Posted on 08/25/2007 2:26:58 PM PDT by DAVEY CROCKETT
http://docstalk.blogspot.com/2007/12/washington-loosens-restrictions-on-hi.html
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Washington loosens restrictions on hi-tech electronic equipment for Syria despite its military applications
As the song goes “When will we ever learn ...” In line with the thaw in Washington-Damascus relations, the state department has permitted Cisco Systems to ship routers, switches and hi-tech equipment to Syria. Israeli military officials told DEBKAfile’s sources that the shipment of items with military uses was approved, although the Bashar regime is far from mending its ways and continues to meddle in Lebanon. Western and Israeli intelligence sources stress that Syrian fingerprints were all over the car bomb on Dec. 11, which murdered the Lebanese army’s operations chief Gen. Francois El-Hajj and four others. The general, who was not Syria’s pocket, was designated successor to supreme commander Gen. Michel Suleiman who is slated for the presidency.
Eight hours later, Syrian vice president Farouk a-Shara said unrepentantly: Syrian connections to Lebanon “are as strong as ever” and warned off “anyone in and outside Lebanon who threatens those ties.”
In the last two months, Damascus has fully restored its subversive presence in Beirut. Ever since Assad halted al Qaeda and insurgent infiltrations of fighters, arms, explosives and cash into Iraq, US officials turn a deaf ear to complaints of his mischief-making in Lebanon and continued sponsorship of radical Palestinian terrorists.
The State Department has gone even further in instructing its UN mission not to veto a world body’s technological grant to Syria, for use in sophisticated surveillance equipment coming from the American Cisco Systems company. On orders from secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, the US department of commerce issued Cisco with a special export license for the equipment to be sent to Syria, in violation of Washington’s owneconomic sanctions on Syria.
The routers, switches and other hi-tech items are usable for missile radar and other weaponry as well as for early warning apparatus and intelligence surveillance.
Israeli officials commented to DEBKAfile that if Washington cannot uphold its own sanctions, it cannot expect to be taken seriously when urging stiff penalties for Iran.
Posted by GS Don Morris, Ph.D.
http://docstalk.blogspot.com/2007/12/communist-roots-of-palestinian-terror.html
Saturday, December 15, 2007
The Communist Roots of Palestinian Terror
David Meir-Levi
FrontPageMagazine.com
The following is chapter from David Meir-Levi’s new book, History Upside Down: The Roots of Palestinian Fascism and the Myth of Israeli Aggression. The Terrorism Awareness Project previous printed his history of the “right-wing” influence on Islamic extremism, “The Nazi Roots of Palestinian Nationalism and Islamic Jihad.” Taken together (with his entire book), these chapters show that Islamofascism is a political, not merely a religious force; and the potent and deadly offspring of the totalitarian ideologies of the past. — The Editors.
Although many Nazis found new and ideologically welcoming homes in Egypt and Syria after World War II, the Grand Mufti’s Palestinian national movement itself, bereft of its Nazi patron, was an orphan. No sovereign state of any consequence supported it. On the contrary, most of the surrounding Arab states, all of them buoyed by postcolonial nationalism and looking for political stability, perceived the Palestinian cause, especially as embodied in the Muslim Brotherhood, as a threat. Egypt aggressively suppressed the Brotherhood. Saudi and Jordanian royalty watched the growth of radical Islam with suspicion. Syria and Lebanon, trying to move toward more open societies in the pre-Ba’athist era, feared the Brotherhood’s opposition to western-style civil rights and liberties and its fierce condemnation of westernized Arab societies.
More to the point, each of these states coveted some or all of what was formerly British Mandatory Palestine and were no more enthusiastic about the creation of a new Arab state there than they were about the creation of Israel. As a result of these complex national ambitions and antagonisms, no state for the Arabs of British Mandatory Palestine was created. Even though Israel offered the return of territories gained in the 1948 war at the Rhodes armistice conference of February 1949, the Arab leaders (among whom there were no representatives from the Arabs of the former Palestine) rejected Israel’s peace offers, declared jihad, and condemned the Arab refugees to eternal refugee status, while also illegally occupying the remaining areas that the United Nations had envisioned as a Palestinian state—as Arafat himself tells us in his authorized biography (Alan Hart, Arafat: Terrorist or Peace Maker?). Egypt herded Palestinian Arabs into refugee camps in its new fiefdom in the Gaza Strip, assassinated their leaders, and shot anyone who tried to leave. Jordan illegally annexed the west Bank and maintained martial law over it for the next nineteen years.
Egypt was particularly conscious of the threat the Muslim Brotherhood posed to the westernized and increasingly secularized society it was trying to build, and both King Farouk and later Gamal Abdel Nasser took brutal and effective steps to repress the movement. They also made sure that the 350,000 Palestinians whom the Egyptian army had herded into refugee camps in Gaza would develop no nationalist sentiments or activism. Egyptian propaganda worked hard to redirect the Palestinians’ justifiable anti- Egypt sentiments toward an incendiary hatred of Israel. Its secret police engineered the creation and deployment of the fedayeen (terrorist infiltrators) movement, which between 1949 and 1956 carried out over nine thousand terror attacks against Israel, killing more than six hundred Israelis and wounding thousands. These fedayeen were mostly Arab refugees, trained and armed by Egypt.
As the conflict with Israel hardened throughout the 1950s, Nasser came to see that Palestinian nationalism, if carefully manipulated, could be an asset instead of just a threat and an annoyance. Although the fedayeen terrorism prompted Israel to invade the Sinai in 1956, the Egyptian leader saw the value in being able to deploy a force that did his bidding but was not part of Egypt’s formal military; which could make tactical strikes and then disappear into the amorphous demography of the west Bank or the Gaza Strip, giving Egypt plausible deniability for the mayhem it had created. But Nasser’s ability to support such a useful terrorist group was limited by the failed economy over which he presided; and so, in 1964, he was delighted to cooperate with the Soviet Union in the creation of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
Brainchild of the KGB
As Ion Mihai Pacepa, onetime director of the Romanian espionage service (DIE), later explained, the PLO was conceived at a time when the KGB was creating “liberation front” organizations throughout the Third world. Others included the National Liberation Army of Bolivia, created in 1964 with help from Ernesto “Che” Guevara, and the National Liberation Army of Colombia, created in 1965 with help from Fidel Castro. But the PLO was the KGB’s most enduring achievement.
In 1964, the first PLO Council, consisting of 422 Palestinian representatives handpicked by the KGB, approved the Soviet blueprint for a Palestinian National Charter—a document drafted in Moscow—and made Ahmad Shukairy, the KGB’s agent of influence, the first PLO chairman. The Romanian intelligence service was given responsibility for providing the PLO with logistical support. Except for the arms, which were supplied by the KGB and the East German Stasi, everything, according to Ion Pacepa, “came from Bucharest. Even the PLO uniforms and the PLO stationery were manufactured in Romania free of charge, as a ‘comradely help.’ During those years, two Romanian cargo planes filled with goodies for the PLO landed in Beirut every week.”
The PLO came on the scene at a critical moment in Middle East history. At the Khartoum conference held shortly after the Six-Day war, the defeated and humiliated Arab states confronted the “new reality” of an Israel that seemed unbeatable in conventional warfare. The participants of the conference decided, among other things, to continue the war against Israel as what today would be called a “low intensity conflict.” The PLO’s Fatah forces were perfect to carry out this mission.
The Soviets not only armed and trained Palestinian terrorists but also used them to arm and train other professional terrorists by the thousands. The International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (CPSU), the Soviet Security Police (KGB), and Soviet Military Intelligence (GRU) all played major roles in this effort. From the late 1960s onwards, moreover, the PLO maintained contact with other terror groups—some of them neo-Nazi and extreme right-wing groups—offering them support and supplies, training and funding.
The Soviets also built Moscow’s Patrice Lumumba People’s Friendship University to serve as a base of indoctrination and training of potential “freedom fighters” from the Third world. More specialized training in terrorism was provided at locations in Baku, Odessa, Simferopol, and
Tashkent. Mahmoud Abbas, later to succeed Yassir Arafat as head of the PLO, was a graduate of Patrice Lumumba U, where he received his Ph.D. in 1982 after completing a thesis partly based on Holocaust denial.
Cuba was also used as a base for terrorist training and Marxist indoctrination, part of a symbiotic relationship between its revolutionary cadre and the PLO. The Cuban intelligence service (DGI) was under the direct command of the KGB after 1968. Palestinian terrorists were identified in Havana as early as 1966; and in the 1970s DGI representatives were dispatched to PLO camps in Lebanon to assist terrorists being nurtured by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). In late April 1979, an agreement was reached for the PFLP to have several hundred of its terrorists trained in Cuba, following a meeting between its chief George Habash and Cuban officials.
The PLO and the Arab States
In the chaotic aftermath of the Six-Day war, Yassir Arafat had seen an opportunity for himself and his still embryonic Fatah terror organization in the rubble of the Arab nations’ war machines and the humiliation of the Arab world. He forged an alliance with President Nasser, whom he won over to his belief that after traditional warfare had failed them yet again, the future of the conflict for the Arabs was in the realm of terrorism, not the confrontation of massed armies. From September to December 1967, Nasser supported Arafat in his attempt to infiltrate the west Bank and to develop a grassroots foundation for a major terror war against Israel. These efforts were unsuccessful because local west Bank Palestinians cooperated with Israel and aided in the pursuit of Arafat and his Fatah operatives.
Despite such setbacks, Arafat later described this era in his authorized biography as the time of his most successful statecraft. When word reached him of Israel’s post-Six- Day-war peace overtures to the recently defeated Arab countries, he and his adjutants understood at once that if there were ever peace between Israel and Jordan, for instance, there would be no hope for a Palestinian state. So he set off on a grueling exercise in shuttle diplomacy throughout the major Arab countries, preaching the need to reject unconditionally any peace agreement with the Jewish state.
Arafat later claimed credit for the results of the Khartoum conference (August–September 1967), in which all the Arab dictators unanimously voted to reject Israel’s offer to return much of the land it had occupied as a result of the war in exchange for peace. Had he not intervened, Israel might conceivably have made peace with Jordan, and the west Bank would have reverted to Jordanian sovereignty, leaving his dream of leading a state there stillborn.
But while Arafat’s proposals to engage in a continuing terror war might be enthusiastically received by Arab leaders, there was no support to speak of among the Arabs of the west Bank, who readily gave him up to Israeli authorities. Arafat was forced to flee with the Israel Defense Forces hot on his trail, and finally established a base for his force in the city of Salt, in southwestern Jordan. From there he executed terrorist raids across the Jordan river and began to set up clandestine contacts with officers in the Jordan Legion, almost half of whom were Palestinians.
The Israeli army, under the direction of Moshe Dayan, launched a limited invasion of Jordan in March 1968 to stop Arafat’s raids. Its objective was the village of Karama, near the Jordan river, where most of Arafat’s men were encamped. The raid took a terrible toll of terrorist fighters. when Jordanian artillery forces, under the command of Palestinians, unexpectedly opened fire on the Israeli force, the Israelis retreated, not wishing to escalate the raid into a confrontation with Jordan.
Showing his brilliance as a propagandist, Arafat redefined Israel’s strategic retreat into a rout. Organizing his defeated and demoralized force into a cavalcade, he marched into Salt with guns firing victoriously in the air, claiming in effect that it was his force, rather than fear of a diplomatic incident, that had caused the Israelis to move back. Arafat claimed that he had liberated both Palestinian and Jordanian karameh (“dignity” in Palestinian Arabic) by smashing the Israeli force and driving it back across the Jordan river in shame and disarray. It was pure fiction, but the Arabs believed it. Soon money and recruits were pouring in, and Arafat was able to reconstitute and equip his haggard Fatah force. Shrewdly leveraging his “victory,” Arafat challenged Ahmad Shukairy as head of the PLO in February 1969. Acting through Nasser, the Soviets backed Arafat and he emerged as the unchallenged leader of the Arab terrorist war against Israel. while remaining distinct organizations, the PLO and Fatah were unified beneath the umbrella of his leadership.
At this point, Soviet involvement became critical. Under Russian tutelage, Arafat signed the “Cairo Agreement” in November 1969, which allowed him, with overt Egyptian and Syrian backing and covert Russian support, to move a large part of his force into southern Lebanon. There they set up centers of operation to prepare for terror attacks against Israel’s northern border, while Arafat and the rest of his force remained in Jordan.
