WORLD NEWS TREND

Hillel Fendel
In an open pre-Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) letter originally sent last year to synagogue sextons, communal leaders and others, Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger reminds them of their heavy responsibility vis-a-vis those who come to synagogue only once a year. Similarly, a little-known aspect of the solemn day of Yom Kippur - it is a “day of friendship and love,” according to the prayer liturgy - will be emphasized in some 250 secular-friendly prayer services around the country. The services are being organized by the B’yachad (Together) and Tzohar (Window) organizations. An unprecedented 50,000 people are expected to take part.

Yom Kippur services generally take up most of the day, and are attended, at least in part, even by Jews who do not otherwise frequent the synagogue. The special services in some 250 locations around the country will be buttressed by the participation of religious youths and families from near and far.

Many of the services will be held in “neutral” locations such as community centers, in the hope of easing the way for those who feel less at home in a synagogue. Explanations will be added at various points in the service, and the pace will be regulated according to the participants’ needs. During the breaks, the visitors and locals will talk and get to know each other.

The custom began in 2002, with a well-attended special service in the secular Kibbutz Mitzpeh Shalem on the Dead Sea shore. That same year, then-Deputy Foreign Minister Rabbi Michael Melchior also organized over 100 similar “secular minyanim” [prayer quorums], featuring a chazan [prayer leader], an instructor, and a director, as well as some observant Jews to give “life” to the service.
The details of the atonement service, the High Priest’s once-a-year entry into the Holy of Holies, the sacrifices, and the joyous exhilaration expressed by the large congregation when a Divine sign proved that the atonement had been effective - are all reviewed in detail during the prayer service.

In addition to the above, the Ayelet HaShachar organization is organizing Yom Kippur services in 50 kibbutzes this year. Chairman Moti Reich says that in each case, the initiative to establish the prayer service comes from within the kibbutz, and his group then provides the logistics, organization, cantors, and prayer books.

The Yom Kippur prayer service emphasizes the various aspects of the Teshuvah [repentance] process, including specific acknowledgement of our sins, requests for forgiveness, the special atonement properties of the day, and more. The Mussaf prayer is centered around the Atonement Service in the Holy Temple, for which the High Priest would prepare during the course of a full week; the details of the atonement service, his once-a-year entry into the Holy of Holies, the sacrifices, and the joyous exhilaration expressed by the large congregation when a Divine sign proved that the atonement had been effective - are all reviewed in detail during the prayer service.

Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger emphasized this year that special attention and friendship be offered to new immigrants, even those who have been here for several years. His letter asks that synagogues “welcome our beloved brothers [veteran Israelis and others] with joy, help them in the prayers with respect, and ensure an uplifting spiritual experience.” The letter states:

“With the approach of the great and awesome day of Yom Kippur, we see clearly the holy influence of these Days of Awe on many of our brothers of the House of Israel, who seek to come closer to their Creator and to take part in the Yom Kippur prayers, asking on behalf of their families and themselves and praying that this be a year of blessing and salvation.

“These brothers who are not accustomed to frequenting the synagogue, and who so wish to be a part, even for a short while, of the holy congregation standing in prayer - very often, their knowledge in the ways of prayer and in the customs of the synagogue is not great. They often thus stand sadly and bewilderedly, unable to join in with the rest of the worshipers. It is the thought of this very prospect that keeps many of them from coming to the House of G-d.

“My request to you is to take note of these beloved brothers. Welcome them with happiness and a joyous countenance, and help them take part in the prayer service. Make sure to give them a seat in a respectable manner, next to someone who can help and guide them throughout the service. This of course must be done pleasantly, making them feel comfortable and not pestered, so that their visit will become a deep and uplifting spiritual experience, one that will give them a desire to want to continue to come to the synagogue on other holidays as well, and thus to enjoy G-d’s goodness. There is no need to elaborate on the great merit this causes during these Days of Judgment.

“And may it be G-d’s will that in the merit of our prayers, our joint spiritual awakening, and the increase of love and brotherhood among us, all of us together will merit to be inscribed for a good and sweet year, long life, peace and all good blessings.”

