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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; conflict</title>
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		<title>The &#8216;Cycle of Violence&#8217; Fantasy in the Middle East</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/steven-plaut/the-cycle-of-violence-fantasy-in-the-middle-east/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-cycle-of-violence-fantasy-in-the-middle-east</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/steven-plaut/the-cycle-of-violence-fantasy-in-the-middle-east/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 12 Dec 2014 05:12:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Steven Plaut]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[conflict]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Middle East]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Palestinian]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[WWII]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=247184</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Imagining how the media would have reported on WWII using today's logic regarding Israel. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/19366_1.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-247188" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/19366_1.jpg" alt="19366_1" width="283" height="203" /></a>Ernst Eduard vom Rath was a German diplomat representing the Third Reich in <span style="color: #000000;">Paris in 1938.  </span>In November of that year he was shot and mortally wounded by a 17-year-old <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Jew"><span style="color: #0b1480;">Polish Jewish</span></a> youth, <a href="http://www.roizen.com/ron/grynszpan.htm"><span style="color: #0b1480;">Herschel</span><span style="color: #0433ff;">Grynszpan</span></a><span style="color: #000000;">, who had been living in Germany.</span>  Vom Rath was 29 years old.  Ironically, vom Rath had earlier expressed anti-Nazi sympathies, evidently based on the Nazi treatment of Jews, and was under Gestapo investigation at the time for being politically unreliable.  He died of his wounds two days after being shot.  Hitler used the assassination <a href="http://www.holocaustandhumanity.org/kristallnacht/events-leading-up-to-kristallnacht/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">as an excuse to launch Kristallnacht</span></a>, a pogrom against German Jews, shortly after the death.<span style="color: #000000;">   My father attended school with <a href="http://www.roizen.com/ron/grynszpan.htm"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Grynszpan</span></a> and knew him casually; Dad escaped to America by the time of the assassination.</span></p>
<p>Now try to imagine how the Western media would report World War II if they were using the exact same rules of journalism that they apply to the Arab-Israeli conflict.   The assassination of vom Rath by a Jewish youth would be universally held up to illustrate that the German-Jewish conflict was a circle of violence, an ongoing bloody conflict whose roots are so old that no one remembers them, a conflict where each side claims it is retaliating for the violence that the other side perpetrated, a conflict whose causes are all blurred by eons of history.  Sure the Germans were murdering Jews, but then there was the vom Rath assassination, proving the violence was two-directional, symmetric.  Close investigation could probably find a few other examples of Jews using violence against Germans.  Innocent lives are being lost on both sides.  Such senseless tragedy.  Why can&#8217;t both sides just live and let live?</p>
<p>Of course, such a representation of World War II would not only be an absurdity but also an obscenity.   World War II was not about a &#8220;cycle of violence&#8221; between Germans and Jews.  It was unambiguously a campaign of annihilation and oppression of Jews committed by Germans.  The fact that one can identify a handful of outlier events such as the assassination of vom Rath does not convey any symmetry to the &#8220;conflict.&#8221;   Indeed to misrepresent the Nazi campaign of extermination against Jews as some sort of &#8220;symmetric&#8221; pair of movements of violence would be proof that the person so misrepresenting the situation was a Nazi-sympathizer and an anti-Semite.</p>
<p>The Middle East conflict is not a cycle of violence.  It is not a &#8220;symmetric&#8221; campaign of retaliation by Jews against Arabs and Arabs against Jews.  The Middle East conflict is as unambiguously a unidirectional campaign of violence and atrocities as was World War II.  It is about Arabs murdering Jews and not the inverse.  It is about Arabs seeking to deny Jews their human rights and their right to self-determination, and not the inverse.  The Middle East conflict consists of a century of atrocities perpetrated by Arabs against Jews.</p>
<p>But the Western media are willing to go to extreme lengths to force the conflict into the prism of symmetry and the &#8220;cycle of violence&#8221; fantasy.  Several months ago a Palestinian Arab teenager from East Jerusalem, <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Blogs/Message.aspx/5936#.VIhy7DGUf-o"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Mohammed Abu Khdair, age 17,  was kidnapped and murdered</span></a> by a Jew.  The Jew was mentally ill and believed himself to be the messiah.   He was arrested and jailed by Israel.  The killer did not represent anyone, was not sponsored by anyone, and no one in Israel cheered his crime.  The killing of Abu Khdair came shortly after three Jewish teenagers were murdered by the Hamas in a well-planned operation.  That was an operation sponsored, financed and planned by the Hamas and cheered by most &#8220;Palestinians&#8221; and by many Israeli Arabs.   Many passed around candies in celebration.</p>
<p>Since the death of Abu Khdair, the media have exploited the case to sell their &#8220;symmetry cycle of violence&#8221; snake oil.  True, the &#8220;Palestinians&#8221; murder Jewish children all the time but here we have a single incident of an inverted crime, an Arab teenager murdered by a Jew.  The media obsession is far more than a postman-biting-dog stroke of interest in uncharacteristic news stories.  The media have used the death to manufacture the symmetry fiction and spread it.   After all, if it is symmetric, then both sides are wrong, which means both sides are right, which means there is no right and wrong about which to worry our pretty little heads.</p>
<p>The killing of Abu Khdair was as characteristic of the Middle East conflict as the killing of vom Rath was representative of the events comprising World War II.  And it is hardly the only &#8220;vom Rath anomaly&#8221; that drives the reporting of the anti-Israel media.   This week <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/188478#.VIh7tTGUf-o"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Ziad Abu Ein</span></a>, a terrorist murderer serving as a Palestinian Authority &#8220;cabinet minister,&#8221; died from a heart attack after being confronted by Israeli troops.   You see, the media are bleating in unison?  It is not just Palestinians who murder Israelis!</p>
<p>Arabs in the West Bank vandalize Jewish property so often that it is generally never even reported as news, even in the Israeli media, because it is so commonplace.  Arson attacks and vandalism of synagogues by Arabs are so frequent that they rarely make it out of the back pages.  But if a handful of teenage Jewish delinquents vandalize some Arab vehicles or paint graffiti on Arab buildings, not only is this highlighted on the front pages, but it is denounced as evidence of Jewish terrorism.  The media, including the Israeli leftist media, scream that such incidents are hate crimes.  Demands are made to define the graffiti painters as a terrorist organization.</p>
<p>Rock throwing by Arabs at Jews in Israel is even less likely to make it into the press or news or even the social media.   But if Arabs allege that some Jewish &#8220;settlers&#8221; threw some rocks at Arab cars or houses, then stop the presses!   All other news must be removed to page 3.  Arabs in the West bank vandalize Jewish property, including agricultural produce, more frequently than the sun shines in the Middle East.  No one hears about it because it is not considered &#8220;news.&#8221;  After all, dogs chasing postmen are just not very interesting or newsworthy.  But let some Arabs or leftists allege that Jewish &#8220;settlers&#8221; have vandalized some West Bank Arab olive trees and the media shrieks are deafening.  So deafening, in fact, that they drown out reporting about some cases of  Arabs and leftists <a href="http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2012/10/16/did-palestinians-destroy-their-own-olive-trees-and-then-blame-israel-settlers-say-they-have-the-video-to-prove-it/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">intentionally vandalizing</span></a> Arab olive trees as <a href="https://anneinpt.wordpress.com/2012/10/16/slandering-israel-palestinians-and-leftists-filmed-cutting-down-their-own-olive-trees/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">provocations to be blamed</span></a> on &#8220;settlers.&#8221;   And it goes without saying that the firing of thousands of rockets by Gaza terrorists at Israeli civilians is never important enough to be reported as news.  But let Israel fire back at the savages and there &#8211; you see &#8211; we are back in the symmetric cycle of violence.</p>
<p>The symmetry perversion has been played up by the media for so long that few can even keep straight the fundamental underlying truths behind the conflict.  There is a war in the Middle East because the Arabs, controlling territory nearly twice that of the United States (including Alaska), are unwilling for the Jews to control their own state smaller than New Jersey.  The Middle East conflict is not about unwillingness on the part of Jews to accept self-determination for Arabs, but rather by unwillingness on the part of Arabs to accept self-determination for Jews.  Middle East violence is about the campaign of terrorist aggression by the Arab world, including its &#8220;Palestinian&#8221; playthings, to murder as many Jewish children and other civilians as possible.  The number of innocent Palestinian civilians intentionally murdered by Israel is precisely zero.  Palestinians get killed when Israel shoots back and retaliates for Arab terror and aggression and rocket attacks.  When Arabs do not attack Jews, the Jews do not shoot back.  There is no anti-Arab Jewish terrorism.</p>
<p>Arab terrorism is not caused by Israeli &#8220;occupation&#8221; but rather by the removal of Israeli occupation.  The &#8220;Palestinians&#8221; have about as legitimate a claim to statehood and independence as did the Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia.   Granting &#8220;Palestinians&#8221; independence will have precisely the same effect as did the granting &#8220;self-determination&#8221; to the Sudeten Germans.  The only reason Arabs demand that the &#8220;Palestinians&#8221; be granted a state is in order to use it to launch an all-out war of annihilation and terror against what would be the rump Israel.</p>
<p>Israel is the only country in the Middle East that is NOT an apartheid regime.  The only Arabs in the Middle East enjoying human rights are those living under Israeli  rule.   The treatment of Arabs by Israel is at least a thousand times better than the treatment of Arabs by Arab regimes.   The &#8220;stateless Palestinians&#8221; are Arabs, and Arabs control 22 states.   No one is stopping any Arabs uncomfortable about living in a Jewish state from moving to any of those 22 states and taking all their assets and wealth with them.  The Middle East conflict is about injustices perpetrated by Arabs against Jews and not the other way around.</p>
<p>None of this belies the possibility that if one seeks hard enough one can find incidents in which some Jews behave badly towards some Arabs.  Just as Hershel Grynszpan may have murdered the wrong German.  But that hardly makes the Middle East conflict a symmetric cycle of violence and injustice.  There was a handful of white slaves owned by slaveholders in the American south before the Civil War and there were <a href="http://www.theroot.com/articles/history/2013/03/black_slave_owners_did_they_exist.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">small numbers of black slave-owners</span></a>.   Using that to paint pre-Emancipation slavery as a symmetry of black and white slaves with black and white slave-owners would of course by an obscenity.   Use of the assassination of vom Rath to create fictional symmetry would be even worse.  But nothing can compete with the malicious, repugnant, and perfidious distortion of the Middle East conflict by the media as a symmetric conflict and a cycle of violence.</p>
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		<item>
		<title>Kerry Blames Israel for ISIS Recruitment</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-klein/kerry-blames-israel-for-isis-recruitment/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=kerry-blames-israel-for-isis-recruitment</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-klein/kerry-blames-israel-for-isis-recruitment/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 23 Oct 2014 04:55:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Klein]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[conflict]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ISIS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamic state]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Kerry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Palestinian]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=243613</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The secretary of state's anti-Semitic lies. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/0717-Mideasfffft-Jordan-visit-John-Kerry_full_600.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-243614" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/0717-Mideasfffft-Jordan-visit-John-Kerry_full_600-420x350.jpg" alt="0717-Mideasfffft-Jordan-visit-John-Kerry_full_600" width="312" height="260" /></a>Secretary of State John Kerry</span><span class="zw-portion"> </span><span class="zw-portion">chose </span><a style="color: blue;" title="" href="http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2014/10/233058.htm" target="_blank" data-href="http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2014/10/233058.htm" data-type="1"><span class="zw-portion link" style="color: #0563c1;">a White House ceremony</span><span class="zw-portion" style="color: #0563c1;"> on October 16th</span></a><span class="zw-portion"> for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha to </span><span class="zw-portion">regurgitate a false</span><span class="zw-portion"> </span><span class="zw-portion">theory </span><span class="zw-portion">link</span><span class="zw-portion">ing</span><span class="zw-portion"> the </span><span class="zw-portion">Israeli/Palestinian conflict </span><span class="zw-portion">with </span><span class="zw-portion">the increase of </span><span class="zw-portion">jihadist violence and </span><span class="zw-portion">recruitment</span><span class="zw-portion"> in the Middle East region</span><span class="zw-portion">.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">“As I went around and met with people in the course of our discussions about the ISIL [also referred to as ISIS or the Isla</span><span class="zw-portion">mic State]</span><span class="zw-portion"> coalition, the truth is we — t</span><span class="zw-portion">here wasn’t a leader I met with</span><span class="zw-portion">in the region who didn’t raise with me spontaneously the need to try to get peace between Israel and the Palestinians, because it was a cause of recruitment and of street anger and agitation that they felt</span><span class="zw-portion"> – and I see a lot of heads nodding – they had to respond to,” Kerry said. “And people need to understand the connection of that. And it has something to do with humiliation and denial and absence of dignity, and Eid celebrates the opposite of all of that.</span><span class="zw-portion">”</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">After Israeli Economic Minister Naftali Bennett sharply criticized Kerry’s statement, the State Department tried to walk it back, claiming, in the words of Deputy </span><span class="zw-portion">Spokesperson</span><span class="zw-portion"> Marie Harf</span><span class="zw-portion">,</span><span class="zw-portion"> that Kerry “did not make a link between the growth of ISIL and Israel, period.”</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">At best, Harf is telling only a half-truth. </span><span class="zw-portion">While Kerry did not explicitly state that it was </span><span class="zw-portion">his own </span><span class="zw-portion">view there was a link betwe</span><span class="zw-portion">en the growth of ISIS and the failure of the peace talks</span><span class="zw-portion"> or Israel</span><span class="zw-portion">, </span><span class="zw-portion">Kerry </span><span class="zw-portion">transmitted the linkage theory he heard from leaders in the region to a receptive audience at the White House. And he </span><span class="zw-portion">did not refute it. </span><span class="zw-portion">In fact, he lent credence to the linkage theory by saying that “people need to understand the connection.” </span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">Kerry once again proved the truth of Mark Twain’s famous quip: &#8220;A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.&#8221;</span><span class="zw-portion"> </span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">Indeed, Kerry has helped launch a series of lies against Israel during his term as Secretary of State. Last April, for example, he said that Israel was at risk of becoming “an apartheid state,” if it does not come to terms with the Palestinians. </span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">A</span><span class="zw-portion"> competent and honest Secretary of State – neither of which describe</span><span class="zw-portion">s</span><span class="zw-portion"> John Kerry – would not have </span><span class="zw-portion">repeated the falsehood of linking the failure of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks with the growth of ISIS and other jihadist movements</span><span class="zw-portion"> in the first place</span><span class="zw-portion">, </span><span class="zw-portion">unless he intended to set up this </span><span class="zw-portion">straw man</span><span class="zw-portion"> argument</span><span class="zw-portion"> in order</span><span class="zw-portion"> to </span><span class="zw-portion">immediately </span><span class="zw-portion">knock </span><span class="zw-portion">it </span><span class="zw-portion">down. </span><span class="zw-portion">What on earth does ISIS’s systematic massacre of Christians and Yazidis, rapes of women and children, and sexual slavery have to do with Kerry’s failed </span><span class="zw-portion">attempt to continue </span><span class="zw-portion">peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians? Absolutely nothing!</span><span class="zw-portion"> But Kerry </span><span class="zw-portion">shamelessly </span><span class="zw-portion">repeated the li</span><span class="zw-portion">e anyway.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">As one Israeli commentator observed</span><span class="zw-portion"> a few days after Kerry told the</span><span class="zw-portion"> Muslim</span><span class="zw-portion">s in his</span><span class="zw-portion"> audience what they wanted to hear, “Kerry didn’t mention that the astounding Saudi and Qatari assets invested in mosques around the world, including Europe, leads to radicalization. He didn’t come </span><span class="zw-portion">out against Qatar, which has become the primary funder of jihadi organizations. He doesn’t blame the institutionalized anti-Semitic incitement, which is growing in the Muslim world, including by Al-Jazeera.”</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">Instead, Kerry pandered to his audience. He repeated President Obama’s claim that there is nothing Islamic about the Islamic State</span><span class="zw-portion">, even though ISIS’s atrocities find justification in the Koran and the Hadith (the sayings and deeds of the Islamic prophet Muhammad). Kerry</span><span class="zw-portion"> then assured the audience </span><span class="zw-portion">that </span><span class="zw-portion">the sectarian murders </span><span class="zw-portion">occurring regularly </span><span class="zw-portion">within the Muslim community </span><span class="zw-portion">today </span><span class="zw-portion">in the 21</span><span class="zw-portion">st</span><span class="zw-portion"> century can be compared with the Thirty Years’ War in 17</span><span class="zw-portion">th</span><span class="zw-portion"> century Europe that broke out initially between Protestant and Catholic states. The problem with such specious comparisons is that Muslims, unlike Catholics and Protestants, are still killing each other</span><span class="zw-portion">,</span><span class="zw-portion"> as well as Christians, Jews, Hindus, Yazidis, Zoroastrians and other “infidels</span><span class="zw-portion">,</span><span class="zw-portion">”</span><span class="zw-portion"> in massive numbers all over the world.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">Hamas is the jihadist branch dedicated, in the words of its charter, to the destruction of the state of Israel and the killing of Jews wherever they can be found. Yet Kerry rarely mentions Hamas in his statements regarding the failed peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians</span><span class="zw-portion">. He </span><span class="zw-portion">has not insisted that </span><span class="zw-portion">effective measures be in place first to prevent the rearmament of Hamas as</span><span class="zw-portion"> a pre-condition for </span><span class="zw-portion">pouring millions of dollars of </span><span class="zw-portion">new aid the United States is pledging for reconstruction in Gaza</span><span class="zw-portion">, much less the disarmament of Hamas in Gaza</span><span class="zw-portion">.  </span><span class="zw-portion"> </span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">Kerry’s willingness to turn a blind eye to the real culprit Hamas echoes the attitude of </span><span class="zw-portion">United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-m</span><span class="zw-portion">oon, who visited Gaza recently. </span><span class="zw-portion">During his visit, the Secretary General </span><span class="zw-portion">referred to Israel’s partial defensive blockade of Gaza as a “siege.” He said that lifting the “siege” and “easing movement restrictions” is “one of the most important issues… a basic human right for all the Palestinian people.”</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">“Siege” is defined in the Oxford Dictionaries as “a military operation in which enemy forces surround a town or building, cutting off essential supplies, with the aim of compelling the surrender of those inside.” Israel’s partial blockade of Gaza in response to relentless rocket attacks launched by Hamas and other jihadist groups from civilian centers in Gaza against civilian populations in Israel is anything but a siege. Israel withdrew from Gaza unilaterally in 2005 and turned over </span><span class="zw-portion">major </span><span class="zw-portion">security responsibilities at the border crossings to the Palestinian Autho</span><span class="zw-portion">ri</span><span class="zw-portion">ty</span><span class="zw-portion">. There was no blockade to speak of until Hamas seized power and turned Gaza into a launching pad for attacks against Israel. Even </span><span class="zw-portion">since </span><span class="zw-portion">then, Israel </span><span class="zw-portion">has </span><span class="zw-portion">permitted food and humanitarian aid to enter Gaza as well as construction materials for international projects</span><span class="zw-portion"> – the antithesis of a siege</span><span class="zw-portion">. </span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">I approached Secretary General Ban Ki-moon last week to ask him whether he would reconsider the use of the term “siege” in describing Israel’s partial blockade</span><span class="zw-portion">. He said he would think about</span><span class="zw-portion"> it.