Saturday, April 30, 2011

Universalism’s toxic saccharine

Sarah Honig

If a netherworld truly exists, then its most infamous denizen, one Adolf Hitler, must be rubbing his hands in glee. During his lifetime, when he preoccupied the entire world with his war, he never ceased to proclaim hysterically that his paramount aim was annihilating all Jews. Obsessively he reiterated his resolve to cause all nations to unite in recognition of inborn Jewish villainy.

To some extent he already succeeded among his contemporaries. The Allies never sincerely cared about Jews and never fought for them. They protected their own skins. Europe’s Jews were eventually liberated via the much-belated byproduct of Germany’s defeat. The enormity of the Holocaust could have been lessened, but it was nobody’s priority.

The Allies’ indifference derived from their own Judeophobia, albeit of lower grade than the Nazi variety. Mere months before World War II’s outbreak, when the Holocaust was about to be kick-started, Britain published its notorious White Paper ruling out this country as a viable asylum for refugees from Hitler’s hell. Germany’s Jews were already shorn of citizenship and fleeing, stateless, in all directions. Hitler’s threats were well recorded, shouted in the world’s face and hardly kept secret. The White Paper encompassed all the dubious goodwill the international community could reluctantly muster, lest “changes on the ground” occur that might rile Arabs in and around the Jewish homeland.

Yet the fault wasn’t Britain’s alone. Hitler tauntingly invited all democracies to take his Jews, if they were so fretful about them. He knew that for all their self-righteous rhetoric, these states wouldn’t accept his provocative challenge. After 1938’s Anschluss, their representatives met in Evian-les-Bains, on Lake Geneva’s French shore, to decide what to do with Nazism’s desperate victims, pounding on their gates in search of sanctuary. They never even called them Jews, lest they incur the fuehrer’s wrath.

It turned into a great Jew-rejection fest. Britain bristled at any hint of allowing refugees into Eretz Yisrael, mandated to it to administer as the Jewish National Home. Progenitors of today’s Palestinian terrorists made sure endangered Jews wouldn’t be sheltered, and His Majesty’s government appeasingly assented.

The vast empty spaces of Canada, Australia and New Zealand were likewise off-limits.

The American humanitarianism of Franklin Roosevelt, who unreservedly shared the predispositions of his European counterparts, consisted of tossing the undesirable hot potato into the international arena, because Jews weren’t wanted in the Land of the Free either.

Indeed FDR toyed with the notion of shipping German Jews to Ethiopia or Central Africa. The UK favored the jungles of Venezuela or Central America. Mussolini changed direction northward. Instead of exposing Berlin’s urbane Jews to the rigors of the tropics, he opined that the Siberian arctic might be a preferable hardship.

The competition was on: who’d suggest a more remote and less hospitable exile in which to dump those whom the British Foreign Office shamelessly labeled “unwanted Jews.”

The motivation wasn’t much more beneficent than Hitler’s initial choice of Madagascar.

These were the seeds. Once war erupted, all attempts to rescue Jews were rejected. The Allies couldn’t even be bothered to bomb the railways into Auschwitz or the crematoria therein, though they did drop leaflets at a POW camp nearby.

Maddeningly, if he could peek into our reality today, a gloating Hitler would discern a world which had turned against the Jewish state in almost knee-jerk unison. The sovereign Jewish aggregate is treated like a despised pariah among the nations.

Pro forma none of this bears Third Reich hallmarks. The cynical pretense is that of enlightenment and benevolent antagonism to Nazism. The sappy “universalist” lesson learned from the Holocaust suggests that history’s greatest premeditated crime wasn’t particularized but had something nebulous to do with human nature and hate for nameless “others.”

The identity of both victims and perpetrators has conveniently been scrapped from history – the Jewishness of the six million and the Germanic faces of their murderers. A convenient mythology of German victimhood and lack of culpability is now the prevalent liberal theme. Holocaust atrocities were committed by indeterminate Martians called Nazis. Something bad happened about which nobody knew and for which nobody is blameworthy.

That essentially was the recurrent refrain of Pope Benedict XVI’s frosty homily at Auschwitz-Birkenau in 2006. To hear the Bishop of Rome, no occupied country ever colluded in deporting its Jews, none spawned greedy looters and collaborators, while the occupiers themselves were an alien band of no distinct ethnicity, known generically as Nazis, or, in his words, “a ring of criminals.”

Germany found itself embroiled in the unpleasantness almost incidentally. Gone from public discourse is the fiendish underside of German Jew-revulsion (the very term anti-Semitism was minted in 19th-century Germany). The Judensau (Jew-sow) was, for example, a shocking popular cultural mainstay of German religious and institutional artwork from medieval days and beyond. It’s still proudly exhibited on cathedrals, churches and public structures.

Most notable is the bas relief on the Wittenberg Stadtkirche, where Martin Luther preached. Luther himself commented: “Here on our church in Wittenberg a sow is sculpted in stone. Piglets and Jews lie suckling under her… A rabbi lifts her hind leg, holding her tail high and looking intensely under her tail and into her Talmud, as though reading something acute or extraordinary, which is certainly where they get their ShemHaMphoras [God’s explicit name, shoddily transliterated from the Hebrew].”The inscriptions above the bas relief indeed read: ShemHaMphoras and Rabini.

The roots of the Holocaust are embedded deep in Germany’s psyche and cannot be explained away as mere aversion to foreigners. Analogies to Islamophobia are spurious. Jews resided in Germany from the dawn of its history and were more Germanized than Germans. They were hardly outsiders and certainly not Germany’s enemies.

And yet the past is conveniently shunted aside. At the very most, Jews and Germans are viewed as players inadvertently cast in given roles as the genocide drama unfolded. These roles, we’re told, are eminently interchangeable.

By universalism’s distorted yardstick, bloodstained Germany can under fortuitous circumstances transform into spotless, progressive New Germany, while Jews (whose life-affirming, justice-affirming and peace-affirming ethos is the antithesis of what Germany generated) can become the New Nazis.

This has seeped into Israel’s discourse, too. Political-correctness purveyors make sure we don’t dwell on our fears of falling victim to a new genocide but that we admonish ourselves for being potential New Nazis – vis-à-vis genocidal Arabs, illegal infiltrators and even elderly Holocaust survivors.

Instead of teaching our young not to count on the conscience of other nations, we inculcate in them sensitivity to the demoralizing narratives of those who slander the Jewish collective.

Self-flagellating demagoguery reigns supreme among us, painting ourselves blacker than black, while absolving our enemies of any sin (foremost the inimical descendants of Nazism’s avid Arab collaborators).

If Holocaust Remembrance Day obliges us to anything, it is to see the Holocaust again through Jewish eyes and resist universalism’s toxic saccharine. Otherwise, Hitler will have won. Syrupy sanctimony demonizes our national revival and simultaneously dulls our vigilance in the face of threats from Hitler’s Islamic torchbearers.

Note: The American people are standing by us and so are others. Thank you.

The PLO’s game plan revealed: Why the Hamas/Fatah agreement is a sham


Eldad Tzioni

The entire impetus for the Fatah-Hamas “unity” agreement is the September attempt to get “Palestine” to be internationally recognized at the UN.

And today Fatah freely admits it:

Senior Fatah official Tawfiq Tirawi said Thursday that the Fatah-Hamas reconciliation will promote Palestinian interests ahead of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ planned statehood bid in September, making it “more important than peace with Israel.”

“We want this reconciliation to arrive at the UN General Assembly united. Appealing to the United Nations will be done with the support of all Palestinian factions and all the nations that have recognized a Palestinian state until now.”

Fatah and Hamas hate each other and have no desire to cede their respective power. They will keep things together just long enough for September and their hoped-for international recognition. This is exactly what they have done in the past. And here is how the PA is planning to incorporate Hamas while pretending that “Palestine” accepts Israel’s right to exist:

Tirawi dismissed concerns voiced over the possibility that a future Palestinian government with Hamas in it will refuse to negotiate with Israel, saying that the Palestinian government will have “no say” in such peace talks, since “the only body allowed to negotiate with Israel on behalf of the Palestinian people is the PLO.”

So this is the game:

The PLO is the party that negotiates with Israel, and the party that officially recognizes Israel.

The PA is only responsible for governing the Arabs in the territories, not with any foreign relations.

The PA, despite claims of being democratic, reports to the PLO.

The fake Hamas/Fatah reconciliation is meant to only address the PA, not the PLO. They won’t hold any elections until after September, if ever.

So the PLO will claim to still recognize Israel and be peaceful, as it will claim that from its perspective nothing has changed.

The instant that Palestine is declared a state that is recognized by the world, in part because of these assurances that it is a peaceful state that recognizes Israel, Hamas and Fatah (and all the other terrorist parties that decide to join the government) will immediately take over the PLO’s foreign affairs, as that is what nations do. The PLO’s foreign affairs role will be superseded by “Palestine.”

Which means that the very minute that Palestine is recognized as a state, it will be by definition a terror state that no longer recognizes Israel! And indeed it will not need to. The entire peace process since Oslo has been a sham in order to gain territory, with peace being a tactic, not a strategy.

Hamas will insist that “Palestine”‘s foreign policy adhere to minimal Hamas demands, which is pretty much to insist that all of Israel is occupied territory–a position that the PA and PLO wholly agree with even if they will not say it in English. Their maps and logos show it to be true.

So instead of helping peace, this “unity” agreement is a recipe for prolonging and accelerating a six-decade war between the Arab world and Israel. A new “Palestine” would not help solve any of the real issues–like Jerusalem, “refugees,” water, Gilad Shalit, incitement to terror, actual terrorism. Hamas’ inclusion ensures that it will not be a peaceful state.

Will the West wake up in time to stop this recipe for disaster?

Liars vs Racists

Daniel Greenfield

The combination of Trump, Obama and the media insured that this week's story would be the birth certificate issue. Even though there isn't much of a story there. The birth certificate has been part of the much larger underlying issue which is the lack of transparency by the Obama Administration in even the simplest things. And that may not be a resolvable issue anymore.

It's not just that Obama has lied too many times. Most politicians lie or stretch the truth or hold back information. The problem is that the media and too many institutions have been willing to lie for him. Take a simple story like Obama Sr's time at Harvard.

The Arizona Independent filed a Freedom of Information Request and turned up INS records that showed Harvard thought Obama Sr was a "slippery character" and wanted him gone. But Harvard today claims their records don't support any such thing. So whom are you going to believe, period government records or the spokesman for Harvard University? This problem repeats itself over and over again. Not only do negative stories on Obama's background not get reported, but people in high positions continue to cover for him. The contents of Sarah Palin's personal email account were sprawled over the internet-- but the LA Times won't release Obama's Rashid Khalidi tape. Yet is there a single person who honestly believes that if the Khalidi tape starred McCain, that it wouldn't have been out there and on Page 1 of every major newspaper? Or if John McCain had attended a violently racist church or Cindy McCain had a photo op with David Duke's wife that these wouldn't have equally been Page 1 stories?

The perfect storm of Obama's stonewalling and an establishment willing to cover up and lie for him, means that people legitimately distrust anything that comes out of his mouth or the media. In such an environment, a culture of conspiracy theories may be wrong, but not irrational. And it also means that there's no real way to prove or disprove anything anymore.

Is it irrational to believe that the media would like to us about major documents that are a factor in a presidential race? It should be. But in the 2004 election, the highest profile news program around presented a document indicting Bush for draft dodging that turned out to have been written in Microsoft Word.

Media talking heads complain that the internet has proliferated conspiracy theories so that there is no longer a consensus on what's true and what isn't. But who do you blame for that, except a media which has been willing to sell lies in order to achieve political victories. This is no longer just about the big lies, like Walter Duranty insisting that Soviet Russia was a happy worker's utopia, it's even about the most ordinary things. Like a birth certificate. The liberal establishment has completely discredited itself. And with liberal ideologues controlling most of the media, a rational consensus can no longer hold up.

