 Click photo to download. Caption: The Brooklyn College campus. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.(JNS.org) Prominent Jewish leaders are expressing outrage over Brooklyn College's decision to sponsor an anti-Israel BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) event.
The BDS event scheduled to be held on Feb. 7 will feature Omar Barghouti, Palestinian activist and founder of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, and Judith Butler, a feminist philosophy professor at the University California, Berkeley and outspoken supporter of the BDS movement against Israel. Brooklyn College's political science department is co-sponsoring the program.
"While student clubs are certainly entitled to put on whatever events they wish that conform to school guidelines, it is reprehensible that a school department is willing to officially dignify this event," StandWithUs CEO Roz Rothstein said in a press statement, calling the event "an effort to promote bigotry, prejudice and hate against the Jewish state and its supporters."
Meanwhile, a petition has also been started by students at Brooklyn College urging the school to withdraw its support, the Jewish Week reported.
Karen Gould, president of Brooklyn College, released a statement to her staff defending her decision to allow the event.
"As an institution of higher education, it is incumbent upon us to uphold the tenets of academic freedom and allow our students and faculty to engage in dialogue and debate on topics they may choose, even those with which members of our campus and broader community may vehemently disagree," she said.
But Harvard Law professor and pro-Israel activist Alan Dershowitz, who is also an alumnus of Brooklyn College, questioned Gould's decision to invoke academic freedom.
"Academic freedom simply does not include the power to proselytize and propagandize captive students whose grades and futures depend on faculty evaluations," Dershowitz wrote in the New York Daily News.
"I can understand the department of political science sponsoring a genuine debate over boycotts, divestment and sanctions in which all sides were equally represented. But the event in question is pure propaganda."
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Chuck Hagel: Mediocre Boilerplate
by Shoshana Bryen
American Thinker
February 1, 2013
http://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/3880/chuck-hagel-mediocre-boilerplate
For all the thunder about the "missing" J Street speech Chuck Hagel gave in 2009, watching it was almost a letdown.
There is simply no "smoking-gun" anti-Semitism or anti-Israelism there, aside from a single reference to some policies working to the "single issue benefit of certain groups." OK, yes, that's a reference to Jews, and no, it isn't nice. But generally speaking, Hagel gave a truly boilerplate, mediocre speech that starts in the wrong place, makes factual errors, and then draws the wrong conclusions.
Sen. Hagel begins by explicitly calling the Palestinian-Israeli or Arab-Israel conflict (he incorrectly equates the two) the foundation of anti-Western Arab attitudes and the wellspring of Islamic jihad. He starts the conflict in 1967. Arab opposition to Jewish communal life in any part of Ottoman Palestine expressed itself in attacks on Jews long before Israel's independence in 1948, and it continued after with the Arab rejection of the State of Israel, even as Jordan and Egypt illegally occupied the West Bank and Gaza from 1949-67. To ignore this erases the responsibility of the Arab States for a) their continuing intransigence on the subject of Israeli sovereignty and b) their failure to establish a Palestinian Arab state in 1948. The Arab States don't mind.
What Words Mean
Turning to Palestinians and Israelis, Sen. Hagel says, "Both sides know what the issues are" and that those issues have been "holding us hostage since 1967." The issues, according to Hagel, are borders, refugees, and Jerusalem, which is like saying "War and Peace" is about war and peace.
For a single example of the pitfalls of broad generalizations, consider "refugees." Israel and the United States agree that hundreds of thousands of Jews evicted from Arab countries after 1948 constitute a refugee group entitled to compensation. The Arab States do not agree, because it would make them culpable. (See 1948, above.)
The Palestinians define refugees inter-generationally -- a position unique in refugee relief circles. It is the formal Palestinian position that the original 1947/48 refugees and their descendants have a right to live within the 1948 borders of Israel, even if they choose to accept compensation or settlement elsewhere; that's why they call it the "right of return." Palestinian officials are on record asserting that even the establishment of an independent Palestinian State will not make Palestinian citizens out of refugees who should be "returned" to Israel. The United States and Israel do not agree.
There are similar issues regarding Palestinian use and Israeli use of the words "borders" and "Jerusalem." Even if you really do know "what the issues are," you might discover that they are not resolvable.
Smaller Problems and Bigger Ones
Sen. Hagel ascribes the inability of Palestinians and Israelis to achieve "peace" to leaders "in Ramallah, in Tel Aviv, in Riyadh, and in Cairo" unwilling to undertake the "difficult and harsh responsibilities of leadership." The smaller problem is his placement of the Israeli Prime Minister in Tel Aviv. The bigger one is conflating Arab dictatorships with Israel's democratic leadership, which is subject not only to elections, but also to a free press and independent judiciary. By the time of Hagel's speech, PA leader Mahmoud Abbas had already finished his elected term and to this day has not faced voters again.
