Louis René Beres
Credo quia absurdum. “I believe because it is absurd.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remains officially on record in favor of a Palestinian state, but only if the new Arab state is “demilitarized.” Naturally, any such notion of demilitarization will be anathema to the Palestinians and their supporters, and has already been rejected by all of them.There is still no place on earth called “Palestine.” When a reborn Israel was authoritatively created by international treaties and international law in 1948, it did not replace “Palestine,” nor did it prevent Palestinian statehood. Nonetheless, most of the world, including U.S. President Barack Obama, prefers to think otherwise. Indeed, wherever one looks for informed commentary about the Middle East, a falsely symmetrical condition is usually alleged or implied. To wit, much of this commentary speaks of a protracted conflict between Israel and “Palestine.”
If this were the “only” pertinent falsehood here, Israel and its few real allies could still deal effectively with the attendant problems. Yet, certain “moderate” Palestinian factions still pretend to favor a “Two State Solution,” and Jerusalem, endlessly pressured by Washington, still goes along with the deception and charade. It follows that an authentic state of Palestine may soon come to fruition. This 23rd Arab country could quickly bring about de jure as well as de facto equivalence.
A Palestinian state should be prevented at all costs. Palestinian statehood would be inherently unstable. Above all, it would lead, in short order, to major new violent assaults upon Israel. Cumulatively, these assaults could have existential outcomes.
Genre counts. Israel, after the creation of “Palestine,” would await a tragic fate. But because the Jewish State will have been more or less actively complicit in such creation all along, a different dramatic image would then more accurately reflect Israel’s geopolitical reality. Like the minimalist poetics of Samuel Beckett, this entire "play," however seemingly tragic, would also be preposterous. The great Romanian playwright Eugène Ionesco had labeled some of his own work a “tragic farce,” and this particularly odd juxtaposition would likely be the most suitable description of Israel and “Palestine.”
More about genre. Both Israel and the Palestinians have long been engaged in an elaborate pantomime. Somehow, both have managed, by immense clamor, by vast rhythmic repetition, by ceaseless reliance upon platitudes, to make genuine thinking impossible. Now, there is great danger that a continuously elaborated fiction of Palestinian statehood, a concoction governed by an inscrutably perverse and destructive logic, will soon become historical fact.
Time may be instructive. The early Greeks did not share the monotheistic Jewish understanding of One God. But both the Greeks and the Jews did subscribe to the perfectly reasonable idea that all human beings and societies are obligated to ward off disaster as best they can. Saadia Gaon included freedom of will among the central teachings of Judaism, and Maimonides affirmed that we humans stand alone in the world, "...to know what is good and what is evil, with none to prevent him from either doing good or evil."
Free will, all Jews understand, must be oriented to life, to the blessing, and never to the curse. For Hellenes and Hebrews alike, the binding charge was to strive in this mandated direction of self-preservation through intelligence, and also through disciplined acts of decision. In circumstances where such striving was consciously rejected, the outcomes, no matter how catastrophic, could never rise to the manifestly dignified level of tragedy.
Genre elucidates. The ancient vision of "High Tragedy," as it has evolved from fifth century BCE Athens, is always clear on one crucial point: The victim, says Aristotle, is one whom "the gods kill for their sport, as wanton boys do flies." It is this wantonness, this caprice, that makes tragedy unendurable to human reason and sensibility.
With the creation of “Palestine,” Israel's unavoidable lamentations would be largely self-inflicted. The preposterous drama, as it is now still unfolding, is at best a disturbing page from Beckett or Ionesco, from the recognizable genre of the absurd. There is certainly no hint of any cathartic element drawn from Aristotle, Aeschylus, Sophocles or Euripides. At worst, Israel's tragic fate is being torn directly from the pages of irony and farce, a demeaning form of comedy that relies principally on contrivances of plot, and on inherently low levels of credibility.
In a farce, matters often end badly except for a last-minute rescue via so-called deus ex machina. No such rescue could possibly await the increasingly imperiled State of Israel. Understood in explicitly Jewish terms, we should recall here the words of Rabbi Yanai: "A man should never put himself in a place of danger and say that a miracle will save him, lest there be no miracle...." (Talmud) Perhaps Israel's current prime minister does not expect a miracle, but then upon what precise manner of calculation does he now construct his farcical and U.S. mandated policy of “two states living peacefully side-by-side?
In Judaism, there can be no justification for deliberate self-endangerment, and in classic Greek tragedy, there can be no deus ex machina. In tragedy, the human spirit remains noble in the face of inescapable death, but if there should remain anything genuinely tragic in Israel's incremental capitulations to “Palestine,” it lies only in the original Greek meaning of the term - "goat song" - from the dithyrambs sung by goatskin-clad worshippers of Dionysus. In every other sense, Netanyahu’s plan exhibits behavior that would, however unwittingly, desecrate Israel’s Jewish heritage and its survival obligations.
Oddly, Prime Minister Netanyahu now proceeds with the acceptance of a "Two State Solution,” but makes this acceptance contingent upon a “demilitarized” Palestinian state – a contingency that is inherently contrary to legal sovereignty. Moreover, his “moderate” Palestinian "partners in peace" are still openly dedicated only to a single Arab state. Israel does not even exist on the “moderate” maps of Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah, an organization now receiving military training from U.S. forces in the region.
Abbas’ (Abu Mazen) intentions for Israel are jurisprudentially identifiable as Crimes Against Humanity. Like Hamas, Fatah has plans for Israel that constitute genocide according to authoritative and unassailable standards of pertinent international norms. Why hasn’t this unhidden fact entered into the declared preferences of President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu?
Mahmoud Abbas' only solution for the Israel-Palestinian conflict is the all-too-familiar "final" one. Aristotle understood, in his Poetics, that a tragedy must elicit pity and fear, but not pathos. Aristotle identified the tragic with "good" characters who suffer, in part, because they commit some error (hamartia) unknowingly. Prime Minister Netanyahu, on the contrary, has continued his country's march to disaster not because of any such error, or even because of wantonness or caprice, but because he steadfastly clings to U.S. directed myth and self-delusion.
Israel is in a tragic dilemma, a situation initially created by Rabin/Peres, sustained by Netanyahu in his prior tenure as prime minister, heightened by Barak and Sharon, and potentially to be “finalized” by Netanyahu in his current term as prime minister.
A Prime Minister of Israel is still complicit in plans to codify jihad-centered rule over essential and core sectors of the Jewish State. Yet, Holocaust denier Mahmoud Abbas was mentored by Yassir Arafat, and Arafat, in the words of Gustav Hendrikssen, professor emeritus of Bible Studies at Sweden's Uppsala University, "is the heir of Hitler and the Palestinian Covenant is a more disgusting document than the Nuremberg laws." Significantly, when this self-described "aged and bitter Gentile" recalled his reactions to awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to "one of the most despicable figures in our century," he saw in that event the drama not of tragedy, but of pathetic farce: "When I saw the Prime Minister of Israel and its Foreign Minister standing next to this murderous clown," says Prof. Hendrikssen, speaking of Rabin and Peres, "I had to think again about the meaning of the term “friend of Israel.'"
A Christian for whom Israel had always been a "divine message," Hendrikssen confirmed our sober understanding that Israel's ongoing surrenders lack even the stuff of tragedy. If, after all, "...the Jewish people digs its grave with its own hand," it is a coming death without dignity. "Even the devil that dances on its grave is of its own making."
Soon, if "Palestine” is allowed to go forward, with or without “demilitarization,” each and every soldier of Israel will be asked to fight future battles that are already lost. Fawning upon their own doom, Israel's leaders might still refuse to recognize that the spheres of reason in this world are terribly limited, or that Barack Obama and the American Jewish Establishment will not save them. For the latter, which is certainly well-intentioned, Israel will remain a quaint diversion, a proper place to send periodic donations, and a fine place to visit with the grandchildren. For the former, the underlying and essential drama of Israel's redemption, the very raison d'etre of the reborn State of Israel, is pretty much beside the point.
Under Prime Minister Netanyahu, Israel is now entering the final phase of an unwitting self-parody. Fortunately, the last act has not yet been played. Israel can still put an end to the “tragic farce,” but only if its people and government can finally understand why they have been ingathered in the first place.
Citizens of Israel should have no illusions. There is nothing about "Palestine” that will save them from the fury of enemy terrorism or catastrophic war. On the contrary, as should have been learned long ago, the smell of carrion only inflames the vulture. Faced with an Israel already weakened by “Palestine,” Iran could likely calculate that a surprise attack upon Israel, sometime in the nuclear future, would now be cost-effective.
For Israel, interactive effects or synergies between a Palestinian state, and other more immediately existential threats, could bring a genuinely tragic end to the increasingly absurd drama.
----------------------
LOUIS RENÉ BERES (Ph.D., Princeton, 1971) is the author of many books and articles dealing with Israeli security issues and international law. Born in Zurich, Switzerland, he was Chair of Project Daniel, and is Strategic and Military Affairs columnist for THE JEWISH PRESS.
Guest Comment: Summation:
There was never and there is no such place on earth called “Palestine”; there were never and there are no such people in earth called “Palestinians”!
Israel cannot put itself in a place of danger [allowing a Palestine to be established] and after the fact say that a miracle will save it, lest there be no miracle.
Abbas’ (Abu Mazen) intentions for Israel are jurisprudentially identifiable as Crimes against Humanity. Mahmoud Abbas, who is a Holocaust denier, was mentored by Yassir Arafat, and Arafat was described as the heir of Hitler and the Palestinian Covenant is a more disgusting document than the Nuremberg laws. Like Hamas, Fatah has plans for Israel that constitute genocide according to authoritative and unassailable standards of pertinent international norms. Why hasn’t this unhidden fact entered into the declared preferences of President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu?
Israel's ongoing surrender lacks even the stuff of tragedy. If, after all, the Jewish people dig its grave with its own hand, it is a coming death without dignity. Even the devil that dances on its grave is of its own making!
If "Palestine” is allowed to go forward, with or without Netanyahu's dream of its “demilitarization,” each and every Israeli soldier will be asked to fight future battles that are already lost!
Israel's leaders, still fawning upon their own doom, refuse to recognize that the spheres of reason in the Arab-Moslem world are terribly limited and there is hardly any room to navigate in it and finally come to grip that Barack Obama and the American Jewish Establishment will not save them!
Israel can still put an end to the ‘Palestine” “tragic farce,” but only if its people and government can finally understand why they have been ingathered in the first place! Citizens of Israel should have no illusions. Nothing about "Palestine” will save Israel from the fury of its enemy’s terrorism or catastrophic war! Iran, faced with an Israel already weakened by “Palestine,” could likely calculate that a surprise attack upon Israel, sometime in the nuclear future, would now be cost-effective.
A Palestinian state must be prevented at all costs; Palestinian statehood would be inherently unstable and above all, it would lead, in short order, to major new violent assaults on Israel and cumulatively, these assaults could have existential outcomes...Arabstine will dwindle Israel's existence and after the creation of “Palestine” tragic fate would await Israel! Interactive effects or synergies between a Palestinian state, and Israel’s other, more immediately existential threats, could bring a genuinely tragic end to the increasingly absurd drama that has been going on since the day Israel declared its independence!
--------------------
Shalom, Nurit
Friday, February 26, 2010
Iran, Syria mock U.S. policy; Ahmadinejad speaks of Israel's 'annihilation'
Howard Schneider
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, February 26, 2010
JERUSALEM -- The presidents of Iran and Syria on Thursday ridiculed U.S. policy in the region and pledged to create a Middle East "without Zionists," combining a slap at recent U.S. overtures and a threat to Israel with an endorsement of one of the region's defining alliances. The Obama administration is trying to build an international coalition behind economic sanctions aimed at curbing Iran's uranium-enrichment program, which the United States and others fear is aimed at developing nuclear weapons. The United States also recently announced that it will send an ambassador to Damascus after a five-year absence, part of an effort to weaken Syria's relations with Iran and discourage the country's support for militant groups antagonistic to Israel.
But the message delivered by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in a joint news conference was sharp and spoke to a shared sense that Iran is gaining influence in the region despite U.S. efforts. Until the outcome of the broader struggle over Iran's nuclear program becomes clear, analysts here say, it is unlikely Syria will change direction -- or that progress can be made toward an Israel-Syria peace agreement.
The United States wants "to dominate the region, but they feel Iran and Syria are preventing that," Ahmadinejad said. "We tell them that instead of interfering in the region's affairs, to pack their things and leave."
Ahmadinejad, a Holocaust denier, spoke of Israel's eventual "demise and annihilation" and said the countries of the region could create a future "without Zionists and without colonialists."
Assad criticized what he regarded as the United States' "new situation of colonialism" in the region, with troops on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, and pressure on Syria to split from Iran, a friendship Assad emphasized was secure even given Syria's faltering economy.
The joint appearance and tone of the remarks come as an answer of sorts to the U.S. decision to send an ambassador, Robert Ford, to Damascus after pulling its representative in protest over the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri. Hariri's killing was among a wave of assassinations in Lebanon attributed to Syria and its allies.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday that the return of an ambassador marked a "slight opening" toward Syria but that ultimately the United States expects Assad to curb his ties with Iran and his support for militant groups like the Lebanon-based Hezbollah and Hamas, based in the Gaza Strip.
But Assad and Ahmadinejad on Thursday emphasized that their countries' relationship had deepened with the signing of an agreement waiving visa restrictions for travel.
The relationship between Iran and Syria has become one of the central alliances in the region, of particular interest now as a barometer of the success of U.S. policy toward Iran and of whether a larger Arab-Israeli peace deal is possible.
Nowhere is concern over Iranian nuclear ambitions more pointed than in Israel, where officials argue that a nuclear-armed Iran will become even more influential over countries like Syria and will embolden radical groups to take a harder line with Israel.
"If Iran is seen as being on the ascent, that strengthens all those people that oppose peace in the Middle East," said Mark Regev, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. "Those who are on the fence will come off the fence on the wrong side, and those who are in the peace camp will be playing defense."
Israel and Syria have held several rounds of peace talks and until late 2008 were talking indirectly through Turkish mediators.
The outline of a deal, both sides say, is well known and in some ways simple: Israel's full surrender of the Golan Heights territory it seized from Syria in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and Syria's end of the strategy of "resistance" and support for militant groups that has defined the rule of Assad and his father, the late Hafez al-Assad.
Netanyahu and Assad have said they are willing to reopen peace talks but have disagreed over who, if anyone, should mediate. More recently, their countries traded barbs that included threats by the Israeli foreign minister to topple Assad and threats by the Syrian foreign minister to target Israeli cities in any war.
Israeli officials say they still believe that a deal with Syria is possible but less so if President Obama fails with Iran.
"The question is, where is Syria going to locate itself?" asked Tzachi Hanegbi, chairman of the Israeli parliament's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. The alliance with Iran, he said, "gives them less reason to be pragmatic."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/25/AR2010022505089.html
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, February 26, 2010
JERUSALEM -- The presidents of Iran and Syria on Thursday ridiculed U.S. policy in the region and pledged to create a Middle East "without Zionists," combining a slap at recent U.S. overtures and a threat to Israel with an endorsement of one of the region's defining alliances. The Obama administration is trying to build an international coalition behind economic sanctions aimed at curbing Iran's uranium-enrichment program, which the United States and others fear is aimed at developing nuclear weapons. The United States also recently announced that it will send an ambassador to Damascus after a five-year absence, part of an effort to weaken Syria's relations with Iran and discourage the country's support for militant groups antagonistic to Israel.
But the message delivered by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in a joint news conference was sharp and spoke to a shared sense that Iran is gaining influence in the region despite U.S. efforts. Until the outcome of the broader struggle over Iran's nuclear program becomes clear, analysts here say, it is unlikely Syria will change direction -- or that progress can be made toward an Israel-Syria peace agreement.
The United States wants "to dominate the region, but they feel Iran and Syria are preventing that," Ahmadinejad said. "We tell them that instead of interfering in the region's affairs, to pack their things and leave."
Ahmadinejad, a Holocaust denier, spoke of Israel's eventual "demise and annihilation" and said the countries of the region could create a future "without Zionists and without colonialists."
Assad criticized what he regarded as the United States' "new situation of colonialism" in the region, with troops on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, and pressure on Syria to split from Iran, a friendship Assad emphasized was secure even given Syria's faltering economy.
The joint appearance and tone of the remarks come as an answer of sorts to the U.S. decision to send an ambassador, Robert Ford, to Damascus after pulling its representative in protest over the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri. Hariri's killing was among a wave of assassinations in Lebanon attributed to Syria and its allies.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday that the return of an ambassador marked a "slight opening" toward Syria but that ultimately the United States expects Assad to curb his ties with Iran and his support for militant groups like the Lebanon-based Hezbollah and Hamas, based in the Gaza Strip.
But Assad and Ahmadinejad on Thursday emphasized that their countries' relationship had deepened with the signing of an agreement waiving visa restrictions for travel.