</span><span class="zw-portion"> </span><span class="zw-portion">In his remarks to the press the next day, Ban did not refer again to an Israeli “siege,” but he continued to castigate Israel for what transpired during the latest Gaza conflict with Hamas. Ban said that while he understood “the security threat from rockets above and tunnels below” that Israel was facing, Israel’s response and resulting “destruction in Gaza has left deep questions about proportionality.” </span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">Ban also castigated Israel for </span><span class="zw-portion">shelling UN schools in Gaza,</span><span class="zw-portion"> </span><span class="zw-portion">while </span><span class="zw-portion">refusing to acknowledge</span><span class="zw-portion"> Israel’s allegation that</span><span class="zw-portion"> the UN </span><span class="zw-portion">returned</span><span class="zw-portion"> rockets found in UN school</span><span class="zw-portion">s</span><span class="zw-portion"> to Hamas. </span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">Where the ant</span><span class="zw-portion">i</span><span class="zw-portion">-Israel bias of the Obama administration and the United Nations may converge is a UN Security Council resolution sought by Palestinian President Abbas and sponsored by Jordan</span><span class="zw-portion">,</span><span class="zw-portion"> </span><span class="zw-portion">which</span><span class="zw-portion"> would set a </span><span class="zw-portion">firm </span><span class="zw-portion">deadline </span><span class="zw-portion">for Israel </span><span class="zw-portion">to</span><span class="zw-portion"> withdraw from all Palestinian territories and end the “occupation.”</span><span class="zw-portion"> </span><span class="zw-portion">The precise wording</span><span class="zw-portion"> is currently being negotiated behind the scenes</span><span class="zw-portion">. </span><span class="zw-portion">C</span><span class="zw-portion">hief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat</span><span class="zw-portion"> has recommended that the Palestinian Authority end all security-related cooperation with Israel in the West Bank if the United States ends up vetoing the resolution. </span><span class="zw-portion">The Palestinians would also be likely to </span><span class="zw-portion">join more </span><span class="zw-portion">UN agencies and </span><span class="zw-portion">treaties</span><span class="zw-portion">,</span><span class="zw-portion"> </span><span class="zw-portion">as well as </span><span class="zw-portion">the International Criminal Court</span><span class="zw-portion"> where they would try to obtain prosecutions against Israeli leaders for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">If France and the United Kingdom dec</span><span class="zw-portion">ide to support some form of the timetable</span><span class="zw-portion"> resolution</span><span class="zw-portion"> for Israeli withdrawal</span><span class="zw-portion"> the Palestinians are seeking</span><span class="zw-portion">, the Obama administration – given its anti-Israel bias – may well decide </span><span class="zw-portion">ultimately </span><span class="zw-portion">to abstain</span><span class="zw-portion"> rather than exercise its veto power</span><span class="zw-portion">.</span><span class="zw-portion"> </span><span class="zw-portion">The UK parliament has already gone on record </span><span class="zw-portion">in a symbolic vote </span><span class="zw-portion">as supporting the recognition of a Palestinian state, following the Swedish government’s decision to </span><span class="zw-portion">actually </span><span class="zw-portion">do</span><span class="zw-portion"> just that</span><span class="zw-portion">. Other Eur</span><span class="zw-portion">opean Union countries may add themselves to the growing list of countries that are going along with this </span><span class="zw-portion">Palestinian state </span><span class="zw-portion">recognition </span><span class="zw-portion">trend</span><span class="zw-portion">, giving </span><span class="zw-portion">the Obama administration some political cover to abstain</span><span class="zw-portion"> on the timetable resolution</span><span class="zw-portion">. </span><span class="zw-portion">A </span><span class="zw-portion">vote </span><span class="zw-portion">on the resolution may be postponed </span><span class="zw-portion">until after the U.S. mid-term elections to give the Obama administration some</span><span class="zw-portion"> breathing room</span><span class="zw-portion">. </span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">In the meantime, </span><span class="zw-portion">John Kerry is reported to be scrambling to head off a Security Council resolution altogether by trying to put pressure on Israel to return to the negotiating table </span><span class="zw-portion">for direct talks with the Palestinians. He is meeting resistance from both sides. “</span><span class="zw-portion">We’re are not going back to negotiations unless there is some change in the rules to discuss the borders first,” said Fatah Central Committee member Dr. Nabil Shaath. “To continue to negotiate while the Israelis are eating up land is like suicide,” he said. </span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">Kerry’s remarks </span><span class="zw-portion">at the White House </span><span class="zw-portion">Eid al-Adha </span><span class="zw-portion">ceremony, raising </span><span class="zw-portion">concerns among unnamed Middle East leaders regarding the purported linkage of the failure of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and the rise of ISIS</span><span class="zw-portion">,</span><span class="zw-portion"> may be his Hail Mary pass</span><span class="zw-portion"> to</span><span class="zw-portion"> </span><span class="zw-portion">try and shame </span><span class="zw-portion">Israel </span><span class="zw-portion">publicly into returning t</span><span class="zw-portion">o the negotiating table and making</span><span class="zw-portion"> more concessions. That way, </span><span class="zw-portion">the Palestinians may decide to also resume direct negotiations and postpone seeking action on their </span><span class="zw-portion">proposed Security Council resolution</span><span class="zw-portion">, relieving</span><span class="zw-portion"> </span><span class="zw-portion">the Obama administration</span><span class="zw-portion"> of having to make a decision on which way to vote</span><span class="zw-portion">. If so, it is another counter-productive move by the Obama administration that will create even more distance with </span><span class="zw-portion">the one true democracy that has traditionally been our </span><span class="zw-portion">closest ally in the Middle East.</span></p>
<p>*</p>
<p><em>Don&#8217;t miss Frontpage Editor <strong>Jamie Glazov</strong> discuss the Left&#8217;s Jihad-Denial and how it leads to the Obama administration and the media blaming everyone and everything for Islamic terror except Islam: </em></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/QsDu8Os3PlA" width="460" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
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		<title>A Mandela Moment in Jerusalem</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dbedein/a-mandela-moment-in-jerusalem/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-mandela-moment-in-jerusalem</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 11 Dec 2013 05:05:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Bedein]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[conflict]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mandela]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Oslo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[palestinians]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=212800</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How the Palestinians dealt with the Mandela Institute's message of peace. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/jerusalem.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-212943" alt="jerusalem" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/jerusalem.jpg" width="330" height="247" /></a>The death of Nelson Mandela at 95 provided pundits of the world with the opportunity to ponder the legacy of the South African leader of the campaign against Apartheid.</p>
<p>Very few people on earth earn their legacy in their lifetime.</p>
<p>It would seem that almost as soon as Nelson Mandela emerged from prison and was catapulted into a post Apartheid South African presidency, there were those who adapted Mandela&#8217;s gospel of peace and reconciliation to resolve other wars in the world.</p>
<p>And so it was in Jerusalem.</p>
<p>In 1994, in the early stages of the Middle East Oslo negotiation process, optimism and wishful thinking dominated the Jerusalem landscape.</p>
<p>Delegations descended on a land torn with war, wanting to hear messages of peace.</p>
<p>The newly formed Mandela Institute, named for the legacy of Nelson Mandela, was one one of those delegations that held a press conference across from my office at the Beit Agron Press Center in Jerusalem.</p>
<p>These former anti-apartheid activists had arrived on a mission: to teach both sides of the Middle East conflict how to live and respect the other in a time of peace.</p>
<p>That was their message in South Africa, where they repeated their theme in Jerusalem, quoting Abe Lincoln in the last days of the American Civil War: “<em>With malice toward none, with charity for all.”</em></p>
<p>The Mandela Institute Jerusalem press conference was packed.</p>
<p>Civil liberties groups mixed with religious and non-religious Jews who came there to hear and cheer the upbeat message of the Mandela Institute. The Black and White spokespeople appealed to receptive ears of the Israeli audience to “see the humanity in the Arab who was your enemy” ever so recently.</p>
<p>The Mandela people made it clear that this was the process that they were going through in South Africa, to break down walls between Blacks and Whites, after Apartheid.</p>
<p>I am only sorry that I do not find my notes from almost 20 years ago, so I cannot recite the names of the articulate spokespeople who expressed themselves so eloquently.</p>
<p>In the final moment of the Jerusalem press conference, the Mandela convener announced that they were taking a bus to Ramallah, to deliver the same message of peace, reconciliation, and understanding to the other side.</p>
<p>The Mandela Institute delegation announced they would hold a follow up press conference, two days hence, when they would return from Ramallah.</p>
<p>However, the follow up press conference never happened.</p>
<p>The Mandela people did return to Jerusalem, however, but they were not too interested in talking to the press about what happened.</p>
<p>Later at the American Colony Hotel in East Jerusalem, they did not hesitate to say what had happened. PLO chieftain Yasser Arafat had made the arrangement for a modest town meeting for the Mandela Institute. But when the Mandela devotees made their appeal for peace, recognition and understanding of Israelis, they were booed and jeered, and when they tried to deliver that message in an Arab school, the students chanted in unison that “the war is not over: we want the right of return!!”</p>
<p>The Mandela Institute had hit a raw nerve. And, as one delegation member described the scene, the Arabs pushed them back on the bus, yelling at them never to come back.</p>
<p>Twenty years have passed. The tenacity of the Arabs who run the Palestinian Authority under the premise and promise of the right of return, convey their daily message that the war against Israel is not over…while the vast majority of Israelis still ascribe to some hope of  peace in the future, however unrealistic it is.</p>
<p>The sequel to the story is that the Mandela Institute reconstituted itself as a permanent fixture in Ramallah, as an agency concerned for Arab convicts who sit in Israeli jails. The Mandela Institute no longer preaches respect and reconciliation of the other.</p>
<p>So much for a fleeting Mandela moment in Jerusalem.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>.   </b></p>
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		<title>Lying About History Will Not Help the Cause for Peace</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/sammy-levine/lying-about-history-will-not-help-the-cause-for-peace/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=lying-about-history-will-not-help-the-cause-for-peace</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 22 Nov 2013 04:05:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Sammy Levine]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[conflict]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hamas]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[OneVoice]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=211291</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Responding to OneVoice's campus misinformation tour. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Y2M9MDAwMDAwJmg9MjI4JnNyYz1pbWFnZXMlMkZjaGFyaXR5JTJGb25ldm9pY2UuanBnJnc9NDUwJmhzPTY3MWE.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-211335" alt="Y2M9MDAwMDAwJmg9MjI4JnNyYz1pbWFnZXMlMkZjaGFyaXR5JTJGb25ldm9pY2UuanBnJnc9NDUwJmhzPTY3MWE" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Y2M9MDAwMDAwJmg9MjI4JnNyYz1pbWFnZXMlMkZjaGFyaXR5JTJGb25ldm9pY2UuanBnJnc9NDUwJmhzPTY3MWE.jpg" width="234" height="157" /></a>OneVoice is an organization in a long list of those that consider themselves impartial and committed to dialogue on both sides of the “Arab-Israeli conflict.” According to its website, “OneVoice is an international grassroots movement that amplifies the voice of mainstream Israelis and Palestinians, empowering them to propel their elected representatives toward the two state solution and an end to the conflict and occupation.” (Of course, the Palestinians have no elected representatives, as Mahmoud Abbas’ presidential term ended in 2009. Since being elected to power in Gaza in 2006, Hamas has also not held any elections).  Though well intentioned, OneVoice is an organization that makes peace harder to attain by not addressing the root causes of the Arab war against Israel. </span></b></p>
<p>OneVoice is now on a West Coast campus tour. Its programs are supposed to be balanced, consisting of three presenters; one Palestinian Arab who speaks about the Palestinian Arab perspective; one Israeli who speaks about the Israeli perspective; and one American who initiates the discussion and gives an overview of the “conflict.” However, in reality the program is far from balanced.</p>
<p>At San Jose State University, the Palestinian Arab gave a one-sided presentation about how the Palestinian Arabs are victims of Israeli occupation and oppression, as expected; the Israeli gave a somewhat even-handed talk, though omitted many significant details; and the American&#8211;who is supposed to be the unbiased one&#8211;gave an anti-Israel talk. Not exactly neutral.</p>
<p>Here are some highlights:</p>
<p>In her overview of the conflict, the first thing the American representative mentioned was the “military occupation in the West Bank for the last 47 years,” and how the Israelis keep building settlements which are confiscating Palestinian Arab land. Listening to her talk, one would think the “conflict” started in 1967, which, of course, is not true. She mentioned nothing about the massacres of Jews in Jerusalem and Hebron years before Israel even became a state in 1948. She did not mention that the Palestinian Arabs, after declining the United Nation’s plan for a two-state solution in 1947, joined the surrounding Arab countries in their attack of the nascent Jewish State, promising to push the Jews into the sea.</p>
<p>When discussing the second intifada, the American representative only mentioned that it means “uprising” in Arabic, and that it was comprised of “violence on both sides.” This is a gross mischaracterization of the second intifada, which in reality was a terrorist war against Israel, initiated by Yasser Arafat, and comprised of Palestinians blowing up innocent Israeli civilians, while Israel engaged in self-defense. She did not mention how the second Intifada was preceded by a generous offer of peace from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, including 95% of the West Bank with agreed upon land swaps, all of Gaza, and Eastern Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital. She also failed to mention that Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia called Yasser Arafat’s decline of this offer, “a crime against the Palestinians.”</p>
<p>Finally, in a breathtaking omission, the American spoke about the Israeli blockade of Gaza without ever offering the justification for the blockade, which includes Israel’s attempt to stem the outbreak of rockets being fired by Hamas.</p>
<p>The Israelis talk was more reality-based, but still did not mention any of the above points. He did speak about the Jewish refugees from Muslim lands after the 1948 war, as well as how Israel does not consider the Palestinian “right of return’’ a realistic demand. He did speak about the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 leading to rockets raining down on Israeli cities. However, when speaking about the 1947 U.N. partition plan, which would have created a Palestinian State, he omitted that the Palestinian Arabs refused, while Israel agreed. He simply states that the plan failed and led to war. And he only described the second intifada as a “reaction” to Israeli “occupation,” nothing else.</p>
<p>The words “Hamas” or “terrorism” were not mentioned by anyone, including the Israeli, until the question and answer period. This was unbelievable. Not mentioning Palestinian Arab terrorism when speaking about the “Arab-Israeli conflict” is like not mentioning the Nazis when speaking about World War II.</p>
<p>The event was not a total failure, as pro-Israel representatives were there, including myself, with the intent of injecting some reality into the conversation during the question and answer period. I asked why the presentation included such an extensive discussion of Israeli “occupation” and settlement activity as causes of the conflict, without mentioning anything about Palestinian Arab incitement to violence and glorification of terrorism. In answering my question, the American woman claimed that incitement to violence was negligible in Palestinian society and that incitement against Palestinians is also happening in Israel. This is a whitewashing of Palestinian hate, vitriol and incitement against Jews, of which there is no comparison in Israel. The Israeli answered that they are not here to place blame on anyone, but simply to find a solution. I could not disagree more with this view, as only by first, properly assessing blame, can we identify who is at fault, and who and what must change for there to be peace.</p>
<p>As a follow up, another pro-Israel representative spoke more about Palestinian incitement against Israel, and then asked if the Palestinian would condemn Hamas for its commitment to killing Jews in its charter. In an eye-opening instance of candor, the Palestinian representative said, “Hamas is a part of Palestinian society, a part of our national fabric&#8230;we don’t see Hamas as a problem anymore&#8230;Hamas is committed to the two state solution.”</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Islam: The Foundation of the Middle East Conflict</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/jerrold-l-sobel/islam-the-foundation-of-the-middle-east-conflict-2/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=islam-the-foundation-of-the-middle-east-conflict-2</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 12 Nov 2013 04:36:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jerrold L. Sobel]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Anti-Semitism]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Middle East]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=210224</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The one true impediment to peace in the Islamic world and beyond. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/fatah-islam-terror.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-210231" alt="fatah-islam-terror" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/fatah-islam-terror.jpg" width="266" height="204" /></a>As we approach the 4th month and 14th meeting between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA), the latest round of U.S. pressured negotiations seem hopelessly deadlocked.  What else is new?</p>
<p>Secretary of State Kerry arrived in Jerusalem this week to try and resuscitate the perpetually moribund peace talks between Israel and the PLO.  According to an article in the <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/PA-refutes-report-saying-Abbas-has-softened-his-stance-on-peace-talks-330089"><i>Jerusalem Post</i></a>, Israeli officials claim both sides are cognizant a gap between them is so great that only an interim deal can be made in the 9-month time frame mandated by the Obama Administration.</p>
<p>Not wasting a moment, PLO secretary general, Yasser Abed Rabbo, immediately quashed the report and rejected it out of hand, stating it was “baseless.”&#8230;.“The Palestinian leadership rejects any interim agreements&#8230;. We also reject the idea of establishing a Palestinian state with temporary borders.” As if not emphatic enough, he went on to describe the Israeli position as:  “the worst in 20 years.”</p>
<p>PA Foreign Minister Riad Malki concurred, reaffirming as non-negotiable the demand for a two-state solution based upon the pre-1967 lines “where Palestine and Israel would live next to each other in security and peace.”  Wouldn’t that be nice?</p>
<p>In accordance, PLO Executive Committee member Wasel Abu Yusef  further dispelled the aura of secret negotiations by stating, if they didn’t get their way, “The Palestinians won’t be able to continue with them.  All indications show that the talks are headed toward failure.”  For reasons other than his, I couldn’t agree with him more.</p>
<p>Lost in all the hyperbole of deceptive surface issues such as “settlements,” Jerusalem, the right of return, pre-67 borders, and the creation of a Palestinian state itself, is a failure to recognize these issues are outward symptoms of the struggle, not its essence.  The foundation, the least common denominator of this enmity is the expansionist nature of Islam, a political movement ensconced in a religion.</p>
<p>More than any other reason, these innumerable talks have been nothing but a game of ring around the rosy and Jew hatred, codified within the Qur’an and Hadith, the foundational scriptures of Islam.  To the faithful, the mere existence of a sovereign Jewish state in their midst is a violation of <a href="http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/daralislam.html">dar-al-Islam</a> (all those lands in which a Muslim sets foot in becomes the possession of Islam.  Non-Muslims may live there but only upon Muslim sufferance).  This is the substantive point of departure of Arab bellicosity long before 1948 and to this very day is the one underlying issue which renders all others moot.</p>
