Once upon a time there used to be billboards for Virginia Slims cigarettes with the slogans, “You’ve come a long way, baby.” The billboards are gone now, but in their place are billboards for All-American Muslim which substitute the hijab for the cigarette. The same left which was outraged at a company marketing cigarettes as a form of female empowerment is completely supportive of marketing 7th century Islamic misogyny as female empowerment.

“The Fast and the Furious,” the second episode of TLC’s All-American Muslim, plays out like a hijab commercial, along with a pitch for the Ramadan fast. But what is missing is any acknowledgement of the violent means by which the hijab is imposed on Muslim and non-Muslim women around the world. For many women, even in North America, the consequences of not wearing the hijab can be fatal.

Sixteen-year-old Aqsa Parvaz was strangled to death by her father because she refused to wear a hijab… not somewhere in Pakistan, but in Ontario. In that same city, Mohammad Shafia killed his three daughters, ranging in age from 13 to 19, over their refusal to wear hijabs. There is no way to know if Virginia Slims or the hijab killed more women, but we do know that today it is unacceptable to show women smoking, but it is acceptable to promote treating them as chattel.

All-American Muslim had set out to show that Muslims weren’t terrorists, that they are just the neighbors next door. What a pity then that the second episode features a terrorist supporting cleric providing hijab counseling to one of the show’s stars.

Imam Abdul Latif Berry spoke at a 2009 commemoration ceremony for the Ayatollah Khomeini which took place at his own Islamic Institute of Knowledge. And he’s also quite a feminist. His website features an opinion that a husband can deny his wife a divorce if she does not return the dowry and in another appears to justify marital rape.

So, the wife must obey her husband by giving him his physical rights which he asks from her; she has to make herself available to him when he wants her; she has no right to abstain unless she has her period, a medical condition, or a difficulty that keeps her from responding favorably to him. If he demands his right and obliges her, this would not be rape in the Islamic Law, but something basic in the concept of marriage contract. Otherwise, what would marriage be without mating?

What about beating your wife? Imam Abdul Latif Berry has the answer for how to deal with a wife who won’t perform her “marital duties.”

When all peaceful methods have been exhausted and attempts to fix the problem have failed, and if this is the only means for reform, practice disciplinary confrontation with the rebellious wife. Again, Islam poses extreme conditions on this last step. The confrontation must not lead to injury or leave bruises. It must not be done in revenge or be based on hatred which trespasses the set limits, but instead be prescribed like the bitter medicine with calculated dosages to speed reform while still protect from harming the self and others.

Ten years after the worst terrorist attack in American history, the Muslim terrorist is almost entirely absent from movies and television shows. He will show up on the evening news, when there’s no way around it, but when it comes to entertainment, the American TV viewer is fed a steady diet of movies and shows featuring positive depictions of Muslims. And that’s not just liberal bias at work.

I have written about Unity Productions in the past and its pernicious PBS propaganda machine, and another UPF project is MOST (Muslims on Screen and Television) which partners with a number of American useful idiot groups to promote positive depictions of Muslims on television. Another force working toward promoting Muslim propaganda on television is the Muslim Public Affairs Council’s Hollywood bureau, which helped reshape 24 from a show concentrating on the War on Terror into Muslim propaganda. MPAC began life as a Muslim Brotherhood project. Its attempts to control American television programming are in line with the Brotherhood’s mission.

Seen against that backdrop, All-American Muslim, the new unreality show meant to promote the myth that Muslims are just another minority fully integrated into America with the same goals and dreams as the rest of us, is part of a larger agenda. The one that gave us Aliens in America and HBO’s Koran by Heart.

All-American Muslim cuts to the chase pretty quickly with an American undergoing conversion to Islam. While the show tries to present members of its Dearborn Muslim families as individuals and non-conformists, in the final analysis Jeff, an Irish-American who wants to marry in, must conform and submit to Islam. When Jeff pronounces the Shahada, proclaiming that there is no god but Allah and turning his back on his Catholic faith, viewers are supposed to celebrate.

“I am surprised how easy it is to convert to Islam,” Jeff says. What the show neglects to mention is that while it is very easy to convert to Islam, it is quite difficult to leave. Having converted in a nationally televised event, should Jeff leave when the marriage goes south it will be considered apostasy which carries a death sentence. It’s easy to play So You Want to be a Muslim, so long as you don’t mind choosing between losing your freedom of choice… or your life.

The theme of All-American Muslim is that Muslims are just like us. It’s the same message that Hollywood has been blasting at us for ten years as if anyone were under the impression that Muslims are aliens from another planet.

Muslims are like us; that’s the problem. The Nazis were like us too. So were the Communists. They were and are what we are capable of becoming if we fall under the sway of a totalitarian ideology that insists it has the right and duty to enslave the human race. And so we’re treated to endless scenes of normalization. Muslim women care about their looks. Muslim men like sports. Muslims hold down jobs and deal with the same issues that we do.

If reality shows like Jersey Shore and Real Housewives regale us with freaks and orchestrated drama, All-American Muslim goes in the other direction to assure us once again that there’s absolutely nothing freakish about Islam. Just good ordinary people who submit to Allah and wear Hijabs in order to be closer to Allah.

But the effect isn’t really what Shed Media, responsible for such great entertainment as My Transsexual Summer and Basketball Wives, had in mind. The more All-American Muslim tries to reassure us how normal and ordinary it is, the more surreal it becomes. Like the pod people, All-American Muslim only highlights the unnaturalness of the core ideology of Islam by dressing it up in the ordinary everyday minutia of American life.

The more All-American Muslim tries to “defuse stereotypes” with Muslim businesswomen and a tattooed self-proclaimed hillbilly, the more we’re reminded of the true status of women under Islam. Every time All-American Muslim insists on how free and liberated Muslim women are, it’s a lie that takes place under the shadow of a Muslim world where women have few rights.

There’s only so much mileage the Left can get out of vehemently denying that President Barack Obama is a socialist. For best propagandistic results, it’s ideal to highlight people on the Right who allegedly admit the same thing (and if their remarks can be used to embarrass a hated cable news channel in the process, so much the better).

Case in point: relying upon Media Matters research, Howard Kurtz’s latest on the Daily Beast highlights recent remarks made by Fox News Channel’s Washington Managing Editor Bill Sammon during a 2009 cruise hosted by Hillsdale College (my alma mater):

“Last year, candidate Barack Obama stood on a sidewalk in Toledo, Ohio, and first let it slip to Joe the Plumber that he wanted to ‘spread the wealth around.’ At that time, I have to admit that I went on TV on Fox News and publicly engaged in what I guess was some rather mischievous speculation about whether Barack Obama really advocated socialism, a premise that privately I found rather far-fetched.”

That he did—on several occasions.

On Oct. 14, 2008, Sammon said on the air that Obama’s “spread the wealth” remark “is red meat when you’re talking to conservatives and you start talking about spread the wealth around. That is tantamount to socialism.”

On Oct. 21, he told Greta Van Susteren: “I have read Barack Obama’s books pretty carefully, and he in his own words talks about being drawn to Marxists… Now all this stuff’s coming out about whether he’s a socialist. I don’t know why anyone is surprised by it, because if you read his own words and his sort of, you know, orientation coming up as a liberal through college and a young man, it’s not a huge shock.”

Sammon, a former Washington Times reporter, also made sure his troops got out the word. On Oct. 27, he sent an email to staffers highlighting what he described as “Obama’s references to socialism, liberalism, Marxism and Marxists” in his 1995 autobiography, Dreams From My Father.

Sammon’s response:

In an interview, Sammon says his reference to “mischevious speculation” was “my probably inartful way of saying, ‘Can you believe how far this thing has come?’” The socialism question indeed “struck me as a far-fetched idea” in 2008. “I considered it kind of a remarkable notion that we would even be having the conversation.” He doesn’t regret repeatedly raising it on the air because, Sammon says, “it was a main point of discussion on all the channels, in all the media”—and by 2009 he was “astonished by how the needle had moved.”

In defense of Sammon’s ethics, raising a subject on the air and speculating about it, even “mischievously,” aren’t the same as reaching or arguing for a firm conclusion about the subject. Indeed, if you watch the full clip the Oct. 14 quote comes from, Sammon’s not even arguing for the Obama-as-socialist charge—he’s just objectively analyzing 2008 rival John McCain’s strategic interest in pressing the issue.

“Spread the wealth around,” Marxism in Dreams From My Father, Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers…these details of Obama’s life and career aren’t right-wing fabrications. Taken on their own, each story raised serious, legitimate questions about just how radical Obama’s views were, and it shouldn’t take a Republican partisan to notice, or to discuss their significance.

There is an entirely plausible interpretation of Sammon’s words that gives his honesty (if not his political judgment) the benefit of the doubt—he found these stories noteworthy but didn’t ultimately think they added up to Obama personally being a full-blown socialist, perhaps out of a hesitancy to read too much into his words or attribute the views of others to Obama himself.

Ultimately, though, what Bill Sammon believed when is a sideshow; the real purpose of this narrative is to indirectly discredit the idea that Obama’s politics are radical. And on that score, it fails utterly. So Sammon didn’t think candidate Obama’s record indicated socialism; that doesn’t make Sammon’s 2008 judgment correct. For one thing, it makes no effort to acknowledge or refute the compelling evidence and arguments for Obama-as-socialist that have been made, and is no substitute for a comprehensive, objective look at Obama’s own record. For another, it ignores something else Sammon said on the same cruise—simply looking at what Obama has done since taking office puts the debate in a whole new light:

“Now imagine my surprise when this year, I witness President Barack Obama standing in the cross hall of the White House and having taken over the American car industry, look into the camera, and announce to the nation essentially, that he would personally vouch for the warranty on your car’s muffler. All of a sudden, the debate over whether America was heading for socialism seemed anything but far-fetched…The debate over whether America is headed for socialism seems all too real, especially to those who still believe in capitalism.”

These days, so much of what passes for entertainment is really just leftwing propaganda. In a recent installment of the TV musical comedy, “Glee,” an acute piece of propaganda was offered under the guise of satire. In the episode, Kathy Griffin guest stars as an amalgamated version of Christine O’Donnell and Sarah Palin. Her character is one of several judges that are discussing which musical act should win a glee club competition. She is introduced as Tammy Jean Albertson: Twitterer and former Tea Party Candidate. Each line of her dialogue advances a leftist propaganda myth.

Griffin: “Before we start, I would like to say, ‘I am not a witch,’ but, um, I think it’s fair to ask if we have written proof that these kids were born in the United States of America.”

A judge suggests voting for an act where two boys sing a duet:

Griffin: “Oh, boys shouldn’t do a duet. The last thing we need to do is send a message to children that ‘gay is o.k.’ It is not a legitimate lifestyle, and last time I checked, it’s not in the Constitution.”

A judge suggests voting for an act where the song’s topic was Jesus:

Griffin: “Well that should win!” (To protests)

To the suggestion of voting for the “Glee” cast’s act:

Griffin: “Those songs were terrible. I’m sorry, but I am a politician, and when I lost my last election, and there will be a recount, I didn’t go around singing about being a loser. I twittered that Obama is a terrorist. (To protests) I had to; it’s a fact.”

In this whole exchange, very little reflects the truth about the Tea Party. References to twitter and the “I am not a witch” statement were made in order to establish a parallel between Griffin’s character, Sarah Palin, and Christine O’Donnell, but the rest is pure distortion, yet, as is usually the case, when the Left accuses the Right of base tactics or character traits, it is the Left that are often guilty of those very same behaviors.

For instance, Griffin plays the part of a narrow-minded bigot chosen to preside over a contest. Griffin’s character uses her position as a judge to influence the outcome of competition based upon her intolerant views. This bully pulpit scenario has a real-life parallel. In the 2009 Miss USA pageant, judge Perez Hilton asked Miss California, Carrie Prejean, the following question:

“Vermont recently became the fourth state to legalize same-sex marriage. Do you think every state should follow suit? Why or why not?”

When the first runner up, Prejean, said that she was against same-sex marriage, the subsequent fallout was anything but tolerant. In a video made directly after the pageant, a hate filled Hilton posted a video on YouTube stating:

“She gave the worst answer in pageant history. She lost not because she doesn’t believe in gay marriage. Miss California lost because she’s a dumb bitch.”

The next day Hilton told ABC News:

“Her answer alienated millions of gay and lesbian Americans, their families and their supporters. She lost it because of that question. She was definitely the front-runner before that.”

Later, in an interview on MSNBC, the bigoted Hilton made a faux retraction of his previous insult:

“I don’t apologize. Over the course of the past 24 hours, the more I’ve thought about it, the more – you know what? – No, I’m going to stand by what I said just like she’s standing by what she said. And I called her the ‘b’ word, and hey, I was thinking the ‘c’ word.”

