The Western Word

Those who viewed news reports of the supposedly successful firing of Iran’s Sajjil-2 rocket this week as an alarming development, have reasons to be worried.

The rocket’s 1200 mile range can easily penetrate both Israeli and European airspace, making it a powerful addition to the Iranian arsenal and continuing threat to the West.

Iran does not, by all reports, have enough fissile material to build a nuclear weapons; nor does it have the capacity to manufacture a nuclear warhead. No one seems able to agree when it will have these capacities or what its real intentions will be when it obtains them.

But what everyone seems to agree, is that Iran’s acquisition of nuclear power will unalterably shift the balance of power in the Middle East and send the region spiraling into a new arms race.

No one feels that heat greater than Iran’s Arab neighbors. Iran, lest we forget, is the country with the third largest number of neighbors- its land mass being separated from Europe, Africa, Central Asia and the Indian sub-continent by just a single country. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, the Gulf States and Turkey – all share borders with Iran, while Jordan, Egypt and India are close enough to be regarded as kissing cousins.

None of those nations want to see Iran acquire nuclear weapons. All have a vested interested in seeing Iranian aggression curtailed and ensuring that it does not challenge Israel as a regional hegemon.

Israel? Figuring that country into the mix might seem a little anomalous. After all, there is little ostensible reason to believe that most of the aforementioned countries would lose any sleep if the Jewish state was eliminated by an Iranian nuclear attack.

But such a view betrays the Middle East’s dirty little secret: all of the so-called moderate Arab states – including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and most of the Gulf States see Israel, because of its military muscle and its strategic depth as a hedge against Iranian imperialism and territorial overreach. They understand that Iran’s theocratic regime poses a far greater danger to their existence than Israel and are surrepetitiously willing to work with the Jewish state to ensure Iran’s containment. An attack on Israel, they all understand, would essentially be an attack upon themselves.

It wouldn’t be the first time Israel has come to the aid of moderate Arab state or acted as their proxy. In 1970 the IDF saved the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan from a coup led by Yasser Arafat’s PLO. Over the years, Israel sought to prop up Christian regimes in Lebanon and has worked with Egypt to subvert the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood. Like every nation state, Israel has understood that its security depends, to a certain extent, on stability on its own borders.

So now we have the rather perverse situation of the United States backing away from supporting Israel’s inevitable showdown with the menace of Iran while Arab countries in the region are gearing up for a fight, as least one fought by a surrogate.

The good news in all this might be that Israel is really not quite as isolated as is generally supposed. The bad news is that in order to effectively attack and destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities, Israel will need to traverse airspace in Iraq controlled by the American military.

How absurd it would be then if Israel, with the tacit support and encouragement of its new found allies, undertakes a punitive mission against Iran only to be stymied by American resistance.

We don’t really know the extent of the secret diplomacy being undertaken by Israel with its Arab neighbors. Nor do we know the back channels that the Obama Administration might be using to prepare for a military confrontation in the Gulf. But if I was a leader of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt or the Gulf States, I would be using whatever leverage I could to cajole Washington into an understanding that when the time comes – as it inevitably must - Israel must be given a free hand to deal Iran a convincing and decisive blow.

Overlooking for the time being their own persistent cowardice and timidity, it is the very least they could do to pay back the country that is going to be doing the fighting for them and ensuring the stability of the region.

Want to comment on this article? See Avi Davis’ blog
Avi Davis is the Executive Director and Senior Fellow of the American Freedom Alliance in Los Angeles. He can be contacted at isdev@ix.netcom.com

Feminists Betray Muslim Women
by Robert Spencer (more by this author)
Posted 05/14/2009 ET

A feminist professor has once again passed up an opportunity to stand up for the human rights of Muslims women. Recently Dr. Laura Briggs, Associate Professor of Women’s Studies and Head of the Department of Women’s Studies at the University of Arizona, welcomed new Ph.D. students to the department. In the course of her address, Briggs, author of Reproducing Empire: Race, Sex, Science, and U.S. Imperialism in Puerto Rico, praised the work of other professors, including that of Saba Mahmood, Associate Professor of Social Cultural Anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley. Mahmood, said Briggs, “confronted one of the legacies of a long history of orientalism and the recent wars in the Middle East: the way we are invited to see Muslim women as hopelessly, painfully oppressed, without their own autonomy, will, or individual rights.” So apparently the oppression of Muslim women has nothing to do with Islamic law or culture; it is merely a byproduct of “orientalism and the recent wars in the Middle East” – in other words, it is the West’s fault. “If we sometimes notice other Middle Eastern women—women’s rights activists, for example,” Briggs continued, “it is only to reinforce the notion that the great mass of Muslim women are terribly oppressed by the rise of conservative religiosity, by their husbands, by the ways they are compelled to dress." (Frontpagemag)

