Canary In The Coal Mine

With American Friends Like This, Who Needs Enemies?

by Daniel Greenfield  |  FrontPageMag.com  |  August 24, 2011

 

 

When the former officers of the Holy Land Foundation who had served as Hamas’ fundraising arm went before the US Court of Appeals– there weren’t many organizations willing to file an Amicus brief. But the American Friends Service Committee was first among them.

The American Friends Service Committee had good reason to be worried. It had worked with Life for Relief and Development, an Islamic charity also accused of being a Hamas front. Its concern over the criminal prosecution of charities that passed money along to terrorists was even more pressing because it has a substantial presence in Hamas-run Gaza.

When Israel stopped the blockade running Gaza flotilla, the AFSC statement in response said that the “continuing refusal by the U.S. to deal with the winners of this election [Hamas] has led to a tightening of the blockade” and urged, “the U.S. government to reverse its support for this flawed, failed policy approach and take all effective steps to end Gaza’s isolation.”

Dealing with the winners of the election would mean dealing with Hamas, but that was no obstacle for the AFSC, whose General Secretary, Mary Ellen McNish, had no doubt discussed this policy when she visited Hamas’ backer in Tehran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

In the United States, the AFSC is a familiar presence alongside the usual Marxist and Islamist groups on posters advertising anti-American and anti-Israel rallies. While its bulletins still make some effort to mention “non-violence” in all the right places as a tribute to the group’s pacifist roots, it is enmeshed with violent and totalitarian groups.

The AFSC’s unnatural interest in Israel goes back to the devil’s bargain that Quakers made to keep their institutions operating in the face of Islamic pressure, replacing their American and European officials with locals at the time of Israeli statehood and the war that followed. This takeover of Quaker institutions tipped them into the terrorist camp. The bigoted revolutionaries who now headed them up were Quakers in name only. Their inner identity was allied with the terrorist campaign against Israel.

Khalil Totah, the head of the local Friends school in Ramallah, toured America and the UK at that time calling for an end to Jewish immigration and the destruction of the embryonic Jewish state. Totah had been described as the most active member of the Washington Arab Office, an organization that the Anti-Nazi League claimed was under the control of the Mufti of Jerusalem– an ally of Hitler.

At the time, Totah was more radical than the AFSC leaders he encountered. But the AFSC today denounces Israel at every opportunity, demands an end to the embargo of Hamas run Gaza, and under the influence of its radical Pacific Mountain Region wing is approaching a total boycott of Israel. The AFSC’s name has already appeared on flyers calling for a boycott of Israel and the AFSC lists events staged by the boycott, divest, and sanctions movement on its site.

While the AFSC makes a fetish of Quaker values of nonviolence, it has always been an arm of the left. Long ago its political alliances on the left transformed the AFSC into fellow travelers of the Communist Party. When the AFSC appears on posters alongside the Workers World Party, it’s no different than the old ties between the AFSC and the Communist Party of the United States.

The AFSC’s road to legitimizing terrorist violence traveled a convoluted route. What began as y dogmatic pacifism that denied war was ever the answer, leading the AFSC to conduct an anti-war campaign during WW2, became a more nuanced refusal to condemn what the left considered to be the violence of the oppressed.

By the 1970′s, the American Friends Service Committee had legitimized terrorism and discarded the veneer of non-violence. In a pamphlet titled, “Non-Violence: Not First For Export”,  leading AFSC figure, James E. Bristol wrote, “before we deplore terrorism, it is essential for us to recognize whose ‘terrorism’ came first.”

With that the AFSC adopted the position of the far-left, privileging violence depending on its origin, and terminating the moral authority of its pacifism. The program laid out in that pamphlet treated non-violence not as a universal mandate, but as a weapon to be directed against the United States and its allies: “Instead of trying to devise nonviolent strategy and tactics for revolutionaries in other lands, we will bend every effort to defuse militarism in our own land and to secure the withdrawal of American economic investment in oppressive regimes in other parts of the world.”

The AFSC had started out as an anti-war organization, but Bristol used Marxist doctrine to redefine the status quo as a form of violence and terrorism as the survival reflex of people who have no choice but to resist the status quo. The victims of violence had become the perpetrators and the perpetrators had become the victims.

Under this formula, the existence of Israel is a form of violence. Even by passively existing, the Israeli walking down the street is carrying out a violent act. An Israeli girl in a café  in Sderot is guiltier than a Hamas terrorist pulling the trigger, because as part of the status quo, she is an oppressor, while the terrorist is a resistance fighter.