Once again, what is supposed to be entertainment becomes propaganda. This real-life scenario and the scenario depicted in “Glee” are almost identical except that the political ideologies of the players are reversed, and let us not forget that, while “Glee” is fictional, the Miss USA show trial was factual. Incidentally, in the 2010 Miss USA pageant, the first runner up from Oklahoma missed the crown due to a similar agenda driven question.

Too often, the way conservatives are portrayed in the media is more a reflection of leftist traits than conservative behavior. If conservatives are as contemptible as the Left posits, an honest portrayal of them should be enough to demonstrate their negative impulses, yet much of how they are depicted in the media is exaggeration, amalgamation, and falsehood. As the culture war becomes more acute, pointing out the hypocrisy of the Left is becoming increasingly effortless and redundant, and with propagandist entertainment such as “Glee” and the Miss USA pageant, it is becoming clear that real-life bigotry, intolerance, and bullying is predominately exhibited on the Left.

JERUSALEM -- Israeli naval commandos stormed a flotilla of ships carrying aid and hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists to the blockaded Gaza Strip on Monday, killing nine passengers in a botched raid that provoked international outrage and a diplomatic crisis.

Dozens of activists and six Israeli soldiers were wounded in the bloody predawn confrontation in international waters. The violent takeover dealt yet another blow to Israel's international image, already tarnished by war crimes accusations in Gaza and its 3-year-old blockade of the impoverished Palestinian territory.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanhayu canceled a much-anticipated meeting with President Barack Obama in Washington on Tuesday in a sign of just how gravely Israel viewed the international uproar. In Canada, Netanyahu announced he was rushing home.

Israel said it opened fire after its commandos were attacked by knives, clubs and live fire from two pistols wrested from soldiers after they rappelled from a helicopter to board one of the vessels. Late Monday, it released a grainy black-and-white video that it said supported its version of events.

Reaction was swift and harsh, with a massive protest in Turkey, Israel's longtime Muslim ally, which unofficially supported the mission. Ankara announced it would recall its ambassador and call off military exercises with the Jewish state.

The U.N. Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting later Monday to hear a briefing on the incident, said Lebanon's Deputy Ambassador Caroline Ziade, whose country holds the council presidency. The Arab League called for a meeting to discuss the issue Tuesday in Cairo....

Phew! Now I feel so much better about my extorted tax dollars being wasted on leftwing propaganda, Israel bashing and anti-Americanism! (Not to mention masturbatory “investigations.”)

Remember that media bias “study” being conducted by (and, ever so conveniently, about) the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation I told you about a while back?

Seems the results are already in, and the CBC’s conclusions are, er, fascinating:

Stephen Harper’s chief election strategist deliberately used the CBC complaints process and “paranoia-tinged” language to raise money for the Conservatives and to “overwhelm” and “intimidate” the office, the public broadcaster’s ombudsman says in a report that completely exonerates EKOS pollster Frank Graves.

Mr. Graves is one of four national pollsters who provide semi-regular surveys to the public broadcaster. He recently touched off a firestorm after he was quoted in a Globe and Mail column  suggesting Michael Ignatieff and his Liberals launch a “culture war” against the Tories.  (…)

If Mr. Graves is guilty of anything, the ombudsman says, it is being too open in explaining his data – so open, in fact, that if he were actually working for the Liberals they would probably fire him for blabbing about strategy.

“Ordinary citizens might not know this, but anyone who has worked in the ‘hot house’ of Ottawa politics would know that pollsters are much in love with their data and many will expound on it to virtually anyone, unless, of course, the pollster were working for a party. They would then keep that data very close,” Mr. Carlin says.

In other words: “We can’t believe you crazy, stupid conservatives made us answer our damn phones to deal with your crazy, stupid questions and complaints. What do you think we’re running here? An impartial ombud’s office or something?! Go back to paying our salaries in obedient silence, plebians!”

"From Saudi Newspaper: 'Jihad Watch [Spreads] Nazi Propaganda in order to Link Islam with Terrorism," from Translating Jihad, May 13:

This article, published in the Saudi newspaper Dar al-Hayat on 30 April, is a response to Robert Spencer's "See No Qur'an, Hear No Qur'an," published on 16 April in Frontpage Magazine. The author takes issue with Spencer's complaint about the Associate Press coverage of an incident in Chicago where a Muslim man killed his family. In the AP piece, nothing was said about Islam, only that he killed them because "voices" told him to. However, in a piece in the Chicago Tribune, it was reported that he had killed them because the Qur'an told him to, and they weren't religious enough.

Eyes and Ears (Enough to Provoke a Response)

29 Apr 2010

Jihad al-Khazin

There is an American website through which American Likud Jews, the enemies of Arabs and Muslims, as well as supporters of the criminal state of thieves, which is called Israel, operate. Among its work is something called "Jihad Watch," which conjures up anything it can exploit to spread Nazi propaganda in order to link Islam with terrorism and extremism in people's minds. [...]

The site recently published what was written by the Likud anti-Christ, Robert Spencer, with the title, "See No Qur'an, Hear No Qur'an..." The title was taken from a 2500-year-old Chinese admonition on good manners, which is, "Hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil." It is usually depicted by the image of three monkeys, one of them placing his hands over his ears, the second over his mouth, and the third over his eyes.

Thus the site publishes a headline placing the Qur'an in the place of evil and monkeys....

Yikes! If I had put the Jews in the place of evil and monkeys, that would have been just fine with Dar al-Hayat. After all, it's in the Qur'an (2:62-65; 5:59-60; 7:166).

[Editor's note: This is the second installment of a four-part series. To read Part I of "Pro-Palestinianism: A Movement of Hate," click here. For later segments, click: Part III and Part IV.]

The pro-Palestinian movement is profoundly undemocratic with regard to dissenting views. All contentious issues have at least two points of view. A level of reasoned discussion is often required to bring about a fair resolution to a given issue. While most of us can have strong reactions to the opinions of others when they are unpalatable, we still recognize they are entitled to have differing opinions. The need for free speech is meaningless if we all agree with each other, and it is a necessary characteristic of having a free, open society. However, nowhere more so than with the Israeli-Palestinian debate does a genuine belligerence occur when there is a divergence of opinion away from the predominant pro-Palestinian narrative of the conflict. Whenever anyone endorses an opinion in the media or on the internet that is even mildly critical of the Palestinians or mildly supportive of Israel they are typically subjected to extreme criticism. Palestinian sympathisers often use a variety of dishonest methods of argumentation. One common method of counter-argument largely avoids confronting the issue at hand. A pro-Israel article dealing with a particular topic is broadly dismissed but typically, issues are cited that are beyond the scope of said article and as a consequence, vitriolic scorn is often heaped upon it. Even lengthy articles can only deal with a limited number of topics in a limited number of words, and can only address a limited number of responses. Yet they are typically attacked to such an extent it comes across as an attempt, wherever possible, to discredit articles supporting Israel.

The Guardian newspaper has been for some time a notoriously biased publication when it comes to matters of the Middle East. Any article that doesn’t roundly condemn Israel is subjected to extreme prolific criticism below in the Comment is Free (CIF) internet comment sections that is often very abusive in nature. Furthermore, rather than just criticising the content of the article, many comments can be extremely personal in nature. An author’s reputation can be put into disrepute by claiming he or she is a “holocaust denier,” under the control of “Zionist paymasters” etc. The moderators of the Comment is Free section often allow deeply anti-Semitic views to also be expressed. The criticism is very prolific, with comments sometimes numbering in the thousands. The Comment is Free section is an extreme example from a mainstream newspaper but this sort of activity is nonetheless very common. It should be clear that this sort of behaviour represents an attempt to intimidate and essentially shout down any dissenting opinions. This does not only happen on the internet. One discussion shows the same often occurs, and in mainstream publications few moderate articles on the conflict ever go unanswered (forcefully) in letters pages. From colloquial evidence, many that defend Israel are sometimes subjected to serious threats, which needs to be discussed openly.

The mainstream media throughout the world bears a great deal of responsibility for promoting the pro-Palestinian movement. With Operation Cast Lead, the frenzied media continually misrepresented the importance of Hamas’ attacks. Many journalists said Hamas was wrong to attack but didn’t take the consequences of the matter seriously. This gave a false sense of balanced journalism while relentlessly exaggerating the actions of the IDF in Gaza and downplaying efforts to minimise civilian casualties. Very basic notions of journalistic balance are flouted with the corrupting of facts, the misrepresentation of opinions as facts, and a remarkable inability to seek alternative views. In recent years, inflammatory news coverage has been shown to result in increased violence towards Jews, such as in France where some news reports were proven to be faked. Given the evidential material and the depth of this bias, it is plausible to assert there is a certain level of genuine collusion between the Palestinians and the media but it is hard to say how common. Media bias is nonetheless so profound it can be asserted the Western media have some responsibility for promoting Palestinian terrorism. Little wonder Israel refused journalists access during Cast Lead.

It appears that most Palestinian propaganda is believed uncritically in the media even though it is very well known that Palestinian terrorist groups have been economical with the truth for a very long time. Profoundly dishonest reporting of casualty figures is a defining characteristic of Palestinian propaganda, and within a short time of the Israeli ground attack in January 2009, Hamas was claiming 300 children had been killed. As with previous conflicts involving Israel, the BBC and many other news institutions that should have known better repeated such figures verbatim even though it is widely known that the Palestinians can play fast and loose with such facts. The figures only increased to just under 400 after weeks of fighting on the ground which indicates the implausibility of such a death toll yet it continued to be a main feature of news coverage in 2009. To illustrate the depth of such bias, Irish Broadcaster RTE even mentioned the “1,300 Vs 13” death toll in an introduction to a story related more to Bin Laden, instead of referring to the many thousands he is personally responsible for murdering.

While the international media has become to an extent a sort of agency for Palestinian propaganda, the internet is perhaps an even more useful tool for disseminating anti-Israeli/anti-Semitic propaganda. Any nutcase can start a blog or site that can be seen around the world. This has led to a popular Western movement of hardcore support for Palestinian terrorism. Judging by the very prolific use of the Internet by pro-Palestinian groups it must be an ideal platform to attack Israel. The intent can clearly be seen even in the names of such sites e.g. “electronicintifada.net”.

A defining characteristic of the anti-Israel movement is its tireless dedication to propaganda of a most opportunistic kind. For example, when the film “Blood Diamond” about the horrors of the illegal African diamond trade was released, pro-Palestinian groups started picketing jewellers that stocked diamonds from Israel. “Apartheid,” a very emotive term, is a real favourite of pro-Palestinians, e.g. Israel Apartheid Week. This is a sheer absurdity in a state with universal suffrage where minority interests are protected. During the 20^th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, they protested about the security barrier or “Apartheid Wall” as they prefer to call it. The wall that has saved hundreds of lives, and with less terrorism, economic progress in towns like Bethlehem was possible. Meanwhile few Arab Christians remain due to Islamic intimidation clearly assisted by the Palestinian authorities. Pro-Palestinians even hijack the memory of the Holocaust, e.g. with events leading to Holocaust Memorial Day. “Activists” and “internationals,” as they like to call themselves, go to the region armed with video cameras to hopefully film and write about the latest supposed Israeli atrocity. Many videos, as seen on pro-Palestinian websites, feature grandiose descriptions of Israeli brutality that display an extraordinary divergence from the reality presented in said videos. Many, as found on YouTube, actually demonstrate the restraint of the Israeli military. If these people confronted in a similar fashion the troops of nations that were genuine human rights abusers many would meet an unpleasant end.

Many of these supposed “activists” attempt to cause diplomatic incidents to embarrass Israel. One example is the repeated attempts to break the embargo on Gaza since the election of Hamas. In 2008, a ship carried 5,000 balloons to lift the spirits of the unfortunate people of Gaza. In 2009, the amusingly titled “Spirit of Humanity” attempted to barge into Gaza. It was, of course, known that the ship would be detained if it didn’t turn back. Not only did the ship break maritime law, but all shipping to Gaza is restricted primarily due to the transit of arms particularly from Iran. If aid was the true aim of these people it could have been supplied through border crossings. Pro-Palestinian groups milked the event for all it was worth and when those on the ship were released they wasted no time peddling lies that were at times breathtaking. For example, British minority newspaper The Voice (July 20^th 2009) featured an interview by Jamaican/British filmmaker Ishmail Blagrove in which he compared the low security prison where he was detained with a Nazi concentration camp. He said hundreds of black people were taken off the streets of Israel seemingly on a daily basis and imprisoned by authorities, redolent of the worst excesses of Apartheid South Africa.

