“47 years ago the [Fatah] revolution started.  Which revolution?  The modern revolution of the Palestinian people’s history.  In fact, Palestine in its entirety is a revolution, since [Caliph] Umar came [to conquer Jerusalem, 637 CE], and continuing today, and until the End of Days.  The reliable Hadith (tradition attributed to Muhammad), [found] in the two reliable collections, Bukhari and Muslim, says: “The Hour [of Resurrection] will not come until you fight the Jews.  The Jew will hide behind stones or trees.  Then the stones or trees will call: ‘Oh Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him…”

-PA Mufti Muhammad Hussein, PA TV (Fatah), Jan. 9, 2012

There is nothing particularly surprising about the above statement, made so recently by the Palestinian Authority (PA) funded Palestinian Mufti, who is the leading Sunni Muslim religious authority in the PA.  In fact, it is well representative of the state of current Palestinian society (which I described more fully in a previous column), with its government sponsorship of hate against Israelis and Jews, its promotion of terrorism, its production of murderous children’s television shows, and even its advocacy of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.  Unfortunately, beginning in 1994, with the removal of Israeli forces from the Palestinian areas, the governing Palestinian group Fatah received control the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, (although the Hamas terror group seized control of Gaza in 2007).

Palestinian leaders could have taken advantage of their new power to develop the economy, produce jobs, provide support for its disadvantaged, and develop an agricultural base.  Instead the Palestinian leaders cancelled democratic elections,  cracked down on free speech and  religion, tortured and killed their own people, and funneled money into personal bank accounts or into support for terrorism against Israel.

A distinction can be made between Fatah and Hamas. Fatah, subsidized by the U.S., international organizations, Europe, the Gulf States, and even Israel,  is the more secular of the two even though it continues to fund Muslim religious events demonizing Jews, and paying the salary for the anti-Semitic Palestinian Authority Mufti. Fatah continues to glorify terrorism on television, including praising vicious murderer of an Israeli family, including two children and an infant.

This ought not come as a surprise, since for forty years Fatah was the personal fiefdom of arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat, the man who introduced the world to airline skyjackings.  (Unholy Alliance, David Horowitz, pg.145) Arafat spent much of his diplomatic career walking away from peace deals that would have given him a viable Palestinian state, the very thing he claimed to want, when speaking to a western audience. Under their current leader, Holocaust denier Mahmoud Abbas, Fatah has continued to avoid any final settlement of the peace process. Just this month, the Abbas appointed terrorist Mahmoud Awad Damra to serve as a PA official, despite his recent release from jail for attacks which killed Israelis and Americans. Last month, Abbas pushed for a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood in the UN, in an effort to bypass bilateral peace negotiations and recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.

The other ruling Palestinian regime is the Islamic fundamentalist Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip. Hamas is the Palestinian chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), which now dominates the Egyptian parliament. Hamas and the Brotherhood’s goal is to implement Sharia (Islamic law), with all of its mandated 7^th century punishments including flogging, stoning and amputation. Hamas has a strong claim of legitimacy, having defeated Fatah in Palestinian elections in 2006, and because its genocidal covenant is strongly grounded in traditional Islamic anti-Semitism and contains the exact hadith uttered by the PA‘s Mufti. In fact, it is so identified with virulent anti-Semitism that the foreign travels of its leadership have led to mass demonstrations throughout the Arab world reminiscent of the demonstrations 1930’s Nazi Germany.  Hamas is led by a triumvirate of terrorists: Khaled Mashal, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, and Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar. Mashal has praised Osama Bin Laden and condemned Bin Laden’s killing. Al-Zahar has reiterated that Hamas will “never give up its armed struggle against the Zionist enemy.” Nor is such talk likely to end, as each member of the leadership attempts to outdo the other in demonstrations of their terrorist credentials and Jew-hatred in an effort to emerge victorious in an internal Hamas power struggle.

Because of these factors, Hamas manages to be even more repressive and destructive to the hopes of a stable Palestinian society than Fatah. When the Israelis removed their settlements from the Gaza strip in 2005, it was Hamas which led the Gazans in riots to destroy the agricultural industry Israel left behind. Hamas has spent its three years cracking down on the rights of women in the Gaza Strip, harassing its tiny Christian community into exile, and suppressing free speech.  There has been some growing resentment of the authoritarian and fundamentalist Hamas among young Palestinian Muslims. As a result Hamas has resorted to conducting a “charm offensive” in Gaza to win back public support.

Recently, “President” Abbas and Khaled Meshaal met to discuss reconciliation between the two groups. They agreed to hold presidential and legislative elections by May of 2012, and to initiate some confidence-building measures. But so far negotiations have not resolved the issue of forming a unity government, nor who would lead it. Hamas remains adamant that the West Bank’s Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, popular in the West for his statements in favor of developing a more economically advanced and democratic Palestinian entity, be removed, while Abbas is pretending to support him to keep the foreign aid flowing.  If the two sides do eventually come together, it will be to produce a government which shares the values which unite the two parties, namely, terrorism against Jews, government corruption, and opposition to free speech.

Until there is a fundamental change in the nature of Palestinian society, negotiations will never succeed. All moderation will continue to be “English-only” meant to purchase western aid to facilitate corruption and terror.  Palestinian leaders will continue to compete with each other over the support of a Palestinian public, in order to show that they are the party that best represents the principle, “there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”

With Republican Congressman Ron Paul coming in a close third in the Iowa presidential caucus, we must look seriously at his foreign policy views, particularly on the Middle East and Israel, and ask whether such views are suitable for a commander-in-chief charged with the security of the United States during a period of conflict with a determined Islamic enemy.

Much attention has been paid, since Paul’s strong showing in Iowa, to statements issued in Rep. Paul’s newsletter publications. Many of these newsletters contain material on domestic matters (such as race relations) that may be objectionable, but one of the most troubling statements on the foreign policy front relates to credence given to a conspiracy theory blaming the Mossad for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. From an April 1993 edition of the newsletter:

It was only a matter of a few days after the World Trade Center bombing before Mohammad A. Salameh was arrested. Is he guilty? Who knows? Recall that shortly after the Kennedy assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald was apprehended and accusations were made. Whether it was a setup by the Israeli Mossad, as a Jewish friend of mine suspects, or was truly retaliation by the Islamic fundamentalists matters little.

This statement shows a susceptibility to conspiratorial thinking, which, while contrary to any good analysis, is particularly dangerous when considering the Middle East. The Arab world is fraught with all manner of ludicrous and delusional conspiracy theories about the Jews and Israel, and that a potential American Commander-in-Chief would give them any credence is deeply troubling. Even if, as Rep. Paul claims, he was not the author of the newsletters in question, then at the very least he hired and supervised, or failed to supervise, individuals who maintained these beliefs. Anyone who genuinely considers the possibility that Israel would intentionally bomb an American civilian building for the sole purpose of framing Islamic terrorists, cannot ever be an ally of or, indeed, even neutral in regards to Israel.

The other interesting element of the quote is the use of the word “retaliation.” The assumption that any act of terrorism committed by Muslims must be the result of U.S. behavior, and, therefore, justifiable is a hallmark of Paul’s policies and is deeply troubling. A perfect illustration occurred in Paul’s remarks during the December 15th Iowa Republican debate. “… [T]o say all Muslims are the same is dangerous talk,” he stated. “They don’t come to kill us because we are free and prosperous. Do they go to Switzerland and Sweden? I mean that’s absurd.”

Of course all Muslims are not the same. No one is suggesting that they are. Paul’s claim that Muslims want to harm us “because we are bombing them” ignores the reality that Islamists have deeply-held religious and ideological beliefs that mandate jihad against non-believers, the spread of Sharia, and the dominance of an Islamic caliphate. We know this because not just Islamic terrorists, but Muslim jurists, thinkers and policy-makers say so routinely, as evidenced by a wide collection of Arabic-language video and transcripts available from translation services like MEMRI.

