Siavosh Ghazi AFP - Wednesday, February 27 11:40 am
TEHRAN (AFP) - A top Iranian cleric on Wednesday made a rare criticism of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's verbal attacks on Israel, saying a foreign policy of "coarse slogans" was not in the national interest.
Hassan Rowhani, a former top nuclear negotiator who still holds several influential positions, said Iran needed to show more flexibility and desire for dialogue in its dealings with the international community. "Does foreign policy mean expressing coarse slogans and grandstanding?" Rowhani asked in a speech to a foreign policy conference in Tehran.
"This is not a foreign policy. We need to find an accommodating way to decrease the threats and assure the interests of the country."
His comments came a week after the latest verbal attack on Israel by Ahmadinejad, who described the Jewish state as a "dirty microbe" and "savage animal" in a speech to a public rally.
The president has already made calls for Israel to be wiped off the map and predicted it is doomed to disappear, provoking international uproar and sharpening tensions in Iran's nuclear standoff with the West.
Rowhani warned starkly: "If the international community thinks that a country wants to play troublemaker and eliminate others, it will not let the country do this and will confront it.
"We must act in such a way that the world understands that we are ready for more flexibility and more dialogue."
Rowhani headed the relatively moderate nuclear negotiating team that served under former president Mohammad Khatami before Ahmadinejad took power in 2005.
He still holds a string of important positions, including membership of the elite clerical body the Assembly of Experts, and is a representative of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Iran's supreme national security council.
Rowhani is considered a top lieutenant of Iran's pragmatic 1989-1997 president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who was crushed by Ahmadinejad in the 2005 presidential election.
He has in recent weeks emerged as one of the most outspoken critics of Ahmadinejad's controversial handling of the economy and foreign policy and one of few to prepared to criticise the president so explicitly.
"Someone can respect another person because he has a knife in his hands. But this is very different from respecting someone due to his knowledge, ethics and ability," Rowhani added in the speech.
Earlier this month he had also criticised the Ahmadinejad government's emphasis on the swift return of the imam Mahdi, who Shiites believe has disappeared into "occultation" and will come back one day to save the world.
His comments are all the more startling coming the day after Khamenei personally congratulated Ahmadinejad for his role in ensuring Iran made no concessions in the nuclear standoff with the West.
"The personal role of the president and his resistance in the nuclear case is very clear," Iran's undisputed number one said as he hailed the "great success" of the nuclear drive, according to state radio.
Khamenei also issued a stark warning to Iranian politicians to stay unified ahead of parliamentary elections on March 14, saying that the West wanted to divide factions into "hardliners and moderates".
Rowhani is director of the strategic centre for foreign policy studies, a think-tank run by Iran's top political arbitration body the Expediency Council which is headed by Rafsanjani.
His deputy at the think-tank is Hossein Moussavian, another ex-nuclear official who was detained for several days last May on suspicion of espionage. He was released on bail but has been publicly denounced by Ahmadinejad as a "nuclear spy".
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Are Arabs backing off two-state solution?
Leslie Susser
Arab belief in the viability of "the two-state solution," Israel and Palestine at peace, is diminishing. And the worry in Jerusalem is that this growing lack of confidence could undermine the fragile negotiating process.
JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Irked by the slow rate of progress in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, major Arab players are threatening to withdraw their offer to normalize ties with Israel once a Palestinian state is established.
Underlying the Arab reassessment is a deeper problem: Arab belief in the viability of "the two-state solution," Israel and Palestine at peace, is diminishing. And the worry in Jerusalem is that this growing lack of confidence could undermine the fragile negotiating process so carefully put in place at the regional peace conference in Annapolis, Md., last November.The Arab offer to normalize ties with Israel was part of the 2002 Arab League peace plan initiated by Saudi Arabia. The idea was to give Israel an added incentive to make peace with the Palestinians.
Now, however, in the run-up to a new Arab League summit slated for Damascus in late March, the Saudis seem to be having second thoughts.
Pointing to the slow advance in the peace talks, for which he blamed Israel, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal told a gathering of Arab and South American foreign ministers in Argentina on Feb. 21 that "despair will force us to review these options."
Faisal accused Israel of sabotaging the Arab League peace plan, which he said was now "facing great danger."
Arab League officials were quick to take their cue. They complained that Israel had not responded positively to the Arab peace initiative, so there was little point in leaving it on the table. The Arabs had extended the hand of peace, but now they faced "unprecedented Israeli obstinacy," Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa declared.
Moderate Arab states such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan had hoped that a two-state solution, followed by a general Arab accommodation with Israel, would weaken the radicals and pave the way for regional stability.
But concern is growing that with the Gaza Strip controlled by the radical Hamas and the West Bank dotted with Jewish settlements, any future Palestinian state would be truncated and unviable – and as such a source of friction rather than a guarantor of stability.
Egypt, which shares a border with Gaza, and Jordan which borders on the West Bank, are particularly worried. Both still see the two-state solution as a major strategic interest, but are growing more skeptical over the chances of achieving it.
The Egyptians, in particular, were jolted by the sight of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians streaming over the Gaza border into Egyptian territory with the collapse of the Rafah border fence last month. They were distressed as well to hear some Israelis suggest that Egypt take responsibility for Gaza, as it had until the Israeli occupation in 1967.
In Jordan, the fear is that if a moderate Palestinian state is not established soon, Hamas radicals will gain control of the West Bank and pose a direct threat to the Hashemite Kingdom. So when Egypt and Jordan warn that the chances for a two-state solution are eroding, it is at least partly to press Israel to move more quickly toward one.
The Saudi and Arab League warnings could be seen in this light, too: The growing skepticism about the two-state option is very real.
For a full-fledged Palestinian state, including the West Bank and Gaza, to emerge, first there would have to be an accommodation between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' moderate Fatah movement and the Iranian-backed Hamas.
This is the thrust of much behind-the-scenes Saudi, Egyptian and Jordanian diplomacy. Indeed, they reportedly are pressing Hamas to agree to cede its control of Gaza at the upcoming Arab League summit. But they are well aware that the chances of that happening are extremely low given Iran's unyielding opposition to anything that might help the moderate camp.
Worse for the two-state option: Many Palestinian intellectuals, including some close to Abbas, are questioning its merits. In a seminal op-ed in the British Guardian newspaper, Oxford-based scholar Ahmad Samih Khalidi -- sometimes referred to as "Abbas' brain" -- argued, "Today, the Palestinian state is largely a punitive construct devised by the Palestinians' worst historical enemies, Israel and its implacable ally, the U.S. The intention behind the state today is to constrain Palestinian aspirations territorially, to force them to give up on their moral rights, renege on their history and submit to Israel's dictates on fundamental issues of sovereignty.
"The temptation," Khalidi added later, "is to say thanks but no thanks."
Instead, Khalidi warned that the Palestinians could "evoke [Israeli Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert's worst nightmare," and go for a single state, "a genuine partnership in sharing the land" on the basis of one man, one vote.
Other Palestinians are suggesting that barring major progress toward viable statehood by December, the Palestinian Authority should dissolve itself and hand the keys back to the Israeli military government. The struggle then would not be for statehood but for equal rights in a single binational state.
This scenario is indeed one of Olmert's worst nightmares. On the last day of the Annapolis summit he declared that if the two-state solution collapses, "Israel is finished." What he meant was that in a one-man, one-vote unitary state -- Israel and Palestine together -- the eventual Palestinian majority would spell the end of the Zionist notion of independent Jewish statehood.
Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni claim they are making every effort to reach a deal that would pre-empt the one-state drive. Livni meets former Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ahmad Qureia on an almost daily basis to discuss the core issues of borders, Jerusalem and refugees; other teams are working on every conceivable element of relations between Israel and a future Palestine; and Olmert and Abbas meet from time to time to assess and facilitate movement.
What makes gauging progress almost impossible is the fact that Livni and Qureia have imposed an effective news blackout. The lack of any record of progress has led some observers to conclude there is none, and this is what the Saudis and other Arab players are finding so frustrating.
Then again, Olmert in private reportedly claims that he and Abbas already have wrapped up everything. If this is indeed the case, the two-state solution may still be saved. If not, the prospects for Israel, the Palestinians and the region as a whole look bleak. The window of opportunity for two states for two peoples could be closing.
Arab belief in the viability of "the two-state solution," Israel and Palestine at peace, is diminishing. And the worry in Jerusalem is that this growing lack of confidence could undermine the fragile negotiating process.
JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Irked by the slow rate of progress in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, major Arab players are threatening to withdraw their offer to normalize ties with Israel once a Palestinian state is established.
Underlying the Arab reassessment is a deeper problem: Arab belief in the viability of "the two-state solution," Israel and Palestine at peace, is diminishing. And the worry in Jerusalem is that this growing lack of confidence could undermine the fragile negotiating process so carefully put in place at the regional peace conference in Annapolis, Md., last November.The Arab offer to normalize ties with Israel was part of the 2002 Arab League peace plan initiated by Saudi Arabia. The idea was to give Israel an added incentive to make peace with the Palestinians.
Now, however, in the run-up to a new Arab League summit slated for Damascus in late March, the Saudis seem to be having second thoughts.
Pointing to the slow advance in the peace talks, for which he blamed Israel, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal told a gathering of Arab and South American foreign ministers in Argentina on Feb. 21 that "despair will force us to review these options."
Faisal accused Israel of sabotaging the Arab League peace plan, which he said was now "facing great danger."
Arab League officials were quick to take their cue. They complained that Israel had not responded positively to the Arab peace initiative, so there was little point in leaving it on the table. The Arabs had extended the hand of peace, but now they faced "unprecedented Israeli obstinacy," Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa declared.
Moderate Arab states such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan had hoped that a two-state solution, followed by a general Arab accommodation with Israel, would weaken the radicals and pave the way for regional stability.
But concern is growing that with the Gaza Strip controlled by the radical Hamas and the West Bank dotted with Jewish settlements, any future Palestinian state would be truncated and unviable – and as such a source of friction rather than a guarantor of stability.
Egypt, which shares a border with Gaza, and Jordan which borders on the West Bank, are particularly worried. Both still see the two-state solution as a major strategic interest, but are growing more skeptical over the chances of achieving it.
The Egyptians, in particular, were jolted by the sight of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians streaming over the Gaza border into Egyptian territory with the collapse of the Rafah border fence last month. They were distressed as well to hear some Israelis suggest that Egypt take responsibility for Gaza, as it had until the Israeli occupation in 1967.
In Jordan, the fear is that if a moderate Palestinian state is not established soon, Hamas radicals will gain control of the West Bank and pose a direct threat to the Hashemite Kingdom. So when Egypt and Jordan warn that the chances for a two-state solution are eroding, it is at least partly to press Israel to move more quickly toward one.
The Saudi and Arab League warnings could be seen in this light, too: The growing skepticism about the two-state option is very real.
For a full-fledged Palestinian state, including the West Bank and Gaza, to emerge, first there would have to be an accommodation between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' moderate Fatah movement and the Iranian-backed Hamas.
This is the thrust of much behind-the-scenes Saudi, Egyptian and Jordanian diplomacy. Indeed, they reportedly are pressing Hamas to agree to cede its control of Gaza at the upcoming Arab League summit. But they are well aware that the chances of that happening are extremely low given Iran's unyielding opposition to anything that might help the moderate camp.
Worse for the two-state option: Many Palestinian intellectuals, including some close to Abbas, are questioning its merits. In a seminal op-ed in the British Guardian newspaper, Oxford-based scholar Ahmad Samih Khalidi -- sometimes referred to as "Abbas' brain" -- argued, "Today, the Palestinian state is largely a punitive construct devised by the Palestinians' worst historical enemies, Israel and its implacable ally, the U.S. The intention behind the state today is to constrain Palestinian aspirations territorially, to force them to give up on their moral rights, renege on their history and submit to Israel's dictates on fundamental issues of sovereignty.
"The temptation," Khalidi added later, "is to say thanks but no thanks."
Instead, Khalidi warned that the Palestinians could "evoke [Israeli Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert's worst nightmare," and go for a single state, "a genuine partnership in sharing the land" on the basis of one man, one vote.
Other Palestinians are suggesting that barring major progress toward viable statehood by December, the Palestinian Authority should dissolve itself and hand the keys back to the Israeli military government. The struggle then would not be for statehood but for equal rights in a single binational state.
This scenario is indeed one of Olmert's worst nightmares. On the last day of the Annapolis summit he declared that if the two-state solution collapses, "Israel is finished." What he meant was that in a one-man, one-vote unitary state -- Israel and Palestine together -- the eventual Palestinian majority would spell the end of the Zionist notion of independent Jewish statehood.
Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni claim they are making every effort to reach a deal that would pre-empt the one-state drive. Livni meets former Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ahmad Qureia on an almost daily basis to discuss the core issues of borders, Jerusalem and refugees; other teams are working on every conceivable element of relations between Israel and a future Palestine; and Olmert and Abbas meet from time to time to assess and facilitate movement.
What makes gauging progress almost impossible is the fact that Livni and Qureia have imposed an effective news blackout. The lack of any record of progress has led some observers to conclude there is none, and this is what the Saudis and other Arab players are finding so frustrating.
Then again, Olmert in private reportedly claims that he and Abbas already have wrapped up everything. If this is indeed the case, the two-state solution may still be saved. If not, the prospects for Israel, the Palestinians and the region as a whole look bleak. The window of opportunity for two states for two peoples could be closing.
News samples from Israel
Thought you should understand what is going on today:
23:38 Fourth Israeli raid on Gaza within an hour. Palestinians announced that an aircraft attacked a branch of the Hamas Interior Ministry in northern Gaza. (Guysen.International.News)Qassam rain on the Negev: In less than four hours on Wednesday evening, 46 Qassam rockets and eight mortars struck Sderot, Ashkelon and communities in the western Negev. One person was killed, two slightly injured and 47 people are in a state of shock. In addition considerable damage were noted, especially in the ''Off Kor'' factory. (Guysen.International.News)
22:16 Following a meeting with the heads of the police and the home front, the mayor of Ashkelon, Roni Mahatsri, called on the government to intensify pressure on the Palestinians and to undertake a military ground operation to put an end to the firing of Qassam. (Guysen.International.News)
21:56 The armed wing of Hamas, the Ezzedine al-Kassam Brigades, claimed the shooting of 35 Qassam rockets into Israel on Wednesday night. (Guysen.International.News)
21:12 The U.S. State Department condemned the mass firing of Qassam rockets on the south of Israel which claimed the life of a student in the Sapir academic college. (Guysen.International.News)
21:03 Tsipi Livni met with the director of the Sapir College, which a Qassam hit earlier, killing one student, a father of 4 children. The foreign minister spoke about the security measures taken in the facility. Tomorrow (Thursday), the ambassadors of the European Union presidency will lay a wreath on the spot. (Guysen.International.News)
20:56 Since Monday Jericho has been connected to the Jordanian electricity grid, the first time since the Six-Day War. The Jordanian Minister of Information, Nasser Jouda, explained that it was not a political action but ''aid to the Palestinians to bridge their electricity consumption''. (Guysen.International.News)
20:47 Qassam rain on the Negev: another rocket, the 46th of the day, fell near the Sapir academic college and Kibbutz Gevim. There were no injuries. (Guysen.International.News)
20:37 Al-Qaida is threatening to avenge the death of its chief of operations in Afghanistan. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the number two in the global terrorist network, broadcast his message in a video posted on the organization's website. The Afghan terrorist leader Abu Laith al-Libi was killed in late January in Pakistan. (Guysen.International.News)
20:35 Qassam Rain on the Negev: the Barzilai hospital in Ashkelon reported one person slightly injured and 23 people treated for shock. in the wake of a massive firing of rockets onto southern Israel. (Guysen.International.News)
20:26 Ehud Olmert said that Egypt is not in violation of the peace agreement signed with Israel, by reinforcing its military personnel along the Philadelphia axis. The Prime Minister said that the goal is to ''seal the border for the smuggling of arms''. (Guysen.International.News)
19:51 Qassam rain on the Negev: after an assessment of the security situation, the commander of the southern district police has decided to strengthen security arrangements in Ashkelon, Sderot and all communities around the Gaza Strip. (Guysen.International.News)
19:46 A spontaneous demonstration was organized at the entrance of Sderot, to denounce the firing of Qassams. Residents burned tires and protested against the government's inertia. (Guysen.International.News)
19:45 Qassam rain on the Negev: the name of the victim has been published. It was Roni Yihia, a 47-year-old father of 4 children, from the town of Bitkha near Ofakim. (Guysen.International.News)
19:42 Qassam rain on the Negev: the El-Mujahideen Brigades claimed the latest firing of Qassam rockets on the western Negev ''in response to the crimes of the Zionist enemy''. (Guysen.International.News)
19:33 IDF air raid on a group of terrorists who were shooting rockets from the town of Bet Hanoun in northern Gaza. (Guysen.International.News)
19:25 Qassam rain on the Negev: a Qassam rocket has just hit vacant space near Kibbutz Alumim. There were no injuries. This is the 45th rocket in three hours. (Guysen.International.News)
19:17 Omri Sharon, son of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who was sentenced to 7 months in prison for violating the law on party financing, began his prison sentence in Maassiyahou Prison, in Ramleh on Wednesday. He is sharing a cell with five other prisoners. (Guysen.International.News)
19:07 Qassam rain on the Negev: A Qassam struck the town of Yahimi, there were no injuries. (Guysen.International.News)
18:56 Qassam Rain on the Negev: another Qassam on Sderot, and still no response from the government, which seems to have no intention of engaging in a large-scale operation for now. (Guysen.International.News)
18:52 Qassam rain on the Negev: One of the rockets that hit Ashkelon earlier hit a high-voltage cable, and many parts of the city are without electricity. Firefighters from the Lachish region were sent as reinforcements to Ashkelon to assist their local colleagues who are rescuing hundreds of people trapped in lifts. (Guysen.International.News)
18:46 An urgent meeting of the security services after the serious escalation of the situation on the southern front. Defense Minister Ehud Barak informed Ehud Olmert, traveling in Japan, of the mass firing of Qassams on the western Negev. (Guysen.International.News)
18:32 Qassam rain on the Negev: two rockets fell again in the region of Sderot, the impact points have not yet been identified. A total of 42 Qassams have hit the south of Israel during the last 3 hours. (Guysen.International.News)
18:29 Qassam rain on the Negev: another rocket has hit between Nahal Oz and Alumim bringing to 40 the number of rockets fired in the last three hours. (Guysen.International.News)
18:14 The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange closed on a downturn. The Tel Aviv 25 index and the Tel Aviv 100 lost 0.24% each and Teltec declined by 0.13%. (Guysen.International.News)
18:05 Qassam rain on the Negev: four Qassam rockets have just struck Ashkelon. Two of them exploded in the industrial zone. Another exploded on the emergency runway of the Barzilai hospital and the fourth, in the streets of the city. Several people are in a state of shock. (Guysen.International.News)
17:58 Hundreds of women are marching in Tel Aviv between Rabin Square and the offices of the district public prosecutor. They are protesting the decision of the Supreme Court to accept the compromise reached between the prosecution and President Katsav on the sexual harassment case. (Guysen.International.News)
17:47 The first floor of the Knesset was completely evacuated by the security services. It seems that MK Shlomo Benizri (Shas) fell ill after opening an envelope containing a white powder. Benizri was treated at the Knesset infirmary. It is still unclear what the substance is. (Guysen.International.News)
