The New Middle East

The New Middle East at a Glance - Country by Country

ARUTZ SHEVA (Israeli National News) - By Hillel Fendel - February 15, 2011


Arab countries throughout the Middle East and North Africa are experiencing unrest. Israel National News brings you a brief review on what’s happening with the Arabs - and the Jews - in the various states:

Part One

ALGERIA
Hundreds of protestors clashed with security forces in the capital city of Algiers over the past few days, demanding the ouster of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. About 100 have been arrested. Bouteflika has agreed to lift the nearly 20-year-old state of emergency with which the country has been ruled.

Algeria’s Jewish population can be traced back about 2,600 years, to when the First Temple was destroyed. After Algeria achieved independence from France in 1962, most of the country’s 130,000 Jews - who had long suffered from local anti-Semitism - emigrated to France. By the 1990’s, most of the remaining Jews had emigrated. In 1994, the rebel Armed Islamic Group declared war on all non-Muslims in the country. The Algiers synagogue was abandoned that year and later became a mosque. Slightly more than 200 Jews remain today in Algeria, mostly in Algiers.

BAHRAIN
Thousands of people are marching in the streets today, demanding the regime’s ousting. At least two protestors have been killed and three police officers hurt. The small island kingdom (population 1.25 million) has been ruled by the Al Khalifa royal family for nearly two centuries, since 1820.

After World War II, riots were focused against the middle-class Jewish community. By 1948, most of Bahrain Jewry abandoned its properties and evacuated to Bombay, India and later to Israel and the United Kingdom. As of 2008, 37 Jews remained in the country; the issue of compensation was never settled. In 2008, King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa called on the Jews who emigrated to return.

EGYPT
Unrest continues despite the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak on Friday. Banks and the stock market remain closed, while the army attempts to take control until elections are able to be arranged.

In 1956, the Egyptian government issued a proclamation stating that “all Jews are Zionists and enemies of the state” and threatened them with expulsion. As a result, half of Egypt’s 50,000 Jews left, and 1,000 were imprisoned. After the 1967 war, nearly all Egyptian Jewish men aged 17-60 were either thrown out of the country or incarcerated and tortured. Fewer than 100 Jews remain in Egypt today.

IRAN
Tens of thousands of anti-Ahmadinejad demonstrators marched in downtown Tehran on Monday. The Parliament Speaker blamed the United States and Israel for the protests. Opposition activists continue to call for more demonstrations, in which security forces have fired tear gas; dozens of people have been arrested, and two opposition leaders have been placed under house arrest.

"The parliament condemns the Zionist, American, anti-revolutionary and anti-national action of the misled seditionists," Speaker Ali Larijani said during a parliament session.

Jews in Iran, formerly known as Persia, date back 4,000 years. In 1948, the population numbered close to 150,000, and at the time of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the number was 80,000. From then on, Jewish emigration increased dramatically. Estimates of today’s population range from 20,000 to 35,000. Iran's Jewish community, the largest among Muslim countries, is officially recognized as a religious minority group and as such is allocated one seat in the Iranian Parliament. Tehran has 11 functioning synagogues.

 IRAQ
Though Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s regime does not appear to be in imminent danger, thousands of people have rallied in recent days and weeks across the country, protesting poverty, high unemployment, and shortages of food, electricity and water. Al-Maliki has announced a 50% cut in his $350,000 salary and that he would not run for a third term in 2014.

Iraqi Jewry dates back at least 2,600 years, and numbered around 120,000 in 1948. Nearly all the Jews left because of persecution following Israel’s War of Independence, and today fewer than 100 Jews remain.

 TUNISIA
The future of Tunisia is still in doubt, following the fleeing of longtime President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali as a result of the December unrest that sparked the protests across the Middle East. The EU’s top foreign policy official, Catherine Ashton, met yesterday with various leaders in an attempt to shape a policy for governing the country.

In 1941, Tunisia was home to roughly 100,000 Jews, and a year later became the only Arab country to come under direct Nazi occupation during World War II. The Nazis forced Jews to wear the yellow Star of David, confiscated property, and sent some 5,700 Jews to forced labor camps, where 150 died in the camps or the bombings. In the 1950’s, anti-Semitism and other forms of persecution led to the departure of tens of thousands of Jews; each person was allowed to leave with approximately $5 of their own money. As of now, 700 Jews live in the city of Tunis and 1,000 on the island of Djerba.

Part Two

PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY
The Cabinet headed by prime minister Salam Fayyad submitted its resignation to PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Monday, and Fayyad was immediately re-appointed to head the new government. Abbas, whose Fatah organization runs the Judea/Samaria parts of the Palestinian Authority, has called for new elections "by September at the latest" - but Hamas, which controls Gaza, says it will not take part.

Only minor protests have been held, but the Abbas government has been under criticism for the lack of progress in the talks with Israel, for having reportedly made concessions to Israel, and in light of constant Hamas criticism.

Jews, by definition, do not live in the PA-controlled areas. This past December, Abbas said, “We have frankly said, and always will say: If there is an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, we won’t agree to the presence of one Israeli in it." Months earlier, he even said that he would not agree to a single Jewish soldier in a NATO peacekeeping in the region, but later backtracked.

JORDAN
Though no acute danger faces King Abdullah's regime, he is experiencing popular protests, and his wife, Queen Rania, has been accused of corruption. A letter signed by 36 leading Bedouin representatives says that Rania must return land and farms expropriated by her family. The letter endorses several demands expressed by the Islamist opposition, and warns that Jordan "will sooner or later face the flood of Tunisia and Egypt, due to the suppression of freedoms and looting of public funds."

At the same time, Islamist voices are coming to the fore in Jordan; the country's new Justice Minister has praised the murderer of seven Israeli girls and called for his release from prison. The lethal attack occurred on the Israeli-Jordanian border in 1997.

Abdullah has formed a new government in response to the protests, and U.S. Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited Jordan over the weekend to discuss current events with the leadership.

Jewish history in what is now Jordan goes back to Biblical times, when Moses granted permission to two and a half tribes to live there after taking part in the war for the Land of Israel. Over the centuries, the Jewish population dwindled to nothing. In the 1930's, leading residents of what was then Transjordan requested that Jews move in to help revive the economy - but the British, who ruled the area, did not want more Jewish-Arab problems, and passed legislation banning Jews from living there.

After the Kingdom of Jordan was created, it ratified this law in 1954, declaring that any person may become a citizen unless he is a Jew (or if a special council approves his request and he has fulfilled other conditions). Jordan has no Jewish community at present.

LIBYA
Underground opposition groups reportedly tried to organize Day of Rage protests on Monday, and have now rescheduled them for this Thursday. Moammar Gadhafi, who has ruled the country since 1969, met last month with political activists and journalists, warned that they would be held responsible if they took part "in any way in disturbing the peace or creating chaos in Libya."

In 1931, 21,000 Jews lived in Libya - 4% of the total population - under generally good conditions. In the late 1930s, the Fascist Italian regime began passing anti-Semitic laws, and in 1942 - when 44 synagogues were operative in Tripoli - German troops occupied the Jewish quarter of Benghazi and deported more than 2,000 Jews to labor camps across the desert, where more than a fifth of them perished.

After World War II, anti-Jewish violence and murderous pogroms caused many Jews to leave the country, principally for Israel, and under Gaddafi's rule, the situation deteriorated so badly that only 20 Jews remained by 1974. In 2003, the last Jew of Libya, 80-year-old Rina Debach, left the country.

MOROCCO
A video has been distributed calling for a protest to be held on Feb. 20 to demand "equality, social justice, employment, housing, study grants and higher salaries," as well as "change, political reforms, the resignation of the Government and the dissolution of Parliament." Analysts do not expect the campaign to succeed. Some have said that the Moroccan government may face unrest in the west, thanks to Algerian instigators.