The corruption of Quaker values into left wing radicalism defines the AFSC. Like the radicals who took over its Arab institutions, it is now Quaker in name only. And its commitment to non-violence also exists in name only.  Its dark path from true nonviolence has led it to a war against Israel.

ABOUT Daniel Greenfield:

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. He is completing a book on the international challenges America faces in the 21st century.

 

Source:  http://frontpagemag.com/2011/08/24/with-american-friends-like-this-who-needs-enemies/

European 'No-Go' Zones for Non-Muslims Proliferating

by Soeren Kern  |  Teapartyorg.ning.com  |  August 22, 2011

 

Islamic extremists are stepping up the creation of "no-go" areas in European cities that are off-limits to non-Muslims.

Many of the "no-go" zones function as microstates governed by Islamic Sharia law. Host-country authorities effectively have lost control in these areas and in many instances are unable to provide even basic public aid such as police, fire fighting and ambulance services.

The "no-go" areas are the by-product of decades of multicultural policies that have encouraged Muslim immigrants to create parallel societies and remain segregated rather than become integrated into their European host nations.

In Britain, for example, a Muslim group called Muslims Against the Crusades has launched a campaign to turn twelve British cities – including what it calls "L.... The so-called Islamic Emirates would function as autonomous enclaves ruled by Islamic Sharia law and operate entirely outside British jurisprudence.

The Islamic Emirates Project names the British cities of Birmingham, Bradford, Derby, Dewsbury, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Luton, Manchester, Sheffield, as well as Waltham Forest in northeast London and Tower Hamlets in East London as territories to be targeted for blanket Sharia rule.

In the Tower Hamlets area of East London (also known as the Islamic Republic of Tower Hamlets), for example, extremist Muslim preachers, called the Tower Hamlets Taliban, regularly issue death threats to women who refuse to wear Islamic veils. Neighborhood streets have been plastered with posters declaring "You are entering a Sharia controlled zone: Islamic rules enforced." And street advertising deemed offensive to Muslims is regularly vandalizedor blacked out with spray paint.

In the Bury Park area of Luton, Muslims have been accused of "ethnic cleansing" by harassing non-Muslims to the point that many of them move out of Muslim neighborhoods. In the West Midlands, two Christian preachers have been accused of "hate crimes" for handing out gospel leaflets in a predominantly Muslim area of Birmingham. In Leytonstone in east London, the Muslim extremist Abu Izzadeen heckled the former Home Secretary John Reid by saying: "How dare you come to a Muslim area."

In France, large swaths of Muslim neighborhoods are now considered "no-go" zones by French police. At last count, there are 751 Sensitive Urban Zones (Zones Urbaines Sensibles, ZUS), as they are euphemistically called. A complete list of the ZUS can be found on a French government website, complete with satellite maps and precise street demarcations. An estimated 5 million Muslims live in the ZUS, parts of France over which the French state has lost control.

Muslim immigrants are taking control of other parts of France too. In Paris and other French cities with high Muslim populations, such as Lyons, Marseilles and Toulouse, thousands of Muslims are closing off streets and sidewalks (and by extension, are closing down local businesses and trapping non-Muslim residents in their homes and offices) to accommodate overflowing crowds for Friday prayers. Some mosques have also begun broadcasting sermons and chants of "Allahu Akbar" via loudspe... into the streets.

The weekly spectacles, which have been documented by dozens of videos posted on Youtube.com (here, here, here,here, here, here, here, here and here), and which have been denounced as an "occupation without tanks or soldiers," have provoked anger and disbelief. But despite many public complaints, local authorities have declined to intervene because they are afraid of sparking riots.

In the Belgian capital of Brussels (which is 20% Muslim), several immigrant neighborhoods have become "no-go" zones for police officers, who frequently are pelted with rocks by Muslim youth. In the Kuregem district of Brussels, which often resembles an urban war zone, police are forced to patrol the area with two police cars: one car to carry out the patrols and another car to prevent the first car from being attacked. In the Molenbeek district of Brussels, police have been ordered not to drink coffee or eat a sandwich in public during the Islamic month of Ramadan.

In Germany, Chief Police Commissioner Bernhard Witthaut, in an August 1 interview with the newspaper Der Westen, revealed that Muslim immigrants are imposing "no-go" zones in cities across Germany at an alarming rate.

The interviewer asked Witthaut: "Are there urban areas – for example in the Ruhr – districts and housing blocks that are "no-go areas," meaning that they can no longer be secured by the police?" Witthaut replied: "Every police commissioner and interior minister will deny it. But of course we know where we can go with the police car and where, even initially, only with the personnel carrier. The reason is that our colleagues can no longer feel safe there in twos, and have to fear becoming the victim of a crime themselves. We know that these areas exist. Even worse: in these areas crimes no longer result in charges. They are left 'to themselves.' Only in the worst cases do we in the police learn anything about it. The power of the state is completely out of the picture."

