By Barry Rubin

The big picture can be found in the little details. Here’s a great example. Iran recently held a summit meeting bringing together Palestinian leaders. Hamas was there, of course, and Islamic Jihad, too. No surprise that. But there was someone else participating in the gathering: Farouq Qaddumi.

Qaddumi is a veteran Fatah and PLO bureaucrat who now heads the former group. He is one of three men–the other two were Yasir Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas–who represented Fatah on the PLO Executive Committee. He has never accepted even the 1993 Oslo agreement. In most ways, he is more representative of Fatah leadership than the Palestinian Authority’s relatively moderate two heads, Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad.

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By Barry Rubin

Everybody in Washington has been waiting for General David H. Petraeaus to give his report on the Iraq war. Expectations became most inflated, as if he would deliver America of this seemingly unsolvable problem in a messianic manner.

Now Petraeaus has spoken and he has done a pretty good job. There are some major paradoxes in his analysis and prescription but given the nature of the issue that was certainly inevitable.

For Democrats, eager to have an American withdrawal from Iraq, Petraeaus became something of a trap. To show they were patriotic and supported the troops, congressional Democrats praised Petraeaus. Now, however, disliking some of the things he said, they look rather craven trying to find ways to criticize him.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

116. Hasten to do good; restrain your mind from evil. He who is slow in doing good, his mind delights in evil.

117. Should a person commit evil, let him not do it again and again. Let him not find pleasure therein, for painful is the accumulation of evil.

118. Should a person do good, let him do it again and again. Let him find pleasure therein, for blissful is the accumulation of good. …

- The Dhammapada: The Buddha’s Path of Wisdom

Such is typical of Buddha’s teachings. Do no harm. Do not hate. Be at peace. But Buddha’s message of peace stirs evil violence in Muslim extremists. Think about this carefully when considering the actions of the Islamists: they lash out violently against… peace:

Suspected pro-Taleban militants have tried to blow up an ancient carving of Buddha in north-west Pakistan. …

The area has seen a rise in attacks on “un-Islamic” targets in recent months.

This is the first such attack in Pakistan and is reminiscent of the Taleban’s 2001 destruction of the giant Buddhas at Bamiyan in Afghanistan. …

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A personal vignette

By Cainnech Ó Sullibhain

It was just a week before Christmas 1974, and I had taken my son Pierre with me to the Beaver Lumber Store at Applewood Plaza, to buy a few last minute items for our home.

It might have been a very ordinary day, but events would take place that would make it highly unusual.

I had just come out of the Beaver Lumber Store when a man dressed in a rumpled suit and a fedora on his head accosted me. He said, “Sir, would you mind giving me $20.00 for my Rolex wristwatch, because I haven’t eaten for three days?” I then asked him where he was from. He replied that he was a Hungarian émigré who had been living in Switzerland, and had managed to get into Canada. I told him that I did not have $20.00 on my person, but I would accompany him to the small restaurant near the Steinberg Supermarket and buy him a meal. He agreed, and off we went in tow. I asked the waitress to bring a menu and told him to order whatever he wanted. He did not ask for much. I then emptied my wallet and my change pouch and gave the man whatever I had. He then took off his Rolex wristwatch and offered it to me. I refused it, because I already had a watch, which was in perfectly good working order and did not need another watch. I was not interested in taking away from another human being something that I did not want nor need.

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Panel Discussion, MERIA

The U.S. Department of State’s International Information Programs (IIP) in Washington D.C., the Public Affairs Office at the U.S. Embassy in Israel, and the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center jointly held an international videoconference seminar focusing on both domestic and foreign affairs in Lebanon. Israeli and U.S. experts examined the balance of and struggle for power in the country, external factors, and future prospects.

Brief biographies of the participants can be found at the end of the article.* This seminar is part of the GLORIA Center’s Experts Forum series.

Dr. Paul A. Jureidini: Hizballah will have to decide whether it will remain within the country’s framework; or whether it wants to pull another "Hamas," seize the territories it controls, and run them as a quasi-independent state. This could happen as a fact which is formally ignored or as part of a situation in which Lebanon has two governments.

There is no question that Hizballah represents the Shi’a on two counts only: It is the protector of all the gains that the Shi’a have made from 1975 until now, and the Shi’a are determined to maintain these gains. Two, there is no question that when it comes to Hizballah vs. Israel, the Shi’a community will back Hizballah. But Hizballah, in my opinion, has lost a lot of prestige in Lebanon–and in the Arab world–since the summer of 2006, due to its war with Israel as well as later events in which there have been clashes between communities.

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By Phyllis Chesler

Here he is again, Big Brother holding forth, bearing poisoned gifts, giving the infidels a chance–both to convert and to see our own Stalinized image reflected back to us in its Islamist form.

This guy could get a professorship at any allegedly distinguished American university. (Have the Middle East Studies Institutes or anthropology departments at Berkeley, Santa Cruz, or Columbia already approached him?) He certainly has the rap down cold.

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By Mark Krikorian*

(Click here to read “Fixing Immigration”)

I was delighted to see Yuval Levin engage the issue of immigration, particularly its most basic element — the shape of our policy for legal immigration — rather than the conceptually simpler matter of enforcement. I also welcome some of Mr. Levin’s specific recommendations, especially that family-based immigration should extend only to the nuclear family and that assimilation into American society should be given a higher priority.

