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Egypt’s fight, America’s apathy

February 3, 2015

Egypt’s fight, America’s apathy, Israel Hayom, Dr. Reuven Berko, February 3, 2015

[M]any Arab states long ago branded the movement and its “offspring” as illegal. In the Arab states, unlike in the West, Arabic is fully understood. This fact raises the suspicion that the U.S., which is losing interest in our region, has come to terms with radical Islam’s ascension to power in the Middle East, and is sacrificing its allies in the region.

*********************

The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt refuses to accept the verdict of the electorate and is trying, through brutal terrorism, to delegitimize President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. Ever since the el-Sissi government’s democratic election, Egypt has been plagued by a wave of terror perpetrated by the Brotherhood against the country’s army and security forces in Egypt proper and the Sinai Peninsula, which has damaged the economy and infrastructure.

In his most recent speech at Al-Azhar ‎University, on Jan. 1, el-Sissi tried conveying to the “sane” senior religious leaders a brave message about the need to fight terror, calling for introspection and for them to implement a “religious revolution” against terror. His call has gone unanswered.

Indeed, Egypt is fighting these days against Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, the terrorist group that has renamed itself the “Sinai Province” and has sworn allegiance to Islamic State. Over the past several months, Sinai Province terrorists have inflicted considerable damage and casualties on the Egyptian army, in a series of car bombings and shooting attacks. Last Thursday night, the group carried out four separate attacks on security forces in northern Sinai, killing at least 30 soldiers and police officers.

Egyptian sources pointed a finger at Hamas and its armed wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, accusing the Gaza-based terrorist group of aiding Sinai Province in its violent campaign. Evidence of this aid can be found in intercepted messages between the groups. Consequently, Egypt over the weekend banned Hamas’ military wing, listing it as a terrorist organization. In light of the dozens of slain soldiers, el-Sissi called on his security forces in Sinai to avenge the blood of their fallen comrades, and said: “We are fighting a well-funded global terrorist organization. … I am not tying your hands to prevent you from taking retribution from the terrorists.” During the heartfelt speech, el-Sissi announced the establishment of a new headquarters, commanded by a general, charged with waging war on terror and retaking Sinai.

As per its custom, Al-Jazeera distorted his message. One of the network’s “analysts” argued that el-Sissi’s words constituted a call for vengeance and civil war, and that he has turned the Egyptian army into a jury and hangman.

In contrast, in an interview with the network, the editor-in-chief of the weekly Egyptian newspaper Al-Mashhad protested the consistent incitement by Al-Jazeera against Egypt. Al-Jazeera, meanwhile, continues to incite, provide Hamas with material aid, and exalt the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades as a role model via its documentaries and programs. Within this framework, Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades member Abdel Karim Al-Hanini, in his own series broadcast on Al-Jazeera, boasts of murdering Israeli civilians and soldiers, while instructing his audience, Palestinians and Muslim Brotherhood followers in Egypt alike, on how to build bombs.

Despite the events in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood has yet to be outlawed in Europe and the United States. Many leaders still believe it is a legitimate political movement, despite knowing that it engages in terrorism across the globe and the “new Middle East,” and regardless of the fact that many Arab states long ago branded the movement and its “offspring” as illegal. In the Arab states, unlike in the West, Arabic is fully understood. This fact raises the suspicion that the U.S., which is losing interest in our region, has come to terms with radical Islam’s ascension to power in the Middle East, and is sacrificing its allies in the region. Its abstention from reining in Qatar, which incites and funds terrorism, testifies to the indifference of the United States to the damage this causes to Israel and to Egypt’s fight against fundamentalism, and will lead to the fall of other moderate Arab states.

It appears the Americans, who have soldiers based in the manipulative Qatar, along with the Europeans and partnered by Islamist Turkey and NATO, are implementing a policy of “after me, the deluge,” and have accepted the partition of the fading Middle East between the subversive Sunnis and the encroaching Iranians, who are establishing outposts and bridgeheads in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, as well as in Bahrain and Yemen. Both camps, the Sunni and Shiite, are now moving toward an arms race and inevitable apocalyptic clash, simultaneous to the completion of Iran’s nuclear program, in lieu of sanctions or a deal ensuring it is scaled back.

In the meantime, the European Union is working with Arab League foreign ministers and, bizarrely, Turkey and Qatar, two countries that support these terrorist movements, to create a front against Islamist terror. The criminals have been appointed the guards, indeed.

Categories: Egypt, Foreign policy, Hamas, Iran, Iraq, Islam, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Israel, Middle East, Obama administration, Qatar, Sisi, Syria, Terrorists, Turkey
Tags: Egypt, Foreign Policy, Hamas, Iran, Iraq, Islam, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Israel, Middle East, Obama Administration, Qatar, Sisi, Syria, Terrorists, Turkey

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Open Jihad Declared in Egypt Following State Dept. Meeting with Muslim Brotherhood-Aligned Leaders

January 30, 2015

Open Jihad Declared in Egypt Following State Dept. Meeting with Muslim Brotherhood-Aligned Leaders, Washington Free Beacon, Adam Kredo, January 30, 2015

(Please see also Calls To Kill President Al-Sisi And Egyptian Journalists On Muslim Brotherhood TV Channels. — DM)

Mideast Egypt US El-Sissi

The Muslim Brotherhood called for “a long, uncompromising jihad” in Egypt just one day after a delegation of the Islamist group’s key leaders and allies met with the State Department, according to an official statement released this week.

Just days after a delegation that included two top Brotherhood leaders was hosted at the State Department, the organization released an official statement calling on its supporters to “prepare” for jihad, according to an independent translation of the statement first posted on Tuesday.

The statement also was issued just two days before a major terror attack Thursday in Egypt’s lawless Sinai region that killed at least 25.

“It is incumbent upon everyone to be aware that we are in the process of a new phase, where we summon what is latent in our strength, where we recall the meanings of jihad and prepare ourselves, our wives, our sons, our daughters, and whoever marched on our path to a long, uncompromising jihad, and during this stage we ask for martyrdom,” it states.

Preparation for jihad is a key theme of the Brotherhood’s latest call for jihad.

An image posted with the statement shows two crossing swords and the word “prepare!” between them. Below the swords it reads, “the voice of truth, strength, and freedom.” According to the statement, “that is the motto of the Dawa of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

The statement also invokes the well-known Muslim cleric Imam al-Bana, who founded the Brotherhood and has called for the death of Jews.

“Imam al-Bana prepared the jihad brigades that he sent to Palestine to kill the Zionist usurpers and the second [Supreme] Guide Hassan al-Hudaybi reconstructed the ‘secret apparatus’ to bleed the British occupiers,” the statement says.

The Brotherhood’s renewed call for jihad comes at a time when current Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is cracking down on the group and imprisoning many of its supporters, who notoriously engaged in violence following the ouster of Brotherhood-ally Mohamed Morsi.

Egypt experts said the timing of this declaration is an embarrassment for the State Department.

“The fact that the Brotherhood issued its call to jihad two days after its meeting at the State Department will be grist for endless anti-American conspiracy theories about a supposed partnership between Washington and the Brotherhood,” said Eric Trager, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP). “The State Department should have foreseen what an embarrassment this would be.”

One member of that U.S. delegation, a Brotherhood-aligned judge in Egypt, posed for a picture while at Foggy Bottom in which he held up the Islamic group’s notorious four-finger Rabia symbol, according to his Facebook page.

“Now in the U.S. State Department. Your steadfastness impresses everyone,” reads an Arabic caption posted along with the photo.

Other members of that group included Gamal Heshmat, a leading member of the Brotherhood, and Abdel Mawgoud al-Dardery, a Brotherhood member who served as a parliamentarian from Luxor.

When asked on Tuesday evening to comment on the meeting, a State Department official told the Washington Free Beacon, “We meet with representatives from across the political spectrum in Egypt.”

The official declined to elaborate on who may have been hosted or on any details about the timing and substance of any talks.

The meeting was described by a member of the delegation, Maha Azzam as “fruitful,” according to one person who attended a public event in Washington earlier this week hosted by the group.

The call for jihad, while surprising in light of the Brotherhood’s attempts to appear moderate, is part and parcel of organization’s longstanding beliefs, Trager said.

“Muslim Brothers have been committing violent acts for a very long time,” Trager explained. “Under Morsi, Muslim Brothers tortured protesters outside the presidential palace. After Morsi’s ouster, they have frequently attacked security forces and state property. “

“But until now, the official line from the Brotherhood was to support this implicitly by justifying its causes, without justifying the acts themselves,” he added. “ So the Brotherhood’s open call to jihad doesn’t necessarily mean a tactical shift, but a rhetorical one.”

