By Barry Rubin

“The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims,” proclaimed the Communist Manifesto a century and a half ago. “They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.” But this was before the age of public relations. Here is how it’s done today.

Recently, the three main city-based newspapers in America ran op-eds by Hamas leaders. First, the exact same article by Ahmed Yousef, an advisor to the man who had headed the Palestinian Authority, appeared the same day, June 27, in the Washington Post and New York Times.

This is an extremely unusual development and it turned out, according to Washington Post editors, that Hamas’s public relations’ agent had fooled them by not informing either newspaper that the other was publishing. It was not the last time that Hamas would fool them.

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From Anti-CAIR

PART TWO of the Atlas Shrugs Radio Show interview (excerpts) with Anti-CAIR’s defense attorney, Reed Rubinstein. Discussion of how certain media directly avoids and hides CAIR’s terror ties, the cost of defending defamation lawsuits, and additional information on CAIR’s history. (Click here for part one.)

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by Michael Rubin*

Testimony given to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs
U.S. House of Representatives
Tuesday, July 17, 2007, 10:30 AM

Mr. Chairman, Honorable Members. Thank you for this opportunity to testify from Camp Pendleton, California, where the 11^th Marine Regiment is preparing for deployment to Iraq. The danger they face and their willingness to undertake this courageous mission adds gravity to our discussion here today.

The Initial Benchmark Assessment Report, released on July 12, 2007, painted a mixed picture: While the surge has created space to further training of the Iraqi security forces and reduced death squad activity and ethnic and sectarian cleansing, it has not, however, stopped terrorism. Nor have Iraq’s political leaders met our political benchmarks. Still, there is reason for guarded optimism. It took five months after President Bush’s announcement of the surge approach to deploy the five additional Army brigades and Marine elements into theater. Only on June 15, 2007, with the commencement of Operation Phantom Thunder, did Generals Petraeus and Odierno inaugurate the surge strategy in earnest. Its success after only one month is impressive.

Nevertheless, today policymakers in this room and outside debate cutting short the surge and switching course. While few favor immediate withdrawal, there is open debate about other options:

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by Bill Levinson

Only an organization as shameless as A Jewish Voice for Peace, could accuse someone of “muzzling” a pro-Palestinian activist. This was “Posted by Rob Lipton under Free speech,” on a site that permits no contradiction or debate of its content. “Fortunately, many commenters have their own blogs, so there will be no shortage of outlets in which you can fully air your views,” and Jewish Voice for Peace is about to get more than its fill today.

From day one, it seemed clear that there was a need for a space where people could freely debate challenging political issues related to Israel, Palestine, and US foreign policy. Over time, however, the comment boards seem to have drawn in those who communicate in a more polarized fashion, and have chased away people seeking more thoughtful dialogue. Lately, the site has become a forum for posting anti-Semitic in particular, and also other bigoted and racist comments, as well as ugly personal attacks.

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by Daniel Pipes*

Imagine that an Islamist central command exists — and that you are its chief strategist, with a mandate to spread full application of Shariah, or Islamic law, through all means available, with the ultimate goal of a worldwide caliphate. What advice would you offer your comrades in the aftermath of the eight-day Red Mosque rebellion in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan?

Probably, you would review the past six decades of Islamist efforts and conclude that you have three main options: overthrowing the government, working through the system, or a combination of the two.

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By Barry Rubin

Father Edward Flanagan was a great man. In 1917 he founded Boys Town, now Boys and Girls Town, in Nebraska as an orphanage combining revolutionary and traditional approaches to help orphans who had never before known kind treatment. Flanagan was an innovative educator but he never meant his methods to be used in Middle East politics or international affairs.

Through no fault of his own, the Flanagan Method has, however, become the backbone of contemporary Western Middle East policy toward radical nationalists and Islamists. “There are no bad boys,” was Flanagan’s most famous statement. “There is only bad environment, bad training, bad example, bad thinking.” If, he argued, his orphans were only treated properly they could be saved. Or, in Flanagan’s own words, “There is nothing the matter with our growing boys that love, proper training and guidance will not remedy.”

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by Bill Levinson

Al Sharpton made the mistake of bringing himself to our attention through this quote in our newspaper: “This is not only the race question, but a leadership, character question,” Sharpton said. “Much of America knows Rudy Giuliani from 9/11. They need to know him from 9/10 . . . how he polarized the biggest city in the world and how he ran it like a fiefdom.” That is a very interesting statement from the individual who was primarily responsible for getting Giuliani elected in the first place.

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From Anti-CAIR

Anti-CAIR would like to invite you to check out the new Anti-CAIR YouTube presentation featuring excerpts from attorney Reed Rubenstein’s interview with Pamela Geller, of Atlas Shrugs Radio.

The CAIR V. Anti-CAIR lawsuit is discussed.

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Al Sharpton made the mistake of bringing himself to our attention this morning through this quote in our newspaper: “This is not only the race question, but a leadership, character question,” Sharpton said. Al Sharpton has as much right as Jimmy Carter has to talk about leadership as Jimmy Carter, and as much right as Mike Nifong has to talk about character. In any event, it is far from surprising that Ira Forman of the National Jewish Democratic Council whitewashed MoveOn.org Action Forum’s anti-Semitic (and racist and anti-Catholic) hate speech last year.

