by Raymond Ibrahim*

As the United States considers the Islamic jihadi threats confronting it from all sides, it would do well to focus on its southern neighbor, Mexico, which has been targeted by Islamists and jihadists, who, through a number of tactics—from engaging in da’wa, converting Mexicans to Islam, to smuggling and the drug cartel, simple extortion, kidnappings and enslavement—have been subverting Mexico in order to empower Islam and sabotage the U.S.

According to a 2010 report, “Close to home: Hezbollah terrorists are plotting right on the U.S. border,” which appeared in the NY Daily News:

Mexican authorities have rolled up a Hezbollah network being built in Tijuana … closer to American homes than the terrorist hideouts in the Bekaa Valley are to Israel. Its goal, according to a Kuwaiti newspaper that reported on the investigation: to strike targets in Israel and the West. Over the years, Hezbollah—rich with Iranian oil money and narcocash—has generated revenue by cozying up with Mexican cartels to smuggle drugs and people into the U.S. In this, it has shadowed the terrorist-sponsoring regime in Tehran, which has been forging close ties with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who in turn supports the narcoterrorist organization FARC, which wreaks all kinds of havoc throughout the region.

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By Barry Rubin

The port of Oktyabrsk is situated on the left bank of the Bug River, 58 km. north of the entry to the Black Sea. Close to the city of Nikolayev, this anonymous Ukrainian port could not seem further from the strife-torn Middle East.

Yet in the last year, Oktyabrsk has played a key role in the international structure that enables the survival of the Assad dictatorship in Syria. It is the main point from which ships bearing the Russian arms that underwrite the Assad regime’s survival set off undisturbed on their journey to the Syrian coast.

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by David J. Rusin*

Media outlets tiptoeing around Islam are a dime a dozen, but the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) stands apart for the egregiousness of its self-censorship and bias. Even more striking than the number of controversies involving suppression of Islam-critical speech on its channels are the frank acknowledgements that BBC policy is shaped by fear.

During a recent interview (full transcript) for a University of Oxford project, BBC director general Mark Thompson provided the most in-depth admission yet of the BBC’s double standards with respect to faith. Christianity, he explained, receives less sensitive treatment because it is “a broad-shouldered religion, compared to religions which in the UK have a very close identity with ethnic minorities.” Specifically, Islam in Britain is “almost entirely a religion practiced by people who may already feel in other ways isolated, prejudiced against, and where they may well regard an attack on their religion as racism by other means.” Thus, when asked whether the BBC would run a Muhammad-mocking program on a par with the Jesus-ridiculing Jerry Springer: The Opera, which it aired over Christian protests in 2005, Thompson answered that it would not. Depictions of Islam’s prophet, he maintained, could have “the emotional force” of “grotesque child pornography” for Muslims.

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by Raymond Ibrahim*

According to Egypt’s Al Ahram, “Major Egyptian Islamist parties and groups—including the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafist Calling and Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya—have issued calls for a Tahrir Square demonstration on Friday under the banner of ‘Saving the revolution.’ … Several non-Islamist revolutionary groups, meanwhile, have expressed their refusal to participate in the event. These groups include the United Maspero Youth, the Egyptian Brothers Independent group, and the Free Front for Peaceful Change.”

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by Raymond Ibrahim*

Anders Breivik, who went on a shooting spree in Norway last year, killing some 70 people, recently confessed his inspiration: al-Qaeda, the jihadists par excellence of the modern world.

According to AFP, “The gunman behind the Norway massacres said he was inspired by al-Qaida as he took the stand Tuesday [4/17] at his trial…. he described himself as a ‘militant nationalist’ and, using the pronoun ‘we’ to suggest he was part of a larger group, added: ‘We have drawn from al-Qaida and militant Islamists. You can see al-Qaida as the most successful militant group in the world.’”

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Occupy Cleveland canceled a scheduled rally Tuesday after a group of men connected to the organization were arrested by the FBI. …

newsnet5.com, Scripps TV Station Group, 5/1/12

These “group of men” — terrorist thugs — “…had planted what were believed to be explosive devices under the Ohio 82 bridge over Cuyahoga Valley National Park as part of a May Day protest today.” Note that, “More than 13,000 vehicles travel over the bridge each day…” These guys wanted blood, and I emphasize that:

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By Jonathan Spyer

Since the 1990s, Hizballah has defined itself along a number of parallel lines, each of which prior to 2011 appeared to support the other. The movement was simultaneously a sectarian representative of the Lebanese Shi’a, a regional ally of Iran and Syria, a defender of the Lebanese against the supposed aggressive intentions of Israel, and a leader of a more generically defined Arab and Muslim “resistance” against Israel and the West. As a result of the events of 2011, most important the revolt against the Asad regime in Syria, these various lines, which seemed mutually supportive, began to contradict one another. This has diminished Hizballah’s position, though it remains physically unassailable for as long as the Asad regime in Syria survives.

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by Wahabuddin Ra’ees*

U.S. president Barack Obama entered office with a bold plan to combat Afghanistan’s escalating insurgency, empower its government, encourage a political resolution of the conflict, and secure the cooperation of neighboring Pakistan—all in time for U.S. troops to withdraw by the end of 2014.

This new Afghanistan-Pakistan (AfPak) policy has yet to deliver on its promise. While the U.S. military surge swept insurgents out of their southeastern strongholds, the rebels have responded with terror attacks and assassinations reaching into the heart of Kabul. Washington has accelerated its training of Afghan security forces, but most U.S. aid still circumvents the central government, weakening its authority. With a political settlement nowhere in sight and Pakistani support for armed extremists unabated, Washington’s options for preventing a Taliban takeover have narrowed.