Ironically the Swiss Federal Department of Justice and Police recognizes better than does Rep. Paul the reality of jihadist motivations, writing in a 2006 report summary, that Switzerland was both home to, and a target for, Islamist terrorists.

Furthermore, which Muslims exactly does Paul claim the United States bombed prior to the 1993 “retaliation” bombing?

Paul blames Israel for much of the faults of the Middle East and, according to former Paul staffer Eric Dondero, has privately expressed his wish that Israel not exist. Dondero writes,

He wishes the Israeli state did not exist at all. He expressed this to me numerous times in our private conversations. His view is that Israel is more trouble than it is worth, specifically to the American taxpayer. He sides with the Palestinians, and supports their calls for the abolishment of the Jewish state, and the return of Israel, all of it, to the Arabs.

Paul has attempted to create the impression that his stance on Israel is motivated not by anti-Zionism, but, rather, by a principled position on independent national sovereignty. He points to his voting against condemning Israel for the 1981 Osirak reactor bombing, and claims that our “interference” with Israel is to their detriment. Said Paul in a November presidential debate in Washington,

We interfere with them when they deal with their borders. When they want to have peace treaties, we tell them what they can do because we buy their allegiance and they sacrifice their sovereignty to us. And then they decide they want to bomb something, that’s their business, but they should, you know, suffer the consequences. When they bombed the Iraqi missile site, nuclear site, back in the ’80s, I was one of the few in Congress that said it’s none of our business and Israel should take care of themselves.

EMET believes that a close American-Israeli security alliance is to the benefit of both nations, but we understand that one could make the opposing argument that Israel is burdened by its American alliance in good faith. However Paul’s stance is disingenuous, as evidenced by his remarks on the House floor on Israel’s Operation Cast Lead invasion of Gaza that began in December 2008. Paul claimed that Hamas was “encouraged by and really started by Israel,” much as he blames the U.S. for the rise of Al Qaeda. In interviews with Iranian state television, Press TV, he described Gaza as a “concentration camp.” Far from wanting to free Israel to see to its own national security, Paul seizes upon occasions when Israel acts to ensure its security, as in Operation Cast Lead, to condemn it and, by extension, the United States.

Paul prefers pat answers that blame America and Israel to conducting serious investigation of the motivations of our self-declared enemies. Indeed Paul’s belief in American-centric grievance terrorism denies agency to other countries and cultures. He refuses to take into account any historical, cultural or political developments prior to America’s rise to superpower status. Paul’s only solution is a return to American isolationism as a foreign policy.

Paul believes that if Washington ceases to support and ally itself with the Jewish state, then a large number of America’s problems with the Muslim world will disappear. But suppose that a President Paul initiated a foreign policy in which the U.S. government didn’t defend Israel in the United Nations Security Council, recognized “Palestine” as a nation, called on Israel to negotiate with that state, and stopped the sale of American weapons or technology to the Jewish state. Would these actions prompt the Islamist or Muslim worlds to reward us with better behavior?

Certainly, there is plenty of evidence to suggest they would not, just by examining the past three years. President Barack Obama is markedly less supportive of Israel than was President George W. Bush. Obama made improved relations with the Muslim world a cornerstone of his foreign policy, as delineated in his Cairo declaration in 2009. Based on the Paul logic, positive results should come from the Muslim world, but we see no evidence of its becoming more supportive of the United States. Have the Palestinians been more willing to compromise? No. The Palestinian Authority seems to be approaching the even more extreme and radical group, Hamas, with which it now plans to merge. Also, the PA has unilaterally pushed for statehood recognition by the United Nations, an effort the Obama Administration has opposed. And has the rest of the Muslim world become more cooperative with the United States? Not at all. Pakistan hid Osama Bin Laden until we found and killed him, and it continues to support the Taliban in Afghanistan. Saudi Arabia still produces textbooks and religious materials filled with anti-Christian and anti-Jewish bigotry. And Iran still pushes ahead with nuclear weapons production.

We have every reason to suspect, therefore, that the Middle East’s reaction to an even softer Ron Paul approach to diplomacy would be greater intransigence.

Paul pretends that this reality does not exist or that it does not matter. Osama bin Laden should not have been killed, under Paul’s reasoning. Iran is not trying to acquire a nuclear bomb, he claims, and if it were, that’s Teheran’s choice. “If I were an Iranian, I’d like to have a nuclear weapon, too, because you gain respect from them,” he told Iowans.

Paul’s foreign policy has a seductive attraction. If all the troubles America endures are because of her actions, then ceasing these actions is a cure-all. But this is simply not so. A retreat to some mythical isolationist foreign policy is as impossible as it is undesirable. It would cede regional hegemony to national and non-state actors who have their own innate motivations for wishing death to those they label “infidels,” and make the world, America, and Israel, infinitely more insecure.

I have been told by an Israeli official that all have been involved in acts of terrorism  and that some, no doubt, were involved in the murder and maiming of American citizens. This is beyond infuriating to me, not because American blood is any redder than Israeli blood, but because American laws for dealing with such matters have been completely ignored.

The United States’ anti-terrorism statute, passed in 1990, states that any time an American has been killed or wounded in a terrorist attack anywhere around the globe, the federal government has the right to seek out the suspect, and bring him or her to these shores to face justice.

Among the first wave of released prisoners in the Shalit deal was Ahlam Tamimi. On August 9, 2001, Ms. Tamimi planned and helped to execute the bombing of the Sbarro’s pizzeria in the center of Jerusalem. We know that at least two American citizens were killed during this attack: Judith Greenbaum, 31, from Passaic, New Jersey, and Malki Roth, 15, from Queens, New York.

In a taped interview that Ms. Tamimi gave while in prison, she confessed to the crime and said that if given the opportunity, she would not hesitate to do it again. When told that her act was responsible for the deaths of eight children, a smile of deep satisfaction came across her face.

Ms. Tamimi is currently in Jordan, where she is widely recognized as a hero and is on the lecture circuit. The United States has an extradition treaty with Jordan, and should demand her extradition.

On September 8, 2003, an emergency room doctor at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, David Applebaum, originally from Cleveland, Ohio, took his daughter Nava, out for a father-daughter dinner at Café Hillel in the capital’s trendy Emek Refaim neighborhood. The dinner was special: Nava was to be married the very next day. David was known to be a quintessential mensch, always the first to arrive in the emergency room after a disaster or suicide bombing, even when he wasn’t “on call.”  When the suicide bomber entered Café Hillel and blew himself up, everyone wondered why David hadn’t come running immediately to the emergency room to help out. That was because David and Nava were among the dead. Ibraham Dar Musa, who planned the Café Hillel bombing,  was one of those released last October.

There are approximately 54 cases of American citizens who have been killed and 83 of Americans who have been injured by Palestinian terrorists since the singing of the Oslo Accords. The United States government seems to be treating them as invisible, disposable Americans, mere pawns on a political chessboard.

On May 8, 2001, my friends Sherri and Seth Mandell, originally from Silver Spring, Maryland, suffered an unspeakable loss. Their son, Koby, and his friend, Yoseph Ishran, decided to play hooky from school. When they did not return home that evening, their families were incredibly worried. Koby’s and Yoseph’s bodies were found the next day, brutally dismembered, in a cave outside their families’ community of Tekoa, Israel. The boys had been stoned to death.

In those days, I had been working on a law to give the Justice Department primary responsibility for rendering justice on terrorists who had killed American citizens overseas. Prior to that, the State Department had handled such matters. I felt that the State Department was primarily concerned with politics and diplomacy, not justice. By changing the address, we had felt there might be a greater chance of securing justice for victims and their families that wasn’t contaminated by diplomatic or political factors.

I had called Sherri Mandell while she was sitting shiva. What do you say to a woman who has just lost her first-born son, her bechor, so brutally? So, I told her about the bill that I was working on, and asked if she would like it to be named for Koby.

I will never forget her response. In fact, her voice is still ringing in my ears. She said, with a tinge of joy, “I could just see Koby jumping up and down in heaven to have a law named after him.”

I thought to myself, “Sweetheart, it is a long way before a bill becomes a law.” I vowed to myself that I would not rest until it happened. The bill was signed into law by President George W. Bush in December 2004.

In May 2005, the Office of Victims of Overseas Terrorism was opened in the Department of Justice. The office lists on its website that it was established “to ensure that the investigation and prosecution of terrorist attacks that result in deaths and/or injuries of American citizens overseas remain a high priority within the Department of Justice.”

The office takes special credit for the seizure and indictment of an Indonesian murderer of one Christian missionary. However, when reading the law, it is clear that the legislative intent of the bill was to address a specific population of Americans who were either studying in, touring in, or living in Israel at the time, the office has not brought a single Palestinian terrorist to justice on these shores. Vicki Eisenfeld of West Hartford, Connecticut, — whose son Matthew, a Yale University graduate, was killed together with his girlfriend, Sara Drucker,  a graduate of Barnard College, on Jerusalem bus number 18 — once confided in me, “It makes me feel that my son’s blood is less American.”

I spend a great deal of time on Capitol Hill, and when I walk between the House side and the Senate side, I see the Supreme Court. Etched on top of the beautiful building are the words, “Equal Justice Under Law.”

Therein lies my profound indignation and sadness.

This article can be seen in the current edition of the Washington Jewish Week.

Over the past year, events in the Middle East, including most notably the Arab Spring, have dramatically altered the security landscape facing the nation of Israel, as well as the national security interests of the United States in the region.  While each of these events have been well cataloged separately and in greater detail elsewhere, it is useful to consider all of these disparate threats together, when thinking about the security and stability of the Middle East. The five categories we have highlighted in this document, “Strategic Threats to Israel and Mideast Stability” represent both relatively new threats such as those posed by Turkey’s Islamization and increasing anti-Israel stance, as well as traditional opposition which is evolving and enhancing its capability including Hezbollah’s successful dominance of the Lebanese government. As we continue to examine the strategic threats to Israel and the greater stability of the Middle East, as EMET does weekly with its articles and analysis, we must also keep in mind that no strategic threat exists in isolation, but instead each acts to multiply the others, leading to an increasingly degenerating security situation for the Jewish state, as well as its ally the United States, and weakening of the overall stability of the region.

Iran – Iran remains the most dangerous actor in the Middle East, more dangerous than Al Qaeda, according to a U.S. official.

• Support for Terror- Iran continues to be recognized as the foremost state sponsor of international terrorism in the world, supporting Hezbollah and Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban. Additionally Iran’s elite terrorist unit the Al-Quds force has expanded its capabilities and become increasingly aggressive, including plans to target the Israeli embassy in Washington D.C, and the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in addition to Saudi targets.

• Arming Terrorists- Iran continues to use air, land, and sea transport in an effort to arm Palestinian terrorists for attacks against Israel. Israel has repeatedly interdicted arms shipments from Iran including the MV Francop, and Victoria. Additionally Iran continues to smuggle arms overland via the Sudan. Since 2008, Iran has successfully upgraded the Palestinian’s missile capability from homemade Qassem to 122mm Iranian and Chinese manufactured Grad Rockets with a 40km range.

• Nuclear Weapons- Iran has continued to make progress with its nuclear weapons program, according to most western intelligence agencies as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which has issued a new report on the Iranian advancements which claims Iran is “on the threshold” of nuclear capability. The IAEA report also claims that Iran has tested all the component parts for a nuclear warhead, and an analysis of the Iranian warhead device in six different categories suggests it is unlikely or impossible for it to be designed for anything but a nuclear weapon.  Former CIA Spy Reza Kahili, who was a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, claims that Iran already possess  a small number of nuclear weapons acquired on the black market.  Iran has threatened to invade Israel and “battle Zionists in the streets of Tel Aviv” if its nuclear program is attacked.

• Syrian Crackdown- Iran is said to be deeply involved with assisting Syrian dictator Bashar Assad’s crackdown of his people, according to European , American, and Israeli sources. Iran has publicly remained supportive of their Syrian ally, despite earlier criticism. Iran has issued threats against Western intervention in Syria.

Hezbollah- Hezbollah continues to represent a substantial strategic threat to Israel’s national security both along Israel’s northern border, and world-wide:

• Missile threat- According to Hezbollah’s internal discussions and public threats, they are prepared to launch as many as ten thousand missiles into Israel against military and strategic targets such as airfields, as well as against civilian targets, including major population centers such as Tel Aviv.

• The Northern Border- Hezbollah has, according to Brig. Gen (ret.) Shimon Shapira, developed with Iranian assistance, an operational plan for the invasion of the Galilee, to commence following its planned missile barrage at the outset of conflict. The plan involves a joint invasion by five Hezbollah brigades, targeting Nahariya, Shlomi, and Carmiel. While Hezbollah’s ability to actually carry out such an operation may be questionable, it represents a very aggressive posture and the increasing confidence of the terror group.

• Dominance of Lebanon- Through a series of political, and military crises engineered by Hezbollah, the terror group and its allies now heavily dominate the Lebanese government, including the position of Prime Minister. With the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) sniper attack against Israeli troops which occurred in August of last year, and considering bellicose statements made by Lebanese officials there is every reason to suspect that if Israel were required to take military action against Hezbollah, they could expect the LAF to side with Hezbollah against Israel. This reality seems to have been recognized by the Obama Administration which, while it had been reluctant to do so, has quietly ended aid to Lebanon because of the ascension of a Hezbollah-controlled Cabinet.

• World-wide terrorism- Hezbollah remains a major international terrorist organization with operations that stretch far beyond Lebanon, to West Africa, South America, and even Mexico. Hezbollah’s expansion is piggybacked on Iran’s expanded alliances in the Western hemisphere. Hezbollah continues to seek to conduct major terror attacks against Israeli interests with a stated desire to retaliate for the assassination of Hezbollah archterrorist Imad Mughniyeh, which the organization blames on Israel, although it is unclear who actually conducted the operation.

Syria- Syria is facing grave protests from a wide-spread domestic opposition, which may make Assad feel cornered and even more dangerous.

• Assad’s Instability- The Assad regime in Syria has been wracked by several domestic protests which began during the so-called “Arab Spring.” Assad has utilized a mixture of promises of reform along with ruthless security crackdowns to try and maintain control, but protests have now gone on since mid-March, despite the more than three-thousand  who have been killed by Syrian security forces.  This instability has resulted in Assad seeking to divert attention towards Israel. This was most notable during the June, 2011 attempt by Palestinians, sponsored by Syria, to violently storm the Israeli border, which resulted in 23 protestors killed. If Western pressure on Syria continues, Assad may again seek to use similar attacks on Israel as a lever to release tension and to attempt to distract from Syria’s brutal crackdown and abuses.

• Retaliation against Israel- Deeply concerned about the possibility of NATO intervention in Syria comparable to its intervention in Libya, Syrian dictator Bashar Assad has threatened to bombard Israel with its strategic rocket forces, among the largest in the Middle East, if NATO should attack Syria.

• Support for Hamas and Hezbollah- Syria remains a major supporter of Hezbollah, as well as all major Palestinian terrorist groups, including especially Hamas. This has continued despite strain between Hamas and Syria over Syria’s crackdown on the opposition, which includes the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood is Hamas’ parent organization.
• WMD program- Syria is known to have been pursuing nuclear weapons at two sites, one the Al-Kibar Reactor, was targeted by Israeli in an airstrike in September of 2007. The Al-Kibar reactor is reported to have been a direct copy of a North Korean design.  The second site, which now appears inactive, is believed to have been based on a Pakistani design from nuclear proliferator A.Q Khan.  Additionally Syria is believed by some to have the most advanced chemical and biological weapons program in the Arab world.

Gaza- Palestinian terrorists in Gaza continue to represent a threat to Israel, particularly through their ability to launch missiles and other artillery weapons into the Israeli heartland.