In Italy, Muslims have been commandeering the Piazza Venezia in Rome for public prayers. In Bologna, Muslims repeatedly have threatened to bomb the San Petronio cathedral because it contains a 600-year-old fresco inspired by Dante's Inferno which depicts Mohammed being tormented in hell.

In the Netherlands, a Dutch court ordered the government to release to the public a politically incorrect list of 40 "no-go" zones in Holland. The top five Muslim problem neighborhoods are in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht. The Kolenkit area in Amsterdam is the number one Muslim "problem district" in the country. The next three districts are in Rotterdam – Pendrecht, het Oude Noorden and Bloemhof. The Ondiep district in Utrecht is in the fifth position, followed by Rivierenwijk (Deventer), Spangen (Rotterdam), Oude Westen (Rotterdam), Heechterp/ Schieringen (Leeuwarden) and Noord-Oost (Maastricht).

In Sweden, which has some of the most liberal immigration laws in Europe, large swaths of the southern city of Malmö – which is more than 25% Muslim – are "no-go" zones for non-Muslims. Fire and emergency workers, for example, refuse to enter Malmö's mostly Muslim Rosengaard district without police escorts. The male unemployment rate in Rosengaard is estimated to be above 80%. When fire fighters attempted to put out a fire at Malmö's main mosque, they were attacked by stone throwers.

In the Swedish city of Gothenburg, Muslim youth have been hurling petrol bombs at police cars. In the city's Angered district, where more than 15 police cars have been destroyed, teenagers have also been pointing green lasers at the eyes of police officers, some of whom have been temporarily blinded.

In Gothenburg's Backa district, youth have been throwing stones at patrolling officers. Gothenburg police have also been struggling to deal with the problem of Muslim teenagers burning cars and attacking emergency services in several areas of the city.

According to the Malmö-based Imam Adly Abu Hajar: "Sweden is the best Islamic state."

 

Source:  http://teapartyorg.ning.com/profiles/blogs/european-no-go-zones-for-non-muslims-proliferating-soon-to-be?xg_source=activity

After 9/11, Curiosity Over Islam Leads To Conversion

by Omar Sacirbey  |  ReligionNews.com  |  August 24, 2011

 

Post 9/11 Unnamed American Convert to Islam.

 

BOSTON - Like a lot of other people in the haze and confusion of the 9/11 attacks, Johannah Segarich asked herself: “What kind of religion is this that could inspire people to do this?”

She had studied other religions, but never Islam. So she bought a copy of the Quran, wondering if her notions of Islam as a patriarchal and now seemingly violent religion, would be confirmed.

Then she got to the first chapter, with its seven-line message about seeking guidance from a merciful creator. She finished the Quran a few weeks later, then started reading it again. About half way through, barely 10 weeks after 9/11, “I came to the realization,” she said, “that I had a decision to make.”

Segarich began studying Islam more intensely, and within a few months, the Utah-born music instructor made her Islamic declaration of faith, or shehadah, at the Islamic Society of Boston in Cambridge.

“It seemed kind of crazy to do. I was a middle-aged professional woman, very independent, very contemporary, and here I was turning to this religion, which at that point was so reviled,” Segarich recalled.

Indeed, it seems counterintuitive that Americans would consider joining a religion that many associate with terrorism and violence—especially after 9/11. But there are more than a few people like Segarich who, compelled by curiosity, became converts.

The majority of post-9/11 converts are women, according to experts. Hispanics and African-Americans, who were already converting well before 9/11, are the most common ethnic groups to convert.

Though exact numbers are difficult to tally, observers estimate that as many as 20,000 Americans convert to Islam annually.

Some conversions make headlines, such as Yvonne Ridley, a British journalist who converted in 2003 after being held captive by Taliban; Lauren Booth, the sister-in-law of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair; or the rapper known as Loon, who converted last year.

Angela Collins Telles grew up in southern California but had a travel bug that took her to Egypt and Syria, where she made friends and found most people generous and compassionate. When anti-Muslim rhetoric flared after 9/11, Collins Telles felt a need to push back.

“I saw my country demonizing these people as terrorists and oppressors of women, and I couldn’t think of anything further from the truth,” she said, “and I felt a need to stand-up and defend them. But then I realized that I couldn’t argue without knowledge.”

Like other converts, Collins Telles said some Christian beliefs, such as the Trinity and priests as intermediaries to God—had never quite seemed right her.

