Last week, Israeli newspaper Yedioth Aharonoth reported that American Taxpayer dollars,  a quarter of a million dollars through USAID, were being used to fund a series of advertisements in Israel, featuring leaders of the Palestinian Authority assuring Israeli citizens that they are reliable partners for peace and asking Israelis to be the same. Newswire UPI summarized the ads saying:

The campaign launched Sunday includes the faces of senior Palestinian Authority officials Saeb Erekat, Jibril Rajoub and Yasser Abed Rabo and Riad Malki, Palestinian foreign affairs minister, Yedioth Aharonoth said.

The aim of the campaign is to persuade Israelis that peace partners on the Palestinian side truly exist, and calls for support of a two-state solution, the Tel Aviv newspaper said.

The U.S. government was approached to fund the campaign by the Geneva Initiative founders, who drew up an agreement in 2003 to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the newspaper said.

The Geneva Initiative is an Israeli NGO, which receives funding from several foreign governments, including the United States, European Union and Switzerland.

It is utterly inappropriate that the United States should be paying to conduct a political campaign intended to alter the perceptions of a fellow democracy.  And in any case, such a move will not have the desired effect. Says Asher Fredman of NGO Monitor, writing in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency:

Many Israelis view the Geneva Initiative as an opposition political movement run by a small group involved in the unsuccessful Oslo negotiations that failed to receive support in the democratic process. Its proposed peace agreement also includes aspects that have been unacceptable to most Israelis, including inadequate security provisions and a highly ambiguous framework for dealing with refugee claims. The foreign government funding for the campaign has not contributed to its public acceptance…

Thus, the USAID alliance with the Geneva Initiative and the funding for a slick advertising campaign are unlikely to have the intended impact.

What the Israeli public knows, and what the U.S government continues to ignore is that the Palestinian leadership is NOT a partner for peace. The Fatah leaders selected by the Geneva Initiative to speak out in this campaign illustrate that fact perfectly.

Take for instance, Jibril Rajoub, whom Middle East Analyst Caroline Glick describes thusly:

…on the list of US-funded spokesmen was Fatah strongman Jibril Rajoub, who was instrumental in forging the operational alliance between Fatah and Hamas that facilitated the terror war against Israel 10 years ago. Throughout the roaring ’90s, Rajoub assiduously recruited Hamas members to his Preventive Security Force in Judea and Samaria.

As recently as May 10 he appeared on PA television and said, “Building a school and throwing a hand grenade, in my opinion, are resistance. I build the school in order to strengthen the reasons for my people’s resolve, as one of several aspects of the resistance, and when there is a need to throw a grenade [or launch] a rocket, I’ll do that as well out of my belief in the inevitable victory of my cause and its justness.”

Last week the US paid for him to be filmed telling Israelis we should trust him.

Glick also points out that Palestinian negotiators Saeb Erekat and Yasser Abed Rabbo continue to spout outrageous blood libels regarding Israel’s Operation Defensive Shield in 2002.

Other PLO and Fatah bigwigs continue to prove intransigent. Just last July, Saeb Erekat, who USAID is funding to tell Israeli citizens what a good partner for peace he is, told a Syrian newspaper that there would be no negotiations without a continued settlement freeze.

Incitement is not limited to just the Palestinian elite. Instead, through Media and education, it is filtered down to every level of Palestinian society. Recently, Palestinian Media Watch, which monitors Palestinian incitement, reports that Official Palestinian Television continues to tell Palestinian children that Israeli cities of Jaffa, Lod, Ramie and Acre, are all occupied Palestinian cities which will one day be controlled by the Palestinians. The Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-SE), which monitors both Israel and Palestinian textbooks, is preparing to release a report which will show that Palestinian education remains filled with incitement to violence, which continues to describe Jews as nefarious creatures, and continue to idolize martyrs and the armed struggle.

The premise that it is the Israeli people who are not ready for peace is absurd in the extreme. History has shown us that time and again, the Israeli people have acquiesced to negotiations, and even unilateral withdrawals, in the hopes of producing some kind of peaceful settlement. It is the Palestinian people who need to be released from a world-view of incitement and propaganda. Says Palestinian Journalist Khaled Abu Toameh:

In order for the peace talks to make progress, there is a need to prepare the Palestinian public opinion for the possibility of compromise and concessions with Israel. But the Palestinian leadership’s message these days sounds more apologetic than conciliatory. The message is mostly aimed at justifying Abbas’s decision to negotiate with Israel unconditionally. It also sounds as if the Palestinian Authority is telling its people that it decided to go to the talks only due to heavy pressure from the Americans and Europeans.

One has to wonder why, therefore, with the proven track record of Israel having had exchanged a valuable tangible, land, for empty promises of peace, our American taxpayers are paying for a campaign that whitewashes the words and deeds of the Palestinians, in Hebrew for the Israelis. Why have we moved from being an objective arbitrator, or referee, to a coach for one particular team?

—Henry Kissinger

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent announcement that peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians, which are set to resume on Thursday, “should resolve all final-status issues within one year” indicates such a profound misunderstanding of the complexity of the issues, the history of what has occurred until now, the fragility of the situation on the ground,  and what actually lies at the heart of the disagreement, that it would be almost comical, if it weren’t so lethal.

A bit of recent history is in order.  On July 25, 2000, the Israelis, led by Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and under the cajolery of President Bill Clinton, made a maximalist offer to Yasser Arafat in the summit known as Camp David II. That offer included up to 97 percent of the West Bank, all of Gaza (then in Israel’s hands), shared sovereignty of Jerusalem, and a “right of return” of thousands of Palestinian refugees or a compensatory package for refugees who could not be resettled.

I was attending a talk at a Washington think tank the day the talks broke up, and Elyakim Rubinstein, who had been Israel’s attorney general, addressed the group on the news. He told us, “I could look every one of you in the eye and tell you that we went as far as any responsible Israeli government could possibly go. In fact, “there are many who would argue that we weren’t acting responsibly. There are people, at this very moment, who are crying in their limousines on their way to the airport. … We thought if we made Arafat an offer that was so good he couldn’t refuse it, he wouldn’t [refuse it].”

The Israelis had made it clear, according to Rubinstein, that because the terms of the offer were so generous, that this was supposed to be a “now-or-never offer. There would be no official written record of the offer”, he added.

That proved to be a double-edged sword, however. Israel believed that not recording the offer would wipe the diplomatic slate clean for future Israeli governments so that they would not be bound by Barak’s Camp David II offer. In so doing, Barak no doubt, believed that Arafat would feel pressured by time: This is the deal you have on the table today, and it will not be on the table tomorrow.

On the other hand, an unwritten offer meant removing proof of just how far Israel had been willing to go for peace. That led revisionist historians, such as Rashid Khalidi,  to  deceptively describe Israel’s offer as “minuscule.” That deception is particularly dangerous, because the pernicious claim now appears in syllabi (such as Khalidi’s Resurrecting Empire) that are used in Middle East studies curricula throughout the United States.

