Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri reiterated his call for jihad against the Syrian dictatorship in a message posted on the Internet yesterday. The conflict in Syria pits the Assad regime, Iran and Hezbollah against the Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Qaeda and the Arab states. Non-Islamist Syrians desiring genuine democracy, including the Christian minority, are caught in-between.

Zawahiri tells Muslims to support the uprising “with all that he can, with his life, money, opinion, as well as information.” The message comes after 25 were killed and 175 were wounded in two suicide bombings in Aleppo of security service buildings. The attacks are believed to have been directly ordered by Ayman al-Zawahiri and carried out by Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Iraq.

He is especially concerned about how foreign powers will influence the Syrian opposition as it looks for outside help.

“Our people in Syria, don’t rely on the West or the United States or Arab governments and Turkey,” Zawahiri says.

His video was released on the same day that the Arab League asked the United Nations to send a peacekeeping force into Syria and agreed to “materially” support the opposition, likely paving the way for military assistance to the Free Syria Army that is fighting the regime’s forces.

The Muslim Brotherhood, unlike Al-Qaeda, is happy to accept foreign military intervention if it will lead to victory. Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi, the top Brotherhood cleric, declared that it is permissible for Muslims to welcome U.N.-backed intervention in Syria if the Arab states are unable to stop the violence.

Al-Qaeda has had an on-again, off-again relationship with the Assad regime. Syria has imprisoned members of Al-Qaeda, as the terrorist group is ideologically committed to replacing the regime with Islamist rule. Assad has also helped Al-Qaeda when their interests have aligned, particularly in Iraq and Lebanon. Relations between Iraq and Syria hit the breaking point in 2009 when the Iraqis released evidence that the Assad regime was backing Al-Qaeda and other terrorists carrying out attacks in Iraq. The relationship has healed since then as Iranian influence over Iraq has grown.

The Iraqi Deputy Interior Minister says that terrorists are crossing the border into Syria and shipping arms to the opposition fighting Assad. The price of a Kalashnikov assault rifle has increased from $100-200 to $1000-$1500 because of the rise in demand, he claims. However, the Iraqi government is backing Assad and could just be trying to substantiate the dictatorship’s claims that it is only fighting “armed gangs” and terrorists.

Since coming to power in 2000, Bashar Assad’s strategy has been to portray his regime as the only thing stopping an Islamist takeover. Secular democratic voices are silenced while the jihadist rhetoric of Islamists is often allowed. The regime recently released a top Al-Qaeda prisoner, Abu Musab al-Suri, who used to lead the terrorist group’s operations in Europe. He oversaw the 2005 bombings in London and was involved in the 2004 bombings in Madrid.

Itchy trigger fingers can cause wars.  A pre-emptive conventional weapons bombing strike against Iran’s known nuclear facilities could do more harm than good….or at least so say some.[i]

And indeed there is the real and frightening possibility that an Israeli or American attack might unite Iran’s disaffected anti-Mullah 30-somethings into a furious show of patriotism and thus lock in the current mullah-cracy (aka the Islamic Republic of Iran) for another generation.  Such an attack might also have a similar effect on the current Syrian regime; radicalize the Muslim world against the West; ignite Hezbollah on the Lebanese border; re-invigorate a flagging Hamas; endanger US troops in Iraq; spark revenge terror attacks; propel oil prices skyward; trigger a regional war; prompt Iran’s closure of the Straits of Hormuz; and cause stock markets world-wide to plummet.  And then again, it might not.

But what happens if one does not bomb?

Some current analysis suggests that an Iranian Islamist regime armed with nuclear weapons will trigger a regional nuclear arms race; destroy the non-proliferation treaty; increase the danger of miscalculation that could bring on a nuclear exchange; allow Iran to escalate its destabilizing influence throughout the region and the world; threaten Israel and moderate Arab regimes; manipulate energy markets to its benefit; pose as a guardian of Muslim communities even beyond the Middle East; and, perhaps worst of all, share its nuclear technology with its non-state proxies and terrorist groups.  Thus empowered, Iran just might be able to throw its nuclear weight behind the current Syrian regime; radicalize the Muslim world against the West; ignite Hezbollah on the Lebanese border; re-invigorate a flagging Hamas; endanger US troops in Iraq; provide a measure of impunity for Muslim terror attacks; propel oil prices skyward; trigger regional wars anywhere it wants; close the Straits of Hormuz with impunity; and cause stock markets world-wide to plummet.

And to make matters worse, the Iranian nuclear threat may by now be global. Israeli sources disclosed that recently Iran began working on missiles with a 10,000 kilometer (c. 6,200 miles) range, capable of striking targets in the western hemisphere.  But even worse is the slowly emerging reality that Iran and Hezbollah are working with drug cartels in Mexico and with the Venezuelan government to smuggle materials into South America, creating a conduit that could one day be used to smuggle nuclear weapons into South America for deployment against North America.  An Iranian nuclear attack on North America, via long-range missiles or from bases in South America, could involve the detonation of a nuclear device high in the atmosphere to send a massive electromagnetic pulse that would paralyze virtually all U.S.-based electronic defense systems, destroying America’s electrical grid, and shutting down everything from cars to computers to airplanes and refrigerators.  And if detonated closer to the ground, such a device would vaporize millions of Americans.

But Iran does not need to actually drop the bomb.  The moment Iran goes nuclear, other countries in the region will feel compelled to do the same, sparking a nuclear arms race among the world’s most unstable and fanatical regimes and their proxy terrorist forces.  And such threats, without a single missile being launched, would have a devastating effect on the Israeli economy and society:  withdrawal of overseas and Israeli investors, a record number of Israeli emigrants, a sharp decline of Jewish immigration, dwindling tourism, intensification of military-political-economic dependence on the U.S., and the transformation of Israel from a strategic asset to a strategic liability.

Should Iran achieve nuclear military capacity, it will be free to advance its Islamist revolution throughout the world with impunity from attack.  So it may well be that by not bombing, the world, and especially the USA and Israel, will pay a much higher and more horrific price.

But what about the IAEA, inspections, and sanctions?

The problem with the IAEA and its inspections is that it has failed numerous times to detect clandestine WMD activity in countries that are signatories to the non-proliferation treaty.  Such embarrassing gaffs include North Korea, Libya, Russia, China and most recently Syria and Iran.  Moreover, there is no method of enforcement of IAEA inspections.  With complete impunity, Iran recently barred inspectors from the most sensitive and suspicious of its WMD sites.

Moreover, Iran possesses the most clandestine-capable nuclear-weapon technology in history: the gas centrifuge. Gas centrifuge installations can be housed in a room the size of a high school gymnasium, and require very little external power, thus making it almost impossible to detect.  Iran can now make centrifuges on an entirely indigenous basis.

Sanctions have failed to bring Iran to its knees, even though the most recent ones have thrown the Iranian economy into turmoil.  And this is one of the most problematic aspects of sanctions:  in a country where leaders have no concern for the well-being of their own people, sanctions can harm the innocent without influencing the government. Enhanced incentives have not only failed to entice Iran to give up its nuclear program, but they have had the reverse effect of validating its uncompromising policy against making any concessions in the nuclear arena.  Moreover, Iran has successfully evaded US sanctions against its state shipping company simply by painting new names on its ships. Equally problematic is the willingness of Russia, China, North Korea and Venezuela to supply Iran with whatever it needs, including WMD expertise and uranium, to vitiate the effects of the West’s sanctions.[ii]

The Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control reported in November, 2011 that by December 2008 Iran had one atomic bomb. By 2009 it had two, and by 2011, five.  The IAEA garnered evidence that Iran was testing nuclear explosives and working on weaponization (fitting nuclear warheads to nose-cones of missiles). In January 2012 Iran announced publicly that its uranium enrichment site was about to become operational, prompting the IAEA to warn the world that Tehran now has the ability to make whatever nuclear weapons it chooses, within months.

