It is hard, then, to get anyone interested in Palestinians victimizing Palestinians—suggesting that the seeming preoccupation with Israeli-ruled territories has something to do with the great value many people find in the Jew-as-victimizer prototype. Similarly, once the United States—supposedly the oppressor—had left Southeast Asia in the early 1970s, it was hard to get any but a few of the opponents of that presence interested in the ensuing horrendous victimization of Vietnamese and Cambodians by other Vietnamese and Cambodians.

Last week, though, an Israeli outfit called the Jerusalem Institute of Justice (JIJ) tried to buck the trend. It presented to the European Parliament a report on “The Status of Human Rights on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.” The reports notes that “a surprising silence prevails regarding the violation of human rights by the Palestinian government authorities in the Territories,” and that, even though these are by now widely documented, “the EU continues to push for full and immediate statehood for the [Palestinian Authority].”

And while the JIJ focuses mainly on Europe, it could, naturally, also have said similar things regarding the Obama administration’s preoccupation with getting statehood for the Palestinians—fast; which seems to have waned only recently in an election year.

While on the Tunisia leg of his vaunted Middle East marathon, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said that Muslims will create the new Middle East. Ismail Haniyeh does not have a sterling reputation for telling the truth but his stating that Muslims will create the New Middle East is correct – a New Middle East graveyard. Estimated death tolls from a series of so-called Arab Spring rebellions include Syria – 6000; Yemen – 500; Bahrain 200; Libya – 30,000; Egypt – 1000;  Tunisia – 300. This is an estimated total of 38,000 people killed for the sake of the so-called Arab Spring. An abhorrent number. Clearly, based on these numbers it has been an Arab Abattoir and leave it to an arch terrorist like Haniyeh to overlook this carnage in his boastful declarations.

Haniyeh has distinguished himself on his tour of Islamic countries recently by saying other empty boastful and meaningless things. Haniyeh reiterated his pledge not “to lay down our arms” or recognize Israel. He has championed issues ranging from stopping the “Judaization of Jerusalem,” the IDF blockade on Gaza to the so-called Arab Spring revolutions that he claims have influenced favorably the Palestinian cause. Haniyeh also told an interviewer for the British paper Independent that he thinks Israel is encountering its worst security problems and that Egypt will not allow Israel to attack Gaza, and will suspend its support of the Gaza siege as well.

Who is Ismayil Haniyeh? What gives him the nerve to spout such preposterous folderol and balderdash?

Haniyeh was born in the Al-Shati refugee camp in the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip. His parents became refugees, after they fled from their homes in Majdal (currently Ashkelon, Israel) during Israel’s War of Independence. In 1987, he graduated from the Islamic University of Gaza with a degree in Arabic literature. In 1989, he was imprisoned for three years by Israeli authorities for participation in the First Intifada and membership with Hamas. Following his release in 1992, he was exiled to Lebanon with Ahmed Yassin, Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi and other senior Hamas terrorists. A year later, he returned to Gaza and was appointed as Dean of the Islamic University.

Haniyeh’s rise to a position of influence in Hamas Islamic terror society in Gaza is nothing special. The real farce – folderol and balderdash in earnest – began when Hamas won the elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council in 2006 and Haniyeh became prime minister.

On January 25, 2006, elections were held for the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), the legislature of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA). Notwithstanding the 2005 municipal elections and the January 9, 2005 presidential election, this was the first election to the PLC since 1996. Palestinian Authority elections were repeatedly postponed due to instability stemming from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Palestinian voters in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank including East Jerusalem were eligible to participate in the 2006 election.

Final results show that Hamas won the election, with 74 seats to the ruling-Fatah‘s 45, providing Hamas with the majority of the 132 available seats and the ability to form a majority government on its own.

Then-Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei resigned, but at the request of President Mahmoud Abbas, remained as interim Prime Minister until February 19, when Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh formed the new government.

The terrorist Hamas’s entry into Palestinian government triggered sanctions. The 2006–2007 economic sanctions against the Palestinian National Authority were imposed by Israel and the Quartet on the Middle East against the Palestinian National Authority and the Palestinian territories.

Israel and the Quartet stated that sanctions would be lifted only when the Hamas government met the following demands:

• Renunciation of violence;

• Recognition of Israel by the Hamas government (as had the PLO); and

• Acceptance of previous agreements between Israel and the Palestinian National Authority.

The international sanctions were terminated in June 2007 following the Battle of Gaza, while at the same time a new and more severe blockade of the Gaza Strip was initiated.

Editor’s note: Below is the latest profile of Frontpage’s new series, “Voices of Palestine,” which will illuminate the core beliefs, in their own words, of leading figures in the Palestinian death cult. Click the following to view the profiles of Ahmad Bahr, Mahmoud al-Zahar, Ibrahim Mudayris, Yasser Ghalban, Haj Amin al-Husseini, Wafa al-Bis, Mahmoud Abbas, Ahlam Tamimi, Yassir Arafat (Part I and Part II), Abdallah Jarbu, Sheik Ismail Aal Radhwan and Abdel Aziz Rantisi.

Yunis Al-Astal, born in 1956 in the Gaza city of Khan Yunis, began his career preaching the glorification of exterminating Jews as an imam in the Palestinian Islamic terror group Hamas.

While Al-Astal’s incendiary rants were delivered in the mosques of Gaza, they were vile enough to gain him international notoriety, leading to his being banned in 2006 from entering the United Kingdom for “seeking to foment, justify or glorify terrorist violence.”

When Hamas gained control of Gaza in the elections of 2006, Al-Astal made the transition from preacher of hate to political firebrand as an elected member of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

During his time as a Hamas legislator, Al-Astal was part of the 2009 effort by Hamas to prevent the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) from including curriculum on the Holocaust in the preparatory schools it runs in Gaza.

According to Al-Astal, teaching Palestinian children about the Nazi genocide of Jews would be “marketing a lie” and the introduction of the subject tantamount to a “war crime.”

It should be noted, however, that Al-Astal’s disbelief in the historical veracity of the Holocaust didn’t mean he wasn’t a proponent of the necessity and inevitably of such an event in the future. In a 2008 newspaper column he wrote: “Suffering by fire is the Jews’ destiny in this world and the next. Therefore we are sure that the Holocaust is still to come upon the Jews.”

While suffering by fire may be the Jews’ destiny, it hasn’t precluded Al-Astal from championing other forms of violence on Jews, in particular suicide bombings as practiced by the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas. Al-Astal was identified by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation as being a member of the Brigades.

As military analyst Yaakov Katz wrote recently in The Jerusalem Post, “Something has changed in Israel.” Once, it was renowned for daring military operations like the 1972 capture of five Syrian intelligence officers, the 1976 raid on the hijacked aircraft at Entebbe Airport in Uganda, and even as recently as 2007, the airstrike on a Syrian nuclear reactor. Today – following the Gilad Schalit swap last month for more than 1,000 convicted Palestinian terrorists – it is perceived by many as a country that caves to the arrogant demands of its enemies.

With Iran on the verge of acquiring the nuclear capability it needs to, as Ahmadinejad is fond of saying, “wipe Israel from the map,” many wonder if Israel is considering a possible preemptive military strike. But is Israel the country it once was? These days it seems it can barely push back against the Obama administration’s pressure to negotiate with Hamas and return to indefensible borders. Does an Israel that seemingly surrendered to the demands of terrorists have what it takes to neutralize the looming threat of a nuclear-weaponized Iran?

Yaakov Katz is the military correspondent and defense analyst for The Jerusalem Post and the Israel correspondent for Jane’s Defence Weekly, the international military magazine. Katz led the Post’s coverage of the recent IDF wars and operations, including the Second Lebanon War against Hezbollah in 2006 and Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip in 2009. He served in the IDF Armored Corps and lectures widely in the U.S. and Israel on military affairs. His first book, Israel vs. Iran: The Shadow War was a 2011 national bestseller in Israel and will be published in the U.S. next March.

Earlier this month at Temple Ner Maarav in Encino, California, Katz spoke on the recent, world-changing upheavals in the Middle East, particularly how the so-called Arab Spring is quickly degenerating into an Islamic Winter. He discussed how dramatic developments like the Schalit exchange are impacting Israel, its national security, and its future.

For Katz, one word characterizes the so-called Arab Spring: uncertainty. Will the Muslim Brotherhood make Egypt an Islamic state? When will Syria’s Assad be deposed, and when he does, into whose hands will his extensive arsenal of ballistic missiles and chemical weapons fall? Will the Iranian regime itself succumb to revolution? Such questions are at the core of the Israeli Defense Force’s challenge: how to prepare for the various elements of uncertainty arising in the wake of the Arab Spring/Islamic Winter.

The big winner and beneficiary of the Middle Eastern turmoil referred to blithely by the mainstream media as the Arab Spring is Iran. With Arabic regimes toppling left and right, Iran remains standing strong, and a looming threat to Israel, which it openly promises to obliterate. The window of opportunity for an Israeli military strike against the Iranian nuclear facilities is closing rapidly. Katz says such a military option is unlikely to be chosen soon, but Israeli President Shimon Peres said recently that

The possibility of a military attack against Iran is now closer to being applied than the application of a diplomatic option.

Where Iran is concerned, Katz pointed out, there are two clocks ticking: the nuclear clock and the revolution clock. Both are ticking down, but which will run out of time first?

On Saturday the Israeli air force hit an Islamic Jihad squad in Gaza that was preparing to fire a rocket into Israel. The leader of the squad was killed, the other three members wounded.

Soon after, on Saturday night, two retaliatory rockets were fired from Gaza, one of them causing shrapnel wounds to a foreign worker.

In other words, Gaza has Israel covered. The Israeli air force generally carries out successful pinpoint strikes, but Gaza can always exact a price. Even when its projectiles cause no physical damage to people or property, they make sure the residents of southern Israel don’t know a moment’s security.

The pattern was similar in the previous round. Islamic Jihad opened it with a Grad rocket on Wednesday, October 26. Three days later Israel wiped out a five-man cell in Gaza. Islamic Jihad responded with about 40 rockets and mortars that killed one civilian, wounded nine, and damaged property. Israel hit back effectively until the rockets and mortars stopped. But Israelis don’t regard this as a “victory” or a reasonable way to live.

And over the weekend there was an alarming report that “in response to a heightened threat of anti-aircraft weaponry from Gaza and Egypt, the IAF has ordered its planes to temporarily avoid flying over Israel’s southern border.” It’s believed that terrorist groups in the area have “newly procured anti-aircraft weapons from Libya [that were] smuggled into the Gaza Strip and the increasingly lawless Sinai Peninsula….”

