Party of terror
In a piece that was mercifully rescued from behind the Times of London's paywall by the World Jewish Congress, former Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar and former first minister of Northern Ireland Lord Trimble, who are co-founders of the Friends of Israel Initiative, explain why
Europe ought to designate Hezbullah as a terror organization.
In July last year a bus full of Israeli tourists was blown to pieces by a young suicide bomber in Burgas,
Bulgaria — five Israelis and the Bulgarian bus driver were killed. All
the evidence points to it being a plot conceived and executed by
Hezbollah.
Yet despite this atrocity some European governments are not willing
to declare Hezbollah a security threat and put it on the EU terrorist
list. This refusal is based on a misunderstanding of the nature of the
group. Hezbollah is not just a Lebanese militia group and political
party. It is the long arm of Iran. From its conception by Tehran in
1982, it has been committed to the revolutionary goals of the
international expansion of Shia Islam, as dreamt of by the Ayatollah Khomeini.
The fact that it holds seats in the Lebanese Parliament and posts in
the Cabinet does not mean that its leaders see themselves as just
another Lebanese faction — albeit one that murders its political
opponents (a UN tribunal found that the assassination of Rafiq al-Hariri, the Lebanese prime minister was a Hezbollah plot).
On the contrary Hezbollah has a global vision and reach. It has
perpetrated attacks in places as distant as Argentina, Georgia, Israel,
Thailand, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, as well as Lebanon. It has been
involved in illegal but very lucrative activities in Latin America and
West Africa. For instance, it has run drug-trafficking and
money-laundering operations in the jungle of Colombia under the control
of the FARC. According to US officials, Hezbollah is heavily involved in smuggling drugs into Europe.
Some argue that there is a difference between Hezbollah’s military
wing, its political wing and its charitable activities. They are wrong —
it is one single body and every part plays a role in the overall
strategy. The leaders in charge of its hospitals and schools, the
military leader and the political representatives all sit together under
the secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah. His deputy, Naim Qassem,
was quoted as recently as October, saying: “We don’t have a military
wing and a political wing. We don’t have the Party of Allah and the
Party of Resistance. These differences do not exist and are rejected.”
Hezbollah is committed to violent revolution. It sees itself as being
in total confrontation with our way of life. The idea that engaging
Hezbollah through the Lebanese political process and institutions would
moderate it has proved to be a dangerous illusion. And today it is
actively intervening in Syria on behalf of Bashar al-Assad; we will know soon about the atrocities conducted by its militants there.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: designated terror organization, European Union, Hezbullah, Jose Maria Aznar, Lord Trimble
The Benghazi terror attack in historical perspective
Josh Mandel has a fascinating piece in the Washington Times that puts President
Obama's attempted coverup of the Benghazi terror attack in historical perspective.
The president and his officials had claimed that the assault was a
spontaneous one by Muslim demonstrators offended by an anti-Muhammad
video. They were reluctant to admit that it was a premeditated terrorist
attack by Islamist terrorists at war with the United States, against
whom energetic security measures were warranted but lacking.
For all the dissimilarities, this is reminiscent of the response of the Spanish government of Jose Maria Aznar to the Madrid terrorist bombings that killed 191 people just three days before Spain’s
March 2004 general elections. Both governments feared the conclusions
that would be drawn if they stated the unvarnished truth.
The Aznar government sought to fix responsibility for the Madrid attacks on ETA,
the Basque terrorist organization, rather than on Islamists, who were
widely and instantly suspected of being — and in fact turned out to have
been — the perpetrators. The Aznar government had taken Spain into Iraq alongside the United States to depose Saddam Hussein.
Although this policy was far from popular at home, the administration
still had been expected to win re-election. That changed with the
implication that the government had sought to obscure the fact that the Madrid bombing was a consequence of Spain’s Iraq involvement. Sensing bad faith, the Spanish public threw out the Aznar government in favor of the opposition, led by Jose Zapatero.
Similarly, the Obama administration
has acted on the basis that Islamists are a potentially beneficent
force in world affairs and that wisdom dictates coming to terms with
those among them who are not engaged in active hostilities against the
United States. That’s why Mr. Obama backed the Muslim Brotherhood’s rise
to power in Egypt and Tunisia.
Where the two examples diverge is
over whether the policies these two administrations were seeking to
insulate from criticism were defensible. In Mr. Aznar’s case, they were. In Mr. Obama’s, they are not.
