Obama The New Paul Revere/John Adams and Jefferson!

Another day in Jerusalem living side by side with deranged Arabs. (See 1 below.)

Zvi Bar'el suggests Iran can rattle saber but if Israel does it could backfire. (See 2 below.)

Palestinians have negative view of peace prospects but few see their own connection as to why. (See 3 below.)

Iran takes a page from N Korea's play book. (See 4 below.)

The evidence noose grows tighter around Olmert's neck but on he hangs! (See 5 below.)

Obama and his patriotic disconnect speech leaves Lee Cary shaking his head while discerning the many "meta-messages."

Obama again wraps himself in the garb of former Revolutionary patriots like Adams and Jefferson. Like the TV character, Obama uses his self-styled definition of patriotism to move on up! Consequently, Obama keeps returning to his: 'don't tread on me because I am a patriot' theme. (See 6 below.)

However, Johnathan Tobin suggests appeasers make poor patriots. (See 7 below.)

European conversion to Islamic beliefs grows and bodes dire consequences (See 8 below.).

The Australian view regarding Iran - Time is running out for negotiating. (See 9 below.)

It was only a matter of time - Economist portrays Obama tacking to the middle now that his liberal credentials have won him the nomination. (See 10 below.)

Dick



1) Four dead, 44 injured in terrorist bulldozer rampage in downtown Jerusalem



In a rampage along Jerusalem’s crowded Jaffa Street thoroughfare, a bulldozer hoisted and overturned a packed 13 bus, then extended its shovel and plowed into several vehicles and pedestrians, Wednesday, July 2. A driver managed to throw a baby out of the car window and save its life, before being crushed to death by the oncoming Caterpillar.

The bulldozer driver was tackled and shot dead by two policeman and a passing soldier on furlough, cutting the carnage short opposite the national broadcasting center.

The bulldozer driver was tackled and shot dead by two policemen opposite the national broadcasting center. The terrorist was a Palestinian living in one of the Arab villages of Jerusalem and therefore entitled to move freely around and work in Jerusalem on a resident’s ID.

Another Jerusalem Palestinian carried out the last deadly attack in the capital, killing 8 students and injuring 9 in a shooting spree in the Mercaz Harav yeshiva on March 7.

Jerusalem was placed on high terrorist alert as emergency teams and ambulances evacuated trapped victims in the bus and crushed cars.

Road works are underway on Jaffa Street preparing for a light railway.

2) Israel's saber-rattling against Iran could backfire
By Zvi Bar'el

The belief that Israel will attack Iran before the year is out, and the major military drill over the Mediterranean last month, may indicate Israel's determination - even if it has to act alone - to defend against the strategic threat Iran has laid at its doorstep.

However this message, along with the threats Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz has made against Iran, must also be analyzed in light of Iran's abilities to respond to such an attack with a preemptive strike against Israel.

For years Israel has warned against Iran's increased ballistic capabilities. Shihab 3 and Shihab 4 missiles were perceived until recently as Iran's clearest strategic menace. A few years ago, General Ahmed Wahid, head of Iran's aircraft industries, said Iran did not view the United States as the target of his country's missiles, but rather Israel.

In contrast with the more distant nuclear threat, Iran has proven ballistic capabilities to hit strategic and civilian targets in Israel, causing huge casualties and enormous damage. Since the nuclear issue burst into military-diplomatic discourse, it is as if the ballistic
issue has been forgotten. Meanwhile, the single-minded perception that only the West and Israel can attack Iran and that Iran cannot launch a preemptive strike or a powerful response has settled in, at least in public discussions.

If the threat to attack Iran is meant to motivate the Iranian people to pressure their leadership, this goal is still far from attained. Ahmadinejad has a strong opposition in parliament and in some sectors of the public, but at the same time widespread consensus exists that the development of nuclear technology is a worthwhile national task. Thus while there is domestic criticism of failing economic policies, and next year's presidential election campaign has already begun, none of the potential candidates speak of halting nuclear development.

It is believed in Iran that continued threats, not to mention a direct attack, might only strengthen Ahmadinejad as the man who is standing strong against the West and Israel, and increase the feeling that nuclear armament is necessary.

The commander of the Revolutionary Guards Mohammed Ali Jafari warned this week that Iran would respond to an attack by closing the strait of Hormuz, preventing the passage of oil from the Gulf states, which would spike world oil prices.

Israel, which had to extricate itself from accusations that it dragged the U.S. into war in Iraq, will find it difficult to withstand pressure that it, and not Iran, is responsible for another rise in oil prices, perhaps the most dramatic to date, and the subsequent damage to global economy. The hike in oil prices following Mofaz's statements may be proof of this scenario.

Iran's nuclear threat has created an interesting anti-Iranian coalition that includes Arab countries along with the U.S. and Israel. For the first time, Arab statesmen are saying that the Iranian nuclear threat against Arab countries is more concrete than the Israeli threat on them. However, this coalition will have difficulty tolerating an Israeli attack on Iran, especially if such an attack also brings about an Iranian attack on nearby Arab countries.

3) Rosner's Domain / Why do Arabs prefer Hamas over Fatah?
By Shmuel Rosner

Study shows over 50% of Arabs worldwide think Israeli-Palestinian issue is most important, but say peace will never happen.

"The Arab-Israeli conflict remains a central issue for most Arabs," concludes Shibley Telhami. But do we really need a poll to understand that?

The Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland, and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Saban Center at Brookings, Telhami was presenting the findings of new polls on Tuesday.

Whether one likes it or not, whether this is justified or not, "the Arab-Israeli issue remains the prism through which most Arabs view the world." In fact, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was never higher on the agenda as it is today, at least since 2002, the year Telhami started conducting this annual poll. According to the study, 88 percent of Egyptians rank it among the top three most important issues, while 100 percent of Jordanians do the same.

In addition, 99 percent of Lebanese rank this issue as one of the top three. One would think Lebanese have other things to worry about. Yet, 40 percent of them have changed their view of Hezbollah for the better, compared to just 29 percent who now see Hezbollah more negatively than in the past.

Among Arabs in general, 56 percent said the Israeli-Palestinian issue was the single most important issue compared to 43 percent in 2003, 56 percent in 2004, 24 percent in 2005, and 43 percent in 2006.

