Earlier this December I was interviewed by PJTV's Allen Barton regarding 2009's biggest and most shocking cases pertaining to radical Islam in the West.
Topics discussed during the interview include so-called honor killings in America, forced marriages and female genital mutilation in the West, and jihadism among youth.
You may need to register, which is free, to view the video. If you have problems with the video, select "Flash Player" from the "Video Quality" heading on the left side of the screen.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has published an annual report regarding the most significant terror cases in the United States in 2009. The report, released on December 28, points out that the threat of extremism, born of Islamic Totalitarianism, is a real threat. Americans are affected by this threat consistently, as seen only last week when 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab with alleged ties to Al Qaeda attempted to blow up a Northwest flight over Detroit, Michigan.
Here is an excerpt of the cases noted in the report, courtesy of fbi.gov:
Georgia jihadists: With little more than an Internet connection and the radicalizing influences of overseas terrorists, two middle-class young men in Atlanta went from rhetoric to plotting jihad and were sentenced earlier this month. Details
David Coleman Headley: The U.S. citizen was arrested in October for planning terrorist attacks against a Danish newspaper and two of its employees. New charges this month in this ongoing case allege he took part in the conspiracy surrounding the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Details
Somalia: In February, the FBI reported that young men from Minneapolis were traveling to Somalia to join extremists fighting for control of the country. One of those men became who was believed to be the first U.S. citizen to carry out a terrorist suicide bombing after launching an attack in Somalia. By November, 14 defendants were charged with recruiting people from the U.S. to train or fight on behalf of extremist groups in Somalia. Details
Najibullah Zazi: The 24-year-old Colorado resident was arrested in September, along with his father and another man, for conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction against U.S. citizens. Zazi traveled to New York City on September 10, 2009 “in furtherance of his criminal plans,” according to the Department of Justice. Details
Attempted bombing of federal building: In September, a U.S. citizen was arrested in connection with a plot to detonate a vehicle bomb at the federal building in Springfield, Illinois. Details
Attempted skyscraper bombing: Also in September, a 19-year-old Jordanian citizen who espoused violent jihad was arrested for attempting to blow up a 60-story glass office tower in Dallas, Texas. Details
North Carolina takedown: In July, seven men, including a father and two sons, were charged with conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and to wage jihad overseas. The heavily armed group trained in the U.S., raised money to support their training, and recruited and radicalized others. Details
Synagogue plot: In May, four people were arrested outside a New York synagogue and charged with planning to blow up Jewish targets and shoot down military planes. Details
Liberty City Six: In May, a Miami jury convicted five men of providing material support to al Qaeda and planning attacks on U.S. targets, including the Sears Tower in Chicago. Details
Ali al-Marri: In May, the al Qaeda “sleeper” operative working in the U.S. pled guilty to charges relating to his role in the 9/11 attacks. Details
Grassroots human rights activists in San Francisco associated with the Zionist Freedom Alliance (ZFA) held a successful pro-Israel rally on Sunday, December 27.
When they found out about a Gaza commemoration event going on in their city, they knew from past experience that lies and distortions would be presented by anti-Israel organizations and individuals. ZFA activists immediately began networking with students, young professionals and community members. They also began cooperating with other organizations, such as San Francisco Voice for Israel and Americans for a Safe Israel. ZFA activists were particularly effective in that they focused on bringing their own message of human rights and Israeli national rights instead of merely discussing Israeli democracy.
For more than a week, several students and community members created signs, banners, and informational materials. Youth throughout Northern California were contacted for their participation in the event. The rally took place in Union Square, a central tourist area in San Francisco. Pedestrian traffic was in the thousands and cars on the streets were driving at less than ten miles an hour at some points during the day.
Yehuda Katz, one of the organizers of the protest, explained his goals for the rally.
"Our intention was to give a voice to the voiceless, to the real underdogs in the Middle East: the Israeli Jewish residents of Yesha. We also brought the message out that the war in Aza was directly a result of the tragedy which was the forced expulsion from Gush Katif," Katz explained.
