Abu Toameh's Straight Talk

Journalist Khaled Abu Toameh is always worth reading, and two recent items especially warrant attention. The first is a transcript from a talk Abu Toameh, an Arab Muslim reporter for the Jerusalem Post, recently gave to some visiting Americans and posted by writer Michael Totten.

Abu Toameh gives his assessment of the errors by all sides in the recent Israeli-Hamas fighting. He gives a compelling summary of how we got here, how the promise of Oslo gave way to seemingly hopeless condition today, in which a fragmented Palestinian society is poorly governed by corrupt or intransigent leaders and how the U.S., Israel and others failed to see the developing political reality. The journalist, who interacts with all factions in the course of his reporting, isn't seeing anyone learn from their mistakes:

"Hamas is not a partner for any peace agreement because Hamas is not going to change. All these people who believe that Hamas will one day change its ideology, that pragmatic leaders will emerge in Hamas, these people are living under illusions. Hamas is not going to change. To their credit we must say that their message has been very clear. It's the same message in Arabic and in English. They're being very honest about it. They're saying `Folks, we will never recognize Israel. We will never change. We will not abandon the path of the resistance.' They're very clear about it.

After they won the election, by the way, the international community went to Hamas and said `Listen. If you want us to deal with you, accept Israel and everything will be okay.' And Hamas was very honest. They said `No. We are not going to renounce terrorism. We are not going to recognize previous agreements between Palestinians and Israel. And we are not going to recognize Israel's right to exist.' They were very clear about it. And they say the same thing today."

Abu Toameh also wrote an article urging a new approach toward calming the Israeli-Palestinian conflict published Monday by the Hudson Institute. The two-state solution may be ideal, but not practical. Instead, Egypt and Jordan should be persuaded to take control of Gaza and the West Bank respectively, at least until Palestinians are ready to govern themselves.

There's a lot of talk about Israeli settlements being an obstacle to peace. Abu Toameh sees some truth in that, but notes that the settlements had nothing to do with corruption in Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority and the failure of both the Authority and Hamas to build a Palestinian economy.

"After the Israeli pullout from the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Authority had another chance to start building infrastructure for the long-awaited state. But instead of turning the Gaza Strip into the Singapore of the Middle East, the Palestinians turned the Gaza Strip into a base for radical Islamic organizations like Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Since mid-2007, the Palestinians have two entities: one in the Gaza Strip that is run by Hamas and supported by Iran and Syria, and the other, a secular, powerless and corrupt regime of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank."

King Hussein and Hosni Mubarak may balk at the prospect of assuming responsibility for the West Bank and Gaza, Abu Toameh acknowledges. "But the Palestinians really need the help of these two countries." The old ways aren't working, so why not try?

Defending America's Record

President Obama has made two direct statements toward the Muslim world since taking office and columnist Charles Krauthammer is concerned by the tone of each. In a column Friday, Krauthammer finds the President's remarks in his inaugural address and in an interview on Al-Arabiya television "needlessly defensive and apologetic."

Obama has described his desire for "a new way forward," and expressed hope things can be like they were "as recently as 20 or 30 years ago." In that time, Krauthammer notes, we've seen the Iranian revolution bring a radical Shiite government to power, seize Americans as hostages for more than a year and seen terrorist attacks against American diplomats and Marines in Lebanon on a peacekeeping mission. In contrast:

"In these most recent 20 years -- the alleged winter of our disrespect of the Islamic world -- America did not just respect Muslims, it bled for them. It engaged in five military campaigns, every one of which involved -- and resulted in -- the liberation of a Muslim people: Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq.

The two Balkan interventions -- as well as the failed 1992-93 Somalia intervention to feed starving African Muslims (43 Americans were killed) -- were humanitarian exercises of the highest order, there being no significant U.S. strategic interest at stake. In these 20 years, this nation has done more for suffering and oppressed Muslims than any nation, Muslim or non-Muslim, anywhere on Earth. Why are we apologizing?"

