Exclusive Video Interview: Egypt & Beyond: What's Next?

http://www.wiesenthal.com/site/pp.asp?c=lsKWLbPJLnF&b=6555125

A Simon Wiesenthal Center Exclusive Interview

Egypt & Beyond: What's Next?

February 9, 2011

In this first in a series of exclusive interviews, watch one of the world's foremost experts on Arab Affairs, Ehud Yaari, give an in-depth look into what is going on in Egypt today, Mubarak's legacy, the transfer of power, the role of the Muslim Brotherhood, next week's potential trouble spots in Iran, Libya, Jordan and more...
*Grainy Video Quality Due to Recording Live Via Skype



Support the Work of the Simon Wiesenthal Center
© Copyright 2011 Simon Wiesenthal Center 1399 South Roxbury, Los Angeles, CA 90035. (310) 553-9036
Your privacy is important to the SWC. Please review SWC's online Privacy Policy.

To prevent mailbox filters from deleting mailings from Simon Wiesenthal Center, add enewsletter@wiesenthal.com to your address book.

IS "PC" BENEFICIAL FOR AMERICAN SECURITY?

February 02, 2011

Groups slam Islam hearings as modern-day McCarthyism

http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0211/Groups_slam_Islam_hearings_as_modernday_
McCarthyism_.html

A band of civil-rights, community and faith groups called Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) a modern-day Joe McCarthy in a letter to House leaders, for his plans to single out Muslims during hearings later this month on extremism which will examine the "radicalization of Islam."

In a letter to House Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, the group Muslim Advocates, along with 50 groups that co-signed, demanded that King, the chair of the House Homeland Security committee, tone down his rhetoric and hold "fair and objective" investigations that examine "all forms of violence motivated by extremist beliefs."

"Singling out a group of Americans for government scrutiny based on their faith is divisive and wrong," the groups wrote in the letter. "These hearings will almost certainly increase widespread suspicion and mistrust of the American Muslim community and stoke anti-Muslim sentiment."

If King zeroes in on Muslims, group leaders said in the letter dated Tuesday, he'd be following in the footsteps of figures like former Sen. Joe McCarthy.

"That dark chapter in our history taught us that Congress has a solemn duty to wield its investigatory power responsibly," the letter states.

King, who's pushed terrorism investigations since the Sept. 11 attacks, has pointed to instances of violence by Muslim-Americans as a reason for looking into whether Muslim-Americans have been indoctrinated against the United States. He often cites the 2009 shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, when a Muslim- American Army major shot and killed 13 people and wounded 30 others.

But after the shooting in Arizona last month that left Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) injured and six dead, the ranking Democrat on the panel, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) called for King to expand his focus. The alleged shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, is not Muslim.

"Attacks are just as likely to come from lone-wolf extremists - like James Wenneker von Brunn, the Holocaust Memorial Museum shooter, or Jared Lee Loughner, who is charged with the tragedy in Tucson, Ariz. - as they are from Muslim extremist groups," he wrote in a Politico op-ed last month.

THE FLAMES OF HATE & DESTRUCTION ARE DOING WELL

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=206121

Date: Tuesday, February 1, 2011, 2:35 PM

Unity Coalition for Israel
Editor's Note: Tuesday February 01, 2011
JERUSALEM ONLINE
Your Link to IsraelWatch Jerusalem on Line

Esther Levens

The staff of UCI, invite you to leave a congratulatory message to our Founder and CEO, Esther Levens. Esther, along with her late husband Vrem, are being honored with the Mordechai Award, in recognition of their strong advocacy of the State of Israel, on Sunday, February 13, 2011. For ticket information, please contact Barry Rubin.
Contents: (summaries below)

1. Our World: Clueless in Washington, The Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick
2. Netanyahu Tries to Play Egyptian Military Card..., DEBKAfile, DEBKA
3. Muslim Brotherhood: Prepare Egyptians for War With Israel, The Jerusalem Post, Yaakov Lappin
4. Jordan's King Fires Cabinet Amid Protests , Associated Press, Jamal Halaby
5. Moscow Airport Bomber Identified From Caucasus, The National, Associated Press
6. Iran Could Have Nuclear Weapon by 2012, Reuters.com, Reuters
7. North Korea Has More secret Nuclear Sites - UN report, BBC News Asia-Pacific, BBC Staff Reporter

Our World: Clueless in Washington
Caroline Glick

The Jerusalem Post, February 01, 2011

Does the US fail to understand what will happen to its strategic interests in the region if the Muslim Brotherhood is the power behind the throne of the next regime?

The Egyptian multitudes on the streets of Cairo are a stunning sight. With their banners calling for freedom and an end to the reign of President Hosni Mubarak the story these images tell is a simple one as old as time.

On the one hand we have the young, dispossessed and weak protesters. And on the other we have the old, corrupt and tyrannical Mubarak...

What has most confounded Israeli officials and commentators alike has not been the strength of the anti-regime protests, but the American response to them. Outside the far Left, commentators from all major newspapers, radio and television stations have variously characterized the US response to events in Egypt as irrational, irresponsible, catastrophic, stupid, blind, treacherous, and terrifying.

They have pointed out that the Obama administration’s behavior – as well as that of many of its prominent conservative critics – is liable to have disastrous consequences for the US’s other authoritarian Arab allies, for Israel and for the US itself.

The question most Israelis are asking is why are the Americans behaving so destructively?...

http://www.uc4i.org/news/?p=6313
Netanyahu Tries to Play Egyptian Military Card...
DEBKA

DEBKAfile, February 01, 2011

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday, Jan 31 he feared Egypt could end up with a radical Islamic regime as in Iran that would "grind human rights to dust" and go against the interests all the peoples of the region share for peace and stability. "Our main care is to preserve the peace," he stressed in his first comment on the Egyptian crisis at a joint conference with visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The Israeli prime minister's words were widely interpreted as support for President Hosni Murakak, for three decades faithful defender of peace with Israel, rather than a reference to the tidal changes overtaking Egypt and potentially other authoritarian regimes in the Middle East.

He also made the gesture of allowing the first Egyptian 800 troops to enter Sinai since the military since the 1979 peace treaty demilitarized Sinai - as first disclosed by debkafile.

