Worried about aggravating Iran, the United States has announced that it is postponing missile-defense drills with Israel. Dubbed “Austere Challenge 12,” the exercises had been planned for months and were intended to send a clear message that the United States and Israel were prepared to protect themselves from Iran’s mushrooming missile threat. In fact, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta last month pointed to the exercises as evidence of America’s “unshakable” commitment to Israel. Now that the exercises have been delayed, the mullahs are getting a very different message.

A U.S. European Command official assures us that “It is not unusual for such exercises to be postponed,” which is true. But timing is everything when dealing with aggressors. Washington’s intentions are good—to avert an accidental war—but the perception in Tehran is that Washington blinked. That means the mullahs won this round. And as with all aggressors, that emboldens them and encourages them to push harder, to take more risks and to make dangerous miscalculations that invite the very thing Washington is trying to avoid.

One recalls how the Carter administration reacted to Moammar Qaddafi’s unilateral claim over the Gulf of Sidra, a huge chunk of the Mediterranean Sea universally considered as international waters. Anyone who crossed Qaddafi’s so-called “line of death” in the Gulf of Sidra would face military attack. President Carter canceled annual freedom-of-navigation naval exercises in and around the Gulf of Sidra to avoid confrontation and to keep things calm in the region.

But the message Qaddafi heard was that America was weak, and so he pushed and miscalculated. U.S. intelligence soon unearthed evidence that Libyan agents were planning to hit Marine One with a heat-seeking missile; Libya was caught red-handed sending tons of military hardware to communist forces in Nicaragua; and Qaddafi’s army of terrorists was at work all around the globe.

Vowing to enforce the principle of freedom of the seas, President Reagan ordered the U.S. Sixth Fleet to resume its exercises. When the exercises began in the autumn of 1981, Qaddafi lived up to his word and sent several warplanes into international airspace to enforce his line of death. Authorized, in Reagan’s words, to pursue attacking Libyan warplanes “all the way into the hangar,” U.S. F-14s responded with deadly force and made it clear to Qaddafi that there would be no payoff for recklessly disregarding international norms—only costs. “We sent a message to Qaddafi,” Reagan said. “We weren’t going to allow him to declare squatter’s rights over a huge area of the Mediterranean in defiance of international law.”

The moral of the story is that in international relations, every action and non-action sends a message. The postponement of Austere Challenge 12 sends the wrong message. Just when the pressure was building on the mullahs—on the economic front, in the Strait of Hormuz, vis-à-vis European energy imports, at the IAEA—Washington put Austere Challenge 12 on hold and relieved the pressure.

It’s important to note that these U.S.-Israel exercises were wholly defensive. As The Washington Post reports, they were “designed to test multiple Israeli and U.S. air defense systems against incoming missiles and rockets.”

Think about that. These weren’t provocative naval maneuvers off Iran’s coast or massive air exercises feigning attacks across the skies of the Middle East. These were missile-defense exercises designed to test U.S.-Israeli forces in deflecting inbound missile threats.

Defense is the operative word here. To cut through all the relativistic confusion, consider this everyday example: Which one of the following would you call provocative—a cop strapping on a bullet-proof vest or a gunman loading his weapon?

Iranian leaders are threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz to international traffic, and on Wednesday the parliament passed a law “forbidding” foreign warships to enter the Persian Gulf.

These moves came as the United States and Europe consider moves that will dramatically increase the economic and diplomatic pressure on Tehran – moves that already have caused the Iranian currency to lose more than half of its value, plunging from 10,500 rials to the U.S. dollar last month to around 18,000 rials on Monday, before recovering to around 15,500 on Wednesday.

On Dec. 31, President Obama signed a Defense Authorization bill that includes comprehensive new sanctions against Bank Markazi, Iran’s Central Bank. Existing sanctions against Iranian commercial banks have forced Iran over the past two years to increasingly take payment for its oil exports – the overwhelming hard currency income for the regime – through Bank Markazi.

While loopholes in the legislation exist that Obama has pledged to exploit, the National Iranian American Council – a group that consistently reflects the concerns and policy goals of the Iranian regime – lobbied hard against it.

Most significant among NIAC (and Tehran’s) worries is the potential that “Tehran could find itself unable to execute oil sales,” a NIAC briefing paper warned.

But that is precisely the reason Congress finally took the step of imposing a worldwide ban on Iran’s Central Bank after years of hand-wringing that such a move would drive up oil prices and impinge upon the president’s ability to conduct foreign policy.

“Without immediate and serious action, the Islamic Republic of Iran will have a nuclear weapons capability in the near future,” Senator Mark Kirk said when he filed the amendment in November. “As the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, it’s quite likely that the Iranian regime would transfer its nuclear weapons to terrorist organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas. And we can be sure that an Iranian bomb will set off a nuclear arms race in the Middle East – from Saudi Arabia to Egypt. We must act now or face the consequences of a nuclear Iran.”

So what will Iran really do if push comes to shove? And how will the increased tensions affect the price of oil?

Scenario 1: Iran attempts to close the Strait of Hormuz.

The Iranian navy could attempt to use its Russian-made Kilo-class diesel-electric subs and smaller home-made Ghadir-class boats to torpedo ships entering the narrow sea lanes of the Strait, or try a repeat of its 1988 effort to mine the Strait.

Iranian leaders have made many threats recently that this is what they will do, boasting like drunken sailors that closing the Strait is a simple matter they could undertake with no preparation that would devastate world oil markets and exacerbate the international economic downturn.

But most analysts believe such a move would provide an acceptable excuse for the U.S. Navy to unleash its overwhelming firepower against Iran, sinking the majority of Iran’s major surface ships, knocking out its coastal artillery and anti-shipping missile batteries, and perhaps sinking offshore oil platforms, as during Operation Praying Mantis in April 1988.

“If the Islamic Republic wants to commit suicide, then by all means, close the Strait of Hormuz right away,” the Washington Times editorial page remarked recently.

Consequence: oil prices increase sharply for several days, then drop like a rock. Iran loses.

Scenario 2: Iran uses “swarming” attacks against U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf.

When the USS John C. Stennis or another U.S. carrier attempts to re-enter the Persian Gulf (which the U.S. Navy sometimes refers to as the “Arabian” Gulf), Iran could carry out its threat to attack – not using large surface ships or missile boats, but with swarms of small “go-fast” boats armed with Revolutionary Guards troops and shoulder-launched weapons.

Such attacks could have dramatic success. U.S. planners have been worried about this since at least 2002, when they had to halt a war -gaming exercise after Iranian go-fast boats sank the majority of the U.S. fleet.

On December 17, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il died. The state press announced that his youngest son, Kim Jong-Un, is the “great successor.” There’s a clear pattern where each step towards succession is accompanied with a provocation, reflecting the regime’s belief that its ills can be cured through conflict. At only 27 or 28 years old, Kim Jong-Un is out to prove himself, and the short-range missile test that followed his official takeover isn’t going to cut it.

Kim Jong-Un is largely a mystery. He wasn’t even formally mentioned in North Korea’s state press until October 2010. His age, mother and marital status aren’t even known. It is reported that British intelligence assess that he has an “explosive temper” and suffers from severe hypertension, giving little hope that his mental state is any better than his father’s.

In October 2010, he was given the rank of a four-star general, even though he has no military experience whatsoever. His young age, lack of experience and the decreasing support of the North Korean army and population make it difficult for Kim Jong-Un to ensure the stability of the regime. A cable published by Wikileaks reveals that the top national security advisor to the South Korean president believes the regime will collapse within 2 to 3 years after Kim Jong-Il’s death.

Kim Jong-Il believes that confrontation with outside powers is necessary for a successful transition. In 1987, he was the designated successor. He ordered the bombing of a South Korean airliner and took part in a plot to assassinate South Korea’s president in Burma. This is the same type of preparatory steps his son undertook before his own ascent.

