The great question mark hanging over the operation, one that the authors do not speculate about, is whether any of the Turkish, Jordanian, American, or Saudi governments would acquiesce to Israeli penetration of their air spaces. Unless the Israelis win advance permission to cross these territories, their jets might have to fight their way to Iran. More than any other factor, this one imperils the entire project. |
The lawsuit came about because, soon after ground was broken in November 2002 for the ISB's $22 million Islamic center, the media and several nonprofits began asking questions about three main topics: why the ISB paid the City of Boston less than half the appraised value of the land it acquired; why a City of Boston employee, who is also an ISB board member, fundraised on the Boston taxpayer's tab for the center while traveling in the Middle East; and the ISB's connections to radical Islam. |
One of the great enigmas of the modern Middle East is why, 40 years ago next week, the Six-Day War took place. Neither Israel nor its Arab neighbors wanted or expected a fight in June 1967; the consensus view among historians holds that the unwanted combat resulted from a sequence of accidents. |
A question mark still hangs over the opening of New York City's planned Arabic-language school, the Khalil Gibran International Academy. The fact is that Islamic institutions, whether schools or mosques, do have a pattern of extremism and even violence. Concerns are valid and should be aired openly. |
Questions abound: Can the AKP again win a majority of seats? Failing that, can it form a ruling coalition? Will it succeed in installing one of its own as president? More fundamentally, what are the AKP leadership's intentions? Did it, having witnessed Erbakan's fate, retain a secret Islamist program and simply learn to disguise its Islamist goals? Or did it actually give up on those goals and accept secularism? |
Moderate Unicorns, huffed a reader, responding to my recent plea that Western states bolster moderate Muslims. Dismissing their existence as a myth, he notes that non-Muslims are still waiting for moderates to stand and deliver, identifying and removing extremist thugs from their mosques and their communities. |
"If today's Arab anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish propaganda strongly resembles that of the Third Reich, there is a good reason." So writes Joel Fishman of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs in "The Big Lie and the Media War against Israel," an insightful piece of historical research. |
Come September, an Arabic-language public secondary school (grades 6-12) is slated to open its doors in Brooklyn. New York City's Department of Education explains that the Khalil Gibran International Academy will boast a "multicultural curriculum and intensive Arabic language instruction." |
"What moderate Muslims?" is the near-inevitable retort to my stating that radical Islam is the problem and moderate Islam the solution. Where are the anti-Islamists' demonstrations against terror, their combating of Islamists, their reassessments of Islamic law?
Moderate Muslims do exist, I reply. |
"What moderate Muslims?" is the near-inevitable retort to my stating that radical Islam is the problem and moderate Islam the solution. Where are the anti-Islamists' demonstrations against terror, their combating of Islamists, their reassessments of Islamic law?
Moderate Muslims do exist, I reply. |
Islamists (defined as persons who demand to live by the sacred law of Islam, the Sharia) might in fact do better than the earlier totalitarians. They could even win. That's because, however strong the Western hardware, its software contains some potentially fatal bugs. Three of them - pacifism, self-hatred, complacency - deserve attention.
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In all, the Iraq Study Group Report offers a unique combination of bureaucratic caution, false bi-partisanship, trite analysis and conventional bromides. A preposterously lengthy list of 79 recommendations lies at the heart of the report. |
"The problem itself" consists of the motivating forces that lie behind the surge of violence by Muslims in the name of Islam. Only by isolating why terrorism has emerged as so prominent a feature of Muslim life can the violence be countered.
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In their insistence on squelching dissent, ironically, Middle East studies academics replicate Middle East dictators, who demand that their regimes be exempt from judgment. But while dictators can lose their jobs, tenured academics effectively cannot, making their errors uniquely consequence-free. |
In a poll of 1,000 Egyptians over 18 years of age published earlier this month, 92 percent of the respondents called Israel an enemy state. In contrast, a meager two percent saw Israel as "a friend to Egypt."
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Mark Steyn, political columnist and cultural critic, has written a remarkable book, America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It (Regnery). He combines several virtues uncommonly found together - humor, accurate reportage and deep thinking - then applies these to what is arguably the most consequential issue of our time: the Islamist threat to the West.
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In 2006, as voices increasingly present the "war on terror" as tantamount to a war on Islam or Muslims, it bears notice that several of the Founding Fathers publicly declared they had no enmity "against the laws, religion or tranquility" of Muslims. This antique treaty implicitly supports my argument that the United States is not fighting Islam the religion but radical Islam, a totalitarian ideology that did not even exist in 1796.
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This key decision - war or acquiescence - will take place in Washington, not in New York, Vienna or Tehran. (Or Tel Aviv.) The critical moment will arrive when the president of the United States confronts the choice of whether or not to permit the Islamic Republic of Iran to acquire the Bomb. The timetable of the Iranian nuclear program being murky, that might be either George W. Bush or his successor.
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I suggest pulling coalition forces out of the inhabited areas of Iraq and redeploying them to the desert.