Anti-semitic protesters included Queers for Palestine, a group of gay activists who support what they refer to as "Palestinian resistance" despite the inhumane and cruel treatment of civilians, including gays, under both Hamas and Fatah leadership in the West Bank and Gaza. Katz and other activists mentioned that there were overt anti-semitic behaviors exhibited by the anti-Israel protesters and that such exhibitions of hatred at anti-Israel protests are typical. In a shocking twist of events prior to the rally, anti-Israel protesters even alleged that a Black-American church was racist for their refusal to support the pro-Hamas rally which marked the one year anniversary of Israel’s Operation Cast Lead.
Katz expressed that civilians and tourists were very interested in the ZFA’s message, which included facts about the Israel-Arab conflict and information about the forced expulsion of up to 1,000,000 Middle Eastern Jews from their native lands under Islamic and Arab Nationalist rule. ZFA activists also asserted that they ran out of pamphlets and materials quickly, and have received many emails and telephone calls about their work this Sunday. The group continues to grow in the Bay Area with individual chapters on college campuses like UC Berkeley.
"Mainly we went out there to open up people's eyes to the justice of Zionism, to the truth behind the ongoing conflict," explained Katz.
Katz was interviewed regarding his work on Arutz 7 on December 28. To listen to the interview, which begins before the halfway point of the show, click here.
Note: Photos are courtesy of Jenna Ferer and Sarah Katz.
Attacks perpetrated by Islamist organizations and their followers are regularly thwarted by government agencies. On Friday one potential attack was thwarted during a flight bound for Detroit from Amsterdam when quick thinking passengers and crew subdued a terrorist attempting to blow up a plane.
The suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a wealthy engineering student of Nigerian origin, was living in the United Kingdom and was reportedly being monitored by U.S. intelligence.
Here's an excerpt from Fox News about the incident:
U.S. District Judge Paul Borman read 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab his charges in a conference room on Saturday at the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor, where he is being treated for burns.
Agents brought Abdulmutallab into the room in a wheelchair. He had a blanket over his lap and wore a green hospital robe.
The judge asked Abdulmutallab if he understood the charges against him. He responded in English: "Yes, I do."
The judge told Abdulmutallab that he will be held until his next court appearance on January 8.
Abdulmutallab is accused of setting off a device aboard a Northwest flight upon landing in Detroit, which resulted in a fire and what appears to have been an explosion.
He was reportedly subdued and restrained by the passengers and flight crew. The airplane landed shortly thereafter, and he was taken into custody by Customs and Border Patrol officers....
With airport security being what it is today, one has to wonder how this man was able to hide explosives during airport screenings. Every single time I travel I find that I've been selected for "random" security checks. In fact, it was only a couple years ago that I flew a similar route to the Northwest flight that the terror suspect was on (my flight was Amsterdam to the East Coast). I was selected for a random security screening and was practically forced to undress. In the past I used to believe that my dark coloring and Middle Eastern appearance was the reason for my luck with airport security despite my obviously western clothing and demeanor. For the sake of security, I've put up with the annoying groping and questioning. I find myself rethinking my position, however, if Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab can hide explosives in his pants without airport security doing their job.
Last Thursday afternoon Rabbi Meir Avshalom Chai of Shavei Shomron was murdered in a terrorist attack next to the Samarian Jewish community of Einav. Rabbi Chai was targeted by West Bank Arab terrorists because of his Jewish faith.
Rabbi Chai was buried on Friday at the Mount of Olives. The attack against him, which leaves seven innocent children fatherless, received scant media attention with the exception of Israeli media.
This weekend the Israel Defense Forces and Israel's General Security Services sought out those who attacked Rabbi Chai. The international media is now covering the story and many are noting that the Palestinian Authority condemns Israel. It is interesting that several articles printed about this latest piece of news refrain from mentioning why "young Palestinian men" were targeted in the first place. We live in a world where some try to find moral equivalence where there is none. Massacring an Israeli man because of his faith receives scant attention whereas killing the perpetrators of the crime is somehow questionable and worthy of more media attention.
[...] The homes of three men known to have taken part in the murder were surrounded by special forces units, who tried to arrest them. According to an army spokesperson, the men "refused to cooperate", rejecting calls to surrender. Troops subequently opened fire on the buildings.
Nader Raed Sukarji, a 40 year-old inhabitant of Shechem, was arrested in 2002 and suspected of being a top Al Aksa terror group brigade operative and participant in many terror attacks. He also prepared bombs and helped establish explosives factories in Nablus (Shechem). He was released from prison in January 2009.
