From Voice of America:

Lebanese Shi’ites Kidnapped in Syria; Hezbollah Appeals for Calm

The leader of Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah militant group has appealed for calm after protests erupted in Beirut following the kidnapping of at least 11 Lebanese Shi'ites near the Syrian city of Aleppo as they returned home from a pilgrimage.

Tuesday's abductions are the latest spillover of the neighboring Syrian conflict to sow unrest in Lebanon.

Lebanese security officials and eyewitnesses confirmed the kidnapping, but it was not immediately clear who had seized the group or exactly how many people were abducted.

The Hezbollah leadership and family members described the men as religious pilgrims transiting Syria by bus on their way back from visiting holy Shi'ite shrines in Iraq.

Lebanese media reports said members of the rebel Free Syrian Army kidnapped 13 men, while the Syrian news agency reported that 11 Lebanese and a Syrian driver were seized by “an armed terrorist group.” The women were released.

Members of the Free Syrian Army denied the group was responsible.

As news of the kidnapping spread, residents of Beirut's southern suburbs – a Shi'ite area – briefly took to the streets, burning tires and blocking roads in protest. The Hezbollah leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, later urged restraint in an address broadcast by Lebanese television stations, saying contacts with Syrian authorities were under way for a quick resolution.

Meanwhile, activists said Syrian security forces attacked the town of Azaz – in Aleppo province, where the abductions took place – within hours of the kidnapping.

Earlier, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a bomb attack at a Damascus restaurant killed five people Tuesday. The group said the blast targeted the Qaboun neighborhood, which has been the center of several protests against President Bashar al-Assad.

Also Tuesday, Lebanese authorities released on $330 bail an outspoken anti-Assad Sunni Muslim cleric whose arrest earlier this month sparked deadly unrest in a region of northern Lebanon that backs the revolt against the Syrian leader.

Shadi al-Moulawi's detention ushered in several days of clashes between Sunni Islamist foes of Mr. Assad and the Lebanese army and pro-Assad Alawites, killing eight people.

Those battles moved to the capital after the Lebanese army killed two people, one of them a prominent anti-Assad cleric, in northern Lebanon on Sunday.

A raucous funeral for Sheikh Ahmed Abdul-Wahid was held on Monday. The Lebanese military says it is investigating his shooting.

Why? Because in his view, it is not Believers in Islam, and in the contents of Qur'an and Hadith, the millilons of Muslims who are inculated with contempt and hatred for non-Muslims (that not all of them act on this, and not all of them believe it deeply, for now, should be no consolation, and is certainly not to be relied on), who are a threat to the "republican ideals" of France but, rather, the Front National, which came into being only because Muslim immigration became, for those French who had to deal with it, an intolerable burden and threat. 

Here's the story: from www.lefigaro.fr:

Mélenchon veut "éradiquer" le FN

Un des objectifs du Front de Gauche est d'"éradiquer politiquement" le Front national, a expliqué Jean-Luc Mélenchon à l'occasion d'un meeting de soutien aux candidats de son parti pour les législatives à Strasbourg. "Le Front de Gauche, au contraire de tous les autres, ne se contentera pas de quelques bonnes paroles à intervalle régulier pour déplorer les progrès du Front national", a déclaré lors d'une conférence de presse avant ce meeting l'ex-candidat à la présidentielle.

Le FN "est une organisation politique qui pose un problème extrêmement grave à l'identité républicaine de la patrie des Français. Il doit donc être éradiqué politiquement, c'est le but que se donne le Front de Gauche", a-t-il poursuivi, estimant qu'il fallait utiliser pour cela la méthode du "débat argumenté". "En Alsace, il y a une influence du Front national choquante, compte tenu du passé patriotique extrêmement ardent" de la région, a-t-il dit.

"Le problème de la France, ce n'est pas l'immigré mais le financier", a ensuite lancé M. Mélenchon depuis une estrade installée sur une place du centre-ville de Strasbourg, devant une foule dense venue assister à cette réunion de soutien aux candidats du Front de Gauche aux législatives dans les trois circonscriptions de la ville. Sous les applaudissements nourris d'un public où les jeunes étaient nombreux, il a une nouvelle fois appelé le gouvernement à faire en sorte que "le ministère public interrompe les procédures engagées contre des syndicalistes" sous la présidence de Nicolas Sarkozy.

The late David Littman ("Mural"), Israeli President Shimon Peres and Shmuel Toledano

Number 2 under legendary Mossad chief Isser Harel

A tip of the hate to Imre H.

by: Michael Garrote, Dreuz.info

I met the late David Littman and his wife, the author Bat Ye'or, in 1983 in Geneva. Since then, their respective works have often guided me. I would like  to tell here a little known episode of his career.

The late David Littman, representated  several NGO’s at the UN. Few know, however, he was also a sayan ( Hebrew for "helper ") for  Mossad.

For over twenty years, Littman fought the influence of Islamic countries at the United Nations with his legendary composure. David Littman was the first to invite the famous Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky to speak at the UN on March 5, 1987. The USSR delegation left the hall in protest. No other speaker has so disturbed the dictatorships of the Middle East. In 2008, he  caused an outcry by referring to the lack of women's rights in Muslim countries. In 2009, Littman was again taken to task by the Egyptian Ambassador to the UN Council on Human Rights, for having aroused the ire of Pakistan.   His courage was not new.

In 1961, the young idealistic Littman landed in Morocco, where, at the age of 27, he became an undercover agent to help Jewish children in the Kingdom emigrate to Israel. Aliyah was prohibited at that time and Jews suffered humiliation and persecution in an Arab world inflamed by Egyptian President Nasser’s nationalism.

A few months before Littman had started his mission, Moroccan security dismantled a Mossad human smuggling ring. The officers captured were mercilessly tortured. However,  the Mossad refused to abandon the Jews of Morocco.

They decided to mount a new operation and awarded substantial resources to the Mossad Moroccan network. The legendary director general at the time, Isser Harel, who had captured the Nazi Adolf Eichmann in Argentina, had appointed Alex Gatmon as station chief in Casablanca. Gatmon was one of the most experienced field officers of the service.  In Tel Aviv  the mission was overseen by the number two in Mossad, Shmuel Toledano, a specialist on the Arab world. The operation was officially headed by the Jewish Agency, operating through an NGO, the Work to Save the Children (OSE), based in Geneva.

The idea was to send someone to Morocco, to take  the children out of the country under false pretenses and secretly transfer them to Israel. Mossad found in Littman a  providential man. They gave him a codename, "Mural".

Over the period from March to July 1961,  Littman went  to Casablanca and was introduced into high society as an Anglican who came to Morocco to promote holidays for disadvantaged children.  He explained to Moroccan authorities, that his NGO had set up a  camp in Morgins, in Western Switzerland. Supported by his wife Gisele, and Diana, their 5 month old daughter, the young Englishman organized the clandestine departure of hundreds of Jewish children. Littman did not know he was working for Israeli intelligence, and thought that he was working for a humanitarian organization (OSE) and the Jewish Agency. Yet his contacts with Mossad agents in Morocco, "George" (Gad Shahar) and "Jacques" (Pinhas Katzir), enabled him to accomplish this mission beyond all expectations. Secret transmissions , clandestine meetings, false identities, Littman spent 130 days in hostile territory, under exceptionally hazardous conditions.

If he had been discovered, he could have been condemned to life imprisonment and possibly death. Thanks to his ingenuity and his innate sense of communication, Littman facilitated the emigration of  530 children  to Israel. The "collective passports" that Littman had obtained for Moroccan Jewish children  were reused by the Mossad to negotiate with King Hassan II for the departure of most Moroccan Jews.  100,000 of them were able to emigrate to Israel during "Operation Yakhin" between 1962 and 1964. David Littman was celebrated in Israel on May 1,1986 by Prime Minister Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Shamir, his deputy, and Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek.  He was also recognized in January 2004 in Ashdod by the  then  Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz [now Deputy Prime minister in the new unity government in Israel].

Arianna, you've got to be kidding. This comes from the Washington Free Beacon:

A devout Muslim who has praised Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and publicly branded all non-believers as mentally ill “animals” was recently hired to serve as the Huffington Post’s political director in the U.K.

Mehdi Hasan, a controversial British media figure whom insiders have billed as a mouthpiece for the Iranian regime, recently left his job at the left-wing New Statesman magazine to join the Huffington Post as a senior staffer, according to reports in the British press.

The Huffington Post merged with Internet giant AOL in February 2011 to form the Huffington Post media group.

Hasan formerly served as political editor of the New Statesman, which is affiliated with a socialist political party and has faced criticism for publishing articles that many observers have deemed anti-Semitic. In one instance, the New Statesman published an article titled “A Kosher Conspiracy” that purported to expose the great power of Britain’s “pro-Israel lobby.” The cover of that issue featured a Star of David piercing a Union Jack.

Hasan can be seen on tape delivering multiple religious screeds in which he accuses non-Muslims of being animals and mentally inferior.

“We do not bend our law, or morality for short term aims,” Hasan is seen saying in one video recording of his lecture. “Never. And we never lose the moral high ground.”

“Once we lose the moral high ground we are no different from the rest, of the non-Muslims, from the rest of those human beings who live their lives as animals, bending any rule to fulfill any desire,” Hassan said.

He goes on in the recording to praise Iran’s Khamenei for issuing a religious ban or “fatwa” against nuclear weapons, despite that country’s continuing pursuit of nuclear arms.

In a separate audio recording, Hasan can be heard describing disbelief in Islam as an “infirmity” or mental illness.

“His views as you can hear through those infamous videos, are grossly intolerant and hateful towards non-Muslims,” Raheem Kassam, the executive editor of The Commentator, a conservative online journal, told the Free Beacon. “I see no legitimate way to contextualize things like that. It’s the extreme of the extremes.”

Kassam also called into question whether Hasan’s comments fall foul of U.K. legislation set out to combat extremists.

In his writings, Hasan has defended the Iranian regime on multiple occasions and has tried to rationalize President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s many calls for Israel’s destruction.

In addition, Hasan offered a vociferous defense of Jenny Tonge, a liberal British politician who said, “Israel will not last forever.”

Moreover, Hasan has come under fire for fabricating defamatory information about his political rivals.

Andrew Gilligan, London editor of the Telegraph newspaper, noted that Hasan falsely accused him of being a tool of Iran’s state-run media due to the pair’s political disagreements.

