Islamic War of Conquest: 2008 Archives

Boston attorney par excellence Jeff Robbins wrote an op-ed piece for the Boston Globe yesterday pointing out how Hamas was causing as much if not more anguish and pain to the Palestinian population as to the Jews of Israel. As he notes in his article, Hamas is perfectly content to have Palestinians become victims in its war of destruction against Israel because it gives them photo-ops that the press in the West will use to mischaracterize what is happening.

How ironic that as Jeff Robbins is making that point on the op-ed page, the Globe in a supersize picture on the front page is doing exactly that favor for Hamas.

That's our Globe, as smart and accurate as its parent the New York Times.

The suffering that Hamas causes
By Jeff Robbins | December 30, 2008

LAST MONTH'S commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provided the occasion to ask difficult questions about societies whose political leadership serially violates them. What, for instance, is to be done about places like Darfur or Zimbabwe, or any one of a multitude of places governed by leaders whose consciences appear untouched by the suffering they are causing? To the list of grotesque human rights violators must be added Hamas, whose disdain for the suffering its policies cause the Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip is exceeded only by its open, and even proud, infliction of atrocities on Israeli civilians.

This year alone, Hamas, which expressly calls for the obliteration of Israel, has launched approximately 3,000 rockets and mortar bombs into Israeli civilian centers, always for the purpose of killing and maiming Israelis if possible, and terrifying those who are not actually hit. In the last week or so, Hamas has fired some 200 rockets and bombs into Israeli communities.

Under these circumstances - circumstances which would have continued without end had the Israelis failed to act - it seems clear that the Israeli military response was not merely a necessary one. It was, regrettably, the only one left.

Israeli author Amos Oz, whose call for peace with the Palestinians is shared by a majority of Israelis, succinctly described the brutalization of Israeli civilians in terms that cannot fairly be disputed. In a recent piece entitled "Israel Must Defend Its Citizens," the longtime advocate for reconciliation between Palestinians and Israelis wrote: "The systematic bombing of the citizens in Israel's towns and cities is a war crime and a crime against humanity."

Oz is correct. But it isn't only Israelis whose fundamental human rights Hamas is violating. It is those of the Palestinian population about whose welfare Hamas professes to care.

In direct contravention of international law, Hamas uses Palestinian civilians as human shields, utilizing homes, schools and community centers as launching pads, content in the knowledge that if innocent Palestinian civilians are caught in the cross-fire, it will be Israel that is criticized. This amounts to a sort of Daily Double of human rights violations: the use of innocent Palestinians as human shields for the infliction of violence upon innocent Israelis.

It is Hamas that perfected the use of the suicide bomb, by which young Palestinians were induced to kill themselves so that Israelis could also be killed. It is somehow apt that Hamas should be forever associated with the suicide bomb, for in a larger sense Hamas has proved to be an instrument of the demise of Palestinians in Gaza.

Hamas's persistent call for the annihilation of Israel through jihad, its unequivocal rejection of any peace with Israel under any circumstances, its seizure of Gaza through a coup d'etat, its repression of women and freedom of expression, and its embrace of Iran have all disgusted the international community, which will have little to do with it. Hamas has likewise repelled numerous Arab governments, which might otherwise have been expected to dip into their ample reserves of petrodollars to provide much-needed aid and foreign investment to Gaza, but which have steered clear of it.

Thus Hamas leads the Gazan population on a kamikaze course. The suffering of Gazans cannot conceivably be a genuine concern of the leadership, given the perpetuation of that suffering for which Hamas is responsible. And the suffering of Israelis is its avowed goal.

Whether it was South Africa or Sudan, the international community has understood that the way to deal with truly egregious human rights violators is not to placate them, but to speak the truth about them, and to them. If the truth is spoken plainly enough, and forcefully enough, to a Hamas leadership whose cruelty and callousness have reached alarming levels, it may be that the Palestinians and Israelis alike may be spared further suffering of the kind to which they have been relegated in the past.

Jeff Robbins, an attorney, was a US delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Commission during the Clinton administration.

