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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; islamic</title>
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		<title>Democracy and the Jewish State</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/democracy-and-the-jewish-state/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=democracy-and-the-jewish-state</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 01 Dec 2014 05:57:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bill]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[jewish state]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nation]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=246366</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Is a Jewish state less democratic than a Muslim state?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Israel-Flag-Johnk85.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-246377" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Israel-Flag-Johnk85-450x301.jpg" alt="Israel-Flag-Johnk85" width="341" height="228" /></a>Never mind the Islamic State and its boxes of heads. The consensus among politicians and the media is that the real crisis in the region is that the Jewish State is declaring itself a Jewish State.</p>
<p>Again.</p>
<p>Israel’s flag carries the six-pointed star that was the seal of the House of David. Its anthem speaks of the “Jewish spirit.” Israel’s Declaration of Independence declared “the establishment of a Jewish State.”</p>
<p>It couldn’t be any less unambiguous if Mel Brooks were made the President of Israel (which would also be a manifest improvement over the even more clownish President Rivlin.) Despite that the media and its politicians treated the Jewish State bill as a major development and the end of the world.</p>
<p>And that’s not an exaggeration.</p>
<p>The understated title of a Haaretz article was “The road from Jewish nation-state to the Gates of Hell.” It was only to be expected that the radicals of the leftist paper would lose their minds over a bill that reaffirms reality. Reality has always been the enemy of the left. But the level of hysteria and incitement was a bit much even by the standards of a paper that had called Israeli soldiers and officers “filth.”</p>
<p>The <i>New York Times</i> called the bill “heartbreaking.” This is the first time that the Gray Lady showed anything resembling a heart when it came to Israel.</p>
<p>The State Department, whose boss just decided to ignore the results of a democratic election and press on with his undemocratic agenda, warned Israel to maintain its “commitment to democratic principles.” The European Union, which rejects a democratic referendum, warned Israel to “protect its democratic standards.”</p>
<p>Obama, the EU and the Israeli left like talking about democracy. They just don’t like practicing it.</p>
<p>PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas declared, “We will never recognize the Jewishness of the state of Israel.” A PFLP official, the terrorist organization which claimed responsibility for the recent massacre of Rabbis in a synagogue, called the bill racist.</p>
<p>And yet the Palestinian basic law states that “the Palestinian people are part of the Arab nation.” There is no provision made for non-Arab Palestinians, even though the term was originally used to refer to all residents of the British Mandate for Palestine. There is no mention of the ten thousand Africans living in Gaza.</p>
<p>When it comes to religion, the basic law is even clearer.</p>
<p>“Islam is the official religion in Palestine,” it states. “The principles of Islamic Sharia shall be a principal source of legislation.”</p>
<p>Finally it adds that “Arabic shall be the official language.”</p>
<p>If a Jewish State in Israel is racist and undemocratic, why is an Arab Muslim settler state in Israel that goes much further in explicitly limiting membership to Arabs and makes Islam into its official religion and law okay?</p>
<p>Are Islam and Arab Nationalism inherently more democratic than Judaism and Zionism? Certainly the radically different approaches to them by Israel’s critics are.</p>
<p>There has never been a United Nations resolution declaring Arab Nationalism to be racist despite the ethnic cleansing carried out by major figures such as Nasser and Saddam. Arab Nationalists have made war on Israel with the open aim of genocide. Islamic leaders continue to call for the mass murder of Jews. But only Zionism was deemed racist by the UN under pressure from Arab and Muslim countries.</p>
<p>The State Department and the European Union fund the Palestinian Authority. They have no objection to its explicitly Arab and Islamic identity. The media, which acts as the unofficial public relations bureau of the PLO, has never objected to it. Certainly not the way its members have to a Jewish State.</p>
<p>The critics of the Jewish State bill insist that Israel’s only hope is to make a deal with the PLO. Clearly they see nothing wrong with its Islamic and Arab status. Unless they can show that Judaism and Jews are worse than Islam or Arabs, they have to admit that there is nothing wrong with a Jewish State.</p>
<p>Peres, the Jimmy Carter of Israel who sank his career by giving away the store to the PLO, warned that being a Jewish State threatens “Israel&#8217;s democratic status at home and abroad.” But Peres doesn’t feel that there’s anything wrong with the PLO’s Palestinian Authority even though its own president has dispensed with election and the territory is being run by the PLO.</p>
<p>Can a Jewish State be less democratic than an Islamic terrorist state run by terrorists who no longer even bother holding elections?</p>
<p>The majority of Israelis support the Jewish State bill. The great democratic voice of the people has already spoken. The only thing standing in its way is the undemocratic obstructionism of career leftists, media hysteria and politicians who are more comfortable denouncing Jews than living among them.</p>
<p>Despite having a Jewish majority, Israel has protected the rights of everyone living there. But there is nothing extraordinary about that. There are plenty of European countries with state churches and monarchs who carry religious titles which nonetheless protect the rights of all without prejudice.</p>
<p>Just because a country has deep roots in the history of a single people and their faith does not mean that it is undemocratic or that it denies civil rights to anyone. The history of Israel is Jewish in the way that the history of England is English and Christian.</p>
<p>There is only one of the big three religions today that engages in widespread religious discrimination. There are no churches allowed in Saudi Arabia (to say nothing of synagogues) because over a thousand years ago Mohammed had commanded the ethnic cleansing of Jews and Christians.</p>
<p>When Muslims want religious freedom, they don’t go to a Muslim country. They go to a non-Muslim one such as America or Israel.</p>
<p>Minority religions descending from Islam such as the Ahmadis and the Baha’i live in peace in Israel. Indeed the Baha’i religion is based in Israel. Meanwhile Sunni and Shiite Muslims are killing each other all over the Middle East to settle an ancient tribal religious dispute.</p>
<p>At a time when the Muslim Middle East is becoming less religiously diverse than ever and when Christians are vanishing from territories under PLO control, Israel continues to be a place where Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists and a dizzying variety of beliefs and unbeliefs live side by side.</p>
<p>Israel, like any other country, has things that it can be criticized for, but it’s curious that the same outpouring of outrage doesn’t appear when it comes to the PLO arresting an atheist for criticizing Islam.</p>
<p>The media praises backward Muslim theocracies and their pet Imams who are dispatched to the West to preach hate. It calls the explicitly theocratic Muslim Brotherhood, which spawned numerous terrorist groups including Al Qaeda, “moderate.” It gives the benefit of the doubt to the Islamic terrorist theocracy in Tehran no matter how many times it calls for the destruction of America and Israel.</p>
<p>While Jews and Christians continue to show tolerance to the minorities living in their midst, they are accused of constantly plotting to create totalitarian theocracies. Meanwhile these defenders of religious freedom defend Muslim theocracies and theocrats which they claim are moderate and misunderstood.</p>
<p>Is the problem with the Jewish State that it’s Jewish or is the real problem that it isn’t Muslim?</p>
<p>If Israel were putting forward a bill to call itself a Muslim state, there would be no objections. Just as there were no objections to the constitutions of the Muslim world which declare that those countries are Islamic, just as there are no objections to the PLO which Israel is expected to turn over territory to.</p>
<p>Arguments can be made for objecting to the Jewish State bill. But anyone who objects to it, but doesn’t object to the Islamic political and legal identities of the Palestinian Authority and the Muslim countries of the region, isn’t defending a broad universal principle. He’s pandering to Muslims and attacking Jews.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>Don&#8217;t miss <strong>Daniel Greenfield</strong> on this <strong>The</strong> <strong>Glazov Gang</strong> discussing <span id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" tabindex="0" data-ft="{&quot;tn&quot;:&quot;K&quot;}"><span class="hasCaption"><strong>Obama&#8217;s Fantasies about Un-Islamic Jihad:</strong></span></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/28J1kYbaqbc" width="460" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></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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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Obama and the Definition of &#8216;Islamic&#8217;</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/caroline-glick/obama-and-the-definition-of-islamic/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama-and-the-definition-of-islamic</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/caroline-glick/obama-and-the-definition-of-islamic/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 04 Nov 2014 05:50:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Caroline Glick]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[IS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[muslim brotherhood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Peace]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Radical]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[violence]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=244447</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The fatal flaw in the administration's strategy of mainstreaming radical political Islam. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/obama.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-244454" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/obama-384x350.jpg" alt="obama" width="298" height="272" /></a>Originally published by the <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Our-World-Obama-and-the-definition-of-Islamic-380696">Jerusalem Post</a>. </em></p>
<p><span style="color: #000000;">In his speech on September 11 announcing that the US would commence limited operations against Islamic State, US President Barack Obama insisted, “ISIL, [i.e. Islamic State] is not Islamic. No religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of ISIL’s victims have been Muslim.”</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">To be sure, it is hard to see how any human faith can countenance IS’s actions. For the past several months, on a daily basis, new videos appear of IS fighters proudly, openly and wantonly committing crimes against humanity. This week for instance, a video emerged of an IS slave market in Raqqah, Syria, where women and girls are sold as sex slaves to IS fighters.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Despite the glaring contradiction between divinity and monstrosity, the fact is that IS justifies every single one of its atrocities with verses from the Koran.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">IS referred to its sex slave market in Raqqah for instance as the “Booty Market&#8230; for what your right hands possess.”</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">The phrase “what your right hands possess” is a Koranic verse (4:3) that permits the sexual enslavement of women and girls by Muslim men.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Whether it is mainstream Islamic jurisprudence or not to embrace the enslavement of women and girls as concubines is not a question that Obama – or any US leader for that matter – is equipped to answer. And yet, Obama spoke with absolute certainty when he claimed that IS is not Islamic.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Obama speaks with similar conviction whenever he refers to Iran as “The Islamic Republic of Iran.”</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Obama’s consistent deference to the Iranian regime, exposed by his studious use of the regime’s name for itself whenever he discusses Iran indicates that at a minimum, he is willing to accept the regime’s claim that it is an Islamic regime. In other words, he is willing to accept that everything about the Iranian regime is authentic Islam.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">And that the Islamic Republic then, in keeping with his assertion that “no religion condones the killing of innocents,” similarly does not condone the killing of innocents.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Of course, there is a problem here. In fact, there are two problems here.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">First, in its treatment of its own people, the Iranian regime condones and actively engages in the killing of innocents, the vast majority of whom are Muslims. The Islamic regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran invokes the Koran to justify its killing.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Likewise, the political imprisonment, torture and general repression of Iranians from all faiths are justified in the name of Islam.