Shaheen Buneri
The Media Line

[Peshawar, Pakistan] After seven years of the United States’ War against Terror, the situation in Pakistan’s Pashtun-dominated North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Pakistan’s seven tribal regions along the Pakistani-Afghan border has reached the point of no return.
The social and cultural basis of Pashtun society has been completely shattered by intensified Taliban insurgency. Utter confusion, uncertainty and loss of trust in the government machinery is leading the conflict-ridden society to a state akin to civil war.

Taliban insurgents who fled Afghanistan in the wake of U.S. attacks on the Taliban regime in 2001 found sanctuaries on the lawless tribal border. The region, which has been badly neglected in terms of socio-economic development by successive governments, proved an ideal place for different Taliban groups to recruit unemployed and poverty-stricken youth to their folds and strengthen their position by promoting an extremist version of Islam.

The first thing the Taliban did was to challenge the traditional tribal structure by killing about 600 tribal elders, commonly known as Maliks, in different parts of the tribal region.

The Maliks were experts in day-to-day tribal affairs and were instrumental in resolving feuds through tribal councils (Jirgas). They were an integral part of the political administration introduced by the former British rulers of the Indian sub-continent.

“By killing the tribal elders, the Taliban destroyed the social basis on which Pakistan’s central government was administering the region,” says Rifat Orakzai, a Peshawar-based tribal analyst, who added that it would take considerable time and energy for the Pakistan government to re-establish its authority in the region now controlled by Taliban groups.

“Once the tribal structure was eliminated, the whole administrative system was dashed to the ground,” Orakzai says.

The administrative vacuum was soon filled by Taliban commanders such as Baituallah Mehsud in South Waziristan Agency, Mangal Bagh Afridi in Khyber Agency, Faqir Muhammad in Bajaur Agency, Omer Khalid in Mohmand Agency, and Maulana Fazlullah in Swat district of the Frontier Province.

The Taliban exploited the U.S. presence in neighboring Afghanistan and the sense of economic deprivation among the tribal people to promote a version of Islam that was totally contrary to the social traditions and cultural values of the people of the unfortunate region.

This extremist approach towards religion is the legacy of the Cold War when the American CIA and the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) established hundreds of religious seminaries with generous funding from the Saudi government and encouraged “jihad” by the tribal people against the USSR.

“The region has always been a laboratory for different imperialist powers through the ages,” says Malik Shah Dauran of Khyber Tribal Agency. “Different powers ruthlessly used the region and its people for their geo-strategic interests and imperialist designs and then left them in the lurch.

“Now, when the Bush administration complains it has become a safe haven for terrorists, no one asks who is responsible for this,” he adds.

The military and political establishment of Pakistan incorrectly thought that Taliban activity would only be restricted to the tribal belt and the rest of Pakistan would continue going about its usual business. But the reality on the ground resulted in a completely different scenario.

Using established terror techniques, the Taliban has now spread its influence to the settled districts of NWFP and parts of the Punjab province.

Under pressure from the Bush administration Pakistan’s then military regime used both excessive military might and negotiations with militant commanders to halt the rising tide of militancy, but failed to achieve the desired results.

The conflict between Pakistan security forces and Taliban fighters displaced millions of people from the tribal areas and the Swat Valley and rendered thousands jobless.

Political squabbling between Pakistan two major political parties, coupled with the deteriorating law-and-order situation resulted in more poverty, a power crisis, price-hikes and poor economic performance.

“Pakistan is faced with a real dilemma. On the one hand it has to honor its international commitment in the war against terror, and on the other it has to manage an ever-increasing anti-American sentiment,” observes Syed Irfan Ashraf, a Peshawar-based political analyst.

He adds that U.S. drone attacks inside Pakistan and strained relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan is threatening the alliance against terror as well as maximizing opportunities for the Taliban to regroup on both sides of the border and intensify its attacks on U.S. and NATO forces inside Afghanistan.

“If the three important countries in the war against terror don’t take immediate steps to remove misconceptions and build trust, there is every possibility that the Taliban will emerge as a formidable force and defeat the heavily funded campaign against terror,” Ashraf maintains.

A well-thought-out reform process in the administrative system of the tribal areas and initiating socio-economic development projects could play a major role in discouraging the menace of terrorism.

It is also an encouraging development that the newly elected Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP)-led government considers the war against terror as its own war and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani repeatedly says that his government will never talk to Taliban militants and will continue with the war against terror.

