by Daniel Pipes*

To keep Kurds out of parliament, the military authors of the 1982 Turkish constitution instituted the unheard-of threshold of 10 percent, meaning that a political party that won less than that proportion of the total vote did not gain any seats. This rule has had a huge impact on Turkish political life, especially in 2002, when it transformed the AK Party’s third of the votes into two thirds of the seats. It has also caused the ruling AKP party, despite its increasing popular vote, to control a steadily smaller number of the 550 seats. Note in particular the bolded numbers:

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By Barry Rubin

The gap between dominant Western perceptions of the Middle East and the region’s reality is dangerously wide. While the “Arab Spring” is celebrated as an advance for moderation and democracy, in fact the advance is going to revolutionary Islamists. Developments in Turkey and Egypt especially threaten to plunge the Middle East back into an era of conflict, instability, and the worst threats to Western interests in decades.

There are several things very much predictable about the future of the Middle East area during the next year. First, on June 12, 2011, Turkey will have an election. That election will probably be won by the government, whether or not it gets a two-thirds majority. The current rulers will interpret this as a signal to take a much tougher line toward Israel and the United States. It is possible that the extent of the increase of Turkey’s enmity toward Israel after that election will astonish the world.

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By Gary Gerofsky

With Iran about to produce one or more nuclear bombs; Syria in chaos with little Hitler Assad killing his own people to keep Syria in the hands of his family; Yemen about to go to Al Qaeda and tribes that would coddle terrorists; Egypt to become a Muslim Brotherhood mega state more interested in war than peace; “Fatas” (the Fatah-Hamas alliance) waiting for Obama to deliver them their “contiguous” state at Israel’s expense and without any preconditions; a nuclear Pakistan controlled by Taliban-ISI* command; Lebanon virtually in the hands of Iran’s Hezbollah; Iraq breaking up with major portions going to Iran; and Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states wanting to become nuclear to go on the offensive against Iran or Israel or both, I suggest that the world get behind Israel in a big way before it is too late. (*The ISI — Inter-Services Intelligence — is Pakistan’s national intelligence service.)

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by Daniel Pipes*

For the first time in its exceedingly long history, Yemen now threatens the outside world. It does so in two principal ways.

First, even before the current political upheaval began there on January 15, violence emanating out of Yemen impinged on Westerners. As President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s weak government controlled only a small part of the country, violence had emerged both near to Yemen (such as attacks on American and French ships) and distant from it (Anwar al-Awlaki’s incitement to terrorism in Texas, Michigan, and New York). With Mr. Saleh’s apparent abdication on June 4, when he traveled to Saudi Arabia for medical treatment, the central government’s writ will further diminish, Yemen is set to become an even greater exporter of violence.

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by Ali Alfoneh*

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s sacking of foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki has opened another chapter in the ongoing power struggle between the president and the supreme leader, Ali Khamene’i. Interpersonal as it may seem, this confrontation symbolizes the struggle between the Islamic Republic’s old elites and Ahmadinejad’s burgeoning patronage network, which challenges their authority. How has the president managed to build such a formidable power base? Who are the key members of his coterie, and will they enable their benefactor to outsmart the supreme leader to become Iran’s effective ruler?

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by Raymond Ibrahim*

Last week witnessed popular Muslim preacher Abu Ishaq al-Huwaini boast about how Islam allows Muslims to buy and sell conquered infidel women, so that “When I want a sex-slave, I go to the market and pick whichever female I desire and buy her.”

This week’s depraved anachronism comes from a Muslim woman — Salwa al-Mutairi, a political activist and former parliamentary candidate for Kuwait’s government, no less: She, too, seeks to “revive the institution of sex-slavery.”

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By Fern Sidman

The 18th annual Dr. Manfred R. Lehmann Memorial Israel Day Concert in Central Park set the tone for an ebullient celebration of Israel’s 63rd birthday as premiere entertainers and prominent speakers appeared before thousands at the Summer Stage in the park. Thousands of “Celebrate Israel” parade participants and spectators filed into Central Park after the conclusion of the 47th annual parade for some traditional Jewish entertainment and enlightenment.

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by Mordechai Kedar and David Yerushalmi*

How great is the danger of extremist violence in the name of Islam in the United States? Recent congressional hearings into this question by Rep. Peter King (Republican of New York), chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, have generated a firestorm of controversy among his colleagues, the press, and the general public. Though similar hearings have taken place at least fourteen times since 2001,[1] King was labeled a latter-day Joe McCarthy and the hearings called an assault on civil liberties and a contemporary witch-hunt. Yet the larger dilemmas outlined by both the congressman and some of his witnesses remain: To what extent are American Muslims, native-born as well as naturalized, being radicalized by Islamists? And what steps can those who are sworn to the protection of American citizenry take that will uncover and disrupt the plots of those willing to take up arms against others for the sake of jihad?