<p>From the past to the present, from Mohammad, to the Caliphate dynasties, onward to today’s terrorists wreaking havoc upon the world.  Expansive Islam is driven by the venerated Qur’an, one-third of which is devoted to the denigration of Jews.  The quotes in the Hadith (the putative sayings of Muhammad or a report about something he did) are no less replete with Jewish invective.  These laws divide the world theologically into those who who accept Islam as a divine religion and those that do not.</p>
<p>Those who do not are called dhimmis (conquered people that do not convert to Islam but are protected as long as they pay an exorbitant poll tax, the <a href="http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Quran/004-jizya.htm">jizya</a>).  They are forced to accept a recognizable and humiliating second class existence under strict Islamic suzerainty.  This has been the fate of all native populations vanquished by Muslim hordes throughout history and would surely be that of Jews in Israel today if they absurdly succumb to the pressures of a land for peace pipe dream where recalcitrant terrorist groups over a period of time would certainly finish off whatever was left of Israel.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, hitherto, the West either fails to recognize or doesn’t have the moxie to confront the self-evident theological nature of the Middle East dispute, finding it much easier to admonish Israel for not acquiescing to the preposterous demands made upon her.  To those dismissive of this analysis, deeming it Islamophobic, I encourage you not to kill the messenger. Instead google an <a href="http://www.alislam.org/quran/search2/quranSearch.php?swaootw=jews&amp;st=regular&amp;frm=0&amp;swotw=&amp;oicn=&amp;csen=N&amp;mww=N&amp;swep=N&amp;swaotw=&amp;rpp=10&amp;search=Search&amp;slang=EN">English translation of the Qur’an</a>, type in “Jews” or “children of Israel,” do some objective scholarship, and make your own judgment as to whether this clash is fueled by temporal dictates or by theological, systemic, Jew hatred.</p>
<p>In his own words, Israel’s “partner for peace,” Mahmoud Abbas in a <a href="http://www.wnd.com/2007/01/39656/">2007 speech</a> commemorating the the 42nd anniversary of the founding of his Fatah party quoted directly from <a href="http://quran.com/5/64">Sura 5:64</a> of the Qur’an:</p>
<p>“And the Jews say, the hand of Allah is chained. Chained are their hands, and cursed are they for what they say. &#8230;.We have cast among them animosity and hatred until the Day of Resurrection. Every time they kindled the fire of war [against you], Allah extinguished it. And they strive throughout the land [causing] corruption, and Allah does not like corrupters.”</p>
<p>He went on to say: “We should put our internal fighting aside and raise our rifles only against the <a href="http://www.wnd.com/2007/01/39656/">Israeli occupation</a>.”  Yet with a straight face and the spontaneity of a chameleon he adeptly can look the gullible right in the eye as he did in 2010 at a White House meeting in which he proclaimed to President Obama:  “I say in front of you, Mr. President, that we have nothing to do with <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/faces-mahmoud-abbas-palestinians-obama-article-1.464223">incitement against Israel</a>, and we&#8217;re not doing that.”  Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Human Rights and co-chairman of the Bi-Partisan Coalition for Combating Anti-Semitism, would beg to differ.</p>
<p>Following a meeting on Capital Hill on January 26, 2012, he and others stated that Palestinian text books at grade levels 1-12 are replete with lessons of intolerance and <a href="http://cnsnews.com/news/article/un-textbooks-palestinian-children-explosively-anti-semitic-anti-american-and-anti">hatred toward Jews</a> and Israel.</p>
<p>As if more evidence of his ill intentions are needed, Abbas, the “moderate”at a meeting in Cairo this past July 29th reiterated:  “In a final resolution, we would not see the presence of <a href="http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/abbas-palestinian-state-will-be-judenrein/2013/07/30/">a single Israeli</a>, civilian or soldier on our lands.” “Final resolution.” How fitting he would use that term.  With his demand for a (<i>Judenrein</i>) Jew-free country, this revered Palestinian statesman joins the majority of Arab nations, including Saudi Arabia, where Jews, especially those from Israel are not permitted to set foot.</p>
<p>If this were a secular affray over matters such as those mentioned earlier or any other non-religious contention it could have been settled years ago.  But except to the willfully blind, the overwhelming evidence validates theocratic Jewish hatred as its underpinning.  If not for its religious nature why would the entire Islamic world be so vehement in not recognizing Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people?</p>
<p>In response to my essays and presentations, I’m often asked my opinion on how this struggle might ultimately be resolved.  The options I present are often unacceptable to some and impracticable to others.</p>
<p>One thing for certain, based upon the aforementioned it won&#8217;t get done by the historically defunct “land for peace” paradigm.  If that were possible it would have been accomplished at <a href="http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/000555.html">Camp David</a> in 2000 when Arafat turned down 97% of Judea/Samaria (West Bank), all of Gaza, a capital in Jerusalem, a right of return, and a $30 billion compensation fund for refugees.</p>
<p>It was also spurned 5 years later by the Palestinians following Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza resultant in two subsequent wars and terrorism unabated till this very day.</p>
<p>Once again it was spurned in 2006 when then Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert offered Abbas joint sovereignty of Jerusalem and a partial return of refugees.  None of these gestures of peace, including Israel’s abandonment of Southern Lebanon, were met with reciprocation.   History and current events bare witness, conflicts exist wherever predominant Muslim states adjoin non-Islamic entities and this certainly is no different.  So what are the options? Few and none appealing:</p>
<p>All out war; acquiescence; the eventual dismemberment of the Jewish character of Israel; the status quo; an Islamic Reformation.</p>
<p>The one that could end the Israeli/Palestinian crisis and 90% of the conflicts around the world will most likely never happen, an Islamic Reformation.  Such a movement would entail a renouncement of the political, imperialist dogma which up to this point has characterized Islam from the outset.  It would also necessitate purging the hectoring and codified hatred of Jews and others so abundant within Islamic scriptures.  In addition, Muslims would have to renounce the messianic, forced proselytization and conversion of the <i>Kafir (“</i>infidels” not wishing to convert to Islam).  Anything short of this guarantees conflict not only between Israel and the Palestinians but between Islam and nations and individuals throughout the world that wish to maintain their own customs and way of life.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Obama to Israel: Suicide Is Security</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/davidhornik/obama-to-israel-suicide-is-security/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama-to-israel-suicide-is-security</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 27 Sep 2013 04:55:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[P. David Hornik]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[Israel's future is dependent on the creation of a Palestinian terror state? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/obama-downturn-economy-28NOV2012-620x413.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-205494" alt="obama-downturn-economy-28NOV2012-620x413" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/obama-downturn-economy-28NOV2012-620x413-450x335.jpg" width="270" height="201" /></a>“Friends of Israel, including the United States,” President Obama said in his <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/09/24/remarks-president-obama-address-united-nations-general-assembly">speech to the UN on Tuesday</a>, “must recognize that Israel’s security as a Jewish and democratic state depends upon the realization of a Palestinian state….”</span></b></p>
<p>Particularly because of its timing, the statement left most Israelis rubbing their eyes.</p>
<p>Transportation Minister Israel Katz of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Right-blasts-Obama-for-pushing-Palestinian-issue-327022">called</a> Obama’s words “one of the worst statements by an American president in history. Israel’s existence does not depend on anything, especially not the Palestinians….”</p>
<p>Imagine carving out about one-fourth of the U.S. and making it a separate country bordering Washington and a few miles from New York. This country is populated by people who systematically teach their children that the United States has no right to exist and must be destroyed, and name schools, public squares, and summer camps after terrorists who have inflicted mass-casualty attacks on the U.S.</p>
<p>No one in his right mind would call that a way to ensure America’s security.</p>
<p>There are, though, more specific reasons to marvel at (while not being surprised by) Obama’s words.</p>
<p>Over the past week, two Israeli soldiers have been murdered by Palestinian terror. On Friday 20-year-old Tomer Hazan was <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-soldier-kidnapped-killed-near-qalqilya/">killed by a Palestinian coworker</a> who lured him to his village near Qalqilya in the West Bank. On Sunday 20-year-old Gavriel Kovi was <a href="http://www.jpost.com/National-News/IDF-soldier-dies-after-Hebron-shooting-326792">killed by a Palestinian sniper</a> while guarding civilians in the West Bank town of Hebron.</p>
<p>In the case of Tomer Hazan’s murder, the coworker, Nidal Amar, tried to hide his body in a bid to use it as ransom for Amar’s brother, jailed in Israel on terror charges. Amar was quickly apprehended.</p>
<p>In the case of Gavriel Kovi’s murder, the killer has not yet been found.</p>
<p>No condemnation of these acts was forthcoming from any Palestinian Authority official, including President Mahmoud Abbas—this at a time when Israel is engaged in yet another round of “peace talks” with the PA that Secretary of State John Kerry heavily pressured both sides to launch.</p>
<p>Finally on Monday night, when pressed to do so in a meeting with Jewish leaders in New York, Abbas <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/abbas-in-nyc-condemns-soldiers-killings/">“condemned” the killings</a>—while adding that he “expected Israel to condemn the deaths of four young Palestinians at the hands of the IDF in recent weeks.”</p>
<p><i>The Times of Israel</i> notes that</p>
<blockquote><p><i>It was not clear to what Abbas was referring, but on Sept. 17, Israeli forces, believing their lives to be in danger, killed one man and wounded at least one during a raid on a refugee camp near Jerusalem to arrest a fugitive, the IDF said.</i></p></blockquote>
<p>That is, a “condemnation” that equated outright acts of murder with acts of self-defense by security forces, that was made only in English to a small audience in New York, and that is not really a condemnation at all.</p>
<p>But it is not only that such phenomena—murders of Israelis and wall-to-wall Palestinian refusal to condemn them—are occurring during “peace talks.” Khaled Abut Toameh <a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3989/new-intifada">reports</a> that—as many feared would happen—the talks are <i>fomenting</i> violence rather than allaying it, and the attitude toward the murders goes well beyond passivity:</p>
<blockquote><p><i>A connection seems to exist between the resumption of the peace talks…and the recent upsurge in violence in the West Bank, which reached its peak with the killing of two Israeli soldiers this week….</i></p>
<p><i>Earlier this week, representatives of several Palestinian groups met in Ramallah and launched a public campaign to stop the negotiations and wage an intifada against Israel.</i></p>
<p><i>That the meeting was held a few hundred meters away from Abbas’s headquarters is significant. It shows that opposition to the peace talks is not only coming from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, but also from the largely secular and relatively moderate city of Ramallah….</i></p>
<p><i>Fatah’s armed wing, Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, rushed to claim responsibility for the killing of the two IDF soldiers in Qalqilya and Hebron.</i></p>
<p><i>After the killing of the soldier in Hebron by a sniper, Fatah published a photo of one of its sharpshooters with the caption, “When Fatah says, it does. When Fatah promises, it fulfills.”</i></p></blockquote>
<p>That’s Fatah, essentially the government of the West Bank, the movement Abbas has belonged to for half a century and now leads, and Israel’s “peace partner.”</p>
<p>For all these reasons Obama’s statement that Israel’s security “depends upon” creating a Palestinian state goes beyond the usual boilerplate and carried a special sting.</p>
<p>Outlining his broader vision, Obama said:</p>
<blockquote><p><i>In the near term, America’s diplomatic efforts will focus on two particular issues: Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, and the Arab-Israeli conflict.  While these issues are not the cause of all the region’s problems, they have been a major source of instability for far too long, and resolving them can help serve as a foundation for a broader peace.</i></p></blockquote>
<p>Again, beyond boilerplate, implicitly equating the imminent attainment of an industrial-scale nuclear-weapons capacity by a murderous anti-Western regime with the fact that 1.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank do not have—unlike in Gaza—a full-fledged sovereign state that would, undoubtedly, be another great gift to Israel and humanity.</p>
<p>Netanyahu will be meeting with Obama on Monday before addressing the UN on Tuesday. One can conjecture that—unless the security situation worsens—Netanyahu will keep playing along with the Palestinian charade while trying to get Obama focused and realistic on Iran.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>The Muslim Brotherhood&#8217;s Useful Idiots</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/caroline-glick/the-muslim-brotherhoods-useful-idiots/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-muslim-brotherhoods-useful-idiots</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 25 Jun 2012 04:58:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Caroline Glick]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Will the troubled military regime of Egypt begin antagonizing Israel in order to curry favor with the public? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Egypt-Muslim-Brotherhood-008.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-135658" title="Egypt-Muslim-Brotherhood--008" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Egypt-Muslim-Brotherhood-008.gif" alt="" width="375" height="252" /></a><strong>Originally <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=274761">published</a> in The Jerusalem Post. </strong></em></p>
<p>You have to hand it to the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood. They know how to play power politics. They know how to acquire power. And they know how to use power.</p>
<p>Last Friday, the day before voters by most accounts elected the Brotherhood&#8217;s candidate Mohamed Morsy to serve as Egypt&#8217;s next president, <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303410404577466704119819824.html"><em>The Wall Street Journal </em></a>published a riveting account by Charles Levinson and Matt Bradley of how the Brotherhood outmaneuvered the secular revolutionaries to take control of the country&#8217;s political space.</p>
<p>The Brotherhood kept a very low profile in the mass demonstrations in Tahrir Square in January and February 2011 that led to the overthrow of then-president Hosni Mubarak. The Brotherhood&#8217;s absence from Tahrir Square at that time is what enabled Westerners to fall in love with the Egyptian revolution.</p>
<p>Those demonstrations led to the impression, widespread in the US, that Mubarak&#8217;s successors would be secular Facebook democrats. The role that Google&#8217;s young Egyptian executive Wael Gonim played in organizing the demonstrations was reported expansively. His participation in the anti-regime protests &#8211; as well as his brief incarceration &#8211; was seen as proof that the next Egyptian regime would be indistinguishable from Generation X and Y Americans and Europeans.</p>
<p>In their report, Levinson and Bradley showed how the Brotherhood used the secularists to overthrow the regime, and to provide them with a fig leaf of moderation through March 2011, when the public voted on the sequencing of Egypt&#8217;s post-Mubarak transformation from a military dictatorship into a populist regime. The overwhelming majority of the public voted to first hold parliamentary elections and to empower the newly elected parliament to select members of the constitutional assembly that would write Egypt&#8217;s new constitution.</p>
<p>As Egypt&#8217;s largest social force, the Brotherhood knew it would win the majority of the seats in the new parliament. The March 2011 vote ensured its control over writing the new Egyptian constitution.</p>
<p>In July 2011, the Brotherhood decided to celebrate its domination of the new Egypt with a mass rally at Tahrir Square. Levinson and Bradley explained how in the lead-up to that event Egypt&#8217;s secular revolutionaries were completely outmaneuvered.</p>
<p>According to their account, the Brotherhood decided to call the demonstration &#8220;Shari&#8217;a Friday.&#8221; Failing to understand that the game was over, the secularists tried to regain what they thought was the unity of the anti-regime ranks from earlier in the year.</p>
<p>&#8220;Islamists and revolutionary leaders spent three days negotiating principles they could all support at the coming Friday demonstration in Cairo&#8217;s Tahrir Square. They reached an agreement and the revolution seemed back on track.&#8221;</p>
<p>One secularist leader, Rabab el-Mahdi, referred to the agreement as &#8220;The perfect moment. A huge achievement.&#8221;</p>
<p>But then came the double cross.</p>
<p>&#8220;Hours before the demonstration, hard-line Salafi Islamists began adorning the square with black-and-white flags of jihad and banners calling for the implementation of Islamic law. Ms. Mahdi made frantic calls to Brotherhood leaders, who told her there was little they could do.&#8221;</p>
<p>Checkmate.</p>
<p>THE DIFFERENCE between the Brotherhood and the secularists is a fundamental one. The Brotherhood has always had a vision of the Egypt it wants to create. It has always used all the tools at its disposal to advance the goal of creating an Islamic state in Egypt.</p>
<p>For their part, the secularists have no ideological unity and so share no common vision of a future Egypt. They just oppose the repression of the military. Opposing repression is not a political program. It is a political act. It can destroy. It cannot rule.</p>
<p>So when the question arose of how to transform the protests that caused the US to abandon Mubarak and sealed the fate of his regime into a new regime, the secularists had no answer. All they could do was keep protesting military repression.</p>
<p>The Brotherhood has been the most popular force in Egypt for decades. Its leaders recognized that to take over the country, all they needed was the power to participate in the elections and the authority to ensure that the election results mattered &#8211; that is, control over writing the constitution. And so, once the secularists fomented Mubarak&#8217;s overthrow, their goal was to ensure their ability to participate in the elections and to ensure that the parliament would control the constitution-writing process.</p>
<p>To achieve these goals, they were equally willing to collaborate with the secularists against the military and with the military against the secularists. To achieve their goals they were willing &#8211; as they did before Shari&#8217;a Friday last July &#8211; to negotiate in bad faith.</p>
<p>While instructive, the Journal&#8217;s article fell short because the reporters failed to recognize that the Brotherhood outmaneuvered the military junta in the same way that it outmaneuvered the secularists. The article starts with the premise that the military&#8217;s decision to stage an effective coup d&#8217;etat last week spelled an end to the Egyptian revolution and the country&#8217;s reversion to the military dictatorship that has ruled the state since the 1950s.</p>
<p>Levinson and Bradley claim, &#8220;Following the rulings by the high court this week [which canceled the results of the parliamentary elections and ensured continued military control over the country regardless of the results of the presidential elections], the Brotherhood&#8217;s strategy of cooperation with the military seems failed.&#8221;</p>
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		<title>If Jordan Falls</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/joseph-puder/if-jordan-falls/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=if-jordan-falls</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 16 Apr 2012 04:10:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Puder]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[The key to peaceful relations in the Middle East?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/jordan.jpeg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-128898" title="jordan" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/jordan.jpeg" alt="" width="384" height="256" /></a>The “Arab Spring” revolutions seem to have bypassed the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan – at least for the time being. But for King Abdullah II of Jordan the long-term survival of his throne and that of the Hashemite monarchy is becoming more questionable.  Jordan, a British creation, has never been an organic state but rather, is a concoction of Bedouin tribes and Palestinians, who by some estimates, comprise <a title="http://www.jcpa.org/dje/articles3/fs4.htm" href="http://www.jcpa.org/dje/articles3/fs4.htm" target="_blank">70%</a> of the population.  It is therefore logical to assume that it may be just a matter of time before Jordan becomes a Palestinian State.</p>
<p>At this juncture in world history, it is imperative that the U.S. and its Western allies begin to examine the possibility of a Palestinian State with its capital being Amman. “Jordan is Palestine,” is not merely a slogan but rather the only realistic solution to the Arab (Palestinian)-Israeli conflict.  Unlike the West Bank and Gaza, which are simply too small to contain a Palestinian population reputed to be nearly<a title="http://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-facebook/geos/g2.html" href="http://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-facebook/geos/g2.html" target="_blank"> 4.3</a> million. Jordan’s <a title="http://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-facebook/geos/g2.html" href="http://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-facebook/geos/g2.html" target="_blank">89,342</a> square kilometers, more than four times the size of Israel’s <a title="http://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-facebook/geos/g2.html" href="http://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-facebook/geos/g2.html" target="_blank">20,770</a> square kilometers, would afford the Palestinians more than sufficient space and, some natural resources.</p>