Not surprisingly, so long as Israel makes no decisive move in Gaza, the strategic threat only grows. Smuggling has been a free-for-all since the fall of Hosni Mubarak. Gaza’s rockets can now reach the Tel Aviv area while ever more sophisticated and dangerous weaponry flows in from Libya (another “Arab spring” liability), Iran, and elsewhere.

Also not surprisingly, in this situation, voices in Israel are calling to reoccupy Gaza and put an end to the threat. While some of these come from outside the government, an official in the upper echelon, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, has spoken openly of “toppling Hamas from power and reestablishing control over the southern Strip” where the smuggled weapons enter. Hamas being, of course, the ruler of Gaza, Islamic Jihad a still-weaker rival.

So what’s Israel waiting for?

Editor’s note: Today, Frontpage presents our “Gilad Shalit edition,” which gives a platform to the different perspectives on this most difficult issue. While the article below supports the deal that freed Shalit, Steven Plaut’s piece in today’s issue, The “Prisoner Exchange” Absurdity, opposes it. Jacob Laksin’s Faces of Terror profiles the terrorists who were released for Shalit.

On Monday and Tuesday in Israel all you had to do to experience depths and peaks of emotion was watch TV.

On Monday, there were pictures of Abed el-Aziz Salha, the Palestinian who joyously held up his bloody hands during the lynch in 2000 of two Israeli soldiers in Ramallah. And of Amana Muna, the Palestinian woman who in 2001 used online impersonation and promises of romance to lure a 16-year-old Israeli boy into a fatal hail of bullets, also near Ramallah.

And of Abed al-Hadi Ganaim, the Palestinian who in 1989 forced an Israeli bus off a cliff, killing 16. And numerous others of that ilk—all of them, to the severe mortification of many relatives of victims, who appealed in vain to the Supreme Court, set to be released the next day to win Gilad Shalit’s freedom.

And on Tuesday, footage of transcendent power and beauty as Shalit—the soldier kidnapped by Hamas in June 2006—went from the depths of hell in Gaza, a solitary confinement in which his only “human” contact was his Hamas captors, to a brief sojourn in Egypt and then home to Israel. And this during Sukkot, an eight-day holiday that commemorates the Israelites’ long trek from Egypt to the Promised Land.

An enthralled Israeli public first saw Shalit whisked along by a burly, armed contingent of Hamas men and Egyptians, and then—gaunt, shy, and dazed—“interviewed” by a pertinacious Egyptian woman whose sensitivity to his condition was such that she tried to wring pro-Palestinian, anti-Israeli propaganda out of him. But from there Shalit left the zone of darkness and cruelty and emerged into light and kindness—first checked by the chief army doctor at a border crossing, then flown to the Tel Nof air force base to be received by the prime minister, the defense minister, the chief of staff, and his father in a scene redolent of the Bible’s most heart-wrenching reunions.

And then, in a gorgeous sunset over the Galilee, his air convoy bringing him to his home village of Mitzpe Hila while an ecstatic crowd waving Israeli flags and singing “Am Yisrael Chai” (The People Israel Lives) awaited him. And a glimpse of the overwhelmed Shalit stepping out of a van and giving the crowd a single shy wave before finally being taken into the quietude of his home.

The past few months have seen unexpected developments in the Middle East, the continuing “Arab Awakening,” Egypt’s slide toward being controlled by the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, Syria and Libya in revolt; it seemed as if for the first time in recent history the Israeli-Palestinian dispute represented the calmest place in this violence-prone area of the world.

That all changed in early May when the Palestinian Authority, run by the “moderate” terrorists of the Fatah party, agreed to reunite with the more overt terrorists of  Hamas who rule over the Gaza Strip.

While this was happening, President Obama  has been preparing for a major speech regarding Middle East Policy (tomorrow), a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu (Friday) and an address to the annual convention of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

The Palestinians on the other hand, have been politicking at the United Nations trying to ensure passage of a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood.

This morning Politico carried an op-ed composed by two members of the House GOP leadership: Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), and  Peter Roskam (R-Ill) Deputy Majority Whip and Co-Chair of Republican Israel Caucus.

The two Republicans pointed out the radical violent nature of Hamas describing it as a

..terrorist organization whose founding charter instructs, “The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews; until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him.”

They said that because of the unification agreement that would give Hamas governmental power within the Palestinian Authority, the United States should cut off the Authority’s financial aid.

The Hamas-Fatah reconciliation agreement empowers Hamas terrorists and endangers Israel. The U.S. must use every tool in our diplomatic arsenal to make clear that we will not tolerate a Palestinian government that includes Hamas.

It is our duty, as leader of the free world, to do no less.

I had the opportunity to interview Congressman Roskam this morning. We discussed the Politico op-ed as well as other key issues regarding American foreign policy as it relates to Israel and the Middle East. Below is that interview, beginning with an overview of the situation provided by the Congressman.

Rep. Roskam: The urgency of this is difficult to overstate. All of these events are conflating. It’s becoming increasingly clear that the United States has an incredible role to play.

For those who historically have said Israel is our best friend in the region, and we have shared values of democracy, this is the time to stand with Israel and make it very clear that it’s the PA who have made this choice. It is the Palestinian Authority that has made the choice to put itself outside of the mainstream.

The current law says that the United States will not support terrorist organizations. When the Palestinian Authority makes an affirmative decision to put itself in a relationship with Hamas, it’s making a choice to put itself outside the category of those who receive financial support of the United States taxpayers.

I think it’s really that simple. And it is incredibly important, that when President Obama lays out his agenda tomorrow, he is clear. It is incredibly Right to Exist Interviews Rep. Peter Roskam on PA-Hamas Alliance: “The United States will not Support Terrorist Organizations”important that with the Prime Minister’s upcoming visit to the United States that we are clear the burden is on the Palestinian Authority. They have made their decision recognizing that they have put support from the United States in jeopardy, and there are consequences for their actions.

Jeff Dunetz: Well you certainly made that clear in the op-ed, but at times the administration hasn’t been as clear. For example, in his Cairo speech two years ago, the President seemed to have downplayed the role of Hamas terrorism. He reached his hand out to Hamas and it was eventually slapped away.  Do you think President Obama “gets it”?

Rep. Roskam: The President has an opportunity tomorrow, to demonstrate that he gets it. It’s important for the administration to look at these past events since the Cairo speech,  and understand that the world does not respond merely to speeches, the world responds to clear policy. That is why it is essential that the President lay out what we have put forward in the op-ed when he makes address tomorrow.

Jeff Dunetz: In the op-ed you mention the possible unilateral Palestinian declaration of statehood resolution by the UN in September. I understand that the Administration has promised to veto the resolution should it get to a vote in the Security Council–but is there anything the United States can do to prevent it from getting that far?

Rep. Roskam: The United States can actively work against the roll call to prevent it. It is not enough, in my view, simply to veto it. The United States should be actively advocating against it. There is a role to play, and this is extremely important in the short, medium and long term because it is inextricably linked to the U.S. security interests for us to do that. So I believe the administration has a chance to weigh in, to whip the vote in the UN and literally work the roll call.

Jeff Dunetz: It seems that there is a different tone in the House this year. In the last Congress the only ones vocally standing up for Israel were people like Congressman Pence, Eric Cantor and you—members of the GOP Caucus.  This year it seems, at least in my observation, that there is more bi-partisan, more Democrats are speaking out. Do you agree with that observation?

Rep. Roskam: I think what happened is–and now I am only speculating I cannot pretend to speak for Democrats in the House–but it looks like some of them are becoming increasingly disappointed in the past deference they paid to the administration and are recognizing that administration policy is now under-performing. They are becoming more vocal as a result. It could be that they exhibited a natural deference to an administration of their party, and now realize that the policies are not as fruitful as they had hoped, as expected, and as was represented to them, so they are making a decision to be more independent. That is complete speculation on my part.

Jeff Dunetz: What does the Congress want to hear from Prime Minister Netanyahu when he speaks before the joint session next week?

Rep. Roskam: I wouldn’t presume to tell the Prime Minister what to say.

Jeff Dunetz: It’s OK. On my blog I tell him what to say almost every day. He doesn’t listen to me though.

Rep. Roskam: My hunch is he is going to call on the U.S. Congress to stand with Israel; he will communicate the good faith efforts, which time and again, the Israelis have pursued as it relates to peace, the unwillingness of the Palestinian leadership to engage substantially in that, and that Israel is not, nor should it be in a position to bid against itself. He will also speak of his deep gratitude for the support Israel has had in the United States Congress.

Jeff Dunetz: Another big issue relating to Israel is Iran’s nuclear program. Do you see the sanctions working?

Rep. Roskam: They seem like a real mixed bag. The question of Iran comes up in the context of the larger democracy movements in the Middle East. The administration essentially waved off any intervention on behalf of the Iranians who were trying to throw off the oppressive regime and let that falter and, I believe, squandered an opportunity. In contrast, they engaged substantially in other areas of the Middle East and you wonder what is the benefit of that for the U.S., how does that help our security interests in the long run. So in answer to your question about Iran, it’s a mixed bag at this point.

Jeff Dunetz: Is there a discussion of new, harsher sanctions in Congress?

Rep. Roskam: Not in my circles, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t more discussions happening.

Jeff Dunetz: In the op-ed you also spoke of the incitement against Israel that Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are using to motivate their populace against peace. Is there anything Congress can do to encourage them to stop?

Rep. Roskam: The biggest restraining influence that we can be as the House on behalf of the American people, is to forgo U.S. financial support. That speaks volumes as compared to resolutions.

Jeff Dunetz: There is a GOP majority in the House so it might be possible to get a suspension of financial support through there. But what about the Senate, what is the likelihood of getting such a bill through the Senate?

Rep. Roskam: You know what? I just don’t know.  The administration is going to have a lot of influence on Senate action.

Jeff Dunetz: So what is the bottom line? Do you see the President being bold tomorrow when he makes his speech? Or is he going to, well he never stopped campaigning, but is he going to worry that he is in the middle of a re-election campaign and worry about angering supporters of either side?

Rep. Roskam: I think the President has an opportunity to be bold and to be clear. Bold clarity on good policy is also good politics. It is my hope that he does that and does it for the right reasons.

———————————

Based on our discussion, I believe that the House Republican leadership as represented by Congressman Roskam does “get it.” He understands the strategic value of a strong democratic state of Israel in what is probably the most dangerous region of the world for United States interests–especially as Iran continues to pick up power and allies from those counties going through the “Arab Awakening.”