Another interesting part of the study has to do with the Fatah-Hamas divide. The headline reads:

In all six countries surveyed (those polled were all non-Palestinian Arabs), Arabs favored Hamas over Fatah.

They also wanted to see a Palestinian unity government. Palestinian polls that Telhami mentions in his paper keep showing some advantage for Fatah, but also that the leader of Hamas in Gaza would defeat Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in a head to head election (47 percent for Ismail Haniyeh, 46 percent for Abbas).

Telhami asked in the poll: "What step taken by Washington would most improve your views of the United States?" The options he presented the participants in the poll were:

Pushing for the spread of democracy in the Middle East even more.
Providing more economic assistance to the region.
Stopping economic and military aid to Israel.
Withdrawing American forces from Iraq.
Withdrawing American forces from the Arabian peninsula.
Brokering comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace.

As for what they choose: "Fifty percent of the public identified brokering Arab-Israeli peace based on the 1967 border as the single most important step to improving their views of the United States."

The statistic represents a drop when compared with 2006, when "more than 60% of respondents chose brokering Arab-Israeli peace as the number one answer." Clearly, a U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq is becoming more important (from 33 percent in 2006 to 44 percent in 2008).

Yet there are still some good news. "Those who are in principle opposed to an agreement with Israel are a minority in every country, with a majority stating that they would accept a peace agreement based on the 1967 borders." Apparently, the poll respondents do not see a contradiction between wanting an agreement and supporting Hamas, which does not recognize Israel. Telhami thinks it's because most Arabs "do not believe that Israelis will ever accept such peace." Arabs are also skeptical when asked if peace is coming anytime soon: "55 percent expressed the view that it will never happen, while only 13 percent stated that they believe it is achievable in the next five years."

As for Israel's image, "35 percent believed Israel was weaker, while 16 percent said Israel remained strong." Better than 2006, in the shadow of the Second Lebanon War, when 46 percent believed Israel is getting weaker. By the way, Egyptians (50 percent) and Moroccans (44 percent) were more likely than Lebanese (38 percent) and Saudis (37 percent) to believe that Israel is now weaker.

When Arabs were asked to identify the leader they admire the most the number one answer was: Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah.

Only a minority of Arabs believe that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons. I think this is strange, but numbers do not lie (people might lie, though, when they are asked such questions). It is even stranger than one might think if one considers the fact that in 2006, most Arabs believed that Iran was trying to acquire nuclear weapons. What happened between 2006 and 2008? The only thing I can think of is the idiotic NIE report on Iran , but assuming that the Arab masses read it and believe it is kind of strange too.

Considering these findings, perhaps it is not so surprising that Arabs do not want the world to pressure Iran. After all, why pressure a country that does not have any sinister intentions?

4) Report: Iran willing to suspend nuclear program for at least six weeks
By Yossi Melman

Unofficial reports from Iran, supported by several Iranian legislators, suggest that Tehran is willing to suspend its nuclear program for at least six weeks as a goodwill gesture to the West.

According to the reports, released on various Iranian Web sites, Tehran would suspend the installation of new centrifuges at the Natanz nuclear facility in the first stage of the suspension, after which it would be willing to halt the enrichment of uranium for an undetermined amount of time.

The steps would be taken in exchange for the launching of new talks with the five representatives of the United Nations Security Council and Germany (P5+1).

Several members of the Iranian parliament confirmed on Tuesday that the Iranian vice president and head of the country's Atomic Energy Organization, Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, has agreed to the proposal. The legislators said that unofficial talks with Security Council members are expected to begin next week.

The report also says that the suspension is part of a package of incentives European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana offered Iran roughly two weeks ago in an effort to encourage Tehran to halt its nuclear program.

5) Inquiries in U.S. bolster fraud case against PM
By Amir Oren

Inquiries made over the past week in the United States by Israeli law
enforcement representatives are strengthening suspicions of fraud and other
crimes against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, say senior officials in the State
Prosecutor's Office and the Israel Police.

Olmert is being investigated for allegations that he accepted illicit funds
over many years from a Long Island businessman, Morris Talansky, who is the
main witness in what has been dubbed "the envelopes case."

In his preliminary deposition in Jerusalem on May 27, Talansky testified
that he gave Olmert $150,000, mostly in cash, for political campaigns and
travel expenses. He denied receiving anything in return for the cash, which
was allegedly conveyed in envelopes through third parties.

According to one key official, "the case against Olmert has grown stronger,"
following the inquiries in the U.S. Another senior official confirmed that
impression, saying that "the case is progressing, and progressing nicely."

Unless an extension is called for, the inquiries will continue for the next
two weeks, wrapping up before Talansky's cross-examination on July 17.

The team conducting the inquiries consists of attorney Uri Korev of the
Jerusalem District Prosecutor's Office, and superintendents Lior Weiss and
Tzahi Havkin of the National Fraud Unit. They traveled to New York,
Washington, and Las Vegas to gather documents from banks and other sources,
and to interview witnesses.

According to a senior law enforcement official, the trio flew to the U.S. on
June 23 without waiting for the Justice Department's final permission, in
order to speed up an American bureaucracy that was moving slowly because of
a jurisdiction dispute between the federal government and local authorities.
The impression in Jerusalem was that the decision to "create facts on the
ground" indeed prompted the desired outcome.

Team members report back to their respective superiors. Korev answers to
Jerusalem District Prosecutor Eli Abarbanel, who participates in
consultations on the Olmert case with State Prosecutor Moshe Lador and his
deputy for criminal affairs, Shuki Lemberger. Weiss and Havkin work for the
National Fraud Unit chief, Brigadier General Shlomi Ayalon, who heads the
team that twice has questioned Olmert, and is expected to question him a
third time after Talansky's cross-examination.

Ayalon participates in consultations on the Olmert case by the heads of the
police investigation and intelligence departments and their legal counsels.

When Korev, Weiss, and Havkin return to Israel, and after Talansky's
cross-examination, the top brass and their aides will put together the case
that will be officially handed over to Lador and Abarbanel, accompanied by
the investigators' opinion on the viability of an indictment based on the
evidence.

