Proof's in the pudding: 'If you treat them with respect, they will moderate'
For seven years, Barack Hussein Obama has been telling us that if we
treat Iran with respect, they will moderate. Has it worked?
You be the judge.
Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president of Iran and an ally
of current President Hassan Rouhani, called for the destruction of
Israel and described the country as “alien” and “temporary,” according
to a report
Monday in Iran’s official IRNA news agency. Rafsanjani, who heads the
powerful Expediency Council, which advises Iran’s Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, made the comments in an interview with a
Hezbollah-affiliated news outlet.
In response to a question why the Zionist regime has done
its best to prevent the path for reaching a nuclear agreement between
Iran and the West, Ayatollah Rafsanjani said that even Tel Aviv knows
well that Iran is not after acquiring nuclear weapons.
‘By doing so the Zionist wish to keep Iran engaged in problems
permanently, knowing that the Islamic Republic’s political, economic,
cultural and propagation status will all improve after such an
agreement,’ he said.
Asked about the future of the Palestinian nation, Rafsanjani said
that he still believes that eventually one day the forged and temporary
Israeli entity, which is an alien existence forged into the body of a
nation and a region be wiped off the map.
Rafsanjani, who along with Rouhani is often characterized as a
moderate, appears to associate Israel’s destruction with the completion
of the nuclear deal.
What could go wrong?
Labels: Ayatollah Ali Khameni, Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, Barack Hussein Obama, Hassan Rohani, Iranian nuclear threat, myth of moderate Islam, nuclear weapons, P 5+1
Obama White House 'still waiting for all the facts' before labeling the Charlie Hebdo attack terrorism
It's come to this. Here's White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest explaining at 8:45 AM ET on Wednesday - three hours after it took place - that the White House is 'still waiting for all the facts' before deciding that the Charlie Hebdo attack was terrorism.
Let's go to the videotape.
Full transcript (longer than the video)
here.
Anyone who still thinks that Hussein Obama doesn't bear at least some of the responsibility for the rise of Islamic terrorism in the last six years, please speak up now.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Islamic terrorism, myth of moderate Islam
The next Obama scandal: Islamistgate
The next approaching scandal for the Obama administration is Islamistgate.
Since taking office, the Obama administration has been telling us that they are reaching out to 'moderate Muslims.' I'm sure you'll all be shocked to hear that's not what they've been doing.
They've been reaching out to the worst of the radicals instead.
In a comprehensive article, investigative journalist and PJ Media contributor Patrick Poole now presents the full scoop and scope of what’s been going on. His
article — “Blind to Terror: The U.S. Government’s Disastrous Muslim
Outreach Efforts and the Impact on U.S. Policy” — appearing in the new
Summer issue of the MERIA Journal is a game-changer.
You may think that you know about this subject, but the scandal extends far beyond what you have heard.
The majority of these groups and individuals promoted by the
Obama administration have been radical Islamists, particularly Muslim
Brotherhood cadre, and more than occasionally were people involved in
terrorist activity.
Actual moderate Muslims have been neglected and isolated by this
project, which has helped the radicals, Islamists, and pro-terrorists
gain hegemony in the Muslim community in America.
Again, you may think that you know this story — but it is far more
extensive than has ever before been revealed. Often, the White House and
FBI have granted access and worked with those who were simultaneously being investigated on serious charges of terrorism.
The whole “outreach” program has been a farce, and it would be
charitable to describe it as incompetence on the part of the Obama
administration. Patrick Poole pulls all of the material together for the
first time and shows serious flaws that have endangered Americans
in scores of cases. Radicals have been given credentials as moderates,
been provided with information that should have remained secret, and
been allowed to advise and influence U.S. policy. The kind of government
mishandling of terrorist threats that characterize the Fort Hood case
and the Boston bombing has been business as usual.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Islamist, myth of moderate Islam
Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Monday, July 30.
1) Written on the subway walls
A few weeks ago posters depicting the purported loss of Palestinian territory to Israel were put up at Metro North stations in the New York area.
The signs appear in commercial space atop recycling bins at train station entrances and on train platforms at 50 Metro-North stations.
They were paid for by ex-Wall Street financier Henry Clifford, 84, who now resides in Essex, Conn. He said he financed month-long campaign with $25,000 of his own money.
"I am very critical of what Israel has done to the Palestinian people," said Hill, who chairs the 10-member Committee for Peace in Israel and Palestine, which also has Jewish members. "I'm very critical of our government for supporting Israel and enabling it."
The problem is that the posters are deceptive. Yaakov Lozowick writes:
I suppose you may say I'm quibbling, and that in a territory which had a minority of Jews 150 years ago, there has emerged a state of foreigners which has thwarted the emergence of a state of the original population. This, of course, is true. The tragedy of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that both sides are right, and both have legitimate claims on the same tiny piece of land. Most of us think that the only way to resolve the conflict is for each side to reconcile itself to the loss of important parts of the territory so that the other side will have room for their national state. As to why this hasn't yet happened, you and I probably disagree. We may also not agree on the details of how the partition ought to be done. Yet those are legitimate issues which need to be resolved in negotiations.
The maps you've published, on the other hand, tell a different story: that Israel is purposefully pushing out the Palestinians so as to have the entire land for itself. This is not true, which explains why in order to make the claim the maps need to be so sloppy with the facts.
Finally, a note on projection. I never cease to be surprised by Americans, Canadians, Australians or New Zealanders who feel they have a moral right to condemn the Jews for migrating to another land and pushing aside the natives. Surely the Jewish case for moving to the land of their history is vastly better than the case of Europeans moving to continents they had no history in. Over time, however, I've begun to notice that such critics of the Jews assume, perhaps subconsciously, that the behavior of the Jews must by necessity follow the pattern of their own forebears: total dismissal of their common humanity with the natives they're pushing aside, followed by near-total dispossession. This, however, is a complex of the critics, and has very little to do with the Jews.
Elder of Ziyon points out that Clifford's response to Lozowick shows that he knows that his ads are dishonest. Stand with Us will be responding to the ads.
In other public transportation news, the Volokh Conspiracy notes Federal Court Strikes Down N.Y. City Bus Policy That Bans “Demean[ing]” Speech About Religions, Racial Groups, Etc.
1. I sympathize with the arguments that the government, acting as service provider, should be able to exclude material that is likely to greatly alienate or offend some of its customers, while still making money from material that won’t have that effect. But the Court has indeed held that viewpoint-based restrictions, even on government property that isn’t a “traditional public forum,” are unconstitutional; and this also makes some sense, given just how much money and property the government owns (especially once one goes beyond just access to physical property, and gets to access to broadly available government benefit programs, such as charitable tax exemptions). Under this doctrine, I think a ban on “demean[ing]” speech about religions, races, and the like is unconstitutionally viewpoint-based, given that positive speech about various groups — or about tolerance, equality, and so on — is allowed.
2. I’m not sure that advertising space should be consider a “designated public forum,” in which strict scrutiny applies to all content-based restrictions, as opposed to a “limited public forum,” in which the government can impose content-based but viewpoint-neutral restrictions. This having been said, the district court points out that Second Circuit precedent (which is binding on federal district courts in New York) treats this very program as a designated public forum.
3. If the space is indeed a designated public forum, then I think even a ban on all disparaging speech would be content-based — when we say that speech is disparaging, we are making a statement about the content of its message, and its communicative impact. What’s more, I think such a ban would even be viewpoint-based, since it targets negative viewpoints about people or groups and not positive viewpoints. So while I think a ban on particular vulgarities would be content-based but viewpoint-neutral, so the government could ban them in a limited public forum, a ban on disparaging speech would be viewpoint-based. ... I therefore think that, both under the district court’s view that the ad program was a designated public forum, and under the view that the ad program was a limited public forum, even the broad ban on demeaning speech about anyone would be unconstitutional.
More at Legal Insurrection.
2) Who dunnit?
A few days ago I wrote about some speculation about last week's explosion in Damascus. I quoted an article that cited Mordechai Kedar expressing concern that it was a Jihadist group that was responsible for the attack. Kedar has a critic, who tweeted that the video was made in advance of the event. (h/t Challah Hu Akbar)
Foreign Policy magazine interviewed former Israeli chief of military intelligence, Amos Yadlin and asked him about the explosion (h/t Martin Kramer).
FP: What is the significance, apart of the psychological effect, of the assassination of top Syrian security officials last week? Did it really damage the regime's operational capabilities?
AY: The assassinations were substantial. Four senior officials were killed. This had a psychological effect, but also a serious operational one. Still, history proves regimes can survive even after stronger strategic setbacks.
Like Yadlin's other answers this is short and to the point. If Yadlin thought that someone other than the rebels were responsible, I'd guess that he'd have mentioned it.
Apparently Gen Qasim Suleimani has been spotted in Iran and was not killed in the Damascus blast. (h/t Challah Hu Akbar)
Assad's troops have started an assault on Aleppo, as the New York Times reports in Syrian Helicopter Fire on Aleppo as Defection Reported:
Military experts have long speculated that President Assad’s army, which has been scrambling to crush rebel resistance in urban areas like Homs, Hama and more recently central and southern neighborhoods of Damascus during the uprising, lacked the military resources to take on an armed rebellion in all major cities at once. That seemed to explain the delay in Aleppo, where anticipation of an attack has been building for days.
...
But Ms. Nuland also indicated that the United States was not reconsidering its stance against military intervention, saying, “We do not think pouring more fuel onto the fire is going to save lives.” And she drew a sharp distinction between Aleppo and the Libyan city of Benghazi, where fears of a slaughter by government troops led to a NATO bombing campaign that proved decisive in toppling Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi last year.