Appearing before The Orthodox Union Presidential Forum in a Boca Raton, FL synagogue on Monday, January 30, 2012, former Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) stated that, “When President Ahmadinejad recently toured the capitals of Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Ecuador, it was not a form of cultural diplomacy; it was primarily to increase the tempo of preparations for the war against America.”  He then added, “It is long past time for us to respond, but instead our president declares imminent victory.”

While Ahmadinejad is the visible figurehead representing the Iranian regime, it is Hezbollah, Iran’s terrorist sub-contractor, which is creating cells throughout Latin America and, inside the U.S. as well.  Shortly after the Second Lebanon war between Israel and Hezbollah, the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee held hearings on the Global Reach of Hezbollah’s cells. The Committee heard testimony regarding the capabilities of Hezbollah to attack the U.S. and other western targets. The protocol from the hearing clearly established Hezbollah’s “wide reaches” under the military leadership of Imad Mugniyah, who was assassinated in February 2008 in Damascus, Syria.

U.S. Representative Ed Royce, Chairman of the International Terrorism and Nonproliferation Subcommittee, had this to say during the hearings: “Hezbollah isn’t just a menace to Israel, Lebanon and the region. According to the State Department terrorism report, Hezbollah has ‘established cells in Europe, Africa, South America, North America, and Asia.’ “One witness,” Rep. Royce continued, “will tell us that Hezbollah’s organizational and logistic network exists in over 40 countries; this includes a significant presence in our own hemisphere, in the tri-border region of Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil. The network operates in West Africa, where Hezbollah has been active trading ‘blood diamonds,’ an issue the Africa Subcommittee explored when I chaired it.

Rep. Royce added, “Many Americans may be surprised to learn that Hezbollah’s global reach includes significant activities on U.S. soil.”  Royce characterized Hezbollah as posing a “grave threat” and, he repeated a statement made by a former Deputy Secretary of State in 2002 that, “Hezbollah may be the A-team of terrorists and maybe al-Qaeda is actually the B-team.” He added, “Hezbollah’s lethality is magnified by the support it receives from state sponsors of terrorism, primarily Iran.”

U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State on Terrorism Frank Urbanchik testified at the same hearings that the U.S. is particularly concerned over the close ties between Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Iran’s terrorist tool – the Hezbollah.

Addressing retirees at The Villages in FL on January 29, 2012, Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich referred to President Obama saying, “He lives in a fantasy world where there are no enemies” and, he characterized the president’s perception of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez as “just misguided people with whom he has not yet had coffee.”  Gingrich went on to say, “We watched him go see Hugo Chavez and we watched him smile and be friendly while Chavez deliberately, cynically and insultingly gave him an anti-American book and Obama didn’t have a clue he’d been insulted. You know, Ahmadinejad, the dictator of Iran, says that he wants to wipe out Israel and drive America out of the Middle East. Now, as a historian, I have a pretty good sense of what that means. It means he wants to wipe out Israel, and drive America out of the Middle East. But if I were a left-wing Harvard Law graduate surrounded by really clever left-wing academics, I would know that this is actually a sign that Ahmadinejad probably had a bad childhood…”

The Associated Press reported on Tuesday, January 31, 2012 that “Iran’s president lauded his country’s newly launched Spanish-language satellite TV channel, saying it would deal a blow to “dominance seekers” — remarks that were an apparent jab at the U.S. and the West.”

The launch is Tehran’s latest effort to reach out to Iran-friendly governments in Latin America and comes on the heels of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s four-nation tour of the region earlier in January, which included stops in Cuba and visits to Venezuela, Nicaragua and Ecuador.

Osama Bin Laden, the presumed mastermind behind the creation of Al Qaeda, originally formalized a global network of militants mostly comprised of Muslim Brotherhood members. These Brotherhood members, like Ayman al-Zawahiri, tapped into their own personal networks which later socially conditioned and recruited a mass movement of followers. Many were active militant fighters while many more were passive supporters to a newly established global terror network. Interestingly enough, many have argued that the original Al Qaeda Network no longer exists.

As Al Qaeda grew long after the Russian-Afghan war, many of its leaders became empowered. They split off moving into strategically positioned bases around the world. Their mission was to embolden Al Qaeda’s radicalized views of Islam in an attempt to create a “World Caliphate.” Needless to say, many leaders in this movement sought to achieve this strategic objective through government infiltration, passive social conditioning, and even through means of violent terror activities.

With time, an internal struggle existed within the original Al Qaeda network. Some members believed joining forces with non-Sunni Islamic persons would only strengthen their ultimate goals. Others believed working with such persons was off limits. Still, additional non-Sunni terror groups aligned with former Al Qaeda elements. Examples of these non-Sunni factions include Hezbollah, Colombia’s FARC, and even cartels such as Los Zetas in Mexico. Of course, many times these newly “joined forces” are not always direct. Many times, the joining of forces comes through third party initiatives.

Like most mass movements, they are formed by a handful of individuals simply seeking power. These individuals groom members, yet, like street gangs, when certain members feel they have enough power, they move onto their own initiatives. These initiatives often involve the creation of their own groups. These groups are separate from their original mother group, yet at times maintain some allegiance, as seen in several Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs.  Such a move has been seen between Ayman al-Zawahiri and the Muslim Brotherhood recently.

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.

One might think that leading opinion makers in Western civilization, journalists, authors, academics, clergy and pundits would stand aghast and in deep condemnation of any society or organization that acted like “the Gambinos on steroids;” but somehow, when it comes to Hezbollah, one would be wrong.

A New York Times article of December 13 revealed, for the first time in US mainstream media, Hezbollah’s complex involvement, deep cooperation, and in some cases partnership, with international crime cartels, Columbian drug smuggling organizations, international gem smuggling, and Mexican street gangs.  Hezbollah’s motivation for involvement in these illegal endeavors, despite its name “Party of God” and despite its stated goal of creating a society on earth that carries out the will of Allah, is its need for clean money.

Hezbollah’s main sugar daddy, Iran, is in financial turmoil.  Syria, its secondary sponsor, is in political and economic collapse.  Hezbollah needs money, so it has expanded and innovated in its global web of criminal activities in order to finance its terrorism and its preparation for war.  But it needs clean money.  Hezbollah’s global money laundering schemes take drug money and auto theft profits and turn them into clean, usable cash to pay salaries, buy what Hezbollah needs to support its charitable endeavors, and underwrite the purchase of weapons and of militarily strategic property in Lebanon, especially from Christians.

The New York Times is neither a Jewish nor a Zionist newspaper.  In fact, its owners in bygone years openly expressed their antipathy to Zionism, an antipathy so strong that they stood silent, in passive collusion, as Nazi Germany annihilated Europe’s Jewry, lest the Times’ exposure of Nazi crimes before and during World War II might lend support to Zionist calls for a Jewish state (see Laurel Leff”s Buried in the Times: The Holocaust and America’s Most important Newspaper, summarized here).  One can thus be confident that its exposé
of Hezbollah is accurate and not merely Zionist propaganda.