As we know, Arafat walked away from the table without responding. His answer came almost immediately, in September 2000, in the form of violence, known as the Second Intifada. The sorry history of all such talks and their almost invariably resulting in violence, was outlined so well by Cal Thomas in his recent column, when he described that often in the Middle East — contrary to the maxim, “There is no harm in talking” — there is a great deal of harm in talking.

What also happened on that fateful day at Camp David was that the Israelis, under the reassuring confidence of President Clinton’s State Department, “bet the barn.” And, although the offer was not written down on official Israeli government paper, we have learned to never underestimate the memory of  Israel’s Arab negotiating partners. Israel’s making such a maximalist offer created an impasse that could last for generations. How, after all, could a respectable Palestinian interlocutor go back to his people and save face with less than what the Rais, Arafat, walked away from?

And how, after all the years of violence that have ensued, can any respectable Israeli interlocutor go back to his people, after all the years of Palestinian-provoked violence that ensued, and possibly offer that much?

A bit more history: Israel withdrew from Southern Lebanon in May 2000 amidst assurances from the international community that, according to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, Hezbollah would also withdraw, and that Lebanon would be free of all foreign forces. As we know, Hezbollah never withdrew. In July 2006, it attacked Israeli soldiers at the border and launched a war against Israel. Moreover, Southern Lebanon has come increasingly under the influence of the Iran-backed Hezbollah, so much so that the group has infiltrated considerably into the military and political establishments. Some in Israel’s security apparatus regard Lebanon as an Iranian proxy along Israel’s northern border, with an arsenal of approximately 50,000 missiles that can reach into every Israeli city.

Israel withdrew from Gaza in August 2005, and the strip is now under the total control of  Iranian-backed Hamas, making it another proxy of Teheran in Israel’s south. The raining down of more than 10,000 Kassam rockets on southern Israel, and the Gaza war in December 2008–January 2009, are sufficient reasons to explain why the Israeli populace turned rightward and elected Binyamin Netanyahu as prime minister. Since then, the Israelis have been hammered by the international community, which imposed on Israel duplicitous moral standards through the UN’s Goldstone Report and the UN’s condemnation of Israel’s response to the Turkish flotilla this past May.

Furthermore, when Israel took the bold step — in the absence of a negotiating partner — to withdraw from Gaza, it was given assurances from President George Bush in a letter to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on April 14, 2004, which said that the United States “appreciates the risks such an undertaking represents. I therefore want to reassure you of several points.” The letter went on to state:

First, the United States remains committed to my vision and to its implementation as described in the roadmap. The United States will do its utmost to prevent any attempt by anyone to impose any other plan. Under the roadmap, Palestinians must undertake an immediate cessation of armed activity and all acts of violence against Israelis anywhere, and all official institutions must end incitement against Israel. …

Second, there will be no security for Israelis or Palestinians until they and all states, in the region and beyond, join together to fight terrorism and dismantle terrorist organizations. The United States reiterates its steadfast commitment to Israel’s security, including secure, defensible borders and to preserve and strengthen Israel’s capability to deter and defend itself, by itself, against any threat or combination of threats.

As part of a final peace settlement, Israel must have secure and recognized borders. … In light of the new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete withdrawal to the armistice lines of 1949.

Several questions arise:

1)      What happened to the road map, with its assurances that no other plan would be imposed, after Bush left office? In addition, the road map was not supposed to be time-bound — only performance-bound.

2)      How do these assurances square with the assertions that are so frequently heard in think tanks and policy corridors in Washington, along the lines of: “We all know what the final parameters of an agreement will look like. A Palestinian state will, more or less, come to pass within the borders that were offered by Prime Minister Barak and President Bill Clinton to Yassir Arafat at Camp David on July 25, 2000.”

3)      How do President Bush’s assurances square with Secretary of State Clinton’s assertions of “not one more brick” of last summer, referring to construction in the Gush Etzion bloc near Jerusalem, when that area, undoubtedly, is “an already existing major Israeli population center”?

Israel has had to learn, over and over, that it needs secure and defensible borders in order to survive. She simply cannot depend on the assurances of the international community for her survival.

Just one Kassam rocket fired on Ben-Gurion International Airport, which is only several miles from Israel’s West Bank security fence, would halt all air traffic and isolate the tiny nation. A withdrawal from the West Bank would mean that every major Israeli population center would be within easy Kassam rocket range.

Israel was offered many assurances by the U.S. government — specifically, by the Bush administration — in return for its bold and internally gut-wrenching decision to give up Gaza and uproot and imperil its population.

It appears that those in power in the Obama administration either are ignoring the assurances or are suffering from selective amnesia.

Why would the Israelis, or any nation under those circumstances, want to further demonstrate that they are willing to take more “risks” for peace? Why, in heaven’s name, would they have any reason to trust the assurances of the international community — or of the United States, for that matter?

I am hopeful that a day will come when there will be a true, enduring peace, one that will last for generations. The real litmus test is what the leaders are teaching their people, through words and through actions. Based on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ and Prime Minister Salam Fayad’s attendance at the August 19, red-carpet funeral of Amin Al-Hindi, one of the senior planners of the 1972 Munich massacre of 11 Israeli Olympic athletes and coaches, that day is a very long way away.

There is good reason why the announcement of the resumption of negotiations later on this week, was met with little enthusiasm on both sides. Early on in the “peace process,” everyone knew the name of Nachshon Waxman, the first IDF soldier kidnapped and killed. By now, there have been thousands of “sacrifices for peace”: casualties on both sides of the divide, whose deaths many policy makers and world leaders wish to dismiss with a simple wave of the hand. They have become the disposable victims. Every one of them is someone’s parent, child, sibling, relative, or friend. These people have simply become annoying, anonymous statistics that interfere with grandiose visions of “Peace in Our Time”.

But the reality is that a reign of terror in the streets is the exact antithesis of peace and the millions of people in Israel who voted for Prime Minister Netanyahu, have indicated by their ballots that they believe that all these grandiose gestures for “Peace” has brought nothing but terror and grief.

“Peace” is a seductive term. It seeks to persuade great people of noble intentions to want to secure their place in history for finally putting an end to this seemingly intractable, atavistic conflict. But in the Middle East, peace is as thorny as a desert cactus. Its flowers may be beautiful, quite appealing from afar, but if you go too close, you very well might get stung.

After Lebanon’s August 3rd cross-border sniper attack that killed Israel Defense Forces Colonel Dov Harari and injured a second officer, the U.S. Congress, led by Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) and Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) ordered a hold placed on $100 million in military aid for the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF). The United States previous committed $400 million toward the modernization of the LAF, hoping that the aid might prove a force capable of reckoning with the superior military strength of Iranian proxy Hezbollah.

Despite Congress’s swift action, the U.S government’s official position, as posited by the State Department, has not changed. Writes the Israeli newspaper Haaretz:

According to State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley, Washington has no intention of re-evaluating its military relationship with Lebanon despite calls from Israel to do so.