The three years of Arafat’s sojourn in Jordan were not without internal problems. Fatah terrorists routinely clashed with Jordanian soldiers (more than nine hundred armed encounters between 1967 and 1970). Arafat’s men used Mafia tactics to smuggle cigarettes, drugs, and alcohol, and to extort money from local Jordanians, setting up roadblocks to exact tolls and kidnapping notables for ransom to finance “the revolution.” when Jordanian forces tried to keep order, Fatah engaged and in some cases killed them. Jordan’s King Hussein was not eager for a confrontation.
Faced with Arafat’s threats of civil war, he offered the PLO leader a position in the Jordanian parliament. Arafat refused, saying that his only goal in life was to destroy Israel. When the U.S. assistant secretary of state, Joseph Cisco, came to Jordan in April 1970, Arafat organized massive anti-American riots throughout the country, during which one American military attaché was murdered and another kidnapped. Humiliated before his most important ally, Hussein did nothing.
In July 1970, Egypt and Jordan accepted U.S. secretary of state William Rogers’ plan for Israel’s withdrawal from the west Bank and Gaza in exchange for peace and recognition. But instead of embracing the plan and taking control of the West Bank and Gaza, Arafat denounced the Rogers proposal, reiterating his determination to reject any peace agreement. He then organized riots throughout Jordan in order to prevent a political solution. The liberated Palestine he sought would stretch from the Jordan river to the sea, with no Israel, and could only be achieved through fire and blood. All peace agreements that left Israel intact were in his view betrayals of the Palestinian cause.
Nasser was furious and let King Hussein know that he had withdrawn his support for Arafat. Blundering ahead, Arafat announced it was now time to overthrow King Hussein, and he launched an insurrection.
Throughout August 1970, fighting between Arafat’s forces and the Jordan Legion escalated. Arafat looked forward to support from Syria when he launched his final coup, but the Syrians had backed off because they had learned that the United States had given Israel a green light to intervene if they became involved.
The final straw came on September 6, 1970, when the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), nominally under Arafat’s control, skyjacked one Swiss and two American airliners. Two of the planes landed in Jordan, where they were emptied of their passengers and then blown up. The passengers were held as hostages, to be released in exchange for PLO and other terrorists in Israeli jails. At this point, King Hussein declared martial law, and ordered Arafat and his men out of Jordan. Arafat responded by demanding a national unity government with himself at its head. Hussein then ordered his 55,000 soldiers and 300 tanks to attack PLO forces in Amman, Salt, Irbid, and all Palestinian refugee camps.
In eleven days it was over. Seeing his forces tottering on the brink of total defeat and perhaps annihilation, Arafat, having promptly fled to safety in Sudan, agreed to face a tribunal of Arab leaders who would adjudicate an end to the conflict. After six hours of deliberation, the rulers of Egypt, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan decided in favor of King Hussein. And to make matters worse, Arafat’s last patron, the dictator Nasser, died of a heart attack while seeing members of the tribunal off at the Cairo airport. As Hussein forced the remaining PLO terrorists out of his cities, Arafat had no choice but to leave. By March 1971, he had made his way clandestinely to Lebanon, the only Arab country too weak to throw him out.
Once in Lebanon, he sought to take control of the PLO forces, but he discovered that his chief surviving officers quite correctly blamed him for the Jordan debacle, which had become known as “Black September.” Their resentment for the great and senseless loss of life in Jordan led to two attempts on his life.
Arafat not only survived, but was able to use his ample diplomatic skills to turn the tables on his opponents inside Fatah and the PLO. He argued that in the few short years that he had led his liberation army, he had awakened Palestinian nationalism (in fact, he had virtually invented it), recruited and armed a substantial terror army (the PLO forces in Lebanon were unscathed by the Black September catastrophe), initiated war against Israel, rebuffed efforts by Egypt and Syria to control the PLO, made his organization into a state within a state in both Jordan and Lebanon, and raised substantial support from a growing number of rich expatriate Palestinians and supporters throughout the Arab world. By early 1971, despite the animosity that his debacle in Jordan had engendered, he successfully reestablished himself as the unchallenged PLO military and political leader.
Arafat’s ability to stay at the top of Fatah and the PLO in Lebanon was the result, at least in part, of the support he received from the USSR. Soviet interest in Arafat was motivated largely by his success in organizing and motivating his terrorist followers. The Soviet Union’s Cold war agenda required someone with just those talents to expand and develop the terror arm of Soviet activity in the Third world, and especially in the Muslim world. Within a few years, Russian-trained PLO operatives were manning a dozen terror-training camps in Syria and Lebanon, and deploying terror cells across the globe from Germany to Nicaragua, Turkey to Iran.
By 1973, Arafat was a Soviet puppet (and would remain such until the fall of the USSR). His adjutants, including Mahmoud Abbas, were being trained by the KGB in guerrilla warfare, espionage, and demolition; and his ideologues had gone to North Vietnam to learn the propaganda Tao of Ho Chi Minh.
The PLO Discovers “Wars of National Liberation”
As early as 1964, Arafat had sent Abu Jihad (later the leader of the PLO’s military operations) to North Vietnam to study the strategy and tactics of guerrilla warfare as waged by Ho Chi Minh. At this time, Fatah also translated the writings of North Vietnam’s General Nguyen Giap, as well as the works of Mao and Che Guevara, into Arabic.
Arafat was particularly struck by Ho Chi Minh’s success in mobilizing left-wing sympathizers in Europe and the United States, where activists on American campuses, enthusiastically following the line of North Vietnamese operatives, had succeeded in reframing the Vietnam war from a Communist assault on the south to a struggle for national liberation. Ho’s chief strategist, General Giap, made it clear to Arafat and his lieutenants that in order to succeed, they too needed to redefine the terms of their struggle. Giap’s counsel was simple but profound: the PLO needed to work in a way that concealed its real goals, permitted strategic deception, and gave the appearance of moderation:
“Stop talking about annihilating Israel and instead turn your terror war into a struggle for human rights. Then you will have the American people eating out of your hand.”
At the same time that he was getting advice from General Giap, Arafat was also being tutored by Muhammad Yazid, who had been minister of information in two Algerian wartime governments (1958–1962): wipe out the argument that Israel is a small state whose existence is threatened by the Arab states, or the reduction of the Palestinian problem to a question of refugees; instead, present the Palestinian struggle as a struggle for liberation like the others. Wipe out the impression that in the struggle between the Palestinians and the Zionists, the Zionist is the underdog. Now it is the Arab who is oppressed and victimized in his existence because he is not only facing the Zionists but also world imperialism.
To make sure that they followed this advice, the KGB put Arafat and his adjutants into the hands of a master of propaganda: Nicolai Ceausescu, president-for-life of Romania.
For the next few years, Ceausescu hosted Arafat frequently and gave him lessons on how to apply the advice of Giap, Yazid, and others in the Soviet orbit. Arafat’s personal “handler,” Ion Mihai Pacepa, the head of the Romanian military intelligence, had to work hard on his sometimes unruly protégé. Pacepa later recorded a number of sessions during which Arafat railed against Ceausescu’s injunctions that the PLO should present itself as a people’s revolutionary army striving to right wrongs and free the oppressed: he wanted only to obliterate Israel. Gradually, though, Ceausescu’s lessons in Machiavellian statecraft sank in. During his early Lebanon years, Arafat developed propaganda tactics that would allow him to create the image of a homeless people oppressed by a colonial power. This makeover would serve him well in the west for decades to come.
Although Arafat was pioneering the use of skyjacking during this time and setting off a wave of copycat airborne terrorism, he discovered that even the flimsiest and most transparent excuses sufficed for the western media to exonerate him and blame Israel for its retaliatory or preventive attacks, and to accept his insistence that he was a statesman who could not control the terrorists he was in fact orchestrating.
But while Arafat was finally absorbing and applying the lessons he learned from his Romanian and North Vietnamese hosts and handlers, as Pacepa describes it in Red Horizons, the Soviets still questioned his dependability. So, with Pacepa’s help, they created a highly specialized “insurance policy.” Using the good offices of the Romanian ambassador to Egypt, they secretly taped Arafat’s almost nightly homosexual interactions with his bodyguards and with the unfortunate preteen orphan boys whom Ceausescu provided for him as part of “Romanian hospitality.” with videotapes of Arafat’s voracious pedophilia in their vault, and knowing the traditional attitude toward homosexuality in Islam, the KGB felt that Arafat would continue to be a reliable asset for the Kremlin.
Whether or not Arafat’s homosexuality was the key to the Soviets’ control over him, it is clear that by the early 1970s the PLO had joined the ranks of other socialist anti-colonial “liberation” movements, both in its culture and in its politics; and had reframed its terror war as a “people’s war” similar to those of the other Marxist-Leninist terrorist guerrillas in China, Cuba, and Vietnam. Thanks to input from Ceausescu, General Giap, and the Algerians, Arafat gradually saw the wisdom of jettisoning his fulminations about “throwing the Jews into the sea,” and in its place he developed the images of the “illegal occupation” and “Palestinian national self-determination,” both of which lent his terrorism the mantle of a legitimate people’s resistance. Of course, there was one ingredient missing in this imaginative reconfiguration of the struggle: There had never been a “Palestinian people,” or a “Palestinian nation,” or a sovereign state known as “Palestine.”
Creating “Palestine”
The term Palestine ( in Arabic) was an ancient name for the general geographic region that is more or less today’s Israel. The name derives from the Philistines, who originated from the Eastern Mediterranean and invaded the region in the eleventh and twelfth centuries B.C. The Philistines were apparently from Greece, or perhaps Crete, or the Aegean Islands, or Ionia. They seem to be related to the Bronze Age Greeks, and they spoke a language akin to Mycenaean Greek.
Their descendants were still living on the shores of the Mediterranean when roman invaders arrived a thousand years later. The Romans corrupted the name to “Palestina,” and the area under the sovereignty of their littoral city states became known as “Philistia.” Six hundred years later, the Arab invaders called the region “Falastin.”
Throughout all subsequent history, the name designated only a vague geographical entity. There was never a nation of “Palestine,” never a people known as the “Palestinians,” nor any notion of “historic Palestine.” The region never enjoyed any sovereign autonomy, but instead remained under successive foreign sovereign domains, from the Umayyads and Abbasids to the Fatimids, Ottomans and British.
During the British Mandate period (1922–1948), the Arabs of the area had their own designation for the region: Balad esh-Sham (the country, or province, of Damascus). In early 1947, in fact, when the UN was exploring the possibility of the partition of British Mandatory Palestine into two states, one for the Jews and one for the Arabs, various Arab political and academic spokespersons vociferously protested against such a division because, they argued, the region was really a part of southern Syria. Because no such people as “Palestinians” had ever existed, it would be an injustice to Syria to create a state ex nihilo at the expense of Syrian sovereign territory.
During the nineteen years from Israel’s victory in 1948 to Israel’s victory in the Six-Day war, all that remained of the territory initially set aside for the Arabs of British Mandatory Palestine under the conditions of the UN partition was the West Bank, under illegal Jordanian sovereignty, and the Gaza Strip, under illegal Egyptian rule. Never during these nineteen years did any Arab leader anywhere in the world argue for the right of national self-determination for the Arabs of these territories. Even Yassir Arafat, from his earliest terrorist days until 1967, used the term “Palestinians” only to refer to the Arabs who lived under, or had fled from, Israeli sovereignty; and the term “Palestine” only to refer to Israel in its pre-1967 borders.
In the PLO’s original founding Charter (or Covenant), Article 24 states: “this Organization does not exercise any regional sovereignty over the west Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, in the Gaza Strip or the Himmah area.” For Arafat, “Palestine” was not the west Bank or the Gaza Strip, which after 1948 belonged to other Arab states. The only “homeland” for the PLO in 1964 was the State of Israel.
However, in response to the Six-Daywar and Arafat’s mentoring by the Soviets and their allies, the PLO revised its Charter on July 17, 1968, to remove the language of Article 24, thereby newly asserting a “Palestinian” claim of sovereignty to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Part of the reframing of the conflict, along with adopting the identity of an “oppressed people” and “victim of colonialism,” then, was the creation, ex nihilo, of “historic Palestine” and the ancient “Palestinian people” who had lived in their “homeland” from “time immemorial,” who could trace their “heritage” back to the Canaanites, who were forced from their homeland by the Zionists, and who had the inalienable right granted by international law and universal justice to use terror to reclaim their national identity and
political self-determination.