The troops arrived Monday, Jan. 31, to back up Egyptian special police units under attack from Hamas intruders from the Gaza Strip, who were acting on orders from the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo.

The Israeli prime minister repeated the same old mistake of leaning on the Egyptian military, in the person of the former intelligence minister - now Vice President - Omar Suleiman to sort out the Hamas threat from the Gaza Strip and Sinai.

Equally true to form, Hamas hit back Monday night by shooting two long-range Grad rockets against the towns of Netivot and Ofakim, damaging a building and leaving a number of shock victims.

For helping the dying regime, Hamas' parent, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, punished Israel from the Gaza Strip...

http://www.uc4i.org/news/?p=6314
Muslim Brotherhood: Prepare Egyptians for War With Israel
Yaakov Lappin

The Jerusalem Post, February 01, 2011

A leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt told the Arabic-language Iranian news network Al-Alam on Monday that he would like to see the Egyptian people prepare for war against Israel, according to the Hebrew-language business newspaper Calcalist.

Muhammad Ghannem reportedly told Al- Alam that the Suez Canal should be closed immediately, and that the flow of gas from Egypt to Israel should cease “in order to bring about the downfall of the Mubarak regime.” He added that “the people should be prepared for war against Israel,” saying the world should understand that “the Egyptian people are prepared for anything to get rid of this regime.”

Ghannem praised Egyptian soldiers deployed by President Hosni Mubarak to Egyptian cities, saying they “would not kill their brothers.” He added that Washington was forced to abandon plans to help Mubarak stay in power after “seeing millions head for the streets.”

http://www.uc4i.org/news/?p=6319
//////////////////////////////////
The Muslim Brotherhood is the Enemy
Posted by Frank Gaffney Jan 30th 2011

http://bigpeace.com/fgaffney/2011/01/30/the-muslim-brotherhood-is-the-enemy/

Suddenly, Washington is consumed with a question too long ignored: Can we safely do business with the Muslim Brotherhood?

The reason this question has taken on such urgency is, of course, because the Muslim Brotherhood (or MB, also known by its Arabic name, the Ikhwan) is poised to emerge as the big winner from the chaos now sweeping North Africa and increasingly likely to bring down the government of the aging Egyptian dictator, Hosni Mubarak.

In the wake of growing turmoil in Egypt, a retinue of pundits, professors and former government officials has publicly insisted that we have nothing to fear from the Ikhwan since it has eschewed violence and embraced democracy.

For example, Bruce Reidel, a controversial former CIA analyst and advisor to President Obama, posted an article entitled “Don’t Fear Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood” at the Daily Beast. In it, he declared: “The Egyptian Brotherhood renounced violence years ago, but its relative moderation has made it the target of extreme vilification by more radical Islamists. Al Qaeda’s leaders, Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri, started their political lives affiliated with the Brotherhood but both have denounced it for decades as too soft and a cat’s paw of Mubarak and America.”

Then, there was President George W. Bush’s former press spokeswoman, Dana Perino, who went so far on January 28th as to tell Fox News “…And don’t be afraid of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. This has nothing to do with religion.”

One reason we might be misperceiving the MB as no threat is because a prime source of information about such matters is the Muslim Brotherhood itself. As the Center for Security Policy’s new, best-selling Team B II report entitled, Shariah: The Threat to America found: “It is now public knowledge that nearly every major Muslim organization in the United States is actually controlled by the MB or a derivative organization. Consequently, most of the Muslim-American groups of any prominence in America are now known to be, as a matter of fact, hostile to the United States and its Constitution.”

In fact, for much of the past two decades, a number of these groups and their backers (including, notably, Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal) have cultivated extensive ties with U.S. government officials and agencies under successive administrations of both parties, academic centers, financial institutions, religious communities, partisan organizations and the media. As a result, such American entities have been subjected to intense, disciplined and sustained influence operations for decades.

Unfortunately, the relationships thus developed and the misperceptions thus fostered are today bearing poisonous fruit with respect to shaping U.S. policy towards the unfolding Egyptian drama.

A notable example is the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). A federal judge in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation trial – which successfully prosecuted the nation’s largest terrorism financing conspiracy – found that CAIR was indeed a front for the Ikhwan’s Palestinian affiliate, Hamas. Nonetheless, Fox News earlier today interviewed the Executive Director of CAIR’s Chicago office, Ahmed Rehab, whom it characterized as a “Democracy Activist.”

True to form, Rehab called for the removal of Mubarak’s regime and the institution of democratic elections in Egypt. This is hardly surprising since, under present circumstances, such balloting would likely have the same result it did in Gaza a few years back: the triumph of the Muslim Brotherhood and the institution of brutally repressive theocratic rule, in accordance with the totalitarian Islamic politico-military-legal program known as shariah.

An important antidote to the seductive notions being advanced with respect to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt – and, for that matter, in Western nations like ours – by the Ikhwan’s own operatives, their useful idiots and apologists is the Team B II report. It should be considered required reading by anyone who hopes to understand, let alone to comment usefully upon, the MB’s real character and agenda.

For example, Shariah: The Threat to America provides several key insights that must be borne in mind in the current circumstances especially:

* “The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in 1928. Its express purpose was two-fold: (1) to implement shariah worldwide, and (2) to re-establish the global Islamic State (caliphate).

* “Therefore, Al Qaeda and the MB have the same objectives. They differ only in the timing and tactics involved in realizing them.

* “The Brotherhood’s creed is: ‘God is our objective; the Koran is our law; the Prophet is our leader; jihad is our way; and death for the sake of Allah is the highest of our aspirations.’”

* It is evident from the Creed, and from the Brotherhood’s history (and current activities)…that violence is an inherent part of the MB’s tactics. The MB is the root of the majority of Islamic terrorist groups in the world today.

* The Muslim Brotherhood is the ‘vanguard’ or tip-of-the-spear of the current Islamic Movement in the world. While there are other transnational organizations that share the MB’s goals (if not its tactics) – including al Qaeda, which was born out of the Brotherhood – the Ikhwan is by far the strongest and most organized. The Muslim Brotherhood is now active in over 80 countries around the world.

