January 2, 2013
Muslim immigrants and their supporters have been using a combination of lawsuits, verbal and physical harassment -- and even murder -- to silence debate about the rise of Islam.

Opinion surveys show that to voters in France -- home to an estimated 6.5 million Muslims, the largest Muslim population in the European Union -- Islam and the question of Muslim immigration have emerged in 2012 as a top-ranked public concern. The French, it seems, are increasingly worried about the establishment of a parallel Muslim society there.

January 3, 2013
Western journalists, funders and decision-makers need to know that there are many truths being hidden from their eyes and ears.

The truth sometimes hurts; that is why the Palestinian Authority has been working hard to prevent the outside world from hearing about many occurrences that reflect negatively on its leaders or people.

In recent years, the Palestinian Authority leadership, often with the help of the mainstream media in the US and EU, has been successful in its effort to divert all attention only toward Israel.

02 January 2013
A growing number of signs point to the fact that rival factions in Syria are ready for an agreement, including the regime of Bashar al-Assad. While it is too early to tell if these efforts will bear fruit, the mere recognition of the need for an agreement has implications on Syria and its neighbors in the Middle East, notably the Palestinians.

January 4, 2013
Al-Jazeera, which bought Current TV from Al Gore, is not a communications medium in the Western sense. It is a psychological warfare medium, a fundamentalist terrorist communications base operating under Qatari cover. It sets its sights on changing regimes.

January 2, 2013
Just as 2011 in Iraq ended with a political crisis following the issuing of an arrest warrant by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki against Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi on allegations of running a death squad, so 2012 has rounded off with another political crisis: this time involving the Finance Minister Rafi al-Issawi, a member of Ayad Allawi's Iraqiya bloc.

In this case, the arrest warrant is not against Issawi himself, but rather some members of his security entourage, charged with aiding Hashemi's men in the Vice President's alleged death squad.

03 Jan 2013
It must be a new year. The Washington Post has an editorial explaining that Israeli settlements are not the main problem in the Middle East.

The Post editorial is amazing since such sanity is so rare. It begins:

“Two mistaken but widely held notions regarding Israeli-Palestinian peace are that the settlements are the principal obstacle to a deal and that further construction will make a Palestinian state impossible.”

WWW.PM.ORG
And then it continues by laying down a detailed, factual case that’s worth repeating:

06 Jan 2013
What would you call it if a former vice-president of the United States had sold his television network to a fascist or Communist front group at a time when such forces threatened America? Nothing very nice. But now Al Gore has sold out his admittedly obscure channel to al-Jazeera and taken a position on its board. Here's an interview of myself on this issue.

1.) Is Al Jazeera a news station a former American vice president should want to associate with?

Absolutely not. There are multiple reasons.

January 2013, pp. 1-19
October 1, 2000, was a watershed in Arab-Jewish relations in the state of Israel. On that day, as most Israelis were celebrating the Jewish new year, their Arab compatriots unleashed a tidal wave of violence in support of the 'al-Aqsa intifada', an all out war of terror launched by Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority a couple of days earlier.

January 7, 2013
Successive British governments continue to tolerate the existence of large charities that encourage and provide for Islamist terror groups. By failing to separate British Muslims from the Islamist charities that exploit them, we flatter and legitimize supporters of terrorism as humanitarians and community leaders.

January 2, 2013
In January, Israeli voters will go to the polls for an election that promises to hand Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu a renewed mandate. Few prospects are more loathsome to the Israeli left, US President Barack Obama's administration, most European leaders, or many American Jews.

January 7, 2013
Over the course of the Syrian civil war, there has been much speculation as to what the Assad regime's endgame plan might be.

In this context has come the notion of establishing something along the lines of the "Alawite State" that existed under the French Mandate of Syria, and which Bashar al-Assad's grandfather- Suleiman al-Assad, one of the main Alawite community leaders in the period- eagerly sought to preserve rather than seeking unity with the rest of Syria.

January 9, 2013
As Americans seek to find an alternative to the stark and unappetizing choice of accepting Iran's rabid leadership having nuclear weapons or pre-emptively bombing its nuclear facilities, one analyst offers a credible third path. Interestingly, it's inspired by a long-ago policy toward a different foe – the Reagan administration's ways of handling the Soviet Union – yet this unlikely model offers a useful prototype.