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Consider two recent examples.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">On October 25, 27-year-old Reyhaneh Jabbari was hanged for allegedly killing a man who was trying to rape her. Jabbari was imprisoned for seven years prior to her execution.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Although her suffering was a cause celebre for advocates of human rights in Iran, the regime didn’t care. In contempt of the international community, it murdered her a week ago.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">As her attorney Mohammed Mostataei explained at a conference held by UN Watch in Geneva last week, Jabbari was tried under Islamic law – the law of the land in the Islamic Republic of Iran. And under Islamic sharia law, intent in adjudication of criminal offenses is irrelevant. As a consequence, once regime inquisitors force a person to confess, he or she is doomed.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Forced confessions are the stock in trade for Iranian investigators.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Last month, 25 women in Isfahan, Iran’s tourist capital, were reportedly victims of acid attacks.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">The women had acid thrown in their faces while they were driving in their cars.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">The public immediately suspected that they were targeted because their faces were not covered sufficiently to satisfy Islamic goon squads that drive around the city seeking – with the tacit if not open support of the regime – to terrorize the public into obeying their repressive, inhumane interpretation of Islam.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">On October 22, human rights activists in Iran held demonstrations against the acid attacks outside the judiciary building in Isfahan and outside the Iranian parliament in Tehran. In both instances, protesters insisted that there is no difference between the repression inherent in the radical Islam propagated by IS and that practiced by the Iranian regime.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">In both cities, demonstrators were attacked by regime forces with tear gas. Many were arrested.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">After the acid attacks were first reported, the Iranian parliament passed measures to strengthen the authority of the regime’s Basij shock troop squads to enforce repressive, misogynist Islamic dress codes on women and enforce other socially repressive aspects of the regime’s Islam.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">As Baron Alexander Carile of Barriew, a member of the British House of Lords and expert on terrorism explained last Friday in The Washington Times, “In essence, the regime responded to the acid attacks that have seriously injured 25 people so far by legitimizing the motives of their attackers.”</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">According to the UN, Iran executed 852 Iranians for various offenses from July 2013 through June 2014.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">This of course is just the tip of the iceberg. The vast majority of the regime’s killing is carried out by its proxies.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">IS’s persecution of those who have had the misfortune to fall under its control is a blight on the human race. And so is the persecution committed by Iran’s puppets – the Assad regime in Syria, and its Lebanese terror army Hezbollah.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Since the Syrian civil war began three years ago, the Iranian-controlled regime has killed somewhere between 120,000 and 200,000 people.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, nearly 10,000 of the dead are children, another 6,000 are women. Other groups place the number much higher.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">More than 2.14 million Syrians are now refugees in neighboring countries. Half of the refugees are children. Another 4.25 million Syrians are internally displaced.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">If it hadn’t been for Iran’s support for the regime, the vast majority of the victims of Syria’s civil war would still be alive and living in their homes.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Thanks to Iran and its Hezbollah army, Lebanon is on the brink of sharing Syria’s fate.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Hezbollah has played a major role in the war in Syria, and over the years, with Iran’s total backing, it has murdered thousands of people in Lebanon, Israel and throughout the world.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Hezbollah has trained sister Iranian supported or commanded terrorist groups like Islamic Jihad and Hamas. With the blessing, and often acting on direct orders from the Islamic Republic, these groups have killed hundreds of innocents. Like Hezbollah, Assad and the mullahs in Tehran, they have also repressed their own people in the name of their Islamic devotion.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">And this brings us back to Obama and his insistence that IS is not Islamic, but the Iranian regime is Islamic. How are we to understand this seeming anomaly? Throughout his tenure in office, Obama has gone out of his way to mainstream Muslim extremists.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">This has taken the form of granting senior appointments to people aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood. For instance, amid a Congressional investigation into suspected leaks, Mohamed Elibiary, a senior fellow at the US Department of Homeland Security Advisory Council, resigned his position.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Just before his resignation, Elibiary tweeted that the rise of the caliphate is “inevitable.” In 2004 he spoke at a conference in Dallas celebrating the legacy of Iranian dictator Ayatollah Khomeini. As Robert Spencer has reported, the conference was titled, “A Tribute to a Great Islamic Visionary.”</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Moreover, Obama had befriended radical Islamic leaders who openly support terrorism, including Turkish dictator Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the emir of Qatar, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">And of course, as we see more and more clearly each day, the centerpiece of Obama’s foreign policy has been appeasing the Islamic Republic of Iran in the hope of achieving détente with the nuclear weapons pursuing state sponsor of terrorism.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">The likes of IS, with its love of the video camera, discredit Obama’s narrative that radical, terror- supporting Muslims are peaceful. Since IS is openly evil, it is un-Islamic.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">On the other hand, despite the fact that it is nearly as barbaric as IS, the Iranian regime is Islamic, because as far as Obama is concerned, it is good. And it is good because he wants to make a deal with the mullahs.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">In other words, Obama is neither an expert on Islam, nor a man moved by moral indignation.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">He opposes IS because IS makes it hard for him to defend Islam from bad public relations. And he coos about the “Islamic Republic of Iran” because he is dedicated to his mission of whitewashing and mainstreaming the regime born of an Islamic revolution.</span></p>
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		<title>The Pentagon’s Bow to Islamic Extremism</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/raymond-ibrahim/the-pentagons-bow-to-islamic-extremism/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-pentagons-bow-to-islamic-extremism</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 12 Feb 2014 05:45:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Raymond Ibrahim]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[beard]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dress codes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hijab]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pentagon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Religion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sharia]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=218583</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How the acceptance of Islamic dress codes may make the Pentagon more vulnerable. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Woman-wearing-Hijab.png"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-218612" alt="Woman-wearing-Hijab" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Woman-wearing-Hijab-450x332.png" width="270" height="199" /></a></span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">“Caving to pressure from Muslim groups, the Pentagon has relaxed uniform rules to allow Islamic beards, turbans and hijabs. It’s a major win for political correctness and a big loss for military unit cohesion,” said a </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/012914-688132-pentagon-allows-islamic-beards-worn-by-jihadists.htm">recent report</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">This new relaxation of rules for Muslims comes at a time when the FBI is tracking more than 100 suspected jihadi-infiltrators of the U.S. military.  Just last month, Craig Benedict Baxam, a former Army soldier and convert to Islam, was sentenced to seven years in prison due to his al-Qaeda/jihadi activities.   Also last month, Mozaffar Khazaee, an Iranian-American working for the Defense Department, was arrested for sending secret documents to America’s enemy, Iran.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">According to a Pentagon spokesperson, the new religious accommodations—to allow Islamic beards, turbans, and hijabs—which took effect very recently, would “reduce both the instances and perception of discrimination among those whose religious expressions are less familiar to the command.” </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The report concludes that, “Making special accommodations for Islam will only attract more Muslims into the military at a time when two recent terror cases highlight the ongoing danger of Muslims in uniform.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">But it’s worse than that; for not only will it attract “more Muslims,” it will attract precisely the </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">wrong</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> kinds of Muslims, AKA, “Islamists,” “radicals,” etc.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">This is easily demonstrated by connecting the dots and understanding that Muslims who adhere to visible, non-problematic aspects of Islam—growing beards and donning hijabs—often indicate their adherence to non-visible, problematic aspects of Islam.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Consider it this way: Why do some Muslim men wear the prescribed beard and why do some Muslim women wear the prescribed hijab? Most Muslims would say they do so because Islam’s prophet Muhammad commanded them to (whether via the Koran or Hadith).</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Regarding the Muslim beard, Muhammad wanted his followers to </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/engagement/resources/texts/muslim/hadith/muslim/002.smt.html">look different</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> from “infidels,” namely Christians and Jews, so he ordered his followers to “trim closely the moustache and grow the beard.” Accordingly, all </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.islam.tc/beard/beard.html">Sunni schools of law</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> maintain that it is forbidden—a “</span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://alfatihoun.edaama.org/Fatawas/English/Fatawas/V1/Fourteen.htm">major sin</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">”—for men to shave their beards (unless, of course, it is part of a </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.meforum.org/2538/taqiyya-islam-rules-of-war">stratagem against the infidel</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, in which case it is permissible).</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The question begs itself: If such Muslims meticulously follow the minor, “outer” things of Islam simply because their prophet made some utterances concerning them in the Hadith, logically speaking, does that not indicate that they also follow, or at the very least accept as legitimate, the major, “inner” themes Muhammad constantly emphasized in both the Koran and Hadith—such as enmity for and deceit of the infidel, and, when capable, perpetual jihad?</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Even in the Islamic world this connection between visible indicators of Islamic piety and jihadi tendencies are well known.  Back in 2011, when Islamists were dominating Egypt’s politics, secularist talk show host Amr Adib of </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuJ8TwkscSk&amp;feature=player_embedded">Cairo Today</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> mocked the then calls for a “million man beard” march with his trademark sarcasm: “This is a great endeavor! After all, a man with a beard can never be a thug, can never rape a woman in the street, can never set a church on fire, can never fight and quarrel, can never steal, and can never be dishonest!”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">His sarcasm was not missed on his Egyptian viewership which knew quite well that it is precisely those Muslims who most closely follow the minutia of Muhammad—for example, by growing a beard—that are most prone to violence, deceit, and anti-infidel sentiments, all of which were also advocated by Islam’s prophet.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Speaking more seriously, Adib had added that this issue is not about growing a beard, but rather, “once you grow your beard, you give proof of your commitment and fealty to everything in Islam.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Similarly, after Egypt’s June 30 Revolution ousted the Muslim Brotherhood, “</span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/08/22/beards-niqab-become-liability-in-egypt-after-crackdown/">overt signs of piety</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> [beards and hijabs] have become all it takes to attract suspicion from security forces at Cairo checkpoints and vigilantes looking to attack Islamists.”  Clubs and restaurants </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/egyptian-club-bans-beards-and-veils/">banned entrance</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> to those wearing precisely these two “overt signs of piety.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">While Egyptians instinctively understand how fealty to the Muslim beard evinces fealty, or at least acceptance, to all those </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">other</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> problematic things Muhammad commanded, even in fuzzy Western op-eds, the connection sometimes peeks out. Consider the following excerpt from a </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/06/us/06beliefs.html?pagewanted=all"><i>New York Times</i></a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> piece titled “Behold the Mighty Beard, a Badge of Piety and Religious Belonging”:</span></p>
