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.

GW: Gracious Departure - Decent Man of Stature!

Blowback? (See 1 below.)

IT”S TIME TO CALL THE HAND OF THE UK MEDIA – WHETHER BBC, SKY, GUARDIAN OR WHATEVER, THEIR LIES, INSINUATIONS, MISINFORMATION ETC HAS BEEN AT THE VERY CORE OF ANTI- ISRAEL/SEMITIC RHETORIC. AL JEZEERA OFTEN HAS MORE BALANCED REPORTING THAN THE UK MEDIA. (See 2 below.)

Egypt beginning to actually play hard ball as a consequence of Israeli gains against Hamas. (See 3 below.)

Mosque weapons stockpile found. (See 4 below.)

Like the very cowards the Hamas leaders are. (See 5 below.)

The U.N. and Falk continue to be blinded by Israeli 'attrocities' or maybe they see only what they want to see. (See 6 6a below.)

Is Western Democracy suited for the Middle East? (See 7 below.)

Pipes believes Israeli strategic incompetence perists. (See 8 below.)

President Bush gave his last press conference and in the process , except for the bashers, demonstrated the decency and character of the man. Again, I repeat, his reputation will rise because, though he made mistakes, some bad personnel judgments, he was a far better president than the press, media and his vile detractors portrayed him.

He will now return to Texas and I am positive GW will conduct himself with principle and dignity, something one cannot say about our two former President C's - Carter and Clinton.

GW's comments about and to Obama were beyond gracious.

His detractors spent their lives knocking him down but GW leaves the Oval Office head and shoulders abover all of them. (See 9 below.)

Jeff Barak wriutes that Livni has proven unworthy again because the idf has given the government ample cease fire opportunities which thyey have not taken. Perhaps Barak has fallen into the cease fire trap himself. (See 10 below.)

When the Washington Post calls Pelosi's actions high handedness that is something to behold! (See 1 below.)

Dick

1)No, we are not all Hamas nowDominic Lawson I was startled by the monument that stands at the entrance to Yad Vashem, Jerusalem's memorial to the Holocaust. One side of Nathan Rappaport's diptych is what looks like a caricature of Jews. The hunched, twisted figures, with hooked noses and heavy-lidded eyes, seem devoid of physical energy. The other panel displays a group of heroic young men and women who are heavily muscled, standing tall, weapons at the ready.

It turns out that the first group is meant to depict Jews being marched to their deaths, while the second is the leaders of the Warsaw uprising; the whole monument is constructed of granite imported from Sweden by the Nazis for the construction of what was meant to be one of the Third Reich's victory towers.

The message is in fact close to the view expressed with brutal clarity by Israel's founding father, David Ben-Gurion: "That masses of exiled Jews walked to the death trains . . . silently, stupidly . . . is a decisive, embarrassing and painful statement of the disintegration of spiritual-ethical strength. What is their place among us?" Ben-Gurion envisaged that "new Jews", with the security of their own nation state, would erase what he saw as the shameful memory of a "submissive, lowly camp of strange creatures . . . who know only how to arouse pity". Indeed, so anxious was Ben-Gurion to obliterate such memories that he opposed any memorial to the Holocaust. That was one battle he lost.

A Briton entering Yad Vashem might do so in the hope that he would see a compliment to his own nation's fight against the Nazis. He would be disappointed. Instead, there is footage of a long dead emissary to London recording how Britain's wartime foreign secretary, Anthony Eden, told him the plight of the Jews was not an important consideration in the war effort. Later, he would see pictures of British soldiers dragging Jewish immigrants from ships on the shores of Tel Aviv and of Holocaust survivors behind the wire of British camps in Cyprus, prevented from reaching the promised land. The message here is equally clear. No one will protect the Jews except themselves.

That remains the position. After all, there was no great perturbation within the UN building in New York during the month upon month that Hamas rained rockets on southern Israel, still less any international pressure on the government of Gaza to desist. Ten months ago I was in Sderot, 30 seconds' rocket flying time from Gaza, talking to an Israeli nurse whose home had been hit by one of thousands of Qassam missiles which Hamas had fired without fear of reprisal. She still had shrapnel lodged, irremovably, near her brain.

The nurse said she constantly tells her four-year-old son, who was also injured, that "there are so many good people in Gaza who are not trying to kill us". Her anger was principally against her own government: "The day Israel withdrew from Gaza, I knew it was a terrible idea, I knew we would be a target. And I know my Arab friends will suffer when the IDF [Israel Defence Force] goes back into Gaza." Now, they are indeed suffering terribly, as the images on our television screens show all too graphically - and yet infinitely less than the pictures that are too horrific to be shown and are left to our imagination. This is what war means.

All the same, even the majority of those Israelis who passionately believe that the Palestinians should have their own state, and that the West Bank should be handed over to them, are convinced there was no choice for their government but to act as it has over the past fortnight. These Israelis were bitterly opposed to the military campaigns against Lebanon, but see this campaign as much closer to the spirit of the six-day war and the Yom Kippur war. "Ein brera", they tell me, which is Hebrew for "no choice".

It was no longer just Sderot which was taking hits from the Qassams, and where parents would not let their children play outdoors. The Iranian-supplied Hamas ordnance was becoming ever wider in its range. Ashkelon (which incidentally supplies all of Gaza's electricity) and even the city of Beer-sheba are now reachable targets, and more than 800,000 Israelis the potential victims.

It is undeniable that the consequences for the people of Gaza have been far worse, in numbers of innocent dead and in sheer intensity, than anything the people of Israel have suffered. The word "disproportionate" is inevitably used to describe the Israeli response, with the equally inevitable failure to acknowledge that Hamas targets civilians on purpose and with open expressions of bloodthirsty delight when it succeeds.

Those who claim the IDF also deliberately targets civilians don't have to believe the official spokesman's denials: they could speak to someone such as Colonel Richard Kemp, who commanded British Army campaigns in Afghanistan and Northern Ireland, and was most recently senior military adviser to the Cabinet Office. Kemp told me that "Hamas deploys suicide attackers including women and children, and rigs up schools and houses with booby-trap explosives. Its leaders knew as a matter of certainty this would lead to civilian casualties if there was a ground battle. Virtually every aspect of its operations is illegal under international humanitarian law - 'war crimes' in the emotive language usually reserved for the Israelis".

