Canary In The Coal Mine

Professor Sues Purdue for Violation of his Free Speech Rights on Islam

by Jamie Glazov | FrontPageMag.com | May 22, 2012

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Professor Maurice Eisenstein, an associate professor of political science at Purdue University Calumet. He is suing Purdue after the school’s investigation of his comments about Islam on Facebook. Though the probe cleared him, he says Purdue still violated his free speech rights.

FP: Professor Maurice Eisenstein, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

I would like to talk to you today about your ordeal at Purdue. How did the whole incident start?

Eisenstein: Thanks Jamie.

The entire attack on my free speech began over a post I made to Facebook in November 2011. I posted a picture with a storyline about an Islamist Muslim group (Boko Haram) killing Christians in Nigeria. I asked: Where were the moderate Muslims? They must be listening to that idiot Mohammad.

From this, one of my PUC colleagues, a Muslim, told me (on Facebook) that she believed my statement about Mohammad was beyond despicable. Once she responded to me, then several of her students were able come to my Facebook page to tell me that they also believed that I was out-of-bounds for denigrating Mohammad. Their essential issue was that I was offending Mohammed and Islam. In the wake of that incident, the Muslim Student Association became involved and they did a press release saying that no prophet (Jesus, Moses, Mohammad — their argument not mine) should be insulted because offending a religion was not an acceptable use of freedom of speech.

Basically, this whole ordeal started because I insulted Mohammad. I did insult Mohammad. I may not have been nice about it, I may have been provocative about it, but quite frankly, I think killing Christians because they are Christian and not Muslim is much more insulting than calling Mohammad an idiot.

From this incident, there emerged an active campaign from the Muslim faculty and students, the Muslim Student Association (acting, as it claimed, on behalf of all Muslims), and their leftist supporters, active collusion to get the University to fire me for offending them. Because the University could not fire me for Facebook comments, the faculty, students, and the MSA decided that it would then say that I was harassing and discriminating against students in my classroom. Toward that end, audio tapes of one of my courses from Spring 2011 were then posted on YouTube. It was an Introduction to Judaism course, which I taught from a pro-Jewish and pro-Israel perspective. Two of the books I used in the course were: Why the Jews? by Praeger and Telushkin as well as The Israel Test by George Gilder. Anyway, I am very provocative and blunt — I like challenging students, particularly since most of what is taught on campus (irrespective of the discipline) comes from a center left perspective.

Now, there are over 40 to 45 hours of lectures from that class. Out of those 40 to 45 hours, about 16 minutes were posted on YouTube and, of course, these 16 minutes were selectively edited so that I was portrayed in the worst possible light and without context. Then, based on these tapes, in conjunction with my Facebook comments, 9 separate harassment and discrimination complaints were filed against me.

FP: What tactic was used by your accusers?

Eisenstein: The tactic was: the University cannot investigate Facebook, but if we tie the problem to his teaching, well, then the University can investigate it. The problem with these 9 complaints are many. To try to sum it up:

First: only 1 of the complaints was from a student who was ever in one of my classes. That student was in a class of mine in Fall 2011 for two class periods. Yes, you read that right, that student was in a class of mine for two whole class periods. I was teaching how democracy came from the Anglo-Saxon Protestants — the English — as written by DeToqueville and this student was offended because I mentioned that democracy did not derive from any other culture or place. As a Muslim, this student was offended.

Second: There were no student complaints filed about the class I taught in Spring 2011. No student ever complained and to this day, the audio tapes posted on You Tube are anonymous. No one knows where they are from.

Third: 8 complaints involved individuals or organizations that had no basis for filing harassment/discrimination complaints. Two were from students I had never met let alone ever had in one of my classes. One was from the MSA — who filed on behalf of all Muslims. Five were from faculty members and of those five faculty members, 4 of them were not even involved in the Facebook exchange that started the whole ordeal.

In short, there was a concerted effort to get as many people as possible to file harassment/discrimination complaints against me so that the University could have a basis for sanctioning me. The University then spent the next 3 months investigating my freedom of speech. They investigated my Facebook postings, they investigated my class from Spring 2011 (based on anonymous tapes) even though the University policy for harassment/discrimination states that no complaints filed after 120 days can be investigated (e.g., the class had ended far longer than 120 days earlier during which time no complaints were filed — nor have any complaints from a student in that class been filed).

They investigated my Fall 2011 classes because of the one student who was in my course for two class periods. The University hired an outside investigator who interviewed no less than 30 people (some of whom I do not even know) — emphasizing that Facebook was being used as a means of assessing me and my character — covering my entire career at PUC. It was nothing less than an all-out assault being waged against me. For example, one of the faculty members who filed a complaint against me alleged that I took down her name plate (off her door, off her desk, I am not sure) in 1991 or 1992 while we were both adjuncts at PUC! And the University investigated this as well. It was beyond ridiculous. It factually shows that Purdue University has accepted the Muslim notion of “being offended” as a legal definition. It you offend the religion in any way you are liable.

FP: The University cleared you of these 9 harassment/discrimination complaints. How or why do you think that happened?

Eisenstein: My very short answer is: the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, FIRE. If not for FIRE, I think things could have and would have likely gone very differently. FIRE sent a letter in January 2012 and that letter was made public about 1 day before the University had to issue a ruling on these 9 complaints. The University ended up extending its decision time-line in the aftermath of the public relations fallout from the FIRE letter.

I really do think that without the support from a national organization with the credibility that FIRE has, the University would have tried to initiate termination proceedings. The whole attempt to fire me would be over the issue of “offending” someone. (For those unfamiliar — firing a tenure professor is a complicated ordeal.)

FP: What about the retaliation claims found against you?

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Eisenstein: Well, these retaliation charges and guilty findings are based on two separate incidents. Basically, professors Lerner and Joyce both (tried to) initiate conversations with me (Lerner by email and Joyce in person). In both instances, I attempted to convey that I was not interested in conversations with them that did not involve official University business. My exchange with Lerner happened over my personal email — that is, I responded to an email he sent to my non-University account.

