Canary In The Coal Mine

'Baghdad Jewish Community in Danger'

From: Ynet  |  Ynetnews.com  |  October 11, 2011

 

Anglican priest working with US Embassy to persuade handful of Jews who still live in Iraqi capital to leave after their names appeared in WikiLeaks cables. 'The older ones are refusing to leave. They say, 'We're Iraqis. If they kill us, we will die here'

Anglican priest Canon Andrew White says the handful of Jews who still live in Baghdad are in danger and that he is working with the US Embassy to persuade them to leave after their names appeared in cables published by WikiLeaks last month, the MCT news agency reported over the weekend.

"The US Embassy is desperately trying to get them out," White said. But so far, according to the report, only one of the community members, who according to the cables is a regular confidante of the embassy, has expressed interest in emigrating to the United States.

"Most want to stay," White said. "The older ones are refusing to leave. They say, 'We're Iraqis. Why should we go? If they kill us, we will die here.'"

According to MCT, the US Embassy said it would take steps to protect the individuals whose names appear in the cables and suggested that should any wish to leave, the US would help relocate them.

 "Protecting individuals whose safety is at risk because of the release of the purported cables remains a priority. We are working actively to ensure that they remain safe," the embassy said in a statement.

Baghdad's shuttered synagogue. Photo: MCT 

'Life and death issue'

The statement slammed WikiLeaks for releasing the cables, claiming that it potentially put their lives or careers at risk.

White blasted the website as well. "How could they do something as stupid as that?" he said. "Do they not realize this is a life and death issue?"

WikiLeaks did not respond to MCT's request for comment.

White said he was not interested in seeing the Jews leave, but was concerned for their safety.

"We had to warn them of the danger and tell them that we want them all to leave," he said. "I never wanted the Jews to leave Iraq. They belong here."

Rev. White with his adopted Iraqi daughter, Lina. Photo: MCT

According to the report, there are so few Jews left in Baghdad that their sole remaining place of worship, the Taweig synagogue, is shuttered, even during the Jewish High Holidays. 

One of the cables, MCT reported, recounts the deteriorating conditions one member of the community said Jews faced after US troops toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003, primarily because of the rise of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

 Another spoke about some Jews converting to Islam.

"The Jews of Iraq do not appear likely to share in Iraq's future as a nation," the writer said. "They have no children, and cannot contribute culturally or even materially while unable to participate freely in Iraq's public life.

"They remain in Iraq, but not of it, hiding at the center of a country whose majority may, one day, welcome them again, but does not accept them at present."

 

 

Source:  http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4133701,00.html

Vatican’s Pact With Islam

by Giulio Meotti  |  Ynetnews.com  |  October 2, 2011

 

Ynetnews special: Italian journalist examines Vatican’s submission to political Islam.

It has been five years since gave his controversial lectio about Islam at the German University of Regensburg. On September 12th, 2006, Joseph Ratzinger claimed that the god of the Muslims is both transcendental and unreasonable and he severely condemned jihad and the use of violence in the name of Koran. It was the only public event in which a Pope told the truth about some aspects of Islamic religion.

Benedict XVI made himself a central player in the post-9/11 era: His speech against the link between religion and violence, typical of Islam today, was not a mistake or a false step, as some observers wrote at that time. It was, rather, a vigorous attack against certain aspects of Islamic fanaticism.

The reaction to the Pope’s speech was a familiar spectacle: Threats, riots, and violence. From the religious leaders in Muslim majority countries to the New York Times, all demanded the Pope’s apologies. In the Palestinian areas, churches were attacked and Christians targeted. In the Somali capital, Mogadishu, an Italian nun was executed. In Iraq, Amer Iskander, a Syrian Orthodox priest, was beheaded and his arms mutilated.

In Islamic forums, Ratzinger was depicted like Dracula. He received many death threats: “Slaughter him”, “pig servant of the cross”, “odious evil”, “Allah curse him”, “vampire who sucks blood” and so on. The highest Islamic representative in Turkey, Ali Bardakoglu, declared that Ratzinger’s speech was “full of enmity and hatred.” The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood pledged “reactions worst of those against the Danish cartoons”.

Iran’s Supreme Ayatollah, Ali Khamenei, accused the Pope of being part of “the conspiracy of the Crusaders.” Under pressure, and aiming to stop any further violence, the Pope apologized.

Benedict XVI (Pictured Left) recently visited again his native Germany, but this time with a different agenda. Five years later, the Vatican adopted a pro-Islam course and has capitulated to fundamentalists. In a recent book written by German journalist Peter Sewald, Pope Ratzinger expressed “regrets” about the Regensburg lecture. The Vatican’s Secretary of State, Tarcisio Bertone, buried the Pope's lesson about Islam as “an archaeological relic.”

“The default positions vis-à-vis militant Islam are now unhappily reminiscent of Vatican diplomacy’s default positions vis-à-vis communism during the last 25 years of the Cold War,” writes George Weigel, a leading US writer about the Vatican. The Vatican’s new agenda seeks “to reach political accommodations with Islamic states and foreswear forceful public condemnation of Islamist and jihadist ideology.”

Appeasement agenda

After Regensburg, the Vatican adopted an appeasement agenda. Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, who is known for having a pro-Islam position, was appointed by the Pope as the head of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.

Indeed, Dialogue with Iran’s mullahs is pivotal in the new Vatican agenda. Recently, a delegation of clergy members of Iran’s Islamic Consultative Assembly visited the Vatican, meeting with top Catholic officials.

