Jewish History: THE IMPORTANCE OF THE SAN REMO RESOLUTION

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE SAN REMO RESOLUTION

THE SAN REMO RESOLUTION

April 25, 1920

This agreement between post-World War I allied powers (Britain, France, Italy, Japan) was adopted on April 25, 1920 during the San Remo Conference. The Mandate for Palestine was based on this resolution; it incorporated the 1917 Balfour Declaration and the Covenant of the League of Nation's Article 22. Britain was charged with establishing a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine. Terriritorial boundaries were not decided until four years after.

It was agreed —

(a) To accept the terms of the Mandates Article as given below with reference to Palestine, on the understanding that there was inserted in the proces-verbal an undertaking by the Mandatory Power that this would not involve the surrender of the rights hitherto enjoyed by the non-Jewish communities in Palestine; this undertaking not to refer to the question of the religious protectorate of France, which had been settled earlier in the previous afternoon by the undertaking given by the French Government that they recognized this protectorate as being at an end.

(b) that the terms of the Mandates Article should be as follows:

The High Contracting Parties agree that Syria and Mesopotamia shall, in accordance with the fourth paragraph of Article 22, Part I (Covenant of the League of Nations), be provisionally recognized as independent States, subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone. The boundaries of the said States will be determined, and the selection of the Mandatories made, by the Principal Allied Powers.

The High Contracting Parties agree to entrust, by application of the provisions of Article 22, the administration of Palestine, within such boundaries as may be determined by the Principal Allied Powers, to a Mandatory, to be selected by the said Powers. The Mandatory will be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 8, 1917, by the British Government, and adopted by the other Allied Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

La Puissance mandataire s'engage a nommer dans le plus bref delai une Commission speciale pour etudier toute question et toute reclamation concernant les differentes communautes religieuses et en etablir le reglement. Il sera tenu compte dans la composition de cette Commission des interets religieux en jeu. Le President de la Commission sera nomme par le Conseil de la Societe des Nations.

The terms of the mandates in respect of the above territories will be formulated by the Principal Allied Powers and submitted to the Council of the League of Nations for approval.

Turkey hereby undertakes, in accordance with the provisions of Article [132 of the Treaty of Sevres] to accept any decisions which may be taken in this connection.

(c) Les mandataires choisis par les principales Puissances allies sont: la France pour la Syrie, et la Grand Bretagne pour la Mesopotamie, et la Palestine.

In reference to the above decision the Supreme Council took note of the following reservation of the Italian Delegation:

La Delegation Italienne en consideration des grands interets economiques que l'Italie en tant que puissance exclusivement mediterraneenne possede en Asie Mineure, reserve son approbation a la presente resolution, jusqu'au reglement des interets italiens en Turquie d'Asia.

THE FEAR OF VIOLATING AN OATH WAS OVERTURNED: THE SAN REMO CONFERENCE 95 YEARS AGO

Menahem Rahat

The establishment of many of the Middle East countries was determined at a League of Nations congress at San Remo some ninety-five years ago. There, the international community gave the Jewish people an irrevocable trust to its ancient land, with the assurance that it would eventually create a Jewish State. Yet few Israelis know of the Conference, and successive administrations, in their quest for peace with recalcitrant neighbors, seldoms allude to it. Menahem Rahat explores its power to wipe out Jewish uneasiness at renewing ownership of its land and encouraging its rebirth.

SHOULD JEWS RECLAIM THE WORDS "PALESTINE" AND "PALESTINIAN"?

by Richard Mather

As Richard Mather points out, "the postmodern notion of a deep-rooted Arab Palestinian culture is a sham." The myth-makers assert that the local Arabs in Israel and its territories are a people who have been there since time immemorial. Mather presents some pertinent facts that contradict the Arab fantasy and make clear the "Palestinian people" has no coherency and is mainly a cludge of Arabs coming from Syria, Egypt and other parts of the Arab world. The land had a meager population for centuries. In the entire area, there was a little over a quarter of a million non-Jews in 1800 and a little less than half million in 1890. Then, the population rose began to rise more rapidly, not coincidentally just when the Jews, coming from Europe to redeem their land, creating economic opportunities for Arabs coming in from neighboring land.

SAN REMO: THE FORGOTTEN MILESTONE

by Salomon Benzimra

Salomon Benzimra points out the significance of the Sam Remo Conference. For one, "for the first time in history, Palestine became a legal and political entity." The so-called Palestinian people -- the local Arabs in Israel and the Territories -- had never had a state or sovereignty. Also, the "de jure sovereignty of Palestine was vested in the Jewish people." The San Remo conference was, as Benzimra notes,"a major historical milestone," yet in recent time, the irrevocable grant of sovereignty over the Land of Israel by the Jewish people made by the international community has hardly been mentioned, thus allowing nonsensical claims that the Jews were illegally occupying the land to be taken seriously [emphasis added].

[NOTE: See also Wallace Brand's explanation "in a Nutshell" in the Introduction of the papers on "Britain and the Jewish People", in Part I, September-October 2014 Edition of Think-Israel. See here.]

ISRAEL NEEDS TO STOP ARGUING THE PALESTINIANS' CASE AND START ARGUING ITS OWN

by Evelyn Gordon

Evelyn Gordon writes an article that shouldn't have to be written. As the title says, it's time Israel stopped acting as unofficial spokesmen pleading the Palestinian cause. With all its savvy in medicine and technology, one would think she could up with some intelligent way to talk to the world and tell it about the right of the Children of Israel to the Land of Israel.

FORWARD TO EXTINCTION

by Tabitha Koral

Tabitha Koral writes of a subspecies of Jew bred by the centuries in which Jews lacked a sovereign country and often lived as dhimmis. Taking on the attitudes of those that despised them, these Jewish turncoats promote any action that will weaken Israel. Korol writes specifically of Jay Michaelson, contributing editor to the Forward, who advocates giving up Jewish land to the Arabs for a spurious peace.

March-April 2015

What we are talking about in the March–April 2015 Issue

This Issue's Themes
ISIS: The Latest Superstar, Terror-Wise (Naipaul, Reuter, Meir-Amit Center, Guitta)
Iran - The Quiet Before The Bomb (Daoud, Segall, Lipkin, Glick, Amidror)
General Observations About Terrorist Groups (Kern, Durie, Ahlert, Merkley, Byman)
Israel In The Eye Of A Stormy Middle East (Yadlin-Valensi, Schmitt-Merriam, Spyer, Kuperwasser, Hertz, Aviram-Schweitzer)
To Aid And Abet The Enemy: Censor Thyself. Blame The Victim. (McQuillan, Greenfield, Wilders, Lebl, Bryen)
Professional Bad-Mouthers of Israel (Stillwell, Rooks-Bedein, Devolin, Harrod, Ehrenfeld-Jensen, Steyn)
History Section (Ben-David, May, bat Melech)
Blog-Eds (March-April Blog-Eds)

Editor's Note:

Think-Israel tends to use salafist rather than extremist or Islamist or militant or fundamentalist or activist to describe generically a pious Muslim, one who sticks as closely as possible to the unfiltered words and actions of Mohammad and the first three generations of Muslims, including, especially, the Companions of the Prophet. In modeling himself as closely as he can on the preachings and practices of Mohammad, a salafist can in modern terms be precisely described as an uninhibited terrorist, a theological supersessionist, a political supremacist who believes Islam and sharia law must dominate and a social barbarian, who wages jihad with whatever tools are available. Thanks to the high quality of whitewash supplied by sympathetic propagandists, he seldom is so described.

THIS ISSUE'S THEMES

This issue is about the terrorist groups that are reshaping the map of the Middle East.

THE FIRST THREE SECTIONS in this issue describe some major terrorist groups and their impact on the Middle East in general and on Israel in particular.

When Israel became a state, its neighbors attacked it, using conventional warfare. But new methods of warfare were needed once the Arab countries realized they weren't going to beat Israel militarily. They turned to waging effective propaganda campaigns, convincing those that wanted to be convinced that, despite all evidence to the contrary, Israel was occupying Arab land and was abusing the Arab Palestinians. This new attitude towards Israel justified the well-organized terror attacks that began targeting Israel and Jews systematically. In 1964, Yassar Arafat declared the local Arabs were a separate people, retroactively to be known as Palestinians. He then created the Fatah, a terrorist group devoted to killing Jews, both soldiers and civilians. Hamas was established in Gaza in 1987-88 by the Muslim Brotherhood, also with the specific purpose of destroying Israel.

But what has been most successful has been asymmetrical warfare, waged by 'lone wolves,' the younger the better. A Jewish family is stabbed in their sleep one night when an Arab neighbor sneaks into their house; a family driving on the road is shot by a sniper another day; Jews are struck by Arabs steering cars and trucks and bulldozers at them on still other days. Teenagers, two or three at a time, are kidnapped and slaughtered. This asymmetric warfare has been highly successful. Uniforms aren't necessary. Expensive weaponry isn't necessary. A few dollars worth of gasoline and explosive or missiles that are so poorly constructed they hit almost randomly inside and outside of Gaza force Israel to response with the Iron Dome system, high-tech and expensive, with each interception costing some $60,000 (see here).

The size of a terrorist group becomes less important. Israel won't send out a IDF unit to fight a couple of 12-year olds throwing heavy rocks. On the other hand, a terrorist group can grow in size and organization. If it has enough recruits and money and organizational ability, it can become big enough to act almost as a sovereign state. Limitations on weaponry and on the use of biological and chemical warfare that have evolved over the years are ignored.

Once confined almost exclusively to harassing Israel, the new terrorism threatens the entire area. These terrorists often act like sovereign states themselves, without giving up any of their intrinsic thuggish viciousness. It is, in fact, often difficult to tell the difference between a terrorist state and a terrorist gang. ISIS — The Islamic State — is a terrorist gang that has acquired land, oil fields and terrorist affiliates that it supports with funding, weapons and training; it rules harshly over a large civilian population. Iran — The Islamic Republic — is a sovereign state that has land and oil fields and terrorizes a huge civilian population; it has acquired terrorist gangs and sovereign states — what's left of Syria and possibly Yemen via the Houthis — as affiliates that it supports with funding, weapons and training.

In recent times, except for low-keyed inter-clan and inter-tribe skirmishes, attacks have involved defined states: attacks have been encouraged by a government against a specific group, for example, the Armenian massacre; a structured proxy group fights against the Government, such as Hezbollah in the civil war in Lebanon; or the war is between two sovereign powers as between Iran and Iraq. The kings in power when many of the Arab countries were mandated into existence in the 1920s were mostly deposed, replaced by secular or salafist governments, equally or more repressive. But the states always had two features: borders and rulers. In the new Middle East, that is no longer a reliable statement.