Indian-born Muslim author Salman Rushdie appeared on a panel in New York City on December 19th at the Asia Society. In this video he is making devastatingly critical remarks about the motives of the Muslims who carried out the Mumbai massacre.

The text of his key point is below the video.

"Ask yourself the question that if the Kashmir problem were resolved tomorrow, if Israel-Palestine reached a lasting peace, do we believe that al-Qaeda would disband? Do we believe that Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad would put their guns down and beat them into plough-shears and say we would now be farmers because our job is done. I mean the point about is that is laughable, right? And the point about that is that that is not their project. Their project is power. This is a power grab by the most obscurantist, revanchist, old-fashioned, medievalist idea of modern culture that attempts to drag the world back into the middle ages at the point of modern weaponry ..." Salman Rushdie.

The full panel video may be seen at the website of the Asia Society.

Political correctness, fear of being charged with racism or "Islamophobia" keep those in civilized nations under threat from Islamic suremacist barbarism from defending themselves. Columnist Cinnamon Stillwell of the Middle East Forum asks,

Should not this grave threat to human rights be called what it is? Should not the world rally against this cancer within its midst and spare no expense or effort to stop it from metastasizing? Should not human rights groups make defeating this ideology its chief priority? Should not women's groups make the oppression of Muslim women, both within and without the Muslim world, its first priority? Should not gay rights groups turn their attention to the hangings of young men across the Muslim world? Should not Jewish groups condemn the hateful, anti-Semitic propaganda that is brainwashing Muslim youth? Should not those who believe in religious freedom denounce the persecution of religious minorities, apostates, and atheists in the Muslim world? Should not those who advocate free speech condemn the campaign to silence journalists and activists in the Muslim world, as well as attempts to do the same in the West? Should not the international community do everything in its power to prevent fanatical Islamist regimes from acquiring nuclear weapons and wreaking unprecedented havoc on the planet?

In a richly-linked article Stillwell explains why and how we are endangering ourselves.

Britain's Channel 4 TV network created some controversy by inviting Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to deliver a message for Christmas Day. It contended that European viewers really didn't know Ahmadinejad and his positions and it was a public service to have him, in a sense, respond to Queen Elizabeth's Christmas message as head of the Church of England.

Caroline Glick, the most perceptive of all Middle East political analysts, believes Channel 4 did the right thing.

THE FACT of the matter is that Channel 4 is right. There is a great deal of ignorance in the West about what the likes of Ahmadinejad and his colleagues in Iran, Syria, Hizbullah and Hamas stand for. But this isn't their fault. They tell us every day that they seek the destruction of the Jews and the domination of the West in the name of Islam. And every day they take actions that they believe advance their goals.

The reason that the West remains ignorant of the views and goals of the likes of Hamas and Iran is not that the latter have hidden their views and goals. It is because the leading political leaders and foreign policy practitioners in the West refuse to listen to them and deny the significance of their actions.

As far as the West's leaders are concerned, Iran and its allies are unimportant. They are not actors, but objects. As far as the West's leading foreign policy "experts" and decision-makers are concerned, the only true actors on the global stage are Western powers. They alone have the power to shape reality and the world. Oddly enough, this dominant political philosophy, which is based on denying the existence of non-Western actors on the world stage, is referred to as political "realism."

Glick rightly denounces this "realism" as fantasy, whether it involves dealing with Iran, Syria, the Hezbollah-dominated Lebanese government, Hamas or North Korea.

These foreign policy realists maintain that talking and appeasement are the way to bend these actors to the will of the West, even though years doing that have not produced the desired Western results. The age-old definition of a madman applies: Doing the same thing that failed over and over again expecting a different result.

Occasionally, a good idea surfaces in the press. Today Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal -- and former editor of the Jerusalem Post -- suggests how we can help Pakistan, which is in desperate need of $100 billion. Europeans have come up with $15 billion and the only place to turn for the $85 billion is the U.S. (The Saudis don't help anybody, even fellow Muslims, unless it involves spreading Mohammad-era Koranic training on how to take over the world through jihad.)

