From TownHall.com...

Michael Youssef  

Turmoil in Egypt is a Real Threat to Israel

On the first night of the so-called “Arab Spring” in Egypt, I sat for three hours at a desk at CNN (video at the end of the article). That night, I did my best to convince an inexperienced, and not very knowledgeable young anchor that this was not the kind of democracy that he and all those in the liberal Western press were making it out to be.

Given my first-hand knowledge of the situation, both empirically and academically, I sought to give him and his viewers a distinct picture of what would unfold. I warned that Islamists would soon sweep these well-meaning young people under the Egyptian sand.

Here we are, nearly eight months later, and I have never been invited back to CNN because they know I have every right to say, “I told you so.”

What was about to happen was apparent to those of us who have watched Islamists who, for years, were salivating to destroy public enemy number one in the Arab world, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. For years they have longed to destroy the Egyptian peace treaty with Israel for which Mubarak was a guardian. As they waited, they quietly organized while supporting and supplying Hamas behind the scenes.

To be sure, the hard work and heavy price of the uprising was paid for not by the Islamists, but by a small group of genuine liberals from among Egypt’s educated young people. The Islamists watched from the shadows while some of these young people paid the ultimate price and died for the revolution. Once the revolution succeeded and Mubarak resigned, the Islamists came out of hiding and began flexing their muscles and are now running the country through intimidation and fear. Sadly, for some of us, but not the Obama administration, this was expected.

Today the Salafists, who are heavily funded by their fellow Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia, are literally forcing a weak and ineffective government’s hand to appoint cabinet members and governors who are sympathetic to them.

All of this is taking place under the watchful eye of the wavering Egyptian army who has prosecuted civilians who criticize them while Islamists and the criminal elements in society are exercising true power. The Egyptian army’s main focus in the last eight months has been to rebuild the army’s multi-billion dollar businesses that were undermined by Jamal Mubarak and his new entrepreneurial class, all of whom are now under arrest with the former president.

However, the unintended consequence of the army’s passivity and decriminalizing of Al-Qaeda and Islamic terrorist elements is that jihad fighters have moved in force into the Sinai Desert from Afghanistan, Yemen, and Gaza. One Egyptian newspaper estimated that at least 6,000 Al-Qaeda fighters are now in Sinai.

First, they overwhelmed the police and took their weapons and now they are reaching their longed for goal –to attack Israel.

On August 17, 2011, some of these Al-Qaeda fighters crossed the Egyptian-Israeli border, reportedly dressed in Egyptian army uniforms. They killed eight Israeli bus passengers and wounded 44 more. Israel mistakenly killed three Egyptian soldiers in the confusion and crossfire, inciting the wrath of a mass of Islamists in front of the Israeli Embassy in Egypt. There they demanded the end of diplomatic relations with Israel.

Finally, the Egyptian army moved into Sinai, breaking the spirit of the Camp David agreement in order to “quell the unrest.” Still, Al-Qaeda is daily increasing in number in the Sinai desert, posing a real serious threat to Israel.

So the question is this: Does the Egyptian army have the will and the stomach to fight the thousands of Al-Qaeda fighters who have the support of millions of Islamists in Egypt, especially now that they see their goal of menacing Israel is in sight? This is going to be the ultimate test for the Egyptian army who has been funded for years by billions of American tax dollars.

Where is the Obama administration that was quick to turn their backs on one of America's oldest and most loyal Arab leaders? Oh yes, they condemned the attack on Israel. How noble!! The American administration needs to be more forceful in its fight against terrorism, regardless of where it originates.

Michael Youssef

Michael Youssef, PhD is an Egyptian-born American and founding rector of The Church of The Apostles. His messages are broadcast 3800 times a week into 200 countries through Leading The Way Ministries. He holds a PhD from Emory University in Social Anthropology. 

PLEASE HELP ME UNDERSTAND THIS...

I am baffled!  I just don't get it!  After Israeli civilians are brutally murdered by a cell that entered Israel from the Egyptian Sinai belonging to The Popular Resistance Committees, a loosely held Gaza-based terror group with clear ties to the Hamas, Israel retaliates by rapidly organizing a surgical strike on the leader of the PRC's military wing.  He and several of his henchmen were killed...forestalling perhaps in some small way future attacks on innocent Israeli lives.  The tragedy was that, unbeknownst to the Israelis, these savages who ordered the attack that murdered 8 innocent civilian lives had a 9-year old child with them…even after it was well known that Israel had targeted them for retaliation.  Why was a 9-year old child with these known terrorists who were attempting to hide from the IDF?

Nabil Shaath and Saeb Erekat, senior PA members CONDEMNED ISRAEL for, of all things, using these attacks in an attempt to thwart the PA's statehood bid and WARNED ISRAEL that there will be consequences of any reprisal against the terrorists.