Trying to be practical, Sen. Hagel suggested discussing "security guarantees for Israel" at the "front end" of the process, presumably to give Israel confidence that its withdrawal from strategic territory would not increase its risk. He proposed foreign forces to replace the IDF, something Israel has generally rejected. That is the smaller problem.
The bigger one is his apparent willingness to use American troops.
The biggest is that his model for West Bank peacekeeping is the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) in the Sinai. The correct model would be the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) because the problems will be the same ones UNIFIL faces.
The mission of the MFO is to monitor compliance with Sinai demilitarization. Egypt withdrew its forces to an agreed-upon line, and there were few civilians living near the border (this has changed over the decades with a corresponding increase in smuggling and terrorist activity). On the Israeli side, the Negev is not densely populated and is far from the major cities.
In any West Bank arrangement, the populations will be physically close, and tens of thousands of Palestinians work in Israel every day. After Israel withdrew behind the U.N.-approved international border with Lebanon, Hezb'allah moved right up to the border with its missiles. UNIFIL soldiers live in Lebanon among the villagers, and Hezb'allah lives among them as well. UNIFIL, then, is hostage to Hezb'allah. In three meetings with UNIFIL representatives in which I participated, the ability to live unmolested was of understandably great importance to the international forces, which have not discovered a single Hezb'allah breach of the U.N. ceasefire since 2006.
These, though, are problems for Israel and its neighbors to solve, or not.
America's Problem in the Region
During the Q&A, the moderator said to Sen. Hagel, "So Iran is connected to Afghanistan, and Afghanistan is connected to Israel and Palestine, and connected to Syria." Hagel replied, "It's all connected."
But not to Israel. If it were, one might almost understand Hagel's and J Street's determination to sacrifice Israel on the altar of "world peace" or a tolerant Islam or the end of Islamist jihad against the West and the end of terrorism as a decent trade-off -- like tossing virgins into the volcano.
If Sen. Hagel wants to be an effective secretary of defense in a successful administration, he and they have to grapple with what Secretary Clinton finally called the "global jihad." That, not America's failure to "solve" the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, is the core of America's problem with radical Islamists.
There is a stream of radical, anti-Western Islam that has taken hold across the Middle East and now North Africa: the Sunni version come from the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda, and the Shiite version from Iran. They don't like Israel. They also don't like the United States or Europe; they don't like modernity, women, gays, education, science, capitalism, free markets, or tolerance. If Israel disappeared, all the other things they hate would remain, and they themselves would remain, and they would be our problem still. Israel isn't the problem; it is an ally in the fight.
Sen. Hagel didn't understand that in 2009. But that was when Mubarak was still in power and 60,000 now-dead Syrians were still alive. Before Tunisia, Libya, Mali, Nigeria, and Algeria. The question for the Senate is, "Does he understand it now?"
Contact Your Senator:
Levin https://www.levin.senate.gov/contact/email/
Stabenow http://www.stabenow.senate.gov/?p=contact
Capital Hill Switch Board: 202-224-3121
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February 1, 2013
Honor Koch's Request: Oppose Chuck Hagel
ZOA Mourns the Passing of Mayor Ed Koch
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) mourns the loss of Mayor Ed Koch.
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, "I will miss the Mayor terribly. I am proud and honored to say that Mayor Ed Koch was a friend of mine. We would speak by phone every few weeks, but I would especially enjoy the breakfasts together at the Regency Hotel. He was always tart and blunt and tough, yet exuded a genuine warmth. His pride of being Jewish and love of Israel was always clear, even palpable, and a part of almost every conversation. In fact, on his tombstone, Mayor Koch chose to have engraved the final words of hostage Daniel Pearl, 'My father is Jewish. My mother is Jewish. I am Jewish.' His tombstone also included a Jewish prayer, 'Hear O'Israel, the Lord our G-d, the Lord is one.' Koch wrote an epitaph after his stroke stating, 'He was fiercely proud of his Jewish faith. He fiercely defended the City of New York, and he fiercely loved its people. Above all, he loved his country, the United States of America, in whose armed forces he served in World War II.'
In the last few weeks of his life, he once again became concerned about President Obama's policies and attitude toward Israel. In fact, in my last conversation with him, he said to me, "'President Obama's nominating Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense makes it clear that Obama is no friend of Israel. I will speak out publicly against him, Mort. Of course, I know that you will. We must hope the Senate does not confirm him.'"
