Posts
21 hours ago
Friday, 20 November 2009
Israel Matzav: New York Jews to vote Republican in 2010?
New York Jews to vote Republican in 2010?
Here's one way Republicans can attract Jewish voters: Nominate strongly pro-Israel candidates like former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (pdf link) (Hat Tip: Rosner's Domain). But, what if Giuliani makes a bid for the U.S. Senate? Giuliani leads U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, the Democrat appointed by Governor David Paterson to fill the vacant seat left by Hillary Clinton. 54% of registered voters statewide would vote for Giuliani compared with 40% who would support Gillibrand. Even one-third of Democrats report they would back the Republican challenger, and Giuliani runs competitively against Gillibrand in overwhelmingly Democratic New York City.
Giuliani wins among Catholics, Protestants and Jews. Here's the breakdown by religion:
Religion Gillibrand Giuliani Unsure
Protestant 37% 59% 4%
Catholic 35% 60% 5%
Jewish 39% 52% 9%
Yes, it's early, but this is a good sign.
Religion Gillibrand Giuliani Unsure
Protestant 37% 59% 4%
Catholic 35% 60% 5%
Jewish 39% 52% 9%
Yes, it's early, but this is a good sign.
Israel Matzav: New York Jews to vote Republican in 2010?
Israel Matzav: Clinton repeats the demographic lie
Clinton repeats the demographic lie
Former President Bill Clinton was in Jerusalem on Sunday, where he repeated the 'Palestinians' lies about demographics. "Two things remain unchanged since 1993 – geography and demographics. Palestinians have more children than Israelis can have or import."
Yoram Ettinger points out that, as always, Clinton is lying.
5. A September 2006 World Bank survey of education in Judea, Samaria and Gaza documented a 32% distortion of Arab births by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. According to the bank, the Arab demographic decline resulted from a drop in fertility and a rise in emigration.
6. The decline in Arab population growth follows a twenty year surge, which was a result of the post-1967 access to Israel's health infrastructure. The decline has been caused by urbanization (from a 70% rural to a 70% urban population in Judea and Samaria), unprecedented expansion of the education system, especially among women, and family planning.
7. Net-emigration has accelerated the fall of the Arab population growth rate in Judea and Samaria. From 1950 to 2009, there have been only six years of net-immigration. Net-emigration skyrocketed during the 1950-1967 Jordanian occupation, slowed down drastically following 1967, in response to the enhancement of health, education and employment, surged as a result of the 2000 Intifadah and shifted to a higher gear in 2006, due to the rise of Hamas and the Hamas-PLO war.
8. The Arab fertility rate in Judea and Samaria declined to four births per woman and is trending downward. According to the UN Population Division, the decline typifies all Muslim countries other than Afghanistan and Yemen. For example, Jordan (a "twin-sister" of Judea and Samaria) has three births per woman, Iran – 1.7, Egypt – 2.5, Syria – 3.5 and Algeria – 1.8 births per woman.
9. The Judea and Samaria Arab population of 1.55 million – and not 2.5 million as claimed by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics – was documented in December 2008: a 66% distortion!
'Palestinian' demographics are not a reason for Israel to give up its security. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Read the whole thing.
Read the whole thing.
Israel Matzav: Clinton repeats the demographic lie
Israel Matzav: Fatah preparing third 'intifada'
Fatah preparing third 'intifada'
Haaretz reports that Fatah is preparing a third 'intifada.' But this one is meant to be different from the previous two. One of the movement's top officials interviewed by Hadith Anas said the third intifada will have a widespread popular base, adding, however, that unlike the previous popular struggle against Israel, which was sparked in September 2000, the movement will not endorse an armed struggle or the use of firearms.
"We want thousands of Palestinians to demonstrate daily near the settlements of the occupation, carrying out a human siege, and calling for the end of the occupation," one senior official said.
