Obama Has A Lot To Learn!

Bishop Tutu is a friend of Jimmy Carter, guest lecturs on religion in Emory's Divinity School. I rest my case. (See 1 below.)

Mubarak acts swiftly to nail Hamas and place the Phladelphia 'smuggling' Corridor out of reach but in the process creates some problems for Israel. (See 2 and 2a below.)

Amos Harel is right, Israel, finish what you started.

Hamas soon will learn they bit off more than they can both chew and swallow, as I predicted.(See 3 and 3a below.)

Turkey's man behind the scene Imam Fethullah Gulen, pulls the strings? (See 4 below.)

Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook write about Hamas' indocrintaion of children. Bomb song wins the day win. What a pathetic and sick culture.

Obama has a lot to learn. He could even learn some things from Cheney according to McGurn! Obama may be too smug and self-confident to think that possible.He'll eventually learn that as well.(See 5 5a below.)

Jonathan Mark is on the mark regarding proportionality and what it means when the shoe is on the other foot. (See 6 below.)

Dick


1) Bishop Tutu and "Israeli Apartheid"

Late last month, I went to hear Bishop Desmond Tutu speak at Boston's Old South Church at a conference on 'Israel Apartheid.'

Tutu is a well respected man of God. He brought reconciliation between blacks and whites in South Africa. That he would lead a conference that damns the Jewish State is very disturbing to me.

The State of Israel is not an apartheid state. I know because I write this from Jerusalem where I have seen Arab mothers peacefully strolling with their families -- even though I also drove on Israeli roads protected by walls and fences from Arab bullets and stones. I know Arabs go to Israeli schools, and get the best medical care in the world. I know they vote and have elected representatives to the Israeli Parliament. I see street signs in Arabic, an official language here.

None of this was true for blacks under Apartheid in Tutu's South Africa. I also know countries that do deserve the apartheid label: My country, Sudan, is on the top of the list, but so are Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. What has happened to my people in Sudan is a thousand times worse than Apartheid in South Africa. And no matter how the Palestinians suffer, they suffer nothing compared to my people. Nothing. And most of the suffering is the fault of their leaders.
Bishop Tutu, I see black Jews walking down the street here in Jerusalem. Black like us, free and proud.

Tutu said Israeli checkpoints are a nightmare. But checkpoints are there because Palestinians are sent into Israel to blow up and kill innocent women and children.
Tutu wants checkpoints removed. Do you not have doors in your home, Bishop? Does that make your house an apartheid house? If someone, Heaven forbid, tried to enter with a bomb, we would want you to have security people 'humiliating' your guests with searches, and we would not call you racist for doing so. We all go through checkpoints at every airport. Are the airlines being racist? No.
Yes, the Palestinians are inconvenienced at checkpoints. But why, Bishop Tutu, do you care more about that inconvenience than about Jewish lives?
Simon Deng is a refugee from Southern Sudan and is now an American citizen.



1)Bishop, when you used to dance for Mandela's freedom, we Africans -- all over Africa -- joined in. Our support was key in your freedom. But when children in Burundi and Kinshasa, all the way to Liberia and Sierra Leone, and in particular in Sudan, cried and called for rescue, you heard but chose to be silent.
Today, black children are enslaved in Sudan, the last place in the continent of Africa where humans are owned by other humans -- I was part of the movement to stop slavery in Mauritania, which just now abolished the practice. But you were not with us, Bishop Tutu.

So where is Desmond Tutu when my people call out for freedom? Slaughter and genocide and slavery are lashing Africans right now. Where are you for Sudan, Bishop Tutu? You are busy attacking the Jewish State. Why?

2) Egypt summons Arab summit to appoint Inter-Arab monitors for Philadelphi


Hosni Mubarak whips up an Arab front against Hamas.

When Hamas-Damascus clamped a veto on his Gaza ceasefire ultimatum Monday, Jan. 12, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak acted fast: He summoned an Arab summit for setting in motion a plan for an inter-Arab force to monitor the Philadelphi Corridor. Arab foreign ministers meet in Kuwait Friday, Jan. 16, to prepare the summit for next week.

This step shrinks to a few days the time left for Israel's military progress to set the pace of events in the Gaza conflict. At the moment, Israel can still present the Arab rulers with a military fait accompli in the Gaza Strip, after flattening hundreds of Palestinian buildings separating the town of Rafah from the Philadelphi corridor. Those buildings, though tenanted, were false fronts for the openings to the Hamas arms smuggling tunnels running under the Gazan-Egyptian border.

Cairo quietly tipped Jerusalem that it was not against broadening its military operations in the Gaza Strip. Razing the populated area dividing Rafah from the Philadelphi border assures Israeli tanks of firing control of this key segment of the smuggling labyrinth and smoothes the way for it capture. No inter-Arab or other international monitoring force could have controlled the sector had the buildings remained in place.

Egypt plans to match the Israeli project by flattening the buildings and tunnel openings on its side of the border. The two projects will enable Mubarak to put before the Arab summit a draft resolution for appointing a workable multi-Arab or international body to monitor cross-border traffic in this sector. Both Hamas and Israel will find it hard to oppose this plan, particularly if the US and Germany pitch in with high-tech monitoring equipment.

Mubarak's pan-Arab initiative presents Israel with two difficulties: For one, it faces losing the prospect of a clear-cut victory over a terrorist organization. Furthermore, Egypt will be required to make concessions at Jerusalem's expense to buy the support of Syria, Libya, Yemen and Qatar for its plan.

Hamas' rejection of the Egyptian proposal dealt a cold blast that dispelled the early hopes in Jerusalem and Cairo that Hamas had been punished enough to drop its conditions for a ceasefire.

The ball reverts now to Jerusalem, which must determine whether the army goes forward into Gaza City and Philadelphi or stands still on present battle lines.

As the Palestinian death toll rose past 900, Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniya delivered a taped speech from his hiding-place Monday pledging support for any effort to end the bloodshed, ousting the enemy and opening the crossings, while on the other hand declaring that the fight must go on.

Haniya kept the door open to the Egyptian initiative without defying Khaled Meshaal, his hardline boss in Damascus.

Middle East sources report that Mubarak feels the ground is burning under his feet too, but he would rather not grasp the nettle of a Gaza solution on his own. He is therefore seeking broad Arab backing for a resolution, starting with a trip to Riyadh Tuesday, Jan. 13, to ask for Saudi cooperation and a pledge of funding for the Arab force he is promoting.

2a) Egypt to Hamas: Sign truce or risk collapse of Gaza regime


Palestinian sources say Cairo exerting fierce pressure on Hamas movement to accept ceasefire proposal. Egypt warns Islamist group IDF operation will end only after forces enter Gaza City



Egypt has been exerting fierce pressure on Hamas over the past 24 hours to accept its ceasefire proposal, Palestinian sources told Ynet Sunday night.



According to the sources, Cairo warned Hamas that should it refuse to accept the proposal the IDF would continue to expand its operation in Gaza, which in effect would mean an end to Hamas' rule over the coastal enclave it took over in June 2007.



Islamist Group

Hamas PM: We'll cooperate with truce initiatives / Ali Waked

In televised speech from his Gaza hideout, Haniyeh says Islamist group will back any initiative that will result in 'enemy's withdrawal', but adds Palestinians will 'continue to fight occupying forces until victory achieved with Allah's help'
Full story



A Hamas delegation is currently in Cairo for the ceasefire talks, but it may return to the Strip on Monday. The Egyptian pressure stems from Israel's preparations for the third phase of Operation Cast Lead, which Cairo said will be launched in the coming days and will conclude only after Israeli forces enter Gaza City.



Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said in a televised speech delivered from his hideout in Gaza on Monday that the Islamist group would "cooperate with any initiatives aimed at ending the (Israeli offensive) and bring about the enemy's withdrawal and the reopening of the crossings."



Despite Haniyeh's statement, currently there is no sign of a breakthrough in the negotiations.



One of the Palestinian sources said he fears Hamas will accept the Egyptian-brokered agreement only after the IDF operation "claims the lives of hundreds and maybe thousands more."



The sources said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was also working in a number of arenas in order to pressure Hamas into accepting a ceasefire. "The president wants an immediate end to the IDF operation, even if its continuation means the collapse of Hamas' regime in Gaza," one source said.