The latest reports on progress in the inquiries in the states have
strengthened the assessment among law enforcement officials that the police
will indeed recommend indicting the prime minister.

Despite attempts by Olmert and his lawyers to create a public impression to
the contrary, the officials say, the case rests on strong evidence, and is
growing stronger.

6) The Meta-Messages in Obama's Patriotism Speech
By Lee Cary

Meta-message: A term, widely credited to Gerard Nierenberg, used to refer to messages that are not directly delivered but emerge from between the written or spoken lines.

Senator Obama's "The America We Love" speech, delivered in Independence, Missouri on June 30, might be more accurately entitled, "My Definition of Patriotism." It was as much about him as America, and it was full of meta-messages.

A close reading of his 3,000-words address reveals meta-messages at various depth levels. Here are several listed in their order of appearance:

1. The unfair labeling of me as unpatriotic is a Republican scare tactic.
"I have found, for the first time, my patriotism challenged...more often as a result of the desire by some to score political points and raise fears about who I am and what I stand for." [The unnamed targets of this accusation represent Obama's frequent tactical use of the Straw Man attack on shadow opposition, as he continues to play the victim.]

2. I stand with other great Americans whose patriotism has been challenged.
"Thomas Jefferson was accused by the Federalists...John Adams was [said to be] in cahoots with the British..."

3. In my long-standing opposition to the Iraq War, I stand with others who have patriotically opposed bad government policies and behaviors. "[Patriotic opposition includes those who were against] Adams' Alien and Sedition Act, Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus, Roosevelt's internment of Japanese Americans..." and "...during our recent debates about the war in Iraq, when those who opposed administration policy were tagged by some as unpatriotic.

"But when our laws, our leaders or our government are out of alignment with our ideals, then the dissent of ordinary Americans may prove to be one of the truest expressions of patriotism." [Examples include] "...Martin Luther King, Jr. who led a movement to help America...the young soldier who first spoke about the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib."

4. I come from a traditionally patriotic family.
"...sitting on my grandfather's shoulders and watching the astronauts...grandmother telling stories about her work on a bomber assembly-line during World War II...grandfather handing me his dog-taps from his time in Patton's Army...mother reading me the first lines of the Declaration of Independence"

5. I appreciate the sacrifice of wounded veterans including John McCain, and am not responsible for Gen. Wesley Clark's recent remarks about him.
"... no one should ever devalue that service, especially for the sake of a political campaign, and that goes for supporters on both sides." [What military service of his own does Obama imply?]

6. As president I will call on Americans to display their patriotism through community service.
"...those who are fighting for a better America here at home, by teaching in underserved schools, or caring for the sick in understaffed hospitals, or promoting more sustainable energy policies in their local communities

"I believe one of the tasks of the next Administration is to ensure that the movement towards service grows and sustains itself in the years to come."

7. Sustaining America's patriotism will require a major federal initiative to improve public education.
"The loss of quality civic education from so many of our classrooms has left too many young Americans without the most basic knowledge of [American history]."

Meta-messages 6 and 7 are best understood in the context of the most important, yet least discussed, official campaign document of this entire presidential campaign: The Blueprint For Change: Barack Obama's Plan For America. Obama's clear intention stated therein, and complemented by linked speeches, is to increase taxes, decrease defense spending (and gut NASA's budget), and dramatically increase expenditures on social programs, to include an unprecedented level of federal government intrusion into public education.

In this speech Obama gave us a preview of the patriotism case he'll make, if elected, to push a comprehensive redistribution of tax dollars toward federally-sponsored, community social activism. And ultimately, there will be no international boundaries to his definition of "community."

Although it's not a major theme in this speech, another deep level meta-message is also noteworthy:

I will not only end the Iraq War, but deemphasize the war on terrorism.

Obama stated that "we are in the midst of war" and tallied the casualties from Iraq and Afghanistan. He made no reference to the war on terrorism, nor uses any of its alternative labels. Neither does he mention the casualties of 9/11. His only reference to that event was in the context of how the Bush administration called for no sacrifice from Americans in its wake except to go shopping.

Another deep level meta-message is aligned with his sponsorship of Senate Bill 2344, the Global Poverty Act of 2007. In his speech he asked,

"How do we ensure that in an increasingly global economy, the winners maintain allegiance to the less fortunate?"


Part of his answer to his own question is in his proposed bill to allocate $845,000,000,000 of foreign aid to be dispensed over 13 years in cooperation with the United Nations.

The meta-message here is:

We have a patriotic responsibility to the world's improvised as well as to our own.


Finally, his speech was not without inconsistencies. For example, he stated,

"Still, what is striking about today's patriotism debate is the degree to which it remains rooted in the culture wars of the 1960's."


Yet, throughout his campaign, Obama has made very frequent direct and indirect references to the Civil Rights Movement of the ‘60's. One wonders -- can he deliver a major speech without mentioning Martin Luther King, Jr.?

Also, he suggested that General David Petraeus was the target of unfair criticism when "a general providing his best counsel on how to move forward in Iraq was accused of betrayal."

Yes, Obama was silent when the Senate addressed this episode.

"In the latest round of maneuvers over last week's MoveOn.org ad attacking Gen. David Petraeus, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chris Dodd today voted against a Senate resolution that condemned the ad and supported Petraeus. Sens. Barack Obama and Joe Biden, two other Democrats running for president, did not vote on the measure." (USA Today)


And this final disconnect: Obama used the occasion of a July 4th speech to criticize Zimbabwe and Burma. Then, to those despotic regimes, he linked Iraq,

"[W]here despite the heroic efforts of our military, and the courage of many ordinary Iraqis, even limited cooperation between various factions remains far too elusive."


Yet, in the very next paragraph, he said,

"I believe those who attack America's flaws without acknowledging the singular greatness of our ideals, and their proven capacity to inspire a better world, do no truly understand America."


Is this not a curious juxtaposition? He equated cultural dysfunction within Iraq to the tyranny with Burma and Zimbabwe. Then he criticized those who don't understand America's ability to inspire others. Apparently, Obama recognizes no inspired progress toward freedom among the Iraqi people.