17:29 Qassam rain on the Negev: a Qassam rocket has just struck a vacant lot near Sderot. There were no injuries or damage. Earlier, another rocket exploded near a kindergarten on Kibbutz Nir Am, without causing any injuries. (Guysen.International.News)
17:18 A news item which has just been authorized for publication: the five Hamas terrorists killed on Wednesday morning in an IDF air raid were in the process of planning a large-scale attack. Military leaders say that the members of this terrorist cell were trained recently outside of the Gaza Strip and were actively involved in the firing of Qassam rockets into Israel. (Guysen.International.News)
17:09
23:38 Fourth Israeli raid on Gaza within an hour. Palestinians announced that an aircraft attacked a branch of the Hamas Interior Ministry in northern Gaza. (Guysen.International.News)Qassam rain on the Negev: In less than four hours on Wednesday evening, 46 Qassam rockets and eight mortars struck Sderot, Ashkelon and communities in the western Negev. One person was killed, two slightly injured and 47 people are in a state of shock. In addition considerable damage were noted, especially in the ''Off Kor'' factory. (Guysen.International.News)
22:16 Following a meeting with the heads of the police and the home front, the mayor of Ashkelon, Roni Mahatsri, called on the government to intensify pressure on the Palestinians and to undertake a military ground operation to put an end to the firing of Qassam. (Guysen.International.News)
21:56 The armed wing of Hamas, the Ezzedine al-Kassam Brigades, claimed the shooting of 35 Qassam rockets into Israel on Wednesday night. (Guysen.International.News)
21:12 The U.S. State Department condemned the mass firing of Qassam rockets on the south of Israel which claimed the life of a student in the Sapir academic college. (Guysen.International.News)
21:03 Tsipi Livni met with the director of the Sapir College, which a Qassam hit earlier, killing one student, a father of 4 children. The foreign minister spoke about the security measures taken in the facility. Tomorrow (Thursday), the ambassadors of the European Union presidency will lay a wreath on the spot. (Guysen.International.News)
20:56 Since Monday Jericho has been connected to the Jordanian electricity grid, the first time since the Six-Day War. The Jordanian Minister of Information, Nasser Jouda, explained that it was not a political action but ''aid to the Palestinians to bridge their electricity consumption''. (Guysen.International.News)
20:47 Qassam rain on the Negev: another rocket, the 46th of the day, fell near the Sapir academic college and Kibbutz Gevim. There were no injuries. (Guysen.International.News)
20:37 Al-Qaida is threatening to avenge the death of its chief of operations in Afghanistan. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the number two in the global terrorist network, broadcast his message in a video posted on the organization's website. The Afghan terrorist leader Abu Laith al-Libi was killed in late January in Pakistan. (Guysen.International.News)
20:35 Qassam Rain on the Negev: the Barzilai hospital in Ashkelon reported one person slightly injured and 23 people treated for shock. in the wake of a massive firing of rockets onto southern Israel. (Guysen.International.News)
20:26 Ehud Olmert said that Egypt is not in violation of the peace agreement signed with Israel, by reinforcing its military personnel along the Philadelphia axis. The Prime Minister said that the goal is to ''seal the border for the smuggling of arms''. (Guysen.International.News)
19:51 Qassam rain on the Negev: after an assessment of the security situation, the commander of the southern district police has decided to strengthen security arrangements in Ashkelon, Sderot and all communities around the Gaza Strip. (Guysen.International.News)
19:46 A spontaneous demonstration was organized at the entrance of Sderot, to denounce the firing of Qassams. Residents burned tires and protested against the government's inertia. (Guysen.International.News)
19:45 Qassam rain on the Negev: the name of the victim has been published. It was Roni Yihia, a 47-year-old father of 4 children, from the town of Bitkha near Ofakim. (Guysen.International.News)
19:42 Qassam rain on the Negev: the El-Mujahideen Brigades claimed the latest firing of Qassam rockets on the western Negev ''in response to the crimes of the Zionist enemy''. (Guysen.International.News)
19:33 IDF air raid on a group of terrorists who were shooting rockets from the town of Bet Hanoun in northern Gaza. (Guysen.International.News)
19:25 Qassam rain on the Negev: a Qassam rocket has just hit vacant space near Kibbutz Alumim. There were no injuries. This is the 45th rocket in three hours. (Guysen.International.News)
19:17 Omri Sharon, son of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who was sentenced to 7 months in prison for violating the law on party financing, began his prison sentence in Maassiyahou Prison, in Ramleh on Wednesday. He is sharing a cell with five other prisoners. (Guysen.International.News)
19:07 Qassam rain on the Negev: A Qassam struck the town of Yahimi, there were no injuries. (Guysen.International.News)
18:56 Qassam Rain on the Negev: another Qassam on Sderot, and still no response from the government, which seems to have no intention of engaging in a large-scale operation for now. (Guysen.International.News)
18:52 Qassam rain on the Negev: One of the rockets that hit Ashkelon earlier hit a high-voltage cable, and many parts of the city are without electricity. Firefighters from the Lachish region were sent as reinforcements to Ashkelon to assist their local colleagues who are rescuing hundreds of people trapped in lifts. (Guysen.International.News)
18:46 An urgent meeting of the security services after the serious escalation of the situation on the southern front. Defense Minister Ehud Barak informed Ehud Olmert, traveling in Japan, of the mass firing of Qassams on the western Negev. (Guysen.International.News)
18:32 Qassam rain on the Negev: two rockets fell again in the region of Sderot, the impact points have not yet been identified. A total of 42 Qassams have hit the south of Israel during the last 3 hours. (Guysen.International.News)
18:29 Qassam rain on the Negev: another rocket has hit between Nahal Oz and Alumim bringing to 40 the number of rockets fired in the last three hours. (Guysen.International.News)
18:14 The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange closed on a downturn. The Tel Aviv 25 index and the Tel Aviv 100 lost 0.24% each and Teltec declined by 0.13%. (Guysen.International.News)
18:05 Qassam rain on the Negev: four Qassam rockets have just struck Ashkelon. Two of them exploded in the industrial zone. Another exploded on the emergency runway of the Barzilai hospital and the fourth, in the streets of the city. Several people are in a state of shock. (Guysen.International.News)
17:58 Hundreds of women are marching in Tel Aviv between Rabin Square and the offices of the district public prosecutor. They are protesting the decision of the Supreme Court to accept the compromise reached between the prosecution and President Katsav on the sexual harassment case. (Guysen.International.News)
17:47 The first floor of the Knesset was completely evacuated by the security services. It seems that MK Shlomo Benizri (Shas) fell ill after opening an envelope containing a white powder. Benizri was treated at the Knesset infirmary. It is still unclear what the substance is. (Guysen.International.News)
17:29 Qassam rain on the Negev: a Qassam rocket has just struck a vacant lot near Sderot. There were no injuries or damage. Earlier, another rocket exploded near a kindergarten on Kibbutz Nir Am, without causing any injuries. (Guysen.International.News)
17:18 A news item which has just been authorized for publication: the five Hamas terrorists killed on Wednesday morning in an IDF air raid were in the process of planning a large-scale attack. Military leaders say that the members of this terrorist cell were trained recently outside of the Gaza Strip and were actively involved in the firing of Qassam rockets into Israel. (Guysen.International.News)
17:09
ABC pushes Islamic victimhood
The perpetrator of this hostility was an actor. The victim was an actor. The whole incident was trumped-up, rendering the significance of the reactions suspect to say the least. ABC could not, you see, count on a veiled Muslim woman encountering hostility anywhere in this U.S. -- otherwise, they could have simply sent her into a few stores and filmed the uncanned reaction. So they had to create an "Islamophobic" store clerk as well, to guarantee the outcome they wanted.Then they highlight the negative reactions with nary a hint that the Muslim community in the U.S. might have the power to change such boorish and hostile reactions -- by being more transparent, by being more honest, by being more specific and forthright in opposing the jihad ideology -- if it indeed does. Obnoxiousness is obnoxiousness, but when people turn on the news and see rage and threats of murder over cartoons, and terrorist act after terrorist act committed in the name of Islam, they aren't blind. They shouldn't react by verbally abusing some random Muslim woman in a store, but the idea that all this is some example of gratuitous racism is ridiculous.
Note also that the "skyrocketing" rate of hate crimes against Muslims is largely trumped-up. And of course while ABC's companion piece to this one relies heavily on "information" from CAIR, there is no mention of CAIR's unindicted co-conspirator status, or its connections to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, or the convictions of various of its officials on terror-related charges.
"Witness to Discrimination: What Would You Do? Bystanders Turn Away When Muslim Actor Hired By 'Primetime' Encounters Hostility," by Ann Sorkowitz and Julie N. Hays for ABC (thanks to Kemaste):
The Sept. 11 attacks, the Iraq war and suicide bombings worldwide have changed not only the way we live but the way we look at those around us, especially Muslims. "Islamophobia" has entered the American vernacular, and the anti-Muslim attitudes and prejudice it describes remain common.
But what if you witnessed "Islamophobia" in action and saw someone being victimized because of someone else's prejudices? What would you do?
ABC's production crew outfitted The Czech Stop, a bustling roadside bakery north of Waco, Texas, with hidden cameras and two actors. One played a female customer wearing a traditional Muslim head scarf, or hijab. The other acted as a sales clerk who refused to serve her and spouted common anti-Muslim and anti-Arab slurs.
The polarity of reactions was shocking, from support to seething disapproval. Never did we expect customers to be so passionate or candid.
Our actor, Sabina, walked into the bakery in search of apple strudel. When she reached the counter, an actor posing as a sales clerk was quick to greet her with hateful anti-Muslim language.
"Get back on the camel and go back to wherever you came from," he said. "You got that towel on your head. I don't know what's underneath your dress. Just please take your business and go elsewhere with it."
"Sir, I am an American, I was born and raised here," she said.
The other customers seemed to hear the exchange but they barely looked toward our actors. When no one came to her defense, Sabina made a direct appeal to one customer.
"Sir, would you mind ordering me an apple strudel? That's why I am here," Sabina said.
Though visibly shaken by the hateful words, the man gave Sabina the cold shoulder, completed his purchase, and walked out of the bakery. "I really think that a person who owns his own business should be able to say who they sell to," he said after we told him about the experiment. In fact, it is illegal for public establishments to deny service based on someone's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, according to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Regardless, this man was not the only customer to defend our sales clerk's "right" to discriminate.
A Narrowly Defined America
A little while later, Sabina again entered the bakery, and again our sales clerk refused to serve her. This time, one man spoke up, but not on behalf of the Muslim woman. He was adamant that our sales clerk did the right thing. "She wasn't dressed right," he said. "If I was running the place I'd do the same thing." Once again, our sales clerk garnered customer support. After Sabina left the bakery seemingly frustrated and empty-handed, one man thanked the sales clerk for his discriminatory behavior. He then gave our actor a thumbs-up, not once, but twice. Jack Dovidio, a social psychologist at Yale University, said these men seemed to define "American" based on the way people look. They connected with the sales clerk and considered our female actor an outsider. "When we as Americans feel threatened from the outside, we're going to define ourselves in very rigid fashions," Dovidio said. "Either you're with me, and if you're not really one of me, then you must be somebody else who's against me."
A Very Different America
The young woman in our experiment was an actor, but many of the hateful words she heard were based on the experiences of Chicago-born Nohayia Javed, who was watching our experiment from the control van. Javed said she has continually suffered verbal abuse and said she has even been physically attacked by fellow Americans just because she is Muslim. "They always start off with, 'you're a terrorist, Osama-lover, towel-head, camel jockey' on and on," Javed said. "If I tell them I'm American, they're like, 'No you're not. Just because you were born here doesn't make you American.' And I'm like, 'What makes you American?'"
Javed is not alone. The number of anti-Islamic hate crime incidents in the United States has more than quadrupled from 28 incidents in 2000 to 156 incidents in 2006, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's most recent figures....
Thanks to Dhimmi Watch
Note also that the "skyrocketing" rate of hate crimes against Muslims is largely trumped-up. And of course while ABC's companion piece to this one relies heavily on "information" from CAIR, there is no mention of CAIR's unindicted co-conspirator status, or its connections to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, or the convictions of various of its officials on terror-related charges.
"Witness to Discrimination: What Would You Do? Bystanders Turn Away When Muslim Actor Hired By 'Primetime' Encounters Hostility," by Ann Sorkowitz and Julie N. Hays for ABC (thanks to Kemaste):
The Sept. 11 attacks, the Iraq war and suicide bombings worldwide have changed not only the way we live but the way we look at those around us, especially Muslims. "Islamophobia" has entered the American vernacular, and the anti-Muslim attitudes and prejudice it describes remain common.
But what if you witnessed "Islamophobia" in action and saw someone being victimized because of someone else's prejudices? What would you do?
ABC's production crew outfitted The Czech Stop, a bustling roadside bakery north of Waco, Texas, with hidden cameras and two actors. One played a female customer wearing a traditional Muslim head scarf, or hijab. The other acted as a sales clerk who refused to serve her and spouted common anti-Muslim and anti-Arab slurs.
The polarity of reactions was shocking, from support to seething disapproval. Never did we expect customers to be so passionate or candid.
Our actor, Sabina, walked into the bakery in search of apple strudel. When she reached the counter, an actor posing as a sales clerk was quick to greet her with hateful anti-Muslim language.
"Get back on the camel and go back to wherever you came from," he said. "You got that towel on your head. I don't know what's underneath your dress. Just please take your business and go elsewhere with it."
"Sir, I am an American, I was born and raised here," she said.
The other customers seemed to hear the exchange but they barely looked toward our actors. When no one came to her defense, Sabina made a direct appeal to one customer.
"Sir, would you mind ordering me an apple strudel? That's why I am here," Sabina said.
Though visibly shaken by the hateful words, the man gave Sabina the cold shoulder, completed his purchase, and walked out of the bakery. "I really think that a person who owns his own business should be able to say who they sell to," he said after we told him about the experiment. In fact, it is illegal for public establishments to deny service based on someone's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, according to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Regardless, this man was not the only customer to defend our sales clerk's "right" to discriminate.
A Narrowly Defined America
A little while later, Sabina again entered the bakery, and again our sales clerk refused to serve her. This time, one man spoke up, but not on behalf of the Muslim woman. He was adamant that our sales clerk did the right thing. "She wasn't dressed right," he said. "If I was running the place I'd do the same thing." Once again, our sales clerk garnered customer support. After Sabina left the bakery seemingly frustrated and empty-handed, one man thanked the sales clerk for his discriminatory behavior. He then gave our actor a thumbs-up, not once, but twice. Jack Dovidio, a social psychologist at Yale University, said these men seemed to define "American" based on the way people look. They connected with the sales clerk and considered our female actor an outsider. "When we as Americans feel threatened from the outside, we're going to define ourselves in very rigid fashions," Dovidio said. "Either you're with me, and if you're not really one of me, then you must be somebody else who's against me."
A Very Different America
The young woman in our experiment was an actor, but many of the hateful words she heard were based on the experiences of Chicago-born Nohayia Javed, who was watching our experiment from the control van. Javed said she has continually suffered verbal abuse and said she has even been physically attacked by fellow Americans just because she is Muslim. "They always start off with, 'you're a terrorist, Osama-lover, towel-head, camel jockey' on and on," Javed said. "If I tell them I'm American, they're like, 'No you're not. Just because you were born here doesn't make you American.' And I'm like, 'What makes you American?'"
Javed is not alone. The number of anti-Islamic hate crime incidents in the United States has more than quadrupled from 28 incidents in 2000 to 156 incidents in 2006, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's most recent figures....
Thanks to Dhimmi Watch
Spencer: The Terrorist Bill of Rights: Part 2
Robert Spencer
Human Events
Congress -- with its endless squabbling with the Bush Administration over FISA, the equally endless torture law debates, and the relentless handwringing over Gitmo -- has made its position clear: Pelosi and Co. are concerned, deeply concerned, with terrorists’ civil liberties. As Jed Babbin put it last September in his article “The Terrorist Bill of Rights,” “The Democrats’ national security agenda seems designed, point by point, to destroy the means by which we have been protected since 9-11.”But try to see it from their point of view. After all, if we become like our enemy, all is lost! So with this longstanding solicitude of the Democrats and the Left in general for the jihadists confirmed yet again this week, it’s time to step back and codify the jihadists’ hard-won gains -- the fruit of the political correctness and misbegotten attempts to win hearts and minds that have guided current policy to an alarming degree. That’s right: it’s time for a Terrorist Bill of Rights.
So with the appeasers and the willfully self-deceived running the show, exactly what rights to the jihadists have?
1. If jihadists’ phone calls plotting terrorist attacks are monitored by telecom companies, jihadists can sue the telecom companies and tie them up for years in the courts. This was enabled by the House Democrats’ allowing a surveillance act to expire last week. National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell and Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey wrote this week to the House Intelligence Committee: “We have lost intelligence information this past week as a direct result of the uncertainty created by Congress’ failure to act. Because of this uncertainty, some partners have reduced cooperation.”
2. When jihadists are interrogated, they have the right to have ACLU lawyers sit in on the questioning -- lawyers who will watch the proceedings zealously and let the interrogators know when they’re getting out of line and their clients have no obligation to answer their questions. The Pentagon allowed this in 2005 during interrogations of Taliban and Al-Qaeda prisoners, leading one military observer to remark: “It’s as if they [the detainees] were [merely] shoplifters in the U.S. The lawyers may have left by now, but the damage is done. We’re sending guys [attorneys] down to interrogate on [the] taxpayer’s dime for absolutely no reason now.”
3. Jihadists will have the right to feast on “Asian-accented stews of beef, chicken, and fish,” such that the average weight gain among prisoners at the alleged “torture camp” of Guantanamo will be thirteen pounds.
4. Jihadists in U.S. custody shall have the right to receive a free copy of the Qur’an – yet no effort will be made to disabuse them of the notion that it commands them to make war against and ultimately subjugate the very people who gave them the book.
5. Jihadists will not be subjected to the psychological torture and ritual impurity of having to see that Qur’an handled without gloves by unclean non-believing prison guards. (These two are long-standing policy at Gitmo.)
It is vital that the United States and the West stand for the dignity and the rights of every person against the jihadists who would deny those rights to women, religious minorities, and others, but this kind of solicitude goes far beyond any sane notion of human rights. The Democrats’ refusal to extend legal protection to the telecom companies seems to be motivated by pure partisanship -- by a desire to deny George W. Bush a legislative victory.
The interference of the ACLU in the interrogation of prisoners may likewise have stemmed from an anxiety to avoid even the appearance of human rights violations -- although a captured Al-Qaeda manual makes clear that jihadist prisoners must always claim to have been tortured, no matter what the politically correct kid-gloves-on-the-Qur’an realities of the situation. That manual has been known for years, making it puzzling -- to put it mildly -- that the possibility that those who have claimed to have been tortured while in U.S. custody might simply be lying doesn’t seem to get much consideration in the mainstream media or even from the establishment human rights advocacy organizations.
And meanwhile, lost in the shuffle of all this solicitude for the rights of our enemies is the right of the American people to be protected from jihadist attack. Where is the anxious solicitude of Pelosi and her merry band for that?
Human Events
Congress -- with its endless squabbling with the Bush Administration over FISA, the equally endless torture law debates, and the relentless handwringing over Gitmo -- has made its position clear: Pelosi and Co. are concerned, deeply concerned, with terrorists’ civil liberties. As Jed Babbin put it last September in his article “The Terrorist Bill of Rights,” “The Democrats’ national security agenda seems designed, point by point, to destroy the means by which we have been protected since 9-11.”But try to see it from their point of view. After all, if we become like our enemy, all is lost! So with this longstanding solicitude of the Democrats and the Left in general for the jihadists confirmed yet again this week, it’s time to step back and codify the jihadists’ hard-won gains -- the fruit of the political correctness and misbegotten attempts to win hearts and minds that have guided current policy to an alarming degree. That’s right: it’s time for a Terrorist Bill of Rights.
So with the appeasers and the willfully self-deceived running the show, exactly what rights to the jihadists have?