Henri J. Barkey, a professor of international relations at Lehigh University, made the point this way April 21, 2015 in the Washington Post (see here):

The state as we know it is vanishing in the Middle East. Strife in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen, foreign intrusion from states within the region and outside it, and dreadful rule by self-serving elites have all contributed to the destruction of societies, infrastructure and systems of governance. Nonstate actors of all kinds, most of them armed, are emerging to run their own shows. Generations of mistrust underlie it all. [emphasis added]

In the transitional Middle East, sovereign states, major terror groups and splinter gangs, ideologically, have much in common. These Muslim terrorists — thugs, gangs and sovereign states — are almost all salafists. They believe that Islam must dominate all other religions and they are all committed to pursue jihad until this comes true. They disagree mainly on which entity should run the show. The supposed 'authentic' Syrian rebels that have received much weaponry from the US are no exception. A large number of the group's fighters are seasoned al-Qaeda members.

These groups cooperate with each other and knife each other, often at the same time. Their common worship of Mohammad's ways and writings doesn't stop them from internecine fighting. From Mohammad's time, it never has. As EndTimes, a reader of the Daily Caller (see here) put it:

"Iran and ISIS are competing for the crown of militant Islam. One calls itself the Islamic Republic. The other calls itself the Islamic State. Both want to impose a militant Islamic empire first on the region and then on the entire world. They just disagree among themselves who will be the ruler of that empire."

They do have different personalities, depending on which ones of their commonality of features are emphasized. Is the target domestic or global? Is the goal to infiltrate the host country's infrastructure and, like a cancer, itself become the infrastructure or openly to behead resisters and "traitors" to change the country's life style rapidly and force adherence to sharia law? Do they act quietly or with much publicity? Do they use "inoffensive" weapons — stones, knives, cars and home-made explosives — on a few victims at a time but again and again without end or do they plan nuclear extermination of whole populations at a single time?

At the moment, ISIS tops the hit parade. It is a study in contrasts. It can plan and organize with the best and behave with the worst. ISIS is well-organized and plans meticulously but imaginatively. The leadership understands the values of those whose land they have taken over and how fast they can impose sharia law. They know how to attract the malleable and persuade the reluctant. They are good businessmen and know how to keep money coming in. They are thugs and aren't scrupulous on how they keep the money flowing. They use modern methods of social networking to attract recruits, yet they advocate that women are for breeding and are chattel under their father's or husband's complete control. They use sexual barbarism and large-scale slaughter as weapons of terror. They are unashamedly bestial, beheading wholesale, raping women and children, showing no civilized response to human suffering. A reader, RufusFirefly, (see here) summed it up this way:

For a religion who says it's devoted to God they sure have a strange way of expressing that devotion. The sights of headless bodies, bodies strung up like the carcasses of animals, people burned to death in cages, people getting their hands cut off, women and pre-pubescent little girls sold as sex slaves. You know, if we didn't know better we would say this looks a lot like something Lucifer would highly approve of.

These groups may have an ideology that is medieval, but their ambitions are transnational. It is curious that they are often described or market themselves in terms more commonly associated with modern business and trade than religion: al-Qaeda franchises, Muslim Brotherhood offshoots, ISIS market shares, al-Qaeda associates. This is from a Pri September 2014 article, "With terrorism, as with business, it's all about market share," (see here):

Who ever heard of a terrorist group announcing the opening of its latest "branch?" Yet that's what happened a couple of weeks ago, when al-Qaeda announced in a video from its leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, that it was opening al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent. Al-Zawahiri said that it had taken more than two years "to gather the mujahedeen in the Indian subcontinent into a single entity." Sounds like an M&A strategy, no?

It did to Sandip Roy, a senior editor at the Indian news site Firstpost. "I looked at it and I thought, 'All he lacks is a PowerPoint presentation.'"

In fact, the website Medium has created just the sort of PowerPoint presentation an ISIS exec might use if he were pitching to investors. It's complete with cash flow, market share and competitive advantages. Roy says that, shortly before the al-Qaeda video was released, Burger King had announced its own expansion into India. He was struck by the parallels between the two.

He believes al-Qaeda is acting like the big traditional player, while ISIS, which actually spun off from al-Qaeda, is the newer and "much more hip" start-up. "It's kind of like the classic IBM versus Apple starting out in a garage," he says. [...] The bigger message, for Roy, is that al-Qaeda realizes it no longer possesses a monopoly on "Terror Inc."

The reader may notice that we say little about one of the most insidious of the salafist groups, the Muslim Brotherhood. While they remain active in the West, they seem to be lying low in the Middle East. They may have temporarily changed their venue or they may be waiting for things to settle down.

We do discuss how the changes in the organization and scope of terror groups has forced modifications in how countries respond. The previous model of one country's identifiable soldiers clashing with another country's troops in specific locations isn't often useful. Several articles are devoted to detailing some of the new thinking, which has stopped regarding terrorism as an occasional nuisance and has started recognizing that terror organizations are the new ethnic group/state/corporate organization; that asymmetric warfare is the new way of waging war; and that the new warfare is without legal or moral constraint except that it adheres to the precepts in the Koran.

One thing we can say with certainty: if we don't stop Islam's takeover of the West and Far East now, we will be forced to try later, under much less favorable conditions.

THE TWO MIDDLE SECTIONS ADDRESS THE REACTIONS OF ISRAEL AND THE WEST. It was an easy decision for Israel to stay out of the battles of her neighbors, they are none of them her friends. It is difficult but so far possible to maintain vigil at her borders, to stop shipments of weaponry to Hezbollah and quietly to provide medical care and surgery to injured wounded rebels and civilians. Like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, she is alarmed that America and Europe don't seem to understand the consequences of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons.

The second section in this set is entitled "To Aid and Abet the Enemy: Censor Thyself. Blame the Victim" and focuses on the reactions in the West. It is so convenient to pretend that we can maintain a civil society with just a few appeasements to the Muslim life-style. Sometimes that works, at least for a while. But in general, appeasement is perceived as weakness and Muslim activists push to open these weak spots wide. We go from having halal meat for the Muslims to not having pork for the Christians. We go from having puff-pieces written in textbooks describing Islam as the religion of peace to calling any criticism of Islam criminal. When western law that contradicts sharia is ignored in practice, little by little the individual loses his right to run his own life. The protection afforded him by the Constitution and the bill of Rights is corroded. Sharia law takes hold in non-Muslim countries when the media and the politicians trivialize Western ways of living or when they talk about the importance of allowing individual rights but invent loopholes that allow Sharia law to function. The actual victims — the native populations of Western countries — often contribute to their own victimization by self-censorship and by not resisting the voices that are willing to give up everyone's freedom to pacify the Muslim community.

THE LAST TWO SECTIONS ARE, AS USUAL, PUBLIC RELATIONS/PROPAGANDA AND HISTORY. The first one presents some of the bad-mouthers of Israel, whose propaganda rants overpower any facts they might have about the events they are supposed to report. Some exaggerate some minor details and ignore the significant ones. Some invent factoids wholesale. Some chastize anyone that has a bad word to say about Arabs. Some blame the victim. Others invert the truth, painting Israel as doing the bloody deeds of the Arabs and/or award the Palestinians with the crown of innocence, rightly the property of Israel.

PA Mahmoud Abbas (left) described by Pope Francis (right) as an "angel of peace"

The final section is the History Section. This time of the year being dominated by preparation for Passover, actually celebrating it and then repacking everything for next year, we present a story of how hard it was for some Jewish soldiers serving in the Palestine Brigade in World War 1 to celebrate Passover in Jerusalem. The massacre of the Armenians, the first genocide of the 20th Century, is described and there's an article on the authentic Palestinian refugees around at the end of World War 2: the Jews from the Arab countries, who were forced out of places the Jews had lived in for thousands of years, far longer than had the Arab invaders.

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ISIS: THE LATEST SUPERSTAR, TERROR-WISE

As Dan Illouz wrote in the January-February 2015 issue, "The rise of the Islamic State has finally shocked some people into a belated awareness of what's been going on in Middle East." ISIS may be the newest and the nastiest, but ISIS has the same ideology as do all salafist groups: they will wage jihad until they conquer the world for Islam. When we assume ISIS is an anomaly in Islam, we make the mistake of limiting the reach and spread of Resurgent Islam to a relatively small number of terrorists. Even when we know there are hundred, if not thousands, of variously-sized terror groups, we ignore how many of them interact, concurrently friends and enemies. We are wrong when we think 'lone-wolf' terrorists function without a strong support structure. We are just as wrong to attribute independence of thought and technique to 'lone-wolf' terrorist groups.

To comprehend the enemy of current civilization, we have to understand that our enemy's motive power is its adherence to the terrorist preachings and teachings of Mohammad. "What would Mohammad do? What would Mohammad say" is the way millions of Muslims figure out how to interact with the world. Which terror organization ends up as the rulers of the Middle East depends on other factors: organizational ability, funding, the ability to maintain a large stock of high-tech weaponry, the ability to manipulate politicians, media and academics, the ability to attract troops and just sheer luck.

Right now the thugs of Iran and ISIS are the heavy favorites, but the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda are still in the running. The possibility that Iran will make a bunch of bombs before it is stopped OR that ISIS will overcome Iran and become the owner of the nuclear bombs Prez Obama is graciously helping Iran to develop ORthat they cooperate is enough to give anyone nightmares.

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ISIS IS THE FOURTH REICH

by V.S. Naipaul

The Dail Mail UK, the original publishers of this article by V.S. Naipaul wrote, "A long-term critic of Islam as a global threat, he [Naipaul] also challenges those who say the extremists have nothing to do with the real religion of Islam..." Change ISIS to SALAFISTS and Naipaul's article might appear even 50 years from now as an excellent summary of our present day conflict.

THE TERROR STRATEGIST: SECRET FILES REVEAL THE STRUCTURE OF ISLAMIC STATE

by Christoph Reuter

According to documents accessed by Der Spiegel, Haji Bakr was the Islamic State's strategist who planned the organizational structure and the operations ISIS would perform to take over parts of Syria and Iraq. Christoph Reuter writes about the notes and organizational charts drawn up by Baki and discovered after his death. They details ISIS mode of operation and they clarify how ISIS's phenomenally rapid rise was possible. It is also possible to reconstruct the events surrounding the birth of ISIS from the initial membership of ex-officers from Saddan Hussein's army and start-up funds from al-Qaeda. When they targeted a town, they first set about getting information about the religious and sexual activities of the members of the local power structure. This gave ISIS the material to blackmail some of the people, entice others to join them and list which people they would need to eliminate. Controlling the populace, training the troops and having the funds to carry out operations were prime objectives. And when the infrastructure was in place, they declared the caliphate was resurrected.