While the Congressman seemed hopeful that the President would do the right thing in his speech tomorrow, my ingression was that he was more hopeful than confident. Unfortunately, I agree.

In an interview with the  MAAN News Agency (an independent Palestinian news service) Hamas party leader Mahmoud Az-Zahhar said that the party was willing to recognize a Palestinian State in some or all of “Palestine” but would never recognize Israel.

If only Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are considered citizens of a Palestinian state, he continued, “what will be the fate of the five million Palestinians in the diaspora?”

At the same time, the Hamas leader confirmed the decision reached with Fatah to maintain the truce with Israel, calling the move “part of the resistance, not a cancellation,” and noting that “truce is not peace.”

Az-Zahhar isn’t saying anything new or radical, the concept of hudna has been used often by Palestinian forces.  As reported by Middle East expert Daniel Pipes.

On May 10, 1994, Yasir Arafat gave what he thought was an off-the-record talk at a mosque while visiting Johannesburg, South Africa. But a South African journalist, Bruce Whitfield of 702 Talk Radio, found a way secretly to record his (English-language) remarks. The moment was an optimistic one for the Arab-Israeli peace process, Arafat having just six days earlier returned triumphantly to Gaza; it was widely thought that the conflict was winding down. In this context, Arafat’s bellicose talk in Johannesburg about a “jihad to liberate Jerusalem,” had a major impact on Israelis, beginning a process of disillusionment that has hardly abated in the intervening years.

No less damaging than his comments about Jerusalem was Arafat’s cryptic allusion about his agreement with Israel. Criticized by Arabs and Muslims for having made concessions to Israel, he defended his actions by comparing them to those of the Prophet Muhammad in a similar circumstance:

I see this agreement as being no more than the agreement signed between our Prophet Muhammad and the Quraysh in Mecca.Arafat further drew out the comparison, noting that although Muhammad had been criticized for this diplomacy by one of his leading companions (and a future caliph), ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, the prophet had been right to insist on the agreement, for it helped him defeat the Quraysh and take over their city of Mecca. In a similar spirit,

we now accept the peace agreement, but [only in order] to continue on the road to Jerusalem.¹In the five years since he first alluded to Muhammad and the Quraysh, Arafat has frequently mentioned this as a model for his own diplomacy.

Hamas also has used the hudna concept.

According to Shoshanah Haberman from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Hamas has declared or offered no fewer than 10 hudnas since 1993. In the cases in which hudnas were established, Hamas broke all of them. Most recently, Hamas tore apart its hudna with Fatah last summer, when it took over the Gaza Strip in a violent coup that led to the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians.

Hamas’ logic for a hudna is pretty simple: Use the hudna as an opportunity to regroup, then break it when the group feels strong enough to launch an offensive.

In Mein Kampf, Hitler told the world what he intended to do with the Jews, the response of the world was “its just words, nobody could be that sick.” They were wrong.  Hamas and and Fatah both, have told the world what they intend to do with the Jews.  The world is saying “Ah, that is just rhetoric and positioning.”  Just as the collective world did in the 1930′s, today the world is blind to the promised threats of the Palestinians as their heads are firmly entrenched in the sand.

In the next few weeks look for increased pressure from the EU and the United States on Israel to negotiate with the newly combined Hamas/Fatah Palestinian Authority. Israel should resist with all of its might, remembering the famous words written by Ze’ev Jabotinsky in The Iron Wall November 4, 1923

It is incredible what political simpletons Jews are. They shut their eyes to one of the most elementary rules of life, that you must not “meet halfway” those who do not want to meet you.

Now the Arab League is calling for that “Obama Doctrine” to be used over Gaza to prevent Israel from protecting herself against the month-long escalation of Hamas attacks against Israeli communities.

Beginning in Mid March, Hamas began an accelerated wave of terrorism against Israel. In the twenty-two days beginning with  March 18th and ending April 8, Hamas fired 35 rockets and 145 mortars into civilian Negev communities.  That’s an average of eight projectiles a day aimed toward Israeli civilians.  That doesn’t even count Thursday’s horrific attack where Hamas terrorists fired a guided anti-tank missile  into a  clearly marked yellow school bus critically injuring a 16-year-old boy.

Two days after the attack the al-Qassam Brigades of Hamas held a press conference where they now claim that the school bus they destroyed with an anti-tank missile was a military target:

At a news conference Saturday afternoon in Gaza, [Hamas spokesman] Abu Obeida denied allegations by the occupation that the bus targeted by al-Qassam Brigades near the so-called Kfar Saad, east of Gaza, was civilian. He confirmed that it is a bus shuttling between military sites and traveling on the military road that is a security belt for the movement of tanks, which fired missiles against our people.

Israel struck back to defend herself, attack helicopters and IDF tanks struck back at a number of targets throughout the Gaza Strip. In total, the IDF reports that 19 Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists have been killed in air strikes and ground attacks another 47 terrorists have been wounded, and there are two known deaths of civilians since the counter-attacks began on Thursday evening.

That didn’t deter the terrorists, another 12o projectiles were fired from Gaza by Hamas over the weekend, they even desecrated a cemetery by using it to hide rocket launchers.

The Arab League, which according to the President is an organization looking for a peaceful two-state negotiated solution between Israel and the Arab Palestinians decided to take action against this renewed violence.  No, they didn’t try to reign in the terrorists, demanding that their fellow Arabs stop attacking Israeli civilians, instead they called for implementation of the “Obama Doctrine.” As reported by China’s Xinhua News Agency

In a statement issued after an emergency meeting of the pan- Arab organization at the permanent delegates’ level in its Cairo headquarter, the AL said it would ask the United Nations Security Council to convene an emergency meeting to discuss the Israeli aggression over Gaza to lift the siege and impose a no-fly zone against the Israeli military to protect civilians.

The statement rejected the double standard policies towards the Palestinian case, urging the UN Security Council and the Quartet committee to bear all responsibilities for halting the subsequent massacres and provide an international protection for the unarmed citizens.

Will Barack Obama agree to no fly zone over Gaza? No, not with a military already stretched way too thin and an election just a year and a half away. The real question is will Obama allow this call for action over Gaza back him into a corner where he agrees to a resolution condemning Israel for defending herself against 300+ rocket/mortar attacks in a little over three weeks. Judging by the fact that Obama has already shown that he will attack Israel to cozy up with the Arab League,  a Security Council condemnation of Israel is possible.

Be warned though, in a second term where he no longer had to face an electorate, President Obama may have no problem with a no fly zone over Gaza or worse. Don’t forget, the “Obama Doctrine” is the work of adviser Samantha Power who once called for an invasion of Israel to force a peace plan down the throat of the Jewish state.

Last month, at least eight Muslim Palestinian female journalists were physically beaten with clubs, iron chairs, and fists, stabbed, and tortured with electric shocks by male Hamas security forces in the Gaza strip.  Their cell phones, laptops, documents, and cameras were confiscated. They were also arrested. Some were forced to sign a document “pledging to refrain from covering such events again.”

The “events” were a series of pro-unity rallies organized by Palestinian youth on Facebook (!) which demanded an end to the dispute between Islamist Hamas and a presumably more moderate Fatah.

So much for the Arab “spring,” and the purposefully misguided Western (and these heroically naïve youthful demonstrators’) belief that the increasingly well organized Islamist Middle East will really rise up on behalf of human rights and women’s rights—without which there can be no democracy.

But this is not my main point.

The mainstream media did not cover this male-on-female atrocity in Gaza. In the English-speaking world, only a handful of journalists, including two Israelis, one writing in the Jerusalem Post, one writing at Big Peace, covered it. A few smaller newspapers in America and an English-language Egyptian paper did so as well.

To be fair, Reuters had an article which featured their own agency in Gaza having being attacked by “armed men.” Later on, we learn that these “armed men” were Hamas officials. And near the end of the piece, we also learn that Hamas also beat “photographers and camera men.” They do not mention female journalists, nor do they give us their names.

Slate also had an article about how Fatah is undermining Islamism on the West Bank. Parenthetically, later on, they mention that Hamas raided the offices of Reuters and destroyed equipment. They do not mention the attack on the Palestinian women journalists.

It did not happen, it is not important. The mainstream media does not really care about what happens to Arabs, Muslims, or Palestinians—not even when they are fellow or sister journalists, women, and feminists. The media only cares when and if Israelis are allegedly the perpetrators, the murderers, the checkpoint “humiliators.” Even when Israelis kill an armed Iranian-backed Palestinian member of Hamas in self-defense, even when Israelis accidentally, with no malice aforethought, kill a British journalist or an American “activist,” the Israelis are not only blamed—films, plays, and documentaries are made about the “martyred” American Rachel Corrie or the “martyred” British filmmaker James Miller or British “anti-war” activist Tom Hurndall. Countless demonstrations have been held. In Miller’s case the British government insisted on an investigation, and his family brought a civil lawsuit against an Israeli soldier.

The media was all over this even though an investigation strongly suggested that James Miller was killed by Palestinians “from the direction of the populated Rafah.” Although people know that Palestinians routinely hide behind civilian hostages, deliberately target Israeli civilians, especially children, create their own “martyrs” (the Muhammad al-Dura case as well as the Rachel Corrie case immediately come to mind)—nevertheless, the media refuses to hold Palestinians accountable and refuses to believe that the Israelis are innocent. The media knows full well that they will be killed or not allowed to “report” in Palestinian areas if they publish anything negative, anything true. By now, this habit is ingrained.

One of the recently beaten, tortured, and arrested Palestinian female journalists, Asma Al-Ghoul, is someone whom I first interviewed in 2009. Al-Ghoul is a secular feminist and a journalist who has written brave articles about honor killings on the West Bank and in Gaza. She asked me to edit and publish some of her work and I proudly did so. Al-Ghoul has been harassed and arrested by Hamas before. Why? Ostensibly because she dared to laugh, wear jeans on the beach, and entered the sea, fully clothed, to swim. These were her crimes—plus the fact that she was a single woman (divorced, actually), out in public, not wearing hijab, and relaxing on the beach with—unbelievably—male friends.

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is in Israel right now, which for some reason is perplexing to some in the chattering class back home. Taking the most cynical approach, Newsweek Jerusalem bureau chief Dan Ephron takes to the Daily Beast to explore what Palin might stand to gain politically from the visit:

For the former Alaska governor, the trip offers a chance to distinguish herself as more pro-Israel than other American politicians and, perhaps, to make amends for her “blood libel” gaffe in January that angered many Jews. Palin has already pointed out that President Obama has yet to visit Israel during more than two years in office. At a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, she was expected to distance herself from the position of some fellow Tea Partiers—chiefly Congressman Rand Paul—in favor of cutting aid to Israel.

