Levitt Letter Extra News

By Morton A. Klein, www.JPost.com

Imad Sa’ad is a 25-year old Palestinian Authority (PA) police officer
who has been arrested by Mahmoud Abbas’s forces for providing Israel
with information about the whereabouts of four accused Palestinian
terrorists. The PA had been unwilling to hand over to Israel the four
men whom Sa’ad helped it locate. For this act, Sa’ad has been
convicted as a “collaborator” in a PA court in Hebron by a judge
belonging to Abbas’s Fatah party and sentenced to death by firing squad.

Now wait a minute. The Oslo agreements require the PA to extradite to
Israel wanted terrorists and to cooperate with Israel in combating
terrorism. Under the 2003 road map peace plan, the PA is required to
“disrupt and restrain individuals and groups conducting and planning
violent attacks on Israelis anywhere,” which is exactly what Imad
Sa’ad did. In fact, what Sa’ad did should be routine conduct by PA police.
Instead, it is an exceptional act punishable by death.

Imagine the situation if we were discussing Israel. There cannot be
any doubt that, if an Israeli police officer had tipped off the PA
about an impending terror attack by a Jew upon Palestinians, Israel
would be honoring him as a hero. It would certainly not be arresting
him and sentencing him to death - and there would be (correctly)
outrage if it did. Yet, the PA is doing precisely this - and has done
so many times in the past.

FAR FROM cooperating in the fight against terrorism, the PA has a
long record of executing what it terms “collaborators.” Amnesty
International reported in 2003 that “Scores of Palestinians suspected of
‘collaboration’ with Israeli intelligence services were unlawfully
killed. Most of these killings seemed to have been carried out by
members of armed groups or by armed individuals. Some appeared to be
extrajudicial executions carried out by members of Palestinian
security services. The PA consistently failed to investigate these
killings and none of the perpetrators was brought to justice.”

Despite this episode and Abbas’s continuing promotion of terrorism,
refusal to arrest terrorists, and incitement to hatred and violence
within the PA-controlled media, mosques, schools and youth camps,
President George W. Bush persists in saying of Mahmoud Abbas that
“The president is a man of peace… He’s a man of vision. He rejects
the idea of using violence to achieve objectives.”

Also, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice praised Mahmoud Abbas this
week while visiting Ramallah, and particularly his leadership of the
security services, saying, “It takes some time to deal with the
effects of the intifada, but a lot of it has to do with responsible
actions by the Palestinian government and the Palestinian Authority
which are really now in place… And because of that, I think you are
going to see improvements on the West Bank.”

This is unmerited praise, to put it mildly. Instead, this event
should serve as a clear, straightforward litmus test: Does Mahmoud
Abbas support preventing terrorism and jailing terrorists? Is he
opposed to terrorism? Does he regard terrorism as the enemy of the
peace to which he tells Western audiences he is dedicated? If so, he
should be applauding and honoring Imad Sa’ad for doing his duty in
fighting terror and assisting the Israelis in doing so, as per the PA’s signed
obligations under Oslo and the road map. At the very least, he
should be immediately releasing Imad Sa’ad from prison. In reality, he has
done the opposite and may even have him executed.

IRONICALLY, AT the very time Abbas’ court sentences to death a
Palestinian who fulfilled a Palestinian signed obligation to
cooperate in the fight against terrorism, Abbas continues to demand
that Israel release terrorists it has succeeded in arresting. If
Abbas was the man of peace and moderation that he is incessantly
described as being by President Bush and Secretary Rice and Prime
Minister Olmert, why would he be imprisoning someone who fights
terror while demanding that jailed terrorists go free?

In the past Yasser Arafat executed swiftly several so-called
“collaborators.” During the intifada, he threatened the late Elias
Freij, then the mayor of Bethlehem, with “ten bullets in the chest”
for the sin of calling publicly for stopping the violence. We see now
that Mahmoud Abbas is little different from Arafat.

If the PA does not release Sa’ad, Israel and the US should
immediately cease all aid and break off talks with Abbas and the PA.
There is no sense or morality in having peace negotiations with
someone who arrests or executes those who help fight terrorists while
protecting real terrorists, inciting hatred and murder that feed
terrorism and demanding that jailed terrorists go free.

By Nile Gardiner, www.humanevents.com

Few countries in modern times could claim the title “warrior nation.” The United States and Great Britain definitely can, and Israel certainly qualifies for this distinction too. This is the 60th anniversary of Israel’s founding and a reminder of the heroism of the Israeli people. This tiny nation of just 7 million has fought seven wars and survived in the face of insurmountable odds, international hostility and massive intimidation, a tribute to the strength of the human spirit and the willingness of Israelis to fight to defend their freedom.

Six decades on from its establishment, Israel continues to fight for its very existence, and remains the most persecuted nation in the history of the United Nations. The UN has left no stone unturned in its hounding of Israel, a relentless display of hatred and prejudice that shames the world body. Despite being the freest, most democratic country in the Middle East, Israel is the whipping boy for the UN’s Human Rights Council, a discredited basket case of an organization that boasts some of the world’s worst human rights offenders as members, including China, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Russia and Egypt. Roughly three quarters of the HRC’s resolutions in its first year were aimed at Israel, while brutal dictatorships such as Zimbabwe, North Korea, Burma and Sudan barely merited a mention.