Palestinian sources say Sukarji's wife was also injured in the operation, after her husband used her as a human shield while hiding in their house.
Ghassan Abu Sharkh, 39, was imprisoned by security forces in 1990. His brother, Nayef, was the head of the Tanzim terror organization's military wing in Nablus. Nayef facilitated several terror attacks until being killed by IDF forces in June 2004.
Anan Suleiman Mustafa Subih, 36, resident of Nablus, was an operative of the "Shuhada al-Aksa" brigade, which was involved in extensive Tanzim military operations as a cell of Tanzim in Nablus. The group was led by Nayef Abu Sharkh, until Nayef's death. Subih worked in trafficking weapons and supplies for use in terror acts.
Subih had recently been accepted to Israel's amnesty program for Fatah gunmen. His participation in Tanzim activity was a direct violation of that agreement.
In the process of attempting to arrest Subih, Israeli forces found 2 rifles and 2 guns hidden in the house. The weapons have been transferred to police laboratories to determine if they were the ones used to kill Rabbi Chai.
Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad condemned the IDF operation in Shechem, saying it would hurt the Palestinian ability to achieve stability and security. Terror organizations swore they would take revenge for the operation....
As someone deeply interested in philosophy, in theory I support the concept of one state in which Jews and Arabs can live peacefully and with dignity side-by-side. However, with this perpetual violence, partially inspired from a homicidal and hateful Palestinian leadership, such a concept of peace is terribly unrealistic. It is this type of fanatical hatred, driven by Islamists and Arab nationalists, that only breeds more animosity. It is the reason that security fences and checkpoints have become so necessary in an Israeli society that must protect its civilian population.
At 1:00pm on Thursday, December 31st a rally in support of peace and Israeli security will take place in south Israel. The event is coordinated by the Sderot Media Center and in coalition with the Sderot Municipality, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sapir College, IDC Herzlyia, WUJS, Eretz Nehederet, Bnei Akiva Olami, and Sderot Alon Madaim Elementary School. A march will convene at the Yad Mordechai Junction at 1:00pm. A Knesset Minister and Sderot municipality officials will be present, as well as area residents, international students, diplomatic officials, and Israeli youth as they all march to the Erez Crossing. An official a ceremony for civilian victims of terror around the world will be held at the Erez Crossing at 1:45pm.
Participation is very important as this march will counter the anti-Israel, anti-peace march into Gaza on the same day. It will show the world that Jews and non-Jews, Israelis and non-Israelis, desire a real peace and an end to vicious terror against Israel and world.
The people participating in the anti-Israel rally include far-left Europeans and Americans who financially support Hamas. One of the participating groups allegedly includes Viva Palestina, an organization that has provided financial support to Hamas. An Egyptian foreign minister said on Egyptian TV Channel 2 that the anti-Israel protesters and persons accompanying the Viva Palestina convoy would not be be allowed to enter Gaza. This is unconfirmed, but it will be interesting to find out how it plays out.
Here is an outline of planned events:
13:00: Marchers convene at Yad Mordechai Junction, depart by foot. 13:45: Reach Erez Crossing where Knesset Minister and Sderot municipality officials will address rally. 14:00: Candle Lighting Ceremony for victims of terror and civilian targets around the world. 14:30: Music Performance and Sderot girl reads letter to Gaza residents. 15:00: Release of white balloons with messages from Sderot children to Gaza.
Contact the Sderot Media Center Team at sderotinfo@gmail.com if you have any questions. Visit the Facebook page here.
Last week qassams hit southern Israel yet again. One attack occurred last Sunday and the other last Wednesday. Palestinians in Gaza will continue breaking ceasefires because they can get away with it. Unfortunately, Israel refrains from responding due in part to pressure from a misinformed international community and a weak Israeli government.
One rocket was manufactured in Russia (thanks to that lovely Iranian/Syrian alliance with Russia). If Israel chooses to wake up (doubtful), then the media will start "reporting" again and much of the international community will issue calls for a ceasefire while blaming Israel for violence. We've seen all of this before....