<blockquote><p> <span style="line-height: 1.5em;">[A]ll over the Muslim world, the full beard has come to connote piety and spiritual fervor…. Of course, the beard is only a sign of righteousness. It is no guarantor, as Mr. Zulfiqar [a Muslim interviewee] reminds us: “I recall one gentleman who came back from a trip to Pakistan and remarked to me, </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">‘I learned one thing: the longer the beard, the bigger the crook.’ His anticipation was people with big beards would be really honest, but he kept meeting people lying to him.”</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </span></p></blockquote>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The italicized portion speaks for itself. Whereas the Muslim beard ostensibly represents religious piety, some people, mostly Westerners, are shocked to find that those who wear it are often “crooks” and “liars.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In Islam, however, outer signs of religiosity on the one hand, and corruption and deceit on the other, are quite compatible. After all, the same source—Islam’s prophet Muhammad, as recorded in the Hadith—that tells Muslims to grow a beard </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">also</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/7343/islams-doctrines-of-deception">advocates deception</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, the plundering of infidels, the </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/muslim-woman-seeks-to-revive-institution-of-sex-slavery/">keeping of sex slaves</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/islamic-adult-breastfeeding-fatwas-return/">adult “breast feeding,”</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> and all sorts of other practices antithetical to Western notions of piety if not decency.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Incidentally, it’s the same with the hijab, or cloak that some Muslim women wear, also on Muhammad’s command. One reformed Islamic jihadi from Egypt </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/7334/inside-jihad">accurately observes</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> that “the proliferation of the hijab is strongly correlated with increased terrorism…. Terrorism became much more frequent in such societies as Indonesia, Egypt, Algeria, and the U.K. </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">after</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> the hijab became prevalent among Muslim women living in those communities.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">And so, at a time when the U.S. should at the very least be wary of those who openly wear their Islamic radicalism around their face and head—beards for males, hijabs for females—the U.S. Pentagon (of all places) is embracing them in “celebration of multiculturalism.” Where loyalty to the U.S. is most needed, the Pentagon embraces those who show that their loyalty is elsewhere (among other things, the beard and hijab are meant to separate “pure believers” from “impure infidels”).</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Of course, none of this is surprising considering that the Pentagon also considers Evangelical Christians and Catholics as </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://radio.foxnews.com/toddstarnes/top-stories/pentagon-classifies-evangelical-christians-catholics-as-extremists.html">“extremists” on a par with al-Qaeda</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" 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 style="line-height: 1.5em;">.</b></span></p>
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		<title>The Iranian Hostage Crisis: 34 Years Later</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/majid-rafizadeh/the-iranian-hostage-crisis-34-years-later/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-iranian-hostage-crisis-34-years-later</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 07 Nov 2013 04:15:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[death]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[The Islamic Republic of Iran's chilling commemoration of the occasion. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/13920813144849231468654.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-209838" alt="13920813144849231468654" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/13920813144849231468654-450x313.jpg" width="270" height="188" /></a>As the Obama administration stays determined to push for domestic and foreign policies that would prevent further pressure on the Islamic Republic of Iran, attempting to diplomatically and pleasantly reach out to the Islamists in Iran, just this week Islamist Iranian leaders responded to Obama’s outreach and foreign policies with a robust reaffirmation of their antagonism towards the United States and Israel.</p>
<p>This Monday marked the 34<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the American Embassy takeover in Iran, which led to 52 Americans being held hostage for several months in Tehran during the Carter administration. Contrary to what many liberal policy analysts in the Obama administration thought, and despite their recent portrayal of the constructive ties between the Islamists in Iran and United States, several powerful political Iranian institutions called for one of the biggest rallies this week.</p>
<p>Tens of thousands of Iranian demonstrators packed the streets outside the former US embassy in Tehran. Hundreds of thousands also demonstrated against Israel and the US in various cities across the country. This call to rally against the United States and Israel created one of the most unprecedented demonstrations in size and scope. Many Western and Eastern media outlets reported that these gatherings were the biggest anti-US and anti-Israel rally in years. Even according to Iran&#8217;s official media, millions of people participated in the protests around the country, resulting in the largest anti-US and anti-Israel demonstration turnout in years.</p>
<p>Additionally, the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran declared November 4th as the “National Day against Global Arrogance.” While this week, tens of thousands of Iranians shouted &#8220;Death to America&#8221; and &#8220;Death to Israel.&#8221; The burning of American and Israeli flags took place throughout Iranian cities. Furthermore, effigies of US President Barack Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and US Secretary of State John Kerry were held up high by protestors.</p>
<p>The more the Obama administration pushes for a weakening of policies towards Iran &#8212; such as compromising and calling the ruling party “moderate” &#8212; the more the Islamic Republic of Iran is sending formidable signs to the United States that it will not put away its antagonizing policies towards the United States.</p>
<p>For 34 years, the United States and the international community have tried—through unilateral, bilateral, and multilateral talks, diplomatic initiatives, and later through sanctions, political, and economic pressure— to persuade the leaders of the Islamist state of Iran to change their extremist domestic and foreign policies, and to respect the modern standards of the international community, the United Nations, International Atomic Energy Agency, Amnesty International, and other human rights watch groups.</p>
<p>None of these political and diplomatic approaches have yielded a positive result. Not only have extremist Iranian leaders not scaled down their aggressive foreign policy and their support for terrorist proxies, but they have also increased their domestic repression, human rights abuses, imprisonment and execution of political and human rights activists, along with their persecution of Christians, Jews, and Baha’is.</p>
<p>After all the efforts undertaken by the international community, the Obama administration is, in a sense, restarting its foreign policy from a clean slate. President Obama is attempting to use pleasant diplomatic language with Iranian leaders to ease sanctions on the nation. According to Iranian media, Eastern mainstream news, and some Western outlets, President Obama has repeatedly and desperately begged President Rouhani to speak with him on the phone.</p>
<p>In the arena of international politics taking such initiatives a crucial issue arises, President Obama is significantly weakening the geopolitical position of the United States and emboldening the power of the hardliners and extremists in Iran.</p>
<p>Recently, one of the most powerful military and ideologically hardlined institutions in Iran, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/iran-guards-want-keep-death-america-chant-164840915.html">stated</a> on the Persian Sepah News <a href="http://www.sepahnews.com/">website</a>, that the slogan &#8220;Death to America&#8221; was a sign, and manifestation, of the Iranian people&#8217;s will, determination, and robust resistance against &#8220;the dominance of oppressive and untrustworthy America.&#8221; Hardliners even announced a few days before the protests that they composed several new anti-American Islamist songs to be played next to the American embassy.</p>
<p>Additionally, during the opening session of Iran’s parliament (Majlis), all members of the Majlis joined the hardliners’ call, stating that they will proudly carry the slogan “Death to America.”</p>
<p>Beside all these foreign policy gaffs, the Obama administration is currently pushing to invite Iran to the Geneva II conference. Kerry has repeatedly called to engage Iran in the upcoming Geneva Conference.</p>
<p>The matter of fact is that the key political institutions of Iran- such as the IRGC, the paramilitary Basij militia, the ministry of intelligence and security, the Mostazafan Foundation of Islamic Revolution (which owns and manages approximately 350 subsidiary and affiliate companies in fields including industry, transportation, commerce, agriculture, and tourism), the Supreme National Security Council, the army, and the Expediency Council- have made it clear that their antagonism towards the United States and Israel is an unalterable part of their policies. The reason that these institutions exist is based on their fundamental ideology to act against Washington and Tel Aviv. Their existence, and Islamic legitimacy, will be endangered if they change this fundamental Islamic ideology.</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>Iran&#8217;s Hope for an &#8216;Islamic Awakening&#8217; in Egypt</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/majid-rafizadeh/irans-hope-for-an-islamic-awakening-in-egypt/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=irans-hope-for-an-islamic-awakening-in-egypt</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 16 Jul 2013 04:30:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Democracy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[egypt]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[The dangerous power vacuum left by an absence of U.S. leadership. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/640x392_31494_145906.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-196814" alt="640x392_31494_145906" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/640x392_31494_145906-450x318.jpg" width="270" height="191" /></a>One of the most detrimental consequences of the Obama administration’s avoidance of taking a robust and assertive foreign policy leadership role is that it has directly contributed to emboldening the hegemonic, ideological, and geopolitical ambitions of the Islamic Republic of Iran – not only across the region, but also in the international arena. Because the Obama administration has been hesitant to take decisive action towards the heightening political leverage and influence of the Islamists and Salafists in Egypt, Iran has been able to pursue actions that further preserve its geopolitical, national, geostrategic and ideological privileges across the region.</p>
<p>After the recent overthrow of the Islamist and authoritative leader, Mohammad Morsi from the Muslim Brotherhood party, the Islamic Republic of Iran under the leadership of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been publicly calling for the Islamists, fundamentalists, Salafists, and advocates of radical Sharia law to mobilize on the streets and to protest Israel and the United States until Mohammad Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood are reinstated to power. Due to the political vacuum in Egypt and due to the absence of U.S. leadership, Iranian leaders are eagerly intervening in Egypt’s political affairs in order to shift the current political developments to their favor.</p>