The relationship between Iran and Syria has become one of the central alliances in the region, of particular interest now as a barometer of the success of U.S. policy toward Iran and of whether a larger Arab-Israeli peace deal is possible.
Nowhere is concern over Iranian nuclear ambitions more pointed than in Israel, where officials argue that a nuclear-armed Iran will become even more influential over countries like Syria and will embolden radical groups to take a harder line with Israel.
"If Iran is seen as being on the ascent, that strengthens all those people that oppose peace in the Middle East," said Mark Regev, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. "Those who are on the fence will come off the fence on the wrong side, and those who are in the peace camp will be playing defense."
Israel and Syria have held several rounds of peace talks and until late 2008 were talking indirectly through Turkish mediators.
The outline of a deal, both sides say, is well known and in some ways simple: Israel's full surrender of the Golan Heights territory it seized from Syria in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and Syria's end of the strategy of "resistance" and support for militant groups that has defined the rule of Assad and his father, the late Hafez al-Assad.
Netanyahu and Assad have said they are willing to reopen peace talks but have disagreed over who, if anyone, should mediate. More recently, their countries traded barbs that included threats by the Israeli foreign minister to topple Assad and threats by the Syrian foreign minister to target Israeli cities in any war.
Israeli officials say they still believe that a deal with Syria is possible but less so if President Obama fails with Iran.
"The question is, where is Syria going to locate itself?" asked Tzachi Hanegbi, chairman of the Israeli parliament's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. The alliance with Iran, he said, "gives them less reason to be pragmatic."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/25/AR2010022505089.html
If more Muslims are truly a problem…
Andrew Bolt
Friday, February 26, 2010 at 07:57am
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/column_if_more_muslims_are_truly_a_problem/
WE didn’t need the Rudd Government to tell us this week that, ahem, our own Muslim community is now a growing terrorist threat.
What we needed was to hear what the Government planned to do about it.
And the answers in its new White Paper on counter-terrorism?
Virtually zilch. Not even a word on whether it would be wise to cut immigration from Muslim nations, now running at about 28,000 a year.
Nor was there anything about ending the mad multiculturalism that rewards most those who integrate least. Rather the reverse. The Government promised more of the stuff that’s clearly not doing the job - more of that “multiculturalism and respect for cultural diversity to maintain a society that is resilient to the hate-based and divisive narratives that fuel terrorism”.
Hey, guys. If multiculturalism has made us so “resilient to the hate-based and divisive narratives” of jihadism, why does your White Paper admit that “numerous terrorist attacks” have had to be “thwarted” in Australia since 2001, and that we now have 20 people jailed on terrorism charges, 38 people charged after anti-terrorism operations (presumably all, or mostly, Muslims, too) and 40 more denied passports?
That’s sure a lot of strife from just 340,000 Australian Muslims, as measured by the last census.
We’ve actually got more Buddhists here, but when did you last hear of any plotting to blow us up?
Like I said, the threat from our own home-grown or imported jihadists was already perfectly clear.
We could figure that out just from this month’s news that another five Muslims in Sydney had been jailed for plotting terrorism and gathering 12 firearms, 28,000 rounds of ammunition and four boxes of material for high explosives.
But even more of a wake-up were the comments from so many leaders of our Muslim community.
Uthman Badar, from the Australian arm of the extremist Hizb ut-Tahrir, cried persecution, and claimed poor Muslims were being prosecuted merely for their ideas: “The anti-terror laws were designed to silence Muslims through fear and intimidation.”
Samir Dandan, from the Lebanese Muslim Association, also fed the poor-us-against-them division, saying Muslims believed they were punished harder than the rest of us, while Keysar Trad, of them Islamic Friendship Association, blamed the “anger” of Muslims on our own alleged violence against Islamic countries.
Even more worryingly, 10 imams and 20 Muslim “community leaders” met in Lakemba, at Australia’s biggest mosque, to sign a statement demanding police show them proof that the five jailed men had criminal intentions.
Never mind that the police evidence had been enough to convince an Australian jury: “Until we see the real evidence, we believe that the reason for the arrests and convictions
is that these young men expressed or hold opinions that contradict Australia’s foreign policy towards majority Muslim countries.”
Meanwhile, outside the mosque, The Australian reported, “a group of young men pumped their fists in the air and accused ASIO of being dogs”.
This is the scenario, repeated so often over the past decade, that every Australian could see for themselves - of Muslims planning or waging jihad, only to be defended or excused by “community leaders”.
And this is the reality that the Government’s White Paper now concedes in the frankest language I’ve heard in public.
“A ... shift apparent since 2004 has been the increase in the terrorist threat from people born or raised in Australia, who have become influenced by the violent jihadist message,” it warns. “A number of Australians are known to subscribe to this message, some of whom might be prepared to engage in violence. Many of these individuals were born in Australia and they come from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds.”
And then this warning, so pregnant with implications: “The scale of the problem will continue to depend on factors such as the size and make-up of local Muslim populations, including their ethnic and/or migrant origins, their geographical distribution and the success or otherwise of their integration into their host society.”
Let me decode that. The Government admits the size of this growing terrorism threat depends on the size of our Muslim population.
Isn’t that then the debate we must have?
Yes, I know most Muslims here, my friends included, are peace-loving Australians, and I do not mean to offend them or expose them to unmerited suspicion. I also admire those Muslims I know who have stood against the extremists. But I do mean to have a frank conversation.
After all, this report also points out terrorism isn’t necessarily related to poverty, and that our wanna-be terrorists are often not the Muslims we accepted as immigrants, but their born-here children. What’s more, they come from a “wide range of ethnic groups”.
That means we can’t keep out tomorrow’s terrorists just by bringing in only nice, hard-working Muslims from countries we trust. What of their later children, newly radicalised in mosques, universities or prisons?
Surely one way to minimise the danger, then, is to cut Muslim immigration, or at least freeze it until the jihadist wind blows out.
Should we really be bringing in more than 28,000 people a year from Muslim lands such as Pakistan, the Middle East, North Africa, Bangladesh, Somalia, Afghanistan and Indonesia?
But on this issue the Government says nothing. Nor will it discuss dismantling multiculturalism, which at one stage had taxpayers funding the pro-bin Laden Islamic Youth Movement of Australia.
But why is multiculturalism sacred, when even this White Paper says one “pathway to violent extremism” is through “identity politics”?
After all, multiculturalism subsidises identity politics with your money while making Australia seem too weak or even shameful to deserve the first loyalty of a confused young man.
So what did the Government, badly needing a distraction from its insulation debacle, propose instead?
Only easy, uncontroversial tinkering with controls at our borders, rather than anything to deal with the people who’ve got through already.
There will be better border checks, for instance, and our spy agencies will help try to stop the flood of boat people unleashed by the Government’s rash softening of our laws.
I don’t mean to single this Government out as unusually weak on the threat within. In some ways the Howard government was even worse.
Example? The White Paper warns that a “small number” of Muslims here support foreign terrorist groups that might use Australia as “a suitable or convenient location for an attack on their enemies”.
It adds: “This includes groups with a long history of engaging in terrorist acts and a current capability to commit them, such as Lebanese Hizballah’s External Security Organisation.”
So Hezbollah (our spelling) has an active terrorist wing and could strike here? Then why did John Howard as prime minister pick for his Muslim Community Reference Group at least five Muslim leaders who defended Hezbollah, including Sheik Taj el-Din al-Hilali, then the Mufti of Australia, and Sheik Fehmi Naji el-Imam, who succeeded him?
I am not saying these men would ever support Hezbollah terrorist attacks here, but how many of their followers could be trusted to draw the line? Answer: no one knows, but our experts fear. So until we get more reassurance, we’ll need more action than this paper proposes.
Thanks Ronit Fraid
Friday, February 26, 2010 at 07:57am
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/column_if_more_muslims_are_truly_a_problem/
WE didn’t need the Rudd Government to tell us this week that, ahem, our own Muslim community is now a growing terrorist threat.
What we needed was to hear what the Government planned to do about it.
And the answers in its new White Paper on counter-terrorism?
Virtually zilch. Not even a word on whether it would be wise to cut immigration from Muslim nations, now running at about 28,000 a year.
Nor was there anything about ending the mad multiculturalism that rewards most those who integrate least. Rather the reverse. The Government promised more of the stuff that’s clearly not doing the job - more of that “multiculturalism and respect for cultural diversity to maintain a society that is resilient to the hate-based and divisive narratives that fuel terrorism”.
Hey, guys. If multiculturalism has made us so “resilient to the hate-based and divisive narratives” of jihadism, why does your White Paper admit that “numerous terrorist attacks” have had to be “thwarted” in Australia since 2001, and that we now have 20 people jailed on terrorism charges, 38 people charged after anti-terrorism operations (presumably all, or mostly, Muslims, too) and 40 more denied passports?
That’s sure a lot of strife from just 340,000 Australian Muslims, as measured by the last census.
We’ve actually got more Buddhists here, but when did you last hear of any plotting to blow us up?
Like I said, the threat from our own home-grown or imported jihadists was already perfectly clear.
We could figure that out just from this month’s news that another five Muslims in Sydney had been jailed for plotting terrorism and gathering 12 firearms, 28,000 rounds of ammunition and four boxes of material for high explosives.
But even more of a wake-up were the comments from so many leaders of our Muslim community.
Uthman Badar, from the Australian arm of the extremist Hizb ut-Tahrir, cried persecution, and claimed poor Muslims were being prosecuted merely for their ideas: “The anti-terror laws were designed to silence Muslims through fear and intimidation.”
Samir Dandan, from the Lebanese Muslim Association, also fed the poor-us-against-them division, saying Muslims believed they were punished harder than the rest of us, while Keysar Trad, of them Islamic Friendship Association, blamed the “anger” of Muslims on our own alleged violence against Islamic countries.
Even more worryingly, 10 imams and 20 Muslim “community leaders” met in Lakemba, at Australia’s biggest mosque, to sign a statement demanding police show them proof that the five jailed men had criminal intentions.
Never mind that the police evidence had been enough to convince an Australian jury: “Until we see the real evidence, we believe that the reason for the arrests and convictions
is that these young men expressed or hold opinions that contradict Australia’s foreign policy towards majority Muslim countries.”
Meanwhile, outside the mosque, The Australian reported, “a group of young men pumped their fists in the air and accused ASIO of being dogs”.
This is the scenario, repeated so often over the past decade, that every Australian could see for themselves - of Muslims planning or waging jihad, only to be defended or excused by “community leaders”.
And this is the reality that the Government’s White Paper now concedes in the frankest language I’ve heard in public.
“A ... shift apparent since 2004 has been the increase in the terrorist threat from people born or raised in Australia, who have become influenced by the violent jihadist message,” it warns. “A number of Australians are known to subscribe to this message, some of whom might be prepared to engage in violence. Many of these individuals were born in Australia and they come from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds.”
And then this warning, so pregnant with implications: “The scale of the problem will continue to depend on factors such as the size and make-up of local Muslim populations, including their ethnic and/or migrant origins, their geographical distribution and the success or otherwise of their integration into their host society.”
Let me decode that. The Government admits the size of this growing terrorism threat depends on the size of our Muslim population.
Isn’t that then the debate we must have?
Yes, I know most Muslims here, my friends included, are peace-loving Australians, and I do not mean to offend them or expose them to unmerited suspicion. I also admire those Muslims I know who have stood against the extremists. But I do mean to have a frank conversation.
After all, this report also points out terrorism isn’t necessarily related to poverty, and that our wanna-be terrorists are often not the Muslims we accepted as immigrants, but their born-here children. What’s more, they come from a “wide range of ethnic groups”.
That means we can’t keep out tomorrow’s terrorists just by bringing in only nice, hard-working Muslims from countries we trust. What of their later children, newly radicalised in mosques, universities or prisons?
Surely one way to minimise the danger, then, is to cut Muslim immigration, or at least freeze it until the jihadist wind blows out.
Should we really be bringing in more than 28,000 people a year from Muslim lands such as Pakistan, the Middle East, North Africa, Bangladesh, Somalia, Afghanistan and Indonesia?
But on this issue the Government says nothing. Nor will it discuss dismantling multiculturalism, which at one stage had taxpayers funding the pro-bin Laden Islamic Youth Movement of Australia.
But why is multiculturalism sacred, when even this White Paper says one “pathway to violent extremism” is through “identity politics”?
After all, multiculturalism subsidises identity politics with your money while making Australia seem too weak or even shameful to deserve the first loyalty of a confused young man.
So what did the Government, badly needing a distraction from its insulation debacle, propose instead?
Only easy, uncontroversial tinkering with controls at our borders, rather than anything to deal with the people who’ve got through already.
There will be better border checks, for instance, and our spy agencies will help try to stop the flood of boat people unleashed by the Government’s rash softening of our laws.
I don’t mean to single this Government out as unusually weak on the threat within. In some ways the Howard government was even worse.
Example? The White Paper warns that a “small number” of Muslims here support foreign terrorist groups that might use Australia as “a suitable or convenient location for an attack on their enemies”.
It adds: “This includes groups with a long history of engaging in terrorist acts and a current capability to commit them, such as Lebanese Hizballah’s External Security Organisation.”
So Hezbollah (our spelling) has an active terrorist wing and could strike here? Then why did John Howard as prime minister pick for his Muslim Community Reference Group at least five Muslim leaders who defended Hezbollah, including Sheik Taj el-Din al-Hilali, then the Mufti of Australia, and Sheik Fehmi Naji el-Imam, who succeeded him?
I am not saying these men would ever support Hezbollah terrorist attacks here, but how many of their followers could be trusted to draw the line? Answer: no one knows, but our experts fear. So until we get more reassurance, we’ll need more action than this paper proposes.
Thanks Ronit Fraid
With world watching health summit, Dems sneak in bill to punish CIA
Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent Washington Examiner
02/25/10 1:53 PM EST
I just got an urgent call from a Republican source on the House Intelligence Committee. The House is about to debate the 2010 Intelligence Authorization Act (H.R. 2701), and, with all eyes are on the health care summit, Democrats have slipped into the bill a new provision that would establish criminal punishments for CIA agents and other intelligence officials who engage in "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" during interrogations. The Democratic addition is called the "Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Interrogations Prohibition Act of 2010," and it was inserted into the larger intelligence bill without being considered by the House Intelligence Committee. It covers "any officer or employee of the intelligence community" who, during an interrogation, engages in beatings, the infliction pain, forced sexual acts, inducing hypothermia, conducting mock executions or "depriving the [detainee] of necessary food, water, sleep, or medical care." The bill gives Congress flexibility in defining just what those terms mean, and it would provide for punishments of up to 20 years in prison and life behind bars if a detainee dies as a result of the interrogation.
"This was done without committee review and without any feedback or input from the CIA," says the House source. "It just showed up in the middle of the night. It specifically targets those who are keeping us safe. It doesn't respond to what happened at Ft. Hood or Detroit. Instead, it targets the CIA for new criminal punishments."
Comment: Words must be congruent with action if one is to operate within a position of integrity. You cannot say you are fighting terrorism and then turn around and take away important tools.
Chief Political Correspondent Washington Examiner
02/25/10 1:53 PM EST
I just got an urgent call from a Republican source on the House Intelligence Committee. The House is about to debate the 2010 Intelligence Authorization Act (H.R. 2701), and, with all eyes are on the health care summit, Democrats have slipped into the bill a new provision that would establish criminal punishments for CIA agents and other intelligence officials who engage in "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" during interrogations. The Democratic addition is called the "Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Interrogations Prohibition Act of 2010," and it was inserted into the larger intelligence bill without being considered by the House Intelligence Committee. It covers "any officer or employee of the intelligence community" who, during an interrogation, engages in beatings, the infliction pain, forced sexual acts, inducing hypothermia, conducting mock executions or "depriving the [detainee] of necessary food, water, sleep, or medical care." The bill gives Congress flexibility in defining just what those terms mean, and it would provide for punishments of up to 20 years in prison and life behind bars if a detainee dies as a result of the interrogation.
"This was done without committee review and without any feedback or input from the CIA," says the House source. "It just showed up in the middle of the night. It specifically targets those who are keeping us safe. It doesn't respond to what happened at Ft. Hood or Detroit. Instead, it targets the CIA for new criminal punishments."
Comment: Words must be congruent with action if one is to operate within a position of integrity. You cannot say you are fighting terrorism and then turn around and take away important tools.
“Let me tell you about land for peace.”
http://www.thejerusalemconnection.us/news-archive/2010/02/24/not-one-more-inch.html
Not one more Inch
By Victor Sharpe
I remember once seeing a cartoon of a Native American chief looking wistfully towards the distant horizon where once his ancestral homeland lay. He was speaking to a stranger about the peace treaties he made that were all dishonored by American officials. The caption read: “Let me tell you about land for peace.” With this in mind, and with the painful knowledge of Israel’s past “land for peace” fiascos, I penned an article, published in American Thinker, called “First Two-State Solution is 87 Years Old”. I felt it necessary to remind the world how, in 1921/22, the British Colonial Office had arbitrarily abrogated the promises made by Britain under the 1917 Balfour Declaration – of assisting the creation in Mandatory Palestine of a Jewish National Home. The British government broke its promise by tearing away all of the Mandate territory east of the River Jordan and giving it to the Arab Hashemite tribe. No Jews were allowed thereafter to live within the new Arab territory, which is now known as the Kingdom of Jordan. It became, and remains, judenrein, Arab style.