"I strongly urge that we honor one of Mayor Koch's final requests and urge our Senators to vote against Hagel. Call them, write them, fax them, email them. "
Mr. Mayor, may you rest in peace and may G-d comfort his family and friends among the mourners of Zion in Jerusalem.
Contact Your Senator:
Levin https://www.levin.senate.gov/contact/email/
Stabenow http://www.stabenow.senate.gov/?p=contact
Capital Hill Switch Board: 202-224-3121
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UN: Israel Must Withdraw From Judea, Samaria
The United Nations says Israel must withdraw all of its citizens from the regions of Judea and Samaria.
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By Chana Ya'ar
First Publish: 1/31/2013, 3:00 PM
 Israel or America's concern? Mark Langfan
The United Nations says Israel must withdraw all of its citizens from the regions of Judea and Samaria.
The recommendation came in areport issued Thursday by the U.N. Human Rights Council, which has ahistory of passing numerous biased resolutions condemning Israel for various alleged 'crimes' each year.
"Israel must, in compliance with Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, cease all settlementactivities without preconditions," thereport said in part. "It must immediately initiate a process of withdrawal of all settlers from the occupied Palestinian territories."
Israel's Foreign Ministry responded in a fiery statement immediately to the report, which claimed that Jewish settlement activity only "hampers peace efforts."
In response, Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said, "The Human Rights Council has sadly distinguished itself by its systemically one-sided and biased approach towards Israel.
"This latest report is yet another reminder of that," he added.
At least half a million Israelis live in Judea, Samaria and areas of Jerusalem restored to the capital during the 1967 Six Day War.
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Is Iran Trying to Start Another War?
by Shoshana Bryen and Stephen Bryen
Gatestone Institute
January 31, 2013
http://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/3870/is-iran-trying-to-start-another-wa
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Israeli jets struck something Tuesday night; Wednesday's guessing game was, "What was it?"
First reports from Western news services said the Israeli Air Force hit a convoy of weapons moving west from Syria toward, or even in Lebanon. A Lebanese army source said nothing was hit there and a sometimes-but-not-always-reliable source said it wasn't a convoy at all, but an arms depot near the Jamaraya institute, which some people think works on non-conventional weapons. A Syrian military statement said Israel had hit Jamaraya. U.S. officials said it was a convoy. At least one Western report said there was uranium involved.
In any event, Israel quickly dispatched high-level government and military officials to Russia and the United States to provide additional information and, perhaps, to alert those governments to additional threats.
The next questions should be, "Who is pulling Israel into the quagmire that Syria and Lebanon have become, and why?"
It is unlikely that Bashar Assad is interested in acquiring another military adversary at the moment. The myriad rebel factions plus Turkey are making life hard enough for the regime. So the instigator might well have been Iran -- the only other party with the authority to undertake such a move. Why? One possibility is that Iran wants Hezbollah to tie down the Israelis and prevent a Western intervention to help the rebels. Another is that Iran really believes Assad won't survive and wants to move his assets to a "safer location," Lebanon.
If either is the Iranian strategy, it is a huge blunder. Israel has been known to cross borders when a security situation becomes untenable -Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007 for example. If this security situation rises to that level, the next movement that the IDF finds intolerable would likely produce a similar or stronger response. The Iranians must be worried.
Iran and its client, Hezbollah, have both been supporting Assad's military and its assorted thug groups --Hezbollah by lending Assad fighters, and Iran by supplying weapons, troops and officers. Atrocities inside Syria continue to mount, including the discovery of more than 100 bodies -- mostly executed with a bullet to the brain -- in a canal in Aleppo this week. The rebels and the government exchanged accusations, but no one appears sure who did it. The final outcome of the war is far from certain.
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Hezbollah, Russia condemn Israeli airstrike inside Syria
Ariel Schalit/AP - An Israeli air force F-15 Eagle jet fighter plane takes off from Tel Nof air force base for a mission over Gaza Strip in central Israel, Monday, Nov. 19, 2012. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
By Joel Greenberg and Babak Dehghanpisheh, Published: January 30 | Updated: Thursday, January 31,7:25 AM
JERUSALEM - Israeli aircraft struck inside Syria on Wednesday for the first time since 2007, according to Western and Syrian officials, in a development that underlined the risk that the civil war in Syria could spill over into a wider conflict.
There were conflicting reports about the target and its location. A Western official and a former Lebanese security official said earlier Wednesday that Israel had attacked inside Syria along the border with Lebanon, and the former Lebanese official said an unmanned aircraft had hit a truck carrying weapons. But in a later statement, the Syrian army denied a strike along the border and said instead that Israeli jets had bombed a defense research center near Damascus.
Israel declined to comment, as did U.S. officials, who deferred to Israel, a key security partner. The response was similar to the silence that followed Israel's bombing five years ago of a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor, an attack that U.S. officials later confirmed but that the Israelis have not acknowledged to date.