He finds the President's posture that America has been disrespectful toward the Muslim world is false and "in gratuitous disparagement of the country he is now privileged to lead." Despite what some advocacy groups claim, the United States has not demonized Islam:

"In these seven years since Sept. 11 -- seven years during which thousands of Muslims rioted all over the world (resulting in the death of more than 100) to avenge a bunch of cartoons -- there's not been a single anti-Muslim riot in the United States to avenge the massacre of 3,000 innocents. On the contrary. In its aftermath, we elected our first Muslim member of Congress and our first president of Muslim parentage."

IPT Report on CAIR Attracts Attention

News that the FBI has cut off contacts with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is attracting media and political attention.

On Thursday, the IPT broke the story that the FBI wants CAIR officials to answer questions about their organization's un-indicted co-conspirator status in the Hamas support trial of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development before resuming relations. Evidence in that trial, which ended in November with the conviction of five former HLF officials on 108 counts, shows that CAIR was part of a network of Hamas support organizations in the U.S. and that founders Nihad Awad and Omar Ahmad were individually listed on a phone list of the "Palestine Committee" created by the Muslim Brotherhood for that purpose.

On Friday, five U.S. House Republicans, including the head of the bi-partisan Anti-Terrorism Caucus Sue Myrick, sent their congressional colleagues a letter with the IPT story attached. "Members should think twice before meeting with representatives of CAIR," the letter said.

And Fox News picked up the story, reporting that the FBI confirmed the IPT's reporting: "An official at the FBI's headquarters in Washington confirmed to FOX News that his office directed FBI field offices across the country to cut ties with local branches of CAIR."

CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper declined to comment to the IPT last week. However, CAIR issued a statement to FOX News blaming the freeze out on the Bush Administration: "It is not surprising that we would be singled out by those in the previous administration who sought to prevent us from defending the civil rights of American Muslims."

New Team, New Try

U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) is nothing if not tenacious. He sent five letters to the State Department and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice during the last 15 months of the Bush Administration expressing his concern about intolerance and extremism in Saudi Arabian textbooks, especially those being used at the Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA) in Alexandria, Va.

An analysis by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) concluded that, despite promise to remove references to offending passages, the books still teach that "Jews conspired against Islam," that Sunni Muslims should shun all Shia Muslims and that killing an apostate or an adulterer is acceptable under Islamic law.

Now there's a new team at the State Department and Wolf has written to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urging her to act. He told Clinton his past overtures resulted only in "vague assurances on the part of the State Department and the school that the curriculum has been reformed. But these assurances are insufficient, particularly when they are utterly at odds with USCIRF's findings, and may be indicative of a wider problem-namely the status of Saudi commitments made in 2006 to conduct ‘a comprehensive revision of textbooks and educational curricula to weed out disparaging remarks.'"

A resolution is needed, even if it turns out the matter has been resolved quietly, Wolf wrote:

"If the students at ISA are not being taught or exposed to texts that incite hatred and intolerance of other people and faiths, then in all fairness to them and those associated with the academy, concerns should be put to rest. If, however, the content of the textbooks is consistent with USCIRF's findings, then action is required."

Saudi Arabia was among the largest donors to former President Bill Clinton's charity foundation, Wolf notes. If Secretary of State Clinton wants to show those donations will not affect her decisions as the nation's top diplomat, Wolf writes, demanding answers from the ISA would be a good start.

Of Religious Insults and Stifling Free Expression

As we noted last week, a court ruling has cleared the way for Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders to be prosecuted for hate speech. Wilders, producer of the 15-minute film Fitna, has compared the Quran to Mein Kampf and made other statements considered by some to be insulting Islam.

In a new article, Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Nina Shea details just how arbitrary blasphemy definitions can be and how wildly varied are the punishments. Shea, who has spent a decade as a commissioner on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, starts by noting the lack of any commensurate sensitivity concerning hate speech against other faiths.