There is an old Hebrew word: CHUTZPAH - meaning "insolence", "audacity", and "impertinence"!  Believe me, we all wish that ALL the killing would stop (at least Israelis and those non-Israelis who have any veneer of sanity).  We all wish that everyone could live in peace in this Holy Land.  But, as long as those who are the vilest of individuals continue to INTENTIONALLY attack the innocent, there is no opportunity for such a dream.  Any attempt at creating even a semblance of moral equivalency between what the terrorists did and the attempt at focused retaliation by the IDF is not only a prevarication, but absolutely unconscionable.

What is mind-boggling to me is the audacity of the PA leadership to instantly turn this around and vilify Israel's retaliatory response with no attempt at framing the issue at all by the murderous rampage of their fellow “Palestinians”.  Please, help me understand this.  And to think, the red carpet is being laid out as we speak for entrance into the hall of shame known as the United Nations for these impenitent so-called leaders.  There is NO JUSTIFICATION for the cowardly and senseless murder of innocent civilians, no matter what the cause.  There is EVERY JUSTIFICATION for the attempt at an immediate and precise response by those who are called to protect the innocent while making every attempt at minimizing collateral injury.

We should never stop praying for the Peace of Jerusalem...and I never will.  But, how can there be faithful and expectant negotiations for a true and lasting peace with a non-partner such as this?  There is no fathomable attempt at logic that can create a foundation for negotiations with this kind of mind-set - NONE.  Hence, unless there is a fundamental...and I mean a deeply principled and axiomatic alteration in the dogma and moral fiber of the general Arab population of this region AND its leaders, it seems to me impossible without some miraculous intervention for anything approaching peace and security to be established today.

It is sickening.  It is disgusting.  And, what's worse is that, if you look at the worldwide press, there is a clear minimization of the terrorist attack with clear mounting anti-Israel sentiment as a result of their very appropriate and ethically substantive response.

The Y-NET article on the Palestinian Authority's derisory rhetoric follows:

Shaath: Israel's madness will not deter us

Expressing sharp criticism of IDF response to Thursday's terror attacks, senior Fatah official Nabil Shaath says Israel bears full responsibility for escalation, consequences: 'This is war crime'

Elior Levy

Published: 08.19.11, 13:58 / Israel News

Following Israel's assassination of two senior members of the Popular Resistance Committees' military wing on Thursday, senior Fatah official Nabil Shaath expressed sharp criticism of Israel's actions in Gaza.

According to Shaath, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is interested in military escalation in the Strip in a bid to divert attention from the socio-economic crisis in Israel.

He further accused Israel of seeking regional escalation in order to torpedo Palestinian efforts vis-à-vis the United Nations in September. "Israel's madness will not deter the Palestinian leadership from appealing to the UN, the opposite is true, and it will push the leadership to work harder in its efforts."

In a press release on Friday Shaath alleged that Israel was looking for an excuse to carry out collective punishment against the Palestinian people saying: "This is a war crime aimed at causing efforts by the Palestinian Authority and other factions to avoid armed conflict to fail.
Shaath has called on the international community to act swiftly to stop what he calls "Israeli aggression". He further noted that Israel bears full responsibility for what is happening and the consequences that could drag the entire region into the unknown.

The Fatah Foreign Relations Commission stated that since the escalation, Shaath has held deliberations with foreign officials "in order to explain the truth about what is happening and explain the aims behind Israel's aggression against Gaza".
The Hamas interior ministry in Gaza announced that it is prepared for any new Israeli military escalation in the Gaza Strip. Ministry spokesman Ihab al-Rasin said that "the interior ministry and the security forces are prepared to deal with any Israeli escalation.

"In spite of the occupation's attempt to bring us to our knees – we will not raise the white flag. We promise our people that we are not afraid of the threats and will remain steadfast on our land."

Caroline Glick: Norway's Jewish problem

In the wake of Anders Breivik's massacre of his fellow Norwegians, I was amazed at the speed with which the leftist media throughout the US and Europe used his crime as a means of criminalizing their ideological opponents on the Right. Just hours after Breivik's identity was reported, leftist media outlets and blogs were filled with attempts to blame Breivik's crime on conservative public intellectuals whose ideas he cited in a 1,500 page online manifesto.

My revulsion at this bald attempt to use Breivik's crime to attack freedom of speech propelled me to write my July 29 column, "Breivik and totalitarian democrats."

While the focus of my column was the Left's attempt to silence their conservative opponents, I also noted that widespread popular support for Palestinian terrorists in Norway indicates that for many Norwegians, opposition to terrorism is less than comprehensive.

To support this position, I quoted an interview in Maariv with Norway's Ambassador to Israel Svein Sevje.

Sevje explained that most Norwegians think that the Palestinians' opposition to the supposed Israeli "occupation" is justified and so their lack of sympathy for Israeli victims of Palestinian terrorism was unlikely to change in the wake of Breivik's attack on Norwegians.

Since my column was a defense of free speech and a general explanation of why terrorism is antithetical to the foundations of liberal democracy - regardless of its ideological motivations - I did not focus my attention on Norwegian society. I did not discuss Norwegian anti- Semitism or anti-Zionism. Indeed, I purposely ignored these issues.