This way, the troops remain indefinitely in Iraq, while withdrawing them from the urban carnage. It permits the U.S.-led troops to carry out essential tasks (protecting borders, keeping the oil and gas flowing, ensuring that no Saddam-like monstrosity takes power) while ending their nonessential work (maintaining street-level order, guarding their own barracks).
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[W]ars are decided more on the op-ed pages and less on the battlefield. Good arguments, eloquent rhetoric, subtle spin-doctoring, and strong poll numbers count more than taking a hill or crossing a river. Solidarity, morale, loyalty, and understanding are the new steel, rubber, oil, and ammunition. Opinion leaders are the new flag and general officers. |
This stance stemmed from Muslim's understanding of the Quran's ban on alcohol. A driver named Fuad Omar explained: "This is our religion. We could be punished in the afterlife if we agree to (transport alcohol.) This is a Quran issue. This came from heaven." Another driver, Muhamed Mursal, echoed his words: "It is forbidden in Islam to carry alcohol."
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This stance stemmed from Muslim's understanding of the Quran's ban on alcohol. A driver named Fuad Omar explained: "This is our religion. We could be punished in the afterlife if we agree to (transport alcohol.) This is a Quran issue. This came from heaven." Another driver, Muhamed Mursal, echoed his words: "It is forbidden in Islam to carry alcohol."
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One indication of what NATO's new focus should be came a day after 9/11, when NATO, for the first time ever in its 52-year history, invoked Article V of its founding treaty, with its attack-on-one-is-an-attack-on-all provision. Thus did NATO, after a decade of "war as social work," abruptly awake to the threat of radical Islam.
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The basic message - "You Westerners no longer have the privilege to say what you will about Islam, the Prophet, and the Qur'an, Islamic law rules you too" - will return again and again until Westerners either do submit or Muslims realize their effort has failed.
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The head of the Benedictine order, Abbot Notker Wolf, understood the pope's quote as "a blatant allusion to [Iran's President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad." Vatican insiders told the London Sunday Times that Benedict "was trying to pre-empt an aggressive letter aimed at the papacy by the president of Iran, which was why he cited the debate involving a Persian."
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Nike had introduced its "Air" line of basketball shoes in 1996 with a stylized, flame-like logo of the word "Air" on the shoe's backside and sole. When the elders at CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) nonsensically declared that this logo could "be interpreted" as the Arabic-script spelling of Allah, Nike initially protested its innocence. |
Hoping to draw upon his background as a former Fed governor, I asked Mr. Olson why the Fed does not target some monetary aggregate instead of short-term interest rates. Now, I am sure that the dedicated Evening Bulletin reader wonders why in the world anyone should care about such an arcane issue. Believe me, it is vitally important to the future of our nation. Let me explain.
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Relying on "behavioral pattern recognition," SPOT (Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques) discerns, "extremely high levels of stress, fear and deception." SPOT agents observe passengers moving about the airport, with TSA agents looking for such physical symptoms as sweating, rigid posture and clenched fists. A screener then engages "selectees" in conversation and asks unexpected questions, looking at body language for signs of unnatural responses. Most selectees are immediately released but about one-fifth are interviewed by the police.
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This new reality implies that Western governments, whether the United States in Iraq or Israel in Lebanon, needs to see public relations as part of their strategy. Hezbollah has adapted to this new fact of life but those governments have not.
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Eye-witnesses report that Haq announced, "I'm a Muslim American; I'm angry at Israel," and then began shooting; that he "told the police that it was a hostage situation and he wanted us to get our weapons out of Israel" and that he was upset about what was going on in Israel. To a 911 dispatcher, Haq announced: "I want these Jews to get out. ... I'm upset at your foreign policy. These are Jews. I'm tired of getting pushed around, and our people getting pushed around by the situation in the Middle East. ... I'm an American too but I just want our people out of Iraq."
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There will be an international force [in Lebanon], because all the key players want it," a U.S. official asserted recently. The key players might "want it," but such a force will certainly fail, just as it did once before, in 1982-84. |
The current round of hostilities between Israel and its enemies differs from prior ones in that it's not an Arab-Israeli war, but one that pits Iran and its Islamist proxies, Hamas and Hizbullah, against Israel.
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The 7/7 attacks: About one in twenty British Muslims has voiced overt sympathy for the bombings a year ago. Separate polls find that between 2 and 6 percent endorse the attacks, 4 percent refuse to condemn them, 5 percent believe the Koran justifies them and 6 percent say that the suicide bombers were acting in accord with the principles of Islam.
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This reality of oppression and decline stands in dramatic contrast to the surging Muslim minority of the West. Although numbering fewer than 20 million and made up mostly of immigrants and their offspring, it is an increasingly established and vocal minority, granted extensive rights and protections even as it wins new legal, cultural, and political prerogatives. This widening disparity has caught the attention of the Church, which for the first time is pointing to radical Islam, rather than the actions of Israel, as the central problem facing Christians living with Muslims. |
Ironically, most Muslim alienation is found in those countries where Muslims are either the most or the least accommodated, suggesting that a middle path is best - where Muslims do not win special privileges, as in the U.K., nor are they in an advanced state of hostility, as in Nigeria. |
It was disappointing that Pennsylvania state treasurer and U.S. Senate hopeful Robert P. Casey Jr., having seen the situation for himself, failed to come out and endorse Israel's right to choose its own capital city, a privilege that Washington grants every other single state on earth. It was also disappointing that Casey did urge the U.S. government to follow the law of the land, which requires that the American embassy to Israel be located in Jerusalem.