PRAGMATIC COOPERATION BETWEEN ENEMIES

by Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Center

Life is simpler in the West. Adversaries are well-defined and separate. They wear different uniforms. You root for one team or for another. Things are different in the Middle East. As the Meir Amit Center demonstrates, arch enemies will trade and create economic alliances while carrying on brutal actions against each other. ISIS has conquered most of the Syrian oil fields in northern and eastern Syria but they don't have the skilled workers to maintain them. Syria supplies the workers. Syria needs oil and gas. ISIS needs the revenues from the sale of oil and gas. They worked out a deal. A side benefit is that ISIS is supplied with a reliable source of electricity. When I read this article I thought about how different things are in Israel. For some reason that I don't understand, Israel supplies the Palestinian Arabs with electricity for free. The Arabs show their gratitude by taking pot shots at the men who come to fix the grid.

HOSTILE TAKEOVER: HOW ISIS ATE AL QAEDA

by Olivier Guitta

Olivier Guitta writes that terror groups around the world have joined the Islamic State as affiliates. The reward for affiliates is that they can share in ISIS's celebrity status. In return, they contribute their ability to wreak terror and destruction in their particular locales. Boko Haram had been a particularly important asset for al-Qaeda, obtained training and funding from al-Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM), while helping AQIM expand into Nigeria. It has shifted its allegiance to the Islamic State, leaving al-Qaeda much weakened.

IRAN - THE QUIET BEFORE THE BOMB

From The Israel Project, Facebook

The nuclear framework agreement signed between Iran and world powers, namely the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany, on April 2, was defined by U.S. President Barack Obama as an "historic understanding," while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defined the deal as "bad." — Israel Commentary(see here.)

"To my mind, a 'good deal' needs to bolt the door on the Iranians getting a nuclear weapon." — David Petraeus, March 19, 2015, (see here.)

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THE RISE OF THE IRANIAN EMPIRE

by David Daoud

With good reason, anyone who can see two checker moves ahead worries about the Iranian unswerving intention to build nuclear bombs. As this article by David Daoud makes clear, non-Arab Iran is also building up its holdings in neighboring Arab countries. As the introduction to Daoud's article puts it, "With the fall of Yemen to Iranian-backed rebels, the subordination of the Iraqi army to Iran-backed militias, and the continuing dominance of Iranian proxies in Syria and Lebanon, it seems that a new empire has emerged—right under the nose of the United States."

A BAD AGREEMENT WITH IRAN WILL UNDERMINE MIDDLE EAST STABILITY

by Lt. Col. (ret.) Michael Segall

Michael Segall sees the struggle in the Middle East as one between "between the proponents of change — such as Islamic State, Al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran; and the proponents of stability — the moderate Arab states including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, and Tunisia, along with Israel." This is a particularly bad time for Iran to be given advantages. Segall puts into succinct and precise language how Iran is outmaneuvering the world. He confirms the trepidations most of us have felt as we learn that Iran is not only continuing its nuclear weaponry program but literally gaining ground — Arab country by Arab country — as well as regional political power. Iran's "growing entrenchment in the Syrian-Lebanese domain" and the increased coordination of Hizbullah, Hamas and other Palestinian terror organizations, will enable it to encircle Israel. Institutions such as the European Union, the P5+1 and the American administration, which should be stopping Iran's progress, aid and abet her ascent, while reassuring us that all is well. Two of Segall's conclusions — "the West repeatedly capitulates in the negotiations" and "The Iranian regime will not change in nature." — add up to a frightening future for the world.

THE PHANTOM FATWA

by Bernice Lipkin

Bernice Lipkin writes about a fatwa said to have been issued by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, against Iran's developing nuclear weapons. The fatwa simply doesn't fit with Iran's monomania to build nuclear facilities or with the bellicose statements of its leaders. Yet Western leaders, including President Obama, have eagerly used the fatwa as linch pin to reassure the world that Iran was building nuclear facilities for peaceful purposes. It is not known where and when the fatwa was issued, if it were actually issued. It doesn't have even a fake birth certificate.

THE DIPLOMATIC TRACK TO WAR

by Caroline Glick

Prez Obama asserts the agreement with Iran will prevent war and has called anyone who disagrees a warmonger. On much firmer ground, Caroline Glick shows why Obama's policy of nuclear appeasement will actually lead to a devastating war. A concerted diplomatic effort might still work but only if it is linked to collateral activities that would include supporting the Middle East countries that are already in a de facto war with Iran; wrecking Iran's nuclear installations ballistic missile storage facilities; and striking Revolutionary Guards command and control bases. With Obama in command, that won't happen. By threats, promises, stubbornness, deceit, broken promises and unexpected moves, Iran has routed the diplomats and, with Obama's support, has paralyzed any effective way to stop her brazen progress toward nuclear capability other than by warfare. This forces other Middle Eastern countries to try to acquire nuclear capability, making the possibility of a nuclear devastation in the region all the more likely.

STRATEGIC FOLLY IN THE FRAMEWORK AGREEMENT WITH IRAN

By Maj. Gen. (res.) Yaacov Amidror

Yaacov Amidror makes a gloomy but realistic assessment of what life in the Middle East will be like if the US and European powers permit Iran to acquire nuclear weaponry and become a nuclear power. In addition to creating a "new, violent Middle East," in what is already an unstable region where thousands of civilians have already been slaughtered, Iran would also become a global power, with a heightened ability to inflict its Salafist ideas on the rest of the world. It is mystifying that Prez Obama would facilitate Iran's dominance and its horrifying consequences, when even now it would only take a few days for the US to completely destroy Iran's nuclear facilities. And he continues to thwart Israel's ability to do so.

SOME GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ABOUT TERRORIST GROUPS

Like the Greek legend of the serpent Hydra, as we weaken or destroy one band of terrorists, old ones have more freedom of action and new ones pop up and become popular. Some terrorist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaeda and Hizbullah are so well-established, they have cells, banking contacts, political networks, (not necessarily legal) businesses and front groups around the world. Members of the Muslim Brotherhood frequent the American White House. To illustrate the point, Hizbullah, which is dedicated to destroying Israel, is part of Lebanon's government and has, as this map indicates, an extensive global reach. It is more active in Europe than the map would suggest. The European Union (EU) resisted labeling it a terrorist organization for as long as it could. The EU finally banned Hezbollah's political wing but its 'humanitarian' wing has continued to procure weapons and raise funds for its terrorist operations, which Hezbollah usually performs elsewhere other than in Europe.

This section asked some general questions. What is the commonality among the Muslim terrorist groups? How do they interact among themselves? Deep down, below the cover story that the Arab states are passionately concerned about their Palestinian cousins, who after 65 years are still living segregated in camps in these same Arab states, who do the leaders of these states really see as the enemy? Are terror entities becoming institutionalized in the Middle East? Given that the present-day terrorists may destabilize the world more than the isms did in the last century, how is the rest of the world to protect itself? One of the essays suggests that our fundamental policy should be to destroy the core belief system that nourishes salafist terrorism: Islam itself.

PM Netanyahu used this map in a recent address to AIPAC. It illustrates the extent of the Iran-funded Hezbollah terrorist network. (from Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu, The Jewish Press, 3mar2015. Ben-Gedalyah: "[Netanyahu] left out Argentine, the site of the Hezbollah bombing in 1994 of the AIMA center, but the map included Peru, the United States, India, Thailand, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, Turkey, Egypt, Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria, France, Germany and, of course, Israel.")

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INSIDE THE MIND OF A JIHADIST

by Soeren Kern

Soeren Kern writes of a terrorist from Morocco and his Spanish wife, who have recently had a child in the Islamic State, on land which was once part of Syria. By birth, the child is Spanish. His mother is one of more than 100 Spanish citizens who have joined ISIS. Think of it. This ISIS couple already has photos for their family album — look! look! there is Daddy waving the heads of men he decapitated. He did it for Allah and Islam. As a conscientious father concerned that his children be brought up properly, it is likely he will teach them how to bomb, decapitate, shoot, knife and otherwise rid the world of those who go against Islam. He is a pious man and does what the Koran tells him to. And as the jihadists of IS take wives and start families, they will have a renewable home-grown source for future terrorists in addition to the usual recruits, who come for the romance, the excitement and the reassurance that Islam gives them permission to act out their anger. As Kern points out, we will soon have "a generation of Western passport-holding jihadi parents who are — presumably — inculcating their "Western" children with fundamentally anti-Western values."

ACTING ON ISLAM'S CORE BELIEF

by Mark Durie

Islam is an all-encompassing paean of hate. Many with advanced insight insist Resurgent Islam is making a political ideological statement. And it is. At the same time, its acts of terrorism are making a statement about its core beliefs as a religion. Mark Durie writes of Muslim slaughter of Christians because they are Christian and of the Sura in the Koran that supports such activity. Incidentally, the accompanying photo of Muslims beheading Christians is sufficiently stylized that the Metropolitan Opera could use it next time it presents a sympathetic songfest lauding Muslim terrorists.

THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD-ISIS CONNECTION

by Arnold Ahlert

In some ways the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and ISIS are similar. Both are excellent in organizing and planning an operation in coordinated detail and in consolidating and expanding their gains. They differ in that the MB prefers stealth jihad, infiltrating a host country's infrastructure, creating a strong network connection with politicians and academics and influencing policy from within. ISIS prefers big, bold, fast and utterly demoralizing operations. A matter of style, not ideology. Albert Ahlert writes of the history of a group that has had many a name change and currently is called ISI (Islamic State of Iraq), ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), or ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), depending on what territory is referenced. It's getting so big and stable, it often goes by its short all-encompassing name: IS (Islamic State). MB, founded in the 1920s, was the first in recent history to focus on bringing back the Caliphate and Sharia. MB has directly spawned groups such as Hamas and, if Egyptian sources are accurate, ISIS. And it has influenced the formation of many other salafist groups, which share the obsession of revitalizing Islam, recreating the Caliphate and living under sharia law. ISIS is also linked to the Muslim Brotherhood via al-Qaeda, which promoted its growth and with which it has had a fluctuating relationship. Currently, depending on the particular event, one can make a case that ISIS and MB work hand in glove (see here) or are on the outs. Or, in typical Arab fashion, denounce each other, while cooperating on other matters.