Leftists and left-wing groups which claim to speak for Jews complained about the “blood libel” nonsense at the time, but a.) that doesn’t necessarily translate to “many Jews,” and b.) I doubt Palin took that line of attack too seriously, considering the frequency with which both sides have used the term in the past. Attempting to compare favorably to Obama’s inattentiveness (and worse) to Israel is more likely, as is the idea that she’s distancing herself from Paul’s stances on that front, especially considering that she supported him.

After pointing out that left-wing tendencies among American Jews make Palin’s trip unlikely to win over many Jewish voters, Ephron suggests that Palin is really targeting a different constituency:

The evangelical community in America numbers tens of millions and votes overwhelmingly Republican. One of its arms, a John Hagee group called Christians United for Israel (also known by its acronym CUFI), now claims to be the biggest pro-Israel organization in America, larger even than AIPAC.

Ephron also speculates that Palin may be attempting to “burnish her famously weak foreign policy credentials,” or to attract donations from wealthy Jewish conservatives. None of this can be discounted, of course—all politicians are self-interested actors to some degree, of course. But allow me to suggest that a less cynical alternative.

Palin has reportedly told her guides that Israel tends to be too apologetic in the face of international criticism, and will dine tonight with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Supporters have previously noted that signs of her pro-Israel sentiments, such as a small Israeli flag in her gubernatorial office, predate her entry into national politics.

It may be that the primary message of Palin’s trip isn’t for anyone in this country at all, and that its goal is something more than political gain—that she wants to reassure the people of Israel that, in a world which has largely abandoned their nation to the wolves, there remain Americans who still value the friendship between our nations and understand that we must stand together against our common foe. That may not change “her 2012 game,” but doing the right thing does do wonders for the conscience.

The most significant outcome of the Mavi Marmara incident is that there can no longer be any doubt that Turkey has joined the anti-Western bloc that includes Hamas, Iran and Syria. The Muslim country was once devotedly secular, an ally of Israel, and remains a member of NATO, but under the direction of Prime Minister Erdogan and the Justice and Development Party (often referred to as the AKP), Turkey has gone in the completely opposite direction with enormous strategic consequences.

“Unfortunately, the AKP government of Mr. Erdogan and the oil-rich regime of Qatar joined the regional bloc opposing the more traditional governments of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Morocco,” Dr. Walid Phares told FrontPage.

Erdogan’s turn to the other side is not the result of a single incident such as Operation Cast Lead or the Israeli raid on the flotilla, but is the culmination of an agenda long held by Erdogan and the AKP.

“In fact, it is not secular Turkey that we see moving against the U.S., West, Israel and Arab moderates. It is the AKP Islamist cabinet which is uncovering its long-term ideological agenda. The West should have projected this since 2002,” Dr. Phares said, referring to the year in which Erdogan’s party won a majority in the Turkish parliament.

Erdogan was imprisoned in 1998 for his involvement with the banned Welfare Party, which the Turkish government considered Islamist. Soner Cagaptay of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy describes the Welfare Party as the “motherboard of Turkish Islamists since the 1980s,” saying it was inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood. Erdogan was specifically punished for reading a poem at one speech with the lines, “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets, and the faithful our soldiers.”

In 2001, he founded the AKP, which took a more moderate line, portraying itself as committed to separation of mosque and state but “faithful governance,” as Dr. Essam El-Erian, the chief of the Muslim Brotherhood’s political bureau, described the AKP’s “moderate Islamist” ideology. There was no anti-Western rhetoric and the party strongly supported membership in the European Union. The group won a large victory in the 2002 elections, resulting in Erdogan taking the post of Prime Minister.

Dr. El-Erian praised Erdogan’s victory, saying that it was the result of the “exposing of the failure of the secular trend.” El-Erian confirmed that the Muslim Brotherhood had close ties to the AKP, but the West treated Turkey as if nothing had changed. It wasn’t until Turkey steadfastly refused to allow U.S. soldiers to transit their territory to overthrow Saddam Hussein that the West began questioning the allegiance of Erdogan’s government.

The Erdogan government soon began a concerted effort to fuel anti-Israeli and anti-American sentiment, knowing that such feelings help the AKP politically and hurt its opponents in the secular military that have long ties to the West. The Turkish media consistently reported alleged U.S. atrocities, fanning the already massive anti-war sentiment. The outrageous claims can only be compared to the anti-Israeli propaganda seen in the Arab world and Iran, echoing similar themes such as the use of chemical weapons against civilians and the harvesting of organs from killed Iraqis.

The AKP won an even larger share of the vote in the July 2007 election and had even more dominance over the government. Since then, the ideology of Erdogan has become more apparent as Turkish opinion has become less hostile to anti-Western Islamism.  Shortly after the victory, Turkey’s moves towards Iran and other enemies of the West became more visible and aggressive.

Turkey began entertaining the prospect of Iran’s natural gas being delivered to European markets through its territory, and the two countries launched joint military attacks against Kurdish militants in northern Iraq. The Party of Free Life for Kurdistan, or PJAK, claimed it actually saw Turkish officers working alongside the Iranian military. Newsmax.com reported that eight Turkish officers were in Iran coordinating the attacks with the Revolutionary Guards.

In the spring of 2009, Moqtada al-Sadr, the Iranian-backed militia leader whose followers killed dozens of American soldiers in Iraq, met with Erdogan and Turkish President Abdullah Gul for “political consultations.” Most recently, Turkey has opposed sanctions on Iran and helped put together a deal with Brazil meant to delay any United Nations measures despite Iran’s lack of cooperation on the nuclear issue.

Erdogan’s government simultaneously became more anti-Israeli, particularly once the Israeli military offensive into Gaza began in response to the rocket attacks of Hamas. Erdogan went so far as to predict that Israel’s actions “would bring it to self-destruction,” saying “Allah will sooner or later punish those who transgress the rights of innocents.” He accused Jewish-controlled media outlets of “finding unfounded excuses to justify targeting of schools, mosques and hospitals.”

On January 29, 2009, Erdogan publicly confronted Israeli President Peres at the World Economic Forum over the Israeli offensive. When he was denied extra time to continue his criticism of Israel, he stormed out. Erdogan was a hero overnight in the Muslim world.

Soon after, an exhibit opened in a major state-controlled metro in Istanbul that included many viciously anti-Israeli and anti-American cartoons, portraying Israeli soldiers as massacring innocent people with American weapons. The AKP won the March 29 local elections, further cementing their hold and convincing Erdogan that he was politically safe to follow the agenda he held from the beginning. Later that year, Israel had to confront Turkey over anti-Israeli propaganda on prime-time state-controlled television.

In October, Turkey refused to allow Israel to participate in annual military exercises also involving Italy and the U.S. Instead, Turkey and Syria announced that they would hold their own joint exercises. The Turkish-Syrian alliance began shortly after Erdogan came to power, with Syrian President Bashar Assad visiting Turkey and a free trade agreement being signed.

Turkey has also moved closer to Sudan, refusing to describe the situation in Darfur as a genocide. Erdogan’s government also opposes the International Criminal Court’s indictment of President Omar al-Bashir for human rights violations. His defense of Bashir is that “no Muslim could perpetrate a genocide.”

Now, Turkey is taking center stage in the wake of the Mavi Marmara incident. Turkey is openly considering cutting off all diplomatic ties with Israel and is saying that its warships will escort future convoys to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. There are reports that Erdogan himself may actually join a convoy. Erdogan now openly says, “I do not think that Hamas is a terrorist organization…They are Palestinians in resistance, fighting for their own land.”

He was among the first to accept Hamas after it was elected in Gaza, and he is calling their rule a “democracy” based on elections alone. Democracy is much more than elections, but Erdogan, like the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists, want to equate democracy with elections so as to give themselves legitimacy as they move against the other pillars of democracy. Professor Barry Rubin says that as the AKP won election victories, the Erdogan government “repressed opposition and arrested hundreds of critics, bought up 40 percent of the media, and installed its people in the bureaucracy.”

Today, the government has begun the country’s “largest-ever crackdown” on the military, prosecuting 33 current and former military officers for allegedly planning a coup to overthrow the AKP government in 2003 including the former head of the special forces. Those arrested have been accused of planning to carry out acts of terrorism including the bombing of mosques, which they deny. Given the military’s pride in acting as the guardian of Turkey’s secularism, it isn’t surprising that elements of the military would desire to see the AKP overthrown. However, this could be an Islamist attempt to weaken the military and paint them as dangerous and anti-Muslim.

Erdogan’s defense of the vessel owned by the IHH, a Turkish Islamist group tied to Hamas and other terrorist activity, is particularly insightful. Any true opponent of terrorism and radical Islamism would ban the group or at least officially investigate them. In 1997, the Turkish authorities raided the IHH’s office in Istanbul and made numerous arrests. IHH operatives were found with weapons-related materials and the French counterterrorism magistrate said that they were planning on supporting jihadists in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya.

“The essential goal of this Association was to illegally arm its membership for overthrowing democratic, secular, and constitutional order present in Turkey and replacing it with an Islamic state founded on the Shariah,” the French magistrate’s report said.

If the goal of the IHH is to establish Sharia Law in Turkey, and Erdogan’s government is describing them as a “charity,” what does that say about Erdogan’s plans? The Washington Post has raised alarm over this connection, noting the IHH leadership’s praise for Erdogan.

The West’s loss of Turkey has frightening strategic consequences. They are so frightening that the West refused to acknowledge the trend until it became undeniable in recent weeks. Professor Juan Cole, who already was a strident critic of Israel, bluntly states, “Strategically, if the U.S. had to choose between Turkey and Israel, it would have to choose Turkey.” The pressure on the U.S. to restrain Israel so as to court the stronger bloc has now become greater than ever.

The situation is even more precarious for other countries in the region previously bonding together to oppose Iran. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and other countries in the Middle East and North Africa that are hostile to Iran’s ambitions now face an even more threatening bloc that has been enlarged by the defection of Turkey. The temptation for them to surrender the mantle of leadership to the Iranian-Syrian-Turkish bloc in order to save themselves will now reach unprecedented levels, regardless of whether Iran obtains nuclear weapons or not.

To make matters worse, Erdogan’s prestige as the preeminent challenger of Israel will lead to competition with Iran, sparking an escalation where each side tries to establish superior anti-Israeli and anti-Western credentials. Israel is now in its most isolated and dangerous situation since its birth in 1948.