“[U.S. financial aid to the army] allows the government of Lebanon to expand its sovereignty,” Crowley said. “We think that is in the interest of both of our countries and regional stability as a whole.”

The Lebanese have loudly protested the hold on U.S. military aid, with Defense Minister Elias Murr claiming that Lebanon will refuse aid that does not allow for arms to be used against Israel. Murr also said that the Lebanese soldier who killed Col. Harari was acting on orders from his superiors.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is ready to step into the void caused by Congress’s  hold on military aid. Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon promised to “cooperate with the Lebanese army in any area that would help the military in performing its national role in defending Lebanon.” Nor is this the first time Iran has floated the offer of military support for Lebanon. In May 2009, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah told followers,  “The Islamic Republic of Iran, and in particular Ayatollah Khamenei, will not hold back on anything that will help Lebanon be a strong and dignified state, and without conditions.”

The Iranian offer to intervene has some on Capitol Hill nervous that the hold on U.S. military aid to Lebanon, were it to become permanent, would increase Tehran’s influence over Beirut and leave Washington out in the cold.

This scenario ignores a central fact: The funds already provided have not enabled the LAF to force out Hezbollah and take real control of Lebanon, which is the stated U.S. goal. Instead, even while receiving aid, the LAF and the Lebanese government itself have been undergoing a process of “Hezbollization,” a phrase coined by Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Danny Ayalon, who recently warned, “If Hezbollah manages to take control of the army, we will have to treat [the army] in a completely different manner.”

Unfortunately, “Hezbollization” has been underway for some time. In August 2009, the strategic intelligence company Stratfor warned:

A reliable source in the Lebanese military with strong connections to Hezbollah has informed Stratfor that Hezbollah’s security chief, Wafiq Safa, has significantly increased his authority over all Shiite officers in the Lebanese army. Safa, who maintains close contact with the Lebanese army command, now apparently has a say in all appointments, promotions and deployments of these officers. Safa also allegedly has made arrangements with the Lebanese army command to be regularly informed of the army’s movements and plans.

In May 2008, during Hezbollah-initiated streetfighting in Beirut, there were allegations that LAF commanders were complicit with the Shiite militia’s plans, refusing to combat Hezbollah and instead taking over checkpoints for the anti-government fighters rather than supporting pro-government forces.

The rise of the pro-American March 14th movement during the Cedar Revolution indicated that Lebanon might be turning over a new leaf. Yet, despite the hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aid to Lebanon, we’ve seen Lebanese political figures turn away from America, towards Syria and Iran.

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri has traveled to Damascus to hobnob with Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, the man who ordered Hariri’s father, Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, murdered, and prominent March 14th political figures have defected to the Hezbollah-led March 8^th faction. Why? Journalist Lee Smith, author of The Strong Horse: Power, Politics and the Clash of Arab Civilizations, describes the defectors’ thinking:

When I spoke to him last fall [Lebanese Druze leader Walid], Jumblatt rationalized his tactics by pointing to how the international community, and especially the United States, seemed unwilling to defend its Lebanese allies when Hezbollah overran Beirut in May 2008. The decline of the March 14 alliance then accelerated with the new U.S. administration’s stated intentions to engage Syria.

As we wrote back in March, U.S. engagement with Syria would be the last nail in the coffin of the anti-Syrian Cedar Revolutionaries, with no appreciable gain. And how can we expect the LAF to fight off growing Hezbollah influence, when Obama Administration Deputy National Security Advisor John Brennan has called for reaching out to “moderates” within the group?

The Congressional hold on the $100 million in military aid to Lebanon ought to be made permanent. There is no sense in throwing good money after bad, and some things money simply can’t buy. Hezbollah’s continued infiltration and dominance of the LAF and the Lebanese political environment will continue apace, regardless of whether or not the U.S. provides military aid. No amount of U.S. funding will persuade the Lebanese government to be loyal to American interests, especially when U.S. policy is sending the opposite signals. We cannot honestly expect the Lebanese to stand up to Hezbollah, Syria and Iran at the same time the U.S. seeks engagement with them. All elements of U.S. power and policy must align on this issue if we are to have positive results.

We must understand the rising tide of Islamic fundamentalism that has washed over the hearts and minds of many throughout the Middle East. The Islamists are the bullies in the playground. The frail and impotent pro-American Lebanese faction will not be strengthened simply by showering the Lebanese army with money. Instead, our precious taxpayers’ dollars will be purchasing weapons for Hezbollah — at a time when we can ill-afford this, either economically or in inadvertently strengthening an Iranian proxy.

In today’s France, Jewish items are being burnt on the streets again. Not Jewish books by the Church, but Jewish food by the Mosque. Food items are publicly thrown out of stores and burnt on the street if they are imported from Israel or simply if the package indicates that they are kosher. At least, the French Government publicly condemned this phenomenon and Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux promised to prosecute the authors of what he called a criminal act of racial discrimination.

In Britain, by contrast, the court system has capitulated to the hatred and violence. A few weeks ago, a London court acquitted the members of a gang who broke into a weapons factory and mostly tore it down. Their defense line was that they suspected that this factory had sold weapons to Israel during the Cast Lead Operation. The Judge ruled that their version was acceptable and set them free without even fining them for the damage they had caused to the factory. Similarly, four militants were acquitted by a British court last week for breaking into a retail store of the Israeli company Ahava. In other words, you are allowed to destroy property (and maybe, tomorrow, to kill) based on political opinions or even based on the unproved suspicion that your victim is acting against your political opinions. This is the rule of intimidation and terror, not the rule of law.

In Norway, it is not the court system but the government itself which has become accomplice to Jihad. Norway’s Minister of Education Kristin Halvorsen was recently photographed in front of a demonstration sign saying that the US and Israel are the real Axis of Evil. Her boss, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, expressed public support for two doctors who helped Hamas during the Cast Lead Operation. Those two doctors are the authors of an anti-Semitic book that has been praised by Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr StØre. Norway’s State Secretary for Environment and International Development Ingrid Fiskaa has declared that the UN should bombard Israel.

Europe’s descent into dhimmitude is a tragedy for those who care about Western civilization and about freedom. Alas, even the shining city upon a hill on the other side of the Atlantic no longer seems to be a safe heaven. President Obama’s endorsement of the Ground Zero Mosque indicates that America is capitulating to cynicism in the name of freedom.

On the face of it, President Obama is right: As he said, because America is committed to religious freedom, Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in the United States, and that includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan.

President Obama, however, is missing two points.

The first point is that Islam rejects religious freedom and the founding principles of the US Constitution. If Islam was not a religion protected by the US Constitution, it would be banned because of its ideology of hatred and discrimination. No other religion has produced 9/11. True, Christianity is responsible for the Crusades and for the Inquisition. But Christianity has integrated some elements of modernity, and it no longer condones murder in the name of faith. Islam does.