That this was a political confection was, perhaps inadvertently, revealed to the West by Zahir Muhse’in, a member of the PLO Executive Committee, in a 1977 interview with the Amsterdam-based newspaper Trouw:
“The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct “Palestinian people” to oppose Zionism. [Emphasis added.]
Arafat himself asserted the same principle on many occasions. In his authorized biography he says, “The Palestinian people have no national identity. I, Yasir Arafat, man of destiny, will give them that identity through conflict with Israel.”
But even these admissions—that the concept of a “Palestinian people” and a “Palestinian homeland” were invented for political purposes to justify and legitimize terrorism and genocide—could not stem the enthusiasm of western leaders. Within the space of a few years, the Middle East conflict with Israel was radically reframed. No longer was little Israel the vulnerable David standing against the massive Goliath of the Arab world. As the PLO’s Communist-trained leaders saw the inroads that Vietnam, Cuba, and other “liberation struggles” had made in the west, Arafat promoted the same script for the Palestinians. Now it was Israel who was the bullying Goliath, a colonial power in the Middle East oppressing the impoverished, unarmed, helpless, hapless, and hopeless Palestinians.
Despite the changing imagery, however, one thing remained constant. From his earliest days, Arafat was clear that the PLO’s aim was “not to impose our will on [Israel], but to destroy it in order to take its place . . . not to subjugate the enemy but to destroy him.” The Palestinian nationalism that he and his Communist advisers created would be the only national movement for political self-determination in the entire world, and across all of world history, to have the destruction of a sovereign state and the genocide of a people as its only raison d’etre.
Posted by GS Don Morris, Ph.D.
[Taking the world a bite at a time]
Israeli Arabs fight to buy Moshav land
JPost.com Staff , THE JERUSALEM POST Dec. 16, 2007
A plan by the Jewish town of Mei-Ami to construct a residential development has come under fire on Sunday, with residents of a nearby Israeli-Arab town demanding the right to purchase some of the new houses, Israel Radio reported.
The plan involved the construction of 410 new homes, most of which are slated to be built along a route that runs between Mei-Ami and Umm el-Fahm.
The attorney representing Umm el-Fahm’s residents told Israel Radio that the area currently owned by Mei-Ami once belonged to an Arab village. He added that the Israeli-Arab town is suffering from a severe lack of land availability.
Eitan Ben-David, secretary of the Moshav Movement, said he is against allowing Arabs to live in small Jewish towns (moshavim) since it would be destructive to Zionism.
In 2003, The High Court of Justice issued an interim injunction ordering the Israel Lands Administration (ILA) to set aside a plot of land in the communal settlement of Katzir for an Israeli-Arab family whose application to live there was rejected because they are Arabs.
In September that year, Adel and Iman Ka’adan petitioned the court to order the ILA to give them a plot in the neighborhood in which they had originally sought to purchase land in accordance with a public tender, and for the market price at that time.
It was the second time the Ka’adans, sponsored by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, had turned to the court. In 1995, after their original application was rejected by the Katzir membership committee, the Ka’adans petitioned, charging the committee had discriminated against them on racial grounds.
Five years later, the court ruled that the ILA, a government body, could not transfer land to the Jewish Agency because it served only Jews, and that the membership committee could not reject an application just because it came from Arabs.
Eighteen months after the court’s decision, the Katzir Cooperative Association again rejected the Ka’adans’ application, ruling that they were unsuitable for living in the community. After ACRI failed to resolve the problem through government channels, it petitioned the court again in September to order the ILA to allocate a plot of land to the Ka’adans.
In his ruling, issued earlier this week, Justice Edmond Levi wrote that he granted the petitioner’s request to set aside a plot of land until the court rules on the main part of the petition after the ILA said it had no objection.
Dan Izenberg contributed to this report.
This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1196847352257&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Copyright 1995- 2007 The Jerusalem Post - http://www.jpost.com/
http://docstalk.blogspot.com/2007/12/symposium-holiday-jihad.html
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Symposium: Holiday Jihad?
Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | 12/14/2007
The FBI recently issued a warning that al Qaeda may be preparing a series of holiday attacks on US shopping malls in Los Angeles and Chicago. How seriously must we take such warnings in the context of them applying to the approaching holiday? And must we try to gauge terrorist strategy in the contexts of holidays and certain dates? Do jihadists have a predilection for inflicting violence on some dates over others? Is it wise for us to fixate on certain dates as opposed to others in preparation against terrorist strikes? To discuss these issues with us today are:
Daniel Pipes, (www.DanielPipes.org) a director of the Middle East Forum and author of Miniatures.
Bruce Teft, the Director of CRA’s Threat Assessment Center. He retired from the CIA as a case officer in 1995 after 21 years, 17 working in Stations abroad. He was a founding member of the CIA’s Counter-Terrorism Center in 1985 and has been involved with terrorism issues since then. After his retirement, he continued studying Islamic terrorist techniques and training more than 16,000 first responders, law enforcement, military and intelligence officials in terrorism awareness and prevention. For a two year period following 9/11, he was the Counter-Terrorism and Intelligence advisor to the New York Police Department.
and
Robert Spencer, a scholar of Islamic history, theology, and law and the director of Jihad Watch. He is the author of seven books, eight monographs, and hundreds of articles about jihad and Islamic terrorism, including the New York Times Bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is Religion of Peace?
FP: Daniel Pipes, Bruce Teft and Robert Spencer, welcome to Frontpage Symposium.
Bruce Teft, let me begin with you. What do you find significant about the FBI warning in the context of jihad attacks and dates?
Tefft: I believe that it is pretty clear that the FBI has no “sources” within the terrorist organizations per se — they mostly draw these warnings (and they come out every year like clockwork) from increased “chatter” on jihadi websites. Of course, the terrorists are not going to be talking about real attacks on the websites. However, they know that we monitor and react to these websites and that it costs us inordinate amounts of time and money in preparing defensive measures. I suspect that most of these chat sites are manned by Muslim teenagers doing their part in the war of Islam against the West.
I do not believe that there is a connection between terrorist attacks and certain dates, with perhaps rare exceptions such as the connection between the OKC bombing and the Waco, Texas disaster. Any other apparent connections are probably nothing more than coincidence.
Clandestine operations, whether military, intelligence or terrorist, are very difficult to fix for certain dates. They usually take place as soon as they are ready, certainly not before and rarely afterwards (due to a legitimate fear of discovery). It has been reported that bin Laden expected 9/11 to take place first in June and then August and was getting anxious just before the actual 9/11 attack.
Spencer: Bruce Tefft is of course correct: there is no direct correlation between jihad terror attacks and certain dates. Still, there are some curious resonances. Many have noted that the breaking of the siege of Vienna on September 11, 1683 (although some say September 12) led Osama bin Laden, within a culture that is famous for its long historical memories, to choose that date for the 2001 attacks as a means of signalling that now the mujahedin were picking up where they left off back then. However, even if this connection is absolutely true, no one could have predicted it in advance: it is not that well known as a historical landmark, and the date is not celebrated or memorialized by anyone. This indicates that it is essentially a worthless exercise to try to gauge terrorist strategy by scanning over notable dates in history.
That said, it is also true that the jihadists have an eye for the grand symbol, and this could conceivably take the form of a strike on a notable date as easily as it took the form of attacks on a military landmark (the Pentagon) and an economic one (the World Trade Center). Also notable in this connection may be the warnings we see from Islamic clerics every year: do not participate in the infidels’ festivities, do not wish them holiday greetings, do not endorse in any way what Muslim hardliners see as celebrations of infidelity and the rejection of God. These attitudes, so often reemphasized among Salafist communities, inculcate a contempt and hatred for non-Muslims particularly on the occasions of their holidays that could become the justification for a holiday attack. In sum, then, while the possibility cannot be ruled out that a large-scale attack could be planned for Christmas or New Years Day, there is still no solid indication that jihadists have a predilection for inflicting violence on some dates over others, and law enforcement officials have the obligation of remaining vigilant on every day of the year.
Pipes: I’d like to start by concurring with the observation that operational imperatives appear nearly always to trump the search for symbolic dates; and by joining with Bruce Tefft in wondering if all that “chatter” isn’t manufactured for the purpose of misleading intelligence agencies into thinking something is amiss.
It also bears noting that by the year 2007, there’s a lot of history behind us down to the specific day, so no matter what date out of the 366 one chooses for an act of terrorism, there surely will be something relevant taking place on that same day in some year of recent centuries.
Finally, I’d like to concur with Robert Spencer’s point about Islamist hostility toward Western holidays. I have written about the rejection of Valentine’s Day, but that is a special case, for the focus is erotic, something that bothers the pious of several faiths. More to the point is the general Muslim hostility toward most other holidays, both religious (Christmas above all, but also Easter and Yom Kippur), quasi-religious (New Year’s), and completely secular (in the United States , July 4th and Thanksgiving).
Arguments against these holidays tend to fall into several categories: (1) They have pagan origins. (2) Muslims must not imitate kafirs. (3) Islam is complete and has no need for external celebrations.
To sum these various points up: While Islamists might well enjoy the symbolism of striking during Western holidays, this motivation will not likely have much importance.
Tefft: Both Robert Spencer and Daniel Pipes are far more erudite and educated in Islam than I am. In fact, I regard both as my mentors. Drawing on their discourse and writings, I’ve only tried to apply those teachings to the operational matter of fighting Islam.
I have no disagreement at all with their observations of Muslim hostility to Western holidays, or a Muslim desire to attack the kafir to commemorate a significant date- or that nearly every date in the calendar could be linked to some event significant to Muslims since they have been waging war against non-Muslims for 1400 years.
Operationally, however, specific dates are difficult to adhere to and analytically, it is nearly impossible to determine which date might be preferred for an attack over another date.
I eschew the term “Islamist” since I believe it is misleading, implying, as does the term “Islamofascist” that there is some major theological or ideological split in Islam over basic goals. From my understanding of Islam it appears that those we call “radicals”, or “Islamists”, or “Islamofascists” are basically acting in strict accordance with the Koran, Mohammed’s example, and the hadiths. Those Muslims attacking us are the militants, the muhajideen or holy warriors — the armed wing of Islam, much like the various IRA factions were the armed wing of the Irish nationalists, while Sinn Fein was the political/moderate wing.
Both the militants and the other Muslims who support them, or do not reject them as apostates, are after the same goal: conquest of the world by Islam. Their only difference might be tactical. “Moderate” Muslims may believe, as many Communists did during the Cold War, that infiltration and subversion are more effective than direct, frontal-assault armed attacks in conquering their enemy. But even “moderate” Muslims can not deny the Koranic dictates to convert, enslave or kill every non-Muslim and make the world Islamic.
FP: Well moderate Muslims might not be able to deny that this is what the Qur’an dictates, but they can reject it. And in rejecting it this may make them un-Islamic in the eyes of Islam, but they can see themselves as Muslims if they want to and we cannot stop them. In other words, the problem is Islam, not the many Muslims who want to democratize it. They face a large challenge, but because they face a large challenge does not make them the same as Muslim extremists.
Robert Spencer, what do you make of Daniel Pipes’ and Bruce Tefft’s comments? And do you think in general that we should be on greater alert this holiday season? And in a general sense, is the West preparing itself in a way that it should be?
Spencer: Daniel Pipes’ explanation of why Muslims reject non-Muslim holidays brought to mind an article posted recently on the website of the Khalid Bin Al-Walid Mosque in Toronto, which asks: “How can we bring ourselves to congratulate or wish people well for their disobedience to Allah? Thus expressions such as: Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Birthday, Happy New Year, etc, are completely out.” This grounds the objection to them in the assertion that they are inherently manifestations of disobedience to Allah, probably because of their non-Islamic origins.
On a different subject, I agree with Bruce Tefft that “‘moderate’ Muslims can not deny the Koranic dictates to convert, enslave or kill every non-Muslim and make the world Islamic” with a few small reservations: the choices for non-Muslims delineated by Muhammad and Islamic law are not conversion, slavery, or death, but conversion, subjugation, or death (cf. Sahih Muslim 4294). Subjugation is not, strictly speaking, slavery, although the distinction between the two at various points in Islamic history was exceedingly fine. Non-Muslims had to accept a humiliating second-class status and held their lives and property always at the sufferance of their Muslim overlords, but they were not slaves outright.