Gaza militants fired two more Qassams into Israel on Wednesday, defying a moratorium announced by Hamas on cross-border rocket fire for the second time this week.
The rockets struck an open area in the city of Sderot, causing no casualties.
Palestinian militants also fired two Qassams at Israel on Sunday. One rocket exploded in the southern Negev, while the fell short, exploding in the Gaza Strip.
The Israel Defense Forces Sunday identified a rocket fired by Gaza militants as a Russian-made S5K, the type used in battle in Iran and Afghanistan.
The IDF said it was the first time this type of weapon has been fired from the territory.
Hamas, the Islamist group that controls the Strip, last month announced that it has reached an agreement with other militant groups in Gaza to stop firing rockets at southern Israeli towns to prevent retaliatory attacks.
Lt. Col. Avital Leibovitch, head of the foreign press branch of the IDF Spokesperson Unit, takes a moment to wish the world a happy holiday. Whether you are Jewish, Christian, Muslim, or Druze - the Israel Defense Force is happy to wish you a joyous new year and a peaceful holiday season!
Lt. Col Leibovitch points out the diversity of Israel. While the media rarely shows Israel for what it truly is, many who have visited the country know that it is home to a variety of ethnic groups, including Druze, Christians and Jews of various backgrounds.
I was recently informed of the death of a friend and a marvelous man who launched the very popular RADARSITE blog.
I had the privilege of corresponding with Roger Gardner, who has inspired many, for a couple of years now. Although I never had the opportunity to meet Roger in person, our correspondence meant very much to me.
Roger was an extremely dedicated and optimistic individual. He loved his country and the wonderful values that make it so great.
Even when he was diagnosed with leukemia a little over a year ago, he still remained in good spirits. Roger defied the odds when he was originally informed that he only had a couple of weeks to live. In one of his last messages to me he wrote that "life is wonderful" in his typical cheerful personality.
He will be sorely missed. My condolences go out to Roger's family.
The following song, which is a combination of Hebrew and Arabic, was one of the most downloaded songs of 2009 on the internet in the Middle East (including Iran). This song won duet of the year for "Big Apple Music Awards" for 2009. The male singer, Kobi Peretz, was awarded the prize of "Most Popular Middle Eastern Singer" this year.
Both singers are Israeli-Jews of Middle Eastern origin.
Under sharia (Islamic) law, monotheistic religious minorities are relegated to a second-class status. This system is known as "Dhimmitude" which comes Arabic language word "dhimmi" and literally refers to a non-Muslim subject of a sharia law territory or state. In ultra-Islamic societies polytheists and atheists, in many cases, have been treated even worse than individuals of Jewish and Christian faith because they are perceived as godless.
Majed El Shafie, the President of One Free World International (OFWI), spoke at a conference on human rights in Israel about the plight of Christians. Here is an excerpt describing El Shafie's experience of converting from Islam to another religion, as well as the human rights tragedies perpetrated by Palestinians in Gaza.
Every three minutes a Christian is being tortured in the Muslim world, and in 2009 more than 165,000 Christians will have been killed because of their faith, most of them in Muslim countries, according to a human rights organization that is visiting Israel starting Sunday.
"Hamas digs up the bodies of Christians from Christian burial sites in the Gaza Strip claiming that they pollute the earth," said Reverend Majed El Shafie, President of One Free World International (OFWI), who will head a delegation of human rights activists, members of parliament from Canada and religious personalities.
During their visit to Israel the delegation will hold a conference on human rights and persecuted minorities at the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem. The conference will provide new statistics on the persecution of minorities in Muslim countries.
El Shafie said that between 200-300 million Christians are being persecuted in the world, 80 percent of whom lived in Muslim countries and the rest in communist and other countries.
Members of the delegation will meet with Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Danny Ayalon and Mayor ofJerusalem Nir Barkat in the hope of enlisting Israel to champion their cause.
OFWI is a human rights organization whose headquarters are located in Toronto, Canada. The organization numbers some 3,000 members, divided into 28 branches that are active in countries all over the world, including Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and even Iran.
El Shafie, 32, was born in Cairo to a distinguished Muslim family of lawyers and judges. Through a Christian friend he was exposed at an early age to hatred toward the Christian minority in Egypt.
He decided to convert to Christianity, wrote a book about it and as a result became an outcast and a victim of oppression.