Gaza-Damascus rift reports denied
Since Hamas stressed that it would not agree to the deployment of armed international forces in Gaza, Egypt is exploring the option of deploying Arab forces backed by European supervisors there. Among other things, these forces will be tasked with preventing the smuggling of arms into Gaza along the Philadelphi Route.



Meanwhile, Muhammad Nazal, a member of Hamas' political bureau, denied reports of a rift among the group's leaders in Gaza and Damascus and disregarded the reports as "Israeli psychological warfare."





However, he did say that "it is only natural that there are disagreements between people."



In an interview with al-Jazeera, Nazal said "the delegation that met with senior Egyptian officials was comprised of senior Hamas figures from Gaza and Damascus, indicating that the group is unified in its stance."





3) 'Let's finish what we started'
By Amos Harel

Shortly after 5:30 P.M., the Netzarim sector comes to life. Mortar fire opens from the west, aimed at a special engineering unit force ensconced in a Palestinian house south of the road connecting the Karni roadblock and the Netzarim settlement ruins.

A soldier is lightly hurt. The commander detects a group of armed Palestinians, who apparently launched the mortars.

At the same time, the Armored 401st Brigade convoy leaves Gaza's coast toward Israel. Brigade commander Colonel Yigal Slovik, in a Merkava tank, also notices figures on a rooftop some 800 meters south of the road. They carry what looks like weapons. The houses in this neighborhood should be empty. A few days ago, the Israel Defense Forces airdropped leaflets calling on all residents to evacuate the houses close to the road. Later tanks shelled the neighborhood several times, driving the last residents out.

Slovik has no doubts. After dark, anyone found nearby a spot where fire was directed at the IDF is a legitimate target. He takes a few minutes to make sure no IDF soldier left the compound before giving the ok to open fire. In the first days of the fighting, four infantry soldiers were killed by "friendly" tank fire due to misunderstandings. The armored corps has learned its lesson and is being careful.

His crew members, young soldiers for whom this was one of the first confrontations, are excited. They swear at the machine gun that jams just at this moment. Machine gun fire and three shells directed at the rooftop and windows paralyze the Palestinians.

Later an observation force reports Palestinian ambulances rushing to the neighborhood to evacuate casualties. In the previous round, in Lebanon, the brigade commanders were blasted for being "stuck with their plasma TVs," far behind the troops.

For Slovik this is the second confrontation in two days. He says he is not searching them out, "but it doesn't hurt to have a tank commander with 22 years' experience."

The IDF has been in control of the Karni-Netzarim road for a week, from the fence to the beach, cutting the Gaza Strip in two. Slovik's troops - armored, Givati and engineering - seized a relatively wide corridor and set up improvized outposts behind sand banks for their tanks, armored personnel carriers (APC) and bulldozers.

From here the troops embark on nightly raids. The main pressure is directed at Gaza's southern neighborhoods. The main mission, in addition to besieging Hamas' main force in Gaza City, is to prevent reinforcements to move from the south of the Strip to the north.

In the eight days since Lt. Col. Yehuda Cohen, commander of the Givati Brigade's Rotem Regiment, whose men are situated in houses on the outskirts of Gaza City, entered the Gaza Strip, he lost his voice - "a little because of the temperature changes and a little from shouting at the soldiers to put their helmets on."

His sector is considered relatively quiet compared to the fighting experienced by the Golani Brigade in the east of Gaza City or the paratroopers north of it. Nor have any of his soldiers been injured. But they have managed to foil several Hamas attacks.

In one instance, regiment troops ran into three militants emerging from a tunnel. "We reacted straight away and toppled the tunnel on them. Nobody was hurt from sniper fire. There was also a suicide bomber on a motorbike who disappeared into a yard. We surrounded the house and hit him from afar," Cohen says. The house his men are staying in is partly destroyed - a result of tank shells and anti-tank missiles fired before they took it over.

Like most Givati commanders, Cohen does not suffer from traumatic experiences dating back to the Second Lebanon War. The regiment joined only during the last days of the fighting. Givati soldiers can compare the current operation to the prolonged fighting in the Strip during the second intifada. Cohen himself served as company commander in the first years of the confrontation. Today's IDF is "much more professional and focused," he says. "Nobody on the other side can stop it. I can go from here to Rafah, if that's what they tell me to do."

The biggest difference is that, "Today I can react in a 'fair fight.' I'm not fighting with my hands tied and staying behind the fence. They [Hamas] understood that very quickly and withdrew."

He has no qualms about using massive force - which becomes evident when looking at the destroyed Palestinian houses along the road. "We've seen booby-trapped houses, or houses that were closed down with the gas pipe left open, so they would explode on us when we entered.

"There's a school here," he says, pointing south. "We've seen them launch rockets and shells from it. When we entered the school itself, we found an arsenal of materiel."

Cohen says the IDF does not target civilians deliberately. The soldiers' orders are clear. "We let the civilians leave and made sure they were not hurt," he says.

Givati and armored corps' regular soldiers and the reservists that joined them Monday all sound as though they were reading from the same page. The IDF spokesman is not trying to dictate to them what to say. For now at least, no voice strays from the consensus. The army considers the fighting in Gaza to be the second round of the Lebanon campaign and so far has succeeded where it failed in the first round.

Tomer, a Givati squad commander from Ra'anana, says, "The parents are worried but we feel they stand behind their children. Everyone knows it's the right thing to do."

Gur Rosenblatt and Guy Ohaion, two infantry reserve offices, say this is a national mission. "It's a one-time opportunity to restore Israel's deterrence power," one of them says. Rosenblatt says his soldiers were trained and equipped for this mission better than any preparation they had received before. "We only hope they'll let us finish what we started," he says.

Cohen says that, "The moment we left for battle, we took the soldiers' mobile phones away." This was one of the lessons from the Second Lebanon War; but it also creates a boundary between the soldiers and the reality back home. As far as the soldiers are concerned, the political argument about continuing the operation is vague and not really relevant, says armored corps Lt. Col. Erez.

"We're concentrating on the mission at hand," says Cohen. "We haven't even received newspapers yet. Once we finish our assignment, we'll take an interest in what they're saying about it at the top."

Deputy Brigade Commander Lt. Col. Ronen Dagmi says, "When the army has clear boundaries and missions, it knows how to act. That is what is happening this time in Gaza."

His soldiers have not taken a shower for more than a week, but they're not complaining. "We have enough food, the conditions are fine and it's quite interesting here," says a tank commander on the Gaza coastal road. He is not worried in the slightest about the Gaza homes, located some 200 meters away from him. For the soldiers in the tanks this is a defensive war and an opportunity for action. They were still in elementary school when Yasser Arafat said the Israelis could go and "drink Gaza's water.

3a) Israeli leader warns Hamas of 'iron fist'
By IBRAHIM BARZAK and CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA

Gaza conflict drags on, talk of cease fire:

Gaza Strip – Israeli troops advanced into Gaza suburbs for the first time early Tuesday, residents said, hours after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned Islamic militants of an "iron fist" unless they agree to Israel's terms to end the fighting. Hamas showed no signs of wavering, however, with its leader, Ismail Haniyeh, saying the militants were "closer to victory."

Despite the tough words, Egypt said it was making slow but sure progress in brokering a truce, and special Mideast envoy Tony Blair said elements were in place for a cease-fire.

Sounds of the battle could be heard clearly before dawn Tuesday around the city of 400,0000 as the Israeli forces, backed by artillery and attack helicopters, moved into neighborhoods east and south of Gaza City. Israeli gunboats shelled the coast from the west.

The Palestinian residents told The Associated Press that Israeli tanks rolled into public areas of the Tel Hawwa neighborhood, pushing back militants. Tens of thousands of Palestinians live in apartment buildings in the neighborhood south of Gaza City.

One of the residents, Khader Mussa, 35, told The Associated Press by telephone that he saw two apartment buildings on fire. He said he was huddling in the basement of his building with 25 other people, including his pregnant wife and his parents. "The gates of hell have opened," he said. "God help us."

Several other buildings were on fire, witnesses said, including a lumberyard. Thick smoke blanketed the area.

The Israeli military confirmed that a battle was in progress but gave no details.

On Monday, as diplomats struggled for traction in truce efforts, Olmert stood within Hamas rocket range and said Israel would only end military operations if Hamas stops rocketing Israel, as it has done for years, and is unable to rearm after combat subsides.

"Anything else will be met with the Israeli people's iron fist," Olmert said. "We will continue to strike with full strength, with full force until there is quiet and rearmament stops."

