent, gothic,
irrational, swashbuckling sort the intellectuals appear to crave. Lee
Smith suggests that what these Western intellectuals really hate isn't
Israel; it's themselves.
ISLAMIC COGNITIVE DISSONANCE AND LIBERAL INCENTIVES
It's an odd couple. Islam with its dysfunctional belief system, its
severe punishment of any behavior it considers deviant and its rigid
control of all aspects of life has a political liason with Western
far-left liberalism, which finds excuses for whatever the Muslims do,
despite the fact that in theory liberal ideology espouses the
non-judgmental acception of all sorts of life styles. Babu Suseelan
notes that to defend Islam, secular liberals ignore gruesome murders
by Muslims, Islamic terrorism and the Koranic basis of that terrorism,
even though they themselves would be at risk in an Islamic society. To
live in a democratic society, it's the wrong strategy.
DIRECT TALK ABOUT DIRECT TALKS
This essay by Paul Lademain could have been entitled: how to grow a
spine advice for Israeli diplomats. In the next round of that
interminable game called 'Let's make peace' OR 'Chop another piece out
of Israel', he suggests putting Israel's interests first and worrying
about Israelis instead of wanting to show an indifferent world how
cooperative Israel can be. I find it hard to believe that Israel,
which by international law holds Samaria and Judea in trust for all
Jews, allows itself to be put into a position where it is negotiating
the future of Biblical Israel (Samaria and Judea). And to make this a
real farce, the term of office for their peace partner, Abbas, expired
early in 2009; he isn't legally in office any more. He doesn't speak
for Hamas. He doesn't control Fatah, which runs the P.A. So who does
he represent? Why are his demands taken seriously? Why are the demands
of that phony people, the Palestinians, taken seriously?
THE BLACKMAILER'S PARADOX: ARAB-ISRAEL NEGOTIATIONS ARE A GAME
Professor Yisrael Aumann applies game theory to how to negotiate with
Arabs. In the Blackmailer's Paradox, it is the side that doesn't
flinch, that makes unreasonable demands and doesn't compromise, that
walks home with the goodies. To date the Arabs have played the game
better, convincing Israel to be the one that must compromise. Aumann
suggests some necessary changes in Israel's negotiating stance. Of
course in real life, the problem is more complex. Negotiation implies
a willingness to compromise. Unfortunately, the Arabs aren't just
unreasonable the goal of Islam's leaders is to destroy Israel, no matter
what the costs. But Aumann is certainly right that the Israelis need
some street smarts.
SHARIA LAW FOR NON-MUSLIMS: CHAPTERS 4 AND 5.
In the May-June 2010 issue, we presented the first three chapters of
Bill Warner's Sharia Law for Non-Muslims. The books is short,
understandable, well-organized and clarifies important issues. It is
good to have available to counter the incomplete information
promulgated by many Islamic sources and sources that have accepted
Arab money. For example, when you are told that sharia banking is fine
because some of its profits go to charity, check with Warner's book.
You will find that the statement is true, but a Muslim is
forbidden to spend any of it on a Kafir. A Kafir is anyone who
is not a Muslim. When the text speaks well of Jews or Christians,
check whether it is a earlier verse or a later verse. Later verses
nullify earlier verses. The entire book is now available.
THE MOSQUES OF WAR
As Victor Sharpe notes in this essay, both of Judaism's theological
children have much to answer for in how, over the centuries, they
treated the mother religion. "When not slaughtering each other, they
both often turned upon the hapless and stateless Jews, who, for the
most part, had no allies and were unable to defend themselves." But
today there are two facts of major importance: (1) "... many
Christians not all have come to the realization that biblical
Jewish roots are inextricable from their own and that their faith is
fatefully incomplete without an acknowledgment of those roots." and
(2) Both daughter religions strive to convert the non-believer
but in Islam it is an integral part of the credo the "Moslem is
required to subdue the infidel." To mark a triumphal takeover, Muslim
inevitably converts what is significant to the infidel into a mosque.
There is only one way to read the projected building of the Cordoba
mosque. It is "a flagrant insult to the memory of the thousands of
innocents who died at the hands of Moslem fanatics and believers"
This is where our readers get a chance to write opinions
and editorials and share articles they find informative. The Blog-Eds
page for the month is updated every few days.
A Blog-Ed page has a quick list of the articles from which you can
access any of the articles immediately.
To go to the list, click the
"Blog-Eds List" box in the Blue Strip on the top of the Blog-Ed page.
July 2010 BLOG-EDS
READ MORE
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MAY-JUNE, 2010
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GET THE HELL OUT OF...MY FACE
As Naomi Ragen put it:
"If you've been thinking about a response to Helen Thomas
tell-the-Jews-to-get-the Hell-out-of Palestine-and-go-back to -Germany and
Poland-, think no more! The best rant on the subject can be found on
Jewlicious by Sara K Eisen, who signs herself Sarke." This is it.
ISRAEL PUBLISHES GAZA TRAVEL GUIDEBOOK FOR PRO-HAMAS FREEDOM FLOTILLA
Sheikh Mohammed al-Hazimi, a member of the Yemeni Parliament and of Al-Islah, aboard the Mavi Marmara. In this article Omri Ceren publishes a "Guide to Gaza" the real
Gaza is very different than what's painted by our "reliable" news
sources. There was, as CNN noted, violence. They forgot to mention the
violence was coming from the humanitarians, who assaulted the Israelis
-- even throwing them overboard. The Israelis, of course, were
forbidden by their politicians from doing bodily harm, if at all
avoidable. The only questionable item in Ceren's article is the notion that
the people Israel hires to do its hasbara would be effective. And so
it is, because Israel's responses were weak and delayed and thanks to
the major TV and newspaper media stretching the truth till it broke,
the world now knows that the brutal Jews wouldn't allow some brave
humanitarians to bring in food to the starving Gazans. If they were
serious, why didn't they send the material by truck? That's how the
Gazans get their freebies week by week. Come to think of it, if they
were serious, why didn't they go to Darfur, where the people really
are starving?
NO ISRAELI GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED
Did you know that just this week, in mid-June, Muslims from Kyrgzstan
killed a couple hundred Muslims from Uzbekistan? Tortured hundreds of
others? Caused some 200,000 resident Uzbeks to flee the country? Did
you know that Yemen was blockading South Yemen? It's a real blockade
no supplies are let in no water, no food, no medicine. Did you
know that Hamas won't let the "Humanitarian suppplies" in anyways
unless they take charge of the goodies? With regard to the Gaza
flotilla story, it is true that the Jews were in the right in
international law, showed saintly forbearance before they were forced
either to fight back intelligently or lose their lives. It is true
that this was a stunt cooked up by terror groups to show Israel as
either weak or heartless. But the main point is that when Jewish
Israel kills a Muslim that is news worthy it will even be declared
a war crime when managed by a Goldstone-cur hired by the U.N. But when
a multitude of Muslims are killed by other muslims, it doesn't make
the news. Moral of the story: if Israel is to be castigated even for
minimal killings, she might as well do what needs doing. The decibel
level can't get any higher than it is. As Spengler points out in this
essay, "The Gaza flotilla affair should teach Jerusalem that no matter
how gingerly it approaches the threats on its borders, and how gently
it responds, it ends up holding the bag for the region's problems. It
might as well get down to the business of war."
STARTER GROUPS FOR ISLAMISM: THE TABLIGHI JAMAAT; ASMA'S IMAN RAUF AND THE MOSQUE AT GROUND ZERO
We have been forced to become frighteningly familiar with some
Islamic groups directly involved in terrorism. Starter groups that
introduce Islamic ideology into new territory appear less menacing.
Salah Choudhury writes of the jihadist organization,
Tablighi Jamaat (TJ), which works out of mosques in some 80
countries.
A REVEALING SKETCH OF IMAM RAUF: FOUNDED GROUND ZERO MOSQUE PROJECT
HELPED FUND THE GAZA FLOTILLA
Imam Rauf is truly a renaissance man. Unfortunately, his idea of
renaissance appears to be recreating the medieval Caliphate.
AllahPundit makes some connections the Main Stream Media has largely
chosen to ignore. Rauf is, for example,
a member of the Perdana Global Peace Organization. Perdana, which is
based in Malaysia, is the largest contributor to the Gaza Flotilla on
record. Rauf is a man that can win Westerns with his
charming manner and intellectual discourse. But as Walid Shoebat
inter alia has often pointed out, it's what they say to their
own people in their own language that counts. And Muslims don't hear
ecumenism and tolerance from him.
THE TWO FACES OF THE GROUND ZERO MOSQUE
Raymond Ibrahim starts this essay by informing us that justice
in western terms conveys a very different meaning than it does for a
Muslim. Muslims can often take advantage of this, knowing a western
audience will, for example, interpret "We seek Justice" in a benign
way, whereas the speaker is extolling conquest of the infidel West. As
another example, a Muslim group has bought land close to Ground Zero
and proposes to build a Mosque/Center there, claiming they wish to
honor the victims of 9/11. Their true intent may be gleamed from the
fact they are calling this the Cordoba Initiative. Raymond Ibrahim
explains why ecumenical tolerance and peace are not their intent.
Included are links to several videos about the mosque.
INTELLECTUAL DOUBLE STANDARDS ON ISLAMISTS
The Muslim Brotherhood is back in the spotlight. It is
implicated in the Ground Zero mosque grotesquerie. And the Gaza
Flotilla. In the usual news item, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is
whitewashed so effectively that people can be forgiven for thinking
it's somewhat like the Elks or the Lions Club doing good deeds,
giving charity, just nice decent folk. The reality is that the
Brotherhood is in business to foster Sharia Law globally. Founded
almost a century ago, they are patient and plan well. Hamas is one of
their creations but they prefer to emphasize their "moderate"
intellectual side, downplaying that their chief intellectual, Yousef
Al-Qaradawi, was behind the riots and demonstrations that belatedly
THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD'S FLOTILLA
Thomas Joscelyn writes of the ubiquitous Muslim Brotherhood (MB),
which seems increasingly to be stripping off its mask of moderation and
showing its true face. Were the Flotilla structured like Facebook, the
MB could claim to have the mostest friends and relations both on board
the flagship Marmara and behind the scene among the workers that
ensured the flotilla's success. The show was a benefit performance for
Hamas, one of the MB's creations. The Turkish contingent was honchoed
by the IHH, which paid for the mercenaries, after it had generously
contributed ships. The IHH is part of a Saudi-sponsored group called
The Union of Good (UG), which has been designated a terror group.
Sheik Qaradawi, who triggered the Danish cartoon riots and is a top
man in the MB just happens to be a UG leader. These are just some of
the best-known linkages. More connections of the MB to top terror
players are likely to emerge.
Israel does get an inordinate amount of attention over minor
matters and necessary security matters, when major matters in other
countries with global implications are underreported. Aside from
routine terror attacks by Muslims on Christians, Jews and Hindus, more
than
100 muslims were murdered May 28th in Pakistan by Islamic terrorists
in two Achmedi mosques. In the same month, 82 Muslim Kurds were murdered in
Turkey and Iran. Russia continues to press Kyrgyzstan, an important
American ally in Central Asia, to close the American air base we keep
there in readiness. Unsurprisingly, in mid-June, Kyrzgyzstan
"civilians" "spontaneously" attacked Uzbek civilians living in
Kyrzgyzstan, leaving hundreds dead and hundreds of thousands fleeing
as refugees. Even these murders don't get much attention, because
it's only one muslim sectarian faction killing another it's not as
horrible, has v' halila, as the Jewish IDF killing 9 blockade runners with their
terror-affiliated handlers on board, This section looks at some
important political happenings in some other countries. In the first
article of the set, Wallace Brand points out that the Islamists have
again begun a religious war around the world, aiming at world
dominance. "Terror in the West is not caused by US support for Israel;
terror all over the world is the result of Islamist imperialism."
THE THIRD WAVE
Muslim leaders have persuaded the current American administration
that their jihad against the West is America's fault because it
supports Israel. The Arab jihad against Israel is Israel's fault
because it inhibits Arab nationalism. Blaming Islamist violence in
Afghanistan and Iraq and the nuclear threat in Iran on Israel's
supposed occupation of Arab land conveniently forgets that the Arabs
were massacring Jews in the Holy Land well before Israel was a state
-- "Palestine" was never a state during the time when Jew and Arab
lived equally in squalid conditions under the Ottoman rule. As Wallace
Brand makes clear in this essay, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is
just another manifestation of the Third Wave of jihad by a resurgent
Islam. The Islamists have again begun a religious war around the
world, aiming at world dominance. "Terror in the West is not caused by
US support for Israel; terror all over the world is the result of
Islamist imperialism."
THE LONG MARCH OF ISLAM: CHAPTER 5
We are serializing R.K. Ohri's book entitled The Long March of Islam.
In Chapter 5, Ohri writes about the revival of militant Islam
in the first half of the 20th Century. It had a large jolt
forward in 1947 with the creation of Muslim Pakistan, which was
supposed to end religious conflict in India. Instead, almost
immediately, the Pakistani invaded Jammu and Kashmir. The matter was
taken to the U.N. This resulted as it did when Israel fought back
Arab aggression around the same time in making a relatively simple
situation almost unsolvable. Ohri also expands on the role a
government with strong resources and determined Muslims in this
case, Pakistan can have in promoting jihad, especially when Saudi
Arabia is willing to pay for the madrassas that "become factories for
producing terrorists and suicide bombers." The goal of the Muslim
jihadists whether they be Arab or Pakistani may be to pull the
world down into their medieval notions of
an ideal social structure, but they don't hesitate to make use of
Western communication technology and Western freedom of speech to
rouse the troops to slaughter.
HOW TO WIPE OUT ISLAMIC TERROR: THE
MOMENT OF TRUTH HAS ARRIVED
RK Ohri's article
(see above) was a general review, including how India split off
Muslim-majority Pakistan in an effort to create peaceful relations
between Hindus and Muslims. Instead, it led to renewed aggression,
with Pakistan claiming Kashmir. In this essay, Subramanian Swamy
writes out a specific plan to fight the terrorism emanating from
Pakistan. A major consideration is the potential 5th column of muslims
resident in India. Caroline Glick has written of similar
radicalization and treasonable activity among Israeli Arabs, with Arab
towns in Israel storing weaponry to be used in a future insurrection.
("Hizbullah on the homefront"
click here.) As does Glick, Swammy recommends a crackdown --
action, not words. It is eerie how similar terrorism is in both
countries and how pusillanimous the response of both Governments.
Swarmy recommends some specific measures to stop terrorism. It is a
recipe Israel should also consider.
RIDDING PAKISTAN OF ITS JIHADI TERRORISTS
Babu Suseelan's essay on Pakistan deals primarily with Pakistan's
global impact. Terrorists live there. Terrorists are conditioned
there. Terrorists train there. Terrorists travel from there to commit
acts of terror all over the world. They kill people indiscriminately,
because of the "collective guilt" of their victims or because of some
recent events of which they disapprove. This is done with active
outside financial support from Islamic governments. There is no world
institution acting to stop them. The U.N. doesn't condemn them the
U.N. saves its condemnations for Israel engaged in a legitimate fight
against terrorism. America needs to monitor the huge amount of money
it gives Pakistan to ensure money is not diverted to the terrorists.
We need to act firmly with a strong will to remove a clear and present
evil from the world.
AFGHAN WAR BECOMING A BLOODY FARCE
As Tony Blankley writes, "President Obama has publicly doubted whether
Afghan President Hamid Karzai's corruption and incompetence make him
a fit partner for our policy goals in Afghanistan." Obama's public
condemnation has not improved relations with President Karzai, who,
on his part, has lost confidence in America's ability to make a
difference in Afghanistan. Blankley suggests that since we aren't
going to do anything effective in Afghanistan and the present
American administration has no such intention we might as well
leave. All we are doing is allowing the Afghan struggle to kill off
the soldiers of America and its allies needlessly. He might also have
said that Afghanistan is a distraction, when our resources would be
put to better use stabilizing the Middle East and dampening down the
nuclear arms race that Iran's nuclear ambitions has set off among the
Arab countries. Bowing to the Saudis, appeasing Iran and stomping on
Israel is on Jimmy Carter's level of ineptitude.
IRAN TARGETS AZERBAIJAN
Aside from pointing out that Israel is developing a strong
alliance with a Muslim country, this article is a case study in how
hidebound Islam infiltrates a relatively open state. As
Alexander Murinson writes, Azerbaijan was one of the Central Asian
states where Iran "launched a comprehensive program for the export of
its 'Islamic Revolution'." aimed at an "Islamic revival." To this end,
it attempted to staff mosques in Azerbaijan with
its own mullahs a technique the Saudis practice in the U.S.A. It
is praiseworthy that they helped feed and house many of the poor. What
is less advertised is that they trained rioters and organized riots.
It is equally educational to read how Azerbaijan is rebuffing the Iranian
efforts at ideological takeover.
THE RETURN OF THE OTTOMANS
While we fritter away our diplomatic resources in the Middle East
counting how many houses Israel builds in eastern Jerusalem, alliances
between the neighboring states are being reconstructed, and seldom to
America's benefit. Lee Smith explains the changing dynamics of this
volatile region in response to Iran's bid for domination of the
region, followed by Turkey's apparent decision to challenge her.
Turkey has become cold, even hostile, to her one-time friend, Israel,
while she pleases the Arabs as in the Gaza flotilla venture by
dramatically taking up their purported cause: Palestinian nationalism.
This in itself is curious, because, as Smith notes, "Long before Arab
nationalism identified Israel and the United States (and before that
the European powers) as the enemy, it was the Ottomans who were called
to account for everything that was wrong in the Arabic-speaking
regions."
THE FANTASY OF HIZBULLAH MODERATION
John Brennan speaking for the Obama administration wants to strengthen
the "moderate element" within Hizbullah, Shimon Shapira in this essay
explains why this is most unrealistic. Hizbullah isn't a Lebanese
nationalist movement. It began as a way for Iran to export the Islamic
Revolution and it remains subservient to Iran, even though it has become
"the real ruler of Lebanon." Washington's hopes and wishes won't
change matters.
THE LOOSE ENDS OF MIDDLE EAST LINKAGE
It is conventional wisdom among our politicians, diplomats and many of
our military that, in Lee Smith's words, "the Arab-Israeli arena is
the region's defining issue." Were the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to
be settled and were the Arabs to see we weren't favoring Israel, the
Arabs would support us in Iraq and Afghanistan. The diplomat's corollary of
course is since we can't make the Arabs listen to reason, we should
pressure Israel. Like much conventional wisdom, the proposition that
the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is linked to the major problems in
the Middle East is dead wrong. The civil war between Hamas and Fatah,
Hezbollah's taking over Lebanon, the conflicts between the Sunni and
the Shi'ites, the proxy war in Yemen, Turkey's regression to Muslim
orthodoxy and the potential race to acquire nuclear devices won't go
away. In this fascinating article, Lee Smith explores where the idea
of linkage comes from, why the myth was invented and why it persists.
And why it will begin to work against the Arabs.
For an institution conceived as a safe haven in which squabbling
states could come together to patch up differences in a polite,
non-threatening way, the United Nations has suffered profound
deterioration. Its monolithic Arab-Muslim bloc backed by
oil-needy countries has turned the U.N. into an instrument to
amplify and implement Islam's hatred of Israel, even as the countries
that side with the Muslims recognize that after Israel, the Muslims
are intent on conquering the West. We also witness grotesque behavior
from the leaders of some major Protestant churches, who manifest moral
shallowness in chastizing Israel for inconveniencing Arabs living in
the Territories by delaying them at checkpoints while ignoring the
barbarous behavior of these same Palestinians, who venerate as
heroes Arabs who murder Jewish toddlers sleeping in their beds and
Jewish babies held in the arms of their parents. Church leaders have
so often asserted with no valid evidence, usually just vague
generalities that the Palestinians are suffering from Israel's
treatment of them, it has become an article of faith, mouthed even by
some pro-Israel Christians. The false notion that Israel is occupying
Arab land allows some churchmen to excuse anything the Palestinian
arabs do shoot Jews, shoot rockets at Jews, knife Jews, run Jews
over with bulldozers, stone Jews, steal their animals, burn their orchards. All is excused.
THE MEMBERSHIP OF SEVERAL UNITED NATIONS COMMITTEES
This is not a hoax. This is not a spoof. The basic information comes
from official documents of the United Nations. So it is straight from
the horse's well, from some part of the horse. Who wouldn't want
Iran on a committee devoted to the status of women? And sending its
own children out to the fields to identify hidden explosives by
stepping on them is Iran's unique qualification for UNICEF, one that few other
countries can better. Who knows more about economic
development than the Saudis, who happened to land on a pile of oil
and never had to do anything themselves to extract it and distribute it?
If anyone knows how to create refugees, certainly Sudan and Somalia are qualified
to be on the Commission for Refugees. And bully for China on the
Human Rights Council. It knows exactly how to handle a desire for
Human Rights. Yessir. And who is better for Social Development than
Egypt, which continues to treat its Copt minority to such fun
activities as
murder, torture and enforced conversions. Eye on the UN provides us
with additional information on the membership composition of several
of the U.N. committees.
THE U.N. IS TERMINALLY ILL
The previous article by Eye on the U.N. showed that the composition of
many U.N. committees is part of what has made the U.N. a sick joke.
Using the Human Rights Commission as example, this essay by Joshua
Muravchik provides context in how the U.N. has failed as an
institution. Bowing to pressure, the Commission changed its name but
not its practice of rigging the voting procedure for committee
membership so that those
nominated will be elected. When the various countries,
often en bloc, make their
complicated deals on who will be nominated, considerations of merit
and suitability are not allowed to muddy the process.
The end result is what we get. And should get rid of.
THE U.S. PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH'S RENEWED ATTACK ON ISRAEL
In this well-documented yet readable article, Dexter Van Zile reviews the sorry history of the
Presbyterian Church's efforts to divest itself and others from
investments in Israel, using attacks on Israel, partial withdrawal, and then
renewed attacks. The point of view of the activists who control
official reports is solidly in sympathy with the Palestinians, who are visualized as the suffering
victims of a harsh and illegal occupation by Israel. As VanZile
writes, "Leveling chimerical accusations at Israel in the name of
peace, these activists seek to enlist their fellow Presbyterians and
the church's bureaucracy into their efforts to banish the modern
state of Israel from the community of civilized nations and portray it
as uniquely worthy of criticism and condemnation." With each swing of
the pendulum, the Church by backing these activists makes more
obvious a more basic agenda: the delegimization of the State of
Israel. How long will it be before crude anti-Jewish statements --
not clothed in pseudo theology or in a view of Middle East
history that ignores most of the facts become acceptable?
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH HAS ATTITUDE TOWARDS ISRAEL
Anticipatory stories of the 2010 General Assembly of the Presbyterian
Church were filled with reports that there were to be motions for
divestiture/boycott of Israel that would position the Presbyterian
Church more strongly and intemperately in the ranks of the Palestinian
sympathizers. I had some specific questions. I asked Will Spotts for
clarification. We also include an addendum: Spotts's analysis after
the ball was over, the General Assembly ended.
FLOTILLA RALLIES TERROR CHEER SQUAD
In this account, David Burchell goes well beyond the facts of the gaza
flotilla into a more profound explanation of why the P and H
(Peaceniker and Humanitarian) squad has the compulsive need to
demonize Israel. Burchell suggests that the early Christian activists
couldn't get far with a turn-the-other-cheek approach. Their politics
did better chastizing the sinner. In the 1960s, the image of the
Palestinian as the innocent injured was in place but was somewhat
tarnished by the behavior of the more radical PLO terrorists.
"It followed that Israel's motivations had to be made even blacker, as if in moral compensation."
Viewing "Israel as a kind of devil-state, the spirit of evil made
incarnate in the world" excused any behavior by their Palestinian
'victims', no matter how outrageous.
What still needs explaining is why the PLO became the victim to be succoured in
the first place. Surely, it wasn't Arafat's blubbery lips, ugly face
and unattractive smile. Could it be that the Terror Cheer Leaders
deep down don't like Jews any more than the Arabs do?
Israel is beset on all sides by active terrorists and their
supporters in the media, and by emboldened hostile neighbors, the
U.N., mainline churches, and now the American administration. Her
appeasement policies have endangered her. To maintain the pretense
that there's an ongoing peace process, she has not asserted her
legal, moral and historic rights to her land, so that propagandists
are free to create fictions about the rights of the "Palestinians",
knowing these won't be challenged. In Caroline Glick's words, Israel
has a "daunting task" ahead of her. These next papers essentially
argue that appeasement must stop. Israel must apply effective
counterpressure to her enemy's actions. Israel must proclaim its
intent to remain and grow as a Jewish state. It must proclaim its
ownership of Jewish land and give up pointless and self-defeating
attempts to share with Muslims, who don't want the land they want
Israel dead. The required changes are no longer 'wouldn't it be nice
if ..'. They are necessary if Israel is to survive the well-designed
machinations of her enemies.
THE NOOSE AROUND ISRAEL'S NECK
Daniel Greenfield makes the point that Israel's international enemies
are tightening the noose around Israel's neck, while Israel tries to
live up to the promises she made for the "peace process" called the
Oslo Agreement. The Arabs have felt no such compunction. They've never
gotten to step 1: to cease violence. Every one of Israel's concessions
has brought her closer to the gallows. Israel is now faced with stark
options: continue her suicidal course of accomodation to "world
opinion" or do what she must: resist the pressure to cave in piecewise
and start fighting to survive.
ISRAEL'S DAUNTING TASK
CALLING THE PA BLUFF
The Palestinians arabs are in the odd position of demanding a state which they
never had and were never part of and never really wanted and have
people like Prez Obama take them seriously. Their demand for Israeli
land was a ploy to further their mission of destroying Israel in
stages. To date, any land where they've gained control has been used
to develop military capability, store war material and train fighters and
terrorists. Would they be different in Judea and Samaria
than they are in Gaza? Boaz Haetzni points out that if Israel
withdraws and eliminates the Jewish settlement towns, Hamas would soon
take over Judea-Samaria they have more popular support than Abu
Maazen and they would settle down in expanded quarters to carry out
their mission of destruction, not to form a state. "They are a branch
of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is against individual Arab states."
They believe in what Arafat said, "our real nation is the Arab nation
which ranges from the Atlantic to the Red Sea and beyond..." This is
why "Hamas did not declare a state in Gaza although it is the only
force in charge there and could do so."
HAIRCUT AND HISTORY; BIRTHDAY AND THE BIBLE; IN THE BEGINNING
Rachel Saperstein writes three essays: her 3-year old
grandchild has his first haircut near the tomb of Samson; Her husband
celebrates a birthday, surrounded by family; she confers with the
other families Ashkenazim, Sephardim, Yemenites, Ethiopians, Bnai
Menashe from India who are founding a new town: Bnai Dekalim in
Lachish.
From these snapshots, would you guess she was one of the Jews
traumatized by being forced out of her home in Gaza by her own
government? Her husband Moshe and she survived the trauma and the
depression that followed and now they are again rebuilding their
lives.
MAKING ISRAEL'S CASE
A major reason for Israel's poor showing in the propaganda wars is
that the Arabs come across as passionate about their land, Israel and
the territories. Arab leaders. Arab clerics. Arab academics. And the
Arab schlub in the street. All of them are passionate as they claim
land that is not theirs. In contrast, Israeli spokesmen and consular
representatives are rightly perceived as lukewarm about Jewish
ownership if not actively
delighted at the prospect of another Arab state in Biblical Israel,
with its capitol in Jerusalem. Caroline Glick insists "[t]he
government must stop trying to play both sides of the aisle. Instead
it should follow the lead of its extraordinary citizens and of Jews
throughout the world in asserting the rights of the Jewish people to
our capital and our country."
Media people are often content to use the dictionary translation
of a word and ignore its actual meaning. Use an English-arabic
dictionary, and you immediately have the word for justice
in arabic. The differing meanings of justice in the West
and in Muslim countries are harder to discover because language is
filtered through cultural concepts. Thus, as Raymond Ibrahim
writes in his essay on the Ground Zero mosque (see above or
click here) a speaker can use justice in English to
suggest one idea and the exact translation of the word in Arabic
to mean something very different. This section looks at other
examples of the effect the differences in Western versus Islamic
cultures have on understanding the meaning of some common
words. It also looks at how the media distorts the meaning of
events by how they present them.
THE UK'S THE NEW STATESMAN DEFENDS SHARIA LAW
Defending sharia law usually involves some variant of the civic value
of diversity, but it can be a hard sell, because some major
brutalities chopping heads and hands for minor crimes and treating
women as chattel are a non-negotiable part of sharia. In this
essay, Paul Murphy equips us with ways to read obfuscating pro-Islam
propaganda as he points out the fallacies in a recent defense of
Sharia. He also examines some ends-justify-the-means lies and
misdirection spun by Tariq Ramadan, grandson of the founder of the
Muslim Brotherhood. Murphy makes the major point that once Sharia
drives out civil law, all of it becomes law, not just its laws and
customs that seem to fit into modern practices.
WHAT DID YOU SAY ABOUT MUHAMMAD?!
Though it is contrary to commonsense, Raymond Ibrahim points out that
apparently Muslims found the South Park cartoons of Muhammad
more infuriating than very ugly statements about Muhammed broadcast to
millions of Muslims on Life T.V. Life T.V. stood its ground,
ignoring initial threats, continuing to discuss Muhammad in
unflattering terms and doing so safely. The South Park
producers reacted by appeasement. Ibrahim suggests that it may well
have been this appeasement that acted as the stimulus to increase
Muslim ire. As he notes, "if you voluntarily act like a
dhimmi a subjugated non-Muslim who must live in debased
humility you will be treated like a dhimmi."
THE ART OF MISLEADING
Short, direct, informative. This essay by Yvette Alt Miller lays out
common ways the media avoid telling the truth.
Presenting it in such a way that is is easily dismissed. Or telling it
partially. Her examples are actual instances of bias against Israel.
Miller suggests readers practice finding instances of these tricks, to
better understand what they are being fed by the media. My prime
example would be the New York Times, which managed to downplay
the ongoing Holocaust in World War 2. Most
newspapers may not be as clever hiding such a big story but the
omission and trivialization of Prez Obama's close
friendships with a slew of Marxists before he was nominated come
close. This is a very useful reference.
We have previously examined various areas where Sharia Law is being
accepted. Sharia banking, which is based on sharia law, is being
incorporated by banking groups. Government agencies teach Sharia law
procedures. Textbooks used in our schools tell our children how benign
Islam and its basic laws are. In this issue, we describe student shock
troops promoting hate of Jews on campuses and the invasion of Muslim
consultants into the higher eschelons of the military, We include the
first chapters of a forthcominhg book that defines Sharia Law for the
non-Muslim.
SHARIA LAW FOR NON-MUSLIMS
Bill Warner has written a book that compactly explains sharia law
to the non-muslim. It offers a compact summary of Sharia Law. It is
useful as a starting pointer for the ignorant, to start exploring. It
is a summarization for those who have acquired a good understanding of
Sharia law. Mark this in you reference directory.