The attack Wednesday highlighted deepening Israeli concerns that the disintegration of Syria could lead to the transfer of advanced weapons to Islamist militants there or to the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group in neighboring Lebanon, posing new threats to Israel's military reach across its borders.
Hezbollah, which is closely aligned with both Syria and Iran, condemned the airstrike as "barbaric aggression" and expressed "full solidarity with Syria's command, army and people," the Associated Press reported. Russia, Syria's chief patron, said the strike would constitute "unprovoked attacks on targets on the territory of a sovereign country, which blatantly violates the U.N. Charter and is unacceptable, no matter the motives to justify it." READ MORE
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JANUARY 29, 2013 1:36 PM
Jerusalem. Photo: Berthold Werner.
Several incidents over the weekend highlighted the increasing Arab violence directed at Israelis in and around Jerusalem.According to Israel Today.
On Sunday evening, a bus traveling north from Jerusalem was damaged when a stone thrown by Palestinians managed to penetrate the bulletproof glass.
Also on the outskirts of Jerusalem, Israeli security forces in at least three separate incidents caught would-be Arab assailants in possession of pipe bombs.
Israeli security officials have noted a significant rise in the number of attacks in and around Jerusalem in which assailants use such weaponry, as opposed to the more traditional guns and knives.
In the West Bank town of Hebron, Arab stone-throwers attacked a kindergarten in the city's main Jewish enclave.
Also on Sunday, an Arab man assaulted a Jew in the capital's Givat Shaul neighborhood, according to Israel National News. The attack resulted in a riot that saw dozens of Jews and Arabs face off in violent confrontation.
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What Is Genocide? The Armenian Case
Turkey, Past and Future
by Michael M. Gunter
Middle East Quarterly
Winter 2013, pp. 37-46
Shortly after the World War II, genocide was legally defined by the U.N. Genocide Convention as "any... acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such."[1] The key word from the perspective of this article is "intent." For while nobody can deny the disaster wrought on the Armenians by the 1915 deportations and massacres, the question is whether or not it can be defined as genocide-arguably the most heinous crime imaginable.
The Ambiguity of Genocide
 The liberal use of the term "genocide" has stirred numerous controversies and debates. Despite an international law definition, the word has been applied in some questionable instances. The deliberate murder of more than a million Cambodians by the Khmer Rouge, some of whose victims are pictured here, was undoubtedly a horrific crime, but does it fit the definition of genocide? |
The strict international law definition of genocide has not prevented its application to virtually every conflict involving a large number of civilian deaths from the Athenian massacre of the inhabitants of Milos in 416 B.C.E., to the Mongol sacking of Baghdad in 1258, to the fate of the native North American Indians, to Stalin's induced famine in the Ukraine in the early 1930s, to the recent conflicts in Bosnia, Burundi, Chechnya, Colombia, Guatemala, Iraq, Sudan, and Rwanda, which is not to deny that some of these cases do indeed qualify as genocide.
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Jerusalem, Capital of Israel: An Islamic Prophecy
by Ali Salim
January 29, 2013 at 5:00 am
Jerusalem is the capital of the Children of Israel, now called the Jews; and it is forbidden for Musims to demand it, just as a married woman belongs only to her husband. Is it possible that Allah, who on His infinite mercy, calls them the Chosen People, and promises them the Holy Land, also plans to murder them, using the Muslims in Palestine as His intermediary? Every Muslim knows that Allah does not break His promises.
If you listen in Arabic to the hate-speeches made by Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi; or to Turkish President Erdogan; or to the calls made from Qatar by Muslim Brotherhood leader Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi and from the Gaza Strip by the head of Hamas, Khaled Mashaal for the killing of the Jews, you will understand why Arabs and Muslims believe Allah is punishing them by having them kill each other: It is because His prophecies are not being fulfilled.
For example, it is heresy and a violation of the will of Allah to sidestep calls for recognizing Jerusalem as official capital of the Children of Israel, and moving the American embassy there. It ignores the prophecy of the Noble Qur'an, which predicts the return of the Children of Israel to their land from the four corners of the earth, as it is written in Al-Isra, Verse 104, "And we said to the Children of Israel after him, "Dwell in the land, then, when the final and the last promise comes near, we shall bring you altogether as a mixed crowd."
Although the stance adopted by the leaders of the Western world in general, and the American administration in particular, may be the consequence of their desire to strengthen their image in the eyes of the Muslim countries, their image is seen only as reflecting their weakness and attempts to ingratiate themselves with both radical Islam and Christian anti-Semitism.