Before the founding of Israel in 1948, there were over 250,000 Jews in the country, but only 3,000 - 7,000 remain today, mostly in Casablanca. In June 1948, 44 Jews were killed in anti-Semitic riots, and large-scale emigration to Israel began. Between 1961 and 1964, more than 80,000 Moroccan Jews emigrated to Israel; by 1967, only 60,000 Jews remained, and four years later, this number was 35,000. Today, the State of Israel is home to nearly 1,000,000 Jews of Moroccan descent, around 15% of the nation's total population.

SYRIA
In an attempt to head off protests, the Assad government withdrew a plan to remove some subsidies. President Bashar Assad gave a rare interview to the Wall Street Journal in which he said he to hold local elections, pass a new media law, and give more power to private organizations. A planned "Day of Rage" that was organized via Facebook for February 5 failed to materialize.

 Large Jewish communities existed in Aleppo, Damascus, and Qamishli for centuries. About 100 years ago, a large percentage of Syrian Jews emigrated to the U.S., Central and South America and Israel. Anti-Jewish feeling reached a climax in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and some 5,000 Jews left in the 1940's for what became Israel. The Aleppo pogrom of December 1947, a pogrom in Aleppo - the third in 100 years - left many dead, hundreds wounded, and the community devastated. Another pogrom in Damascus in 1949 left 12 Jews dead. In 1992, the few thousand remaining Jews were permitted to leave Syria, as long as they did not head for Israel. The few remaining Jews in Syria live in Damascus.

YEMEN
Tuesday marks four straight days of clashes between pro- and anti-government protesters in Yemen's capital, Sanaa. At least three people were injured on Tuesday as 3,000 activists attempted to march on the presidential palace. They are demanding the resignation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has been in power for 32 years. Protests have become increasingly violent. Besides poverty and unemployment, the Saleh government is grappling a secessionist movement in the south, rebellion in the north, and a regrouping of Al Qaeda on its soil.

Between June 1949 and September 1950, 49,000 Yemenite Jews - the overwhelming majority of the country's Jewish population - was transported to Israel in Operation Magic Carpet. Only a few dozen mostly elderly Jews remain in Yemen.

Amidst the Arab demands for the restitution of Arab refugees from the 1948 war, it is largely forgotten that around that time, more than 870,000 Jews lived in the various Arab countries. In many cases, they were persecuted politically and physically, and their property was confiscated; some 600,000 Jews found refuge in the State of Israel. Their material claims for their lost assets have never been seriously considered.

Part 1 Link

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/142345

Part 2 Link

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/142358


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Historic First: UK's Labor Party Headed by a Jew

ARUTZ SHEVA (Israeli National News) - By Maayana Miskin - September 26, 2010
Ed Miliband won the race to head Britain's Labour party on Sunday, beating his rival candidate and older brother David Miliband by 1.3 percent to replace Gordon Brown. The son of Polish Jewish immigrants, Miliband is the first Jew to head the Labor party.

After winning, Miliband pledged his support to “Middle Britain,” promising that Labor would not “lurch to the left” under his leadership and would “never again lose touch with the mainstream of society.” His statement was an apparent attempt to soothe Labour voters concerned by his leftist image.

Miliband's opponents have dubbed him "Red Ed" and charge that he will be controlled by trade unions, a claim he denied Sunday. “I am nobody's man, I am my own man,” he insisted. The leaders of Britain's three largest unions supported his bid for Labor head.

Miliband will head the shadow government in Britain's parliamentary opposition, and eventually plans to lead his party against the currently leading Tory (Conservative) party in national elections.

While paying tribute to past leaders, he expressed a desire to take a different path. “I am proud of the leadership of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown but we lost the election and lost it badly,” he said. “My message is this: I know we lost touch... I know we need to change.”

Miliband's family situation is unique due to more than his Jewish roots. He is also the first leader of a major British party to be living with a partner and children, without being married. Miliband and his long-term girlfriend Justine Thornton are expecting their second child together, and have no plans for a wedding, although when questioned by a reporter about marriage Miliband said the couple would “get around to it at some point.”

If he ever becomes prime minister, however, Miliband would not be the first Jew in that capacity: more than 100 years ago Benjamin Disraeli, a Jew who was converted at a young age to Christianity, led the Tory party and served as prime minister twice.

Unedited :: Link to Original Posting
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/139782

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Turning Churches Against Israel

FRONTPAGE MAGAZINE - By Mark D. Tooley - October 19, 2010

“With God on Our Side,” the new anti-Israel movie produced by an evangelical pastor and aimed at evangelical audiences, is touring America this month, with anti-Israel British Anglican priest Stephen Sizer in tow [See Moriel's Archive page of articles on Stephen Sizer]. On October 27, it was originally going to be screened in the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, doubtless hoping to appeal to young evangelical Congressional staffers, whose numbers and influence likely will increase in the new Congress. Now, for whatever reason, it instead will screen at a Lutheran church on Capitol Hill.

The Evangelical Left is anxious to neutralize evangelicals as America’s typically most pro-Israel demographic, especially by focusing on the plight of Palestinian Christians, who are portrayed as victims exclusively of Israeli oppression. “With God on Our Side,” predictably, portrays pro-Israel Christians as mindless zealots indifferent to Palestinian suffering and exploiting Israeli Jews as merely tools for precipitating the Second Coming. Hapless quotes from Christian Zionists are contrasted with thoughtful articulations from Palestinian Christians and other pro-Palestinian advocates.

Anglican priest Stephen Sizer, prominently featured in the film, bewails Christian Zionism on his website: “Aspects of this belief system lead some Christians in the West to give uncritical support to Israeli government policies, even those that privilege Jews at the expense of Palestinians, leading to great suffering among Muslim and Christian Palestinians alike and threatening Israel’s security as a whole.”

Rev. Sizer essentially advocates a Helen Thomas sort of theology. His blog even acclaimed Thomas for exclaiming that Jews need to “get out of Palestine” and go back to Poland or wherever. “Bring it on,” Sizer enthused in response to Thomas’s promise to keep speaking out. He has further explained:

“With God on our Side” is a direct challenge to the foolish idea that Christian Zionism has any biblical or moral foundation. It is an oxymoron, as absurd as to suggest that biblical Christianity and apartheid are in any way compatible. The Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa tried and failed and eventually repented. Would that Christian Zionists did the same.”

Sizer is incredulous that Christians would “justify on theological grounds the theft of land, the demolition of homes, the destruction of property, the creation of ghettos and the denial of fundamental human rights, in order to create what is increasingly becoming a racist state.” He insists in his blog that Christian support for Israel challenges “our understanding of the gospel, the centrality of the cross, the role of the church, and the nature of our missionary mandate, not least, to the beloved Jewish people.” And he deplores Christian Zionism as a “heresy conclusively refuted by the New Testament.” Sizer and “With God on our Side” are unwilling to accept that many evangelicals and other Christians have substantive reasons for supporting Israel other than a grimacing expectation of the End Times. Israel’s democracy, pro-Western stance, and resistance to Islamist terror are just a few reasons that many Americans, Christian or not, affirm Israel against its many enemies. But Sizer and his film are largely uninterested in the transgressions, and inferior human rights records, of Israel’s primary foes. Nor are they usually willing to critique radical Islam.