According to the report, Fatah chief and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas agreed to the resolution in principle, stipulating only that the struggle mustn't become a violent one.
Sources estimate that Abbas could prepare the conditions which would allow for such a move by stepping down as PA President as well as by declaring the dissolution of the PA by the end of the year.
Fatah holds out its first 'intifada' as being a non-violent one, and as being a model for the upcoming 'struggle.'
"The first intifada gained significant diplomatic ground as far as the Palestinians are concerned since its symbol, a boy throwing rocks at a tank, made it impossible for Israel to claim it was defending itself against terror as it did in the second intifada, followings the city-center bombings," the official said.
Funny. I doubt that Dov Kalmanovich (pictured above) would consider the first 'intifada' non-violent or its symbol to be a boy throwing rocks at a tank
Israel Matzav: Fatah preparing third 'intifada'
Israel Matzav: Deja vu all over again: Shalit deal near?
Deja vu all over again: Shalit deal near?
Fox News is reporting that - once again - a deal is near to release kidnapped IDF corporal Gilad Shalit. As usual, the price is 1,000 'Palestinian' terrorists, of whom 450 are bloody murderers. Fox is reporting that Israel has refused 70 names on the list and has said that it prefers seeing Shalit remaining a hostage to releasing these 70 terrorists. So Hamas, which is supposedly determined to do a deal by next Friday, has proposed 70 more names. A source tells Fox News that Israel has rejected 70 out of the 450 specific names. Israeli negotiators told German mediators those prisoners would remain in behind bars, even if it means Shalit remains a hostage.
The source says Hamas responded with 70 new names, which are on their way to be reviewed by Israeli negotiators.
Hamas has already indicated an intention to finish the prisoner exchange by November 27, in time for the Muslim holiday Eid Al Adha.
Once an agreement has been reached on the details of the prisoner exchange, Hamas will first hand Shalit over to Egypt. President Hosni Mubarak will be personally tasked with securing Shalit’s safety. Israel will release the prisoners. Only then will Shalit be returned to Israel to re-unite with his family after more than 3 years captivity in the Gaza strip.
This means that Israel has agreed to release 380 murderers already. Why? For that matter, why are we releasing any terrorists at all? Why are we 'negotiating'? What could go wrong?
By the way, the comments over at Fox are astounding.
By the way, the comments over at Fox are astounding.
Israel Matzav: Deja vu all over again: Shalit deal near?
Israel Matzav: J Street attacks Sarah Palin
J Street attacks Sarah Palin
If anyone still needs to ask whose side they're on, you haven't been watching the news. J Street, the J Street rejects Sarah Palin’s comments attacking President Obama’s sensible policy on Israeli settlements in the West Bank yesterday during an ABC News interview with Barbara Walters.
Palin’s pandering to her right-wing base comes at the expense of the security of the State of Israel, the lives of those actually living the conflict, and the fundamental American interest in achieving a two-state solution in the near term. Her words reveal a glaring ignorance of damaging facts and a callous disregard of past and present U.S. policy.
For decades, American presidents have held that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are an impediment to peace. They are joined by the majority of Israelis and pro-Israel Americans who view the growing settlement enterprise as a threat to Israel’s very future as a Jewish democracy.
President Obama’s administration continued along that path yesterday, rightly and sensibly expressing concern with unilateral actions on both sides that would preempt the negotiation of final status issues that are necessary to achieve a two-state solution to the conflict.
J Street supports President Obama and Middle East Peace Envoy George Mitchell as they press the parties to begin the hard work of achieving a two-state solution, the only way to secure Israel’s future as a Jewish, democratic homeland.
Whose side are they on? Not Israel's side. The vast majority of Jewish Israelis do not believe that 'settlements' are an 'impediment to peace.' The 'impediment to peace' is the 'Palestinian' refusal to accept a State of Israel of any size in this region. The vast majority of Israelis do not believe that the 'settlement enterprise' is a threat to Israel's future as a Jewish democracy.