1. If jihadists’ phone calls plotting terrorist attacks are monitored by telecom companies, jihadists can sue the telecom companies and tie them up for years in the courts. This was enabled by the House Democrats’ allowing a surveillance act to expire last week. National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell and Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey wrote this week to the House Intelligence Committee: “We have lost intelligence information this past week as a direct result of the uncertainty created by Congress’ failure to act. Because of this uncertainty, some partners have reduced cooperation.”
2. When jihadists are interrogated, they have the right to have ACLU lawyers sit in on the questioning -- lawyers who will watch the proceedings zealously and let the interrogators know when they’re getting out of line and their clients have no obligation to answer their questions. The Pentagon allowed this in 2005 during interrogations of Taliban and Al-Qaeda prisoners, leading one military observer to remark: “It’s as if they [the detainees] were [merely] shoplifters in the U.S. The lawyers may have left by now, but the damage is done. We’re sending guys [attorneys] down to interrogate on [the] taxpayer’s dime for absolutely no reason now.”
3. Jihadists will have the right to feast on “Asian-accented stews of beef, chicken, and fish,” such that the average weight gain among prisoners at the alleged “torture camp” of Guantanamo will be thirteen pounds.
4. Jihadists in U.S. custody shall have the right to receive a free copy of the Qur’an – yet no effort will be made to disabuse them of the notion that it commands them to make war against and ultimately subjugate the very people who gave them the book.
5. Jihadists will not be subjected to the psychological torture and ritual impurity of having to see that Qur’an handled without gloves by unclean non-believing prison guards. (These two are long-standing policy at Gitmo.)
It is vital that the United States and the West stand for the dignity and the rights of every person against the jihadists who would deny those rights to women, religious minorities, and others, but this kind of solicitude goes far beyond any sane notion of human rights. The Democrats’ refusal to extend legal protection to the telecom companies seems to be motivated by pure partisanship -- by a desire to deny George W. Bush a legislative victory.
The interference of the ACLU in the interrogation of prisoners may likewise have stemmed from an anxiety to avoid even the appearance of human rights violations -- although a captured Al-Qaeda manual makes clear that jihadist prisoners must always claim to have been tortured, no matter what the politically correct kid-gloves-on-the-Qur’an realities of the situation. That manual has been known for years, making it puzzling -- to put it mildly -- that the possibility that those who have claimed to have been tortured while in U.S. custody might simply be lying doesn’t seem to get much consideration in the mainstream media or even from the establishment human rights advocacy organizations.
And meanwhile, lost in the shuffle of all this solicitude for the rights of our enemies is the right of the American people to be protected from jihadist attack. Where is the anxious solicitude of Pelosi and her merry band for that?
Relax! There are only 91 million jihadists!
And that, to some minds at least, proves that this problem has nothing to do with Islam. The idea that the jihad ideology could have been deemphasized for a long period and then reasserted, as in pamphlets such as "Jihad: The Forgotten Obligation," creating an energetic minority, a jihadist vanguard within the Islamic world, does not enter this scenario. We are supposed to feel great that only 91 million share radical views -- or at least only 91 million were dumb enough to tell a Gallup rep that they held such views."Major survey challenges Western perceptions of Islam," by Karin Zeitvogel for AFP (thanks to Ansik):
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A huge survey of the world's Muslims released Tuesday challenges Western notions that equate Islam with radicalism and violence.
The survey, conducted by the Gallup polling agency over six years and three continents, seeks to dispel the belief held by some in the West that Islam itself is the driving force of radicalism.
It shows that the overwhelming majority of Muslims condemned the attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001 and other subsequent terrorist attacks, the authors of the study said in Washington.
"Samuel Harris said in the Washington Times (in 2004): 'It is time we admitted that we are not at war with terrorism. We are at war with Islam'," Dalia Mogahed, co-author of the book "Who Speaks for Islam" which grew out of the study, told a news conference here.
"The argument Mr Harris makes is that religion in the primary driver" of radicalism and violence, she said.
"Religion is an important part of life for the overwhelming majority of Muslims, and if it were indeed the driver for radicalisation, this would be a serious issue."
But the study, which Gallup says surveyed a sample equivalent to 90 percent of the world's Muslims, showed that widespread religiosity "does not translate into widespread support for terrorism," said Mogahed, director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies.
About 93 percent of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims are moderates and only seven percent are politically radical, according to the poll, based on more than 50,000 interviews.
In majority Muslim countries, overwhelming majorities said religion was a very important part of their lives -- 99 percent in Indonesia, 98 percent in Egypt, 95 percent in Pakistan.
But only seven percent of the billion Muslims surveyed -- the radicals -- condoned the attacks on the United States in 2001, the poll showed.
Moderate Muslims interviewed for the poll condemned the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington because innocent lives were lost and civilians killed.
"Some actually cited religious justifications for why they were against 9/11, going as far as to quote from the Koran -- for example, the verse that says taking one innocent life is like killing all humanity," she said.
Meanwhile, radical Muslims gave political, not religious, reasons for condoning the attacks, the poll showed.
The survey shows radicals to be neither more religious than their moderate counterparts, nor products of abject poverty or refugee camps.
"The radicals are better educated, have better jobs, and are more hopeful with regard to the future than mainstream Muslims," John Esposito, who co-authored "Who Speaks for Islam", said....
Better educated? But...aren't they ignorant of Islam?
Do you think John Esposito even noticed the chasm of cognitive dissonance widening at his feet?
The poll has given voice to Islam's silent majority, said Mogahed.
"A billion Muslims should be the ones that we look to, to understand what they believe, rather than a vocal minority," she told AFP.
Yes, we should look to them, and ask them why they aren't doing much of anything to challenge that 91 million.
Thanks to Jihad Watch
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A huge survey of the world's Muslims released Tuesday challenges Western notions that equate Islam with radicalism and violence.
The survey, conducted by the Gallup polling agency over six years and three continents, seeks to dispel the belief held by some in the West that Islam itself is the driving force of radicalism.
It shows that the overwhelming majority of Muslims condemned the attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001 and other subsequent terrorist attacks, the authors of the study said in Washington.
"Samuel Harris said in the Washington Times (in 2004): 'It is time we admitted that we are not at war with terrorism. We are at war with Islam'," Dalia Mogahed, co-author of the book "Who Speaks for Islam" which grew out of the study, told a news conference here.
"The argument Mr Harris makes is that religion in the primary driver" of radicalism and violence, she said.
"Religion is an important part of life for the overwhelming majority of Muslims, and if it were indeed the driver for radicalisation, this would be a serious issue."
But the study, which Gallup says surveyed a sample equivalent to 90 percent of the world's Muslims, showed that widespread religiosity "does not translate into widespread support for terrorism," said Mogahed, director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies.
About 93 percent of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims are moderates and only seven percent are politically radical, according to the poll, based on more than 50,000 interviews.
In majority Muslim countries, overwhelming majorities said religion was a very important part of their lives -- 99 percent in Indonesia, 98 percent in Egypt, 95 percent in Pakistan.
But only seven percent of the billion Muslims surveyed -- the radicals -- condoned the attacks on the United States in 2001, the poll showed.
Moderate Muslims interviewed for the poll condemned the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington because innocent lives were lost and civilians killed.
"Some actually cited religious justifications for why they were against 9/11, going as far as to quote from the Koran -- for example, the verse that says taking one innocent life is like killing all humanity," she said.
Meanwhile, radical Muslims gave political, not religious, reasons for condoning the attacks, the poll showed.
The survey shows radicals to be neither more religious than their moderate counterparts, nor products of abject poverty or refugee camps.
"The radicals are better educated, have better jobs, and are more hopeful with regard to the future than mainstream Muslims," John Esposito, who co-authored "Who Speaks for Islam", said....
Better educated? But...aren't they ignorant of Islam?
Do you think John Esposito even noticed the chasm of cognitive dissonance widening at his feet?
The poll has given voice to Islam's silent majority, said Mogahed.
"A billion Muslims should be the ones that we look to, to understand what they believe, rather than a vocal minority," she told AFP.
Yes, we should look to them, and ask them why they aren't doing much of anything to challenge that 91 million.
Thanks to Jihad Watch
Return of the CAIR Quran
Joe Kaufman
FrontPageMagazine.com | 2/28/2008
In September of 2002, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) began an ambitious project, whereby thousands of libraries across America would be provided with sets of books promoting Islam. The books included a version of the Quran that was banned by the Los Angeles school system for having anti-Semitic commentaries. After a long interval, where CAIR appeared to have disavowed itself from the book, it (the book) has made a comeback -- a cameo appearance on CAIR’s national website. The following was written as a reiteration of a recent past, when a radical Muslim group attempted to propagate hatred throughout our country, under the guise of education. Amana Publications is based in Beltsville, Maryland. For over 20 years, it has been producing books for the Muslim community. Its top “bestselling” book goes by the title of “The Meaning of THE HOLY QUR’AN,” and it is considered to be the most widely read English translation of the Quran in the world.
One of the book’s features that sets this version of the Quran apart from others is its running commentary. It’s probably the key to what makes this book so popular. It is also the one thing that has brought the book a large degree of notoriety.
[[AD]]
The English translation of the Amana Quran was performed by Abdullah Yusuf Ali. According to Amana, Ali’s first rendition was completed in the late 1930’s, on his 65th birthday. Along with the translation, Ali is credited with authoring a scholarly commentary throughout the text. The commentary is voluminous, making the book much larger in size than other Qurans; the latest edition -- the tenth edition -- is 1824 pages.
Besides the standard anti-Semitic statements found in the Quran, such as “Take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors,” Ali’s commentary went that much further with its anti-Jewish rhetoric. Some quotes from the text include:
* “The Jews in their arrogance claimed that all wisdom and all knowledge of Allah were enclosed in their hearts… Their claim was not only arrogance but blasphemy.”
* “A trick of the Jews was to twist words and expressions, so as to ridicule the most solemn teachings of Faith.”
* “[T]here is a catalogue of the iniquities of which the Jews were guilty, and for these iniquities we must understand some such words as: ‘They are under divine displeasure.’”
* “The Jews blaspheme and mock, and because of their jealousy, the more they are taught, the more obstinate they become in their rebellion… Their selfishness and spite sow quarrels among themselves, which will not be healed till the Day of Judgment.”
It is because of these statements that, in February of 2002, the Los Angeles public school system chose to pull every copy (nearly 300 copies) of “The Meaning of THE HOLY QUR’AN” from the shelves of all of its libraries. As stated by the Los Angeles Times, “After reviewing the book, [director of the Los Angeles Unified School District, Jim] Konantz instructed principals to secure all copies in their offices until the district determines what to do with them.” Later, the decision was made to ban all future usage.
However, the translation and commentaries are not the only overt signs of anti-Semitism in this Quran. Looking under the word “Jews” in the index of the book, one finds the following: “became apes and swine,” “cursed,” “enmity of,” “greedy of life,” “slew prophets,” “took usury,” “unbelief and blasphemy of,” “work iniquity,” and “write the Book with their own hands.”
The editor of the Amana Quran is the International Institute for Islamic Thought (IIIT). In March of 2002, IIIT’s Virginia offices were raided by the FBI in a terror financing probe. IIIT had funneled tens of thousands of dollars to groups and individuals associated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).
The same year that the Los Angeles public school system removed the Amana Quran from its library shelves for having virulently anti-Semitic content -- the same year that the editor of the Quran, IIIT, was raided by the FBI for its role in funding terrorists -- the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) elected to include the book in its library project.
CAIR was founded in June of 1994 as a front for the terrorist organization Hamas. 13 years later, in June of 2007, CAIR was labeled by the U.S. government as an “unindicted co-conspirator” for a Dallas, Texas trial that dealt with the financing of millions of dollars to Hamas.
On September 11, 2002, the one year anniversary of the worst tragedy to ever take place on American soil, CAIR announced a new initiative, titled ‘Explore Islamic Culture & Civilization.’ The goal of the project was to place sets of Islamic-oriented books in thousands of libraries across the United States. It was funded in part by a $500,000 gift from Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal.
Just prior to Bin Talal getting involved in the initiative, in April of 2002, he donated $27 million during a three-day telethon, which was being sponsored by the Saudi government group, the Committee for Support of the al-Aqsa Intifada. The total amount raised by the telethon was $109 million; Bin Talal had been the single largest donor. According to Israeli intelligence, the money that was raised went to assist families of Palestinian terrorists, including families of suicide bombers.
The Amana Quran was not the only problematic text in CAIR’s library set. One of the others was Jamal Badawi’s ‘GENDER EQUITY IN ISLAM,’ a book produced by American Trust Publications (ATP). ATP is the publishing arm of the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), an organization that, like CAIR, was named by the U.S. government as an “unindicted co-conspirator” for the Dallas trial.
But what’s most disturbing about this book is not its publisher, but its content, specifically the fact that it attempts to justify the beating of women by their husbands. In it, Badawi writes, “There are cases... where a wife persists in deliberate mistreatment of her husband and disregard for her marital obligations. Instead of divorce, the husband may resort to another measure that may save the marriage... Such a measure is more accurately described as a gentle tap on the body...” The Amana Quran refers to this as a “light beating.” Badawi calls it a “permissible beating.”
Another of the texts was Paul Findley’s ‘Silent No More.’ In the book, Findley lauds convicted terrorist Abdurahman Alamoudi as “a leader in Islamic affairs.” He exalts Neo-Nazi William Baker as “a Christian leader” and states, “Not enough Americans read the messages of… Baker.” And about the former Executive Director of the American Muslim Council (AMC) Eric Erfan Vickers, who described the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster as “an act of divine retribution against Israel,” Findley calls him “a rising voice in St. Louis politics.” Additionally, Findley memorializes each of these individuals with color pictures.
In May of 2005, CAIR, working off the success of its library project, launched a new campaign offering a free copy of the Quran to anyone who asked. The initiative was given the name, ‘Explore the Quran.’ According to CAIR, it was in response to an article printed in Newsweek magazine, which falsely claimed that U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay flushed a Quran down the toilet.
The Quran that was chosen for the CAIR campaign was, of course, the Amana one. It was used by the group, up until October of 2006, when CAIR decided to change to a new version published in Bristol, England, ‘The Message of THE QUR’AN.’ This edition was probably selected as a result of the controversy from the Amana text, for the simple reason that it was translated and contains commentary by a Jewish convert to Islam named Muhammad Asad (formerly Leopold Weiss).
For over a year, CAIR had sought to put distance between itself and its former Los Angeles banned edition of the Quran. Nevertheless, on Thursday, February 21, 2008, the Amana version resurfaced in an article CAIR-National posted on its website about another convert to Islam, a doctor at the Texas Tech Health Sciences Center named Jane Colmer-Hamood. The article, ‘Doctor Explains What it Means to Be a Muslim Woman,’ contains a photo of Colmer-Hamood proudly holding up the infamous Amana Quran. And the picture was not only found within the article itself, but it was placed, as well, on CAIR’s homepage, and it is still there, as of this writing.
The reunion of CAIR and its former Quran was surely a momentous occasion for the radical Islamic group, as it had previously referred to the text as the “most respected English translation of the Quran.” One day, maybe CAIR will, yet again, embrace its “most respected” holy book -- an unindicted co-conspirator with a banned text. The two, no doubt, are destined for each other.
Joe Kaufman is the Chairman of Americans Against Hate, the founder of CAIR Watch, and the spokesman for Terror-Free Oil Initiative.
FrontPageMagazine.com | 2/28/2008
In September of 2002, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) began an ambitious project, whereby thousands of libraries across America would be provided with sets of books promoting Islam. The books included a version of the Quran that was banned by the Los Angeles school system for having anti-Semitic commentaries. After a long interval, where CAIR appeared to have disavowed itself from the book, it (the book) has made a comeback -- a cameo appearance on CAIR’s national website. The following was written as a reiteration of a recent past, when a radical Muslim group attempted to propagate hatred throughout our country, under the guise of education. Amana Publications is based in Beltsville, Maryland. For over 20 years, it has been producing books for the Muslim community. Its top “bestselling” book goes by the title of “The Meaning of THE HOLY QUR’AN,” and it is considered to be the most widely read English translation of the Quran in the world.
One of the book’s features that sets this version of the Quran apart from others is its running commentary. It’s probably the key to what makes this book so popular. It is also the one thing that has brought the book a large degree of notoriety.
[[AD]]
The English translation of the Amana Quran was performed by Abdullah Yusuf Ali. According to Amana, Ali’s first rendition was completed in the late 1930’s, on his 65th birthday. Along with the translation, Ali is credited with authoring a scholarly commentary throughout the text. The commentary is voluminous, making the book much larger in size than other Qurans; the latest edition -- the tenth edition -- is 1824 pages.
Besides the standard anti-Semitic statements found in the Quran, such as “Take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors,” Ali’s commentary went that much further with its anti-Jewish rhetoric. Some quotes from the text include:
* “The Jews in their arrogance claimed that all wisdom and all knowledge of Allah were enclosed in their hearts… Their claim was not only arrogance but blasphemy.”
* “A trick of the Jews was to twist words and expressions, so as to ridicule the most solemn teachings of Faith.”
* “[T]here is a catalogue of the iniquities of which the Jews were guilty, and for these iniquities we must understand some such words as: ‘They are under divine displeasure.’”
* “The Jews blaspheme and mock, and because of their jealousy, the more they are taught, the more obstinate they become in their rebellion… Their selfishness and spite sow quarrels among themselves, which will not be healed till the Day of Judgment.”
It is because of these statements that, in February of 2002, the Los Angeles public school system chose to pull every copy (nearly 300 copies) of “The Meaning of THE HOLY QUR’AN” from the shelves of all of its libraries. As stated by the Los Angeles Times, “After reviewing the book, [director of the Los Angeles Unified School District, Jim] Konantz instructed principals to secure all copies in their offices until the district determines what to do with them.” Later, the decision was made to ban all future usage.
However, the translation and commentaries are not the only overt signs of anti-Semitism in this Quran. Looking under the word “Jews” in the index of the book, one finds the following: “became apes and swine,” “cursed,” “enmity of,” “greedy of life,” “slew prophets,” “took usury,” “unbelief and blasphemy of,” “work iniquity,” and “write the Book with their own hands.”
The editor of the Amana Quran is the International Institute for Islamic Thought (IIIT). In March of 2002, IIIT’s Virginia offices were raided by the FBI in a terror financing probe. IIIT had funneled tens of thousands of dollars to groups and individuals associated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).
The same year that the Los Angeles public school system removed the Amana Quran from its library shelves for having virulently anti-Semitic content -- the same year that the editor of the Quran, IIIT, was raided by the FBI for its role in funding terrorists -- the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) elected to include the book in its library project.
CAIR was founded in June of 1994 as a front for the terrorist organization Hamas. 13 years later, in June of 2007, CAIR was labeled by the U.S. government as an “unindicted co-conspirator” for a Dallas, Texas trial that dealt with the financing of millions of dollars to Hamas.
On September 11, 2002, the one year anniversary of the worst tragedy to ever take place on American soil, CAIR announced a new initiative, titled ‘Explore Islamic Culture & Civilization.’ The goal of the project was to place sets of Islamic-oriented books in thousands of libraries across the United States. It was funded in part by a $500,000 gift from Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal.
Just prior to Bin Talal getting involved in the initiative, in April of 2002, he donated $27 million during a three-day telethon, which was being sponsored by the Saudi government group, the Committee for Support of the al-Aqsa Intifada. The total amount raised by the telethon was $109 million; Bin Talal had been the single largest donor. According to Israeli intelligence, the money that was raised went to assist families of Palestinian terrorists, including families of suicide bombers.