“With God on our Side,” with Sizer and producer Porter Speakman of Colorado as the chief promoters, is gaining an audience among some evangelicals. They screened their film at prestigious evangelical Wheaton College earlier this year. (The film features a Wheaton professor.) And “Christianity Today,” a flagship evangelical magazine, favorably reviewed the film this Summer. “A Christian pastor, Speakman asks such Zionists to reevaluate their absolute support of Israel,” the review observed. “He presents historical context, theological perspective, and on-the-ground impressions.” Agreeing with the film that “Palestinians’ claims to the land cannot be easily dismissed,” the reviewer uncritically accepted the film’s premise that “ordinary Palestinians, including fellow Christians, are being hurt by Israel’s policies,” without examining other more potent threats to Palestinian Christians. Admitting that “some” might see the film as “slanted,” the reviewer defended the film for ostensibly “telling a story” that its “intended audience has not heard.”

That audience is supposedly naïve and mindless evangelicals who have been insulated from any criticism of Israel until exposed to “With God on our Side.” It’s not clear what caves or compounds those pious fools live in. But this film, no less propagandistic and vapid than it alleges its Christian Zionist targets to be, offers a simplistic counter narrative that portrays Israel as the moral equivalent of apartheid South Africa. The tiny percentage of Palestinians who are Christian are useful props for this film and its advocates who, like much of the Evangelical Left, are not typically interested in persecuted Christians unless Israel is the villain.

Anti-Israel activists often especially fault U.S. evangelicals for America’s pro-Israel tilt. But polls usually show that pro-Israel sentiment in America includes not just evangelicals but also Mainline Protestants, Catholics and Jews. End times scenarios do not motivate the pro-Israel beliefs of most Americans or even most evangelicals. But “With God on our Side” constructed a cheap straw man based on stereotypes, maybe because it could not proffer more substantive arguments.

Mark Tooley is President of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (www.theird.org) and author of "Taking Back the United Methodist Church."

Unedited :: Link to Original Posting
http://frontpagemag.com/2010/10/19/turning-churches-against-israel/


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Defending Israel Under Siege: Special Edition eResponse World Report | Simon Wiesenthal Center

Zechariah 12:2-3 "Behold, I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that causes reeling to all the peoples around; and when the siege is against Jerusalem, it will also be against Judah. "It will come about in that day that I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples; all who lift it will be severely injured. And all the nations of the earth will be gathered against it. This is a special collection of reports provided by the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Please click the link below: SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTER - June 3, 2010 Defending Israel Under Siege: Special Edition eResponse World Report Simon Wiesenthal Center FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

SWC to President Obama: Halt PA Glorification of Terror | Simon Wiesenthal Center

Tell President Obama to stop his support or Radical Islamic Terror For the second time in less than a month, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has moved to publicly glorify mass murderers of innocent Israeli civilians. Just today, a street next to a Presidential compound in Ramallah was renamed in honor of Yehiye Ayash, Hamas’ arch terrorist and chief bomb maker, whose advanced techniques of suicide bombing led to the murder and maiming of hundreds of innocent Israelis on buses and in bus depots throughout the State of Israel. Join the Simon Wiesenthal Center in urging President Obama, who has focused all of his recent demands on Israel, to immediately and publicly denounce the PA’s hypocritical and dangerous embrace of Hamas heroes. Failure for President Obama to hold the PA responsible for its actions will only encourage and embolden the PA’s duplicity in preaching peace to the world and honoring terror at home. Earlier today, SWC Dean and Founder Rabbi Marvin Hier placed a call to the White House demanding action. Each and every petition will be delivered to the White House. Please add your voice and sign the urgent action petition now – share with your family and friends. SWC to President Obama: Halt PA Glorification of Terror | Simon Wiesenthal Center FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Why Barack Obama Manufactured This Crisis With Israel

RED STATE [Eagle Publishing] - Posted by Jeff Dunetz - March 24, 2010 Last night Barack Obama met with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. It was very obvious that there was no easing of tensions between the two allies. Neither leader said as much, but the news blackout about the meeting is unusual. Such high-level meetings are generally followed by pubic handshakes, and often by joint statements. Obama met with Netanyahu for about an hour and a half, took a break as the session moved to the Roosevelt Room and continued with White House aides. After the break, Netanyahu and the US president returned to the Oval Office for another 35 minutes. Then Netanuahu was lead out the same way he was lead in, very quietly. The frosty Obama/Netanyahu personal relations is a result of a crisis which was manufactured by Barack Obama as a way to isolate the Jewish State and serve it up on a silver platter to his allies in the Muslim world. Yes I know the President keeps talking about the “shared interests” and “friendship” but this President is an expert in saying one thing and doing another. The official story, the one you hear in the press, is the U.S. wants a freeze on new housing units in East Jerusalem and the West Bank as a way to bring Palestinians back to the bargaining table for renewed peace talks. The truth is that these housing developments started decades before Bibi took over as PM in 2009 and negotiations were taking place all during that period. Obama is pressuring Israel despite the fact that last year Mahmoud Abbas declared in the Washington Post that he would never recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and that he would not lift a finger to peacemaking. Abbas basically said that Bibi would capitulate or he would wait until a Bibi/Obama split brings down the Netanyahu government. Obama is putting the entire burden on Israel and the “settlements”. No reciprocal demand is made of the Palestinians. In his demands Obama has refused to recognize existing agreements between the two countries saying that Israel would be permitted to expand existing communities. In fact the Obama administration refused to admit they ever existed. That lie was refuted by was disputed by former Asst. Secretary of State Elliot Abrams who negotiated that agreement with Israel: On settlements we also agreed on principles that would permit some continuing growth. Mr. Sharon stated these clearly in a major policy speech in December 2003: “Israel will meet all its obligations with regard to construction in the settlements. There will be no construction beyond the existing construction line, no expropriation of land for construction, no special economic incentives and no construction of new settlements.” Ariel Sharon did not invent those four principles. They emerged from discussions with American officials and were discussed by Messrs. Sharon and Bush at their Aqaba meeting in June 2003. ” Stories in the press also made it clear that there were indeed “agreed principles.” On Aug. 21, 2004 the New York Times reported that “the Bush administration . . . now supports construction of new apartments in areas already built up in some settlements, as long as the expansion does not extend outward.” None of this should be surprising, during the campaign, many of us were jumping up and down screaming about Barack Obama’s anti-Israel history. Unfortunately Jewish thought leaders such as Ed Koch, Marty Peretz, and Alan Dershowitz all told us that our claims were nonsense. Now that he as been elected the evidence is all there, Barack Obama is doing his best to delegitimize Israel. Look at what has happened during his first 15 months as President: His first week in office when he sat down with Al-Arabiya Arab TV, Ignored Palestinian Terror and indicated that the Israeli government had no desire for peace. His Naming of Samantha Power to a key NSA position. Ms Power has suggested that America invade Israel to enforce a peace plan. America folding it hands and not answering Anti-Israel motions at the Durban II planning meetings. Hilary Clinton’s February demand to open boarder crossings to terrorists. $1.6 to Gaza, for reconstruction, money that will fall in the hands of Hamas. The SHMOTUS Joe Biden has said that Israel should “get used to” a nuclear Iran. Ignoring previous agreements with Israel, to call for the end of natural growth of settlements. Using a Speech to the Muslim world in Cairo as an excuse to throw Israel under the Bus. Using a trip to Buchenwald to side with Arab Propaganda that Israel’s primary legitimacy comes from the Holocaust. His UN Team apologized for not attending Anti-Israel Durban II Conference. Sent Key adviser to the anti-Israel, Anti-Semitic ISNA Conference. Has worked tolegitimize anti-Israel organization J-street to push his pro-terrorism agenda. Has gotten Democrats such as Steve Israel, to abandon Israel and help push his J-Street agenda. The President has made only tepid objections to the Goldstone report. Nominated to head the TSA a man who claims that al Qaeda only fights the US because we are friends of Israel. Unleashed Media Matters to attack Israel and Praise the Goldstone report. Selected a woman with an anti-Israel background to be his Anti-Semitism Czar. The Appointment of Anti-Israel Chuck Hagel to his administration. And of course there is the appeasement of Iran, and the current manufactured crisis. Edited :: See Original Report Here http://www.redstate.com/jeffdunetz/2010/03/24/why-barack-obama-manufactured-this-crisis-with-israel/ FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Media Bias Special Report: Making Sense of the Jerusalem Crisis

