While I will grant that the BBC is very diligent in covering acts of Palestinian terrorism against Israelis, it always seems to have to get in a dig or two against the Jewish state. Today, the Beeb reported on the opening of the new Gaza border crossing:

Saturday was the first day Palestinians could use the reopened Rafah crossing - a vital gateway to the outside world for the Gaza Strip’s economy. …

Israeli forces continue, however, to keep a video watch from a nearby base and retain control over the movement of all goods and trade in and out of Gaza.

They will be able to raise objections if they believe that Islamic militants or anyone else crossing into Gaza pose a security threat to Israel. …

The BBC’s Alan Johnston in Gaza notes that Palestinians had always hated having to pass through Israeli checks at the frontier, where they were often subjected to delays and questioning.

Maybe a 100 years of Palestinian pogroms against Jews has caused Israel to be a little cautious. Gaza is still a Wild West, out of the control of the Palestinian Authority (PA), and under the pseudo-control of terrorist groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The PA’s President Abbas has explicitly ruled out the disarming of the terrorist groups. While Palestinians have squandered a hundred years on teaching children to hate Jews, Israel has built a vibrant democracy and economy ($129 billion/year GDP — not bad for 6.5 million Jews and Arab-Israeli citizens).

One would think that the opening of the Gaza crossing would be nothing but good news, but the BBC has got to get in its digs. Maybe a dig along these lines: “Palestinians are finally starting to get their long-neglected economy in order, concentrating on trade instead of bomb-making factories.” Maybe when hell freezes over.

Too bad the same editorializing is not afforded to stories about Jewish victims of Palestinian terror. Or maybe just drop the editorializing completely…

by Daniel Pipes
DanielPipes.org*
November 24, 2005
http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/540
* Cross-posted with permission

Robed men with long beards and women in burqas have often prompted thoughts of Islamist terrorism, leading to the police being alerted and the suspects turn out to be perfectly clean. Indeed, just such a recent case took place at a New York Giants football game. Islamist organizations lose no time to jump on these cases as signs of prejudice, sometimes exploiting them for their own gain.

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Jordan’s King Abdullah has called for crushing Islamist terror in Jordan:

King Abdullah said Jordan’s reforms were “irreversible” and the suicide attacks would not halt them.

“At the same time, it reaffirms our need to adopt a comprehensive strategy to confront the Takfiri culture,” he said.

Takfiris believe contemporary Muslim society has reverted to a state of unbelief (kufr) and thus consider legitimate both rebellion against the state and acts of violence against Muslim citizens.

The king wants Mr Bakhit to “not only deal with the security dimension, but also the ideological, cultural and political spheres to confront those who chose the path of destruction and sabotage to reach their goals”.

He also called for a “relentless war on all the Takfiri schools, which embrace extremism, backwardness, isolation and darkness and are fed on the ignorance and naivety of simple people.”

He said fatwas, or religious decrees, issued by Takfiri schools constituted a threat to Jordan’s society and its interests.

Jordan’s relations with Israel, and its defiant stance against Islamist terror makes it a country worthy of strong American support. Muslim leaders like Abdullah and Pakistan’s President Musharraf, may just be able to lead their peoples away from Islamic extremism and closer to civilized norms.

The radical Left continues to remain silent over al-Qaeda’s campaign of genocide against Iraqi civilians:

At least 30 people were killed and 27 wounded when a car bomb exploded outside a hospital in a town south of Baghdad, officials say.

The selective perception of the Left galls me to no end. Al-Qaeda is waging a campaign of ethnic/religious cleansing in Iraq, but there is not even a whimper from the “progressives.” 26,000 Iraqi civilians have been murdered by terrorists, but this slaughter continues to be legitimized as an “insurgency.”

FDR, considered one of the greatest Democrats, saw the Axis for what it was, despite popular reluctance to admit its threat to democracy. He successfully guided the U.S. to save the free world, but why is his legacy now ignored? It is fear of terrorism that motivates the “opposition.” But FDR eloquently pointed out that “the only thing to fear is fear itself.”

Senator Joe Lieberman is one Democrat not advocating a quick U.S. exit from Iraq. Of course, this will not sit well with cranks like Sen. Kennedy, nor with the other rabidly extreme leftists who probably consider Lieberman a “Zionist” sellout. From CNN.com:

Speaking from Baghdad on his fourth trip to Iraq since July, Sen. Joseph Lieberman on Wednesday said failure in Iraq would be “catastrophic” for the United States and the entire Middle East, and that U.S. forces should not pull out before Iraqi forces are fully trained.

