WarSclerotic

‘The prophet’s defender’ – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper

Facing waning local support for his movement, pressure from Tehran and the potential dethroning of his Syrian patron, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has emerged from his bunker with a burst of energy.

Posters depicting Bashar Assad and Hezbollah’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, at a demonstration in Beirut this week. Photo by AFP

By Yossi Verter | Sep.21,2012 | 11:12 AM | 1

On Monday, Hezbollah secretary general Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah departed from routine and appeared in public, at a Beirut protest rally he staged to decry “Innocence of Muslims” – the film that has sparked a cascade of rage and opprobrium in the Muslim world. The Hezbollah chief blamed Israel and the United States for distributing the movie, and warned the Americans that the demonstrations against them around the world will escalate should they not pull the plug on it.

“The world must realize that our rage will not subside. This is just the start of a wave of global protest sponsored by all the Muslim peoples. The aim will be to defend the Prophet Mohammed’s name,” Nasrallah told the masses, who marched through Hezbollah stronghold in southern Beirut.

“They didn’t understand,” he continued, “that the way they depicted the Prophet would insult us. They need to realize that on behalf of Mohammed, we will spill our blood.”

The Hezbollah leader also found a symbolic way to demonstrate his own willingness to sacrifice himself for Mohammed. After shunning public appearances for years, due to personal security concerns, he chose to appear at this rally (this was only his fifth public appearance in six years). To some extent, the moment Nasrallah decided to stage the protest and manifest what he called “our commitment to the prophet,” he didn’t have much choice and was compelled to leave his bunker. He knew that were he to issue such forthright declarations and warnings while in hiding, he would be scorned by critics in Lebanon.

Nasrallah became Hezbollah’s secretary general in 1992, after being appointed directly by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He succeeded Abbas al-Musawi, who was assassinated by Israel, and, at 52, is one of the youngest leaders in the Middle East today. In recent weeks, Nasrallah has confronted unprecedented criticism of his organization, which challenges his leadership and undermines its status.

Calls to disarm

Like Nasrallah, in 1992 Hezbollah also became a central player in Lebanese society and politics. Indeed, Nasrallah managed to turn Hezbollah into an integral part of Lebanon’s reality. No longer was it an organization that merely represented the state’s weakest minority, the Shi’ites. Today, the Shi’ite Party of God is represented in the country’s parliament and cabinet; it controls key appointments in the army and helps choose the prime minister.

Nasrallah’s current predicament is related to the fact that his ally and second patron – after Khamenei – Syrian President Bashar Assad, is liable to be ousted in the near future. While the implications of regime change in Damascus are unclear, there are signs that the awe in which many Lebanese once held Syria and Hezbollah is steadily eroding. It could all but disappear if and when Assad loses power in Damascus.

Signs of such change can currently be seen on Lebanon’s sociopolitical landscape. Lebanon’s March 14 coalition is calling for Hezbollah to be disarmed. In tandem, that alliance is urging President Michel Sleiman to call on the UN Security Council to deploy UNIFIL peacekeeping forces as a buffer along the country’s northeastern border. The consequences of such a deployment could be grave for Hezbollah, since the area serves as the conduit through which the organization receives most of its firearms.

For Nasrallah, this is also a year of decision, owing largely to his dependence upon Iran and its leader, Khamenei. Top figures in Iran are eager to use Hezbollah as a proxy to fight Tehran’s battles in a scenario in which Iran is attacked by Israel. Under such circumstances, Iran’s leadership would likely expect that the Lebanese Shi’ite organization fire its arsenal of missiles against Israel.

Meanwhile, Mohammad Ali Jafari, head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, has announced that operatives from its Al Quds force are operating in Lebanon.

Thus, after cultivating for 20 years an independent “Lebanese” profile, Nasrallah now finds himself hedged in publicly by Tehran, and forced into the role of Iran’s possible defender. In view of very explicit statements made on this subject – and also Hezbollah’s total economic dependence upon Tehran – Nasrallah will have little option other than attacking Israel under a scenario of a Netanyahu-precipitated strike on Iran’s nuclear installations. Any such Hezbollah attack would jeopardize the Shi’ite organization’s survival, and also drag Lebanon into an arduous war that could ultimately undermine the stability of the country’s fragile government.