A look at the key context and realities behind a US-Israeli dispute over Jerusalem. HONEST REPORTING - Media Critqiues Communique - March 18, 2010 The past week has witnessed a flurry of media reports as Jerusalem finds itself in the eye of a diplomatic and political storm. A poorly timed announcement on the part of the Israeli Interior Ministry during US Vice President Joe Biden's visit has escalated into a diplomatic spat between the Israeli and US governments. Taking advantage of the already existing tensions in Jerusalem, the Palestinians have actively encouraged rioting to keep the flames burning. Events that would normally be ignored by the world media, such as the rededication of the Old City's Hurva Synagogue, have become flashpoints while other stories such as the dedication of a West Bank town square in memory of a Palestinian terrorist have been barely covered. Not to mention the debate that is now taking place in the US and international media, asking questions of the special relationship between Israel and the US - with some enemies of Israel actively calling into question the very relationship itself. With so many interwoven threads forming this major story, many media outlets have, either deliberately or simply due to ignorance, left out key context, thus contributing to the confusion and misinformation. Here, HonestReporting attempts to clear up some of that confusion, recentering where the media should have been focused. ... Edited :: See Original Report Here http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiques/new/Special_Report_Making_Sense_of__the_Jerusalem_Crisis.asp Also: Jerusalem on the Media Frontline HONEST REPORTING - Media Critqiues Communique - March 9, 2010 The Economist misrepresents a municipal plan to improve the lives of Jerusalem's Arab residents. Perhaps no other issue generates such emotion and conflict as the status of Jerusalem. We do not intend to prejudge the outcome of any discussions that may or may not eventually take place between the various interested parties that have a stake in the holy city. However, many media outlets have done precisely that - drawing upon a one-sided and selective narrative that seeks to delegitimize Jewish rights in Jerusalem. Only recently, HonestReporting critiqued a biased BBC Panorama documentary focusing on tensions in the area of eastern Jerusalem adjacent to the Old City. Indeed, with a settlement freeze on the West Bank excluding the eastern part of Jerualem, the media's new frontline has moved to Israel's capital city. The media have, in many cases, played into the hands of those on the Palestinian side who need little excuse to stoke existing tensions or create new ones. A prime example is The Economist, which simply parrots the Palestinian narrative and downplays the Jewish character of Jerusalem. ... Edited :: See Original Report Here http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiques/new/Jerusalem_on_the_Media_Frontline.asp

What New Settlement? Some media mistakenly imply that Israel is building new settlements. HONEST REPORTING - Media Critqiues Communique - March 9, 2010 Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak announced the exemption from the West Bank settlement freeze of 112 housing units in Beitar Illit for safety and infrastructure reasons. One can agree or disagree with this decision. What is patently clear, however, is that these housing units are located within the third-largest Jewish city in the West Bank, with a population of 36,000. These 112 housing units do not represent the construction of a new settlement. So why then did the BBC produce the following caption on its headline news story? US Vice-President Joe Biden leads the latest Mid-East peace drive, after Israel enrages Palestinians by approving new settlements. Unedited :: Link to Original Posting http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiques/new/What_New_Settlement.asp

Double Standards? Nato's Afghan Errors Why are Afghan civilian casualties "accidents" but Palestinian civilian casualties are "war crimes"? HONEST REPORTING - Media Critqiues Communique - February 28, 2010 Nato and Afghan government forces have recently launched the largest military operation against the Taliban since the beginning of the conflict in Afghanistan in 2001. Like the IDF during Operation Cast Lead, US and British troops face an enemy that cares little for the well being of its people. Like the IDF, US and British forces operate under a military doctrine that aims to prevent civilian casualties. Like the IDF, US and British forces have found that in a conflict situation, mistakes inevitably occur and civilians are the tragic victims. ... Double Standards? We sympathize with the forces currently taking on the Taliban and recognize the difficult dilemmas and decisions that have to made in the course of a military operation. However, we have to ask why, when the IDF also makes every effort to avoid civilian casualties, is Israel accused of "war crimes" and pilloried in the media when Palestinian civilians are accidentally killed, while the very same media shows a remarkable understanding when similar mistakes occur in Afghanistan. Can we expect international condemnation in the media or from so-called human rights NGOs when civilian deaths occur in Afghanistan and calls for an immediate end to the military operation? Will there be a Goldstone-style commission of inquiry with the potential for legal action against the US, UK or individual commanders and soldiers? Unlikely. ... Edited :: See Original Report Here http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiques/new/Double_Standards_Natos_Afghan_Errors.asp

Jewish Groups Geared to Fight 'Apartheid Week' ARUTZ SHEVA (Israeli National News) - By Maayana Miskin - February 26, 2010 Jewish and human rights groups are gearing up to counter "Israel Apartheid Week" events next week. "Apartheid Week" is an annual event organized on college campuses in the United States, Canada and elsewhere by extreme anti-Israel groups. The week-long event 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. One of the groups fighting Apartheid Week is Bnei Brith Canada, which called this week to ban "Apartheid Week" events completely. The group praised MPP Peter Shurman for proposing a resolution to condemn Israel Apartheid Week. The resolution was passed by the Ontario legislature. ... 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, http://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. Edited :: See Original Report Here http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/136219 Israel Apartheid Week Comes to Town The insidious analogy returns to college campuses as part of the campaign to delegitimize Israel. HONEST REPORTING - Media Critqiues Communique - March 4, 2010 The false analogy between apartheid South Africa and Israel - particularly since the UN's racist 2001 Durban Conference - has played a key role in the campaign to delegitimize Israel and threaten its existence. The strategy of boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) is based on convincing the public that Israel is no more legitimate than the apartheid regime in South Africa, and can be removed with enough public pressure. Now, this insidious delegitimization campaign has returned to university campuses around the world, including the US, UK and Canada, as part of Israel Apartheid Week. ... Edited :: See Original Report Here http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiques/new/Israel_Apartheid_Week_Comes_to_Town.asp

The True Colors of Israel Apartheid Week CIF WATCH - March 11, 2010 Video of the anti-Israel IAW protesters in New York City March 9, 2010 http://cifwatch.com/2010/03/11/the-true-colors-of-israel-apartheid-week/

BBC Cited for 2 Blatant Anti-Israel Reports ARUTZ SHEVA (Israeli National News) - By Hillel Fendel - January 27, 2010 Internationally renowned pianist Evgeny Kissin, CAMERA, and various media analysts have joined the fray of complaints against BBC for its "bias against Israel." The two issues reported on unfairly by BBC relate to Israel's alleged organ-harvesting of Palestinian Authority residents and its treatment of Arabs in Jerusalem. Last month, in what was essentially a rehash of a 15-year-old story, British media reported on an admission by an Israeli pathologist that there had been incidents of "harvesting" of organs from Israeli soldiers and Arabs. The BBC's headline screamed that Israel was harvesting Palestinian organs, without mentioning that Arabs were not the focus of the misguided policy, illegal in Israel. BBC's response ... was even more misleading than the original article, London's Jewish Chronicle reports. ... "This report was not created by the BBC, but was a translation of a news story which appeared on Israeli television... I am also assured by the World Service that the Israeli government has not denied the story since it broke." The reason Israel did not deny the story is because it was true; until it was stopped, there had, in fact, been illegal organ harvesting, irrespective of ethnic origins. But, as an Israeli Embassy spokesman said, the problem with the BBC report was that it was a "despicable attempt" to claim that Israelis have been involved "in the specific harvesting of Palestinian organs." Israel protested the BBC's emphasis on "simply one component" and called it "an attempt to manipulate the hearts of the readership." Mideast media analyst Tom Gross noted that some countries, such as China, "do remove live organs for transplant. There is scarcely a word about this in the British media. The Iranian-backed Lebanese terror militia Hezbollah has been accused of harvesting the organs of Lebanese Christians, with hardly any investigation of this charge by the so-called human rights groups of America and Europe." Gross also noted that BBC, unlike other media, "used a sensationalist and shocking photo, which was not even from Israel, to give the false impression that the Israeli government had been involved in wrongdoing." ... Edited :: See Original Report Here http://www.israelnationalnews.com/SendMail.aspx?print=print&type=0&item=135725 FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