As he spoke in Ashkelon, Israeli tanks, gunboats and warplanes hammered suspected hiding places of Hamas operatives who control the poor, densely populated territory just across the border. The Israeli military said Hamas fired about 20 rockets at Israel on Monday, fewer than previous days.

Just a few hours earlier, a rocket hit a house in Ashkelon but caused no casualties. Olmert addressed regional mayors in the relative safety of the basement of a public building during his two-hour visit.

Later, he tempered his tough talk, saying: "I really hope that the efforts we are making with the Egyptians these days will ripen to a result that will enable us to end the fighting."

Ashkelon is 10 miles from the border with Gaza. The Israeli military says Hamas has Iranian-supplied rockets that can reach 25 miles into southern Israel.

Meanwhile, Gaza's Hamas prime minister insisted on an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the opening of blockaded border crossings as part of any truce.

"As we are in the middle of this crisis, we tell our people we, God willing, are closer to victory. All the blood that is being shed will not go to waste," Haniyeh said on Hamas Al Aqsa television. But he said the group was also pursuing a diplomatic track to end the conflict that "will not close."

Haniyeh sat a desk in a room with a Palestinian flag and a Quran in the background. His location was unclear; Israeli airstrikes have targeted militant chiefs, and most are in hiding.

The fighting began Dec. 27 and has killed more than 900 Palestinians, about half of them civilians, according to Palestinian medical officials. Thirteen Israelis, including 10 soldiers, have been killed.

Inside Gaza, an Israeli battalion commander identified only as Lt. Col. Yehuda said Monday that troops had not met significant resistance and had found several houses booby-trapped either with regular explosives, or by sealing the windows and doors and opening cooking gas valves.

"A couple of days ago, an armed squad popped up from a tunnel that was concealed by a nearby building. We took them out with tank fire and a bulldozer," he said.

In another incident, the commander said, his men spotted a suicide bomber on a bicycle.

"He ran off to take cover in a building, presumably to draw us in," Yehuda said. "We demolished the building on top of him with a bulldozer."

Brig. Gen. Eyal Eisenberg said troops were "tightening the encirclement" of Gaza City and were "constantly on the move."

The comments by Yehuda and Eisenberg were approved by Israeli military censors. They spoke to a small group of reporters who accompanied Israeli units inside Gaza. Israeli forces have not allowed journalists to enter Gaza to cover the war.

Israeli warplanes pounded suspected Hamas positions in Gaza City, and navy gunboats fired at least 25 shells. Smoke billowed over buildings.

At least 20 Palestinians died Monday, some of them from wounds suffered on previous days, Gaza health officials said.

A girl, a doctor and a Hamas militant were killed in the northern Gaza Strip, said Basim Abu Wardeh, head of Kamal Adwan hospital.

The doctor rushed to evacuate the wounded from a building where two airstrikes had taken place and was killed by a third, Abu Wardeh said. Four other medics were injured, one critically.

The Israeli military said four soldiers were injured, one seriously, in what an initial inquiry concluded was a "friendly fire" incident in northern Gaza.

Israel has sent reserve units into Gaza to help thousands of ground forces already in the territory, and fighting has persisted despite a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a cease-fire. Egypt has assumed a role as mediator between Israel and Hamas.

Talks "are progressing slowly but surely because each party wants to score some points," Hossam Zaki, the spokesman for Egypt's Foreign Ministry, told the British Broadcasting Corp. "We would like to be able to bridge some gaps and then proceed immediately to a cease-fire."

Zaki, however, said Egypt could not provide certain guarantees that Israelis seek, such as a halt to rocket fire.

"We'll enhance our efforts, but this is not an issue between Israel and Egypt," Zaki told the BBC. "It is an issue between Israel and Gaza, and this is something that will have to be worked out, as the (U.N.) Security Council says, in Gaza."

Much of the diplomacy focuses on an area of southern Gaza just across the Egyptian border known as the Philadelphi corridor that serves as a weapons smuggling route, making Egypt critical to both sides in any deal. The name of the corridor is an Israel military label.

Israel wants those routes sealed and monitored as part of any peace deal, and has been bombing tunnels that run under that border.

"I think the elements of an agreement for the immediate cease-fire are there," Blair said in Cairo. He added that, while more work needed to be done, he hoped to see a cease-fire "in the coming days."

Israeli Defense Ministry official Amos Gilad planned to travel Tuesday to Egypt for talks.

In Paris, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said European military observers should be sent to Gaza to monitor any eventual cease-fire.

Israel's chief military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Avi Benayahu, said the fighting was "difficult and complex" and that Hamas militants were setting boobytraps and firing missiles from the rooftops of civilian homes.

"There is a whole city built underground in Gaza. Lots of big weapons warehouses," Benayahu said. Soldiers also uncovered a tunnel dug inside Gaza that led 300 yards into Israel, he said.

In Monday's fighting, the army said it carried out more than 25 airstrikes, hitting squads of gunmen, mortar launchers and two vehicles carrying Hamas militants.

It said ground troops came under fire from militants in a mosque. An Israeli aircraft attacked the squad, and Israeli troops then took over the mosque, confiscating rockets and mortar shells.

With Israeli troops surrounding Gaza's main population centers, Israeli leaders have said the operation is close to achieving its goals. Security officials say they have killed hundreds of Hamas fighters, including top commanders, but there has been no way to confirm the claims.

Aid agencies said they have resumed relief operations in Gaza, but fighting still prevents them from evacuating the sickest people and reaching all those who need help.

International aid groups, however, say Israel is not doing enough to protect Palestinian civilians as well as aid workers.

As many 88 percent of Gaza's residents now require food aid, up from 80 percent before the war, said Helene Gayle, president of the international aid agency CARE.

The three-hour lull in fighting that Israel allows for humanitarian aid to move around Gaza is not sufficient, she said.



4) Fethullah Gülen's Grand Ambition:Turkey's Islamist Danger
By Rachel Sharon-Krespin



As Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) begins its seventh year in leadership, Turkey is no longer the secular and democratic country that it was when the party took over. The AKP has conquered the bureaucracy and changed Turkey's fundamental identity. Prior to the AKP's rise, Ankara oriented itself toward the United States and Europe. Today, despite the rhetoric of European Union accession, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has turned Turkey away from Europe and toward Russia and Iran and reoriented Turkish policy in the Middle East away from sympathy toward Israel and much more toward friendship with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syria. Anti-American, anti-Christian, and anti-Semitic sentiments have increased. Behind Turkey's transformation has been not only the impressive AKP political machine but also a shadowy Islamist sect led by the mysterious hocaefendi (master lord) Fethullah Gülen; the sect often bills itself as a proponent of tolerance and dialogue but works toward purposes quite the opposite. Today, Gülen and his backers (Fethullahcılar, Fethullahists) not only seek to influence government but also to become the government.


In 1998, Fethullah Gülen left Turkey for the United States, reportedly to receive medical treatment for diabetes. Since his voluntary exile, Gülen has resided on a large, rural estate in eastern Pennsylvania, together with about 100 followers, who guard him and tend to his needs. It is from his U.S. base that Gülen has built his fame and his transnational empire.

Today, Turkey has over 85,000 active mosques, one for every 350 citizens—compared to one hospital for every 60,000 citizens—the highest number per capita in the world and, with 90,000 imams, more imams than doctors or teachers. It has thousands of madrasa-like Imam-Hatip schools and about four thousand more official state-run Qur'an courses, not counting the unofficial Qur'an schools, which may expand the total number tenfold. Spending by the governmental Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet Işleri Başkanlığı) has grown five fold, from 553 trillion Turkish lira in 2002 (approximately US$325 million) to 2.7 quadrillion lira during the first four-and-a-half years of the AKP government; it has a larger budget than eight other ministries combined.[1] The Friday prayer attendance rate in Turkey's mosques exceeds that of Iran's, and religion classes teaching Sunni Islam are compulsory in public schools despite rulings against the practice by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and the Turkish high court (Danıştay).[2] Both Prime Minister Erdoğan and the Diyanet head Ali Bardakoğlu criticized the rulings for failing to consult Islamic scholars.

Gülen now helps set the political agenda in Turkey using his followers in the AKP as well as the movement's vast media empire, financial institutions and banks, business organizations, an international network of thousands of schools, universities, student residences (ışıkevis), and many associations and foundations. He is a financial heavyweight, controlling an unregulated and opaque budget estimated at $25 billion.[3] It is not clear whether the Fethullahist cemaat (community) supports the AKP or is the ruling force behind AKP. Either way, however, the effect is the same.