Within the pro-Palestinian movement there is a profound lack of ownership of the fact that its own activities are clearly giving rise to anti-Semitic feeling and crime towards Jewish people generally. During the protests in response to the Israeli invasion of Gaza in January 2009 there were many anti-Semitic incidents. One of the more notorious occurred in Amsterdam where there were chants of “Hamas Hamas, Jews to the gas.” In the UK, many felt such a profound sense of menace that a reclaim the streets march was organised in response to the frequent Pro-Palestinian demonstrations which were heavily policed out of necessity. These are just the tip of the iceberg. There are many reports of an array of unsubtle anti-Semitic slogans and placards being waved about at such marches. Is any campaigner concerned about placards carrying messages like “Death to the Jews” as seen in numerous photos? Whilst some organisers may attempt to distance themselves from such sentiments, to my knowledge there have never been any strong condemnations or any real efforts to weed out such elements from demonstrations. Indeed it is surely not lost on the organisers that many if not the majority of those attending such rallies hold these opinions.

In the UK there was an eight-fold increase in overtly anti-Semitic crime. Besides violent assaults, Jewish businesses and synagogues were attacked. Even Jewish primary schools were targeted. In stark contrast to the wave of support shown to the Muslim community principally by left wingers after the 7/7 terrorist attacks on London, hardly a word of concern has been uttered about rising anti-Semitism. Indeed left-wing groups, who tend to adopt all the concerns of ethnic minorities as their own, have been leading the charge of defaming Israel. Little wonder then that the same groups would not be terribly worried if the Jews in their midst are concerned for their safety. The problem of rising anti-Semitism is felt keenly in many parts of Europe (e.g. Paris and Malmo, Sweden) and increasingly in the US.

Besides the increased anti-Semitic crime rate, many independent surveys in recent years have shown considerable increases in anti-Semitism around the world. In supposedly enlightened Europe a very substantial number of people stated they blamed the Jews for the current financial crisis! Pro-Palestinian supporters strongly reject all accusations of anti-Semitism and continually assert they are only anti-Zionist. However, if they were sincere in their expressed intentions they would surely acknowledge the harm being done to Jewish communities. In various countries pro-Palestinians have notably targeted Jewish shops with no link to Israel as locations for campaign posters, sometimes daubed messages on windows (a la Nazi Germany), and sought boycott of similarly unassociated businesses. These and other examples of Jews being singled-out further disproves their activity has nothing to do with anti-Semitism.

The figure of 300 child deaths in Gaza has been bandied about by the pro-Palestinian movement throughout 2009, along with inflammatory imagery of child murder, for example a poster of a Palestinian child clutching a teddy bear while an Israeli helicopter fires missiles at it. As with other Palestinian propaganda the image draws upon old blood libel motifs, in this case the Jew as child murderer. Witness the paranoid speculation of Israeli/Jewish conspiracies, e.g. the notion that Jews control the media and are limiting criticism of Israel. A recent example is the absurdity that British-Jewish-Israeli lobbying is having an undue influence on the British establishment and is controlling the UK media. This, like other theories advanced by pro-Palestinians, requires an absurd inverted down-is-up understanding of reality. Such cases demonstrate a will to hate and defame Jews regardless of fact. This is no different to the past.

“Once, there was a time” when I believed in National Geographic and in the British medical Journal The Lancet. I did not think they traded in propaganda, but in science and nature photography. But that was back in the era of the musical Beatles. Now, my views have changed. Reality has forced my hand. National Geographic cannot be trusted about Israel or about Christians in the Arab world. And, The Lancet leaves much to be desired on many subjects.

Some years back, I had an interesting “brush” with The Lancet over the issue of the unfortunately named “Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction Syndrome” (CFS), also known as “Myalgic Encephalomyelitis” — an illness which The Lancet’s man, Dr. Simon Wessely, considers a mere psychiatric disorder, a form of hysteria which cognitive therapy should be able to cure within twelve weeks. I and many others totally disagree with his point of view. In fact, an explosive but still unpublished journalistic account of the “Blood Feud” on this subject is right now in my hands. Written by Mindy Kitei, she documents the “transatlantic battle raging over the role of the newly discovered retrovirus in patients with CFS.”

In any event, I had completely forgotten all about this until someone sent me a more recent 2010 piece in The Lancet, “Intimate-Partner Violence in Gaza and the West Bank,” in which six researchers claim that they have documented an increase in Palestinian wife-beating — and that it is due to the alleged Israeli occupation. (Unfortunately the full article is available only to subscribers.) Thus, once again, the Israelis — or the Israeli right to defend itself — are to blame. The indigenous practice of wife-beating and the increase in political Islam are not blameworthy.

So, I instantly wrote a piece which challenged the so-called study and sent it to The Lancet; in turn, they suggested that I write a Letter. And so I did. And then I waited and I waited. In the interim, I joked that it may be taking the six researchers (the lead researcher is at Harvard) all this time to rebut the critiques.

Well, it took more than two months — but The Lancet finally published my letter together with other letters and the obligatory, long-awaited authors’ response. Here is my letter:

The study by Cari Jo Clark and colleagues is more propaganda than science. For example, Clark and colleagues write: “Occupation policies… affect family connectedness, depriving women of regular contact with their families who might otherwise intervene to prevent intimate-partner violence.” On the contrary. Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim families very often do not intervene when a husband is beating a wife. Both the husband’s family and the wife’s own family view this as a husband’s right or as a wife’s fault.

The study has many other weaknesses. First, Clark and colleagues focus only on violence among married couples and omit routine violence against daughters and sisters, including honour killings, even though a 2008 study that specifically addressed honour killings among Palestinians was available.2 Second, they established no baseline, and had no control group in terms of intimate-partner violence in the Arab Middle East where there is no Israeli occupation (eg, in Jordan, Egypt, or Saudi Arabia). Third, Clark and colleagues do not acknowledge that, in shame and honour societies, surveys and statistics about domestic violence are unreliable since women are punished for reporting it. Fourth, they do not attempt to measure intimate-partner violence in Sderot, Israel, where civilians have endured 8000 rocket attacks from Gaza. Finally, they do not factor in the effect of Gaza being “occupied” by an increasingly fundamentalist Hamas and the fateful consequences for women, which include forced veiling and child arranged marriages.

Thus, the study attempts to blame Israel for the indigenous violence against women that is a feature of Arab and Muslim societies, especially today, when they have been radically fundamentalised.

Is this worth doing? Hell, yes. ‘Twould be better if thousands of us did similar things every day. But, is it wise to always be on the defensive, always in the position of responding, not initiating? Hell, no. And that’s why Israel should set up a War Room for Propaganda, a massive but coordinated Office to debunk all the Lies and Blood Libels and to systematically keep putting out the truth.

America and Europe have a harder task. Our most distinguished professors and journalists are themselves putting out the Islamist disinformation, are themselves advising our president about the Middle East, the Muslim world, the nature of jihad, and Islam. How do we defeat or at least counterbalance this? Where do we start?

Well, right here of course. And on the Internet. And in parlor meetings, at tea parties, on any air-wave that will have us. Maybe we have to raise the money to have a new global channel that will not accept any Arab oil money. How about that?

When President Obama spoke to the Muslim world in Cairo last June, a large portion of his guests were leaders and members of the Muslim Brotherhood. The speech was designed to please them more than supporting the reformist movement in Egypt and across the Muslim world.

The Obama administration has hired the first White House Muslim advisor, Dalia Mogahed, who helped with writing Obama's speech. Mogahed is herself an Islamic ideologue who supports Islamic Sharia and denies any connection between radical Islam and terrorism. Mogahed, who was born in Egypt, has also been a firm defender of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). Both of these US groups are tied to the Muslim Brotherhood.

As an American of Egyptian origin myself, I can tell who is a reformist and who is a radical Muslim sympathizer, and I do not think that Ms. Mogahed's views are in any way supportive of a reformation in Islam or of its concept of jihad. To the contrary, she denies the existence of any problem with Islamic ideology and she acts in total harmony with the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood. Her excuses are the same old excuses we Egyptians learned day in and day out in defense of Islamic jihad and in blaming others for misunderstanding of Islam. Her answers are always given with total confidence and conviction, as she tells her audience that any violent actions by Muslims have nothing to do with Islam. Never mind that Islamic mosques, education, art and songs all glorify jihad as a holy war for the sake of Allah.

Mogahed brings nothing new to Islamic propaganda but she certainly sounds interesting to Americans who are unfamiliar with this same old Islamic propaganda and who find it hard to question a religion. The truth about Mogahed is that she combines the good old Muslim sheikhs rhetoric with a better presentation that Americans can understand. Sheikhs never take any kind of criticism of Islam and they ridicule those who question Islam with statements like: "Who are you to speak for Islam? Leave the analysis to the experts on Islam." Mogahed's logic is very similar and, coincidentally, her book is entitled: "Who Speaks for Islam." It is a meaningless title showing statistics that are designed to show that Muslims are different and are not all terrorists, which is no news.

Of course among Muslims there are good and bad people, like in any other group. What Mohahed refuses to admit is that reputable critics of Islam have nothing against Muslim people, but they correctly decipher that the problem stems from the ideology of Islam and its scriptures and commandments. What Mogahed refuses to discuss are the actual laws of Sharia, the history of jihad, the ideology and education that produced 9/11, Islamic imperialism, oppression of human rights, women and minorities. Her answers are usually simplistic, such as the argument that Sharia cannot be bad to women because the majority of Muslim women allegedly support Sharia? The bottom line of Mogahed's propaganda is the same old complaint: that Islam is misunderstood and that Muslim people's anger and violence is triggered by politics and not by religion. The problem with the West is all a misunderstanding, she argues, and with some education and sensitivity training the West will accept Islam as a religion of peace. Her position in the White House has given her a powerful opportunity to enhance the standing of radical Islamist groups in the eyes of our government instead of the reformists and anti-Sharia Muslims....

Read it all.

Jews worldwide are more imperiled than they have been for decades. A new study shows that worldwide incidents of anti-Semitism, from vandalism to arson and beatings, were twice as frequent in 2009 as they were in 2008.

The study, released last Sunday by Tel Aviv University's Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Racism, records that anti-Semitic incidents reached their highest level last year since the university started keeping these records in the 1980s.

What could be the cause of this? A global surge in neo-Nazism? Is the Ku Klux Klan conducting energetic membership drives in Western Europe, where the largest increase in anti-Semitic events occurred? No. According to the report, the increase is largely due to attacks from Muslims, who, the report says, were enraged over Israel's Winter 2009 incursion into Gaza. The Associated Press noted that "in Western Europe, especially Britain and France ... protests and anger by Muslim residents boiled over after Israel's invasion of Gaza in December 2008."

So presumably this "anger by Muslim residents" would not have "boiled over" if Israel had done nothing to defend itself from the regular rocket attacks coming from Gaza. The AP report goes on to suggest a further reason for this boiling over: "The Israeli invasion, launched in response to years of Palestinian rocket attacks, killed some 1,400 Palestinians, including hundreds of civilians, according to local officials and human rights groups. Thirteen Israelis also died in the fighting."

AP makes no mention, of course, of how, during the Israeli Gaza incursion, Hamas staged attacks from civilian areas in order to provoke retaliatory fire it could use for propaganda purposes. Yet just weeks ago, the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, an Israeli research group, released a 500-page report documenting Hamas' use of human shields and its deliberate placement of rocket launch sites near mosques and hospitals. Nothing better to stir up international indignation against the Jews than an Israeli missile hitting a hospital or house of worship--and Hamas wanted to make sure it happened.

Of course, it worked magnificently: The UN even released the "Goldstone Report," enshrining Palestinian propaganda against Israel, including charges that Israeli forces recklessly targeted civilians as established fact. The flimsiness of this "established fact" was underscored last week when a Palestinian teenager whom Palestinian authorities had reported as having been shot by the Israelis turned up at home. He hadn't been shot at all, but actually wandered into a weapons-smuggling tunnel that took him into Egypt, where he was briefly held by Egyptian authorities. Yet UN researcher Goldstone relied upon Palestinian sources--including, no doubt, many with the same vivid imagination--to compile his report.

The "Goldstone Report," not coincidentally, was spearheaded by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the 56-nation group that now constitutes the UN's largest voting bloc. The ultimate purpose of the "Goldstone Report" is to criminalize legitimate Israeli self-defense. And now the new report on anti-Semitism, however unwittingly, plays into this by attributing Muslim "boiling over" against Jews in Western Europe to rage over Gaza. It was all just a "backlash"--all the fault of the Israeli atrocities in Gaza.

Islamic anti-Semitism, with its centerpiece the deeply ingrained idea that the Jews are the worst enemies of the Muslims (as Koran 5:82 says), doesn't seem to have been considered. The fact that the Israeli atrocities in Gaza were manufactured products of the Palestinian propaganda machine doesn't seem to have entered in, either.

But in contrast to the Israeli war crimes in Gaza, the rise in anti-Semitism worldwide is real. The United Nations and the global human rights organizations, instead of accepting OIC-manufactured propaganda uncritically, should examine honestly and openly the ways in which imams in mosques in Europe and elsewhere are encouraging hatred of Jews, and call upon Islamic organizations around the world to clean their own house.

