Holocaust Survivor's View on Fanatic Islam
This is one of the best explanation of the Muslim terrorist situation I
have read. His references to past history are accurate and clear. Not
long, easy to understand, and well worth the read. The author of this
email is Dr. Emanuel Tanay, a well-known and well respected
psychiatrist .
___________________________________
A Holocaust Survivor's View on Islam
A man, whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II, owned
a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German
people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude
toward fanaticism. 'Very few people were true Nazis,' he said, 'but
manyenjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to
care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of
fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen.
Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and
the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in
a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.'
We are told again and again by 'experts' and 'talking heads' that Islam
is the religion of peace and that the vast majority of Muslims just
want to live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion may be true,
it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us
feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the specter of fanatics
rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.
The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in
history. It is the fanatics who march... It is the fanatics who wage
any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who
systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa
and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave.
It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honor-kill. It is the
fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who
zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and
homosexuals. It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to
become suicide bombers.
The hard, quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the
'silent majority,' is cowed and extraneous.
Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in
peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of
about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant.
China's huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists
managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.
The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a
warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across
South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic
murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel,
and bayonet.
And who can forget Rwanda, which collapsed into butchery. Could it not
be said that the majority of Rwandans were
'peace loving'?
History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our
powers of reason, we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of
points:
Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence.
Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up,
because like my friend from Germany, they will awaken one day and
find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have
begun.
Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs,
Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many
others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until
it was too late. As for us who watch it all unfold, we must
pay attention to the only group that counts --
the fanatics who threaten our way of life.
Lastly, anyone who doubts that the issue is serious and just deletes
this email without sending it on is contributing to the passiveness
that allows the problems to expand. So, extend yourself a bit and send
this on and on and on! Let us hope that thousands, world-wide, read
this and think about it, and send it on - before it's too late.
Emanuel Tanay, M.D. 2980 Provincial St. Ann Arbor , MI 48104
* Dr. Emanuel Tanay MDis a well-known
forensic psychiatrist who has been an expert
witness in many famous cases. He has served as an officer or committee
member on the Michigan Psychiatric Society, the American Academy of
Psychiatry and the Law, the American Psychiatric Association (APA),
and others. He is a diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and
Neurology and of the American Board of Forensic Psychiatry and a
distinguished fellow of the APA and the American Academy of
Forensic Sciences (AAFC).
A Holocaust survivor himself, Dr Tanay coauthored a book about the
survivors of the Holocaust and was asked by the German government
to consult on just compensation for the Holocaust survivors. Dr. Tanay
has served on several journal editorial boards, authored many
publications, and presented countless time on forensic medicine. His
efforts have also produced many awards and commendations from groups
such as the Michigan State Medical Society, APA, the Detroit Institute
of Technology, and AAFC, among other
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Friday, April 9, 2010
brutality towards girls
Jennifer Rubin - 04.09.2010 - 8:00 AM
Given the constant stream of stories of brutality toward girls and woman, some have come to recognize that the “Muslim World” that Obama courts so assiduously is a cesspool of misogynistic brutality in which every female — from little girls to old women — is a potential victim. Reports documenting the latest depravity are no longer greeted with disbelief or even shock by those who have come to appreciate the fate that awaits many a small Muslim girl whose “fathers … are the brokers of their misery, selling them to old men for . . . what? To pay off debts? To pare down the number of mouths to feed?” The latest comes from Yemen:
A 13-year-old Yemeni girl has died of injuries to her genitals four days after a family-arranged marriage, a human rights group said
The practice of marrying young girls is widespread in Yemen and has drawn the attention of international rights groups seeking to pressure the government to outlaw child marriages. Legislation that would make it illegal for those under the age of 17 to marry is in serious peril after strong opposition from some of Yemen’s most influential Islamic leaders.
As we learn with each of these incidents, the victims whose stories make the papers are not the exceptions but the rule — one enforced by clerics and courts:
More than a quarter of Yemen’s females marry before age 15, according to a report last year by the Social Affairs Ministry. Tribal custom also plays a role, including the belief that a young bride can be shaped into an obedient wife, bear more children and be kept away from temptation.
Last month, a group of the country’s highest Islamic authorities declared those supporting a ban on child marriages to be apostates.
A February 2009 law set the minimum age for marriage at 17, but it was repealed and sent back to parliament’s constitutional committee for review after some lawmakers called it un-Islamic. The committee is expected to make a final decision on the legislation this month. …
The issue of Yemen’s child brides got widespread attention three years ago when an 8-year-old girl boldly went by herself to a courtroom and demanded a judge dissolve her marriage to a man in his 30s. She eventually won a divorce, and legislators began looking at ways to curb the practice.
In September, a 12-year-old Yemeni child-bride died after struggling for three days in labor to give birth, a local human rights organization said.
Yemen once set 15 as the minimum age for marriage, but parliament annulled that law in the 1990s, saying parents should decide when a daughter marries.
Obama and his dutiful but largely mute secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, don’t spend much time on things like this. They are entirely absorbed with grave matters such as Jerusalem apartment permits and whether a peace can be imposed on the one democratic country in the Middle East in which women enjoy equal rights and the protection of the law. The Obami don’t spend much time on human rights at all these days — whether it is a student rotting in Evian prison or a 13-year-old girl who has bled to death, no doubt in excruciating agony. You see, it’s not so much the Muslim people who are receiving the attention of the Obami but rather their oppressors, with whom Obama imagines he can do business or get along in some fashion. If there is a more cynical and less hope-filled approach to the Middle East, I’m hard pressed to conjure it up
Given the constant stream of stories of brutality toward girls and woman, some have come to recognize that the “Muslim World” that Obama courts so assiduously is a cesspool of misogynistic brutality in which every female — from little girls to old women — is a potential victim. Reports documenting the latest depravity are no longer greeted with disbelief or even shock by those who have come to appreciate the fate that awaits many a small Muslim girl whose “fathers … are the brokers of their misery, selling them to old men for . . . what? To pay off debts? To pare down the number of mouths to feed?” The latest comes from Yemen:
A 13-year-old Yemeni girl has died of injuries to her genitals four days after a family-arranged marriage, a human rights group said
The practice of marrying young girls is widespread in Yemen and has drawn the attention of international rights groups seeking to pressure the government to outlaw child marriages. Legislation that would make it illegal for those under the age of 17 to marry is in serious peril after strong opposition from some of Yemen’s most influential Islamic leaders.
As we learn with each of these incidents, the victims whose stories make the papers are not the exceptions but the rule — one enforced by clerics and courts:
More than a quarter of Yemen’s females marry before age 15, according to a report last year by the Social Affairs Ministry. Tribal custom also plays a role, including the belief that a young bride can be shaped into an obedient wife, bear more children and be kept away from temptation.
Last month, a group of the country’s highest Islamic authorities declared those supporting a ban on child marriages to be apostates.
A February 2009 law set the minimum age for marriage at 17, but it was repealed and sent back to parliament’s constitutional committee for review after some lawmakers called it un-Islamic. The committee is expected to make a final decision on the legislation this month. …
The issue of Yemen’s child brides got widespread attention three years ago when an 8-year-old girl boldly went by herself to a courtroom and demanded a judge dissolve her marriage to a man in his 30s. She eventually won a divorce, and legislators began looking at ways to curb the practice.
In September, a 12-year-old Yemeni child-bride died after struggling for three days in labor to give birth, a local human rights organization said.
Yemen once set 15 as the minimum age for marriage, but parliament annulled that law in the 1990s, saying parents should decide when a daughter marries.
Obama and his dutiful but largely mute secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, don’t spend much time on things like this. They are entirely absorbed with grave matters such as Jerusalem apartment permits and whether a peace can be imposed on the one democratic country in the Middle East in which women enjoy equal rights and the protection of the law. The Obami don’t spend much time on human rights at all these days — whether it is a student rotting in Evian prison or a 13-year-old girl who has bled to death, no doubt in excruciating agony. You see, it’s not so much the Muslim people who are receiving the attention of the Obami but rather their oppressors, with whom Obama imagines he can do business or get along in some fashion. If there is a more cynical and less hope-filled approach to the Middle East, I’m hard pressed to conjure it up
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
April 7 everyday more killing
Buzz up! Send
Email IM .Share
Facebook Twitter Delicious Digg Fark Newsvine Reddit StumbleUpon Technorati Yahoo! Bookmarks .Print .. Play Video FOX News – Deadly Blasts Rock Baghdad
. Slideshow:Iraq .
Play Video Video:Assessing the damage in Iraq Reuters .
Play Video Video:Raw Video: Iraq blasts target foreign embassies AP .
AP – Rescuers search for survivors at the scene of a bomb attack in central Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, April …
By SINAN SALAHEDDIN and LARA JAKES, Associated Press Writers Sinan Salaheddin And Lara Jakes, Associated Press Writers – 19 mins ago
BAGHDAD – At least five bombs ripped through apartment buildings across Baghdad Tuesday and another struck a market, killing 49 people and wounding more than 160, authorities said.
Iraqi officials blamed al-Qaida in Iraq insurgents for the violence — the latest sign the country's fragile security is dissolving in the chaos of the unresolved election,
Email IM .Share
Facebook Twitter Delicious Digg Fark Newsvine Reddit StumbleUpon Technorati Yahoo! Bookmarks .Print .. Play Video FOX News – Deadly Blasts Rock Baghdad
. Slideshow:Iraq .
Play Video Video:Assessing the damage in Iraq Reuters .
Play Video Video:Raw Video: Iraq blasts target foreign embassies AP .
AP – Rescuers search for survivors at the scene of a bomb attack in central Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, April …
By SINAN SALAHEDDIN and LARA JAKES, Associated Press Writers Sinan Salaheddin And Lara Jakes, Associated Press Writers – 19 mins ago
BAGHDAD – At least five bombs ripped through apartment buildings across Baghdad Tuesday and another struck a market, killing 49 people and wounding more than 160, authorities said.
Iraqi officials blamed al-Qaida in Iraq insurgents for the violence — the latest sign the country's fragile security is dissolving in the chaos of the unresolved election,
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Cair a terrorist group
"Then CAIR sought to attack this book series. CAIR seems to be, according to legal documents and documented reports, a creation of the Muslim Brotherhood and a group many of whose officials have been prosecuted and convicted for involvement with terrorist groups. CAIR, then, is not a defense organization for Muslims but an advocacy organization for revolutionary Islamist groups.
That's important to note because its real agenda is to prevent any critique of Islamism, the ideology of those trying to overthrow every regime in the Arabic-speaking world and many more as well.
CAIR's approach makes clear its lack of understanding the fact that there exists a set of professional scholarly ethics and principles. And that those who have been trained in this system make a really sincere effort to be fair, accurate, and make arguments based on facts that can be documented. If errors are shown, they are fixed. "
That's important to note because its real agenda is to prevent any critique of Islamism, the ideology of those trying to overthrow every regime in the Arabic-speaking world and many more as well.
CAIR's approach makes clear its lack of understanding the fact that there exists a set of professional scholarly ethics and principles. And that those who have been trained in this system make a really sincere effort to be fair, accurate, and make arguments based on facts that can be documented. If errors are shown, they are fixed. "
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Palestinian murderers still send missiles
Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
* Palestinian Rocket Fired from Gaza Kills Thai Worker in Israel - Shmulik Hadad
A 30-year-old Thai foreign worker was killed Thursday after a Kassam rocket fired by Palestinians in Gaza hit a greenhouse compound in Netiv Ha'asara in Israel in the third such attack in the last 24 hours.
* Palestinian Rocket Fired from Gaza Kills Thai Worker in Israel - Shmulik Hadad
A 30-year-old Thai foreign worker was killed Thursday after a Kassam rocket fired by Palestinians in Gaza hit a greenhouse compound in Netiv Ha'asara in Israel in the third such attack in the last 24 hours.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Palestinian terrorists happy with Obama
The Palestinian Authority Walks Out of Talks with a Big Smile on Its Face
By Barry Rubin*
March 15, 2010
http://www.gloria-center.org/gloria/2010/03/palestinian-authority
In 1994, Israel asserted, and the PLO accepted, that construction would continue on existing Jewish settlements. For the next 15 years, negotiations were never stopped by that building.
In January 2009, the Palestinian Authority (PA) stopped negotiations because Hamas attacked Israel from the Gaza Strip and Israel defended itself. Of course, Hamas is also the PA's enemy and the PA would be delighted if Israel destroyed that group. But for public relations' purposes, the PA had to pretend inter-Palestinian solidarity.
Then came President Barack Obama who demanded a stop to all construction on settlements in 2009. Israel finally complied but announced that it would keep building in east Jerusalem. The United States accepted that arrangement and even highly praised Israel's policy as a major concession.
But the PA refused to return to negotiations. Why, because the construction offended it? No, because the PA's radical forces don't want to make a peace deal because they believe they can win total victory and destroy Israel. The more moderate forces are too weak to make a deal because of Hamas and their own radicals, though they also have some problems with mutual compromise.
In September 2009, Obama announced that within two months there would be full and final peace negotiations in Washington. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said "yes": PA leader Mahmoud Abbas said "no."
No Western media outlet said that the PA refusal to negotiate for-as of today-about 15 months shows that the PA doesn't want peace. Yet they had no hesitation about saying that Israel doesn't want peace (or at least maybe doesn't) because Israel announced the building of apartments on the basis of a policy it has followed for 16 years, without serious complaint for most of that time.
Abbas seized on the opportunity to declare that he wasn't going to negotiate. Is he indignant? Upset? Does he feel betrayed? No, he's delighted to have an excuse to do what he wants to do anyway: Not negotiate with Israel!
Just like the famous scene in the film Casablanca when the police inspector, Renault, who regularly gambles at Rick's Place decided to shut down the nightclub:
Rick: How can you close me down? On what grounds?
Renault: "I am shocked shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!"
The croupier comes out of the gambling room and up to Renault. He hands him a roll of bills. Croupier: "Your winnings, sir."
Renault: "Oh thank you very much. [He turns to the crowd] Everybody out at once!"
And so he gets to close down talks, keep his winnings, and blame it on Israel. While Abbas and the PA don't agree with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on much, they do agree on one point: They claim that the West is abandoning Israel so why should they not just wait for it either to be destroyed (in Ahmadinejad's case) or until the West gives the Palestinians a state on a silver platter with no concessions on their part (Abbas's case).
Just as Obama killed the chance for negotiations with his demand for a full freeze, he and Vice-President Joe Biden may have done so again for indirect talks. But isn't it Israel's fault in the latter case for a stupid bureaucratic case of bad timing? Absolutely, yes. Yet the U.S. handling of the issue turned an annoying problem into an even worse problem for itself.
[Note: U.S. officials are claiming that talks will still take place, saying that reports of Abbas walking out are untrue. I don't believe this but if so I will correct this article accordingly.]
Even those in the West who mistrust or hate Israel, or at least the current government, have created a monumental paradox for themselves. They say (wrongly, I should point out) that Israel (or Netanyahu) doesn't want to negotiate or make a deal. If so, however, why are they "punishing" Israel by letting negotiations be killed? One of the many knots one gets into if there's no understanding of Middle East politics and realities.
*Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books, go to http://www.gloria-center.org.
By Barry Rubin*
March 15, 2010
http://www.gloria-center.org/gloria/2010/03/palestinian-authority
In 1994, Israel asserted, and the PLO accepted, that construction would continue on existing Jewish settlements. For the next 15 years, negotiations were never stopped by that building.
In January 2009, the Palestinian Authority (PA) stopped negotiations because Hamas attacked Israel from the Gaza Strip and Israel defended itself. Of course, Hamas is also the PA's enemy and the PA would be delighted if Israel destroyed that group. But for public relations' purposes, the PA had to pretend inter-Palestinian solidarity.
Then came President Barack Obama who demanded a stop to all construction on settlements in 2009. Israel finally complied but announced that it would keep building in east Jerusalem. The United States accepted that arrangement and even highly praised Israel's policy as a major concession.
But the PA refused to return to negotiations. Why, because the construction offended it? No, because the PA's radical forces don't want to make a peace deal because they believe they can win total victory and destroy Israel. The more moderate forces are too weak to make a deal because of Hamas and their own radicals, though they also have some problems with mutual compromise.
In September 2009, Obama announced that within two months there would be full and final peace negotiations in Washington. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said "yes": PA leader Mahmoud Abbas said "no."
No Western media outlet said that the PA refusal to negotiate for-as of today-about 15 months shows that the PA doesn't want peace. Yet they had no hesitation about saying that Israel doesn't want peace (or at least maybe doesn't) because Israel announced the building of apartments on the basis of a policy it has followed for 16 years, without serious complaint for most of that time.
Abbas seized on the opportunity to declare that he wasn't going to negotiate. Is he indignant? Upset? Does he feel betrayed? No, he's delighted to have an excuse to do what he wants to do anyway: Not negotiate with Israel!
Just like the famous scene in the film Casablanca when the police inspector, Renault, who regularly gambles at Rick's Place decided to shut down the nightclub:
Rick: How can you close me down? On what grounds?
Renault: "I am shocked shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!"
The croupier comes out of the gambling room and up to Renault. He hands him a roll of bills. Croupier: "Your winnings, sir."
Renault: "Oh thank you very much. [He turns to the crowd] Everybody out at once!"
And so he gets to close down talks, keep his winnings, and blame it on Israel. While Abbas and the PA don't agree with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on much, they do agree on one point: They claim that the West is abandoning Israel so why should they not just wait for it either to be destroyed (in Ahmadinejad's case) or until the West gives the Palestinians a state on a silver platter with no concessions on their part (Abbas's case).
Just as Obama killed the chance for negotiations with his demand for a full freeze, he and Vice-President Joe Biden may have done so again for indirect talks. But isn't it Israel's fault in the latter case for a stupid bureaucratic case of bad timing? Absolutely, yes. Yet the U.S. handling of the issue turned an annoying problem into an even worse problem for itself.
[Note: U.S. officials are claiming that talks will still take place, saying that reports of Abbas walking out are untrue. I don't believe this but if so I will correct this article accordingly.]
Even those in the West who mistrust or hate Israel, or at least the current government, have created a monumental paradox for themselves. They say (wrongly, I should point out) that Israel (or Netanyahu) doesn't want to negotiate or make a deal. If so, however, why are they "punishing" Israel by letting negotiations be killed? One of the many knots one gets into if there's no understanding of Middle East politics and realities.
*Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books, go to http://www.gloria-center.org.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Don't say mazel tov on Turkey
How to Make Defeatism Look Good: Let's Give Up and Cheer the Islamists
By Barry Rubin*
March 12, 2010
http://www.gloria-center.org/gloria/2010/03/how-to-make-defeatism
I'm not going to bash or rant about a Newsweek article about Turkey by Owen Matthews-shocking and dangerous as it is--but rather talk about what is wrong and inaccurate about it. That article is part of a new wave of defeatism sweeping the West, though it still remains subordinate to the more ostensibly attractive idea that there is no real conflict or at least one easy to fix by Western concessions.
Here's the title: "The Army Is Beaten: Why the U.S. should hail the Islamists." Yes, we should thank the Islamists for taking over Turkey. But wait a minute! The ruling AK party says it isn't Islamist. Indeed, I have been viciously attacked by them in the Turkish media for saying so. Up until now the line--including that from the regime itself--has been that we shouldn't be afraid of them because they are really just democrats. But now some are willing to face the truth and still sugarcoat it.
Matthews writes:
"The political logic should be simple. The arrest of a shadowy group of generals for allegedly plotting a bloody coup should be a victory for justice. The end of military meddling in politics should be a victory for democracy. And greater democracy should make a country more liberal and more pro-European."
Each of these sentences makes a false assumption and must be examined a bit.
Sentence one: Arresting military officers is only a victory for justice if they are guilty. Why does the author assume they are guilty? In fact, the claims are ludicrous. That a group of officers created a 5000 page plan for a coup that involved attacking mosques and massive attacks on civilians. It is one of a series of such accusations for which no real evidence has been presented, in which a widely disparate group of people have been arrested as alleged conspirators when their sole connection is that they are critics of the government.
This is ridiculously gullible. It's like the famous sentence by a newsweekly magazine that even if the Hitler diaries were forgeries (they were) that would tell us a great deal about the history of the time. If in fact the arrests were trumped-up to tame the army so that the current regime can impose a dictatorship in practice it was not a victory for justice but for injustice. Iran, Syria, Hamas, Hizballah, and Islamists in general lie a lot (and a lot more than democratic government) so why should they be taken at their word, especially when any serious examination of evidence shows the truth.
Sentence two: Of course, in general, keeping the army out of politics is a victory for democracy, but that ignores the specific history of Turkey. The army has viewed itself and been accepted there as the guardian of democracy. This history is certainly imperfect but when the country has been sliding into anarchy in the past or fallen into the hand of those who threatened to destroy the republic, the army has stepped in briefly, gotten civilians to reorganize things on a stable basis, and quickly gone back into the barracks.
The Turkish army is not like those of the Third World which hunger for power, destroy democracy, and unleash corrupt and repressive regimes. On the other hand, this article--and many others--show ignorance about the actual shifts in Turkey.
For example, there is no awareness that the regime is seizing control of the media; that the party leader (which means the prime minister for the ruling party) simply picks candidates for parliament as he pleases; that the reforms have strengthened the prime minister's power and not parliamentary democracy; and that women are being forced out of high positions. Merely weakening the army doesn't mean more democracy when in almost every other respect there is less.
Sentence three: If indeed-as is the case-the regime is systematically cracking down on the free media and imposing its control over all the institutions. This is not leading to greater but to less democracy. There should be a lot more reporting on what's happening within the country instead of just repeating the regime's claims.
Indeed, the author states:
"And with the last major obstacle to the ruling AK Party's power gone, Turkey's conservative prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will be free to implement his vision of a more Islamic Turkey. More democracy, then, doesn't necessarily lead to more liberalism, either."
The assumption here is that this is what the Turkish people want. Yet it should be noted there are some big problems for that claim. Turkey's electoral system is so weighted that the AK has received near-monopoly control on the basis of a vote that in most parliamentary democracies would have produced a coalition government.
Moreover, many or most Turks who voted for the AK weren't doing so because they wanted Islamism-as public opinion surveys clearly show--but because they thought (mistakenly, even according to this author) that it was a mildly conservative party.
And finally, the AK is seizing control over institutions so as to be sure that it will never lose another election. It is destroying Turkish democracy, a point made rather obvious by a long list of such actions over non-military institutions like the civil service, courts, and media. The author-and many others-are simply taking the regime's word for it and ignoring what the government is actually doing.
The author concludes by saying: "It's also clear that Turkey under the AK Party will remain a Western ally, and NATO will remain Ankara's most important strategic partner."
Then, this unusually candid if wrong author explains:
"How do we know? The AK Party says so, and it has no real options. There's no rival alliance, not with Iran, the Arab world, or Russia, which could possibly rival the clout Turkey has, with the second-largest Army in NATO."
Of course, Turkey has options. And here is the option the regime has chosen: To keep as much as possible the Western alliances while the content of its policy favors radical Islamist forces.
Incidentally, this "no option" argument is the root of a huge amount of confusion in the Middle East. Supposedly, Iran has "no option" but to become moderate; Syria has "no option" but to dump Iran; the Palestinian Authority has "no option" but to make peace. Yet over and over again the local forces find an option that they are quite happy to pursue other than the one laid out for them by Western observers. They have their own view of the world, ideology, and goals (often the goal of the regime being to amass wealth and stay in power).
And one of the key factors in this process is that--rightly or wrongly--they think they are winning so why should they change course or make compromises? And certain other ideas are calculated into their list of options: soon Iran has nuclear weapons. And the divine being is on their side. And the West is weak, stupid, cowardly, and easily fooled.
Turkey is one of the main places they think they are winning, according to Syria and Iran.
Now of course, the Turkish government doesn't have to say: America stinks and we're pulling out of NATO. It can keep the benefits of these relationships, having their cake and eating it, too. But in practice Turkey is moving closer to Iran and Syria, with the leaders of both of these two countries openly pointing out that fact. The question is what does it mean for Turkey to be a Western ally in a practical sense? If it supports Iran, Syria, Hizballah, and Hamas, just how does Ankara function as a Western ally? It's meaningless.
So, the article concludes, "The world would be wise to side with the AK Party, not seek a return of the discredited generals." I'm not sure why the generals are supposed to be discredited by ludicrous accusations orchestrated by an anti-American (in practice) government which needs to destroy them. Rather, it is the current regime in Turkey that should be discredited.
Still, it's a pretty neat trick when a regime repressing Turkish democracy and increasingly siding with the enemies of the West can convince people in the West that this is a good thing.
Incidentally, the New York Times has only a slightly more nuanced editorial than the Matthews article. Among other things, it take at face value that the story about the military planning a coup was broken by a small "independent" newspaper in Turkey. Actually, that publication is a front from the regime and is most unreliable--a point one might expect the Times to have discovered. The story was part of the regime's strategy, not some journalitic scoop.
As the theme song to the television show "MASH" put it:
"The game of life is hard to play,
I'm going to lose it anyway,
The losin' card I'll someday lay;
So this is all I have to say...
"That suicide is painless...
And I can take or leave it if I please."
The Western world should reject playing that particular card as its strategy.
*Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books, go to http://www.gloria-center.org.
By Barry Rubin*
March 12, 2010
http://www.gloria-center.org/gloria/2010/03/how-to-make-defeatism
I'm not going to bash or rant about a Newsweek article about Turkey by Owen Matthews-shocking and dangerous as it is--but rather talk about what is wrong and inaccurate about it. That article is part of a new wave of defeatism sweeping the West, though it still remains subordinate to the more ostensibly attractive idea that there is no real conflict or at least one easy to fix by Western concessions.
Here's the title: "The Army Is Beaten: Why the U.S. should hail the Islamists." Yes, we should thank the Islamists for taking over Turkey. But wait a minute! The ruling AK party says it isn't Islamist. Indeed, I have been viciously attacked by them in the Turkish media for saying so. Up until now the line--including that from the regime itself--has been that we shouldn't be afraid of them because they are really just democrats. But now some are willing to face the truth and still sugarcoat it.
Matthews writes:
"The political logic should be simple. The arrest of a shadowy group of generals for allegedly plotting a bloody coup should be a victory for justice. The end of military meddling in politics should be a victory for democracy. And greater democracy should make a country more liberal and more pro-European."
Each of these sentences makes a false assumption and must be examined a bit.
Sentence one: Arresting military officers is only a victory for justice if they are guilty. Why does the author assume they are guilty? In fact, the claims are ludicrous. That a group of officers created a 5000 page plan for a coup that involved attacking mosques and massive attacks on civilians. It is one of a series of such accusations for which no real evidence has been presented, in which a widely disparate group of people have been arrested as alleged conspirators when their sole connection is that they are critics of the government.
This is ridiculously gullible. It's like the famous sentence by a newsweekly magazine that even if the Hitler diaries were forgeries (they were) that would tell us a great deal about the history of the time. If in fact the arrests were trumped-up to tame the army so that the current regime can impose a dictatorship in practice it was not a victory for justice but for injustice. Iran, Syria, Hamas, Hizballah, and Islamists in general lie a lot (and a lot more than democratic government) so why should they be taken at their word, especially when any serious examination of evidence shows the truth.
Sentence two: Of course, in general, keeping the army out of politics is a victory for democracy, but that ignores the specific history of Turkey. The army has viewed itself and been accepted there as the guardian of democracy. This history is certainly imperfect but when the country has been sliding into anarchy in the past or fallen into the hand of those who threatened to destroy the republic, the army has stepped in briefly, gotten civilians to reorganize things on a stable basis, and quickly gone back into the barracks.
The Turkish army is not like those of the Third World which hunger for power, destroy democracy, and unleash corrupt and repressive regimes. On the other hand, this article--and many others--show ignorance about the actual shifts in Turkey.
For example, there is no awareness that the regime is seizing control of the media; that the party leader (which means the prime minister for the ruling party) simply picks candidates for parliament as he pleases; that the reforms have strengthened the prime minister's power and not parliamentary democracy; and that women are being forced out of high positions. Merely weakening the army doesn't mean more democracy when in almost every other respect there is less.
Sentence three: If indeed-as is the case-the regime is systematically cracking down on the free media and imposing its control over all the institutions. This is not leading to greater but to less democracy. There should be a lot more reporting on what's happening within the country instead of just repeating the regime's claims.
Indeed, the author states:
"And with the last major obstacle to the ruling AK Party's power gone, Turkey's conservative prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will be free to implement his vision of a more Islamic Turkey. More democracy, then, doesn't necessarily lead to more liberalism, either."
The assumption here is that this is what the Turkish people want. Yet it should be noted there are some big problems for that claim. Turkey's electoral system is so weighted that the AK has received near-monopoly control on the basis of a vote that in most parliamentary democracies would have produced a coalition government.
Moreover, many or most Turks who voted for the AK weren't doing so because they wanted Islamism-as public opinion surveys clearly show--but because they thought (mistakenly, even according to this author) that it was a mildly conservative party.
And finally, the AK is seizing control over institutions so as to be sure that it will never lose another election. It is destroying Turkish democracy, a point made rather obvious by a long list of such actions over non-military institutions like the civil service, courts, and media. The author-and many others-are simply taking the regime's word for it and ignoring what the government is actually doing.
The author concludes by saying: "It's also clear that Turkey under the AK Party will remain a Western ally, and NATO will remain Ankara's most important strategic partner."
Then, this unusually candid if wrong author explains:
"How do we know? The AK Party says so, and it has no real options. There's no rival alliance, not with Iran, the Arab world, or Russia, which could possibly rival the clout Turkey has, with the second-largest Army in NATO."
Of course, Turkey has options. And here is the option the regime has chosen: To keep as much as possible the Western alliances while the content of its policy favors radical Islamist forces.
Incidentally, this "no option" argument is the root of a huge amount of confusion in the Middle East. Supposedly, Iran has "no option" but to become moderate; Syria has "no option" but to dump Iran; the Palestinian Authority has "no option" but to make peace. Yet over and over again the local forces find an option that they are quite happy to pursue other than the one laid out for them by Western observers. They have their own view of the world, ideology, and goals (often the goal of the regime being to amass wealth and stay in power).
And one of the key factors in this process is that--rightly or wrongly--they think they are winning so why should they change course or make compromises? And certain other ideas are calculated into their list of options: soon Iran has nuclear weapons. And the divine being is on their side. And the West is weak, stupid, cowardly, and easily fooled.
Turkey is one of the main places they think they are winning, according to Syria and Iran.
Now of course, the Turkish government doesn't have to say: America stinks and we're pulling out of NATO. It can keep the benefits of these relationships, having their cake and eating it, too. But in practice Turkey is moving closer to Iran and Syria, with the leaders of both of these two countries openly pointing out that fact. The question is what does it mean for Turkey to be a Western ally in a practical sense? If it supports Iran, Syria, Hizballah, and Hamas, just how does Ankara function as a Western ally? It's meaningless.
So, the article concludes, "The world would be wise to side with the AK Party, not seek a return of the discredited generals." I'm not sure why the generals are supposed to be discredited by ludicrous accusations orchestrated by an anti-American (in practice) government which needs to destroy them. Rather, it is the current regime in Turkey that should be discredited.
Still, it's a pretty neat trick when a regime repressing Turkish democracy and increasingly siding with the enemies of the West can convince people in the West that this is a good thing.
Incidentally, the New York Times has only a slightly more nuanced editorial than the Matthews article. Among other things, it take at face value that the story about the military planning a coup was broken by a small "independent" newspaper in Turkey. Actually, that publication is a front from the regime and is most unreliable--a point one might expect the Times to have discovered. The story was part of the regime's strategy, not some journalitic scoop.
As the theme song to the television show "MASH" put it:
"The game of life is hard to play,
I'm going to lose it anyway,
The losin' card I'll someday lay;
So this is all I have to say...
"That suicide is painless...
And I can take or leave it if I please."
The Western world should reject playing that particular card as its strategy.
*Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books, go to http://www.gloria-center.org.
Friday, March 5, 2010
The case for Bombing Iran
The Case for Bombing Iran
NORMAN PODHORETZ
June 2007
Although many persist in denying it, I continue to believe that what September 11, 2001 did was to plunge us headlong into nothing less than another world war. I call this new war World War IV, because I also believe that what is generally known as the cold war was actually World War III, and that this one bears a closer resemblance to that great conflict than it does to World War II. Like the cold war, as the military historian Eliot Cohen was the first to recognize, the one we are now in has ideological roots, pitting us against Islamofascism, yet another mutation of the totalitarian disease we defeated first in the shape of Nazism and fascism and then in the shape of Communism; it is global in scope; it is being fought with a variety of weapons, not all of them military; and it is likely to go on for decades.
What follows from this way of looking at the last five years is that the military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq cannot be understood if they are regarded as self-contained wars in their own right. Instead we have to see them as fronts or theaters that have been opened up in the early stages of a protracted global struggle. The same thing is true of Iran. As the currently main center of the Islamofascist ideology against which we have been fighting since 9/11, and as (according to the State Department’s latest annual report on the subject) the main sponsor of the terrorism that is Islamofascism’s weapon of choice, Iran too is a front in World War IV. Moreover, its effort to build a nuclear arsenal makes it the potentially most dangerous one of all.
The Iranians, of course, never cease denying that they intend to build a nuclear arsenal, and yet in the same breath they openly tell us what they intend to do with it. Their first priority, as repeatedly and unequivocally announced by their president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is to “wipe Israel off the map”—a feat that could not be accomplished by conventional weapons alone.
But Ahmadinejad’s ambitions are not confined to the destruction of Israel. He also wishes to dominate the greater Middle East, and thereby to control the oilfields of the region and the flow of oil out of it through the Persian Gulf. If he acquired a nuclear capability, he would not even have to use it in order to put all this within his reach. Intimidation and blackmail by themselves would do the trick.
Nor are Ahmadinejad’s ambitions merely regional in scope. He has a larger dream of extending the power and influence of Islam throughout Europe, and this too he hopes to accomplish by playing on the fear that resistance to Iran would lead to a nuclear war. And then, finally, comes the largest dream of all: what Ahmadinejad does not shrink from describing as “a world without America.” Demented though he may be, I doubt that Ahmadinejad is so crazy as to imagine that he could wipe America off the map even if he had nuclear weapons. But what he probably does envisage is a diminution of the American will to oppose him: that is, if not a world without America, he will settle, at least in the short run, for a world without much American influence.
Not surprisingly, the old American foreign-policy establishment and many others say that these dreams are nothing more than the fantasies of a madman. They also dismiss those who think otherwise as neoconservative alarmists trying to drag this country into another senseless war that is in the interest not of the United States but only of Israel. But the irony is that Ahmadinejad’s dreams are more realistic than the dismissal of those dreams as merely insane delusions. To understand why, an analogy with World War III may help.
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At certain points in that earlier war, some of us feared that the Soviets might seize control of the oil fields of the Middle East, and that the West, faced with a choice between surrendering to their dominance or trying to stop them at the risk of a nuclear exchange, would choose surrender. In that case, we thought, the result would be what in those days went by the name of Finlandization.
In Europe, where there were large Communist parties, Finlandization would take the form of bringing these parties to power so that they could establish “Red Vichy” regimes like the one already in place in Finland—regimes whose subservience to the Soviet will in all things, domestic and foreign alike, would make military occupation unnecessary and would therefore preserve a minimal degree of national independence.
In the United States, where there was no Communist party to speak of, we speculated that Finlandization would take a subtler form. In the realm of foreign affairs, politicians and pundits would arise to celebrate the arrival of a new era of peace and friendship in which the cold-war policy of containment would be scrapped, thus giving the Soviets complete freedom to expand without encountering any significant obstacles. And in the realm of domestic affairs, Finlandization would mean that the only candidates running for office with a prayer of being elected would be those who promised to work toward a sociopolitical system more in harmony with the Soviet model than the unjust capitalist plutocracy under which we had been living.