So, again, we have the University investigating my speech — speech on my personal email account and associated with one of my personal associations — the Jewish Federation of Northwest Indiana. My exchange with Joyce was in person and in the aftermath of that exchange, she then falsely accused me of saying mean-spirited comments. As FIRE pointed out in a second letter to the University, all of the alleged speech is protected by the First Amendment.

FP: Do you anticipate that after all of this the University will change its behavior?

Eisenstein: I am convinced that nothing, at this point, will get the University to change its behavior. In fact, at this very moment, the University is conducting yet another investigation of my free speech. This time the University is investigating whether or not my blog has violated the University’s anti-harassment/discrimination policies. The specific blog in question can be viewed here. It is essentially accusing me of retaliation for publishing emails they provided to me through a FOIA request. But, essentially, the University is continuing to violate my First Amendment rights even up to today. The question of why it would do this remains the University’s commitment to Muslim legal definitions, especially when it comes to “offending” Islam. As recently as last week, Miriam Joyce, a professor who filed a complaint against me is quoted as saying that she believes in free-speech but only if it does not offend our Saudi students. This is the one of the same professors who voted against my department supporting a presentation by Ms. Peggy Shapiro from StandWithUs on the Nazi roots of contemporary anti-Semitism, which was covered here on Frontpage.

FP: Why do you think the University engages in this kind of behavior?

Eisenstein: I think that the University behaves this badly for a number of reasons. First, the university administrators (and others at the university) never have to pay the legal bills for their illegal behavior. If the administrators were held personally accountable for the financial troubles they inflict upon the tax payers (I am at a state funded university), I think we would see a wholesale change in behavior. Second, as an individual, it is expensive to legally defend yourself against an institution that gets to feed off public funds. And, points one and two are related, as I think the University and its administration relies on most professors (and students) not having the resources to legally pursue their cause. I would like to see University administrators, and other professors, have to pay out of their own pocket for patently violating the First Amendment.

FP: How might you advise others to confront similar situations?

Eisenstein: There are two things I would say: 1) get a lawyer right from the start. And 2) contact FIRE.

FP: Tell us a bit about the lawsuit you have filed. What might it achieve? What do you hope it will achieve?

Eisenstein: The lawsuit deals with three issues: administrative violations by the University, the collusion of faculty with Chancellor Keon of PUC to subvert my freedom of speech, and outrageous violations to my right to privacy. For the first issue, the University, as I referenced before, did not follow its own procedures in how it chose to pursue the original 9 harassment/discrimination complaints against me. Most importantly for me, though, is that the University has found me “guilty” of two instances of retaliation that do not meet any legal standard for retaliation. So I want to have those administrative decisions reversed and the sanctions imposed on me reversed.

I also want the University to protect my — and others’ — right to privacy. The University administration released private documents from my personnel file to other faculty members who then made these documents public. This is a plain violation of the law and I want the University to have to take steps to correct this mistake and to ensure it will not ever happen again. Really, this was extreme and outrageous.

Finally, the collusion of the faculty with the administration to deny me my civil rights is as outrageous a situation as one can imagine. The University not only allowed the abuse of its legitimate process dealing with real harassment and discrimination, it encouraged and participated in the abuse. These practices need to stop. The University has policies that say the right thing — their policies state that speech protected by the First Amendment will not be investigated — but the University never adhered, nor adheres, to that policy. What I want is for the University to never again investigate someone’s free speech, ever. As the Supreme Court has indicated, if free-speech is chilled at a university it cannot continue to be an institution of higher learning.

FP: Professor Maurice Eisenstein, best of luck to you in your battle for free speech at Purdue and thank you for joining Frontpage Interview.

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/05/22/professor-sues-purdue-for-violation-of-his-free-speech-rights-on-islam/?utm_source=FrontPage+Magazine&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=8265cca8e6-Mailchimp_FrontPageMag

Liberating Our Jerusalem

by Daniel Greenfield | SultanKnish.Blogspot.com | May 20, 2012

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When Jordan's Arab Legion seized half of Jerusalem, ethnically cleansed its Jewish population and annexed the city-- the only entity to recognize the annexation was the United Kingdom which had provided the officers and the training that made the conquest possible. Officers like Colonel Bill Newman, Major Geoffrey Lockett and Major Bob Slade, under Glubb Pasha, better known as General John Bagot Glubb, whose son later converted to Islam, invaded Jerusalem and used the Muslim forces under their command to make the partition and ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem possible.

Since then the annexation and ethnic cleansing has become an international mandate. It would be absolutely inconceivable for the international community to denounce an ethnically cleansed group which survived attempted genocide for moving back into a city where they had lived. It is however standard policy at the State Department and the Foreign Office to denounce Jews living in those parts of Jerusalem that had been ethnically cleansed by Muslims, as "settlers" living in "settlements", and describe them as an "obstruction to peace." Peace being the state of affairs that sets in when an ethnic cleansing goes unchallenged.

Describing Jewish homes in Jerusalem, one of the world's oldest cities, a city that all three religions in the region associate with Jews and Jewish history, as "settlements" is a triumph of distorted language that Orwell would have to dip his hat to. How does one have "settlements" in a city older than London or Washington D.C.? To understand that you would have to ask London and Washington D.C. where the diplomats insist that one more round of Israeli compromises will bring peace to the region.

They say that there are three religions in Jerusalem, but there are actually four. The fourth religion is the true Religion of Peace, the one that demands constant blood sacrifices to make peace possible, that insists that there will be peace when the Jews have been expelled from Judea and Samaria, driven out of their homes in Jerusalem, and made into wanderers and beggars once again. Oddly enough this religion's name isn't even Islam-- it's diplomacy.