The study released last Sunday makes this all the more urgent, but with the increasing isolation of Israel and its ongoing bullying by Barack Obama, such a necessary reckoning is about as likely as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's converting to Judaism.

Visit Pajamas.

Yesterday morning, I had an encounter on the outskirts of Washington, D.C. with Julia Tarver Mason — a lawyer who represents several accused terrorists.

I found that Ms. Mason is more willing to speak with terrorists then reporters.

My interest in Ms. Mason began two nights ago, when I read the investigative piece by Debra Burlingame and Thomas Joscelyn in the Wall Street Journal regarding 400 American lawyers from high priced law firms who have “volunteered” their time to personally wage “lawfare” on behalf of enemy combatants held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. One of the premier firms involved is Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, which boasted in 2007: “Paul, Weiss achieves more victories for Guantanamo detainees.” Ms. Julia Tarver Mason is a partner in the firm.

In 2006, Mason was banned from Guantanamo Bay by the base commander and the U.S. Department of Justice for secretly passing on anti-American propaganda and operational detention details to her “client.”

This client was Majeed Abdullah Al Joudi. Al Joudi, a Saudi member of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, was captured in Afghanistan in 2001. In 2004, it was disclosed at his combat status review tribunal that he was “was captured with al-Qaeda surveillance evasion reports and after-action reports.”

The anti-American propaganda Mason secretly passed on to Mr. Al Joudi was a slick, inflammatory 18-page color brochure — written entirely in Arabic — that slammed American detention policy as “that of anti-Arab, anti-Islamic, and other racist abuse.” It was filled with pictures of masked, bound, and kneeling prisoners, and according to the Wall Street Journal, “included pictures of what appeared to be detainee operations in Iraq.”

Ms. Mason had been secretly sending incendiary materials to her client through a system called “legal mail,” which is supposed to be strictly legal correspondence between a lawyer and the enemy combatant. According to Burlingame and Joscelyn, a 2004 protective order by federal Judge Joyce Hens Green forbids the lawyers to give out any information on political news, current events, or the names of U.S. government personnel.

Ms. Mason and her other Paul, Weiss lawyers were banned by Major General Jay W. Hood, then commander of Joint Task Force Guantanamo. General Hood said — in a sworn affidavit submitted to the D.C. District Court, obtained by Burlingame and Joscelyn under the Freedom of Information Act — that the pamphlet aided and abetted the terrorists there:

The very nature of this document gives tremendous moral support to those who would strike out against our country.

…

It is not a factual report.

…

[Photos] were staged, inflammatory photos from Iraq [with] provocative story captions.

To continue reading this article, click here.

Let me guess… Ron Paul supporters will see nothing even remotely anti-Semitic about this comment here which was left on Mike Rulle’s critique of Their Master’s economics:

Sean Sailor

I dont even know this Horowitz off hand, but all I need is one quick glance at his site and its obvious its the JEWSREAL— nothing but pure propaganda and lies designed to get Americans behind bombing Iran etc behind the policies of the Likud party in other words— to sacrifice America for ISRAEL.
Isnt that right Horowitz?
Thats why the hit piece here… thats why all the lies you dish out. You are a dual citizen at heart( at best)— how about in practice? (like so much scum in the media, the gov etc etc– moles and operatives)
In any case if you are so fond of it go move there(!) and stop puking your propaganda to Americans.

Visit Sean Sailor’s blog and twitter page and you can see that he’s also a conspiracy nutjob too. (Anti-Semitism and conspiracy thinking are peas in a pod.) What’s up with his displaying his “SS” initials like that too? That’s a bit odd and creepy.

But of course this stuff is all meaningless. I’m just being intellectually dishonest and “smearing” America’s only noble politician. And I’m doing that because I love Israel more than America. I’ve been bought by the Likud Party. And I’m on the corporations’ payroll too. And I’m “in on the great work of ages.” I’m part of the Zog Conspiracy. While we’re having confessions I might as well admit it too: I’m a blood-drinking lizard humanoid from the fifth dimension. And Jeanette Pryor is just crazy when she blogs about the strange anti-Semitism that seems to swirl around Paul. She’s just pulling stuff out of nowhere because she’s a rabid Jewess who wants to enslave you in a police state. (Actually she’s Catholic.) It’s not like she and her husband are experts in Anti-Semitism or anything…

The Iranian regime is morally bankrupt. But it was always morally bankrupt, from its earlier days. What obscured this was the fact that the "advanced" people in Iran, those who for some reason are called "on the left, " had early on decided that the Shah's regime was so corrupt, and its enforcers, the Savak, so brutal, that it had to go. They did not think that they needed to worry about those Muslim reactionaries around the Ayatollah Khomeini. Who could, in advanced Tehran, possibly take such people seriously? Who could possibly believe that such people as Khomeini might triumph? Before he came to power and consolidated his iron grip, Khomeini spoke soothingly about "democracy" and invoked, too, other of the magic phrases that so often cloud the minds of those who hear them.

Over the past five years, as the Americans have been caught in Tarbaby Iraq, and now as they are caught, in a different way, with a slightly lesser Tarbaby Afghanistan, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been allowed to march, steadily, without any interruption except, just possibly, a few months of prudently waiting, right after the invasion of Iraq, to see if the Americans were so much on the warpath that this time they would not stop at the Treaty of Erzrum line, but cross it, bringing the fight beyond Saddam Hussein right to the Islamic Republic itself. It never happened, and instead of Iraq ending in a Light-Unto-the-Muslim-Nations, as some in the Bush Administration naively assumed could or would happen, the Administration found American forces stuck there, and also doing what Ahmad Chalabi and other Shi'a exiles always hoped they would do: assuring that power in Iraq was transferred, and forever, from Sunni Arabs to Shi'a Arabs, never to be relinquished. That meant not that Iran had necessarily become the new power in Iraq, for many of the Iraqi Shi'a are not friendly to Iran, and the sense of being Arab, as opposed to being Persian, is sufficiently powerful for some to overcome any pan-Shi'ist appeal. And so far the appeal has not been made, as the Islamic Republic of Iran still tries to overcome Sunni Arab suspicions, in order to present itself as the plausible leader of the Muslims against the Infidels.

And now the Americans, even as they withdraw, slowly and stickily, from Iraq, have transferred their main military effort to Afghanistan, on the other side of Iran. But with American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, that does not make the Americans feel more confident of their ability to take on Iran's nuclear project, but less. For they are fearful -- wrongly, I think - of what the Iranians might do to the American troops on either side of Iran. The reason not to be fearful is that in Iraq, the Iranians are not quite as powerful or attractive as some imagine. Ayatollah Sistani is not impressed with them. The Shi'a who are said to be "pro-Iranian" are not really impressed with the Ahmadinejad regime, but are more worried about a possible attempt by Sunni Arabs in Iraq, with the help of Sunnis outside Iraq, to re-take power. Yet this is most implausible, given that the Sunni Arabs constitute less than 20% of the population, and the Sunni population of Baghdad has gone way down, thanks to the Shi'a efforts of the last seven years. And the Sunni heartland, in Anbar and Diyala Provinces, is an area devoid of oil, that is, devoid of money to finance a revanchist movement. In the north, the Kurds, though mostly Sunni, are on the alert to resist any attempts by Sunni Arabs, the ones moved in by Saddam Hussein as part of his arabization of Kurdistan, to retake power in Mosul or Kirkuk.

The Sunni Arabs can make life very unpleasant and uncertain for both the Kurds and the Shi'a Arabs in Iraq, but they cannot again take control of the country. The best they can hope for is the election of a Shi'a Arab - Iyad Allawi, for example - who is not so programmatically anti-Ba'ath. Allawi, with a Shi'a background, is also secular, which is to say that he is unenthusiastic about an Iraq run by those who are too devout in their Islam. Allawi himself was a Ba'ath Party member before he left Iraq in disgust for London, and it was in London that agents of Saddam Hussein tried to kill him. The prospect of Allawi in power gives the Sunnis hope of what they might consider a semi-fair deal, even if they do not regain their old hold on power.

Now the Iraq and Afghanistan ventures of the Americans constitute a squandering of resources - men, money, materiel, morale. And those ventures represent a failure of American foreign policy, or rather a failure of those in power to adequately study the texts and tenets of Islam. For if those in power had studied those texts and tenets, instead of allowing themselves to be unduly impressed by the word "religion" affixed to Islam (as Bush was so impressed), or if they did not allow themselves to be impressed by plausible, smiling, carefully apologetic representatives of Islam in the form of some Muslim advisers, including the Bright Young Reformers who have stood in the way, for many in Washington, of a sober grasping of the ideology of Islam, then another strategy would have been followed. It is interesting that Barack Obama clearly wants out of Iraq and, I suspect, out of Afghanistan too. But he will not be able to do the latter, for obvious political reasons, unless he shows that the reason he wants out of Afghanistan is not because he is soft on Islam (though he has given various signs of that, and the worst was that unbelievable speech he delivered in Cairo, a speech in which almost every phrase about Islam could be held up for inspection, analysis, and ridicule) but because he wishes to undertake an entirely new strategy, one based on a recognition that the presence of Infidels merely helps to unite Muslims, or at least to make less likely that internal conflicts will develop. And it is in the interests of the world's Infidels that the pre-existing fissures, sectarian, ethnic, and economic, within the Camp of Islam, be exploited to the fullest.

That is one part of a two-part strategy. The other part is a campaign of education and self-education, all over the Infidel world, so that many more people come to understand the relation of Islam to the political, economic, social, moral, and intellectual failures of Muslim states, societies, and even families and individuals living in environments - even within the West - that are suffused with Islam. This can be done. And if it is done, it will be hard for the world's Muslims not to have to begin thinking about the matter. And because the case, once you begin to think about it, is so obvious and so convincing, that will further demoralize the Camp of Islam. Among those who might have other reasons for jettisoning the faith, or at least de-emphasizing it (as Iranians, sick at heart from their experience under the Islamic Republic of Iran), such arguments will particularly resonate.

Now we wait to see what the Obama Administration will do about the Islamic Republic of Iran's nuclear project. The nightmares that American policy-makers have about Pakistan's nuclear bombs, and where they are, and who might get them, and who might use them, ought to have forever engraved on the minds of American policymakers that they must never ever allow any other Muslim state or group to acquire such weaponry. But what do we see? We see years of drift, years of not knowing what to do. The Bush Administration huffed and puffed, but in the end was ineffectual. It was ineffectual because it was caught Laocoon-like in the coils of serpents, serpents however of its own making, through its foolish hopes and dreams for Iraq, and bringing "freedom" to "ordinary moms and dads" in the Middle East. It was ineffectual because it was so uncunning and so ignorant not only of Islam but of the fissures within the Camp of Islam and, as well, so seemingly unaware of what is going on in Western Europe, which matters far more for the United States than any outcome in Iraq or Afghanistan. The Obama Administration has turned out to be, in some ways, even worse. It believes in outreach to the Muslim world, and part of that outreach is to make remarks that are flatly untrue - the speech in Cairo was a tissue of nonsense and lies when it came to the description of Islam, and if the speech was in part written, or vetted, by Muslims such as Rashad Hussain, then that explains, but does not justify the outcome, and makes the whole effort even more dismaying and frightening.

So what will happen now in Iran? Will the Americans recognize their responsibility to prevent the Islamic Republic of Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons? Or will it rely on Israel, a country that has been denied even the weapons it knows it would need to be semi-successful in its effort? Or will it, still worse, do everything it can to prevent Israel, now mortally threatened by the possibility of those weapons being acquired by the chiliastic Twelver-Shi'a who run Iran, from acting as it must to protect itself, if the Americans will not do the job?

What happens in Iraq and Afghanistan matters far less than if the Islamic Republic of Iran acquires such weapons, and with those weapons, it will acquire something else: a permanent lease on political life. For the primitives in Iran, who far outnumber the advanced, the same primitives who were bussed in from the countryside recently to flood the streets of Teheran and other cities with demonstrations of loyalty to the regime, will be so happy with the regime that whatever those economic sanctions do will not matter. Iran will be a Nuclear Power. Iran will be, in their eyes, a Great Power. It's the delusions of grandeur, akin to those of the Shah, incidentally, who in his vainglorious way used to talk about how Iran would soon become "the second industrial power in Asia" (after Japan). Of course Iran is not the second industrial power, nor even the fifth, and Islam holds it, and forever will hold it back, despite the oil wealth. And of course we know, in the West, that the attainment of nuclear weapons will not mean much to the lives of Iranians, and if, as should happen, those "crippling sanctions" remain in force until those weapons are surrendered (the Iranians can keep nuclear power plants, as long as those are vigilantly monitored by the West, not the U.N.), things will remain difficult for them. But many of them don't care, and won't care, in the villages where there was never much to start with. For them, Iran will be a Nuclear Power. What else do they need to know?