“The concept of God was the most beautiful thing, and that concept fit with what I believe,” said Collins Telles, who converted a few months after 9/11.

Chicagoan Kelly Kaufmann had a similar experience. When relatives chastised her for volunteering for President Obama’s presidential campaign because they believed, erroneously, he is Muslim, she felt a need to study religion. When she came to Islam, her beliefs finally seemed in sync.

“Once I realized that’s where my beliefs aligned, I had that big uh-oh moment that a lot of people have when they realize, `Uh-oh, the (religion) I align with is the big fat scary one, as treated by the media, and understood as such by the public,” she said.

But after nearly a year of study, Kaufmann could find nothing wrong with Islam. She decided to convert after confronting a man at a public lecture who said Muslims hated peace.

“That’s when I realized, if I’m taking this personally, I think I must be ready,” she said.

Because of a slow but steady number of converts, many mosques have launched programs to help them with learning the essentials: prayer, basic beliefs, and proper behavior.

Vaqar Sharief, who was tapped to create a program for converts at the Islamic Center of Wilmington, Del., estimates his mosque gets four or five converts every month.

Despite their enthusiasm, some converts worry about how friends and colleagues will react, or whether they are exposing themselves to harassment or attack.

“I guess it will always be a concern until the rhetoric changes a little bit,” said Kaufmann, whose family has been supportive—except for an uncle who now forbids his daughter from seeing Kaufmann. “What are they afraid of, conversion by proximity?”

Trisha Squires hasn’t been a Muslim for even a month, following her July 31 declaration of faith, and has told only a few people, with mixed results.

Among the disappointing reactions was a close friend who said, “The godmother of my children is going to be a Muslim?” Squires hesitates to wear a headscarf to work, unsure what her employer might think.

Others, however, don’t worry at all.

“I never cared about being accepted,” said Collins Telles, who now lives in Brazil with her husband, who also converted after meeting her. “I knew that I had found God, and that’s all I ever wanted.”

Source:  http://www.religionnews.com/index.php?/rnstext/after_911_curiosity_over_islam_leads_to_conversion/

Baby Lightly Injured After Rocket Falls Near Ashkelon

by Yaakov Lappin, Yaakov Katz, JPost.com Staff  |  JPost.com  |  August 24, 2011

 

3-year-old's hand injured as 1 of 2 rockets fired near Ashkelon causes car to go up in flames; Iron Dome intercepts rocket fired at Beersheba; IAF strikes Gaza after barrage ofrockets hit South.

A three-month-old baby was lightly injured in her hand after one of two rockets fired at the Ashkelon Regional Council hit a car and caused it go up in flames on Wednesday evening. 

Two further rockets were fired at the Eshkol Regional Council but no injuries or damage were reported.

Earlier on Wednesday night, one of two rockets that was fired from Gaza towards the Beersheba area was intercepted by the Iron Dome system. The other rocket landed in open land near the city. 

Air raid sirens were heard throughout the city and no injuries or damage were reported. 

In what appeared to be part of an IDF response to renewed rocket fire into Southern Israel earlier in the day, the IAF evening bombed an Islamic Jihad rocket cell in Gaza City on Wednesday evening. Palestinians reported one dead and several wounded.

At least seven rockets landed near Ashkelon and in Ofakim on Wednesday evening. Therockets were believed to be fired by Islamic Jihad which was avenging an Israel Air Force air strike earlier in the day in which a senior operative was killed, who the IDF said was planning attacks against Israel from the Sinai Peninsula.

Four rockets landed in the Eshkol Regional Council and another two struck open land near Ofakim shortly after another rocket fell in an open field north of the Gaza strip near Ashkelon. No one was injured in the strikes.

The IDF had prepared for the rocket fire following the air strike against the Islamic Jihad operative and canceled the "Breeza" Festival in Ashkelon that was scheduled for Wednesday night.

Defense officials said that the IDF would continue to strike at terror cells that it spotted preparing to fire rockets into Israel or against terrorists who it knew, according to intelligence information, were in the midst of planning attacks against Israel like it did on Wednesday morning.

"This could lead to another escalation in rocket fire but the IDF will not stand by as Israelis are attacked," one official said.