But when on Friday, Norway's Deputy Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide published an unjustified attack on me on these pages, he forced me to take the time to study the intellectual and political climate of hatred towards Israel and Jews that pervades Norwegian society.

That climate is not a contemporary development. Rather it has been a mainstay of Norwegian society.

In a 2006 report on Jew hatred in contemporary Norwegian caricatures published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Erez Uriely noted among other things that Norway banned kosher ritual slaughter in 1929 - three years before a similar ban was instituted in Nazi Germany.

And whereas the ban on kosher ritual slaughter was lifted in post-war Germany, it was never abrogated in Norway.

As Uriely noted, Norway's prohibition on Jewish ritual slaughter makes Judaism the only religion that cannot be freely practiced in Norway.

Fascism was deeply popular in Norway in the 1930s. In the wake of the Nazi invasion, Norwegian governmental leaders founded and joined the Norwegian Nazi Party. Apparently, sympathy for Nazi collaborators is strong today in Norway.

As the JCPA's Manfred Gerstenfeld noted in a report on the rise in Norwegian anti-Semitic attacks during 2009, two years ago the Norwegian government allocated more than $20 million in public funds to commemorate Norwegian novelist Knut Hamsun on the occasion of the Nobel laureate for literature's 150th birthday. As The New York Times reported, in February 2009, Norway's Queen Sonja opened the, "year-long, publicly financed commemoration of Hamsun's 150th birthday called 'Hamsun 2009.'"

But while Hamsun may have been a good writer, he is better remembered for being an enthusiastic Nazi. Hamsun gave his Nobel prize to Nazi propaganda chief Josef Goebbels. During a wartime visit to Germany, Hamsun flew to meet Adolf Hitler at Hitler's mountain home in Bavaria.

And in 2009, Norway built a $20 million museum to honor his achievements.

As Uriely explained in his report, "Norwegian anti- Semitism does not come from the grassroots but from the leadership - politicians, organization leaders, church leaders, and senior journalists. It does not come from Muslims but from the European-Christian society."

Despite indignant claims that the two are unrelated, Norway's elite anti-Semitism merges seamlessly with their anti-Zionism. An apparently unwitting example of this fusion is found in Eide's attack against me in last Friday's Post.

Eide's attack on me revolved around my citation of Ambassador Sevje's interview with Maariv. In his column Eide wrote, "Several other Israeli media have latched on to this [interview] as well."

While this may be true, I first learned of Sevje's interview in the US media. Specifically, I read about the interview at Commentary Magazine's website, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency's website, and the website of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) before I read the original interview on Maariv's website.

Commentary, JTA and CAMERA are not Israeli organizations or outlets. They are Jewish American organizations and outlets. Eide's conflation of them with the "Israeli media" indicates that the deputy minister has a hard time separating Jews from Israelis, (and by extension, Jew hatred from Israel hatred).

One of the Jewish Americans who attacked the Norwegian ambassador's willingness to distinguish between Palestinian terrorist murderers of Israelis and Breivik's terrorist murder of Norwegians was Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz. Dershowitz said, "I know of no reasonable person who has tried to justify the terrorist attacks against Norway. Yet there are many Norwegians who not only justify terrorist attacks against Israel, but praise them, support them, help finance them and legitimate them."

In March Dershowitz experienced Norway's elite anti- Semitism-qua-anti-Zionism firsthand. Dershowitz was brought to Norway by a pro-Israel group to conduct lectures at three Norwegian universities. All three university administrations refused to invite him to speak. Student groups acting independently of their university administrations in the end invited Dershowitz to give his lectures.

As Dershowitz explained in a Wall Street Journal article, he was the victim of an unofficial Norwegian university boycott of Israeli universities. The unofficial boycott is so extensive that it bans not only Israeli academics, but non-Israeli, Jewish academics that are pro-Israel.

And lest someone believe Norway's anti-Jewish boycott is due to the so-called "occupation," as Dershowitz pointed out, the petition calling for an academic boycott of Israel begins, "Since 1948 the state of Israel has occupied Palestinian land."

The Norwegian elite's rejection of Israel's right to exist, and ban on pro-Israel Jewish speakers from university campuses goes a long way in explaining Norway's support for Hamas. If Norway's opposition to Israel was merely due to its size, rather than its very existence, it would be difficult to understand why Norway maintains friendly contact with Hamas. Hamas is after all a genocidal, terrorist group, which like the Nazis seeks the annihilation of the Jewish people as a whole. Yet Norway's Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store wrote an article justifying his relations with Hamas as in line with Norway's embrace of "dialogue."

As Store's deputy Eide's unrestrained and unjustified attack against me, and as Norway's academic - and to a large degree media - boycott of pro-Israel voices make clear, Norway's embrace of dialogue is as selective as its condemnation of terrorism.

Here we should recall that Norway's ruling class supported Hamas against Israel in Operation Cast Lead.