The Amana Quran was not the only problematic text in CAIR’s library set. One of the others was Jamal Badawi’s ‘GENDER EQUITY IN ISLAM,’ a book produced by American Trust Publications (ATP). ATP is the publishing arm of the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), an organization that, like CAIR, was named by the U.S. government as an “unindicted co-conspirator” for the Dallas trial.
But what’s most disturbing about this book is not its publisher, but its content, specifically the fact that it attempts to justify the beating of women by their husbands. In it, Badawi writes, “There are cases... where a wife persists in deliberate mistreatment of her husband and disregard for her marital obligations. Instead of divorce, the husband may resort to another measure that may save the marriage... Such a measure is more accurately described as a gentle tap on the body...” The Amana Quran refers to this as a “light beating.” Badawi calls it a “permissible beating.”
Another of the texts was Paul Findley’s ‘Silent No More.’ In the book, Findley lauds convicted terrorist Abdurahman Alamoudi as “a leader in Islamic affairs.” He exalts Neo-Nazi William Baker as “a Christian leader” and states, “Not enough Americans read the messages of… Baker.” And about the former Executive Director of the American Muslim Council (AMC) Eric Erfan Vickers, who described the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster as “an act of divine retribution against Israel,” Findley calls him “a rising voice in St. Louis politics.” Additionally, Findley memorializes each of these individuals with color pictures.
In May of 2005, CAIR, working off the success of its library project, launched a new campaign offering a free copy of the Quran to anyone who asked. The initiative was given the name, ‘Explore the Quran.’ According to CAIR, it was in response to an article printed in Newsweek magazine, which falsely claimed that U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay flushed a Quran down the toilet.
The Quran that was chosen for the CAIR campaign was, of course, the Amana one. It was used by the group, up until October of 2006, when CAIR decided to change to a new version published in Bristol, England, ‘The Message of THE QUR’AN.’ This edition was probably selected as a result of the controversy from the Amana text, for the simple reason that it was translated and contains commentary by a Jewish convert to Islam named Muhammad Asad (formerly Leopold Weiss).
For over a year, CAIR had sought to put distance between itself and its former Los Angeles banned edition of the Quran. Nevertheless, on Thursday, February 21, 2008, the Amana version resurfaced in an article CAIR-National posted on its website about another convert to Islam, a doctor at the Texas Tech Health Sciences Center named Jane Colmer-Hamood. The article, ‘Doctor Explains What it Means to Be a Muslim Woman,’ contains a photo of Colmer-Hamood proudly holding up the infamous Amana Quran. And the picture was not only found within the article itself, but it was placed, as well, on CAIR’s homepage, and it is still there, as of this writing.
The reunion of CAIR and its former Quran was surely a momentous occasion for the radical Islamic group, as it had previously referred to the text as the “most respected English translation of the Quran.” One day, maybe CAIR will, yet again, embrace its “most respected” holy book -- an unindicted co-conspirator with a banned text. The two, no doubt, are destined for each other.
Joe Kaufman is the Chairman of Americans Against Hate, the founder of CAIR Watch, and the spokesman for Terror-Free Oil Initiative.
Symposium: Cyber Jihad
Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | 2/28/2008
Al Qaeda has recently declared "Cyber Jihad" on the West. The terror group's electronic experts will now apparently be attacking certain anti-Islamist websites.
What exactly is Cyber Jihad? What exactly will wanna-be jihadists who cannot be martyrs on the battlefield be doing on the net to fulfill their jihadi obligations?
What dangers does the electronic war pose to the internet and to the West in general?
To discuss these issues with us today, Frontpage Symposium has assembled a distinguished panel. Our guests today are:
Neil Doyle, one of the world's top investigative journalists, a pioneering author, and a leading expert on international terrorism. He is the author of Terror Base UK: Inside a Secret War.
Lawrence Prabhakar, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Madras Christian College, Chennai, India and a Visiting Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Dr. Prabhakar specializes in academic and policy research in issues of nuclear weapons and Asian Security, Asymmetric Conflict, Maritime Security and grand strategy of India, China and United States.
and
Arie Kruglanski, a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. He has recently served as member of the National Academy of Science panels on counterterrorism, and educational paradigms in homeland security, and is serving on the NAS Board for Cognitive, Social and Sensory Processes. Kruglanski also serves as a co- PI at START (National Center for the Study of Terrorism and the Response to Terrorism), at the University of Maryland. FP: Neil Doyle, Lawrence Prabhakar and Arie Kruglanski, welcome to Frontpage Symposium.
Lawrence Prabhakar, let us begin with you.
What does cyber jihad entail in general and what threat does it pose?
Prabhakar: Cyber Jihad represents the new defining paradigm of asymmetric conflict that is being launched by the wannabe jihadists in attacking a superior adversary with enduring tactics and weapons of the electronic cyberspace.
The contest pits the defending West against the host of coordinated attacks by a radical ideology that is determined of its objectives in terms of inflicting predatory physical violence; massive economic destruction and triggering a social and civic collapse that would destroy the very fabric of the liberal-democratic edifice.
The war in cyberspace is a virulent attempt to:
i) intimidate the public;
ii) impose the pervasive influence of a dogma that seeks radical transformation of the rest of the world to its whims or face the impunity of being destroyed;
iii) win the contest of the public space that delegitimizes all governments, civic institutions, democratic values;
iv) glorify violence and denigrate all pacific initiatives to development and growth;
v) promote religious obscurantism as the means of an emergent order.
Cyber jihad enjoys all the technological advantages of its adversary--the West, though it is asymmetrically weak in resources, yet its high human motivational force provides it the prospect to overwhelm the West that is now being surmounted not only by the predatory, asymmetric and attritional power of the cyber jihadis, but it also confronts the assertive and revisionist challenges of Russia, China Iran and North Korea who are evermore determined to attrite and assail the power of the West, the values of liberal-democracy and impose an authoritarian world order.
Kruglanski: Concern about cyberterrorism dates back to the early 1990s time at which the increased use of the internet aroused concerns about vulnerability of critical infrastructures in the realms of economy, energy, security, and aviation to interference by computer savvy terrorists.
There has been a bit of confusion as to exactly what qualifies as cyberterrorism. Experts have distinguished between the use of the syberspace for criminal purposes, for purposes of protest and political activism, the so called "hactivism", and bona fide cyberterrorism. Dorothy Dunning, a professor of computer science and an expert on cyberterrorism offered the following definition of the problem:
Cyberterrorism is the convergence of cyberspace and terrorism. It refers to unlawful attacks and threats of attacks against computers, networks and the information stored therein when done to intimidate or coerce a government or its people in furtherance of political or social objectives. Further, to qualify as cyberterrorism, an attack should result in violence against persons or property, or at least cause enough harm to generate fear. Attacks that lead to death or bodily injury, explosions, or severe economic loss would be examples. Serious attacks against critical infrastructures could be acts of cyberterrorism, depending on their impact. Attacks that disrupt nonessential services or that are mainly a costly nuisance would not.
In terms of this definition, no single instance of counterterrorism has occurred as yet. Nonetheless, the concern about the problem has been considerable and it gave rise to multiple research reports, simulation exercises as well as work of fiction exploring the potential devastation that cyberterrorism could produce. Such potential is considerable indeed. Most critical infrastructures in modern societies are largely functioning through computer networks. In this sense, terrorists could (theoretically) break into and disable major sectors of advanced economies.
There are several issues here:
(1) how protectable are modern infrastructures?
(2) whether terrorists have the ability, and
(3) the motivation to do what it takes to create major havoc.
Briefly, major governmental infrastructure are protectable through air gapping that separates their networks from the internet. This applies less to infrastructures in the private sector, though attempts are under way to protect those as well. With respect to the second question, most reports conclude that at least thus far terrorist organizations haven't had the technical know how and the wherewithal to produce a major cyberattack. However, capabilities can be developed and what may have been true thus far may not be true with further technological developments and with new generations of possible jihadists who grow up in computerized environments and may have considerable skills at their commands unavailable to their predecessors. The real critical question then is one of motivation. Under what conditions, may the motivation be reduced to use cyberterrorism or in fact any kind of terrorism. This framing of the issue transforms the problem from the real of technology to that of psychology, and the battle for the souls and minds of would be cyberterrorists.
Doyle: To me, the term "cyber jihad" simply means any form jihadist activity that occurs online. It can also involve cyber-terrorism and that usually takes the form of "denial of service" attacks against websites that are perceived to be anti-jihadist or un-Islamic. There are a few groups that claim to undertake hacking activities in the name of al-Qaeda, though the known number of serious incidents is small. The most common incidents are website defacements, where the attackers take advantage of poor security and basically commit petty vandalism. That normally involves replacing a website's usual homepage with one containing anti-Western messages. The capabilities of the jihadists - at the moment - pales into insignificance when compared to state-sponsored hackers operating out of China and North Korea, who target government systems and databases maintained by defence and intelligence agencies.
Cyber-jihadists can be involved in recruiting, fundraising, training, and the dissemination of propaganda and military information. Some prominent members of al-Qaeda-supporting Web discussion forums are reported to have been killed on the battlefield, though the number would appear to be small. One significant use of these kinds of sites is for group working, where people who might be widely dispersed geographically come together to exchange intelligence, tips on bomb-making and even plan attacks.
Electronic warfare does pose dangers, in terms of disrupting Internet traffic and Net-connected systems, such as power grids and other utilities. We've yet to see the long-predicted "electronic Pearl Harbour", but I think in the years to come we may well see an attempt at least to, say, knock-out a road traffic control system as part of a major al-Qaeda attack.
Prabhakar: The challenge of cyber-terrorism demands a long-term strategy of its containment and management. The increasing radicalization of the cyberspace with militancy and self-help and self-sensitizing portals is probably the greatest threat that is evident. While fire controls, barriers and countermeasures are all the "hardware" defenses, the imperative is to reinforce appropriate counter-propaganda measures to the self-help; self-sensitizing portals. They are indeed hate portals that are catalytic to the committing of actual criminal operations. The need is to instill and create appropriate countermeasures that would counter this hate process.
Secondly, the threat also comes from symmetric actors even as the asymmetric violent actors dominate the threats to the liberal-democratic systems. How would the liberal-democratic world secure itself from the symmetric actors needs to be seen; there is an active linkage between state-sponsors of asymmetric violence whose realm in the cyber space is evident with the non-state actors whose asymmetric activities pose the greatest threat; how would the free world contend it is an important issue;
Thirdly, the scope of economic interdependence and its even spread matters most in regard to how the cyberspace would be used. The techniques and the process of globalization have immensely benefited the violent asymmetric actors than the genuine stakeholders; what measures of efficacy and security would be needed in the coming years is important even as the cycles of technology and research & development progress on.
Kruglanski: I would like to expand somewhat on jihadist recruitment activity via the internet. It contains two aspects:
(1) presentation of compelling jihadist propaganda,
and
(2) acquisition of information about potential candidates for recruitment.
I learned about the efficacy of jihadist propaganda during a recent visit to a South East Asian country and meeting with a Muslim woman, a research worker at a counterterrorism institute. She related to me, quite anxiously I should add, how she felt increasingly convinced by the video, and how this put her in conflict with her job, and general counterterrorist attitude.
If so, there is great need, as Mr. Prabakhar suggested, for massive and systematic de-radicalization effort on the internet by Muslim governments, and community organizations of various stripes. Additionally, jihadist organizations obtain information about visitors to their websites.
Those visitors who seem particularly interested in contents of the website may then be contacted. Occasionally, recruiters also roam online chat rooms, and cybercaffes as well as electronic bulletin boards and user nets, in search of potential recruits. In 2003, for instance, Al Qaeda launched a massive drive to recruit fighters to travel to Iraq and attack U,S, and coalition forces there. In short, it is incumbent to offer counter arguments to the jihadi rhetoric, and immunize potential visitors to jihadist websites to their pernicious messages.
It is also true, however, that the internet can and has been successfully used to mount effective counterterrorism. Counterterrorism argumentation on the internet is exemplified by the Saudi Al-Sakinah ("Tranquility") campaign, an independent initiative for online dialogue with Islamists in order to prevent the spread of extremist views via the internet. In this project some 40 ulema and propagators of Islam who have Internet skills enter extremist websites and forums and converse with the participants in order to bring them to renounce their extremist ideas. This initiative assisted by psychological and sociological experts in addition to Sunni clerics is claimed to have been successful in persuading extremists to renounce their views.
The internet also affords the opportunity to gather information about terrorist activities, including efforts to infiltrate the innermost terrorist websites, and chat rooms in guise of potential recruits for terrorist missions. In some cases, such work can locate links among terrorist entities and their supporters, that was used to prevent terrorist attacks.
Doyle: What has struck me over the years is the lack of effort that that has gone into countering jihadist propaganda. Donald Rumsfeld once called for more to be done by the military in this area to try and close the "digital divide". The next day, I was contacted by a US military press officer who asked me to publish more of their press releases on my website. It was a start, I suppose. There is certainly a lack of imagination on the Western side and there is little evidence that the divide is being closed. The military could, for example, distribute some of its own battle footage to try and counter the impact video presentations of al-Qaeda and other related groups, but there's is little evidence of that happening.
I can understand how the anti-terrorism researcher has been swayed. When you are constantly viewing material that focuses on a narrow slice of reality, the boundaries of objectivity can waver. One might start thinking "well, I have to admit, they do have a point there". A program of de-radicalism has been started in the UK, consisting of a network of local public extremism forums. It is far too early to judge what impact those kinds of "hearts and minds" initiatives might have, not least because the Internet and government work at different speeds.
There are people taking issue with others in discussion forums with suspicious regularity, though they will get short shift on the more hard-line sites. The recent case of the release, by the Court of Appeal, of five students is pertinent. They downloaded propaganda and ideological material from websites but the judges ruled that there was no evidence that they were going to use those in preparing a terrorist act, in essence. Proof of intent is required, and that would be especially so in cases of self-radicalization, perhaps. The government has been talking about getting ISPs to block access to extremist websites and this will be a blow to that idea.
As well as propaganda, planning, and recruitment uses, the internet is crucial for fund-raising. The London-based cyber-jihadist Younis Tsouli, who was known online as Terrorist 007, was also involved in credit card fraud to the tune of $4 million. There are many others like him out there somewhere.
FP: Neil Doyle, Lawrence Prabhakar and Arie Kruglanski, thank you for joining Frontpage Symposium.
Jamie Glazov is Frontpage Magazine's managing editor. He holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in U.S. and Canadian foreign policy. He edited and wrote the introduction to David Horowitz’s Left Illusions. He is also the co-editor (with David Horowitz) of The Hate America Left and the author of Canadian Policy Toward Khrushchev’s Soviet Union (McGill-Queens University Press, 2002) and 15 Tips on How to be a Good Leftist. To see his previous symposiums, interviews and articles Click Here. Email him at jglazov@rogers.com.
FrontPageMagazine.com | 2/28/2008
Al Qaeda has recently declared "Cyber Jihad" on the West. The terror group's electronic experts will now apparently be attacking certain anti-Islamist websites.
What exactly is Cyber Jihad? What exactly will wanna-be jihadists who cannot be martyrs on the battlefield be doing on the net to fulfill their jihadi obligations?
What dangers does the electronic war pose to the internet and to the West in general?
To discuss these issues with us today, Frontpage Symposium has assembled a distinguished panel. Our guests today are:
Neil Doyle, one of the world's top investigative journalists, a pioneering author, and a leading expert on international terrorism. He is the author of Terror Base UK: Inside a Secret War.
Lawrence Prabhakar, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Madras Christian College, Chennai, India and a Visiting Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Dr. Prabhakar specializes in academic and policy research in issues of nuclear weapons and Asian Security, Asymmetric Conflict, Maritime Security and grand strategy of India, China and United States.
and
Arie Kruglanski, a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. He has recently served as member of the National Academy of Science panels on counterterrorism, and educational paradigms in homeland security, and is serving on the NAS Board for Cognitive, Social and Sensory Processes. Kruglanski also serves as a co- PI at START (National Center for the Study of Terrorism and the Response to Terrorism), at the University of Maryland. FP: Neil Doyle, Lawrence Prabhakar and Arie Kruglanski, welcome to Frontpage Symposium.
Lawrence Prabhakar, let us begin with you.
What does cyber jihad entail in general and what threat does it pose?
Prabhakar: Cyber Jihad represents the new defining paradigm of asymmetric conflict that is being launched by the wannabe jihadists in attacking a superior adversary with enduring tactics and weapons of the electronic cyberspace.
The contest pits the defending West against the host of coordinated attacks by a radical ideology that is determined of its objectives in terms of inflicting predatory physical violence; massive economic destruction and triggering a social and civic collapse that would destroy the very fabric of the liberal-democratic edifice.
The war in cyberspace is a virulent attempt to:
i) intimidate the public;
ii) impose the pervasive influence of a dogma that seeks radical transformation of the rest of the world to its whims or face the impunity of being destroyed;
iii) win the contest of the public space that delegitimizes all governments, civic institutions, democratic values;
iv) glorify violence and denigrate all pacific initiatives to development and growth;
v) promote religious obscurantism as the means of an emergent order.
Cyber jihad enjoys all the technological advantages of its adversary--the West, though it is asymmetrically weak in resources, yet its high human motivational force provides it the prospect to overwhelm the West that is now being surmounted not only by the predatory, asymmetric and attritional power of the cyber jihadis, but it also confronts the assertive and revisionist challenges of Russia, China Iran and North Korea who are evermore determined to attrite and assail the power of the West, the values of liberal-democracy and impose an authoritarian world order.
Kruglanski: Concern about cyberterrorism dates back to the early 1990s time at which the increased use of the internet aroused concerns about vulnerability of critical infrastructures in the realms of economy, energy, security, and aviation to interference by computer savvy terrorists.
There has been a bit of confusion as to exactly what qualifies as cyberterrorism. Experts have distinguished between the use of the syberspace for criminal purposes, for purposes of protest and political activism, the so called "hactivism", and bona fide cyberterrorism. Dorothy Dunning, a professor of computer science and an expert on cyberterrorism offered the following definition of the problem:
Cyberterrorism is the convergence of cyberspace and terrorism. It refers to unlawful attacks and threats of attacks against computers, networks and the information stored therein when done to intimidate or coerce a government or its people in furtherance of political or social objectives. Further, to qualify as cyberterrorism, an attack should result in violence against persons or property, or at least cause enough harm to generate fear. Attacks that lead to death or bodily injury, explosions, or severe economic loss would be examples. Serious attacks against critical infrastructures could be acts of cyberterrorism, depending on their impact. Attacks that disrupt nonessential services or that are mainly a costly nuisance would not.
In terms of this definition, no single instance of counterterrorism has occurred as yet. Nonetheless, the concern about the problem has been considerable and it gave rise to multiple research reports, simulation exercises as well as work of fiction exploring the potential devastation that cyberterrorism could produce. Such potential is considerable indeed. Most critical infrastructures in modern societies are largely functioning through computer networks. In this sense, terrorists could (theoretically) break into and disable major sectors of advanced economies.
There are several issues here:
(1) how protectable are modern infrastructures?
(2) whether terrorists have the ability, and
(3) the motivation to do what it takes to create major havoc.
Briefly, major governmental infrastructure are protectable through air gapping that separates their networks from the internet. This applies less to infrastructures in the private sector, though attempts are under way to protect those as well. With respect to the second question, most reports conclude that at least thus far terrorist organizations haven't had the technical know how and the wherewithal to produce a major cyberattack. However, capabilities can be developed and what may have been true thus far may not be true with further technological developments and with new generations of possible jihadists who grow up in computerized environments and may have considerable skills at their commands unavailable to their predecessors. The real critical question then is one of motivation. Under what conditions, may the motivation be reduced to use cyberterrorism or in fact any kind of terrorism. This framing of the issue transforms the problem from the real of technology to that of psychology, and the battle for the souls and minds of would be cyberterrorists.