Gülen's Background
Born in Erzurum, Turkey, in 1942, Fethullah Gülen is an imam who considers himself a prophet.[4] An enigmatic figure, many in the West applaud him as a reformist and advocate for tolerance,[5] a catalyst of "moderate Islam" for Turkey and beyond. He is praised in the West, especially in the United States, as an intellectual, scholar, and educator[6] even though his formal education is limited to five years of elementary school. After receiving an imam-preacher certificate, he served as an imam, first in Erdirne and later in Izmir. In 1971, the Turkish security service arrested him for clandestine religious activities, such as running illegal summer camps to indoctrinate youths, and was, from that time on, occasionally harassed by the staunchly secular military.[7] In 1981, he formally retired from his post as a local preacher.

To build an image as a proponent of interfaith dialogue, Gülen met Pope John Paul II, other Christian clergy, and Jewish rabbis[8] and emphasizes the commonalities unifying Abrahamic religions. He presents himself and his movement as the modern-day version of tolerant, liberal Anatolian Sufism and has used the literature of great Sufi thinkers such as Jalal ad-Din Rumi and Yunus Emre, pretending to share their moderate teachings.[9] Quotes from their teachings adorn Fethullah's Gülen's propaganda material. The movement, its proxy organizations, and universities—including Georgetown, to which it donates money—hold conferences in the United States and Europe to discuss Gülen. In October 2007, the British House of Lords feted Gülen with a conference in his honor.

Gülen was a student and follower of Sheikh Sa'id-i Kurdi (1878-1960), also known as Sa'id-i Nursi, the founder of the Islamist Nur (light) movement.[10] After Turkey's war of independence, Kurdi demanded, in an address to the new parliament, that the new republic be based on Islamic principles. He turned against Atatürk and his reforms and against the new modern, secular, Western republic.

In 1998, Gülen departed for the United States, reportedly to receive medical treatment for diabetes. However, his absence also enabled Gülen to escape questioning on his indictment in 2000 for allegedly promoting insurrection in Turkey in a series of secretly-recorded sermons. Since his voluntary exile, Gülen has resided on a large, rural estate in eastern Pennsylvania, together with about 100 followers, who guard him and tend to his needs. These servants are educated men who wear suits and ties and do not look like traditional Islamists in cloaks and turbans. They follow their hocaefendi's orders and even refrain from marrying until age fifty per his instructions. When they do marry, their spouses are expected to dress in the Islamic manner, as dictated by Gülen himself.[11] It is from his U.S. base that Gülen has built his fame and his transnational empire.

Gülen's Education Network
The core of Gülen's network is his educational institutions. His school network is impressive. Nurettin Veren, Gülen's right-hand man for thirty-five years, estimated that some 75 percent of Turkey's two million preparatory school students are enrolled in Gülen institutions.[12] He controls thousands of top-tier secondary schools, colleges, and student dormitories throughout Turkey, as well as private universities, the largest being Fatih University in Istanbul. Outside Turkey, his movement runs hundreds of secondary schools and dozens of universities in 110 countries worldwide. Gülen's aim is not altruistic: His followers target youth in the eighth through twelfth grades, mentor and indoctrinate them in the ışıkevi, educate them in the Fethullah schools, and prepare them for future careers in legal, political, and educational professions in order to create the ruling classes of the future Islamist, Turkish state. Taking their orders from Fethullah Gülen, wealthy followers continue to open schools and ışıkevi in what Sabah columnist Emre Aköz called "the education jihad."[13]

The overt network of schools is only one part of a larger strategy. In a 2006 interview, Veren said, "These schools are like shop windows. Recruitment and Islamization activities are carried out through night classes ... Children whom we educated in Turkey are now in the highest positions. There are governors, judges, military officers. There are ministers in the government. They consult Gülen before doing anything."[14]

The AKP's controversial education policies, coupled with the Islamist indoctrination in Fethullahist schools, have accelerated the Islamization of Turkish society. During AKP's first term in government, the Erdoğan government has changed textbooks, emphasized religion courses, and transferred thousands of certified imams from their positions in the Directorate of Religious Affairs to positions as teachers and administrators in Turkey's public schools.[15] Abdullah Gül, Turkey's first Islamist president and a Gülen sympathizer, appointed a Gülen-affiliated professor, Yusuf Ziya Özcan, to head Turkey's Council of Higher Education (Yükseköğretim Kurulu, YÖK). He has also used his presidential prerogative to appoint Gülen sympathizers to university presidencies.

Beyond Turkey, the Fethullahist schools also serve as fertile recruiting grounds. In his Institut d'Etudes Politiques doctoral thesis on Gülen schools in Central Asia, Bayram Balcı, a French scholar of Turkish origin, wrote, "Fethullah's aim is the Islamization of Turkish nationality and the Turcification of Islam in foreign countries. Dozens of Fethullah's ‘Turkish schools' abroad—most of which are for boys—are used to covertly ‘convert,' not so much ‘in school,' but through direct proselytism ‘outside school.'" Balcı explained, "He wants to revive the link between state, religion, and society."[16] The schools of Gülen's Nur movement in Central Asia have worked to reestablish Islam in a region largely secularized by decades of Soviet control. Balcı explained, "The aim of the cemaat is to educate and influence future national elites, who will speak English and Turkish and who will one day prove their good intentions towards Fethullahists and towards Turkey." Several countries in the region have taken steps against Gülen's educational institutions because of such suspicions. Uzbekistan has banned the schools for encouraging Islamic law,[17] and the Russian government, weary of the movement's activities in majority Muslim regions of the federation, has banned not only the Gülen schools but all activities of the entire Nur sect in the country.[18]

Neither Uzbekistan nor Russia are known for their pluralism, but suspicion about Gülen indoctrination has spread even to more permissive societies such as that of the Netherlands. In 2008, members of the Netherland's Christian Democrat, Labor, and Conservative parties agreed to cut several million euros in government funding for organizations affiliated with "the Turkish imam Fethullah Gülen" and to thoroughly investigate the activities of the Gülen group after Erik Jan Zürcher, director of the Amsterdam-based International Institute for Social History, and five former Gülen followers who had worked in Gülen's ışıkevi told Dutch television that the Gülen community was moving step-by-step to topple the secular order.[19] While the organizations in question denied any ties to the Gülen movement, Zürcher said that taqiya, religiously-sanctioned dissimulation, was typical in the movement's interactions with the West. An unnamed former Gülen follower who also once worked in Gülen schools and ışıkevi reported that Fethullahists called the Dutch "filthy, blasphemous infidels" and that they said "the best Dutchman is one who has converted to Islam. All the Dutch must be made Muslims."[20] Indeed, of the thousands of Fethullahist schools in more than one hundred countries that allegedly teach moderation, none are located in countries such as Saudi Arabia or Iran that exist under domineering strains of official Islam, and most appear instead geared to radicalize students in secular Muslim and non-Muslim societies.

Eviscerating Checks and Balances
Fethullahists have also made inroads into Turkey's 200,000-strong police force. Their infiltration has had a compounding effect, as Fethullahist officials have purged officials more loyal to the republic than the hocaefendi. According to Veren, "There are imam security directors; imams wearing police uniforms. Many police commissioners get their orders from imams."[21] Adil Serdar Saçan, former director of the organized crimes unit within the Istanbul Directorate of Security, confirmed these statements in reports he prepared on the Fethullahist organization within the security apparatus. In a 2006 interview, he said,

Fethullahists began organizing inside the security apparatus in the 1970s. In police academies, students were being taken to ışıkevi by class commissioners. One of those commissioners is now the director of intelligence at the Turkish Directorate of Security. During my time at the [police] academy, those in the directorate who did not have ties to the [Gülen] organization were all pensioned off or fired in 2002 when the AKP came to power. … I was at the top of my class when I graduated from the police academy, and throughout the twenty-four years of my career, I maintained and was honored for my stellar record. After 2002, the AKP blocked my promotions. They promoted only those officers whose files were tainted with allegations that they were engaged in reactionary Islamist activities. … Belonging to a certain cemaat has become a prerequisite for advancement in the force. At present, over 80 percent of the officers at supervisory level in the general security organization are members of the [Gülen] cemaat.[22]