The Commentator’s Kassam argued Hasan might have parted ways with the New Statesman due to his toxic political views.

“There is the ongoing speculation around Westminster as to whether he was dropped due to the sheer scale of negative attention he brought to the New Statesman magazine,” said Kassam, who has thoroughly documented Hassan’s favorable coverage of Iran.

“Everyone knew that the status quo couldn’t continue with Hasan,” he added. “It was only a matter of time until he was rightly held to account for what became increasingly nonsensical journalism and a repeated refusal to comment on his extreme views as highlighted by the videos.”

Kassam said that Hasan’s appointment at the Huffington Post shows the website is committed to radical reporting and that Hasan’s star has fallen.

“Something like the appointment of Mehdi Hasan tells you they’ve got their heads in the far leftist clouds,” he explained. ”Huffington Post is seen as a major step down for Mehdi. It’s an embarrassment. It’s pretty much the end of someone’s career.”

The Huffington Post Media Group did not return a request for comment.

From The Telegraph and The Mirror

The parents of a Muslim teenager suffocated her in front of one of their other daughters and later disposed of her body beside a Cumbrian river, a court has heard.

An article entitled "Top Commander Reiterates Iran's Commitment to Full Annihilation of Israel" published by the Fars News Agency, reaffirms the Iranian leadership's wish to destroy Israel despite the pressure of sanctions. The article features the pronouncements of one Hassan Firouzabadi, the "Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces". He made assertions such as "The Iranian nation is standing for its cause that is the full annihilation of Israel". Such statements should make it more difficult for the many Western apologists of the regime, who are willing to play fast and loose with the lives of millions of innocents by condemning any Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities by minimising the shocking fanaticism of the regime, casting doubt on the translation of a certain famous statement, and ignoring prolific number of other genocidal threats that eminate from the Iranian elite.

 
It is widely acknowledged that Iran sends hundreds of millions of Dollars each year to Hamas and Hizbullah, as well as providing arms and assistance with the training of these terrorist organisations. However, the article goes on to state that during a sermon at Tehran University in the month of February, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei openly acknowledged that Iran got "directly" involved in the 2006 Lebanon War.
 
Although it is unclear what "directly" strictly means in this instance, it may constitute some form of actual engagement with the IDF. Khamenei’s comments also suggest Iran may have been involved to a similar extent in the 2008-09 Gaza War. Such an admission makes it clear Iran is engaged in an unofficial fracas with Israel, and further justifies an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities from a moral perspective, easily conforming to Just war theory.
 
The Fars News Agency is widely understood to be affiliated with the Iranian government so any issues about "translations" should not be open to debate.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Hassan Firouzabadi said threats and pressures cannot deter Iran from its revolutionary causes and ideals, and stressed that the Iranian nation will remain committed to the full annihilation of the Zionist regime of Israel to the end.

Addressing a defense gathering here in Tehran on Sunday, General Firouzabadi said that nations should realize the threats and dangers posed by the Zionist regime of Israel. He reiterated the Iranian nation and Supreme Leader's emphasis on the necessity of support for the oppressed Palestinian nation and its causes, and noted, "The Iranian nation is standing for its cause that is the full annihilation of Israel." The top military official reminded that the Iranian Supreme Leader considers defending Palestine as a full religious duty and believes that any kind of governance and rule by anyone other than the Palestinians as an instance of usurpation....

This exhibition is a must see. From The Telegraph:

Ralph Rugoff, director of the Hayward Gallery, has promised it will "set our imaginations alight".

I prefer a mere Vermeer, but what do I know? And what about forgeries? Here's one I tried to pass off as a Warhol, but they weren't buying it:

And they wouldn't accept my invisible entry fee either.

Among the chief attractions is a bare pillar which Andy Warhol once briefly stepped on, which Mr Rugoff said would allow viewers to be in the presence of the artist's "celebrity aura".

There are two works by American conceptual artist Tom Friedman: 1000 Hours of Staring, a blank piece of paper which Mr Friedman made into art by looking at it repeatedly over a five-year period, and Untitled (A Curse), an empty space which has been cursed by a witch.

Works by Klein, the French artist who pioneered the concept of invisible art in the 1950s, are also included along with a series of typed instructions by Ono telling viewers to imagine they are looking at art.

Other exhibits include Jeppe Heine's Invisible Labyrinth, an invisible maze through which visitors are directed by instructions issued via headphones, and a movie by Jay Chung which he spent two years shooting with no film in his camera.

Mosque leaders in Rochdale and Dewsbury pronounced the exhibition offensive to Muslims on the grounds that it contained pictures of invisible naked twelve-year-old girls: "Portraits of living creatures -- even invisible -- are haram, and Allah SWT knows best." Meanwhile, the Archbishop of Canterbury admitted that he saw invisible art but through a glass darkly.

Exaggerated self-criticism would be a harmless luxury of civilization if there were no enemy at the gate condemning democracy’s very existence. But it becomes dangerous when it portrays its mortal enemy as always being in the right. Extravagant criticism is a good propaganda device in internal politics. But if it is repeated long enough, it is finally believed. And where will the citizens of democratic societies find reasons to resist the enemy outside if they are persuaded from childhood that there civilization is merely an accumulation of failures and a monstrous imposture?  -- Francois Revel

Last week I posted an entry on CAMERA’s blog, Snapshots, about the monomaniacal obsession exhibited by the overseas arm of two mainline Protestant churches – the United Church of Christ and the Disciples of Christ.

In the blog entry, I detailed how the newsfeed of the Common Global Ministries of these two churches encourages people to focus intensely on Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians while downplaying the mistreatment of Christians in the Middle East. In 2011 and 2012, approximately 35 percent of the links on this newsfeed are to articles that deal with this conflict.

By way of comparison, less than two percent of the articles posted on the newsfeed deal with Syria, where more than 12,000 people have been killed in fighting between rebels and the Assad regime in the past 15 months. And Nigeria, where Christians have been attacked for years by Islamists intent on imposing Shariah, is hardly even mentioned in this newsfeed.[i]

In this newsfeed, reality is inverted. Israel, which sets the gold standard for human rights in the Middle East, is portrayed as a monstrous nation while the palpable misdeeds of its adversaries are ignored.

In light of this, it seems reasonable to conclude that the Global Ministries of the United Church of Christ and the Disciples of Christ has become part of the campaign to de-legitimize Israel in the minds of the American people and to demoralize the supporters of the Jewish state in the United States.[ii] In other words the Global Ministries of the UCC and the Disciples of Christ has been enlisted in a campaign of cognitive warfare against Israel and ultimately, the United States.

As detailed by Stuart Green, Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy in his dissertation on cognitive warfare (linked above), Israel’s and America’s adversaries have rightly concluded that they cannot defeat the U.S. or Israel in a straight up military fight. In order to overcome this reality, Islamists have focused their efforts from the battlefield, from the physical world, into the ideological arena.

In this campaign, the institutions we rely on to give us the information, knowledge and spiritual strength and discipline we need to govern ourselves and defend ourselves from outside ideological challenge – our newspapers, our colleges, and yes, even our churches – are used against us. They are enlisted in an effort into getting us to believe that our societies are no good, our history is made up of one episode of oppression and violence after another, and that our belief in ourselves and individual rights and freedom is misplaced and that the civilization we live in is not worthy of a defense against those hate it. We are encouraged to believe that even thinking we have enemies who must be defeated, not appeased, is the hallmark of a disturbed, uncivilized and uncouth mind.

In the story told by these institutions, we are encouraged to believe that the only way we can atone for our sins is to throw Israel under the bus, keep our mouths shut about Islam’s impact on human rights and pretend it’s a religion of peace and tolerance when events in Muslim-majority countries give us good reason to think it is not.

One of the most salient characteristics of the Islamist campaign is that Israel is accused of crimes its adversaries are guilty of. Israel is accused of ethnic cleansing and genocide while the ethnic cleansing of Christians from Iraq has been largely ignored. Israel is condemned for occupying the West Bank and the Gaza Strip while Syria’s occupation of Lebanon, which lasted for many years, was ignored or downplayed. And the deaths of Palestinian civilians as a result of Israeli attacks on terrorists are condemned and highlighted again and again. The fact that groups like Hamas and Hezbollah attack Israeli civilians while hiding behind civilians, thus guaranteeing civilian casualties, is ignored.

In this campaign, Israeli efforts to defend the Jewish state are ideologically constrained while the violent actions of its adversaries are given free rein. As a result of this campaign we have forgotten a basic fact of life in the modern era: Zionism as a movement and Israel as a state exhibit more regard for the humanity of their adversaries than any other political movement or state in the Middle East. Israel treats its enemies, dissidents and minorities and its own citizens with greater humanity than any other country in the region. And yet it is the country that is the singular target of the BDS campaign on college campuses and churches.

To top it off, some of Israel’s adversaries are promoting a one-state solution as a way to improve the lives of its non-Jewish citizens and the rights of Palestinians living in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

If you really think that dismantling the Jewish state will improve the rights of Arabs and Muslims in the Middle East then why begin (and end) the process with Israel? How about dismantling Syria to save the Alawites (who right now are using the government to oppress the Muslim majority in their country), Egypt to save the Copts from the Arab-Muslim majority, and Iraq and Turkey to save the Kurds?

This cognitive assault on Israel is part of a larger propaganda campaign against the West, in which we are being cowed, bullied and blackmailed into abandoning our heritage, our dignity and our future by people who have no respect for human rights or freedom, and they are using the language of human rights and freedom to achieve this goal. It is really quite astonishing, really.

But as astonishing as it is, we’ve seen campaigns like this before. In his book, How Democracies Perish (Doubleday 1984) Jean-Francois Revel detailed a similar process by which the United States (and the West) was attacked on an ideological level by communists during the Cold War. The Soviets used institutions like the World Council of Churches to attack the legitimacy of Western governments while protecting the USSR from criticism.