Doyle: To me, the term "cyber jihad" simply means any form jihadist activity that occurs online. It can also involve cyber-terrorism and that usually takes the form of "denial of service" attacks against websites that are perceived to be anti-jihadist or un-Islamic. There are a few groups that claim to undertake hacking activities in the name of al-Qaeda, though the known number of serious incidents is small. The most common incidents are website defacements, where the attackers take advantage of poor security and basically commit petty vandalism. That normally involves replacing a website's usual homepage with one containing anti-Western messages. The capabilities of the jihadists - at the moment - pales into insignificance when compared to state-sponsored hackers operating out of China and North Korea, who target government systems and databases maintained by defence and intelligence agencies.
Cyber-jihadists can be involved in recruiting, fundraising, training, and the dissemination of propaganda and military information. Some prominent members of al-Qaeda-supporting Web discussion forums are reported to have been killed on the battlefield, though the number would appear to be small. One significant use of these kinds of sites is for group working, where people who might be widely dispersed geographically come together to exchange intelligence, tips on bomb-making and even plan attacks.
Electronic warfare does pose dangers, in terms of disrupting Internet traffic and Net-connected systems, such as power grids and other utilities. We've yet to see the long-predicted "electronic Pearl Harbour", but I think in the years to come we may well see an attempt at least to, say, knock-out a road traffic control system as part of a major al-Qaeda attack.
Prabhakar: The challenge of cyber-terrorism demands a long-term strategy of its containment and management. The increasing radicalization of the cyberspace with militancy and self-help and self-sensitizing portals is probably the greatest threat that is evident. While fire controls, barriers and countermeasures are all the "hardware" defenses, the imperative is to reinforce appropriate counter-propaganda measures to the self-help; self-sensitizing portals. They are indeed hate portals that are catalytic to the committing of actual criminal operations. The need is to instill and create appropriate countermeasures that would counter this hate process.
Secondly, the threat also comes from symmetric actors even as the asymmetric violent actors dominate the threats to the liberal-democratic systems. How would the liberal-democratic world secure itself from the symmetric actors needs to be seen; there is an active linkage between state-sponsors of asymmetric violence whose realm in the cyber space is evident with the non-state actors whose asymmetric activities pose the greatest threat; how would the free world contend it is an important issue;
Thirdly, the scope of economic interdependence and its even spread matters most in regard to how the cyberspace would be used. The techniques and the process of globalization have immensely benefited the violent asymmetric actors than the genuine stakeholders; what measures of efficacy and security would be needed in the coming years is important even as the cycles of technology and research & development progress on.
Kruglanski: I would like to expand somewhat on jihadist recruitment activity via the internet. It contains two aspects:
(1) presentation of compelling jihadist propaganda,
and
(2) acquisition of information about potential candidates for recruitment.
I learned about the efficacy of jihadist propaganda during a recent visit to a South East Asian country and meeting with a Muslim woman, a research worker at a counterterrorism institute. She related to me, quite anxiously I should add, how she felt increasingly convinced by the video, and how this put her in conflict with her job, and general counterterrorist attitude.
If so, there is great need, as Mr. Prabakhar suggested, for massive and systematic de-radicalization effort on the internet by Muslim governments, and community organizations of various stripes. Additionally, jihadist organizations obtain information about visitors to their websites.
Those visitors who seem particularly interested in contents of the website may then be contacted. Occasionally, recruiters also roam online chat rooms, and cybercaffes as well as electronic bulletin boards and user nets, in search of potential recruits. In 2003, for instance, Al Qaeda launched a massive drive to recruit fighters to travel to Iraq and attack U,S, and coalition forces there. In short, it is incumbent to offer counter arguments to the jihadi rhetoric, and immunize potential visitors to jihadist websites to their pernicious messages.
It is also true, however, that the internet can and has been successfully used to mount effective counterterrorism. Counterterrorism argumentation on the internet is exemplified by the Saudi Al-Sakinah ("Tranquility") campaign, an independent initiative for online dialogue with Islamists in order to prevent the spread of extremist views via the internet. In this project some 40 ulema and propagators of Islam who have Internet skills enter extremist websites and forums and converse with the participants in order to bring them to renounce their extremist ideas. This initiative assisted by psychological and sociological experts in addition to Sunni clerics is claimed to have been successful in persuading extremists to renounce their views.
The internet also affords the opportunity to gather information about terrorist activities, including efforts to infiltrate the innermost terrorist websites, and chat rooms in guise of potential recruits for terrorist missions. In some cases, such work can locate links among terrorist entities and their supporters, that was used to prevent terrorist attacks.
Doyle: What has struck me over the years is the lack of effort that that has gone into countering jihadist propaganda. Donald Rumsfeld once called for more to be done by the military in this area to try and close the "digital divide". The next day, I was contacted by a US military press officer who asked me to publish more of their press releases on my website. It was a start, I suppose. There is certainly a lack of imagination on the Western side and there is little evidence that the divide is being closed. The military could, for example, distribute some of its own battle footage to try and counter the impact video presentations of al-Qaeda and other related groups, but there's is little evidence of that happening.
I can understand how the anti-terrorism researcher has been swayed. When you are constantly viewing material that focuses on a narrow slice of reality, the boundaries of objectivity can waver. One might start thinking "well, I have to admit, they do have a point there". A program of de-radicalism has been started in the UK, consisting of a network of local public extremism forums. It is far too early to judge what impact those kinds of "hearts and minds" initiatives might have, not least because the Internet and government work at different speeds.
There are people taking issue with others in discussion forums with suspicious regularity, though they will get short shift on the more hard-line sites. The recent case of the release, by the Court of Appeal, of five students is pertinent. They downloaded propaganda and ideological material from websites but the judges ruled that there was no evidence that they were going to use those in preparing a terrorist act, in essence. Proof of intent is required, and that would be especially so in cases of self-radicalization, perhaps. The government has been talking about getting ISPs to block access to extremist websites and this will be a blow to that idea.
As well as propaganda, planning, and recruitment uses, the internet is crucial for fund-raising. The London-based cyber-jihadist Younis Tsouli, who was known online as Terrorist 007, was also involved in credit card fraud to the tune of $4 million. There are many others like him out there somewhere.
FP: Neil Doyle, Lawrence Prabhakar and Arie Kruglanski, thank you for joining Frontpage Symposium.
Jamie Glazov is Frontpage Magazine's managing editor. He holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in U.S. and Canadian foreign policy. He edited and wrote the introduction to David Horowitz’s Left Illusions. He is also the co-editor (with David Horowitz) of The Hate America Left and the author of Canadian Policy Toward Khrushchev’s Soviet Union (McGill-Queens University Press, 2002) and 15 Tips on How to be a Good Leftist. To see his previous symposiums, interviews and articles Click Here. Email him at jglazov@rogers.com.
Confessions At a Funeral
Barry Rubin
February 28, 2008
A funny thing happened at the funeral of Imad Mugniyah. Those who had for years been denying any connection with him and his international terrorist activities--Iran, Syria, and Hizballah--suddenly admitted that he was one of their favorite people.
At the same time, other critical points came out. Mugniyah's critical position as the link between those three allies, in their conduct of terrorism and subversion, stood out clearly. In addition, Mugniyah's career as an international terrorist, who often operated against Western targets, showed how Hizballah--along with its backers in Tehran and Damascus--were second only to al-Qaida in their global operations of violence.
Let's first look at the record of the man who Iran, Syria, and Hizballah were so eager to praise and ready to revenge. Mugniyah, a Lebanese citizen, first worked with the PLO and then with Hizballah, leading the latter group's main terrorist operations. During the 1980s alone, Mugniyah was involved in killing 340 American and French soldiers in a peacekeeping force, 63 civilians in bombing the U.S. embassy in Beirut; kidnappings and sometimes executions of Westerners living in Lebanon; attacks on the U.S. embassy in Kuwait; hijacking an American airliner in which a U.S. citizen was murdered; killing two U.S. officials in Lebanon; and hijacking two Kuwait Airways' planes.
In 1994, he organized the bombing of a Jewish Community Center in Argentina, killing 86 civilians. The official Argentinean investigation concluded Iranian intelligence had hired Mugniyah and his unit for this job.
As a result of his activities, Mughniyah was on the U.S. list of ten most wanted terrorists, with a $25 million reward on his head. Interpol had an extradition warrant against him due to the Argentina attack. But traveling between Lebanon, Iran, and Syria--protected and often working for the latter two governments--Mugniyah continued his career of violence up to the day of his death.
With the exception of the September 11 attack, Mugniyah was probably responsible for more terrorist violence and killings than any other individual over the last quarter-century.
How did Iran's rulers respond to his demise? They all praised him. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei called him, "An example for the young generation to follow." Powerful former president and current Expediency Council Chairman Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani referred to Mugniyah as a "great figure" whose actions Iran did not consider terrorism. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad eulogized him as, "An outstanding leader from Hizballah," though up to his death that organization denied Mughniyah held such a post.
Hizballah's own leader, Hassan Nasrallah, used his funeral oration to threaten to wipe out Israel, paralleling what many Iranian leaders say. If Iran obtains nuclear weapons that threat becomes most plausible. But Hizballah hopes to achieve the same end through lower-level violence. Nasrallah declared "open war" on Israel and boasted he would launch attacks anywhere in the world, presumably against anyone he deemed to be standing in the way of his destructive dream.
As for Syria, where Mughniyah was repeatedly given help and safe haven, he was being protected in a highly secure area under government control. An Iranian television station reported he was killed near a Syrian intelligence base at a time a major meeting of Palestinian groups was taking place, including Hamas leader Khalad Mishal, who is based in Damascus. Two respected Arab newspapers claimed Mughniyah was the guest of top Syrian leaders and had been meeting with them and Hamas chiefs to plan the kind of bloody deeds he was so good at doing.
Revenge was also threatened by such pro-Mugniyah groups as Hamas, the Muqtada Sadr forces in Iraq, and Fatah's al-Aqsa Brigades. Not all Arabs reacted in this way. In Kuwait, for example, it was pointed out that Mugniyah had been involved in the murder of many Arabs and Muslims, in Kuwait, Lebanon, and Iraq
A Lebanese newspaper backed by Syria and Hizballah noted that Mughniyah's Death was the hardest blow to Hizballah ever. Ironically, however, many in the past had refused to condemn Hizballah as a terrorist organization--including the EU--because they said there was insufficient evidence of such involvement.
As one expert on Hizballah, Magnus Ranstorp, retorted, too many had "allowed themselves to be misled" about Hizballah use of international terrorism and its use by Iran and Syria. "And so Hezbollah was allowed to have its cake and eat it too" since it could carry out terrorism without any significant international price or punishment.
When Iran, Syria, and Hizballah embrace such a person as a great hero and role model they are:
* Openly admitting their association with many past acts of terrorism.
* Making clear that they favor murderous attacks deliberately designed to kill civilians.
* Showing their past denials of involvement to be lies.
* Urging people to commit many more such attacks in future, include genocide against Israel and its people.
Now that Hizballah, Iran, and Syria have "taken credit" for Mugniyah's past killings and urged many more in the future, the world should confront the fact that these groups are engaged in a systematic terrorist policy and react accordingly.
Barry Rubin is Director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, Interdisciplinary Center university. His latest book, The Truth about Syria was published by Palgrave-Macmillan in May 2007. Prof. Rubin's columns can be read online at: http://www.gloriacenter.org/index.asp?pname=submenus/articles/index.asp.
February 28, 2008
A funny thing happened at the funeral of Imad Mugniyah. Those who had for years been denying any connection with him and his international terrorist activities--Iran, Syria, and Hizballah--suddenly admitted that he was one of their favorite people.
At the same time, other critical points came out. Mugniyah's critical position as the link between those three allies, in their conduct of terrorism and subversion, stood out clearly. In addition, Mugniyah's career as an international terrorist, who often operated against Western targets, showed how Hizballah--along with its backers in Tehran and Damascus--were second only to al-Qaida in their global operations of violence.
Let's first look at the record of the man who Iran, Syria, and Hizballah were so eager to praise and ready to revenge. Mugniyah, a Lebanese citizen, first worked with the PLO and then with Hizballah, leading the latter group's main terrorist operations. During the 1980s alone, Mugniyah was involved in killing 340 American and French soldiers in a peacekeeping force, 63 civilians in bombing the U.S. embassy in Beirut; kidnappings and sometimes executions of Westerners living in Lebanon; attacks on the U.S. embassy in Kuwait; hijacking an American airliner in which a U.S. citizen was murdered; killing two U.S. officials in Lebanon; and hijacking two Kuwait Airways' planes.
In 1994, he organized the bombing of a Jewish Community Center in Argentina, killing 86 civilians. The official Argentinean investigation concluded Iranian intelligence had hired Mugniyah and his unit for this job.
As a result of his activities, Mughniyah was on the U.S. list of ten most wanted terrorists, with a $25 million reward on his head. Interpol had an extradition warrant against him due to the Argentina attack. But traveling between Lebanon, Iran, and Syria--protected and often working for the latter two governments--Mugniyah continued his career of violence up to the day of his death.
With the exception of the September 11 attack, Mugniyah was probably responsible for more terrorist violence and killings than any other individual over the last quarter-century.
How did Iran's rulers respond to his demise? They all praised him. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei called him, "An example for the young generation to follow." Powerful former president and current Expediency Council Chairman Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani referred to Mugniyah as a "great figure" whose actions Iran did not consider terrorism. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad eulogized him as, "An outstanding leader from Hizballah," though up to his death that organization denied Mughniyah held such a post.
Hizballah's own leader, Hassan Nasrallah, used his funeral oration to threaten to wipe out Israel, paralleling what many Iranian leaders say. If Iran obtains nuclear weapons that threat becomes most plausible. But Hizballah hopes to achieve the same end through lower-level violence. Nasrallah declared "open war" on Israel and boasted he would launch attacks anywhere in the world, presumably against anyone he deemed to be standing in the way of his destructive dream.
As for Syria, where Mughniyah was repeatedly given help and safe haven, he was being protected in a highly secure area under government control. An Iranian television station reported he was killed near a Syrian intelligence base at a time a major meeting of Palestinian groups was taking place, including Hamas leader Khalad Mishal, who is based in Damascus. Two respected Arab newspapers claimed Mughniyah was the guest of top Syrian leaders and had been meeting with them and Hamas chiefs to plan the kind of bloody deeds he was so good at doing.
Revenge was also threatened by such pro-Mugniyah groups as Hamas, the Muqtada Sadr forces in Iraq, and Fatah's al-Aqsa Brigades. Not all Arabs reacted in this way. In Kuwait, for example, it was pointed out that Mugniyah had been involved in the murder of many Arabs and Muslims, in Kuwait, Lebanon, and Iraq
A Lebanese newspaper backed by Syria and Hizballah noted that Mughniyah's Death was the hardest blow to Hizballah ever. Ironically, however, many in the past had refused to condemn Hizballah as a terrorist organization--including the EU--because they said there was insufficient evidence of such involvement.
As one expert on Hizballah, Magnus Ranstorp, retorted, too many had "allowed themselves to be misled" about Hizballah use of international terrorism and its use by Iran and Syria. "And so Hezbollah was allowed to have its cake and eat it too" since it could carry out terrorism without any significant international price or punishment.
When Iran, Syria, and Hizballah embrace such a person as a great hero and role model they are:
* Openly admitting their association with many past acts of terrorism.
* Making clear that they favor murderous attacks deliberately designed to kill civilians.
* Showing their past denials of involvement to be lies.
* Urging people to commit many more such attacks in future, include genocide against Israel and its people.
Now that Hizballah, Iran, and Syria have "taken credit" for Mugniyah's past killings and urged many more in the future, the world should confront the fact that these groups are engaged in a systematic terrorist policy and react accordingly.
Barry Rubin is Director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, Interdisciplinary Center university. His latest book, The Truth about Syria was published by Palgrave-Macmillan in May 2007. Prof. Rubin's columns can be read online at: http://www.gloriacenter.org/index.asp?pname=submenus/articles/index.asp.
Silence Over Sderot
New York Sun Staff Editorial
February 27, 2008
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/71966
It's hard to describe as anything but shocking the silence over Sderot. There have been a few eloquent columnists writing about the spectacle of the Palestinian Arabs shelling Israeli civilians, nearly every day for years; they've included Richard Cohen, Bret Stephens, and our own Hillel Halkin. There was an important protest in New York, where red balloons symbolized the thousands of rockets that have hit Sderot, which, since this shelling aimed at civilians has started, has suffered a dozen deaths and many more wounded. Those statistics tell only half the story — an entire city, an entire region of Israel within five kilometers of the Gaza strip border, are now vulnerable to rocket attack. There is constant terror in the sky.
The Israeli reaction has been constrained by the expectation of international rebuke. The European Union did not wait for a full scale ground intervention by Israeli forces. The parliament at Strasbourg last week called on the Jewish State "to cease military actions killing and endangering civilians, and extrajudicial targeted killings." Strasbourg did criticize Hamas, both on the grounds of its "illegal takeover of the Gaza Strip" and its failure "to prevent the firing of rockets by Palestinian militias from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory." But for the Europeans, it's as if Hamas were merely failing to prevent rather than encouraging the attacks by its own members and other terror groups.
Strasbourg went further, declaring "that the policy of isolation of the Gaza Strip has failed." But the European Union parliament put the onus on Israel for the "humanitarian crisis" in Gaza, calling on the Jewish state to put "an end to the blockade and [allow] … a controlled re-opening of the crossings in and out of Gaza." Not even a mention of the original reason the crossings were closed: the danger that suicide bombers would slip through along with fruits and vegetables bound for the West Bank and Jordan and laborers bound for Tel Aviv.
The E.U. called for limitations on Israeli defense measures, declaring that in Gaza the civilian population "should be exempt from any military action and any collective punishment." On top of all this, the E.U. Parliament called on Israel "to fulfill its international obligations, as an occupying power, in the Gaza Strip." An occupying power? Israel bowed two years ago to international pressure and withdrew entirely from the Gaza district. It isn't occupying Gaza at all. George Orwell's estate should be demanding royalties.
All this catches America asleep at the wheel, dreaming of a peace process that has no traction and with one major party committing itself to the rapid withdrawal of troops from Iraq beginning in January. During the fighting in Lebanon in the summer of 2006, the Bush administration gamely held off the forces urging an immediate cease fire in Lebanon in the hope that Israel would inflict a blow to Hezbollah from which Hezbollah would not recover. If Israel makes its move in the spring — after the rains — will the Bush administration, or more correctly the thinned out forces of those in the administration who steered the course in 2006, be able to give Israel the time needed to bring an end to the rocketing from the territory controlled by Hamas?
February 27, 2008
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/71966
It's hard to describe as anything but shocking the silence over Sderot. There have been a few eloquent columnists writing about the spectacle of the Palestinian Arabs shelling Israeli civilians, nearly every day for years; they've included Richard Cohen, Bret Stephens, and our own Hillel Halkin. There was an important protest in New York, where red balloons symbolized the thousands of rockets that have hit Sderot, which, since this shelling aimed at civilians has started, has suffered a dozen deaths and many more wounded. Those statistics tell only half the story — an entire city, an entire region of Israel within five kilometers of the Gaza strip border, are now vulnerable to rocket attack. There is constant terror in the sky.
The Israeli reaction has been constrained by the expectation of international rebuke. The European Union did not wait for a full scale ground intervention by Israeli forces. The parliament at Strasbourg last week called on the Jewish State "to cease military actions killing and endangering civilians, and extrajudicial targeted killings." Strasbourg did criticize Hamas, both on the grounds of its "illegal takeover of the Gaza Strip" and its failure "to prevent the firing of rockets by Palestinian militias from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory." But for the Europeans, it's as if Hamas were merely failing to prevent rather than encouraging the attacks by its own members and other terror groups.