In June, the Vatican sent Archbishop Edmond Farhat, who is the official representative of Vatican politics, to Tehran to attend an “international conference on the global campaign against terrorism.” Last autumn, Vatican representatives met with Muslim leaders from around the world in Tehran for “a three-day interreligious dialogue.” In Tehran Cardinal Tauran praised Iran’s “spirit of cordiality” and “the friendly Ahmadinejad.”

Last month, the Vatican published a letter written by Tauran, addressing his “Dear Muslim friends.” In the letter, Tauran asked for Islamic help to form an alliance against atheism.

In 2008, the Vatican promoted “Love of God, Love of Neighbor,” the first three-day forum with Islamic leaders. The Pope agreed to meet one the most dangerous Islamist in the Western world, the grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna, Tariq Ramadan - the Swiss scholar who denies Israel’s right to life and who has been banned from entering the US because of his alleged association with extremists.

Last May, Bishop Mariano Crociata, secretary general of the Italian Episcopal Conference, announced that the Vatican is in favor of building new mosques in Europe. A month later the European Bishops met with European Muslims in Turin (Cardinal Tauran was also present) to proclaim the need for the “progressive enculturation of Islam in Europe.”

In Rimini, a seaside resort on the Adriatic coast, the Comunione e Liberazione movement, one of the most powerful in the Catholic Church, holds its massive annual “meeting” that usually draws some 700,000 people. The Catholic movement last month hosted the president of Al Azhar, the most important Islamic university in Cairo, and a senior leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, despite the fact that for the first time the US Commission on Religious Freedom recommended that Egypt be placed on a list of the “worst of the worst” countries for persecution of Christians.

Targeting Israel

The State of Israel is easily expendable in the new pro-Islam policy. In January 2009, thousands of Muslims marched in front of Milan’s Duomo to protest against Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. They burned Israeli flags and chanted anti-Jewish slogans. Joaquin Navarro-Valls, John Paul II’s spokesman for 22 years, defended the “freedom of expression” of the Muslims who burned the Star of David.

Months later, Pope Benedict visited Bethlehem, where the Christian population has dropped from a majority to less than 20%. Benedict delivered a message of solidarity to the 1.4 million Palestinians isolated in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. He said nothing of the suffering of Gaza’s 3,000 Christians since Hamas took over that territory in 2007.

Benedict could have decried the bombings, shootings and other Islamist attacks against Gaza Christian establishments, the brutal murder of the only Bible-store owner of Gaza, or the regular intimidation and persecution of Christians there. Instead, the Pope stood beside Mahmoud Abbas as the Palestinian leader deceptively pointed to a concrete separation barrier in Bethlehem and blamed that barrier, as well as Israeli “occupation,” for the plight of Christians.

A few weeks later, the United Nations ran “Durban II” and on the first day of the conference, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the only head of state to attend, made a speech condemning Israel as “totally racist” and referred to the Holocaust as an "ambiguous and dubious question.” When Ahmadinejad began to speak against the Jews, all European Union delegates left the conference room. The Vatican delegation didn’t say a word.

To understand the new Vatican’s approach toward Islam, one should also read what happened in the historical synod on the Middle East hosted by the Pope last autumn. Nothing was said about Islamist persecution of Christians; indeed, every effort was made to show the Catholic Church’s sympathy to Muslim grievances, especially against “Zionism” – a word evoked as a symbol of evil.

Aside from Iraq, the only country singled out for criticism in the Middle East was Israel. Patriarch Antonios Naguib of the Egyptian Coptic church, who was the “relator,” or secretary, of the synod, expressed “solidarity with the Palestinian people, whose situation today is particularly conducive to the rise of fundamentalism.” The lesson was simple: Islamism is the consequence of Israeli policies. The synod was carefully prepared for a year, and it produced a rash of radical anti-Jewish statements on both political and theological issues.

Ethnic cleansing silenced

The rightful concern of the Vatican for co-religionists has also been silenced. Intimidation, thuggery and violence have succeeded in turning away criticism not only of Islam, but of violence committed in the name of Islam against Christians.

Over the past several years, Christians have endured bombings, murders, assassinations, torture, imprisonment and expulsions. The very roots of the Christian heritage in the Middle East are being extirpated. When last winter Christians were killed in Egypt, Cardinal Tauran and the Vatican foreign office requested to “avoid anger” and downplayed the Islamist role in the butchering.

In the summer of 2010, Bishop Luigi Padovese, Vatican vicar for Anatolia and president of the Catholic Episcopal conference of Turkey, was slaughtered by Islamic fanatics in Iskenderun on the eve of the Pope’s trip to Cyprus. Vatican diplomacy did its part to convince the Pope to immediately and preemptively rule out the idea that this was a “political or religious” murder.

Elsewhere, the number of Christians in Turkey declined from two million to 85,000; in Syria, from half the population they have been reduced to 4%; in Jordan, from 18% to 2%; nearly two-thirds of the 500,000 Christians in Baghdad have fled or been killed; in Lebanon, Christians have dwindled to a sectarian rump, menaced by surging Shiite and Sunni populations, and in Saudi Arabia Christians have been beaten or tortured by religious police.

It’s an ethnic cleansing of monumental proportions that makes it clear why the Vatican’s submission to political Islam, along with its religious anti-Israel stance, will be remembered as one of the greatest moral failings of the 21st Century.