“The two extremes that are often described by different people here … is that everything is going fantastic here in Iraq or that the country is about to collapse. In my opinion, neither one is true,” he told CNN. “We are somewhere in between.”

Lieberman, a senior Democrat from Connecticut, said Iraqis are striving to “put the nightmare of Saddam Hussein behind them,” but still need U.S. help.

“They are making progress, but they are not where they need to be yet and that’s what we have to help them to do before we can leave,” he said.

“The cost of successfully completing our mission here will be large in terms of American lives lost and money spent, but the cost of failure here would be catastrophic for us in the U.S. and for the Iraqis, of course — and I believe for the entire Middle East.

“And that’s why we are going to continue to be here until we get to the point where the Iraqis can take it forward on their own, and I think we are making progress in that direction.”

What rare clarity in the recent acrimonious “debate” currently taking place between Democrats and Republicans regarding the Iraq war — even including a scuffle on the floor of the House. Human nature: it is either all good or all bad.

Lieberman is dead-on when he says that there are “two extremes” in the debate. But there may just be a silver lining to all the acrimony: Some Democrats have softened their stance on calling for an immediate pull-out — the more sane ones realizing the absolutely disastrous consequences of leaving Iraq in the hands of al-Qaeda. And the Bush Administration has been forced by public opinion, Democrats, and some Republicans to examine their Iraq strategy more closely. Sometimes emotional blow-ups have positive consequences when tempers cool.

There is one point I will concede to the Left: The longer U.S. troops remain, the longer some Iraqis will be willing to leave the toughest jobs to American soldiers. This is just human nature. It is also human nature to face reality head-on only when you know there will be a time when you are on your own, with nobody to leave the tough lifting to. But the Left, backed by the 5th Estate, has certainly ignored the good news from Iraq. Abandoning Iraq simply for political gain is just sickening. Hatred for Bush seems to have superseded all sense and sensibility.

For example, a CNN reporter was interviewing a U.S. grunt in Iraq today. He asked her to comment on her 10-month stint in Iraq. She simply stated that she was helping Iraqis build their infrastructure. He said, “Someone must have gotten to you,” implying that the fact that she didn’t criticize the Iraq war was a sign of military censorship. She had nothing critical to add. Maybe she was satisfied with the good work she was doing. This expectation of negative feelings belies the media’s assumptions about the American presence.

By no means am I starting to adopt the cut-and-run strategy. But I am willing to listen to the opposition, and to consider human nature, both good, bad, or in-between. And I’m happy to know there is at least one Democrat who can be counted among the sane.

Gerhard Schroeder did not exactly have warm relations with the U.S. — especially concerning the Iraq war. It appears that his successor, Angela Merkel, may be trying to soften Germany’s stance on the trans-Atlantic alliance:

Angela Merkel reached out Wednesday to the United States in her first foreign trip as German chancellor, saying it was time to heal the trans-Atlantic rift caused by Germany’s opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

After meeting with NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Merkel praised the alliance’s role in solving world problems and spoke of closer relations with the Bush administration.

“I believe the ties between the United States and Germany can be developed further,” she said.

This is a good start, but she added a footnote:

However, she also said she would not allow Germans to train Iraqi troops inside Iraq, sticking with the policy of her predecessor, Gerhard Schroeder, who was a strong foe of the war. She said Germany would still provide such training in other countries in the Middle East.

No doubt Merkel fears that Germany would become the target of Islamist terror attacks, as Spain did for having troops in Iraq. This is too bad, as Germany could help the new Iraqi democracy get on its own feet, thus obviating the need for a continued presence of foreign troops.

This is a Catch-22. Abandon Iraqis to the terrorists, and keep Germany safe. But feeding Iraqis to the dogs allows Iraq to become another al-Qaeda stronghold — for exporting terror to countries like Germany.

Hugo Chavez, uno pinches tirano, is going to save Boston’s poor by providing them with cheap heating oil:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has begun a program of discounted heating fuel sales for low-income customers in Boston, following up on promises to help the poor throughout the Americas.

The fuel will be sold for 60 cents to 80 cents less than prevailing retail prices, according to Felix Rodriguez, president of Citgo Petroleum Corp., the U.S. refining and marketing business owned by Venezuela’s state oil company. Citgo will sell 12 million gallons of fuel through two nonprofit groups, he said.

What ego. Hugo will do anything to pump up his delusions of grandeur, even at the expense of his own people in Venezuela:

But Mr Chavez’s “revolution” had little real impact on the lives of ordinary Venezuelans, who still suffer from chronic poverty and widespread unemployment despite the country’s oil wealth.