Colonel Kemp points out that if the IDF had no regard for civilian lives it would never have leafleted and telephoned residents in Gaza, warning them when it was about to attack their area: after all, that also gives Hamas notice - hardly the act of an army devoted to military victory at all costs. Similarly, the IDF's unilateral commitment to a daily three-hour ceasefire to permit the evacuation (to Israel) of casualties, and for the passage of "humanitarian aid", also allows Hamas time to regroup and redeploy for future attacks.

Of course, none of these arguments can penetrate the brains of the superannuated Stalinists, vicarious jihadists and attention-seeking actors and pop stars who think it's cool to go on marches chanting, "We are all Hamas now". Even if these luvvies might not be aware that on Christmas Eve Hamas legalised crucifixion as a punishment for those who "weaken the spirit of the people", and have been shooting such political enemies in the head when they find them in hospitals conveniently injured by Israeli bombing raids, they still deserve to be dismissed as useful idiots for a depraved death cult.

There are also perfectly sensible people - both inside and outside Israel - who say the IDF's campaign is worse than a crime: it is stupid. They cite the Lebanon war of 2006 as a dire precedent. Leave aside the terrible casualties - although that's hard enough - they say it left Hezbollah unconquered and elevated in prestige on the "Arab street".

Perhaps so, but consider this: since that campaign, no Hezbollah missiles have been fired on northern Israel. Indeed, when on Thursday three rockets were fired from Lebanon, Hezbollah rushed to reassure the Israeli government that it was not involved and that the rockets were not the sort it even possessed.

This is not exactly the classical doctrine of deterrence: it's supposed to stop people attacking you in the first place. Yet the Israeli attack on Gaza is part of the same policy of delayed deterrence. Paradoxical though this might seem, it is also essential if the process towards an independent Palestinian state is to havea future. For until the people of Israel believe that such a state - including the heights of the West Bank, which overlook Tel Aviv - is not a threat to their own existence, they will never support a government which abandons those territories, won in an earlier war of self-defence.

If you believe otherwise, go to Yad Vashem.

2) The foulest fight
By David Horovitz

Hamas shows indifference to any 'rules' of war. And reportage has failed to keep pace with the Islamists' innovation.

Amid all the international criticism of Israel's fighting tactics in Gaza these past few days, from the gentle to the hysterical, from the supercilious chiding about disproportionate response to the vicious Nazi comparisons, one prominent aspect has curiously escaped marked comment.

Israel is bombing mosques in Gaza. Six of them and counting.

In recent years, the purported disrespect for Islam displayed in the writings of authors such as Salman Rushdie has been sufficient to provoke death sentences and mass rallies. The dissemination of Danish cartoons featuring the Prophet Muhammad, one of which showed the prophet with a bomb in his headdress in an artistic critique of the hijacking of Islam by extremists, prompted violent demonstrations around the world that rather underlined the cartoonists' point.

But today, with Gaza mosque after mosque targeted by the Israel Air Force, this unprecedented assault on Islamic places of worship has passed without particular hysteria.

Part of the reason is that critics and protesters are focusing on Israel's broader "crime" of trying to defend its civilians against ever deeper and more devastating Hamas rocket attacks. But still, the repeated direction of Jewish fire-power into Islam's places of worship, one might have assumed, would inflame the Arab world and its supporters into an orgy of anti-Israel fury.

As of this writing, that hasn't happened.

And it hasn't happened because the Islamists know they've been found out.

In a terrible incident on Tuesday, Israel hit an UNRWA school, and in the subsequent explosions a reported 40-plus people were killed, many of them civilians. An outraged UNRWA emphatically denied an IDF claim that a Hamas mortar battery had been firing from the school, and that secondary blasts indicated the presence of further explosives there; the Associated Press cited eyewitness accounts of "a small group of militants firing mortars near the school and running away." The accusations and counter-accusations will rumble on, and there's little likelihood of a definitive narrative emerging.

As regards the mosques, by contrast, Israel's declaration that it is firing on them because they are hubs of Hamas terrorism has met with no emphatic denials, no aggrieved assertions from Hamas clerics that their buildings are innocent places of humble worship, no pleas to the international community to enter the buildings and document their purity.

Britain's Observer newspaper reported last Sunday, after the IAF struck the Ibrahim al-Maqadma mosque in northern Gaza's Beit Lahiya, that Al-Jazeera's Gaza correspondent, Ayman Mohyeldin, believed the attacks "could galvanize the Arab world into taking action against Israel." But this doubtless objective correspondent's professional assessment did not prove prophetic.

The name of that mosque rather gives the game away, of course. Maqadma was one of the founders of Hamas and its military chief. He was killed in an Israeli helicopter strike in Gaza in March 2003, soon after a series of Hamas terror attacks, including a suicide bombing on an Egged bus in Haifa that killed 17 people.

Israeli security officials say the mosques that have been struck, long known as centers of Islamist indoctrination and vicious anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish incitement, are being used as weapons stores, command centers, as cover for networks of tunnels - in short, Hamas military positions. Again, there has been no frenzied rush by Gaza's clerics to dispute this devastating accusation.

"We did not easily take the decision to hit mosques," an Israeli security official said this week. But one of those targeted was the entry point to a whole series of tunnels, he said. Another was a storehouse for Grad missiles fired into Israel. (On Wednesday, the IDF released footage of a rocket being launched into Israel from immediately adjacent to the wall of a mosque.) "When you see, day after day, people going back into a mosque for their rocket supplies," the official said, "you have to act."

Along with the absent protestations of innocence, however, there is also a regrettable absence of internal Islamic condemnation of the abuse by Hamas of its holy places. Imagine the intra-Jewish storm were a synagogue's sanctity to be compromised in any remotely comparable manner. So where are the Islamic leaders, in Gaza and beyond, bitterly castigating Hamas for its unholy disrespect? And where are the horrified rank and file worshipers?

The leaders' silence only bolsters the perception of Islam as a religion inexorably being overwhelmed by violent extremists, with its moderates intimidated into silence. The tacit complicity of the worshipers - some of whom have lost their lives in recent days when the IAF struck, even though attacks were timed to avoid prayer services - underlines the extent of support and tolerance for Hamas's brand of Islam in Gaza. No surprise there; some two-thirds of Gazans chose to vote for Hamas in the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections.

