If you were to suggest in a public forum that just possibly Israel’s failure to reach a peace agreement with a terrorist organization run by kleptomaniacs and homicidal maniacs, which still continues to applaud the murder of Israeli children, might possibly be due to the terrorists and not because of Israel, then according to the consensus of the left, you are an Israel Firster.

The paradigm of the Israel Firster only works if you assume that the America First position is to support Islamic terrorists. Even if we were to dismiss the threat of Islamic terrorism to the United States then a position sympathetic to the territorial claims of Islamic terrorists in Israel would still not be the America First position. It would be the Muslims First position.

The left, which deploys names like Israel Firsters, is certainly not calling for neutrality in the conflict, rather it would like us to side with the Muslim Brotherhood and the assorted Islamic terrorists scattered throughout the region. Arguably the United States has been doing this for some time already.

Obama stuck his finger in Prime Minister Netanyahu’s chest, but bowed to the Saudi King. When he visited Turkey, he made no mention of the Turkish settlements in occupied Cyprus, but when Biden visited Israel, he threw a fit over a partial approval for a few houses in Jerusalem. The United States doesn’t fund many terrorist groups, but the bulk of the funding that it allots to terrorists goes to terrorists operating in Israel and killing Israelis.

Last week the State Department put out a list of designated terrorist organization. That list includes the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. The Brigade has not only committed numerous atrocities against Israelis, it at one point threatened to launch terrorist attacks against America. The Brigade is the military arm of the Fatah group which controls the Palestinian Authority. The Authority is the beneficiary of an average of 600 million dollars a year in direct assistance, and indirectly through the UNRWA which has already received an initial 55 million dollars from the United States in 2012.

Terrorists who murder Israelis don’t just indirectly benefit from American aid; that money is going to pay the salaries of convicted terrorists in Israeli prisons. Some of those terrorists received training and weapons from the United States. I would like to be able to say that this sort of thing is one of the innovations of the Hussein administration, but it’s an an artifact of two previous administrations.

This is usually how countries treat other countries that they are at war with. In this case it is an artifact, not of an Israel Firster policy, but of a Muslim Firster policy. There is no interpretation of Israel Firster that accommodates the United States arming and funding terrorists. But there is an extensive global policy of rewarding and appeasing Muslims.

Opponents of Israel often complain that they are being “silenced” in some intangible ways, but the United States government has certainly never criminalized criticism of Israel. However, it continues to conduct discussions with the OIC, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, on ways to suppress and censor criticism of Islam. Nor has the Secretary of State suggested that critics of Israel should be subject to “peer pressure and shaming,” which she has for critics of Islam.

American soldiers have been dying incessantly to protect Muslims for decades now. They died in Somalia to protect aid to Somali Muslims. They died in the Gulf War to liberate Kuwait and protect the Muslim holy sites of Mecca and Medina from Saddam Hussein. They died over Yugoslavia to build a state for the Muslim terrorists of the KLA. Thousands of American soldiers have died to protect Muslims from other Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In the last year alone, the United States has helped overthrow secular governments to make way for Muslim ones. When the Libyan ruler refused to resign, Obama sent in NATO jets to bomb his forces into submission so that the Al Qaeda- and Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Libyan Islamic Fighting Group could take power.

While the United States abandoned Iranian students protesting against an Islamist regime, it overthrew governments in Egypt and Tunisia to make way for Islamist takeovers. The Saudis got to use tanks in Bahrain, but Gaddafi was hunted down and killed for a genocide that never happened.

What do you call all that but a Muslim Firster foreign policy?

In “The Audacity of Hope,” a book title taken from a sermon of his vilely anti-Semitic former black Muslim mentor, Obama wrote, “I will stand with the Muslims.” And he has done it.

Obama has stood with the Muslims in Cote d’Ivorie, where armed force was used to illegally seat a Muslim ruler against the ruling of the country’s supreme court. He has stood with the Muslims in Kenya, where his cousin and his Muslim backers forcibly wrote Sharia Law into the Constitution. He has stood with the genocidal Muslims in Indonesia, not the Christian Papuans whose land is occupied and whose representatives are persecuted.

Most of FrontPage Magazine’s readers already know that U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta yelled at the wrong guy in early December, 2011, when he scolded Netanyahu with his misplaced adjuration: “just get to the damn table.”  But it will still be useful to take a quick look at the many times that Israeli leaders have invited Arab leaders to that “damn table” and have been rebuffed, in word and in deed, by Arab leaders.

For a summary of the 31 times since 1937 that Arab leaders have not only refused Israeli offers of peace, but have responded with war, terrorist attacks, and threats of genocide and annihilation, see two earlier articles by the present writer, here and here.

Over the past few years, there has emerged a new and different pattern that, while obvious and transparent, has not made much of an impression on Secretary Panetta or other of the USA’s or EU’s spokespersons.

This new pattern is:  PA President Mahmoud Abbas creates pre-conditions for negotiations that he knows Israel cannot accept.  Then he refuses to join in negotiations that are open-ended and without pre-conditions.  Then he blames Israel for its refusal to agree to his unacceptable pre-conditions.  Then Western leaders and journalists blame Israel for the “log jam” in negotiations.