Diplomacy says that the 1948 borders set by Arab countries invading Israel should be the final borders and that when Israel reunified a sundered city in 1967, it was an act of aggression, while when seven Arab armies invaded Israel in 1948, it was a legitimate way to set boundaries. When Jordan ethnically cleansed East Jerusalem, it set a standard that Israelis are obligated to follow to this day by staying out of East Jerusalem.

Vice-President Biden was so upset that the Jerusalem municipality had partially approved some buildings in the city during his visit that he threw a legendary hissy fit. Hillary Clinton stopped by MSNBC to tell Andrea Mitchell that, "It was insulting. And it was insulting not just to the Vice-President who didn't deserve that." David Axelrod browsed through his thesaurus and emerged on the morning shows calling it an "affront" and an "insult". Two for the price of one.

Editorials in newspapers denounced the Israeli government for this grave insult to the Obama Administration."Israel's Provocation", the Chicago Tribune shrieked in bold type, describing it as a "diplomatic bomb" that went off in Biden's face. The Atlantic, eager to get in on the action metaphors, described Israel slapping Biden in the face. A horde of other columnists jumped in to depict the Israelis kicking and bashing the poor Vice-President, while holding his head in the toilet.

Whether Joe Biden was the victim of the Jews or the Jews were the victims of Joe Biden is all a matter of perspective. The Hitler Administration was quite upset to find that Jewish athletes would be competing in the 1936 Munich Olympics. When you ethnically cleanse people, they are supposed to stay ethnically cleansed. It's in poor taste for them to show up and win gold medals at the Olympics or rebuild their demolished synagogues. It's insulting to the ethnic cleansers and their accomplices.

That sounds like a harsh accusation, but it's completely and undeniably true.

When Muslims move into a Jewish town, poor Joe doesn't come crying that he's been bombed with a diplomatic affront and slapped with a Menorah. When Muslim countries fund Muslim housing in Israel, there are no angry statements from Clinton and no thesaurus bashing from David Axelrod. Muslim housing in Jerusalem or anywhere in Israel is not a problem. Only Jewish housing is. The issue is not Israel. If it were then Arabs with Israeli citizenship would get Biden to howl as loudly. It's only the Jews who are the problem.

The entire Peace Process is really a prolonged solution to the latest phase of the Jewish Problem. The problem, as stated by so many diplomats, is that there are Jews living in places that Muslims want. There were Jews living in Gaza before 1948, but they were driven out, they came back, and then they were driven out again by their own government in compliance with international demands. Now only Hamas lives in Gaza and it's as peaceful and pleasant without the Jews as Nazi Germany.

But there are still Jews in the West Bank and they have to be gotten rid of. Once enough Jews have been expelled, there will be peace. That's not a paragraph from Mein Kampf, it's not some lunatic sermon from Palestinian Authority television-- it is the consensus of the international community. This consensus states that the only reason there still isn't peace is because enough Jews haven't been expelled from their homes. The ethnic cleansing for peace hasn't gone far enough.

There will be peace when all the Jews are gone. That much is certainly undeniable. Just look at Gaza or Egypt or Iraq or Afghanistan, which has a grand total of two Jews, both of them in their seventies. Or Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Syria where peace reigns now that the Jews are gone. Some might say that violence seems to increase proportionally with the number of Muslims, but we all know that would be a racist thing to say. On the other hand suggesting that violence increases with the number of Jews living on land that Muslims want, that's just diplomacy. A common sense fact that everyone who is anyone in foreign policy knows to be true.

How will we know when the Muslims have gotten all the land that they want? When the violence stops. Everyone knows that agreements mean nothing. No matter how many pieces of paper are signed, the bombs and rockets still keep bursting, real ones that kill people, not fake ones that upset vice-presidents. The only way to reach an agreement is by groping blindly in the dark, handing over parcel after parcel of land, until the explosions stops or the Muslims fulfill their original goal of pushing the Jews into the sea.

That's the wonderful thing about diplomacy if you're a diplomat and the terrible thing about it if you are anyone else without a secure way out of the country when diplomacy fails. And diplomacy in the region always fails. Camp David and every single agreement Israel has signed with Muslim countries isn't worth the paper it's written on. The only peace treaty that counts is the one made by tanks and rifles. It's the one made by Israeli planes in Egyptian skies and Israeli soldiers walking the border. It's the one made by Jewish farmers and ranchers, tending their sheep and their fields, with rifles strung over their backs. The only peace that's worth anything is the peace of the soldiers and settlers.

In 1966 Jerusalem was a city sundered in two, divided by barbed wire and the bullets of Muslim snipers. Diplomacy did not reunite it. Israel pursued diplomacy nearly to its bitter end until it understood that it had no choice at all but to fight. Israel did not swoop into the fight, its leaders did their best to avoid the conflict, asking the international community to intervene and stop Egypt from going to war. Read back the headlines for the last five years on Israel and Iran, and you will get a sense of the courage and determination of the Israeli leaders of the day.

When Israel went to war, its leaders did not want to liberate Jerusalem, they wanted Jordan to stay out of the war. Even when Jordan entered the war, they did not want to liberate the city. Divine providence and Muslim hostility forced them to liberate Jerusalem and forced them to keep it. Now some of them would like to give it back, another sacrifice to the bloody deity of diplomacy whose altar flows with blood and burnt sacrifices.

As we remember Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day, it is important to remember that the city is united and free because diplomacy failed. The greatest triumph of the modern state happened only because diplomacy proved hopeless and useless in deterring Muslim genocidal ambitions. Had Israel succumbed to international pressure and had Nasser been as subtle as Sadat, then the Six Day War would have looked like the Yom Kippur War with 1948 borders-- and Israel very likely would not exist today.

Even as Jews remember the great triumph of Jerusalem Day, the ethnic cleansers and their accomplices are busy searching for ways to drive Jews out of Jerusalem, out of towns, villages and cities. This isn't about the Arab residents of Jerusalem, who have repeatedly asserted that they want to remain part of Israel. It's not about peace, which did not come from any previous round of concessions, and will not come from this one either. It's about solving the Jewish problem.