Giulio Meotti, a journalist with Il Foglio, is the author of the book A New Shoah: The Untold Story of Israel's Victims of Terrorism.

Source:  http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4129577,00.html

Egypt Destroying Churches, One at a Time. Muslim Brotherhood: "No More Churches"

by Raymond Ibrahim  |  Hudson-NY.org  |  October 10, 2011

 

Photo: BarnabasFund.org

 

What clearer sign that Egypt is turning rabidly Islamist than the fact that hardly a week goes by without a church being destroyed, or without protesting Christians being attacked and slaughtered by the military?

The latest chaos in Egypt—where the military opened fire on unarmed protesters, and ran armored vehicles over them— killing 35 and injuring over 300, with the count still rising --originated in Edfu, a onetime tourist destination renowned for its pharaonic antiquities, but now known as the latest region to see a church destroyed by a Muslim mob.

This destruction, which spurred the unrest in Egypt, is itself eye-opening as to the situation in Egypt. To sum it up, St. George Coptic church, built nearly a century ago, was so dilapidated that the local council and governor of Aswan approved renovating it, and signed off on the design.

It was not long before local Muslims began complaining and making various demands, including that the church be devoid of crosses and bells—even though the permit had approved them—citing that "the Cross irritates Muslims and their children."

Coptic leaders had no choice but to acquiesce, "pointing to the fact that the church was rebuilt legally, and any concessions on the part of the church was done for the love for the country, which is passing through a difficult phase."

Acquiescence breeds more demands: Muslim leaders next insisted that the very dome of the church be removed—so that the building might not even resemble a church—and that it be referred to as a "hospitality home." Stating that removing the dome would. Most likely collapse the church, the bishop refused.

The cries of "Allahu Akbar!" began: Muslims threatened to raze the church and build a mosque in its place; Copts were "forbidden to leave their homes or buy food until they remove the dome of St. George's Church;" many starved for weeks.

Then, after Friday prayers on Sept. 30, some three thousand Muslims rampaged through the church, torched it, and demolished the dome; flames from the wreckage burned nearby Coptic homes, which were further ransacked by rioting Muslims.

This account of anti-church sentiment in Egypt leads to several sad conclusions:

Animosity toward churches; demands that they be left to crumble; demands to remove crosses and stifle bells; are an integral part of Islamic history and dogma. The fact that church attacks in Egypt always occur on a Friday, Islam's "holy day," and are always accompanied by religious cries of "Allahu Akbar!" should be evidence enough of the Islamist context of these attacks.

Because there was a lull in this animosity from the colonial era to just a few decades ago, most Westerners incorrectly assume that in Islamic history church toleration is the rule, not the exception. Unfortunately Islamic tolerance toward churches has more frequently been draconian, and is back: "The Muslim Brotherhood announced immediately after the revolution that it is impossible to build any new church in Egypt, and churches which are demolished should never be rebuilt, as well as no crosses over churches or bells to be rung."

This is also why Muslim authorities are complacent, and even complicit. According to witnesses, security forces, which were present during the Edfu attack, "stood there watching." Worse, Edfu's Intelligence Unit chief was seen directing the mob destroying the church.

As for the governor of Aswan, he appeared on State TV and "denied any church being torched," calling it, instead, a "guest home" -- a common tactic to excuse the destruction of churches. He even justified the incident: Arguing that the church contractor made the building three meters higher than he permitted, he declared that "Copts made a mistake and had to be punished, and Muslims did nothing but set things right, end of story."

Equally telling is the fact that perpetrators of church attacks are seldom if ever punished. Even if sometimes the most rabid church-destroying Muslims get "detained," it is usually for show: they are released in days, and hailed back home as heroes -- a practise that also goes back to Muslim dogma, which sides with Muslims over infidels.

This year alone has seen the New Year church attack, which left 23 dead; the destruction of the ancient church of Sool, when Muslims "played soccer" with its relics; the Imbaba attacks, where several churches were set aflame; and now Edfu, wherein, as usual "none of the attackers were arrested."

Indeed, three days after Edfu, Muslims attacked yet another church.

Aware that they are untouchable, at least when it comes to making infidel Christians miserable, anti-Christian Muslims have a simple strategy: destroy churches, even if one at a time, safe in the knowledge that not only will they never be prosecuted, but also that Egypt's military and security apparatus will punish the infidel victims should they dare to protest.

Raymond Ibrahim, a widely published Islam-specialist, is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Source:  http://www.hudson-ny.org/2489/egypt-destroying-churches

Arab, Christian Graves Vandalized in Israeli City

by Dan Morgan and Kevin Flower, CNN  |  Edition.CNN.com  |  October 8, 2011

 

Jerusalem -- Less than a week after the arson of a mosque in northern Israel, dozens of Christian and Muslim graves were vandalized in an Arab section of the Israeli city of Jaffa.

More thahan 100 graves were vandalized in the Muslim cemetery of al-Kazakhana and at a nearby Christian cemetery in the Ajami neighborhood of Jaffa, according to residents and a CNN producer who visited the locations.

Some of the graves were spray painted with graffiti while others were smashed.

Residents say the vandalism took place Friday evening as the Yom Kippur holiday was beginning in Israel, but police suggested it might have taken place a day or two prior.

Among the words spray-painted in Hebrew on the gravestones were "price tag" and "death to all Arabs."