It is not my intention to state that the other monotheistic religions do not also have their place in the holy city of Jerusalem. But political lies come mostly from radical Islamist sources, then somehow become accepted facts. This violates the prophecies of the messengers of Allah, and especially those of the greatest of His prophets, Muhammad (Peace and the blessing of Allah be upon him: sallal laahu alaihi wasallam).
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Egypt, 2012: The Year In Fatwas
by Raymond Ibrahim
FrontPageMagazine.com
January 31, 2013
In previous decades in Egypt, the fatwas, or legal decrees issued by learned Muslims and based on Sharia law, revolved around questions like proper prayer, when and where women should wear the hijab, and if smoking was forbidden or permissible.
That was then.
The fatwas issued in the year 2012-the year when Islamists, spearheaded by the Muslim Brotherhood, assumed formal power-are, as one would expect, markedly different, that is, much less restrained. The popular Egyptian Arabic website El-Watan News recently compiled a list of 2012's most "notable" (a euphemism) fatwas. I translate a summary of their findings below, augmented with additional observations:
Destruction of the Pyramids and Sphinx
In November, Sheikh Murjan Salem al-Jawhari, a Salafi leader, called for the destruction of all idols, relics, and statues in Egypt, specifically mentioning the Sphinx and the Great Pyramids. He called on Muslims to destroy such "idols" just as they destroyed the Buddha statues in Afghanistan. Of course, several months earlier, in July, I reported how several prominent Islamic clerics were calling on President Morsi to "destroy the Pyramids and accomplish what the Sahabi Amr bin al-As [the first Muslim invader of Egypt] could not." Then and now, the MSM scoffed at the very idea, portraying it as a "hoax." To date, reports from Egypt confirm that "some of the statues have already been destroyed by those belonging to the political Islamist parties."
Marrying Minors (i.e., Pedophilia)
Dr. Yassir al-Burhami, Vice President of the Salafi Da'wa movement, and thus an authoritative figure among Egypt's Salafis, who are playing a prominent role in the nation's new parliament, opposed setting a minimum age in the new constitution concerning the marriage of minor girls, saying "they can get married at any time," and insisting that Sharia law is clear on this matter. Indeed, earlier, another cleric and member of Saudi Arabia's highest religious council, after saying that girls can be married "even if they are in the cradle," explained the fundamental criterion of when they can copulate: whenever "they are capable of being placed beneath and bearing the weight of the men," which has less to do with age and more to do with individual capacity.
Permitting Lies and Hypocrisy
Dr. Yassir al-Burhami also permitted wives to "lie to their husbands" about their whereabouts-if they were going to go and vote "yes" on the Sharia-heavy constitution in Egypt, and if their husbands would otherwise have disapproved. The ever-expedient Salafi leader also permitted Egypt to borrow money from the IMF, rationalizing the "forbidden" interest rate away as "administrative charges." (Islam forbids Muslim participation in monetary loans that charge interest, as does the IMF.)
Scrapping Camp David Accords
Sheikh Hashem Islam, member of the Al-Azhar Fatwa Committee, said that the peace treaty with Israel contradicts the teachings of Sharia and should be annulled, quoting the Koran: "So do not weaken and call for peace while you are superior; and Allah is with you and will never deprive you of [the reward of] your deeds" (47:35). He added that "Jews cannot be trusted." The Islamic logic he and others use is that peace treaties with infidels are legitimate only when Muslims are weak and in need, whereas now that Egypt is under proper Muslim leadership, Allah will help it to defeat Israel.
Killing Anyone Protesting Islamization of Egypt
Sheikh Hashem Islam also permitted the killing of anti-Islamization protesters, portraying them as traitors committing "high treason." The Sheikh also exempted the murderers from having to pay the restitution required by Sharia to a Muslim victim's family. Sheikh Wagdi Ghoneim issued a similar fatwa, proclaiming any Muslim who rejects the Sharia-heavy constitution of being an apostate who must be fought and killed.
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CAIR Leader Runs for New York City Council
by David J. Rusin
FrontPage Magazine
February 1, 2013
Zead Ramadan, board president of the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), is eyeing a bigger platform from which to promote his Islamist agenda: a seat on the New York City Council. If he prevails, the city that endured 9/11 will count among its lawmakers a senior official in an organization linked to the financing of terrorists and intent on frustrating law enforcement efforts to foil the next jihad plot.
 A Democrat and member of Community Board 12, one of 59 local representative bodies serving neighborhoods across New York, Ramadan has formally announced his candidacy to succeed the term-limited Robert Jackson in northern Manhattan's District 7. He has gotten off to a quick start in fundraising and an even quicker start in playing the victim card, no doubt hoping to preempt criticism of his association with CAIR. "Ready 2 get attacked 4 my faith but I am not first or last," Ramadan tweeted on January 13.