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By Gary Gerofsky

Octogenarian and folksy former President Jimmy Carter is a cult figure to haters of Israel and he really enjoys his post-presidential status. Jimmy Carter’s books and articles fuel Israel hate campaigns and offer propaganda that is of more value to the movement than any amount of research or analysis based on hard evidence. There is a direct ideological pathway from Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama in terms of shifting public opinion away from Israel. It is done primarily by downplaying the importance of that relationship and falsifying the truth while selling out Israel to appease the Muslim world.

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By Fern Sidman

Fashionable Fifth Avenue in New York City was transformed into a sea of blue and white on Sunday, June 5th, as tens of thousands participated in the annual “Celebrate Israel” parade, while hundreds of thousands of onlookers cheered on the litany of synagogues, schools and organizations that participated in the jubilant march. Reports indicate that the attendance was the largest in its 47-year history.

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By Fern Sidman

On Friday morning, June 3rd, several dozen people gathered across the street from the Jacob Javits Center on Manhattan’s west side to voice their outrage and indignation over the decision of the board of trustees of the City University of New York to grant an honorary degree to playwright Tony Kushner. The site was selected as it was the venue of the commencement ceremonies for the 2011 class of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice; the same CUNY school that saw fit to bestow the honorary degree to the Pulitzer Prize winning playwright for his literary accomplishments.

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By Gary Gerofsky

Order yours today, a limited time offer: “For donations of $100 or more… a Canadian union made t-shirt… for supporting the Canada Boat to Gaza. Together, we can break the siege!” This quote is from a website, “Canadian Boat to Gaza,” specifically designed for raising funds for a group recognized by Canada as terrorists — Hamas. The website points to an NGO called “Alternatives” that has, according to the group, “worked for human rights and justice in the Middle East for many years and is recognized by CIDA.” CIDA is the Canadian International Development Agency.

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by Lee Kaplan*

When the California Faculty Association (CFA) adopted a resolution in 2009 condemning Israel for its military incursion into Gaza, it reinforced the fear that academic unions would be the next front in an ongoing propaganda offensive against the Jewish State. Amidst the ensuing controversy, one of the key players in the resolution’s formation — Manzar Foroohar, an Iranian immigrant and history professor specializing in the modern Middle East and Latin America at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo — came to the fore. However, the extent of her involvement was never publicly acknowledged. In fact, Foroohar authored and championed the resolution, which was presented by the CFA Peace & Justice Committee (Committee), unanimously adopted by the CFA Board of Directors on February 7, 2009, and passed by the CFA General Assembly in Sacramento on April 4-5 that same year.

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by Phyllis Chesler

Did you know that Jews and Muslims have a shared history in Europe? That Muslims have “deep roots” on the European continent and that Muslims are as imperiled by “Islamophobia” as Jews are by anti-Semitism?

Nothing could be further from the truth, and yet the first Gathering of European Muslim and Jewish Leaders issued a statement on May 9^th and just held a meeting in Brussels on May 30, 2011. Oddly enough, the meeting was organized by two American Jewish groups, Rabbi Marc Schneier’s Foundation For Ethnic Understanding and philanthropist Ronald Lauder’s World Jewish Congress, as well as by the European Jewish Congress.

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by Gideon Spitzer*

Recently, UCLA professor of English and advocate of a single state solution to the Israeli-Arab conflict Saree Makdisi spoke in the student union at the University of Pennsylvania. The lecture, sponsored by the Penn Middle East Center (MEC), the English Department, the Greenfield Intercultural Center, and the Penn Arab Student Society, represented another in a series of events sponsored by the university-funded Middle East Center that brought known anti-Israel speakers to Penn, including UCLA’s James Gelvin, Stanford’s Joel Beinin, artists Reza Kanazi and Radio Rahim, and numerous film screenings. To get a better sense of the level of bias at MEC, consider the following: in the first four months of 2011, the MEC underwrote eight events co-sponsored by Penn for Palestine and associated groups, but none by the Penn Israel Coalition or other pro-Israel campus groups. Moreover, by inviting an English professor like Makdisi, whose academic specialty is eighteenth and nineteenth-century British poetry, MEC privileges his anti-Israel politics over his lack of specialized knowledge of the Middle East.

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