In June 2009¹, shortly after he formed his coalition government, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called publicly for direct negotiations toward a two-state solution.  A PA spokesperson, speaking on behalf of President Abbas, declared the PA’s refusal to respond to Netanyahu’s invitation.

In November, 2009, Israel implemented its 10-month “settlement” construction freeze as a compromise response to US President Obama’s demands and called upon Abbas to join him “in meaningful peace negotiations…that will finally end the conflict.”  Abbas again rejected Netanyahu’s invitation, first insisting that he would wait until the construction freeze was over before he would consider joining Netanyahu in negotiations; but then, when the 10-month freeze drew to an end, he threatening that he would not meet with Netanyahu unless the Israeli prime minister continue the freeze and extend it to include East Jerusalem, which had been excluded from the original freeze agreement.

In February 2011, Netanyahu again called for a resumption of negotiations, and made some goodwill gestures to enhance the Palestinian economy.  Not only did Abbas rebuff these gestures, but he announced his intention to side-step negotiations with Israel and take his case for Palestinian statehood to the UN despite President Obama’s objections.

In May 2011, Netanyahu again offered to restart negotiations for a two-state solution and promised significant territorial concessions.  Abbas ignored Netanyahu, President Obama, and even the loss of $200 million in American aid; and instead he wrote his infamous op-ed essay in the New York Times in which he promised that even when “Palestine” becomes the 194^th state in the UN, the conflict would not be over. The new state of “Palestine,” once it became the 194^th member of the UN’s family of nations, would pursue political avenues of redress against Israel at the UN, the International Court of Justice and other human rights milieus.

In September 2011, at his speech before the UN General Assembly, Netanyahu renewed his invitation to Abbas.  Abbas refused the offer and instead pressed on with his ultimately unsuccessful attempt at UN recognition of a Palestinian state.

Even Netanyahu’s “economic peace” plan of September 2009, that would have helped return the West Bank to the economic prosperity that it enjoyed during most of the pre-Oslo era from 1967 to 2004, was summarily dismissed by Abbas because it demanded that the PA put a stop to terror attacks emanating from the West Bank.  Abbas rejected it, saying that: “We refuse to be security agents for Israel.”  In other words, the PA prefers to tolerate, and therefore encourage, terror attacks against Israel rather than engage in cooperation with Israel that will economically benefit the Arabs of the West Bank.

The Freedom Center ad is published in full below this article.

Controversy is heating up over a David Horowitz Freedom Center advertisement published in an Ohio State University student newspaper.

Under the headline “Former Leaders of the Muslim Student Association (MSA): Where Are They Now?,” the ad in The Lantern simply lists, without comment, ten MSA co-founders and former presidents connected to terrorist entities such as al-Qaeda, Hamas, the Taliban, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Not all have criminal convictions, but among them are such terrorist superstars as Anwar al-Awlaki, the budding “bin Laden 2.0” taken out last year in a drone attack, and Abu Mansoor al-Amriki, spokesman for al-Qaeda in Somalia. The ad closes by promoting a new pamphlet by Daniel Greenfield at the Freedom Center, Muslim Hate Groups on Campus, which documents the radical origins and violent objectives of the main Muslim student organizations on our nation’s campuses, such as the MSA and Students for Justice in Palestine, which are sponsors of hate-fests like “Israeli Apartheid Weeks” or “Palestine Awareness Weeks.”

In fact, the Ohio State University branch of the MSA has had connections to terrorists itself, as noted in the 2008 FrontPage piece, “Terror-Funded MSA at Ohio State.” Kindhearts, the sponsor of a 2006 MSA conference, was closed by order of the Department of the Treasury for financing terrorism:

Kindhearts, however, was not the only terror-connected sponsor of the OSU MSA conference. Also supporting the MSA’s conference was its local parent organization, Masjid Omar Ibn El-Khattab, known affectionately in the Central Ohio area as “Masjid Al-Qaeda”. The mosque nearby the OSU campus was home to the largest known Al-Qaeda cell in the US.

After 9/11 the OSU MSA email list regularly published news releases by Islamic terrorist organizations and encouraged readers to buy videos from a terrorist support website. In 2003 the student organization helped host now-convicted Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Sami Al-Arian. More recently, the OSU MSA jointly sponsored an event featuring notorious Muslim Brotherhood leader Jamal Badawi.

One of the Ohio State students who complained about the DHFC ad is International Studies major Jana al-Akhras, 18. “I am offended not only as a Muslim or as a general-body member of the MSA, but as a member of the OSU community,” she said. “We do not stand for discrimination, hate or intolerance here.” Nor does the Freedom Center – its ad has no hateful, intolerant, or discriminatory content, except perhaps an implied intolerance for terrorist activity. That’s enough for al-Akhras to dismiss it as “hate speech”; she claims that the ad constitutes a blanket statement labeling Muslim students as security threats. “It’s a blatant attempt at reinforcing stereotypes and causing widespread fear of Muslims on campus.” To imply that the MSA is responsible for international terrorism only “breeds hatred,” she insists.