<p>The Jordan River is and should be the natural border between the Palestinians and Israel – one that would provide security for Israel and allow the Palestinians to militarize.  A militarized Palestinian State in the West Bank and Gaza, which is inevitable, would constitute a serious threat to Israel. Moreover, a Palestinian State in the West Bank and Gaza would naturally attract irredentist elements amongst the Arabs in Israel’s Galilee that would further complicate the prospects of peace and security for Israel.</p>
<p>The two-state solution in the territory west of the Jordan River is a prescription for perpetual conflict between Arab-Palestinians and Jews.  The close proximity of the Samaritan hills &#8211; which the Palestinians will claim &#8211; to Israel’s population centers and the Ben-Gurion International Airport, poses an existential threat to the Jewish State. Rather than have two people fighting over one small parcel of land, Arab-Palestinians and Jews would be able to share the historic land mass of Palestine the way it was before the British cut off its eastern portion in 1922 &#8211; east of the Jordan River &#8211; to establish the Emirate of Trans-Jordan, later to be known as the Hashemite Kingdom.  Poetic justice and fairness would place Eastern Palestine, now called Jordan, in Palestinian hands, and Israel would retain Western Palestine.  Arab residents of the Palestinian cities in the West Bank and Gaza will be part of the Palestinian State, and the Jordan River will separate the two states.</p>
<p>Dr. Larbi Sadiki, a senior lecturer on Middle East Politics at the University of Exeter wrote in Al-Jazeera (February 25, 2012) “What is most striking about Jordan’s durable pro-reform <a title="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/02/2012217141945258425.html" href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/02/2012217141945258425.html" target="_blank">rioting</a>, however, is its polyphony.  Amid such noise, disunited tribes, Islamists, students, retired army officers, and former establishment figures are united in their cry for greater freedom and reform of the decaying monarchy.  Jordan’s ‘Arab Spring’ remains a long way away, but the protest current that has taken root refuses to fade away until the king and queen do more than sell hope, image, and rhetoric.”</p>
<p>The defining element of dissent in Jordan is the growing dissatisfaction by the Bedouin tribes &#8212; long the bedrock of support of the royal regime, who are now in support of reform.  The decentralized nature of the anti-government protest makes dissatisfaction difficult to contain; the esteem of the royal couple once considered as sacrosanct as that of the late King Hussein’s, is diminishing.  There are republican sentiments expressed openly, and former establishment figures have taken an anti-establishment posture, demanding liberalization and an end to corruption.</p>
<p>The restive Palestinians in Jordan, cognizant of the Arab Spring and its impact in Egypt, Tunisia, and possibly Syria, where dictatorial and corrupt rulers have been overthrown by the people, are seeking a more open and fair society, and a democracy.  The Palestinians, more so than the Bedouin tribesmen, are alienated from King Abdullah, whose mother was British.  They have little loyalty towards the monarchy, especially for their Westernized king.</p>
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		<title>Robert Spencer vs. Mustafa Akyol</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/frontpagemag-com/robert-spencer-vs-mustafa-okyol/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=robert-spencer-vs-mustafa-okyol</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/frontpagemag-com/robert-spencer-vs-mustafa-okyol/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 10 Jun 2010 04:02:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frontpagemag.com]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=62540</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Can a Muslim who endorses the Jihad Flotilla be defined as a "liberal" Muslim? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/debate.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62546" title="debate" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/debate.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="295" /></a></p>
<p><em>[Editor&#8217;s note: In our June 3rd issue of Frontpagemag.com, we ran a piece by Robert Spencer: <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2010/06/03/another-moderate-muslim-joins-the-jihad-mustafa-akyol/">Another Moderate Muslim Joins the Jihad: Mustafa Akyol</a>.  Below is a rejoinder by Mustafa Akyol, followed by a response from Spencer.] </em></p>
<p><strong>I Support Justice, Not Jihad</strong><br />
By Mustafa Akyol</p>
<p>Recently Robert Spencer <a href="../2010/06/03/another-moderate-muslim-joins-the-jihad-mustafa-akyol/">argued</a> on Frontpage that I, once a “moderate Muslim,” have joined the jihad against “infidels” and especially the state of Israel.</p>
<p>Well, not really. If I ever join an armed struggle one day, I will tell you. What I actually did was to <a href="http://www.thewhitepath.com/archives/2010/06/who_the_hell_does_israel_think_she_is.php">condemn</a> a particular action of the Israeli government: their bloody raid on the Free Gaza flotilla, an international group of NGOs that tried to bring in humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, defying Israel’s blockade.</p>
<p>The incident has become a global issue, as nine Turkish activists on the flotilla were killed by Israeli commandos. The two sides, as you can expect, have their own versions of the events. Mr. Spencer seems to accept and defend the Israeli narrative, and that is just fine. I, for my part, don’t accept the Israeli narrative, and hope that a “credible, independent international investigation,” as a recent New York Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/05/opinion/05sat2.html">editorial</a> suggested, will show us what really happened.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, I don’t think that the fact that some of the activists on board were “Hamas sympathizers” justifies Israel’s attack. In Turkey we have a few million “PKK sympathizers,” and although I regard the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) as a terrorist organization, I don’t regard those people as terrorists and thus legitimate targets. I understand that they just see the world quite differently.</p>
<p>I also don’t accept that Israel has a right to put a blockade on the Gaza Strip — a collective punishment on 1.5 million people — for the terrorist actions of the radicals in that destitute part of the world. I actually think that the radicalism on the Palestinian side is only exacerbated by such brutal and humiliating policies of Israel, which include the occupation of Palestinian lands since 1967 and the building of illegal settlements on them. The latter recently infuriated even Joe Biden, who does not shy away from describing himself as “a Zionist.”</p>
<p>I, on the other hand, am not a Zionist, but I certainly accept Israel’s right to exist, in its internationally acknowledged pre-1967 borders. I also strongly support a two-state solution which will, hopefully, give peace and security to both the Jewish and the Palestinian peoples.</p>
<p>The bottom line, I guess, is that I am not “pro-Israel,” as I believe Mr. Spencer is. I am rather trying to be pro-justice, and equally respect the rights of the both sides of the Middle Eastern conflict.</p>
<p>As for being a “moderate Muslim,” I never recall calling myself as such. The only political-sounding term I prefer to use is “liberal,” in the classical sense of the word. In other words, I do define myself as a “liberal Muslim,” for I uphold individual liberty, and criticize some elements within the Islamic tradition that contradict this value — things such as the ban on apostasy, the bans on “sinful” things, or the enforcement of certain religious practices.</p>
<p>I probably am “moderate,” too, for I always prefer dialogue to confrontation and diplomacy to armed conflict. But if being a “moderate Muslim” means being uncritical of Israel, or any other government, in order to enjoy flattery by them and their supporters, then let me kindly return the badge.</p>
<p><strong><em>Spencer responds:</em></strong></p>
<p>Mustafa Akyol, oddly enough, seems in his note to equate &#8220;jihad&#8221; with &#8220;armed struggle,&#8221; and to ignore the jihad of the tongue, the jihad of the hand, the jihad of the heart, and the jihad against the lower self, all of which are abundantly represented in Islamic tradition. But for the record, I do not believe and did not intend to imply that Mustafa Akyol was going to blow himself up in a crowded restaurant in Tel Aviv, or hide explosives in his underwear and attempt to set them off on an airplane, or drive a bomb-rigged car into Times Square, or shoot soldiers on a U.S. Army base. I do not believe that he is ever going to take up arms in order to further the hegemony of Islamic law over the world &#8212; but that doesn&#8217;t mean that in endorsing the Jihad Flotilla, and accepting the Islamic supremacist Turkish government&#8217;s fantastic version of events, that he is not siding with the jihad against Israel, and hence with the larger global jihad of which the jihad against Israel is just one of many fronts, albeit the foremost.</p>
<p>For the dispute between Israel and the Palestinians is indeed a jihad &#8212; if it weren&#8217;t, Mr. Akyol would have had his two-state solution in 1948, when the Arabs rejected a Palestinian state and went to war with Israel instead, motivated by the jihadist intransigence that demands all the land of Israel as an Islamic waqf. That line of thinking is also why the Camp David Accords, the Oslo Accords, the Road Map, and all other attempts to &#8220;solve&#8221; the Israeli/Palestinian conflict have failed, and why all future such initiatives will fail unless they involve the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state and its incorporation into an Islamic Sharia state. That is the stated goal of the Hamas movement that runs the Gaza strip that was to be the recipient of this &#8220;humanitarian aid.&#8221;</p>
<p>The &#8220;radicals,&#8221; as Mr. Akyol calls Hamas and its ideological kin, are supported by the overwhelming majority of Gazans, who voted them into power by a large margin. The society they envision is not in any sense &#8220;pro-justice&#8221; except in the eyes of Sharia supporters and sympathizers, and given that Mr. Akyol acknowledges that &#8220;some of the activists on board were &#8216;Hamas sympathizers,&#8217;&#8221; it reflects poorly on the moral sense of the other &#8220;activists&#8221; that they made the trip at all in the company of such people.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Mr. Akyol conveniently ignores the fact that what he characterizes as the &#8220;Israeli narrative,&#8221; to which he generously grants me permission to subscribe, is abundantly established by video footage showing that the &#8220;activists&#8221; attacked the Israeli soldiers first, and by the photographs showing that the weapons they used were anything but the harmless &#8220;kitchen utensils&#8221; he earlier characterized them as being. But it has already been abundantly established that the world will not accept Israeli evidence no matter how compelling, while swallowing Palestinian propaganda (which they are very skillful in packaging for the mainstream media) with eager credulity.</p>
<p>So I do not, by any means, expect Mr. Akyol to break ranks with the dominant mainstream, the overall objectives of which he accepts anyway. I do wonder, however, what would happen to this self-professed &#8220;liberal Muslim&#8221; if he himself were to visit Gaza and proclaim publicly his opposition to the Islamic death penalty for apostasy. He might in that event not find too many of the oppressed, starving, but inexplicably obese (indeed, one of the most obese populations in the world) people of Gaza not quite as &#8220;pro-justice&#8221; as he might have hoped.</p>
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		<title>Confronting Europe&#8217;s War on the Jews</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/pilar-rahola/confronting-europes-war-on-the-jews/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=confronting-europes-war-on-the-jews</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 09 Jun 2010 04:02:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Pilar Rahola]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=62463</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[As a person from the Left, I must challenge its grotesque position on Israel.
]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/here.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62468" title="here" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/here.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="406" /></a></p>
<p><em>[Editor&#8217;s note: This article was translated from Spanish into English by Mario from the website <a href="http://portalofideas.blogspot.com/">Portal of Ideas</a>.]</em></p>
<p>Why don’t we see demonstrations in London, Paris and Barcelona against Islamic dictatorships? Or demonstrations against the Burmese dictatorship?</p>
<p>Why aren’t there demonstrations against the enslavement of millions of women who live without any legal protection?</p>
<p>Why aren’t there demonstrations against the use of children as human bombs where there is conflict with Islam?</p>
<p>Why has there been no leadership in support of the victims of the Islamic dictatorship in Sudan?</p>
<p>Why is there never any outrage against the acts of terrorism committed against Israel?</p>
<p>Why is there no outcry by the European Left against Islamic fanaticism? Why doesn’t it defend Israel’s right to exist?</p>
<p>Why confuse support of the Palestinian cause with the defense of Palestinian terrorism?</p>
<p>Finally, the million dollar question: Why is the Left in Europe and around the world obsessed with the two most solid democracies, the United States and Israel, and not with the worst dictatorships on the planet? The two most solid democracies, who have suffered the bloodiest attacks of terrorism, and the Left doesn’t care.</p>
<p>And then, to the concept of freedom. In every pro-Palestinian European forum I hear the Left yelling with fervor: “We want freedom for the people!” Not true. They are never concerned with freedom for the people of Syria or Yemen or Iran or Sudan, or other such nations. And they are never preoccupied when Hamas destroys freedom for the Palestinians. They are only concerned with using the concept of Palestinian freedom as a weapon against Israeli freedom. The resulting consequence of these ideological pathologies is the manipulation of the press.</p>
<p>The international press does major damage when reporting on the question of the Israeli-Palestinian issue. On this topic they don’t inform, they propagandize. When reporting about Israel, the majority of journalists forget the reporter code of ethics. And so, any Israeli act of self-defense becomes a massacre, and any confrontation, genocide. So many stupid things have been written about Israel, that there aren’t any accusations left to level against her. At the same time, this press never discusses Syrian and Iranian interference in propagating violence against Israel; the indoctrination of children and the corruption of the Palestinians. And when reporting about victims, every Palestinian casualty is reported as tragedy and every Israeli victim is camouflaged, hidden or reported about with disdain.</p>
<p>And let me add on the topic of the Spanish Left. Many are the examples that illustrate the anti-Americanism and anti-Israeli sentiments that define the Spanish left. For example, one of the leftist parties in Spain has just expelled one of its members for creating a pro-Israel website. I quote from the expulsion document: “Our friends are the people of Iran, Libya and Venezuela, oppressed by imperialism, and not a Nazi state like Israel.”</p>
<p>In another example, the socialist mayor of Campozuelos changed Shoah Day, commemorating the victims of the Holocaust, with Palestinian Nabka Day, which mourns the establishment of the State of Israel, thus showing contempt for the six million European Jews murdered in the Holocaust. Or in my native city of Barcelona, the city council decided to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the creation of the State of Israel, by having a week of solidarity with the Palestinian people. Thus, they invited Leila Khaled, a noted terrorist from the 70’s and current leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a terrorist organization so described by the European Union, which promotes the use of bombs against Israel. And so on and so on.</p>
<p>This politically correct way of thinking has even polluted the speeches of president Zapatero. His foreign policy falls within the lunatic Left, and on issues of the Middle East, he is unequivocally pro-Arab. I can assure you that in private, Zapatero places on Israel the blame for the conflict in the Middle East, and the policies of foreign minister Moratinos reflect this. The fact that Zapatero chose to wear a kafiah in the midst of the Lebanon conflict is no coincidence; it’s a symbol.</p>
<p>Spain has suffered the worst terrorist attack in Europe and it is in the crosshairs of every Islamic terrorist organization. As I wrote before, they kill us will cell phones hooked to satellites connected to the Middle Ages. And yet the Spanish Left is the most anti-Israeli in the world.</p>
<p>And then it says it is anti-Israeli because of solidarity. This is the madness I want to denounce.</p>
<p><strong>Conclusion:</strong></p>
<p>I am not Jewish. Ideologically I am Left and by profession a journalist. Why am I not as anti-Israeli as my colleagues? Because as a non-Jew I have the historical responsibility to fight against Jewish hatred and currently against the hatred for their historic homeland, Israel. To fight against anti-Semitism is not the duty of the Jews, it is the duty of the non-Jews.</p>
<p>As a journalist it is my duty to search for the truth beyond prejudice, lies and manipulations. The truth about Israel is not told. As a person from the Left who loves progress, I am obligated to defend liberty, culture, civic education for children, coexistence and the laws that the Tablets of the Covenant made into universal principles. Principles that Islamic fundamentalism systematically destroys. That is to say that as a non-Jew, journalist and lefty I have a triple moral duty with Israel, because if Israel is destroyed, liberty, modernity and culture will be destroyed too.</p>
<p>The struggle of Israel, even if the world doesn’t want to accept it, is the struggle of the world.</p>
<p><em>Pilar Rahola is a Spanish politician, journalist and activist. She is a passionate defender of the United States and Israel and an indefatigable fighter against anti-Semitism. All of this despite being ideologically from the left. Her articles are published in Spain and throughout some of the most important newspapers in Latin America. She is the recipient of major awards by Jewish organizations.</em></p>
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		<title>&#8220;The First National Jewish Anti-Zionist Gathering&#8221;</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/rich-trzupek/the-first-national-jewish-anti-zionist-gathering/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-first-national-jewish-anti-zionist-gathering</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 08 Jun 2010 04:10:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Rich Trzupek]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[A gathering in Detroit organized by leftist Jews plots on how to give aid and comfort to Israel’s enemies.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Moshe.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62369" title="Moshe" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Moshe.jpg" alt="" width="375" height="420" /></a></p>
<p>While the slogan for the “<a href="http://www.jewsconfrontapartheid.org/">The First National Jewish Anti-Zionist Gathering</a>” isn’t actually “anti-Semites of the world unite!” that would have been a fitting choice, combining both of the “gatherings” two underlying themes: hatred of Israel and adoration of communism. The event is scheduled for June 19 through 22 and will be held, fittingly enough, in Detroit. The once proud and now crumbling Motor  City is perhaps the nation’s best example of what happens when leftist dreams come true. Even better, from the organizers point of view, the Detroit metropolitan area is home to a large number of Muslims, so the jihadis living among them can be counted on to make the radical Jews who organized the event feel even better about their self-loathing.</p>
<p>Specifically, the organizers are the <em><a href="http://www.ijsn.net/home/">International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network</a></em> and the <em><a href="http://www.mecaforpeace.org/">Middle East Children’s Alliance</a></em>. Neither organization bothers to hide their radical, leftist world-view, a perspective that dovetails nicely into their sure and certain belief that Palestinians and Israelis could easily live in peace and harmony, if only Israel would grasp the hand that Hamas and Hizbullah have repeatedly extended in friendship and if only Israel would abandon its foolish alliance with those imperialistic Americans. Or, to put those concepts in less-comprehensible terms, here’s the conference’s <a href="http://www.jewsconfrontapartheid.org/about/">official statement of purpose</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>“To gather together as anti-Zionist Jewish (AZJ) activists committed to social justice and to challenging racism, colonialism and imperialism – first and foremost by contributing to efforts to overcome Zionism and decolonize Palestine. The Assembly hopes to provide a forum to share political perspectives, campaigns and other activities, culture and ritual, and build relationships toward collective work. Through building assessment of the current moment in the US and international Palestine solidarity movement, larger social justice movements and political context, we hope to build a shared direction for anti-Zionist Jewish organizing in the United   States. This is in the interest of making our work more effective.”</p></blockquote>
<p>To coin a phrase: dhmittude never sounded so good. But, with the <em>International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network</em> leading the way, such sentiments are hardly surprising. The IJAZN was created in 2008 when <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moshe_machover">Professor Moshe Machover</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selma_James">Selma James</a> announced the adoption of the organization’s charter <a href="http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=17963340193070572&amp;ei=XNLwSN7CMpCYrAKhtozrDg&amp;q=ijan&amp;hl=en">at a press conference in London</a>. Machover and James’ extremist, radical views – and both would readily accept, indeed would be proud of, the use of those two adjectives to describe their views – have been well documented. While their organization serves as a lightning rod for anti-Semites of all cultures and faiths, one wouldn’t describe either Machover of James (both of whom are Jewish) as anti-Semites themselves. They are rather utopians of the communist variety, wholly incapable of understanding that the price one pays for pursuing the unachievable leftist nirvana is drenched in blood and soaked in misery.</p>