While it is true that officials of the Bush administration have expressed their frustration with the discouraging results of the seven-year-war against Al-Qa’ida and the Taliban and are facing a 40 percent rise in Taliban attacks in Afghanistan, the reality is that no effort has been made to win the hearts and minds of the millions of people who are the direct victims of this war.

Increasing numbers of civilian casualties in U.S. air attacks in both Afghanistan and Pakistan are drastically changing people’s perception of the war, and different religious groups are garnering support to threaten the recently formed civilian government in Pakistan with country-wide protest demonstrations.

Military operations over the past three months against Taliban militants in Bajaur Tribal Agency and Swat Valley of the Frontier Province have displaced more than 600,000 people from their homes. Local media have reported that a number of religious groups with Jihadi credentials arranged relief camps and collected donations for these people in order to win their loyalty.

“The Taliban is killing our elders for not supporting them; the military is bombing our homes for nothing. We are in the midst of a humanitarian tragedy with no way out,” Farid Khan, a 27-year-old primary school teacher, who along with his family was forced by the military operation in Bajaur Tribal Agency to flee to Peshawar, the capital of NWFP, told The Media Line.

A private TV channel telecast interviews of the displaced people who were talking of revenge against the U.S. and the Pakistani governments for the atrocities committed against them in the name of military action against the Taliban.

The question is, is militancy being eliminated or is it being further strengthened?

There are reports that some of the banned Jihadi groups that went underground are resurrecting and forging alliances with fellow militant organizations on both sides of the border.

The U.S. should work with the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan to devise a comprehensive strategy to find long-term solutions to the menace of terrorism.

A grand Jirga between the people of Pakistan and Afghanistan for comprehensive discussions on the evolving situation in the region, relaxing tensions between Pakistan and India on the issue of Kashmir, and a vigorous media campaign to raise awareness about the dangers of militancy for the region and its people could halt the rising tide of militancy and create an environment where defeating Talibanization would become a relatively easier task.

Indiscriminate use of military might could breed nothing but more violence, more uncertainty and more chaos for millions of people on both sides of the Pakistani-Afghan border and might jeopardize the much-touted reconstruction process in Afghanistan.

Copyright © 2008 The Media Line. All Rights Reserved.

Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed
Asharq Alawsat

There are two possible scenarios for the appalling bombing in Damascus: Was the bombing planned by outside parties, as suggested by the Syrian capital’s media analyses, or was it an unexpected incident? I will start with the second scenario and I am confident that no one to date knows the whole truth except of course the perpetrator himself. This is a war between the strongest terrorist organization in the world and the most powerful security services in the Middle East. There is not a security body [in the Middle East] that is more influential than the Syrian security services, which have been known over the past three decades for their successful operations. Syria has devoted special attention to security and put it before all other considerations, thus becoming an expert in security matters. For this reason, and throughout the years of Iraq’s domestic war, the Iraqis and the Americans rejected Damascus’s claims that it knew nothing about the infiltration activities from Syrian territories all the way to the southern borders. They also had a problem accepting the excuses it used when confronted with accurate information that it could not close its long borders with Iraq and that with its tremendous power, the United States has failed to prevent infiltration from Mexico into US territory. Despite the reasonable Syrian response, someone once said: “O brother, not a single fly can enter or leave Syria without the Syrians knowing about it.”

No one believed the Syrian version of the story, because thousands of people, who came to Iraq from around the world, crossed the border with their weapons. Some officials were more candid in their statements and said: “We have nothing to do with all that is happening [in Iraq] and there are no Syrians in Iraq. Yet at the same time, we cannot prevent others from resisting the occupation.”

Several states embraced or turned a blind eye to armed groups and paid the price. These states believe that first, they are smarter and more skillful; and second, that they are protected.

When terrorism hit Syria, the Syrian reaction was similar to that of most Arab states that were affected by it. At the beginning they are in a state of shock, and after a few bombings, they insist that there is an outside conspiracy against them. The Algerians reiterated these words at the beginning of the 1980s, and in the end, they admitted that terrorism was a local creation that they had to confront. Today, the Syrians discovered that the bombing was a suicide operation and was not caused by a booby-trapped car that was remotely detonated by some terrorist.