Needless to say, the United Nations has remained silent in the face of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s threats to wipe Israel “off the map”, much as the League of Nations dithered in the shadow of Nazi Germany just two generations ago. Iran’s dictator doesn’t mince his words when referring to Israel, calling it a “filthy entity” that “will sooner or later fall” in a speech this January, as well as “a dirty microbe” and “a savage animal” at a rally in February.

There are distinct echoes of the heated discussions in Europe and the United States over the intentions of Adolf Hitler in the mid to late 1930s in today’s debate over Iran. Then as now, there was a constant barrage of calls from political elites on both sides of the Atlantic for direct talks with a totalitarian regime and illusory hopes of reaching out to “moderates” within the government, a general downplaying of the threat level, widespread inaction and hand-wringing, and staggering complacency over levels of defense spending.

The brutal lessons of 20th Century history taught that there can be no negotiation with this sort of brutal dictatorship, and it would be a huge strategic error for the West to do so. There will be endless debate in international policy circles over Tehran’s nuclear intentions, but the essential fact remains that the free world is faced with a fundamentally evil and barbaric regime with a track record of backing international terrorism, repressing its own people, issuing genocidal threats against its neighbors, and of enabling the killing of Allied forces in Iraq.

It is imperative that the United States and Great Britain, Israel’s two main allies, remain united in defending Israel in the face of Iranian aggression. Iran poses the most significant threat to Israel’s security since its founding, as well as the biggest state-based threat to the West of our generation. As Israeli President Shimon Peres warned earlier this year, “a nuclear armed Iran will be a nightmare for the world.”

As the world’s largest sponsor of international terror, and a dangerous rogue regime hell-bent on acquiring nuclear weapons capability, Iran must be stopped. The Jerusalem Post reported just yesterday that the latest Israeli intelligence assessment is that “the Islamic Republic will master centrifuge technology and be able to begin enriching uranium on a military scale this year. According to the new timeline, Iran could have a nuclear weapon by the middle of next year.” This is several years ahead of the flawed assessment of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), and gives added urgency to the debate over the Iranian nuclear issue.

Every effort must be made to increase the pressure on Tehran through Security Council and European economic, military and political sanctions, including a ban on investment in Iranian liquefied natural gas operations. In particular, extensive pressure must be applied on Switzerland to halt a $30 billion contract between Zurich-based contractor EGL and the National Iranian Gas Export Company.

At the same time, Washington and London must make preparations for the possible use of force against Iran’s nuclear facilities if the sanctions route fails. In addition, the U.S. and UK must be prepared to retaliate against Iranian aggression in Iraq, with Tehran continuing to wage a proxy war against Coalition and Iraqi forces. As General Petraeus made clear in his recent testimony before Congress, Iran is actively supplying mortars, rockets and explosives to Shiite militia groups in Iraq. It has also been revealed by Coalition spokesmen in the last few days that the elite Quds force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard has been using Hizbollah guerillas to train Iraqi militias at a training camp at Jalil Azad near Tehran.

As tensions with Iran escalate, and as the stakes are dramatically raised, Britain and the United States should support the admission of Israel into NATO, offering a collective security guarantee in the face of Tehran’s saber-rattling. Israel, which spends nearly 10 percent of its GDP on defense (in contrast to the NATO average of 2.1 percent), would be a major net asset to the Alliance, possessing a first rate army, air force and navy, as well as outstanding intelligence and special forces capability. There is likely to be strong initial opposition to the move by some European countries, including France and Belgium, but it is a debate that NATO should have sooner rather than later.

The next few years will be a critical time for Israel, as it faces the prospect of the rise of a nuclear Iran that has pledged its destruction. If Israel is to survive another 60 years it is imperative that the West confronts the gathering storm and stands up to the biggest threat to international security since the end of the Cold War.

The United States, Great Britain and their allies must reject the illusory promise of “peace in our time” conjured by advocates of an appeasement approach towards the Mullahs of Iran, and ensure the world does not face a totalitarian Islamist regime armed with nuclear weapons. The freedom that Israel currently enjoys was secured through the sacrifice of her soldiers through several wars in the Middle East, as well as the earlier sacrifice of American and British troops in World War Two. It is the same liberty that we cherish today in the West, freedom that must be fought for and defended.

Lockheed F-22 Raptors

By Yaakov Katz, www.JPost.com

Israel is increasingly concerned that the United States will allow the sale of fifth-generation, stealth-enabled Joint Strike Fighter jets - aka the F-35 Lightning II - to Saudi Arabia.

But while this could pose a major challenge for the IDF, defense officials said it also presented Israel with a unique opportunity to ask the Americans for new advanced technology that would not be sold to the Saudis, to enable Israel to retain its qualitative edge in the region.

A month ago, the head of the Defense Ministry’s Diplomatic-Military Bureau, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amos Gilad, met with Pentagon officials in Washington and reached understandings concerning certain arms purchases. A week earlier, Defense Ministry director-general Pinhas Buchris was at the Pentagon for similar talks.