As for Mr. Tefft’s statement about moderate Muslims, I think it is a handy test of whether a self-professed moderate is sincerely interested in Islamic reform, or is a deceiver: does he admit that Islamic tradition contains teachings involving violence against and the subjugation of unbelievers? Or does he deny that such teachings exist? A real reformer will not deny the existence of such teachings, but will confront them and try to formulate ways to blunt their force for incitement to violence. So I agree that moderate Muslims cannot deny these Qur’anic dictates, but I think it may be possible to formulate a non-literal (and, indeed, anti-literal) understanding of Islam that explicitly rejects its traditional supremacist elements.
We shouldn’t kid ourselves, however, into thinking this is a mass movement that is ready to sweep the Islamic world. There are a few Muslims in the West who are genuinely grappling with how to reconcile Islam with otherwise universally accepted notions of human rights, the sacred/secular distinction, and more. They deserve our support. But they do not at this point have the numbers or influence to even be called a movement, much less to seize the intellectual initiative from the jihadists.
Do I think in general that we should be on greater alert this holiday season? Yes, because the possibility of a holiday strike is there, but we should maintain general vigilance at all times. And in a general sense, is the West not preparing itself in a way that it should be? Indeed not. But the failure is not so much in efforts to head off jihad terror attacks, as many have been thwarted, but in meeting the ideological challenge the jihadists present, and in calling upon American Muslim groups to do something effective to meet that ideological challenge and stop resisting anti-terror efforts. There are also many non-violent ways in which the Islamic supremacist agenda is advancing, and those are not even on the radar screen for law enforcement or government officials at this point.
FP: Dr. Pipes, your thoughts on the discussion? And kindly add a word, if you can, about Robert Spencer’s point about the many non-violent ways in which the Islamist agenda is advancing.
Pipes: Robert Spencer makes two points – that there are “many non-violent ways in which the Islamic supremacist agenda is advancing” and that these are “not even on the radar screen for law enforcement or government officials at this point.” I agree entirely.
(1) I have labeled this phenomenon “lawful Islamism,” argued that it is no less dangerous than violent Islamism, and founded “Islamist Watch” to battle it.
(2) Government officials in general and law enforcement in particular are clueless about this problem; indeed, they tend to make matters worse by effectively endorsing lawful Islamists. This, by the way, has been U.S. policy since Edward Djerejian’s Meriden House speech of June 1992.
Looking ahead, I see an emerging debate on lawful Islamists. That is, Westerners generally agree that truly moderate Muslims are our allies and violent Islamists are our enemies. Contention centers on the middle ground of lawful Islamists.
As for the topic that began this discussion, that of “holiday jihad,” I think we three general agree that the December holiday season is about as dangerous as other times of the year.
Tefft: I disagree with you Jamie that moderate Muslims can reject any part of the Qu’ran and remain Muslims. Nor have I ever seen “many Muslims” wishing to do so. As Robert noted, this is hardly a mass movement ready to sweep the Islamic world...a few hundred Muslims rejecting the Koran out of 1.5 billion is not even statistically noticeable.
As far as those Muslims who do not necessarily support al-Qaeda’s tactic of frontal assault against non-Muslims, I think Dr. Pipe’s points are essential. Muslims, who know they are obligated to make the world Islamic, are far more dangerous when they pretend to be pro-democratic, or loyal members of any man-made, non-Islamic state. CAIR and all of the other terrorist or Wahabbi-related Muslim organizations in the US from ISNA to MPAC to the Muslim Student Associations are past-masters at this type of infiltration and deception. This is much the same tactic the Communists resorted to following the Second World War when they realized that they could not beat the West on an open battlefield. Islam is at war with us. Muslims have so stated, from Mohammed to bin Laden to the Prime Minister of Turkey. Why do we persist in denying the danger? Islam is at war with us, we are not (yet) at war with Islam. And we are in grave danger because of this.
FP: There is a difference between Islam and Muslims. And there are Muslims who are not aware of — or simply not interested in — many of their own teachings. There are Muslims who do not and will not follow out on many of the teachings. Are these Muslims considered good Muslims within Islam? No. Does this mean they do not exist? No.
Islam poses a threat and a problem for us today. Muslims such as Khalim Massoud and Hasan Mahmud do not. They represent part of our hope and we would be very unwise to paint them with the same brush that we do Islamic extremists.
Having said that, Mr. Tefft, I am not in disagreement with your main points about Islam itself.
Spencer: Bruce Tefft is right that moderate Muslims cannot “reject any part of the Qu’ran and remain Muslims” – from the standpoint of traditional Islamic theology and law. That is not to say that a new understanding of Islam could not be developed and ultimately become a large movement, but that consummation, however devoutly to be wished, is not at this point on the horizon. The jihadist movement is precisely a reassertion of that traditional theology and Qur’anic literalism among Muslim populations where some aspects of that literalism have been set aside in practice for quite some time.
Most analysts assume that Muslims who in practice reject that literalism will stand up and be counted on the side of the West, pluralism, and peaceful coexistence when challenged. This has, however, not as yet been proven. And it seems unlikely to happen, since the jihadists can and do portray themselves as the exponents of “pure” and “true” Islam in order to gain recruits and justify their actions. In light of that, genuine reformers would have to reject Qur’anic literalism and traditional Sharia provisions explicitly, and brave the charge from Islamic supremacists that they have by doing so ceased to be Muslim.
Those who do so, however small their numbers may be, deserve our support, although we should be wary of placing too high hopes on their prospects for initiating a large-scale reform movement within the Islamic world. Still, policymakers who are aware of the real magnitude of the problem should be studying ways to exploit the fact that, as Jamie puts it, there are Muslims “who are not aware of — or simply not interested in — many of heir own teachings. There are Muslims who do not and will not follow out on many of the teachings.”
I believe there are many ways this can be done that haven’t even begun to be explored, because official policy has been hamstrung by fictions about Islam and Muslims that have been invested with the status of unquestionable dogma.
Pipes: Islam is in many ways similar to Judaism, as they are both based on a sacred law, Shari‘a and Halakha. It is therefore instructive to look at the encounter of Judaism with modernity. To shorten a long and complex story, played out over several centuries, the grip of sacred law was loosened and Jews today remain Jews while eating pork and not keeping the Sabbath. Indeed, schools (e.g., Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist) emerged that codified attitudes toward the law. Although such developments remain in the future of Islam, I see no reason to preclude them. As I like to put it, Islam is what Muslims make of it. Or, as Hassan Hanafi, professor of philosophy at the University of Cairo, puts it, the Koran “is a supermarket, where one takes what one wants and leaves what one doesn’t want.”
Tefft: I notice that we are now moving into some very esoteric or philosophical areas — which I am as well qualified as my friends here. While I wonder at Jamie’s comment that there is a difference between Islam and Muslims, I certainly do not disagree with the thought that all whom we might call Muslims, or even moderate Muslims, may not be “good Muslims” according to Mohammed, Allah or the Koran. In that case these ‘bad’ (or “moderate”) Muslims are, from our point of view, not a problem, not a threat and indeed, quite probably good, decent people.
That said, from a military-intelligence point of view, or even an operational and security viewpoint, we must drop political correctness and look at reality. As with the Nazis or Communists of a by-gone era, basic (fundamental) Islam is a murderous, even genocidal, supremacist, exclusionary and evil religion (ideology). I do not think we can gainsay individuals who claim to be Muslims and say that they really do not support the Koran (an obligation in being Muslim) or the ideology of Islam, or are ignorant of what they are claiming to be. This would be most presumptuous on our part. As a simple man, I will take people at their word and if a person claims to be a Muslim, like someone claiming to be a Nazi, they are also laying claim to the belief system that ideology professes.
Islam is not a race, ethnicity, or skin color. Adherence to Islam is not accidental or involuntary. You have to choose to believe in Islam and choose that ideology if you are a Muslim. If it is not yet clear, the religion of Islam is 180 degrees antithetical to the American way of life and the US Constitution. Our separation of church and state, by law, is an in-your-face denial of Allah and the Koran. This is the basic reason for Islam singling out the US as the Great Satan above all other nations. We are thumbing our collective noses at Mohammed teachings. True Muslims are not and can not be our friends and allies. And, barring a crystal ball or mind-reading device, we really have no way to sort out the “True Muslims” from those who only claim to be Muslims (would someone who is not a true believer in National Socialism, claim to be a Nazi?). If someone states that he is a Muslim, I will take him at his word that he is my sworn enemy.
FP: Ok, well, this debate is starting to go in circles.
Needless to say, this position that “If someone states that he is a Muslim, I will take him at his word that he is my sworn enemy,” well, as I have already stated, I reject this position.
And this is not coming from someone who is naïve about Islam or naïve about what the intense believers of that religion hold to be true and important. Yes, of course, a person who states that he is a Muslim and who means this within the context of embracing the violent and totalitarian themes of Islam, yes, this person is obviously an ideological enemy to anyone who believes in democracy, freedom, individual liberty etc. But again, there are those Muslims who consider themselves to be good Muslims but they are not knowledgeable about, or interested in, or have any intent on pursuing, the violent and authoritarian principles of their religion. And if they are Muslims like Thomas Haidon, they might even be interested and intent on working on an Islam that nullifies those ingredients of their religion. And this is why I have many friends who are Muslims, and these Muslims consider themselves to be Muslims and they have absolutely no interest in jihad or political Islam. And yes, the jihadis might kill these Muslims if they had the chance — but this does not take the reality away that these are still Muslims.
But in any case, I have already made my position clear on this throughout the symposium. There is a difference between Muslims and Islam. And millions of Muslims throughout the world have been and are the victims of political Islam. And part of our impulse in doing what we do here at Frontpagemag.com is founded on reaching out to —and helping — those Muslims who are victims of Islamo-Fascism and/or who are just as intent as we are on defeating Islamo-Fascism. .
An all-inclusive attack on people of a faith, rather than the focus on the problems within a religion, is destructive and will get us nowhere.
But, as a said, this argument is starting to go in circles. Robert Spencer, last comment please.
Spencer: Mr. Tefft is correct that “Islam is not a race, ethnicity, or skin color.” At the same time, in the Middle East in particular, as well as in other areas of the Islamic world, one’s deen – religion – does approach the level of ethnicity. It is considered an unchangeable element of one’s identity. A few years back a Palestinian Muslim named Eyad Sarraj expressed this assumption when he said: “I would honestly say that if I could choose a religion, I would choose Christianity and its ideal of universal acceptance, love, and forgiveness.” It never occurred to him that he could actually choose a religion; such an idea, so taken for granted in America, is almost unheard-of in some sections of the Dar al-Islam.
Consequently, I think it might be fruitful for analysts to study how to bring Muslims to an explicit rejection of concepts that many reject implicitly already – Islamic supremacism, the subjugation of unbelievers, and the like. This could contribute to building the supermarket of which Dr. Pipes spoke, although it will certainly face titanic obstacles from those who consider themselves the guardians of Islamic authenticity and purity. Despite those obstacles, however, I don’t think it would be wise to cede the field entirely to the jihadists in their efforts to win cultural Muslims to their point of view. Our appeals to those cultural Muslims have thus far been based on ignorance both of Islam and of human nature, but there is no reason why that must always be the case.
Pipes: We seem long to have left the “holiday jihad” topic behind. A few responses to comments by my fellow panelists:
* To Mr. Tefft’s comment that “the religion of Islam is 180 degrees antithetical to the American way of life and the US Constitution,” I note that he has isolated a virulent form of Islam, that which I call Islamism, and decided it is the whole of the religion, past and future. This is as fallacious as would be taking a certain form of Christianity – say, that of fifteenth-century Spain – and extending it to all times and places. All things change, especially major religions.
* Malaysia may offer the most complete confluence of ethnicity and religion, where ethnic Malays are all assumed to be Muslim and woe to one would convert to another religion.
* Muslims must indeed do much work do modernize their religion, but it is counterproductive to deny them this potential and insist that they remain mired in the horrors of Islamism. Would it not be better to give them a hand to help pull them out?