Israel's dovish Kadima government only began the operation in Gaza because it had no choice. For months then prime minister Ehud Olmert sat on his hands as southern Israel was pummeled with unprovoked barrages of thousands of missiles and rockets from Gaza. Olmert was forced to take action after Hamas massively escalated its rocket and missile attacks in November and early December 2008.

While silent about Palestinian aggression, Norway's government attacked Israel for defending itself. As Store put it, "The Israeli ground offensive in Gaza constitutes a dramatic escalation of the conflict. Norway strongly condemns any form of warfare that causes severe civilian suffering, and calls on Israel to withdraw its forces immediately."

Two of Store's associates, Eric Fosse and Mads Gilbert, decamped to Gaza during Cast Lead and set up shop in Shifa Hospital. The two were fixtures in the Norwegian media, which constantly interviewed them throughout the conflict, and so spread their libelous charges against the IDF without question.

Fosse and Gilbert never mentioned that Hamas's high command was located at the hospital in open breach of the laws of war.

When they returned home, they co-authored a book in which they accused the IDF of entering Gaza with the express goal of murdering women and children.

Store wrote a blurb of endorsement on the book's back cover.

Store visited Israel in January. During his visit he gave an interview to the Post where he ignored diplomatic protocol and attacked the Knesset's contemporaneous decision to form a parliamentary commission of inquiry into foreign funding of anti-Zionist Israeli NGOs.

The basic rationale for the commission was that Israelis have a right to know that many purportedly Israeli groups are actually foreign organizations staffed by local Israelis. And many of the most virulently anti-Zionist NGOs staffed by Israelis operating in Israel are funded by the Norwegian government. Store arrogantly opined, "I think it is a worrying sign" about the state of Israeli democracy.

During Operation Cast Lead, Oslo was the scene of unprecedented anti-Semitic rioting. According to Eirik Eiglad, protesters who participated in anti-Israel demonstrations - and even a supposedly pro-peace demonstration - called out "Kill the Jews" and attacked policemen who tried to prevent them from rioting. Demonstrators at a pro-Israel demonstration were beaten. The Israeli embassy was threatened. Pro-Israel politicians who participated in the pro-Israel rally were beaten and received death threats.

It is a fact that the day before Breivik's massacre of teenagers at the Labor Party's youth camp on Utoya Island, Store spoke to them about the need to destroy Israel's security fence. The campers role-played pro- Hamas activists breaking international law by challenging Israel's lawful maritime blockade of the Gaza coastline.

They held signs calling for a boycott of Israel.

Despite their obvious animosity towards Israel and sympathy for genocidal, Jew hating Hamas terrorists, at no point did I or any of my Jerusalem Post colleagues do anything other than condemn completely Breivik's barbaric massacre of his fellow Norwegians. And yet, the Norwegian government attacked us for merely pointing out in various ways, that Norway should not use Breivik's attack as justification for further weakening Norwegian democracy.

Following the massacre, the Post published a well-argued, empathetic editorial making these general points. In response, the paper was deluged by unhinged attacks claiming that the editorial was insensitive and excused Breivik's crimes. In response, the Post published a follow-up editorial last Friday apologizing to the Norwegian people for the earlier editorial.

I was not consulted about this editorial ahead of time, and the editorial does not reflect my views. However I understand the moral impulse of not wishing to pour salt on anyone's wounds, which stood behind the decision to write it.

For my part, I will not request a similar apology from the Norwegian government for gratuitously attacking me. I will not request a similar apology from the Norwegian government and elites for libelously defaming my military, my country and my people. I will not request a similar apology from Norway for limiting Jews' freedom of religion in Norway. I will not request a similar apology from Norway for comparing Israel to Nazi Germany and celebrating Norwegian Nazis.

I will not request such an apology because there are certain actions that are simply unforgivable.

Tags: Foreign Affairs , Israel , Norway , Anders Breivik

Caroline Glick

Caroline B. Glick is the senior Middle East fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C., and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post, where this article first appeared.

A nightmare that never ends

Frimet Roth - The Jerusalem Post,  August 8th, 2011

This week marks a decade since my daughter, Malki, was murdered in one of the bloodiest terror attacks of the Second Intifada.

The day began for me with a crippling migraine.

While I lay down to recuperate, Malki came to my bedroom door. She and her friend, Michal, offered to take my youngest child, Chaya (who is blind and severely disabled) for a walk. Malki was devoted to her sister. but the heat was oppressive, so I said: “Thanks, but how about later on, when it’s cooler?” The headache was so bad that I said good-bye to them without opening my eyes.

Malki phoned an hour later. “We’ve finished decorating our friend’s room to welcome her home” she said, “Now I’m going to that camp counselors’ meeting in Talpiot. I love you. Bye.”

Her last words were routine. We often ended our chats that way.

Forty five minutes later, I heard a CNN newsflash about a terror attack in downtown Jerusalem. I burst into tears, but not out of fear for Malki’s safety. After all, she had gone to Talpiot. And she had a cellphone, so I would be able reach her.

