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HAMAS’ CHRISTIAN CONVERT: I’VE LEFT A SOCIETY THAT SANCTIFIES TERROR

Hamas’ Christian convert: I’ve left a society that sanctifies terror
By Avi Issacharoff
Ha’aretz
July 31, 2008

A moment before beginning his supper, Masab, son of West Bank Hamas leader Sheikh Hassan Yousef, glances at the friend who has accompanied him to the restaurant where we met. They whisper a few words and then say grace, thanking God and Jesus for putting food on their plates.

It takes a few seconds to digest this sight: The son of a Hamas MP who is also the most popular figure in that extremist Islamic organization, a young man who assisted his father for years in his political activities, has become a rank-and-file Christian. “I’m now called Joseph,” he says at the outset.

Masab knows that he has little hope of returning to visit the Holy Land in this lifetime.

“I know that I’m endangering my life and am even liable to lose my father, but I hope that he’ll understand this and that God will give him and my family patience and willingness to open their eyes to Jesus and to Christianity. Maybe one day I’ll be able to return to Palestine and to Ramallah with Jesus, in the Kingdom of God.”

Nor does he attempt to hide his affection for Israel, or his abhorrence of everything representing the surroundings in which he grew up: the nation, the religion, the organization.

“Send regards to Israel, I miss it. I respect Israel and admire it as a country,” he says.

“You Jews should be aware: You will never, but never have peace with Hamas. Islam, as the ideology that guides them, will not allow them to achieve a peace agreement with the Jews. They believe that tradition says that the Prophet Mohammed fought against the Jews and that therefore they must continue to fight them to the death.”

Is that the justification for the suicide attacks?

“More than that. An entire society sanctifies death and the suicide terrorists. In Palestinian culture a suicide terrorist becomes a hero, a martyr. Sheikhs tell their students about the ‘heroism of the shaheeds.’”

And yet, in spite of the criticism of the place he left, California can’t make the longings disappear.

“I miss Ramallah,” he says. “People with an open mind... I mainly miss my mother, my brothers and sisters, but I know that it will be very difficult for me to return to Ramallah soon.”

The full version of this article will appear in the Ha’aretz Weekend Magazine.

(It can be read here -- T.G.)

 

“THE IRONY IS THAT IRAQ MAY NOW HAVE THE MOST PROMISING FUTURE IN THE ENTIRE REGION”

What if Iraq works?
By Victor Davis Hanson
July 31, 2008

www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/07/what_if_iraq_works.html

There is a growing confidence among officers, diplomats and politicians that a constitutional Iraq is going to make it. We don’t hear much anymore of trisecting the country, much less pulling all American troops out in defeat.

Critics of the war now argue that a victory in Iraq was not worth the costs, not that victory was always impossible. The worst terrorist leaders, like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Muqtada al-Sadr, are either dead or in hiding.

The 2007 surge, the Anbar Awakening of tribal sheiks against al-Qaeda, the change to counterinsurgency tactics, the vast increase in the size and competence of the Iraqi Security Forces, the sheer number of enemy jihadists killed between 2003-8, the unexpected political savvy of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the magnetic leadership of Gen. David Petraeus have all contributed to a radically improved Iraq.

Pundits and politicians – especially presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama – are readjusting their positions to reflect the new undeniable realities on the ground in Iraq:

The additional five combat brigades of the surge sent to Iraq in 2007 are already redeployed out of the country. American soldiers are incrementally turning province after province over to the Iraqi Security Forces, and planning careful but steady withdrawals for 2009.

Violence is way down. American military fatalities in Iraq for July, as of Tuesday, were the lowest monthly losses since May 2003. The Iraq theater may soon mirror other deployments in the Balkans, Europe and Asia, in which casualties are largely non-combat-related.

Since overseas troops have to be billeted, fed and equipped somewhere – whether in Germany, Okinawa or Iraq – the material costs of deployment in Iraq may soon likewise approximate those of other theaters. Anger over the costs of the “war” could soon be simply part of a wider debate over the need for, and expense of, maintaining a large number of American troops anywhere abroad.

For over four years, war critics insisted that we took our eye off Afghanistan, empowered Iran, allowed other rogue nations to run amuck and soured our allies while we were mired in an unnecessary war. But how true is all that?

