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Syria's Assad tries to take the focus off his own murderous acts so he is having loyalists probe Israel's Golan Border. (See 2 and 2a below.)
Meanwhile, Study reveals U.S. mosques are becoming subtle armories. (See 2b below.)
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Several months ago I reported elite Israelis forces attacked an Iranian nuclear storage site and destroyed military equipment along with killing Iranian forces guarding same. Information has now been revealed explaining how this came to be. At the time virtually nothing was reported by our own media and I doubt much will be revealed now. (See 4 below.)
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Polls are often used to buttress a preconceived objective. Is this the case now? (See 5 below.)
One of my own predictions is that Obama is not going to get the same high percentage of the black and Jewish vote he captured when he first ran because of disappointment over his record of achievements, etc. This vote is concentrated in key urban centers and swing states.
In the last election Obama's vote total was not significantly higher than McCain's but Obama's electoral vote was overwhelming. Also Obama , try as he might, is not running against GW. Karl Rove has pointed out only a few percentage changes can have significant consequences.
This is why I believe Obama is very beatable and even more so should his economic and foreign policies continue to prove duds as they have. (See 6 below.)
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Finally, a letter sent to me by a tennis buddy and fellow memo reader. It was sent to him by his own friend and speaks to what I have been saying but far more eloquently. My friend attached this to the e mail: "Rec'd this from one of my Jewish friends who has been a big Obama supporter. Note particularly the quote from the Rabbi in the 5th paragraph." (See 7 below.)
Followed by a physician friend and fellow memo reader's perspective on Jewish liberals, Israel and abortion. (See 7a below.)
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Dick
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1) FOR THOSE OF US WHO REMEMBER
Hollywood Squares:
These questions and answers are from the days when ' Hollywood Squares' game show responses were spontaneous, not scripted or 'teleprompted,' as they are now. Peter Marshall was the host asking the questions.
Q. Do female frogs croak?
A. Paul Lynde: If you hold their little heads under water long enough.
Q. If you're going to make a parachute jump, at least how high should you be
A. Charley Weaver: Three days of steady drinking should do it.
Q. True or False, a pea can last as long as 5,000 years...
A. George Gobel: Boy, it sure seems that way sometimes.
Q. You've been having trouble going to sleep. Are you probably a man or a woman?
A.. Don Knotts: That's what's been keeping me awake.
Q. According to Cosmopolitan, if you meet a stranger at a party and you think that he is attractive, is it okay to come out and ask him if he's married?
A.. Rose Marie: No wait until morning.
Q. Which of your five senses tends to diminish as you get older?
A. Charley Weaver: My sense of decency.
Q. What are 'Do It,' 'I Can Help,' and 'I Can't Get Enough'?
A. George Gobel: I don't know, but it's coming from the next apartment.
Q. As you grow older, do you tend to gesture more or less with your hands while talking?
A. Rose Marie: You ask me one more growing old question, Peter, and I'll give you a gesture you'll never forget.
Q. Paul, why do Hell's Angels wear leather?
A. Paul Lynde: Because chiffon wrinkles too easily.
Q.. Charley, you've just decided to grow strawberries. Are you going to get any during the first year?
A.. Charley Weaver: Of course not, I'm too busy growing strawberries.
Q. In bowling, what's a perfect score?
A. Rose Marie: Ralph, the pin boy.
Q. During a tornado, are you safer in the bedroom or in the closet?
A. Rose Marie: Unfortunately Peter, I'm always safe in the bedroom.
Q. Can boys join the Camp Fire Girls?
A.. Marty Allen: Only after lights out.
Q. When you pat a dog on its head he will wag his tail. What will a goose do?
A. Paul Lynde: Make him bark?
Q. According to Ann Landers, is there anything wrong with getting into the habit of kissing a lot of people?
A. Charley Weaver: It got me out of the army.
Q. Back in the old days, when Great Grandpa put horseradish on his head, what was he trying to do?
A. George Gobel: Get it in his mouth.
Q. When a couple have a baby, who is responsible for its sex?
A.. Charley Weaver: I'll lend him the car, the rest is up to him
Q. Jackie Gleason recently revealed that he firmly believes in them and has actually seen them on at least two occasions. What are they?
A. Charley Weaver: His feet.
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2)Israeli troop fire at Syrians mobbing The Golan Border
Israeli troops opened fire on scores of Syrian civilians attempting to breach the border at Majd al Shams and Kuneitra. They kept on approaching the border, throwing rocks, after the soldiers tried to stop them with tear gas, firing in the air, shooting at legs, and loudspeaker warnings in Arabic that they advance on pain of death.
Syrian TV reported four killed and 30 injured as attempts were made to break down the fence in other parts of the Golan border in search of patches not guarded by Israeli patrols. Bottle bombs were lobbed from the Syrian side. The soldiers are using sniper fire against pinpointed targets of individuals trying to damage the fence, ie two armed men sighted near the Kuneitra border.
Reinforced contingents were ordered to act firmly but with restraint to prevent the mass breaches of Israel's Syrian, Lebanese, Gaza Strip and West Bank borders of March 15.
The Israel-Syrian fence was repaired and fortified, ditches dug and signs of minefields put up. The IDF declared the Golan a closed military sector.
The Netanyahu government relayed messages to neighboring Arab leaders that Israel would not tolerate any more assaults on its borders.
This latest round of attempted Palestinian incursions was called for June 5 to mark the 44th anniversary of the Arabs armies' defeat by Israel in the Six-Day War.