Hugo’s stunts will play well to the radical Left, who live in la-la land, buying into anything that “opposes” the established order — in this case, anything related to the gas and or oil industry. And the word “poor” is involved — even though Chavez ignores his own poor.

Just as Castro’s evils are ignored by the Left, so are Chavez’s. They have a lot in common. They’re both thugs.

There were two significant events in America’s internal war against Islamo-fascism: Jose Padilla was finally indicted for terrorist-related activities – several other jihadis were indicted, too. Ahmed Omar Abu Ali was convicted for planning to assassinate President Bush. Both had/have lawyers claiming all sorts of mitigating circumstances, but there are several less throat-slitters lurking on American soil now.

From the Guardian:

The indictment alleges that Mr Padilla received jihad training in Afghanistan and “operated and participated in a North American support cell that sent money, physical assets and mujahideen recruits to overseas conflicts for the purposes of fighting a violent jihad”.

Also indicted were Adham Amin Hassoun; Muhammad Hesham Youssef; Kifah Wael Jayyousi and a Canadian national, Kassem Daher. All were charged with conspiracy to murder, kidnap and maim people in a foreign country; conspiracy to provide material support for terrorists and providing material support for terrorists.

Having Padilla in legal limbo was too much of a public relations drain.

From the Sunday Times :

An Arab-American student was convicted yesterday of joining al-Qaeda and plotting to assassinate President Bush.

A federal jury in Virginia rejected Ahmed Omar Abu Ali’s claim that Saudi authorities tortured him to extract a false confession.

Thank goodness the jury did not buy the sob-story.

by Daniel Pipes
New York Sun*
November 22, 2005
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/3144
* Cross-posted with permission

My talks at university campuses sometimes occasion protests featuring Leftists and Islamists who call me names. A favorite of theirs is “racist.” This year, for example, a “Stand up to Racism Rally” anticipated my talk at the Rochester Institute of Technology, I was accused of racism against Muslim immigrants at Dartmouth College, and pamphlets at the University of Toronto charged me with “anti-Muslim racism.”

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by Daniel Pipes
DanielPipes.org*
November 21, 2005
http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/533
* Cross-posted with permission

More Palestinian Reactions to the Amman Bombing I noted in my column today, “Palestinians Taste a Dose of Their Own Medicine,” that being on the receiving end of Islamist suicide bombings has prompted small signs of a shift in views, “at least momentarily in Jordan.” I could only cite one piece of proto survey research, about a change in attitude toward Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Here is some more evidence along those lines.

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Bob Woodward, a journalistic icon, has gotten a little too big for his britches. He just cannot resist the urge to play hardball with Washington’s powerbrokers. Last week, Woodward revealed that he might have been the first reporter who was leaked information about CIA “operative” Valerie Plame, wife of the now-discredited Joe Wilson.

The once-mighty Woodward has been censured by his own newspaper, the Washington Post. In a column published yesterday, the Post’s ombudsman, Deborah Howell, wrote that Woodward’s actions “put the paper in a terrible light:”

The Post took a hit to its credibility with readers last week when Bob Woodward revealed that he had been told about the identity of CIA analyst Valerie Plame more than two years ago but had kept it to himself for fear of being subpoenaed. Readers in droves wrote that they were angry and disappointed. That disappointment was rife in The Post’s newsroom, too.

She distanced the Post from Woodward, explaining:

While Woodward is listed as an assistant managing editor, he has no management duties. He comes and goes as he pleases, mostly writing his best-selling books on what happens behind the doors of power, and he reports only to Executive Editor Len Downie. He is allowed to keep juicy stories to himself until his latest book is unveiled on the front page of The Post. He is the master of the anonymous source.

Last week we found out that he kept the kind of information from Downie that is a deeply serious sin not to disclose to a boss — the kind that can get even a very good reporter in the doghouse for a long time. He also committed another journalistic sin — commenting on National Public Radio and “Larry King Live” about the Plame investigation without disclosing his early knowledge of Plame’s identity.

Finally, Howell calls for more oversight over Woodward’s freewheeling activities:

What now? Woodward ought to have an editor; every reporter needs one. Downie needs to meet with him frequently or assign him to another top-line editor here. In any case, an editor needs to know what he’s working on and whom he’s talking to. The Post needs to exercise more oversight. Woodward needs the grounding a good editor gives.

It boils down to this: There ought to be clear rules, easy for readers and Post staffers to understand, about Woodward’s job at The Post. He has to operate under the rules that govern the rest of the staff — even if he’s rich and famous.