Al-Akhras did not explain how merely identifying the names of ten MSA leaders and their demonstrable connections to terrorism breeds hatred; nor did she address the fact that it is the terrorists themselves and their supporters who are the ones consumed by hatred and “reinforcing stereotypes” about Muslims. She also did not contradict the factuality of the ad’s content; she only offered the excuse that there can be “bad apples” in any organization.

She believes “there’s a fine line between freedom of speech and hate speech.” Apparently the facts presented in the DHFC ad cross that line. OSU Undergraduate Student Government President Nick Messenger chimed in, calling the ad “false, bigoted and full of hate speech that doesn’t have a place on campus.” Neither he nor al-Akhras provided any evidence for their accusations; nonetheless, she said that The Lantern “had every right to deny [the ad] as hate speech.”

A controversy has broken out this week that epitomizes how bold the Islamic supremacist forces in the U.S. have become, and how weak and supine those who are charged with protecting the public have become.

The New York Times has run a news story and an indignant unsigned editorial about the showing of The Third Jihad, a relatively tepid anti-jihad film, to New York Police Department personnel. The Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) immediately got into the act, compelling New York’s ever ready to accommodate Mayor Michael Bloomberg to apologize and denounce the film, which he almost certainly has not seen. But that wasn’t enough for Hamas-linked CAIR: they’re calling now for the resignation of New York’s Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.

And that stands to reason, based on the principle that when one’s enemy is down, one should kick him some more. Hamas-linked CAIR sees its chance to end all effective counter-terror measures in New York, and is going for it.

This whole controversy is epitomized by the photo illustration and lead paragraph of the first New York Times story on this issue: “In Police Training, a Dark Film on U.S. Muslims,” which was by Michael Powell and appeared in the January 23 issue. The photo shows the black flag of jihad flying above the White House, with the caption, “An Islamic flag atop the White House in ‘The Third Jihad.’”

Then the lead paragraph says: “Ominous music plays as images appear on the screen: Muslim terrorists shoot Christians in the head, car bombs explode, executed children lie covered by sheets and a doctored photograph shows an Islamic flag flying over the White House.”

Both the Times’ use of the image and its reference to it at the beginning of the story suggest that the producers of The Third Jihad doctored the photo themselves in order to push their cockamamie idea that some Muslims want to “infiltrate and dominate America.” But in reality, Muslims originated this image, as we have reported here several times. Here is a photo of Muslims holding up this photo at a rally in New York in February 2006:

And another:

Yet this whole controversy is predicated on the assumption that The Third Jihad is whipping up hysteria about a non-existent threat. In reality, it covers much the same ground that I cover in my book Stealth Jihad, in which I show that the agenda of infiltration and subversion on the part of the Muslim Brotherhood and its allied groups is very real.

In “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Brotherhood in North America,” by Mohamed Akram, May 19, 1991, Muslim Brotherhood operatives in the U.S. are told that they “must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

Editor’s note: Below is Sara Dogan’s review of the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s new pamphlet, Muslim Hate Groups On Campus by Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Center. To read the pamphlet, click here. To order the pamphlet, click here or buy it for $0.99 on Kindle.

Muslim Hate Groups On Campus by Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, exposes the radical origins and violent objectives of the purportedly mainstream Muslim student organizations that have set up shop on our nation’s campuses.

For those who have not set foot on a college campus in recent years, the casual anti-Semitism and atmosphere of intimidation may seem eerily reminiscent of 1930s Germany. Radical Muslim students and their leftist allies string barbed wire around “check­points” where pro-Palestinian activists brandish mock weapons and shout to passing students “Are you Jewish?” and erect “Apartheid Walls” plas­tered with Hamas posters describing Jews as baby-killers, along with  maps showing the Jewish State erased and replaced with “Palestine.” These actions are justified as episodes of agitprop “theater,” but they have a more serious and deadly intent.

The lead sponsors of these events (dubbed “Israeli Apartheid Weeks” or “Palestine Awareness Weeks”) and the chief instigators of the campus attacks on Jews, Greenfield shows, are members of two student organizations linked to the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood network, the Muslim Students Association (MSA) and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). A civil rights lawsuit against the University of Cali­fornia, Berkeley for failing to protect a Jewish stu­dent from a violent attack by an SJP activist notes that “the two groups [MSA and SJP] not only co-sponsor events and cooperate on strategic projects, but they even share the same office and campus fa­cilities.” It further charges that “The more publicly activist SJP may be understood as the militant arm of the outwardly benevolent MSA.”

Last year, it seemed like an Islamist super-bloc was forming in the Middle East. Secular regimes fell and others faced uprisings. Turkey grew closer to Iran and Syria. The Iranian regime produced an End Times documentary depicting the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood as the fulfillment of prophecy. Now, pro-Western governments remain unstable but the Islamists are turning their daggers on each other.

The division in the Islamist ranks is most clearly seen in Syria. The Iranian regime has deployed the Revolutionary Guards to help the Bashar Assad regime crush the uprising. Hezbollah and the Shiite-led Iraqi government are sticking by Assad’s side. On the other side are genuine secular democratic forces but also the Muslim Brotherhood, Libya, Qatar and Turkey. Turkey is demanding that Assad resign and is hosting the Free Syria Army, the rebel forces who are violently trying to overthrow him. The Emir of Qatar has just endorsed sending Arab military forces to Syria to stop the regime’s crackdown.