A consensus only works if we agree on some things. We can disagree on taxes and stop signs. But we don't disagree that blatant lies are wrong and that politicians from all parties should be equally subject to scrutiny. Except we don't agree on that anymore. Instead we agree that you'll lie like crazy and we won't believe a word that comes out of your mouths. What's truth? Nobody knows anymore.

What is really disturbing about the birth certificate issue is that Obama never took it seriously as an obligation. Instead he threw it out to counter an opposing candidate who was rising in the polls. And the media narrative is that this is a shameful\triumphant event that humiliates\uplifts Obama. No it doesn't make any sense. But when you lie all the time, you stop noticing when your news reports follow contradictory, but useful narratives.

Obama has become an event horizon beyond which truth no longer seems to exist anymore. The birth certificate release no longer has any real meaning. It's always possible to find more 'questions' to ask about it. There's no objective way to finalize the issue, because the consensus has broken down.

The left's unprecedented corruption of government and the media which could have played a watchdog role, means that those institutions can no longer serve as watchdogs, only propagandists.

When you can no longer trust institutions, then you either drink the kool aid or refuse to drink anything at all. The question isn't are they lying, it's how much are they lying. And when you're dealing with that kind of framework, to 'trust' you have to argue that they would lie X amount, but not Y amount. Because lying Y amount would be just crazy. Right?

The left is free to believe that asking for Obama's birth certificate is racist. And plenty on the right will believe that the birth certificate is fake. The Racists vs Liars debate of narratives has been going on for a while now and it transcends the birth certificate. It's the larger story here. The zero sum struggle. And it's only going to get uglier.

Are we in a recovery or an economic disaster? If you believe the liars, we're in a recovery. And the only people denying it hate socialism, which as we all know is code, for race. Is Global Warming a serious problem? The liars say yes and that anyone who disagree is a racist who hates the Third World countries that are suffering from GW. Is ObamaCare... well you get the drill. Ground Zero Mosque, yep. Big government. You know it.

If you agree with Obama, you're a liar. And if you disagree with him, you're a racist. It's useless to conduct a political debate under these conditions.

This level of divisiveness is less about Obama, and more about the way the left has used institutions under its control to promote him and silence his critics. And there's a price to pay for that. Constant propaganda works. And it doesn't. You end up with two types of people. One type who believes everything the authorities say. The other who wouldn't believe them if they said the sun was shining.

The media was meant to be a forum, instead it's become a propaganda megaphone. And the alternative is a crowdsourced media. Which is exactly what we have on the internet. Crowdsourced media means more mistakes, but it still beats a one note media apparatus which spends all day blaring OBAMA IS GREAT LOOK HOW GREAT OBAMA IS ISN'T HE GREAT THE ONLY PEOPLE WHO DON'T LIKE HIM ARE RACISTS. Of course conspiracy theories flourish in such an environment. How could they not. And how do you disprove them when is no longer a consensus on much of anything anymore.

The media talking heads like to solemnly blame the internet for this chain of events, but the internet is an outlet. It's their lies that have gotten us here.

But let's turn to Trump for the moment...

Obama and Trump are now feeding off each other in a successful political relationship. Establishment Republicans are infuriated that Trump continues to drive the narrative. Grass roots enjoy someone landing a few populist punches on the big zero. If the establishment outlets work hard enough, they may convince the grass roots to pull back. Or it may backfire on them.

Trump polls badly in a national election, no matter how well he polls in GOP primaries. Which means he's not a viable candidate. Not unless he can change that soon. But in light of Walter Russell Meade pegging Obama as the bet hedger, Trump is the gambler. Or at least appears that way.

But Trump's biggest advantage is the lack of viable candidates in the field. Go and look around. There are few conservative bloggers or writers who are really 100 percent enthusiastic about any candidate. Instead you'll see smears of one candidate or another percolating.

Romney is a liberal. Huckabee is a slimeball. Gingrich is a lobbyist (whether or not we should have ethanol subsidies, they're certainly cheaper than fighting three wars fueled by oil money.) On and on. Is it any wonder that few are paying attention to Trump being labeled a "carnival barker" (the barkers object by the way). We have a large group of not very likable candidates tearing each other down. They front runners are all establishment candidates, all more liberal than their grass roots and all dull. If things go on this way. Then we will lose.

Trump's entry, whether he's serious about running or not, is shaking up the race. And that's a good thing. This race needs shaking up, before we stumble through a series of dull primaries, in which the front runner with the most money and the least objectionable personality makes it through the gate.

Let's remember that the Republicans didn't turn the tide by being nice, but by being loud and in your face. I'm not suggesting that Romney or Pawlenty get up and start cursing, but some populism wouldn't hurt. It might even make them a little popular beyond the people bussed in to support them.

Obama's message is... well he doesn't really have one anymore. Trump's message is, I'm going to make America great again with common sense smackdowns. What's the message of the Republican front runners? Boiled down, it's "We're the adults in the room, so let us clean up this mess." It's a serious message. But not a very exciting one.

Right now no one looks good. And we're wasting time. Trump has been an unexpected splash of cold water. A warning to the front runners to step up their game. It's not really about the viability of Trump as a candidate, but the viability of his approach.

Moving onward,

The Cult of Global Warming is blaming tornadoes on global warming and Think Progress is ghoulishly claiming that the states which were hardest hit are to blame for not endorsing global warming.

As we all know tornadoes were invented in the time of Al Gore and severe storms did not exist prior to Time Magazine covers on the environment. Which fits since the deadliest tornado ever killed 1,300 people in Bangladesh in 1986. It is unknown whether the dead paid homage to the Global Warming fairy or not.

After the Jerusalem bus bombing by Muslim terrorists, Think Progress attacked AIPAC for sending out a fundraising email mentioning the attack calling it crass and saying, "It’s disgraceful that AIPAC’s first response to this tragedy is to try and monetize it."

And now Think Progress' first response to the tragedy is to exploit it by attacking the states hardest hit by a natural disaster. Crass? Nah. Progressive. That's more like it.

Speaking of Israel, Fatah and Hamas have kissed and made up for now. Is Israel supposed to negotiate with an entity that refuses to recognize it and calls for its destruction? Probably. This may be a case of Hamas saving Israel from itself by aborting whatever concessions Netanyahu was going to propose. But Abbas and Obama and the EU will still try to have their cake and eat it too. Even Peres knows this is crazy. But these days Peres looks less crazy than his European counterparts.

Of course the diplos and the media are thrilled to death by the whole thing. Hamas is saying no more peace talks. Fatah is saying maybe more peace talks will happen. So the unity thing is off to a great start.

Ma'an, the PA's own paper, calls the agreement a new revolution. But against whom?

The Christian Science Monitor says that the agreement is the result of the Arab Spring and those imaginary Hamas moderates who can dance infinitely on the head of a pin. The entire piece written by the Monitor's editorial board is such a piece of deranged kool aid snorting lunacy that it's almost impossible to read through without laughing.

What will Arabs demanding liberty eventually do with the liberty-denying Islamists in their countries?


Arabs aren't demanding liberty, they're demanding populism. Which is not the same thing. At all.

In postrevolution Egypt, for example, leaders are trying to work with any democracy-loving member of the Muslim Brotherhood they can trust.


Liberty-denying, democracy-loving? This reads like bad Maureen Dowd. What leaders are these anyway? Egypt's political future is dominated by insiders like Moussa and the Brotherhood. Not the Twitter activists.

On top of that democracy and liberty are not necessarily the same thing. Not in a country where most don't believe Christians should have equal rights.

But then there is Hamas.

The extremist Palestinian Muslim group has ruled the tiny Gaza Strip with an iron fist since 2007. It still often rains rockets down on Israeli civilians, earning it a US label as a terrorist group.


Those "extremists" won an election which means they have the support of the majority of Palestinian Arab Muslims.

Egypt, which allows the only border access for Gazans, has clearly chosen democracy. Syria, which supports Hamas by providing exile to some leaders, appears on the verge of revolution.


Egypt has chosen the Muslim Brotherhood, which is Hamas' daddy. Syria has yet to be overthrown. But Hamas' real backers are in Iran and Saudi Arabia anyway. Neither of which seem to be going anywhere.

This public pressure helps explain the surprise deal reached Wednesday by Hamas and Fatah. The tentative reconciliation pact, brokered by Egypt and scheduled to be formally signed May 4, aims to set up an interim government of independent technocrats that would hold presidential and parliamentary elections by the end of the year.


Actually what explains it is that the PA wants to unilaterally declare a state.

If the accord holds – and that’s a big if, given the failure of two similar deals since 2007 – it might allow Palestinians to again speak as one.


The Monitor's editors are clearly aware that unity agreements are not a new phenomenon, yet they insist on pretending that this one sprung from the head of the mythical deity known as the Arab Spring.

But for Abbas, an alliance with a Hamas that still doesn’t renounce violence and doesn’t recognize Israel’s right to exist would probably result in the United States cutting off millions in foreign aid and retaliatory moves by Israel.


Why would it when Abbas hasn't renounced violence either and US money already goes to terrorists who murder Israelis? Remind me when Barghouti, the favorite of two administrations, renounced violence.

His only hope is that the moderates within Hamas – sensitive to young Palestinians yearning for unity, freedom, and jobs – gain the upper hand against hard-line extremists. Otherwise, Palestinian unity will be elusive.


This reads like it was written in candy syrup. Hamas has no moderates in the sense that they want peace. There are tactical differences and those are marginal. And no one in Hamas wants freedom in the Western sense.


Obama has kept an open hand to Islamists in many conflicts, hoping to turn them away from anti-democratic jihadism. He’s not ruled out talks with Taliban factions in Afghanistan. He tried but failed to hold talks with Iran. And he’s still sorting out which detainees at Guantánamo should be tried and which can be rehabilitated.

In that sort of open-mindedness, he is not like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who prefers a divided Palestinian people in order to keep them weak.


Right. Because Israel should endorse 'unity' with a genocidal terrorist organization whose charter reads like Mein Kampf.

Is Hamas capable of reform? The uprisings for democracy in the Middle East remain a powerful force against Islamists like the leaders of Hamas.


Huh? The uprisings have actually empowered the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamists in Tunisia and Libya.

And Hamas cannot really stand in the way of an independent Palestine being accepted by the United Nations.


It doesn't need to. It just needs to wait till it gains international recognition and then take it over.

Rowan Dean at the Australian has a better solution

Here's my plan. We get each of the main players to do a proper ad campaign, selling the benefits of living in their countries to each other. Iran, Libya, Saudi Arabia, the Palestinians - Hamas and Fatah will have to do separate campaigns - Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Oman, Iraq, Kuwait and, of course, Israel will all take part. I bags working on the Israel account.

Here's how it works. Every country runs a series of full-page print ads, backed up by television commercials, radio spots, websites and letter drops - in other words, a fully integrated campaign - throughout the Middle East. The point of the ad campaigns is to get people to fill in the coupon at the bottom of the page or, if they want, to apply online to come and live in whichever country they choose, based solely on the ads.

Anyone can live in any country they want to, but they can pick only one destination and there is no changing your mind. Once you've chosen, that's it. That's your new life.


Let's go for it.


Meanwhile Egypt will open the Rafah crossing, which means that any attempt to block Hamas has all but failed. On the flip side that means Hamas becomes Egypt's problem.The attack on the gas line appears to have come from Fatah or Hamas terrorists. Israel now has every right to sever all connections with Gaza and treat it like the Egyptian province it was from 1948 to 1967. If Egypt wants to buddy up with Hamas, then it had better be ready to take ownership of it too.

Finally some Reform Jews are standing up to the selection of left wing extremist Rick Jacobs to head the Reform movement. The anti-Israel left has made far too many organizational inroads in the last decade. It's important for members of Reform congregations to make their voices heard on this issue.