Syrian TV is goading the demonstrators to sustain their assaults on the Israeli border fence after sending a special crew to cover the event – unlike the Assad regime's brutal crackdown of dissent against his own regime which is closed to domestic and foreign media.
Police used stun grenades and tear gas to push hundreds of stone-throwing Palestinian rioters back from the Kalandia crossing to Jerusalem from the West Bank side. The Palestinians report 30 injured. In Lebanon, the army and UNIFIL combined forces to prevent disturbances near the Israeli border.
2a)Making Sense of the Syrian Uprising
By Khaled Nasir
The Syrian uprising began as soon as Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak was forced to resign. Bashar al-Assad, president of Syria, came to power in 2000, with the transition from father to son marking Syria as the first Arab republican hereditary regime. It was an especially unpropitious time -- not only was Bashar confronted with an international environment that his father could not have prepared him for, but the domestic patronage system, on which his power and the country's stability partly depended, was in danger of breaking down.
Syrian stronghold: the rise of Alawites
Syria's demographics are complex, making it a difficult country to rule based on ethnicity. It is believed that three-fourths of the country's roughly 22 million people are Sunnis, including most of the Kurdish minority in the northeast. Given the volatility that generally accompanies sectarianism, Syrian leaders deliberately avoid conducting censuses on religious demographics. For example, the Alawite minority has grown significantly and has secured a power base through patron-client interaction deep within Syrian society. Most experts put the number of Alawites in Syria at around 1.5 million, or close to 7 percent of the population. When combined with Shia and Ismailis, non-Sunni Muslims average around 13 percent. Christians of several variations, including Orthodox and Maronite, make up around 10 percent of the population. The mostly mountain-dwelling Druze make up around 3 percent, according to many geopolitical analysts.
Historically, Alawites have been divided into rival tribes and clans geographically split between mountain refuges and plains in rural Syria. This explains the relationships among the cities that rebelled against the regime. The province of Latakia, which provides critical access to the Mediterranean coast, is also the Alawite homeland, ensuring that any Alawite bid for autonomy will be met with stiff Sunni resistance. In modern-day Syria, the Alawites used to represent the impoverished lot in the countryside, while the urban-dwelling Sunnis dominated the country's businesses and political posts. Unable to claim a firm standing among Muslims, Alawites would often embrace the Shiite concept of taqqiya (concealing or assimilating one's faith to avoid persecution) in dealing with their Sunni counterparts.
Assad and majority of his Ba'ath party members are from the Alawite tribe. They completely dominate power centers in the country, including army, police, and state-supported militias in the border areas. Under the Assad regime, Alawites have received preferential treatment in government services, economic opportunities, and armed forces recruitments, marginalizing the traditional Sunni clans. Since the Ba'ath Party took power in the country, Alawite officers have multiplied in number, gaining control over the army (especially intelligence, air squadrons, missiles, and armored brigades). This army control has helped perpetuate the Assad family rule over the Sunni-majority population. Further, armed Alawite villagers have grouped into loyalist militias that threaten and attack opposition demonstrations against the ruler.
Threats from within
The al-Assad regime has also experienced serious threats from within the family. After Hafez al-Assad suffered from heart problems in 1983, his younger brother Rifaat, who drew a significant amount of support from the military, attempted a coup against the Syrian leader. None other than the al Assad matriarch, Naissa, mediated between her rival sons and reached a solution by which Rifaat was sent abroad to Paris, where he remains in exile, and Hafez was able to re-secure the loyalty of his troops. The 1994 death of Basil al-Assad, brother of current president Bashar and then-heir apparent to a dying Hafez, also posed a significant threat to the unity of the al-Assad clan. However, the regime was able to rely on key Sunni stalwarts such as Tlass to rally support within the military for Bashar, who was studying to become an ophthalmologist and had little experience with, or desire to enter, politics.
Role of support base: when loyalty counts
The Syrian regime met the protests have erupting throughout Syria, fighting fire with fire. Indeed, over the past few weeks, the regime has proven its strength by recruiting hundreds of thousands of counter-protesters to show support for Bashar and his regime. However, unlike in Egypt, the Syrian regime continues to enjoy the unconditional support of the army and security forces. These, unlike the Egyptian and Tunisian militaries, have not hesitated to disperse the demonstrations with brute and even lethal force. Indeed, most of the leaders of the Syrian army are members of the al-Assad's family, tribe, or ethnic group, which is unlike Egypt, where the defense minister took the reins of government from Mubarak. In Syria, the army has a vested interest in al-Assad's continued rule: the protesters want the heads of the top brass, so if Bashar al-Assad falls, they fall, too.
The security service, thought to number at least 65,000 full-timers, has been responsible for most of the violence. Set up by Hafez al-Assad soon after his coup in 1970, its fifteen-odd branches fall under four main intelligence headings: general, political, military, and air force. Only remotely linked to any civilian institution, they are above the law and sign off on virtually all big decisions. Their heads report directly to the president. They also spy on each other as a counterintelligence measure. On occasions during the current crackdown, their members have arrested or shot people from rival branches.