The quid pro quo for the money would be Pakistan's elimination of its nuclear weapons and its weapons infrastructure. The U.S. would provide safeguards for Pakistan's security against nuclear attack in return. One can be sure that Pakistan's home-grown terrorists would dearly love to get their hands on those weapons. Using conventional weapons, Pakistani terrorists killed 1500 of their felllow civilians in 2007. With nuclear weapons and the opportunity to take over the country, who's to say they would hesitate to use them against the capital city Islamabad? And the U.S. should insist that the Saudi-funded madrassas teaching jihad be shut down as well.

Pakistan is the world's largest exporter of terrorists in the world today and many of them do their work without leaving home. Getting rid of the principal Pakistani threat to the rest of the world -- and Pakistan itself -- would be an excellent accomplishment for the Obama administration.

President-to-be Obama wants to "reboot" America's relationship with the Muslim world and muses about making a speech in the capital of a major Muslim country.

Amir Tahiri, an Iranian journalist in exile since the Islamic state emerged in Iran, is skeptical. He urges Obama to think carefully about what he has said he wants to do and the implications of whatever move he makes. He doesn't quite call Obama "naive," but he comes close.

Obama talks of "a unique opportunity to reboot America's image," as if his nation's problems with terrorism were due to poor public relations on Washington's part. Does he think so highly of his own talent for seducing people with words that he believes that he can do with a single speech what his five predecessors have failed to do since 1979 - namely, remove the threat of Islamic terror?

Hubris has marked Obama all his life and he won't change now. He probably believes he can do it.

An Interesting read.

The momentous Israeli election set for February 10th seems likely to put the future of Israel in the hands of Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud Party.

The anti-Israel forces surrounding Obama have been licking their chops, looking forward to the opportunity to sell out Israel to the Muslims clamoring for its destruction. It was very clear before the U.S. presidential election that Obama bore little sympathy for Israel. Too many of the people he is appointing to foreign poicy positions and consulting with are well-known for their antipathy for Israel: National Security Advisor Jim Jones, UN Ambassador Susan Rice, loose cannon advisor Samantha Rice, Warren Christopher and Jim Baker, just to name a few. (Also, 20 years of Jew-hatred from Jeremiah Wright has had to have some effect.) And Obama has promised to "reboot" U.S. relations with the Muslim world and has stated his intention to give a major address in a Muslim state.

People who have been in close contact with Obama's foreign policy transition team have privately acknowledged that the widespread belief that Obama will move swiftly to put the screws on Israel is fully justified. According to one source who has spent a great deal of time with the transition team since last month's US elections, Obama's people are "scope-locked" on Israel.

Even left and center Israelis realize they need a strong leader to stand up for Israel in the face of the expected onslaught from the Obama Administration. The Muslim definition of "peace" is the calm resulting from a complete conquest of the people and land Muslims have targeted. Israel is the target of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt and Syria. If it is wiped out, there will be peace.

It could be that Obama's negative disposition towards Jews and Israel was planted during his early years in Indonesia attending mosque with his step-father. Though Obama has blocked access to much of his history, it has become known that a prominent Muslim hater of Israel actively worked to get him admitted to Harvard Law School (and may have helped finance him while there) and that he found compatibility with the Nation of Islam's Louis Farrakhan, whose Million Man March he helped organize and attended. At a going away party in Chicago, Obama toasted the honoree, a former spokeman for Yasser Arafat, for his many insights delivered over more than a few familly dinners in his Hyde Park neighborhood. Even his Jewish chief of staff Rham Emanuel was a principal aide to President Clinton in the last days of his administration as he sought to win a Nobel Peace Prize by forcing Israel to surrender almost all of the West Bank and East Jerusalem to Palestinian terrorists, leaving itself defenseless. Fortunately for the future of Israel, Arafat said "no" to Clinton and Emanuel. One could not get better evidence that Palestinians didn't want to share land with Israel, they wanted to eliminate it.

The Middle East's leading political analyst Caroline Glick describes the battle that will erupt between the Obama Administration and the people of Israel, who want to continue to live in freedom. They know they will have to defend themselves and need a leader strong enought to withstand the pressure to capitulate that will be brought to bear by Obama and his circle of Israel haters.