Such statements, however, may have consequences.[23] In October 2008, Turkish police arrested Saçan on suspicion of involvement in the so-called Ergenekon plot to overthrow the Turkish state.[24] Most Turkish analysts believe that the Ergenekon conspiracy, short of any evidence of unconstitutional activities, is more a mechanism by which the Turkish government can harass critics.[25]

Writer and journalist Merdan Yanardağ provided statistics to illuminate the Islamist penetration of the Ankara Directorate of Security. He explained,

Prior to Ramadan, personnel at the Directorate of Security in Ankara were asked whether they would be fasting during Ramadan, in order to establish the number of meals that would be needed during that period. Of the 4,200 employees, only seventeen indicated that they would not be fasting. Considering that some of the seventeen might have been sick or taking medications, the numbers speak for themselves. [26]

Wiretapping scandals in spring 2008 also highlighted Gülenist penetration of the security service's most important units. After the Turkish Security Directorate obtained a blanket court permit in April 2007 to monitor and record all the communications in Turkey including mobile and land-line telephones, SMS text messaging, e-mail, fax, and Internet communications,[27] Turks have grown uneasy about having telephone conversations fearing intrusion into their privacy. Recent leaks to pro-AKP media of recordings of military personnel meetings, lectures, top secret military documents, strategic antiterrorism plans, private medical files of commanders, and contents of personal conversations between state prosecutors have shocked the nation as has the appearance on the Internet video site YouTube of some of those recordings.

The alleged network of Fethullah followers in the security system has an impact on domestic affairs as they use restricted technology or privileged information to further their political agenda. In February 2008, for example, several websites posted the voice recording of a secret speech delivered by Brig. Gen. Münir Erten announcing the timing of an upcoming Turkish military operation into Iraqi Kurdistan, details of a private discussion with the chief of the General Staff, and private information concerning Gen. Ergin Saygun's health.[28] The following month, several websites including YouTube posted a secretly recorded conversation between prosecutor Salim Demirci and a colleague regarding Erdoğan and Efkan Ala, then governor of Diyarbakir and subsequently a counselor of Erdoğan's office. Erdoğan responded by ordering a criminal investigation against Demirci.[29] In June 2008, the Islamist Vakit published Saygun's entire medical file, disclosing information about his diabetes as well as the treatments and medications he had received in the Gülhane military hospital.[30] Others whose tapped conversations appeared on Islamist websites and in Gülen's newspaper network included Erdoğan Teziç, the former head of Turkey's Higher Education Council, and prominent members of the center-left opposition Republican People's Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP). Many Turkish journalists believe that Fethullahist-dominated police tap their communications, and according to reports, the head of the wiretapping unit, who was appointed by Erdoğan in August 2005, is a Fethullah follower.[31] Islamist newspapers including Vakit, Yeni Şafak, Zaman, and the pro-AKP Taraf published leaks from private conversations held inside government offices and military headquarters. The Islamist, pro-AKP media has reported alleged confidential evidence relating to the police investigation of the so-called Ergenekon plot that posits a secularist cabal of military officers, journalists, and professors sought to overthrow the AKP government.[32] The net effect of such leaks is to tar the reputations of or intimidate AKP's political opponents and the Turkish military.

Islamization within police ranks also contributes to police brutality against anti-AKP demonstrators. On May 1, 2008, the police used gas bombs, pepper gas, water cannons, and clubs against workers who wanted to celebrate May Day peacefully in Istanbul's Taksim Square, the traditional site of demonstrations in Turkey's largest city; scores were injured.[33] Labor unions and opposition parties condemned the police brutality and accused Erdoğan of using police to silence opposition voices.[34] Police also suppressed labor protests in Tuzla (Istanbul) shipyards.[35] Similarly, police have harassed individual citizens after they criticized Erdoğan's policies. Erdoğan's own security guards abducted a 46-year-old man from Antalya for speaking out in public against his social security policies, taking the man to a deserted location where the guards beat and threatened him. The victim alleged that his attackers said they could easily plant guns or drugs on him and kill him.[36]

While Turkey's military is guarantor of the constitution, Veren alleged that Fethullahists had also entrenched themselves within the military, police, and other professions:

The Fethullahist military officers were once our students, who we financially supported, educated, and assisted. When these grateful children graduated and reached influential positions, they put themselves and their positions at the service of Fethullah Gülen … [Gülen] directs and instructs, and, through them, maintains power within the state … When Gülen's students graduate from the police or military academies—as do the new doctors and lawyers—they present their first salaries to Fethullah Gülen as a gesture of their gratitude. Newly graduated officers even bring him the swords that they receive during the graduation ceremony.[37]

According to Veren, Gülen has argued that the military expels no more than one in forty Islamist officers; the rest remain in undercover cells. While such allegations may seem the stuff of conspiracy theory, recent leaks to pro-AKP media suggest a number of Islamist sources within the military ranks, creating speculation that followers of Gülen now populate the senior infrastructure of the Turkish General Staff. Such speculation gained additional credence after the August 2008 Supreme Military Council (Yüksek Askeri Şura, YAŞ), which, for the first time, declined to expel suspected Islamists from military ranks.

The AKP government has also aided the Gülen movement with its reorientation of the judiciary. Over the first five years of his rule, Erdoğan replaced thousands of judges and prosecutors with AKP appointees. Now that the president is Islamist, it is unlikely that he would veto the appointment of Islamists to the bench, as did his predecessor Ahmet Necdet Sezer. Indeed, it now appears that the government intends to appoint thousands more to judicial positions.[38] The AKP has also enacted a law that would require applicants for judgeships to first interview with AKP bureaucrats in order better to gauge and adjudicate applicants' adherence to Islam. The results of the AKP's targeting of the judicial system are already apparent as anti-secular, pro-AKP officials have been at the forefront of some controversial trials, such as the case against Van University president Yücel Aşkın,[39] the Şemdinli investigation in which the prosecutor tried to implicate Gen. Yaşar Büyükanıt before he became chief of the General Staff, and, most recently, the Ergenekon probe.

Indeed, it is such overtly political and vindictive prosecutions that have led some former Gülen sympathizers, such as University of Utah political scientist Hakan Yavuz, to a change of heart. In one interview, Yavuz told odatv.com that four important legal cases had changed his thinking: the case against Aşkın; the Semdinli case; the Atabeyler operation, uncovered in 2005, involving an organized crime group with alleged plans to assassinate Prime Minister Erdoğan;[40] and the Ergenekon probe. Yavuz explained, "The cemaat has attempted to steer all four cases. Look at the slanderous reports in archives of the cemaat's newspapers, how they defamed Yucel Aşkın. And now it's Ergenekon. Keeping [prominent] personalities in jail for over a year without indictment is inexplicable." Yavuz also suggested Gülen's cemaat spoke differently to its members than to outsiders and that it was pursuing a political agenda that conflicted with the founding philosophy of the modern Turkish republic. He accused Fethullahists of "co-optation" and said that they were recruiting people and paying them money—without any formal receipts or records—to write and speak favorably about the movement while criticizing the secular Turkish state.[41]

The Fifth Estate
If the police, military, and courts might normally protect rule-of-law from within official Turkish government structures, there might still be an external check to abuse of power in the Turkish media. The Turkish media has traditionally been relentless in its reporting of abuses of power and corruption. Soon after assuming office, however, Erdoğan proved intolerant of the concept of a free press. The AKP government has systematically sought to create a media monopoly to speak with one voice and on behalf of the government. Erdoğan lashes out at media organs that he does not control. In his first term, Erdoğan brought more than a hundred lawsuits against sixty-three journalists in sixteen publications, against many writers, as well as the leaders and members of parliament of all opposition parties. The number of lawsuits may be far greater. In 2008, Erdoğan declined to answer a parliamentary inquiry by a Democratic Left Party deputy demanding information on how many lawsuits Erdoğan had initiated against journalists—claiming that such information was in the realm of his private life."[42] Most of Erdoğan's lawsuits against journalists involve criticism that any other democracy would consider legitimate. In 2005, for example, he sued Cumhuriyet cartoonist Musa Kart for depicting him as a cat entangled in a ball of string. Last year, he sued the LeMan weekly humor magazine for ridiculing him in its January 30, 2008 cover.[43]