Of course, by the grace of God, the dissidents behind the Iron Curtain, and Ronald Reagan, we won World War III and were therefore spared the depredations that Finlandization would have brought. Alas, we are far from knowing what the outcome of World War IV will be. But in the meantime, looking at Europe today, we already see the unfolding of a process analogous to Finlandization: it has been called, rightly, Islamization. Consider, for example, what happened when, only a few weeks ago, the Iranians captured fifteen British sailors and marines and held them hostage. Did the Royal Navy, which once boasted that it ruled the waves, immediately retaliate against this blatant act of aggression, or even threaten to do so unless the captives were immediately released? Not by any stretch of the imagination. Indeed, using force was the last thing in the world the British contemplated doing, as they made sure to announce. Instead they relied on the “soft power” so beloved of “sophisticated” Europeans and their American fellow travelers.
But then, as if this show of impotence were not humiliating enough, the British were unable even to mobilize any of that soft power. The European Union, of which they are a member, turned down their request to threaten Iran with a freeze of imports. As for the UN, under whose very auspices they were patrolling the international waters in which the sailors were kidnapped, it once again showed its true colors by refusing even to condemn the Iranians. The most the Security Council could bring itself to do was to express “grave concern.” Meanwhile, a member of the British cabinet was going the Security Council one better. While registering no objection to propaganda pictures of the one woman hostage, who had been forced to shed her uniform and dress for the cameras in Muslim clothing, Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt pronounced it “deplorable” that she should have permitted herself to be photographed with a cigarette in her mouth. “This,” said Hewitt, “sends completely the wrong message to our young people.”
According to John Bolton, our former ambassador to the UN, the Iranians were testing the British to see if there would be any price to pay for committing what would once have been considered an act of war. Having received his answer, Ahmadinejad could now reap the additional benefit of, as the British commentator Daniel Johnson puts it, “posing as a benefactor” by releasing the hostages, even while ordering more attacks in Iraq and even while continuing to arm terrorist organizations, whether Shiite (Hizballah) or Sunni (Hamas). For fanatical Shiites though Ahmadinejad and his ilk assuredly are, they are obviously willing to set sectarian differences aside when it comes to forging jihadist alliances against the infidels.
If, then, under present circumstances Ahmadinejad could bring about the extraordinary degree of kowtowing that resulted from the kidnapping of the British sailors, what might he not accomplish with a nuclear arsenal behind him—nuclear bombs that could be fitted on missiles capable of reaching Europe? As to such a capability, Robert G. Joseph, the U.S. Special Envoy for Nuclear Non-Proliferation, tells us that Iran is “expanding what is already the largest offensive missile force in the region. Moreover, it is reported to be working closely with North Korea, the world’s number-one missile proliferator, to develop even more capable ballistic missiles.” This, Joseph goes on, is why “analysts agree that in the foreseeable future Iran will be armed with medium- and long-range ballistic missiles,” and it is also why “we could wake up one morning to find that Iran is holding Berlin, Paris or London hostage to whatever its demands are then.”
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As with Finlandization, Islamization extends to the domestic realm, too. In one recent illustration of this process, as reported in the British press, “schools in England are dropping the Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils . . . whose beliefs include Holocaust denial.” But this is an equal-opportunity capitulation, since the schools are also eliminating lessons about the Crusades because “such lessons often contradict what is taught in local mosques.”
But why single out England? If anything, much more, and worse, has been going on in other European countries, including France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Denmark, and the Netherlands. All of these countries have large and growing Muslim populations demanding that their religious values and sensibilities be accommodated at the expense of the traditional values of the West, and even in some instances of the law. Yet rather than insisting that, like all immigrant groups before them, they assimilate to Western norms, almost all European politicians have been cravenly giving in to the Muslims’ outrageous demands.
As in the realm of foreign affairs, if this much can be accomplished under present circumstances, what might not be done if the process were being backed by Iranian nuclear blackmail? Already some observers are warning that by the end of the 21st century the whole of Europe will be transformed into a place to which they give the name Eurabia. Whatever chance there may still be of heading off this eventuality would surely be lessened by the menacing shadow of an Iran armed with nuclear weapons, and only too ready to put them into the hands of the terrorist groups to whom it is even now supplying rockets and other explosive devices.
And the United States? As would have been the case with Finlandization, we would experience a milder form of Islamization here at home. But not in the area of foreign policy. Like the Europeans, confronted by Islamofascists armed by Iran with nuclear weapons, we would become more and more hesitant to risk resisting the emergence of a world shaped by their will and tailored to their wishes. For even if Ahmadinejad did not yet have missiles with a long enough range to hit the United States, he would certainly be able to unleash a wave of nuclear terror against us. If he did, he would in all likelihood act through proxies, for whom he would with characteristic brazenness disclaim any responsibility even if the weapons used by the terrorists were to bear telltale markings identifying them as of Iranian origin. At the same time, the opponents of retaliation and other antiwar forces would rush to point out that there was good reason to accept this disclaimer and, markings or no markings (could they not have been forged?), no really solid evidence to refute it.
In any event, in these same centers of opinion, such a scenario is regarded as utter nonsense. In their view, none of the things it envisages would follow even if Ahmadinejad should get the bomb, because the fear of retaliation would deter him from attacking us just as it deterred the Soviets in World War III. For our part, moreover, the knowledge that we were safe from attack would preclude any danger of our falling into anything like Islamization.
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But listen to what Bernard Lewis, the greatest authority of our time on the Islamic world, has to say in this context on the subject of deterrence:
MAD, mutual assured destruction, [was effective] right through the cold war. Both sides had nuclear weapons. Neither side used them, because both sides knew the other would retaliate in kind. This will not work with a religious fanatic [like Ahmadinejad]. For him, mutual assured destruction is not a deterrent, it is an inducement. We know already that [Iran’s leaders] do not give a damn about killing their own people in great numbers. We have seen it again and again. In the final scenario, and this applies all the more strongly if they kill large numbers of their own people, they are doing them a favor. They are giving them a quick free pass to heaven and all its delights.
Nor are they inhibited by a love of country:
We do not worship Iran, we worship Allah. For patriotism is another name for paganism. I say let this land [Iran] burn. I say let this land go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world.
These were the words of the Ayatollah Khomeini, who ruled Iran from 1979 to 1989, and there is no reason to suppose that his disciple Ahmadinejad feels any differently.
Still less would deterrence work where Israel was concerned. For as the Ayatollah Rafsanjani (who is supposedly a “pragmatic conservative”) has declared:
If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession. . . application of an atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel, but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world.
In other words, Israel would be destroyed in a nuclear exchange, but Iran would survive.
In spite of all this, we keep hearing that all would be well if only we agreed—in the currently fashionable lingo—to “engage” with Iran, and that even if the worst came to the worst we could—to revert to the same lingo—“live” with a nuclear Iran. It is when such things are being said that, alongside the resemblance between now and World War III, a parallel also becomes evident between now and the eve of World War II.
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By 1938, Germany under Adolf Hitler had for some years been rearming in defiance of its obligations under the Versailles treaty and other international agreements. Yet even though Hitler in Mein Kampf had explicitly spelled out the goals he was now preparing to pursue, scarcely anyone took him seriously. To the imminent victims of the war he was soon to start, Hitler’s book and his inflammatory speeches were nothing more than braggadocio or, to use the more colorful word Hannah Arendt once applied to Adolf Eichmann, rodomontade: the kind of red meat any politician might throw to his constituents at home. Hitler might sound at times like a madman, but in reality he was a shrewd operator with whom one could—in the notorious term coined by the London Times—“do business.” The business that was done under this assumption was the Munich Agreement of 1938, which the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain declared had brought “peace in our time.”
It was thanks to Munich that “appeasement” became one of the dirtiest words in the whole of our political vocabulary. Yet appeasement had always been an important and entirely respectable tool of diplomacy, signifying the avoidance of war through the alleviation of the other side’s grievances. If Hitler had been what his eventual victims imagined he was—that is, a conventional statesman pursuing limited aims and using the threat of war only as a way of strengthening his bargaining position—it would indeed have been possible to appease him and thereby to head off the outbreak of another war.
But Hitler was not a conventional statesman and, although for tactical reasons he would sometimes pretend otherwise, he did not have limited aims. He was a revolutionary seeking to overturn the going international system and to replace it with a new order dominated by Germany, which also meant the political culture of Nazism. As such, he offered only two choices: resistance or submission. Finding this reality unbearable, the world persuaded itself that there was a way out, a third alternative, in negotiations. But given Hitler’s objectives, and his barely concealed lust for war, negotiating with him could not conceivably have led to peace. It could have had only one outcome, which was to buy him more time to start a war under more favorable conditions. As most historians now agree, if he had been taken at his own word about his true intentions, he could have been stopped earlier and defeated at an infinitely lower cost.
Which brings us back to Ahmadinejad. Like Hitler, he is a revolutionary whose objective is to overturn the going international system and to replace it in the fullness of time with a new order dominated by Iran and ruled by the religio-political culture of Islamofascism. Like Hitler, too, he is entirely open about his intentions, although—again like Hitler—he sometimes pretends that he wants nothing more than his country’s just due. In the case of Hitler in 1938, this pretense took the form of claiming that no further demands would be made if sovereignty over the Sudetenland were transferred from Czechoslovakia to Germany. In the case of Ahmadinejad, the pretense takes the form of claiming that Iran is building nuclear facilities only for peaceful purposes and not for the production of bombs.
But here we come upon an interesting difference between then and now. Whereas in the late 1930’s almost everyone believed, or talked himself into believing, that Hitler was telling the truth when he said he had no further demands to make after Munich, no one believes that Ahmadinejad is telling the truth when he says that Iran has no wish to develop a nuclear arsenal. In addition, virtually everyone agrees that it would be best if he were stopped, only not, God forbid, with military force—not now, and not ever.
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But if military force is ruled out, what is supposed to do the job?
Well, to begin with, there is that good old standby, diplomacy. And so, for three-and-a-half years, even pre-dating the accession of Ahmadinejad to the presidency, the diplomatic gavotte has been danced with Iran, in negotiations whose carrot-and-stick details no one can remember—not even, I suspect, the parties involved. But since, to say it again, Ahmadinejad is a revolutionary with unlimited aims and not a statesman with whom we can “do business,” all this negotiating has had the same result as Munich had with Hitler. That is, it has bought the Iranians more time in which they have moved closer and closer to developing nuclear weapons.
Then there are sanctions. As it happens, sanctions have very rarely worked in the past. Worse yet, they have usually ended up hurting the hapless people of the targeted country while leaving the leadership unscathed. Nevertheless, much hope has been invested in them as a way of bringing Ahmadinejad to heel. Yet thanks to the resistance of Russia and China, both of which have reasons of their own to go easy on Iran, it has proved enormously difficult for the Security Council to impose sanctions that could even conceivably be effective. At first, the only measures to which Russia and China would agree were much too limited even to bite. Then, as Iran continued to defy Security Council resolutions and to block inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it was bound by treaty to permit, not even the Russians and the Chinese were able to hold out against stronger sanctions. Once more, however, these have had little or no effect on the progress Iran is making toward the development of a nuclear arsenal. On the contrary: they, too, have bought the Iranians additional time in which to move ahead.
Since hope springs eternal, some now believe that the answer lies in more punishing sanctions. This time, however, their purpose would be not to force Iran into compliance, but to provoke an internal uprising against Ahmadinejad and the regime as a whole. Those who advocate this course tell us that the “mullocracy” is very unpopular, especially with young people, who make up a majority of Iran’s population. They tell us that these young people would like nothing better than to get rid of the oppressive and repressive and corrupt regime under which they now live and to replace it with a democratic system. And they tell us, finally, that if Iran were so transformed, we would have nothing to fear from it even if it were to acquire nuclear weapons.
Once upon a time, under the influence of Bernard Lewis and others I respect, I too subscribed to this school of thought. But after three years and more of waiting for the insurrection they assured us back then was on the verge of erupting, I have lost confidence in their prediction. Some of them blame the Bush administration for not doing enough to encourage an uprising, which is why they have now transferred their hopes to sanctions that would inflict so much damage on the Iranian economy that the entire populace would rise up against the rulers. Yet whether or not this might happen under such circumstances, there is simply no chance of getting Russia and China, or the Europeans for that matter, to agree to the kind of sanctions that are the necessary precondition.
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At the outset I stipulated that the weapons with which we are fighting World War IV are not all military—that they also include economic, diplomatic, and other nonmilitary instruments of power. In exerting pressure for reform on countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, these nonmilitary instruments are the right ones to use. But it should be clear by now to any observer not in denial that Iran is not such a country. As we know from Iran’s defiance of the Security Council and the IAEA even while the United States has been warning Ahmadinejad that “all options” remain on the table, ultimatums and threats of force can no more stop him than negotiations and sanctions have managed to do. Like them, all they accomplish is to buy him more time.
In short, the plain and brutal truth is that if Iran is to be prevented from developing a nuclear arsenal, there is no alternative to the actual use of military force—any more than there was an alternative to force if Hitler was to be stopped in 1938.
Since a ground invasion of Iran must be ruled out for many different reasons, the job would have to be done, if it is to be done at all, by a campaign of air strikes. Furthermore, because Iran’s nuclear facilities are dispersed, and because some of them are underground, many sorties and bunker-busting munitions would be required. And because such a campaign is beyond the capabilities of Israel, and the will, let alone the courage, of any of our other allies, it could be carried out only by the United States.* Even then, we would probably be unable to get at all the underground facilities, which means that, if Iran were still intent on going nuclear, it would not have to start over again from scratch. But a bombing campaign would without question set back its nuclear program for years to come, and might even lead to the overthrow of the mullahs.
The opponents of bombing—not just the usual suspects but many both here and in Israel who have no illusions about the nature and intentions and potential capabilities of the Iranian regime—disagree that it might end in the overthrow of the mullocracy. On the contrary, they are certain that all Iranians, even the democratic dissidents, would be impelled to rally around the flag. And this is only one of the worst-case scenarios they envisage. To wit: Iran would retaliate by increasing the trouble it is already making for us in Iraq. It would attack Israel with missiles armed with non-nuclear warheads but possibly containing biological and/or chemical weapons. There would be a vast increase in the price of oil, with catastrophic consequences for every economy in the world, very much including our own. The worldwide outcry against the inevitable civilian casualties would make the anti-Americanism of today look like a love-fest.
I readily admit that it would be foolish to discount any or all of these scenarios. Each of them is, alas, only too plausible. Nevertheless, there is a good response to them, and it is the one given by John McCain. The only thing worse than bombing Iran, McCain has declared, is allowing Iran to get the bomb.
And yet those of us who agree with McCain are left with the question of whether there is still time. If we believe the Iranians, the answer is no. In early April, at Iran’s Nuclear Day festivities, Ahmadinejad announced that the point of no return in the nuclearization process had been reached. If this is true, it means that Iran is only a small step away from producing nuclear weapons. But even supposing that Ahmadinejad is bluffing, in order to convince the world that it is already too late to stop him, how long will it take before he actually turns out to have a winning hand?
If we believe the CIA, perhaps as much as ten years. But CIA estimates have so often been wrong that they are hardly more credible than the boasts of Ahmadinejad. Other estimates by other experts fall within the range of a few months to six years. Which is to say that no one really knows. And because no one really knows, the only prudent—indeed, the only responsible—course is to assume that Ahmadinejad may not be bluffing, or may only be exaggerating a bit, and to strike at him as soon as it is logistically possible.
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In his 2002 State of the Union address, President Bush made a promise:
We’ll be deliberate, yet time is not on our side. I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons.
In that speech, the President was referring to Iraq, but he has made it clear on a number of subsequent occasions that the same principle applies to Iran. Indeed, he has gone so far as to say that if we permit Iran to build a nuclear arsenal, people 50 years from now will look back and wonder how we of this generation could have allowed such a thing to happen, and they will rightly judge us as harshly as we today judge the British and the French for what they did and what they failed to do at Munich in 1938. I find it hard to understand why George W. Bush would have put himself so squarely in the dock of history on this issue if he were resigned to leaving office with Iran in possession of nuclear weapons, or with the ability to build them. Accordingly, my guess is that he intends, within the next 21 months, to order air strikes against the Iranian nuclear facilities from the three U.S. aircraft carriers already sitting nearby.
But if that is what he has in mind, why is he spending all this time doing the diplomatic dance and wasting so much energy on getting the Russians and the Chinese to sign on to sanctions? The reason, I suspect, is that—to borrow a phrase from Robert Kagan—he has been “giving futility its chance.” Not that this is necessarily a cynical ploy. For it may well be that he has entertained the remote possibility of a diplomatic solution under which Iran would follow the example of Libya in voluntarily giving up its nuclear program. Besides, once having played out the diplomatic string, and thereby having demonstrated that to him force is truly a last resort, Bush would be in a stronger political position to endorse John McCain’s formula that the only thing worse than bombing Iran would be allowing Iran to build a nuclear bomb—and not just to endorse that assessment, but to act on it.
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If this is what Bush intends to do, it goes, or should go, without saying that his overriding purpose is to ensure the security of this country in accordance with the vow he took upon becoming President, and in line with his pledge not to stand by while one of the world’s most dangerous regimes threatens us with one of the world’s most dangerous weapons.
But there is, it has been reported, another consideration that is driving Bush. According to a recent news story in the New York Times, for example, Bush has taken to heart what “[o]fficials from 21 governments in and around the Middle East warned at a meeting of Arab leaders in March”—namely, “that Iran’s drive for atomic technology could result in the beginning of ‘a grave and destructive nuclear arms race in the region.’” Which is to say that he fears that local resistance to Iran’s bid for hegemony in the greater Middle East through the acquisition of nuclear weapons could have even more dangerous consequences than a passive capitulation to that bid by the Arab countries. For resistance would spell the doom of all efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, and it would vastly increase the chances of their use.
I have no doubt that this ominous prospect figures prominently in the President’s calculations. But it seems evident to me that the survival of Israel, a country to which George W. Bush has been friendlier than any President before him, is also of major concern to him—a concern fully coincident with his worries over a Middle Eastern arms race.
Much of the world has greeted Ahmadinejad’s promise to wipe Israel off the map with something close to insouciance. In fact, it could almost be said of the Europeans that they have been more upset by Ahmadinejad’s denial that a Holocaust took place 60 years ago than by his determination to set off one of his own as soon as he acquires the means to do so. In a number of European countries, Holocaust denial is a crime, and the European Union only recently endorsed that position. Yet for all their retrospective remorse over the wholesale slaughter of Jews back then, the Europeans seem no readier to lift a finger to prevent a second Holocaust than they were the first time around.