Syria believed that the terrorist activities that are directed to the outside cannot harm it. And like all other Arab states, Syria also believed that it was smarter than others and more capable of dealing with terrorism with the help of its security bodies. However, today, it discovered that it is but another target. We admit that Syrian security is extremely strong and vicious. Nevertheless, terrorism is not like any other threat and is not like anything we ever experienced in the past. Religious extremist terrorism is multiplying like bacteria and the strongest security apparatuses in the world are unable to put an end to it. This is because after an individual is brainwashed in a mosque, through an electronic website, or through television, he becomes stronger than the most powerful security services in the world. Unfortunately, Syria has allowed cross-border terrorism to move freely in its land for a long time, based on the notion that it is the best and cheapest weapon that will force the Americans to backtrack on their position to the advantage of its political calculations. Finally, Damascus has gone back on its position and has started to cooperate after all the pressure that has been exerted on it following Al-Hariri’s assassination.

Damascus has served as the best source of information on the mujahidin and has helped hunt them down. As a result, violence in Iraq has dropped by 80 percent.

With time, the Syrians will discover that they are not the victims of an outside conspiracy, not even by those who disagree with them the most. This is because these parties believe that by preserving Syria’s security they will be preserving their own security and that any vacuum or chaos will affect them all, as was the case in Iraq. However, the political tension and security non-cooperation that exist on the ground are in no one’s best interest. For its own political, sectarian, and economic reasons, Syria needs — more than any other state — to cooperate against terrorism rather than to selectively cooperate with Iran and its allies.

After Syria moved tank units up to the Lebanese Beqaa Valley border Tuesday, Oct. 7, Israel raised the alert level for Yom Kippur on its borders with Syria and Lebanon and placed its Air Force and emergency first aid teams on standby in the event of Syrian or/and Hizballah attacks. Israeli embassies and Jewish institutions worldwide are also on high terror alert. Israeli embassies and Jewish institutions worldwide were also placed on high terror alert. Hizballah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah said recently that his promised retaliation for the death of Imad Mughniyeh “is coming.” There is no backing off from this decision or from carrying out the “big surprise” against the enemy, he said.

Damascus and the Lebanese Hizballah are closely aligned.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the Syrian tank concentration on the Lebanese border Tuesday was Damascus’ second military movement against its neighbor; three weeks ago, Syrian commando units took up positions on the North Lebanese border. In the first deployment, their tanks and armored vehicles were kept some 3-10 km to the rear of frontline commando forces. In the second, much closer to the Israeli border, armor and tanks have been deployed at the front.

These military movements sent Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak on an unannounced trip north Tuesday to check the state of readiness of the IDF’s disposition on the Syrian and Lebanese borders. He cautioned the outpost commanders to exercise maximum vigilance in the coming days. The border seems quiet, he said, but commanders must take care never to permit a repeat of the Yom Kippur War exactly 35 years ago when Israel was caught napping by a Syrian invasion.

Our sources report that Washington, Jerusalem and Beirut are taking into account the possibility of Damascus seizing the moment of the total shutdown in Israel for 25 hours from Wednesday afternoon, Oct. 8, to Thursday night, Oct. 9, for Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) to launch its military forces against northern Lebanon or the Golan.

The West Bank was sealed off and Israel’s border terminals with Jordan and Egypt closed from early Wednesday, Oct. 8.

Walter E. Williams
Wednesday, October 08, 2008

In my more cynical moments, I think that we Americans deserve what we get from our politicians, many of whom can be generally described as nothing less than loathsome. You say, “Williams, that’s a pretty heavy putdown.” My question to you is how else would you describe these congressmen who are now blaming the financial mess on the failure of the free market? Starting with the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, that was given more teeth during the Clinton administration, Congress started intimidating banks and other financial institutions into making loans, so-called subprime loans, to high-risk homebuyers and businesses. The carrot offered was that these high-risk loans would be purchased by the government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Anyone with an ounce of brains would have known that this was a prescription for disaster but there was a congressional chorus of denial.

Five years ago, Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) vouched for the “soundness” of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and said, “I do not see any possibility of serious financial losses to the treasury.” In 2004 congressional hearings, where the Bush administration sought greater oversight over Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) said, “We do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac and particularly at Fannie Mae,” adding that “the GSEs have exceeded their housing goals.” Congressman Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) said, “There’s nothing wrong with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.” In these hearings Barney Frank said that he doesn’t see “anything in the reports that raises safety and soundness problems.” Earlier this year, Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) praised Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for “riding to the rescue” to help people get home mortgage loans, adding that they “need to do more” to help high-risk borrowers get better loans.