Unrest fueling uprising
As in other Arab countries, the labor force has been growing by leaps and bounds, a consequence of the expanding numbers of people in the 15-24 age group. At the same time, there have been four consecutive drought years since 2006, with 2007-2008 being devastating. This has affected food security and has pushed 2-3 million people into extreme poverty; it is estimated that 800,000 people had their livelihoods ruined by drought, mainly in the northeast of the country, but also in Der'aa province (population 300,000). Small-scale farmers have been the worst affected; many have not been able to grow enough food or earn enough money to feed their families. As a result, tens of thousands have left the Northeast and now inhabit informal settlements or camps close to Damascus. This center-periphery relationship has fueled the revolution for more change through political reforms. Additionally, Syrian industry is hampered by a lack of investment, technology, and management expertise, and restricted by a choking bureaucracy and widespread corruption. These factors, together with uneasy relations with neighboring countries, have also discouraged investors. Recently there has been an increase in investments from other nations in the Arab world -- however, these investments have mainly been in real estate.
The U.S. has not yet recognized the opposition demonstrating in the streets, as a clear united political entity has yet to coalesce. As in many other Arab states, the absence of a leader in the Syrian uprising makes it difficult for the U.S. to decide on a policy route. In the meantime, casualties continue to rise.
Many geopolitical experts feel that Syria (along with Lebanon) has become the test bed of the Iranian regime vis-à-vis influencing policy, as a large proportion of the Arab world's Shiite population resides in these two countries. Syria's border with Israel is also a major factor that might determine the chances for peace between the two nations. It will be interesting to see how the al-Assad regime hangs on to power while supporting Hezb'allah in Lebanon and ignoring the Syrian public craving for freedom throughout the bloody uprising.
2b)Mosques as Barracks in America
By Andrew G. Bostom
Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan represents the triumphant Janus-faced approach to the fundamentalist global "Islamic revival." He and his pious forbears have now completed dismantling Turkey's secular experiment, and achieved the full-throated re-Islamization of Turkish society, an insidious process begun already within the decade after Ataturk's death, in 1938. When currying favor with gullible Western audiences, Erdogan burbles disingenuous ecumenical platitudes about the "Alliance of Civilizations." But in reality, this is an Islamization campaign promoted by the Organization of the Islamic Conference, notably Saudi Arabia, which rewarded Erdogan, for his role in the Alliance, specifically, as "services to Islam," with the "King Faisal International Prize," considered the "Nobel prize" of the Arab world. Regardless, Erdogan has always aroused his Muslim constituencies by brazenly appealing to their deep-seated jihadist sentiments as he did while mayor of Istanbul, in 1997, delivering a fiery speech that reminded the masses of these words from the poem "The Soldier's Prayer," written (in 1912) by Turkish nationalist poet Ziya Gokalp:
The minarets are our bayonets, the domes our helmets, the mosques our barracks and the faithful our army.
Cited appropriately by successful opponents of minaret construction in Switzerland, such rhetoric should now resonate uncomfortably in America with the online release Monday June 6, 2011 of alarming survey data from a representative national sample of US mosques.
During August 2007, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) released "Radicalization in the West - The Homegrown Threat." This insightful 90-page report evaluated the threat that had become apparent since 9/11/2001, analyzing the roots of recent terror plots in the United States, from Lackawanna in upstate New York to Portland, Ore., to Fort Dix, NJ. Based upon these case-study analyses of individuals arrested for jihadist activity, the authors concluded that the "journey" of radicalization that produces homegrown jihadists began in so-called "Salafist" ("fundamentalist" to non-Muslims) mosques characterized by high levels of Sharia-Islamic Law-adherence. The landmark study just published, "Sharia and Violence in American Mosques" (Kedar M, Yerushalmi D. The Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2011, Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 59-72) sought to expand considerably upon the NYPD's post-hoc, case study approach-systematically gathering objective survey data, with much greater methodological rigor-and address these two a priori questions: I) Is there a robust association between observable measures of religious devotion, coupled to Sharia-adherence in US mosques, and the presence of violence-sanctioning materials at these mosques?; and II) Is there a robust association between the presence of violence-sanctioning materials at a mosque, and the advocacy of jihadism by the mosque's leadership via recommending the study of these materials, or other manifest behaviors?
Full details of the sampling methodology, extracts of representative jihad promoting materials (texts), and specific Sharia-compliant behaviors recorded, are provided in the accompanying appendices, reproduced from the full study (which will be available here 6/6/11). In brief, survey data were collected from a nationally representative, random statistical sample of 100 US mosques, covering 14 states, and the District of Columbia. This concise overview of the basic data collection procedures-including a self-critical, honest caveat by the authors about "completeness" of the available information on US mosque locations-is reproduced verbatim from the report (p. 68):
A surveyor visited a subject mosque in order: (a) to observe and record 12 Sharia-adherent behaviors of the worshipers and the imam (or lay leader); (b) to observe whether the mosque contained the selected materials rated as moderate and severe; (c) to observe whether the mosque contained materials promoting, praising, or supporting violence or violent jihad; and (d) to observe whether the mosque contained materials indicating the mosque had invited guest speakers known to have promoted violent jihad. Thus, the survey only examined the presence of Sharia-adherent behaviors, the presence of violence positive materials in mosques, whether an imam would promote the study of violence-positive materials, and whether a mosque was used as a forum to promote violent jihad. Since there is no central body to which all mosques belong, it was difficult to ascertain that the sampling universe list was complete. This may have introduced bias into the sampling although the authors find no evidence of any systemic distortions.