On May 25, 2009, North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test. About one week later, Kim Jong-Il had his top officials pledge their loyalty to Kim Jong-Un. It is now known that Kim Jong-Un ordered the March 26, 2010 sinking of the South Korean warship, the Cheonan, killing 46. Five South Korean properties at the jointly-operated Mt. Kumgang resort were seized almost immediately after, and two North Korean agents were arrested in South Korea as they planned to kill a high-level defector there. Not long after that, the North launched cyber attacks on South Korean websites.

Over the summer of 2010, Kim Jong-Un oversaw a huge purge of political officials in order to solidify power. Older leaders were replaced with younger loyalists. It is said that 1,000 were arrested and 20-30 were executed. In September, new party leadership was chosen. Not long after, North Korea revealed an advanced uranium enrichment facility with 2,000 centrifuges and began erecting a lightwater reactor at Yongbyon.

Reprinted from IsraPundit.com.

Before forming the present government PM Netanyahu stood for the following:

– no two state solution
- no Shalit trade as was then being negotiated
- no construction freeze and
- no presentation of an Israeli plan for its borders

Since taking office he violated all these supposed red lines. He gave a speech in which he accepted “two states for two peoples”. He made the Shalit trade he previously had opposed. He imposed a 10 month freeze for nothing in return and in many ways imposed a de facto freeze.

And now, it appears he has agreed to present, “comprehensive proposals” for resolving key aspects of conflict within three months.

By agreeing to this and not rejecting the peace process, Israel is accepting negotiations which aim to bridge the gap. Netanyahu has thus crossed another red line.

Netanyahu inherited the Shalit negotiations and once complained that he was dealt a lousy hand as though he couldn’t have started all over again. Similarly, he is not prepared to start all over again on peace negotiations and is prepared to play with the hand he was dealt. It too is a lousy hand.

By Netanyahu formally agreeing to present such proposals, he confirms that he is following Olmert and Barak. This is something Bibi has repeatedly said he would not do just as he has always said he is against the Shalit deal.

This goes way beyond playing rope-a-dope to buy time. This shows a seriousness about negotiations and an intention to really negotiate along the dictates of Obama and his proxy, the Quartet.

Netanyahu has to ask for more than he expects to get, yet on the other hand, if he asks for too much the Quartet will say he is not serious and penalize him/Israel for it. Not for a moment, do I believe that this was his idea or that he willingly went along.

The article Knesset visitor blasts Obama and Netanyahu advises that MK Eldad accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of buckling under intense pressure from President Barack Obama, who wants to prevent any Israeli retaliation against the Palestinian Authority in its bid to win recognition as a state from the United Nations.

He (Eldad) charged that Obama was holding Netanyahu “at gunpoint” – the gun being the U.S. threat to go back on its promise to veto the Palestinian statehood bid in the UN Security Council.Specifically, Obama has demanded that Netanyahu and Israel’s supporters in the United States pressure Congress to abort two pending resolutions to penalize the Palestinian Authority (PA) if it pursues its bid, Eldad claimed.One would shut off U.S. aid funds to the Palestinians and a second would support Israel’s right to annex the West Bank. The legal justification for such actions, cited by many Israeli officials, would be that the unilateral statehood request would be a direct violation of the 1993 Oslo Accords.

The inescapable conclusion is that Bibi felt he had no choice but to agree with the Quartet’s new Plan in which they proposed that the parties meet for a month and then prepare proposals within the following three months. To my mind the Quartet would not have come out with their plan, at that time, had not Bibi agreed to it.

The Palestinian request for recognition is still with the UNSC and will not be voted on or vetoed until Bibi presents his plan. So Eldad was 100 % correct.

Diplomacy being what it is, the Quartet will do its utmost to get Bibi to better Olmert’s offer. Abbas had offered to allow Israel to keep much less land. Abbas wanted to keep Ariel and much of east Jerusalem including Maaleh Adumin. When Netanyahu formed his government he made it clear that in no way would he match Olmert’s offer. I don’t see how he can avoid it.

As demonstrated in the present writer’s two previous articles (here and here) regarding US aid to Israel, the USA, in return for its aid and political support, receives from Israel very profitable financial and political reciprocity and significant benefits in the areas of military intelligence, ordnance and operations.  On the other hand, America’s aid to Israel’s enemies actually supports America’s enemies, underwrites in part their terrorist actions against our soldiers and civilians, funds the very countries that openly seek our destruction, and pays the salaries of Arab terrorist mass murderers.

Why then do some scholars, journalists and political commentators devote so much time and energy to arguing that American aid to Israel is excessive, a waste of the American taxpayers’ money, and a political liability to the USA?

Take for example, one among many, the Washington D.C. economist Thomas Stauffer who warned us in 2002 that Israel is bankrupting America, having received more than $1.6 trillion in foreign aid since 1973.  Stauffer upped the ante a year later with the assertion in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA) that the cost to the US taxpayer of our government’s support of Israel is actually $3 trillion!

The real numbers are actually rather easy to ascertain.  The Congressional Research Service provides annual reports for Congress on a wide variety of issues, among them the total cost of American aid to Israel.  Their analysts do not seem to be especially pro- or anti-Israel. The most recent report, for 2010, indicates that the total US aid to Israel for military, economic and immigrant resettlement costs from 1949 to 2010 was $109 billion dollars or, on average, less than $2 billion per year.  As is apparent from the 2010 report, US aid to Israel was zero or negligible until 1967 (after the 6-Day War), and did not reach the current annual sums of $2.5 billion to $3 billion or more until 1997 (following the Oslo Accords).  $3 billion per year is not chump change; but it is hardy an amount that would “bankrupt” the USA, and it is not much more than America’s annual aid to Egypt.

Moreover, as explained in the present writer’s two previous articles, American support for Israel is a very profitable investment for the USA rather than a gift to Israel.

Compare $109 billion to Stauffer’s $3 trillion! Recall that a million million, or one thousand billion, equals one trillion.  Stauffer has inflated his numbers by a factor of 30!

How does he come up with his trillions? –  by throwing in the proverbial “kitchen sink.”

Stauffer reaches his enormous sums by adding to the bona fide aid his utterly irrational but self-serving assertion that Israel is to blame for post-1973 rises in oil prices and thus bears the onus of culpability for America’s energy costs after the 1973 Yom Kippur war and the 1974 Arab oil embargo.  He never mentions that this embargo was imposed by our so-called ally Saudi Arabia, nor does he venture to suggest what Israel should have done when Egypt and Syria invaded — not defend itself?  In which case there would have been a very short Yom Kippur war and no oil embargo, but also no Israel?

He throws in as well the cost of American trade restrictions on Libya, Iraq and Iran; but never explains how these restrictions, a function of decisions made by our President and Congress, are Israel’s fault.  He even decries American Jews’ charitable gifts to Israel and to pro-Israel charities in the USA – after all, if that money did not go to Israel it would instead benefit the US economy.  One cannot but wonder whether he has ever expressed similar animus toward American citizens of the Catholic faith contributing to the Vatican.

Perhaps most confusing, he even lumps into his astronomic estimate the aid that the USA has given to Egypt (c. $117 billion) and to Jordan (c. $22 billion) in return for peace treaties with Israel.  Aside from the obvious fact that this USA money went to Egypt and Jordan but not to Israel, it is also quite rational to suggest that our government wisely saw these treaties as foundation blocks of peace in the Middle East, and therefore well worth the investment.  In short, Stauffer pulls into his calculus anything and everything that he can possibly think of to inflate the numbers.  Contrary to the popular adage, he does not throw in everything but the kitchen sink, he tosses that in too.

Essays of a similar ilk, by Stephen Zunes,  Scott McConnel, and various writers for the transparently anti-Israel Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA), have employed similar mendacious and misleading tactics to exponentially inflate the cost of American support for Israel and condemn the US-Israel special relationship as a liability for the USA.

“In the process of fighting for freedom, I lost my own freedom,” Dutch politician Geert Wilders explained.