FP: Daniel Pipes, Bruce Teft and Robert Spencer, thank you for joining Frontpage Symposium. Though indeed we strayed from the “holiday jihad” topic that we focused on in the beginning, you gentlemen nonetheless gave some profound wisdom on that topic — and even the debate that occurred after on connected issues of Islam crystallized crucial themes and perspectives. Thank you.
Jamie Glazov is Frontpage Magazine’s managing editor. He holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in U.S. and Canadian foreign policy. He edited and wrote the introduction to David Horowitz’s Left Illusions. He is also the co-editor (with David Horowitz) of The Hate America Left and the author of Canadian Policy Toward Khrushchev’s Soviet Union (McGill-Queens University Press, 2002) and 15 Tips on How to be a Good Leftist. To see his previous symposiums, interviews and articles Click Here. Email him at jglazov@rogers.com.
Posted by GS Don Morris, Ph.D.
http://docstalk.blogspot.com/2007/12/appeasement-yesterday-and-appeasement.html
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Appeasement Yesterday and Appeasement Today
Arab media:
Amir Taheri
Until a few days ago, Iran’s nuclear ambitions appeared destined to become the hottest issue in the current American presidential campaign. A consensus, cutting across partisan divides, appeared to be taking shape that the Islamic Republic should be confronted forcefully, contained, and in time, forced to scale down its ambitions However, with the publication of the new American National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) claiming that Tehran had stopped the military aspect of its nuclear programme in 2003, most presidential candidates find it hard to sustain a tough position on the Islamic Republic.
This has enabled the usual suspects of appeasement to return from the woodworks to urge “a negotiated settlement.”
In the past few days, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has broken her silence to call for negotiations with Tehran. One wonders why the administration to which she belonged failed to secure any concession s from Tehran through negotiations.
We have also had former United Nations’ Secretary General Kofi Annan coming out of the purdah to call for negotiations.
In this, Annan has echoed former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Bzrezinski, who has called for a “grand bargain” with the Islamic Republic.
This new wave of negotiationism, to coin a phrase, is based on a mixture of false assumptions and bad faith.
The first false assumption is that the new NIE proves that the Islamic Republic has stopped the military aspect of its nuclear programme once and for all. The NIE, however, makes no such claim. All that it claims is that the Islamic Republic stopped its programme in 2003. Whether the programme was revived after that date is not a topic that the new NIE tackles.
The only visible sign of the decision to stop the programme was the suspension of uranium enrichment. That decision was reversed by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad soon after he was sworn in, and uranium enrichment was resumed at a faster pace.
In other words, even if we accept the NIE’s claim that the programme was stopped in 2003, something that we have no reason to do, there is no evidence that it has not been resumed.
There is, in fact, quite a bit of evidence to the contrary.
As already noted, the uranium enrichment project has been resumed and continues at much faster pace.
•According to official estimates in Tehran, allocations for the nuclear programme have risen by almost 40 per cent.
•The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports that all of Iran’s known nuclear sites remain in full operation.
•The IAEA also reports that it has no access to a number of other industrial sites in Iran that may well be linked to the nuclear programme. In other words, we know what we don’t know but don’t know what we don’t know.
The negotiationists forget that the EU3, Britain, Germany and France have been negotiating with the Islamic Republic on this issue for almost a decade. During his term as British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw visited Tehran more than any other capital outside Europe. Javier Solana, the EU’s chief foreign policy official, has spent more time talking to envoys from Tehran than diplomats from any other nation. Tehran has also been engaged in negotiations with the five permanent members of the United Nations’ Security Council plus Germany.
Not only do they ignore the history of negotiations with Tehran, the appeasers also refuse to state clearly what it is that should be negotiated. In other words, they put process in place of policy. Talking about what to do becomes a substitute for doing what needs to be done.
The Islamic Republic, of course, would love to talk to anybody for as long as it is not required to do anything it does not wish to do.
In the 1990s we termed the technique “the Shamir method” after the then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhakh Shamir. Forced by the first Bush administration to enter peace talks with the Arabs, Shamir discovered one of the quirks of Western democracies: their pathological faith in negotiations. Western public opinion admires those who negotiate even though the process may lead to nothing tangible.
Thus perceived, negotiations become a fascinating game, both to play and to watch.
You have talks about talks before proceeding to establish an agenda. Once this is roughly done, you would still need weeks, if not months and years, of negotiating which item should be tackled in what order. At times, the negotiations break down. So, you will have to negotiate about resuming them. To do that you would need a “road map”, taking you from the point of breakdown to that of resumption. Needless to say you would need intermediaries, practicing their talent at “shuttle diplomacy.” If things get out of control and you are forced to show something tangible, you might have to attach your initials to an interim agreement. This could be a long and vague document designed to obfuscate rather than clarify, a method of drowning the fish in water. To get cheers from the party of appeasement, you might have to make “goodwill gestures”, a technique for dancing around the issue. This is like a bikini that leaves everything bare except the parts that voyeurs are keen to ogle.
The negotiationists do not say what it is that one should negotiate with President Ahmadinejad.
More than four years ago, the IAEA discovered that the Islamic Republic had been violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) for almost 18 years. Such a violation should have led to sanctions spelled out in the NPT itself. Instead, the IAEA decided to “negotiate” to prevent future violations. When those negotiations failed, the matter was taken to the UN Security Council which passed two resolutions demanding that the Islamic Republic stop uranium enrichment.
The Islamic Republic has ignored those resolutions and repeatedly stated that it would never abide by their key demand. In other words, the Islamic Republic is ready to negotiate, in fact would love to negotiate, provided the talks are about everything except the one thing that could be the object of credible negotiations.
The appeasers are indirectly calling on the UN Security Council to drop its one demand and enter into “unconditional negotiations” with the Islamic Republic. This means surrendering to Tehran and may or may not be a good option.
In that case the appeasers should shed their lexicon of obfuscation and admit that they are recommending unconditional surrender to the Islamic Republic.
Once they do that, they may have an even stronger point. They would be able to say that, since the major democracies have no stomach for a fight with a power, described by Mrs. Albright as “ rogue regime” before her conversion to appeasement, it is better to surrender to it in the hope that it moderates its radical temperament.
Today’s appeasers, however, appear to be less courageous or more disingenuous than their predecessors in the late 1930s. This is why they are giving appeasement a bad name while increasing the possibility of war by confirming Ahmadinejad’s illusion that he can do whatever he likes without risking the survival of his regime.
Posted by GS Don Morris, Ph.D.
http://docstalk.blogspot.com/2007/12/perhaps-this-is-happening.html
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Perhaps this is happening
Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed
Has Al Qaeda Changed its Base? An official who is a close observer of the Al Qaeda network believes that the organization has begun to shift its activities to Yemen, in addition to its strong presence in Iraq. The movement’s migration from Afghanistan is practically aiming to surround the Gulf region, which Al Qaeda considers its first and last goal.
The recent thwarted operations in Saudi Arabia and the arrests of terrorist cells is primary evidence that Al Qaeda has expanded, and perhaps shifted, its activities, which indicates that we are about to enter a third stage of the war on terror. The battle began early in Saudi Arabia but Al Qaeda suffered successive defeats and was thus forced to spread its wings abroad. It seems that after having been restricted, it has decided upon a change in strategy.
The aforementioned official believes that Yemen may replace Afghanistan as the incubator to breed, rally and train [terrorists]. In practice, Yemen could become the new Al Qaeda base a label once reserved for Afghanistan. The official’s assumptions were confirmed by new activity carried out in the rugged mountains of Yemen that proved to be testing even for the skilled Yemeni forces that best knew their land.
This was evident through the battles with the al Houthi groups that fortified their strength in the mountains over several months and inflicted damage on government forces. Although the Yemeni authority was able to weaken these groups, prevent their expansion and foil any influence of al Houthi members on the center of the capital and other major cities in Yemen, defeating them proved to be a very difficult matter.
If Al Qaeda has really decided to shift its center and perhaps its headquarters to the mountain peaks of northern Yemen, then we are facing a new challenge and a new phase in combat. Since it was first established, Al Qaeda has been targeting the most important country, namely, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region in general as it is aware of the fact that Saudi is to the region what the heart is to the body.
Also, despite its success of spreading chaos and destruction in Iraq, Algeria, Britain and other places, it has still failed to achieve the symbolic significance, popularity and influence that it has been aspiring to since the mid-1990s. Al Qaeda believes that Yemen is an easy country; drawing evidence from the organization’s frequent ability to hide in its mountains and exploit the existing tribal dissidents, in addition to the poverty of its economy and population density. As such, Yemen is fertile ground for the breeding of new generations of Al Qaeda cells or an alternative haven to the desolate, remote and blockaded areas of Afghanistan.
The results of this grave analysis are that the Yemeni authorities should act as a targeted regime just as Al Qaeda had targeted the Afghan regime and instigated conflict among its tribes, setting it ablaze and causing extensive foreign intervention.
Saudi Arabia, the country that is most targeted by terrorists, also has no choice other than to prepare for a new bout of terrorism that requires increased efforts in curbing potential financers who raise funds under the pretext of charitable work, and local instigators who are recruiting young men under various Islamic banners such as Iraq and Kashmir.
Perhaps the proposal of electronic [identity] cards for the entire population should be a priority and should be applied quickly. The truth is that the Saudi Ministry of Interior is one of the most advanced governmental institutions with respect to modern technology, not only in achieving security objectives but also in providing its various civil services. This is a compelling subject that deserves further examination in another article.
Posted by GS Don Morris, Ph.D.
http://docstalk.blogspot.com/2007/12/khatami-rafsanjani-headline-new.html
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Khatami, Rafsanjani headline new coalition to counter Ahmadinejad
Daily Star in Lebanon:
Iranian reformists Friday announced a coalition inspired by former President Mohammad Khatami to win back Parliament and save Iran from the “crisis” they said was created by his successor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The coalition brings together 21 moderate parties, including the allies of ex-presidents Khatami and Ali Akbar Hashemi Ranfsanjani, to fight conservatives in the legislative elections on March 14, officials said.
“The country is in serious crisis. All parties agree that they should restore the Parliament’s position and curb the government’s inexpert activities,” said spokesman Abdollah Naseri.
Officials said the guiding light of the coalition was Khatami, president from 1997-2005, who in recent weeks has broken two years of virtual political silence to lambast Ahmadinejad in a series of speeches.
“Khatami was behind this coalition. He is one of the pillars of consolidating reformists for the next election,” another spokesman, Morteza Haji, told the news conference.
The coalition includes the largest reformist party, the Islamic Iran Participation Front, and the Executives of Construction Party, founded by ex-cabinet members from the 1989-1997 presidency of the pragmatic Rafsanjani.
It is also joined by Khatami’s party, the Association of Combatant Clerics, and the Organization of Islamic Revolution Mujahideen, whose members served as key lawmakers in the previous Parliament.
The other major pro-reform party, the National Confidence Party, headed by former Parliament Speaker Mehdi Karroubi, will have about 80 percent of its candidates in common with the broad coalition, Naseri said.
Reformists, who had the majority in the previous Parliament, are concerned about a repetition of the February 2004 polls, which suffered a low turnout and saw thousands of their candidates banned from standing by the conservative electoral watchdog, the Council of Guardians.
“The Council of Guardians cannot tighten the space in a way that a real competitive election does not take place,” Haji said, referring to the powerful clerical body which vets all candidates running for public office.
He added that “Karroubi, Khatami and Rafsanjani are lobbying with high ranks of the Islamic Republic to guarantee the health of the election and remind the council it is not to make decisions on behalf of people.”
The reformist camp is banking on a high turnout, hoping that frustration with the government’s economic policies will carry them to the March polls - seen as crucial for the future political direction of Iran.
Many have complained that Ahmadinejad has provided excess rhetoric and few of the domestic reforms he promised during his campaign.
“The government has intensified most internal and international crises in the past two years because there is not a strong and watchful parliament,” Naseri said.
“The back-breaking inflation is felt by people and will be a serious reason to vote,” he said.
On March 14, reformists will be challenged by conservatives, who have formed a united front of their own, bringing together Ahmadinejad loyalists and traditional conservative factions.