"SOMETHING RADICALLY NEW" IN THE MIDDLE EAST

by Paul Merkley

Much of Western foreign policy in the Middle East is based on the assumption that what drives the Arab states and unifies the people of the region is the need to destroy that element perceived as alien, the Jewish state. Without the irritant of Israel, the Arabs would be content, peace and harmony would prevail. Paul Merkley suggests that recent events such as the banding together of Sunni countries to destroy the Shiite Houthi rule of Yemen show this is manufactured nonsense. In actuality, the core animosity is the mutual hatred of Sunni and Shi'ite, each out to prove it is authentic Islam, the other a heretic imitation.

Dry Bones. The True Moslems, May 29, 2015.

As Merkley puts it, "what is tearing the Middle East apart today is the fact that the Muslim powers hate each other more than they hate us. This is not necessarily a comfort. But it does make clear that we have a range of responses that otherwise would be beyond consideration." He points out that "the largest obstacle standing in the way of a recalculation of diplomatic possibilities in the Middle East may well prove to be the determination of the President of the United States and his Secretary of State to keep on the world's agenda the hopeless issue of resumption of the Peace talks between Israel and Mahmoud Abbas."

COMPARING AL QAEDA AND ISIS: DIFFERENT GOALS, DIFFERENT TARGETS

by Daniel L. Byman

Daniel Byman compares the differences in modus operandi and method of recruitment of two major Sunni terror groups, Al Qaeda and ISIS. Both are salafist and both are ambitious to be top dog in Islam, which they believe should be the top dog religion in the world. Al-Qaeda regards the US as its major enemy, and "the root cause of the Middle East's problems," and commits acts of terror often, as on 9/11, in dramatic and spectacular ways. ISIS, which emerged in Iraq, saw as its first task the securing of its local environment and since then has extended its control over more and more of the region, doing so in shockingly brutal ways. Terror groups that sign on as affiliates tend to focus on the parent concerns, ISIS troops slaughtering the local Shi'ites, al-Qaeda recruits attacking Western outposts. Based on his analysis, Byman suggests counter tactics for the US. I'm not sure I agree that the local Arab population will reject ISIS's tactics, as they become more grotesque. The local Arabs in Israel's Territories chose Hamas as against Fatah, gravitating to the terror organization with the more open violence.

ISRAEL IN THE EYE OF A STORMY MIDDLE EAST

The overthrow of dictatorial regimes that began with the Arab Spring has created much motion, much strife, displaced civilians and a busy shuffling of government officials in and out of office, but little increase in democracy or individual freedom. A most significant consequence has been that more states have been unable to maintain a normal or even a minimum administrative structure to provide the services — access to education, food and water, transportation, communication, public safety, etc. — expected to some degree of even an incompetent government. On top of these deprivations, civilians who are not actively engaged in battle and jihad, suffer from life-threatening attacks by rival jihadists and are caught in the crossfire as their own group retaliates.

Many African states and gangs have left primitive and inadequate and are now stumbling around in passive non-functional, except for salafists such as the Boko Haram. The UN is planning to do something about them, just as soon as it finishes denouncing Israel for an almost infinite list of wrong-doings. Lebanon is considered stable, if we ignore the large number of Hezbollah in Parliament and the government. Internal peace has been gained at the price of civilized living, but it might not last because both ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra have announced their battle plans include fighting Hezbollah. Meantime, Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Libya have shrunk in size as different salafist groups as well as the Kurds have gouged out large patches of land within the borders of the official states.

The new or at least transitional Middle East can roughly be compared to feudal Europe in the Middle Ages. In the Middle East, a recently restructured state is composed of fiefdoms controlled by jihadi bands, which have pledged allegiance to one of the bigger warlords, al-Qaeda or ISIS or Iran. Terrorist gangs and clans run Libya, where a brigade might be providing protection for the locals while fighting and raiding outsiders. ISIS now has enough land so it can train new troops in actual battle against the other major salafi groups; and the central government is reduced to some fancy words on a piece of paper. In Yemen as in ancient Gaul, the country is divided into three parts, each part controlled by a different salafist faction, which is at war with the other two. The new terrorist powers are mirror images in their allegiance to the word and deed of Mohammad and their hatred of the US and Israel. The old central government has abdicated, leaving a vacancy the Iran-supported Houthis will likely fill.

People search for survivors under the rubble of houses destroyed by an air strike near Sanaa Airport in Yemen, March 26, 2015. (Reuters/Khaled Abdullah)

This section discusses the state of disarray of the Arab states in the Middle East and how Israel is coping with the situation. As luck would have it, Israel has already had years of practice balancing the safety of its populace with the fear of media and political outcry if it harms one strand of an Arab's beard. For well over a half century, a standard Arab ploy has been to hide weaponry among civilians. It's win-win. If the Israelis avoid targeting the area, their missiles are safe. If the IDF kills some human shields in destroying a civilian-guarded missile site, the Arabs gain inches of newspaper space and minutes of TV time, as Israel is chastised for causing the death of innocent civilians.

At present, in dealing with multiple civil wars, Israel doesn't support either side or, when more than two sides are at war, any side. It nips attempts to place a terrorist presence on its borders. And, quietly, it provides humanitarian and medical aid to injured civilians living near its borders. Its attempts to prevent future havoc by preventing Iran from making an atomic bomb have been thwarted by the American President, who has been running interference for Iran for some time now. As Louis Beres on April 22, 2015 put it:

"... it is effectively certain that Israel will have to face a fully nuclear Iran sometime in the next several years. It is also plausible that Israel's overall strategic position has been compromised by pertinent decisions of the Obama presidency, most recently, by the Pentagon's surprise publication of a 1987 document detailing once-secret elements of Israel's nuclear program [...] Israel will soon have to: (1) reassess the regional "correlation of forces;" and, correspondingly, (2) refashion its substantially complex "order of battle." [...] Israel's nuclear arsenal offers a potentially indispensable impediment to the actual regional use of nuclear weapons. Joined with a fully-coherent strategic doctrine, one that would include, inter alia, more explicit codifications of counter-city ("counter-value") targeting, and also certain enhanced efforts at ballistic missile defense, these weapons could come to represent the entire Middle East's principal line of defense against Iranian nuclear aggression, and regional nuclear war.[emphasis added]

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THE UPHEAVALS IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND ISRAEL'S STRATEGIC BALANCE

by Amos Yadlin and Carmit Valensi

For years, Arab propaganda claimed the so-called Arab-Israeli conflict (or its lite version: the Palestinian-Israeli conflict) was the root cause of whatever bedeviled the Middle East. In 2010, the Arab Spring triggered a set of events that unhappily have resulted in bloody salafist attacks that have killed or injured hundreds of thousands of people and taken large chunks of land out of several of the Arab states. All of these new powers are sincere in their dedication to promoting the dominance of Islam and the authority of sharia. Amos Yadlin and Carmit Valensi suggest that what we are seeing is the acting out of religious differences, where each group is certain it is one that is correctly interpreting Mohammad's wishes. They point out that the Arabs are no longer preoccupied with Israel, now that they must deal with the viability and survival of their own countries. Unfortunately, these new circumstances continue to demand Israel's attention and will continue to do so. Asymmetric conflict, border flare-ups, the local Arabs acting on the belief that they are an ancient people and all of Israel was once a Palestinian state can flare up. ISIS can decide to test out its strength by provoking a fight. And there is Iran building a bomb, undeterred by the EU, the UN or the USA. And yet the new configuration creates opportunities. As Yadlin and Valensi note, a "wide congruence of interests has come into being for Israel and moderate Sunni Arab states, such as Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, and Jordan. This represents an opportunity for regional cooperation..." Egypt is blocking smuggling tunnels, which makes it hard for Hamas to accumulate weapons of war. The Kurds are pioneering the concept of an ethnic group with autonomy that transcends state borders. Israel has much to contribute to regional cooperation should partnerships with moderate Arab states become possible. Israel needs to review its policy options.

A LEGAL AND OPERATIONAL ASSESSMENT OF ISRAEL'S TARGETING PRACTICES

by Michael Schmitt and John Merriam

Primarily using data from Israel's July 2014 excursion into Gaza, Michael Schmitt and John Merriam examined Israel's "targeting methods and even some of its specific positions on the law of armed conflict (LOAC)," within the "unique operational and strategic context in which the IDF operates." IDF is a conscript force, not a professional army, so the IDF must take into account that the public justifiably has a strong fear of capture or death of its soldier-children in combat. So it puts a high priority on operations such as discovering and destroying tunnels the Arabs build to sneak up on troops. The IDF must also contend with the Arabs putting "fighters and military objectives among civilian persons and objects." To avoid hitting civilians, it resorts to warning when and where it will strike, which eliminates the important element of surprise; and it treats only voluntary human shields as hostile participants. IDF operations are also monitored by an independent judiciary on an on-going basis. Schmitt and Merriam conclude that "we found that their approach to targeting is consistent with the law and, in many cases, worthy of emulation." The only problem is that Israel's being a boy scout when it needs to put a stop to its enemy's missile attacks may be praiseworthy but it is not effective in that it doesn't wipe out missile attacks.

WHEN OUR ENEMY FIGHTS OUR ENEMY

by Jonathan Spyer

Jonathan Spyer points out "that Israel has no natural allies on either side of Syria's civil war—neither among the Iran-allied 'regime' forces, nor with the overwhelmingly Sunni Islamist 'rebels.'" Israel has avoided involvement as much as possible. It does not participate in the current war between Hezbollah and the Al Nusra Front. Its activities are limited to stopping specific shipments of weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon via Syria and preventing the presence of a strong terrorist group on the Golan border. It also provides humanitarian and medical aid to wounded rebels and Syrian civilians living near the border. Israel's goal is to maintain a secure border and stem spillover of the Syrian civil war into Israel. Spyer details some of Israel's interaction with Al-Nusra, a very capable group of Sunni jihadists fighting the Assad regime, to prevent their encroachment on the border.

ISRAELI SECURITY POLICY IN SYRIA

by Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser

As in the previous article by Jonathan Spyer, this article by Yossi Kuperwasser discusses Israel's policy to avoid "open intervention or taking sides in the bloody Syrian conflict." Clearly, Israel does not support either of the two main sides in the civil war — the Iranian-led radical axis and the radical Sunni axis led separately by Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra." Of particular interest in Kuperwasser's article is how "Israel and the Iranian-led radical axis" set the rules of the game in Syrian territory without coming to sustained and open battle.

