Lead balloons cannot stay aloft forever!

PM Malik now claims he will crack down with Iraqi troops on anyone creating problems regardless of sect.

The newly appointed US military commanders seem more associated with our effort to achieve an end goal. Bush is taking the more difficult and controversial road. I heard Admiral Fallon lecture several years ago, when I attended a Naval War College function. Very impressive person. His previous command has been in the Far East and he is a great believer in pursuing a diplomatic accommodation with China because he sees them as a growing naval power and possible threat to our influence in that region. He saw his role as much an ambassador as a naval commander. (See 1 below.)

As I indicated several weeks ago, the plan GW will announce will finally be coupled and co-ordinated with increased aid and plans to put Iraqis to work.

Meanwhile, if GW's plan fails the next president will have to struggle with the problem and it could get wider because GW's new strategy might also include finally addressing Iran and Syria. Something I have been urging for years. We have been treating the sympton and not attacking the disease and consequently have wasted American blood and resources in a halfhearted re-active effort which has been failing.

Giving it your all and then leaving if not successful is one thing but getting involved and not knowing how to proceed is folly.

Finally, what goes around comes around. Cindy Sheehan is now attacking Demmocrats. Has the mother turned to eating her young? I have many liberal Jewish friends who have been shocked by the attacks against Israel by their intellectual compatriots just as were German Jews shocked at the turn of events in their country. Scapegoats are convenient and can never hide - they will always be discovered and used to suit nefarious purposes.

Haniyeh has returned from Saudi Arabia and Mecca and allegedly Egypt allowed him to return with $20 million in cash thru Rafah and contentious issues between Hamas and Fatah gunmen continue to roil Gaza. (See 2 below.)

Has Israeli FM Minister, Livni, hit on something by highlighting the fact that more "moderate" Arab/Muslim nations are coming to the realization that Israel is not the region's problem. Would it not be ironic if a country like Saudi Arabia finally left the EU and Jimmy in the dust as they began to admit reality. But, if so why does Saudi Arabia give $20 million to Haniyeh? (See 3 below.)

I have argued we should be thinking outside the box and creating a unified air force of U.S. Israeli and Saudi to go after Iran's nuclear facilities. It would create a momentary backlash for sure but it would also send a clear message that Saudi Arabia is willing to confront the Iranian threat to its own regime and could do so aligned with countries that are bent on saving the region from an eventual catastrophe.

The EU has followed a policy of feckless pacification of those virulent voices in the region and has been denying reality because it fit their appeasing stance of an anti-Semitic foreign policy - all the while denying same. Jimmy has been busy re-writing history to fit his warped notion that Israeli intransigence is the cause of the region's problems and our own State Department has fed these flames with their own biased logs.

Obviously the establishment of Israel became a magnet for those opposed to the idea and Israel's successful defense of its people resulted in one-sided victories and increased control over land. That is the price losers historically pay. Israel is not without blame either but it has made continued efforts to respond to world demands only to be confronted by terrorism, Intifadas and anti-Semitic attacks, votes and conferences sponsored by the UN.

Pusillanimous powers promote bad policies resulting in the prolongation of strife and conflict. I Guess this is why God put France and Germany on the earth - to serve as a reminder of how stupid, cowardly and heinous man can be. (See conclusion of 4 below.)

Lead balloons cannot stay aloft forever!

Dick

1) EYEING IRAN
By RALPH PETERS

January 6, 2007 -- WORD that Adm. William Fallon will move laterally from our Pacific Command to take charge of Central Command - responsible for the Middle East - while two ground wars rage in the region baffled the media.

Why put a swabbie in charge of grunt operations?

There's a one-word answer: Iran.

ASSIGNING a Navy avia tor and combat veteran to oversee our military operations in the Persian Gulf makes perfect sense when seen as a preparatory step for striking Iran's nuclear-weapons facilities - if that becomes necessary.

While the Air Force would deliver the heaviest tonnage of ordnance in a campaign to frustrate Tehran's quest for nukes, the toughest strategic missions would fall to our Navy. Iran would seek to retaliate asymmetrically by attacking oil platforms and tankers, closing the Strait of Hormuz - and trying to hit oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf emirates.

Only the U.S. Navy - hopefully, with Royal Navy and Aussie vessels underway beside us - could keep the oil flowing to a thirsty world.

In short, the toughest side of an offensive operation against Iran would be the defensive aspects - requiring virtually every air and sea capability we could muster. (Incidentally, an additional U.S. carrier battle group is now headed for the Gulf; Britain and Australia are also strengthening their naval forces in the region.)

Not only did Adm. Fallon command a carrier air wing during Operation Desert Storm, he also did shore duty at a joint headquarters in Saudi Arabia. He knows the complexity and treacherousness of the Middle East first-hand.

STRENGTHENING his qualifications, numer ous blue-water assignments and his duties at PACOM schooled him on the intricacies of the greater Indian Ocean - the key strategic region for the 21st-century and the one that would be affected immediately by a U.S. conflict with Iran.

The admiral also understands China's junkie-frantic oil dependency and its consequent taste for geopolitical street-crime: During a U.S. operation against Iran, Beijing would need its fix guaranteed.

While Congress obsesses on Iraq and Iraq alone, the administration's thinking about the future. And it looks as if the White House is preparing options to mitigate a failure in Iraq and contain Iran. Bush continues to have a much-underrated strategic vision - the administration's consistent problems have been in the abysmal execution of its policies, not in the over-arching purpose.

Now, pressed by strategic dilemmas and humiliating reverses, Bush is doing what FDR had to do in the dark, early months of 1942: He's turning to the Navy.