Clearly a similar process is taking place today, except this time it’s not the Communists, but Islamists, who exhibit the same contempt for human rights that the Communists did a few decades ago. The main thrust of Revel’s book is that self-critical democracies are at a disadvantage when confronted with totalitarian movements that cannot be held accountable by the people they dominate. “Self-criticism is,” Revel writes, “of course, one of the vital springs of democratic civilization and one of the reasons for its superiority over all other systems. But constant self-condemnation, often with little or no foundation, is a source of weakness and inferiority in dealing with an imperial power that has dispensed with scruples.”[iii]

As it turned out, Communism fell, largely because people didn’t want to live like that. But the collapse didn’t happen until after millions of lives were ruined over the course of several decades. Still, Revel’s book reminds us is that totalitarians can work magic when it comes to spreading propaganda, but for some reason lead the people they govern to physical and moral disaster. And yet totalitarians never lack for people willing to work on their behalf, spreading their message in free societies.

And despite the millions who suffered and died under communism, the people who worked to oppose Communism were depicted as angry, bitter cranks, as if Joseph McCarthy was typical of the entire anti-Communist movement. People like Whittaker Chambers, who risked everything to expose the evils of Communism were assailed in a vicious and cruel manner by their adversaries even after it became clear that indeed, the Communists were monsters, and Alger Hiss was indeed a spy for the Soviets, and that he wasn’t the only one.

And just as the word “anti-Communist” is, in many places, still synonymous with crank, or nutjob, as anyone who opposes Islamist imperialism and expansionism is accused of Islamophobia.

In the current Islamist campaign against the West, our desire for peace, our empathy, our commitment to human rights and our practice of self-criticism are being used as weapons against us just as they were used during the Cold War. The goal is to convince us to abandon the victims of Islamist violence in the name of peace. This is what happened at the UN’s conference on racism that took place in Durban South Africa in 2001 where Israel was demonized and the plight of Christians and other minorities in the Middle East was ignored.

The process goes like this: First we are encouraged to feel empathy for the Palestinians, Palestinian Christians especially, as if they are a true representation of the entire society. Then we are barred from condemning the misdeeds of the Palestinians and their leaders because they have less power than the Israelis.[iv] Then we are encouraged to focus solely on Israel’s misdeeds. This gives us leave to feel contempt for Israel and its supporters (many of them Jews). What starts with empathy for the Palestinians ends with contempt for Israel and Jews.

And once we’ve convinced ourselves that Israel has no right to exist because of its sins, we will have to acknowledge that if Israel has no right to defend itself against Islamism, then how can we justify defending the nations in which we live given the enormity of our sins?[v]

The Global Ministries newsfeed serves as an electronic archive of this campaign.

Peter Makari, Cognitive Warrior

What was really shocking about the newsfeed is the near absence of articles about the plight of the Coptic Christians in Egypt. This is simply incomprehensible that Global Ministries would remain silent about their plight because the organization’s executive, Rev. Dr. Peter Makari is an Egyptian American, whose father, Victor, immigrated to the United States to work for the Presbyterian Church (USA). In the newsfeed, less than 10 percent of the links are to articles dealing with Egypt, where Christians are regularly attacked by violent mobs and where Islamists are poised to take control of the government. Couldn’t Rev. Dr. Peter Makari have posted a few links to highlight the suffering of his fellow Christians in Egypt?

It is not as if he doesn’t know about their suffering. His expertise on this subject is one of the reasons why he serves as executive for Europe and the Middle East for Global Ministries. An Egyptian American, Makari is fluent in Arabic, has a Ph.D. in politics with a concentration in Middle East Studies from New York University. Syracuse University Press published his dissertation on Christian-Muslim relations in Egypt as a book titled Conflict & Cooperation: Christian Muslim Relations in Contemporary Egypt in 2007. According to the book jacket for this text, Makari “has lived in the Middle East, including Egypt and Cyprus, for many years.”

Makari put his expertise on display in his review of Paul Merkley’s book Christian Attitudes towards the State of Israel (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001). In his review which appeared in the Journal of Palestine Studies in 2004, Makari recounts in painstaking detail some the “errors and inconsistencies” in Merkley’s text:

A comprehensive listing is impossible in this space, but a small sampling of the author’s treatment of Arabic words and names gives us a sense. Merkley transliterates the Arabic word for Islamic law variously as “shar’ia (p. 84), “Shar’ia” (p. 91), and “shari’a” (p. 92). Similarly, he uses “Qu’ran” and “Qur’an” (p. 105). Merkley provides an incorrect Arabic transliteration of People of the Book, “ahl al-khatib” (p. 107), instead of “ahl al-kitab.” Later on the same page, he transcribes the Arabic for “protected” as “dhimmii,” and on the next page as “dhimmi” (p. 108). He refers to the bishop of Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem as Riad Abu El Assal (pp. 71, 73), when the bishop’s name is Riah. I could go on.

To be fair, Makari, took advantage of an opening Merkley gave to reviewers when he complained in his text about commentators who “simply will not stoop to enter into the thought-world of the adversary, even for purposes of understanding their arguments or learning how to spell them.” Merkley gave his critics an opening and Makari charged right in.

Still, there is something pedantic and evasive about Makari’s takedown. No matter how you spell it, Islamic law regarding non-Muslims represents a serious human rights problem, particularly for Jews and Christians living in Muslim-majority countries.

It is one of the reasons why Jews and their supporters are so adamant about the need for a Jewish state. It’s why Christians and other religious minorities are calling for the creation of an autonomous province in the Ninevah Plains in Iraq. It is why Christians are leaving Egypt and Iraq by the thousands.

Simply put, Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East, North Africa and Asia are open-air gulags for Christians and other religious and ethnic minorities in the Middle East. Under normal circumstances, Christians interested in promoting human rights and well-being would address this problem, but many of them don’t.

This was the point Merkley was trying to get at in his book even if he got his transliteration for “People of the Book” wrong, put his apostrophes in the wrong place and wasn’t consistent with his use of italics.

Makari does not respond to this issue in a substantive way in his review, as if he had nothing more to say in response to Merkley’s concerns other than to point out his misspellings. Again, this is odd because the status of Christians in Muslim-majority environment – at least in Egypt – is of great interest to Makari. As noted above, he wrote his Ph.D. dissertation, and eventually, a book about the subject.

Makari’s Book

Makari’s text highlights the prospects for peace between the Coptic minority and Muslim majority in Egypt. Makari states “the focus of the book is on examples and incidents of cooperation” in Egypt. Makari does not completely ignore Muslim hostility toward Christians, which has clearly become a problem with the rise of Islamism in the 20^th century, and states that despite his book’s emphasis on cooperation, “one should not be lulled into a false sense that the state of affairs is harmonious.”

A close reading of Makari’s text however, reveals a serious problem – a profound tendency to downplay or ignore Islamist hostility toward Jews. In his book Makari describes Sayyd Tantawi, the Grand Mufti of Al Ahzar Univeristy in Cairo, who died of a heart attack on March 10, 2010, as one of several “Egyptian Muslim religious officials who have, since the 1990s, expressed fraternal feelings with Egypt's non-Muslims.”

Makari reports that Tantawi wrote “books on various topics, including Israel in the Holy Qur'an and Sunna” and describes Tantawi as a “moderate Islamic voice” who has spoken of “equality in rights and responsibilities” for Muslims and non-Muslims in Egypt, despite the fact that he supported “the imperative that Copts pay the jizya, a kind of tax paid by non-Muslims in the Muslim community to retain their protect status as ahl adh-dhimma.” (Makari, 2007, pages 98-99). (Remember the name of the book Makari mentions. It’s important.)

On page 100 of his text, Makari writes, Tantawi “has remained steadfast in his call for good relations between Egypt's Muslims and Christians, and among all people generally.”

The sheikh sounds like a good guy, doesn’t he. There’s just one problem. The late sheikh, simply put, was a notorious and inveterate anti-Semite who mined the Koran and the life of Muhammad for passages and teachings that justified Islamic Jew-hatred.

He did this in a 700-page text The Children of Israel in the Qur'an and the Sunna, originally published in Cairo in the 1960s and republished in 1986. (It’s the same book Makari mentioned in his text on Christian-Muslim relations.)

In this text, which has been excerpted in The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: from Sacred Texts to Solemn History edited by Andrew G. Bostom (Prometheus Press, 2008), Tantawi uses passages from the Koran to depict Jews as enemies of God, his prophets and of Islam itself. In one particularly troubling passage Tantawi writes:

Qur'an describes people of the Book in general terms, with negative attributes like their fanaticism in religion, following a false path. It describes the Jews with their own particular degenerate characteristics, i.e., killing the prophets of God, corrupting his words by putting them in the wrong places, consuming the people's wealth frivolously, refusal to distance themselves from the evil they do, and other ugly characteristics caused by their […] deep rooted lasciviousness.

Later, after quoting some passages from the Koran, Tantawi writes “This means that not all Jews are not the same. The good ones become Muslims; the bad ones do not.” (Legacy, page 394). Elsewhere, Tantawi writes that the Jews “initiated hostilities against the Islamic call in Medina.” He continues: “They took every measure they could to extinguish its fire and vitiate its power.” Later he writes, “we are not exaggerating when we say that the Jews left no stone unturned in the attempt to snuff out the Islamic call, nor was any means considered out of bounds in order to denigrate Islam and its Prophet—they tried everything they could.” (Legacy, 399)

It doesn’t stop there. Matthias Küntzel, author of Jihad and Jew Hatred: Islamism and the Roots of 9/11, writes that “Tantawi, the highest Sunni Muslim theologian, quotes Hitlers remark in Mein Kampf that “in resisting the Jew, I am doing the work of the Lord.” Küntzel continues: “He praises The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, noting without the slightest trace of sympathy that “after the publication of the Protocols in Russia, some 10,000 Jews were killed.”

Tantawi made a number of other troubling statements. For example, in 2002, Tantawi declared that Jews are “the enemies of Allah, descendents of apes and pigs.” The following year, Tantawi issued an edict declaring that Jews should no longer be described in such a manner, apparently under pressure from the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

While Tantawi did condemn the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 he later affirmed terrorism against Israelis. In 2002, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI),  reported that Tantawi “declared that martyrdom (suicide) operations and the killing of civilians are permitted acts and that more such attacks should be carried out. Tantawi's positions were posted on http://www.lailatalqadr.com/, a website associated with Al­Azhar.” This is MEMRI's translation of website:

“The great Imam of Al­Azhar Sheikh Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi, demanded that the Palestinian people, of all factions, intensify the martyrdom operations [i.e. suicide attacks] against the Zionist enemy, and described the martyrdom operations as the highest form of Jihad operations. He says that the young people executing them have sold Allah the most precious thing of all."