 

Source:  http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=235288

Stakelbeck on Terror Show: Former Muslim Challenges the Koran

by Erick Stakelbeck, CBN News Terrorism Analyst  |  Blogs.CBN.com  |  August 23, 2011

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm currently in Israel, gearing up to co-host the pre and post shows for Glenn Beck's Restoring Courage rally in Jerusalem on Wednesday, August 24th (watch it on GBTV.com). In the meantime, check out the latest episode of the Stakelbeck on Terror show, featuring my in-depth interview with a former radical Wahhabi Muslim from Saudi Arabia who is now a Christian, boldly challenging the Koran. Click on the viewer below to watch: 

 

 

 

 

Source:  http://blogs.cbn.com/stakelbeckonterror/archive/2011/08/23/new-episode-of-stakelbeck-on-terror-show-former-muslim-challenges.aspx

Audio: Secure Freedom Radio with Frank Gaffney and Walid Phares

Uploaded to YouTube.com by WalidPharesComment on August 24, 2011

 

 

 

 

 

Audio: Secure Freedom Radio with Frank Gaffney and Walid Phares

Uploaded to YouTube.com by WalidPharesComment on August 24, 2011

 

 

 

 

 

Saudi Arabia Enters the Fray Over Syria

by Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely, US Army (Ret), Tom Marin  |  FamilySecurityMatters.org  |  August 24, 2011

 

 

In contrast to the international and Arab response toward Qaddafi, the Arab states have hesitated to adopt an assertive stance against Assad. Yet five months and two thousand dead later, different voices are starting to emerge.  

 

First, the joint statement by the Gulf Cooperation Council, which called for Syria to stop "the lethal oppression of its citizens," and later the Saudi King's statement, unusual for its severity, which declared that what is happening in Syria "is unacceptable to Saudi Arabia, which demands an end to the killing machine." This statement testifies to Saudi Arabia's positioning itself against the radical front led by Iran - after it previously did so in Bahrain - as it understands that the events in Syria have reached a critical level that may tip the balance against the Assad dynasty. This joins Saudi Arabia's adoption of a more assertive stance since the start of the uprisings in the Arab world and its attempt to redraw the map of regional alliances in accordance with its interests.

King Abdullah, who until now watched the regional upheaval from a distance, is at present eager to see Assad fall, if only because this would make Iran lose its primary ally, undermine the radical axis, and give Saudi Arabia the chance to lead a Sunni camp that is larger and more consolidated than in the past, should the Sunnis, who are the majority, rise to power in Syria. Until now, Saudi Arabia has failed to extricate Syria from Iran's embrace and create a cohesive anti-Iranian front comprising pro-Western Sunni states. The current protests in Syria give Saudi Arabiaan extraordinary opportunity to realize this drive. 

 

Although Saudi Arabia borders on some of the most extreme areas of conflict in the Middle East, it has to date preferred to neutralize these risks to its national securityby avoiding overt use of military means and leadership-based activity. Diplomacy and cold cash were its preferred methods. Since the beginning of the Arab spring, the aging Saudi elite has started to understand that within a few years, it may find itself in very different political surroundings in which on the one hand vassals slowly become citizens with equal rights, and on the other, sectarian confrontations and instability grow. In its view, the Kingdom's traditional means to shape its strategic environment no longer suffice, and thus it must shed its relative passivity in order to overcome national security threats and even, if necessary, attempt to lead the Arab region. 

 

In this context, Saudi Arabia is doing its utmost to prevent Egypt from forging closer ties with Iran. The concern in Riyadh is that the "new" Egyptian leadership will lean more towards Iran, in part to placate the masses inclined this way. In the months following Mubarak's fall and now his trial, voices in Cairo have been calling for renewed diplomatic ties with Tehran. Senior Iranian officials warmly greeted the calls in Cairo for a clean slate in relations and went so far as to say that Egyptian resistance to Israel and "the adoption of the model of the Islamic Revolution" would create a common denominator between Egypt and Iran. In addition to assistance to the tune of $4 billion designed to help the Egyptian economy "float above water," Riyadh also dusted off ideas on a series of joint ventures to strengthen bilateral ties, including an old proposal to construct a bridge over the Straits of Tiran to connect the two nations.

 

While it attempts to close ranks in the Gulf States, Saudi Arabia is also trying to bring Jordan (and maybe Morocco) into a bloc of monarchies in order to prevent reforms and perhaps, as Morocco's Kings has started to do, establish the separation of powers and edge towards constitutional monarchies. Riyadh, seeking to inoculate the monarchies against possible dangers to their stability, is expected shortly to lead negotiations with Jordan in order to include the latter in some manner or another in the exclusive Gulf Cooperation Council club, despite the reservations of some member nations. Saudi Arabia has also given Jordan $1.5 billion. It is unclear to what extent Saudi Arabia's declarative assertiveness vis-à-vis Syria is backed by substantial support of the Syrian protest movement (Riyadh has for some time supported the Syrian opposition), but it certainly serves as an Arab and Islamic seal of approval for steps that have not yet been taken. Yet despite the positive contribution to consolidating an anti-Iranian camp, Abdullah's efforts are liable to decrease his freedom to maneuver, both at home and abroad. He will find it hard to rebuild his relations with Syria should Assad and his cronies stay in power. Is the King hoping to deflect criticism aimed at him? Perhaps!