The opening salvo was a January 2 article by Azi Paybarah, published at CapitalNewYork.com. Relaying Ramadan's description of himself as a "lightning rod," the piece explains that he "has been a frequent target of local anti-Muslim commentators, and several times during the interview Ramadan predicted opponents of CAIR would turn their attention to his campaign," because "CAIR has been a frequent target of Republicans and conservatives, who accuse it of being tolerant of terrorism, or worse." Paybarah's follow-up report states that "CAIR, a civil-rights group, says it exists in part as an antidote to radicalism, and condemns terrorism and religious violence." A more thorough journalist would have mentioned that "CAIR conspired with other affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood to support terrorists," in the words of federal prosecutors; that CAIR was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the trial of the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), whose leaders were convicted of funneling money to Hamas; that a federal judge, citing "ample evidence" of CAIR's ties to HLF and Hamas, upheld the designation; and that the FBI ended outreach activities with CAIR as a result. Of course, these inconvenient facts might have ruined the witch-hunt narrative.
Paybarah emphasizes the Arab-Israeli conflict and the "politics in staunchly pro-Israel New York," assuring readers that Ramadan "said he wanted to avoid using his Council campaign to refocus the dialogue in New York on Middle East foreign affairs" and would not prioritize such issues if elected. "I can't affect the Middle East problem," Ramadan told him. "I'm not condemning anything, OK? You want me to condemn one side or the other in a one thousand, two thousand-year dispute, what are you, insane?"
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Temper the Optimism About Fordow Blast
Jonathan S. Tobin - Commentary Magazine, January 28th, 2013
Iran's official denial of reports of a major explosion at its underground nuclear facility in Fordow is heartening for those who are hoping that the rumors about a setback for the Islamist regime are true. The optimistic scenario would be based on the notion that if Iran is bothering to deny the stories of something bad happening, then something must have happened. But the unconfirmed rumors with details about hundreds of workers being trapped in the underground facility may also be a matter of hope being father to the wish, as many in the West would like to believe that some sort of covert intelligence activity or computer virus will be so successful as to relieve either the United States or Israel of the need to take overt military action to neutralize the Iranian threat.
If there is one place in Iran that Western observers would like to see spontaneously explode it is Fordow, where hardened bunkers built into the side of a mountain house Iran's nuclear centrifuges. As the International Atomic Energy Agency reported last fall, it is there that the Iranians have stepped up their activity, enriching uranium at a rate that might soon accumulate enough material to allow Tehran to begin amassing their own nuclear arsenal. But even if the reports about an explosion are true, it is: a) by no means certain that the event was not an accident rather than part of a daring operation conducted by American and/or Israeli intelligence forces, and b) no guarantee that the Iranian program has been dealt anything more than an insignificant setback.
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Muslim Brotherhood group to 'connect all U.S. schools.' Partners with State, Education departments on international initiative
Aaron Klein - World Net Daily, January 24th, 2013
JERUSALEM - A Muslim Brotherhood-linked organization has partnered with the U.S. Department of Education and the State Department to facilitate an online program aiming to connect all U.S. schools with classrooms abroad by 2016.
Vartan Gregorian, a board member of the organization in question, the Qatar Foundation International, was appointed in 2009 to President Obama's White House Fellowships Commission.
WND previously exposed how Gregorian served as a point man in granting $49.2 million in start up capital to an education-reform project founded by Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers and chaired by Obama.
Documentation shows Gregorian was central in Ayers' recruitment of Obama to serve as the first chairman of the project, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge - a job in which Obama worked closely on a regular basis with Ayers.
Obama also later touted his job at the project as qualifying him to run for public office, as WND previously reported.
Connecting schools to fulfil Obama pledge to Arab world
The Qatar Foundation International, or QFI, in 2011 partnered with the Department of State and the U.S. Department of Education to facilitate matchmaking between classrooms in the U.S. and international schools through something called the "Connect All Schools" project.
QFI, funded by the Qatari government, explains on its website the online initiative was founded in response to Obama's call to "create a new online network, so a young person in Kansas can communicate instantly with a young person in Cairo," during his June 2009 speech to the Arab world from Cairo, Egypt.
QFI relates how more than 100 U.S. schools and organizations have already connected on the interactive website, www.connectallschools.org.
The stated goal of the online intiative is to "connect every school in the US with the world by 2016."
This is not the QFI's first foray into the U.S. education system.