Terrorism expert and national security reporter Patrick Poole said he was struck by the clarity of the Brotherhood’s call.

“It invokes the Muslim Brotherhood’s terrorist past, specifically mentioning the ‘special apparatus’ that waged terror in the 1940s and 1950s until the Nasser government cracked down on the group, as well as the troops sent by founder Hassan al-Banna to fight against Israel in 1948,” he said.

“It concludes saying that the Brotherhood has entered a new stage, warns of a long jihad ahead, and to prepare for martyrdom,” Poole said. “Not sure how much more clear they could be.”

Poole wondered if the call for jihad would convince Brotherhood apologists that the group still backs violence.

“What remains to be seen is how this announcement will be received inside the Beltway, where the vast majority of the ‘experts’ have repeatedly said that the Brotherhood had abandoned its terrorist past, which it is now clearly reviving, and had renounced violence,” Poole said. “Will this development be met with contrition, or silence? And what says the State Department who met with these guys this week?”

The State Department did not respond to a request for comment before press time.

Categories: Egypt, Foreign policy, Middle East, Muslim Brotherhood, Obama, Obama administration
Tags: Egypt, Foreign Policy, Middle East, Muslim Brotherhood, Obama Administration, State Department

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The Dangers of Obama’s Cognitive Dissonance

January 26, 2015

The Dangers of Obama’s Cognitive Dissonance, Front Page Magazine, Bruce Thornton, January 26, 2015

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The worst crisis we face is the relentless progress Iran is making toward creating nuclear weapons, a development that would set off an arms race in the Middle East and destabilize an already chaotic region. The Islamic Republic has already extended its malign influence into Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen, creating a Shi’a crescent that threatens our allies in the region, especially Israel, Jordon, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. If a failed gangster-state like North Korea can demand so much international attention just because it possesses nuclear weapons, think what Iran––with 3 times the population and the world’s 3^rd largest oil reserves––could do. Oil won’t stay cheap forever.

Obama, in short, can say that “all options are on the table” all he wants, but the mullahs know he will not take military action against them, nor help Israel to. They know that Obama has withdrawn from the region, and at best will make only token gestures of engagement, like the current bombing campaign against ISIL. They know his ultimatums and “red line” threats are empty. They know he wants a deal more than they do, so he can burnish his legacy. Thus the Iranians are spinning out the negotiations, cadging extensions, pocketing concessions without reciprocating, and giving Obama just enough hope to think he can achieve what he thinks will be a Nixon-goes-to-China foreign policy coup, but will in fact will go down in history as a humiliating and dangerous blunder like Chamberlain’s Munich debacle.

*********************

There are many moments from the past 6 years that demonstrate the criminal incompetence of this president and his administration. But for me, Obama’s interview with GloZell––whose claim to YouTube fame comes from eating Cheerios in a bathtub filled with milk––represents best the essential emptiness, triviality, and sheer dumbness of this president. Imagine Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1938 being interviewed by a carnival geek, and you can gauge just how low the most consequential political office in the world has sunk.

This interview, remember, took place the same time as problems requiring urgent presidential attention were escalating. Libya imploding, Iran inching toward a nuclear bomb, ISIS expanding in Syria and holding ground in northern Iraq, Iranian military assets active in Iraq, Yemen falling to an Iranian proxy terrorist group, another Iranian client, Bashar al Assad, strengthening his hold over Syria––and that’s just the Middle East. And don’t forget, the GloZell farce followed hard on Obama’s State of the Union address, a congeries of wishful thinking, narcissistic braggadocio, and outright-lies, a preposterous catalogue in which generous sprinklings of first-person-pronoun fairy dust transmuted every failure into an achievement.

It is the contradiction between fact and fiction, evident in every line of the president’s speech, that typifies progressives in general. This cognitive dissonance may simply be nothing more than the grubby machinations of those who will say and do anything for political power and the wealth and influence it brings. In other words, they know they are hypocrites. But it also could be something more dangerous than a venal character and moral corruption. One gets the feeling that many progressives actually believe what they say, that they are reciting the mantras of their ideological cult, no matter how contrary to reality or their own actions. What’s more important is that whatever the source, this failure to acknowledge reality, to think critically, and to respect intellectual coherence is dangerous to all of us, especially in the many foreign policy crises that have mushroomed on Obama’s watch.

And the worst crisis we face is the relentless progress Iran is making toward creating nuclear weapons, a development that would set off an arms race in the Middle East and destabilize an already chaotic region. The Islamic Republic has already extended its malign influence into Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen, creating a Shi’a crescent that threatens our allies in the region, especially Israel, Jordon, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. If a failed gangster-state like North Korea can demand so much international attention just because it possesses nuclear weapons, think what Iran––with 3 times the population and the world’s 3^rd largest oil reserves––could do. Oil won’t stay cheap forever.

But in the face of this threat, Obama has appeased the mullahs under the guise of diplomatic “engagement” and negotiations, the time-proven way to avoid action while pretending to do something. Indeed, so besotted is he by his faith in diplomacy that he has threatened to veto a Congressional bill that would strengthen his negotiating position by toughening economic sanctions, the best non-lethal shot we have for changing the Iranians’ behavior, given the current decline in their oil revenues. But what we see here is a problem that transcends any one president or Secretary of State, for it reflects the intellectual error and failure of imagination peculiar to modernity.

The heart of this mistake is the belief that whatever their professed beliefs, all peoples everywhere are just like us and want the same things we want. Since our highest goods are peace and prosperity, we think other nations’ privilege the same things. If peoples behave differently, it’s because they are warped by poverty or bad governments or religious superstitions, and just need to be shown that they can achieve those boons in rational, peaceful ways, especially by adopting liberal democracy and free-market economies. Once they achieve freedom and start to enjoy the higher living standards economic development brings, they will see the error of their traditional ways and abandon aggression and violence, and resolve conflicts with the diplomacy and negotiation we prefer.

The problem with this scenario is not that other peoples don’t want freedom and prosperity, or are incapable of achieving them. Rather, it is that they often have other goals more important than the ones we prize. Like religion, for example, or national honor, or revenge. We may think such motives are irrational avatars from an uncivilized past, but they are still drivers of action in individuals and nations alike. They may be, to quote Orwell on the Nazis, “ghosts” out of the premodern world, but they’re still “ghosts which need a strong magic to lay them.”

Of course, if weaker than an enemy or rival, such a people may conceal these motives, and pretend to play by the rules of the more powerful, until they are strong enough to use force to achieve their aims. In such situations, diplomatic engagement becomes a tactic for achieving through words what cannot be gained through deeds. As Robert Conquest said of our Cold War negotiations with the Soviets, “The Soviets did what their interests required when the alternative seemed less acceptable, and negotiation was merely a technical adjunct.”

History shows the truth of this insight, from the Munich Conference in 1938, to the many arms reduction treaties with the Soviet Union, which we know the Soviets and now the Russians have serially violated. More pertinent for Iran is the sorry history of the diplomatic attempts to prevent North Korea from developing nuclear weapons. For decades we indulged in cycles of concessions, agreements, conferences, and violations that all ended up with the North announcing it had gone nuclear. The failure to learn from that recent history is evident in Obama’s current reprise of that sordid dance in his engagement with Iran.

This is not to say that diplomacy can’t ever work. But to be effective, negotiation has to start with a clear understanding of the other side’s motives. One must avoid the “trap,” as Conquest called it, “of thinking that others think, within reason, like ourselves. But this trap is precisely the error that must be avoided in foreign affairs.” The rulers of Iran may lust after wealth and secular power, the default materialist motives recognized by the West. But that greed can coexist with their messianic, apocalyptic strain of Shi’a Islam, and the acceptability of violence in service to their faith that characterizes traditional Islam.

Thus when Muslim warriors tell us, as they have for 14 centuries, that they love death as we love life; when they proclaim, as Mohammed, Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini, Osama bin Laden, and the Fort Hood jihadist did, “I was instructed to fight all men until they say there is no god but Allah,” we’d better listen and take them seriously, rather than brush aside such profound religious beliefs as mere camouflage for materialist motives. Yet so blind is Obama to this truth, that he and his officials stubbornly refuse even to utter a phrase like “Islamic extremist,” since he has decided that all the Muslim violence roiling the world every day has “nothing to do with Islam.”

Second, diplomacy can work only when backed by a credible threat of force. The other side must believe that mind-concentrating violence will punish them for negotiating in bad faith and violating agreements. In the case of Iran, the mullahs must believe that we will put to the test their love of death and longing for paradise. But our long history with the Islamic Republic has proved the opposite. Iran has never been punished for taking our embassy staff hostage in 1979, for instigating the murder of 241 of our soldiers in Beirut in 1983, or for training and funding the terrorists who have killed our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, or for being the world’s leading promoter of terrorist violence.