"Price tag" is a term frequently used by radical Israeli settlers to denote reprisal attacks against Palestinians in response to moves by the Israeli government to evacuate illegal West Bank outposts, or as retribution for attacks by Palestinians.

Local residents told CNN that police who arrived at the scene on Saturday morning tried to cover up the graffiti using white paint. The police also asked locals to clean up the graffiti.

"This is bad, this very, very bad. This is all because of the settlers that moved into the neighborhood. When they did this, the writing was on the wall," Jaffa resident Kamel Satal told CNN.

He was referring to the opening in 2009, just blocks away in the predominantly Arab neighborhood, of a Hesder Yeshiva, a religious school for young men which traditionally combines Torah studies with military service.

"If they did what they did in Zangaria in Jaffa, there would be big, big problems," he added, referring to the mosque that was severely damaged in an suspected arson attack in the Israeli Bedouin village of Tuba Zangaria in northern Israel on Monday. An 18-year-old Jewish Israeli was arrested in connection with the arson.

Israeli police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said police were investigating the vandalism at the cemeteries.

Speaking to the Palestinian Authority run WAFA news agency, Ibrahim Sarsour, an Arab Israeli lawmaker, condemned the vandalism.

"The Israeli government was not making any effort to stop these racist attacks against Palestinians," Sarsour said. "Rather, it provides extremists protection."

According to Israeli police, reprisals have increased in the past year, prompting them to create a special investigative unit.

In the past year, four West Bank mosques have been set ablaze. The United Nations has reported a measurable spike in violence against Palestinian property in 2011.

On Wednesday, a shrine holy to Jews was desecrated in the West Bank.

Jewish worshippers arrived at Joseph's Tomb in the city of Nablus to find swastikas and graffiti sprayed on the walls. It is unclear when the graffiti was left there. The site is under Palestinian Authority rule, and Jews visit every couple of months to pray.

Source:  http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/08/world/meast/israel-graves-vandalized/

Video - Stakelbeck on Terror: US Losing to Islam?

From: Erick Stakelbeck of CBNNews.com  |  CBN.com  |  October 4, 2011

 

 

 

 

 

On this week's Stakelbeck on Terror show, CBN News sits down with terrorism expert Daveed Gartenstein-Ross. He says America is losing the war on terror. Find out why.

Muslims holding day of prayer at Capitol Hill.

We also look at the growth of radical Islam in Norway.

Plus, CBN News examines the Jewish claim to the city of Jerusalem. And an Israeli expert warns that America is heading down the same destructive path as Europe when it comes to the Islamic threat.

 

 

 

Source:  https://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2011/October/Stakelbeck-on-Terror-Losing-to-Islam/

 

New Israeli Homes Set For East Jerusalem

From: AFP  |  Google.com  |  October 8, 2011

 

The east Jerusalem Jewish settlement of Pisgat Zeev (L) and the the Palestinian Shufat refugee camp mosque (R) Photo: AFP/File, Ahmad Gharabli

 

JERUSALEM — Jerusalem municipality has given the green light for the construction of 11 new apartments in the Jewish settlement of Pisgat Zeev in the annexed east of the city, a councillor told AFP on Saturday.

"The municipality approved at the beginning of the week the construction of 11 apartments, as part of a project of 300 housing units supposed to be approved section by section," Pepe Alalou of the leftist Meretz party said.

Israel on September 27 approved a plan to build 1,100 new homes in a Jewish settlement, prompting an angry reaction from the Palestinians who said it amounted to a direct rejection of international efforts to restart peace talks.

Both the US State Department and the White House issued strong condemnation after Israel's interior ministry said the new housing units in Gilo in east Jerusalem had been cleared by its district planning committee.

Israel considers all of Jerusalem to be its "eternal, indivisible" capital and does not view construction in the east to be settlement activity.

The Palestinians, however, believe east Jerusalem should be the capital of their future state and are fiercely opposed to the extension of Israeli control over the sector seized in the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed.

Source:  http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hQZ-kUW2TFawSjacRAOEVaytN3KQ?docId=CNG.35938e723ad2fcbcb70c6292de0e98b4.411

It Isn’t Israel in Danger of Disappearing, It’s The People Who Think That Way

by Barry Rubin  |  Gloria-Center.org  |  October 6, 2011

 

“…never send to know for whom the bell tolls

It tolls for thee.”

–John Dunne

Rome, Italy

I’m standing on the edge of the Roman Forum, by the Arch of Titus. This is the marble structure built by the Empire to commemorate the capture of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple about 1941 years ago. Legionnaires are shown carrying off the Menorah and other items from the sanctuary. The inhabitants are sold into slavery, The Jews are finished.

Well, not really. Today, the great empire has long vanished and Israel is not just a living country but by every social, economic, and security standard a successful country.

In the late 1960s, more than 40 years ago, the Palestinian and Arab leaders were certain that Israel would not survive. The fact that they were completely wrong has not prevented a whole new rash of contemporary speculations.

The PLO view, shared by virtually all Arabs at the time, was very clearly defined. The two main points boil down to the following. First, Israel would not survive because there was no real basis for such a state and people. Second, the Arabs would destroy it using various strategies.

Here is the ultimate quote from Yasir Arafat in 1968—that’s 43 years ago–on why this would work:

Terrorism would “create and maintain an atmosphere of strain and anxiety that will force the Zionists to realize that it is impossible for them to live in Israel….The Israelis have one great fear, the fear of casualties….”