FBI arrest four in alleged plot to bomb Bronx synagogues, shoot down plane-MICHAEL DALY, ALISON GENDAR AND HELEN KENNEDY
The FBI and NYPD busted a four-man homegrown terror cell Wednesday night that was plotting to blow up two Bronx synagogues while simultaneously shooting a plane out of the sky, sources told the Daily News. The idea was to create a "fireball that would make the country gasp," one law enforcement said. Little did they know the plastic explosives packed into their car bombs and the plane-downing Stinger missile in their backseat were all phony - supplied by undercover agents posing as Pakistani militants linked to Al Qaeda. "If there can be any good news from this terror scare it's that this group was relatively unsophisticated, penetrated early, and not connected to another terrorist group," said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). "This incident shows that we must always be vigilant against terrorism, foreign or domestic." The suspects - three U.S.-born citizens and one Haitian immigrant - at least three of whom were said to be jailhouse converts to Islam, were angry about the deaths of Muslims in Afghanistan, sources told The News. "They wanted to make a statement," a law enforcement source said. "They were filled with rage and wanted to take it out on what they considered the source of all problems in America - the Jews." The group's alleged ringleader, James Cromitie, according to the complaint, discussed targets with an undercover agent. "The best target [the World Trade Center] was hit already," he allegedly told the agent. Later, he rejoiced in a terrorist attack on a synagogue. "I hate those motherf-----s, those f---ing Jewish bastards. . . . I would like to get [destroy] a synagogue." The men allegedly parked car bombs wired to cell phones outside the Riverdale Temple and nearby Riverdale Jewish Center. They were also heading to Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh, Orange County, when the law swooped in on them. Sources said their plan was to shoot down a cargo plane headed to Iraq or Afghanistan with a surface-to-air guided missile while simultaneously calling the cell phones and blowing up the Riverdale synagogues. Sources said the four men were arrested after a year-long investigation that began when an informant connected to a mosque in Newburgh said he knew men who wanted to buy explosives. FBI agents supplied them with what they billed as C-4 plastic explosives and a Stinger missile. (NYDailynews)

State Department Officially Promotes Radical Islamic Groups at Taxpayers' Expense-Steve Emerson
With the United States battling Islamist extremists, making America's case to Muslims around the world has never been more of a priority for policymakers. Unfortunately, the State Department continues to take a counterproductive approach: serving as a veritable infomercial promoting Islamist organizations like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) while giving the back of the hand to the very anti-Jihadist Muslims that Washington should be cultivating. The latest example is a State Department booklet issued in March titled "Being Muslim in America." It is part of an outreach effort that began under President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and is moving forward under President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The goal behind publication of the 64-page booklet is laudable: to arm consular officers and diplomats with information they can take to Muslims around the world to rebut slanders about U.S. "persecution" of Muslims. The booklet deluges readers with color pictures, statistical tables and individual profiles in an effort to show the world that American Muslims are a success story, noting that they have become entrepreneurs, professional athletes, entertainers, doctors, soldiers, firefighters, politicians, fashion designers, and pianists. (Familysecuritymatters)

Lawyer calls Somali piracy suspect 'Robin Hood'-AP
A lawyer for one of five suspected Somali pirates being prosecuted in the Netherlands described his client Monday as a modern-day Robin Hood driven by poverty to hijack ships.
Danish navy sailors captured five men after a January 2 attack on the cargo ship Samanyulo in the Gulf of Aden. The ship's crew fended off the pirates with signal flares until the Danish naval ship came to the rescue and sank the pirates' boat. The Netherlands agreed to prosecute them under a 17th-century law against "sea robbery" because the Samanyulo is registered in the Dutch Antilles. Convicted pirates face a maximum sentence of nine years, while a convicted pirate ship captain can get up to 12 years. Their trial is not expected to begin until later this year. At a pretrial hearing in a heavily guarded court in Rotterdam, lawyer Willem Jan Ausma called his client, Ahmed Yusuf, a "Robin Hood." Speaking to reporters outside court, he said pirates "attack ships of rich countries to give the ransom to poor families." He later told judges there were different types of pirates operating off Somalia's coast – those who gave ransom money to organised crime gangs and others "who just go to sea in the hope of getting something more than the fish that are no longer there." (Nrc.nl)

7/7 ringleader was spotted SIX times but slipped through MI5's net because of 'limited resources'-Daily Mail Reporter
MI5 did not thoroughly investigate the ringleader of the 7/7 bombings before the attack because they did not have enough resources, a new report into the atrocity revealed today. Mohammed Siddique Khan had come to the attention of the authorities six times between 1993 and 2005, but was allowed to remain free to plan the bombings which killed 52 people. As a new picture of Khan was released, the long-awaited Intelligence and Security Committee report into the events of July 7 2005 concluded that investigators did not believe Khan posed a direct threat. The report by MPs said they 'could not criticise' decisions made by MI5 and police in the months before the bombing. But they did describe as 'astounding' the fact that MI5 chiefs admitted that they only had the resources in 2004 to provide 'reasonable' surveillance coverage for about one in 20 terror suspects. Despite the failings, Gordon Brown today described the decisions of counter-terror police and MI5 to leave Khan free to plot the bombings as 'understandable'. The Prime Minister said he agreed with the conclusions of the second long-awaited report. (Dailymail.co.uk)

'I was groomed for jihad in Britain'-Kevin Dowling
A Muslim teenager in London gives the first inside account of how extremists are luring recruits.
A TEENAGER has revealed how he was recruited by Al-Qaeda-inspired extremists and groomed to carry out suicide attacks in Britain. In the first insider account of how radicals are preying on vulnerable Muslim youths, the teenager describes being approached by Islamists at a mosque in south London that was used by the failed 21/7 bombers, and indoctrinated at a secret network of squats. Aged 15, he was the youngest of about 50 recruits who were shown “martyrdom” videos and encouraged to travel to Pakistan to receive terrorist training. The youth, who is called Adam, told The Sunday Times: “They showed us a jihadist video with the martyrdom flags behind the guy speaking, and the message I got was that I should prepare myself for martyrdom. “I know a few of the others accepted that they would go [for training in Pakistan]. Some of the young people said, ‘I’m going to go’. That was the ultimate purpose of what these men were doing: what they were doing was training people up to carry out operations in the UK.” (Timesonline.co.uk)