Obama, in short, can say that “all options are on the table” all he wants, but the mullahs know he will not take military action against them, nor help Israel to. They know that Obama has withdrawn from the region, and at best will make only token gestures of engagement, like the current bombing campaign against ISIL. They know his ultimatums and “red line” threats are empty. They know he wants a deal more than they do, so he can burnish his legacy. Thus the Iranians are spinning out the negotiations, cadging extensions, pocketing concessions without reciprocating, and giving Obama just enough hope to think he can achieve what he thinks will be a Nixon-goes-to-China foreign policy coup, but will in fact will go down in history as a humiliating and dangerous blunder like Chamberlain’s Munich debacle.

So much is obvious. Yet in his State of the Union speech Obama astonished even his loyal media retainers when he asserted that his negotiations have “halted the progress of its [Iran’s] nuclear program and reduced its stockpile of nuclear material.” In reality, Iran continues to enrich uranium and is building new nuclear reactors, not to mention constructing missile sites and nuclear facilities in Syria. International inspectors are still barred from numerous sites in Iran, and so the West has no real idea of how many facilities exist there. This means that even if an agreement is signed, it will be worthless if it leaves Iran with the knowledge and technology needed to make nuclear bombs at a time of its choosing. And it means that someday we all will pay the price for our president’s cognitive dissonance.

Categories: Caliphate, Cognitive dissonance, Egypt, Iran, Iran scam, Islam, Islamic jihad, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Middle East, Nukes, Obama, Terrorism
Tags: Caliphate, Cognitive dissonance, Egypt, Iran, Iran Scam, Islam, Islamic Jihad, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Israel, Middle East, Nukes, Terrorism

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Sisi’s Brave New Egypt?

January 21, 2015

Sisi’s Brave New Egypt? Front Page Magazine, Raymond Ibrahim, January 21, 2015

El-Sisi

Originally published by PJ Media.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi continues to be the antithesis of longstanding mainstream media portrayals of him.

First there was his historic speech where he, leader of the largest Arab nation, and a Muslim, accused Islamic thinking of being the scourge of humanity—in words that no Western leader would dare utter. This remarkable speech—which some say should earn him the Nobel Peace Prize—might have fallen by the wayside had it not been posted on my website and further disseminated by PJ Media’s Roger L. Simon, Michael Ledeen, Roger Kimball, and many others, including Bruce Thornton and Robert Spencer.

Instead, MSM headlines on the day of and days after Sisi’s speech included “Egypt President Sisi urged to free al-Jazeera reporter” (BBC, Jan 1), “Egyptian gays living in fear under Sisi regime” (USA Today, Jan. 2), and “George Clooney’s wife Amal risks arrest in Egypt” (Fox News, Jan. 3).

Of course, the MSM finally did report on Sisi’s speech—everyone else seemed to know about it—but, again, to portray Sisi in a negative light. Thus, after briefly quoting the Egyptian president’s call for a “religious revolution,” the New York Times immediately adds:

Others, though, insist that the sources of the violence are alienation and resentment, not theology. They argue that the authoritarian rulers of Arab states — who have tried for decades to control Muslim teaching and the application of Islamic law — have set off a violent backlash expressed in religious ideas and language.

In other words, jihadi terror is a product of Sisi, whom the NYT habitually portrays as an oppressive autocrat—especially for his attempts to try to de-radicalize Muslim sermons and teachings (as discussed in this article).

Next, Sisi went to the St. Mark Coptic Cathedral during Christmas Eve Mass to offer Egypt’s Christian minority his congratulations and well wishing. Here again he made history as the first Egyptian president to enter a church during Christmas mass—a thing vehemently criticized by the nation’s Islamists, including the Salafi party (Islamic law bans well wishing to non-Muslims on their religious celebrations, which is why earlier presidents—Nasser, Sadat, Mubarak, and of course Morsi—never attended Christmas mass).

Accordingly, the greetings Sisi received from the hundreds of Christians present were jubilant. His address was often interrupted by applause, clapping, and cheers of “We love you!” and “hand in hand”—phrases he reciprocated. Part of his speech follows:

Egypt has brought a humanistic and civilizing message to the world for millennia and we’re here today to confirm that we are capable of doing so again. Yes, a humanistic and civilizing message should once more emanate from Egypt. This is why we mustn’t call ourselves anything other than “Egyptians.” This is what we must be—Egyptians, just Egyptians, Egyptians indeed! I just want to tell you that Allah willing, Allah willing, we shall build our nation together, accommodate each other, make room for each other, and we shall like each other—love each other, love each other in earnest, so that people may see… So let me tell you once again, Happy New Year, Happy New Year to you all, Happy New Year to all Egyptians!

Sisi stood side-by-side with Coptic Christian Pope Tawadros II—perhaps in remembrance of the fact that, when General Sisi first overthrew President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, Pope Tawadros stood side-by-side with him—and paid a heavy price: the Brotherhood and its sympathizers unleashed a Kristallnacht of “reprisals” that saw 82 Christian churches in Egypt attacked, many destroyed.

It is also significant to recall where Sisi came to offer his well-wishing to the Christians: the St. Mark Cathedral—Coptic Christianity’s most sacred church which, under Muhammad Morsi was, for the first time in its history, savagely attacked, by both Islamists and the nation’s security (see pictures here).

Once again, all of this has either been ignored or underplayed by most mainstream media.

There is, of course, a reason the MSM, which apparently follows the Obama administration’s lead, has been unkind to Sisi. One will recall that, although Sisi led the largest revolution in world history—a revolution that saw tens of millions take to the streets and ubiquitous signs and banners calling on U.S. President Obama and U.S. ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson to stop supporting terrorism (i.e., the Brotherhood)—U.S. leadership, followed by media, spoke only of a “military coup” against a “democratically elected president,” without pointing out that this president was pushing a draconian, Islamist agenda on millions who rejected it.

So what is the significance of all this—of Sisi? First, on the surface, all of this is positive. That Sisi would criticize the Muslim world and Islamic texts and thinking—in ways his Western counterparts could never—and then continue his “controversial” behavior by entering the Coptic Christian cathedral during Christmas mass to offer his greetings to Christians—a big no-no for Muslim leaders—is unprecedented. Nor can all this be merely for show. In the last attack on a Coptic church, it was two Muslim police officers guarding the church who died—not the Christian worshipers inside—a rarity.

That Sisi remains popular in Egypt also suggests that a large percentage of Egyptians approve of his behavior. Recently, for instance, after the Paris attacks, Amru Adib, host of Cairo Today, made some extremely critical comments concerning fellow Muslims/Egyptians, including by asking them “Are you, as Muslims, content with the fact that today we are all seen as terrorists by the world?… We [Egyptians] used to bring civilization to the world, today what? — We are barbarians! Barbarians I tell you!” (More of Adib’s assertions here.)

That said, the others are still there—the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafis, those whom we call “Islamists,” and their many sympathizers and allies.

Worst of all, they have that “corpus of [Islamic] texts and ideas” that has been “sacralized over the centuries” (to use Sisi’s own words) to support them—texts and ideas that denounce Sisi as an “apostate” deserving of death, and thus promising a continued struggle for the soul of Egypt.

Categories: Christians, Egypt, Foreign policy, Freedom, Human rights, Islam, Muslim Brotherhood, Obama, Sisi
Tags: Christians, Egypt, Foreign Policy, Freedom, human rights, Islam, Muslim Brotherhood, Sisi

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Islamic “peace,” Imam Obama and multiculturalism

January 13, 2015

Islamic “peace,” Imam Obama and multiculturalism, Dan Miller’s Blog, January 13, 2015

(The views expressed here are mine, and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or of its other editors. — DM)

Multiculturalism fosters and perpetuates myths that Islam is the religion of peace, not death; that it is benign like other world religions and improves Western civilization. In Obama’s world, such fantasies are reality. They are principal bases of His foreign policies.

Islam

I argued here and here that adherents to Islam, not to “radical” or “extremist” Islam, but to Islam, are the perpetrators and supporters of the Islamic slaughter of those with whose ideologies and actions they disagree. They demand submission and will tolerate nothing less.

In His January 4, 2009 address in Cairo, Obama proclaimed:

America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles – principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings. [Emphasis added.]

. . . .