Defense officials said recently that the two visits had been used to present the Americans with a “shopping list” that Israel hoped would be finalized in the coming months. Leading the American side of the talks was Beth McCormick, the acting deputy undersecretary of defense for technology security policy and national disclosure policy.

Last June, Gilad met with McCormick to present Israel’s objections to a proposed U.S. sale of state-of-the-art weaponry, including Boeing’s Joint Direct Attack Munition smart bombs, or JDAMs, to Saudi Arabia. Officials said recently that those concerns had increased following reports that Saudi Arabia planned to ask the U.S. to sell it the Joint Strike Fighter now under development by Lockheed Martin.

“The Saudis want the plane,” one senior official said. “They always look for top-of-the-line technology, and the Americans will have difficulty saying no.”

In light of this possibility, Israel has asked the Americans for a number of new military platforms that have yet to be sold outside the U.S.

One request centers on the F-22 Raptor - a stealth fighter currently operational in the U.S. - which came up during Buchris’s talks in Washington. Israel has asked to be allowed to acquire the jet - foreign sales are currently under congressional ban - in the face of alleged Iranian efforts to obtain nuclear weapons. The F-22 can avoid radar detection and is the world’s most advanced fighter jet to date.

The defense officials also spoke with their U.S. counterparts about receiving two new advanced models of the JDAM to preserve Israel’s qualitative edge over the Saudis, who would receive the standard smart-bomb kit.

One of the models Israel is interested in has a laser-guided system, and the other is protected from electronic-warfare systems and jamming. Both are manufactured by Boeing Co. in the U.S.

Buchris also tried to interest the Americans in investing in the development and production of the Iron Dome, the anti-missile system Israel is developing against Kassam rockets. Officials said an American engineering team was scheduled to visit Israel in the coming weeks to continue talks on the issue.

Buchris also discussed with the Americans the possibility of integrating Israeli defense industries into the production of the Joint Strike Fighter, which the IDF has announced will be the IAF’s next fighter jet. Buchris and Gilad also discussed with the Americans the possibility of moving up the delivery of the plane to Israel from 2014 to 2012, or at the latest, 2013.

Eight countries - including Britain, Turkey, and Australia - are members of the Joint Strike Fighter project. Israel is a Security Cooperation Participant after paying $20 million in 2003 for access to information accumulated during the development of the jet, which will be priced at between $50m. and $60m.

Officials said Israel had convinced the Americans to allow the IAF to install its own technology in the aircraft - a major point of contention between the Defense Ministry and the Pentagon until now.

Defense officials said that the Americans had now agreed, in principle, to allow Israel to integrate its own technology into the plane, as it has done with other fighter jets it has bought in the past from the US, including the F-15 Eagle and the F-16 Fighting Falcon.

“We have closed up the JSF issue, including getting the info on the plane and integrating technology,” an official said. “The Americans know that we will safeguard and protect their interests.”

By Jesse Petrilla, www.FrontPageMagazine.com

I recently returned to the United States from Egypt where I was on a fact-finding mission to see what life is like for non-Muslims who live under Islam. What I saw was a dire situation of oppression and discrimination that many in America and the West have all but ignored.

I went to Egypt because I wanted to learn what life would be like if our enemies and their allies succeeded in getting their way. What I saw was an example of the harsh life in store for future American generations in Islamic-dominated regions of the U.S. if we do not work to bring attention to Islamic oppression now at this critical time in history.

My journey began on an EgyptAir flight out of JFK. I was a bit surprised, to say the least, when the in-flight video came on prior to departure and instead of the usual safety video, a picture of a mosque flickered on and a deep-toned recorded voice came on reciting Islamic prayers out of the Koran. I’ve flown on Israeli airline El Al a number of times as well as hundreds of other global and U.S. airline companies, and I have never experienced a Christian prayer or a Jewish prayer on a flight, and could only imagine the reaction of Americans if an airline carrier were to try. Regardless of the policies and logic of other airlines, apparently a Muslim-owned airline feels it fit to assume that all its passengers desire to hear a Muslim prayer, regardless of their faith. The safety video followed and my journey had begun. I was on my way to Cairo and Alexandria to get a feeling of what life was like there for non-Muslims.

The first day, I visited old Cairo. Walking through the alleyways, I visited the many ancient churches there. As I rounded a corner I came upon an old synagogue. Excited to find and learn the experiences of Jews who live there, I entered only to be greatly disappointed and utterly disgusted when I saw the synagogue was filled with hijab-clad Muslim women selling trinkets and postcards inside. It’s a museum that I can only assume the government uses to show its “tolerance.” I overheard the tour guides speaking of how there “were once Jews here,” and I was told that there is only one other synagogue in the city. It makes you wonder if someday there will be regions of America with a museum of the last or second to last synagogue or church. Irritatingly, the Egyptian police refuse to allow anyone to take any photos or video at all of the synagogue either inside or out, and they threatened to take my camera if I questioned their rule.

As I continued through the streets, the afternoon call to prayer began to broadcast from a local mosque, then another mosque, then a third, until the deafening sound of thousands of loudspeakers from mosques all over the city pierced through the air with the call of Allah akbar followed by Koranic verses.