“The kind of groundswell call for external support that we’ve seen elsewhere is not there,” Ms. Nuland said.
William Tucker believes that the outcome if Aleppo will say something about the balance of power between Assad's troops and the rebels. (h/t Aaron Mannes)
The ground assault by Assad’s forces is imminent, but it should tell us a great deal about the capabilities of both the loyalists and the opposition military forces. Additionally, it will reveal some of the tactics the opposition may employ in other major cities. Keep in mind that opposition forces may withdraw from Aleppo, but that shouldn’t be construed as a defeat for the rebel movements. Rather, it would be a sign that the opposition is continuing to engage regime forces only in battles that can be won. With the Assad regime on the back foot time is favoring the opposition. Each successful strike increases the doubt of the regime loyalists about the viability of the current government and may induce them to defect. For now, the opposition seems content to set the time and place of each engagement with the regime. Aleppo may be a turning point, but it is also likely that the opposition is simply distracting the regime while preparing an assault elsewhere.
3) The bigger schlep
The electoral battle for the pro-Israel vote continues. This week's Mishpacha magazine had an item about the extensive voter registration drive in Israel by Republicans. (The article notes that Obama won about 25 percent of the Israeli American vote in 2008, so this likely has less to do with increasing the percentage of voters, but the number of voters.)
With Gov. Romney's trip to Israel this weekend coverage of the two candidates' views on Israel have received extensive coverage.
The Washington Post started with Mitt Romney likely to get a warm welcome in Israel:
“People here feel that [Obama] has not had the level of warmth toward Israel that most presidents have had,” said Abe Katsman, a Jerusalem attorney who serves as counsel to Republicans Abroad Israel.
The complaints of Romney backers here center on positions that have put Washington at odds with Netanyahu: an insistence early in Obama’s term on a freeze on Israeli settlement building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem; a statement that a peace agreement with the Palestinians should be based on Israel’s 1967 boundaries, with “mutually agreed” land swaps; and an approach to Iran that is seen as not tough enough, engaging in protracted diplomacy while warning Israel against a unilateral military strike.
“This idea of putting daylight between the U.S. government and Israel — who does that to an ally?” Katsman said. “And why make the disagreement public?”
A followup article Romney visits Jerusalem’s Western Wall on Jewish holiday has similar, if less specific sentiments. ("Holy Day" would probably have been a better description of Tisha B'Av than "holiday.")
“The whole point of this trip is Romney has to be here,” said Carl Sherer, a U.S. citizen who has been living in Israel for two decades. “He’s got to be here for us, and Obama just hasn’t been here for us the last three years.”
Israel Shonek, 22, an American studying in Israel, said Romney’s visit on the Tisha B’av fasting holiday was “very poignant.”
“It’s a very special thing,” Shonek said. “It sends a statement that Obama hasn’t sent to the Jewish people. They haven’t felt this kind of warmth from Obama.”
Of course, there was also a business aspect to the Israeli trip for Romney who held a fundraiser in Jerusalem this morning. Last night, Romney met with Prime Minister Netanyahu.
The New York Times reported Romney Backs Israeli Stance on Threat of Nuclear Iran:
The scene was more like a campaign rally than a solemn place of prayer. Women stood on chairs to peer over the fence that divides them from the men, many of whom clapped and waved as the candidate and his entourage snaked through; people actually praying were pushed to the back as security officers cordoned off a space for the candidate.
...
Shepherding Mr. Romney at the wall was J. Philip Rosen, a Manhattan lawyer who owns a home in Jerusalem and helped organize a $50,000-per-couple fund-raiser scheduled for Monday morning. Mr. Rosen said Sunday he expected up to 80 people for the breakfast, up from his estimate on Friday of 20 to 30, because of the influx of Americans.
Among those who flew here for the event were the casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who has vowed to spend $100 million this political season to defeat Mr. Obama and wore a pin that said “Romney” in Hebrew letters; Cheryl Halpern, a New Jersey Republican and advocate for Israel; Woody Johnson, owner of the New York Jets; John Miller, chief executive of the National Beef Packing Company; John Rakolta, a Detroit real estate developer who led the finance committee for Mr. Romney’s 2008 presidential bid; L. E. Simmons, the owner of a private-equity firm in Texas with ties to the oil industry; Paul Singer, founder of a $20 billion hedge fund; and Eric Tanenblatt, a Romney fund-raiser in Atlanta who had never visited Israel. Scott Romney, the governor’s brother, and Spencer Zwick, his national finance chairman, also were on hand.
In a guest appearance in The Lede blog, Arab spring reporter, David Kirkpatrick critiqued Gov. Romney's Israel Hayom interview:
Mr. Romney discussed the Arab Spring revolts as a problem rather than progress. He asserted against some evidence that the Obama administration had abandoned an agenda of pushing for democratic reform pursued by George W. Bush, and he characterized even the most moderate and Western-friendly Islamists – those in the political parties leading legislatures in Tunisia and Morocco – as political opponents. The last runs counter to the Obama administration’s strategy, endorsed by some Republicans in Congress, of building alliances with moderate Islamists where possible.