Does Israel’s blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and its enforcement of the blockade comply with international law? The evidence suggests that the answer is an overwhelming yes:

The 1909 Declaration Concerning the Laws of Naval War (the London Declaration), the first international instrument to acknowledge the legality of blockades, specifically recognized the right of nations to blockade their enemy.

So does the San Remo Manual, which is a compilation by international law experts of agreed upon international law on blockades and related subjects. The blockade must be declared against a belligerent, and notified to all belligerents and neutral states (Article 93). The declaration must specify the commencement, duration, location, and extent of the blockade and the period within which vessels of neutral States may leave the blockaded coastline (Article 94). The blockade may be enforced and maintained by a combination of legitimate methods and means of warfare provided this combination does not result in acts inconsistent with the rules set out in the San Remo Manual (Article 97).

A blockade is prohibited, according to the San Remo Manual, if (a) it has the sole purpose of starving the civilian population or denying it other objects essential for its survival; or (b) the damage to the civilian population is, or may be expected to be, excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated from the blockade (Article 102).

Hamas is the self-declared enemy of Israel, sworn to its destruction, as set forth in Hamas’ Charter. Hamas has backed up its belligerency toward the Jewish state by suicide bombings and thousands of rocket attacks launched from Gaza against civilians in Israel. Hamas’s armed terrorist militia is funded, trained and armed by Israel’s enemy countries, including most notably Iran which has managed to smuggle some arms to Hamas via land routes, and has attempted to do so by sea.  If Iran were as successful in arming Hamas with sophisticated rockets and other weaponry as it has been in arming Hezbollah on Israel’s northern border, Israel would face an imminent existential threat on both its northern and southern borders.  Thus, the predicate for a blockade – a state of belligerency with the blockaded belligerent – is clearly established.

When Israel withdrew unilaterally from Gaza in 2005, it had made arrangements with the Palestinian Authority for freedom of movement across the Israeli-Gaza border on the understanding that the Palestinian Authority would implement certain specified security arrangements. Those arrangements were never implemented. Nevertheless, even after  Hamas’ victory in parliamentary elections and its stated refusal to abide by any agreements reached between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Israel did not immediately institute a blockade.  Only after Hamas kidnapped an Israeli soldier from the Israeli side of the border, took forcible control of Gaza from the Palestinian Authority and began launching rockets from Gaza into southern Israel did Israel restrict the flow of most goods entering into and leaving Gaza.

Hamas’ supporters, including the Free Gaza Movement which helped organize the flotilla in which the fatalities occurred after Israeli commandos met armed resistance when they boarded one of the ships, argue that the blockade is nevertheless illegal under international law. Under Article 102 of the San Remo Manual (quoted above), they argue, the blockade is illegal because Israel’s purpose is to starve the Gazan population and deprive them of other necessities for survival, and the damage to Gaza’s civilian population is disproportionately excessive in relation to any legitimate military need.

However, this argument ignores two basic facts (not “biased opinions” as some might allege):

First, food and medical supplies have been permitted continuously into Gaza during the blockade, including even during Operation Cast Lead, showing that Israel’s purpose was certainly not to starve the Gazan civilian population or to deny them other necessities for their survival. Since the end of Operation Cast Lead, the amount and variety of supplies permitted into Gaza have increased, despite the fact that there is still no agreement on effective security arrangements in accordance with Israel’s understanding with the Palestinian Authority and that Israeli’s kidnapped soldier is still in Hamas custody without access by the International Red Cross.

Second, Israel tried to work out a compromise with the flotilla organizers which would permit its humanitarian cargo to be delivered to the Gazan civilian population. Israel proposed on several occasions that once it had the opportunity to inspect the ships for arms and supplies that could be used for military purposes and to remove them, all other cargo on the ships would be delivered to the civilians in Gaza through international agencies.  Israel’s offer was an attempt to balance its military security requirements with mitigation of damage to Gaza’s civilian population by allowing the bulk of the cargo to reach them through reliable means. Both Hamas and the Free Gaza Movement leaders rejected the offer.

Aside from the fact that Muslim Brotherhood members and other Islamic jihadists were participating in the flotilla – raising questions about the true humanitarian nature of the mission – the organizers of the flotilla admitted that their main purpose was to break the blockade: “This mission is not about delivering humanitarian supplies, it’s about breaking Israel’s siege on 1.5 million Palestinians.”

The Free Gaza blockade runners’ willingness to deny the Gaza civilian population the humanitarian aid they claimed to be carrying if they could not succeed in breaking the blockade shows that Hamas’ supporters – not Israel – were the ones willing to put Hamas’ military objective of breaking the blockade over the needs of Gaza’s civilian population.

Israel’s enforcement of the blockade, including its boarding of the ships in the flotilla which refused inspection at an Israeli port, was fully in compliance with the following provisions of the San Remo Manual:

98. Merchant vessels (defined as a vessel, other than a warship, an auxiliary vessel, or a State vessel such as a customs or police vessel, that is engaged in commercial or private service) believed on reasonable grounds to be breaching a blockade may be captured. Merchant vessels which, after prior warning, clearly resist capture may be attacked.

103. If the civilian population of the blockaded territory is inadequately provided with food and other objects essential for its survival, the blockading party must provide for free passage of such foodstuffs and other essential supplies, subject to:

(a) the right to prescribe the technical arrangements, including search, under which such passage is permitted;

and

(b) the condition that the distribution of such supplies shall be made under the local supervision of a Protecting Power or a humanitarian organization which offers guarantees of impartiality, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross.

104. The blockading belligerent shall allow the passage of medical supplies for the civilian population or for the wounded and sick members of armed forces, subject to the right to prescribe technical arrangements, including search, under which such passage is permitted.

The ships on which there was no violent resistance to an inspection encountered non-violence from the Israeli side.  But on the one ship carrying Turkish activists, who had declared their jihadist intentions, Israeli soldiers descended with only paintballs in hand (pistols not drawn) and encountered violent resistance.  They had the right to protect themselves and their colleagues with lethal force once they were attacked by packs of assailants using knives, metal rods, clubs, etc. who had also begun to take the soldiers’ pistols away from them.

Hamas’ supporters turn a blind eye to the terrorist group’s violence against innocent Israeli civilians and to its crimes against its own people.  Here is an excerpt from a speech delivered by Hamas MP Fathi Hammad, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on February 29, 2008:

Fathi Hammad: [The enemies of Allah] do not know that the Palestinian people has  developed its [methods] of death and death-seeking. For the Palestinian people, death has  become an industry, at which women excel, and so do all the people living on this land.  The elderly excel at this, and so do the mujahideen and the children. This is why they  have formed human shields of the women, the children, the elderly, and the mujahideen,  in order to challenge the Zionist bombing machine. It is as if they were saying to the  Zionist enemy: “We desire death like you desire life.” (Emphasis added)

There can be no real peace so long as the Hamas terrorists and their state sponsors such as Iran want more innocent Jews to die for death’s sake and will settle for nothing short of Israel’s extermination, even at the expense of innocent Palestinian civilians. The Free Gaza Movement and their supporters should spend their time seeking to free Gaza from the grip of Hamas, not trying to end Israel’s lawful blockade.

I Support Justice, Not Jihad
By Mustafa Akyol

Recently Robert Spencer argued on Frontpage that I, once a "moderate Muslim," have joined the jihad against "infidels" and especially the state of Israel.

Well, not really. If I ever join an armed struggle one day, I will tell you. What I actually did was to condemn a particular action of the Israeli government: their bloody raid on the Free Gaza flotilla, an international group of NGOs that tried to bring in humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, defying Israel's blockade.

The incident has become a global issue, as nine Turkish activists on the flotilla were killed by Israeli commandos. The two sides, as you can expect, have their own versions of the events. Mr. Spencer seems to accept and defend the Israeli narrative, and that is just fine. I, for my part, don't accept the Israeli narrative, and hope that a "credible, independent international investigation," as a recent New York Times editorial suggested, will show us what really happened.

Meanwhile, I don't think that the fact that some of the activists on board were "Hamas sympathizers" justifies Israel's attack. In Turkey we have a few million "PKK sympathizers," and although I regard the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) as a terrorist organization, I don't regard those people as terrorists and thus legitimate targets. I understand that they just see the world quite differently.

I also don't accept that Israel has a right to put a blockade on the Gaza Strip -- a collective punishment on 1.5 million people -- for the terrorist actions of the radicals in that destitute part of the world. I actually think that the radicalism on the Palestinian side is only exacerbated by such brutal and humiliating policies of Israel, which include the occupation of Palestinian lands since 1967 and the building of illegal settlements on them. The latter recently infuriated even Joe Biden, who does not shy away from describing himself as "a Zionist."

I, on the other hand, am not a Zionist, but I certainly accept Israel's right to exist, in its internationally acknowledged pre-1967 borders. I also strongly support a two-state solution which will, hopefully, give peace and security to both the Jewish and the Palestinian peoples.

The bottom line, I guess, is that I am not "pro-Israel," as I believe Mr. Spencer is. I am rather trying to be pro-justice, and equally respect the rights of the both sides of the Middle Eastern conflict.

As for being a "moderate Muslim," I never recall calling myself as such. The only political-sounding term I prefer to use is "liberal," in the classical sense of the word. In other words, I do define myself as a "liberal Muslim," for I uphold individual liberty, and criticize some elements within the Islamic tradition that contradict this value -- things such as the ban on apostasy, the bans on "sinful" things, or the enforcement of certain religious practices.

I probably am "moderate," too, for I always prefer dialogue to confrontation and diplomacy to armed conflict. But if being a "moderate Muslim" means being uncritical of Israel, or any other government, in order to enjoy flattery by them and their supporters, then let me kindly return the badge.

Spencer responds:

Mustafa Akyol, oddly enough, seems in his note to equate “jihad” with “armed struggle,” and to ignore the jihad of the tongue, the jihad of the hand, the jihad of the heart, and the jihad against the lower self, all of which are abundantly represented in Islamic tradition. But for the record, I do not believe and did not intend to imply that Mustafa Akyol was going to blow himself up in a crowded restaurant in Tel Aviv, or hide explosives in his underwear and attempt to set them off on an airplane, or drive a bomb-rigged car into Times Square, or shoot soldiers on a U.S. Army base. I do not believe that he is ever going to take up arms in order to further the hegemony of Islamic law over the world — but that doesn’t mean that in endorsing the Jihad Flotilla, and accepting the Islamic supremacist Turkish government’s fantastic version of events, that he is not siding with the jihad against Israel, and hence with the larger global jihad of which the jihad against Israel is just one of many fronts, albeit the foremost.