Israel will be be mostly alone. Though strongly supported by American Evangelicals and many other Americans, its core constituency, American Jews, sold Israel out, voting 78% for Obama, fully knowing his presidency could spell the demise of Israel. Israel has defended itself through wars and terrrorism for more than 60 years and now needs to ready itself to fend off its greatest threat in history, this time coming from its long-time supporter the United States led by a President Obama. They will vote for Benjamin Netanyahu.

The stakes could not be higher for democracy in the Middle East and the fate of half the world's Jews, as Caroline Glick explains.

Column One: Netanyahu's grand coalition

Dec. 11, 2008
Caroline Glick , THE JERUSALEM POST
The "international community" is eagerly anticipating the incoming Obama administration's policy toward Israel. It is widely assumed that as soon as he comes into office, US President-elect Barack Obama will move quickly to place massive pressure on the next Israeli government to withdraw from Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem and the Golan Heights in the interests of advancing a "peace process" with the Palestinians and the Syrians.

Doctor Thomas Sowell wonders if the reality of Mumbai has clicked into the heads of those who have fought so bitterly to weaken our national security. He wonders if President Obama understands the hatred that seeks to kill us and is immune to offers of concessions. And the American people who "want it all," do they realize that "benefits have costs"? Are we ready to fight to defend what we have -- country, homes, families?

A self-identified Dutch homosexual "humanist," feeling the noose of Islamic supression tightening around him which will change his life forever, says

coping with the islamization of Europe is like “a process of mourning.” He is overwhelmed by a “feeling of sadness.” “I am not a warrior,” he says, “but who is? I have never learned to fight for my freedom. I was only good at enjoying it.”

Professor Sowell fears we have not awakened from our complacent slumber and that we have fallen prey to the false hope of "Can't we all get along?" Are we ready to fight for what we hold dear?

Will the horrors unleashed by Islamic terrorists in Mumbai cause any second thoughts by those who are so anxious to start weakening the American security systems currently in place, including government interceptions of international phone calls and the holding of terrorists at Guantanamo?

Maybe. But never underestimate partisan blindness in Washington or in the mainstream media where, if the Bush administration did it, then it must be wrong. . ..

[The Islamic terrorists] didn't strike again here, even though they have struck in Spain, Indonesia, England and India, among other places. Does anyone imagine that this was because they didn't want to hit America again?

Could this have had anything to do with all the security precautions that liberals have been complaining about so bitterly, from the interception of international phone calls to forcing information out of captured terrorists?

Dr. Sowell identifies the fatal ignorance:

Too many people refuse to acknowledge that benefits have costs. . . . There are people who refuse to give up anything, even to save their own lives.

He asks:

How many Americans are willing to see New York, Chicago and Los Angeles all disappear in nuclear mushroom clouds, rather than surrender to whatever outrageous demands the terrorists make?

Neither Barack Obama nor those with whom he will be surrounded in Washington show any signs of being serious about forestalling such a terrible choice by taking any action with any realistic chance of preventing a nuclear Iran. . . .

The people who flew those planes into the World Trade Center buildings could not have been bought off by any concessions, not even the hundreds of billions of dollars we are spending in bailout money today.

They want our soul-- and if they are willing to die and we are not, they will get it.

The Meaning of Mumbai
Thomas Sowell
Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Will the horrors unleashed by Islamic terrorists in Mumbai cause any second thoughts by those who are so anxious to start weakening the American security systems currently in place, including government interceptions of international phone calls and the holding of terrorists at Guantanamo?

Maybe. But never underestimate partisan blindness in Washington or in the mainstream media where, if the Bush administration did it, then it must be wrong.

Contrary to some of the more mawkish notions of what a government is supposed to be, its top job is the protection of the people. Nobody on 9/11 would have thought that we would see nothing comparable again in this country for seven long years.

Many people seem to have forgotten how, in the wake of 9/11, every great national event-- the World Series, Christmas, New Year's, the Super Bowl-- was under the shadow of a fear that this was when the terrorists would strike again.

They didn't strike again here, even though they have struck in Spain, Indonesia, England and India, among other places. Does anyone imagine that this was because they didn't want to hit America again?

more...