<p>Machover, born in Tel Aviv in 1936, is an unrepentant admirer of all things Marxist. He scorns representative democracy, because in his view our system of government doesn’t give appropriate weight to radical ideas. Oddly enough though, the one representative democracy that comes closest to getting it right in Machover’s world is the nation he hates most of all: Israel. <a href="http://mkcommunists.wordpress.com/tag/moshe-machover/">In April 2010 he wrote</a>: “But here is a rare, perhaps unique, exception: Israel has just about the most democratic electoral system possible in a bourgeois state: a consistent form of proportional representation… Minority voices, including that of the Arab national minority, have regularly been heard on the floor of that house.” Not that providing Arabs living in Israel with the very things that Arabs deny non-Muslims in every nation they control – a voice in government and freedom of worship – excuses Israel’s many sins in Machover’s world. Of course not.</p>
<p>Machover has also rewritten history in order to defame the father of modern Israel, saying: “Ben-Gurion preferred to invade Egypt, alongside France and Britain, rather than to make peace with Egypt&#8221;.  And, for Machover, the reason for ongoing conflict in the Middle East has nothing to do with Israel’s enemies. He has said: “…it became clear to us that the roots of the Israeli-Arab conflict lay, not in the conflict between Israel and the Arab states, but rather in the conflict between Zionist colonialism and the Palestinians over the land of Palestine and its independence.”</p>
<p>For her part, Selma James founded the “International Wages for Housework Campaign” in 1972. Under this scheme, governments would have had to compensate stay-at-home moms for their efforts. She’s also a buddy of Venezuelan tyrant Hugo Chavez and has been a member of Chavez’s socialist “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelan_Revolution">Venezuelan Revolution</a>” movement since 2002.</p>
<p>The <em>Middle East Children’s Alliance</em> is just as radical. Founder and Executive Director Barbara Lubin, a Norm Chomsky disciple, <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/printindividualProfile.asp?indid=1600">was abducted by Hizbullah in 1991</a>. Recognizing that their captive was coming down with a bad case of Stockholm syndrome, the terrorist organization released her, prompting Lubin to observe that: “They’re just ordinary schleps like the rest of us.” Ordinary schleps armed with missiles and RPGs perhaps, but why quibble with a humanitarian like Lubin? She’s obviously a high-minded pacifist, is she not? <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8wyA7t_gdk">Take a look for yourself</a>.</p>
<p>Given the alternate universe in which the organizers flourish, it’s not at all difficult to predict the themes of The First National Jewish Anti-Zionist Gathering. According to their world view, the aggressors in the Middle East are nobly defending their rights and their land, while a nation under siege has somehow become an agent of American imperialism. What’s truly troubling is that, based on their words and deeds, there’s little doubt that the organizers actually believe that represents an accurate portrayal of the on-going struggle in the Middle East and that Machover, James and Lubin don’t know how they are being used – and will continue to be used – by terrorists bent on the destruction of Israel.</p>
<p>Seventy years ago an obscure, extremist, anti-Semetic Norwegian politician by the name of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vidkun_Quisling">Vidkun Quisling</a> helped undermine his nation and welcomed Nazi invaders with open arms. On June 19 another generation of Quislings will do their best to undermine the security of their people’s ancient homeland, not because they actively wish to see Israel destroyed and its people enslaved, but because their minds are so clouded by idyllic, extremist dreams of a leftist-utopia they are unable to comprehend that is exactly the kind of end result that they are in fact supporting.</p>
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		<title>Confronting Anti-Israel Propagandists</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/robert-harris/confronting-anti-israel-propagandists/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=confronting-anti-israel-propagandists</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 07 Jun 2010 04:05:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Rob Harris]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[What do you say to an Irish Foreign Affairs Minister who thinks the Jewish state is tormenting Palestinians? ]]></description>
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<p><em>[Author&#8217;s introductory note: The following is a letter I wrote to the Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Michael Martin, a pro-Palestinian supporter and vocal critic of Israel.  I did not initially intend to submit this letter for publication. However, I felt that publishing it might encourage others to do the same where their representatives or government ministers are taking an unreasonable stance in relation to the Gaza Flotilla incident. Since I wrote the letter, Minister Martin published <a href="http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/micheal-martin-pressure-must-be-stepped-up-against-israel-2203281.html">an extreme article </a>in a prominent Irish newspaper which indicates he will try to influence the EU to break the blockade on Gaza.  But he seems to think nothing of courting communist China. It should be obvious that Israel is facing an existential crisis. The extraordinary hysteria in the media internationally and on the streets is a timely reminder of this fact. Israel needs more sensible vocal support from those who truly care about its future.]</em></p>
<p>Dear Minister,</p>
<p>As an Irish citizen living in Ireland I feel it is my duty to provide some observations on the stance taken by yourself and An Taoiseach [the Prime Minister] Mr. Brian Cowen with regard to the Gaza flotilla. Although I am not really a political campaigner I still decided to write to you because I feel your approach to this issue has been deeply unbalanced and damaging.</p>
<p>I have listened to your comments on the Irish media since the Gaza flotilla crisis erupted on Monday the 31<sup>st</sup> of May 2010. On that day, I listened to your interview on the RTE Radio 1 “News at One” show. You objected to the way Israel had characterised the members of the flotilla as extremists. You stated that they were legitimately protesting. Firstly, there is the issue of the legality in attempting to break a military blockade which I understand you believe is in itself illegal &#8211; I will return to this point later. Secondly, your assertion failed to address the accusations that Israel made regarding the violent conduct of certain activists. You had previously stated in an interview on the RTE1 TV &#8220;News at Noon&#8221; that the military action was completely unnecessary. I found that a remarkable thing to say since you would not have been in possession of many facts at that stage and as a result unable to ascertain with certainty that there had not been a violent response to the boarding of the ship. You claimed in the “News at One” interview that other strategies by the Israeli’s could have been adopted. Subsequently, on TV interviews you stated they could have shadowed the vessels to Gaza. I do not understand what good this would have done in terms of allowing Israel to ensure that the cargo was legitimate humanitarian aid rather then a source of harm to its citizens. You also stated that such violence did not occur before when ships went to Gaza. That is true, but your assertion ignores the obvious point that unlike before, there may well have been a very violent response as the Israeli State has repeatedly alleged.</p>
<p>The flotilla was led by a group called Foundation for Human Rights and Freedom and Humanitarian Relief (IHH). IHH is a radical Islamic Turkish NGO. Sources going back to the 90’s state they are connected with Al-Qaeda and other jihad networks. One example is a 2006 report by terrorism consultant Evan F. Kohlmann. Moreover evidence indicates IHH is directly involved with terrorist activities. The greater potential for violence was a concern by some before the incident occurred. <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/05/gaza-jihad-flotilla-participants-chanted-islamic-battle-cry-invoking-muhammads-massacre-of-jews.html">TV footage</a> attests to the jihadist intent on the flotilla.</p>
<p>Violence with the boarding of the Israeli troops only occurred on one ship – coincidentally the Turkish ship. This seems to indicate that the Israeli troops did not set out with violent intent. The violent reaction of the passengers can be fairly characterised as extreme as this YouTube <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYjkLUcbJWo&amp;feature=player_embedded">video</a> attests.</p>
<p>You stated that Israel has options for dealing with the flotilla. However, you failed to address the options open to the organisers of the flotilla itself. They could have landed at an Egyptian port or Ashdod Port. When Gilad Shalit&#8217;s father asked them to deliver letters and parcels to Gilad, they refused. The humanitarian aspect of the flotilla was simply a mask for a more hostile intent. If aid was the true aim of these people it could have been supplied through border crossings. There have been numerous attempts to break the embargo, e.g. in 2008 one ship just carried 5,000 balloons. It was of course known that these ships would be detained. Pro-Palestinian groups milk the events for propaganda. When those on the “Spirit of Humanity” were released they wasted no time peddling lies that were at times truly shocking. A British activist compared the low security prisons where activists like himself were detained with a Nazi concentration camp. The purpose is solely to cause diplomatic incidents to embarrass Israel and it is no coincidence commentators are claiming the present incident is a victory for Hamas. They and pro-Palestinians are the ones that benefited. <a href="http://sderotmedia.org.il/bin/content.cgi?ID=656&amp;q=3">Here</a> is an article that discusses it.</p>
<p>The Taoiseach Mr. Brian Cowen has been quite unhelpful with regard to his own comments as well. In the Dáil [the Irish House of Parliament] he stated there would be “serious consequences” if any Irish citizen was harmed. Similarly, you stated later on Monday that the Irish citizens on board these ships were kidnapped and demanded that Israel treat the Irish ship the <em>MV Rachel Corrie</em> with respect. A very large number of Irish citizens are involved in this charade of attacking Israel supposedly for humanitarian reasons. None have been harmed in the past to the best of my knowledge. Therefore, while it is of course important to speak out about any concerns regarding Irish citizens, such strong language was unnecessary as it is unlikely any Irish citizens were harmed unless some happened to be on the Turkish vessel.</p>
<p>The alternative of breaking the embargo which you and many others endorse, will of course let shipments into Gaza without weapon import controls. This is a remarkable thing for any right-thinking individual to seek. Need I remind you that Hamas controls Gaza? They are funded and supplied with weapons by Iran. They will inevitably rearm themselves without the previous limitations imposed by using tunnels. The ensuing result will be another war with Israel which could be a good deal worse as Hamas will be much better equipped. How can anyone in good conscience claim that this is a viable alternative unless they regard the destruction of the State of Israel as a worthy goal?</p>
<p>To the best of my knowledge you are the loudest critic of Israel in the Irish Government and have been involved in quite a number of proposals and initiatives harmful to the State of Israel. Only in recent weeks you were involved with the UN conference limiting weapons of mass destruction in the Middle-East which resulted in a declaration which astonishingly singled out Israel rather than Iran, the state that threatened the Jewish Nation with extinction.</p>
<p>At the ICTU conference in April you asserted to your credit that you did not believe in boycotting Israel. However, at the same time you spoke of the need for Israel (rather than the Palestinians) to move toward a position where peace was possible and strongly advocated a two-state solution. I sometimes wonder when I hear the views of pro-Palestinians if they are referring to the same conflict. People like yourself act as if Israel alone prevents a Palestinian state. The Palestinian’s rejected every opportunity from the 1947 UN Partition resolution to the offer in 2008 by Ehud Olmert who agreed to virtually all the territory they demanded. As history has shown repeatedly, all parties require some level of good faith before there is any chance of achieving peace. In the past, the Israeli electorate has often backed peace-makers while the Palestinians often choose the opposite, such as with the 2006 Gaza election of the Islamist group Hamas. At best, “peace” talks are an exercise to appease the unrealistic expectations of the international community and at worst, a game of strategy to gain a propaganda victory. See a <a href="http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=17694">2003 survey</a> where only 20% of Palestinians state they will peacefully co-exist with Israel.</p>
<p>Israel will not be secure even if it achieves peace with the Palestinians. Besides the obvious threats of extinction, Iran is funding Hamas’ and Hizbullah’s assaults on Israel. Peace negotiations with Egypt and Jordan succeeded in preventing further military conflict but relations were never truly normalised at state level decades after peace was made. Syria&#8217;s leaders have indicated that normalised relations are not an option. Turkey, with its present Islamist government became hostile long before the current controversy. This conflict is an intermittent Islamic/pan-Arab war. Despite the precarious situation, Western politicians that luxuriate in peace aggressively encourage this state to take “risks for peace.” Yet when peace efforts go wrong they typically ignore the common Palestinian intransigence.</p>
<p>In your op-ed article for the New York Times “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/05/opinion/05iht-edmartin.html">Gaza a Year Later</a>” (published 4<sup>th</sup> March 2010) you wrote: “The tragedy of Gaza is that it is fast in danger of becoming a tolerated humanitarian crisis, a situation that most right-thinking people recognize as utterly unacceptable in this day and age but which is proving extremely difficult to remedy or ameliorate due to the blockade and the wider ramifications of efforts to try and achieve political progress in the Middle East.” In no way has it become or is becoming a “tolerated humanitarian crisis.” It is a crisis but certainly not one of the most serious in humanitarian terms. The population is not starving. Yes, rebuilding infrastructure and improving living conditions is problematic. You clearly blame Israel, but as soon as Hamas in essence committed a military coup it had little option but to isolate this terrorist organisation which has repeatedly stated in recent years that it will use terrorist acts to destroy Israel. When it greatly increased its attacks on Israel, it became, in effect, in a state of war. I am no expert on international law, but it is clear Israel has a legal right to defend its citizens. More importantly, it has a <em>moral</em> right.</p>
<p>You wrote:</p>
<blockquote><p>“What I witnessed in Gaza, amidst all the rubble and devastation still so evident from last year’s conflict, was a population traumatized and reduced to poverty by an unjust and completely counterproductive blockade. All that is being achieved through the imposition of the blockade is to enrich Hamas and marginalize even further the voices of moderation. I view the current conditions prevailing for the ordinary population as inhumane and utterly unacceptable, in terms of accepted international standards of human rights.”</p></blockquote>
<p>In actual fact, what “is being achieved” is a legitimate defence of Israeli citizens. The voices of moderation were thrown off rooftops. I refer to Fatah/PLO which aren’t exactly voices of moderation but are not quite so implacably opposed to Israel’s existence. Whether we like it or not the citizens of Gaza chose their fate when they elected Hamas because, in effect, they chose war. This is not a justification for collective punishment but neither can we simply excuse the election as some sort of expression of democratic will which shouldn’t have any consequences one way or another. All adults bear the brunt of moral choices so why exactly should Gazan’s be exempt? To suggest that the moral actions of the citizens of Gaza and the corresponding consequences should not be connected is to equate them with children. This is not a justification for their suffering but an assertion that they themselves are at least partially morally responsible for their present unfortunate circumstances. They chose war and they will chose it again. This clearly does not fit in with your view of peace loving Palestinians but that in itself does not make it incorrect. To ignore war mongering will not bring peace. Simply ignoring it will worsen the situation and harm the forces that legitimately oppose it.</p>
<p>Quite frankly I realise it is unlikely this letter will hold any sway with you or your department. However, I hope the points raised will encourage some reflection on the issue and, despite your feelings of support for the Palestinians, bring about a greater impartiality in dealing with this and future matters relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.</p>
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		<title>Pro-Palestinianism: A Movement of Hate, Pt. III</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/robert-harris/a-movement-of-hate-pt-iii/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-movement-of-hate-pt-iii</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 12 May 2010 04:03:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Rob Harris]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[The deep roots of anti-Semitism in the pro-Palestinian movement. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/harris.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-60025" title="harris" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/harris.jpg" alt="" width="375" height="303" /></a></p>
<p><em>[Editor&#8217;s note: This is the third installment of a four-part series. To read earlier segments of &#8220;Pro-Palestinianism: A Movement of Hate,&#8221; click: <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2010/05/10/a-movement-of-hate-pt-i/">Part I</a></em><em> and <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2010/05/11/a-movement-of-hate-pt-ii/">Part II</a></em><em>. For the next installment, click: </em><em><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2010/05/13/a-movement-of-hate-pt-iv/">Part IV</a></em><em>.]</em></p>
<p>Israel has been subjected to forceful criticism for decades. When those criticisms are hysterical, irrational and/or do not address Israel’s concerns to the slightest extent, are we not obliged to query why these frequent criticisms seem so unbalanced. If any commentator treats a serious topic in an unbalanced fashion it is quite right to be concerned. Such a viewpoint could cause genuine harm if it gains currency. The questions, “Why is person or movement &#8216;X&#8217; so extreme? why do they turn the facts upside down and ignore everything not in their favor?” are perfectly legitimate, especially if there was extensive hatred and oppression of the group historically that is now the subject of their ire.</p>
<p>The response is typically an approximation of “Oh, we are only concerned about Zionists not the Jews who we really like an awful lot, I like Dylan, Seinfeld etc.” This argument seems a little suspect since Israel is the only state in existence populated principally by Jews. The only state in existence where Jews can live without being subject to the censure of hostile non-Jews in host nations. Of course it is quite feasible that many Palestinian supporters aren’t anti-Semitic. The motivations of an individual can be difficult to establish: even if they make unjustifiable remarks, spread untruths and flatly refuse to accept opposing views no matter how well justified, they may not be driven by hatred even if that is likely to be the case. Ignorance, stubbornness and even stupidity can be alternatives. However, this is not simply an observation relating to individuals but rather a movement. If we were to accept the “concern of Zionism only” line we would have to ignore the dishonesty, usual methods of criticism and belligerent manner that defines the movement and which gives rise to concerns about anti-Semitism. If many pro-Palestinian groups are not anti-Semitic it is extremely unlikely they would then collectively resort to such forms of criticism and behaviour.</p>
<p>There are some curious similarities between the language use of the anti-Semitic far-Right and the pro-Palestinian movement. This can be seen in their related texts, articles, and on many Internet forums where one could easily mistake pro-Palestinians for far-right activists raging on about “Zionism.” The traditional anti-Semitic anti-Zionism that the far-Right espouses has its roots in the fantasy that Jews are bent on World domination, where the fabricated Russian text “The Protocols of the [Learned] Elders of Zion” is their bible. Pro-Palestinians would of course reject these links. However, many of the armed Islamic terrorist groups they espouse subscribe to the very same far-Right theories! Indeed, the connection between traditional anti-Semitic “anti-Zionism” and the newer politically correct pro-Palestinian “anti-Zionism” can easily be seen on very popular hate sites like Jew Watch that often attack Israel.</p>
<p>In order to accept that pro-Palestinian groups do not hate Jewish people, the possibility that numerous conventional anti-Semites jumped on this populist bandwagon would also have to be rejected. How likely is this to be the case? It stands to reason obsessive Jew-haters would find the Jewish State a prime target for attack, especially as they do not have to endure much censure. Dyed-in-the-wool Holocaust denier and vocal anti-Semite David Irving has expressed much sympathy for the Palestinians. High profile Holocaust denier Mark Weber has actually decided to change tack by siding with the Palestinians in order to fight <em>Jewish power</em>. Even fascistic websites like Storm Front occasionally express sympathy for Arabs whilst remaining unrelentingly anti-Semitic. As a simple gauge of the popularity of traditional anti-Semitic belief, Jew Watch was at the top of Google’s listings and continues to be near the top for number of hits when common words like “Jew” are typed into its search engine. With traditional anti-Semitic belief far from uncommon, today pro-Palestinians cannot believably assert that few of these people are among their ranks.</p>
<p>A feature of the pro-Palestinian movement is the prolific use of Jewish critics to publicly attack Israel, including victims of the Holocaust. While some Jews (particularly leftists) attack Israel on their own steam, there seems to be a ploy of promoting Jewish critics in the movement because although related to the issue, they appear to be greatly over-represented given population size. It seems likely that this is done to deflect accusations of anti-Semitism and possibly to undermine understanding of why Israel (as a Jewish state) ought to exist. Many pro-Palestinians criticise opponents who state that certain Jewish critics are self-hating. Not all Jewish critics of Israel are likely to be self-hating but of course self-hatred is apparent among minorities. Such people internalise certain oppressive views and dislike their identity. Amongst Jewish people this phenomenon is entirely feasible given Western cultural antipathy.</p>