I recalled how in several American cities including Dearborn, Michigan, sound ordinances have begun to be overturned to allow this to occur in America. I made my way to meet with a friend who is an activist for human rights in Egypt. He showed me the Egyptian constitution which in article II states that sharia (Islamic) law shall be “the principal source of legislation.” This clause goes for everyone in the nation regardless of faith. My friend told me the stories and showed me photos of young Christian girls who had been kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam, and threatened with death, and their families threatened if they ever convert back. After several days in Cairo, my journey continued to Alexandria where I would visit several churches which had been attacked in recent years.

On the train to Alexandria, we passed through rural villages where I noticed vast amounts of hay on the roofs of many village homes. Our guide told us that the livestock sleep in the house with the people at night. Jokingly I asked if the women sleep out in the stable, but I didn’t receive a definitive answer on that one. It was about this time that I realized the majority of the men everywhere I went had a small round bruise on their forehead reminiscent of something out of the book of Revelation. My guide told me that it was from hitting their head on the floor when praying. He also told me that in Egypt specifically, and perhaps elsewhere, some men heat up a metal spoon in a fire and stick it on their forehead to accentuate the bruise. It seems you aren’t cool unless you have the mark.

As we stepped off the train in Alexandria, a police officer approached and told my Egyptian Coptic friend that he did not have a license to be my guide, desiring a bribe before he would leave us alone. This had not been the first time in the trip that a cop came up looking for money. It seemed every time I took out my camera, a police officer would show up to tell me I couldn’t take any pictures and I would have to pay him a nominal fine. Usually the officer would not be looking for a bribe of more than ten or twenty dollars, and thankfully our guide was able to talk officers out of it the majority of the time.

We went to a local hotel where I turned on the television to see the Statue of Liberty in flames. I changed the channel only to see a video clip of a small child crying with her arms in the air, spliced in with images of U.S. soldiers. The video cut to a bleeding boy lying on the ground — an obvious piece of anti-American propaganda. Interestingly enough, to the right of the boy in the video you could see a U.S. medic helping the injured child, no doubt hurt by Jihadist terrorists, but you certainly wouldn’t know that from the theme of the video.

Our first stop in Alexandria was the Church of St. George, the site of a brutal attack in 2005 where a Muslim in his early 20s entered as a prayer service was finishing. He shouted Allah akbar and stabbed a nun in the chest with a knife. Several days after the stabbing, an angry Muslim mob also attacked the church, brandishing sticks and throwing rocks at the Christians. Numerous cars and Christian-owned businesses in the area were torched, and in the end, three people were dead from the violence, all of it being sparked by unsubstantiated reports about a theatrical production that occurred at the church which was rumored to have offended Islam.

I attended a prayer service there, and every 15 seconds over loudspeakers aimed at the church from the mosque next door, the Muslims were yelling at the Christians. Allah akbar! Allah akbar! they would yell among other things in an attempt to disrupt the prayer. This was entirely outside of the five daily calls to prayer which come over the same loudspeaker. It was intimidation designed entirely to disrupt Christian prayer, and stopped as soon as everyone left after the service was over. I took a short video of the incident, and posted it on YouTube.

My next stop was the Church of All Saints. When I arrived, I saw a large mosque directly across the street and another on the other block. This was the same case with the previous church I had visited, and my guide explained that as soon as they built the church, mosques went up all around it. Yet today it has become nearly impossible to get a permit in the country to construct a new church anywhere. The Church of All Saints was another site of an attack which occurred in 2006 where a Jihadist entered and began stabbing churchgoers while yelling the familiar phrase Allah akbar. In all, he attacked three churches that day, critically wounding many and killing a 78-year-old man. Yet the government dismissed him as only an isolated mentally ill madman.

I met with many people during my trip, and I learned a great deal about what it is like to live as a minority under Islam. I spoke with a priest who told me how he can see the younger generation of Christians there becoming more and more Islamized. I spoke with a man who told me how his young Christian children are taught in public schools there that they are going to hell if they do not become Muslims. I saw brutal intimidation and oppression, and a life dictated by Islamic law that many Americans don’t realize but are slowly beginning to see. Before we left, our guide showed us his ID card which had a glaring number 2 in the corner. He told me that Christians are required to have that number on their IDs. I asked if Muslims were required to have a number as well. “Yes,” he responded. “Number 1.”

In my visit to Egypt I saw a place rampant with police brutality and corruption, where non-Muslims are second-class citizens at best, who are brutally victimized on a daily basis. All this in a nation which is a popular U.S. tourist spot, and has been the recipient of American aid in excess of $28 billion in the last three decades.

Jesse Petrilla is the founder of The United American Committee (UAC), a federation of concerned Americans promoting awareness of threats to Homeland Security, primarily focusing on Islamic extremism in America.

By Stephen Brown, www.FrontPageMagazine.com

Some countries protect their children and others exploit theirs.

While America was watching authorities do their duty and seize children from a Mormon compound in Texas in order to protect them from potential underage marriage and sexual abuse, a single-minded girl with no police or legal protection bravely defied sharia law and her country’s male-dominated culture to divorce her husband. And, she is just eight years old.