<p>This week, the Supreme Leader and his loyal followers – in a manner that appears to be following the footsteps of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution – are publicly encouraging another uprising in Egypt, referring to it as an &#8220;Islamic Awakening.” Intriguingly enough, the Iranian leaders used a description other than an “Islamic Awakening” when describing the nation-wide protests in Syria. Instead, Iranian officials hypocritically labeled Syria’s uprisings as a struggle between Assad’s legitimate Alawite-based government on one hand and Israeli-and-U.S.-backed conspirators, traitors and “terrorists” on the other.</p>
<p>After former Egyptian president Morsi was removed from power by the high generals of the Egyptian Army, as well as through the efforts of millions of protesters, Iran&#8217;s Foreign Ministry harshly criticized the Egyptian military, U.S. and Israel for toppling the nation&#8217;s Islamist president. In an official interview, the Islamic Republic of Iran&#8217;s Foreign Ministry called the move to remove ex-president Morsi as extremely improper. According to the official Iranian news agency IRNA, the ministry spokesman Abbas Araghchi stated, &#8220;We do not consider proper the intervention by military forces in politics to replace a democratically elected administration.&#8221; In addition, Mansour Haqiqatpour, a member of the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, said on Tuesday that “Militarism does not favor democracy…. The Army must defend the great Egyptian people against foreign threats.”</p>
<p>First of all, it is fairly ironic that the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran are lecturing the Egyptian people about democracy and legitimate elections. The Islamic Republic of Iran – a country in which the gilded circle of the Supreme Leader and his loyal members of the Guardian Council hold the power to veto any politically-undesirable candidate from running for presidency – is instructing the Egyptian people and military on the meaning of democracy. Iran, which is encouraging Morsi’s supporters to mobilize on the streets, is the same country that became notorious for its repeated and oppressive crack downs on leaders and participants of the Iranian Green Movement ever since its formation after the highly-contested 2009 presidential election. Many of the oppositional political figures, including Mir Hussein Mosavi and Mehdi Karoubi, are to this day still under house arrest. In addition, the Islamic Republic of Iran ranks among the lowest in freedom of speech, press, assembly, rule of law, and social justice. Iran is also ranked among the top five countries in human rights abuses, media censorship, oppression of political parties, and discrimination against minorities, including the Sunnis, Christian and Bahaeis.</p>
<p>The fact is that Iran gained tremendous geostrategic, geopolitical and political leverage after Mohammad Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood came to power. The Iranian leaders exploited the increasingly shrinking leadership of the Obama administration, which allowed them to shift the regional balance of power to their favor. For instance, after more than thirty years of denied access, Iran is now able to use the Suez Canal. Although Egypt is one of the largest recipients of donations from the United States (receiving almost over 1.5 billion dollars a year), it was Morsi’s government which submitted to Iran’s assertive demands and signed a contract to grant permission to Tehran to use the Canal. Moreover, Iran had long been in a complete political and diplomatic stalemate with the deposed government of Hosni Mubarak, who gave asylum to the U.S.-backed Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, and who had been in tension with Shiite Iran ever since the 1979 Iranian revolution. For decades, Tehran was denied any kind of strategic access by Mubarak, who also had the military’s backing for over thirty years. In addition, the Islamic Republic of Iran was capable of reopening its embassy in Egypt under Morsi’s rule, which helped restart Iran-Egypt diplomatic, political, and economic ties.</p>
<p>More fundamentally, Obama’s lack of leadership has helped Iranian leaders gain not only a strategic naval access to the Mediterranean Sea, but also the capability to project their naval power into the Atlantic Ocean. The increasing access to the Mediterranean Sea assisted Iran’s navy and Revolutionary Guard Corps to more directly provide militarily and advisory assistance to its closest Arab ally: Syria. In addition, after gaining access to the Atlantic Ocean, the country’s next plan according to the Supreme Leader is to situate its warships near the coasts of the United States.</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>North Korea: A Window into the Future on Iran</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/bruce-thornton/north-korea-a-window-into-the-future-on-iran/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=north-korea-a-window-into-the-future-on-iran</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 18 Apr 2013 04:50:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Bruce Thornton]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Appeasement]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[The consequences of appeasing the Islamic Republic's fanatical designs are clear. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/bruce-thornton/north-korea-a-window-into-the-future-on-iran/large-12/" rel="attachment wp-att-185905"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-185905" title="large" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/large-450x296.png" alt="" width="270" height="178" /></a>Rarely do we get to see the dangerous consequences of appeasing one aggressor unfold at the same time we are appeasing another in exactly the same way. But that’s what we are witnessing today, as our leaders respond to Iran’s push for nuclear weapons with the same appeasement playbook that turned a two-bit failed state like North Korea into a nuclear-armed aggressor.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/dprkchron">chronology</a> of the U.S.’s dealings with three psychotic Kim regimes makes for depressing reading. Start in 1991, when President George Bush Sr. withdrew 100 nuclear weapons from South Korea as part of a deal with Mikhail Gorbachev. That same year South Korea formally abjured the production or use of nuclear weapons, a deal the North cheerfully went along with, fully intending to violate it. The next year the North signed the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and allowed in inspectors. A mere two months later the U.S. had to impose sanctions on two companies in the North involved in developing missiles.</p>
<p>In little more than a year, the pattern of North Korea’s defiance and duplicity, and Western appeasement and inaction, had been set. The North would make an announcement promising to let in inspectors in order to head off sanctions, or threaten to withdraw from the NPT to wring concessions from the West, and then would come the revelation that the North had taken yet another step towards creating a nuclear weapon. Then “bilateral talks” would be announced and conducted, “agreed frameworks” and “moratoriums” signed and touted, promises of suspension of forbidden activities made by the North, “appropriate compensation,” i.e. bribes––like food aid, South Korea’s “sunshine policy” of détente and economic cooperation with the North, “economic normalization,” and free light-water nuclear reactors (!)––for such duplicitous concessions delivered by the West, all followed by more sanctions imposed when the North was caught out lying and cheating.</p>
<p>We know the result of this <em>pas de deux</em> of appeasement. North Korea today possesses several atomic weapons, and is preparing to test a missile that can reach America’s bases on Okinawa and Guam. A Defense Intelligence Agency report stated there was “moderate confidence” that North Korea “has nuclear weapons capable of delivery by ballistic missiles.” The next step will be nuclear-armed missiles capable of reaching the west coast of the United States. This was the conclusion of the U.S. intelligence community in a report from 2001, which warned that before 2015 North Korea would have ICBMs that could reach our shores.</p>
<p>In response to this latest iteration of a decades-long pattern of failure, our new Secretary of State John Kerry has gone on a nostalgia tour marked by toothless threats, diplomatic happy-talk, and pathetic begging of China to rein in its pit-bull client. In Beijing, Kerry told the Chinese that the U.S. would pull back deployment of anti-ballistic missile batteries on Guam and on Aegis cruisers in the waters near North Korea if China would restrain Pyongyang. China responded by warning the U.S. against provoking North Korea. Kerry also offered to negotiate directly with Kim Jong Eun over his nuclear arsenal, sanctions on his nation, and food aid. The offer of talks to Kim will likely go nowhere, judging from his rebuff of South Korea’s offer to talk, calling it a “crafty trick.” Like his father, Kim considers such offers as signs of weakness to be met by an escalation of aggression. Last year, after being offered food aid in exchange for international monitoring of his nuclear program, Kim launched a long-range missile in defiance of a U.N. Security Council resolution.</p>
<p>This repetition of decades of failed attempts to use diplomacy and non-lethal sanctions to change North Korean behavior is depressing enough. North Korea has been the most-sanctioned nation in the world for years, and during that time it has become a nuclear power. Giving food aid to a regime has not been any more useful, given that the regime cares little or nothing for the starving people it brutalizes and imprisons in gulags, and welcomes the opportunity to sell the aid. As bad as all that is, much worse is our current repeating of that failure in dealing with Iran. Outreach, talk, sanctions, and empty bluster, the formula for failure in North Korea, are still the only options the U.S. seems to have.</p>
<p>Obama’s attempts at “outreach” and discussions “without preconditions,” for example, begun as soon as he took office in 2009, have been met with Iranian contempt and aggression. A videotaped greeting for the Persian New Year in March 2009 was followed by Ayatollah Khamenei’s announcement that “the path of Iran’s nuclear progress could not be blocked.” In May 2009, a personal letter sent by Obama to Khamenei calling for “co-operation in regional and bilateral relations” was followed by the brutal crackdown on protests against the rigged presidential election in June, protests Khamenei blamed on American “agents.” Groveling responses to Iranian bad behavior fared not better. After Iran failed to disclose the uranium-enrichment facility in Qom, Obama reassured the mullahs, “We remain committed to serious, meaningful engagement with Iran.” As for multiple stern “deadlines” set for Iran to change its behavior, all have been ignored with impunity.</p>
<p>Four years later, the same pattern of answering outreach with aggression was repeated earlier this month. After fruitless multilateral talks in Kazakhstan, Iranian president Ahmadinejad announced that Iran was expanding uranium production, and crowed, “Iran has already become a nuclear country and no one is capable of stealing this title.” He also disclosed that Iran had opened two new mines for extracting uranium, and a factory to manufacture yellowcake, semi-refined uranium that can be processed into nuclear fuel. The U.S. response? More sanctions and more bluster from Obama about not allowing Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon. Sound familiar?</p>
<p>I can’t think of another historical example of a great power appeasing one aggressor at precisely the same time it is appeasing another with exactly the same failed policy. But we shouldn’t be surprised, given the delusional assumptions on which our foreign policy establishment bases its treatment of our geopolitical rivals. A massive failure of imagination keeps them from acknowledging that there are peoples and regimes in the world that value power, prestige, and aggression over peace and cooperation, and that scorn as weakness and fear our Western ideals of rational discussion, give-and-take negotiation, peaceful coexistence, and tolerance for the other side’s perspective. Worse yet, our foreign policy mavens seemingly can’t quite understand that those aggressors <em>know</em> full well that we are hesitant to act and often use diplomacy and negotiation to create the pretense of action when the will is lacking. So our enemies manipulate our ideals and engage in our empty diplomatic rituals in order to misdirect us and buy time for achieving their goals.</p>
<p>But let’s not forget the other factor in this dismal dance of appeasement. Our politicians of all stripes know that the use of force, with all its unforeseen consequences, incalculable risks, and telegenic death and destruction, comes with a high political price. We had enough outrage and anger over 9/11 to start the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but eventually grew weary and impatient enough that Obama could precipitately withdraw from both conflicts without paying a price. The result is an Iraq transforming before our eyes into a satellite of Iran even as sectarian violence continues to tear it apart, and an Afghanistan that most likely after our departure will see the Taliban restored as a major faction and font of terrorist disorder.</p>
<p>No politician either Republican or Democrat has been punished for letting North Korea go nuclear. And Obama hasn’t been punished so far for repeating that blunder with Iran, even though the consequences of a nuclear-armed jihadist regime in the middle of nearly two-thirds of the world’s proven oil reserves will be vastly more serious. We can blame our leaders and castigate the State Department, but at the end of the day in a democracy it’s the voters who refuse to hold them accountable who must shoulder the blame.</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 Problem With Islam</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/kenneth-r-timmerman/the-problem-with-islam/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-problem-with-islam</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 04 Nov 2011 04:00:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kenneth R. Timmerman]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=111021</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A new book dares to call out the "Religion of Peace."]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/islam66.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-111025" title="islam66" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/islam66.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="441" /></a></p>