In 1998 he was arrested, imprisoned, tortured and condemned to death.
El Shafie managed to escape, fled to the Sinai, where a Beduin family hid him for two months, and crossed the Israeli border on a jet-ski. He was arrested in Israel and was imprisoned for over a year in Beersheba, until he was released through the assistance of the UN, Amnesty International and the International Christian Embassy inJerusalem, which managed to obtain political asylum for El Shafie in Canada, where he emigrated. He founded OFWI in 2004.
Facebook demonstrated tremendous negligence yesterday when their 350 million users were put at risk following the new privacy measures on the social networking website. Initially I joined the site when it was exclusive to college students. Currently anyone can join and even create fake profiles. The website has become extremely unsafe.
The new privacy measures, which were allegedly created to make the site safer for users, made almost every user's profile images viewable to anyone on the website. Even the CEO of Facebook, who restricted his profile in the past, lost his settings for personal images. As someone who has gotten my fair share of threats and nasty notes, I wanted to make certain that my safety wasn't being jeopardized. I also wanted to notify my friends and readers about this so their privacy can be better protected if they use the social networking site.
Facebook has not yet addressed this issue, but I figured out how to edit settings to allow more privacy than Facebook has by default. Here is what you can do:
If you want to make your profile images private (because almost all users lost this setting this week) you'll need to go here following your log-in to the site: http://www.facebook.com/privacy/?view=photos
Specify what level of privacy you want for each album, including the album for your profile images.
You may also want to go to 'Privacy Settings' under 'Settings' in the menu and then select 'Applications and Websites.' There may be settings to edit in the section called 'What your friends can share about you' in order to make sure your personal photos aren't shared among users you don't know. Make sure to go through other privacy settings for applications too.
Hope that helps. Please note that not everyone lost their privacy settings, but a significant number did lose their original settings and almost all users have their profile images viewable to just about anyone at this point due to Facebook's default settings.
Iranians, who were in Mecca in late November for Hajj, had some very non-peaceful things to say. The typical anti-American and anti-Israel propaganda was heard. Chants of "Death to America" and "Death to Israel" were shouted, along with the speaker's support for the mullahcracy that currently harasses and oppresses a significant portion of the Iranian population.
Here's a transcript from the above video, which was aired on IRINN, the Iranian news channel, on November 26, 2009. The transcript is from MEMRI TV:
Speaker: There is no god but Allah.
Crowds chanting: There is no god but Allah.
Speaker: There is no god but Allah.
Crowds chanting: There is no god but Allah.
Speaker: America is the enemy of Allah.
Crowds chanting: America is the enemy of Allah.
Speaker: America is the enemy of Allah.
Crowds chanting: America is the enemy of Allah.
Speaker: There is no god but Allah.
Crowds chanting: There is no god but Allah.
Speaker: There is no god but Allah.
Crowds chanting: There is no god but Allah.
Speaker: Israel is the enemy of Allah.
Crowds chanting: Israel is the enemy of Allah.
Speaker: Israel is the enemy of Allah.
Crowds chanting: Israel is the enemy of Allah.
Speaker: Now, honorable pilgrims, pay attention – the people on the right-hand side [will chant] in unison: Death to America, and those on the left-hand side [will chant]: Death to Israel.
Speaker (raising right fist): Death to America.
Crowds chanting: Death to America.
Speaker (raising left fist): Death to Israel.
Crowds chanting: Death to Israel.
Death to America.
Death to Israel.
Death to America.
Death to Israel.
Death to America.
Death to Israel.
[...]
Speaker: Now for the important message of the honorable leader [Khamenei].
[...]
Today, the blood-stained hand of the enemies is openly creating catastrophes throughout the Islamic lands. Palestine is under the malicious rule of the Zionists, and undergoes suffering and pain on a daily basis. The Al-Aqsa Mosque faces real danger. The oppressed people of Gaza still face the greatest hardships, after the unprecedented massacre. Afghanistan, under the boots of the occupiers, undergoes a new tragedy every day. The insecurity in Iraq deprives the people of calm and tranquility. The civil war in Yemen has formed a new scar on the body of the Islamic nation.
The massacre at Halabja occurred during Saddam Hussein’s Anfal campaign. 4,000 Kurdish villages were attacked. Approximately 100,000 people were murdered by Hussein's despicable Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party.
Zimnaku Mohammed Saleh was recently reunited with his mother, Fatima Hama Saleh, who thought he had died along with other family members in the massacre at Halabja. This story is a very touching one.
For two decades Fatima Hama Saleh thought that she had lost all her children in a poison gas attack carried out by Saddam Hussein against the Kurdish town of Halabja, in what was the single worst atrocity of the former Iraqi dictator’s rule.
Now, however, she has been reunited with her son, Ali Pour, in a dramatic meeting after DNA tests confirmed that the young man, now 21, was the infant she lost when chemical weapons rained down on the Kurdish market town.
“I’m in a dream,” Mr Pour said, as he embraced his weeping mother. She replied: “I wonder if it is a dream or a gift from God.” Mother and son had to talk to each other through an interpreter as Mr Pour only speaks his adopted tongue, Farsi, and not his native Kurdish or Iraq’s official language, Arabic. Mrs Saleh revealed his birth name, Zimnaku Mohammed Saleh, and recalled the day that Halabja was attacked, including the panic that the family felt when their home was enveloped by a deadly cocktail of mustard gas and the nerve agents tabun, sarin and VX.
“We didn’t know where to go,” Mrs Saleh said. “Zimnaku, the four-month-old, was on my lap and suddenly my older son screamed, ‘Mother, I feel like I’m burning’.
“I tried to help him and my other sons, too. But it was in vain. I saw them dying in front of me. I collapsed and the next thing I remember is lying in a hospital bed in Tehran.”
Mr Pour’s adoptive uncle explained what happened next. “The baby, Ali, survived for three days,” Habib Hamid Pour said. He was found by the Iranian military, which moved into Halabja after the attack, and taken to Iran along with other survivors.
Eventually, he was placed with a family in the eastern Iranian city of Mashhad and was raised as an Iranian boy. “My adopted mother was nice,” Mr Pour said, dressed in traditional Kurdish clothing of baggy pants, tunic and scarf tucked into his belt. “When I entered primary school at age 6, she told me I am from the Kurdish people of Halabja. She said I should return some day to meet my relatives.”
Four months ago his adoptive mother was killed in a car accident. “I felt lonely and I felt a strange feeling calling me to return to the arms of my relatives,” Mr Pour said. “I decided to go back.” He contacted Iranian officials who kept records on the Halabja survivors brought to Iran. They contacted the Halabja government, which said that six families were missing a boy who would now be Mr Pour’s age. A judge ordered a DNA test to be carried out by a medical lab in Jordan.The massacre in Halabja on March 16, 1988, was part of Saddam’s 1987 to 1988 Anfal campaign that killed up to 200,000 Kurds. Three quarters of the 5,000 killed in Halabja were women and children. Four of Mrs Saleh’s five children died in the attack, as well as her husband, Mr Pour’s father. After the reunion, she said: “I will not die in sorrow and grief after all the miseries I have experienced.”
She had first learnt that a surviving child was looking for his family from a television report and applied to do the DNA test. At the meeting of the six participating families shouts of joy eventually broke the intense silence that had greeted the announcement....
The media is reporting that Russia and China have voted with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to "censure" Iran. Here is a brief excerpt from the Agence France Presse:
Russia, usually an ally of Iran, co-sponsored the censure motion and China, traditionally a staunch defender of national sovereignty over international oversight, voted to support it.
"Russia supports the idea of sanctions against Iran," said Fyodor Lukianov, editor of the Russian foreign policy journal Russia in Global Affairs.
"The real question will be 'what kind of sanctions'? There will be deep disagreement, and Russia will not support very tough sanctions like those sought by the United States," he warned.
In the West, Russia's vote was nevertheless seen as a breakthrough that could clear the path for tougher United Nations economic sanctions against Iran in the New Year....
The United States’ sanctions against Iran aren’t anywhere near as tough as they ought to be. A brilliant Cox & Forkum cartoon explains the current attitude regarding the Iranian regime (and can easily be applied to describe the failure of Europe, the UK, Israel and the IAEA as well):
It was over thirty years ago when the supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini, during the Islamic Revolution in Iran, invaded the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took the staff as hostages. Accounts of the American citizens’ captivity were appalling, suggesting that the hostages endured beatings and were forced to stand in front of angry mobs outside of the embassy.