I was worried about my other two children, who had gone shopping in the capital’s Givat Shaul neighborhood without a phone.

When they returned, I hugged them tightly. Then I dialed Malki’s number again and again. I dialed while I drove to pick up my soldier son, who had been released for his first weekend furlough.

He pointed out that many cell connections were still down. Hopeful, I dialed some more.

After we returned, Michal’s mother, Avivah, called us to say she couldn’t reach Michal either. Soon afterwards, one of their friends notified us that the girls had stopped in at Sbarro’s.

Dread seized my heart.

Avivah suggested we drive to Shaarei Zedek hospital to search among the wounded. On the way, Michal’s sister called us to say Malki had not arrived at the counselors’ meeting. I burst into tears. Hope waned.

Avivah and I separated on arrival at the hospital. I was ushered into an office where I was handed a phone. Somebody at the Abu Kabir morgue – the government pathology center in Yafo – wanted a description of Malki and of the clothes she was wearing . I told the woman I hadn’t actually seen Malki that day. She said there was no-one there matching the description I gave.

I later learned that Avivah had found Michal dead on a gurney in a hospital corridor.

That night, my husband and sons worked the phones, contacting Jerusalem’s other hospitals as well as people who might help. Some friends told me tales they had heard of trauma victims who wandered the streets in shock for hours. But I knew by then that Malki was not wandering anywhere.

Still, I recited Psalms along with our family and friends.

Toward midnight, my husband followed a lead that led nowhere and came home with the message that the city’s social work department was arranging for someone from the family to go to Abu Kabir.

It fell to my two eldest sons. I have no idea why my husband and I did not go. It’s a decision I still regret.

An hour later they phoned. I watched my husband answer the call, saw his face drop, and knew our world had been destroyed forever.

THE MOURNING of parents for a murdered child never heals or fades. Forget the hackneyed jargon: “reaching closure”, “moving on”, “making lemonade from lemons,” “what doesn’t break you only strengthens you,” “celebrate the life rather than the death”, etc., etc.

They just don’t apply.

But in Israel, murder by terrorism engenders unique complications.

We know that Malki’s murderer, Ahlam Tamimi – who planned the attack, and brought the bomb and the bomber to the target she had chosen – may one day return, triumphant, to her home in Ramallah. The act she committed, to which she confessed and of which she was convicted, is somehow not considered barbaric enough to ensure that the 16 life terms to which she was sentenced will stand.

The court’s verdict is in danger of being overturned by a handful of Israeli politicians. Media reports say Hamas demands Tamimi’s freedom, along with hundreds of other terrorists, in a deal to free kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.

Tamimi decimated an entire family.

A mother, a father and three of their eight children were among the 15 she murdered. Another victim, in the fifth month of her first pregnancy, was her parents’ only child.

Who can possibly fathom their pain? One victim, not even counted among the dead, has remained in a coma for 10 years. Her daughter, then two years old, has grown up motherless; her husband effectively widowed.

The demands of victims’ families are too often dismissed as primitive vengefulness. Our voices carry little weight in negotiations for prisoner releases. The one “concession” made to us is the government’s publicizing of the prisoners’ names 48 hours before they walk free. High Court appeals filed by victims’ families within such time constraints have always failed.

Since the Fogel family murders last March, capital punishment has been suggested as a means of combating the releases of barbaric murderers. I favor life imprisonment with harsh conditions and without parole for Tamimi, who cockily declared in 2006: “I’m not sorry for what I did. I will get out of prison.”

Anything less trivializes the lives of her victims.

Will the knowledge that Malki’s murderer remains behind bars ease the longing to hug my angel again, to caress her silky hair and kiss her soft cheek? No. But her release would intensify my pain immeasurably.

Frimet Roth is a freelance writer based in Jerusalem. Her daughter, Malki, was murdered at the age of 15 in the Sbarro restaurant bombing (2001). She and her husband subsequently founded the Malki Foundation (www.kerenmalki.org), which provides concrete support for Israeli families of all faiths who care for a special-needs child.

Carolyn Glick from JPost: Obama's Only Policy

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has explained repeatedly over the years that Israel has no Palestinian partner to negotiate with. So news reports this week that Netanyahu agreed that the 1949 armistice lines, (commonly misrepresented as the 1967 borders), will be mentioned in terms of reference for future negotiations with the Palestinian Authority seemed to come out of nowhere.

Israel has no one to negotiate with because the Palestinians reject Israel's right to exist. This much was made clear yet again last month when senior PA "negotiator" Nabil Sha'ath said in an interview with Arabic News Broadcast, "The story of 'two states for two peoples' means that there will be a Jewish people over there and a Palestinian people here. We will never accept this."

Given the Palestinians' position, it is obvious that Netanyahu is right. There is absolutely no chance whatsoever that Israel and the PA will reach any peace deal in the foreseeable future. Add to this the fact that the Hamas terror group controls Gaza and will likely win any new Palestinian elections just as it won the last elections, and the entire exercise in finding the right formula for restarting negotiations is exposed as a complete farce.