Now the modern Jewish state – ever obliged through international pressure to take risks by agreeing to “land for peace”, but never, ever receiving peace – is faced with the relentless continuation of the plan to divide yet again what remains of Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel, by now tearing away its Biblical and ancestral homeland. This is the very Biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria known throughout the world by its Jordanian Arab name, the West Bank. Land for peace and the two-state solution thus combine in a deathly embrace to force Israel into agreeing to permit within its borders the creation of an Arab terror state to be called Palestine: the 23rd Arab state.
In my work as a freelance writer and author, I am constantly forced to battle both Israel-bashers in the media as well as those Jews who are sadly willing to abandon their people’s spiritual and physical patrimony – the same foolish ones who support J Street and the so-called New Israel Fund (NIF). They do so in the deluded belief that by giving away the land, a full and lasting peace with the Muslim Arabs will descend upon embattled Israel like manna from heaven. But a reading of the Koran and the Hadith is all that is necessary to understand that Islam will never accept a non-Muslim state in land previously conquered in the name of Allah. Peace is nothing but a mirage in the desert.
It is necessary to retell the story of the redemption in June 1967, when Divine providence and Jewish patriotism combined to free Judea, Samaria, Gaza and the Golan Heights from alien occupation. But why must it be required to reiterate again and again that Israel did not capture land from another people? It always was the Jewish people’s very own land; and it returned to its native people.
How long must the patriots and lovers of Zion endure Israeli governments, which turn a blind eye to the creation of new Arab facts springing up on Judean and Samarian soil in the form of an Arab house here and a villa there? How long must they wait before a nationalist and patriotic Israeli government emerges that withstands foreign pressures; never again sending its police and troops, like thieves in the night, to destroy Jewish villages (I never use the pejorative English word, “settlements”) upon that same Judean and Samarian land?
Will Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu withstand such foreign pressure? Will he have learned the terrible lesson of the fraudulent Oslo Peace Accords, which predictably morphed into the Oslo War with its thousands of dead and maimed Jewish civilians. Will he have learned from his earlier abandonment of Hebron, the city of Judaism’s patriarchs and matriarchs, to the Muslim Arabs? Unless a miraculous change of heart occurs, I fear his self-imposed freeze on Jewish home building will remain in force, under vicious pressure from Barack Hussein Obama, while Arab housing continues feverishly concreting over the hills and valleys of the biblical heartland.
Nationalist and patriotic Israelis, along with Jewish and non-Jewish supporters in the Diaspora, may therefore see the new government, with its inclusion of Ehud “peace at any price” Barak as Defense Minister, continuing the lamentable policy of “land for peace”; whereby, Israel gives away its land but never receives peace; followed inevitably with the direst of all tragedies – a second “two-state solution.”
How long before the majority of politicians in the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) finally accept that Jews have returned permanently to their ancestral and Biblical land, a land which presently stretches from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River – a distance of less than 50 miles. How long before they realize that Israel must not be the only nation in the world perpetually forced to concede its homeland – the very special land given in eternal and divine Covenant by the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, King of Israel, Creator of the Universe – invisible and indivisible. How long before the cry is taken up: Not one more inch!
The threats are mounting against the Jewish state to an extent not seen since 1947. My own published books, volumes one and two of Politicide: The attempted murder of the Jewish state, outline the relentless march of the enemies of Eretz Yisrael. Even today, a list of academics at American and overseas universities has been made available calling for a U.S. Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel and for a campaign called “End the Occupation.” http://www.endtheoccupation.org/groups.php.
Despite Israel no longer administering Gaza, and allowing for the fact that over 98% of the Arabs who call themselves Palestinians are now living under the control of the Palestinian Authority, the denizens of ‘lower learning’ throughout academia still falsely describe the Palestinian Arabs as living under Israeli occupation. Intellectual pursuits clearly do not confer intelligence.
The manner in which Israel may yet prevail is for it, therefore, to resist Arab and Islamist aggression from a position of relative territorial strength. Hebron has already been lost to those Arabs who call themselves Palestinians (save for a tiny and ever threatened Jewish enclave in the holy city). The Arabs have no interest in Israel’s survival; rather, the opposite. In return for a reduction in American support, if it has to come to that, Israel would be wise to keep Judea and Samaria. Keep the Golan. Even restore to itself parts of the Gaza Strip.
The physical and spiritual homeland is strength. Judaism, Zionism, Jerusalem – all are one and the same. Israeli ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Etinger, constantly issues demographic facts showing that the Jewish population is growing far faster in the territories than is the Arab population and that between the Mediterranean and the River Jordan the Arab population is vastly overstated by some two million inhabitants.
So will the Jewish state remain true to the Covenant? Will it no longer concede one inch of covenanted land? Will that resolve extend to an undivided Jerusalem? Will there be a firm and unyielding rejection of yet another two-state solution? Will the people finally say no to those elites who betrayed their trust by giving away the precious homeland in return for the bauble known as the Oslo Peace Prize? The questions remain, but if Israel continues to hark unto the siren calls of a fraudulent peace, it may yet usher in another Final Solution for the remnant of the Jewish people and for the reconstituted Jewish state.
Remember, it is always infinitely preferable to fight from a position of territorial strength, buoyed by spiritual certitude, than to be forced to battle for survival after yet more of the homeland has been given away in return for nothing.
Remember the words of that Native American.
Victor Sharpe is a freelance writer and author of several books including volumes one and two of Politicide – The attempted murder of the Jewish state.
Guest Comment: The threats against the Jewish state to an extent not seen since 1947 are rapidly mounting!
How long must we wait before a nationalist and patriotic Israeli government finally emerges to withstand any and all foreign pressures? To never again send its police and troops, like thieves in the night, to destroy Jewish villages, NOT “settlements”, in the Judean and Samarian land to appease the enemy?
How long before the entire people of Israel act upon the notion that to survive Israel must have physical and spiritual strength and that Judaism, Zionism, Jerusalem – all are one and the same!
We all know that the Arabs have no interest in Israel’s survival; rather the opposite. If it has to come to that, in return for a reduction [temporary Until Obama is gone] in American support Israel would be wise to keep Judea and Samaria, the Golan and even restore to itself parts of the Gaza Strip.
When will the people of Israel finally say no to those unJew elites who betrayed their trust for decades by giving away the precious homeland in return for the 'bauble' known as the Oslo Peace Prize!
The Jewish state must remain true to its Covenant with God to never again concede one inch of covenanted land and maintain undivided Jerusalem!
How long before the entire people of Israel and their supporters all over the world, in unison, take up the howl: Not one inch more! How long before the entire people of Israel stop the politicians on going attempts to murder the Jewish state!
---------------------
Shalom, Nurit
Not one more Inch
By Victor Sharpe
I remember once seeing a cartoon of a Native American chief looking wistfully towards the distant horizon where once his ancestral homeland lay. He was speaking to a stranger about the peace treaties he made that were all dishonored by American officials. The caption read: “Let me tell you about land for peace.” With this in mind, and with the painful knowledge of Israel’s past “land for peace” fiascos, I penned an article, published in American Thinker, called “First Two-State Solution is 87 Years Old”. I felt it necessary to remind the world how, in 1921/22, the British Colonial Office had arbitrarily abrogated the promises made by Britain under the 1917 Balfour Declaration – of assisting the creation in Mandatory Palestine of a Jewish National Home. The British government broke its promise by tearing away all of the Mandate territory east of the River Jordan and giving it to the Arab Hashemite tribe. No Jews were allowed thereafter to live within the new Arab territory, which is now known as the Kingdom of Jordan. It became, and remains, judenrein, Arab style.
Now the modern Jewish state – ever obliged through international pressure to take risks by agreeing to “land for peace”, but never, ever receiving peace – is faced with the relentless continuation of the plan to divide yet again what remains of Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel, by now tearing away its Biblical and ancestral homeland. This is the very Biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria known throughout the world by its Jordanian Arab name, the West Bank. Land for peace and the two-state solution thus combine in a deathly embrace to force Israel into agreeing to permit within its borders the creation of an Arab terror state to be called Palestine: the 23rd Arab state.
In my work as a freelance writer and author, I am constantly forced to battle both Israel-bashers in the media as well as those Jews who are sadly willing to abandon their people’s spiritual and physical patrimony – the same foolish ones who support J Street and the so-called New Israel Fund (NIF). They do so in the deluded belief that by giving away the land, a full and lasting peace with the Muslim Arabs will descend upon embattled Israel like manna from heaven. But a reading of the Koran and the Hadith is all that is necessary to understand that Islam will never accept a non-Muslim state in land previously conquered in the name of Allah. Peace is nothing but a mirage in the desert.
It is necessary to retell the story of the redemption in June 1967, when Divine providence and Jewish patriotism combined to free Judea, Samaria, Gaza and the Golan Heights from alien occupation. But why must it be required to reiterate again and again that Israel did not capture land from another people? It always was the Jewish people’s very own land; and it returned to its native people.
How long must the patriots and lovers of Zion endure Israeli governments, which turn a blind eye to the creation of new Arab facts springing up on Judean and Samarian soil in the form of an Arab house here and a villa there? How long must they wait before a nationalist and patriotic Israeli government emerges that withstands foreign pressures; never again sending its police and troops, like thieves in the night, to destroy Jewish villages (I never use the pejorative English word, “settlements”) upon that same Judean and Samarian land?
Will Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu withstand such foreign pressure? Will he have learned the terrible lesson of the fraudulent Oslo Peace Accords, which predictably morphed into the Oslo War with its thousands of dead and maimed Jewish civilians. Will he have learned from his earlier abandonment of Hebron, the city of Judaism’s patriarchs and matriarchs, to the Muslim Arabs? Unless a miraculous change of heart occurs, I fear his self-imposed freeze on Jewish home building will remain in force, under vicious pressure from Barack Hussein Obama, while Arab housing continues feverishly concreting over the hills and valleys of the biblical heartland.
Nationalist and patriotic Israelis, along with Jewish and non-Jewish supporters in the Diaspora, may therefore see the new government, with its inclusion of Ehud “peace at any price” Barak as Defense Minister, continuing the lamentable policy of “land for peace”; whereby, Israel gives away its land but never receives peace; followed inevitably with the direst of all tragedies – a second “two-state solution.”
How long before the majority of politicians in the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) finally accept that Jews have returned permanently to their ancestral and Biblical land, a land which presently stretches from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River – a distance of less than 50 miles. How long before they realize that Israel must not be the only nation in the world perpetually forced to concede its homeland – the very special land given in eternal and divine Covenant by the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, King of Israel, Creator of the Universe – invisible and indivisible. How long before the cry is taken up: Not one more inch!
The threats are mounting against the Jewish state to an extent not seen since 1947. My own published books, volumes one and two of Politicide: The attempted murder of the Jewish state, outline the relentless march of the enemies of Eretz Yisrael. Even today, a list of academics at American and overseas universities has been made available calling for a U.S. Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel and for a campaign called “End the Occupation.” http://www.endtheoccupation.org/groups.php.
Despite Israel no longer administering Gaza, and allowing for the fact that over 98% of the Arabs who call themselves Palestinians are now living under the control of the Palestinian Authority, the denizens of ‘lower learning’ throughout academia still falsely describe the Palestinian Arabs as living under Israeli occupation. Intellectual pursuits clearly do not confer intelligence.
The manner in which Israel may yet prevail is for it, therefore, to resist Arab and Islamist aggression from a position of relative territorial strength. Hebron has already been lost to those Arabs who call themselves Palestinians (save for a tiny and ever threatened Jewish enclave in the holy city). The Arabs have no interest in Israel’s survival; rather, the opposite. In return for a reduction in American support, if it has to come to that, Israel would be wise to keep Judea and Samaria. Keep the Golan. Even restore to itself parts of the Gaza Strip.
The physical and spiritual homeland is strength. Judaism, Zionism, Jerusalem – all are one and the same. Israeli ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Etinger, constantly issues demographic facts showing that the Jewish population is growing far faster in the territories than is the Arab population and that between the Mediterranean and the River Jordan the Arab population is vastly overstated by some two million inhabitants.
So will the Jewish state remain true to the Covenant? Will it no longer concede one inch of covenanted land? Will that resolve extend to an undivided Jerusalem? Will there be a firm and unyielding rejection of yet another two-state solution? Will the people finally say no to those elites who betrayed their trust by giving away the precious homeland in return for the bauble known as the Oslo Peace Prize? The questions remain, but if Israel continues to hark unto the siren calls of a fraudulent peace, it may yet usher in another Final Solution for the remnant of the Jewish people and for the reconstituted Jewish state.
Remember, it is always infinitely preferable to fight from a position of territorial strength, buoyed by spiritual certitude, than to be forced to battle for survival after yet more of the homeland has been given away in return for nothing.
Remember the words of that Native American.
Victor Sharpe is a freelance writer and author of several books including volumes one and two of Politicide – The attempted murder of the Jewish state.
Guest Comment: The threats against the Jewish state to an extent not seen since 1947 are rapidly mounting!
How long must we wait before a nationalist and patriotic Israeli government finally emerges to withstand any and all foreign pressures? To never again send its police and troops, like thieves in the night, to destroy Jewish villages, NOT “settlements”, in the Judean and Samarian land to appease the enemy?
How long before the entire people of Israel act upon the notion that to survive Israel must have physical and spiritual strength and that Judaism, Zionism, Jerusalem – all are one and the same!
We all know that the Arabs have no interest in Israel’s survival; rather the opposite. If it has to come to that, in return for a reduction [temporary Until Obama is gone] in American support Israel would be wise to keep Judea and Samaria, the Golan and even restore to itself parts of the Gaza Strip.
When will the people of Israel finally say no to those unJew elites who betrayed their trust for decades by giving away the precious homeland in return for the 'bauble' known as the Oslo Peace Prize!
The Jewish state must remain true to its Covenant with God to never again concede one inch of covenanted land and maintain undivided Jerusalem!
How long before the entire people of Israel and their supporters all over the world, in unison, take up the howl: Not one inch more! How long before the entire people of Israel stop the politicians on going attempts to murder the Jewish state!
---------------------
Shalom, Nurit
Supreme Court weighs free speech against aid to terrorists
Robert Barnes
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 24, 2010; A03
The Supreme Court on Tuesday explored the tension between Americans' right to free speech and a federal law that prohibits aid to terrorist groups, and hardly anyone seemed clear about the lines of demarcation.
The case stems from a challenge to an antiterrorism act by American advocates who say they want to support only the peaceful efforts of groups that the State Department has deemed to be terrorist organizations. "This is a difficult case for me," allowed Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, whose vote often is the one that decides closely divided cases.
Georgetown law professor David D. Cole, who represents the Humanitarian Law Project, said his clients do not want to provide material support to the groups, but only to help them pursue peaceful ways to end conflict. "The government has spent a decade arguing that our clients cannot advocate for peace, cannot inform about international human rights," Cole told the court.
The project wants to support the lawful activities of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, a militant group in Turkey known as the PKK, and a Sri Lankan group known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Both are among dozens of organizations on the State Department list, along with better-known groups such as al-Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah.
Solicitor General Elena Kagan countered that, as individuals, Cole's clients can advocate whatever they want. But Congress was within its rights, she said, to determine that it was impossible to separate support of any terrorist group's peaceful activities from its violent goals.
"Hezbollah builds bombs. Hezbollah also builds homes," Kagan said. "What Congress decided was when you help Hezbollah build homes, you are also helping Hezbollah build bombs. That's the entire theory behind this statute, and it's a reasonable theory."
Kagan called the law "a vital weapon in this nation's continuing struggle against international terrorism." The government has brought about 150 prosecutions under the law -- half of them successfully.
But the Humanitarian Law Project and its president, Ralph Fertig, a professor at the University of Southern California and a longtime civil rights activist, said it prohibits him and others from giving lawful advice to the PKK about pursuing peaceful means to ending conflict, such as taking disputes to the United Nations.
The case has raised comparisons to McCarthy-era hearings about Americans' association with the Communist Party. The present-day implications of the law, said former president Jimmy Carter, could hurt the Carter Center's efforts to resolve ongoing foreign conflicts.
"Our work to end violence sometimes requires interacting directly with groups that have engaged in it," Carter said in a statement. "Unfortunately, efforts like ours, and those of the many other human rights groups . . . are hindered by the extremely vague 'material support' law that leaves us guessing whether our work to encourage peace could actually be considered illegal."
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, based in San Francisco, agreed with Fertig that parts of the law are unconstitutionally vague, singling out those that make it a crime, punishable by up to 15 years in prison, to provide "training," "services" and "expert advice or assistance." Both Fertig's group and the government have asked the Supreme Court to review the decision.