A "CRAZY STATE" DOES NOT PLAY BY THE RULES

by Eli E. Hertz

Stripped of its phony history and the fake story of how badly it's been treated by Israel, the Palestinian pseudo-state can be seen for what it is: another failed Middle East attempt at government. This is true whether it's the Palestine Authority — whose illegal head of state pockets much of the millions of dollars the West bestows on the local Arabs in Israel and the Territories — or Hamas in Gaza, which has imposed its notions on its Arab subjects of how to live 7th Century in the 21st Century. Long before ISIS emerged, before al-Qaeda choreographed 9/11, the Palestinian Arabs were innovating new and devastating ways of disrupting civilization and ignoring civilized conventions. Eli Hertz discusses how well the Palestinian self-government already fits the characteristics of a Crazy State.

LEGAL RULES AND ANTI-TERRORISM WARFARE: THE CASE OF MUSTAFA DIRANI, REVISITED

by Keren Aviram and Yoram Schweitzer

Large-scale terrorism, neither random nor sporadic, is leading to a reexamination of the use of stylized rule-driven conventional warfare, now that asymmetric warfare has become the rule. Applying civil court procedures on terrorist activities has also come in for a reexamination. In this important paper, Keren Aviram and Yoram Schweitzer discuss a new ruling, using the case of Mustafa Dirani as prototype, where the Israeli Supreme Court expanded the "common law rule precluding the examination of an enemy's claim during wartime and applied it to members of terrorist organizations operating out of foreign countries, even if not in a formal state of war with Israel."

TO AID AND ABET THE ENEMY: CENSOR THYSELF. BLAME THE VICTIM. KEEP THE VICTIMIZER HAPPY.

We know a lot about the ways anti-Semitism in Europe and the USA is systematically promoted by Muslims, how the job of marketing Jew-hate is made easy because of the European susceptibility to thinking the worst of Jews, and how the plague of irrational hate spreads among the academic elite as quickly or even more rapidly than in more ignorant communities. We know many Jews have responded to explicit or to murmured Jew-hate by becoming themselves willing participants in BSD and other hate campaigns against Israel. They blame the victim and shelter the victimizer.

This section examines some examples of Protect the Victimizer, lest he turn on you. People who should know better — and this includes Jews — accept the Arab invention of a Palestinian people. Newsmen, politicians and academicians who are supposed to dig for the facts suppress the truth and often invent lies to favor the Arab cause. The information that Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) are Jewish by international law, by history and by conquest is readily available, but people insist Israel is occupying Palestinian land. The humanitarians who are ready in the US to jail parents who spank their children or let their youngsters walk home from school by themselves excuse the Po' Palestinians, who strap explosive belts on Arab toddlers and teach them to shoot pretend guns at Jewish targets. Many a media person has argued that it is the Arab murderer — or, more often, the Arab community from whence he came — that is the true victim, because the host society hasn't made Muslims feel welcome. Too many of our opinion makers invert reality, downplay the importance of free speech, blame the victim and insist that the victimizer is the real victim.

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ARE AMERICAN JEWS TRAUMATIZED?

by Karin McQuillan

Given Judaism amazing record for family stability, high creativity, low social pathology, financial success and strong moral teaching, one would suppose American Jews would encourage their children, even their intermarried children, to raise Jewish families. But "Jewish parents don't act as if it is in their children's best interest for a happy, good, meaningful life, to be Jewish." American Jews act as if, deep down, they don't really believe they are as accepted in American culture as they proclaim. In this essay Karin McQuillan examines why it is that, despite their success, so many "American Jews display the faulty reactions typical of trauma victims." Many of them exhibit "existential insecurity", acting out the judgment of their abusers in their 2000 years in the diaspora, exhibiting the defensive and convoluted reactions typical of the abused victim: "the self-blame, the guilt, the false accusations of being worse than the abuser, the pretense you were the one who caused the problem." Many a liberal Jew confuses "self-betrayal with proof of moral goodness," Using Israel as his proxy and inverting reality, he condemns Israel for mistreating the Palestinian Arabs. The world media also deny the obvious fact that the Arabs are neo-Nazi and insist that murder-obsessed Arab society is the "real" victim. As McQuillan writes, "Any group that tries to publicize Arab hate is criticized and marginalized as right wing. News of Arab anti-Semitism is routinely and thoroughly censored by NPR, the Washington Post, and the New York Times, because the reality of these facts is unwelcome."

CARTOONISTS ARE CONTROVERSIAL AND MURDERERS ARE MODERATE

by Daniel Greenfield

Considering how protective TV media such as CNN and newspapers such as the Washington Post are of Muslim 'sensitivity', it should come as no surprise that when the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) held a Draw Muhammad cartoon contest which incensed a couple of Islamic terrorists so they came to shoot up the contest participants, the media blamed the AFDI for provoking the shooters. As Daniel Greenfield puts it:

"A contest in which Bosch Fawstin, an ex-Muslim, drew a cartoon of a genocidal warlord is 'controversial' and 'provocative', while the Muslim Students Association (MSA), which has invited Sheikh Khalid Yasin, who has inspired a number of terrorists, including apparently one of the Mohammed contest attackers, is a legitimate organization that is only criticized by controversial, intolerant and provocative Islamophobes."

Was the Cartoon Contest designed to provoke? Of course. Just as Martin Luther King marched in towns that overtly hated blacks, not down safe streets in quiet towns. That's just the point. Provocative, in-your-face, unwelcome speech must be allowed. Polite talk that raises no ire raises no issues. The cockamamie Mainstream Media reaction of blaming the victim while "understanding" the sensitive hurt feelings of the terrorist has become so commonplace that people no longer see how sick and dhimmi-ish this is. In the inverted moral sphere in which the media spin, what is important is to protect the Islamic Victimizer from punishment for his immoral and illegal behavior.

ISLAMIZATION OF THE WEST

by Geert Wilders

Geert Wilders was present at Garland Texas at the Cartoon Contest that was attacked by Muslim gunmen because the contestants insulted Muhammad by drawing his image. Wilders is no stranger to having Western politicians and opinion makers blame him for rocking the boat, for giving Muslim terrorists an excuse for rioting. Even though he was (and is) a leader of one of the major political parties in Holland, he was put on trial by the Dutch for the crime of inciting racial hate. What had he done? He made a film "Fitna" in which he quoted from the Koran. No distortions. No commentary. He simply cited currently-enforced rules from the Koran. Even worse, he spoke out against losing his country and his values to foreign invaders. In this essay, he sounds the alarm that the West is under attack by those that would turn the West into another fiefdom under Islamic rule, with Sharia displacing Western law and the primitive thug-based values of the Salafists — treating women as chattel and wiping out the individual's freedom to run his own life — displacing Western values. In this speech that he made April 29, 2015 to American congressmen at a meeting of the Conservative Opportunity Society, he pointed out a major error in how Europe handles incoming Muslims: people from Muslim countries that illegally make it into Europe are not turned back. Nor do the Dutch authorities insist that these immigrants assimilate the Western values of the host countries. We have an analogous situation in the States in that those who make it over the border from Mexico win big: jobs, welfare, free education, free medicine, and defense lawyers when they are caught engaging in criminal activities. In both countries, the rewards of illegal entry has encouraged substantial smuggling in of Muslim jihadists, which makes the host countries less safe as more salafists become available to promote Islam and sharia law. The authorities do nothing for fear of riling the Muslims. It's easier to blame those that speak up.

SHARIA AND THE EUROPEAN UNION

by Leslie Lebl

The disparity between the law and its enforcement doesn't just affect free speech. Politicians and judges may make strongly-worded statements against violence against women yet refuse to back up their strong words with strong action. Leslie Lebl writes of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) describing sharia as "incompatible with ... democracy" yet its reports on human rights don't identify sharia law as a major reason for Muslim mistreatment of and violence against women. Polygamy is so obviously against Western values that we'd expect laws against polygamy to be strictly enforced in the Muslim immigrant community. Instead, as Lebl notes, "Although polygamy is illegal in all EU member states, it probably exists in all of them, and in some has been de factolegitimized." European countries ignore polygamous unions, debate polygamy rather than enforce the law, allow it if it was legal where it occurred, or classify Muslim wives as single mothers so they receive welfare. Thanks to the many loopholes, "perhaps some 300,000 people in Britain are living in polygamous families, many if not most at state expense." Similarly, the Council is strongly against violence against women. It "does not, however, recognize the critical difference between domestic violence and the sharia-justified violence against women, especially honor killings." Little by little, sharia becomes the de facto law of the land — and not just for the Muslims.

MAKING DAVID INTO GOLIATH: HOW THE WORLD TURNED AGAINST ISRAEL

by Joshua Muravchik. Reviewed by Shoshana Bryen

Joshua Muravchik wrote in "Making David into Goliath", "Israel's image is not undermined by what Israel actually does as much as by deliberate, popular, and well-funded sources pursuing warfare against Israel off the battlefield." As Shoshana Bryen observes in her review, "with the triumph of the Six-Day War. ... Israel ceased to be perceived as endangered and therefore ceased to command the world's sympathy... The Arab states, in one of the most impressive political turns of the modern age, switched the conversation from Arab rejection of Israel to Israel's occupation of the Palestinians." Muravchik writes of the large number of Leftists, Jews and non-Jews, Israelis, Europeans and Americans, academicians, media people and think-tankers who, for money or ideology or job security, have maligned Israel. They were and are willing to tell outright lies, distort or ignore what they actually see and know, and omit critical facts to further the Arab cause. Bryen writes that "Muravchik comes to the ugly—and current—truth of European politics: European countries were willing to barter with Palestinian organizations in order that they mostly leave Europeans alone." From appeasement to slavishly doing the Muslim bidding was not much of a step.

PROFESSIONAL BAD-MOUTHERS OF ISRAEL

This set of articles presents professional bad-mouthers of Israel. Some are paid directly from Muslim sources and some are media people, working for organizations that are supposed to be our tellers of truth, exposers of evil. Content is likely to be distorted, but usually the style is fine. These professionals usually avoid sounding petty — they manage this by wrapping the nasty message in some high-minded expressions. A recent example of an exception to this rule was Prez Obama's petty uncovered swipes at the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Obama's petulance was a major embarrassment, even though the media tried hard to ignore his childish tantrums.