But J Street continues to blindly support President Obumbler. When he is thrown out of office in 2012, will J Street fall into the dustbin of history? I sure hope so.
But J Street continues to blindly support President Obumbler. When he is thrown out of office in 2012, will J Street fall into the dustbin of history? I sure hope so.
Israel Matzav: J Street attacks Sarah Palin
Israel Matzav: Obama doesn't get it on terrorism
Obama doesn't get it on terrorism
This was the big story in the US the last couple of days that I was there (especially in New York). I don't know how much play it's gotten in Israel, but it's important for Israelis to understand it.Khaleed Sheikh Muhammad, the
To give you an idea of how poorly this has been thought out, Attorney General Eric Holder was asked in a Senate hearing earlier this week what would happen if KSM was acquitted in a jury trial. Would he be released in New York? Holder's response: "Failure is not an option." Huh?
I can't wait to see what happens when the prosecution uses all their peremptory challenges (the right to challenge jurors' impartiality without explaining why) to exclude all Muslims (they'd be fools not to use them that way). Will the prosecution be accused of discrimination? Will we have a hearing in front of the Supreme Court to determine whether the prosecution discriminated illegally against Muslims? It's already been held that you can't use peremptory challenges to exclude jurors based on race.
On top of that, as you might imagine, New Yorkers are living in fear of having this terrorist in their midst - fear that someone will try to spring him from prison and murder more New Yorkers in the process. What could go wrong?
Charles Krauthammer comments (Hat Tip: Soccer Dad via Twitter).
Finally, there's the moral logic. It's not as if Holder opposes military commissions on principle. On the same day he sent KSM to a civilian trial in New York, Holder announced he was sending Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, (accused) mastermind of the attack on the USS Cole, to a military tribunal.
By what logic? In his congressional testimony Wednesday, Holder was utterly incoherent in trying to explain. In his Nov. 13 news conference, he seemed to be saying that if you attack a civilian target, as in 9/11, you get a civilian trial; a military target like the Cole, and you get a military tribunal.
What a perverse moral calculus. Which is the war crime -- an attack on defenseless civilians or an attack on a military target such as a warship, an accepted act of war that the United States itself has engaged in countless times?
By what possible moral reasoning, then, does KSM, who perpetrates the obvious and egregious war crime, receive the special protections and constitutional niceties of a civilian courtroom, while he who attacked a warship is relegated to a military tribunal?
Moreover, the incentive offered any jihadist is as irresistible as it is perverse: Kill as many civilians as possible on American soil and Holder will give you Miranda rights, a lawyer, a propaganda platform -- everything but your own blog.
Alternatively, Holder tried to make the case that he chose a civilian New York trial as a more likely venue for securing a conviction. An absurdity: By the time Barack Obama came to office, KSM was ready to go before a military commission, plead guilty and be executed. It's Obama who blocked a process that would have yielded the swiftest and most certain justice.
Read the whole thing.
The lesson here for Israelis is that we should not expect any help or understanding from the Obama administration if we have to go on a spree of targeted killings of terrorist leaders. We won't get it regardless of how many Israelis are God forbid killed. We have to liquidate the terrorists regardless of Obama's reaction. Even if the American leadership is willing to abdicate the defense of its citizens, Israelis cannot follow.
The lesson here for Israelis is that we should not expect any help or understanding from the Obama administration if we have to go on a spree of targeted killings of terrorist leaders. We won't get it regardless of how many Israelis are God forbid killed. We have to liquidate the terrorists regardless of Obama's reaction. Even if the American leadership is willing to abdicate the defense of its citizens, Israelis cannot follow.