The second point is that the proponents of the Ground Zero Mosque are being purposely offensive and cynical, and that they intend to set a historical precedent full of symbolical significance. By building an Islamic site and symbol a few yards away from the place where 3,000 people were murdered in the name of Islam, they are intentionally insulting the memory of these people and are pushing bad taste to its limits. But, mostly, they want to declare victory. That is no speculation or conspiracy theory: The mosque will be called Cordoba. Do you get it? Cordoba was the first European city conquered by a Muslim army (in 711). Then a mosque was built there, and the rest of Spain was conquered. This is an accepted Islamic practice, and the proponents of the Ground Zero Mosque are note even hiding their intentions.

Islam is using the values of the West to fight the West. Saying that is not politically correct, but it is true. 70% of Americans are against the Ground Zero Mosque precisely because they understand that this mosque is not about religious freedom. It is about the use of freedom to fight freedom and to progressively impose an ideology of hatred, discrimination, and violence. Either President Obama doesn’t see that –which is bad. Or he does but lacks the courage to say it –which is worse.

The American people should build a huge Church near Ground Zero and call it the Tours Church. Why Tours? Because Tours is the French city where Charles Martel defeated an invading Muslim army in 732, thus halting the Islamic expansion to Europe (actually, the battle was fought in an area between the cities of Poitiers and Tours, located in north-central France, near the village of Moussais-la-Bataille. But the battle is known as “Battle of Tours” in English and as the “Battle of Poitiers” in French. Incidentally, “Tours” happens to mean “towers” in French). By doing this, Americans will not only show that they too know History. They will also prove to themselves and to the world that they learned from it.

The recent announcement of a proposed $30 billion arms deal to Saudi Arabia, which includes 84 F-15E fighter jets, has once again raised questions on whether the United States is honoring its oft-stated commitment to help maintain Israel’s qualitative military edge (QME).

It has long been an unwritten staple of U.S. foreign policy, beginning with President Lyndon Johnson and continuing with every subsequent administration, to ensure that Israel maintains the QME over any likely combination of regional opponents. QME is not simply a question of who has the greatest numbers of guns, tanks, and planes, but, rather, a difficult-to-measure metric of superiority, which includes numbers, technological quality, and military training.

During the Cold War, QME was easier to calculate. Western-made weapons supplied to Israel were visibly superior to the Warsaw Pact weapons that the Soviets supplied to its Arab allies — enough so that Israel prevailed over multiple attackers, as in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when Israel was able to successfully defend itself from Egypt, Syria, and expeditionary forces from eight other Arab states, despite a surprise attack, the opponents’ overwhelming numbers, and attacks on two fronts.

Since the end of the Cold War, however, QME has become an increasingly elusive goal, especially as the United States has now become both Israel’s and the Arab states’ primary arms dealer, and as the focus has shifted from some combination of the Arab states versus Israel, to the United States, Israel, and some of the Arab states in opposition to the revolutionary Islamist bloc led by Iran, but including Hezbollah, Hamas, and, to some extent, Turkey.

This change in alignment began in the 1980s, and can be seen in the U.S.’ controversial sale of AWACs surveillance planes to Saudi Arabia. Pro-Israel advocates argued, unsuccessfully, that the advanced electronic intelligence gathering and coordination capabilities provided by AWACs would alter Israel’s QME vis-a-vis the Arab states. The U.S. then also sold Saudi Arabia, in 1992, the advanced F-15E fighter, which Israel also opposed unsuccessfully. Other advanced weapons sold to Saudi Arabia have included the M1A2 Abrams tanks and UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters.

Traditionally, the sales of arms to the Arab states have utilized less-technologically-advanced versions of the counterpart systems sold to Israel; however, increasingly, the United States has subsequently relented on providing the upgrades on these systems. For example, the U.S. initially refused to provide the Saudi F-15Es with the capability to deploy AMRAAMs (Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles), and also would not provide the Egyptian military with Apache helicopters that included the advanced “longbow” radar system. In both cases, the United States has made these systems available to both states and additional Arab states as well. Even to the extent that the U.S. is conscious about ensuring that Israel receives superior versions of military exports, when it comes to military conflict, as Stalin purportedly said,  “quantity has a quality all its own.”

According to the Congressional Research Service, between 1996 and 2003, the United States delivered $24.1 billion in defense articles and services to Saudi Arabia and $9 billion in defense-related items to Egypt. By comparison, Israel received $7.42 billion in deliveries in that period. Even the smaller Gulf nations, such as the United Arab Emirates, have gotten in on the act. The emirates are now the fourth largest arms purchaser in the world, purchasing both defensive systems, such as the Patriot missile defense battery, as well as fighter aircraft and other weapons that provide long-range force- projection capability.

To the extent that the Arab states and Israel are both aligned in opposition to Iran, it could perhaps be argued, as some do, that Israel’s QME is strengthened by such sales. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy wrote in an article, “U.S. Foreign Policy and Israel’s Qualitative Military Edge” (Jan. 2008):

With the anachronistic strategic bifurcation of the Middle East into Israel and a monolithic group of Arab states no longer analytically useful (if it ever was), traditional assumptions regarding QME no longer hold true. For example, the sale of sophisticated conventional weaponry to the Arab states no longer necessarily implies a corresponding reduction in Israel’s QME. Instead, such a sale is a double-edged sword, reducing Israel’s QME to the extent such Arab states continue to represent Israeli adversaries, but at the same time effectively increasing Israel’s QME by improving the military capability of states aligned with it in their desire to deter Iranian threats and aggression.

While this may be true in theory, it is certainly no comfort to the Israelis who deal in reality and who have experienced repeated cases in which weapons intended for use against Iranian proxies Hezbollah and Hamas instead were directed against Israel itself. Excellent examples include the arming of Fatah in the West Bank and the arming of the Lebanese army, given the August 3 border incident.

Lebanon has received $720 million in U.S. military aid since 2006. Since the border incident, in which Lebanese snipers killed Israeli Lt.-Col. Dov Harari and severely injured another officer, members of Congress have threatened to cut off military aid unless assurances are given that the weapons would not be used against Israel. Lebanon’s defense minister replied that Lebanon will not accept the arms unless they can be used against Israel, and Iran has pledged to take over the U.S.’s role.

Even regarding countries with which Israel has long been at peace, there are signs of trouble. As Middle East expert Barry Rubin reports, an overwhelming majority of Arabs view Israel, and not Iran, as the enemy. Eighty-eight percent of those polled consider Israel the enemy, compared to only 10 percent who consider Iran an enemy. While public opinion certainly does not make policy in any Arab regime, it becomes an important factor when considering the long-term effects of weapon sales on Israel’s QME. Israeli (and American) tacticians cannot afford to assume that the regime in power in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, or any other Arab states will remain in power forever. Nor is a regime change solely a long-term question. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is reportedly in very dire health, and the Islamist party Muslim Brotherhood is expected to play an important role in determining his successor. If a regime change occurs in Egypt or elsewhere, Israel has to presume that it will be once again in the cross-hairs.