AS a retired Army officer, I remain proud of and loyal to my service. I realize that the Army's leaders are disappointed to see the CentCom slot go to an admiral in the midst of multiple ground wars. But, beyond the need for a Navy man at the helm should we have to take on Iran, there's yet another reason for sending Fallon to his new assignment: The Army's leadership has failed us at the strategic level.

After Gen. Eric Shinseki was sidelined for insisting on a professional approach to Iraq, Army generals did plenty of fine tactical and operational work - but they never produced a strategic vision for the greater Middle East.

Our Army is deployed globally, but our generals never seem to acquire the knack of thinking beyond the threat hypnotizing them at the moment (the Marines, with their step-brother ties to the Navy, do a better job of acting locally while thinking globally). Perhaps the Army's Gen. Dave Petraeus will emerge as an incisive strategic thinker after he takes command in Baghdad, but his predecessors routinely got mired in tactical details and relied - fatally - on other arms of government to do the strategic thinking.

The reasons are complex, ranging from service culture to educational traditions, but it's incontestable that the Navy long has produced our military's best strategic thinkers - captains and admirals able to transcend parochial interests to see the global security environment as a whole. Adm. Fallon's job is to avoid the tyranny of the moment, to see past the jumble of operational pieces and visualize how those pieces ultimately might fit together.

NOR is the Iran problem the only Navy-first issue facing CENTCOM. As you read this, our ships are patrolling the coast of Somalia to intercept fleeing terrorists - and have been hunting pirates in the same waters for years. China's future development (and internal peace) is tied to dependable supplies of Middle-Eastern and African oil transiting Indian-Ocean sea lanes, as well as to shipping goods along the same routes. In a future confrontation with China, our ability to shut down the very routes we're now challenged to protect would be vital.

Not least because of the botch-up in Iraq, there's a growing sense of the limitations of U.S. ground-force involvement in the Middle East. That doesn't mean we won't see further necessity-driven interventions and even other occupations, only that our strategic planners have begun to grasp that positive change in the region - if it comes at all - is going to take far longer than many of us hoped and won't always be amenable to boots-on-the-ground prodding.

If we can't determine everything that happens in the Big Sandbox, we need to be able to control access to and from the playground - a classic Navy mission.

And in the end the United States remains primarily a maritime power. As Sir Walter Raleigh pointed out 400 years ago, he who controls the waters controls the world.

Gen. Petraeus is going to Baghdad to deal with our present problems. Adm. Fallon is going to the U.S. Central Command to deal with the future.


2) Abbas: Special Hamas force in Gaza is illegal
By Avi Issacharoff

In a statement released on Saturday, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas declared that Hamas security forces not integrated with PA forces would now be considered illegal.

Abbas made the announcement two days after members of the Hamas force attacked the home of a senior security commander in Gaza, killing the man and seven of his bodyguards. The man was a member of the Preventive Security force, which is loyal to Abbas' Fatah party.

"In light of continued security chaos and assassinations that got to a number of our fighters ... and in light of the failure of existing agencies and security apparatuses in imposing law and order and protecting the security of the citizens, President Mahmoud Abbas decided to reshuffle the security forces and its leadership and to consider the (Hamas) executive force, officers and members, illegal and outside the law," Abbas' office said in a statement.

With Abbas, who was elected in a separate presidential vote, claiming authority over most of the security forces, Hamas last year formed its own unit, known as the "Executive Force."

Members of the black-clad Hamas militia are visible throughout Gaza, and have periodically clashed with the existing pro-Fatah security forces.

More than two dozen people have been killed in the latest wave of factional violence, which erupted early last month. Thursday's attack on the Fatah commander's home in northern Gaza was the bloodiest single battle in the standoff to date.

Abbas has agreed in recent months to integrate the Hamas unit into existing security forces. But those efforts have failed to make progress.

In his statement Saturday, Abbas reiterated the offer but said he would not wait forever. "It will be dealt with accordingly so long as it is not immediately folded into the legal security forces," Abbas said.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum called Abbas' announcement "misplaced and useless."

Al-Aksa Martyrs Bridgades force strike in Hebron
Earlier on Saturday, Gunmen from the Fatah-linked Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades forced a strike in the West Bank city of Hebron, preventing stores from opening and clearing the streets of traffic.

The militants forced the strike as a protest against recent attacks by Hamas on its members in the Gaza Strip that have left a number of people dead in recent days in factional fighting between the two groups.

In the Jabalya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip on Saturday, unknown assailants burned the house of Mohammed Ah-Sharafi, a member of the Hamas faction in the Palestinian parliament. In response, Hamas members have threatened to burn the house of Fatah cabinet member Sufian Abu zeida.

Hamas cleric gunned down in Gaza
A local religious leader who was a frequent critic of the Islamic militant group Hamas was killed in a drive-by shooting Friday as he walked out of a Gaza mosque, witnesses and medical officials said.

Fatah accused Hamas of killing the cleric, saying in a statement: "Sheik Nasar was killed after he came out of the mosque where he criticized Hamas after the crime committed by some of its gunmen yesterday."

Hamas officials said they were investigating the killing. Nasar's assailants pulled up to him in a white car and sped away after the shooting, witnesses said.

Nasar, 50, was not openly affiliated with any political party, but he was a well-known figure in the refugee camp and often preached against Hamas. Shortly before the shooting, Nasar had criticized Thursday's bloody attack on the home of Col. Mohammed Ghayeb, a top Fatah official in northern Gaza, witnesses said.

In his sermon, Nasar warned that God would punish the killers of Ghayeb and his bodyguards. He also said God would punish Palestinian rulers for not preventing the attack, said Jibril Awwar, a friend of the preacher who was lightly wounded in the shooting.

Nasar did not mention Hamas by name, but Awwar said the preacher's message was aimed at the group, which controls most of the Palestinian government.

