WHY AREN'T JEWS MARCHING?

Global Anti-Israel Protests Expected on 'Cast Lead' Anniversary
by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz New Global Anti-Israel Protests

The first anniversary of Israel's counterterrorism Operation Cast Lead in Gaza is set to be a catalyst for a series of anti-Israel protests worldwide. A mass march to the Erez Crossing between Gaza and Israel is to include several Western VIPs.

From December 27 through early January, the dates of Operation Cast Lead last year, international pro-Palestinian groups are set to hold "Gaza Freedom Marches" in North America, Europe and Israel. The Gaza Freedom March in Hamas-controlled Gaza itself is slated for December 31. Organizers of the latter event are expecting around 50,000 local participants, with over 1,000 from more than 40 countries, to converge on the Erez Crossing and demand it be opened to free movement by Palestinian Authority residents into Israel.

According to the Gaza march organizers, participants will include: French legislator Alima Boumediene-Thiery; author and Filipino parliament member Walden Bello; former European parliamentarians Luisa Morgantini from Italy and Eva Quistorp from Germany; Japan's former ambassador to Lebanon Naoto Amaki; Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker; President of the US Center for Constitutional Rights Attorney Michael Ratner; and 85-year-old Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein. Among the marchers will be various sectoral groups as well, including a women's delegation, a Jewish contingent, NGOs, a veterans group and Arabs from abroad with family in Gaza.

The marchers leaving from a point in northern Gaza are to meet up with a group of Arabs and Jews on the Israel side of the Erez Crossing. In what they are billing as a nonviolent event, the protesters will call on Israel to open the border to unfettered travel.

Researchers from the Institute of Terrorism Research and Response (ITRR) expect "protests and marches by anti-Israel, Islamist and far-left activist groups in various population centers worldwide." Additionally, ITRR analysts cautioned, everything from petty vandalism and "direct action" sabotage, through armed "lone-wolf" attacks on Jewish and Israeli institutions may be inspired by events during this period.

KOSHER SUPER BOWL

Super Bowl Attendees to Enjoy Bowls of Kosher Food

by Malkah Fleisher
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(IsraelNN.com) American Jews who live to see their favorite football team slide into the lead at the yearly Super Bowl games can now enjoy it with a kosher slider.

Kosher Sports Inc. (KSI), a New York-based kosher concessions provider geared to the sports industry, has signed a contract to provide kosher food to this year's Pro Bowl and Super Bowl games at Dolphin Stadium in Miami, Florida. This will be the first time kosher fare will be available at the events, which will take place in February, 2010.

On the menu for this year's football finals: Abeles & Heymann frankfurters, Italian sausages, and knoblewurst, as well as grilled salami sliders.

KSI already has stands at Citi Field, the National Tennis Center, and Keyspan Park in New York, Lincoln Financial Field in Pennsylvania, M&T Bank Stadium and Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Maryland, LandShark Stadium in Florida, and Prudential Center in New Jersey.

While they provide knishes, pretzels, non-dairy hot chocolate and beer to their patrons, they also frequently provide a venue for fans to worship in case their sports viewership coincides with a time of mandatory Jewish prayer. KSI's website lists prayer times for each of their locations. At Oriole Park, a minyan is coordinated in the middle of the 5th inning, while at Prudential Center, prayer is in between periods 2 and 3, according to the site.

Kosher Sports is under the kosher supervision of the Star-K Kosher Certification, based in Baltimore, Maryland.

Kosher Sports is not the only purveyor of kosher concessions in the United States. Strikly Kosher (under the supervision of the Vaad of Queens) has two stands in New Jersey, Ouri's Kosher Caterers (OK supervision) has a stand at New York's Yankee Stadium, and Olde Spadine Ave. (COR Supervision) has two stands in Canada.

While many Jews are cheering for the increase in kosher food at sports arenas in North America, others are calling for observant Jews to get down from the bleachers.

The venerated 11th century Torah commentator Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki – better known as Rashi – warned Jews away from sports arenas almost 1,000 years ago. According to the rabbi considered to be the father of all Torah commentators, the Torah admonition against "perform[ing] the practice of the land of Egypt in which you dwelled" (Leviticus 18:3) includes attendance at sports stadiums.

Other opponents refer to the construction of the world's most famous sports arena – the Colosseum in Rome – as the impetus behind their rejection of professional sports.

In 2001, Cinzia Conti, the Director of Surface Restoration at the Colosseum in Rome confirmed that inscriptions deciphered at the site say the Colosseum was built using the spoils of war. The war was with the Hebrews, and the plunder used to pay for the building was taken from the Holy Temple, which was sacked 2 years prior to the beginning of work on the Roman arena.

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VIRUS OF ABUSE = ANTISEMITISM

'Virus of abuse' in Britain towards Israel: ambassador
AFP

'Virus of abuse' in Britain towards Israel: ambassador AFP/File – Former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni, seen in Jerusalem in October. Israel's ambassador to …

* Renewed Lebanese drug trade hikes Mideast tensions Play Video Mideast Video:Renewed Lebanese drug trade hikes Mideast tensions AP
* Gaza families cling to hopes of prisoner exchange Play Video Mideast Video:Gaza families cling to hopes of prisoner exchange AFP
* Syrian killed in Lebanon attack Play Video Mideast Video:Syrian killed in Lebanon attack Reuters

Sun Dec 20, 11:23 pm ET

LONDON (AFP) – Israel's ambassador to London said Monday there was a "virus of abuse" towards his country spreading through Britain as he slammed those behind an arrest warrant for former foreign minister Tzipi Livni.

It comes after the director of a committee set up by the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip said it was providing information to European lawyers investigating alleged war crimes by Israel in the Gaza war.

Livni, the leader of the Kadima main opposition party and the foreign minister during the conflict, cancelled a trip to London last week after an arrest warrant was issued against her by a British court, sparking a diplomatic row.

An "obsession to delegitimise and demonise the Jewish state" was now daily routine in Britain, Israeli ambassador Ron Prosor wrote in The Daily Telegraph newspaper.

"A virus of abuse towards Israel and Israelis has spread throughout British public life.

"When this obsession leaps from the campus soapboxes to courts, the British public can no longer ignore the alarm bells.

"In this instance and at a time when both Israel and Britain find themselves confronted by terrorist foes, their sympathisers are cynically abusing Britain's legal system.

"The scandalous treatment of Mrs Livni is another example of 'lawfare', waged for the sole purpose of delegitimising the State of Israel and its leaders.

"The fanatics who specialise in hounding Israelis are the first to defend the worst abusers of human rights and decency.

"As ever, where attacks on Israel are concerned, double standards, hypocrisy and irony are never far away."

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has insisted that Livni is welcome and has voiced his determination to change the law that allows British courts to issue warrants for alleged war crimes suspects around the world.

The warrant was understood to have been issued by a London court at the weekend following an application by pro-Palestinian activists.

Diya al-Madhun, the judge who heads the committee, told AFP on Sunday: "We provide documents, reports and evidence of crimes to all international bodies aiding the Palestinian people in bringing Israeli civilian and military leaders to trial and issuing warrants for their arrest."

WHAT ARE YOUR REPS IN WASHINGTON DOING ABOUT THIS? DONE

New video - how to slit throats
Thursday, December 17, 2009 12:55 PM
From:
"Act for America"

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ACT! for America

“Chilling” New Video: How to slit throats

Christian Action Network, the same organization that produced the documentary film “Homegrown Jihad,” has released a new video.

According to the WorldNetDaily story below, the video is a “training video” filmed at the Muslims of America headquarters in Hancock, NY, and provided by an “unnamed law enforcement source.”

You may have heard the name of this compound: Islamberg.

We strongly recommend you take a few minutes to view this video.

TRAIL OF TERROR

'Chilling' new video: How to slit throats

Jihad maneuvers taught at New York compound

Posted: December 15, 2009

By Bob Unruh
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

Jihad training video
A new video released by the Christian Action Network shows Muslim women at a compound in New York state practicing throat-slitting techniques and assault weapons attacks.

The video was distributed by the makers of the movie "Homegrown Jihad: The Terrorist Camps Around the U.S.," which documents how a jihadist group has developed dozens of training camps across the nation.

WND reported at the time how Jamaat ul-Fuqra has built 35 compounds – mostly in the northeastern corridor of the U.S.

Now the organization has posted on YouTube a "chilling" training video provided to CAN by an unnamed law enforcement source about the Muslims of America headquarters in Hancock, New York.

Muslims of America reportedly is the name Jamaat ul-Fuqra, believed to have been involved in the beheading of reporter Daniel Pearl, uses in the U.S.

Get "Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Conspiring to Islamize America," autographed, from WND's Superstore.

The video includes segments of training exercises in which one person appears to practice a maneuver that would slit the throat of a victim. There are episodes of what appears to be automatic weapons fire at a target and incidents in which a handgun is held point-blank at a "victim's" head:

The video shows women marching in military formation, scaling walls, engaging in hand-to-hand combat and also reveals a Muslim confirming that the organization's own census revealed that Muslims are a majority in the United States and they are claiming it as their own.

Jihad training video showing how to slit a throat
The speaker states, "We are 100 percent sure that Muslims are the majority in America."

He continues, "Our Islamic political party has based its manifesto on this fact. We want to declare once and for all that America is our country."

According to CAN, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in 2005 warned about Jamaat ul-Fuqra, a Pakistani-based organization that "had the capacity to attack" America.

The U.S. State Department's 1998 "Patterns of Global Terrorism" report notes the organization "seeks to purify Islam through violence."

The report continued, "Members have purchased isolated rural compounds in North America to live communally, practice their faith and insulate themselves from Western culture. Fuqra members have attacked a variety of targets that they view as enemies of Islam."

CAN, led by Martin Mawyer, has researched Muslims of America for years and has provided its video to the FBI, State Department and Homeland Security.