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Where is the US Government in defense of Pastor Abedini and religious freedom?
by M. Zuhdi Jasser
Fox News
January 27, 2013
http://www.mzuhdijasser.com/12870/pastor-abedini-iran
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Recent news of the January 21 Iranian trial of Christian Pastor Saeed Abedini before a Revolutionary Guard Court lit up social media and religious freedom activists and circles with sheer outrage over his plight and the rampant increase in Iran of persecution of religious minorities. But is religious liberty and these litmus cases a priority for the leader of the free world?
Pastor Abedini did nothing more than convert from Islam to Christianity 13 years ago and begin preaching his message in an underground network of churches in Iran. He then came to the United States and became an American citizen raising his family in Idaho. His family reported that he returned last fall to Iran to start an orphanage and was snatched from a bus by the Iranian regime on Sept. 26, 2012. He was sent to the infamous Evin Prison in Tehran. The regime's bogus claim? He was undermining their authority and national security. Many of the claims from the Iranian State News Agency on this case and others have been proven patently false throughout. Yet there has been little public repudiation from President Obama.
The judge assigned to the case has been sanctioned many times by the European Union for his court actions and sentences. Last week it was even reported that the pastor and his attorney were not allowed to attend their own trial. Sadly, but not surprisingly, Pastor Saeed stands now convicted to eight years in prison in an Iranian gulag. This American citizen, who, like so many of our families came to the U.S. for religious freedom, went back only for charity work and is now jailed, having lost the freedom of his adopted nation.
With all the information known on this case, why the irresponsible neglect from the bully pulpit of the White House? The administration embarrassingly so far could only muster a statement from National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor saying, "We remain troubled by the case of U.S. citizen Saeed Abedini, who was arrested by Iranian officials more than three months ago on charges relating to his religious beliefs; we call upon Iranian authorities to release him immediately." Yet, hypocritically, in June 2009, when two Current TV reporters were imprisoned in North Korea, the Obama White House and Clinton State Department made the reporter's plight a top priority. They even dispatched former President Bill Clinton as an envoy who was then thankfully able to secure their release.
One cannot help but realize that even though our nation was founded on the "first freedom" being religious freedom, the defense of that freedom abroad is sadly no longer "first." Secular, a-religious causes like that of so many courageous reporters seem easier for many on the left to defend and trumpet against nebulous universally decried fascists like the president of North Korea. However, when the victims are targeted for minority religious speech and liberty, their causes seem all too often to be less palatable to reflexively defend. This seems especially true for this administration when the religious repression is found to be in the hands of Islamists -- a theocratic form of fascism.
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Morsi Aide: America Invented Holocaust 'Myth'
January 30, 2013 2:25 PM
Egypt's President Mohammed Morsi delivers a speech at the Koerber foundation in Berlin on Jan. 30, 2013. (credit: ODD ANDERSEN/AFP/Getty Images)
CAIRO (CBSDC) - An aide to Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi claims that the Holocaust was a hoax.
Fathi Shihab Eddim, Morsi's senior aide, made the comments on Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27.
"The myth of the Holocaust is an industry that America invented," Eddim said, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Eddim, who is reportedly responsible for appointing editors for the country's state-run newspapers, asserted that 6 million Jews actually moved to the United States during World War II.
"U.S. intelligence agencies in cooperation with their counterparts in allied nations during World War II created it to destroy the image of their opponents in Germany, and to justify war and massive destruction against military and civilian facilities of the Axis powers, and especially to hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the atomic bomb," Eddim said, according to the Telegraphic Agency.
Morsi has also been under fire for comments he made about Jews in 2010, saying that they are the "descendants of apes and pigs."
The Muslim Brotherhood leader came into power following the overthrow of former dictator Hosni Mubarak in 2011.
