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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By David North, CIS.org

Recent news reports reminded me that all higher education immigration fraud, through the massive F-1 visa program, is divided into three parts:

1. There are the individual students who drop out of legitimate universities to become illegal aliens on their own;
2. There are visa mills which are distinctly illegitimate establishments; they recruit would-be illegal aliens, and, in effect, charge them substantial fees for their F-1 visas; or they operate marginal operations more keyed to profits than to education; and
3. There are more rarely, or more rarely caught, employees of legitimate universities who misuse their positions to facilitate the conversion of legitimate foreign students into illegal aliens.

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By David North, CIS.org

There have been a series of interesting developments in the usually ignored nonimmigrant worker programs which continue to flood America’s already over-staffed labor markets:

• Our embassy in India is giving some major H-1B operators fits;
• An Asian financial organization has downgraded the economic prospects of some big users of the H-1B visa program;
• An H-1B school teacher in California, denied renewal of her visa, has taken her employers to court;
• The J-1 program has received some (well-deserved) negative press.

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by Bruce Maddy-Weitzman*

Where does Tunisia, the unlikely igniter of the Middle Eastern upheavals, stand on the democratic transition scale three months after the overthrow of the long reigning autocrat Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali? And can the country, which stood (mostly by choice) at the margins of Arab political life since achieving independence in 1956, serve as a democratizing exemplar for other Arab states?

Blazing the Democratic Path

The answer to the second question seems fairly clear. As early as 1991, Samuel Huntington identified what he termed one of the most important global political developments of the late twentieth century — a third wave of democratization among thirty previously nondemocratic states.[1] There was no Arab state on his list, yet he identified Tunisia as a prime candidate for future democratization owing to its pace of economic growth, educated middle class, and concurrent liberalization measures undertaken by the country’s new president, Ben Ali.

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By Andrew Whitehead

In the last few months much has been said about the rise of such new (for Americans) ideas as: “Sharia-compliant finance” and “Sharia Law for Muslims“. The mainstream press has either failed to report accurately on Sharia law, or purposely ignores its impact on America.

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By Janice Kephart, CIS.org

The light is getting brighter and the resolution starker on the “no apprehension policy” being imposed on Border Patrol agents by their superiors: it may be part of an emerging “un-border” policy based on a view that we are currently experiencing “acceptable levels of illegal immigration”, which logically means we can reduce the numbers of Border Patrol on the ground.

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by David Schenker*

In September 2008, the U.S. Federal Court in Washington, D.C., rendered a $413 million civil judgment against the government of Syria for its provision of support and material aid to the killers of two American contractors in Iraq.[1] Syria’s appeal is pending, but should it lose, the victims’ families will undoubtedly endeavor to attach Syrian assets in the United States and abroad.

Until now, with the exception of sanctions, financial designations, and periodic cross-border direct action, Washington has imposed little cost on Damascus for its consistent support for terrorist attacks in Iraq since the 2003 war. And while the financial implications of this court verdict are unlikely to change Damascus’s standing support for terrorism, it will impose an unprecedented price on Bashar al-Assad’s increasingly reckless regime.

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By Fern Sidman

Now that the hoopla over the successful United States “hit” on arch terrorist Osama bin Laden has begun to fade into the annals of history, the stark realization that the US and the free world are still bereft of a concrete plan of action to stem the tide of al-Qaeda terrorism is beginning to set in. Having spent close to 10 years assiduously tracking down the elusive 9/11 mastermind, we hasten to remind the CIA, along with the various and sundry intelligence networks, that the task of eradicating Islamic radicals bent on global domination demands replication of the kind of “muscle” that bagged bin Laden.

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by David J. Rusin*

Law enforcement scrutiny, detainment by police, and a court date to answer trumped-up charges: these are the consequences of preaching Christianity to Muslims not only throughout much of the Islamic world, but sometimes even in America as well.

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by Cinnamon Stillwell and Judith Greblya*

The field of Middle East studies is notorious for producing apologias for radical Islam, particularly where anti-Israel and, at times, anti-Semitic sentiment is concerned.

These same tendencies are also increasingly common in an unexpected sector of university life: Jewish studies. An open letter dated March 3, 2011, and signed by 30 University of California Jewish studies faculty members, is a case in point.

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by Stephen Schwartz*

The University of California’s Hastings College of the Law recently demonstrated its utility in the “lawfare” offensive against Israel by hosting a conference on March 25-26, 2011, titled, “Litigating Palestine: Can Courts Secure Palestinian Rights?” The event drew about 75 law students, faculty members, and pro-Arab activists. Police were present at the entrances to the building, as well as at the door of a second room where the proceedings were visible on video, and a large sign warned that disruptive individuals would be excluded.

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By Fern Sidman

In a surprise announcement on Wednesday, April 20th, Pentagon prosecutors declared their intention to re-file war crimes charges against the mastermind of the deadly attack on the USS Cole (an American warship) in the Port of Aden, Yemen on October 12, 2000. 17 US sailors were killed and 40 other US service personnel were wounded when a small vessel, laden with explosives and manned with suicide bombers rammed into the American Navy warship on that fateful day. The announcement included the original request of the military prosecution for an imposition of the death penalty on self-admitted Cole bomber, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, 46, the former al-Qaeda chief of operations for the Arabian Peninsula. Al-Nashiri hails from Saudi Arabia and is of Yemeni descent.

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By Janice Kephart, CIS.org

In a strange confluence of news surrounding the activities of the Border Patrol, the agents are speaking out quite loudly – through the conduit of local law enforcement that has repeatedly challenged Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s claims that the “border is as secure as it has ever been.” Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever and Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu made news that agents in the field are back-channeling complaints to the two sheriffs that they are being told from somewhere high in Customs and Border Protection not to do their jobs fully. Instead, they are to turn around those attempting illegal entry and “scare” them back across the border in order to keep apprehension numbers down – the same numbers the Obama administration is using to justify an unsubstantiated claim that the border is secure and thus the country ready for amnesty. The accusations are harsh, and denied by the administration. Yet I had been hearing these same comments for months myself but lacked sufficient proof to go public.

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James R. Edwards Jr., CIS.org

The seamy side of immigration often gets glossed over, dismissed, or explained away by open-border apologists calling for unfettered legal immigration and unchecked illegal immigration. But an honest look at immigration shows that human sin nature doesn’t stop at the border.

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