Erdoğan lost some of his lawsuits, and courts threw out others, but the effect has nonetheless been chilling. Journalists know that not only does the prime minister seek to make them financially liable for any criticism, but that the AKP might even seek to assume control of their publications. During AKP's 6-year rule, the government has seized control of several media outlets and subsequently sold them to pro-AKP holdings affiliated with the Gülen community. In April 2007, for example, the governmental Saving Deposit Insurance Fund (Tasarruf Mevduatı Sigorta Fonu, TMSF) seized Sabah-ATV, Turkey's second largest media group in a predawn raid. The TMSF, staffed by Erdoğan appointees, then sold the group to Çalık Holding, the CEO of which is Erdoğan's son-in-law. Çalık financed the purchase with public funds taken as loans from two state-owned banks and by partnering with a newly-founded, Qatar-based media company that bought 25 percent of Sabah shares. It was Abdullah Gül who introduced Ahmet Çalık to Qatari Emir Hamad bin Khalifa during his January 2008 visit in Syria; Çalık also accompanied Gül in February and Erdoğan in April when they visited Qatar. Media reports indicated that other consortiums that had initially shown interest in purchasing Sabah-ATV with their own money pulled out of the tender shortly before the bid after Erdoğan contacted them, leaving Çalik the sole bidder.[44] Sabah has since become a strong advocate of the AKP government. In September 2008, Erdoğan demanded all party members and aides boycott newspapers owned by the Doğan Media Group after it reported on laundering of money to Islamist charities.[45]

Excluding the Islamist television and radio stations, newspapers such as Zaman, Sabah, Yeni Şafak, Türkiye, Star, Bugün, Vakit, and Taraf all have AKP and/or Gülen-affiliated ownership. By circulation, such papers represent at least 40 percent of all newspaper sales in Turkey.[46]

What Are Gülen's Intentions?
Conglomerates have long had a dominant position in Turkish society. Secular businessmen such as Aydın Doğan and Mehmet Emin Karamehmet have interests not only in industry but also in media, the banking sector, and even education. Never before, though, has a single individual started a movement that seeks to transform Turkish society so fundamentally. Gülen now wields a vocal partisan media; a vast network of loyal bureaucrats; partisan universities and academia; partisan prosecutors and judges; partisan security and intelligence agencies; partisan capitalists, business associations, NGOs, and labor unions; and partisan teachers, doctors, and hospitals. What makes Gülen so dangerous? Gülen's own teaching and sermons provide the best answers.

In 1999, Turkish television aired footage of Gülen delivering sermons to a crowd of followers in which he revealed his aspirations for an Islamist Turkey ruled by Shari‘a (Islamic law) as well as the methods that should be used to attain that goal. In the sermons, he said:

You must move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing your existence until you reach all the power centers … until the conditions are ripe, they [the followers] must continue like this. If they do something prematurely, the world will crush our heads, and Muslims will suffer everywhere, like in the tragedies in Algeria, like in 1982 [in] Syria … like in the yearly disasters and tragedies in Egypt. The time is not yet right. You must wait for the time when you are complete and conditions are ripe, until we can shoulder the entire world and carry it … You must wait until such time as you have gotten all the state power, until you have brought to your side all the power of the constitutional institutions in Turkey … Until that time, any step taken would be too early—like breaking an egg without waiting the full forty days for it to hatch. It would be like killing the chick inside. The work to be done is [in] confronting the world. Now, I have expressed my feelings and thoughts to you all—in confidence … trusting your loyalty and secrecy. I know that when you leave here—[just] as you discard your empty juice boxes, you must discard the thoughts and the feelings that I expressed here.

He continued,

When everything was closed and all doors were locked, our houses of isik [light] assumed a mission greater than that of older times. In the past, some of the duties of these houses were carried out by madrasas [Islamic schools], some by schools, some by tekkes [Islamist lodges] … These isik homes had to be the schools, had to be madrasas, [had to be] tekkes all at the same time. The permission did not come from the state, or the state's laws, or the people who govern us. The permission was given by God … who wanted His name learned and talked about, studied, and discussed in those houses, as it used to be in the mosques.[47]

In another sermon, Gülen said,

Now it is a painful spring that we live in. A nation is being born again. A nation of millions [is] being born—one that will live for long centuries, God willing … It is being born with its own culture, its own civilization. If giving birth to one person is so painful, the birth of millions cannot be pain-free. Naturally we will suffer pain. It won't be easy for a nation that has accepted atheism, has accepted materialism, a nation accustomed to running away from itself, to come back riding on its horse. It will not be easy, but it is worth all our suffering and the sacrifices.[48]

And, in yet another sermon, he declared,

The philosophy of our service is that we open a house somewhere and, with the patience of a spider, we lay our web to wait for people to get caught in the web; and we teach those who do. We don't lay the web to eat or consume them but to show them the way to their resurrection, to blow life into their dead bodies and souls, to give them a life.[49]

Many Gülen supporters and members of the Islamist media affiliated with the cemaat suggested the sermons were somehow forged[50] but the denials are unconvincing given the video footage and reports by Gülen movement defectors.

U.S. Government Support for Gülen?
Many Turkish analysts believe that, prior to Erdoğan's election, Gülen and his supporters in the U.S. government helped obtain an invitation to the White House for him at a time when Erdoğan was banned from politics in Turkey due to his Islamist activities—an event viewed as a U.S. endorsement ahead of the 2002 Turkish elections. That the U.S. government and, specifically, the Central Intelligence Agency support the Gülen movement is conventional wisdom among Turkey's secular elite even though no hard evidence exists to support such allegations.

When Turkish secularists are asked to defend the view that Gülen enjoys U.S. support, they often point to his almost 20-year residence in eastern Pennsylvania. After the Supreme Court of Appeals in Turkey (Yargıtay) confirmed on June 24, 2008, a lower court's ruling to acquit Gülen on charges that he organized an illegal terrorist organization to overthrow the secular government in Turkey, Gülen won another legal battle, this time in the United States. A federal court reversed U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service decisions that would have denied Gülen's application for permanent residency in the United States on the basis that Gülen did not fit the criteria as someone with "extraordinary ability in the field of education." The Department of Homeland Security characterized Gülen as neither an expert in the field of education nor an educator but rather as "the leader of a large and influential religious and political movement with immense commercial holdings."[51]

While the court ruling that allowed Gülen to remain in the United States may provide fodder for Turkish analysts who suggest U.S. support for Gülen, the process is actually more revealing. Indeed, the U.S. government noted that much of the acclaim Gülen touts is sponsored or financed by his own movement. Gülen attached twenty-nine letters of reference to his June 18, 2008 motion, mostly from theologians or Turkish political figures close to or affiliated with his organization. John Esposito, founding director of the Saudi-financed Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, who, after receiving donations from the Gülen movement sponsored a conference in his honor, also supplied a reference. Two former CIA officials, George Fidas and Graham Fuller, and former U.S. ambassador to Turkey Morton Abramowitz also supplied references.

The letters may have worked. On July 16, 2008, U.S. district judge Stewart Dalzell issued a memorandum and order granting Gülen's motion for partial summary judgment and ordering the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service to approve his petition for alien worker status as an alien of extraordinary ability by August 1, 2008. The court found that the immigration examiner improperly concluded that the field of education was the only statutory category in which Gülen's accomplishments could fit and that Gülen's accomplishments in such fields as theology, political science, and Islamic studies should also be considered. The court further determined that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service Administrative Appeals Office erred in concluding that Gülen's work was not "scholarly" by applying an unduly narrow definition of the term. Finally, with regard to the statutory requirement that the applicant show that his or her entry into the United States would substantially benefit the United States, the court found that Gülen had met the requirement.[52]

Regardless of the legal rationale behind his current stay, the U.S. decision to grant Gülen residency will enable his movement to continue to imply Washington's endorsement as the AKP and its Fethullahist supporters seek to push Turkey further away from the secularism upon which it was built.

Conclusions
Gülen enjoys the support of many friends, ideological fellow-travelers, and co-opted journalists and academics. Too often, concern over Gülen's activities is dismissed in the Turkish, U.S., and European media as mere paranoia. When Turkey's chief prosecutor indicted the AKP for attempting to undermine the secular constitution, the pro-Islamist media in Turkey along with Western diplomats and journalists dismissed the case as an "undemocratic judicial coup."[53] Yet at the same time, many of the same outlets and officials have hailed the Ergenekon indictment, assuming a dichotomy between Islamism and democracy on one hand, and secularism and fascism on the other.[54] The repeated branding in Islamist outlets of Turkey's Islamists as "reformist democrats" and of modern, secular Turks as "fundamentalists" has to be one of the most offensive but sadly effective lies in modern politics.