Our weekly Canadian program, “On the Front Line,” was one of the media outlets carefully selected to interview Wilders during his first visit to Canada last week. For several years, public and private discourse has centered around the sensationalism of Wilders’ epic battle against the Islamization of the West. But this interview (still to be aired) revealed some of Wilders’ less publicized views on moderate Islam and the personal cost of his quest.

Wilders, who remains under explicit death threats from Muslims, is dismissed by leftists as a scary, anti-Muslim radical.  While one may disagree with his views and methodologies, his struggle against radicalism is nothing short of a Western obligation. The principal point of contention on Wilder’s approach is that he does not readily make a distinction between moderate and radical Islam.   He referred to the famous Belgian Professor of Islamic Studies—Urbain Vermeulen—describing Islam as 95 percent ideology and 5 percent religion.  Islam, like communism and fascism, is totalitarian and seeks to rule every aspect of individual and state life.

Wilders pointed out that “there are more mosques than windmills in Holland today.”  His answer is to stop building new mosques and madrassas that teach violence and hate, and to stop immigration from Muslim countries to stem the Islamization of the West. He does not advocate deporting Muslims, except those that have crossed the “red line” which refers to any Muslim acting according to Shariah and against our values (for example, practicing FGM and honour killings). Such Muslims, says Wilders, should be stripped of their western nationality and sent back to their countries of origin.

Yet on further probing about the moderate Muslims who face death threats fighting for the same anti-Islamist cause, Wilders did recognize the existence of moderates and makes a key distinction between the Muslim individual and the ideologies of Islam. The more moderates the better, he said, and we should support them in any way possible.  He also made the point that the Koran regards such Muslims as apostates worthy of death, yet if they see themselves as Muslims, we must support them.

The final question we posed to Wilders concerned  the personal toll on his life, even before the release of his short film “Fitna.” His neutral look gave way to his humanity with a brief sadness as he replied:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP) tries to organize American religious opinion against Israel with relatively measured tones.  Its participants predictably include officials from the left-dominated Mainline Protestant denominations, liberal Catholic orders, and the Greek Archdiocese of North America, as well as the Antiochian Orthodox Church in the U.S.  Its official “friends” include more overtly anti-Israel diehards like Friends of Sabeel – North America, which essentially wants to dissolve Jewish Israel in favor of a multi-ethnic “Palestine.”   Various advocates of anti-Israel divestment, an otherwise largely defeated cause, are also “friends” to CEMP, including the Episcopal Peace Fellowship, the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, and the Methodist Federation for Social Action.

The star of CMEP’s annual “advocacy” conference in Washington, D.C. starting June 13 will be Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori.  Comfortably liberal Episcopal refinement is exactly the sort of tone that CMEP often prefers to mask its more provocative agenda.  Bishop Schori is enmeshed in the melt-down of her own denomination, including lawsuits against departing local congregations, and its schism with the more theologically orthodox global Anglican Communion.  But denouncing Israel still merits her attention.

Last week, she wrote President Obama a relatively long, substantive and, by Religious left standards, temperate denunciation of Israel’s interception of the Gaza-bound flotilla. But the bias and preoccupation with Israeli sins, perceived or real, are still obvious, even if cloaked in Episcopalian politesse.  Admitting all the details of the flotilla event are still unclear, she still insisted:   “It is clear, however, that the deaths of civilians working to deliver humanitarian aid could not have happened absent the counterproductive Israeli blockade of Gaza.”  Ostensibly there are “far better ways to protect Israel’s security and promote moderate political leadership in Gaza than a blockade that intensifies human suffering and perpetuates regional insecurity.”

What are the alternatives to counteracting Hamas rule in Gaza short of a partial blockade against it?  Like most Israel critics, Bishop Schori does not say.  And as with other professions of supposed concern about Israel’s “security,” Bishop Schori and other clerics who publicly pontificate about the Middle East almost never offer substitute proposals for whatever Israeli defenses they reject.  The security wall is supposedly an outrage, but what else will impede suicide bombers?  Israel’s continued security oversight of the West Bank is purportedly oppresses the Palestinians.  But since most Palestinians still seem to reject a Palestinian state existing peacefully alongside a Jewish Israel, what are the other options?  Religious and secular complainants insist that removal of Jewish settlements from the West Bank is prerequisite for peace.  But the abrupt closure of all Jewish settlements in Gaza hardly generated good will and instead seemed only to stimulate appetite for more Israeli concessions.  Browbeating Israel into endless accommodations that only feed an inexhaustible expectation by Palestinians for further Israeli retreat and eventual Arab/Islamist triumph seems to be the Religious Left’s main strategy for Middle East “peace.”

“Instead of enhancing Israel’s security, the blockade has harmed its international standing and imposed an inexcusable humanitarian toll on the people of Gaza,” Bishop Schori insisted in her letter to Obama.  ”While Israel has allowed a very limited amount of humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, the restriction on basic goods for agriculture, fishing, and infrastructure construction has caused poverty and joblessness to soar.”  This may be true, but why is Israel exclusively at fault for Gaza’s suffering?  How was Gaza faring before to the blockade, and under the rule of the Palestinian Authority?  What evidence is there for Palestinian leadership genuinely interested in responsible governance rather than indefinite conflict?

Bishop Schori provided details about the number of trucks with supplies entering Gaza per day. The concern is partly admirable, if sincere.  But why is a U.S. Episcopal Bishop obsessed with living standards for Gaza, or the Palestinians, when hundreds of millions globally live in far greater poverty?  Would Palestinian GNP, in Gaza or the West Bank, interest liberal U.S. bishops at all, absent Israel as the targeted culprit?  How many anti-Western dictators have blockaded or literally starved hostile populations much larger than Gaza, without a murmur from Bishop Schori or the Religious Left?

Rather than tacitly backing an ill-advised blockade, the U.S. should work with its ally, Israel, to promote constructive new policies toward Gaza that serve the aims of peace and security,” Bishop Schori lectured.  The former oceanographer and teacher wants “continued efforts to halt violence, and credible long-term strategies to support Palestinian leaders who are actively working for peace,” while also drawing “support and legitimacy from across Palestinian society.”  She suggests “political reconciliation so that a future Palestinian government can draw strength both from its internal support and from its external actions on behalf of peace.”  How does the Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop, unable to reconcile the divisions within her own denomination of tea sippers and Volvo drivers, propose to reconcile Hamas with other Palestinians, much less Israel?

For Schori, the goals for the Middle East are simple.  The Episcopal Church has “repeatedly” supported a “secure Israel with defined borders, whose right to exist is universally recognized; a sovereign, independent and secure state for the Palestinian people; and shared custody and protection of the holy sites in Jerusalem held sacred by the three great Abrahamic faiths.”  This rhetoric appeals to Episcopalians snugly secure in their New England hamlets.  But how many Palestinians, even outside Hamas, share this vision?

Schori instructed Obama to shift our nation’s posture” towards “lifting the blockade,” while also “robustly” encouraging “long-term peace.”  She also expects “direct negotiation between the parties,” i.e. apparent recognition for Hamas.  How will abandoning the Gaza blockade and recognizing Hamas, which would surely inflate that Islamist group’s prestige and ambitions, advance peace?   In the rarified and often beautiful world of Episcopal liturgy, noblesse oblige, gothic spires, and ancient endowments, simply demanding “long-term peace’ may seem quite attainable over a lunch at the country club.  In the real world of guns, power, and even more ancient hatreds, appeasement often only breeds greater conflict.

Bishop Schori’s pleas to appease Hamas were relatively more thoughtful than other Religious Left voices.  United Methodist lobbyist Jim Winkler histrionically bewailed Israel’s “high-seas piracy” against the “Freedom Flotilla.”  But her appeal to Obama, and her likely commentary to Churches for Middle East Peace later this week, are just as feckless, and, if heeded, just as dangerous.

Fred Branfman, author, blogger and early contributor to the current California economic miracle under Governor Jerry Brown, has written a very long apologetic about Noam Chomsky, or more accurately a standard screed against US imperialism and capitalism using Chomsky as a prop. Presumably he thought that invoking the grand old man’s name would somehow spur the faithful to actually read through this door stopper, but I’m not sure the unearthed memoirs of Lenin could have done that. This is very much a “throw everything at the wall and see what sticks” kind of piece and Branfman clearly hopes that if nothing sticks at least his readers will succumb to exhaustion and boredom before realizing it.

