February 17, 2012
Professor John Louis Esposito of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. is one of the most outspoken and prolific defenders of radical Islamist ideology in Western academia. But in addition to his tenured employment in Middle East Studies, Esposito has found a second calling -- as a court expert in the trials of accused Muslim radicals.

According to the Washington-based website Politico, Esposito has been tapped as a defense witness in the case of Khalid Ali Aldawsari, a twenty-one-year-old Saudi Arabian subject arrested in February 2011 in Lubbock, Texas.

Feb.17 2012
This article is dedicated to Peter Beinhart, an American Jew, author of THE CRISIS OF ZIONISM. He pretends to speak for Liberal Zionists. I am a Liberal Zionist. I support a 2 state solution, reject settlements and support equal rights for Israeli Arabs. Yet, I detest what Peter is doing to Israel. Peter totally ignores we need 2 for tango and the Palestinians – not only Netanyahu – refuse to dance.

My article tells the story of the Palestinian responsibility for the crisis:

February 15, 2012
In a quickly changing world, it is important to ask which countries the United States can always count on in times of crisis. Recent events have shortened that list considerably.

Feb 16 2012
Ilan Pappe is an Israeli Jewish academic who harbors deep animosity towards the Jewish state, has publicly called for its elimination, and engages in activities to harm its citizens, such as a campaign to boycott Israeli academics, which he helped to found. In addition, he openly supports the terrorist organization Hamas and falsely accuses Israel of “crimes against humanity,” including “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing.”

Fab.16 2012
The transition to democracy and capitalism has not been kind to Russia. It sank from superpower to sideshow internationally. The country is hurting and stagnant; it has no sense of purpose or goals; and Russia is in the hands of a ruthless dictator who knows how to use nationalism and demagoguery to ensure his power.

Remove "This Corrupting Material"
February 15, 2012
Imagine Iran with Nuclear-Tipped Missiles Pointed at Every Capital of Europe.

Feb 16, 2012
Wars have rarely been won by using a single tactic, and this holds true for current non-military campaigns, including those waged by the use of legal warfare, or lawfare. When the goal of a campaign is to widely disseminate disinformation, legal intimidation is often an effective means of silencing inconvenient facts that would disrupt the disinformation campaign, especially through defamation lawsuits. The enduring myths surrounding the "Al-Dura Incident" provide a case in point.

16.02.12
Campus activists across America are staging Israel Peace Week in an effort to combat the annual festival of anti-Israel vitriol.

February 16, 2012
The history of reporting by UN frameworks on human rights in Israel has been characterized by biased mandates, false and unverifiable allegations, double standards and hypocrisy.

Part 1: Overview and Background:

February 13, 2012
Is the problem Islam or Islamism? Muslims or Islamists?
These and related questions regularly foster debate (see the exchange between Robert Spencer and Andrew McCarthy for a recent example). The greatest obstacle on the road to consensus is what such words imply; namely, that Islamism and Islamists are "bad," and Islam and Muslims are good (or simply neutral).

Some observations in this regard:

February 15, 2012
What’s so terrible about the ideological/agenda-based domination of the mass media and academia is that people don’t ask critical questions that undermine their political positions. Here’s one:

February 15, 2012
Centuries of persecution before Israeli "occupation."
In the voluminous commentaries on the Middle East today very little attention has been given to the sad fate of Christians in the Arab and Muslim countries. Even less attention has been paid to the contrast between the treatment of Christians in Israel and their treatment in Arab countries.

02/12/2012
Jordan's King Abdullah is worried about the Arab Spring making its way to his doorstep.
Speaking to The Washington Post, King Abdullah of Jordan urged Israel to jump-start peace negotiations with the Palestinians; otherwise, he said, “Israel will have to choose between democracy and apartheid.”

While Israel-bashing by Abdullah is nothing new, this “apartheid alert” from a regime based on apartheid policies against a Palestinian majority is shocking.

"You’re trash, you’ll never be victorious," Sheikh Qabbani tells stunned Palestinians reps.
The mufti of Lebanon, Sheikh Mohammed Rashid Qabbani, was quoted as saying that Palestinians are no longer welcome in his country. He also condemned Palestinians as “trash,” and said that he’s not afraid of their weapons.

Sheikh Qabbani’s remarks were made during a meeting he held in his office in Beirut with a Palestinian delegation, representing refugees and various Palestinian factions in Lebanon.

The furious mufti later kicked the Palestinian representatives out of his office.