THE DESECRATION of the mosques is only one expression of Hamas's egregious indifference to any hitherto accepted "rules" of war.

Civilians are supposed to be off limits. So too, by extension, homes, schools and places of worship. Yet Hamas stores its ammunition and manufacturers its weaponry in precisely such places. On the very first day of Operation Cast Lead - 10 days, that is, before the tragic incident at the UNRWA school - Israeli security sources specified that Hamas was operating at or close to schools in some of Gaza's most dense population centers. The initial air strikes, which hit targets that had been evaluated for many months, eschewed numerous key Hamas positions precisely because they had been so callously established in the heart of civilian areas.

Hamas has for years been diverting Israeli electricity supplies to the Strip for weapons manufacture. This week, it cried humanitarian disaster even as it commandeered some of the food, fuel and medical supplies flowing into Gaza and blocked others.

Hamas gunmen, even more cynical than their Hizbullah counterparts, are fighting out of uniform - they look like innocent civilians, deserving of protection, until they pull out guns or rush at IDF soldiers with suicide-bomber belts. Security officials say some are maintaining a years-long practice of taking children with them when they prepare missile attacks into Israel, confident that the IDF won't touch them. Sometimes, the officials say, they have children with them when they confront soldiers at close quarters, as well.

ISRAEL DID prepare more effectively than in 2006 to clarify the asymmetry of the wars it is now regularly forced to fight, against terrorists who have ruthlessly recast the theater of war in a civilian environment.

The IDF spokesman's rapid, if vehemently disputed, response to the UNRWA school shelling contrasted with the long hours of official silence that followed the IAF's strike on a building in south Lebanon's Kafr Kana close to Katyusha launch sites at the end of July 2006, in which more than 20 civilians died. IDF spokespeople have been much in evidence on Arabic TV stations, and competent officials have articulated Israel's narrative in many languages across TV world.

But Hamas prepared well, too.

Hizbullah prevented the televised documentation of its uniformed fatalities, and thus protected its forces' morale. Hamas, too, has managed to censor most evidence of its aggression and of its losses; that's easier to achieve when your gunmen are clad as civilians in life and in death.

Hamas's push for legitimacy has not been hindered, either, by certain media outlets' openness to its message. Pride of place here goes to the UK, fast becoming the mother of misguided democracy, where a major television network two weeks ago invited President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to deliver a Christmas message as an alternative to the queen's traditional broadcast. Channel 4's scheduling chiefs didn't show the Iranian president at the same time as Her Majesty, according to an insider quoted by the London Times, because "We didn't want to imply an equivalence between the two." Bless them.

This week, Britain's Guardian published an op-ed article by Hamas's Khaled Mashaal, headlined "This brutality will never break our will to be free."

Damascus-based Mashaal has graced the Guardian's columns before; in February of 2007, he penned a piece on the just-signed Fatah-Hamas Mecca power-sharing agreement titled "Our unity can now pave the way for peace and justice." Four months later, Hamas viciously overthrew the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority in Gaza, with the deaths of more than 100 fellow Palestinians in circumstances some way short of peace and justice, but Mashaal's credibility with that newspaper was apparently unharmed.

The Guardian also published an informative obituary of the man who oversaw that coup, Nizar Rayyan, the Hamas terror chief killed by Israel on January 1. The Guardian obit categorized Rayyan as a "political leader" and described him as "a man of the street... He was famed for fighting alongside his men and being seen with them publicly. And he was not merely a fighter. He was highly regarded as an Islamic academic."

In this cynical new theater of war, journalists discredit themselves and their profession if they fail to look beyond the immediate and into the context. Why is the Israel-Gaza border not quiet? Why has Hamas been firing rockets into Israel for years? Who is to blame for the presence of civilians in the combat zone? These are the kinds of questions that have not been asked enough, if at all, on would-be fair-minded TV and radio stations these past two weeks.

Meanwhile, Israeli officials - whose government provides electricity for the enemy, sends in food and medicine, and telephones terror chiefs to warn them that their homes are about to be blown up so that their families can be evacuated - are relentlessly assailed for purported indifference to Gaza's suffering. If no Palestinian official is available to answer the wider questions, then reporters have an obligation to explore them themselves.

Gaza is by no means the only combat zone where Iranian-Islamist terror tactics are deliberately placing civilians in the line of fire. The footage is clearer than ever, but right and wrong are harder to discern these days in many places where the guns are firing and the bombs are falling. Death and injury to civilians on one side of the battle zone may not be principally the responsibility of the combatants on the other side. A keener focus is required. Too little journalism, for now, is keeping pace with the extremists' cynically innovative methodologies.

HAMAS EXPLOITATION of civilian suffering reaches its apogee when it comes to the hospitals.

Earlier this week, Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin briefed ministers to the effect that part of the Hamas leadership was operating from a bunker constructed under Gaza City's main Shifa Hospital. There have been reports of sightings in the hospital wards, and of the commandeering of ambulances.

Very early in Operation Cast Lead, Hamas announced, falsely, that it was moving all patients out of Shifa, because, it claimed, Israel was about to bomb the hospital. Israeli officials publicly and immediately dismissed the notion as Hamas propagandist misinformation, of which there has been plenty. This was more than a week before Diskin dropped his bunker bombshell. Plainly, Hamas knew it had every reason to fear an Israeli attack on the hospital.

In fact, a senior security official said this week, Israel would under no circumstances target Shifa. Hamas leaders, safely protected by the civilians they deliberately placed in harm's way, can evidently sleep soundly.


3) Ultimatum: Hamas must turn over all rocket stocks to third party


Israel and Egypt are playing hard ball with the Hama delegation who arrived in Cairo Saturday to seek a ceasefire in Gaza hostilities.
Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert said Monday: We are closer than ever before to ending the rocket fire and getting Hamas' arms traffic under control.

As Israel tightened its military pressure with added reservists units, Egyptian intelligence minister Gen. Omar Suleiman rejected Hamas negotiators' appeal for compromises and told them the deal on offer was take-it-or-leave-it: Accept or face an all-out Israeli assault on all fronts.

Analysts note this was the first time the Egyptian government has used Israeli military gains as currency to further its national interests, namely, breaking the back of an Islamist movement deemed a destabilizing element for the Mubarak regime.