If Reform elects a leader who supports boycotts and hate campaigns against the Jewish state, then there will be a fundamental breach. It's no different than the NAACP selecting a Klansman to lead them. The fix is no doubt in, but enough voices raised in protest may still be able to make a difference.

Syria: Muslim Brotherhood behind new "Day of Rage"

Jihad Watch

“You were born free so don’t let a tyrant enslave you.” Yes. Instead, let Sharia enslave you.

"Muslim Brotherhood Behind Syria‘s New ’Day of Rage,’" by Jonathon M. Seidl for AP, April 29 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

BEIRUT (AP) — The banned Muslim Brotherhood urged Syrians to take to the streets on Friday as activists called for a “Day of Rage” against President Bashar Assad’s regime, which has stepped up its deadly crackdown on protesters by unleashing the army along with snipers and tanks.

The government warned against holding any demonstrations. Syrian state television said the Interior Ministry has not approved any “march, demonstration or sit-in” and that such rallies seek only to harm Syria’s security and stability. Activists in Syria are planning nationwide protests following Muslim prayers in solidarity with more than 50 people killed in the last week alone in Daraa, a southern city at the heart of the revolt.

Since the uprising in Syria began in mid-March, inspired by revolts across the Arab world, more than 450 people have been killed nationwide, activists say.

Friday’s statement by the Muslim Brotherhood was the first time the outlawed group has openly encouraged the protests in Syria. The Brotherhood was crushed by Assad’s father, Hafez, after staging an uprising against his regime in 1982.

“You were born free so don’t let a tyrant enslave you,” said the statement, issued by the Brotherhood’s exiled leadership....

The Palestinian Authority (PA) is genocidal!

April 30, 2011
By Nurit Greenger

By joining in unity with Hamas, the Arabs of the Palestinian Authority now have a state; it is called Gaza!

"Politically Correct" or, "Political Correctness" is a marvel addition to the 20th century's common lexicon. When speaking, or writing, under the guise of these two words, one simply replaces the word LIE, or one camouflages the truth.
For 20 years the Palestinian Authority (PA) has managed, successfully, to lie along political correctness, in its claim they are "moderate" and mean peace while, in fact, they are genocidal
Since the PA have joined in unity with Hamas, its charter calls for the destruction of the State of Israel, they have forfeited the use of the two words 'politically correct / political correctness' and are now telling us the truth. They are letting the world know that they are not moderate, rather, genocidal, just like Hamas, and their goal is the same, which is to eliminate the Jewish State of Israel. Nothing has changed, they tell the world, only that we have forgone the lies and we now tell the truth.

For 20 years the world ignored that the Arabs of the Palestinian Authority teach and preach that Jews must be killed, that Israel must be eliminated, which simply means Jews must be killed, and they honor and adulate terrorists, which, again, means Jews must be killed.

Once we learn to use the term "ideology of Islamic supremacy" we will all be very liberated from political correctness. Then one can use this term to:
Bash the Arabs, calling themselves "Palestinians" and all other Islamists,
Getting everyone to agree to DESTROY Iran's nuclear weapons program, from the air, AND all its strike back capabilities.

The Islamic ideology of supremacy is no different from the supremacist ideology of the Nazis, the Japanese fascism, Communism, the Ku Klux Klan and the like, all pose a threat to ALL free people, everywhere.

Now that the PA have showed their true colors we can relax, we do not need to pretend they are "moderates" and can really go to town on this, to undo our mistakes of being politically correct thus, going along with their lies, rather than sticking to the truth we have known, but ignores, all along.

When the first intifada - 1987 – 1993 - took the lives of the first bunch of Jews, all attempts to make peace with terrorists should have been put on hold and reconsidered, until the genocidal ideology was replaced, if ever.

The time has come to tell the truth. All of Israel's leaders, from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Cabinet, to Ron Prosor, Israel's ambassador to the UN, Michael Oren, Israel's Ambassador to the United States, Uzi Arad, Israel's Ambassador to Britain, AIPAC Executives, Howard Kohr, Executive Director and Richard Fishman, Managing Director, and the honest and of moral compass Western leaders, such as the European Union, must, unanimously, say, we have had enough of the lies and the games you have played for many years; no more talks, no more money, until the eliminationist, genocidal ideology is FULLY REPLACED. Just dropping "ending incitement" is no longer good enough and is unacceptable.

The genocidal ideology must be replaced with the ideology of ecumenism, that every man and every woman is created equal, irrespective of race, religion and sexual orientation and real, not faux, history must be taught that Israel has been the homeland of the Jewish People, and Jerusalem its capitol for 3000 years, 2000 years before the advent of Islam.

Once that has been achieved, we can "chat" again.
So how is one to say, in a politically correct way that the Palestinian Authority (PA) is genocidal?
***
הרשות הפלסטינית (רש"פ) דוגלת ברצח עם
ניסן 25 5771 – אפריל 29 2011
נורית גרינגר
באיחודם עם חמאס, לערביי הרשות הפלסטינית יש עכשיו מדינה, קוראים לה עזה!
"תקינות פוליטית" היא מילת הפלא שנוספה ללקסיקון העממי של המאה ה-20. כשמדברים או כותבים תחת מסווה של שתי מלים אלה, אחד פשוט מחליף את המילה שקר, או אחד מסווה את האמת.
במשך 20 שנה הרשות הפלסטינית (רש"פ), לאורך תקינות פוליטית, שיקרה, בהצלחה, בתביעתה שחבריה הם "מתונים" ושוחרים שלום בעוד שהם, למעשה, מצדדים ברצח עם.
מאחר שהרשות הפלסטינית התאחדה עם החמאס, שאמנתו קוראת להשמדת מדינת ישראל, הם ויתרו על השימוש במילות של תקינות פוליטית והם עכשיו אומרים את האמת. הם נותנים לעולם לדעת כי הם לא מתונים, אלא דוגלים ברצח עם, בדיוק כמו חמאס, והמטרה שלהם היא זהה, שהיא לחסל את מדינת ישראל היהודית. שום דבר לא השתנה, הם אומרים לעולם, רק שוותרנו על השקרים ועכשיו אנחנו אומרים את האמת.
במשך 20 שנה העולם התעלם מכך שערביי הרשות הפלסטינית מלמדים ומטיפים שזוהי מחויבות להרוג יהודים, כי צריך להרוס את ישראל, שפשוטו אומר שצריך להרוג יהודים, והם מכבדים ונושאים על כפיים טרוריסטים כלומר, חובה להרוג יהודים.
ברגע שנלמד להשתמש במונח "האידיאולוגיה של עליונות האסלאם" כולנו ננשום לרווחה ונשתחרר מהתקינות הפוליטית. ואז אפשר יהיה להשתמש במונח זה כדי:
לחבוט ולהביס את הערבים, המכנים את עצמם "פלסטינים" וכל אסלאמיסטים אחרים.
להביא את כולם להסכים להרוס, מהאוויר, את תוכנית הנשק הגרעיני של איראן ואת כל היכולת של אירן להשיב במתקפה.
האידיאולוגיה האסלאמית של עליונות אינה שונה מאידיאולוגית העליונות של הנאצים, הפאשיזם היפני, קומוניזם, הקו קלוקס קלן וכדומה, כולם מהווים איום על כל האנשים החופשיים, בכל מקום שהוא.
עכשיו שחברי הרשות הפלסטינית הראו את הצבעים האמיתיים שלהם, אנחנו יכולים להירגע, אנחנו לא צריכים יותר להעמיד פנים שהם "מתונים" ונוכל, במרץ, לבטל את טעויות התקינות הפוליטית שלנו שלפיהן היסכמנו לקבל את השקרים שלהם, במקום לדבוק באמת שלה היינו מודעים, אך ממנה התעלמנו לאורך כל הדרך.
כשהאינתיפאדה הראשונה - 1987 - 1993 - לקחה את חייהם של קבוצת היהודים הראשונה, הינו צריכים לבדוק מחדש ולשים בהמתנה את כל הניסיונות להגיע להסכם שלום עם טרוריסטים, עד שאידיאולוגית רצח עם שלהם הוחלפה, אם בכלל.
הגיע הזמן לומר את האמת. כל מנהיגי ישראל, החל מראש הממשלה בנימין נתניהו וממשלתו, רון פרושאור, שגריר ישראל באו"ם, מייקל אורן, שגריר ישראל בארצות הברית, עוזי ארד, שגריר ישראל בבריטניה, מנהיגי איפא"ק, הווארד קור, מנכ"ל ראשי וריצ'רד פישמן, מנכ"ל, ומנהיגי המערב הכנים ובעלי מצפון מוסרי, כגון האיחוד האירופי, חייבים, בפה אחד, לומר, מספיק ודי מהשקרים והמשחקים ששיחקתם במשך שנים רבות; אין יותר דיבורים, אין יותר כסף בשבילכם, עד שאידיאולוגית חיסול עם הוחלפה לחלוטין. רק להכריז על "הפסקת ההסתה" כבר לא טוב, לא מספיק ולא מקובל יותר.
חייבים להחליף את האידיאולוגיה לרצח עם באידיאולוגיה של שיויון שכל גבר ואישה נולדו שווים בלי הבדלי גזע, דת ונטייה מינית וללמד את ההיסטוריה אמיתית, לא המזויפת, כי ישראל היתה המולדת של העם היהודי, וירושלים בירתה, במשך יותר מ- 3000 שנה, 2000 שנה לפני הופעת האסלאם.
ברגע שזה יושג, אנחנו יכולים "לשוחח" שוב.
אז איך אפשד לומר, בצורה פוליטית תקינה, כי הרשות הפלסטינית (רש"פ) דוגלת ברצח עם?



U.S. Government, Media Completely Wrong on Egypt, Now Advise on Peace Process

Barry Rubin

One of my readers points out that last February I mockingly quoted the New York Times’ assurances that everything would be all right with Egypt’s revolution:

The New York Times piece … answers Israeli concerns with a “reassuring” response:

“Arab analysts counter that new Arab realities and democracies should be welcomed by Israel, because the new Arab generation shares many of the same values as Israel and the West. [That remains to be seen, doesn't it? BR] They argue that there is no support among Egypt’s leaders for the abrogation of the 1979 peace treaty, though it is unpopular with the public, and that the Egyptian Army will not disrupt foreign policy.”

Note that while in this paragraph the newspaper was quoting “Arab analysts,” this was precisely the line the newspaper was taking. Before Mubarak fell, none of the concerns about the revolution were even reported seriously. After it took place, they still sneered at these warnings.Now — without a single mass media outlet admitting that they were wrong — the Times runs pieces like this:

Egypt is charting a new course in its foreign policy that has already begun shaking up the established order in the Middle East, planning to open the blockaded border with Gaza and normalizing relations with two of Israel and the West’s Islamist foes, Hamas and Iran.

And one has to add to that the attacks on the natural gas pipeline that supplies 40 percent of Israel’s needs, and the Pew poll showing hostility to the United States and majority support and presidential candidates for throwing away the peace treaty with Israel. Indeed, there was even a protest by social network types urging the peace treaty be ended:

If Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas moves forward with the reconciliation with the Islamic Hamas movement, it will mean he has written off the Obama administration and the peace process it has tried to broker, once and for all.

One cannot sue the media for malpractice. But most of these same newspapers daily urge Israel to make more unilateral concessions and take risks. They have no awareness of how this situation fits perfectly with the question of Israel-Palestinian negotiations.

Here’s what the Times and other media might say as a Palestinian state was being created:

Arab analysts counter Israeli concerns that a new Palestinian state should be welcomed by Israel, because now the Palestinians will settle down to developing democracy and their economy. They argue that there is no support among Palestine’s leaders for discontinuing the peace treaty with Israel, though it is unpopular with the public, and that the Palestinian security forces will not disrupt foreign policy.

