by Raymond Ibrahim*

The American TV network TLC recently announced that it is making a reality series following the lives of Muslims living in America. The program — called “All American Muslim” — will follow five Muslim families in Dearborn, Michigan, hoping to expose the “misconceptions and conflicts” they face “outside and within” their own community… In a statement TLC’s general manager Amy Winter said: …”Through these families and their diverse experiences, we will explore how they blend their values and traditions with everyday life in America.” She added the program would provide: “Insight into their culture with care and compassion.”

In other words, at a time when the need for objective knowledge concerning Islam is at a premium, many Americans are to be subliminally indoctrinated on what Islam is really about — not through Muslim theology or history, nor yet politics and current events — but rather by a “reality” show of a handful of American Muslims.

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Sub-committee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement Hearing

By Jessica Vaughan, CIS.org

Thank you very much for the opportunity to be here today to discuss H.R. 2497, Mr. Smith’s bill to suspend certain discretionary forms of relief from immigration law enforcement. This bill would prevent these tools, which are intended to benefit only the most exceptionally compelling cases, from being used to create backdoor legalization programs for large numbers of otherwise unqualified or ineligible illegal aliens. Such schemes run counter to the expressed wishes of Americans and their elected representatives, who have already rejected large scale legalization programs several times in the last few years. This bill would help uphold popular and revered principles for immigration policy, namely that immigration to the United States should occur through legal, fair and open processes, and in numbers and characteristics that are consistent with our national interest and determined by our elected representatives, not by administrative fiat or in service of the political agenda of executive branch appointees.

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by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi*

Amid widespread protests during this so-called “Arab Spring,” one place that has received relatively little media coverage is Iraqi Kurdistan. How does the response of the Kurdish authorities to discontent there, a region long held up by foreign observers as a freer political exception in Iraq, compare with that of other governments in the Middle East?

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by Ilan Berman*

Are sanctions capable of derailing Tehran’s nuclear drive? Some skeptics reject such measures altogether, preferring to deal with Tehran by either accommodation or containment.[1] Others point to the spotty historical record of sanctions in altering state behavior in arguing that they will similarly fall short of forcing the ayatollahs to rethink their long-standing nuclear ambitions.[2] For example, sanctions were found to be successful in only a third of the 105 instances in which they were applied between World War I and the end of the Cold War.[3] As the past year has shown, however, Tehran may well turn out to be the exception to the rule — but only if the Obama administration (and Western governments more generally) make swift and skillful use of the economic and strategic means at their disposal.

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By Jonathan Spyer

The Assad regime’s brutal assault on the town of Hama should serve to dispel any notion that the struggle in Syria is nearing its end, or that the Assad regime has accepted its fate.

The general direction of the revolts in the Arab world now suggests that the region’s worst dictators have an even chance of survival, on condition that they have no qualms about going to war against their own people.

Syrian President Bashar Assad appears to have internalized the lesson.

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by Phyllis Chesler

The civilizational war that Jean Raspail once envisioned in his brilliant, dystopian novel The Camp of the Saints is now fully underway. What Raspail once only imagined has come to pass. People of color from many formerly colonized countries have created “no go” zones all across Europe; ambulances and the police enter there at their own risk.

The “youth,” the opportunistic criminal elements, the proto-jihadists (all of whom survive on the European dole), are torching cars, looting stores, battling the police.

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By Fern Sidman

According to a psychiatric evaluation obtained Wednesday by the Associated Press, Levi Aron, the alleged murderer of 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky has an “adjustment disorder and a personality disorder with schizoid features”. This diagnosis was rendered by a a psychiatrist and psychologist at Kings County Hospital, who also said that Aron is confused, apathetic and has a “practically blank” personality.

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British Prime Minister David Cameron has said what needs to be said regarding the hooligans in the UK population mindlessly wreaking havoc in their own streets. He called this riff-raff, “sick.” He’s right. Cameron’s words should remind all Western societies of the dangers of becoming over-tolerant welfare states:

There are pockets of our society that are not only broken, but frankly sick it is a complete lack of responsibility in parts of our society, people allowed to feel that the world owes them something. …

The sight of those young people running down streets smashing windows, taking property, looting, laughing as they go — the problem with that is a complete lack of responsibility, a lack of proper parenting, a lack of proper upbringing, a lack of proper ethics, a lack of proper morals. That is what we need to change.

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By Gary Gerofsky

The far left of center Canadian New Democratic Party (NDP) has been an option that a minority of voters in Canada considered seriously. Federally, they have never been in power and, of the three main parties (Conservative, Liberal and NDP), the NDP always came in third. Provincially they have held power in Ontario, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, Nova Scotia and partially in the Yukon.

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by Raymond Ibrahim*

In his manifesto, Anders Breivik, the perpetrator of the Norway massacre, in which 80 people were killed and many wounded, mentioned the Crusades and aspects of it as they had been an inspirational factor to him. Predictably, Western elites — especially through the mainstream media — have begun a new round of moral, cultural, and historical relativism, some even conflating the terrorist with former President Bush, who once used the word “crusade.”

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By Barry Rubin

“I do not understand Norway’s position, and I say that as a friend of Norway. If they shoot, if they fire rockets, why doesn’t Norway believe that they are terrorists? What else do they need to do? Let us not forget that Norway and the other Scandinavian countries called in Yasir Arafat and said: ‘If you want a deal, you must first renounce terrorism. You must recognize the state of Israel, and you must commit yourself to peace.’ Why is all this forgotten? What is the difference between the PLO at that time and Hamas today?”
– President Shimon Peres, May 2011

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By David North, CIS.org

The Texas cities of Mission and El Paso are experiencing a population and business boom, as thousands of Mexicans flee violence in the border states of Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas, and Chihuahua, according to a story in yesterday’s Mexico City daily Reforma.

The newspaper reports that many of the newcomers arrive with investor visas, which the United States provides to persons who bring job-creating investments with them. My colleague David North has written frequently about the EB-5 investor program; for his blogs postings on it, see here.

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by Efraim Karsh and Asaf Romirowsky*

As September approaches, many are waiting with bated breath to learn if Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will deliver on his threat to unilaterally declare an independent Palestinian state and seek recognition of it through the U.N. But in putting the Palestinian demand for statehood to a vote, Abbas will end up subverting the international organization’s longstanding solution to the Arab Israeli-conflict — U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 — with unpredictable results.

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by Steven J. Rosen*

In a few weeks, an overwhelming majority in the United Nations General Assembly will likely vote for collective recognition of a Palestinian state. But which Palestinian state? Of the three Palestinian states the assembly could recognize, two are real and arguably could meet the requirements for statehood. But it is the third, purely imaginary one that the assembly will endorse, one that neither has a functioning government nor meets the requirements of international law.

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by Phyllis Chesler

Despite my own copious critiques, even I must concede that the American mainstream media really does print the bad news about Islamic gender apartheid — but it does so without drawing any “politically incorrect” conclusions, not even on their op-ed pages.

Over the years, the American mainstream media has printed articles about Islamic and African female genital mutilation, the public gang-rapes of innocent young girls in Pakistan (like Mukhtaran Bibi) and the repeated gang-rapes of girls and women in Darfur by ethnic Arab Muslims (the New York Times simply refused to use the word “Muslim”). The media has covered the disfiguring acid attacks on girls and women in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran. Maddeningly, it draws no conclusion.

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