After Khatami’s 1997 presidential victory, reformists held a powerful position in Iranian politics before they started losing to rival conservatives in 2002 in municipal, parliamentary and presidential polls. They made a comeback in last year’s municipal elections, when they formed a similar coalition drawing up a unified list of candidates.
Attacks on Ahmadinejad have increased of late, with some even claiming that the all powerful Council of Guardians had begun certain wresting certain power from the leader.
On Tuesday, Hassan Rowhani, a former top nuclear negotiator and head of a powerful think tank affiliated with Ranfsanjani’s Expediency Council, offered a blistering critique of Ahmadinejad’s foreign and domestic policies. “A strategy of letter-writing and slogans cannot be an appropriate strategy for us to follow,” he said. - Agencies
Posted by GS Don Morris, Ph.D.
http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news/?fr=yalerts-keyword&c=&p=%22Syria%22&ei=utf-8
News Stories for “Syria”
(Results 1 - 10 of about 9,656)
Sort Results by: Relevance | Date
346 News PhotosPlay Play 10 News Videos
* 1.
Israel rules out attacks by Hezbollah, Syria in 2008: report
Israel rules out attacks by Hezbollah, Syria in 2008: report Open this result in new window
AFP via Yahoo! News - 1 hour, 59 minutes ago
Israel’s Aman military intelligence does not think that Syria or Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia will carry out a largescale offensive against Israel in 2008, an Israeli daily said on Sunday.
* 2.
Syria-Iraq pipeline will reopen within 2 years Open this result in new window
Khaleej Times - 54 minutes ago
DAMASCUS, Syria - A pipeline linking Iraq’s northern oil fields with Syria’s Mediterranean coastline will be operational within two years but needs repairs in Iraq, Syria’s oil minister said Sunday after meeting with a visiting Iraqi delegation.
* 3.
Bush: Syria must release arrested opposition activists
Bush: Syria must release arrested opposition activists Open this result in new window
AFP via Yahoo! News - Dec 14 1:55 PM
US President George W. Bush called on Syria Friday to immediately release dozens of opposition activists reportedly arrested this week amid events marking International Human Rights Day.
* 4.
Iraq keen to deepen ties with Syria - deputy PM Open this result in new window
China Daily - Dec 15 6:37 PM
DAMASCUS - Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Barham Ahmed Saleh said here Saturday that his country is keen to deepen ties with Syria in all fields, the official SANA news agency reported.
* 5.
Survey: Many Iraqis in Syria fled during U.S. troop buildup Open this result in new window
McClatchy Newspapers via Yahoo! News - Dec 14 9:26 AM
CAIRO, Egypt— One in five Iraqi refugees in Syria has been tortured or suffered from other violence, and more than a third fled their homeland between July and October, at the height of the U.S. troop buildup that was intended to quell sectarian violence in Baghdad, preliminary data from a new United Nations study show.
* 6.
Grim past, dim future for Iraqi exiles in Syria Open this result in new window
The Sacramento Bee - Dec 15 12:27 AM
CAIRO, Egypt – One in five Iraqi refugees in Syria had been tortured or suffered from other violence in Iraq, and more than a third fled their homeland between July and October, at the height of the U.S. troop buildup that was meant to quell sectarian violence in Baghdad, preliminary data from a U.N. study show.
* 7.
Bush: Syria must release arrested opposition activists Open this result in new window
Middle East Times - Dec 14 6:57 PM
US President George W. Bush (R) stands next to Vice president Dick Cheney as he speaks in the Rose Garden. Bush called on Syria Friday to immediately release dozens of opposition activists reportedly arrested this week amid events marking International Human Rights Day. (AFP Saul Loeb)
* 8.
Challenged, Syria Extends Crackdown on Dissent Open this result in new window
New York Times - Dec 13 6:58 PM
Syria escalated a crackdown on dissent a week after critics elected a leadership committee in an unusually direct and public challenge to President Bashar al-Assad?s authority.
* 9.
Release political prisoners, Bush tells Syria Open this result in new window
Khaleej Times - Dec 14 9:16 PM
WASHINGTON—US President George W. Bush demanded on Friday that Syria release jailed activists and political prisoners.
* 10.
Lebanese crisis ‘reflects’ frayed ties between Syria and West Open this result in new window
Zawya - Dec 14 11:08 PM
BEIRUT: This week’s blows to the political and security situation in Lebanon reflect the unraveling of the budding diplomatic ties between Syria and the West in recent weeks, a number of political analysts told The Daily Star on Friday.
News Stories for “Iran”
(Results 1 - 10 of about 29,577)
Sort Results by: Relevance | Date
1,853 News PhotosPlay Play 77 News Videos
* 1.
Israeli team in US to counter new Iran assessment: press
Israeli team in US to counter new Iran assessment: press Open this result in new window
AFP via Yahoo! News - 2 hours, 36 minutes ago
An Israeli delegation is holding a series of meetings in the United States to argue that Iran still seeks nuclear arms despite a US intelligence report to the contrary, a daily said on Sunday.
* 2.
Chris de Burgh to perform in Iran: promoter
Chris de Burgh to perform in Iran: promoter Open this result in new window
AFP via Yahoo! News - 2 hours, 38 minutes ago
Irish singer Chris de Burgh, famed for his hit “The Lady in Red”, is to give concerts in Iran next summer as part of a collaboration with an Iranian rock group, their manager said on Sunday.
* 3.
Iran says to discuss Iraq “terrorist groups” with U.S. Open this result in new window
Reuters via Yahoo! News - Dec 16 3:06 AM
Iran said on Sunday it wanted to discuss the activities of “terrorist groups” when it next holds talks with the United States about boosting security in Iraq.
* 4.
Iran to let missing US man’s wife visit Open this result in new window
AP via Yahoo! News - Dec 16 3:20 AM
Iran will allow an American woman to travel to Tehran to get information about her husband, a former FBI agent who was last seen at a resort island off the country’s southern coast, the Foreign Ministry said Sunday.
* 5.
Israel officials in US to discuss Iran Open this result in new window
AP via Yahoo! News - Dec 16 2:57 AM
Israeli intelligence officials are in the U.S. trying to convince the Bush administration that Iran is still trying to develop nuclear weapons — contrary to the findings of a recent U.S. intelligence report, security officials said.
* 6.
Iran says no date fixed for atom plant completion Open this result in new window
Reuters via Yahoo! News - Dec 16 1:17 AM
No date has been fixed for completing Iran’s first nuclear power plant but Russia is serious about finishing the long-delayed project, Iran’s Foreign Ministry said on Sunday.
* 7.
Iran protests to Azerbaijan over spy trial
Iran protests to Azerbaijan over spy trial Open this result in new window
AFP via Yahoo! News - Dec 16 12:32 AM
Iran angrily protested to Azerbaijan on Sunday and summoned its ambassador over “baseless” accusations that Iranian secret services were plotting a coup in the former Soviet republic.
* 8.
Israel coming to U.S. to argue Iran still trying to develop nuclear arms Open this result in new window
USA Today - Dec 15 10:39 PM
Israel has dispatched an unscheduled delegation of intelligence officials to the U.S. to try to convince it that Iran is still trying to develop nuclear weapon contrary to the findings of a recent U.S. intelligence report, security officials say.
* 9.
Israel: US report on Iran may spark war Open this result in new window
AP via Yahoo! News - Dec 15 7:45 PM
Israel’s public security minister warned Saturday that a U.S. intelligence report that said Iran is no longer developing nuclear arms could lead to a regional war that would threaten the Jewish state.
* 10.
Israel Officials in US to Discuss Iran Open this result in new window
ABC News - Dec 16 12:02 AM
Israeli Delegation Heads to US to Argue That Iran Still Seeking Nuclear Arms
News Stories for “Cuba”
(Results 1 - 10 of about 6,688)
Sort Results by: Relevance | Date
325 News PhotosPlay Play 3 News Videos
* 1.
$2 billion to upgrade Cuba’s transportation system over 5 years Open this result in new window
NBC 15 Mobile - Dec 15 10:03 AM
Cuba will spend more than $2 billion over five years to upgrade its dilapidated public transportation system, state media reported Saturday.
* 2.
Cuba proyecta $2.000 millones para modernizar transporte Open this result in new window
El Paso Times - Dec 15 10:08 AM
LA HABANA—Cuba invertirá unos 2.000 millones de dólares a lo largo de cinco años para reestructurar su transporte, uno de los sectores más golpeados por la crisis económica y que suele ser un reclamo permanente de la población.
* 3.
Destruction of CIA Tapes Defended Open this result in new window
Washington Post - Dec 15 5:16 PM
The Bush administration has told a federal judge that its 2005 destruction of CIA interrogation videotapes did not violate a court order because the captives in question were being kept in secret prisons at the time, not at the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
* 4.
CUBA PUBLIC LIBRARY TO OBSERVE HOLIDAYS Open this result in new window
The Canton Daily Ledger - Dec 14 10:58 AM
CUBA — Spoon River Public Library District will be closed for the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, as well as for maintenance and cleaning, from Sunday, Dec. 23 through Wednesday, Dec. 26 and Sunday, Dec. 30 through Wednesday, Jan. 2.
* 5.
U.S. personalities condemn blockade against Cuba Open this result in new window
People’s Daily - Dec 13 9:46 PM
Over 500 U.S. artists, writers and academics wrote to President George W. Bush to urge him to end the decades-long blockade against Cuba, Cuban daily Granma reported Thursday. They also urged the president to eliminate obstacles imp ...
* 6.
End failed trade ban with Cuba Open this result in new window
The Florida Times-Union - Dec 14 9:32 PM
ST. AUGUSTINE - Recently, at the home of former St. Augustine Mayor Len Weeks and his wife, Kristy, I witnessed an evening of camaraderie and humanitarianism.
* 7.
America’s new talk policy with ‘rogue’ states opens door for Bush’s successor Open this result in new window
International Herald Tribune - Dec 16 4:06 AM
The morphing of the White House from imperial protector of U.S. presidential exclusivity to sending Christmastime greetings to North Korean dictators will leave the next president with a lot more legroom.
* 8.
Justice Dept.: Back off on CIA tapes Open this result in new window
AP via Yahoo! News - Dec 16 3:35 AM
The controversy over destroyed CIA interrogation tapes is shaping up as a turf battle involving the courts, Congress and the White House, with the Bush administration telling its constitutional coequals to stay out of the investigation.
* 9.
CUBA PUBLIC LIBRARY TO HOLD TEA FOR PATRONS Open this result in new window
The Canton Daily Ledger - Dec 13 11:28 AM
CUBA — Spoon River Public Library in Cuba will host a Patron’s Appreciation Tea during regular library hours Monday through Wednesday, Dec. 17, 18 and 19.
* 10.
Cuban Embargo Switch Echoes Huckabee’s Immigration Shift Open this result in new window
AG Weekly - Dec 15 10:18 AM
MIAMI - As governor of Arkansas five years ago, Mike Huckabee joined a bipartisan chorus of politicians who concluded that the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba was bad for businesses.
News Stories for “gangs”
(Results 1 - 10 of about 4,743)
Sort Results by: Relevance | Date
19 News PhotosPlay Play 2 News Videos
* 1.
Squad targeting travelling gangs Open this result in new window
BBC News - 54 minutes ago
A pilot project targeting gangs of travelling criminals who prey on the elderly or vulnerable is being extended.
* 2.
Gangs ditch tattoos, go for college look Open this result in new window
MSNBC - Dec 16 12:27 AM
Facing harsh crackdowns by government security forces and citizen vigilante groups, Central America’s gangs are trying to lower their profile.
* 3.
Keeping teenagers in school called pivotal in keeping them out of gangs Open this result in new window
The Palm Beach Post - Dec 15 9:33 PM
How do you keep teenagers from joining violent street gangs?
* 4.
Hugs not gangs and violence - Agencies, non-profits urge more after-school programs Open this result in new window
Brooklyn Graphic - Dec 16 1:12 AM
More after-school programs may be the answer to reduce the presence of gangs in schools.
* 5.
National gangs invading Va. Shore, police say Open this result in new window
The Daily Times - Dec 15 1:35 AM
CAPE CHARLES — Law enforcement officials in Cape Charles are certain well-organized, national gangs have come not only to the Shore, but also to the bayside resort town.
* 6.
Bogus council road gangs warning Open this result in new window
BBC News - Dec 14 4:26 AM
Road gangs falsely claiming to be council workers target homeowners and businesses, warns a local authority.