<p>It is apparent that a pre-emptive form of the anti-Semitism argument is actually used by the anti-Israeli movement to their advantage. They frequently pre-empt any possible accusation of anti-Semitism by bringing it up first. This is done to help deflect any eventual accusation of anti-Semitism no matter how warranted it would be. Thus, if and when such an accusation is finally made the accuser actually falls into a trap as if such a comment is below the belt. This move is intended to make those who defend Israel against extreme criticism appear dishonest or unreasonable. This approach is used repeatedly in the media and Internet. The accusation is often ascribed by pro-Palestinians as being part of a Zionist conspiracy to deflect criticism of Israel. It is another example of their intellectual dishonesty.</p>
<p>Why do pro-Palestinians obsess about Israel while largely ignoring other conflicts in the world? This is a common question. On occasion, when well known pro-Palestinian campaigners were asked why they exclusively focus on the alleged human rights abuses of Israel, the usual reply was that they care about other cases of human rights abuse too! Yet the efforts of such people do focus vastly more so on Israel. Of course we are selective with regard to the issues we care about at a personal level. However, if human rights issues concern such people generally, and chiefly motivates them to attack Israel, why don’t they campaign even a fraction as forcefully about other serious conflicts?</p>
<p>The intensive unceasing anti-Israel mass movement compares with no other internationally. Its scale compared to other single-issue movements is unprecedented, even exceeding the international campaign against Apartheid South Africa. One would think Israel is the only region where serious conflict occurs. There appears to be very little being done for Darfur, the Congo etc. where the contrasting scale of death and suffering makes Israel Vs. the Palestinians look like a fairly minor conflict. This point also lends credence to the view that the pro-Palestinian movement is not generally motivated by a concern for human rights. If the many do-gooders driving the Palestinian movement were truly concerned about human rights, the result would be a pro-Palestinian movement that was merely one of many highly active movements, and if scale was broadly a factor in their sympathies it would be quite a minor one at that.</p>
<p>People like journalist Khaled Abu Toameh have said so-called “pro-Palestinians” only care about alleged abuses to Palestinians involving Israel. Why are they not campaigning about the financial corruption and human rights abuses by Fatah and Hamas that are at times severe? While Israel’s Christian population has never been higher, Palestinian Christians are fleeing from increasingly Islamicist Palestinian run territory. Why no regard for these Palestinians? Women have been subjected to poor treatment especially by Hamas. Yet feminist supporters have little to say about the issue. Sizeable Arab states refused to accept Palestinian refugees, while Israel took in a larger number of Jewish refugees expelled from Arab nations. They refused in order to achieve a continuous belligerence against Israel. The Palestinians became an agent to assist in Israel’s destruction. A similar attitude is evident amongst pro-Palestinians.</p>
<p>A typical pro-Palestinian strategy is to strip the events of this conflict from their context. Isolating such facts will only mislead and indeed this is clearly the intention. For example, assertions that Israel was founded through ethnic cleansing require highly selective interpretations of decontextualised historic facts. Violent intolerance toward Jews existed long before Israel was established. Israel’s foundation should be viewed in the context of a nascent state fighting for its survival, where both sides had been divided by violent sectarian tensions for a long time. Assertions that Israel was assisted by British colonialism could not be further from the truth. The British ceded 78 % of the mandated territory to Trans-Jordan, helped create a violent pogrom-like environment, and issued successive rulings designed to impede the establishment of a Jewish state. Profoundly distorted maps that attribute vast public lands to Palestinian ownership are used to compare Jewish vs. Palestinian settlement before and after the establishment of Israel, and selective historic quotes, often very dubiously interpreted, are produced to “prove” the very worst intent.</p>
<p>Many act as if Israel alone prevents a Palestinian state. The Palestinian’s rejected every opportunity from the 1947 UN Partition resolution to the recent offer by Ehud Olmert who acceded to virtually all the territory they demanded. In any serious conflict both parties require a modicum of good faith before there is any possibility of achieving peace. While the Israeli electorate has backed peace-makers repeatedly, the Palestinians often choose the opposite such as with the election of the Islamicist group Hamas in Gaza after Israel withdrew from the region. At best such talks are an exercise to please the international community and at worst an attempt to cash in propagandistically.</p>
<p>The reality is that Israel will not be secure even if it achieves an improbable peace with the Palestinians. The negotiations between Egypt and Jordan were successful in terms of avoiding further military conflict but relations have not been truly normalised at state level and the majority of Egyptians and Jordanians are still extremely hostile to Israel decades after peace was made. Syria&#8217;s leaders have indicated that normalised relations are not an option even if Israel returns the Golan Heights. Turkey has become increasingly hostile and its small Jewish population treated as ungrateful guests. Notwithstanding the apocalyptic utterances of its leaders, Iran is funding Hamas’ and Hizbullah’s assaults on Israel. It should be clear this conflict is an intermittent Islamic/pan-Arab war with Israel where the Palestinian’s became a proxy. Despite the precarious situation Western leaders at times aggressively encourage this state to take <em>risks for peace</em> and it has done so repeatedly. Yet when peace efforts almost inevitably go wrong there is typically a one-sided condemnation of Israel whilst ignoring common Palestinian intransigence.</p>
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		<title>Pro-Palestinianism: A Movement of Hate, Pt. I</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/robert-harris/a-movement-of-hate-pt-i/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-movement-of-hate-pt-i</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 10 May 2010 04:01:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Rob Harris]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[The ugly face of the Western pro-Palestinian movement. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/mideast-israel-palestinian-human-rights-2009-12-11-8-10-38.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-59844" title="mideast-israel-palestinian-human-rights-2009-12-11-8-10-38" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/mideast-israel-palestinian-human-rights-2009-12-11-8-10-38-300x193.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="193" /></a></p>
<p><em>[Editor&#8217;s note: This is the first installment of a four-part series. To view later segments of &#8220;Pro-Palestinianism: A Movement of Hate,&#8221; please click: <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2010/05/11/a-movement-of-hate-pt-ii/">Part II</a></em><em>, <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2010/05/12/a-movement-of-hate-pt-iii/">Part III</a></em><em> and <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2010/05/13/a-movement-of-hate-pt-iv/">Part IV</a></em><em> .]</em></p>
<p>It should be patently obvious to anyone with a passing interest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that the Western pro-Palestinian movement has long since gone beyond the bounds of justifiable criticism and moral acceptability.</p>
<p>Israel is of course facing ever-increasing hostility at every level internationally. This immense hostility has largely been brought into effect by the populist successes of the Western anti-Israeli/pro-Palestinian movement so it is time to expose this collective entity to greater scrutiny &#8211; to ask difficult questions due to the significant power it now wields. This article seeks to establish that hatred is the driving force behind many elements of this movement, and since Israel is the sole existing Jewish nation, serious questions need to be asked about anti-Semitic sentiment.</p>
<p>A particular, rather unique haughtiness is one of the most notable features of Western attitudes towards Israel. Fellow Irishman Donnchadh O’Liathain wrote an article in the Jerusalem Post in 2004 describing the European attitude towards Israel: a dichotomy of “good Israelis” and “bad Israelis” – those who are pro-peace and those who are less so. The theme of his article was the invasiveness of attitudes towards Israel, an intense meddlesome desire to impose a solution on the conflict without proper recognition of Israel’s needs. It is indeed galling when the citizens and leaders of larger secure states that have luxuriated in peace for many decades, bar the occasional fracas in distant lands, pass judgement so readily on a tiny state surrounded by continuous extreme hostility, which is clearly not as a consequence of its actions but of its very existence. If we consider the fear experienced in the US after the tragedy of 9/11, and also consider the trauma and political changes experienced in other nations after very serious terrorist attacks, it is not difficult to see how such countries would respond if faced with similar conditions.</p>
<p>There are several forms of pro-Palestinianism which can be categorised in terms of extremism. Moderates think the Palestinians are largely the victims in this conflict and do not advocate terrorism at all and may even support a fairly just two-state solution. The second group support the Palestinian cause without endorsing the more extreme acts of Palestinian terrorism but nonetheless tend to find them “understandable” and may demand solutions that nullify Israel’s Jewish identity, e.g. the “right to return.” The most extreme group supports all acts of Palestinian terrorism no matter how debased or destructive to Israeli civilians. By implication they support a one-state solution – namely, a Palestinian state or a greater Jordan/Syria. This article focuses principally on the latter two groups of Palestinian supporters, which have grown greatly in popularity in the last decade. Such people are often highly vocal and may campaign vociferously for the Palestinian cause. The opinions of these people may require some interpretation as they might not be completely forthcoming with their views on the conflict. Those who have extreme opinions often appear to present their views as being milder than they truly are, hence the usual contention that they support peace. This would be especially important if they hold positions of power in influential political institutions or the media.</p>
<p>A pertinent question needs to be asked: what is the primary motivation of the Western anti-Israeli/pro-Palestinian movement? Is it a genuine concern for human rights, which is always admirable if not necessarily justified, or is it a rank anti-Semitism masquerading undercover of darkness as a concern for the Palestinians? Obviously, I subscribe to the latter opinion but whichever view the reader may endorse, one question should be addressed in order to clarify the matter at hand: where does legitimate sensible (i.e. reasonably fair and moderately justifiable) criticism of Israel end and become abusive condemnation that overtly goes beyond what is evidential? The answer indicates the sincerity and intent of the pro-Palestinian movement, for their words and actions ought to be their measure.</p>
<p>It is indeed important to recognise that no state should be above criticism, just as no individual or group should be above criticism for the simple reason that all agents have the capacity to commit acts that are harmful to others. Thus, the question here is not should Israel be criticised generally speaking but rather how is Israel being criticised?</p>
<p>A detailed understanding of the contrast between reasonable criticism and abusive condemnation would be useful &#8211; of course other word use with similar meaning is also applicable. Something is considered abusive where coercion or bullying occurs, where there is a desire to cause distress or harm. Abuse is described as the “Improper treatment or usage; application to a wrong or bad purpose; misuse; perversion; … verbal maltreatment; An unjust, corrupt or wrongful practice…; … insulting speech; abusive language.”/ [Wiktionary]. Condemnation is of course censure by attributing blame, strong disapproval or even demonization. An abusive condemnation would be highly damaging, distressing and motivated by ill intent, in which case it could well deliberately exceed what is clearly indicated in evidence. This would not simply be applicable to Israel as a state. It would apply to its citizens, its interests, and by its very nature the malicious intent could apply to Jewish people generally, of which Israel is principally composed.</p>
<p>While many conflicts are compared with World War II and aggressors are compared with the Nazis, this motif has never been more widely used than when judging Israel. No pro-Palestinian demonstration is complete without the symbol of the swastika within the Star of David on badges and placards. Indeed, this symbol more so than any other has come to represent the pro-Palestinian movement. Since the Star of David is also the prime symbol of Judaism it can also be clearly interpreted as a symbol highly abusive to the Jewish religion and those that constitute the Jewish people, especially due to the tragedy of the Holocaust. Comparing Israeli figures with leading Nazi figures is also not uncommon. In Ireland, during Operation Cast Lead, Sein Fein (IRA) member Aengus O’Snodaigh repeatedly compared the Israeli ambassador to Ireland with Josef Goebbels, the master propagandist, for merely trying to explain that the invasion was due to continued attacks. Divisive figures such as disgraced Scottish politician George Galloway declared during a UK protest last year: “Today, the Palestinian people in Gaza are the new Warsaw ghetto, and those who are murdering them are the equivalent of those who murdered the Jews in Warsaw in 1943.”</p>
<p>Palestinian sympathisers make it abundantly clear that Israel does not have a right to defend itself. Clearly some will say this is a misrepresentation: that in fact they criticise Israel’s response as being heavy handed. This may be true for some but the dominant theme in the pro-Palestinian monologue is that Palestinians have a right to “resist” as they put it, while Israel has no essential right to respond. This is clear time and time again in their argumentation.</p>
<p>Judging by the views held by more extreme pro-Palestinians it would appear that Palestinian terrorists have a right to do whatsoever they wish to Israeli citizens. We see very extreme language used in the media and even more so on internet websites throughout the West. It does become essentially irrelevant or morally justifiable if Hamas rains missiles on Israeli citizens because according to so many pro-Palestinians, Israel is (to borrow their commonly used terminology) a “pariah”, “colonial”, “apartheid”, “fascist”, “criminal”, “nazi”, “jihadist”, “terrorist” state. Israel is a state that butchers women and children, harvests Palestinians for body parts, and of course has “ethnically cleansed” the Palestinians. Israel has committed many “holocausts” against the Palestinians, so accordingly some even think it more reprehensible than the Third Reich. With such extraordinarily twisted extreme black and white understandings of the conflict that contravene the most obvious truths, it is little wonder that no justification of Israel’s right to defend itself will satisfy such individuals. No reasoned argument based on facts will be sufficient.</p>
<p>Considering such information, it is fair to say that very many (probably a majority) of pro-Palestinians have a very real hatred of Israel. Some may protest that this is not so but, for example, would any reasonably impartial observer with a modicum of fairness deny one state the right to respond to continued extreme aggression when it is a genuine affliction to its citizens? Would such a fair, impartial observer not accept that Jihadist Palestinian terrorism is part of the problem and its moral legitimization not a solution? To take a recent issue, many pro-Palestinians defended the Goldstone report because it is now yet another weapon in their arsenal to bash Israel. Would any impartial observer accept such a report when a Mrs. Mary Robinson, primary architect of the Durban I anti-Semitic hate-fest, declined to accept the biased brief? Any impartial observer would obviously accept justice must be fair, so why support it? Other than ill-intent, there can be no justification for continually propagating severe exaggerations and outright lies.</p>
<p>The issue of proportionality was frequently raised by Palestinian supporters during Cast Lead. It was often said that the rockets fired into Israel were actually home made or little more than flares. However, the principal rockets were Grad rockets supplied by Iran and simple yet quite potent Kassam. While such rockets have basic guidance systems they are nonetheless of a military grade. Grads have the capacity to destroy a house, for example. Hundreds raining down on towns leading up to the Israeli response was clearly not sustainable. Condemnation and talk of a holocaust swiftly followed even before the ground invasion. The association of Gaza with the Warsaw ghetto was a common motif. Pro-Palestinians characterise the dead in Gaza as primarily innocent civilians but it is worth noting various sources indicate 70 to 74% of those killed were males between the ages of 15 and 40 &#8211; the most relevant for combat.  Clearly the only acceptable Israeli response for Palestinian sympathisers was to put up with it, other than the ideal of surrender to Hamas. The inference that Israel had no right to defend its citizens can be asserted because no other rational conclusion to such arguments can be arrived upon. The issue of proportionality cannot be answered by simply discussing casualty figures. If the citizens of any state are exposed to intolerable conditions where they cannot go about their daily lives with a basic level of safety for an extended period of time, that state has a moral obligation to stop the forces causing that situation. Therefore, a proportional response is to take the necessary action to stop the attacks and prevent them from reoccurring within a reasonable timeframe; nothing more and nothing less.</p>
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		<title>The Martians Among Us</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/david-solway/the-martians-among-us/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-martians-among-us</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 03 May 2010 04:00:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Solway]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[alien civilization]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[It’s not visitors from outer space we have to worry about.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/marsattacks.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-59399" title="marsattacks" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/marsattacks.jpg" alt="" width="375" height="281" /></a></p>
<p>The renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, dealing with the subject of possible extraterrestrial life, <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/space/article7107207.ece">warns</a> that contact with an alien civilization could spell disaster for the human race. “If aliens ever visit us,” he said, “I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the American Indians.” Pajamas Media editor Rick Moran concludes <a href="http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/should-we-phone-e-t-hawking-says-no/">an article</a> on this question with a  misplaced aspiration: “we can only hope that any intelligent life that becomes aware of us will share at least some of the values and morals our species holds dear.” <em>Pace</em> Moran, but I wonder about these “values and morals” in so intrinsically competitive and violent a species as ours and shudder to think that a highly evolved extraterrestrial race of beings may share them with us.</p>
<p>The situation of late, however, is somewhat different in the West, where a certain “transvaluation” has occurred. The “values and morals” increasingly prevalent among us are those of “moral equivalence,” pacifism, diffidence, “compassion,” self-abasement and pride masking as false humility. In the current context, such ostensible virtues turn out to be vices, which we would be foolish to expect a maniple of alien intruders to share with us. It would be more prudent to anticipate the opposite.</p>
<p>But prudence is not our strong point. The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_SETI">Active SETI</a> (Active Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) movement and its offshoots, for example, believe that an alien civilization would be guided by the doctrine of universal altruism, a theory grounded in the assumption that advanced evolution leads inevitably to a “higher” ethical sensibility. Walter Sullivan in his admittedly fascinating book <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Are-Not-Alone-Extraterrestrial-Intelligence/dp/0452272246/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1272633109&amp;sr=1-1">We Are Not Alone</a></em> is convinced of the benefits that would flow via communion with evolutionary prodigies. “Most exciting of all the prospects,” he writes, “are the spiritual and philosophical enrichment to be gained by such exchanges.” Of course, there is no evidence that such would be the case, especially if we extrapolate from our own behavior. It’s a good bet our visitors from space won’t look or act anything like the diaphanous exotics in <em><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j3j9nYgP4w&amp;feature=related">Encounters of the Third Kind</a></em> or the sylvan Na’vi in <em><a href="http://tvnewsradio.com/blog/internet-tv/avatar-3d-movie-red-carpet-premiere-live-webcast-16-december-8-30pm-et/">Avatar</a></em>. Astrobiology does not assure moral enlightenment.</p>
<p>But the prospect of alien hostility is not the only factor to be considered. There is the possibility of a fundamental misunderstanding between two species that have no common language with which to bridge the intergalactic gap that separates them and that would allow for differences in thought and intention to be worked out. Complicating this scenario is the potentially misguided conviction that, were our visitors aggressive by nature, overtures of peace and compatibility would be sufficient to bring about a harmonious resolution to the threat of conflict.</p>
<p>Consider the 1996 film <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116996/">Mars Attacks!</a></em> which rather uncannily introduces a shot of the World  Trade Center, traces a misguided official policy of appeasement and “cultural understanding,” dwells on the dove-releasing antics of the peace constituency which provoke immediate slaughter, and concludes in near-universal catastrophe. These cartoonish little aliens sliding down their saucer ramps proceed to take advantage of our deeply held belief in multicultural accommodation, responding favorably to our gestures of inclusion and shedding tears of sentimental fellow-feeling, only to insinuate themselves into our trust and play upon our fantasy of an ideal kinship. Before we know it things start blowing up and people are mowed down in the streets. Eventually, the president of the United   States (played brilliantly by a smarmily innocuous Jack Nicholson), who adopts an agenda of reaching out to our enemies, is murdered in the White House by a gum-chewing Martian disguised as a hooker.</p>