In other words Kirkpatrick's critique consists of arguing that Romney views the Arab spring differently from the way he does. Kirkpatrick views "moderate" Islamists - such as the Muslim Brotherhood - are pragmatic politicians who need to be embraced by the West. Call it the Lord Hylton view, if you will.
In Romney Captures Jerusalem, Barry Rubin highlighted a number of key lines made by Romney in his Jerusalem speech.
Of tremendous importance was Romney’s hint that the weakness of the Obama administration has encouraged extremists to become more aggressive and Iran to be bolder. He never said this directly but mentioned “the ayatollahs in Tehran testing our moral defenses” to see if the West would abandon Israel. Perhaps the speech’s most important line was this one:
“We cannot stand silent as those who seek to undermine Israel, voice their criticisms. And we certainly should not join in that criticism.”
This is a critique of Obama’s argument that he would persuade the Arabs to end the conflict by distancing the United States from Israel.
Earlier Rubin had noted:
Not allergic to Israel’s center-right. Romney quoted former Prime Minister Menahem Begin twice and referred to “my friend, Bibi Netanyahu.” Obama wouldn’t have cited either man and is known to loathe Netanyahu. Romney and Netanyahu have known each other for years. The Begin quotes were significant: that Israel will never again let its independence be destroyed (a reference perhaps to Israel’s need not to be completely subservient to America’s current president) and that if people say they want to destroy you then believe them (an explicit reference to Iran’s drive for nuclear weapons).
Four and a half years ago, in Cleveland candidate Obama said:
"I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt a unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you're anti-Israel and that can't be the measure of our friendship with Israel".
First of all that line betrayed an ignorance of Israeli politics. Worse, given that it was foreseeable that a future President Obama might well find himself having to deal with a Likud government, it was unbelievably shortsighted for him to say publicly that he would be opposed to such a government.
This past week, Charles Krauthammer wrote in Why he's going where he's going:
And then there is Israel, the most egregious example of Obama’s disregard for traditional allies. Obama came into office explicitly intent on creating “daylight” between himself and Israel, believing that by tilting toward the Arabs, they would be more accommodating.
The opposite happened. (Surprise!) When Obama insisted on a building freeze in Jerusalem that no U.S. government had ever demanded and no Israeli government would ever accept, the Palestinian Authority saw clear to become utterly recalcitrant. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas openly told The Post that he would just sit on his hands and wait for America to deliver Israel.
Result? Abbas refused to negotiate. Worse, he tried to undermine the fundamental principle of U.S. Middle East diplomacy — a negotiated two-state solution — by seeking unilateral U.N. recognition of Palestinian statehood, without talks or bilateral agreements.
The Abbas statement Krauthammer quoted,was from Jackson Diehl interview that foretold Abbas's refusal to negotiate for the bulk of Obama's term. No doubt that the "pro-Likud" statement emboldened Abbas.
Israel Matzav and JoshuaPundit note an article by Eli Lake, Key Pro-Israel Obama Ally Splits (more at memeorandum)
“Ambassador Ross was obviously the No. 1 pro-Israel surrogate for the Obama campaign in 2008,” said Josh Block, a former press aide for the Clinton administration and former top spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. “The fact that after three years of working on Mideast policy side-by-side with the president, Ambassador Ross has decided to sit out this campaign, unlike other former top officials now at nonpartisan think tanks, will certainly be understood as a message of its own, intentionally or unintentionally.”
Ross himself said, “I can give substantive advice to the administration, the president’s campaign, or any campaign that would ask for it. And, of course, when I speak I can talk about my views on policy and I have been supportive of the president’s policy on leading foreign-policy issues.”
That’s a departure from Ross’s hands-on work with the Obama administration over the past four years.
Just to keep in mind the reasons Ross cited to support Obama:
Consider what has happened to Israel's strategic position during the course of the Bush administration. In 2001, Iran was not a nuclear power, but it is today. It could not enrich uranium then but it does so now and has already stockpiled several-hundred kilos of low-enriched uranium -- about half of what it would need for its first nuclear bomb. The Bush policy on Iran has failed, and unless the next president can change Iranian behavior, Israel will face an existential threat. It already faces a dramatically different threat from what it faced seven years ago from both Hezbollah and Hamas.
Hezbollah now has a veto power over any decision the Lebanese government can make and possesses 40,000 rockets -- and those rockets are not only three times as many as it had only two years ago but are more accurate and have longer range than the ones that hit Israel in the summer of 2006. Hamas has taken over Gaza, creating a miniterror state there and today has over 2,000 rockets.
Israel cannot afford four more years of seeing the threats grow against it. It cannot afford four more years of U.S. policies that are tough rhetorically but soft practically. It cannot afford four more years of America being on the sidelines diplomatically.
