by Asaf Romirowsky*

The Palestinian narrative sees Israel’s 1948 War of Independence as the al Naqba — “the catastrophe.” The birth of a sovereign Jewish state is perceived to be the root of all evil because this supposedly solidified how the small Jewish community robbed the Palestinians of their land.

That is the recurring mantra found in Arab historiography — a hypersensitive focus on discrimination and inequality. In general, Arab scholars tend to ignore the huge corpus of materials found in the archives on the war and zoom in on what are legitimate or illegitimate claims, using U.N. resolutions as the be all and end all.

(more…)

By Andrew L. Jaffee

The UN’s political correctness “marks the end of Universal Human Rights:”

For the past eleven years the organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), representing the 57 Islamic States, has been tightening its grip on the throat of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yesterday, 28 March 2008, they finally killed it.

With the support of their allies including China, Russia and Cuba (none well-known for their defence of human rights) the Islamic States succeeded in forcing through an amendment to a resolution on Freedom of Expression that has turned the entire concept on its head. The UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression will now be required to report on the “abuse” of this most cherished freedom by anyone who, for example, dares speak out against Sharia laws that require women to be stoned to death for adultery or young men to be hanged for being gay, or against the marriage of girls as young as nine, as in Iran. …

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights died yesterday. Who knows when, or if, it can ever be revived. …

(more…)

by Daniel Pipes*

Some analysts of Islam in Western Europe argue that the continent cannot escape its Eurabian fate; that the trend lines of the past half-century will continue until Muslims become a majority population and Islamic law (the Shari‘a) reigns.

I disagree, arguing that there is another route the continent might take, one of resistance to Islamification and a reassertion of traditional ways. Indigenous Europeans – who make up 95 percent of the population – can insist on their historic customs and mores. Were they to do so, nothing would be in their way and no one could stop them.

(more…)

By Phyllis Chesler

This was my first piece for Frontpage Magazine and I gave it to them only after both the New York and LA Times turned it down. A group of Israeli feminists wanted to show a film. The Swedish filmmaker absolutely refused his film to be shown in Israel. Within 48 hours of posting my article, Lukas Moodysson, the filmmaker, changed his mind and allowed his brilliant anti-trafficking film, “Lilya-4-ever” to be shown on a one-time basis at an anti-trafficking conference in Israel. Moodysson knew my work in Swedish and he wrote to me, furious that I had challenged his reputation as “prejudiced.” But he changed his mind.

(more…)

By Andrew L. Jaffee

Senator Barack Obama “seeks spiritual counsel from” Rev. James T. Meeks, a racist and homophobe. Some would say this is a personal thing for Obama (even though I find the relationship troubling). But Meeks has been actively involved in Obama’s political activities, and is now involved in Obama’s presidential bid:

… James Meeks, who will serve as an Obama delegate at the 2008 Democratic convention in Denver, is a long-time political ally to the democratic frontrunner.

When Obama ran for the U.S. Senate in 2003, he frequently campaigned at Salem Baptist Church while Rev. Meeks appeared in television ads supporting the Illinois senator’s campaign. Later, according to the same Chicago Sun Times article, on the night after he won the Democratic primary, Sen. Obama attended bible study at Meeks’ church ‘for prayer’ and ‘to say thank you.’

Since that time, not only has Meeks himself served on Obama’s exploratory committee for the presidency and been listed on the Obama’s campaign website as one of the senator’s ‘influential black supporters’, but his church choir was called on to raise their voices in praise at a rally the night Obama announced his run for the White House back in 2007. …

(more…)

By Barry Rubin

Many years after September 11, despite more than 10,000 terrorist attacks by radical Islamist groups alone, there is still an amazing amount of confusion and falsehood over what should be a very simple point: What is terrorism all about?

The answer is politics and, to be specific, revolutionary politics. Most obviously, terrorism is a tactic used by political groups but, most importantly, it is a strategy. Defining who and what is “terrorist” should be neither a moral judgment nor a propaganda exercise. It is a simple use of political analysis.

(more…)

by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Kyle Dabruzzi*

Government officials, scholars, and analysts continue to debate the extent to which Al-Qaeda’s central leadership remains relevant to today’s battle against terrorism. After U.S. forces eliminated the group’s safe haven in Afghanistan in late 2001, many argued that Al-Qaeda had transformed into a decentralized organization with little vertical hierarchy, that it had become “more of an ideology than an organization.”[1] In the words of one analyst, Al-Qaeda was seen as “a fragmented terrorist group living on the run in the caves of Afghanistan.”[2] This description may have been true in the months following the overthrow of the Taliban, but the notion of a scattered and ineffective Al-Qaeda central leadership has been overplayed over the past several years. Many analysts have exaggerated the capabilities that the terror group’s top leaders require to remain relevant and so have overlooked the fact that even during its nadir from 2002 through 2004, Al-Qaeda’s senior leadership was able to develop terrorist plots for regional nodes to execute. Now that Al-Qaeda’s senior leadership has gained a safe haven in the tribal regions of Pakistan, the organization’s power and relevance grow even greater. Today, the Al-Qaeda network—with a resilient central leadership—is the most dangerous terrorist adversary that the United States faces, possessing a lethal combination of capability and, unlike Hezbollah, a demonstrated desire to carry out mass-casualty attacks on U.S. soil.

(more…)

By Andrew L. Jaffee

Revelations about Barack Obama’s role models keeps getting worse and worse. Today, we find that:

… Rev. Meeks has been described as someone in which Obama seeks spiritual counsel from…

In a 2006 sermon, Rev. Meeks stated, “We don’t have slave masters. We got mayors. But they still the same white people who are presiding over systems where black people are not able, or to be educated. You got some preachers that are house niggers. You got some elected officials that are house niggers. And rather than them trying to break this up, they gonna fight you to protect this white man.” He later defended that sermon during an interview with a Chicago CBS 2 reporter.

Not to mention Rev. Meeks homophobic ways are well noted. A 2007 newsletter from the Southern Poverty Law Center named Rev. Meeks one of the “10 leading black religious voices in the anti-gay movement.” …

Add Meeks to the likes of Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan.

(more…)

by Jonathan Spyer

The Middle East is currently divided between an alliance of radical Islamist and associated states and organizations, which take support and inspiration from Iran, on the one hand, and a coalition of pro-Western states, on the other. The “Annapolis process” is based on the expectation that Fatah will play the role of the pro-Western, pro-stability element among the Palestinians. The facts indicate, however, that for both structural and ideological reasons, it is neither able nor willing to play this role.

(more…)

By Fern Sidman

Several renowned academics and researchers participated in a most revealing and highly informative event on Sunday, March 30th entitled, “Columbia and the Nazis: New Research, New Concerns”. The event, designated as a special session of the Organization of American Historians annual conference was held at The Center for Jewish History in Manhattan and was sponsored by the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies.

The session was chaired by esteemed historian and prolific author, Dr. Rafael Medoff. Dr. Medoff is the director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies and has recently co-authored a book with former New York City Mayor Ed Koch titled, “The Koch Papers: My Fight Against Anti-Semitism” (Palgrave MacMillan).

(more…)