The Libyan government sent an Islamist militia leader to advise the Free Syria Army. There are reports that the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group has even dispatched fighters to Syria. The Muslim Brotherhood is a direct participant in the uprising. Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi, who is the Muslim Brotherhood’s top theologian and is based in Qatar, branded the Assad regime as “heretical.” Qaradawi even declared that it was permissible for a U.N.-led intervention to take place and says that Assad’s soldiers are religiously obligated to defect to the Free Syria Army. “If you want the welfare of your people and intend to go to paradise after death, please join the Free Army,” he preached.

This puts Hamas in an awkward position. The terrorist group belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood, which is fighting Assad, but Hamas has long enjoyed the generous support of Assad and Iran. Hamas’ political bureau is based in Damascus. Hamas suppressed anti-Assad protests in the Gaza Strip but that was not enough to satisfy Iran, which demanded that pro-Assad rallies be staged.

In recent months, Hamas began moving staff out of Damascus and to Egypt, Gaza, Sudan, Jordan and Qatar, presumably in preparation to break relations with Assad. Iran threatened to end all support for Hamas if it left Syria, so Khaled Mashaal, the chief of the Damascus office, stayed along with a reduced staff. After a long silence, he endorsed Assad in late December, saying he had “supported the Palestinian resistance and the Palestinian people in every possible away.” Mashaal tried to tow a middle line by stating that he still supports democracy and “the rights of the peoples,” insinuating dissatisfaction with the regime’s oppression.

Hamas also reportedly fears Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Journalist Aaron Klein was told by “one of the most senior Hamas officials” that he privately hopes that Israel stops Iran from getting nuclear weapons, even if it means the use of military force. The leadership of Hamas is reportedly even debating not retaliating if Iran is attacked by Israel. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad, however, remains in Iran’s back pocket.

There are indications that the Iranian-Syrian relationship is being tested. In September, Ahmadinejad surprisingly and hypocritically called on the Assad regime to end its crackdown, saying a “military solution is never the right solution.” He pressured the Syrian regime to undergo reforms in order to alleviate the crisis. At the same time, the Iranian regime reached out to a Syrian opposition group called the National Coordination Committee that is dead-set against foreign intervention. The group rejected Iran’s overtures. It appears as if Iran was pressuring Assad to cut a deal with the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. In late October, Ahmadinejad tried to convince the Muslim Brotherhood to support Assad in exchange for having its representatives appointed to four high-level positions. Iran was turned down.

[This review was originally posted on LiveLeak.com.]

Jamie Glazov connects the dots between the totalitarian massacres of the 20th century, murder in the name of Islam and the mutual attraction between the radical Left and radical Islamists.

Both the radical and the reactionary hate the present. Intellectuals and celebrities venerated monsters like Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, & Ho Chi Minh. The New Left of the 1960s didn’t have a change of heart, just a change of icons from Stalin to third world tyrants. The homicidal and sadistic Che Guevara is still held up as a hero.

After the communist victory and resultant slaughter in Vietnam, few of Hanoi’s western supporters expressed shock or regret. These true believers do not care about the victims who are merely eggs to be broken in order to create the perfect utopian omelet.

The last communist hope in Nicaragua was shattered by Ronald Reagan. After that, the collapse of the Soviet Empire left the Left aimless.

To order United in Hate, click here.

The ideological offspring of the ‘progressives’ that were hoping the West would lose the Cold War became the nihilist leftovers of today.Hatred of the United States is one great attractor. Jihadists share a desire for cathartic violence with radical leftists; that’s why the latter could not conceal their glee in the wake of 9/11.

In the 1930s, the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj al-Amin al-Husseini, became a supporter of Hitler, eventually settling in Berlin where he encouraged the annihilation of European
Jews, hoping to become the leader of the Arab world in expectation of an Axis victory.

The Mufti promoted Nazism amongst the Arabs, blending National Socialism with fundamentalist Islam. After the war, he fled to Cairo where he accommodated fleeing Nazis and planned the destruction of Israel. Al-Husseini did not only target Jews but also moderate Arabs and the democratic West in general. Nazism was the spiritual and physical bridge bringing ideological extremism to the Arab world. When the Soviet Union
became the champion of the Arab cause, hatred of Israel started migrating to the Left. Arab leaders like Gamal Abdel Nasser, Saddam Hussein and Yasser Arafat were all influenced by the Mufti’s ideas.

The Left’s latest idol is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his proxies Hamas and Hezbollah.

I have often wondered with both genuine puzzlement and rage, why the radical Left seems to have vigorously supported every murderous tyranny on the face of the earth, providing it is anti-Western.

It has always been galling and sickening how left wing radicals have had no humanity towards anyone who was a victim of the totalitarian regimes or bloodthirsty terrorist movements that they have supported over the last century. The shameful death cult odyssey has led left wing radicals of the intellectual elite, academics, lawyers, writers, entertainers and others to always identify with the most evil and monstrous regimes and leaders on this planet and to turn a blind eye to the death and destruction they have sowed (while in reality enjoying it).

Watch Jamie Glazov explain the Left’s romance with terror in the CBN video interview below:

Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: Click here.

Join the Jamie Glazov Show that aired on Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 8-9 pm Pacific (11-12 pm EST) on Blog Talk Radio. This week’s discussion focused on the Freedom Center’s new blockbuster video, Obama – The Anti-Israel President (to watch the video, click here).

This week’s guest was:

David P. Goldman, the author of the new book, How Civilizations Die (and Why Islam is Dying, Too).

To listen to the program, click here. Or go to:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/radio-jihad/2012/01/11/the-jamie-glazov-show

See you next Tuesday night!

Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle. Click here.

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.

Join the Jamie Glazov Show that aired on Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 8-9 pm Pacific (11-12 pm EST) on Blog Talk Radio. This week’s discussion focused on the Freedom Center’s new blockbuster video, Obama – The Anti-Israel President (to watch the video, click here).

This week’s guest was:

David P. Goldman, the author of the new book, How Civilizations Die (and Why Islam is Dying, Too).

To listen to the program, click here. Or go to:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/radio-jihad/2012/01/11/the-jamie-glazov-show

See you next Tuesday night!

Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle. Click here.

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, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, Yunis Al-Astal, Fathi Hamad, Khaled Mash’al, Ismail Haniya and Abbas Zaki.

Nabil Shaath is a senior Palestinian leader who has held several influential positions in the Palestinian Authority (PA): chief negotiator, cabinet minister, Palestinian International Co-operation Minister, Planning Minister for the PA, and Acting Prime Minister of the PA. Born in 1938 in Safed, British Mandate of Palestine, Shaath joined the terrorist Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1970. He became head of the PLO Planning Center from 1971-1981, and in 1974 he accompanied Yasser Arafat in the first PLO delegation to the United Nations. He is currently a member of the Fatah Central Committee in charge of International Relations, where he often is portrayed as a “moderate.” Evidence presented here demonstrates he is not.

Despite all misinformation to the contrary, the futility of negotiations between the Arab-Palestinians and the Israelis hinges on the Palestinians’ categorical rejection of Israel’s right to exist; certainly not as a Jewish state. Second, the Palestinians remain steadfastly committed to the annihilation of Israel and its replacement with an Islamic Arab Judenrein, as most recently represented by the attempted reconciliation between Fatah and the genocidal terrorist organization Hamas. Hamas’s founding charter not only calls for the destruction of Israel, but also the genocide of all Jews.

Although the fact fails to be acknowledged by some, the so-called “moderate” Fatah party leading the PA shares Hamas’s objectives, and Shaath’s own words expose this common cause. ”The Palestinian Authority will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state,” he declared on September 8, 2010. “Such a declaration would directly threaten the Muslims and Christians in Israel and prevent Palestinian refugees, who left their homes and villages a number of decades ago, from being granted the right to return to them,” he added. The “right of return” that Shaath mentions is little more than a tactic to demographically destroy the Jewish character of Israel.

On July 13, 2011, Shaath made where he stands even clearer in an ANB TV (Lebanon) interview. (This was when hopes were still high among Palestinians that they could get the United Nations to recognize their independence unilaterally). “At the end of the day, we want to exert pressure on Israel in order to force it to recognize us and leave our country,” he said. “This is our long-term goal.”

But what exactly does Shaath mean by “leave our country”? Shaath answered this question clearly by declaring in a television interview that the “French initiative reshaped the issue of the Jewish State into a formula that is also unacceptable to us–two states for two peoples. They can describe Israel itself as a state for two peoples, but we will be a state for one people. The story of two states for two peoples means that there will be a Jewish people over there and a Palestinian people here. We will never accept this.” In other words, a one-state solution, without Israel.

During an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on September 26, 2011, Shaath once again revealed his views regarding the Jewish State. When he was reminded that the “Quartet” of peace negotiators (the U.S., European Union, Russia and the United Nations) and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu insisted on negotiations without pre-conditions, Shaath focused exclusively on Natanyahu. “Yes he can afford to say that,” Shaath remarked. “He has been in full occupation of our country for years, 62 years.” That is to say, the entire existence of Israel is an “occupation.” On the other hand, he was more deceptive when he was reminded that, despite his contention that the PA recognizes Israel’s right to exist, it is attempting to reconcile with Hamas, whose charter calls for Israel’s destruction. “Well I don’t know about Hamas and I don’t know about charters…we are not particularly interested in charters, we are interested in what people do on the ground.”

For the record, the latest events “on the ground” included Hamas once again firing five Kassam rockets into Israel late last week, followed by two more containing phosphorus, after Israel attacked the original rocket launchers. Since the Israelis unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, more than 7,000 rockets and mortars have been fired into Israel. Furthermore, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) estimates Israel is likely to come under fire from 8,000 rockets and missiles if war breaks out this year.

The new star of Middle Eastern diplomacy is Gaza-based Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh. Most recently visiting Tunisia, he’s also been in Egypt, Sudan, and Turkey, and the itinerary will also include Qatar and Bahrain.

