Roth - Islamism and the Palestinian Arab "Spring"

Islamic Jihad: Their sense of what children
are good far makes them an excellent
 partner for Hamas

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
22 January '12..




If you have taken a look at our comment from a little earlier today about the emergence of radical Islamists in the new Egyptian political landscape, you will not need much persuading that Islamism is now riding a wave of unprecedented acceptance in the Arab world.

Hamas: Their sense of what children
are good far makes them an
excellent partner for Islamic Jihad

Hence, not so surprising to find that what binds Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad is more important than what (hitherto) has divided them. The report is Iranian, and given the extreme closeness of the Iranian regime to the Islamicist groups across the Middle East, we're persuaded they ought to be believed. Besides, it's almost always a mistake to dismiss the seriousness of threats when they're made by terrorists.

Palestinian Leader Calls Merger of Hamas, Islamic Jihad "Necessity" Saturday, 21 January 2012 | A senior Hamas official stressed on Saturday that merging Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the main Palestinian Islamic resistance movements, is a political and religious must. Mahmoud Al Zahar stated "Religion, politics and political developments in our surrounding necessitate closeness of Islamic movements". He said that integration of the two Palestinian movements in a single organizational structure can resolve many problems, including those related to elections since both groups can now take part in the elections in a single framework. In a recent a meeting with top officials from Islamic Jihad, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya called for rapid measures to merge the two movements. Islamic Jihad also confirmed that the merger talks were already underway. Spokesman Daud Shihab told AFP "An in-depth dialogue has actually begun, both internally and externally, with the aim of uniting".

Fresnozionism - What’s good for Israel is good for the USA (apologies to General Bullmoose)

Fresnozionism.org
20 January '12

Lately I’ve been reading a lot about whether certain bloggers associated with the Center for American Progress (CAP) — an organization ‘closely linked to the White House’ — have crossed the line by using the expression “Israel-Firsters” for American supporters of Israel. Peter Wallsten of the Washington Post provides a relatively neutral summary of the controversy here.

I am beginning to think that nothing is less productive than discussing whether a particular expression or person is antisemitic. Certainly saying that “American Jews are disloyal because they choose Israel over the USA” is antisemitic. But the CAP bloggers who used this expression insist that they are only talking about specific individuals, and their being Jewish is irrelevant.

I’ll be generous and give them this. It’s unimportant (although I’ll add that the expression is quite popular in explicitly antisemitic and neo-Nazi circles).

Today the impulse to hate — at least as it affects the more sophisticated Americans and Europeans — is directed at the concrete national expression of the Jewish people, the state of Israel, rather than at ‘the Jews’.

So what? Irrational, obsessive hate is irrational, obsessive hate. Only the object is different. And the bloody results can be the same.

What is a bit ironic today is that the interests of the US and Israel are more closely aligned than ever before. Speaking for myself, I believe that being pro-Israel is part of being pro-American (if this weren’t the case, I would go back to Israel tomorrow).

Fresnozionism - Islamism means immunity to solutions

Fresnozionism.org
28 November '11

http://fresnozionism.org/2011/11/islamism-means-immunity-to-solutions/

The damage to Israel-Arab relations growing from the “Arab Spring” cannot be exaggerated. For example,

The new [Islamist - ed.] Tunisian government is gearing up to ratify a new constitution, and its language includes a section condemning Zionism and ruling out any friendly ties with Israel…

Israeli officials are concerned that government-sponsored hatred of Israel in Tunisia will spread to other Middle East countries, such as Egypt, potentially destabilizing the entire region. The officials noted that Tunisia is considered a moderate Arab country and has maintained friendly relations with Israel since the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993.

A section of the constitution? As far as I know, this is the first time any nation has defined itself in terms of opposition to Zionism, something normally associated with terrorist groups like Hamas and Hizballah. And Tunisia, which has never been at war with Israel and whose President called for the recognition of Israel in 1965, has been called “a voice for moderation and realism in the Middle East” by the US State Department. Not any more.

Tunisia was the Arab country that was considered most likely to have a democratic outcome to its “Arab spring” revolution. It did have a democratic election, but the Islamist ‘Ennahda ‘ party received a plurality of the vote.

Fresnozionism - US makes Egypt more dangerous

Fresnozionism.org
11 July '11

http://fresnozionism.org/2011/07/us-makes-egypt-more-dangerous/

News item:

On Friday, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of a possible sale of 125 M1A1 Abrams tank to Egypt – the first large arms deal since Hosni Mubarak was ousted from power in February – including associated weapons, equipment, parts, training and logistical support at an estimated cost of just over $1.3 billion.

If approved, the deal would increase the number of Abrams tanks in Egypt from around 1,000 to 1,130.

What?

Egypt is headed for a huge economic/food crisis. David P. Goldman (‘Spengler’) writes,

The numbers thrown out by the IMF are stupefying. “In the current baseline scenario,” wrote the IMF on May 27, “the external financing needs of the region’s oil importers is projected to exceed $160 billion during 2011-13.” That’s almost three years’ worth of Egypt’s total annual imports as of 2010. As of 2010, the combined current account deficit (that is, external financing needs) of Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Morocco and Tunisia was about $15 billion a year.