The law's restrictions, Cole argued, intrude on the right to political speech. "There's no dispute, Your Honor, that the government has a compelling interest in cutting off aid to terrorism," he told Kennedy. "The question is whether it can do so by criminalizing pure speech."
Cole immediately ran into trouble with Justice Antonin Scalia, one member of the court who did not appear to be conflicted about whether the law meets constitutional standards.
"It hasn't criminalized speech. It has criminalized providing aid and assistance to these organizations," Scalia said. "Most of that aid and assistance that is prohibited is not in the form of speech, but it happens to include speech as well." He added that is "quite different from a law that is directed explicitly at speech."
But Kagan was challenged by other members of the court, particularly Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor.
Ginsburg said she did not understand Kagan's contention that individuals could meet with the organizations or even join them and not violate the law, but that lawful advice does violate it.
"I don't understand the line between meeting with these terrorist organizations, discussing things with them and instructing them on how they can pursue their goals through lawful means," Ginsburg said.
Sotomayor said the law is so broadly written that almost anything can be included in the category of "training."
"Under the definition of this statute, teaching these members to play the harmonica would be unlawful," she said.
Fertig has not been charged, because he has not engaged in the activity that the government says the law covers, and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. suggested that the unusual status of the case might mean it should be sent back to lower courts for further examination of whether the government has a legitimate reason to prohibit such activities.
The cases considered are Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project and Humanitarian Law Project v. Holder.
Guest Comment: Yes, I am very troubled that Jimmy Carter will not be able to give funds to Hamas, Hizballah, build schools for them where they can coninue to indoctrinate and brainwash the next generation about jihad and killing the infidels.
It is so necessary to inform these people of human rights and the need for peace. It should not be illegal to punish those who "provide "training," "services" and "expert advice or assistance" to terrorists. That language is being challenged as unconstitutionally vaugue. Does a reasonable person have a problem with understanding what these words mean? Sotomayor thinks that "teaching these members to play the harmonica would be unlawful" under the current law. And this, we know, is why we cannot win the war on terror.
--
Best,
Aggie
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 24, 2010; A03
The Supreme Court on Tuesday explored the tension between Americans' right to free speech and a federal law that prohibits aid to terrorist groups, and hardly anyone seemed clear about the lines of demarcation.
The case stems from a challenge to an antiterrorism act by American advocates who say they want to support only the peaceful efforts of groups that the State Department has deemed to be terrorist organizations. "This is a difficult case for me," allowed Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, whose vote often is the one that decides closely divided cases.
Georgetown law professor David D. Cole, who represents the Humanitarian Law Project, said his clients do not want to provide material support to the groups, but only to help them pursue peaceful ways to end conflict. "The government has spent a decade arguing that our clients cannot advocate for peace, cannot inform about international human rights," Cole told the court.
The project wants to support the lawful activities of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, a militant group in Turkey known as the PKK, and a Sri Lankan group known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Both are among dozens of organizations on the State Department list, along with better-known groups such as al-Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah.
Solicitor General Elena Kagan countered that, as individuals, Cole's clients can advocate whatever they want. But Congress was within its rights, she said, to determine that it was impossible to separate support of any terrorist group's peaceful activities from its violent goals.
"Hezbollah builds bombs. Hezbollah also builds homes," Kagan said. "What Congress decided was when you help Hezbollah build homes, you are also helping Hezbollah build bombs. That's the entire theory behind this statute, and it's a reasonable theory."
Kagan called the law "a vital weapon in this nation's continuing struggle against international terrorism." The government has brought about 150 prosecutions under the law -- half of them successfully.
But the Humanitarian Law Project and its president, Ralph Fertig, a professor at the University of Southern California and a longtime civil rights activist, said it prohibits him and others from giving lawful advice to the PKK about pursuing peaceful means to ending conflict, such as taking disputes to the United Nations.
The case has raised comparisons to McCarthy-era hearings about Americans' association with the Communist Party. The present-day implications of the law, said former president Jimmy Carter, could hurt the Carter Center's efforts to resolve ongoing foreign conflicts.
"Our work to end violence sometimes requires interacting directly with groups that have engaged in it," Carter said in a statement. "Unfortunately, efforts like ours, and those of the many other human rights groups . . . are hindered by the extremely vague 'material support' law that leaves us guessing whether our work to encourage peace could actually be considered illegal."
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, based in San Francisco, agreed with Fertig that parts of the law are unconstitutionally vague, singling out those that make it a crime, punishable by up to 15 years in prison, to provide "training," "services" and "expert advice or assistance." Both Fertig's group and the government have asked the Supreme Court to review the decision.
The law's restrictions, Cole argued, intrude on the right to political speech. "There's no dispute, Your Honor, that the government has a compelling interest in cutting off aid to terrorism," he told Kennedy. "The question is whether it can do so by criminalizing pure speech."
Cole immediately ran into trouble with Justice Antonin Scalia, one member of the court who did not appear to be conflicted about whether the law meets constitutional standards.
"It hasn't criminalized speech. It has criminalized providing aid and assistance to these organizations," Scalia said. "Most of that aid and assistance that is prohibited is not in the form of speech, but it happens to include speech as well." He added that is "quite different from a law that is directed explicitly at speech."
But Kagan was challenged by other members of the court, particularly Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor.
Ginsburg said she did not understand Kagan's contention that individuals could meet with the organizations or even join them and not violate the law, but that lawful advice does violate it.
"I don't understand the line between meeting with these terrorist organizations, discussing things with them and instructing them on how they can pursue their goals through lawful means," Ginsburg said.
Sotomayor said the law is so broadly written that almost anything can be included in the category of "training."
"Under the definition of this statute, teaching these members to play the harmonica would be unlawful," she said.
Fertig has not been charged, because he has not engaged in the activity that the government says the law covers, and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. suggested that the unusual status of the case might mean it should be sent back to lower courts for further examination of whether the government has a legitimate reason to prohibit such activities.
The cases considered are Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project and Humanitarian Law Project v. Holder.
Guest Comment: Yes, I am very troubled that Jimmy Carter will not be able to give funds to Hamas, Hizballah, build schools for them where they can coninue to indoctrinate and brainwash the next generation about jihad and killing the infidels.
It is so necessary to inform these people of human rights and the need for peace. It should not be illegal to punish those who "provide "training," "services" and "expert advice or assistance" to terrorists. That language is being challenged as unconstitutionally vaugue. Does a reasonable person have a problem with understanding what these words mean? Sotomayor thinks that "teaching these members to play the harmonica would be unlawful" under the current law. And this, we know, is why we cannot win the war on terror.
--
Best,
Aggie
Resistance and Rockets: Hamas Targeting of Israeli Civilians
Jeffrey White
February 25, 2010
Recently, Hamas has gone to extraordinary lengths to prove that it did not attack civilian targets in Israel during the December 2008 to January 2009 Gaza conflict. But a review of the organization's own media -- including the website of its military arm, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades (www.qassam.ps), and the Hamas-associated monthly journal Filastin al-Muslima (www.fm-m.com) -- shows that Hamas knowingly and repeatedly fired on Israeli population centers in southern Israel. To accept Hamas's latest claim that it did not launch rockets at civilians is to deny its numerous past claims to the contrary.
Claim vs. Conduct
On February 3, 2010, Hamas released a fifty-two-page response to the UN's Goldstone report regarding its conduct during the Gaza war (called the "Battle of al-Furqan" in the organization's commentary). According to this document, the killing and wounding of Israeli civilians was unintentional -- Hamas forces had targeted only military installations during the fighting. This claim was based on a supposed internal investigation conducted by Hamas and led by its justice minister, Faraj al-Ghoul.
Historically, however, Hamas's targeting of Israeli civilians goes beyond wartime exigencies -- it is a fundamental aspect of the group's struggle against Israel. Civilian casualties are neither regretted nor lamented. To the contrary, they are approved and applauded within Hamas's internal publications and its propaganda aimed at Arab audiences. For example, in one Arabic article on the Qassam Brigades website (www.alqassam.ps/arabic/news1.php?id=14256), the group discusses rocket operations during the al-Furqan battle and cites the heroism of the Qassam Brigades personnel who conducted the attacks. Hamas subsequently declared that its February 3 report should not be interpreted as an apology for inflicting Israeli civilian casualties.
Indeed, rocket attacks against southern Israel were the Qassam Brigades' primary offensive operation during the Gaza conflict. Hamas planned for such strikes as an integral part of its war preparations, and its rocket system was well resourced and exercised prior to Israel's Operation Cast Lead (for details, see Policy Focus #97, Hamas in Combat: The Military Performance of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement).
Hamas rocket forces are controlled through a chain of command running from the top leadership down to individual firing units. Decisions about when to fire on Israel and what types of targets to bombard were made at a high level: by the military "cabinet" comprising senior Hamas leaders in Gaza, including the commander of the Qassam Brigades. Operational orders were then sent down to combat brigade and battalion firing units and their attached rocket units.
The Hamas rocket inventory contained some 1,500 unguided artillery rockets, including short-range "Qassam" types of 90, 107, and 115 millimeters and long-range 122-millimeter "Grad" rockets. The Grads are the most destructive rockets in the Hamas arsenal, capable of reaching 22 to 40 kilometers.
During the Gaza conflict, the Qassam Brigades, acting as Hamas's military arm, launched some 600 rockets against Israel. This was high-trajectory fire by inherently inaccurate weapons, covering a broad swath of southern Israel. Targets included the major cities of Ashdod, Ashqelon, and Beersheba (combined population 850,000), as well as numerous smaller towns and settlements. Hamas has boasted that more than one million Israelis live within range of its rockets. The Qassam Brigades website (www.alqassam.ps/arabic/operations2.php?id=63) recorded 147 Grad launches against cities and towns during the conflict, with the following distribution:
The "occupied" city of Ashqelon: 57
The "occupied" city of Ashdod: 41
The "occupied" city of Beersheba: 25
The "usurped" town of Netivot: 17
"Usurped Azata": 4
"Eshkol": 3
In addition, an estimated 400 Qassam-type rockets were fired at Israeli targets closer to Gaza, including "usurped" Sderot. On the same page on its website, Hamas claims to have fired a total of 213 Grads during the conflict; in other words, nearly 70 percent were aimed at civilian population centers (i.e., the 147 launches mentioned above). The highest number of Grad strikes claimed against a military target was 26 at the "Ofakim military base."
The Qassam Brigades considers its bombardment of large population centers deep within Israel as one of its major accomplishments of the war. Its website trumpets the breaking of the 40-kilometer range barrier and the shelling of Beersheba as major achievements (www.alqassam.ps/arabic/news1.php?id=14256). And the January 2009 issue of Filasteen al-Muslima (www.fm-m.com/2009/feb/8-1.php) includes a chronology of events during the al-Furqan conflict that lists rocket activity, including the following:
December 28, 2008: "The Qassam Brigades and the resistance factions continue to launch rockets at Israeli towns and settlements."
December 30, 2008: "Al-Qassam Brigades bombing, Beersheba, Ashdod, Ashkelon, and 'Sederot,' and the settlements 'Ofakim,' 'Kiryat Gat,' and 'Kiryat Malachi.'"
January 1, 2009: "Al-Qassam Brigades bombed the Zionist military air base 'Ansrim' [Hatserim?] and the ports of Ashdod and Ashkelon."
January 2, 2009: "Al-Qassam Brigades and resistance groups bombard Ashkelon and other Zionist towns and settlements, which led to the wounding of four Zionists."
The chronology also contains a number of other entries describing attacks on "Zionist" cities, towns, and settlements and attributing them to unspecified "resistance" factions or groups. These strikes were probably conducted at least in part by the Qassam Brigades.
Hamas's War against Israel
Attacks on civilian targets are in keeping with Hamas's concept of war against Israel. Hamas views the war in both Palestinian nationalist and Islamist terms. Not only is it a war of liberation for all of Palestine, fought against the "occupiers" or "usurpers," it is also a jihad. Qassam Brigades personnel killed in action are described as having been on "Jihad Missions," and the group uses the slogan "It is a Jihad, victory or martyrdom" on its pubic statements. In a recent interview on the Brigades website, a spokesman stated, "We have prepared previously and we are still preparing for jihad against the enemies of God" (www.alqassam.ps/arabic/dialogue.php?id=265).
When addressing its internal membership and Arab audiences, Hamas frequently invokes "resistance" as a principal means of achieving its goals. For example, in a January 22, 2010, speech, senior Hamas leader Khaled Mashal, stated, "Hamas will keep rejecting the occupation and refuse to recognize the legitimacy of the Zionist entity. Priority will remain building and developing the resistance." Many observers tend to dismiss such rhetoric as mere posturing; but that is far too easy a rationalization. Resistance and jihad are mutually reinforcing concepts, and Hamas uses them to legitimize acts of violence against civilian occupiers, including rocket attacks and terrorism. These are essentially offensive, not defensive, concepts -- the usurped land must be fought for, and the usurpers driven from it.
Conclusion
Hamas targeting of civilians is not an Israeli fabrication -- the group has used its own elaborate media networks to publicize and praise rocket operations throughout the conflict. Hamas views attacks on civilians as legitimate, appropriate, effective, and even heroic. Such strikes are fundamental to its operations -- part of the Hamas way of war.
It is primarily because Hamas's weapons are limited in accuracy and destructive power that more civilians are not killed and wounded. Hamas is working hard to address these limitations, however, through the acquisition of more-effective and longer-range rockets; as recently as January 15, 2010, Mashal threatened to turn Israel into a cemetery once the next round of major hostilities erupts. Such ambitions should be remembered as Western leaders evaluate Hamas's conduct of war and consider their positions toward the group.
Jeffrey White is a defense fellow at The Washington Institute, specializing in the military and security affairs of Iraq and the Levant.
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateI01.php
February 25, 2010
Recently, Hamas has gone to extraordinary lengths to prove that it did not attack civilian targets in Israel during the December 2008 to January 2009 Gaza conflict. But a review of the organization's own media -- including the website of its military arm, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades (www.qassam.ps), and the Hamas-associated monthly journal Filastin al-Muslima (www.fm-m.com) -- shows that Hamas knowingly and repeatedly fired on Israeli population centers in southern Israel. To accept Hamas's latest claim that it did not launch rockets at civilians is to deny its numerous past claims to the contrary.
Claim vs. Conduct
On February 3, 2010, Hamas released a fifty-two-page response to the UN's Goldstone report regarding its conduct during the Gaza war (called the "Battle of al-Furqan" in the organization's commentary). According to this document, the killing and wounding of Israeli civilians was unintentional -- Hamas forces had targeted only military installations during the fighting. This claim was based on a supposed internal investigation conducted by Hamas and led by its justice minister, Faraj al-Ghoul.
Historically, however, Hamas's targeting of Israeli civilians goes beyond wartime exigencies -- it is a fundamental aspect of the group's struggle against Israel. Civilian casualties are neither regretted nor lamented. To the contrary, they are approved and applauded within Hamas's internal publications and its propaganda aimed at Arab audiences. For example, in one Arabic article on the Qassam Brigades website (www.alqassam.ps/arabic/news1.php?id=14256), the group discusses rocket operations during the al-Furqan battle and cites the heroism of the Qassam Brigades personnel who conducted the attacks. Hamas subsequently declared that its February 3 report should not be interpreted as an apology for inflicting Israeli civilian casualties.
Indeed, rocket attacks against southern Israel were the Qassam Brigades' primary offensive operation during the Gaza conflict. Hamas planned for such strikes as an integral part of its war preparations, and its rocket system was well resourced and exercised prior to Israel's Operation Cast Lead (for details, see Policy Focus #97, Hamas in Combat: The Military Performance of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement).
Hamas rocket forces are controlled through a chain of command running from the top leadership down to individual firing units. Decisions about when to fire on Israel and what types of targets to bombard were made at a high level: by the military "cabinet" comprising senior Hamas leaders in Gaza, including the commander of the Qassam Brigades. Operational orders were then sent down to combat brigade and battalion firing units and their attached rocket units.
The Hamas rocket inventory contained some 1,500 unguided artillery rockets, including short-range "Qassam" types of 90, 107, and 115 millimeters and long-range 122-millimeter "Grad" rockets. The Grads are the most destructive rockets in the Hamas arsenal, capable of reaching 22 to 40 kilometers.
During the Gaza conflict, the Qassam Brigades, acting as Hamas's military arm, launched some 600 rockets against Israel. This was high-trajectory fire by inherently inaccurate weapons, covering a broad swath of southern Israel. Targets included the major cities of Ashdod, Ashqelon, and Beersheba (combined population 850,000), as well as numerous smaller towns and settlements. Hamas has boasted that more than one million Israelis live within range of its rockets. The Qassam Brigades website (www.alqassam.ps/arabic/operations2.php?id=63) recorded 147 Grad launches against cities and towns during the conflict, with the following distribution:
The "occupied" city of Ashqelon: 57
The "occupied" city of Ashdod: 41
The "occupied" city of Beersheba: 25
The "usurped" town of Netivot: 17
"Usurped Azata": 4
"Eshkol": 3
In addition, an estimated 400 Qassam-type rockets were fired at Israeli targets closer to Gaza, including "usurped" Sderot. On the same page on its website, Hamas claims to have fired a total of 213 Grads during the conflict; in other words, nearly 70 percent were aimed at civilian population centers (i.e., the 147 launches mentioned above). The highest number of Grad strikes claimed against a military target was 26 at the "Ofakim military base."