• Hamas and the Missile Threat- According to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hamas has doubled its rocket arsenal, and expanded its anti-tank capability. Hamas now possess thousands of rockets, including Iranian-made Fajr-5 rockets with a 75km range which could strike Tel Aviv. Additionally, Hamas’ weapons manufacturing and weapon smuggling capabilities are believed to be much improved compared to their abilities prior to Operation Cast Lead in 2009. Politically vis-à-vis other Palestinian factions, the release of  Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit has strengthened Hamas, according to both Hamas, and some Israeli assessments.

• Salafist/Al Qaeda Activity- Salafist-Jihadist groups, some with links to Al Qaeda have continued to expand in Gaza. These groups have an occasionally cooperative and occasionally competitive relationship with the ruling Hamas. Attacks have included the terrorist raid near Eilat which killed eight in August of this year, as well as rocket attacks.

• Blockade-Running- The Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip is a necessary and legal tactic in its conflict with Hamas, but has been repeatedly challenged by a variety of radical-left and Islamist organizations, most notably the Turkish IHH, an organization with ties to terrorism, and which initiated violence against IDF commandos during the Mavi Marmara incident. Efforts to breach the land crossing at Rafah, are also common occurrences, orchestrated by the Muslim Brotherhood. Another organization prominent in efforts to break the blockade via land is Viva Palestinia, headed by British Politician George Galloway, who has appeared on video providing money and vehicles to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, and which represents well the alliance of Islamist and radical leftist organizations aligned to undermine the legal blockade.

Egypt and North Africa- Following the so-called Arab Spring, the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamist groups are on the rise throughout the region.

• Terrorism in the Sinai- Following the collapse of the Mubarak government, reports surfaced of increased terrorist activity in the Sinai Penisula, including up to 400 Al Qaeda-linked terrorists. Terrorists have repeatedly targeted the Egypt-Israeli gas line, and the threat from terrorist incursion has forced the IDF to reinforce the southern border, following the attack by Al Qaeda-linked militants from Gaza who infiltrated into Israel via the Sinai border.

• Opening of border with Gaza- The interim Egyptian government agreed in April of this year to open the Rafah border crossing into Gaza, despite this some pro-Palestinian organizations continue to express discontent with the limited border crossing restrictions which Egypt has maintained.

• Weapons Smuggling- Following the fall of the Egyptian and Libyan governments, there has been a substantial increase in the flow of arms through Egypt. Many of those weapons are headed to Gaza, including Grad Rockets, advanced anti-tank weapons, and Russian SA-7 anti-aircraft missiles.

• Rise of the Muslim Brotherhood- The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is widely believed to be the greatest beneficiary of the fall of Egyptian President Mubarak, as upcoming Parliamentary elections loom. Despite having attempted to reassure Egyptian liberals and the West with claims that it would not run for a majority of the seats, nor run a presidential candidate, the MB has broken both promises. They are expected to win at least a plurality of seats and therefore dominate the government, as well as to control the drawing up of the new constitution. The MB has made an electoral alliance with other Egyptian Islamist groups, including the State-department-listed Foreign Terrorist Organization Gamaa Al-Islamiya. Despite this the MB continues to receive State Department funded election training, and a U.S. official responsible for “Middle East Transitions” has said the U.S. would be “satisfied” with a Muslim Brotherhood election win. Muslim Brotherhood leaders have expressed thanks to Iran’s Supreme Leader, demanded the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador, stated a desire for preparations for war against Israel, and said they intend to impose Islamic law on Egypt in the event of electoral victory.

• Annulment of Peace with Israel- In addition to the Muslim Brotherhood’s call for war preparations against Israel, other Egyptian politicians have competed to appear the most anti-Israeli. Egyptian Presidential candidate Amr Moussa, Liberal opposition figure Ayman Nour, and Foreign Minister Nabil Al-Arabi have all spoken out against the Camp David Peace Accord. Long-time Western favorite and former IAEA chief Mohammad ElBaradei declared that Egypt should go to war against Israel if Gaza were attacked. More than 50% of the Egyptian public said they want an end to the peace treaty in an poll taken in April of this year.

Changes to Turkey- Once a close ally of Israel in the region, the formerly secular state is increasingly competing for leadership of the Muslim world by showing its anti-Israel credentials.

• Islamization of Turkey- The Islamist Turkish AKP party has established control of the Turkish Intelligence agency (MIT), appointing a close friend of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan to the position of intelligence chief. The AKP has also successfully orchestrated what some have called a frame up against secular members of the military. The entire Turkish military brass has since resigned in protest. There are allegations that Turkey may have taken part in arming Hezbollah. According to State department documents released by Wikileaks, the Islamist Gulen movement is close to the ruling AKP and may dominate the Turkish police force.
• Conflict for Islamic supremacy in Middle East- Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has made no secret of his conflict with Israel. The IHH, the Islamist group which initiated the violent confrontation on the Mavi Marmara, has close ties to Erdogan’s ruling AKP.  Turkey has also taken a very visible role in promoting the Arab Spring. Turkey’s support for Syrian protestors has brought the two countries closer to military conflict.

• Challenging Israel- As Turkey competes with Iran (the other non-Arab Muslim country in the region) for dominance, one of the fields of competition is in anti-Israel activity. Turkey has turned to the Israel-Arab conflict as a means to boost its credibility among its Arab neighbors. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has used the Flotilla incident to boost Turkey’s status in the Muslim world by showing a willingness to confront Israel, by demanding U.N Action, and Israeli apologies. Israel’s refusal to apologize provided an excuse for Turkey to cut military ties with Israel. Additionally, renewed Israeli ties with Greece, and Cyprus, two nations with their own strategic concerns about Turkey, and the discovery of natural gas in the Eastern Mediterranean have increased the possibility of Turkish-Israeli conflict.

I am spending the holiday of Sukkoth here in Israel, with my beautiful children, Rachel and Jeremy, who have just married, and who have recently made aliyah. My son-in-law, Jeremy, has been serving for the last two years in the Israeli Defense Forces in the Golani brigade. His unit has served on the border of Gaza, and is one that has learned house-to-house combat in case the army has got to go back in there. At any moment he can be called up to go back in.

I look at their shining young faces, bright with potential and brimming with plans for the future. They want to raise their family in this beautiful, young land that they have recently planted their roots into.  They want to be a part of the Jewish dream of the return of our people to the ancient Jewish homeland and to be part of the  proud struggle of our rebirth  and renaissance.

They want to build their life here together, and to cast their lot with the nation of Israel.

And I am terribly frightened for them.

For five and a half years, every day since the  Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, was kidnapped by Hamas along the border, his parents Noam and Aviva have been holding vigil, counting the days, wondering , is he hungry, is he in pain, is he being tortured, is he is alive.

Gilad has become the symbol for every soldier.  This proud country is a total citizen army. Every mother has a son or a daughter that has been, is in, or will one day be, inducted into the IDF. Everyone has an uncle, a brother, a cousin who is serving, or will serve. Gilad’s name has become a household word.

His parents have set up a tent outside of the President’s house, where they have kept vigil for five and a half years.

The Israeli army has always instilled in its soldiers a remarkable sense of cohesion. Every soldier who has ever served in the IDF feels a sense of responsibility for one another in each unit. Captains of units go into combat shouting “Acharei”, (“after me”).

And it is an unbreakable code that no soldier will ever leave his brother alone on the battlefield.

The pain that Noam and Aviva have been going through must be unbearable. They have stated that they  will not believe that their agony is over until Gilad walks through the front door. And everyone in Israel feels their pain.

Last week, Prime Minister Netayahu announced that Gilad is returning home. I can only imagine the emotions that are running through their head. “Is it a dream?” “Can we believe it?” “Is this for real?…Finally, finally ?” Can they even allow themselves to feel the ecstasy of his long awaited return?

And yet…and yet.

In return for this precious young life, Israel has offered to release 1,027 of the most brutal terrorists  and murderers imaginable, all with blood dripping from their hands.

Among them is Ahlam Tamimi, the mastermind behind the horrific suicide bombing of the Sabaro Pizza Restaurant in midtown Jerusalem in 2001, in which 15 civilians were killed and 130 were wounded. Among  those murdered were 8 children, one of them was 15 year old Malki Roth, a talented flutist who was planning to dedicate her life to working with handicapped children.