<p>It is difficult for Americans to comprehend the challenge to Western civilization from Islam and Islamist ideology. While our political leaders tell us constantly that we are not at war with Islam, the Obama administration will not acknowledge the fact that we <em>are</em> at war with Islamist ideology.</p>
<p>In a slim new volume of four essays, <a href="http://isaac-publishing.us/">“Islam in our Midst: the Challenge to our Christian Heritage,”</a> Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo examines the roots of Islamist ideology and finds little difference between them and Islam itself as it is currently preached in the Muslim mainstream.</p>
<p>And therein lies the problem with Islam. “Politically correct approaches often present a sanitized view of Islam, ignoring its terrorist forms,” Sookhdeo writes.</p>
<p>The Obama administration has conscientiously excised words such as “Islamic terrorism,” “Islamist terrorism” and “jihad” from the lexicon of its national security doctrine, “because they are deemed to anger Muslims and increase tensions with the wider Muslim world,” Sookhdeo notes.</p>
<p>This has only encouraged the Islamists, who are using left-wing think tanks such as the Center for American Progress to send out the political thought-police to condemn anyone who dares to discuss such issues openly as “Islamophobe.”</p>
<p>Dr. Sookhdeo is a noted scholar of Christianity and Islam, and is the international director for Barnabas Aid, a Christian agency that gives assistance to Christians facing persecution around the world.</p>
<p>Because of his scholarship and his deep understanding of Islamic texts and Islamic law, it is harder for the pro-Sharia lobby to dismiss him as an Islamophobe.</p>
<p>He believes we need to understand the fundamental contradiction and incompatibility between the “Islamic worldview” (note: not “Islamist”) and its American secular counterpart.</p>
<p>First, “a fundamental doctrine of Islam is the unity of religion (<em>din</em>) and state (<em>dawla),”</em> he writes. “Islam is thus inherently political. In a very real sense, for Muslims Islam is the state.” [p39]</p>
<p>Sharia law, which is derived from the Koran, the Hadith, and the various accounts of the life of Mohammad, “contains a complete social and political order, with regulations not only on personal devotion but also on all elements of legal jurisdiction, political institutions, relations with other states and even military endeavors.”</p>
<p>Muslims are taught in their mosques that they form a community that spreads across national borders, even across continents, as opposed to the individualism of American society.</p>
<p>“This can create tensions and conflicts for Muslims living in societies such as the U.S.,” Sookhdeo writes. “It raises the question of where one’s first loyalty lies.” [p41]</p>
<p>If all this sounds familiar, it should. Sookhdeo’s message bears a strong family ressemblance to what you may have heard from the likes of Robert Spencer, Frank Gaffney, Stephen Coughlin or John Guandolo, who have decrypted Islamist ideology and the efforts of Muslim Brotherhood front groups to gradually impose Sharia law on the United States.</p>
<p>But Sookhdeo’s approach is more spiritual, and he has written this latest slim volume as a challenge to Christians to better understand the differences between their worldview and the Islamic one.</p>
<p>Born a Muslim in exile from his native Pakistan, Sookhdeo moved from British Guyana to Britain and became a Christian while studying at university. He went on to become an ordained Anglican priest, in addition to doing his PhD at the University of London’s School of African and Oriental Studies.</p>
<p>For Muslims, therefore, Sookhdeo is an apostate, a man with a price on his head. In Britain recently, Islamist activists <a href="http://barnabasfund.org/UK/News/News-analysis/Dr-Patrick-Sookhdeo-responds-to-critical-Guardian-article.html">sought to get him condemned as an Islamaphobe</a> by the UK Charities Commission for <a href="http://www.barnabasfund.org/UK/Act/Campaign/Operation-Nehemiah/What-is-Operation-Nehemiah/">his efforts to educate Christians about Islamic doctrine</a> and to promote Christian prayer.</p>
<p>“Islam in Our Midst” tackles the problem of Sharia law and the efforts by Muslim organizations to gradually impose it on the West, and why Sharia is totally incompatible with Western societies.</p>
<p>“The existence of a divine law, ordained by the god of Islam, excludes the possibility of any other kind of law, such as natural law or human law,” Sookhdeo writes. [p42] At its core, Islam is a political ideology, operating in the public space. “The concept of a personal devotional life of faith within the private space has little emphasis in mainstream Islam.”</p>
<p>Mainstream Muslim clerics such as Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the popular proselytizer who appears on al-Jazeera and other Arabic language networks, “explicitly rejects secularism as apostasy from Islam because it means abandoning the rule of Sharia,” Sookhdeo notes.</p>
<p>I hosted a panel in June on the future of the war on terror at Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom conference. In addition to excellent contributions from Frank Gaffney and CBN correspondent Erik Stakelbek, a lawyer named <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Jordan_Breger">Marshall Bregar</a> was added to our panel at the last minute at the assistance of Grover Norquist, a close friend of Ralph Reed’s.</p>
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		<title>The Professor Who Sharia’ed Bill Clinton</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/dgreenfield/the-professor-who-sharia%e2%80%99ed-bill-clinton/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-professor-who-sharia%25e2%2580%2599ed-bill-clinton</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 14 Jun 2011 04:45:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=95991</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How Obama’s new religious freedom commissioner contemplated trying the former president under Islamic Law.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/sharied.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-95995" title="sharied" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/sharied.gif" alt="" width="375" height="521" /></a></p>
<p>Obama has announced the appointment of Azizah al-Hibri to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Al-Hibri (full name, Azizah Yahia Muhammad Toufiq al-Hibri) is a Muslim professor and the granddaughter of a Sheikh, who claims that the <a href="http://creepingsharia.wordpress.com/2011/06/12/obama-appointee-says-koran-and-islam-influenced-jefferson-founding-fathers-writing-book-on-sharia-in-us-courts/" target="_blank">Koran inspired Thomas Jefferson and the Founders</a> and that the Saudi criminal justice system <a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:1R3LqXfCYQMJ:www.fiqhcouncil.org/node/24+http://www.fiqhcouncil.org/node/24&amp;cd=1&amp;hl=en&amp;ct=clnk&amp;gl=us&amp;source=www.google.com" target="_blank">is more moral than the American one</a> because it accepts blood money from murderers.</p>
<p>Appointing a Muslim scholar to a commission on international religious freedom is only justifiable if that scholar recognized that much of the injustice in the world originates from Islamic law. But Al-Hibri has made her career whitewashing Islamic law and even presenting it as superior to American law. While she has been called a reformer, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/21/us/interpreting-islamic-law-for-american-muslims.html?pagewanted=2&amp;src=pm" target="_blank">her call in 2001 for a return to the</a> fundamentals echoes Wahhabi rhetoric. Rather than examining the incompatibilities of Islamic law and the modern world, and urging the appropriate adjustments, as genuine reformers have done, Al-Hibri instead builds myths that uphold the Islamist agenda.</p>
<p>According <a href="http://archive.arabnews.com/?page=9&amp;section=0&amp;article=96600&amp;d=25&amp;m=5&amp;y=2007" target="_blank">to Al-Hibri</a>, &#8220;Islamic fiqh is deeper and better than Western codes of law&#8221;. She favorably compares Saudi Arabia&#8217;s willingness to accept blood money bribes to excuse a murder, to the &#8220;impersonal and powerful&#8221; American justice system. Al-Hibri is often billed as a Muslim feminist, but she is equally hypocritical on women&#8217;s rights. Rather than conceding that Islamic law discriminates against women, she whitewashes its discriminatory treatment of women, arguing that guardianship is meant to protect &#8220;inexperienced women&#8221;.</p>
<p>Rather than trying to bring Islam in line with the modern world, Azizah Al-Hibri pushes for the modern world to be brought in line with Islam. Rather than reforming Islam, it is America that she would like to reform to Islamic standards. Placing a woman who believes that American law is inferior to that of the Koran on an American commission to promote international religious freedom perverts the purpose of the commission and promotes religious tyranny instead.</p>
<p>Given a forum to call for reform, Al-Hibri unerringly insists that there is nothing to reform. At the UN, <a href="http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=10243" target="_blank">Al-Hibri expressed outrage</a> that the Koran, which &#8220;established acceptance of others, now needed to be defended&#8221; and insisted that Islam &#8220;guaranteed freedom of thought&#8221;. Listening to her defend Mohammed&#8217;s tyranny as an early form of democracy at the UN is a reminder of the era when Soviet representatives to the UN angrily defended their record on human rights and insisted that there is no freedom outside of Communism.</p>
<p>In Al-Hibri&#8217;s distorted history, the wave of genocides and conquests that turned the multicultural Middle-East into a desert of brutality governed by minor variations of Islamic ideology, was actually a wave of enlightenment. The massacres of the region&#8217;s Jews and the purge of all other religions from the area never occurred in Al-Habri&#8217;s history book. Revisionist history of this kind would be dangerous even if it were not coming from a woman in a position to influence opinion leaders.</p>
<p>The twin approaches of the Islamist narrative may be described as the Caliph Omar bridge. When the Muslim armies of the Caliph reached the great Library of Alexandria, he decreed that it should be burned, for if the library&#8217;s scrolls held the same ideas as the Koran they were redundant, and if they opposed the Koran, they were heretical.</p>
<p>While some Islamists attack the United States Constitution as a heretical document and Western Civilization as worthless&#8211; others more cleverly represent the Constitution as an inferior version of the Koran and Western Civilization as derivative of Islamic civilization. Either way they must burn along with the Library of Alexandria. But the second approach is more seductive. Rather than launching a direct attack, it seeks to construct a bridge that connects Islam and the West. But the structure of the bridge is only a more insidious form of attack.</p>
<p>These bridge builders don&#8217;t come bearing a torch, rather an argument that since American law is derived from Islam, it must &#8216;revert&#8217; to the higher standards of Islamic law. By contrasting the reality of American law with an ideal version of Islamic law that does not exist anywhere in the world, they manage to make the system that protects human rights seem shabby, while the system that represses women and minorities appears noble and righteous. That is the kind of revisionist history that Al-Hibri traffics in, creating a noble Islamic creed contrasted with a flawed American system.</p>
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		<title>The Islamist Proxy War in South Sudan</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/the-islamist-proxy-war-in-south-sudan/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-islamist-proxy-war-in-south-sudan</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 14 Jun 2011 04:10:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Faith J. H. McDonnell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=95771</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The hope for secular democracy and religious freedom comes under brutal attack. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Sudanese.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-96026" title="Sudanese" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Sudanese.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="360" /></a></p>
<p>Sunday, June 5, the National Congress Party (aka the National Islamic Front) regime began waging war in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan. But even as the northern government stronghold of Khartoum brazenly is attacking the Nuba Mountains (Kordofan to the Arabs) as well as other north/south border areas, such as the oil rich region of Abyei, it also continues to violate the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that it signed with the SPLM (Sudan People&#8217;s Liberation Movement) by attacking South Sudan.</p>
<p>In attacking the South, Khartoum is not as brazen. Thinking that, in spite of the world&#8217;s track record of indifference, someone might actually hold it accountable for such an obvious CPA violation, Khartoum is using proxy militias to do its dirty work in the South. Attacks by these proxy militias are intended to destabilize the South, which is set to become Africa&#8217;s 54th nation less than a month from now on July 9, 2011.</p>