The PLO’s attacks would “prevent immigration and encourage emigration….to destroy tourism, to prevent immigrants becoming attached to the land, to weaken the Israeli economy and to divert the greater part of it to security requirements.” This would “inevitably” prevent Israel’s consolidation and bring its disintegration. The final step would be “a quick blow by the regular armies at the right moment” to finish Israel off.

All of these things failed. More immigrants came than expected and were successfully integrated. People weren’t frightened into fleeing. Casualties were absorbed and limited. The country became economically successful and militarily victorious. Thus, today Israel is stronger—far stronger—than ever.

And who were the biggest losers in this conflict? Naturally, Israel has lost a great deal, especially in lives. But the biggest losers have been the Arabs who wasted resources, lost more lives, faced repeated humiliations, and ended up with dictatorship and stagnant societies. And they will be the biggest losers if they spend the next 60 years playing the same game.

And if Arab states that were relatively united and had a superpower sponsor couldn’t destroy Israel in 60 years how are they going to do so today? With Israel outpacing its neighbors on every index of social and economic development, with so much oil money spent without really advancing Arab societies, who has the advantage today?

Remember what happened in 1948. True, all the Arab states invaded the new state of Israel But they didn’t coordinate with each other and all wanted to grab territory for themselves. With Iran and Turkey all jostling for power and leadership today, the conflict and disorder is intensified.

Yet now there is a revival of the claim—sometimes among ill-informed well-wishers, more often among antagonistic haters—that Israel might not survive. This is based partly on wishful thinking, partly on ignorance. Underlying these factors, however, is a basic disbelief that Jews are a people and can be a state.

And that reflects a lack of knowledge—often among Western Jews themselves—about Jewish history as well as a naïve acceptance of anti-Israel propaganda, claims that have proven to be false for decades.

Actually, then, the shoe is on the other foot entirely from what is being claimed. It is not Israel’s existence that is threatened but that of its adversaries and in some ways of Western Europe, too.

Its enemy neighbors and near-neighbors are about to embark on a decades’-long horrifying series of civil wars: Islamists against Arab nationalists; Sunni against Shia Muslims; economic collapse; and much more. Syria is on the verge of an inter-communal bloodbath; Egypt faces not some bright new economic dawn but a terrible reckoning. At some point the oil will run out with much of that wealth squandered. Recent discoveries even suggest that Israel itself will be a rising exporter of petroleum and natural gas.

Periodically, some radical Muslim writes that if only each Muslim would kill one Jew then Israel would vanish. High hopes are held for nuclear weapons that Iran still doesn’t have. But such schemes never get off the ground. Indeed, it is Arab nationalism that is endangered with extinction under a wave of revolutionary Islamism. By leaving the path of pragmatism for that of doctrinaire Islamism, Turkey is likely to lose the success it enjoyed for so many decades.

There is not one regime in a Muslim-majority country that should feel confident about its future; not one such state whose continued existence can be taken for granted.

In contrast, there are only two ways Israel might perhaps disappear. First, it might happen if Arabs and Muslims dropped radicalism, ideology, and bickering to concentrate on technological and economic progress for 50 years, only then turning on Israel. That would require, for example, the Palestinians quickly dropping all of their rejectionism and demands to make a compromise agreement with Israel that they had no intention of keeping.

Yet quite the opposite is happening now. It is radicalism, not pragmatic development strategies that is in control. Besides, the problem is that a focus on material development and moderate democracy would erode Arab and Muslim tempers to the point that they would no longer want to engage in such a foolish and futile life-and-death struggle, which is why the Islamists reject that approach.

The other way Israel might be wiped off the map is if its leaders heeded the advice they are getting from the West. That’s the irony of the situation. Those stubborn, stiff-necked people are not going to doom themselves by implementing the mistaken ideas told to them by Western media, experts, intellectuals, and governments who claim such policies are the road to safety.

Part of the problem here is that all too many Western intellectuals no longer believe in fighting—or even sacrificing–for your country; patriotic pride or nationalism or religion; or even the nation-state itself. Consequently, while many Arabs and Muslims don’t believe Israel can exist because of contempt for Jews and belief in the superiority of their nations and religion, many Westerners now believe in the wickedness of their countries and religion and the unviability of the national model.

In thinking about Israel, both these opposite arguments amount to the same thing. Yet they tell more about those having these ideas than about Israel.

When a European cabinet minister says his country has no distinct culture and another urges the locals to be nice to Muslims so they will reciprocate after they take over; when a European country’s counterintelligence chief .tells me his country has no future, and a quartet of professors from another remark to me over cocktails that they believe their country is finished, is it Israel that is in danger of collapse?

Who’s really facing the abyss? That doesn’t mean destruction will come to Europe’s existing states and societies but it does mean they are more likely to go than Israel is. You want to talk about demographic threats? In Europe, the majority is often having children at half the rate needed for mere replacement of the existing native population..

Yet all of this also shows why Israel is the key to understanding today’s world. Israel’s survival shows that democratic societies can fight and defeat dictators and totalitarian ideologies, Western religions do have a continuing place in Western societies and nation-states are still a viable—perhaps the most viable—way to organize many political structures.

That’s precisely why so many are working so hard to demonize and discredit Israel. If people in the West understand what Israel is and what it is doing, they will comprehend the value of those approaches and values. And if they understand how Israel is lied about and mistreated they will comprehend much wider problems with the people, ideas, and institutions governing their own lives today.