To date, there has been no response from the government, the group said.

Mawyer told WND the political correctness America has adopted ultimately will be costly.
Marching in formation on jihad training video


The hands of law enforcement and investigators are tied at this point, he said, because members of the organization are part of "a minority religion," "they are African-American" "and in this particular case, are women."

"Gilani has stated he is preparing his members to the Soldiers of Allah, and he's set up the most advanced guerrilla warfare training camps," he said. "He's being true to his word.

"If the evidence is right in front of our face and we have the words from the leader," Mawyer said. "I don't know how we continue to close our eyes and be blinded by such obvious affront to American values, the Constitution and our way of life."

The organization's "Homegrown Jihad" video includes a chilling scene of Jamaat ul-Fuqra's leader Sheikh Mubarak Gilani telling followers to "act like you're his friend. Then kill him."

According to the Religion of Peace website, there have been more than 250 jihad attacks by Muslims around the globe – including two inside the U.S. – in just the last two months.

The death toll from the attacks has surpassed 1,400, the report says.
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SHOULD THIS BE AN ISSUE IN THE USA?

Niqab, the Pseudo-Islamic Face-Veil

by Irfan Al-Alawi and Stephen Suleyman Schwartz
The American Spectator
December 3, 2009

http://www.islamist-watch.org/2874/niqab-pseudo-islamic-face-veil
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Countries from Italy to Sweden are debating the right of women to wear the niqab. Canada is the latest country to enter the fray, with the Muslim Canadian Congress desiring to ban it. Is such a ban possible in the U.S., where its prevalence is evident in certain urban centers, like Philadelphia?

Muslim women's wearing of niqab, the veil covering everything but the eyes, and, by extension, the face-concealing mesh that is combined with a long garment to form the burqa in South Asia, has been introduced into the West as a purported religious obligation, and therefore, is put forward by ideological Islamists as a prospective civil right.

Niqab has become a matter of controversy in almost every Western country, most recently when the French government opened an inquiry into its prohibition – with the support, perhaps counter-intuitive, of that country's leading Muslim figure, Dr. Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris. France had already banned all forms of religious dress and symbolism from its state schools. In 2008, Dutch State Secretary for Education Ronald Plasterk, representing the immigrant-friendly Labor Party, called for banning niqab, as well as the burqa and abaya, from the country's primary and secondary schools, both for pupils and for visiting mothers.

The burqa, with its niqab-like eyescreen, is barred from British and some Belgian public schools. Earlier controversies include Quebec's 2007 decision that women must remove niqab if they vote, and a demand in 2006 by British Labour politician Jack Straw that women take off niqab before visiting his constituency office.

The U.S. has seen a number of bizarre attempts to establish niqab as a right. In 2001, Sultaana Freeman obtained a Florida driver's license while wearing niqab, but the license was then canceled.

Niqab is not the same as other practices often referred to generally as "veils" or "veiling" like the:

* hijab, or head-covering,
* the abaya, a loose full-body covering imposed on women in Saudi Arabia , although it is required in that kingdom that it be supplemented by niqab,
* the chador, an Iranian cloak,
* or jilbab, a loose garment covering the body except for the head, face, and hands.

Distinctions between these and various Western styles for women are difficult to make, especially in a civil-liberties environment. Head scarves and long coats or cloaks are worn by many women in cultures around the world, non-Muslim as well as Muslim. But since a hijab or head-covering may resemble a hat, it may be prohibited for all women in certain settings. Also in 2007, a Georgia judge barred a Muslim woman from entering court unless she removed her hijab, just as men and women are required to take off hats and caps when a judge is present. The radical Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) unsuccessfully challenged the judge's decision on the false claim of religious freedom. But religious claims do not override judicial practice, at least in the U.S., any more than they would justify carrying a driver's license that conceals the bearer's identity.

Niqab as a security problem encourages non-Muslim suspicion of Muslims, since it encourages Muslims toward separatism from their non-Muslim neighbors. And the security issue is real. Male terrorists in such varied countries as Pakistan, Britain, Afghanistan, and Israel have donned female coverings in attempting to escape police. Ordinary criminals have put on niqab as a disguise while committing robberies in the U.S., Britain, Canada, India, and Bosnia-Hercegovina.

Niqab is not Islamic. Covering of the face by women is nowhere mentioned in Qur'an, and the opinions of Islamic legal scholars on it are not unanimous. The Hanafi school of Islamic law, which is most widespread among Muslims, specifically rules out face covering, on the basis of women's needs while dealing normally with men, in commerce and elsewhere. In traditional Islam, men are called on to act modestly, and women are not ordered to disfigure and subordinate themselves by masking their features. The Prophet Muhammad is reported to have said that women making the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca should not cover their faces or wear gloves, although in their typically perverse manner, Saudi Wahhabi clerics now seek to impose it upon them even then.

Millions of Muslim women around the world do not wear so-called Islamic dress, but have retained local customary garments, which do not distort their form or personality. Many have adopted the same fashions as Western or Far-Eastern women. Women in Hejaz, the Western Arabian region in which the holy cities of Mecca and Medina are located, did not, in the past, cover their faces, and increasingly protest against the imposition of this practice.

The radicals who promote niqab try to pretend that a woman becomes a "better Muslim" by covering her face. This concept is no more Islamic than niqab itself. In traditional Islam, division of Muslims between the good and the bad, aside from those who have committed terrorist or criminal acts, will be decided by God, not by men or women.

According to established Islamic guidance, Muslims who migrate to non-Muslim societies are required to accept and obey the laws and customs of the countries to which they move. Attempts to introduce niqab into Western countries represent an obvious violation of this principle.

Western nations have developed a doctrine of "reasonable accommodation" of religious beliefs and practices. But acceptance of niqab in the West would embody "unreasonable accommodation."

Appeals for an immediate ban on niqab or face-coverings in Western countries are, in the view of many moderate Muslims, correct. To rid the Muslim world of niqab will require a sustained debate and social development in each country where it is presently found, based on a pluralistic discussion leading to its recognition as a non-Islamic, and dehumanizing, practice.

Author Irfan Al-Alawi is international director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism and a contributor to Islamist Watch. Stephen Suleyman Schwartz is executive director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism in Washington, D.C. and a contributor to Islamist Watch

Related Topics: Head Coverings / Dress | Irfan Al-Alawi This text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral whole with complete information provided about its author, date, place of publication, and original URL.

PEACE OR PIECE?

The Mideast Peace Deal You Haven't Heard About

by Steven J. Rosen
ForeignPolicy.com
December 18, 2009

http://www.meforum.org/2530/mideast-peace-deal
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For a year or two at an early stage in his career, I commuted to and from our adjacent offices each morning and evening with Martin Indyk, later a top peace-process official of the Clinton administration at the Camp David negotiations and now vice president for foreign policy at the Brookings Institution. I had just left the Rand Corporation to work at AIPAC, the main pro-Israel lobbying organization in Washington.

Even in those pre-Oslo days of 1982 to 1983, Martin was a True Believer in the idea of a grand land-for-peace bargain between Israel and moderate Palestinians. Reviewing each day the latest installments in the Middle East epic as we rolled down Rock Creek Parkway, we argued all the way. I heaped scorn on any solution that required Israel to trust Palestinian intentions, and I held that Israel's security could only be based on a qualitative military edge and the balance of power. I told Martin that he and our mutual friends Dennis Ross, Aaron Miller, and Dan Kurtzer, though with the noblest of intentions, were pursuing an illusion.

Martin emphatically thought I was wrong about the Middle East, and he also thought I was blind to an enduring reality in Washington. He said that Democratic and Republican administrations of the left and right may come and go, and some presidents will have less confidence in Middle East peacemaking than others, but no U.S. president will be able to sustain a policy of benign neglect of the peace process for long. The American people, the United States' European allies, and U.S. friends in the Arab world all need to have a ray of hope. They need to believe that active diplomacy under U.S. leadership is bringing closer a resolution of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, because it is a conflict that roils other American interests and destabilizes U.S. relations in the region and throughout the world. Martin often cited our friend, the late Peter Rodman, who taught us that U.S. policy in the Middle East is a bicycle. You can keep your balance if you roll forward even at a snail's pace, but if you try to stand still you will fall off.

Martin never did succeed in converting me to the peace camp, but over time I saw the undeniable evidence that he was right about the imperatives of U.S. foreign policy. Sooner or later, every president turns to the peace process, and the Mideast advisors who move to the president's inner circle are the ones he thinks have the best ideas about how to move forward toward a contractual peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

I think Benjamin Netanyahu has gone through a personal evolution a little like my own. He continues to be profoundly skeptical that signing a piece of paper can put an end to this conflict. He is a fierce advocate of defensible borders and military strength as the true guarantors of Israel's security. Nevertheless, he has come back to a second term as prime minister with a deeper appreciation of the reality that his relations with the United States, Europe, and moderate Arab neighbors depend on the perception that he can be a partner in the search for diplomatic progress with the Palestinians. And he certainly knows that many harbor doubts about him.

That is why Bibi agreed to do something unprecedented, something that six previous Israeli prime ministers since the 1993 Oslo Accords (Rabin, Peres, Barak, Sharon, Olmert, and Netanyahu himself in his previous term) refused to do. Very much against the will of his party and coalition, Netanyahu consented to putting a freeze on "natural growth" of settlements. He has drastically curtailed the volume of construction starts, even in the "consensus" settlement blocs that he believes were conceded to Ariel Sharon by George W. Bush.

Now, below the radar, Netanyahu is making a series of additional concessions to Barack Obama and his Mideast peace envoy, George Mitchell. Their current priority is negotiating "terms of reference" to permit the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations (TORs in negotiators' vernacular). Dismissed by some as mere "talking about talking," TORs are in fact vital elements to create the parameters for serious negotiations. For example, then-Secretary of State James Baker shuttled around the region for eight months to negotiate the TORs that made the 1991 Madrid conference possible. All that was done just to phrase a letter of invitation that all sides could accept. The result was far from trivial; it was a framework that opened the way to all the direct negotiations that followed over the ensuing two decades.