The financial collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is not a failure of the free market because lending institutions in a free market would not have taken on the high-risk loans. They were forced to by the heavy hand of government. The solution is not a taxpayer-financed bailout. The solution is to let them fail and allow the people who invested in them, as well as the people who purchased homes they couldn’t afford, suffer the losses. Of course that takes a level of political courage that is in short supply. There are other measures that should be taken as part of a second-best solution.

In 2002, when the Enron and WorldCom scandal broke, the Congress held hearings and some chief executives were jailed. Who did what was the big story in the major news media almost every night. Congress rushed to enact the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, also known as the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act of 2002. The act placed unnecessary, onerous and costly accounting standards on American businesses. The Enron and WorldCom debacle is a drop in the bucket compared to the financial mess that Congress has created through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, in the name of “affordable” housing. Have you heard Congress calling for hearings? They haven’t called for hearings because many of them, both Democrats and Republicans, receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars, were in cahoots with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. If Americans are going to be on the hook to bail out these government-sponsored enterprises, at the minimum congressional hearings ought to be held to find out who did what and when.

Corporations employ accounting practices promulgated by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) that established Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and government agencies have accounting practices that don’t come close to, and never did, the honesty of private accounting practices. Accounting fraud and deception are the dominant features of government agencies. If a private business kept and cooked the books, like government agencies do, the top executives would go to jail. Shouldn’t the accounting standards businesses have to meet be applied to Washington? My answer is yes and if a congressman says no, I’d like for him to tell us why.

Copyright © 2008 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.

The comments by Councilman Steven Choi came at the close of a recent Chamber of Commerce election forum attended by the dozen candidates for Irvine office. Choi cautioned the audience of business and community leaders not to vote for a candidate who works for the Council on American-Islamic Relations – commonly known as CAIR – which he described as a “dangerous and Islamic organization.”… “I was shocked to hear that a council candidate made those comments,” Edah-Tally said. “I can see how this can create waves of division in the community” — from this article

Does Issa Edah-Tally think that non-Muslims might be “shocked” to hear about, or read, what is contained in 9.29 and 9.5 of the Qur’an? Does he think they would be “shocked” to find out what is all over Sura 9, and in a hundred other places in the Qur’an, believed by Muslims to be the literal and immutable Word of God?

Does Issa Edah-Tally think that non-Muslims might be “shocked” to find out what is contained in the Hadith, the Hadith assigned a high rank of authenticity, in the most authoritative (Sahih) compilations by the most respected muhaddithin, such as Bukhari and Muslim?

Does Issa Edah-Tally think that the figure of Muhammad, uswa hasana, al-insan al-kamil, the Perfect Man according to Muslims, will forever be immune from study and criticism by non-Muslims? Non-Muslims, he must know, will be shocked indeed to find out about Muhammad’s pleasure at the decapitation of the hundreds of bound prisoners of the Banu Qurayza, his attack on the inoffensive Jewish farmers of the Khaybar Oasis so as to help himself and his followers to women and to loot (and the razzia, or raiding party, on non-Muslims later became enshrined in the Jizyah, the tax on non-Muslims that supported the Muslim state), his delight in the murders of Abu Afak and Asma bint Marwan, murdered because of a satirical verse she dared to write about Muhammad.

Does Issa Edah-Tally think that all of this, such as Muhammad’s “marriage” to little Aisha when she was nine years old — which is a Model for All Time for Muslims – will remain secret forever? Does he think that no Infidels know that Khomeini’s first act, or close to it, was to reduce the legal marriageable age of girls in Iran to nine years? (For after all, that was the age of the last wife of Muhammad, the Perfect Man, when he married her.) Does Issa Edah-Tally think that all this and so much more will remain forever unknown to Infidels, when it is all — all of it– just a click away at a thousand websites, neatly laid out?