Strasbourg went further, declaring "that the policy of isolation of the Gaza Strip has failed." But the European Union parliament put the onus on Israel for the "humanitarian crisis" in Gaza, calling on the Jewish state to put "an end to the blockade and [allow] … a controlled re-opening of the crossings in and out of Gaza." Not even a mention of the original reason the crossings were closed: the danger that suicide bombers would slip through along with fruits and vegetables bound for the West Bank and Jordan and laborers bound for Tel Aviv.
The E.U. called for limitations on Israeli defense measures, declaring that in Gaza the civilian population "should be exempt from any military action and any collective punishment." On top of all this, the E.U. Parliament called on Israel "to fulfill its international obligations, as an occupying power, in the Gaza Strip." An occupying power? Israel bowed two years ago to international pressure and withdrew entirely from the Gaza district. It isn't occupying Gaza at all. George Orwell's estate should be demanding royalties.
All this catches America asleep at the wheel, dreaming of a peace process that has no traction and with one major party committing itself to the rapid withdrawal of troops from Iraq beginning in January. During the fighting in Lebanon in the summer of 2006, the Bush administration gamely held off the forces urging an immediate cease fire in Lebanon in the hope that Israel would inflict a blow to Hezbollah from which Hezbollah would not recover. If Israel makes its move in the spring — after the rains — will the Bush administration, or more correctly the thinned out forces of those in the administration who steered the course in 2006, be able to give Israel the time needed to bring an end to the rocketing from the territory controlled by Hamas?
Destroying Sculptures of Muhammad
Daniel Pipes
Jerusalem Post
February 28, 2008
http://www.meforum.org/article/pipes/5487
[J.P. title: "The power of ‘soft' versus violent Islamism"]
This cartoon of Muhammad by Kurt Westergaard, published on September 30, 2005, along with eleven others, garnered the most attention and anger.
This month, Denmark's police foiled a terrorist plot to murder Kurt Westergaard, the cartoonist who drew the strongest of the Muhammad pictures, prompting most of the country's newspapers to reprint his cartoon as an act of solidarity and a signal to Islamists that their threats and violence will not succeed. This incident points to the Islamists' mixed success in curbing Western freedom of speech about Muhammad – think of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses or the Deutsche Oper's production of Mozart's Idomeneo. If threats of violence sometimes do work, they as often provoke, anger, and inspire resistance. A polite demarche can achieve more. Illustrating this, note two parallel efforts, dating from 1955 and 1997, to remove nearly-identical American courthouse sculptures of Muhammad.
In 1997, the Council on American-Islamic Relations demanded that part of a 1930s frieze in the main chamber of the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. be sandblasted into oblivion, on the grounds that Islam prohibits representations of its prophet. The seven-foot high marble relief by Adolph Weinman depicts Muhammad as one of 18 historic lawgivers. His left hand holds the Koran in book form (a jarring historical inaccuracy from the Muslim point of view) and his right holds a sword.
The Supreme Court frieze depiction of Muhammad. Official court information points out that "The figure above is a well-intentioned attempt by the sculptor, Adolph Weinman, to honor Muhammad and it bears no resemblance to Muhammad. Muslims generally have a strong aversion to sculptured or pictured representations of their Prophet."
Chief Justice William Rehnquist, however, rejected CAIR's pressure, finding that the depiction "was intended only to recognize [Muhammad] … as an important figure in the history of law; it is not intended as a form of idol worship." Rehnquist only conceded that court literature should mention that the representation offends Muslim sensibilities. His decision met with riots and injuries in India.
In contrast, back in 1955, a campaign to censor a representation of Muhammad in another American court building did succeed. That would be the New York City-based courthouse of the Appellate Division, First Department of the New York State Supreme Court. Built in 1902, it featured on its roof balustrade an eight-foot marble statue of "Mohammed" by Charles Albert Lopez as one of ten historic lawgivers. This Muhammad statue also held a Koran in his left hand and a scimitar in the right.
Though visible from the street, the identities of the lawgivers high atop the building were difficult to discern. Only with a general overhaul of the building in February 1953, including its statues, did the public become aware of their identities. The Egyptian, Indonesian, and Pakistani ambassadors to the United Nations responded by asking the U.S. Department of State to use its influence to have the Muhammad statue not renovated but removed.
Characteristically, the State Department dispatched two employees to convince New York City's public works commissioner, Frederick H. Zurmuhlen, to accommodate the ambassadors. The court, Chief Clerk George T. Campbell, reported, "also got a number of letters from Mohammedans about that time, all asking the court to get rid of the statue." All seven appellate justices recommended to Zurmuhlen that he take down the statue.
Even though, as Time magazine put it, "the danger that any large number of New Yorkers would take to worshiping the statue was, admittedly, minimal," the ambassadors got their way. Zurmuhlen had the offending statue carted off to a storehouse in Newark, New Jersey. As Zurmuhlen figured out what to do with it, the Times reported in 1955, the statue "has lain on its back in a crate for several months." Its ultimate disposition is unknown.
Then, rather than replace the empty pedestal on the court building roof, Zurmuhlen had the nine remaining statues shifted around to disguise the empty space, with Zoroaster replacing Muhammad at the westerly corner spot. Over a half-century later, that is where matters remain at the courthouse.
Recalling these events of 1955 suggests several points. First, pressure by Muslims on the West to conform to Islamic customs predates the current Islamist era. Second, even when minimal numbers of Muslims lived in the West, such pressures could succeed. Finally, contrasting the parallel 1955 and 1997 episodes suggests that the earlier approach of ambassadors making polite representations – not high-handed demands backed up by angry mobs, much less terrorist plots – can be the more effective route.
This conclusion confirms my more general point – and the premise of the Islamist Watch project – that Islamists working quietly within the system achieve more than ferocity and bellicosity. Ultimately, soft Islamism presents dangers as great as does violent Islamism.
Mr. Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum, is suspending his column for several weeks.
This item is available on the Middle East Forum website, at http://www.meforum.org/article/pipes/5487
Jerusalem Post
February 28, 2008
http://www.meforum.org/article/pipes/5487
[J.P. title: "The power of ‘soft' versus violent Islamism"]
This cartoon of Muhammad by Kurt Westergaard, published on September 30, 2005, along with eleven others, garnered the most attention and anger.
This month, Denmark's police foiled a terrorist plot to murder Kurt Westergaard, the cartoonist who drew the strongest of the Muhammad pictures, prompting most of the country's newspapers to reprint his cartoon as an act of solidarity and a signal to Islamists that their threats and violence will not succeed. This incident points to the Islamists' mixed success in curbing Western freedom of speech about Muhammad – think of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses or the Deutsche Oper's production of Mozart's Idomeneo. If threats of violence sometimes do work, they as often provoke, anger, and inspire resistance. A polite demarche can achieve more. Illustrating this, note two parallel efforts, dating from 1955 and 1997, to remove nearly-identical American courthouse sculptures of Muhammad.
In 1997, the Council on American-Islamic Relations demanded that part of a 1930s frieze in the main chamber of the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. be sandblasted into oblivion, on the grounds that Islam prohibits representations of its prophet. The seven-foot high marble relief by Adolph Weinman depicts Muhammad as one of 18 historic lawgivers. His left hand holds the Koran in book form (a jarring historical inaccuracy from the Muslim point of view) and his right holds a sword.
The Supreme Court frieze depiction of Muhammad. Official court information points out that "The figure above is a well-intentioned attempt by the sculptor, Adolph Weinman, to honor Muhammad and it bears no resemblance to Muhammad. Muslims generally have a strong aversion to sculptured or pictured representations of their Prophet."
Chief Justice William Rehnquist, however, rejected CAIR's pressure, finding that the depiction "was intended only to recognize [Muhammad] … as an important figure in the history of law; it is not intended as a form of idol worship." Rehnquist only conceded that court literature should mention that the representation offends Muslim sensibilities. His decision met with riots and injuries in India.
In contrast, back in 1955, a campaign to censor a representation of Muhammad in another American court building did succeed. That would be the New York City-based courthouse of the Appellate Division, First Department of the New York State Supreme Court. Built in 1902, it featured on its roof balustrade an eight-foot marble statue of "Mohammed" by Charles Albert Lopez as one of ten historic lawgivers. This Muhammad statue also held a Koran in his left hand and a scimitar in the right.
Though visible from the street, the identities of the lawgivers high atop the building were difficult to discern. Only with a general overhaul of the building in February 1953, including its statues, did the public become aware of their identities. The Egyptian, Indonesian, and Pakistani ambassadors to the United Nations responded by asking the U.S. Department of State to use its influence to have the Muhammad statue not renovated but removed.
Characteristically, the State Department dispatched two employees to convince New York City's public works commissioner, Frederick H. Zurmuhlen, to accommodate the ambassadors. The court, Chief Clerk George T. Campbell, reported, "also got a number of letters from Mohammedans about that time, all asking the court to get rid of the statue." All seven appellate justices recommended to Zurmuhlen that he take down the statue.
Even though, as Time magazine put it, "the danger that any large number of New Yorkers would take to worshiping the statue was, admittedly, minimal," the ambassadors got their way. Zurmuhlen had the offending statue carted off to a storehouse in Newark, New Jersey. As Zurmuhlen figured out what to do with it, the Times reported in 1955, the statue "has lain on its back in a crate for several months." Its ultimate disposition is unknown.
Then, rather than replace the empty pedestal on the court building roof, Zurmuhlen had the nine remaining statues shifted around to disguise the empty space, with Zoroaster replacing Muhammad at the westerly corner spot. Over a half-century later, that is where matters remain at the courthouse.
Recalling these events of 1955 suggests several points. First, pressure by Muslims on the West to conform to Islamic customs predates the current Islamist era. Second, even when minimal numbers of Muslims lived in the West, such pressures could succeed. Finally, contrasting the parallel 1955 and 1997 episodes suggests that the earlier approach of ambassadors making polite representations – not high-handed demands backed up by angry mobs, much less terrorist plots – can be the more effective route.
This conclusion confirms my more general point – and the premise of the Islamist Watch project – that Islamists working quietly within the system achieve more than ferocity and bellicosity. Ultimately, soft Islamism presents dangers as great as does violent Islamism.
Mr. Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum, is suspending his column for several weeks.
This item is available on the Middle East Forum website, at http://www.meforum.org/article/pipes/5487
City of David Dig Reveals Information on Ancient Postal System
Ezra HaLevi
Artifacts from City of David excavations in Jerusalem reveal an interesting tidbit of information about the ancient postal system in Israel.
In an archaeological excavation being carried out at the “Spring House,” near the Gihon Spring in the City of David – in the valley east of Jerusalem’s Old City, soil was excavated which contained pottery shards that date to the Iron Age 2 (eighth century BCE). “Whereas during the ninth century BCE, letters and goods were dispatched on behalf of their senders without names, by the eighth century BCE the clerks and merchants had already begun to add their names to the seals,” concluded the Antiquities Authority.
Wet sifting and sorting through the soil revealed three fragments of clay stamps used to seal letters or goods in ancient times. Two more stone seals were recently found as well. All of the objects bear Hebrew names and all date to the eighth century BCE.
Among them is a seal that was discovered intact, bearing the Hebrew name “Rephaihu (ben) Shalem”, who lived in the City of David in Jerusalem during this period. The seals were primarily used by public officials, according to Professor Ronny Reich of the University of Haifa and Eli Shukron of the Israel Antiquities Authority, who oversee the dig.
“In contrast with the large cluster of bullae (seals) that was found two years ago, in which all of its items contain graphic symbols (such as a boat or different animals – fish, lizards and birds) but are of an earlier date (end of the ninth-beginning of the eighth century BCE), the new items indicate that during the eighth century BCE the practice had changed and the clerks who used the seals began to add their own names to them.”
The Israel Antiquities Authority, together with the Nature and Parks Authority and the Elad Association, discovered the seals during ongoing intensive excavations being carried out on the eastern side of the Old City of Jerusalem.
Artifacts from City of David excavations in Jerusalem reveal an interesting tidbit of information about the ancient postal system in Israel.
In an archaeological excavation being carried out at the “Spring House,” near the Gihon Spring in the City of David – in the valley east of Jerusalem’s Old City, soil was excavated which contained pottery shards that date to the Iron Age 2 (eighth century BCE). “Whereas during the ninth century BCE, letters and goods were dispatched on behalf of their senders without names, by the eighth century BCE the clerks and merchants had already begun to add their names to the seals,” concluded the Antiquities Authority.
Wet sifting and sorting through the soil revealed three fragments of clay stamps used to seal letters or goods in ancient times. Two more stone seals were recently found as well. All of the objects bear Hebrew names and all date to the eighth century BCE.
Among them is a seal that was discovered intact, bearing the Hebrew name “Rephaihu (ben) Shalem”, who lived in the City of David in Jerusalem during this period. The seals were primarily used by public officials, according to Professor Ronny Reich of the University of Haifa and Eli Shukron of the Israel Antiquities Authority, who oversee the dig.
“In contrast with the large cluster of bullae (seals) that was found two years ago, in which all of its items contain graphic symbols (such as a boat or different animals – fish, lizards and birds) but are of an earlier date (end of the ninth-beginning of the eighth century BCE), the new items indicate that during the eighth century BCE the practice had changed and the clerks who used the seals began to add their own names to them.”
The Israel Antiquities Authority, together with the Nature and Parks Authority and the Elad Association, discovered the seals during ongoing intensive excavations being carried out on the eastern side of the Old City of Jerusalem.
City of David Dig Reveals Information on Ancient Postal System
Ezra HaLevi
Artifacts from City of David excavations in Jerusalem reveal an interesting tidbit of information about the ancient postal system in Israel.
In an archaeological excavation being carried out at the “Spring House,” near the Gihon Spring in the City of David – in the valley east of Jerusalem’s Old City, soil was excavated which contained pottery shards that date to the Iron Age 2 (eighth century BCE). “Whereas during the ninth century BCE, letters and goods were dispatched on behalf of their senders without names, by the eighth century BCE the clerks and merchants had already begun to add their names to the seals,” concluded the Antiquities Authority.
Wet sifting and sorting through the soil revealed three fragments of clay stamps used to seal letters or goods in ancient times. Two more stone seals were recently found as well. All of the objects bear Hebrew names and all date to the eighth century BCE.
Among them is a seal that was discovered intact, bearing the Hebrew name “Rephaihu (ben) Shalem”, who lived in the City of David in Jerusalem during this period. The seals were primarily used by public officials, according to Professor Ronny Reich of the University of Haifa and Eli Shukron of the Israel Antiquities Authority, who oversee the dig.
“In contrast with the large cluster of bullae (seals) that was found two years ago, in which all of its items contain graphic symbols (such as a boat or different animals – fish, lizards and birds) but are of an earlier date (end of the ninth-beginning of the eighth century BCE), the new items indicate that during the eighth century BCE the practice had changed and the clerks who used the seals began to add their own names to them.”
The Israel Antiquities Authority, together with the Nature and Parks Authority and the Elad Association, discovered the seals during ongoing intensive excavations being carried out on the eastern side of the Old City of Jerusalem.
Artifacts from City of David excavations in Jerusalem reveal an interesting tidbit of information about the ancient postal system in Israel.
In an archaeological excavation being carried out at the “Spring House,” near the Gihon Spring in the City of David – in the valley east of Jerusalem’s Old City, soil was excavated which contained pottery shards that date to the Iron Age 2 (eighth century BCE). “Whereas during the ninth century BCE, letters and goods were dispatched on behalf of their senders without names, by the eighth century BCE the clerks and merchants had already begun to add their names to the seals,” concluded the Antiquities Authority.
Wet sifting and sorting through the soil revealed three fragments of clay stamps used to seal letters or goods in ancient times. Two more stone seals were recently found as well. All of the objects bear Hebrew names and all date to the eighth century BCE.
Among them is a seal that was discovered intact, bearing the Hebrew name “Rephaihu (ben) Shalem”, who lived in the City of David in Jerusalem during this period. The seals were primarily used by public officials, according to Professor Ronny Reich of the University of Haifa and Eli Shukron of the Israel Antiquities Authority, who oversee the dig.
“In contrast with the large cluster of bullae (seals) that was found two years ago, in which all of its items contain graphic symbols (such as a boat or different animals – fish, lizards and birds) but are of an earlier date (end of the ninth-beginning of the eighth century BCE), the new items indicate that during the eighth century BCE the practice had changed and the clerks who used the seals began to add their own names to them.”
The Israel Antiquities Authority, together with the Nature and Parks Authority and the Elad Association, discovered the seals during ongoing intensive excavations being carried out on the eastern side of the Old City of Jerusalem.
Abbas Says Terrorist Path is Impractical - "Now"
Hillel Fendel
Mahmoud Abbas - Israel's partner in peace talks and the head of Fatah and the Palestinian Authority - enjoys a reputation as a "moderate," largely in light of his juxtaposition with the arch-terrorists of his rivals/allies in Hamas. However, he now says that terrorism and violence against Israel are actually the preferred approach, and certainly need not be ruled out in the future. "At present," Abbas told the Jordanian newspaper A-Doustour, "I am against an armed struggle against Israel because we can't do it, but in the coming stages, things may change."
"I am against an armed struggle against Israel because we can't do it," Abbas said.
"I do not rule out a return to the way of armed struggle against Israel," he said in the Wednesday night interview.
Seventeen Arabs, mostly terrorists, have been killed in six Israel Air Force counter-terrorism actions in Gaza since Wednesday morning. One of the dead was the son of a top Hamas official.
Shot the First Bullet
Abbas took pride in the fact that he was the first terrorist in the struggle against Israel. "I had the honor of firing, in 1965, the first bullet of the 'resistance', he boasted. He added that it was his Fatah organization that taught Hizbullah and other terrorist organizations in the world how to run terrorist campaigns.
Abbas, whose nom de guerre is Abu Mazen, said that he does not demand that Hamas - the terrorist movement that violently wrested control of Gaza from Fatah last year - recognize Israel at present. "I wanted to establish a unity government with Hamas that would negotiate with Israel," he said. "Syria's Bashar Assad supported me... I am not the only one who wants recognition of Israel; the Arab initiative, which is a matter of consensus in the Arab and Islamic worlds, also says this."
Abbas was happy about rejecting the notion of Israel as a "Jewish state." He said that in the Annapolis Summit of last November, "they wanted us to agree to a summation saying that Israel is a Jewish state, and we objected strongly. The summit almost blew up because of this."
Mahmoud Abbas - Israel's partner in peace talks and the head of Fatah and the Palestinian Authority - enjoys a reputation as a "moderate," largely in light of his juxtaposition with the arch-terrorists of his rivals/allies in Hamas. However, he now says that terrorism and violence against Israel are actually the preferred approach, and certainly need not be ruled out in the future. "At present," Abbas told the Jordanian newspaper A-Doustour, "I am against an armed struggle against Israel because we can't do it, but in the coming stages, things may change."
"I am against an armed struggle against Israel because we can't do it," Abbas said.
"I do not rule out a return to the way of armed struggle against Israel," he said in the Wednesday night interview.
Seventeen Arabs, mostly terrorists, have been killed in six Israel Air Force counter-terrorism actions in Gaza since Wednesday morning. One of the dead was the son of a top Hamas official.
Shot the First Bullet
Abbas took pride in the fact that he was the first terrorist in the struggle against Israel. "I had the honor of firing, in 1965, the first bullet of the 'resistance', he boasted. He added that it was his Fatah organization that taught Hizbullah and other terrorist organizations in the world how to run terrorist campaigns.