* 7.
Day-lewis Almost Lost Movie Son Over Gangs Open this result in new window
ContactMusic - Dec 14 7:04 PM
The parents of young star DILLON FREASIER almost pulled the 10year-old out of DANIEL DAY-LEWIS’ new film after seeing his big screen father in GANGS O
* 8.
Law enforcement officials study why youths join gangs Open this result in new window
Sampson Independent - Dec 15 8:46 PM
CLINTON — While law enforcement officials representing the most prestigious of local, state and federal agencies offered a plethora of information and statistics on everything gang-related at a conference in Clinton earlier this week, it was a gang counselor who brought the bottom line — why youths join them and this problem is even being faced.
* 9.
The rise of the suburban high: Gangs are setting up cannabis farms in prosperous neighbourhoods Open this result in new window
Evening Standard - Dec 15 4:45 PM
The view over the detached houses off Nottingham Road on the outskirts of the Derbyshire town of Ripley takes in mature, well kept gardens with their brimming shrubberies and rows of clipped holly and fir.
* 10.
The rise of the suburban high: Gangs are setting up cannabis farms in prosperous neighbourhoods Open this result in new window
Daily Mail - Dec 15 1:23 PM
The view over the detached houses off Nottingham Road on the outskirts of the Derbyshire town of Ripley takes in mature, well kept gardens with their brimming shrubberies and rows of clipped holly and fir. But there is an exception - a burned-out house is evidence of a cannabis farm
News Stories for “gangs”
(Results 11 - 20 of about 4,742)
Sort Results by: Relevance | Date
19 News Photos
* 11.
Containment Of Jamaican Gangs Is Not A Solution Open this result in new window
Scoop.co.nz - Dec 15 12:04 PM
* How much of the violence in Jamaica is gang-related and how much is politically-motivated?
* 12.
Police take fight to central N.M. gangs Open this result in new window
KOB-TV Albuquerque - Dec 15 9:30 AM
Drug paraphernalia, an assault riffle, and meth—these were just some of the things taken off the street by a gang task force Friday in Valencia County.
* 13.
Resident advocates programs to keep kids away from gangs Open this result in new window
Daily News Journal - Dec 14 1:02 AM
Patterson Park Community Center should allow more activities for children to keep them away from gangs, a community advocate told Murfreesboro officials Thursday.
* 14.
Cops: Red bandanas, crimes, but no gangs Open this result in new window
Baltimore Examiner - Dec 15 6:19 AM
Despite three recent crimes involving attackers wearing red bandanas in downtown Towson, Baltimore County police say they don’t have a gang problem in the county’s crown jewel.
* 15.
Salsa Dancers Hope Smooth Moves Inspire Others Open this result in new window
The Tampa Tribune - Dec 15 9:12 PM
To those who practice, salsa is more than just a dance. Luis Eduardo Hernandez sees it as a way to keep youths away from drugs and gangs in his native Colombia. Kiki Kakoullis, 25, and Eli Kostova, 17, have watched it unify and socialize people in their native Bulgaria.
* 16.
Detective: Gang injunction working in SM Open this result in new window
North County Times - Dec 15 7:36 PM
VISTA — Reports of gang-related crime in San Marcos plummeted in the two weeks since county prosecutors sought court-ordered restrictions for 93 documented members of one of the city’s gangs, a gang detective said Friday.
* 17.
Gangs’ revenge threat after killing Open this result in new window
Stuff - Dec 13 8:11 AM
Community leaders were patrolling Porirua suburb Cannons Creek last night as gangs threatened to “avenge the death of our fallen uso [mate]”.
* 18.
Parents’ watchful eyes the best deterrent of street gangs Open this result in new window
Contra Costa Times - Dec 13 3:42 AM
A PARENT SEMINAR was held the other evening in Dublin to raise awareness about gangs in the city. Gangs in Dublin? Our little corner of suburbia isn’t some gang hotbed, is it?
* 19.
Crime gangs make billions from Bulgaria sex slaves
Crime gangs make billions from Bulgaria sex slaves Open this result in new window
Reuters via Yahoo! News - Dec 12 8:08 AM
The trafficking of Bulgarian women as sex slaves brings in about 1.8 billion euros ($2.6 billion) a year for the gangs behind it, making it the country’s most profitable criminal activity, a report said on Wednesday.
* 20.
Gangs’ use of fear slows down justice Open this result in new window
Fort Wayne Journal Gazette - Dec 15 3:09 AM
It has been barely two weeks since former Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor, 24, was shot and killed at his suburban Miami home as part of a botched burglary. Already, four suspects have been rounded up, charged and scheduled for arraignment Dec. 21.
[and the links go on for pages]
News Stories for “gang fight”
(Results 1 - 10 of about 52)
Sort Results by: Relevance | Date
* 1.
Gang Fight Shuts Down School Open this result in new window
KEYT 3 Santa Barbara - Dec 13 4:46 PM
A Santa Maria school was locked down today after a gang fight got out of hand. Police say right after the lunch hour a Guadalupe gang began assaulting Ernest Righetti High School students and not letting them to pass certain properties, which the claim as theirs.
* 2.
Boy Recovering From Serious Injuries After Gang Shooting Open this result in new window
KGTV San Diego - Dec 15 4:09 PM
A 17-year-old boy is recovering Saturday from being shot in a possible gang fight in the Talmadge area.
* 3.
Reaction to the lockdown at Santa Maria’s Righetti High School Open this result in new window
KSBY San Luis Obispo - Dec 14 7:41 AM
A parent speaks out after a gang fight at Righetti High School in Santa Maria.
* 4.
ABC SIX NEWS was at a special meeting tonight to hear residents express their growing concerns Open this result in new window
KAAL Austin - Dec 13 8:59 PM
(KAAL)-— Rochester Police say gang numbers are on a rise, and now safety is becoming as issue. “He said, you better go in and call 9-1-1, there’s going to be a gang fight.” Mary Clark has witnessed gang violence in her own front yard last year.
* 5.
Noise complaint leads to imbibing citations Open this result in new window
The Daily Sentinel - Dec 14 9:00 PM
Furnishing alcohol to a minor, 2800 block of Pearl Street. After responding to a noise complaint, several minors were seen consuming alcohol and were given citations.
* 6.
Napa man, 19, shot in head Open this result in new window
Vallejo Times-Herald - Dec 10 4:40 PM
NAPA - A 19-year-old man is clinging to life at a Santa Rosa hospital after being shot in the head during an alleged gang fight late Saturday.
* 7.
Suspected Gang Members Arrested Open this result in new window
Santa Barbara Independent - Dec 13 12:32 PM
Santa Barbara police arrested suspected gang members in two separate incidents on 12/7.
* 8.
Harris County a leader in trying teens as adults Open this result in new window
KHOU - Dec 13 5:11 AM
Some question whether it’s the right approach, or if it’s just passing the buck.
* 9.
Man Clinging To Life After Alleged Gang-Related Shooting Open this result in new window
KTVU 2 San Francisco - Dec 09 6:32 PM
NAPA — A 19-year-old man is clinging to life at a Santa Rosa hospital after being shot in the head during an alleged gang fight late Saturday night in Napa.
* 10.
Life Saving Reunion Open this result in new window
WHP CBS 21 Harrisburg - Dec 12 4:20 PM
A little girl who became the face of gang violence in Lancaster says thank you to the doctors who saved her life.
Student Arrestedby Peggy Sinkovich
Was Andrew Culver’s email to The Church of Satan truly a threat? Or a call for help, or a prank? That’s exactly what Cortland and Bazetta police are trying to determine tonight. .
The one paragraph email, police say Culver sent from his home computer on December 12th states he wants out of the “Christian world” and needs to kill. He also went on to say he will kill his grandparents and wants the church to employee him as an unholy warrior.
The email immediately caught the attention of Peter Gilmore of the Church of Satan. Gilmore says his church is a religion of anti-Christian atheists who do not actually believe in God, Satan, or an afterlife and do not condone violence.
Gilmore says the recent acts of violence among teens has been increasing and he didn’t want more to take place so as soon as he read the email he turned it over to the FBI.
The FBI then contacted the local police.
Cortland Police Chief Gary Mink and Bazetta Chief Chuck Sayers say they became concerned due to last week’s church shootings in Colorado and the words Culver used in the computer message.
Police said other concerns were the fact that Culver, enrolled early in the Army and has already completed basic training. Culver also put in his email that his grandfather is a retired police officer and that he has access to guns.
Andrew’s grandfather says his grandson has lived with him for two years and he doesn’t believe the boy is a threat. He thinks the email was just a hoax.
Police say when they arrested Culver, he told them the email was a joke but would not answer any other questions.
Culver turned 18 today.
Find this article at:
http://www.wkbn.com/news/local/12515741.html
Stolen Data Update
At a press conference Wednesday, Governor Ted Strickland updated situation on stolen state employee data.
More than three times as many taxpayers are affected by last month’s theft of computer storage device than officials had previously thought bringing the total to more than 786-thousand. Governor Strickland, at a news conference today, emphasized that there’s no evidence the information has been accessed, following the theft. Every state employee and welfare recipient , and some lottery winners are information also contained on the device.
Find this article at:
http://www.wkbn.com/news/local/8431317.html
News Stories for target for a terrorist attack
(Results 1 - 10 of about 786)
Sort Results by: Relevance | Date
* 1.
RAND Study Outlines Passenger-Rail Systems Which Cost-Effectively Prevent Terrorist Attacks Open this result in new window
Medical News Today - 2 hours, 0 minute ago
A RAND Corporation study issued today gives rail security planners and policymakers a framework to develop cost-effective plans to secure their rail systems from terrorist attacks.More than 12 million Americans travel on passenger-rail lines each weekday, and because of its open nature, rail transit is considered an attractive terrorist target. [click link for full article]
* 2.
Ankara has massed up to 100,000 troops near the mountainous border with northern Iraq [Reuters] Open this result in new window
Aljazeera - 11 minutes ago
Turkish military aircraft have attacked Kurdish fighters across the border in the mountains of northern Iraq, Turkey’s General Staff has said in a statement.
* 3.
County well prepared for disaster Open this result in new window
Leader-Telegram - Dec 13 10:06 PM
Though Eau Claire County may seem like an unlikely target for a terrorist attack, that hasn’t stopped community leaders from planning how to respond to such an incident.
* 4.
Basque separatists attack court building - Summary Open this result in new window
EARTHtimes.org - 2 hours, 41 minutes ago
Bilbao, Spain - The Basque separatist organization ETA on Sunday detonated a bomb at a court building in the northern Spanish town of Sestao, near Bilbao, the Basque Interior Ministry said. Nobody was injured in the blast, according to the ministry. ...
* 5.
Cong publishes Jaish chief’s ad to target BJP Open this result in new window
Indian Express via Yahoo! India News - Dec 14 6:43 AM
With just a day remaining for the second phase of Gujarat polls, Congress on Friday attacked the ruling BJP by issuing an advertisement carrying the photograph of Masood Azhar — who was released by the NDA government in Kandahar a few years ago. “Remember that black day, when a BJP-led NDA government’s minister went to release terrorist Masood Azhar to Kandahar instead of hanging him,” the ...
* 6.
Turkey bombs n.Iraq, woman killed - Iraq officials Open this result in new window
Reuters via Yahoo! India News - Dec 16 5:00 AM
SULAIMANIYA, Iraq (Reuters) - Turkish warplanes targeting Kurdish rebels bombed villages deep in northern Iraq on Sunday, killing one woman and forcing hundreds of people to flee their homes, local officials said.
* 7.
‘The Ultimate Soft Target’ Open this result in new window
Newsweek - Dec 13 9:13 AM
Algeria’s latest suicide bombing did more than claim dozens of lives. How the attack could affect the United Nations.
* 8.
Turkey bombs n.Iraq, woman killed - Iraq officials Open this result in new window
AlertNet - 1 hour, 29 minutes ago
Source: Reuters (Updates with NTV report on number of planes, paragraph 3) By Sherko Raouf SULAIMANIYA, Iraq, Dec 16 (Reuters) - Turkish warplanes targeting Kurdish rebels bombed villages deep in northern Iraq on ...
* 9.
