by Stephen Schwartz*

Gertrude Stein, the controversial modernist author, spent part of her childhood in Oakland, California, a city on the southern border of Berkeley, home of the flagship campus of the University of California system. Returning to Oakland later in life, Stein is supposed to have complained, “there’s no there, there,” referring to the disappearance of the city as she remembered it. The comment has been turned into a permanent gibe against Oakland, but could equally apply to certain aspects of the Berkeley campus, especially in regard to what one may call “the Berkeley definition of Islamophobia.”

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By Alexander Maistrovoy

“In a war of ideas, it is people who get killed.”
- Stanisław Jerzy Lec

History has proven this famous proverb many times: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”. High-minded dreams of some result in the sweat, tears and blood of others.

Not long ago Libya was a prospering country. Medicine, education and electricity were free for all citizens. There was a supermarket chain with symbolic prices on basic products for large families. There was no rent. A liter of gasoline was cheaper than a liter of water, and the state paid $7,000 for every newborn. Today, thanks to the efforts of the European powers, Libya is a ruined, miserable country taken to pieces by local clans, gangs and agents of influence, including Al-Qaeda and Iran.

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by Sterling Jensen*

The Middle East political storm of early 2011 has had an interesting impact on Iraq. Though the government was confronted with almost daily demonstrations, which led to a number of high profile resignations and the use of force to suppress political dissent, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki felt sufficiently confident to boast that “Iraq has become the most stable country in the region.”[1] While this may seem a bold claim given the recent past, Maliki is not alone in showing confidence in Iraq’s prospects. The Sadrists, Kurds, and leaders of the primarily Sunni Iraqiya bloc have been equally upbeat about the country’s prospects while many Iraqi insiders believe that their battle-torn country will not only weather the instability but will also serve as a model for democracy.

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by Gary Gambill*

With Syrian troops encircling the city of Hama, Barack Obama’s administration and its European counterparts continue to hold out hope that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad can be coaxed into accepting a peaceful transition to democracy. Instead of joining the protesters in demanding Assad’s resignation, the U.S. envoy to Damascus, Robert Ford, is encouraging prominent dissidents to hold a dialogue with the regime.

Unfortunately, there are no plausible circumstances under which a democratic transition would constitute a rational choice for the embattled dictator, and it appears exceedingly unlikely that the Syrian people will peacefully accept anything less. The Syrian people’s fight for freedom promises to be long, uncertain, and violent.

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by Daniel Pipes*

Not the conventional weblog entry but excerpts from a news report today in the Jerusalem Post by Oren Kessler, “Hezbollah warns Israel against maritime border ‘threats’.” The article quotes Hezbollah deputy chief Naim Qassem warning Jerusalem yesterday that the Lebanese government will protect its maritime sovereignty in the face of “Israeli threats” and “will remain vigilant in order to regain its full rights, whatever it takes.” Kessler quotes me in response:

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By Gary Gerofsky

On a previous occasion the U.N. gave the Israel annihilation file to Richard Goldstone. This time they gave it to Richard Falk, “special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories for the United Nations Human Rights Council.” “Special” is not a word that I would apply to Falk unless it were in the context of a special coward and racist.

Falk’s cartoon shows a mad dog with a yarmulke (inscribed with the Star of David) eating the bones of a baby while pissing on the leg of Lady Justice. Lady Justice has the Jew dog on a leash and the dog has a clearly marked coat with “USA” on it — highlighting U.S. control over Israel as Israel pisses on the leg of the U.S. and devours children, presumably Palestinian children. This blood libel, a specialty of Jew haters over the ages, was pulled from Falk’s blog with an apology to dogs everywhere for comparing them to Jews: “We must … treat animals with as much respect as possible.”

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by Raymond Ibrahim*

In a world paralyzed by political correctness and warped philosophies, attention is proving to be one of the greatest enemies of Islamist encroachment.

Consider the difference between pre- and post-September 11: A decade after the 9/11 jihad got the West’s attention, many people — perhaps not unlike yourself — have become aware of Islam and its doctrines, especially the “anti-infidel” ones, certainly many more people than before Sept. 11, 2001.

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by Phyllis Chesler

During the time that Florida mother Casey Anthony was in custody and on trial, any number of American fathers, stepfathers, and live-in boyfriends killed their children. 

Daily, the local and national media dutifully report awful examples of paternal cruelty and infanticidal violence.