The cynic in me thinks that George W. Bush was the first president not to employ Ross in some capacity in twenty years and that Ross was looking for a position in the Obama administration. Even so, can Ross say that he's seen anything in the Obama administration has been anything more than "tough rhetorically but soft practically?" My guess is that Ross didn't feel he could sell the Obama administration a second time.
Mondoweiss's headline: Dennis Ross's neutrality shows lobby is with Romney. (I won't link but you can look it up if you wish.) Unfortunately, that doesn't sound a whole lot different from what was reported by the Washington Post early in Ross's tenure, Dennis Ross Faces Big Task on Iran Policy, Including Overcoming Pro-Israel Label.
Labels: Israeli attack on Iran, Middle East Media Sampler, Mitt Romney, Muslim Brotherhood, myth of moderate Islam, religion and state, Soccer Dad, StandWithUs, Syrian uprising, Western Wall
Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Sunday April 15:
1) Where are those moderate Islamists?
At a conference at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, Prof. Jeffrey Herf goes past the panelists to as the moderator, New York Times reporter, Scott Shane, why his newspaper fails to report on the antisemitism of the Muslim Brotherhood. Shane can't give a coherent answer, but mumbles something about such sentiments not being newsworthy because they're so prevalent. (h/t Challah Hu Akbar) It doesn't explain why, when having a chance to deal with the related topic of Palestinian anti-Israel incitement, New York Times reporter, Isabel Kershner downplayed the issue.
Former New York Times reporter, Joel Brinkley - now years removed from his reporting - concludes that the Islamist parties in Egypt and Tunisia (contrary to a recent Washington Post editorial) are not at all moderate. (h/t Legal Insurrection):
Ever since Islamists took office in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, they have been trying to convince us that they are advocates of moderation, democracy, women's rights and individual freedoms. And most people in the West, after jubilantly watching the Arab Spring's amazing revolutions last year, wanted to believe them.
But now we can see that these Islamic groups are taking us for fools…
I especially liked this example:
In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood promised that it would not field a candidate for president. But this month it went back on its word and put Khairat al-Shater, a wealthy businessman, on the ballot.
Defending that broken promise, one Muslim Brotherhood leader after another explained that they changed their mind to save Egypt's budding democracy, in jeopardy now because of the military's reluctance to step aside.
If that is so, how do you explain the speech Shater gave in Alexandria last year in which he disparaged the whole idea of Western democracy and its social conventions, calling them the enemy of Islam - including the concept of elections, even though he is now running in one. Voting for your leader, he said, is un-Islamic.
Al-Shater's anti-democracy speech (and other anti-Western ideas) were studiously avoided in two recent profiles of him in the New York Times.
For now the Al-Shater and two other candidates have been disqualified from running for president of Egypt.
Egypt's volatile presidential race was jolted Saturday when the election commission disqualified three controversial front-runners — the nation's former spy chief and two impassioned Islamists — just five weeks before voters go to the polls.
The commission removed Omar Suleiman, the intelligence director under deposed President Hosni Mubarak; Khairat Shater, a leading voice for the ascendant Muslim Brotherhood; and Hazem Salah abu Ismail, an ultraconservative Salafi Islamist with wide populist appeal. Seven other candidates were also expelled, and appeals were expected.
...
The disqualifications of the leading contenders revive the chances of Moussa and others, including former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafik. Anticipating Shater would be expelled from the race, the Brotherhood had entered a second candidate, Mohamed Morsi, head of its Freedom and Justice Party. The other notable Islamist is Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, a moderate and former Brotherhood member.
Unsurprisingly, the Brotherhood is appealing the decision.
Given the remaining candidates, it doesn't really appear that disqualifying these three will make much difference. Perhaps the reason for the disqualifications was to eliminate the candidates most likely to alarm the United States or the West.
In February Barry Rubin wrote:
There are three serious Islamist candidates, and they have few differences between them: Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, and Muhammad Salim al-Awa. The Brotherhood likes Aboul Fotouh, a high-ranking official who resigned from the group to run for president. Presumably the Salafists will back one of the other two, perhaps more likely Abu Ismail. Al-Awa is a long-time collaborator with al-Qaradawi, but the powerful cleric gave Aboul Fotouh the nod as the more electable candidate.
...
The only strong alternative to these men is Amr Moussa, the radical nationalist former foreign minister and Arab League head. He is simultaneously an experienced diplomat and pragmatist, a rabble-rousing populist, and a strongly anti-American, anti-Israel figure. He is the great hope for a more pragmatic though still radical regime.
But he is no threat to the Islamists. If he is elected president in June, he will be 76 not long after. The Brotherhood could easily rationalize the idea that he is a transitional figure. By the time the second election is held, projected for 2018, the Islamists would be ready to put their own man into office.
It will be an Islamist now or in the near future running Egypt.