He needn’t have gone to so much trouble. The basic theme can be summarized in two sentences (spoiler alert for those of you actually thinking of navigating this tome):

• America is really, really bad.
• Communism will fix it.

In fairness, Branfman’s innovative variation is “I think America is very, very bad and Communism will fix it, and look Chomsky agrees with me!” but the basic approach remains the same. This is a patented two-step and Branfman pays close attention to the painted feet on the floor.

On the first point, demonizing America is reasonably straightforward as long as you remember to cherrypick the facts you don’t actually make up, and frame your questions with careful dishonesty. Branfman appears to have this down. Consider:

Which nation’s leaders since 1945 have murdered, maimed, made homeless, tortured, assassinated and impoverished the largest number of civilians who were not its own citizens?

I have asked this question of Americans in every walk of life since I discovered the bombing of Laos in 1969. It’s a simple matter of fact, not involving judgments of right and wrong, and I remain astonished at how most answer “the Russians,” “the Chinese,” or just have no idea that their leaders have killed more noncitizen civilians than the rest of the world’s leaders combined since 1945.

They have no idea because it isn’t true. Apart from the dearth of evidence to support such a claim the sophistry here is so obvious it’s like watching a third rate magician not quite able to get that red hanky into his sleeve. The qualifier “not its own citizens” conveniently excludes “the Russians” and “the Chinese” (proving conclusively that the Americans he talked to were smarter than he was), to say nothing of Pol Pot, Castro, Kim Jong Il and any other half-dozen dictators you could pull at random from the Communist Who’s Who. Among them, these “agrarian reformers” have killed more people on an off-day than the US would contemplate in a decade, but never mind; it’s just their own citizens.

By thus ignoring the Tiananmen Squares and killing fields of history, Branfman takes the apples and oranges fallacy one step further by denying the existence of the orange altogether.

Not that he understands the apples any better. Words like “murdered”, “maimed” and “tortured” are designed to evoke images of the Sopranos, not the unavoidable, if obviously tragic, consequences of war he is actually talking about. The US has, for all practical purposes, undertaken the defense of the free world since World War II.  It is therefore not surprising that it would inflict more civilian casualties in wars and police actions than, say, France—which like the rest of Europe reserves the right to be self-righteous about US military power while at the same time relying on it for protection.

Rendered of its fat, that’s all he’s got, which among any rational audience should provoke a vigorous “And so …?”

To which Branfman might then reply, “Wait guys, don’t go, you haven’t given me a chance to inflate the numbers yet!”

These would include the huge proportion of civilians among the 3.4 million Vietnamese that Robert McNamara estimated were killed in Vietnam (over 90 percent by U.S. firepower), Laotian and Cambodian civilians felled by the largest per capita and most indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets in history, the 1 million to 1.5 million Iraqis estimated by the U.N.‘s Denis Halliday to have died from Clinton’s sanctions “designed,” in Halliday’s words, “to kill civilians, particularly children,” and the hundreds of thousands killed as a result of the Bush invasion. The total number of civilians killed, wounded, made homeless and impoverished by U.S. leaders or local regimes owing their power to U.S. guns and aid—in not only Indochina and Iraq but Mexico, El Salvador, Israel/Palestine, the Dominican Republic, Panama, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Egypt, Iran, South Africa, Chile, East Timor, Haiti, Argentina, Ecuador, Brazil, Bolivia, Venezuela, Cuba, Jamaica, the Philippines and Indonesia—is in the tens of millions.

Credible estimates put Vietnamese war dead at 3.8 million, over a span of 43 years (which for you history buffs includes the French and other combatants)—2.3 million if you exclude those who died by assassination, forced relocation, labor camps and various civil uprisings in that period. (For an example of someone who’s actually done his homework see R.J. Rummel: Statistics of Democide, Chapter 6.)

So I stand corrected, the French will occasionally shoot somebody if sufficiently provoked.

A greater canard is the Iraq number.

How Branfman’s can present Denis Halliday (anti-Israel flotilla activist and former head of the UN’s wildly successful Oil for Food program) as a credible source, without kicking the dirt and avoiding eye-contact, is a testament to his chutzpa. As Reason Magazine’s Matt Welch points out the sanctions were administered by the UN, not the US, and the civilian numbers were grossly exaggerated. What interest Halliday could possibly have had in ginning up the numbers–beyond providing poster children for his program and an exit strategy when he needed it—is anyone’s guess.

I don’t know about you, but even if we throw in Canada and the Virgin Islands (the only two countries he doesn’t seem to think we’ve decimated) I don’t know how he gets to “tens of millions.” But then again, he’s not expecting  anyone over at TruthDig to check. Just keep nodding and smiling boys.

Branfman then goes on—and on, and on—in this fashion, trying through sheer volume of prose to make the case that America is the source of all evil in the world.

His solution is a shocker.

Chomsky thus argues that human survival requires changing the system, not merely periodically replacing those running it.

[…]

The real choice, Chomsky makes clear, is not free enterprise versus statism, but state capitalism for (A) the few or (B) the many. The latter would include breaking up the banks, a focus on job creation and safety net expansion where needed, single-payer health insurance, higher taxes on the wealthy, far lower military spending, public members on corporate boards, greater employee workplace control and, above all, a new public-private partnership to see America become a leader in a clean energy economic revolution.

Got it. Apologies to Branfman and Chomsky for incorrectly believing they were dragging us down the road to serfdom once again. If it’s got the word “capitalism” in it, it must be good, right? Just like the word “democratic.” Since I know for a fact that Communists have never appropriated words to conceal their true intentions I know I’ll rest easy.

One wonders if Newsweek will soon come out with a “We’re All State Capitalists Now” issue.

The disparity between the perspectives and values of the political elites and their allies and those of the common people grows ever wider. We saw it again tonight on Staten Island, where my SIOA colleague Pamela Geller and I attended a civic meeting that discussed the mysterious sale of a Roman Catholic Convent to the Muslim American Society, the Muslim Brotherhood's chief operating arm in the United States.

The fix was in, as is always the case. The meeting featured three Muslims affiliated with the MAS, who were billed as being there to answer questions and allay the fears of the community. No opponents of the sale were set to speak from the dais; they were only allowed to ask questions from the floor after the MAS operatives made their presentation. The MAS men came armed with folders for the crowd, full of commendations of the MAS from the likes of the Boy Scouts, the Rotary Club, etc., and began distributing them. I had prepared a one-page summary of the Investigative Project's dossier on the Muslim Brotherhood, and it was also being distributed among the crowd, along with the full 40-page version -- but then one of the local officials running the meeting announced that no materials were to be distributed, as this was a meeting devoted to giving an opportunity to the MAS to explain itself to the community, and now people were distributing material "against" -- it had to stop. Many in the crowd took exception, however, to the MAS operatives distributing their folder full of soothing detours as well, and so ultimately that was stopped too and all the printed matter left up front for anyone to take.

Soon thereafter the meeting started, and after some other business, the Muslims began their presentation. They spoke in calm, measured tones. They spoke about their many years in the community, their children, their work (two were physical therapists, one a high school math teacher). They spoke, of course, of the need for "mutual respect." They spoke about the need for both sides to communicate and get to know each other better. They spoke about reassuring someone with a sentimental attachment to the convent building (many of those present had been educated by the nuns who lived there) by saying, "God will be praised in that building." They praised the Muslim American Society as an upstanding civic group with "50 chapters in 55 states across the nation" (yes, you read that right). They spoke of the MAS's commitment to establishing a virtuous and just American society. They denigrated Steve Emerson and his Investigative Project as Islamophobic and claimed that he purveyed falsehoods. When challenged later by an IPT official to name even one specific falsehood in the IPT report on the Muslim American Society and Muslim Brotherhood, one of the Muslim spokesmen said only, "Later on."