Nasrallah is responding to the pressures with a burst of energy. He makes countless speeches and issues incendiary threats, hoping to come across as the “defender of Lebanon” in the eyes of the country’s non-Shi’ite population. He is likely to step up this speechmaking in coming weeks. He has apparently taken on the role of “the Prophet Mohammed’s defender,” to reinforce his organization’s public status. Yet it appears that verbal attacks leveled by Hezbollah critics will escalate – it’s possible that Hezbollah could even end up in a violent engagement with extreme Sunni forces in Lebanon.

During similar predicaments in the past, Nasrallah attempted to extricate himself from public pressure by ratcheting up border tensions with Israel, sometimes via military actions such as kidnapping Israel Defense Forces soldiers (for example, the events of July 2006 which precipitated the Second Lebanon War ). This year, and not necessarily as a result of the leader’s connections with Tehran, Hezbollah could try to deflect the public pressure it faces in Lebanon by directing energy against the “Zionist enemy” in the south.

In coming months, Nasrallah will be the figure who decides Lebanon’s fate, and whether it will be one of quiet or war.

Déjà Vu All Over Again? | JewishPress.

U.S. President Lyndon Johnson and Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol at Randolf Airbase, Texas, June 1, 1968.
Photo Credit: David Elfan/Government Press Office

The current clash between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu over U.S. policy regarding Iran’s efforts to secure a nuclear capacity calls to mind the contretemps between President Lyndon Johnson and Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol in 1967.

At that time the disagreement was over the proper response to Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s threats to close the Straits of Tiran and the Suez Canal to Israeli shipping – a crippling blow to Israel’s economy – and to attack Israel from the Sinai in a war of policide against the Jewish state.

Then too, a U.S. president told Israel to rely on the international community and resist going to war. In the end, Israel acted on its own as it became clear that international efforts were not succeeding. The risks became intolerable and what became known as the Six-Day War ensued.

Despite the virtual certainty that sanctions against Iran are not deterring its nuclear development, President Obama still wants more time. This even though there are numerous loopholes in the sanctions and Russia and China are not cooperating in any event. Indeed, Iran just recently demonstrated that it is hardly isolated in the international community when it hosted a conference attended by most of the nations of the world.

The president has given no quarter to Israel, refusing to concede that maybe Israel has a point that the sanctions approach has failed.

In 1967 Israel from the start was prepared to go it alone but was accused of seeking to push the United States into war. This time, even more so than in 1967, careful deliberation is needed – by Mr. Netanyahu no less than Mr. Obama. Because the notion that the U.S. is being drawn into war by Israel is an incendiary one in a war-weary America and fraught with a danger all its own.

The New York Times spelled it all out, in blatantly incendiary fashion, in a September 4 editorial titled “No Rush to War”:

Amid the alarming violence in the Arab world, a new report about the costs of a potential war with Iran got lost this week. It says an attack by the United States could set back Iran’s nuclear program four years at most, while a more ambitious goal – ensuring Iran never reconstitutes its nuclear program or ousting the regime – would involve a multiyear conflict that could engulf the region.The significance of the report by The Iran Project is not just its sober analysis but the nearly three dozen respected national security experts from both political parties who signed it: including two former national security advisers, Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski; former Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering; and the retired Gen. Anthony Zinni.

Yet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is trying to browbeat president Obama into a pre-emptive strike. On Tuesday, he demanded that the United States set a red line for military action and said those who refuse “don’t have a moral right to place a red light before Israel.” Later, Mr. Obama telephoned him and rejected the appeal. On Friday, Mr. Netanyahu suggested in an interview that Israel cannot entirely rely on the United States to act against Iran’s program.

Leaders need flexibility and ambiguity, not just hard and fast red lines. And it is dangerous for Mr. Netanyahu to try to push the president into a corner publicly and raise questions about Washington. Is that really the message he wants to send to Tehran?

There is no reason to doubt president Obama’s often repeated commitment to keep Iran from having a nuclear weapon. But 70 percent of Americans oppose a unilateral strike on Iran, according to a new poll by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and 59 percent said if Israel bombs Iran and ignites a war, the United States should not come to its ally’s defense.