So the Times’ revelation of such a list of illicit gains, criminal activity and partnership with criminal gangs ought to make Western supporters cringe and announce the withdrawal of any support they may have given, reverse any supportive words they may have said.  But so far neither Noam Chomsky nor Norman Finkelstein, both outspoken lionizers of Hezbollah, has done so, nor have any of the academics on public record for expressing support for Hezbollah and describing them as brave and noble “freedom fighters.” Muslims are divided today about the legitimacy of funds to Hezbollah, but world-wide many still continue to contribute to charities that may be, or have been, operating as fronts for Hezbollah.

But in addition to the mafia-like activities, including but not limited to the drug dealing, gun running, auto and gem theft, and money laundering mentioned above (and see here, here, here, and here for other exposés of Hezbollah’s criminal activity), Hezbollah is known to have kidnapped, tortured, and murdered American officials in Lebanon and elsewhere since 1982; used terrorist attacks for assassinations that involved the mass murder of innocent Arabs; engaged in armed robbery; launched terror attacks on American and other European soldiers stationed in Lebanon at the request of the Lebanese government; used assassinations and intimidation and threats of violence and terrorism to undermine the government of Lebanon; and become a dominant terrorist state within the state of Lebanon and now dominates Lebanon.

So even God-fearing Muslims who understand Islam to be a religion of peace and tolerance should blanch at Hezbollah’s long list of criminal and terrorist activities, many of which harm Muslims, and deny them any support or sympathy.

The Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Council on American-Islamic Relations (“CAIR”) is continuing its relentless pressure on federal and local elected officials to suppress the truth about the radical Islamist agenda and the dangers posed by homegrown jihadists.

The latest example is CAIR’s campaign, announced on November 15th, 2011, in which fifteen of its chapters nationwide have filed 87 separate public records requests regarding alleged “Islamophobic” training of local, state and national law enforcement personnel. CAIR said it was seeking information about state-level programs that may have used federal taxpayer dollars to fund what it called “anti-Muslim trainers.”

CAIR as usual is turning the truth on its head. It accuses its opponents of the very hate speech that is CAIR’s own normal lingo.

CAIR’s Los Angeles California branch issued a press release regarding the alleged Islamophobic training that it is seeking to de-fund. The Communications Manager of CAIR’s Los Angeles, California branch is Munira Syeda, whose name appears on the press release. She evidently believes in freedom of speech for her organization’s point of view, but not for contrary points of view.

For example, Syeda defended the actions of a group apparently belonging to the radical Muslim Student Union, who were found guilty of disrupting a speech given by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren. Ambassador Oren was speaking about U.S.-Israel relations in February 2010 at the University of California, Irvine when the instigators stood up in succession, shouting epithets such as “killers” and asking, “How many Palestinians did you kill?” They persisted in their loud heckling, despite calls to behave from campus officials. This was not about exercising the right of free speech. The Muslim students would have had an opportunity to ask pointed questions or make their statements during the Q&A session that was scheduled to follow the speech. It was about disruptive conduct aimed at censoring others’ right to freely speak, listen and exchange ideas, in violation of California law.

The CAIR Communications Manager supported this “heckler’s veto” when used to shout down attempts by representatives and supporters of Israel to communicate. But she has no problem trying to quash peaceful, non-disruptive protests against Islamist events where violent jihadist sympathizers are speaking.

For instance, Syeda condemned a rally protesting an Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) fundraiser held at the Yorba Linda City Council Community Center in Orange County, California last February. One of the speakers at the ICNA fundraiser was an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center attack, Siraj Wahhaj, who was once quoted as saying to an audience of Muslims in New Jersey, “[T]ake my word, if 6-8 million Muslims unite in America, the country will come to us.” He has also reportedly talked in the past about violent jihad, complete with references to arming black ex-cons in the inner cities with Uzis. Another speaker, Malik Ali, had been captured at one point on video inciting Muslim university students with these words: “They [Jews] know this is a new day. … What do we do? Might be another 9/11.”

There was good reason for some members of the Orange County community to be upset by the prospect of such hatemongers speaking in their city council community center. But they did nothing to interfere with the speeches. According to The Orange County Register, many in the crowd of protesters waved U.S. flags and carried signs saying, “God Bless America” and “No Sharia Law.” A small number of protesters stood about fifty yards from the community center entrance. They booed, yelled “go home” and chanted “no Sharia law” as attendees entered the building. Among their signs were ones that said “ICNA supports Hamas and Hezbollah.” Nobody was reported to have actually entered the community center and disrupt any of the speeches, as the Muslim students had done during Israeli Ambassador Oren’s speech.

One of the most vociferous of the protesters was Councilwoman and Republican Party Vice Chair Deborah Pauly, who was particularly upset with the two violent jihadist sympathizers on the ICNA guest speaker list. She told protesters rallying outside of the Islamic Circle of North America fundraiser: “Let me tell you what’s going on over there right now – make no bones about it – that is pure, unadulterated evil. … I know quite a few Marines who would be very happy to help these terrorists to an early meeting in paradise.”

Strong, even offensive, words – yes. But they were delivered outside the event being protested and involved no heckling of ICNA speakers inside the hall.

Nevertheless, CAIR-LA and other Islamist groups sought to have the councilwoman officially censored by the city council for simply expressing her opinion. Other than conceding that some of the speakers at the ICNA fundraiser were “controversial,” the CAIR-LA Communications Manager Munira Syeda reserved her criticism for the protesters.

CAIR wants a veto against politicians and their supporters who dare to strongly, but peacefully, protest a radical Islamist event outside of the event venue. At the same time, CAIR defends the anti-Israel Muslim Student Union hecklers’ veto, exercised inside the event venue by interfering with the Israeli ambassador’s right to deliver his speech to an audience that wanted to hear what he had to say without rude interruptions.

This same double standard underlies CAIR’s campaign to block federal and local elected officials from incorporating into their law enforcement training programs the truth about the radical Islamist agenda and the dangers posed by homegrown jihadists. CAIR is looking for a veto over who should be allowed to train law enforcement personnel and what should be taught. It wants no expert critics of Islamists and their anti-American agenda to participate in training programs that are supposed to educate law enforcement personnel about the ideological source of some of the real security dangers they are facing. CAIR is particularly afraid of someone like Nonie Darwish, who grew up in a strict Muslim home in Egypt and lived the first thirty years of her life under the yoke of sharia law.

The Obama administration and local enforcement agencies are succumbing to the Islamists’ pressure. Indeed, instead of learning the truth, law enforcement personnel are beginning to be spoon-fed the Islamists’ propaganda. For example, in Tulsa, Oklahoma recently, a police officer was punished for refusing to attend a mandatory Muslim prayer session that was supposed to help him understand Islam!

Here is a better suggestion for helping law enforcement personnel to learn about Islamic ideology, which goes beyond exposing them to Muslim religious prayers and other faith rituals. How about, as a start, requiring law enforcement personnel to familiarize themselves with the member handbook of the Islamic Circle of North America – the Islamist group which had invited violent jihadist sympathizers to speak at its California fundraiser?

The first of three rounds of elections will begin in Egypt on November 28. Secularists are complaining that they were not given enough time to organize. The military regime has changed the election law after the opposition parties threatened a boycott, arguing that it was designed to bring back members of Mubarak’s party. The willingness of the ruling council to give up power is coming into question.

Elections for the lower house of parliament are scheduled for November 28, but many parties threatened to not participate. They were enraged at election laws passed by the ruling military council that would’ve helped bring back members of former President Hosni Mubarak’s political party. Originally, the council ruled that half of the seats would be from party lists and the other half would be from independent candidates. With Mubarak’s party now outlawed, its members can run as independents. The army council changed the election rules so that two-thirds will be from party lists and then gave in completely. The opposition may have won this bout, but the incident is being interpreted as a sign that the military council intends to hold onto power.