Suleiman informed the Palestinian delegation that Israel was holding out for Hamas to collect all its rocket and missile stocks and weapons in the hands of other Palestinian terrorist groups and turn them over to a third party. This party would also take charge of security in the Philadelphi Corridor.

Hamas would be given a month to implement the handover, but no longer.

Israel was also adamant about retaining its army on the battle lines held in the Gaza Strip when the ceasefire goes into effect until a new military mechanism is put in place on the Philadelphi Corridor and has proved capable of effectively stemming the arms traffic entering through tunnels from outside sources.

Some of the smuggling is still going on - but at a much reduced pace since the Israeli aerial bombardments began 17 days ago. The number of firings has dropped from 60 to 23.

The Hamas negotiators also ran into a blank Egyptian wall when they proposed setting a six-month time cap on the proposed ceasefire and reopening the Rafah crossing from Gaza to Sinai as a face-saving gesture to mark the onset of a truce. Suleiman said firmly that Rafah would reopen only when all six Gaza crossings into Israel were reactivated by Palestinian Authority personnel and European military monitors.

He said that Cairo was consulting with Jerusalem on the possible transfer of the two halves of Rafah - the Gazan and the Egyptian - to the Palestinian Authority and its chairman, Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas.

Sunday, an Egyptian military plane ferried the Hamas-Gaza delegation to Damascus to seek the endorsement of hardline Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshaal for the truce terms dictated by Egypt and Israel. Gen. Suleiman directed them to pass this message on to Meshaal: Give up your illusions; Hamas' only remaining option now is to bow to the Middle East Quartet's primary condition: Recognize Israel.

Israel's negotiator Amos Gilead put off his mission to Cairo from Monday to await the return of the Hamas-Gaza delegates from Damascus. All parties are clear that a negative Hamas response will signal the onset of the next stage of Israel's Gaza offensive.

4) IDF finds Hamas weapons stockpile in raid on Gaza mosque

The Israel Air Force on Monday bombed a mosque in southern Gaza City, on day 17 of its offensive against Hamas' infrastructure in the coastal territory.

Israeli ground forces who entered the premises following the attack found a mass stockpile of weapons, including Qassam and Katyusha rockets.

The Israel Defense Forces continued its offensive against the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip before dawn on Monday, attacking dozens of targets across the territory.


IDF ground forces - comprising infantry, tanks, combat engineers, artillery and intelligence -were assisted by aerial attacks during the overnight operations.

The IAF reported attacking 10 Hamas targets, including five armed operatives, four weapons storehouses, two smuggling tunnels dug under the house of militants, one tunnel dug under Gaza's border with Egypt and one rocket launching position.


Troops from the Golani Brigade reported a number of hits on armed gunmen during gunbattles in the northern Gaza Strip. The Givati Brigade, meanwhile, uncovered one mortar shell.

The Israel Navy accompanied the ground forces during the raids, attacking Hamas locales from the sea.

The Israel Defense Forces on Sunday began deploying reservist troops to the Gaza Strip, for the first time since Israel began its offensive on the Hamas-ruled coastal territory 17 days ago.

An IDF spokesman said that despite the deployment, thousands more reservists who would comprise a new, expanded phase in the ground operation were still in training and have not been sent to battle.

Meanwhile, IDF troops late Sunday continued to surround Gaza City while the Israel Air Force launched a fierce attack on some 20 smuggling networks in the southern Gaza Strip.

Palestinian medical officials said some 60 Palestinians died in Gaza on Sunday, including 17 who succumbed to their wounds from days earlier. The IDF said some 40 militants were either wounded or killed during the army's Sunday offensive.

The location of the ground fighting, on the southwest side of the Hamas-ruled territory's biggest population center, suggested Israel was intensifying a more than two-week-old offensive. Troops had previously kept to the outskirts of urban areas in Gaza.

5) Sources: Hamas leaders hiding in basement of Israel-built hospital in Gaza
By Amos Harel


Senior Hamas officials in Gaza are hiding out in a "bunker" built by Israel, intelligence officials suspect: Many are believed to be in the basements of the Shifa Hospital complex in Gaza City, which was refurbished during Israel's occupation of the Gaza Strip.

Shifa, the coastal strip's largest hospital, was built while Gaza was under Egyptian rule, before 1967.


During the mid-1980s the building underwent massive refurbishment as part of a showcase project to improve the living conditions of residents.

Millions were invested in the project, which was overseen by Shmuel Goren, the coordinator for activities in the territories at the time.

The Israeli civil administration in the territories constructed the hospital complex's Building Number 2, which has a large cement basement that housed the hospital's laundry and various administrative services.

During a cabinet meeting a week ago, Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin said senior Hamas officials found refuge in the hospital basement because they know Israel would not target it, due to the patients in the upper floors. Palestinian sources told Haaretz that not all the senior Hamas leaders are hiding in one place.

Rather, they have spread out, and some are constantly changing locations. Some of the bunkers they are using were linked by tunnels Hamas built in recent years.

6) UN Rights Council to probe Israeli actions in Gaza


UN Human Rights Council adopts resolution harshly condemning Israel for 'grave' human rights violations against Palestinians; to send fact-finding mission to Strip



The UN Human Rights Council on Monday adopted a resolution condemning Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip and accusing it of "grave" human rights violations against Palestinians.



UN Special Rapporteur on human rights observance in West Bank, Gaza sent back to Geneva after landing. Israeli Foreign Ministry says emissary denied entry because his mandate is 'profoundly distorted and conceived as an anti-Israel initiative'
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The resolution, setting up a fact-finding mission to investigate Israeli violations against Palestinians, was passed after a split opened up between Western countries and the others over the wording.


Thirty-three African, Asian, Arab and Latin American countries voted for the resolution. Thirteen European states abstained, while Canada was the only country to vote against.


The 47 member states in the UN's Human Rights Council normally take their decisions by consensus.

Some Western countries said the resolution put forward by Arab and African states was too one-sided and failed to clearly recognize the role that rocket attacks launched by Palestinian militants played in triggering the offensive.


The resolution released by the UN Council "strongly" condemned the Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip, saying it had "resulted in massive violations" of the human rights of Palestinians.


Last week, UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights Richard Falk accused Israel of committing "crimes against humanity" in the Gaza Strip and called "the International Criminal Court to investigate the situation, and determine whether the Israeli civilian leaders and military commanders responsible for the Gaza siege should be indicted and prosecuted for violations of international criminal law.”