Incidentally, do you know what the Roman Empire did with the Temple treasures? It melted them down, sold the gold, and used the money to build the Colisseum, where bloodshed distracted people from their material and spiritual deprivation. Somewhere in there is an analogy to the twenty-first century world.

Source:  http://www.gloria-center.org/2011/10/it-isn%E2%80%99t-israel-in-danger-of-disappearing-it%E2%80%99s-the-people-who-think-that-way/

Jews Still Aren’t Welcome in Libya

From Associated Press  |  msnbc.msn.com  |  October 3, 2011

 

Exiled Libyan Jew blocked from restoring synagogue

 

'I want bring our legacy back,' says rebel fighter who started clean-up effort a day earlier.

David Gerbi in front of the main synagogue in Tripoli. A day later he said he had been blocked from the building. Photo: Abdel Magid Al-Fergany / AP

TRIPOLI, Libya — A Libyan Jewish man who returned from exile to try to restore Tripoli's main synagogue has been blocked from the building a day after knocking down the wall in front of its entrance.

A visibly angry David Gerbi went to clean garbage from the synagogue on Monday only to be told by men at the scene that they had received warnings he would be targeted by violence and that he should stop his efforts.

Gerbi, who fled with his family to Italy in 1967, said he had secured permission from the local sheik to restore the synagogue and that he was surprised he was now being blocked from completing the work. Gerbi's colleague Richard Peters said that several men armed with assault rifles later appeared to guard the building.

Breaking down in tears, Gerbi said Monday that Libya needs to decide if it's going to be a racist country or a democratic one.

"What Gadhafi tried to do is to eliminate the memory of us. He tried to eliminate the amazing language. He tried to eliminate the religion of the Jewish people," said 56-year-old psychoanalyst whose family fled to Italy when he was 12. "I want bring our legacy back, I want to give a chance to the Jewish of Libya to come back."

It took Gerbi weeks to get permission from Libya's new rulers to begin restoring the synagogue, which is part of his broader goal of promoting tolerance for Jews and other religions in a new Libya.

PhotoBlog: Libyan Jew returns after 44-year exile

"My hope and wish is to have an inclusive country," he told the Associated Press on Sunday as he cleared out the synagogue. "I want to make justice, not only for me, but for all the people of Libya for the damage that Gadhafi did."

Gerbi returned to his homeland this summer to join the rebellion that ousted Gadhafi, helping with strategy and psychological issues. He rode into the capital with fighters from the western mountains as Tripoli fell in late August.

Gerbi said he is funding the synagogue renovation himself, and plans to stay until his project is complete. He called it a test of tolerance for Libya's new rulers.

"I plan to restore the synagogue, I plan to get the passport back, I plan to resolve the problem of the confiscated property, individual and collective," he said. "I plan to help rebuild Libya, to do my part."

Long history 
Jews first arrived in what is now Libya some 2,300 years ago. They settled mostly in coastal towns such as Tripoli and Benghazi and lived under a shifting string of rulers, including Romans, Ottoman Turks, Italians and ultimately the independent Arab state that was run by Gadhafi for nearly 42 years.

Some prospered as merchants, physicians and jewelers. Under Muslim rule, they saw periods of relative tolerance and bursts of hostility. Italy took over in 1911, and eventually the fascist government of Benito Mussolini issued discriminatory laws against Jews, dismissing some from government jobs and ordering them to work on Saturdays, the Jewish day of rest.

In the 1940s, thousands were sent to concentration camps in North Africa where hundreds died. Some were deported to concentration camps in Germany and Austria.

In the decades after the war, thousands of Jews left Libya, many of them for Israel.

Gerbi said his family went to Italy to escape tensions, thinking they would return someday, but those hopes were dashed by Gadhafi's expulsion order. Some relatives later went to Israel, but he chose to remain in Italy.

This is not Gerbi's first trip back to Libya. He returned in 2002, when he agreed to help Gadhafi's efforts to normalize relations with the international community and helped an ailing aunt leave the country. Gerbi said he had been Libya's last remaining Jew.

Gerbi saw the Tripoli synagogue during another trip five years later, and even met Gadhafi in Rome in 2009.

But in the end, all his efforts were stonewalled.

Gerbi is hopeful about Libya's future, although he has not yet been allowed to join the National Transitional Council, which is now governing Libya, as a full representative.

Jalal el-Gallal, an NTC spokesman, said on Sunday that Gerbi's efforts to restore the synagogue were premature because the government is still temporary and revolutionary forces are fighting Gadhafi supporters on two major fronts.

"I think it's just creating a lot more complications at the moment," he said.

 

Source:   http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44755697/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/t/exiled-libyan-jew-blocked-restoring-synagogue/#.To9ryZxU390

Islamic Ethnic Cleansing of Jews

by Daniel Greenfield  |  FrontPageMag.com  |  Ocyober 7, 2011

 

The Jews who fled the Muslim world left many things behind. They left behind their homes and their possessions. Their synagogues, their neighborhoods, and much of their history remained in the alleys of Aleppo, the neighborhoods of Cairo and the streets of Baghdad.

Today when their history isn’t being ignored, while that of the Arabs who fled Israel after their failed attempts at genocide of the country’s Jewish population in 1948 and 1967 is lionized, it’s being lied about.

Every Muslim country constructs its own myths of a “Golden Age” where Jews were taken care of by their Muslim masters. Even when, like Al-Andalus, they are countries that no longer exist.