How long do Muslims think they can continue to hide from non-Muslims what is in the texts — Qur’an, Hadith, Sira? How long do Muslims think they can continue to hide from non-Muslims also the history of Muslim conquest and subjugation of non-Muslims, a history that extends in time over 1350 years and in space from Spain to the East Indies? How long do they think they can avoid confronting Jihad directly? How long will bemused Infidels allow them to avoid daring to face, or even allude to, the issue of dhimmitude, as experienced by Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, and even Hindus, over those 1350 years of Muslim subjugation. How long will Infidels allow Muslims to avoid the question of why no majority-Muslim state permits full freedom of religion, including the right of Muslims to abandon their religion for another faith, or no faith at all — surely the most essential right if freedom of conscience is to mean anything?

Do Muslims think that they can continue indefinitely to get away with using Arab money to buy up academic centers, or found new ones? (See Esposito, John, and the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University.) Do they think that we will continue to listen to the apologists and propagandists, Muslim and non-Muslim, for Islam, who now make up about three-quarters of the members of MESA, or MESA Nostra, as it is known more and more? (For more about “MESA Nostra,” see here.)

How long do they think they can get away with this, especially as we can look across the Atlantic and observe Muslim behavior in the countries of Western Europe?

Another ten years? Another five? How long?

Apparently you have to believe that Islam is a Religion of Peace™ to serve on this jury — which suggests that the trial itself will tread only very, very lightly, if at all, into territory concerning the motives and goals of these men. Fort Dix Jihad Update: “7 qualified jurors so far in Fort Dix case,” by Geoff Mulvihill for The Associated Press, October 7 (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):

CAMDEN, N.J. - The complex and sometimes tedious process of probing the biases of prospective jurors began Tuesday in the case of five men accused of planning to attack soldiers on Fort Dix.

Lawyers on Tuesday morning asked questions of 11 potential jurors, examining whether they could be fair even if they thought Islam encouraged violence or they had family in the military. [...]

The first one may have been one of the hardest cases.

The woman said she is the wife of a retired New Jersey National Guard member who served about a year in Cuba at Guantanamo Bay, where the U.S. is holding suspect terrorists rounded up abroad.

Assistant U.S. Attorney William Fitzpatrick asked if she could keep an open mind in light of that.

“I think I would have some difficulty,” said the woman, whose name, like those of others called on the case, is not being made public , even to the attorneys questioning her.

For 45 minutes, lawyers on both sides grilled the woman on a number of topics, including her opinion of Islam, whether she would hold it against the defendants if they did not testify, and whether she could separate the case from the people she’s known who have served at Fort Dix….

She had “too many biases” and was excused.

Next, we have the Yahudi-Qatil XLP model, ideal for general mayhem…

These comprehensive courses even include mini-tests, with questions such as: “A truck is moving at a rate of 15 meters per second, at a distance of 200 meters, from left to right. How will you succeed in hitting this truck?” “Hamas Offering Online Courses in Practical Jihad,” by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz for Israel National News, October 7:

(IsraelNN.com) The Islamist Hamas terrorist organization has initiated an online course in explosives, military weapons and tactics for would-be jihad fighters. Aimed at the population of the Palestinian Authority, the course is called “Get Ready” and is designed to prepare the population for war with Israel.

First exposed outside Palestinian Authority and jihadist circles on Monday by Israel’s Channel 10 TV, the sophisticated course includes highly detailed practical and theoretical lessons, as well as sample videos of jihadist attacks. All manner of weapons are described, analyzed and their proper use explained by masked Hamas instructors.

Students also learn about such things as the manufacture and detonation of explosives, the functioning of rocket launchers, weak points on IDF tanks, and the physics of firing at a moving vehicle. Lessons cover possible scenarios such as an IDF ground incursion into Hamas-controlled Gaza or an airborne Israeli commando assault.

Each instructive section concludes with test questions. For example, a fatigues-wearing Hamas teacher asks, “A truck is moving at a rate of 15 meters per second, at a distance of 200 meters, from left to right. How will you succeed in hitting this truck?”

