by Daniel Pipes*
This month, Denmark’s police foiled a terrorist plot to murder Kurt Westergaard, the cartoonist who drew the strongest of the Muhammad pictures, prompting most of the country’s newspapers to reprint his cartoon as an act of solidarity and a signal to Islamists that their threats and violence will not succeed.
By Barry Rubin
A funny thing happened at the funeral of Imad Mugniyah. Those who had for years been denying any connection with him and his international terrorist activities–Iran, Syria, and Hizballah–suddenly admitted that he was one of their favorite people.
At the same time, other critical points came out. Mugniyah’s critical position as the link between those three allies, in their conduct of terrorism and subversion, stood out clearly. In addition, Mugniyah’s career as an international terrorist, who often operated against Western targets, showed how Hizballah–along with its backers in Tehran and Damascus–were second only to al-Qaida in their global operations of violence.
by Michael Rubin*
In December 2007, Libyan strongman Muammar Qadhafi toured Europe, triumphant. No longer an international outcast, he received a statesman’s welcome. Feted by President Nicolas Sarkozy at the Elysee Palace, he could ignore slights by Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner. After all, Kouchner may have refused to dine with him, but Qadhafi still walked away with nearly $15 billion in new contracts. Across Europe, Qadhafi’s pariah status is a fading memory.
by Jonathan Spyer
In a speech last week broadcast at the Sayed al-Shohada Mosque in south Beirut, Hizbullah General Secretary Hassan Nasrallah promised his supporters that Israel’s ‘disappearance’ was an ‘established fact.’
The Hizbullah leader railed from his unknown hiding place against the ‘robbing and murdering Zionists’, whom he accused of killing prominent Hizbullah official Imad Mughniyeh. Behind the Hizbullah leader’s customary defiant rhetoric, however, his movement currently faces a series of dilemmas.
by Stephen Schwartz*
The involvement of Muslim physicians in the London and Glasgow airport terror conspiracy on June 29-30, 2007, forced both non-Muslims and moderate Muslims to question how those trained to heal could embrace terrorism. The doctors involved in the attempt to detonate car bombs in London and blow up a passenger terminal at the Glasgow airport did not represent an isolated phenomenon. Many Muslim doctors have adopted the extremist doctrines espoused by the Muslim Brotherhood, Saudi Wahhabis, and Pakistani jihadists. Groups such as Al-Muhajiroun, a group banned but still active in Britain and famous for celebrating the 9-11 terror attacks, recruit medical students. Tablighi Jamaat,[1] an Islamist movement prominent in Great Britain among Muslims of South Asian origin, also welcomes Muslim medical students. Medical professionals represent an elite in Muslim societies. They have moral and social standing that can influence others to stray from the observance of traditional, mainstream, and spiritual Islam toward radical ideologies.
by Steven Shamrak
I visited and reviewed an official website of the Jerusalem Conference which took place this week. The only thought that came to mind was, “What a waste!” The waste of time, human and financial resources and the waste of opportunity to set the agenda for reaching a Jewish national goal and uniting Jews and our true friends around the world behind it.
by R. John Matthies*
Not long ago a list of “unique issues affecting Muslim Americans” was posted at the Muslim Americans for Obama ‘08 website. This describes a number of “recommendations” drafted to advance the discussion of lawful Islamism and exceptional accommodation in the United States. These suggest both that “Islamic” comportment is beyond reproach, and that one is always correct to press the case for inviolable “Muslim” space.
By Phyllis Chesler
Talk Radio (The Mancow show) called last night and asked me to join them this morning to comment on the Obama-Farrakhan matter. And so I made a dutiful list of “talking points” and tried to overcome my professorial politeness in order to get a few words in edgewise on a wonderfully high-energy program. The interview will be posted in a few hours at Mancow.com and here’s some of what I said.
I believe that Obama is our first Muslim Presidential contender.
By Barry Rubin
Ironic, isn’t it, that radical forces threaten a wide range of violence, sanctions, and other behaviors against democratic states while insisting–along with their Western apologists–that any attempt by their victims to put any kind of pressure on them is useless.
Think about it. Every time someone proposes, say, economic sanctions (on Iran or Syria), an international tribunal investigating its involvement in terrorism (on Syria), military operations or killing terrorist leaders (against Hamas, Hizballah, Iraqi insurgents, al-Qaida, the Kurdish PKK, or the Taliban), diplomatic isolation, or even not giving financial aid (Hamas), a chorus of voices says: it won’t work.
by Danielle Pletka and Michael Rubin*
On Friday, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Mohamed ElBaradei submitted a report on Iran’s nuclear program to the IAEA’s Board of Governors. It concluded that, barring “one major remaining issue relevant to the nature of Iran’s nuclear programme” — including a mysterious “green salt project” — Iran’s explanations of its suspicious nuclear activities “are consistent with [the IAEA’s] findings [or at least] not inconsistent.”
National Jewish Democratic Council asked to join in this protest
To: watchdog “at” barackobama.com, media “at” barackobama.com
cc: njdc “at” njdc.org, info “at” njdc.org
From: Bill Levinson [phone number given to Obama for America, NJDC]
We direct your attention to this New York Sun article:
Farrakhan Lauds Obama as ‘Hope’ of World
By Associated PressFebruary 25, 2008
In his first major public address since a cancer crisis, Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam said yesterday that a presidential candidate, Senator Obama, is the “hope of the entire world” that America will change for the better. …
by Cinnamon Stillwell*
The proliferation of dubious conferences on “academic freedom” continues unabated. And, in each case, biased and politicized Middle East studies academics are a major component.
In October, 2007, the University of Chicago hosted, “In Defense of Academic Freedom,” an event whose unifying theme was “the notion that Jewish groups have degraded the quality and breadth of discussion in the media and in Washington.” Hardly the stuff of self-described progressives, but such is the state of discourse in the corridors of academia today.
by Jonathan Spyer
The Lebanon war of 2006 failed to resolve any of the issues over which it was fought. Ultimately, the war may be understood as a single campaign within a broader Middle Eastern conflict–between pro-Western and democratic states on the one hand, and an alliance of Islamist and Arab nationalist forces on the other. The latter alignment has as one of its strategic goals the eventual demise of the State of Israel. While such a goal may appear delusional, the inconclusive results of the 2006 war did much to confirm the representatives of the latter camp in their belief that they have discovered a method capable of eventually producing a strategic defeat for Israel.
By Phyllis Chesler
Yes, I watched the last hour of the debate in Texas last night. I noted that neither candidate addressed the key issues which face our nation and which will determine our destiny. How will our next President deal with the potential Islamification of America? What are his or her views about fundamentalist Islam, jihad, terrorism, Muslim (not Hispanic) immmigration as well as the way in which some Muslim-Americans are using American civil rights and liberties in order to safeguard Islamic gender and religious apartheid on American soil?
by Amos N. Guiora and Asaf Romirowsky*
In 1993, after the Oslo peace accords, the Palestinian Liberation Organization was transformed into the Palestinian Authority. The PA was to assume governing responsibilities for the Palestinian people, the first step toward statehood.
The dream of joining the family of nations was tangible.
What went wrong? In reality, Yasser Arafat continued to foster the status quo victim message of Palestinian oppressing as the direct result of Israeli occupation and Western (primarily U.S.) indifference, if not acquiescence - despite the fact that the PA had responsibility for civil affairs and security in the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank.
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