So there you have it. Despite the fact that by any measure there is no apparent prospect that the sanctions are working or will work, the Times has the audacity to charge Prime Minister Netanyahu, whose country is at greater risk from a nuclear Iran than any other country and who only asked that the U.S. not stand in its way, with “trying to browbeat President Obama into a pre-emptive strike” and “push[ing] the president into a corner publicly….”

This past Sunday, a veteran Times columnist went even further with the theme of an Israel bent on pushing America into war against its own interests. In a disturbing column titled “Neocons Slither Back,” Maureen Dowd invoked several infamous stereotypes in making her case.

The title itself is revealing. In the George W. Bush years, the term “neocons” came to be, in all too many cases, code for “Jews,” especially when certain critics of the Iraq war tried to make the case that some sort of nefarious cabal had hijacked American policy.

Such critics would cite by name Jewish administration insiders like Richard Perle, Elliott Abrams, Scooter Libby, Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, usually ignoring the non-Jewish officials – including, of course, President Bush himself – who actually were responsible for the decision to invade Iraq. Depicting Jews as manipulators of pliant and trusting gentiles has not been uncommon in anti-Semitic literature.

Ms. Dowd railed against the influence on “neophyte” vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan of Jewish adviser Dan Senor, whom she described as “the neocon puppet master.” She went on: “Before he played ventriloquist to Ryan, Senor did the same for Romney, ratcheting up the candidate’s irresponsible bellicosity on the Middle East.”

She alluded to a potential attack on Iran as the neocons’ promoting an American sense of “duty to invade and bomb Israel’s neighbors,” something she described as “all ominously familiar,” harking back to the Iraq war. She even said the neocons,“abetted by Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld,” prodded “an insecure and uninformed president into invading Iraq.”

Imagine, the real driving force was the Jewish cabal, with even such notoriously hard-boiled types as Mr. Cheney and Mr. Rumsfeld assuming the role of mere pawns.

As if there were any doubt about her message that only those with an agenda not in sync with true American interests could support Israel’s position on Iran, she referred to “Netanyahu’s outrageous demand for clear red lines on Iran.”

Outrageous? Not even an arguable position?

This is serious stuff. And the Obama campaign has circulated the Dowd column via Twitter.

We suggest that President Obama take a deep breath and consider where this sort of thing could easily lead. Especially since Israel only seeks to act, unimpeded, in its own security interests.

Rushdie lashes out against Islam: interview.

Friday, 21 September 2012

Author Salman Rushdie said his years fleeing the 1989 fatwa from Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had forced him to pay close attention to a radicalization of the Muslim world. (Reuters)

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British author Salman Rushdie, who lived in hiding for nine years under a death sentence from Iran’s supreme leader, said in an interview published on Thursday that something had gone wrong at the heart of Islam.

Rushdie told Le Monde newspaper that his years fleeing the 1989 fatwa from Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had forced him to pay close attention to a radicalization of the Muslim world.

“Something has gone wrong at the heart of Islam. It is quite recent. I remember when I was young, many cities in the Muslim world were cosmopolitan cities with a lot of culture,” he said in an interview published in French.

The fatwa, in response to his 1988 novel “The Satanic Verses”, made Rushdie synonymous with the tussle between freedom of expression and the need to respect religious sensitivities.

The interview was conducted on September 12, just as a film mocking the Prophet Mohammad sparked violent protests across the Islamic world. These included a deadly attack in Libya which killed the U.S. ambassador and three embassy staff.

The California-made film, and a series of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad published by a French satirical weekly on Wednesday, have revived international debate over free speech, religion and the right to offend. Many Muslims consider any representation of Allah or the Prophet Mohammad blasphemous.

“There is a limit beyond which you cannot blame the West any more,” Rushdie told Le Monde. “Having said that, if there was the slightest sign that Muslim society was able to create an open democracy, I would change my opinion.”

The Lawgiver: A Novel: Herman Wouk: 9781451699388: Amazon.com: Books.