As long as Jews allow themselves to be defined as the problem, there will be plenty of those offering solutions. And the solutions invariably involve doing something about the Jews. It only stands to reason that if Jews are the problem, then moving them or getting rid of them is the solution. The bloody god of diplomacy always assumes that are the problem. There is less friction in defining Jews as the problem, than in defining Muslims as the problem. The numbers alone mean that is so.

Jerusalem Day is a reminder of what the real problem is and what the real solution is. Muslim occupation of Israel is the problem. The Islamization of Jerusalem is the problem. Muslim violence in support of the Muslim occupation of Israel and of everywhere else is the problem. Israel is the solution. Only when we liberate ourselves from the lies, when we stop believing that we are the problem and recognize that we are the solution. Only then will we be free of the Joe Bidens and the Peter Beinarts, the Jimmy Carters and Barack Obamas, the Gilad Atzmons and Jeremy Ben Amis. Only then will the liberation that began in 1967 be complete.

Only then will we have liberated our Jerusalem. The Jerusalem of the soul. It is incumbent on all of us to liberate that little Jerusalem within. The holy city that lives in all of us. To clean the dross off its golden gates, wash the filth from its stones and expel the invaders gnawing away at our hearts until we look proudly upon a shining city. Then to help others liberate their own Jerusalems. Only then will we truly be free.

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Source: http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2012/05/liberating-our-jerusalem.html

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Emerging US-Iran Interim Nuclear Deal Endangers Israel

From: DEBKAfile.com | May 19, 2012

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Yukia Amano, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, is entrusted with a decisive mission in Tehran Sunday, May 20: collecting Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s broad endorsement of the interim eight-point deal he and US President Barack Obama have drafted through secret dialogue. DEBKAfile has obtained exclusive access to the eight points - with the caveat that they may not be final. The details are still to be hammered out and proved practicable. But the way the deal stands now, it will be unacceptable to Israel because if affords Iran enough leeway to carry on developing a nuclear bomb program with no real hindrance.

The White House is waiting tensely for Khamenei’s nod to activate the link promised by Obama between their back-track talks and the formal negotiations the Six Powers (P5+1) negotiations with Iran, which go forward in Baghdad on May 23. This link would grant the bilateral US-Iranian deal UN-world power imprimatur and vindicate the US president’s contested Iran policy.

From that moment, Israel would find it doubly hard to go through with its military option against Iran’s nuclear sites without risk of international isolation and opprobrium.

Until that moment, the Obama administration had found Israel’s threatening stance useful for bending Iran to a diplomatic accommodation on its nuclear plans, while at the same time holding Jerusalem back from actually going through with its threat. It was this double game that made the US-Iranian dialogue workable.

It was also used adroitly by Khamenei to achieve another of the Islamic Republic’s key strategic goals, to destroy the abiding friendship between the US and the Zionist state. The Iranian leader’s main argument to his colleagues in support of his secret dealings with the US president was that sanctions were well worth enduring if at the end of the road a deal with the US forced a breach between Washington and Jerusalem and so substantially weakened the Jewish state.

DEBKAfile has obtained exclusive access to the eight-point draft with the caveat that it may not be final; the details remained to be hammered out and proved practicable:

1. Because the US and Iran agree that a real and comprehensive accord for halting Tehran’s nuclear program is unobtainable, they are accepting an interim agreement with each party at liberty to interpret its substance and future implementation in its own manner.

DEBKAfile: This wording allows Obama to assure the American voter and Western public that Tehran has capitulated on its nuclear ambitions while, at the same time, Khamenei portrays America to Iranians and Muslims as having yielded on recognizing Iran’s right to develop an independent nuclear program, enrich uranium and continue its drive for a bomb.

2. Iran will suspend uranium enrichment up to the near-weapons grade of 20 percent but not dismantle or stop work at the Fordo underground nuclear plant as Israel demands.

3. Iran will export its stock of 110 kilograms of 20-percent enriched uranium which can be used for producing a weapon. This material will be reprocessed and returned as fuel plates from which it is much more difficult though not impossible to make a bomb.

4. No ceiling will be placed on the production of low-enriched uranium of 3.5-5 percent purity.

DEBKAfile: Washington tacitly grants this concession by leaving it off the record.

5. Iran will sign the Non-Proliferation Accord’s additional protocol and so permit the expansion of IAEA on-site inspections.

6. The secret Iranian nuclear sites of which Washington has no explicit knowledge will also be omitted from the record and therefore outside the sphere of international inspection.

DEBKAfile: The guiding principle governing America’s approach to the eight-point interim accord therefore is, “Don’t know; don’t want to see.”

7. The US and European Union will dilute sanctions against Iran stage by stage.

DEBKAfile: Here too, dual tactics will be used: The formal embargo on Iran’s central bank and its exclusion from the SWIFT international money transfer system will not be formally annulled. However a blind eye will be applied to any small banks in the West executing Iran’s international business, just as the sanction-busting measures used by China, Russia, India and Turkey to their trade with Iran, were tolerated.

8. The US and Europe will revoke the oil embargo due to go into effect on July 1, 2012.

DEBKAfile: While the Obama administration has given its “agreement-in-principle on the interim deal,” the Iranian leader has not yet endorsed it. Hence the Amano mission to Tehran Sunday.

If he comes away with a nod from Tehran, Obama will have achieved two key objectives: the world power talks with Iran can proceed through sessions spaced several weeks apart until the November date of the US presidential election, and Israel will be constrained from striking Iran before that date.

Last week, Israel reiterated its demand for Iran to stop uranium enrichment at any grade and dismantle the Fordo nuclear facility as non-negotiable.

The interim agreement drafted by Obama and Khamenei will therefore be unacceptable to Israel because it provides for neither and so affords Iran enough leeway to carry on developing a nuclear bomb program with no real hindrance.

Source: http://www.debka.com/article/22014/

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Netanyahu: Ceding Temple Mount will Lead to War

by Gil Ronen | IsraelNationalNews.com | May 20, 2012

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At a ceremony honoring the reunification of Jerusalem in the Six Day War, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made some of his strongest statements to date regarding the right of the Jewish nation to sovereignty over its ancient capital of Jerusalem.

"A lasting peace can only be made with a strong nation," Netanyahu asserted. "Without a united Jerusalem, the state of Israel will be a body with a weak heart. Our heart will never be divided again."

Speaking at a Jerusalem Day ceremony on Jerusalem's Ammunition Hill, Netanyahu noted that wherever Jewish people pray, anywhere in the world, they do so facing Jerusalem – "the place that was always the center of our lives; the place that reminds us of our glorious past and serves as a focus for our future hopes."

"We will not turn our backs on those who faced Jerusalem throughout the ages," he said. "We will safeguard Jerusalem because Israel without Jerusalem is like a body without a heart – and it was on this hill that the heart went back to beating at full strength."

"On Jerusalem Day, the divided city became whole – and it will remain that way."

"I have doubts, to put it mildly, that if we deposit the Temple Mount with foreign forces, we will not very quickly slip into a religious sectarian war," he said. "Only under Israeli sovereignty, the accessibility and freedom of worship for all religions is a certainty, and will remain a certainty. Only under Israel are peace and quiet maintained."

Photo:

Binyamin Netanyahu
Israel news photo: Flash 90

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/156012#.T7k512t5mK0

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Iran’s Grand Strategy

by Ryan Mauro  |  FamilySecurityMatters.org  |  May 16, 2012

 

The Iranian regime believes what it says and can achieve its stated objectives. That's the blunt truth that few can accept.

To determine Iran's strategy, we must determine its goals and ideology. President Ahmadinejad consistently states that he acts in order to "hasten the arrival" of the Mahdi, also called the Hidden Imam, who is to appear during the End Times to bring victory over the enemies of Islam. Since at least July 2010, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has been telling his inner circle that he has met the Mahdi, who promised him an imminent return.

A number of voices opposed to a potential Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities reassure us that the regime is a rational actor and we should not take this rhetoric seriously. Former Mossad director Meir Dagan went so far as to say Iran is "very rational." The statement made headlines but their simplicity is misleading. Dagan actually said that Iran is "not exactly our rational." What Dagan likely meant is that the regime weighs costs and benefits. It rationally pursues goals that we'd consider irrational.

Eight Christian leaders are among those that want the U.S. to embrace a policy of containment towards a nuclear-armed Iran. On March 5, the director of the Presbyterian Church (USA)'s Office of Public Witness co-wrote a letter to Congress, urging that resolutions ruling out such a policy be shot down.

It said the resolutions "sets a dangerously low threshold for war" and compares Iran to the Soviet Union.

A little-noticed documentary titled "The Coming is Upon Us" was produced by Ahmadinejad's office last year and it lays out the regime's beliefs and planned path forward, much like Mein Kampf did. And it debunks the notion that the U.S.S.R. and the Iranian regime are equivalent. The film makes the case that the regime's leaders are the incarnations of specific End Times figures foretold in Islamic eschatology.

Iran is the "nation from the East" that paves the way for the Mahdi's appearance. Supreme Leader Khamenei is Seyed Khorasani, "the preparer" who comes from Khorasan Province with a black flag and a distinct feature in his right hand. Khamenei's right hand is paralyzed from an assassination attempt. Khorasani's commander-in-chief is Shoeib-Ebne Saleh, who the film says is President Ahmadinejad. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah is the incarnation of Yamani, a commander with a Yemeni ancestry who leads the Mahdi's army into Mecca.

These three "preparers" wage war against the Antichrist and "the Imposters"-the U.S., Israel and the West's Arab allies. The film also mentions that a figure named Sofiani will side with Islam's enemies. Former Iranian Revolutionary Guards officer Reza Kahlili, who leaked the film, told me that the full-length version identifies him as Jordanian King Abdullah II.

The film lists various End Times prophecies that have been fulfilled to argue that the Mahdi's appearance is near. The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran; the invasion of Iraq from the south and subsequent sectarian violence and death of Saddam Hussein; the Houthi rebellion in Yemen; the fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and the increasing amount of open homosexuality, cross-dressing, adultery and women taking off the hijab are correlated to specific Islamic prophecies.

There are two signs yet to be fulfilled that will trigger the final grand conflict that the Mahdi will intervene during: An Arab coalition is to unite and rid itself of foreign influence and Saudi King Abdullah, who is 87 years old, is to die. The Muslim Brotherhood's rise is fulfilling the first prophecy,the film says.

The speakers state that Islamic prophecy talks of the Bani Abbas Dynasty ruling modern-day Saudi Arabia during the End Times, which is the Saudi Royal Family. The prophecy is that this dynasty will be ruled by someone named Abdullah, whose death will lead to internal turmoil right before the Mahdi's appearance. It notes that no one named Abdullah has ruled there in the past 100 years.

"For about 10 minutes [in the full-length film], the video lists the names of clerics, including very influential ones like Ayatollah Haeri Shirazi and former Revolutionary Guards chief commander Seyed Yahya Safavi, who affirm their belief that Khamenei is Seyed Khorasani. This isn't propaganda, the regime really believes it," Kahlili told me.

The Iranian regime has a realistic strategy to dominate the Middle East and lead an Arab coalition in taking Jerusalem--the two tasks that will, in its mind, trigger the Mahdi's appearance.