Not so George W. Bush, a man who knows evil when he sees it and who has demonstrated an unfailingly courageous willingness to endure vilification and contumely in setting his face against it. It now remains to be seen whether this President, battered more mercilessly and with less justification than any other in living memory, and weakened politically by the enemies of his policy in the Middle East in general and Iraq in particular, will find it possible to take the only action that can stop Iran from following through on its evil intentions both toward us and toward Israel. As an American and as a Jew, I pray with all my heart that he will.
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Footnotes
* However, a new study by two members of the Security Studies Program at MIT concludes that the Israeli Air Force “now possesses the capability to destroy even well-hardened targets in Iran with some degree of confidence.” The problem is that all of the many contingencies involved would have to go right for such a mission to succeed.
NORMAN PODHORETZ
June 2007
Although many persist in denying it, I continue to believe that what September 11, 2001 did was to plunge us headlong into nothing less than another world war. I call this new war World War IV, because I also believe that what is generally known as the cold war was actually World War III, and that this one bears a closer resemblance to that great conflict than it does to World War II. Like the cold war, as the military historian Eliot Cohen was the first to recognize, the one we are now in has ideological roots, pitting us against Islamofascism, yet another mutation of the totalitarian disease we defeated first in the shape of Nazism and fascism and then in the shape of Communism; it is global in scope; it is being fought with a variety of weapons, not all of them military; and it is likely to go on for decades.
What follows from this way of looking at the last five years is that the military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq cannot be understood if they are regarded as self-contained wars in their own right. Instead we have to see them as fronts or theaters that have been opened up in the early stages of a protracted global struggle. The same thing is true of Iran. As the currently main center of the Islamofascist ideology against which we have been fighting since 9/11, and as (according to the State Department’s latest annual report on the subject) the main sponsor of the terrorism that is Islamofascism’s weapon of choice, Iran too is a front in World War IV. Moreover, its effort to build a nuclear arsenal makes it the potentially most dangerous one of all.
The Iranians, of course, never cease denying that they intend to build a nuclear arsenal, and yet in the same breath they openly tell us what they intend to do with it. Their first priority, as repeatedly and unequivocally announced by their president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is to “wipe Israel off the map”—a feat that could not be accomplished by conventional weapons alone.
But Ahmadinejad’s ambitions are not confined to the destruction of Israel. He also wishes to dominate the greater Middle East, and thereby to control the oilfields of the region and the flow of oil out of it through the Persian Gulf. If he acquired a nuclear capability, he would not even have to use it in order to put all this within his reach. Intimidation and blackmail by themselves would do the trick.
Nor are Ahmadinejad’s ambitions merely regional in scope. He has a larger dream of extending the power and influence of Islam throughout Europe, and this too he hopes to accomplish by playing on the fear that resistance to Iran would lead to a nuclear war. And then, finally, comes the largest dream of all: what Ahmadinejad does not shrink from describing as “a world without America.” Demented though he may be, I doubt that Ahmadinejad is so crazy as to imagine that he could wipe America off the map even if he had nuclear weapons. But what he probably does envisage is a diminution of the American will to oppose him: that is, if not a world without America, he will settle, at least in the short run, for a world without much American influence.
Not surprisingly, the old American foreign-policy establishment and many others say that these dreams are nothing more than the fantasies of a madman. They also dismiss those who think otherwise as neoconservative alarmists trying to drag this country into another senseless war that is in the interest not of the United States but only of Israel. But the irony is that Ahmadinejad’s dreams are more realistic than the dismissal of those dreams as merely insane delusions. To understand why, an analogy with World War III may help.
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At certain points in that earlier war, some of us feared that the Soviets might seize control of the oil fields of the Middle East, and that the West, faced with a choice between surrendering to their dominance or trying to stop them at the risk of a nuclear exchange, would choose surrender. In that case, we thought, the result would be what in those days went by the name of Finlandization.
In Europe, where there were large Communist parties, Finlandization would take the form of bringing these parties to power so that they could establish “Red Vichy” regimes like the one already in place in Finland—regimes whose subservience to the Soviet will in all things, domestic and foreign alike, would make military occupation unnecessary and would therefore preserve a minimal degree of national independence.
In the United States, where there was no Communist party to speak of, we speculated that Finlandization would take a subtler form. In the realm of foreign affairs, politicians and pundits would arise to celebrate the arrival of a new era of peace and friendship in which the cold-war policy of containment would be scrapped, thus giving the Soviets complete freedom to expand without encountering any significant obstacles. And in the realm of domestic affairs, Finlandization would mean that the only candidates running for office with a prayer of being elected would be those who promised to work toward a sociopolitical system more in harmony with the Soviet model than the unjust capitalist plutocracy under which we had been living.
Of course, by the grace of God, the dissidents behind the Iron Curtain, and Ronald Reagan, we won World War III and were therefore spared the depredations that Finlandization would have brought. Alas, we are far from knowing what the outcome of World War IV will be. But in the meantime, looking at Europe today, we already see the unfolding of a process analogous to Finlandization: it has been called, rightly, Islamization. Consider, for example, what happened when, only a few weeks ago, the Iranians captured fifteen British sailors and marines and held them hostage. Did the Royal Navy, which once boasted that it ruled the waves, immediately retaliate against this blatant act of aggression, or even threaten to do so unless the captives were immediately released? Not by any stretch of the imagination. Indeed, using force was the last thing in the world the British contemplated doing, as they made sure to announce. Instead they relied on the “soft power” so beloved of “sophisticated” Europeans and their American fellow travelers.
But then, as if this show of impotence were not humiliating enough, the British were unable even to mobilize any of that soft power. The European Union, of which they are a member, turned down their request to threaten Iran with a freeze of imports. As for the UN, under whose very auspices they were patrolling the international waters in which the sailors were kidnapped, it once again showed its true colors by refusing even to condemn the Iranians. The most the Security Council could bring itself to do was to express “grave concern.” Meanwhile, a member of the British cabinet was going the Security Council one better. While registering no objection to propaganda pictures of the one woman hostage, who had been forced to shed her uniform and dress for the cameras in Muslim clothing, Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt pronounced it “deplorable” that she should have permitted herself to be photographed with a cigarette in her mouth. “This,” said Hewitt, “sends completely the wrong message to our young people.”
According to John Bolton, our former ambassador to the UN, the Iranians were testing the British to see if there would be any price to pay for committing what would once have been considered an act of war. Having received his answer, Ahmadinejad could now reap the additional benefit of, as the British commentator Daniel Johnson puts it, “posing as a benefactor” by releasing the hostages, even while ordering more attacks in Iraq and even while continuing to arm terrorist organizations, whether Shiite (Hizballah) or Sunni (Hamas). For fanatical Shiites though Ahmadinejad and his ilk assuredly are, they are obviously willing to set sectarian differences aside when it comes to forging jihadist alliances against the infidels.
If, then, under present circumstances Ahmadinejad could bring about the extraordinary degree of kowtowing that resulted from the kidnapping of the British sailors, what might he not accomplish with a nuclear arsenal behind him—nuclear bombs that could be fitted on missiles capable of reaching Europe? As to such a capability, Robert G. Joseph, the U.S. Special Envoy for Nuclear Non-Proliferation, tells us that Iran is “expanding what is already the largest offensive missile force in the region. Moreover, it is reported to be working closely with North Korea, the world’s number-one missile proliferator, to develop even more capable ballistic missiles.” This, Joseph goes on, is why “analysts agree that in the foreseeable future Iran will be armed with medium- and long-range ballistic missiles,” and it is also why “we could wake up one morning to find that Iran is holding Berlin, Paris or London hostage to whatever its demands are then.”
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As with Finlandization, Islamization extends to the domestic realm, too. In one recent illustration of this process, as reported in the British press, “schools in England are dropping the Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils . . . whose beliefs include Holocaust denial.” But this is an equal-opportunity capitulation, since the schools are also eliminating lessons about the Crusades because “such lessons often contradict what is taught in local mosques.”
But why single out England? If anything, much more, and worse, has been going on in other European countries, including France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Denmark, and the Netherlands. All of these countries have large and growing Muslim populations demanding that their religious values and sensibilities be accommodated at the expense of the traditional values of the West, and even in some instances of the law. Yet rather than insisting that, like all immigrant groups before them, they assimilate to Western norms, almost all European politicians have been cravenly giving in to the Muslims’ outrageous demands.
As in the realm of foreign affairs, if this much can be accomplished under present circumstances, what might not be done if the process were being backed by Iranian nuclear blackmail? Already some observers are warning that by the end of the 21st century the whole of Europe will be transformed into a place to which they give the name Eurabia. Whatever chance there may still be of heading off this eventuality would surely be lessened by the menacing shadow of an Iran armed with nuclear weapons, and only too ready to put them into the hands of the terrorist groups to whom it is even now supplying rockets and other explosive devices.
And the United States? As would have been the case with Finlandization, we would experience a milder form of Islamization here at home. But not in the area of foreign policy. Like the Europeans, confronted by Islamofascists armed by Iran with nuclear weapons, we would become more and more hesitant to risk resisting the emergence of a world shaped by their will and tailored to their wishes. For even if Ahmadinejad did not yet have missiles with a long enough range to hit the United States, he would certainly be able to unleash a wave of nuclear terror against us. If he did, he would in all likelihood act through proxies, for whom he would with characteristic brazenness disclaim any responsibility even if the weapons used by the terrorists were to bear telltale markings identifying them as of Iranian origin. At the same time, the opponents of retaliation and other antiwar forces would rush to point out that there was good reason to accept this disclaimer and, markings or no markings (could they not have been forged?), no really solid evidence to refute it.
In any event, in these same centers of opinion, such a scenario is regarded as utter nonsense. In their view, none of the things it envisages would follow even if Ahmadinejad should get the bomb, because the fear of retaliation would deter him from attacking us just as it deterred the Soviets in World War III. For our part, moreover, the knowledge that we were safe from attack would preclude any danger of our falling into anything like Islamization.
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But listen to what Bernard Lewis, the greatest authority of our time on the Islamic world, has to say in this context on the subject of deterrence:
MAD, mutual assured destruction, [was effective] right through the cold war. Both sides had nuclear weapons. Neither side used them, because both sides knew the other would retaliate in kind. This will not work with a religious fanatic [like Ahmadinejad]. For him, mutual assured destruction is not a deterrent, it is an inducement. We know already that [Iran’s leaders] do not give a damn about killing their own people in great numbers. We have seen it again and again. In the final scenario, and this applies all the more strongly if they kill large numbers of their own people, they are doing them a favor. They are giving them a quick free pass to heaven and all its delights.
Nor are they inhibited by a love of country:
We do not worship Iran, we worship Allah. For patriotism is another name for paganism. I say let this land [Iran] burn. I say let this land go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world.
These were the words of the Ayatollah Khomeini, who ruled Iran from 1979 to 1989, and there is no reason to suppose that his disciple Ahmadinejad feels any differently.
Still less would deterrence work where Israel was concerned. For as the Ayatollah Rafsanjani (who is supposedly a “pragmatic conservative”) has declared:
If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession. . . application of an atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel, but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world.
In other words, Israel would be destroyed in a nuclear exchange, but Iran would survive.
In spite of all this, we keep hearing that all would be well if only we agreed—in the currently fashionable lingo—to “engage” with Iran, and that even if the worst came to the worst we could—to revert to the same lingo—“live” with a nuclear Iran. It is when such things are being said that, alongside the resemblance between now and World War III, a parallel also becomes evident between now and the eve of World War II.
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By 1938, Germany under Adolf Hitler had for some years been rearming in defiance of its obligations under the Versailles treaty and other international agreements. Yet even though Hitler in Mein Kampf had explicitly spelled out the goals he was now preparing to pursue, scarcely anyone took him seriously. To the imminent victims of the war he was soon to start, Hitler’s book and his inflammatory speeches were nothing more than braggadocio or, to use the more colorful word Hannah Arendt once applied to Adolf Eichmann, rodomontade: the kind of red meat any politician might throw to his constituents at home. Hitler might sound at times like a madman, but in reality he was a shrewd operator with whom one could—in the notorious term coined by the London Times—“do business.” The business that was done under this assumption was the Munich Agreement of 1938, which the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain declared had brought “peace in our time.”
It was thanks to Munich that “appeasement” became one of the dirtiest words in the whole of our political vocabulary. Yet appeasement had always been an important and entirely respectable tool of diplomacy, signifying the avoidance of war through the alleviation of the other side’s grievances. If Hitler had been what his eventual victims imagined he was—that is, a conventional statesman pursuing limited aims and using the threat of war only as a way of strengthening his bargaining position—it would indeed have been possible to appease him and thereby to head off the outbreak of another war.
But Hitler was not a conventional statesman and, although for tactical reasons he would sometimes pretend otherwise, he did not have limited aims. He was a revolutionary seeking to overturn the going international system and to replace it with a new order dominated by Germany, which also meant the political culture of Nazism. As such, he offered only two choices: resistance or submission. Finding this reality unbearable, the world persuaded itself that there was a way out, a third alternative, in negotiations. But given Hitler’s objectives, and his barely concealed lust for war, negotiating with him could not conceivably have led to peace. It could have had only one outcome, which was to buy him more time to start a war under more favorable conditions. As most historians now agree, if he had been taken at his own word about his true intentions, he could have been stopped earlier and defeated at an infinitely lower cost.
Which brings us back to Ahmadinejad. Like Hitler, he is a revolutionary whose objective is to overturn the going international system and to replace it in the fullness of time with a new order dominated by Iran and ruled by the religio-political culture of Islamofascism. Like Hitler, too, he is entirely open about his intentions, although—again like Hitler—he sometimes pretends that he wants nothing more than his country’s just due. In the case of Hitler in 1938, this pretense took the form of claiming that no further demands would be made if sovereignty over the Sudetenland were transferred from Czechoslovakia to Germany. In the case of Ahmadinejad, the pretense takes the form of claiming that Iran is building nuclear facilities only for peaceful purposes and not for the production of bombs.
But here we come upon an interesting difference between then and now. Whereas in the late 1930’s almost everyone believed, or talked himself into believing, that Hitler was telling the truth when he said he had no further demands to make after Munich, no one believes that Ahmadinejad is telling the truth when he says that Iran has no wish to develop a nuclear arsenal. In addition, virtually everyone agrees that it would be best if he were stopped, only not, God forbid, with military force—not now, and not ever.
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But if military force is ruled out, what is supposed to do the job?
Well, to begin with, there is that good old standby, diplomacy. And so, for three-and-a-half years, even pre-dating the accession of Ahmadinejad to the presidency, the diplomatic gavotte has been danced with Iran, in negotiations whose carrot-and-stick details no one can remember—not even, I suspect, the parties involved. But since, to say it again, Ahmadinejad is a revolutionary with unlimited aims and not a statesman with whom we can “do business,” all this negotiating has had the same result as Munich had with Hitler. That is, it has bought the Iranians more time in which they have moved closer and closer to developing nuclear weapons.
Then there are sanctions. As it happens, sanctions have very rarely worked in the past. Worse yet, they have usually ended up hurting the hapless people of the targeted country while leaving the leadership unscathed. Nevertheless, much hope has been invested in them as a way of bringing Ahmadinejad to heel. Yet thanks to the resistance of Russia and China, both of which have reasons of their own to go easy on Iran, it has proved enormously difficult for the Security Council to impose sanctions that could even conceivably be effective. At first, the only measures to which Russia and China would agree were much too limited even to bite. Then, as Iran continued to defy Security Council resolutions and to block inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it was bound by treaty to permit, not even the Russians and the Chinese were able to hold out against stronger sanctions. Once more, however, these have had little or no effect on the progress Iran is making toward the development of a nuclear arsenal. On the contrary: they, too, have bought the Iranians additional time in which to move ahead.
Since hope springs eternal, some now believe that the answer lies in more punishing sanctions. This time, however, their purpose would be not to force Iran into compliance, but to provoke an internal uprising against Ahmadinejad and the regime as a whole. Those who advocate this course tell us that the “mullocracy” is very unpopular, especially with young people, who make up a majority of Iran’s population. They tell us that these young people would like nothing better than to get rid of the oppressive and repressive and corrupt regime under which they now live and to replace it with a democratic system. And they tell us, finally, that if Iran were so transformed, we would have nothing to fear from it even if it were to acquire nuclear weapons.
Once upon a time, under the influence of Bernard Lewis and others I respect, I too subscribed to this school of thought. But after three years and more of waiting for the insurrection they assured us back then was on the verge of erupting, I have lost confidence in their prediction. Some of them blame the Bush administration for not doing enough to encourage an uprising, which is why they have now transferred their hopes to sanctions that would inflict so much damage on the Iranian economy that the entire populace would rise up against the rulers. Yet whether or not this might happen under such circumstances, there is simply no chance of getting Russia and China, or the Europeans for that matter, to agree to the kind of sanctions that are the necessary precondition.
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At the outset I stipulated that the weapons with which we are fighting World War IV are not all military—that they also include economic, diplomatic, and other nonmilitary instruments of power. In exerting pressure for reform on countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, these nonmilitary instruments are the right ones to use. But it should be clear by now to any observer not in denial that Iran is not such a country. As we know from Iran’s defiance of the Security Council and the IAEA even while the United States has been warning Ahmadinejad that “all options” remain on the table, ultimatums and threats of force can no more stop him than negotiations and sanctions have managed to do. Like them, all they accomplish is to buy him more time.
In short, the plain and brutal truth is that if Iran is to be prevented from developing a nuclear arsenal, there is no alternative to the actual use of military force—any more than there was an alternative to force if Hitler was to be stopped in 1938.
Since a ground invasion of Iran must be ruled out for many different reasons, the job would have to be done, if it is to be done at all, by a campaign of air strikes. Furthermore, because Iran’s nuclear facilities are dispersed, and because some of them are underground, many sorties and bunker-busting munitions would be required. And because such a campaign is beyond the capabilities of Israel, and the will, let alone the courage, of any of our other allies, it could be carried out only by the United States.* Even then, we would probably be unable to get at all the underground facilities, which means that, if Iran were still intent on going nuclear, it would not have to start over again from scratch. But a bombing campaign would without question set back its nuclear program for years to come, and might even lead to the overthrow of the mullahs.