Falk, known as a particularly harsh critic of Israel, said during a press conference in Brazil that the Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip that Israel has used sophisticated weaponry against the Palestinian community, against which the Palestinians are largely unable to protect themselves.


While condemning the rocket attacks by Hamas, which Falk points out are also criminal violations of international law, goes on to say that “such Palestinian behavior does not legalize Israel’s imposition of a collective punishment of a life- and health-threatening character on the people of Gaza, and should not distract the U.N. or international society from discharging their fundamental moral and legal duty to render protection to the Palestinian people.”


7) Arab Liberal Criticizes European Parliament President for Suggesting That the Middle East Does Not Deserve The Democracy Enjoyed By The West

During a December 20, 2008 visit to the Omani capital Muscat, European Parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering stated that democracy in the Middle Eastmust evolve from within, that it must reflect local traditions and values, and that the West should not pressure the region to adopt a European-style democratic system. This statement sparked criticism among Arab intellectuals; the next day, 'Omran Salman, editor of the reformist website Aafaq.org, [1] posted an article harshly critical of Poettering's statements.

Following are excerpts from Salman's article:

Western Officials Would Rather Keep the Middle East Under Dictatorships

"…What is the meaning of statements [such as Poettering's]... that the democratic system followed in Europe is appropriate for countries all over the world except in the Arab region?

"Naturally, such statements are not innocuous, nor are they for the benefit of these alleged exceptions [i.e. the Arab countries]; rather, they are manifestations of racist tendencies as well as self-serving objectives.

"These people [like Poettering] believe that Arabs deserve nothing better than their present governments - [that is,] they do not deserve the democracy enjoyed by civilized nations. It follows that it is better not to pressure dictatorial regimes but instead to grant their wishes, [and receive] in exchange agreements, money, and profits - while the people there can go to hell.

"In reality, the European Parliament president, who should be ashamed of himself, is not the only traitor in this group [of Western statesmen]. Unfortunately, many senior European and U.S. officials share his opinion, with some of them [even] vying to turn over a new leaf [in relations with] dictatorial governments like those of [Syrian President] Bashar Al-Assad, [Libyan Leader Mu'ammar] Al-Qaddafi, and others.

"Their positions are based on the following premises:

"-People are not equal in how they achieve democracy - that is, there are first-class nations and second-class nations. The first class - Europe and the West - deserve the highest level of democracy, while the Arab nations are second class and [hence] inherently different, and must obey the rules of their [respective] governments.

"-The best way to safeguard Western interests is by preserving the existing tyrannical regimes - not by offering [these] nations an opportunity to embrace democracy, since such [a development] may harm these [i.e. Western] interests.

"-The democratic experience is by nature cumulative; thus there is no need to promote or facilitate democracy, especially for Arab countries. However, this does not apply to Eastern Europe, South America, or Asia, [where democracy was implemented quickly].

"-Each nation in the region has its own unique cultural characteristics and traditions, which must be respected; it would therefore be a mistake either to impose democracy on them [i.e. the Arab nations] or to pressure them to adopt [democracy].

"As I have already said, this is [all] just an excuse used by some Western politicians to justify their ties with tyrannical and corrupt governments in the Arab world. This [attitude] shows their disdain for the nations of this region, and [shows that] they are being treated as inferior species."


Arab Peoples Want Freedom and Democracy Too

"The truth is - even though these [Western] opportunists do not think so according to their logic - that all nations are equally [entitled] to freedom and democracy. There is no nation that is not striving and fighting for freedom - and the Arab nations are no exception.

"Furthermore, democracy is not some garment that people wear because of their traditions, or because of the local climate. It is a universal human value that transcends continents and cultures.

"Rule of law, a government elected by the people, [the government's] accountability to [its citizens], separation of authorities, pluralism, transfer of power by peaceful means - [all these] do not depend on unique [characteristics] or regional custom. If they are good for the West, they are also good for the East, and for anywhere else in the world.

"The only thing left to say is that all reformists, and all those who defend democracy and freedom in the Arab countries, must condemn the racism and opportunism of these politicians - including the president of the European Parliament…"

8) Israel's Strategic Incompetence in Gaza
By Daniel Pipes

Commentary on the Israel-Hamas war has tended toward partisan pleading, making the moral case for or against Israel. That's a crucial debate but not the only one; there's also a need for a cool strategic assessment; who is winning, who is losing?

Hillel Frisch argues that Hamas (which he calls "a small isolated movement that controls a small strip") has "grossly miscalculated" by antagonizing the Egyptian government and making war on Israel. He concludes Hamas has embarked on "strategic suicide."

Perhaps, but scenarios exist in which Hamas gains. Khaled Abu Toameh notes the powerful and growing support for Hamas around the Middle East. Caroline Glick offers two ways for Hamas to win: a return to the status quo ante, with Hamas still in charge of Gaza, or a ceasefire agreement whereby foreign powers form an international monitoring regime to oversee Gaza's borders with Israel and Egypt.

As this suggests, an assessment of Hamas' war record depends primarily on decisions made in Jerusalem. Those decisions being the real issue, how well has Israel's leadership performed?

Disastrously. Jerusalem's profound strategic incompetence continues and heightens the failed policies since 1993 that have eroded Israel's reputation, strategic advantage, and security. Four main reasons lead me to this negative conclusion.

First, the team in charge in Jerusalem created the Gaza problem. Its leader, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert immortally explained in 2005 the forthcoming unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza: "We [Israelis] are tired of fighting, we are tired of being courageous, we are tired of winning, we are tired of defeating our enemies."

Olmert had a vital role in (1) initiating the Gaza withdrawal, which ended the Israel Defense Forces' close control of the territory, and (2) giving up Israeli control over the Gaza-Egypt border. This latter, little noted decision, enabled Hamas to build tunnels to Egypt, smuggle in matériel, and launch missiles into Israel.

Secondly, Olmert and his colleagues failed to respond to the barrage of rockets and mortar shells. From the Israeli withdrawal in 2005 until now, Hamas has launched over 6,500 missiles into Israel. Incredibly, Israelis endured nearly eight attacks a day for three years; why? A responsible government would have responded to the first rocket as a casus belli and immediately responded.