Itzchak Levanon surveyed the shifting political landscape in Egypt during the past year and looked at implications for the future regarding Egyptian relations with Israel.
I believe that there should have been reciprocity during the Mubarak regime. Israeli ambassadors did not have free access to ministries, to parties, were banned by the media, were banned by all the unions, while in Israel the Egyptian ambassador is invited to meet with the top level, including the prime minister, and the media quotes him. I think we should be discussing this issue at the highest level with the Egyptians after things settle down.
In some respects, the situation prevailing before the revolution and today has basically not changed much. There are still security contacts at the upper levels between Israel and Egypt, and this is because there is an interest on both sides, but there are no bilateral relations. I do not understand why, after more than seven months since the September 9, 2011, attack on its embassy, Israel is not allowed to have an embassy in Cairo. From time to time, we hear some reassuring statements by officials that Egypt is committed to its international agreements. But with the Salafis and the Muslim Brotherhood in power today, such statements are not enough.
...
At this point, I believe that the peace treaty is safe. The military is in power and they support peace between Israel and Egypt. The army supports the treaty because they understand that canceling it is not in the interest of Egypt. Secondly, the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt has three legs; the third leg is the United States. This is why I think the peace treaty is safe, more or less, at this particular time. However, uncertainty about the future raises real concerns. With the new situation where there are extremist ideologies which have entered the political game, it would be wise at this early stage to explain to the Egyptian public that the alternative to peace is a nightmare that we should all avoid.
2) The second myth
In a recent column, The Three Myths that Distort Every Discussion of Israel and the Middle East, Barry Rubin discusses the second myth:
The concerted international campaign by various groups in the West against Israel damages it and helps the Palestinians. Again, this should be obviously true--that the tireless anti-Israel propaganda campaign materially damages Israel--but the truth is quite the opposite. To date, despite all the noise, Israeli interests—including businesses—have suffered little damage. On the contrary, the attacks encourage support, including increased buying of Israeli products and energetic loyalty by Israel’s supporters abroad. But all of these endless demonstrations, teach-ins, books, articles, documentaries, boycott, disinvestment, and sanction labors do absolutely zero to help the Palestinians. On one level, they do nothing politically to advance their cause in a real way. On another level, they contribute nothing to their welfare.
Moreover, by convincing the Palestinian leadership that they can eliminate Israel completely, that Western support is swinging toward them, and that they don’t need to change their own policies or strategies, all of this behavior leads them charging down a dead-end street at the end of which it collides with a stone wall.
By encouraging the Palestinians and Arabs to fight in order to destroy Israel, when they cannot win, their well-wishes cause them to lose the two-state solution, which is indeed available to them, and to throw away years of time, millions of dollars, and thousands of lives.
The New York Times provides an excellent exhibit of how this phony encouragement backfires. As the Palestinian effort to gain acceptance of its unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) started to gain momentum, the Times offered PA President Abbas an op-ed, The Long Overdue Palestinian State. Aside from his dubious history Abbas wrote:
Palestine’s admission to the United Nations would pave the way for the internationalization of the conflict as a legal matter, not only a political one. It would also pave the way for us to pursue claims against Israel at the United Nations, human rights treaty bodies and the International Court of Justice.
Rather than accede to the provisions of the Oslo Accords or any established peace making protocols, Abbas here threatened to to pursue legal action against Israel violating the spirit, if not the letter of previous agreements. This did not elicit a single word of outrage from the editors of the New York Times.
However the New York Times had other concerns.
In September, a news article, Beyond Cairo, Israel Sensing a Wider Siege in the Times began:
With its Cairo embassy ransacked, its ambassador to Turkey expelled and the Palestinians seeking statehood recognition at the United Nations, Israel found itself on Saturday increasingly isolated and grappling with a radically transformed Middle East where it believes its options are limited and poor.
An editorial, Israel and New York's Ninth District stated:
Mr. Netanyahu should be worried that his country is more isolated now than when he took office. That isolation will deepen so long as negotiations remain stalemated.
And the Middle East expert of the New York Times, Thomas Friedman, opined in Israel - adrift in sea alone:
Unfortunately, Israel today does not have a leader or a cabinet for such subtle diplomacy. One can only hope that the Israeli people will recognize this before this government plunges Israel into deeper global isolation and drags America along with it.
Note that none of these articles acknowledged the truth that it was Abbas not Netanyahu who refused to negotiate or moderate his positions. For all the crocodile tears shed by the New York Times about Israel's supposed isolation (a charge refuted by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren in the Washington Post,) things have worked out pretty well for Israel and even for Prime Minister Netanyahu.
In early March a New York Times article, illustrated by an inflamatory and irrelevant picture, Mideast Din drowns out Palestinians reported:
“The biggest challenge we face — apart from occupation — is marginalization,” Salam Fayyad, prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, said in an interview. “This is a direct consequence of the Arab Spring where people are preoccupied with their own domestic affairs. The United States is in an election year and has economic problems, Europe has its worries. We’re in a corner.”