Israel Matzav: Obama doesn't get it on terrorism
Israel Matzav: The IDF's witch hunt
The IDF's witch hunt
I'm back in Israel, still jet lagged but hopefully the Sabbath will take care of that. On top of everything else, my replacement flight from London arrived nearly two hours late, which was why I did not post last night.The IDF has embarked on a witch hunt against combat soldiers who express support for
An act of insubordination was thwarted at the last minute in the Kfir Brigade's training base on Thursday when commanders discovered a sign reading "Kfir does not expel Jews" drying in the sun, moments before soldiers planned to hang it from a nearby building.
The sign was the third prepared by soldiers from the Kfir Brigade. Earlier this week, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu warned that insubordination in the IDF was a threat to all of Israeli society.
On Monday, four soldiers hung a banner reading "Nahshon also does not expel" from the roof of a building at their base to protest the razing of two illegal structures near the Negohot settlement. Two of the soldiers were sentenced to 20 and 14 days in the brig, respectively, while two others were sentenced to four-week confinement.
Insubordination means refusing to follow orders and ought not to affect freedom of speech.
The IDF is concerned that these signs represent a 'new trend.' Apparently, it is concerned that the next time the IDF is ordered to expel revenants, many soldiers will refuse to play along. The real question is why these signs are being displayed in the IDF and not in Israeli society in general. Are we all asleep?
The picture at the top is of IDF soldier Avi Bieber (who made aliya from the same town in the US as I did) who was sentenced to the maximum prison sentence for refusing to follow an order to expel Jews from Gaza. For those who say "he ought to have been sentenced because you have to follow orders in the army," please consider that the IDF has a rule that one is forbidden to follow patently illegal orders. Was the order to expel Jews 'illegal'? The courts have concluded that they were not, but a lot of people here feel that there's room for debate on that issue.
The IDF is concerned that these signs represent a 'new trend.' Apparently, it is concerned that the next time the IDF is ordered to expel revenants, many soldiers will refuse to play along. The real question is why these signs are being displayed in the IDF and not in Israeli society in general. Are we all asleep?
The picture at the top is of IDF soldier Avi Bieber (who made aliya from the same town in the US as I did) who was sentenced to the maximum prison sentence for refusing to follow an order to expel Jews from Gaza. For those who say "he ought to have been sentenced because you have to follow orders in the army," please consider that the IDF has a rule that one is forbidden to follow patently illegal orders. Was the order to expel Jews 'illegal'? The courts have concluded that they were not, but a lot of people here feel that there's room for debate on that issue.
Israel Matzav: The IDF's witch hunt
Love of the Land: Barack Obama is no friend of Israel
Barack Obama is no friend of Israel
Until now, I’ve refrained from being sharply critical of President Obama. I’ve wanted to give him time to develop his policies, to learn from his experience that the real obstacle to peace in the Mideast is not Israel. I’ve assumed that his native intelligence would allow him — once he became involved in the process — to get past the unexamined left-wing worldview that came from his educational background and his associations, and to put aside the bad advice that he’s received. I’ve hoped that he would turn out to be a Truman or JFK, someone capable of thinking for himself as soon as he realized that the buck does in fact stop at his desk.
I’ve criticized some of his actions, true. I was upset by his early choice of Zbigniew Brzezinski, Samantha Power, Rob Malley, and some others as advisers. I objected to his nomination of Chas Freeman as Chairman of the National Intelligence Council. I found his Cairo speech offensive. I was unhappy with his embrace of the phony ‘pro-Israel’ group J Street. I strongly objected to his original call for a settlement freeze. I was dismayed by his treatment of PM Netanyahu when he visited the US recently.
But I kept hoping that he would someday ‘get it’. Not any more:
Nov. 18 (Bloomberg) — Israeli plans to build 900 new homes in Jerusalem’s Gilo neighborhood, constructed beyond the city’s 1967 borders, could have “dangerous” consequences, President Barack Obama said today.
Obama said “additional settlement building does not contribute to Israel’s security,” according to a transcript of an interview he gave Fox News. “I think it makes it harder for them to make peace with their neighbors, I think it embitters the Palestinians in a way that could end up being very dangerous.”