"[Sheikh Tantawi] emphasized that every martyrdom operation against any Israeli, including children, women, and teenagers, is a legitimate act according to [Islamic] religious law, and an Islamic commandment, until the people of Palestine regain their land and cause the cruel Israeli aggression to retreat…"

This same MEMRI report adds that “It should be noted that a March 18, 2002 demonstration at Al ­Azhar University featured eight students who had been trained to carry out suicide attacks against Israelis.” In other words, terrorist recruiting took place at the university where Tantawi served as Grand Mufti.

How could Makari, who found so many mistakes in Merkley’s book about Christian Zionism, miss these obvious problems with Tantawi’s career and the book he wrote? Did Makari even read Tantawi’s book about the Jews or did he cite it without having read it just to make it look like he had done his research? If Makari did read Tantawi’s book, but missed its obvious anti-Semitism, just how good is his command of Arabic?

Whatever its cause, Makari’s failure to acknowledge Tantawi’s notorious Jew-hatred seems like a pretty substantial error, something a lot more grievous than Merkley’s typographical, spelling and translation errors. Merkley’s errors can be fixed with some copy-editing. Fixing Makari’s omissions would require a complete reworking of the text in question; a reworking that would call into question his credibility. These simply are not the facts an expert would omit.

Talk about straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel.

Bystanders to Impending Catastrophe

Makari, for all his expertise on the Middle East is simply not a reliable source of information about Christian-Muslim relations and cannot be trusted to describe the problems faced by religious and ethnic minorities in the region, Egypt especially. Consequently, it should come as no surprise that at their last General Synods that took place in 2011, neither the United Church of Christ nor the Disciples of Christ said a word about the hostility and violence endured by Christians in Egypt, Iraq or Nigeria. They did however, pass resolutions condemning Islamophobia. Clearly, these two denominations have followed Makari’s lead and have failed to respond an impending catastrophe in the Middle East.

This silence is shameful. At a recent event titled “Pluralism, Peace and Prayer,” sponsored by the American Jewish Committee, the American Islamic Congress and the Boston Theological Institute, Elizabeth Prodromou and Samuel Tadros addressed a very troubling question: “Do Coptic Christians have a future in Egypt?” Their testimony was not very encouraging.

Tadros, a research fellow at Hudson Institute’s Center for religious freedom, said that sine the collapse of state power with the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak last year, there is a growing culture of impunity in Egyptian society. This gives Salafists a much freer hand and as a result attacks against Coptic Christians are increasingly. Christians in Egypt worry about their neighbors attacking them, especially if this culture of impunity gives way to active of encouragement of violence.

Tadros described restrictions imposed on Copts who wanted to renovate a church in Aswan. These restrictions denied congregants the right to install a bell on their church building. They were not allowed use a microphone during church services, place a cross on top of their church and were prohibited from even putting a dome on their church.

In sum, Copts simply cannot visibly live as Christians and must accept the idea of second-class citizenship if they are to remain adherents of their faith in Egypt.

Tadros also described a brutal attack suffered by a Coptic high school student. The attacked was led by the classroom instructor. The other students joined in.

The boy who was attacked had a crucifix around his neck. The teacher asked him to take it off, prompting the student to ask “How am I to take this cross off?” while pointing to a tattoo of a cross on his wrist. The boy was beaten to death.

Tadros also described how Christians are being imprisoned for insulting Islam. One Christian could not even enjoy the right to council because of a mob of Muslim lawyers barred the entrance of his lawyers into the courthouse. In sum, Tadros described an atmosphere of increasing hostility toward Christians that threatens to drive Christians underground, out of the country or into Islam. For poorer Copts, there is no way out.

During her presentation, an audience member asked Prodomou, former Vice Chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) and professor at Boston University, what will happen in Syria if the Assad regime falls. She didn’t want to predict the future, but did say this: “If Assad stays, it will be bad. If he goes, it will be worse.”

Clearly, there is a human rights catastrophe in the making, unfolding right before our eyes, but for some reason, Peter Makari and the two churches he works for cannot be bothered to respond in a forceful way to events as they happen, unless of course they happen in the West Bank or Gaza and can be blamed on the Jewish state.

From the Toronto Star

SANAA—A suicide bomber blew himself up at a military parade rehearsal Monday in Yemen’s capital, killing 96 soldiers in one of the deadliest attacks in the city in years, officials said. Al Qaeda’s Yemen branch claimed responsibility for the attack.

The group said in an emailed statement that it had targeted the defence minister, Maj. Gen. Mohammed Nasser Ahmed, who arrived at the heavily secured city square to greet the assembled troops just minutes before the blast ripped through the area.

The bombing left a scene of carnage, with scores of bleeding soldiers lying on the ground as ambulances rushed to the scene. Several severed heads were on the pavement amid large pools of blood and human remains.

This is a real massacre,” said Ahmed Sobhi, one of the soldiers who witnessed the explosion. “There are piles of torn body parts, limbs and heads. This is unbelievable. I am still shaking. The place turned into hell. I thought this only happens in movies.”

The drill was a rehearsal for a parade for the celebration of Yemen’s National Day on Tuesday. Soldiers hand-picked by their commanders from different branches of the military had been practising together for the parade for a week, Sobhi said, citing that as evidence that the attacker was a soldier and not an infiltrator.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula vowed, “This is only the beginning of Jihad,” and said that its militants will continue staging attacks against the Yemeni leadership. It said the bombing was meant to take revenge for the government’s military offensive in a swath of southern Yemen seized by the militant movement last year.

Yemen, the ancestral homeland of Osama bin Laden, was the site of the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, which killed 17 American sailors. There have also been a spate of assaults on the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa, including a 2008 bombing that killed 10 Yemeni guards and four civilians.

In the wake of a separate attack on Sunday, the Pentagon confirmed that three civilian contractors helping train Yemen’s coast guard were shot at Sunday in Yemen. Cmdr. Bill Speaks, a defence department spokesman, said Monday that injuries to the party were minor.

Sentencing in this case. From the Yorkshire Evening Post and The Star  

A Dewsbury man has been jailed for 11 years for raping a drunken 15-year-old girl who was filmed as she was sexually assaulted by a number of men. (Mohammed) Ali Rehman, 26, was sentenced at Leeds Crown Court for his part in the attack on the teenager in May 2010, the Crown Prosecution Service said.

The schoolgirl was "treated as little more than an object, something to use and abuse", an earlier hearing was told. Rehman admitted raping the victim earlier this year.

Sharon Beattie, prosecuting, told the court that the schoolgirl and a friend had been drinking before they went to Rehman’s house in Tanhouse Street, Dewsbury, to buy some cannabis from him. Her friend left and once alone with Rehman and at least four other men, she was taken up to a bedroom where she remembers Rehman telling one of the other men: “You have ten minutes with her.”

After a few minutes, Rehman returned and raped the young girl himself.  Miss Beattie said: “Somehow the men in the house were alerted that she was being sought ... and Rehman physically picked her up and carried her to another house.”

Once they arrived at Younas’ house in Textile Street, the victim was given more alcohol, and she was once more abused. She was then moved again, taken in a taxi driven by a third defendant, Larasab Hussain. It was at his house in Headfield Road that the group of men filmed the teenager being abused.

She was found by police back at Rehman’s house at 9am the next day.

Another man, Faisar Younas, who admitted sexual activity with a child, was jailed for four years. A third defendant, Larasab Hussain, will be sentenced later. Earlier this year, the trial was halted after pleas were entered by Rehman, Younas and Hussain.

 Mohammed Ali Rehman left, Faisar Younas right.

From The Sun

HOOK-handed Abu Hamza has changed his name by deed poll to try to shake off his hate-preaching past.The jailed rabble-rouser now wishes to be known as Mustafa Kamal Mustafa.

Staff at London’s top security Belmarsh Prison, where he is awaiting extradition to the US, have been instructed to address him by his new name instead of Abu Hamza al-Masri.

Last night a Whitehall source said: “He is trying to shed the enormous amount of baggage associated with his old name. He can call himself what he likes officially but he will be forever known as Abu Hamza.” He was actually named Mustafa Kamal Mustafa at birth in Egypt. But when he became involved in Islamic extremism he switched to Abu Hamza — which in Arabic means “strong and steadfast”.

The Prison Service said a serious deed poll name change “should be acknowledged officially”. European Court judges ruled Hamza, 54, can be sent to America to stand trial on terror charges which carry up to 99 years’ jail.

He has until July 10 to appeal. On Sunday, we revealed Hamza was issued a new British passport by bungling officials — without them checking with the Home Secretary. It was returned to the Identity and Passport Service

UNWRA Palestinian Refugee logo                 US Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL)

The Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) has been front running support for a new initiative by US Sen. Mark Kirk (R. IL) who has recovered from a stroke to return to the Senate to fight the legislative battle in Congress against the  perennial  Palestinan demands for “rights of return”.  Kirk is pushing a proposal to have the State Department conduct a census of the numbers of Palestinian refugees in those UNWRA  camps to exclude  several  ineligible generations.  From the start of the UNWRA program  in 1950, the population of Palestinian refugees  zoomed from 750,000 to more than 5 million, today. We noted  in a recent post  about Al Nakba day, what Arabs refer to as the catastrophe of the Israeli victory in the 1948-1949 War for Independence that spawned the UNWRA program:

Palestinain refugees have languished for nearly four generations in the squalor of UNWRA refugee camps in Arab countries surrounding Israel and in the Palestinian territories on the West Bank and in Gaza. The camps are unwanted eyesores. The residents are despised brethren in host Arab countries without absorption, jobs, adequate housing and no future.  There were originally [750,000] Palestinian refugees displaced at the conclusion of the War for Independence.  Now there are  [five] million living in UNWRA camps. Other refugee groups in camps administered by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees have been resettled, but not the Palestinian refugees. The UNWRA camps are cauldrons of hateful indoctrination supported by the generosity of international donors. The United States has contributed in excess of one third of the total annual cost approximately [$655] million [more than $4.4 billion contributed since inception of UNWRA].