It’s Haniyeh’s first tour of the region since Hamas seized all power in Gaza in 2007. The timing is no coincidence. As Haniyeh himself told a rally in Tunis on Sunday:

Israel no longer has allies in Egypt and in Tunisia, we are saying to the Zionist enemies that times have changed and that the time of the Arab Spring, the time of the revolution, of dignity and of pride has arrived.

A crowd of 5000 men, women, and children in a stadium (another report puts the number much higher), waving PLO, Tunisian, and Hamas flags, responded with chants of “Death to Israel,” “The Tunisian revolution supports Palestine,” and “The army of Muhammad is back.” AP also reports that “At one entrance, people walked over a piece of cloth sporting the Star of David….”

The rally—presumably including the piece of cloth—was organized by Haniyeh’s hosts, the recently elected, ruling Ennahda Party. Ritually called “moderate Islamist” in Western media, its longtime leader Rachid Ghannouchi said in 1994: “We must wage unceasing war against the Americans until they leave the land of Islam, or we will burn and destroy all their interests across the entire Islamic world.”

Haniyeh, for his part, also expounded on the “new Middle East” in an interview to The Independent:

The Palestinian cause is winning. With the Muslim Brotherhood part of the government [in Egypt], they [the Egyptians] will not besiege Gaza. They will not arrest Palestinians. They will not give cover to Israel to launch a war….

Israel is disturbed by this. It knows the strategic environment is changing…. The Palestinians are winning more than anybody else due to what’s happening in the Arab countries. That will come out clearly in the future.

Undeniably, one has to give the Hamas chief some points for his analysis. At the time the “Arab Spring” broke out a year ago, Israeli warnings were at best ignored if not derided. Now, with Islamists prevailing in Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, probably Libya, and possibly Syria, it makes perfect sense for a group like Hamas to feel a tailwind and a surge of confidence.

Hamas’s visions, however, go beyond stepped-up warfare against Israel with possible Egyptian and other Islamist support. The group, as revealed in a major new report by Jonathan D. Halevi, also has political ambitions of gaining Western recognition. Given ongoing Western and, particularly, Obama administration friendliness toward the Islamists, it may not be an unreasonable goal.

As Halevi notes: “For Hamas, the central lesson from the Arab Spring is the U.S. administration’s and the European Union’s abandonment of the pro-Western regimes and their readiness, even haste, to support the popular revolutions and recognize the Muslim Brotherhood as a legitimate political actor.” Encouraged, Hamas has been in intensive negotiations with the West Bank Palestinian leadership—now at an advanced stage—on joining the PLO. If that goes according to plan, Hamas believes it “will be internationally recognized and replace Fatah in representing the Palestinian people….”

For now, the U.S. and the EU define Hamas as a terrorist organization and officially shun it. But as I noted already close to three years ago, that has not stopped a bevy of notable Westerners—Tony Blair, Javier Solana, Jimmy Carter, George Soros, James Baker, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Brent Scowcroft, are some—from portraying the movement as essential to peace. (Examples: Blair—“I do think it is important that we find a way of bringing Hamas into [the peace] process”; Carter—“…there’s no way to have peace in the Middle East without Hamas being involved”; Baker—“You have to get Hamas involved, because you cannot negotiate peace with only half the Palestinian polity.”)

Back in the real world, you can see Haniyeh here at Hamas’s twenty-fourth anniversary rally in Gaza on December 14, bellowing to a throng of 350,000 intermittently chanting onlookers that

the armed resistance and the armed struggle are the path and the strategic choice for liberating the Palestinian land, from the [Mediterranean] sea to the [Jordan] river, and for the expulsion of the invaders and usurpers [Israel] from the blessed land of Palestine…. Palestinian reconciliation…cannot come at the expense of [our] principles…. These principles are absolute and cannot be disputed.…We won’t relinquish one inch of the land of Palestine. The involvement of Hamas at any stage with the interim objective of liberation of [only] Gaza, the West Bank, or Jerusalem, does not replace its strategic view concerning Palestine and the land of Palestine.

Israel, then, has to gear up not only for the growing military threat of Hamas’s Gaza enclave but for a possible political-diplomatic offensive as well. The facts about Hamas are available and clear-cut. But they have to be hammered home hard when the will to delusion runs so deep.

Join the Jamie Glazov Show on Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 8-9 pm Pacific (11-12 pm EST) on Blog Talk Radio. This week’s discussion will focus on the Freedom Center’s new blockbuster video, Obama – The Anti-Israel President (to watch the video, click here).

This week’s guest is:

David P. Goldman, the author of the new book, How Civilizations Die (and Why Islam is Dying, Too).

To listen to the program, click here. Or go to:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/radio-jihad/2012/01/11/the-jamie-glazov-show

Call in number: (347) 857-1380

See you on Tuesday night!

Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle. Click here.

Join the Jamie Glazov Show on Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 8-9 pm Pacific (11-12 pm EST) on Blog Talk Radio. This week’s discussion will focus on the Freedom Center’s new blockbuster video, Obama – The Anti-Israel President (to watch the video, click here).

This week’s guest is:

David P. Goldman, the author of the new book, How Civilizations Die (and Why Islam is Dying, Too).