The people behind Jimmy Carter's letter on Israel

THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION [Cox Enterprises] - By Jim Galloway - January 30, 2010 Last month, while much of the world was distracted by the holidays, former President Jimmy Carter issued what he called "an open letter to the Jewish community." In four paragraphs, Carter expressed his hopes for the state of Israel. He ended the letter with a fifth paragraph that the world quickly came to call an apology. "We must not permit criticisms for improvement to stigmatize Israel," the former president said. "I offer an Al Het for any words or deeds of mine that may have done so." The statement might be better termed a confession. Al Het refers to the Yom Kippur prayer recited by a supplicant who begs God to forgive a sin. In the weeks since, the abrupt nature of the Carter statement has led many to speculate about its purpose and the former president's motives. What very few know is that this first step toward reconciliation was the private initiative of several influential members of Atlanta's Jewish community, whose ties to Carter date three decades and more. Conversations behind the confession/apology lasted a full year. The former president's grandson Jason Carter, a Decatur attorney, served as go-between. This was a case of Jewish outreach to the former president, not vice versa. Which puts Jimmy Carter's statement in a different light, and no doubt makes it more significant, not less. The episode is also an example of the connections that make Atlanta work. You're probably familiar with much of the background. In November 2006, Carter published his 21st book, "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid." (The former president insists there is no punctuation in the title.) Many Jews - along with others - viewed the book as one-sided and thinly researched, but were perhaps most outraged by use of the word "apartheid" and all its implications. Fourteen members of a 200-member Carter Center advisory board, most of them Jewish, resigned in protest. The former president, who said he was trying to provoke a discussion of Arab-Israeli relations, declared himself shocked by the reaction and hurt by accusations that his work bordered on anti-Semitic. The rift between the Jewish community and the man who engineered the Camp David peace accord between Israel and Egypt bothered Emmet Bondurant, a well-known Atlanta attorney who sits on the regional board of the Anti-Defamation League. He is not Jewish. Bondurant's career stretches back four decades - in the 1960s, he was the lead litigator in the U.S. Supreme Court case that brought the concept of "one man, one vote" to Georgia. More recently, he has led the legal opposition to the state's requirement that voters supply photo ID before casting a ballot. Serving with Bondurant on the ADL board was Miles Alexander, co-chairman of the Kilpatrick Stockton law firm - and perhaps the most influential behind-the-scenes figure in Atlanta politics that you've never heard of. The low-profile Alexander, who is Jewish, has backed the winner in every mayoral race since Sam Massell. His wife, Elaine Alexander, was co-chairman of the campaigns for both Kasim Reed and Shirley Franklin. Bondurant persuaded Alexander to join him on the Carter Center advisory board in June 2008. It did not go over well with many of Alexander's friends. In December of that year, as a member of the advisory board, Bondurant said he and Alexander began talking about the need to reconcile the former president with the Jewish community. "Some way needed to be found to heal this wound and bring back people who were once together, and should be together again," Bondurant said. Attending the same meeting was another member of Bondurant's law firm, who had been helping Bondurant in the voter ID case: 33-year-old Jason Carter. "Miles and Emmet came to me to see if my grandfather would be open to a discussion of this type of outreach to the Jewish community," the grandson confirmed. The grandfather agreed, and so began a careful exchange of letters and e-mail. (The timing here is critical. Some have speculated that President Carter, in issuing his statement, was trying to clear an obstacle for his grandson, who is now engaged in a state Senate campaign. But Jason Carter began his role as go-between months before the seat became available.) At this point, Bondurant drops out of the picture. Alvin Sugarman, the retired senior rabbi of The Temple in Atlanta, was recruited into the effort. Others involved included former Congressman Elliott Levitas. President Carter would later single out Sugarman, Alexander and his former White House aide, Stuart Eizenstat, who began his career here. One confidence-builder may have occurred last February. The ADL gave Jason Carter its young-attorney-of-the-year award for his pro bono work on voter ID litigation. Bill Nigut, the ADL's Southeast regional director, said the award came at the recommendation of a panel of independent attorneys. But there's the possibility that the award also served as proof to former President Carter that the Jewish community would not hold the grandson to account for the actions of the grandfather. "I have no proof," Nigut added. A September deadline of Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, was missed. But a single face-to-face meeting occurred in early December. In attendance were Alexander, Sugarman, Jason Carter and the former president. A few tears were shed. The Al Het followed days later. Unedited :: Link to Original Posting http://blogs.ajc.com/political-insider-jim-galloway/2010/01/30/the-people-behind-jimmy-carters-letter-on-israel/ FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Column One: Soldiers of Peace