Muslim Row-Ryan Mauro
How radical Islam is invading the State of Tennessee.
The Bible-belt state of Tennessee is not known to have been targeted by Al-Qaeda or any other radical Islamic terrorist group, but the Volunteer State may be becoming a hotbed for the growth of extremism. Reports from Nashville, Shelbyville, and Dover indicate that Tennessee has gradually become a stronghold for radical Islamic forces that are transforming parts of the state. On May 13, I reported on the discovery of extremism at the Al-Farooq Mosque in Nashville by award-winning counter-terrorism expert Dave Gaubatz, an individual that once held top-secret security clearance as an agent for the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations. The library carried extremist texts and audio tapes by known radicals such as Syed Maududi and Ali Al-Tamimi, who was convicted for his role in terrorism. One calls for the killing of homosexuals, and another describes how Muslims not engaged in taking up an armed jihad must “strengthen the capability of those fighting on the front line.” Other texts were found by his female researcher when a member of the mosque brought her to a Somali store in Nashville that was well hidden because of what the mosque attendee described as “government problems.” (Frontpagemag)

Islamic groups want Sharia law in Germany- Jan Meyer
Some Muslim groups in Germany want to live under Sharia law in Germany, according to a new study. The annual report for the Protection of the Constitution revealed that active groups like 'Milli Görüs' want to be able to live under the strict Islamic rules. And the secret service's yearly report, which will be revealed today by Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, contains some other schocking warnings:
• Increasing numbers of Islamic fundamentalists - mostly second generation immigrants and radical converts - are travelling from Germany to Pakistan to visit terror camps run by al-Qaeda and other similar groups.
• German interests at home and abroad are in danger. The report reveals that Germany is an 'immediate target' for Islamist terror groups.
• The internet is the most important communication and propaganda instrument – and terror groups are getting more professional at using it. (Bild.de)

Ayers and Dohrn Embark on U.S.-Bashing Book Tour-Mary Grabar
We have few iconic couples from the 1960s and 1970s left. Sonny and Cher divorced and went their separate ways politically. Republican Congressman Sonny Bono died tragically in a skiing accident in 1998. Cher continues to perform by herself. But not all was Laugh-In and flower power. Today another famous couple, comrades-in-arms and former collaborators in Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Weatherman, and then Weather Underground — and now coauthors of the [1] book Race Course Against White Supremacy — are bringing their show on the road. I am talking about Bill Ayers, once-fugitive “peace activist,” whose photo of him defiling the American flag was used against his “[2] pal” Barack Obama during the presidential campaign. His wife, Bernardine Dohrn, praised mass murderer Charles Manson and was jailed for seven months for refusing to cooperate with a grand jury investigating the 1981 Brinks truck robbery by the Weather Underground and the Black Liberation Army that killed two policemen and a guard. The peace and love couple, looking like the tenured professors of a postmodernist stripe that they are (earrings — on men — have replaced the love beads), are doing the book tour. Harlem is on their itinerary. (Pajamasmedia.com)

Speakers Favor Controversy Over Facts-AARON ELIAS
“Controversy is good … Controversy is exactly what we want.”
This statement, made by Anna Baltzer last Tuesday, reflects a growing trend in the Muslim Student Union’s (MSU) annual anti-Israel week. Baltzer apparently fails to realize that some people prefer facts rather than a questionable presentation based on faulty assertions and plain fabrications. Baltzer not only damned the Israeli security barrier for “preventing daily life” but took a step past the line of reason by saying it “doesn’t prevent attacks,” even though terrorism has declined by 92 percent since the barrier’s construction in 2002. Cynthia McKinney, a former congresswoman, was a new addition to the MSU’s lineup of speakers. McKinney decried American foreign aid to Israel and briefly recounted her experience in attempting to sail through the Israeli naval barrier implemented around Gaza to prevent Hamas from smuggling arms.
However, the show was stolen by Malik Ali, an Oakland imam who has repeatedly accused the “Zionist Jews” of corrupting and controlling the United States government, economy and media. Ali has also repeated the conspiracy theory that the “Zionist Jews” were responsible for 9/11. (Newuniversity)

An Islamic College in Berkeley?-Elizabeth Redden
The proposed Zaytuna College would be a first: a four-year, accredited, Islamic college in the United States. "Part of the process of indigenizing Islam in America is for the community to begin to develop its own leadership from inside the country, develop its own scholars," said Hatem Bazian, chair of the management board for Zaytuna College and a senior lecturer of Near Eastern studies at the University of California at Berkeley. "There is a growing need in the Muslim community to provide a variety of trained specialists to fulfill a growing and diverse community infrastructure and institutional framework," Bazian said -- to work as imams, as chaplains, or within the growing network of Islamic non-profit organizations. Currently, Bazian said, American students who seek a high-level Islamic education must study in the Muslim world. The proposed college would be built out of an existing institute with significant influence in the Islamic community. The Zaytuna Institute and Academy, an Islamic educational institute founded in 1996, is transitioning into Zaytuna College; the Berkeley-based institute already offers classes, but not for university credit. (Insidehighered)