So why is Israel engaging in these discussions?

The only logical answer is to placate US President Barack Obama.

For the past several months, most observers have been operating under the assumption that Obama will use the US's veto at the UN Security Council to defeat the Palestinians' bid next month to receive UN membership as independent Palestine. But the fact of the matter is that no senior administration official has stated unequivocally, on record that the US will veto a UN Security Council resolution recommending UN membership for Palestine.

Given US congressional and public support for Israel, it is likely that at the end of the day, Obama will veto such a resolution. But the fact that the President has abstained to date from stating openly that he will veto it makes clear that Obama expects Israel to "earn" a US veto by bowing to his demands.

These demands include abandoning Israel's position that it must retain defensible borders in any peace deal with the Palestinians. Since defensible borders require Israel to retain control over the Jordan Valley and the Samarian hills, there is no way to accept the 1949 armistice lines as a basis for negotiations without surrendering defensible borders.

SAY WHAT you will about Obama's policy, at least it's a policy. Obama uses US power and leverage against Israel in order to force Israel to bow to his will.

What makes Obama's Israel policy notable is not simply that it involves betraying the US's most steadfast ally in the Middle East. After all, since taking office Obama has made a habit of betraying US allies.

Obama's Israel policy is notable because it is a policy. Obama has a clear, consistent goal of cutting Israel down to size. Since assuming office, Obama has taken concrete steps to achieve this aim.

And those steps have achieved results. Obama forced Netanyahu to make Palestinian statehood an Israeli policy goal. He coerced Netanyahu into temporarily abrogating Jewish property rights in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. And now he is forcing Netanyahu to pretend the 1949 armistice lines are something Israel can accept.

Obama has not adopted a similarly clear, consistent policy towards any other nation in the region. In Egypt, Syria, Iran, Turkey, Libya, and beyond, Obama has opted for attitude over policy. He has postured, preened, protested and pronounced on all the issues of the day.

But he has not made policy. And as a consequence, for better or for worse, he has transformed the US from a regional leader into a regional follower while empowering actors whose aims are not consonant with US interests.

SYRIA IS case and point. President Bashar Assad is the Iranian mullahs' lap dog. He is also a major sponsor of terrorism. In the decade since he succeeded his father, Assad Jr. has trained terrorists who have killed US forces in Iraq. He has provided a safe haven for al Qaeda terrorists. He has strengthened Syrian ties to Hezbollah. He has hosted Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian terror factions. He has proliferated nuclear weapons. He reputedly ordered the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.

Since March, Assad has been waging war against his fellow Syrians. By the end of this week, with his invasion of Hama, the civilian death toll will certainly top two thousand.

And how has Obama responded? He upgraded his protestations of displeasure with Assad from "unacceptable" to "appalling."

In the face of Assad's invasion of Hama, rather than construct a policy for overthrowing this murderous US enemy, the Obama administration has constructed excuses for doing nothing. Administration officials, including Obama's ambassador to Damascus Robert Ford, are claiming that the US has little leverage over Assad.

But this is ridiculous. Many in Congress and beyond are demanding that Obama withdraw Ford from Damascus. Some are calling for sanctions against Syria's energy sector. These steps may or may not be effective. Openly supporting, financing and arming Assad's political opponents would certainly be effective.

Many claim that the most powerful group opposing Assad is the Muslim Brotherhood. And there is probably some truth to that. At a minimum, the Brotherhood's strength has been tremendously augmented in recent months by Turkey.

Some have applauded the fact that Turkey has filled the leadership vacuum left by the Obama administration. They argue that Turkish Prime Minister Recip Erdogan can be trusted to ensure that Syria doesn't descend into a civil war.

What these observers fail to recognize is that Erdogan's interests in a post-Assad Syria have little in common with US interests. Erdogan will seek to ensure the continued disenfranchisement of Syria's Kurdish minority. And he will work towards the Islamification of Syria through the Muslim Brotherhood.

Today there is a coalition of Syrian opposition figures that include all ethnic groups in Syria. Their representatives have been banging the doors of the corridors of power in Washington and beyond. Yet the same Western leaders who were so eager to recognize the Libyan opposition despite the presence of al Qaeda terrorists in the opposition tent have refused to publicly embrace Syrian regime opponents that seek a democratic, federal Syria that will live at peace with Israel and embrace liberal policies.

This week Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held a private meeting with these brave democrats. Why didn't she hold a public meeting? Why hasn't Obama welcomed them to the White House?

By refusing to embrace liberal, multi-ethnic regime opponents, the administration is all but ensuring the success of the Turkish bid to install the Muslim Brotherhood in power if Assad is overthrown.

But then, embracing pro-Western Syrians would involve taking a stand and, in so doing, adopting a policy. And that is something the posturing president will not do. Obama is much happier pretending that empty statements from the UN Security Council amount to US "victories."

If he aims any lower his head will hit the floor.