The study's results provide clear-and ominous-affirmative answers to the a priori questions posed. Sharia-adherence was strongly associated with the presence of jihad-violence sanctioning materials, and the presence of jihad-violence sanctioning materials was in turn robustly associated advocacy of jihadism by mosque imams-religious leaders. This key summary finding was highlighted by the authors:
...51 percent of mosques had texts that either advocated the use of violence in the pursuit of a Shari'a-based political order or advocated violent jihad as a duty that should be of paramount importance to a Muslim; 30 percent had only texts that were moderately supportive of violence like the Tafsir Ibn Kathir and Fiqh as-Sunna; 19 percent had no violent texts at all.
Thus 81% of this statistical sample representative of US mosques were deemed as moderately (30%) to highly (51%) supportive of promulgating jihad violence to impose Shari'a.
Additional profoundly troubling findings emerge when the data are explored in depth beyond these summary observations. For example, only 4.7% of Muslim worshippers attended mosques where jihadist materials were not provided because Sharia-compliant mosques promoting jihad were the most heavily attended. The authors also describe these specific details indicating that the preponderance of US mosques sanction jihad terrorism and its ultimate goal of a Caliphate (i.e., the transnational imposition of strict Islamic law in current Muslim nations, and ultimately global imposition of Islamic Law, including in the US), if one includes advocacy of financial support for this sacralized violence (from pp. 67-69).
The survey found a strong correlation between the presence of severe violence-promoting literature and mosques featuring written, audio, and video materials that actually promoted such acts. By promotion of jihad, the study included literature encouraging worshipers to engage in terrorist activity, to provide financial support to jihadists, and to promote the establishment of a caliphate in the United States. These materials also explicitly praised acts of terror against the West; praised symbols or role models of violent jihad; promoted the use of force, terror, war, and violence to implement the
Sharia; emphasized the inferiority of non-Muslim life; promoted hatred and intolerance toward non-Muslims or notional Muslims; and endorsed inflammatory materials with anti-U.S. views... [O]f the 51 mosques that contained severe materials, 100 percent were led by imams who recommended that worshipers study texts that promote violence.
[M]osques containing violence positive materials were substantially more likely to include materials promoting financial support of terror than mosques that did not contain such texts. A disturbing 98 percent of mosques with severe texts included materials promoting financial support of terror. Those with only moderate rated materials on site were not markedly different, with 97 percent providing such materials.
These results were comparable when using other indicators of jihad promotion. Thus, 98 percent of mosques that contained severe-rated literature included materials promoting establishing an Islamic caliphate in the United States as did 97 percent of mosques containing only moderate rated materials.
These are the hard data that make plain why the "see no Sharia in America" mindslaughter redolent across the political spectrum amongst our policymaking, academic, and journalistic elites, is so dangerously delusive.
Indeed such disturbing survey results from a nationally representative sample of US mosques demonstrate Islam's doctrinal and behavioral consistency across nearly 14 centuries, past as prologue to the present. Over 17,000 jihad terror attacks have been committed by Muslims worldwide since the cataclysmic acts of jihad terrorism committed against the United States itself on September 11, 2001. These data should remind us that there is just one historically relevant meaning of jihad despite contemporary apologetics. Jahada, the root of the word jihad, appears 40 times in the Koran. With 4 exceptions, all the other 36 usages in the Koran as understood by both the greatest jurists and scholars of classical Islam (including Abu Yusuf, Averroes, Ibn Khaldun, and Al Ghazali), and ordinary Muslims-meant and mean, "he fought, warred or waged war against unbelievers and the like."
The Muslim prophet Muhammad waged a series of proto-jihad campaigns to subdue the Jews, Christians and pagans of Arabia. Numerous modern day pronouncements by leading Muslim theologians (see Yusuf Al-Qaradawi's "The Prophet Muhammad as a Jihad Model," 2001) confirm that Muhammad remains the major inspiration for jihadism today. Jihad has been pursued continuously since the 7th century advent of Islam, through the present, because it was institutionalized by seminal early Muslim theologians based on their interpretation of Koranic verses, and long chapters in the "hadith," or acts and sayings of Muhammad. Within a century of Muhammad's death, violent jihad conquests-achieved by religiously sanctioned massacre, pillage, enslavement, and deportation-Islamized a vast swath of territory, extending from modern Pakistan to Portugal. The permanent goal of jihad is to bring humanity, en bloc, under the jurisdiction of Sharia-a totalitarian system of religious governance, particularly oppressive to all non-Muslims, and women.
American Presidents John Quincy Adams and Theodore Roosevelt each possessed a remarkably clear, uncompromised understanding of the permanent Islamic institution of jihad war-both its doctrinal basis, and history. Regarding jihad, Adams states in an 1829-30 essay series,
...he [Muhammad] declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind...The precept of the Koran is, perpetual war against all who deny, that Mahomet is the prophet of God.
Roosevelt offered this historical perspective in 1916 on the consequences for Western civilization of succeeding, or failing to repel jihad conquerors:
The civilization of Europe, America, and Australia exists today at all only because of the victories of civilized man over the enemies of civilization...[including] those of Charles Martel in the 8th century [over Arab jihadists] and those of John Sobieski in the 17th century [over Ottoman Turkish jihadists]. During the thousand years that included the careers of the Frankish soldier [Martel] and the Polish king [Sobieski], the Christians of Asia and Africa proved unable to wage successful war with the Moslem conquerors; and in consequence Christianity practically vanished from the two continents; and today nobody can find in them any 'social values' whatever, in the sense in which we use the words, so far as the sphere of Mohammedan influence [is]...concerned."