Turkey bombs northern Iraq: officials Open this result in new window
Reuters via Yahoo! News - Dec 16 2:47 AM
Turkish warplanes bombed villages deep in northern Iraq early on Sunday, killing one woman and wounding two other people in one of the heaviest raids against Kurdish rebels in months, local officials said.
* 10.
Advertisement starts Open this result in new window
Tiscali - 39 minutes ago
Private broadcaster CNN Turk quoted unnamed Turkish military sources denying that Iraqi villages had been targeted. If the death of the woman is confirmed it would be the first since Turkey stepped up artillery bombardments and airstrikes on suspected PKK bases in the Qandil mountains in October.
News Stories for target for a terrorist attack
(Results 11 - 20 of about 786)
Sort Results by: Relevance | Date
* 11.
Ex-convicts plead guilty to planning terrorist attacks against U.S.-based targets Open this result in new window
Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune - Dec 15 12:50 AM
Levar Haley Washington was finally free on parole after years in prison for robbery _ but unbeknownst to authorities, the Muslim convert was already plotting more serious crimes.
* 12.
On target: Punjab’s dera heads Open this result in new window
The Times of India - Dec 13 2:09 PM
Others on the hitlist were two SGPC members and All-India Anti Terrorist Front chief MS Bitta.
* 13.
UN death toll in Algeria raised to 17 Open this result in new window
Ararat Advertiser - Dec 15 10:27 AM
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon pledged to “spare no effort” to ensure security for United Nations staff around the world as the world body raised the death toll in the terrorist bombing of its offices in the Algerian capital to 17.
* 14.
Humane Society’s bear poll slightly off target Open this result in new window
Baltimore Examiner - Dec 14 4:34 PM
You have to hand it to the Humane Society in its objection to bear hunting. Well, maybe not. We can applaud its recent Annapolis protest at the Governor’s Mansion that was done legally. It did not have protesters in the field during the hunt. That’s good.
* 15.
10,000 stopped in terror searches Open this result in new window
icTheWharf - Dec 15 6:20 AM
Nearly 10,000 Scots have been searched by transport police since the terror attack on Glasgow Airport in June. Officers have stopped 9,994 people and searched 4,636 vehicles at train stations across Scotland since July 1 up to Friday December 14.
* 16.
The Other Cell Phone Terrorism Open this result in new window
Strategy Page - Dec 15 2:07 AM
December 15, 2007: In Iraq, terrorist car bomb use is only about a third of what it was when the surge offensive began last Spring.
* 17.
Finding link to anthrax, professor set NAU apart Open this result in new window
The Arizona Republic - Dec 15 11:44 PM
Professor Paul Keim made a significant discovery that catapulted his career from niche researcher to the equivalent of a scientific rock star.
* 18.
Five killed in bomb attack on train in India - Summary Open this result in new window
EARTHtimes.org - Dec 13 2:56 AM
New Delhi - At least five people were killed and four others injured in a bomb attack on a passenger train in India’s restive north-eastern state of Assam on Thursday, officials said. Railway authorities said an explosion occurred at 1 am on the New ...
* 19.
UN death toll in Algeria raised to 17 Open this result in new window
AAP via Yahoo!7 News - Dec 14 11:57 AM
The United Nations has raised the death toll for its staff in the terrorist bombing of its offices in the Algerian capital to 17.
* 20.
Random searches on rail network Open this result in new window
BBC News - Dec 15 8:10 AM
More than 14,000 people and vehicles have been searched by British Transport Police in Scotland since July.
http://www.dailybulletin.com/ci_7727928?source=most_viewed
Hit-and-run driver strikes 5 kids
Article Created: 12/14/2007 10:02:06 PM PST
FONTANA - A hit-and-run driver struck five children after school was dismissed Friday afternoon.
Fontana police and Fontana school police officers responded at 1:50 p.m. to the area of Miller and Alder avenues after receiving a call to an injury accident.
San Bernardino County firefighters arrived to find five juveniles with minor injuries, fire Dispatch Supervisor Tom Barnes said.
The children were all treated on scene. Firefighters waited until parents arrived to take them home.
Israel Garcia, who lives in the 17700 block of Miller, said he has seen several accidents at the corner because it is a four-way stop.
Most happened at night, he said.
Garcia thinks a stop light should be installed at the intersection.
Jay Lopez, a tow-truck driver who works in the area, said children from the middle and high schools often are not very careful when crossing the streets. They realize the cars have to slow down, so they will just walk out without looking, he said.
“I’ve had a couple of close calls,” Lopez said.
No information was immediately available on the hit-and-run vehicle.
- jannise.johnson@dailybulletin.com
Planned Madrid peace gathering collapses before even taking offf
Planned Madrid peace gathering collapses before even taking off
By Yoav Stern Haaretz 16 December 2007
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/934767.html
MADRID - An investment of hundreds of thousands of dollars, loads of
time
and countless attempts at intensive Spanish-brokered talks between
Israelis
and Palestinians went down the drain this past weekend, when a peace
gathering that was supposed to be held here collapsed before it could
even
get started. Spanish organizers grew tearful as they realized there was
no
possibility of bridging gaps between the various groups and of reaching
even
minimal discussion among the hawks - mostly members of the leftist camp
in
their countries.
The Forum for a Just Peace in the Middle East was supposed to convene
over
the weekend in a town near Madrid called Alcorcon, with the backing of
leftist parties and labor organizations. It was meant to be Spain’s
contribution to promoting talks between the sides. Advertisement
Spain, officials emphasize, is very interested in being involved in
advancing the peace process. Its foreign minister, Miguel Moratinos,
who is
handling the matter personally, said this week: “We managed to send men
to
the moon, but not to resolve this conflict. We must move forward.” But
it
looks like the failure of this forum will be laid at his door. The
background to this failure involves a struggle between the government
and
leftist organizations over responsibility for holding the meeting.
Contrary to the usual Mideast scenario, this time the camps did not
divide
along national lines. There were Israeli Jews and Palestinians in both,
but
ones who hold completely different positions. The conflict between the
camps
revolves around the question of a worthy end to the conflict: a
two-state
solution or one state for two peoples.
In Israeli political terms, representatives of the Zionist center and
left
faced off against radical leftist activists, who were horrified at the
prospect of having to talk to those they view as “representatives of
the
occupation.” Yael Lerer, founder of Andalus Publishing and an activist
in
the Balad party, who was invited to address the forum, told Haaretz
that she
views the people from Peace Now and the Labor Party as another arm of
the
occupation, and therefore unacceptable for dialog.
“It is a huge problem when the heads of the organization do reserve
duty in
the territories and belong to [Labor Party leader Ehud] Barak’s camp
and
then come to Europe and present themselves as belonging to the peace
camp.
This is not a camp that wants a just and genuine peace,” she said.
Delegates from the Zionist left said yesterday that they do not rule
out
talking with anyone on the other side.
The Palestinian side also divided into two groups: those who boycotted
the
Israeli presence at the forum and were busy throughout with internal
discussions; and those in the mainstream, who are willing to talk to
delegates from Zionist parties to advance the establishment of a
Palestinian
state.
In lieu of the forum schedule, the latter went on tours of Madrid along
with
their Israeli colleagues.
Israeli Arabs played a key role in the Palestinian camp, spearheading
opposition to the official Israeli and Spanish involvement. Amir
Mahoul,
general secretary of Ittijah, the umbrella organization of Arab civil
groups
in Israel, led the fight against turning the forum into an
establishment
affair. He called for an end to the influence of Israel and the Zionist
lobby in Europe and the world.
Abd Anabtawi, spokesman for the Israeli Arabs’ Higher Monitoring
Committee,
accused Israel’s Foreign Ministry of sabotaging the event. According to
Anabtawi, if the various United Nations resolutions do not constitute
the
basis for peace, there will be only one solution: establishing a
secular
democratic state in all of Palestine. He rejected the claim that making
peace requires negotiating with centrists in Israeli and Palestinian
societies.
Acknowledging that this forum lacked any force to impact the situation
in
the Middle East, Anabtawi blamed Israel for the lost chance to enlist
more
European support for the Palestinians. “Israel must not force its
position
on us and on civil society in Spain. The forum was liquidated, murdered
in
fact, by Israel,” he said.
Thanks for your work granny. (I’m in your territory...Kingman - Golden Valley for the next couple of days...nice area)
[2002 History]
http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=351
Hadayat Belonged to Egyptian Jihad, al Qaeda’s Operational Arm
DEBKAfile’s Counter-Terror Sources
July 5, 2002, 11:39 AM (GMT+02:00)
Hashem Mohamed Hadayat, 41, who gunned down Yakov Aminov, 46, and Vicky Hen, 25 – both from Los Angeles - on the 4th of July at the El Al terminal of Los Angeles, and wounded 7 others, is revealed by DEBKAfile’s intelligence and counter-terror sources as a Muslim extremist. During his ten years in the United States, he was a secret operative of the Egyptian Jihad who maintained undercover links to the same Jihad cell in Brooklyn, New York, as the “blind sheikh” Abdul Rahim Rahman and Ramzi Yousef. Both are doing time for perpetrating the first attack on the New YorkWorldTradeCenter in 1993.
Hadayat is also believed to have abetted a previous, contrived airline disaster: On October 31, 1991, an Egyptair Boeing 767 Flight 990, which also took off from Los Angeles airport, never reached its destination of Kennedy, New York. The plane plunged into the Atlantic off the Nantucket Island, Mass. coast, killing all 217 passengers and crew. In a special probe, the US National Transportation Safety Board found that the copilot Gameel el-Batouty was at the controls when the plane went into its dive. His voice was recorded shouting, “I put my faith in Allah!”
The report held back from referring more directly to the Egyptian copilot’s responsibility for the crash.
Our sources affirm that Hadayat, who lived in Irvine, California, 70 km south of Los Angeles, knew Batouty well. There are also indications that, in the years 1998 and 1999, Hadayat was in touch with a group of high Egyptian air force officers and helicopter pilots posted at the time at Edwards Base north of Los Angeles. They were there to learn how to install command and control centers in Egypt’s air defense systems, operate anti-air missile batteries and fly Apache gunships. Most of those officers were on the doomed Egyptian airliner after completing their courses.
Although the long-delayed US Transportation Board report never referred to the presence of this high-ranking Egyptian air force delegation on the flight, DEBKAfile’sWashington sources reported at the time that most of the investigators were satisfied that Batouty could not have seized control of the Boeing 767 without the aid – certainly the compliance - of those officers.
Two years ago, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak exerted all his influence on President Clinton to keep the federal board’s findings out of its published report and, above all, the fact that a group of Egyptian air force officers was on the plane. He warned that citing the Egyptian copilot as deliberately causing the crash would have a negative effect on Egyptian-US relations.
The report therefore fell short of clear conclusions.
Hadayat’s murderous attack on El Al flight 106 passengers points back to the Egyptair 990 disaster of 1991, reviving the many questions left open by that earlier, half stifled inquiry, which carefully stepped round any suggestion of terrorism. It also raises the question of how many sleeper cells the Egyptian Jihad, al Qaeda’s primary operational arm, maintains in American cities.
Hadayat struck the El Al ticket line on his 42nd birthday. The initial FBI inquiry found through records of his fingerprints at the Department of Motor Vehicles, which issued him with a limousine license, that he was married with at least one child, and had lived in Irvine for the last two years, working on a green card.
Since the attack, the possibility that he arrived in America as a sleeper terrorist must be seriously addressed. US investigators realize he was not a lone operative and are seeking his accomplices in such matters as setting up the hit, providing the guns he carried and intelligence on the security situation at the Tom Brady terminal.
DEBKAfile’s Middle East intelligence sources report that early Friday, Egyptian intelligence officers picked up Hadayat’s relatives and associates in Cairo, to try and trace the identities of his fellows in the American Jihad cell.
[Google Alerts pulled this under U.S. cells]
5 injured in helicopter crash in Peruvian jungle
A helicopter rented by an oil company crashed on Thursday in Peru’s
Amazon jungle area, leaving five people injured, police said.
The accident occurred near Curaray river close to the border with
Ecuador, some 1,500 km northwest of capital Lima.
Preliminary investigation showed the helicopter, which was rented by
Barrick oil enterprise, had five people aboard, including three
passengers and two crewmembers. The injured have been transferred to hospital
for medical treatment.
Police said they are investigating the accident.
Source: Xinhua
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.