Hamas: U.S. is funding a 'revolt' against our government
Senior Hamas official Mushir al-Masri blamed the United States on Friday for attempting to promote a revolt against the Hamas government, after U.S. documents showed that the Bush administration will provide $86.4 million to strengthen security forces loyal to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

"We demand that Abbas reject this U.S. policy, which is tearing the Palestinian people apart," he said.

The new policy would expand U.S. involvement in Abbas' power struggle with Hamas.

Fighting between Abbas's Fatah faction and Hamas has surged since talks on forming a unity government collapsed and Abbas called for early parliamentary and presidential elections. Hamas accused Abbas of mounting a coup.

The U.S. money will be used to "assist the Palestinian Authority presidency in fulfilling PA commitments under the road map to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism and establish law and order in the West Bank and Gaza," a U.S. government document obtained by Reuters said.

Speaking to reporters after Friday prayers in Gaza City, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh urged Palestinians not to let the violence spill over to the West Bank and to focus on fighting Israel. "Our fight is not an internal one, it's against the occupation," Haniyeh said.

Haniyeh's words were echoed by senior West Bank Fatah official Jibril Rajoub, speaking in the town of Bil'in to supporters celebrating the movement's 42nd anniversary.

"Our battle with Hamas is not a battle of assassination, kidnapping or revenge. Our battle with Hamas is a democratic moral battle," he told a crowd of about 100. "Our battle is with the occupation, not with each other."

Thousands of Palestinians carried bodies draped in yellow flags through pouring rain Friday in a funeral procession for seven Fatah men killed in the bloodiest single battle in weeks of factional fighting in the Gaza Strip.

Dozens of Fatah gunmen marched in the procession, firing in the air and calling for vengeance against the rival Hamas group, which is locked in a
power struggle with Fatah over control of the Palestinian government.

Eighth Palestinian dies from wounds sustained in Thursday's attack
A Fatah security man on Friday died of wounds sustained in a battle against Hamas militants the previous day, medical officials said, raising the death toll to eight in the bloodiest single battle in weeks of factional fighting in the Gaza Strip.

The bodyguard had been wounded in a Thursday's assault by Hamas gunman on the home of a top Fatah security official. The official and six other bodyguards were killed in Thursday's fighting.

Haniyeh, Abbas agree to defuse tensions
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said on Friday he and Abbas had agreed at emergency talks to keep gunmen from their rival Hamas and Fatah factions off Gaza's streets after eight people were killed and 18 were wounded.

"We have expressed our regret and sorrow for these incidents that do not reflect our struggle," Haniyeh told reporters at Abbas's office at the end of their first meeting in two months.

Haniyeh said he and Abbas agreed to "withdraw all gunmen from the streets and deploy police forces to keep law and order."

Abbas made no public comment after the session, but a diplomat who attended the talks and declined to be identified confirmed an agreement had been reached.

Similar pacts in the past have been shattered swiftly by violence and Gazans said they feared another eruption of bloodshed later in the day when Thursday's dead are buried.

On Thursday, a senior Palestinian security officer allied with Fatah was killed when Hamas militants laid siege to his house in the northern Gaza Strip, engaging in a protracted gun battle with his guards, and then attacked it with grenades and a dozen rockets, Palestinian officials and witnesses said.

The officer, Colonel Mohammed Ghayeb, was on the phone to Palestine TV just moments before his death and appealed for help as his house came under attack. Ghayeb's wife was seriously wounded in the attack, in which Hamas fired assault rifles and rockets at the building.

"They are killers," he said of the Hamas gunmen. "They are targeting the house, children are dying, they are bleeding. For God's sake, send an ambulance, we want an ambulance, somebody move."

The battle outside the house raged for much of the day and killed four of Ghayeb's guards and a Hamas gunman. About three dozen people, including eight children, were also wounded.

Ghayeb was the chief of the Preventive Security Service in northern Gaza, and his killing was expected to trigger revenge attacks by the men under his command.

During the standoff outside Ghayeb's home in Beit Lahiya, dozens of women rushed into the streets in protest, chanting "Spare the bullets, shame, shame."

One resident, Amina Abu Saher, told the local Al Quds radio station that it was difficult for her to see Palestinians fighting each other and said she and the other women were determined to stop the internal fighting.

Haniyeh called for calm in the wake of the renewed internal violence. "These clashes must stop, this bloodshed must end. Let all of you love one another, let's resolve differences through dialogue and not with weapons," Haniyeh told reporters after returning from making the Haj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. "Weapons must only be directed against the Israeli occupation," he added.

Also Thursday, unknown gunmen fired on mourners at a funeral for three security officers loyal to Abbas who were among those killed the day before.

Fatah sources and medical officials said two mourners were wounded during the funeral march in central Gaza when gunmen shot at the procession.

A senior Hamas member was also kidnapped by unidentified gunmen in Gaza City, the Islamists said.

3) Interesting Times: Expose stealth rejectionism
By SAUL SINGER

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, in her recent interview said something worth contemplating. "Anyone who lives in the Middle East and has his feet on the ground cannot permit himself to be optimistic. But I see a type of opportunity. On the one hand, we're surrounded by a growing threat and extremism and zealotry. But on the other hand, precisely because of this threat, moderate countries... in the region understand today that their problem is not Israel."

For the Arab states, Israel (and the Islamist threat) has always been the enemy that can be used to distract from their own corrupt and oppressive regimes. But it is also possible for a real enemy to arise that renders the fomenting of anti-Israel fervor counterproductive.

At the same time, recent events have exposed a fundamental weakness in the Arab strategy: It is hard to pretend you want peace with a country that you are trying to wipe off the map.