For the dispute between Israel and the Palestinians is indeed a jihad — if it weren’t, Mr. Akyol would have had his two-state solution in 1948, when the Arabs rejected a Palestinian state and went to war with Israel instead, motivated by the jihadist intransigence that demands all the land of Israel as an Islamic waqf. That line of thinking is also why the Camp David Accords, the Oslo Accords, the Road Map, and all other attempts to “solve” the Israeli/Palestinian conflict have failed, and why all future such initiatives will fail unless they involve the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state and its incorporation into an Islamic Sharia state. That is the stated goal of the Hamas movement that runs the Gaza strip that was to be the recipient of this “humanitarian aid.”

The “radicals,” as Mr. Akyol calls Hamas and its ideological kin, are supported by the overwhelming majority of Gazans, who voted them into power by a large margin. The society they envision is not in any sense “pro-justice” except in the eyes of Sharia supporters and sympathizers, and given that Mr. Akyol acknowledges that “some of the activists on board were ‘Hamas sympathizers,’” it reflects poorly on the moral sense of the other “activists” that they made the trip at all in the company of such people.

Meanwhile, Mr. Akyol conveniently ignores the fact that what he characterizes as the “Israeli narrative,” to which he generously grants me permission to subscribe, is abundantly established by video footage showing that the “activists” attacked the Israeli soldiers first, and by the photographs showing that the weapons they used were anything but the harmless “kitchen utensils” he earlier characterized them as being. But it has already been abundantly established that the world will not accept Israeli evidence no matter how compelling, while swallowing Palestinian propaganda (which they are very skillful in packaging for the mainstream media) with eager credulity.

So I do not, by any means, expect Mr. Akyol to break ranks with the dominant mainstream, the overall objectives of which he accepts anyway. I do wonder, however, what would happen to this self-professed “liberal Muslim” if he himself were to visit Gaza and proclaim publicly his opposition to the Islamic death penalty for apostasy. He might in that event not find too many of the oppressed, starving, but inexplicably obese (indeed, one of the most obese populations in the world) people of Gaza not quite as “pro-justice” as he might have hoped.

[Editor's note: In our June 3rd issue of Frontpagemag.com, we ran a piece by Robert Spencer: Another Moderate Muslim Joins the Jihad: Mustafa Akyol.  Below is a rejoinder by Mustafa Akyol, followed by a response from Spencer.]

I Support Justice, Not Jihad
By Mustafa Akyol

Recently Robert Spencer argued on Frontpage that I, once a “moderate Muslim,” have joined the jihad against “infidels” and especially the state of Israel.

Well, not really. If I ever join an armed struggle one day, I will tell you. What I actually did was to condemn a particular action of the Israeli government: their bloody raid on the Free Gaza flotilla, an international group of NGOs that tried to bring in humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, defying Israel’s blockade.

The incident has become a global issue, as nine Turkish activists on the flotilla were killed by Israeli commandos. The two sides, as you can expect, have their own versions of the events. Mr. Spencer seems to accept and defend the Israeli narrative, and that is just fine. I, for my part, don’t accept the Israeli narrative, and hope that a “credible, independent international investigation,” as a recent New York Times editorial suggested, will show us what really happened.

Meanwhile, I don’t think that the fact that some of the activists on board were “Hamas sympathizers” justifies Israel’s attack. In Turkey we have a few million “PKK sympathizers,” and although I regard the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) as a terrorist organization, I don’t regard those people as terrorists and thus legitimate targets. I understand that they just see the world quite differently.

I also don’t accept that Israel has a right to put a blockade on the Gaza Strip — a collective punishment on 1.5 million people — for the terrorist actions of the radicals in that destitute part of the world. I actually think that the radicalism on the Palestinian side is only exacerbated by such brutal and humiliating policies of Israel, which include the occupation of Palestinian lands since 1967 and the building of illegal settlements on them. The latter recently infuriated even Joe Biden, who does not shy away from describing himself as “a Zionist.”

I, on the other hand, am not a Zionist, but I certainly accept Israel’s right to exist, in its internationally acknowledged pre-1967 borders. I also strongly support a two-state solution which will, hopefully, give peace and security to both the Jewish and the Palestinian peoples.

The bottom line, I guess, is that I am not “pro-Israel,” as I believe Mr. Spencer is. I am rather trying to be pro-justice, and equally respect the rights of the both sides of the Middle Eastern conflict.

As for being a “moderate Muslim,” I never recall calling myself as such. The only political-sounding term I prefer to use is “liberal,” in the classical sense of the word. In other words, I do define myself as a “liberal Muslim,” for I uphold individual liberty, and criticize some elements within the Islamic tradition that contradict this value — things such as the ban on apostasy, the bans on “sinful” things, or the enforcement of certain religious practices.

I probably am “moderate,” too, for I always prefer dialogue to confrontation and diplomacy to armed conflict. But if being a “moderate Muslim” means being uncritical of Israel, or any other government, in order to enjoy flattery by them and their supporters, then let me kindly return the badge.

Spencer responds:

Mustafa Akyol, oddly enough, seems in his note to equate “jihad” with “armed struggle,” and to ignore the jihad of the tongue, the jihad of the hand, the jihad of the heart, and the jihad against the lower self, all of which are abundantly represented in Islamic tradition. But for the record, I do not believe and did not intend to imply that Mustafa Akyol was going to blow himself up in a crowded restaurant in Tel Aviv, or hide explosives in his underwear and attempt to set them off on an airplane, or drive a bomb-rigged car into Times Square, or shoot soldiers on a U.S. Army base. I do not believe that he is ever going to take up arms in order to further the hegemony of Islamic law over the world — but that doesn’t mean that in endorsing the Jihad Flotilla, and accepting the Islamic supremacist Turkish government’s fantastic version of events, that he is not siding with the jihad against Israel, and hence with the larger global jihad of which the jihad against Israel is just one of many fronts, albeit the foremost.

For the dispute between Israel and the Palestinians is indeed a jihad — if it weren’t, Mr. Akyol would have had his two-state solution in 1948, when the Arabs rejected a Palestinian state and went to war with Israel instead, motivated by the jihadist intransigence that demands all the land of Israel as an Islamic waqf. That line of thinking is also why the Camp David Accords, the Oslo Accords, the Road Map, and all other attempts to “solve” the Israeli/Palestinian conflict have failed, and why all future such initiatives will fail unless they involve the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state and its incorporation into an Islamic Sharia state. That is the stated goal of the Hamas movement that runs the Gaza strip that was to be the recipient of this “humanitarian aid.”

The “radicals,” as Mr. Akyol calls Hamas and its ideological kin, are supported by the overwhelming majority of Gazans, who voted them into power by a large margin. The society they envision is not in any sense “pro-justice” except in the eyes of Sharia supporters and sympathizers, and given that Mr. Akyol acknowledges that “some of the activists on board were ‘Hamas sympathizers,’” it reflects poorly on the moral sense of the other “activists” that they made the trip at all in the company of such people.

Meanwhile, Mr. Akyol conveniently ignores the fact that what he characterizes as the “Israeli narrative,” to which he generously grants me permission to subscribe, is abundantly established by video footage showing that the “activists” attacked the Israeli soldiers first, and by the photographs showing that the weapons they used were anything but the harmless “kitchen utensils” he earlier characterized them as being. But it has already been abundantly established that the world will not accept Israeli evidence no matter how compelling, while swallowing Palestinian propaganda (which they are very skillful in packaging for the mainstream media) with eager credulity.

So I do not, by any means, expect Mr. Akyol to break ranks with the dominant mainstream, the overall objectives of which he accepts anyway. I do wonder, however, what would happen to this self-professed “liberal Muslim” if he himself were to visit Gaza and proclaim publicly his opposition to the Islamic death penalty for apostasy. He might in that event not find too many of the oppressed, starving, but inexplicably obese (indeed, one of the most obese populations in the world) people of Gaza not quite as “pro-justice” as he might have hoped.

To understand the people of Gaza, who now lay claim to the passions of humanitarians-without-a-cause, one might begin by considering Gazans’ freely elected leadership: the Hamas terror network.  And to understand Hamas, one might begin by looking closely at the Hamas logo. The logo’s center features swords and a golden-domed structure, but the squiggle at the top-center of the logo is most descriptive. One squiggle is worth a thousand words. That squiggle is not an Arabic symbol but the map of Israel.

Look even more carefully: the squiggle – the map of Israel depicted on the Hamas logo – primarily is pre-1967 Israel.  It is Israel without the Gaza Strip.  Hamas has no designs on the Gaza Strip it controls.  Rather, leveraging Gaza as a springboard for its actual aspiration, Hamas illustratively has designs on the only Palestine it ever has coveted:  the Palestine that now is called “the State of Israel.”  As Jew-hating journalist Helen Thomas recently said about Israelis, “Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine. Remember, these [Arab] people are occupied, and it’s their land.”  The Jews, Thomas added, can go back where they come from – “Poland.  Germany. . . . And America and everywhere else.”  (Reflecting ignorance all too common among the White House press corps, Thomas is unaware that the majority of Israelis are children of the Middle East, descendants of the 850,000 Jews exiled by Northern African Arab dictatorships during the years Israel was being founded.)

The only “Palestine” that ever existed was always synonymous with the Jewish homeland that later was renamed “Israel” in 1948. Rent a copy of the 1960 movie “Exodus.”  Listen dispassionately to the dialogue. Don’t take sides.  Just listen for definitions. The British, fairly or unfairly, are depicted as the bad guys in the movie, trying to keep the Jews out of “Palestine.” Paul Newman is trying to get the Jews into “Palestine.” Everyone watching the movie perceives that “Palestine” is a name that refers synonymously with “Israel.” Thus, what we seem to have had here is a failure to communicate. It could not be simpler: For the past two thousand years, since the Romans renamed the land of Israel after they expelled and exiled the Jews, “Israel” always was synonymous with “Palestine,” and “Palestine” always was “Israel.”

There never ever was an Arab Palestine entity. Who, after all, ever was its leader? Try to name any leader who ever in history led a sovereign “Palestinian Arab” people of “Arab Palestine.” What year was that entity founded? What was the name of its capital city — any capital city? Where is the drawing or photograph of its seat of government, or the place where its governmental leader lived? What was the name of its currency? Whose face, what slogan was on that currency? When did it fall? In which Olympic Games did it compete? Which issue of Encyclopedia Britannica had an entry for its government?