Of particular concern must be the purpose of the Brotherhood in the United States and other nations of the Free World:

* “…The Ikhwan’s mission in the West is sedition in the furtherance of shariah’s supremacist agenda, not peaceful assimilation and co-existence with non-Muslim populations.”

* “The Ikhwan believes that its purposes in the West are, for the moment, better advanced by the use of non-violent, stealthy techniques. In that connection, the Muslim Brotherhood seeks to establish relations with, influence and, wherever possible, penetrate: government circles in executive and legislative branches at the federal, state and local levels; the law enforcement community; intelligence agencies; the military; penal institutions; the media; think tanks and policy groups; academic institutions; non-Muslim religious communities; and other elites.

* “The Brothers engage in all of these activities and more for one reason: to subvert the targeted communities in furtherance of the MB’s primary objective – the triumph of shariah.”

In short, the Muslim Brotherhood – whether it is operating in Egypt, elsewhere in the world or here – is our enemy. Vital U.S. interests will be at risk if it succeeds in supplanting the present regime in Cairo, taking control in the process not only of the Arab world’s most populous nation but its vast, American-supplied arsenal. It is no less reckless to allow the Brotherhood’s operatives to enjoy continued access to and influence over our perceptions of their true purposes, and the policies adopted pursuant thereto.

Jordan's King Fires Cabinet Amid Protests
Jamal Halaby

Associated Press, February 01, 2011

AMMAN Jordan (AP) -- Jordan's King Abdullah II fired his government Tuesday in the wake of street protests and asked an ex-prime minister to form a new Cabinet, ordering him to launch immediate political reforms.

The dismissal follows several large protests across Jordan- inspired by similar demonstrations in Tunisia and Egypt - calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Samir Rifai, who is blamed for a rise in fuel and food prices and d political reforms...

When he ascended to the throne in 1999, King Abdullah vowed to press ahead with political reforms initiated by his late father, King Hussein. Those reforms paved the way for the first parliamentary election in 1989 after a 22-year gap, the revival of a multiparty system and the suspension of martial law in effect since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

But little has been done since. Although laws were enacted to ensure greater press freedom, journalists are still prosecuted for expressing their opinion or for comments considered slanderous of the king and the royal family.

Some gains been made in women's rights, but many say they have not gone far enough. Abdullah has pressed for stiffer penalties for perpetrators of "honor killings," but courts often hand down lenient sentences.

Still, Jordan's human rights record is generally considered a notch above that of Tunisia and Egypt. Although some critics of the king are prosecuted, they frequently are pardoned and some are even rewarded with government posts...

http://www.uc4i.org/news/?p=6318
Moscow Airport Bomber Identified From Caucasus
Associated Press

The National, January 30, 2011

MOSCOW // The suicide bomber who killed 35 people and wounded 180 at Moscow's largest airport was a 20-year-old man from the volatile southern Caucasus region, Russian investigators said Saturday.

Breaking a five-day silence over the investigation, federal investigators also said foreigners were deliberately targeted, marking an ominous new tactic in Russia's losing battle with extremism.

Islamist rebels from the Caucasus, a group of mountainous Russian provinces that are beset with an entrenched separatist insurgency, had been widely suspected in the attack at Domodedovo Airport.

Saturday's statement from federal investigators confirmed a suicide blast involving a bomb containing shrapnel. While authorities say they know the identity of the perpetrator, they suggested they still don't know who masterminded the attacks.

"Despite the fact that we know the name of the terrorist, we won't name him today ... since investigative searches are ongoing to identify and detain the organisers and accomplices of the terrorist act," the statement said....

The violence stemming from the predominantly Muslim Caucasus region originates from two bloody separatist wars in Chechnya in the past 15 years. Federal forces wiped out the large-scale resistance, driving the insurgency into the mountains and into neighbouring provinces. The rebels seek an independent Caucasus emirate that adheres to Shariah law....

http://www.uc4i.org/news/?p=6317
Iran Could Have Nuclear Weapon by 2012
Reuters

Reuters.com, January 31, 2011

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gestures while speaking in Rasht, 323 km (200 miles) northwest of Tehran January 23, 2011. REUTERS/President.ir/HandoutLONDON (Reuters) - Western powers should work on the assumption that Iran could have a nuclear weapon by next year and an Israeli intelligence assessment of 2015 could be over-optimistic, British Defence Secretary Liam Fox said on Monday.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gestures while speaking in Rasht, 323 km (200 miles) northwest of Tehran January 23, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/President.ir/Handout

But Fox, answering questions in parliament, said Dagan was "wrong to insinuate that we should always look at the more optimistic end of the spectrum" of estimates of Iran's nuclear capability.

"We know from previous experience, not least what happened in North Korea, that the international community can be caught out assuming that things are more rosy than they actually are," he said.

He did not say whether his statement was based on any intelligence assessment available to Britain, a close U.S. ally and one of six powers that made no progress in talks with Iran this month on its nuclear programme."

We should therefore be very clear that it is entirely possible that Iran may be on the 2012 end of that spectrum and act in accordance with that warning," he said...

http://www.uc4i.org/news/?p=6315
North Korea Has More secret Nuclear Sites - UN report
BBC Staff Reporter

BBC News Asia-Pacific, January 31, 2011

Yongbyon nuclear site

UN experts believe North Korea has at least one hidden nuclear site, according to leaks of a UN report.

The report relies on evidence from US scientist Siegfried Hecker who visited a secret site in November last year.

He told the UN's panel of experts that the centrifuges he saw probably came from other hidden facilities, say reports quoting unnamed diplomats.

The panel's report, which has not yet been published, was handed to the Security Council last week.

North Korean officials showed Mr Hecker, from Stanford University, an apparently fully functional uranium enrichment plant at the Yongbyon complex in November...

http://www.uc4i.org/news/?p=6316

Please support Today's News Summaries, our URGENT ACTION ALERTS, MEDIA ALERTS, and other projects with your tax-deductible donation.

We encourage you to forward our newsletters to your friends and other interested individuals and organizations/

by voices@israelunitycoalition.org

WHO IS INTERESTED IN ADVOCACY FOR THE PA?