( I am proud of and deeply love my father, so… – JW )

Coming November 13, 2012

For more than fifty years, legendary author Herman Wouk has dreamed of writing a novel about the life of Moses. Finally, at age ninety-seven, he has found an ingeniously witty way to tell the tale in The Lawgiver, a romantic and suspenseful epistolary novel about a group of people trying to make a movie about Moses in the present day. The story emerges from letters, memos, e-mails, journals, news articles, recorded talk, Skype transcripts, and text messages.

At the center of The Lawgiver is Margo Solovei, a brilliant young writer-director who has rejected her rabbinical father’s strict Jewish upbringing to pursue a career in the arts. When an Australian multibillionaire promises to finance a movie about Moses if the script meets certain standards, Margo does everything she can to land the job, including a reunion with her estranged first love, an influential lawyer with whom she still has unfinished business.

Two other key characters in the novel are Herman Wouk himself and his wife of more than sixty years, Betty Sarah, who, almost against their will, find themselves entangled in the Moses movie when the Australian billionaire insists on Wouk’s stamp of approval.

As Wouk and his characters contend with Moses and marriage, and the force of tradition, rebellion, and reunion, The Lawgiver reflects the wisdom of a lifetime. Inspired by the great nineteenth-century novelists, one of America’s most beloved twentieth-century authors has now written a remarkable twenty-first-century work of fiction.

–

Tehran displays missiles capable of reaching Israel – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Ahmadinejad opens military parade by saying anti-Islam film an Israeli-hatched plot ‘to divide Muslims.’ Air force chief warns that ‘Zionist entity will cease to exist’ if war breaks out

Dudi Cohen, agencies

Iran proudly paraded its military hardware in Tehran on Friday under the gaze of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who used the event to again defiantly lash out at the West and Israel.

The display, involving thousands of military personnel, tanks and missiles borne on trucks, marked the anniversary of the start of the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.

Among the weapons on display were the surface-to-surface missile Qadr-F, which has a range of 2,000 kilometers (about 1,243 miles) and can reach Israel, and the Sajjil two-stage ballistic missile, which was not displayed in previous parades. It also has a 2,000-km range. The Fateh-110, Shahab-2 and Qiam missiles were also displayed.

During the parade, Iran’s Revolution Guards Corps’ Aerospace Commander Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh warned that the day a conflict begins, “the number of missiles launched would be more than the Zionists could imagine.

“If a conflict breaks out, the Zionist regime would be able to manage the beginning of the war, but the response and end would be in our hands, in which case the Zionist entity would cease to exist,” the Fars news agency quoted the commander as saying.

Ahmadinejad at military parade

Before the procession began the Iranian president lashed out at the West over an anti-Islam video produced in the United States and the publication of caricatures of the prophet Mohammed by a French satirical weekly.

Ahmadinejad said that “in return for (allowing) the ugliest insults to the divine messenger, they — the West — raise the slogan of respect for freedom of speech.”

He asserted that this shows a double standard and “is clearly a deception.” The Iranian leader spoke during a military parade Friday in Tehran.

The remarks come after a week of protests and riots by Muslims angered by the film that depicts Islam’s prophet as a womanizer, religious fraud and child molester. The violence has left at least 30 people dead.

He called the film an Israeli-hatched plot “to divide (Muslims) and spark sectarian conflict.”

In the speech, which was broadcast on state television, Ahmadinejad said that Iran was using “the same spirit and belief in itself” shown in that war to “stand and defend its rights” today against pressure from world powers.

Iran is locked in a showdown with the UN Security Council over its controversial nuclear program.

The West, led by the United States, has tightened the vice on Iran by implementing crippling economic sanctions, while US ally Israel – the Middle East’s sole if undeclared nuclear weapons state – has threatened air strikes on Iranian atomic facilities.

Ahmadinejad implicitly referred to his often expressed opinion that the Holocaust never happened to lambast the West for perceived selective censorship.

“They stand against a question about a historical incident… they threaten and put pressure on nations for posing the question while at the same time in regards to the obscenest insults to the human sanctities and prophets… they shout adherence to freedom (of expression),” he said.

Ahmadinejad’s stance challenging the facts surrounding the Holocaust is shared by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is the country’s commander-in-chief.

Early this week, Khamenei told naval cadets: “In some Western countries, no one dares to question the unknown incident of the Holocaust or for that matter some of the morally obscene policies like homosexuality… but insulting Islam and its sanctities under the pretext of freedom of expression is allowed.”