 Cliff May , FDD President started off the campaign  with a  National Review On-line article on May 10^th, “The Real Palestinian Refugee Problem”.  May noted:

In 1950, UNRWA defined a refugee as someone who had “lost his home and his means of livelihood” during the war launched by Arab/Muslim countries in response to Israel’s declaration of independent statehood. Fifteen years later, UNRWA decided — against objections from the United States — to include as refugees the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of those who left Israel. And in 1982, UNRWA further extended eligibility to all subsequent generations of descendants — forever.

Under UNRWA’s rules, even if the descendant of a Palestinian refugee has become a citizen of another state, he’s still a refugee. For example, of the 2 million refugees registered in Jordan, all but 167,000 hold Jordanian citizenship. (In fact, approximately 80 percent of Jordan’s population is Palestinian — not surprising, since Jordan occupies more than three-fourths of the area historically referred to as Palestine.) By adopting such a policy, UNRWA is flagrantly violating the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which states clearly that a person shall cease to be considered a refugee if he has “acquired a new nationality, and enjoys the protection of the country of his new nationality.”

But UNRWA’s plan is to continue expanding — rather than shrinking — the Palestinian refugee population ad infinitum. According to UNHCR projections, by 2030 UNRWA’s refugee list will reach 8.5 million. By 2060 there will be 25 times the number registered by UNRWA in 1950 — even though not one of those who actually left Israel is likely to still be breathing.

Everyone understands what it would mean if all these refugees were actually to be granted a “right to return” to Israel. “On numbers of refugees, it is illogical to ask Israel to take five million, or indeed one million,” Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas said on March 24, 2009. “That would mean the end of Israel.”

May’s colleague at FDD, Jonathan Schanzer, Vice President for Research  had a Status Update  of May’s piece published in Foreign Policy  on May 21^st, just prior to today’s markup  of  Senate legislation with an Amendment by Sen. Kirk that  “could slash the number of Palestinian refugees -- and open a world of controversy.”   Schanzer notes:

In recent years, politicians and policy wonks, including one former UNRWA administrator, have called for UNRWA reform. The agency hasn't merely demurred; it has girded for battle. UNRWA set up shop in Washington with two Hill-savvy professionals, despite the fact that its operations are entirely based in the Middle East, anticipating the need for what looks a full-scale lobby effort to defend its mission. The agency even toyed with changing its name last year in an attempt to burnish its image in the West.

UNRWA's time to defend itself has unquestionably arrived. The Kirk amendment would require the secretary of state to report to Congress on how many Palestinians serviced by UNRWA are true refugees from wars past -- those who could prove that they were personally displaced. That number is believed to be closer to 30,000 people. This new tally would then become the focus of America's assistance to UNRWA for refugee issues.

Despite congressional Republicans' current fervor to rein in America's out-of-control debt, the bill's proponents do not call for a full cutoff to the descendants. Rather, they seek to ensure that UNRWA services keep flowing to those who are needy. The United States would simply not view them as refugees -- just people living in the West Bank or Gaza and below the poverty line.

But funding for the future would not be guaranteed. As Kirk's office explains, Congress will soon need to consider tough questions, like whether U.S. taxpayers should be footing the bill for welfare programs in the West Bank and Gaza, or whether such services should be provided by the Palestinian Authority.

        [ . . ]

In Washington, a coalition is still forming. Rep. Howard Berman (D- CA), the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, broadly backs this idea but has yet to introduce language on the House side. However, bipartisanship may not be enough: The State Department, which pledged an additional $10 million in UNRWA in March, is expected to put up a fight. The legislation would undoubtedly anger some of Washington's Arab allies, and Foggy Bottom tries to avoid that at all costs.

In short, the Kirk legislation would strip Palestinian the descendants of their political symbolism.It would be a landmark for this generations-old conflict, but whether it paves the way for peace or conflict remains to be seen. There are few more potent symbols of the Palestinian cause. Don't expect Palestinians to give it up easily.

Sen. Kirk’s interest in reining in the UNWRA program goes back to his days as a US House Representative.

When we interviewed him in 2008, the topic of the UNWRA camps came up.  He noted:

 When we use the term refugees we think about a person forced across an international border against their will. That applies to all refugees everywhere in the world except for people who left what is Israel. The definition for their refugee status is anyone pushed across international borders or their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and all descendents thereof. We end up with a “refugee” community that has never lived in Israel and now may be two to three generations from this bitter experience inside Israel proper. UNWRA is different. When you think about a UN agency conducting humanitarian operations. You think about Mexicans, Bolivians, Swiss and Japanese employees under the aegis of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. But UNWRA is run by 98% Palestinians. They have deep connections to the politics of both West Bank and Gaza including Hamas, the terrorist organization.

We wish Sen. Kirk continued success in his endeavors to roll back the UNWRA program eligibility and funding. Hopefully today’s mark up session will be the start of that long overdue process.

German Iranian Rapper Shehin Najahi

Source: Fox News

German Iranian-born rapper Shehin Najahi has more than 200,000 fans in the Islamic Republic.  He regularly uses the internet to criticize the corrupt Islamic Republic regime.  This time, he has gone too far. He’s reached out to  Ali al Hadi al-Naqi,  the 10^th of the Twelver Imams murdered in 868 C.E. by poisoning on orders of the Abbasid Caliph, using scatological lyrics against the regime in Tehran. That earned him two death fatwas from Shiite clerics in the Islamic offering a bounty of more than $100,000 for Najahi’s killing.  That has sent him into hiding in Germany, while his protectors have called foul in the Federal Republic whose constitution allegedly protects free speech.  This has angered more than 100,000 ex-pat Iranians living in the Federal Republic.

Here are excerots from a Fox News report, "Iranian Rapper in hiding, but defiant after call for his death":

The Iranian-born rapper marked for death for insulting a ninth-century imam and criticizing Tehran's regime as corrupt is determined to press his message to young fans, according to the German author who hid Shahin Najafi in his home.

Najafi, whose song "Ay Naghi" brought two fatwas, or calls for his death, within days of its release on Facebook, will not be intimidated, though he knows he cannot perform live, according to Gunter Wallraff, a non-fiction writer who hid Najafi until German police found him and placed him in a safe house.

“On the contrary, he feels responsible to himself and to his many young followers, especially in Iran, not to give in,” Wallraff said in an exclusive interview with FoxNews.com. “The death threats show that this regime needs the image of an enemy because it can no longer offer any values and is therefore looking for helpless victims.”

Najafi, 32, who is a German citizen and has lived in Cologne, is a star in his homeland, where he has 200,000 fans on his Facebook page. He fled to Germany in 2005 after being sentenced to a hundred lashes and three years in jail. But his new song brought the ultimate sentence because it is considered an insult to a ninth-century Shiite imam, Ali al Hadi al-Naqi, also known as Imam Naghi. Shiites venerate al-Naqi, a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. An Iranian website, Shia Online, has offered $100,000 to anyone who kills Najafi.

“We asked the foreign minister to make a statement of support for Shahin Najafi and for democratic Iranians who live here and to condemn the fatwa,” said Ulrike Becker, founder of Stop the Bomb, a European coalition that opposes Iran’s development of nuclear weapons. She referred to the fatwa as “a declaration of war against our values – our democracy.”

Najafi’s song calls on the revered Shia figure to come back and help the Iranians with problems like “hollow slogans” and “Chinese-made prayer rugs.”                            

The song, which is laced with profanity, includes the lyric: "I swear to you on bland and hollow slogans; Naghi, I swear on this shifting flocks of people; They say “Long Live” in the morning and “Death to” at night; On the heroes of fictional stories.”

        [. . .]

Najafi claims the regime wants to silence him because he deals with subjects that are taboo in puritanical Iran, such as sexuality, gays and drug addiction. He knows his career outlook is bleak.

“I can’t continue my work because a singer must appear in public," he told the paper. "I can’t do that anymore. I was advised to leave Cologne, but where should I go and how?”

Wahied Wahdat-Hagh, a senior fellow at the European Foundation for Democracy and one of Germany’s leading authorities on Iran, said fatwas can inhibit free speech far outside Iran's borders.

“This strategy is menacing the world,” said Wahdat-Hagh. “Fatwas are declaring war on the principles of free speech in the free world.”

This looks like another example of the long arm of Iranian Shiite Mahdist Blasphemy Codes threatening to silence what we consider protected speech under doctrine of the US Constitution. Shades of the late founder of the Islamic Republic Ayatollah Khomenei’s death threats against British Booker –prize winning author, Sir Salman Rushdie over his fourth novel, The Satanic Verses. We hope that German Iranian rapper Najafi  has similar protections under the German constitution, as he has now entered 24/7 federal police protection.

One month after the event police release CCTV photographs of persons wanted in connection with the attacks on the March for England St George's Day parade in Brighton last month. From the Argus

Pictures have been released of five people wanted by police investigating violence which flared during the March for England through Brighton last month.

A 10-year-old girl and two police officers were injured after bottles were hurled at the fifth annual nationalist gathering.

Sussex Police said there was a "considerable level of violence" directed at the 140 marchers and attempts were made to block them at several points along the route.

Mounted police were drafted in to maintain calm but Superintendent Steve Whitton said it was clear some people were intent on not protesting peacefully.

Apologists for the UAF, Antifa, the unions and the rest were denying that a child was hit. Had a child been hit by a flying bottle, they insisted it would have been reported in the Argus and mentioned by the police. That it was not in the immediate aftermath of the violence meant that. for them, it never happened.
I hope that now it is in the Argus, with photographs of people wanted for questioning, that they are prepared to believe the statements of people who were there under the barrage of bottles filled with urine, glass bottles pulled out of green and friendly 'community' re-cycling bins, dog and horse excrement picked up in plastic bags then thrown. 

From The Yorkshire Post, The Guardian and The Telegraph

The sister of a Bradford-born schoolgirl who went missing nine years ago saw their parents kill her, a court heard today. Iftikhar and Farzana murdered their 17-year-old daughter because they believed she was bringing shame on the family by having regular contact with westernised boys against their wishes, the court heard.

Today, as her parents Iftikhar and Farzana Ahmed went on trial for murder, prosecutor Andrew Edis QC told Chester Crown Court they had killed her because she refused to obey them. Her parents controlled her so she didn't have freedom of movement, the court heard. She ran away from home in 2002 and early 2003, but always returned. In the year before she died, the prosecution said, her parents "embarked on a campaign of domestic violence and abuse directed at her and designed to force her to conform so that she behaved in a way that was expected".