To listen to the program, click here. Or go to:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/radio-jihad/2012/01/11/the-jamie-glazov-show

Call in number: (347) 857-1380

See you on Tuesday night!

Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle. Click here.

This week an Israeli and a Palestinian negotiator, along with envoys of the Middle East Quartet, met in Amman. Don’t get your hopes up. It was the merest gesture to deflect diplomatic pressure, and what is actually brewing in the Palestinian arena has nothing to do with peace.

Fatah official Mahmoud al-Aloul said as much the day after the meeting—in a speech he gave on behalf of Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority. Al-Aloul proclaimed: “The Palestinian leadership has spared no effort to seek peace and has complied with all [peace] initiatives. But all our efforts have been in vain…. The Israelis are not prepared for any solutions.”

And added: “We can’t restrain ourselves any longer in the face of settlement construction. The popular resistance will erupt in the next phase.”

It wasn’t just rhetoric. Al-Aloul’s threat jibes with recent reports by DEBKAfile and Khaled Abu Toameh. The picture these reports give has also been confirmed to me by a highly reliable source.

The picture is this: the “Arab Spring” sweeping the region has not left the Palestinian arena unaffected. Abbas thinks it will sweep him away, too, unless he joins forces with the Palestinian Islamist factions—principally Hamas but also Islamic Jihad. He aims to do that by, for the first time in history, incorporating at least Hamas in his relatively secular PLO. That way when the “Arab Spring” comes to the West Bank, Abbas hopes it will be directed against Israel instead of what’s left of his weakening rule.

To these ends Abbas already signed a reconciliation pact with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal in Cairo on December 24. That will help him, in DEBKA’s telling, “orchestrat[e] an Arab Spring-style uprising on the West Bank….” DEBKA predicts, though, that Abbas’s Palestinian Authority “will soon lose control as Hamas and [Islamic Jihad] ride into the enclave’s towns and villages. Any demonstrations will soon get out of hand and descend into violent turmoil.”

Abu Toameh concurs if in slightly less dramatic terms, writing that “in 2012, if [Hamas’s] agreement with Abbas is implemented, [it] will take control over the PLO.” He adds:

Hamas is joining the PLO not because it has changed, but out of a desire to make the Fatah-dominated organization stick to its true mission: the liberation of Palestine from Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea—in other words, all the land that is currently Israel—and to achieve the “right of return” for Palestinian refugees to their original villages and homes inside Israel.

Once Hamas takes control over the PLO, it will seek to cancel all agreements and understandings reached between the organization and Israel, above all the 1993 Oslo Accords. Hamas also wants the PLO to withdraw its recognition of Israel.

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, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, Yunis Al-Astal, Fathi Hamad, Khaled Mash’al and Ismail Haniya.

Abbas Zaki, former PLO envoy to Lebanon and current member of Fatah’s Central Committee, has spent his entire political career championing the PLO’s efforts to destroy the Jewish state of Israel.

Moreover, Zaki has not confined his animus to Israel alone, but has directed it also at the United States, a country which he considers “to be an enemy because its only strategic alliance is with Israel.”

Zaki (born Sharif Ali Misheal in Hebron in 1943) began his career in 1962 when he joined Fatah, the largest political faction within the Palestinian Liberation Organization. In 1982 Zaki was named by Yasir Arafat as the PLO’s envoy to Yemen, a position he held until he was expelled from that country in 1986.

From there Zaki spent the next three years at the PLO’s Tunisian headquarters, where he was an assistant to Mahmoud Abbas, then head of the PLO’s department of national affairs and now president of the Palestinian Authority (PA). By 1989 Zaki joined the Fatah Central Committee, the highest decision-making body of the PLO.

Following the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri in 2005, Zaki was named the PLO representative to Lebanon, a post he held until he was forced to resign by PA President Mahmoud Abbas in 2009. He is now a central committee member of Fatah, the leading member party of the PLO and the PA.

Zaki has used his varied political roles to promote, among other things, the PLO policy of negotiating while engaging in terrorism; support of suicide bombing attacks on Israeli civilians; and repeated rejections of Palestinian independence based on a two-state solution.

For example, in November 2008 Zaki said the PLO views Israel as “an enemy country, which owes us certain things. The heroic Vietnamese used to negotiate with the French, while they were slaughtering them.”

The Palestinians have been in the news thanks to Newt Gingrich calling them an “invented” people seeking Israel’s destruction. A Palestinian event a couple of days later got much less coverage—even though it bore out at least the second part of that description.

Hamas, which rules Gaza and won the Palestinian parliamentary elections resoundingly in 2006, has celebrated the 24th anniversary of its founding with a gala gathering of 350,000 in Gaza City. At it Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh proclaimed:

Resistance is the way and it is the strategic choice to liberate Palestine from the (Jordan) river to the (Mediterranean) sea and to remove the invaders from the blessed land of Palestine…. Hamas, together with other stubborn resistance factions, will lead the people towards uprising after uprising until all of Palestine is liberated.

The crowd, for its part, responded with chants of “We will never recognize Israel.”