The continuing violence in Afghanistan can be largely attributed to Pakistan, whose tribal wild lands serve as a safe haven for Taliban operations across the border. To the extent the war in Iraq has affected Afghanistan, it may well prove to have been positive for the U.S.: Many Afghan and Pakistani jihadists have been killed in Iraq, the war has discredited al-Qaeda, and the U.S. military has gained crucial expertise on tribal counterinsurgency.

Iran in the short-term may have been strengthened by a weakened Iraq, U.S. losses and acrimony over the war. Yet a constitutional Iraq of free Sunnis and Shiites may soon prove as destabilizing to Iran as Iranian subversion once was to Iraq. Nearby American troops, freed from daily fighting in Iraq, should appear to Iran as seasoned rather than exhausted. If Iraq is deemed successful rather than a quagmire, it is also likely that our allies in Europe and the surrounding region will be more likely to pressure Iran.

These shifting realities may explain both the shrill pronouncements emanating from a worried Iran and its desire for diplomatic talks with American representatives.

Other rogue nations – North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba (not to mention al-Qaeda itself) – also do not, for all their bluster, think that or act like an impotent U.S military is mired in defeat in Iraq.

Meanwhile, surrounding Arab countries may soon strengthen ties with Iraq. After all, military success creates friends as much as defeat loses them. In the past, Iraq’s neighbors worried either about Saddam Hussein’s aggression or subsequent Shiite/Sunni sectarianism. Now a constitutional Iraq offers them some reassurance that neither Iraqi conventional nor terrorist forces will attack.

None of this means that a secure future for Iraq is certain. After all, there are no constitutional oil-producing states in the Middle East. Instead, we usually see two pathologies: either a state like Iran where petrodollars are recycled to fund terrorist groups and centrifuges, or the Gulf autocracies where vast profits result in artificial islands, indoor ski runs and radical Islamic propaganda.

Iraq could still degenerate into one of those models. But for now, Iraq – with an elected government and free press – is not investing its wealth in subsidizing terrorists outside its borders, spreading abroad fundamentalist madrassas, building centrifuges or allowing a few thousand royal first cousins to squander its oil profits.

Iraq for the last 20 years was the worst place in the Middle East. The irony is that it may now have the most promising future in the entire region.

 

SAUDI ARABIA’S RELIGIOUS POLICE BAN DOGS AND CATS

Saudi bans sale of pet dogs and cats, saying men use them to make passes at women
Agence France-Presse
July 31, 2008

www.gulfinthemedia.com/index.php?id=419969&news_type=Top&lang=en

Saudi Arabia’s religious police have announced a ban on selling pet cats and dogs or exercising them in public in the Saudi capital, because of men using them as a means of making passes at women, an official said yesterday.

Othman Al Othman, head of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice in Riyadh, known as the Muttawa, told the Saudi edition of Al Hayat daily that the commission has started enforcing an old religious edict. He said the commission was implementing a decision taken a month ago by the acting governor of the capital, Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz, adding that it follows an old edict issued by the supreme council of Saudi scholars.

The reason behind reinforcing the edict now was a rising fashion among some men using pets in public “to make passes on women and disturb families,” he said, without giving more details. Othman said that the commission has instructed its offices in the capital to tell pet shops “to stop selling cats and dogs.”

The 5,000-strong religious police oversee the adherence to Wahabism-a strict version of Sunni Islam, which also forces women to cover from head to toe when in public, and bans them from driving.

 

“GERMANS ON THE LEFT FOUGHT THE UNITED STATES MORE THAN THEY FOUGHT THE SOVIET UNION”

Ich Bin Ein Beginner
By Dennis Prager
FrontPageMagazine.com
July 29, 2008

To better understand Sen. Barack Obama, his speech before 200,000 Germans in Berlin is one good place to start. As we shall see, however, it does not leave one secure as to the senator’s understanding of history, of America’s role in the world, and what to do about evil, among other important issues.

Obama: “At the height of the Cold War, my father decided, like so many others in the forgotten corners of the world, that his yearning – his dream – required the freedom and opportunity promised by the West.”

Promised by the West? Or promised by America? It wasn’t “the West” that Obama’s father went to; it was America. During the Cold War, it wasn’t “the West” that led the fight to preserve Western freedom; it was America. Obama concedes this point in his next sentence: “And so he wrote letter after letter to universities all across America until somebody, somewhere answered his prayer for a better life.”