[P]artnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn’t. And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear. [Emphasis added.[

He continues to “fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear,” but who elected Him to do that? Despite massive evidence contrary to Obama’s perceptions of Islam as benign and slandered, He continues to base His perceptions and policies on what Islam is not, not on what it is. Bridget Gabriel, who also lived in Islamic countries, would disagree with many of Obama’s theses:

Here is Ms. Gabriel’s response to a Muslim-American citizen:

As goes Europe so goes the Obama Nation?

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation is the largest Islamic body in the world.

The OIC is comprised of the 57 Muslim-majority nations and the Palestinian Authority. They are the largest bloc at the UN, and when they meet on the head-of-state level, they literally speak for the Muslim world. [Emphasis added.]

Contemporaneously with the attack on Charlie Hedbo and a kosher supermarket in France, it sought

more implementation of the OIC-sponsored UN Human Rights Council Resolution 16/18 and the follow-up Rabat Plan of Action that would criminalize the very type of speech that Charlie Hebdo engaged in.

Such laws — similar to Sharia’s prohibition of “insulting” Islam — would criminalize our once free speech. Western nations, presumably, would jail rather than execute those who “insult” Islam. Although brute governmental force might largely displace Islamic slaughter of those who “insult” Islam, it would be more pervasive and hence probably more effective. It would also contravene what’s left of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Muslim leaders from around the Obama Nation recently assembled in Texas to stand with ~~the murdering, antisemitic pedophile worshiped by billions of Muslims~~ “Prophet”

in Honor and Respect conference, a weekend forum that is being billed as a “movement to defend Prophet Muhammad, his person, and his message,” according to event information.

. . . .

Organizers of the event place the blame for Islam’s bad reputation on the media and so-called American Islamophobes who have “invested at least $160 million dollars to attack our Prophet and Islam,” according to the conference web page.

. . . .

“This is not an event. It is the beginning of a movement,” organizers write on their website, which blames Americans for giving Islam a bad name. “A movement to defend Prophet Muhammad, his person, and his message.”

“All these accusations were invented by Islamophobes in America,” the group claims. “As we celebrate the Prophet in our now annual, nationwide event: Stand with the Prophet, we recommit ourselves to rectify his image, peace be upon him.” [Emphasis added.]

Hirsi Ali, an apostate from Islam and an indomitable (other than by her own eventual murder) voice for freedom, was recently interviewed by several media. Here are videos of three of her interviews:

The thrust of her remarks is that Islamic ideology, including reverence for all of the vile things that Mohamed did and encouraged, is the root of the problem. However, the Western tendency to absolve all other Mohamed worshipers of blame for the acts of their coreligionists — which they often support — is prevalent in multicultural societies. Similarly, it is the position of our “leaders” and “betters” that attacks such as those on Charlie Hedbo have nothing to do with Islam, or even “radical” Islam.

“We” are, therefore, not at war with Islam or “radical” Islam but with those who would “corrupt” it by committing acts of “senseless” terror. That’s comparable to saying that, in the 1940s, we were not at war with Nazism, but with those who corrupted the beautiful Nazi ideology.

Multiculturalism

While denigrating the Western culture of life, multiculturalism and its advocates promote ignorance and fallacies about the Islamic culture of death. Those who accept the fallacy that Islam is a benign religion thereby join a “cult” of cultural suicide which takes advantage of the ignorance, or worse, of many within Western cultures.

According to Victor Davis Hanson, in an article titled Multicultural Suicide,

For the multiculturalist, the sins of the non-West are mostly ignored or attributed to Western influence, while those of the West are peculiar to Western civilization. In terms of the challenge of radical Islam, multiculturalism manifests itself in the abstract with the notion that Islamists are simply the fundamentalist counterparts to any other religion. Islamic extremists are no different from Christian extremists, as the isolated examples of David Koresh or the Rev. Jim Jones are cited ad nauseam as the morally and numerically equivalent bookends to thousands of radical Islamic terrorist acts that plague the world each month. We are not to assess other religions by any absolute standard, given that such judgmentalism would inevitably be prejudiced by endemic Western privilege. There is nothing in the Sermon on the Mount that differs much from what is found in the Koran. And on and on and on. [Emphasis added.]

In the concrete, multiculturalism seeks to use language and politics to mask reality. The slaughter at Ford Hood becomes “workplace violence,” not a case of a radical Islamist, Major Nidal Hasan, screaming “Allahu Akbar” as he butchered the innocent. After the Paris violence, the administration envisions a “Summit on Countering Violent Extremism,” apparently in reaction to Buddhists who are filming beheadings, skinheads storming Paris media offices, and lone-wolf anti-abortionists who slaughtered the innocent in Australia, Canada, and France. [Emphasis added.]

. . . .

If the Western establishment were truly moral, it would reject multiculturalism as a deductive, anti-empirical, and illiberal creed. It would demand that critics abroad first put their own house in order before blaming others for their own failures, and remind Western elites that their multicultural fantasies are cheap nostrums designed to deal with their own neuroses. [Emphasis added.]

Finally, it would also not welcome in newcomers who seek to destroy the very institutions that make the West so unlike the homelands they have voted with their feet to utterly abandon. [Emphasis added.]

Unfortunately, Islamists now resident in the United States or in other Western nations did not vote “with their feet to utterly abandon” the hellholes they left; they brought them with them and seek to impose their ideology wherever they go.

No Islamic nation is multicultural. None (with the possible exception of Egypt under President Sisi) welcome those who oppose their Islamic values or otherwise seek to change their ways. Were a Saudi citizen or visiting foreigner to blame the Islamic principles in which Saudi Arabia is grounded for the ills of the Middle East or the evils of Islam, his stay there, if not his life, would be abbreviated, promptly.

Islam is the principal enemy, but the multiculturalists who inflict it upon Western civilization aid and abet it. They attempt to dull our senses of right and wrong by sanitizing and promoting Islam as good.

Perhaps, and I hope that, the very substantial attention paid by the media to the recent Islamic slaughters in France will do as few other such incidents have done: bring about the rejection of Islam, multiculturalism and their advocates.

Categories: Antisemitism, Egypt, Europe, Foreign policy, Freedom, Human rights, Ideology, Islam, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Islamism, Islamophobia, Israel, Kerry, Multiculturalism, Obama, Saudi Arabia, Sharia law, Sisi, Terrorism
Tags: Antisemitism, Charlie Hebdo, Egypt, Europe, Foreign Policy, Freedom, human rights, Ideology, Islam, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Islamism, Islamophobia, Israel, Multiculturalism, Saudi Arabia, Sharia law, Sisi, Terrorism, Western civilization

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IDF pulls units from locations bordering Gaza, ignoring rising Egyptian military and al Qaeda activity

January 4, 2015

IDF pulls units from locations bordering Gaza, ignoring rising Egyptian military and al Qaeda activity, DEBKAfile, January 4, 2015

Egyptian_troops_Sinai

Egyptian troops battling terrorists in Sinai

Israelis living in a string of villages and towns bordering on the Gaza Strip protested in vain against Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon’s decision to withdraw the military presence keeping them safe, especially since the summer war on Gaza.

Four significant security events in the last 48 hours on both sides of the border added to their concerns:

Their government, at its weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem Sunday, Jan. 4, set up a committee to expedite the transfer of the bulk of IDF facilities from the center of the country to the south.

At the same time, Israelis living in the south within range of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip saw the soldiers heading out and were advised to put their trust in local paramilitary “preparedness squads” taking over from the army. The local population believes that they are not up to the job of safeguarding them from more terrorist aggression – by missile, tunnel or intrusion.

Also Sunday, Egypt began expanding the security buffer zone along the 14km of the Gaza-Sinai-Israel border, doubling its breadth from one half to a whole kilometer. The mostly Palestinian inhabitants of this zone were evacuated.

Saturday, Jan. 3, Egyptian troops raided three towns in northern Sinai: Rafah (which is part located in the Gaza Strip), El Arish and Sheikh Zuweid, killing 7 militants of Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, which last month pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and jihad against Egypt and Israel.

A few hours later, an Egyptian army explosives expert was killed and several soldiers injured when a large bomb planted on a road in Sheikh Zuweid blew up when they tried to dismantle it.

Saturday night, the IDF commander of the Gaza Division, Brig. Gen. Itay Virov tried to calm dwellers across from the Gaza Strip, who were up in arms about the withdrawal of their military safety net. He addressed members of Kibbutz Nahal Oz with a rare burst of frankness. He spoke of military policy, but his words no doubt reflected the strategic thinking of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ya’alon, the outgoing Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, and his successor next month Maj. Gen. Gadi Eisenkott.

The general may be commended for laying the truth about official policy on the table. However, instead of calming his audience, he bared evaluations that may give the rest of the country sleepless nights as well.