"In recent weeks, even while demands grew to punish Wilders under hate speech laws, Muslim demonstrators in European capitals freely chanted, ‘Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas.' Insulting and even inciting violence against the religious ‘other' is sponsored by the state itself in some Muslim countries: Iran's government held a cartoon exhibit mocking the Holocaust; Saudi Ministry of Education textbooks describe Jews and Christians as ‘apes' and ‘pigs' and call for Muslims to rise up and kill Jews; the state media of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, all promote the fabricated anti-Semitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion as historical fact."

She cites nine cases during the past decade in which books were banned and people were fined or imprisoned for various offenses toward Islam:

"It is not hard to see why ‘insulting Islam,' and the family of crimes relating to apostasy and blasphemy to which it belongs, is singled out as a principal reason for the Muslim world's underdevelopment. The vagueness of how this offence is defined undermines due process and chills speech in broad areas."

The Dutch, she concludes, walk down a similar path at their own risk.

Having Walked a Mile in Their Boots

The Spectator offered readers interesting insights into urban warfare Saturday when it published the views of a British soldier with experience in intelligence in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Writing under the pseudonym Daniel Yates, the soldier explained that routine military practices have triggered shock and outrage in Gaza:

"Urban warfare is complicated, disorientating and utterly confusing even in conventional operations. When an enemy, such as Hamas, is willing to dress in civilian clothing, attack from legally protected sites and use civilians as human shields it becomes fiendishly difficult."

Israel's use of white phosphorous is among the most criticized practices in the three-week Gaza battle. Yates wrote that reflexive cries of war crimes are misguided, and that British forces use white phosphorous "almost daily" in Afghanistan:

"White phosphorous is used because it provides an instant smokescreen, other munitions can provide a smokescreen but the effect is not instant. Faced with overwhelming enemy fire and wounded comrades, every commander would choose to screen his men instantly, to do otherwise would be negligent."

Similarly, the outcry that Israel attacked ambulances may be missing significant context. The British Army repeatedly encountered ambulances moving fighters and weaponry around Basra, Yates wrote.

Yates wasn't in Gaza, but he has been in war against jihadis who know few will speak up when they hide behind civilians or otherwise violate all of the rules of war their adversaries follow.

Is it Bold or Stupid?

So you think your people have been unfairly locked out by the government and the change in administration could be a chance for a fresh start. Does it make sense to tap the former spokesman of a genocidal regime tied to the world's worst terrorists to help make your case?

That's the basic question in Patrick Poole's report on Abubaker Ahmed al-Shingieti, president of American Muslims for Constructive Engagement (AMCE). To make matters worse, Poole writes, AMCE includes officials from the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), including al-Shingieti. CAIR has been linked through court evidence to a Hamas front operating in the United States during the 1990s. The IIIT remains under federal investigation into possible terror financing.

They all share links to the Muslim Brotherhood, whose American-based members once described their role in this country as "a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers.." Poole notes that Al-Shingieti served as spokesman to Sudan's president at a time the country was slaughtering Christians and serving as a sanctuary for some of the world's worst terrorists:

"Investigating his background we find that despite his recent image makeover as an expert in interfaith relations and reconciliation — a dramatic change from his service as a henchman to a genocidal government — that Abubaker al-Shingieti has not changed his Muslim Brotherhood allegiances in his various transitions, just merely changed employers. Many of his AMCE colleagues have made similar transitions to respectability without distancing themselves from their terrorist ties.

What's a little genocide between friends? Thus we can expect that the agenda al-Shingieti carries in his contacts with the Obama administration will continue to be in service to the Muslim Brotherhood's ‘grand jihad' he has served for the past two decades."

Some very pointed questions must be answered before the AMCE wins so much as a returned telephone call.