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REZA ASLAN HYPES 'ISLAMOPHOBIA'

by Cinnamon Stillwell

Cinnamon Stillwell writes about Reza Aslan, a lecturer at UC Riverside. He has a monochromatic description of what's wrong with Islam: there's nothing wrong with Islam. What's wrong is the bunch of Islamaphobic bigots, who have a big pot of money donated by big business bigots and spend it all to stir up Islamaphobia by criticizing Islam. He has no use for information that comes from independent sources. He sticks to material that comes mainly from the Center for American Progress (CAP), a far-left organization. Armed with a few statistics that are debatable and chieflyad hominem arguments, he dismisses the possibility that Islam is dangerous. He praises diversity and the American tolerance for differences, ignoring that, when Islam gains control of a country, its tolerance disappears and only a rigid Koran-based life style is permitted. CAP and academic followers such as Aslan have invested much effort in making people fear being called a bigot. They make it simple to avoid being called islamophobic: just don't criticize anything in Islam, ignore Islam's attitude to women and polygamy, ignore its anti-Semitism and hatred towards Christianity, Hinduism and all other religions. Ignore its battling with everyone, even other Muslims, ignore Muslims teaching their children how to behead someone. And you won't have to fear that someone will call you an islamophob.

ISRAEL'S BASKIN CASE

by Kane Rooks and David Bedein

Kane Rooks and David Bedein summarize some of Gershon Baskin's "questionable statements of supposed fact that Baskin weaves into his writings." Many of Baskin's statements are confident reassurances that the Palestinian Arabs do not want to destroy Israel. A pity that Abbas and Hamas don't talk the same talk. This article provides a summary of Baskin's most flagrantly wrong statements, questionable declarations and pompous profundities.

FRIEDMAN'S FANTASY

by Michael Devolin

In this essay, Michael Devolin takes on Thomas Friedman, the Shimon Peres of journalism. Both Peres and Friedman can sustain a lofty tone and the pretense of having carefully examined all that needs considering, combined with an impressive ignorance of consequences and incompatibilities. In a recent column, Friedman reassured us that in his pondering on the forthcoming nuclear deal with Iran, he was considering small details like verification and larger matters like the "wider American strategic goals in the region." In Friedman's dream sequence, transforming Iran into a civilized country would take place after Iran and the Saudis played out their ancient feud, pummeling each other "until they get exhausted." Devolin points out a few defects in Friedman's analysis. First, if the Sunnis and the Shi'ites have been fighting from soon after Mohammad's time, why would Friedman expect them to patch up things before Iran acquires the bomb and misuses its new power? Iran's incurring a tragic number of deaths during the Iran-Iraq war didn't shorten the war. Why would it now? Second, it may be true that given a resurrection of the U.S. relationship to the Shah — the one Jimmy Carter ruined — the US might be able to use Iran to counterbalance the Sunni forces, but there is no such relationship now. And Iran's open hatred of America and Israel is hardly an indication that Iran wants to be our buddy. As Devolin observes, "untruths and fantasy are today common fare for the Western journalist."

ISRAEL'S BAD PRESS

by Andrew E. Harrod

We seem to be in the beginning of a trend where journalists, previously forced by their editors or the Arabs to engage in the practice of exaggerating Israel's mistakes or inventing nasty stories about Israel out of whole cloth, while ignore the actual and bestial behavior of the Arabs, tell all. First, there was Mattie Friedman. Now, as Andrew Harrod writes, Mark Lavie has revealed how distorted journalism has become, with reporters accepting Arab fraudulent claims without investigation. Lavie also talks about frank intimidation. For many years, reporters have justifiably feared their families would be harmed if they told the truth about the Arabs or showed footage of Arabs whooping it up in delight that Israelis or Americans were dead.

POLITICAL ISLAM'S DISINFORMATION

by Rachel Ehrenfeld and Ken Jensen

Rachel Ehrenfeld and Ken Jensen ask how the Muslim Brotherhood and others who practice disinforming the West about the nature of Islam have been so successful for so long. They conclude that these jihadist groups spin lies and stretch truth within the context of simple and high-minded but false 'explanations' such as 'lack of economic development and social injustice.' Ehrenfeld and Jensen use as example the now-deposed Morsi government, which was voted in to protect human rights, but, instead, decreed shari'a law for Egypt. They might also have used the West's sympathy to the Palestinian Arabs as example. Palestinians are excused their knifing, sniping, stoning and lobbing missiles at Israeli civilians because they are too frail militarily to rid Palestine of Jewish occupation. Thanks to years of conditioning, the West, even supposed historians, ignores that there is no Palestinian people, there never was a Palestinian state, and it is the Arabs who invaded land set aside by international law for a Jewish state.

THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY

by Mark Steyn

Using a recent event that is destined for the history books, Mark Steyn writes on how to present a case and how not to present a case. He emphasizes the importance of the style and substance of Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to the US Congress by comparing it to Prez Obama's "small and petty" belittlement of the Israeli Prime Minister. Netanyahu warned of the dangers of Iranian expansionism in territory and its ability to produce nuclear weaponry. Netanyahu also pointed out an important fact when dealing with Muslim countries: ISIS may be on the outs with Iran, but that doesn't mean ISIS is friendly to the West. Steyn also admonishes us that 'your enemy's enemy is not automatically friendly' also applies to us in the US.

HISTORY SECTION

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COULD JEWISH SOLDIERS IN THE BRITISH ARMY CELEBRATE PASSOVER IN JERUSALEM IN 1918?

by Lenny Ben-David

Using photographs and old letters, Lenny Ben-David asks whether Jewish soldiers in the Jewish Legion in the British army and the individual Jews serving in the armies of Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand were allowed to celebrate Passover in Jerusalem in World War 1. The Jewish Legion was commanded by Col. John Henry Patterson, and letters written by the Colonel indicate that he was furious about the anti-Semitic policy which denied his soldiers permission to celebrate Passover in Jerusalem in 1918 and again in 1919, yet there are old photos showing Jewish soldiers doing just that. Although Jews were in the majority in Jerusalem, the British-run municipality allowed Arab violence against them, Hebrew was "officially disregarded and humiliated," and "Arab notables who betray pro-Jewish feeling" were penalized. Another photo suggests Jewish soldiers did have their seder in Jerusalem, but not those in the Jewish Legion "perhaps because of the army's desire to restrict a distinctly Jewish, nationalistic corps in its midst." The Jewish Legion made Pesach, but not in Jerusalem.

THE LESSONS OF ARMENIA SHOULD NOT BE LOST

by Clifford D. May

The current spate of ugly ways to torture and murder people by both the Shiite and Sunni branches of Islam is not new. Clifford May makes the point that in recent history the "slaughter of Armenian Christians 100 years ago [was] preface and precedent to what's happening in the Middle East today." The fact that the world quickly forgot the Armenian victims reassured the Nazis that they too could slaughter people for the crime of a member of a particular ethnic or religious group without the world making much of a fuss. Nor do today's Muslim terrorist groups need to contend with a hostile aroused media as they exterminate Middle Eastern Christians. They cage prisoners, use 12-year old children to behead captives, rape women and sell children into slavery. They proudly act as practitioners of the Religion of Peace have always done.

TWO STATES IS A FRAUD

by Drora bat Melech

Drora bat-Melech is an Israeli whose parents and grandparents were authentic refugees. Together with some 150 to 250 thousand other Jews, they were forced to flee from Iraq in the 1940s-early 1950s, even though the Jews had lived in Iraq for some 2500 years, more than a thousand years before the Arab invaders conquered the area. Not only were they kicked out, leaving most of their possessions and real estate behind, they had to pay the Arab government for the privilege of being allowed to leave alive. The scene was replayed in the other Arab states. The Jews received no help or compensation from the U.N., but the new state of Israel absorbed them and made them citizens. Bat-Melech was a refugee from Iraq but she was an 'aboriginal' in Israel because in 1922 their ancient land was restored to the Jews in recognition of their historic attachment to it; it was held in trust until they could develop the infrastructure and population to be a state. In 1948, when the neighboring Arab states invaded the new state of Israel, Arabs who fled — many of them left on orders of their leaders, and expected to return as soon as Israel was demolished — were placed into camps in their 'aboriginal' land, but they were treated as aliens and denied citizenship. Unlike any other group of refugees ever, they were given refugee status in perpetuum, they and their descendants, even those "refugees" who had come new to the area by June 1946.

March-April, 2015 BLOG-EDS

This is where our readers get a chance to write opinions and editorials and share articles they find informative. The Blog-Eds page for the month is updated every few days.

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Editor's Note:

Think-Israel tends to use salafist rather than extremist or Islamist or militant or fundamentalist or activist to describe generically a pious Muslim, one who sticks as closely as possible to the unfiltered words and actions of Mohammad and the first three generations of Muslims, including, especially, the Companions of the Prophet. In modeling himself as closely as he can on the preachings and practices of Mohammad, a salafist can in modern terms be precisely described as an uninhibited terrorist, a theological supersessionist, a political supremacist who believes Islam and sharia law must dominate and a social barbarian, who wages jihad with whatever tools are available. Thanks to the high quality of whitewash supplied by sympathetic propagandists, he seldom is so described.

January-February 2015

What we are talking about in the January–February 2015 Issue

Arab Invasion of the Temple Mount (Eidelberg, Ronen, ben-Gedalyahu, Fendel, van der Hoeven, Brodie)
Interfaith Dialogue and Muslim Intolerance (Dry Bones, Kessler, Cline, Murphy, West, Tepper)
Expansionist Iran, Obama and the Bomb (Rafizadeh, Herf, Honig, Lipkin)
ISIS Features Common to All Salafists (ITIC, Kedar, Ehrenfeld, Sherman, Devolin, Sennels, Illouz)
Media and Political Propaganda (Friedman, MacEoin, Shragai, Greenfield)
Aspects of World War 2 (Beck, Shapiro, Auschwitz Survivors, Nachshoni)

The ARAB INVASION OF JERUSALEM AND THE TEMPLE MOUNT

As described by Peter Hammond in his book Slavery, Terrorism and Islam (see also Richard Butrick's article in the January 2013 Think-Israel issue here), when the Muslim population of a host country becomes more than 5-10%, they begin to start their bid to take over the country. In Israel, Muslims officially are some 17% of the population, not including the many that live there unreported and illegally. So it should come as no surprise that the Arabs are flexing their muscles. As in Malmo, Sweden and Paris, France inter alia they are securing territory for themselves, the supposedly non-existent no-go zones. Jerusalem suffers from other lacerations. The unimpeded Arab intimidation and violence has impacted attitudes across the country, both Jewish and Muslim. One young Jewish woman, army-trained and religious, living close to Gaza and thus willing to risk erratic attacks from Hamas, confided in me that she no longer traveled to Jerusalem, which would seem to be a much safer place to live than her own town. But in Jerusalem she was afraid of getting into a cab driven by an Arab. Her fear of being kidnapped is very real and not uncommon. How has the growing Arab boldness affected Arabs citizens of Israel? When I was looking for a hotel close to the Kotel last Sukkot, I called a hotel in the area and asked whether they would have a Sukkah. The thick voice responded arrogantly that I was calling a hotel in Palestine and they certainly would not.

