By David Rubin

Book Review by Fern Sidman

Issuing an impassioned clarion call to the Western world on the litany of existential dangers that radical Islam represents to America’s cherished democratic principles, author David Rubin’s meticulously researched monograph reveals that Islam is in actuality a political ideology predicated on a pernicious dogma, rather than the “religion of peace” that its proponents purport it to be.

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By Fern Sidman

An overflow crowd gathered in the cavernous lobby of the stately New York Surrogate Courthouse in lower Manhattan on Monday evening December 20th for a moving evening dedicated to the majestic heritage of the Jewish nation. Sponsored by the Agudath Israel, the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC), the Met Council on Jewish Poverty and the UJA-Federation of New York, the Jewish Heritage celebration was the brainchild of New York City Comptroller John C. Liu, a native of Taiwan, who was the chief organizer of the event.

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by Phyllis Chesler

Recently, a good feminist — yes they do exist–someone who has fought in the trenches for years on behalf of battered and raped women — implored me to stop publishing at this site. She said that I was the only “real,” pioneer feminist left standing who had continued to engage in the most important battles which humanity now faces. However, she was getting flack when she sent my pieces around precisely because my work is being published on conservative websites and by someone like David Horowitz.

Right there, that should have made her wonder why allegedly “feminist” or liberal websites were neither publishing nor even linking to my work and why allegedly “conservative” (and therefore presumably anti-feminist) venues have embraced that work.

She wrote (and I am paraphrasing):

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By Barry Rubin

What will the United States and the world going to do about an act of aggression by North Korea on South Korea, the deliberate unprovoked firing of mortars at civilians? And what are the lessons of this situation for other world problems?

First, nobody is going to do anything real in response to this attack. Indeed, the South Koreans are lucky that they aren’t being investigated and condemned for something or other.

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Courage. Honor. Duty. Sacrifice. Veterans have walked the walk, so how can I put into words my gratitude and admiration for their service in protecting this great nation? Thank you veterans.

by Mitchell Bard*

“That is the best-organized lobby; you shouldn’t underestimate the grip it has on American politics–no matter whether it’s Republicans or Democrats.”[1] This recent comment by the European Union trade commissioner and former Belgian foreign minister, Karel de Gucht, epitomizes the pervasive belief that a Jewish-Zionist-Israel lobby has undue influence on U.S. Middle East policy.

This idea predates the establishment of the state of Israel. For the most part, the discussion was kept behind closed doors and limited primarily to State Department Arabists, but it gradually became popular among those who held a grudge (such as Congressman Paul Findley, who blamed his defeat in a reelection bid in 1982 on the lobby[2]) or who were open enemies of Israel (e.g., Pat Buchanan).[3] The recent publication of Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer’s The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,[4] however, gave a patina of academic legitimacy to the long whispered complaints of the anti-Israel establishment.

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… in December 2007. … Over a U.S. objection, the other U.N. member states voted to approve the budget. This decision not only demonstrated a general disregard for the concerns of the U.N.’s largest financier–the U.S. is currently assessed 22 percent of the U.N. regular budget and over 27 percent of the U.N. peacekeeping budget–but also broke a 20-year tradition of adopting budgetary decisions only by consensus. …

The Heritage Foundation, February 3, 2010

At least Bush the administration objected to this madness, but “the Obama Administration did not even demand a vote on the proposed budget this past December.” What are we? Sheep? After last week’s elections, I’d say, “No,” but our country still has a sheep in the Oval Office. Baaaahhhhh. To add insult to injury in this three-ring circus, UN Watch reported yesterday:

… The U.S. was ambushed today at its first UN Human Rights Council review after Cuba successfully stacked the speakers list with rogue regimes and other vehement critics. Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, Russia, China, Algeria, Bolivia, Nicaragua and several Muslim states accused America of genocide, war crimes, and systematic anti-Muslim and anti-African racism. …

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by Alexander Maistrovoy

Clinton is right: “Russians” in Israel don’t really want peace, that kind of peace which Bill Clinton imposed on Serbs in Kosovo.

Clinton’s words that Russian-speaking Israelis are an obstacle to reaching peace can be understood in different ways. Excluding their emotional component, it is necessary to recognize that the immigrants from the former Soviet Union are most opposed to the Israeli/Palestinian peace process (or what is implied by this term). Let’s look at the root of this phenomenon.

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By Barry Rubin

This is one of those obscure Middle East events of the utmost significance that is ignored by the Western mass media, especially because they happen in Arabic, not English; by Western governments, because they don’t fit their policies; and by experts, because they don’t mesh with their preconceptions.

This explicit formulation of a revolutionary program makes it a game-changer. It should be read by every Western decision-maker and have a direct effect on policy because this development may affect people’s lives in every Western country.

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by Raymond Ibrahim*

Islamist enmity for infidels, regularly manifested in the jihad, is by now moderately well known. Lesser known, however, but of equal concern, is the mandate for Muslims to be loyal to fellow Muslims and Islam — a loyalty that all too often translates into disloyalty to all things non-Muslim, including the American people and their government.

