By Barry Rubin

It’s become fashionable to match celebration of Israel’s founding (though part of the media can’t even admit Israelis are celebrating) with Palestinian marking of their 1948 "nakba" catastrophe.

Yet whose fault is it that they didn’t use those six decades constructively? And who killed the independent Palestinian state alongside Israel that was part of the partition plan? Answer: The Arab states and Palestinian leadership themselves.

The mourners were the murderers.

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By Phyllis Chesler

I cannot imagine the suffering of those in Myanmar who have just lost their loved ones, their homes, and their health – to the weather. May God have mercy upon them. Thus far, humanity has not risen to the occasion. The same United Nations that would not “intervene” to save the victims in Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Congo, or Darfur are not saving those condemned to death, not by an earthquake, but by their own leaders in Myanmar.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Apparently, it is routine in Nigeria for Muslims to kidnap Christian teenage girls, forcibly convert them to Islam, and marry them off to Muslim men. In this case, the Christian girls were held captive “… in the palace of the Muslim leader…” And when police freed the Christian girls, some Muslims went on a rampage, burning down six Christian churches. Make sense? From Compass Direct News:

Islamists under the auspices of a paramilitary force last week destroyed six churches to protest a police rescue of two teenage Christian girls kidnapped by Muslims in this Bauchi state town.

Police recovered the two Christian girls, Mary Chikwodi Okoye, 15, and Uche Edward, 14, on May 12 after Muslims in Ningi kidnapped them three weeks ago in an attempt to expand Islam by marrying them to Muslim men. Police took the two girls, who had been under foster care, to safety in southeastern Nigeria where their biological parents live. …

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by Asaf Romirowsky*

A few days ago an Israeli air strike killed a member of a Palestinian missile team that had been firing rockets from Gaza. Now the United Nations has come out with an unusual statement of bewilderment and utter shock as the truth has come out. The dead man, Awad al-Qiq, was a U.N. employee and headmaster of a top prep school in Gaza. He was also the chief rocket-maker for Islamic Jihad.

Mr. Al-Qiq — not surprisingly, a science teacher — worked for one of the schools run by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). Now that he is out of the rocket business, the employment of such a “respectable” individual by the sole U.N. agency devoted to Palestinian refugees deserves an explanation.

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By Phyllis Chesler

Old News: The sisters, Sarah and Amina Said, are still dead; their father-murderer, Yasir Abdul Said, has not yet been found; the mainstream media continues its uncanny silence.

What’s New: The reward for Said’s capture has been doubled and Tissy Said, his wife and the mother of the two murdered girls, has been ejected from the home of her extended Muslim family. Her beloved son, Islam, (from whom she would not willingly part), has been sent away from her. The Said family presumably want him to be “around a man” (his paternal uncle in New York City) and not around his mother. According to Tissy’s great-aunt, the brave, outspoken, Gail Gartrell:

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By Wolfgang G. Schwanitz

Amin al-Husaini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, remains a controversial figure. The Palestinian leader, who was born in 1895 and died in 1974, first sparked controversy during his lifetime. As an officer in the Ottoman army during the First World War, he implemented the German idea of organizing jihad and terror behind enemy lines. (See my discussion here.) Later, he led the resistance against the British mandate authority in Palestine during uprisings in 1929 and in 1936. He fiercely opposed Jewish settlement.

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By Phyllis Chesler

Dear Readers:

It occurs to me that I ought to have a running commentary on the anti-Israel bias in the contemporary New York Times. It is my home town newspaper and I do read it everyday. Sharing rather than silently swallowing my frustration will be an excellent tonic, and good for my blood pressure.

In today’s edition (May 15th), here is how the Gray Lady summarizes what happened in Israel yesterday.

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by Cinnamon Stillwell*

It isn’t often that characters based on the field of Middle East studies show up in current fiction, but the novels of author Daniel Silva are an exception. The last three novels of his series featuring Israeli secret agent/art restorer Gabriel Allon explore the intersection of Middle East studies and international intrigue.