Here are the high points of his Nahal Oz lecture:

Israel can’t deter Gazan Palestinians from making war, because they have no other options. So deterrence in this case is an empty value.
Israel deliberately avoided going all the way to remove Hamas from power in Gaza in the summer war because salafist jihadists and al Qaeda would have moved in to replace them. It was deemed better to rely on Egypt to grapple with the terrorist threat, including al Qaeda, rather than the IDF.
Brig. Virov termed the last Gaza operation a campaign based on the doctrine of prevention rather than a war of aggression.
The political wing of Hamas looks after the population and wants peace and quiet, whereas the military wing lost no time in restoring the tunnels Israel blew up, conducting scores of test launches of rockets, and training hard for the next round of combat with Israel.
Israel therefore has no option but to prepare for a replay of Defense Edge with operations 2, 3 or even 4. Hamas must be degraded militarily each time – but not so far as to be rendered incapable of buttressing the Hamas regime.
The conclusion drawn from Gen. Virov’s lecture was that the Netanyahu government has provided Hamas-Gaza with a political and military guarantee of safety.

Like all policies, even those well thought out, this one too carries a price tag.

The general spoke of Hamas in terms of an independent entity whose operations and impact are confined to the Gaza Strip. He refrained from mentioning that, as recently as December, both of Hamas’ branches, the military and the political, jumped aboard the Iran-led Iraqi-Syrian-Hizballah alliance. This Palestinian group is now subject to Tehran’s policy decisions and directives. This omission from Israel’s policy calculations could be dangerous. Clearly, an undefeated Hamas remains a lasting menace.

Tehran’s decisions regarding Hamas may have an overarching effect, possibly touching on the moves directed by President Barack Obama. (See our Jan. 1 article on Obama’s New Year gift to Israel and the Middle East.).

Israel’s policy of relying on the Egyptian army to contain Al Qaeda’s Sinai network also comes at a price.

For now, Israel has quietly consented to large-scale Egyptian military strength entering Sinai: One and a half divisions, including fighter squadrons and tank battalions, have taken up positions, nullifying the key demilitarization clause of their 1979 peace treaty.

And that’s just for starters.

Categories: Egypt, Gaza, Hamas, IDF, Israel, Netanyahu, Palestinians, Peace process, Siani, Terrorism
Tags: Egypt, Gaza, Hamas, IDF, Israel, Netanyahu, Palestinians, Peace Process, Siani, Terrorism

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Egypt’s Sisi: Islamic “Thinking” Is “Antagonizing the Entire World”

January 2, 2015

Egypt’s Sisi: Islamic “Thinking” Is “Antagonizing the Entire World” Raymond Ibraham, January 1, 2015

Speaking before Al-Azhar and the Awqaf Ministry on New Year’s Day, 2015, in connection to Prophet Muhammad’s upcoming birthday, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a vocal supporter for a renewed vision of Islam, made what must be his most forceful and impassioned plea to date on the subject.

Sisi Jan 1 15

Sisi during his New Year’s Day speech before Al Azhar

Among other things, Sisi said that the “corpus of [Islamic] texts and ideas that we have sacralized over the years” are “antagonizing the entire world”; that it is not “possible that 1.6 billion people [reference to the world’s Muslims] should want to kill the rest of the world’s inhabitants—that is 7 billion—so that they themselves may live”; and that Egypt (or the Islamic world in its entirety) “is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost—and it is being lost by our own hands.”

The relevant excerpt from Sisi’s speech follows (translation by Michele Antaki):

I am referring here to the religious clerics. We have to think hard about what we are facing—and I have, in fact, addressed this topic a couple of times before. It’s inconceivable that the thinking that we hold most sacred should cause the entire umma[Islamic world] to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world. Impossible!

That thinking—I am not saying “religion” but “thinking”—that corpus of texts and ideas that we have sacralized over the years, to the point that departing from them has become almost impossible, is antagonizing the entire world. It’s antagonizing the entire world!

Is it possible that 1.6 billion people [Muslims] should want to kill the rest of the world’s inhabitants—that is 7 billion—so that they themselves may live? Impossible!

I am saying these words here at Al Azhar, before this assembly of scholars and ulema—Allah Almighty be witness to your truth on Judgment Day concerning that which I’m talking about now.

All this that I am telling you, you cannot feel it if you remain trapped within this mindset. You need to step outside of yourselves to be able to observe it and reflect on it it from a more enlightened perspective.

I say and repeat again that we are in need of a religious revolution. You, imams, are responsible before Allah. The entire world, I say it again, the entire world is waiting for your next move… because this umma is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost—and it is being lost by our own hands.

Note: It is unclear if in the last instance of umma Sisi is referring to Egypt (“the nation”) or if he is using it in the pan-Islamic sense as he did initially to refer to the entire Islamic world.

Categories: Egypt, Islam, Islamic slaughter, Koran, Sisi
Tags: Egypt, Islam, Islamic slaughter, Islamic world, Koran

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A Sad State of Affairs: The Kerry Record

January 2, 2015

A Sad State of Affairs: The Kerry Record, World Affairs Journal, Joshua Muravchik, November/December, 2014

(Kerry likely agrees with Obama as to his quite foreign foreign policies and, equally likely, we are stuck with both at least until Obama leaves the White House.

The most bothersome current aspects of Obama-Kerry foreign policies are the extent to which they trust Iran and how they deal with it and the P5+1 negotiating group. — DM)

John_Kerry_and_Benjamin_Netanyahu_July_2014 (1)

Although Kerry’s anti-American ideology has moderated to some degree from his fiery days as an antiwar leader, he has misrepresented but never repudiated his past. Especially consistent has been his inclination to see the best in America’s enemies, from Madame Binh to Comandante Ortega to Bashar Assad. Israelis were shocked this summer that Kerry came up with a plan molded by Turkey and Qatar to fit the interests of Hamas at their own expense. Had they known him and his record better, they might not have been.

***************

The Gaza war of July and August 2014 occasioned the sharpest frictions in memory between the United States and Israel, highlighted by a cease-fire proposal offered by Secretary of State John Kerry that Israel’s security cabinet rejected unanimously. Kerry’s plan envisioned a seven-day cease-fire, during which the parties would negotiate “arrangements” to meet each of Hamas’s demands about the free flow of people and goods into Gaza and the payment of salaries of Hamas’s tens of thousands of employees. As for Israel’s demands about destruction of tunnels and rockets and the demilitarization of Gaza, these were not mentioned at all, except in the add-on phrase that the talks would also “address all security issues.”

The document cited the important role to be played by “the United Nations, the Arab League, the European Union, the United States, Turkey, [and] Qatar.” Conspicuous by their absence from this list were Israel, Egypt, and the Palestinian Authority. These three had also not been invited to the Paris meetings where Kerry worked on his ideas with leaders of the countries and bodies mentioned.

Barak Ravid, diplomatic correspondent for the liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz, wrote that the proposal “might as well have been penned by Khaled Meshal [head of Hamas]. It was everything Hamas could have hoped for.” The centrist Times of Israel’s characteristically circumspect editor, David Horovitz, branded Kerry’s initiative “a betrayal.” And left-leaning author Ari Shavit commented that “Kerry ruined everything. [He] put wind in the sails of Hamas’ political leader Khaled Meshal, allowed the Hamas extremists to overcome the Hamas moderates, and gave renewed life to the weakened regional alliance of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Turkey and Qatar are the mainstays of that alliance and were chosen by Kerry as his principal interlocutors because they are Hamas’s main backers. This brought protests from the Palestinian Authority, led by President Mahmoud Abbas’s movement, Fatah, the secularist rival to Hamas. That group declared that “whoever wants Qatar and Turkey to represent them can emigrate and go live there. Our only legitimate representative is the PLO.”

The shock of Palestinian and Israeli leaders would have been less, however, if they had been more familiar with the record of John Kerry. Spurning America’s friends in pursuit of deals with their nemeses was perfectly in character for the secretary of state. The hallmark of his career has been to denigrate America itself, while supporting the claims of its enemies.

That career began in 1969, when, months after returning from a tour of duty in Vietnam, Kerry sought and received a military discharge so that he might run for Congress. His campaign as a peace candidate sputtered, but his authenticity as a Vietnam vet established him as a presence in the burgeoning antiwar movement. In May 1970, he traveled to Paris for an unpublicized meeting with Viet Cong representatives, and, perhaps at their suggestion, he joined up upon his return with Vietnam Veterans Against the War. VVAW was headed by Al Hubbard, a former Black Panther. Kerry was instantly given a top role, twinning with Hubbard as the public face of the organization.