More than 60 people have been killed in the past week during political protests. READ MORE
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Are We Really Back to Relying on the Egyptian Military to Save the Day?Andrew McCarthy - January 30, 2013
Back when Mubarak was clinging to power and the Tahrir Square rioting was intensifying, I cautioned that it would be foolish for the West to assume that the Egyptian military - principal recipient of tens of billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars over the last 40 years - would step in and stop the country from falling into the grip of Islamists. The Egyptian military is a reflection of Egyptian society which, as we have now seen in election after election, is dominated by Islamists. Indeed, despite the good relations some top Egyptian military brass have had with the Pentagon, the fact is that some of the most important members of al Qaeda and other jihadist organizations have served in the Egyptian armed forces. It is thus remarkable to hear commentators now speculating that, as Egypt is imploding, the armed forces may finally be poised to step in and save the day - perhaps even oust the Muslim Brotherhood government of President Mohamed Morsi. This supposition is based on a warning just issued by General Abdel Fatah El Sissi, the defense minister: "The continuation of the conflict between the different political forces and their differences over how the country should be run could lead to the collapse of the state and threaten future generations." Understand: Gen. Sissi is Morsi's guy. As I observed here back in August, when Morsi succeeded in sacking the military's Mubarak-era leaders, Sissi is well known in Egyptian military ranks as a Brotherhood supporter. Moreover, Sissi's elevation was not Morsi's only move to tame the military. As recounted in another column at the time, Morsi installed Gen. Sedky Sobhi as army chief of staff. Sobhi is an Islamist who has called for the permanent withdrawal of U.S. forces from the Middle East, deriding what he takes to be American hostility to sharia and American creation of the "popular grievances" that fuel al Qaeda's popularity. READ MORE |
On Mistaking Mohamed Mursi For His Mask
by Raymond Stock
Foreign Policy Research Institute
February 2013
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"You know, when it comes to Egypt, I think, had it not been for the leadership we showed, you might have seen a different outcome there." - President Barack Obama, "60 Minutes," January 27, 2013
With President Mohamed Mursi's proclamation of a "new republic" on December 26, after the passage of a Constitution that turns Egypt into an Islamist-ruled, pseudo-democratic state, the "January 25th Revolution" came to a predictably disastrous (if still unstable) terminus. As momentous for world history as the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran (should it hold), it represents the formal-if not the final-victory for the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) in its 84-year struggle for power in the land of its birth. Indeed, 2012 will likely be remembered as the year that Islamists made the greatest gains in their quest for a new caliphate in the region. And without a drastic change of course by Washington, 2013 might surpass it by far in progress toward the same, seemingly inexorable end.
Egypt, the largest Arab state, the second largest recipient of U.S. military aid, and our second most important ally in the Middle East, is now in the hands of a hostile regime-an elected one at that-which we continue to treat as a friendly one. Even if the sudden outburst of uncontrolled violence along the Suez Canal since January 26-coupled with escalating political and economic tumult in Cairo and elsewhere-leads to a new military coup, it would likely be managed by the MB from behind the scenes. The irony and the implications are equally devastating. This new reality threatens not only traditional U.S. foreign policy goals of stability in the oil-rich Middle East and security for Israel, but also America's declared support for democracy in the Arab world. Moreover, the fruits of Islamist "democracy," should it survive, are catastrophic to the people of Egypt, the region and beyond.
How did all this happen? And what role did the U.S. play?
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JANUARY 31, 2013 2:06 AM
Weapons taken from two Palestinian men near Nablus in January of 2012. Photo: wiki commons.
The indispensable PMW has just published a translation of an article in Ma'an, the Palestinian news agency publication. PMW emphasizes the vicious anti-Semitism of the piece (Israel and "the Jews" are interchangeable) which is pervasive in Palestinian media, and the fact that Ma'an is supported by the EU, UNESCO, and the Dutch and Danish governments, presumably to encourage their journalism which, we all know, is equally professional everywhere and therefore supportive of civil society.
I'd like to emphasize a different aspect of the text, namely the profound role that projection plays in its formulations about "the Jews." Indeed, if it were not that they have insulated themselves entirely from real-world feedback (with the help of their European and global allies), they might have hesitated to publish so deeply embarrassing - indeed humiliating - a piece of self-revelation. But then again, projection lies at the heart of the anti-Semitic mind, as in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Text bolded by PMW, my comments added throughout.
"Israel is Trembling" by Sawsan Najib Abd Al-Halim READ MORE
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"It Is No Dream: The Life of Theodor Herzl"
 | | It Is No Dream: The Life of Theodor Herzl |
About this Film
It Is No Dream examines the life and times of Theodor Herzl, the journalist and playwright who was responsible for creating the political movement that led in 1948 to the creation of the Jewish state, Israel. It is the latest feature of Moriah Films, the two time Academy Award winning documentary film division of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, an international human rights organization and NGO with over 400,000 member families.
Narrated by Academy Award winner Ben Kingsley and starring Academy Award Winner Christoph Waltz as the voice of Theodor Herzl, It Is No Dream examines how Theodor Herzl, an assimilated Jew, born into a traditional but mostly non-religious family in Budapest in 1860, was changed by the trial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus in Paris, which he covered as a journalist in 1895. Previously, he had advocated the mass conversion of Jews to Christianity as a solution to the growing anti-Semitism of Europe. However, after witnessing the court proceedings where Dreyfus was falsely convicted of treason and the anti-Jewish demonstrations of the French public, Herzl became convinced that the only answer to the anti-Semitism that was spreading across Europe was the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, the Biblical homeland of the Jewish people. He wrote a political treatise entitled "Der Judenstaat" or "The Jewish State" that became an international bestseller, laying out his ideas for creating a new Jewish state.
READ MORE
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