The opponents of bombing—not just the usual suspects but many both here and in Israel who have no illusions about the nature and intentions and potential capabilities of the Iranian regime—disagree that it might end in the overthrow of the mullocracy. On the contrary, they are certain that all Iranians, even the democratic dissidents, would be impelled to rally around the flag. And this is only one of the worst-case scenarios they envisage. To wit: Iran would retaliate by increasing the trouble it is already making for us in Iraq. It would attack Israel with missiles armed with non-nuclear warheads but possibly containing biological and/or chemical weapons. There would be a vast increase in the price of oil, with catastrophic consequences for every economy in the world, very much including our own. The worldwide outcry against the inevitable civilian casualties would make the anti-Americanism of today look like a love-fest.
I readily admit that it would be foolish to discount any or all of these scenarios. Each of them is, alas, only too plausible. Nevertheless, there is a good response to them, and it is the one given by John McCain. The only thing worse than bombing Iran, McCain has declared, is allowing Iran to get the bomb.
And yet those of us who agree with McCain are left with the question of whether there is still time. If we believe the Iranians, the answer is no. In early April, at Iran’s Nuclear Day festivities, Ahmadinejad announced that the point of no return in the nuclearization process had been reached. If this is true, it means that Iran is only a small step away from producing nuclear weapons. But even supposing that Ahmadinejad is bluffing, in order to convince the world that it is already too late to stop him, how long will it take before he actually turns out to have a winning hand?
If we believe the CIA, perhaps as much as ten years. But CIA estimates have so often been wrong that they are hardly more credible than the boasts of Ahmadinejad. Other estimates by other experts fall within the range of a few months to six years. Which is to say that no one really knows. And because no one really knows, the only prudent—indeed, the only responsible—course is to assume that Ahmadinejad may not be bluffing, or may only be exaggerating a bit, and to strike at him as soon as it is logistically possible.
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In his 2002 State of the Union address, President Bush made a promise:
We’ll be deliberate, yet time is not on our side. I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons.
In that speech, the President was referring to Iraq, but he has made it clear on a number of subsequent occasions that the same principle applies to Iran. Indeed, he has gone so far as to say that if we permit Iran to build a nuclear arsenal, people 50 years from now will look back and wonder how we of this generation could have allowed such a thing to happen, and they will rightly judge us as harshly as we today judge the British and the French for what they did and what they failed to do at Munich in 1938. I find it hard to understand why George W. Bush would have put himself so squarely in the dock of history on this issue if he were resigned to leaving office with Iran in possession of nuclear weapons, or with the ability to build them. Accordingly, my guess is that he intends, within the next 21 months, to order air strikes against the Iranian nuclear facilities from the three U.S. aircraft carriers already sitting nearby.
But if that is what he has in mind, why is he spending all this time doing the diplomatic dance and wasting so much energy on getting the Russians and the Chinese to sign on to sanctions? The reason, I suspect, is that—to borrow a phrase from Robert Kagan—he has been “giving futility its chance.” Not that this is necessarily a cynical ploy. For it may well be that he has entertained the remote possibility of a diplomatic solution under which Iran would follow the example of Libya in voluntarily giving up its nuclear program. Besides, once having played out the diplomatic string, and thereby having demonstrated that to him force is truly a last resort, Bush would be in a stronger political position to endorse John McCain’s formula that the only thing worse than bombing Iran would be allowing Iran to build a nuclear bomb—and not just to endorse that assessment, but to act on it.
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If this is what Bush intends to do, it goes, or should go, without saying that his overriding purpose is to ensure the security of this country in accordance with the vow he took upon becoming President, and in line with his pledge not to stand by while one of the world’s most dangerous regimes threatens us with one of the world’s most dangerous weapons.
But there is, it has been reported, another consideration that is driving Bush. According to a recent news story in the New York Times, for example, Bush has taken to heart what “[o]fficials from 21 governments in and around the Middle East warned at a meeting of Arab leaders in March”—namely, “that Iran’s drive for atomic technology could result in the beginning of ‘a grave and destructive nuclear arms race in the region.’” Which is to say that he fears that local resistance to Iran’s bid for hegemony in the greater Middle East through the acquisition of nuclear weapons could have even more dangerous consequences than a passive capitulation to that bid by the Arab countries. For resistance would spell the doom of all efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, and it would vastly increase the chances of their use.
I have no doubt that this ominous prospect figures prominently in the President’s calculations. But it seems evident to me that the survival of Israel, a country to which George W. Bush has been friendlier than any President before him, is also of major concern to him—a concern fully coincident with his worries over a Middle Eastern arms race.
Much of the world has greeted Ahmadinejad’s promise to wipe Israel off the map with something close to insouciance. In fact, it could almost be said of the Europeans that they have been more upset by Ahmadinejad’s denial that a Holocaust took place 60 years ago than by his determination to set off one of his own as soon as he acquires the means to do so. In a number of European countries, Holocaust denial is a crime, and the European Union only recently endorsed that position. Yet for all their retrospective remorse over the wholesale slaughter of Jews back then, the Europeans seem no readier to lift a finger to prevent a second Holocaust than they were the first time around.
Not so George W. Bush, a man who knows evil when he sees it and who has demonstrated an unfailingly courageous willingness to endure vilification and contumely in setting his face against it. It now remains to be seen whether this President, battered more mercilessly and with less justification than any other in living memory, and weakened politically by the enemies of his policy in the Middle East in general and Iraq in particular, will find it possible to take the only action that can stop Iran from following through on its evil intentions both toward us and toward Israel. As an American and as a Jew, I pray with all my heart that he will.
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Footnotes
* However, a new study by two members of the Security Studies Program at MIT concludes that the Israeli Air Force “now possesses the capability to destroy even well-hardened targets in Iran with some degree of confidence.” The problem is that all of the many contingencies involved would have to go right for such a mission to succeed.
Apartheid week-Muslim terrorist murderers complain about Israeli democracy
*http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |* Every year at about this time, radical
Islamic students -- aided by radical anti-Israel professors -- hold an even=
t
they call "Israel Apartheid Week." During this week, they try to persuade
students on campuses around the world to demonize Israel as an apartheid
regime. Most students seem to ignore the rantings of these extremists, but
some naive students seem to take them seriously. Some pro-Israel and Jewish
students claim that they are intimidated when they try to respond to these
untruths. As one who strongly opposes any censorship, my solution is to
fight bad speech with good speech, lies with truth and educational
malpractice with real education.
Accordingly, I support a "Middle East Apartheid Education Week" to be held
at universities throughout the world. It would be based on the universally
accepted human rights principle of "the worst first." In other words, the
worst forms of apartheid being practiced by Middle East nations and entitie=
s
would be studied and exposed first. Then the apartheid practices of other
countries would be studied in order of their seriousness and impact on
vulnerable minorities.
Under this principle, the first country studied would be Saudi Arabia. That
tyrannical kingdom practices gender apartheid to an extreme, relegating
women to an extremely low status. Indeed, a prominent Saudi Imam recently
issued a fatwa declaring that anyone who advocates women working alongside
men or otherwise compromises with absolute gender apartheid is subject to
execution. The Saudis also practice apartheid based on sexual orientation,
executing and imprisoning gay and lesbian Saudis. Finally, Saudi Arabia
openly practices religious apartheid. It has special roads for "Muslims
only." It discriminates against Christians, refusing them the right to
practice their religion openly. And needless to say, it doesn't allow Jews
the right to live in Saudi Arabia, to own property or even (with limited
exceptions) to enter the country. Now that's apartheid with a vengeance.
The second entity on any apartheid list would be Hamas, which is the de
facto government of the Gaza Strip. Hamas too discriminates openly against
women, gays, Christians. It permits no dissent, no free speech, and no
freedom of religion.
Every single Middle East country practices these forms of apartheid to one
degree or another. Consider the most "liberal" and pro-American nation in
the area, namely Jordan. The Kingdom of Jordan, which the King himself
admits is not a democracy, has a law on its books forbidding Jews from
becoming citizens or owning land. Despite the efforts of its progressive
Queen, women are still de facto subordinate in virtually all aspects of
Jordanian life.
Iran, of course, practices no discrimination against gays, because its
President has assured us that there are no gays in Iran. In Pakistan, Sikhs
have been executed for refusing to convert to Islam, and throughout the
Middle East, honor killings of women are practiced, often with a wink and a
nod from the religious and secular authorities.
Every Muslim country in the Middle East has a single, established religion,
namely Islam, and makes no pretense of affording religious equality to
members of other faiths. That is a brief review of some, but certainly not
all, apartheid practices in the Middle East.
Now let's turn to Israel. The secular Jewish state of Israel recognizes
fully the rights of Christians and Muslims and prohibits any discrimination
based on religion (except against Conservative and Reform Jews, but that's
another story!) Muslim and Christian citizens of Israel (of which there are
more than a million) have the right to vote and have elected members of the
Knesset, some of whom even oppose Israel's right to exist. There is an Arab
member of the Supreme Court, an Arab member of the Cabinet and numerous
Israeli Arabs in important positions in businesses, universities and the
cultural life of the nation. A couple of years ago I attended a concert at
the Jerusalem YMCA at which Daniel Barrenboim conducted a mixed orchestra o=
f
Israeli and Palestinian musicians. There was a mixed audience of Israelis
and Palestinians, and the man sitting next to me was an Israeli Arab, who i=
s
the culture minister of the State of Israel. Can anyone imagine that kind o=
f
concert having taking place in apartheid South Africa, or in apartheid Saud=
i
Arabia?
There is complete freedom of dissent in Israel and it is practiced
vigorously by Muslims, Christians and Jews alike. And Israel is a vibrant
democracy.
What is true of Israel proper, including Israeli Arab areas, is not true of
the occupied territories. Israel ended its occupation of the Gaza several
years ago, only to be attacked by Hamas rockets. Israel maintains its
occupation of the West Bank only because the Palestinians walked away from =
a
generous offer of statehood on 97% of the West Bank, with its capital in
Jerusalem and with a $35 billion compensation package for refugees. Had it
accepted that offer by President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Ehud Barak=
,
there would be a Palestinian state in the West Bank. There would be no
separation barrier. There would be no roads restricted to Israeli citizens
(Jews, Arabs and Christians.) And there would be no civilian settlements. I
have long opposed civilian settlements in the West Bank, as many, perhaps
most Israelis, do. But to call an occupation, which continues because of th=
e
refusal of the Palestinians to accept the two-state solution, "Apartheid" i=
s
to misuse that word. As those of us who fought in the actual struggle of
apartheid well understand, there is no comparison between what happened in
South Africa and what is now taking place on the West Bank. As Congressman
John Conyers, who helped found the congressional Black caucus, well put it:
"[Applying the word "Apartheid" to Israel] does not serve the cause of
peace, and the use of it against the Jewish people in particular, who have
been victims of the worst kind of discrimination, discrimination resulting
in death, is offensive and wrong."
The current "Israel Apartheid Week" on universities around the world, by
focusing only on the imperfections of the Middle East's sole democracy, is
carefully designed to cover up far more serious problems of real apartheid
in Arab and Muslim nations. The question is why do so many students identif=
y
with regimes that denigrate women, gays, non-Muslims, dissenters,
environmentalists and human rights advocates, while demonizing a democratic
regime that grants equal rights to women (the chief justice and speaker of
the Parliament of Israel are women), gays (there are openly gay generals in
the Israeli Army), non-Jews (Muslims and Christians serve in high positions
in Israel) and dissenters, (virtually all Israelis dissent about something)=
.
Israel has the best environmental record in the Middle East, it exports mor=
e
life saving medical technology than any country in the region and it has
sacrificed more for peace than any country in the Middle East. Yet on many
college campuses democratic, egalitarian Israel is a pariah, while sexist,
homophobic, anti-Semitic, terrorist Hamas is a champion. There is something
very wrong with this picture.
Islamic students -- aided by radical anti-Israel professors -- hold an even=
t
they call "Israel Apartheid Week." During this week, they try to persuade
students on campuses around the world to demonize Israel as an apartheid
regime. Most students seem to ignore the rantings of these extremists, but
some naive students seem to take them seriously. Some pro-Israel and Jewish
students claim that they are intimidated when they try to respond to these
untruths. As one who strongly opposes any censorship, my solution is to
fight bad speech with good speech, lies with truth and educational
malpractice with real education.
Accordingly, I support a "Middle East Apartheid Education Week" to be held
at universities throughout the world. It would be based on the universally
accepted human rights principle of "the worst first." In other words, the
worst forms of apartheid being practiced by Middle East nations and entitie=
s
would be studied and exposed first. Then the apartheid practices of other
countries would be studied in order of their seriousness and impact on
vulnerable minorities.
Under this principle, the first country studied would be Saudi Arabia. That
tyrannical kingdom practices gender apartheid to an extreme, relegating
women to an extremely low status. Indeed, a prominent Saudi Imam recently
issued a fatwa declaring that anyone who advocates women working alongside
men or otherwise compromises with absolute gender apartheid is subject to
execution. The Saudis also practice apartheid based on sexual orientation,
executing and imprisoning gay and lesbian Saudis. Finally, Saudi Arabia
openly practices religious apartheid. It has special roads for "Muslims
only." It discriminates against Christians, refusing them the right to
practice their religion openly. And needless to say, it doesn't allow Jews
the right to live in Saudi Arabia, to own property or even (with limited
exceptions) to enter the country. Now that's apartheid with a vengeance.
The second entity on any apartheid list would be Hamas, which is the de
facto government of the Gaza Strip. Hamas too discriminates openly against
women, gays, Christians. It permits no dissent, no free speech, and no
freedom of religion.
Every single Middle East country practices these forms of apartheid to one
degree or another. Consider the most "liberal" and pro-American nation in
the area, namely Jordan. The Kingdom of Jordan, which the King himself
admits is not a democracy, has a law on its books forbidding Jews from
becoming citizens or owning land. Despite the efforts of its progressive
Queen, women are still de facto subordinate in virtually all aspects of
Jordanian life.
Iran, of course, practices no discrimination against gays, because its
President has assured us that there are no gays in Iran. In Pakistan, Sikhs
have been executed for refusing to convert to Islam, and throughout the
Middle East, honor killings of women are practiced, often with a wink and a
nod from the religious and secular authorities.
Every Muslim country in the Middle East has a single, established religion,
namely Islam, and makes no pretense of affording religious equality to
members of other faiths. That is a brief review of some, but certainly not
all, apartheid practices in the Middle East.
Now let's turn to Israel. The secular Jewish state of Israel recognizes
fully the rights of Christians and Muslims and prohibits any discrimination
based on religion (except against Conservative and Reform Jews, but that's
another story!) Muslim and Christian citizens of Israel (of which there are
more than a million) have the right to vote and have elected members of the
Knesset, some of whom even oppose Israel's right to exist. There is an Arab
member of the Supreme Court, an Arab member of the Cabinet and numerous
Israeli Arabs in important positions in businesses, universities and the
cultural life of the nation. A couple of years ago I attended a concert at
the Jerusalem YMCA at which Daniel Barrenboim conducted a mixed orchestra o=
f
Israeli and Palestinian musicians. There was a mixed audience of Israelis
and Palestinians, and the man sitting next to me was an Israeli Arab, who i=
s
the culture minister of the State of Israel. Can anyone imagine that kind o=
f
concert having taking place in apartheid South Africa, or in apartheid Saud=
i
Arabia?
There is complete freedom of dissent in Israel and it is practiced
vigorously by Muslims, Christians and Jews alike. And Israel is a vibrant
democracy.
What is true of Israel proper, including Israeli Arab areas, is not true of
the occupied territories. Israel ended its occupation of the Gaza several
years ago, only to be attacked by Hamas rockets. Israel maintains its
occupation of the West Bank only because the Palestinians walked away from =
a
generous offer of statehood on 97% of the West Bank, with its capital in
Jerusalem and with a $35 billion compensation package for refugees. Had it
accepted that offer by President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Ehud Barak=
,
there would be a Palestinian state in the West Bank. There would be no
separation barrier. There would be no roads restricted to Israeli citizens
(Jews, Arabs and Christians.) And there would be no civilian settlements. I
have long opposed civilian settlements in the West Bank, as many, perhaps
most Israelis, do. But to call an occupation, which continues because of th=
e
refusal of the Palestinians to accept the two-state solution, "Apartheid" i=
s
to misuse that word. As those of us who fought in the actual struggle of
apartheid well understand, there is no comparison between what happened in
South Africa and what is now taking place on the West Bank. As Congressman
John Conyers, who helped found the congressional Black caucus, well put it:
"[Applying the word "Apartheid" to Israel] does not serve the cause of
peace, and the use of it against the Jewish people in particular, who have
been victims of the worst kind of discrimination, discrimination resulting
in death, is offensive and wrong."
The current "Israel Apartheid Week" on universities around the world, by
focusing only on the imperfections of the Middle East's sole democracy, is
carefully designed to cover up far more serious problems of real apartheid
in Arab and Muslim nations. The question is why do so many students identif=
y
with regimes that denigrate women, gays, non-Muslims, dissenters,
environmentalists and human rights advocates, while demonizing a democratic
regime that grants equal rights to women (the chief justice and speaker of
the Parliament of Israel are women), gays (there are openly gay generals in
the Israeli Army), non-Jews (Muslims and Christians serve in high positions
in Israel) and dissenters, (virtually all Israelis dissent about something)=
.
Israel has the best environmental record in the Middle East, it exports mor=
e
life saving medical technology than any country in the region and it has
sacrificed more for peace than any country in the Middle East. Yet on many
college campuses democratic, egalitarian Israel is a pariah, while sexist,
homophobic, anti-Semitic, terrorist Hamas is a champion. There is something
very wrong with this picture.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Apartheid week-Muslim terrorist murderers complain about Israeli democracy
"Apartheid Week," the annual event organized on college campuses in the United States, Canada and elsewhere by extreme anti-Israel groups, is now two weeks. This year it is being held March 1-14 and spreading to campuses all over the world.