British writer Melanie Phillips shouts to her countrymen "Wake Up!" But the snoring goes on as Islam's War of Conquest steadily advances everywhere.

What Mumbai shows:

a war is being waged against civilization.

at the core of the Islamists' hatred of Israel festers their hatred of the Jews.

With these atrocities, moreover, Islamist attacks have moved much closer to war than conventional terrorism.

The Mumbai atrocity is a wake-up call for a frighteningly unprepared world

By Melanie Phillips
December 2, 2008

Western commentators still don't grasp what the free world is facing. This was not merely a distant horror.

Around the world, people have reacted with horror to the vile atrocities in Mumbai.

For three days, our TV screens transmitted images of carnage and chaos as the toll of murder victims climbed to upwards of 190 people, with many hundreds more injured.

Despite the fact that Western citizens were caught up in the attacks, there is nevertheless a sense that this was nothing to do with us — a horrible event happening in a faraway place.

Among commentators, moreover, there has been no small amount of confusion.

Were these terrorists motivated by the grievance between Muslims and Hindus over Kashmir, or was this a broader attack by Al Qaeda?

If British and American tourists were singled out over Iraq — which many assume is the motive for such attacks — why were Indians targeted in the Victoria railway station?

And why was an obscure outreach centre geared to Jews marked for slaughter?

Such perceptions and questions suggest that, even now, Western commentators still don't grasp what the free world is facing. This was not merely a distant horror.

We should pay the closest possible attention to what happened in Mumbai because something on this scale could well happen here.

But because we don't understand what we are actually up against, we are not doing nearly enough to prevent this — or something even worse — occurring; and if it were to happen here, we would be unable to cope.

The Mumbai atrocities show very clearly what too many obdurately deny — that a war is being waged against civilization.

It is both global and local. It is not 'our' fault; it has nothing to do with Muslim poverty, oppression or discrimination.

The Islamic fundamentalist fanatics use specific grievances — Kashmir, Iraq, Palestine, Chechnya — merely as recruiting sergeants for their worldwide holy war against all 'unbelievers'.

The Mumbai attackers targeted British, American and Indian citizens simply because they wanted to kill as many British, American and Indian 'unbelievers' as possible.

Where they found Muslims, they spared them.

They also singled out for slaughter the occupants of an outreach organization geared to Jews with no Israeli or political agenda — underscoring the point that at the core of the Islamists' hatred of Israel festers their hatred of the Jews.

This was not, as is so often described, 'mindless violence'.

On the contrary, the terrorists precisely calibrated both their choice of targets and the way in which they attacked them. This tells us many things.

India was chosen in order to further two aims. First was to foment greater tension between India and Pakistan.

No less important was the wish to destroy the ever more vital strategic alliance between India and the West in common defense against the Islamist onslaught.

That was why British and American visitors in those two grand hotels were singled out.

And that was why Mumbai itself was chosen — as the symbol of India's burgeoning commerce and prosperity and its links with the West.

The manner of these attacks also carried a message.

Many hostages were taken, but no attempt was made to use them to demand redress of any grievances. They were simply killed.

That made a statement that the terrorists' agenda is non-negotiable.

The attacks demonstrated, above all, the reach of the perpetrators and the impotence of their designated victims.

Those who believe that Islamist terror can be halted by addressing grievances around the world are profoundly mistaken.

With these atrocities, moreover, Islamist attacks have moved much closer to war than conventional terrorism.

The Iranian-born foreign affairs specialist Amir Taheri has pointed out that the Mumbai attacks embody the plan outlined by a senior Al Qaeda strategist after the U.S. decided to fight back following 9/11 — a decision that the Islamists had not expected.

This new strategy entails targeting countries with a substantial Muslim presence for 'low-intensity warfare' comprising bombings, kidnappings, the taking of hostages, the use of women and children as human shields, beheadings and other attacks that make normal life impossible.

Such a simultaneous, multi-faceted onslaught quickly reduces a city and a country to chaos. It can be repeated anywhere — and our cities must be among the most vulnerable.