Iran is wisely perfecting all elements of a nuclear-armed missile before creating a bomb. It is working on the nuclear triggering mechanism, a deliverable warhead and is accumulating the supplies and infrastructure necessary to quickly produce an arsenal. Almost everything besides actually putting together a bomb is permitted under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Under Article 10, Iran can announce that it is withdrawing from the treaty in 90 days because of a security threat. Ironically, an Israeli strike could be used as that pretext. Iran could declare that it didn't intend to build nukes, but Israel's actions now force it to. Of course, Iran could just ignore its treaty obligations altogether.

Ayatollah Khamenei's anti-nuke fatwa is conditional and, as Amer Taheri explains, it's never even been published in its entirety. There can easily be an escape clause we don't know about, if the fatwa even exists in the first place. In 2009, Ahmadinejad left the door open to building nukes if the security of his country requires it. Some Iranian clerics and officials are already giving religious justifications for becoming nuclear-armed.

It is wishful thinking to believe that the pro-American Arab states can contain Iran. The governments are already insecure in the wake of the Arab Spring and, in what the Iranians surely see as an act of providence, the Shiites in the Sunni-ruled Arab countries are perfectly positioned to seize the region's oil supplies. Take a look at the map produced by Mark Langfan to see how easily Iran can take effective control of about 56% of the world's oil reserves. About 90% of Saudi Arabia's oil is located in its Shiite-populated Eastern Province. Bahrain is a majority-Shiite state. The oil-rich areas of southern Iraq are in the midst of a Shiite population. Iran can carve out enclaves in these areas through proxies or force the Arab countries to capitulate by stirring up discontent.

If Iran controls the oil and has nuclear weapons capabilities, it is hard to see how the international sanctions and agreements to reduce imports of Iranian oil survive. The European and Asian countries were slow to get on board in the first place. Increasing oil prices, the temptation to accept Iran after it acquires nuclear capability and the political power of the growing Muslim population in Europe will test these countries' commitments.

The key question is how Iran plans to retake Jerusalem and destroy Israel once Saudi King Abdullah dies and this Arab coalition has been assembled. An all-out war is an option. After all, former Iranian President Rafsanjani said in December 2001 that "the use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything. However, it will only harm the Islamic world. It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality." But another option exists: Asymmetric warfare carried out with the protection of a nuclear shield.

President Ahmadinejad recently said that "the destruction of the Zionist regime does not necessitate making war. If countries of the region cut ties with the Zionists and give them dirty looks, it will spell the end of this puppet regime." A regional coalition could isolate Israel and sponsor countless terrorist attacks that wreck the economy and weaken it to the point where direct warfare becomes a viable option. The U.S. could militarily intervene in a conventional war but the U.S. is unlikely to get involved if it is asymmetric, especially if Iran has nuclear weapons.

Iran has been simulating the use of an Electro-Magnetic Pulse. This is the detonation of a nuclear weapon in the atmosphere that destroys electronic components over an extremely long distance. An EMP attack would instantly disable the U.S., bringing the country back to the 1800s. It would be far easier for Iran to do the same to Israel. It is easy to envision millions of martyrdom-seekers pouncing at the opportunity to take part in, what they feel, is a prophetic event.

When you consider the Arab Spring, the region's oil fields' proximity to Shiite populations, the inability to stop Iran's nuclear program and the EMP technology, you can see why the Iranian regime believes it owns the future. Unfortunately, the West dismisses the proclaimed goals of the regime as meaningless bravado that, even if it is genuine, could never come to pass.

The Iranian regime's religious beliefs may be crazy but it isn't crazy for thinking it can win.

This article was sponsored by the Institute on Religion and Democracy.

Ryan Mauro is Family Security Matters' national security analyst. He is a fellow with RadicalIslam.org, the founder of WorldThreats.com and a frequent national security analyst for Fox News Channel. He can be contacted at [email protected].

 

Source: http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/irans-grand-strategy?f=must_reads

Muslim Brotherhood's Dream: Egypt to Elect Islamic Caliphate

by Chana Ya'ar  |  IsraelNationalNews  |  May 16, 2012

 

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood is hoping that when the polls open in nine days, voters will bring in the era of the Islamic Caliphate.

"We are seeing the dream of the Islamic Caliphate coming true at the hands of Mohammed Morsi,” said cleric Safwat Higazy, speaking at a rally for the Brotherhood's presidential candidate.

The TV preacher vowed from the podium before thousands at the stadium of an industrial city in the Nile Delta, “The capital of the Caliphate and the United Arab States is Jerusalem, Allah willing.”

In response, the crowd waved green Brotherhood flags, chanting, “The people want to implement Allah's law.”

Morsi himself said at a rally at Cairo University this week, “We will not accept any alternative to Shari'ah... The Qu'ran is our constitution and it will always be so.”

But Morsi is running so far only in fourth place, in a field of 13 candidates whose first challenge will come during the May 23-24 polls. Ahead of him in popularity thus far are two former regime candidates and Abdel-Moneim Abolfotoh, a more moderate Islamist.

Abolfotoh, who was once a member of the Brotherhood, left the organization after he was blocked from running for president. He has said that a Christian has the right to be president, and that books promoting atheism should not be censored, is also supported by the more hard-line Salafists.

The harder-line Muslim Brotherhood leadership, rejected by its Salafist Islamic colleagues, has become much bolder since gaining control over the parliament.

The party demanded as the majority in parliament that the military allow it to form the next government.

The Brotherhood faction also balked at a World Bank loan taken by the parliament to improve the country's broken sewage system, citing the interest involved, forbidden under Shari'a law.

The party has also called on the government to revoke a Mubarak-era law to allow women to seek a divorce from their husbands in Islamic courts.

 

 

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/155872

 

IDF's New Iron Dome Unit Receives Torah Scroll

by Elad Benari  |  IsraelNationalNews.com  |  May 16, 2012

 

The International Young Israel Movement (IYIM) - Israel Region and the National Council of Young Israel (NCYI) facilitated on Tuesday the dedication of a Torah scroll to the IDF. The scroll was dedicated to the newest units in the IDF, the Iron Dome anti-missile unit that is under the Israel Air Force command.