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/141876

Published: 01/22/11, 11:22 PM / Last Update: 01/22/11, 11:14 PM

PA Continues to Glorify Arch-Terrorist Who Killed 13 Children

by David Lev

The Palestinian Authority continues to incite against Israel, using its media to broadcast calls for Israel's destruction, anti-Semitic “historical documentaries,” and glorifications of terrorists who succeeded in killing Jews. In that latter category is the ongoing promotion of Dalal Mughrabi, the female terrorist who was leader of the gang of terrorists that carried out the worst attack in Israel's history. In 1978, Dalal and a group of terrorists sailed from Lebanon to Israel and hijacked a bus on the Coastal Road, killing 37 Israelis. That act has gone down in PA history as one of the most significant in its war against Israel.

In just the past year, Palestinian Media Watch has documented dozens of reports in the PA media describing ways the Authority has glorified this arch-terrorist. Public squares, summer camps, school buildings and streets have been named for Mughrabi, and in the latest round of praise for this “martyr,” the PA, in honor of the 45th anniversary of Fatah's establishment, has produced two music videos showing her “heroism” in murdering Jews.

The videos, which have been broadcast on PA TV, were monitored by PMW, which translated them. In one of the videos, well-known PA singers praise the terrorists as "heroes... who shook the land, brought down mountains," and how "the coast was stormy with the glory of Dalal Mughrabi." The other video describes Mughrabi and her gang as having "no fear of death or the darkness of prison." Both videos show a reenactment of the massacre, with actors sailing in rubber boats, going ashore on a beach.

On March 11, 1978, after landing in Israel south of Haifa, the gang proceeded to the Coastal Road, stopping on the way to kill Gail Rubin, an American Jewish photographer who was taking photos of the sea. When they reached the highway, they opened fire on several vehicles, eventually stopping and boarding a bus. They directed the driver to continue and stopped the bus, hijacking a second one and moving the hostages from the first bus to the second one. IDF troops eventually stopped the bus and a long shooting battle ensued. Eventually the terrorists blew up the bus, killing 37 people, including 13 children, and injuring 72. Three days later, Israel began Operation Litani, the first military operation conducted by Israel against PLO terrorists in south Lebanon.

In one of the videos, singers recite “we [PLO squad] set out on patrol from Lebanon; with no fear of death or the darkness of prison.On the coast [Dalal] Mughrabi's blood was shed, the color of [red] coral on [white] lemon flowers.” In the other, the singers say “the coast was stormy with the glory of Dalal Mughrabi.On the [Israeli] coast the heroes landed, who shook the land, brought down mountains.Dalal declared the birth of the [Palestinian] Republic, the birth of the Republic.”

(IsraelNationalNews.com)
Related Links:

* ►ISA Head Diskin: Some Jerusalem Arab Areas Are De Facto PA
* ►PA Promises of Peace, Reality of Hate
* ►PA Incitement against Israel On the Rise
* ►PA Teaches Children to Fight, Not Learn
* //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////The following is an excerpt of a Marwan Barghouti's document:

Marwan Barghouti: "I address special greetings to the great Palestinian nation, initiator of revolutions and Intifadas, with a legendary history of resolve facing the worst and most abominable enemy known to humanity and modern history; the enemy which does not refrain from carrying out massacres, continuing aggression, theft of land, establishment of settlements and expanding them, and to Judaize Jerusalem - the city of cities and the jewel in the crown of the [Arab] nation - and continues with a policy of detention against the members of a defenseless people. I take this opportunity to emphasize once again what we have always said: Israel and its various governments have never made a strategic decision about peace, and the wait to achieve national independence with the approval of the Israeli government is nothing but an illusion. The national independence of nations is seized, through sacrifice, resistance, resolve, and struggle. National independence is seized; one does not wait for it. The gamble on the US will be of no benefit, because it [the US] is not the patron of peace, but rather the patron of the Israeli occupation, aggression, and settlement. In order for our people to be able to seize our national rights, the first step must be an end to the destructive, shameful and wretched split [between Fatah and Hamas]... We must continue on the path of resistance, and act for further achievements and recognition for the establishment of the state. We must continue to act to isolate Israel further on the international, official, and popular level, and on all levels and in all spheres, as well as continuing the campaign to boycott all Israeli goods, not limiting it to settlement goods exclusively."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 24, 2011]

A SUPERB SERMON

Subject: powerful, frightening and well expressed

VERY VERY LONG BUT IT IS A MUST READ... WE ARE SLEEPING AND WE MUST WAKE UP....


This sermon, delivered by Rabbi Lewis a couple of weeks ago is exceptional - prophetic -- insightful. It's well worth reading.

First Day of Rosh Hashanah 2010

Sermon delivered by Rabbi Schlomo Lewis of Atlanta

I thought long and I thought hard on whether to deliver the sermon I am about to share. We all wish to bounce happily out of shul on the High Holidays, filled with warm fuzzies, ready to gobble up our brisket, our honey cakes and our kugel. We want to be shaken and stirred – but not too much. We want to be guilt-schlepped – but not too much. We want to be provoked but not too much. We want to be transformed but not too much.

I get it, but as a rabbi I have a compelling obligation, a responsibility to
articulate what is in my heart and what I passionately believe must be said
and must be heard. And so, I am guided not by what is easy to say but by
what is painful to express. I am guided not by the frivolous but by the
serious. I am guided not by delicacy but by urgency.

We are at war. We are at war with an enemy as savage, as voracious, as
heartless as the Nazis but one wouldn’t know it from our behavior. During
WWII we didn’t refer to storm troopers as freedom fighters. We didn’t call
the Gestapo, militants. We didn’t see the attacks on our Merchant Marine
as acts by rogue sailors. We did not justify the Nazis rise to power as our
fault. We did not grovel before the Nazis, thumping our hearts and
confessing to abusing and mistreating and humiliating the German people.
We did not apologize for Dresden, nor for The Battle of the Bulge, nor for El
Alamein, nor for D-Day.

Evil – ultimate, irreconcilable, evil threatened us and Roosevelt and Churchill had moral clarity and an exquisite understanding of what was at stake. It was not just the Sudetenland, not just Tubruk, not just Vienna, not just Casablanca. It was the entire planet. Read history and be shocked at how frighteningly close Hitler came to creating a Pax Germana on every continent.