Mitchell's challenge today is to define such a framework that can bridge differences between Netanyahu and his Palestinian counterpart, Mahmoud Abbas. Defying skeptics who say you can bridge a river but not an ocean, Mitchell keeps going at it, and his perseverance is paying off. While no one was watching, Netanyahu has in fact agreed to language that Mitchell can accept. With the Israeli agreement in his pocket, Mitchell is now working to bring Abbas around, according to sources close to the discussions.

The issues are not small. Abbas wants to enshrine the 1967 boundary as sacrosanct, even though that line was merely a military demarcation after the war that ended in 1949 and had never been recognized by the Palestinians or anyone else as a legal border. Reflecting the Israeli consensus, Netanyahu insists that future agreed frontiers have to meet Israel's security imperatives and reflect post-1967 demographic realities, whether or not they diverge from the former armistice line. But Netanyahu has accepted a solution based on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's formulation: "an outcome which ends the conflict and reconciles the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meet Israeli security requirements."

Abbas wants Israeli territorial concessions in Jerusalem as a precondition for negotiations. Netanyahu has accepted that the Palestinians will bring their claims for Jerusalem to the table, but he is not going to make this or any other concession just to bring Abbas to negotiate. Mitchell's TORs will include implementation of all existing agreements between the parties, as well as the 2003 "Roadmap" for a two-state solution. These already define Jerusalem as a subject for discussion.

Abbas wants an absolute two-year deadline for the achievement of a permanent agreement. Netanyahu is accepting target dates for agreements, but he does not believe achievement can be guaranteed. Mitchell has the language he needs for the TORs regarding target dates.

Abbas wants language that obliges Israel to repatriate and compensate descendents of Palestinians who lost their homes in the upheavals before 1949. Netanyahu has agreed to participate in multilateral solutions for this "refugee" problem, provided these solutions do not include an obligation that will dilute Israel's own Jewish majority. Mitchell will point out that a solution to the refugee question is already incorporated in the documents to which the TORs will refer.

Abbas wants the 2002 Saudi-initiated Arab Peace Initiative to be the basis of negotiations. Netanyahu has agreed to have it listed among the references, though it is not among the signed agreements whose specific terms are binding. In any case, the Roadmap already contains a positive reference to the Saudi peace plan, and the Roadmap will be a major source document for the TORs.

The Palestinians eschew the concept of interim agreements because they fear that any temporary arrangements will become final. Israel believes that interim steps are a necessity for building confidence between the two parties. The Roadmap's Phase II already contains "the option of creating an independent Palestinian state with provisional borders and attributes of sovereignty," and the Oslo Accords are replete with interim steps. This will not be an obstacle to agreed TORs.

Mitchell has not announced the agreement with Netanyahu because delicate negotiations with Abbas still lie ahead. He did say on Nov. 25, "We have been in discussions with both Israelis and Palestinians for some time regarding terms of reference for negotiations. We have closed many gaps between them. And while admittedly important differences remain, we've made very substantial progress."

Now, a month later, the work on the Israeli side is done. Netanyahu has put the ball in the Palestinian court.

Steven J. Rosen served for 23 years as foreign-policy director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and was a defendant in the recently dismissed AIPAC case. He is now director of the Washington Project at the Middle East Forum.

WORLD, HEAR THIS

An Open Letter to the Arab World
by Danny Ayalon
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Here is the full text of the letter by Israel's deputy foreign minister, which appeared--in an unprecedented move--in the Saudi Arabian media (news item appeared on INN). He appeals for joining forces against the menace to the world that is Iran.

Since the reestablishment of our state, Israeli leaders have sought peace with their Arab neighbors. Our Declaration of Independence, Israel’s founding document that expressed

Israel's Dec. of Ind: "We extend our hand to all neighboring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighborliness."

“We extend our hand to all neighboring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighborliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help.” These words are as true today as when they were first written in 1948. Sadly, 61 years later, only two nations, Jordan and Egypt, have accepted these principles and made peace with the Jewish State.

Recently the Israeli government has made significant steps to restart negotiations with the Palestinians and reach out to the Arab world. In his Bar-Ilan speech in June, Prime Minister Netanyahu clearly stated his acceptance of a Palestinians state living side by side in peace and security with the State of Israel. My government has removed hundreds of roadblocks to improve access and movement for Palestinians and has assisted the facilitation of economic developments in the West Bank, through close cooperation with international parties to expedite projects and remove bottlenecks.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, a right-wing government has, in an unprecedented move, declared it would refrain from building new settlements in the West Bank. All of these moves taken together amply demonstrate Israel’s willingness for peace.

This Israeli government is also committed to extend a hand to all of our Arab neighbors, its leaders and its citizens, to join together to face some of the major challenges facing us all in the coming years.

For the first time in many years, we find ourselves on the same side in seeking to quell and defeat the forces of extremism and destruction in our region. While many see the threat from Iran directed solely at Israel, we in the region know differently. Together, we understand the menace that emanates from the extremist regime in Tehran. A regime that seeks to export its extremist ideology across the region and beyond, while arming terrorist groups that seek to destabilize moderate Sunni regimes and aiming for hegemonic control of the Middle East and far beyond.

The Iranian regime has many tentacles spread out across the region sowing destruction
The enemy of the Palestinian people is not Israel, but Hamas.

The enemy of the people of Lebanon is not Israel, but Hizbullah. The enemy of the Palestinian people is not Israel, but Hamas. The enemy of the Egyptian people is not Israel, but militant Islamist opposition groups. All of these groups, and many others, receive their commands from Iran, who wish to control and suppress any aspirations the region has towards freedom and advancement.

Iran seeks to hold an entire region, including its own people, to ransom and keep it engaged in conflicts orchestrated and directed from Tehran. Whether it is in Morocco, Iraq or Yemen, Iran is constantly interfering with Arab sovereignty for their own nefarious gain. Israel and its Sunni neighbors alike are in the sights of Khameini, Ahmadinejad and their minions.

If Iran is able to attain nuclear weapons, the situation becomes inexplicably and inexorably worse. The Iranian regime has demonstrated that if feels unrestricted in its ability to dominate our region, a nuclear umbrella will only embolden its acolytes to act unrestrained to the detriment of us all. Only together can we face this threat and remove it.

Another issue that entails mutual political will to overcome is the threat of climate change to our region. Many reports and organizations are pinpointing the Middle East as an area that will suffer gravely as rain falls even more infrequently and temperatures rise.

Recently, the leading international scholars on climate change met in Copenhagen and released an important report on this issue. They claimed that climate change will exacerbate conflicts and increase strains and violence among competing groups. We are already witnessing water rights and growing desertification as underlying reasons for the intensification of conflicts in our region.

“Making the desert bloom” has been a core component of the Zionist ethos and successes throughout the decades. Israel has been able to turn desert into arable land and barren landscapes into forests. We constantly share our agricultural miracles with our friends in Africa and Asia and it is for this reason that many countries of the developing world have sought partnership with Israel in addressing their own agricultural challenges.

However, as Israel’s founding fathers wrote in 1948, Israel is prepared to do its share in a common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East. Our partners in peace, Jordan and Egypt, and especially the Palestinian Authority, bear witness to our endeavors in this direction. Israel has actively cooperated with Egypt on the “Mubarak Project” for the establishment of an irrigation demonstration system in Nubariya and annually trains hundreds of Jordanians in Israel in fields such as sustainable eco-friendly agricultural methods.

For us to be able to face these and many other challenges, we need to break with the paradigms of the past. The Jewish people are here because of our historical, legal, moral and national rights.

Those naysayers who can not countenance a Jewish political presence in the region will doom all of us to many more decades of conflict and instability. It is time for courageous leaders to emanate from the Arab world as did Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1979 and Jordan’s King Hussein in 1994 and recognize that peaceful coexistence is far better for all of our people than enduring conflict and enmity.

We recognize that the Arab Peace Initiative is an important document, and is welcomed in Israel as a crack in the denial of an Arab recognition of Israel. However, like the Palestinian Authority’s dictates to Israel on the peace process, it remains frozen in 1993.

The Jewish people are here because of our historical, legal, moral and national rights.

Since the historic handshake between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn, Israel has taken major strides both politically and strategically towards the Palestinian position.

Both in 2000 at Camp David and in 2008 during the Annapolis process, Israeli prime ministers offered the Palestinians everything possible for peace and on both occasions the Palestinian leadership rejected these offers. The Palestinian Authority, like the Arab Peace Initiative, is still holding to its maximalist positions and has not moved an inch towards Israel since 1993. These positions are obviously untenable for peace and reflect a worldview that ignores Israel’s significant gestures and seeks to enforce a solution that will mean the end of the Jewish State. Recent Palestinian and Arab League declarations only enforce this view.

It is surely time to look to the future and break with former intransigencies to create a better future for all the people of the region. Israel has gone very far and is prepared to do its part, but we must be met by a willing partner. Without this, the region is doomed to more conflict and will negate the unity of purpose in the Middle East that is necessary to face the mounting challenges from without and within.

Danny Ayalon is the Israel Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs

HEALTH CARE: AN INCISIVE ANALYSIS AND A MUST READ

What lies beneath

By Cal Thomas

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com

The debate — OK, the shouting match — we are having over "health-care reform" is about many things, including cost, who gets help and who does not and who, or what, gets to make that determination. Underlying it all is a larger question: Is human life something special? Is it to be valued more highly than, say, plants and pets? When someone is in a "persistent vegetative state" do we mean to say that person is equal in value to a carrot?

Are we now assigning worth to human life, or does it arrive with its own pre-determined value, irrespective of race, class, IQ, or disability?