Many experts like Dr. Daniel Pipes have been skeptical about whether the ruling military council will genuinely transfer power to an elected civilian government. Large protests have occurred in response to the regime’s human rights abuses. The Deputy Defense Minister said in May that “Egypt will not be ruled by another Khomeini” and that it “will not allow extremist factions to control Egypt.”

The key question is whether the council views the Muslim Brotherhood-Salafist coalition as one of those “extremist factions” it must stop from taking over. The military council reinstated the emergency laws after the September 9 attack on the Israeli embassy and is delaying presidential elections until no earlier than September 2012. It also banned the use of religious slogans in campaigns, forcing the Muslim Brotherhood to change its slogan of, “Islam is the solution.” Those who fail to provide a good reason for not voting can now be punished with a fine, making it more difficult for the parties to carry out boycotts. It is very possible that the council will use laws banning religion-based political parties to further curb the power of the Islamists that challenge its power.

The Brotherhood is generally projected to win about 25% of the seats, though it is aiming for 40%. Polls of Egyptian opinion regarding political parties show that the Brotherhood does face competition from secularists. One poll showed the secular Wafd Party with 23% support and the Brotherhood with 12%. Another poll showed the Brotherhood leading the Wafd 15 to 9. Polls have shown a significant hostility among Egyptians to Hamas and Iran, and 65% say that a cleric’s endorsement of a candidate would not influence their own choice. These are encouraging findings, but keep in mind that even the secular Wafd Party is ferociously anti-Semitic and anti-American and there is huge support for courts determining punishments based on Sharia, including executing those who leave Islam.

According to the Global Fire Power website, which uses CIA data, Iranian military strength is hardly as ominous as it appears from Iranian propaganda press releases.

Iranian active military strength stands at 545,000 troops, and its reserve forces number 650,000. And while its population total is over 77 million compared to Israel’s 7 million (less than 10% of Iran’s), Israel’s defense budget is greater – $16 billion vs. Iran’s $9 billion. And while Israel’s military manpower stands at 187,000 in active duty, and 565,000 in reserves, it is far better trained and motivated.  Moreover, Iran has 3,230 tanks against Iran’s 1,793, and 1,964 aircraft vs. Iran’s 1,030.  The Iranian air force is rather weakened by its older model fighters, such as the F-5, which the Shah received from the U.S. and which lacks spare parts.  The same is true for their tanks, which rely on the Russian T-72, and older model tanks.  Regardless of the size of the Iranian army infantry or its armor, it is highly unlikely that Iran will be able to move those against Israel, giving the distances involved.

To compensate for its inability to compete with either the U.S or Israeli air forces, Iran developed a missile industry, producing missiles that allegedly could hit all points in Israel (while stockpiling nearly 45,000 missiles with Hezbollah in Lebanon).  Israel’s civilian population has demonstrated, during recent wars in Lebanon and Gaza (2006 with Hezbollah and 2008-2009 with Hamas) that it can withstand massive missile attacks on its cities.  Moreover, Israel has advanced and put into operation anti-missile missiles, such as the “Arrow” and “Iron Dome,” which the Iranians lack.  Conversely, the Iranian civilian population was traumatized by the eight-year war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq (1980-1988) during which Saddam’s army lobbed Scud missiles on Iranian cities that killed thousands.  The regime in Iran failed to build air-raid shelters then, and have done little to lessen the vulnerability of Iran’s civilians today.  An Israeli or American retaliatory attack on Iran would expose Iran’s civilian populations to death and destruction and cause the public to rebel against the mullah regime, a possibility the leaders of the Islamic republic must take into account.

Belligerent proclamations against Israel and threats to “wipe the Jewish State off the map” conform to the best in psychological welfare — something which the Iranian regime excels at. You-Tube videos show supposedly successful launchings of long-range missiles and a new submarine, all aimed to deter Israel and the U.S. from attacking Iran.  The Financial Times, reporting from Iran on August 20, 2010, quoted Ahmad Vahidi, Iran’s defense minister, as saying that “the Qiam 1 surface-to-surface missile” had “new technical features and unique tactical capabilities, and an improved targeting system.” The underlying message from Tehran is that “we have a strong military and if you attack us, we’ll destroy you.”  Intimidation by threats is, when carefully analyzed, an attempt to ward off an attack by those they know to be stronger while masking their weakness. Yet, Israel and the West take Iranian propaganda at face value, and thus Iran appears a lot stronger than it is in reality.

The Iranian army has been significantly repressed by the mullahs.  The top military echelon was decimated by the Ayatollah Khomeini, and those who escaped death, torture, and forced “reorientation” escaped to the West.  The role of the theocratic regime’s Revolutionary Guards is to keep an eye on the army’s generals.  Advancement is reserved only for those who show loyalty to the regime.  Personal initiative is seen as dangerous by officers and soldiers alike.  On July 2009, 36 officers who intended to participate in demonstrations against the regime in their uniforms were arrested, and most likely liquidated.  The Guardian newspaper reported, “The officers intended the gesture to show solidarity with the demonstrations against last month’s presidential election result, which was won by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but which has been clouded by allegations of mass fraud.”

A lawsuit has been filed accusing Iran and Hezbollah of “direct support for, and sponsorship of, the most deadly act of terrorism in American history.” Drawing on the knowledge of two Iranian intelligence defectors, three 9/11 Commission staffers and various experts, eight law firms are placing blame for the September 11 attacks on the Iranian regime. If successful, the lawsuit will put to rest the notion that a nuclear Iran can be lived with.

The first indications of possible Iranian involvement in the September 11 attacks were in the 9/11 Commission Report released in 2004. The report revealed that 8 to 10 of the hijackers had gone to Iran between October 2000 and February 2001. The border guards were apparently ordered not to stamp their passports. In October 2000, a senior Hezbollah official went to Saudi Arabia to prepare for the arrival of guests in Iran. The lawsuit says this was Imad Mughniyah, a top agent of Iran and operations chief of Hezbollah. That same month, two future hijackers (Mohand al-Shehri and Hamza al-Ghamdi) flew from Iran to Kuwait.

The next month, another future hijacker (Ahmed al-Ghamdi) flew to Beirut on the same flight as Mughniyah. Salem al-Hazmi also flew to Beirut from Saudi Arabia separately. In the middle of the month, three more hijackers (Ahmed al-Nami, Waleed al-Shehri and Wail al-Shehri) flew together from Saudi Arabia to Beirut and then went to Iran on the same flight as an associate of Mughniyah. According to the 9/11 Commission, top Hezbollah officials in Beirut and Iran were expecting important visitors at this time. The report said it “cannot rule out the possibility of a remarkable coincidence.”

Two other hijackers (Satam al-Suqami and Majed Moqed) flew to Iran from Bahrain this same month. The report also disclosed that Khalid al-Mindhar, yet another hijacker, flew from Syria to Iran in February 2001. Iran expert Kenneth Timmerman revealed in his book, Countdown to Crisis, that Ramzi Binalshibh, a central figure to the 9/11 plot, repeatedly stopped in Iran on his way to Afghanistan to brief the Al-Qaeda leadership on the plot’s progress. After Binalshibh was told by Mohammed Atta the date of the operation, he took this same route at about the same time as Ayman al-Zawahiri visited Iran. “It is hard to believe that the presence in Iran of a top 9/11 planner and bin Laden’s right-hand man just two months before the September 11 attack was a coincidence,” Timmerman wrote.