And then two months later:

Palestine is charting a new course in its foreign policy that has already begun shaking up the established order in the Middle East, planning to let Palestinian groups cross the border with Israel to launch attacks, stepping up anti-Israel propaganda, and normalizing relations with two of Israel and the West’s Islamist foes, Hamas and Iran.

What then would President Barack Obama and the European Union, and the academics, and experts, and media say then? Sorry about that? Why did you listen to us? No, they wouldn’t say that.

Netanyahu's time to choose

CAROLINE B. GLICK
04/29/2011 16:19

The time has come for the vast majority of Israelis who aren’t interested in the Nobel Prize for Literature or a sabbatical at Berkeley or the University of Trondheim to call a spade a spade.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s response to the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority’s peace deal with Hamas would be funny if it weren’t tragic. Immediately after the news broke of the deal Netanyahu announced, “The PA must choose either peace with Israel or peace with Hamas. There is no possibility for peace with both.”

Netanyahu’s statement is funny because it is completely absurd. The PA has chosen. The PA made the choice in 2000 when it rejected Israel’s offer of peace and Palestinian statehood and joined forces with Hamas to wage a terror war against Israel.

The PA made the choice in 2005 again when it responded to Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza with a tenfold increase in the number of rockets and missiles it fired on Israeli civilian targets in the Negev.

The Palestinians made the choice in 2006, when they elected Hamas to rule over them.

They made the choice in March 2007 when Fatah and Hamas signed their first unity deal.

The PA made the choice in 2008 when Abbas rejected then-prime minister Ehud Olmert’s offer of statehood and peace.

The PA made the choice in 2010 when it refused to reinstate peace negotiations with Netanyahu; began peace negotiations with Hamas; and escalated its plan to establish an independent state without peace with Israel.

Now the PA has again made the choice by signing the newest peace deal with Hamas.

IN A real sense, Netanyahu’s call for the PA to choose is the political equivalent of a man telling his wife she must choose between him and her lover, after she has left home, shacked up and had five children with her new man.

It is a pathetic joke.

But worse than a pathetic joke, it is a national tragedy. It is a tragedy that after more than a decade of the PA choosing war with Israel and peace with Hamas, Israel’s leaders are still incapable of accepting reality and walking away. It is a tragedy that Israel’s leaders cannot find the courage to say the joke of the peace process is really a deadly serious war process whose end is Israel’s destruction, and that Israel is done with playing along.

There are many reasons that Netanyahu is incapable of stating the truth and ending the 18- year policy nightmare in which Israel is an active partner in its own demise. One of the main reasons is that like his predecessors, Netanyahu has come to believe the myth that Israel’s international standing is totally dependent on its being perceived as trying to make peace with the Palestinians.

According to this myth – which has been the central pillar of Israel’s foreign policy and domestic politics since Yitzhak Rabin first accepted the PLO as a legitimate actor in 1993 – it doesn’t matter how obvious it is that the Palestinians are uninterested in peaceful coexistence with Israel.

It doesn’t matter how openly they wage their war to destroy Israel. Irrespective of the nakedness of Palestinian bad faith, seven successive governments have adopted the view that the only thing that stands between Israel and international pariah status is its leaders’ ability to persuade the so-called international community that Israel is serious about appeasing the Palestinians.

For the past several months, this profoundly neurotic perception of Israel’s options has fed our leaders’ hysterical response to the Palestinians’ plan to unilaterally declare independence.

The Palestinian plan itself discredits the idea that they are interested in anything other than destroying Israel. The plan is to get the UN to recognize a Palestinian state in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and Gaza outside the framework of a peace treaty with Israel. The PA will first attempt to get the Security Council to endorse an independent “Palestine.” If the Obama administration vetoes the move, then the PA will ask the General Assembly to take action. Given the makeup of the General Assembly, it is all but certain that the Palestinians will get their resolution.

THE QUESTION is, does this matter? Everyone from Defense Minister Ehud Barak to hard-left, post-Zionist retreads like Shulamit Aloni and Avrum Burg says it does. They tell us that if this passes, Israel will face international opprobrium if its citizens or military personnel so much as breathe in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem without Palestinian permission.

These prophets of doom warn that Israel has but one hope for saving itself from diplomatic death: Netanyahu must stand before the world and pledge to give Israel’s heartland and capital to the Palestinians.

And according to helpful Obama administration officials, everything revolves around Netanyahu’s ability to convince the EU-3 – British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel – that he is serious about appeasing the Palestinians. If he doesn’t offer up Israel’s crown jewels in his speech before the US Congress next month, administration officials warn that the EU powers will go with the Palestinians.

And if they go with the Palestinians, well, things could get ugly for Israel.

Happily, these warnings are completely ridiculous. UN General Assembly resolutions have no legal weight. Even if every General Assembly member except Israel votes in favor of a resolution recognizing “Palestine,” all the Palestinians will have achieved is another non-binding resolution, with no force of law, asserting the same thing that thousands of UN resolutions already assert. Namely, it will claim falsely that Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and Gaza are Palestinian territory to which Israel has no right. Israel will be free to ignore this resolution, just as it has been free to ignore its predecessors.

The threat of international isolation is also wildly exaggerated. Today, Israel is more diplomatically isolated than it has been at any time in its 63-year history. With the Obama administration treating the construction of homes for Jews in Jerusalem as a greater affront to the cause of world peace than the wholesale massacre of hundreds of Iranian and Syrian protesters by regime goons, Israel has never faced a more hostile international climate. And yet, despite its frosty reception from the White House to Whitehall, life in Israel has never been better.

According to the latest data released by the Central Bureau of Statistics, Israel’s economy grew 7.8 percent in the last quarter of 2010.

International trade is rising steeply. In the first quarter of 2011, exports rose 27.3%. They grew 19.9% in the final quarter of last year. Imports rose 34.7% between January and March, and 38.9% in the last quarter of 2010.

The Israel-bashing EU remains Israel’s largest trading partner. And even as Turkey embraced Hamas and Iran as allies, its trade with Israel reached an all time high last year.

These trade data expose a truth that the doom and gloomers are unwilling to notice: For the vast majority of Israelis the threat of international isolation is empty.

The same people telling us to commit suicide now lest we face the firing squad in September would also have us believe that the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement is the single greatest threat to the economy. But that lie was put paid this month with the demise of the Australian town of Marrickville’s BDS-inspired boycott.

Last December, the anti-Israel coalition running the town council voted to institute a trade, sports and academic boycott against Israel. Two weeks ago the council was forced to cancel its decision after it learned that it would cost $3.4 million to institute it. Cheaper Israeli products and services would have to be replaced with more expensive non-Israeli ones.

Both Israel’s booming foreign trade and the swift demise of the Marrickville boycott movement demonstrate that the specter of international isolation in the event that Israel extricates itself from the Palestinian peace process charade is nothing more than a bluff. The notion that Israel will be worse off it Netanyahu admits that Abbas has again chosen war against the Jews over peace with us has no credibility.

SO WHAT is preventing Netanyahu and his colleagues in the government from acknowledging this happy truth? Two factors are at play here. The first is our inability to understand power politics. Our leaders believe that the likes of Sarkozy, Cameron and Merkel are serious when they tell us that Israel needs to prove it is serious about peace in order to enable them to vote against a Palestinian statehood resolution at the UN. But they are not serious. Nothing that Israel does will have any impact on their votes.

When the Europeans forge their policies towards Israel they are moved by one thing only: the US.

Since 1967, the Europeans have consistently been more pro-Palestinian than the US. Now, with the Obama administration demonstrating unprecedented hostility towards Israel, there is no way that the Europeans will suddenly shift to Israel’s side. So when European leaders tell Israelis that we need to convince them we are serious about peace, they aren’t being serious. They are looking for an excuse to be even more hostile. If Israel offers the store to Abbas, then the likes of Cameron, Merkel and Sarkozy will not only recognize “Palestine” at the UN, (because after all, they cannot be expected to be more pro-Israel than the Israeli government that just surrendered), they will recognize Hamas. Because that’s the next step.

It would seem that Israel’s leaders should have gotten wise to this game years ago. And the fact that they haven’t can be blamed on the second factor keeping their sanity in check: the Israeli Left. The only group of Israelis directly impacted by the BDS movement is the Israeli Left. Its members – from university lecturers to anti-Zionist has-been politicians, artists, actors and hack writers – are the only members of Israeli society who have a personal stake in a decision by their leftist counterparts in the US or Europe or Australia or any other pretty vacation/sabbatical spots to boycott Israelis.

And because the movement threatens them, they have taken it upon themselves to scare the rest of us into taking this ridiculous charade seriously. So it was that last week a group of washed-up radicals gathered in Tel Aviv outside the hall where David Ben-Gurion proclaimed Israeli independence, and declared the independence of “Palestine.” They knew their followers in the media would make a big deal of their agitprop and use it as another means of demoralizing the public into believing we can do nothing but embrace our enemies’ cause against our country.

The time has come for the vast majority of Israelis who aren’t interested in the Nobel Prize for Literature or a sabbatical at Berkeley or the University of Trondheim to call a spade a spade. The BDS haters have no leverage. A degree from Bar-Ilan is more valuable than a degree from Oxford. And no matter how much these people hate Israel, they will continue to buy our technologies and contract our researchers, because Cambridge is no longer capable of producing the same quality of scholarship as the Technion.

And it is well past time for our leaders to stop playing this fool’s game. We don’t need anyone’s favors. Abbas has made his choice.

Now it is time for Netanyahu to choose.

caroline@carolineglick.com

Friday, April 29, 2011

Arab Spring? Not Quite

Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: US-Israel Initiative”
YnetNews, April 29, 2011
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4062310,00.html

The 19th century violence on the European Street signaled the arrival of the Spring of Nations: national cohesion, liberty and rebellion against tyranny.

In contrast, the 2011 Middle East upheaval exposes the Arab Street: No “spring” and no “nations,” but the exacerbation of tribal-ethnic-religious-geographic loyalties, splits and power struggles, the intensification of domestic and intra-Arab fragmentation, the escalation of intolerance, violence and hate-culture, the absence of stability, the deepening of uncertainty, exposing the tenuous nature of Arab regimes, the ruthless submission of democracy-seeking elements and the perpetuation of ruthless tyrannies.

The 19th century Spring of Nations was energized by waves of enthusiastic optimism. On the other hand, the 2011 delusion of the Spring of Nations is exposed by the impotence, despair and frustration of pro-democracy Arab activists, who are forced to emigrate rather than be persecuted. The expectation for a near-term Arab Spring of Nations is detached from Middle East reality, could produce another victory of wishful-thinking over experience, already leads to a delusion-based policy and risks a lethal boomerang caused by delusional yearning.

In February, 2010, President Obama appointed a new ambassador to Damascus – following four years of diplomatic absence – "because Assad could play a constructive role in the Middle East." In July 2000, Western policy-makers and public opinion molders cheered the prospect of Spring in Damascus upon the succession of Hafiz Assad by his son, Bashar Assad. They were not alarmed by Bashar’s 97% victory in two elections. They assumed that as an eye doctor, who interned in London, who is fluent in English and French, who was the chairman of the Syria Internet Association, and married to a London-educated wife who advocates women rights, he must be a moderate. They sacrificed documented facts – about the Assad family, the ruling Alawite minority, the Damascus vision and the centrality of the strategic cooperation between Syria and Iran – on the altar of the yearning of peace with Syria. The current turmoil in Syria exposes Western oversimplification and the authentic merciless nature of this Syrian despot.



In February 2011, President Obama and Secretary Clinton hastily proclaimed the ushering of democracy into Arab lands and the reincarnation of the spirit of MLK and Ghandi in the streets of Tunisia and Egypt. However, their expectations are thwarted by the thousands of moderate Tunisians who are escaping to the Italian Mediterranean island of Lampedusa and by the horrific campaign of killings, murder, torture, hate and corruption, which has accompanied recent volcanic eruptions in Arab countries.