Media Bias

All the News That's Fit To Suppress-Michelle Malkin
Conflict of interest stories make great front-page headlines -- except when the newspaper that revels in breaking them is itself in the middle of an ethical morass. Take The New York Times. Jennifer 8. Lee, one of the muckraking newspaper's reporters, recently boasted on Twitter that the Paper of Record has now "sold $2 million worth of Obama merchandise (book, commemorative editions, etc.)." The president, she noted chirpily, "is good for the bottom line." This lucrative media-government partnership is on proud display at the Times' online Barack Obama store, where readers can buy mugs, books and framed photos of the newspaper's political boosterism. A press plate of the Times' Obama inauguration front page goes for $149. A "set of Obama victory coffee mugs" sells for $24.95. And for only $1,129, you can own a signed and framed messianic photo of Obama taken by Times photographer Damon Winter -- and neutrally titled "Shining Moment," with the candidate in artsy silhouette as a sunburst illuminates the scenery. It's a short leap from there to Times reporter Jeff Zeleny, who infamously asked the president in a prime-time press briefing a few weeks ago what had "enchanted" him the most about being in the White House. You could almost see the sunbursts in Zeleny's pupils as he tossed the drool-covered softball to Dear Leader. (Humanevents)

Video: How Can the Mainstream Media Get Away with Such Lies?-Colonel Kenneth Allard (US Army, ret.)
It is difficult for me to watch last weekend's re-play of my interview with Governor Huckabee. For one thing, spending 10 years with NBC made being interviewed on Fox seem like an out-of-wedlock experience! For another, one inevitably wonders: Who is that slower-talking old guy conversing with the Governor? Vanities aside, I am very grateful he gave me that chance. Simply put: there is no other way to expose the short-comings of our media elites (like the New York Times) than through other media elites (like that upstart-turned-giant known as Fox News). As you watch this clip, you too may be led to wonder what I first asked over a year ago: "How can they get away with this?" You may also be shocked but not surprised to learn that the NYT recently won a Pulitzer Prize for their profoundly misleading story about the military analysts like me that you used to see on TV (most of the networks simply having run for cover). But what I hope you will conclude is that journalism is too important for our democracy to have its worst shortcomings overlooked and even applauded – rather than fearlessly exposed and corrected. Best wishes to the entire FSM family for a safe and meaningful Memorial Day! (Familysecuritymatters)

National Geographic Stoops to Jew-Hate-Mike Finch
National Geographic has long been an oasis from the world of political journals and magazines that so many of us seem to live in. Articles about trekking through the Serengeti or scaling the Hindu Kush are a welcome reprieve. Yes, National Geographic has slipped into the realm of political correctness on the issue of global warming; hardly an issue goes by without reading about rising sea waters, Co2 emissions, and perplexities on why the Americans have not signed the Kyoto Accords. But still, it is a nature magazine, so it gets somewhat of a pass on the climate change issue. In that spirit, I just recently renewed my subscription. After all, the occasional fold out map is worth the cover price alone. But after reading the just released June issue, shame on me. It’s time to cancel. I welcomed the latest issue with the cover story, “The Christian Exodus from the Holy Land.” A topic that has long been ignored by the main stream press and only recently getting attention even in the conservative press, the plight of the world’s Christians, needs to be heard. If I could build some suspense I would, but it only took three paragraphs for the reader to get a hint at the cause of this exodus. It would only take another two paragraphs for the author Don Belt’s intent to be made clear as we find out the true culprit in this tragedy. And, not to spoil the suspense, the culprit isn’t the Islamists or thugs, the PLO, Hamas or Hezbollah, who have taken over the West Bank, Gaza, and much of Lebanon. Or the increasingly powerful Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt or the oppressive dictatorship in Syria. (Frontpagemag)

Free Speech in Europe-Roger Scruton
It is probably well known to our readers that the British government, on the advice of Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, recently prevented Geert Wilders, a member of the Dutch parliament, from visiting Britain, to which country he had been invited in order to show his short film Fitna to a group of peers in the House of Lords. Fitna means “turning away” or “temptation,” and denotes the sin to which young Muslims are exposed in Western societies. The film purports to demonstrate the terroristic nature of the Koran and to give a warning against the Islamization of Europe. It has not been banned in Holland, but it is clearly a no-holds-barred attack on Islam as a creed and a social force. Prominent among those agitating to keep Mr. Wilders out of Britain was a certain Lord Ahmed, one of those cronies of Tony Blair who were shot into the House of Lords some 12 years ago in order to turn that venerable institution into the yes-machine favored by New Labour. Lord Ahmed, who claims to be a Muslim, announced that he could muster thousands of the faithful in order to make Mr. Wilders’s visit a serious problem for the government. Rather than test this insolent remark as it demanded, the government went along with what it took to be Muslim opinion, and made no effort to defend Mr. Wilders’s right, as a member of one European parliament, to explain his views to another. (Spectator)

The Human Rights Council refuses to address the abuse of women in Muslim countries under Sharia-Ibn Warraq
In December 2006, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), an international group established in 1971 and representing 57 countries, hosted an emergency summit in Mecca. The event became infamous after two angry imams from Denmark presented a dossier of cartoons published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten that mocked the Prophet Mohammed. In the ensuing uproar, Muslims murdered several people in Europe and torched the Danish embassy in Beirut. But the cartoon episode wasn’t the summit’s starkest example of Muslim outrage over free speech. The most critical decision that the OIC made in Mecca was to adopt a zero-tolerance policy toward perceived insults to Islam. In its “Ten-Year Programme of Action,” the OIC announced that it would create an “observatory” to monitor acts of “Islamophobia.” (Emgonline.co.u)