In its report, the Channel 10 corespondent speculated that the instruction was not only intended to teach Hamas members to more effectively fight Israel, but also to prepare them for confrontation with the rival PA terrorist movement, Fatah. Such a confrontation has already occurred periodically in recent years, but Hamas hopes that an armed clash with PA Chairman’s Fatah forces in Judea and Samaria would end with the Islamists in control of the entire PA.
Thanks Jihad Watch

Barry Rubin

October 8, 2008

In response to a casual question, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates dropped a historical bombshell, an offhand remark telling more about how the Middle East works than 100 books. And a former Marine commander adds an equally big revelation about long-ago events quite relevant for today. Almost thirty years ago, President Jimmy Carter tried to show what a nice guy he was by pressing the Shah not to crush the revolutionaries. After the monarch fell, National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski met top officials of the new Islamist regime to pledge U.S. friendship to the government controlled by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. At the time, I wrote that by approaching some of the milder radicals, the administration frightened the more militant ones. U.S.-Iran relations must be smashed, they concluded, lest Washington back their rivals. In fact, as we’ll see in a moment, the Carter administration offered to back Khomeini himself.

Three days after the Brzezinski meeting, in November 1979, the Islamist regime’s cadre seized the U.S. embassy and its staff as hostages, holding them until January 1981. This was our introduction to the new Middle East of radical Islamism. Carter continued his weak stance, persuading the Tehran regime that it could get away with anything.

So we’ve long known that undermining U.S. allies, passivity toward anti-American radicals, and inaction after a massive terrorist act against Americans didn’t work. The hostages were only released because Iran was suffering desperately from an Iraqi invasion and feared Carter’s successor, Ronald Reagan, as someone likely to be tougher.

The lesson of being strong in defending interests and combating enemies has not quite been learned. Today, the opposite is the mainstream prescription for success and the United States may be about to elect a president whose world view parallels the way Carter worked.

Here’s where Gates comes in. On September 29, while giving a lecture at the National Defense University in Washington DC, someone asked him how the next president might improve relations with Iran. Gates responded:

“I have been involved in the search for the elusive Iranian moderate for 30 years.” Then Gates revealed what was actually said at Brzezinski’s meeting, in which he participated, summarizing Brzezinski’s position as follows:

“We will accept your revolution….We will recognize your government. We will sell you all the weapons that we had contracted to sell the Shah….We can work together in the future.”

The Iranians demanded the United States turn over to them the fugitive Shah, who they would have executed. Brzezinski refused. Three days later Iran seized the embassy and forever changed the Middle East. The road thus paved led to the Iran-Iraq and Iraq-Kuwait wars, the power of Hamas and Hizballah, September 11, 2001, and a great deal more. Many thousands would die due to American timidity and Iranian aggressiveness.

Had the United States been a mean bully in its treatment of the new Islamist Iran? The On the contrary, Washington did everything possible to negotiate, conciliate, and build confidence. We’ll do almost anything you want, Carter and Brzezinski offered, just be our friend. Far from being appeased Iran demanded such a total humiliation–turning over the fatally ill, deposed Shah for execution–even that administration couldn’t accept it.

Far from persuading Khomeini that the United States was a real threat, the U.S. government made itself appear a pitiful, helpless giant, convincing Tehran–as Khomeini put it–America couldn’t do a damn thing. His revolution and ideology was too strong for it.

So why should we expect such a tactic could work today? How long does it take to get the message: this is an ideological revolution with huge ambitions to which America is inevitably a barrier. Appeasement, talks, apologies, confidence-building measures won’t convince Tehran that America is its friend, only that it’s an enemy so weak as to make aggression seem inevitably successful.

The only U.S. precondition has been that to get a high-level dialogue, Iran must first stop its drive for nuclear weapons, at least temporarily.

Gates understands what happened: “Every administration since then has reached out to the Iranians in one way or another and all have failed….The reality is the Iranian leadership has been consistently unyielding over a very long period of time in response to repeated overtures from the United States about having a different and better kind of relationship.”

This situation is quite parallel to efforts to have reasonable preconditions with the Palestinians–stop terrorism, incitement, clearly accept a two-state solution–or with Syria–stop sponsoring terrorism, cease trying to take over Lebanon, and accept normal relations with Israel as the outcome of peace. Similar bargains have been offered Hamas and Hizballah. Yet even this is too much for the other side and too much for those who continue trying to undermine any Western leverage on radical forces.

If the other side won’t give anything, they insist, merely offer more. And if the other side takes those concessions, pockets them, gives nothing in return, and continues their behavior, this merely proves you have to give still more.