Not all Germans were Nazis – most were decent, most were revolted by the Third Reich, most were good citizens hoisting a beer, earning a living and tucking in their children at night. But, too many looked away, too many cried out in lame defense – I didn’t know.” Too many were silent. Guilt absolutely falls upon those who committed the atrocities, but responsibility and guilt falls upon those who did nothing as well. Fault was not just with the goose steppers but with those who pulled the curtains shut, said and did nothing.

In WWII we won because we got it. We understood who the enemy was and we knew that the end had to be unconditional and absolute. We did not stumble around worrying about offending the Nazis. We did not measure every word so as not to upset our foe. We built planes and tanks and battleships and went to war to win….. to rid the world of malevolence.

We are at war… yet too many stubbornly and foolishly don’t put the pieces together and refuse to identify the evil doers. We are circumspect and disgracefully politically correct.

Let me mince no words in saying that from Fort Hood to Bali, from Times Square to London, from Madrid to Mumbai, from 9/11 to Gaza, the murderers, the barbarians are radical Islamists.

To camouflage their identity is sedition. To excuse their deeds is contemptible. To mask their intentions is unconscionable.

A few years ago I visited Lithuania on a Jewish genealogical tour. It was a stunning journey and a very personal, spiritual pilgrimage. When we visited Kovno we davened Maariv at the only remaining shul in the city. Before the war there were thirty-seven shuls for 38,000 Jews. Now only one, a shrinking, gray congregation. We made minyon for the handful of aged worshippers in the Choral Synagogue, a once majestic, jewel in Kovno.

After my return home I visited Cherry Hill for Shabbos. At the oneg an elderly family friend, Joe Magun, came over to me.

“Shalom,” he said. “Your abba told me you just came back from Lithuania.”

“Yes,” I replied. “It was quite a powerful experience.” “Did you visit the Choral Synagogue in Kovno? The one with the big arch in the courtyard?”

“Yes, I did. In fact, we helped them make minyon.” His eyes opened wide in joy at our shared memory. For a moment he gazed into the distance and then, he returned. “Shalom, I grew up only a few feet away from the arch. The Choral Synagogue was where I davened as a child.”

He paused for a moment and once again was lost in the past. His smile faded. Pain filled his wrinkled face. “I remember one Shabbos in 1938 when Vladimir Jabotinsky came to the shul” (Jabotinsky was Menachim Begin’s mentor – he was a fiery orator, an unflinching Zionist radical, whose politics were to the far right.) Joe continued “When Jabotinsky came, he
delivered the drash on Shabbos morning and I can still hear his words burning in my ears. He climbed up to the shtender, stared at us from the bima, glared at us with eyes full of fire and cried out. ‘EHR KUMT. YIDN FARLAWST AYER SHTETL – He’s coming. Jews abandon your city.’ ”

We thought we were safe in Lithuania from the Nazis, from Hitler. We had lived there, thrived for a thousand years but Jabotinsky was right -- his warning prophetic. We got out but most did not.”

We are not in Lithuania. It is not the 1930s. There is no Luftwaffe overhead. No U-boats off the coast of long Island. No Panzer divisions on our borders. But make no mistake; we are under attack – our values, our tolerance, our freedom, our virtue, our land.

Now before some folks roll their eyes and glance at their watches let me state emphatically, unmistakably – I have no pathology of hate, nor am I a manic Paul Revere, galloping through the countryside. I am not a pessimist, nor prone to panic attacks. I am a lover of humanity, all humanity. Whether they worship in a synagogue, a church, a mosque, a temple or don’t worship at all. I have no bone of bigotry in my body, but what I do have is hatred for those who hate, intolerance for those who are intolerant, and a guiltless, unstoppable obsession to see evil eradicated.

Today the enemy is radical Islam but it must be said sadly and reluctantly that there are unwitting, co-conspirators who strengthen the hands of the evil doers. Let me state that the overwhelming number of Muslims are good Muslims, fine human beings who want nothing more than a Jeep Cherokee in their driveway, a flat screen TV on their wall and a good education for their children, but these good Muslims have an obligation to destiny, to decency that thus far for the most part they have avoided. The Kulturkampf is not only external but internal as well. The good Muslims must sponsor rallies in Times Square, in Trafalgar Square, in the UN Plaza, on the Champs Elysee, in Mecca condemning terrorism, denouncing unequivocally the
slaughter of the innocent. Thus far, they have not. The good Muslims must place ads in the NY Times. They must buy time on network TV, on cable stations, in the Jerusalem Post, in Le Monde, in Al Watan, on Al Jazeena condemning terrorism, denouncing unequivocally the slaughter of the innocent – thus far, they have not. Their silence allows the vicious to tarnish
Islam and define it.

Brutal acts of commission and yawning acts of omission both strengthen the hand of the devil.

I recall a conversation with my father shortly before he died that helped me understand how perilous and how broken is our world; that we are living on the narrow seam of civilization and moral oblivion. Knowing he had little time left he shared the following – “Shal. I am ready to leave this earth. Sure I’d like to live a little longer, see a few more sunrises, but truthfully, I’ve had it. I’m done. Finished. I hope the Good Lord takes me soon because I am unable to live in this world knowing what it has become.”

This startling admission of moral exhaustion from a man who witnessed and lived through the Depression, the Holocaust, WWII, Communist triumphalism, McCarthyism, Strontium 90 and polio. – Yet his twilight observation was – “The worst is yet to come.” And he wanted out.

I share my father’s angst and fear that too many do not see the authentic, existential threat we face nor confront the source of our peril. We must wake up and smell the hookah.

“Lighten up, Lewis. Take a chill pill, some of you are quietly thinking. You’re sounding like Glen Beck. It’s not that bad. It’s not that real.”

But I am here to tell you – “It is.” Ask the member of our shul whose sister was vaporized in the Twin Towers and identified finally by her charred teeth, if this is real or not. Ask the members of our shul who fled a bus in downtown Paris, fearing for their safety from a gang of Muslim thugs, if this is an exaggeration. Ask the member of our shul whose son tracks Arab terrorist infiltrators who target – pizza parlors, nursery schools, Pesach seders, city buses and play grounds, if this is dramatic, paranoid hyperbole.