In 1993, upon signing the Oslo Accord, the New Middle East visionaries announced Spring in Ramallah, the supremacy of standard-of-living over ideological and military considerations, the age of no-wars and the irrelevance of borders and military forces. But, the conduct of the Palestinian Authority (epitomized by hate-education), the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the intensification of Islamic terrorism, the Iranian threat, the proliferation of advanced missiles, the murder of Lebanese Prime Minister Hariri, the wars in Lebanon and Gaza and the current Middle East upheaval, crashed the superficial New Middle East and Spring in Ramallah visions. However, in order to sustain the “peace process,” Israeli and Western “elites” have ignored the unprecedented Arafat and Abu Mazen-initiated hate-education and terrorism.

In January 2005, they were further encouraged by Abu Mazen’s rise to the chairmanship of the Palestinian Authority. They would not be diverted from the pursuit of their visions by Abu Mazen’s track record: Introducing hate-education into Palestinian schools, mosques and media, subversion against Arab regimes, holocaust denial, enrollment in KGB and Muslim Brotherhood schooling, the embracing of ruthless Soviet Bloc Communist regimes, centrality in the 1972 Munich Massacre and the recent accord with Hamas.

The 1989 dismantling of the USSR and the fall of the Berlin Wall triggered a Spring of Nations hope and a New World Order concept, which was swiftly transformed into a New World Disorder. While the Spring of Nations introduced democracy into Eastern Europe, it could not advance the cause of liberty in Arab lands. 1,400 years of Muslim-Arab tyranny, guided by an imperialistic, intolerant and violent religion, which embraces terrorism and tolerates “female circumcision” (genital mutilation), constitutes too high a hurdle for the Spring of Nations. The British Empire attempted to democratize Arab countries - but failed, due to the lack of essential infrastructure of democratic values and education in Arab lands.

The turmoil in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Oman and Syria (and you ain’t seen nothing yet…), coupled with the expected US evacuation from Iraq and Afghanistan, the Iranian threat and the inherent non-reliability of international or Western guarantees and forces do not usher in Spring; they do usher in lethal geo-political twisters and floods, which require the retaining – and not the giveaway - of critical Israeli security assets.

NEW EVIDENCE REVEALS U.S. DIPLOMAT CHALLENGED FDR ON THE HOLOCAUST

The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies

NEW YORK- New evidence shows that U.S. diplomat James G. McDonald repeatedly challenged President Roosevelt on his response to the Holocaust--contradicting earlier portrayals of McDonald as a defender of the president's Jewish refugee policies.

The new documents were uncovered by the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, in Washington, D.C. They are part of a new report called "James G. McDonald, FDR, and the Holocaust," that is being published on the Institute's web site, www.WymanInstitute.org, in conjunction with Holocaust Remembrance Day (May 1, 2011).

"Our research shows that U.S. diplomat James G. McDonald turned sharply against the Roosevelt administration in 1943-1944, over FDR's failure to respond to the Holocaust," said Wyman Institute director Dr. Rafael Medoff, author of the new report as well as twelve books about the Holocaust, Zionism, and Jewish history. "This new information contradicts previous depictions of McDonald's relationship with President Roosevelt." The documents show that in 1943-1944, McDonald, in articles, letters, and speeches, publicly and privately criticized the Roosevelt administration's positions with regard to the plight of European Jewry. He did so at a time when he was still chairman of the President's Advisory Committee on Political Refugees. Key findings of the report:

"Endless Discussions": In a March 1943 article, McDonald challenged the forthcoming American-British conference in Bermuda on the refugee problem, saying "the time for lengthy discussion of this problem is long past." He criticized the Allies' "old-time diplomacy ...endless discussions and committees and unwillingness to face the peremptory need for bold planning and prompt action."

"Lip Service": In a speech in Buffalo on May 22, 1944, McDonald charged that the United States and its allies "paid only lip service" to the plight of Hitler's Jewish victims before the war, and "diplomats do not seem to have learned from past mistakes" and "today again are acting as if refugee problems were relatively minor matters." He said “timidity and fear of not being re-elected” were to blame for indifference to the plight of Jews in Nazi Germany.

"Pitifully Insufficient": In a speech in Chicago on November 19, 1944, McDonald said the Allies' response to the Holocaust was "pitifully insufficient." He accused the Allies of "hesitancy, procrastination, half-heartedness" and "calamitous blindness."

"Face-Saving Manuevers": In a letter to Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter on November 30, 1944, McDonald charged that the Allies "have almost never faced the realities of the tragedy of the refugees but that instead they have been guilty of face-saving maneuvers while millions of innocent men and women have been needlessly sacrificed."

The Wyman Institute's research reveals a side of McDonald very different from the one presented in the widely-publicized book Refugees and Rescue: The Diaries and Papers of James G. McDonald 1935-1945, by Richard Breitman, Severin Hochberg, and Barbara McDonald Stewart, which was published in 2009 by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Indiana University Press. The book claimed McDonald's diaries showed that Roosevelt tried to rescue Jewish refugees. It also gave the impression that McDonald consistently supported FDR's policy toward European Jewry.


* * *


ABOUT THE WYMAN INSTITUTE: The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, located in Washington, D.C., is a research and education institute focusing on America’s response to the Holocaust. It is named in honor of the eminent historian and author of the 1984 best-seller The Abandonment of the Jews, the most important and influential book concerning the U.S. response to the Nazi genocide.

The Institute’s Advisory Committee includes Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel, Members of Congress, and other luminaries.
The Institute’s Academic Council includes more than fifty leading professors of the Holocaust, American history, and Jewish history.
The Institute’s Arts & Letters Council, chaired by Cynthia Ozick, includes prominent artists, writers, musicians, and filmmakers.

"Looking Backward and Forward"

Arlene Kushner

A glance backward first, because I want to touch upon something that took place while I was away over Pesach.

This painful incident, from almost a week ago, links to recent Israeli history and to the future:

Last Sunday, in the early hours of the morning, three cars with Breslover Chassidim went to pray at Joseph's tomb -- a holy site for Judaism -- which is in PA-controlled territory (area A) outside of Nablus (traditional Jewish Shechem), in Samaria.

Pesach is a traditional time for prayers at the tomb, because the bones of Joseph, traditionally thought to be buried there, were carried out of Egypt by Moses on the first Pesach.

Warning shots were fired at the Chassidm by PA police. They continued to the tomb for prayers, and on their way out, PA police fired at them directly: One man -- Ben Yosef Livnat, called Benyo, father of four and nephew of Minister of Culture Limor Livnat (Likud) -- was killed One more good man taken from the midst of the Jewish people. One more widow, four more orphans. Wrote David Wilder of Hevron, who knew Livnat:

"Benyo was a wonderful person, a beautiful Jew and his murder will leave a huge gap in the lives of all who knew him. May his memory be blessed and may G-d comfort his widow, orphans, parents, brothers and sisters and all who knew and loved him."
Four others were wounded, one seriously.

After the Chassidim left the area, Arabs vandalized the tomb.

~~~~~~~~~~

Background to this story is essential for it to be understood properly, in its painful and shameful particulars.

Kever Yosef is a Jewish holy site along with the Machpela, and Kever Rachel.

With the Oslo Accords and the division of Judea and Samaria into regions controlled by the PA and by Israel, this site fell within the area under Palestinian Arab control because of its proximity to Nablus. But Israel was to control the tomb itself, so that Jews would be able to visit the site and pray there. (This is parallel to Kever Rachel, today, which is within PA territory but is an enclave controlled by the IDF.)

Repeatedly, Jews at the kever were attacked by Arabs. Finally Ehud Barak, who was then prime minister, in 2000 ordered a retreat from the site. He should hang his head in shame for this abandonment. One IDF soldier, who had been shot, was left behind and died there when the order to the IDF was not to return. Barak should hang his head twice over. When the Israeli presence was gone, the Arabs burned the tomb.


I remember the feelings of rage and revulsion I, with many many others, felt that day. And it is impossible to disconnect that history from what is happening now.

~~~~~~~~~~

After the IDF withdrew, the PA was supposed to allow visits by Jews, but, of course, they reneged on this. Nonetheless, pious Jews began sneaking in at night, to pray at the site. Finally the IDF began taking charge, arranging those visits to the kever under guard, for the protection of those who were visiting. And, I have heard from some who participated, it is quite a guard -- not just one jeep with a couple of soldiers.

But when were the visits arranged by the IDF? In the middle of the night. Why? So that most Arabs in the area would be asleep and would not be aroused to violence by the "offensive" sight of Jews going to pray in their territory. And only about once per month.

~~~~~~~~~~

What has been said about the group of Chassidim who were attacked is that they didn't clear this visit with the IDF, who would have subsequently cleared it with PA security.

This is absolutely true. But Breslover Chassidim often visit the kever. In fact, Gershon Mesika head of the Shomron [Samaria] Regional Council charged that "they [the PA forces] know them [the Chassidim] but for some reason, they decided to open fire this time."

Concluded Rob Miller of the Joshuapundit blog: "they decided to open fire because the 'Palestinians' are getting increasingly bold about killing Jews, given the events in Egypt and in the UN. They are staking out territory, trying to destroy yet another piece of Israel's Jewish heritage..."

Joshuapundit -- http://joshuapundit.blogspot.com/2011/04/jews-shot-en-route-to-prayer-jewish.html -- ran a picture of the vandalism that followed the murder:

With this comment:

"As you may know, anything to do with the bottom of one's shoe - like a boot print - is a deadly insult in Arab culture. The prints are identical with the 'Palestinian' police standard issue boots."

~~~~~~~~~~

There is a serious question as to why unarmed, peaceful, religious Jews must get army and PA permission to pray at a Jewish holy site. And there are charges that if the IDF had provided more frequent and open visits this situation might not have arisen.

What is absolutely clear, even if it is determined that the Chassidim were in the wrong to go on their own, is that this did not provide the PA forces with latitude to kill them! They were not a threat to anyone, and they were actually on their way out of the area when they were shot.

~~~~~~~~~~

Defense Minister Barak called this "murder," although others in the IDF preferred to refer to it as an "incident." Netanyahu demanded tough action by the PA against those in the security forces who were responsible. But there is another factor here that has been largely ignored:

The PA security officers who shot at the Chassidim were clearly heard to yell "Allahu Akbar!" It means Allah is great, but it is the cry that terrorists use when attacking innocent Jews. So it has to be asked what the hell is going on here. I'll try to answer this in a moment.

There have been calls for Israel to re-take Kever Yosef -- re-establish a military presence there -- in light of what has happened. I concur entirely. It is a matter of Jewish national right and dignity. But I don't see it happening because Netanyahu has not the courage, even though this was the original agreement under Oslo. And our defense minister?

At any rate, this terrorist murder will not discourage pious Jews from visiting the tomb to pray in the middle of the night. On the contrary, even more intend to go.

~~~~~~~~~~

As to how this connects to the future:

For some time now the US has been funding and assisting with the training of PA "security forces" -- known for a while as "Dayton's troops," because of the long-term involvement of US General Keith Dayton. These troops are supposed to take out terrorists. Never mind that they are loath to take out their kinsmen who happen to be in Hamas.

As the training proceeded, the question was raised repeatedly in certain quarters with regard to how prudent a project this was. For there has been a history of PA forces, sooner or later, turning their guns on Israelis instead of terrorists. This happens in particular when there is Palestinian Arab frustration. Why make these people more skilled and supply weaponry? It was a myopic vision that encouraged this -- the naive American idea that when the PA was strong enough there would be a moderate PA state that combated terrorism.