This can best be seen in the case of Turkey. For many years, Turkey was one of Israel’s staunchest allies, after the United States. Turkish-Israeli military and intelligence cooperation efforts were broad and took place across changes of governments in both countries. Turkey is also a member of NATO and a U.S. ally, which provides Ankara with greater weapons technology and military training than those afforded to any other state in the Middle East.

Turkey has undertaken substantial military modernization since 1996, seeking to procure Western weapons to bring it on par with other NATO members. Turkey at times has met resistance to such purchases due to questions about its human rights treatment of Kurdish civilians, but it has not previously been considered a factor when considering Israel’s QME. Given the Turkish role in the Mavi Marmara incident, its increasing alignment with Iran, and military agreements with Syria, this must no longer be the case, even as Israeli military leadership continues to maintain that the Turkish military is not necessarily an enemy. “Ties with Turkey are important,” IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi said. “Not everything that is happening is acceptable to the [Turkish] military. We must also maintain ties in stormy periods.”

The Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera recently reported that Turkey may also be joining Iran in arming Hezbollah. Turkey could utilize its NATO armaments to substantially bolster Hezbollah’s military capability. In light of this new development, Turkey must be considered a threat to Israel’s QME in both the short and long term, especially as the Islamist AKP party continues to successfully purge the Turkish military and intelligence services and replace its secularist traditions with Islamist ideology.

Given the uncertain future of Turkey and its increased alignment with the revolutionary Islamist bloc led by Iran, Ankara’s continued involvement in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter project represents a deep concern. Michael Rubin at National Review writes:

Precisely because the F-35 will be the fighter the U.S. Air Force will most depend on to maintain air superiority in the decades ahead, the decision to sell F-35s to Turkey, whose future foreign policy orientation is in question, should be reviewed by appropriate Defense Department elements to assess possible loss of critical technology to states of concern. Congress should mandate that review, specify that it be completed within the year, and then make it available to the appropriate committees of Congress.

As the project stands, Turkey will be able to locally produce the F-35 under license at its Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) facilities, and is expected to order as many as 120 of the fifth-generation fighter jet. By comparison, Israel has suffered continued setbacks in its efforts to procure the F-35, with hang- ups including the need to install Israeli electronics as well as the need to be able to locally repair and refurbish the aircraft. Both are standard operating procedure for Israel, and an important part of how Israel maintains QME, so American resistance to these requests represents a disturbing new development. Israel hopes to eventually procure around 100 F-35s.

If Israel only having F-35-related procurement difficulties with the United States, it would have less to worry about, as other countries, including Britain and Australia, have faced similar difficulties with the F-35 program. However, according to a Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) report on Israel’s QME, the Obama administration has blocked sales of weapons to Israel, while allowing the same items to be acquired by Arab states. The JINSA report, “The Qualitative Military Edge: What is it and Where has it Gone” says:

Indeed, Israel’s request for six AH-64D Apache Longbow attack helicopters was blocked by the Obama Administration in June — the same time the Egyptian sale was approved. U.S. sources reported that the request was undergoing an “interagency review to determine whether additional Longbow helicopters would threaten Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip.” “During the recent war, Israel made considerable use of the Longbow, and there were high civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip,” a source close to the administration was reported to have said.

Additionally, other reports have alleged that Israel requests for other important military articles, including Harpoon anti-ship missiles and bunker-busting bombs, were being deliberately delayed. If so, this adds a new element of Israel’s struggle to maintain QME.

Israel’s QME remains as elusive as ever, even while the importance, both for Israel and the United States, of maintaining that edge continues to grow. In Lebanon, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and once-stalwart ally Turkey, America cannot assume that arms it provides will not be directed towards its Israeli ally.

U.S. law 2776, Reports and certifications to Congress on military exports, requires that the administration certify to Congress that any arms deal will not negatively affect Israel’s qualitative military edge:

Any certification relating to a proposed sale or export of defense articles or defense services under this section to any country in the Middle East other than Israel shall include a determination that the sale or export of the defense articles or defense services will not adversely affect Israel’s qualitative military edge over military threats to Israel.

If the Obama administration does not take into account these changing dynamics in the Middle East, no certification regarding Israeli’s QME provided to Congress could possibly be considered reliable, nor would it provide comfort to pro-Israel legislators wishing to vote for the Saudi F-15 deal or future Middle East arms deals.

Maen Areikat, chief of the PA Mission in Washington received an unexpected letter from the State Department announcing the upgrade, meaning that, among other things, the PLO flag will proudly fly in Washington during visits from PA figureheads.

This occurred, despite the fact that every single document signed between the Palestinians and the Israelis since Oslo, (including Oslo II, the Wye River Accords, the Hebron Accords, the Road Map etc.), has specified that the very first condition for further progress requires the end of all Palestinian incitement to hate and to kill, and to replace all of Israel with Palestine.  This means the end of the incitement in text books, in schools and summer camps, in sermons from the appointed imams, on television, newspaper and the radio.

This is the essential ingredient for peaceful coexistence. As long as generations are raised believing that their grandfather’s orchards and vineyards in Haifa will one day be theirs, if they are ready to martyr themselves to the cause, there will never be peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. The way that children are educated is much more fundamental to the cause of peace than issues such as the shape and contours of the map of Israel, the status of Jerusalem or the refugee issue, all which although thorny, can be ultimately resolved if there is truly the will to do so. The one necessary ingredient however, has got to be peaceful intentions between the two parties, in order for the peace treaty to exist long after the ink on the paper dries.  What is needed is a peace that will endure for generations, not just a temprary hudna, tetiah, or ceasefire, merely to allow time to regroup.

According to the meticulous documentation from MEMRI, Palestinian Media Watch, and the Committee to Monitor Incitement, there has not been one iota of progress on this score.

In fact, just two days after the receiving the news, this past Thursday, the Palestinian Authority announced that they will be naming a summer camp in Bethlehem, in the West Bank, near Ramallah, after Dalal Mughrabi, who is one of the worst terrorists in Israel’s history. Ms. Mughrabi, in 1978, high-jacked a bus and killed 37 civilians, 12 of them children.

This summer camp is run by the “Light of Generations Youth Association. ” Are these the sort of role models that they are trying to instill for future generations? If so, there will never be peace, irrespective of how many PLO flags fly throughout Washington.

There is a country in the Middle East accused of a brutal decades-long occupation. A country where a blockade causes starvation among a civilian refugee population. A country which violently cracks down on those who oppose it, shooting into crowds of protestors, while it receives substantial aid money from the United States as an ally in the War on Terror even as it undermines our war efforts by pursuing its own agenda.

We’re talking about Yemen, of course.

Who else did you think we meant?

The country of Yemen on the southern coast of the Arabian Peninsula has long been a simmering pot of violence.