Confederate apologists defend slavery by claiming that the slaves were happy until the abolitionists disrupted the status quo. Apologists for the treatment of Jews in the Arab world sing the same song. Everyone was united, everyone was happily Syrian, Iraqi or Egyptian, until the creation of Israel ruined everything.

In response to a David Horowitz Freedom Center ad in the GW Hatchet, an email came in from an Iraqi student claiming that “long before Israel was even a thought, Iraq (my home country), had been a shining example of unity while simultaneously celebrating the diversity of cultures” and that “Jewish populations began to leave Iraq; not because of religious discrimination but because they felt obligated to support a country of their faith.”

This narrative blames the treatment of the Jewish minority in the Arab world on the Jews, by claiming that there was a Zionist conspiracy to drive them out, e.g. the Lavon Affair. These conspiracy theories allow Muslims to avoid coming to terms with their national persecution of Jewish minorities by blaming Jews for their own ethnic cleansing.

The Arab world prior to 1949 was not a tolerant multicultural paradise. Iraq certainly wasn’t. After the Ottoman Empire it was in a state of conflict, torn by ethnic and religious divisions. The current tensions between Shiite and Sunni, and between Arab and Kurd did not begin yesterday. And Jews were often the targets.

After Iraqi Jews were freed from Ottoman rule and its Islamic law that branded them “Dhimmis,” legal and social inferiors, they gained new opportunities under British rule and a measure of equality. But the rights they gained were not only eroded under succeeding Iraqi governments, but their achievements made them the targets of bigotry and hate.

This is the process that turned the community of over a 100,000 Jews in Baghdad into a series of empty houses and distant memories.  When Iraqi Arabs chose to listen to the incitement of hate, rather than to their common humanity, and chose to use violence against the Jews of Baghdad— that marked the beginning of the end for Jewish life in Iraq.

The Iraqi letter writer speaks of a “shining example of unity,” but that is generally code for a time when everyone knew their place. When the Jews forgot their place as Dhimmis, they broke that unity and as the Caliphate shifted to Pan-Arabism, the Jews of Iraq found themselves once again on the outside. They had not been Muslims and they were not Arabs. Once again they were outsiders, and to the newspapers that promoted the unity of Pan-Arabism, they were ripe targets to be denounced as outsiders, enemies and spies.

Anti-Semitic mob violence had existed in Baghdad throughout the 20^th century, with Jews being assaulted in 1908 as supporters of the Young Turks and then as British spies, in the 1940s as supporters of the Iraqi monarchy and then finally as supporters of Israel. But the issue was always the need for a minority to transform into the scapegoat. A role that Israel still plays in the Muslim Middle East.

What began with anti-Semitism in the Iraqi press in the 1920s turned into overt discrimination and violence in the 1930s. As in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, Jews were purged from the civil service, Jewish businesses were ransacked, and Jewish homes looted. Restrictions on traveling abroad were imposed, as well as educational quotas.

Anti-Semitism in the school system came down from the director general of education and the growing collaboration between Arab nationalists and the Nazis turned Iraq into a haven for Third Reich ideology, especially when it came to the Jews.

The Nazi-backed coup and its aftermath brought on the Farhud massacre of Jews during the holiday of Shavuot and began the exodus of Iraqi Jews. The attackers were Iraqi soldiers and police in an exact duplicate of what was taking place in Europe.

No matter how much Iraqi Jews tried to claim that they had nothing to do with Zionism, they went on being persecuted, attacked and murdered.  The establishment of Israel gave Iraqi Jews a place to go to escape the violence and the hate. Those who didn’t or couldn’t get out experienced even worse abuse, torment and terror in the decades to come.

This is the “shining example of unity” in Iraq. And the story is not too different from the shining examples in Egypt and Syria and throughout the Arab world. The problem with so much of the Muslim world is that its unity only exists under tyranny.

Christians who attempted to join in Pan-Arabism could only do so by excluding non-Arabs which made their unity into another narrow exclusionary coalition. But Pan-Arabism was always doomed to give way to Pan-Islamism and exclude the Christians. And Pan-Islamism divides down into sects, Sunni and Shiite, and internally into subgroups such as the Salafis and the Alawites. The endless divisions mean that even Pan-Islamism could always be disrupted through Takfir.

If Muslims cannot even grant equal rights and find national unity with other Muslims, what hope was there for the Jews?

Today the Muslim world is more Judenrein than post-war Europe because the Muslim world made it clear that Jews had no future there. Baghdad is a reminder of the history that the Jews have left behind and the continuing denial and deception of the Muslim world about the fate of their Jewish neighbors.

 

Source:  http://frontpagemag.com/2011/10/07/islamic-ethnic-cleansing-of-jews/

Why Isn’t There Peace? Because of Israel, of Course!

by Barry Rubin  |  JPost.com  |  October 5, 2011

 

The main element of Israeli-Palestinian talks is that only the Palestinian side is allowed to make demands.

Who knew? It’s all Israel’s fault there isn’t peace. Why? Because it hasn’t forgotten its history and doesn’t want to be a “willing martyr.”

Former US president Bill Clinton said it was all Arafat’s fault when he left office, but has now discovered that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu blocked peace. The Palestinians are the new Jews – no doubt Passover seders are being prepared for next year that read, “Let my (Palestinian) people go.”

Only right-wing, extremist Likudnik reactionaries dare to question this. All political scientists agree: case closed. Israeli-made global non-warming of the peace process is the problem.