Obama’s remark was echoed by the European Union, Ban Ki-Moon, and others.
Some background: Gilo is within the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem, on the southwest side of the city, next to the Arab town of Beit Jala and not far from Bethlehem. Some Jews lived there pre-1948. In 1967, the area was captured from the Jordanians along with the rest of East Jerusalem, and in 1980 it was formally annexed to Israel as part of Jerusalem. Today, about 40,000 Jews live in Gilo.
Love of the Land: Barack Obama is no friend of Israel
Love of the Land: Don't run to Assad
Don't run to Assad
Gabriel Siboni
Haaretz
15 November 09
The latest appeal by Syrian President Bashar Assad to renew negotiations with Israel, and statements on his people's readiness for peace, have once again brought peace talks with Damascus to the forefront.
The eager response by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Shimon Peres and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who expressed their willingness to enter negotiations without preconditions as soon as possible, amply demonstrates how Assad is getting to eat the cake and have it too.
Syria has been brought back from the political cold only after indirect talks with Israel via Turkey were revealed. These talks gave the Syrian regime legitimacy, even though Syria continued on as a loyal member of the radical bloc. The talks boosted the ostracized regime, and the full extent of the strategic damage they have caused to Israel has yet to be fully understood. Syria was and is a disturber of regional balance, as American forces coping with its attempts to destabilize Iraq can testify.
Assad has several personal achievements of this kind to his credit: Syrian involvement in the assassination of Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri is well-known; Syria is developing chemical weapons of mass-destruction, and has tried to set up a nuclear reactor to achieve military nuclear capability.
Terrorist organizations over the years have found Syria to be a convenient and helpful host. Syria's deep involvement in Lebanon and its part in delivering advanced weapon systems to Hezbollah increase Lebanese instability, while providing backing for increased Iranian involvement. All these demonstrate how deeply Assad is implicated in the radical axis.
Some say that pulling Syria out of the Axis of Evil will improve Israel's overall strategic balance. But closer heed must be paid to the Syrian president's words. To him, peace with Israel means Israeli retreat from the Golan, while he maintains his strategic connection to Iran and other rogue states. Past experience shows that rapprochement attempts by Israel and parts of the international community don't make him moderate his positions, but rather convince him to believe he can have everything both ways.
Israeli decision-makers need to fundamentally review Israel's real interest in regard to Syria, while neutralizing the kind of strategic discourse that was relevant 30 years ago but is now hopelessly outdated.
The enemy, having realized it cannot conquer Israel, has chosen the path of resistance and attrition, with the aim of exhausting Israelis in the long run. This change proves the irrelevance of giving away assets in exchange for security arrangements and guarantees, demilitarization and the like.
A true peace agreement with Syria can only be discussed after Syria undergoes a profound and fundamental change. The desire to please the Damascus regime and go into talks will not help bring about such change.
Assad, whose supreme interest is preserving the Alawi reign, has a lot to lose. Israel must reach a strategic agreement with the American administration on the fundamental conditions for talks with Syria.
The first among them should be separation from the radical axis and from radical ideology. Syria, deep in the throes of an economic crisis and located in a problematic geo-strategic position, must choose a new path before peace talks can begin. Right now, Assad's haughty attitude is like he is living in a glass house and throwing stones in every direction.
The author chairs the military research program at the Institute for National Security Studies.
Love of the Land: Don't run to Assad
Love of the Land: Note to Media: Gilo Is in Jerusalem
Note to Media: Gilo Is in Jerusalem
Yesterday, Israel approved the building of 900 homes in Jerusalem, a move opposed by the United States, and incorrectly reported by some media outlets which misreported Gilo's location. For instance, the International Herald Tribune ran the following brief today on Page 4:
Whether you call it a settlement or a neighborhood of Jerusalem, Gilo is not in the West Bank. As Isabel Kershner correctly reports today in the New York Times (which publishes the Tribune):
Israel said Tuesday that it had advanced plans to expand a Jewish district of Jerusalem in territory that was captured in the 1967 war and that the Palestinians claim as part of their future state. . . .