The UDI turned out to be a stunt that achieved nothing. And as Shmuel Rosner ruefully observed a month earlier:
Many of Israel’s allies appear to dislike Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Some — including Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, and, it has been rumored, President Barack Obama — also entertain fantasies about seeing him replaced. Yet the next election, whenever it is, will probably make clear that, like it or not, Netanyahu is the only viable candidate for the job.
The New York Times is one of many institutions to sell illusions to the Palestinians. But even the New York Times implicitly recognizes that nothing has been accomplished by its campaign to make Israel cede more and get nothing in return.
Labels: Abu Mazen, Egyptian elections, Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, Middle East Media Sampler, myth of moderate Islam, New York Times, Soccer Dad, Unilateral declaration of independence (UDI)
The Third Jihad and political correctness
Jonathan Rosenblum has a great piece in the weekend's JPost on the controversy over the use of the video The Third Jihad for training New York City police officers. Rosenblum argues that the claim of
'Islamophobia' is being used as an offensive weapon to counteract the fight against terrorism.
Far from being an attack on Islam, the opening lines of the film state clearly: “This is not a film about Islam. It is about the threat of radical Islam. Only a small percentage of the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims are radical.” Jasser, a devout Muslim of Syrian descent and a former US Navy lieutenant commander, is the founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy.
He distinguishes between Islam as a private faith and Islam as a political doctrine mandating the worldwide imposition of Shari’a law.
So far, Kelly and his boss, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, have tried to get past the immediate controversy through now familiar public penance rituals expressing regrets.
It has been left to others, most notably Woolsey and Ridge, to make the substantive case for the NYPD’s anti-terrorist policies. In an op-ed in The New York Daily News (and rejected by the Times), the two argue that the NYPD’s undercover terror prevention program, including intelligence-gathering within the Muslim community, has been one of the prime tools allowing the NYPD to foil several credible threats that have arisen from within the community. And given that even one successful terror attack in New York City could claims tens of thousands of lives, the NYPD cannot afford to decrease its intelligence-gathering activities.
THE TIMES omitted any discussion of the thesis of The Third Jihad. Jasser holds up a 15-page document at the beginning of the film, which we eventually learn is a Muslim Brotherhood manifesto for “eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within,” through use of front groups, mosques and Islamic centers. The document was uncovered by the FBI in the course of its investigation leading up to the government’s successful prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation terrorist funding case.
Terrorism, intones Jasser, is only one tactic toward the Islamists’ goal of imposing Shari’a across the globe – a goal shared by many groups who are not themselves involved in terrorist activity. CAIR, which is specifically mentioned in the document, is one such group. CAIR was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case, and the FBI broke off all relations with the group at the time.
Abdul Rahman Alamoudi, the founder of the American Muslim Council, who was invited to speak at an ecumenical service in the National Cathedral after 9/11, is another so-called “moderate” Muslim. He is shown in The Third Jihad boasting, “Either we do it now or we do it in a hundred years, but this country will become a Muslim country.”
The current controversy could itself be a chapter in The Third Jihad, which discusses the manner in which Islamist front groups constantly raise the specter of Islamophobia to suppress discussion of radical Islam.
And it works. Paul Berman writes in The Flight of the Individuals about how Western intellectuals have been induced to remain silent on such awkward matters as the historical link between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Nazis, and the Nazi inspiration for present-day Islamists.
Read the whole thing.
What bothers me most about this film is that its thesis states that "Only a small percentage of the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims are radical." I have my doubts that is correct. I would say a large percentage - a very large percentage - of Muslims are radical if we define 'radical' as being the belief that Islam will one day rule the world and the willingness to act on it. As regular readers know, we have a regular commenter on this blog who claims to be a Muslim living in the West (yes, I know in what country, although God only knows if she actually lives there) who makes no secret of her aspirations for Islam to control the world. She has threatened me personally - both on comments I have allowed through on this blog and in private emails. Is she typical? Sadly, I think the answer to that question is "yes." 'Moderate Muslim' is an oxymoron as far as I can tell.
For those who have not seen
The Third Jihad yet, you may do so
here or click on the widget below.
Labels: CAIR, Global jihad, Islamist, myth of moderate Islam, Zuhdi Jasser
The Bertrand Russell of Islam writes a book
Giulio Meotti reviews a new book by Ibn Warraq, who is known as the
Bertrand Russell of Islam.
His new book, “Why the West is Best”, which has just been published by Encounter, is the most generous homage to the Western values ever written by a Muslim-born intellectual.
“Millions of people risk their lives trying to get to the West—not to Saudi Arabia or Iran or Pakistan, they flee from theocratic or other totalitarian regimes to find tolerance and freedom in the West, where life is an open book”, explains to us the English-educated Ibn Warraq. “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness: this triptych succinctly defines the attractiveness and superiority of Western civilization”.