Opening the case against the Ahmeds, Mr Edis told the jury of seven men and five women: “The defendants, having spent the best part of 12 months trying to really crush her, realised they were never going to be able to succeed and finally killed her because her conduct dishonoured the family, bringing shame on them.”

The court heard that Shafilea was "recaptured or abducted" by her father outside her school in February 2003 after she had run away from home. Shafilea, he said, was taken to Pakistan later in February 2003 and was "appalled" by the prospect of an arranged marriage to a man in rural Pakistan. She swallowed bleach at her grandparents' house in Pakistan as an act of self-harm or out of desperation. When she returned to the UK, she was taken to hospital as an emergency case and needed regular treatment on a stricture of her oesophagus.

Shafilia’s badly-decomposed body was found nearly five months later beside a river in the Lake District. Mr Edis said police carried out a lengthy investigation but failed to solve the mystery of her death.

However, in August 2010, Shafilia’s younger sister, Rukish, claimed she had been a witness to the killing. It was, said Mr Edis, the final piece in the puzzle. “Until that moment they had no direct evidence of murder,”
Rukish, who has since changed her name to Alesha, originally made the allegation to friends shortly after her sister’s disappearance. But she then retracted the claim and would not repeat it for another seven years.

She did so after being arrested for her part in a robbery at her parents’ home. Miss Ahmed, now 23, had been prosecuted over the crime and pleaded guilty.

Mr Edis told the jury: “You will have to decide whether you can really believe what she said or not. If she is telling the truth, she has lived for the last nine years under the most extraordinary circumstances. If she is telling the truth this whole family, since September 2003, has been living in extraordinary circumstances. What an extraordinary thing to say of your parents, if it is true, that you were there and watching them murder your sister.”

The prosecution alleges that her parents also withdrew money from her bank account that she'd saved from a part-time job.

The Ahmeds deny murder and the trial continues.

So farewell, then, Robin
Gibb, brother of the late
Maurice Gibb
Stayin' alive. That was your
Catch phrase. But not your
Strong point

© E. J. Gibb Thribb Throbb, aged 17¾

David G.  Littman  1933 - 2012

We are saddened to report the passing today after a long illness of David Littman in Geneva, Switzerland.  A funeral will be held in Geneva on Wednesday, May 23^rd with interment at the Jewish Cemetery in adjacent Veyrier, France. A memorial in his honor will be held subsequently.

The following is an excerpt from his biography:

David Gerald Littman was born in London on 4 July 1933. He was an historian and a human rights activist at the United Nations (Geneva) from 1986. For several years he was main representative of the World Union for Progressive Judaism (WUPJ). In February 1992, he joined veteran human rights activist René Wadlow (editor of Transnational Perspectives), main representative of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR), then the World Federalist Movement (WFM). Since 1997  he was  affilliated with of the Association of World Citizens (AWC) and the Association for World Education (AWE), for whom Littman was accredited as representative.

EDUCATION AND BACKGROUND

Littman – the youngest son of Joseph Aaron Littman – graduated in 1951 from Canford School, Dorset where he excelled more in sports than studies. A preference for history brought him to Trinity College Dublin where he earned a "Moderatores" (B.A. with honors) and an M.A. in Modern History and Political Science. From mid-October 1955, he toured historical and archaeological sites in Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Israel, returning to London in late March 1956.  While preparing for a family business career, he decided on postgraduate studies at London University's Institute of Archaeology, as one of two students under Kathleen Kenyon, director of the famed Jericho excavations, and Max Mallowan, head of Mesopotamian archaeology. Among other sites, he excavated at Hazor (Galilee) under Professor Yigal Yadin in the summer 1958.

In September 1959 he married Gisèle Orebi, a Cairo-born, French speaking fellow student  known by her nom de plume, Bat Ye’or, who had been forced to flee Egypt in 1957 as a stateless refugee. The next year they moved to Lausanne, Switzerland. Soon after the birth of their first child, he volunteered for a delicate humanitarian mission in Morocco. From 15 March to July 24, 1961, accompanied by his wife as secretary – and their baby daughter Diana – he ran the Casablanca office of the Geneva-based international NGO for children OSE. After returning to Geneva he continued university studies, but finally abandoned all thoughts of an archaeological career in 1963 to devote more time to the family business. Two more children were born to the Littmans in 1962 and 1964.

David Littman's own own body of work was impressive, as was his activism. He facilitated the early covert migration of Jewish children from Morocco to Israel in the early 1960’s known as Operation Mural for which he was to receive the “Hero of Silence” award, the highest intelligence honor from a grateful State of Israel in  2009. That exploit was the subject of a film, Operation Mural Casablanca 1961 premiered at the San Francisco Film Festival in 2007. 

During the past few years several articles by David Littman were published  in the New English Review.

Upon hearing of Littman’s passing we wrote Bat Ye’or:

We received word on David's passing today after a valiant fight. He had great courage and you were unstinting to attend to his needs. He was a loving and courageous husband who shared your causes and interests. He was a magnificent defender of human rights for fellow Jews, Christians and others at the UN Human Rights Council and other public forums.

We were pleased to have known him as a colleague in the fight against Islamic Jihad and for Israel's rightful place in the world at large.

His activism with your assistance and support enabled a great life saving migration of Moroccan Jewish children  to Eretz Yisroel for which he received the highest honor and praise from the State of Israel.

His research, writings, speeches, and published body of work have the mark of scholarship with impeccable Churchillian turns of phrase.

He was a life partner in assisting your path breaking scholarship in dhimmitude, Eurabia and the rising Caliphate of fundamentalist Islam seeking to conquer the West through a Grand Jihad.

He was a boon companion and raconteur during our encounters and engagements here in America.

He was perhaps the most illustrious Jewish scholar athlete to have graduated from Trinity College, Dublin.

Our deepest rachmonis and condolences to you, your daughters and grandchildren.

We deeply miss our friend and colleague, David Littman, z"l (of blessed memory).

Watch this excerpt from the film Operation Mural  Casablanca 1961 with the late David Littman:

To honor the passing of David Littman we are re-publishing a post on “The Oeuvre of David Littman”, authored by Guy Milliere:

The Oeuvre of David Littman

by Guy Milliere

Translated and edited from the French and published April 1, 2012 in Dreuz.info.

David Littman, a man I deeply value is afflicted with a dread disease. I promised a long article on his work, and it is the least we can do, really the least because his work, in every sense of the term, is important. I owe him much. We owe so much more to him than we can imagine.

He stayed for years, out of modesty, in the shadow of his wife, the great talented Islamic scholar Bat Ye'or. But he has accomplished much on his own.

As a humanitarian, he has with immense courage, risked his life, helping Jews facing very difficult situations to escape, survive, and achieve freedom and dignity. He led an organization called Work to Save the Children in North Africa and the legendary Operation Mural the subject of a film by Yehuda Kaveh, released in 2007.

He founded with his wife, the Center for Information and Documentation on the Middle East in Geneva in 1970. He acted tirelessly, with enthusiasm, tenacity and intelligence given every opportunity, to address the worst monstrosities emanating from a grotesque institution, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. since replaced by the equally grotesque United Nations Council for Human Rights.

He has written several monographs on the situation of Jews and Christians in the Muslim world. Among these is "The Truth About the Mideast; Fourteen Fundamental Facts about Israel and Palestine," published in 2002 in the National Review in the U.S. Ten years later, he has lost none of his incisiveness. He edited with Yehoshafat Harkabi a book of inestimable value, Arab Theologians on Jews and Israel a critical analysis of the Fourth Conference of the Academy of Islamic Research on the subject (1971), recently republished (4th ed. 2011).

He has published, with Paul Fenton, a book called Islam. This is one of the major references on the subject. It speaks so scrupulously and detailed about the "legal and social status of Jews in Islamic Maghreb between the Middle Ages and the era of French colonization." It contains translated excerpts and annotated historical chronicles in Arabic and Hebrew, Muslim theological texts, eyewitness accounts written by European travelers - prisoners, diplomats, doctors, clerics, and adventurers. This is the kind of book you read and to which you constantly return when you need details and accurate sources.

It is, above all, a work that constitutes a final and conclusive answer to the legend so widespread of a peaceful and fraternal coexistence between Jews and Muslims in Islamic lands. Page after page is a succession of damning stories of harassment, humiliation, and violence.

We understand, through the text, why the arrival of France in North Africa was seen as their deliverance by the Jewish communities.

It is understood that the subjugation of Jews in the lands of Islam and Muslim Antisemitism have a deeply rooted existence.

We better understand the Muslim anti-Semitism as it exists today and how it has spread in Europe with the consequences we have seen.

For this book alone David Littman has made more than a contribution to history: a crucial and indispensable tool for those who struggle against the lies and for the dignity of human beings. He is to be thanked. We hope he finds in these words my personal thanks and the testimony of my gratitude.

There is an English language report in Expatica

A German Islamist is calling for the murder of members of a far-right party that regularly provokes ultra-conservative Muslims using cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, a newspaper reported. According to an article due to appear Monday in the Tageszeitung daily, an Islamist from Bonn in western Germany has appeared in a video on an Islamic forum in which he encouraged "the killing of all activists from the Pro NRW party".

In his appeal, the Islamist urged the collection of personal information on Pro NRW members, including their home addresses and work schedules, with the goal of attacking them.

"We take this message seriously," an Interior Minister spokesman told the newspaper, which said the man had broadcast messages for the "Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan".

Tageszeitug itself gives the name of the jihadist as Yassin Chouka of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. He orders that information be collected on their homes, work and daily routine and that an attack would be best made either under cover of darkness or at dawn.

The threats were made during a seven minute video. The police say that no officials of Pro NRW were named and would not comment as to whether any of them are under police protection. Yassin Chouka and his brother Monir are well known for their jihadist propaganda. Arid Uka who shot two US soldiers in Frankfurt last year prepared himself with videos of the IMU and set out to murder singing one of the Chouka brother's battle songs, 'I'm in the jihad'.  That may have lost something in translation.

AFP: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan on Sunday blocked Twitter over a competition to make caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed on the social networking site, officials told AFP.

"The website has been banned by Ministry of Information Technology and the decision was conveyed to us. There was blasphemous material on Twitter," said Mohammad Younis Khan, spokesman for Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA).