It includes lectures and exhibits aimed at convincing students that Israel is a racist, colonial state. Participants are asked to sign a document opposing Zionism while supporting the creation of a state for Palestinian Authority Arabs. IAW activists on the Columbia campus are setting up "mock apartheid wall", meant to represent the West Bank security fence. In Seattle, activists from the Palestinian solidarity movement have planned to protest a concert by Israeli musician Idan Reichel, saying that Reichel and Israeli artists like him are contributing to "culture theft." IAW events will also be held at a school near you as well as in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
BOYCOTT
,
Professor Gerald Steinberg, head of NGO Monitor: The IAW campaign is part of the 2001 UN Durban strategy for "the complete international isolation of Israel' as a racist, apartheid and genocidal state...This NGO-led Durban strategy is not directed at the occupation, or to support a two-state solution, but seeks to eliminate the State of Israel.
WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT.
CONTRIBUTE to Protect Our Heritage PAC and help us fight "Apartheid Week."
To Protect Our Heritage is a bipartisan PAC, which for 27 years has had a single issue: a strong U.S.- Israel Relationship.
Article Headline
students against Israel.
FIGHTING BACK AGAINST THE LIES
Stand With Us has produced a booklet titled "Middle East Apartheid Today" to counter Apartheid Week criticism of Israel. The booklet describes the oppression of black citizens of South Africa under apartheid and compares it to the situation of women, homosexuals, religious minorities, and reformists in countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia. The booklet is available on the Stand With Us website.
The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA )has also put materials online to assist those interested in countering anti-Israel rhetoric. The site, www.israeliapartheidweek.com, includes information on the radical nature of Apartheid Week, the double standard implicit in criticizing Jewish self-determination and not that of other national groups, and genuine oppression elsewhere in the Middle East.
B.I.G.FIGHTING BACK AGAINST
"APARTHEID WEEK" BOYCOTT
"Apartheid Week" includes boycotts against stores selling Israeli consumer products. The likely focus will be on Trader Joe's and Whole Foods. The American Israel Chamber of Commerce BUY ISRAEL GOODS (B.I.G.)asks Israel supporters to turn the attempted boycott into a surge of support for Israel. Shop for Israeli products and tell store managers why you are there that day.
AICC's BUY ISRAEL GOODS "B.I.G. is a consumer guide for the retail purchase of Israeli products. Use B.I.G. to find the products you want and stores which carry them.
QUESTIONS?
Email ProHeritagePAC@aol.com
Check our Website
www.protectourheritagepac.com
Please forward this email to your neighbors, relatives and friends who care about Israel's fut
It includes lectures and exhibits aimed at convincing students that Israel is a racist, colonial state. Participants are asked to sign a document opposing Zionism while supporting the creation of a state for Palestinian Authority Arabs. IAW activists on the Columbia campus are setting up "mock apartheid wall", meant to represent the West Bank security fence. In Seattle, activists from the Palestinian solidarity movement have planned to protest a concert by Israeli musician Idan Reichel, saying that Reichel and Israeli artists like him are contributing to "culture theft." IAW events will also be held at a school near you as well as in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
BOYCOTT
,
Professor Gerald Steinberg, head of NGO Monitor: The IAW campaign is part of the 2001 UN Durban strategy for "the complete international isolation of Israel' as a racist, apartheid and genocidal state...This NGO-led Durban strategy is not directed at the occupation, or to support a two-state solution, but seeks to eliminate the State of Israel.
WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT.
CONTRIBUTE to Protect Our Heritage PAC and help us fight "Apartheid Week."
To Protect Our Heritage is a bipartisan PAC, which for 27 years has had a single issue: a strong U.S.- Israel Relationship.
Article Headline
students against Israel.
FIGHTING BACK AGAINST THE LIES
Stand With Us has produced a booklet titled "Middle East Apartheid Today" to counter Apartheid Week criticism of Israel. The booklet describes the oppression of black citizens of South Africa under apartheid and compares it to the situation of women, homosexuals, religious minorities, and reformists in countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia. The booklet is available on the Stand With Us website.
The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA )has also put materials online to assist those interested in countering anti-Israel rhetoric. The site, www.israeliapartheidweek.com, includes information on the radical nature of Apartheid Week, the double standard implicit in criticizing Jewish self-determination and not that of other national groups, and genuine oppression elsewhere in the Middle East.
B.I.G.FIGHTING BACK AGAINST
"APARTHEID WEEK" BOYCOTT
"Apartheid Week" includes boycotts against stores selling Israeli consumer products. The likely focus will be on Trader Joe's and Whole Foods. The American Israel Chamber of Commerce BUY ISRAEL GOODS (B.I.G.)asks Israel supporters to turn the attempted boycott into a surge of support for Israel. Shop for Israeli products and tell store managers why you are there that day.
AICC's BUY ISRAEL GOODS "B.I.G. is a consumer guide for the retail purchase of Israeli products. Use B.I.G. to find the products you want and stores which carry them.
QUESTIONS?
Email ProHeritagePAC@aol.com
Check our Website
www.protectourheritagepac.com
Please forward this email to your neighbors, relatives and friends who care about Israel's fut
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Muslims taking over Europe
This Will Give You Cold Chills!
Geert Wilders is a Dutch Member of Parliament.
In a generation or two, the US will ask itself: Who lost Europe ?'
Here is the speech of Geert Wilders, Chairman, Party for Freedom, the Netherlands , at the Four Seasons, New York , introducing an Alliance of Patriots and announcing the Facing Jihad Conference in Jerusalem .
Dear friends,
Thank you very much for inviting me.
I come to America with a mission. All is not well in the old world. There is a tremendous danger looming, and it is very difficult to be optimistic. We might be in the final stages of the Islamization of Europe. This not only is a clear and present danger to the future of Europe itself, it is a threat to America and the sheer survival of the West. The United States as the last bastion of Western civilization, facing an Islamic Europe.
First I will describe the situation on the ground in Europe . Then, I will say a few things about Islam. To close I will tell you about a meeting in Jerusalem .
The Europe you know is changing.
You have probably seen the landmarks. But in all of these cities, sometimes a few blocks away from your tourist destination, there is another world. It is the world of the parallel society created by Muslim mass-migration.
All throughout Europe a new reality is rising: entire Muslim neighborhoods where very few indigenous people reside or are even seen. And if they are, they might regret it. This goes for the police as well. It's the world of head scarves, where women walk around in figureless tents, with baby strollers and a group of children. Their husbands, or slaveholders if you prefer, walk three steps ahead. With mosques on many street corners. The shops have signs you and I cannot read. You will be hard-pressed to find any economic activity. These are Muslim ghettos controlled by religious fanatics. These are Muslim neighborhoods, and they are mushrooming in every city across Europe . These are the building-blocks for territorial control of increasingly larger portions of Europe , street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood, city by city.
There are now thousands of mosques throughout Europe . With larger congregations than there are in churches. And in every European city there are plans to build super-mosques that will dwarf every church in the region. Clearly, the signal is: we rule.
Many European cities are already one-quarter Muslim: just take Amsterdam , Marseille and Malmo in Sweden . In many cities the majority of the under-18 population is Muslim. Paris is now surrounded by a ring of Muslim neighborhoods. Mohammed is the most popular name among boys in many cities.
In some elementary schools in Amsterdam the farm can no longer be mentioned, because that would also mean mentioning the pig, and that would be an insult to Muslims.
Many state schools in Belgium and Denmark only serve halal food to all pupils. In once-tolerant Amsterdam gays are beaten up almost exclusively by Muslims. Non-Muslim women routinely hear 'whore, whore'. Satellite dishes are not pointed to local TV stations, but to stations in the country of origin.
In France school teachers are advised to avoid authors deemed offensive to Muslims, including Voltaire and Diderot; the same is increasingly true of Darwin . The history of the Holocaust can no longer be taught because of Muslim sensitivity.
In England sharia courts are now officially part of the British legal system. Many neighborhoods in France are no-go areas for women without head scarves. Last week a man almost died after being beaten up by Muslims in Brussels , because he was drinking during the Ramadan.
Jews are fleeing France in record numbers, on the run for the worst wave of anti-Semitism since World War II. French is now commonly spoken on the streets of Tel Aviv and Netanya , Israel . I could go on forever with stories like this. Stories about Islamization.
A total of fifty-four million Muslims now live in Europe . San Diego University recently calculated that a staggering 25 percent of the population in Europe will be Muslim just 12 years from now. Bernhard Lewis has predicted a Muslim majority by the end of this century.
Now these are just numbers. And the numbers would not be threatening if the Muslim-immigrants had a strong desire to assimilate. But there are few signs of that. The Pew Research Center reported that half of French Muslims see their loyalty to Islam as greater than their loyalty to France . One-third of French Muslims do not object to suicide attacks. The British Centre for Social Cohesion reported that one-third of British Muslim students are in favor of a worldwide caliphate. Muslims demand what they call 'respect'. And this is how we give them respect. We have Muslim official state holidays.
The Christian-Democratic attorney general is willing to accept sharia in the Netherlands if there is a Muslim majority. We have cabinet members with passports from Morocco and Turkey .
Muslim demands are supported by unlawful behavior, ranging from petty crimes and random violence, for example against ambulance workers and bus drivers, to small-scale riots. Paris has seen its uprising in the low-income suburbs, the banlieus. I call the perpetrators 'settlers'. Because that is what they are. They do not come to integrate into our societies; they come to integrate our society into their Dar-al-Islam. Therefore, they are settlers.
Much of this street violence I mentioned is directed exclusively against non-Muslims, forcing many native people to leave their neighborhoods, their cities, their countries. Moreover, Muslims are now a swing vote not to be ignored.
The second thing you need to know is the importance of Mohammed the prophet. His behavior is an example to all Muslims and cannot be criticized. Now, if Mohammed had been a man of peace, let us say like Ghandi and Mother Theresa wrapped in one, there would be no problem. But Mohammed was a warlord, a mass murderer, a pedophile, and had several marriages - at the same time. Islamic tradition tells us how he fought in battles, how he had his enemies murdered and even had prisoners of war executed. Mohammed himself slaughtered the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza. If it is good for Islam, it is good. If it is bad for Islam, it is bad.
Let no one fool you about Islam being a religion. Sure, it has a god, and a here-after, and 72 virgins. But in its essence Islam is a political ideology. It is a system that lays down detailed rules for society and the life of every person. Islam wants to dictate every aspect of life. Islam means 'submission'. Islam is not compatible with freedom and democracy, because what it strives for is sharia. If you want to compare Islam to anything, compare it to communism or national-socialism, these are all totalitarian ideologies.
Now you know why Winston Churchill called Islam 'the most retrograde force in the world', and why he compared Mein Kampf to the Quran. The public has wholeheartedly accepted the Palestinian narrative, and sees Israel as the aggressor. I have lived in this country and visited it dozens of times. I support Israel . First, because it is the Jewish homeland after two thousand years of exile up to and including Auschwitz, second because it is a democracy, and third because Israel is our first line of defense.
This tiny country is situated on the fault line of jihad, frustrating Islam's territorial advance. Israel is facing the front lines of jihad, like Kashmir, Kosovo, the Philippines , Southern Thailand, Darfur in Sudan , Lebanon , and Aceh in Indonesia . Israel is simply in the way. The same way West-Berlin was during the Cold War.
The war against Israel is not a war against Israel . It is a war against the West. It is jihad. Israel is simply receiving the blows that are meant for all of us. If there would have been no Israel , Islamic imperialism would have found other venues to release its energy and its desire for conquest. Thanks to Israeli parents who send their children to the army and lay awake at night, parents in Europe and America can sleep well and dream, unaware of the dangers looming.
Many in Europe argue in favor of abandoning Israel in order to address the grievances of our Muslim minorities. But if Israel were, God forbid, to go down, it would not bring any solace to the West It would not mean our Muslim minorities would all of a sudden change their behavior, and accept our values. On the contrary, the end of Israel would give enormous encouragement to the forces of Islam. They would, and rightly so, see the demise of Israel as proof that the West is weak, and doomed. The end of Israel would not mean the end of our problems with Islam, but only the beginning. It would mean the start of the final battle for world domination. If they can get Israel , they can get everything. So-called journalists volunteer to label any and all critics of Islamization as a 'right-wing extremists' or 'racists'. In my country, the Netherlands , 60 percent of the population now sees the mass immigration of Muslims as the number one policy mistake since World War II. And another 60 percent sees Islam as the biggest threat. Yet there is a greater danger than terrorist attacks, the scenario of America as the last man standing. The lights may go out in Europe faster than you can imagine. An Islamic Europe means a Europe without freedom and democracy, an economic wasteland, an intellectual nightmare, and a loss of military might for America - as its allies will turn into enemies, enemies with atomic bombs. With an Islamic Europe, it would be up to America alone to preserve the heritage of Rome , Athens and Jerusalem .
Dear friends, liberty is the most precious of gifts. My generation never had to fight for this freedom, it was offered to us on a silver platter, by people who fought for it with their lives. All throughout Europe , American cemeteries remind us of the young boys who never made it home, and whose memory we cherish. My generation does not own this freedom; we are merely its custodians. We can only hand over this hard won liberty to Europe 's children in the same state in which it was offered to us. We cannot strike a deal with mullahs and imams. Future generations would never forgive us. We cannot squander our liberties. We simply do not have the right to do so.
We have to take the necessary action now to stop this Islamic stupidity from destroying the free world that we know.
Geert Wilders is a Dutch Member of Parliament.
In a generation or two, the US will ask itself: Who lost Europe ?'
Here is the speech of Geert Wilders, Chairman, Party for Freedom, the Netherlands , at the Four Seasons, New York , introducing an Alliance of Patriots and announcing the Facing Jihad Conference in Jerusalem .
Dear friends,
Thank you very much for inviting me.
I come to America with a mission. All is not well in the old world. There is a tremendous danger looming, and it is very difficult to be optimistic. We might be in the final stages of the Islamization of Europe. This not only is a clear and present danger to the future of Europe itself, it is a threat to America and the sheer survival of the West. The United States as the last bastion of Western civilization, facing an Islamic Europe.
First I will describe the situation on the ground in Europe . Then, I will say a few things about Islam. To close I will tell you about a meeting in Jerusalem .
The Europe you know is changing.
You have probably seen the landmarks. But in all of these cities, sometimes a few blocks away from your tourist destination, there is another world. It is the world of the parallel society created by Muslim mass-migration.
All throughout Europe a new reality is rising: entire Muslim neighborhoods where very few indigenous people reside or are even seen. And if they are, they might regret it. This goes for the police as well. It's the world of head scarves, where women walk around in figureless tents, with baby strollers and a group of children. Their husbands, or slaveholders if you prefer, walk three steps ahead. With mosques on many street corners. The shops have signs you and I cannot read. You will be hard-pressed to find any economic activity. These are Muslim ghettos controlled by religious fanatics. These are Muslim neighborhoods, and they are mushrooming in every city across Europe . These are the building-blocks for territorial control of increasingly larger portions of Europe , street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood, city by city.
There are now thousands of mosques throughout Europe . With larger congregations than there are in churches. And in every European city there are plans to build super-mosques that will dwarf every church in the region. Clearly, the signal is: we rule.
Many European cities are already one-quarter Muslim: just take Amsterdam , Marseille and Malmo in Sweden . In many cities the majority of the under-18 population is Muslim. Paris is now surrounded by a ring of Muslim neighborhoods. Mohammed is the most popular name among boys in many cities.
In some elementary schools in Amsterdam the farm can no longer be mentioned, because that would also mean mentioning the pig, and that would be an insult to Muslims.
Many state schools in Belgium and Denmark only serve halal food to all pupils. In once-tolerant Amsterdam gays are beaten up almost exclusively by Muslims. Non-Muslim women routinely hear 'whore, whore'. Satellite dishes are not pointed to local TV stations, but to stations in the country of origin.
In France school teachers are advised to avoid authors deemed offensive to Muslims, including Voltaire and Diderot; the same is increasingly true of Darwin . The history of the Holocaust can no longer be taught because of Muslim sensitivity.
In England sharia courts are now officially part of the British legal system. Many neighborhoods in France are no-go areas for women without head scarves. Last week a man almost died after being beaten up by Muslims in Brussels , because he was drinking during the Ramadan.
Jews are fleeing France in record numbers, on the run for the worst wave of anti-Semitism since World War II. French is now commonly spoken on the streets of Tel Aviv and Netanya , Israel . I could go on forever with stories like this. Stories about Islamization.
A total of fifty-four million Muslims now live in Europe . San Diego University recently calculated that a staggering 25 percent of the population in Europe will be Muslim just 12 years from now. Bernhard Lewis has predicted a Muslim majority by the end of this century.
Now these are just numbers. And the numbers would not be threatening if the Muslim-immigrants had a strong desire to assimilate. But there are few signs of that. The Pew Research Center reported that half of French Muslims see their loyalty to Islam as greater than their loyalty to France . One-third of French Muslims do not object to suicide attacks. The British Centre for Social Cohesion reported that one-third of British Muslim students are in favor of a worldwide caliphate. Muslims demand what they call 'respect'. And this is how we give them respect. We have Muslim official state holidays.
The Christian-Democratic attorney general is willing to accept sharia in the Netherlands if there is a Muslim majority. We have cabinet members with passports from Morocco and Turkey .
Muslim demands are supported by unlawful behavior, ranging from petty crimes and random violence, for example against ambulance workers and bus drivers, to small-scale riots. Paris has seen its uprising in the low-income suburbs, the banlieus. I call the perpetrators 'settlers'. Because that is what they are. They do not come to integrate into our societies; they come to integrate our society into their Dar-al-Islam. Therefore, they are settlers.
Much of this street violence I mentioned is directed exclusively against non-Muslims, forcing many native people to leave their neighborhoods, their cities, their countries. Moreover, Muslims are now a swing vote not to be ignored.
The second thing you need to know is the importance of Mohammed the prophet. His behavior is an example to all Muslims and cannot be criticized. Now, if Mohammed had been a man of peace, let us say like Ghandi and Mother Theresa wrapped in one, there would be no problem. But Mohammed was a warlord, a mass murderer, a pedophile, and had several marriages - at the same time. Islamic tradition tells us how he fought in battles, how he had his enemies murdered and even had prisoners of war executed. Mohammed himself slaughtered the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza. If it is good for Islam, it is good. If it is bad for Islam, it is bad.
Let no one fool you about Islam being a religion. Sure, it has a god, and a here-after, and 72 virgins. But in its essence Islam is a political ideology. It is a system that lays down detailed rules for society and the life of every person. Islam wants to dictate every aspect of life. Islam means 'submission'. Islam is not compatible with freedom and democracy, because what it strives for is sharia. If you want to compare Islam to anything, compare it to communism or national-socialism, these are all totalitarian ideologies.