Also writing in 1916, C. Snouck Hurgronje, the great Dutch Orientalist, underscored how the jihad doctrine of world conquest, and the re-creation of a supranational Islamic Caliphate remained a potent force among the Muslim masses:
...it would be a gross mistake to imagine that the idea of universal conquest may be considered as obliterated...the canonists and the vulgar still live in the illusion of the days of Islam's greatness. The legists continue to ground their appreciation of every actual political condition on the law of the holy war, which war ought never be allowed to cease entirely until all mankind is reduced to the authority of Islam-the heathen by conversion, the adherents of acknowledged Scripture [i.e., Jews and Christians] by submission.
Hurgronje further noted that although the Muslim rank and file might acknowledge the improbability of that goal "at present" (circa 1916), they were,
...comforted and encouraged by the recollection of the lengthy period of humiliation that the Prophet himself had to suffer before Allah bestowed victory upon his arms...
Thus even at the nadir of Islam's political power, during the World War I era final disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, Hurgronje observed how
...the common people are willingly taught by the canonists and feed their hope of better days upon the innumerable legends of the olden time and the equally innumerable apocalyptic prophecies about the future. The political blows that fall upon Islam make less impression...than the senseless stories about the power of the Sultan of Stambul [Istanbul], that would instantly be revealed if he were not surrounded by treacherous servants, and the fantastic tidings of the miracles that Allah works in the Holy Cities of Arabia which are inaccessible to the unfaithful. The conception of the Khalifate [Caliphate] still exercises a fascinating influence, regarded in the light of a central point of union against the unfaithful (i.e., non-Muslims).
Nearly a century later, the preponderance of contemporary mainstream Muslims from Morocco to Indonesia, apparently share with their murderous, jihad terror waging co-religionists from al-Qaeda the goal (if not necessarily supporting the gruesome means) of re-establishing an Islamic Caliphate. Polling data released April 24, 2007 in a rigorously conducted face-to-face University of Maryland/ WorldPublicOpinion.org interview survey of 4384 Muslims conducted between December 9, 2006 and February 15, 2007-1000 Moroccans, 1000 Egyptians, 1243 Pakistanis, and 1141 Indonesians-reveal that 65.2% of those interviewed - almost 2/3, hardly a "fringe minority" - desired this outcome (i.e., "To unify all Islamic countries into a single Islamic state or Caliphate"), including 49% of "moderate" Indonesian Muslims. The internal validity of these data about the present longing for a Caliphate is strongly suggested by a concordant result: 65.5% of this Muslim sample approved the proposition "To require a strict [emphasis added] application of Sharia law in every Islamic country."
Such Caliphate dreams -- to be achieved through jihad conquests -- have always been nurtured in mosques. The authoritative Brill Encyclopedia of Islam entry on "masdjid," or mosque, highlights the mosque's primary socio-political functions -- including holding war councils -- since the advent of the first Muslim polity under Islam's prophet-warrior and ruler, Muhammad, in Medina:
The mosque was the place where believers assembled for prayer around the Prophet, where he delivered his addresses, which contained not only appeals for obedience to God but regulations affecting the social life of the community; from here he controlled the religious and political community of Islam...From the Medina mosque was developed the general type of mosque.
It was inherent in the character of Islam, that religion and politics could not be separated. The same individual was ruler and chief administrator in the two fields, and the same building, the mosque, was the center of gravity for both politics and religion. This relationship found expression in the fact that the mosque was placed in the center of the camp, while the ruler's abode was built immediately adjacent to it, as in Medina.
[W]ar was inseparably associated with early Islam and the mosque was public meeting place of ruler and people...councils of war were held in the mosque.
Richard Mitchell's seminal analysis of the contemporary Muslim Brotherhood-the prototype modern fundamentalist organization-state's simply, that from its advent,
Throughout the history of the [Muslim Brotherhood] movement the mosque continued to be its principal recruiting office.
This doctrinal and historical context explains why the "Sharia and Violence in American Mosques" study results-while immediate, justifiable cause for alarm-are unsurprising, even predictable. Moreover the current findings were augured by a qualitative assessment of US mosques by Sheikh Hisham Kabbani described in 1999, and the localized Detroit area survey of mosques conducted in 2003.
During a 1999 State Department presentation entitled "Islamic Extremism: A Viable Threat to U.S. National Security" Sufi Sheikh Kabbani, who heads The Islamic Supreme Council of America, based upon personal visits to mosques across the US, asserted that 80% were run by "militant," i.e. fundamentalist clerics. "The Detroit Mosque Study: Muslim Views on Policy and Religion," was conducted by Ihsan Bagby an Associate Professor of Islamic Studies at thye University of Kentucky and a fellow at the Institute for Social Policy Understanding-a Muslim organization. Data were gathered during the summer of 2003 and published online in 2004. These portentous findings were described on page 37 of the report:
Mosque participants were asked, whether they agree or disagree with the statement, "Shari'ah should be the law of the land in Muslim countries?"
Apply Islamic Law in Muslim Lands
Strongly Agree - 59%
Somewhat Agree - 22%
(i.e., collectively = 81%)
Somewhat Disagree - 8%
Strongly Disagree - 3%
Don't Know - 8%
Such data supposedly reflected the Detroit area Muslims views of "Islamic countries," only. But given the intrinsic, universally supremacist nature of Islam and the global umma (i.e., as stated in Koran 3:110, and the Orwellian-named Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Islam, "Ye are the best community that hath been raised up for mankind. Ye enjoin right conduct and forbid indecency; and ye believe in Allah"), once an area has a Muslim majority it is assumed by Muslims that Islamic Law should prevail-hence the "enclave" phenomenon, even here in the United States.
Publication of the "Sharia and Violence in American Mosques" study provides irrefragable evidence that the overwhelming majority of American mosques -- consistent with mainstream Islamic doctrine and practice since the founding of the Muslim creed -- are inculcating jihadism with the goal of implementing Sharia here in America.
Finally, Whittaker Chambers' autobiographical opus "Witness," which chronicles his apostasy from Communism, offers these searing insights that elucidate how American Muslims could rationalize such seditious behaviors -- consistent with Islamic doctrine -- and why this phenomenon remains largely incomprehensible to American non-Muslims, despite its existential threat to them.
What went on in the minds of those Americans...that made it possible to betray their country? Did none of them suffer a crisis of conscience? The question presupposes that whoever asks it has still failed to grasp that Communists mean exactly what they have been saying for a hundred years: they regard any government that is not Communist, including their own, merely as the political machine of a class whose power they have organized expressly to overthrow by all means, including violence. Therefore the problem of espionage never presents itself to them as problem of conscience, but a problem of operations...
The failure to understand that fact is part of the total failure of the West to grasp the nature of its enemy, what he wants, what he means to do and how he will go about doing it. It is part of the failure of the West to understand that it is at grips with an enemy having no moral viewpoint in common with itself, that two irreconcilable viewpoints and standards of judgment, two irreconcilable moralities, proceeding from two irreconcilable readings of man's fate and future are involved, and hence their conflict is irrepressible.
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4)'Ofer ships transferred arms to Israeli forces in Iran'
Britain's Sunday Times reports that Ofer's ships were used by commando teams in reconnaissance missions against Iran’s secret nuclear sites, allowing Israelis to reach Iran clandestinely
Following the publication of a post on Richard Silverstein's blog claiming that cargo vessels owned by the Ofer Brothers were used to ferry Mossad agents to Iran, military experts told Britain's Sunday Times that it is possible that the ships also carried Blackhawk helicopters which were hidden in modified containers.
According to the British paper, the cargo ships that docked in Iran were used by commando teams in reconnaissance missions against Iran’s secret nuclear sites, allowing the Israelis to reach Iran without arousing suspicion.
Firm Stand
'Israel's policy on Iran is very clear – any and all contact with it is forbidden,' Netanyahu tells Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee following Tanker Pacific scandal
Sammy Ofer, 89, who passed away over the weekend, will be laid to rest at the Trumpeldor cemetery in Tel Aviv on Sunday.
Ofer's death came just days after the United States accused his company of breaching sanctions by selling an oil tanker to Iran and aiding in financing Iran's nuclear program.
A US state department press release stated that the Ofer Group, along with two other shipping companies from Monaco and Singapore were in September 2010 involved in a deal through which they supplied shipping services worth $9 million to Iranian shipping company IRISL.
Last week, Clacalist revealed that between 2004 and 2010 at least four oil tankers owned by the Ofer Group's Tanker Pacific Company docked in Iranian ports.
A Clacalist report also revealed that seven of Tanker Pacific's ships docked in Iranian ports at least eight times at a time when Israel was lobbying fiercely for the US to impose sanctions on trade with Iran.
This at a time when the US said that it would implement severe sanctions against any company that would be found to be in some way involved in trade with Iran, including transport in any way connected with the country's oil industry.
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5)Obama’s Ratings
Obama’s approval ratings may have bounced back, but most people still say the country is on the wrong track, which could hurt his 2012 chances.
By Ronald Brownstein
Like the economy, President Obama continues to inch toward recovery in the latest Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor survey. But the poll also underscores the political risks he still faces.
In the survey, Obama’s job-approval rating reached 51 percent, with just 41 percent disapproval. That was the first time he has crossed the critical 50 percent threshold in a Heartland Monitor poll since September 2009. It was also the smallest disapproval rating he has recorded since then.
Looking below those numbers, the poll reflects an array of positive, if moderate, trends in the president’s favor. His job-approval rating amongindependents reached 54 percent, the first time it has exceeded 50 percent in the Heartland Monitor since July 2009. His approval rating among whites rose to 43 percent, the first time it has topped 40 percent since September 2009.
That gain was relatively broad-based, with approval of Obama rising slightly among both college-educated whites and those without college educations. He registered his biggest improvement among one of the few groups in the white electorate that he carried in 2008: white women who hold at least a four-year degree. His approval rating with them spiked to 56 percent, his best showing in two years. Also good news for Obama was his 65 percent approval rating among Hispanics, which approximates the level of their vote for him in 2008; other national polls have shown him with lower ratings among that group.
Obama also continued to close the intensity gap. At his low point in the Heartland Monitor last August, the share of Americans who strongly disapproved of his performance (39 percent) was about one-and-a-half times larger than the share that strongly approved (25 percent.) Now, he has climbed back to nearly even, with 27 percent strongly approving and 28 percent strongly disapproving. (Among whites, those indicating strong disapproval still outnumber their strong-approval counterparts by almost 2-to-1.)
Most political scientists agree that a president’s approval rating is the best barometer of his reelection chances, but Obama also enjoyed some improvement on a directly related question. Forty-two percent of those polled said they would definitely or probably vote to reelect him, while 47 percent said they would definitely or probably vote for someone else. At Obama’s low point last August, only 39 percent said they intended to vote for him, while 52 percent were inclined to support someone else.One other result suggested a slight lift for Obama. Although just 9 percent of those polled expected the economy to significantly improve over the next year, another 51 percent said they anticipated that it will revive at least somewhat. At the other end of the spectrum, 20 percent of respondents thought it would be somewhat worse and 12 percent thought it would significantly decline. All of those numbers are more positive than last August, the last time the Heartland Monitor tested that sentiment.
But other results underscored the headwinds still battering the president. Just 28 percent of adults said they believe that the country is on the right track, while 58 percent said it is on the wrong track—a finding virtually unchanged over the past six months. In the new poll, whites were three times more likely to say the country is on the wrong track; even a plurality of Hispanics said they think the country is moving in the wrong direction. Responses to this question have also proven a powerful predictor of voting preferences in presidential elections.
Assessments of Obama’s agenda did not show the same improvement as the grades on his performance—which suggests the latter measure was heavily influenced by the successful raid in Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden. Indeed, in the survey, the percentage of adults who said Obama’s agenda would increase opportunity for people like them dropped to 29 percent. That change is still within the margin of error of the March survey’s 31 percent, but it is nonetheless the lowest number the poll has recorded for Obama. Another 32 percent said Obama’s agenda would decrease their opportunities, while 31 percent said it would have no impact.
Racial differences on this question are stark. Two-thirds of African-Americans said that Obama’s agenda will increase their opportunities, while just 4 percent said they think it will diminish their chances. Among Hispanics, the comparable numbers are 41 percent positive and 15 percent negative. With whites, the proportions flip: Just 22 percent believe Obama’s approach will expand their opportunities; but fully 40 percent say it will diminish their chances. Just as often, working-class whites were the most negative.
Respondents were about evenly divided over whether they place more trust in Obama (40 percent) or congressional Republicans (37 percent) to develop economic solutions. In the first Heartland Monitor poll in April 2009, Obama led the GOP by more than 2-to-1.
And Obama retains only a slim advantage on the survey’s broadest question, which asked respondents to assess the overall impact of his policies. Thirty-five percent said the country is significantly worse off because of his policies; just 12 percent say the nation is significantly better off. The remaining 46 percent say that the country is not better off yet but is moving in the right direction because of Obama’s policies.
That equivocal group—whose size has barely budged in any Heartland Monitor survey since April 2010—could hold the key to Obama’s fate. In the latest poll, about three-fourths of them said they approve of Obama’s job performance, but only two-thirds of that group indicated that they now plan to vote for his reelection. That slight falloff might not matter much if events over the next 18 months significantly enlarge either the group that sees unequivocal benefits or damage from Obama’s agenda. But if the country remains as closely divided over the president as it is in this latest survey, he’ll need to squeeze every last vote from those who still see in him a reason for hope—even if they don’t yet believe their faith has been entirely rewarded.
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6) Subject: USA CABINETS
Check this set of statistics!!
The percentage of each past president's cabinet who had worked in the
private business sector prior to their appointment to the cabinet. You
know what the private business sector is. a real- life business, not a
government job . Here are the percentages.
T. Roosevelt..........38%
Taft......................40%
Wilson ..................52%
Harding................49%
Coolidge............... 48%
Hoover.................42%
F. Roosevelt.........50%
Truman................50%
Eisenhower...........57%
Kennedy..............30%
Johnson..............47%
Nixon....................53%
Ford.....................42%
Carter....................32%
Reagan.................56%
GH Bush............. 51%
Clinton ...............39%
GW Bush.............55%
And the winner is:
Obama .............. 8%
This helps to explain the incompetence of this administration: only 8%
of them have ever worked in private business!
That's right! Only eight percent---the least, by far, of the last 19
presidents! And these people are trying to tell our big corporations
how to run their business? They know what's best for GM, Chrysler,
Wall Street, and you and me !!!
How can the president of a major nation and society, the one with the
most successful economic system in world history, stand and talk about
business when he's never worked for one? Or about jobs when he has
never really had one? And when it's the same for 92% of his senior
staff and closest advisers? They've spent most of their time in
academia, government and/or non-profit jobs or as "community
organizers." They should have been in an employment line.
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7)An Open Letter to My Fellow Jews and to All Americans
During my 41-year career as a membr of the Anti-Defamation League's
professional staff and from the day I retired in 1993 to this very moment, I
operated on a simple, fundamental principle, namely, if anywhere in the
world a Jew is persecuted solely becase he or she is a Jew, it automatically
becomes my personal problem because there but for the grace of God go I.
To the best of my knowledge, none of my relatives were victims of the
Holocaust, but I am the beneficiary of decisions made by my grandparents in
the 1890's to flee Eastern Europe and come to the United States.
This issue of SSEZ is directed not so much at President Barack Obama
from whom I never expected anything good, particularly with respect to the
Nation of Israel and the five-and-a-half million Jews who live there, it is
directed primarily at America's Jews, an estimated seventy-eight percent of
whom voted for Obama in 2008. I also firmly believe Obama will get the
lion's share of votes Jews will cast in the 2012 presidential election.
Maybe not 78%, but more than 50%.
This attachment to the Democratic Party traces back to the passionate love America's Jews developed for President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 because of the liberal things he said and did during the Great Depression and his vigorous opposition to Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan. Before 1932, large numbers of Jews voted Socialst and even Republican, the party of Abraham Lincoln, because in New York where more than a million Jews lived, the Democrats were under the control of corrupt Tammany Hall. That changed with Roosevelt's victory in
1932.
Right now there is great turmoil in the American Jewish community and
especially in Israel because of the speech President Obama delivered at the
State Department a few days ago when he made reference to the 1967 borders
as the starting point for land swaps between Israel and the Palestinians.
As Rabbi Shmuley Boteach just wrote, ". . . the president's claims to
naiveté are ridiculous. To his detractors Obama is many things, but he is
no fool He knew full well that to publicly call for a return to the '67
lines was a bomb waiting to detonate. Obama knew the demand to return to
the pre-Six Day War borders spoke directly to the Palestinian narrative." I
agree completely with Rabbi Boteach.
Come back with me to election night, 2008. As the results poured in
from around the nation clearly indicating the Democrats would win the White
House and both Houses of Congress, I spoke with a long time personal friend,
a very important and influential Congressman who was smiling with each new
vote posting. I told him his smiles would turn to tears when Obama shafts
Israel. (I was more blunt than "shafts.") He asked, "what if you are
wrong?" I said I would apologize in writing, but I knew I would not be
wrong.
When Obama did his 1967 shtick, Mort Zuckerman, publisher of U.S. News
& World Report, angrily accused Obama of "betraying Israel." Former
Democratic Congressman and famous New York City former Mayor Ed Koch said
he will not vote for Obama in 2012. Of course, November 2012 is almost
eighteen months away and anything can happen.
If you watched Obama's face and body language when Israel's Prime
Minister Benyamin Netanyahu spoke at the White House when Obama had to
listen to a lecture about the realities in the Middle East, he was obviously
boiling mad as Netanyahu in essence told him he didn't know what he is
talking about. As I watched Obama, it seemed to me that Obama was thinking
about how he could get back at Netanyahu and at Israel for having had to
suffer before the entire nation like a school boy being lectured to by his
teacher.
Several liberal commentators and columnists were outraged and said that
Netanyahu was ungracious and inappropriate for delivering those comments in
a public setting. It must also have been very painful for Obama even though
he was in England to hear about the brilliant, passionate, and informative
speech Netanyahu delivered to a joint meeting of the Congress to genuine
thunderous applause and getting about twenty-five standing ovations from
Democrats and Republicans alike.
And good old Hillary Clinton, our esteemed Secretary of State, looks
like an absolute fool have said a week or so ago that Bashar Assad, the
murdering, brutal dictator of Syra is a "reformer." Yes, she called Assad a
"reformer." How can anyone ever believe them?
When Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid spoke to the American
Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), he was magnificent. I never
thought I would say this about Senator Reid, but he was outstanding in his
understanding of what is at stake in the Middle East between Israel and her
Arab Neighbors, and he said it forcefully and convincingly. Maybe the man
in the White House ought to sit down with his Senate Majority Leader and
have him explain the situation between Israel and the Arabs.
Again and again, we Jews are asked to explain the devotion of so many
Jews to the Democratic Party which has paid and still pays homage to the
likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton who in my opinion are enemies of the
Jewish people and of Israel. Would they be so tolerant of the equivalent of
Jackson and Sharpton in the Republican party? Of course not. Our Liberalism
came to us with our mother's milk. For most American Jews, their synagogue
is the Democratic party; their faith is Liberalism; and their Moses is
Obama.
TO MY FELLOW AMERICANS: Please know that the hatred of Israel in the
Arab world is equaled only by their hatred of you and of America. The Jews
may be their first target, but all of us are on their hit list. The 9/11
attack was an attack on America!
For the record, Israel gave up land for peace. It gave back the Sinai
Peninsula. Now there is the possibility of serious threats from the Sinai.
What did Egypt's President Anwar Sadat get for signing a peace treaty with
Israel? He got back the Sinai Peninsula, a Nobel Prize for Peace, and
deadly bullets from members of his own army.
Israel gave Gaza to the Palestinians. What did it get in return?
Thousands of deadly rockets raining down on its citizens. If President
Abbas of the Palestinian Authority repudiates his alliance with Hamas, he
knows he will suffer Sadat's fate - a hail of bullets.
Israel also gave back territory in Southern Lebanon. What did it get
in return? Thousands of deadly rockets fired by Hezbollah on Israel.
Dear Friends: How long would we sit quietly while thousands of rockets
poured down on us from Mexico and from Canada? Now you know what Israel is
living with.
Remember:
Be Well Because All Else Is Bubkiss,ie does not matter - nothing.
7a) Most observers hold that Obama's position on Israel will not cost him THE JEWISH VOTE next year. The reason this may be true if fairly apparent now: Jewish Americans tend to be liberal to the extent that left wing social issues take precedence over support for a secure Jewish state. The one social issue of supreme importance to liberal thinkers is support of "a woman's right to choose." Although I tend to be fairly neutral on this problem, I know from years of medical practice that most abortions are done for birth control. I am not supportive of abortion for birth control. I think it is wrong for obvious reasons: a real, or potential, human life is terminated because the parents were irresponsible in using, or failing to use, one of many safe and effective birth control methods. These people should be condemned for conceiving a human life in an irresponsible way and doubly condemned for killing a fetus. Therefore, uncritical support for "the right to choose" is ethically unsound, if not simply immoral. I believe this point of view should be promoted for many reasons to include promotion of human life, and indirectly, support for Israel. Innocent Israeli lives count more than protecting the "right to choose" for morons. Liberal Jewish voters must be given a dose of this obvious proposition.
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