Consider this way:  The American city of Palestine, Texas was founded in 1846.  It was so named in honor of an early settler there, Daniel Parker, who hailed from Palestine, Illinois.  That Palestine was chartered in 1811.  It drew its name in 1678 from the French explorer, Jean LaMotte, who looked at the land and named it “Palestine” because it reminded him of the Biblical Promised Land of the Jews, flowing with milk and honey.  No one associated “Palestine” with the Arab community, not even the French in the 1600s.  Rather, the name was associated with the Jews and their Biblical Promised Land. The same with Palestine, Arkansas (pop. 741) and East Palestine, Ohio.

Before the Jewish country was named “Israel” in 1948, even the most ardent Jews identified the Jewish homeland as “Palestine.” Today’s Jerusalem Post, the English-language daily newspaper of Israel, originally was called the Palestine Post.  The pre-government institution that laid Israel’s political foundation was the Jewish Agency for Palestine, headed by Dr. Chaim Weitzmann, who became Israel’s first head of state.

It is this “Palestine” – namely, the State of Israel – that Hamas forthrightly is determined to seize.  The squiggle tells all.  To attain the power to pursue its dream of eradicating Israel from the map, Hamas first engaged in more than a decade of bloody terror, killing some 500 people in the course of more than 350 terror attacks since 1993.  Hamas popularized suicide bombing.  Then, during the January 2006 general elections held freely and with minimal intimidation within the areas of Gaza and the segments of Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank”) controlled by the Palestine Authority, the Palestinian Arab electorate voted Hamas into power.  Hamas won 74 seats, compared to 45 for runner-up Fatah. Former President Jimmy Carter monitored the vote and declared the election of Hamas “fair and square,” deeming them free, fair, just, and transparent.  That is, the Palestinian Arab voters freely chose to be led by a group of terrorists and suicide-bomb architects outlawed throughout the world.  After winning parliamentary elections, Hamas terrorists in Gaza proceeded to launch a bloody internecine war against their political competition, Fatah terrorists loyal to Palestine Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. More than 600 Arab terrorists killed each other during the next eighteen months.  Ultimately, Hamas won and seized the reins of power in Gaza.  By virtue of the freely expressed will of the people of Gaza, Hamas now enjoys popular support to lead Gazans with the Hamas vision.

On March 5, 1933, the German people cast their ballots, resulting in Adolf Hitler’s ascent to power as chancellor of Germany.  The voters knew Hitler’s agenda, and he prosecuted the agenda he promised them.  Mass terror followed, and the world was submerged into a war that brought death to tens of millions.  By the end, America and England gained an upper hand and had enough.  In one midnight hour, the Allies dropped more than 2,300 tons of aerial bombs on Hamburg. During the bombing of Dresden, the allies dropped more than 3,900 tons of bombs in two days, killing some 25,000 Germans.  As the debate raged over whether these aerial bombings had been overkill, an underlying justification always lay in the recognition that the German civilian population had elected the Nazis and, by the power of their ballots, willingly brought the war and destruction on others – and, by the end, onto themselves.

So it is with Gazans and the Hamas terror vision for which they voted “fair and square.”  In a world that has seen Iranian civilians rise up and, like Neda Soltani, give their very lives trying to liberate themselves from the yoke of an Islamofascist regime led by Ayatollahs and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the stark contrast from the people of Gaza is striking.  Gazans celebrate death.  They celebrate terror.  Given a free choice, they have opted for a vision of terror aimed at wiping out innocent Western lives and eradicating Israel off the face of the earth.  In the face of such contemporary persecutions as the Sudanese terror in Darfur and the Turkish oppression of the Kurd minority that now numbers more than two million refugees, can anyone truly make a “fair and square” argument that the people of Gaza are victims of anything other than their own tragically violent predilection to support terror over coexistence and war over peace?

Dov Fischer is a legal affairs consultant and adjunct professor of the law of civil procedure and advanced torts. He was formerly Chief Articles Editor of UCLA Law Review and writes extensively on political, cultural, and religious issues.  He is author of General Sharon’s War Against Time Magazine and blogs at www.rabbidov.com

A couple dancing at Snowbar in Ramallah

When most people hear the word “Palestine” they immediately think “occupation” and  “oppression.” People imagine that Palestinians are the most impoverished people in the world, living in ramshackle refugee camps—not because their own leaders have stolen their money and forced them into endless war with Israel—but because Israel, is allegedly, a “colonialist,” “apartheid,” and “Nazi” state.

Of course, this is not true. But the propagandists have done their job very well and have infected, virus-like, every area of human communication and in every language. You will find that poets and physicians, diplomats and ditch-diggers,  students, journalists (think: Helen Thomas), businesspeople, the faithful, and the secular all share this view.

Over the weekend, a British journalist claimed that Israel is responsible for “squalor” and “rubble” in the Gaza Strip and that while some cafes and shops in Gaza are well-appointed, and have plentiful menus and produce, that most of Gaza lives in conditions comparable to … East Congo, where some restaurants still serve great food while others are starving to death nearby.

Of course, this is the article that Arts & Letters Daily chose to feature.

What image comes to mind when people hear the word “Ramallah”? Checkpoint “humiliation,” shootouts, Arafat’s headquarters and now tomb?  I myself think about the two Israeli reservists who, in 2000, were lynched in Ramallah; but that’s me. When I saw American newscasters play and re-play the crazy grins and the bloody hands of their murderers without once using the word “barbarians” or “racists,” I knew that the bloody beast was back, that anti-Semitism had, once again, taken the world by storm.

But guess what?  There is another image of Ramallah now being advertised in the very western mainstream media that sells us the propaganda.

This past weekend’s Travel section in the New York Times astounded me. The story title is: “Ramallah Attracts a Cosmopolitan Crowd.” The pull quote reads: “Visitors are drawn to the city’s café culture and thriving night life.” One photo shows the Qalandia checkpoint (from Jerusalem, Israel) to Ramallah. The second, larger photo shows a couple in western dress, dancing. She is bare-armed, with her head thrown back, arms around her male partner’s neck, and she is smiling erotically; he is laughing. Behind them, two or three girls in pants seem to be standing at a bar. This photo is captioned: “The deck at the Snowbar, where bonfires warm spectators.”

Where are all the gun battles, the “refugee camps,” the disenfranchised and angry youth, the ruthless terrorist fighters who live among and hide behind civilians, including women and children? Are they figments of my imagination, or are they now all organizing or boarding Turkish boats to challenge the Israeli “blockade” of Gaza? Are the facts on the ground, and what people actually say and do, privately, in the Middle East, quite different from what they say and do publicly? My friend, Barry Rubin, insists that this is so. Is reality more complicated than the ideologues have allowed us to believe?

The Travel section article tells us that the particular bar in Ramallah being featured is one of the many chic watering holes for “the offspring of the Palestinian elite” and is the “destination for thousands of young North Americans and Europeans.” Live musicians, female lead singers, rhythmic dancing of hundreds of young people, the many music, dance, and arts festivals in Ramallah have rendered it a competitor for the nightlife heretofore available in Amman, Jordan and Tel Aviv, Israel.

The article quotes an American-Palestinian who moved back to Ramallah from San Francisco and who likes the nightlife—“You’re like a celebrity. It’s very easy to meet people.” A Jewish American also lives here; she finds “Ramallah one of the more liberal places in the Middle East.” Indeed, “young couples kiss behind screened-in booths, out of site [sic] of families.” A French woman describes Ramallah as “a mirror city of Tel Aviv.”

Stop me. I must be dreaming.

And yet, we are told, more than one million tourists came to the West Bank in 2009.

Make no mistake: I am glad to hear this. I am glad that young girls and women are dancing and having a night out rather than being beaten, forced into early marriage, or honor-murdered. For that also happens in Ramallah. I am happy if someone quoted in this article believes that women will soon be wearing “bikinis” at a future hotel. (No, I am not a fan of bikinis but they are not forced upon women by the family or the state and are not equivalent to the niqab or burqa. Women are not killed for refusing to wear bikinis).

I wish that the Palestinian economy would flourish. I am glad that tourists are coming to dance and not to violently confront and challenge the Israeli right to defend its citizens and its borders.

So, fellow earthlings, sister earthlings: What will it be? Is the Arab Middle East just like us only better, filled with light, laughter, color, warmth, hospitality, and a decadent, Western-style nightlife—or is the Arab Middle East filled with preachers of hate, shrouded women, “morality” police, honor murders, polygamy, female genital mutilation, warring tribes, the murder of infidels and other vast jihadic plots?

Tell me what you think.

“No mosque at Ground Zero” was the rallying cry of the day as thousands of angry demonstrators gathered for a rally to oppose the proposed construction of a 13-story mosque just blocks away from the site of the 9/11 attacks. A palpable patriotism and zeal filled the air on Sunday afternoon, June 6th, as Zucotti Park at the corner of Church and Liberty Streets in lower Manhattan was filled to capacity. Rally attendees who came from as far as Chicago and Los Angeles held signs saying, “Ground Zero is a War Memorial – No Mega Mosque here,”  ”You Can Build a Mosque at Ground Zero – When Can We Build a Synagogue in Mecca?”, “Pack Your Sharia and Get Out,” and “Mayor Bloomberg: This Mosque Has Radical Ties – and you still approve?” Hundreds of American flags blew in the summer breeze as speakers representing every walk of life condemned the notion of a mosque being erected near the site of the former World Trade Center’s twin towers.

The Cordoba Initiative, headed by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, is the chief sponsor of the project that is to be called The Cordoba House, a name that refers to the city in Spain which, in the Middle Ages, was a center of Islamic culture and learning. Cordoba was also the seat of an Islamic caliphate in which Jews and Christians suffered under second-class dhimmi status and was the site of a large-scale pogrom, perpetrated by Muslims, in the year 1011.

The proposed mosque will be built at 45 Park Place, which is the site of a four story edifice built in 1857 and was a Burlington Coat retail store until 9/11, when part of the plane’s landing gear crashed through the roof. The building, which currently houses a mosque, will be razed to make room for the new structure. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission could conceivably thwart the intended project if they determine that the building has historic status. Elisabeth de Bourbon, a spokeswoman for the Landmarks Commission said a hearing is scheduled to take place on that very subject. New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg has weighed in on the issue and has expressed support for the project.

Imam Rauf insists that the $150 million project is meant to heal the wounds of 9/11. “We’ve approached the community because we want this to be an example of how we are cooperating with the members of the community, not only to provide services but also to build a discourse on how Muslims and non-Muslims can cooperate together to push back against the voice of extremism,” he said.

Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, says there are more productive ways to fight Islamic extremism and has questions about the financing. According to reports, the building that occupies the site was purchased last year for $4.85 million in cash by Soho Properties, a real estate company run by Muslims. Imam Rauf, who is also the founder of the American Society for Muslim Advancement was an investor in that transaction.

Dr. Jasser said that with such a financial commitment, there needs to be full disclosure about where the money is coming from. “There should be transparency about who those investors are; whether that money is coming from a domestic source or not, and if it’s coming from foreign interests we need to know, because I think that’s a liability, and it shows that there is another agenda rather than domestic security and tranquility,” he said.

Organized by such organizations as Stop the Islamization of America, Families of the 9/11 Victims, The New York City Firefighters, the Tea Party Activists of Brooklyn and Staten Island among other such groups, the rally goers stood in the scorching heat and listened to the impassioned words of the litany of speakers. “We’re not here today to condemn Muslims or Islam,” said Pamela Geller, executive director of Stop the Islamization of America, “but we are here today to condemn the kind of mosque that will teach the very same radical ideology that gave birth to the 9/11 attacks,” she intoned. “Building a mosque just several blocks away from Ground Zero is an insult and an affront to every single person that was killed on 9/11, to their families, to the first responders and every concerned American who cherishes liberty, democracy and freedom,” she continued.

“3000 pairs of eyes are looking down at us today,” declared James Lafferty of the Virginia Anti-Sharia Task Force who traveled to New York to speak at the rally. “We must stand together as a free people and tell the world that we will fight the imposition of Sharia law until our last breath. These evil, cowardly bastards who took the lives of those proud Americans on 9/11 will be remembered forever and this mosque which represents the triumph of Islamic fanaticism will not be built if we have anything to say,” he said. Mr. Lafferty received thunderous applause when he said, “The good people of the USA must also stand in solid unity with the Israel Defense Forces who are waging a war against Hamas terrorism as was evidenced several days ago when they intercepted a Turkish based flotilla of ships whose aim it was to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza. It is the IDF who is on the front lines in the battle against Islamic radicalism and we must support them.”

Dr. Babu Suseelan, a Hindu human rights activist, told the crowd,

“We Hindus and Sikhs have a story to tell. Islamists killed 80 million of us since 700 AD and they continue to kill us. They destroyed 3000 glorious temples and built mosques over them. In the last 60 years, Islamists in Pakistan wiped out infidel Hindu and Sikh populations. At one time we represented 25% of the population and now we are less that 1%. Know this: The 9/11 mosque is not a symbol of understanding. It is a symbol of conquest. Imam Rauf is a master of Taqiyya, which is the use of deception to forward the agenda of Islam. What Faisal Shahzad failed to accomplish in Times Square on May 1st with overt jihad, Imam Rauf will succeed with stealth jihad.”

“Not here! Not now!” was the resounding theme of the speech delivered by Jay Townsend, the GOP candidate of the US Senate from New York who will be challenging the incumbent Charles Schumer in the upcoming November elections. “The wounds have not healed, Imam,” he said. “And we cannot so soon forget. The hatred that spawned this assault on our sensibilities is still taught in too many of your mosques and inscribed into too many of your prayer rugs. Not here, not now, until you have excised the hatred that is inscribed in the school books of your impressionable young. Not here, not now, until you are willing to say that Israel has the right to exist, that the people of Israel have a right to a life absent of fear of a nuclear armed tyrant who denies the Holocaust,” he declared.

Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch, a program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and a co-organizer of the rally referenced a June 5th article in the New York Post that said, ”The imam behind a proposed mosque near Ground Zero is a prominent member of a group that helped sponsor the pro-Palestinian activists who clashed violently with Israeli commandos at sea this week. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is a key figure in Malaysian-based Perdana Global Peace Organization, according to its website. Perdana is the single biggest donor ($366,000) so far to the Free Gaza Movement, a key organizer of the six-ship flotilla that tried to break Israel’s blockade of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip Monday.”

Members of the Human Rights Coalition Against Radical Islam (HRCARI) also made their presence known at the rally through their visual depiction of the heinous murders committed by radical Islamists around the globe. “We are glad that the speakers here today drew a distinction between the Islamic faith and those who commit murder in the name of Allah. We work with Muslims and ex-Muslim dissidents who oppose the pernicious ideology of radical Islam and we are an inclusive alliance of people of all religions and nationalities who cherish freedom,” said Dr. Marvin Belsky, a retired internist.

Responding to the remarks of the “Dean” of the White House Press Corps, 89 year old Helen Thomas who told a reporter on May 27th, following a celebration of Jewish Heritage Day at the White House that, “the Jews should get the heck out of Palestine. The Palestinians are occupied by those who stole their land. They should go home to Poland and Germany, America, anywhere.” Dr. Belsky said, “Ms. Thomas is a disgrace to the White House Press Corps and she should have her press credentials revoked. She is a virulent anti-Semite that should be roundly condemned.”

Other speakers included: Anders Gravers of Stop the Islamization of Europe; Simon Deng, the Sudanese ex-slave and campaigner for human rights for Sudanese Christians; Richard Connerney, a philosophy professor at Pace University; Nonie Darwish, an Egyptian ex-Muslim and author of “Now They Call Me Infidel” and “Cruel and Unusual Punishment;” Nelly Braginskaya, a 9/11 family member who lost her son; Larry Savinkin, father of Vladimir Savinkin, 21 and president of the September 11th Family Group uniting 9/11 families from the Russian-American community; Dan Maloney, New York Director of the Gathering of Eagles organization and congressional candidate in District 4 in New York; Germano Rivera, who recovered remains on 9/11; Nabil Asaad and Dr. Esmat Zaklama, Coptic Christian human rights activists; Pamela Hall of SIOA-NY and a human rights activist; Herb London of the Hudson Institute and Beverly Carlson of the Band of Mothers, among others.

The rally organizers urged those in attendance today to continue their work against the mosque in their localities and they were exhorted to return for yet another rally in opposition to the mosque on September 10th. The rally concluded with the singing of “God Bless America.”

The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, although left-leaning, is one of the pillars of the Israeli media. In fact, it’s the most widely-read paper in the country, and I am one of its readers. On June 6, while scanning the paper’s Ynet website, I suddenly came across an article that left me totally flabbergasted. It started with this paragraph:

The German-Jewish organization Jewish Voice for Peace in the Middle East is preparing a Jewish flotilla to the Gaza Strip. “We intend to leave around July,” a member of the organization, Kate Leitrer, said to Ynet. “We have one small craft so far, in which there will be between 12 and 16 people, mostly Jews.”

“Mostly idiots!” I wanted to shout. “And not just regular idiots, like all 700 passengers of the Turkish flotilla that was stopped by the Israeli Navy on May 31, but useful idiots, playing willingly the dirty games invented by the sworn enemies of Israel and the Jewish people!”

I went on reading:

Leitrer, herself Jewish, said there was great interest in joining. “Getting another boat means more expenses, and we’re discussing this possibility,” she said. “Because of limited space, there will be school equipment, candy, and mainly musical equipment, and there’ll be musicians aboard who’ll teach the children of Gaza.”

To teach the children of Gaza?! Ms. Leitrer, the children of Gaza do not need your musical lessons. Most of them, starting at age 6, have already been taught how to handle the AK-47 and prepare suicide belts, while reading by heart passages from the Koran condemning Jews as the most implacable enemies of the Islam. The best classical music for their ears is the sound of a shooting Kalashnikov!

“Jews have been to Gaza in the past, and they were treated in a friendly manner,” Leitrer continued.

Edith Lutz, a German Jewish member of the organization, said to Ynet that the vessel is already anchored in Mediterranean waters, and that the organization had received many requests from Jews and non-Jews to take part in the flotilla.

Lutz explained that the Jewish flotilla aims to convey a message [to Israel]: Lift the siege.

I think the best message that Israel could convey to this bunch of useful idiots would be this: to let them enter the Israeli territorial waters, then arrest all of them for violation of the border, and put them in a high-security jail.

There they would have plenty of time to teach classical music to the blood-covered terrorists from Gaza.

"We have nothing! Potatoes? What potatoes?"

A Danish reporter finds that in Gaza, the victimhood propaganda is as much in abundance as the foodstuffs. Poor, Starving Palestinians Update: "Danish report from Gaza: 'Where's the humanitarian crisis?,'" from Elder of Ziyon, June 2 (thanks to Steven):

Danish reporter Steffen Jensen visits Gaza to see how bad things are, given that the entire world is in an uproar over the humanitarian crisis there (translated):

Judging from the media, the situation in Gaza is desperate, everything is about to collapse, and the community is on the brink or at the level of a third world country.

The Palestinian community's immediate downfall has been prophesied numerous times in the media. People have nothing to eat, we sometimes know. The UN must from time to time to stop food distribution, either because their stocks are running low, or because they can not get diesel for their trucks, and therefore can not carry food in. And so on.

Yesterday I drove into the Gaza Strip. I don't do this as often as before [because it takes much longer to get through the checkpoints now.]

This time, I had expected to see real suffering, because with all the fuss in recent days about bringing tons of humanitarian relief in - so much that people actually sacrificed their lives for it - there certainly had to really be a deep, desperate situation in the Gaza Strip. No food. Long queues in front of UN food stocks. Hungry children with food bowls.

But this was not the picture that greeted me.

When I yesterday morning drove through Gaza City, I was immediately surprised that there are almost as many traffic jams as there always has been. Is there not a shortage of fuel? Apparently not. Gasoline is not even rationed.

Many shops were closed yesterday, Hamas has declared a general strike in protest against Israel's brutal and deadly attack on the Turkish flotilla with pro-Palestinian activists on board. So it was difficult to estimate how many products were on the shelves. Therefore I went over to the Shati refugee camp, also known as Beach Camp. Here is one of Gaza's many vegetable markets that sell much more than just fruits and vegetables.

I will not say whether, in better times has been a larger product range than there was yesterday. But there was certainly no shortage of vegetables, fruits or any other ordinary, basic foods. Tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, watermelons, potatoes - mountains of these items in the many stalls.

I must admit I was a little surprised. Because when I call down here to my Palestinian friends, they tell me about all the problems and deficiencies, so I expected that the crisis was a little more clear.

And the first woman we interviewed in the market confirms this strange, contradictory, negative mindset:

"We have nothing," she said. We need everything! Food, drinks ... everything!"

It disturbed her not at least that she stood between the mountains of vegetables, fruit, eggs, poultry and fish, while she spun this doomsday scenario....

Read it all.