I asked them if they were prepared to denounce Hamas and Hizballah, both of which were publicly endorsed by MAS leader Mahdi Bray, as jihad terrorist organizations, and to renounce any intention to bring Sharia to the U.S., in line with the Brotherhood's stated goal of "eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house" so that Allah's religion is "made victorious over other religions." In response, the main spokesman for the three hemmed and hawed and emitted billows upon billows of airy nonsense -- to the increasing impatience of the crowd. This spokesman, made nervous by the crowd's vocal disdain for his ever-lengthening non-answer, did ultimately call Hamas and Hizballah terrorist groups and renounce any intention to bring Sharia to the U.S. But since these positions are at odds with what are known to be the positions of the MAS, it seems likely that he was only saying this under pressure -- otherwise he wouldn't have needed to offer so much empty and condescending verbiage to the crowd before getting around to the point.

The other questions were pointed, informed and full of righteous indignation. Challenged about the MAS's leader, the unsavory Bray, the chief spokesman, a physical therapist named Ayman, called him a "civil rights activist." Challenged on whether he thought the people in the room were the Infidels that the Qur'an directs Muslims to wage war against, he told the questioner, "No, you are not an Infidel," and explained that the Qur'anic Infidels were only those who knew the truth and still rejected it. He did not mention, of course, that the Qur'an doesn't envision any other kind of Infidel, and that it has no conception of people who reject Islam in good faith.

Ayman defined jihad as the right of a nation to defend itself whenever it is oppressed and occupied -- a definition large enough to drive a bomb-laden truck through, and that fact didn't elude the questioner, who further asked him whether that definition would indeed make Americans Infidels, because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He explained that no, he wouldn't be raising his five children here if he thought America was Infidel. Another one of the Muslims on the dais insisted that Sharia was democratic and protected democracy. Once again, the glaring contradiction of all this with the words and deeds of the MAS leadership and the Brotherhood was left unexplained.

And so it went. Ultimately, one of the Muslim spokesmen, the other physical therapist, whose name was Muhammad, became firm. Asked if the MAS would prove the sensitivity to the community that the spokesmen were insisting they had by leaving the community, he said: "We are exercising our freedom of religion. We will not apologize for being Muslim. We will not apologize for being American."

Ringing words, but ultimately empty -- ignoring, yet again, the aspect of Islam that is political, and that would subjugate women and non-Muslims and deny the freedom of speech and the freedom of conscience. And when they were challenged on such issues, the Muslim spokesmen retreated behind their clouds of rhetorical smoke.

Finally, when the local officials tried to stop the questions from the floor while there was still a long line of people waiting to be heard, and to bring on instead a couple of local dhimmis (including a Christian Arab minister in a clerical collar) to explain how wonderful their experience had been living next to the Muslims of another Staten Island mosque, the crowd had had enough of being railroaded and lied to, and wouldn't quiet down. The meeting was summarily ended, prematurely. But it mattered little. The fix was in from the start.

The UN Security Council approved a resolution yesterday (Wednesday, June 9th) imposing a fourth round of sanctions on Iran in response to its continued nuclear enrichment program, which is in violation of prior Security Council resolutions.  The vote was 12 in favor, 2 against (Brazil and Turkey) and 1 abstention (Lebanon).  The new resolution imposes new financial restrictions on Iran, expands an existing arms embargo, and authorizes a greater capacity to stop and search Iranian cargo ships. Targeted sanctions on specific individuals and entities were expanded. The resolution also includes measures directed against Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

While the United States, Great Britain, and France were the resolution’s strongest sponsors, China and Russia also expressed their verbal support along with their votes — although the Russian ambassador added a major caveat in his response to a reporter’s question about Russia’s prospective sale of a sophisticated anti-aircraft system to Iran.

Lebanon’s decision to abstain was a pleasant surprise, considering the influence of Iran-backed Hezbollah in the Lebanese government. Brazil and Turkey, as expected, opposed the new resolution on the grounds that it could undermine a proposed nuclear fuel swap between Iran and the two countries. They seemed to forget that the European Union has been trying to negotiate with Iran since 2005 and the Obama administration waited 18 months while trying to engage Iran before seeking passage of this resolution.  Only when new sanctions became a real possibility did Iran come around to the fuel swap concept that it had first agreed upon and then promptly reneged on last fall.

U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice told reporters after the vote that the “resolution is strong, it’s tough and it’s comprehensive. And it is something that Iran fought very hard to prevent passage today. The effort, the time, the money, and the poise that they employed to try to prevent this resolution’s passage only underscores their understanding, that this is a major blow.”

Despite the ineffectiveness of the three prior resolutions, Ambassador Rice expressed confidence that the cumulative effect on Iran of all the resolutions is “harmful and hurtful.”

Iran remains unbowed. Its representative told the Security Council after the vote that it had no intention of changing its present course. He accused the United States and Great Britain in particular of continuing a long pattern of interference in Iran’s affairs and displaying a double standard vis-a-vis Israel. Ambassador Rice told reporters that these comments were “reprehensible, offensive, and inaccurate.”

On paper at least, the new resolution does appear to represent a significant move forward from the prior three. More specifically, the resolution prohibits Iran from investing in sensitive nuclear activities abroad, like uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities, as well as activities involving ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons. The ban also applies to investment in uranium mining.

States are prohibited from selling or in any way transferring to Iran various categories of heavy weapons (battle tanks, armored combat vehicles, large caliber artillery systems, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, warships, and certain missiles or missile systems). States are similarly prohibited from providing technical or financial assistance for such systems, or spare parts.

The resolution also sets up a new cargo inspection framework. States are expected to inspect any vessel on their territory suspected of carrying prohibited cargo, including banned conventional arms or sensitive nuclear or missile items. States are also expected to cooperate in such inspections on the high seas.

States are called upon to prevent any financial service and to freeze any asset that could contribute to Iran’s proliferation.

Most significantly, the resolution targets the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) for its role in proliferation and requires states to mandate that businesses exercise vigilance over all transactions involving the IRGC. Fifteen IRGC-related companies linked to proliferation will have their assets frozen. The IRGC is the major power center in Iran’s economic and military spheres as well as one of the government’s primary instruments for suppressing political dissent. Impairing the IRGC’s freedom of operations will be a significant accomplishment, if successful.

UN Security Council sanctions resolutions against pre-liberation Iraq, North Korea, and Iran have had a bad track record in actual practice. The resolutions have been easy for the sanctioned countries to evade through the use of multiple front entities, money laundering and trading partners unwilling to give up short term advantage for longer term peace and security.

Also, enforcement of the cargo inspection at sea will be a challenge if Iran, as expected, refuses to cooperate. When the French UN ambassador, for example, was asked what measures France would be willing to take in such a scenario, he refused to answer what he called a “hypothetical question.”

Most ominously, the Russian UN ambassador told reporters that Russia did not consider the sale of its sophisticated S-300 anti-aircraft system to Iran to be within the resolution’s scope. The S-300 missile defense system would no doubt be used by Iran to shield its nuclear sites against a potential air strike, should military force become necessary to stop Iran from producing nuclear bombs. The Russian ambassador is technically correct because the resolution’s ban on the transfer to Iran of certain missile systems is written in such a way that it creates a big loophole for Russia to walk through in delivering to Iran its ground-to-air missiles, including its S-300 anti-aircraft missiles and anti-missile interceptors.

The Obama administration will spin the latest sanctions resolution against Iran as a major diplomatic triumph and a significant obstacle in the way of Iran’s progress towards achieving nuclear arms capability.  But  until the S-300 loophole is closed, until the U.S. and its allies figure out a way to effectively stop evasions of the sanctions, and until enough countries show that they are willing to enforce the cargo inspections, the Obama administration might want to wait before it celebrates.

That's most likely why CAIR and others have not hesitated to stoop even to fabricating "hate crimes." They want and need hate crimes against Muslims, because they can use them for political points and as weapons to intimidate people into remaining silent about the jihad threat.