THE JERUSALEM POST [Mirkaei Tikshoret] - By Caroline Glick - March 6, 2009 Compare and contrast the following three events: At the International Atomic Energy Agency's Board of Governors meeting on Wednesday, George Schulte, the US ambassador to the IAEA, pointed an accusatory finger at Syria. Damascus, Schulte said, has not come clean on its nuclear program. That program, of course, was exposed in September 2007 when Israel reportedly destroyed Syria's North Korean-built, Iranian-financed al-Kibar nuclear reactor. In its report to its Board of Governors, the IAEA stated that in analyzing soil samples from the bombed installation, its inspectors discovered traces of uranium. The nuclear watchdog agency also noted that the Syrians have blocked UN nuclear inspectors from the site and from three other suspected nuclear sites. Reacting to the IAEA report, Schulte said that it "contributes to the growing evidence of clandestine nuclear activities in Syria." He added, "We must understand why such [uranium] material - material not previously declared to the IAEA - existed in Syria, and this can only happen if Syria provides the cooperation requested." On Tuesday, at a press conference in Jerusalem with outgoing Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, visiting US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the Obama administration is sending two senior envoys to Damascus. Their job, as she put it, is to begin "preliminary conversations" on how to jumpstart US-Syrian bilateral ties. Clinton's statement made good headlines, but she was light on details. On Wednesday, hours after Schulte accused Syria of covering up its illicit nuclear program, US Sen. John Kerry helpfully filled in the blanks about the nature of the Obama administration's overtures to nuclear-proliferating Damascus. In an address before the left-leaning Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institute in Washington, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who just returned from a visit to Syria, Israel and the Palestinian Authority, said that the purpose of US overtures to Damascus is to appease Syrian President Bashar Assad. If in the past, both American and Israeli policy-makers interested in engaging Damascus have made ending Syria's alliance with Iran a central goal of their proposed engagement, Kerry dismissed such an aim as unrealistic. In his words, "We should have no illusions that Syria will immediately end its ties with Iran." Indeed, as far as Kerry is concerned, Syria's role in these talks is not to actually give the US anything of value. Rather, Syria's role is to take things of value from the US - and of course from Israel. Kerry proposed that in exchange for Syrian acceptance of the US's offer of friendship and Assad's willingness to negotiate an Israeli surrender of the Golan Heights, America should consider "loosening certain sanctions" against Syria. Doing so, he claimed, will also be good for the US economy because it will open new opportunities for US businesses. ON THE surface, the disparate statements by Schulte, Clinton and Kerry present us with a puzzle. In Geneva, Schulte noted that Syria is a nuclear proliferating rogue state that has refused to cooperate with UN inspectors. And in Jerusalem and Washington, Clinton and Kerry ignored Syria's dangerous actions, and advocated a policy of appeasement. At the same IAEA Board of Governors meeting this week, the agency reported that Iran has produced more than a thousand kilograms of low enriched uranium - enough to build a bomb after further enrichment. That enrichment can be completed by year's end with Iran's 5,600 centrifuges. Moreover, between the Russian-built, soon-to-be-opened nuclear reactor in Bushehr and the illicit heavy water reactor in Arak, Iran will have the capacity to build plutonium-based bombs within two years. Commenting on the IAEA's report on Iran, Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged that Iran has enough uranium for a bomb. Seemingly contradicting Mullen, Defense Secretary Robert Gates claimed that there is no reason to worry about all that uranium because Iran won't have a bomb for some time, given that the uranium it possesses is not sufficiently enriched to make a weapon. For his part, US President Barack Obama is receiving guidance on contending with Iran from former Congressman Lee Hamilton, who co-authored the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group report published in December 2006. That report called for the US to coordinate the withdrawal of its forces from Iraq with Iran and Syria - the principal sponsors of both the Shi'ite and Sunni insurgencies in the country. It recommended that the US purchase Syria's good will by pressuring Israel to surrender the Golan Heights to Damascus, and Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem to Hamas. It recommended that the US win Iran's trust by accepting it as a nuclear power and pledging not to overthrow the regime. In an interview last month with Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, Hamilton reiterated those recommendations. He claimed that the starting point for US-Iran discussions is for the US to "state our respect for the Iranian people, renounce regime change as an instrument of US policy, seek opportunities for a range of dialogue across a range of issues, and acknowledge Iran's security concerns and its right to civilian nuclear power." Hamilton assured Ignatius that these recommendations have been adopted by the White House. ALL OF the above show that there is no contradiction between what the Obama administration understands about Iran and Syria and the policy it has adopted toward them. Specifically, as Schulte's and Mullen's statements make clear, the administration is aware of the dangers that both Iran and Syria constitute to global security. And as Clinton, Kerry, Gates and Hamilton all make clear, the administration's policy for dealing with those dangers is to change the subject and hope the American public won't notice or mind. To this end, the administration is now asserting that Iran and Syria - the two most active agents of regional instability - share the US's interest in a stable, democratic Iraq. And owing to their sudden devotion to stability, Obama's surrogates tell us the Syrians and Iranians will support the new anti-Syrian and anti-Iranian Iraqi democracy and even protect it after the US withdraws its forces from the country. Then, too, as both Kerry and Clinton made clear, the administration plans to ignore Syria's support for Iraqi, Palestinian and Lebanese terrorism, its nuclear proliferation activities and its massive ballistic missile arsenal, as well as its strategic alliance with Iran. Rather than confront Syria about its bad behavior, the administration favors a policy based on making believe that in his heart of hearts, Assad is a liberal democrat who aspires to peace, and hope, and change. But the core of the administration's campaign to ignore Iran's nuclear program - as well as Syria's - is its unrelenting quest for the big payoff: Palestinian statehood. This week Iran staged yet another "Destroy Israel" conference in Teheran, replete with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's trademark Holocaust denial, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's ritual castigation of the Jewish state as a "cancerous tumor," and the US as a treacherous enemy, and Ali Larijani's threat to attack Israel's suspected nuclear sites. The conference enjoyed a newfound sense of international legitimacy, taking place as it did just after burka-clad Annette Bening's goodwill Hollywood celebrity visit to the mullocracy. THE GENOCIDAL pageantry in Teheran elicited no significant response from Clinton and Kerry. They had bigger fish to fry. While the administration and its supporters seem to believe that the US has no right to make demands on Iran and Syria, which, they assert, are both just advancing their national interests, for them Israel is a completely different story. As Clinton and Kerry demonstrated this week, the administration and its supporters will not stop making demands on Israel. Kerry justified Syria's continued alliance with Iran by saying that Syria should be expected to "play both sides of the fence [with the US and Iran] as other nations do when they believe it is in their interests." But Israel has no right to similarly take what action it deems necessary to secure its interests. In Kerry's view, the time has come for the US to show that it is serious about Palestinian statehood, and the way to do that is to force Israel to block all Jewish building in Judea and Samaria. In his words, "On the Israeli side, nothing will do more to make clear our seriousness about turning the page than demonstrating - with actions rather than words - that we are serious about Israel freezing settlement activity in the West Bank." He also called for the US to compel Israel to open its borders with Gaza. And he said that from his perspective, it is unacceptable for the incoming Netanyahu government not to embrace establishing a Palestinian state as its most urgent goal. Clinton joined Kerry in his efforts to compel the Jewish state to ignore its national interests in the cause of the higher goal of Palestinian statehood. Like him, she attacked Israel for not handing control over its borders with Gaza to Hamas. And like Kerry, she stated repeatedly that her greatest goal is to establish a Palestinian state. Clinton's unique contribution to that great "pro-peace" endeavor this week was her outspoken criticism on Wednesday of the Jerusalem Municipality's decision to enforce the city's building and planning ordinances equally toward both Jews and Arabs. That policy was made clear this week when city inspectors destroyed illegal buildings in both Jewish and Arab neighborhoods. Since as far as Clinton is concerned, Israel will one day be required to throw all the Jews out of East, South and North Jerusalem to make room for what she believes is the "inevitable" Palestinian state, Israel has no right to treat Arabs and Jews equally in its soon-to-be-inevitably divided capital city. Arabs should be allowed to break the law at will. When Israel insists on enforcing its laws without prejudice, Clinton condemns it for being anti-peace. Kerry argues that by forcing Israel to give its land to the Palestinians, the US will be promoting regional stability by doing the bidding of anti-Iranian Arab states like Egypt and Saudi Arabia. But even if putting the screws to Israel makes Cairo and Riyadh happy, their happiness will have no impact whatsoever on Iran's nuclear weapons programs or on Syria's proliferation activities. That is, Israeli land giveaways will have no impact on regional stability. And that's precisely the point. The Obama administration has no intention of preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power or Syria from maintaining its alliance with the mullahs. The White House seeks far more modest ends. Through its policies toward Israel on the one hand and Iran and Syria on the other, the Obama administration demonstrates that it has already accepted a nuclear Iran. Its chief concern today is to avoid being blamed when the mushroom clouds appear in the sky. And it may well achieve that aim. After all, how could the administration be blamed for a nuclear Iran when it has wholly devoted its efforts to advancing the righteous cause of peace? caroline@carolineglick.com Original Report http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1236269357164&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Son of Hamas Leader Turns Back on Islam and Embraces Christianity