 

However, should the protest come knocking at his door, he will be hard pressed to explain why he hasn't implemented his own recommendations. Assad's possible fall is liable to be another domino in a process that ultimately leads to the Kingdom itself. 

 

In order to back up his declarations (called "historic" by the Saudi press), the King recalled his ambassador for consultations, a move that may give legitimacy to other states to intensify the pressure on Syria. Indeed, a day after King Abdullah's speech, Bahrain and Kuwait - the two Gulf States closest to Saudi Arabia - announced they too were recalling their ambassadors from Damascus to protest the violent suppression of the demonstrations (thus joining Qatar, which had done so previously). The King's speech has already generated a number of government-sponsored demonstrations in the Gulf against the Syrian regime and harsher critiques of Syria in the Sunni Arab world. Abdullah may also be paving the path for a change in America's hesitant policy and give President Obama an opportunity to toughen the tone about the continuing massacres. What prompted King Abdullah's response at this time? The assertive position vis-à-vis Syria has to do with the King's anger at the continuing killing of Sunnis during the sensitive period of Ramadan, especially among tribes close to the Kingdom, and possibly also his frustration at having failed to promote a behind-the-scenes deal with Assad to restore calm. Saudi Arabia's firm stance on Assad may be understood as an admission of its inability to affect the direction of events, in Lebanon as well as Syria, or as recognition that the balance is now, more than in the past, tilting in favor of the Syrian protesters. According to this rationale, Saudi Arabia sat on the sidelines until now in order to see which way the internal Syrian pendulum would swing. Abdullah was also slow to act because his concern of an Iranian reaction and uncertainty about America's policy on Assad, but he changed his position because of the emerging ethnic nature of the protest.  

 

King Abdullah is hoping that this step will distance him from Assad, understanding that the Alawi minority regime (a heretical minority, because of its leanings to the Shi'a) has been significantly weakened and may even collapse, and that Saudi Arabiamust prepare itself for such an eventuality. 

 

This is a dramatic step, certainly for King Abdullah who is usually quite restrained, and has the potential to generate a new direction for Saudi Arabia in the Arab and Islamic world. It is not distress about human rights violations that is at the center of the King's concerns; therefore, there is no contradiction between his support for the Syrian protests and the help he extended to suppress the protests in Bahrain. Rather, considerations of balance of power and ethnic rivalries are intertwined in Saudi "activism". Is this an attempt to stop Iran and consolidate a Sunni front as a counter-force to Iranian influence? The fall of Assad would be the best outcome for Abdullah, second only to the fall of the Islamic republic itself, even if he understands, as Tarqi al-Faisal said, that "Assad will fight till the last Syrian standing." Either way, the Kingdom seems more ready than ever to harness its economic and political assets to tackle Iran's regional ambitions.

 

Tom Marin

Paul Vallely

 

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Paul E. Vallely, Major General (USA/Ret.) is an author, military strategist and Chairman of Stand Up America andSave Our Democracy Projects. 

 

 

Source:  http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.10236/pub_detail.asp

Preemption, Not Retaliation!

by Yoram Ettinger  |  FamilySecurityMatters.org  |  August 24, 2011

 

Wreckage in Gaza after Israel responded to last week’s terror attacks.

 

The recent surge in Palestinian terrorism behooves Israel to revisit the fundamentals of counter-terrorism.

 

For example, THE MOST EFFECTIVE DEFENSE AGAINST TERRORISM – OPERATIONALLY, FINANCIALLY AND MORALLY – IS NOT RETALIATION AND A LIMITED, SURGICAL OFFENSIVE, but a comprehensive, decisive, sustained and disproportionate preemptive ground offensive, which aims to obliterate terror infrastructures and capabilities, and bring the enemy to submission.  A decisive defeat of terrorism requires a victory over – and not coexistence or ceasefire agreements with – terrorism; uprooting – and not just stopping – terrorism.

 

Any response to terrorism which is short of devastating the ideological, political,financial, logistic and operational terrorist infrastructures, reassures terrorists that they are immune to annihilation.  Moreover, it nurtures their hope-driven terrorism: the hope to whack Israel’s psyche of defiance, wreck Israel’s steadfastness, and sustain the 1993-2011 trend of sweeping Israeli ideological and territorial retreats.