FACING HATRED ON CAMPUS: YOU CAN'T FIGHT FIRE WITH FLOWERS
The campuses are infested by student hate groups, whose leaders make
their efforts at demonizing Israel their main job, one that takes
priority over classes and ordinary school activities. They are
dedicated, single-mindeded, possessed of religious fervor and will
stop at nothing. Their activities suggest their handlers have a big
budget, clever scenario writers and have spent considerable time and
effort making longterm plans before this attack was launched. Group
leaders have learned how to create dramatic props and creative events,
inveigle and indoctrinate other students, flummox the administration
and paralyze the Jewish groups on campus so they don't fight back. Roz
Rothstein and Roberta Seid have observed that these groups maintain
continuity, groom replacement leaders; develop networks with other
like-minded campus groups; and orchestrate demonstrations, cheering
crowds and disruptive hecklers. They don't miss opportunities to
promote their ideas and they are good at creating opportunities. Lucky
for them, the Jewish students, faculty and groups haven't adjusted to
the fact that they are under sustained attack and have to fight back.
The Jews are hamstrung by their belief that freedom of speech is
always a good thing and that everyone has built-in limits to
incivility.
SELF-INFLICTED DEFEAT
Some Muslim encroachment in America such as the projected mosque at
Ground Zero is high profile, but most of their activities are
not well known.
Nevertheless, they are successfully buying friends
and chairs at universities; buying some in the media and frightening others
into self-censorship; and subsidizing books friendly to Islam.
Now with a Commander-in-Chief who sees making friends with the
Muslims as a
noble undertaking, they have reached into high
levels of Homeland Security and the
military, where they have the clout to get hostile patriots fired.
Janet Levy and Nidra Poller describe how
different this is from the way we behaved in World War 2.
"Placing a Nazi in a high-level Pentagon position with access to
top-secret war data and giving him the ability to control military
strategists and censor vital information would have been punishable by death for treason."
I wonder what good our expensive war equipment will do us, if, as Levy
and Poller note,
"Our citizens at home and our troops on the battlefield are disarmed by a narrative that imposes respect for a political-religious system that seeks their subjugation and death."
There seems no end to the misinformation coming from
pro-Palestinian sources claiming that Jews have no history in
Jerusalem. One essay in this section makes a useful source for
rebuttal arguments. It presents a superb summary of references to Jews
in Jerusalem in ancient Greek and Roman sources. The other essay looks
at the 1920 San Remo Conference and the 1958 speech by Abba Eban from
the viewpoint of their consequences.
JERUSALEM, CAPITAL OF THE JEWS: THE JEWISH IDENTITY OF JERUSALEM IN GREEK AND ROMAN SOURCES
As Rivkah Fishman-Duker writes, by the early second century CE, when
Tacitus wrote his history, it is clear that the narrative of the
circumstances of Jerusalem's foundation had become standardized among
Greeks and Roman writers.
Descriptions of the Temple are always part of the accounts of Jerusalem and
Judaism. In addition to physical descriptions, Fishman-Duker describes
the religious aspect of the Temple, which differed radically from
Greek and Roman paganism.
Their accounts range from the factual to
the libelous and bizarre.
As Fishman-Duker writes, "The references to Jerusalem in these classical texts not only demonstrate the historical attachment of the Jewish people to Jerusalem, but also contribute to our knowledge of Jews and Judaism in the ancient world."
TWO NOTABLE EVENTS RECALLED THROUGH THE PRISM OF HISTORY
Alex Rose writes about two notable events of of historical importance.
The first was the San Remo Conference of 1920. "It recognized the
exclusive national Jewish rights to the Land of Israel under
international law, on the strength of the historical connection of the
Jewish people to the territory previously known as Palestine." The San
Remo Resolution "remains irrevocable, legally binding and valid to
this day." The second was Abba Eban's speech to the UN General
Assembly's Special Political Committee in 1958 suggesting transfer of
the Arab refugees to the states responsible for the problem the
Arab states that had invaded Israel in 1948 and 1967. Actually, these
states were responsible for two sets of refugees: the Arabs from
Israel and the Jews from the different Arab countries. Israel, with
few resources, took in the Jews. The Arabs had huge resources but
have reneged. It's time they faced up to their responsibility.
This is where our readers get a chance to write opinions
and editorials and share articles they find informative. The Blog-Eds
page for the month is updated every few days.
A Blog-Ed page has a quick list of the articles from which you can
access any of the articles immediately.
To go to the list, click the
"Blog-Eds List" box in the Blue Strip on the top of the Blog-Ed page.
May 2010 BLOG-EDS
READ MORE
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MARCH-APRIL, 2010
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ISRAELI SOVEREIGNTY OVER JERUSALEM, JUDEA AND SAMARIA.
Wallace Brand discusses the diplomatic foundation documents underlying
the creation of the modern state of Israel. It is also very readable.
Store this with your stack of reference material to use when Arab
propagandists assert that Israel is occupying Palestinian/Arab land.
The State of Israel was carved out with international approval from a
sliver of the Middle East holding of the Ottoman Empire. If it is not
legitimate, then what happens to the legality of the modern Arab
states of Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi
Arabia, Iraq, Oman, Yemen and United Arab Emirates? (Iran, Egypt and
modern Turkey were also part of the Ottoman Empire but Iran and Turkey
aren't Arab, and Egypt had been under de facto British rule for
many years by the time the Ottomans lost out.) These constructed states were given more
than 99% of the Middle East segment of the Ottoman Empire by the same
international authority that established Israel.
HISTORY OF JEWISH SOVEREIGNTY OVER ISRAEL OVER 3000 YEARS
This was written to counter the pernicious and widespread myth that
the Arabs pre-date the Jews in Israel. Depending on the gullibility of
the audience they claim to be the early Canaanites; or Philistines; or
they claim that in Temple times it was a Palestinian state filled with
Palestinians like Jesus and his mother Mary; or they claim they
intermarried with the natives when they conquered the land in
Mohammed's time, and this is the next best thing to being native
themselves. They ignore that 90-95% of them came after 1900 into what
is now Israel and the Territories. Roy Chweidan presents a short
summary of the actual history of Israel starting in the period of the
Judges. The appendices contain additional useful information.
PARDON ME, OBAMA ADMINISTRATION, BUT ISN'T YOUR POLICY ON FIRE?
We don't have to go the National Inquirer to find weird and unreal.
It's right there in the Oval Office in the Big White Building in the
District of Columbia. Barry Rubin writes how Obama is sticking like
velcro to the notion that au fond Iran is reasonable and can be
persuaded to be nice, no matter what it does and what it says and how
many of its own citizens it tortures because they don't agree with the
Mullahs. And Iran, filled with confidence by how well everyone is
treating her, is seeking a seat on the Human Rights Council.
DENYING REALITY BRINGS US CLOSER TO NUCLEAR MIDNIGHT
Like a child learning to play pick-up sticks, tangling them, ignoring
the good moves, fixated on poor choices, ignoring gravity, ignoring
his lack of coordination, President Obama deals with situations with a
child's knowledge of foreign policy. Frank Salvato recounts some of
his moves. Obama pulls together a bunch of nations to deal with the
problem of nuclear weapons falling into terrorist hands, and they flip
up with a non-binding "agreement." which is meaningless. He weaves and
waves his hand around Iran but, of course, nothing happens. He spends
times picking on Israel and that's an easy move. But it won't
change the fact that to get at the the terrorists means also, and
perhaps first, dealing with the clump of terror states that shield
them and support them. As Salvato points out: he needs to "accept the
truth that should Iran become a nuclear capable nation, so, too, would
terrorist organizations become nuclear capable."
U.S. ALLOWS IRAN ITS NUCLEAR VISION
Greg Sheridan has written a sensible article integrating the facts
including Obama's manufactured irritation with Israel and drawn the
obvious conclusion: that Obama is willing to live with an Iran that
has nuclear power. Maintaining a steady supply of oil has for long
controlled much of our foreign policy. Yet Obama seems indifferent to
Iran's obtaining nuclear power that, at best, will destabilize the
Middle East, making our oil supply uncertain. At worst, Iran could
destroy vital connections in the stream or make the area radioactive,
use the bomb to blackmail the region and/or share their supply with
peripatetic terrorists. What is nervous making, when dealing with
"world opinion," is how successful anti-Israeli propaganda has been.
History, geography and international law are disregarded and too many
are sure Israel is sitting on
TO WIN WE MUST KNOW OUR ENEMIES AND KNOW OURSELVES
Muslim leaders have bragged how Muslims love death and this gives them
the edge in fighting the "infidel" who is attached to life. Paul Eidelberg makes the
surprising suggestion that this love of death is rooted in a fear of
life that started in pre-Islamic times when inter-tribal warfare was
chronic and brutal. Survival depended on tribal loyalty, engendering a
herd mentality, rather than the development of the individual, as in
Western culture. Eidelberg credits Judaic monotheism for making
possible the Western trust in a meaningful universe. In Part I, he
develops implications of the idea that in the Arab culture, paganism
was "never fully transcended." In Part 2, he writes about Israel's
repetitive retreats from land that is hers, noting that Israel will
"continue to shrink so long as its government betrays the God of
Israel."
PAST THE SEVENTH STEP
The Ma'arat HaMachpela (the Machpela cave) in the city of Hebron is a
Jewish holy site; it is Judaism's second most holy site. It is where
the Patriachs and Matriachs are buried: Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and
Rebecca, Jacob and Leah. Nevertheless, for hundreds of years when the
site was under Muslim control, Jews were not allowed to enter the
cave. They were allowed to climb as far as the seventh step, while
Muslims were permitted to climb past and enter the caves. The Arabs
deny that the Machpela is a Jewish legacy. To do so would mean
acknowledging the profound relationship of the Jews of Israel to the
Land of Israel.
A FASCINATING STORY: 7 QUESTIONS FOR A NOACHIDE
There is a growing world-wide group called Noachides. They aren't
Christian; but they aren't Jewish either. As individuals they more or
less follow Torah law, but they are all follow the Seven Laws of
Noah. Judaism considers that the basic civilizing ideas from the
Torah the laws of Noah are for everyone. This essay is Rabbi
Shraga Simmons interview with one of these Noachides. In the context
of our examining difference resulting from basic differences between
Judaism and Islam, it should be noted that Judaism doesn't feel
compelled to convert everyone to Judaism. Islam does. Unless, you'd
rather live as a dhimmi; or be beheaded.
JEWS IN THE HOLY LAND? WHAT JEWS?
Alex Maistrovoy puts in context the Arab strategy of denying that
Israel has any historic connection to the Land of Israel. Theirs is
"...simply the genocidal approach that is characteristic of Islam.
Power and possession are inherent parts of religious attitude in
Islam. This approach extends to all other religions, not only to
Judaism. The idea consists in depriving other cultures of their
spiritual base to achieve total physical domination over them." Given
that Islam is intrinsically hostile to all other religions. Judaism's
fight against Islam's brutal hostility may be unwilling but it has
become a major player in what eventually may be a global response to
Islam if the world wakes up in time. Meantime, Israel needs to
protect its holy places from the Muslim ambition to eradicate a Jewish
presence in Israel.
THE LONG MARCH OF ISLAM: CHAPTER 4.
We are serializing R.K. Ohri's book entitled The Long March of Islam.
Previously, Ohri first laid out Islam's structure and its major
directive to wage jihad against the infidal. In Chapter
4, he reviews some of Islam's early history to explain how it is that
Islam acquired both its dedication to the Islamic ummah
(nation) and its appetite for conquering and looting non-Islamic
communities. Within a 100 year after Muhammad, the Arabs had
"destroyed almost all old civilizations of the [Middle East] region"
and invaded Christian Europe for booty, slaves and involuntary
converts and where they suffered their first defeat by a coalition
of Christian countries. But now again "the contagion of militant Islam
has already spread to scores of Muslim countries"; they are obsessed
with regaining Islam's lost grandeur.
RELATIONS OF MUTUAL LIABILITY
The obama administration appears to believe that the long arm of
Israel-Arab discord reaches Iran and Afghanistan, to the detriment of
American goals. In this bizarre view, if only Israel would make the
Arabs happy, the Muslim world would fall all over itself to be
friendly to us Americans. Israel, in a word, is a liability. Judging
from Muslim behavior over the centuries, this proposition is nonsense.
Rephrasing the sentence as America is a liability to Israel is,
on the other hand, a legitimate observation, based on evidence.
Avigdor Haselkorn makes the case that the America's presence limits
Israel's freedom of action. In brief, American enemies do what they
want and ignore overtures and shows of force.
"By threatening to target [American] regional bases, Iran is in effect keeping these contingents hostage and acting to dissuade any military undertaking against its nuclear facilities."
"...The U.S. deployment has become a handicap for Israel," denying it "the strategic initiative that is vital for preserving its national security."
OBAMA AND THE JEWS
E.W. Jackson Sr. wrote about the source of Obama's anti-Israel policy
ISRAEL IS THE HEART OF OUR CIVILIZATION, NOT THE APPENDIX
We are used to being told and it is true how important Jerusalem
is to the Jews. Nidra Poller points out another important truth
about the relationship of Jerusalem and the Jews: Jerusalem is
important to the West because of the Jews. There would be
little interest in the chief city of the Jews were it not that
Christianity is based in large part on Judaism and because Judaism
created the moral foundation of Western civilization. Because of that
and because Israel is a democracy the only one in the Middle East
-- there is a closeness between America and Israel. It is ironic,
therefore, that Obama is taking advantage of that closeness to
pressure Israel to a peace that would not resolve the
Arab-Israeli conflict. Instead, if carried out, it would replace
Judaism with Islam in Judaism's birthplace.
ABDULLAH IN WONDERLAND
Israel needs to watch its back not just from the Arab countries
obviously out to destroy her, but even from Jordan, her peace partner,
which is kept secure by Israel, is given water by Israel and whose
economy has been helped to develop by Israel. Victor Sharpe writes
about Jordan's King Abdullah, who shows his gratitude by undermining
Israel whenever and whereever he can, with straight-faced disregard of
facts. His father killed off thousands of "Palestinians" for
threatening his throne; Abdullah is outraged by the IDF killing some
people who were acting as human shields for terrorists. Abdullah is
appalled that Israel has jurisdiction over Jerusalem and its Muslim
holy places. How easily he ignores that when Jordan conquered eastern
Jerusalem in 1948, it destroyed Jewish synagogues in Jerusalem and
wouldn't allow Jews access to their holy sites. The king of inversion.
Truly a Lewis Carroll character.
We commemorate Yom Hashoah and discuss the profound changes in the
social and political structure of Europe since World War 2. Despite
the wishes of a large part of its citizenry, Europe slides to an
accomodation with Islam and plays out the end game of multiculturalism
a strong socialism that bankrupts the country and resurrects
feudalism with the people in hock to the government that can
regulate them and tax them into powerlessness. Logically, one would
expect that a country under siege by a rising Muslim population would
side with Israel, one of the few countries effectively opposing
Islamic domination. Instead, as Islam gains control with the apparant
cooperation of a country's academic and business elites, anti-Semitism
rises. This set of essays contrasts the treatment of Muslims versus the
treatment of Jews in England, Holland and Germany.
TO COMMEMORATE YOM HASHOAH
Europe destroyed Jewish culture and six million Jews. The space has
been filling with muslim immigrants, impatient to inflict their laws
and customs over the subjugated natives. And ironically, while the
Jews tried so hard to fit in and were, for the most part, rejected,
the Muslims don't give a damn and ignore what resistance there is to
their take-over. Jacob Gur writes of a particular victim of the
Holocaust of the Jews: Pninah. She was twelve. She was murdered. He
asks that Israel not forget her and the other victims of the Shoah but
that it strengthen its Judaism and rebuild.
BRITANNIA WAIVES THE RULES. A HISTORY OF ANTISEMITISM IN ENGLAND
Edward Alexander reviews Anthony Julius' recent book that addresses
the literary roots of English antisemitism from Chaucer to Dickens,
connecting the historic blood libel against the Jews that is embedded
in English culture to the modern-day anti-semitic rants by academics
and dramatists, which also are not weighted down by facts. Julius
writes also of Jewish anti-semitism. As Jewish converts to
Christianity in the Middle Ages were glad to confirm Christian
theological allegations against Jews, no matter how false and/or
absurd, so modern-day Jewish anti-semites loathe Israel and can see
only evil in her every motive and action.
IN GERMANY IT IS BETTER TO BE A MUSLIM THAN A BAPTIST
Baptist immigrants to Germany from the Soviet Union, where they had
been persecuted for their religious beliefs, were subjected to vicious
attacks by the German authorities when they wished to homeschool their
children. Germany's Supreme Court ruled that German tradition trumped
Baptist desires. The State was in charge of children's education, not
their parents. In contrast, schools cater to Muslim eating and
clothing requirements, even when these infringe or nullify German
traditions and practices. As Thomas Landen writes, "While Christians
are prosecuted and fined, Muslims are appeased." There are other
differences that explain the behavior of the German establishment:
"Saying 'No' to Baptist demands is not a security risk for a school;
saying 'No' to Muslim demands is." Baptists don't become violent when
their requests aren't granted; Muslims do.
WHY SPINOZA WAS NOT MURDERED
Holland has such a reputation for liberal drug laws and a nonchalant
attitude for outre activity that it is puzzling that it has put Geert
Wilders on trial for producing a documentary that is scrupulously
factual if not flattering about Islam (see
below.)
In this essay, Artur Legger clears up the inconsistency.
Fearing reprisal, Government officials and the media
tried to block the documentary from being shown. Unable to censure
the film beforehand, they resorted to slandering Wilders and
withholding protection despite the fact that there's a history in
Holland of Muslims killing off 'offenders'.
Holland's attitude is not new.
Throughout the centuries, the goal has been on preventing social
disruption and maintaining control by the governing elites by
whatever means were needed, not ensuring freedom not even in the
time of Spinoza.
WHEN RHETORIC RULES THE ROOST
The initial hysterical reaction by European diplomats to the
assassination of the terrorist, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, in Dubai, was to
blame Israel. This didn't abate until it was learned the assassins
went from Dubai to Iran, not exactly a Jew-friendly haven. Using this
as example, Caroline Glick points out that "blaming Israel has become
Europe's default foreign policy," dictated by the European Union (EU).
The Lisbon Treaty which gave power to the EU "...effectively bars EU
member states from adopting independent foreign policies..." so they
focus on rhetoric and don't act to safeguard their best interests. In
part to placate Europe and the present American administration --
Israel has not been pursuing her own best interests either. At the
moment what is important is to disarm Iran and to exert its legitimate
claim to Samaria and Judea. Urgently.
EUROPE'S ANTI-ISRAEL STRATEGY WILL RESULT IN THE
DESTRUCTION OF EUROPE ITSELF
Robert Spencer presents some highlights from Bat Yeor's speech at the
recent Conference on Antisemitism, Multiculturalism and Ethnic
Identity at Hebrew University.
Bat Yeor coined the term Eurabia to describe the ideological
alliance since the 1970's of European leaders and Arabs. It promotes
anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism, while catering to Muslim concerns
under the guise of multiculturalism. To the Europeans, supporting Arab
politics and ideology seemed a clever way to ensure an uninterupted
supply of oil while avoiding Arab terrorism. "The countries of the
Arab League and the Islamic Conference saw in this alliance with
Europe the means to separate Europe from America; to divide and weaken
the Western camp; to destroy Israel; to achieve technological parity
with Europe; and, through the Mediterranean Partnership, to set up a
vast Euro-Arab demographic, political, economic and cultural zone. In
this way, with multiculturalism and immigration, Islam and Arab
culture could be introduced as a force toward the Islamization on the
European continent."
The first step, obviously, would be to remove the noose of the belief
that the Arabs and the Jews can somehow share the tiny space allocated
to Israel by international mandate space that has already been
largely nibbled away. Discard the unworkable notion of sharing space
and more reasonable possibilities can be explored. A sensible one
would be to give the Arabs who go by the name "Palestinian" a portion
of the Ottoman Land gifted to the Arabs. This set of articles presents
some steps some ideological, some practical that can be taken in
preparation to that task.
IS ISRAEL A COLONIAL STATE? THE POLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY OF PALESTINIAN NOMENCLATURE
Irwin Mansdorf suggests that the negative and misleading and often
false language used to describe Israel's motives and activities be
abandoned and replaced by descriptions that conform to actual history
and applicable international law. He delves into the modern history of
Arab-Jewish relations, and points out the surprising fact --
surprising only because of the wide subcription to the
constantly-repeated myth that the Arabs had always ruled the Middle
East and the Jews are occupying some of this Arab land illegally --
that the Balfour Declaration, a foundation document in the
establishment of the Jewish State, was of great benefit in also
"advancing Arab independence and nationalist goals." During the first
part of the 20th century, while the land still belonged to the
Ottomans, before there was a modern state of Israel, or states called
Jordan or Syria or Yemen or Kuwait or Oman or the United Arab Emirates
before the time that the Arabs were gifted with 99.9% of the Middle
East the Arab leader, Emir Feisel, recognized this fact. It was
later that Arab leaders and academics, in order to defend their
assertion that Israel was colonialist, began denying Jewish roots in
Mandated Palestine, forcing them into the ludicrous position of
denying Israel's ancient connection to its holy sites such as the
Machpela Cave and the Temple Mount and its holy cities of Hebron and
Jerusalem. In promoting this canard, they blithely ignored that
"[m]any of the Arab states, in contrast, were modern fabrications of
the British and the French," with no historic roots.
THE PREREQUISITE FOR PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST: ARAB RECOGNITION OF THE LEGITIMACY OF ISRAEL
THE 'peace process' it seems always to apply only to the the
Arab Israeli conflict certainly hasn't lacked high-level
presidential involvement, from the Elder Bush to Obama, plus the
presence of the U.N., the E.U. and their cohort of diplomats and
politicians. Nevertheless, as Kenneth J. Bialkin puts it: "A peace
process which rests upon Israel's unilateral concessions is doomed to
fail unless and until the world also demands that the Arab states
(including the Palestinians) recognize Israel's legitimacy and
sovereignty, explicitly and openly. ... This is the most important
prerequisite for peace."
NEXT YEAR IN WEST JERUSALEM
Victor Sharpe points out that the fatal flaw in the succession of
peace plans is that "[f]or Muslims, no non-Muslim state or nation that
is on land once conquered by Muslim armies in the name of Allah will
ever be tolerated."
This cuts down the number of intelligent options for Israel
to 1. "Unpalatable as it must be, the only solution for Israel is to
make not one additional concession but resolve to face the entire
world if need be rather than deny Jewish history, Jewish faith, and
the Zionist cause." It must ignore
"the siren calls of a fraudulent, beguiling and deceptive peace."
GUSH KATIFERS. THE FIFTH YEAR AND STILL NOT SETTLED
The Israeli government appears to be revving up to gift the
Palestinian Arabs land in Samaria and Judea. To diplomats, politicians
and sundry pro-Palestinians who have been nibbling away at Israeli
land, this is a good start to eating up all of Israel. It would of
course be a disaster, should Israel give up the land where the Jews
first took root and where they developed the way of life that
eventually became the basis of Western morality. It would also mean
making some half-million or more citizens homeless, jobless and
demoralized. In this essay, we examine how well the government did
resettling the 10 thousand Jews they expelled from their homes and
synagogues and orchards and businesses in Gaza in 2005 in a cockamamie
bid for "peace" with Arabs lusting after Jewish blood. The only good
that has come out of this stupid action is that many people are
reconsidering their attitudes and questioning whether giving up land
can bring peace. They really don't have that much more with which to
experiment.
THE REHABILITATION OF THE PALESTINIAN REFUGEES FIRST
The Arab refugees hold-overs from the 1948 invasion of Israel by
the neighboring Arab countries continue to be a festering sore, a
major factor guaranteeing there will not be a resolution of the
Arab-Israeli conflict. The Arab leaders of the countries where the
refugee camps are located never actually help their Arab Palestinian
cousins; in fact, they deny them citizenship. Nevertheless, they claim
they can't make peace with Israel until the refugee problem is
resolved by Israel letting in a group of Arabs that could be almost as
large as the number of Jews currently living in Israel to return to
what they claim as their homes. In this way, the Arab refugees act as
a piteous mask for the real intent of these Arab leaders to wipe
out Israel, which has had the temerity to defeat Muslim countries and
won't accept dhimmi status. Shulmit Kogan examines why it would
be foolhardy to make concessions for peace until the Arab refugees are
rehabilitated and not allowed to become another ploy for land
concessions by Israel. She also suggests that it's time Israel talked
about the other group of refugees: the Jewish refugees from Arab
countries. Many of these families had lived in the Arab countries
longer than the Arabs. These Jewish refugees did not voluntarily
leave. They fled for their lives. Those who came to Israel were given
a new start as ordinary citizens. They were not left to fester in
refugee camps.
A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE REGARDING THE CURRENT CRISIS IN US-ISRAEL RELATIONS
Tzvi November's has a number of recommendations for improving Israel's
standing in world opinion. His essay reminds us once again that Israel
should not put its trust in princes this time on American
administrations, Democrats or Republicans. What Israel should do is
proclaim its own stance, its own ideology, its rejection of an Arab
state in Israel's heartland. And stick to it. Calling Judea, Samaria
and Gaza "disputed territories" as Shimon Peres does is plain stupid.
The Arabs are savvy and "always refer to these areas as Arab land or
Palestinian land but never as disputed land." It makes a better claim
and is better PR. That it isn't Arab land doesn't bother them at all.
So they are more effective than Israel, which does own the
land, but is too timid to say so directly.
INSPIRED
Ari Bussel and Norma Zager write of activist projects in public
diplomacy developed by individuals, projects that should be done by
the Government but aren't. So people follow the injunction: where
there are no men, strive to be a man (pirkei-avos/chapter2-
6.html). The Muslims have long since recognized that America is a
battleground and have fought to win support with whatever weapons work
-- lectures, bribes, raucous demonstrations, breaking up meetings,
ecumenical sing-alongs with gullible Jews, convincing mainstream
Churches that the Muslim arabs that drove the Christian arabs out of
Bethleham are the good guys and it was all Israel's fault, working
with Marxists because they and the Muslims have a common hatred of
Judaism, rewriting K12 textbooks with puff pieces about the Religion
of Peace, persuading the government they must reach out to the
Muslims, introducing shari'a banking with only a few strings attached.
Israelis, on the other hand, are just beginning to recognize the
necessity of fighting the propaganda war effectively. For example, IDF
officers authentic ones have come to explain the IDF to
Americans. One of them bemoans the fact that "Muslims speak in one
voice, with one narrative, and are therefore more powerful. We, on the
other hand, are fragmented to the point where our position suffers."
The joke about the 3-Jew town that needed 2 synagogues isn't always
funny.
It became fashionable almost
immediately after 9/11 to blame America's attitude towards Islam for
the bombing. Fareed Zakaria, an early proponent of 'it's America's
fault' wrote a book reassuring us that terror and islam were not
intrinsically linked. As people examined the Quran more carefully
instead of citing a couple of nice-sounding suras and as we followed
the careers of known terrorists and would-be murderers who were
converts to Islam, that explanation grew thin. This set of articles
paints a more accurate picture of the linkage.
NEW DETAILS ABOUT OHIO MUSLIM'S ARREST
Erick Stakelbeck frequently reports on home-grown terrorists --
Americans who convert to Islam and then turn to terror activities
against America. Many are recruited where there is active and
sustained proselytizing: in prison or at a neighboring mosque. Now
that the Obama administration is removing such alarmist words as
Islamic terrorism and jihad from its vocabulary, it is
easier to ignore what might otherwise be an obvious connection:
someone goes off to Pakistan or another terrorist training area,
illegally keeps an extensive arsenal at home, and is a new recruit for
Islam. Given the present Administration's reluctance to see a pattern
-- and to use this knowledge to stop terrorists before they do harm --
it may be some time before the larger issue is addressed: do violent
people seek out Islam, or does converting to Islam encourage one to
become violent? And, in either case, isn't labeling Islam 'the
religion of peace' way off the mark?
TERRORISM WITHIN THE UNITED STATES:
THE MIDDLE EAST CONNECTION The previous article
was an instantiation of what is likely a wide-spread phenomenon.
Muslim terrorists operating in America are trained directly in the
Middle East or by dedicated Islamisists in the West. And the number of
attacks on American soil has begun to increase markedly 2009 was a
banner year. Patrick S. Poole points out that even when the convert
terrorist appears to have been self-radicalized, he was usually
exposed to foreign recruitment videos and often was trained abroad. By
noting that the same Middle Eastern mechanisms are operative in
Africa, Canada and Britain as in the U.S.A., we can conclude that
there are active, well-funded, well-organized, wide-spread and
effective programs that convince new and born-again Muslim converts
that Allah wants them to commit obscene violence. It is not a case of,
as Daniel Pipes put it, 'sudden jihad syndrome.' Poole provides us
with convincing details about many plots that have been uncovered. Now
all we have to worry about are those that are still unidentified.
SEPARATING ISLAM FROM TERRORISM
The Obama administration has separated the
connection between Islam and terrorism at least in National
Security documents, Robert Spencer provides us with examples from the
Qur'an, as well as quotes from Muslim leaders and scholars that
indicate that Islam and Islamic terrorism are justifiably linked. He
discusses the New Mardin Declaration, composed by Muslim scholars,
which superficially seems to promote peaceful behavior towards
non-Muslims; but it doesn't really warrant optimism. As Spencer points
out, "the conceptual apparatus establishing a peaceful Islam has never
been presented." Hence, "[t]he intersection of Islam and Terrorism is
not coincidental or the result of specific political moves made by
non-Muslim nations, as the conventional narrative claims. It is the
inevitable result of Islamic theology which is supremacist and
materialist, which when combined with the honor-shame code of a tribal
culture, drives it compulsively toward war and conquest."
THE GROWING THREAT OF FEMALE SUICIDE BOMBERS
Practice may not make perfect, but most tasks can be bettered, given
experience and practice. This apparently even holds for improvements
in delivering and aiming terrorist weapons. As Steve Emerson writes,
delivery has been made more reliable as terrorists have begun using
women. Women have carried their share of the burden, so to speak, for
years most have good education and they can use loose, concealing
clothes as handy props. But only recently has it been recognized how
well they avoid detection, being a group that is not profiled as
terrorist. Which may acount for their popularity. Steve Emerson notes
they have been used by Shi'ite and Sunni, Al-Qaeda and the Muslim
Brotherhood, secular Fatah and religious Hamas. Now that they have hit
the big times bombing the Moscow metro they should get the
respect they deserve.
WHAT DRIVES ISLAM TO BE THE RELIGION OF WAR
In this essay, Daniel Greenfield points out that Islam is "constantly
a source of war, violence and discord" "[because]Islam is a religion
of physical supremacy, and anything that challenges that supremacy is
a direct attack on their beliefs." He concludes that "[t]he
intersection of Islam and Terrorism is not coincidental or the result
of specific political moves made by non-Muslim nations, as the
conventional narrative claims. It is the inevitable result of Islamic
theology which is supremacist and materialist, which when combined
with the honor-shame code of a tribal culture, drives it compulsively
toward war and conquest."