OBAMA'S PREFERENCE for posture over policy is nothing new. It has been his standard operating procedure throughout the region. When the Iranian people rose up against their regime in June 2009 in the Green Revolution, Obama stood on the sidelines. As is his habit, he acted as though the job of the US president is to opine rather than lead. Then he sniffed that it wasn't nice at all that the regime was mowing down pro-democracy protesters in the streets of Teheran and beyond.

And ever since, Obama has remained on the sidelines as the mullahs took over Lebanon, build operational bases in Latin America, sprint to the nuclear finishing line, and consolidate their power in Iraq and Afghanistan.

On Wednesday the show trial began for longtime US ally former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and his sons. During last winter's popular uprising in Egypt, Obama's foes attacked him for refusing to abandon Mubarak immediately.

The reasons for maintaining US support for Mubarak were obvious: Mubarak had been the foundation of the US alliance structure with the Sunni Arab world for three decades. He had kept the peace with Israel. And his likely successor was the Muslim Brotherhood.

But Obama didn't respond to his critics with a defense of a coherent policy. Because his early refusal to betray Mubarak was not a policy. It was an attitude of cool detachment.

When Obama saw that it was becoming politically costly to maintain his attitude of detachment, he replaced it with a new one of righteous rage. And so he withdrew US support for Mubarak without ever thinking through the consequences of his actions. And now it isn't just Mubarak and his sons humiliated in a cage. It is their legacy of alliance with America.

Recognizing that Obama refuses to adopt or implement any policies on his own, Congress has tried to fill the gap. The House Foreign Affairs Committee recently passed a budget that would make US aid to Egypt, Lebanon, Yemen and the PA contingent on certification that no terrorist or extremist organization holds governmental power in these areas. Clinton issued a rapid rebuke of the House's budget and insisted it was unacceptable.

And this makes sense. Making US assistance to foreign countries contingent on assurances that the money won't fund US enemies would be a policy. And Obama doesn't make policy - except when it comes attacking to Israel.

In an interview with the New York Times on Thursday, Muammar Qaddafi's son Seif al-Islam Qaddafi said he and his father are negotiating a deal that would combine their forces with Islamist forces and reestablish order in the country. To a degree, the US's inability to overthrow Qaddafi - even by supporting an opposition coalition that includes al Qaeda - is the clearest proof that Obama has substituted attitude for policy everywhere except Israel.

Acting under a UN Security Council resolution and armed with a self-righteous doctrine of "Responsibility to Protect" Obama went to war against Qaddafi five months ago. But once the hard reality of war invaded his happy visions of Lone Rangers riding in on white stallions, Obama lost interest in Libya. He kept US forces in the battle, but gave them no clear goals to achieve. And so no goals have been achieved.

Meanwhile, Qaddafi's son feels free to meet the New York Times and mock America just by continuing to breathe in and out before the cameras as he sports a new Islamic beard and worry beads.

If nothing else, the waves of chaos, war and revolution sweeping through Arab lands make clear that the Arab conflict with Israel is but a sideshow in the Arab experience of tyranny, fanaticism, hope and betrayal. So it says a lot about Obama, that eight months after the first rebellion broke in Tunisia, his sole Middle East policy involves attacking Israel.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Obama, Al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood

By David Meir-Levi - FrontPage Magazine,  August 1st, 2011

On July 15, without much fanfare, and barely a few lines in the New York Times, President Obama​ formally recognized the rebel leadership in Libya, the Transitional National Council (TNC), as the country’s legitimate government.  This American recognition is no formality, and far more than merely an encouraging pat on the back to the rebel forces.  This recognition allows the rebels to access the $30 billion in Libyan assets held in the USA.  Most of those assets are not liquid, but about $3.5 billion is liquid and can be provided to the TNC immediately.

In the early stages of the war, western allies hesitated to extend recognition to the rebels because of uncertainties about exactly who they were and about their connections or allegiances to el-Qaeda or other terrorist groups at war with the USA or European countries; but protestations by rebel leaders calmed these fears as TNC spokespersons assured the West that their goal is a democratic state.  No one seems to have the perspicacity to ask just how reliable these assurances are.

On February 15, 2008, long before the revolt against Gaddafi began, the US embassy in Tripoli (capitol of Libya) sent a secret cable to Washington warning our government that eastern Libya, the area from which the revolt started and where the rebels have their strongest base and greatest number of supporters is rife with anti-American, pro-jihad sentiment. Three years later, with the revolt in full swing, we learn that Gaddafi is accusing al-Qaeda of fomenting the revolt. Of course Gaddafi is such an erratic personality, as well as a tyrant in trouble, that it might be hard to take him seriously; except that in addition to the warning that our State Department received in 2008, al-Qaeda documents captured in Iraq in 2007 reveal that almost 20% of all al-Qaeda fighters coming to Iraq to fight Americans came from Libya.
Moreover, one of the Libyan rebel leaders, Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, stated in a March, 2011 interview with the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, that he and his troops are allies of al-Qaeda who came from eastern Libya to Iraq to fight the Americans, and now they are back in Libya to fight Gaddafi, and they are still allies of al-Qaeda.