The Israeli move to push forward the building plans in Jerusalem comes as the Palestinians have begun seeking support for a plan to win the United Nations Security Council's recognition of a Palestinian state, without Israel's agreement, in the lands Israel won in 1967. . .
[The 900 housing units] are in Gilo, an area in southern Jerusalem considered by Israel to be a neighborhood of the city and by the Palestinians and much of the world to be a settlement that violates international law
In addition, it is clear from reading the transcript of yesterday's State Department press briefing that the Obama administration also understands that Gilo is situated in Jerusalem and not the West Bank. For instance, spokesman Ian Kelly states:
Well, I think, Michel, you've heard us say many times that we believe that neither party should engage in any kind of actions that could unilaterally preempt or appear to preempt negotiations. And I think that we find the Jerusalem Planning Committee's decision to move forward on the approval of the - approval process for the expansion of Gilo in Jerusalem as dismaying.
Gilo lies within Jerusalem's municipal boundaries, though it is outside the Green Line delineating the pre-1967 boundaries, as shown in this U.N. map. Another part of the city that falls within this category -- within municipal boundaries but outside the Green Line -- is Jabel Mukater, the home of the Arab attacker who shot dead eight yeshiva students in April 2008. As Steven Erlanger and Kershner reported March 8, 2008 in the NYT:
Love of the Land: Note to Media: Gilo Is in Jerusalem
Love of the Land: Analysis: Obama's press on Gilo shows a continued misread of Israel
Analysis: Obama's press on Gilo shows a continued misread of Israel
Herb Keinon
JPost
19 November 09
US President Barack Obama is an extremely intelligent man surrounded by equally intelligent advisers, many of whom have years of experience dealing with the Middle East. His continued misreading and misunderstanding of the Israeli public is, therefore, somewhat baffling.
This misread was evident again in the past few days by the US objection to the Jerusalem Municipal Planning Committee's approval of a plan to build some 900 new units in Gilo - not in a far-flung settlement overlooking Nablus, nor even in one of the settlement blocs like Gush Etzion, nor even a Jewish complex in one of the Arab neighborhoods of the capital, but in Gilo, one of the large new neighborhoods built in the city following the Six Day War. If Israel cannot build in Gilo without US approval, than it cannot build in Ramot Eshkol, French Hill, Ramot, Neveh Yaakov, Pisgat Ze'ev, East Talpiot or Har Homa.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs on Tuesday expressed "dismay" at the decision. The dismay, however, cuts both ways, with many Israelis clearly dismayed that the US - like Europe - now seems to be considering as settlements the post-1967 neighborhoods in Jerusalem. The EU, clearly following Gibbs's lead and then taking it one step further, released a statement on Wednesday saying, "The European Union is dismayed by the recent decision on the expansion of the settlement of Gilo."
Truth be told, this is not the first indication of US policy on this matter. Former US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice seemed to be giving the new neighborhoods settlement status in 2007 when she opposed a new project in Har Homa. She didn't clarify, however, whether other Jerusalem neighborhoods over the Green Line, such as Gilo and Ramot, were settlements in the eyes of the United States.
(Continue reading...)
Love of the Land: Analysis: Obama's press on Gilo shows a continued misread of Israel
Love of the Land: 25 Long Years
25 Long Years
Jonathan Pollard is the only person in the history of the United States to receive a life sentence for spying for an American ally. On November 21, 2009, Pollard will enter the 25th year of his life sentence, with no end in sight, and with not a peep out of our "leadership".
The maximum sentence today for such an offence is 10 years. The median sentence for this offence is 2 to 4 years. Click to see a list ofcomparative sentences.