WILL AMERICA SURVIVE ISLAMOFASCISM?
Mohammed conquered Persia modern-day Iran some 1400 years ago.
As usual, this was accompanied by looting, enslavement and enforced
conversion. In our time, by analogy, because of its Constitution,
America is tolerant as was ancient Persia, and the Islamists are still
the Islamists. Amil Imani points out that longstanding Islamic
practice is to be meek while weak and assume despotic intolerant power
as it gains strength." "Mild Islamism" is already in America --
special facilities and perks for Muslims only; appeasement by
American leaders, who ignore Iran's increased power to build a nuclear
weapon; and "for-purchase politicians who keep endlessly broadcasting
the false mantra that Islam is a religion of peace." "The barbarians
have made it inside our fortress." We need to fight them.
Islam's long arm reaches into our educational institutions and
our media. Muslims pay for some of the PR; but some propaganda is
generated by Marxist sources that recognize Sharia law will destroy
the American way of life. Some media self-censor thus distorting the
news to avoid Muslim retaliation. Some stories are intended to counter
the negative images of women as chattel and honor killings, endemic in
Islam. Much of both the visual and text propaganda is anti-Jewish. It
was initially phrased as anti-Zionism but, increasing, it has become
frank anti-Semitism.
"THE OCCUPATION MADE ME BEAT MY WIFE:" BIASED SCHOLARSHIP IN THE PROPAGANDA WAR AGAINST ISRAEL
The insistence that Israel is the evil witch of the West is acquiring
a coating of academic scholarship of poor quality but strong
conviction. Richard Cravatts writes about the findings of a Italian
group that the health of Gaza children was jeopardized by the Israeli
invasion last year the group found high concentrations of metal in
the hair of the study's subjects. As indication of the quality of the
experimental design, Cravatts reports an earlier study by NIEHS that
also found high lead levels in Gazan children they lived near a
battery factory. The wall Israel erected to keep out terrorists has of
course been blamed for a variety of psychological symptoms by various
'scientists.' Other pseudo-scientists attribute the abusive treatment
by Palestinian husbands of their wives to the emotional stress
engendered by the Israeli occupation. If we add the poor quality of
articles that once prestigious journals such as Lancet will
accept providing they tar Israel [see here and here.], these
degraded journals will soon need to sport a label: read with caution.
THE BUTLER DID IT!
It is common to see a Marxist take up the cause of Muslims, though
ideologically they don't have much in common, except in identifying
Israel and America as the enemy. Judith Butler of UC Berkeley is a
Jew, an anti-Zionist and a Marxist, involved in doing her bit to
destroy Israel, America and capitalism. She knows Israel is an
oppressor country, just as she is certain that Hamas and Hizbullah
don't deserve their bad reputation. To hear her talk, you'd think
homosexuals and women are much better off in Arab countries than in
Israel.We have Steven Plaut to thank for peeling away some of her
incomprehensible prose to expose her vacuous ideas.
HOW NY TIMES COVERAGE BURIES MIDDLE EAST REALITY; FIND THE FOUR GIGANTIC ERRORS
In examining a particular article in the New York Times, Barry
Rubin provides us with an excellent analysis of the distortions in an
article whose subject matter, one would think, was 'human interest'
rather than politics, hence more likely to be reported without major
distortions. It wasn't. In reporting on the restoration of a Cairo
synagogue Jews were in Egypt much earlier and longer than Muslims,
as the Haggadah would attest the Times whitewashes the
Egyptian government's hostility towards Jews and ignores the
hate-filled statements issued by Egyptian officials. As on any
hate-spewing anti-semitic website, the aura around the Times
article affirms that 'it's all the fault of the Jooz.'
SAUDI ARABIA'S 'REFORM' OFFENSIVE
Saudi Arabia (SA) can pay for the best. And when she sets out to show
how modern, how reformed, the country is becoming, she can afford the
best. Seth J. Frantzman writes how SA has recruited Westerns,
particularly western woman, to handle the campaign. Maureen Dowd of
the New York Times have made her mark in clobbering Israel. Now
she is using her talent for whole-cloth imagery to paint a picture of
the Saudi King as a "social revolutionary" and a kingdom hell-bent on
modernization. Other Times columnists have also celebrated each
micrometer of progress and ignored the continuation of slavery and
beheadings, crippling social customs and harsh punishments for
attempts to gain a modicum of independence. SA is betting that
rhetoric will top reality it has, after all, worked in the Arab
world.
THE POWER OF MONEY
While the Saudi reform offense is aimed at Westerners (see above),
much of the Arab media for Muslims is "a venue for blatant
anti-Semitism." Reuven Erlich writes of the Al-Jazeera March 15 TV
show starring Muhammad Yussuf al-Qardawi, an influential and respected
scholar of Islam, spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood (the
parent organization of Hamas and al Qaeda) and the man who ignited the
Muhammed cartoon riots what he called "a day for worldwide Muslim
protests over the insulting campaigns against Allah and His Prophet
Mohammed." Erlich points out that al-Qardawi is "a dominant figure in
shaping the anti-Israeli worldview in the Muslim and Arab world."
Al-Jazeera broadcast his authoritative opinion to a receptive audience
of millions: "the war against the Jews was not only for the
Palestinians to fight, but rather a war of all the Muslims."
THE "PHONEY WAR" AND THE NEXT WAR
Dmeetry Raizman describes some cogent similarities between the Peace
Process just preceding World War 2 and the current Israeli appeasement
policy. In 1939, while the Germans were gaining strength and
confidence to attack and when France's army was one of the strongest in the
world, she disengaged from Saarland, "a location of strategic
importance, unilaterally, without a fight, without a shot, and then
for months the French forces sat in idleness..." on the front facing
Germany. French leadership had been persuaded by Marshal Pétain
that their objective should be defensive 'to minimize losses', and
to strive for peace a policy enthusiastically seconded by the French
Left and foreign peace groups. The consequences of this policy were
seen when World War 2 began in earnest.
RESTORING THE HURVA SYNAGOGUE
Considering how touchy Muslims are about anyone even drawing an image
of Mohammed, one wouldn't think they'd be so unfeeling about sites
important to other people. But they are. They have a dismal record for
not respecting other people's religions. In 1973, they attacked Israel
on Yom Kippur. Given control of Joseph's tomb, they vandelized it,
ripped up the Torah scrolls and defecated everywhere. They used the
Avraham Avinu Synagogue in Hebron as a goat sty. Constant sniper fire
forces visitors to Rachel's tomb to arrive in armored trucks that park
behind concrete road blocks. When Jordan invaded and conquered the
eastern part of Jerusalem, it destroyed the synagogues and used
headstones from the Mount of Olives cemetary as stepping stones to the
latrines. One of these was the Hurva Shul. Sara Yoheved Rigler recounts
the history of the Hurva Synagogue, which has just been rebuilt.
This is where our readers get a chance to write opinions
and editorials and share articles they find informative. The Blog-Eds
page for the month is updated every few days.
A Blog-Ed page has a quick list of the articles from which you can
access any of the articles immediately.
To go to the list, click the
"Blog-Eds List" box in the Blue Strip on the top of the Blog-Ed page.
March 2010 BLOG-EDS
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THE LONG MARCH OF ISLAM: CHAPTER 3
We are serializing R.K. Ohri's book entitled The Long March of Islam. Previously, Ohri first laid out Islam's grand ideas for its global future and then discussed Islam's foundation tenets. In Chapter 3, he examines in detail a directive that towers above all others: to wage jihad against the infidel until he accepts "Allah as his Lord, Islam as his religion and Muhammad as his Apostle." Jihad is not an occasional act. "It is a holy war to be waged throughout the ages till the Day of Judgment." Current apologists of Islam make jihad sound like a fuzzy finding oneself spiritually. In reality, jihad calls for slaughter in the land; i.e., putting infidels to the slaughter. Which may be why jihad better described as terrorism has become so soul-satisfying in recent years with the Muslim youth and clergy. It is interesting that in India, jihad is justified because the British supposedly abolished the Caliphate; in the Middle East, the reason given is that the Jews are "occupying" Arab land; Osama bin Ladin cited the insult that westerners were in Saudi Arabia as the reason to destroy the World Trade Center and try to knock out the White House and Pentagon. The reasons vary; jihad slaughter is a constant.
HOW TAQIYYA ALTERS ISLAM'S RULES OF WAR
Raymond Ibrahim has previously written about taqiyya (unabashed
lying to the infidel), a practice highly praised in Islam as a
superior way to win a battle or an argument. Feigning apostasy and
not just under threat of death is another aspect of taqiyya
that is encouraged. The Qu'ran may itself be
viewed as a study in taqiyya. Admonitions for peace in the
earlier verses written when Islam was still weak and
outnumbered
are later replaced by calls for sustained jihad to convert the
infidels. It is the later verses that are to be obeyed. In another
context, a peace treaty can be made only for a fixed period of time,
ten years at most; open-ended truces are illegitimate. Lies that
further the spread of Islam are legitimate. "Yet", Ibrahim notes,
"most Westerners continue to think that Muslim mores, laws, and
ethical constraints are near identical to those of the Judeo-Christian
tradition." For us in the West to continue to believe the Muslim is
programmed in the same way as a Christian or Jew, is dangerous folly.
RADICAL ISLAMISM: AN INTRODUCTORY PRIMER
Barry Rubin makes an important distinction. Jihadism and Terrorism
are not equivalent; "Revolutionary Islamism is the main strategic
problem in the world today. Terrorism is the main tactical problem."
This suggests we stop limiting ourselves to the notion that we are
fighting or we were, pre-Obama terrorism and acknowledge the
enemy is the jihadist who uses terror. The Jihadist is fighting to
inflict the rule of Islam everywhere in the world. As do many,
Rubin takes comfort in separating political-theological Islamism from
theological Islam. As he points out, "Islamism is an interpretation of
Islam and not the only one possible. Indeed, for centuries there have
been different interpretations." True, but from the start Islam
was political as well as theological; jihad spread the word more
efficiently than persuasion. We need to identify our
enemies before we see the whites of their eyes. It will be too late, then.
IS A NICE MUSLIM A GOOD MUSLIM?
Bill Warner starts with the proposition that it a binary situation:
one is either a muslim OR a kafir (a non-believer). There are no
religious gradations in degree of belief in the fundamental Muslim
credo. If an individual follows Muslim doctrine, he is a Muslim.
Otherwise he is a kafir. And the two are treated differently. As
Warner notes, "The Koran says that kafirs may be hated, plotted
against, deceived, murdered, raped, enslaved, mocked and tortured. All
of those actions are Islam and perfect doctrine."
"So how do you tell if a nice Muslim is good or bad? From the kafir
point-of-view, there is only the fact that a Muslim is following
Mohammed's example. And that is bad, very bad."
A GOD WHO HATES
One view of Islam asserts it is a warm religion of peace. Asked why
almost all terrorists are Muslims, the response is: Well, a few
marginal people deprived, uneducated, frustrated are
terrorists, but they aren't authentic Muslims. The other view of Islam
makes do with the facts: in practice, Islam is violent. Its
practitioners are taught that violence and dishonesty as well as
beheading and sneak attacks are acceptable weapons in fighting the
infidel. Considering that the Muslim global population is estimated at
1.6 to 1.8 billion, even if only 15% of Muslims are pro-terror in that
they will at least riot and burn tires to bolster suicide-bombers and
snipers, we are talking about more than 250 million people, (which is
getting mighty close to the population of the U.S.A.) Fern Sidman
reviews a book by Wafa Sultan, an ex-Muslim, who has seen the religion
from the inside and the outside and who has the training to assess it
analytically an ability few of its propagandists have.
FALSE PROGRESSIVES IN THE MUSLIM WORLD
Seth Frantzman suggests a practical test of how advanced a Muslim
country is. Ignore what it says it is. Look at the way women are
treated in the country. Look specifically how the Muslim male treats
the women in his own family. Nothing dramatic. Just the ordinary
things. How much freedom of action does she have? How much control
does she have over choosing her friends? How is she allowed
to dress in public? Forget the official PR. It is a sad fact that most
Muslim countries, including the Arab ones, have become ever more
regressive.
THE ISLAMIC ROOTS OF ABDULMUTALLAB'S SUICIDAL ODYSSEY
The new morality is that jihadists aren't responsible for their crimes
for they are the victims of society, poverty, neglect and other social
causes. So the the attempted destruction of a planeload of people by a
rich, nice, educated Muslim is puzzling to those who won't believe
"what Islamic terrorists like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab themselves
insist motivated them: ... following Islam and reading the Koran."
Jamie Glazov argues that the causes of Umar's hate aren't to be found
in Marxist economics and politics but in the "life-hating teaching of
a religion that demonizes earthly happiness, joy, and pleasure." As
Ayatollah Khomeini said, "there is no fun in Islam." There is too much
hate more than too many Muslims can cope with in a rational way.
MADE IN AMERICA MUSLIM TERRORISTS
Hostile activity by Arabs and other Muslims often takes the form of
maligning non-Muslims, writing poorly-spelled but brutally ugly
comments on the internet, disrupting public meetings organized by
non-Muslims, and randomly attacking Jews physically on the street.
There are also intra-Muslim hate crimes, such as the honor killings
by even "moderate" Arabs Muzammil H. Hassan beheaded his wife
because she was uppity and these are feebly reported by the press.
What is becoming more frequent, as Lori Averick reports, is the
western or westernized born-Muslim or convert, who wakes up one day
and takes it upon himself suddenly to shoot up a Jewish community
center, a group of fellow soldiers or trying for the brass
ring
to explode a planeful of people. An early example was Sayyid Nosair,
Rabbi Meir Kahane's murderer, who came from Egypt and became a member
of the notorious al-Farouq Mosque in Brooklyn.
DEFEATING JIHADI TERRORISM
Dr. Babu Suseelen writes about the impact of random terrorism on the
lives of the citizens where the attack occurred. Security officers and
political leaders warn against attack, but are silent about the jihad
ideology that motivates the jihadists. In time, "citizens have become
inoculated against the terrorists. And these habituated citizens who
are inoculated and who are hiding behind a thick wall of denial no
longer react." We need to fight back to preserve our future for
example, to demand that "hatred from the Koran be expunged."
"Commonsense suggests that citizens have the right to identify people
trying to ferment violence, spread hatred and terror in our country."
A CONFLUENCE OF FOLLY
This comes as close as any article I know to articulating that we are
at a crossroads "a crossroads where denial and ignorance meet
rationality and common sense." A reader, Christopher Ward, commented:
"D.L. Adams lays out for us the dangers of fundamentalist Islam and
the way we are reacting or rather not reacting."
We are currently militarily engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both
these countries and both sides in both countries are ideologically
governed by Sharia law. Sharia law with its lack of tolerance to any
other religion and its refusal to allow woman freedom of action is
intrinsically "contrary to our concepts of justice and human rights."
As Adams points out, "We fight against jihad at the same time we
create states that will mandate it and support it we will
always be its victims; this is folly." More recently, in Iran, we've
again sided with an ideological Islamic regime, not with those who
want lessened state control.
Adams asks, "What is our purpose in supporting the creation and
growth of societies and governments that are fundamentally opposed to
our existence." How do we define victory? Whatever the outcome, it can
hardly be called democracy?
Aside from the larger issues that need examination, we need to
rethink some of our prejudices. We have rejecting profiling in
airports, though profiling is a sensible way to pick out potential
terrorists. We fear giving offense to Islam to the point that we have
weakened our security. It is ludicrous but significant that the Dep't
of Homeland Security has eliminated the word terrorist from its
vocabulary. We need to understand that those who think of us as the
Great Satan will not love us, no matter what we do. "The adherents of
Islamic doctrine attack us because they hate us; they hate us simply
because we exist."
If democracy is defined as freedom for the individual within
a context of a single language and single sense of "countryhood", then
Great Britain indeed most of Europe continues to fritter away
its freedom under the seductive sway of multiculturalism.
The current trial of Geert Wilders, a member of the Dutch parliament,
is on. It is clearly emblematic of the struggle between democracy,
which provides freedom for all groups, and a form of multiculturalism
that favors Islam. It eventually leads to the most determined group
taking control.
Geert Wilders, a Dutch parlimentarian, made a documentary,
Fitna. He showed actual footage of Muslims behaving in their
own interpretation of "peaceful" with voice-overs reading relevent
portions of the Koran condoning this behavior. This infuriated Muslims
and the Muslims so frightened the usually 'anything-is-OK' Dutch
authorities, that Wilders was treated as a criminal. He was not even
allowed into England a year ago. He was put on trial by the Dutch in
early 2010, in the words of Pat Condell ( a must read. click
here. ) for the "crime of embarrassing them with the truth." The
judges have rejected all but 3 of Wilders' 18 witnesses experts in
Islam, social cohesion, and practioners such as Mohammed Bouyen, the
Koran-believer who slaughtered Theo van Gogh in 2004, and Sheikh al-Qaradawi, enthusiast
of the healing power of camel urine. The trial has been postponed
until at least next summer. It's still a cliff-hanger.
GALILEO AND GEERT WILDERS
It is trite to say that many a time we don't recognize when our
civilization is at a major crossroad at the time when it happens.
Bringing that strong advocate of freedom for the individual, Member of
the Dutch Parliament Geert Wilders, to trial on January 20, 2010, for
insulting Islam, may be one of those epochal events. Fjordman makes us
understand this by comparing Wilders' persecution to that of Galileo,
who was forced to recant his conclusion that the earth traveled around
the sun, and not, as was commonly believed and enforced by the
Catholic Church, that the sun traveled around the earth.
AMERICA, THE LAST MAN STANDING
This was the Address given by Geert Wilders, Chairman of the Party for
Freedom (Netherlands), at the Four Seasons, New York City, September 25, 2008,
introducing an Alliance of Patriots and announcing the Facing Jihad
Conference in Jerusalem.
WESTERN CIVILIZATION ON TRIAL
NRO asks a group of experts about the start of Geert Wilders trial:
(1) Is there any legitimate reason he's in court? (2) What are the
implications of such a trial being held, nevermind its outcome? These
are the thoughtful and analytic responses by Bat Ye'or, a leading
authority on the islamization of Europe, Paul Marshall and Nina Shea
of the Hudson Institute Center for Religious Freedom, Robert Spencer,
Director of Jihad Watch, and Daniel Pipes, Director of the Middle East
Forum.
SALMA YAQOOB OF THE BRITISH RESPECT PARTY
As in America, the left ideologues and the Muslim fundamentalists in
Britain find common cause in anti-war and anti-zionism activities.
Paul Austin Murphy writes about Salma Yaqoob, a leader of the Respect
Party, whose membership comes from Socialists and Communists on the
left and Muslims on the right. Ideologic differences on gay and
women's rights have caused the Party problems, but there is one area
of perfect harmony among the members they all hate Zionists
(pronounced: Jews) and are
for Palestinian rights. Murphy challenges some of Yaqoob's arguments,
including her downplaying terror in Britain and complaining that Muslims
are demonized. He also questions her claim to be of the "working
class". He points out that her type of defamation of Judaism is
responsible for much of the recent rise of anti-Semitism in England.
THE SECRET PLOT TO DESTROY BRITAIN'S IDENTITY
Christian churchmen, such as Lord Carey, former Archbishop of
Canterbury, are warning against uncontrolled Islamic immigration that
threatens Britain's "very ethos or DNA." As Muslim immigration has
increased, rather than leading to a multifaceted but integrated
community anchored in a single language and democratic goals, it has
led to increased outlay in welfare expenses, demands that England give
way to Muslim culture by adopting sharia law and a radicalization of
the younger generation of Muslims. In this article, Melanie Phillips
points out that Muslim immigration didn't just happen it was
encouraged in the name of "multiculturalism." Ironically, Muslim
immigration is leading to a bizarre monolithic society where Islam is
topdog and the other groups subservient.
BRITAIN AS A FOCUS FOR HAMAS' POLITICAL, PROPAGANDA AND LEGAL ACTIVITIES IN EUROPE
Britain has shown great concern for Muslim sensitivities. It has been
extremely accomodating to what Muslims claim they need to perform
their religious duties to the point of stamping on the religious
and social sensitivities of everyone else: not allowing non-Muslim
employees to eat in the lunch room during Ramadan; not allowing
Christian religious icons to be displayed publically, not allowing
mixed bathing in swimming pools, not teaching the Holocaust, etc. One
result has been that Muslims dedicated to violence have made London
the base of their political, propaganda and lawfare activities.
Hamas is on the European Union's list of terrorist organizations.
Yet, camouflaged as a supporter of the Palestinian cause, it has turned
"Britain into a center for extensive anti-Israeli activity." Hamas and
its ideology has infiltrated "British politics, media and
universities." Reuven Erlich provides us examples of their activities.
WHILE EUROPE SNEERED
When a believer in the basic goodness and fair-mindedness of mankind
come up against guys who seem to be maniacally driven to kill people,
something has to give. When the disparity is in the mind of a
politicized intellectual expert, he often will sneer away the hard
facts to preserve his political integrity. As Bruce Bawer describes so
vividly, using Justin Vaïsse, as a case in point, he will ignore
"the draining of European welfare systems by Muslim families, the
explosion in rapes and gay-bashings and Jew-baitings, the
proliferation of honor killings and forced marriages and no-go
zones..." Curiously, the supercilious know-it-all is often not even
concerned about fellow experts and professionals, who haven't denied
reality but forthrightly fight against the ugliness and brutality that
the entry of a large number of colonizing Muslims has brought to
Europe. Calling those who fight to preserve European culture
Islamophobes won't make the problems go away.
REVIEW OF CHRISTOPHER CALDWELL'S REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION IN EUROPE
Fjordman comments on a book by Christopher Caldwell emphasize that
while it is a lucid presentation of the major problem confronting
Europe namely, that Europeis being inundated by colonizing
Muslims the book does not come to grips with the likely
consequence that Europe may soon lose its identity and be absorbed
into the world of Islam. As example of the tenor of the book, Caldwell
states that "Europeans can only hope that newcomers, especially Muslim
newcomers, will assimilate peaceably." Fjordman points out that
"Muslims have never 'assimilated peaceably' anywhere." He is
justifiably annoyed that by downplaying the problem now, Caldwell
contributes to a bloody future when and if Europe wakes up.
Isaac Asimov, in writing his Foundation series talked about
a Seldon crisis, where problems that had perhaps been building for
years suddenly come to a boil and there is no escape from dealing with
them. Israel may be at that point.
Most urgent is Iran, which is run by Mullahs whose ambition is to
build a spectacular nuclear device to act as a silver bullet to kill
off Israel, a major obstacle in their pursuit of dominion over the
Middle East.
The real issue is: will the region not just Israel survive?
If Iran is allowed to carry out its nuclear program, an Iranian strike
would devastate the entire Middle East. Some of it will be demolished;
the rest will be too crippled to maintain delivery of the oil on which
much of our transportation and manufacturing industries depend.
The Obama administration's response to this possibility is to
ignore it. Instead, it treats Israel as a pesky dependent that needs
taming and downsizing. The Administration has finally found an enemy
it is prepared to fight. Israel. Not Iran. It seems to be doing all it
can to paralyze Israel (or at least distract it from concentrating on
how to handle Iran) without arousing the ire of the American people,
the majority of which favor Israel, not the Arabs. Other countries
treat Iran's threats as Israel's headache. The U.N. and the E.U. are
useless.
As a second component in the crisis, terrorist gangs that have
harassed Israel for years are consolidating. And the U.N. has declared
-- using the Goldstone Report as certification that attempts by
Israel to fight the terrorists are war crimes. To prepare to face this
combined hostility, Israel must not only prepare militarily but it
must also become less lackadaisical about her internal enemies, the
Jewish Marxist ideologues who fight for the Palestinian cause. In addition, there is the long-standing factor that the Palestinian
arabs ignore history, geography and international law by claiming that
they are a people and that the Land of Israel belongs to them.
Appeasement by Israel has proven a failure, and the mistake continues
to paid for in Jewish dead bodies.
By not asserting her rights to her land, Israel has lost the
propaganda war by default. The American Administration acts as if the
way to peace in the Middle East even with a belligerent Iran, an
aggressive assortment of terror groups controlled by resurgent Islam
and a regional war taking place by proxy in Yemen is to give the
Palestinian arabs a good chunk of Israel. It refuses to allow normal
and quite legal growth of the Jewish towns in Samaria and Judea as
part of its irrational push for a Palestinian state. It is more
committed to this goal than are the Arabs who are to become the
citizens of this new state.
Israel might continue to give aways pieces of her tiny land, hoping
to appease the local Arabs and foreign powers who are intent on
destroying Israel. Or she will stiffen her spine and use her brain to
solve the Palestinian problem by (1) annexing Samaria and Judea and
Gaza, which are rightfully hers; and (2) urging regional and world
groups to grant the "Palestinians" including the Arab refugees --
an area carved out of the enormous amount of the Middle East land the
League of Nations allocated to the Arabs. That will be the real
beginning of peace.
THREE CHANUKAH MIRACLES; MY STONES... WHICH WERE NEVER MINE
Moshe Saperstein relieves himself of his opinon of a Chanukah obscenity
-- inviting an enemy of Israel to light the Chanukah menorah in
Washington, D.C. But he also writes of three small miracles, all of
which happened at Chanukah time. Rachel posts an essay by Paula R.
Stern, a moving story of how she salvaged stones from the synagogues
that were left behind by the Jews forced out of Gaza. They were
desecrated by the new Arab inhabitants.
GUSH KATIF REMEMBERED THROUGH ART
As a reader commented, "just too bad that a tragedy such as this one
at Gush Katif was the spark that ignited their tremendous creative
spirits. Here's hoping that these talented women continue
to bring beauty in to the world. Theirs is a great example of tikun
olum."
A 'NATIONAL HEROES' LAW
Ugly punishments were meted out to teenagers who stood and protested
without stones or guns or any weapons that expelling the
Jews from Gush Katif was dreadfully wrong. They were treated much more
harshly than Arab prisoners in Israel who have been found guilty of
killing Israelis. The Arab prisoners even study for degrees while in
jail; the teenagers were locked up "pre-trial" for indefinite amounts
of time. That has now been judged by the courts to be excessive. The
expulsion from Gaza has also been judged wrong. David Wilder is perhaps
looking at a possible future when the Israeli leadership fearful of
'them' America, the media, "world opinion" might
commit the crime of expelling some 200,000 to 300,000 Jews from
Biblical Israel. This would be so outrageous as to make the suffering
and demoralization caused by the Gush Katif expulsion seem mild in
comparison. So he suggests that now that the Judiciary has come to its
senses, it pass a law recognizing all the expellees as national heroes
and making the leaders promise that this will Never Again Happen. It
follows, for the law to have teeth, that the leaders responsible of
the Gush Katif evil pay for their crime.
Undeniably, the best way to stop the development of Iran's
doomsday bomb would be to let the Iranian people handle it
themselves. Two of this set of articles discuss how angry the Iranian
populace is at the government and ways we could assist them to bring
about regime change. Unfortunately, as Timmerman's article shows, the
American administration is looking at its actions and lack of
action pro-Mullah. The U.N. is unworried it's too busy
calling Israel's scrupulous military action in Gaza a year ago a war
crime and the EU doesn't seem to understand that any disruption of
the fragile stability of the Middle East will affect them in many
unpleasant ways. Given that none of the major groups that could
possibly rein in Iran are doing anything, it is unlikely that the
best way to stop bomb building in the Middle East will have time to
succeed. For those who are convinced Iran doesn't mean what it says
about nuclear-bombing Israel, we suggest you read Joshua Teitelbaum's
monograph, "What Iranian Leaders Really Say about Doing Away with
Israel,"
available from JCPA.
EMPOWERING IRANIANS TO DISLODGE THE MULLAHS
Amil Imani suggests that "all signs point to an early demise of the
Islamic Republic and the establishment of a secular democracy." In
response to the public's unrest, the Iranian government has become
more repressive and brutal, and in doing so, it becomes yet more
unpopular. Imani estimates it has at best the support of some 10-15%
of the population. "[T]he opposition movement is massive and
determined, capable of exploiting any opportunity to disempower the
regime." It includes labor and teacher unions, student groups, religious
and ethnic minorities and journalists. They should be backed up by the
world's nations imposing immediate sanctions. Whether the revolution
or the bomb will come in first is still to be answered.
THE SOFT POWER SOLUTION IN IRAN
James K. Glassman and Michael Doran provide us with ABB All But
the Bomb --- ideas on dealing with Iran's as yet unstopped program to
build nuclear bombs. They suggest ideas for a regime change in Iran,
following up on the obvious dissatisfaction among the Iranians due to
the fraudulent reelection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last summer. Should
Iran be allowed to continue her nuclear plans, even if she doesn't
immediately blast Israel, she becomes the more powerful state in the
Middle East, or, as more likely, starts a race among the group of
equally-unstable barely-civilized Arab states of the region to secure
their own nuclear weapons.
U.S. ACTING IN IRAN'S INTEREST, OPPOSITION LEADER SAYS
Kenneth Timmerman describes his interview with Rahman Haj Ahmadi,
leader of the outlawed Free Life Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PJAK) in
Europe. As Timmerman writes, "Far from being a terrorist group, PJAK
is dedicated to the overthrow of the Islamic Republic regime in Iran
and its replacement by a pro-Western, secular, united Iran that
recognizes the rights of all its citizens." Instead of encouraging
this dissident group, the American Administration has, under the media
radar, labeled the group as terrorist and frozen its assets, thus
ensuring that other groups would avoid working with it.
Let's first consider some bad political decisions Israel has made. It
has sacrificed its own needs and damaged its image and its
self-respect in the vain hope of gaining peaceful accomodation with
its Arab neighbors. As Evelyn Gordon points out below, "The Oslo
process [instituted in 1993] led Israel to sideline its own claim to
the West Bank and Gaza, which all Israeli governments (and
international Jewish leaders) had stressed to some extent before 1993.
The argument in favor of Israel's right to sovereignty there was
simple: these territories are the historic Jewish homeland, the heart
of the biblical Jewish kingdom. They were explicitly allotted to the
future Jewish state by the 1922 League of Nations Mandate, which was
never legally superseded." Instead of leading to peace, the
concessions made to the local arabs increased their appetites for
further encroachment and renewed terrorism, not for peace.
HISTORICAL ERRORS AND CONSEQUENCES
Alex Rose describes some bad decisions Israel has made in its short
lifetime, sometimes for noble reasons, sometimes from timidity and
fear of asserting its legitimate rights. These decisions have led to
some almost insolvable present-day problems. Moreover, her continued
concessionary attitude and preoccupation with peace and
peace partners and the peace process are giving her
enemies a better shot at her destruction. She has not, however, been
responsible for one of the most stupid decisions in the recent history
of the Middle East, namely, Jimmy Carter's undermining the Shah of
Iran. We can thank him for Iran's present-day rulers, the tyrannical
Mullahs.