The Qassam Brigades considers its bombardment of large population centers deep within Israel as one of its major accomplishments of the war. Its website trumpets the breaking of the 40-kilometer range barrier and the shelling of Beersheba as major achievements (www.alqassam.ps/arabic/news1.php?id=14256). And the January 2009 issue of Filasteen al-Muslima (www.fm-m.com/2009/feb/8-1.php) includes a chronology of events during the al-Furqan conflict that lists rocket activity, including the following:
December 28, 2008: "The Qassam Brigades and the resistance factions continue to launch rockets at Israeli towns and settlements."
December 30, 2008: "Al-Qassam Brigades bombing, Beersheba, Ashdod, Ashkelon, and 'Sederot,' and the settlements 'Ofakim,' 'Kiryat Gat,' and 'Kiryat Malachi.'"
January 1, 2009: "Al-Qassam Brigades bombed the Zionist military air base 'Ansrim' [Hatserim?] and the ports of Ashdod and Ashkelon."
January 2, 2009: "Al-Qassam Brigades and resistance groups bombard Ashkelon and other Zionist towns and settlements, which led to the wounding of four Zionists."
The chronology also contains a number of other entries describing attacks on "Zionist" cities, towns, and settlements and attributing them to unspecified "resistance" factions or groups. These strikes were probably conducted at least in part by the Qassam Brigades.
Hamas's War against Israel
Attacks on civilian targets are in keeping with Hamas's concept of war against Israel. Hamas views the war in both Palestinian nationalist and Islamist terms. Not only is it a war of liberation for all of Palestine, fought against the "occupiers" or "usurpers," it is also a jihad. Qassam Brigades personnel killed in action are described as having been on "Jihad Missions," and the group uses the slogan "It is a Jihad, victory or martyrdom" on its pubic statements. In a recent interview on the Brigades website, a spokesman stated, "We have prepared previously and we are still preparing for jihad against the enemies of God" (www.alqassam.ps/arabic/dialogue.php?id=265).
When addressing its internal membership and Arab audiences, Hamas frequently invokes "resistance" as a principal means of achieving its goals. For example, in a January 22, 2010, speech, senior Hamas leader Khaled Mashal, stated, "Hamas will keep rejecting the occupation and refuse to recognize the legitimacy of the Zionist entity. Priority will remain building and developing the resistance." Many observers tend to dismiss such rhetoric as mere posturing; but that is far too easy a rationalization. Resistance and jihad are mutually reinforcing concepts, and Hamas uses them to legitimize acts of violence against civilian occupiers, including rocket attacks and terrorism. These are essentially offensive, not defensive, concepts -- the usurped land must be fought for, and the usurpers driven from it.
Conclusion
Hamas targeting of civilians is not an Israeli fabrication -- the group has used its own elaborate media networks to publicize and praise rocket operations throughout the conflict. Hamas views attacks on civilians as legitimate, appropriate, effective, and even heroic. Such strikes are fundamental to its operations -- part of the Hamas way of war.
It is primarily because Hamas's weapons are limited in accuracy and destructive power that more civilians are not killed and wounded. Hamas is working hard to address these limitations, however, through the acquisition of more-effective and longer-range rockets; as recently as January 15, 2010, Mashal threatened to turn Israel into a cemetery once the next round of major hostilities erupts. Such ambitions should be remembered as Western leaders evaluate Hamas's conduct of war and consider their positions toward the group.
Jeffrey White is a defense fellow at The Washington Institute, specializing in the military and security affairs of Iraq and the Levant.
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateI01.php
Purim 2010 Guide for the Perplexed
Yoram Ettinger, February 25, 2010
Assembled from various Jewish Sages
1. Purim is the holiday of contradictions and tenacity-driven-optimism: Grief replaced by joy, Esther's concealment replaced by the disclosure of her national/religious identity, Haman's intended genocide of Jews replaced by redemption, Haman replaced by Mordechai, national and personal pessimism replaced by optimism. One of Purim's lessons: Life is complex, full of contradictions, ups & downs and difficult dilemmas and worthy of principled-determination. 2. The timing – The Jewish month of Adar. Adar is the root of the Hebrew adjective "Adir" (glorious, awesome, exalted, magnificent). It is, also, a derivative of the Akkadian word Adura (heroism). Jewish tradition (Babylonian Talmud) highlights Adar as a month of happiness, singing and dancing, prohibiting eulogies and fast on Purim. The zodiac of Adar is Pisces (fish), which is a symbol of demographic multiplication. Hence, Adar is the only Jewish month, which doubles itself during the 7 leap years during each 19 years cycle. Purim is celebrated on the 14th (in non-walled towns) and (in Jerusalem) on the 15th day of Adar (February 28 and March 1, 2010), commemorating the national liberation of the Jewish People in Persia and the (161 BCE) victory of Judah the Maccabee over Nikanor, the Assyrian commander. Moses – whose burial site is unknown - was born, and died (1273 BCE), on the 7th day of Adar, which is Israel's Memorial Day for soldiers, whose burial site is unknown. The events of Purim occurred following the destruction of the 1st Temple by Nebuchadnezzar (586 BCE) and the exile from Zion, during the leadership of Ezra who returned to Jerusalem, and the inauguration of the Second Temple (3rd of Adar, 515 BCE) by Ezra and Nehemiah. Nebuchadnezzar died in Adar 561 BCE (Jeremiah 52:31). Einstein published the theory of General Relativity in Adar 1916.
3. Purim's Hebrew root is fate/destiny (“Pur”), as well as lottery (to commemorate Haman's lottery which determined the designated day for the planned Jewish genocide) “to frustrate”, “to annul” (“Le’Ha’fer), “to crumble” and “to shutter” (Le’Phorer), reflecting the demise of Haman.
4. Purim – A (522 BCE) War of Civilizations between Mordechai the Jew and Haman the Iranian-Amalekite – constitutes an early edition of the war between Right VS Wrong, Liberty VS Tyranny, Just VS Evil, Truth VS Lies, as were/are the precedents of Adam/Eve VS Snake, Abel VS Cain, Abraham VS Sodom & Gomorrah, Jacob VS Esau (grandparent of Amalek), Maccabees VS Assyrians, Allies VS Nazis, Western democracies VS Communist Bloc and Western democracies VS Islamic terrorism.
5. Mordechai, the hero of Purim and one of Ezra’s deputies, was a role model of principle-driven optimism in defiance of colossal odds, in face of a global power and in spite of Jewish establishment. According to Judaism, deliverance is ushered by the bravery of faith-driven individuals, such as Nachshon - who was the first to walk into the Red Sea before it was parted – and Mordechai. He was a politically-INcorrect statesman and a retired military leader, who practiced “disproportionate pre-emption” instead of defense, deterrence or retaliation. The first three Hebrew letters of "Mordechai" spell the Hebrew word "Rebellion" ("Mered"), which is consistent with the motto/legacy of the American Founding Fathers: "Rebellion against Tyrants is Obedience to G-D"). Mordechai did not bow to Haman, the second most powerful person in the Persian Empire. Mordechai was a member of the tribe of Benjamin, the only son of Jacob who did not bow to Esau. The name Mordechai is also a derivative of Mordouch – the chief Babylonian god.
Mordechai was a descendant of King Saul, who defied a clear commandment (to eradicate the Amalekites) and spared the life of Agag, the Amalekite king, thus causing further calamities upon the Jewish People. Consequently, Saul lost his royal position and life. Mordechai learnt from Saul’s error. He destroyed Haman, a descendant of Agag the Amalekite, and Haman's entire power base, thus sparing the Jewish People a major disaster.
In Gimatriya, "Cursed Haman" (ארור המן) equals "Blessed Mordechai" (ברוך מרדכי) – 502.
6. Queen Esther, the heroine of Purim’s Esther Scroll (the 24th and concluding book in the Old Testament) was Mordechai's cousin. One cannot comprehend Purim without studying the Esther Scroll. Esther demonstrates the centrality of women in Judaism, shaping the future of the Jewish People, as did Sarah, Rebecca, Miriam, Batyah, Deborah, Hannah, etc. Sarah was the first Jewish woman, and Esther was the last Jewish woman, mentioned in the Bible. Sarah lived 127 years and Esther ruled over 127 countries. The name Esther is a derivative of the Hebrew word "Hester" - "clandestine", "hidden", "subtle", which was reflective of her (initially) unknown Jewish identity and subtle-style at the royal court. The name Esther is also a derivative of Ishtar – a Mesopotamian goddess, Astarte – a Phoenician goddess. In fact, the one day pre-Purim Fast of Esther (commemorating the three day fast declared by Esther in order to expedite deliverance), was cherished by the Marano in Spain, who performed Judaism in a clandestine manner. The Scroll of Esther is the only book in the Old Testament, where the name of G-D is hidden/absent. It has been suggested that the explicit name of G-D is absent because the Scroll of Esther is the only Old Testament book, which deals exclusively with the Diaspora and not with the Land of Israel. According to Michael Bernstein, the noun "King" appears 182 times in Esther Scroll, which is the total sum of 26 (numerical value of G-D) times 7 (days of creation). Esther’s second name was Hadassah, whose root is Hadass – myrtle tree in Hebrew – which constitutes a metaphor for eyesight 20:20. The name Esther is identified with the planet Venus (hence, Esther’s other Hebrew name – Noga – a glaring divine light, which is Venus in Hebrew). In Gimatriya, Esther (אסתר) and Noga (נגה) equal 661 and 58 respectively, and the sum of 6+6+1 and 5+8 is 13 (the number of G-D's virtues). In "small Gimatriya" both Esther (1+6+4+2) and Noga (5+3+5) equal 13, which is also the total sum of one in Hebrew (אחד) – which represents monotheism, as well as the total sum of love in Hebrew (אהבה).
7. The Persian King appointed Mordechai to be his top advisor, overruling Haman's intent to prevent the resettling of Jews in Zion, the reconstruction of the Temple and the restoration of the wall around Jerusalem. He foiled Haman’s plan to exterminate the Jews. The king prospered as a result of his change of heart and escaped assassination. That was the case with Pharaoh, who escaped national collapse and starvation and rose in global prominence, once he appointed Joseph to be his deputy.
8. Purim's four commandments:
*Reading/studying the “Esther Scroll” within the family, highlighting the centrality of family, education, memory and youth as the foundation for a solid future.
*Gifts to relatives and friends emphasize the importance of family and community.
*Charity (at least the value of a meal) indicates the value of compassion and responsibility.
*Celebration and Happiness sustains the element of optimism and faith as the backbone of an individual and a nation.
9. Lethal enemy destroyed and commemorated. The pre-Purim Sabbath is called "Memorial Sabbath" ("Shabbat Zakhor"), commemorating the war of extermination launched by the Amalekites against the Jewish Nation, since the Exodus from Egypt. One of Purim's lessons: Be wary of enemies, employing false-tenuous accommodation, in order to conceal a strategic goal of extermination.
The Ettinger Report at http://www.theettingerreport.co.il
Assembled from various Jewish Sages
1. Purim is the holiday of contradictions and tenacity-driven-optimism: Grief replaced by joy, Esther's concealment replaced by the disclosure of her national/religious identity, Haman's intended genocide of Jews replaced by redemption, Haman replaced by Mordechai, national and personal pessimism replaced by optimism. One of Purim's lessons: Life is complex, full of contradictions, ups & downs and difficult dilemmas and worthy of principled-determination. 2. The timing – The Jewish month of Adar. Adar is the root of the Hebrew adjective "Adir" (glorious, awesome, exalted, magnificent). It is, also, a derivative of the Akkadian word Adura (heroism). Jewish tradition (Babylonian Talmud) highlights Adar as a month of happiness, singing and dancing, prohibiting eulogies and fast on Purim. The zodiac of Adar is Pisces (fish), which is a symbol of demographic multiplication. Hence, Adar is the only Jewish month, which doubles itself during the 7 leap years during each 19 years cycle. Purim is celebrated on the 14th (in non-walled towns) and (in Jerusalem) on the 15th day of Adar (February 28 and March 1, 2010), commemorating the national liberation of the Jewish People in Persia and the (161 BCE) victory of Judah the Maccabee over Nikanor, the Assyrian commander. Moses – whose burial site is unknown - was born, and died (1273 BCE), on the 7th day of Adar, which is Israel's Memorial Day for soldiers, whose burial site is unknown. The events of Purim occurred following the destruction of the 1st Temple by Nebuchadnezzar (586 BCE) and the exile from Zion, during the leadership of Ezra who returned to Jerusalem, and the inauguration of the Second Temple (3rd of Adar, 515 BCE) by Ezra and Nehemiah. Nebuchadnezzar died in Adar 561 BCE (Jeremiah 52:31). Einstein published the theory of General Relativity in Adar 1916.
3. Purim's Hebrew root is fate/destiny (“Pur”), as well as lottery (to commemorate Haman's lottery which determined the designated day for the planned Jewish genocide) “to frustrate”, “to annul” (“Le’Ha’fer), “to crumble” and “to shutter” (Le’Phorer), reflecting the demise of Haman.
4. Purim – A (522 BCE) War of Civilizations between Mordechai the Jew and Haman the Iranian-Amalekite – constitutes an early edition of the war between Right VS Wrong, Liberty VS Tyranny, Just VS Evil, Truth VS Lies, as were/are the precedents of Adam/Eve VS Snake, Abel VS Cain, Abraham VS Sodom & Gomorrah, Jacob VS Esau (grandparent of Amalek), Maccabees VS Assyrians, Allies VS Nazis, Western democracies VS Communist Bloc and Western democracies VS Islamic terrorism.
5. Mordechai, the hero of Purim and one of Ezra’s deputies, was a role model of principle-driven optimism in defiance of colossal odds, in face of a global power and in spite of Jewish establishment. According to Judaism, deliverance is ushered by the bravery of faith-driven individuals, such as Nachshon - who was the first to walk into the Red Sea before it was parted – and Mordechai. He was a politically-INcorrect statesman and a retired military leader, who practiced “disproportionate pre-emption” instead of defense, deterrence or retaliation. The first three Hebrew letters of "Mordechai" spell the Hebrew word "Rebellion" ("Mered"), which is consistent with the motto/legacy of the American Founding Fathers: "Rebellion against Tyrants is Obedience to G-D"). Mordechai did not bow to Haman, the second most powerful person in the Persian Empire. Mordechai was a member of the tribe of Benjamin, the only son of Jacob who did not bow to Esau. The name Mordechai is also a derivative of Mordouch – the chief Babylonian god.
Mordechai was a descendant of King Saul, who defied a clear commandment (to eradicate the Amalekites) and spared the life of Agag, the Amalekite king, thus causing further calamities upon the Jewish People. Consequently, Saul lost his royal position and life. Mordechai learnt from Saul’s error. He destroyed Haman, a descendant of Agag the Amalekite, and Haman's entire power base, thus sparing the Jewish People a major disaster.
In Gimatriya, "Cursed Haman" (ארור המן) equals "Blessed Mordechai" (ברוך מרדכי) – 502.
6. Queen Esther, the heroine of Purim’s Esther Scroll (the 24th and concluding book in the Old Testament) was Mordechai's cousin. One cannot comprehend Purim without studying the Esther Scroll. Esther demonstrates the centrality of women in Judaism, shaping the future of the Jewish People, as did Sarah, Rebecca, Miriam, Batyah, Deborah, Hannah, etc. Sarah was the first Jewish woman, and Esther was the last Jewish woman, mentioned in the Bible. Sarah lived 127 years and Esther ruled over 127 countries. The name Esther is a derivative of the Hebrew word "Hester" - "clandestine", "hidden", "subtle", which was reflective of her (initially) unknown Jewish identity and subtle-style at the royal court. The name Esther is also a derivative of Ishtar – a Mesopotamian goddess, Astarte – a Phoenician goddess. In fact, the one day pre-Purim Fast of Esther (commemorating the three day fast declared by Esther in order to expedite deliverance), was cherished by the Marano in Spain, who performed Judaism in a clandestine manner. The Scroll of Esther is the only book in the Old Testament, where the name of G-D is hidden/absent. It has been suggested that the explicit name of G-D is absent because the Scroll of Esther is the only Old Testament book, which deals exclusively with the Diaspora and not with the Land of Israel. According to Michael Bernstein, the noun "King" appears 182 times in Esther Scroll, which is the total sum of 26 (numerical value of G-D) times 7 (days of creation). Esther’s second name was Hadassah, whose root is Hadass – myrtle tree in Hebrew – which constitutes a metaphor for eyesight 20:20. The name Esther is identified with the planet Venus (hence, Esther’s other Hebrew name – Noga – a glaring divine light, which is Venus in Hebrew). In Gimatriya, Esther (אסתר) and Noga (נגה) equal 661 and 58 respectively, and the sum of 6+6+1 and 5+8 is 13 (the number of G-D's virtues). In "small Gimatriya" both Esther (1+6+4+2) and Noga (5+3+5) equal 13, which is also the total sum of one in Hebrew (אחד) – which represents monotheism, as well as the total sum of love in Hebrew (אהבה).