Ask them, ask all of them – ask the American GI’s we sit next to on planes
who are here for a brief respite while we fly off on our Delta vacation package. Ask them if it’s bad. Ask them if it’s real.

Did anyone imagine in the 1920’s what Europe would look like in the 1940’s.
Did anyone presume to know in the coffee houses of Berlin or in the opera halls of Vienna that genocide would soon become the celebrated culture?
Did anyone think that a goofy-looking painter named Shickelgruber would go from the beer halls of Munich and jail, to the Reichstag as Feuhrer in less than a decade? Did Jews pack their bags and leave Warsaw, Vilna, Athens, Paris, Bialystok, Minsk, knowing that soon their new address would be Treblinka, Sobibor, Dachau and Auschwitz?


The sages teach – “Aizehu chacham – haroeh et hanolad – Who is a wise person – he who sees into the future.” We dare not wallow in complacency, in a misguided tolerance and naïve sense of security.

We must be diligent students of history and not sit in ash cloth at the waters of Babylon weeping. We cannot be hypnotized by eloquent-sounding rhetoric that soothes our heart but endangers our soul. We cannot be lulled into inaction for fear of offending the offenders. Radical Islam is the scourge and this must be cried out from every mountain top. From sea to shining sea, we must stand tall, prideful of our stunning decency and moral resilience. Immediately after 9/11 how many mosques were destroyed in America? None. After 9/11, how many Muslims were killed in America? None. After 9/11, how many anti-Muslim rallies were held in America? None. And yet, we apologize. We grovel. We beg forgiveness.

The mystifying litany of our foolishness continues. Should there be a shul in Hebron on the site where Baruch Goldstein gunned down twenty-seven Arabs at noonday prayers? Should there be a museum praising the U.S. Calvary on the site of Wounded Knee? Should there be a German cultural center in Auschwitz? Should a church be built in the Syrian town of Ma’arra where Crusaders slaughtered over 100,000 Muslims? Should there be a thirteen story mosque and Islamic Center only a few steps from Ground Zero?

Despite all the rhetoric, the essence of the matter can be distilled quite easily. The Muslim community has the absolute, constitutional right to build their building wherever they wish. I don’t buy the argument – “When we can build a church or a synagogue in Mecca they can build a mosque here.” America is greater than Saudi Arabia. And New York is greater than Mecca. Democracy and freedom must prevail.

Can they build? Certainly. May they build? Certainly. But should they build at that site? No -- but that decision must come from them, not from us. Sensitivity, compassion cannot be measured in feet or yards or in blocks. One either feels the pain of others and cares, or does not.

If those behind this project are good, peace-loving, sincere, tolerant Muslims, as they claim, then they should know better, rip up the zoning permits and build elsewhere.

Believe it or not, I am a dues-paying, card carrying member of the ACLU, yet from start of finish, I find this sorry episode disturbing to say the least.

William Burroughs, the novelist and poet, in a wry moment wrote – “After one look at this planet, any visitor from outer space would say – “I want to see the manager.”

Let us understand that the radical Islamist assaults all over the globe are but skirmishes, fire fights, and vicious decoys. Christ and the anti-Christ. Gog U’Magog. The Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness; the bloody collision between civilization and depravity is on the border between Lebanon and Israel. It is on the Gaza Coast and in the Judean Hills of the West Bank. It is on the sandy beaches of Tel Aviv and on the cobblestoned mall of Ben Yehuda Street. It is in the underground schools of Sderot and on the bullet-proofed inner-city buses. It is in every school yard, hospital, nursery, classroom, park, theater – in every place of innocence and purity.

Israel is the laboratory – the test market. Every death, every explosion, every grisly encounter is not a random, bloody orgy. It is a calculated, strategic probe into the heart, guts and soul of the West.

In the Six Day War, Israel was the proxy of Western values and strategy while the Arab alliance was the proxy of Eastern, Soviet values and strategy. Today too, it is a confrontation of proxies, but the stakes are greater than East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Israel in her struggle represents the civilized world, while Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Queda, Iran, Islamic Jihad, represent the world of psychopathic, loathesome evil.

As Israel, imperfect as she is, resists the onslaught, many in the Western World have lost their way displaying not admiration, not sympathy, not understanding, for Israel’s galling plight, but downright hostility and contempt. Without moral clarity, we are doomed because Israel’s galling
plight ultimately will be ours. Hanna Arendt in her classic Origins of Totalitarianism accurately portrays the first target of tyranny as the Jew.

We are the trial balloon. The canary in the coal mine. If the Jew/Israel is permitted to bleed with nary a protest from “good guys” then tyranny snickers and pushes forward with its agenda.

Moral confusion is a deadly weakness and it has reached epic proportions in the West; from the Oval Office to the UN, from the BBC to Reuters to MSNBC, from the New York Times to Le Monde, from university campuses to British teachers unions, from the International Red Cross to Amnesty International, from Goldstone to Elvis Costello, from the Presbyterian Church to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

There is a message sent and consequences when our president visits Turkey and Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and not Israel.

There is a message sent and consequences when free speech on campus is only for those championing Palestinian rights.

There is a message sent and consequences when the media deliberately doctors and edits film clips to demonize Israel.

There is a message sent and consequences when the UN blasts Israel relentlessly, effectively ignoring Iran, Sudan, Venezuela, North Korea, China and other noxious states.

There is a message sent and consequences when liberal churches are motivated by Liberation Theology, not historical accuracy.

There is a message sent and consequences when murderers and terrorists are defended by the obscenely transparent “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”

John Milton warned, “Hypocrisy is the only evil that walks invisible.”

A few days after the Gaza blockade incident in the spring, a congregant happened past my office, glanced in and asked in a friendly tone – “Rabbi. How’re y’ doing?”

I looked up, sort of smiled and replied – “I’ve had better days.”

“What’s the matter? Is there anything I can do to cheer you up?” he inquired.

“Thank you for the offer but I’m just bummed out today and I showed him a newspaper article I was reading.

“Madrid gay pride parade bans Israeli group over Gaza Ship Raid.” I explained to my visitor – “The Israeli gay pride contingent from Tel Aviv was not allowed to participate in the Spanish gay pride parade because the mayor of Tel Aviv did not apologize for the raid by the Israeli military.”