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By Andrew Whitehead

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and Berkeley University recently issued a joint report on “Same Hate, New Target: Islamophobia and Its Impact in the United States 2009-2010.” There are a few interesting questions arising from this joint effort between one of America’s largest Islamic hate groups and a university that prides itself on politically inclusive speech and “diversity.”

Some questions for Berkeley:

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by Daniel Pipes*

“Do the Democrats have a double-standard for Obama?” My reply to this roundtable question follows below. For replies by Bernard A. Weisberger, Michael Lind, Kenneth W. Mack, Rick Shenkman, and Gil Troy, please go to http://hnn.us/

While it is certainly true that Democrats cut Obama slack on policies where they would slam Bush or McCain, as a fair-minded Republican I note that the reverse holds true as well: Republicans slam Obama and go easy on Bush. I will establish both points in my areas of expertise, the Middle East and Islam.

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by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi*

The recent declaration of independence by South Sudan from its northern neighbor is certainly a welcome event. After two civil wars (1955-1972 and 1983-2005) that took the lives of more than 2.5 million Christians and animists, secession was the only reasonable option. Of course, there are immediate challenges for South Sudan, as it seems unlikely that 7,000 UN peacekeeping troops can protect a new nation that has vast oil reserves and a population living largely in abject poverty.

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by Efraim Karsh*

In the opening scene of Woody Allen’s 1983 film Zelig, F. Scott Fitzgerald is seen to observe a curious little man as he chats with socialites at a sumptuous bash, speaking adoringly of President Coolidge and the Republican Party — all in an upper class Boston accent. Then, an hour later, the renowned novelist is stunned to see the same man speaking to the kitchen help. Only now he claims to be a Democrat, and his accent has become coarse as if he were one of the crowd.

This scene comes to mind when observing the incessant, ideological acrobatics of the Israeli academic Benny Morris. For years, he basked in the dubious glory of being one of Israel’s foremost, homegrown bashers, deriding Zionism as “a colonizing and expansionist ideology and movement … intent on politically, or even physically, dispossessing and supplanting the Arabs” and going out of his way to fabricate Israel’s history so as to prove the sinful circumstances of its birth. He paraded the Arab canard of an age-old Zionist design to dispossess the Palestinian Arabs from their homes; he ignored the sustained Arab efforts to destroy the Jewish national cause and the no less sustained efforts of the Jews at peaceful coexistence, both prior to and after Israel’s establishment; he dismissed the Zionist acceptance of the November 1947 partition resolution as a ruse, claiming that “large sections of Israeli society” were looking forward to war as an opportunity for territorial expansion and ethnic cleansing; he even went so far as to present the Palestinians as the real victims of the pan-Arab assault on Israel in May 1948, with the Jewish state supposedly colluding with the invading Arab states to prevent the birth of a Palestinian Arab state.

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By Gary Gerofsky

I cannot hide the fact that I am pleased with the failures of the flotillas and the BDS (boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel) movement in general. These are movements that were borne out of ignorance, propaganda, lies and hate and, more significantly, the people involved want to do harm to others — physically, economically and emotionally. As protest organizers disguise their objectives as legitimate protests against Israel, they come to the aid of terrorists who have slit the throats of their own people just as Hamas did to their brothers in Fatah. Imagine a young man going off on a flotilla expedition telling his father and mother that he is risking his life for the sake of terrorists. What responsibility does western society and media have to expose the pure anarchy that is involved in such a decision and that is rampant and goes unchallenged in universities, unions and in Islamist groups?

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by Daniel Pipes*

Push back in the university. The past century has seen institutions of higher learning dominated first by liberals and then by leftists. While this chokehold continues and perhaps even increases with the vast numbers of online universities out there now, there are also signs of decay as the academic left stumbles and finds itself increasingly criticized, even ridiculed.

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by Hilal Khashan*

Demands for democracy are unlikely to make headway in fragmented societies such as Syria and Lebanon. While Egypt and Tunisia are historically and geographically well-defined entities with fairly homogeneous populations and national attributes, Syria is dominated by a small minority sect whose fate hinges on the survival of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, which will not flinch from crushing pro-reform demonstrations, even if these do not demand a systemic change. Nor is political reform conceivable in Lebanon — a country suffering from a serious sovereignty deficit resulting from deep-seated sectarian divisions.

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