Born in the year 2000, Nujood Ali was married two-and-a-half months ago to a man twenty years her senior after she was made to sign a marriage contract, arranged between her father and her “suitor.” The contract, a strictly commercial transaction which usually involves the groom paying a “bride price,” was supposed to allow Nujood to reside with her parents until she was 18. However, only a few days later, those same parents forced their daughter to move in with her new “husband,” who then brutally tormented her.

“Always, when I wanted to play in the garden, he hit me and said I should go with him into the bedroom,” Ali told the Yemen Times, adding that she would then run from room to room to escape him, but in vain. “In the end, he always got me.”

Finally, after two months of horrendous sexual abuse, in which Nujoud said her husband did “bad things with me,” the unwilling child bride turned to her father and an aunt for help. The aunt did nothing while the father, who had also been physically abusive towards her, told his daughter in response to her plea for assistance in getting a divorce: “I can’t do anything for you. If you want, go to the court alone.”

And that is exactly what the eight-year-old did. Facing what appeared to be a hopeless situation in such a male-dominated society and armed with nothing but her courage, Ali ran away to a maternal uncle and then bravely appeared before a court in the Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, to file cases against both her father and husband, demanding the dissolution of her marriage.

In her overwhelming desire to escape her marital hell, Nujood gave as grounds for her divorce: “My husband was very harsh with me and when I implored him to have pity, he would hit me, box my ears and abuse me. I want a decent life and the divorce.”

The judge took pity on what a reporter described as a “sweet but sad” child, who “knows and comprehends so many things,” and had both her father and husband taken into custody. The judge also allowed the little girl to reside in his house for several days before turning her over to the sympathetic uncle.

The husband was furious that his “wife” had the audacity to seek a divorce. However, this is an attitude all too common in countries where wives are bought as slaves and thus regarded as a husband’s commercial property.

“I will not divorce her, and it is my right to keep her,” said the outraged spouse to the Yemen Times. “It is not a matter of loving her; I don’t. But it is just a challenge to her and her uncle who think that they can keep me in jail and also the judge has no right to put me here. How did she dare to complain about me?”

Nujood is not Yemen’s first famous child bride. Zana Muhsen was a 15-year-old English schoolgirl of Arab-British descent when her Yemenite father sold her in England in 1983 for $3000 dollars to a countryman as a wife for his 14-year-old son. Her sister, Nadia, also 14, was sold for the same purpose and bride price to another Yemenite, whose son was 13.

The two sisters were detained against their will in Yemen for eight years with husbands they did not want, having babies they did not want, before diplomatic pressure and assistance from the international media finally freed Zana. Nadia stayed behind because of her children, who, due to the bride price, always remain with the father in case of a divorce.

In her best-selling book, Sold: A Story of Modern-Day Slavery, Zana outlined the two British sisters’ years of suffering, physical abuse and primitive living and working conditions in Yemen, during which time the authoress met child brides as young as ten.

The 2007 UNICEF photo of the year also made the world aware of the millions of girls sold as child brides every year, denied forever the opportunity to determine their own lives. In it, a forty-year-old man is seen sitting beside 11-year-old fiancée, named Ghulam, who appears to be giving him a contemptuous look on the day of their engagement.

When asked by American photographer, Stephanie Sinclair, what she felt that day, the slightly confused girl, whose answer Nujood would probably have matched word for word (had she been asked) upon meeting her husband, responded: “Nothing. I don’t know this man. What should I feel?”

According to UNICEF, there are more than 60 million underage brides worldwide with half of these living in South Asia. The parents, like Ghulam’s and Nujood’s, are most often poor and marry their daughters off, sometimes while still children, for the bride price. Once married, the task of these infants, almost as soon as they reach puberty, is to bear their husband children.

Nujood’s divorce became final two weeks ago. The spurned husband, who at first rejected her divorce demand, accepted a pay-off from an anonymous donor to agree to the end of the “marriage.” Incredibly, neither he nor Nujood’s father will face any charges over their cruel treatment of the innocent girl, since there is no law in Yemen against child marriages. They have legally committed no crime.

According to the International Center For Research On Women, Yemen ranks thirteenth on a list of twenty countries where marriages of female minors (girls under 18) are common. In one area of the Middle Eastern country, according to the Yemen Times, new brides average ten years of age while in another girls usually marry at age eight. The ICRW states that about 50 percent of the Yemen’s marriages involve underage girls. Niger tops the list with 76 percent.

But Nujood’s courage may change things for hundreds of other girls in Yemen facing the horrific fate of a child marriage. Her brave act in coming forward against tradition, family and the will of her husband to seek a divorce, probably the youngest girl, it is noted, ever to have asked for one in that country, is viewed by women’s groups and sympathetic politicians as a good opportunity to enact legislation designating 18 as a minimum age for marriage for all.

However, the Yemeni Parliament’s Jurisprudence Committee says “there are no legislative grounds to impose such a law based on its understanding of Islam.” Well, there you have it. Forget the barbarity of rape and thirteen-year-olds having babies, plus all the subsequent psychological and emotional damage; banning such practices is just not religiously correct for some.

“Those who approve of girls marrying at 13, 14, or even below 18 are barbaric men who abuse childhood and are irresponsible,” correctly noted Yahiya Al-Najar, a former Yemeni government minister and religious scholar in the Times of those who oppose a minimum age.