FOX NEWS [News Corporation/Murdoch] - By Jonathan Hunt - August 12, 2008 Mosab Hassan Yousef is an extraordinary young man with an extraordinary story. He was born the son of one of the most influential leaders of the militant Hamas organization in the West Bank and grew up in a strict Islamic family. Now, at 30 years old, he attends an evangelical Christian church, Barabbas Road in San Diego, Calif. He renounced his Muslim faith, left his family behind in Ramallah and is seeking asylum in the United States. The story of how his life unfolded is truly amazing, whether you agree or disagree with his views. Below is a transcript on an exclusive FOX News interview with Hassan as he tells firsthand how a West Bank Muslim became a West Coast Christian. Click here to view video of Mosab Hassan Yousef speaking out. Click here to view video 'Renouncing Islam.' MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: I believe that all those walls that Islam built for the last 1,400 years are not existing (sic) anymore. They don't recognize this. They built those walls and made people ignorant because they're afraid. They didn't want people to discuss anything about the reality of Islam, about the big questions of Islam and they asked their followers, the Muslims, 'Don't ask about those certain questions.' But now, people have media. If the father closes the door for his daughter not to leave the house, she's going to go behind her computer and travel the world. So people easily can get information, knowledge, searching (sic) engines, so it's very, very available for everybody to study about Islam, about other religions. Not from the Islam point of view, but from other points of view. So for the next 25 years this is for sure going to make huge change in the Muslim and the Arab world. JONATHAN HUNT: You speak from a unique perspective, a man who grew up not just in an Islamic family but as part of an organization seen by many people around the world as an extreme force in Islam: Hamas. What is the reality of Islam? You say people don't see the reality; What is the reality of Islam? MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: There are two facts that Muslims don't understand ... I'd say about more than 95 percent of Muslims don't understand their own religion. It came with a much stronger language than the language that they speak so they don't understand it ... they rely only on religious people to get their knowledge about this religion. Second, they don't understand anything about other religions. Christian communities live between Muslims and they're minority and they (would) rather not to go speak out and tell people about Jesus because it's dangerous for them. So, all their ideas about other religions on earth are from Islamic perspectives. So those two realities, most people don't understand. If people, if Muslims, start to understand their religion - first of all, their religion - and see how awful stuff is in there, they'll start to figure out, this can't (be) ... because most religious people focus on certain points of Islam. They have many points that they are very embarrassed to talk about. JONATHAN HUNT: Such as? MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Such as Muhammad's wives. You will never go to a mosque and hear about anyone talking about Muhammad's wives, which is like more than 50 wives - and nobody knows (this), by the way. If you ask the majority of Muslims, they will not know this fact. So they're embarrassed to talk about this, but they talk about the glory of Islam, they talk about the victory, the victories that Muhammad made. So, when people just like look at themselves and see they're defeated, they have ignorance, they're not educated, they're not leading the world as they're expected to do. They’re think they want to get back to that victory by doing the same, what Muhammad did, but disregarding (sic) the timing. They forget that this happened 1,400 years ago and it's not going to happen again. JONATHAN HUNT: Do they want to destroy Christianity? MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Islam destroyed Christianity from the beginning and Muslims don't recognize that they stabbed Christianity (in) its heart when they said that Jesus wasn't killed on the cross. They think that they honor him in this way. Basically, any Christians understand that this way, (but Muslims) tell Jesus, okay, we don't care, you didn't die for us. Someone sacrificed his life for you, (but) you tell him, okay, you didn't do it! This is what Muslims are doing basically. But they don't understand that this is the most important part of Christianity: the cross! So, they are ignorant, they don't know what they are doing and it explains what an evil idea it is behind this Islam. JONATHAN HUNT: What specific event or events began to change your mind about Islam? MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Since I was a child I started to ask very difficult questions, even my family was telling me all the time, 'You're a very difficult person and we were having trouble answering your questions. Why are you asking so many questions?' This was from the beginning, to be honest with you. But I felt that everybody - and my father was a good example for me because he was a very honest, humble person, very nice to my mother, to us, and raised us on the principle of forgiveness, okay? I thought that everybody in Islam was like this. When I was 18 years old, and I was arrested by the Israelis and was in an Israeli jail under the Israeli administration, Hamas had control of its members inside the jail and I saw their torture; (they were) torturing people in a very, very bad way. JONATHAN HUNT: Hamas members torturing other Hamas members? MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Hamas leaders! Hamas leaders that we see on TV now, and big leaders, responsible for torturing their own members. They didn't torture me, but that was a shock for me, to see them torturing people: putting needles under their nails, burning their bodies. And they killed lots of them. JONATHAN HUNT: Why were they torturing people? MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Because they suspected that they had relations with the Israelis and (were) co-operating with the Israeli occupation against Hamas ... So hundreds of people were victims for this, and I was a witness for about a year for this torture. So that was a huge change in my life. I started to open my (eyes), but, the point (is) that I got that there are good Muslims and bad Muslims. Good Muslims, such as my father, and bad Muslims, like those Hamas members in the jail torturing people. So that was the beginning of opening my eyes wide. JONATHAN HUNT: You talk about the good Muslims, like your father, yet you still now renounce the faith of your father. Could you have not been a good Muslim? MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Now, here's the reality: after I studied Christianity - which I had a big misunderstanding about, because I studied about Christianity from Islam, which is, there is nothing true about Christianity when you study it from Islam, and that was the only source. When I studied the Bible carefully verse by verse, I made sure that that was the book of God, the word of God for sure, so I started to see things in a different way, which was difficult for me, to say Islam is wrong. Islam is my father. I grew up for (one) father - 22 years for that father - and another father came to me and told me, 'I'm sorry, I'm your father.' And I was like, 'What are you talking about? Like, I have my own father, and it's Islam!' And the father of Christianity told me, 'No, I'm your father. I was in jail, and this (Islam) is not your father.' So basically this is what happened. It's not easy to believe this (Islam) is not your father anymore. So I had to study Islam again from a different point of view to figure out all the mistakes, the huge mistakes and its effects, not only on Muslims - (of) which I hated the values ... I didn't like all those traditions that make people's lives more difficult - but its effects also on humanity. On humanity! People killing each other (in) the name of God. So definitely I started to figure out the problem is Islam, not the Muslims and those people - I can't hate them because God loved them from the beginning. And God doesn't create junk. God created good people that he loved, but they're sick, they have the wrong idea. I don't hate those people anymore but I feel very sorry for them and the only way for them to be changed (is) by knowing the word of God and the real way to him. JONATHAN HUNT: Does it worry you that in saying these things - and given your background and your words carrying extra weight - there is a danger that you will increase the difficulties, the hatred between Christians and Muslims in the world right now? MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: This could happen if a Christian person will go talk to them about the reality of Islam. They put Christians on the enemy list anyway, before you talk to them about Islam. So if you go to them and tell them, as a Christian, they will be offended immediately and they will hate you and this will definitely increase the vacuum between both religions - but what made someone like me change? Years ago, years ago, when I was there, God opened my eyes, my mind also, and I became a completely different person. So now, I can do this duty, while you as Christians can help me do it, but maybe you wouldn't be able to. (Muslims) have no excuse now. JONATHAN HUNT: How difficult a process has this been for you to effectively walk away from your family, leave your home behind? How difficult is that? MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Taking your skin off your bones, that's what happened. I love my family, they love me. And my little brothers, they’re like my sons. I raised them. Basically, it was the biggest decision in my life. I left everything behind me, not only family. When you decide to convert to Christianity or any other religion from Islam, it's not (enough) to just say goodbye and leave, you know? It's not like that. You're saying goodbye to culture, civilization, traditions, society, family, religion, God - what you thought was God for so many years! So it's not easy. It's very complicated. People think it's that easy, like it doesn't matter. Now I'm here in the U.S. and I got my freedom and it's great, but at the same time, nothing is like family, you know. To lose your family - JONATHAN HUNT: Have you lost your family? MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: My family is educated and it was very difficult for them. They asked me many times, especially for the first two days, to keep my faith to