Love of the Land: 25 Long Years
RubinReports: An Article that gives an Amazing Insight into Radical Islamism, its Western Coddlers and its Cures
An Article that gives an Amazing Insight into Radical Islamism, its Western Coddlers and its Cures
[Please subscribe for selections of great reading, Middle East politics, U.S. foreign policy, and more]
By Barry Rubin
This is perhaps the best newspaper article I've ever read on the phenomenon of radical Islamists in Europe, written from the point of view of those who have left the movement and now discuss how they felt and what they did. Well worth reading. It is by Johann Hari and entitled, "Renouncing Islamism: To the brink and back again."
The two key points are:
First, how some--in this case imprisoned leaders of the Egyptian jihad--developed an alternative Muslim perspective:
"After more than 20 years in prison, they had reconsidered their views. They told him he was false to believe there was one definitive, literal way to read the Koran. As they told it, in traditional Islam there were many differing interpretations of sharia, from conservative to liberal – yet there had been consensus around one principle: it was never to be enforced by a central authority. Sharia was a voluntary code, not a state law. `It was always left for people to decide for themselves which interpretation they wanted to follow,' he says.
"These one-time assassins taught Maajid that the idea of using state power to force your interpretation of sharia on everyone was a new and un-Islamic idea, smelted by the Wahabis only a century ago. They had made the mistake of muddling up the enduringly relevant decisions Mohamed made as a spiritual leader with those he made as a political ruler, which he intended to be specific to their time and place."
I would call this the rediscovery of conservative traditional Islam, with a bit of a liberal modernist twist. That was the view of Islam which dominated the religion for many centuries between its early era and the recent rise of Islamism.
Second, and particularly fascinating and important is how Western Political Correctness and multiculturalism has disastrously encouraged and legitimized radical Islamism:
"From the right, there was the brutal nativist cry of `Go back where you came from!' But from the left, there was its mirror-image: a gooey multicultural sense that immigrants didn't want liberal democratic values and should be exempted from them. Again and again, they described how at school they were treated as `the funny foreign child,' and told to `explain their customs' to the class. It patronised them into alienation.
"`Nobody ever said–you're equal to us, you're one of us, and we'll hold you to the same standards,' says [Ed] Husain. `Nobody had the courage to stand up for liberal democracy without qualms. When people like us at [Newham] College were holding events against women and against gay people, where were our college principals and teachers, challenging us?'''
What a devastating indictment of leftist Political Correctness and multi-culturalism that is! Those two paragraphs should be read all over the West and in classrooms. Western behavior encourages radical Islamism by failing to champion Western intellectual, cultural, and political values. The same effect results by turning off the assimilation process.
But also responsible is the behavior of most Muslim leaders in the West who spend their time criticizing Western policies and societies while complaining about how Muslims are treated but never seeming to wage the war against extremism in their own communities.
Incidentally, please note that the word "Israel" is not mentioned in this article, which shows how small a part that issue plays in this movement. It is a revolutionary movement seeking state power and the transformation of Muslim-majority societies, or even of the whole world.
On one point I differ a bit but the differences can be easily reconciled. I am willing to accept the idea that actions like the U.S. attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq heated up this movement in Europe by seeming to prove that the West was trying to destroy Muslims. But it is equally valid to point out that the Afghan--though not the Iraq--action was necessary to defend against September 11. This is a choice that the Jihadists force against the United States--and regarding Hamas and Hizballah against Israel. In effect, they say: we will attack you. If you don't respond we will become stronger and win; if you do respond we will use that against you by making propaganda. The latter is ultimately less damaging than the former.
Another point of interest in the article is that the British-born radicals were disillusioned by: actual contact with the Jihad, seeing the kinds of societies it created, and coming to understand how different real Muslim-majority societies were from their own vision of the only proper style of Islam. This is important to understand but of course the majority are not persuaded away by such experiences.
At a time when the reality of radical Islamism as an international and internal threat is being explained away or silenced in Western countries--even when Jihadists shouting "Allahu Akbar" gun down their citizens, this article is an important corrective.