Now you know why Winston Churchill called Islam 'the most retrograde force in the world', and why he compared Mein Kampf to the Quran. The public has wholeheartedly accepted the Palestinian narrative, and sees Israel as the aggressor. I have lived in this country and visited it dozens of times. I support Israel . First, because it is the Jewish homeland after two thousand years of exile up to and including Auschwitz, second because it is a democracy, and third because Israel is our first line of defense.
This tiny country is situated on the fault line of jihad, frustrating Islam's territorial advance. Israel is facing the front lines of jihad, like Kashmir, Kosovo, the Philippines , Southern Thailand, Darfur in Sudan , Lebanon , and Aceh in Indonesia . Israel is simply in the way. The same way West-Berlin was during the Cold War.
The war against Israel is not a war against Israel . It is a war against the West. It is jihad. Israel is simply receiving the blows that are meant for all of us. If there would have been no Israel , Islamic imperialism would have found other venues to release its energy and its desire for conquest. Thanks to Israeli parents who send their children to the army and lay awake at night, parents in Europe and America can sleep well and dream, unaware of the dangers looming.
Many in Europe argue in favor of abandoning Israel in order to address the grievances of our Muslim minorities. But if Israel were, God forbid, to go down, it would not bring any solace to the West It would not mean our Muslim minorities would all of a sudden change their behavior, and accept our values. On the contrary, the end of Israel would give enormous encouragement to the forces of Islam. They would, and rightly so, see the demise of Israel as proof that the West is weak, and doomed. The end of Israel would not mean the end of our problems with Islam, but only the beginning. It would mean the start of the final battle for world domination. If they can get Israel , they can get everything. So-called journalists volunteer to label any and all critics of Islamization as a 'right-wing extremists' or 'racists'. In my country, the Netherlands , 60 percent of the population now sees the mass immigration of Muslims as the number one policy mistake since World War II. And another 60 percent sees Islam as the biggest threat. Yet there is a greater danger than terrorist attacks, the scenario of America as the last man standing. The lights may go out in Europe faster than you can imagine. An Islamic Europe means a Europe without freedom and democracy, an economic wasteland, an intellectual nightmare, and a loss of military might for America - as its allies will turn into enemies, enemies with atomic bombs. With an Islamic Europe, it would be up to America alone to preserve the heritage of Rome , Athens and Jerusalem .
Dear friends, liberty is the most precious of gifts. My generation never had to fight for this freedom, it was offered to us on a silver platter, by people who fought for it with their lives. All throughout Europe , American cemeteries remind us of the young boys who never made it home, and whose memory we cherish. My generation does not own this freedom; we are merely its custodians. We can only hand over this hard won liberty to Europe 's children in the same state in which it was offered to us. We cannot strike a deal with mullahs and imams. Future generations would never forgive us. We cannot squander our liberties. We simply do not have the right to do so.
We have to take the necessary action now to stop this Islamic stupidity from destroying the free world that we know.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
WHY BOMB iRAN
Many Israelis regard the Iranian nuclear program as a matter of life and death. The prospect of a nuclear Iran isn't an irritant or a distant threat. It is understood directly in the context of the Iranian president's provocative attacks on Israel's right to exist and his public support for historians who deny the Holocaust. If you want to make Israelis paranoid, hint that they might be the target of an attempted mass murder. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does exactly that.
If that ever happened, then the 2 a.m. phone call would be followed by retaliation, some of which would be directed at us, our troops in Iraq, our ships at sea. I don't want this to happen -- but I do want us to be prepared if it does. Contrary to Palin, I do not think Obama would restore the fortunes of his presidency by bombing Iran, like a character out of that movie "Wag the Dog." But I do hope that this administration is ready, militarily and psychologically, not for a war of choice but for an unwanted war of necessity. This is real life, after all, not Hollywood.
applebaumletters@washpost.com
If that ever happened, then the 2 a.m. phone call would be followed by retaliation, some of which would be directed at us, our troops in Iraq, our ships at sea. I don't want this to happen -- but I do want us to be prepared if it does. Contrary to Palin, I do not think Obama would restore the fortunes of his presidency by bombing Iran, like a character out of that movie "Wag the Dog." But I do hope that this administration is ready, militarily and psychologically, not for a war of choice but for an unwanted war of necessity. This is real life, after all, not Hollywood.
applebaumletters@washpost.com
Israel sabatoging Iran's nuclear program
Report: Israel secretly sabotaging Iran's nuclear program
British Daily Telegraph quotes US intelligence officials as saying Israel using assassins, sabotage, double agents and front companies to interrupt and delay Islamic Republic's nuclear drive
Ynet
Published: 02.17.09, 08:31 / Israel News
Israel is using assassins, sabotage, front companies and double agents in an effort to interrupt the Iranian nuclear program, US intelligence experts told the British Daily Telegraph.
Opinion
Step closer to bomb / Isaac Ben-Israel
Iranian satellite has little significance but ballistic capabilities cause for concern
Full Story
According to the report, Israel has gone as far as orchestrating the assassination of high-profile figures in the Islamic Republic's regime.
A former CIA officer told the British newspaper: "Disruption is designed to slow progress on the program, done in such a way that they don't realize what's happening…The goal is delay, delay, delay until you can come up with some other solution or approach."
A senior analyst with a private American intelligence company said that Israel's main strategy was to eliminate key Iranian figures.
"With cooperation from the United States, Israeli covert operations have focused both on eliminating key human assets involved in the nuclear program and in sabotaging the Iranian nuclear supply chain," she told the Telegraph.
In this regard, the paper mentioned Iranian nuclear scientist Ardeshire Hassanpour who died in what was defined as "gas poisoning" in 2007. His death has been linked to the Israeli Mossad.
Other top Iranian officials involved in the nuclear program have also been "taken out" by Israel, Western intelligence sources told the paper.
According to the report, Israel has also been using front companies to supply the Iranian regime with faulty or defective items for its nuclear plants.
However, a former CIA chief said he was skeptical as to the efficacy of these actions in causing substantial harm to the Iranian efforts. You cannot carry out foreign policy objectives via covert operations," he told the Telegraph. "You can't get rid of a couple of people and hope to affect Iran's nuclear capability."
British Daily Telegraph quotes US intelligence officials as saying Israel using assassins, sabotage, double agents and front companies to interrupt and delay Islamic Republic's nuclear drive
Ynet
Published: 02.17.09, 08:31 / Israel News
Israel is using assassins, sabotage, front companies and double agents in an effort to interrupt the Iranian nuclear program, US intelligence experts told the British Daily Telegraph.
Opinion
Step closer to bomb / Isaac Ben-Israel
Iranian satellite has little significance but ballistic capabilities cause for concern
Full Story
According to the report, Israel has gone as far as orchestrating the assassination of high-profile figures in the Islamic Republic's regime.
A former CIA officer told the British newspaper: "Disruption is designed to slow progress on the program, done in such a way that they don't realize what's happening…The goal is delay, delay, delay until you can come up with some other solution or approach."
A senior analyst with a private American intelligence company said that Israel's main strategy was to eliminate key Iranian figures.
"With cooperation from the United States, Israeli covert operations have focused both on eliminating key human assets involved in the nuclear program and in sabotaging the Iranian nuclear supply chain," she told the Telegraph.
In this regard, the paper mentioned Iranian nuclear scientist Ardeshire Hassanpour who died in what was defined as "gas poisoning" in 2007. His death has been linked to the Israeli Mossad.
Other top Iranian officials involved in the nuclear program have also been "taken out" by Israel, Western intelligence sources told the paper.
According to the report, Israel has also been using front companies to supply the Iranian regime with faulty or defective items for its nuclear plants.
However, a former CIA chief said he was skeptical as to the efficacy of these actions in causing substantial harm to the Iranian efforts. You cannot carry out foreign policy objectives via covert operations," he told the Telegraph. "You can't get rid of a couple of people and hope to affect Iran's nuclear capability."
Monday, February 22, 2010
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Hamas Mass Murderer Mabhouh killed
Exodus says when someone comes to kill you, kill them first,
Wall Street Journal
There is no evidence it was Israel...Mabhouh ... rose to infamy in 1987 by abducting and killing two Israeli soldiers. He then went on to become a central figure in Hamas's fund-raising operations.
Later, Mabhouh became a key coordinator of Hamas-Iran cooperation. In this capacity he organized the shipment of weaponry and other sophisticated equipment to Gaza and arranged for Hamas fighters to be trained by the Revolutionary Guards at a facility outside of Tehran. It was in connection with his Iran operations that he was in Dubai last week.
Wall Street Journal
There is no evidence it was Israel...Mabhouh ... rose to infamy in 1987 by abducting and killing two Israeli soldiers. He then went on to become a central figure in Hamas's fund-raising operations.
Later, Mabhouh became a key coordinator of Hamas-Iran cooperation. In this capacity he organized the shipment of weaponry and other sophisticated equipment to Gaza and arranged for Hamas fighters to be trained by the Revolutionary Guards at a facility outside of Tehran. It was in connection with his Iran operations that he was in Dubai last week.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Fatah are terrorists too
Fatah is not a moderate organization. They have fought a continuing war against Israel through the courts-both international courts and U.N bodies, and the court of public opinion. They honor the murderers of Jews, and never stop for a day with their media and mosque incitement.
http://tinyurl.com/ygvov59
http://tinyurl.com/ygvov59
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Pipes to Obama Bomb Iran
How to Save the Obama Presidency: Bomb Iran
by Daniel Pipes
National Review Online
February 2, 2010
http://www.danielpipes.org/7921/bomb-iran-save-obama-presidency
I do not customarily offer advice to a president whose election I opposed, whose goals I fear, and whose policies I work against. But here is an idea for Barack Obama to salvage his tottering administration by taking a step that protects the United States and its allies.
If Obama's personality, identity, and celebrity captivated a majority of the American electorate in 2008, those qualities proved ruefully deficient in 2009 for governing. He failed to deliver on employment and health care, he failed in foreign policy forays small (e.g., landing the 2016 Olympics) and large (relations with China and Japan). His counterterrorism record barely passes the laugh test.
This poor performance has caused an unprecedented collapse in the polls and the loss of three major by-elections, culminating two weeks ago in an astonishing senatorial defeat in Massachusetts. Obama's attempts to "reset" his presidency will likely fail if he focuses on economics, where he is just one of many players.
He needs a dramatic gesture to change the public perception of him as a lightweight, bumbling ideologue, preferably in an arena where the stakes are high, where he can take charge, and where he can trump expectations.
Barak Obama's job approval problem.
Such an opportunity does exist: Obama can give orders for the U.S. military to destroy the Iranian nuclear weapon capacity.
Circumstances are propitious. First, U.S. intelligence agencies have reversed their preposterous 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, the one that claimed with "high confidence" that Tehran had "halted its nuclear weapons program," No one (other than the Iranian rulers and their agents) denies that the regime is rushing headlong to build a large nuclear arsenal.
Second, if the apocalyptic-minded leaders in Tehran get the Bomb, they render the Middle East a yet more volatile and dangerous. They might deploy these weapons in the region, leading to massive death and destruction. Eventually, they could launch an electro-magnetic pulse attack on the United States, utterly devastating the country. By eliminating the Iranian nuclear threat, Obama protects the homeland and sends a message to American's friends and enemies.
Third, polling shows longstanding American backing for an attack on the Iranian nuclear infrastructure.
*
Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg, January 2006: 57 percent of Americans favor military intervention if Tehran pursues a program that could enable it to build nuclear arms.
*
Zogby International, October 2007: 52 percent of likely voters support a U.S. military strike to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon; 29 percent oppose such a step.
*
McLaughlin & Associates, May 2009: asked whether they would support "Using the [U.S.] military to attack and destroy the facilities in Iran which are necessary to produce a nuclear weapon," 58 percent of 600 likely voters supported the use of force and 30 percent opposed it.
*
Fox News, September 2009: asked "Do you support or oppose the United States taking military action to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons?" 61 percent of 900 registered voters supported military action and 28 opposed it.
*
Pew Research Center, October 2009: asked which is more important, "To prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, even if it means taking military action" or "To avoid a military conflict with Iran, even if it means they may develop nuclear weapons," Out of 1,500 respondents, 61 percent favored the first reply and 24 percent the second.
The nuclear facility at Qum on Sep. 26,2009 from 423 miles in space, provided by GeoEye.
Not only does a strong majority – 57, 52, 58, 61, and 61 percent – already favor using force but after a strike Americans will presumably rally around the flag, jumping that number much higher.
Fourth, were the U.S. strike limited to taking out the Iranian nuclear facilities, and not aspire to regime change, it would require few "boots on the ground" and entail relatively few casualties, making an attack politically more palatable.
Just as 9/11 caused voters to forget George W. Bush's meandering early months, a strike on Iranian facilities would dispatch Obama's feckless first year down the memory hole and transform the domestic political scene. It would sideline health care, prompt Republicans to work with Democrats, make netroots squeal, independents reconsider, and conservatives swoon.
But the chance to do good and do well is fleeting. As the Iranians improve their defenses and approach weaponization, the window of opportunity is closing. The time to act is now or, on Obama's watch, the world will soon become a much more dangerous place.
Mr. Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.
by Daniel Pipes
National Review Online
February 2, 2010
http://www.danielpipes.org/7921/bomb-iran-save-obama-presidency
I do not customarily offer advice to a president whose election I opposed, whose goals I fear, and whose policies I work against. But here is an idea for Barack Obama to salvage his tottering administration by taking a step that protects the United States and its allies.
If Obama's personality, identity, and celebrity captivated a majority of the American electorate in 2008, those qualities proved ruefully deficient in 2009 for governing. He failed to deliver on employment and health care, he failed in foreign policy forays small (e.g., landing the 2016 Olympics) and large (relations with China and Japan). His counterterrorism record barely passes the laugh test.
This poor performance has caused an unprecedented collapse in the polls and the loss of three major by-elections, culminating two weeks ago in an astonishing senatorial defeat in Massachusetts. Obama's attempts to "reset" his presidency will likely fail if he focuses on economics, where he is just one of many players.
He needs a dramatic gesture to change the public perception of him as a lightweight, bumbling ideologue, preferably in an arena where the stakes are high, where he can take charge, and where he can trump expectations.
Barak Obama's job approval problem.
Such an opportunity does exist: Obama can give orders for the U.S. military to destroy the Iranian nuclear weapon capacity.
Circumstances are propitious. First, U.S. intelligence agencies have reversed their preposterous 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, the one that claimed with "high confidence" that Tehran had "halted its nuclear weapons program," No one (other than the Iranian rulers and their agents) denies that the regime is rushing headlong to build a large nuclear arsenal.
Second, if the apocalyptic-minded leaders in Tehran get the Bomb, they render the Middle East a yet more volatile and dangerous. They might deploy these weapons in the region, leading to massive death and destruction. Eventually, they could launch an electro-magnetic pulse attack on the United States, utterly devastating the country. By eliminating the Iranian nuclear threat, Obama protects the homeland and sends a message to American's friends and enemies.
Third, polling shows longstanding American backing for an attack on the Iranian nuclear infrastructure.
*
Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg, January 2006: 57 percent of Americans favor military intervention if Tehran pursues a program that could enable it to build nuclear arms.
*
Zogby International, October 2007: 52 percent of likely voters support a U.S. military strike to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon; 29 percent oppose such a step.
*
McLaughlin & Associates, May 2009: asked whether they would support "Using the [U.S.] military to attack and destroy the facilities in Iran which are necessary to produce a nuclear weapon," 58 percent of 600 likely voters supported the use of force and 30 percent opposed it.
*
Fox News, September 2009: asked "Do you support or oppose the United States taking military action to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons?" 61 percent of 900 registered voters supported military action and 28 opposed it.
*
Pew Research Center, October 2009: asked which is more important, "To prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, even if it means taking military action" or "To avoid a military conflict with Iran, even if it means they may develop nuclear weapons," Out of 1,500 respondents, 61 percent favored the first reply and 24 percent the second.
The nuclear facility at Qum on Sep. 26,2009 from 423 miles in space, provided by GeoEye.
Not only does a strong majority – 57, 52, 58, 61, and 61 percent – already favor using force but after a strike Americans will presumably rally around the flag, jumping that number much higher.
Fourth, were the U.S. strike limited to taking out the Iranian nuclear facilities, and not aspire to regime change, it would require few "boots on the ground" and entail relatively few casualties, making an attack politically more palatable.
Just as 9/11 caused voters to forget George W. Bush's meandering early months, a strike on Iranian facilities would dispatch Obama's feckless first year down the memory hole and transform the domestic political scene. It would sideline health care, prompt Republicans to work with Democrats, make netroots squeal, independents reconsider, and conservatives swoon.
But the chance to do good and do well is fleeting. As the Iranians improve their defenses and approach weaponization, the window of opportunity is closing. The time to act is now or, on Obama's watch, the world will soon become a much more dangerous place.
Mr. Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Homegrown terrorism
From Commentary \
Ultimately, there is little more that the United States can do to prevent homegrown terrorism, other than maintain the counter-terrorism policies enacted by the Bush administration in the aftermath of 9/11, policies that proved so successful in preventing another terrorist attack on American soil. Given the rhetoric and actions of the present administration, which wants to shut down the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, prosecute CIA officers for using interrogation techniques disfavored by the American Civil Liberties Union, and generally approach the war on Islamic supremacism as a legalistic exercise, it is hardly certain that such a course will be followed. But the least we can ask of our nation’s political and intellectual elite is that they stop wailing about the phantom menace of “right-wing” terrorism and start paying more attention to the genuine article.
Ultimately, there is little more that the United States can do to prevent homegrown terrorism, other than maintain the counter-terrorism policies enacted by the Bush administration in the aftermath of 9/11, policies that proved so successful in preventing another terrorist attack on American soil. Given the rhetoric and actions of the present administration, which wants to shut down the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, prosecute CIA officers for using interrogation techniques disfavored by the American Civil Liberties Union, and generally approach the war on Islamic supremacism as a legalistic exercise, it is hardly certain that such a course will be followed. But the least we can ask of our nation’s political and intellectual elite is that they stop wailing about the phantom menace of “right-wing” terrorism and start paying more attention to the genuine article.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
No freedom of speech in US under Islam
Please view the following video and share it with others. We have over
8,000 views in just 24 hours and if we can get it up to 25,000 it will
be newsworthy. The more attention this issue receives, the better.=20
The Muslim students made a huge mistake at UC Irvine on February 8th,
and the administration is going to need to figure out how they intend to
secure free speech at UC Irvine.