Thirdly, a committee of the French parliament published an important technical report in mid-December, establishing that "there is no longer doubt" about the military purposes of the Iranian nuclear program, and that it will be up and running in 2-3 years.

The waning days of the Bush administration, with the current president nearly out the door and the president-elect yet in the wings, offers a unique moment to take care of business. Why did Olmert squander this opportunity to confront the relatively trivial danger Hamas presents rather than the existential threat of Iran's nuclear program? This negligence has potentially dire repercussions.

Finally, from what one can discern of the Olmert government's goal in its war on Hamas, it seems to be to weaken Hamas and strengthen Fatah so that Mahmoud Abbas can re-take control of Gaza and re-start diplomacy with Israel. Michael B. Oren and Yossi Klein Halevi captured this idea in a recent article title: "Palestinians need Israel to win: If Hamas gets away with terror once again, the peace process will be over."

Bitter experience, however, invalidates this thesis. For one, Fatah has proven itself a determined enemy intent on eliminating the Jewish state. For another, Palestinians themselves repudiated Fatah in 2006 elections. It strains credulity that anyone could still think of Fatah as a "partner for peace." Rather, Jerusalem should think creatively of other scenarios, perhaps my "no-state solution" bringing in the Jordanian and Egyptian governments.

More dismaying even than Olmert's ineptitude is that the Israeli election a month from now pits three leaders of his same ilk. Two of them (Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak) currently serve as his main lieutenants, while two (Barak and Binyamin Netanyahu) failed badly in their prior prime ministerial stints.

Looking beyond Olmert and his potential successors comes the worst news of all, namely that no one at the upper echelons of Israel's political life articulates the imperative for victory. For this reason, I see Israel as a lost polity, one full of talent, energy, and resolve but lacking direction.


9) Bush defends presidency in final news conference
By JENNIFER LOVEN

Byurns wistful, aggressive and joking in the final news conference of his presidency, President George W. Bush vigorously defended his record Monday but also offered an extraordinary listing of his mistakes — including his optimistic Iraq speech before a giant "Mission Accomplished" banner in 2003.

After starting what he called "the ultimate exit interview" with a lengthy and personalized thank-you to the reporters in the room who have covered him over the eight years of his presidency, Bush showed anger at times when presented with some of the main criticisms of his time in office.

"I think it's a good, strong record," he said. "You know, presidents can try to avoid hard decisions and therefore avoid controversy. That's just not my nature."

He particularly became indignant when asked about America's bruised image overseas.

"I disagree with this assessment that, you know, that people view America in a dim light," he said. "It may be damaged amongst some of the elite. But people still understand America stands for freedom."

Bush said he realizes that some issues such as the prison for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have created controversy at home and around the world. But he defended his actions after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, including approving tough interrogation methods for suspected terrorists and information-gathering efforts at home in the name of protecting the country.

With the Iraq war in its sixth year, he most aggressively defended his decisions on that issue, which will define his presidency like no other. There have been over 4,000 U.S. deaths since the invasion and toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

But it was in that area that he also acknowledged mistakes. He said that "not finding weapons of mass destruction was a significant disappointment." The accusation that Saddam had and was pursuing weapons of mass destruction was Bush's main initial justification for going to war.

He also cited the abuses found to have been committed by members of the U.S. military at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq as "a huge disappointment."

"I don't know if you want to call those mistakes or not, but they were — things didn't go according to plan, let's put it that way," Bush said.

And he admitted another miscalculation: Eager to report quick progress after U.S. troops ousted Saddam's government, he declared less than two months after the war started that "in the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed," a claim made under a "Mission Accomplished" banner that turned out to be wildly optimistic. "Clearly, putting `Mission Accomplished' on an aircraft carrier was a mistake," he said Monday. "It sent the wrong message."

He also defended his decision in 2007 to send an additional 30,000 American troops to Iraq to knock down violence levels and stabilize life there.

"The question is, in the long run, will this democracy survive, and that's going to be a question for future presidents," he said.

On another issue destined to figure prominently in his legacy, Bush said he has "thought long and hard about Katrina — you know could I have done something differently, like land Air Force One either in New Orleans or Baton Rouge." Bush was criticized for flying over the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and waiting until four days after it hit to visit the scene.

But he also said he disagrees with those who say the federal response to the storm was slow.

"Don't tell me the federal response was slow when there were 30,000 people pulled off roofs right after the storm passed. ... Could things been done better? Absolutely. But when I hear people say the federal response was slow, what are they going to say to those chopper drivers or the 30,000 who got pulled off the roof?" he said.

He also defended his record on Mideast peace.

A bruising offensive by Israel in the Gaza Strip has dashed any slight hopes for an accord soon that produces a Palestinian state. But Bush, asked why peace hasn't been achieved, said his administration had made progress. He said he had laid out the vision for "what peace would look like" and got all sides to agree on a two-state solution to the long-running Israeli-Palestinian dispute.

"It's been a long time since they've had peace in the Middle East," he said. "The challenge, of course, has been to lay out the conditions so that a peaceful state can emerge. ... Will this ever happen? I think it will. And I know we've advanced the process."

He called President-elect Barack Obama "a very smart, engaging person" and said he wishes his successor all the best. He hinted at the enormous responsibility Obama is about to assume, describing what it might feel like on Jan. 20 when, after taking the oath of office, he enters the Oval Office for the first time as president.

"There'll be a moment when the responsibility of the president lands squarely on his shoulders," Bush said.

He gave his view of the most urgent threat facing the incoming president: an attack on the United States. He chose that risk over the dire economic problems now facing the nation.

"I wish that I could report that's not the case, but there's still an enemy out there that would like to inflict damage on America — on Americans."

He said he would ask Congress to release the remaining $350 billion in Wall Street bailout money if Obama so desires. But, he said, Obama hadn't made that request of him yet.

That soon changed. Shortly after the news conference, the White House said Obama had asked for the request and Bush had agreed to make it.

That will take at least one burden off Obama's shoulders involving a program that is extraordinarily unpopular with many lawmakers and much of the public.

The last news conference of Bush's presidency lasted 46 minutes, and he took questions from more than a dozen reporters.