By Barry Rubin
This is perhaps the best newspaper article I've ever read on the phenomenon of radical Islamists in Europe, written from the point of view of those who have left the movement and now discuss how they felt and what they did. Well worth reading. It is by Johann Hari and entitled, "Renouncing Islamism: To the brink and back again."
The two key points are:
First, how some--in this case imprisoned leaders of the Egyptian jihad--developed an alternative Muslim perspective:
"After more than 20 years in prison, they had reconsidered their views. They told him he was false to believe there was one definitive, literal way to read the Koran. As they told it, in traditional Islam there were many differing interpretations of sharia, from conservative to liberal – yet there had been consensus around one principle: it was never to be enforced by a central authority. Sharia was a voluntary code, not a state law. `It was always left for people to decide for themselves which interpretation they wanted to follow,' he says.
"These one-time assassins taught Maajid that the idea of using state power to force your interpretation of sharia on everyone was a new and un-Islamic idea, smelted by the Wahabis only a century ago. They had made the mistake of muddling up the enduringly relevant decisions Mohamed made as a spiritual leader with those he made as a political ruler, which he intended to be specific to their time and place."
I would call this the rediscovery of conservative traditional Islam, with a bit of a liberal modernist twist. That was the view of Islam which dominated the religion for many centuries between its early era and the recent rise of Islamism.
Second, and particularly fascinating and important is how Western Political Correctness and multiculturalism has disastrously encouraged and legitimized radical Islamism:
"From the right, there was the brutal nativist cry of `Go back where you came from!' But from the left, there was its mirror-image: a gooey multicultural sense that immigrants didn't want liberal democratic values and should be exempted from them. Again and again, they described how at school they were treated as `the funny foreign child,' and told to `explain their customs' to the class. It patronised them into alienation.
"`Nobody ever said–you're equal to us, you're one of us, and we'll hold you to the same standards,' says [Ed] Husain. `Nobody had the courage to stand up for liberal democracy without qualms. When people like us at [Newham] College were holding events against women and against gay people, where were our college principals and teachers, challenging us?'''
What a devastating indictment of leftist Political Correctness and multi-culturalism that is! Those two paragraphs should be read all over the West and in classrooms. Western behavior encourages radical Islamism by failing to champion Western intellectual, cultural, and political values. The same effect results by turning off the assimilation process.
But also responsible is the behavior of most Muslim leaders in the West who spend their time criticizing Western policies and societies while complaining about how Muslims are treated but never seeming to wage the war against extremism in their own communities.
Incidentally, please note that the word "Israel" is not mentioned in this article, which shows how small a part that issue plays in this movement. It is a revolutionary movement seeking state power and the transformation of Muslim-majority societies, or even of the whole world.
On one point I differ a bit but the differences can be easily reconciled. I am willing to accept the idea that actions like the U.S. attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq heated up this movement in Europe by seeming to prove that the West was trying to destroy Muslims. But it is equally valid to point out that the Afghan--though not the Iraq--action was necessary to defend against September 11. This is a choice that the Jihadists force against the United States--and regarding Hamas and Hizballah against Israel. In effect, they say: we will attack you. If you don't respond we will become stronger and win; if you do respond we will use that against you by making propaganda. The latter is ultimately less damaging than the former.
Another point of interest in the article is that the British-born radicals were disillusioned by: actual contact with the Jihad, seeing the kinds of societies it created, and coming to understand how different real Muslim-majority societies were from their own vision of the only proper style of Islam. This is important to understand but of course the majority are not persuaded away by such experiences.
At a time when the reality of radical Islamism as an international and internal threat is being explained away or silenced in Western countries--even when Jihadists shouting "Allahu Akbar" gun down their citizens, this article is an important corrective.
RubinReports: An Article that gives an Amazing Insight into Radical Islamism, its Western Coddlers and its Cures
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