Obama’s speech was a paean to the West and especially to Germany in fighting for freedom during the Cold War. Throughout his speech he equated the German contribution to defeating Communism with that of America

Obama: “And you know that the only reason we stand here tonight is because men and women from both of our nations came together to work, and struggle, and sacrifice for that better life.”

It is understandable and even expected that an American speaking in Germany will praise Germans. But even so, it is quite an exaggeration to state that the “only reason” he and they are standing in a free Berlin is because men and women from both countries sacrificed for that better life. Americans sacrificed far more than Germans. The sad truth is that, with some heroic exceptions, Germans on the right supported Hitler, and during the Cold War, Germans on the left fought the Unites States more than they fought the Soviet Union. When Ronald Reagan came to Berlin, tens of thousands of Germans – many of them, one would surmise, of a similar mindset to those who came to hear Barack Obama – protested his visit.

Obama: “The size of our forces was no match for the much larger Soviet Army. And yet retreat would have allowed Communism to march across Europe.”

Isn’t this exactly where we are regarding the retreat from Iraq that Obama and the Democrats have advocated? Wouldn’t retreat from Iraq allow militant Islam to march across the Middle East and beyond?

How is one to explain this? I have long believed that many liberals recognize evils only after the evil has been vanquished. Today, Democrats like Obama in his speech, regularly revile Communism. But from the late 1960s until the end of the Cold War they rarely judged Communism. They judged anti-Communists. Liberal Democrats routinely call Communism evil today, but when it was actually a threat, they reviled those who called Communism evil. Again, recall Ronald Reagan and the virtually universal liberal condemnation of his calling the Soviet Union an “evil empire.”

So, too, now, regarding today’s greatest evil, to cite but one example, not one Democrat in any of their party’s presidential primary debates used the term “Islamic terrorism.”

Obama: “Where the last war had ended, another World War could have easily begun. All that stood in the way was Berlin.”

In his attempt to exaggerate the role of Berlin before his large Berlin audience, Obama made a claim that simply makes no sense. “Berlin stood in the way” of another World War beginning? How? If anything, Berlin was the flash point of East-West tension and therefore could have triggered a war.

Obama: “People of the world – look at Berlin! Look at Berlin, where Germans and Americans learned to work together and trust each other less than three years after facing each other on the field of battle.”

Germans and Americans “learned to work together and trust each other” only thanks to the fact that America and its allies vanquished Germany, overthrew its Nazi leadership, imposed democracy and freedom on Germans, and kept plenty of soldiers in Germany. Why does Obama not apply this lesson to Iraq? If Americans and Iraqis learn to work together and trust each other, it will also be thanks to America and its allies vanquishing the Islamic terrorists, overthrowing the Nazi-like regime of Saddam Hussein, imposing democracy and freedom on Iraqis, and keeping soldiers in Iraq for as long as needed.

Obama: “Look at Berlin… where a victory over tyranny gave rise to NATO, the greatest alliance ever formed to defend our common security.”

Obama did not want to offend his hosts by inserting an element of reality here: Many of America’s NATO partners have been largely worthless in confronting evils from Communism to al-Qaida to the Taliban. A few weeks ago, leading German newsweekly Der Spiegel reported that German forces in Afghanistan are under strict orders not to shoot any Taliban forces unless shot at first. As a result, they refused to shoot a major Taliban murderer whom they had in their sights because his forces had not shot at the Germans and therefore allowed him to escape.

Obama: “People of the world – look at Berlin, where a wall came down, a continent came together, and history proved that there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one.”

The wall came down because America stood strong, not because the world stood as one. What he said here is John Lennon-like fantasy, the opposite of reality, and as such, coming from the man who may well be the next president of the United States, a bit frightening.

Obama: “While the 20th century taught us that we share a common destiny, the 21st has revealed a world more intertwined than at any time in human history.”

Of all the lessons taught by the 20th century, that we share a common destiny is not among the top 10. It is not even among the top 100. It is actually untrue and meaningless. Just to cite one obvious example, did those who lived under Communism and those who lived under democratic capitalism “share a common destiny”? What is he talking about?

If the 20th century did teach something, it taught that evil must always be fought.

The speech reveals a man who has good will and noble desires, but who may be dangerously naive regarding the lessons of history and what to do about evil.