<p>One such proxy group creating havoc and misery in South Sudan&#8217;s Western Equatoria State is the Lord&#8217;s Resistance Army (LRA). The LRA is a Northern Ugandan rebel group led by the now-middle-aged madman Joseph Kony. For over twenty-five years it has been <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Girl-Soldier-Northern-Ugandas-Children/dp/0800794214">abducting children</a>, and so brutalizing them that they become mindless killing machines. It has used these children to kill hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children in Northern Uganda, Southern Sudan, and more recently, Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo. By 2006, the LRA had abducted over 50,000 children to make child soldiers and sex slaves.</p>
<p>The Sudan Human Security Baseline Assessment project warns &#8220;<a href="http://www.smallarmssurveysudan.org/facts-figures-armed-groups-southern-sudan-LRA.php">there remains no firm evidence of Sudanese government support for the group</a>.&#8221; Maybe no “firm” evidence, but there is <em>little doubt</em> that it is Khartoum using the LRA to try to create a &#8220;failed state&#8221; in South Sudan. Escaped child soldiers and other LRA abductees frequently have reported seeing Sudan Armed Forces trucks during their time in captivity. The trucks were delivering food, weapons, and uniforms to LRA commanders. And in recent days, the LRA has teamed up with the Janjaweed, the killers in Darfur, receiving training and weapons at Islamic camps that have been set up there. For although some (usually secular elites, hostile to Christianity) refer to Kony as a “Christian,” his current belief system is a combination of the demonic and Islam. A <em>New York Times </em>reporter, C.J. Chivers, <a href="http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/31/an-insiders-portrait-of-joseph-kony/">told</a> of the various “spirits” that take possession of Kony.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.makewaypartners.org/sudan.html">Make Way Partners</a>, a ministry to orphans and former child soldiers, last week reported that the LRA had attacked a village near their home for children on the South Sudan/Uganda border on Wednesday, June 1. Although they could not yet confirm hard numbers after receiving the news in a June 3 phone call, they knew that many had been wounded, some had been killed, and others had been captured. And they knew the details of horrific acts that have been repeated in villages all over East Africa since Kony began taking children in 1986, to ensure himself an ever-replenished army of boys and girls, some as young as five or six years old.</p>
<p>According to a Make Way Partners report, in this most recent of numerous LRA attacks, the rebels gathered all the children together and started killing people right in front of their eyes. They forced the children to kill their own parents. After the slaughter, the boys had to carry large metal barrels, and the girls had to fetch water to fill the barrels. They built fires around the barrels, and while the water was heating up, the children were forced to hack up their parents and fellow children&#8217;s bodies and throw their dismembered parts in the boiling water. After some time, the children were then made to eat the flesh. In this way the LRA commanders knew that the children were so traumatized that they would do anything. They would not try to run away because there was nowhere and no one left to which to run.</p>
<p>One South Sudanese official from Western Equatoria confirms that Khartoum is using the LRA to destabilize South Sudan. He says that they are targeting Western Equatoria State, which borders Uganda, because it is so fertile, and has the potential to be the breadbasket for the region. If it is destabilized, it will affect the food supply of the country, as well as lessening the possibilities of profitable commercial agriculture. Khartoum’s proxy militia is also targeting it because it is a strong Christian community.</p>
<p>In addition, ongoing LRA attacks would have a terrible impact on the people of Western Equatoria who have always been extremely self-sufficient. Even now people are abandoning their homes and attempting to find shelter in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps. This was what happened to the Acholi people in Northern Uganda, fleeing from LRA attacks. Almost 90% of the entire population of Acholi ended up deserting their farms, living in miserable IDP camps where they were still not adequately protected from LRA attacks.</p>
<p>The Equatorians do not want to be dependent on NGOs and the U.N. for their existence. At present they are trying to provide their own security with “arrow boys,” young men armed with nothing but homemade bows and arrows who protect against the well-armed LRA. They want the government to supply them with real arms, but there is little chance of that taking place if only for the reason that the Government of South Sudan is well aware that it is under scrutiny by the global community, and it is always held to a higher standard than the Islamists in Khartoum.</p>
<p>What is really needed to help the people of Western Equatoria State as Khartoum wages its proxy war against them via the LRA is the full implementation of U.S. law found in the &#8220;Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act” of 2010. In this legislation, which was heartily supported on both sides of the aisle, Congress required the U.S. government to develop a regional strategy supporting multilateral efforts to stop the LRA. The president was to report on the creation of that strategy within six months of the act’s passage.</p>
<p>In November 2010, the Obama administration presented its strategy. The four major objectives were: protect civilians, apprehend Kony and senior commanders, promote the defection and disarmament of LRA fighters (remember these were abducted children), and increase humanitarian access to the region. But according to the young activists of <a href="http://www.theresolve.org/">The Resolve</a>, an advocacy organization working to end Kony’s reign of terror in East Africa and help rebuild the affected communities, the administration’s performance has been poor. Resolve recently published a <a href="http://www.theresolve.org/pages/from-promise-to-peace-report-card-full">report card</a>, giving President Obama a B, two Cs, and two Ds for the implementation of the strategy.</p>
<p>In days in which the Republicans are striving to bring fiscal sanity to the United States and to cut the budget, this act may seem doomed. But many of the most fiscally conservative members of Congress are supporters, understanding that in addition to any moral imperative to act, our own security and the security of East Africa are intertwined more than most people think. Ending Khartoum’s proxy war on South Sudan would cost far less than our continual bombing of Libya, or our largess to President Mubarak’s successors in Egypt, or our unending <em>jizya </em>to the Palestinian Authority. And in this case, we actually would know that in helping the people of South Sudan we were helping true friends and allies in the fight for secular democracy and religious freedom.</p>
<p><em>Faith J. H. McDonnell directs The Institute on Religion and Democracy’s Religious Liberty Program and Church Alliance for a New Sudan, and is the author of</em> Girl Soldier: A Story of Hope for Northern Uganda’s Children (Chosen Books, 2007).</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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		<title>Jihad’s Child Suicide Bombers</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/frank-crimi/jihad%e2%80%99s-child-suicide-bombers/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=jihad%25e2%2580%2599s-child-suicide-bombers</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 11 May 2011 04:30:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frank Crimi]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[afghan president hamid karzai]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[army]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[child]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[child bombers]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Hamid Karzai]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=92924</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Taliban’s spring offensive begins with the suicide bombing of a 12-year-old boy. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/child.jpeg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-92926" title="child" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/child.jpeg" alt="" width="350" height="244" /></a></p>
<p>Despite the Taliban’s denial that it uses children as human explosives, its spring offensive began with a suicide bombing by a 12-year-old boy. The attack is just one more sign that the militant group and its terrorist allies are increasing their efforts to recruit, train and utilize child suicide bombers.</p>
<p>The young terrorist’s suicide <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110501/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan">blast</a>, which killed four Afghan civilians and wounded twelve in the Afghan province of Paktika, was roundly <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110501/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan">condemned</a> by Afghan President Hamid Karzai as “inhumane and against all Islamic principles.”</p>
<p>Yet, it was one of two such suicide <a href="http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-05/07/c_13863924.htm">attacks</a> carried out by child bombers in eastern Afghanistan over the past several weeks, attacks that killed over 15 people. Soon after those assaults, Afghan authorities showed off five captured would-be suicide bombers &#8211;all under the age of 13 &#8212; trained by Taliban and al Qaeda terrorists in Pakistan.</p>
<p>As one Afghan intelligence official <a href="http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCATRE7461A420110507">said</a>, “They have been told that infidels are in Afghanistan … and they have been encouraged to go for Jihad.” In a disturbing <a href="http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCATRE7461A420110507">twist</a>, one of the captured bombers thought he would survive the attack when he was told by his instructors that “the (infidels) will be killed and you will live.”</p>
<p>For its part, the Taliban <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/08/us-afghanistan-taliban-beards-idUSTRE7470R820110508">denied</a> using children as human explosives, saying they do not use “beardless” or underage boys in their militant operations. According to a <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/08/us-afghanistan-taliban-beards-idUSTRE7470R820110508">statement</a> released by the terror group, “Those who haven&#8217;t grown a beard due to being underage are prohibited to spend time with the mujahedeen in residential and military centers.”</p>
<p>Unfortunately for the Taliban, that statement contradicts its past <a href="http;/centralasiaonline.com/cocoon/caii/xhtml/en_GB/features/caii/features/pakistan/main/2011/04/11/feature-02">claims</a> to have trained anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand juveniles as suicide bombers. In fact, the Afghan government places the figure of trained child suicide terrorists closer to 5,000.</p>
<p>While the number of suicide bombers can range from as little as age seven to over forty, most suicide bombers are under the age of 18. Sadly, the recruitment and training of these children is not only extensive and well organized, but <a href="http://jafrianews.com/2011/02/09/us-strategy-to-fuel-the-taliban-with-suicide-bombers/">growing</a>.</p>
<p>To that end, suicide training factories have sprouted up all over the Afghan-Pakistan border, with most located in the Pakistani province of Waziristan. There, it’s been <a href="http://www.indiandefencereview.com/geopolitics/Waziristan-Fedayeen-e-Islam-Training-1000-suicide-bombers.html">estimated</a> that the Fedayeen-e-Islam have trained over 1,000 suicide bombers at three facilities. More disturbingly, many suicide training centers have been designated into junior and senior camps.</p>
<p>The Pakistani army <a href="http://al-shorfa.com/cocoon/meii/xhtml/en_GB/features/meii/features/main/2011/04/23/feature-01">found</a> one such junior camp, equipped with computers, video equipment and literature, where children as young as age 10, according to one army officer, “knew about the planting of explosives, making and wearing and detonating suicide jackets.”</p>
<p>The increased demand for child bombers comes as the Taliban have focused its efforts on attacking an expanding list of civilian targets, sites which include schools, mosques, markets, government offices and other public places.</p>
<p>Tragically, the <a href="http://outernationalist.net/?p=2157">results</a> have been all too effective. In the month of February alone, Afghanistan saw suicide bombings in the capital of Kabul that killed 10 civilians; an attack in Khost that killed nine; an attack in Kandahar that killed 18; an attack in Jalalabad that killed 40; and an attack in Kunduz that killed 28.</p>
<p>To some, the emphasis on suicide bombings is seen as a sign of the terror group’s desperation. <a href="http://surgar.net/english/-news-pg-Special-reports-From-Surgar-Inn-651.html">According</a> to one Afghan army commander, the Taliban and its terrorist allies have “no ability to conduct large scale operations anywhere, so he has switched tactics.” As district leader Hamdullah Nazak, a reported survivor of 11 attempts on his life <a href="http://surgar.net/english/-news-pg-Special-reports-From-Surgar-Inn-651.html">said</a>, “Of course. It’s the only way for the Taliban now.”</p>
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		<title>Two Muslim Commentators Discuss Saddam’s Legacy in Islamic Iraq</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/frontpagemag-com/two-muslim-commentators-discuss-saddam%e2%80%99s-legacy-in-islamic-iraq-2/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=two-muslim-commentators-discuss-saddam%25e2%2580%2599s-legacy-in-islamic-iraq-2</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 06 May 2011 04:01:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frontpagemag.com]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=92427</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A profound Islamic dialogue emerges.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/sad.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-92428" title="sad" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/sad.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="355" /></a></p>