“Mughniyah’s participation in the hijackers’ preparations for the 9/11 attacks leaves no doubt that Iran was directly involved in, and had foreknowledge of, a planned terrorist attack on the U.S.,” said Thomas E. Mellon of Mellon Webster & Shelly, the lead attorney in the case.

However, the 9/11 Commission downplayed the possibility that the attacks were tied to Iran. It said it “found no evidence that Iran or Hezbollah was aware of the planning for what later became the 9/11 attack” but the matter “requires further investigation.” Timmerman writes that the Commission was only made aware of the evidence a week before publication and a large body of evidence was not considered.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently claimed that Hezbollah possessed chemical and biological weapons. The news comes as the IDF contends the terror organization has now amassed more than 50,000 missiles and rockets, heightening Israel’s concerns over its vulnerability to a Hezbollah assault.

The assertion by Gates followed reports in April 2011 that Libyan rebels had ransacked chemical weapons storage depots in and around the Libyan city of Benghazi. There they obtained at least 2,000 artillery shells carrying mustard gas and 1,200 nerve gas shells, which they sold to both Hezbollah and Hamas.

Not surprisingly, Iran was believed to be the broker of the deal. Of course, Iran has long been accused of supplying Hezbollah with chemical weapons, the last time in 2009 when chemical traces were discovered in a Hezbollah weapons warehouse.

Although Hezbollah denies having chemically-armed missiles or rockets, it doesn’t deny their importance to the terror organization. According to Hezbollah leader Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, “These are our pride and dignity… no one will be able to grab them, neither in Lebanon nor in the world.”

Unfortunately for Israelis, Hezbollah’s precious stockpile has now surpassed over 50,000 missiles and rockets according to the IDF. The IDF has also determined the number of pre-designated targets of Hezbollah launch sites to have grown from around 200 in 2006 to now somewhere in the thousands.

In fact, in April 2011 Israeli officials had already identified 550 underground bunkers, 300 surveillance sites and 100 other facilities south of the Litani River in southern Lebanon, the zone where Hezbollah is supposedly banned from keeping weapons under the UN-sponsored truce that ended the 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah war.

The entire situation has added to growing Israeli concern over its increasing vulnerability from Hezbollah’s already enormous and growing stockpile of weaponry, which according to former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Arens can now “reach every corner of Israel and threaten its entire civilian population.”

Even though Israel has a newly deployed Iron Dome anti-missile system, that system remains vulnerable to massive salvos fired from Hezbollah’s short-range missile systems. For example, during the 34-day war in 2006, Hezbollah unleashed nearly 4,000 missiles and rockets — around 120 a day — into northern Israel.

However, 2009 Wikileaks documents reveal Israel expects a new war with Hezbollah to last two months, with 500 missiles a day, including 100 that would reach Tel Aviv.  More worrisome is that Israel’s Home Front Command admitted in April 2011 that only 31 percent of Israel’s 7 million people had been supplied gas masks.

Added into this troubling equation are reports surfacing of Hezbollah busily moving weapons from the chaos in Syria and distributing them immediately to its forces so they don’t fall into the wrong hands.

One of the more interesting aspects of Nakba Day has been its faithfulness to the historical record. Then as now, Nakba has been about Arabs on Israel’s borders invading Israeli territory with the intent to kill Jews. Then as now, Nakba has nothing to do with the Palestinians. Then as now, only Israeli victory over these invading Arabs holds any hope for a Palestinian state.

“The eminent Arab-American historian Philip Hitti described the common Arab view to an Anglo-American commission of inquiry in 1946: “There is no such thing as Palestine in history, absolutely not.” A similar view was voiced by the Jerusalem newspaper al-Wahda (Unity), mouthpiece of the Arab Higher Committee, the effective “government” of the Palestinian Arabs, which in the summer of 1947 advocated the incorporation of Palestine (and Transjordan) into “Greater Syria.” So did Fawzi Qauqji, commander of the pan-Arab force that invaded Palestine in early 1948. He expressed the hope that the UN partition resolution of November 1947 “will oblige the Arab states to put aside their differences and will prepare the way for a greater Arab nation.” As late as 1974, the Syrian president Hafiz Assad still referred to Palestine as being “not only a part of the Arab homeland but a basic part of southern Syria”; there is no evidence to suggest that he had changed his mind by the time of his death on June 10, 2000.”

That quote comes from the historian Efraim Karsh in his book Islamic Imperialism: A History. But there are a treasure trove of such quotes to choose from, should you like, because Arab leaders were very clear: there was no such thing, in their minds, as an Arab Palestine. In fact, until they were under Israeli governance, the Palestinian Arabs were never considered for a state.

Thus we have the first (of many) ironies of Nakba Day, the day to commemorate the 1948 war of annihilation waged against Israel by the combined Arab armies: Only Israel’s success in that war made a future Palestinian state possible.

Another of the ironies is that the Nakba Day invasions are an impediment to Arab freedom. As Andrew Exum notes:

The Lebanese, Palestinian, Syrian, Palestinians and Israeli peoples are all getting played right now. If you’re a Palestinian marking the Nakba on the border with Israel right now, that’s all fine and well, but you should be aware of those actors for whom this distraction is most welcome and who have every interest in using the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and your own suffering for their own cynical purposes right now. If you’re Lebanese, meanwhile, and you’re watching Hizballah mobilize, ask yourself this: is Hizballah mobilizing to protect Lebanon and its people or because escalation benefits Hizballah’s allies in Damascus?

I think everyone knows the answer to that, whether or not they’d like to admit it. Every protester jumping the Israel-Syrian border is doing so with the prearrangement of the Syrian regime—that is, they are protesting not on behalf of the Palestinian cause but as a tool of Bashar al-Assad’s murderous campaign to suppress the right of self-determination of the Syrian people—rights that Israel’s Arabs enjoy. The protesters, then, were demonstrating on behalf of illegitimate authoritarian subjugation. (This is especially true for the Palestinians in the territories, who would be—if unilateral declaration goes through—immediately be officially placed under the thumb of the criminal Palestinian Authority and the violently psychotic Hamas.)

The other irony here, which is really an extension of the previous, is that while most of the protests in Egypt’s Tahrir Square and elsewhere were nonviolent, invading Israel on behalf of the Syrian government is an explicitly violent act—thus setting apart the Palestinian protests and undermining their credibility.

Of course, violence has already begun to permeate this “New Egypt”; as Moshe Phillips detailed here last week, Egypt’s Christians are being targeted on a frighteningly regular basis. Their tormentors have been distracted this week by Nakba Day, which reveals another weakness of the Palestinians’ pathological anti-Semitic incitement—it’s infectious. Al-Ahram boasted the following headline Sunday: “Egyptians lay siege to Israeli embassy in commemoration of Nakba.” As the story reported:

Answering an Arab wide call to besiege Israel at its borders, hundreds in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan demonstrated calling for Palestinian refugees’ right of return. While Egyptians were prevented from reaching their border after the country’s ruling military council gave orders to seal off Sinai two days before 15 May, hundreds besieged Israel’s Cairo embassy instead.

Sure, why not? When Muslims in the Middle East kill Muslims, the media is silent. When Muslims kill Christians, the media is silent. And when Muslims kill Jews, the media blames the Jews.

So, what did we learn on Nakba Day? We learned, thanks to Syria’s sanctioned incursion into Israeli territory, that it makes absolutely no sense to discuss giving the Golan Heights to Syria. And we learned that, then as now, the Nakba is mainly about Arab leaders manipulating the Palestinians to continue to oppress their people and wage unending war against the Jewish state.