Yet we see a new theme being developed by those who want, at all costs, to prevent the United States from taking action against the Islamic Republic of Iran. They argue a number of things. Some say: well, no attack can be guaranteed to totally destroy the nuclear project, so it's not worth doing. Quite a non sequitur, of course. Many attacks set back efforts (see that on the Osirak Reactor) for a long time, and the buying of time, so that the dissidents can finally topple the present Iranian regime, would be useful. Flynt and Hillary Leverett have had their own go at this "don't attack Iran" business, in the Op/Ed pages of the New York Times. And the Times recently offered its pages yet again to an effort in the same line, one worth looking at more closely.

This article, "Iran's Two-Edged Bomb," was written by Adam B. Lowther, described as a "defense analyst at the Air Force Research Initiative." The article argued that we should, essentially, see what was to our advantage or how we might take advantage of Iran's acquiring nuclear weapons. It was written by someone of the cheerily defeatist school, that is, the school that thinks that nothing can or should be done to stop Iran ("It's over," as Tariq Ramadan has repeatedly said about the Muslim demographic conquest of Europe, not needing to add, "we're here to stay, and there's nothing you Infidels can do about it").

Here is some of what Adam L. Lowther, defense analyst at the Air Force Research Institute, tried to convince readers. He begins with a brisk confession of hopelessness and seeming helplessness:

"With Iran having notified the United Nations nuclear Watchdog agency on Monday that any day now it will begin enriching its stockpile of uranium n order to power a medical reactor [does Adam L. Lowther believe that that is what Iran will do with that enriched stockpile of uranium? Shouldn't he tell us what he thinks might actually happen?] we should admit that Washington's approach to countering the Islamic Republic is leading nowhere. [True, because two Administrations were unwilling to employ "crippling sanctions" - the kind that you know are "crippling" because they lead to the behavior one wants - or military force, and even now we have the Obama Administration still following far behind Congress on what it is willing to do]."

And then comes the key sentence, the real topic sentence of the piece: "What's needed, however, may be less of a change of plan than a change in how we view the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran."

So, in a phrase, Adam L. Lowther dismisses the possibility, or rather doesn't even think he is obligated to consider, even if later to dismiss, the continued use of sanctions, now becoming "crippling sanctions," or "crippling sanctions" accompanied by military aid and threats of more such aid to the Baluchis in the east, the Azeris in the north, the Kurds in the west, and the Arabs in the southwest (in Khuzistan, where almost all of Iran's oilfields are located). And he dismisses, or rather, doesn't even think he is obligated to discuss, the possibility of military action by the United States, or by immediately imperiled Israel. Strange this Air Force analyst who won't even allow himself to think about the efficacy of the intelligent application of military force. One wonders what the trillions of dollars poured into our military, on weapons systems, have all been about, if in such a case as this the use of military force is not even considered. For here is a monstrous regime, headed by those who have given every sign of a deep belief in a semi-demented ideology (that of the Hidden Imam), at a time when suicide bombings are commonplace, and where a moment's thought might lead some to conclude that those who blow themselves up would, by the same logic, not be afraid to take much larger casualties among Muslims, now seen as involuntary "suicide bombers" - in order to remove a hated Infidel nation-state, Israel, from the face of the earth. Ahmadinejad is not the only Iranian leader who has said Iran "could afford" to lose a few million people in a nuclear exchange with Israel; Iran, after all, has a population of 70 million.

All of this goes by in a second, as Lowther ignores the effort of the past few years - the "sanctions" - and even the effect of the "crippling sanctions" or of military strikes (which one might have expected him, as a defense analyst for the Air Force Research Institute, to at least have thought worth considering), and proceeds to tell us all the good things that can happen, for the United States, if the Islmamic Republic of Iran acquires nuclear weapons.

First, he tells us, "Iran's development of nuclear weapons would give the United States an opportunity to finally defeat violent Sunni-Arab terrorist groups like Al Qaeda." Strange, Lowther knows his readers will first think, but here's just how it would work: "Here's why: a nuclear Iran is primarily a threat to its neighbors, not the United States. Thus Washington could offer regional security - primarily, a Middle East nuclear umbrella - in exchange for economic, political and social reforms in the autocratic Arab regimes responsible for breeding the discontent that led to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001."

Let's stop right there, and try to get over our amazement and this fantastic misunderstanding, and these utopian goals. What in god's name makes Adam B. Lowther, defense analyst, think that the Saudis or other Arabs would ever do what the Americans ask? Why should they? They know perfectly well that the American "nuclear umbrella" will be extended to them not because we like their regimes, but because we don't want any harm to come to the oilfields. Again and again, over the past several decades, the Americans have tried to get these regimes, especially that in Saudi Arabia, to do something, do anything, to show that they were not simply a thieving family, the Al-Saud, determined to hold onto power and to continue to help themselves to much of the country's oil revenues, as they can. They have never done American bidding. Indeed, when the Saudis "collaborated" with the Americans, it was always the Saudis who ended up getting their way. It was Saudi Arabia that helped to convince the naïve Americans to help the muhajidin, and then to turn away, unalarmed, when the Pakistani and Saudi-supported Taliban came into Afghanistan, and were kept in power through the diplomatic, financial, and other support of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the U.A.E. These regimes are past masters at getting their way in Washington, and certainly at preventing even the most obvious of measures being taken to diminish reliance on oil - that is, a tax on oil at the source, and on gasoline, the latter being sizable enough to make a real dent in demand. And even if the heady days of James Akins, and Fred Dutton, and Raymond Close, and James Baker, and Colin Powell, (who accepted a Jaguar, or rather his wife did, from an appreciative friend, Prince Bandar) are no longer in fashion, Saudi Arabia has never done American bidding, and the Americans have always come away frustrated, and they always will. Would the Al-Saud change their political and economic system for the American threat to take away a "nuclear umbrella" that, the Saudis know, they would never do? Would they change what it is that lends support to the despotism, and to the economic statism, and to the mistreatment of guest-workers, and the use of Saudi money around the world to fund mosques and madrasas, and propaganda on behalf of Islam, and campaigns of Da'wa, and all the rest? Has there been the slightest indication that they would ever cease to do this, ever stop heeding the demands and duties that Islam imposes on them as good Muslims? What remarkable ignorance of the Saudi regime, and of Saudi behavior, not this year or this decade, but for the past half-century.

Adam B. Lowther might take the time to read the work of J. B. Kelly. The best place to begin is with his essay "Of Valuable Oil and Worthless Policies," in which American reliance on the "twin pillars" - Iran and Saudi Arabia -- is shown to have been always based on a misperception of both regimes. But especially in the case of Saudi Arabia, this misperception is based on decades of propaganda put out by ARAMCO. Now ARAMCO has been superceded by a small army of Western hirelings, and by the Saudis themselves, who have become dab hands, when they meet Western leaders, at sincere liquid-brown eyes expressions of hurt and betrayal ("why do you Americans treat us this way, when we are such loyal allies?"). We are to ignore the viciousness and meretriciousness of the regime, at home, and abroad. The enslavement of foreign workers, the cruelties inflicted on those caught reading Bibles or even singing Christmas carols, the torture of Westerners arrested on trumped-up charges, or of captured Yemenis, or of Saudi subjects (not "citizens") themselves, and the hideousness of every aspect of that primitive country, are known to the intelligence services of the Western world, but apparently not to the un-intelligent services, or the un-intelligent members of our various military services.

Lowther's belief that magically, in exchange for that "nuclear umbrella," the Saudis would do our bidding is the stuff of fantasy. The Saudis wrapped us around their little finger in Afghanistan, where we didn't think beyond getting the Russians out, and did not for one minute realize that the dying days of the Soviet Empire might have lasted just a bit longer, if the result was to help stamp out the power of militant Islam (as the Soviets did, with some success, in Central Asia, with the Muslims, many of whom are now Muslim in name only because of Soviet anti-religious implacable ruthlessness). The Saudis will never do our bidding. And they know their oilfields, and the tankers in the Gulf, will always be protected by the Americans.

Lowther's second point is equally naïve, and shows an equal ignorance - this time of the workings of the world oil market, and of OPEC. Here is Lowther's claim:

"Second, becoming the primary provider of regional security in a nuclear Middle East would give the United States a way to break the OPEC cartel. Forcing an end of the sorts of monopolistic practices that are illegal in the United States would be the price o0f that nuclear shield, bringing oil prices down significantly and saving billions of dollars a year at the pump. Or, at a minimum, President Obama could trade security for increased production and a lowering of global petroleum prices."

There is so much here that is wrong, that one hardly knows where to begin. But let's try. First, OPEC is not the power it once was in the setting of prices, because there are not, any longer, large amounts of oil being deliberately kept off the market. The Saudis and others in the Gulf have always priced their oil in such a way as to maximize profits, to the extent that they can make reasonable estimates of future demand, and future supply, and the effect of price increases on worldwide demand. This means they must put into their calculations all sorts of things: the likelihood of alternative sources of energy coming on stream, the elasticity - or inelasticity--of demand in response to increases (or decreases) in prices; the possibility of innovation (as with electric cars) making demand elasticity more of a threat; the political will, absent or present, to do the kinds of things - such as a higher tax on oil - that could take place in response to a hike in the price of oil or, ideally from the oil-consuming nations' point of view, take place even when, or perhaps especially when, prices go down.

Lowther seems to think that OPEC continues to retain the same power today as it had in late 1973. As the oil price rise in 1979 showed, elasticity of demand is considerable. If the Saudis and others overshoot, they can suffer more by a collapse in demand and then in price. Lowther seems to think that we should wish for the price of oil to go down. Not quite. We should wish for the price that the oil-producing states charge to go down. For that to happen, we have it within our power to decrease demand, by taxing oil and gasoline ourselves, and in so doing, to recapture oligopolistic rents. That is, at any Time X, the Saudis will calculate that for them there is an ideal Price Y. But that price is based on a calculation that the American government will continue to be unable to put in place significant taxes on oil (as James Hansen suggests) and on gasoline (taxes large enough to dampen consumption, and on the kinds of cars that are produced). Lowther is flatly wrong. We don't want the price of oil to go down. We want it to go up, but to go up in measured, and predictable increments. That will allow for investments in electric cars, or cars that get high mileage for each gallon of gas, or in mass transit systems within cities, and high-speed railways between cities. And the price of gasoline (and of oil) should go steadily up because the governments of oil-consuming nations do the taxing themselves, and then they can rebate the taxes, or apply them to such projects as subsidies for nuclear reactors (the most important part of any sensible energy possible, however unpalatable this idea may be those who are blind believers in "alternative energy" as the way out), solar and wind power. The notion of "breaking up OPEC" is meaningless, because OPEC right now no longer has any real market power. It cannot prevent oil from other producers from reaching the market, and it cannot enforce any discipline of its own on member states to reduce their production, and it hasn't been able to do so for a long time. Adam B. Lowther is apparently unaware of what OPEC now is, and what the state of the oil market is. One wonders what exactly caused him to make pronouncements on things he knows nothing about.

Lowther's third point has to do with Israel:

"Third, Israel has made clear that it feels threatened by Iran's nuclear program. [Yes, it's good of Lowther to admit that, however grotesquely his understatement]. The Palestinians also have a reason for concern, because a nuclear strike against Israel would devastate them as well [would it? Would bombs on Tel Aviv, Haifa, and the western part of Jerusalem "devastate" the "Palestinians"? Is Adam B. Lowther well-versed in targeting, and wind currents, and so on? And how does he know that many of the "Palestinians" would not welcome an Iranian attack, in the same way that they welcome, and train, and make heroes of, and encourage others to become, suicide bombers?] This shared danger might serve as a catalyst for reconciliation between the two parties, leading to the peace agreement that has eluded the last five presidents. Paradoxically, any final agreement between Israelis and Palestinians would go a long way to undercutting Tehran's animosity toward Israel, and would ease longstanding tensions in the region."