If you're an Iraqi listening to this speech, risking your life to establish order within your country, how do you hear that statement from one of two people who will be the next POTUS?

At the end of his speech on patriotism, I'm left wondering about Obama's own understanding of America.

7) Appeasers Make Poor Patriots
By Jonathan Tobin






Rethinking America's 'good war' is a not so subtle attack on our current struggles

The lyric from the old pop song that proclaimed "Don't Know Much About History," is a label that could well be applied to many Americans.

But despite the fact that surveys occasionally tell us that many college seniors place the Battle of Gettysburg as happening sometime in the middle of World War II, the study of history isn't merely for those hobbyists who like to pose as Civil War or Revolutionary era soldiers.

Even as we debate the largely unpopular wars being fought with Islamists in Iraq and Afghanistan, the focus of another crucial debate currently raging on the bookshelves and television screens is one over the merits of something that most of us had long thought was not debatable: the wisdom of the American involvement in World War II.

LEAVE HITLER ALONE?
The notion that there is any debate at all about the war the United States fought against the German Nazis and the Japanese imperialists seems absurd. Surely, no reasonable person could dispute the necessity of defeating Hitler. But an argument there is, and it is one that is gaining momentum.

In recent months, two works questioning the justice of the fight against Nazi Germany have vaulted onto The New York Times bestseller list: Human Smoke by Nicholson Baker and Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War by Patrick Buchanan.

Baker is a quirky novelist who has penned books about a wide variety of subjects including voyeurism and a fictional attempted assassination of President George W. Bush. Buchanan is the longtime far-right pundit and television personality, and one-time independent candidate for president, whose views were once rightly labeled as anti-Semitic by the late William F. Buckley.

Their books are as different as the authors.

Baker's effort is the effort of a more accomplished prose writer (despite its fictionalized conversations involving world leaders it is sold as a work of nonfiction), while the former GOP stalwart Buchanan retains the punchy style of a former political speechwriter. But they are aiming at the same target.

Both take the point of view that, while Adolf Hitler was a bad guy, he was provoked into launching a world war that he had not planned on. Instead of heaping blame on the Nazi monsters who launched the war and carried out unprecedented war crimes as well as the cold-blooded murder of 6 million Jews, each see Winston Churchill as the real villain of the war. Had Hitler been left alone, they both assert, the Holocaust would not have happened and that the world would be a saner place today.

Though Baker's concludes his faux narrative at the end of 1941, he clearly sees the Allies tactics in fighting the war as indistinguishable from that of the Germans. In his brief afterward, he dedicates his book to the tiny band of American and British pacifists who did everything they could to prevent their countries from resisting Hitler.

The theme of Allied perfidy is also echoed in a new PBS television series that features the work of a far more respected source than either Baker or Buchanan — the Scottish historian Niall Ferguson.

In his 2006 book War of the Worlds, he damned the Allied bombings of Germany as war crimes and dismissed the notion that it was in any sense a "good war." These views are repeated in the PBS series of the same name which began to be broadcast this week.

While Ferguson is, unlike the perverse Baker and Buchanan (whose ideological roots are in the anti-Semitic "American First" movement) no apologist for Hitler, he, too, derides the notion that the American and the British victors were liberators because they used some of the same tactics as their foes.

Ferguson deplores the fact that the West did all they could to help Stalin win but, as with many of the other ironies put forward in a series that seeks to change the way we think about the great conflicts of the 20th century, he fails to provide a reasonable alternative to the dilemmas faced by Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

And that lack of context is the problem with all of this revisionism. Buchanan quotes the historian and Cold War strategist George Kennan as asking whether the West would have preferred in 1950 to be still facing the relatively reasonable Germany of 1913, rather than having suffered through two world wars, and the rise of the totalitarian menaces of Nazism and Communism. Yes, that would have been preferable. But given Germany's dreams of hegemony, it was never an option.

Similarly, the notion that more "Munichs" in which the West would have acquiesced to Hitler's seizure of Poland and the rest of Central and Eastern Europe, would have left him satisfied is pure delusion and unjustified by any serious historical research. The problem was that the West woke up too late to the dangers of Nazism. Most people in Britain, France or the America of the 1930s didn't understood the stakes involved nor were they ready to fight even if they did.

THE REAL TARGET
But the real point of these rethinkings of history is not so much to vindicate Hitler or even to trash the indispensable Churchill, without whose vision and courage in the darkest moments of the war, Western civilization may have truly perished.

Rather, the point is to call into question the far more immediate notion that an aroused and prepared West must still be prepared to defend its values against contemporary totalitarian foes.

Irrespective of the shortcomings of George W. Bush or the debates Iraq, it's hardly a secret that what Buchanan and Baker are truly gunning for is the willingness of post-9/11 America to wage war on the Islamists who wish to take up Hitler's war on Western democracy.

Just as he blasts the opponents of appeasement for forcing the West to fight a war against Hitler that he thinks was more trouble than it was worth, Buchanan opposes the struggle to fight the Islamists or even to extend American help and NATO membership to the fledgling democracies of Eastern Europe.

But these new appeasers are just as blind — if not malevolent — as their predecessors in the leadup to the war against Hitler. And that is a point whose importance transcends the battles of the scholars and the pseudo-scholars about history.

As Americans celebrate the anniversary of their independence this weekend, it behooves them to think long and hard about the "good war" now under attack and its importance to the history of their republic. In resisting Hitler's tyranny, Americans and those who look to America for leadership, understood that the cause of that struggle spoke directly to the cherished principles of liberty that our founders embraced.

Like us today, the Americans and Brits who fought World War II were imperfect and made many mistakes. But despite a list of military blunders and scandals that eclipse in both scale and cost those committed by the current administration and its military, they prevailed. The revisionists who seek to besmirch their legacy offer us appeasement disguised as realpolitik instead of patriotism and principle. Their message must be rejected today, just as it was a generation ago.