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| | | | | | | Shahawar Matin Siraj is a 23-year-old illegal Pakistani immigrant, convicted on May 24 of planning to blow up the Herald Square subway station in New York City. | |
The NYPD, like every Western law enforcement agency, indignantly denies profiling. Its spokesman, Paul Browne, stated in August that "Racial profiling is illegal, of doubtful effectiveness, and against department policy."
But it does, in fact, profile.
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The Concept Of Zionism May Now Apply More To Islam Than It Does To Judaism |
The most dramatic, agonizing, and consequential developments for immigration to the West are taking place along the remote west coast of Africa. It has emerged as a main springboard for would-be emigrants to access the riches of Spain and then all Europe.
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Middle Eastern issues will likely play an unprecedentedly important role in the U.S. mid-term elections less than a half-year away. Three topics top the agenda: The course of the Iraq war, the proper response to Iran's nuclear ambitions, and the soaring price of fuel.
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When Ehud Olmert arrives in a few days, the key policy issue will concern what he refers to as the "convergence plan," a follow-up to the Gaza withdrawal of mid-2005 with a comparable but larger removal of Israeli soldiers and residents from the West Bank. But before the president and congress rubber-stamp Olmert's initiative, they might consider some of its negative implications for American security as spelled out in an important report by Caroline Glick for the Center for Security Policy. In Ehud Olmert's "Convergence" Plan for the West Bank and U.S. Middle East Policy. Glick cautions that Olmert's plan will likely harm U.S. security interests by destabilizing Israel and Jordan.
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An attack will have unfavorable consequences, and especially in two related areas: Muslim public opinion and the oil market. All indications suggest that air strikes would cause the now-alienated Iranian population newly to rally to its government. Globally, air strikes would inflame already hostile Muslim attitudes toward the United States, leading to a surge in support for radical Islam and a further separation of civilizations. |
Rather than smother the new Iraqi leadership, a better policy would be to make limited funds available to it, provide it with a benign military presence, and wish it well from afar. The government would be on its own to sink or swim in the historically violent and unforgiving arena of Iraqi politics once described by Elie Kedourie, himself of Iraqi origins, as having a record "full of bloodshed, treason and rapine." If the government succeeds, it benefits from having done so on its own, not coddled by coalition troops.
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Iraqi steps to comply with the inspections regime had the paradoxical effect of confirming Western doubts that the cooperation was a ruse. For example, intercepted orders "to remove all traces of previous WMD programs" were misinterpreted as yet another ploy, and not the genuine effort they really were.
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n times of extreme telecommunications congestion, the Government Emergency Telecommunications Service offers a calling card that permits persons "responsible for the command and control functions critical to management of and response to national security and emergency situations," such as members of Congress and law enforcement and military personnel to benefit from priority status when making telephone calls. |
Alan H. Levy, has for 21 years taught history at Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania. Mr. Levy, who enjoys tenure, informed the Select Committee on Academic Freedom of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives about the muck of political correctness, groupthink, and dishonesty at Slippery Rock. His testimony warrants reading in full (at http://hnn.us/articles/23231.html |
Israeli success in crushing the Palestinian Arab war morale would be the best thing that ever happened to the Palestinian Arabs. It would mean their finally giving up their foul dream of eliminating their neighbor and would offer a chance instead to focus on their own polity, economy, society, and culture. |
"The National Security Strategy of the United States of America" report minimizes the threat of radical Islam via the fiction that a "proud religion" has been "twisted and made to serve an evil." Not so: Islamism is a deeply grounded and widely popular version of Islam, as shown by election results from Afghanistan to Algeria. Reliable opinion polls are lacking from majority-Muslim countries but repeated surveys in Britain give some idea of the harrowingly extremist attitudes of its Muslim population: 5 percent of them support the July 7, 2005, terrorist attacks in London and say more such attacks are justified; 20 percent have sympathy with the feelings and motives of the July 7 attackers and believe that suicide attacks against the military in Britain can be justified. |
The Arabs fight to eliminate Israel; Israel fights to win the acceptance of its neighbors. The first is offensive in intent; the second is defensive. The former is barbaric, and the latter civilized. For nearly 60 years, Arab rejectionists have sought to eliminate Israel via a range of strategies: undermining its legitimacy through propaganda, harming its economy through a trade boycott, demoralizing it through terrorism, and threatening its population via WMD.
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"Individual Islamists may appear law-abiding and reasonable, but they are part of a totalitarian movement, and as such, all must be considered potential killers." I wrote those words days after Sept. 11, 2001, and have been criticized for them ever since. But an incident on March 3 at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill suggests I did not go far enough. |
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