They, along with so many parents and loved ones of the approximately 2,000 victims of Palestinian terror since the signing of the Oslo Accords and the ensuing reign of terror that it has wrought ,are feeling abandoned and betrayed.

Ahlam Tamimi, when interviewed in prison, was told that she had killed eight children.  This brought a deep smile of satisfaction to her face.

During that interview she said, ” I am not sorry for what I did. “ And: “When I get out of prison, and I refuse to recognize Israel’s existence. Discussions will only take place after Israel recognizes that this is Islamic land.”

These people are monsters. They have no remorse whatsoever about the taking of the lives of children, of  anyone who is a Jew.

And now 1,027 of them will be free to go on the streets. They know that if they kill Jews they will eventually be freed.

What is to prevent them from kidnapping more Gilad Shalits? What is to prevent another reign of terror on the streets of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Rehovot and Haifa?

And herein lays the heaviness of my heart.

My son in law, Jeremy, said to me, “I signed up to serve in the IDF to protect the citizens of Israel. This decision negates everything that I have done for the  last two years of my life.”

As Reuven Gilmore whose son Aish Kodesh was killed by one of the terrorists to be released wrote to me, “The deal would be justified to save a life. That is not the problem with this deal. The problem is all the unnamed victims of the released prisoners. For all of us, the pain of losing family members at the hands of these terrorists is not abstract. And that is why the families of the bereaved families should be listened to.”

I look at the beautiful young faces of my children who are planning to build their lives here, in this young and harsh land, and I can feel nothing but anger at those who made this feckless decision for putting their lives and the lives of every other Israeli citizen at risk.

And then, I think of Noam and Aviva.  There is simply no machine yet invented which can calibrate the heavy weight of the ambivalence in my heart.

A version of this article appears in this week’s Washington Jewish Week.

In an attempt to understand the events of that day, the immediate comparison was to Pearl Harbor., the starting point of America’s entry into the conflict which defined the 20th century. 9/11 had much to compare itself with Pearl Harbor after all. Both from the surprise nature of the attack, to the number of casualties, and the sheer rarity of an attack upon the American homeland. Perhaps the comparison also drew hope of a united America dealing an overwhelming and certain defeat to a determined foe. And perhaps it brought to mind the apocryphal quote from Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, that to attack America was, “to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”

As the American people learned more about the foes that struck us that day, it became clearer that this was not a 20th century conflict. It was, simultaneously something both new and ancient. In western minds it conjured up images of a bold new threat. The risk was seen as one of asymmetrical warfare against shadowy transnational groups. But in the minds of our enemy there was nothing new about 9/11. This was ancient warfare, reborn. 9/11 was a razzia, a raid, into the heart of Dar-Al-Harb, the abode of war, the lands of the infidel. This was the same jihad in pursuit of the same age-old goal. They sought to impose a global Caliphate and the ultimate domination of Islam in the world. As the 9/11 Commission report made clear at the time, there was no method of modern statecraft which might appease this enemy. “[A]l Qaeda’s answer [to the question of what American could do to avoid such attacks] was, “America should abandon the Middle East, convert to Islam, and end the immorality and godlessness of its society and culture…”

As America became more familiar with this enemy ideology, they realized that it was not merely the held belief of a few hijackers, or even a few thousand terrorists spread across camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Thanks to billions in petro-dollars provided by Gulf States such as Saudi Arabia, it was the curriculum for generations of young men educated in madrassas from Indonesia to east Africa. It could even be found within Europe and the United States itself. Its adherents were inculcated in the belief in the righteousness of Jihad, in the status of non-Muslims as infidels and oppressors who must be fought. Among those brought up to believe America and the West were their mortal enemies, were citizens of nations that America thought to be friends and allies. The 9/11 investigation revealed the extensive role played by our so-called allies in financing this jihad war against the West. These facts were revealed to the American public despite the millions of oil dollars the Gulf nations were spending with America’s largest public relations and lobbying firms to convince the American people otherwise.

Even as the depth of the problem became more easily understood by the average American, American leaders were at pains to limit the public’s exposure to certain realities about the nature of the challenge before us. The phrase “the religion of peace,” has been used so often by politicians that it has come to be regarded as a mostly risible and ironic phrase. “Thereligionofpeace.com” for instance, is a website that tracks attacks by terrorists committed in the name of Islam since September 11, 2001, at a current count of 17,710 world-wide. But both the Bush and Obama administrations insisted that any question of the role of religious doctrine or ideology or how widely such ideology might be held, was a dangerous distraction and that outreach to Muslim communities at home and abroad would be the center-piece of the resistance to Al Qaeda, not understanding and countering the enemy’s doctrine.

However in 2004, in the basement of Ismail Elbarasse, were discovered the archives of the Muslim Brotherhood in North America. The same Muslim Brotherhood whose principle ideologue, Sayyid Qutb, was featured in the 9/11 Commission’s explanation of Osama Bin Laden’s origins and intentions. The documents found there would later be used as evidence in the Holy Land Foundation trial, perhaps the most important terrorism finance trial ever to take place, where several Muslim Brothers were indicted, and convicted of funding Hamas. The documents entered into evidence, and stipulated to by the defense, illustrated to the public a decades’ long “civilization-jihadist” program against the West, to be waged by the Brotherhood. As part of this campaign, the Brotherhood had created numerous front-groups. Now they were marked as unindicted co-conspirators for terrorism, in a federal court.

In the years since 9/11, it was these unindicted co-conspirators that had been sought out by the government as sensitivity trainers, and outreach partners for their anti-terrorism efforts. Even after 2004, despite the government’s knowledge, the Brotherhood remained responsible for certifying the chaplains of America’s prisons, and her military, and remained a close partner for reaching out to Muslim communities. A loud outcry from concerned citizens groups and a few astute lawmakers led to a few of these M.B. organizations being excluded. But federal departments soon were opening up new associations with other Muslim Brotherhood groups — which ironically were also were listed as unindicted co-conspirators for supporting terror organizations.

Since the arrival into office of the Obama administration, this matter of Muslim Brotherhood subversion, once worrisome, have now reached levels of the deepest concern. Administration officials now openly praise the brotherhood as a “largely secular” organization and have squashed future prosecutions against the Muslim Brotherhood and its support for terrorism.

Where once the 9/11 commission openly discussed Islamic history and Bin’ Laden’s ideological motivations, now there is only “violent extremism,” a shapeless meaninglessly vague threat. Where once some complained that the denotation “the War on Terror” was too vague and ill-suited, now there are only “overseas contingency operations” aimed at preventing “man-caused disasters.” These bland characterizations have not stuck with the American public however. Today, more than ever, the American people understand the depth of the threat from the theocratic political doctrine, Sharia, which unites Al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood and others that pose a threat to the American way of life.

The only way to judge the status of our struggle, is to ask whether Al Qaeda and those who share their beliefs, are closer, or further from their goals? We must say in fairness that they are closer. Secular regimes across the Middle East are in turmoil, and may yet be replaced by Islamic governments. Western academic elites proudly and publicly declare that the very totalitarian law which Al Qaeda and the Brotherhood would impose is neither threatening nor undemocratic. In western countries free expression about the nature of Islam, and those who commit terrorism in its name has been sharply curtailed. In the United States of America, cartoonists are censored, even sent into hiding, because they have violated some Islamic stricture against so-called blasphemy. What’s worse, the government has now partnered with the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (formerly Islamic Conference) and Muslim countries to institute global speech codes aiming to brand any critical statements, even those made by apostates or reformers of Islam, to be hate speech and therefore illegal.

Ten years after, we are not a sleeping giant anymore. The public is more awake now, certainly more aware now, of what is happening then it has ever been. We see far more clearly than we did that day in September. But yet we find that despite the awakening of the American people, the organs of our national power do not respond, do not take the appropriate action, despite the warnings. We are a giant suffering under a local anesthetic. A potent mixture of infiltration, subversion, and cowardly political correctness saps our national will. In whatever ways this conflict differs from modern wars of the past century, until America restores its “terrible resolve”, we remain no closer to resolution of this great conflict of the 21st century.