Before 1967, the Arab states did not pretend they were in favor of a two-state solution. They did nothing to create a Palestinian state when the West Bank and Gaza were in their hands. Their open objective was one state, built on Israel's ashes.

IN THE decades after the Six Day War, the Arabs' strategy slowly changed. They noticed that they could not convince a single non-Arab state that Israel had no right to exist, but they could convince almost the entire international community that a Palestinian state should be created in the West Bank and Gaza.

Stealth rejectionism was born.

The Arabs, in other words, adopted the long view: First create a state in some of Palestine, while continuing to aim for the whole ball of wax. This was the famous "phased plan" adopted by the PLO in 1974, now openly embraced by Hamas.

Fatah takes the slightly more subtle, if contradictory, position that it favors a two-state solution, but also favors the "right of return," which aims to eliminate Israel demographically by flooding it with millions of descendants of Palestinian refugees.

The Arab world's problem is that the gap between its stated and real positions has become more obvious. The rise of Hamas puts the "destroy Israel" position front and center, so much so that it is coming to be recognized as the mainstream Palestinian objective.

Hamas is also not bothering to hide the fact that Iran is becoming its principal patron, as illustrated by the suitcases of money Hamas premier Ismail Haniyeh returned with from his recent trip to Teheran. These ties, including Hizbullah's payments to Palestinians to shoot rockets at Israel, increasingly identify the Palestinians with Iran's "wipe Israel off the map" line.

At the same time, the other half of the Arab equation, namely that Israeli obstinacy is the obstacle to peace, has also been severely undermined. Many things can be said about Ariel Sharon's disengagement from Gaza and Ehud Olmert's still-simmering desire to continue on this path, but one conclusion is indisputable: Israel has not only dropped its opposition to a Palestinian state, it almost desperately wants to create one.

As Livni put it in the same interview: "The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is a keg of gunpowder... Time is working against a solution of two nation-states... My vision says that the principle of two nation-states is not only an Israeli gift to the Palestinians, but a promotion of Israel's interests."

The old equation was "Palestinians want state, Israelis resist." The evolving new equation is, "Israelis want two states, Palestinians and Islamist front want to destroy Israel as part of their jihad against the West."

THAT THIS new equation is slowly sinking in was illustrated by UN Security Council Resolution 1701 from this summer's Lebanon war. Though the resolution is largely turning into a dead letter, it clearly blamed Hizbullah for starting the war and, ineffectually but in principle, took Israel's side on all the main points: Hizbullah should be disarmed, the Lebanese army should move south, and an embargo should be imposed on the rearming of Hizbullah.

This marked departure from the UN's usual blame-and-restrain-Israel approach is the result of the realization that this was not about Israel and the Palestinians, but whether the international community would back what was essentially an Iranian and Syrian bid to attack Israel and redominate Lebanon. The almost total failure to enforce the resolution demonstrates Western weakness, but does not negate this paradigm shift.

Similarly, Italian premier Romano Prodi and outgoing UN chief Kofi Annan both recently hinted that the Palestinians need to give up the "right of return" because it is inconsistent with Israel's right to exist. This too is a sign that it is becoming harder to deny that the obstacle to peace is the Arab/Islamist refusal to accept Israel, not Israel's supposed refusal to relinquish land.

The importance of the shift toward placing blame for the conflict where it properly belongs cannot be overemphasized. Our weakness, Lebanon notwithstanding, lies not in the military arena but in international legitimacy.

For decades, we have been blamed for being under attack. We are so used to this that we cannot conceive of any other reality. Yet we must not only conceive of a better reality but work to bring it about.

Our leaders seem to think that the only way to do this is the Sharon way: continuing to dramatize our active desire for a Palestinian state. But blame for the conflict can't hang in midair: We will never shift it off our shoulders until the world recognizes the shoulders on which that blame belongs.

Accordingly, the thrust of our policy should not be to unveil new peace plans, but to press more Western leaders to speak out against Arab and Iranian rejectionism, and demand active support for peace from the Arab world.

If Israel is not exposing stealth rejectionism while concretely outlining how those responsible for the conflict must contribute to ending it, how can we expect other nations to do so?

4) After the Danish Cartoon Controversy
by Pernille Ammitzbøll and Lorenzo Vidino


On February 5, 2006, at the height of the tension following the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten's publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, Muslim protesters torched Denmark's embassies in Beirut and Damascus. While many in the West looked on with bewilderment, protests spread across the Muslim world, and stores in Muslim areas removed Danish products from their shelves. Even as the cartoon crisis captured headlines around the world, most people outside Denmark remain unfamiliar with the forces propelling it. Like the Salman Rushdie affair before it and the furor over Pope Benedict XVI's remarks at Regensburg University after it, the cartoon controversy had less to do with genuine outrage over the depiction of Islam's prophet and more to do with the ambitions, first, of a small group of radical imams and, later, of jousting Middle Eastern powers. Now that the dust has settled, what is the legacy of the crisis, not only for Denmark but also for the Western world?
Background

Beginning in the late 1960s, a small Muslim population of Turks, Lebanese, and Somalis began to settle in Gellerup, a Western suburb of Aarhus, Denmark's second largest city. Gellerup, known to most locals as "the ghetto," suffers not only lower income, poorer education rates, and a higher crime rate than the rest of the city but also physical isolation. Its high-rises, which 28,000 Gellerup residents call home, are surrounded by a thick ring of public green and large boulevards. Designed in 1968 to house blue-collar workers and students from the local university, within two decades, Gellerup had become the destination of thousands of foreign immigrants who had moved to Aarhus to work in the city's food industry. By the mid-1990s, few ethnic Danish residents remained in the development.