<p>The allegory is unmistakable. The film—to some extent like the recent television remake of <em>V </em>about an interstellar civilization promising peace but harboring ominous designs—is a prescient cinematic transposition of what is now our nineleven world. Believing in the good intentions of our “otherworldly” visitors, permitting a belligerent minority to integrate into the structure of society and to establish organizations devoted to furthering their ulterior aims, and exonerating irruptions of culture-specific mayhem—suicide attacks, shootings, honor killings—as owing to other and even justifiable causes, we have embraced the Martians in our midst. That is, we have given <em>carte blanche</em> to the <em><a href="http://books.google.ca/books?id=92lQfWj6_VIC&amp;pg=PA414&amp;lpg=PA414&amp;dq=mustashhidin&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=t9sW2f84Zi&amp;sig=rIuQAwnEGwGGk4STm0KEM45Kgf8&amp;hl=en&amp;ei=DqjYS5eEB4P58AapwqTVBQ&amp;sa=X&amp;oi=book_result&amp;ct=result&amp;resnum=3&amp;ved=0CBUQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&amp;q=mustashhidin&amp;f=false">mustashhidin</a></em> and their local variants—insurgents, “martyrs,” spokesmen for the Muslim Brotherhood, clever proselytizers, and advocates of Shari’a law—who would infiltrate and undermine the very institutions that guarantee our freedoms.<em> </em></p>
<p>And they have powerful accomplices. The America-hating Left in the universities, the legacy media and even the current governing administration has become Islamofascism’s most valuable ally, a fifth column of <em>de facto</em> jihadists in everything but name as it prosecutes the war against Western civilization. Abetted by the profound naivety of a public ignorant of history and educated in the dogmas of postmodern relativity—all cultures are equal and must be understood on their own terms, one “truth” is as good as another, universal human rights are only an expression of Western particularism, etc—the Left, with open arms and closed minds, has welcomed the Martians who would destroy us. Only, these Martians are not harbingers of an advanced civilization blessed with sidereal intelligence but are rooted in the norms and usages of a pre-Medieval world view, which we regard as equally exotic.</p>
<p>How have we permitted this to happen? Have we absorbed our social and political conjectures at so impressionable and formative a stage in our cognitive development, as students in the revolutionary Sixties and Seventies, that we now act from rote behavior rather than critical reflection, bearing witness to the truth of Yogi Berra’s apothegm, “There are some people who, if they don’t know already, you can’t tell ‘em.” Is Victor Davis Hanson right when <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/287376/the-brink-of-madness/victor-davis-hanson">he declares</a> that “our present generation is on the brink of moral insanity,” victims of lazy thinking, unable to distinguish between the terrorist and his quarry, and subject to the clichés “of postmodernism, cultural relativism, utopian pacifism, and moral equivalence”? Or are we merely hoping for clemency from an indebted foe who will, presumably, spare us for our collusion? Do we live in such a state of inward fear and paralysis that, to paraphrase poet <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Neil-Powell-Selected-Poems/dp/1857543505/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1272543763&amp;sr=1-1">Neil Powell</a>, we are unable to let “panic subside to knowledge”?</p>
<p>But perhaps the fact is that years of cosseted, entitlement-friendly living, not to mention enrolment in the postmodern academy, have made us soft, prone to theoretical delusions, intellectually puerile, and unwilling to face the reality of struggle and conflict so many of us have been happily spared. We appear to suffer from a condition that Robert Wilson has called, in his <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ignorance-Blood-Inspector-Falcon/dp/0151012458/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1272473020&amp;sr=1-1">book</a> of that title, “the ignorance of blood,” which has blinded us to the baleful motives of our adversaries. Confronted with a dedicated enemy intent on conquest, we respond with platitudes like “social justice,” “equal status,” “sensitivity,” “diversity,” “peaceful coexistence” and all the rest of the ideological claptrap we have had dinned into us. Returning fire with ice cream scoops is no way to win a war. These notions would be fine if two criteria were satisfied, namely, that we were proud defenders of our own storied culture, and that the recipients of our generosity were willing to reciprocate. But when these two conditions are not met, then it is clear that we are not only inviting guests into our home. We are also inviting disaster.</p>
<p>The invaders we have to contend with, of course, are not lizards disguised as humans or megacephalic dwarves toting ray guns, contact with whom we might have preferred to avoid. They are, rather, a group of <em>intraplanetary </em>visitors who have emigrated to our shores with the purpose of social inversion and political subversion. Lest I be misunderstood, I am not referring to those who have come to make a better life for themselves and who are eager to join the cultural mainstream, learn the language, familiarize themselves with the history of the nation they have opted to become part of, enter the professions, and live as loyal and productive citizens.</p>
<p>On the contrary. I am referring to what is often called the “radical fringe,” which may not be as marginal as we would like to think. Radicals tend to multiply, radicalism to radiate outward. Indeed, we have sufficient evidence by now of sermons preaching sedition and violence, of homicidal rampages, of plots uncovered, and of the exploitation of our legal system and menaces publicly uttered with a view to suppressing informed dissent, principled objections, postings and publications. But instead of fighting back, belling our subversives and deporting their ringleaders, we cower and self-censor, like sanctimonious proctors silencing the unruly who oppose the drift toward supplication, and so enforcing the discipline of surrender. We have, in effect, been ghetto-ized inside our own trembling world, as if the country we live in could be renamed <a href="http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/comedy_central_censored_mohammed_south_park/">South Park</a>, no longer the feisty and irreverent place it once was. So much for courage and independence.</p>
<p>Observed through the lens of history, this growing brigade of interlopers represents not merely a demographic trend but the forward cohort of an expeditionary force, taking cover beneath the mantle of its peaceable compatriots. “The vast majority of Muslim legal immigrants,” <em><a href="../2010/04/30/the-real-immigration-solution/">writes</a></em> former congressman Virgil Goode, “do not support terrorism, but their large numbers allow terrorists to blend into the immigrant community.” Our refusal to act decisively against so insidious a threat to our way of life, by putting the brakes on <em>excessive or undifferentiated</em> immigration and by targeting extremists through the agencies at our disposal, is tantamount to gross capitulation.</p>
<p>Returning to the film, we note that the Martian invaders are ultimately routed. But they are not killed with kindness or disarmed by assimilation. It takes a blast of good old traditional American country music, which the aliens are unable to absorb and which reduces them to quivering heaps of head-exploding gelatin, to do the job. We recall, too, that the major theorist of the Muslim Brotherhood, Sayyid Qutb, as he recounts in <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Milestones-Sayyid-Qutb/dp/0934905142/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1272477221&amp;sr=1-1">Milestones</a></em>, couldn’t tolerate the innocent waltz music or cheerful jitterbugging at American church dances, which pretty well drove him mad. The lesson the film teaches is obvious. It is not simply the heartland music as such that defeats the “aliens” but <em>the attitudes, codes, mores, standards, originality and self-confidence which the music enshrines</em>. It takes a belief in ourselves, our culture and our history, and a commitment to celebrate who we are (or were), to resist the sinister blandishments of the Martians among us.</p>
<p>Failing that, we will find ourselves soon enough facing a very different kind of music.</p>
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		<title>Dennis Ross and Dual Loyalties</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/dennis-ross-and-dual-loyalties/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=dennis-ross-and-dual-loyalties</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 09 Apr 2010 04:10:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=57802</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Obama’s Middle East advisor is singled out for a pernicious smear. ]]></description>
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<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/d2.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-57803" title="d2" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/d2.jpg" alt="" width="466" height="367" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Visit <a href="http://pajamasmedia.com/">Pajamas Media</a></strong></p>
<p>Last week, Laura Rozen at the <em>Politico </em><a rel="external" href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/laurarozen/0310/Fierce_debate_on_Israel_underway_inside_Obama_administration.html">gave space</a> to an anonymous Obama administration official to smear Dennis Ross, the White House’s Middle East strategist. Ross’s grave offense, apparently, was to evince some understanding of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s position, which also happens to be the mainstream Israeli position, that Israel has a legitimate right to construct new housing in Jerusalem. That earned Ross the smear that he “seems to be far more sensitive to Netanyahu’s coalition politics than to U.S. interests,” a crude implication of dual loyalties and a classic anti-Semitic slander. Now Harvard professor Stephen Walt has <a rel="external" href="http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/04/02/on_dual_loyalty">emerged</a> to defend the charge under the guise of rejecting it.</p>
<p>Walt, it will be recalled, is co-author of <em>The Israel Lobby</em>, and thus an unlikely voice to come to the defense of someone who shows any empathy for Israel’s position. Indeed, although Walt curiously does not mention it, that book counted Ross as a prominent member of “the Israel lobby” — a term with ominously dark connotations — because he has the temerity to believe, as the authors put it, that the United States should support Israel even when the two countries disagree. (Presumably the “realist” position, which Walt is said to represent, would be that the United States should break all support for countries with which it fails on occasion to see eye to eye.) And sure enough, after some <em>pro-forma</em> hand-wringing about anti-Semitism by which he seems untroubled in other contexts and a few banalities about the nature of political attachments, Walt comes to the conclusion that the real problem with the dual loyalty smear, at least in Ross’s case, is the phrasing. He suggests that it should be called a more sanitary-sounding “conflict of interest.”</p>
<p>Walt no doubt imagines this to be the pragmatic position. He is as usual mistaken. For one thing, what is the conflict of interest in Ross’s case? That he shows some appreciation of Israeli public opinion and understands Israeli domestic politics? Note that Ross has not come out and said that the United States should accept Israel’s position on Jerusalem, which would be eminently reasonable counsel. He has only advised the administration to show more understanding of Israel’s position on that issue. The only way this could be interpreted as a “conflict of interest” is if one believes, as Walt apparently does, that any willingness to listen seriously to Israeli concerns represents the elevation of Israeli interests over American ones. This in fact happens to be an extreme position.</p>
<p><strong>To continue reading this article, <a href="http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/dennis-ross-and-dual-loyalties/">click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Obama’s Two-State Delusion</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/moshe-dann/obama%e2%80%99s-two-state-delusion/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama%25e2%2580%2599s-two-state-delusion</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 02 Apr 2010 04:15:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Moshe Dann]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=56899</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Never before has the United States sought to dictate the terms of Israeli surrender. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/obama-arafat-terrorists.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-56901" title="obama-arafat-terrorists" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/obama-arafat-terrorists.jpg" alt="" width="375" height="323" /></a></p>
<p>Let there be no mistake: President Obama&#8217;s attack on Israel&#8217;s right to govern in eastern Jerusalem has nothing to do with American national interests, and nothing to do with a &#8220;peace process.&#8221; Other American leaders may have disagreed with Israeli policy, but none of them made it a <em>casus belli</em>.</p>
<p>No other prominent politician sought to impose the &#8220;two-state solution,&#8221; based on 60-year-old cease-fire lines with Jordan, instead of a negotiated agreement. Obama&#8217;s move leaps beyond all previous &#8220;accords,&#8221; plans and &#8220;road maps.&#8221; Never before has the United   States sought to dictate the terms of Israeli surrender, thereby undermining its only reliable ally in the region.</p>
<p>Obama&#8217;s obsession with the establishment of a second Arab Palestinian state might be understandable if it were based on a realistic appraisal of conditions as they are, instead of what they might be. The warning signals are there.      <strong> </strong></p>
<p>Two dramatic shifts have made the &#8220;two-state solution&#8221; irrelevant: the stand-off victory of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the hegemony of Hamas in Gaza and many areas of the West Bank, nominally under the Palestinian Authority, controlled by Fatah. One has to be ignorant, and/or blind not to appreciate what these situations mean – especially given the threats from Iran.</p>
<p>The developments have led to the widespread recognition, especially among Israelis, that the so-called “Oslo process” (“land for peace”) has failed, that Israel has no &#8220;peace partner,&#8221; and, therefore, that a second Arab Palestinian state is no longer relevant.</p>
<p>Today, unilateral withdrawal from Yehuda and Shomron (&#8220;the West Bank&#8221;) and the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state is a “clear and present danger,” not only to Israel, but to the entire region.</p>
<p>Refusing to consider any alternatives to the &#8220;two-state&#8221; model, however, the United   States and EU countries focus on an &#8220;end to the conflict,&#8221; without necessary pre-requisites.</p>
<p>During the last 40 years, Israeli leaders conveyed the message that “the Palestinian problem” is ours and we can fix it. This was the motivation behind various proposals: Labor&#8217;s offers to exchange &#8220;land for peace,&#8221; Likud&#8217;s autonomy plan, confederation with Jordan, the First Lebanese War against the PLO, Rabin&#8217;s recognition of the PLO and the establishment of a Palestinian state, Barak&#8217;s offers at Camp David, Sharon&#8217;s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and Northern Shomron, and the current government&#8217;s failures in Lebanon and Gaza.</p>
<p>All of these policies failed because they were <em>not reality-based</em>, but clung to a desperate Israeli desire for an end to the conflict. Each time Israel paid the price and made concessions, however, the price rose, and the conflict continued.</p>
<p>The &#8220;two-state&#8221; proposal based on Israel&#8217;s 1949 borders is also doomed to fail for several reasons:</p>
<p>(1) Palestinians’ opposition to <em>any</em> solution; their refusal to recognize authentic Jewish rights and claims and their refusal to accept Israel&#8217;s existence.</p>
<p>(2) A negotiating process confounded by terrorism. Israel demands an end to terrorism before making broader concessions; the Palestinians demand concessions first and reducing terrorism later – perhaps, if that is at all possible or their plan (which all evidence suggests it isn’t).</p>
<p>(3) Political/demographic reality is that Israel cannot return to the 1949 Armistice lines.</p>
<p>(4) UNRWA continues to support the &#8220;Palestinian right-of-return;&#8221; it is part of the problem, not a solution.</p>
<p>(5) Even if all of the above could be resolved, a stable Palestinian state is unlikely.</p>
<p>Rather than abandon vital national interests, the only practical and rational policy for America, the region, and Israel, is one based on security and reality: Islamic terrorism, Jihad, is and will be a persistent threat. That should be Pres. Obama&#8217;s main concern.</p>
<p>In comparison, issues such as definitions of Israel&#8217;s borders and demographic predictions are irrelevant. &#8220;Political horizons&#8221; can only have meaning when there is a stable government that is accountable and responsible. Otherwise, such proposals are recipes for disaster.</p>
<p>At the least, the Obama administration must present not only a realistic, coherent policy, but an explanation of how and why it will work. Slamming Israel is not a substitute for reason.</p>
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		<title>Conflict or Cooperation?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/walter-williams/conflict-or-cooperation/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=conflict-or-cooperation</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 02 Apr 2010 04:01:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Walter Williams]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=57018</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How government can sow social discord. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/conflict.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-57034" title="conflict" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/conflict.jpg" alt="" width="420" height="300" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Different Americans have different and often intense preferences for all kinds of goods and services. Some of us have strong preferences for beer and distaste for wine while others have the opposite preference — strong preferences for wine and distaste for beer. Some of us hate three-piece suits and love blue jeans while others love three-piece suits and hate blue jeans. When&#8217;s the last time you heard of beer drinkers in conflict with wine drinkers, or three-piece suit lovers in conflict with lovers of blue jeans? It seldom if ever happens because beer and blue jean lovers get what they want. Wine and three-piece suit lovers get what they want and they all can live in peace with one another.</p>
<p>It would be easy to create conflict among these people. Instead of free choice and private decision-making, clothing and beverage decisions could be made in the political arena. In other words, have a democratic majority-rule process to decide what drinks and clothing that would be allowed. Then we would see wine lovers organized against beer lovers, and blue jean lovers organized against three-piece suit lovers. Conflict would emerge solely because the decision was made in the political arena. Why? The prime feature of political decision-making is that it&#8217;s a zero-sum game. One person&#8217;s gain is of necessity another person&#8217;s loss. That is if wine lovers won, beer lovers lose. As such, political decision-making and allocation of resources is conflict enhancing while market decision-making and allocation is conflict reducing. The greater the number of decisions made in the political arena, the greater the potential for conflict.</p>
<p>Take the issue of prayers in school as an example. I think that everyone, except a maniacal tyrant, would agree that a parent has the right to decide whether his child will recite a morning prayer in school. Similarly, a parent has a right to decide that his child will not recite a morning prayer.</p>
<p>Conflict arises because schools are government owned. That means it is a political decision whether prayers will be permitted or not. A win for one parent means a loss for another parent. The losing parent, in order to get what he wants, would have to muster up private school tuition while continuing to pay taxes for a school for which he has no use. If education were only government financed, as opposed to being government financed and produced, say through education vouchers, the conflict would be reduced. Both parents could have their wishes fulfilled by enrolling their child in a private school of their choice and instead of being enemies, they could be friends.</p>
<p>Conflict in education is just one minor example of how government allocation can raise the potential for conflict. Others would include government-backed allocation of jobs and education slots by race and sex, plus the current large conflict over government allocation of health services. Interestingly enough, the very people in our society who protest the loudest against human conflict and violence are the very ones calling for increased government resource allocation. These people fail to recognize or even wonder why our nation, with people of every race, ethnic group and religious group, has managed to live together relatively harmoniously. In their countries of origin, the same ethnic, racial and religious groups have been trying to slaughter one another for centuries. A good part of the answer is that in the United States, there was little to be gained from being a Frenchman, a German, a Jew, a Protestant or a Catholic. The reason it did not pay was because for most of our history, government played a small part in our lives. When there&#8217;s significant government allocation of resources, the most effective means of organizing for the gains are those proven most divisive, such as race, ethnicity, religion and region.</p>
<p>As our nation forsakes our founders&#8217; wisdom of constitutional limitations placed on Washington, we raise the potential for conflict.</p>
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		<title>The Battle for California</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/the-battle-for-california/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-battle-for-california</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 03 Mar 2010 05:21:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[A Front Page exclusive interview with Chuck DeVore, a Republican candidate for the California Senate. ]]></description>