I did an extensive report on this issue a couple of years ago, and what was clear was that experts here knew no such thing was going to happen. There was great concern, as well, that Hamas might end up being in control of the troops trained by the US and weapons supplied by the Americans specifically to take out Hamas. (This happened in Gaza with the Hamas coup, when Hamas grabbed weaponry and sophisticated electronic devices that had been provided to Fatah by the US.) No one knew, as Dayton's training continued, if Hamas might ultimately take Judea and Samaria, or if there might be a unity government.

~~~~~~~~~~

And here we are. A unity arrangement has been announced. While it is not clear yet what arrangements will be made with regard to control of security forces, there is no way to conclude that the results will be good. Yesterday I wrote that Hamas is the stronger faction.

Thank you, America.

~~~~~~~~~~

Israel has been conducting some joint security operations with PA forces, and there is question, as well, as to whether these should continue.

~~~~~~~~~~

I am encountering as many different viewpoints with regard to the "unity" arrangements as there are analysts and commentators looking at the issue.

My biggest concern is that the Western world should play it straight with regard to demanding of Hamas an honoring of the Quartet stipulations regarding acceptance of Israel's existence, renunciation of terrorism and honoring of previous agreements before it can be considered a legitimate player.

I've seen in the past some fancy diplomatic slight of hand with regard to this issue, and this makes me nervous. ("Well, Hamas association with the PA is bound to moderate it." "Hamas acknowledges that Israel does exist, de facto, that is almost a recognition, and the rest will follow." Etc.)

But from MEMRI we have this:

Deputy Head of Hamas Political Bureau Moussa Abu Marzouq has declared that:

"Now the Quartet has become obsolete, along with its terms, and it is not taken too much into consideration."

While from Foreign Minister Mahmoud Al-Zahhar:

"Our perspective is entirely different from that of Fatah. Fatah believes in negotiations, while we believe that negotiations with the Israeli enemy are in vain. We believe in armed struggle...as well as making the government's resources available to the resistance. We believe that obeying the terms of the Quartet would have entailed the loss of the Palestinian rights....The terms of the Quartet meant, in short, recognition of the Israeli enemy, in exchange for bread, gas, and oil. Our steadfastness...has taught a lesson to the Quartet."

http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/2904.htm

Can the Quartet and the European community more broadly ignore this?

~~~~~~~~~~

David Wilder of Hevron is ready to break out the wine, because he says this will save us from a Palestinian state. He believes that Netanyahu would have gone to make his speech in Congress in May and offered further concessions, but will not be able to do so now. He may well be right.

http://www.blessingsfromhebron.com/

~~~~~~~~~~

Khaled Abu Toameh says that Hamas is now stronger.

"The unity deal does not require Hamas to relinquish control over Gaza and permits it to keep its security forces. Nor does the deal require Hamas to accept the Middle East peace process or accept the two-state solution. Hamas will be brought into the unity government as an equal partner, and has been recognized as a legitimate partner and player not only by Fatah, but also by the most populous Arab country, Egypt."

www.jpost.com.Middleast/Article.aspx?id=218358

This is undoubtedly the case. We see it in the MEMRI quotes. But the PA -- the entity with which we were supposed to deal -- is now weaker, and has been exposed in its intentions.

~~~~~~~~~~

Joel Greenberg, writing in the Washington Post, echoes my statements of yesterday, with regard to the fact that the "unity" is paper-thin and that actually resolving the tougher issues between the parties will be very difficult indeed:

"Four years of incitement and war between Hamas and Fatah are not going to be just scrapped in one day," said Mkhaimer Abusada, a political scientist at Al-Azhar University in Gaza. "It's going to be a very long and tenuous process." Khalil Shikaki, a political analyst and pollster in Ramallah, said that while the two factions may have agreed to reconcile, they had postponed the difficult problems dividing them and "may not be able to do it."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/abbas-seeks-to-allay-fears-on-accord-with-hamas/2011/04/28/AFg3DN8E_story_1.html

~~~~~~~~~~

There's more, much more, to report, on this evolving situation. But this post is already long, and Shabbat is on the way.

~~~~~~~~~~

Don't know how effective these things are in terms of affecting the behavior of organizations, but here are two polls concerning Israeli issues that you might want to participate in. Voting takes a second and might make a difference:


The Jewish Advocate is running a poll on whether the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston should keep J Street as a member organization.

http://www.thejewishadvocate.com/

The University of California at San Diego (UCSD) student newspaper is conducting a poll about a resolution by Muslim students to have UCSD divest from companies that do business with Israel, like General Electric.