And so it is with Noor Ramjanally. He had hoped to use the undeniably noxious BNP as a scapegoat to help him advance his claim to privileged victim status. No dice...this time.

"Essex Muslim leader in court over kidnap claim," from the BBC, June 9 (thanks to Paul):

A Muslim community leader claimed he was abducted by members of the British National Party, a court has heard.

Noor Ramjanally, 36, of Loughton, Essex, has denied attempting to pervert the course of justice by falsely telling police he had been abducted.

Chelmsford Crown Court heard Mr Ramjanally had complained of having accelerant poured through his letterbox prior to being "kidnapped".

The court heard the local council spent £1,300 improving security at his home.

A new door was fitted to his council flat and police installed a hidden camera, a local authority official told the court.

Denied offence

But prosecutor Matthew Gowan said camera footage revealed no sign of the "two burly men" Mr Ramjanally claimed had snatched him at knife point last August....

“Columnist Helen Thomas, a trailblazer for women journalists and one of the few in the White House press corps who courageously questioned President Bush and other officials in his administration on war, torture and U.S. policy toward Israel…It is a sad ending to a legendary career…”

“the greatest White House correspondent of all time,” insisting “One must view Helen Thomas’ comment in…context…She is of Lebanese heritage and understands well the Palestinian perspective on Israel.”

“Is the aging process…a rationale for what she said…she will turn 90 on August 4…One of the common symptoms of aging is a loss of cognitive ability that [makes people say] socially inappropriate [things].”

A U.S. Marine who served in Iraq is suing the federal government for distributing billions of dollars in taxpayer funds to the Shariah-supporting American International Group.

The lawsuit, Murray v. Geithner et al., was brought against the Fed and the Treasury by the Thomas More Law Center on behalf of Kevin Murray, a former Marine who served honorably in Iraq to defend the United States from Islamic terrorists.

Murray argues that he is being forced as a taxpayer to contribute to the propagation of Islamic beliefs and practices predicated upon Shariah law, which he says is hostile to his Christian religion.

He is represented by Thomas More attorney Robert Muise and David Yerushalmi, an associated attorney who is an expert in Shariah law and Shariah-compliant financing, as well as general counsel to the Center for Security Policy. They filed the initial complaint in December 2008.

On June 7, Murray's attorneys filed a motion for summary judgment asking federal District Court Judge Lawrence Zatkoff to rule against Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and the Federal Reserve Board.

The Thomas More Law Center explained the motion for summary judgment is based on depositions of Treasury officials, court-sealed affidavits of AIG officials and sworn declarations of two notable experts on Islamic law and terrorism: Stephen C. Coughlin and Robert Spencer.

Coughlin, a lawyer and decorated Army Reserve officer, is a leading Pentagon expert on the link between Islamic law and jihad. He explained that by engaging in Shariah-compliant financing, AIG and the federal government - which owns 79.9 percent of AIG - are engaging in the religious practice of Islam.

Islam teaches hostility and discrimination against Jews, Christians and anyone who doesn't accept the Quran as the "word of Allah," he said, explaining that the indoctrination stems from the same law that motivated the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans.

As WND reported, Spencer, director of Jihad Watch, a program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, has studied Islamic theology and history for 30 years. He is author of "Stealth Jihad: How Radical Islam is Subverting America without Guns or Bombs,""The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades" and eight other books dealing with Islam. He has led seminars on Islam and jihad for the U.S. Central Command, the U.S. Command and General Staff College, the Joint Terrorism Task Force and the U.S. intelligence community.

Spencer explained that by offering Shariah-compliant financing, AIG is promoting religious behavior that teaches hatred and discrimination against Jews, Christians and other non-Muslims....

Indeed I did. Read it all.

Printing money, spending heavily and buying debt may be the prevalent fiscal policy of the current administration (or the past few, to be fair), but it isn’t especially solvent. One need only look at the situation in Greece for evidence. But as American concerns grow over rising debt and deficits, the question becomes: what to tax and what to cut?

For 30 years, the United States has been figuratively drinking Starbucks and Chardonnay on credit. During the Regan years, we spent more than we had and grew the deficit. This made for historic economic growth, as well as victory in the Cold War, but it also spoiled a populace into thinking we could spend as much as we want, have an abundance of social programs on every conceivable level – as well as a first-rate military – without having to worry about public debt. Those days are over. It’s time to cut back, and judging by the reaction of lawmakers recently, the military is in the sights of more of those in Washington.

According to a recent reports, a group of four lawmakers – Ron Paul (R-Texas), Barney Frank (D-Mass), Walter B. Jones (R-N.C.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) — called for deep reductions in defense spending. The call came on the heels of Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who two weeks ago called for dramatic cuts in the military budget during a speech at the ever-appropriate Eisenhower Library in Kansas.

Some cuts have already come, the long-awaited F-22 Raptor fighter plane for instance, but more could be on the way. The question then becomes can the U.S. afford two wars, growing domestic obligations and remain a strong deterrent against our enemies?

Reagan’s booming economy drove the Russians to bankruptcy. It wasn’t tanks, but IOUs that the Soviets issued in place of bullets that cleared the way for victory in the Cold War. Twenty years later, the American military is fighting two fronts overseas, maintaining security for a good portion of the globe and doing so with a shrinking manufacturing base and economy to support it. In other words, we’re heading in the same direction that ended in disaster for Russia and the Eastern Bloc 20 years ago.

Security costs a lot, especially when one country is providing so much of it. But Washington is going to measure political costs before security costs. Government employees, bureaucrats, unions – all of whom are in bed with the Democratic Party – have been hostile to the any notion of slowing domestic spending. The slightest mention of the word “cut” sends mobs of angry SEIU protesters to rally at homes and parking garages.

Not that military spending shouldn’t come under scrutiny. Currently, military spending averages about $700 billion a year. To put it another way, it costs the same to protect your rights, life and livelihood as it does to bailout a few banks. But that cost is higher on average then it was during the Gulf War. As in all parts of government, there is never too little fat to trim.

With domestic spending exploding, and every incumbent under increased scrutiny, the politically safe option would be to cut the military, for soldiers don’t generally tear up your front yard, and generals don’t have sit-ins outside your office.

The question then becomes how much do you cut and what do you cut from. There is a troop surge currently underway in Afghanistan. There is a fledgling democracy and a quieting of the insurgency in Iraq. But, even as war Iraq grinds to an end, there is Iran and Pakistan to consider, as well as the deteriorating situation in Yemen. Frank has proposed bringing troops home from overseas bases and he has mentioned Okinawa by name, but is that a reasonable course of action with a hostile (and possibly nuclear-capable) North Korea slamming torpedoes into South Korean ships?

The administration, through Gates, is expected to battle Congress, which will likely fight to keep a new engine program alive for the F-35 fighter, as well as the C-17 cargo plane. This fight will take place in the summer months, between budget hawks and those wanting to keep jobs and programs alive in their districts afloat in the midst of a sagging economy. Whether those programs survive the near-term, the big question remains: how does America fund a world-based military in a rapidly-changing global economic environment?

Maybe it’s time to start sharing the load, but Europe is years away from doing so, even if it was politically willing to. While Greece has gone bankrupt because of early retirements and months of vacations, American’s debt has exploded because of “too-big-to-fail” corporations and financial institutions; guaranteed pensions; out of control entitlement programs and our role as world cop. The democratic socialists in Europe detest our military might, while they simultaneously cling to their compassionate approach to domestic spending. But, it’s far easier to run a nanny-state when the global hegemon is keeping thugs out of your backyard.

Gutting the military now wouldn’t be realistic on several levels, but the day is coming. It’s hard to imagine China continuing to buy our debt if we’re increasingly involved in its sphere, especially with North Korea and other terror-outlets in Southeast Asia. It’s also harder to justify military operations when Medicare is eating away 35-percent of the GDP. Though America is far from being an also-ran on the world scene, there isn’t another post-war economic boom on the horizon, maybe not even a run like the country enjoyed during the 80s and 90s. Harder times will make for harder decisions.