THE DEADLY PRICE OF PURSUING PEACE
The conventional wisdom is that Israel's international standing
depends on its willingness to advance the "peace process." If so,
why, Evelyn Gordon asks, "has Israel's reputation fallen so low
despite its numerous concessions for peace since 1993?" She points
out that "among anti-Israel radicals, Israel's increasingly frantic
pursuit of peace has aroused not admiration but rather the instincts
of a predator scenting blood." To the terrorists, a concessionary
Israel signals that Israel is in panic, so it's a good time to step
up terror. Israel should attend to some truisms. First: Diplomats
pressure the pressurable. Second: Terrorists expand their
terror activities whenever possible. The Arabs in control of the
Territories are terrorists. As Gordon points out, "the desperate
pursuit of peace is not the solution but the problem."
CHARLIE MCCARTHYISM
The term McCarthyism describing unfair accusations
reminiscent of the pronouncements of the late unlamented Senator
Joseph McCarthy is a favorite retort of Marxist academics,
especially when they are accused of disloyalty. They proclaim loudly
and angrily that they are being deprived of their right to free
speech, no matter how sloppy or non-factual or treasonous their
speech. They never call it McCarthyism when they don't allow their
students or colleagues the same right to free speech. Lee Kaplan
explains the origin of the term McCarthyism, and suggests that
the spectacle of Israeli Marxists becoming offended when their
pseudo-scholarship, inaccuracies and political ideology are called
into question is more Charlie McCarthy than Joseph.
ISRAEL, STATE AND NATION
A particularly damaging action by the Israeli left has been to insert
"appeasement [touted as peace] into the culture and the
educational system of the State of Israel." This is while the
government knows Arab kiddies are inculcated from the time they can
crawl to celebrate murder of Jews. One consequence has been a fall in
IDF recruitment from the Israeli Left when once almost all
Israelis aspired to join the army while more Arab youth are
recruited as suicide-murderers. An unforeseen paradox has been that
Israel must rely on the religious Jew in the army, but the religious
soldiers are put into the position of being commanded to crush their
own religious Zionist communities at the behest of the Leftist
politicians. How long can Israel function while violating the deepest
patriotic values of the majority of its citizenry?
THE NEW ISRAEL FUND AND THE NEXT WAR
Caroline Glick points out that Israel is being hemmed in by
different groups of Muslim terrorists, which suggests that a regional
war is imminent. To prepare for it, Israel of course needs to examine
the potential military aspects. It also needs to neutralize the
political-social items that would prevent Israel from responding
effectively: the 5th column some Israeli arabs have shown
themselves to be; "the ideological dependence on the far left and its
central contention that it is Israel's presence in contested areas
rather than our enemies' commitment to Israel's destruction that
causes wars"; and the support given by a single source the New
Israel Fund to all of the 16 anti-Zionist NGOs which wrote the war
crimes charges made official by the Goldstone Committee in its attempt
to prevent the IDF from fighting effectively in future engagements.
NIF's motto might as well be: 'we'll do anything to undermine Israel:
we support riots, terrorize Israeli officials, and amplify the voices
of radicalized Islam.' Israel needs to make it clear that "the
political open season on Israel is over." Israel must never again sue
for peace after winning the war.
Why the Palestinian people was invented and the corruption of their handlers.
SOVIET RUSSIA, THE CREATORS OF THE PLO AND THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE
If Yasser Arafat was the father of the Palestinian People,
Russia was its mother. Wallace Edward Brand writes about the role
Soviet Russia played in literally creating the Palestinian People in
1964 and in establishing Yassir Arafat as its leader. He bases much
of this on the revelations of Major General Ion Mihai Pacepa, who has been
vetted and certified as a credible source. Creating the
"Palestinian" people as a propaganda weapon to counter Israel's
ownership of Mandated Palestine has also been confirmed by many Arab
sources (cf. here.)
HISTORY LESSON FOR ARAB SPOKESMEN
This essay by Assaf Wohl is written as replies to assertions by
prominent Arabs who insist the Land of Israel belongs to them, past,
present and future. That they say so would ordinarily be their own
business and error but unfortunately, their words have incited
Arabs to riot. Would that Assaf Wohl's essay motivates them to
substitute Israel's real history for their fantasy version. As he
has pointed out, "in every Arab village where you dig a little, you
will find a synagogue."
THE TWO FACES AND ZERO AUTHORITY OF MAHMOUD ABBAS
Mahmoud Abbas is quite a guy. He has two faces the smiley one
he turns toward Westerners when he asserts that he abjures violence
and the dedicated look of the good Muslim when he honors Arabs
terrorists. Two faces and no elected position his term of
office as President expired January 9, 2009. So they just extended it
with new elections sometime in 2010. Maybe. And yet, the
American administration spends more effort worrying about how to get
Israel to gift him with Samaria and Judea than it does worrying about
the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah-Hamas alliance. I'm guessing the USA
administration figures it would complicate things if Hamas wins in
Samaria and Judea in a new election before the U.S.A. can
"peace-process" Israel into giving its land away.
PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY: STILL STEALING "HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS." HAMAS TAKING OVER
Abbas may not be as colorful a murderer as Arafat, but his heart is in
the right place: he too believes in the Arab version of the work
ethic: take home whatever you can steal. The longer he stays in
office, the more likely it is that he and his buddies will live like
Arafat's widow does. Arafat died in 2004, but widowlady Sufa
still keeps dress boutiques and fancy food stores in business, all by
her little self. Wot a benefactress. Of course, Hamas also takes big chunks
of the money coming in to welfare the po' Palestinians in Gaza. No
difference.
WHEN IN ROME, DO AS THE VISIGOTHS DO
In writing this article about the U.N. Mark Steyn is as usually witty,
incisive and right on the mark. It is a bit depressing to ponder that this description
of the U.N.'s corruption is five years old. And it is still accurate.
HOW TO SOLVE THE ARAB REFUGEE PROBLEM
Yoav Sorek presents a brief synopsis of the Israeli Initiative for
solving the Palestinian refugee problem. He argues that "the
Palestinian refugee issue [is] the key to real change in the Middle
East. Contrary to popular understanding, this issue could be solved in
a relatively simple way: treating the Palestinian refugees like all
other refugees. A fair humanitarian solution to this problem is of
interest to all who seek stability and peace Israel, the US,
moderate Arab regimes, and of course, the Palestinian refugees
themselves. The main obstacle for rehabilitation of the Palestinian
refugees has always been the Palestinian National Movement, which
takes advantage of the refugee issue, and the United Nations Relief
and Works Agency (UNRWA), the body responsible for the perpetuation of
the refugee situation over six decades. The fact that UNRWA is
financed by western countries with the US as its largest sole donor,
gives us an opportunity to make a change." Something needs to be done
soon. After the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the U.N estimated the number of
Arab refugees at 472,000, of which 360,000 needed help. The number has
grown so that UNRWA, whose only clients are these Arab
refugees, feeds, houses, educates, provides health care and
propagandizes for more than 4.5 million people who claim to be the
original refugees and/or their descendants. And the number continues
to grow.
THE PALESTINIAN ARAB'S RIGHT OF RETURN TO THEIR HOMELAND, ARABIA
Mark Delmar supplies references for facts that have been submerged by
the fraudulent claim of the "Palestinians" that they are the original
occupants of the Land of Israel and that the Jews invaded their land
and are occupying it. There never was a country or state called
Palestine. It is a fantasy that owes little to history and geography.
Quite the reverse is true. When the Jews returned in numbers to their
ancient land of Israel at the end of the 19th Century, the land was a
poverty-striken, unfertile, unsanitary part of the Ottoman Empire. The
Jews revitalized the land and the Arabs came in because of the renewed
economic opportunities. The truth has often been told. It is time it
was accepted.
The Obama administration, whether through design or ignorance, appears
to be operating consistently to aid the growth of Islam in America and
abroad. In this country, terrorist acts that can't be attributed to
al-Qaeda are seen as random and individual. Islam continues to
infiltrate our educational and political systems. A growing network
of mosques manufactures the manpower to promote sharia law by terror
and by persuasion whichever works in the particular situation.
The Jewish community has unwillingly become a major target for Islamic
activism.
Many have forgotten that not that long ago American Jews were
subjected to restrictions and quotas, some crude, others more
low-keyed, but all hurtful and damaging. Too many American Jews are
too young to realize how important Israel is for them personally, if
only as an escape hatch, should the rising anti-semitism
compliments of Arab money and influence working with Marxists and
religious anti-semites reach the heights it has in Britain and
France. Unlike the old prejudice that seldom spoke loudly
except for the neo-nazis and Father Coughlins the new
anti-semitism announces itself openly.
On campuses, while Jewish students march and chant for peace and
ecumenism, arab students hang posters showing Jews dripping blood as
they eat arab babies. They boldly disrupt meetings they don't like.
College administrators may prefer that these vulgar demonstrations
didn't happen, but too often they do exactly nothing to stop them,
It is easy for Jews to take quiet pride in Israel's accomplishments
in medicine, in computers, in technology. But most Jews are not
equipped to handle bad press in the media and condemnations from their
fellow students and coworkers. The political manipulations in the U.N.
are way beyond them.
Jewish hasbara is poor. The U.N.-staged Goldstone report and
malicious blood-libel stories in the media have been countered
intelligently and decidedly by thoughtful and analytic articles. But
the defamation of Israel is not a topic the majority of Jews are
passionate about. It isn't something they bring up with coworkers at
lunch. The typical reaction to accusations against Israel is
embarrassment; Jews too often blame Israel for causing them distress.
They are light years away from even thinking of refuting the libel
effectively.
Things are not getting any better. Thanks to Saudi money and an
organized network of hate-spewing mosques, Arabs have cornered the
market on profiling the players in the Middle East: Islam is peaceful,
Israel is evil. Somali muslims have killed hundreds of thousands of
blacks who are their co-religionists in Darfur; Sunnis kill Shi'ites
and Shi'ites kill Sunnis; Iran crushes its election protesters; Fatah
shoots Hamas and Hamas throws Fatah off roof tops; Rwanda, Bosnia, Sri
Lanka have seen indiscriminate massacres. But the only 'crime' that
excites the media and the leftist humanitarian peacenikers is Israel's
tempered attempt to stop Arab terrorists from aiming missiles at
Israel.
Calls for academic boycotts of Israel began in 2002 and continue.
Jewish academics do rebuff such calls. Sadly, their response is often
a whine that there's lots of Israelis that care about human rights for
the arab. How pathetic. They haven't the guts to say that if the
punishment for inconveniencing Arabs at a checkpoint is an academic
boycott, the punishment for the same group of arabs killing Jews
should be death or, at the very least, a complete quarantine.
Why are defenders of Israel apologizing? Geert Wilders (see above)
has pointed out that "the war against Israel is not a war against
Israel. It is a war against the West. It is jihad. Israel is simply
receiving the blows that are meant for all of us." Why aren't we
educating European academics that it is daft to undermine Israel when
it is one of the few places not willing to commit suicide so that
Islam can take over the world? A cheery note. American Jews are beginning to ask: why aren't our
leaders out there in the front lines yelling at the Arab
propagandists? Why is Bnai Brith helping Muslims condemn Israel? Why
is JNF letting the Arabs take over Jewish land? Why is AIPAC promoting
an Arab state in Samaria and Judea (aka the West Bank), Judaism's
birthplace? Why are they so eager to give the Arabs the Biblical land
of Israel, with its many towns whose names are obviously from Biblical
times, including Seilun (Shiloh), where Joshua brought the Ark of the
Covenant, and Hebron, where Abraham and Sarah are buried and David was
crowned King? Most of the articles in this set examine our weak leadership and
ineffective hasbara. Even when Israel behaves magnificently, moving an
entire area aid after a natural disaster to a new and
higher standard of care, we can still expect people will decide Israel
is doing it for ugly motives. On the other hand, there's nothing
easier to sell than a story that Israel is doing something nefarious
like cutting up Arabs for their bullet-shattered organs. With
the help of a cooperative media and a compliant educational system,
the Muslims are making great strides in getting their bizarre version
of reality out to the public. They are using our openness and respect
for other people's points of view to convince us to take on their
medieval ideas. Like it or not, Jews in America and Jews in Israel are bonded. We
need to support each other without equivocation. Israel has had to
take the brunt of Islamic hate for America as well as for the insult
she inflicted on Arab sensibilities by staying alive when her Arab
neighbors tried to kill off the brand new modern state. Jews
in America have to learn to defend Israel as if it is for themselves.
For it is.
CIVILIZATION VERSUS BARBARISM
Nonie Darwish describes yet another way that Islamic attitudes and
values are infiltrating our educational system and affecting the
values of young students. They send around speakers to schools, who,
under the guise of explaining Islam, mispresent Islam, excusing its
violence and spouting misinformation. These tactics are also designed
to create an attitude of hate against Israel and America in the next
generation. As Yuval Zaliouf has said of this essay, "Here is a clear
example of the infestation of barbarism into our civilization." The
unfortunate fact is that so many in the "civilized" world,
particularly in academia and in the media, side with those barbarians.
See for example the uncivilized tactics at UC Irvine here.
WAHHABISM AND THE FIRST AMENDMENT
Michael W. Schwartz makes a novel distinction between American
religious institutions and foreign ones, specifically, Saudi-funded
and staffed mosques in America. The reason is that the political
aspects of what is taught in Wahhabi mosques have been implicated in
several massacres by American Muslim terrorists. As one reader of the
original article wrote: "The Constitution is not a suicide pact.
Citizens have not only rights but responsibilities ..." Another reader
noted that if Islam is a religion and not a political invasion, then
we should go by the principle of mutuality: "They get as many mosques
[here in America] as we get Churches/synagogues Houses of
Worship [in Saudi Arabia.]."
HASBARA: TELLING THE ISRAEL STORY TO THE MANY WHO JUST DON'T KNOW
Avrum I. Ashery reminds us that there are many effective and creative
ways of letting people know about "Israel's exciting accomplishments in
health, science technology and agriculture." And Israel's fast and
brilliant response when disaster strikes. And its religious tolerance
despite the fact that it lives in a region of widespread religious
intolerance. Use the included list of some of Israel's accomplishments
to start you off.
IN THE IDF MEDICAL CORPS DELEGATION TO HAITI WHICH IS HOUSED IN TENTS....
Israel's immediate response to the earthquake in Haiti was dazzling;
it set a new standard for dealing with a disaster by integrating
high-tech and well-trained and dedicated professionals. As Emanuel
Winston put it: "Israel's contribution became the focal point for
other doctors from all over the world. Regrettably, the International
Media worked very hard to insure that Israel's contribution was either
not mentioned or only minimally, at best." And many internet crazies
were sure Israel was there to harvest organs. The article is
an IDF soldier's eyewitness account of the Israeli field hospital
personnel and the reaction of the Haitians whose lives were saved.
THE AFTONBLADET ORGAN-TRAFFICKING ACCUSATIONS AGAINST ISRAEL: A CASE STUDY
Not long before the totally unwarrented and monstrous attack on Israel
by the United Nation's Goldstone Report, Israel suffered another
undeserved kick in the ribs. A Swedish paper, the
Aftonbladet, skillfully mixed rumors, distortions, suggestions,
lies and irrelevent information to accuse Israel of harvesting organs
from dead Palestinians. Tossavainen does an excellent wrap-up of the
story and its aftermath. Or some of the aftermath. It takes but
a moment to realize that organs for transplant need meticulous
handling and the organs of a bullet-riddled terrorist are hardly
likely to be suitable. Nevertheless, such malicious and blatently dishonest
stories about Israel are readily believed by those happy to accept any
negative story about Jews.
ASSESSING FOXMAN OF THE ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE (ADL)
Abe Foxman and the ADL are long-time institutions in the American
Jewish community. Politically, like Merlin in the King Arthur legend,
Foxman seems to be traveling backward in time. Half a century out of
date, he thinks his enemies are right winger who love Israel like Rush
Limbaugh and Christian evangelicals. He rants against right wing
Nazis, whose impact is somewhere around minus zero but he pursues
ecumenical ties with the Muslims, who spend time, money and human
resources in promoting antisemitism in America. Foxman continues to
use his position to side with the political Left, apparently believing
the Left is still philo-semitic and the Right anti-semitic.
What is most disturbing is that Foxman doesn't seem to recognize the
extent that Arab targetting of Jews has influenced American campuses
and churches. In this essay, Susan L. Rosenbluth examines Foxman's
record, particularly his protection of those, like Bishop Tutu, who
defame Israel. It's not clear we can any longer afford an ADL that
defames our friends and ignores the danger posed by Arabs suffering
from Judeophobia.
PERHAPS WE NEED A REPLACEMENT FOR ADL
The ADL is an outstanding example of an important Jewish organization
that is inadequately responding "to the threats posed by Islamist
antisemitism." Unfortunately, it isn't the only one that is passive in
the face of Muslim in-your-face hostility. Other major Jewish
organizations have not forthrightly warned their membership about the
extent of Muslim planning and infiltration into America's educational,
religious and political institutions. These groups certainly know that the Muslims have geared
up to isolate Jews and demonize them in the U.S.A, Canada and several
South American states. Charles Jacobs may have figured out the main
reason why they haven't they just don't know how to explain it to
the Jewish community. I have news for them. All they have to do is
say it. Plainly. In plain English. The facts. The unvarnished facts.
The worst that can happen is some ostriches will resign from the
groups. But that's better than being accused later of knowing what was
going on and pretending that things would get better.
To put it another way, NOT to
shout in a theatre when there's a fire is criminal.
ISRAEL IN YOUR HANDS U.S. VOTERS HAVE A SAY ON WHAT HAPPENS IN THE HOLY LAND
As Lou Marano writes, "Contrary to the received wisdom and official
U.S. policy, a Palestinian state is not necessary, desirable or
inevitable." For those committed to a Jewish State in the otherwise
monopolistic Muslim Middle East, he argues it is time for proactive
support. Why? Because there is evidence that the military means used
to impose the current Washington-requested 10-month freeze on new
Jewish construction in Samaria and Judea may portend an expulsion of
these same Israeli Jews from their homes and businesses. A government
that hasn't yet resettled the 8000 to 10,000 Jews it hounded out of
their homes in Gaza in 2005 may be about to repeat this act of terror
against another 200,000 to 300,000 of its citizens. If eastern
Jerusalem is included, the number would go up to 500-600,000 Jews made
refugees by their own government in their own country.
The articles range from
the First Liberation the Great
Liberation of the land destined to be our homeland to
the Crusades and
to the more recent
massacre of Deir Yassin, which like so many Arab tales
turned out to be a hoax.
THE GREAT LIBERATION
Victor Sharpe says of his article, "At this time when the
international community, including the Obama Administration and the
State Department, is applying unbearable pressure upon the Jewish
state to give away its Biblical and ancestral heartland of Judea and
Samaria to the Arabs, who call themselves Palestinians, it is vital to
return to the biblical passages in the Book of Joshua. Joshua was the
great military leader of the Jewish people. It was he who first freed
the Promised Land in what I call the Great Liberation. The
article/essay is replete with biblical passages that list the
liberated territories on both banks of the River Jordan and which we
ignore today at our peril." How foolish it would be to to give away
our patrimony for a bowl of promises that the Arabs have no
intention of honoring.
THE CRUSADES: WHEN CHRISTENDOM PUSHED BACK
Selwyn Duke asks: "Were the Crusades really expansionist ventures by
an imperialist Europe? Or were they something else entirely?" He
reminds us that by 732 A.D, when Islam was little more than 100 years
old, Muslims had already taken over many of the Christian countries of
the Middle East and North Africa, Iberia (Spain and Portugal) and were
nearing Paris before they were stopped. But Islam didn't stop trying to
take over Europe. The Crusades, begun some four centuries later, were
attempts by Christianity to take back territory once theirs and to
stop further encroachment. Duke suggests we need to understand the
Crusaders in the context of their time. Muslims were relentlessly
invading and occupying large swatches of Europe, The Crusaders fought
back perhaps not brilliantly and with dark episodes. But they
fought for the survival of their lands and religion.
THE BIG LIE ABOUT DEIR YASSIN REVEALED
History sometimes has a way of repeating the same elements of the same
story over and over again. In Jenin and again in Gaza last year,
Israel put its own soldiers at risk to prevent the killing of Arab
women and children, whose own families callously put them at risk to
shield the terrorists that Israel was targetting. The same thing
happened when the new state of Israel was just born and immediately
invaded. Deir Yassin was not a peaceful village; it was fortified and
well-equipped with a large supply of arms being used by a large number
of native and foreign fighters, shooting down into Jewish areas.
Strategically placed high up in the hills, it was blocking the road to
Jerusalem. Rather than a surprise attack which would have saved
Jewish lives the Jews, using a loudspeaker, offered the town the
opportunity to send away the women and children before they attacked.
What the Jews got for their scrupulous behavior was the Deir Yassin
myth, which asserted the Jews had raped the women and massacred the
town. And this was years before Judge Goldstone with solemn face
falsely certified that Jews committed war crimes in Gaza.
This is where our readers get a chance to write opinions
and editorials and share articles they find informative. The Blog-Eds
page for the month is updated every few days.
A Blog-Ed page has a quick list of the articles from which you can
access any of the articles immediately.
To go to the list, click the
"Blog-Eds List" box in the Blue Strip on the top of the Blog-Ed page.
January 2010 BLOG-EDS
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SUMMARY OF ISRAEL'S LEGAL RIGHTS TO JUDEA AND SAMARIA
Ted Belman summarizes the unbroken series of treaties and resolutions,
laid out by the San Remo Resolution, the League of Nations and the
United Nations, that give the Jewish People title to Mandatory
Palestine and the city of Jerusalem. Ownership of the Land went from
the defunct Ottoman Empire to the present State of Israel. The Arabs
were never involved. The "Palestinians" had never owned the land;
they had never had a state on the land. Considering that during the
same period and by the same mechanisms, the Arabs acquired title to
over 99% of the Middle East, the Arabs can hardly be considered to be
deprived of land.
UN SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTIONS 181 AND 242
Eli Hertz presents the pertinent information about two U.N.
Resolutions 181 and 242 that are often used inaccurately
to 'prove' that Israel needs to give up yet more of its tiny country
to the Arabs. Resolution 187 was adopted by the General Assembly in
1947 and would have partitioned mandated Palestine into a Jewish state
and an Arab state. It was never adopted by the Security Council, so it
was never a binding resolution. In any event, the Arabs rejected it.
It became null and void when the Arab states invaded the new-born
state of Israel in 1948. U.N. Resolution 242 was adopted after the
6-day war by the Security Council. It said that Israel was to return
some of the land it conquered when the Arab states formally
agreed to allow Israel to live in peace with secure and recognized
borders. It did not mention Palestinian arabs.
BARGHOUTI, AMNESTY AND TRAVESTY
Palestinian Arabs should have a contest on who can invent the most
awful thing to blame on Israel, especially when they have highly
partial NGOs like Amnesty International to help them. Water is so
basic, everyone can sympathize with the po' Palestinians being
deprived of water by the evil Israel. Unfortunately, the figures don't
support their claim. Their problems as usual are self-inflicted:
their leaders are not the most ept in maintaining distribution and
they have allowed "untreated effluents to endanger 'downstream'
Israeli supplies." Martin Sherman is discussing the Mountain Aquifer
in Samaria and Judea (the West Bank). Imagine the disaster if they
plonk an Arab state there the aquifer would go the way of the
Coastal Aquifer that the Gaza arabs have ruined.
THE AL-KUWAITY BROTHERS ARE BACK!
Lyn Julius tells the story of the al-Kuwaity brothers, Saleh and
Daoud, who became famous in the Arab world as composers and
performers. They were born in Kuwait of Iraqi Jewish parents a century
ago. When Iraq and the other Arab countries began terrorizing their
Jewish communities, the brothers fled to Israel along with most of the
other Iraqi Jews. As is usual in totalitarian countries, they became
unpersons in the Arab countries that had acclaimed their compositions.
Their music was still played, but "attributed to Muslim musicians or
labeled 'of folk origin'". Julius writes, "The Arab world needs to
acknowledge its debt and to accept that uprooting their Jews exacted a
heavy price. The day that a street in Baghdad is named after the
al-Kuwaity brothers would be a day for celebration, indeed."
NIGHTMARE ON CHELM STREET. CATS ALL, FOLKS. BUILD OR FREEZE. 3 DUFFLE BAGS.
This issue, we learn from Moshe Saperstein the reality on the ground
while little-boy politicians play Real Politiks with people's
lives. And Rachel Saperstein gives us the grown-up version of the
story for children about the little red hen that grew the wheat and
eventually baked the bread. Her neighbors came around when the bread
was baked, not before. In the grown-up version, some of the Jews
expelled from Gush Katif, Gaza, shook off despair and set down a new
community in Lachish. The bureaucrats that have mucked up their
resettlement of the Gaza Jews came to the opening ceremonies to take
the credit.
HANUKAH AND A HOME
Over the years, we've posted letters from Anita Tucker, starting from
when she was a farmer in Gaza. Like the Sapersteins (see above), she
and her family were expelled from Gush Katif, Gaza, in August 2005, by a government
that put a lot of effort in destroying the lives of some of their best
citizens and then all but abandonned them. Like the Sapersteins, she
found the courage to build again, a community they will call Netzer
Hazani, named after the community destroyed in Gaza, She writes how
the Obama-inspired 'building freeze' is affecting the community.
'A LIFE'S WORK' DESTROYED IN SAMARIA
Standard English Slander for Jewish villages and towns in the territories and parts of Jerusalem: an outpost is a few trailers, usually on a hilltop and preventing Arab settlers seizing the land illegally; a settlement is any Jewish village, town or city smaller than Tel-Aviv. Just a few months
The settlers have a deserved reputation of taking a lot of insult and
physical abuse from the Israeli authorities, with minimal response.
The police, judiciary and government have been blatently supportive of
Arab settlers and hostile to Jewish settlers. Some of the settlers
experienced being expelled from their homes in Gush Katif in 2005 only
to find their Government had made a pointless gesture that had no
impact on the world except that it demanded further concessions. They
understand that a settlement freeze is likely to become permanent and
be the the start of yet another expulsion. This time they know from
experience the government will act against patriotic Jews instead of
the Arabs that want to destroy Israel. As Hillel Fendel shows us, the
Jews are planning with more perspicacity.
Israel's politicians are generally not outstanding, but its technical
and scientific people are world-class. And they put their innovative
skills to practical use. It is a sad irony that while Israel in the
last few years has proven the wisdom of rejecting its socialist past
and going to market capitalism, America appears to be going in the
opposite direction it is starting to adopt a socialist leveling
philosophy, to our economy's detriment.
ISRAEL'S LIVELY START-UP CULTURE KEEPS ECONOMY THRIVING
"Israel has more companies on the tech-oriented NASDAQ than any
country outside the United States more than all of Europe, Japan,
Korea, India, and China combined." Dan Senor and Saul Singer suggest
that the U.S. could learn lessons from Israel's vital economy and high
concentration of innovation and entrepreneurship. They attribute
Israel's success in part to the experience young people gain in the
army taking responsibility and making vital decisions on the basis of
incomplete information and inadequate resources. Other factors are
important. Israel is open to new immigrants dynamic capitalists
from America, engineers and scientists from Russia and has sensible
banking practices. And it was a major boost when they abandoned their
socialist-based financial structure.
SILICON ISRAEL: HOW MARKET CAPITALISM SAVED THE JEWISH STATE
Israel blossomed as a powerhouse of
technological developments when it rejected its early socialist
economic philosophy and adopted market capitalism. George Gilder
points out that in a very short time, Israel has "become a center of
innovation, second in absolute achievement only to the United States,
and on a per-capita basis dwarfing the contributions of all other
nations, America included." It is a world leader "in launching new
companies and technologies." Some of Israel's technology achievements
have millitary application, which "makes Israel one of America's most
important economic allies."
TO BRING ISRAELI POLITICS UP TO THE QUALITY OF ITS TECHNOLOGY
Israel must take control of the land that is its by Bible, by history,
by international law and by conquest. And she can't possibly allow the
Arabs to control her water supply. Without a strong stance, she is
always kept off balance, defending herself from blood libels by the
media and the U.N. For example, she was accused of war crimes in Gaza
when she killed some 1200 the majority of whom were terrorists and
their human shields. In Yemen, they haven't counted the many thousands
that have been killed and/or displaced in the Saudi-Iran proxy war, and the U.N. says
nothing. This section looks at what Israel needs to do to inprove its political position
-- from casting off its 'court Jew' persona to taking control of
land that it owns legally, morally, and by right of conquest.
WHITHER ISRAEL?
Stephen Schechter speaks bluntly of the unremitting hatred of the
Arabs to Israel a hatred that makes them insist, ignoring both
history and law, that Jews have no connection with the land; a hatred
they satisfy "by Jew hatred, terror, violence and blood lust." Jews,
in contrast, continue to believe (oh so unrealistically) that there
has to be a peaceful solution, even though every Israeli concession
including stripping itself of bits of its tiny land inspires the
Arab world to greater monstrosity. Shechter, ever the realist, argues
that the Jews need to forsake the Court Jew mentality, defeat
the Palestinians "militarily, a goal perfectly within Israel's
capability" and reassert "sovereignty over the land promised to the
Jews by God and the Balfour Declaration." From his lips to Israel's
ears.
GEORGE ORWELL IS ALIVE AND WELL IN ISRAEL
In Orwellian Newspeak, doublethink is the ability to believe
wholeheartedly and simultaneously in two contradictory statements or
in a conclusion that flies in the face of the plain known facts. Tsvi
November describes Israel's own version of Newspeak: the media and the
leadership praise appeasement and abasement as furthering peace, when
experience continues to demonstrate that catering to the Arabs make
them ever more violent and demanding. Israel grows more prosperous and
self-sufficient while the social, economic, political and demographic
problems in the Arab countries worsen, yet the appeasers insist time
is working against Israel. Some Israelis believe there will be real
peace if only the "Palestinians" sign an agreement even though when
they themselves shop in a souk, they don't believe anything the Arab
owner says without verifying it for themselves. In Newspeak, "disputed
territories" meant land not held permanently by one of the
Superstates; "disputed territories" is how Israel's diplomats describe
land they own by international law but are afraid to say so. It's time
the media stopped feeding the public "the peace in our time' fantasy"
and let common sense come to the fore.
ISRAEL'S LEADERSHIP IS IGNORANT OF LAW
It is Paul Lademain's contention that Israel's leaders he doesn't
think highly of them are not dealing correctly with the Arabs
encroaching on Jewish land. Israel makes stupid gestures of goodwill
"bargaining away its right to assert control over lands in its
possession," whereas the Arabs understand as Israel's leadership
apparently does not that, practically speaking, possession is
90% of the law. "Nations who agree to relinquish their land or
their power in exchange for air-kisses are correctly perceived as
'losers.'" He recommends that "[t]o perfect control over YOUR land you
must first resolve that the land is YOURS--and shall always be
yours--and to do so without any qualms and with absolutely no guilt."