The highly acclaimed Iron Dome technology was a reaction to the thousands of missiles that have rained down on Israeli citizens from Hamas-controlled Gaza. The system intercepted 90 percent of missile attacks on urban centers during the recent escalation in rocket attacks from Gaza towards Israel.

The joyous dedication ceremony took place on a base in Central Israel on Tuesday in the presence of the outgoing Chief Rabbi of the Israel Air Force, the IAF's Acting Chief Rabbi Rav David Levin, a Commander of the Iron Dome unit, IYIM Israel President Ceec Harrishburg, IYIM Executive Director Daniel Meyer, Rabbi Eitan Perez of the Iron Dome unit, as well as officers and soldiers. The singing and dancing reached a peak as the Sefer Torah was placed into the empty Aron Hakodesh.

The scroll was dedicated by Mr. David and Mrs. Chana Walles, family and friends in memory of all the brave IDF soldiers who have sacrificed their lives in the defense of Israel on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of their business, Eddies Kosher Travels.

Last week, a U.S. House panel voted to allocate $1 billion for the Iron Dome missile defense system. Each of the intercepting missiles that is launched to knock out an incoming Grad missile Gaza costs $50,000.

 

 

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/155846

Jewish, Israeli Students Attacked at Toulouse University

by Rachel Hirshfeld | IsraelNationalNews.com | May 6, 2012

The president of the French Jewish student organization has called on the University of Toulouse to combat anti-Semitism after a dialogue conducted by Israeli students last week was disrupted by protests’ hateful threats and chants.

The incident, which occurred on April 25, came approximately one month following the murder of three Jewish students and a rabbi by an Islamic terrorist in Toulouse.

The delegation of Israeli students from a non-political organization were midway through a tour of French universities and had held successful events in Lille and Lyon before visiting Le Mirail campus, in the area where the Toulouse gunman Mohammed Merah grew up.

They were at a stall on the campus and were handing out leaflets and speaking to students when a group of protesters arrived and began shouting at them through a megaphone.

"They began shouting anti-Israel slogans and saying that Israel was a criminal state," said Sacha Reingewitz, vice president of the UEJF. "They said Jews should be exterminated and that Israel commits genocide."

The protesters demanded that the Israeli group remove the Israeli flag from their stall and when the group refused, they took it down by force.

"Security had to intervene – it was very upsetting," said Mr Reingewitz. "The protesters were saying 'get out of here' and they sang an antisemitic slogan in Arabic: Khaybar Khaybar is Yahud, Jaysh Muhammad sawfa ya'ud" (Khaybar, Khaybar, O Jews, the army of Muhammad will return)."

After security removed the protesters the event continued, but Mr Reingewitz said the Israeli visitors were "very shaken," The Jewish Chronicle reported.

"They did not expect this at all," he said. "They were very distressed. They were obviously willing to have a discussion, even one that was tense, but they were not expecting anything of this sort."

The incident took place days after the first round of voting in the French presidential race.

A spokeswoman for the Union of Jewish Students in the UK expressed support for efforts to tackle such vitriolic incidents of anti-Semitism in universities.

"No university authority should stay silent and lay dormant when events such as this occur," she said. "This week we have been touring campuses promoting Tel Aviv as a wonderful holiday destinaton and earlier this year did a similiar tour with Israeli students and did not and have not come up against anything of this nature.

"We stand firm, as proven by last week's tackling of the antisemitic incident at the NUS Conference, that antisemitism will not be tolerated in British universities and UJS would always be willling to lend a hand of support to our French or any other counterparts in tackling this issue wherever it unfortunately occurs.

"Antisemitism and hatred is universally unacceptable and there should be a zero tolerance policy for it in a university or any other environment."

Photo: Lighting a candle in memory of Toulouse terror victims. Reuters

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/155481#.T6aLEhB5mK1

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Studying Antisemitism on Campus

by Phyllis Chesler | Phyllis-Chesler.com | May 2, 2012

A very gallant Dr. Charles Asher Small (Pictured) just delivered an important lecture at the 92nd St Y. in New York. Yes, this is the same Dr. Small who, in 2004, founded the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP), which he housed at Yale University from 2006-2011—until the Yale Corporation decided that the Center's work on Islamic Judeophobia and specifically on Iranian genocidal Judeophobia threatened Yale's "scholarly commitments" in the region.

Who could make this up?

This was the first time that Dr. Small spoke about this publicly.

Dr. Small is Canadian and grew up in Montreal. He speaks in a restrained and reasonable way about outrages and injustices. He is a gentleman and a scholar.

I was privileged to have met him in 2003 and to have worked with him while he was at Yale. I have also written about his work and its tragic demise at Yale.

This time, Dr. Small named names.

But, he first wondered why Israel, which is blamed for every conceivable wrong, is also to blame for whatever problems American Jews are having in terms of communal identity or renewal. He wondered how different American Jews and Jewish leaders are today when compared to the American Jewish leaders in the 1920s and 1930s, as economic problems worsened and a virulent antisemitism arose. "Sound familiar?", he asked.

Dr. Small noted that antisemitism is different from all the other 'isms' such as racism and sexism. "It is inherently genocidal," he said. It was "genocidal during the religious era when Jews were the wrong religion" and were accused of holding back the Messianic age by both "refusing to convert to Christianity" and for having committed "deicide." And it is genocidal today. But there is a taboo today at work that impedes any rational search for the truth.

Small went on to say that no one is examining radical Islamic ideology No one is questioning the dominant world view. Instead, everyone is into postmodernism, cultural relativism and politically correct non-judgementalism. He defined anyone who has been formerly colonized as being a victim whose customs and traditions cannot be judged.

Charles and I agree on this new and clever form of racism and paternalism. Universal rights for me and thee – but not for the female victims of honor killing, forced child marriage, female genital mutilation, and forced veiling. Religious rights for Muslims in the West, but the lethal persecution of Christians, Hindus, and Jews in "Muslim lands."

Meanwhile, Charles' Institute at Yale was vibrant, dynamic and thriving. About 3 and a half years ago, a philanthropist offered Charles and his Institute five million dollars if Yale would raise 15-20 million dollars. Dr. Small delivered a strategic business plan. The development office said it was "wonderful."

But the environment changed when the current Iranian regime suddenly listed Yale as an "enemy of the revolution." Small and his Institute were blamed by some for having gotten Yale in trouble, resulting in Yale's telling Small to stop dealing with radical Islam, radical Islamic Judeophobia, and Iran. Absent his dealing with those topics, he was told, he could enjoy a long and happy career at Yale.

But Radical Political Islam, not Islam the religion, not the Muslim people, but Radical Political Islam, the genocidal movement, is a key part of the irrational hatred against Jews and Israel in today's world. When Charles convened in August of 2010, the largest academic world conference on global antisemitism to have ever been held, Radical Political Islam was part of the discussion. It couldn't be ignored. It was not the focal point of the conference. It wasn't even mentioned by most of the speakers. But it was included in some presentations by a few of the 107 speakers from 23 countries who made up the program.

What was to come was signalled when the assembled conference attendees were welcomed rather sourly by associate Yale Provost, Frances Rosenbluth. Before a word was spoken or paper presented, she warned that the scholarship to be presented needed be constrained and she pre-emptively labeled outcomes when she said presenters were "not to engage in Islamophobia."

A young Palestinian actively blogged throughout the conference and in real time characterized speakers as "racists" and "Islamophobes." Instead of measured analysis, dialogue and prudent deliberation, his name calling reverberated across the internet kicking off a firestorm which resulted, three days later, in the newly appointed PLO "ambassador" in D.C. writing to Yale President Levin charging Yale with "racism."

Here's the thing. Tell the truth about Radical Political Islamism and you will be branded a racist. Dare expose the Muslim practice of slavery, imperialism, colonialism, religious intolerance, and gender apartheid and you will find yourself branded a "conservative racist" and therefore demonized.

It happened to me early on, between 2003-2005.

It has happened to every single truth teller ever since, including Dr. Charles Small.

Small and his colleagues were attacked irrationally. National Public Radio chimed in and a Yale Professor accused the Institute of being similar to Black Panthers. The chorus grew and Yale had its excuse to end its relationship with the Institute and Charles Small. In so doing, Yale confiscated the film of the conference, framed a report which it marked 'confidential' (something they'd never done before in this kind of circumstance) and didn't allow Charles Small or any of his colleagues at Yale to see it. These actions could hold the record for abruptness and lack of considered process extended when compared to all other departures. Adding insult to injury, with several week's notice, Yale asked Charles Small to leave.

But it is now a year later and this quiet talk to a hushed audience at the 92nd St. Y marked the beginning of a new chapter in the struggle to tell the truth and expose the deception that is going on behind the curtain in academia today. The whole episode at Yale was instructive and underlines the urgent need for an independent institution that studies antisemitism in real time, and not merely as an historical artifact and novelty. Antisemtism is as virulent, threatening and genocidal as it has ever been and the need for a Charles Small and an organization like ISGAP, that is not afraid to seek the truth, is more pressing than it has ever been. If not now, when.

Source: http://www.phyllis-chesler.com/1085/studying-antisemitism-on-campus

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From Hadassah.org - 60 Minutes Report: Christians of the Holy Land

April 26, 2012

Below is an alert distributed by the Jewish Council of Public Affairs—of which Hadassah is a member—addressing the accuracy of Sunday's 60 Minutes report on Christians in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Sunday night, CBS's 60 Minutes aired a segment titled "Christians of the Holy Land" which cynically distorted a complicated story to slander Israel. Among the myriad errors in the report is the myth of a declining Palestinian Christian population. A report issued by the Jewish Council for Public Affairs in 2011 provided extensive documentation that the Christian population in the West Bank is not decreasing – and according to Palestinian sources is actually increasing. Unfortunately, the 60 Minutes report missed these critical data and repeated the common misrepresentation that the Palestinian Christian population is in a state of exodus. The population decline, even though fabricated, is blamed on Israel.

According to Palestinian sources, the Palestinian Christian population in the West Bank is actually growing – and has been growing since 1967. The Palestinian Prime Minister noted in 2009 that the Christian population in the West Bank increased. And other data support this increase. In fact, since 1967, the Christian population in Bethlehem increased by 11% and in the Bethlehem region grew by 56%. The West Bank Christian population grew from 42,484 in 1967 to over 51,000 today The only "decline" that has been documented is the percentage Christians represent in the predominantly Muslim West Bank, a population that grew almost fourfold during the same period.

A further slander unchallenged in the 60 Minutes story was the reportage of the Kairos Palestine document, an anti-Israel manifesto that places 100% of the blame for the tragic Israeli-Palestinian conflict on Israel, stating "if there were no occupation, there would be no resistance" and thus Israelis and Palestinians could live in peace. This whitewashing of reality ignores the undeniable fact that groups like Hamas seek Israel's destruction and have used suicide bombs, rockets, and other terror to strike at Israel.

The "deligitimization" drive of the Kairos authors was demonstrated by a comment made by one of its authors for the 60 minutes report – that a goal of the document is the "boycott of Israel."

Sadly, the 60 Minutes report also overlooked the religious freedom guaranteed by Israel and the significant growth of the Palestinian Christian population in Israel itself. Christians live and pray in freedom in Israel, in marked contrast to the oppression they face throughout most of the Middle East.

Source: http://www.hadassah.org/site/apps/nlnet/content.aspx?c=keJNIWOvElH&b=5772823&ct=11713467&notoc=1