The only country in the entire Middle East where gay rights exist, is Israel. The only country in the entire Middle East where there is a gay pride parade, is Israel. The only country in the Middle East that has gay neighborhoods and gay bars, is Israel.

Gays in the Gaza would be strung up, executed by Hamas if they came out and yet Israel is vilified and ostracized. Disinvited to the parade.

Looking for logic?

Looking for reason?

Looking for sanity?

Kafka on his darkest, gloomiest day could not keep up with this bizarre spectacle and we “useful idiots” pander and fawn over cutthroats, sinking deeper and deeper into moral decay, as the enemy laughs all the way to the West Bank and beyond.

It is exhausting and dispiriting. We live in an age that is redefining righteousness where those with moral clarity are an endangered, beleaguered specie.


Isaiah warned us thousands of years ago – “Oye Lehem Sheh-Korim Layome, Laila v’Laila, yome – Woe to them who call the day, night and the night, day.” We live on a planet that is both Chelm and Sodom. It is a frightening and maddening place to be.

How do we convince the world and many of our own, that this is not just anti-Semitism, that this is not just anti-Zionism but a full throttled attack by unholy, radical Islamists on everything that is morally precious to us?

How do we convince the world and many of our own that conciliation is not an option, that compromise is not a choice?

Everything we are. Everything we believe. Everything we treasure, is at risk.

The threat is so unbelievably clear and the enemy so unbelievably ruthless how anyone in their right mind doesn’t get it is baffling. Let’s try an analogy. If someone contracted a life-threatening infection and we not only scolded them for using antibiotics but insisted that the bacteria had a right to infect their body and that perhaps, if we gave the invading infection an arm and a few toes, the bacteria would be satisfied and stop spreading.

Anyone buy that medical advice? Well, folks, that’s our approach to the radical Islamist bacteria. It is amoral, has no conscience and will spread unless it is eradicated. – There is no negotiating. Appeasement is death.

I was no great fan of George Bush – didn’t vote for him. (By the way, I’m still a registered Democrat.) I disagreed with many of his policies but one thing he had right. His moral clarity was flawless when it came to the War on Terror, the War on Radical Islamist Terror. There was no middle ground – either you were friend or foe. There was no place in Bush’s world for a
Switzerland. He knew that this competition was not Toyota against G.M., not the Iphone against the Droid, not the Braves against the Phillies, but a deadly serious war, winner take all. Blink and you lose. Underestimate, and you get crushed.

I know that there are those sitting here today who have turned me off. But I also know that many turned off their rabbis seventy five years ago in Warsaw, Riga, Berlin, Amsterdam, Cracow, Vilna. I get no satisfaction from that knowledge, only a bitter sense that there is nothing new under the sun.

Enough rhetoric – how about a little “show and tell?” A few weeks ago on the cover of Time magazine was a horrific picture with a horrific story. The photo was of an eighteen year old Afghani woman, Bibi Aisha, who fled her abusive husband and his abusive family. Days later the Taliban found her and dragged her to a mountain clearing where she was found guilty of
violating Sharia Law. Her punishment was immediate. She was pinned to the ground by four men while her husband sliced off her ears, and then he cut off her nose.

That is the enemy (show enlarged copy of magazine cover.)

If nothing else stirs us. If nothing else convinces us, let Bibi Aisha’s mutilated face be the face of Islamic radicalism. Let her face shake up even the most complacent and naïve among us. In the holy crusade against this ultimate evil, pictures of Bibi Aisha’s disfigurement should be displayed on billboards, along every highway from Route 66 to the Autobahn, to the Transarabian Highway. Her picture should be posted on every lobby wall from Tokyo to Stockholm to Rio. On every network, at every commercial break, Bibi Aisha’s face should appear with the caption – “Radical Islamic savages did this.” And underneath – “This ad was approved by Hamas, by Hezbollah, by Taliban, by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, by Islamic Jihad, by Fatah al Islam, by Magar Nodal Hassan, by Richard Reid, by Ahmanijad, by Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, by Osama bin Laden, by Edward Said, by The Muslim Brotherhood, by Al Queda, by CAIR.”

“The moral sentiment is the drop that balances the sea” said Ralph Waldo Emerson. Today, my friends, the sea is woefully out of balance and we could easily drown in our moral myopia and worship of political correctness.

We peer up into the heavens sending probes to distant galaxies. We peer down into quarks discovering particles that would astonish Einstein. We create computers that rival the mind, technologies that surpass science fiction. What we imagine, with astounding rapidity, becomes real. If we dream it, it does, indeed, come. And yet, we are at a critical point in the history of this planet that could send us back into the cave, to a culture that would make the Neanderthal blush with shame.

Our parents and grandparents saw the swastika and recoiled, understood the threat and destroyed the Nazis. We see the banner of Radical Islam and can do no less.

A rabbi was once asked by his students….
“Rebbi. Why are your sermons so stern?” Replied the rabbi, “If a house is on fire and we chose not to wake up our children, for fear of disturbing their sleep, would that be love? Kinderlach, ‘di hoyz brent.’ Children our house is on fire and I must arouse you from your slumber.”

During WWII and the Holocaust was it business as usual for priests, ministers, rabbis? Did they deliver benign homilies and lovely sermons as Europe fell, as the Pacific fell, as North Africa fell, as the Mideast and South America tottered, as England bled? Did they ignore the demonic juggernaut and the foul breath of evil? They did not. There was clarity, courage, vision, determination, sacrifice, and we were victorious. Today it must be our finest hour as well. We dare not retreat into the banality of our routines, glance at headlines and presume that the good guys will prevail.

Democracies don’t always win.
Tyrannies don’t always lose.

My friends – the world is on fire and we must awake from our slumber. “HER KUMT.”

Jabotinsky

A Tribute to Herb Zweibon

Moshe Phillips - Israpundit, January 25th, 2011
A true giant of pro-Israel activism in America is gone. Herb Zweibon, the founder and president of Herbert ZweibonAmericans For A Safe Israel / AFSI, died on Tu B’Shevat, January 19, 2011. It seems extremely appropriate that someone who focused so much of his energy, money and time dedicated to bringing peace, security and prosperity to the Land of Israel should have his life forever connected to a holiday that has at its core the themes of Israel’s agriculture and land, the centrality of Jerusalem and the importance of contributing to charity.