8) European Converts to Terrorism
By Milena Uhlmann


Conversion to Islam among native Europeans is on the rise. Many converts live at peace within their native societies; some convert only for marriage, and reject neither contemporary culture nor Europe's Judeo-Christian values. A minority, however, embraces radical interpretations of Islam and can pose a security risk. The involvement of Muslim converts in recent terrorist attacks has raised concern in Europe about these "converts to terrorism." While intelligence agencies and security services track international communications and guard borders, such homegrown terrorists pose just as potent a threat to the security of Western democracies. European security services and politicians remain unprepared to handle this growing phenomenon.
A Growing Problem

In Europe, there is very little hard data on conversion to Islam due to the difficulty of gathering proper statistics. Because Muslim communities usually have an informal structure and no formal clergy, most do not keep records. In France, for instance, state agencies do not record citizens' religious affiliations; to do so, French officials say, would counter France's commitment to secularism. In German registration offices, Muslim residents are included in a pool of "diverse religious affiliations."[1] German converts apparently account for only a small portion—between 12,000 and 100,000—of Germany's total Muslim population of 2.8-3.2 million,[2] which itself comprises less than 4 percent of the total population of Germany. In 2006, the Federal Ministry of the Interior commissioned a study from the Zentralinstitut Islam-Archiv Deutschland (ZIIAD) to determine the number of converts, but amid suspicion over the ZIIAD's methodology, discounted as exaggerated its findings and ended its relationship with the institute.[3]

Nevertheless, it appears that both conversions and Islamist outreach to converts is increasing. Thomas Hamza Fischer, founder of the Islamisches Informationszentrum (IIZ) in Ulm, a city in Baden-Württemberg known for its radical Islamist scene, died fighting in Chechnya.[4] The IIZ's journal, Denk mal Islamisch (Think Islamic) is geared to converts, addressing issues such as emotional and personal support. The police, the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (FOC), as well as the Islamisches Informationszentrum's neighbors say that more German converts have visited the center since summer 2007 than they had in seasons past.[5] Apparently anticipating a ban by the Bavarian Ministry of Interior, the IIZ dissolved in October 2007.[6]

In recent years, police and intelligence services have become increasingly aware of the threat of homegrown terrorism. In 2003, Judge Jean Louis Bruguière, the former French investigating magistrate in charge of counterterrorism affairs, observed that Al-Qaeda had increased its recruiting efforts in Europe and in particular was on the lookout for women and converts to Islam.[7] In March 2004, the Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD) released an analysis of jihadi recruits' backgrounds,[8] and the following year, the British Home and Foreign Offices released a similar study.[9] In August 2007, the New York Police Department released a report on radicalization within Western societies, focusing on trends in homegrown terrorism and emphasizing the increasing role of converts in terror plots.[10] Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany's federal minister of the interior, argues that the prevalence of homegrown jihadis is increasing.[11]



Germaine Maurice Lindsay, also known as Abdullah Shaheed Jamal, was one of four terrorists who detonated bombs on the London Underground and on a bus in central London, July 7, 2005, killing fifty-six (including themselves) and injuring more than 700. Lindsay, who changed his name after his conversion to Islam, was born in Jamaica.

The 2004 murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, the Madrid train bombings the same year, and the following year's attacks on London's Tube and bus system demonstrate that European citizens and residents can conduct horrendous acts against their respective countries. The culmination of this trend will be the planning of and participation in such attacks by European converts to Islam.

On September 4, 2007, the German security services arrested three men for plotting car bomb attacks in Germany targeting the U.S. military base at Ramstein and pubs and nightclubs frequented by Americans.[12] Two of the three were German-born converts to Islam.[13] This plot was not the first involving German converts. In 1997, Israeli security services detained Steven Smyrek at Ben Gurion International Airport as he tried to enter Israel to survey possible Hezbollah terror targets.[14] Christian Ganczarski, a Polish immigrant of German descent who had converted to Islam in 1986, played a major role as the intermediary between Al-Qaeda's leadership and the suicide bomber who carried out the 2002 bombing of a Tunisian synagogue in Djerba, which killed twenty-one people.[15] In 2006, the German police arrested Sonja B., a 40-year-old German convert who sought to travel to Iraq with her 1-year-old son and to carry out a suicide attack.[16]

For Islamist terrorists, the European convert is a prized recruit, at ease in society, cognizant of informal rules and opportunities, and able to move freely without arousing suspicion. Their citizenship enables them to travel freely under the terms of the European Schengen agreement and, in many cases, the U.S. visa waiver program.[17] Richard Reid, a British convert to Islam who attempted to blow up an airliner with explosives hidden in his shoes and boarded a flight to the United States under the visa waiver program, highlighted the threat of European converts to terrorism to both their own homelands and U.S. security. Short of requiring visas for British, French, and German passport holders, U.S. authorities have requested that airlines provide detailed passenger rosters for incoming flights to the United States. European carriers have followed suit.
Identifying Terrorist Converts

European security services are unsure of how to address the problem of radicalized converts largely due to their uncertainty about how to integrate competing security and civil liberties interests. On one hand, the abandonment of passport control posts along internal European borders—the heart of the European integration process—needs to be addressed; EU states must adjust to the fact that criminal enterprises span borders. On the other hand, the European public distrusts any measure that might lead European institutions, let alone a European intelligence service, to increase surveillance, especially given the opacity of EU decision-making.

At the national level, however, there is perhaps a greater sense of urgency in monitoring converts to terrorism. In September 2007, Günther Beckstein, the Bavarian minister of the interior, proposed registering and observing every convert to Islam in Germany in order to determine whether the future Muslim would pursue a liberal or an Islamist orientation.[18] This suggestion provoked an uproar. Critics said it put converts under general suspicion, undercut religious dialogue, and contradicted the principle of religious freedom. Such populist tactics, though, are likely to be counterproductive. Nothing is gained by placing converts under surveillance simply because they married a Muslim or found religious satisfaction through Islamic theology. Such tactics might backfire if they alienate the convert, and they would require a massive investment in intelligence gathering for a questionable return. They would also be domestically unpopular: Europeans would certainly argue that turning all converts to Islam into terrorism suspects runs counter to the ideals of European liberalism.

Profiling potential terrorists, however, should not be taboo. Doing so requires an understanding of the mentality of both the individual convert and of the group into which the individual converts. Many converts embrace their new faith with zeal, and Islamist groups can channel this fervor into a process of quick radicalization.[19] New converts are often less proficient in religious matters than religious leaders but are eager to fill in the gaps, making them susceptible to indoctrination by organizations like the Islamisches Informationszentrum.

In larger cities such as Berlin, advocates of various Islamic trends often recruit new converts. Among the most aggressive are the Salafists.[20] Converts wanting to explore and learn more about their new religion are often attracted to fundamentalist interpretations as they seek "pure" and "true" Islam. Jihadi websites reinforce this search—indeed, this was how Sonja B., the would-be Iraq suicide bomber, discovered militant Islam.[21]

Foreign scholarships also provide a means of recruitment. After his conversion but prior to becoming involved in terrorism, Ganczarski, the German Al-Qaeda intermediary, studied Islam on a scholarship at the University of Medina, described by the Deutsches Orient-Institut as a "recruiting pool" for Islamists.[22] After his arrest, Ganczarski said there had been a recruitment wave for such scholarships in Germany in the mid-1990s, focusing on young converts. After he returned from Saudi Arabia where he probably became radicalized, he went on to Chechnya and Pakistan as well as Afghanistan[23] where he met Osama bin Laden.[24] Apparently, Saudi Arabia provided thousands of such scholarships.[25]

The background of the convert is as important as the nature of the absorbing group. Those who convert to Islam for practical purposes, for example, to marry a Muslim woman, seldom become extremists. Others are predisposed to radicalism. Smyrek is an extreme example: He was always a radical and actively sought out Islamist terror groups in order to become a suicide bomber.

The convert's socioeconomic background is another vital factor. Conversion is, in part, a migration from one worldview to another,[26] described by sociologist Thomas Luckmann as a decision to go shopping in a supermarket of religious goods.[27] As the individual tries to reconcile his old and new belief systems, he selects explanations that best meet his needs. Sometimes, this involves the endorsement of terrorism as a means of righting perceived wrongs.
Motives to Convert

There seem to be three dominant motives behind the decision to convert to Islam: First is the search for a group that will provide the convert with meaning and guidance—for example, by adherence to Shari‘a (Islamic law), which provides rules that the convert believes are "not arbitrary," like man-made laws.[28] The assumption of religious faith often involves a person's search for a higher purpose, a desire to cease living "from one party to the next or one basketball game to the next."[29] The quest for social integration is another important factor: "When I meet brothers I have never seen before, I feel at home right away and accepted,"[30] explained one convert.

Second, a convert may seek a means by which he can articulate his criticism of Western society or share with others his sense of alienation from the dominant culture: "I became Muslim when communism collapsed, and I didn't want capitalism. And you have to do something."[31]

Third, he may desire a way of life that allows the individual to express his views in his everyday routine if only by praying five times a day. ("I feel like I am living in a parallel society. But I feel marvelous."[32])

Because Islam often has a negative reputation in Europe, conversion to Islam enables the convert to project sentiments of rebellion. Indeed, Olivier Roy from the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique has suggested that radical Islam is tantamount to a protest identity.[33] Some converts emphatically champion Islam as the best alternative to post-industrial Western society. Such is the rationale for Murad Wilfried Hofmann,[34] a former German diplomat who converted to Islam in 1980 and has since acted as an intellectual leader for German converts. Ayyub Axel Köhler, the current chairman of the Zentralrat der Muslime in Deutschland, who converted to Islam in 1963, has remarked that Islam is a way of life and thus offers its adherents the chance to avoid the alienation of life in Western societies.[35] If the numbers of conversions to Islam in the West are on the rise, the cultural criticism underlying such conversions becomes especially relevant. Identity issues play an important role, as does globalization and modern communications, which have allowed the exploration of new identities. When societies lose their coherence, threats increase from within.[36]
Conclusions

The European Union member states face a new challenge today, one that transcends the traditional national security paradigm that separates internal and external threats. In a federation of states on a scale as large as the EU, the aim of promoting peace and stability is intertwined with the national interests of the member states and their ability to collaborate on ensuring the security of the larger whole.[37] The answer to questions about how to balance civil liberties with legitimate security concerns remains elusive.

What makes a common policy so hard to achieve when it comes to the jurisdiction of the European Justice and Home Affairs Council is the fact that judicial matters and law enforcement policy remain national rather than transnational efforts.

The independent framework for cooperation on justice and home affairs, set up with the Treaty of Maastricht in 1993, has remained intergovernmental; decisions must be unanimous, creating a situation in which negotiations often carry on for years and lead to complex legal restrictions. Even though the 9-11 attacks changed priorities and created the impetus for institutional restructuring, EU member states remain unwilling to surrender sovereignty over internal security matters.

Another problem is that differing national judicial systems create structural disincentives to collaboration.[38] The upshot is that there remains significant, informal cross-border cooperation,[39] and, for that matter, informal intelligence collection and sharing. As long as the Constitutional Treaty—which would centralize the Justice and Home Affairs portfolios so that European Union institutions and law would become paramount to state law in these cases—remains un-ratified, this is not likely to change.

The creation of the post of the EU coordinator for counterterrorism after the 2004 Madrid attacks was a step in the right direction, but the coordinator lacks the mandate and resources to span national boundaries. As Wolfgang Münchau, associate editor of Financial Times, has noted, "Terrorists in Europe think more European than many of Europe's homeland security-related agencies."[40]

Ultimately, European states are responsible for their citizens. If individual states remain unwilling to cede certain aspects of their sovereignty to the kind of European institutions that could more effectively monitor Islamist activities across Europe, their ability to collaborate on security will suffer, and ultimately their security itself will suffer. In order for this process to move forward, the EU needs to begin a dialogue that addresses the security problems that arise from the Islamist community, rather than denouncing discussions of the problem as "Islamophobic."



[1] See Thomas Lemmen, Islamische Organisationen in Deutschland (Bonn: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 2000), p. 18.
[2] Deutscher Bundestag, "Antwort der Bundesregierung auf die Große Anfrage der Abgeordneten Dr. Jürgen Rüttgers, Erwin Marschewski (Recklinghausen), Wolfgang Zeitlmann, weiterer Abgeordneter und der Fraktion der CDU/CSU," Nov. 8, 2000, p. 4-5; Johannes Kandel, "Organisierter Islam in Deutschland und gesellschaftliche Integration," Politische Akademie der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Referat Interkultureller Dialog, Bonn, Sept. 2004, p. 1.
[3] Der Spiegel (Hamburg), Jan. 15, 2007; Süddeutsche Zeitung (Munich), Jan. 12, 2007; Mohammad Salim Abdullah, telephone interview with author, Jan. 27, 2007; Die Zeit (Hamburg), Apr. 19, 2007.
[4] "Islamisten-Szene. Die Radikalen von Ulm," Spiegel Online, June 30, 2007.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Spiegel Online, Oct. 2, 2007.
[7] Robert Leiken, Bearers of Global Jihad? Immigration and National Security after 9/11 (Washington, D.C.: The Nixon Center, 2004), p. 107.
[8] "Background of Jihad Recruits in the Netherlands," Algemene Inlichtingen-en Veiligheidsdienst (AIVD), Mar. 10, 2004.
[9] Times (London), July 10, 2005.
[10] Mitchell D. Silber and Arvin Bhatt, "Radicalization in the West. The Homegrown Threat," New York Police Department Intelligence Division, Aug. 2007.
[11] Der Tagesspiegel (Berlin), Sept. 5, 2007.
[12] "Terror-Razzia. Bombenbauer planten Terror-Anschlag mit vielen Toten," Spiegel Online, Sept. 5, 2007; "Terrorverdacht. Autobomben sollten US-Einrichtungen treffen," Welt Online (Hamburg), Sept. 5, 2007.
[13] "Terrorverdacht. Autobomben sollten US-Einrichtungen treffen," Welt Online, Sept. 5, 2007.
[14] "Steven Smyrek. Vom Kleinkriminellen zum angehenden Gotteskrieger," Das Erste Online (German public television), Jan. 14, 2004.
[15] Leiken, Bearers of Global Jihad? p. 109; "Deutscher wegen Djerba-Attentats angeklagt," SWR Online (Baden-Baden), Nov. 19, 2007.
[16] Der Tagesspiegel, Sept. 3, 2006.
[17] John L. Clarke, "European Homeland Security: Promises, Progress and Pitfalls," in Bertelsmann Stiftung Foundation, ed., Securing the European Homeland. The EU, Terrorism and Homeland Security (Gütersloh: Venusberg Group, 2005), p. 36.
[18] "Nach Fahndungserfolg. Beckstein will Islamübertritte überwachen lassen," Handelsblatt (Nordrhein-Westfalen), Sept. 6, 2007.
[19] Marc Sageman, Understanding Terrorist Networks (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), p. 178-9.
[20] Author interview with Mujaheed, a 29-year-old convert, Berlin, Nov. 22, 2006.
[21] Der Tagesspiegel, Sept. 3, 2006.
[22] Ahmet Senyurt, "Djerba-Anschlag: Zentralrat der Muslime gerät ins Zwielicht," Welt Online, May 6, 2003.
[23] Senyurt, "Djerba-Anschlag: Zentralrat der Muslime gerät ins Zwielicht."
[24] Leiken, Bearers of Global Jihad? p. 109.
[25] Brian Eads, "Saudi Arabia's Deadly Export," Reader's Digest (Australia), Feb. 2003.
[26] Stefano Allievi, Nouveaux protagonistes de l'islam européen. Naissance d'une culture euroislamique? Le rôle des convertis (San Domenico di Fiesole, Italy: European University Institute, 2000), p. 7.
[27] Thomas Luckmann, The Invisible Religion (New York: Macmillan, 1967), p. 98.
[28] Author interview with Taleb, a 27-year-old convert, Potsdam, Nov. 26, 2006.
[29] Author interview with Mujaheed, a 29-year-old convert, Berlin, Nov. 22, 2006.
[30] Author interview with Paul, a 53-year-old convert, Berlin, Dec. 1, 2006.
[31] Telephone interview with Salim, a convert from North Rhine-Westphalia in his fifties and editor of a German-speaking Islamic newspaper run mostly by converts, Dec. 19, 2006.
[32] Author interview with Alex, a 17-year-old-convert, Potsdam, Nov. 24, 2006.
[33] Olivier Roy, Der islamische Weg nach Westen. Globalisierung, Entwurzelung und Radikalisierung (Munich: Pantheon, 2006), p. 308.
[34] For example, see Murad Wilfried Hofmann, Islam als Alternative (Munich: Diedrichs, 1999), p. 8.
[35] Ayyub Axel Köhler, Islam Kompakt (Köln: Al-Kitab Verlag, 2000), p. 10.
[36] Gert-Joachim Glaeßner, "Nationale und europäische Politik im Spannungsfeld von Sicherheit und Freiheit," in Erwin Müller and Patricia Schneider, eds., Die Europäische Union im Kampf gegen den Terrorismus. Sicherheit vs. Freiheit (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2006), p. 113.
[37] Ibid., p. 110.
[38] Wilhelm Knelangen, "Die innen- und justizpolitische Zusammenarbeit der EU und die Bekämpfung des Terrorismus," in Müller and Schneider, eds., Die Europäische Union im Kampf gegen den Terrorismus, pp. 140-62.
[39] Daniel Keohane, The EU and Counter-terrorism (London: Centre for European Reform, 2005), p. 2.
[40] Wolfgang Münchau, "Europe Must Tackle Terrorism," Financial Times, July 10, 2005.

9) The Iran dilemma


Negotiation is favoured but time is running out

THE clock is ticking on whether military action will become the last available option to prevent Iran building an atomic bomb, potentially sparking a regional arms race in the Middle East and putting Israel under immediate threat of nuclear attack. The compelling logic that has so far stopped a military strike by either the US or Israel is that the threat of a nuclear armed Iran is not immediate. Until that point arrives, it is preferable that a negotiated solution be found.

Even hard-line observers acknowledge the later an attack takes place, the greater the setback it will pose for Iran. In the meantime, the opportunity for a peaceful settlement exists. This includes the possibility of regime change in Iran through civil unrest that unseats Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. An essay published in New Yorker magazine by journalist Seymour Hersh says the US Government has stepped up covert operations to promote political instability in Iran.

As Paul Kelly reports today, the trajectory of confrontation between the US and Iran has been building since the 1979 revolution in Iran and is most likely to peak during the term of the next US president. Having de-fanged North Korea's nuclear program using diplomatic and financial pressure, the prevailing argument in Washington is that the same multilateral approach be used with Iran. This would involve China, in particular, taking a much more forceful role to persuade Iran to back down.

In the twilight of its reign, the Bush administration is preoccupied with Iran's nuclear ambitions. The issue has polarised senior Bush officials. Public comments by President George W.Bush in favour of a diplomatic, multilateral approach confirm that the power in Washington currently favours Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice rather than Vice-President Dick Cheney. With sentiment running against US military action, Iran looks set to become a key issue of unfinished business for the next president, whether that be Republican senator John McCain or Democrat senator Barack Obama. US public opinion is running three-to-one in favour of a negotiated settlement.

Military action cannot be ruled out, however. And Israel has recently undertaken military exercises that are widely considered to be a practice run for an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. Shabtai Shavit, a deputy director of Israel's intelligence service Mossad when Israel bombed the Osirak nuclear facility in Iraq in 1981, was quoted this week as saying that the worst-case scenario was that Iran may have a nuclear weapon within "somewhere around a year". This contrasts with the view in the US that Iran's nuclear capability is at least three years away. Iran, which insists its nuclear program is for civilian and not military purposes, has said it will dig 320,000 graves in border districts to allow for the burial of enemy soldiers in the event of any attack on its territory.

Former Labor leader Kim Beazley told Kelly that if Iran were not prevented from securing nuclear capability, either through force or negotiation, it would spark a regional arms race involving Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, at least. For Israel, geography makes it impossible to tolerate the threat posed by a nuclear-armed Iran.

For the US, an immediate attack would complicate the already difficult military task under way in Afghanistan and Iraq. It would expose the 150,000 US troops in the region to direct threat from Iran and greatly complicate plans for the withdrawal of US forces.

For the world economy, Iran has said it would retaliate against military action against its nuclear facilities by blocking oil movements through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway separating Iran from the Arabian Peninsula through which 40 per cent of the world's oil is shipped. This would throw world markets into turmoil, with potentially disastrous consequences for inflation and economic growth. The commander of the Bahrain-based US Fifth Fleet, Vice-Admiral Kevin Cosgriff, said Iran would not be allowed to close the seaway. Nonetheless, the potential for military conflict against Iran has already underpinned speculative buying on world oil markets, driving the price up past $US140 a barrel.

The best hope appears to be that the direct talks and multilateral negotiations that led to progress in winding back nuclear programs in the rogue states of Libya and North Korea can succeed in Iran. But the circumstances are different, the stakes are much greater in Iran and time is running out.

10)Occupying the centre: How Barack Obama is taking to the middle of the road


THE love-in last week in Unity, New Hampshire, when Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton stood together, was a marker in Mr Obama’s campaign to be president. Mrs Clinton spoke of standing “shoulder to shoulder” with her Democratic former rival; he gushed about “how good she is, how tough she is, how passionate she is”. It was the first time since Mrs Clinton dropped out of the race that the two had appeared together in public. From now on Mr Obama will tap Mrs Clinton’s financial donors, enlist some of her staff and reach out to her supporters.

With the primary season forgotten, Mr Obama is now sauntering towards the centre, ready to spar with John McCain. In the process he may enrage left-wing activists who constitute his base (however Mr McCain faces the same, or even a harder, challenge with his supporters on the right).

Since wrapping up the nomination Mr Obama has taken a number of positions that have caused discomfort to some on the left. These have included: his solemn undertaking to protect Israel, in a speech to the leading pro-Israeli lobby; the reversal of his promise to accept public-funding limits for the election; and, last week, his waffled reaction to the Supreme Court’s ruling on gun rights. Individually, these topics are not of huge electoral importance. But Mr Obama is busy signalling that he belongs in the middle of the road.

More tests await. On Iraq Mr Obama has made an explicit promise to “remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months”. Naturally a more peaceful Iraq would provide conditions in which a withdrawal is more likely, but as president he would have to weigh the risk that leaving quickly might jeopardize the relative improvement in security in the country. There have been nods and winks from Obamaite foreign-policy wonks that he would revisit the pledge when president, but Mr McCain will want to focus on the subject before then. The Republican has already chided his rival for not making a trip to Iraq for more than two years. Mr Obama recently said that he will go there soon.

Then there is the looming Senate vote on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which contains a provision granting telecoms companies immunity from lawsuits for co-operating in a surveillance programme that conducted wiretaps without warrants. Mr Obama had said he was “proud” to stand with “a grassroot movement of Americans” in opposing the FISA legislation, but he has now watered down his opposition and supports the latest compromise, to the fury of liberal bloggers. MoveOn.org, the left’s noisiest pressure group, is running a campaign to persuade Mr Obama to vote against the bill. Senate leaders are desperately trying to engineer a separate vote on the immunity provision so that the senator from Illinois can register his objection.

Another issue rumbling away is free trade. During the primaries Mr Obama joined Mrs Clinton in turning up the rhetorical heat against NAFTA. Both floated the threat of an “opt out” from the agreement to force renegotiations with Canada and Mexico, which Mr Obama said could be used to gain “leverage” with their trading partners. This went down well among unions and displaced workers in the rustbelt states, but Mr Obama has since talked about the importance of trade and markets, in an effort to sound a bit more sensible on economic policy.

This last transition is particularly delicate. In a recent interview for Fortune, Mr Obama admitted that “sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and amplified” and that he wanted to open a dialogue. “Obama goes soft on free trade”, thundered the Nation, a left-leaning magazine, pointing out that Mr Obama’s perceived hostility to free trade is the characteristic most likely to appeal to working-class voters in the mid-west in November’s general election.

He is not helped by a hostile takeover bid for Anheuser-Busch from a Belgian brewer. The maker of Budweiser is based in the swing-state of Missouri, where Democrats are calling opposition to a deal “patriotic”. One consolation is that Mr McCain will also be keen to avoid the subject, as his wife owns at least $1m-worth of Anheuser shares and stands to benefit financially from a deal.