Asked about the nature of the "blasphemous" content, Khan said there had been a planned competition to "post caricatures of Prophet Mohammed".

An official from the ministry said it had requested several times that no such competition be put on Twitter but the website had failed to respond.

It makes matters worse that I vet the people whom I ask to pick up their litter. Those with pit-bull faces I do not approach, as they are inclined immediately to fly into a murderous rage at the gentlest of implied reproaches.

Two experiences caused me to become interested in litter as a social, or anti-social, phenomenon in Britain. The first was when I drove 400 miles from London to Glasgow. The side of the road, every yard of the way, was heavily littered, mainly with the detritus of millions of snacks. On that journey, I came to the conclusion that in Britain polythene grows on trees.

The other was watching a young man, probably a student, approach a bin in London’s Brunswick Square with his litter in his hand, and then drop it not in, but near, the bin, on to the ground. It was as if he knew that litter bins had something to do with litter, but could not quite work out what it was.

No social phenomenon is without connection to other social phenomena. Walking along streets, I would analyse the litter and try to fathom what it meant. On the whole, it had been the wrapping of fast food or container of drink, discarded wherever it had been consumed. I came to the conclusion that an Englishman’s street is his dining room.

And I was not far wrong. When I discussed the question of self-control with a group of intelligent, middle-class students on a postgraduate course (whose fees were £30,000 a year), I mentioned that when I was young it was regarded as vulgar or common to eat on the street. They laughed at the very idea: they thought it primitive in the extreme. And now students come into oral examinations bearing drinks bottles with nozzles that look like a baby’s dummy.

What this signifies is a collective loss of self-control – a loss that is connected, of course, to problems such as public drunkenness and drug addiction. For the British, as for Pooh, it is always time for a little something, usually either fried in fat or laden with corn syrup. It is not surprising, then, that we are fat – the fattest people in western Europe, in fact, as well as the most littering. Why should we expect people who cannot, or at any rate will not, control their consumption to control the way they dispose of wrappings?

The British start to teach their children lack of self-control very early. At least a fifth of young Britons never eat a meal with another member of their household (family is not quite the word for it). They thus learn to graze like ruminants: and so it is not surprising that they dispose of litter as ruminants in a field dispose of their own form of waste.

The study of litter is the study of society; and in Britain it does not reassure.

First published in The Telegraph.

Israeli PM Netanyahu and Czech PM Necas in Prague

The weekend of May 18^th to the 20^th witnessed a swirl of international gatherings beginning with the G-8 Summit at Camp David. The G-8 session was concerned with heavy issues including negotiations with Iran over its nuclear development program, the reining in of the blood bath in Syria and the crisis in the euro-zone monetary union. The G-8 gathering was also trying to enlist the support of Russia, an ally of Syria with an important Mediterranean naval base at Tartarus and a major client for military arm sales who has given aid and assistance to Iran’s nuclear power program. Like most G-8 summits, proclamations are negotiated ahead of time and generally reflect the stasis of diplomatic maneuvering.

The Obama Administration wants to show resolve in advance of next Wednesday’s P5+1 meeting with Iranian nuclear envoys in Baghdad. All while expressing the Administration’s views that  tough sanctions and the downward  trend in oil prices have put a crimp in Iran’s economy and nuclear club aspirations. Meanwhile, Dan Shapiro, US Ambassador to Israel, told an Israeli audience that the US had plans for a military option should Iran become obdurate and escalate enrichment of uranium. An act that according to a Reuters report  may have put the new unity government led by PM Netanyahu in Jerusalem in virtual lockdown. Perhaps this may be a prelude to possible unilateral action, should the P5+1 negotiations fail to stop Iran. As the New York Times opined, the Obama Administration is evincing ‘optimism’ that something positive might emerge from the Baghdad talks. The Netanyahu government has demurred publicly during a formal visit to Prague prior to the start of both the G8 and Chicago NATO Summits.

Meanwhile, the setting in Chicago for the  NATO Summit with more than 60 invited countries looks like a battle zone with police helicopters and US Air Force F-16’s providing an aerial umbrella of security protection. Chicago Police have arrested three alleged terrorists who threatened to attack President Obama’s campaign headquarters and former Obama White House Chief of Staff, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel’s offices with explosives.

There is one country missing from this international gathering, Israel. This despite the fact that Israel is a member of the seven  nation  NATO Mediterranean Dialogue that includes a number of Muslim countries, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Mauritania and Tunisia.  All swept up in the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the wake of the Arab Spring. Egypt’s Presidential elections begin on the same day, May 23^rd, as the P5+1 discussion with Iran in Baghdad. That election pits anti-Israel former Arab League head and Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa against Salafist and Muslim Brotherhood candidates seeking to tear up the Camp David Accords with the Jewish nation.

Former Danish Prime Minister and now NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen announced this week, that Turkey’s objections to the presence of Israel at the Chicago NATO  Summit  over the 2010 Mavi Marmara free Gaza Flotilla attack was not the reason  Israel wasn’t invited. According to Rasmussen the doughty Jewish nation wasn’t a member of either of  NATO  military missions like KFOR in Kosovo or International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission  in Afghanistan. This despite Israel’s vast experience in conducting special operations, developing effective missile shields and having a significant military presence in the Middle East. Rasmussen’s appointment as NATO director in 2009 had been objected to by the Ankara government of Islamist PM Tayyip Recep Erdogan. Rasmussen, a former EU President, had objected to Turkey, a long term NATO member, being admitted to the EU.

Rasmussen’s rationale for excluding, Israel, a member of the NATO Mediterranean Dialogue, from the Chicago NATO summit looks lame given the nuclear  missile threats of annihilationist Iran. Rasmussen is leading the charge on development of a European missile defense shield that Russia views as a threat. Israel has considerable development expertise and operational experience with the joint ly developed US-Israel Arrow Missile shield and the Iron Dome system being deployed against the missiles and rockets held by Iranian proxies Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. 

An Israeli delegation, that included PM Netanyahu and several cabinet members of the new unity government met with Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus, PM Petr Nečas and cabinet. They discussed Iran’s nuclear program and a central European missile defense shield. Netanyahu said that “Israel has no better friend in Europe than the Czechs”. According to a Times of Israel report:

Necas told Netanyahu his country “shares Israel’s fears on Iran,” and struck out at attempts by pro-Palestinian groups to boycott the Jewish state.

“We strictly refuse delegitimization and any boycott of the state of Israel. We unequivocally support Israel’s right to defend against terrorist attacks,” Necas said.

When the Obama Administration had earlier cancelled the European missile shield against the Iranian missile threat, the Czechs and the Poles objected. Perhaps, the Israeli-Czech sessions sent a message to the attendees at the Chicago NATO Summit that missile defense against Iran’s nuclear delivery systems needs to be addressed.

Prime Minister Netanyahu sent a message from Prague  in advance both the G-8 and NATO Chicago security conference about the futility of the upcoming Baghdad talks. As reported in the Times of Israel, Netanyahu said:

It looks as though they see these talks as another opportunity to deceive and delay just like North Korea did for years. Iran is very good in playing this chess game. They know that sometimes you have to sacrifice a pawn to save the king.  The goal of these negotiations should be very clear: Freeze all enrichment inside Iran. Remove all enriched material outside of Iran. And dismantle Qom.

He concluded by saying that Iran’s nuclear program is, “the paramount issue of our time.” 

Yemen as model

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama told G8 leaders meeting at Camp David that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must leave power, and pointed to Yemen as a model of how political transition could work there, the White House said on Saturday.

Comment: But Yemen is entirely Muslim and Arab, and its divisions are mainly, though not exclusively, sectarian and tribal. Syria, on the other hand, is now controlled by a quasi-Muslim sect, the Alawites, who keep the Muslim Brotherhood, and the most fanatical Sunnis, under ruthless and violent control, and this permits several million Christians, both Arabic-speaking and Armenian, to exist with a security they have nowhere else, save possibly Lebanon until recently, in the Arab-ruled lands. It would be madness to wish for the Alowites to be replaced by Sunni Muslims, and there is no possibility now, under the Alawites, of Syria being a threat to Western interests. But the fall of the Alawites, and their loss of control over chemical and other weapons, would do great damage to the West. None of this obtains in Yemen. Yemen is a "model" only to those who completely miscomprehending Islam, the Arabs, the Middle East. The Obama Administration is, alas, full of such people]

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The Group of Eight leaders, in a statement summing up their discussions, urged all parties in Syria to adhere to their commitments under a joint U.N.-Arab League peace plan "in cluding immediately ceasing all violence so as to enable a Syrian-led, inclusive political transition leading to a democratic, plural political system."

Ben Rhodes, an Obama deputy national security adviser, said the recent focus on securing access for U.N. monitors and keeping track of ceasefires had distracted from the fundamental problems in Syria, where Assad, whose father ruled the country before him, has been attacking protesters for 14 months.

The United Nations estimates some 9,000 people have been killed in Syria since the start of the uprising in March 2011, when unrest that toppled leaders in Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere was spreading across North Africa.

Washington's patience with Assad has been wearing thin. Assad said he would adhere to a U.N.-Arab League peace plan but has failed to bring violence to a full halt, blaming "terrorists" for recent attacks in Damascus and elsewhere.

"It is our assessment that you are not going to be able to solve this problem just with monitors and ceasefires, that you need to have a political process under way that is responsive to the Syrian people, because otherwise you are not going to solve the problem," Rhodes said.

He said the G8 leaders - from Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and Canada, plus the United States, which is hosting the summit - discussed during their dinner on Friday how a political transition could take place in Syria.

" We remain appalled by the loss of life, humanitarian crisis, and serious and widespread human rights abuses in Syria," the G8 statement said. "Use of force endangering the lives of civilians must cease."

Alone among the eight, Russia has supported Assad and opposed stiffer U.N. sanctions.

"Some may like or dislike the Syrian government, some may have different views on the last election which took place in Syria but one cannot avoid a question - if Assad goes, who will replace him?" said Mikhail Margelov, a Russian parliamentarian and aide to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

"We believe that the Syrian crisis cannot be dealt with an ax. One should work on it with a pair of pincers," he said.

The G8 statement said the leaders welcomed the deployment of the U.N. mission "and urge all parties, in particular the Syrian government, to fully cooperate with the mission. We strongly condemn recent terrorist attacks in Syria."