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Too much doom and gloom. There is a bright side for Israelis, proving the tenacity of these good people, highlighting “a long-standing Israeli unwillingness to allow tragedy to interfere with life:”

…some Israelis see a brighter picture. Uri Dromi, a retired air force colonel and a scholar at the Israel Democracy Institute, noted the war damaged Hezbollah, brought a beefed-up U.N. peacekeeping force into Lebanon and spurred moderate Arab states like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan into a more active role in Mideast peacemaking.

“I think that in terms of what’s happened in the region and in Lebanon, the war’s results were good,” he said.

If Israel’s economic performance over the past year is any indication, investors agree.

The economy briefly slumped, then bounced back and grew at an annual rate of 7.3 percent in the last quarter of the year, according to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics. In the year since the war, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange’s benchmark TA-25 index has risen 38 percent.

Gil Bufman, chief economist at Bank Leumi, attributed that to the strong world economy and foreign interest in Israel’s thriving high-tech sector. But the reason also lies in a long-standing Israeli unwillingness to allow tragedy to interfere with life, he said.

“Israelis don’t rest for a moment. They’re always looking for the next deal, and they don’t sink into a coma,” Bufman said.

A year ago, a rocket fell in an alley next to Amir Bokovza’s cafe in Nahariya, seriously wounding one of his workers.

Even though Bokovza said he was “certain” there would be another war, he renovated and expanded his cafe anyway. Today, the rocket’s crater is directly underneath a refrigerator stocked with Bacardi Breezers.

“To hell with them,” he said, gesturing toward Lebanon.

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By Mark Krikorian*

“If someone else has a better idea, I’d love to have them give it to us.” That was John McCain, challenging his fellow Republican presidential candidates in early June to offer an alternative to the amnesty bill he helped craft with Ted Kennedy. Well, here’s a better idea: enforce the law.

Homeland-security secretary Michael Chertoff says it can’t be done under existing law: “Give me the tools to do it,” he said in a recent pitch for the amnesty bill, which also promises some future improvements in enforcement.

This is a conceit. Many statutory tools already exist to make enormous headway against illegal immigration. But, for his entire administration, George W. Bush has presided over what can only be described as a Silent Amnesty, refusing to enforce the law as it’s written today, and even taking steps to help illegal aliens embed themselves in American society.

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By Canadian Coalition for Democracies

Ottawa, Canada - According to published reports, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is expected to announce a resumption of aid to Palestinians President Mahmoud Abbas when he meets with Jordon’s King Abdullah this week.

“If the Prime Minister resumes funding to Abbas and his Fatah Party, it will be a repetition of past mistakes,” said Alastair Gordon, President, Canadian Coalition for Democracies. “We hope that Prime Minister Harper recognizes the connection between Mahmoud Abbas and the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, a designated terrorist group in Canada, the connection between Abbas’ Fatah party and specific acts of terrorism, Fatah’s rampant corruption that has diverted aid destined for the Palestinian people to Fatah leaders, Fatah’s targeted killing of Arabs who cooperate with Israel, and Fatah’s failure to end PA-sanctioned hate and incitement against Israel and Jews.”

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…Sometime in the 1970s, as a generation born under communism came of age, people began to look back with longing to the days when Poland was less gray, less monocultural. They found inspiration in the period between the world wars, the time that was the Poland of the Jews.

“You cannot have genocide and then have people live as if everything is normal,” said Konstanty Gebert, founder of a Polish-Jewish monthly, Midrasz. “It’s like when you lose a limb. Poland is suffering from Jewish phantom pain.”…

International Herald Tribune

Human evolution can be pretty intense, horrifying, ironic, and even hopeful. Some Eastern Europeans have not forgotten the concept of atonement woven into their culture by Jews. And the Jewish revival is happening in nearby countries like Lithuania and Estonia, also. More, from the International Herald Tribune:

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by Shannen Rossmiller*

On September 3, 2004, a nine-member officer’s panel at Fort Lewis, Washington, found Specialist Ryan G. Anderson guilty of five counts of seeking to aid the enemy during a time of war and attempted espionage. The court martial subsequently sentenced him to five concurrent life terms for his crimes. To date, the sentence represents the most severe penalty meted out to a U.S. citizen in President George W. Bush’s global war on terror. The case also marked the triumph of the new field of cyber counterterrorism, which I helped develop. Working from my home computer, I enabled Anderson’s capture. There have since been more than 200 other cases although many of these were intelligence cases that, for various reasons, did not result in criminal prosecution.

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by Bill Levinson

Why Won’t Prominent Republicans Criticize Novak for Anti-Israel Writings? asks this press release from the National Jewish Democratic Council. We are registered in the Republican Party, even though the Republicans hardly own our vote: we voted for as many Democrats as we did Republicans in 2006. If Robert Novak called Hamas “freedom fighters”–and this FrontPage Magazine article agrees with NJDC that he did–then he is clearly no better than Michael Moore, who called the Iraqi insurgents who are murdering our soldiers “Minutemen.” Furthermore, we do not acknowledge Novak as belonging to the same Republican Party of which we consider ourselves a member. Now that we have that out of the way, we will ask NJDC a similar question: why won’t prominent Democrats criticize MoveOn.org and Jeremiah Wright for anti-Israel Writing?

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