7. The Persian King appointed Mordechai to be his top advisor, overruling Haman's intent to prevent the resettling of Jews in Zion, the reconstruction of the Temple and the restoration of the wall around Jerusalem. He foiled Haman’s plan to exterminate the Jews. The king prospered as a result of his change of heart and escaped assassination. That was the case with Pharaoh, who escaped national collapse and starvation and rose in global prominence, once he appointed Joseph to be his deputy.
8. Purim's four commandments:
*Reading/studying the “Esther Scroll” within the family, highlighting the centrality of family, education, memory and youth as the foundation for a solid future.
*Gifts to relatives and friends emphasize the importance of family and community.
*Charity (at least the value of a meal) indicates the value of compassion and responsibility.
*Celebration and Happiness sustains the element of optimism and faith as the backbone of an individual and a nation.
9. Lethal enemy destroyed and commemorated. The pre-Purim Sabbath is called "Memorial Sabbath" ("Shabbat Zakhor"), commemorating the war of extermination launched by the Amalekites against the Jewish Nation, since the Exodus from Egypt. One of Purim's lessons: Be wary of enemies, employing false-tenuous accommodation, in order to conceal a strategic goal of extermination.
The Ettinger Report at http://www.theettingerreport.co.il
Thursday, February 25, 2010
"Israeli Apartheid" Week
CAMERA
http://www.israeliapartheidweek.com/
Every March, extremists converge on campuses across the country. For a week or two, they strive to sow divisions, encourage prejudice, and incite hostility.
They come as part of "Israeli Apartheid Week," a series of lectures, exhibits and events that single out Israel for fierce attack. Students are told the Jewish state is, by nature, a racist, colonial and oppressive state. They are told Israel should be boycotted, and even destroyed. They are told this by ideologues who distort facts about Israel while ignoring genuine oppression in the Middle East and across the world. One need look no further than the event's title to understand its malignant nature. The canard that Israel is an apartheid state is an assault on the country's very legitimacy. South Africa's racist, apartheid regime was rightfully dismantled, and this campaign seeks absurdly to cast Israel — the Middle East's most progressive state and only liberal democracy — as being guilty of similar policies and equally deserving to be dismantled.
Apartheid Week is an affront to Palestinian and Israel moderates who seek to reach peace through compromise and mutual recognition. It opposes equality and tolerance by seeking to do away with the Jewish people's right to self-determination. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said that Israel, which he described as "one of great outposts of democracy in the world", has an "incontestable" right to exist. Apartheid Week's push against King's truth can only impede the dream of peace and justice in the Middle East.
Information available at this site includes such topics as:
xtremists and Their Message
In the contentious debate about the Middle East conflict, there are many voices. Among the most intolerant and hateful is the viewpoint promoted by "Israeli Apartheid Week."
The extremism of the Apartheid Week organizers can be better understood when looking at some of the speakers from past Apartheid Weeks.
Omar Barghouti, a featured speaker during Apartheid Week 2009, doesn't bother to hide that his goal is to rewind history by returning the Jewish people to the dark era in which being a Jew meant being an ethnic minority. With chilling frankness, Barghouti admits that he seeks to replace Israel with what he describes as "a unitary state, where, by definition, Jews will be a minority."
Not only is this immoral goal is opposed by those who would be most harmed (Jews), but it also runs counter to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the international community, and human rights leaders. (See more here.)
Palestinian writer and outspoken critic of the anti-Israel boycott movement Samir el-Youssef Samir El-Youssef
Samir El-youssef, a Palestinian writer who criticizes both sides of the Arab-Israeli conflict and genuinely seeks reconciliation, says that Barghouti's calls to boycott Israel are "full of questionable assumptions, biased assertions, reductive and dismissive statements, condemnations and accusations against those who disagree with him." Barghouti has "other concerns than peace on his mind," he adds.
Norman Finkelstein was another extremist participant from Apartheid Week 2009. Just before his scheduled lectures on campuses in New York City and Atlanta, the Teheran Times published a venemous interview with Finkelstein in which he called Israel a "vandal state," an "insane state," a "lunatic state" and a "terrorist state." And those were the nicer things he had to say about the country. He also referred to the Jewish state as a "satanic state" from "the boils of hell" which "is committing a holocaust in Gaza." While he directs such venom toward Israel, Finkelstein has expressed support for Hezbollah, a violent, racist group listed by European and North American countries as a terror organziation, in part because of its numerous attacks on Americans and its deadly bombing of a Jewish community center in Argentina. (Hezbollah leaders have explained that they seek to destroy Israel, force most Jews out of Israel, and [not unlike Barghouti] relegate the remaining few to minority status.)
Not to be outdone in the hate department is Apartheid Week 2009 speaker Ronnie Kasrils, who has argued that Israelis are "baby killers" that "behav[e] like Nazis."
It's disturbing that these statements by Barghouti, Finkelstein and Kasrils each match items in the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia's list of "examples of the ways in which anti-Semitism manifests itself with regard to the state of Israel." That list includes:
* "Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination (e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor)";
* "Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation"; and
*
"Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis."
When It's Necessary and Desirable To Assassinate Terrorists
RubinReports
Barry Rubin
There has been a huge international controversy about the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a leading Hamas terrorist, in Dubai on January 19. I have no idea who did it but have some points to make on the subject.
1. Generally speaking, media coverage almost never (in Europe) or only minimally (in the United States) talks about what Mabhouh actually did to merit his end. The New York Times had the following paragraph at the very end of its story:
“Mr. Mabhouh had a role in the 1989 abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers, and was also involved in smuggling weapons into Gaza, Israel and Hamas have said. Israel officials say the weapons came from Iran. It would seem that there would be more discussion of the deeds of such people so they are not portrayed, at least implicitly, as innocent victims. Readers could weigh the assassination against their crimes, which would otherwise go unhindered and unpunished. Mabhouh was probably in Dubai arranging more arms' shipments from Iran so that Hamas could go to war again, causing deaths on both sides. He was a real war criminal, in contrast to the bogus ones fabricated by the terrorist-sponsoring dictatorships which seem to have so much influence on the "human rights" agenda.
2. As long as Western states do nothing to help bring Hamas or Hizballah terrorists to justice, and since Israel has no way of getting these people before a court, it has no option other than the extra-judicial one. Remember that an Israeli cabinet minister is more likely to face prosecution in the United Kingdom nowadays than a terrorist who has murdered Israeli civilians.
Some European countries--France and Italy have admitted as much regarding past deals--have secret agreements with terrorist groups to allow them to operate freely as long as they don't do attacks within the country. Other terrorists--like the Palestinians who hijacked the Achille Lauro cruise ship and murdered an American citizen or one of the Libyan masterminds of the Lockerbie plane bombing that killed scores of passengers, mainly Americans--have been released from prison without completing their terms.
This point of international culpability in letting certain terrorists escape or function isn't brought up, explained, or seriously discussed: What do you do if specific people are attacking you and there’s no other option to stopping them? If the United States could assassinate Usama bin Ladin or other top al-Qaida terrorists whom it could not capture shouldn't it do so? Of course it should.
3. There is a cliché when talking about counter-terrorism to the effect that getting a specific individual doesn’t matter as there is always someone to replace him. But in terrorism, as in other aspects of life, there are more effective and less effective individuals. Since Israel eliminated Hamas’s master bombmaker—who not only made bombs but trained others--in 1995, less capable people replacing him in that line of work have managed to blow themselves up a lot.
The terrorist Imad Mugniya, who someone killed in Damascus, was a unique individual since he had personally worked with the Palestinians, Hizballah, Syria, and Iran. Given his energy, ability, and connections he was not really replaceable.
Mabhouh was in a similar position, the top Hamas arms’ procurer who enjoyed the trust of the Iranians and who knew how to get lots of rockets and other equipment quickly and consistently.
These are not people who merely carried out a specific attack but those who make possible the staging of dozens of attacks.
Of course, terrorism doesn’t go away—expecting that it will do so is a Western act of wishful thinking—but the point is to reduce the number and effectiveness of attacks, and thus the number of casualties.
There are other advantages to eliminating key terrorist operatives. Often it can spark factional conflicts which make terrorist groups spend more time on internal battles. It also sparks mistrust among terrorist partners. If Mugniya can be assassinated in the neighborhood of Damascus that is the most secure place in all of Syria, can Iran and Hizballah trust Syria? Where did the leak occur? Who is infiltrated by the enemy?
Indeed, though outsiders may understate this reality, there is more than a seed of suspicion planted. Perhaps Iran or Syria or Fatah or some other faction in Hizballah killed Mugniya? Perhaps Fatah or Iran or some other faction of Hamas killed Mabhouh.
By the way, although it doesn’t seem to make the headlines so much, other countries including the United States (certainly in Somalia and Yemen) have taken out specific terrorists. Doing so more would be a good idea, if the cases are carefully selected and in the absence of any option to grab them from some state providing safe haven.
Proposition One: if you truly understand that the terrorist groups are going to try to kill you no matter what you do, it removes the fear of making them angry.
Proposition Two: If you know the world is going to criticize you no matter what you do, it removes the fear of making them angry.
That’s Israel’s situation. It is also the situation of a lot of other countries which admittedly face a lower level of risk but also don’t realize the first proposition. At the same time, though, they have far fewer problems with the second.
But what’s at issue here is not revenge for past attacks but the prevention of future ones, a very careful and well-informed thinking through of what actions would weaken terrorist adversaries and save the lives of the civilians they are aiming to kill.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). His new edited books include Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict and Crisis; Guide to Islamist Movements; Conflict and Insurgency in the Middle East; and The Muslim Brotherhood.
Barry Rubin
There has been a huge international controversy about the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a leading Hamas terrorist, in Dubai on January 19. I have no idea who did it but have some points to make on the subject.
1. Generally speaking, media coverage almost never (in Europe) or only minimally (in the United States) talks about what Mabhouh actually did to merit his end. The New York Times had the following paragraph at the very end of its story:
“Mr. Mabhouh had a role in the 1989 abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers, and was also involved in smuggling weapons into Gaza, Israel and Hamas have said. Israel officials say the weapons came from Iran. It would seem that there would be more discussion of the deeds of such people so they are not portrayed, at least implicitly, as innocent victims. Readers could weigh the assassination against their crimes, which would otherwise go unhindered and unpunished. Mabhouh was probably in Dubai arranging more arms' shipments from Iran so that Hamas could go to war again, causing deaths on both sides. He was a real war criminal, in contrast to the bogus ones fabricated by the terrorist-sponsoring dictatorships which seem to have so much influence on the "human rights" agenda.
2. As long as Western states do nothing to help bring Hamas or Hizballah terrorists to justice, and since Israel has no way of getting these people before a court, it has no option other than the extra-judicial one. Remember that an Israeli cabinet minister is more likely to face prosecution in the United Kingdom nowadays than a terrorist who has murdered Israeli civilians.
Some European countries--France and Italy have admitted as much regarding past deals--have secret agreements with terrorist groups to allow them to operate freely as long as they don't do attacks within the country. Other terrorists--like the Palestinians who hijacked the Achille Lauro cruise ship and murdered an American citizen or one of the Libyan masterminds of the Lockerbie plane bombing that killed scores of passengers, mainly Americans--have been released from prison without completing their terms.
This point of international culpability in letting certain terrorists escape or function isn't brought up, explained, or seriously discussed: What do you do if specific people are attacking you and there’s no other option to stopping them? If the United States could assassinate Usama bin Ladin or other top al-Qaida terrorists whom it could not capture shouldn't it do so? Of course it should.
3. There is a cliché when talking about counter-terrorism to the effect that getting a specific individual doesn’t matter as there is always someone to replace him. But in terrorism, as in other aspects of life, there are more effective and less effective individuals. Since Israel eliminated Hamas’s master bombmaker—who not only made bombs but trained others--in 1995, less capable people replacing him in that line of work have managed to blow themselves up a lot.
The terrorist Imad Mugniya, who someone killed in Damascus, was a unique individual since he had personally worked with the Palestinians, Hizballah, Syria, and Iran. Given his energy, ability, and connections he was not really replaceable.
Mabhouh was in a similar position, the top Hamas arms’ procurer who enjoyed the trust of the Iranians and who knew how to get lots of rockets and other equipment quickly and consistently.
These are not people who merely carried out a specific attack but those who make possible the staging of dozens of attacks.
Of course, terrorism doesn’t go away—expecting that it will do so is a Western act of wishful thinking—but the point is to reduce the number and effectiveness of attacks, and thus the number of casualties.
There are other advantages to eliminating key terrorist operatives. Often it can spark factional conflicts which make terrorist groups spend more time on internal battles. It also sparks mistrust among terrorist partners. If Mugniya can be assassinated in the neighborhood of Damascus that is the most secure place in all of Syria, can Iran and Hizballah trust Syria? Where did the leak occur? Who is infiltrated by the enemy?
Indeed, though outsiders may understate this reality, there is more than a seed of suspicion planted. Perhaps Iran or Syria or Fatah or some other faction in Hizballah killed Mugniya? Perhaps Fatah or Iran or some other faction of Hamas killed Mabhouh.
By the way, although it doesn’t seem to make the headlines so much, other countries including the United States (certainly in Somalia and Yemen) have taken out specific terrorists. Doing so more would be a good idea, if the cases are carefully selected and in the absence of any option to grab them from some state providing safe haven.
Proposition One: if you truly understand that the terrorist groups are going to try to kill you no matter what you do, it removes the fear of making them angry.
Proposition Two: If you know the world is going to criticize you no matter what you do, it removes the fear of making them angry.
That’s Israel’s situation. It is also the situation of a lot of other countries which admittedly face a lower level of risk but also don’t realize the first proposition. At the same time, though, they have far fewer problems with the second.
But what’s at issue here is not revenge for past attacks but the prevention of future ones, a very careful and well-informed thinking through of what actions would weaken terrorist adversaries and save the lives of the civilians they are aiming to kill.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). His new edited books include Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict and Crisis; Guide to Islamist Movements; Conflict and Insurgency in the Middle East; and The Muslim Brotherhood.
Latest administration pick is unclear who the enemy is
Jack Kelly
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com
Rashad Hussain, 31, is President Obama's choice to be the U.S. envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, an organization of 56 Islamic states that promotes Muslim solidarity in economic, social and political affairs.
A Muslim of Indian extraction born in Wyoming and a brilliant young attorney (BA from the University of North Carolina in two years; two masters degrees from Harvard, a law degree from Yale), Mr. Hussain would seem a fine choice for the post.
But there's a problem.
In 2004, Mr. Hussain made a speech at a Muslim Student Association conference in Chicago in which he said the trials of Sami al Arian and several others were "politically motivated persecutions."Mr. al Arian, then a professor at the University of South Florida, was said by the Justice Department to be the head of U.S. operations for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which was designated a terrorist organization in 1997. After a trial in which Mr. al Arian was found not guilty on eight charges and the jury was hung on nine others, Mr. al Arian pled guilty in 2006 to one count of conspiracy and was sentenced to four years in prison.
Mr. Hussain's remarks were reported at the time by the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. But in February of last year -- about the time Mr. Hussain was named a deputy White House counsel -- they were deleted (without her knowledge) from the story on the conference written by Shereen Kandil.
When word of his remarks surfaced after his nomination as envoy to the OIC, Mr. Hussain initially said he had "no recollection" of having said any such thing. His memory improved after Josh Gerstein of the Politico uncovered a tape of his presentation at the conference.
"I made statements on that panel that I now recognize were ill-conceived and not well formulated," Mr. Hussain said after quotes from the recording were supplied to the White House. "The judicial process has now concluded, and I have full faith in its outcome."
The Muslim Student Association was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood in 1963. The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928, has the same goal as al Qaida (a world run by Sharia law), but professes the desire to achieve this goal by peaceful means.
This was not always so. The Muslim Brotherhood worked with the Nazis against the British in World War II, and it was six members of the Muslim Brotherhood who assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981. Ayman al Zawahiri, al Qaida's number two, was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Whether their means be peaceful or not, the goals of the Muslim Brotherhood are antithetical to liberty and democratic pluralism.
In a May, 1991 memo, Mohamed Akram of the Muslim Brotherhood's Shura Council wrote: "the Ikhwan (brotherhood) must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western Civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it's eliminated and G0d's religion is made victorious over all other religions."
Mr. Hussain has spoken at other conferences sponsored by affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood, most recently last May.