Clashes flare in Pakistan, cinemas torched on Muslim ‘Day of Love’.

Friday, 21 September 2012

Tens of thousands are expected to take to the streets across the country after the Pakistani government called an impromptu public holiday to let people protest. (Reuters)

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Israel rejects U.S.-backed Arab plan for conference on nuclear-free Mideast – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

The conference would take place in Helsinki toward the end of 2012, or early in 2013; Israel calls it ‘coercion.’

By Amir Oren | Sep.20, 2012 | 1:51 AM |

Israel expressed its strong opposition on Wednesday to an Arab initiative, supported by the Obama administration, to hold a conference that would debate the possibility of a nuclear-free Middle East.

The conference would take place in Helsinki toward the end of 2012, or early in 2013. Brig.Gen. (Res.) Shaul Horev, director of the Israeli Nuclear Energy Committee, who reports directly to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, immediately trashed the idea.

President Barack Obama had promised to promote the move at the 2010 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

Horev expressed Israeli opposition at the 56th general convention of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, saying that the idea of a nuclear arms-free Middle East, which been met with reservations by Israel, was now even less possible, due to the “volatile and hostile situation” in the area.

“In order to realize this idea there is need for prior conditions and a complete reversal of the current trend in the area,” Horev said. “This is an idea born in other areas and alien to the reality and political culture of the area. Nuclear demilitarization in the Middle East, according to the Israeli position, will be possible only after the establishment of peace and trust among the states of the area, as a result of a local initiative, not of external coercion.”

Horev began his address by criticizing Iran and Syria, whom he described as the centers of negative processes in the area, due to their covert moves to obtain nuclear arms and weapons of mass destruction. He added that Iran is creating a “hollow impression” that it intends to cooperate, but the international community’s moves actually have had no effect on the Iranian nuclear plan. Moreover, “Iran might be searching for an excuse to withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty,” Horev said.

According to Horev, Israel is not indifferent to Iran’s direct and vitriolic threats on its existence, and warned that the Assad regime in Syria might use chemical arms against the rebels, or transfer it to Hezbollah. Horev added that Israel supported Jordanian use of nuclear power for civilian use.

National Iranian American Council (NIAC): New Senate Push for Iran War Red Lines as Netanyahu Ups Pressure.

Thursday, September 20, 2012
By: NIAC News

Washington, DC – Some in the Senate are renewing their push to impose “red lines” on the President for war with Iran.  

Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid filed a motion to consider several measures, including a Joint Resolution sponsored by Senators Lindsay Graham (R-SC), Joe Lieberman (I-CT), and Bob Casey (D-PA) that would convey Congressional support for military action to prevent Iran from achieving “nuclear weapons capability.”

The measure contradicts President Obama’s policy that he would take military action if Iran were on the verge of actually acquiring a nuclear weapon, not a theoretical capability.  The Administration has sparred with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu over the refusal to commit the U.S. to military action based on “nuclear weapons capability” — which many nonproliferation experts argue Iran technically achieved some time ago.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told Foreign Policy Magazine, “Red lines are kind of political arguments that are used to try to put people in a corner.”  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rejected the call for deadlines to be imposed on U.S. policy.

The Administration’s comments earned a rebuke from Netanyahu.  “Those in the international community who refuse to put red lines before Iran don’t have a moral right to place a red light before Israel,” said the Prime Minister, which many interpreted as a threat that Israel would strike Iran if the U.S. does not agree to the red line.

The Administration previously resisted pressure to adopt the red line in March, when a similar resolution was heavily lobbied for by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) ahead of Netanyahu’s visit to the White House.  That measure was tacitly rebuffed by the President at the annual AIPAC conference, where he stated that his red line was Iran building a weapon, not building a capability.  The President later told reporters, “This is not a game.  There’s nothing casual about it.  And when I see some of these folks who have a lot of bluster and a lot of big talk…it indicates to me that that’s more about politics than actually trying to solve a difficult problem.”

The House, however, went on to pass that resolution.  It stalled in the Senate due to concerns by Senator Rand Paul that it could be interpreted as an authorization for war.

