By Barry Rubin

For the second time in a few months we have seen a crazy global Israel-About-to-Attack-Iran Story. I don’t want to go into all of the details but this tale is an example of how the media has just lost it completely due to a combination of laziness (reporters don’t really do research or check sources); agenda; ignorance; and good old sensationalism. Partly, too, it arises from the difficulty of the mass media in dealing with the Internet media era and the difficulty of the Internet media in achieving decent journalistic standards.

A couple of months ago a level of hysteria was reached on the basis of three stories:

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…If Florida courts accept provisions of Islamic Sharia law or other foreign laws and legal codes which are inconsistent with American laws it will undermine public policies enacted by our representative form of government and change our value system. …

- Florida Family Association

The dangers of Shariah should be self-evident and, thankfully, the good people of the Florida Family Association (FFA) are working against Islamism in their home state. The Obama administration, some other Western governments, and the Western mainstream media are generally soft-peddling the dangers of radical Islam, so people who value freedom and democracy should be ever vigilant. If the FFA can fluster Ahmed Rehab of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the terrorist-apologists and Shariah pushers du jour, the FFA must be doing something right.

What would Shariah mean? It would mean Islamists attempting to “destroy Western civilization from within.” It would mean misogyny and “honor killings” of innocent women. It would mean religiously-sanctioned lying (“taqiyya”) to advance the overriding of our Constitution with Islamic “law.” It would mean non-Muslims (”infidels”) living at best as third-class citizens (“dhimmitude”). It would mean Muslim cab drivers refusing blind customers with “unclean” seeing-eye-dogs. It would mean allowing the creation of autonomous Islamic “no-go zones” right here in the U.S. where American law would have no standing. Should I go on? Would you live under Shariah for fear of “inciting” Muslim anger rather than standing up for democracy? I won’t. Luckily, there are groups like the Florida Family Association fighting Shariah — and succeeding:

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by Daniel Pipes*

It’s not every day that someone like the U.S. secretary of defense forecasts an ally’s move but this just happened when Leon Panetta said that he believes, in the paraphrase of a Washington Post reporter, that “there is a strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June.” Thoughts on this unusual statement:

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By Gary Gerofsky

Iran is quickly becoming the cause celebre and darling of the Left. On a Canadian campus I recently listened to Zafar Bangash, director of the Islamic Society of York Region, make an outrageous defense of Iran and scathing attack on Western civilization — Imperialism, according to Bangash, is the greatest problem in the world, Iran, however, has been assigned favourite victim status by Bangash. He was being sponsored by leftist groups, Islamic students, a Jewish anti-Israel group called Independent Jewish Voices (IJV), and the “Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War.” That last group concentrates on only one country for very special critical treatment — Israel.

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by Raymond Ibrahim*

The Obama administration supports “democracy” and “self determination” in the Middle East—two euphemisms that, in the real world, refer to “mob-rule” and “Islamic radicalization,” respectively. Yet, as Jimmy Carter recently put it: “I don’t have any problem with that [an "Islamist victory" in Egypt], and the U.S. government doesn’t have any problem with that either. We want the will of the Egyptian people to be expressed.”

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by Raymond Ibrahim*

Why should the president speak up on the oppression of religious minorities? For starters, because it is the right thing to do, and reflects American values and principles.

He should speak up because religious cleansing is currently underway in nations like Nigeria, where Boko Haram—”Western Education is Forbidden”—and other Islamic groups have declared jihad on the Christian minorities of the north, killing and displacing thousands, burning and bombing hundreds of churches, most notoriously this last Christmas, where over forty people were killed while celebrating Christmas mass. Likewise, since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, about half of Iraq’s one million Christians have been forced by targeted violence to flee their homeland, the most notorious incident, again, being a church attack, where some 60 worshippers were killed.

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By Sara Akrami and Saeed Ghasseminejad

As long as the priority of democratic governments is the establishment of freedom and democracy rather than financial gain, then the roots of authoritarianism will gradually dissolve throughout the world, and equality and justice will replace authoritarianism. Democratic governments must function as role models for authoritarian regimes and provide the hope of freedom and dignity for citizens living under oppressive rule.

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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 Stephen Steinlight, CIS.org

His eyes fixed on November 6, President Obama is desperately trying to stop hemorrhaging political support in a Hispanic community outraged by the success of his administration’s data-based deportation policy and whose vote is potentially critical in several swing states he won by a razor’s edge in 2008. It has sent some 400,000 illegal aliens home a year for a total of about a million during his time in office. A frenetic effort is now on to shift gears and show results well before the election.

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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 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 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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by Daniel Pipes*

The formal end of the U.S. war in Iraq on Dec. 15 enhanced neighboring Iran as a major, unpredictable factor in the U.S. presidential election of 2012.

First a look back: Iran’s mullahs already has had one opportunity to affect American politics, in 1980. Their seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran for 444 days haunted President Jimmy Carter’s reelection campaign and — thanks to such developments as yellow ribbons, a “Rose Garden” strategy, a failed rescue operation, and ABC’s America Held Hostage program — contributed to his defeat. Ayatollah Khomeini rebuffed Carter’s hopes for an “October surprise” release of the hostages and twisted the knife one final time by freeing them exactly as Ronald Reagan took the presidential oath.

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By Barry Rubin

There is a constant effort — especially by the anti-Israel left–to portray those who express mainstream  Israeli public opinion and the views of professional analysts as “right-wing” or “Likudnik.” This leads me to wonder what one would have to say to please these people. What would be the equivalent of a “liberal” position for Israel according to them? What kinds of positions would they see as legitimate?

What follows is not meant to exaggerate in any way but is, I believe, a genuine list of what they demand. To please them, I presume one would have to say the following:

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