One conflict is geographical, as much of largely secular southern Yemen (which was the independent Democratic People’s Republic of Yemen from 1967 until 1990) claims to suffer from an unwanted occupation from their more theocratic and traditional northern counterparts. This long conflict between the North and South has long been a sort of proxy between various influences in the region, whose participants included at one time or another: The Egyptians, Jordanians, Saudis, British, and the Soviets.

Another conflict is with the Iranian-backed Shiite Houthi rebels on the border of Saudi Arabia near the city of Sa’dah, stemming all the way from an ancient feud which goes all the way back to the rebellion of the Zaydi tribes in 1905.

A third, and much newer conflict is with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), although some assert that the Yemeni government’s stance on Al Qaeda is closer to cooperative then conflicting.

In November of 2009, the government of Saudi Arabia, which is allied with Yemen against the Shiite rebels, placed a naval blockade along the coast of the Houthi-occupied Northern Yemen. The goal, to prevent the Iranians from resupplying their proxy fighters. As former Ambassador Dore Gold pointed out during the now infamous Mavi Marmara incident, there was no outcry against Saudi Arabia or Yemen for this action.

Astoundingly, the purpose of the blockade, preventing Iranian arms from reaching the conflict, was identical to the purpose of the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza which receives harsh international criticism.

In Southern Yemen, a land blockade meant to put pressure on separatists there has caused dislocation, and dwindling food and medical supplies.  But unlike the Israeli checkpoints into Gaza, which permit around 15,000 tons of supplies to cross every week, there was no such humanitarianism on display in Yemen.  In January of this year, the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees asserted that as many as a quarter of a million refugees have been dislocated in Yemen due to fighting.

Yet unlike the Palestinians, which have a billion dollar a-year agency (UNWRA) devoted specifically for their needs, the Yemeni refugees were faced with cuts in food assistance, when donors could not be found. Those who did contribute, not surprisingly, were largely Western countries, including the United States and France, while neighboring Arab states, such as Saudi Arabia, have provided little or nothing.

Police in Yemen have opened fire on Southern protestors, and conducted torture and the Yemeni military has shelled Southern homes with little provocation. American and British flags are often present at such demonstrations of secessionist protestors, although they are generally being waved in solidarity, not burned as they routinely are in Gaza and the West Bank.

And while the world screamed in protest when Israeli bulldozers demolished Palestinian houses, either for lacking legal permits or for being the hiding places of smuggling tunnels, there was no similar outcry when the Saudis annihilated an entire village, including a mosque, in Northern Yemen during its intervention against the Houthi Rebels.

Yet despite its ham-handed and bloody tactics, American assistance continues to flow to the Yemeni government. Jonathan Schanzer who testified before Congress on the subject wrote in the Washington Times,

”Yemen’s willingness… to confront the serious threat Al Qaeda poses to the nation’s stability has been inconsistent in the past, but our recent intensive engagement appears to have had positive results.”

That was the State Department’s assistant secretary for Near Eastern Affairs, Jeffrey D. Feltman, at congressional hearings on Yemen earlier this month. He repeatedly assured the House Foreign Affairs Committee that he was “encouraged” by Yemen’s new attitude.

This encouragement convinced international donors in late January to pledge $5.2 billion in aid to Yemen. It also prompted Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates this week to more than double U.S. military aid to Yemen. Taxpayers will now fork over $150 million, up from last year’s $67 million.

This is a mistake. Mr. Gates and his advisers ignore Yemen’s terrible track record. If our aid was based on Yemeni performance, Yemen wouldn’t get a dime.

Schanzer goes on to point to the repeated steps by the Yemenis to undermine our war effort against Al Qaeda, including routinely releasing dangerous terrorists from prison.

Part of the reason Yemen may be so ready to release wanted terrorists from its prisons, is that the government may use Al Qaeda terrorists as mercenaries in its fight against the Shiites, and as a tool in order to extort additional aid money from the West. From Jane Novak, writing at the Long War Journal:

Musid Ali, Director of the Yemeni American Anti-Terrorism Center, in commenting for this article said the Yemeni regime is responsible for the recent attacks, a serious charge as several foreign tourists were killed. The attacks, he said, “are a result of the good relationship between the regime and al Qaeda.” The purpose of the attacks is to “make the west in general and the US in particular believe that Yemen is an ally of the US against al-Qaeda, but what is clear to the Yemeni people is the strong relationship between al Qaeda and the regime.” As such, the counterterror assistance provided by the US in terms of funding, training, and equipment has been used “only against the Yemen people.”

Indeed the Yemeni government itself is suspected of being riddled with Al Qaeda supporters, who pass information from the Yemeni government to AQAP, and who help facilitate jail breaks, and attacks. Yet the United States continues to provide military assistance, including training, arms and munitions to the Yemeni government, with no real clear assurances whether such assistance is helping further U.S national interests such as fighting Al Qaeda, or the Iranian backed insurgency, or whether it is being used to target southern political opposition, under the guise of fighting terror.

The importance of Yemen in the global war on terror has escalated since American-born, Yemeni cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki fled there. Al-Awlaki was the confidante and spiritual mentor of many terrorist plotters, including three of the 9/11 hijackers, The Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan, Chrismas Day “underwear bomber,” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, as well as inspiration for Time Square failed bomber Faisal Shazhad.

Yet incredibly $150 million in military aid does not even buy the United States the ability to extradite al-Awlaki from Yemen, in the event he should be captured. Yemeni authorities say instead that Awlaki will be tried in Yemen for terrorists’ acts he may have committed there, even though Yemen’s track record of keeping terrorists behind bars is abysmal at best, and conducting jihad against foreigners outside of Yemen is not even a crime, according to Yemeni law.

This is not to say that regardless of the Yemeni government’s actions, Yemen is not a crucial battleground in the war on terror, or that the United States should cease to be engaged here. On the contrary, the area is vital to both regional and American security. The region is vital for several reasons, as outlined by former EMET Speaker of the Truth, Middle East analyst Walid Phares. In this video lecture, Phares outlines the strategic interests at play for both Al Qaeda and Iran. From Yemen, Al Qaeda is pushing to acquire coastal territory which will enable it to link up with Al Qaeda affiliate Al-Shabaab in Somalia and cut off the Red Sea. It is also seeking a base of operations for movement into the crucial region of Saudi Arabia where Mecca and Medina, the two holiest sites in Islam are located. Similarly the Iranians seek to utilize the Houthi rebels to also control the Red Sea, linking up with Iranian naval bases in Eritrea and to help foment trouble among Shiite dominated Saudi provinces.

Yemen provides a particularly interesting case study because it contains within itself, three of the primary conflicts which exist throughout the Middle East. One, the conflict between the expansionist revolutionary Shiites of Iran, and their proxies, against their Sunni Arab counterparts. Secondly, the conflict of traditional versus secular Arabs, in Yemen depicted geographically between North and South. Finally it depicts the conflict between Global Jihad and revolutionary Islamism, in the form of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in their efforts to infiltrate and overthrow the traditional governments of the region, especially Saudi Arabia.