Here’s more evidence why that’s wrong. Former U.S. Marine Colonel Timothy Geraghty was Marine commander in October 1983 when suicide bombers attacked the barracks of U.S. peacekeeping forces in Beirut, killing 242 Americans. He now reveals that a September 26, 1983 U.S. intelligence intercept showed Iran’s government ordering the attack through its embassy in Lebanon. The timid response to that operation set a pattern leading directly to the September 11 attack.

Three decades after the miserable failure of the make-friends-with-Islamist-Iran policy–including offering Khomeini continued U.S. arms’ supplies for goodness sake!–isn’t it time to learn this simple lesson?

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley).

The Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center
Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya P.O. Box 167 Herzliya, 46150 Israel
Email: info@gloriacenter.org Phone: +972-9-960-2736 Fax: +972-9-956-8605

A Jewish-American grandmother (in Paris no less) takes a direct hit on the first Jewish snuff film (The Great Schlep)

October 8, 2008

What do I know from Sarah Silverman, excuse me, but I’m too busy keeping one eye on Ahmadinejad’s raging nuclear ambitions and the other on our local punk jihadis…I don’t have time for low culture buzz… But this schmaltzy wannabe political commentator turned up on my screen, courtesy of the Jewish Council for Education and Research no less…and she’s shilling for Obama! Google it, The Great Schlep, it’ll give you heartburn. Seven million hits, dixit the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/arts/television/07sara.html?scp=1&sq=sarah%20silverman&st=cse in a scrumptious spread of free publicity. She just might, says Dave Itzkoff, with a dash of false caution, slamdunk Florida into Obama’s basket with her brilliant comical dribble. Don’t you know the people laughing their pants off at this hilarious Jewxploitation will tell you Sarah Palin is a dumb hick. So Silverman is sophisticated? Kinderlich, your Sarah aint got no street smarts! She aint even got sofa smarts.

Sitting under an artsy portrait of Barack Hussein Obama she pours out a box of Cheerios-electioneering flavored for JEWS. And just in case you might be curious about her candidate’s genealogy, dig this, Barack means lightning in Hebrew. Awesome? Yeah except his poppa wasn’t no Hebrew and if you want to know what it means in his native tongue ast yer momma.

So what’s with this Long March of addled yiddishe dumbkupfs armed with cardboard machetes, goin’ down to Mizraim Florida to dig up votes for Barack Hussein? She’s tellin’ those yunguns to whip the old folks up’side the head and hustle them straight to the polls in chartered buses. If they don’t pull the chain for Obama, it’s off to the showers.

Sarah, sittin’ on the sofa talkin’ all that jive, worshipping that idol, disrespecting fathers and mothers, and swearing to épater les bobos is supposed to be thigh-slapping funny? You’d think she was the first stray idiot in history to run headlong to disaster, guzzling I love it, I want it, do it to me, give me sum more.

Bubbele, that is what grandparents are for—to make the link between the generations that have gone and the generations yet unborn, dror l’dror, the link by which we live in a century and not in a window of opportunity. And you think you’re clever, using grandparents to mop up Obama’s floor? Let me tell you how lucky we were to have them, our grandparents, who said goodbye to their mothers and fathers and came to America to be free. To live in dignity. The ones that stayed in Europe were persecuted, tracked, rounded up, humiliated, atrociously tortured, murder a hundred times over.

“The Jews went to the death camps like lambs to the slaughter.” That’s what we, today’s grandparents, had to hear when we were young. How did the Jews of Europe get trapped, foolish girl? The great exterminators looked so handsome in their crisp uniforms. They seduced the masses and stifled dissent with sweet words, clever rhetoric, and strongarm tactics.

I have my own opinion of your suga suga Obama. Grandmothers know the wily ways of sweet talking hustlers and hip Pied Pipers. Follow me, love me, trust me, sing my praises. Swing with me, gush like a guyser, and don’t worry your pretty little head. Where are we going? We’re going to Hopeandchange. Follow me. Trust me.

But that’s not the point, sassy Sarah. The secret ballot is a precious gift of American democracy and you have no business trying to force your grandparents to vote for a dude you can’t defend with a single rational argument. So just do your thing girl and let the wise and seasoned minds who gave birth to your parents decide for themselves.

Now let’s see who’s under-informed! Are you ready for the grandmother-granddaughter debate? I’ll meet you in a palatial Boca Raton synagogue on October 27th. Have your agent call my agent to work out the details.

Nidra Poller
nidrapol@gmail.com