Spain did not become a target of Muslim armed rage in 2003 when Mr. Aznar committed forces to the Iraq war, nor did it cease to be a target in 2004, when Mr. Zapatero withdrew them. An unsuccessful 2008 Islamist suicide attack in Barcelona demonstrated that.
Rather, Spain
has been a target of Muslim grievance since 1492, when the forces of
King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella defeated the Moors and restored Spain’s Andalusia to Christian rule. Still, the Spanish government
panicked and failed to present the attack in its historical
perspective. For this failure, it paid the price of electoral defeat.
Similarly, Muslim armed rage against the United States does not have a recent origin.
And you believed Obama in Cairo and thought
Muslims had a role in founding the United States?
Read the whole thing. Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Benghazi, Islamic terrorism, Jose Maria Aznar, Libya, Spain
Aznar: 'How dare the world shun Israel'?
There's a great piece by former Spanish President Jose Maria Aznar, whom, as some of you might recall,
I greatly admire. Unfortunately, it's behind a paywall at the
Times of London, but I have managed to obtain a copy and will post a significant chunk of it below.
As a terrorism victim myself, who was fortunate to survive a car-bomb attack, I cannot understand or justify the marginalisation of other terrorist victims just for political reasons. If we extrapolate Israel's experience of slaughter to Britain, it would mean that in the past 12 years about 11,000 British citizens would have died and 60,000 would have been injured in terrorist attacks. In the case of the United States, the figures would be 65,000 dead and 300,000 injured. Israel's ordeal is far from insignificant.
It is even more poignant if one considers Israel's willingness to face up to terrorism and the practical experience that it has acquired to defeat it. Israel has much to contribute in this area and everyone else has a lot to learn if we really want to defeat the terrorists.
Fiamma Nirenstein, the vicepresident of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Italian Chamber of Deputies (and a member of the Friends of Israel Initiative) has made a proposal that is as fair as it is attractive - to hold a moment of silence at the London Olympics in memory of the 1972 massacre. Remembering is important, first, because of the victims, but also because many Europeans adopted the wrong attitude towards Palestinian terrorism after the Munich attack. The culprits who were arrested were later quietly released for fear of further attacks. And because of that initial fear the terrorists knew how to take advantage of the situation and to press for more rewards.
I have experienced terrorism at first hand. Many of my friends and some political colleagues have been killed by terrorists whose only merit was to have a hood, a gun or a bomb. Nonetheless, even in the most difficult times, I have always believed that weakness and appeasement are the wrong choices. Terrorism is not a natural phenomenon; it doesn't happen spontaneously; it's not something ethereal. It can and must be fought using all the tools provided by the law and democracy - and most importantly, it can be defeated if there is the will to defeat it. Israel has provided ample proof that it possesses that will, since its own existence is at stake.
To marginalise or isolate Israel to avoid irritating Turkey is a big mistake. All of the Middle East, from Morocco to the Gulf, is undergoing profound, although not always peaceful, change, which is yielding very disturbing results.
...
Isolation not only renders Israel weaker against its enemies, but also makes all Westerners weaker. And the practitioners of terrorism know all too well how to exploit our differences.
Remembering Munich 40 years on should be a useful reminder of our successes and failures. It should help us to enhance our collective abilities to fight terrorism. Israel is key in this fight.Israel is a part of the West. Israel is not the problem; it is part of the solution. We will become the problem if we continue to cold-shoulder Israel, the country most affected by terrorism and, possibly, the one that knows best how to defeat it.
Isn't it a pity that the feckless Obama administration won't listen? Here's hoping that a Romney administration would tell the Turks and the Arabs that if Israel isn't a party, there is no conference.
Labels: Arab spring, counterterrorism, European anti-Semitism, Jose Maria Aznar, London Olympics, Munich Olympic massacre, Turkish obsession with Israel
Khameni's mission
Cliff May quotes extensively from a talk given recently at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs by former Spanish President
Jose Maria Aznar. Some of you might recall that I think quite highly of Aznar.
A few days before that, José Maria Aznar, former prime minister of Spain, speaking at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, recalled a “private discussion” in October 2000 with Iran’s current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who told him: “Israel must be burned to the ground and made to disappear from the face of the Earth.”
Dore Gold, the former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations who now heads the JCPA, wanted to be certain there was no misunderstanding. He asked Aznar: Was Khamenei suggesting “a gradual historical process involving the collapse of the Zionist state, or rather its physical-military termination?”