In other words, we learned nothing new.

How convenient that Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast is saying that the U.S. has no reason to keep troops in the Middle East now that Osama bin Laden is dead, and thus terrorism has been eliminated. Far from it. Iran continues calls for the obliteration of Israel, President Ahmedinijad called on Arabs to “free” themselves from “arrogant powers” (the U.S. and Israel), and Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said:

People of the Middle East, the Muslim region and North Africa — people of these regions — hate America from the bottom of their heart.

Islamists are seizing the occasion of Osama bin Laden’s death to undermine the US’ resolve against terrorism, but the War on Terror is far from over. Islamists continue their hate-driven quest to conquer Western infidels, with Iran becoming increasingly powerful, and now, successfully wooing Egypt–an increasingly radicalized country since Hosni Mubarak’s departure.

Most Egyptians want an end to the peace treaty with Israel, according to an opinion poll.  The survey also showed strong support for Islamic law and for the Muslim Brotherhood, which condemned the American killing of bin Laden and issued an inauspicious request:

The Muslim Brotherhood asks the US to stop conducting intelligence operations against those who disagree with them and to stop interfering in the business of Arab and Muslim countries

The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and al Qaeda, though at odds in methodology, are conjoined twins in their objectives to conquer the world and subdue it under dhimmitude.  The MB is attempting to undermine the American resistance against stealth and violent Jihad as it continues to serve in its own Axis of Resistance “led by Iran and comprising Syria and non-state but nonetheless popular nationalist actors such as Hizballah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories.”

Iran and Egypt have also been conducting so-called diplomatic meetings; Iran has now appointed its first ambassador to Egypt in over 30 years and Egypt, after years of cooperating with the Israeli blockade of Gaza, ended it for so-called humanitarian reasons after the flotilla incident.  Now, following secret negotiations, Egypt has mediated a reconciliation deal between rival Hamas and Fatah as it brokers a restructuring and unifying of Hamas security forces to assist the Palestinians.

Voices of appeasement coming from the far Left about provoking Islamists throughout the Muslim world are bound to surface with the killing of Bin Laden. But America and its allies need to continue vigilance and an even tougher resolve against the forces of terrorism and Islamism in the wake of Bin Laden’s death and with the rapidly developing events in the Middle East.

I have finally lived long enough to see some dreams come true.

A Russian billionaire, Alexander Mashkevich, has just announced that he will fund a pro-Israel, pro-truth television news channel, a “Jewish Al-Jazeera.” God bless him! I have been calling for something like this for seven years. I hope that Mr. Mashkevich and his advisors understand that this new channel must be far better than Al-Jazeera, not only in terms of truth-telling but in other ways as well. Al-Jazeera broadcasts only in Arabic and English, and is only now preparing to broadcast in Turkish and Urdu. The “Jewish Al-Jazeera” must appear in many more languages simultaneously: Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Kurdish, Urdu, Punjabi, Sindhi, Bengali, Pashto, the Indonesian and Malaysian languages, as well as in all the European, East European, and former Soviet languages.

Why? Because all the Big Lies and blood libels about Israel and the Jews are being told 24/7 in every language on earth. I wrote about this in 2003, in my book The New Anti-Semitism.

Israel is surrounded by barbaric terrorist enemies; it faces not just one Hitler but at least 57 Muslim nation Hitlers (this includes the “State of Palestine,” which is one of the member “states” of the Organization of the Islamic Conference) and scores of more extremist non-state Islamist groups worldwide, e.g. Al-Qaeda, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, the Muslim Brotherhood, Gamaah Islamiyah, the Pakistani Jamaat-e-Islami,  the Pakistani Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Afghan Taliban, Al-Qaeda in North Africa, Al Qaeda in Iraq, etc. In addition, these 57 Muslim countries and the terrorist groups are aided and abetted by a morally and politically failing and appeasement-minded West and by anti-Zionist, pro-Palestinian, pro-jihadist international human rights groups and by the United Nations.

For example, even as Hamas purposely targets Israeli school buses, the same UN which initially commissioned the Goldstone Report is now determined to implement it no matter what Goldstone-the-Jew now says. How President Obama behaves at the UN will be very important.

What the UN and their western running dogs will not do is accuse Hamas, Hezbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood, Iran, Libya, or Sudan of crimes against humanity. In fact, even as I write, the Left is busily trying to “spin” the half-hearted Goldstone recantation to their own advantage. They insist that Israel engaged in overkill, that it used disproportionate force, that it is “guilty” of something, of everything; mainly, it is guilty because it dares to exist and presumes it has the right to defend itself.

I am not going to name the articles, books, blogs, and press releases that such leftists have been wildly publishing ever since the Goldstone recantation. One such publisher really made me smile when they sent me an unsolicited copy of their pro-Goldstone work, no doubt in the hope that I would attack it and give their title traction, visibility, sales.

The Islamist groups disagree on everything; however, they agree on one thing and one thing only: That Israel must be destroyed.

But there is also good news.

Take note of the so-called “Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East” (CJPME) group. This organization has shown itself to be an ad agency for the Muslim Brotherhood, serving to promote divisive and dangerous ideologies which are causing strife and fragmentation among Canadian communities.

In the city of Hamilton, Ontario, not far from Toronto, the group recently bullied its agenda into the YWCA as it succeeded in renting a space on the Y’s premises to feature a lecture by British journalist William Parry about his book: “Against the Wall: The Art of Resistance in Palestine.” The incident serves as a model for how such groups manipulate and intimidate.

At first, the Y sought to cancel the rental space for this event, but after a letter from the organization’s lawyer, the YWCA submitted to intimidation, accepted that it was an issue of “free speech” and asked for an extra $600 security fee. The CJPME had accused the Y of bowing to the pressures of the pro-Israel lobby, Never Again Group. In strong words, the CJPME notes:

that a YWCA attempt to force the cancellation of the booking simply because of the topic of the meeting would constitute a violation of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Had an offshoot of the KKK requested space to parade racist hate against the black population, would the YWCA have allowed such a booking for fear that a refusal would constitute “a violation of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms? “ Nonprofit organizations like the Y are funded by public donations and are intended to serve a mission/mandate in the community, which does not include promoting propaganda campaigns of hate.

Some challenging e-mails were sent out to the Y and the CJPME with no sufficient reply if any. Included in some…

Gary Gerofky of Never Again Group asked rightfully of the YWCA:

we would like to know why you have chosen to highlight a controversial display of “art” that has no basis in truth and which vilifies and demonizes Israel. Surely you must know by now that this campaign against Israel ignores all the terrorism and totalitarianism in the region that makes security a top priority in Israel, a place that accepts people of all cultures, colour and religions unlike the dictatorships now killing their own people … This art display would be more appropriate were it to reveal the unexplored tyranny in Muslim countries.

Local journalist Steven Scheffer asked Thomas Woodley, a representative with CJPME:

Your page further states that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict greatly affects the stability of the entire region.  Nothing can be further from the truth…. 17,000 deadly terrorist attacks carried out by Islamists since 2001 alone. How do you explain the 15 – 20,000,000 Muslim deaths caused by other Muslims since the end of WW2?  Does the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that keeps you busy everyday also explain the killing and expulsion of Christians from Muslim lands?  Does the current upheaval in…the Middle East inconveniently conflict with your theory[?]

Despite relevant inquiries, disruptions among community members, and the clash with the mission statement of the YWCA, tickets began circulating to present: “Against the Wall: The Art of Resistance in Palestine.”