The lone wolf scenario is so frightening because all of the usual windows of opportunity for security and intelligence officials to become of aware of and interdict the plot are smaller in scope and narrower in time span.

Consider the timeline of a “normal” Islamist terror attack. Muslims sympathetic to Al Qaeda’s cause are radicalized and are encouraged or take it upon themselves to travel to areas in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia or other places where AQ has successfully established training camps. Over a period of months the subjects receive intensive indoctrination in Islamist ideology, weapons training, bomb-making, terror tactics and other important terrorist skills.  When their training is completed they are released back into the world. New identities or travel papers may have been prepared for travel to their target countries. Reconnaissance may begin on selected targets and money may be transferred to the terrorists to keep them operational. The weapons for the attack must be acquired, prepared and  possibly tested before the terror attack can begin.

A good example of this sort of timeline is the attempt to bomb the New York City subway by Najibullah Zazi. Zazi traveled to Pakistan will several fellow Muslims in August of 2008 with the intention of joining the Taliban but was instead recruited by Al Qaeda and trained for U.S. operations. He returned to the United States in mid-January of the following year. Zazi became a member of an active cell of terrorist operatives and communicated with them — communications which U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials were able to intercept. Zazi began researching bomb-making materials in June and began purchasing critical materials in August. He conducted tests in late August and early September. Then he drove to New York City where he became aware of FBI and police surveillance.  In a panic, he fled back to his home in Denver and was arrested. From recruitment to (failed) execution took slightly more than a year.

Consider in comparison the case of the 1993 shooting outside the Langley offices of the CIA, when Mir Aimal Kansi, a Pakistani native, opened fire on a line of parked cars waiting to enter America’s intelligence headquarters. Kansi quickly killed two people and wounded three others before fleeing to Pakistan.  Kansi had resided in the United States since 1991. He had acquired the AK-47 automatic rifle with which he committed the crime through an ordinary gun store only three days prior to the shooting. The gun store owner later said that Kansi appeared unfamiliar with the weapon and had to be instructed how to assemble and disassemble it. It is unclear when exactly Kansi was radicalized, but when he was finally arrested in Pakistan in 2002, he claimed to have had “friends among the Taliban” and to have shaken hands with Osama Bin Laden. He told investigators that he wanted to strike at the United States for its “Pro-Israel, Anti-Muslim” policies.

With an unclear period of radicalization and only three days from acquiring the weapon to the attack, the time frame for law enforcement to discover and capture a “lone wolf” like Mir Aimal Kansi is too short.  Law enforcement had only two very brief chances to become aware of the lone wolf. Early during his radicalization before he had, in fact, committed any crime and during the time he acquired the weapon. In fact, Kansi had committed a crime by illegally purchasing a firearm since Kansi was not an American citizen and was thus prohibited from purchasing a firearm.  Still that crime took place only three days before the attack.

Not much to go on.

Even less so, in the North Carolina case of Reza Taheri-azar, a UNC-Chapel Hill student and Iranian immigrant who ran over 9 people in a rented sports utility vehicle selected for that deadly purpose. Fortunately no one was killed. Taheri-azar later told police that he wanted to, “avenge the deaths of Muslims around the world,” and told the judge during his trial that he was “thankful you’re here to give me this trial and to learn more about the will of Allah.” Up until the point Taheri-azar put his foot on the gas pedal instead of the brake he had committed no crime. What chance did law enforcement have of interdicting such an attempt?

Only during radicalization, when the attacker has been exposed to and internalized an Islamist worldview which encourages violent and murderous jihad, is there any chance to intercept such a plot before it is executed.

Perhaps a strategy which educated law enforcement and security officials on the nature of the Islamist ideology, its language, heroes and ideologues and its history and methods might prove a worthwhile endeavor. For instance, if that had been done, perhaps more attention would have been paid to Dr. Nidal Malik Hassan.  The Fort Hood shooter killed thirteen and wounded almost thirty more in a shooting rampage but not before he conducted a PowerPoint slide presentation for senior army doctors entitled, “The Koranic World View As It Relates to Muslims in the U.S. Military,” which included Islamic justifications for suicide bombings and featured the common Islamist slogan, “We love death more than you love life.” In a Political Correctness-laden report, The Department of Defense’s follow up report on the attack made no mention of Islam or Nidal Hassan’s ideological motivations.

Recently the Obama Administration released its strategy to deal with the lone wolf threat.  Predictably, it proposed the exact opposite of what is needed. Instead, the recent Administration report, incomprehensibly and meaninglessly entitled, Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States, is a 4,600 word whitewash completely devoid of meaning or educational potential.  As Professor Daniel Pipes sums up the report:

Nature of the problem? “Neo-Nazis and other anti-Semitic hate groups, racial supremacists, and international and domestic terrorist groups.”

Name of the enemy? The paper itself never mentions Islam or even radical Islam. In fact the report’s title, Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States, avoids the mention of the word “terrorism.”

Appropriate Federal law enforcement response? “Just as we respond to community safety issues [such as gang violence, school shootings, drugs, and hate crimes] through partnerships and networks of government officials, Mayor’s offices, law enforcement, community organizations, and private sector actors, so must we address radicalization to violence and terrorist recruitment through similar relationships and by leveraging some of the same tools and solutions.”

A decade after the attacks on 9/11, rather than create a policy that come to grips with the evolving tactics of the fanatical ideological enemy we are fighting, we now have a counterterrorism policy that refuses to even use the word “terrorism,” and treats perpetrators of terror attacks in the same vein as perpetrators of gang violence.

More than just incompetence is at work here.

While Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States was released in early August, its faulty assumptions read identically to those published by the Homeland Security Advisory Council in a report titled,  “Countering Violent Extremism Working Group” and published at about the same time last year.  Both reports are so similar that they utilize the same comparison between terrorism and gang violence and propose using community-policing to “stop violent behavior regardless of the motivation.”

Included, in that working group was the president of at least one Muslim Brotherhood front group, Imam Mohamed Maghid, president of the Islamic Society of North America (although he is not recognized in that capacity in the PowerPoint slide describing the working group’s members) and Mohamed Elibiary, who once shared the platform during a “tribute to the great Islamic visionary” the Ayatollah Khomeini, and who argued against describing the preeminent  radical Muslim Brotherhood ideologue, the late Sayyid Qutb, as either radical or dangerous.

In other words, the government has asked the very proponents of the ideologies that have radicalized  Western Muslims as well as leaders of organizations which have been named as unindicted co-conspirators for the funding of terrorism, to propose government policy for countering the inevitable “violent extremism” that results from the ideological beliefs which these people themselves apparently hold.

So deeply has our government involved our ideological enemy in our OODA loop that they are now effectively in control of nearly every stage of our decision-making process regarding counterterrorism. They are the advisors to whom our national authorities look for advice and direction in forming our national strategy. They are, according to a former FBI agent, inside members of the executive branch department responsible for implementing U.S. anti-terrorist policy. They encourage our security and law enforcement officials to work alongside community organizations — which they themselves control. And they control the public relations organizations and “civil rights” groups which then heaps praise upon the Administration for following their advice.

The lone wolf threat helps to encapsulate the reality that the greatest threat is not from bombs or guns or rented sports-utility vehicles.  It is a threat springing from a violent belief system — a radical ideology. Our law enforcement and intelligence officials must be given the tools to recognize the signs of that belief system as it manifests itself in human actors. That is the only counter-terror strategy with a hope of success against a lone wolf or against any terror attack. This system can be analyzed and understood. The violent Koranic citations, the hadiths and Sharia jurisprudence which forms the foundation upon which ideologues like Sayyid Qutb and Anwar al-Awlaki build, can be read and understood. Indeed, the 9/11 Commission Report did exactly that, albeit in a limited and imperfect way.