As immigrant isolation grew, few Danes, wrapped in the political correctness common across Scandinavia, were willing to talk publicly about the problems simmering among the population; officials and commentators labeled those who did as racists and "Islamophobes." By 2001, attitudes began to change. In November, the center-right Liberal Party ended more than seven decades of left-of-center Social Democratic rule. In order to cement a coalition, the Liberal leader Anders Fogh Rasmussen reached out to the People's Party, a nationalist party that had also made significant gains. The new conservative government introduced a series of measures affecting immigrants, ranging from cutting state benefits to raising the threshold required to obtain Danish citizenship. Such measures, especially in the wake of 9-11, triggered an intense public debate over the once taboo topics of immigration and integration.

While some politicians and commentators embraced an extreme tone, as when a People's Party spokesperson compared Muslims to cancer cells,[1] much of the debate was constructive. For the first time, newspapers began to report crimes committed by gangs of teenage immigrants and honor killings of young Danish Muslim women. Politicians detailed overrepresentation of immigrants in benefit abuse and criminal activities. For example, in 2004, Danish authorities pressed charges against five times as many second generation immigrants than against ethnic Danes. In Copenhagen, three in four minors arrested is of immigrant background.[2]

Journalists also began to focus attention on the activities of some of Denmark's most radical imams. These clerics, for their part, did not hesitate to supply the media with headline-making statements. In 2004, one Copenhagen imam, for example, said in a televised interview that Danish women who do not wear the veil "were asking for rape;" other clerics recommended that Denmark adopt the tribal concept of blood money.[3]
Enter Jyllands-Posten

At the forefront of Denmark's new openness toward discussion of Muslim integration was Jyllands-Posten, the country's largest circulation newspaper. Conservative but respected for independent reporting, in 2005, Jyllands-Posten won the "To Multiplicity, against Discrimination" award from the European Union for its positive coverage of successful cases of Muslim immigration in Denmark.[4] At the same time, though, the paper began to run a series of stories on radical imams in the Aarhus area with particular focus on two who had made Gellerup their headquarters.

The first to be the focus of Jyllands-Posten was Raed Hlayhel, a Lebanese graduate of the University of Medina in Saudi Arabia where he immersed himself in Wahhabism.[5] He moved to Denmark in 1999 after receiving a humanitarian visa to get medical care for his son but refused to learn Danish. Hlayhel established himself at Gellerup's small Grimhoejvej mosque and began to preach his strict and politicized interpretation of Islam, attracting a small following among the neighborhood's Arab population. His sermons repeatedly made Jyllands-Posten headlines, as he decreed that Muslim women should cover themselves from head to toe and will disqualify themselves from paradise if they wear perfume or go to the hairdresser.[6]

Hlayhel teamed up with 28-year-old imam Ahmed Akkari. Born in Lebanon, Akkari had grown up in Aalborg and made a name for himself when, at age 15, local papers portrayed him as a model immigrant and joined a campaign to prevent his family's deportation to Lebanon for illegal immigration.[7] After winning his battle with the government, Akkari attracted attention for other reasons. In 2001, a Danish court convicted Akkari of assault after he almost ripped off the ear of an 11-year-old boy who had accidentally removed Akkari's sister's veil; in another circumstance, he advocated kicking unveiled Muslim girls.[8]

Both Hlayhel and Akkari had an axe to grind with the Danish press and with Jyllands-Posten in particular. They saw an opportunity when Jyllands-Posten published twelve cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad.[9] Culture editor Flemming Rose explained that the idea of running such cartoons came to him "in response to several incidents of self-censorship in Europe caused by widening fears and feelings of intimidation in dealing with issues related to Islam."[10] In the aftermath of the assassination of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, ritually butchered in central Amsterdam by an Islamist who had been offended by van Gogh's movie Submission, Rose was disturbed by several episodes in which European artists and publishers refused to display art or perform plays that could expose them to similar threats. Having learned that a local author writing a book on Muhammad was having problems finding illustrators, Rose contacted forty illustrators and asked them to draw cartoons on the subject, curious to see what their responses would be. Only twelve cartoonists responded. Most of the cartoons were harmless, but a few were offensive and two depicted the Prophet negatively: one drew him with a bomb-shaped turban and another as an assassin.

Anger within the Danish Muslim community was high. Some Muslim readers sent letters to the newspaper denouncing the cartoons and organized peaceful protests to express their frustration. For Hlayhel, this was not enough. "Muslims will never accept this kind of humiliation," he admonished, "The article has insulted every Muslim in the world. We demand an apology."[11] Two days later, Hlayhel and Akkari contacted like-minded imams throughout the country and summoned them to Odense, halfway between Aarhus and Copenhagen.[12] Addressing the clerics with a "you-are-either-with-me-or-against-Islam" rhetoric, Hlayhel said he would fight to obtain an apology and perhaps other concessions, not only from Jyllands-Posten but also from the Danish government.[13]

Hlayhel's attitude was likely shaped not only by strong religious convictions but also by personal ambition. He saw in the crisis the opportunity to enhance his own prestige within the Danish Muslim community.[14] He could leapfrog from being an imam at a small mosque in the suburbs of Denmark's second largest city to being the de facto leader of Danish Muslims. Hlayhel's ultimatum put other imams in a dilemma: to play along and attract negative publicity or stand accused by a radical upstart of being insufficiently willing to defend Islam.
Enter Abu Laban