Abbas, whose nom de guerre is Abu Mazen, said that he does not demand that Hamas - the terrorist movement that violently wrested control of Gaza from Fatah last year - recognize Israel at present. "I wanted to establish a unity government with Hamas that would negotiate with Israel," he said. "Syria's Bashar Assad supported me... I am not the only one who wants recognition of Israel; the Arab initiative, which is a matter of consensus in the Arab and Islamic worlds, also says this."
Abbas was happy about rejecting the notion of Israel as a "Jewish state." He said that in the Annapolis Summit of last November, "they wanted us to agree to a summation saying that Israel is a Jewish state, and we objected strongly. The summit almost blew up because of this."
Student Killed by Kassam: Roni Yihye, 47, Father of Four
Hillel Fendel
Roni Yihye, 47, a father of four, is the man who was killed by a Kassam rocket in Sapir College Wednesday. He was from Moshav Bitcha, a moshav (agricultural community) located near Ofakim.
Yihye was mortally wounded when a rocket landed near him in the Sapir College parking lot. He died of his wounds shortly afterwards. A second man was wounded in the attack.
Yihye underwent a kidney transplant several years ago, after he quit working as a cement truck driver due to a kidney ailment. A neighbor told Maariv/NRG that Yihye was attending a course given by the National Insurance Institute in Sapir College when the rocket struck next to him.
Avner Mori, who heads the Mechavim Regional Council, said that Yihye was "a quiet and modest person whom I saw at the synagogue every morning. This is a sad day for the moshav and the regional council. We will do everything to aid the bereaved family."
The Sapir College management expressed its condolences to Yihye's family and wished the people hurt in the attack a speedy recovery.
15 people were hospitalized at Ashkelon's Barzilai hospital following a large scale Kassam attack launched by Hamas terrorists in Gaza. One rocket landed near the Carlsberg beer factory and hit a power line. This, in turn, caused intermittent local blackouts.
All in all, Gaza terrorists' violence against civilians hurt 49 people today: two suffered light injuries and 47 others suffered emotional shock.
Israel was bombarded with close to 30 rockets between 3:00 and 4:30 PM, and another four hit the Ashkelon area around 6 PM. One of the latter landed in an open area just outside Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon, north of Gaza, and several people were treated for shock. Electricity in parts of the city was knocked out for short periods by the rockets.
At least one other person was hurt by shrapnel in the attack on Sapir College. A total of 15 Sderot residents were treated in Ashkelon's Barzilai Hospital for shock, including five for serious trauma.
In the midst of the Kassam bombardment, the Israel Air Force announced that it had successfully hit a rocket-launching cell. PA sources report that in a second Israeli attack in Gaza City, one person was killed.
In the last Kassam rocket wave, three rockets slammed into a college in the Sderot area. The young student is the 12th death caused by Kassams in Israel, following the killing of three Israelis in Sderot - Shir'el Friedman, Chai Shalom, and Oshri Oz - in the space of one week last May.
Hamas Proud of its Success
The attacks follow a successful Israel Air Force counter-terrorism attack on a bus carrying Hamas terrorists in Gaza this morning; five terrorist trainers, including a leading Hamas terrorist, were killed and several were injured. Hamas took credit for firing 16 Kassams at Israel this afternoon. It broadcast photos from Sderot, boasting that the scenes were reminiscent of a terror attack and saying that this was the answer to those in the Palestinian Authority who felt that the Kassams were unnecessary.
The rocket bombardment began with three waves of attacks at 3 PM, when the "Color Red" rocket warning alert was sounded in Sderot and environs. Eleven rockets were fired, one of which slammed into a chicken processing plant in Sderot, and others fell in the vicinity of the town. Though the rocket slammed into the factory's dining room, causing very heavy damage - dozens of workers had left the dining room shortly before the rocket hit - no one was directly hurt by shrapnel. Several victims were treated for shock.
This is at least the third time the poultry plant has been hit by a Kassam rocket. In November 2006, Yaakov Yaakobov was killed when a rocket hit the factory, and last month, a fire was started when a Kassam hit the plant.
Around 3:30 PM, yet another Kassam rocket was fired at Israel, landing in the Eshkol region of the western Negev. No casualties or damage were reported.
In two other waves of attacks by 4:30, another ten rockets were fired at Israel, slamming into Sderot, S'dot Negev, and adjoining areas. A house in Sderot suffered a direct hit, with no reported injuries.
Earlier in the day, two Kassams were fired at the western Negev, causing no damage.
Roni Yihye, 47, a father of four, is the man who was killed by a Kassam rocket in Sapir College Wednesday. He was from Moshav Bitcha, a moshav (agricultural community) located near Ofakim.
Yihye was mortally wounded when a rocket landed near him in the Sapir College parking lot. He died of his wounds shortly afterwards. A second man was wounded in the attack.
Yihye underwent a kidney transplant several years ago, after he quit working as a cement truck driver due to a kidney ailment. A neighbor told Maariv/NRG that Yihye was attending a course given by the National Insurance Institute in Sapir College when the rocket struck next to him.
Avner Mori, who heads the Mechavim Regional Council, said that Yihye was "a quiet and modest person whom I saw at the synagogue every morning. This is a sad day for the moshav and the regional council. We will do everything to aid the bereaved family."
The Sapir College management expressed its condolences to Yihye's family and wished the people hurt in the attack a speedy recovery.
15 people were hospitalized at Ashkelon's Barzilai hospital following a large scale Kassam attack launched by Hamas terrorists in Gaza. One rocket landed near the Carlsberg beer factory and hit a power line. This, in turn, caused intermittent local blackouts.
All in all, Gaza terrorists' violence against civilians hurt 49 people today: two suffered light injuries and 47 others suffered emotional shock.
Israel was bombarded with close to 30 rockets between 3:00 and 4:30 PM, and another four hit the Ashkelon area around 6 PM. One of the latter landed in an open area just outside Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon, north of Gaza, and several people were treated for shock. Electricity in parts of the city was knocked out for short periods by the rockets.
At least one other person was hurt by shrapnel in the attack on Sapir College. A total of 15 Sderot residents were treated in Ashkelon's Barzilai Hospital for shock, including five for serious trauma.
In the midst of the Kassam bombardment, the Israel Air Force announced that it had successfully hit a rocket-launching cell. PA sources report that in a second Israeli attack in Gaza City, one person was killed.
In the last Kassam rocket wave, three rockets slammed into a college in the Sderot area. The young student is the 12th death caused by Kassams in Israel, following the killing of three Israelis in Sderot - Shir'el Friedman, Chai Shalom, and Oshri Oz - in the space of one week last May.
Hamas Proud of its Success
The attacks follow a successful Israel Air Force counter-terrorism attack on a bus carrying Hamas terrorists in Gaza this morning; five terrorist trainers, including a leading Hamas terrorist, were killed and several were injured. Hamas took credit for firing 16 Kassams at Israel this afternoon. It broadcast photos from Sderot, boasting that the scenes were reminiscent of a terror attack and saying that this was the answer to those in the Palestinian Authority who felt that the Kassams were unnecessary.
The rocket bombardment began with three waves of attacks at 3 PM, when the "Color Red" rocket warning alert was sounded in Sderot and environs. Eleven rockets were fired, one of which slammed into a chicken processing plant in Sderot, and others fell in the vicinity of the town. Though the rocket slammed into the factory's dining room, causing very heavy damage - dozens of workers had left the dining room shortly before the rocket hit - no one was directly hurt by shrapnel. Several victims were treated for shock.
This is at least the third time the poultry plant has been hit by a Kassam rocket. In November 2006, Yaakov Yaakobov was killed when a rocket hit the factory, and last month, a fire was started when a Kassam hit the plant.
Around 3:30 PM, yet another Kassam rocket was fired at Israel, landing in the Eshkol region of the western Negev. No casualties or damage were reported.
In two other waves of attacks by 4:30, another ten rockets were fired at Israel, slamming into Sderot, S'dot Negev, and adjoining areas. A house in Sderot suffered a direct hit, with no reported injuries.
Earlier in the day, two Kassams were fired at the western Negev, causing no damage.
“Obama will win the nomination but lose the election.”
Ted Belman
I thought I would begin with a prediction. “Obama will win the nomination but lose the election.”
Fox News are on to him and all the arguments our “smear” camping is making and for the most part it is running with them. Sean Hannity is the best.
Slowly, but surely Obama, is doing himself in. It is not just the company he keeps but also what he is now saying. Ed Lasky, the News Editor of The American Thinker, reports on Senator Obama’s Coming Out Party in Cleveland. Ed does a brilliant job of ferreting out the true meaning of Obama’s remarks. But in my opinion he mis-states two things which I want to address first.
“Most supporters of Israel now understand there will need to be a viable Palestinian state and that Israel will need to make territorial concessions.”
Recent polls disclose that 2/3 of Israelis are against dividing Jerusalem and retreating from Judea and Samaria and that is despite the fact the the entire world including the Government of Israel and its media have been embracing the two state solution.
“Senator Obama also sought to dispel rumors of anti-Semitism within his church (American Thinker has never made this accusation; nor do we support this allegation).”
I submit that The American Thinker is wrong in taking this position. Organizations and individuals who take positions critical of Israel, which Obama’s church does, often cross the line into antisemitism. Lasky knows the difference between legitimate criticism and antisemitic criticism. Obama’s Trinity United Church of Christ sure fits the later category.
Bill Levinson posted to very important articles on Israpundit which can’t be ignored; Obama’s Church Connected to Sabeel, Naim Ateek and Obama’s Church and Black Liberation Theology
The respected NGO Monitor had this to say about SABEEL’s Ecumenical Facade
Reflecting its mission statement, Sabeel is active in promoting an extreme anti-Israel agenda in Protestant churches in both North America and Europe. Sabeel’s efforts have promoted the campaign to isolate and delegitimize Israel through the divestment campaign, which have recently been adopted by the World Council of Churches, the Anglican Church in Britain, the Presbyterian Church, and others.
What could be clearer? Now here is part of Lasky’s article.
Nevertheless, other parts of his speech were far from reassuring, and once again cast substantial doubt on his views not just toward Israel but also specifically toward supporters of the America-Israel relationship here at home. Senator Obama believes words matter; it is a mantra of his candidacy. Therefore, it is only fair to look at the words he used in Cleveland to divine his views.
He seems to be addressing many supporters of Israel in America who have questions regarding his views and his plans. He finds fault with them:
“I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt a unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you’re anti-Israel and that can’t be the measure of our friendship with Israel”.
Senator Obama characterizes those who have concerns about policies he might follow as President as being Likud-supporters. This has been a charge propagated by the fiercest opponents of Israel, who have often slipped into conspiracy theories regarding American supporters of Israel. (Try googling Likudnik and “dual loyalty” or “conspiracy theory”; Likudnik has become a term of opprobrium. As David Berstein notes, “Likudnik has gradually become a general anti-Semitic term for Jews whose opinions one does not like.”
One wishes Senator Obama would be bit more sensitive going forward when he uses such a term. After all, the Likud Party has not been in power for years, and Americans should feel free to express their concerns without being characterized as that party’s supporters, with its suggestion of dual loyalty. The suggestion that supporters of Israel who express their concerns are subscribers to the view of the Likud Party of Israel is simply not grounded. After all, supporters of Hillary Clinton have also expressed qualms regarding Senator Obama’s views of Israel. Are they supporters of Likud, too?
Haaretz columnist Shmuel Rosner raises an additional reason to have qualms. Will a President Obama be supportive of an Israel headed by a Prime Minster who hails from the Likud party? Does this statement by Senator Obama risk interfering with Israeli politics?
It is important to note that Likud did give up the Sinai and that Ariel Sharon — a former Likud leader — did remove all the settlements from the Gaza Strip. So one wonders why Senator Obama is so anti-Likud to begin with? Does he not know the history of this volatile region? Who has he been his counsel when he chooses to use such a term?
Senator Obama also sought to distance himself from Zbigniew Brzezinski, whose anti-Israel views are well known. However, he made no mention of two other advisors with a long record of hostility toward Israel: Robert Malley and Samantha Power. Power, in particular, is very close to the Senator and is a key foreign policy adviser . Why the omission of any mention of both?
But in trying to disentangle himself from Brzezinski, Senator Obama engaged in some rhetoric that is unsettling:
“Frankly some of the commentary that I’ve seen which suggests guilt by association or the notion that unless we are never ever going to ask any difficult questions about how we move peace forward or secure Israel that is non military or non belligerent or doesn’t talk about just crushing the opposition that that somehow is being soft or anti-Israel, I think we’re going to have problems moving forward.”
Senator Obama apparently views Israel as a “belligerent” and perhaps wants to see America’s support for Israel’s military reduced. This is hardly reassuring. Israel is not a belligerent, it only defends itself. It is a tiny sliver of a nation of a few million people surrounded by 300 million people who have made quite clear over the past 60 years that they desire its destruction. Few supporters of Israel indeed think that the only way to bring peace to the region is for Israel to crush all the opposition. Israel herself, since her founding, sought — and sometimes fought — for peace. These steps did not involve crushing all the opposition. Israel has taken great risks in it steps towards peace (leaving Lebanon — which led to the rise of Hezbollah; leaving Gaza — which led to the rise of Hamas; allowing Yasser Arafat to come to the West bank, where he set up a terrorist regime and brainwashed Palestinian children to hate. A leading Presidential candidate all but accuses Israel of being “belligerent” — is that unsettling to anyone?
Also unsettling is the implication that may lie behind his statement that we are going to have “problems moving forward” if critics raise questions about his views. Is this a statement meant to forestall discussion? If so, it would be similar to the views expressed by Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, who abhor the role that pro-Israel Americans (including Christians) sometimes play in the foreign policy discussion.
These statements are difficult to square with his position that he has a long record of support for Israel. If he is perturbed by critics and indicates questions may cause problems in the future regarding his policies and actions, then perhaps people have legitimate reasons to be concerned about the depth of his support for the America-Israel relationship and the role of Americans in the foreign policy discussion.
Senator Obama also said that supporting the view that only by defeating its Islamic foes can Israel enjoy any semblance of peace and security “can’t be the measure of our friendship with Israel.”. This is disconcerting. How firm and deep will President Obama’s support for Israel be when it comes to dealing with terrorists? Israel needs to defeat its Islamic foes who seek its destruction and who celebrate martyrdom for peace to reign. Even Palestinian moderates will feel constrained in making peace deals with Israel until these Islamic extremists are defeated. Wouldn’t Israel be justified in stopping Islamic foes that are calling for another Holocaust?
Would President Obama feel the same towards Islamic foes who target America?
Senator Obama also indicated that siding with those who seek the dividing of Israel does not make him anti-Israel. This is true. Most supporters of Israel now understand there will need to be a viable Palestinian state and that Israel will need to make territorial concessions. He stated that backing the Jews’ biblical, historical and legal claim to all of the land in question also can’t be the measure of our friendship with Israel. Of course, Israel has already made such concessions: the result is Hamasstan in the Gaza, which has become a center for terror directed daily against Israel. As Israel moved its forces out of the West Bank, those areas became centers of terrorist activity.
Senator Obama has already telegraphed his views regarding land, which seemed to prejudge the final outcome. But it might be wiser from a diplomatic point of view if he does not signal to opponents of negotiations his position if he becomes President. Also, violence has ensued when Israel voluntarily withdrew from lands; the world has remained silent and expresses very little sympathy for Israeli victims. Is counseling the division of land now something a friend would do?
Notably, the word “Jerusalem” is entirely absent from Senator Obama’s remarks. Surely that is not inadvertent. Does Senator Obama support or oppose the division of Jerusalem? Is Senator Obama aware of the destruction of Jewish and Christian religious sites when Jerusalem had been divided previously? Is he aware of how Jews were denied access to their religious sites when the city was divided? If Senator Obama does support the division of Jerusalem, how would it be divided? American Jews certainly cannot evaluate the Senator’s views on Israel when in a lengthy speech to Jewish leaders he keeps his views on Jerusalem to himself.
Senator Obama also stated that a full withdrawal from Iraq would strengthen America’s ability to deal with Iran. This logic is difficult to see. How would that happen? A precipitous withdrawal would embolden Iran. There would be no fear of American forces near its borders and its Shiite allies within Iraq would be strengthened. If anything, Iran would be empowered by such a retreat. How leaving would help us deal with Iran is opaque.
Senator Obama also sought to dispel rumors of anti-Semitism within his church (American Thinker has never made this accusation; nor do we support this allegation). Within the speech was this nugget:
“But I have never heard an anti-Semitic comment made inside of our church.”
And I suspect there are some of the people in this room who have heard relatives say some things that they don’t agree with. Including, on occasion, directed at African-Americans — that’s maybe a possibility that’s just, I am not suggesting that’s definitive.”
This is a Clintonesque statement if there ever were one. Senator Obama has never heard anti-Semitic statements “inside his church.” How about members who may have made such comments outside the church? How about his pastor’s relatively recent written anti-Israel statements that he excuses on the ground of Israel’s former relationship with South Africa. This also conveniently elides the fact that his Church’s magazine very recently gave an award to Louis Farrakhan, one of the most infamous anti-Semites in America.
In an attempt at self-justification, Senator Obama relegates his pastor, who is his spiritual mentor, and who inspired the title of his book The Audacity of Hope, as something like a crazy old uncle in the attic. Worse, he suggests that Jewish leaders may themselves have relatives who have made remarks that might be considered anti-African American. That is entirely irrelevant. There is a substantial difference between relatives who make private (or even public) comments that are disagreeable, and a relationship with a pastor that was sought out and supported, praised, and regarded as a mentor for two decades. Although one can distance oneself from relatives, it’s not so easy to resign from them. The same is not true of a pastoral affiliation.
Undoubtedly, the Jewish community would expect a presidential candidate to resign from a church whose pastor publicly supported David Duke and whose magazine gave him an award. The community would hope that Senator Obama would have taken such a step many years ago. Some may consider it disingenuous of the Senator to excuse his own voluntary association on the ground those Jewish listeners might have family members who harbor private prejudices.
Senator Obama’s speech occurred in the wake of comments made by Ralph Nader on Meet The Press. Nader claims that Senator Obama is too pro-Israel these days and remarked that the Senator was pro-Palestinian for years before he began his campaign for higher office. While some may view this as a reflection of Senator Obama’s evolving views (certainly his supporters will), others might question the coincidence of changing his views when he sought to garner support for his campaign.
Now that he has racked up a string of victories and vast amounts of financial support, he apparently feels comfortable in articulating some views regarding Israel and supporters of Israel in America that may give comfort to Ralph Nader but might leave others with even more questions than before.
Finally we can’t forget this quote from Obama’s book Audacity of Hope
“I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”
Whatever did he mean by that?
Obama is not legally African-American as he claims but Arab-American and Islam still considers him to be a Muslim. Surely Americans are entitled to take this into account when they are voting for the next President of America.
No, Obama is going down and rightly so.
Ted Belman
I thought I would begin with a prediction. “Obama will win the nomination but lose the election.”
Fox News are on to him and all the arguments our “smear” camping is making and for the most part it is running with them. Sean Hannity is the best.
Slowly, but surely Obama, is doing himself in. It is not just the company he keeps but also what he is now saying. Ed Lasky, the News Editor of The American Thinker, reports on Senator Obama’s Coming Out Party in Cleveland. Ed does a brilliant job of ferreting out the true meaning of Obama’s remarks. But in my opinion he mis-states two things which I want to address first.
“Most supporters of Israel now understand there will need to be a viable Palestinian state and that Israel will need to make territorial concessions.”
Recent polls disclose that 2/3 of Israelis are against dividing Jerusalem and retreating from Judea and Samaria and that is despite the fact the the entire world including the Government of Israel and its media have been embracing the two state solution.