GOLDSTEIN/MEYER: 'Lawfare' gains ground-Brooke Goldstein and Aaron Eitan Meyer
The United Nations recently passed resolutions that would make "defaming" Islam a globally criminal act. The United Kingdom first refused entry to Geert Wilders, a sitting European Parliament member and Islamist critic, and now has issued a list banning 16 other individuals, which includes some banned solely for their exercise of free speech. "Faith Fighter," an online video game featuring various religious figures, attracted considerable attention and controversy, but was removed after the Organization of the Islamic Conference threatened the game's producers. Valentina Colombo, an Italian professor, wrote about an Islamist who said liberal Muslims could be killed as apostates; he has now sued her for damaging his credibility as a "moderate." And the United States is not immune. (Washingtontimes)

Prosecute Ahmadinejad-Alan M. Dershowitz / National Post
It's time to criminalize the incitement to genocide
I have devoted my professional career to defending free speech, even of the speech of those whose views I despise. This has brought me into conflict, even with some close friends and colleagues with whom I agree on most other subjects. For example, I have debated Irwin Cotler on several occasions with regard to hate crimes, group defamation, Holocaust denial and advocacy of violence. I believe that all of these despicable forms of expression should be protected. In my recent book, Finding Jefferson, I present arguments for why censorship laws are generally more dangerous than the speech they seek to censor. Yet I am here today calling for the criminalization of incitement to genocide, as practised by the Iranian regime in general and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in particular. Is there not a conflict between my lifelong defence of free speech and my support for treating Ahmadinejad as an international criminal? Let me explain why there is not, and indeed why my support for a maximalist view for free speech actually provides an important justification for indicting Ahmadinejad and his government for incitement to genocide. The paradigm of free speech is the individual dissident protesting the actions of government. Censorship is a tool employed by governments against dissidents. This has been the case since the beginning of time. The classic arguments in favour of freedom of speech presuppose the private individual confronting the power of government. The dissenter stands alone, often despised not only by those in power, but also by other citizens. He often represents an extreme minority view unpopular with the general public. (Frontpagemag)

NGO Monitor: EU-funded groups promote Palestinian positions on Jerusalem
Jerusalem-based organization says B’tselem, Ir Amim 'ignoring ancient Jewish presence in Old City’s Jewish Quarter,' using their resources 'to promote overtly anti-Israel agenda'
NGO Monitor’s latest research project documents the role of "highly politicized NGOs in the narrative wars that seek to distort and rewrite 3000 years of Jewish history in Jerusalem." According to NGO Monitor, which is based in the Israeli capital, "organizations such as B’tselem, Ir Amim and Applied Research Institute Jerusalem (ARIJ) who receive funds from the European Union ostensibly in order to promote coexistence, are primarily using their resources to promote an overtly anti-Israel agenda. "Ignoring the ancient Jewish presence in the Old City’s Jewish Quarter, disrupted only by their eviction and the Jordanian occupation between 1948-67, B’tselem and Ir Amim erroneously label residents of the neighborhood as ‘settlers’, in order to strengthen their political campaign against the return of the Jewish population," NGO Monitor said. The organization added that "in a further attempt to stigmatize the Israeli presence in Jerusalem, and erase the scars of mass terror attacks, the separation barrier is portrayed by B’tselem and Bimkom (funded by EU and New Israel Fund) as an attempt to annex land, disregarding Israel’s legitimate security concerns. "Similarly, the Jerusalem Municipality’s actions to prevent illegal construction are dismissed as an excuse to ruthlessly destroy Palestinian homes by B’tselem and ARIJ, who falsely describe these policies as Israeli attempts to ‘erase all trace of Palestinian existence’ in Jerusalem," NGO Monitor said. (Ynetnews)

40 Percent of Israel's Arab Citizens Deny Shoah-Gil Ronen
(IsraelNN.com) Two out of every five Arab citizens of Israel, or 40.5 percent, say that the Shoah, or Holocaust, never happened. This figure is up from 28 percent who denied the Holocaust in a similar survey three years ago. Only 41 percent of the Arab citizens of Israel recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state, down from 65.6 percent who did so in 2003. A mere 53.7 percent recognize Israel's right to exist as an independent state at all, compared with 81.1 percent in 2003. The statistics appear in the annual "Jewish Arab Relations Meter" published by Prof. Sami Samocha of HaifaUniversity. The full content of the survey will be released Monday. The survey encompasses numbering 700 Arab men and women, who are a representative sample of Israel's Arab population, including Bedouin and Druze. According to Samocha, Holocaust denial is common, not just among the less educated Arabs. A full 37 percent of Arabs who possess an education level above high school deny that the Holocaust happened. Fifty-six percent of Arabs think that the "Right of Return" of Arab "refugees" should not include an influx into Israel's pre-1967 territory, as opposed to 72.2 percent who thought so six years ago. (INN)