More openly, the Arabs are targeting Jews at the Temple Mount. As Moshe Feiglin has highlighted publicly by speaking out and coming to the Temple Mount, the harassment of Jews by Arabs on the Temple Mount is shameful, a shanda, made more appalling in that official Israel aids the Arabs in preventing Jews from praying at their most Holy Site. Menachem Begin insisted that "the right of free Jewish worship in Jerusalem stood at the very core of the independence that Zionists sought...A people that does not defend its holy places—that does not even try to defend them—is not free." Unfortunately, just as the British in the Mandate Period caved in to Arab demands to keep the peace, Israeli politicians today are more concerned with preventing Arabs from rioting than respecting the right of Jews to pray freely in their own land.

One observation starkly highlights the absurdity of the prevailing policy: Jews can't pray on the Temple Mount— a Jew was arrested for the suspicious activity of closing his eyes— but Arabs can play soccer there. It puts the lie to any argument that excuses Arab violence by pleading Arab sensitivity to infringement of their religious practices or mosque environment. In point of fact, what Israel's timidity has gained her is increased Arab unruliness, intimidation and vulgar behavior.

Professor Paul Eidelberg has suggested some ways Jews can begin reclaiming their most Holy Place:

1. We need to publicize the idea that Jewish control of Israel's holiest site, the Temple Mount (the Har HaBayit) on which stood the Beit HaMikdash, is a precondition of uncontested Jewish control of an undivided Jerusalem and the vivid restoration of Jewish national honor as well as the sanctification of God's Name. Once Jews maintain unequivocal control of the Temple Mount, a serious movement can be initiated among Christian in the United States to move the American embassy to Jerusalem — which would produce a salutary shock wave across the world.

2. Conversely, so long as the Muslim Authority (the Wakf) controls and desecrates the Temple Mount, the nations will despise Israel and kowtow to the Arab-Islamic world. Muslim desecration of the Temple Mount not only exposes Jewish weakness, but increases Muslim arrogance and incites Islamic violence everywhere.

3. Jewish spiritual revival of the Temple Mount would not only be the pinnacle of a Jewish restoration of Jerusalem; it would also inflict a lethal blow on the ambitions of Muslims, who regard Jerusalem is the key to their global ambitions.

4. The Wakf has long been violating the Law of Antiquities and the Law of Planning. The Muslims are erasing all historical evidence of Jewish presence on the Temple Mount. The Netanyahu Government knows this and has cravenly said they have no intention of interfering.

5. Of course, exclusive Jewish control of the Temple Mount is inseparable to Israel's control of Judea and Samaria. (See below, point 14.)

6. To show that the Temple Mount is the key to the world-historical function of the Jewish people prescribed in the Tenach, I shall now quote various passages from Joshua Berman's book, The Temple.

7. The Temple, he writes, represents "the spiritual center of the country. Here, at the site where God's presence is most manifest, the representatives of the Jewish people execute commandments and rites that symbolize the service of the nation as a whole."

8. It should also be noted that any non-Jew, so long as he adheres to the Seven Noahide Laws of Universal Morality, can bring certain "sacrifices" to the Temple, which acknowledges God's sovereignty over mankind.

9. The Temple — "a house for God's Name" — symbolizes "a public declaration of God's sovereignty. The ambition of declaring God's sovereignty in the world, which was initiated by Abraham, is the calling of the Jewish people."

10. Berman goes on to say: "God's acclaim in the world is a direct function of how Israel is perceived [by the nations]." Israel must become a great country. "A great country should possess political stability at home and should be at peace with its neighbors. It should possess a strong economy and should be home to a culture that boasts strong [moral and intellectual] virtues." Israel did not become such a nation until the reign of King David, and it was left to his son Solomon to build the (first) Temple. All nations then flocked to Jerusalem, which was recognized not only as the City of Peace but the City of Truth.

11. "The function of the Temple as a symbol for God's acclaim in the world reaches its apex with the visit of the queen of Sheba to Solomon's court" — Solomon, the wisest of kings. Ponder, therefore, these verses of Isaiah 2:1-3: "And many nations will go and cry, 'Let us go up the to mountain of God's house, to the house of the Lord of Jacob, and we will learn from His ways and walk in His paths, for out of Zion goes forth the Torah and the word of God from Jerusalem.'"

12. Now let us consider Rabbi Chaim Richman's essay, "A Third Jewish Temple" (May 18, 2000), where he says: "People assume those who are interested in the Temple are radical elements opposed to peace." Alluding to the era of King Solomon, Rabbi Richman points out that the Temple Mount represents "the hallmark of the greatest era known to man.... This place has been sanctified by God from the beginning of time.... Here Jacob laid his head. Here Abraham tried to sacrifice Isaac.... Of the 613 commandments in the Torah, 113 of them depend on the existence of a Jewish Temple. We have not received a cancellation order for any of the commandments issued at Mount Sinai."

13. Public opinion must therefore be educated about the Temple, about its significance in Judaism. Obviously, the Netanyahu Government, steeped in timidity and intellectual stagnation, will not do this. This Government doesn't really represent the Jewish people. At least 25% of Israel's Jewish population is religious, and at least 50% is traditional. The Jewish people were not consulted when, Netanyahu, without Knesset or public discussion, endorsed the creation of a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria, Israel's heartland. There is no reason to believe, therefore, that this orator with a golden tongue and clay feet will stand firm on the issue of Jerusalem and the Har HaBayit.

14. Hence, a Jerusalem Movement involving a network of cells across the nation should be initiated by Jewish youth and venerable rabbis. Their proclaimed purpose is to preserve the integrity of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount now being sullied by Muslims. Weekly demonstrations will be necessary. Eminent speakers should be called upon to denounce Netanyahu's policy of moral equivalence regarding Jewish and Muslim claims to the Holy Land — an insult to Jewish intelligence, as well as to countless Christians who are grateful for Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem, knowing that by this alone will they be welcomed in the Holy City.

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WAQF'S NEW WEAPON: SCREAMING GIRLS

by Gil Ronen

Gil Ronen reports on a new gambit used by the local Arabs, "citizens of Israel," to show disrespect to Judaism and to Jews on the Temple Mount. Arab men and women of all ages, including youngsters, especially young girls, are paid to harass Jews verbally and physically to ensure they can't worship there. They can't even enjoy a moment of contentment or contemplation on this most Holy of the Jewish Holy sites. And the police, paralyzed by politicians who fear bad publicity, either do nothing or arrest the Jewish "troublemakers". An Addendum lists some relevant videos.

ARAB MK AHMED TIBI FLIES PLO FLAG ON TEMPLE MOUNT

by Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu

An Arab Member of the Knesset flies the PLO flag on the Jewish Temple Mount and the police do nothing. Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu asks, "If a Kahane flag is illegal, is the PLO flag on Temple Mount kosher?" Perhaps the question should be, "In WW2, would the USA allow a Nazi flag fly from the National Cathedral?" Have we forgotten that Resurgent Islam has declared war on the West and Israel; and the faux-people, the Palestinians, are foot soldiers in that war? As an aside, the Arabs don't just fly their terrorist flag, they burn flags of other countries on the Temple Mount. See them burning the French flag here.

STATUS QUO? 'JEWS PRAYED ON THE TEMPLE MOUNT FOR CENTURIES'

by Hillel Fendel

Hillel Fendel "explores the origins of the hotly-contested 'status quo' at Judaism's holiest site." As he says, everyone "religiously" is determined to continue the "status quo"— even those who blather about freedom of worship. But, as Fendel asks, what is the status quo? At the moment, Jews are forbidden by their Government to pray on the Har HaBayit (The Temple Mount). The reason for preventing Jews from praying is said to be that Jews might inadvertently step on a forbidden area. If the intent is to prevent desecrating a sacred place, why are Arabs allowed to run wild and destroy ancient relics? Besides, historically, Jews prayed there for hundreds of years without hindrance. The real reason appears to be to not stir up Arab anger. But if so, it isn't working. It is only emboldening the Arabs employed by Hamas et al to behave despicably.

HOW IMPORTANT IS GOD'S TEMPLE MOUNT

by Jan Willem van der Hoeven

Who would have believed in the 1930's, as Hitler was starting his genocidal war against the Jews, that some eighty years later the Jewish State would be a major safety zone for Christians in the Middle East, the victims of another genocidal war, this time one conducted by the Islamic States? And Christians are among the strong voices declaring how important the Temple Mount is for Jews. Jan Willem van der Hoeven writes what even secular Jews should know and understand.

JERUSALEM ALSO HAS 'NO-GO' ZONES

by Tuvia Brodie

Tuvia Brodie reports on the presence of no-go zones in Jerusalem. In Europe, 'For Muslims Only' areas are land patches — usually in a large city that has a sufficient concentration of Muslims — that are completely controlled by Muslims and only obey sharia law. Non-Muslim are not allowed in, not even police or firemen [See, for example, documentation of no-go zones in France here.]Israeli no-go zones differ from those in European countries only in that the surrounding Arab villages are also, for the most part, no-go zones, so that Jerusalem is more and more ringed by hostile bands of Arabs, who are citizens of Israel but identify with the Muslim Jihad against Israel.

WHY INTERFAITH DIALOGUE CAN'T RESULT IN MUSLIMS BECOMING TOLERANT

In his essay below, Clive Kessler points out that for interfaith "dialogue ... to proceed, no one party can 'set the rules'". This isn't a policy that can honestly be followed by Muslims who are compelled by the tenets of their religion to regard non-Muslims as infidels who must convert to Islam or pay Islam for the privilege of being allowed to live. This hasn't stopped Muslims from participating in interfaith dialogues but it may account for why these dialogues seem to end with only the Muslims gaining any material benefits from the transactions. The last essay provides an instance where Jews and Christian Arabs have genuinely made common cause, in that both groups live in Israel and are loyal to their country. But in general, as one reader, Gary Fouse, commented on another one-way interfaith dialogue, this one held at Georgetown University (January 13, 2015), "Sounds like Springtime in Germany. Was Mel Brooks there? Having sat through many of these side shows, it never ceases to amaze me how the gullible pastors and rabbis soak up this garbage that flies in the face of the daily slaughters around the world. Many of these US Muslim leaders will decry terrorism and violence insisting it has nothing to do with Islam, yet consider Yusuf al Qaradawi to be one of the greatest Muslim scholars. Qaradawi affirms every fear we have about Islamic ideology when it comes to apostates, Jews and Christians. He wants them all dead."