This statement is written by someone who has paid no attention to Islam and has no understanding of the war being waged on Israel. That war is a classic Jihad. It does not stop when Israel makes concessions, even life-threatening concessions. It does not stop because Israel, a state so tiny it is hardly discernible on a map of the word, surrenders territory after territory and gives up gains won in war, as it did when it returned the Sinai to Egypt after 1956 (under Eisenhower's pressure), and then again when it gave up the entire Sinai to Egypt again, for a "cold peace" that is misunderstood in the West, and that could be reversed by the government of Egypt and its population, the Muslims of whom have been raised up to be deeply and permanently anti-Israel. Adam B. Lowther does not understand: the reason "five presidents" could not find a "solution" to what is called, not quite accurately I'm afraid, the "Arab-Israeli dispute" - which, however, is quite a bit better than the tendentious "Israeli-Palestinian dispute" -- is that it isn't a "dispute" at all. It's a permanent war, a war to eliminate the humiliation and offense, as Muslims see it, of an Infidel nation-state, one still more offensive because it has been created and successfully and repeatedly defended from Arab Muslim efforts to destroy it, by Jews, who were always despised by the Muslims. For unlike the Christians, they did not have a powerful Western Christendom somewhere in the background, no co-religionists to possibly protect them or come to their aid, or apply pressure on Muslim states (as was done on the Ottoman government by England and France, to improve the lot of Christians in the Ottoman Empire, beginning with the Tanzimat reforms of 1839, with the pressure repeated at intervals throughout the nineteenth century). Adam B. Lowther simply does not understand that an important part of Islam is triumphalism. The spirit of compromise is not part of Islam. You win, or you lose. You are the victor, or you are the vanquished. You do not compromise with your enemies. Islam teaches, or rather inculcates, the idea that Muslims must be loyal to Islam, and to fellow members of the Umma. The whole world belongs, by right, to Allah and to Muslims, the "best of peoples." Infidels do not have rights to any part of the world, and eventually, through the steady spread of Islam, and its dominance, they will be reduced to the condition of dhimmis, the only condition that permits selected Infidels (formally, the People of the Book, Ahl al-Kitab, that is Christians and Jews as well as Zoroastrians, though informally, for reasons of cold calculation, Hindus began to be allowed to live, so as to provide the Muslim state with the Jizyah, the tax on dhimmis, that was its main source of revenue).

I don't think this "Air Force analyst" understands that the campaign to push Israel back has gone on steadily since the Six-Day War, and it began with a careful renaming of the local Arabs, the shock troops, at least in the propaganda aspect, of the Jihad against Israel. Those Arabs - that is what they were called, before late 1967, by all the Arab leaders, diplomats, and propagandists - suddenly became, metamorphosed into, the "Palestinian people." It was a way to present an alternative narrative to that of the Jihad against the Jewish State that the Arabs had freely discussed among themselves - see Ahmed Shukairy, Arafat's predecessor as the leader of the local Arabs, even though he worked out of Egypt - and that they did not cease, have not ceased, to discuss, as such splendid eavesdropping organizations as www.MEMRI.org offer us fresh evidence of, every week and every day.

The Jihad against that Infidel nation-state did not begin with Israel's victory in the Six-Day War, did not begin with Israel's declaration of statehood on May 15, 1948, but began with the first stirrings of the Jewish settlers who bought land (at greatly-inflated prices) from the absentee Arab and Turkish landlords. The very idea that there were small landholders in Israel who were dispossessed shows a complete misunderstanding of the system of land ownership in the two Ottoman vilayets and one sanjak that constituted the territory that would later be assigned, by the Mandates Commission of the League of Nations, to Mandatory Palestine for the sole purpose of facilitating the creation, through the efforts of the Jews themselves, the Jewish National Home. In fact, the Jihad against Israel is merely a local manifestation of the general, worldwide Jihad, one that depends on a doctrine that does not date, that is central to Islam, and that only for a century or two fell into desuetude, not because the doctrine had at all been modified, but because the Muslims themselves rightly perceived their ability to go up against the much more powerful West would end inexorably in failure.

But things have changed. The OPEC trillions have allowed states that were permanently mired in poverty - Islam discourages economic development, both in its hatred of bid'a (innovation) and in its inshallah-fatalism (why work hard, if Allah giveth, and Allah, on the same whim, taketh away) -- to have the financial wherewithal to buy trillions of dollars worth of weapons. Those trillions have also been used to buy Western hirelings to help with propaganda, and votes at the U.N., and influence in the chanceries of the West, and academic centers or departments of Islamic studies, or endowed chairs, so as to ensure that most or all teaching about Islam remains in vigilantly pro-Islamic hands, and the ability of non-Muslims to educate themselves, in colleges and universities, truthfully about the doctrine, and practice, of Islam remains difficult and often nearly impossible, so that autodidacticism is the only way.

There is no doubt that if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, the increased danger this will mean for Israel will - or should - end forever any further Israeli concessions. For they cannot possibly reduce themselves to a state even tinier than the one they have, precisely because that will make it easier for Iran to go in for the kill. And the smaller and more obviously vulnerable Israel becomes, the less likely it is that leaders of Muslim states, even if they wish, would be able to resist the calls of their hysterical populations for attacks or gang-ups on Israel. Remember how Nasser had to convince King Hussein of Jordan to join the attack against Israel by assuring him that the Egyptians had wiped out much of Israel's air force and was on the road to victory? Those telephone calls were recorded by the Israelis, and you can probably find them, or transcripts of them, online. The only way to prevent open warfare again between Israel and Arabs is for Israel to possess the power of deterrence -the same power that the United States relied on during the Cold War. And Israel cannot possess that deterrence if it becomes so ridiculously small, with a handful of airfields, that Hamas from the south, and Hezbollah (possibly armed by Iran?) in the north can overwhelm it, with help from the east -- and who knows who will be in control of Jordan in twenty years, or ten years, or five years, or one? Peace is, and always will be maintained, between those who will continue to conduct Jihad, and those who are the intended victims of Jihad, only if those conducting Jihad are convinced that they will lose, or lose far more, than will the other side. I have written about the doctrine of "Darura" - Necessity - many times before. I suspect that Adam B. Lowther is as unfamiliar with "Darura" as he is with the texts and tenets of Islam. And because he is unfamiliar with those texts and tenets, he has no business discussing - has not earned the intellectual right to discuss - policy toward Iran or OPEC or the Jihad against Israel.

And then there is the appeal to the interest of the arms merchants. Here is his next reason for thinking it will be just swell if Iran acquires nuclear weapons:

"Fourth, a growth in ex ports of weapons systems, training and advice to our Middle Eastern allies [allies!] would not only strengthen our current partnership efforts but give the American defense industry a needed shot in the arm. With the likelihood of austere Pentagon budgets in the coming years, Boeing has been making noise about shifting out of the defense industry, which would mean lost American jobs and would also put us in a difficult position should we be threatened by a rising military power like China. A nuclear Iran could forestall such a catastrophe."

This is extraordinary. The veriest conspiracy-theorist writing for Counterpunch, or appearing on Al-Jazeera, must be made delirious with joy by such a naked call for increasing business for the American defense industry. One wonders if Adam B. Lowther is angling, once his stint as a "defense analyst at the Air Force Research Institute" ends, for a job at Lockheed, or Boeing, or one of the other firms that he thinks, that he devoutly hopes, will benefit through an increase in business in the Middle East, if Iran gets nuclear weapons.

The piling-up of weapons in the Middle East, the heedless selling of vast quantities of the most advanced arms to the primitive tribes-with-flags in the Middle East, was one of the subjects that nearly drove J. B. Kelly mad with fury. He spent, on-and-off, nearly fifty ears in the Middle East, beginning with his time in Egypt before the coup of Nasser and Naguib, and including his time as a close advisor to Sheik Zayed of Abu Dhabi, back in the 1970s, helping to prepare the legal brief of Abu Dhabi against the land-grabbing Saudis. No one scared the Saudis like J. B. Kelly, for it was he who knew more about the Frontier Question - the frontiers of the Arab states of the Gulf - than they did. And no one was less impressed with Western appeasement and miscomprehension of the Saudis and other Arabs - he retained a slight soft spot for the Omanis - than J. B. Kelly. The piling-up of weapons was certain, he felt, to lead to all kinds of explosions, because such weapons were bound to be used. He predicted their use before the Iran-Iraq War, and before the latest war, proxy or being made into a proxy, war between Iran and Saudi Arabia (even if the Iranians have not been involved as the Saudis claim, or hint) in the Yemen, and before the steady violence, with most of the weapons imported from other Muslim states, in Somalia.

And Lowther is himself a little inconsistent. First, he wants the Americans to offer a "nuclear umbrella" in exchange for promises by the locals to completely change their ways - in effect, to un-islamize their societies. Lowther, however, not knowing what it means to have a society completely suffused with Islam, and expressing Islam in its political and economic and social institutions, does not recognize that that is what he is calling for when he calls for "economic, political, and social reforms." Genuine reforms of such a kind would begin, but not end, with those Saudi textbooks that inculcate hatred against the Infidels, including the millions of Infidel foreign wage-slaves who keep Saudi Arabia going.

But why stop there, in the application of the truly brilliant strategy of Adam B. Lowther, defense analyst at the Air Force Research Institute? If only he had been in charge of our policy in East Asia, we never would have bothered to try to stop North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons. No, we would instead have secretly welcomed North Korea's acquisition of nuclear weapons. After all, isn't South Korea a great economic competitor? Why, last I looked, Samsung was making portable phones, and those wonderful backlit LED televisions we all hear so much about, and so much else. And then there's Hyundai, and Kia. And then there's Japan too, still eating our electronic lunch. So how to recover some of that money? We can't build those backlit LED televisions, apparently, or the rest of what Korea and Japan produce, so at least let's scare the hell out of them, so that they come running to Boeing. And what better way to scare them then to have North Korea acquire nuclear weapons? Why, think of all the contracts our defense industry could sign with the governments of South Korea, and Japan.

So to keep the manufactures of airplanes happy, to keep Boeing from leaving the defense market, by all means - let Iran get nuclear weapons. But of course. My god, why stop there? Let's try to sell arms, too, to Angola, with its new oil wealth. And while we are at it, have Angolan oil money spent on arms for Mozambique at the same time, and then encourage both parties, oil-funded, to start thinking about pushing inward from east and from west, in order to create one giant lusophone state (doing Camoens proud). Then that state, in turn, might push southward, right through the soft fotanelle of collapsing Zimbabwe and right through to Aids-weakened South Africa, where the goldmines beckon. And once that idea has been set in place, the American defense manufacturers could go to South Africa, and offer to sell them billions in weapons.

So, dear reader, you can make up a half-dozen other examples of places that, were they to become nuclear states, would so frighten other countries around them that those frightened countries would naturally turn to us, to the United States, and quickly become loyal (how loyal? for how long?) customers of the American defense industry. And don't even think that the day might come when such countries would use their weapons on other countries, not necessarily threats to them, countries that they just didn't like, for some reason. Nor should you assume that, say, Saudi Arabia might someday ask not Boeing for help, but a Chinese aircraft company - oh, they are coming along, you know - one that sold things more cheaply. That company furthermore might even supply Chinese pilots to do the bidding of the Al-Saud, and might even agree to handle all the "security for the oilfields" in a way guaranteed to be more reliable than those Americans - well, you see where all of this is, or could be, headed. You see, I see. Only Adam B. Lowther, defense analyst with the Air Force Research Institute, doesn't see.

The final point of Lowther is again economic. Still he has forgotten, and doesn't want to be reminded at this point, the fifth of his points, of the need to keep in mind the frightening effect on the world, and possible use by Iran, or by others (Hezbollah?) of nuclear weapons. That includes all sorts and conditions of nuclear weapons that Iran might manage to produce, and use, or hand off to others, or sell to others. Iran could even sell nuclear weapons to Sunni Arab regimes with which, in a spirit of pan-Islamism, it might reconcile - how does Adam B. Lowther know they won't? This could happen while the Americans are left surprised, astonished, and confused, as has happened with them so many times before, when it comes to dealing with Muslim powers, in and out of the Middle East.

Here's Lowther:

"Last, the United States would be able to stem the flow of dollars to autocratic regimes in the region. It would accomplish this not only by driving down the price of oil and increasing arms exports, but by requiring the beneficiaries of American security to bear a real share of its cost. And in the long run, a victory in the war on terrorism would save taxpayers the tens of billions of dollars a year now spent on overseas counter-insurgency operations."

So these regimes will do what they have given no sign of ever doing before. Did Egypt, without any oil, and dependent on the Americans for $2 billion a year, change in any way, over the past three decades, the stratokleptocracy that runs and more or less owns Egypt? Has Egypt, despite now and again making throat-clearing noises about "democracy" and unspecified "reforms," in any way over those thirty years done a single thing to show it is willing to engage in "economic, political, and social reforms" in order to keep being on the receiving end of vast amounts of entirely unmerited American largesse? Hasn't the regime in Egypt not only mocked the idea of "democracy" in its conduct of elections, but failed to improve, and even has seemed to make the situation worse, for the persecuted and threatened Copts in Egypt? What do Copts tell us about their own situation, when they are in the safety of the West? And what about the other Muslim countries, such as Pakistan? Pakistan has been favored as a recipient of military aid for a half-century, ever since CENTO and the Dulles brothers, with their naïve belief that Islam was "a bulwark against Communism" and so Muslim states deserved American support. And Pakistan was so meretricrious in its dealings, and the executive branch of our government so terminally credulous in dealing with it, that members of Congress who had been following the matter (such as Senator John Glenn) rose up and passed the Pressler Amendment, and then discovered that the Executive Branch continued to make a mockery of the intent of that amendment, letting Pakistan get away with murder. And of course Pakistan managed to create its bomb with money freed up by American aid. We, American taxpayers, paid for that Pakistani nuclear project, and the "Islamic bomb." But perhaps Adam B. Lowther doesn't care, because in his view that, no doubt, simply made it possible - or did it? What did India do? - to sell more defense systems to India.

How exactly does Lowther think that the rich states of the Gulf can be persuaded not only to institute "economic, political, and social reforms," but also to buy more weapons from America? Why would they buy them from America if they could buy them, at lower prices, from China - unless of course America is willing not to set up any barriers to the Saudi efforts to spread Islam within the West, and willing as well not to stand up for non-Muslims, such as Copts, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Maronites, and foreign Christians, being mistreated in Muslim Arab lands, all in order not to offend Saudi Arabia?

He hasn't thought this out.

In fact, he hasn't thought anything out.

If his Op/Ed were passed in to me by a student - say, a freshman full of bright ideas - I'd give it a D plus. Or possibly I'd move it up to a C plus. I'm kind, you see. I wouldn't want to discourage him. I'm indulgent with the young, the confused, the ignorant. But Adam B. Lowther is not a freshman in college. He's a defense analyst, discussing matters of life and mass death. And with him one need not be so indulgent. One should apply appropriate standards, and give him his due. On second thought, I'll change that D plus, but not upwards. Downwards - to an F.

"Imam Khamenei says Iran will never seek atom bomb," from the Ahlul Bayt News Agency, February 19 (thanks to Block Ness):

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said Friday that the country neither believes in atomic bombs nor is it seeking to develop such weapons.

The Leader said the continuation of allegations by the West that the country is pursuing military objectives in its civilian nuclear program signals that the propaganda campaign against Iran has failed.

Iran has announced many times, he said, that its fundamentals and religious principles consider weapons of mass destruction as "illegal and haraam" -- meaning forbidden and prohibited according to Islamic rules....

Iran in no way believes in an atomic bomb, and it does not seek one, Imam Khamenei said....

Yes, but were his fingers crossed when he said it?

When Irish Colonel Desmond Travers eagerly accepted an appointment to the Goldstone Commission, he was hell-bent on revenge against Israel based on paranoid fantasies and hard left anti-Israel propaganda.  He actually believed, as he put it in a recent interview, that “so many Irish soldiers had been killed by Israelis,” with “a significant number who were taken out deliberately and shot (in southern Lebanon.)”  This is of course complete and utter fantasy, but it was obviously part of Colonel Travers bigoted reality.

Travers came to the job having already made up his mind not to believe anything Israel said and to accept everything Hamas put forward.  For example, Israel produced hard photographic evidence that Gaza mosques were used to store rockets and other weapons.  Other photographs taken by journalists, also proved what everybody now acknowledges to be true: namely that Hamas, as its leaders frequently boasted, routinely use mosques as military munitions depots.  When confronted with this photographic evidence, Travers said “I don’t believe the photographs.”  Of course he doesn’t since they don’t comport with his politically correct and ideologically skewed world view.  This is what he had previously said about why he didn’t believe that Hamas used the mosques to store weapons:

“We also found no evidence that mosques were used to store munitions.  Those were a Hamas operative the last place I’d store munitions would be in a mosque.  It’s not secure, is very visible, and would probably be pre-targeted by Israeli surveillance.  There are a [sic] many better places to store munitions.”

But that is exactly what Hamas did, despite Travers insistence on paraphrasing Groucho Mark’s famous quip, “Who are you going to believe?  Me, or your lying eyes?”

Most disturbing, however, was Travers’ categorical rejection of Israel’s claim that it attacked Gaza only after enduring thousands of anti-personnel rockets intended to target Israeli civilians, mainly schoolchildren.  In fact, Hamas rockets hit several schools, though fortunately the teachers had dismissed the students just before the rockets would have killed dozens, perhaps hundreds, of them.  This is what Travers said about Hamas rockets.

“Hamas rockets had ceased being fired into Israel and not only that but Hamas sought a continuation of the ceasefire… and Israel said no.”

Travers then claimed that Hamas had fired no rockets at Israel in the month leading up to the Israeli invasion:

“…the number of rockets that had been fired into Israel in the month preceding their operations was something like two. The Hamas rockets had ceased being fired into Israel and not only that but Hamas sought a continuation of the ceasefire. Two had been fired from Gaza, but they are likely to have been fired by dissident groups, [i.e. groups that were violating a Hamas order not to fire rockets].”  (emphasis added).

Again, Travers’ rendition defies the historical record and tells us more about Travers than it does about what actually provoked Israel into finally taking action to protect a m il lion civilians who were in range of the thousands of Hamas rockets that had been fired at its civilians.  In fact Israel complied with the cease fire under whose terms Israel reserved the right to engage in self-defense actions such as attacking terrorists who were in the process of firing rockets at its civilians.

Just before the hostilities began, Israel offered Hamas a carrot and a stick: it reopened a checkpoint to allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza.  It had closed the point of entry after the checkpoint had been targeted by Gazan rockets  Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert, also issued a stern, final warning to Hamas that unless it stopped the rockets, there would be a full-scale military response.

This is the way Reuters reported it:

“Israel reopened border crossings with the Gaza Strip on Friday, a day after Prime Minister warned militants there to stop firing rockets or they would pay a heavy price.  Despite the movement of relief supplies, militants fired about a dozen rockets and mortar shafts from Gaza at Israel on Friday.  One accidentally struck a house in Gaza, killing two Palestinian sisters, ages 5 and 13.” (emphasis added)

Despite the opening of the crossings, the Hamas rockets continued—not none, not “something like two,” but many—and Israel kept its word, implementing a targeted air attack against Hamas facilities and combatants.

Not surprisingly, Travers said that he “rejected…entirely” Israel’s claim that its “attack on Gaza was based on self-defense.”  Instead, he compared Israel’s attack on Hamas to the unprovoked Fascist bombing of “Guirnica.”

Travers has repeatedly claimed that “no substantive critique of the [Goldstone] report has been received.”  This is an out and out lie.  I have read dozens of substantive critiques and have written a 49 page one myself.  The truth is that Travers has studiously ignored and refused to respond to these critiques.  And of course he blames everything on “Jewish lobbyists.”

Nor was Travers the only member of the commission with predetermined views and an anti-Israel agenda.  Christine Chinken had already declared Israel guilty of war crimes before seeing any evidence.  Hina Jilani had also condemned Israel before her appointment to the group, and then said that it would be “very cruel to not give credence to [the] voices” of the victims, apparently without regard to whether they were telling the truth.  And then there is Richard Goldstone, who told friends that he too took the job with an agenda, which he says was to help Israel!  Why any reasonable person would pay any attention to a report written by four people who had prejudged the evidence and came to their jobs with agendas and biases is beyond comprehension.

Iran – or more accurately the Iranian government – this week celebrated the 31^st anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution. In preparation for the tightly orchestrated event, the government unleashed the full might of its security forces – including riot police, the Revolutionary Guard and the Basij, the civilian militia corps – to suppress the opposition protestors who have poured onto Iran’s streets since last summer’s fraudulent election.

Armed with live ammunition, knives and teargas, the security forces set upon anyone identified as opposition protestors. When not resorting to violent repression, the government tried to thwart the opposition by disrupting internet, telephone and text messaging service inside the country. For propaganda purposes, the government also staged its own mass rally in Tehran’s Freedom Square, an occasion capped by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s defiant declaration that Iran is now a “nuclear state,” capable of producing its own weapons-grade uranium.  

To discuss this week’s events and the state of the Iranian opposition movement, Front Page turned to exiled Iranian dissident Amir Abbas Fakhravar. Jailed for five years in Iran’s notoriously brutal Evin Prison after participating in anti-government student riots in 1999, Fakhravar now heads the Confederation of Iranian Students, an organization committed to non-violent regime change in Iran.

FP: The government clearly tried very hard this week to deter opposition protestors from making themselves heard. Instead, it has put on a mass rally, complete with Iranian flags pro-government pro-Khameini signs, to create the illusion of national unity. What can you tell us about these “pro-government” demonstrations?

Fakhravar: The government knew that there was a plan from the protest movement to hold demonstrations in Tehran on the anniversary of the Islamic revolution, so they spent money to bring in about 200,000 Basij from cities all across Iran on the night before the anniversary celebration. The Basij – these are the masses of men and women you see attending the pro-government protests – were paid $250 each to show up at the demonstrations, which is a lot of money in Iran, when you consider the bad state of the economy. They spent all night covering Freedom Square with the Basij. The government also spent a lot of money on propaganda. They printed posters of Ayatollah Khameini; they even gave the Basij frozen chicken after the demonstration was over.

But that didn’t stop the opposition protestors from showing up. If the government can get 200,000 people out of the 70 million in Iran, that means nothing. Across Iran, I believe there were some 2 million people who showed up to protest the government. And the protestors will come back stronger and stronger. The reason is this: The Basij fight for their salary; the people fight for their freedom. That’s why, on Tuesday, when Ahmadinejad gave his big speech, you could hear chants of “Death to the Dictator!” coming from a distance.

FP: Reports in the foreign press have portrayed this week’s events as a defeat for the reform movement and a victory for the government. In their accounts, the protestors were overwhelmed by the security forces and outnumbered by the pro-government demonstrators. What do you think explains the slant of this coverage?

Fakhravar: First, I want to correct you. This is not a reform movement. This is an opposition movement, a revolution against the government. The people want regime change. That is why in front of the Basij and the Revolutionary Guard you heard chants of “Death to the Dictator” and “Death to Khameini.” That is also why the most popular chant was “Referendum.” By this the protestors mean a referendum on the Iranian government. The last time Iran had a referendum was when the Islamic republic came to power in 1979. Referendum means they want regime change. The people are saying to Khameini, “We don’t want an Islamic republic anymore!”

As for the coverage, it may be explained by the fact that the government invited 300 reporters from foreign countries to cover the pro-government demonstration. Yet, they didn’t let them go anywhere. They were only allowed to watch the main demonstration at Freedom Square in Tehran – nowhere else. They never saw the side streets where the opposition protests were taking place.

It should also be noted that the strength of the pro-government rallies is overstated. You can tell the opposition protestors from the government demonstrators because only the protestors carry handmade signs. The Basij carry the posters of Kahmeini or other placards that are printed and distributed by the government. Because all the print shops in Iran are under government control, and are carefully monitored, it’s not easy for protestors to print signs. All the people holding up the printed signs are paid by the government to hold them up. (We have a joke that if you see an ugly woman at an Iranian demonstration, she is with the Basij.) When the demonstrations are over, they just drop the signs and walk over them.

FP: The government seems to fear the protestors’ use of new media like Facebook and Twitter to organize their movement. Hence the regime’s attempts to restrict internet and text messaging and its announcement this week that it will permanently ban Google mail in favor of a “national email service for Iranians.” What do you make of this clampdown on new media, and how big of a threat is it to the opposition movement’s ability to mobilize against the government?

Fakhravar: The government’s primary goal was to shut down YouTube, but they were not successful. The intelligence services called in protestors to tell them that they were being watched and that they should not participate in the anniversary day protests. But we still get hundreds of videos from Iran. That means the government has failed to shut down the new media.

There are some 30 million Iranians who have access to the internet and the new media. Just a few months ago, it was 17 or 20 million. This is a sign that, right now, people are hungry for information from the internet. One of the most useful things that the U.S. could do to help the opposition movement would be to support new media and alternative media, whether it’s the internet or satellite services.

FP: How would you describe the Obama administration’s position? Has it done anything to aid the opposition movement?

Fakhravar: The Obama administration’s approach seems to be to keep an eye on the protestors to see if they keep coming out on the streets even amidst the government repression. That’s wrong. It’s also wrong for the administration to continue to pursue diplomatic negotiations with the Iranian government. The government has no legitimacy inside Iran; it has no legal standing with the Iranian people. The people are saying, “This is not our president,” but Obama is saying, “I want to talk to him.” I don’t understand why the Obama administration would want to give legitimacy to a regime that has no legitimacy in the eyes of the Iranian people.

FP: Perhaps the most notable incident from this week’s pro-government rally in Tehran was Ahmadinejad’s boast that Iran was now a full-fledged nuclear power. What has been the reaction to his remarks inside Iran and why do you think he chose to make the announcement?

Fakhravar: There were several reasons he said that. First, he wanted to distract attention from the counter-protests and the opposition movement. It is also the government’s way of telling some of the stupider people in Iran, “If we spend a lot your money, eventually we will get what we want!”

For most Iranians, though, Ahmadinejad’s speech was a cruel joke. The funniest part was when he bragged that the regime successfully sent some animals – roaches, worms, mice and turtles – into space. This actually happened last week and the government had a lot of propaganda about it. Ahmadinejad was trying to show that Iran was very successful and that the world covets our technological knowledge. But most Iranians cynically said, okay, we sent animals into space – Thank God we’re not hungry or anything.  

FP: What’s the best thing that the United States and the international community can do to support the Iranian protest movement?