Iran's global reach-Caroline Glick
US President Barack Obama underestimates the threat Iran poses to global security. Were this not the case, he would not have sent CIA Director Leon Panetta to Israel ahead of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's visit to the White House. Panetta was reportedly dispatched here to read the government the riot act. Israel, he reportedly told his interlocutors, must not attack Iran without first receiving permission from Washington. Moreover, Israel should keep its mouth shut about attacking Iran. As far as Washington is concerned, Iran's latest threats to destroy Israel were nothing more than payback for statements by Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials regarding Israel's refusal to countenance a nuclear armed Iran. Over the past several weeks, we have learned that the administration has made its peace with Iran's nuclear aspirations. Senior administration officials acknowledge as much in off-record briefings. It is true, they say, that Iran may exploit its future talks with the US to run down the clock before they test a nuclear weapon. But, they add, if that happens, the US will simply have to live with a nuclear-armed mullocracy. (Jpost)

A Wary Encounter-Melanie Phillips
In remarks made after his meeting with Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu, President Obama said: I suggested to the Prime Minister that he has an historic opportunity to get a serious movement on this issue during his tenure. That means that all the parties involved have to take seriously obligations that they have previously agreed to. Those obligations were outlined in the road map... But the first obligation in the Road Map was laid upon the Palestinians -- to dismantle their infrastructure of terror. It was their failure to meet that first obligation, without which the rest of the Road Map could not be implemented, which led to its collapse as a strategy. Yet Obama appears to think that the only obligations which must be met are those which apply to Israel, with the Palestinians apparently getting a free pass. This is of course all of a piece with his belief that Israel is the cause of the Middle East impasse which would be solved by the creation of a state of Palestine. The fact that even now Fatah states explicitly that it won’t accept the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state, let alone Hamas repeatedly restating its intention to destroy Israel and kill every Jew, is not, in Obama’s mind, the real obstacle to a solution. Not only does Obama not see the creation of ‘Hamastan’ in the West Bank as an obstacle -- he sees instead the refusal to treat Hamas as part of the solution as an obstacle. Accordingly, he presents as the obstacle not the people continuing to wage war but the country that is the victim of that war – which he blames for not agreeing to destroy its own security. (Spectator.co.uk)

TERRORISM, security and policy

The Myth of the Moderate Taliban - Why is the West trying to partner with an radical group that must be defeated? Stephen Schwartz
As the Taliban, its Afghan detachments swelling with local jihadists, penetrates deeper into an apparently-collapsing Pakistan, politicians and media around the world, amid visible paralysis, are "rediscovering" the brutality of which the South Asian radical Islamists are capable. As with other varieties of the same fanatical ideology, many foreigners appear shocked at the bloody atrocities wreaked by the zealots; yet we hear from the Obama administration confused claims that Taliban "moderates" may somehow be separated from the diehards and rallied to the side of the U.S.-allied regime in Islamabad. But like their predecessors in the global Islamist upheaval--the Iranian revolutionaries of 1979, the Saudi Wahhabi milieu from which al Qaeda emerged, and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood--the Taliban mainly elicits Western guesswork and groping at a strategic response, rather than historical reflection and hard analysis. This failure is aggravated by presentiments of the horrors that may come if Pakistan falls. Terror terrorizes, after all. (Weeklystandard)

On ‘Torture,’ Holder Undoes Holder-Andrew C. McCarthy
The attorney general reveals his legal ignorance — or, his willful inconsistency. There was a little noticed bombshell in Washington’s waterboarding melodrama last week. And it wasn’t Nancy Pelosi’s implosion in a Capitol Hill press room, where she yet again tried to explain her inexplicable failure to protest the CIA’s “torturing” of detainees. No, this one detonated in the hearing room of the House Judiciary Committee. There, Attorney General Eric Holder inadvertently destroyed the warped basis for his claim that waterboarding, as administered by the CIA, amounted to torture. As originally reported by Connie Hair of Human Events, Holder’s undoing was the result of deft questioning by two committee Republicans: Dan Lungren, California’s former state attorney general, and Louie Gohmert, the former chief judge of a Texas appeals court. The two congressmen highlighted a fatal flaw in Holder’s theory. Moreover, they demonstrated that — despite having accused the CIA and the Bush administration of war crimes by cavalierly branding waterboarding as “torture” — the attorney general has still not acquainted himself with the legal elements of a torture offense, particularly the required mental state. (Nationalreview)

Schoolboys identified as potential terrorists-David Barrett, Home Affairs Correspondent
Two schoolboys were identified as potential terrorists after they boasted during a chemistry lesson that they had been making bombs at home. The Muslim children aged 14 and 15 were among 228 cases which have been dealt with by a programme which aims to identify people who are vulnerable to Islamist violent extremism, and other types of ideological violence. In another case, a primary school pupil was referred to the programme after concerns were raised with police, becoming the youngest person yet linked with potential terrorism in Britain. He was believed to be aged 10 or 11, but the nature of the behaviour which first raised concerns has not been disclosed. The Channel Project is now being expanded to 17 new areas of the country after being piloted in 11 sites in London, West Yorkshire and Lancashire. (Telegraph.co.uk)

Gov't Warns Israelis to Beware Internet Terrorists-Hana Levi Julian
(IsraelNN.com) A day after Israel National News published an article about the potential for internet terrorism on the Facebook social networking site, the Prime Minister’s Office has issued an unusual warning to Israeli citizens and residents, telling them to beware of terrorists who try to snare unwary users through the internet.
Israelis were strongly urged Tuesday in a detailed, specific warning to be alert to suspicious internet or telephone appeals by unfamiliar people, especially when accompanied by tempting promises of payment or employment abroad.“Recent reports indicate new trends in terrorist activity on the internet beyond collecting information posted by Israelis,” said the statement released to the media. “These include direct and concrete appeals and proposals to Israeli citizens, especially those active in social networks, to become involved in terrorist activity or pass along classified information in return for payment.”A number of Israeli citizens and residents have landed in court after being recruited by terrorist organizations and becoming internet operatives, said the PMO. The organizations actively scan Israeli sites as well as other social networks in which Israelis are active. Veterans of classified IDF units are particularly attractive targets, inasmuch as they possess classified information on security targets in the Jewish State. (INN)