Several videos that complement the articles on interfaith discourse:

(1). David Wood discusses the 3-step Strategy of Jihadists: Stage 1: Stealth Jihad (Live in Peace); Stage 2: Defensive Jihad (Claim Victim Status); Stage 3: Offensive Jihad (Kill off disbelievers). Religious Interfaith Dialogue is a type of Stealth Jihad, Stage 1. See it either here or here.

(2) Baron Bodissey of the Gates of Vienna website writes on the Islamic service at the Washington National Cathedral that took place November 14, 2014, in an essay called, "What happened at National Cathedral last friday?" See clips and commentary of the service here and some excellent articles from the Counter Jihad Reporthere. The fourth article down is the transcript and additional commentary on the National Cathedral service.

(3) Bare Naked Islam has a video beautifully illustrating taqiyya (lying to prettify/protect Islam). The assertions by the speaker, Iman Musri, are followed by contradictory facts here. A viewer, cat, said of Iman Musri: "The man is a liar. Look at his body language of swinging legs as he lies. This is why the pen and pictures of the real and evil truth of the lies of islam, is mightier than the sword. We must keep on putting the truth up front for people to judge. Putting the truth, juxtaposition to the lies of the speakers works so very well. We must engage muslims with the truth and show their lies at every opportunity. Thanks to BNI, Geller, Spencer and so on, we have good knowledge to use to prove the lies of islam."

(4) Also from BareNakedIslam. (February 18, 2015) is this video featuring Hajj Saeed, Imam of the Al-Faruq Mosque in Copenhagen, who bluntly says, "We don't believe in interfaith dialogue." He points out that 'Prophet Mohamed engaged in war, not dialogue. When the Jews refused to come to Allah, he killed them. We will not dialogue with people who believe in a false religion, who live in a bogus culture.'" See here.

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ON "SUPERSESSIONISM": ABRAHAMIC FAITHS IN HISTORY

by Clive Kessler

Religious supersessionism is the belief that one's religion has replaced or fulfilled its predecessor religion(s). In this article, Clive Kessler concentrates on making explicit the supersessionist substrate of Islam. He examines the weakening of such an attitude toward Jews in current Christianity, thus suggesting that a religion can reverse a negative attitude without doing violence to itself. The essay also suggests that attempts at interfaith understanding are doomed to fail when some the participants are innately supersessionist. Christianity has come a long way towards reorienting itself to respect Judaism. Muslims, however, still suffer from the conviction that Islam is — or should be— the religion that dominates any and all others. In practice and because of their unbending attitude, they take advantage of members of other religions who are trying so hard to show acceptance that they end up doing the bidding of the Muslims.

THE MUSLIM'S CONUNDRUM

by Edward Cline

Edward Cline examines sharia law— the thorn in the side of ecumenism— from the point of view of the burdens it places on Muslims. It is a distasteful but incontestable fact that sharia is a package deal, sanctioning primitive, violent sexual practices, enforcing a supercessionary attitude and encouraging jihad against everything and everyone that is not Islamic. As Cline says, "Muslims of whatever stripe are stuck between a rock and a hard place — between the totalitarian nature of Islam, and its absolute, non-negotiable imperatives of Islamic dogma." Western media and academia and political leaders have placed no restrictions on "the stealthy and incremental Islamic incursions into Western culture," accompanied with its offensive behavioral patterns. So, non-violent Muslims have the additional burden of solving the problem of how to behave in a civilized fashion, a problem that they, not us, need to solve.

INTERFAITH MUSLIMS GIVE REASONS FOR JIHAD

by Paul Austin Murphy

When pushed to the wall, Muslims engaged in interfaith dialogue can always claim that violent jihad is only carried out for the just cause of autonomy for Muslims, as in Kashmir, Palestine and Chechnya— the Islamic version of 'you can't make omelets without breaking eggs'. This appears to be the virtuous excuse provided no matter what the size of the Muslim population relative to the size of non-Muslim groups in the country— which begs the question why are the Muslims the only ones entitled to be in charge of their own destiny. Probe further and it becomes clear that the request for autonomous space is actually the desire for a beachhead, from which Islam can eventually force and enforce sharia law on all of us.

ISLAM COMES TO THE NATIONAL CATHEDRAL

by Diana West

In this essay, Diana West describes what was wrong with the Muslim service conducted by a prestigious group of salafists and associates of Islamic terrorists at the prestigious Washington National Cathedral. Like the majority of Muslims globally, these Muslims strongly uphold sharia law, which means, in practice, that they have no doubt that Islam has replaced the imperfect religions of the Christians and the Jews— an attitude not conducive to genuine tolerance. The Episcopals thought they were being ecumenical, but judging from the surus read, all that these benighted Christians got for their efforts was a lecture larded with some very nasty appraisals of Christianity and Judaism. In Arabic, of course.

Baron Bodissey of the Gates of Vienna website wrote of a surprising and little-known fact about the event in an article entitled "The Washington National Masjid." "The administrative leaders of the Episcopal Church obviously have no idea what it means to allow their building to be used a place where formal Islamic prayers take place [emphasis added]. Or maybe they do, and they don't mind. In any case, once Muslims have said their prayers as an assembled group, the structure becomes a masjid, a mosque, and the property of the waqf board, the Islamic trust for the Ummah. The local Islamic community may decide to defer taking formal title to the building until their numbers in the Washington area are sufficient to make it prudent to do so, but after tomorrow, the National Cathedral will have become a mosque. And not just any old mosque, but one with full connectivity to the Muslim Brotherhood." As the Baron notes, the Muslim service was "a highly symbolic demonstration of Islamic supremacism" by a religious group that assumes other religions should accommodate them but would not themselves be foolish enough to reciprocate the Cathedral's hospitality.

CHRISTIANS IN THE HOLY LAND: DON'T CALL US ARABS

by Aryeh Tepper

Aryeh Tepper writes the story of what is happening because an ethnic group of Israelis put Israel's claim to take diversity seriously to the test. Perhaps inspired by the revitalization of Jewish identity in the Jewish homeland and certainly unhappy at being lumped in the non-homogeneous cludge of ethnicities labeled Arab, the Israeli Aramean Christian community asked that they be legally identified as Aramean, a specific and unique Israeli minority, just as are the Druze and the Circassians. This hasn't pleased the Palestinian Authority, but while Israel has been reluctant to stir up the easily-inflamed Muslim Arabs, it has shown little tolerance to anti-Aramean incitement by these Muslims. Tepper makes the case that there is a regional movement in Arab countries and well as in Israel of minorities who are beginning to think of themselves in terms of their own history, rejecting both pan-Arabic philosophy and Muslim Arab political domination. There have been a sufficient number of groups emphasizing their identities before the Arab invasion that "the belief that the Middle East is somehow essentially Arab" has come into question. The fact that Arabs are Johnny-come-lately in contrast to the newly-assertive native populations is being recognized. Why is Tepper's article in this section? The interfaith interaction of the Jews and the Arameans is based on a genuine commonality: both groups are loyal citizens of the Jewish state and both have a strong interest in preserving it.

EXPANSIONIST IRAN, OBAMA AND THE BOMB

In 1938, Europe was happy to believe that Neville Chamberlain had talked Adolf Hitler into giving up his warlike posture. The major effect of the "Peace in our Times" agreement was to prolong the war when it came and make it more deadly. We appear to be in an analogous situation now with Iran. These essays ask why the West doesn't recognize how much danger we are in.

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OBAMA'S FAILED NUCLEAR POLICY AND KHAMENEI'S DUPLICITY

by Majid Rafizadeh

Majid Rafizadeh points out the serious defects in Prez Obama's handling of the most consequential crisis of the current century. "The primary objective of the nuclear negotiations was to completely dismantle Iran's nuclear program in order to remove the threat of Islamists obtaining nuclear weapons... when Iranian leaders realized that President Obama is more desperate than Iran to get a nuclear deal at any cost, Tehran began dictating and setting the terms in the talks, shrewdly threatening Obama to walk away from the talks if they are not satisfied...In the next few months, Obama is likely to give more concessions." Given his amateurish, waffling-and-wavering inept management, it is not surprising that many people suspect, as did a reader, JayWye, who wrote in FrontPage Magazine that: "Comrade Obama WANTS Iran to achieve nuclear weapons. Comrade BHO is not working for America,he's working AGAINST the US."

TRASH TALK DIPLOMACY, US-ISRAEL RELATIONS, AND IRAN

by Jeffrey Herf

It is perhaps an indication that Israel and the US once had strong relations that Prez Obama is as hostile to Israel as he has become to Britain, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, once stout allies of the US. The issue, as Jeffrey Herf writes, is that Obama hates Israel because he perceives Israel as an obstacle to what has become obvious: Obama's policy towards Iran is one of appeasement. Even worse, it appears Obama will do nothing to stop Iran obtaining nuclear weapons, but will instead thwart and punish anyone who dares object. Acting more as a street thug than a diplomat or leader of a powerful nation, Obama has resorted to nasty language, direct insults as when he left Netanyahu in a room and trotted off to his dinner, and other shows of petulant and insulting behavior. He has also leaked information that prevented Israel from directly attacking Iran's nuclear facilities. As Herf reminds us. "Only if the President is willing to turn down a bad deal with Iran will there be a chance of success via diplomacy and sanctions short of war." But the president continues to be angry with anyone who points out he's heading recklessly in the wrong direction.

VARIATION ON THE BIRD-JEW THEME

by Sarah Honig

Sarah Honig uses Sholem Alechem's story of the bird-Jew to anchor an egregious example of "the fear of giving offense to one's mortal enemies..." In this newer version, she takes to task those who argue that it is PM Netanyahu's "duty to obediently assume the role of the bird-Jew and self-destruct" to appease Prez Obama's anger at Netanyahu contradicting Obama's empty reassurances that Iran will not possess nuclear weapons. And doing it publicly. This view ignores that Congress is independent of the Executive Branch and that Obama's overt hostility didn't start or even blossom because of Netanyahu's addressing Congress and warning them against a deal that would allow Iran to build nuclear weapons, thus gaining the means to lord it over the other countries in the Middle East, threaten oil supply globally and be in a position to devastate Israel or any place in the Western world. Honig points out that if there be interference in a sovereign country's domestic policy, it is Obama who is the culprit, blatantly meddling in the Israeli election and encouraging the craven worship of Obama by Israel's bird-Jews, the Leftists.