“He meant physical termination through military force,” Aznar replied without hesitation. Khamenei called Israel “an historical cancer”—an echo of Nazi rhetoric he has used on numerous occasions, the last time in public on February 3.
Khamenei told Aznar in 2000 that the mission of the Islamic Revolution always has been and always will be to rid the world of two evils: Israel and the United States. Khamenei said he expected that sooner or later there will be an “open confrontation.” It is his duty, he said, to ensure that when that happens, Iran has the power to prevail.
This is why the acquisition of nuclear weapons is such a high priority for Khamenei. Not long ago, Anthony Cordesman, the respected security analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, was skeptical about Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Then he sat down and examined hundreds of pages of evidence compiled by the International Atomic Energy Agency. His May report, Rethinking Our Approach to Iran’s Search for the Bomb, concludes:
“Iran has pursued every major area of nuclear weapons development, has carried out programs that have already given it every component of a weapon except fissile material, and there is strong evidence that it has carried out programs to integrate a nuclear warhead onto its missiles.”
So the notion that Iran’s nuclear programs are merely, as Reuters charmingly phrases it, “a peaceful bid to generate electricity,” or that Khamenei has not decided whether he really wants nuclear weapons, or that he has issued a fatwa declaring possession of nuclear weapons a sin (not a shred of evidence suggests that such a religious ruling exists), or that he wants nukes only as a deterrent because he fears American aggression, or that he looks forward to compromise, détente and rapprochement, with believers and infidels clinking glasses of pomegranate juice—all of that is wishful thinking or self-delusion or disinformation.
In his presentation in Jerusalem, Aznar recalled another meeting, this one with Vladimir Putin, in which he advised the Russian president against selling missiles to Iran. “Don't worry—I, you, we can sell them everything, even if we are worried by an Iranian nuclear bomb,” Aznar quoted Putin as saying. “Because at the end of the day, Israel will take care of it.”
Aznar had recounted that story in Washington earlier, but, at the time, he asked those of us in the room to keep it off the record. He had added incredulously: “But that’s the Russian policy? To let Israel take care of it?”
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Ayatollah Ali Khameni, Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran, Jose Maria Aznar, Vladimir Putin
Putin: 'Israel will take care of Iran,' Khameni: Clash between Iran, US and Israel 'inevitable'
Former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar told the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs on Tuesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin told him that Israel will 'take care of' Iran. Aznar also repeated a conversation with Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khameni in which Khameni said that it was '
inevitable' that Iran would confront the United States and Israel.
Don’t worry about Iran, Israel will take care of it, former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar quoted Russian President Vladimir Putin as telling him years ago.
Aznar, speaking Wednesday at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs on a meeting he had with the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in 2002, said Putin’s comments came after he entreated him not to sell S300 anti-aircraft missiles to Iran.
“We can sell them anything,” Aznar quoted Putin as saying, because in the end “Israel will take care of it.”
Aznar, one of the few western leaders to have met Khamenei, said the Iranians made it clear when they met in October 2000, that “Israel was a historic cancer and an anomaly condemned to disappear.”
...
Aznar said that during their conversation Khamenei said that “an open confrontation with Israel and the US was inevitable,” and that “he was working for Iran to prevail in such a confrontation. “
Aznar said that Khamenei made clear during their conversation that “it was necessary to eliminate the threat Israel posed." The former Spanish prime minister said this obviously meant Khamenei believed Israel must be “removed."
Aznar, as I have reported before is a straight shooter (video
here).
What could go wrong?
Labels: Ayatollah Ali Khameni, Iranian nuclear threat, Jose Maria Aznar, Vladimir Putin
The Right wins in Spain
In March 2004, Atocha, the main train station in Madrid, was the target of a
major terror attack. 191 people were killed and 1800 were wounded. The attack occurred three days before a major national election, and unfortunately, the Spaniards reacted like dhimmis. The incumbent Jose Maria Aznar, who held a narrow lead to that point, was tossed out of office, and Leftist
Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero took his place. Zapatero pulled Spanish troops out of Iraq, and has generally been hostile to the West. Zapatero was re-elected in 2008. On Sunday, Zapatero's party was thrown out (Zapatero was not a candidate) and conservative
Mariano Rajoy was elected.
The bottom line, according to diplomatic officials in Jerusalem, is the likely victory of PP head Mariano Rajoy will lead to a slight improvement in relations between the two governments, but to no noticeable improvement in Spanish public opinion.