Mr. Hussain denounced U.S. prosecutions of suspected Islamic terrorists in remarks to an affiliate of an Islamic extremist organization. He then contrived to remove the record of his remarks, and initially lied when confronted about them. This may cause you or me to doubt his suitability to represent the United States to the Muslim world, but not President Obama.
"We continue to have confidence," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in response to a question about Mr. Hussain Monday.
Mr. Hussain may not be an Islamist. His friend, the staunch anti-Islamist terror researcher Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, insists he's just a John Kerry Democrat. But Mr. Hussain seems unclear on who the enemy is.
That confusion exists also in Eric Holder's Justice Department, which disclosed Friday that nine of Mr. Obama's appointees there used to be defense lawyers for terrorists incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay.
"It's like they're bringing al Qaida lawyers inside the Department of Justice," Debra Burlingame, whose brother was killed on 9/11, told the New York Post.
_________________________
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=522117
War On Terror:
DOJ: Department Of Jihad?
Posted 06:59 PM ET
I
The Justice Department employs nine lawyers previously involved in the defense of terrorist detainees. This is a colossal conflict of interest. Just whose side are they on?
From the dropping of a voter-intimidation case gainst the New Black Panther Party to the decision to try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Muhammed in a civilian court within blocks of where the World Trade Center once stood, the actions and attitudes of the Justice Department and Attorney General Eric Holder toward the thugs and terrorists who threaten us has grown curiouser and curiouser.
We may now have a clue as to why. Last November, Sen. Charles Grassley, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, asked the Justice Department how many of its lawyers had defended terrorist detainees over whom the department holds sway.
Grassley knew from earlier press reports of two such lawyers who worked on behalf of detainees at the liberal organization Human Rights Watch. He wanted to know how many more there were. Last Friday, Holder answered nine.
"To the best of our knowledge, during their employment prior to joining the government, only five of the lawyers who serve as political appointees in those components represented detainees," Holder said in a letter dated Feb. 18. "Four others contributed to amicus briefs in detainee-related cases involved in advocacy on behalf of detainees."
So the decision to Mirandize the Christmas bomber, Umar Abdulmutallab, and to quickly get him lawyered up was made by a department populated by leftist lawyers who believe terror is a law enforcement matter and who have tried to get off those actively trying to kill us.
We still have no official answer to what the Justice Department would do if Osama bin Laden were captured.
"It's like they're bringing al-Qaida lawyers inside the Department of Justice," said Debra Burlingame, whose brother was the pilot of the plane driven by terrorists into the Pentagon, following KSM's plan.
We still have not been told all the lawyers' names. Like the detainees they represented, presumably they have the right to remain silent. So much for transparency.
Lawyers in private practice are free to choose their clients and their reasons for defending them. But these lawyers are in the employ of the American people and have the task of prosecuting those who try to kill them. Some chose to defend enemies who are making war on America. We have a right to know who they are, who their clients were and why they defended them.
As Michelle Malkin reports, Holder is a former partner at Covington & Burling, a law firm that contributed more than 3,000 hours to detainee litigation in 2007 alone. The firm has worked on behalf of a dozen Yemenite detainees who are seeking civilian trials on American soil.
Holder played a central role in the granting of clemency to 16 FALN terrorists in 1999, when he worked for the Clinton Justice Department. The terrorists claimed responsibility for more than 130 bombings and incendiary attacks in the U.S. and Puerto Rico from 1974 to 1983, killing six and wounding scores.
As deputy attorney general, Holder was responsible for signing off on all clemency matters forwarded to the president. In this case, he recommended that clemency be granted despite vehement opposition from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Prisons and his own Justice Department.
We are reminded of the case of Lynne Stewart, attorney for Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, the "blind sheikh" who was the architect of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993. She was later found guilty of charges she had illegally "facilitated and concealed communications" between Rahman and his fellow terrorists.
We wonder if she could have found a job in the Holder Justice Department.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From:
Date: Tue, Feb 23, 2010 at 4:10 AM
Subject: Re: the problem is leadership
To: GEE770@aol.com
domestic politics -we are a center right nation
http://www.philly.com/
Posted on Mon, Feb. 22, 2010
The problem is leadership
Claiming the federal government is broken is a popular but poor excuse for Obama.
By Charles Krauthammer
In the latter days of the Carter presidency, it became fashionable to say that the office had become unmanageable and was simply too big for one man. Some suggested a single, six-year presidential term. The president's own White House counsel suggested abolishing the separation of powers and going to a more parliamentary system of unitary executive control. America had become ungovernable.
Then came Reagan, and all that chatter disappeared.
The tyranny of entitlements? Reagan collaborated with Tip O'Neill, the legendary Democratic House speaker, to establish the commission that kept Social Security solvent for a quarter-century.
A corrupted system of taxation? Reagan worked with liberal Democrat Bill Bradley to craft a legislative miracle: tax reform that eliminated loopholes and slashed rates across the board - and fueled two decades of growth.
Later, a highly skilled Democratic president, Clinton, tackled another supposedly intractable problem: the culture of intergenerational dependency. He collaborated with another House speaker, Newt Gingrich, to produce the most successful social reform of our time: the abolition of welfare as an entitlement.
It turned out that the country's problems were not problems of structure, but of leadership. Reagan and Clinton had it. Carter didn't. Under a president with extensive executive experience, political skills, and an ideological compass in tune with the public, the country was governable.
It's 2010, and the first-year agenda of a popular, promising young president has gone down in flames. Barack Obama's two signature initiatives - cap-and-trade and health-care reform - lie in ruins.
Desperate to explain away this scandalous state of affairs, liberal apologists haul out the old reliable: "America the Ungovernable," declared Newsweek. "Is America Ungovernable?" asked the New Republic. Guess the answer.
The rage at the machine has produced the usual systemic explanations: Special interests are too powerful. The filibuster stymies progress. A burdensome constitutional order prevents innovation.
If only we could be more like China, pines Tom Friedman, waxing poetic about the efficiency of the Chinese authoritarian model, while America flails about under its "two parties ... with their duel-to-the-death paralysis." The better thinkers, bewildered and furious that their president has not gotten his way, have developed a sudden disdain for our inherently incremental constitutional system.
Yet what's new about any of these supposedly ruinous structural impediments? Special interests? They have been around since the beginning of the republic - and since the beginning of the republic, strong presidents, like the two Roosevelts, have rallied the citizenry and overcome them.
And then, of course, there's the filibuster, the newest liberal bête noire. "Don't blame Mr. Obama," wrote Paul Krugman. "Blame our political culture instead. ... And blame the filibuster, under which 41 senators can make the country ungovernable."
Ungovernable, once again. Of course, just yesterday, Krugman was warning about "extremists" trying "to eliminate the filibuster" when Democrats used it to block one Bush judicial nomination after another. Back then, Democrats touted it as an indispensable check on majority power. Well, it still is. Indeed, the Senate, with its ponderous procedures and structure, is serving the function the founders intended: as a brake on the passions of the House and a caution about precipitous, transformative change.
Mickey Kaus, a principled liberal who supports health reform, debunked the excuses: "Lots of intellectual effort now seems to be going into explaining Obama's (possible/likely/impending) health-care failure as the inevitable product of larger historic and constitutional forces. ... There's a simpler explanation: Barack Obama's job was to sell a health-care reform plan to American voters. He failed."
He failed because the utter implausibility of its central promise - expanded coverage at lower cost - led voters to conclude it would lead to more government, more taxes, and more debt. More broadly, the Democrats failed because, thinking the economic emergency would give them the political mandate and legislative window, they tried to impose a left-wing agenda on a center-right country. The people said no, expressing themselves first in spontaneous demonstrations, then in public opinion polls, then in elections - Virginia, New Jersey, and, most emphatically, Massachusetts.
That's not a structural defect. That's a textbook demonstration of popular will expressing itself - despite special interests - through the existing structures. In other words, the system worked.
Charles Krauthammer is a Washington Post columnist.
He can be reached at letters@charleskrauthammer.com.
_____________________________________
Find this article at:
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20100222_The_problem_is_leadership.html
Guest Comment: What is happening to our country? In reaching out to those who hate and want to destroy out, we are making it easier for our enemies to do so from within. I have not seen any Muslim country unclench its fist, particularly the most virulent, Iran. And the Muslim Brotherhood, together with its extensive organization structure is permeating not only our social structure, but responsible and powerful govt positions. Is this the change we have been waiting for? Aggie
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com
Rashad Hussain, 31, is President Obama's choice to be the U.S. envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, an organization of 56 Islamic states that promotes Muslim solidarity in economic, social and political affairs.
A Muslim of Indian extraction born in Wyoming and a brilliant young attorney (BA from the University of North Carolina in two years; two masters degrees from Harvard, a law degree from Yale), Mr. Hussain would seem a fine choice for the post.
But there's a problem.
In 2004, Mr. Hussain made a speech at a Muslim Student Association conference in Chicago in which he said the trials of Sami al Arian and several others were "politically motivated persecutions."Mr. al Arian, then a professor at the University of South Florida, was said by the Justice Department to be the head of U.S. operations for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which was designated a terrorist organization in 1997. After a trial in which Mr. al Arian was found not guilty on eight charges and the jury was hung on nine others, Mr. al Arian pled guilty in 2006 to one count of conspiracy and was sentenced to four years in prison.
Mr. Hussain's remarks were reported at the time by the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. But in February of last year -- about the time Mr. Hussain was named a deputy White House counsel -- they were deleted (without her knowledge) from the story on the conference written by Shereen Kandil.
When word of his remarks surfaced after his nomination as envoy to the OIC, Mr. Hussain initially said he had "no recollection" of having said any such thing. His memory improved after Josh Gerstein of the Politico uncovered a tape of his presentation at the conference.
"I made statements on that panel that I now recognize were ill-conceived and not well formulated," Mr. Hussain said after quotes from the recording were supplied to the White House. "The judicial process has now concluded, and I have full faith in its outcome."
The Muslim Student Association was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood in 1963. The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928, has the same goal as al Qaida (a world run by Sharia law), but professes the desire to achieve this goal by peaceful means.
This was not always so. The Muslim Brotherhood worked with the Nazis against the British in World War II, and it was six members of the Muslim Brotherhood who assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981. Ayman al Zawahiri, al Qaida's number two, was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Whether their means be peaceful or not, the goals of the Muslim Brotherhood are antithetical to liberty and democratic pluralism.
In a May, 1991 memo, Mohamed Akram of the Muslim Brotherhood's Shura Council wrote: "the Ikhwan (brotherhood) must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western Civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it's eliminated and G0d's religion is made victorious over all other religions."
Mr. Hussain has spoken at other conferences sponsored by affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood, most recently last May.
Mr. Hussain denounced U.S. prosecutions of suspected Islamic terrorists in remarks to an affiliate of an Islamic extremist organization. He then contrived to remove the record of his remarks, and initially lied when confronted about them. This may cause you or me to doubt his suitability to represent the United States to the Muslim world, but not President Obama.
"We continue to have confidence," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in response to a question about Mr. Hussain Monday.
Mr. Hussain may not be an Islamist. His friend, the staunch anti-Islamist terror researcher Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, insists he's just a John Kerry Democrat. But Mr. Hussain seems unclear on who the enemy is.
That confusion exists also in Eric Holder's Justice Department, which disclosed Friday that nine of Mr. Obama's appointees there used to be defense lawyers for terrorists incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay.
"It's like they're bringing al Qaida lawyers inside the Department of Justice," Debra Burlingame, whose brother was killed on 9/11, told the New York Post.
_________________________
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=522117
War On Terror:
DOJ: Department Of Jihad?
Posted 06:59 PM ET
I
The Justice Department employs nine lawyers previously involved in the defense of terrorist detainees. This is a colossal conflict of interest. Just whose side are they on?
From the dropping of a voter-intimidation case gainst the New Black Panther Party to the decision to try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Muhammed in a civilian court within blocks of where the World Trade Center once stood, the actions and attitudes of the Justice Department and Attorney General Eric Holder toward the thugs and terrorists who threaten us has grown curiouser and curiouser.
We may now have a clue as to why. Last November, Sen. Charles Grassley, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, asked the Justice Department how many of its lawyers had defended terrorist detainees over whom the department holds sway.
Grassley knew from earlier press reports of two such lawyers who worked on behalf of detainees at the liberal organization Human Rights Watch. He wanted to know how many more there were. Last Friday, Holder answered nine.
"To the best of our knowledge, during their employment prior to joining the government, only five of the lawyers who serve as political appointees in those components represented detainees," Holder said in a letter dated Feb. 18. "Four others contributed to amicus briefs in detainee-related cases involved in advocacy on behalf of detainees."
So the decision to Mirandize the Christmas bomber, Umar Abdulmutallab, and to quickly get him lawyered up was made by a department populated by leftist lawyers who believe terror is a law enforcement matter and who have tried to get off those actively trying to kill us.
We still have no official answer to what the Justice Department would do if Osama bin Laden were captured.
"It's like they're bringing al-Qaida lawyers inside the Department of Justice," said Debra Burlingame, whose brother was the pilot of the plane driven by terrorists into the Pentagon, following KSM's plan.
We still have not been told all the lawyers' names. Like the detainees they represented, presumably they have the right to remain silent. So much for transparency.
Lawyers in private practice are free to choose their clients and their reasons for defending them. But these lawyers are in the employ of the American people and have the task of prosecuting those who try to kill them. Some chose to defend enemies who are making war on America. We have a right to know who they are, who their clients were and why they defended them.
As Michelle Malkin reports, Holder is a former partner at Covington & Burling, a law firm that contributed more than 3,000 hours to detainee litigation in 2007 alone. The firm has worked on behalf of a dozen Yemenite detainees who are seeking civilian trials on American soil.
Holder played a central role in the granting of clemency to 16 FALN terrorists in 1999, when he worked for the Clinton Justice Department. The terrorists claimed responsibility for more than 130 bombings and incendiary attacks in the U.S. and Puerto Rico from 1974 to 1983, killing six and wounding scores.
As deputy attorney general, Holder was responsible for signing off on all clemency matters forwarded to the president. In this case, he recommended that clemency be granted despite vehement opposition from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Prisons and his own Justice Department.
We are reminded of the case of Lynne Stewart, attorney for Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, the "blind sheikh" who was the architect of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993. She was later found guilty of charges she had illegally "facilitated and concealed communications" between Rahman and his fellow terrorists.
We wonder if she could have found a job in the Holder Justice Department.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From:
Date: Tue, Feb 23, 2010 at 4:10 AM
Subject: Re: the problem is leadership
To: GEE770@aol.com
domestic politics -we are a center right nation
http://www.philly.com/
Posted on Mon, Feb. 22, 2010
The problem is leadership
Claiming the federal government is broken is a popular but poor excuse for Obama.
By Charles Krauthammer
In the latter days of the Carter presidency, it became fashionable to say that the office had become unmanageable and was simply too big for one man. Some suggested a single, six-year presidential term. The president's own White House counsel suggested abolishing the separation of powers and going to a more parliamentary system of unitary executive control. America had become ungovernable.
Then came Reagan, and all that chatter disappeared.
The tyranny of entitlements? Reagan collaborated with Tip O'Neill, the legendary Democratic House speaker, to establish the commission that kept Social Security solvent for a quarter-century.
A corrupted system of taxation? Reagan worked with liberal Democrat Bill Bradley to craft a legislative miracle: tax reform that eliminated loopholes and slashed rates across the board - and fueled two decades of growth.
Later, a highly skilled Democratic president, Clinton, tackled another supposedly intractable problem: the culture of intergenerational dependency. He collaborated with another House speaker, Newt Gingrich, to produce the most successful social reform of our time: the abolition of welfare as an entitlement.
It turned out that the country's problems were not problems of structure, but of leadership. Reagan and Clinton had it. Carter didn't. Under a president with extensive executive experience, political skills, and an ideological compass in tune with the public, the country was governable.
It's 2010, and the first-year agenda of a popular, promising young president has gone down in flames. Barack Obama's two signature initiatives - cap-and-trade and health-care reform - lie in ruins.
Desperate to explain away this scandalous state of affairs, liberal apologists haul out the old reliable: "America the Ungovernable," declared Newsweek. "Is America Ungovernable?" asked the New Republic. Guess the answer.
The rage at the machine has produced the usual systemic explanations: Special interests are too powerful. The filibuster stymies progress. A burdensome constitutional order prevents innovation.
If only we could be more like China, pines Tom Friedman, waxing poetic about the efficiency of the Chinese authoritarian model, while America flails about under its "two parties ... with their duel-to-the-death paralysis." The better thinkers, bewildered and furious that their president has not gotten his way, have developed a sudden disdain for our inherently incremental constitutional system.
Yet what's new about any of these supposedly ruinous structural impediments? Special interests? They have been around since the beginning of the republic - and since the beginning of the republic, strong presidents, like the two Roosevelts, have rallied the citizenry and overcome them.