Ahmed Abu Laban, a 60-year-old Palestinian from Jaffa, who had become perhaps Denmark's most famous imam, was a case in point. A frequent commentator on Danish television and in meetings with government officials, he had taken pains to label himself a moderate. But Abu Laban's past was marred by connections with terrorists. He had settled in Copenhagen in 1983 after being expelled from both Egypt and Kuwait for his involvement in the Muslim Brotherhood.[15] In Denmark, he became the right-hand man of Abu Talal al-Qassimy,[16] a top leader of the Egyptian terrorist group Gama'a Islamiya who had received asylum in Denmark after fighting in Afghanistan alongside Osama bin Laden and other future founders of Al-Qaeda. Many other Gama'a members subsequently passed through Copenhagen, including Al-Qaeda's number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri.[17] Abu Laban also worked as a translator and distributor of Al-Murabitoun, the Gama'a's official magazine, which was published out of Copenhagen and, at the time, glorified the killing of Western tourists in Egypt and urged the annihilation of Jews in Israel.[18]

Abu Laban understood that leaving the spotlight to others could cost him his position of leadership within the Muslim community. Despite mutual suspicions, Abu Laban and Hlayhel teamed up to create and lead the Committee for the Defense of the Honor of the Prophet consisting of twenty-seven Muslim organizations and mosques whose stated aim was to obtain an apology for the cartoons. The committee was less than met the eye, however; Abu Laban only invited imams to Odense known for their radical views. Many of the twenty-seven member organizations were either empty fronts or groups with no more than ten members.[19]

A few days later, Hlayhel issued a press release demanding an apology from Jyllands-Posten on behalf of the entire Muslim community. His call for an apology was a veiled threat. "We are not threatening anybody," said the Lebanese cleric, "but when you see what happened in Holland and then still print the cartoons, that's quite stupid."[20] Abu Laban and the other imams also contacted the media and voiced their indignation.

While the story was top news in Denmark, outside reaction was muted. On October 17, 2005, the Egyptian newspaper Al-Fajr published the cartoons to illustrate that the depictions were in poor taste[21] as did the widely read Indonesian news website Rakyat Merdeka.[22] Publication of the cartoons sparked not outrage, but only indifference.

Many moderate Danish Muslims sought to distance themselves from the committee's actions. On January 16, Jyllands-Posten ran a front page story with the statements of forty-nine Danish Muslims who wanted to express their disapproval of the actions of the imams and dispel the notion that the committee spoke on behalf of the Muslim community.[23]

For a few weeks, the radical imams continued to voice their protests while Jyllands-Posten defended its right to freedom of expression and satire. With their efforts going nowhere, the imams contacted the ambassadors to Denmark of various Muslim countries to seek their assistance in convincing the Danish government to force Jyllands-Posten to apologize. Eleven of the diplomats, led by Egypt's ambassador Mona Omar Attia, sought a meeting with Danish prime minister Rasmussen to discuss the issue. Rasmussen refused. "This is a matter of principle. I won't meet with them because it is so crystal clear what principles Danish democracy is built upon that there is no reason to do so," the prime minister explained. "As prime minister, I have no power whatsoever to limit the press—nor do I want such a power."[24]
Internationalizing the Crisis

In response, the imams decided to escalate matters. Abu Laban called upon his connections throughout the Muslim world to "internationalize this issue so that the Danish government would realize that the cartoons were not only insulting to Muslims in Denmark but also to Muslims worldwide."[25]

Helped by the Muslim ambassadors, he put together two delegations of Danish Muslims who traveled to various Muslim countries to solicit support. The delegations met with, among others, Arab League secretary Amr Moussa, the grand imam of Al-Azhar University, Sheikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, and influential Sunni scholar, Yusuf al-Qaradawi. The delegation showed each of these leaders the twelve cartoons published by Jyllands-Posten along with others which had never been published in any Danish publication.[26] The new cartoons were much more offensive than the original twelve: one was falsely alleged to depict the Prophet Muhammad with a pig face and another to show him having intercourse with a dog. When challenged with this fraud, the imams said that the new images had been sent to them via e-mail as threats and had been shown to their Middle Eastern hosts only to give them an idea of the widespread anti-Muslim sentiment in Denmark, a claim that cannot be verified. A booklet presented by the delegation contained several blatant untruths about the oppression of Muslims in Denmark, claiming Muslims do not have the legal right to build mosques and are subjected to pervasive racism.[27] Some of the imams also gave interviews to Arab media, reiterating their accusations and claiming that the Danish government was planning to censor the Qur'an.[28]

The imams' tour was successful. By the end of December, the cartoon controversy had become international. Middle Eastern regimes, trying to ride the wave of religious revival influencing their populations, rushed to condemn the cartoons and called for boycotts of Danish goods.[29] The Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Arab League held meetings on the matter.[30] The Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups used the controversy to prove their claim that the West hates Islam.[31] Many groups and organizations for different reasons opportunistically jumped on the "I hate Denmark" bandwagon.

News of the Danish controversy spread throughout the Muslim world. The same cartoons that had not sparked reaction in October caused outrage three months later. At the end of January and the beginning of February, the West watched as the cartoon controversy peaked. In Denmark, a country where even top politicians normally go around on bicycles, security guards were assigned to various Jyllands-Posten editors, and bomb threats were called in almost daily to various newspapers. Danish websites were hacked, and Islamists posted on-line threats of attacks against the country.[32]

Various clerics issued fatwas calling for the death of the twelve cartoonists, and a Pakistani cleric even put a US$1 million bounty on their heads.[33] Several Muslim countries officially endorsed a boycott of Danish goods launched by religious organizations. Protesters from Gaza to Jakarta burned Danish flags and effigies of Rasmussen. That many used the controversy for local reasons was apparent. In Pakistan, where Islamists could not find buildings with Danish links, they attacked U.S. fast food restaurants.[34] In Libya, rioters did not attack Danish facilities but targeted the consulate of Italy, the country's former colonial power.[35] In Yemen, government forces falsely accused opposition journalist and free press advocate Hafez al-Bukari of accepting Danish money.[36] And in Afghanistan, the target was the U.S. air base at Bagram.[37]
Enter Naser Khader

Paradoxically, a year later, the consequences of the crisis have been largely positive for Denmark. There has been no terrorist attack against either Denmark or Danish interests abroad. The boycott of Danish goods caused only minor losses for some Danish companies but did not affect the country's general economy.[38] In some cases, the boycott backfired: Egypt saw a 30 percent drop in Scandinavian tourism, and Danish papers reported that the Egyptian tourism attaché in Denmark was flooded with phone calls and e-mails from Egyptian hotel owners begging him to bring back Danish tourists.[39] Danes also proved the imams' accusations of Danish racism wrong; there was not a single anti-Muslim attack in Denmark throughout the cartoon crisis.

The controversy catapulted the debate about Muslim integration into the top issue among all political parties in Denmark. Seldom is there a day without a newspaper editorial, university roundtable, or a television program discussing Muslim integration. Compared with the period before the crisis erupted, the debate is more sophisticated and nuanced. The Danes understand that the Muslim community is not a monolithic bloc but encompasses different religious traditions, ethnic backgrounds, and political opinions. The crisis has taught the Danes to distinguish between Muslims who believe their faith is compatible with a secular democracy and seek integration and those who promote Shari‘a (Islamic law) and shun Danish society.

Rose wrote in an editorial that the country's radical imams have been marginalized and "no longer speak for the Muslim community in Denmark because moderate Muslims have had the courage to speak out against them."[40] Possibly the most positive consequence of the cartoon controversy is the emergence of a number of moderate Muslim leaders, who have confronted the imams and affirmed their pride in living in a society that gives them freedom of expression and religion. The best known among this group is a young Syrian-born Danish parliamentarian, Naser Khader.

Khader moved to Copenhagen in 1974 at the age of 11, rejoining his father who had found a job there as an unskilled worker.[41] Learning Danish, he received a Master's degree in political science in 1993 and launched a successful political career, first locally and then nationally, making integration a priority issue. For more than a decade, Khader had criticized the attitude of many Muslim immigrants who settle in Denmark without embracing its values. His 1996 book, Honor and Shame,[42] which denounced some aspects of Middle Eastern culture as backwards, led to a violent confrontation with Abu Laban; the two men have not spoken since. While Danish media had once characterized the dispute between Abu Laban and Khader as merely a rift within the Muslim community, they now recognize its significance to and consequence for Danish society.

At the height of the cartoon controversy, Khader founded the Democratic Muslim Network, an organization aimed at uniting moderate Danish Muslims. Membership in Khader's organization is dependent on endorsing a document called "The Ten Commandments of Democracy,"[43] the first commandment of which is, "We must all separate politics and religion, and we must never place religion above the laws of democracy."[44]

Abu Laban has described Khader and his Muslim supporters as "rats in a hole" and "cowards" responsible for the troubles of all Muslims in Europe.[45] Then, in March 2006, French journalist Mohammed Sifaoui used a hidden camera to tape comments made by the Danish imams during what they thought was a break in an interview.[46] "If he becomes minister for foreigners or integration," said Akkari, "wouldn't there be two guys sent over to blow up him and his ministry?" Because of the ensuing outrage, Akkari wrote an open letter to Khader, apologizing for what he called his bad joke.

While few Danes still tolerate fake moderates and their double talk, where do most Danish Muslims stand? Khader's organization has more than 15,000 non-Muslim supporters but only 1,100 Muslim members, making Muslims a minority in their own organization. Khader responds that membership does not mean much. He points to the People's Party, which has 3,000 members but which obtained 13 percent of the vote in the 2001 elections.[47]

Still support could be higher. Many Muslims support Khader's vision but are afraid to do so publicly. Several who have endorsed Khader's views have received threats. Others fear labeling by the radical imams. "If you disagree with the imams you are accused of defending Jyllands-Posten, of being against Islam," said Rabih Azad Ahmed, a Palestinian-born Gellerup resident active in various intercultural initiatives. "Moderate Muslims are stuck in the middle."[48]
The Security Services' Dilemma

While Danes sympathize with the moderate Muslims, the government must still address the radicalism of a segment of the community. No solution is without consequence. PET (Politiets Efterretningstjeneste), Danish domestic intelligence, knows well the goals of the radical imams but may fear alienating them. "I could have raised hell here in Denmark," said Abu Laban in the aftermath of the cartoon controversy, "I could have made the Muslims lash out."[49] Concerned with the immediate goal of avoiding violence inside Denmark, PET still engages with Abu Laban and other radical imams and sometimes praises them. In a controversial interview given in March 2005, Hans Joergen Bonnichsen, the former PET head, accused the media of demonizing the imams whom he praised for their role in calming down the Muslim community during the crisis.[50]

PET's policy of short-term obsequiousness may have long-term repercussions. Radical imams use the authorities' endorsement to boost their own status within the Muslim community, portraying themselves as the only ones who can represent and defend it. At the same time, the imams manipulate the relationship, becoming necessary mediators in any contact between authorities and the Muslim community. When, for example, in June 2006, a small right-wing group organized a provocative anti-Muslim protest inside Gellerup, the police dispatched insufficient numbers and had to resort to the imams' help to stop the local Muslim youth from attacking the protesters. If keeping order within the Muslim community is subcontracted to the imams, the state relinquishes part of its authority on its own soil to the benefit of megalomaniacal imams disloyal to Denmark and its democracy.