The last previous time the president had taken questions in a public setting was Dec. 14 in Baghdad, a session that hurtled to the top of the news when Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zeidi threw his shoes at Bush during a question-and-answer session with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Bush's last previous full-blown news conference was July 15. He refused to hold another during the final months of last year's presidential campaign, concerned that the questions would be mostly related to political events and determined to stay out of GOP nominee John McCain's spotlight as much as possible. But even though aides had suggested that would change after the election, Bush still declined to participate in a wide-ranging question-and-answer session until now, just eight days before leaving office.

He has been granting a flurry of legacy-focused interviews as he seeks to shape the view of his presidency on his way out the door.

He gave advice to both his Republican Party and his Democratic successor.

To the GOP, he said it must be "compassionate and broad-minded" to come back from the drubbing it received in last year's elections, in which Republicans lost the White House and sank deeper into the minority in Congress. He said the immigration debate of two years ago was harmful, because conservative opposition to broad reform made it appear that "Republicans don't like immigrants."

"This party will come back. But the party's message has got to be that different points of view are included in the party," he said.

Bush cautioned Obama not to listen to too much criticism — including from "your so-called friends" — and to focus on doing what he thinks is right. He also said to ignore talk of the isolation of the office.

"I have never felt isolated, and I don't think he will," Bush said. "One reason he won't feel isolated is that he's got a fabulous family and he cares a lot about his family."

He went on to mock the way some describe the job.

"I believe the phrase 'burdens of the office' is overstated," he said. "You know, it's kind of like, `Why me? Oh, the burdens, you know. Why did the financial collapse have to happen on my watch?' It's just pathetic, isn't it, self-pity? And I don't believe that President-elect Obama will be full of self-pity."

Bush seemed to struggle to envision himself on Jan. 21, his first day back at home and without a job.

"I'm a Type A personality. I just can't envision myself, you know, the big straw hat and a Hawaiian shirt sitting on some beach," he said. But, he added, it would probably be a pretty low-key day with him and his wife, Laura, at his ranch in Texas. "I wake up in Crawford on Tuesday morning — I mean, Wednesday morning, and I suspect I'll make Laura coffee and, you know, go get it for her."

10) Livni squanders the IDF's achievement
By JEFF BARAK


While Operation Cast Lead has shown that the IDF, under the cautious and calculated leadership of Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, has learned the lessons of the Second Lebanon War, it is becoming depressingly clearer that Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has not. Livni did not measure up to the job in the Second Lebanon War when she failed to temper Ehud Olmert's rash enthusiasm for a military clash with Hizbullah and was unable to persuade the cabinet of the need for a quick, diplomatic exit from Lebanon. This time, in one of the strangest reversal of roles seen around an Israeli cabinet table, the foreign minister is ignoring the defense establishment's ability to provide the government with reasonable exit points from a military operation, thereby ensuring the fighting continues.

In the wake of the Second Lebanon War, the government determinedly set low goals for Operation Cast Lead. Thankfully, instead of choosing the sound bite-attractive but difficult-to-achieve policy of regime change and the toppling of Hamas, which as the American experience in Iraq and Afghanistan has shown is not always the best way forward, it rightly declared that its sole aim was to stop Hamas' firing of rockets from Gaza. Even the return of captured IDF soldier Gilad Schalit was not mentioned as a war aim.

Now, two weeks after the fighting started, this declared aim has been achieved. True, rockets may still be falling, but this is because as long as the fighting officially continues, Hamas will continue firing even though it knows it has lost. After more than 850 Palestinians have been killed, dozens of smuggling tunnels destroyed and Hamas offices bombed into oblivion, Hamas, like Hizbullah before it, has learned its lesson the hard way of assuming that Israel would never react. A cease-fire, on terms favorable to Israel, is there for the reaching.

IN ACHIEVING this point, with low Israeli casualties, Barak has proved his worth. First, he was right to delay the operation and to proceed with the six-month truce with Hamas. Not only did this give the residents of the South a much-needed respite from the daily rocket fire from Gaza, it gave the IDF more time to prepare for a military operation should it be needed, even at the cost of allowing Hamas to develop and smuggle in its longer-range rockets. More importantly, the six-month quiet also gave Jerusalem the moral legitimacy when the time eventually came to launch its counterattack.

Despite the growing international criticism, which was inevitable once innocent Palestinian civilians became increasingly the victims of the response, it is important to remember that at the beginning of Operation Cast Lead, Israel received a free hand from the international community to respond to Hamas' breach of the six-month cease-fire. Given that the Arab world was also surprisingly acquiescent at the beginning of the operation, it is fair to say that the initial quiet international support was not simply a result of the Christmas holiday period.

Secondly, Barak and Ashkenazi structured the IDF's campaign to give the government a chance to declare victory at a number of convenient exit points, all designed to avoid the need of reoccupying the Gaza Strip and becoming entrenched there just as the country was bogged down in the First Lebanon War. That war was initially launched as a short-term campaign to remove the North from the threat of Palestinian terrorism and ended up as a two-decade occupation of southern Lebanon and the creation of Hizbullah as a new enemy.

THE FIRST exit point came immediately after the successful air assault on Gaza and the French suggestion for a 48-hour humanitarian cease-fire. This diplomatic proposal was supported by Barak but immediately shot down by Livni. The then inevitable deployment of ground forces, which has been accompanied by the first IDF combat fatalities as well as the killing of scores of civilians, created the second exit point, with the UN Security Council resolution at the end of last week calling for an immediate cease-fire, a resolution which notably was not vetoed by the US, despite Olmert's last-minute pleas to President George W Bush.

The government's rejection of this resolution increases the chances of Operation Cast Lead turning into the operation it did not want: an all-out war against Hamas and reoccupation of the Gaza Strip. Livni, who unlike Barak and Olmert has spent the whole of the IDF campaign in front of the cameras and microphones in what seems to be a desperate attempt to impress next month's voters of her relevance, told The Washington Post this weekend that the government opposes the UN call for a cease-fire because it grants Hamas legitimacy and places the organization on the same level as Israel.

The Security Council resolution is indeed unsatisfactory. First of all, it fails to place the blame for the current round of fighting, as it should, on Hamas. If Hamas were not firing rockets, the IDF would have had no need to launch Operation Cast Lead. Moreover, the cease-fire call does not address the vital issue of how to prevent the future smuggling of rockets into Gaza via the tunnels under its border with Egypt and neither does it call for returning the Strip to the control of the Palestinian Authority and for the disarming of Hamas and other terror groups there.