Fakhravar: It’s very simple: Stop buying oil from the mullahs. If you cut off their oil funds with sanctions, they won’t have money to pay the Revolutionary Guard, or to buy friends in Latin America Russia and China, or to sponsor Hezbollah, or to continue the nuclear program. That would solve the problem.

FP: What’s next for the Iranian opposition movement?

Fakhravar: The next step in a protest is March 16, which is the last Wednesday in the Persian calendar. I am optimistic. I’ve lived in Iran all my life and I’ve never seen this much courage from the Iranian people. This is their last chance for freedom and they don’t want to give it up.

FP: Amir, thank you very much for joining us.

Fakhravar: Thank you for the interview.

Robert Spencer's "Islamic Nazis" is a very welcome reminder of what's on the horizon for us all.

In his recent idiocies at a ceremony held for a book titled Civilizations, Nomadic Migrations, Empires and The Trail of Islam at the Islamic Arts Museum in Kuala Lumpur, former Prime Minister Mahathir bin Muhammad seriously referred to the 9/11 Jihadist horror jokingly, with the following comments :

"The way the tower came crashing down was also funny (...) I have great respect for the Arabs but for them to hijack four planes is not very Arab. Just imagine the amount of planning that would be involved." Rejecting any claims that he was being insensitive to the victims, Mahathir stressed that he was "being more sensitive to the victims" as he was simply saying the attacks were carried out "deliberately." He also said that his views about how 9/11/2001 attacks were carried out would not affect Malaysia's chances of attracting foreign investment. "I have said this many times even when I was the prime minister. But we still have the foreign direct investment. However, we cannot rely on foreign direct investments alone. We must build on our own system," he said.

On several occasions I have denounced, at the UNCHR, the crass lunacies of Mahathir bin Muhammad - but no condemnation emanated from the 'international community's conscience of the world'. Below is an extract from WUPJ's Appeal to Acting High Commissioner for Human Rights Bertrand Ramcharan, which I drafted 6½ years ago, having raised the matter earlier in an oral statement at the UN Commission on Human Rights. Rabbi François Garaï and I signed it and The National Review reprinted it in Oct. 21, 2003.

URGENT APPEAL
To Acting High Commissioner for Human Rights Bertrand Ramcharan  
on Prime Minister Mahathir bin Muhammad's Madding Judeophobia

(...) In fact, Prime Minister Mahathir Muhammad was simply true to form. Already in October 1986, a day after PLO-dissident Abu Nidal's killers massacred 23 Jews at worship in Istanbul's "Gates of Peace" synagogue (Neve Shalom), he told the 101-Member Movement of the Non-Aligned countries (Harare, Zimbabwe): "The expulsion of Jews from the Holy Land some two thousand years ago and the Nazi oppression have taught them nothing. If at all, it has transformed the Jews into the very monsters that they condemn so roundly in their propaganda material. They are apt pupils of Dr Goebbels." (New York Times / IHT - October 8, 1986).

On that occasion also, not one 'Non-Aligned' delegation reacted. Two months later Malaysia inaugurated an "Anti-Jews Day" (New York Times, Dec. 8, 1986), and during his State visit to Great Britain in July 1987 he again affirmed: "The Jews have been apt pupils of Dr. Goebbels." In March 1994 Schindler's List was banned in Malaysia - on the grounds that it was "Jewish propaganda." In 1997 he blamed the Asian financial crisis on the "Jews," explaining his views: "We are Muslims, and the Jews are not happy to see Muslims progress."

Remembering this self-deluding rant last year when Bill O’Reilly dared to mock Keith Olbermann’s ratings?

OLBERMANN:  I hate to intrude with the facts, but ours is the highest rated cable news program [among] viewers 35 and younger, and the highest rated cable news program for all viewers not on Fixed [i.e., Fox] News. And since Fixed News has now migrated completely over to serving propaganda to tinfoil hatters, conspiracy theorists, paranoids and racist, it’s not a news organization, making THIS [Olbermann's] show the highest-rated cable news program, period.

Here’s tonight’s big number, as Chris Matthews would say–  44!  That’s right, according to DaliyFinance.com Olbermann’s ratings are down 44%

And as much as I’d like to claim credit, I think this accomplishment rightly belongs to Keith.   It’s enough to make Glenn Beck optimistic about America’s future!

We’ve spent 30 chapters (and then some) detailing the litany of smears, lies, rants, delusions, hatred and deliberate propaganda without regard to facts that spew from Keith Olbermann’s frothed lips on a nightly basis.  Usually, some uninitiated soul posts a comment like, “How do people watch this?”

Well, fewer and fewer of them do.

It’s common knowledge that Keith gets his butt kicked by Bill O’Reilly on a nightly basis—just as the rest of the MSNBC schedule gets tromped by the rest of Fox’s schedule.   DailyFinance.com reveals that while Keith Olbermann fanices himself a rival—if not a nemesis—for O’Reilly, the truth is, he’s no factor.

DAILYFINANCE.COM:  Ratings for Olbermann’s Countdown have been soft recently, and the 8 p.m. shows on CNN and HLN have narrowed the gap. In the important demographic of adults 25 to 54 — the group advertisers are looking to reach – Countdown was down 44% year-over-year in January. It averaged 268,000 viewers in that demo, only 3,000 more than Nancy Grace’s show on HLN, and 12,000 more than CNN’s Campbell Brown. Fox News’s O’Reilly Factor dominated the hour with 964,000 viewers age 25 to 54, and was the only cable news show in the time period to increase its audience, by 55%.

Gee, tinfoil sales must be way up. Note to self: call your broker…

This news means that in all likelihood, more people have seen this Jon Stewart takedown of Keith Olbermann than saw any of the segments Stewart mocks—or all of them put together. (Yes, I know, it’s a stretch, but I am nowhere NEAR tired of watching this yet!)

But in the news of Olbermann’s decline, even DailyFinance.com missed the even better story–  He’s shedding viewers like my Golden Retriever sheds her coat in the Spring, but Keith Olbermann is the HIGHEST rated show on the ratings graveyard known as MSNBC.

Is Air America about to be joined by its TV counterpart in oblivion?

Modern academia has become a welcome place for full-time anti-Israel propagandists. They churn out diatribes bashing Israel and misrepresent this as scholarship and research. Jennifer Loewenstein, an associate director of the Middle East Studies program at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, is just such a fulltime professional Israel basher – and an archetypal example of the erosion of academic standards.

Loewenstein’s professional field is actually supposed to be “business communications.” She came to the University of Wisconsin originally as a lecturer in business administration. Yet, she has never published a single academic article about “business communications” or business administration. Indeed, Lowenstein has no PhD at all, (which does not stop her from listing herself regularly as “Professor” and “Doctor”).

No less significant is that she has no training at all in Middle East studies. On the other hand, Loewenstein has published scores of anti-Israel articles in the radical Counterpunch web magazine. It is a reflection of the magazine’s political inclinations that it endorses anti-Semitic conspiracy “theories” and increasingly publishes Holocaust Denier columnists. Some of its columnists moonlight as writers for Neo-Nazi web sites and organizations.

Counterpunch is Loewenstein’s main forum for her political venting. She also publishes regularly in other extremist venues. These include “Global Research,” a web site run by Canadian Neo-Nazi Michel Chussudovsky, which claims that a Jewish cabal was really behind the 9/11 attacks on the US. Loewenstein is active in several anti-Israel organizations, and has promoted the pro-terror “International Solidarity Movement.”

That Loewenstein can often be found sharing editorial real estate with cranks and conspiracy theorists is no coincidence. Loewenstein herself rants about the Zionist bogeyman in “control” of the US. For instance, she has written that:

“Powerful pro-Israel organizations within the United States, including but not limited to the organized mainstream American Jewish community are allowed to prevail over our opinions with their increasingly vicious and racist propaganda against Arabs and Muslims.”

To underscore the point, Lowenstein embellishes one of her blog entries with a large Nazi swastika with Jewish stars carried on each of its arms. The Nazi analogy is a running theme of Loewenstein’s attacks on the Jewish state. To Loewenstein, Israel is a Nazi-like entity that perpetrates a genocidal “Holocaust” in Gaza. She cannot look at a passing Israeli soldier without seeing a Nazi storm trooper, someone she says “looks like the stereotype of a Nazi soldier.” In a quote that could easily have been printed by the Nazi newspaper Der Sturmer in the 1930s, she adds:

“The Neo-Jewish Masters and their allies in the United States… have no intention of making a just peace with the lower forms of life in their midst.”

In Loewenstein’s take on reality, Israel engages in state terror while operating a cabal that enslaves the American government and dictates its policies.

Loewenstein is Jewish-born, but she seems interested in her Jewish roots only to the extent that they can be used as a bludgeon against Israel and its supporters in the Jewish community. Even Yom Kippur for her is nothing more than an excuse to attack her two favorite targets.

John Perazzo has described her thus:

“Though Jewish, Loewenstein harbors a caustic hatred for Israel, a nation she views as an illegitimate entity with no right to exist. At the same time, she sees Palestinians as innocents, relentlessly oppressed and brutalized by violent, sadistic Jews.”

Loewenstein harbors a similarly bitter animus against America. Frequently denouncing what she calls American “imperialism,” she describes the war in Iraq in typically conspiratorial fashion:

“100,000 dead Iraqis so that we can control Iraqi oil….So that a few wealthy businessmen and women in the United States can continue to gain huge profits at the expense of the American people.”

Elsewhere, she describes the campaign in Iraq thus:

“Our war-mongering, rapacious actions have turned a chaotic, suffering region into an even greater hell.”

On what scholarly authority does Loewenstein render these judgments in the Middle East? Loewenstein claims to have “worked” in Beirut, Gaza and Jerusalem. She did spend a few months once at the al-Mezan Center “for human rights” in Gaza. But this is little more than a Hamas front group that churns out anti-Israel propaganda.

Loewenstein also claims to have spent some time as a “visiting research fellow” at the Oxford University Refugee Studies Center. The center’s claim to fame is that it publishes a magazine called Forced Migration Review. Representative of the magazine’s editorial perspective is its claim that there is a Jewish cabal to “police thought” about the Middle East on American campuses.

The one thing Loewenstein insists is beyond questioning or challenge is her insistence that Hamas has nothing at all to do with “terror,” a word Loewenstein invariably writes with scare-quotation marks. These same terrorists are labeled the resistance by her, a word she never writes with quotation marks. Hamas’ behavior also has nothing at all to do with provoking Israeli anti-terror reprisals, she insists. Indeed there is no such thing as Arab terrorism in Loewenstein’s universe. Every mass murder by Arab terrorists is resistance. When the Hezbollah fired thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians, some of which killed Israeli Arabs, that too was resistance, she insists.

Loewenstein insists that Hamas rockets do not “count” because they are “technologically primitive.” Writing in Counterpunch, Loewenstein insists that the Hamas is a harmless amusement, certainly nothing that could excuse Israel defending itself.  In her words,

“Meticulously and clinically thought through even before the first rocket from Gaza claimed a life inside Israel, the slaughter in Gaza today has nothing to do with rockets or with Hamas.”

Indeed, Loewenstein insists that the Hamas is actually nothing more than a peace movement, embracing a “two-state solution” in which Israel will survive – a solution which incidentally she opposes – and is simply working to nudge Israel back to its pre-1967 “Green Line” borders. Here she is, in Counterpunch, explaining why Palestinian terrorism is dandy, the most justified act since Lincoln freed the slaves:

“While they are being stomped, shot, beaten, demolished, assassinated, intimidated, robbed, despoiled, starved, uprooted, dispossessed, harassed, insulted and killed with bullets, missiles, armored bulldozers, tanks, helicopter gun-ships, cluster-bombs, fleshettes (sic), fighter-bombers, semi-automatic submachine guns, sonic booms, tear gas, electrified fences, blockades, closures and walls, they must renounce violence so that the hoodlums won’t get hurt. If they defend themselves they lose.”

When Israel builds a security fence to keep the terrorists from mass murdering its children, here is Loewenstein’s conclusion:

“This neo-fascist, Stalinist, gulag Guantanamo is there to keep you out, to keep you from even trying, from even wanting, to go in.”

Loewenstein cannot type more than a few words without accusing Israel of perpetrating “genocide” of Palestinians. Since the number of Palestinians has actually grown rapidly under Israeli “occupation,” John Perazzo has commented caustically, “Genocide does not typically lead to the tripling of a population.” Loewenstein also regularly insist that Israeli leaders take great pleasure in the murder of Jews by terrorists, since this allows Israel to pursue its inhuman policies.

That Loewenstein has joined the growing ranks of professional Jew baiters and Israel bashers in academia is perhaps unsurprising. That an otherwise serious institution like the University of Wisconsin should keep such a person employed on its Middle East Studies staff is nothing short of bewildering.

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Mark LeVine

Neve Gordon

Norman Finkelstein

Tony Judt

Michael Lerner

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