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By Phyllis Chesler

In the former Yugoslavia, men were not usually gang-raped. Many were tortured, and many were genocidally slaughtered. This happened on President Clinton’s watch and it took a long time and a great deal of persuasion before Clinton allowed America to become militarily involved. Europe did not come to the aid of its immediate neighbor. No Arab or Muslim country came to the aid of their Muslim brethren trapped in this treacherous war-zone.

The public and repeated gang-rapes of both girls and women had become a weapon of war and was no longer merely a “spoil of war.”

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by David J. Rusin*

A Saudi court’s sentence of 200 lashes and six-months’ imprisonment for a 19-year-old victim of gang rape, known only as the “Qatif girl,” recently made headlines across the United States. Her story would never have come to outside attention without the efforts of her lawyer, Abdul Rahman al-Lahim. A specialist in commercial law, the 36-year-old Saudi also takes human rights cases on a pro-bono basis.[1]

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By Barry Rubin, Asaf Romirowsky, and Jonathan Spyer

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

On the surface, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) seems a humanitarian group helping Palestinian refugees. In reality, it actually helps destroy the chance of Arab-Israeli peace, promotes terrorism, and holds Palestainians back from rebuilding their lives.

Unique in history, UNRWA’s job is to keep Palestinian refugees in suspended animation–and at low living standards–until they achieve the goal set for them by the PLO and Hamas: Israel’s extinction. In the meantime, their suffering and anger is maintained as a weapon to encourage them toward violence and intransigence.

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by David J. Rusin*

The debate over the trajectory of the Western sociopolitical system and its strained relations with Islam is the most pivotal of our time, as approaches decided upon today will impact billions not yet born. Two prelates in the ever more fractious Church of England provide a microcosm of this discourse.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and Bishop of Rochester Michael Nazir-Ali have emerged as central combatants in the dispute between two fundamentally opposed models of social organization: multiculturalism and universalism. The former bestows equal standing upon different cultures in the public square. The latter bestows equal standing upon individuals who wield a common set of rights and responsibilities. Which system prevails will ultimately determine the level of danger that homegrown Islamists pose to Britain, Europe, and the broader West.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper, leader of one of the world’s greatest liberal democracies, has the courage to stem the politically-correct tide, and to stand squarely in support of Israel. In a speech commemorating the 60th anniversary of the founding of Israel, he said that the Jewish State, “is a tribute to the unquenchable human aspiration for freedom, and a testament to the indomitable spirit of the Jewish people.” In comments made the same week on a Toronto radio station, he said that the current fad of anti-Israel sentiment boils down to nothing but anti-Semitism. I encourage you to read the excerpts shown below, and to follow the links to read the full text of Harper’s courageous statements.

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By Barry Rubin

While America’s secretary of state devotes her time to doomed Israel-Palestinian talks and America goes ga-ga over a candidate whose main foreign policy strategy is to talk to dictators, still another crisis strengthens radical Islamists and endangers Western friends and interests.

William Butler Yeats said it best: “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere, The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst, Are full of passionate intensity.”

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By Phyllis Chesler

For fifteen years, (1993-2008), Charlie Bernhaut of Americans for a Safe Israel has been sending Open Letters to the staff at the New York Times. Charlie loves Jewish cantorial music and Jewish jokes. He is an amiable, sociable man. So, what has driven him to launch such a lonely, one-man crusade?

I doubt he can stop himself. Perhaps the Biblical bush burned for him too, perhaps, like Moses, he could not refuse the mission–which consists of documenting and protesting the newspaper’s contemporary “use of photographs to prejudice their readers against Israel.” He was at this long before CAMERA, MEMRI, or HonestReporting saw the same burning bush. The Times has never acknowledged Bernhaut’s letters–nor have the Jewish media and organizations who also received copies.

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