At a VVAW protest in Washington, DC, in April 1971, Kerry joined other veterans in throwing away their military medals in front of news cameras. The entire demonstration was punctuated by Kerry’s appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where he offered dramatic testimony about American atrocities in Vietnam based on accounts heard at a VVAW inquest a few months earlier. He spoke of veterans who said:

They had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages . . . poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside.

These acts, Kerry emphasized, “were not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.”

When, at the behest of aghast senators, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service conducted a formal inquiry into the stories presented at the VVAW inquest, it reported that many of the VVAW witnesses cited by Kerry refused to cooperate, although promised immunity. Others were clearly crackpots, and several swore, and provided witness corroboration, that they had not participated at the inquest at all and had no idea who had appeared in their names. The entire exercise had been inspired and largely engineered by Mark Lane, whose book on the same subject earlier that year had been panned by New York Times columnist James Reston Jr. as “a hodgepodge of hearsay,” while that paper’s book reviewer, Neil Sheehan, who had reported from Vietnam and would soon break the Pentagon Papers, revealed that some of Lane’s “witnesses” had not served in Vietnam. (The political scientist Guenter Lewy documents these events in his 1978 book America in Vietnam.)

In August 1971, four months after his Senate appearance, Kerry made another trip to Paris, to meet with Madame Nguyen Thi Binh, foreign minister of the Viet Cong, this time in full view, for his first exercise in international diplomacy. He returned touting the “peace plan” of the Viet Cong, explaining: “If the United States were to set a date for withdrawal, the prisoners of war would be returned.” Although he frequently accused American leaders of lying, he took the Communist leaders’ statements at face value, asserting that their peace plan “negates very clearly the argument of the president [Nixon] that we have to maintain a presence in Vietnam to use as a negotiating [chip] for the return of those prisoners.”

Kerry’s dismissal of the statements of US leaders as lies and his credulity toward those of the Vietnamese Communists reflected a broader difference in attitude toward the two sides to the conflict. Ho Chi Minh, who had spent long years as a henchman of Stalin’s, serving the Comintern in several countries, was in Kerry’s admiring eyes “the George Washington of Vietnam” who aimed only “to install the same provisions into the government of Vietnam” that appeared in the American Constitution. America, in contrast, had itself strayed so far from those principles that it needed a “revolution” to restore them.

Kerry’s colleagues in VVAW undoubtedly shared this sentiment, and in November 1971, at a conference of its leadership in Kansas, the group considered just how far down the path of revolution it was willing to go. It debated, although ultimately rejected, a proposal to commence a campaign of terrorist violence and assassination of pro-war US senators. When he ran for president in 2004, Kerry denied he had been present at this conclave, but when FBI files secured by the Los Angeles Times under the Freedom of Information Act placed him there, he retracted that denial in favor of the statement that he had “no personal recollection” of it.

Is this plausible? Gerald Nicosia, author of a highly sympathetic history of the antiwar movement, reported, in May 2004, that “several people at the Kansas City meeting recently said to me or to mutual friends that they had been told by the Kerry campaign not to speak about those events without permission.” Why the urgency to cover up? And how would the campaign know who was there, that is, whose silence to seek, if Kerry had no recollection of the meeting? One of Nicosia’s interviewees, John Musgrave, said “he was asked by Kerry’s veterans coordinator to ‘refresh his memory’ after he told the press Kerry was in Kansas City. Not only is Musgrave outraged that ‘they were trying to make me look like a liar,’ but he also says ‘there’s no way Kerry could have forgotten that meeting—there was too much going on.’”

This puts it mildly: the event was memorably raucous, with debates over the proposals for violence and for napalming the national Christmas tree, furious factional fighting, the discovery of eavesdropping bugs in the building leading to a quick move to another location, and above all an angry showdown between Kerry and Hubbard over revelations that the latter had never been in Vietnam. This particular contretemps was punctuated by Hubbard’s dramatically pulling down his pants to show scars he claimed he sustained in Vietnam. The mayhem culminated in Kerry’s announcing his resignation from the group’s executive. And Kerry had “no personal recollection” of being there?

Although Kerry appeared as a speaker for VVAW for about a year following this resignation, he then faded from national view for a decade, climbing the ladder of local and state politics in Massachusetts before winning election to the US Senate in 1984. The Senate, he later said, “was the right place for me in terms of . . . my passions. The issue of war and peace was on the table again.” What put it on the table were the anti-communist policies of President Ronald Reagan, which Kerry deeply opposed. A year earlier, Reagan had ordered the invasion of Grenada, which Kerry scorned as “a bully’s show of force [that] only served to heighten world tensions and further strain brittle US-Soviet and North-South relations.”

In contrast, Kerry ran on a platform of the Nuclear Freeze, a popular movement opposing US plans to counterbalance a large Soviet nuclear buildup over the previous decade. Kerry made sure to score one hundred percent on a test of candidates’ positions presented by a group called Freeze Voter ’84, and he proposed to cut the defense budget by nearly twenty percent, including “cancellation of twenty-seven weapons systems” and “reductions in eighteen other[s],” according to the Boston Globe. He cited his own work with VVAW as a counterpoint: “We were criticized when we stood up on Vietnam. . . . But we’ve been borne out. We were correct. Sometimes you just have to stand and hold your ground.”

In the Senate, he secured a coveted seat on the Foreign Affairs Committee and turned his attention to the fraught issue of policy toward Central America, a small region that had assumed inordinate geopolitical importance by becoming one of the front lines in the Cold War. A Marxist-Leninist party, the Sandinista National Liberation Front, had seized power in Nicaragua and was aiding likeminded movements in El Salvador and other nearby states while the Reagan administration supported anti-Communist guerrillas inside Nicaragua, the so-called “Contras.”

Kerry lent his name to Medical Aid for El Salvador, which gave non-lethal aid to the Communist side in that civil war. On February 16, 1982, an Associated Press story quoted actor Ed Asner, leader of a Hollywood group that raised much of the funding for this project, as explaining that “medical supplies are to be purchased in Mexico and shipped clandestinely to the Democratic Revolutionary Front in El Salvador.” However, the issue of US aid to El Salvador’s anti-Communist government became overshadowed by debate about aid to the Nicaraguan “Contras.”

As the Senate neared a decisive vote, Kerry and Senator Tom Harkin undertook a dramatic maneuver to try to head off approval of the Reagan administration’s request for Contra funding. They flew to Managua, the Nicaraguan capital, for their own summit meeting with the country’s strongman, “Comandante” Daniel Ortega. The results resembled those of his 1971 meeting with Madame Binh. Ortega handed Kerry a “peace plan” according to which the US would first end all aid to the Contras, and the Sandinistas would then initiate a cease-fire and restore civil liberties. Kerry justified undercutting the US government in this way by faulting Reagan’s failure “to create a climate of trust” with the Sandinistas. He, in contrast, offered them trust in abundance, calling Ortega’s plan “a wonderful opening.” He took to the Senate floor to say, “Here, in writing, is a guarantee of the security interest of the United States.”

A year later, in 1986, in another Senate debate on Contra aid, Kerry voiced one of the odder claims about his Vietnam experience. Warning against the slippery slope of military involvement and against the duplicity of our own government, Kerry delivered a floor speech containing this assertion:

I remember Christmas of 1968, sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the president of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia. I have that memory which is seared—seared—in me.

The “seared” part was a nice touch, especially in view of the fact that the whole thing had not happened (although Kerry had been repeating the story since as early as 1979). In the course of Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, former crewmen on the type of vessel on which Kerry served who were angered by his antiwar activities, attacked this claim among other aspects of Kerry’s military history. In this case, however, unlike in response to some points raised by Kerry’s detractors, no shipmate of Kerry’s could be found to corroborate his version. Soon, his spokesmen began to hedge. One aide explained that Kerry’s boat had been “between” Vietnam and Cambodia. But the two countries are contiguous: there is no “between,” so another spokesman backed down further, explaining that Kerry had merely been “near” Cambodia.

Then, Douglas Brinkley, who authored a laudatory history of Kerry’s military service, issued another explanation, apparently at the behest of the campaign. On Christmas 1968, the moment of Kerry’s “seared” memory, he was fifty miles from Cambodia, said Brinkley, but his boat “went into Cambodia waters three or four times in January and February 1969.” Oddly, however, Brinkley’s book, which covered those two months in painstaking detail at a length of nearly one hundred pages, even to the extent of locating the sites of battles, made no mention of Kerry’s having crossed into Cambodia. And the campaign soon pulled the rug from under Brinkley by issuing a new claim, namely, that Kerry’s boat had “on one occasion crossed into Cambodia.” Three of Kerry’s shipmates, two of whom were supporting his campaign, categorically denied even this minimized claim.

In that, they are supported by no less a source than Kerry himself, in the form of a journal he kept while on duty. Substantial passages of it are reproduced in Brinkley’s book, and one of them reads:

The banks of the [Rach Giang Thanh River] whistled by as we churned out mile after mile at full speed. On my left were occasional open fields that allowed us a clear view into Cambodia. At some points, the border was only fifty yards away and it then would meander out to several hundred or even as much as a thousand yards away, always making one wonder what lay on the other side.

He was never to learn the answer because this diary entry was from his final mission.

Kerry was of course right to link Central America to Southeast Asia. They were both nodes in the Cold War, the epic struggle that defined international politics for forty years, including the first two decades of Kerry’s political engagement, from the time he returned from Vietnam in 1969 until the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. Whatever the rights and wrongs of America’s entry into Vietnam, or its actions in Central America or elsewhere, Kerry perverted the basic issue of the Cold War, always viewing America’s actions as bellicose and malign, while casting those of the Communists, like “George Washington” Ho Chi Minh, in the most favorable light.

To many, the Cold War’s benign denouement—the fall of the Wall and the USSR’s disappearance into the ash bin of history—vindicated Reagan’s approach, but Kerry appears to have entertained no second thoughts despite these outcomes. When it came to addressing post–Cold War issues, he remained reflexively averse to the exercise of American power. Kerry had lamented as “not proportional” Reagan’s 1986 bombing of Libyan dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi’s residence in response to a Libyan terror attack on US servicemen in Germany. The Middle East was also the scene of the first military showdown after the Cold War, when Saddam Hussein’s Iraq swallowed whole the neighboring state of Kuwait, in 1990. At the time, Kerry opposed the Bush administration’s request for authorization of military action, saying that those “of the Vietnam generation . . . come to this debate with a measure of distrust [and] a resolve . . . not [to be] misled again.” He concluded his Senate speech by reading a passage from an antiwar novel by the American Communist Dalton Trumbo.

With the Cold War’s end, and America’s demonstration of will and strength in driving Hussein’s forces from Kuwait, the defining issue of the 1990s became the wars of Yugoslavia’s dissolution. Here, the prime issue was whether or not to lift an international arms embargo that rendered Bosnia’s Muslims naked before their predators, the well-armed Serbs. As public opinion reacted to news accounts of the grisly results of this imbalance, the Senate voted to lift the embargo, over the objections of Kerry, who helped to lead the opposition.

With the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the American public was awakened from its post–Cold War indifference toward foreign affairs. A fierce patriotism burst forth, and with it a determination to take down those who had attacked us. Thus, preparing for a 2004 presidential bid, Kerry moved to reconfigure his image. The antiwar veteran was suddenly replaced by the military hero, and the Democratic nominating convention was replete with uniforms and military gestures, highlighted by Kerry’s sharp salute to the assemblage while uttering the words, “reporting for duty.” Already, his rejected service medals had miraculously reappeared mounted and framed on his Senate office wall. Asked how that was possible, as he had been photographed throwing them away, Kerry explained that the medals he tossed were not his own but actually belonged to another veteran.

The dramatic reincarnation did not quite come off, as Kerry was dogged by Vietnam veterans, led by fellow Swift Boat crewmen, still furious at how he had blackened their names. And the awkwardness of his transformation was symbolized by his much-ridiculed explanation of his stance on funding the 2003 US invasion of Iraq: “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.”

In his later years in the Senate, Kerry made the issue of Syria his own. He took several trips to Damascus where, according to a June 2011 account in the Wall Street Journal, he “established something approaching a friendship with [Syrian dictator Bashar] Assad.” When Barack Obama came to office, he made Kerry his point man in efforts to improve US-Syrian relations. Kerry put his endorsement on diplomatic proposals he received in Damascus, including an offer by Assad to engineer a Palestinian unity government embracing Fatah and Hamas. The benefits to the US, not to mention Israel, of such unity were not self-evident, but in any event, talks between the two Palestinian factions were already under way, mediated by Egypt, which was closer to Fatah. Why it would be advantageous to switch the sponsorship to Syria, the ally of Hamas, was hard to grasp. Nonetheless, Kerry saw in Assad’s proposal the prospect of “a major step forward in terms of how you reignite discussions for the two-state solution . . . . Syria indicated to me a willingness to be helpful in that respect.” In all, as the Journal put it, “Kerry . . . became . . . Assad’s champion in the US, urging lawmakers and policymakers to embrace the Syrian leader as a partner in stabilizing the Mideast.”

In sum, although Kerry’s anti-American ideology has moderated to some degree from his fiery days as an antiwar leader, he has misrepresented but never repudiated his past. Especially consistent has been his inclination to see the best in America’s enemies, from Madame Binh to Comandante Ortega to Bashar Assad. Israelis were shocked this summer that Kerry came up with a plan molded by Turkey and Qatar to fit the interests of Hamas at their own expense. Had they known him and his record better, they might not have been.

Categories: Egypt, Fatah, Hamas, Ideology, Iran, Iran scam, Islam, Israel, Jihad, Kerry, Middle East, Multiculturalism, Netanyahu, Nukes, Obama, Palestinian Authority, Peace process, Qatar, Terrorism, Turkey, Two state solution
Tags: Bashar Assad, Egypt, Fatah, Hamas, Ideology, Iran, Iran Scam, Islam, Israel, Jihad, Middle East, Multiculturalism, Netanyahu, Nukes, Palestinian Authority, Peace Process, Qatar, Terrorism, Tirkey, Two state solution, Vietnam

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Egypt-Qatar rapprochement rattles Hamas

December 31, 2014

Egypt-Qatar rapprochement rattles Hamas, Al-Monitor, Adnan Abu Amer, December 30, 2014

(These guys could form several pretty adequate stand-up comedy teams.

— DM)

Egyptian woman gestures during a protest against what they say is Qatar's backing of ousted Egyptian president Mohamed Mursi's government, outside the Qatari Embassy in Cairo

An Egyptian woman gestures during a demonstration against what protesters call Qatar’s backing of ousted Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi’s government, outside the Qatari Embassy in Cairo, Nov. 30, 2013. (photo by REUTERS)

At a time when Hamas is mending its relationship with Iran, Egypt and Qatar are also in the process of rapprochement after more than a year of tension. Resumed ties between them will likely have an impact on Hamas, but questions remain as to whether the Palestinian Islamist movement stands to gain or lose from this important regional development.

Hamas waited several days to announce its final position on the return of positive relations between Doha and Cairo on Dec. 20, when President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi met the envoy of Qatar’s emir in Cairo, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani, the minister’s assistant for International Cooperation Affairs.

On Dec. 28, senior Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar welcomed the Egyptian-Qatari convergence and denied Qatar was pressuring the Hamas leadership to leave Doha. He also denied reports that Qatar was planning to suspend its support for Hamas over the warming of ties with Egypt, reiterating that Hamas supports the unity of Arab countries to serve the Palestinian cause.

Yousef Rizqa, the former minister of information and political adviser to former Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, said in an interview with Al-Monitor, “The Egyptian-Qatari rapprochement serves the interest of the Palestinian national project, and Hamas has no concerns about its relations with Doha being harmed after the Doha-Cairo rapprochement because the movement is not a party to the internal Arab conflict, and it is accepted by the Arab capitals.”

However, an anonymous Egyptian official said in Dec. 26 press statement that Doha informed Hamas leaders that it would temporarily suspend its support for the movement in a bid to pressure Hamas to change its policies against Cairo.

Husam Badran, spokesman for Hamas and a resident of Doha, told Al-Monitor, “There is no suspension of the Qatari financial support for the movement, since their relationship is ongoing.” But Palestinian Minister of Labor Maamoun Abu Shahla revealed Dec. 28 that Qatar had postponed the financial grant supposed to be sent to Gaza’s state workers.

Rizqa neither confirmed nor denied this report, but he told Al-Monitor that Qatar has not cut its support and relationship with Hamas over the rapprochement with Egypt, saying, “The Hamas-Doha relationship is stable and Qatar’s support for the movement is sustained and has never ceased. Moreover, Qatar’s position on Hamas is strategic.”

It is worth noting that Hamas’ fear of Qatar halting its financial support for the movement at Egypt’s request coincides with its renewed attempt to improve ties with Iran, as well as political head Khaled Meshaal’s recent visit to Turkey. Hamas may be reaching out to possible alternatives for regional support should Doha downgrade its ties with the movement in a “secret” deal with Cairo.