Part Tw0
"Every ten years, a vital aim is achieved. These are the Protocols of the Elders of Zion,
of a century, from 1897 till 1997. They have planned and accomplished. Every ten
years, another aim was achieved, proving their continuity and their power.”7
Everything cited until this point is from Fatah political leaders on PA Fatah-controlled TV and
newspapers. The Hamas movement agrees with this ideology and even formalizes it by
incorporating the Protocols into its ideology and citing it in the official Hamas charter:
Article Thirty Two

Part One
Are the Jewish Elders of Zion conspiring to subjugate the entire world under a Jewish world
government?
It sounds too ridiculous to consider, let alone necessitate a denial. But if you
were a 10th-grade student in the Palestinian Authority (PA), that is precisely what you would
have been learning in your new history book. The schoolbook, published in 2004, by the
Palestinian Ministry of Education, teaches that among the foundations of Zionism, agreed
upon at the First Zionist Congress in 1897, “there is a group of confidential resolutions

February 1, 2012
Russia is the spoiler as the international community tries to protect the Syrian people from their own leader, Bashar al-Assad. Despite growing calls from around the world for firm measures to oust Assad, Moscow shamelessly blocks the path to resolving the crisis.

European nations, notably France and Great Britain, as well as the U.S., have led efforts to bring Syria before the UN Security Council. But Russia, together with China, vetoed a resolution in October that condemned the regime and did not even call for sanctions.

Feb 14 2012
In the aftermath of the recent Qatari-brokered reconciliation agreement between Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, many have suggested that Hamas is moderating both its long-standing goals of Israel's destruction and its traditional rejection of any negotiations with Israel. But Hamas' leadership in Gaza, spearheaded Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar, has been making it very clear that they do not support any such change.

February 12, 2012
Since South Sudan seceded from Sudan in July 2011, there have been numerous clashes along their common border. The UN estimates that several hundred thousand people have been displaced by fighting in the border areas of South Kordofan, Blue Nile and Unity State. Both countries accuse each other of backing rebels operating in their territory.

Various mediation efforts to end the conflict in Darfur and to ease tension between Sudan and South Sudan have so far failed. The situation up and down the border seems only to be getting worse.

February 13, 2012
When it comes to Israel, advice is never in short supply.
It’s doled out steadily by diplomats, scholars, editorial writers, columnists, you name it.

The onset of the so-called Arab Spring – in actuality, it more closely approximates an Islamic Winter – has unleashed another tidal wave of counsel and critique.

They are summed up along the following lines:

"[T]he Arab Spring holds out a historic opportunity to complete the peace process in the Middle East" (French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé);

February 13,
There is a strong case that can be made for doing nothing about the Syrian civil war, but a stronger case can be made for doing something relatively low-cost and ineffective, indeed, precisely what the Syrian opposition is requesting.

Forget about major military intervention, which would be dangerous, costly, and above the level of available resources.

02/14/2012
Rounding up a three-day visit to Iran, Haniyeh reiterates refusal to recognize, compromise with Israel.
Hamas PM Ismail Haniyeh arrives in Tehran By REUTERS/Morteza Nikoubazl

Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh continued Monday to issue fiery statements about Israel, which he compared to a cancer that is threatening to spread to other parts of the body.

Rounding up a three-day visit to Iran, Haniyeh said in an interview with an Iranian TV station that Israel remained the “main enemy” of the Arab and Islamic world.
Related:

February 14, 2012
Are the media actually interested in helping the Palestinians, or really just in bashing Israel? The media's overkill fixation on bashing Israel hurts not only Jews and any chances for peace, but also Palestinians.

Helen Thomas, dubbed "the First Lady of the Press", was a renowned veteran reporter, "a trusted source" on White House politics, and for decades, considered a public opinion-maker, when on May 27, 2010, she made anti-Semitic remarks: she wanted Jews to simply "get the hell out of Palestine" and return "Home to Poland, Germany" or "America."

Feb 13 2012
Literally Earth-shattering, according to Iranian state media
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei says the powerful feelings of the regional nations towards Gaza have been instrumental in the eruption of the region's volcano.

13 February 2012
Amidst the crisis in Syria, Hezbollah’s former secretary general, Subhi Tufeili, declared that Hezbollah would eventually seek an alliance with Israel.

February 13, 2012
In the end he will have to fire himself.
Facing growing criticism over lack of reforms and transparency, Jordan's King Abdullah has announced an unprecedented crackdown on corruption, sending a number of his former top government officials to prison.

But the clampdown has only increased the appetite of the Jordanians, who continue to press for harsher measures against senior officials suspected of embezzling public funds and abusing their powers.

January 10, 2012
The Islamist frenzy that is currently sweeping the Arab world has seen Hamas rise to become a legitimate and recognized player in the Palestinian and international arena.

Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh last week began a tour of a number of Arab and Islamic countries, where he has so far been received as a hero and with chants of "Death to Jews!"

The number of readers of my web site in Jan.2012 grew in 4,000 readers.
present number:35,712

In deep antiquity, particularly in Egypt, the early civilization where the arts were most strongly developed, the visualization was aspective: that is the artist, working in paint or low-relief sculpture, conveyed to his two-dimensional surface not so much what he saw as what he knew was there.

- Paul Johnson, The Renaissance

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, best selling author, film director, and fearless advocate of women’s rights in the Arab and Muslim world, takes on what one writer called “the most politically incorrect subject of all human-rights reporting” — the persecution of Christians by radical Islamists: