Levitt Letter Extra News

By Rosslyn Smith, www.AmericanThinker.com

 Are the Ayatollahs learning that hell hath no fury like 34 million women scorned, forced out of the workplace, harassed, and humiliated by religious police for three decades? I have noticed some of the bravest protesters in Iran have been women, including a few who have been without headscarves and showing a great deal more of their figures than the regime would approve. Roger Cohen of the NY Times has noticed this, too.

 …. Iran’s women stand in the vanguard. For days now, I’ve seen them urging less courageous men on. I’ve seen them get beaten and return to the fray. “Why are you sitting there?” one shouted at a couple of men perched on the sidewalk on Saturday. “Get up! Get up!”

CNN has noted that for at least some of these women it is about far more than a stolen election.

Like thousands of other Iranian women, Parisa took to Tehran’s streets this week, her heart brimming with hope. “Change,” said the placards around her.

 The young Iranian woman eyed the crowd and pondered the possibility that the rest of her life might be different from her mother’s. She could see glimmers of a future free from discrimination—and all the symbols of it, including the head-covering the government requires her to wear every day.

 Earlier stories about the Iran election noted that Mir-Hossein Mousavi’s wife, Zahra Rahnavard, is a formidable political force in her own right, having been the first woman chancellor of an Iranian university since the Revolution. That she may have lost that position in a purge of reformists after Ahmadinejad was elected President in 2005 helps explain some of the enmity between the candidates. Unusual for Iran, Rahnavard’s actively campaigned for her husband, particularly among university students and women. On the campaign trail she noticeably flouted violations of the dress codes that tightened up after Ahmadinejad’s 2006 election. Her head covering was a brightly colored scarf, her use of makeup was noticeable, and her chador was worn so you could glimpse the outfit underneath.

The flouting of the moral police was probably political theater. A more substantive reason that Rahnavard’s active campaign presence excited women is this dismal fact about how the kleptocracy of misogynist ayatollahs has thwarted human expectations: More than 60 percent of Iran’s university students are women, but women make up only perhaps 15 percent of the workforce. One sector often favored by college educated American women, that of civil service, has been increasing hard for women to access under Ahmadinejad.

Women left alone with children after the death or desertion of a husband are particularly hard hit in a culture that openly discriminates in employment. So are those in abusive relationships with fathers or husbands. One of Iran’s dirty little secrets is how many women are forced into prostitution. News stories from 2002 reported as many as 300,000 women were engaged in prostitution in greater Tehran. In an area with a population then estimated at 12 million that is close to 5% of the total female population. 

The religious fig leaf for the business of selling sexual favors is a practice allowed in Shiite branch of Islam know as sigheh, or a marriage contracted for a fixed period of time. Supposedly the woman contracted in such a marriage is not to enter into a new contract until one menstrual cycle has passed. This was obviously not the case because the reason prostitution came to official attention in 2002 was that two women engaging in the trade infected over 1,100 men with the HIV virus.

I am not a bit surprised that women are among the leaders of this revolt. Several years ago I read Azar Nafisi’s memoir of life in Iran during and after the 1979 revolution, Reading Lolita in Tehran. Educated in the West where she was active on the political left, Dr, Nafisi returned to Iran in 1979 to teach English language literature. Some of the best passages in the book relate to her fight not to have to wear the head covering and shapeless cloak increasingly being mandated by Iran’s new rulers. Those forcing her to become a walking mummy included Marxists who went along with the Islamic fundamentalists on the issue before they, too, were squeezed out of the power structure. The Marxists argued that staying with Western-style dress was a symbol of solidarity with colonial oppressors! When Nafisi lost the fight on the chador, she vowed to teach her own children, sons and daughters alike, about the injustice of such restrictions on women.

Dr. Nafisi knew that her favorite students mostly agreed with her on such issues, but she later learned she had also had a great influence on some others who had gone with the flow in 1979. Near the end of the her book, when she is preparing to emigrate to America, Dr. Nafisi runs into one of her students. This young woman had belonged to the Muslim Students’ Association. She had vocally objected with fellow MSA members on being made to read about “immoral” characters like Heathcliff and the foolish, unreasonable, stubborn, and equally immoral Daisy Miller. It seems the student had been far more engaged in the material than her classroom protests would have indicated. She told Nafisi she had continued to read literature “for her own heart” after leaving school. She was married now, with a newborn daughter she named after the professor! Not the name on the birth certificate. That was the name of a favorite aunt, now deceased.

…but I have a secret name for her. I call her Daisy. She said she had hesitated between Daisy and Lizzy. She had finally settled on Daisy. Lizzy was the one she had dreamed of, but marrying Mr. Darcy was too much wishful thinking. Why Daisy? Don’t you remember, Daisy Miller? Haven’t you heard that if you give your child a name with meaning she will become like her namesake? I want my daughter to be what I never was — like Daisy. You know, courageous.

When I read Nafisi’s words, I thought of how one of the events that helped the women’s movement initially resonate in America was the manner in which some women who had taken jobs outside the home during the labor shortages of WW II were summarily fired in peacetime. A good friend’s mother who taught at a noted left-wing university during and immediately after the war never let her son forget that she had lost her job just as soon as a male with a newly minted degree under the GI bill had became available. The injustice done American women pales besides that inflicted on the women of Iran. But in both situations the women made sure their sons, daughters, nieces, and nephews all knew that such discrimination was wrong. And like the student who wished she had spoken for herself instead of allowing the MSA to speak for her, many American women of the post-war era urged their own daughters to do what they had not dared to do.

When I watched the brave and often incredibly beautiful young Iranian women take to the streets the last few days, I also thought back to how Dr. Nafisi’s favorite students mocked a culture that allowed them a university education while attempting to confine them to gender roles more appropriate to 7^th-century warring Arab nomads. One favorite way to do so was to parody the opening sentence of their favorite novel from Dr. Nafisi’s syllabus:

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Muslim man, regardless of his fortune, must be in want of a nine-year-old virgin wife.

I could see them marching through Iran’s cities, casting a wary eye at onlooking security forces even as they poked fun at then. They talk about how the Islamic Revolution was for men who couldn’t find a wife another way, and how Elizabeth Bennett wouldn’t go near a man who wanted a child bride — or multiple wives.

Iranian-American journalist Roya Hakakian, who left Iran in 1984 at the age of 18, echoed the sentiments of Nafisi and her students in a recent interview in which she noted that in the last ten years a new generation of women has organized in ways not seen since 1979. She notes the women of this generation learned an important lesson from their predecessors. (http://www.forbes.com/2009/06/17/political-climate-elections-iran-forbes-woman-power-feminism.html)

The feminist movement, which has been ongoing in Iran, has now joined the broader public movement against the regime. This happened in Iran in the late 1970s too, but it actually had a terrible effect on the women’s movement in Iran. Women were somehow “hoodwinked” to think that the veil wasn’t such an important issue, that it was more important to sacrifice for the greater good. So the Shah went and the veil stayed.

This generation is a lot smarter. The broader social movement is far more sympathetic to the cause of women than in the late 1970s. Thirty years later, Iranian men now realize that their fate is entwined with that of their female counterparts: If women are doing better, then men will do better too.

Azadeh Moaveni, born in Palo Alto of Iranian parents in 1976 and co author of Iran Awakening with Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, had this to say about the extent of the repression:

The weight of discrimination against women is felt most profoundly through Iran’s legal system, but Moaveni said Ahmadinejad added to the hardship by clamping down on women’s lifestyles. He mandated the way women dress and even censored websites that dealt with women’s health, Moaveni said. A woman would be hard-pressed to conduct a Google search for something as simple as breast cancer.

Azar Nafisi, now a professor at Johns Hopkins, told CNN she has been watching the footage from Iran with “inordinate pride.”

After Saturday, Dr. Nafisi probably wants to add “and great sorrow” to her statement.

Another Iranian woman not allowed to use her education, who has taken to the streets:

Artemis, a 41-year-old Tehran woman, is the proud holder of a law degree, but has never been allowed to work. She was clear about why she joined the million-plus men, women, and children who took to the streets of Tehran last Monday.

“People want freedom and justice,” she said. “They stole the vote. No one in his right mind believes this result.”

She said she had been afraid to voice criticism before. “The neighbors listen to you, and people go to prison just for what they say, or what they write. But this is contagious. What you are seeing, all these people, this comes from 30 years of oppression and now we have had enough.”

Perhaps the most poignant words about what is happening comes from an Iranian woman sending messages to Nico Pitney at the Huffington Post who has been living blogging events for a week now (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/13/iran-demonstrations-viole_n_215189.html). She wrote that she would be in Saturday’s demonstrations where she may be killed. Saturday evening she got out a message that she was okay, but that her ”sister” had died.

Here is the translation of part of her message.

I’m here to tell you, my sister who died was a decent person… and like me, yearned for a day when her hair would be swept by the wind… and like me, read “Forough” [Forough Farrokhzad]… and longed to live free and equal… and she longed to hold her head up and announce, “I’m Iranian”… and she longed to one day fall in love to a man with a shaggy hair… and she longed for a daughter to braid her hair and sing lullaby by her crib…

my sister died from not having life… my sister died as injustice has no end… my sister died since she loved life too much… and my sister died since she lovingly cared for people…

Much of the world has seen the video of this beautiful young woman, sister to us all, taking her last breath before our eyes. It is being reported that her name was Neda, which is said to be Farsi for voice or call. Her actions give voice to the oppressed women of Iran, and call out to all of us to stand with them against oppression.

www.IsraelToday.co.il

 In stark contrast to the overly cautious tone being sounded by U.S. President Barack Obama, Israeli President Shimon Peres on Sunday cheered on Iranians protesting the results of the recent presidential election in the Islamic Republic, and urged them to continue until they are freed from the clutches of the current regime.

 In remarks carried by the Israeli press, Peres said Iranians need to “raise their voice of freedom” until the oppressive and dangerous government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad disappears.

 In an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the demonstrations across Iran had finally unmasked the repressive nature of not only the Ahmadinejad regime, but the ayatollah-ruled theocratic system of government as a whole.

 On Monday, Netanyahu told German newspaper Bild he has no doubt that given the opportunity, the Iranian people would choose a totally different system of government and would ultimately make peace with Israel.

 ”There is no conflict between the Iranian and Israeli people and under a different regime, the peaceful relations that existed in the past could be reestablished,” said Netanyahu.

 In the U.S., Obama is under growing pressure from both Republicans and Democrats in Congress to express greater support for Ahmadinejad’s opponents in Iran.

 But last week, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak cautioned that backing Iranian presidential challenger Mir Moussavi would not be enough, since he shares many of the same dangerous views and policies as Ahmadinejad.

By Gerald A. Honigman, www.IsraelNationalNews.com

It was a moment in time never to be forgotten—July 4, 1976.

I was watching those spectacular tall sailing ships from numerous countries passing under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in Brooklyn in salute to America’s two hundredth birthday. Tears of pride were in many of our eyes that day.

I was there with my best friend Arie, who is from Israel. At almost the very same moment that those tall ships were sailing by, something else was happening which would link Israel and America together in many a mind forever after.

During the night before and the early morning hours of July 4, 1976, Israel launched Operation Thunderball AKA Operation Entebbe AKA Operation Yonatan.

On June 27, Air France Flight 139 was hijacked by Arabs and some European soul mates. The plane was taken to Idi Amin’s Uganda, where the hijackers were met with open arms.

The passengers were soon asked to form two lines—one for Jews, the other for gentiles. Most of the latter were freed, but the Jews became Idi Amin’s “guests.” Amin’s buddies next announced that the Jews would be killed if demands were not met.

This is an amazing, true story that sired several movies and accounts. Look it up on the Internet or rent one of the movies.

But what you need to know is that on July 4, 1976, Israel raided Entebbe, freed the hostages and showed the world that it was possible to defeat terror—a lesson some still need to learn today. It was a wonderful present commemorating America’s own liberty as well.

There was one Israeli combat fatality.

Lieutenant Colonel Yonatan Netanyahu, of Israel’s elite Sayeret Matkal, had commanded the strike force and was killed by a Ugandan soldier. Yoni was a Dean’s List Harvard scholar who returned to Israel to resume his combat role during the stressful years leading up to the 1973 Yom Kippur War. He was a remarkable human being—both a man of the world, as well as a true son of Zion reborn.

When my own son was born, we named him Jonathan, in honor of King Saul’s son, Prince Yonatan—King David’s closest friend—and in honor of Yoni Netanyahu.

Today, the mainstream media would portray Yoni as a right-wing extremist. Just look at how most of it has dealt with Israel going after the non-stop terror machine and its willing supporters in Gaza. Any Jew who refuses to stick his head in the sand regarding what the Arabs’ true intentions are regarding the Jew of the Nations is branded this way.

Arabs claim twenty-one states to date in their Arab League, on over six million square miles of territory, forcibly Arabized from mostly non-Arab peoples; but how dare Jews claim a sole, minuscule, resurrected one of their own—practically invisible on a world map?

On July 4, 1976, Yonatan Netanyahu re-sent America and the entire world a message that Jews have been delivering for thousands of years.

Rabbi Hillel, who lived during the Roman occupation of Judaea, restated already ancient Jewish teachings when he proclaimed: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am not for others, what am I?”

Israel has tried very hard to come to fair accommodations with current “others”, who see the entire region as merely purely Arab patrimony. Justice, through Arab eyes only. That’s what Darfur and the south of the Sudan is about; that’s what gassed, massacred and subjugated Kurds, Copts, Berbers, and so forth, is about as well.

The compromises Israel has sought with the Arabs are light years beyond what Arabs have offered to the scores of millions of non-Arabs with whom they have clashed and competed themselves. But nothing will really change until the Arab mindset changes. Until then, Israel must concentrate on the first part of Hillel’s famous quote.

Given this reality check, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must send the same message his elder brother Yoni sent over three decades ago. He must demand—not beg—empathy for live Jews, not crocodile tears of sympathy for dead ones.

What would over three hundred million Americans in a three thousand mile wide America do given the true nature of the beast Israel faces? If I am not for myself, who will be for me….?

www.memri.org

In an Internet article posted in late 2007, ‘Aref ‘Alwan, an Iraqi author and playwright who resides in London and is the author of 12 novels, stated that the Jews have an historic right to Palestine because their presence there preceded the Arab conquest and has continued to this day.

In the article, titled “Do the Jews Have Any Less Right to Palestine than the Arabs?” ‘Alwan calls on the Arab world to acknowledge the Jews’ right to Palestine, because justice demands it and also because doing so would end the violence and the killing of Arabs, as well as intra-Arab strife. He adds that such a move would also open up new avenues for the Arab world that would be more consistent with the values and needs of modern society.

‘Alwan writes that the Arab League is to blame for the refusal to recognize the 1947 U.N. partition plan, for starting a war to prevent its implementation, and for the results of that war, which the Arabs call the Nakba (disaster). He points an accusing finger at the Arab regimes, the Arab League, and the educated circles in the Arab world, saying that they had all used the term “nakba” to direct popular consciousness toward a cultural tradition that neither accepts the other side nor recognizes its rights — thereby promoting bigotry, violence, and extremism. He also claims that there have been attempts to rewrite Palestinian history, in order to deny any connection between it and the Jewish people.

‘Alwan contends that the “Nakba mentality” among Arabs has boomeranged, giving rise to tyrannical rulers, extremist clerics, and religious zealots of every description. In his view, the Arab world will never shed the stigma of terrorism in the West unless it abandons this concept and all that it entails.

To boost his claim that the Jews have an historic right to Palestine, ‘Alwan provides an overview of Jewish history in the land of Israel. He questions the validity of the Islamic traditions underpinning the Arab claim to Palestine, Jerusalem, and the Temple Mount, and presents evidence that religions that preceded Islam had conducted rituals on the Temple Mount.

As an example of the traditional Arab mentality that does not accept the other or recognize his rights, ‘Alwan discusses the Arabs’ abuse of the Kurds in Iraq and of the Christians in Egypt and Lebanon.

The following are excerpts from the article:

The Nakba: A Great Lie

“When the Salafi mob in Gaza tied the hands and feet of a senior Palestinian official and hurled him, alive, from the 14th floor, I asked myself: What political or religious precepts must have been inculcated into the minds of these young people to make them treat a human life with such shocking cruelty?

“Earlier, I had watched on TV as the bodies of two Israeli soldiers were thrown from the second floor [of a building] in a Palestinian city. Whether or not it was the same Salafi mob behind that incident, [one asks oneself]: What language, [or rather,] what historic linguistic distortion could have erased from the human heart [all] moral sensibilities when dealing with a living and helpless human being?

“Arabs who are averse to such inhuman behavior must help me expose and eliminate the enormous lie that has for 60 years justified, extolled, and supported brutality. [Such behavior] is no longer limited to the expression of unconscious [impulses] by individuals, but constitutes a broad cultural phenomenon, which began in Lebanon, [spread to] Iraq and Palestine, and then [spread] – slowly but surely – to other Arab states as well.

“This enormous lie is what the Arabs called the Nakba – that is, the establishment of two states in Palestine: the state of Israel, which the Jews agreed to accept, and the state of Palestine, which the Arabs rejected.

“In our times, when science, with its accurate instruments, can predict climatic changes that will lead to drought or the movement of tectonic plates that causes earthquakes, it is inconceivable that a modern man can, without making a laughingstock of himself, attribute the destruction of cities ancient or modern to the wrath of Allah. Nevertheless, today, 80% of Arabs claim this to be the case. They are neither embarrassed nor afraid of being laughed at.

“This high percentage includes not only the illiterates who densely populate rural areas, villages, and small and large cities, but also students, teachers, lecturers, graduates of institutions of higher education, scientists, technology experts, physicians, graduates of religious universities such as Al-Azhar, historians, and politicians who have held or are currently holding public office.

“It is those numerous educated elites who have forced the Arab mentality into a narrow, restrictive, and deficient cultural mold, spewing violence, terrorism, and zealotry, and prohibiting innovative thought… All this was done to instill a false sense of oppression in the hearts of the Arabs, and to destroy them with the infectious disease of despair and confusion.

“[This attitude] is rooted in the 1947 Arab League resolution stating that Palestine is a ’stolen’ land and that none but a Muslim Arab is entitled to benefit from it as an autonomous [political entity], even if another’s historic roots there predate those of the Muslims or the Arabs.”

The Nakba Boomerang

“[The upshot] of this confusion in [Arab] mentality is that the lie has boomeranged on the Arabs. [Thus] appeared [on the scene] Saddam Hussein, Hafez Al-Assad, Bashar Al-Assad, Osama bin Laden, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Abu Mus’ab Al-Zarqawi, Hassan Nasrallah, Nabih Berri, Khaled Mash’al, Isma’il Haniya, and Mahmoud Al-Zahar, whose young [thugs] threw the senior Palestinian official from the 14th floor. Finally, from the foot of the eastern mountains bordering the Middle East came Ahmadinejad, who is committed to preparing the way for the anarchy and destruction that accompanies the advent of the long-awaited Mahdi, who will resolve the Palestinian problem.

“Today, owing to the ideological distortions that have afflicted the Arab popular consciousness since the so-called Nakba, and [also owing] to the lies that have accumulated around this notion, [the label of] ‘terrorism’ has become attached to Arabs, wherever they are.

“Despite the great political and cultural efforts by large and important Arab states such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and some Gulf states to restore Arab ties with the rest of the world, and to curb the culture of terrorism in Arab societies, they have all failed. This is because these attempts to rectify [the situation], from both within and without [the Arab countries], both stemmed from and were a logical extension of the concept of the Nakba.

“This proves that the Arabs have no hope of extricating themselves from the cultural and political challenge of terrorism unless they come up with [new] and different [fundamental] premises, and with an outlook completely free of the fetters of the religious ritual that they have devised in modern times and called the Nakba.

“Although Palestinian senior officials, leaders, educated circles, and public figures, whose patriotism is beyond doubt, have come to terms with the existence of the State of Israel, the aforementioned 80% of Arabs… do not accept this view, and consider it religious apostasy. Leaders of the [Arab] states in the region, and party leaders, inflame sentiment, entrancing them with the drumbeat of extremism.

“With the strident chorus of its secretaries, the Arab League ensures that every car crash in Gaza or the West Bank is interpreted as an Israeli conspiracy against the Arab future. This is because the Arab League… was established as a pan-Arab entity whose main function was to write reports and studies rife with distortions of fact so as to quell the conscience of any Arab who dared think independently and expunge [the concept of] the Nakba from his consciousness. [It has done] this instead of devising creative strategies for cultural and economic development, so as to improve the deteriorating standard of living in the Arab societies.”

The Nakba is Rooted in a Culture that Does Not Recognize the Right of the Other

“Why did the partition resolution, which gave a state in Palestine to the Jews and one to the Arabs next to it, become the Nakba – [the star] that rises and sets daily over the Arab lands without emitting even the tiniest ray of light to illuminate the path for their peoples?

“Did the Jews have any less right to Palestine than the Arabs? What historic criteria can be used to determine the precedence of one [nation's] right over that of the other?

“Refusing to recognize the right of the other so as to usurp his rights was a governing principle of the Islamic conquests from the time of ‘Omar bin Al-Khattab; during that historical period it was the norm. [But] at the turn of the [20th] century, this principle was abandoned and prohibited, because it sparked wars and [violent] conflict. The international community passed laws restricting the principle of non-acceptance of the other, in the founding principles of the League of Nations in 1919. Subsequently, with the U.N.’s establishment, these laws were developed [further], with appendices and commentary, to adapt them to the current historical era and to express the commonly accepted values of national sovereignty and peoples’ right to self-determination.

“But because of their sentimental yearning for the past and zealous adherence to [old] criteria, the Arabs purged their hearts of any inclination to adjust to the spirit of the age. They thus became captives of the principle of non-acceptance of the other and of denying the other [the right] to live, [among] other rights.

“As a result, damage was done to the rights and interests of non-Arab nations and ethnic groups in the Arab lands – among them the Kurds, the Copts, and the Jews. [Thus,] the Arabs still treat the numerous minorities that came under their dominion 1,400 years ago in accordance with the laws from the era of Arab conquest.

“Despite the consequences of denying the other the right to exist, not to mention other rights – that is, [despite] the oppression, conflicts, wars, and instability [resulting from this]… the Arabs have steadfastly clung to their clearly chauvinist position. All problems in the region arising from minorities’ increasing awareness of their rights have been dealt with by the Arabs in accordance with [the principle of non-acceptance]… [even] after the emergence of international institutions giving these rights legal validity, in keeping with the mentality and rationale of our time.”

Refusing to Accept the Other: The Kurds in Iraq; the Christians in Egypt and Lebanon

The Kurds

“The denial of the Kurds’ national rights by the Iraqi government, and the Arab League’s support for it, has brought on wars lasting 50 years – that is, three-quarters of the life span of the state that arose in Iraq…

“After fabricating arguments to justify the [1921] combining of the Basra region with the Baghdad region in order to establish a new state in Iraq, British colonialist interests demanded that a large area historically populated by Kurds be added to the new state. [This was done] to satisfy the aspirations of King Faisal bin Al-Hussein [bin Ali Al-Hashemi], who had been proposed as head of state in return for protecting British interests in the region.

“In his persistent refusal to grant the Kurds their rights, from 1988 through 1989 Saddam Hussein murdered approximately 180,000 Kurds, in an organized [genocidal] campaign he called ‘Al-Anfal.’ He then used mustard gas against one [Kurdish] city (Halabja), killing its residents (5,000 people). The Arab conscience silently acquiesced to this human slaughterhouse, while Arab League secretary-general (Shadhli Al-Qalibi) called the international press coverage of these events ‘a colonialist conspiracy against the Arabs and the Iraqi regime.’

“Syrian Kurds are considered second-class citizens, and are banned from using their language or [practicing] their culture in public.”

The Christians in Egypt and Lebanon

“The ethnic oppression of the Kurds [in Iraq] was echoed by sectarian extremism against the Copts [in Egypt]. In both cases, the Arabs used the principle of denying the existence of the other so as to strip him of his rights.

“The Copts, who [initially] assimilated Arabs into their society, but who have over time themselves assimilated into Arab society, discover time and again that this assimilated state is but a surface shell, which quickly cracks whenever they demand equality… As a result, Egypt, as a state, is gripped by constant social tensions that keep rising to the surface and threatening to undermine its stability…

“Sectarian extremism in Egypt took the form of an organized party with the 1928 emergence of the Muslim Brotherhood, with the aim of splitting Egyptian society into two mutually hostile and conflicting parts. This was in line with the Arab religious and political principle of denying legitimacy to all non-Muslims or non-Arabs, [a principle practiced] since the Muslim armies reached Egypt in 639 [CE]…

“In Lebanon, the presence of armed Palestinian militias – which was in accordance with the decision of the Arab states – encouraged the formation of Lebanese militias, both Sunni and Shiite. Chanting slogans proclaiming Palestinian liberation, they frightened Christians by appearing armed in streets swarming with Lebanese [citizens] and tourists.

“This eventually led to a confrontation with Christian militias, which had also armed themselves out of fear of the pan-Arab slogans and fear for the [preservation of] the rights of the Christian sects.

“Lebanon was engulfed by an ugly 15-year civil war, that ended only after Syria, which had played an ignominious role as instigator [of the hostilities], attained full protectorate status over Lebanese affairs and the Lebanese people – [and this] took on the nature of colonialist hegemony…

“After the Lebanese were liberated from this [Syrian] control, in 2005 the clouds of civil war – albeit of a different kind – reappeared on the Lebanese horizon. The Arab League is making no effort to prevent the eruption [of this civil war] for two main reasons. First, the Syrian regime still supports ethnic tension, in order to regain control of Lebanon; and second, the current majority government, which opposes the renewed Syrian influence, is predominantly Christian…

“We had hoped that the Arab national conscience would recover from the illness afflicting it since the time of the Nakba, and that it would adopt [views] which, if not ahead of their time, would at least be appropriate to our time. But a group of journalists, writers, and several Arab historians guided by the principle of non-acceptance of the other has twisted the facts and concocted a false and gloomy history of the region – thereby trampling these dreams to the ground.”

Jews Have a Rich and Ancient History in Palestine

“The Arabs see the Palestinian problem as exceedingly complicated, while it actually appears so only to them – [that is], from the point of view of the Arabs’ emotional attitudes and their national and religious philosophy. The Arabs have amassed false claims regarding their exclusive right to the Palestinian land, [and] these are based on phony arguments and on several axioms taken from written and oral sources – most of which they [themselves] created after the Islamic, and which they forbade anyone, Arab or foreigner, from questioning.

“When the Arabs agreed to U.N. arbitration… to resolve the Palestinian problem, it transpired that their axioms clearly contradicted reliable historical documents [that] this new international organization [had in its possession]. As a result, they wasted decades stubbornly defending the validity of their documents, which do not correspond to the officially accepted version of the region’s history – which is based on concrete and solid evidence [such as] archaeological findings in the land of Palestine, the holy books of the three monotheistic religions, accounts by Roman, Greek, and Jewish historians… and modern historical research…”

Jewish and Christian Ritual Sites in Jerusalem Predate Muslim Sites

“[A look at] the story of Al-Aqsa is now in order – a site considered holy by Muslim Arabs, who call it ‘Al-Haram al-Qudsi al-Sharif’ [The Noble Sanctuary] and [believe that] it was set aside for them by Allah since the time of Adam.

“[This site] contains several places of worship, including the Dome of the Rock, built by the [Umayyad Caliph] ‘Abd Al-Malik bin Marwan in the seventh century CE – that is, 72 years after the Muslim conquests. This religious public gathering place was erected over a prominent [foundation] stone at the peak of ‘Mount Moriah.’ [Mount Moriah] contains three ancient Jewish public worship sites, as well as [some] Christian sites… The octagonal structure of the Dome of the Rock Mosque was constructed on the site of an ancient Byzantine church, adjoining Solomon’s Temple, destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.

“Since the majority of Muslims claim that the Temple Mount is an Islamic site to which no one else is entitled, they do not acknowledge the presence of Jewish and Christian places of worship predating the Dome of the Rock within its walls…

“The Arabs take great pride in their tolerance of and benign treatment of the Jews and Christians who lived under the Muslim rule since the Muslim conquests. This account is part of the distortions underpinning the edifice of the Arabs’ religious and national culture. [Arab] writers and historians keep eulogizing this epoch… while the truth is the opposite of what they claim. [Indeed,] the Pact of ‘Omar [compelled] the Jews and the Christians to choose between either abandoning their religion and embracing Islam, or paying the [poll] tax in return for being permitted to reside… and receive protection of life and property in their homeland. [The Pact of 'Omar] allowed them to practice their religion, build new houses of worship, and repair the old ones [only] with the permission of a Muslim ruler, and subject to numerous conditions.

“In subsequent historical periods, the Muslims imposed [additional restrictions] on the members of [these] two religions: They forbade them to raise their voices during prayer; [they forced them] to conduct their prayers and religious ceremonies in closed areas so as not [to disturb] passersby; they forbade them to carry weapons, ride saddled horses, or build houses taller than those of the Muslims. [Christians and Jews] were required to show respect for the Muslims, e.g. by giving up their seat to a Muslim if he wanted it. They were banned from holding government posts or from working in ’sensitive’ public places.

“The Koranic verses cursing the Jews and casting doubt on [the veracity of] their Holy Book [the Torah] promulgated a desire among Arabs to set themselves above the Jews who lived in their midst, humiliating and persecuting them even without pretext. In time, this treatment made large numbers of Jews abandon their cities and their land and emigrate… while those who stayed [in Palestine] until the 19th century remained marginalized, living among the Arabs like criminals in a foreign land…

“The Arabs claim that the ‘Wailing Wall’ has been their property since the Prophet Muhammad tied his horse Al-Buraq to one of its supports when Allah transported him by night from the Holy Mosque in Mecca to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem… Although this night-journey story seems dubious, Arab historiography after the advent of Islam contains such oddities as giving a horse the prerogative of making a wall weighing more than 2,000 tons into Muslim property. This is only one of thousands of examples of tales concocted by zealots, with which they swept away the Arab imagination.

“…When the U.N. resolution on the partition of Palestine was issued on November 29, 1947… the Arabs refused to recognize it. They thereby rejected the state set out by the resolution as the right of the Palestinians and the Arabs, with the aim of establishing legal and historical equity. The Arabs called this resolution the Nakba, while their new states, formed several years before the State of Israel, launched the first war against Israel, in which regular military operations were combined with local attacks by gangs comprising Palestinians and Arabs from Arab regions near and far. [That war] ended in [the Arabs'] defeat. Persisting in their error, the Arabs established refugee camps for the Palestinians who had fled during and after the war…

“Chairman Mahmoud ‘Abbas… was the first Palestinian leader to acknowledge that the Christian church in Gaza plundered by Hamas gangs had stood there ‘before [we] came to Gaza.’ By this he meant ‘we the Palestinians’ – particularly the current Gaza residents, [the descendants of] Bedouins from the Sinai and the Arabian Peninsula and of others, of unknown origin. [These people were] attracted by the wealth of the new Islamic state that extended from Persia to Southern Ethiopia, and came after the Muslim conquests and set themselves up over the local population – Christians, Jews, Phoenicians, Byzantines, and the remnants of the Sumerians…

Arabs Must Recognize the Jews’ Right to Palestine

“In order to prevent more bloodshed among the innocent [population]… and in order to keep the deteriorating situation in Lebanon, Iraq, Gaza, and the West Bank from making [these regions into] a quagmire that will spread to engulf all Arab states and societies, the Arabs must reassess the question of the Nakba and come up with a new, courageous vision for the region and for the future of its residents.

“[This vision] must involve public recognition of the Jews’ legitimate right to their state – which is based on historical fact – instead of [recognition] of the writings filled with anger and demagogy produced and formed into an ideology by the confused [Arab] consciousness – a consciousness built upon lies, myths, and distortions stemming from the principle of non-acceptance of the other.

“The most important factor in strengthening such a new vision is [the adoption of] a principle [requiring] official condemnation of all individuals, groups, companies, religious and political parties, and totalitarian regimes that built their glory and hollow leaderships upon the notion of the Nakba, and which are always ready to absorb other false claims and fabrications.

“This must be done, so that a modern Arab face is turned to the world – [a face reflecting] ethical values that will not allow any Arab, under any pretext, to oppress his son or his brother who differs from him in religion, ethnicity, or ideology.”

By Jonathan S. Tobin, www.aish.com

So much of the American press is steeped in sheer ignorance. Debunking these misconceptions with facts is a good start.

Sixty-one years after the birth of the State of Israel, the Jewish state continues to be assailed by its enemies. From the halls of the United Nations to the classrooms of major universities and in the pressrooms of major newspapers and magazines, attacks on the legitimacy of every move by Israel — and even of the state’s existence itself — continue to be made.

What lies behind the calumnies and canards that are constantly thrown at the one Jewish state on the planet? In the Arab and Islamic world, the notion that any portion of the Middle East could be placed under Jewish sovereignty is anathema. Elsewhere, some of the brickbats thrown Israel’s way stem from prejudice and hatred rooted in classic anti-Semitism.

But what about the American press, much of which is Jewish, and other American opinion-makers for whom the anti-Semitic tag doesn’t really apply? The reasons for much of the slanted commentaries about the Middle East and biased news coverage has less to do with the ancient hatreds based in Europe than it does with sheer ignorance.

For all too many members of the press (as well as other Americans who like to think of themselves as being informed about the great issues of the day), lack of knowledge about the underlying facts of the Middle East conflict is commonplace. Myths about the State of Israel, its origins, and its actions have found their way into general discourse in the academy and the media. Those who seek to stand up for Israel need to recognize that many of the problems that Israel has in getting its case across stem from a failure to debunk these myths and to answer them with the truth.

So here is a list of the top ten myths about Israel and the Middle East conflict. This list is by no means comprehensive, but it is a good start to understanding the heart of the problem.

Myth #1: Jews have no historic connection to Israel/Palestine.

A key element of Arab and anti-Zionist attacks on Israel is the notion that the Jewish presence in the country is a remnant of 19th century imperialism in which Europeans colonized and exploited parts of the third world. But far from being outsiders there, the Jewish ties date back 4,000 years to the very beginning of Jewish history recounted in the Bible and verified by much of the evidence of archeology that has been discovered.

Though the Romans expelled most of the Jewish population from the country, Jewish settlement continued without interruption throughout the last 2,000 years. In all this time, the Land of Israel remained a constant in the thoughts and the hearts of Jews throughout the world, as it was remembered in their daily prayers and in their dreams.

Myth #2: Jews have no unique claim to the ancient and holy city of Jerusalem.

Though both Christianity and Islam have holy sites in the city, the Jewish ties predate that of any other existing religion. King David made Jerusalem the capital of Israel 3,000 years ago — 1,700 years before Islam was even founded. Jerusalem never served as even a provincial capital during the centuries of Muslim rule. The entire city is sacred to Jews; only the Dome of the Rock has religious significance to Muslims. Moreover, in the modern era, Jews have been the majority of the population of the city since the 1840s.

As for freedom of worship, the only period during which all faiths have been free to worship in peace has been since 1967 when the city became unified under Israeli sovereignty.

Myth #3: The Zionist movement was never prepared to share the land.

From the very start of the Jews’ return to their historic homeland in the late 19th century, it has never been the goal of the Zionist movement to uproot the Arab population or to create a state where only Jews could live. In 1922, the League of Nations’s Mandate for Palestine was partitioned by Britain, with the east bank of the Jordan River reserved for Arab rule (it eventually become the Kingdom of Jordan), and the area between the Mediterranean and the Jordan being designated as the Jewish National Home. Dating back to the 1930s, every subsequent peace plan that has been proposed involved some sort of partition of the western portion of Palestine. Though all of these schemes involved painful concessions for the Jews, the leadership of the Zionist movement, and subsequently the Jewish state, always accepted this principle of sharing the country.

Myth #4: The lack of an independent Palestinian Arab state is the fault of the Zionists.

In 1947, the United Nations approved the partition of Palestine between a Jewish state and an Arab state. The response of the Palestinian Arabs, as well as the rest of the Arab and Muslim world, was a categorical rejection of any scheme that allowed a Jewish state on any part of the land, no matter what its borders might be. No effort was made to set up an independent Arab state in the part of Palestine allotted for that purpose. In the aftermath of Israel’s War of Independence, in which it repelled the invasion by five Arab armies, the West Bank, Gaza, and half of Jerusalem were left in Arab hands. But for the next 19 years when these territories remained under Arab control, there was never any consideration given to creating an Arab state there. On the contrary, the focus of the Arab world was on extinguishing the fledgling state of Israel that existed in the truncated borders left by the 1949 armistice lines.

In the years after the 1967 war, Israel has maintained a willingness to negotiate a peace deal based on the concept of “land for peace.” Indeed, at Camp David in July 2000 and the following January at Taba, Egypt, Israel offered the Palestinians a state in these lands as well as part of Jerusalem. The answer from Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was “no,” and he followed up that refusal by launching a terrorist war of attrition that resulted in over a thousand Jewish deaths and even more suffering on the part of his own people.

Myth #5: The plight of Palestinian refugees is a special case of dispossession that must be redressed by international action.

In the aftermath of World War II, millions of refugees were created by the partition of India, the re-drawing of the map of Europe, as well as by the war brought on by the Arab refusal to accept the UN’s partition of Palestine. Only in the case of Palestinians who fled their home during the course of Israel’s War of Independence was there a failure to re-settle the refugees. The Palestinian refugees, whose exit from the country was caused more by a general fear of the war sweeping over the land than by any action on the part of the Israelis, were the only refugees who were kept in camps and not allowed to integrate into the populations of the Arab countries that received them. They were kept homeless as a means of maintaining the illusion that the creation of Israel could be undone. Subsequent generations of this population have been raised in these camps and inculcated in an irredentist ideology whose premise is the rejection of any Jewish state. They remain the wards of a UN agency (the United Nations Relief Works Agency) that is devoted to perpetuating their status as refugees at a cost of billions of dollars in international aid.

On the other hand, several hundred thousand Jews living in Arab countries were evicted from their homes during this same era and forced to flee to safety in Israel or the West — where they were integrated into society.

Myth #6: The occupation of eastern Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights in 1967 was the result of an Israeli war of aggression.

In May 1967, Egypt launched a blockade of Israel’s southern port of Eilat. Egyptian and Syrian forces massed on Israel’s borders. Egypt demanded, and got, the UN peacekeeping force that separated its army from Israel in the Sinai, to withdraw. Egyptian dictator Gamal Abdul Nasser and other Arab leaders told their peoples that they would soon launch a battle of annihilation that would result in Israel’s destruction. When international diplomacy failed to get the Arabs to back down, Israel decided that it would not wait to be attacked, and launched a defensive war to forestall the Arab assault.

After the war ended in a sweeping Israeli victory, Israel stated its willingness to make peace, but an Arab summit conference a month later answered with three no’s. No peace. No recognition. No negotiations.

Myth #7: Jewish settlements are the main, if not the sole, obstacle to peace in the Middle East.

Though many legal sources claim that Jewish settlements in the West Bank are illegal, the fact remains that the right of Jewish settlement in those lands was guaranteed by the Mandate for Palestine of the League of Nations. This territory was never part of any other sovereign state and its final legal status is subject to negotiations that must be concluded between the competing parties. Until such time as there is a peace accord that gives one side or the other sovereignty in this territory, it is inaccurate to refer to this land as belonging to one side or another.

Twice before, Israel has shown a willingness to uproot Jewish communities for the sake of peace: in the Sinai (given back to Egypt in the 1979 Peace Treaty) and in Gaza (from which Israel withdrew unilaterally in 2005). The existence of settlements in these areas is no bar to a peace deal under which they might be withdrawn.

Myth #8: The failure of the Oslo peace process was the result of actions by hard-line Israeli governments.

The Oslo process was embraced by Israel in the hope that an offer of land would be met with genuine peace. However, the result of years of negotiations and various Israeli withdrawals has not been peace. From the start of Palestinian Authority rule in the West Bank and Gaza in 1994, Palestinian leadership has encouraged terrorism against Israel and fomented hatred against the Jewish state — while “peace education” is promulgated in Israeli schools. Throughout the 1990s as Israel signed several agreements that gave the Palestinians more autonomy, the corrupt PA leadership continued to tolerate and even fund terror groups. In 2000, Yasser Arafat refused Israel’s offer of a Palestinian state in virtually all of the West Bank and Gaza as well as part of Jerusalem — and launched the terror offensive known as the Second Intifada.

Though all Israeli governments have, at times, been forced to reply with force to terrorist attacks from Gaza, Lebanon, and the West Bank, all have stated a willingness to negotiate a peace. Today the Palestinians are split between the Palestinian Authority led by Mahmoud Abbas, which is too weak to make peace, and Hamas, the rulers of Gaza, who reject it under any circumstances. Both factions reject the legitimacy of a Jewish state.

Myth #9: The Arab-Israeli conflict is the key to all of America’s political, diplomatic, and military problems in the Middle East.

The battle over Israel/Palestine is but one of many disputes in the Middle East. The rivalry between the two great Muslim religious strains, Shia and Sunni, has been the source of more wars and more bloodshed than any battle between Arabs and Jews. Similarly, the tensions between Persians (modern day Iran with its Islamist rulers and nuclear ambitions) and Arabs is another perennial conflict that predates the renewal of Jewish sovereignty in the region.

Even more to the point, the conflict between radical Islamists who seek to impose their religious and political views on the rest of the Muslim world, and those who oppose them in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, has nothing to do with Israel or the Palestinians. It is this schism that is at the core of the rise of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. It is this battle for the soul of Islam that gave the impetus to the 9/11 attacks, not the dispute over the borders of the Jewish state.

Though Israel’s foes claim that resentment over its creation fuels Arab and Islamic resentment of the West, such sentiments long predate the rise of Zionism. The clash of civilizations between Islam and the West was the cause of wars between European nations and Muslim countries for centuries, with no Jewish involvement. Linking world peace to a resolution of the Palestinian conflict is just another tactic of rejectionist groups bent on perpetuating the conflict and diverting attention from the real issues.

Myth #10: American support for Israel is the result of the manipulations of the U.S. government by Jews.

Support for the return of the Jews to their ancient homeland dates back to the very beginning of American history. Sympathy for the idea of a renewed Jewish state is rooted in the faith of most Americans, as well as in their belief that the persecuted Jewish people were entitled to find a new life in their old home. From the very beginnings of the Zionist movement, it found both a welcome and support from large numbers of Americans. In the aftermath of the Holocaust that support became even greater.

Today, the overwhelming majority of Americans of all faiths and both major political parties see Israel as a friend and an ally. They need no prodding from a Jewish lobby to understand that the alliance with the Jewish state is based on common values and a shared belief in democracy. While Israel’s supporters in Washington are vocal and proud of it, their financial clout is dwarfed by that of an oil industry and other factions with a vested interest in appeasing Arab dictators and monarchs. But the American people’s identification with Israel and their sense of solidarity with it have prevailed because these ideas are rooted deeply in American history and tradition.

For even more information about myths and facts about Israel go to jewishvirtuallibrary.com.

By Elias Bejjani, www.IsraelNationalNews.com

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” — Edmund Burke, 17th century philosopher and author

The US government, in its State Department report for 2008, has labeled Hezbollah as the world’s most effective terrorist organization. The report said that Iran remains the most active state sponsor of terrorism, including supporting terrorist groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

According to the same report, “Iran’s involvement in the planning and financial support of terrorist attacks throughout the Middle East, Europe, and Central Asia had a direct impact on international efforts to promote peace, threatened economic stability in the Gulf, and undermined the growth of democracy.” It singled out the Qods Force, an elite branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), as the Islamic Republic’s main means to cultivate and support terrorists overseas. The Qods Force gave “weapons, training, and funding” to Hamas and other Palestinian anti-Israeli groups, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, as well as Iraq-based militants and Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

How can the US, the mightiest military and financial power in the world, officially recognize the serious and great dangers of Iran and its terrorist proxy Hezbollah, while expecting the Lebanese people and their crippled government and military institutions to tame, control, and disarm this same terrorist organization?

From day one of its creation by Iran in 1982 until now, Hezbollah has been a serious and deadly threat to all civilized countries. As such, it is not a mere Lebanese problem, but a grave threat and challenge to global peace, stability, and democracy.

What is unfortunate and shameful is that the free world, and surrounding Arab countries, are not showing enough determination, transparency, seriousness, or persistence in dealing with Hezbollah. Unbelievably, some very influential Western countries, including England, are actively negotiating with this terrorist organization and providing its fanatic and extremist leadership with academic, media, and political platforms to spread their doctrines of terrorism under the false pretext of “free speech.”

In reality, Hezbollah is an Iranian militant organization on all levels and by every definition. Its Iranian mission, terrorist activities, and objectives have become crystal clear not only to the Lebanese people, who are suffering on a daily basis from its oppression, intimidation, and dictatorship, but also to the majority of the Arab states, the US, Canada, and Australia. Hezbollah intimidation, fear mongering, and illicit fundraising extend to many European, African, and Southern American countries as well.

The only positive element is that Hezbollah can no longer fool the educated patriots and nationalists in Lebanon or in the Arab communities into believing that it is an indigenous resistance entity and liberation movement whose sole purpose is to defend Arab rights and Lebanese sovereignty. Its extremely active involvement in worldwide drug trafficking and terrorism has exposed Hezbollah’s Iran-dictated hierarchy, ripping off the seductive facade of “resistance” that they so cleverly attempt to hide behind. Thankfully, most of Hezbollah’s devious tactics of camouflage and deceptiveness are no longer working, revealing their destructive, criminal, Iranian agenda.

Many of Hezbollah’s own Shiite Lebanese community — which it dominates and controls by religion, money, bribery, intimidation, and brute force — are losing patience and quickly realizing the true colors of the Hezbollah “resistance” cloak. Many are turning their backs on this militia, whose loyalties and agendas are more Iranian than Lebanese.

It is pathetic that the Free World in general, and the Arab world in particular, continue to appease and cajole Hezbollah’s leadership, inflate their already swollen egos, hail their fabricated and cleverly titled “divine victories,” and turn a blind eye to their ongoing arms smuggling through the Syrian-Lebanese border.

Since 1982, Hezbollah has systematically been devouring Lebanon, destroying its military, judicial, and financial institutions, crippling its legislature and democratic government, and fragmenting and terrorizing its delicate social fabric, all the while solidifying the terrorist infrastructure and Iranian-modeled institutions of its mini-state and scattered cantons.

The looming, devastating threat that Hezbollah poses to Lebanon and the Lebanese, will be an unfortunate and lethal reality if it and its pro-Syrian mercenary allies win a majority government in the upcoming June 7th parliamentary elections. If this nightmare comes to Lebanon, Hezbollah and Iran will impose by force a replica of Gaza’s terrorist Hamas government.

Hezbollah has already confiscated — by force, money, and intimidation — all the allocated Shiite seats in the parliament. It has also forced its candidates on Christians, Druze, and Sunni Muslims who live inside Hezbollah cantons. Almost 100 out of the 128 elected MPs are going to win their seats uncontested because of both the biased electoral law and Hezbollah’s terrorism and religious decrees.

The 28 seats that will decide who gets the parliamentary majority will be challenged in four constituencies where the Christian voters are the majority. Accordingly, Christian voters will hold in their hands the fate of Lebanon. Either they will vote against Hezbollah’s allies and keep Lebanon a democratic, free, and multi-cultural society of coexistence and peace, or they will vote for Michel Aoun, the Christian ex-general egomaniac who entered into a self-serving alliance with Hezbollah in order to better his chances of obtaining the presidency. This unholy alliance has furthered the legitimacy of Hezbollah and increased their tyrannical grip over Lebanon.

Hezbollah’s essence and spiritual, cultural, and political foundation are totally derived from the Iranian mullah’s doctrine of Wilayat al-Faqih. The main pillars of this doctrine are zero tolerance for all others who are of different faith and culture and who do not fully submit to their control. It is a blatant rejection of civil, democratic, and free societies; a systematic, tireless effort to export the Wilayat al-Faqih and impose it on the whole world through jihad, deeply rooted hatred for the Western democracies and cultures, staunch enmity and hostility towards the US and Israel — all with a suicidal mentality. One of its prime aims is to destroy Israel and “liberate” the holy city of Jerusalem.

General Aoun, Syria and Iran’s mouthpiece, is a Maronite Christian whose personal ambitions and lust for power have completely aligned him with the Syrian-Iranian-Hezbollah agenda. He has negated all his previous pro-Lebanon, pro-sovereignty, and pro-independence slogans, and he has viciously turned his back on and attacked the Maronite Church and its patriarch. He has betrayed every historic social, religious, and national conviction of the Lebanese Christians.

Christian voters must vote for those who are committed to the holy cause of Lebanon’s freedom, sovereignty, and culture of peace, coexistence, and progress. Voting for Aoun’s ticket is voting for Iran’s mullahs and their project to swallow Lebanon and turn it into a dictatorship run by their proxy, Hezbollah.

Nobody at the present time knows better than the Iraqi people what terrorism is, such as that Hezbollah imposes on Lebanon. I will end with a quotation from Mr. Noori Kamal al-Maliki, Prime Minister of Iraq, in his statement at the 62nd UN General Assembly:

“Terrorism kills civilians, journalists, actors, thinkers, and professionals; it attacks universities, marketplaces, and libraries; it blows up mosques and churches, and destroys the infrastructure of state institutions. We consider terrorism an extension of the fallen dictatorship, whether it may vary in its outside form or by the gangs that carry it out. Terrorism aims at aborting the political process and igniting sectarian dissension as a prelude to hijacking Iraq back into the era of tyranny, oppression, and backwardness.”

Al-Qaeda’s Dream, America’s Nightmare
by Robert Maginnis, www.HumanEvents.com

After the Sept. 2001 attacks on America, U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan to deny the terrorist group al-Qaeda a sanctuary from which to train, launch attacks, and brew weapons of mass death. That effort could now backfire if next-door Pakistan falls into extremist hands thus providing al-Qaeda a secure base of operations armed with ready to launch atomic tipped missiles.

Pakistan is showing signs of collapsing, its government is inept, and its military seems unwilling or ill prepared to stop the extremists. Only radical action by Pakistan’s army and plenty of help from the U.S. and Islamabad’s neighbors can keep the entire region from exploding.

Pakistan’s crisis shouldn’t be understated. Both U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates labeled the current crisis an “existential threat” to the state of Pakistan and Clinton said the deterioration of security in nuclear-armed Pakistan “… poses a mortal threat to the security and safety of our country and the world.” Pakistan has an atomic arsenal of approximately 60-80 warheads and five types of nuclear-capable ballistic and cruise missiles.

This tragic situation started when the Taliban, an Islamic extremist group operating in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, gained control of the border region. Recently, the Taliban expanded its control by violently pushing toward Pakistan’s heartland.

The Taliban’s first foray outside the border region was into the Swat valley region, northwest of Islamabad, the nation’s capital. Pakistan’s army proved unable to subdue the militants so Islamabad capitulated to the extremists granting their demand, the imposition of Sharia (Islamic) law, in exchange for promises of peace.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani warned Swat’s Taliban, the Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Shariat-Muhammadi (TNSM), to honor the deal or face government action. “We reserve the right to go for other options if Talibanization continues,” Gilani said.

But granting the Taliban’s Sharia demand has proven to be a tragic mistake. The extremists took control of Swat’s everyday life banning all western influences, denying women school and forcing them into all-enveloping burqa clothing, and imposing harsh punishment like public whippings and beheadings. Worse, TNSM leader Maulana Sufi Muhammad denounced Pakistan’s constitution and the whole of government as un-Islamic and called for Sharia to be imposed throughout the country. He also said al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and other militants aiming to oust the Americans from Afghanistan would be welcome and protected.

The day after the Sharia-for-peace deal was signed the TNSM used the agreement as a pretext to stream hundreds of heavily-armed militants across Swat’s border into adjacent Buner, a strategically vital district by the Indus River just 60 miles from Islamabad. The Taliban called on graduates of a local madrasa, an Islamic school, to run local governments and then it set-up checkpoints and announced the Taliban would open Islamic courts by the end of the month.

Pakistan responded to the invasion by raising the threat level in Islamabad to “Red” and sent frontier constabulary forces to Buner. Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, Pakistan army’s chief spokesman, insisted the situation in Buner was not dire. “The other side has been informed to move these people out of this area,” Abbas said.

The Taliban must have missed Gen. Abbas’ threatening press release. Instead of abandoning Buner the TNSM announced, “The day is not far when Islamabad will be in the hands of the mujahideen.”

The lesson from Swat and Buner is that the Taliban’s methodical tactic can be replicated elsewhere. Both regions were taken by force and guile. Sleeper cells were awakened, police were murdered, and the ruse of peace talks quickly overwhelmed the opposition.

In late April, government officials confirmed that armed Taliban were seen close to Buner’s southern border visiting mosques and patrolling. “People are anxious and in a state of fear,” said Riaz Khan, a lawyer in the district of Mardan, the next region likely to fall to Taliban control as the terror group advances to Islamabad.

Over the following weekend, violence broke out in Pakistan’s main port city of Karachi, where U.S. supply routes to Afghanistan originate. The city’s authorities say these developments come because of the expansion of the Taliban phenomenon which is being encouraged by the Awami National Party, the dominant party in the Swat valley region.

Rasul Bakhsh Rais, professor of political science at Lahore University, explains why the Taliban poses a widespread threat. The Taliban has “natural allies in the religious parties in other parts of the country. They have social and religious networks that have supported their suicide attacks and attacks against the security forces,” Rais said.

The urgency of the situation isn’t lost on key leaders. Pakistani Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the Army Chief of Staff, said he is “very concerned” about the situation and Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said “We’re certainly moving closer to the tipping point” where Pakistan could be overtaken by Islamic extremists.

Unfortunately, the Pakistani army is avoiding the fight. The army seems fixated on its arch enemy India rather than the growing internal insurgency and besides it is ill equipped for counterinsurgency operations. The army’s past engagements with Taliban forces in the tribal areas and the Swat valley have consistently failed which convinces some Pakistanis that their military is inept.

U.S. Senator Jack Reed (D – RI), who was in Pakistan recently, said Islamabad’s Sharia-for-peace deal “… reflects both the growing strength of the Pakistani Taliban and the inability of the Pakistani army to conduct successful counterinsurgency operations.” Reed said the crisis “illustrates there is a lack of political will in the Pakistan civilian leadership to confront these Pakistan Taliban.” He believes “The Taliban sense this huge vacuum that they can pour into.”

What can be done to stop the Taliban? President Obama’s just completed regional strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan calls for money to help Pakistan’s troubled economy and military aid to fight the insurgency. But money and military aid alone aren’t enough.

Pakistani authorities lack courage to resist the Taliban. U.S. Representative David Obey (D-WI), who leads the House Appropriations Committee, said, “I have absolutely no confidence in the ability of the existing Pakistan government to do one blessed thing.” Obey’s committee is considering Obama’s request for $7.5 billion in non-military aid to Pakistan.

Secretary Clinton said, “I think the Pakistani government is basically abdicating to the Taliban and the extremists” and Secretary Gates admits some Pakistani leaders recognize the threat “but it is important that they not only recognize it but take appropriate actions to deal with it.”

Unless Pakistan’s government acts quickly to stop the Taliban, the military will have no alternative but to push the elected government aside to impose martial law. Pakistan’s armed forces are the only institution with the experience, means and possibly the will to save Pakistan from Islamic extremists.

The U.S. should go ahead with promised economic and military aid whether the government finds the courage to resist or the military steps in. We should also offer to embed counterinsurgency advisors with the Pakistani army and increase cooperation along the Afghan border to corral the Taliban.

Our diplomats should ask India’s leaders to reduce the pressure on Pakistan’s eastern front giving Islamabad freedom to shift forces to the Taliban infested areas. Other Central Asian states – Iran, Russia, China – should help to address the conflict as well.

Pakistan must be saved from the grips of Islamic extremists who would destabilize the region, use that country to train terrorists and stage terror operations, and harness atomic weapons that would pose a mortal threat to world security. And while it’s unusual for a democracy to advocate for a military takeover of a country, given the history of Pakistan and the sheer madness of doing nothing, there appears to be no other viable option.

Mr. Maginnis is a retired Army lieutenant colonel, a national security and foreign affairs analyst for radio and television and a senior strategist with the U.S. Army.

Intense silence and seriousness Photo: AP

Israeli memory a constant argument between absence and presence
Sara K. Eisen, www.YNetNews.com

Today we think of who we do not have and why, and then what that lack demands of us.

Tomorrow, about how we celebrate being alive to meet those demands.

Today is Memorial Day in Israel, honoring fallen soldiers and victims of terror, observed here a day before Independence Day. The connection is essential since it is widely recognized that without the former, celebrating the latter would be impossible, while always hoping that one day, this will not be the case. That there will be no more names on next year’s list of the fallen. It is, in other words, a sacred day we wish with all our hearts we didn’t need to observe, and in fact grapple with its necessity all the time.

In any event, Israel is not quite Western and also has a very small population – death by war is not something distant and abstract, since everyone has either lost someone or knows someone who has. As such, there are no Memorial Day sales and no Memorial Day home games and no Memorial Day picnics. There are, instead (not in addition,) countless public ceremonies, school observances, lots of sad TV documentaries (and little else on) and public moments of silence when traffic stops all along the nation’s highways. It’s not a case where some of the country mourns its fallen sons and daughters and some of the country shops or watches baseball.

Memory is pervasive around here, fraught. It is as much something as it is a lack of something.

The mood shifts dramatically sometime around 5 pm, as people get ready for Independence Day, an out and out celebration, complete with picnics, barbecues, parties, fireworks, etc. Much like the Fourth of July.

(But stores: Still closed.)

It seems that Israeli memory is about a conscious decision to always be remembering and forgetting all the time, in the same instant, a constant argument between absence and presence that sometimes results in the type of massive virtual memory overload that can causes one to freeze. Independence Day is, to continue that metaphor, like one big national reboot.

In truth, I sometimes miss the days of memory being something you celebrate at Macy’s, unless, of course, you had someone die in Vietnam or Iraq, in which case your day might look a little Israeli.

In any event, this silence and seriousness and restraint and celebration of life that nearly everyone does around here is very intense and it makes me want to hide some days.

But then I forget that I need to. Memory is like that.

By Robert Maginnis, www.HumanEvents.com

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s new prime minister, will soon visit the White House to deliver a tough message: President Obama must stop Iran from acquiring atomic weapons or Israel will soon act unilaterally to prevent Tehran from going nuclear.

“The Obama presidency has two great missions: fixing the economy, and preventing Iran from gaining nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu told The Atlantic magazine. He describes Iran’s nuclear program as “an existential threat for Israel” and warned that Iran threatens a second Holocaust with its “wipe Israel off the map” ideology.

“You don’t want a messianic apocalyptic cult controlling atomic bombs. When the wide-eyed believer gets hold of the reins of power and the weapons of mass death, then the entire world should start worrying, and that is what is happening in Iran,” Netanyahu said.

This issue is urgent for Israel and time lines are now drawn in months, “not years,” Netanyahu said. “The problem is not military capability, the problem is whether you have the stomach, the political will, to take action,” said another adviser.

Israel’s urgency was explained by Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East. Last week, Petraeus told Congress Tehran’s “…obstinacy and obfuscation have forced Iran’s neighbors and the international community to conclude the worst about the regime’s intentions.”

Petraeus cautioned, “The Israeli government may ultimately see itself so threatened by the prospect of an Iranian nuclear weapon that it would take preemptive military action to derail or delay it.”

But some U.S. officials don’t share Israel’s sense for urgency. Adm. Dennis Blair, the Director of National Intelligence, said Israel and the U.S. are working with the same set of facts, but are interpreting them differently. Israel takes “…more of a worst-case approach to these things,” Blair explained.

“Reaching a military-grade nuclear capability is a question of synchronizing its strategy with the production of a nuclear bomb,” Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, Israel’s chief of military intelligence said. Yadlin argues Iran is stockpiling low-level enriched uranium (LEU) and hopes to use the dialogue with the West to buy the time it requires to manufacture an atomic bomb.

Iran has a growing inventory of LEU. The United Nation’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) stated that as of November 2008, Iran had almost a ton of LEU, and nuclear analysts estimate that’s nearly enough for conversion into high-enriched uranium suitable for one bomb. Meanwhile, Tehran’s uranium enriching centrifuges run around the clock and the regime continues to add more of them.

Further, on March 24, the IAEA indicated it “…was unable to make any progress … about possible military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear programme because of lack of cooperation by Iran.” IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei believes “Iran only wants enough mastery of enrichment to keep the world guessing about its nuclear defenses without provoking massive retaliation.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates guesses Iran isn’t close to having a nuclear bomb, and Director Blair adds, “[t]he minimum time at which Iran could technically produce the amount of highly enriched uranium for a single weapon is 2010 to 2015.”

Blair concedes Iran has imported some weapons-grade material, but it’s his view Tehran is still unable to make a bomb, even though it cooperates with ally North Korea which tested an atomic device in 2006.

The differences in the interpretation of the facts will be an issue when Netanyahu meets Obama to present three courses of action for the president’s consideration.

First, the prime minister will warn Obama that doing nothing could have dire consequences. Netanyahu will encourage Obama to reject the notion an atomic-armed Tehran will “behave like any other nuclear power.”

Netanyahu will cite Tehran’s irrational behavior during the eight year Iran-Iraq war as evidence. It “wasted over a million lives without batting an eyelash … It didn’t sear a terrible wound into the Iranian consciousness,” Netanyahu explained. “You see a country that glorifies blood and death, including its own self-immolation.”

He will caution Obama that an atomic Iran would enable its terrorist proxies, Hizballah and Hamas, to fire rockets at Israel while enjoying a nuclear umbrella and could “embolden Islamic militants worldwide.” The regime could give atomic weapons to terrorist proxies and other nations.

Netanyahu will warn that a nuclear-armed Iran would dramatically change the balance of power in the Middle East, weakening America’s influence especially in the energy sector. It might persuade Arab nations to develop nuclear arsenals which would further destabilize the region.

Second, the prime minister will support Obama’s diplomacy and sanctions course of action, but not for long. “How you achieve this goal [denying Tehran atomic weapons] is less important than achieving it,” Netanyahu will repeat to Obama.

The prime minister is skeptical that Iran can be pressured to surrender its atomic program, however. Netanyahu acknowledges Tehran’s economy is in trouble, “…which makes Iran susceptible to sanctions that can be ratcheted up by a variety of means.”

But the U.S. has imposed sanctions against Iran under the National Emergencies Act, and the U.N. has sanctioned the regime’s commercial activities associated with its nuclear program. Tehran continues its atomic activities in spite of these measures.

Last Friday, Obama told a NATO summit in France “We cannot have a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.” He promised his administration will use diplomacy to dissuade Tehran from pursuing atomic weapons. But top Iranian officials have dismissed U.S. overtures, demanding the U.S. remove its troops from Iraq and Afghanistan before dialogue could begin.

The Israeli prime minister’s final course of action is an Israeli attack, possibly with U.S. assistance. Some Israelis believe Netanyahu has made up his mind to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities with or without the U.S., because he has no confidence in diplomacy and sanctions.

An attack could be triggered once the Israelis determine that the Iranians are close to acquiring a finished bomb. It’s not clear exactly how anyone will know that time, however.

Israel has the right attack arsenal to destroy the Iranian targets, but mission success is dependent on certain U.S. support. The Israeli Defense Forces have special operations forces, long-range fighters and refuelers, cruise missile armed submarines and ballistic missiles that can range Iran. But they lack air space control, electronic warfare cover, air defense codes, and other support that the U.S. can provide.

Some experts say, however, that the Iranian facility at Natanz is buried so deeply and hardened sufficiently to prevent an Israeli air attack — even with the bunker-buster bombs sold to Israel last year — from succeeding.

Netanyahu will promise Obama the strike can destroy Iran’s atomic facilities. But the prime minister will exclude the possible consequences from his petition because the list is long and sobering.

Iran would immediately retaliate by trying to blockade the Straits of Hormuz through which 40 % of the world’s oil passes. This can be done by sinking tankers in the narrow channel.

Tehran will counterattack Israel and U.S. bases in the Gulf with hundreds of ballistic missiles and unleash its terrorist proxies. In 2004, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, said, “If anyone invades our nation, we will jeopardize their interests around the world.”

The long range implications are potentially more problematic because Iran might redouble its atomic efforts. Israel’s 1981 attack on Iraq’s Osirak reactor served to reinforce that country’s atomic lusts, even though it set Saddam back by at least a decade. After the attack, Saddam Hussein increased his nuclear staffing from 400 to 7,000 personnel and invested 20 times more money in his renewed program.

How serious is Netanyahu about unilaterally striking Iran, and how close is Tehran to acquiring an atomic weapon? Obama’s national security team wants those answers before selecting the administration’s course of action.

The answers are deadly serious and too close.

The upcoming meeting between Netanyahu and Obama is likely to be a watershed event in our Middle East policy and world events.