Obama brought up Yemen as an example of a leader departing power peacefully and ushering in a democratic process, Rhodes said. "Our point was that we need to see political transition under way that brings real change to Syria," he said.

"We believe that change has to include Bashar al-Assad leaving power. And unless you begin the process of a political transition of some sort, you are not going to be able to deal with reducing the violence and addressing the grievances of the people who came out in the street to start with," Rhodes said.

Former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh ruled the poor Gulf nation for 33 years and was unseated after an uprising last year that split the country's armed forces into warring factions.

Saleh was granted immunity from prosecution over the killing of protesters as part of power transfer deal that eased him out of office. Many Yemenis believe Saleh ought to have been put on trial; rights groups say hundreds of protesters were killed by his security forces in the revolt.

U.N. Security General Ban Ki-moon said this month there was only a narrow window of opportunity to avert full-scale civil war in Syria, which borders Turkey, Jordan, Israel, Iraq and Lebanon. The country's 23 million people comprise a mix of sects and ethnic groups whose tensions could resonate in the region.

et us embrace our friends

May 18, 2012,

Comments (14)

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Prin

Two weeks ago, US Congressman Joe Walsh published an op-ed in the The Washington Times in which he called for the US and Israel to abandon the two-state solution.

After running through the record of Palestinian duplicity, failed governance, terrorism and bad faith, he called for Israel to apply its sovereignty to Judea and Samaria. In his words, Israel should "adopt the only solution that will bring true peace to the Middle East: a single Israeli state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Israel is the only country in the region dedicated to peace and the only power capable of stable, just and democratic government in the region."

The evidence that the two-state paradigm has failed is overwhelming. The Palestinians' decision to reject statehood at Camp David in 2000 and launch a terror war against Israel made clear that they had not abandoned their refusal from 1947 to accept partition of the Land of Israel with the Jews.

So, too, the Palestinians' election of Hamas in the 2006 elections, and their missile war against Israel from Gaza in the aftermath of Israel's complete withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, all made clear that they are not interested in a Palestinian state. Rather, their chief desire is Israel's annihilation.

Consequentially, there is no chance whatsoever that the two state paradigm can work.

Indeed, the fact that there is no Palestinian leader willing to recognize Israel's right to exist makes clear that if a Palestinian state is established in Judea and Samaria - in addition to the de facto Palestinian state in Gaza - that state will be in state of war with Israel. All territory under its control will be used to attack the rump Jewish state.

Given the abject failure of the two-state paradigm, it is abundantly clear that for all the complications that may be associated with the application of Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, it is a better option for Israel than Israeli surrender of the areas.

Walsh's op-ed is not his first statement of support for Israeli annexation. Last September, ahead of the UN general assembly, Walsh authored Congressional Resolution 394 supporting Israel's right to annex Judea and Samaria in the event that the Palestinians asked the UN to recognize a Palestinian state outside the framework of a peace treaty with Israel. Forty-four other congressmen co-sponsored the resolution. 

And this makes sense.

The Palestinians' decision to turn the issue of Palestinian statehood over to the UN constituted a substantive breach of the treaties the PLO signed with Israel. Those agreements stipulated that both sides agreed that their conflict would be solved through negotiations and not through unilateral actions. By ending negotiations with Israel and turning the issue of statehood over to the UN, the Palestinians canceled their treaties with Israel. Consequently, Israel is no longer bound by those accords and is free to take its own unilateral actions, including applying its laws to Judea and Samaria as it did in Jerusalem and the Golan Heights in the past.

FOR HIS unstinting support for Israel, Walsh has been subject to an unbridled assault by leftist American Jews. Ron Kampeas from JTA, for instance, attacked Walsh, accusing him of being no different than Israel's enemies who seek to destroy Israel by ending its ability to define itself as a Jewish state through what they refer to as the "one-state solution."

Kampeas blasted Walsh for suggesting that Palestinians unwilling to live under Israeli rule could move to Jordan which, with its 75-percent Palestinian majority, is effectively the Palestinian state. To back up his condemnation, Kampeas quoted Robert Wright's excoriation of Walsh in The Atlantic.

There Wright wrote, "Offhand, I don't recall a member of Congress in my lifetime saying anything so grotesquely at odds with American ideals about ethnic relations and for that matter basic human rights."

For its part, the Jewish-run anti-Israel lobby J Street is mobilizing its supporters to bring about Walsh's defeat in the November elections by soliciting contributions to his Democratic challenger. J Street executive director Jeremy Ben-Ami wrote that "Walsh's prescription amounts to a call for an end to Israel as the democratic home of the Jewish people."

It is hard to know where to begin a discussion of this assault in which Jewish Americans attacked one of Israel's strongest supporters simply because he had the temerity to recognize reality and call for the US to support an Israeli victory against our enemies who seek our destruction.

First, it is important to consider the claim that Walsh went against the grain of American ideals by suggesting, "Those Palestinians who wish to may leave their Fatah- and Hamas-created slums and move to the original Palestinian state: Jordan. The British Mandate for Palestine created Jordan as the country for the Palestinians.[better:: Arabs, not soi-disant "Palestinians"]. That is the only justification for its creation.[For the British who created it, the justiciation was to give Abdullah, the older brother of Feisal who was put on the throne of Iraq, a state of his own so he woudl stop threatening to disrupt French rule in Syria, that is the Emirate of Transjordan was created to buy off a local Arab, and maintain harmony with the other European power in the Middle East, France]  Even now, 75% of its population is of Palestinian descent."

The fact of the matter is that the two-state paradigm rests on the assumption that the Palestinian state will be ethnically cleansed of Jews before it is established. Whereas Walsh somehow stands in opposition to American ideals for suggesting that the Palestinians may voluntarily immigrate to Jordan, Kampeas, Ben- Ami and their cohorts have no problem with the concept of a Jew-free Palestine and the forcible expulsion of up to 675,000 Jews from their homes in Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem simply because they are Jewish.

Aside from their pernicious hypocrisy and moral blindness, what stands out in their assaults on Walsh is that they cannot tell the difference between Israel's enemies that seek its destruction through the so-called one-state solution, and Israel's friends, who want it to defeat its enemies and live with security and peace. For the likes of Kampeas and Ben-Ami, there is no difference between Walsh and Israel's worst enemies.

PART OF this problem is their apparent unquestioning acceptance of the myth of a demographic time bomb. They seem not to have noticed that the Palestinian claim that by 2015 there will be an Arab majority west of the Jordan River is a complete fabrication.

The truth is that if Israel applied its laws to Judea and Samaria tomorrow and all the Palestinians in those areas received Israeli citizenship, Israel would still retain a two-thirds Jewish majority. Moreover, all the demographic trends for Israel, including increasing birthrates and positive immigration rates, are positive. And all the demographic trends for the Palestinians, including decreasing birthrates and negative immigration rates, are negative. According to Israeli demographic researcher Yoram Ettinger, by 2030, Jewish will likely comprise 80% of the population of Israel, Judea and Samaria.

So Ben-Ami's argument that Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria means the end of Israeli democracy is simply incorrect.

But aside from their hypocrisy and refusal to accept simple arithmetic realities, what stands out most clearly in these leftist American Jews' assault on Walsh is how they have become addicted to the fable of the two-state solution. Their addiction to this fable - that argues that after a century of Palestinian devotion to the annihilation of Israel, the Palestinians are suddenly willing to meet Israel halfway - is what propels these Jewish activists to attack anyone who points out reality. It is what drives them to brand as a foe anyone with the temerity to suggest a better way forward.

The beauty of the two-state fable is that it puts the onus to make peace on Israel's shoulders.

If it is true that the Palestinians want to make peace, then Israel must make peace. And if all the Palestinians require to make peace is for Israel to quit Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, then that is what Israel must do, together with the 675,000 Jews who live there.

The real tragedy is of course not that the likes of Kampeas and Ben-Ami maintain faith with the fairy tale of Palestinian willingness to live at peace with Israel. The real tragedy is that this myth has been the official policy of the government of Israel for the past 19 years. Since then prime minister Yitzhak Rabin launched the peace process with Yasser Arafat in September 1993, to greater or lesser degrees, every Israeli government has kept faith with the two-state solution lie.

It hasn't mattered that the Palestinians rejected statehood and peace not once, but twice. It hasn't mattered that the Palestinians received Gaza lock, stock and barrel with no strings attached and used the territory to launch an illegal missile war against Israeli civilians. The fact that both Arafat and his supposedly moderate successor Mahmoud Abbas rejected partition and maintained their devotion to Israel's destruction did not stop Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu from bowing to US pressure and embracing this fool's game.

People like Kampeas are the first to bemoan Israel's sorry state in the realm of public diplomacy. They decry Israel's hasbara efforts as pathetic and failed. But what they fail to acknowledge is that it is the two-state trap that makes the construction and execution of an effective public diplomacy strategy impossible.

To maintain faith with this failed policy, Israel's leaders and representatives are not merely required to ignore the history of the past 90 years of Palestinian rejection and aggression.

They are required to ignore current events.

They are forced to ignore not just what happened in 1947, but what happened at 7 o'clock in the morning.

And this brings us back to Rep. Walsh. There may be things to criticize about Walsh's policy argument. For instance, he calls for the conferral of "limited voting power" on the Palestinians under Israeli sovereignty. In truth, there is no reason for them to receive anything but full voting rights.

But you have to be blind to reality to view him as anything other than a friend of Israel.

Happily, not everyone in Israel remains paralyzed. Members of Knesset have launched repeated attempts in recent months to debate legislation calling for Israel to apply its sovereignty over all or parts of Judea and Samaria. Next Wednesday, MK Miri Regev is holding a conference to launch a new Knesset caucus calling for the adoption of this policy.

IN RECENT years, poll after poll has shown that the majority of Israelis do not believe that the two-state paradigm will bring peace or that if a Palestinian state is formed, it will live at peace with Israel.

And yet, because of the choke-hold that Kampeas and Ben-Ami's Israeli counterparts have held over the national discourse, the Israeli people have been given no other option to consider. Rather, we have been told over and over again that giving our enemies a veto over our rights, land and security is the only alternative.

Walsh and the 44 congressmen who co-sponsored his resolution are Israel's friends. We should take heart in their willingness to buck consensus and support us. And we should give careful and responsible consideration to their reasonable and supportive policy recommendations.