This dichotomy of loyalty to Muslims and enmity for infidels — which, incidentally, corresponds well with Islamic law’s division of the world into the abode of war (deserving of enmity) and the abode of Islam (deserving of loyalty) — is founded on a Muslim doctrine called wala’ wa bara’ (best translated as “loyalty and enmity”). I first encountered this doctrine while translating various Arabic documents for The Al Qaeda Reader. In fact, the longest and arguably most revealing document I included in that volume is titled “Loyalty and Enmity” (pgs.63-115), compiled by Aymen Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s number two.

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by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi*

Did the U.S. spending of $53 billion on reconstruction efforts, or “nation-building,” work in Iraq? According to New York Times’ columnist David Brooks, it did. Unfortunately, however, his argument is flawed on numerous counts by selective evidence.

To begin with, he cites the International Monetary Fund’s report that Iraq will have the twelfth fastest growing economy in the world with a projected 7% economic growth this year, but such a statistic is misleading because, as in Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela, this expansion is almost entirely due to rising oil prices, and has nothing to do with development projects funded by U.S. taxpayers. Indeed, Iraq has become increasingly oil-dependent like its neighbors in the Gulf region, such that petroleum revenues account for about 70% of GDP and around 90% of government revenues.

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by Daniel Pipes*

As September 11 comes around each year, those of us who focus on radical Islam inevitably ask whether the lessons of 9/11 have sunk in — or whether they are fading as the event itself becomes a memory. Are we, in other words, progressing or regressing in what once was called the war on terror?

In contrast to a conventional war, in which objective markers such as control of territory or the output of steel indicate trends, in this new kind of war one must look to subjective factors like understanding the enemy or pride in one’s own civilization. How, on this slippery basis, does the United States stand on the ninth 9/11?

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

When perverted, evil, Islamist terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center, they demolished a true “community center” — a model of human diversity and opportunity. (Why is it that so many “progressives” [cowards] hold “diversity” to be an ideal, but nonetheless double-think and apologize for radical Islamic savagery, e.g., Sunni Muslims killing Shi’ite Muslims or Islamist hatred of Jews and gays?) Claudia Rosett reminds us that New York City had one of the greatest community centers on Earth — at least before Islamists struck:

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Photo (c) netwmd.com, LLC

… I keep thinking that on Sept. 10, 2001, lower Manhattan had a community center. A spectacular center. It was called the World Trade Center, though I always found the name Twin Towers more alluring. One of my favorite views used to be the scene that opened up when you drove east across the Tappan Zee Bridge — from which, on clear days, looking miles down the Hudson to the southern tip of Manhattan, you could see those two white towers.

The World Trade Center was, as some of its chroniclers have said, a vertical city. It was a place of shops, cafes, restaurants, news stands, many offices and a huge plaza where in summer there were concerts, and people lunched outdoors around the fountain. Its basement concourse was the place where in 1982, as an aspiring journalist, I engaged in the oxymoronic business of calming my nerves with a cup of coffee, at one of the multitude of coffee shops, before going across the street for a job interview. It was the place where over many years I came and went from subway stops that let out into the World Trade Center complex, where you could buy everything from t-shirts to airplane tickets. I bought my favorite briefcase there, won a raffle for a bread-basket, picked up shampoo, toothpaste and dishracks; I met friends and business contacts for lunch there, walked through it on the way to more distant shops and restaurants, and interviewed people in the offices above. When I moved back to New York in 1997, after almost a dozen years working abroad, my editor took me to lunch in the North Tower, more than 100 stories up, at Windows on the World.

In one of the lower buildings of the complex, there was a huge and marvelous Borders bookstore, with a big poetry section, a cafe, and benches outside. It was a great place to play hooky from the office. It’s gone. It’s all gone. …

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

In a rare moment of clarity, the BBC published an article explaining why Americans can burn Korans, Bibles, Torahs, or American flags as expressions of free speech. Maybe a few people around the world will read this article and get a better understanding of the values we cherish and make us strong — time better spent than blaming the U.S. for every problem under the sun. Perhaps the “teaming masses” will get a clue as to why millions of immigrants, probably emigrants related to/known to most of these masses in some way (family, friendship, neighbors, etc.), have flocked to our great nation. And if new immigrants to the U.S. don’t understand our values, we’re pretty good at assimilation — or at last resort, there’s always police, riot police, the FBI, or the National Guard. For foreign entities who wish to destroy our cherished values, as in 911, that’s why we have aircraft carriers, Marines, F-16s, and cruise missiles. In other words, if you don’t like Americans’ right to free speech — e.g., the many “progressives” who would suspend free speech when it suits their cowardly agendas — you can just piss off. From the Beeb:

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by Daniel Pipes*

The furor over the Islamic center, variously called the Ground Zero Mosque, Cordoba House, and Park51, has large implications for the future of Islam in the United States and perhaps beyond.

The debate is as unexpected as it is extraordinary. One would have thought that the event to touch a nerve within the American body politic, making Islam a national issue, would be an act of terrorism. Or discovery that Islamists had penetrated U.S. security services. Or the dismaying results of survey research. Or an apologetic presidential speech.

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