This is an issue for campuses around the world. Please join this effort
and help us get the word out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D7w96UR79TBw
Shows you what an elegant man Michael Oren is, in the face of hostility.
8,000 views in just 24 hours and if we can get it up to 25,000 it will
be newsworthy. The more attention this issue receives, the better.=20
The Muslim students made a huge mistake at UC Irvine on February 8th,
and the administration is going to need to figure out how they intend to
secure free speech at UC Irvine.
This is an issue for campuses around the world. Please join this effort
and help us get the word out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D7w96UR79TBw
Shows you what an elegant man Michael Oren is, in the face of hostility.
Islamitization of Europe
Geert Wilders is a Dutch Member of Parliament.
*"America, the last man standing"*
'In a generation or two, the US will ask itself: who lost Europe ?'
[Here is the speech of Geert Wilders, Chairman, Party for Freedom, the
Netherlands , at the Four Seasons, New York , introducing an Alliance of
Patriots and announcing the Facing Jihad Conference in Jerusalem].
Dear friends,
Thank you very much for inviting me.
I come to America with a mission. All is not well in the old world. There
is a tremendous danger looming, and it is very difficult to be optimistic. We
might be in the final stages of the Islamization of Europe . This not only
is a clear and present danger to the future of Europe itself, it is a threat
to America and the sheer survival of the West. The United States as the
last bastion of Western civilization, facing an Islamic Europe .
First I will describe the situation on the ground in Europe . Then, I will
say a few things about Islam. To close I will tell you about a meeting in
Jerusalem .
The Europe you know is changing.
You have probably seen the landmarks. But in all of these cities, sometimes
a few blocks away from your tourist destination, there is another world. It
is the world of the parallel society created by Muslim mass-migration.
All throughout Europe a new reality is rising: entire Muslim neighbourhoods
where very few indigenous people reside or are even seen. And if they are,
they might regret it. This goes for the police as well. It's the world of
head scarves, where women walk around in figureless tents, with baby
strollers and a group of children. Their husbands, or slaveholders if you
prefer, walk three steps ahead. With mosques on many street corners. The
shops have signs you and I cannot read. You will be hard-pressed to find
any economic activity. These are Muslim ghettos controlled by religious
fanatics. These are Muslim neighbourhoods, and they are mushrooming in
every city across Europe . These are the building-blocks for territorial
control of increasingly larger portions of Europe , street by street,
neighbourhood by neighbourhood, city by city.
There are now thousands of mosques throughout Europe . With larger
congregations than there are in churches. And in every European city there
are plans to build super-mosques that will dwarf every church in the region.
Clearly, the signal is: we rule.
Many European cities are already one-quarter Muslim: just take Amsterdam ,
Marseille and Malmo in Sweden . In many cities the majority of the under-18
population is Muslim. Paris is now surrounded by a ring of Muslim
neighbourhoods. Mohammed is the most popular name among boys in many
cities.
In some elementary schools in Amsterdam the farm can no longer be mentioned,
because that would also mean mentioning the pig, and that would be an insult
to Muslims.
Many state schools in Belgium and Denmark only serve halal food to all
pupils. In once-tolerant Amsterdam gays are beaten up almost exclusively by
Muslims. Non-Muslim women routinely hear 'whore, whore'. Satellite dishes
are not pointed to local TV stations, but to stations in the country of
origin.
In France school teachers are advised to avoid authors deemed offensive to
Muslims, including Voltaire and Diderot; the same is increasingly true of
Darwin . The history of th e Holocaust can no longer be taught because of
Muslim sensitivity.
In England sharia courts are now officially part of the British legal
system. Many neighbourhoods in France are no-go areas for women without head
scarves. Last week a man almost died after being beaten up by Muslims in
Brussels , because he was drinking during the Ramadan.
Jews are fleeing France in record numbers, on the run for the worst wave of
anti-Semitism since World War II. French is now commonly spoken on the
streets of Tel Aviv and Netanya, Israel . I could go on forever with
stories like this. Stories about Islamization.
A total of fifty-four million Muslims now live in Europe . San Diego
University recently calculated that a staggering 25 percent of the
population in Europe will be Muslim just 12 years from now. Bernhard Lewis
has predicted a Muslim majority by the end of this century.
Now these are just numbers. And the numbers would not be threatening if the
Muslim-immigrants had a strong desire to assimilate. But there are few
signs of that. The Pew Research Centre reported that half of French Muslims
see their loyalty to Islam as greater than their loyalty to France . One-third
of French Muslims do not object to suicide attacks. The British Centre for
Social Cohesion reported that one-third of British Muslim students are in
favour of a worldwide caliphate. Muslims demand what they call 'respect'. And
this is how we give them respect. We have Muslim official state holidays.
The Christian-Democratic attorney general is willing to accept sharia in the
Netherlands if there is a Muslim majority. We have cabinet members with
passports from Morocco and Turkey .
Muslim demands are supported by unlawful behaviour, ranging from petty
crimes and random violence, for example against ambulance workers and bus
drivers, to small-scale riots. Paris has seen its uprising in the
low-income suburbs, the banlieus. I call the perpetrators 'settlers'. Because
that is what they are. They do not come to integrate into our societies;
they come to integrate our society into their Dar-al-Islam. Therefore, they
are settlers.
Much of this street violence I mentioned is directed exclusively against
non-Muslims, forcing many native people to leave their neighbourhoods, their
cities, their countries. Moreover, Muslims are now a swing vote not to be
ignored.
The second thing you need to know is the importance of Mohammed the prophet.
His behaviour is an example to all Muslims and cannot be criticized. Now,
if Mohammed had been a man of peace, let us say like Ghandi and Mother
Theresa wrapped in one, there would be no problem. But Mohammed was a
warlord, a mass murderer, a paedophile, and had several marriages - at the
same time. Islamic tradition tells us how he fought in battles, how he had
his enemies murdered and even had prisoners of war executed. Mohammed
himself slaughtered the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza. If it is good for
Islam, it is good. If it is bad for Islam, it is bad.
Let no one fool you about Islam being a religion. Sure, it has a god, and a
here-after, and 72 virgins. But in its essence Islam is a political
ideology. It is a system that lays down detailed rules for society and the
life of every person. Islam wants to dictate every aspect of life. Islam
means 'submission'. Islam is not compatible with freedom and democracy,
because what it strives for is sharia. If you want to compare Islam to
anything, compare it to communism or national-socialism, these are all
totalitarian ideologies.
Now you know why Winston Churchill called Islam 'the most retrograde force
in the world', and why he compared Mein Kampf to the Quran. The public has
wholeheartedly accepted the Palestinian narrative, and sees Israel as the
aggressor. I have lived in this country and visited it dozens of times. I
support Israel . First, because it is the Jewish homeland after two
thousand years of exile up to and including Auschwitz, second because it is
a democracy, and third because Israel is our first line of defence.
This tiny country is situated on the fault line of jihad, frustrating
Islam's territorial advance. Israel is facing the front lines of jihad,
like Kashmir, Kosovo, the Philippines, Southern Thailand, Darfur in Sudan,
Lebanon, and Aceh in Indonesia . Israel is simply in the way. The same way
West-Berlin was during the Cold War.
The war against Israel is not a war against Israel . It is a war against
the West. It is jihad. Israel is simply receiving the blows that are meant
for all of us. If there would have been no Israel , Islamic imperialism
would have found other venues to release its energy and its desire for
conquest. Thanks to Israeli parents who send their children to the army and
lay awake at night, parents in Europe and America can sleep well and dream,
unaware of the dangers looming.
Many in Europe argue in favour of abandoning Israel in order to address the
grievances of our Muslim minorities. But if Israel were, God forbid, to go
down, it would not bring any solace to the West. It would not mean our
Muslim minorities would all of a sudden change their behaviour, and accept
our values. On the contrary, the end of Israel would give enormous
encouragement to the forces of Islam. They would, and rightly so, see the
demise of Israel as proof that the West is weak, and doomed. The end of
Israel would not mean the end of our problems with Islam, but only the
beginning. It would mean the start of the final battle for world
domination. If they can get Israel , they can get everything. So-called
journalists volunteer to label any and all critics of Islamization as a
'right-wing extremists' or 'racists'. In my country, the Netherlands , 60
percent of the population now sees the mass immigration of Muslims as the
number one policy mistake since World War II. And another 60 percent sees
Islam as the biggest threat. Yet there is a greater danger than terrorist
attacks, the scenario of America as the last man standing. The lights may
go out in Europe faster than you can imagine. An Islamic Europe means a
Europe without freedom and democracy, an economic wasteland, an intellectual
nightmare, and a loss of military might for America - as its allies will
turn into enemies, enemies with atomic bombs. With an Islamic Europe, it
would be up to America alone to preserve the heritage of Rome , Athens and
Jerusalem .
Dear friends, liberty is the most precious of gifts. My generation never
had to fight for this freedom, it was offered to us on a silver platter, by
people who fought for it with their lives. All throughout Europe , American
cemeteries remind us of the young boys who never made it home, and whose
memory we cherish. My generation does not own this freedom; we are merely
its custodians. We can only hand over this hard won liberty to Europe 's
children in the same state, in which it was offered to us. We cannot strike
a deal with mullahs and imams. Future generations would never forgive us. We
cannot squander our liberties. We simply do not have the right to do so. We
have to take the necessary action now to stop this Islamic stupidity from
destroying the free world, that we know.
*"America, the last man standing"*
'In a generation or two, the US will ask itself: who lost Europe ?'
[Here is the speech of Geert Wilders, Chairman, Party for Freedom, the
Netherlands , at the Four Seasons, New York , introducing an Alliance of
Patriots and announcing the Facing Jihad Conference in Jerusalem].
Dear friends,
Thank you very much for inviting me.
I come to America with a mission. All is not well in the old world. There
is a tremendous danger looming, and it is very difficult to be optimistic. We
might be in the final stages of the Islamization of Europe . This not only
is a clear and present danger to the future of Europe itself, it is a threat
to America and the sheer survival of the West. The United States as the
last bastion of Western civilization, facing an Islamic Europe .
First I will describe the situation on the ground in Europe . Then, I will
say a few things about Islam. To close I will tell you about a meeting in
Jerusalem .
The Europe you know is changing.
You have probably seen the landmarks. But in all of these cities, sometimes
a few blocks away from your tourist destination, there is another world. It
is the world of the parallel society created by Muslim mass-migration.
All throughout Europe a new reality is rising: entire Muslim neighbourhoods
where very few indigenous people reside or are even seen. And if they are,
they might regret it. This goes for the police as well. It's the world of
head scarves, where women walk around in figureless tents, with baby
strollers and a group of children. Their husbands, or slaveholders if you
prefer, walk three steps ahead. With mosques on many street corners. The
shops have signs you and I cannot read. You will be hard-pressed to find
any economic activity. These are Muslim ghettos controlled by religious
fanatics. These are Muslim neighbourhoods, and they are mushrooming in
every city across Europe . These are the building-blocks for territorial
control of increasingly larger portions of Europe , street by street,
neighbourhood by neighbourhood, city by city.
There are now thousands of mosques throughout Europe . With larger
congregations than there are in churches. And in every European city there
are plans to build super-mosques that will dwarf every church in the region.
Clearly, the signal is: we rule.
Many European cities are already one-quarter Muslim: just take Amsterdam ,
Marseille and Malmo in Sweden . In many cities the majority of the under-18
population is Muslim. Paris is now surrounded by a ring of Muslim
neighbourhoods. Mohammed is the most popular name among boys in many
cities.
In some elementary schools in Amsterdam the farm can no longer be mentioned,
because that would also mean mentioning the pig, and that would be an insult
to Muslims.
Many state schools in Belgium and Denmark only serve halal food to all
pupils. In once-tolerant Amsterdam gays are beaten up almost exclusively by
Muslims. Non-Muslim women routinely hear 'whore, whore'. Satellite dishes
are not pointed to local TV stations, but to stations in the country of
origin.
In France school teachers are advised to avoid authors deemed offensive to
Muslims, including Voltaire and Diderot; the same is increasingly true of
Darwin . The history of th e Holocaust can no longer be taught because of
Muslim sensitivity.
In England sharia courts are now officially part of the British legal
system. Many neighbourhoods in France are no-go areas for women without head
scarves. Last week a man almost died after being beaten up by Muslims in
Brussels , because he was drinking during the Ramadan.
Jews are fleeing France in record numbers, on the run for the worst wave of
anti-Semitism since World War II. French is now commonly spoken on the
streets of Tel Aviv and Netanya, Israel . I could go on forever with
stories like this. Stories about Islamization.
A total of fifty-four million Muslims now live in Europe . San Diego
University recently calculated that a staggering 25 percent of the
population in Europe will be Muslim just 12 years from now. Bernhard Lewis
has predicted a Muslim majority by the end of this century.
Now these are just numbers. And the numbers would not be threatening if the
Muslim-immigrants had a strong desire to assimilate. But there are few
signs of that. The Pew Research Centre reported that half of French Muslims
see their loyalty to Islam as greater than their loyalty to France . One-third
of French Muslims do not object to suicide attacks. The British Centre for
Social Cohesion reported that one-third of British Muslim students are in
favour of a worldwide caliphate. Muslims demand what they call 'respect'. And
this is how we give them respect. We have Muslim official state holidays.
The Christian-Democratic attorney general is willing to accept sharia in the
Netherlands if there is a Muslim majority. We have cabinet members with
passports from Morocco and Turkey .
Muslim demands are supported by unlawful behaviour, ranging from petty
crimes and random violence, for example against ambulance workers and bus
drivers, to small-scale riots. Paris has seen its uprising in the
low-income suburbs, the banlieus. I call the perpetrators 'settlers'. Because
that is what they are. They do not come to integrate into our societies;
they come to integrate our society into their Dar-al-Islam. Therefore, they
are settlers.
Much of this street violence I mentioned is directed exclusively against
non-Muslims, forcing many native people to leave their neighbourhoods, their
cities, their countries. Moreover, Muslims are now a swing vote not to be
ignored.
The second thing you need to know is the importance of Mohammed the prophet.
His behaviour is an example to all Muslims and cannot be criticized. Now,
if Mohammed had been a man of peace, let us say like Ghandi and Mother
Theresa wrapped in one, there would be no problem. But Mohammed was a
warlord, a mass murderer, a paedophile, and had several marriages - at the
same time. Islamic tradition tells us how he fought in battles, how he had
his enemies murdered and even had prisoners of war executed. Mohammed
himself slaughtered the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza. If it is good for
Islam, it is good. If it is bad for Islam, it is bad.
Let no one fool you about Islam being a religion. Sure, it has a god, and a
here-after, and 72 virgins. But in its essence Islam is a political
ideology. It is a system that lays down detailed rules for society and the
life of every person. Islam wants to dictate every aspect of life. Islam
means 'submission'. Islam is not compatible with freedom and democracy,
because what it strives for is sharia. If you want to compare Islam to
anything, compare it to communism or national-socialism, these are all
totalitarian ideologies.
Now you know why Winston Churchill called Islam 'the most retrograde force
in the world', and why he compared Mein Kampf to the Quran. The public has
wholeheartedly accepted the Palestinian narrative, and sees Israel as the
aggressor. I have lived in this country and visited it dozens of times. I
support Israel . First, because it is the Jewish homeland after two
thousand years of exile up to and including Auschwitz, second because it is
a democracy, and third because Israel is our first line of defence.
This tiny country is situated on the fault line of jihad, frustrating
Islam's territorial advance. Israel is facing the front lines of jihad,
like Kashmir, Kosovo, the Philippines, Southern Thailand, Darfur in Sudan,
Lebanon, and Aceh in Indonesia . Israel is simply in the way. The same way
West-Berlin was during the Cold War.
The war against Israel is not a war against Israel . It is a war against
the West. It is jihad. Israel is simply receiving the blows that are meant
for all of us. If there would have been no Israel , Islamic imperialism
would have found other venues to release its energy and its desire for
conquest. Thanks to Israeli parents who send their children to the army and
lay awake at night, parents in Europe and America can sleep well and dream,
unaware of the dangers looming.
Many in Europe argue in favour of abandoning Israel in order to address the
grievances of our Muslim minorities. But if Israel were, God forbid, to go
down, it would not bring any solace to the West. It would not mean our
Muslim minorities would all of a sudden change their behaviour, and accept
our values. On the contrary, the end of Israel would give enormous
encouragement to the forces of Islam. They would, and rightly so, see the
demise of Israel as proof that the West is weak, and doomed. The end of
Israel would not mean the end of our problems with Islam, but only the
beginning. It would mean the start of the final battle for world
domination. If they can get Israel , they can get everything. So-called
journalists volunteer to label any and all critics of Islamization as a
'right-wing extremists' or 'racists'. In my country, the Netherlands , 60
percent of the population now sees the mass immigration of Muslims as the
number one policy mistake since World War II. And another 60 percent sees
Islam as the biggest threat. Yet there is a greater danger than terrorist
attacks, the scenario of America as the last man standing. The lights may
go out in Europe faster than you can imagine. An Islamic Europe means a
Europe without freedom and democracy, an economic wasteland, an intellectual
nightmare, and a loss of military might for America - as its allies will
turn into enemies, enemies with atomic bombs. With an Islamic Europe, it
would be up to America alone to preserve the heritage of Rome , Athens and
Jerusalem .
Dear friends, liberty is the most precious of gifts. My generation never
had to fight for this freedom, it was offered to us on a silver platter, by
people who fought for it with their lives. All throughout Europe , American
cemeteries remind us of the young boys who never made it home, and whose
memory we cherish. My generation does not own this freedom; we are merely
its custodians. We can only hand over this hard won liberty to Europe 's
children in the same state, in which it was offered to us. We cannot strike
a deal with mullahs and imams. Future generations would never forgive us. We
cannot squander our liberties. We simply do not have the right to do so. We
have to take the necessary action now to stop this Islamic stupidity from
destroying the free world, that we know.
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