Sensible advice.
ARABS TO ISRAEL: JUDEN RAUS
Victor Sharpe points out that Israel jeopardizes its future by not
asserting its rights. Even if it were foolish enough to allow a
Palestinian State in Biblical Israel, the Palestinians would still
attempt to grab more land. The Arabs would yell for Israel to move to
the 1949 Armistice Lines as now they yell for Israel to withdraw to
the 1968 lines. And in whatever territory they take over, they allow
no Jews. So there is actually a very stark option. Either Israel take
control of its land or the Arabs will. Sharing is not in the cards.
IT'S ANNEXATION TIME
Since Oslo or perhaps since 1968 when Israel regained Biblical
Israel Israel has kept the future of the thriving Jewish
communities of Samaria and Judea ambiguous, hoping to use them as a
bargaining token, where many of them would be swapped for peace with
Israel's Arab neighbors. Over the years, Israel's ambition shrunk to a
hope for peace with the local Arabs, who had started to call
themselves "Palestinians"; and now even the putative head of some of
these arabs mocks them. It has been a foolish policy that has
destroyed the lives of some of her best citizens and gained Israel
nothing except condemnation, whatever it does or doesn't do. Michael
Freund suggests a different course, one based on Israel's legal
ownership of the land, when he writes, "For far too long, Israel has
been overly vulnerable to Palestinian machinations and games by
leaving the status of the settlements unresolved. Now is the time to
send a clear message to our foes, and there is no better place to
start than with our own unilateral measures, chief among them the
annexation of all the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria." An
Addendum from The Israeli Initiative suggests a somewhat
different way to regain what belongs to Israel. A good start to
doing what Israel should have done in 1968.
UNILATERALISM IS OUR ONLY OPTION
Many arabs were settled into Biblical Israel eastern Jerusalem,
Samaria and Judea by Jordan after 1967 when she occupied the area
and many have come in legally and illegally since then. Ted Belman
reviews his way of regaining Biblical Israel and also variations
suggested by others. As does Michael Freund (see above), these plans
deal with the human rights of the Arab population in the Territories;
they were not granted political rights (voting) in Mandated
Palestine. The ultimate objective is to do what should have been done
in 1968 take back control of Samaria and Judea, land that legally
belongs to the State of Israel in the name of the Jewish people.
WE NEED HEROES TODAY. LET US BE LIKE MACCABEES
The Maccabees had to fight both their Greek rulers and Hellenized
Jews, whose goal was for Israel to reject Judaism and be like everyone
else assimilated into the Greek culture of their time. Bernard J.
Shapiro suggests that Israel can strengthen its "political and
strategic situation" by annexing land that is rightfully theirs "from
the Mediterranean to the Jordan, from the Golan to Gaza" and otherwise
focus on making Israel Jewish instead of favoring the Arab. He
advocates a "loyalty oath and national service for all citizens of
Israel, including Arabs" and letting the IDF stop terrorists, even when
they use their civilian population as shields.
These essays discuss the plight of the Christian minority living in
the Territories under Muslim Arab rule. The facts are not hidden, so
it is curious that so many theologians in the West and locally in
Biblical Israel ignore the violence that Palestinian Arabs display to
the Christians in Gaza and Samaria/Judea (West Bank) and blame Israel
for everything. The attitude of the local Christians is understandable
-- there isn't much distance between their throats and the knives the
Muslims hold close by. But why do Western clerics blame Israel?
CHURCH LEADERS REMAIN SILENT WHILE PALESTINIAN CHRISTIAN ARABS SUFFER AT THE HANDS OF MUSLIMS
Christian Arabs are molested, sexually harassed, raped, murdered,
terrorized, forceably converted to Islam, forced to pay extortion
money and have their cemeteries desecrated in areas controlled by
Muslim Arabs. Yet some of their church leaders "[a]gainst all evidence
claim that the Christians Arabs are living comfortable and prosperous
lives." Out of fear and intimidation by the Muslims in control,
Christians are leaving cities where they used to be in the majority
and Muslims are taking over. In 1990, Christians were 60% of
Bethleham's population; by 2001, they were down to 20%. Yet prominent
Christian clerics blame Israel for Christian flight. Alex Grobman
provides us with some accurate information.
MAINLINE AMERICAN CHRISTIAN "PEACEMAKERS" AGAINST ISRAEL
This is a well-documented and thorough study of five prestigious
Protestant churches that have taken a hard anti-Israel stance and are
unswervingly pro-Palestinian. They portray Israel as almost solely
responsible for Arab hostility and violence towards Israel and for not
trying hard enough to achieve a peaceful resolution of the
Arab-Israeli conflict. Actual facts e.g., the Arabs speak proudly
of their genocidal acts against innocent civilians because they have
the seal of Islamic approval are waved aside. The leaders of these
churches promulgate anti-Israel propaganda and engage in boycott and
divestment activity against Israel, with the hope they will "help
transform bipartisan American support for Israel into an artifact of
the hard Right." Resistance to this myopic view has been growing
within the Church membership, but there are still unanswered
questions: why the initial instinct of the Protestant leadership to
blame just Jewish Israel? What motivates a bishop such as Rev.
Margaret Payne to lie blatantly about easily-checked facts when
propagandizing for the Palestinian arabs? What makes a Christian Arab
like Naim Ateek whitewash the Muslims who are destroying his
community? What makes an ordained minister like Gary Burge distort the
plain meaning of the Torah to flay modern Zionism? What makes him
insist that Jews don't own Israel because they have rejected Jesus as
the Messiah? Is it that being anti-Israel is really a way to express Jew-hate, an attitude that is not exactly
politically correct?
There is a widely-held belief, a widely-held hallucinatory
belief, that yet another Palestinian state in addition to Jordan
and Israel that are already states carved out of Mandatory Palestine
-- would bring peace to the Middle East. This ignores that the Middle
East is an unstable area where Sunni fights Shi'ite and Iran fights
Saudi Arabia and the latest splinter terror group fights the
previously most rabid terrorist group. These quarrels have little or
nothing to do with Israel; they have much to do with competing
versions of Islam and competition for which country will be top dog in
the Arab Middle East.
YEMEN SEIZES IRANIAN ARMS SHIP CARRYING WEAPONS FOR THE SHI'ITE REBELS IN THE COUNTRY'S NORTH
Iran and Saudi Arabia are fighting a proxy war in Yemen, with Saudi
Arabia aiding the Yemen government, Iran sending supplies and men to
the Houthi Shi'ite rebels fighting the Yemini army in the north. The
rebels are trying to bring down a government they say is too
pro-Western. Thousands have died on both sides and some 150,000 people
have been displaced. All this has taken place with little media
attention and no action by the U.N. except to help create a refugee
camp. This article by Dr. Reuven Erlich is about the capture of an
Iranian arms shipment on its way to Yemen. Iran has similarly shipped
weaponry by sea to Hezbollah to fight Israel.
Syria isn't strong enough to be a major power but it does well for
itself acting as a major node in the distribution of weaponry from
Iran to Hezbollah. Over the years, Hezbollah has conducted suicide
attacks against Israel as the active arm of Iran and Syria states
that are not in a position to wage war openly. Hezbollah has its own
power base it controls Lebanon. When Syria was forced out of the
Bekaa Valley, which is noted for its opium poppy fields and marijuana
production, Hezbollah took control. Michael Rubin points out that Iran
(operating from its embassy in Damascus) and Syria have bonded; they
work well together and have common goals and outlook. They have
unified the Shia in the region in Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and
even Bahrain and are a steady source of support for other regional
terrorist groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad. This network
would be united in a confrontation with Sunni Saudi Arabia. The U.S.
State Department continues to believe it can woo Syria from its
power-conferring relationship with Iran.
HEZBOLLAH'S DELUSIONS
Jonathan Spyer makes the point that Hezbollah's victories in Lebanon
are a miniature version of "larger regional developments." After its
election victory, Hezbollah is now pushing to force Shi'ite rule on
everyone. A similar push to a more orthodox Islam can be seen in
Turkey, Iran and Gaza. As part of this, of course, the United States
is demonized and Israel is targetted for destruction. "But at the core
of the strategic thinking of Hezbollah and its patrons lie a series of
delusions, which are likely to bring about the defeat of the movement
over time." Especially if the West starts to understand that this political
ideology can not be ignored or accomodated.
AS THE ISLAMIC CURTAIN DESCENDS
Mark Silverberg chronicles the gradual evolution of an Islamic
mini-state in Gaza under Hamas rule and Shari'a law. A dress code for
women is enforced "on the street, in schools and in the courts";
mixed-gender classes in schools are discouraged; gender separation in
public is encouraged; religious studies have been expanded; and more
mosques and madrasses and Shari'a courts are being constructed.
Nevertheless, Hamas has not satisfied some still more religiously
stringent groups, who now consider Hamas offices legitimate targets to
attack. On the other hand, other Gazans may find increased conformity
to Shari'a law too restrictive.
Chapter 2 of R.K. Ohri's book on the tenets of Islam sets the
stage for the other articles in this set on how muslims treat fellow
muslims and infidels, anybody and everybody, as prescribed by the
Muslim religion.
THE LONG MARCH OF ISLAM: CHAPTER 2
In the previous issue, R.K. Ohri discussed the "geo-political
implications of the long reach of radical Islam and the consequences
of their global designs for the civil society of 'tomorrow and the
day after.'" In the current essay, Ohri describes Islam's foundation
tenets: the 'Shahada', its declaration of faith; namaz
(prayers); zakat, (giving charity); roza (fasting, as
used in India); and Haj (pilgramage to Mecca). These are
unexceptionable in a religion. However, a Muslim's life is prescribed by
Sharia, "the collectivity of laws that govern the lives of Muslims";
sharia allows for no individual interpretation. In addition, there is
"'Ummah' ... a grand idea that binds Muslims all over the world into
a common brotherhood or one single fraternity." In practice it means
that allegiance to Islam comes before loyalty to country as we saw
recently when Major Hasan massacred his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood.
If there is a fight between foreign Muslims and the Muslim's country,
a Muslim has no choice but to fight for the foreigner. This is
continously preached from mosques around the world and confirmed by
Islamic scholars.
FITNA AND THE KAFIR
It is the crime of fitna if one says something publically that would
"cause controversy, testing, fragmentation, scandal, chaos, or
discord, disturbing social peace and order within the Muslim
community,.." The punishment is death, which any Muslim can administer
to the perpetrator, his family or his whole community. Kenneth Roberts
points out that violence against critics of Islam applies to everyone,
Muslim and infidel. Even "[t]o analyze Mohammed's ethical
inconsistencies is fitna." Official dogma of mainstream Sunni Islam,
who number almost a billion, it is an effective technique for
controlling public information sources and inducing self-censorship.
The Danish cartoon riots were to teach infidels not to disagree with
Mohammed in public. Even five years later, a Somali man was caught
breaking into the cartoonist's home, armed with a knife and hatchet.
It is easy nowadays to spot newspapers that snipe and sneer at Jewish
and Christian practices but are mealy-mouthed about Muslims; they are
practicing self-censorship to avoid trouble.
JIHAD, INC.
The FBI has arrested some 20 homegrown Muslims planning terrorist
attacks in just the last 6 months alone. They were radicalized in
mosques in America by imams preaching an ideology that demonizes "the
West as a subhuman civilization that must be destroyed if Islam is to
survive and triumph," starting with America. As Alex Alexiev explains,
"[P]eaceful coexistence between Islam and any other religion or
ideology is rejected." Their enemy is anyone, Muslim and non-Muslim,
that doesn't accept sharia law. They began building infrastructure
back in 1960s a well-funded, active and growing network of student
and professional associations, publishing houses, schools, mosques and
charities. The Fort Hood massacre was dramatic, but their preferred
methods are those that arouse less antagonism: "taking over moderate
Muslim institutions, radicalizing mainstream believers, indoctrinating
the young, aggressively proselytizing among the infidels, infiltrating
government institutions and the political establishment, and
organizing support for extremist causes and jihad overseas." The U.S.
Government needs to start connecting the dots.
WHY I MURDERED 13 AMERICAN SOLDIERS AT FORT HOOD: NIDAL HASSAN EXPLAINS IT ALL TO YOU
Before he massacred army personnel at Fort Hood, Major Hasan had given
a Power Point lecture explaining how the Koran framed his view of how
a Muslim in the U.S. Army should behave when forced into a situation
where he might have to kill brother Muslims in Afghanistan and Iran.
He concluded he couldn't fight in an infidel army the army of his
own country, America against other Muslims. Barry Rubin points out
that, having examined alternative ways of handling the situation,
Hasan "clearly did see himself as a Jihad warrior" with limited
options of what to do.
The number of the polite and respectable sources
of attack on Jews the ones that mask their agenda have increased
over the years; and they add new areas and inventive arguments all the
time. Moreover, they make possible the advent of American blogs that
openly spout anti-semitic hate and assert the truth of nonsensical
non-facts. The more openly hateful opinions are becoming more
prevalent on blogs and comments to blog articles. They are not as
virulent as Arab propaganda but they are closer than they were after
World War 2, when shock as the details of the Holocaust came out had a
temporary paralyzing effect on the customary anti-jew statements.
RULES OF ETIQUETTE FOR MODERN ANTI-SEMITISM
Bruce Kesler provides us with an superb summary of how much of
anti-semitic propaganda is spread in America using a variety of smoke
screens to mask the hate-the-Jews message. The number of attacks from
polite and respectable sources have increased over the
years. Modern anti-semitism "wraps up old canards in purposely cute
circumlocutions, to deceive and forward its deadly goal, the death of
the civilized West so that backwardness, tyranny and barbarities can
continue or prevail in greater safety from exposure, comparison or
challenge. "
ANTI-ISRAELISM AND ANTI-SEMITISM IN PROGRESSIVE U.S. BLOGS/NEWS
WEBSITES: INFLUENTIAL AND POORLY MONITORED
For years even after World War 2, hate was expected from the Right,
not from the liberals, the democrats, the "good guys." Since then, it
is the Left that has become the major home of anti-semitism and
anti-zionism. Adam Levick chronicles the temperment of some on the
"respectable" Left, where anti-semitism, pro-Palestinian, globalism
and share-the-wealth live comfortably together.
THE HATE INDUSTRY: THE PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ZION IN A
RADIO BROADCAST FROM DAMASCUS
The Arab media maintains a steady stream of anti-Jewish T.V. and radio
shows. Unlike in the West, there is nothing to inhibit the Religion
of Peace from spouting hate.
HATE RADIO: THE LONG, TOXIC AFTERLIFE OF NAZI PROPAGANDA IN THE ARAB WORLD
In this essay, Jeffrey Herf deals with the contribution Nazi
anti-semitism made to the Muslim's religious obligation to be globally
superior to all other groups. He writes, "The founding charter of
Hamas, the militant Palestinian group, recapitulates conspiracy
theories about Jews that were popular in Europe in the 20th century.
Al Qaeda's war against 'the Zionist-Crusader Alliance' and the
anti-Zionist rants of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran also
display a blend of anti-Semitic themes rooted in Nazi and fascist, as
well as Islamist, traditions. To be sure, each of these movements and
ideologies have non-European, local, and regional causes and
inspirations. But the formulation of Nazi propaganda during World War
II and its dissemination stand as a decisive episode in the
development of radical Islamism." In a recent paper in Front Page Magazine entitled
"Auto-Genocide, Jewish Style,"
SHLOMO SAND AND THE ORIGIN OF JUDAISM
Shlomo Sand has written a book denying that present day Jews are
connected to the ancient Land of Israel; instead, they are descended
from relatively recent converts to Judaism. It is a popular book,
already translated into several languages. If nothing else, it is
a testament to how many people are delighted by the idea that Jews may
be neither authentic nor ancient. There is a lovely bit of
sleight-of-hand associated with written reviews the emphasis
is on the outrage the orthodox Jewish community must be feeling
because the book destroys some of its "myths." This helps to
authenticate Sand's arguments; it frames the issue as a joust between
two points of view. In this essay, Yoram Shifftan and Bernice Lipkin
suggest that the problems with the book are intrinsic. It's not just
the what and where. It's the impossibility of the
how.
RICHARD FALK: A COLLABORATORS IN THE WAR AGAINST THE JEWS
Steven Plaut labels Richard Falk "America's leading practitioner of
the Orwellian inversion. "For Falk, "America is a fascist monstrosity, while
the world's fascist and totalitarian monstrosities are democratic
enclaves of freedom. For him, Israel is a terrorist aggressor, while
the Arab terrorist aggressors are innocent victims and peace-loving
progressives. For him, Israel is a Nazi-like country seeking genocide,
while the genocidal Islamofascists of the Hamas and their backers are
merely protesters against social inequality inside Israel. For him,
terrorist aggression against Jews is really the pursuit of peace,
while self-defense by Israel is criminal, terrorist aggression and
genocide." So it is not at all surprising that the U.N. appointed him
as "Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories."
INTRODUCING ALISON WEIR
Alison Weir is representative of the latest model journalists that
wave academic credentials to support their virulent chants of hate
against Israel. They make no bones about their desire to erase the
Jewish state and countenance any violence that will make this
possible. They are not at all uneasy that their claims have no factual
basis. They assert ignoring factual history that the land really
belongs to the Arabs calling themselves Palestinians, and the Jews are
occupying it illegally. No libel is too outré for them to
mouth. The latest lurid assertion by Weir and her fellow Jew-haters
that Israelis harvest Palestinian organs for transplant is just too
juicy to be squashed by the fact that conditions during a military
operation or in any situation that impedes the complex procedure
for a successful transfer make it impossible to salvage usable
organs.
HARVARD'S HAMAS DUMPLING: SARA ROY
Steven Plaut writes about Sara Roy, a foot soldier in the War Against
the Jews. In most ways, she is a very ordinary Jew-hating Jew. She is
an academic who claims expertise in areas where she has no
credentials. She is the child of Holocaust survivors who preaches
about the evils of the Jewish state. Billed as an intellectual, her
publications are heavy with anger but light on facts. She stands out
in the crowd of Jew-haters only in that she specializes in
whitewashing Hamas, painting them as seekers of peace and chock full
of concern for the Palestinian Arabs. She has argued that Fatah has
probably killed more Israells than Hamas. In that, she may be right.
What a difference a few million Muslims make! In 60 years, the
number of European Muslims went from some two hundred thousand to over
50
million
WHO'S SLEEPING MORE DEEPLY EUROPE OR AMERICA?
In this benchmark article written a year ago, Bruce Bawer argues that
Europe is in a more parlous state than the USA, when it comes to
denying the inroads Islam has made into cracking up Western culture. A
year later, Europe has had two bits of good luck: the Swiss referendum
against minarets and the revelation that the CRU group in England so
manipulated its weather station data, it might as well have started
with random numbers and in some cases, did. Meantimes, in America,
Prez Obama won't let these revelations prevent him from trying to make
a cap and trade deal in Copenhagen that will further improvish
America. Clearly, there are opposing trends globalization versus
concern for the individual's freedom of action. Which will dominate?
SURVIVING THE COMING CRASH
In this essay Fjordman points out a reality most of the media ignore;
e.g., that "European Union (EU) has forced through the EU
Constitution/Lisbon Treaty and in essence ... [has] dissolved dozens
of nation states, while making "legal opposition to their rule"
impossible. Meantime, the staggering debt the USA has incurred has so
weakened the dollar that it is unlikely the USA will long keep its
leadership position. If the breakdown of western democracies was
planned and staged, Fjordman is inclined to blame groups advocating a
global oligarchy. Factor in that there are documented plans to include
Muslim North Africa and Middle East in the EU. Factor in that it is
de rigeur for teachers and the media to disparage or minimize
the contributions of white culture. Factor in that, as the Muslim
population in Europe expands, some European leaders seem comfortable
with the idea that the natives in white majority Western countries
will soon be a minority in their own countries. Fjordman is clear that
Europe's external problems will never be solved unless Marxists are
stopped from destroying the European structure and character of the
Western countries. As he puts it, "We must switch from a 'save the
world' to a 'save ourselves' mode."
NAZI EURABIA AND AMERICA'S FATE
Jim O'Neil writes a clear summary of some of the changes in Europe since Muslims started to arrive in sufficient numbers to make a difference. They didn't just soak up welfare funds and have babies. The Left promoting globalization and share-the-wealth and Islam promoting Islam have made common cause at least for the while which ensures that Muslim violence is mostly ignored. In France, Muslims initiated a marked increase in anti-Jewish crimes beatings, harassment, vandalism without government action. Only when a young Jew was kidnapped and slaughtered were the Muslim murderers put on trial. In England, Sharia law is now the law for Muslims and people are becoming used to having their values and feelings take second place while sensitivity to Muslim concerns is emphasized. Resistance against Muslim rule has started to grow in Switzerland and Denmark, and poll after poll indicates the people approve curtailing Islamic growth, even if their leaders don't. In America, Islamic activity has todate been mostly operating under the radar, and the administration tamps down calls for awareness and alertness between the periods of so-called lone wolf terror acts.
In America, perhaps because terrorist acts have been isolated and
minimized both by the press and the government, there is not the
understanding how the sustained work of the Islamists is slowly
changing America. Previous issues have dealt with Muslim infiltration
into mainline churches, law courts, the media, text book publishing
and education, with Marxist professors openly hostile to democracy.
This set of articles suggest that America needs to face the fact that
the Islamists are fighting us in many ways. Many of these attacks
create dry rot termite-style and do not confront us with a locust
swarm of devastation. We don't even seem to recognize friend from foe.
We don't comprehend how fear of terrorist retaliation has already
created self-censorship in the media. We ignore that Islamic preaching
of hatred of America may prefigure Mumbai-style attacks in the U.S.A.
And pro-Palestinian 'grass roots' groups continue to promote boycotts
of Israeli products not, of course, the cell phone and computer and
medical equipment developed in Israel, but the stuff they personally
don't need. Given that the major Jewish organizations are ineffective
in seriously fighting the multi-front attack on Judaism and Jews, we
end with a story how one organization is fighting the boycott with a
buycott of Israeli goods.
THE IDIOT TWINS OF AMERICAN IDEALISM
Trust Spengler to come up with the perfect telegraph-length assessment of a morass of wrongheaded opinions. He notes that "[a] widely shared fantasy ... doesn't qualify as reality" and proceeds to demolish opinions that sound "realistic" but are based on facts that are not significant. Thus, a multitude of friends of Islam think Mearsheimer and Walt are realists because they want America to break its alliance with Israel, which has only 7 million population, when the Muslims number well over a billion. All that proves is that they can compare two numbers and pick out the larger one. Spengler highlights the significant information: given Israel's advanced technological skills, its "contribution might be decisive in a number of fields, for example avionics and especially drone technology." America needs that edge.
THE WAR FOR 21ST-CENTURY FREEDOM
"Islamists are fighting for control of the world." Their power
increases; their alliances multiply; Iran serves as their model
"the world's first Islamist nuclear power." We are at war, Barbara
Lerner writes, "a long-dormant, 14-century-old religious war against
the Christian West," a war we must win, if we are to retain
our religious freedom, our fundamental freedoms, including "the right
to disbelieve." Yet here it is 8 years after 9/11. Neither Bush
and now Obama faced the fact that we are at war with resurgent
Islamists, a war we didn't chose and still try to deny. Iran has been
on the offensive since 1979, and our leadership still ignores its
attacks, believing we can work things out by negotiation and
friendliness. Fortunately, Lerner points out, we "have two great
trump cards: the fundamental honesty and good sense of the American
people, and the back-against-the wall courage of the Israeli people."
Given the right leadership, that might do.
WOULD IRAN PROVIDE A NUCLEAR WEAPON TO TERRORISTS?
Given the number of supposedly lone-wolf terrorists attacking army
bases, air planes, synagogues and Jewish community centers, there is
growing concern that an Iran with nuclear weapons might
decide to share these weapons with terror organizations. Steven
Emerson and Joel Himelfarb ask whether such a concern is reasonable.
We know there has been informal cooperation between al-Qaeda,
al-Jihad, Iran and Hezbollah, including supplying weapons and training
in explosives. Moreover, attacking the United States is a publically
stated ambition of these groups. We know al-Qaeda continues to seek
nuclear weapons, components and information in Europe and Pakistan.
There is evidence that Iran is "uncomfortable at the prospect of
terrorists acquiring such weapons" because our retaliation would
include Iran. But conditions might change. And meantime, while some
supplies from Iran have been seized, it is also likely that other
shipments have succeeded in making it to Middle East terror
organizations.
THE BOMB IS JUST THE BEGINNING
An amazing story that will make you understand the real scariness of
terrorism. As George Jonas writes, "The bomb is just the beginning."
The act of terrorism causes you to distort your thinking to keep
yourself from recognizing that you are terrified. You feel like a
coward for feeling that way. The real awfulness is that you then
persuade yourself you have become passive for good sensible reasons,
not fear. It makes understandable the behavior of newspapers like the
New York Times that worry about injuring the "sensitivity" of
Moslems who show their anger violently but will print nasties
about Christian and Jews who politely complain.
BUYCOTT ISRAEL. DON'T LET THE BOYCOTT BITE
Roberta Dzubow suggests a way the ordinary citizen can fight the
Islamic campaign to lash out at Israel in as many ways as possible.
A major tactic is to boycott Israeli products in the grocery. Or to
attempt to destroy them. The Buy Israel Steering Committee has
organized to counter their efforts by buying Israeli products. The
basic strategy can be supplemented by having a camera handy and
making a movie to post on You Tube. Talk to the other shoppers
about the unfairness of the boycott campaign. Buy some of the
products and hand out samples to people walking by. Just start.
You'll figure out what to do next. Don't be shy.
This is where our readers get a chance to write opinions
and editorials and share articles they find informative. The Blog-Eds
page for the month is updated every few days.
A Blog-Ed page has a quick list of the articles from which you can
access any of the articles immediately.
To go to the list, click the
"Blog-Eds List" box in the Blue Strip on the top of the Blog-Ed page.
November 2009 BLOG-EDS
READ MORE
The Goldstone report is fast becoming the Goldstone Affair.
When we first heard of the oncoming report by a committee headed by
Judge Richard Goldstone, it was because of a series of letters written
by Maurice Ostroff to Judge Goldstone back in May 2009, when the
fact-finding mission was first announced. We wondered why the fuss.
There was no way a country as meticulous as Israel could be accused of war
crimes. Arab terrorists know they are safe from IDF couterattack if
they shoot from within a group of woman and
children. True, even though Israel had
sacrificed her soldiers in Jenin to spare civilians, still the Arabs accused
them of killing some 5000 civilians. (The final count when the
propaganda smog cleared was around 50, almost all of whom were
terrorists or who had aided the terrorists by luring the IDF troops to
their deaths). Notwithstanding, we still thought this was plain silly.
If unintentially killing an actually innocent occasional civilian was
a war crime, was there a democratic country that could not be so
tarnished? And as for the arab and other totalitarian countries, had
anyone even bothered making a count of their crimes against civilians?
The founders of the United Nations envisioned an environment where
its members would behave in a gentlemanly fashion to argue out and
negotiate differences in a peaceful manner. But times have changed.
We ignored that the Goldstone Commission was put in place by UNHRC,
the Human Rights Council of the U.N. UNHRC had a long history of
unsubstantiated attacks on particular countries, while it ignores what
other particular countries do, no matter what they do.
But we naturally assumed there would be a red-line
drawn at some point on outrageous accusations.
A LETTER TO JUSTICE RICHARD GOLDSTONE
There have been many articles which
accurately point out the airbrushed terminology and misleading
statements and bald lies in the UN Goldstone singularly biased report
on Israel's conduct when it invaded Gaza in December, 2008, to put an
end to eight years of Hamas' shooting missiles into Israel that
targetted civilians. This letter by Daniel Altman deals with another
aspect: his horror and loathing of the Cain-like behavior shown by
Richard Goldstone, a Jew who has used false witness and his
prestigious position to destroy his own brethren and his own country.
As Altman writes, "What was in your mind, Justice Goldstone, when you
became the emissary of the world's most intractable states? What were
you thinking of when you became the representative of Sudan, Syria and
Libya?" It is a plausible guess that Goldstone was delighted to be
furthering the work of Human Rights Watch an organization his
organization which, judging by its activities, is unduly devoted to
the Palestinian cause.
HOWARD BERMAN FISKS GOLDSTONE
The Goldstone Report itself has fared badly in the real world. In
fact, except in institutions dominated by Muslims and/or Marxists,
articles are moving from condemning the report it's so obviously
biased and error-ridden, it's almost too easy a target. Now the
interesting question is: why would anyone, especially a Jew, take on
a task knowing from its initial mandate that it could only end by
condemning what should have been praised the care that Israel took
in Gaza to avoid civilian injury while attempting to destroy the
missiles Hamas was deliberately shooting at Israeli civilians.
Goldstone himself wrote a disengenuous and distorted defense in the
New York Times where else? But all it showed was that he was now
on the defensive. On November 3, 2009, The US House of
Representatives voted overwhelmingly 344 (36 voting against and 22
voting present) for a resolution that strongly rejected the Goldstone
report. When the Resolution was first mentioned, Goldstone submitted
a condemnation of the proposed Resolution. It was brilliantly
demolished by Representative Howard Berman, (D-Cal). Carl of
Jerusalem provides us with the details.
FISKING GOLDSTONE: WHAT'S HAPPENED TO THIS MAN?
As Representative Howard Berman (above) critiqued Judge Goldstone's
rebuttal to the Congressional resolution, here Richard Landes takes
apart Goldstone's New York Times essay in self-justification.
Unfortunately for him, his actions don't map well onto his attitude
that he is the injured party and his puzzled wonderment that his
conclusions are being questioned. As more of the Committee's foolish
acceptance of obvious distortions and bald lies comes to light, Judge
Goldstone appears to be reacting by reinventing himself, painting a
false picture of a hero trying to make sure both Israel and Hamas were
treated fairly and objectively. Israel was not. And much of the reason
is Goldstone's lack of objectivity and his inability to conduct a
professional examination.
HOUSE OF CARDS: NGOS AND THE GOLDSTONE REPORT
NGOs Non-governmental agencies have acquired credibility by
their informal linkage to the United Nations. Some NGOs have acquired
notoriety by their flagrant politicization, sacrificing truth for
will-say-anything in support of the Palestinian cause. The
current essay makes the point that the already notorious Goldstone
report did not as it was chartered directly examine much actual
evidence. The Goldstone group relied heavily on available reports from prejudiced
NGOs that had an anti-Israel agenda; whose personnel were almost
always one-sided and anti-Israel; and who in arguing were prone to
illiterate and imaginative "interpretations" of International Law.
HOW 'HUMAN RIGHTS' HAVE TURNED INTO INHUMAN WRONGS
OUT of the many NGO's that supplied the Goldstone's commission with
flagrantly dishonest information, Melanie Phillips deals specifically
with the irresponsible behavior of one particular NGO Human Rights
Watch (HRW). What makes HRW of particular interest is, first, that
Judge Goldstone was an active member until very recently. Second,
HRW's behavior was so egregiously biased that its chairman for many
years found it necessary to write that HRW has lost its ability to
distinguish "between open and closed societies." It "has lost critical
perspective on [this] conflict." The end notes include links to some
pertinent videos.