To honor the event Hamas’s military wing Izzadin al-Qassam released a statement saying it had killed 1,365 Israelis, perpetrated 1,117 attacks against Israel including 87 suicide bombings, and fired 11,093 rockets at Israeli targets. As Evelyn Gordon notes,

Hamas’ boasts are almost certainly exaggerated: It claims “credit” for more than 80 percent of all Israeli casualties since 1987, whereas Israeli data shows a much more equal distribution between Hamas and its rival, Fatah, aka Israel’s “peace partner.”…

In other words, Hamas’s bloodlust is so intense that it takes “credit” even beyond its actual record of slaughter of men, women, and children. That record includes, for instance (in collaboration with Palestinian Islamic Jihad), the bombing of the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem in 2001, which killed 18, including children aged ten, eight, four, and two.

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, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, Yunis Al-Astal and Fathi Hamad.

Mash’al, the political bureau head of the terrorist group Hamas, has little patience for Palestinians who suggest reconciliation with Israelis. This is not at all surprising, because his group, Hamas, is dedicated to the permanent destruction of Israel by violent means. Indeed the Hamas Covenant, written in 1988, declares: “There is no other solution for the Palestinian problem other than jihad [holy war]. All the initiatives and international conferences are a waste of time and a futile game.”

Consider Mash’al’s reaction to a speech delivered at the Aqaba peace summit by former Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Abu Mazen, who, calling for an end to the armed Intifada, declared: “We will exert all of our efforts using all our resources to end the militarization of the Intifada, and we will succeed. The armed Intifada must end, and we must use and resort to peaceful means in our quest to end the occupation and the suffering of Palestinians and Israelis. And to establish the Palestinian state . . . our goal is clear, and we will implement it firmly and without compromise: a complete end to violence and terrorism.”

In response to these words, Mash’al condemned what he called “the conspiracy being woven against the Palestinian people,” a conspiracy he believed was being carried out with Mazen’s passive acquiescence. Mash’al accused President Bush of conspiring with Israel to keep the Palestinians eternally subservient. And he denounced Mazen for speaking “[about] the [Palestinian] resistance as terror, and about putting an end to the armed resistance.”

In short, Mash’al characterizes suicide bombings targeting Israeli civilians as legitimate forms of “armed resistance.”

In July 2006, Mash’al said: ”You [Israelis] will be defeated with God’s help. Victory’s day is approaching with God’s help. (audience replies with “Death to Israel” and “Death to America”) Before Israel dies, it will not escape humiliation and surrender. Before they die, with God’s help they will witness humiliation and surrendering. And America will not be there to help; nor will their generals. The last general is forgotten. God made Sharon disappear and he was departed from them. … We forced a new equation in this battle. The new equation plays to our hands. We will defeat them [the Israelis]. We will defeat them emotionally and mentally before we defeat them in the field of battle. Gaza is the victory’s bed. … Victory in these elections sends a message to Israel and America and all the abusers of this world. With us you will never succeed and you will always lose. If you want war, we are ready for war. … The days of defeat within six days with hours are over. Today you are fighting against the army of Allah. Today you are fighting against people who care for dying for Allah, dying for honor and prestige more than they care for life itself.”

Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: Click here.

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, Abdel Aziz Rantisi and Yunis Al-Astal.

The terrorist organization Hamas’s disregard for all manner of human life is evinced not merely by its genocidal campaign against the Jewish people, but also by the organization’s use of Palestinian children and women as both suicide bombers and human shields. While most may find the practice repugnant, it has found a staunch champion in Fathi Hamad, interior minister for the Hamas-controlled Gaza government since 2009.

As interior minister, Hamad has described his role as one in which he directs Hamas’s terrorist policy, saying, “We routinely meet and coordinate with the commanders of all the factions of the resistance in Gaza… to protect them and make it easier for them to carry out every aspect of their jihadist missions.”

In addition to being a terror facilitator, Hamad’s professional resume also includes being head of the Hamas Public Affairs Department, Network Director of Hamas-controlled Al Aqsa TV and a former member the Palestinian Legislative Council.

Apart from his professional work, Hamad’s charitable work includes being head of the Gaza charity Waad, which in November 2009 offered a $1.4 million bounty to any Arabs living in Israel who kidnapped an Israeli soldier. Hamad has always placed a high value on the torment of Jews, having once said in a speech given in September 2008, “That by the grace of Allah, killing a single Jew is the same as killing 30 million.”

Given his political and professional background, Hamad has used his role as Hamas jack-of-all-trades to spread the terrorist organization’s message of violence and death in the pursuit claiming “Palestine” in the name of Allah. Hamad has said that Hamas “will not rest until we destroy the Zionist entity,” and, in a 2009 speech, predicted that Israel “would disappear by 2022.”

When Al Aqsa TV was launched in 2006, Hamad said the television station’s mission was “to establish Islamic culture and an ideological, scientific and political vision that is in tandem with the spirit of Islam, and to spread information about important issues.” To this end, Hamad began to produce children’s programs that promoted terrorist activity and hatred of Jews and Israelis; shows such as “Tomorrow’s Pioneers” and “Brilliant Children.”

Below is the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s new video: Obama – The Anti-Israel President.

To help support the Center’s dedication to defend America and Israel, click here.