<p>A profound Islamic dialogue emerges:</p>
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		<title>Two Muslim Commentators Discuss Saddam’s Legacy in Islamic Iraq</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/david-horowitz/two-muslim-commentators-discuss-saddam%e2%80%99s-legacy-in-islamic-iraq/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=two-muslim-commentators-discuss-saddam%25e2%2580%2599s-legacy-in-islamic-iraq</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 05 May 2011 21:25:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Horowitz]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[David's Blog]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[







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<p style="text-align: center;">
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		<title>Fatah Mourns Bin Laden</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/itamar-marcus-and-nan-jacques-zilberdik/fatah-mourns-bin-laden/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=fatah-mourns-bin-laden</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 04 May 2011 04:29:31 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[abu abdallah]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[al aqsa martyrs brigades]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[announcement]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[death]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[mahmoud abbas]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=92174</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[And these are the people the world demands Israel embrace.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/al-aqsa.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-92175" title="al aqsa" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/al-aqsa.jpg" alt="" width="410" height="303" /></a></div>
<div><strong>Reprinted from <a href="http://palwatch.org/">PalWatch.org</a>.</strong></div>
<div>The military wing of Fatah, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs&#8217; Brigades, published a  long statement in reaction to the killing of Osama bin Laden calling it a  &#8220;catastrophe.&#8221; They said that those who killed Bin Laden were &#8220;gangs of  heretics.&#8221;</div>
<p>Fatah&#8217;s military wing promises that the Jihad fighters will not be  deterred in their path and ends its announcement vowing: &#8220;We say to the  American and Israeli occupier: the [Islamic] nation which produced  leaders who changed the course of history through their Jihad&#8230; is  capable of restoring the glory of Islam and the flag of Allah&#8217;s oneness,  Allah willing.&#8221;</p>
<p>Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is the chairman of the  Fatah movement, whose military wing released this statement.</p>
<p><strong>The following is the text of the statement by Fatah&#8217;s Al-Aqsa Martyrs&#8217; Brigades:</strong></p>
<blockquote>
<div>&#8220;The [military wing of Fatah] Al-Aqsa  Martyrs&#8217; Brigades announced the death of Sheikh Osama bin Laden (Abu  Abdallah), and said that if bin Laden had indeed died as a Shahid  (Martyr), this would not deter the resistance fighters from the path of  Jihad against injustice, oppression and occupation in the world.&nbsp;</p>
<p>In their announcement, a copy of which reached MAAN [private Palestinian  news agency], the [Al-Aqsa Martyrs'] Brigades said: &#8216;The Islamic nation  awoke to a catastrophe the reports of the Shahid &#8211; (Martyr-) death of  the Sheikh, Jihad-fighter Osama bin Laden, in a treacherous manner, by  the gangs of the heretics and those who stray.&#8217;</p>
<p>They continued: &#8216;The path irrigated with the blood of its leaders is the  path of victory, Allah willing. If Abu Abdallah [Bin Laden] was killed,  then he merited the Shahada (Death for Allah) which he had sought, and  inscribed with his blood the landmarks of Jihad, leaving behind an  entire generation that follows the path of Sheikh Osama.&#8217;</p>
<p>They said: &#8216;The military wings of the Jihad fighters in Palestine and  outside of it, who have in the past lost many of their commanders and  their men, will not stop. This has only strengthened their  determination, their resolve and their loyalty to theirShahids  (Martyrs), who have turned their words into a reality testifying to  their honesty, and which in fact bolsters the drive and the strength of  their brothers on the path to victory or Shahdada (Death for Allah)&#8217;.</p>
<p>The announcement continued: &#8216;We say to the American and Israeli  occupier: the [Islamic] nation which produced leaders who changed the  course of history through their Jihad and their endurance, is a nation  that is capable of supplying an abundance of new blood into the arteries  of the resistance and is capable of restoring the glory of Islam and  the flag of Allahs oneness, Allah willing.&#8217;&#8221;</p>
</div>
</blockquote>
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		<title>What Osama&#8217;s Assassination Tells Us About the War on Terror</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/ryan-mauro/what-osamas-assassination-tells-us-about-the-war-on-terror/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=what-osamas-assassination-tells-us-about-the-war-on-terror</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 02 May 2011 04:42:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ryan Mauro]]></dc:creator>
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		<category><![CDATA[abbottabad pakistan]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=91867</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A success that will unearth critical intelligence about our enemy.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/war.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-91874" title="war" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/war.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="249" /></a></p>
<p>Last night, President Obama announced that Osama Bin Laden was killed in a gun battle in Abbottabad, Pakistan. It is being reported that four others, including one of Bin Laden&#8217;s sons, died in the fight. The U.S. is now in possession of his body and has tested his DNA for confirmation. This is a momentous event in the war against radical Islam that should be celebrated by all and as the story develops, crucial information about the state of the war will come forth.</p>
<p>The details <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/266147/more-operational-details-daniel-foster">coming out</a> reveal that “U.S. Joint Special Operations Command Special Mission Unit (SMU) from the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU — formerly known as Seal Team Six) did the shooting. There were other JSOC spotters on the ground, as well as two special operations helicopters and an unmanned drone overhead.” One of the helicopters crashed due to mechanical failures. A female who was used as a shield by Bin Laden and his protectors was killed and other women are being treated and will be valuable sources of information.</p>
<p>Bin Laden was apparently living comfortably in a city between Islamabad and Peshawar. President Obama said that Bin Laden was killed in a “compound” after intelligence was received in August. CNN originally reported that he was in a “mansion.” It is said to have a security wall between 12 and 15 feet high and of very large size. The site has already been <a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Osama-Bin-Laden-Compound-atlantic-128899003.html?x=0">mapped</a> on Google, showing that a hospital and cinema are nearby. A police station is only 800 feet away, though the caption says it was slated for demolition. This location shows that he was not living in complete isolation, such as in a cave or deep in the mountains.</p>
<p>President Obama emphasized that the victory came with Pakistani cooperation but this location indicates that Bin Laden had inside help. Time will tell if the intelligence that pinpointed Bin Laden came from this cooperation or whether it was developed by the U.S. and the Pakistanis were <em>forced</em> to cooperate. The story of this victory will tell us a lot about the state of Pakistani cooperation and how to collect precise intelligence on the most secretive targets. This success will unearth a tremendous amount of intelligence that will prove very useful in combating terrorism.</p>
<p>It will be vital that the world watch for the reaction in the Islamic world. This will be the biggest indication of where Bin Laden’s support runs the deepest. Polls consistently show that Bin Laden has suffered a dramatic decline in popularity in the Middle East, <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23094334/ns/world_news-terrorism/">including in Pakistan</a> and this may well have been a factor in his demise. Al-Qaeda’s <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,660619,00.html">killing</a> of eight times as many Muslims as non-Muslims and institutions of vicious theocracy caused a major backlash. It is inevitable that sympathizers will attempt to launch immediate small-scale reprisals with little preparation, but this is not reflective of opinion overall. The key factor to watch for will be large-scale demonstrations mourning Bin Laden or the absence of celebratory gatherings.</p>
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		<title>Fighting Jewish Genocide</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/giulio-meotti/fighting-jewish-genocide/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=fighting-jewish-genocide</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 28 Apr 2011 04:00:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Giulio Meotti]]></dc:creator>
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		<category><![CDATA[harvard law professor]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[jewish genocide]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Mahmoud Ahmadinejad]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=91384</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[When will the West stand up against the genocidal incitement against Jews?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/gen.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-91386" title="gen" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/gen.jpg" alt="" width="408" height="267" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Reprinted from <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com">Ynetnews.com</a>.</strong></p>
<p>Only  one nation on this planet is regarded as virtually having no civilians:  Israel. Back in the 1970s already, international law expert Yoram  Dinstein argued that according to UN definitions, terrorism and  incitement against Israelis constitutes genocide.</p>
<p>David Ben-Gurion’s famous statement “Oom, Shmoom,” meaning “The  UN &#8211; who cares?” summed up Israel’s indifference to world opinion in the  past. It has been a failed policy as Israel’s enemies are now using all  global means at their disposal to undermine the Jewish State.</p>
<p>In a few days, Israel will mark Holocaust Commemoration Day.  There is no better time to support the historical battle just initiated  by the Hebrew University-Hadassah Centre for Violence and Genocide  Prevention and backed by former US ambassador to the United Nations John  Bolton and Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz.</p>
<p>The campaign takes aim at Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Islamic religious  leaders and the media for “inciting to commit genocide&#8221; and fomenting  lethal anti-Jewishness reminiscent of the 1930s. The Jews are demonized  using accusations of conspiracy and thirst for blood or power.</p>
<p>The Jews are described as sub-humans by expressions like “pig,”  “cancer,” “filth”, “microbes” or “vermin”; hate material such as the  Protocols of the Elders of Zion or school maps without Israel are being  disseminated; the Jewish right to self-determination is denied, by  claiming that Israel’s existence is “racist” and akin to “apartheid”;  comparisons are drawn between Israeli policy and the Nazis; world Jewry  is being held responsible, collectively for the actions of Israel.</p>
<p>The legal basis for this  anti-genocide campaign is the Convention on the Prevention and  Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, ratified on January 12, 1951 by 138  states including Iran. At this time, Tehran calls for Israel’s  destruction and dehumanization, denies the Holocaust denial and incites  to commit mass murder.</p>
<p>An upcoming example of incitement is the UN&#8217;s “Durban III”  conference in September 2011. Israel will be declared an “apartheid” and  “criminal” state, and the Jews will be slammed as inveterate racists.</p>
<p>The first Durban conference was held in South Africa in 2001,  where well-known NGOs such as Amnesty International and Save the  Children attached their names to the racist parade. NGOs distributed  leaflets with a portrait of Hitler and the inscription: “What if Hitler  had won? There would be no Israel, and no Palestinian bloodshed.” Three  months later the second Intifada broke out, with 1,500 Jewish civilians  subsequently slaughtered in terror attacks.</p>
<p>Iran is not unique in inciting a new Jewish bloodbath. Another  example of incitement is the fatwa issued by Muslim Brotherhood’s guru,  Yusuf al-Qaradawi, permitting the killing of Jewish fetuses, on the  logic that when Jews grow up they might join the Israeli army.</p>