Mounting Assaults on Free Speech

A Dutch appellate court's ruling that anti-immigration lawmaker Geert Wilders can be prosecuted for hate speech is generating a lot of reaction. Wilders, producer of the 15-minute film Fitna, is accused of insulting Muslims in the film and in other statements.

Dallas Morning News editorial writer Rod Dreher calls the prosecution both mind boggling and outrageous:

"I would say that it's outrageous to think that now people in the Netherlands risk criminal prosecution for criticizing religion and religious believers, but I think we all know no atheist is going to be hauled into the dock for criticizing Christians (nor should he be, I underscore). This is all about sacrificing free speech and a vital civil liberty to buy social peace. You don't have to agree with Wilders to grasp the meaning of this, though the Dutch court's action goes a long way toward vindicating Wilders' claim that the Dutch are losing their freedoms and their democracy because of the Muslim presence among them."

The Wall Street Journal distinguishes between speech that threatens and that which merely offends:

"There are of course limits to free speech, such as calls for violence. But one doesn't need to agree with Mr. Wilders to acknowledge that he hasn't crossed that line. Some Muslims say they are outraged by his statements. But if freedom of speech means anything, it means the freedom of controversial speech. Consensus views need no protection."

And Wilders is not alone. In Vienna, a far-right legislator named Susanne Winter was convicted Thursday for hate speech, including her reference to the Prophet Mohamed as a pedophile.

More on Wilders' case been be found here.

Gaza and Repercussions in the War on Terror

Fear of confrontation with Britain's ever expanding militant Islamist movement is indirectly "undermining the Western defense against the jihad," the invaluable Melanie Phillips writes in this column in the European edition of the Wall Street Journal.

She summarizes a series of violent demonstrations preotesting Israel's war against Hamas and the capitulation by Britain's political leadership against Hamas-instigated violence in the name of a rapid cease fire.

"More serious still, Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell cited as fact the Hamas claim that 300 children had been killed in Gaza, even though Israel has given a much lower figure, and said the Israeli action was ‘disproportionate' and the bombing was ‘indefensible and unacceptable.'

Similarly, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, commenting after this weekend's cease-fire that ‘too many innocent people' had been killed, made no mention of Israel's strenuous attempts to minimize civilian casualties, nor Hamas's responsibility for holding Gaza's civilians hostage.

In fact, the British government has effectively taken the view that Israel should not be allowed to defend itself by military means against the Hamas rockets that ministers have taken care to condemn."

Police did little to quell the demonstrations, which featured frequent attempts to storm the Israeli embassy and attacks on Jewish-owned businesses. Pro-Israel demonstrators were told to stow their Israeli flag, though, because they were "inflammatory." These are ripples in the broader issue of tamping down global jihad, Phillips writes, because jihadists throughout the globe share the same ideological motivation.

As a result, "ministers are intent on appeasing Muslim extremism and intimidation both at home and abroad."

Confusing, Conflicting Gaza Death Tolls

There's no doubt Israel's offensive against Hamas claimed a lot of lives in Gaza. But exactly how many died is unclear and the portion of civilian casualties is even more unsettled.

Israeli military officials are denying an Italian journalist's claim that no more than 600 people died in the three weeks of fighting. Lorenzo Cremonesi, a correspondent for Italy's Corriere Della Sera, reported that the death toll was inflated after visiting Gaza hospitals and interviewing local Palestinians.

The Israeli military and Palestinian medics each put the death toll at around 1,300 people, so that number seems to be fairly credible. However, Israeli Defense Forces say two-thirds of the dead were Hamas operatives and fighters or members of other terrorist organizations, often dressed in civilian clothing. They are compiling a list of the dead and claim it already contains the names of 750 Hamas members (if so, then a clear majority of the dead) while the Palestinians insist a majority of the dead were civilians.

Hamas claimed fewer than 50 of its people were killed. Those jumping blindly on high-end casualty counts should remember, similar claims have been exposed as wildly off base in the past.

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