Ayatollah Khomeini was initially fearful of America, opting to remain neutral regarding the kidnappings, but came to recognize that the United States would not use its power in order to free American citizens. The theocratic ruler became empowered and gave a speech praising the attack on the embassy. It took 444 days to free the hostages when it should have taken a week. Our politicians were not making a serious effort—and immediately ruled out military reaction. Carter and his administration even attempted to bribe the Iranians. In short, President Jimmy Carter revealed a tremendous weakness.
Khomeini’s Islamic Revolution, which is directly responsible for the strife in Iran today, went unchallenged by the West. The Iranian regime was even granted a generous payoff from the United States, thereby recognizing early on that attacking America was profitable for them both economically and ideologically.
A few years later, in 1983, Iran’s Hezbollah proxy in Lebanon crashed a truck bomb into the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. Unfortunately, Ronald Reagan’s administration did nothing in response to such a blatant act of aggression. A few months later, 241 U.S. Marines were massacred in an unprovoked attack when the Iranians instructed their allies in Beirut to attack the barracks. While Reagan expressed that he wouldn’t back down, he quickly ordered the U.S. troops out of Lebanon.
In 1992 and 1994 Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy, bombed the Israeli embassy and a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, Argentina. These attacks were ordered at the highest levels of the Iranian government.
When acts of violence are rewarded, we enter a cycle of never-ending strife. Every time the United States, Europe or Israel capitulates to Islamic Totalitarian leaders and organizations, the enemy’s belief that their oppressive ideology is indeed legitimate is strengthened.
President Obama’s desire to appease the Iranians, and his pronouncements that he desires to go back twenty or thirty years to relations the U.S. had with the Muslim world, is absolutely naive. Thirty years ago Iranian leaders destroyed a beautiful country, a cradle of civilization, when Islamic Totalitarianism was introduced during the Iranian Revolution. Unfortunately, with Iran’s race to attain nuclear weapons, the United States’ disinclination to alienate Iran and implement the sanctions everyone keeps discussing is of mounting concern. Military action should not be taken off the table as it has been in the past.
So far Iran has rebuffed the international community and the IAEA which continues to "rebuke" and "censure" the mullahcracy. Following criticism of Iran from the IAEA last week, Iran said that it would build 10 more uranium enrichment sites. Iran will continue to expand their nuclear weapons programs because they have not been discouraged from doing so. The regime will continue to threaten Israel and the West every opportunity they have. These effects should expound why a weak-willed foreign policy is terrifyingly destructive where Iran is concerned.
It is shameful that young protesters and dissidents have not been empowered. Instead, leaders continue to reach out to the same evil maniacs in charge of Iran and offer idiotic concessions.
Dr. Tawfik Hamid was a member of a radical Islamist organization with Ayman Al-Zawaherri who later became the second in command of Al Qaeda. Hamid is an Islamic reformer who believes strongly in what he calls "valid interpretation for the Quran" in order to denounce radical Islamists.
His comments about what caused him to become a terrorist are particularly interesting. Although it is generally believed that all terrorists are poor and oppressed, Hamid notes that his family was financially secure and that he was brainwashed.
In late October a private security guard was stabbed by a young Palestinian woman who was allowed to come to Israel for medical attention. Security guards found a knife in the woman's bag and confiscated it, and she was able to pull another knife from underneath her clothing which she attacked one of the guards with.
In Israel all individuals, no matter their religion or ethnic origin, must go through security checkpoints. It is imagery like this that makes it blatantly clear why there are security points at restaurants, malls and towns.
I am a journalist and researcher, and have written numerous research and investigative pieces. My work has been published with several notable organizations, including CAMERA on Campus, the Jewish Policy Center, Pajamas Media, and the Investigative Project on Terror.
My interests include ethics and epistemology, history, economics, and international relations.
I graduated from the University of California, Irvine with distinguished honors, earning a Bachelor of Arts in English. Presently I am pursuing a Master's degree at USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism in the field of Broadcast Journalism. I can be reached at Reut AT reutrcohen DOT com.