“Senator Obama also sought to dispel rumors of anti-Semitism within his church (American Thinker has never made this accusation; nor do we support this allegation).”
I submit that The American Thinker is wrong in taking this position. Organizations and individuals who take positions critical of Israel, which Obama’s church does, often cross the line into antisemitism. Lasky knows the difference between legitimate criticism and antisemitic criticism. Obama’s Trinity United Church of Christ sure fits the later category.
Bill Levinson posted to very important articles on Israpundit which can’t be ignored; Obama’s Church Connected to Sabeel, Naim Ateek and Obama’s Church and Black Liberation Theology
The respected NGO Monitor had this to say about SABEEL’s Ecumenical Facade
Reflecting its mission statement, Sabeel is active in promoting an extreme anti-Israel agenda in Protestant churches in both North America and Europe. Sabeel’s efforts have promoted the campaign to isolate and delegitimize Israel through the divestment campaign, which have recently been adopted by the World Council of Churches, the Anglican Church in Britain, the Presbyterian Church, and others.
What could be clearer? Now here is part of Lasky’s article.
Nevertheless, other parts of his speech were far from reassuring, and once again cast substantial doubt on his views not just toward Israel but also specifically toward supporters of the America-Israel relationship here at home. Senator Obama believes words matter; it is a mantra of his candidacy. Therefore, it is only fair to look at the words he used in Cleveland to divine his views.
He seems to be addressing many supporters of Israel in America who have questions regarding his views and his plans. He finds fault with them:
“I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt a unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you’re anti-Israel and that can’t be the measure of our friendship with Israel”.
Senator Obama characterizes those who have concerns about policies he might follow as President as being Likud-supporters. This has been a charge propagated by the fiercest opponents of Israel, who have often slipped into conspiracy theories regarding American supporters of Israel. (Try googling Likudnik and “dual loyalty” or “conspiracy theory”; Likudnik has become a term of opprobrium. As David Berstein notes, “Likudnik has gradually become a general anti-Semitic term for Jews whose opinions one does not like.”
One wishes Senator Obama would be bit more sensitive going forward when he uses such a term. After all, the Likud Party has not been in power for years, and Americans should feel free to express their concerns without being characterized as that party’s supporters, with its suggestion of dual loyalty. The suggestion that supporters of Israel who express their concerns are subscribers to the view of the Likud Party of Israel is simply not grounded. After all, supporters of Hillary Clinton have also expressed qualms regarding Senator Obama’s views of Israel. Are they supporters of Likud, too?
Haaretz columnist Shmuel Rosner raises an additional reason to have qualms. Will a President Obama be supportive of an Israel headed by a Prime Minster who hails from the Likud party? Does this statement by Senator Obama risk interfering with Israeli politics?
It is important to note that Likud did give up the Sinai and that Ariel Sharon — a former Likud leader — did remove all the settlements from the Gaza Strip. So one wonders why Senator Obama is so anti-Likud to begin with? Does he not know the history of this volatile region? Who has he been his counsel when he chooses to use such a term?
Senator Obama also sought to distance himself from Zbigniew Brzezinski, whose anti-Israel views are well known. However, he made no mention of two other advisors with a long record of hostility toward Israel: Robert Malley and Samantha Power. Power, in particular, is very close to the Senator and is a key foreign policy adviser . Why the omission of any mention of both?
But in trying to disentangle himself from Brzezinski, Senator Obama engaged in some rhetoric that is unsettling:
“Frankly some of the commentary that I’ve seen which suggests guilt by association or the notion that unless we are never ever going to ask any difficult questions about how we move peace forward or secure Israel that is non military or non belligerent or doesn’t talk about just crushing the opposition that that somehow is being soft or anti-Israel, I think we’re going to have problems moving forward.”
Senator Obama apparently views Israel as a “belligerent” and perhaps wants to see America’s support for Israel’s military reduced. This is hardly reassuring. Israel is not a belligerent, it only defends itself. It is a tiny sliver of a nation of a few million people surrounded by 300 million people who have made quite clear over the past 60 years that they desire its destruction. Few supporters of Israel indeed think that the only way to bring peace to the region is for Israel to crush all the opposition. Israel herself, since her founding, sought — and sometimes fought — for peace. These steps did not involve crushing all the opposition. Israel has taken great risks in it steps towards peace (leaving Lebanon — which led to the rise of Hezbollah; leaving Gaza — which led to the rise of Hamas; allowing Yasser Arafat to come to the West bank, where he set up a terrorist regime and brainwashed Palestinian children to hate. A leading Presidential candidate all but accuses Israel of being “belligerent” — is that unsettling to anyone?
Also unsettling is the implication that may lie behind his statement that we are going to have “problems moving forward” if critics raise questions about his views. Is this a statement meant to forestall discussion? If so, it would be similar to the views expressed by Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, who abhor the role that pro-Israel Americans (including Christians) sometimes play in the foreign policy discussion.
These statements are difficult to square with his position that he has a long record of support for Israel. If he is perturbed by critics and indicates questions may cause problems in the future regarding his policies and actions, then perhaps people have legitimate reasons to be concerned about the depth of his support for the America-Israel relationship and the role of Americans in the foreign policy discussion.
Senator Obama also said that supporting the view that only by defeating its Islamic foes can Israel enjoy any semblance of peace and security “can’t be the measure of our friendship with Israel.”. This is disconcerting. How firm and deep will President Obama’s support for Israel be when it comes to dealing with terrorists? Israel needs to defeat its Islamic foes who seek its destruction and who celebrate martyrdom for peace to reign. Even Palestinian moderates will feel constrained in making peace deals with Israel until these Islamic extremists are defeated. Wouldn’t Israel be justified in stopping Islamic foes that are calling for another Holocaust?
Would President Obama feel the same towards Islamic foes who target America?
Senator Obama also indicated that siding with those who seek the dividing of Israel does not make him anti-Israel. This is true. Most supporters of Israel now understand there will need to be a viable Palestinian state and that Israel will need to make territorial concessions. He stated that backing the Jews’ biblical, historical and legal claim to all of the land in question also can’t be the measure of our friendship with Israel. Of course, Israel has already made such concessions: the result is Hamasstan in the Gaza, which has become a center for terror directed daily against Israel. As Israel moved its forces out of the West Bank, those areas became centers of terrorist activity.
Senator Obama has already telegraphed his views regarding land, which seemed to prejudge the final outcome. But it might be wiser from a diplomatic point of view if he does not signal to opponents of negotiations his position if he becomes President. Also, violence has ensued when Israel voluntarily withdrew from lands; the world has remained silent and expresses very little sympathy for Israeli victims. Is counseling the division of land now something a friend would do?
Notably, the word “Jerusalem” is entirely absent from Senator Obama’s remarks. Surely that is not inadvertent. Does Senator Obama support or oppose the division of Jerusalem? Is Senator Obama aware of the destruction of Jewish and Christian religious sites when Jerusalem had been divided previously? Is he aware of how Jews were denied access to their religious sites when the city was divided? If Senator Obama does support the division of Jerusalem, how would it be divided? American Jews certainly cannot evaluate the Senator’s views on Israel when in a lengthy speech to Jewish leaders he keeps his views on Jerusalem to himself.
Senator Obama also stated that a full withdrawal from Iraq would strengthen America’s ability to deal with Iran. This logic is difficult to see. How would that happen? A precipitous withdrawal would embolden Iran. There would be no fear of American forces near its borders and its Shiite allies within Iraq would be strengthened. If anything, Iran would be empowered by such a retreat. How leaving would help us deal with Iran is opaque.
Senator Obama also sought to dispel rumors of anti-Semitism within his church (American Thinker has never made this accusation; nor do we support this allegation). Within the speech was this nugget:
“But I have never heard an anti-Semitic comment made inside of our church.”
And I suspect there are some of the people in this room who have heard relatives say some things that they don’t agree with. Including, on occasion, directed at African-Americans — that’s maybe a possibility that’s just, I am not suggesting that’s definitive.”
This is a Clintonesque statement if there ever were one. Senator Obama has never heard anti-Semitic statements “inside his church.” How about members who may have made such comments outside the church? How about his pastor’s relatively recent written anti-Israel statements that he excuses on the ground of Israel’s former relationship with South Africa. This also conveniently elides the fact that his Church’s magazine very recently gave an award to Louis Farrakhan, one of the most infamous anti-Semites in America.
In an attempt at self-justification, Senator Obama relegates his pastor, who is his spiritual mentor, and who inspired the title of his book The Audacity of Hope, as something like a crazy old uncle in the attic. Worse, he suggests that Jewish leaders may themselves have relatives who have made remarks that might be considered anti-African American. That is entirely irrelevant. There is a substantial difference between relatives who make private (or even public) comments that are disagreeable, and a relationship with a pastor that was sought out and supported, praised, and regarded as a mentor for two decades. Although one can distance oneself from relatives, it’s not so easy to resign from them. The same is not true of a pastoral affiliation.
Undoubtedly, the Jewish community would expect a presidential candidate to resign from a church whose pastor publicly supported David Duke and whose magazine gave him an award. The community would hope that Senator Obama would have taken such a step many years ago. Some may consider it disingenuous of the Senator to excuse his own voluntary association on the ground those Jewish listeners might have family members who harbor private prejudices.
Senator Obama’s speech occurred in the wake of comments made by Ralph Nader on Meet The Press. Nader claims that Senator Obama is too pro-Israel these days and remarked that the Senator was pro-Palestinian for years before he began his campaign for higher office. While some may view this as a reflection of Senator Obama’s evolving views (certainly his supporters will), others might question the coincidence of changing his views when he sought to garner support for his campaign.
Now that he has racked up a string of victories and vast amounts of financial support, he apparently feels comfortable in articulating some views regarding Israel and supporters of Israel in America that may give comfort to Ralph Nader but might leave others with even more questions than before.
Finally we can’t forget this quote from Obama’s book Audacity of Hope
“I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”
Whatever did he mean by that?
Obama is not legally African-American as he claims but Arab-American and Islam still considers him to be a Muslim. Surely Americans are entitled to take this into account when they are voting for the next President of America.
No, Obama is going down and rightly so.
Ted Belman
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Should government employ terrorist sympathizers?
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com
Imagine trying to fight a war without a clue as to what motivates your enemy or governs his strategy for your destruction. Actually, you don't have to work too hard to get your head around such an insane idea; it is the current practice of the United States government.
This is not, of course, the way it is supposed to be. According, for example, to the Pentagon's own guidelines as reflected in the Army's Field Manual 34-130 dealing with Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield (IPB), one of the first tasks in any conflict is to "Evaluate the threat." This job requires military personnel to "update or create threat models: convert threat doctrine or patterns of operation to graphics (doctrinal templates); describe in words the threat's tactics and options; [and] identify high value targets."
Such guidance is eminently sensible and needed, not only at the tactical or battlefield level, but also at the strategic level. In fact, most national security practitioners would find it, well, unimaginable to try to do otherwise.
Yet, Stephen Coughlin, one of the very few people working for the U.S. government who has rigorously studied the current "threat doctrine" - the wellspring in the traditions, practices and Shariah Law of today's totalitarian ideology known as Islamofascism - is, as of this writing, still being cashiered at the end of next month.
Worse yet, the individual who seems to be most responsible for shutting down Mr. Coughlin's essential doctrinal analysis and training by driving him out of the Pentagon - one Hesham Islam - seems to be staying in a sensitive position working for the Defense Department's Deputy Secretary, Gordon England. This notwithstanding serious questions raised about Mr. Islam's public biography, conduct in relation to Muslim outreach, the Coughlin affair and his top secret security clearance.
To recap: Coughlin is the author of an impressive 330-page master's thesis on the subject which was recently accepted by the Defense Intelligence University. He currently works under contract to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a job for which he is well suited as an Army Reserve Major, trained strategic intelligence analyst and attorney. His thesis brilliantly argues that jihad, or Islamic warfare, is rooted in the Islamists' Shariah Law. According to the Army doctrine, it is the enemy's conception of his doctrine that is the basis for developing threat templates and the threat model - not our uncritical assumptions about what "root causes" inspires him. As Maj. Coughlin observes, we are not at war with a "theory of terrorism."
Maj. Coughlin has developed an intimate understanding not only of the "enemy threat doctrine." He has also analyzed its "order of battle" including, notably, the various front organizations operated in America by the Muslim Brotherhood. Documents entered into evidence last year by the Department of Justice in the course of the Holy Land Foundation terrorism conspiracy trial offered insights into the stated objective of the Brotherhood - namely, the destruction of the United States from within. The Justice Department has also named names, identifying among many others, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) as a Muslim Brotherhood front.
Unfortunately, thanks to Hesham Islam, ISNA has been of late the preeminent vehicle for Pentagon "outreach" efforts to the American Muslim community. When Mr. Coughlin warned the Pentagon leadership of the error of such contacts, he was pressed by Mr. Islam to desist. Shortly after the former refused to do so, his contract with the Joint Chiefs of Staff was not renewed because, as one unnamed officer told the Washington Times' Bill Gertz, it had "gotten too hot" to keep Mr. Coughlin on the job.
Some in Congress who have taken an interest in the Coughlin affair have been led to believe that Mr. Coughlin's contract was not re-upped for reasons having nothing to do with his altercation with Mr. Islam, that he was getting a job in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and that Mr. Islam was going to be leaving the Pentagon. It appears they have been misled.
As of now, the Defense Department's best hope for understanding - and drawing the appropriate insights from - the Islamofascist threat doctrine will be separated from the government at the end of March. An appointment that would allow Maj. Coughlin to continue his vital work in a position within the Office of the Secretary of Defense is reportedly being blocked by Under Secretary of Defense Eric Edelman or one of his subordinates.
Meanwhile, serious questions about not only Mr. Islam's possible ties to the Muslim Brotherhood organization but his truthfulness in describing his personal history seem to have gone unanswered. One of America's most accomplished investigative reporters, Claudia Rosett, was unable to confirm various colorful claims made by this Egyptian expatriate on a Pentagon website. The Department's response to date has been to remove the page from that site. Mr. Islam evidently remains what Deputy Secretary England has called him: "a close personal confidante." In the counter-intelligence heyday of the Cold War, would outreach to suspected Soviet front organizations have been so blithely dismissed?
In the current War for the Free World, it is nothing less than a scandal that America is still trying to win it with so much confusion about the doctrine of our enemies, to say nothing of having some fact-based hypothesis and understanding of those who may seek to replace our constitutional order with a Shariah Law-based one. As Maj. Coughlin argues, "If we fail to align the enemy to his doctrine," then our strategies and comprehension of the threat will likewise be "misaligned."
Steve Coughlin's insights and capabilities are needed today more than ever. Effective congressional intervention, including hearings, may be required to ensure that the services of those who understand the threat posed by the Muslim Brotherhood and its ilk are retained. No less importantly, individuals who express sympathy for or otherwise abet the purposes of one of our enemies' most insidious and successful instruments, the Muslim Brotherhood, have no place in the United States government.
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com
Imagine trying to fight a war without a clue as to what motivates your enemy or governs his strategy for your destruction. Actually, you don't have to work too hard to get your head around such an insane idea; it is the current practice of the United States government.
This is not, of course, the way it is supposed to be. According, for example, to the Pentagon's own guidelines as reflected in the Army's Field Manual 34-130 dealing with Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield (IPB), one of the first tasks in any conflict is to "Evaluate the threat." This job requires military personnel to "update or create threat models: convert threat doctrine or patterns of operation to graphics (doctrinal templates); describe in words the threat's tactics and options; [and] identify high value targets."
Such guidance is eminently sensible and needed, not only at the tactical or battlefield level, but also at the strategic level. In fact, most national security practitioners would find it, well, unimaginable to try to do otherwise.
Yet, Stephen Coughlin, one of the very few people working for the U.S. government who has rigorously studied the current "threat doctrine" - the wellspring in the traditions, practices and Shariah Law of today's totalitarian ideology known as Islamofascism - is, as of this writing, still being cashiered at the end of next month.
Worse yet, the individual who seems to be most responsible for shutting down Mr. Coughlin's essential doctrinal analysis and training by driving him out of the Pentagon - one Hesham Islam - seems to be staying in a sensitive position working for the Defense Department's Deputy Secretary, Gordon England. This notwithstanding serious questions raised about Mr. Islam's public biography, conduct in relation to Muslim outreach, the Coughlin affair and his top secret security clearance.
To recap: Coughlin is the author of an impressive 330-page master's thesis on the subject which was recently accepted by the Defense Intelligence University. He currently works under contract to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a job for which he is well suited as an Army Reserve Major, trained strategic intelligence analyst and attorney. His thesis brilliantly argues that jihad, or Islamic warfare, is rooted in the Islamists' Shariah Law. According to the Army doctrine, it is the enemy's conception of his doctrine that is the basis for developing threat templates and the threat model - not our uncritical assumptions about what "root causes" inspires him. As Maj. Coughlin observes, we are not at war with a "theory of terrorism."
Maj. Coughlin has developed an intimate understanding not only of the "enemy threat doctrine." He has also analyzed its "order of battle" including, notably, the various front organizations operated in America by the Muslim Brotherhood. Documents entered into evidence last year by the Department of Justice in the course of the Holy Land Foundation terrorism conspiracy trial offered insights into the stated objective of the Brotherhood - namely, the destruction of the United States from within. The Justice Department has also named names, identifying among many others, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) as a Muslim Brotherhood front.
Unfortunately, thanks to Hesham Islam, ISNA has been of late the preeminent vehicle for Pentagon "outreach" efforts to the American Muslim community. When Mr. Coughlin warned the Pentagon leadership of the error of such contacts, he was pressed by Mr. Islam to desist. Shortly after the former refused to do so, his contract with the Joint Chiefs of Staff was not renewed because, as one unnamed officer told the Washington Times' Bill Gertz, it had "gotten too hot" to keep Mr. Coughlin on the job.
Some in Congress who have taken an interest in the Coughlin affair have been led to believe that Mr. Coughlin's contract was not re-upped for reasons having nothing to do with his altercation with Mr. Islam, that he was getting a job in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and that Mr. Islam was going to be leaving the Pentagon. It appears they have been misled.
As of now, the Defense Department's best hope for understanding - and drawing the appropriate insights from - the Islamofascist threat doctrine will be separated from the government at the end of March. An appointment that would allow Maj. Coughlin to continue his vital work in a position within the Office of the Secretary of Defense is reportedly being blocked by Under Secretary of Defense Eric Edelman or one of his subordinates.
Meanwhile, serious questions about not only Mr. Islam's possible ties to the Muslim Brotherhood organization but his truthfulness in describing his personal history seem to have gone unanswered. One of America's most accomplished investigative reporters, Claudia Rosett, was unable to confirm various colorful claims made by this Egyptian expatriate on a Pentagon website. The Department's response to date has been to remove the page from that site. Mr. Islam evidently remains what Deputy Secretary England has called him: "a close personal confidante." In the counter-intelligence heyday of the Cold War, would outreach to suspected Soviet front organizations have been so blithely dismissed?
In the current War for the Free World, it is nothing less than a scandal that America is still trying to win it with so much confusion about the doctrine of our enemies, to say nothing of having some fact-based hypothesis and understanding of those who may seek to replace our constitutional order with a Shariah Law-based one. As Maj. Coughlin argues, "If we fail to align the enemy to his doctrine," then our strategies and comprehension of the threat will likewise be "misaligned."
Steve Coughlin's insights and capabilities are needed today more than ever. Effective congressional intervention, including hearings, may be required to ensure that the services of those who understand the threat posed by the Muslim Brotherhood and its ilk are retained. No less importantly, individuals who express sympathy for or otherwise abet the purposes of one of our enemies' most insidious and successful instruments, the Muslim Brotherhood, have no place in the United States government.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)