THE GOLDSTONE MISSION TAINTED TO THE CORE
The abstract in the Jerusalem Post reads that In Part I,
"Professor Irwin Cotler explain[s] how the Goldstone Commission was
tainted by the UN Human Rights Council resolution creating its
mandate, as well as the predisposed views of some of its
personnel. In the second part of his piece, he elaborates the systemic
and systematic bias of the UN council itself, and the implications
this bias has on the fact-finding mission and on the integrity
of international law generally." [emphasis added] To put it bluntly,
you can't make anything resembling a silk scarf if you start a bunch
of boars with coarse hair.
BLOCKING THE TRUTH OF THE GAZA WAR: HOW THE GOLDSTONE COMMISSION
UNDERSTATED THE HAMAS THREAT TO PALESTINIAN CIVILIANS
Goldstone and his cohorts have aided and abetted anti-Israel forces by
making Israel the villain of the Gaza operation last winter. That is
not the same as saying they were actually interested in making life
better for the ordinary Arab in Gaza. They operated with the same
motives as the UNRWA staffers that force Palestinian arabs to live in
refugee camps in the Arab states and refuse to let them be absorbed as
citizens in these Arab countries. The goal is to turn public opinion
against Israel; it is not to help the arab populace. Colonel Halevi
makes the point that offensive acts by Hamas against Gazan civilians
were ignored, while negative statements against Israel were eagerly
accepted as factual. The Goldstone gang played the trivia game, asking
many questions about such matters as when evening prayers took place
in the Ibrahim al-Maqadma mosque but asking no questions about the
terrorists operating from the mosque. Their questioning "proved to be
superficial and was ill-suited to elicit the truth about events in
Gaza."
THE LATEST ANTI-ISRAEL STUNT
David Warren's article starts with essential context, "The
significance of Israel is that she stands proxy for America and the
West in the minds of our most lethal enemies." The UN Human Rights
Council (HRC) is loaded with countries that themselves human rights
violators use preaching about human rights as weapon to weaken the
West. Their latest missilehead is a nominal Jew, who has changed
political sides much more often than Ahmadinejad has changed suits. By
refusing to withdraw from the Council, [the American administration
joined HRC around the time of Durban 2 in the spring of 2009] the U.S.
government is again signalling its willingness to seek favour from its
own worst enemies, by throwing Israel to the wolves."
Various groups in the U.N. continuously press Israel to give up
land to the Palestinians. In doing so, they ignore that the land that
is Israel, Samaria, Judea, the Golan, and yes, Gaza, is held in
irrevocable trust for the Jewish people. Who is responsible for
maintaining this unbreakable trust? It's the U.N., who took it over
from the League of Nations. Ignoring their responsibility, the Arab
bloc and its allies want to destroy Israel, which sits on land they
consider Arab. So they revise history, ignore mandates and
continuously pressure the Jews to give up land to that invented
people, the Palestinians.
IT'S NOT THE SETTLEMENTS, STUPID
Sarah Honig argues that it's distortion to ignore historical context,
particularly, as in this case, where false premises about root causes
have continued to lead to solutions that don't solve and that are
continuously being dissolved and reconstructed into yet another
pseudo solution. She clears up one aspect of the puzzling fact that
the non-Jewish population of the Palestine Mandate, dormant for
hundreds of years, jumped up dramatically in the 20th Century. It
wasn't just the economic opportunities created by the Jewish Aliyah.
It was specific anti-Jewish tactics by the British caretakers to
reduce the Jewish population of what was destined to be Israel that
gave unhindered Arab immigration a boost up.
WORLD LEADERS IGNORE INTERNATIONAL LAW
Eli Hertz talks about the international law that pertains to the
Middle East. The territory the Ottoman Empire had owned for hundreds
of years was taken over by England and France after World War I. The
area labeled Mandated Palestine was to be Jewish. The rest 99.9%
of the Middle East was carved into present-day Arab states; this
was never challenged. Only the peaceable Jewish state must show cause
for existing, despite its title to the land. In addition to the
citations in this paper, you can read other relevant legal opinions by
googling Yoram Shifftan and Howard Grief.
A DAY OF INFAMY: NOVEMBER 10, 1975
November 10, 1975 was one of the United Nation's most memorable days
in its mission to increase harmony and civility in the world by
creating an environment conducive to the peaceful resolution of
differences between member countries. It was on that day that the
General Assembly declared that Zionism Equals Racism. As Alex Grobman
points out, this was the first time the UN condemned the intrinsic
ideology that formed the bedrock of the culture and religion of a
member state. It made any and all spurious charges against Israel
unthinkable in the atmosphere envisioned when the United Nations was
created acceptable. It encouraged "the campaign of disinformation
orchestrated by the Arabs and their collaboraters." How else does one
explain why a country that has made extraordinary advances for human
betterment is treated as more evil than antiquated regimes that treat
their own women and all infidels as an underclass and hate democratic
ideas almost as much as they do Israel.
THE RIGGED GAME
The mentality that produced the Zionism is Racism U.N.
resolution and the consequent demonization of Israel is the same that
encourages Europe to view Israel as evil, while overlooking Iran's
ambition to create destruction nuclear power. Israel is always to
blame for Iran's behavior. "So too, Arab terrorism is explained away
while every act small and large that in any way asserts Israel's
right to defend itself is pounced upon as proof of Israel's
criminality and brutality." Fortunately, most Americans are more
clear-eyed and assign the blame for unsuccessful peace overtures to
Iran on Iran. Unfortunately, the present administration is not among
this group.
HUMAN RIGHTS LEADERS GET THEIR PRIORITIES IN ORDER
Sarcasm is hard to get right to make the point and not sound bitter
or sour. In this essay, Michael Posner gets it just right. He
envisions a meeting of the heads of important human rights groups
gathered together to determine which country is the most heinous
practitioner of crimes against human rights. No, it's not Darfur,
or Somalia, or Sri Lanka, or Iran, or those states that mutilate
the genitals of women and murder the victims of rape, or the
muslims will be muslims Shi'ites and Sunnis engaged in
mutual destruction. I think we know who they picked as the worst of
all.
While the U.N. fiddles with pasting a false label on Israel,
using the Goldstone Report as glue, real problems are ignored. The UN
Security Council Resolution 1701 is ignored and Hezbollah fires
rockets into northern Israel from Lebanon see
this. But then #1701 never did have teeth; nor would the U.N ever
suggest that Arabs firing missiles at Jewish civilians were committing
a war crime. Some events, however, threaten to upset the Middle East
as a whole. The increasing competence of Iran in nuclear atomics. The
proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia in Yemen. The Al-Qaeda
network. The effective attack against Europe. All ignored. Until when?
A 20-YEAR-OLD PUZZLE: HAVE WE DISCOVERED WHAT IRAN IS REALLY UP TO?
"Iran's constitution calls on the country to export its brand of
murderous Islam" and it has single-mindedly sought power and regional
control, using terror, kidnapping, murder, lying, bribing, arming and
training terrorists, etc. In this context, Peter Huessy asks: what do
we know and/or can surmise about the Iranian nuclear facilities, so we
can predict future developments? We know Iran, aided by Russia, China,
North Korea and Syria, is building nuclear warheads. We know her
ballistic missiles can be launched quickly and will soon be able to
reach Europe. We know the West, joined by Third-World countries, has
not built a superior defensive shield; it has not taken military
action; it has instead wasted its time lambasting "unilateral" action
by U.S.A. and including us negotiating with the mullahs. Heussey
projects what this means for interactions and actions in the near
future.
WAGING DIPLOMATIC WAR
A reader of the original article writes "Ms Glick is spot on.
Goldstone set up Israel with his report & now his vultures are
springing the trap with this talk about 'inquiry'". As Caroline Glick
writes, the Goldstone report has been approved by the General
Assembly. It is expected that it will eventually bring home the gold
acknowledgment by the World Court in the Hague that Israeli's
entrance into Gaza was indeed a criminal act and Israeli leaders
should be tried as criminals. It also sets a precedent for prosecuting
Western countries for fighting terrorists. Concomitantly, the major
powers announced they would be enriching Iran's uranian, thus helping
Iran's nuclear program move forward faster. Iran, in characteric
Muslim fashion, didn't think this good enough and why ever would
she let the enriched fuel out of the country? The American
administration thinks this is all swell. Oh well, there's one silver
lining. Obama has performed a miracle Jimmy Carter will not win the
prize as the worst president America ever had.
GETTING READY FOR THE ISLAMIC BOMB
I freely admit that I believed that Prez. Obama's quisling
acquiescence to all things Muslim was, in a way, America's best
protection against a Muslim mass murderer of the sort that has killed
hundreds of Israelis and wounded thousands in the last decade alone.
Why would they bother when they were successfully infiltrating and
termite-gnawing at our educational and political infrastructure?
Major Hasan proved me wrong. In similar fashion, this Editorial from
the Washington Times points out the devastation we not just
Israel and the Arab countries of the Middle East will suffer,
should Iran be allowed to achieve nuclear capability. It points out
that Iran currently supplies Hamas and Hezbollah weapons; "it is
chilling to consider how much more bold Iran will be with an atomic
arsenal." And, I may add, helpful to future Hasans.
IRANIAN SUBVERSION IN YEMEN
Reuven Erlich writes about how Iran is attempting to subvert the Sunni
government in Yemen by aiding the Shi'ite Houthi rebels in north Yemen
by providing them ideological, religious and material support. The
addendum notes that Saudi Arabia is similarly aiding the Yemen
government. It adds up to a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia
for control of the region.
AL QAEDA IN NORTH AFRICA THREATENS THE WEST
Al Qaeda certainly keeps up with the times.
Al Qaeda is securely situated in Pakistan and anxious to obtain
Pakastan's nuclear bombs. As Erick Stakelbeck writes, al Qaeda is not
isolated. It has extended tentacles across the globe, essentially
delegating regional franchises to like-minded groups. A leader of one
of these groups, AQIM Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb has said, "We
will not hesitate in targeting (the United States) whenever we can and
wherever it is on this planet." AQIM pays its expenses by drug
trafficing and kidnapping. It is alive and well; it shares the "goals
of al Qaeda's hierarchy in Pakistan"; it has a network and a mission
to carry out jihad against the West.
THE UNCOVERED CONSPIRACY TO TRANSFORM BRITAIN
Citing a recent article by Andrew Neather, "speech writer for Tony
Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett," Melanie Phillips concludes that
the extreme increase in Muslim population in Britain didn't just
happen. "It was a deliberate policy of mass immigration ... to change
the very makeup of this country without telling the electorate."
Immigration controls were loosened, effectively reversing a stated
policy limiting the entry of foreign workers, so that "some 2.3
million migrants have been added to the population since 2001." The
Labour government continue to see it as a praiseworthy way to
create a multicultural England. Many a voter sees it as destructive
of English culture. Moreover, if allowed to continue, it will
introduce a huge number of immigrants many of whom are iliterate
and without skills into an already overcrowded country. No wonder
that the white working class is voting for the British National Party,
that strongly objects to unrestricted immigration. The article
mirrors what is happening in much of Europe.
Again, the world powers are pushing for a two-state solution,
whereby the Arabs gain Samaria and Judea to attach to Gaza. Whatever
its form of administration one state or two or a bunch of fiefdoms
controlled by the various terrorists splinter groups it will be
called a state, just as the process whereby this occurs is called the
peace-process. This is traditional ritual engaged in by Western
governments, even our own Obama is the current enthusiast. All it
ever seems to do is to exacerbate Arab hostility and make the region
more unstable. What has spoiled this plan each and every time is that
the peace process is not a solution; it just becomes part of the
problem. The so-called Palestinians aren't interested in creating yet
another Arab state. If they gain this land, they will just expand
their facilities for attacking what's left of Israel. But that doesn't
stop Israel's "friends" from calling on Israel to stay quiet while the
they chop away land that is hers by international law, by history, by
bible and by conquest, when Israel fended off invasions by her Arab
neighbors.
When the Ottoman Empire was dissolved, Britain was entrusted with
the job of developing a tiny piece of the former Empire labeled
Mandated Palestine as a homeland for the Jewish people. This was
put in the form of an irrevocable trust for the Jewish people.
Attempting to revoke this opens up a nasty can of worms many of
the current Arab states were created out of the rest of the Middle
Eastern section of the Ottoman Empire. It isn't clear that they have
the same standing in international law and as strong a claim to
legitimacy that Israel has. (To learn more, start with the Mehlman
and Mark Kaplan articles in this Section. And the Hertz article
above.)
PEACE PROCESS OR WAR PROCESS?
The Oslo Accord, once proclaimed as a brilliantly successful peace
process and the start of a new Middle East, was a bust. Daniel Pipes
examines how it was that Israel made such a profound mistake and how
the Arab response to the Israeli effort shaped the Israeli
rejectionist attitude towards more recent attempts at fantasy "peace
processes". At the heart of the Israeli delusion was Rabin's belief
that one made peace with one's enemy. "Rather," is Pipes' wise
assessment, "one makes peace with one's former enemy"
after he has been defeated and given up his goals.
THE MIDDLE EAST MATRIX
Mark Kaplan suggests we stop listening to invented facts designed to
facilitate an Arab takeover and start examining the actual facts,
namely, that Israel is not occupying Palestinian land. She is
occupying Jewish land, and so says international law. He may be too
idealistic when he asserts that "[b]ringing the Jewish People's rights
before the legal system, where propaganda will lose to factual
evidence, will end the illusion of illegal occupation and firmly
establish the Jewish Nation's legal rights to all of Israel." But it
beats letting the Arab fantasy provide the basis for political action.
A LANDMARK WORK
William Mehlman begins his review of Howard Grief's recent book,
"The Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel under International Law: A
Treatise on Jewish Sovereignty over the Land of Israel this way:
"With The Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel under
International Law (Mazo Publishers, Jerusalem) Canadian-born
Israeli constitutional scholar and lawyer Howard Grief has given us a
book that shatters every myth, lie, misrepresentation and distortion
employed over the 61 years of Israel's existence to negate the
sovereign rights of the Jewish People to their national home." This is
exactly right. It should be required reading for every self-styled
maven, journalist, politician, ethicist and humanist including the
Jewish leaders of Israel who thinks he knows Middle Eastern
political history, when his information is, more often than not,
anectodal and received from dubious sources.
A PALESTINIAN STATE: FUEL TO THE FIRE OF A BURNING MIDDLE EAST
Yoram Ettinger reminds us that US administrations have been a major
factor in the (re)(re)(re)resurrection of the insistence on creating a
Palestinian state. When it comes to the Middle East, they have had
many such bad ideas, beginning in 1948 when US agencies "were
convinced that establishment of the Jewish State would trigger a war
[it did], producing a second Jewish Holocaust in less than a decade
[it didn't, but the Arabs sure tried], that a Jewish State would be a
strategic burden upon the US [we have only fought wars for the Arabs,
not the Jews], that Arab oil producers would boycott the US [and
forfeit their stretch limos?] and that Israel would join the Communist
Bloc [they got that wrong, too]." What they don't seem to recognize
is that a Palestinian state isn't just a threat to Israel. It "would
doom the Hashemite regime to oblivion, would constitute a tailwind to
pro-Saddam terrorists in Iraq and to Islamic terrorists in Egypt,
Lebanon and the Persian Gulf and would provide a foothold in the
eastern flank of the Mediterranean to Iran, Russia, China and North
Korea."
GHETTO ISRAEL AND THE CREATION OF AN ARAB TERROR STATE
Raanan Isseroff illustrates his theme that Israel's leaders are
colluding in the death of Israel with American agencies that
produce the official U.S. maps of the Middle East. Borders and
territory that are said to be not-finalized (optimistically not
even negotiated) appear to be a dead certainty according to recent
U.S. administrations at least in the minds of the CIA and State
Department. Israel is to be hacked and nibbled, piece by "peace
process". When the new Palestinian State is created or perhaps
the new Palestinian states of Gaza and West Bank then the Arabs
will consider it an equal playing field in which to finally destroy
what is left of Israel.
OBAMA'S TWO-STATE FANTASY
Pressuring Israel for concessions to the intransigent Arabs is again
the wrong medicine for a misdiagnosed situation. More to the point,
the peace process can be put on the back burner, with no damage. But
"...if the Iranian regime continues to advance its nuclear program, it
risks Iranian domination of the oil-rich Persian Gulf, threats to
U.S.-allied Arab regimes, the emboldening of Muslim jihadists in the
region, the creation of an existential threat to Israel, the
destabilization of Iraq, the shutdown of the Israel-Palestinian peace
process, and a regional nuclear-arms race." Mark Silverberg warns that
"President Obama's whole Middle East strategy is in the process of
imploding. He had best re-evaluate his policies rather than advise the
Israelis to re-evaluate theirs."
An addendum lists Steven Plaut's "The 14 Lies Blocking Peace in the
Middle East."
IS ANYONE LISTENING TO WHAT THE ARABS ARE SAYING ABOUT ISRAEL?
Alex Grobman provides us with some history of the Arab monomaniacal
resistance to sharing any part of land they regard as their own with
Jews. (How quickly they forgot that it was the Ottomans, not the
Arabs, that had ruled the Middle East for hundreds of years!) It
reinforces his statement that "[e]ven if the Obama administration were
to succeed in compelling Israel to accept a two-state solution and
stop building settlements in Judea and Samaria, this would not placate
the Arabs or ensure peace in the region." Considering their history of
protracting the conflict, this is an understatement.
ARABS ARE NOT READY FOR PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Professor Alrabaa rounds out the ideas in the previous paper with
cogent insights into current-day Arab thinking. To ready the Arabs for
peace would require extirpating their universally undemocratic systems
of government and dismissing the demagogues that rule the area, It would
require a formidable change in Arab attitudes towards themselves and
towards everyone else, who, at present, they either look down on or
resent. If the West is serious about peace in the region, it will tell
the Arab regimes: change or perish! Only then peace will
prevail in the Middle East.
HEVRON : A MICROCOSM IN THE NEW YEAR
Yonina Pritzker describes her visit to Hebron, viewing it both as an
ancient Jewish city in which Judaism's early history is rooted and as
a small-scale model of the players and the pressures Israel needs to
confront to protect her heritage. She writes, "Hevron is a microcosm.
Hevron represents the duplicity and grave injustice that is being
perpetrated against Jews today, against Jewish history and heritage.
If something so clear, so straightforward, so indisputable as Hevron,
if something as unmistakable as the Jewish connection to Hevron can be
so rewritten, so misrepresented; if those around the world can
literally turn history on its head and accuse Jews of being occupiers
in Hevron, then the absolute, dire necessity to stand up and fight
against this attempt to subvert the truth and rob Jews of their
history, heritage, and homeland has never been made more clear."
As we know, there has been a trial run of ceding land to the
Palestinian Arabs to develop infrastructure to run themselves as a
civilized state. It failed miserably, despite the good wishes of most
of the world, an abundance of funds contributed by the EU, the UN, the
USA and private individuals. Aside from enriching some of the Arab
thugs running Gaza, it caused a catastrophic disruption in the lives
of some 10,000 Israeli Jews. The results should not encourage anyone
to repeat the disaster on a larger scale, when up to some half a
million or more Jews would become homeless refugees in their own
country, dependent on a services of a bureaucracy that has
convincingly proven itself inept.
MOSHE: BETRAYED BY OUR OWN; RACHEL: FLASHBACKS
These are some recent essays from the Sapersteins, who were as
traumatized as one is when forced out of what Moshe has described as
Paradise their community in Gush Katif, Gaza. But they've picked
themselves up. Being Jews, they didn't feel gunning down people was
the way to ease their heartache; instead they started rebuilding their
community in a different location. An amazing couple.
IMMEDIATE GUSH KATIF ASSISTANCE ADVISED
There was a period of demonizing the Jews of Gush Katif, Gaza before
they were expelled from their homes and greenhouses and farms in
August 2005. Many believed that as soon as Gaza was turned over to the
Arabs, peace would descend. What descended was the large number of
rockets the Arabs lobbed into Israel, deliberately targetting the
civilian population. Most people wised up and since then, appeasement
has been a hard sell. Still, the people who suffered most were the
families who were forced to leave thriving enterprises, where they had
grown bug-free vegetables that were sold all over the world; their
plight was not made easier by the inept governmental bureaucracy
responsible for resettling them. Many have still not recovered. What is
also interesting about the article is that there are still people like
Nechemiah Strassler, a columnist for Haaretz, who seems to
have learned nothing from the expulsion and retained much of the
government-induced belief that the Jewish settlers of Gaza were demons
who were preventing peace from happening.
MAZUZ OKAYS HOUSING FOR KFAR DAROM EXPELLEES
The Kfar Darom community had developed innovative agricultural
techniques and grown bug-free vegetables that were sold all over the
world. Four years after the expulsion, their greenhouses have long since
been vandalized by the Arabs and plans for permanent housing for them
are just now being made. And the settlers themselves have suffered
unemployment that has forced them to use up the compensation money
that was to pay for building new homes.
These essays deal with procedures that have a chance of
succeeding because they are not built on fantasy and wishful thinking.
First, Israel must stop blustering and being defensive and start
standing tall. Then Israel's legal and moral right to its land has to
be strongly asserted. And the Palestinian Arabs have to be moved where
they can not just walk down the road to carry out an act of
terrorism.
ISRAEL HAS TO STOP APOLOGIZING AND TAKE THE OFFENSIVE
Isi Leibler makes the case that the best defense for Israel is an
effective offense. Applied to responding to the Goldstone report, this
would mean that Israel would not be focussed on responding to the
findings in the report. Instead, as Leibler writes, "these past few
months we should have been concentrating on exposing the evil nature
and crude bias of the Human Rights Council before it released its
'findings.' We should have more vigorously exposed the prejudice and
double standards of the despicable NGO human rights bodies that have
adopted Israel-bashing as a vocation." It's not too late to begin to
be effective.
THE ONLY FEASIBLE BASIS FOR ARAB-ISRAELI PEACE
Daniel Mandel writes that peace-process diplomacy is ultimately
worthless. "In the current round, Fatah, which controls the PA, can
hold a conference reasserting its refusal to accept Israel's existence
as a Jewish state while glorifying terrorists and rejecting an
end of claims in any future peace agreement with Israel and yet the
Obama Administration acts as though the key to the problem is to stop
Jews moving into eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank." But long term
it would be better if "Israeli and Western leaders would ... declare
candidly that Palestinians do not accept Israel and support terrorism
against her and that they will not deal with or support the PA under
these conditions." That would put the onus on the Arabs, and after all
only the terrorists can stop their own terror acts voluntarily. Israel
can't stop terror by giving the Arabs concessions that just whet their
appetites for more Israeli concessions.
THE INHUMANITY OF BEING HUMANE TO TERRORISTS
Daniel Greenfield in answer to a reader's comment wrote: "I don't
admire Patton, I'm pointing out that he was correct about the
priorities of wartime." The objective was to win. And to win, "you
must kill the enemy." Today we need to fight a war that was started
by Islamic terrorists. And we won't win by ascribing to them our
high-minded views. The choice is binary. "We can coddle the
terrorists, or we can push them. We coddled them for years until
9/11 happened. Now we have gone back to coddling them again. But
there will be more than only a moral price to pay for that, but a
bill presented written in the blood of Americans."
ANNEXING JUDEA AND SAMARIA: THE ONLY VIABLE ROAD MAP TO PEACE, STABILITY
Moshe Dann articulates what must be done to prevent Israel losing land
that legitimately belongs to it. He writes, "The State of Israel can
and should change its archaic and ambiguous position and extend full
sovereignty to all Jewish communities throughout Judea and Samaria,
including State Land and areas necessary for defense and security."
Obviously, Israel should acknowledge that Samaria and Judea belong to
Israel. If she doesn't, why should anyone else?
SOLVING THE REFUGEE ISSUE
Of the millions of refugees around the globe, the Palestinian refugees
are the only ones that continue to be refugees for more than a few
years. In fact, generations of their descendants have been added to
the refugee list, and no one has been removed. The Palestinian arabs
are kept from resettling for political reasons. Rabbi Elon points out
that the Palestinian refugee problem can be solved by taking the refugees
and the money expended for their care away from UNRWA. "This money can
be put to better use when it will be invested in full and generous
rehabilitation of the refugees, funded by the US, Europe, and Israel,
together with the Arab oil-producing countries."
TRANSFER MADE EASY
The majority of international organizations are still trying to square
the circle how to get Palestinian Arabs and Jews to live together
or next to each other as friendly neighbors. This experiment has been
ongoing for a hundred years and it doesn't work the Arabs want to
kill off Israel, not live peacefully in it or next to it. And the
romantics the Jews who thought the Arabs would be delighted because
the Jews were reawakening a sluggish, poverty-stricken area, by
introducing a viable economy well, they seem to have all died out.
What you have now in Israel is a majority opinion that wants to
separate from the Arabs and a minority Marxist opinion that wants to
bolster the Palestinians even if it means destroying Israel. The Land
of Israel belongs to Israel by international law. There is no reason
Israel should not transfer the Arabs from its territory a few miles
into the immense domain that is Arab land. Samson Blinded discusses
how this can be done.
This group of self-haters may not have done as much damage to
Israel's good name as Judge Goldstone, but they are in there, trying
their best.
JOEL BEININ'S JIHAD
Front Page Magazine has been running a series on Jewish
Leftists Collaborators, Quislings against the West and its
strongest ally, Israel. In this essay, Steven Plaut examines what
makes Joel Beinin of Stanford Univeristy tick. It is bizarre that
living on an egalitarian kibbutz made him a believer in Israel as evil
while living in Egypt with its "open racial and religious
discrimination" made him a believer in the Arab desire to destroy
Israel. Today, he has graduated to admiration to that murderer par
excellence, Chairman Mao of China. What still needs examination is
why a poor excuse for a scholar holds a prestigious position in an
elite university.
SALARIED BY ISRAELI TAXPAYERS, HISTORY PROFESSOR SHLOMO SAND DENIES THE EXISTENCE OF A JEWISH PEOPLE
Lee Kaplan writes about Shlomo Sand, who is strikingly audacious, even
among the many Israeli Marxist academics, who devote themselves to
delegitimizing Israel in new and outrageous ways. He doesn't just
think Jews are living on Arab land he denies the entire history of
the attachment of Jews to the Land of Israel. Admittedly, his
revisionism isn't quite up to the level of Columbia's Arab professor,
Nadia Abu El-Haj, who is capable of denying the tangible evidence of
archeology. Sand merely distorted historical fact and minimized
Israel's anguished history in the diaspora. In his version there is a
disconnect between today's Jews and the Jews of the Bible. And while
his history might be defective, his assertions have certainly pleased
many an anti-semite.
CHOMSKY LITE: ANNA BALTZER JOINS ANTI-ISRAEL CAMPAIGNS
Steven Stotsky writes about Anne Baltzer, who "tours US campuses,
churches and community venues denigrating Israel with baseless and
propagandistic allegations." She invokes her "Jewish roots and
grandparents lost to the Holocaust to establish her supposed moral
authenticity," but her "ideological roots are firmly planted in the
anti-Zionist movement. ... She is affiliated with the International
Women's Peace Service (IWPS), a group closely associated with the
International Solidarity Movement (ISM). Her political message closely
reflects the official Palestinian line claiming Israel is a foreign
occupier guilty of ethnic cleansing and that the wrongs done to the
Arabs can only be righted by reverting back to a mythological
pre-Zionist Palestinian land." The narrative relies on historic
falsehoods and extravagant fantasies, well beyond what even Amnesty
International and HRW will swallow.
The first articles in this set discuss how the Palestinian people
were invented. How group cohension is perpetuated is no mystery:
education, food, housing and health care for anyone declaring himself
a refugee are subsidized by the monies given to UNRWA, the U.N. agency
responsible for keeping them in perpetual homelessness. In Gaza, huge
amounts of funds poured in to pump up the economy artificially and in
short spurts. The early history of Palestine is never discussed
maybe because there never was a state or country of Palestine. But
ancient myths persist. The myth of peaceful coexistence between
Muslim, Jews and Christian in medieval times with Muslims in the
driver's seat, of course should by now have gone the way of ex-Prez
Bush's pronouncement right after 9/11 that Islam is a peaceful
religion. Instead, it is still being shamelessly asserted.
A DIRTY LITTLE SECRET
Crafty Yasser Arafat is the one credited with deciding that the Arabs
weren't going to destroy Israel by fighting the Jews head on. So he
invented the Palestinian people, who, he claimed, were native to
Palestine (a state that had never existed). Ignoring that this
"people" were mostly natives of the neighboring Arab countries, he
declared Israel was occupying Palestinian land. Ergo, they were
justified and here the media and many a mainline church agreed with
him in doing anything and everything to regain their land. As Moshe
Dann points out, "the fraud worked!" "The success of 'Palestinianism'
is a tribute to what money, influence and Jew-hatred will buy and
attract." It's time this hoax was exposed.
INCITEMENT WINS OVER THE ECONOMY AMONG THE PALESTINIANS AT THE END OF THE DAY
The major theme of the Palestinian People Myth is that there exists a
people that once owned a country called Palestine and this land was
invaded and occupied by foreigners, Jews. A subsidiary myth dear to
the hearts of foreigners, Westerners, is that if you give a guy a home
and a job, he won't want to vandalize and destroy and terrorize his
neighbors. Unfortunately, that doesn't work in Gaza. Money has poured
in. But the spiritual and secular leaders keep the people in shape for
rapid explosion. The Arab people have been emotionally prepped for
violence by skillful conditioners.
OUT WITH THE OCCUPIERS!
The belief that the Arabs own the Land that is Israel and the Jews do
not is a political version of Goldilocks and the three bears. The Jews
owned it too long ago and too short a time ago. But the Arabs who
conquered the area at the rise of Islam well, that's just the right
time ago. A popular pro-Arab argument is that it has "been nearly
1,900 years since Jews exercised sovereignty there and it is absurd
to argue that any group still has rights to land they last governed
such a long time ago." Steven Plaut turns the argument on its fez with
a few home truths. For one, If recency wins, then the birth of modern
Israel trumps because the last time the Arabs held the land was much
earlier. And even then, it was Arabs, not Palestinian
Arabs, in charge. It's a pleasure to watch a logical mind spell
out the implications of the fanciful nonsense the Arabs dish out.
AN "ISLAMICALLY CORRECT" CONFERENCE
The myth of Islam's benevolent rule over its minority citizens,
Christians and Jews, in medieval Spain, has been exploded. Being a
dhimmi was ego-crushing, at best. Nevertheless, as
Véronique Chemla informs us, the fiction of peaceful
coexistence is apparently still serviceable. At the recent Aladdin
Project conference at UNESCO, it was promoted by Jewish and Christian
diplomats, educators and clerics and other culture gatekeepers, all
anxious to develop better relations with Islam. The myth suggested that
it would be wonderful to reinstate the good old days and it spread a
feeling of bonhomie within the group. Under such circumstances, it
would be boorish to complain about the brutal treatment of
dhimmis in countries currently under Sharia law. But
West-bashing and Israel-bashing were acceptable. All in all, the
Conference contributed to the advancement of the long-term Muslim
agenda.