None of which, it is worth adding, have anything at all to do with Israel.

Meanwhile, within Yemen, the government and its allies the Saudis engage in all the behaviors which Israel is accused of doing, but does not actually do. They have implemented a blockade, as Israel has (no one has complained about the Saudi blockade). They do not permit humanitarian supplies to reach the citizens of an area they are accused of occupying (while Israel does). The U.N actually downgrades its assistance to Yemeni victims (while Palestinians have an entire agency devoted to them). They wantonly destroy civilian homes (Israel practices tight controls, including the “knock on the door” policy, warning terrorists and their families to depart before even valid military targets are destroyed). Yemen receives economic and military hand outs even as it fails to provide measurable results for American National security (Israeli intelligence and military sharing has provided numerous advantages to the United States, including in the form of intelligence against terrorists, IED detection and disabling technology, and many others.)

In this sense, Yemen shows us the double standard imposed by the world, which deems actions performed by Israel as  bad, yet the same actions conducted by Arab states are deemed morally neutral, or at least, worthy of ignoring.

In reality solving the three conflicts which make up Yemen’s troubled history, would do more for regional, and indeed international security, than any number of peace agreements between the Palestinians and Israelis.

Let us point out that far greater Yeminis have been killed over the many years of in the internecine conflicts between the Yeminis and themselves than have Palestinians or Israelis.  Barak Salmoni, author of the Rand Corporation study Regime and Periphery in Northern Yemen: The Huthi Phenomenon, calls Yemen, “longest running conflict in the Middle East with 25,000 to 50,000 casualties.”

Yet, for far too many people, Middle East Peace remains synonymous with the conflict between the Palestinians and Israel.

It is essential that   people understand the real root causes of Middle East conflict, as demonstrated in a single country, Yemen. Many of these root causes point to something endemic within the sociological norms and culture of Arabic society.

I was afraid it had been swept up in the current tidal wave of moral equivalency and political correctness and been replaced by a nation where cozying up to despots and dictators seems to be more politically expedient than long lasting alliances between friends who share common values.

In a long, personal struggle for one of my newest and dearest friends, the America that stands for freedom against tyranny triumphed this week.

At least in the following case, the America that I believe in has not disappointed me. However, the battle between the two America’s with two very distinct , conflicting philosophies remains strong, and we have to be vigilant about preserving the sort of America that many, if not most Americans of good will want to believe in.

My newest and dearest friend is Mosab Hassan Yousef. Mosab was born to a family of aristocracy within the world of radical Islam.  His grandfather was a radical Imam in Ramallah, his father a founder of Hamas.

When Mosab was 18, he participated in a youthful operation that landed him in an Israeli jail for many months. It was while serving out time in an Israeli prison that this extremely intelligent and idealistic young man was first forced to confront the sadism and cruelty within Islamic society. This is because Israel allows prisoners within the various terrorist organizations, (Hamas, Fatah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad), to live amongst themselves and develop their own internal power structures.

From a neighboring cell, Mosab could hear the constant nocturnal screams of Hamas members who were from poor, rural or otherwise not well connected families, being tortured as “Israeli collaborators” by those who were better connected. He realized that his tortured Hamas brothers had been singled out arbitrarily, and came to the conclusion that there is a deeply rooted sadism and cruelty within Palestinian society. He was also impressed by the relative compassion and humanity of his Israeli captors.

Mosab further concluded that Hamas has nurtured and exploited this sadism and cruelty for their own political muscle and hegemonic aspirations. This cruelty and sadism, according to Mosab, who has lived within the world of Islam, and is in a position to know a great deal more about it than those of us in the West, has its roots directly within the Koran.

It was from within the walls of an Israeli prison that Mosab then decided that there was something fiercely wrong with the society in which he was raised and nurtured, in which everyone he knew and loved  deeply had lived.  He began to secretly work for the Shin Bet, simply to save lives, irrespective of whether or not they were Israeli or Palestinian.  A while after that, he secretly converted to Christianity.

This was not an easy decision for the young man to have made. Mosab still feels an empathic love for his family and the people living within the culture in which he was reared.  He doesn’t blame Muslims. He simply feels that they have been misled and exploited by the teachings of the Koran, and that according to his words, (not mine), “The God of the Quran is a God of hate…I chose a God of love over a God of hate.”

For almost ten years, Mosab worked hand in hand with his Shin Bet handler, Gonen Ben Yitzchak, developing an extremely close friendship. They describe one another as “my brother”. In Fact, Gonen Ben Yitzchak , himself, has acted quite heroically, risking criminal prosecution by coming to the United States and revealing his identity publicly in order to vouch for his friend. (This is something that goes against the legal guidelines of the Shin Bet, and although Gonen has been out of the Shin Bet for four years, the statute extends to five years since retirement.)

According to Ben Yitzchak, “Mosab gave us an insight into the workings of Hamas we would never have had without him. He saved hundreds of lives, both Israeli and Palestinian…He didn’t care if it was in imam or a Knesset member, as long as he saved lives.” (Although Mosab modestly interrupts him and says,  “Don’t exaggerate..I know I thwarted dozens of suicide attacks…but we will never know exactly how many lives would have been killed…so we can’t say exactly how many I saved”)

It was Mosab’s work that had led to the capture of a Hamas terrorist and his handler, just as his handler had given the would-be- bomber  his suicide belt in the Manara Square , Mosab had warned the Shin Bet, who immediately moved in to arrest them.

In another operation five Hamas terrorists came knocking at Mosab’s door because their contact had been arrested, and had figured someone from his family would naturally want to help them. They requested money, tea and a ride to a Hamas safe house. He gave them what they had asked for and then proceeded to tip off the Shin Bet, and thwarted another suicide explosion.

Mosab had been responsible for capturing and bringing to justice the Hamas terrorists who had been responsible for the Hebrew University Cafeteria bombing of July 31, 2002, in which four Israelis and five Americans had been killed.

In 2007, Mosab began to grow tired of constantly living a life of duplicity and of struggling with profound conflicting loyalties and loves.  He came to America on a tourist visa and sought political asylum.

It is an absolutely categorical fact that if Mosab had been returned to anywhere in the Middle East that would have been the equivalent of immediately sentencing him to the death penalty. That is because he had committed three cardinal sins, according to Islam: 1.) Collaborating with Israel, 2.) Converting to Christianity and 3.) Publicly criticizing Islam.

It is an also categorically undeniable fact that heroic young men like Mosab would be terrific role models for anyone growing up within the tyranny of radical Islam. He is living proof that an intelligent person can transcend the culture of incitement and propaganda to hate and to kill, and to penetrate through to the core of what makes us all truly human. He chose a path of love for the sanctity of human life, irrespective of the accident of one’s birth.