Nujood is still concerned about her younger sisters suffering her cruel fate, as her two older sisters did before her. Nevertheless, the resolute youngster, who used to “hate the nights” because of the unwanted sexual encounters, is looking forward to the bright days of a husband-less future.

“I am so happy to be free and I will go back to school and never think of getting married again,” she told the Times. “It is a good feeling to be rid of my husband and his bad treatment.”

To which one can only add: it is heartening to see that even within the horrifying and obscene structures of Islamic gender apartheid, women, even as young as eight, can sometimes triumph over injustice.

www.honestreporting.com

As Israel gears up to celebrate, the demonization campaign prepares to escalate.

As the 60th anniversary of Israel’s independence approaches, so the campaign of demonization against her is likely to escalate. After all, what better way to delegitimize Israel than to claim that the state was born in sin, attributing criminal charges to those who fought to create a democratic home for the Jewish people after 2000 years of exile.

As part of this campaign, anti-Israel activists are placing opinion pieces in local newspapers. An unpleasant preview of what is to come has arrived in the pages of the Charlotte Observer and Bangor Daily News.

Writing in the Charlotte Observer, Edith Garwood makes a number of claims including:

• “The indigenous Arabs — Muslim, Christian, secular — were systematically driven out of areas desired for a new Jewish state.”
• “Archives show armed Jewish militias expelled Arabs using home demolitions, massacres, rape, beatings, bombings and widespread threats of terror.”
• “The Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory, rocket fire into Israel, illegal settlement growth, checkpoints, suicide bombers, the crippled Palestinian economy, The Wall, and the lack of adequate access to medicine, food and clean water require attention, but are only outgrowths of the root problem — the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.”

Garwood concludes by calling for the recognition of the Palestinian “Right of Return” - a call for the end of Israel as a Jewish state.

Meanwhile, Bill Slavick launches an attack on US aid and support for Israel in the Bangor Daily News: “no good has come of it for 60 years except to assist Israel in becoming the bully of the block and giving us trouble.”

Again employing the inflammatory and inaccurate charge of “ethnic cleansing”, Slavick lists a litany of supposed Israeli criminal acts including:

• The “slaughter” of Palestinian civilians at Kibya in 1953.
• The “deliberate bombing” of the USS Liberty in 1967.
• The Jonathan Pollard spy affair.
• Selling arms to the South African apartheid regime.
• Abetting the 1982 Lebanese militia massacres in Sabra and Shatila.

It is, of course, all too easy to put together a long list of charges and claims without providing any details, context or explanation. The average reader will be unable to make any sense of the content without resorting to extensive research.

Ultimately, however, Slavick’s polemic is aimed at the close and valued friendship between Israel and the US, as Slavick directly connects the USS Cole and September 11 attacks to US support for Israel.

Please be on the lookout for more opinion pieces leading up to Israel’s 60th anniversary celebrations and send in your comments. Remind the editors that in her 60th year, there is a vibrant, democratic, and dynamic Israel that also deserves op-ed space in response to the negative diatribes that have appeared in many papers.

COMPARE AND CONTRAST

It isn’t all bad news however. In sharp contrast to the local titles above, Rocky Mountain News Editor John Temple does take a look at Israel’s life beyond the headlines:

The land of Israel that I found on a spring break visit this year was bursting with energy, in the midst of a boom only licked by the currents that are dragging down the U.S. economy.

Headlines from the region are usually of Gaza and rockets — of conflict. And, of course, that story deserves attention. But there are so many other stories, a few of which I would like to share with you today.

In this Israel, the spring air is rich with the sweet scent of the first blossoming fruit trees.

In this Israel, the streets of Jerusalem are mobbed with young and old, many in outlandish costumes, laughing and dancing, celebrating Purim, a holiday of revelry and abandon. The holiday’s story of Jewish survival is as real today as it was more than 2,000 years ago.

In this Israel, yes, the apartments have “safe rooms,” but they also have outdoor terraces abounding with flowers.

By Hillel Fendel, www.israelnationalnews.com

The CIA — the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency — is set to confirm that the Syrian installation destroyed by Israel on September 6, 2007 was a nuclear reactor. CIA representatives will brief members of a Congressional intelligence subcommittee.

The Los Angeles Times reported that the installation was meant to produce plutonium, and was partially funded by North Korea. Israel bombed the reactor before it attained its planned capacity to manufacture plutonium for nuclear weapons, the CIA says.

The Congressional subcommittee session is to deal with Syrian-North Korean relations, amidst reports that a possible deal is in the works to remove North Korea from the American list of state sponsors of terrorism.

At the presentation at Congress, which will be repeated afterwards to reporters, the intelligence officials will show video images showing Korean faces among the workers at the Syrian plant. Other pictures show what appears to be the construction of a reactor vessel inside the building.

Shortly after the Israel attack, Syria bulldozed the area and constructed a new building there, which it has not allowed foreign visitors to enter.

Israel, the U.S. and Syria have never divulged details about the attack, and today’s presentation is a major departure from this policy. Israel is reportedly not happy with the change, fearing that it will revive the tensions between Syria and Israel.