There are other reasons to be skeptical about the security services' benign attitude toward radical imams. Tina Magaard, an expert in Islamic literature at the University of Aarhus, analyzed a sermon delivered by Hlayhel in the aftermath of the cartoon saga, in which, according to his Manichean vision of the world, he divided Danish society into good and bad.[51] If Jyllands-Posten, the Danish government, and the People's Party were evil for their roles in the cartoon controversy, PET and Arla, the Aarhus-based food industry giant that condemned the cartoons fearing economic repercussions against its businesses in the Middle East, are praised for solidarity with Muslims. Magaard believes that Hlayhel considers his own position in Denmark to be similar to that of Muhammad in Medina when the Prophet, having limited power at that stage, formed alliances with tribes of polytheists and Jews. PET and Arla, in Hlayhel's vision, are good Danish "tribes" with whom a deal can be made for the greater good of Muslims. But Hlayhel's covenant, like Muhammad's, Magaard warns, is revocable: it will be valid only as long as it serves the Muslims' interest, and circumstances will change as the balance of power shifts.[52]
The Aftermath

It seems that power may be the imams' goal. Since the cartoon saga ended, Hlayhel has thrown his weight behind the construction of a large new mosque inside Gellerup, a project he had previously opposed. Wealthy Saudi businessmen have visited his mosque, attracted by his new notoriety. Since money for the construction of the mosque now comes from foreign sponsors supportive of his politics,[53] Hlayhel stands to benefit more and expand his influence at the expense of those more beholden to the local community. Those moderate and liberal Muslim organizations on the other hand that do not receive foreign largesse struggle to survive. Some receive funding from the city council but often at the expense of accusations of being government puppets.

Like the cartoon controversy, the Danish solution to the dual dilemma of how to empower moderate Muslims without tainting them and how to marginalize radicals without backlash will have repercussions beyond Denmark's border. While some in Europe are watching, many others remain in a state of denial, handicapped by political correctness and self-destructive taboos.

Pernille Ammitzbøll is a journalist with Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten. Lorenzo Vidino is an analyst for the Investigative Project on Terrorism and author of Al-Qaeda in Europe: The New Battleground of International Jihad (Prometheus, 2005).

[1] Spiegel Online, Feb. 8, 2006.
[2] Author interviews with Danish member of parliament, Copenhagen, June 2006.
[3] The Copenhagen Post, Sept. 24, 2004; Berlingske Tidende (Copenhagen), June 3, 2005.
[4] Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten (Aarhus), May 3, 2005.
[5] Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, May 21, 2006.
[6] Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, May 21, 2006.
[7] Ekstra Bladet (Copenhagen), Feb. 14, 2006.
[8] Ekstra Bladet, Feb. 15, 2006.
[9] Sept. 30, 2005.
[10] Flemming Rose, "Why I Published Those Cartoons," The Washington Post, Feb. 19, 2006.
[11] Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, Oct. 9, 2005.
[12] Author interviews with Gellerup Muslim leaders, June 2006.
[13] Author interviews with Gellerup Muslim leaders, June 2006.
[14] Author interviews with Gellerup Muslim leaders, June 2006.
[15] Author interview with Naser Khader, Copenhagen, June 2006.
[16] Analysis of the June 26, 1995 searches of the Viale Jenner mosque, Direzione per le Investigazioni Generali e per le Operazioni Speciali (DIGOS), Sept. 15, 1997.
[17] The Guardian (London), Sept. 24, 2001.
[18] Evan F. Kohlmann, Al-Qaida's Jihad in Europe: The Afghan-Bosnian Network (Oxford: Berg, 2004), pp. 26-7.
[19] Author interviews with Gellerup Muslim leaders, June 2006.
[20] Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, Oct. 9, 2005.
[21] "Muslim Cartoon Row Timeline," BBC News, Feb. 19, 2006.
[22] The Washington Post, Feb. 16, 2006.
[23] Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, Jan. 16, 2006.
[24] The Copenhagen Post, Oct. 25, 2005.
[25] IslamOnline, Nov. 18, 2005.
[26] The Washington Post, Feb. 16, 2006.
[27] Copy of the booklet is in the possession of the authors.
[28] See, for example, Ahmed Abu Laban, Al-Jazeera television (Doha) interview on DR1, Danish state television, Feb. 3, 2006.
[29] Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, Jan. 31, 2006; Al-Jazeera, Jan. 29, 2006; BBC News, Jan. 31, 2006.
[30] H.E Prof Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary general, Organization of Islamic Conference, press release, Jeddah, Jan. 28, 2006; BBC News, Jan. 31, 2006.
[31] Olivier Guitta, "The Cartoon Jihad," The Weekly Standard, Feb. 20, 2006; The Telegraph (London), Mar. 2, 2006.
[32] BBC News, Feb. 8, 2006.
[33] USA Today, Feb. 17, 2006.
[34] BBC News, Feb. 15, 2006.
[35] CNN.com, Feb. 18, 2006.
[36] Yemen Times (Sana'a), Sept. 26, 2005.
[37] USA Today, Feb. 6, 2006.
[38] Author interviews with Danish member of parliament, Copenhagen, June 2006.
[39] Politiken (Copenhagen), Mar. 9, 2006.
[40] Rose, "Why I Published Those Cartoons."
[41] Author interview with Naser Khader, Copenhagen, June 2006; information available at Khader's website, khader.dk, accessed Sept. 5, 2006.
[42] Ære og Skam (Copenhagen: Borgen,1996).
[43] Naser Khader, "The Ten Commandments of Democracy," khader.dk, accessed Sept. 5, 2006.
[44] Ibid.
[45] The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 13, 2006.
[46] TV-DR1, Danish National Broadcasting Corp., Mar. 25, 2006.
[47] Author interview with Naser Khader, Copenhagen, June 2006.
[48] Author interview with Rabih Azad Ahmed, Aarhus, June 2006.
[49] Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, May 12, 2006.
[50] Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, Mar. 26, 2006.
[51] Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, May 21, 2006.
[52] Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, May 21, 2006.
[53] Author interviews with Gellerup Muslim leaders, June 2006.