But wait a moment. Leaving aside the past history of Palestinian intransigence, terrorism, refusal to compromise, etc., there remains a fascinating central question: What else could Israel have done? What else should it be doing now? 

Herein lies the problem. Israel has been “set up” so that its only “acceptable” alternatives to make unilateral concessions which, as we’ve seen before, result only in more denunciations of Israel, followed by more Palestinian demands for unilateral concessions.

For example, Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and dismantling of all settlements there not only led to a Hamas regime attacking Israel, it didn’t even gain Israel any international credit or additional support. Its “reward” has been pressure to reduce sanctions, rockets and mortars attacks against Israeli cities, claims that Israel committed war crimes in defending itself and ongoing complaints that Gaza is still “occupied.”

THEN THERE are the three preconditions for an “ideal” Israeli peace initiative: Israel cannot ask for anything at all. If it does, the Palestinians will reject it, and that will be “Israel’s fault.”

For example: Suppose we withdraw to the 1967 lines and you drop your demand for all Palestinian refugees and their descendants to return to Israel.

Nope.

How about we support you becoming a sovereign state immediately and you recognize Israel as a Jewish state? Never! 

OK, how about you...

Mommy! He’s hitting me again! 

Mommy here means the UN, Arab League, Muslim umma, the United States, the EU, Russia and the international community generally.

This is literally true: Israel can give, but not ask for anything in return.

2. Israel must ignore past experience.

Withdrawals lead to the land turned over being a base for new attacks? Forget it. More withdrawals! Verbal promises in exchange for material concessions aren’t kept? The world promises to back you up and acknowledge after the concession that you really want peace and then forgets that pledge? Pretend it didn’t happen. When Palestinians get one gain they just demand something else? Don’t worry about it.

Sinai and cold peace with Egypt leads to breakdown of treaty after new revolution? South Lebanon becomes Hizbullahland, Gaza becomes Hamasland? West Bank is a zone of cross-border attacks and incitement? Drop it.

3. Israel must forgo any analysis of future problems that could arise from these concessions.

For example, an independent Palestinian state established with no Palestinian concessions could take the position that any land it wasn’t given is occupied by a foreign aggressor. It could import weapons, sign military cooperation treaties with any other party it wanted, invite in foreign advisors or troops, incite its population against Israel and glorify terrorism. It could be taken over by Hamas, refuse to stop cross-border attacks or to arrest those responsible, go after Israel in the international courts, seek UN condemnation of Israel as an aggressor, and much more.

Oh, and since it already received international recognition it need never negotiate with Israel again or make any compromise with it. And nobody in the international community would really do anything at all to punish, prevent, or pressure it to behave differently.

This situation is comparable to the classic question that parents have long asked their children: If everyone else was jumping off a cliff would you do it, too? Israel’s situation is slightly different: If everyone else told you to jump off a cliff but no one else was willing to take the plunge, would you do it? 

THE ANSWER, of course, is “no” - even if those urging you to jump promised to be your friend between the time you jump and the minute you hit the ground.

Just because “everyone” says Israel is at fault, that the status quo is untenable, that something must be done right now, or that the Palestinians cannot wait to make peace based on two states doesn’t mean that any of these things are true.

If the Jewish people simply went along with majority opinion it would have gone out of existence a long time ago. And if Israel simply went along with foreign majority opinion it would have been wiped off the map a long time ago.

So I pondered, weak and weary, trying to think of some new initiative. Israel unilaterally pulls out of the West Bank? Recognizes a Palestinian state as independent? Dismantles all the settlements as a sign of good will? What would work? Think, man, think! 

And then it came to me: the ideal solution. See what you think of it: 

Israel is ready to accept an independent Palestinian state if the following principles are met: 

• Explicit Palestinian recognition of the State of Israel as the national state of the Jewish people.

• The demilitarization of a Palestinian state in such a manner that all of Israel’s security needs will be met.

• International backing of these security arrangements in the form of explicit international guarantees.

• The problem of refugees must be resolved outside the borders of Israel.

• An agreement must end the conflict. This is to say that the Palestinians will not be able to raise additional claims following the signing of a peace agreement.

Oh, wait. That’s not something I made up. It’s the Israeli peace plan of June 2009! 

The Palestinian Authority wants a state without agreeing – before or after getting it – to accept a Jewish state, provide serious security guarantees, resettle refugees in Palestine, or end the conflict. PA leader Mahmoud Abbas, for example, stated recently that even if the UN recognized an independent state he would then take up the demand to return all refugees and their descendants to live in Israel 

Why is this not a pessimistic assessment? Because the intransigence of the Palestinian leadership and popular opinion throws away these opportunities and gets far less than it could otherwise. Despite much talk, there is no material pressure on Israel. After each diplomatic failure due to unmentioned Palestinian rejectionism the world goes away for a while and finds something else to do.

Israel’s stated flexibility and ideas have had some effect in defusing demands. After removing all the hoopla, Israel-Palestinian diplomacy of the last three decades is largely sound and fury and signifies nothing.

So if the world won’t listen to Israel’s proposals, won’t credit its eagerness to negotiate and won’t accept plans that also include Israel getting something for its troubles there is no way Israel is ever going to satisfy it. In this context, desperately trying to come up with new ideas (concessions) in order to gain international praise (not going to happen) is a waste of time. Don’t panic. See through the nonsense.

The writer is the director of Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and the author of The Rubin Report blog.

 

Source:  http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=240710