The original fears of the western allies may have been well founded; but President Obama seems not to be concerned that the $3.5 billion in cash that his recognition of the TNC will put at the rebels’ disposal might end up in the hands of al-Qaeda operatives or their allies.
He should be concerned because the Libyan rebels are already supplying large quantities of sophisticated arms to Hamas in the Gaza Strip, using the same subterfuges and smuggling routes across Egypt and the Sinai that serve smugglers operating out of Sudan. These are not peaceful folks who want a western-style democracy and egalitarian society.  They march arm in arm with Hamas and al-Qaeda.

Moreover, Ayman az-Zawahiri, now the leader of al-Qaeda, has come out in support of the Libyan rebels and declared that al-Qaeda forces are fighting in the mountains of Libya against Gadaffi.

To understand the significance of az-Zawahiri’s support, we must recall that over the past few years, Abu Yusuf el-Qaradhawi, az-Zawahiri’s colleague and now number two in al-Qaeda, has adumbrated al-Qaeda’s priorities by urging all Muslims to acquire nuclear weapons in order to terrorize Muslim enemies and urging them to kill Israeli women because they serve in the Israeli army.  He has frequently expressed his support for suicide bombers, promised a second holocaust for the Jews, this time at the hands of “the believers;” and he has expressed his great longing for an opportunity to personally kill Jews so that he might acquire the blessing of true Islamic martyrdom.  These are not the kind of guys we want supporting our new friends among the rebels of Libya in their quest for what we hope will be the first successful democratic secular state in the Arab world.

Now let’s connect the al-Qaeda and Hamas dots listed above with another set of dots: Obama plans to establish formal contact with the Muslim Brotherhood​.

Elliot Abrams, a deputy national security adviser handling Middle East affairs under President Bush, noted that Muslim Brotherhood positions on women, on freedom of religion and on religious tests for candidacy to public office are all “an anathema” to the USA.  He went on to explain that there is a great likelihood that those in the Muslim Brotherhood​ who preach the need for the supremacy of Shari’a law in Arab states will prevail.  Nonetheless, he agrees with the President that formal contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood open the doors to American influence, and that influence may moderate the Brotherhood’s extremist Islamists positions.  In addition he expressed the belief that there are divisions in the Brotherhood which could be exploited and deepened by meetings with American representatives.
Abrams’ assessment is very reminiscent of Israel’s western allies believing that political responsibility would moderate Arafat after Oslo in 1993; or that Hamas would be forced to self-moderate once it was saddled with the administration of the Gaza Strip after its bloody coup. Neither belief was founded in reality.

It is important to recall that the Muslim Brotherhood, since its inception more than 80 years ago, has been consistent in its ideology: the imposition of Shari’a law, by violence, on the entire world.  Repression by Arab governments has never moderated it.  Its core motivations arise from the jihadist Islamist belief in the obligation incumbent upon all Muslims to make Islam the only, or at least dominant, religion in the world. It is the oldest and among the best organized and wide-spread Islamic extremist terrorist organizations in the world.  Its program for a “cultural invasion” of western countries, outlining a phased plan for infiltrating western societies and governments until it has the power to escalate its activities into political or violent confrontation, has been public for more than 20 years.  Hamas, a self-proclaimed genocidal terrorist organization whose charter establishes its goal of destroying Israel, is a franchise of the Muslim Brotherhood. Both Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood have expressed the desire to destroy the United States and make Islam the only, or the dominant, religion in the world. Why would a few western carrots or sticks make it change its core beliefs?

It seems likely that whatever his intentions, Obama’s contacts with the Brotherhood will strengthen it politically and increase its chances of becoming one of the dominant, if not the dominant, political force in Egypt.  Being able to boast of Obama’s implicit recognition of the Brotherhood’s importance, the Brotherhood will now have an easier time gaining recruits, soliciting funds, and engaging with other major powers in Europe and elsewhere.

In short, Obama has just handed both al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood, two of the most powerful of our jihadist enemies, a major political victory.  Granted, at this stage the victory is merely a symbolic one. But in doing so, Obama runs the very real risk of substantively facilitating their struggle for political domination in the Arab countries currently in upheaval, and of enabling their even more substantive successes in the fields of political and military battle against their avowed and most hated enemy: Western civilization.

In short Obama is helping two of the most ruthless and radical Islamic terrorist forces in the world to achieve their long-awaited goal: “Islam uber Alles.”

One cannot help but wonder, which side is he on?


Notes:
[i] For several reports and assessments of Obama’s decision, see:

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2011/06/reuters-obama-to-establish-formal-contacts-with-the-muslim-brotherhood.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/30/us-usa-egypt-brotherhood-idUSTRE75T0GD20110630

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/06/obama-to-establish-formal-contacts-with-muslim-brotherhood.html

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/270864/obama-administration-opens-formal-contacts-muslim-brotherhood-andrew-c-mccarthy

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/gaffney070511.php