Arms From U.S. May Be Falling Into Taliban Hands-C.J. Chivers
KABUL, Afghanistan — Insurgents in Afghanistan, fighting from some of the poorest and most remote regions on earth, have managed for years to maintain an intensive guerrilla war against materially superior American and Afghan forces. Arms and ordnance collected from dead insurgents hint at one possible reason: Of 30 rifle magazines recently taken from insurgents’ corpses, at least 17 contained cartridges, or rounds, identical to ammunition the United States had provided to Afghan government forces, according to an examination of ammunition markings by The New York Times and interviews with American officers and arms dealers. The presence of this ammunition among the dead in the Korangal Valley, an area of often fierce fighting near Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan, strongly suggests that munitions procured by the Pentagon have leaked from Afghan forces for use against American troops. The scope of that diversion remains unknown, and the 30 magazines represented a single sampling of fewer than 1,000 cartridges. But military officials, arms analysts and dealers say it points to a worrisome possibility: With only spotty American and Afghan controls on the vast inventory of weapons and ammunition sent into Afghanistan during an eight-year conflict, poor discipline and outright corruption among Afghan forces may have helped insurgents stay supplied. (Nytimes)

Radical Muslims guilty of firebomb plot on publisher of Prophet Mohammed book- Adam Fresco, Crime Correspondent
A radical Muslim who dressed his baby daughter in a hat with “I love al-Qaeda” on it tried to firebomb the home of the publisher of a controversial novel about the Prophet Mohammed. Ali Beheshti, 40, along with Abrar Mirza, 22, have admitted conspiracy to recklessly damage property and endanger life after they poured diesel through the letterbox of a publishing house in Islington, North London. Abbas Taj, 30, a mini-cab driver, was found guilty at Croydon Crown court of conspiracy to firebomb the home of Martin Rynja, the publisher of The Jewel Of Medina. He was to be the getaway driver, but was stopped in his car and arrested by armed police near Angel Tube station in the early hours in September last year, just after they had set fire to the premises. Officers had been watching the three men in an “intelligence led” surveillance operation. Beheshti’s 20-month-old daughter, Farisa, was pictured wearing the hat when he took her along to a protest against Danish cartoons of the prophet Mohammed and proudly called her “the youngest member of al-Qaeda”. He waved banners vowing to “Massacre those who insult Islam” and promising “Europe, your 9/11 will come!” During the protests in 2006 he called himself Abu Jihad — meaning holy war. The three men began their attack when publisher Mr Rynja was preparing to release The Jewel Of Medina, a novel about the Prophet Mohammed and the life of his child bride, Aisha. (Timesonline.co.uk)

Get Ready for Another North Korean Nuke Test-John R. Bolton
Iran could soon be following Pyongyang's example. The curtain is about to rise again on the long-running nuclear tragicomedy, "North Korea Outwits the United States." Despite Kim Jong Il's explicit threats of another nuclear test, U.S. Special Envoy Stephen Bosworth said last week that the Obama administration is "relatively relaxed" and that "there is not a sense of crisis." They're certainly smiling in Pyongyang. In October 2006, North Korea witnessed the incredible diplomatic success it could reap from belligerence. Its first nuclear test brought resumption of the six-party talks, which gave Kim Jong Il cover to further advance his nuclear program. Now, Kim is poised to succeed again by following precisely the same script. In April, Pyongyang launched a Taepodong-2 missile, and National Security Council official Gary Samore recently confirmed that a second nuclear test is likely on the way. The North is set to try two U.S. reporters for "hostile acts." The state-controlled newspaper calls America "a rogue and a gangster." (WSJ)

Belgium stands alone in its defence of Europe-Luuk van Middelaar
Belgian politicians are increasingly on their own in their almost religious defence of bigger, bolder Europe, argues Luuk van Middelaar. The other day on the Dutch TV talk show Pauw & Witteman, a huge political gap was revealed in the political landscape of the low countries. Guy Verhofstadt, the former Belgian prime minister who is now running for the European parliament, was explaining how only Europe can save the world from the financial crisis. More Europe was needed, Verhofstadt said, not less. An Obama-style plan on a European scale, led by a European economic government, is how he argues it in his new book, The way out of the crisis.
More Europe? Both interviewers looked at him with complete bewilderment. It is a stance often taken by interviewers for dramatic effect, but this time the hosts didn't even need to act: they were genuinely amazed. More Europe? Surely that was the exact opposite of what people wanted? Didn't the people take every opportunity given to them to vote against Europe? To make their point, the hosts invited Verhofstadt to watch a cascade of images of no-voters in France, the Netherlands and Ireland in referenda on the European constitution in 2005 and 2008. And didn't Europe's political leaders themselves want less rather than more Europe? Both Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel got into a nationalist frenzy over the credit crisis. (Nrc.nl)