The tragic question many asked that fateful day on 9/11 was, “Why did they do this to us?” A decade later, thanks to our government’s inability to name our adversaries or call out their ideology, the wolves in sheep’s clothing within our own government have us moving even further away from an answer.

Imagine our response if today a terrorist group — an offspring of Al Qaeda — is being shielded by a Mexican government and operating just across our border. They have agitated the Mexican people and riots have taken place denouncing America and its imperialist-colonial occupation of Texas, California and even Arizona and New Mexico — all territory taken by force of arms (even though the Mexican governments started the wars).   And that is not to mention the demonstrations seeking the return of the lands that Americans took from the Indians or Native Americans also by warfare and domination.  These groups have not only expelled all the Americans who lived in Mexico but seek to rid the entire North American continent of these “Europeans” who have been transported to their continent and taken their lands by conquest.

How would President Barack Obama respond if last Thursday, members of this Mexican Al Qaeda, dressed in Mexican army uniforms, and with Mexican government assent, crossed the border into the United States and killed eight American citizens traveling on tourist busses while driving innocently from their homes in Los Angeles to Sea World in San Diego. And when the President called out the U.S. Army to capture or kill the attackers the Mexicans launch more than 100 missiles from Tijuana to rain down on San Diego and Los Angeles.

You don’t have to imagine it.  This is precisely what Israel has been enduring for the past several days. This past Thursday saw a series of well coordinated cross-border terrorist attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians. It began when a bus transporting 40 people from Beer Sheva to Eilat, most for a quiet family vacation, was attacked en route to that popular resort.  The bus was attacked by a group of terrorists known as “The Popular Resistance Committee,” which is an umbrella group of terrorists, drawn from the Palestinian Authority’s security apparatus. It is believed that the Popular Resistance Committee gets its funding from Iran.

The  terrorists, dressed in Egyptian army uniforms, came across the Israeli border from Egypt and sprayed the oncoming bus with a barrage of automatic weapon fire. It was only because the clear-thinking bus driver immediately accelerated through the gunfire that no one was killed — although several passengers were critically wounded. A total of fourteen people  were evacuated to nearby hospitals.  Simultaneously, another bus and two civilian vehicles were attacked. Israeli Defense Forces rushed to the scene only to have an explosive device, similar to those used against American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, detonate in their faces. By the end of the day, the Israeli toll was eight Israelis killed and at least thirty-one wounded.

The terrorists originated in Gaza but slipped across the border into Israel through the Sinai, a vast  peninsula that Israel had returned to Egypt as part of the 1979 Camp David Accords. The peace that Egypt maintained there with Israel has been an ice-cold peace,  but never-the-less the Egyptian army patrolled the Sinai and assured that it would remain peaceful. However, since the fall of President Hosni Mubarak, the new military government had left it unpatrolled and open to terrorists and thieves.

Israel, like any other nation, has a sovereign responsibility to protect its citizens — even according to Article 41 of the United Nations Charter. No nation can allow cross-border attacks on its citizens — not the United States in 1916 — and not Israel in 2011.

When the IDF began hunting down the terrorists who had killed the Israeli civilians they only targeted terrorist headquarters and places where the terrorists trained or were known to be hiding. As the terrorists fled toward Gaza, the Hamas government of Gaza unleashed a barrage of over one-hundred missile on Southern Israel, striking the major cities of Beer Sheva, Ashkelon and Ashdod. Thousands had to flee to the bomb shelters.  Almost every hour on the hour the silence was broken by the alarm siren of “Seva Adom” (Code Red: which translated into “incoming missile).

Fed by more than 50 years of hatred for Israel and the Jews, the Egyptians of Cairo erupted in a violent demonstration against Israel, even scaling twenty stories of the Cairo Tower to pull off and destroy an Israeli flag as hundreds cheered below.

EMET has been saying for the past  six months that the political and strategic landscape in Egypt has been changed by the revolution in Tahrir Square — and not for the better! Although the revolution was ushered in by the small, young  elite and educated “Facebook” class, the Egyptian political infrastructure is manipulated by the radical Islamists who have control of the mosques.

The Egyptian army, while it is a professional army, is fighting to maintain its control over the government and has bent to the will of the people in the street who have been taught to hate Israel.  The argument that this army will resist the operations of the terrorists and support Western interests is an exercise in overheated imaginings.

Look what has already happened as a result of American brokered peace treaties: the Sinai which was returned to Egypt in exchange for peace is now being used as a launching pad for terrorists to attack Israel — and Gaza, which the Israeli’s evacuated and gave to the Palestinians in return for a promise of  peace has become the main launching pad for terror against Israel and for attacks by thousands of missiles — in addition to being the elected home of a government pledged to the destruction of the Jewish state.

Unless and until the Egyptians demonstrate that they are fully capable of living in peace and enforcing the peace, America should put an immediate hold on any transfer of more weapons to Egypt. It is very possible that we may see these very weapons tuned against Israel or even against our own military in the 6th fleet offshore.

And this does not take a great leap of imagination.

Unfortunately, that is not how it works in today’s politicized world of homeland security and defense.

Take for instance the case of Abdel Rahman al-Amoudi. Al-Amoudi is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood (M.B.), and was identified as such in the Holy Land Foundation trial documents. He was the founder of the American Muslim Council, an Islamic advisor to the Clinton White House, a Democratic and Republican fundraiser and a State Department lecturer.  As an advisor to the Department of Defense, the Muslim Brotherhood through the organization he founded was given the responsibility for training our Muslim military chaplains. Al-Amoudi donated $20,000 dollars to help conservative activist Grover Norquist establish the Islamic Institute. In addition, Al-Amoudi worked with Sami-al-Arian, another M.B. member, to get then Presidential Candidate George W. Bush to commit to ending the use of secret intelligence evidence at deportation proceedings.

Then, in 2003  the lights came on.

Al-Amoudi was arrested in 2003 at Heathrow Airport with hundreds of thousands of dollars provided by Libyan President Moammar Qaddafi. He was caught on audiotape calling for acts of terrorism and claiming to support the terrorists of Hezbollah and Hamas. In court, he pled guilty to financing terrorism (including funding Al Qaeda) and of conspiring with Libya to assassinate the Saudi Crown Prince (they failed). The court sentenced him to 23 years in prison.

In another dramatic 2003 arrest, Sami al-Arian was also caught and charged. He pled guilty in 2006 to conspiring to assist the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a specially designated global terrorist.

In 2007, federal prosecutors filed charges against the Holy Land Foundation, a Texas based Muslim charity and front for the terror group Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. During the trial, prosecutors released hundreds of pages of documents; the entire archives of the North American Muslim Brotherhood. It included the lists of names and phone numbers of Brotherhood members in the U.S. There were organizational charts and a full strategic memorandum calling for a “Civilization-Jihad process,” in addition to plans for a “Grand Jihad” to sabotage America from within. Documents listed member organizations, including some of the most influential Muslim organizations in America, such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).  After an initial mistrial, the Federal government won its case in late November 2008.

But then, nothing happened.

The exposed agents of Grand Jihad did not run for cover when the lights came on. With a few exceptions, their American government contacts did not cut them off or treat them as pariahs even though they had been thoroughly tainted with terrorist associations, with plots for sedition against the United States and to establish a global caliphate. Secondary prosecutions that had been planned were suddenly scuttled to avoid political embarrassment. Major news organizations continued to call on the members of known Muslim Brotherhood organizations to get their opinion on all things Islam. The Muslim Brotherhood still provides the FBI with Muslim outreach and the DOD is still provided with Muslim Chaplains through ISNA.

Even more astounding, last week the Department of Justice filed papers to cut short al-Amoudi’s 23 year sentence. Why? Since the documents are under seal, we do not know. The judge in the case canceled a hearing scheduled for last Friday, deciding instead to make the determination based solely on already filed paperwork. In order to get a shortened sentence, the filing would require that al-Amoudi had already provided substantial assistance to the prosecutor’s office.  But it’s difficult to say what such assistance could have consisted of.  With the revelations available in the Holy Land Foundation documents, and considering that Al-Amoudi has been in prison for the past nine years, it’s questionable what cooperation he might have been able to provide at this juncture which would motivate prosecutors to release him.