Indeed, Turkey has never seen a single incident of attacks on pious Muslims for fasting during Ramadan, whereas in recent years there have been many incidents of attacks on less-observant Turks for drinking alcohol or not fasting.[55] While women who cover their heads in the Islamic manner can move freely in any area of the country, uncovered women are increasingly unwelcome in certain regions and are often attacked.[56]

Contrary to the impression prevalent in the West—that the conflict is between religious Muslims and "anti-religion, secular Kemalists"—the fact remains that the majority of Turks, secular included, are traditional and observant Muslims many of whom define themselves primarily as "Muslims first."[57] While the Turkish constitution recognizes all Turkish citizens as "Turks," the dominant sentiment in the country has always been that in order to be considered a Turk, one must be Muslim. The complete absence of any non-Muslim governor, ambassador, or military or police officer attests to the prevalence of Islam's dominance in the Turkish establishment. Therefore, it appears Gülen is not fighting for more individual freedoms but to free Islam from the confines of the mosque and the private domain of individuals and to bring it to the public arena, to govern every aspect of life in the country.[58] AKP leaders, including Gül and Erdoğan, have repeatedly expressed their opposition to the "imprisonment of Islam in the mosque," demanding that it be present everywhere as a lifestyle. Most Turks vividly remember statements by AKP leaders not long ago rejecting the definition of secularism as "separation of mosque and state." Gül has slammed "secularism" on many occasions, including during a November 27, 1995 interview with The Guardian. What Turkey's Islamists really want is to remove the founding principles of the Turkish Republic. So long as U.S. and Western officials fail to recognize that Gülen's rhetoric of tolerance is only skin-deep, they may be setting the stage for a dialogue, albeit not of religious tolerance, but rather to find an answer to the question, "Who lost Turkey?"

Rachel Sharon-Krespin is the director of the Turkish Media Project at the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Washington D.C.

[1] Can Dündar, Milliyet (Istanbul), June 21, 2007; Reha Muhtar, Vatan (Istanbul), June 22, 2007.
[2] Milliyet, Mar. 10, 2008; Hürriyet (Istanbul), Mar. 10, 2008.
[3] Helen Rose Ebaugh and Dogan Koc, "Funding Gülen-Inspired Good Works: Demonstrating and Generating Commitment to the Movement," fgulen.com, Oct. 27, 2007.
[4] Merdan Yanardağ, Fethullah Gülen Hareketinin Perde Arkasi, Turkiye Nasil Kusatildi? (Istanbul: yah Beyaz Yayın, 2006), based on interviews with Nurettin Veren on Kanaltürk television, June 26, July 3, 2006.
[5] "Fethullah Gülen Is an Islamic Scholar and Peace Activist," International Conference on Fethullah Gülen, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, Nov. 2007; J. J. Rogers, "Giants of Light: Fethullah Gülen and Meister Eckhart in Dialogue," The University of Texas, San Antonio, Tex., Nov. 3, 2007.
[6] See for example, Rogers, "Giants of Light"; USA Today, July 18, 2008.
[7] Bülent Aras, "Turkish Islam's Moderate Face," Middle East Quarterly, Sept. 1998, pp. 23-9.
[8] Anadolu Ajansı (Ankara), Feb. 10, 1998.
[9] Booklets on Anatolian Sufism with citations from Mevlana Celleddin Rumi distributed at the "Muslim World in Transition: Contributions of the Gulen Movement" conference, London, Oct. 25 – 27, 2007.
[10] Aland Mizell, "Clash of Civilizations versus Interfaith Dialogue: The Theories of Huntington and Gulen," KurdishMedia.com, Dec. 31, 2007; idem, "Are Islam and Kemalism Compatible? How Two Systems Have Impacted the Kurdish Question?" Iraq Updates, Nov. 28, 2007.
[11] Interview with Nurettin Veren, Kanaltürk television, June 26, 2006.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Sabah (Istanbul), Dec. 30, 2004.
[14] Veren interview, Kanaltürk, June 26, 2006.
[15] Cumhuriyet (Istanbul), Dec. 23, 2007.
[16] Bayram Balcı, "Central Asia: Fethullah Gulen's Missionary Schools," Oct. 2001.
[17] Interview with Merdan Yanardağ, Gerçek Gündem (Istanbul), Nov. 20, 2006.
[18] Hürriyet, Apr. 11, 2008.
[19] Erik-Jan Zürcher, "Kamermeerderheid Eist Onderzoek Naar Turkse Beweging," NOVA documentary, July 4, 2008.
[20] Cumhuriyet, July 9, 2008; Netherlands Information Services, July 11, 2008.
[21] Yanardağ, Fethullah Gülen Hareketinin Perde Arkasi, Turkiye Nasil Kusatildi?
[22] Adil Serdar Saçan, interview, Kanaltürk, July 3, 2006.
[23] Ibid.
[24] Samanyolu television, Oct. 13, 2008.
[25] See, for example, Michael Rubin, "Erdogan, Ergenekon, and the Struggle for Turkey," Mideast Monitor, Aug. 2008.
[26] Yanardağ interview, Gerçek Gündem, Nov. 20, 2006.
[27] Vatan, June 2, 2008; Hürriyet, June 2, 2008.
[28] "SOK! Tuggeneral Munir Erten den SOK aciklamalar!" accessed Oct. 27, 2008.
[29] "Sok Video! Cumhuriyet Savcisi Salim Demirci," accessed Oct. 27, 2008.
[30] Vakit (Istanbul), June 14, 2008.
[31] Vatan, June 2, 2008; Hürriyet, June 2, 2008.
[32] BBC News, Feb. 4, 2008; Frank Hyland, "Investigation of Turkey's ‘Deep State' Ergenekon Plot Spreads to Military," Global Terrorism Analysis, Jamestown Foundation, July 16, 2008.
[33] Reuters, May 1, 2008; Sendika.org, Labornet Turkey, May 1, 2008; Vatan, May 1, 2, 2008; Milliyet, May 1, 2, 2008; Hürriyet, May 1, 2, 2008
[34] Vatan, May 2, 2008; Milliyet, May 2, 2008; Hürriyet, May 2, 8, 2008.
[35] Hürriyet, Feb. 28, 2008.
[36] Milliyet, May 14, 2008.
[37] Yanardağ, Fethullah Gülen Hareketinin Perde Arkasi, Turkiye Nasil Kusatildi?
[38] "Turkish Judiciary at War with AKP Government to Defend Its Independence," MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 1520, Mar. 27, 2007.
[39] "The AKP Government's Attempt to Move Turkey from Secularism to Islamism (Part I): The Clash with Turkey's Universities," MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 1014, Nov. 1, 2005; "Professor from Van University in Turkey Commits Suicide after Five Months in Jail without Trial," MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 1025, Nov. 18, 2005.
[40] Zaman (Istanbul), Apr. 18, 2008.
[41] Odatv.com, May 30, 2008; Hürriyet, June 13, 2008; Akşam (Istanbul), June 16, 2008.
[42] Radikal (Istanbul), Apr. 7, 2008.
[43] Hürriyet, Oct. 21, 2008.
[44] Hürriyet, May 14, 2008.
[45] Hürriyet, Sept. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 2008.
[46] Milliyet, July 14, 2008; Cumhuriyet, July 15, 2008
[47] Turkish channel ATV, June 18, 1999.
[48] Ibid.
[49] Ibid.; "The Upcoming Elections in Turkey (2): The AKP's Political Power Base," MEMRI Inquiry and Analysis No. 375, July 19, 2007.
[50] Sabah, Jan. 2, 3, 2005.
[51] "Fethullah Gulen v. Michael Chertoff, Secretary, U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security, et al," Case 2:07-cv-02148-SD, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
[52] Ibid.
[53] Turkish Daily News (Ankara), Mar. 16, 2008; Vakit, June 7, 9, 2008; Yeni Şafak (Istanbul), June 9, 2008.
[54] Mustafa Akyol, "The Threat Is Secular Fundamentalism," International Herald Tribune, May 4, 2007; "Islam Will Modernize—If Secular Fundamentalists Allow," Turkish Daily News, May 15, 2007; "Mr. Logoglu Is Wrong, Considerably Wrong about Turkey," Turkish Daily News, May 24, 2007.
[55] Vatan, Aug. 21, 2008; Turkish Daily News, Sept. 23, 2008.
[56] Hürriyet, Feb. 14, 2008; Milliyet, Feb. 14, 2008; Vatan, Feb. 14, 2008, Cumhuriyet, Feb. 14, 2008.
[57] Yeni Şafak, July 7, 2006.
[58] "Turkish PM Erdogan in Speech during Term as Istanbul Mayor Attacks Turkey's Constitution, Describing It as ‘A Huge Lie': ‘Sovereignty Belongs Unconditionally and Always To Allah'; ‘One Cannot Be a Muslim and Secular,'" MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 1596, May 23, 2007.

5) PMW's Background Brief on Hamas #2: Bombs are "more precious" than children: Hamas children's education
By Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook

IMAGINE A MUSIC VIDEO teaching kids that bombs are more precious than children. This is not fantasy - this is the message of an actual Hamas TV music video. After a five-year-old finds out that her mother wore a bomb belt to a suicide terror attack, she sings: "Now I know what was more precious than us." She then swears to follow in her mother's footsteps, as a suicide bomber.

This is just one example of the wide range of hateful and abusive messages on Hamas TV, designed to indoctrinate children to Hamas values. Children are taught to value violence, hatred and Islamic supremacy, and that seeking Martyrdom for Allah is the highest value, bringing "honor and glory."

PMW has created a five-minute compilation of key representative segments from Hamas TV that document this indoctrination of children.


In addition to the video featuring the daughter of a suicide bomber, this collection includes a music video depicting a boy's transition from childhood to adulthood, climaxing in his heroic Martyrdom death; a puppet show promising world Islamic supremacy, death of infidels and the conversion of the White House into a mosque; and a talk show segment featuring kindergarten kids marching in military formation, brandishing weapons and calling for Jihad and Martyrdom.

Also included are statements by Hillary Clinton from her news conference with PMW in the US Senate, where she criticized Palestinian schoolbooks and television that "profoundly poison the minds of these children."

5a)What Obama Could Learn From Cheney He sacrificed his popularity to make the tough calls.
By WILLIAM MCGURN

With just one week before Barack Obama moves into the Oval Office, he probably isn't thinking "Dick Cheney" when it comes to advice. That may be a missed opportunity. Because in some interesting ways, the outgoing vice president could prove to be the best friend the incoming president has.


These days, after all, Mr. Cheney is a synonym for torture, a punch line on late-night television, and -- as he himself conceded in a CBS interview the other day -- a new Darth Vader. Mr. Obama's own running mate calls Mr. Cheney "the most dangerous vice president" in American history.

Mr. Obama, however, is no fool. Whatever decisions he will make on hot-button issues from Iraq to Guantanamo, he has no intention of allowing another 9/11 to happen on his watch. And that's where Mr. Cheney comes in.

During a lunch last week at the vice presidential residence, Mr. Cheney was frank and far-ranging, in particular about "the measures we've taken to defend the nation." Two days ago, in an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, Mr. Obama criticized Mr. Cheney for defending at least one of these measures -- enhanced interrogation.

But Mr. Obama would profit by looking past the caricature of the vice president to consider just two things: why Mr. Cheney has been so unpopular -- and why he was willing to endure this unpopularity.

Most would agree that the demonization of Dick Cheney has its roots in his steadfast defense of three of the most controversial Bush administration policies: enhanced interrogation for terrorists, the detention of terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, and the National Security Agency's surveillance of terrorist communications.

On all these issues, Mr. Cheney could have stayed on the sidelines and cultivated his own reputation. After all, before signing on with George W. Bush, the vice president was a paid-up member of the Beltway establishment, enjoying its good favor and moving comfortably in its circles. All that is now gone. Whatever critics might say about him, he cannot be accused of having cut his conscience to fit the latest fashion.

Some of Mr. Cheney's views have been shaped by what he saw in the 1970s. As a member of President Gerald Ford's senior staff, Mr. Cheney watched the Pike and Church Committee hearings on our intelligence services. He saw decent men and women who had acted with the approval of their political leaders suddenly find themselves standing alone when Congress started asking questions. Lives and careers were ruined, and in crucial ways our intelligence operations were crippled.

This president and this vice president resolved to do things differently. From day one of this war, and in very public ways, President Bush and Vice President Cheney have made it clear that the good people who carry out these sensitive programs have done so with the go-ahead from the White House.

To the left, of course, that is just more reason why they ought to be charged with war crimes and the whole antiterror apparatus scrapped. For his part, Mr. Obama gives mixed signals. On the one hand, he told Mr. Stephanopoulos on Sunday that closing Guantanamo "is more difficult than I think a lot of people realize."

Let's Spend on Broadband and the Power Grid
– Samuel J. PalmisanoOn the other hand, he also refused to rule out prosecutions -- the surest way to send a chill through our intelligence community. He appoints as director of the Central Intelligence Agency a man with zero experience in the area. And he names as his legal adviser on these sensitive issues a woman who seems to have her mind all made up, judging from the title of an article she published in the Boston University Law Review in April: "What's a President to Do? Interpreting the Constitution in the Wake of Bush Administration Abuses."

Soon Mr. Obama will be making the tough calls himself. As he does, he is likely to find that hasty decisions taken in the abstract by other members of his team may in the end serve only to inhibit his ability to act.

That doesn't mean he cannot, or should not, change things. But Mr. Obama would do well to consider the vice president's suggestion that he take the time to "find out exactly what it is we're doing, and why we're doing it, whether or not it's worked, before they start making decisions based on campaign rhetoric to scrap certain things or drop certain approaches, or to agree to limitations on their authority."

Some on the Obama team may see the vice president's remark as a warning shot from a political opponent. Mr. Obama, by contrast, was wise enough to recognize it as "pretty good advice." If he's as smart as we're told he is, he will take it.

6) Israel's Reponse Is Disproportionate
By Jonathan Mark

I condemn Israel's disproportionate attack on Hamas because, so far, it has only lasted four days and I would like to see a proportionate response that terrifies Hamas for seven years, the years that have filled Sderot and neighboring towns with nightmares, death, amputations and trauma coming from rockets and mortars fired from Gaza.

Perhaps a proportionate response would have Gaza 's leaders fearful of being killed every day for the next two years, as Gilad Shalit has been terrified of torture and death every day for the last two years in his solitary Gaza dungeon.

A proportionate response would have Hamas mothers and fathers as fearful=20 for their children's lives as Shalit's mother and
father have been fearful for Gilad's life.

A proportionate response would have Gaza 's children crying for their mommies and daddies, the way at a Hamas pageant earlier in December a Palestinian actor dressed as Shalit got down on his knees, mock-begging in Hebrew for his Ima and Abba while the Gaza crowds laughed.

A proportionate response would to intimidate Hamas that they will grovel and, as a "gesture," send cocoa and jam into Sderot, the way Israel has groveled in response to rockets from Hamas, sending cocoa and jam into Gaza . Imagine Churchill
sending cocoa and jam into Berlin as a humanitarian gesture after - during - the bombing of London .

A proportionate response would be one that will convince Hamas there is no military solution, no solution but surrender.

They can then call surrender a "peace process," if they like, just as the mostly unanswered attacks on Jews have convinced some Jews that there is no military solution but surrender to any and all demands. They suggest euthanasia by the
euphemism of "peace process," that Israel become what some are already planning to call "Canaan," a non-Jewish state
of all its citizens.

A proportionate response will convince Palestinians that if they insist that the starting point to peace are negotiations that no Jew be allowed to live on the West Bank, the proportionate response will be that Israel 's starting point in negotiations is that no Arab be allowed to live in Tel Aviv. Horrible to contemplate? Fine, let there be a proportionate negotiation.

A proportionate response to Hamas, one might gather from the European scolds, would be as if the United States, after Pearl Harbor, would bomb just a few Japanese fishing boats and call it a day, believing the war would have ended with that.

A proportionate response will begin to remind Jews that there is no peace process like victory, just as Israel 's decade of disproportionate restraint and self-doubt has convinced young Palestinians that their victory is inevitable, like Aryan youth
believed in 1933: singing "Tomorrow Belongs To Me."

Let it be said to Israelis and Jews everywhere, in the words of Churchill:
"You have enemies? Good= It means you've stood up for something." But remember: A war (and Hamas has repeatedly said this is war) is never won if you are disproportionately kind to someone ;who wants to destroy you and, failing in that, demands with indignation that you not destroy him.

When meeting that enemy, be proportionate.