Europe’s Helping Hand To Female Genital Mutilation-Jamie Glazov
Frontpage Interview's guest is Ines Laufer, founder of the Task Force for Effective Prevention of Female Genital Mutilation, a network of Human-Rights-organisations and activists that is committed to measurable, broad prevention of genital mutilation among migrant girls in the EU. With the Task Force's prevention-programme, for the first time true protection of minor girls from this violence comes into reach.
FP: Ines Laufer, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
I would like to build on our last interview about your efforts to save migrant girls in Europe from FGM (Female Genital Mutilation). Can you talk a bit about the situation in African, Arabian and Asian countries and how female genital mutilation is affected their by European development policies?
Laufer: European governmental and non-governmental development-policy widely undermines and hinders the efforts to eradicate FGM in African/Arab/Asian countries.
Since the early 1980’s, there have been numerous initiatives, networks and organisations on the African continent that are committed to the eradication of FGM in their countries. The largest network - that is still active today - is the InterAfrican Committé (IAC) which was founded in 1984. At that time, the majority of development-agencies, as well as the WorldHealthOrganisation, UNICEF and other UN-agencies, refused to put the problem of FGM on their agenda and to support initiatives like the IAC, because they did not want to “interfere into a cultural custom.” In the 1990s, organisations like UNICEF realised that FGM is very well suited to be exploited for raising funds. They created projects and called for generous donations within the Western population. It worked. For instance, to UNICEF Germany, the German people donated more than half a million D-Mark alone in 1994, for a FGM-project in Ethiopia – after a TV-broadcast and big article in STERN-magazine witnessed the live-mutilation of an Ethiopian girl-victim. (Frontpagemag)

Uncle Sam Will Give You an Energy 'Allowance'-Christopher C. Horner
On Friday, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Beverly Hills) released the closely-held details of his bill rationing energy use in the name of global warming, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES). The details had been kept secret for two reasons. First, Waxman had been working desperately to buy off key Democrats on his own committee -- such as Virginia’s Rick Boucher and Michigan’s John Dingell -- whose states would suffer hugely under the “cap and tax” scheme, plus others with energy-intensive employers in their districts. He succeeded by, in short, giving energy use ration coupons to select employers for resale to some poor saps without Washington lobbyists. And before those lawmakers were bought off with targeted limitations of the bill’s effects, it was impossible to assess the bill’s cost, leaving us only with the president’s guidance uttered when he let on to this agenda item: “Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.” That was an uncharacteristic expression of modesty because cap-and-trade actually will cause the cost of gasoline to skyrocket, too, and increase the cost of everything that uses energy in its production. Which is everything. And the only difference between Obama’s plan and Waxman’s is that Waxman bought votes by giving away many of the ration coupons; either way, Obama’s budget director Peter Orszag has serially admitted, it is you the consumer and ratepayer who will pay. (Humanevents)

Early Skeleton Sheds Light on Primate Evolution-AP
NEW YORK (AP) -- The nearly complete and remarkably preserved skeleton of a small, 47 million-year-old creature found in Germany was displayed Tuesday by scientists who said it would help illuminate the evolutionary roots of monkeys, apes and humans. Experts praised the discovery for the level of detail it provided but said it was far from a breakthrough that would solve the puzzles of early evolution. About the size of a small cat, the animal has four legs and a long tail. Nobody is claiming that it's a direct ancestor of monkeys and humans, but it provides a good indication of what a long-ago ancestor may have looked like, researchers said at a news conference. In an evolutionary sense, the fossil is like an aunt from several generations ago, said Jens Franzen of the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt, Germany. The fossil is the best preserved ever found for a primate, said Jorn Hurum, of the University of Oslo Natural History Museum, one of the scientists introducing the specimen. It's about 95 percent complete, even including fingertips with nails, and lacks only the lower portion of one leg, Hurum said. It also includes gut contents, showing the creature ate leaves and fruit in its rainforest environment. Experts not connected with the discovery said the finding was remarkably complete because of features like stomach contents. But they questioned the conclusions of Hurum and his colleagues about how closely it is related to ancestors of monkeys and humans. (Nytimes)

BB King interview: the last of the great bluesmen-Mick Brown
BB King played and sang his way out of the cotton fields of the Mississippi Delta – and never stopped. Now 83, with one farewell tour already a distant memory, the journey goes on. BB King sits back on the tan leather banquette, legs splayed, plump fingers resting on his knee, diamond rings sparkling under the light. 'There’s no hurry,’ he says. King has spent a lifetime on the road. In the old days – 40 or 50 years ago – he would tour more than 300 days a year, grinding across the highways and two-lane blacktops of America, playing the black theatres and road-houses on what was known as the chitlin’ circuit; for the past 30 years the itinerary has included Europe, Australia, the Far East. Now that King is 83, the schedule is necessarily more relaxed. But the bus is where he feels most comfortable – the closest thing, perhaps, to home, and the bus is where BB King chooses to hold court. We have been talking for more than an hour in the car-park of the Canyon Club in the Los Angeles suburb of Agoura Hills, where King is playing tonight, when there is a knock at the door. 'Who is it?’ he says. The door opens to reveal a tall, slim black man smartly dressed in a suit and snap-brim hat. 'Number one,’ the man says, pulling the door closed behind him. King nods. 'That means the band’s on stage, doing their first number.’ Your band? I ask. 'Uh-huh.’ I reach forward to turn off the tape-recorder. 'There’s no hurry,’ King says. 'We got plenty of time yet.’ (Telegraph.co.uk)