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Responsible airlines like Air France, Easyjet, Jet2.com, and Lufthansa have cooperated with Israel to keep “pro-Palestinian” rabble-rousers (hypocrites) from flying into Ben-Gurion airport to cause who-knows-what kind of mayhem in the Jewish state:

More than 60 percent of the 1,500 pro-Palestinian activists due to arrive in Israel on Sunday to take part in a fly-in protest have received notifications from airlines that their flights were canceled, the spokesman for the “Welcome to Palestine” protest told Haaretz on Saturday. …

For the bigoted trash that do make it into Israel, the Jewish state’s government has prepared a reality check to be presented to them upon arrival — a the-truth-hurts message that the haters probably won’t even understand:

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By Yoram Ettinger
Israel Hayom Newsletter, April 06, 2012

Israeli leaders are able to repel President Obama’s relentless pressure to refrain from pre-empting Iran, Hizballah and Hamas; to freeze Jewish construction in eastern Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria; to retreat to the 1949 cease fire lines, including the repartitioning of Jerusalem; and to placate Mahmoud Abbas, while ignoring the PA hate-education, non-compliance and terrorism.

In contrast to the ironclad US public and congressional support of Israel, presidential pressure has always been part of US-Israel relations.

Therefore, contemporary Israeli leaders should emulate Israeli prime ministers who served from 1948 (Ben Gurion) to 1992 (Shamir). While they rejected — in most cases — presidential prescriptions for Israel’s national security, bilateral strategic cooperation surged unprecedentedly in spite off, and probably due to, their steadfastness.

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by Teri Blumenfeld*

Muslims who kill in the name of their religion frequently evade punishment in Western courts by pleading insanity or mental incompetence. Jurors, judges, and forensic psychiatrists are prone to accept the claim that some form of mental incapacity, not religious belief, accounts for “homegrown” jihadist terrorism in North America and Europe.

This state of affairs results from the failure by prosecutors to frame acts of jihadist violence as expressions of faith. This failure to prosecute jihadists vigorously stems from several sources: a deep-rooted, Western reluctance to impugn religion; a cult of political correctness; and culturally naïve wishful thinking. Viewing jihadists as crazy offers a comfortable conceit that ignores the stark reality that disaffected but sane Muslims are seduced by an ideology that espouses violent hatred of Western civilization.

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… No one has yet claimed responsibility for the bombings, but the BBC reported that Boko Haram recently said it would carry out attacks in the area over the Easter holiday.

Who else except Islamist terrorists would commit such a heinous, barbaric act of savagery against Christians during their holiest celebration? “Boko Haram” means “Western education is sacrilege,” according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. My, my… How “enlightened” these savages are. The real apartheid taking place on Earth now is being practiced by Muslims, e.g., ethnically cleansing Christians in Egypt or Iraq, Kurds and Baluchs in Iran, and Kurds in Turkey. The real “nakba” of our times was the expulsion of 600,000 Jews from Arab nations in 1947 and 1948 — Jews whom had roots in those countries for 2,500 years.

From the The Times of India:

ABUJA: At least 50 people were killed when explosives concealed in two cars went off near a church during Easter Sunday services in the northern Nigerian city of Kaduna, eye-witnesses said.

Shehu Sani, the President of Civil Rights Congress based in Kaduna, said two explosions took place at the Assemblies of God’s Church near the centre of the city with a large Christian population and known as a major cultural and economic centre in Nigeria’s north.

“There were two explosions and the casualty figure may go up because some injuries were really critical,” he said on phone. …

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by Daniel Pipes*

On February 25, 1994, Baruch Goldstein, an Israeli doctor of American origins, went to the mosque at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, and murdered 29 Muslims with an automatic weapon before being overwhelmed and himself killed. This massacre prompted conspiracy theories and riots in Muslim circles, including accusations that the government of Israel stood behind Goldstein, an allegation that strenuous denunciations of his attack by the Israeli government did not fully deflect.

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by Damla Aras*

As Syria sinks deeper and deeper into the throes of civil war, the decade-long honeymoon between Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) and Bashar al-Assad’s regime has all but ended. Fearing the possible spread of the revolt to Turkish territory, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu cold-shouldered their hitherto feted ally, openly siding with the rebels. They sheltered thousands of refugees fleeing government repression, including scores of military defectors, conferred with opposition leaders, and even threatened military intervention should the regime continue its brutal crackdown.[1] In August, Erdoğan warned that “we reached the end of our patience”;[2] three months later, he lauded the “massacred” rebels as “martyrs,” prophesying that “the Syrian nation will reap the results of its glorious resistance.”[3] As President Assad ignores these admonitions, has Turkey reached the limits of “soft power” and will it revert to the instruments of hard power to find stability on its southern border?

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by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi*

Commenting on the recent massacre of 17 Afghan civilians that was allegedly carried out by Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, Glenn Greenwald, a leading pundit on the American political left, wrote the following:

There is, quite obviously, a desperate need to believe that when an American engages in acts of violence of this type, there must be some underlying mental or emotional cause that makes it sensible, something other than an act of pure hatred or evil. When a Muslim engages in acts of violence against Americans, there is an equally desperate need to believe the opposite: that this is yet another manifestation of inscrutable hatred and evil, and any discussion of any other causes must be prohibited and ignored.

This is a typical example of how Greenwald engages in overblown rhetoric. To take just a couple of examples that refute his inaccurate generalizations here, no one attempted to rationalize the Mahmudiyah killings in 2006, which involved the massacre of an Iraqi family — including the gang rape and killing of a 14-year old girl — by some U.S. soldiers from the 502nd Infantry Regiment.

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