 

Furthermore, a limited response to terrorism exacerbates wars of attrition – the dream of terrorists and nightmare of democratic societies.  The limited-retaliation response to terrorism adds fuel to the fire of terrorism, feeds the self-defeating assumption that, supposedly, there is no military solution to terrorism, hence significantly eroding Israel’s posture of deterrence.

 

Contrary to that self-defeating assumption, Palestinian terrorism was curtailed by 90% - when, in 2002, Israel's military took over the Palestinian breeding ground of terrorism in Beit Jallah, Bethlehem, Hebron, Ramallah, Jenin, Nablus and other major towns in Judea & Samaria. Israeli military re-engagement with these areas – rather than the Fence or the Wall – reasserted Israel's initiative in the battle against Palestinian terrorism.

 

The more defensive and retaliation-driven the Israeli response to terrorism, the more emboldened are Palestinian terrorists, the less confident are Israelis in their government’s capability to safeguard personal and national security, the moretaxing is mental fatigue, and the  less convinced are Israelis in their cause. 

 

The addiction to defense, and to limited response, has been embraced by Israel since signing the 1993 Oslo Accord, in order to resuscitate the “peace” process, which has triggered dramatically more hate-education, terrorism and non-compliance than the pre-Oslo reality.  250 Israelis were murdered by Palestinian terrorism in the 15 years prior to Oslo, but over 2,000 have been murdered in the 18 years since Oslo.

 

Limited response has also been implemented, in order to soothe international public opinion - which is never satisfied with Israeli concessions - thus recklessly subordinating national security to public diplomacy considerations.  Sometimes it yields false sense of security and enhances short-term tactical popularity. However, limited response always undermines long-term strategic interests and international respect towards Israel, generating more pressure on Israel, radicalizing Palestinian terrorism and distancing the area from peace. 

    

Will Israel’s response to the current wave of Palestinian terrorism perpetuate the terrorist-preferred war of attrition?  Or, will it be a milestone on the road to reclaiming the pre-Oslo Israeli posture as the role-model of deterrence, defiance of odds, determination and gumption in the battle against terrorism, which paved the road to the 1948 Declaration of Independence, the 1967 Six Day War, the 1970 deterrence of the Syrian invasion of Jordan, the 1976 Entebbe Jonathan Operation and the 1981 bombing of Saddam’s nuclear reactor?

 

Rather than retreating toward the pre-1967 ceasefire lines, Israel should take charge of the breeding ground of terrorism, which would enhance Israel's power of deterrence, human-intelligence and interception capabilities.  It would reduce the Palestinian capability to conduct hate-education, to incite, to recruit, to train, tomanufacture and smuggle terrorist and military hardware, to plan, to maneuver and to perpetrate terrorist activities.  It would reduce Palestinian terrorism by 90%!

 

Family Security Matters Contributor Yoram Ettinger was formerly Israel’s Consul General in Houston, Texas.

 

Source:  http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.10233/pub_detail.asp

'J'accuse on Pollard'

by Giulio Meotti  |  Jpost.com |  August 22, 2011

 

It’s one of the most painful wounds in the Jewish world. All Israeli attempts to obtain leniency for Jonathan Pollard have failed.

He is a convicted spy. He has an Israeli passport. He is serving a life sentence. He is the only American to receive a life sentence for spying for an ally. It’s one of the most painful wounds in the Jewish world. All Israeli attempts to obtain leniency for Jonathan Pollard have failed.

Some 113 years after French novelist Emile Zola famously wrote “J’accuse!” charging that an anti-Semitic government had wrongfully convicted a young Jewish captain named Alfred Dreyfus, Pollard’s supporters wonder if history may record his case as America’s Dreyfus affair. The former president of B’nai B’rith International, Tommy Baer, said the Pollard affair was “the closest thing to an American Dreyfuss case.” If Pollard’s incomparably harsh sentence is allowed to continue, all but the most naive will have to confront the idea that he is still in prison only because he is a Jew.

Dreyfus and Pollard are, of course, different cases in one significant respect. Dreyfus was innocent, and Pollard has admitted his guilt. But a close look reveals striking similarities.

The French Jew was exiled to the hell of Devil’s Island. Pollard is being held in solitary confinement in an underground cell. Dreyfus was a political prisoner from the first day of his arrest. By contrast, Pollard was not a political prisoner during the first few years of his incarceration.

However, now that he is serving well beyond the time served by others who have committed comparable offenses, now that he remains incarcerated because of prejudice, , he has become a political prisoner. If Dreyfus made Theodor Herzl into a Zionist, Pollard has been abandoned and betrayed by most Jewish intellectuals.