In 2009, Mosab came out with a book, “Son of Hamas” documenting his incredible life’s story.

Unfortunately, some people from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with either tunnel vision or another agenda entirely, (which we shall later discuss), had read discreet passages from Mosab’s book and had taken them entirely out of context.

Mosab’ s attorney, Steven A. Seick had reported that the lead attorney from the DHS that was working on Mosab’s case , Kerri Calcador had sworn that if Mosab would have won his case on June 30^th, the DHS would appeal, and continue to do so.

She said that this was not her own decision, “but came from orders from above, directly from Washington.”

Why had there been so much effort to deny political asylum to someone so incredibly worthy of it?

Some investigative journalists, such as Richard Miniter have traced the difficulties that Mosab encountered with the DHS back to the time that Arif Alikhan had been appointed by President Obama as a leading official in the Department of Homeland Security.

Mr. Alikhan had recently spoken at a fundraiser for the Muslim Public Affairs Council, (MPAC) an organization with close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. One of the founders of MPAC is Dr.Muhar Hathout . Dr Hathout credits Hassan al Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, a radical Islamist organization that was founded in Egypt in 1928, as being his primary teacher .[1]

Hassan al Banna is famous for the two extremely revealing quotes:  “It is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet.”  [2]

“God is our purpose, the Prophet our leader, the Quran our Constitution, Jihad our way, and dying for God our Supreme Objective.”[3]

MPAC along with CAIR, (The Council for American Islamic Relations), have become very excellent in the art of concealing their true intentions, and have masqueraded themselves as simply American Muslim Civil Rights Organizations.

Yet neither of these two groups have ever met a terrorist incident that they have not blamed on the root cause, which is the existence of the state of Israel.

Neither would ever blame the true root cause: the constant incitement for hatred of the Jew and the Christian, and the elimination of the state of Israel and its replacement with the state of Palestine, which Mosab personally experienced growing up as a young Muslim growing up in Ramallah and attending UNRWA schools that use every opportunity to preach such hatred.

It is certainly understandable that someone who was the featured speaker at an MPAC dinner would be threatened by the surgically incisive statements that Mosab Hassan Yousef dared to utter about Islam, coming out of the mouth of someone who had personally lived it and experienced it.

We seem to forget that radical Islam, the Islam of Hassan al Banna of the Muslim Brotherhood, declared war on the United States on September 11, 2001, and that  American GI’s are dying today at the hands of radical Islamists in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Our embracement of political correctness and moral equivalency tends to blindside us to the very pernicious philosophy that is at the very root of many of the organizations such as CAIR and MPAC that many Americans would like to embrace as “mainstream”.

It is with a great deal of gratitude to some remarkable individuals, such as James Woolsey, former director of the CIA, Rep Doug Lamborn of Colorado and twenty one other congressmen, and Tzachbai Hanegbi, Director of the Knesset Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee who wrote letters on Mosab’s behalf. All of this might have contributed to the fact that on June 30^th at the hearing concerning Mosab in San Diego, his request for asylum in this country was granted by the government.

What worries me profoundly, however, is that the America that was born out of a deep understanding of the philosophical foundations of Western liberalism, ensuring religious liberties for all, is being eclipsed by an America that allows people into positions of great authority who might, at best, simply overlook or ignore the odious teachings of the founders of organization such as MPAC or CAIR, or at worst, secretly concur with them.

If we do not remain vigilant, we are in danger of losing the America which has been that beacon of religious freedom for the generations of immigrants that brought many of our ancestors to these shores.

In the meantime, however, let’s savor the sweet victory of my newest and dearest friend, someone whose friendship I will always cherish, as a victory not only for Mosab, personally, but for the America that most of us love.

[2] Ibid.  pg 5.

[3] Ibid.  pg 5.

Mosab has told us that it was thanks to the efforts of EMET that the government decided to dismiss its case and grant him political asylum.

EMET is enormously grateful to all those who played a part in standing with Mosab during this time, and helping the Department of Homeland Security come to understand what a grave error deporting Mosab would have been.

A special thank you is due to Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO), who authored a letter to DHS secretary Janet Napolitano, co-sponsored with 21 other Representatives. We wish to thank each and every representative who added their names to this call for sanity and to do right by a man who has stood up to terrorism and hatred, at a great personal cost.

Thanks also to former Ambassador R. James Woolsey, who also wrote a letter on Mosab’s behalf, and to all those who called, wrote, or emailed their congressional representatives and the White House on behalf of seeing justice done.

By. Emmanuel Navon

René Descartes’ Discours de la Méthode opens with one of the most nonsensical sentences ever written: « Common sense is the most evenly shared thing in the world. »  Then there is Immanuel Kant, who wrote in his Zum ewigen Frieden that republics are less likely to go to war than monarchies, even though the French Republic had declared war on the British Monarchy two years before Kant published his essay.  The European rationalist mind can have it wrong, it seems.

So should we cheer at Europe’s renewed fondness for irrationality?  One only has to remember the political avatars of Nietzsche and Heidegger to answer no.  Or, playing the smart aleck à la Foucault and Derrida, I would say that the answer is both yes and no -but mostly no.

What I mean by “Europe’s renewed fondness for irrationality” is a tendency to abandon reason out of fear.  Most European politicians are no longer willing to resist the demands of their expanding and wahhabi-educated constituencies -whether it’s establishing sharia courts, wearing the burqa, or treating Israel as the enemy of the Prophet.  A new political party, “Sharia for Belgium,” intends to impose sharia law in that country and then in the rest of Europe.  Those Europeans who are not happy with sharia, says the party’s founder, will be welcome to leave.

In his new book A State beyond the Pale: Europe’s Problem with Israel, Robin Shepherd argues that Europe should be berated for “lacking a moral compass, for hypocrisy, wickedness and appeasement” and for “succumbing to an obsession, of giving in to irrationalism and anti-intellectualism.”  Focusing on anti-Israeli sentiment inside the mainstream of the public discourse, the book argues that Israel has been pushed beyond the pale of polite society across Europe and that, as a result, Europe is putting itself beyond the pale by descending into bigotry.

Shepherd’s book is more analytical than Oriana Fallaci’s passionate La Forza della Ragione, but its bottom line is similar: Europe’s irrational attitude toward Israel is the symptom of a cultural and intellectual surrender.

There are a few résistants.  José Mariá Aznar’s newly founded Friends of Israel Initiative is not altruistic.  It simply understands, to use Aznar’s own words, that “If Israel goes down, we all go down.”  There is also hope that sane Muslims will speak out and be brave.  Dr. Tawfik Hamid, for example, has become a forceful and outspoken advocate of Islam’s embrace of rationality and tolerance.

Europeans simply need to stop being intimidated.  True, Descartes and Kant sometimes wrote nonsense like everyone else, but reason is what shall set Europe free.  After all, the Discours de la Méthode’s most famous sentence (“cogito ergo sum”) could also be understood as a warning: If you stop thinking, you’re dead.