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		<title>U.S. and Pakistan: Sleeping with the Enemy</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/frank-crimi/u-s-and-pakistan-sleeping-with-the-enemy/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=u-s-and-pakistan-sleeping-with-the-enemy</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/frank-crimi/u-s-and-pakistan-sleeping-with-the-enemy/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 27 Apr 2011 04:01:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frank Crimi]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[admiral mike mullen]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[chairman of the joint chiefs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[concern]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[grim conclusion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[haqqani]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamic insurgents]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[North Waziristan]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Terror]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=91418</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The game is up of fantasizing about a loyal ally. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/pakistanrad.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-91442" title="pakistanrad" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/pakistanrad.jpg" alt="" width="379" height="242" /></a></p>
<p>New accusations of collaboration between Pakistan’s top spy agency and terrorist groups have cast fresh doubts over Pakistani resolve to quash Islamic insurgents. The allegations are the latest indication that America&#8217;s security partnership with Pakistan is deteriorating.</p>
<p>Pakistan’s alleged duplicity was raised in released <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110425/wl_nm/us_pakistan_usa_guantanmo">documents</a> detailing American concern over Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) and its links to terrorist groups. The documents show that as far back as 2007, the US military considered ISI to be one of 32 “terrorist support entities,” organizations “which al-Qaeda, the al Qaeda network or the Taliban has established working, supportive or beneficiary relationship for the achievement of common goals.”</p>
<p>The release of the damaging documents was preceded days earlier in a stinging attack from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, in which he <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/04/20/2177726/mullen-accuses-pakistan-of-keeping.html">accused</a> ISI of having close connections with the Haqqani terror network, an Afghan militant group based in the Pakistani province of North Waziristan.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/04/20/2177726/mullen-accuses-pakistan-of-keeping.html">According</a> to Mullen, the Haggani &#8212; an organization with close ties to Taliban and al-Qaida insurgents &#8212; “is supporting, funding, training fighters that are killing Americans and killing coalition partners.”</p>
<p>Unfortunately, Pakistan’s loyalty in the war on terror is not the only American concern. Now, Pakistan’s counterinsurgency abilities have also been called into question.  That charge came in the Obama administration’s recently <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/06/world/asia/06pakistan.html">released</a> bi-annual progress report to Congress on the Afghanistan war.</p>
<p>The report <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/06/world/asia/06pakistan.html">highlighted</a> mounting frustration with the inability of Pakistan’s military to clear insurgents from northwest Pakistan, a failure which led to the report’s grim <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/world/asia/14pakistan.html?%20%20r=2&amp;ref=world">conclusion</a> : “As such, there remains no clear path toward defeating the insurgency in Pakistan.”</p>
<p>Still, despite the report’s negativity, officials defended the administration’s strategic outreach efforts with Pakistan, insisting such a policy was vital to American national security interests. As one American official <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/world/asia/14pakistan.html?%20r=2&amp;ref=world">stressed</a>, “The bottom line is that joint cooperation is essential … The stakes are too high.”</p>
<p>That being said, a bi-partisan rejection of a continued security partnership with Pakistan may be emerging on Capitol Hill. As Representative Gary Ackerman (D-NY) <a href="http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-04-06/us/29388377_1_pakistani-government-islamabad-extremism">opined</a>, “I doubt the (Pakistani) leaders are going to do anything except pursue their own narrow, venal self interests. I doubt the ISI will ever stop working with us during the day and going to see their not-so-secret friends in the terrorist groups at night.” For his part, Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) <a href="http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-04-06/us/29388377_1_pakistani-government-islamabad-extremism">said</a> the current relationship between the two countries was based on “wishful thinking and what I call irrational optimism.”</p>
<p>An example of such irrational optimism surfaced recently when Pakistan’s army chief of staff, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110425/wl_nm/us_pakistan_usa_guantanmo">claimed</a> his forces had effectively “broken the backbone” of Islamic militants in Pakistan.</p>
<p>The truth is the Afghan-Pakistan border remains a leaking vessel by which Islamic insurgents continue to flow through. In fact, the cascade of militants has heavily increased in recent months as NATO forces in Afghanistan <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110423/ap+on+re+as/as+afghanistan">contend</a> with a newly launched Taliban and al-Qaeda spring offensive.</p>
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		<title>Awakening to Obama&#8217;s &#8220;Hosni&#8221; Hell</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/michael-goodwin/awakening-to-obamas-hosni-hell/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=awakening-to-obamas-hosni-hell</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/michael-goodwin/awakening-to-obamas-hosni-hell/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 22 Apr 2011 04:15:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michael Goodwin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[american ally]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Awakening]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[decision]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[filling the gaps]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hosni mubarak]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[minister]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[muslim brotherhood]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=91032</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Mubarak departs, under American pressure, and Iran and its terrorist franchises joyfully fill the vacuum.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/mbegypt.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-91037" title="mbegypt" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/mbegypt.jpg" alt="" width="550" height="354" /></a></p>
<p><strong>This article is reprinted from the <a href="www.nypost.com">New York Post</a>.</strong></p>
<p>First, the bad news. If you&#8217;re keeping score at home, another day  passed with more slaughter of demonstrators in the streets of Syria  without serious objection from the White House. The stalemate in Libya  remained a stalemate and Jordan can&#8217;t get a handle on a new wave of  protesters.</p>
<p>Now, for the really bad news.</p>
<p>There are  increasing signs that the &#8220;Arab Awakening&#8221; is a gift to Iran and its  terrorist franchises. In Bahrain and especially Yemen, anti-American and  anti-Western forces are filling the gaps as government control shrinks.</p>
<p>And now for the worst news.</p>
<p>The most dangerous  developments are happening in Egypt, which was a bulwark for 30 years  against Iranian expansion and Arab Islamic fundamentalists. But the  risky departure of Hosni Mubarak, under American pressure, threw the  door wide open to both and the results already are disturbing.</p>
<p>Many people saw this coming &#8212; but apparently, they did not include a single soul in the White House.</p>
<p>Even though leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood were talking about  getting Egyptians ready for &#8220;war with Israel&#8221; in January and sabotaging a  natural-gas pipeline between the countries, President Obama still  decided that Mubarak had to go even before a succession was clear. Saudi  Arabia, among others, saw the push against Mubarak as a betrayal of an  American ally and an invitation for Islamists to make a move.</p>
<p>They were right, and it didn&#8217;t take long for proof to emerge. Published  reports around the world say Iran and Egypt are on the cusp of  establishing diplomatic relations and exchanging ambassadors. The London  Telegraph quotes a spokesperson for the Egyptian foreign minister as  saying, &#8220;The former regime used to see Iran as an enemy, but we don&#8217;t.&#8221;</p>
<p>The paper also reports that the Egyptian leader of the Islamist Labour  Party, who was imprisoned under Mubarak, has been released. He is  running for president and, in Tehran to meet the Iranian foreign leader,  declared that the revolt against Mubarak was &#8220;inspired by the Islamic  revolution&#8221; in Iran.</p>
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		<title>Why They Didn&#8217;t Spare Vittorio Arrigoni</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/fiammanirenstein-com/why-they-didnt-spare-vittorio-arrigoni/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=why-they-didnt-spare-vittorio-arrigoni</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/fiammanirenstein-com/why-they-didnt-spare-vittorio-arrigoni/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 22 Apr 2011 04:02:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Fiammanirenstein.com]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[arrigoni]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[conception]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[death]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[enemy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[enemy of god]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fabrizio quattrocchi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[matter]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[public execution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Shalit]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=91025</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The commitment to exterminating the Jews just wasn't enough.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/spare.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-91030" title="spare" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/spare.jpg" alt="" width="399" height="265" /></a></p>
<p><strong>This article is reprinted from <a href="http://fiammanirenstein.com/index.asp">Fiammanirenstein.com</a>.</strong></p>
<p>The cruelty of the public execution of a young man, as was the case with Vittorio Arrigoni, is always  awful. This much is clear. What isn’t clear to the European public is  that it is patently evident that the killers were Arrigoni&#8217;s old Islamic  Jihadists friends from Gaza. But they could have been Afghanis, or  Iraqis. In 2002, Daniel Pearl was killed in Karachi by similar methods  because he was a Jew; in 2004, the decapitation of American Nick  Berg in Iraq was filmed, the Jihadists said, &#8220;to send a clear message to  the West;&#8221; the Italian Fabrizio Quattrocchi was executed because he was  &#8220;an enemy of God, an enemy of Allah,&#8221; and Vittorio Arrigoni, as his  butchers say in the video in the words that scrolled across the  screen, because &#8220;he was spreading Western immorality in Gaza&#8221; and  because &#8220;Italy fights against Islamic countries.&#8221; It has been repeated  again and again that Hamas, with whom Arrigoni was on friendly terms,  has condemned the crime. But in actual fact, it doesn’t matter if the  assassins were members of Hamas or not. They have been, they will be,  they are all controlled by Hamas. Hamas is always top dog in Gaza.</p>
<p>Hamas is responsible for the captivity of Gilad Shalit. It was  responsible for the armed destruction of the UN recreational camp for  children, which did not abide by Islamic dictates. It was responsible  for arresting 150 women under the accusation of witchcraft and the  execution of several of them. It is Hamas that has introduced laws on the death penalty, whipping, cutting off hands and crucifixion, according to  Sharia. Hamas killed the 32-year old Christian book salesman Rami  Khader Ayyad, guilty of selling Bibles. Not all those who carry out Hamas&#8217;s operations, or those who fire Qassam missiles into Israel, are &#8220;members&#8221; of the terrorist organization that rules  Gaza. Indeed, at times Hamas pretends to fight them.</p>
<p>Hamas is a movement, a  party, a fundamentalist affiliation. Its charter stipulates that it wants to  destroy the Jewish State, to exterminate Jews, and impose an Islamic  caliphate on the entire world. Salafite fringes and those aligned more with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt &#8212; influenced to a greater or  lesser extent by Iran or Al Qaeda and based in the Gaza Strip &#8212; join up  and leave Hamas routinely. The fact that Hamas has now disowned the  killers of Arrigoni is not of the slightest importance. In any case,  they were still employed by Hamas as members of the Al Qassam Brigades.</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>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 10 Jun 2010 04:02:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frontpagemag.com]]></dc:creator>
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		<category><![CDATA[Camp David]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[legitimate targets]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mr spencer]]></category>
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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>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/pilar-rahola/confronting-europes-war-on-the-jews/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 09 Jun 2010 04:02:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Pilar Rahola]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[As a person from the Left, I must challenge its grotesque position on Israel.
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				<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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