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<p style="text-align: left;">[<em>Editors&#8217; note: Can California elect a Republican to the Senate? In a more conventional time, that might seem like a fanciful question. But with Scott Brown’s improbable victory in blue-state Massachusetts, the possibility of a shock GOP upset cannot be entirely discounted. California Democrats continue to enjoy the traditional perks of home field advantage, including 1.5 million more registered voters and a nationally known incumbent in liberal icon and 17-year Senate veteran Barbara Boxer. But polls increasingly show that the three Republicans vying for the party’s nomination – state assemblyman Chuck DeVore, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, and former Congressman Tom Campbell – could all pose a formidable challenge in the general election. As part of our coverage of the California Senate race, Frontpage magazine will invite all of the candidates, including Senator Boxer, to participate in a conversation about state and national politics. Our first guest is Chuck DeVore, who represents California’s 70<sup>th</sup> state assembly district.</em>]</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>FPM: I’d like to start off with a local California issue. After the </strong><a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7382"><strong>Muslim Student Union</strong></a><strong> at the University of California at Irvine last month disrupted a speech by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren, you sent a letter to school’s chancellor, Michael Drake, </strong><a href="http://collegelife.freedomblogging.com/2010/02/24/devore-calls-for-ban-of-uci-muslim-group/16745/"><strong>urging him to ban </strong></a><strong>the MSU from campus. Why did you decide to get involved in the controversy over the MSU and why did you call for a ban on the group at the UCI campus?</strong></p>
<p><strong>DeVore:</strong> The MSU has been complaining that this is a controversy created by outsiders who are calling for their punishment. But I am not an outsider. I represent a district that’s home to UCI and I’ve been following this issue closely for quite some time.</p>
<p>For years, the MSU has been bringing in speakers – people like [Hamas and Hezbollah supporter] <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2102">Malik Ali</a> – who call for the destruction of Israel and the death of the Jews. Unfortunately, the school has long had a walking-on-eggshells policy when it comes to the MSU. For instance, it allows them to ban recording of their events, which of course prevents people from finding out about the kinds of things that are said at those events. In the past, if you tried to record something at an MSU event, their members would surround you, and they would get the campus officials to drag you away. UC Irvine is the only UC campus that allows the MSU to get away with this.</p>
<p>It’s different for conservative students. When the College Republicans and conservative students tried to show the Dutch cartoons of the prophet Mohammed in 2006, the <a href="http://www.jewishjournal.com/community_briefs/article/cartoon_tension_at_uc_irvine_20060310/">MSU complained</a> and the school initially tried to shut down the event because of threats of violence. At the time, I told Chancellor <a href="http://chancellor.uci.edu/biography.shtml">Drake</a>, “If you shut down this event, in a few years time you’ll have the equivalent of Sharia law on campus.” Eventually, the administration issued a wishy-washy statement of support for free speech, saying that if the students went ahead with it the school wouldn’t shut them down.</p>
<p>The MSU, on the other hand, has repeatedly violated school policy – and gotten away with it. In 2007, the MSU packed a room with protestors when Daniel Pipes was giving a speech. I showed up for that event, not only because I’m interested in Pipes’s work, but because I knew there would be trouble. And there was. The MSU’s members had duct tape over their mouths and they said that they would not be silenced and tried to shut down the event. That was a violation of university policy.</p>
<p>Then, last May, the MSU hosted a fundraising event with <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1102">George Galloway </a>where they were videotaped passing around a hat for <a href="http://octaskforce.wordpress.com/2009/09/25/zoa-letter-to-uc-irvine-msugalloway-september-09-campus-event-raised-funds-for-hamas/">donations</a> to <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6204">Hamas</a>. First, this is a violation of UCI policy about fundraising on campus. Second, this is a violation of federal law prohibiting raising money for groups on the State Department’s designated list of terrorist groups. It’s not a hard list to figure out and Hamas, as I recall, is on it.</p>
<p>My understanding of radical Islamic thought is that if you keep giving them ground they will keep on taking it. That’s what happened last month when the MSU tried to <a href="../2010/02/22/the-death-of-academic-discourse/">shut down a speech</a> by [Israeli ambassador to the United States] Michael Oren. Before he could even get his speech launched, 11 of them, all members of the MSU, including its president, stand up and start yelling. Finally they were taken away and arrested. This comes at the end of a very long string of abuses.</p>
<p>So this is something we need to deal with. The MSU at UCI is the most virulent and the most militant of the Islamist groups on American campuses today.</p>
<p><strong>FPM: Why do you think UCI has not dealt with it? More generally, surveying the modern university scene, you could make a compelling case that universities have been too-tolerant of the MSU and kindred groups. What does that say about the current state of academia?</strong></p>
<p><strong>DeVore:</strong> It’s not just an issue of tolerance. It’s politically correct behavior that you find in some – not all – academic departments, especially in the social sciences. It’s a vision of the world in which America and Israel are cast as imperialist powers, where Zionism is racism, and where the MSU is a member of a noble, persecuted minority that deserves support, and even encouragement, for standing up to these evils. What the MSU has in common with these academics is that they both see the world through the same lens.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>FPM: The MSU of course is just one offshoot of radical Islam. How do you see the issue in a national security sense? Do you think our policymakers understand the threat?</strong></p>
<p><strong>DeVore:</strong> I have differences of opinion with the current administration and to some extent the previous administration. I studied Islamic political thought at the American University in Cairo, Egypt, and there was even a time when I used to speak passable Arabic. I studied the region closely and I came to the conclusion that there are strains within Islam that are uncompromising and at war against the West. In Islam, there was never a reformation of the kind you had in the Christian West, and the result is that you have a religion that believes you cannot separate church and state. What you have, then, is an Islamic world that has fallen behind the West in recent centuries and is driven by powerful feelings of inadequacy. Not only are Muslims ruled by corrupt – and secular – governments in many countries, but they’ve been unable to recapture the Islamic caliphate. This encourages the conflict within Islam, between <em>Dar-al-Islam</em> and <em>Dar-al-Hrab</em> (the house of war and the house of Islam). Now, this conflict can either be internalized as a conflict between good and evil or it can be externalized as <em>jihad</em>. This latter way of thinking motivates many of our enemies; it’s endemic within al-Qaeda, Wahhabist Saudi Arabia, and the Islamic Republic of Iran. It’s a way of thinking which holds that you cannot have peace with a non-Islamic power. I don’t think a lot of American policymakers understand this.</p>
<p><strong>FPM: That’s a very detailed assessment of the threat. A more difficult question, perhaps, is: How should the United States counter it?</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>DeVore:</strong> The Obama administration has rightly gone after the terrorist leadership in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but we should do more. In particular, we should place greater emphasis on human intelligence. We need to make sure that the people who mean us ill do not feel safe wherever they happen to be. At the same time, we should engage those in the Muslim world who do not see this as an intractable conflict and who recognize the threat from the extremists. But how can they see the threat in their homelands when we don’t acknowledge it here at home? What message does it send to them when we stand by passively as a group like the MSU radicalizes a center of higher learning in this country?</p>
<p><strong>In keeping with the same region, <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2010/feb/25/local/la-me-senate-israel25-2010feb25?pg=2">Israel has recently become an issue </a>in the California GOP race. Can you talk a little about how you see the Jewish state’s relationship with the U.S.?</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>DeVore:</strong> I’ve been to Israel four times, most recently in 2007. I view it not only as a strategic ally in the region but a friend that shares the common values of the United States. Not just the democratic values, but the foundational values – the rule of law – that allows the Western world to flourish. Israel is also an improbable nation. Few people 100 years ago would have prophesied the reemergence of Israel in the modern age.</p>
<p>From a policymaking standpoint, we should have a close alliance with Israel. There’s a strain of political thought, on the anti-imperialist Left and the isolationist Right, that if Israel would just disappear all our problems in the Middle East would go away. But that’s just absurd. Almost without exception, Israel’s enemies are our enemies. Of course, some of them cloak their agenda in the rhetoric of anti-Zionism; but scratch just beneath the surface and you find that Israel and the United States have the same enemies.</p>
<p><strong>On the subject of enemies, you’ve had some close calls yourself in the Middle East. For instance, you were once shot at in Lebanon. Can you tell us about that?</strong></p>
<p><strong>DeVore:</strong> In 1984, I was visiting the Bakkah Valley with some journalists, when the Syrian Army in Lebanon started shooting at us. I’m a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, and I had gone though basic training, so I dropped to the ground. But the journalists we were with just kept standing. You could hear the <em>shh, shh, shh</em>, of the bullet rounds as they got closer. And the journalists were still standing. I asked the Israelis we were with, “Why are they test firing?” They said, “Don’t take it personally, but they’re not test firing.” The Syrian army was trying to shoo us away from the hill. They’d never seen journalists up there before and they didn’t want them taking photographs of their lines.</p>
<p><strong>To switch gears a bit to politics, you’ve spoken at a lot rallies for the Tea Parties. How do you see the Tea Party “movement” and do think you, or any other Republican candidate, can harness its energy in your campaign?</strong></p>
<p><strong>DeVore:</strong> I don’t think it’s quite right to see Tea Parties exclusively as a conservative phenomenon. I’ve spoken at a lot of Tea Party rallies and talking to the people who attend them you find that 30 years ago many of them would have been labeled Reagan Democrats. They are working Californians who are extremely concerned about the explosion of government fueled by debt and they are worried about the huge impact that will have on their children. There are a number of people who have gotten activated because of their tremendous concerns about government overspending and the fact that it is running on borrowed money. They are also worried about the threat of larger and more intrusive government and what impact that may have on their liberties down the road. I understand and respect those concerns, but I also recognize that the movement is decentralized and there is no such thing as unified support from the Tea Parties.</p>
<p>Still, they will play a significant role in the nomination. I estimate that there are about 350,000 to 400,000 Tea Party members and supporters in California, out of roughly 5.4 million Republican voters. That means that between 8 and 12 percent of GOP primary voters would be comfortable being identified as Tea Partiers. What’s certain is that they will bring a lot of enthusiasm to the nomination. Whenever I speak at a Tea Party rally, I always ask how many people are active in politics for the first time in their lives. Typically, between 80 to 90 percent raise their hands. As someone who’s been active in politics since 1981, when I was 19, I see this as an amazing phenomenon.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>You’ve taken on quite a tall order in the current race. The prize for winning the Republican nomination is the chance to take on a liberal stalwart in Barbara Boxer, whose Senate tenure is now in its 17<sup>th</sup> year, and become a Republican Senator of a traditionally liberal state. What makes you think that you, or any Republican, can become <strong><a href="http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-01-26/news/17835651_1_tea-party-chuck-devore-strategy-session">the next Scott Brown</a></strong>? </strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>DeVore:</strong> California is not as uniformly liberal as people sometimes cast us. Remember, this is a state that in a May 2009 special election overwhelmingly <a href="http://www.atr.org/california-voters-overwhelmingly-reject-tax-hikes-a3275">rejected a ballot measure</a> to extend the largest tax increase at the state level by another two years. On top of that, the voters are becoming restive: California is suffering the fourth highest unemployment rate in the country, and the government bailout, which Barbara Boxer supported, remains profoundly unpopular with California voters. We’ve been a laboratory for failed big-government experiments for too long.</p>
<p>You can see this in the polls. This January, <a href="http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections2/election_2010/election_2010_senate_elections/california/2010_california_senate_three_gop_hopefuls_narrow_the_gap_with_boxer">Rasmussen polls</a> showed all three of the Republican candidates running within a statistical margin of error of Barbara Boxer. Her lead is narrowing and her approval ratings have fallen to the mid-forties. When an incumbent candidate is mired in the mid-forties, that tells you that she is vulnerable and that there is an opportunity for the right type of candidate. California may have a reliably liberal reputation but all the evidence suggests that we’re not as liberal as people think. I think there’s a tremendous opportunity in California for a plain-spoken, common sense conservative who has the support of the grassroots.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>The “common sense conservative” moniker is one you’ve adopted in your campaign. What does that mean, exactly? What does a common-sense conservative believe?</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>DeVore:</strong> Well, for instance, when a bill comes up to vote, a common-sense conservative might ask, “Is this constitutional?” “Is this something the government should be doing?” A common sense conservative would resist the urge to do something like what they did with the bailout of Wall Street. Look at our financial system, which is in greater risk now than it was before the bailout. At the same time, we’ve seen the unprecedented and unsustainable expansion of government and an explosion in deficits. That’s harmful to the economy, it slows economic growth, and it will result in inflation down the road. Sometimes, the best thing a lawmaker can do is to do nothing.</p>
<p><strong>FPM: Chuck DeVore, thanks very much for joining us. </strong></p>
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		<title>Breaking the Taliban</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/ryan-mauro/breaking-the-taliban/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=breaking-the-taliban</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/ryan-mauro/breaking-the-taliban/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 17 Feb 2010 05:08:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ryan Mauro]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Abdul Ghani]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[The capture of a top Taliban commander may mark a crucial turning point in the Afghan war. ]]></description>
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<p>The war in Afghanistan may have reached a decisive tuning point this week. Just as a U.S. offensive into Helmand  Province is making progress, a joint Pakistani-American raid has resulted in the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/world/asia/16intel.html">capture</a> of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the second-in-command of the Taliban.</p>
<p>Strategically, Mullah Baradar’s capture may be even more important than taking out Mullah Omar, the Taliban’s leader. If a successful interrogation of Baradar is completed, it will result in an intelligence coup that can cripple the terrorist networks in the region and dramatically turn the tide in the ongoing conflict.</p>
<p>Baradar was captured in Karachi, Pakistan, proving that the Taliban leadership operated on that country’s soil. The Pakistani role in the raid is significant, as they have supported the Taliban and have only taken action against them under severe pressure. Last spring, U.S. officials <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/world/asia/26tribal.html?_r=1">complained</a> to <em>The New York Times</em> about how the Pakistani ISI intelligence service was covertly helping the Taliban, providing them with supplies and even holding meetings to strategize. In October, the foreign minister of Afghanistan <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/6338349/Pakistans-ISI-still-supporting-the-Taliban-say-Afghans.html">claimed</a> that his nation provided the U.S. and U.K. with proof that ISI officers were directing Taliban attacks in Afghanistan, specifically mentioning an attack on the Indian embassy the previous year.</p>
<p>The Pakistani ISI’s role in arresting Baradar is therefore extremely significant. It shows that one of the Taliban’s important allies has turned against them. This has happened for several reasons. Pakistani opinion has turned against the Taliban as they have established Sharia Law where they take power and have carried out ruthless attacks on the country’s citizens. They have attacked ISI offices and last spring, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/22/AR2009042200863.html">advanced</a> to within 60 miles of Islamabad. At the same time, outrage over CIA drone attacks is putting pressure on the Pakistani government that can only be alleviated by doing the work that the Americans have been forced to do for them. This does not necessarily mean that the Pakistanis will undertake a full-fledged offensive against safe havens in their country, but it’s a notable improvement in their behavior.</p>
<p>The Taliban first denied that Baradar had been caught, perhaps honestly believing that it was simply Western propaganda. Taliban commanders then tried to <a href="http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/02/taliban_confirm_mull.php">say</a> he was captured in Helmand  Province, probably in an attempt to disguise the fact that they do indeed rely upon Pakistani safe haven to operate.</p>
<p>Baradar has been the operational leader of the Taliban for years. He is responsible for reorienting the Taliban strategy to focus on guerilla warfare similar to that practiced in Iraq, rather than engaging American forces in the open. His orders to focus on ambushes and the use of improvised explosive devices led to a significant increase in casualties over the past year. His skill has caused him to be <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/7248549/Taliban-commander-Mullah-Abdul-Ghani-Baradar-a-formidable-foe.html">called</a> a “brilliant commander” by one expert on Afghanistan. He also led the Shura Council in the Pakistani Baluchistan Province capital of Quetta, controlled the Taliban’s finances and managed the “shadow government” of Taliban governors, mayors and other officials. In <em>Newsweek’s </em><a href="http://www.newsweek.com/id/208637">words,</a> “A cunning, little-know figure, he may be more dangerous than [Mullah] Omar ever was.”</p>
<p>This picture of Baradar’s role indicates that the Taliban effort is more centralized than is often assumed. This means that there will be leaders that can quickly replace him, but it also means that his oversized role in all of the Taliban’s affairs makes his absence extremely destabilizing for them. It also means that he has a treasure trove of knowledge about all of the organization’s functions. He likely knows where Mullah Omar is hiding, and his history of close dealings with Osama Bin Laden means he will know much about his operations. It’s been believed for a long time that Mullah Omar is residing in Quetta, and last fall, the U.S. deputy chief of mission in Islamabad <a href="http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2009/10/01/Bin-Laden-Mullah-Omar-in-Quetta-US-says/UPI-79241254428768/">said</a> it was believed that Bin Laden also was there. If that report is true, then there is a very good chance that Baradar knows the location of Bin Laden as well—or that if he doesn’t, he can reveal the people closest to him.</p>
<p>One other area he can certainly shed light on is Iran’s alliance with the Taliban. Small arms and IEDs became the staple of the Taliban’s attacks under Baradar’s guidance, and the U.S. military knows that these are being <a href="http://www.worldthreats.com/?p=1655">provided</a> by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, along with training. In one raid in Heart Province in August, over 100 BM-1 rockets and dozens of C4 explosives made by the Iranians were <a href="http://www.worldthreats.com/?p=1609">seized.</a></p>
<p>It’s possible that the removal of Baradar from Taliban’s hierarchy could spark some internal strife. It is known that he has had several major rivals in the past, with the sharpest <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/id/208637/page/3">challenge</a> coming from Mullah Dadullah Akhund, who Baradar viewed as reckless. As their conflict escalated, Dadullah was killed in a raid that “was clearly guided by inside information.” Dadullah’s younger brother then began attacking Baradar, resulting in his expulsion from the Taliban. Soon after, someone provided inside information on his location allowing the Pakistanis to arrest him, just as had happened to his brother.</p>
<p>Luckily, U.S. officials claim that Baradar is talking and giving up intelligence. This will be a test of the Obama Administration’s interrogation policy, although the Pakistanis are also involved, with their much more lax restrictions. If Baradar’s information leads to more captures, causing a domino effect that turns the war in Afghanistan around, the Obama Administration will undoubtedly use it to vindicate their policy on Pakistan and interrogations. If the information he provides is limited, President Obama’s opposition will take aim.</p>
<p>Baradar’s inability to serve won’t end the Taliban, as he has trained many of his fighters in his tactics and strategy. It would not be an exaggeration, however, to state that the intelligence he gives could begin the Taliban’s darkest days. A large amount of the information will only be useful, though, if it can be acted upon and the willingness of the Pakistanis to act quickly and aggressively against the safe havens on their territory before such intelligence becomes outdated is still in question.</p>
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