Now I certainly do not begrudge Woodward for bringing down the paranoid Nignew administration, but that was long ago. One has to question what is going on in Woodward’s head now. He lost legitimacy with me when he falsely charged that President Bush and the Saudis had a secret “deal” to keep oil prices low in the run-up to the 2004 presidential election.

Plamegate does expose a certain hypocrisy in the media. On the one hand, many reporters were eager to learn the source of the supposed White House leak — to fuel their mission to bring down Bush. But what does this do to the tradition of keeping a story’s sources secret? On the other hand, many certainly would not want to shut down government leaks, an awesome source for news stories. The Fitzgerald investigation into the Plame matter will certainly cause lawmakers to think very carefully before stepping forward as anonymous sources.

Howell explains:

Jennifer Seavey, a journalism teacher at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, wrote that this story “sends chills down my spine because it adds another layer to the ongoing impression that reporters are literally or figuratively in bed with their subjects.”

In bed with their own subjects? More likely, drunk with power, on missions to editorialize — or both.

We can only hope that Zarqawi has finally been offed:

U.S. forces sealed off a house in the northern city of Mosul where eight suspected al-Qaida members died in a gunfight — some by their own hand to avoid capture. A U.S. official said Sunday that efforts were under way to determine if terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was among the dead.

Zarqawi’s not having a good day: He may be dead, his family disowned him, and a 100,000 Arabs denounced him. Here’s the full scoop — a sordid tale:

• Zarqawi Alienates His Family
• Sorry We Blew Up Your Wedding, Part II
• Sorry We Blew Up Your Wedding
• We’re all just Jews, Crusaders, traitors, and prostitutes
• al-Zawahiri Letter Published by DNI

by Rachel Hoff
Middle East Quarterly*
Fall 2005
http://www.meforum.org/article/792
* Cross-posted with permission

On January 17, 2005, Iranian security forces arrested 28-year-old Iranian journalist and weblogger Arash Sigarchi for espionage and insulting leaders of the Islamic Republic. Sigarchi, editor of the daily Gilan Emrooz (Gilan[1] Today), had antagonized regime officials with outspoken dissent on two blogs, Panjareh-yi Eltehab (Window of Anguish) to which he was a regular contributor, as well as his own blog, http://www.sigarchi.com/blog.

Sigarchi was aware of the dangers of his actions. His posts chronicled the arrests of fellow bloggers. He spoke out against the abuse of two fellow bloggers, Shahram Rafihzadeh and Rozbeh Mir Ebrahimi. In 2004, Iranian authorities arrested and beat more than twenty other blogging dissidents. Sigarchi had himself been harassed by the police who detained him for several days in August 2004 after he posted online an article with photos of a dissident rally in Tehran.[2]

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by Michael Rubin
The Daily Star (Beirut)*
November 18, 2005
http://www.meforum.org/article/790
* Cross-posted with permission

President George W. Bush has made democratization a pillar of his administration’s strategy. “It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny,” he declared in his January 20, 2005, inaugural address.

Whether because of Bush or not, democracy has progressed in the Greater Middle East. Afghans and Iraqis marched to the polls after decades without the right to vote. Palestinians and Egyptians, too, have held contested elections after years of stilted referendums and closed campaigns. Following the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the Lebanese banded together to advance democracy and reform.

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Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s bombings in Amman, Jordan last week continue to backfire vis-à-vis Arab/Muslim public opinion. On Friday, 100,000 Jordanians marched through the streets of Amman to denounce al-Qaeda’s top man in Iraq. Today, Zarqawi was disowned by his own Bedouin clan. Reports the BBC:

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s influential kinsmen took out adverts in three top Jordanian papers saying they had cut all ties with their relative. …

“We denounce in the clearest terms all the terrorist actions claimed by the so-called Ahmed Fadheel al-Khalayleh, who calls himself Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and affirm that we the sons of the Khalayleh tribe, repudiate him,” the statement read.

“We announce, and all the people are our witnesses, that we are innocent of him and all that emanates from him, whether action, assertion or decision.”

It was signed by 57 members of the Al-Khalayleh clan, which is a branch of the Bani Hassan - one of the area’s largest and most prominent Bedouin tribes.

Zarqawi has made several attempts at public relations (damage control), but has failed miserably. And his genocidal campaign against Iraq’s Shiites continues unabated.

Hmmm… Denunciations and mass protests at an attack on a Jordanian wedding, but silence as Shiite Muslims are slaughtered in the thousands. Maybe there is a sea change in Muslim sentiments for al-Qaeda, but it still is a small one…