Syrian media reported that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has agreed in principle to hand over the entire Golan Heights to Syria. Syrian Immigration Minister Boutina Sha’ban confirmed the reports, while Olmert’s office was silent.

Two years ago, Olmert said, “As long as I serve as prime minister, the Golan Heights will remain in our hands because it is an integral part of the State of Israel.” He was quoted in Israeli newspapers as reported by the French news agency AFP.

Nationalist Knesset Members said Olmert was recklessly endangering Israel with his consent to give away the strategic heights.

By Barry Schweid, AP Diplomatic Writer

Saudi Arabia most likely would develop nuclear weapons if Iran acquires them, according to a report to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

High-level American diplomats in Riyadh with excellent access to Saudi decision-makers said an Iranian nuclear weapon frightens the Saudis “to their core” and would compel the Saudis to seek nuclear weapons, the report said. The American diplomats were not identified.

Turkey also would come under pressure to follow suit if Iran builds nuclear weapons in the next decade, said the report prepared by a committee staff member after interviewing hundreds of individuals in Washington and the Middle East last July through December.

While Turkey and Iran do not see themselves as adversaries, Turkey believes a power balance between them is the primary reason for a peaceful relationship, the report said.

Egypt most likely would choose not to respond by pursuing its own nuclear weapons program, said the report prepared in late February and obtained in April. The impact on relations with Israel and the United States were cited as the primary reasons.

A U.S. intelligence estimate late last year said Iran worked on nuclear weapons programs until 2003 before abandoning them. However, the intelligence analysts also reported Iran was continuing to enrich uranium, a key weapons component, and possessed the capacity to produce nuclear weapons if it decided to do so.

Sen. Richard G. Lugar, R-Ind., the senior Republican on the committee, directed staff member Bradley Bowman to conduct the study.

Among its conclusions, the report said demands for nuclear energy and for matching Iran’s nuclear progress virtually guarantees that three or four Middle Eastern countries will generate nuclear power by 2025.

And this, in turn, will reduce the obstacles to acquiring nuclear weapons, the report said.

The spread of nuclear weapons in the Middle East could reduce regional security and endanger U.S. interests, the report said.

In the next two or three years, the United States must take steps to restore Arab and Turkish confidence in U.S. security guarantees, the report concluded.

Otherwise, it said, “the future Middle East landscape may include a number of nuclear-armed or nuclear weapons-capable states vying for influence in a notoriously unstable region.”

By Ali Akbar Dareini, www.apnews.myway.com

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran has begun installing 6,000 new centrifuges at its uranium enrichment plant in Natanz, state television quoted President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying.

Iran already has about 3,000 centrifuges operating in Natanz, and the new announcement is seen as a show of defiance of international demands to halt a nuclear program the United States and its allies say is aimed at building nuclear weapons.

“The president announced the start of the phase of installing 6,000 new centrifuges in Natanz,” state television reported.

Centrifuges are machines that can enrich uranium to a low level to produce nuclear fuel or a high level for use in a weapon. Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful and solely focused on the production of energy.

Ahmadinejad made his announcement as he toured the Natanz facility in central Iran on April 8th. State television also quoted Ahmadinejad as saying that “other activities have been carried out” in Natanz that he would announce later.

The president’s trip was scheduled to coincide with Iran’s National Day of Nuclear Technology, marking the second anniversary of Iran’s first enrichment of uranium.

Ahmadinejad is widely expected to confirm for the first time that Iran has installed hundreds of more sophisticated centrifuges that can enrich uranium faster.

The workhorse of Iran’s enrichment program is the P-1 centrifuge, which is run in cascades of 164 machines. But Iranian officials confirmed in February that they had started using the IR-2 centrifuge that can churn out enriched uranium at more than double the rate.

Iranian state television did not say if the installation of the 6,000 new centrifuges included the older P-1 or the advanced IR-2 centrifuges.

Diplomats in Vienna told The Associated Press that Iran has assembled hundreds of advanced centrifuges at Natanz.

One diplomat said more than 300 of the centrifuges have been linked up in two separate units in Iran’s underground enrichment plant and a third was being assembled. He said the machines apparently are more advanced than the thousands already running underground, suggesting they could be the sophisticated IR-2 centrifuge.

But a senior diplomat said that while the new work appeared to include advanced centrifuges, they were not IR-2s. Both diplomats are linked to the Vienna-based International Agency for Atomic Energy, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, but asked for anonymity because their information was confidential.

A total of 3,000 centrifuges is the commonly accepted figure for a nuclear enrichment program that is past the experimental stage and can be used as a platform for a full industrial-scale program that could churn out enough enriched material for dozens of nuclear weapons.

Iran says it plans to move toward large-scale uranium enrichment that ultimately will involve 54,000 centrifuges.

The U.N. has passed three sets of sanctions against Iran for its refusal to suspend enrichment.

The same day, China said it would host a meeting of officials from the five members of Security Council and Germany, as well as the EU, to discuss ways to restart negotiations with Iran on its nuclear program.

By Jonathan Tobin, www.JewishWorldReview.com

Recently, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that American officials are again pressing Congress to open up the U.S. aid pipeline to the Palestinian Authority.

If the plea sounds familiar, it ought to. Since the 1993 Oslo Accords, Americans have been subsidizing the activities of the P.A. to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars per year.