http://www.ucsdguardian.org/

~~~~~~~~~~
© Arlene Kushner. This material is produced by Arlene Kushner, functioning as an independent journalist. Permission is granted for it to be reproduced only with proper attribution.

How will a Fatah-Hamas merger play out?

Jennifer Rubin

As I noted last night, the prospect of a merger between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas brought swift reactions from a number of lawmakers. Tommy Vietor, spokesman for the National Security Council, also had this to say: “As we have said before, the United States supports Palestinian reconciliation on terms which promote the cause of peace. Hamas, however, is a terrorist organization which targets civilians. To play a constructive role in achieving peace, any Palestinian government must accept the Quartet principles and renounce violence, abide by past agreements, and recognize Israel’s right to exist. But what if it doesn’t do that? The pact reportedly requires no such action by Hamas. I asked Vietor whether this meant that if a merger took place between Fatah and Hamas that the United States could not legally provide aid because Hamas did not as part of the pact renounce terror and recognize the state of Israel. He couldn’t provide anything beyond the initial statement. (The State Department tells me a statement will be forthcoming later today.)

But there really isn’t much wiggle room here. Since fiscal year 2005, annual foreign operations appropriations bills have included a prohibition on funding Hamas and the PLO, the relevant language being:

PROHIBITION TO HAMAS AND THE PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION.— (1) None of the funds appropriated in titles III through VI of this Act may be obligated for salaries of personnel of the Palestinian Authority located in Gaza or may be obligated or expended for assistance to Hamas or any entity effectively controlled by Hamas or any power-sharing government of which Hamas is a member.

An expert on sanctions tells me the exception to this ban is limited: “In terms of U.S. aid, assistance may only be provided to a power-sharing government if the president certifies that such government, including all of its ministers or such equivalent, has publicly acknowledged the Jewish state of Israel’s right to exist; and committed itself and is adhering to all previous agreements and understandings with the United States Government, with the Government of Israel, and with the international community, including agreements and understandings pursuant to the Roadmap.” (The president alternatively can make a limited national security certification if it is in our national interest to provide assistance to the PA president’s security and administration, to help enforce border security and to assist the PA’s judiciary.)

Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies told me in a phone interview this morning, “There is precedent for this.” Schanzer explained that in April 2006 the United States cut off all aid to the PA after Hamas won elections. Only when Hamas staged a coup and Mahmoud Abbas set up a separate governing entity for the West Bank did we resume aid.

In the case of the current Fatah-Hamas merger, Schanzer argues that there is an immediate problem for the PA. Press reports suggest that Hamas is melding its operation into the PLO, the entity that does business and has offices in the United States. (In fact the Obama administration recently forked over more funds to upgrade these in anticipation of a peace agreement.) If this is correct, the offices would have to be closed and its representatives ejected from the country.

No doubt Hamas wanted to band together with the PA before any unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state occurred. And for Fatah, this is quite an achievement given that it has been trying to cajole Hamas into a partnership since the Yasser Arafat years. But with unity comes the distinct possibility, says Schanzer, that while the rest of the region is undergoing an Arab spring, the PA is about to enter a “diplomatic winter.”

UPDATE (12:45 p.m.): Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) sent this statement in response to the potential merger. “The announced agreement, if it becomes reality, would be a major setback for peace efforts in the Middle East and is not in the best interest of the Palestinian people. Participation in a Palestinian government of any organization, such as Hamas, that fails to renounce their calls for the destruction of Israel and the use of violence should prompt the withdrawal of our assistance. No American taxpayer money should fund a government that includes a terrorist organization dedicated to the murder of innocent civilians.”

Don't Confuse the Huthis with the Zaidis


Mshari Al-Zaydi
Asharq Alawsat

The biggest mistake that could be made with the Huthi crisis in Saudi Arabia is portraying these clashes as a confrontation between the Sunnis and the [Shiite] Zaidi sect.

In this article, I intend to speak about doctrinal and sectarian issues, rather than political issues, because the doctrinal or sectarian mentality is the mentality that dominates the Arab world. This issue should also be discussed because while it is not wrong to avoid broaching the subject of sectarian violence under the pretext of not inflaming the situation, the situation is already inflamed. Therefore falling into the trap of initiating a Sunni – Zaidi conflict is exactly what those who have unleashed the Huthis wish to happen. The internal divisions in the [Shiite] Zaidi sect have escalated to the point that the Huthis have completely taken over the Zaidi structure that has existed in Yemen for centuries. The Zaidi sect has existed in Yemen since the Rassid Imamate, and the first Imam of Yemen, al-Hadi Yahya Bin al-Hussain Bin al-Qasim ar-Rassi, settled in Yemen in the 9th century AD. The Rassid Imam's were the descendents of Imam Zaid Bin Ali Bin al-Hussain Bin Ali Bin Abu Talib, whose lineage can be traced back to Caliph Ali, the Prophet's cousin and son-in-law.

What is happening now is that the Zaidi sect has been taken over by the Huthis, with secondary juristic views of the Zaidi doctrine being brought to public attention at the expense of the sect's more traditional features. Observers and researchers in Yemen are aware of this phenomenon, especially the Zaidi intellectuals.

As one of the Zaidi sects most notable figures, Mohamed Bin Ismail Bin al-Amir al-Sana'ani, explained many centuries ago, the Zaidi sect is not one that clings to its viewpoint, references, and traditions. It is a sect that is open to development and improvement, and even encompasses [the ideas of] Salafist clerics, such as Sheikh Mohamed Ibn Abd-al-Wahab and Muhammad ash-Shawkani. The Zaidi sect also encompassed religious figures who took the Zaidi doctrine to the extreme, such as Imam Abdullah Bin Hamza who massacred a group of his subjects known as the "al-Mutrafeya" because they argued that it was not mandatory that a ruling imam be a descendent of Al-Hassan or Al-Hussein. The Zaidi sect also includes independent jurists and freethinkers, like Mohamed Bin Ibrahim Bin al-Wazir, who died in 1437, and who advocated freeing oneself from all sectarian and doctrinal attachments and solely embracing the teachings of the Holy Quran and Sunnah. And so the Zaidi sect included freethinkers, as well as fanatics.

So the Zaidi doctrine is a flexible and wide-ranging one that contains the potential for progress and development in all directions. It's most fundamental belief is the adoption of the Mu'tazilli doctrine of favoring the 4th Caliph Ali Bin Abi Talib, over Islam's first two Caliphs, Abu Bark and Omar Ibn Al-Khattab. However the Zaidi sect does not sanction the abuse or insult of the first two Caliphs and disowns anybody that does so. Zaidi writings that date back to when Imam al-Hadi first settled in Yemen from Hijaz confirm this.

So where did former Huthi leader, Hussein Badreddin al-Huthi, who was killed in September 2004, get his [Shiite] Twelver doctrine regarding the Caliphs and the Prophet's Companions, especially in light of the fact that the traditional Zaidi position on this lies somewhere between the Sunni and Shiite position?

Why did Hussein al-Huthi move even further towards the Khomeinist trend, instead of just being content with the traditional [Shiite] Twelver doctrine?

Before people begin to think that we are just theorizing, let me quote an excerpt from a series of booklets attributed to Hussein Badreddin al-Huthi and sent to me by my friend, the Yemeni researcher Naguib Ghalab. This literature is comprised of transcripts of lectures and lessons given by Hussein al-Huthi to his followers in Sa'dah and elsewhere. Most of these booklets deal with interpretations of the Holy Quran, and this literature continues to be circulated on a small-scale.

In these lessons, Hussein al-Huthi expresses an extremist ideology that latches onto [Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah] Khomeini's radical vision of the world, but in an even more zealous manner.

In this literature, al-Huthi states that the Sunnis have been defeated throughout history because they failed to support Ali Ibn Abi Talib. In the booklet on the interpretation of Surat al-Maeda, Hussein al-Huthi said "It would be foolish to bind ourselves to them [the Sunnis] or even think that it is possible to unite with them. If we wanted to unite with them, they would ask us to go under their banner. They would never accept anybody from Ahl al-Bayt [descendants of the Prophet]."

Later on in this same booklet, al-Huthi describes the evolution of Iran, and Khomeini's role during the reign of the Shah. He then specifies the ideal characteristics of a ruler, favourably comparing them with Khomeini and saying "Whoever holds these divine characteristics and qualities must be a man who can build a great nation. Those who possess such attributes…can build great nations. Today Iran is poles apart from the Iran of the pre-Islamic revolution era, although only a relatively short amount of time has passed since the revolution, an amount of time no longer than the reign of any of the Kings who ruled the country prior to the revolution."

Al-Huthi added "The Muslim community will not succeed, and will not be rescued from the humiliations that it is suffering, unless it returns to them" by which he means Ahl al-Bayt.

I have scanned through many other similar booklets attributed to Hussein al-Huthi, and many of them include very extremist ideology. Just for the record, these texts were taught by the Huthis, and as we can see, they contain evidence of the Huthi rebels' devotion to the Khomeinist revolutionary project.

Hussein al-Huthi's father was the Islamic cleric Badreddin al-Huthi, who was one of the senior religious scholars of Sa'dah. Badreddin al-Huthi himself was an ambitious man who sought to revive Imamate rule in Yemen.

In an interview with the media, Yemeni politician and intellectual Dr. Qasim Salam said "Badreddin al-Huthi previously claimed the position of Imam during the reign of Imam Yahya Muhammad Hamid ed-Din (assassinated 1948). He received pledges of allegiance but was later imprisoned. Following the 26 September [1962] revolution, Badreddin al-Huthi claimed the position of Imam once again and fought against the Yemen Arab Republic in Sa'dah, but was defeated. What is happening now is a continuation of what happened before, but what is new is that this has entered a new phase with the [Huthi] leaders no longer claiming the title of Imam in the traditional sense, but rather they want to transform Sa'dah into a base for the Safavid doctrine."

Badreddin al-Huthi was not sympathetic to the Sana'a government during the 1994 war, and instead sided with the southern separatists. He did this not because he supported the socialists, but rather due to his hatred of the government in Sana'a which had broken away from Imamate rule and allied itself with the Salafists who – according to Badreddin al-Huthi – are the enemies of Ahl al-Bayt. Badreddin al-Huthi also was involved in fierce conflict with Yemeni Salafist clerics, such as Sheikh Muqbal al-Wade'ei, who was a Salafist preacher in Sa'dah itself.

The Huthis are an extremist version of the Zaidi sect, and some researchers believe they are an extension of a well-known Zaidi offshoot, the al-Jarodiah sect. According to Yemeni researcher Zaid al-Wazir, who published an article entitled on this subject in the Yemeni magazine "Al-Masser" which is published by the Yemeni Heritage and Research Centre, the al-Jarodiah sect differ from the Zaidi sect in not stipulating that the ruling Imam must be a descendant of Al-Hassan or Al-Hussein. Al-Wazir also indicated that the al-Jarodiah sect contends that secret documents were provided to ensure that Ali Ibn Abi Talib became the first Caliph following the death of Prophet Muhammad [pbuh] but that Abu Bark and Omar Ibn Al-Khattab covered this up.

Zaid al-Wazir examined the circumstances surrounding the rise of the al-Jarodiah sect, whose emergence coincided with the emergence of the Zaidi sect. Al-Jaroud Al-Abdi who was a disciple of Imam Zaid Bin Ali, and who the al-Jarodiah sect is named after, was not actually a Zaidi. In fact Al-Jaroud Al-Abdi and his followers formed a separate sect which infiltrated the Zaidi sect and remained a part of it. Some Zaidi sheikhs, jurists, and rulers utilize the al-Jarodiah doctrine during critical moments. For example, Imam Abdullah Bin Hamza utilized this in order to establish the Imamate rule of the Alawite dynasty, whilst Zaidi jurists used the al-Jarodiah doctrine when engaging in fierce conflict with Sunni rivals, as the Huthi insurgents are doing now.

Iran's cunning lies in its ability to cast its political influence on this sub-group within the Zaidi sect, stoking their anger, until they have taken over the entire sect itself. Iran also practiced this same policy of entangling neutral groups [in regional issues] with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

It is well-known that Lebanon's Shiite community is originally from the traditional Shiite sect that follows the great Shiite jurist Mohsen al-Amali. They traditionally followed their own doctrine, and did not embrace Khomeini's Wilayat al-Faqih [Guardianship of the Jurists]. However after Hezbollah had been established by Khomeini's Iran, the party took over its [Shiite] opposition in Lebanon to become the symbol of the Lebanese Shiite community, and objections to the Wilayat al-Faqih decreased.

There is now fear that the Yemeni Huthis will be portrayed as Zaidis due to the publics lack of knowledge on the differences between them. Examples of this can clearly be seen in the mistakes made by some media who described the Huthis as Zaidis, or who believe that all Zaidis are Twelver Shiites, or who assume that all Twelver Shiite's embrace the Khomeini doctrine. This reflects ridiculous misconceptions and is completely ignorant [of the reality], such mistakes serve to increase sectarian tensions which are fundamentally based upon ignorance and hatred.

This is a complex subject, and research experts, especially from Yemen, have a lot to say about this. This article is nothing but a signpost on the road, an attempt to ensure that we do not ignore what is happening and take the wrong path and insult an ancient Yemeni culture by being ignorant of the truth. We must help those who are not aware of the Iranian Mullah's plans to tear the Zaidis away from their Arab surroundings. We must look for the Khomeinist finger-prints in everything that is happening in the Shiite [international] community, including the politicization and exploitation of certain issues, just as the Muslim Brotherhood have done in a Sunni-framework.

MUHAMMAD’s OWN WORDS

Prophet of Doom was written to expose what Islam’s founder had to say about himself, his ambition, religion, and god. Before you use or criticize these quotes, please read this overview from the author. For those who are serious about the study of Islam, be sure to read the source material appendix, entitled Islam’s Dark Past.

Qur’an:9:88


“The Messenger and those who believe with him, strive hard and fight with their wealth and lives in Allah’s Cause.”

Qur’an:9:5


“Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war.”

Qur’an:9:112


“The Believers fight in Allah’s Cause, they slay and are slain, kill and are killed.”

Qur’an:9:29


“Fight those who do not believe until they all surrender, paying the protective tax in submission.”

Ishaq:325


“Muslims, fight in Allah’s Cause. Stand firm and you will prosper. Help the Prophet, obey him, give him your allegiance, and your religion will be victorious.”

Qur’an:8:39


“Fight them until all opposition ends and all submit to Allah.”

Qur’an:8:39


“So fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief [non-Muslims]) and all submit to the religion of Allah alone (in the whole world).”

Ishaq:324


“He said, ‘Fight them so that there is no more rebellion, and religion, all of it, is for Allah only. Allah must have no rivals.’”

Qur’an:9:14


“Fight them and Allah will punish them by your hands, lay them low, and cover them with shame. He will help you over them.”

Ishaq:300


“I am fighting in Allah’s service. This is piety and a good deed. In Allah’s war, I do not fear as others should. For this fighting is righteous, true, and good.”

Ishaq:587


“Our onslaught will not be a weak faltering affair. We shall fight as long as we live. We will fight until you turn to Islam, humbly seeking refuge. We will fight not caring whom we meet. We will fight whether we destroy ancient holdings or newly gotten gains. We have mutilated every opponent. We have driven them violently before us at the command of Allah and Islam. We will fight until our religion is established. And we will plunder them, for they must suffer disgrace.”