THE MYTH THAT FUELS MIDEAST CONFLICT
Bob Feferman points out that when UNSCOP visited Mandated Palestine in
1947, it was clear that the Jews who already numbered some 450,000
before World War 2 had developed the infra structure of statehood:
agriculture, industry, schools, health-care, newspapers, theatre. They
were ready. Nevertheless, Arab propaganda blast forward with one
theme. "... the Jewish state was created at the expense of the Arabs
of Palestine in order to ease the conscience of the world over the
tragedy of the Nazi Holocaust." This distorted history makes it seem
the Jews had a free ride to statehood, so the local Arabs could and
still do ignore their own lackluster efforts toward developing a
modern state.
Arabs, by and large, are Muslim. As such, their lives are
determined by the Koran, the Islamic holy book, the Hadith (Mohammed's
traditions) and the Sunna (a compilation of Mohammed's words and
actions). This group of essays examines aspects of Islam, not as
fantasizers describe it, but as it actually is. Some of these essays
deal directly with misleading but politically correct notions that are
foisted on the public by pro-Palestinian propaganda in the media.
ISLAM AND THE DARK AGE OF BYZANTIUM
The received wisdom is that Islam salvaged the textual fruits and
scientific findings of the classic civilizations of Greece and Rome
when the western part of Charlesmagne's empire, Europe, went into a
decline in the 7th century. In the 1930's a Belgium historian, Henri
Pirenne, argued Islam was itself responsible for the Dark Ages in
Europe by blockading the Mediterranean. The counter argument to
Pirenne was that the emergence of Islam didn't destroy Byzantium, the
Eastern part of the Empire by all accounts it continued to thrive.
In this essay and in his book, John O'Neill suggests that
if we discount the Byzantine propaganda, recent archeological evidence
supports Pirenne civilization fell in both the East and the West
with the advent of Islam.
FACTS, FALLACIES AND BIGOTS
Bill Warner presents us, in his words, with "an exercise in fact-based
rational thought." He quotes a fairly typical, politically correct,
fair-minded Rabbi committed to ecumenicism and determined to think
well of everyone. Warner quotes the letter that embodies that point of
view, then proceeds to demonstrate that this image of Islam doesn't
conform to reality. Defusing the hatred in the Koran because the
Jewish and Christian Scriptures also in the Rabbi's words
contain "bad material" doesn't anwer why Jews and Christians have
moved on, but Muslims still stone people and behead them and cut off
hands for trivial offenses.
THE LONG MARCH OF ISLAM: INTRODUCTION AND CHAPTER 1
This essay is the Introduction and Chapter 1 of R.K. Ohri's book
"Long March Of Islam: The Future Imperfect. As K.P.S. Gill
who served as Director General of Police in Punjab and is currently a
consultant on counter-terrorism writes in the book's Foreword,
"Political Islam has gone broadly unchallenged, ... The
disastrous consequences of this neglect are now manifested in the
increasing radicalisation of this ideology, and its assertion through
an assortment of Islamist terrorist movements projected by their
principals as jehads. [...] The global response has, however,
centred overwhelmingly on neutralizing these manifestations alone
the terrorist groups that constitute immediate and direct
threats to individual and state security. An ideological response to
the rising tide of Islamist terrorism is yet to emerge in significant
measure." Ohri's book is an serious but very readable examination of
the ideological underpinnings of terrorism within the context of group
relationships, affiliations and population size factors that affect
actual events, now and in the future.
LOSING ISRAEL
Bill Warner asserts that "Israel is losing the propaganda war,
hasbarah, and for a very good reason." Israelis are not
inclined to deal with propaganda because they would have to examine
Islam. They would have to "face the facts that the Koran and the Sunna
(the actions and words of Mohammed) are filled with invectives against
the Jews." They would have to grasp that "... when the Jews of Medina
rejected Mohammed as a prophet they were all enslaved, exiled,
murdered and robbed all acts of jihad. These were not
historical acts, but perfect examples of Islamic action towards Jews
models prescribed for Muslims to follow up to the present time." Jews
also need to understand that resurgent Islam isn't just targetting
them. "[T]he Israel/Palestinian conflict is no different than the
jihad in Kashmir, India, the Philippines, or in dozens of fronts in
Africa" but global jihad does target Jews, and this has to be
acknowledged before intelligent and incisive action can be taken.
Praying for some flabby peace won't work. People don't fight
effectively against a threat until they acknowledge the threat is
real.
ISRAEL IN THE IRANIAN MEDIA
Iran is on a roll. The nastier she sounds, the nicer the West is
towards her. And the West did nothing to encourage the election
protesters. As Reuven Erlich writes, "This past month Iranian defiance
of Israel and the West reached new heights.." Basically, Iran's
leadership feels ready to take on the leadership of those who are
anti-West in the Middle East. It is "of the opinion that it has the
military and ideological-religious capabilities to breathe new life
into the original sentiments of the Muslim-Arab peoples: hatred for
Zionism, the establishment of the State of Israel (the 'cancerous
growth') and the West which supported it after the Holocaust ('an
imaginary event'). "Using what's written in the press as a mirror of
government thinking, Iran feels its a winner and its first target is
Israel. It has every intention of pursuing "a defiant, revolutionary
agenda, where emphasis will be placed on support for the terrorist and
Islamic networks around the world, especially the Middle East." This
article is loaded with insights into the thinking of the leaders of a
country that has made itself a major threat to world peace.
IS ISLAMIC TERRORISM REACTIVE OR PROACTIVE?
This essay by Daniel Greenfield deals with the politically correct
notion that terrorism is "a kind of desperate activism taken in
reaction to oppression." It treats the terrorist as a victim of
X, where X depends on the writer's own attitudes. X is
capitalism for the Marxist, Zionism for the anti-Semite,
US foreign policy for the hater of America, etc. But the
reactive model breaks down when subjected to inquiry into who the
terrorists are, where did they come from and what was their
ideological education. A statement from the Muslim Brotherhood makes
clear that jihad "is an obligation on every Muslim in order to spread
Islam to the infidels and subjugate Jews and Christians who refuse to
live under Islamic law." And millions of Muslims subscribe to this
belief. [Addendum: the media ascribed the massacre at Fort Hood to
Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome until it was pointed out that Major Hasan had
never been to a war zone. Then some suggested he caught it from
returning soldiers like it was a virus.]
ISLAM IS MISUNDERSTOOD
To believe the ubiquitous ads and media puff pieces about peaceful,
tolerant Islam, you'd have to conclude that Islam is being
undeservedly maligned. People just haven't understood how well Islam
fits into a multicultural country. It is curious, Amil Imani notes,
that the multicultural euphemism is not ever "even mentioned by any
Islamic leader, ever printed in the Islamic press, or ever appears in
any form anywhere in Muslim countries." To put it bluntly but
accurately, the purpose of the "multiculturalism gambit is Islam
manufactured wool to pull over the eyes of the non-Muslims while the
Muslims carry on with their unrelenting campaign of eradicating
anything or anyone non-Islamic anywhere in the world."
THE MUSLIM WOLF AT FEMINISM'S DOOR
The spread of Islamic customs and practices to Europe, North America
and Australia means that immigrant Muslim women continue to be treated
as they are in Islamic countries. Moreover, because any women is
regarded as subject to punishment if they are not completely covered,
rapes of non-Muslim women are becoming common. Daniel Greenfield deals
with one aspect of this: the non-response, the lack of indignation, by
feminists. He notes that "[r]ather than confront the threat to women
posed by Islamic law, feminist authors like Naomi Wolf are instead
claiming that the wolf is really a misunderstood poodle." They do not
support their sisters who try to fight back in Muslim countries; they
side with Islam law, ducking the issue by insisting that the wearing
of a head schmatta will make women free. How very curious.
THE MAKING OF ISLAMIC TERRORISTS
The world has come a long way towards civilized behavior by
suppressing destructive instincts. Islam is different. "Islam was
started by predators and spread by predators. It has lived off the
decaying corpses of the civilizations it has destroyed." Babu Suseelan
notes that "[s]ince 1973, there have been 179 armed conflict around
the world 169 were involved with Muslims." Their goal is to replace
democracy with Sharia law, with the suicide/bombing a major tool. To
understand this, Suseelan examines the psychology of the jihadist
homicide bomber, starting with his early indoctrination from his
Islamic religious education, and proceeding, state by stage, to more
ideologically-driven conscienceless behavior. Suseelan points out this
will not stop as long as our only response is attempting to punish the
jihadist in a criminal justice system, which has proven ineffective in
handling this type of situation.
The beltway sniper, who terrorized Washington, D.C. and its
environs in 2002, is finally going to be executed this November. This
news occasioned essays on loner terrorists and why the media and law
agencies continue to deny that they were inspired by a similar
ideology, even if the gunmen didn't conspire as a group. Mearsheimer
and Walt and terrorist fronts like Cair and the major media continue
to blame the Jooz for whatever ails us, It is a distraction from what
we should be attending to preventing the spread of Sharia law. An
immediate problem is preventing the return of a Muslim girl who
converted to Christianity to her parents, because that would increase
the chances that she will not live to see her next birthday.
BELTWAY SNIPERS EXPOSED AS MUSLIM TERRORISTS
Most building invasions and drive-by killings by single Muslims have
been single-time events and dismissable as random. In this essay, Paul
L. Williams follows up on the 2002 series of terror killings by John
Muhammad and his 17-year old side-kick, Malvo. Muhammad's previous
army experience was stressed, as if that was responsible for his
behavior. It was just a year after 9/11, yet the duo's affiliation to
terror groups, their dedication to Islam and their anti-semitism were
heatedly denied or just ignored by the media, until courtroom exhibits
made denial impossible. In 2009, the mainstream media are again
ignoring the role the Islamic religion played in his terror spree
when announcing that Muhammad's execution date has been set.
TERROR SUSPECTS CONNECTION: SHARIAH
There are individuals and small groups that even if they have never
met are bonded in that they have the same commitment: to inflict
sharia law on the West. At the very least, the success of one
encourages others to work towards their common goal. The West seems to
have no way to cope, except to treat each episode of terror as a
separate event, unrelated to other such events. We focus on the
terrorists who invades our airports and community centers, while
ignoring their ideology. Frank Gaffney points out that dealing with
the root cause of jihad by denial and accomodation has encouraged
terrorism, not stopped it. [Update: This article was published
before the Fort Hood massacre.]
11 MEARSHEIMER-WALT ERRORS ON THE ISRAEL LOBBY
Mearsheimer and Walt's articles and books serve to popularize and make
respectable the pro-Palestinian anti-Israel rhethoric in current use.
They are professors in respectable universities surely one can
assume that they have carefully examined the facts and speak truth.
Unfortunately, the only truth is that they nicely rephrase the raw
anti-semitism heard from cruder tongues. They are very successful at
this and are cited on all the sleezoid sites. Richard H. Shulman has
done a masterful job in summarizing the major areas they cover and in
uncovering their errors.
HOW THE MEDIA REPORTS TEMPLE MOUNT CLASHES IN JERUSALEM
Think of this article as a teaching experience. Richard Shulman
describes how two major newspapers reported a news story on clashes.
Same data were available to both; both contributed political slants to
a "news story." Considering the respect given The New York
Times, it is surprising except we've learned from experience
this happens all the time that its headline was misleading and
important facts are omitted. Moreover, "the Times, as is its
custom, writes that Israel is in "contested territory that Israel took
from Jordan in the 1967 war. Without explanation, its seizure sounds
improper. Actually, Jordan had no right to it, having seized it by
aggression." The Wall St. Journal labeled the Jews that wanted
to pray at their own temple "extremists" and "hard-line". Why?
"Neither paper mentioned that the Muslim Arabs believe that they alone
have rights to the Temple Mount and to the Cave of the Patriarchs in
Hebron." As usual, Arab violence is not the result of incitement by
Arab leaders; "it is due to frustration with the stalled
negotiations." Of course. What else could it possibly be?
MUSLIM MAFIA EXPOSED
P. David Gaubatz and Paul Sperry have written a well-documented
account of CAIR and its tactics in carrying out its mission, which is
to islamize America, using a variety of tactics that include
labelling anyone who criticizes them as an Islamophobe. CAIR
Council for American Islamic Relations was founded by
members of a Hamas-support network and its major funding is not U.S.A.
"grass roots" but comes from Sunni Gulf States donors. In this essay,
Phyllis Chesler focusses on how CAIR trivializes abuse of women and
financially aids men who have committed honor code murders in the
U.S.A. and Canada.
RIFQA BARY, ISLAM, MUSLIMS, SHAR'IAH, AND APOSTASY
Rifqa Bary converted from Islam to Christianity and fled her home,
saying she feared for her life. Dr. Jasser, himself a devout Muslim,
believes "the preponderance of the intellectual evidence shows a
systemic intolerance and, in fact, there is strong evidence for legal
(Shar'iah-based) underpinnings for the intolerance, abuse,
discrimination, and even at its worst, direct countenance of murder of
apostates." He believes this isn't acceptable to the majority of lay
Muslims, but the ulemaa (theocratic scholars) do have their
influence, even in the West. And there are enough cases of Muslims
killing their children to protect the honor of the family to take
Rifqa's fears seriously. There is also the larger question for the
Muslim community: will they circle the wagons and play the put-upon
victim as does CAIR or will they venture at
reform. As Jasser writes, American Muslims "can either hold blindly
onto tradition, victimization, tribalism, and obfuscation or they can
use these cases as teaching moments to highlight the reform necessary
within our communities..."
THE EXECUTIONER
For all the horrors of the Holocaust, Israel actually has only
executed one man, Adolph Eichman. And that needed a special act,
because Israel does not have the death penalty as punishment, no
matter what the crime. Rachel Ginsberg recounts the history of the
execution. It had two important consequences. It broke the silence and
numbness that for some 15 years had surrounded the Holocaust and
survivors began speaking up. Also, this is the precedent for revising
the law so that Israel could deal appropriately with terrorists whose
goal is to destroy the Jewish state.
THE SCOURGE OF ARAB INFILTRATION
Arab terror strikes against Jews in Israel began long before the
recent claim that Arabs are merely reacting to Israel "occupying" the
West Bank. From the late 1800's on, the Jews were reviving the economy
in an area that had been rock-bottom stagnant for hundreds of years,
but the controlling Arab sentiment was anger and resentment that any
group other than Arab should dominate land no matter how small
and undeveloped that Arabs claimed as their own. Leslie Stein
writes about the Arab guerilla warfare soon after Israel became a
state in 1948. It cost Israel hundreds of slaughtered lives before
Israel began responding effectively. Sensibly, the "severity of
Israeli retaliations had not been calibrated" on proportional
retaliation but to the "potential impact on the behaviour of Israel's
adversaries." It encouraged the Jordanian and Egyptian
governments (temporarily) to curb some infiltration into Israel.
Unfortunately, Israel was intimidated by the international outcry at
Israel defending itself, a hostility mislabeled as the "moral" view.
Sound familiar?
This is where our readers get a chance to write opinions
and editorials and share articles they find informative. The Blog-Eds
page for the month is updated every few days.
A Blog-Ed page has a quick list of the articles from which you can
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September 2009 BLOG-EDS
READ MORE
While Obama fiddles around hoping to play a soothing tune that will
please the Iranian ear, Iran continues its development of the nuclear
bomb to destroy Israel. It considers "collateral damage" to local
Arabs and to oil pipes at Haifa worth it. Nor is it reassuring that
the now Secr.-of-State Clinton promised last year that America will
attack Iran if she launches a nuclear attack against Israel.
HOW WE KNOW OBAMA WON'T STOP IRAN AND HOW HE GOES ABOUT DOING NOTHING
 
Anne Bayefsky lists the reasons that make it obvious that President
Obama if it's left up to him has no intention of stopping Iran
from acquiring nuclear arms. Obama "... is refusing to back strong,
immediate sanctions in response to Iran's umpteen violations of the
Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and human rights." His "only
concrete plan ... is more talk" despite Iran's lack of response and
there are no plans for a reassessment of what is a failed policy based
on false premises. This places Israel in the untenable position of
risking potential annihilation by doing nothing or doing something and
risking "the ire of a deeply hostile president." And all the while,
Iran is certainly doing much of a something to develop her nuclear
capability.
MR. OBAMA'S CONTRADICTIONS AND ISRAELI SURVIVAL
Iran announces that it was developing a nuclear bomb for
peaceful uses, of course. Its first job has been announced: destroy
Israel. And the world sits as quiet and uninvolved as the brain-washed
captives in the Manchurian Candidate. Professor Beres paints a
graphic and frightening and worst of all accurate picture of the
physical and medical consequences of a nuclear attack on Israel. As he
writes, "[n]o country can be expected to cooperate in its own annihilation."
THERE IS A MILITARY OPTION ON IRAN
This is a sober assessment of how the U.S. military could confront
Iran, before it succeeds in developing nuclear armament. General Wald
points out that "[i]f the Iranian regime continues to advance its
nuclear program despite the best efforts of Mr. Obama and other world
leaders, we risk Iranian domination of the oil-rich Persian Gulf,
threats to U.S.-allied Arab regimes, the emboldening of radicals in
the region, the creation of an existential threat to Israel, the
destabilization of Iraq, the shutdown of the Israel-Palestinian peace
process, and a regional nuclear-arms race." The future consequences of
Prez Obama's insouciance will likely make Jimmy Carter's gross error
in forcing the Shah of Iran off the throne seem small potatoes.
CAPITALISM, JEWISH ACHIEVEMENT, AND THE ISRAEL TEST
This article by George Gilder is based on his most recent book. David
Pryce-Jones
Israel is faced with another threat to its survival, one just as
pressing as the threat of nuclear annihilation the creation of a
Palestinian Arab state in Biblical Israel. Obama's CEO in charge of
thuggery and threats, Rahm Emanuel, has told Israel it MUST make
concessions to the arabs "for peace" starting by throttling Jewish
towns in the "West Bank" else America will thwart any attempt by
Israel to defang Iran.
TWO-STATE SOLUTION OR POTEMKIN PEACE
A one-state solution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict or a
two-state solution would have the same predictable outcome: the
destruction of the Jewish State. A one-state binational state would
have the Jews pay for a preponderance of Arab births, which has only
one objective: democractically crushing the Jewish state. The two-state
solution sounds, in comparison, like a sober solution. It isn't.
Steven Plaut points out it is paper-thin, with no substance. Trim away
the nonsense and political babble and bombast and there is as there
has always been one simple reason why there is no peace: "the
refusal of the Arab world to come to terms with Israel's existence
within any set of borders whatsoever." Israel continues to attempt to
accomodate Arab 'sensitivities' and acts as if the Palestinian claim
that Israel is occupying Arab land had historic substance. But it all
continues to crash against the often-repeated reality that "any
Palestinian state, regardless of who rules it, will produce nothing
but escalated violence, terror and warfare in the Middle East,
certainly not stability or peaceful relations."
WHAT IS THE TWO STATE SOLUTION SUPPOSED TO SOLVE ANYWAY?
Sultan Knish describes what we can expect
from a Palestinian State. Essentially, it's more of the same, but more
so. More terrorism. More regional instability. More internecine
conflicts between the different Palestinian groups. More unemployment
because there aren't any major employers except UNWRA and the
Palestinian Authority, which is a way of saying they are living on the
dole. Having demonstrated that such a mix can not be shaped into a
workable political entity, Sultan Knish concludes, "...if the Two
State Solution can't even create a Palestinian state, what can it
solve? Absolutely nothing."
JUDEA AND SAMARIA A WAKE UP CALL
Yoram Ettinger devotes this article to a recap of some important
historical facts about Samaria and Judea Biblical Israel and to
explaning the region's importance to Israel's security needs. As he
pointed out in a previous paper
There is however a win-win situation. Israel has space to grow and
develop innovations for all of us, instead of devoting its time to
fending off Arabs obsessed with a self-imposed mission of destroying
the Jewish state. The Palestinian Arabs have a munificent plot of land
in which to create a state if that's what they want. The former
U.S. presidential candidate Mike Huckabee put it well: "The question
is: should the Palestinians have a place to call their own? Yes, I have
no problem with that. Should it be in the middle of the Jewish
homeland? That's what I think has to be honestly assessed as virtually
unrealistic."
PUTTING FIRST THINGS FIRST SOLVING THE ARAB REFUGEE PROBLEM
Ruth King and Rael Isaac write that "the issue of 'refugees' remains
the defining obstacle to any reconciliation in the region." The Arabs
remain adamant that the Arabs that fled when the Arab states invaded
Israel in 1948 must be allowed to return to their villages in Israel.
Allowing in the millions who claim to be these refugees or descendants of
these refugees would demographically overwhelm Israel. Resettling them
in Arab countries would give the refugees the opportunity to live
normal lives in a familiar milieu, instead of serving as the excuse
for Arab leaders to continue their hostility and aggression against
Israel. And a major obstruction to stabilizing the region would be
eliminated.
A CALL FOR RESETTLEMENT OF PALESTINIAN REFUGEES
The myth of Israel creating the Arab refugee problem has been
discredited in recent years as Palestinian Arabs have begun speaking
out and putting the blame where it belongs on the Arab leadership,
which directed the local arabs to leave their homes in 1948, when the
arab countries that neighbor israel attacked the brand-new state. (See
PMW's "Arab responsibility for refugees" at
PALESTINE PROBLEM HOPELESS, BUT NOT SERIOUS
Considering how our economy is going, we might consider asking the Po'
Palestinians for a handout. Spengler provides us a clear picture of
just how how well off the Palestinian Arabs are financially,
especially as compared to the neighboring Arabs. (And that's just the
acknowledged contributions from UNRWA, EU and us, the taxpayers of
U.S.A.) They have free health care and receive better education than
most other arabs. Given all that funding, "why," he asks, "should any
Palestinian refugee resettle in a neighboring Arab country? This is
particularly so because they haven't developed industries to support
themselves. Moreover, because their subsidies depends in part on the
Western belief that paying the Palestinians off will contain their
violence, they have a disincentive to become peaceful. Given these
facts, Spengler comes to conclusion that may be surprising but is
obvious once you look at the facts.
(TRANS)JORDAN IS PALESTINE
The British were given the administration of the Palestine Mandate to
aid the Jews settle Palestine as a homeland. Instead, the Brits gave
the administration of the portion of Palestine east of Jordan River to
the Hashemite clan, which today rules a state made up largely of what
are called Palestinians. It is now withdrawing citizenship from many
of these arabs. Sarah Honig writes about Jordan, pointing out some
home truths.
A PALESTINIAN STATE IN SAUDI ARABIA
Gennadiy Faybyshenko notes that the Saudi Arabian Initiative which
provides for the creation of a a Palestinian state inside Samaria and
Judea and the return of enough Arabs to almost double Israel's Jewish
population would mean the end of Israel. That won't do. But given
the Saudi concern for their Palestinian brethren and given that Saudi
Arabia is huge but sparsely-settled, a comfortably-sized state for
the Palestinian refugees could be set up in some small portion of
Saudi Arabia. Refugee problem: solved! A state for the Palestinians:
created! And, that, according to the Obama administration, is the key
to peace and harmony in the Middle East.
THE PERFECT PEACE-PLAN
Brother Shane proposes a bold yet traditional peace-plan to stabilize
the Middle East: First, the Arab terrorist thugs need to be
eliminated, not rewarded. Then the Palestinian Arabs in the
territories are to be moved to Jordan, where Palestinian arabs are
already living. A novel part of the plan is to create borders for
Israel in accordance with the ancient patrimonies of the original 12
tribes of Israel, erasing some modern divisions. Pagan and
totalitarian practices are not to be tolerated; the United Nations
a puppet of Islamo-Fascists will be designated a terrorist
organization. This plan certainly beats Israel giving up some of its
tiny bit of land to people with a much larger amount of land and a
very large amount of hatred toward Jews.
MID EAST PEACE? LET PALESTINIANS BE JEWISH
I don't know if this is tongue-in-cheek but it certainly is thinking
outside the box. Julian Kossoff suggests a novel way to solve the
Israel-Palestinian Arab conflict. Convert the Arabs to Judaism. Let
them become Jews. He reminds us that "[h]istorically, the key to the
Jewish reluctance to convert non-Jews was an unwillingness to provoke
the host Christian/Muslim community. But as a survival strategy that's
now backfiring; in a post-Christian world that fear is no longer
relevant, while the demographics aren't looking good." The Jews were
indeed heavy into proselytizing Gentiles some 10% of the Roman
Empire in the 1st century C.E. was Jewish. They were told point-blank
when the Church gained power that if they continued proselytizing,
the Church would destroy Judaism. Unfortunately the Jews incorporated
this negative attitude and have forgotten their strong commitment to
converting the Gentile. Perhaps Kossoff will write another article on
reclaiming all the Jews forced over the centuries into becoming Muslim
at the point of the sword.
This next articles reinforce the idea that Israel should not give up
any more of Israell's patrimony. They deal with the involuntary
withdrawal from Hebron after the 1929 Massacre and with Kadima's
expulsion of all the Jews from Gaza in August 2005. The last article
in the set reminds us that as Israel gives up land, people are waiting
in the wings with demands on further land give-aways all in the
pursuit of a peace that becomes all the more unattainable the more Israel
gifts to an enemy determined to destroy the Jewish state.
HOW HEBRON BECAME OCCUPIED TERRITORY
The 4000-year old city of Hebron, Judaism's second most holy city, is
the site of the Machpelah, the Cave of the Patriachs, where
Abraham and Sarah are buried. The Jews lived there no matter what the
political climate throughout the centuries. In 1929, when rumors
started to spread that the Arabs were planning to attack the Jews,
many Jews refused to believe it. Sammy Benoit (Yid with Lid) writes of
the massacre in August, 1929. Arabs, who for years had been friendly
neighbors, turned vicious and, encouraged by the mufti of Jerusalem,
Haj Amin al-Husseini, slaughtered the Jewish population. The British
removed the Jews from the city, not the Arabs an early example of
rewarding terrorism. The Jews were denied permission to return to
Hebron. After 1967, when Israel regained the city and against the
opposition of the local Arabs and their own government, Jews began to
resettle in Hebron. This article appeared on the Yid-With-Lid website
in December 2007. Since then, the Jews continue to be harassed by the
Arabs and by the Israeli government, which make no secret of the fact
that it favors the Arab population of Hebron in any dispute.
THE HEBRON MASSACRE, AUGUST 23, 1929
This article by Toby Klein Greenwald provides additional history and
eye-witness accounts of the 1929 Hebron Massacre, which we commemerate
on August 23rd.
PALESTINE NAKBA: LETTER TO THE CHILDREN OF THE MOUKHTAR OF COLONIA
This is Arie Issar's account of his experiences at the time of the
Hebron massacre. In August 1929, because he came down with a case of
mumps, he and his family were unable to travel to Hebron to friends
the day the Hebron massacre occurred. He learned later "that the
Sheikh of Colonia (most probably the Moukhtar) came on the day before
the massacre to the Makleffs [the friends] and vowed by Almighty Allah
and the Holy Koran that they are safe and should stay at home." As Ami
Isseroff says in the foreword, "the 1948 war was preceded by decades
of Arab violence and bad faith, such as [this] incident. Issar draws
this moral from the Sheikh's lies, "If you do not want your
grandchildren to live in a refugee camp, do not betray your neighbor
who trusted you and your vows."
MOSHE: WHEN THE SPINELESS LEAD THE BRAINLESS; RACHEL: TO STRENGTHEN A PEOPLE
This issue we have an essay by Moshe Saperstein who is in superb
sardonic form. Listen to this: "Had my ancestors swung on the trees of
Britain rather than Bialystok,... we would likely have a family crest.
On that crest would be crossed salamis under a pickled herring. And
the engraved motto would be in Yiddish, of course 'No Moment
Spent Sleeping is Ever Wasted'." Rachel Saperstein, whose vision is
more outward, talks about the Fourth Anniversary of Israel's sobering
attempt at government-sponsored ethnic cleansing: the expulsion by the
Israeli Government of the Jews from Gaza. It is a sobering thought for
us that the Israeli Government has done such an inadequate job at
resettling the 10,000 Jewish Refugees from Gaza that private citizens
like Rachel are doing the Government's work. With its I-flunk
record, how can the Government be contemplating another expulsion
this time of up to some 600,000 Jews from Samaria and Judea and
Eastern Jerusalem? It boggles the mind.
THE COSTS OF EVACUATION
Moshe Dann writes about some of the costs of ejecting the productive
and patriotic Jews of Gush Katif, Gaza from their homes and business
in August 2005. As he writes, "Biilions were wasted for nothing;
military advantages were squandered and economic benefits to both Jews
and Arabs were destroyed. The sheer human tragedy on all sides is
difficult to evaluate." To rub salt into the wounds, most of these
refugees have still not been fully compensated or permanently settled
and much of what has been achieved has been done by the expellees
themselves or with private help. It is particularly important to
consider the aftermath of the Gaza folly now that "the world" is
demanding a Palestinian state be built in Gaza and Samaria and Judea
and eastern Jerusalem. If Israel accedes to this demand, eventually
it will necessitate expelling up to 500,000 to 600,000 Jews. How will
a bureaucracy that couldn't competently deal with 10,000 refugees deal
with this?
THE GOLAN HEIGHTS, SYRIA AND WATER
The importance of Samaria and Judea to Israel's water needs has been
discussed in sister articles, here. and
here.
This essay by Yoram Ettinger summarizes important facts about the
Golan and its contribution to Israel's water supply. The Golan has again
become an issue now that retards in the Israeli government are
wistfully planning dialoguing with Syria. The Addition, Guy Bechor's
article entitled, "Syria is drying up", explains why Syria is
interested.
As Ethan Bronner put it:
HAMAS IS CONDUCTING A "SMILE SPIN" FOR THE WEST, PARTICULARLY THE UNITED STATES
Hamas is trying something new. Instead of turnoffs like beheading the
enemy or blowing up babies Jewish babies, true, so it's really OK,
but some oddballs seem to object it is trying something new. The
rhetoric has softened. They are reaching out to the West, using the
non-stop media as conveyor of these new smile-ridden assertions. You
understand, of course, that nothing has changed back at the ranch. But
the ratings West-wise should be considerably inproved.
THE TALIBANIZATION OF GAZA: A LIABILITY FOR THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD
Hamas rightfully claims it is more popular than is the P.A. with the
Palestinian Arabs, who appear to prefer unsullied, undisguised
violence against Israel. Many in the American administration have
suggested that American start dealing with Hamas directly as de
facto and de jure rulers of Gaza and, more than likely,
also Samaria and Judea, should Israel give up these areas. Such
appeasement of a totalitarian government might make life simpler for
the State Department, but other consequences are dire and should be
considered. Jonathan Schanzer describes what life is like in Gaza,
where Hamas is now unopposed.