The bottom line is not the bottom line. It is something far more profound. Our decisions regarding who will get help and who won't are about more than bean-counting bureaucrats deciding if your drugs or operation will cost more than you are contributing to the U.S. Treasury.

The secular left claims we are evolutionary accidents who managed to crawl out of the slime and by "natural selection" stand erect and over millions of years outsmart our ancestors, the apes. If that is your belief, then you probably think health care should be rationed. Why spend lots of money to improve — or save — the life of someone who evolved from slime and has no special significance other than the "accident" of becoming human? Policies flow from such a philosophy, though the average secularist probably wouldn't put it in such stark terms. Stark, or not, isn't this the inevitable progression of seeing humanity as maybe complex, but nothing special?

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The opposing view sees human beings as unique creations. Even Thomas Jefferson, identified by historians as a Deist who doubted the existence of a personal G-d, understood that if certain rights (life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness) do not come from a source beyond the reach of the state, then the state could take those rights away. Those who believe that G-d made us and also makes the rules about our existence and our behavior will have a completely different understanding of life's value and our approach to affirming it until natural death.

It is between these two distinctly different worldview goalposts that the battle is taking place. Few from the "endowed rights" side are saying that a 100-year-old with an inoperable brain tumor should be given extraordinary and expensive care to keep the heart pumping, even after brain waves have gone flat. But there is a big difference between "letting go" and "snuffing out." The unnatural progression for many on the secular left is to see such a person as a "burden." In an age when we think we should be free of burdens — a notion that contributes to our superficiality and makes us morally obtuse — getting rid of granny might seem perfectly rational, even defensible. But by doing so, we assume an even greater burden: the role of G-d in deciding who gets to live and who must die. Anyone who has seen the film "Bruce Almighty" senses how difficult it is to play G-d.

We are now witnessing some of the consequences of attempting to ban people with a G-d perspective from the public square. If there are no rules and no one to whom one might appeal when those rules are violated, we are on our own to set whatever rules we wish and to change them in a moment in response to opinion polls. Any appeals to a higher authority stop at the Supreme Court.

The explosive town hall meetings are indications that Americans are trusting government less and less. So where should we go? The answer is in your wallet or purse. It's on the money. Right now it is little more than a slogan, but what if it became true: in G-d We Trust.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free.

JWR contributor Cal Thomas is co-author with Bob Beckel, a liberal Democratic Party strategist, of "Common Ground: How to Stop the Partisan War That is Destroying America".

Afghanistan

From a Recon Marine in Afghanistan
This is good.....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From the Sand Pit It's freezing here. I'm sitting on hard, cold dirt between rocks and shrubs at the base of the Hindu Kush Mountains , along the Dar 'yoi Pomir River , watching a hole that leads to a tunnel that leads to a cave. Stake out, my friend, and no pizza delivery for thousands of miles.

I also glance at the area around my ass every ten to fifteen seconds to avoid another scorpion sting. I've actually given up battling the chiggers and sand fleas, but them scorpions give a jolt like a cattle prod. Hurts like a bastard. The antidote tastes like transmission fluid, but God bless the Marine Corps for the five vials of it in my pack.

The one truth the Taliban cannot escape is that, believe it or not, they are human beings, which means they have to eat food and drink water.. That requires couriers and that's where an old bounty hunter like me comes in handy. I track the couriers, locate the tunnel entrances and storage facilities, type the info into the handheld, shoot the coordinates up to the satellite link that tells the air commanders where to drop the hardware. We bash some heads for a while, then I track and record the new movement..

It's all about intelligence. We haven't even brought in the snipers yet. These scurrying rats have no idea what they're in for. We are but days away from cutting off supply lines and allowing the eradication to begin.

I dream of bin Laden waking up to find me standing over him with my boot on his throat as I spit into his face and plunge my nickel-plated Bowie knife through his frontal lobe. But you know me, I'm a romantic. I've said it before and I'll say it again: This country blows, man. It's not even a country. There are no roads, there's no infrastructure, there's no government. This is an inhospitable, rock pit shit hole ruled by eleventh century warring tribes. There are no jobs here like we know jobs.

Afghanistan offers two ways for a man to support his family: join the opium trade or join the army. That's it. Those are your options. Oh, I forgot, you can also live in a refugee camp and eat plum-sweetened, crushed beetle paste and squirt mud like a goose with stomach flu, if that's your idea of a party. But the smell alone of those 'tent cities of the walking dead' is enough to hurl you into the poppy fields to cheerfully scrape bulbs for eighteen hours a day.

I've been living with these Tajiks and Uzbeks, and Turkmen and even a couple of Pushtuns, for over a month-and-a-half now, and this much I can say for sure: These guys, all of 'em, are Huns... actual, living Huns.. They LIVE to fight. It's what they do. It's ALL they do.. They have no respect for anything, not for their families, nor for each other, nor for themselves. They claw at one another as a way of life. They play polo with dead calves and force their five-year-old sons into human cockfights to defend the family honor. Huns, roaming packs of savage, heartless beasts who feed on each other's barbarism. Cavemen with AK-47's. Then again, maybe I'm just cranky.

I'm freezing my ass off on this stupid hill because my lap warmer is running out of juice, and I can't recharge it until the sun comes up in a few hours. Oh yeah! You like to write letters, right? Do me a favor, Bizarre. Write a letter to CNN and tell Wolf and Anderson and that awful, sneering, pompous Aaron Brown to stop calling the Taliban 'smart..' They are not smart. I suggest CNN invest in a dictionary because the word they are looking for is 'cunning.' The Taliban are cunning, like jackals and hyenas and wolverines..They are sneaky and ruthless, and when confronted, cowardly. They are hateful, malevolent parasites who create nothing and destroy everything else. Smart.. Pfft. Yeah, they're real smart.

They've spent their entire lives reading only one book (and not a very good one, as books go) and consider hygiene and indoor plumbing to be products of the devil.. They're still figuring out how to work a Bic lighter. Talking to a Taliban warrior about improving his quality of life is like trying to teach an ape how to hold a pen; eventually he just gets frustrated and sticks you in the eye with it.

OK, enough. Snuffle will be up soon, so I have to get back to my hole. Covering my tracks in the snow takes a lot of practice, but I'm good at it.

Please, I tell you and my fellow Americans to turn off the TV sets and move on with your lives. The story line you are getting from CNN and other news agencies is utter bullshit and designed not to deliver truth but rather to keep you glued to the screen through the commercials. We've got this one under control The worst thing you guys can do right now is sit around analyzing what we're doing over here, because you have no idea what we're doing, and really, you don't want to know. We are your military, and we are doing what you sent us here to do.

You wanna help? Buy Bonds America .

Saucy Jack
Recon Marine in Afghanistan
Semper Fi

"Freedom is not free...but the U.S. Marine Corps will pay most of your share

IRAN: THE JOKE IS FIRST DECEMBER NOW JANUARY

EUROPEAN UNION GIVES IRAN JANUARY 25 DEADLINE

European Union European governments will give Iran until January 25 to return to the bargaining table over its nuclear program or face harsher sanctions, Bloomberg reported. "Iran's persistent failure to meet its international obligations and Iran's apparent lack of interest in pursuing negotiations require a clear response, including through appropriate measures. The European Union stands ready to take the necessary steps," an EU statement read. EU leaders have indicated that if Iran fails to respond to international demands by the January deadline, its leaders will meet to map out a timeline for imposing stiffer sanctions against the regime. Here in the United States, lawmakers in the House voted on the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act last week.

Urge your Senators to support tougher Iran sanctions

ISRAEL: THE ONLY EMERGING COUNTRY TO INCREASE INTEREST RATES

Tax Cuts not Tax Hikes; How Israel Beat the Recession

Posted: 21 Dec 2009 08:07 PM PST BY SULTAN
While most of the news narrative about Israel focuses on its daily struggles against terrorism, a more subtler international controversy is brewing as Prime Minister Netanyahu and Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz continue to insist on enacting corporate tax reform, cutting corporate and high income bracket taxes, despite opposition from domestic sources and the International Monetary Fund.

The media while focusing a great deal of attention on capitalism's "failings" abroad, particularly in Iceland, has ignored success stories such as Israel's as inconvenient to their socialist agenda. Yet in his second term, much as in his first term and his tenure as finance minister under Sharon, Netanyahu has gone against the conventional wisdom by emphasizing privatization and tax cuts. Teamed together with Dr. Yuval Steinitz, Israel's Finance Minister, who in the aftermath of Oslo went from far left wing protester to patriotic conservative, the results have been striking.

Israel's GDP has continued to grow throughout 2008 and 2009, even as under Obama the GDP has gone deep into negative numbers territory. Despite rising boycotts in Europe, an ongoing war at home and the entire Muslim world virtually closed to Israeli businesses, Israel's economic picture looks better than that of the US under Obama. Israel has a lower unemployment rate than the US and the EU.

While virtually every major power responded to the recession with stimulus plans, instead of panicking and throwing money at the situation, and pumping up the size of the debt in the process, Israel has instead worked toward stability and encouraged job growth through tax cuts. In doing so Israel joined the ranks of countries such as Czechoslovakia, South Korea and Canada who have cut corporate taxes to attract business growth, instead of spending wildly on government programs that do nothing to promote economic growth, as Obama has done.

As a result of Dr. Steinitz's wise fiscal management, Israel's debt-to-GDP ratio rose less than a percent since 2008. Meanwhile Obama's spending has dramatically increased America's debt-to-GDP ratio with the result that it is climbing at a rate of one percent per month. "The question in this [economic] crisis is not how fast we can get out of it but at what price," Dr. Steinitz said. Contrast that with the shrill calls by left wing economists such as Krugman for the US to spend whatever it takes and rack up any amount of debt. Government money is not a steam engine toward economic recovery, rather it is part and parcel of the economic problems that delay recovery.

While Israel's tax rates still remains too high, a legacy of a socialist past in which Labor Prime Ministers actively discouraged businesses in favor of cooperatives, Netanyahu's reform program is putting Israel on the right track by trying to grow the national GDP, instead of pushing more socialist programs thinly disguised as economic stimulus plans, as Obama and far too many other world leaders have done. While the US has not cut corporate taxes in decades and Obama is actually pushing companies further out of the country by aggressively targeting corporate profits, countries around the world such as Switzerland and Israel are demonstrating that cutting corporate taxes is a better way to attract business without killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Raising tax rates to punish companies is a sure way to push them into going abroad, shifting their base of operations to countries that actually want the jobs and economic productivity that they bring. Yet that has been the agenda of the prophets and pundits of socialism who have charged that the recession is proof that capitalism is unworkable and keep trying to whip up anti-business sentiment in order to enact a socialist agenda. Destroying free enterprise means destroying freedom by destroying any possibility of social mobility and economic survival that is not dependent on government control.

By reducing corporate taxes to 25 percent, Netanyahu will insure that Israel has lower corporate tax rates than most of Europe, with the exception of Switzerland, Iceland, Ireland and a number of Eastern European countries. It will also have a nearly 15 percent lower corporate tax rate than the US's outrageous 39 percent, a figure that has helped drive US companies overseas.

Not all is sunny in Israel however, chiefly because the government is unable to control its spending. The lack of a constitution and an official separation of powers, combined with a radically left wing judicial establishment, has turned the Israeli Supreme Court into an insatiable agenda mongering monster that intervenes wherever it sees fit to promote a left wing political agenda. This has meant an activist judiciary that interferes in everything from the recipient of the Israeli Prize, to Kosher supervision in restaurants, to the path of the border wall, and to every social and political policy where Beinish and her cohorts can intervene and overrule the government.

Dr. Yuval Steinitz has called for a bill that would control the ability of the Israeli Supreme Court on issues where the expenditures would devastate the budget. Such a bill is not likely to be passed, but Dr. Steinitz has played an important role by opening a dialogue on the subject. And he has also pointed out that white collar crime and corruption play a far more devastating role in draining the economy than has generally been accounted for. Dr. Steinitz's call for the Israeli Supreme Court to demonstrate some fiscal responsibility has been met with the usual hysterical accusations of incitement, a standard response by the Israeli left to any criticisms leveled against it.

A larger problem is Israel's coalition government structure in which a parliamentary majority is achieved by building as large a coalition as possible at the expense of a vast amount of pork ladled around to everyone concerned. This makes it even more difficult for Israel to control government spending, than it is for the United States Federal government, because the Israeli Knesset's no confidence vote eliminates any real separation between the Prime Minister and parliamentary budget disputes. The lack of regional parliamentary representation further entrenches political interests, without tying to them to anything but their own party.

Netanyahu has had a great deal of difficulty changing the system and the result is a high debt to GDP ratio. And while Israel might have avoided the stimulus trap under Dr. Steinitz, spending cuts represent a virtually impossible battle as Netanyahu tries to push Israel away from a socialist system in which everyone feels entitled to government money and assumes that he's a "freyer", a sucker losing out while everyone else is cashing in. Netanyahu deserves much of the credit for Israeli's economic reforms, its privatization, tax cuts and reforms. But socialism has a powerful gravity well in which social activists, activist judges, rent seeking businesses and political interests combine to suck the public and the government back in over and over again.

Netanyahu and Dr. Steinitz have done a good job of shepherding Israel through the economic crisis, but the worst political crises are still ahead. The Histadrut, Israel's once nearly unstoppable left wing trade union which held a death grip on the Israeli labor force, has been gravely weakened, but is far from gone. It still exercises a vast amount of power compared to American unions, and its admission of migrant workers suggests that it may be imitating American unions in reconciling itself to a changed workforce.

Israel's example does demonstrate that the best response to the recession is not to panic and work on creating a business friendly environment, rather than spending like mad in order to stimulate a debt economy. Because you do not grow an economy by taxing it, but by letting it breathe.

IS ISRAEL A VASSAL OF THE USA?

US Demands Clarifications on Shechem Raid

by Gil Ronen US Wants Explanations on Shechem

The United States has demanded clarifications from Israel after IDF special forces killed three terrorists Saturday who murdered a civilian, Rabbi Meir Chai, on Thursday.

Calls were made to National Security Adviser Prof. Uzi Arad, apparently by senior U.S. Administration officials, in which he was asked to provide clarifications. The calls came from the United States after Palestinian Authority officials complained to the Americans that the IDF had carried out “executions.”

Arad informed the White House of details of the counterterrorist raid and rejected the PA officials' claims.

The left-wing group B'Tselem also made a public demand that an investigation be launched into whether the IDF “executed” two of the three terrorist murderers. The self-acclaimed human rights group said that an initial inquiry it conducted at the homes of the dead killers indicated that they were executed.

Family testimony

The group said that the family members of two of the terrorists had told them that the terrorists were not armed and did not try to escape, nor did IDF soldiers try to arrest them. Rather, they said, the soldiers shot them at close range when their identity was confirmed.

The IDF denied these allegations.

A senior IDF officer said Saturday night that the security forces received accurate and focused information regarding the whereabouts of the terror cell's members. Forces from the Judea and Samaria Brigade, together with the Nachshon Battalion and the Duvdevan Battalion, were sent to the locations and conducted a three-hour long chase after the terrorists. One terrorist hid inside his home and sent his wife as a human shield to the front of the home.

"After the IDF operated on all required levels and using all means to arrest him,” the officer said, “and when he did not respond to the loudspeaker, nor to the means of riot dispersal and additional means, and in the knowledge that the man was armed and dangerous, a decision was made to open fire.”

ISLAM: THE CANCER

When Muslim population remains around 1% of any given country they will be regarded as a peace-loving minority and not as a threat to anyone: United States -- Muslim 1.0% Australia -- Muslim 1.5% Canada -- Muslim 1.9% China -- Muslim 1%-2% Italy -- Muslim 1.5% Norway -- Muslim 1.8%

At 2% and 3% they begin to proselytize from other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups with major recruiting from the jails and among street gangs: Denmark -- Muslim 2% Germany -- Muslim 3.7% United Kingdom -- Muslim 2.7% Spain -- Muslim 4% Thailand -- Muslim 4.6%

From 5% on they exercise an inordinate influence in proportion to their percentage of the population.They will push for the introduction of halal (clean by Islamic standards) food, thereby securing food preparation jobs for Muslims. They will increase pressure on supermarket chains to feature it on their shelves -- along with threats for failure to comply. At this point, they will work to get the ruling government to allow them to rule themselves under Sharia, the Islamic Law. France -- Muslim 8% Philippines -- Muslim 5% Sweden -- Muslim 5% Switzerland -- Muslim 4.3% The Netherlands -- Muslim 5.5% Trinidad & Tobago -- Muslim 5.8%

When Muslims reach 10% of the population, they will increase lawlessness as a means of complaint about their conditions (Paris -- car-burnings) . Any non-Muslim action that offends Islam will result in uprisings and threats (Amsterdam -- Mohammad cartoons). Guyana -- Muslim 10% India -- Muslim 13.4% Israel -- Muslim 16% Kenya -- Muslim 10% Russia -- Muslim 10-15%

After reaching 20% expect hair-trigger rioting, jihad militia formations, sporadic killings and church and synagogue burning: Ethiopia -- Muslim 32.8%

At 40% you will find widespread massacres, chronic terror attacks and ongoing militia warfare: Bosnia -- Muslim 40% Chad -- Muslim 53.1% Lebanon -- Muslim 59.7%

From 60% you may expect unfettered persecution of non-believers and other religions, sporadic ethnic cleansing (genocide), use of Sharia Law as a weapon and Jizya, the tax placed on infidels: Albania -- Muslim 70% Malaysia -- Muslim 60.4% Qatar -- Muslim 77.5% Sudan -- Muslim 70%

After 80% expect State run ethnic cleansing and genocide: Bangladesh -- Muslim 83% Egypt -- Muslim 90% Gaza -- Muslim 98.7% Iran -- Muslim 98% Iraq -- Muslim 97% Jordan -- Muslim 92% Morocco -- Muslim 98.7% Pakistan -- Muslim 97% Palestine -- Muslim 99% Syria -- Muslim 90% Tajikistan -- Muslim 90% Turkey -- Muslim 99.8% 100% will usher in the peace of "Dar-es-Salaam" -- the Islamic House of Peace -- there's supposed to be peace because everybody is a Muslim: Afghanistan -- Muslim 100% Saudi Arabia -- Muslim 100% Somalia -- Muslim 100% Yemen -- Muslim 99.9%
*****

To visit the web page yourself, go to the URL below, then scroll down the page to the heading, Percentage of Muslims and the influence on society.
http://tinyurl.com/yz67v65

How the West Rejuvenated Pan-Islamism and the Global Jihad

Posted: 23 Dec 2009 07:27 PM PST

The seeming suddenness with which Islamic terrorism went from a problem happening "out there" in the hinterlands to a problem happening across the street can be credited as much to the Islamists themselves, as to their enablers. What the backwardness of the Muslim world and the collapse of its empires of conquered regions into colonies themselves, ruled over by European powers achieved to break down Pan-Islamism, seemingly for good, was swiftly undone. And it was undone by the fact that virtually every major power in the 20th century fostered Pan-Islamism as a tool against its enemies.

Certainly the worst example of this phenomenon was the Cold War during which the US and the USSR helped create modern Islamic terrorism, by alternately training, arming and turning Muslim guerrillas and terrorists into weapons against each other. While the USSR helped create the modern Middle Eastern terrorist, the US helped create the Asian Muslim terrorist. And together, from the PLO to the Mujadeen, from Al Queda to the PFLP, from the Madrassas to the Patrice Lumumba Peoples’ Friendship University, the beast grew and swelled to fill a vacuum that the end of the Cold War created.

And as the modern Muslim terrorist was created out of the Cold War, so were the two major arguments used by conservative and liberal Westerners for supporting or tolerating Islamic terrorism. The Soviet Union crafted the core argument used by liberals who defend the sort of headchopping Islamist barbarians who would be happy enough to nail them to a wall simply for not having a beard, when it differentiated between "ancient" Pan-Islamism as a tool of religious repression and "modern" Pan-Islamism as a means by which oppressed people revolt against imperialist tyranny.

To understand just how far back this goes, consider this defense of Pan-Islamism by the Chairman of the Communist Party of Indonesia in 1922.

But now one must first understand what the word Pan-Islamism really means. Once, it had a historical significance and meant that Islam must conquer the whole world, sword in hand, and that this must take place under the leadership of the Caliph, and the Caliph must be of Arabian origin. About 400 years after the death of Mohammed the Muslims split into three great states and thus the Holy War lost its significance for the entire Muslim world...

So Pan-Islamism no longer has its original meaning, but now has in practice an entirely different meaning. Today, Pan-Islamism signifies the national liberation struggle, because for the Muslims Islam is everything: not only religion, but also the state, the economy, food, and everything else. And so Pan-Islamism now means the brotherhood of all Muslim peoples, and the liberation struggle not only of the Arab but also of the Indian, the Javanese and all the oppressed Muslim peoples. This brotherhood means the practical liberation struggle not only against Dutch but also against English, French and Italian capitalism, therefore against world capitalism as a whole. That is what Pan-Islamism now means in Indonesia among the oppressed colonial peoples, according to their secret propaganda – the liberation struggle against the different imperialist powers of the world.

This is a new task for us. Just as we want to support the national struggle, we also want to support the liberation struggle of the very combative, very active 250 million Muslims living under the imperialist powers. Therefore I ask once again: Should we support Pan-Islamism, in this sense?


The speech in question may date back to 1922 but its sentiments are very modern and commonplace among liberals in the West today. Their view is that Islamism is a people's liberation struggle against Western imperialism and capitalism because it serves as a common bridge between Islam and the Left today in 2009, just as it did then in 1922.

This reinterpretation of Islamism as an expression of economic and political discontent today tends to be described under labels such as resistance to Globalization or to corrupt Western "puppet regimes", but it is in fact a carbon copy of the Soviet approach to Pan-Islamism. This ideological approach enables the left to co-opt Islam in the struggle against Western hegemony. Meanwhile Islamists have long since learned to put forward economic and political grievances in order to make common cause with the left.


Meanwhile on the right, the American approach to Islam, as exemplified by the Green Belt strategy or the current War on Terror (but not on Islam) is that Muslims were potentially valuable allies whose religion would help create common ground against Communism and other evils. Disastrous incarnations of this approach included Carter's backing for the Ayatollah Khomeni that resulted in the totalitarian Shiite Iran we know today and America's longstanding with the Saudi royal family, which has exported Sunni terrorism almost as assiduously as its oil.

Essentially both the United States and the Soviet Union made the strategic assessment that Muslims would serve as valuable strategic allies, particularly against each other's allied regimes in the Third World. And it certainly worked to a degree. Russian influence over the Middle East at one point seemed poised on the verge of turning the entire region red. Meanwhile America's ties to Asian Muslims helped defeat the USSR in Afghanistan, checkmated Russian allies such as India, by cultivating Pakistan and Indonesia, while helping the latter commit genocide against Christians in East Timor. (The man who helped shield the Indonesian regime, Dennis C. Blair is currently serving as Barack Hussein Obama's Director of National Intelligence.)

The problem is that while the US and the USSR have both insisted on seeing Muslim terrorists as tools against each other-- they have both become targets.

Russia is currently fighting off an insurgency in Chechnya with casualties that make Vietnam seem like a field hockey outing, and the war has moved beyond Chechnya and is likely to eventually turn into a much larger uprising. Meanwhile Muslims are projected to form a majority of Russia by 2050. None of this has discouraged the affinity of the Russian government for Islam, as it continues to believe that its government controlled mosques can continue safely directing Islamic terrorism at the West, without being harmed by it. But while Russia's government controlled Imams preach Jihad against the West, the actual terrorist attacks by Muslims in the region are aimed at Russia itself. And while Russia continues to supply Muslim regimes and their associated terrorist groups with everything from rifles to nuclear technology, the odds are just as good of those weapons being used against them.

Meanwhile the United States failed to treat either the original World Trade Center bombing or the USS Cole attack as a wake up call to the threat of Islamic terrorism. It took the unavoidable reality of a grand attack on the Towers, the Pentagon and the White House to do that. But waking up to a problem and understanding the solution are two different things, as the United States has demonstrated by pursuing a hazy approach that walks somewhere between domestic and international appeasement, with healthy doses of unloading the White Man's Democratic Burden on countries where democracy means putting the Islamists in charge. In the process we have racked up a mixed record of wins and losses. We heavily battered Al Queda and frightened a number of Muslim countries, most notably Libya's Khaddafi and Musharraf's Pakistan out of their wits. On the other hand we helped Muslim Brotherhood front groups such as CAIR exercise even more influence at home and every American by now has been inculcated with the knowledge that Islam is a wonderful religion of peace. Additionally there is no telling how many of the billions in foreign aid, aid grants and reconstruction wound up in the pockets of terrorists.

Even with the Cold War over and with both countries facing large scale terrorist conflicts and demographic threats, both Russia and the United States have continued to fight Islamism with their left hand, while feeding it crackers with their right.

But while the Cold War helped create the modern Muslim terrorist, the coddling of Pan-Islamism vastly predates it. I said at the beginning of this essay that virtually every major power in the 20th century coddled and promoted Pan-Islamism as a tool against its enemies, and that is exactly the shocking but unfortunate truth of it.

Early in the 20th century Germany was studying Islam in order to plan a Muslim uprising in India. Germany would spend the next half century trying to co-opt Islam into a weapon against its enemies, with mixed results. But nevertheless by WW2, there were Muslim SS divisions in Europe that prayed to Mecca and German propaganda broadcast to the region had inspired the Ayatollah Khomeni and the Muslim Brotherhood, which would take organizational tips from Nazism, and ultimately give birth to everything from Al Queda to Hamas to CAIR.

But Japan, which had devised an entire global strategy based on fostering Fifth Columns, took it a good deal further with an aggressive outreach campaign to Muslims in India, Turkey and Central Asia, extensive studies of Islam and the rebranding of its own war as a "Holy War" or "Jihad". While generally hostile to Christianity as a form of Western Imperialism, Imperial Japan threw open the doors for Islam early on, recognizing the religion and promoting a new non-Western view of Islam as a religion that emphasized love, rather than the sword. Japanese agent converted to Islam and tried to promote a Pan-Asiatic form of Islamism. By no particular coincidence, the same factions that pushed for war, also focused on allying with Islam. And Japan's most prominent researcher of Islam and the first translator of the Koran into Japanese, was also one of its most notorious war criminals.

While Germany and Japan may have seemed like unlikely suspects when it comes to promoting Pan-Islamism, they were probably no more so than Communist Russia or the United States of America. Yet they are far from alone on the list. Most European countries have courted Islamism at one time or another, But these days there are few countries that have not. Any country with a sizable or even tiny Muslim minority of guest workers pays its homage, even the Israeli Foreign Ministry which hosts papers praising the great contributions of Islamic culture to the world. And as Islam becomes more of a global problem even in countries where it was never resident, more countries in turn begin pandering to the Islamist worldview out of fear.


While Muslim terrorism in the West certainly did not begin in 2001, until that point American and European security agencies tended to view Muslim terrorist groups as passerby who used their countries to raise funds and buy weapons for Jihad, but not as active domestic threats. By now America and Europe have long since stopped being mere hubs, places where money was raised or obtained through organized crime, as locations to buy guns and transport drugs-- but as big red X's targeted by Islamists, but the attitude toward them has not changed altogether. In many cases Muslims are still seen as assets, rather than threats, and the War on Terror with its artificial division of Muslims into a moderate majority and extremist minority has only further driven Western law enforcement to try and make some cause with Islamists in order to counter the "extremists" among them.

This attitude is a defeatist one, but it is hopelessly embedded in the anti-terror blueprint that dates back to the old Hearts and Minds strategy of trying to defeat an insurgency by winning over the general population... an approach that is not limited its application to the streets of Basra and Kabul, but the streets of Detroit and Londonistan as well. And the result is that Islamist terrorism has empowered Islamists even more, as they find themselves being "recruited" and paid what amounts to protection money to keep terrorists at bay. And in doing so the West continues the long tragic tradition of pandering to Islamism, a tradition that in the 20th century rejuvenated Pan-Islamism and the Global Jihad.

Do We Only Need More 'Security Measures' or More 'Common Sense?'

Tawfik Hamid - Dec 29, 2009
TawfikHamid.com

[Editor's Note: We want to call your attention to this "ABC's Test for Radical Islam" which Tawfik Hamid has put together. It's rather revealing!]

From - http://www.tawfikhamid.com/?page_id=39

A - Apostates killing
B - Beating women and stoning women to death for adultery
C - Calling Jews pigs and monkeys.
D - Declaring war on Non Muslims to spread Islam after offering Non Muslims three options - subjugate to Islam, pay Jizia (a humiliating tax), or be killed.
E - Enslavement of Other Human Beings.
F - Fighting and killing Jews before the "End of Days".
G - Gay killing.
- - -
On Christmas day, a man identified as a young wealthy elite Nigerian Muslim (Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab), with possible links to Islamic Radical groups, set off an explosive device in a failed terrorist attack on a Northwest Airlines plane as it was landing in Detroit, Michigan, federal officials said.

The White House called the act an attempted act of terror. If the mission of this man had succeeded more than 270 people on board would have been killed and both tourism and airline industries in US could have been seriously affected.

It is vital to emphasize that it was just mostly luck that prevented the explosion. Otherwise Christmas day in the US would have turned into a disaster.

The profile of Abdulmutallab adds another piece of evidence to support the view that lack of education and poverty are not the main cause of terrorism as some suggests. Abdulmutallab is from a wealthy family and is highly educated which fits with the pattern of many other Islamic Jihadists.

The question that we need to address is, do we only need more security measures or do we predominantly need more logic and more common sense in addressing the phenomenon of Islamic Radicalism?

It will be erroneous if we could not see this terror attempt in the context of the other recent terror plots such as Fort Hood massacre and the increasing home grown Islamic Radicalism in the US. Inability to see these atrocities linked together by a common ideological thread is like failure to identify the underlying disease that causes the patient's symptoms. In such a situation, treatment would be incorrectly directed to treat the symptoms rather than to treat the underlying disorder or the true cause of the problem. The same can happen if we only focused on treating terrorism and ignore treating the underlying factor, namely the ideology behind Radical Islam. Failure to address this ideological component and consequently failure to treat it effectively is disastrous.

Addressing the contribution of the religious ideology is crucial, as if Al-Qaeda adopted a new approach to attack Metro passengers, cinemas, sport stadiums and other big gathering areas in USA, it would be very difficult and extremely inconvenient to do a security check for every individual at these places.

If our only approach to terrorism is to increase security measures for individuals, the terrorists can in fact paralyze our life if they shifted their target from attacking airplanes to attacking the formerly mentioned places.

Our policy should move from only symptomatic treatment of the problem to include defeating the ideology behind it. It is vital in this situation to develop a complete comprehensive strategy to treat the cause of the problem at the psycho- behavioral and ideological levels rather than only working at the security front.

This is particularly significant when we realize that the phenomenon of Islamic Radicalism is using several fronts both tactically and geographically. At the tactical level terrorists planed to attack airplanes, buildings and shopping moles. At the geographical front new fronts for terror include Yemen and possibly Somalia. Defeating Al-Qaeda at the military level in Afghanistan will not end the problem as new fronts for terror will develop as long as the radical ideology exists. On the contrary, defeating Islamism at the ideological level can add a needed and fundamental component to the current antiterrorism approach.

CNN quoted President Obama as saying that America would continue to "keep up the pressure on those who would attack our country," asserting that the US is doing everything in its power to stop terror. This statement raises an important issue. If all previous US efforts intended to defeat terror, including expenditures of billions of dollars, have failed into today to eradicate this problem, then America MUST adopt new approaches and strategies. Previous measures, including President Obama's outreach to the Muslim world, were not very successful. This does not mean that these approaches must be stopped but significant improvement for their quality is needed.

In short, using military and security approaches to defeat terror without addressing the ideology behind it is not sufficient. We certainly need to improve our security measures and technology to protect civilians, however, we also need more 'common sense' to see the common factor or the Ideology behind terrorism and treat it.

PILAR RAHOLA: SPANISH, BUT SMART

Pilar Rahola is a Spanish politician, journalist and activist. She is a passionate defender of the United States and Israel and an indefatigable fighter against anti-Semitism. All these despite being ideologically from the left. Her articles are published in Spain and throughout some of the most important newspapers in Latin America. She is the recipient of major awards by Jewish organizations.

Why don’t we see demonstrations against Islamic dictatorships in London, Paris, Barcelona? Or demonstrations against the Burmese dictatorship? Why aren’t there demonstrations against the enslavement of millions of women who live without any legal protection? Why aren’t there demonstrations against the use of children as human bombs where there is conflict with Islam? Why has there been no leadership in support of the victims of Islamic dictatorship in Sudan? Why is there never any outrage against the acts of terrorism committed against Israel? Why is there no outcry by the European left against Islamic fanaticism? Why don’t they defend Israel’s right to exist? Why confuse support of the Palestinian cause with the defense of Palestinian terrorism? An finally, the million dollar question:Why is the left in Europe and around the world obsessed with the two most solid democracies, the United States and Israel, and not with the worst dictatorships on the planet? The two most solid democracies, who have suffered the bloodiest attacks of terrorism, and the left doesn’t care.

And then, to the concept of freedom. In every pro Palestinian European forum I hear the left yelling with fervor: “We want freedom for the people!” Not true. They are never concerned with freedom for the people of Syria or Yemen or Iran or Sudan, or other such nations. And they are never preoccupied when Hammas destroys freedom for the Palestinians. They are only concerned with using the concept of Palestinian freedom as a weapon against Israeli freedom. The resulting consequence of these ideological pathologies is the manipulation of the press.

The international press does major damage when reporting on the question of the Israeli-Palestinian issue. On this topic they don’t inform, they propagandize. When reporting about Israel the majority of journalists forget the reporter code of ethics. And so, any Israeli act of self-defense becomes a massacre, and any confrontation, genocide. So many stupid things have been written about Israel, that there aren’t any accusations left to level against her. At the same time, this press never discusses Syrian and Iranian interference in propagating violence against Israel; the indoctrination of children and the corruption of the Palestinians. And when reporting about victims, every Palestinian casualty is reported as tragedy and every Israeli victim is camouflaged, hidden or reported about with disdain.

And let me add on the topic of the Spanish left. Many are the examples that illustrate the anti-Americanism and anti-Israeli sentiments that define the Spanish left. For example, one of the leftist parties in Spain has just expelled one of its members for creating a pro-Israel website. I quote from the expulsion document: “Our friends are the people of Iran, Libya and Venezuela, oppressed by imperialism, and not a Nazi state like Israel.”

In another example, the socialist mayor of Campozuelos changed Shoah Day, commemorating the victims of the Holocaust, with Palestinian Nabka Day, which mourns the establishment of the State of Israel, thus showing contempt for the six million European Jews murdered in the Holocaust. Or in my native city of Barcelona, the city council decided to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the creation of the State of Israel, by having a week of solidarity with the Palestinian people. Thus, they invited Leila Khaled, a noted terrorist from the 70’s and current leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a terrorist organization so described by the European Union, which promotes the use of bombs against Israel. And so on and so on.

This politically correct way of thinking has even polluted the speeches of president Zapatero. His foreign policy falls within the lunatic left, and on issues of the Middle East he is unequivocally pro Arab. I can assure you that in private, Zapatero places on Israel the blame for the conflict in the Middle East, and the policies of foreign minister Moratinos reflect this. The fact that Zapatero chose to wear a kafiah in the midst of the Lebanon conflict is no coincidence; it’s a symbol.

Spain has suffered the worst terrorist attack in Europe and it is in the crosshairs of every Islamic terrorist organization. As I wrote before, they kill us will cell phones hooked to satellites connected to the Middle Ages. An yet the Spanish left is the most anti Israeli in the world.

And then it says it is anti Israeli because of solidarity. This is the madness I want to denounce in this conference.

Conclusion:

I am not Jewish. Ideologically I am left and by profession a journalist. Why am I not as anti Israeli as my colleagues? Because as a non-Jew I have the historical responsibility to fight against Jewish hatred and currently against the hatred for their historic homeland, Israel. To fight against anti-Semitism is not the duty of the Jews, it is the duty of the non-Jews.

As a journalist it is my duty to search for the truth beyond prejudice, lies and manipulations. The truth about Israel is not told. As a person from the left who loves progress, I am obligated to defend liberty, culture, civic education for children, coexistence and the laws that the Tablets of the Covenant made into universal principles. Principles that Islamic fundamentalism systematically destroys. That is to say that as a non-Jew, journalist and lefty I have a triple moral duty with Israel, because if Israel is destroyed, liberty, modernity and culture will be destroyed too.

The struggle of Israel, even if the world doesn’t want to accept it, is the struggle of the world.

TERRORISTS: YOUR MONEY SUBSIDIZES CELEBRATION BY PA

Abbas and PA turn latest terrorist murderers
into Palestinian national heroes

by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook

Rabbi Meir Avshalom Hai -- a 45-year old Israeli and father of seven children - was killed in a drive-by shooting last Thursday. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, part of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement, took responsibility for the killing. On Friday night, Israeli forces located and killed three of the terrorists involved in the attack. The fourth surrendered to the PA police.

The response of the PA has been unequivocal support and backing for the terrorists. Since Friday, the leadership of the PA, the heads of Fatah, the heads of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades and the PA-controlled media have continuously portrayed the killers as Palestinian heroes and Shahids -- holy Martyrs -- while describing Israel's killing of the three terrorists as "murder in cold blood" and "assassination."

PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas declared the killers "Shahids" (holy Martyrs) and sent his personal emissary to visit the families:

"Secretary General of the Presidents Bureau, Tayeb Abd Al-Rahim, conveyed condolences on behalf of President Mahmoud Abbas to the residents of Nablus and to the families of the three Shahids [Martyrs] for the Martyrdom of their sons, who were assassinated by Israeli occupation forces yesterday morning. He conveyed to the fighting families letters of condolences from the President [Abbas] and updated them as to [Abbas's] decision to declare them as Shahids [Martyrs] of the Palestinian revolution..."

Tayeb Abd Al-Rahim: "Without doubt, what the [Israeli] occupation authorities have carried out is a wild and barbaric act and a deliberate, malicious assassination in cold blood."

[PA TV (Fatah) News, Dec. 27, 2009]

PA Prime Minster Salam Fayyad went even further, personally visiting the families of the terrorists along with other senior PA officials.

"Prime Minister visits Nablus and conveys condolences to the families of the Shahids (Martyrs). Prime Minister Dr. Salam Fayyad today visited the city of Nablus in the wake of the Israeli military operation, and presented condolences to the families of the three Martyrs who were murdered by the occupation forces.
Dr. Fayyad was accompanied by Internal Affairs Minister Dr. Said Abu Ali, leaders of the security agencies, and Police Director-General Major General Hazem Atallah, and they visited the house of mourning, which was held in the Trade Unions compound in the city... The Prime Minister condemned the Israeli military operation in the city."

[WAFA news agency, Dec. 26, 2009]

The Fatah movement is glorifying the terrorists:

"Mahmoud Al-Aloul, member of the Fatah Central Committee, said that the occupation murdered these three young men as well as another three in Gaza, in cold blood. He described them as '[military] commanders, brave heroes, and fighters.'"

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Dec. 27, 2009]

PA TV focused on the Fatah poster (above), signed with condolences of PA Chairman Abbas, honoring the three terrorists. The following is the text on the poster with pictures of the terrorists:

"With honor and admiration to those who are more honored than all of us." [Reference to supreme honor of Shahids - Martyrs in Islam]

"The Palestine Liberation Organization, Fatah, accompanies to their wedding:"
[Reference to Islamic belief that Martyrs marry virgins in Paradise]


The Martyr, Commander, Hero: Rassan Abu Serah
The Martyr, Commander, Hero: Ra'ed Al Aschregi
The Martyr, Commander, Hero: Anan Sobh

The Director General of the Presidency expresses condolences to the Nablus Martyrs - in the name of the President [Abbas]

It's important to note that in condemning Israel's killing of the terrorists, the PA is not denying that those killed were responsible for the murder of Rabbi Hai:

"The Shahid Imad Mughniyeh group [named after Hezbollah terrorist] of the [Fatah's] Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades has denounced the [Israeli] crime of the assassination in Nablus, killing three Fatah activists, including Anan Sobh, who, according to the [Fatah's Al-Aqsa] Brigades, planned the Tulkarem operation which led to the death of the settler in a shooting operation."

[Ma'an News Agency, Dec. 26, 2009]

In the official announcement right after the terror attack, Fatah took responsibility, while calling the killers "Jihad Fighters" and warning of more "quality operations:"

"A group announcing that it belonged to the Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claimed responsibility for the shooting... 'The Jihad Fighters confirmed that the person who was in the car had taken a direct hit, and praise to Allah - the Jihad Fighters escaped unharmed...' The announcement said that 'this action is part of a series of operations; you can expect more quality operations [terror attacks] from us.'"

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Dec. 25, 2009]

After the terrorists were killed the Fatah changed from threatening more "quality operations" to warning that it would avenge the killing of the "Jihad Fighters:"

Headline: "The occupation murders three residents of Nablus in cold blood... the President's [Abbas's] Bureau denounces the Israeli crime..."

"The [Fatah's] Al-Aqsa Brigades announced: 'By the act of murdering an elite group of our Jihad Fighters in Nablus and in Gaza, the occupation is opening for itself the gates of Hell.' They threatened that 'our activists will not stand idly by while the blood of Jihad Fighters is spilled... The enemy will hear nothing from us but the language of blood and fire, and our Shahada [Martyrdom] Seekers will go out to [the enemy] from every place in order to turn his days into nights, and he will come to regret his crime. We shall not sleep over the blood of our Jihad Fighters, and our response will be swift... We affirm the continuation of our choice of blood and Martyrdom. The only choice, in the face of the repeated attacks against our people in the towns and villages and refugee camps of the occupied homeland. We shall turn the spilled blood of the Martyrs and the commanders into a torch of fury that will burn the forces of evil and aggression.''

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Dec. 27, 2009]

*CHANGE IS INDEED TAKING OVER THE WORLD*

MUBARAK RECENTLY MADE A QUICK TRIP TO THE SAUDI KING. HE RARELY LEAVES HIS COUNTRY, EGYPT.

THE BIG CHEESE OF LEBANON RECENTLY WAS FETED BY SYRIA.

THE PRIME MINISTER OF TURKEY TOGETHER WITH 10 OF HIS CABINET MINISTERS VISITED SYRIA.

HOW IS ALL OF THE ABOVE CONNECTED?

FIRST, WE MUST UNDERSTAND THAT THEIR IS A CABAL BETWEEN VENEZUELA, NORTH KOREA, SYRIA AND IRAN. SECOND, WE MUST UNDERSTAND THAT MUBARAK MADE HIS EMERGENCY TRIP ONLY A DAY AFTER AFTER MEETING WITH AN IMPORTANT IRANIAN DIGNITARY. IS THE MESSAGE BECOMING CLEARER?

THE USA HAS LARGELY ABDICATED IT'S WORLD LEADERSHIP BY SCUTTLING IT'S FRIENDS SUCH AS THE Czech Republic, POLAND, HONDURAS AND ISRAEL. THE USA IS NOW VIEWED AS A GREAT POWER UNABLE OR UNWILLING TO HELP IT'S FRIENDS OR EVEN POTENTIAL FRIENDS LIKE THE IRANIAN PEOPLE.

IT NOW APPEARS THAT IRAN MAY BE COBBLING TOGETHER A UNITED FRONT WITH EGYPT, TURKEY, SAUDI ARABIA AND POSSIBLY THE REST OF THE ARAB NATIONS.

NOTICE: THEY ARE ALL MUSLIM COUNTRIES.

THE USA IS NOW BEING OUTFLANKED BY THE HATERS. OUR POLITICAL CORRECTNESS TOGETHER WITH THAT OF EUROPE'S HAS EMASCULATED THE WEST. THE BIG WINNERS OF THIS PROCESS SIT IN TEHRAN, MOSCOW AND BEIJING. THE MIGHTY POWER OF THE USA AND ITS ALLIES MEANS NOTHING UNLESS WE USE IT. ALREADY, WE HAVE LARGE SEGMENTS OF OUR POPULATIONS UNWILLING TO FIGHT IN FOREIGN LANDS AS THEY WISH TO WAIT UNTIL WE MUST FIGHT TO SAVE OUR VERY HOMES.

USA AND EUROPE REWARD TERRORISM

A Rewards Hamas and Fatah Terrorists for Long Jail Terms
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu PA Rewards Hamas Terrorists

The Palestinian Authority revealed on Sunday that it rewards both Hamas and Fatah terrorists with higher “salaries” for committing more serious terrorist attacks that are followed by convictions for long-term sentences in Israeli prison.

Most of the PA’s funds come from European Union countries, and the United States earlier this month, for the first time ever, included the PA in its foreign aid package with a $500 million grant. Twenty percent of the American money is earmarked for training the PA’s new army, under the guidance of American army General Keith Dayton.

A condition of the aid is that the PA recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept previous agreements with Israel, including a halt to anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist incitement.

The PA Minister for Prisoners told the Bethlehem-based Ma'an news agency Sunday that it pays out three million shekels ($790,000) a month for monthly stipends for prisoners and their families. The minister specifically denied a complaint that Hamas terrorists were being cut off from receiving fund.

The monthly payment amount to 1,000 shekels ($260) but rises to four times that amount, more than $1,000, to terrorists who have served more than 25 years in jail for more serious attacks on Israelis.

In addition, terrorists who are released by Israel receive another 1,200-2,000 shekels ($316-$525) a month for half a year if they were in prison for at least five years. The total payments for their time in jail and release amount to as much $10,000.

DESTRUCTION: WHO LISTENS TO THE TRUTH?

A Voice from Hebron

Gary M. Cooperberg - Dec 24, 2009
Bible Light International

It must be stated, clearly and unequivocally, that the blackmail of the Jewish State via Hamas kidnaping a Jewish soldier is a direct result of Israel's policy to negotiate with those who seek our destruction rather than destroy and remove them. In truth we are only negotiating with ourselves. The Arabs have no intention to abandon their goal to destroy Israel under any circumstances. Every time we make a "gesture" for peace we are hammering another nail into our national coffin.

Why do our leaders consistently talk about giving away parts of our country to our enemies? When Sharon gave away Gaza to the PLO he had no illusions that peace would result. He stated from the outset that not one Jew would remain in Gaza. Is that a vision of peace? And, even worse than that, he ordered all Jewish graves dug up and the remains removed for reburial outside of Gaza. Is that a vision of peace? Our leaders know very well who our alleged "peace partners" really are, yet they continue to pretend that we are engaged in a peace process. Our enemies are at war with us and we continue to make peace. Clearly our continued existence is nothing less than miraculous.

There is no Jew who wants to see Gilad Shalit remain in captivity. Yet when demonstrators take to the streets demanding that the government accept anything our enemies demand to get him back, what they are doing is aiding our enemies! Maybe we should just surrender unconditionally to get him back. We already set the precedent to release murderers from our prisons. That precedent is what lead to our present predicament. Only a strong leadership can get us out of this mess and steer the country in the right direction. Unfortunately we have no such leadership.

In war there are no innocent civilians. Our enemies know this and demonstrate it when they deliberately attack our civilian population. Rather than recognize an act of war, our government treats each attack as if it were a criminal offense and limits its response to the attacker. Every Arab who calls himself a "Palestinian" is an enemy of the Jewish State. Yet our government recognizes them as legitimate citizens of Israel and even accepts such people as members of our Knesset! No other country in the world would behave this way.

Our enemies continue to attack us because we continue to demonstrate our weakness and unwillingness to fight for our country. Why shouldn't they attack us and kidnap our soldiers? This is how they hope to defeat us! And we are helping them.

The government of Israel has other ways to free our prisoners. Rather than accept blackmail it is we who should be offering ultimatums. We have the upper hand. We hold far more prisoners than they do. How dare we permit them to dictate demands to us! Had we genuine Jewish leaders Gilad would have been returned immediately. In any kidnaping there is a fifty fifty chance of rescuing the victim... even if the ransom is paid. We can and must make the price of keeping Gilad far more than the terrorists are willing to pay. They must know that, should any harm come to him, not only will they get all the prisoners they demanded with bullets in their heads, but that the IDF will relentlessly attack them until they are destroyed. It is high time for Israel to recognize that we are at war, and make a decision to win it once and for all.