Qur’an:8:65


“O Prophet, urge the faithful to fight. If there are twenty among you with determination they will vanquish two hundred; if there are a hundred then they will slaughter a thousand unbelievers, for the infidels are a people devoid of understanding.”

Ishaq:326


“Prophet exhort the believers to fight. If there are twenty good fighters, they will defeat two hundred for they are a senseless people. They do not fight with good intentions nor for truth.”

Bukhari:V4B52N63


“A man whose face was covered with an iron mask came to the Prophet and said, ‘Allah’s Apostle! Shall I fight or embrace Islam first?’ The Prophet said, ‘Embrace Islam first and then fight.’ So he embraced Islam, and was martyred. Allah’s Apostle said, ‘A Little work, but a great reward.’”

Bukhari:V4B53N386


“Our Prophet, the Messenger of our Lord, ordered us to fight you till you worship Allah alone or pay us the Jizyah tribute tax in submission. Our Prophet has informed us that our Lord says: ‘Whoever amongst us is killed as a martyr shall go to Paradise to lead such a luxurious life as he has never seen, and whoever survives shall become your master.’”

Muslim:C34B20N4668


“The Messenger said: ‘Anybody who equips a warrior going to fight in the Way of Allah is like one who actually fights. And anybody who looks after his family in his absence is also like one who actually fights.”

Qur’an:9:38


“Believers, what is the matter with you, that when you are asked to go forth and fight in Allah’s Cause you cling to the earth? Do you prefer the life of this world to the Hereafter? Unless you go forth, He will afflict and punish you with a painful doom, and put others in your place.”

Qur’an:9:123


“Fight the unbelievers around you, and let them find harshness in you.”

Qur’an:8:72


“Those who accepted Islam and left their homes to fight in Allah’s Cause with their possessions and persons, and those who gave (them) asylum, aid, and shelter, those who harbored them – these are allies of one another. You are not responsible for protecting those who embraced Islam but did not leave their homes [to fight] until they do so.” [Another translation reads:] “You are only called to protect Muslims who fight.”

Muslim:C9B1N31


“I have been commanded to fight against people till they testify to the fact that there is no god but Allah, and believe in me (that) I am the Messenger and in all that I have brought.”

Bukhari:V9B84N59


“Whoever says this will save his property and life from me.’”

Qur’an:8:73


“The unbelieving infidels are allies. Unless you (Muslims) aid each other (fighting as one united block to make Allah’s religion victorious), there will be confusion and mischief. Those who accepted Islam, left their homes to fight in Allah’s Cause (al-Jihad), as well as those who give them asylum, shelter, and aid – these are (all) Believers: for them is pardon and bountiful provision (in Paradise).”

Tabari IX:69


“Arabs are the most noble people in lineage, the most prominent, and the best in deeds. We were the first to respond to the call of the Prophet. We are Allah’s helpers and the viziers of His Messenger. We fight people until they believe in Allah. He who believes in Allah and His Messenger has protected his life and possessions from us. As for one who disbelieves, we will fight him forever in the Cause of Allah. Killing him is a small matter to us.”

Qur’an:48:16


“Say (Muhammad) to the wandering desert Arabs who lagged behind: ‘You shall be invited to fight against a people given to war with mighty prowess. You shall fight them until they surrender and submit. If you obey, Allah will grant you a reward, but if you turn back, as you did before, He will punish you with a grievous torture.”

Qur’an:48:22


“If the unbelieving infidels fight against you, they will retreat. (Such has been) the practice (approved) of Allah in the past: no change will you find in the ways of Allah.”

Qur’an:47:4


“When you clash with the unbelieving Infidels in battle (fighting Jihad in Allah’s Cause), smite their necks until you overpower them, killing and wounding many of them. At length, when you have thoroughly subdued them, bind them firmly, making (them) captives. Thereafter either generosity or ransom (them based upon what benefits Islam) until the war lays down its burdens. Thus are you commanded by Allah to continue carrying out Jihad against the unbelieving infidels until they submit to Islam.”

Qur’an:47:31


“And We shall try you until We know those among you who are the fighters.”

Tabari VI:138


“Those present at the oath of Aqabah had sworn an allegiance to Muhammad. It was a pledge of war against all men. Allah had permitted fighting.”

Tabari VI:139


“Allah had given his Messenger permission to fight by revealing the verse ‘And fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is all for Allah.’”

Qur’an:9:19


“Do you make the giving of drink to pilgrims, or the maintenance of the Mosque, equal to those who fight in the Cause of Allah? They are not comparable in the sight of Allah. Those who believe, and left their homes, striving with might, fighting in Allah’s Cause with their goods and their lives, have the highest rank in the sight of Allah.”

Ishaq:550


“The Muslims met them with their swords. They cut through many arms and skulls. Only confused cries and groans could be heard over our battle roars and snarling.”

Qur’an:5:94


“Believers, Allah will make a test for you in the form of a little game in which you reach out for your lances. Any who fails this test will have a grievous punishment.”

Ishaq:578


“Crushing the heads of the infidels and splitting their skulls with sharp swords, we continually thrust and cut at the enemy. Blood gushed from their deep wounds as the battle wore them down. We conquered bearing the Prophet’s fluttering war banner. Our cavalry was submerged in rising dust, and our spears quivered, but by us the Prophet gained victory.”

Tabari IX:22


“The Prophet continued to besiege the town, fighting them bitterly.”

Tabari IX:25


“By Allah, I did not come to fight for nothing. I wanted a victory over Ta’if so that I might obtain a slave girl from them and make her pregnant.”

Tabari IX:82


“The Messenger sent Khalid with an army of 400 to Harith [a South Arabian tribe] and ordered him to invite them to Islam for three days before he fought them. If they were to respond and submit, he was to teach them the Book of Allah, the Sunnah of His Prophet, and the requirements of Islam. If they should decline, then he was to fight them.”

Tabari IX:88


“Abdallah Azdi came to the Messenger, embraced Islam, and became a good Muslim. Allah’s Apostle invested Azdi with the authority over those who had surrendered and ordered him to fight the infidels from the tribes of Yemen. Azdi left with an army by the Messenger’s command. The Muslims besieged them for a month. Then they withdrew, setting a trap. When the Yemenites went in pursuit, Azdi was able to inflict a heavy loss on them.”

Ishaq:530


“Get out of his way, you infidel unbelievers. Every good thing goes with the Apostle. Lord, I believe in his word. We will fight you about its interpretations as we have fought you about its revelation with strokes that will remove heads from shoulders and make enemies of friends.”

Muslim:C9B1N29


“Command For Fighting Against People So Long As They Do Not Profess That There Is No Ilah (God) But Allah And Muhammad Is His Messenger: When the Messenger breathed his last and Bakr was appointed Caliph, many Arabs chose to become apostates [rejected Islam]. Abu Bakr said: ‘I will definitely fight against anyone who stops paying the Zakat tax, for it is an obligation. I will fight against them even to secure the cord used for hobbling the feet of a camel which they used to pay if they withhold it now.’ Allah had justified fighting against those who refused to pay Zakat.”

Muslim:C9B1N33


“The Prophet said: ‘I have been commanded to fight against people till they testify there is no god but Allah, that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and they establish prostration prayer, and pay Zakat. If they do it, their blood and property are protected.’”

Muslim:C10B1N176


“Muhammad (may peace be upon him) sent us in a raiding party. We raided Huraqat in the morning. I caught hold of a man and he said: ‘There is no god but Allah,’ but I attacked him with a spear anyway. It once occurred to me that I should ask the Apostle about this. The Messenger said: ‘Did he profess “There is no god but Allah,” and even then you killed him?’ I said: ‘He made a profession out of the fear of the weapon I was threatening him with.’ The Prophet said: ‘Did you tear out his heart in order to find out whether it had professed truly or not?’”

Muslim:C20B1N4597


“The Prophet said at the conquest of Mecca: ‘There is no migration now, but only Jihad, fighting for the Cause of Islam. When you are asked to set out on a Jihad expedition, you should readily do so.’”

Muslim:C28B20N4628


“Allah has undertaken to provide for one who leaves his home to fight for His Cause and to affirm the truth of His word; Allah will either admit him to Paradise or will bring him back home with his reward and booty.”

Muslim:C28B20N4629


“The Messenger said: ‘One who is wounded in the Way of Allah – and Allah knows best who is wounded in His Way – will appear on the Day of Judgment with his wound still bleeding. The color (of its discharge) will be blood, (but) its smell will be musk.’”

Muslim:C34B20N4652-3


“The Merit Of Jihad And Of Keeping Vigilance Over The Enemy: A man came to the Holy Prophet and said: ‘Who is the best of men?’ He replied: ‘A man who fights staking his life and spending his wealth in Allah’s Cause.’”

Muslim:C42B20N4684


“A desert Arab came to the Prophet and said: ‘Messenger, one man fights for the spoils of war; another fights that he may be remembered, and one fights that he may see his (high) position (achieved as a result of his valor in fighting). Which of these is fighting in the Cause of Allah?’ The Messenger of Allah said: ‘Who fights so that the word of Allah is exalted is fighting in the Way of Allah.’”

Muslim:C53B20N4717


“The Prophet said: ‘This religion will continue to exist, and a group of people from the Muslims will continue to fight for its protection until the Hour is established.’”

Bukhari:V5B59N288


“I witnessed a scene that was dearer to me than anything I had ever seen. Aswad came to the Prophet while Muhammad was urging the Muslims to fight the pagans. He said, ‘We shall fight on your right and on your left and in front of you and behind you.’ I saw the face of the Prophet getting bright with happiness, for that saying delighted him.”

Bukhari:V5B59N290


“The believers who did not join the Ghazwa [Islamic raid or invasion] and those who fought are not equal in reward.”

Qur’an:2:193


“Fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief) and religion is only for Allah. But if they cease/desist, let there be no hostility except against infidel disbelievers.”

Qur’an:2:217


“They question you concerning fighting in the sacred month. Say: ‘Fighting therein is a grave (matter); but to prevent access to Allah, to deny Him, to prevent access to the Sacred Mosque, to expel its members, and polytheism are worse than slaughter. Nor will they cease fighting you until they make you renegades from your religion. If any of you turn back and die in unbelief, your works will be lost and you will go to Hell. Surely those who believe and leave their homes to fight in Allah’s Cause have the hope of Allah’s mercy.”

Qur’an:2:244


“Fight in Allah’s Cause, and know that Allah hears and knows all.”

Qur’an:2:246


“He said: ‘Would you refrain from fighting if fighting were prescribed for you?’ They said: ‘How could we refuse to fight in Allah’s Cause?’”

Ishaq:280


“The Apostle prepared for war in pursuance of Allah’s command to fight his enemies and to fight the infidels who Allah commanded him to fight.”

Qur’an:61:2


“O Muslims, why say one thing and do another? Grievously odious and hateful is it in the sight of Allah that you say that which you do not. Truly Allah loves those who fight in His Cause in a battle array, as if they were a solid cemented structure.”

Bukhari:V4B52N61


“Allah’s Apostle! We were absent from the first battle you fought against the pagans. If Allah gives us a chance to do battle, no doubt, He will see how bravely we fight.”

Ishaq:398


“Ask them for their help. Thereby make the religion of Islam agreeable to them. And when you are resolved in the matter of religion concerning fighting your enemy you will have the advantage.”

Qur’an:3:146


“How many prophets fought in Allah’s Cause? With them (fought) myriads of godly men who were slain. They never lost heart if they met with disaster in Allah’s Cause, nor did they weaken nor give in. Allah loves those who are firm and steadfast [warriors].”

Ishaq:393


“How many prophets has death in battle befallen and how many multitudes with him? They did not show weakness toward their enemies and were not humiliated when they suffered in the fight for Allah and their religion. That is steadfastness. Allah loves the steadfast.”

Qur’an:3:153


“Behold! You ran off precipitately, climbing up the high hill without even casting a side glance at anyone, while the Messenger in your rear is calling you from your rear, urging you to fight. Allah gave you one distress after another by way of requital, to teach you not to grieve for the booty that had escaped you and for (the ill) that had befallen you.”

Qur’an:3:154


“Say: ‘Even if you had remained in your houses, those ordained to be slaughtered would have gone forth to the places where they were to slain.”

Ishaq:440


“Helped by the Holy Spirit we smited Muhammad’s foes. The Apostle sent a message to them with a sharp cutting sword.”

Ishaq:470


“We attacked them fully armed, swords in hand, cutting through heads and skulls.”

Qur’an:61:4


“Surely Allah loves those who fight in His Cause.”

Qur’an:61:11


“Believers, shall I lead you to a bargain or trade that will save you from a painful torment? That you believe in Allah and His Messenger (Muhammad), and that you strive and fight in Allah’s Cause with your property and your lives: That will be best for you!” Qur’an 61:12 “He will forgive you your sins, and admit you to Gardens under which rivers flow, and to beautiful mansions in Eden: that is indeed the Supreme Achievement. And another (favor) which you love: help from Allah for a speedy victory over your enemies.”

Qur’an:8:5


“Your Lord ordered you out of your homes to fight for the true cause, even though some Muslims disliked it, and were averse (to fighting).”

Qur’an:24:53


“They swear their strongest oaths saying that if only you would command them. They would leave their homes (and go forth fighting in Allah’s Cause). Say: ‘Swear not; Obedience is (more) reasonable.’”

Qur’an:4:74


“Let those who fight in Allah’s Cause sell this world’s life for the hereafter. To him who fights in Allah’s Cause, whether he is slain or victorious, We shall give him a reward.”

Qur’an:4:75


“What reason have you that you should not fight in Allah’s Cause?” [Another translation says:] “What is wrong with you that you do not fight for Allah?”

Qur’an:4:76


“Those who believe fight in the Cause of Allah.”

Qur’an:4:77


“Have you not seen those to whom it was said: Withhold from fighting, perform the prayer and pay the zakat? But when orders for fighting were issued, a party of them feared men as they ought to have feared Allah. They say: ‘Our Lord, why have You ordained fighting for us, why have You made war compulsory?’”

Qur’an:4:78


“Wherever you are, death will find you, even if you are in towers strong and high! So what is wrong with these people, that they fail to understand these simple words?”

Qur’an:4:84


“Then fight (Muhammad) in Allah’s Cause. Incite the believers to fight with you.”

Qur’an:4:94


“Believers, when you go abroad to fight wars in Allah’s Cause, investigate carefully, and say not to anyone who greets you: ‘You are not a believer!’ Coveting the chance profits of this life (so that you may despoil him). With Allah are plenteous spoils and booty.”

Qur’an:4:95


“Not equal are believers who sit home and receive no hurt and those who fight in Allah’s Cause with their wealth and lives. Allah has granted a grade higher to those who fight with their possessions and bodies to those who sit home. Those who fight He has distinguished with a special reward.”

Qur’an:4:100


“He who leaves his home in Allah’s Cause finds abundant resources and many a refuge. Should he die as a refugee for Allah and His Messenger His reward becomes due and sure with Allah. When you travel through the earth there is no blame on you if you curtail your worship for fear unbelievers may attack you. In truth the disbelievers are your enemy.”

Qur’an:4:102


“When you (Prophet) lead them in prayer, let some stand with you, taking their arms with them. When they finish their prostrations, let them take positions in the rear. And let others who have not yet prayed come – taking all precaution, and bearing arms. The Infidels wish, if you were negligent of your arms, to assault you in a rush. But there is no blame on you if you put away your arms because of the inconvenience of rain or because you are ill; but take precaution. For the Unbelieving Infidels Allah hath prepared a humiliating punishment.”

Qur’an:4:104


“And do not relent in pursuing the enemy.”







Ron

04/28/2011



Ron Silverman, Chapter Leader

South Bend, IN

ACT! for America

E-Mail: ACT4SBN@att.net



Visit: www.ACTforAmerica.org

Rising in defense of our security, our liberty, and our values.



"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." - Edmund Burke

"There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe