For those self-loathing Westerners seeking to destroy the great democracies in which they live: The times, they are ‘a changing. Go peddle your self-destructive policies somewhere else (like the outhouse). Now here’s some good, old common sense from France’s Interior Minister Claude Gueant, a member of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government:

… “We reject … cloistered lives lived along ethnic and religious grounds, those that live by their own laws,” Gueant told reporters. “The foreigners that we welcome here must integrate themselves. It is up to them to adapt to us, not the other way around.” …

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“Several days ago The New York Times revealed a historic shift in US foreign policy, saying ‘the Obama administration has begun to reverse decades of mistrust and hostility as it seeks to forge closer ties’ with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, once viewed as irreconcilably opposed to US interests.” Given what the Muslim Brotherhood says IN ITS OWN WORDS EVERYDAY, I can only conclude that President Obama is a fool. Read for yourself at MEMRI:

The website of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) in Egypt, Ikhwanonline.com, contains articles with antisemitic motifs, including Holocaust denial and descriptions of the “Jewish character” as covetous, exploitative, and a source of evil in human society. While articles of this tenor have been posted on the site in the past, their posting has recently taken on greater importance in light of the group’s increasing strength following the ouster of the Mubarak regime, as reflected by the results of the recent parliamentary elections.

In addition to antisemitic content, articles on the site also include praise for jihad and martyrdom, and condemnation of negotiation as a means of regaining Islamic lands. Among these are articles calling to kill Zionists and praising the September 9, 2011 attack on the Israeli Embassy in Cairo — which one article called a landmark of the Egyptian revolution. Some senior officials in the MB’s Freedom and Justice party published articles on the site expressing reservations regarding the peace agreement with Israel and insisting that Egypt was entitled to amend it. …

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by Lucas Winter*

On August 11, 2009, the Yemeni government launched “Operation Scorched Earth,” aimed at putting an end to the Huthi uprising that had destabilized the country’s northern province of Sa’da for more than five years. As fighting spread to the province’s border with Saudi Arabia, Huthi fighters attacked a Saudi border post in early November, killing one guard and injuring eleven. The Saudi government immediately declared that the rebels had crossed a red line and began bombing Huthi positions along the border. Yet what was apparently conceived as a quick operation to clear the region of “infiltrators” turned into a major operation involving ground troops and air power, which lasted slightly over three months and exacted more than a hundred Saudi casualties.[1]

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by Phyllis Chesler

Jews and HIndus have both been victims of attempted extermination by Islamics. Of course, not all Muslims are terrorists. But today, most terrorists are Muslims. A speech to Hindu youth in Pune.

On January 8, 2012, I delivered a rather passionate speech in Pune, India via Skype. I was invited to do so by “Youth 4 Panun Kashmir.” The organizers were especially interested in my drawing parallels between Israel and India, Jews and Hindus both of whom have, historically, been genocidally exterminated and driven out of their holy places.

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by Raymond Ibrahim*

Although many Muslim leaders openly articulate their efforts as part of a larger picture — one that culminates in the resurrection of a caliphate adversarial by nature to all things non-Muslim — many Western leaders see only the moment, either out of context or, worse, in a false context built atop wishful thinking.

Among other things, this myopia causes virtually all Western politicians to overlook long-term threats and focus exclusively on violence and terror, the tangible and temporal — those things that may coincide with their tenure.

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by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi*

As U.S. military operations in Afghanistan drag on inconclusively, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the Taliban insurgency is gaining ground. In the first six months of 2010, for example, there was a 31 percent rise in civilian casualties while the Shari’a was implemented in areas hitherto inaccessible to the Taliban.[1] Insurgent attacks in the first quarter of 2011 grew by 51 percent compared with the previous year[2] while the Afghan security forces have been increasingly penetrated by the Taliban.[3]

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by Oren Kessler*

One of the principal beneficiaries of the Arab uprisings has been Al Jazeera television. Viewers are praising the English and Arabic channels’ comprehensive coverage of the revolts while the Obama administration continues to court the network as part of its signature foreign policy goal of improving ties with the Arab and Muslim worlds.

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By Gary Gerofsky

As Canada (my country) knows all too well, when you get in bed with an elephant, you get squashed. Canada now has a semi-independent foreign policy with respect to Israel (we favour Israel over violent Islamic states but the USA has begun to distance itself away from Israel) and Canada has found a way to make its own decisions despite having such a large and domineering neighbour. We have found a way to develop our own economy and society while finding mutually beneficial arrangements with our largest trading partner (and we are the USA’s largest trading partner).

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By Barry Rubin

For the first time in forty years, Israel is not the American president’s favorite Middle Eastern ally. Instead, that role is played by Turkey’s government.

This would not be such a bad thing if we were talking about the “old” Turkey, the secular republic. Unfortunately, President Barack Obama’s favorite adviser among the regional leaders is Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Pretend all you want but Obama really dislikes — hates? — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and truth be told Netanyahu has done nothing to deserve that treatment.

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by Efraim Inbar*

Although the wave of mass protests spreading through the Arabic-speaking countries may have begun to recede, it has left a wide-ranging impact on the region. Three authoritarian regimes have collapsed, and the rest are experiencing varying degrees of duress.

This emerging political and strategic landscape has major implications for Israeli national security. Regional turmoil has effectively ruled out a major advance in Arab-Israeli diplomacy, enabled Ankara and Tehran to expand their influence, continued the decline of U.S. influence, and emboldened extremists.

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by Raymond Ibrahim*

The Nigerian church bombings, in which the Islamic group Boko Haram ["Western Education Is Forbidden"] killed over 40 people celebrating Christmas mass, is just the most obvious example of anti-Christian sentiment in the Muslim world. Elsewhere in this region, Christmas time for Christians is a time of increased threats, harassment, and fear, which is not surprising, considering Muslim clerics maintain that “saying Merry Christmas is worse than fornication or killing someone.” A few examples:

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by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi*

In the course of the present unrest across the Middle East and North Africa, it has become clear that questions of identity are going to be extremely important in deciding the future paths of the various countries in turmoil, not only as regards the divide between Islamists and secularists, but also concerning ethnic and sectarian tensions in countries like Syria, Yemen, and Libya.

For Christians in the region, the issue of identity will similarly be important in determining ways to adapt to the changing political order. This naturally raises the problem of how exactly these Christians define themselves. For example, what does it mean to speak of an “Arab Christian”? Which Christians in the region feel the strongest affinity with such a description? Which ones reject it most vehemently?

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By Barry Rubin

Of course, conflicts between Sunni and Shia Muslims are not at all new, but the fact that this is becoming a central feature on the regional strategic level is a dramatic shift. After all, as long as there were secular-style regimes preaching an all-inclusive Arab nationalist identity, differences between religious communities were subordinated. Once there are Islamist regimes, theology becomes central again, as it was centuries ago.

However, no one should misunderstand the situation. This is fundamentally a struggle for political power and wealth. When Sunni and Shia states or movements battle they are acting as political entities not pursuing old theological disputes.

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by Daniel Pipes*

It’s not every day that the leader of a brand-new country makes his maiden foreign voyage to Jerusalem, capital of the most besieged country in the world, but Salva Kiir, president of South Sudan, accompanied by his foreign and defense ministers, did just that in late December. Israel’s President Shimon Peres hailed his visit as a “moving and historic moment.” The visit spurred talk of South Sudan locating its embassy in Jerusalem, making it the only government anywhere in the world to do so.

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by Raymond Ibrahim*

The so-called “Arab Spring” continues to transition into a “Christian Winter,” including in those nations undergoing democratic change, such as Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis dominated the elections — unsurprisingly so, considering the Obama administration has actually been training Islamists for elections.

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