by Yoram Ettinger, “Israel Hayom”
US commitments to the security of Israel should enhance — not constrain — Israel’s independence of action. US commitments to the security of Israel should upgrade Israel’s role as a national security producer for the US — a major strategic ally. They should not relegate Israel to a national security-consumer — a client state.
by Raymond Ibrahim*
The conservative movement appears to be at a crossroads in its approach to the threat of Islamic supremacism—not only abroad but at home. Does the emergence of the Muslim Brotherhood as the dominant force of the “Arab Spring” bode ill for America? Or is the Brotherhood merely another “political actor” as the Obama administration would have us believe? Is Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff, a potential security risk worth investigating, as Representative Michele Bachmann and four conservative congressmen have suggested? Or is the mere raising of this question a witch-hunt, as Senator John McCain and Speaker John Boehner and numerous Democrats maintain?
by Ilan Berman*
In October 2011, U.S. attorney general Eric Holder and FBI director Robert Mueller revealed the thwarting of an elaborate plot by elements in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington at a posh D.C. eatery, utilizing members of the Los Zetas Mexican drug cartel.[1]
The foiled terrorist plot, with its Latin American connections, focused new attention on what had until then been a largely overlooked political phenomenon: the intrusion of the Islamic Republic of Iran into the Western Hemisphere. An examination of Tehran’s behavioral pattern in the region over the past several years reveals four distinct strategic objectives: loosening the U.S.-led international noose to prevent it from building nuclear weapons; obtaining vital resources for its nuclear project; creating informal networks for influence projection and sanctions evasion; and establishing a terror infrastructure that could target the U.S. homeland.
by Daniel Pipes*
Israelis spying on Americans is in the news again: leaders of the Jewish state just petitioned for Jonathan Pollard’s release and the Associated Press reported with alarm that U.S. national security officials at times consider Israel to be “a genuine counterintelligence threat.” Its tone of breathless outrage suggests: How dare they! Who do they think they are?
Antonio Prohias drew the wordless “Spy vs. Spy” cartoon, a cold-war phenomenon, from 1961 to 1987. |
Read about and watch below how efficiently the Israel Defense Forces coordinated and prevented a savage, murderous attack by terrorists against the Jewish State:
The terrorists who smashed into Israel at the Kerem Shalom border crossing on Sunday night managed to drive about a mile into Israel, and were traveling at 70 kilometers an hour along the road toward Kibbutz Kerem Shalom, before the Israeli Air Force was able to get a clear shot and blow up their armored vehicle without risk to civilian traffic on the road or nearby. …
Initial army investigations of the incident described a coordinated defensive response to the attempted terrorist attack involving the IDF’s ground, armored, and air forces. …
By John Wahala, CIS.org
Peter Sutherland, the UN’s Special Representative for Migration and Development, recently argued that “at the most basic level individuals should have a freedom of choice” as to where they wish to live. To this end, he wants the European Union to “do its best to undermine” the sense of homogeneity held by the citizens of its member states so that a global approach will be adopted on immigration.
by Daniel Pipes*
Of Israel’s neighbors, Lebanon always stood out by virtue of its weak central government, but for the first twenty years, 1948-68, this did not present difficulties to Israel; only when the Palestinians created a state-within-a-state there did its anarchy became a major challenge to the Jewish state, as symbolized by the Beirut airport raid of December 1968. Many skirmishes followed as well as two wars (those of 1982 and 2006). Lebanon remains anarchic and the home base for Hezbollah; it could well be a future Arab-Israeli battlefield.
by David J. Rusin*
Some scoff at the idea that face-covering Islamic veils endanger public safety in any Western nation, let alone the United States, but Philadelphians do not have the luxury of blissful ignorance. As recent events highlight, their city has become the American epicenter of robberies and murders carried out by criminals disguised as fundamentalist Muslim women. Several factors help explain Philadelphia’s place at the forefront of this trend. Will other U.S. cities be next?
By Fern Sidman
On Monday evening June 4th, over 500 people gathered for an inspiring evening of “prayer and chizuk” at the Young Israel of Jamaica Estates near New York City as their collective voices were lifted to G-d for the redemption of Jonathan Jay Pollard, the US Navy intelligence analyst who has been imprisoned for 27 years on charges stemming from the passage of classified information to Israel.
Sponsored by Young Israel of Jamaica Estates members Jacques Rothschild and Dr. Joseph Frager, the evening served as precursor for the upcoming presentation of the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Israeli President Shimon Peres by President Barack Obama. The publicity flyer for the event stated, “Let us seize the moment to join in prayer to beseech the Almighty to strengthen the hands of President Peres in pursuing justice for Jonathan Pollard.”
By John Thompson and Sara Akrami*
Canada has a fairly tough and effective set of anti-terrorism laws, provided that a terrorist belongs to an entity listed by the Canadian government to which these laws are deliberately applied. Canada has listed al Qaeda and Hezbollah, among other Islamic groups. Putting the Tamil Tigers on the list in 2006 helped bring an end to that group by making it impossible for them to continue to raise funds in Canada. When the Islamic Republic of Iran was established in 1979, its leader, the Ayatollah Khomeini, formed an organization called the “Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps” (IRGC). Its major goal is the protection of the Islamic system of Iran from uprisings and internal dissident, not the protection of the Iranian people. The IRGC also causes instability outside Iran. Given what is known about the IRGC, why aren’t they on the Canadian list of terrorist entities? The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps consist of:
by David J. Rusin*
Federal departments and agencies tasked with safeguarding the U.S. must first safeguard themselves against Islamist infiltration. Recent news items about Muslims having security clearances rejected or revoked suggest that at least some government entities are forgoing political correctness and taking this problem seriously. More need to follow suit, but the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is determined to make life difficult for them.
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.
by Mudar Zahran*
Thus far the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan has weathered the storm that has swept across the Middle East since the beginning of the year. But the relative calm in Amman is an illusion. The unspoken truth is that the Palestinians, the country’s largest ethnic group, have developed a profound hatred of the regime and view the Hashemites as occupiers of eastern Palestine — intruders rather than legitimate rulers. This, in turn, makes a regime change in Jordan more likely than ever. Such a change, however, would not only be confined to the toppling of yet another Arab despot but would also open the door to the only viable peace solution — and one that has effectively existed for quite some time: a Palestinian state in Jordan.
by Raymond Ibrahim*
The Obama administration’s censoring of photographs of the late Osama bin Laden, lest they offend Muslims, is one thing; but what about censoring words, especially those pivotal to U.S. security?
The Daily Caller reveals that “the Obama administration has been pulling back all training materials used for the law enforcement and national security communities, in order to eliminate all references to Islam that some Muslim groups have claimed are offensive.”
by Jonathan Schanzer*
In its final report of July 22, 2004, the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (commonly known as the 9/11 Commission) charged that Congress had failed America. In the commissioners’ judgment, Congress had “adjusted slowly to the rise of transnational terrorism as a threat to national security. In particular, the growing threat and capabilities of [Osama] bin Laden were not understood in Congress … To the extent that terrorism did break through and engage the attention of the Congress as a whole, it would briefly command attention after a specific incident, and then return to a lower rung on the public policy agenda.” Indeed, the commission was unequivocal about “Congress’s slowness and inadequacy in treating the issue of terrorism in the years before 9/11.”[1]
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