The official said Spanish public opinion – and the Spanish press – is among the most anti-Israel in Europe. As a result, he said, referring to others among Israel’s friends in Europe, “Spain under Rajoy won’t be Italy under [Silvio] Berlusconi, or Germany under [Angela] Merkel. It will be better for us, but the best scenario is that it will be like France under [Nicolas] Sarkozy.”
Spain, which voted for accepting Palestine as a member state in UNESCO earlier this month, is not likely to change its voting pattern at the UN under the new government, the official said.
Regarding anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic public opinion in Spain, Israel’s former ambassador to the country, Raphael Schutz, decried the “anti-Semitism and hatred that exist in Spanish society” in a posting on the embassy’s website before he left his ambassadorial post in July. He said his tenure in Madrid was “not very pleasant.”
“I am ending a four-year term as Israel’s ambassador to Spain and returning to Israel to continue my diplomatic career in the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem,” he wrote in the message.
“I also take with me the hatred and the anti-Semitism that still exist in Spanish society, and which I experienced personally.”
A poll released by the Spanish government in 2010 found that one of every three Spaniards holds negative views of Jews, and one in nine agrees with the statement that “Israel should disappear because it was established on Arab land.” Anti- Defamation League and Pew Research Center polls from 2008 and 2009 showed nearly half of the country held anti-Semitic views.
Spain is a very anti-Semitic country. Even Jose Maria Aznar, who is known today as being
very pro-Israel (watch that video if you haven't seen it before), was not outspoken in his support for Israel while he was in office.
Labels: European anti-Semitism, Jose Louis Rodriguez Zapatero, Jose Maria Aznar, Mariano Rajoy, Spain
Sorting out the European Right
Since Anders Behring Breivik murdered 76 Norwegians two weeks ago, there have been numerous accusations made of ties between Israel (as in the Israeli government) and various organizations of the European Right. Some of the ties are real, others involve individual MK's and not the government. Some of the European counterparts are legitimate conservative parties while others might better be considered part of the 'radical right.' Benny Weinthal tries to
sort things out.
Prof. Barry Rubin, an Israeli Middle East expert and director of the Global Research in International Affairs Center at the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, said the depiction of connections between the Netanyahu government and the FPÖ is “very misleading.”
“The only real link that can be shown is one or two members of parliament [the Knesset] acting alone. Israel has boycotted the Austrian FPÖ – a point the article deliberately ignored – and there are no Israeli officials who have met with these parties in any direct way. The real story, then, is the exact opposite: how limited Israel’s contacts are with parties that proclaim they are pro-Israel,” Rubin said.
He continued that “a few months ago the Israeli Embassy in London took the unprecedented step of condemning the English Defense League. I’m not passing judgment on these different parties, but clearly there are hardly any ties between Israel and any of them, and that means both Israel’s government and major political forces in Israel.”
Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld, an Israeli who has written several books on Norwegian- Israeli relations, said Europe is “in a totally confused situation.”
In contrast to the Spiegel report, Gerstenfeld does not see a unified politically right-wing movement in Europe. Besides the liberal and conservative Right, there are three types of right-of-center political organizations, he said. The Progress Party in Norway and Geert Wilders Party for Freedom are pro-Israel and stay away from anything that “smells of Nazism.”
Italy’s Northern League falls into a second category on the European Right. It is primarily a separatist movement.
The third component includes Belgium’s Vlaams Blok party, the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement, the British National Party, France’s National Front, and Austria’s FPÖ, which, according to Gerstenfeld, meet the standard of radical right-wing groups.
Gerstenfeld said the FPÖ, for example, along with other radical-rightist parties “are people on the European Right who think they can whitewash themselves with ties to Israel.
“Israel is in the forefront of the enormous totalitarian threat to all humanity coming to out of the world of Islam, which also threatens Muslim moderates, Europe and anything Western. Former prime minister of Spain Jose Maria Aznar also sees it this way and wrote an article saying that if Israel goes down, the entire West goes down,” said Gerstenfeld.
Read the whole thing. For those who have forgotten or who lump all of the European Right into one big group, you may want to watch this speech by former Spanish Prime Minister
Jose Maria Aznar, which I was privileged to attend last year.
Labels: Anders Behring Brievik, British National Party, English Defence League, Geert Wilders, Jose Maria Aznar, Norwegian Progress party, Vlams Belang