With such days on the horizon, let’s hope our military has the chance to accomplish all it can before the time comes when it will be able to do little more than defend America’s shores.

B.J. Bethel is a journalist living in Ohio. He has worked at various daily newspapers as a sports writer, news reporter and editor.

"Yemen arrests 50 foreigners," by Mohamed Sudam for Reuters, June 7 (thanks to all who sent this in):

SANAA (Reuters) - Yemen has detained around 50 foreigners accused of links to al Qaeda after intensifying monitoring of Arabic language schools, the Saudi-owned al-Hayat newspaper said on Monday.

Al-Hayat said that U.S., British, French and Malaysian nationals were among the foreigners detained since a failed December attempt to bomb a U.S.-bound plane. The Nigerian suspect in that case had studied Arabic in the country's capital Sanaa....

Citing Yemeni security sources, al-Hayat said one of those arrested was a 24-year-old French man who traveled to Yemen in October from Egypt to study Arabic, even though he was fluent in the language.

Prized for the purity of its dialect and inexpensive living costs, Yemen was long a popular destination for students of Arabic. But over the years, foreign Islamists have occasionally arrived in Yemen in the guise of studying Arabic only to join up with militants....

How biased is the liberal media? No more or less biased than Barack Obama. Both have made it a matter of policy not to mention "Islam" in connection with "terrorism," and to look resolutely the other way when Islamic jihadists justify their actions by referring to Islamic texts and teachings.

So millions of Americans are completely clueless about the nature of the threat we're facing--understandably, since they simply never have been told. A case in point of how this deceptive game works comes in a Sunday Reuters story about two Islamic jihadists who were arrested at JFK Airport on their way to Somalia to join the jihad there.

This story is not a particularly egregious example of media bias. In fact, it's fairly straightforward (not to say remotely objective), but it reflects what passes for acceptable practices among "journalists" these days.

What details does Reuters think are the most salient details in this case? We learn that the people arrested are "men," and that they're "unmarried American citizens" and "residents of New Jersey." They were planning to join a "militant group" in Somalia, one that Reuters describe as a "youth movement"--you know, like the Boy Scouts with beheadings.

Reuters adds that the arrests had something to do with the men's "social circle." It's unclear what they meant by this. Were these men part of a criminal gang? Or did they plot murder and mayhem at the local mosque, as so many other Muslims have done around the world over the last few years? And if the latter, what interest does Reuters have in making them sound like a bunch of guys playing basketball instead of a band of murderous Islamic supremacists that they are?...

Read it all.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amir Abbas Fakhravar, 35, is a “graduate” of the infamous Evin prison in Tehran.  His friendly and youthful exterior hides a painful period of torture and isolation for five years – including 8 months in solitary confinement. When you ask Amir about his state of mind following his harrowing experience, he shrugs his shoulders saying “they broke my wrist, my knee, and few bones, but never broke my spirit.”

Fakhravar arrived in the U.S. four years ago and found no coherent voices speaking for the Iranian opposition movement.  “I thought that the Iranian opposition had an organization here, but nothing existed in 2006.” And when he gathered some of the opposition figures, he quickly learned that they had little information about the real situation in Iran.  Even more dismaying, according to Fakhravar, was the ignorance of U.S. policy makers regarding Iran.

With mentoring from Richard Perle, former Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan administration (1981-1987), and currently a Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and critical help from Philadelphia’s Craig Snider, who has dedicated himself to fight for freedom and democracy for the Iranian people, Fakhravar established the Iranian Freedom Institute (IFI).

The Iranian Freedom Institute – a Washington DC based think tank, has set its goal to inform and educate American policy-makers, and the public in general, on the real state-of-affairs inside Iran.  Utilizing the latest technology, the IFI hopes to influence U.S. policy towards Iran, and simultaneously, educate the freedom-loving people of Iran who are living under a brutal dictatorship.

Affiliated with the IFI is the Confederation of Iranian Students (CIS) – created by Fakhravar and Arzhang Davoodi, a teacher, writer and the co- founder of Confederation of Iranian Students (who also spent six years in Islamic Republic jails and still has nine more years to serve).  Earlier in 1994 while he was in medical school (he subsequently graduated from law school), Fakhravar helped in establishing the Independent Student movement in Tehran.  Fakhravar and Davoodi proceeded to form the nucleus of an independent worldwide student organization.  In 2002 they organized a student conference and three-years later, they launched CIS, which today has a membership of 6200 students.

The Confederation of Iranian Students should not be confused with the Islamic Republic’s student organization cautions Fakhravar, which was created by the mullah regime, paid for by them, and run by them, according to Fakhravar.

One of the CIS’s goals is to bring down the Islamic Republic dictatorship according to Fakhravar.  “We have a three step plan,” he says.  1. Show the Iranian people and the world that the ruling Iranian regime is not democratic but rather a brutal dictatorship.  “We have already succeeded on that part of the plan,” Fakhravar added.

The second goal is to “cut the lifeline of the mullahs in power” by pushing for a worldwide embargo on Iranian oil.  The $83 billion Iran earns from its oil sales is the only revenue that enables the Islamic Republic of Iran to pay for the nuclear program and provide the Revolutionary guards (RG) – the regime’s praetorian guards- with high incomes, which in turn insures their loyalty to the regime.

According to Fakhravar “if the regime fails to pay the RG salaries – which are three times the average, the RG, who have long lost their revolutionary fervor and have gotten used to the ‘good life,’ are more than likely to abandon the regime.”

Oil revenue is also used by the Islamic Republic to fund Hezbollah and Hamas operations against Israel, to subvert the Sunni-Arab Gulf regimes and, to build cells in Latin America. “Our aim is to request that the governments of the U.S. and Canada impose sanctions on North American and European companies who buy oil from the Iranian regime,” Fakhravar stated.  He added, “We also plan to present such proposals to the G-8 and the G-20 to place sanctions on their respective companies.”

The third part of the plan, as Fakhravar sees it, is to build a free, democratic, and secular Iran.  “We need in addition to our existing website to set up Internet, satellite TV, and radio stations in order to educate the Iranian people inside of Iran, and the opposition parties outside of Iran. “

According to Fakhravar, the Iranian opposition groups “are confused and they don’t know what they want.”  He quickly added, “We wrote a manifesto or call it a constitution for a new Iran.”  Fakhravar recruited lawyers from the Green movement as well as a number of judges to draft a new constitution for Iran.

The Green Movement in Iran brought 4.5 million demonstrators into the streets of Tehran last June and Fakhravar is confident that the people of Iran, especially the younger generation, want a change. He reminds those he speaks with that, “The Iranian people have been repressed for over 30 years, and they want freedom.”  Many of the young people in Iran are turned off by Islam as a result of the corruption and abuses by the Islamic regime.  In Iranian schools, Shiite-Islam is presented as superior to all other religions and they are taught that killing Jews, who are presented as sub-humans, is permitted.  Fakhravar has no doubt that the Khamenei/Ahmadinejad regime would test a nuclear bomb on Israel.

Iran is, however, a nation of young people.  70% of Iranians are under the age of 35 and these young people respect Israel and love America.   In recent demonstrations the young protesters used posters with a modification of the regime’s slogans – instead of “Down with Israel,” they crossed out the word Israel and replaced it with Russia.

During last year’s demonstrations in Tehran following the sham elections which gave Ahmadinejad a second term as President of Iran, the Green Youth shouted “Obama, are you with them (the regime) or with us.”  Obama’s decision to continue to negotiate with the Khamenei/Ahmadinejad Islamic regime gave this evil regime legitimacy, according to Fakhravar.

Asked about where he sees Iran in five years, Fakhravar replied, “We will have a free, democratic and secular Iran.  It will be a friend of Israel and an ally of the U.S. ”

The world is sick again with an old disease for which no cure has ever been found. It tends to go into remission here and there at various times but it invariably reappears, as virulent as ever, developing new strains as the bacillus adapts to the antibiotics of reason, shame or distraction. The disease is called anti-Semitism and it can afflict even those who would seem best prepared to resist it. Few are immune.

It can assume racial forms, the Jew regarded as a quasi-human deformity, as rodent, monkey or untermensch. International jurist Jacques Gautier, who finds it “shameful” that under the dispensation of the Human Rights community it is understood that Arabs will have legal and political rights in Israel while it is accepted that Arab countries can be judenrein, concludes that Jews do not enjoy human rights because they are not reckoned as human. Why extend the norms and principles that presumably govern human behavior and the relations between states to a people and a state tacitly considered as beyond the pale, as not quite “like us”? This is how double standards are implicitly justified. Judaism has also been condemned as a cultural and economic perversion that contorts the structure of society. This is a very old story. Indeed, whatever manifestation it assumes, anti-Semitism has been with us almost as far back as human memory goes. What historian Robert Wistrich has called the world’s longest hatred is also the world’s oldest sickness.

It is, in fact, best construed as a universal epidemic, the emotional and intellectual equivalent of the Black Death that decimated Europe in the fourteenth century. The difference is that those who have contracted this septicemia of the mind do not die, except inwardly. Ironically, their victims are precisely those who do not suffer from the plague that has contaminated its bearers—except, of course, for those apostate Jews who are sick with the same morbid distemper. The list of such despicables would fill the devil’s Rolodex. But they too must eventually succumb to the fury of the demented carriers of the pathology. Unfortunately, the Israeli pharmaceutical firm Teva, one of the world’s largest suppliers of antibiotic medicines, has no psychic or endocrinal equivalent to treat the malady.

In Anti-Semite and Jew, Jean-Paul Sartre argues that anti-Semitism is not an idea but “first of all a passion” that is akin to hysteria. This passion connects schematically with “the idea of the Jew” to which individual Jews are made to conform irrespective of their personal attributes. For Sartre, anti-Semitism is founded in the “fear of the human condition”—of solitude, responsibility for oneself, and the terror of contingency. The Jew is made responsible for the inescapable distress of being human along the entire spectrum from the empirical to the ontological—an excuse for failure, a means of false absolution and a convenient repository of all we are unwilling to acknowledge about ourselves. As such he has been zoned for apartheid, whether metaphysical or social. Sartre concludes that “If the Jew did not exist, the anti-Semite would invent him.”

For all his innovative phrasing, Sartre is really playing variations on the grizzled notion of the Jew as scapegoat, derived from Leviticus 16, which is true enough—witness the current U.S. administration’s treatment of Israel which, as historian Moshe Dann suggests, is a species of collective scapegoating to cover its own foreign policy failures. Philosopher René Girard adds a certain twist to the etiology of this recurrent sickness and proposes the concept of “ritual mimesis” or “mimetic victimage,” an ironic conflict-management elucidation of the scapegoat philosophy. In Girard’s thinking, the violence between groups in a given society is resolved by projecting it upon a third party—the Jew—who is then expelled.

In T.S. Eliot, Anti-Semitism, and Literary Form, Anthony Julius suggests an interesting comparison/contrast between Homeric mythology and anti-Semitism. They both “offer explanations intended to make sense of puzzling misfortunes in human life, the one by the intervention of the gods, the other by the intervention of the Jews.” The trouble is that “Jews are not malign Olympians who dispose of humankind by manipulative wizardry.” But tell that to the anti-Semite, who craves an easy explanation for what he does not comprehend in the larger world or cannot resolve in his own circumscribed life. By making the Jew responsible for all he cannot clarify, come to terms with or vanquish, the anti-Semite forfeits both courage and morality. What will he do when the Jew is no longer there? He would be like the parasite that has devoured its host and now faces starvation.

This suggests another definition of anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism is a form of spiritual parasitism, the always tempting resort of the human leech who feeds his appetite for security, justification and self-acquittal from the life-blood of others—in this case, of course, from the body of the Jewish people. Put less offensively, anti-Semitism is blind ignorance, both of the world and the self. Psychologists like to call this psycho-reflex “projection” or “cathexis,” but these terms don’t even begin to cover the malice inherent in so invidious an emotional investment or to parry what Wistrich in his recent book, A Lethal Obsession, has identified as a “Judeophobic virus.”

Today, anti-Semitism has adopted a new expression, dubbed by Robin Shepherd in A State Beyond The Pale: Europe’s Problem with Israel as “neo-anti-Semitism” which is “virulently anti-Israeli”. The Neurozone is gravely compromised, but the syndrome is making significant inroads on this side of the Atlantic as well. While not entirely ridding itself of its racial and socioeconomic baggage, neo-anti-Semitism converges on the Jew-as-Zionist, associated with the state of Israel as the modern embodiment of a discredited colonial enterprise. The purveyors of this claim affect not to be anti-Semitic, but their protestations are not convincing. It looks more like lying by ancillary focus.

The proof resides not only in the fact that Israel is unfairly and disproportionately singled out for opprobrium while flagrant and undoubted human rights offenders are generally given a free pass. It is also evident in the fact that Israel is conceived as no ordinary colonialist power. Israeli Jews are regarded as reviving the pestilence of Nazism, cleansing, or approving of the cleansing, of ethnic populations, aka the Palestinians—which is nothing short of a gross misreading of the historical archive and a wrenching misrepresentation of the present circumstance. For despite the fictions of a perjurious world, there can be no question that the Jewish people enjoy a religious, historical and legal right to their homeland, as Jacques Gautier, who spent twenty years studying the issue of ownership, as attorney and legal specialist Howard Grief in his The Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel under International Law, and as many others have established beyond the slightest doubt. The effort to deny what is the cadastral address of the Jewish people is a pattern of what Melanie Phillips has called, in her new book of that title, The World Turned Upside Down.

Interestingly, the accusation that Israel is the new SS is the contemporary distortion of the theme of Albert Camus’ The Plague, an obvious allegory of the Nazi invasion of Europe and North Africa. The wrinkle added to this fabric of defamation is that Jews have no right to any kind of power or authority. As Bernard Lewis writes in Semites & Anti-Semites, Jews have no business being anything other than, at best, “a tolerated subject minority.” Therefore, “by appearing as conquerors and rulers the Jews have subverted God’s order in the universe.” This calumny, says Lewis, is both the Muslim and “the fashionable leftist or progressive line.” But it is only a symptom or manifestation of the same old sickness. To paraphrase Stephen Toulmin in Cosmopolis, it is, in effect, “the narrative of a past episode reflected in a more recent mirror.”

And yet the mystery persists. But whatever theory we advance to decrypt what may be largely unfathomable or at least not wholly explicable, one thing is certain. Anti-Semitism is here to stay. Jessica may elope with Lorenzo but she or her children or grandchildren will one day be forced to accept the indelible fact of origins. Anti-Semitism is not a contagion that, like Daniel Defoe’s description in A Journal of the Plague Year of the catastrophe that visited London in the year 1665, will ever be “enervated and its malignity spent.” This is because anti-Semitism is unlike other forms of irrational hatred and operates under a different set of laws, which appear to be immutable.

Indeed, today once again, as we confront a new world-generation of venomous and commissurotomized anti-Semites, we might plausibly conclude that anti-Semitic sentiments and irruptions, in virtue of their millennial repeatability, have become entrenched in human consciousness as a natural inevitability. As I have written before, “It is something that it is perceived in the depths of the psyche to have moved from the dimension of history over into the structure of nature. It is as if anti-Semitism has now become part of our synaptic equipment.”

As a result, the destiny of the Jew is to be eternally unsafe in this world, despite the narcotic of assimilation or the illusion of self-rejection. The time seems invariably to come when the Jew is thrown back on his identity and regarded not as a human being or as an ordinary citizen but as, ab ovo, a Jew. After which, measures are adopted. Of no other people can this be said. And this is why the Jewish people cannot afford the luxury of historical amnesia, self-betrayal or the hallucination of ultimate security, but must remain vigilant, conscious and always prepared for the resurgence of the plague.