What the IMF says, in effect, is that the oil-poor Arab economies – especially Egypt – are not only broke, but dysfunctional, incapable of earning more than a small fraction of their import bill. The disappearance of tourism is an important part of the problem, but shortages of fuel and other essentials have had cascading effects throughout these economies.

So, how will they pay for these tanks? Well, I suppose we US taxpayers will, through the military ‘aid’ that we’ve provided to Egypt ever since we supplanted the Soviets as their patron. I presume our government thinks that it’s more important to ‘aid’ the Egyptian military complex than to feed the people. And then there’s our own debt crisis.

A more important question is “what do they need these tanks for?” Egypt’s armored brigades are already far superior to those of Iran. There is only one possible use for them, and that is to fight Israel.

Nobody knows at this point who will be in charge in Egypt in the next few months. Demonstrators presently camped in Tahrir Square include not only “pro-democracy” elements, but also Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood and more radical groups. Can we trust them? Does it sound ridiculous to even ask that question?

There is perhaps no place on earth as dangerous today as Egypt, a huge country where political instability, economic crisis and a massive military establishment are coming together.

Should the US be making it even more dangerous?

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Three enemies of Israel and the West

Fresnozionism.org
10 January '11
http://fresnozionism.org/2011/01/three-enemies-of-israel-and-the-west/

There’s a consensus of opinion in much of the media and world governments that has developed in the last few years: that the settlements should be dismantled, that the 1949 lines are not borders but somehow what is outside of them is ‘Palestinian’, that the solution to the Israeli-Arab conflict is the establishment of another Arab state exclusively for Palestinian Arabs, and that there is an urgency to ‘rectify’ the ‘unnatural’ situation that Israel controls territory beyond the 1949 lines (including the strategic Golan).

This position is usually presented as a pro-peace one, but actually the result of implementing an Israeli withdrawal would be to greatly improve the chances that Israel’s enemies will succeed in destroying her.

We might ask ourselves why they think this. I don’t mean “why are they wrong” — clearly they are wrong on the basis of international law and historical fact, and they are wrong in thinking that the proposed ‘solution’ would reduce conflict. My question is “why do they take this demonstrably wrong position?”

There are several answers.

One is that the leftist ideology which adopted the Palestinian Arabs as an ‘oppressed indigenous people’ in the 1960′s influences many Western policy-makers. This explains the attitudes of many European politicians with leftist roots, as well as the academics associated with Barack Obama.

Another is the massive propaganda and lobbying effort that has been funded primarily by Saudi Arabian petrodollars and has been going on for years. In the US — and I presume elsewhere — there are a multiplicity of organizations, often connected with oil companies, quietly performing these functions. Promises of profitable ‘employment’ after public service have been enormously influential in the US (viz., Jimmy Carter).

Yet another is the recent explosion (pun perhaps intended) of radical Islam on the world, and the conciliatory reaction of many in the West. In other words, they are scared by the radicals and it makes them feel safer when they take an anti-Israel position. For radical Islamists — unlike the secular Arab nationalists — the existence of Israel is a ferociously ideological issue, more than just a useful tool to stir up the masses.

Who or what are we fighting?

FresnoZionism
08 January '10

“It is not that Islam has been hijacked, rather different forces are fighting over control of the steering wheel.” — Barry Rubin

For the first time — as far as I can tell — in recorded history, a war is raging in which one side does not know the identity of its enemy.

This war has been underway since at least the 1990’s and pits the US and other Western democracies against various groups whose ideology is Radical Islamism. It is not a ‘war on terror’ — which is a tactic, not an opponent — and certainly not ‘overseas contingency operations’, an expression that Orwell would have been proud to invent. But on the other hand neither is it a ‘clash of civilizations’ and the enemy is not Islam.

What exactly is Radical Islamism, how is it related to Islam, why do Islamists employ the tactic of terrorism, why are we fighting, and what can be done to defeat it?

Important questions, and it appears that the previous and present US administrations lacked and continue to lack answers.

The following is a short but incisive discussion of these questions. It should be required reading in Washington. — ed.

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Radical Islamism: An Introductory Primer
By Barry Rubin

A young American named Ramy Zamzam, arrested in Pakistan for trying to fight alongside the Taliban, responded in an interview with the Associated Press: “We are not terrorists. We are jihadists, and jihad is not terrorism.”

What he says is well worth bearing in mind in order to understand the great conflict of our era. First and foremost, Jihadism or radical Islamism is far more than mere terrorism. It is a revolutionary movement in every sense of the word. It seeks to overthrow existing regimes and replace them with governments that will transform society into a nightmarishly repressive system.

And so one might put it this way: Revolutionary Islamism is the main strategic problem in the world today. Terrorism is the main tactical problem.

Read the rest here

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