This raises the very serious question of whether his release may not be political. This is especially true as the Obama administration in recent months has expressed increased acceptance of the Muslim Brotherhood abroad, including Secretary Hiliary Clinton’s assurance earlier this month that the U.S. now “welcomes dialogue” with the Brotherhood.

If al-Amoudi is indeed released, it would represent a tremendous success for the Brotherhood. They will have successfully survived the aftermath of al-Amoudi’s arrest and the revelations of the Holy Land Foundation trial. Their operation to penetrate and influence the United States will have been so successful that they will have quashed the proposed secondary prosecutions expected from the Holy Land Foundation and also extricated a major M.B. organizer from prison — despite his crimes. This will certainly embolden them to attempt to free others, including Sami al-Arian, who has long been a cause célèbre for the M.B. and their fellow travelers on the radical left. With the Obama administration having now legitimized the Muslim Brotherhood as acceptable partners abroad, it has made them acceptable partners domestically as well — their call for “Grand Jihad” notwithstanding.

What can be done?

As President Ronald Reagan once reportedly said, “When you can’t make them see the light, make them feel the heat.”

If our intelligence and security agencies and the media refuse to see the danger and will not make Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated persons and organizations persona non grata, then the American people will be forced to do it for them. When television news shows and newspapers give face time or column space to M.B. fronts like CAIR, these TV networks and newspapers must hear from their audience.  Legislators willing to hold hearings and draw attention to the danger of the Muslim Brotherhood should be publically praised, as for instance Rep. Peter King (R-NY), who this week has announced a third set of hearings on Muslim radicalization in the U.S.  Those who hold hands with M.B. fronts however, and defend them, must have it known that their disdain for American security will be made an issue when they face election challenges. We must then keep the pressure on our legislators to insure that they also hold the unelected bureaucrats accountable.

Unfortunately, in dealing with “influence” operations of the size and scope of the one being run by the Muslim Brotherhood, there is no easy answer. When exposed, their response is not to flee, but to counter-accuse, to manipulate, and burrow deeper and to use our American process against itself.

We must also double our efforts and know that there will never be a silver bullet for the Muslim Brotherhood’s “civilization-Jihad” or for radical Islam in general. It forces us to always remain vigilant. Perhaps this administration will succeed in freeing al-Amoudi, but we must not allow such a setback to keep us from identifying, exposing, and arresting the next al-Amoudi.

What was perhaps most ironic was our government’s decision that, despite being repeatedly told by the administration that Bin Laden and his cohort represented a false — indeed perverted version of Islam, we provided him with a full Islamic burial ceremony — although at sea. Did the large swathes of the Islamic population take righteous offense that a mass murderer and terrorist was treated as an honorable member of the Muslim faith, and granted the same ceremony which U.S. Muslims who serve in our own military enjoy?

Of course not.

From Pakistan, to Indonesia, and from the Gaza Strip to right here in America, statements of support for Bin Laden arose. “A Muslim and Arab Holy Warrior,” said Hamas leader Ismail Haniya of Bin Laden.  Fatah and the Palestinian Authority were little better, despite hurried attempts by Mahmoud Abbas to defuse these statements by issuing reversals in English. Fatah supporters joined with Hamas partisans to march through the streets in support of a Palestinian unity agreement, while wielding images of Bin Laden. On the Palestinian Ma’an website Fatah’s military wing, the Al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade called the death of the “sheikh” and “Shahid” Bin Laden “a catastrophe” for the “Islamic nation” in their Arabic announcements. In the English version of the same story however, Palestinian news ironically reported, “Palestinian reactions to the announcement that the Al-Qaeda leader had been assassinated were mixed.”

In Egypt the “largely secular” (according to the incomprehensible analysis of Obama’s Director of National Intelligence James Clapper) Muslim Brotherhood protested the killing as well, and condemned the United States for associating “Islam” with “terrorism.” Yet it is Muslim Brotherhood leaders who have honored Osama as “a sheikh,” a “martyr” and a “Jihad-fighter.” Hundreds of Egyptians rallied in favor of Osama on the streets of Cairo, an act which likely would have been impossible under Mubarak’s rule, and just another rewarding result of our failing Middle East policy.

Pakistan’s reaction was perhaps to be expected. A majority of Pakistanis polled were saddened by the death of Bin Laden. Thousands rallied in support of Osama, a hundred of thousand purchased posters of the terror mastermind. Pakistani lawmakers offered Bin Laden funeral prayers, as our so-called ally has been attempting to pay high-powered D.C. Lobbyists to help cloud the fact that Bin Laden was sheltered there for nearly 5 years. And in terrorist hot-spots like Somalia and Sudan, support for Bin Laden comes as no surprise.

But what happened in Indonesia, the largest-Muslim country, which we are repeatedly reminded practices a “tolerant and moderate Islam?” Protests and support for Bin Laden broke-out there as well.  Our NATO ally, previously secular Turkey, saw protests raging throughout the country. The same happened in the Philippines, which is far removed from what we are told are the real cause of Islamic terrorism: the petro-tyrants, Zionists, or other geo-political concerns. In Kuwait, which American soldiers went to war to liberate from the clutches of Saddam Hussein, a female columnist romantically speculates what it might have been like to marry a mass murderer, in the way teenage girls’ dream of boy-band singers:

“I dreamed of being Osama’s companion there, where the utmost danger lurks, so I could clasp his galabiya, stained with the blood of martyrdom, to my bosom, so I could be his companion as he [counted] the burdensome seconds, waiting to join the convoy of [his martyred] comrades and friends…”Osama, the knight who dismounted from the horse of worldly pleasure, donned a [cleric's] turban, gripped a Kalashnikov, and entered the tunnel from which there is no return. From there I saw his stature reach to the heavens, as he recruited the knights in response to the voices of the women of Islam, whose honor has been violated and whose strength is gone, and who cry out [to him], ‘Osama!’…

Even in Britain and the United States, Bin Laden received praise and support. In the United Kingdom, British Muslims honored Osama , and called for revenge against the United States and the United Kingdom. The British press, ever helpful, explained that these Muslims were “Bin Laden Supporters” to differentiate them from the crowd of British working-class youth shouting “U.S.A, U.S.A,” which were labeled “extremists.”

In the United States, the front organizations of the international Muslim Brotherhood, which make up the most influential Muslim groups in the country, were more cautious about their statements, but even so the veil slipped. The M.B.-linked Muslim American Society issued a press release entitled, “Agreeing to Disagree about the death of Osama Bin Laden”, which referred to the mass murderer as a visionary who loved children.  Former Fiqh Council of North America member Salah Soltan said openly on the Muslim Brotherhood website that Bin Laden’s terrorism was “in defense of Islam.” Soltan is an advisor to Bahrain’s “Islamic Affairs” Ministry.

This “tiny minority of [Muslim] extremists”, we should now know if we did not before, is neither tiny nor an insignificant minority. We ignored it when we were told that 1/4^th of American Muslim youth supported suicide bombing in some instances. We ignored it when we learned that 40% of British Muslims sought to live under Sharia law. And, while support for Osama Bin Laden as an individual was not always high, support for his cause, the imposition of Sharia law and Islamic government, has remained high.  Large percentages in many Muslim countries continue to favor Sharia punishments like stoning adulterers, the cutting off hands for thieves, and the execution of apostates who leave Islam, and a not insignificant number support suicide bombings, “in defense of Islam.”

It is long since past time for us to stop pretending that support for terrorism, and indeed for jihad against the West in all its forms, is an aberration that sprang forth wholly unaided from the mind of Osama Bin Laden. As though Al Qaeda, like S.P.E.C.T.R.E in the old James Bond films, is an organization dedicated to villainy solely for its own sake, and without any ideological goal or intent.

No, Al Qaeda, and its fellow Islamic terror groups, are sharks swimming in a sea of like-minded individuals. And until we come to accept that, no matter how many more Bin Ladens we successfully terminate, we will not succeed against this foe.