myself and not go to the media and announce it. But for me it was a duty from God to announce his name and praise him (around) the world because my reward is going to be that he's going to do the same for me. So I did it, basically, as a duty. I (wonder) how many people can do what I can do today? I didn't find any. So, I had to be strong about that. That was very challenging. That was the most difficult decision in my life and I didn't do it for fun. I didn't do it for anything from this world. I did it only for one reason: I believed in it. People are suffering every day because of wrong ideas. I can help them get out of this endless circle ... the track the devil (laid) for them. JONATHAN HUNT: Have you spoken to your father recently? MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: There is no chance to communicate with my father because he's in jail now and there is (sic) no phones in the jail to communicate with him. JONATHAN HUNT: Have other members of your family told you how he's reacted? MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: They've visited him from time to time. Till this moment, I don't know his reaction exactly but I'm sure he's very sad (over) a decision like this. But at the same time, he's going to understand, because he knows me and he knows that I don't make any decisions without (believing strongly in them). JONATHAN HUNT: Is it making his life more difficult among fellow Hamas members? MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Definitely. My family, including my father, had to carry this cross with me. It wasn't their choice. It was my choice, but they had to carry this cross with me and I ask God - I pray for (my father), all my brothers and my sisters here in this church, praying all the time for them - 'God, open their eyes, their minds, to come to Christ. And bless them because they had to carry this cross with me.' JONATHAN HUNT: Tell me about Hamas and the way it works. Is Hamas a purely Islamic religious organization as you see it, and that's where, in your eyes, its faults lie, or are there other parts of it which are a problem for you? Or is Hamas a good organization? What is Hamas to you? MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: If we talk about people, there are good people everywhere. Everywhere. I mean, good people that God created. Do they do their own things? Yes, they do their own things. I know people who support Hamas but they never got involved in terrorist attacks, for example ... They follow Hamas because they love God and they think that Hamas represents God. They don’t have knowledge, they don't know the real God and they never studied Christianity. But Hamas, as representative for Islam, it's a big problem. The problem is not Hamas, the problem is not people. The root of the problem is Islam itself as an idea, as an idea. And about Hamas as an organization, of course, the Hamas leadership, including my father, they're responsible; they're responsible for all the violence that happened from the organization. I know they describe it as reaction to Israeli aggression, but still, they are part of it and they had to make decisions in those operations against Israel, (for) which there was the killing of many civilians. JONATHAN HUNT: Do you believe Israel blameless in the conflict? MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Occupation is bad. I can't say Israel - I'm not against any nation. We can't say Israelis, we can't say Palestinians, we're talking about ideas. Israel has the right to defend itself, nobody can (argue) against this. But sometimes they use (too much) aggression against civilians. Sometimes many civilians were killed because those soldiers weren't responsible enough, how they treat people at the checkpoints. My message even to the Israeli soldiers: at least treat people in a good way at the checkpoints. You don't have to look really bad and it's not about nations, it's about just wrong ideas on both sides and the only way for two nations really to get out of the endless circle is to know the principles that Jesus brought to this earth: grace, love, forgiveness. Without this, they will never be able to move on, or break this endless circle. JONATHAN HUNT: You've seen your father jailed, you've been in prison yourself. You've seen Hamas carry out acts of terror against Israelis, and yet you say everybody needs to rise above that? MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Definitely. This is the only choice. Nobody has magic power to do something for the Middle East. No one. You can ask any politician here in the U.S., you can ask any Palestinian politician or Arab politician, Israeli leaders; no one, no one can do anything. Even if they believe in peace now: they're part of the game. They're part of the trick. They can't, even if you find a brave person, like Rabin, who was called by an Israeli to make peace with the Palestinians and give them a state, no one, even if you find a strong leader, they can't do this. You can't force an independent country to give another country independence. (Especially when) the other country wants to destroy it. Everybody is hurt. Israeli soldiers, they lost their friends. Palestinians, they lost their children, their fathers. (There are) many people in prison still, and many people were killed. Thousands. So everybody will never forget this. If they want to keep looking to the past, they will never get out of this circle. The only way to start (is just by) moving on. They were born under the occupation as Palestinians. The last two generations, it's not their choice. The new generations from Israel - if we say disregarding the existence of Israel is right or wrong, what's the guilt of those people who were born in Israel and they have no other country to go to? It's their country now, that's how they see it. And they are going to keep their resistance and defense against whomever. (They will) say, 'Get out of this land!' So the only way is for both nations to start to understand the grace, love and forgiveness of God, to be able to get out of this. JONATHAN HUNT: Do you believe that Israel can ever strike a peace deal with Hamas? MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: There is no chance. Is there any chance for fire to co-exist with the water? There is no chance. Hamas can play politics for 10 years, 15 years; but ask any one of Hamas' leaders, 'Okay, what's going to happen after that? Are you just going to live and co-exist with Israel forever?' The answer is going to be no ... unless they want to do something against the Koran. But it's their ideology and they can't just say 'We're not going to do it.' So there is no chance. It's not about Israel, it's not about Hamas: it's about both ideologies. There is no chance. JONATHAN HUNT: Aren't you terrified that somebody is going to try to kill you for saying these things - which would be approved of according to parts of the Koran? MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: They got to kill my ideas first, (and) that's it, they're already out. So how are they going to kill my idea? How are they going to kill the opinions that I have? ... They can kill my body, but they can't kill my soul. JONATHAN HUNT: You're not afraid? MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: As a human, you know, I can be very brave now, I'm not thinking about it at this moment and I feel that God is on my side. But if this will be the challenge, I ask God to give me enough strength. JONATHAN HUNT: Have you been threatened? MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: No, not really. Honestly, most Muslims and Muslim leaders here in the U.S. community, European communities, they are trying to get ahold of me. They are calling my famiily, my mother, and asking for my contacts. They are telling her, 'We want to help him.' JONATHAN HUNT: They think you need help? MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Yeah, they think that Christians took advantage of me, and this is completely wrong. I've been a Christian for a long time before they knew, or anyone knew. I love Jesus, I followed him for many years now. It wasn't a secret for most of the time, and this time I just did it to glorify the name of God and praise him. They're not dealing with a regular Muslim. They know that I'm educated, they know that I studied, they know that I studied Islam and Christianity. When I made my decision, I didn't make it because someone did magic on me or convinced me. It was completely my decision. JONATHAN HUNT: Do you miss Ramallah? MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Definitely. You've been there and you know how a wonderful country (it is). Very, very beautiful. It's a very small spot and it has everything - this is why people are fighting for that piece of land. I definitely miss Ramallah. Jereusalem. The Old City. JONATHAN HUNT: Do you believe you will ever be able to go back? MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: I think I belong to that land, and sooner or later I'm going to go back, no matter what. If they want to kill me, they (will) do whatever they want to do. I have a family there, they love me, they completely support me now with my decisions. Maybe they don't want me to talk to the media but they believe that I made a decision that I completely believe in. So they support me, so I love my family. I'm going to go back there again one day. I love my town. JONATHAN HUNT: Do you think you'll ever go back to a Middle East living in peace? MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: There will be a 100-person peace when Jesus comes back, when he judges everybody. His kingdom's going to be 1,000 years and it's going to be completely peaceful and it's going to be the kingdom of God. JONATHAN HUNT: What is your basic message to any Muslim listening to this right now? MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: My message to them is, first of all, to open their minds. They were born to Muslim families - this is how they got Islam and this is just like ... any other religion, like growing up (in) a Christian family, or growing up (in) a Jewish family. So my point is that I want those people to open their eyes, their minds, to start to understand and imagine that they weren't born for a Muslim famiily. And use their minds. Why did God give them minds? Open their hearts. Read the Bible. Study their religion. I want to open the gate for them, I want them to be free. They will find a good life on earth just by following God - and they're also going to guarantee the other life. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,402483,00.html FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. 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