Today, as in the past, the arguments in favor of this policy are urgent. We are told by both administration officials who are friends of Israel and by some Israelis that unless we help fund the training and the payment of Palestinian security forces, the P.A. will have no way to cope with terrorists who want to sink any chance of a two-state solution which would enable Israel to live side-by-side with a peaceful Palestinian partner.

With Hamas in control of Gaza, the P.A., under the current leadership of Mahmoud Abbas, is, we are informed, the only address for creating a moderate force that will work for peace. Given the alternative of the Iranian-backed Hamas or the equally unpalatable choices of either Israel reoccupying the territories or an international peacekeeping force doing so, reinforcing the P.A. seems to make sense.

But does it really?

Doubts about the wisdom of the policy have led Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-N.Y.) — respectively, the chair and the ranking minority member of the House Foreign Operations Subcommittee — to place a hold on a request of another $150 million in direct assistance to the P.A. Thwarted on that front, the administration now wants the committee to okay an additional $25 million in indirect funding for the military training program.

Both Lowey and Ros-Lehtinen rightly worry about the commitment of Abbas and his Fatah Party to peace. They cite recent statements by Abbas in which he would not rule out a return to “armed resistance” against Israel. The support by the P.A. media for attacks against Israelis, such as the recent slaughter of eight students at a Jerusalem yeshiva, as well as the ongoing blitz of southern Israel by Hamas missiles, is also reason to doubt the P.A.’s sincerity.

The P.A. also continues to honor the memory of slain terrorists as “martyrs” and, as The Jerusalem Post reported this week, plans to celebrate Israel’s 60th birthday by having Arab refugees to rush Israel’s borders to promote a “right of return,” which is synonymous with the destruction of the Jewish State.

Supporters of aid respond that these statements do not reflect Abbas’ real goals. Yet, they ignore the fact that what the P.A. has done for the past 15 years is to legitimize a Palestinian culture in which political plaudits are won only by killing Jews. Indeed, via its control of broadcast outlets, newspapers and the schools, the P.A. has solidified a mindset of hate.

Just as bad is the history of attempts to create a P.A. security force. The Oslo agreements called for the creation of a Palestinian police force that would combat terrorists. But Arafat had other ideas.

While most of the billions that came his way via aid from the European Union and the United States went into the pockets or Swiss bank accounts of Fatah officials, some of it was used to create a byzantine web of Palestinian “security” agencies whose purposes were anything but peaceful. When push came to shove as Arafat blew up the peace after the Camp David summit in 2000, it was these P.A. forces (including some who’d been trained by the Philadelphia Police Department) who committed terrorist acts against Israelis.

Adding to that sorry tale was the fiasco in Gaza in 2006 when Fatah thugs, aided and equipped by foreign sources at the specific instigation of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, sought to maintain Abbas’ control of the area, even after the Hamas election victory.

As detailed in an investigative report published in the April issue of Vanity Fair magazine, the concerns voiced by some Israelis and skeptical members of Congress over that particular venture in bolstering Abbas were prophetic.

While Fatah goons tortured and kidnapped some of their rivals, neither they nor their leader Abbas had the stomach to face down Hamas, despite promises to do so. In the end, Abbas’ men wouldn’t fight, and the more popular Hamas seized control of Gaza. As David Rose wrote in Vanity Fair, “The exact thing both Israel and the U.S. Congress warned against came to pass when Hamas captured most of Fatah’s arms and ammunition — including the Egyptian guns supplied under the covert U.S.-Arab aid program.”

For 15 years, critics of such expenditures have been labeled as “anti-peace,” but that tag just served as an excuse for whitewashes of misbehavior by first Arafat and now Abbas.

An anonymous U.S. official told JTA that the 1,100 P.A. gunmen currently in Jordan, at American expense as well as with Israeli permission, are being schooled in such things as “training in riot control, human rights, and effective arrests and defensive shooting.” But so were their predecessors. Left unanswered in this account is why reasonable people should think this group will behave any differently.

Painted Into A Corner
The alternatives to Abbas are frightful. He is both weak and probably not much less ill-intentioned than Hamas, but he and his loyalists are seen as a counterforce to Iran’s allies.

Should American supporters of Israel therefore feel obligated to support the continued flow of funds to P.A. sources?

The problem is, the peace processors have painted themselves into a corner. Having crowned first Arafat and now Abbas, they are forced to ignore or suppress the truth about them in order to maintain American support for a two-state solution.

At the same time, Israel’s government takes the position that it needs a Palestinian partner who at least pays lip service to peace, as Abbas does. And no one here wants to do anything that would help create a greater “Hamasistan.”

Yet experience shows that the realpolitik strategy of propping up Fatah has not undermined Hamas, nor promoted peace. Perhaps the beginning of wisdom is the recognition that it’s time to stop reinforcing failure.

America’s attempts to create a Palestinian peace partner have failed. No amount of money will buy us a moderate state that will accept peace with Israel if the Palestinians don’t want one. If the president and the secretary of state aren’t honest enough to admit this, then perhaps it’s appropriate to ask Congress to turn off the spigot that sends more of our tax dollars down a Palestinian drain.