A few years ago only Ida Nudel and other former Soviet “Prisoners of Zion,” in a letter delivered to then-Israeli defense minister Moshe Arens, declared that there remained yet another political prisoner: Jonathan Pollard.

Yosef Mendelevich, who spent 11 years in the gulag, called on “all the friends who fought for the Prisoners of Zion to organize again for Jonathan Pollard..”

Pollard’s release is today an integral part only of the right-wing camp in Israel (Gush Katif made Pollard an honorary resident, and most of his supporters wear the knitted kippot that identify national religious Jews). But the question is not about the Jewish Right that adopted Pollard, but why the Jewish Left has abandoned him. Pollard has been in prison longer than anyone ever sentenced in the US for passing classified materials to a friendly foreign power. Israel has never underestimated Pollard’s offense. But his case constitutes a great miscarriage of justice. In the United States the median sentence for a person convicted of spying for the Soviet Union was 10 years. The median sentence for someone spying for a non-Soviet power has been less than three years. Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz said the Pollard case is “an American injustice,” calling his life sentence “outrageously disproportionate.” Defense Intelligence Agency analyst Ronald Montaperto was just sentenced to a three-month prison term for passing US intelligence secrets to communist China. Meanwhile, Pollard, who was sentenced to life in prison for passing US secrets to Israel is now in his 27th year in jail, held in a subterranean cell in solitary confinement for seven years.

After his arrest, Israel did everything in its power to distance itself from Pollard, despite the fact that Jerusalem knew the magnitude of his contribution in the face of the chemical-weapons threat presented by Syria and Iraq. It wasn’t until 1995 that he was granted Israeli citizenship, and it wasn’t until 1998 that Israel officially recognized Pollard as its agent. Binyamin Netanyahu is the only prime minister to have made a real effort to get him released.

For his contribution to Israel’s security and for his long suffering in prison, Israelis should consider Pollard a national hero. He is commonly recognized as the source of the country’s preparedness for the Iraqi missile attacks during the Gulf War, when Saddam Hussein’s Scud rockets began to rain down on Tel Aviv, and Israelis wore gas masks.

Twenty-two countries were transferring nuclear, chemical and biological weapons technology to Arab states – in particular Iraq. This was six years before the Gulf War, six years before Saddam Hussein became a household name.

Jonathan Pollard warned Israel of Iraq’s bellicose intentions, and that Syria’s Assad was amassing vast quantities of chemical and other unconventional weapons. By its own agreement with Israel, the US administration should have given this information to Jerusalem. But it was deliberately blocked by then-secretary of state Caspar Weinberger.

Among all the doubts, Pollard emerges as a Jewish hero.

He passed on information to try and save Israel from its enemies. But now reports on his health are marginalized to the back pages of Israeli newspapers, and claims by his supporters are treated as crank calls. The famous writer Amos Oz just got in touch with Marwan Barghouti, the Palestinian terrorist convicted of murdering many Israelis. The Israel Prize recipient sent the Palestinian prisoner one of his books with a personal inscription wishing him a speedy release from prison: “This story is our story. I hope you read it and understand us better, as we attempt to understand you. Hoping to meet soon in peace and freedom.”

Pollard’s espionage is no way comparable to Barghouti’s murders of Jews, but Oz and the other Israeli intellectuals never sent a letter to the prison where Pollard is serving life without parole. Pollard’s room is so small that when he sits on the bed and stretches his arms he touches both walls. His kippa was thrown to the ground. He was spread-eagled against the wall and his testicles squeezed.

His kosher food has been served rotten and his phylacteries were constantly split open by overzealous guards.

But for most of the influential Jewish intellectuals in the US, Pollard is still “a traitor,” “a fanatic” (Robert Friedman of The Washington Post), “an aberration” (Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg), “a viper” (Marty Peretz of the New Republic).

Natan Sharanksy, Yosef Mendelovich, Josef Begun and other Jewish prisoners in the Soviet Union were freed because the Jewish world exerted all the pressure and influence at its disposal to free them. Pollard deserves the same tenacity. He has served more than sufficient jail time for his crime. And to return to the first question: Is Pollard like Dreyfus? No. After 27 years in prison, Pollard is still waiting for his Emile Zola. After the case of Dreyfus, the French essayist Julien Benda published his famous attack on the intellectual corruption of the age, La Trahison des clercs. We are now living through the new treason of the intellectuals, who are silent and indifferent in the face of anti-Semitism. And it’s an intellectual collapse that goes way beyond the case of Jonathan Pollard.

The writer is an Italian journalist and writer, and the author of A New Shoah: The Untold Story of Israel’s Victims of Terrorism in many languages.

 

Source:  http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=234982