Is it more terrifying to know your enemies are there but not be able to see them, or to stare daily into the wild eyes of the men who plan your execution? This is the question I pondered as I stood near Israel’s northern border with Lebanon last week.

The view from Israel’s north looks quite different than it did before the Second Lebanon War in 2006. As bad as the press was for Israel after that war, Hezbollah was so decimated by Israel’s counteroffensive that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah admitted that had he known Israel would strike back as it did, he would probably not have launched the war.

And now, where once Hezbollah commandos strutted around the border in combat fatigues with guns slung over their shoulders, they only go outside in street clothes. And while pre-2006 the Hezbollah military installations stood as concrete expressions of defiance, they are now all under or inside of civilian residential buildings.

But while that may represent a moral victory, does it bring any sense of reassurance to Israelis living in the north?

“Everybody deserves the right to live; the problem is that they don’t want us to live,” a young man named Yair told me. “Hezbollah is an example. They want to destroy us. We don’t want to fight; we just want to be in peace. But we don’t have a choice.”

Knowing that I was American–I was there on a weeklong media fellowship with Act for Israel–Yair was clearly speaking simple Hebrew for my benefit. But it was telling that perhaps his phrasing was appropriate. Was there really anything missing from his formulation?

There are now, according to the IDF, 40,000 rockets in Hezbollah’s possession south of Lebanon’s Litani River, which at its closest point comes to within four kilometers of the Israeli border. In the last war, rockets rained on Israel’s port city and economic and population center of Haifa. The city is home to over 265,000 Israelis, but another 300,000 live in adjacent towns.

Another important number is 1 million–that’s how many Israelis live north of Haifa and who, presumably, the rockets stockpiled in the Lebanese village of Al Khiam are intended for. Al Khiam sits four kilometers from the Israeli border as well, and the center of the village is home to at least eleven weapons depots. One is right next to a mosque, another is right next to a school. Both medical centers are within a few hundred feet of weapons depots. A second school is exactly 132 meters from another weapons depot. One bunker is situated about 100 meters from a school on one side and a mosque on the other.

This is Hezbollah. The world’s most feared and resilient terrorist organization, funded by Iran and running a state within a state in Lebanon (and on the verge of controlling the state of Lebanon as well) is also a machine churning out cowardice on a daily basis, as it puts both Lebanon’s and Israel’s civilians at risk. It’s entire strategy for war with Israel consists of using human shields. And why not? The media plays along.

“Israel kills [Arab] children. That’s what they’ll say,” Yuval, from the northern town of Poriyya, tells me. I asked him whether Israel is capable of defending herself from the onslaught that everyone I spoke to believes is coming–and soon.

“She can defend herself, but we are too worried what the world will think about us,” he responds.

It is here where Israeli confidence and cynicism meet. Israelis are always sure their army can win the war, but are less sure their leaders will respond as soon as they are attacked.

“When it falls in Tel Aviv,” Yuval says, referring to the rockets, “then Israel will take [action]. I don’t think they care when it falls down here.” But Israel responded when the rockets fell in Haifa, I said. Yuval brushes that aside. “When it falls in Tel Aviv, it’s like the center of Israel. And it symbolizes something.”

I think that response has a poetic element to it. He thinks it’s just realism, straight up. “It’s like when rockets fall in Sderot,” he tells me, offering me the answer he and I both knew was coming at some point. “For eight years they fall down every day and no one cared about it. For eight years.”

And this is more than frustration. This is a real fear. I ask him if he thinks another war is coming soon. “Yes, of course,” he answers. Is there a sense of nervousness among Israelis, especially those living in the north? “Yes, of course.”

Yuval’s concern is more common, of course, in the north. Yair told me something similar. He said the leaders don’t know how to solve the problem of Hezbollah. But it was the language he used that caught my attention. He used the phrase lo bnuyim in Hebrew. Bnuyim means build, and is often used to describe a sense of maturity or readiness. When Yair uses lo bnuyim to describe his leaders, he is wondering whether they are built for this.

Regardless, everyone I spoke to is certain that the Israeli leadership will strike back and that the IDF will win. It’s only a matter of when, they say, and at what cost. They have no doubt Israel’s governing coalition will defend the state. I was here when Kadima was in charge in 2006, and there simply wasn’t this confidence. Something about the Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu coalition with Ehud Barak as defense minister projects a toughness Israelis both like and relate to.

Part of the distress in the north is the feeling that the rockets are there to deter an Israeli strike on Iran. If someone–Israel most likely, but anyone really–attacks Iran, Israelis in the north expect the rockets to come fast and furious in response. Therefore, not only must they think about a possible future war with Hezbollah, but they must also confront the question of whether the existence of those rockets will enable Iran to go nuclear. Which is worse? Does it even matter?

“You can make peace with a snake? You can sleep with a snake?” Yosi Levy asks me rhetorically as we sit behind the counter in his kiosk along the boardwalk in Tiberias. Levy likes to speak in allegories.

Hezbollah doesn’t want land, he reminds me, as the Palestinians can at least claim. They just want the Jews dead, and they only understand force. So there will be war.

Levy is no stranger to war in Lebanon. He served in the IDF in south Lebanon in 1982, when Israel went in to root out the PLO. He pulls up his pant leg slightly and points to a three-inch scar on the right side of his ankle, then turns his foot and shows a similar scar on the other side. It’s where the bullet entered and where it exited his leg.

“It’s a present from the Palestinians,” he says.

I ask Levy if Israel is ready to defend herself. Yes, he says without hesitation. I ask him how he knows there will be war again. He tells me the story of the frog and the scorpion, pointing to the water nearby.

The scorpion finds the frog on the shore, about to swim to the island in the middle of the water. He asks the frog for a ride, since the scorpion obviously can’t swim. The frog responds that he thinks the scorpion will sting him–he is a scorpion, after all. The scorpion counters that if he stings the frog, they’ll both go under, and therefore the concept of mutually assured destruction will prevent him from stinging the frog. So the frog agrees. Halfway to the island, the scorpion stings the frog. As they’re going under, the frog shoots the scorpion a hurt and betrayed look.

Levy pauses before offering the scorpion’s response, clearly intended to represent Israel’s Arab enemies, and which he delivers with a smile: “I’m a scorpion, what did you expect, I’d kiss you?”

Mexico’s drug war is still raging, with over 22,000 people having been killed since 2006. Now, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, often referred to as the FARC, are teaming up with the drug lords. The Marxist terrorist group’s ties to Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and other organizations make the conflict to the south a major threat to the United States.

The violence in Mexico is severe. In the first two days of May, 25 people were killed in Chihuahua, with several of the murders happening in Ciudad Juarez. As the month of May began, 62 people had been killed in the city over the previous week, bringing the total to 850 lives lost in that city alone in 2010. Last year, the Joint Forces Command warned that Mexico and Pakistan were the two countries most at risk of “rapid and sudden collapse.” There have been arrests of high-profile drug lords, but the violence and corruption continues.

The latest arrest of Mario Ernesto Villanueva Madrid revealed how deeply he had corrupted Mexican law enforcement. Documents captured after his arrest found that he was bribing those commanding the police and soldiers searching him, which explains how he was able to avoid capture for 11 years. The New York Times described Madrid as running “a sophisticated counterintelligence operation.” The drug lords are growing bolder, and instead of opening fire when they are pursued, they are now on the offensive. They are directly attacking the police, soldiers, and those serving the government.

Dr. Maria Velez de Berliner, the President of the Latin Intelligence Corporation, told FrontPage that the brutality of the Mexican drug lords now surpasses that of the Colombian drug traffickers, which is quite a feat.