January 7, 2013
Inasmuch as Salafis are vile and violent, so too must they be credited with being refreshingly frank and honest, especially in comparison with the "moderate"—that is, mendacious—Muslim Brotherhood.

To understand this, one must first understand that Salafis are simply modern day Muslims who closely pattern themselves after the very earliest Muslims, specifically those generations that coincided with Islam's so-called "Golden Age," beginning with Muhammad's rule, followed by the first four "righteous caliphs," circa. 622-656.1

January 10, 2013
Since 2005, the EU has given more than $48 million to more than 90 NGOs based in Israel and the West Bank. Although the EU has stressed the importance of transparency to ensure it is open to the public and accountable for its work, there is no transparency whatever regarding the allocation of most of these funds.

Ankara's Unacknowledged Genocide
Turkey, Past and Future
by Efraim Karsh
Jan.11.2013
It is commonplace among Middle East scholars across the political spectrum to idealize the Ottoman colonial legacy as a shining example of tolerance. "The multi-ethnic Ottoman Turkish Empire," wrote American journalist Robert Kaplan, "was more hospitable to minorities than the uni-ethnic democratic states that immediately succeeded it … Violent discussions over what group got to control which territory emerged only when the empire came to an end, after World War I."[1]

Jan 8 2013
The notorious Islamist organisation Hizb-Ut Tahrir ('HUT') openly avows an ideology whose ultimate goal is to transform the entire world into an Islamic state. Despite being linked to a number of terrorist attacks -- most notably the '7/7 bombings' in London -- the group is generally careful to avoid being portrayed as pro-violence.

For example, the profile of local Australian spokesperson Uthman Badar on ABC's The Drum (for which he is an occasional contributor) describes the group as:

January 10, 2013
Mahmoud Abbas, chairman of the Palestinian Authority and leader of the PLO and the Fatah movement, presented a radical political doctrine in his speech on January 4, 2013, honoring the anniversary of Fatah’s establishment. The messages Abbas conveys express the political and national vision that he bequeaths to the Palestinian people.

January 11, 2013
A detailed analysis of FBI statistics covering ten full calendar years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks reveals that, on a per capita basis, American Muslims, contrary to spin, have been subjected to hate crimes less often than other prominent minorities.

Jan 11 2013
Following the Iranian regime's violent crackdown on Iranians who protested the June 2009 election result, Iran's repression continued against anyone deemed to be a supporter of the ‘velvet revolution' - who were seen as working to undermine the Islamic republic.

January 14, 2013
Many even have good consciences and feel they are on the side of The Good. If they would begin began to read some books on history, they will see that anti-Semites have always thought they were on the side of The Good.

January 14, 2013
Cypriot banks cater almost exclusively to Russian oligarchs; as a consequence, tiny Cyprus is Russia's largest foreign investor. The impending fall of the Assad regime in Syria is forcing Russian President Vladimir Putin to look for an alternative to Tartus [for Russia's naval base] – leaving him with only one option: Cyprus.

January 15, 2013
The US and the EU, which have been funding and training the the Palestinian security forces, need to bang on the table -- now -- for Abbas to rein in the Fatah militiamen, before scenes of anarchy, violence and lawlessness return to the West Bank.

After keeping a low profile for the past few years, Fatah's armed gangs have resurfaced in the West Bank.

01/04/2013 16:34
Newly translated interviews by MEMRI show Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi in 2010 opposing two-state solution.

Israeli-Palestinian negotiations are "a waste of time and opportunities" as Arabs and Muslims get nothing out of engagement with "the descendants of apes and pigs," current Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi asserted in September 2010, according to newly translated interviews published this week by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

January 15, 2013
To question or discuss Islam, or any religion, is not racism, it is not hate, it is not necessarily meant to "victimize" anyone. One is often left with the impression that if anyone ever felt that Mohammed, or Islam, even might have been insulted, no freedom-loving person can expect to be left in peace ever again. Canada and the West need to declare and defend a pluralistic, democratic approach to rights and freedoms without any shame, and without fear of offending anyone who might try to intimidate their citizens.