But recently, Senator Graham reintroduced the resolution with a clause that it was not an authorization for war.  He also restructured it from a simple sense of Congress to a Joint Resolution, which according to Senate aids means it would go to the White House for signature–representing an damaging split on U.S. national security policy between the President on one hand, and Congress and Netanyahu on the other.

The measure was blocked yesterday on the Senate floor as part of an unrelated disagreement regarding funding bills, but could be brought up as soon as today before the Senate adjourns.

UPDATE: Senator Rand Paul is circulating a letter opposing S.J.Res.41 calling it “a vote for the concept of pre-emptive war.”

Israel Stands Up for Free Speech (Would Obama?) | Mike Lumish | Ops & Blogs | The Times of Israel.

Judge: Offended by film? Don’t watch it

 Court rejects Arab leaders’ request for temporary ban on anti-Islam film; Judge postpones permanent ruling until response from Google is submitted…

Judge Miriam Mizrahi decided against provisionally blocking access to the film, deciding instead that the court would await a response from Google before issuing a final ruling on the matter.

“The freedom of speech is our guiding principle, and such things take time,” she said.

The petitioners attempted during the hearing to press the judge on the matter, but to no avail, with the judge suggesting that “for the time being, anyone who finds the film offensive should avoid watching it.”

Meanwhile, the Obama administration actually sought to get youtube to take the thing down, entirely.

Google Inc., which owns YouTube, has already blocked access to the film in Libya, India and Indonesia after deadly protests in several countries, but it has rejected a request by the White House to pull it from the site altogether.

The Obama administration was, of course, entirely wrong to request that youtube remove the thing and kudos to Israel for standing up for free speech. A question does occur to me, however.

How would we feel if the movie was anti-Semitic hate speech? Would we favor its removal or would we consider it a matter of freedom of speech and, therefore, support its presence at that popular media sharing site? My suspicion, naturally, is that if it was an example of anti-Semitic hate speech we, at my blog Israel Thrives, would generally be in favor of seeing it removed.

It would obviously depend on the specific nature of the work, but I am not opposed, on principle, to the suppression of anti-Semitic material, so how can I favor the continuation of Innocence of Muslims on youtube?

This is not an easy question, is it?

There are at least two significant differences, however.

The first is that the publication of anti-Semitic material does not send Jewish people into frenzies of violence.  It simply does not.  The Arab-Muslim world bubbles with Jew hatred and they publish all sorts of material, and broadcast on the airwaves all sorts of mierda, that is grossly anti-Semitic.

And, yet, somehow, we never seem to riot.  Some of the Arab countries like to show anti-Semitic films during Ramadan that have big audiences that, for example, show evil Jewish / Israeli men capturing innocent Arab or Palestinian children for the purpose of cramming them into barrels studded with pointy spikes so as to get Muslim Baby Blood for our Passover matzoh.

And we look up from our books and our computers and our shovels and we shrug and roll our eyes because we cannot allow anyone’s reactions to interfere with freedom of speech.  We cannot allow ourselves to be bullied into giving up fundamental values.

But the second point is also very important.  The fact of the matter is that anti-Semitism is a genocidal form of racism.  Racism varies between groups, but what distinguishes anti-Semitism from other forms of racism is the obvious fact that the consequences are sometimes genocidal.  We are still within living memory of the Holocaust.  My father’s side of the family, as I have occasionally mentioned, got wiped out during Operation Barbarossa in the Ukraine during World War II.  They weren’t soldiers, they were merchants and they were craftspeople and they were slaughtered because German anti-Semites spread hatred toward us.

If I publish some stupid cartoon of Muhammed, however, this does not cause anyone to want to murder Muslims other than, perhaps, other Muslims.  But if people publish tracts and articles and books claiming that the Jews secretly control this or that government or that “Zionists” or “Israelis” or “NeoCons” love to wage war and to kill children, this incites the hatred of the entire world against us.

We are .2 percent of the world’s population.  We are maybe 14 million people.

Islam represents 1.5 billion people and is one of the oldest and proudest empires that the world has ever seen.

And that makes for a very big difference, indeed.

Ross, Dershowitz: Obama… JPost – 2012: The US Presidential race.

Photo: Brett Weinstein / Wikimedia Commons (CC)