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By Kamal Nawash

Recently, several reports by various military experts have painted a grim picture of Iraq. The assessments differ in key conclusions, however all the experts, including Gen. David Petraeus and former Gen. James Jones agree that Iraqi forces are currently unable to take over security operations from American troops. While this assessment may be disappointing to many Americans, the Free Muslims Coalition believes that Iraqi forces’ inability to takeover security operations may be the only leverage the United States has to facilitate reconciliation and a political solution between the parties in Iraq.

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by Daniel Pipes*

How goes the “war on terror”? One would think that the absence of a successful dramatic terrorist operation against Westerners since the London bombings in July 2005 would be heartening. But an atmosphere of gloom predominates. A recent much-publicized Foreign Policy magazine poll of 108 American specialists, myself included, found merely 6% who agreed that “The United States is winning the war on terror.” A whopping 84% disagreed.

This negativism reflects twin realities: Islamism (outside Iran) is waxing everywhere, while the civilized world is making profound mistakes — blaming itself for Muslim hatred, underestimating and appeasing the enemy. Several trends:

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By Canadian Coalition for Democracies

Ottawa, Canada - The Canadian Coalition for Democracies (CCD) applauds Prime Minister Stephen Harper for taking a stand against exempting one religious group from the requirement of photo identification when voting.

“Prime Minister Harper is right to demand that all voters, regardless of their religion, be equal before the ballot box,” said Alastair Gordon, CCD President. “Permitting or accommodating the anonymity of a full Muslim veil or burqa at a polling station undermines the integrity of our electoral system.”

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Book reviews

By Phyllis Chesler

Muslim Women Activists in North America: Speaking for Ourselves. Edited by Katherine Bullock. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005. 215 pp. $22.95, paper.
A History of Women’s Seclusion in the Middle East: The Veil in the Looking Glass. By Ann Chamberlin. New York, London, Oxford: Haworth Press, 2006. 298 pp. $39.95.

One might expect Western feminists to take the lead in challenging Islamic gender apartheid, but sadly, this is not the case. Rather, they tend to be more concerned with Israel’s “occupation” of Palestine or the U.S. “occupation” of Afghanistan and Iraq than with the Islamist persecution of women. They consider it “racist” to condemn gender apartheid of the most savage sort, and “racism” trumps concerns about gender.

Incredibly, those same Western feminists who condemn Western patriarchal institutions of marriage, biological motherhood, heterosexuality, and religion now view Islamic veiling, the hijab (head scarf), purdah, arranged marriage, and polygamy as sacred religious rights. Those same feminists who condemn Christianity and Judaism for more minor (but still serious) misogynist practices only whisper about major Islamic misogyny—lest it be viewed as politically incorrect criticism of a formerly colonized culture. Like other academics, feminists will not characterize a culture as “barbaric” if it is an Arab or Muslim country—not even if that culture or country is perpetrating genocidal violence against Muslims and what I call gender-cleansing—as is the case in the Sudan. Western feminists and leftists do not feel it is their right to condemn Muslim-on-Muslim violence.

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by David Bukay*

That there is no compulsion in Islam and that Islam is a religion of peace are common refrains among Muslim activists,[1] academics,[2] officials,[3] and journalists.[4] In an age of terrorism and violent jihad, nowhere, they argue, does the Qur’an allow Muslims to fight non-Muslims solely because they refuse to become Muslim.[5] Proponents of Islamic tolerance point to a number of Qur’anic verses which admonish violence and advocate peace, tolerance, and compromise.[6]

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By Fern Sidman

Once upon a time ago, we lived in a world where we were taught that the media was an instrument to disseminate news. To report the facts, check and re-check sources assiduously and maintain lofty levels of fairness, accuracy, objectivity and integrity. So much for utopian concepts and fairytales.

One need only to look to The New York Times, the paper that boasts that it only runs “all the news that’s fit to print”, to get a better idea of a paradigm of journalistic opportunism, fueled by a left wing, liberal, vehemently secular political agenda that is embraced by the elitist community of academics and intellectuals. The views espoused in this “paper of record” are regarded by those who have assumed positions in the “politically correct” world as the only serious opinions that shape current political discourse.

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By Canadian Coalition for Democracies

Ottawa, Canada — The Canadian Coalition for Democracies (CCD) regards as unconscionable Elections Canada’s reported new policy of allowing Muslim women to wear identity-concealing face veils, including full burqas, when voting in upcoming federal by-elections in Quebec and Ontario. Canada’s federal elections’ regulator says Muslim women can “vote veiled” merely by identifying themselves with a driver’s licence and second piece of identification. As an alternative, “covered” women need only swear an oath and have another voter vouch for them.

Outbursts of public condemnation overturned a similar initiative earlier this year by Quebec’s Election Commission. The Commission was forced to reverse its consent to “burqa voting” when offended Quebec citizens and public interest groups threatened civil disobedience at election time. Highlighting the problem of double standards and arbitrariness, voters promised to attend polls with their faces covered by paper bags, sheets, hockey masks and other head coverings, and to assert “sensitivity” and special religious privilege as their justification for doing so.

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by Daniel Pipes*

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, North America’s foremost Islamist group, bills itself as a “civil rights organization,” suggesting it maintains high standards of decency and morality. But, as I personally can attest, it fails abysmally to do so. Its seven-year-long campaign against me has included misappropriation, misrepresentation, misquotation, defamation, and inaccuracy, prompting one one writer recently to compare its propaganda with that of Nazi Germany.

Consider several dirty-trick episodes:

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