THE COLONIZATION OF THE CONFLICT
We've progressed from the radical chic in the sixties to what Seth
Frantzman calls protest tourism, where foreign and domestic
visitors show their commitment to peace in the Middle East by making
an obligatory stop in Arab Bilin where they harass Israeli soldiers
until, if the gods be with them, the troops stop the rock throwing
with rubber bullets and tear gas. As Frantzman notes, "That isn't
peace, it is a manufacturing of the conflict, manipulation of the
conflict for the cameras."
The initial essays benchmark the current highwater levels of the
Islamic invasion of Europe and the U.S.A. The others suggest that one
of the major activities of Islamic Jihad preaching and
promoting anti-semitism has and is gaining adherents in several
unrelated professional areas, government agencies and private
institutions, even in prisons, as sympathy for or fear of
radical Islam increases. The main reaction of the public to
increased Muslim demands and sporadic violence by Muslims continues to
be almost total indifference.
THE STEALTH JIHAD OF HIJRA: MUSLIM IMMIGRATION EXPOSED
David Meir-Levi listed the ten stages of how Muslims take over a
country "peacefully" and provided an estimate of far various
countries are in the takeover process
here. In this article, Jerry Gordon comments on a book review by
Janet Levy of "Modern Day Trojan Horse" by Sam Solomon and Elias Al
Maqdisi. The book describes more fully the Muslim strategy of
peaceful conquest starting with Muslims migrating into the
Dar-al-Harb, the Land of War, where they strive to consolidate
their power and soften up the population for imposition of Sharia law
and Muslim domination. In the U.S.A., we are really coming along,
especially now that we have a Muslim president in place to smooth the
way.
EURABIAN SAFARI
It seems only yesterday that Malmö was pointed out because even
though it was a western city, some of it was western-frei and
controlled by Muslims. Now, as Thomas Landen indicates, it is one of
many European areas in Brussels, Sweden, France where entry by a
Westerner may be hazardous to his health. In fact, entry is usually by
stealth, a safari entailing high risk. Landen notes that the Ramadan
period is particularly dangerous, because the nightly "feasts easily
spill over into nightly spasms of mayhem, vandalism, and violence.
Europe's Ramadan riots often go on for days or weeks, during which
hundreds of cars, shops and public buildings are set on fire" with
little response from the authorities, who also "fail to impose the
existing laws of the land on Islamic immigrants" and provide
polygamous Muslims with welfare benefits. Landen predicts the next
step with be "the imposition of Sharia law on everyone, non-Muslims as
well as Muslims."
THE STRAIGHT POOP ON RADICAL ISLAM
Burt Prelutsky asks why our leaders "pay lip service to these
people[Muslims} in a way we never did with Nazi Germany, Imperial
Japan or the Soviet Union. Is it because the Muslims commit sadism
and murder in the name of religion and not country? If anything, I
would think that would make their evil acts all the more
contemptible." Their code of honor isn't much of a recommendation,
either.
THE UNIVERSALITY OF ANTI-SEMITISM
George Jochnowitz has written on the pervasiveness of Anti-Semitism
over time and often in areas that seldom, if ever, see a Jew.
Nowadays, its universality owes much to a bizarre and illogical
alliance of Muslims and Communists, both obsessed with a virulent and
ferocious hatred of Jews. In other matters, they hold opposing views
and are sworn enemies of each other. David Nathan wrote of this
essay: "I have read much on the subject but never so fine and profound
and succinct a piece as this." Read it. Perhaps, it will make you stop
adducing all the variants of 'blame the victim' and ask instead: What
accounts for the current manifestation of an attitude that, in
Jochnowitz's words, "makes no sense" and "is pointless."
WHEN CRITICIZING ISRAEL BECOMES RITUAL
Robert Fulford writes of the many ways that have evolved to show hate
towards Israel. "Opposing Israel has become an institutionalized
ritual" performed in "the universities, churches and unions," with
activities that repetition has turned into traditions such as"
Israel Apartheid Week, celebrated every spring in universities."
Muslims claiming they are oppressed by the Chinese are ignored;
El-Fatah Palestinians killed by Hamas are not memorialized; nor are
Hamas soldiers killed by the P.A. Israel is the exclusive target of
this venom. This isn't criticism of Israel. It is simple,
old-fashioned hate of the Jew that is being manifested.
TERRORIST IN THE IVORY TOWER?
Academia has become a welcoming habitat for Marxists and Muslims.
Anti-American preaching is common and is usually protected by
University administrators and fellow academics, who for all their
virtuous defense of freedom of speech are usually not as
conscientious at protecting free speech by rightwingers. Cinnamon
Stillwell writes of a new twist: professors who don't just accept
Islamic terror but practice it. She writes about U of Ottawa's
professor Hassan Diab, who stands accused of leading a PLO commando
team that bombed a Paris synagogue in 1980. If true, he will join
others such as William Ayres of the University of Chicago, who once
practiced what they now preach.
THE INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS' WAR AGAINST ISRAEL
Remembering that the International Red Cross had no problem accepting
the Arab's Red Crescent (which has often taxied terrorists into
Israel) but refused to allow the entry of the Jewish Magen David until
it agreed to not display the Magen David symbol, it comes as no
surprise to learn that the International Red Cross is a politicized
anti-Israel participant in demonizing Israel. In this essay, Moshe
Dann focusses on how they misuse the provisions of the Geneva
Convention, specifically Article 49.
THE AIPAC CASE AND PREJUDICE
The spy case against AIPAC staffers has frittered out. Charges have
been dropped. Two critical pieces of information suggest we're just
beginning to see the outlines of the real story. First, the AIPAC men
were at no point suspected of dealing with enemy foreign governments.
As Gary Wasserman informs us, "they were targets of a bizarre sting in
which they were fed false information suggesting that the lives of
U.S. and Israeli operatives in Iraq were at risk"; they were told no
one was doing anything. They tried openly to get different agencies to
do something, to save lives. Second, the Iago in this sting operation,
Larry Franklin, said he'd tried hooking other prominent Jews in
government, using the same bait and he'd been asked by the FBI about
other of his Jewish contacts. So why a sting operation against
American Jews sympathetic to Israel, who weren't at any point
suspected of being spies? Why Jews? Expand this a bit. Why is the FBI
using Arabs in sensitive spots but won't hire Jews who are fluent in
idiomatic Arabic too translate Arabic tapes? Why is the FBI giving classes
in Sharia law? Why are meaningful words like terrorist dropped
from Homeland Security's vocabulary? Why are CIA operatives threatened
with law suits for doing their job effectively? What is going on?
THE ROOTS OF RADICAL ISLAM IN PRISON
Islam has found the prison system an excellent source for actively
recruiting converts and candidates for acts of terror. It is a
particularly hard group to infiltrate because the prisoners know each
other and don't accept strangers. This article deals with such a
network. When members of a Newburgh NY mosque were exposed before they
could attack a Jewish community center, Warith Deen Umar, a muslim
convert, who was both a prisoner and then a prison chaplain converting
others to Islam, briefly became a topic for conversation. What is not
recognized is that the wahabbist chaplains and their clerks have been
creating a successful organization for converting prisoners to radical
Islam for some 30 years. In this article, Patrick Dunleavy writes of
five other Muslims affiliates of Umar, who have promulgated radical
Islam and planned terror activity while in prison as prisoners or as
prison chaplains or clerks.
KING DAVID'S PALACE UNEARTHED IN JERUSALEM
Some four years ago Israeli archeologist Eilat Mazar discovered a
stepped stone structure in the City of David in Jerusalem that she
believes is the remains of King David's palace. This is an exciting
discovery in its own right, whether palace or not, yet It has been
only meagerly publicized. Thanks are due Rachel Ginsberg not only for
this excellent article on the find but for inquiring into why it is
that it has been ignored by secularists, both archeologists and
laymen, who claim greater objectivity. Their sneer campaign revolves
around the fact that the dig has received financial support from a
Jewish millionaire who believes in the Bible and their secular
certainty that Judaism can not possibly have a rock-solid foundation
(pardon the pun).
MUSLIM TERRORIST'S NEIGHBORS STILL "LOOKING FOR REASONS"
Julia Gorin focusses on what is one of the more puzzling facts about
America's general reaction to resurgent Islam there seems to be a
general indifference to the threat of Islamic Jihad. We are no longer
concerned that Muslims that look to the resurrection of the Caliphate
declared war on us September 11, 2001. Muslims who look to the return
of the Mahdi declare they will bomb Israel a true friend into
oblivion and we warn them that if they don't stop ... we will warn
them again. We elect a self-declared Muslim as president while we are
supposedly fighting Islamic terrorism and we excuse violent Muslim
behavior beheadings, massacres, bombings, drive-by shooting,
tractor killings as understandable. Gorin asks "[h]ow many more
terror plots have to be uncovered before everyone realizes that Islam
is a threat?"
There is a sharp divide between the Christian churches in the West:
the mainstream groups led by liberals are pro-palestinian while
the more traditional and less trendy churches with closer contact to
the Bible are pro-Israel. An anomoly is the Mennonite Church, which
itself suffered torture and violence. Yet it is so dedicated to peace it
doesn't recognize that it doesn't really understand the monomanical
evil practiced by resurgent Islam.
KEY MENNONITE INSTITUTIONS AGAINST ISRAEL
Dexter Van Zile writes about the One-State Solution activists
of the Mennonite church who equate peace in the Middle East with
abolishing the sovereign state of Israel, while they "provide aid and
comfort to those who ... seek Israel's destruction." Van Zile suggests
that, despite the torture and persecution suffered by the Mennonites
in post-Reformation Europe, they have "an inability to deal with the
reality of evil and the power needed to confront it." Denying reality,
they routinely portray Hamas and Islamism as either victim or "as
idealistic religious movements" while the Jews are the bullies. This
may be because the pacifist Mennonites can rely on others to keep them
safe. Israel can not.
CHRISTIAN ZIONISTS, PAST AND PRESENT
Zionism, as Victor Sharpe reminds us, is the national liberation
movement of the Jewish people. "In Biblical terms, it is the return
from exile of the Jews to Zion to that very special land
promised by God to the first Jew, Abraham. And it is through reading
his Bible that many a Christian has become a zionist, and consequently
a friend to Israelis working to reconstitute their ancestral homeland.
In this essay, Sharpe writes of some Christian zionists who helped
further what at the time seemed an impossible dream the
reconstruction of their nation state by Jews after 2,000 years in the
diaspora.
We start with an essay on the general phenomenon, which
describes the anger and denial of reality that marks the self-hating
Jew. We then provide two specific examples, one an individual, the
other a group. As Seth Frantzman says, "Jewish self hate is one of the
most fascinating of phenomena." It is also mystifying.
THE PEOPLE OF ILLOGIC: NOTES ON JEWISH SELF HATE
This is a continuation of Seth Frantzman's examination of Jewish
self-hatred. He writes, "Jewish self hate is one of the most
fascinating of phenomena. While many nations now produce intellectuals
who have self-hate, the Jews seem especially adept at it. It is worth
examining a few cases to understand that self-hate is primarily based
on illogical concepts."
MARXIST PROFESSOR ALALUF SUPPORTS EUROPEAN ANTI-SEMITES
Lee Kaplan presents us with the case study of a Jewish sociologist, a
professor in a European university, who in his devotion to the Arab
cause distorts reality and ignores factual information. For him,
Jewish nationalism is racism. He ignores the Socialist ideology of the
early kibbutzniks and flays Israel as a "colonial
enterprise of the capitalist west." More generally, his stance is
always predictable: Israel is always the bad guy, no matter what the
circumstances. If the Arabs act badly, it is always justified.
THE MISREPRESENTATION OF J STREET
J Street was created to counter Aipac, the major pro-Israel advocacy
group in America. It proclaims itself as supporting Israel, but its
actions don't match its words unless, of course, you subscribe to
the Arab story about its "historic" rights and believe that
capitulating to Arab demands is good for Israel. It is not clear how
many Jews it fools, but, certainly, some Muslims and pro-Palestinian
activists recognize it for what it is and have given J Street both
personal and financial support. If you are looking to support an
active activist group devoted to Israel, put your money into AFSI.org, or
ZOA.org or the newly-formed Z (for Zionist) Street.
(18ZSTREET@gmail.com, http://ziostreet.wordpress.com/)
Since it was started in July 2002, Think-Israel has chronicled
media-created lies about israel and how easily the media accept
Arab-generated lies. A particularly outrageous example is the story
circulated out of Sweden accusing the IDF of harvesting Arab organs
for transplant. What next?
SWEDEN'S NEWSPAPER BLOOD LIBEL OF THE IDF
Using Arab sources, Sweden's largest-circulation newspaper,
Aftonbladet, ran a ghoulish screed claiming the IDF killed
Palestinians arabs and harvested their organs. Robin Shepherd
examines the shameful events that happened afterwards.
Aftonbladet's editor admitted the paper had no proof but
refused to retract its assertion; in fact, he published it again. The
Swedish government did not see this blood libel of Israel as
important enough to contradict, portraying itself as the virtuous
defender of free speech. It even refused to back up its ambassador to
Israel who condemned the article. Contrast this to how news about
Muslims is treated: many of the newspapers self-censor themselves,
fearing violent repercussions by Muslims to even mild criticism of
Islam or Muslim practices. Recall that the Swedish government reacted
in panic to Muslim anger at a cartoon featuring Mohammad, even
shutting down a website that showed the cartoon.
PROPAGANDA'S VICTORY: THE TWO BIG LIES
This essay is about some home truths. Rita Kramer succintly describes
two big lies that have emerged since Nazi times, when the world
accepted that Germany was entitled to a population that was purely
aryan and that the Jews were responsible for German's economic
collapse. One is the retooling the educational system so that its
function no longer is to teach Western values and culture. It has
become an instrument to inculcate "diversity". The other big lie is
that the world accepts the Arab myth that the Palestinian Arabs,
through no fault of their own, are under Israeli occupation, a fantasy
that justifies all savage behavior by the Arabs as necessary in their
struggle to liberate their land.
WHY IS ISRAEL DEMONIZED WHILE REAL RIGHTS' VIOLATORS AND WAR CRIMINALS ARE SANITIZED, EVEN LIONIZED?
Barry Rubin asks a fundamental question: why do the media single out
Israel for human rights violations, most of which are eventually shown
to be false, while Arab human rights violations real, brutal and of
long-standing are excused? He offers a group of possibilities that
include: Arab money/oil, Western guilt, Arab money/oil, physical
intimidation, Arab money/oil, psychological intimidation and Arab
money/oil [repetitions added.]
GENOCIDAL LINKAGE
Kenneth Levin makes an interesting association on how "The world's
media have given scant coverage lately to the ongoing genocide in
Darfur, and despite extensive reporting on Israel and the
Arab-Israeli conflict they have likewise offered little on the
continuing campaign of genocidal incitement against Israel by her
enemies." Levin develops the theme that the connecting link is the
Arab non-acceptance of non-Muslims on what they see as Muslim land.
And when the conflict is Muslim against Muslim, they will side with
the Arabs. Their lead is followed by many in the media and politics
and even in anti-Israel Jewish organizations.
The history of Muslim colonizers who enslaved Europeans and a successful rescue of Jews from a British
detention center
EUROPEANS AS VICTIMS OF COLONIALISM
In this well-documented essay, Fjordman writes of the long-term
colonization and enslavement of Europeans by Muslims. As a reader of
the original article wrote: "Mohammedans are not 'ashamed' of their
1300 plus years of violent colonizing and conquest of the infidels,
unlike the Europeans (who have come, through their political and
social development, and philosophies, to regard all people as
deserving of human rights and basic decency and respect), because the
Muslim colonial movement is the sanctified dogma of the imperialistic,
expansionistic Koran."
Another reader noted, "We'd have far less tolerance of the 'Moslems as
victims' pose if the appalling cruelties of Islamic imperialism were
better known by the Western public."
ESCAPE FROM ATLIT
Starting in the 1930's the British 'forgot' that they were given the
administration of the Palestinian Mandate to help the Jews create the
infrastructure for a state, They curtailed Jewish immigration into
Palestine, Just when Jews desperately needed to escape from Europe.
Jewish immigration was declared illegal. The British didn't just
close the borders; they intercepted ships "and sent their hapless
Jewish passengers back to a certain death in Europe." Those who made
it to Palestine before they were caught were interned in a military
camp south of Haifa in Atlit. Sara Rigler tells the story of a daring
rescue of prisoners from Atlit engineered by the Hagana and aided by
Jew living in Haifa. "For once, the Jews united and won."
This is where our readers get a chance to write opinions
and editorials and share articles they find informative. The Blog-Eds
page for the month is updated every few days.
A Blog-Ed page has a quick list of the articles from which you can
access any of the articles immediately.
To go to the list, click the
"Blog-Eds List" box in the Blue Strip on the top of the Blog-Ed page.
July 2009 BLOG-EDS
READ MORE
NOTE: Because of various website reconstructions, we did not have a
Blog-Ed page for August, 2009.
Barack Obama's Cairo Cuddle speech in June How far Prez Obama had to
stray from the truth to make nice to Islam is a measure of how
unproductive Islam really is except in terror and violence and other
man-made evil.
In his Cairo speech, except for a few teaspoons of
soothing oil for the Jews, President Obama's made it clear that he
would be hitting on Israel and making nice to the Muslims. Shamefully,
as do the Arabs, he linked the Holocaust and how the Israelis
purportedly treat the Palestinian arabs. What was surprising in the
Cairo speech was the number of factual howlers and mistatements. Obama
promised he would "speak the truth..." Misinformation,
disinformation, partial truths, lies dressed up as truths are not
Truth Speak.
WHAT OBAMA TAUGHT ME
What did I learn from President Obama's Cairo speech, asks Ralph
Peters. Let me count the ways. As example, terrorism? The President
never mentioned the subject. It must have stopped. The Israelis who
are routinely subjected to missiles from Gaza and sniping as they
drive the highways will be thrilled to know this. Another example?
Tolerance must have come to Saudi Arabia why else did he not
mention the Saudi fondness for torture and for not allowing churches
and synagagues. He was quick enough to apologize for America's bad
behavior.
PLATITUDES AND NAIVETE: OBAMA'S CAIRO SPEECH
This is a transcript of President Obama's speech with glosses by
Robert Spencer. In the main, the glosses point out factual errors,
stuck like porcupine quills into a mass of gooey flattery. Whatever
else one can say about it, it was an excellent piece of dhimmi
writing, with patches where he scolds the Muslims. Is this the proper
way for the President of the United States to act?
HOW OBAMA'S CAIRO SPEECH THREW ISRAEL UNDER THE BUS
In his Cairo speech, Obama made clear he has accepted the Arab
narrative i.e., he has bought into the Arabs view history. All
events are tethered to their rock belief that Islam is on the rise and
will soon take its rightful place as dominant group, to which all
others ethnic and religious groups must pay homage. Any hinderance
towards their dominance such as the Jews avoiding extermination
when the Arabs invaded their country in 1948, 1967 and 1972 is
regarded as a tragedy. In their view, the Jews "got" Arab Palestine
because of the Holocaust. This ignores of course Judaism's ancient
ties to Israel. It ignores that in modern times, the Arabs are in
Israel because the Jewish aliyas beginning in the late 19th century
created economic opportunities so the people from the neighboring
areas flooded into what was to become Israel, including Samaria and
Judea. As Winston Churchill pointed out, 95% of the Arabs in
"Palestine" came after 1905. Recall they were not declared a people
until 1964, when the world conveniently forgot there had never been a
Palestinian State. There had been "Palestinians" when England was
given control of mandated Palestine to help the Jews make a state.
These Palestinians were otherwise called Jews.
A SELF-DESTRUCTIVE IRAN-PALESTINIAN LINKAGE
In no uncertain terms, Yoram Ettinger meticulously details that is
wrong with linking the Arab-Israeli conflict with stopping Iran from
producing a nuclear weapon. He points out that "[t]he attempt to link
the battle against megalomaniac Iran and the resolution of the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict is detached from Middle East reality. It
plays into the hands of Iran, exacerbates Arab radicalism, undermines
critical US national security interests and causes a setback to
peace." It will have no impact on the quarrel between Sunnis and the
Shites. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Dubai and Oman will still "consider
Iran a clear and present lethal threat." Nor will giving Judea and
Samaria to the Palestinians "facilitate a broad anti-Iran coalition."
The Arab countries have "shower[ed] Palestinians with rhetoric," not
resources. In sum, "[t]he linkage concept creates an unwarranted
US-Israel tension, thus adrenalizing the veins of Arab radicals and
Palestinian terrorists, erodes Israel's posture of deterrence, pours
cold water on the prospects of peace and adds fuel to the fire of
terrorism, dealing a blow to vital US and Israeli interests."
ISRAEL BETRAYED
Obama has suggested that key to peace in the Middle East and the
friendship of hostile Muslims is to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict.
And the key to doing that, judging by his actions, is to put all the
blame for a stalled peace process on Israel. One consequence of the
American administration's war against Israel is that this message
amplified by the media has resulted both in Israel's reduced
popularity and in Jews being blamed for America's financial crisis.
Another likely consequence is that an unchecked Iran might frighten
its neighbors sufficiently to "set off a regional arms race, with
Saudi Arabia and Egypt as the next likely proliferators. Yet the Obama
administration does not seem to realize that stopping an Iranian
nuclear bomb ought take precedence over the stalled 'peace process.'"
OBAMA THE ROOKIE
Mordechai Kedar points out that Barack Obama is as naive about the
Middle East as Jimmy Carter, and is likely to do major damage to
American interests, just as Carter did. Carter helped unleash the
Iranian mullahs, and that lead to the present Iranian regime, with its
nuclear ambitions. Obama believes he and the ayatollahs can reason
together. He ignores that Iran "even before it has turned nuclear,
quickly changes the face of the Middle East. Iran's long arms are
already tightly grasping Lebanon, Iraq, and Gaza, and are also
decisively and powerfully directed at other states such as Egypt,
Morocco, Jordan, Oman, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia." Were Israel to
disappear, it would solve none of the Middle East's problems. Iran
will still try to take over its neighbors, which could ignite a
nuclear arms race. The Sunnis and Shi'ites will still battle it out.
And the end result will be that thousands will die because of Obama's
foolish notions, just as thousands died because of Carter's
misapplication of his "humanitarian" ideals.
While sympathy is more or less extended to the Po' Palestinians
and their terrorism excused, everyone is sure that the villains, the
obstacles to peace, are the settlers (a sneer is obligatory when you
say settlers). The settlers are the Jews who returned to
live in Samaria and Judea and eastern Jerusalem ever since the Jews
fought off the Arab invasion in 1968. The settlements are their towns
and villages and cities and trailer camps and compounds. Why are these
patriotic Jews demonized? Perhaps because they can't be persuaded by
Arab-aiding nonsense. They know that this land is Jewish: by God's
will, by the Bible, by history, by devotion, by never completely
leaving the land over the centuries, by international law that
established an irrevocable trust for the Jewish people, and by
conquest after fighting off the invading Arabs. With all the facts on
Israel's side, how does one promote the claims of a non-people, the
Palestinians? Simple. Demonize the "settlers". Then no one will
complain when you steal Jewish land.
ARE SETTLEMENTS ILLEGAL?
Like holding up a cross to ward off the devil, "Geneva Convention!" is
heard whenever the legality of the Israeli settlements in Samaria and
Judea is asserted. The settlements are supposedly against the Geneva
Convention which declares that an "occupying Power shall not deport or
transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it
occupies." As Jerold Auerbach lucidly explains in this article, the
Geneva Convention does not apply in this situation and the settlements
are not only legal, they are protected as Jewish land by international
law that is applicable and binding. If I have one quibble, it is that
it should be made clear that the Zionist Max Nordau used
homeland as a non-confrontational term for State. It did
not mean that the Jews were to have only a portion of the Land for a
State.
OBAMA, ISRAEL AND THE SETTLEMENTS
Another superb article by Sultan Knish dedemonizing the settlements
and describing what they really are. In U.S.A. terms, they are towns
and villages and cities that are suburbs of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv,
many of which were inhabited by Jews for thousands of years. Given
Israel's friendly neighbors, they are also early alert systems to
monitor the local Arabs. As Sultan Knish writes, "What Obama really
wants is for Israel to put its own center of government in shelling
range from a terrorist group ensconced in its own capital. No rational
person should need an explanation for why Netanyahu has said, no."
Israelis especially the patriotic settlers have no intention of cooperating
with the terrorists.
THE SETTLEMENTS MYTH
President Obama has applied his mantra of 'speak softly and carry no
stick' everywhere except with America's only friend in the Middle
East: Israel. There, he behaves like the medievel rulers in Europe who
set absolute limits on how many Jews could live in a town, or even in
the state. Obama, Charles Krauthammer writes, has ordered
Israel to cease all ordinary population growth in the Territories
and this includes eastern Jerusalem. If a baby is born, Israel is
forbidden to provide him with new shelter. This Obamian pharonic
decree amounts to: thou shalt have NO new babies. As Krauthammer
writes, "No 'natural growth' means strangling to death the thriving
towns close to the 1949 armistice line, many of them suburbs of
Jerusalem, that every negotiation over the past decade has envisioned
Israel retaining." It also means that the Arabs will understand they
need make no changes in their mission to destroy Israel.
"Blaming Israel and picking a fight over 'natural
growth' may curry favor with the Muslim 'street.' But it will only
induce the Arab states to do like Abbas: sit and wait for America to
deliver Israel on a platter. Which makes the Obama strategy not just
dishonorable but self-defeating."
TEAR DOWN? NAW...NOW, MORE THAN EVER, IS THE TIME TO BUILD!
In her inimitable style, Arlene Peck reminds us that the Palestinians
have used American money to bring in arms for terrorist attacks; they
teach their children to hate Jews; they desire to annihilate the
Jewish state. But what Prez Obama and Sec.of State Clinton consider as
the major obstacles to peace are the Jewish settlements. Peck writes:
"[what] All Israel should be listening to is the Bible and following Jewish
history. All of Israel is entitled to 'natural growth.' Hey, if the
love of Israel is racist, then call me one too, as I am definitely a
Zionist and Zionist I shall remain!"
OUTPOSTS: RULE OF LAW, OR LAW WITHOUT RULES?
Thanks to the groundwork laid by Peace Now and others like
them, descendants of Jewish settlers of European stetlach and
Christian descendants of settlers of the Wild West are convinced that
Israeli settlers of the Territories are in violation of the Law. The
lowly outpost is perceived as particularly evil, perhaps because it is
easier to demolish than Ariel, a settlement city of some 20,000. So
the outpost often a single trailer or two has come to stand as a
symbol of all Israeli building on supposedly Arab land. Moshe Dann
points out that when the State shows bias to Jewish Israelis, "when
government officials don't apply the law equitably, the authority of
the state is undermined." His examination is particularly appropriate
when one realizes that Arabs are taking over land and building
illegally with enormous help from the European Union and without a
murmur of disapproval from a cowed Israeli government.
WHY DO PEOPLE CONDEMN HINDU NATIONALISM? THE ANSWER MAY BE CONNECTED TO A DISDAIN FOR ZIONISM
We are accustomed to essays that emphasize the importance of an
Israeli and India connection based on their both being democracies
surrounded by Moslem countries, many of them virulent. Then too, they
both have bent over backwards to the detriment of their majority
population to cater to the minorities. And in both cases, yielding
land to appease the Moslems has failed. In this essay, Seth Frantzman
makes a novel connection: both are by nature nationalist Israel is
the only Jewish country in the world; India is the only Hindu country
in the world. And both are condemned as nationalist Muslim countries
are not.
In an article in the Wall Street Journal, André
Aciman, himself a Jew born in Egypt and one of the 800,000 Jews forced
to flee the Arab countries, leaving behind their houses, factories,
books, art and religious artefacts, said in reference to President
Obama's Cairo speech, "... for him to speak in Cairo of a shared
effort 'to find common ground ... and to respect the dignity of all
human beings' without mentioning people in my position would be like
his speaking to the residents of Berlin about the future of Germany
and forgetting to mention a small detail called World War II."
THE MYTH OF THE MIZRAHIM
"Six hundred thousand Jews flooded into the struggling Jewish state in
the 1950s: penniless Jewish refugees housed in leaky tents with
insufficient food." They were Sephardic Jews, forced to flee Arab
countries, where some of them had lived well before the Arabs came
into the area. Lyn Julius brings us up to date on the integration of
Ashkenazi and Mizrahi in Israel intermarriage is running at 25%.
Thousands are using their knowledge of Arabic by working in Israeli
media and universities, But they retain memories of their unhappy
history: "the oppression of the Jews by Arabs" over the centuries
followwed by the "the destruction of their ancient, pre-Islamic
communities" when they were expelled.
THE JEWISH NAKBA: EXPULSIONS, MASSACRES AND FORCED CONVERSIONS
Everyone knows about the Arab refugees, victims of the Arab-Israeli
war in 1948. Few know about the Jewish refugees, a much greater
number, who fled the Arab states in realistic fear of their lives as
Israel became a state. They left behind large amounts of real estate
and personal property. Ben-Dror Yemini details how
"...the massacres, the pogroms and the great expulsion of the Jews was
a continuation of their suffering under Muslim rule." Contrary to the
rosy picture painted of Muslim and Jewish amity through the ages, from
Mohammad's time, the Jews were second-class citizens, dhimmis
who were expected to show they understood they were inferior to the
Muslim. Included as an addendum is a precis of Yemini's 2-part article
on (1) Arab genocidal attacks on Arabs and other Muslims compared to
Jewish killing of Arabs and other Muslims and (2) the number of
refugees and population transfer this past century globally.
BRENDEL; MISERY HATES COMPANY
Moshe Saperstein comes out with more astute political observations as
asides than most political observers can manage in endless columns. He
is right on target when he describes the self-hating destructive Israeli
intellectual who provides the justification to hate and destroy Israel
for the less verbally talented. And the cats are back. Saperstein
includes a tale he wrote in 1974, when he was still in Rehab, learning
to live with one arm. He has a chance to go to a concert that he knows
he will enjoy, but he isn't quite up to a large crowd of strangers. He
decides to go. The evening turns into a nightmare but Moshe's
description of his misery is magnificant.
We are reassured that the PA state is a dazzling solution that
needs no examination. Create it and as sure as the day follows the
night, peace will come. We owe it to this suffering people, who have
lived under Jewish rule for nigh onto 60 years. Yet if one examines
factually who the Palestinians are and the (non)history of
Palestine, it is surprising that so many people have been persuaded
that there ever was a Palestine and that Israel is occupying
Palestinian land. But the Arabs, using a simple, compelling message,
the image of suffering Arab refugees, lots of money, a supportive
media and the fertile soil of anti-Semitism have done an excellent job
of creating a worldwide urgency to help the po' Palestinian regain his
homeland. So, while the foundation for creating another Arab state is
non-existent, the demand is real. This section examines who the
Palestinians are and what their "homeland" is.
THE ARABS IN THE HOLY LAND NATIVES OR ALIENS?
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