And then, of course, there's the filibuster, the newest liberal bête noire. "Don't blame Mr. Obama," wrote Paul Krugman. "Blame our political culture instead. ... And blame the filibuster, under which 41 senators can make the country ungovernable."
Ungovernable, once again. Of course, just yesterday, Krugman was warning about "extremists" trying "to eliminate the filibuster" when Democrats used it to block one Bush judicial nomination after another. Back then, Democrats touted it as an indispensable check on majority power. Well, it still is. Indeed, the Senate, with its ponderous procedures and structure, is serving the function the founders intended: as a brake on the passions of the House and a caution about precipitous, transformative change.
Mickey Kaus, a principled liberal who supports health reform, debunked the excuses: "Lots of intellectual effort now seems to be going into explaining Obama's (possible/likely/impending) health-care failure as the inevitable product of larger historic and constitutional forces. ... There's a simpler explanation: Barack Obama's job was to sell a health-care reform plan to American voters. He failed."
He failed because the utter implausibility of its central promise - expanded coverage at lower cost - led voters to conclude it would lead to more government, more taxes, and more debt. More broadly, the Democrats failed because, thinking the economic emergency would give them the political mandate and legislative window, they tried to impose a left-wing agenda on a center-right country. The people said no, expressing themselves first in spontaneous demonstrations, then in public opinion polls, then in elections - Virginia, New Jersey, and, most emphatically, Massachusetts.
That's not a structural defect. That's a textbook demonstration of popular will expressing itself - despite special interests - through the existing structures. In other words, the system worked.
Charles Krauthammer is a Washington Post columnist.
He can be reached at letters@charleskrauthammer.com.
_____________________________________
Find this article at:
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20100222_The_problem_is_leadership.html
Guest Comment: What is happening to our country? In reaching out to those who hate and want to destroy out, we are making it easier for our enemies to do so from within. I have not seen any Muslim country unclench its fist, particularly the most virulent, Iran. And the Muslim Brotherhood, together with its extensive organization structure is permeating not only our social structure, but responsible and powerful govt positions. Is this the change we have been waiting for? Aggie
UK officer defends Israeli forces
By John McManus
BBC News
A former senior British army officer has said international media including the BBC are being exploited by "dark forces" who want to harm Israel.
Col Richard Kemp, who was a commander in Afghanistan, said some international criticism of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) was motivated by anti-Semitism.
He was speaking at a dinner in London hosted by a pro-Israel lobby group.
Col Kemp had defended the actions of the IDF at the UN Goldstone Hearings into the Gaza incursion of 2008. The Israeli minister for Information and the Diaspora, Yuli Edelstein, was also present at the dinner hosted by the Zionist Federation.
He refused to comment on rumours that the Israeli secret service Mossad had fraudulently used the passports of British citizens during an operation to kill the Hamas boss Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.
Col Kemp, who is now retired from the Army and makes a living from writing, said the advice he received from the Israeli armed forces on how to tackle Afghan suicide bombers had been invaluable, and formed the basis of official army guidelines used by soldiers on the ground there.
There were some "bad" soldiers in the IDF, Col Kemp acknowledged.
But he added that despite similarities between the IDF and British forces, UK soldiers did not have to deal with the same amount of criticism from the international community.
"When we go into battle we do not get the same knee-jerk, almost Pavlovian response from many, many elements of the international media and international groups, humanitarian groups and other international groups such as the United Nations which should know better... of utter automatic condemnation. We don't have to put up with that."
'New' anti-semitism
The event, which was attended by over 400 British Jews, heard Mr Edelstein criticise the Goldstone report, which is widely regarded as biased within Israel, and warn against the rise of what he called a "new" anti-semitism.
He said that although it was important to investigate any allegations of wrongdoing by Israeli forces, the Goldstone report had influenced the enemies of his country to continue their campaign of hatred.
"Yes, we have to investigate, yes we have to check ourselves. Yes, I am ashamed of the soldier who stole some credit cards from a deserted house in the Gaza Strip. But between this and war crimes?"
A small protest by UK Jews who oppose Israeli actions in Gaza took place outside the hotel where the dinner was held.
The Zionist Federation held the dinner to celebrate 110 years of its existence.
Early members helped to lobby the UK government for the creation of a Jewish homeland.
In recent years it has campaigned on behalf of Israel, often criticising what it calls international bias against Israeli actions in Gaza and the West Bank.
None of the speakers referred to the investigation in Dubai into the murder of Mr al-Mabhouh, or the allegation that Mossad had misused British passports.
But referring to some table ornaments that resembled the revolving sign at Scotland Yard police headquarters, Mr Edelstein did joke to his audience that he wondered if the Metropolitan Police were trying to tell him something.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/8527563.stm
UN “Peace” Coordinator: Jewish Heritage an Invalid Concept
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/tobin/243186
Jonathan S. Tobin
Earlier today I wrote about the implications of an important new archeological discovery that highlights the 3,000-year-old Jewish heritage in East Jerusalem. Such finds have political significance specifically because the whole focus of Palestinian nationalism has been to deny Jewish ties to the land and to attempt to rewrite history in such a way as to expunge the historicity and continuity of the Jewish presence. But the reason why this issue is so important was brought home again today by a statement coming from Robert Serry, the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process. In it, Serry went out of his way to condemn the recently announced National Heritage Plan announced by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu because two ancient Jewish religious shrines were included in the list of sites to be preserved and protected. Serry objected to the inclusion of Rachel’s Tomb outside Bethlehem and the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron in the list of essential places in Jewish history, because the two are in the West Bank and thus, in his view, “occupied Palestinian territory.” The fact that they are located on land that is subject to dispute between the two parties is of no interest to the UN official who, despite his status as a peace mediator, is ready to dictate where the borders of a putative Palestinian state must be. But Serry’s argument is not merely one of borders, because in the same statement he claimed that the sites “are of historical and religious significance not only to Judaism but also to Islam, and to Christianity as well.”
It is true that Christians and Muslims have an intrinsic interest in any biblical site. And since Muslims, like Jews, consider Abraham to be one of their patriarchs, they have a religious stake in the Cave of the Patriarchs. But Muslims have never been willing to share this most ancient of Jewish shrines with other faiths. Throughout the history of Muslim control of the land of Israel, through the Ottoman era and even during the time of British rule, Jews were forbidden to enter the cave and were, instead, constrained to ascend no higher than the seventh step of the entrance to the sacred place. Jewish prayer inside the cave only resumed in June 1967, after the Israeli conquest of Hebron, after which the two religions have shared the place despite the history of tension and bloodshed in the Hebron area.
As for Rachel’s Tomb, it is simply a lie to consider it anything but a Jewish synagogue. No faith but Judaism has ever held worship services in the place or considered it a shrine. Palestinian propaganda that has attempted to portray it as some sort of a Muslim site are of recent vintage and utterly false.
But much like the history of the Western Wall in Jerusalem, where Jews were forbidden even to visit while it was under Muslim sovereignty from 1949 to 1967 during Jordan’s illegal occupation of East Jerusalem, the only thing that has guaranteed Jewish access to both the Hebron and Bethlehem sites has been Israel’s control of these areas. Moreover, and this is a crucial point, the only time in the history of Jerusalem or Bethlehem or Hebron that these religious sites have been kept free and open to all visitors of all faiths has been the 42 years since the Six-Day War. Netanyahu’s Heritage Plan is no threat to other faiths, because only Israel is committed to religious freedom and the protection of all religious shrines.
Should the UN coordinator have his way and Rachel’s Tomb or the Cave of the Patriarchs ever fall under the control of the Palestinian Authority, let alone Hamas, we know very well what would happen. Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus, a longtime site of Jewish worship and study, was sacked and burned by a Palestinian mob aided and abetted by PA policemen in 2000 at the outset of the second intifada. The PA has prevented the reconstruction of the site. An ancient synagogue in Jericho, also under PA control, met the same fate.
By opposing the Jewish Heritage Plan, the UN isn’t merely sniping at Netanyahu. It is signaling its backing of a Palestinian and Muslim approach to the history of the land in which Judaism is systematically erased. If indeed Serry and the UN are actually interested in preserving these sites for members of all faiths to visit, rather than in merely chasing the Jews out of them, the only formula for their preservation lies in continued Israeli control.
Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor of COMMENTARY magazine. He can be reached via e-mail at: jtobin@commentarymagazine.com.
Guest Comment: The entire focus of Palestinian nationalism has been to deny Jewish ties to the land and to attempt to rewrite history in such a way as to expunge the historicity and continuity of the Jewish presence in the Land o Israel. Therefore, the new archeological discovery of a wall from King Solomon time that highlights the 3,000-year-old Jewish heritage in East Jerusalem may carry significance and most important political implications!
The anti-Semitic UN, denies not only Jewish heritage but also international laws calling the West Bank occupied [it is disputed land] Palestinian territory!
The UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process is not a peace mediator but a war instigator!
---------------------
Shalom, Nurit
Jonathan S. Tobin
Earlier today I wrote about the implications of an important new archeological discovery that highlights the 3,000-year-old Jewish heritage in East Jerusalem. Such finds have political significance specifically because the whole focus of Palestinian nationalism has been to deny Jewish ties to the land and to attempt to rewrite history in such a way as to expunge the historicity and continuity of the Jewish presence. But the reason why this issue is so important was brought home again today by a statement coming from Robert Serry, the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process. In it, Serry went out of his way to condemn the recently announced National Heritage Plan announced by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu because two ancient Jewish religious shrines were included in the list of sites to be preserved and protected. Serry objected to the inclusion of Rachel’s Tomb outside Bethlehem and the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron in the list of essential places in Jewish history, because the two are in the West Bank and thus, in his view, “occupied Palestinian territory.” The fact that they are located on land that is subject to dispute between the two parties is of no interest to the UN official who, despite his status as a peace mediator, is ready to dictate where the borders of a putative Palestinian state must be. But Serry’s argument is not merely one of borders, because in the same statement he claimed that the sites “are of historical and religious significance not only to Judaism but also to Islam, and to Christianity as well.”
It is true that Christians and Muslims have an intrinsic interest in any biblical site. And since Muslims, like Jews, consider Abraham to be one of their patriarchs, they have a religious stake in the Cave of the Patriarchs. But Muslims have never been willing to share this most ancient of Jewish shrines with other faiths. Throughout the history of Muslim control of the land of Israel, through the Ottoman era and even during the time of British rule, Jews were forbidden to enter the cave and were, instead, constrained to ascend no higher than the seventh step of the entrance to the sacred place. Jewish prayer inside the cave only resumed in June 1967, after the Israeli conquest of Hebron, after which the two religions have shared the place despite the history of tension and bloodshed in the Hebron area.
As for Rachel’s Tomb, it is simply a lie to consider it anything but a Jewish synagogue. No faith but Judaism has ever held worship services in the place or considered it a shrine. Palestinian propaganda that has attempted to portray it as some sort of a Muslim site are of recent vintage and utterly false.
But much like the history of the Western Wall in Jerusalem, where Jews were forbidden even to visit while it was under Muslim sovereignty from 1949 to 1967 during Jordan’s illegal occupation of East Jerusalem, the only thing that has guaranteed Jewish access to both the Hebron and Bethlehem sites has been Israel’s control of these areas. Moreover, and this is a crucial point, the only time in the history of Jerusalem or Bethlehem or Hebron that these religious sites have been kept free and open to all visitors of all faiths has been the 42 years since the Six-Day War. Netanyahu’s Heritage Plan is no threat to other faiths, because only Israel is committed to religious freedom and the protection of all religious shrines.
Should the UN coordinator have his way and Rachel’s Tomb or the Cave of the Patriarchs ever fall under the control of the Palestinian Authority, let alone Hamas, we know very well what would happen. Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus, a longtime site of Jewish worship and study, was sacked and burned by a Palestinian mob aided and abetted by PA policemen in 2000 at the outset of the second intifada. The PA has prevented the reconstruction of the site. An ancient synagogue in Jericho, also under PA control, met the same fate.
By opposing the Jewish Heritage Plan, the UN isn’t merely sniping at Netanyahu. It is signaling its backing of a Palestinian and Muslim approach to the history of the land in which Judaism is systematically erased. If indeed Serry and the UN are actually interested in preserving these sites for members of all faiths to visit, rather than in merely chasing the Jews out of them, the only formula for their preservation lies in continued Israeli control.
Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor of COMMENTARY magazine. He can be reached via e-mail at: jtobin@commentarymagazine.com.
Guest Comment: The entire focus of Palestinian nationalism has been to deny Jewish ties to the land and to attempt to rewrite history in such a way as to expunge the historicity and continuity of the Jewish presence in the Land o Israel. Therefore, the new archeological discovery of a wall from King Solomon time that highlights the 3,000-year-old Jewish heritage in East Jerusalem may carry significance and most important political implications!
The anti-Semitic UN, denies not only Jewish heritage but also international laws calling the West Bank occupied [it is disputed land] Palestinian territory!
The UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process is not a peace mediator but a war instigator!
---------------------
Shalom, Nurit
Saudi cleric backs gender segregation with fatwa
RIYADH (Reuters) - A prominent Saudi cleric has issued an edict calling for opponents of the kingdom's strict segregation of men and women to be put to death if they refuse to abandon their ideas.
Shaikh Abdul-Rahman al-Barrak said in a fatwa the mixing of genders at the workplace or in education "as advocated by modernisers" is prohibited because it allows "sight of what is forbidden, and forbidden talk between men and women". "All of this leads to whatever ensues," he said in the text of the fatwa published on his website (albarrak.islamlight.net).
"Whoever allows this mixing ... allows forbidden things, and whoever allows them is an infidel and this means defection from Islam ... Either he retracts or he must be killed ... because he disavows and does not observe the Sharia," Barrak said.
"Anyone who accepts that his daughter, sister or wife works with men or attend mixed-gender schooling cares little about his honour and this is a type of pimping," Barrak said.
Barrak, believed to be 77, does not hold a government position but he is viewed by Islamists as the leading independent authority of Saudi Arabia's hardline version of Sunni Islam, often termed Wahhabism.
Western diplomats believe that King Abdullah's push for reforms is resisted by a mainly older generation of clerics who still control the religious establishment.
The monarch dismissed a cleric from a top council of religious scholars in October after he demanded that religious scholars vet the curriculum at a new flagship mixed-gender university.
The kingdom, a major U.S. ally, is ruled by the Al Saud family in alliance with clerics from the strict Wahhabi school of Islam who oversee mosques, the judiciary and vast parts of education, and run a religious police body.
he Saudi government pays a morals police squad that roams streets and shopping malls to make sure unrelated men and women are kept apart, that women are covered from head to toe and search for alcohol and drugs under the kingdom's austere interpretation of Islam.
In 2008, Barrak issued a fatwa that two Saudi writers should be tried for apostasy for their "heretical articles" and put to death if they did not repent after the two wrote articles that questioned the Sunni Muslim view in Saudi Arabia that Christians and Jews should be considered unbelievers.
He has also denounced Shi'ite Muslims as "infidels" in another edict that coincided with sectarian tensions in Iraq.
(Reporting by Souhail Karam; Editing by Dominic Evans)
http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-46408620100223?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0
Shaikh Abdul-Rahman al-Barrak said in a fatwa the mixing of genders at the workplace or in education "as advocated by modernisers" is prohibited because it allows "sight of what is forbidden, and forbidden talk between men and women". "All of this leads to whatever ensues," he said in the text of the fatwa published on his website (albarrak.islamlight.net).
"Whoever allows this mixing ... allows forbidden things, and whoever allows them is an infidel and this means defection from Islam ... Either he retracts or he must be killed ... because he disavows and does not observe the Sharia," Barrak said.
"Anyone who accepts that his daughter, sister or wife works with men or attend mixed-gender schooling cares little about his honour and this is a type of pimping," Barrak said.
Barrak, believed to be 77, does not hold a government position but he is viewed by Islamists as the leading independent authority of Saudi Arabia's hardline version of Sunni Islam, often termed Wahhabism.
Western diplomats believe that King Abdullah's push for reforms is resisted by a mainly older generation of clerics who still control the religious establishment.
The monarch dismissed a cleric from a top council of religious scholars in October after he demanded that religious scholars vet the curriculum at a new flagship mixed-gender university.
The kingdom, a major U.S. ally, is ruled by the Al Saud family in alliance with clerics from the strict Wahhabi school of Islam who oversee mosques, the judiciary and vast parts of education, and run a religious police body.
he Saudi government pays a morals police squad that roams streets and shopping malls to make sure unrelated men and women are kept apart, that women are covered from head to toe and search for alcohol and drugs under the kingdom's austere interpretation of Islam.
In 2008, Barrak issued a fatwa that two Saudi writers should be tried for apostasy for their "heretical articles" and put to death if they did not repent after the two wrote articles that questioned the Sunni Muslim view in Saudi Arabia that Christians and Jews should be considered unbelievers.
He has also denounced Shi'ite Muslims as "infidels" in another edict that coincided with sectarian tensions in Iraq.
(Reporting by Souhail Karam; Editing by Dominic Evans)
http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-46408620100223?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0
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