Under Islam, life is a closed book. “Everything has been decided for you: the dictates of sharia and the whims of Allah set strict limits on the possible agenda of your life. A culture that engendered the spiritual creations of Mozart and Beethoven, of Raphael and Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Rembrandt does not need lessons in spirituality from societies whose vision of heaven resembles a cosmic brothel stocked with virgins for men’s pleasure.
"The West does not need lectures on the superior virtue of societies where women are kept in subjection, endure genital mutilation, are married off against their will at the age of nine, have acid thrown in their faces or are stoned to death for alleged adultery, or where human rights are denied to those regarded as belonging to lower castes”.
According to Ibn Warraq, an important difference between the West and Islam lies in the use of irony. “Satire has a central place in the Western tradition of cultural self-criticism that goes back to classical antiquity. The Islamic fundamentalist with his murderous certainties cannot bear the ironic outlook. He hates to be criticized and laughed at; he will kill if he thinks you have insulted his religion, or his prophet or holy book. The Ayatollah Khomeini once famously said there are no jokes in Islam. Any civilization that cannot laugh at itself is in a state of decline, and it is dangerous”.
The same for alcohol. “The civilized pleasure of alcohol is connected with the social customs and rituals that define our society. Every liberal knows you can be lashed for drinking in Pakistan”.
He has lots more to say, and you should definitely read the whole thing, but I want to end with his withering critique of the Arab spring.
“I am not at all optimistic about the future of democracy in the Middle East, the Arab Spring should be renamed ‘The Muslim Brotherhood Spring’. There is no such thing as ‘moderate Islamism’. The Islamist parties have been cleverly feeding the gullible Western journalists from Nicholas Kristoff to Thomas Friedman, and even more gullible Western governments soothing words all the while concealing their true aims, the establishment of a Sharia based constitution and a theocratic state”.
Indeed.
Labels: Arab spring, Giulio Meotti, Ibn-Warraq, myth of moderate Islam
Still dreaming of Israel's destruction
Khaled Abu Toameh explains why there is no peace in the Middle East. The answer is really quite simple: Most Muslims
still dream of Israel's destruction.
It is sad and abhorrent to see how many Arabs have rejoiced over the big forest fire in Northern Israel, calling it a "divine punishment" for Israelis and wishing that the blaze would spread to destroy all Jews.
The messages of hate are the result of decades of incitement against Israel and Jews in the Arab media and mosques throughout the Arab and Islamic world.
The comments serve as a reminder that many people in the Arab and Islamic countries still have not come to terms with Israel's right to exist in this part of the world. Even worse, many of the talkbacks show that many Arabs and Muslims would welcome another Holocaust.
These reactions were posted on Web sites of major Arab media outlets, such as the popular Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya TV networks, and the Saudi-owned Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper.
What is troubling is that these repugnant comments appeared on Web sites that are not necessarily associated with radical Islam.
Al-Arabiya and Asharq Al-Awsat are owned by members of the Saudi royal family, which, ironically, has been frequently targeted by Muslim fundamentalist groups like Al-Qaeda.
The overwhelming majority of talkbacks that appeared on the Web sites of these three powerful media organizations in the past few days showed how many Arabs and Muslim continue to dream about the destruction of Israel.
True, some readers and viewers did not join in the "celebration" of the fire that killed more than 40 people and destroyed hundreds of thousands of trees. Some even expressed sympathy with Israel, and some even criticized Arabs and Muslims who rejoiced over the fire.
But these "positive" comments reflected the opinion of a tiny minority. For example, out of 123 comments posted on one of the Web sites, less than 15 seemed to be rational.
The hateful postings did not only come from Arab and Islamic countries and the Palestinian Authority-controlled territories, but also from Arabs living in North America, Australia, Sweden and Europe.
What could go wrong?
Read the whole thing.
Labels: arson, Carmel forest, forest fire, Muslim dream of Israel's destruction, Muslim Jew hatred, myth of moderate Islam
If only....
This claim would be
laughable were it not so sad that the opposite is true.
Prime Minister Saad Hariri on Tuesday performed Eid al-Adha prayer at a Moscow mosque, telling worshipers that Lebanon represents "a model of moderate Islam."
"In Lebanon, we represent a model of moderate Islam which is open to all religions and sects," said Hariri who was accompanied by State Minister Adnan Qassar, his office manager Nader Hariri, and advisor Mohammad Shatah.
After congratulating the worshipers on the occasion of Eid al-Adha, Hariri said that "all Muslims gather on the occasion of this holy Eid to give the real message of the true Islam, the moderate and tolerant Islam."
"We in Lebanon represent a model of this moderate Islam that is open to all religions and sects."
Yeah, right. Hezbullah is just a model of tolerance and moderation. If only....
Labels: Hezbullah, myth of moderate Islam, Saad Hariri, tolerance