The Palestinian Authority did not express a position on the Egyptian-Qatari rapprochement, but on Dec. 25 Ambassador Hazem Abu Shanab, a member of the Revolutionary Council of Fatah, ruled out the consideration that the Egyptian-Qatari convergence would contribute to the improvement of relations between Hamas and Cairo, because this depends on how Cairo decides to deal with the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates, such as Hamas.

This prompted the Egyptian official to reveal Dec. 26, also on condition of anonymity, that Hamas demanded Doha mediate with Cairo to calm the atmosphere with Hamas, as the movement expressed its goodwill toward overcoming the tension with Cairo.

A senior Hamas official told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that Hamas is analyzing the extent of Doha’s ability to influence Cairo on reconciling with the movement. Should the rupture between Hamas and Egypt continue irrespective of the Doha-Cairo rapprochement, this would be interpreted by Hamas as being made a scapegoat.

A former member of the Qatari Shura Council, asking not to be named, revealed to Al-Monitor, “There have been contacts made between the Hamas leadership, represented by Meshaal, and Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, among other Qatari officials. They discussed the rapprochement with Egypt. Meshaal told the emir that he fully supports any Qatari effort to unify Arab positions.”

The Qatari official told Al-Monitor by phone from Doha, “Meshaal received a formal Qatari pledge not to attack the Hamas leadership or tighten the noose around its neck in Doha in exchange for rapprochement with Cairo. This is because Qatar never establishes relations based on bargaining between one party or another, and our relationship with Hamas will continue to exist.”

Interestingly, coinciding with the rapprochement, Egyptian media outlets reported that Cairo threatened to cut ties with Hamas on Dec. 26 unless 13 accused members of the movement were extradited to Egypt. The 13 were accused of involvement in armed operations in Egypt, and allegedly, Egyptian authorities have insisted that extradition proceedings must conclude before they consider improving relations with Hamas.

On Dec. 28, Zahar denied Egyptian media reports that Hamas interfered in Egypt’s domestic affairs.

A senior Hamas official in Gaza who spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity also denied the reports, saying, “Egypt made no formal request to extradite any Hamas member, and these accusations were featured across all media outlets, which only creates more tensions,” he said.

Ahmed Yousef, a senior Hamas official, told Al-Monitor that he hopes “the breakthrough in the Doha-Cairo relations will positively affect Hamas’ relations with Egypt and that Qatar would do its best to alleviate the tension between Gaza and Cairo,” adding, “The Hamas and Cairo dossier is likely to be opened after the meeting of Emir Tamim with Sisi.” He denied the existence of contacts between the movement and Egypt following the Doha-Cairo rapprochement.

The timing of the Egyptian-Qatari warming may have come as a surprise to Hamas, which took nearly a week to announce that it welcomes the move, making sure that it would not come at its expense. The atmosphere prevailing within Hamas is still ambiguous over whether the Qatari position toward the movement will be affected, despite promises made by Doha to the contrary. Hamas knows that the pressure exerted on Qatar may be stronger than its ability to resist.

Categories: Egypt, Fatah, Gaza, Hamas, Iran, Israel, Middle East, Qatar
Tags: Egypt, Fatah, Gaza, Hamas, Iran, Israel, Middle East, Qatar

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Erdogan’s Egyptian Nightmare

December 30, 2014

Erdogan’s Egyptian Nightmare, The Gatestone Institute, Burak Bekdil, December 30,2014

Erdogan was happy. At least until a few days ago….

Erdogan probably did not know the Emir of Qatar’s next move on the Middle Eastern chessboard.

Turkey aspires to be a regional leader with no, little or problematic dialogue with about a dozen countries in its region.

Back in 2011, everything ostensibly was coming up roses between Turkey and Egypt. In a speech that year, then-Turkish President Abdullah Gul mentioned “…an axis of democracy of the two biggest nations in our region [Turkey and Egypt], from the north to the south, from the Black Sea down to the Nile Valley…”

In September 2011, then-Prime Minister [now President] Recep Tayyip Erdogan found an emotional hero’s welcome at Cairo’s Tahrir Square. Tens of thousands of Egyptians had flocked to the Cairo airport to welcome him. Streets were decorated with posters of Erdogan.

In early 2012, a survey by TESEV, a Turkish think-tank, found that Turkey was the most popular country for the residents of seven Arab countries, including Egypt.

But against that glittering backdrop, this author wrote in June 2011: “For Ankara, Cairo can be the new Damascus until another capital becomes the new Cairo. At that time, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Erdogan’s one-time best regional ally, had already become his worst regional nemesis.

The Turkish-Egyptian love affair would, in fact, be quite short-lived.

In August 2013, about a month after General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in Egypt toppled the Muslim Brotherhood rule of President Mohammed Morsi, Erdogan appeared on TV, reading — in an unusually soft voice — a letter by the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed al-Beltagy. The letter was written to Beltagy’s daughter Asmaa, a 17-year-old girl, who had been killed in Cairo when security forces stormed two protest camps occupied by supporters of the deposed president. Poor Asmaa had been shot in the chest and back.

“I believe you have been loyal to your commitment to God, and He has been to you,” her father wrote in the letter. “Otherwise, He would not have called you to His presence before me.” Erdogan’s tears were visible.

Later, Asmaa became another symbol for Turkish Islamists; Erdogan cheered party fans with the four-finger “Rabia” sign, in reference to his solidarity with the Muslim Brotherhood, and as a sign of his endearment for the unfortunate girl. Even on the playing field, a few footballers made the same sign after scoring.

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In this image, widely circulated in social media, Turkey’s then-Prime Minister [now President] Recep Tayyip Erdogan flashes the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s four-fingered “Rabia” sign.

After the coup in Egypt, when el-Sisi ran for president and won the elections, Turkey’s Erdogan declared them “null and void.” And not just that. Erdogan also said that he did not view el-Sisi as “president of Egypt.” At another time, he said, “Turkey would not recognize the coup regime in Egypt.” Last July, he called el-Sisi “an illegitimate tyrant” and a “coup-maker.”

Meanwhile, neither was Erdogan a “rock star” in Cairo nor was Turkey “the most popular country.” Egyptian non-governmental organizations [NGOs] called on Egyptians and Arabs to boycott Turkish goods and soap operas. Egypt’s intellectuals, writers and businessmen were recommending a break in Egypt’s relations with Turkey because “they were disappointed.” Egypt unilaterally cancelled both visa-free travel for Turkish citizens and a transit agreement for Turkish trucks.

In the anti-el-Sisi campaign, Turkey was not alone. Its only regional ally, Qatar, fully supported Turkey against Egypt’s elected “coup leader.” Erdogan was happy. At least until a few days ago….

In Ankara, Erdogan was all smiles when he offered a red-carpet ceremony to the visiting Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani. Happy to have his best ally as a guest, Erdogan probably did not know the Emir’s next move on the Middle Eastern chessboard.

A few days after al-Thani’s merry visit to Ankara, Qatar announced its determination to thaw ties with Egypt, ending its alliance with Turkey over “Egypt’s illegitimate tyrant.”

“The security of Egypt is important for the security of Qatar … the two countries are linked by deep and fraternal ties,” ran a statement from the office of al-Thani on Dec. 21. It was a real cold shower on Ankara — and Erdogan. The statement had come one day after el-Sisi met in Cairo with a Qatari envoy, suggesting a possible thaw in relations. After the meeting, el-Sisi’s office issued a statement saying, “Egypt looks forward to a new era that ends past disagreements.” Apparently, the Egyptian-Qatari reconciliation had been brokered by Saudi Arabia and, once again, Turkey was the odd one out.

In its immediate vicinity, Turkey does not have diplomatic relations with three countries — Armenia, Cyprus and Syria — and has deeply problematic diplomatic relations with two countries: Israel and Egypt. This situation is not sustainable.

Even Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc has said that Turkey should repair its relations with Egypt. But this is not an easy task. In the unlikely event of a reconciliation, Erdogan’s previous big words on el-Sisi the coup-maker will make him look like a leader shaking hands with an “illegitimate tyrant.”

On Dec. 24, Turkey’s foreign ministry spokesman said that bilateral ties with Egypt could “normalize if the country properly returns to democracy, if the Egyptian people’s free will is reflected in politics and social life.” Meaning, no normalization. The spokesman would not comment on Qatar’s policy change on Egypt.

Turkey aspires to be a regional leader with no, little or problematic dialogue with about a dozen countries in its region. Erdogan’s top advisors have found a nice euphemism for this situation: “precious loneliness.” In reality, it is rather a blend of miscalculation and over self-confidence.

Categories: Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood, Qatar, Syria, Turkey
Tags: Egypt, Erdogan, Muslim Brotherhood, Qatar, Syria, Turkey

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