“If this situation continues, the time will probably come when Mexico will replace Colombia as the largest producer and exporter of cocaine,” she said.

Now, it is known that the FARC is teaming up with the drug lords, offering a major source of income for their own operations and potentially providing the criminals with the military expertise they need to further destabilize Mexico. The FARC connection also gives Hugo Chavez the ability to covertly attack Mexico and the United States and gain intelligence. It also means that other terrorist groups that are connected to FARC or the drug lords have the ability to send arms and operatives into the U.S. if they are willing to pay for it.

The leader of the FARC until 2008, the late Raul Reyes, is now known to have written a letter to his top commanders confirming that a relationship with the Mexican drug lords existed. He was enthusiastic about the new partnership, saying it would allow them to double their profits. It is estimated that FARC already makes $1 billion annually through its work with drug lords. According to Michael Braum, a former operations chief for the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Mexican criminals want to buy “multiton quantities of cocaine directly from South America.”

Dr. Maria Velez de Berliner said that the “FARC is not interested in attacking the U.S, they don’t have the field capability to do so.” However, she warns that FARC’s business with other terrorists and drug traffickers does threaten the U.S.

Olavo de Carvalho, a philosopher from Brazil who has written extensively about the activity of the Marxists in Latin America, agreed with her, saying that the FARC will not initiate military operations against the U.S. in the near-term.

“…but they can give strategic support to Mexican gangs operating in American territory, exactly as they did with several Brazilian gangs, transforming them from mere bunches of criminals into powerful and well-armed organizations. This is a serious and imminent threat,” he said.

The instability in Mexico is directly benefiting Hezbollah, which is now tied to the Venezuelan government and possibly the FARC. The smuggling routes used by the Mexican drug lords are being utilized by Hezbollah, using “the same criminal weapons smugglers, document traffickers and transportation experts as the drug cartels,” said Braun. The terrorist group has a long history of engaging in drug trafficking in order to fundraise.

“They [Hezbollah] are doing the same thing in Latin America that they are doing in the Middle East, particularly in Lebanon, and providing medical and social services,” Dr. de Berliner said.

She also mentioned that the FARC is working with Chinese gangs in the tri-border area of Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil. These gangs could potentially buy and upgrade the FARC’s semi-submersibles and use them in their human trafficking efforts, allowing them to potentially insert operatives into the U.S.

Al-Qaeda also will benefit from the FARC’s new ventures, and could conceivably pay them, or the Mexican drug lords, to help them smuggle in operatives. In fact, Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Somalia, Al-Shabaab, may have already done so as someone connected to the group oversaw the smuggling of 270 Somalis into the U.S. through Mexico.

FARC has already begun using Al-Qaeda members in West Africa in order to deliver drugs to Europe. Three members of Al-Qaeda have been arrested in West Africa and were extradited to the U.S. in December. The DEA’s director of South America’s Andean region says that “All of the aircraft seizures that have been made in West Africa, and we’ve made about a half a dozen of them, had departed from Venezuela.”

The separatist Basque ETA terrorists of Spain have entered into an alliance with the FARC as well, an unsurprising development considering the hostile relationship between Spain and Venezuela. A Spanish court has charged a Venezuelan official and a dozen FARC and ETA members with terrorism-related offenses, and Venezuela is refusing to extradite the suspects.

The evidence against them stems from seizures made by the Colombians that provided evidence that ETA members attended FARC camps from 2003 to 2008, located near Machiques in Venezuela. The ETA members provided explosives training for at least five FARC units, and two former FARC operatives have confirmed seeing ETA members training at their camps in 2008. The ETA members traveled with Venezuelan military officers, proving that Chavez’s government is involved in the relationship. This is a reminder that Chavez and other leaders often use the terrorists they support as a liaison with other groups, providing them with deniability.

The crisis in Mexico can not be seen in isolation. The worst enemies of the United States and the West are seeing it as a platform with which to expand their own capabilities. The debate about how the open border facilitates illegal immigration must be modified, because the problem goes much further than that. Terrorist groups are using the strife in Mexico and the open border to fundraise and sneak their operatives into the U.S. as we speak.

No, you know the drill. "Ohio couple accused of helping Hezbollah," from UPI, June 3:

TOLEDO, Ohio, June 3 (UPI) -- An Ohio couple were arrested Thursday on charges they conspired to help the Middle East terrorist organization Hezbollah, authorities said.

The U.S. Justice Department said Hor I. and Amera A. Akl, both 37, of Toledo, who hold dual U.S.-Lebanese citizenship, are accused of conspiring to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, conspiracy to launder money and arson relating to an insurance fraud scheme.

Hor Akl also is charged with two counts of bankruptcy fraud and one count of perjury, U.S. Attorney Steven M. Dettelbach said in a news release.

The Akls allegedly agreed to send money to Hezbollah after being approached by a confidential informant for the FBI who claimed he worked for an anonymous donor eager to support Hezbollah. The couple researched and proposed at least 10 different ways in which the money could be shipped to the terrorist group, authorities say.

The couple ultimately agreed to conceal about $500,000 in the hollow sections of a vehicle and ship it to Lebanon in return for a fee, authorities allege.

For the umpteenth time, leftist movie director Oliver Stone praised his favorite South American communist strongman Hugo Chavez.

“I admire Hugo. I like him very much as a person,” Stone said in Caracas, Venezuela, where he was promoting his latest cinematic atrocity, South of the Border. Internet Movie Database (IMDB) describes the movie as “[a] road trip across five countries to explore the social and political movements as well as the mainstream media’s misperception of South America while interviewing seven of its elected presidents.” (Sounds like a Media Matters project, doesn’t it?)

A news report fails to recognize the political objective of Stone’s latest movie. The propaganda flick “features informal interviews by Stone with Chavez and six allied leftist presidents, from Bolivia’s Evo Morales to Cuba’s Raul Castro,” AP reports.

Stone shared his affection for Chavez with the world. “He’s a soldier and he speaks from his heart,” said Stone. “His vision is huge. … And he will go down in history.”

Stone said he hopes his celluloid journey into fantasyland will help people better understand Chavez who is wrongly ridiculed “as a strongman, as a buffoon, as a clown.”

“This is a positive portrayal of a man who Americans do not have access to,” he said. “He is demonized in the American and European press as a monster.”

Would that Chavez were portrayed in the media as a monster. As if!

The media downplays the fact that Chavez openly works with terrorist groups Hamas, Hezbollah, and FARC. Hamas and Hezbollah have offices in Caracas and Chavez funds FARC. A congressional report indicates Iran’s fanatical Revolutionary Guards are active in Venezuela. A State Department report notes Venezuela’s close working relationship with terrorism-sponsoring Cuba.

And Stone loves this guy.

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Woman holds yellow flag of outlawed group Hezbollah (Toronto: May 30, 2010)

My husband Arnie blogs as BlazingCatFur, and frequently videotapes anti-Israeli demonstrations here in Toronto.

This morning, he taped a demonstration against Benyamin Netanyahu’s visit to the city. The demo was co-sponsored by taxpayer funded Palestine House.

While filming a public demonstration on a public sidewalk, my husband was approached by Ali Mallah — the Vice President of the Canadian Arab Federation, and high ranking member of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE)/Canadian Labour Congress. (Mr. Mallah is no stranger to controversy.)

Mallah recognized my husband, crossed the street, and verbally and physically assaulted him.

You can see the video and his report here and here.

Arnie was unhurt.

This is the latest in a series of shameless public attacks by “peaceful” Muslims and their sympathizers against pro-Israeli Canadians.