Herb Zweibon was born and raised in an extended family that was one of the leading pillars of the Jabotinsky movement in America since the 1940s. He was a successful businessman, was a loving family man and was a highly patriotic American who served in the U.S. military in World War Two. Perhaps those things were all a direct result of his personal internalization of Jabotinsky’s teaching of concepts such as Hadar, self-respect and self-discipline.

No American did more in the last 20 years to make sure that Jabotinsky’s memory was perpetuated than Herb Zweibon. Here are just a few of the concrete things Herb brought to life to memorialize Jabotinsky:

– Under Herb’s direction AFSI organized and sponsored the annual Manhattan memorial event for Jabotinsky. The keynote speaker at the 2010 event was Douglas Feith and his speech drew significant media attention.

– In 2010 AFSI distributed a biographical booklet about Jabotinsky called Jabotinsky – The Man And The Vision written by AFSI’s Jerusalem representative William Mehlman. It can be found online in its entirety at http://www.afsi.org/pamphlets/JabotinskyPamphlet20100714.pdf.

– Herb was one of the key financial supporters who enabled Israeli Shmuel Katz to research and write his groundbreaking 1996 two volume biography of Jabotinsky Lone Wolf. Katz wrote in his Introduction that Herb was “first among” the “group of friends” that provided “generous assistance” to him.

– Herb’s dedication to Lone Wolf didn’t stop there. He had AFSI continue to sell and distribute Lone Wolf and Katz’s other classic books even after Katz’s death in 2008.
Herb also wanted to make sure that Jabotinsky was taught to the young people of Israel too. He conceived of a nationwide essay contest for Israeli high school students and was involved in every detail of this highly successful initiative. The inaugural contest was 2010’s which marked the seventieth anniversary of Jabotinsky’s death. The Jabotinsky National Essay Contest had 15 winners and hundreds of competitors with an awards ceremony held in the Knesset.

In addition to memorializing Jabotinsky Herb led AFSI in continuing to focus on key issues that his teacher himself would have concentrated on too had he been alive.
Jerusalem remained a central issue for Herb. The Outpost monthly newsletter published by AFSI always featured a front page column by Herb and very often he wrote about the importance of Jerusalem’s security.

AFSI always stood against any Israeli retreat from Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and Gaza. The Jewish communities in Gush Katif had no more committed friends in America than Herb and AFSI. And that support did not end after the so-called Disengagement. Herb’s aim was to make sure that Israeli Settlers never felt abandoned or alone. AFSI remained steadfastly opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state and sponsored speaking tours featuring Israeli spokespeople who articulated the danger that a PLO/Fatah state would mean to Israel and America.

During Israel’s Operation Peace for Galilee campaign in Lebanon in 1982 AFSI made defending Israel against defamation in the mainstream media a key objective. Before CAMERA (the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America) became a national organization and before Honest Reporting was launched, there was AFSI fighting for truth. Under Herb’s direction AFSI produced an hour long documentary video called “NBC in Lebanon: A Study of Media Representation.” The Institute for Palestine Studies published book American Jewish Organizations & Israel by Lee O’Brien called the video “widely distributed” and they were right. No pro-Israel organization in the U.S. had ever produced anything like it.

AFSI executive director at the time, Peter Goldman, was responsible for the NBC exposé. He followed the video up with a 1986 book he co-wrote with Stephen Karetzky titled The Media’s War Against Israel: The Full Expose No One Dared Publish that featured an introduction by Jack Kemp.

Under Herb’s leadership AFSI over the last several years seemed more vital than ever. As the organization approached the 40th anniversary of its founding last year many news plans were underway. Chapters were initiated and re-organized. The website was revamped at http://www.afsi.org/. An Israeli grassroots website called Maspik Vedai (“Enough, already!”) was given full support in 2009 and it can be seen at:

http://www.maspikvedai.co.il/. A website was launched in 2008 in order to spread the teachings and writings of Shmuel Katz. Visit the website at www.shmuelkatz.com. In 2010 a blog with the title Lessons For Today was added to the website in order to apply Katz’s teachings to today’s events. And Herb’s guiding hand was behind it all.

Herb’s enemies were frequently forced to acknowledge the success of AFSI. Herb pioneered the idea of working with Evangelical Christians in the U.S. to support the Jewish State. Israel basher Grace Halsell noted in her 1986 book Prophecy and Politics, The Secret Alliance Between Israel and the U.S. Christian Right that AFSI pioneered outreach to the Evangelical community. “…the actual credit for making (the late Senator Jesse) Helms do the flip flop (and become an ardent Israel supporter goes to) a conservative Israeli lobbying group, called Americans For A Safe Israel, (they) did that…”

Herb served on the board of directors of the Freeman Center for Strategic Studies based in Houston. Bernard Shapiro, the director of the Freeman Center wrote the following about Herb the day of the funeral: “Jabotinsky and Shmuel Katz were his intellectual and ideological teachers, but Herb was mine.” Herb Zweibon was an excellent teacher to us all. He left an indelible imprint on pro-Israel activism. Our own and future generations were immeasurably enriched by the gift of his long and creative life. May his example and teachings endure, enlighten and inspire for many years to come.

Flotilla Report: BBC Plumbs the Depths

The Latest From HonestReporting
Flotilla Report: BBC Plumbs the Depths

The BBC's reporting of the Israeli commission of inquiry into the Gaza flotilla graphically illustrates all that is wrong with its coverage of Israel.

Our new site incorporates many new features while continuing to provide the same hard-hitting reports on media bias against Israel.

Thank you for your involvement in responding to media bias.
Donate to HonestReporting
Recently on
HonestReporting

* Palestinian Tear Gas Libel: The Truth Comes Out
* Prime Minister's Office Calls Time Out

question of the week

Why might Al-Jazeera have chosen The Guardian over larger western news services to partner in the Palestine Papers leak? Contact Us!
action@honestreporting.com

Donate to HonestReporting
Facebook