But had the foreign minister been more effective in building up an international coalition of diplomatic support for Israel's position, both during the six-month cease-fire and the first days of the conflict, then a more favorable UN resolution could have been crafted. The army has done its job; Livni so far has squandered the opportunity the IDF has created.

11) Irregular Order
House Democrats did not live up to their promises to treat the minority fairly in the 110th Congress. And the 111th?



"BILLS SHOULD generally come to the floor under a procedure that allows open, full and fair debate consisting of a full amendment process that grants the minority the right to offer its alternatives, including a substitute." So promised Nancy Pelosi, now House speaker, before her party regained control of Congress two years ago. That fairness, it turned out, was easier to preach than practice.

When they took over in 2007, Democrats set aside their pledge in order to muscle through their agenda during the first 100 hours; their promises continued to prove hollow in the ensuing months. As with the GOP takeover in 1994 and its accompanying pledges of open debate and fair treatment, Democrats' asserted good intentions yielded to the realities of governing in the face of an opposing party more interested in making mischief than law. Democrats brought more measures to the House floor under closed rules -- permitting no amendments -- than any of the six previous Republican-controlled congresses.

As Sarah Binder, Thomas Mann and Molly Reynolds put it in a new report from the Brookings Institution, "Democratic leaders in 2007 quickly concluded that implacable opposition to their agenda by President Bush and the Republican congressional leadership, combined with the 60-vote hurdle in the Senate, made it virtually impossible to return to regular order in committee, on the floor or in conference and still advance their agenda. . . . Their pledge to curb the procedural abuses of the previous Republican majority would for the most part have to be set aside. The choice was not surprising. Still, it had the effect of exacerbating partisan tensions in Congress and further fouling the toxic atmosphere permeating Washington."


A first-day-of-session skirmish over new House rules suggests that the situation in the 111th Congress may not be much better. The dispute involved a particularly arcane aspect of the rules: whether a "motion to recommit," essentially the minority's right to offer an alternative, must include the word "forthwith," in which case the alternative is immediately adopted if approved, or whether it can use the word "promptly," in which case the measure is sent back to committee and effectively killed for the time being. Democrats tightened the rules to end the latter practice, which had become a popular tool in the previous Congress. They argued that Republicans had repeatedly abused these motions, wording them to put vulnerable members in a bind by having to choose between killing a bill or taking a politically unpalatable vote destined to turn up in a 30-second attack ad. What was taken away, House Rules Committee Chairman Louise M. Slaughter (D-N.Y.), told us, was "a gimmick that was used to kill bills. . . . The intent was to bring up guns, abortion, illegals -- whatever they wanted to, even if it had nothing to do with the bill."

Republicans countered that Democrats were unfairly limiting one of their few procedural powers. "A rules package that literally shreds the Obama vision" of bipartisanship, charged California Republican David Dreier, the ranking member of the Rules Committee. His complaints seem hyperbolic. "I'm not that upset about this being a major diminishment of minority rights," Donald Wolfensberger, the former Republican staff director of the rules panel, told us.

But there is a legitimate concern about whether the House can return to a semblance of "regular order": committee hearings and markups rather than measures brought precipitously to the floor with little time for review; reasonable allowance for amendments on the floor rather than closed rules allowing no changes; and conferences to resolve differences between the chambers rather than leadership-dictated products. With a bolstered majority and a new president promoting bipartisanship, House Democrats ought to try loosening the reins -- and Republicans ought to show that they are more interested in writing legislation than playing political gotcha.

Israel: Cook With Politcally Correct Proportions!

If history means anything to London's Guardian newspaper then why is the British Pot calling the Israeli Kettle black? (See 1 below.)

Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" will not stay down for the count! (See 2 below.)


Israel's war with Hamas has become a matter of proportionality. Sounds more like a prescription for a cooking class where Israel is held to a standard of exact ingredient measurement.


These are the rules Israel bashing spoilers impose on the spoils Israel never seeks to gain from winning wars it would prefer not to fight.


Proportionality is the politically correct demand European sycophants, seeking to curry favor with the Arabs, reserve only for Israel. Is it because they fear the threat Arabs posed to their own tranquility, is it because of European tendencies to be passive about defending their own freedoms or is it just historical European anti-Semitism?


Israel not only must win on the ground but also in the court of biased world opinion.
What obvious blatant nonsense and double standards always reserved only for them.


As for The New York Times, facts no longer matter as long as they can continue to portray Israel in the most negative light.


Sarah Palin made an intesrting observation recently when she said it will be interesting to observe how the intellectually elite snobs who pumelled her, handle the Caroline Kennedy 'I want to be your Senator episode.' I recently listened to Kennedy respond to a question about her qualifications and she flopped like a beach whale. She came across far more sophomoric than Palin during the Couric interview but nary a word from press and media.


Members of the 'fourth estate' shape our thinking, they influence decision makers. Sadly, they have become more dangerous than enlightening. This is not a healthy state of affairs because democracies need a free press and media but also a responsible, objective and balanced one. (See 3 and 3a below.)


Ah, but one objective analsyst who works at a very prominent think tank in D.C. points out why Israel can win against Hamas.


He alludes to Arab propaganda Western primadonas in the press and media bought regarding Hezballa's 'victory.' By reading their own distorted and biased reports many in the Western press and media continue deluding themselves and readers who swallow their tripe.


The question becomes will the West permit Israel to again do them a favor? GW seems more than willing but his time is running out and Obama, no doubt, may have other views. (See 4 below.)


Dick Morris has a low opinion of Al Franken and so he should. Why? Because theFranken-Soros fix is in!


Repubicans fighting the 'fix" allege Senate Democrats led by Harry Reid are lusting to declare Al Franken the "winner" in the contested Minnesota seat that Republican Norm Coleman is fighting to keep.


For weeks after the election, Norm Coleman led Franken by hundreds of votes and Reid and company were very quiet. After Franken raised millions with Soros' financial help, Franken waged a fierce legal battle over a handful of rejected ballots and now claims to be ahead of Coleman by about 225 votes.



Billionaire George Soros and ACORN-backed Democrat Minnesota Secretary of State, Mark Ritchie's Canvassing Board have backed Franken's outrageous subversion of the vote process: some Franken voters have voted twice, Coleman votes have been rejected, and the Franken camp literally makes up the recount rules as they go along.


Irregularities in this Election Contest are shocking enough and with the questionable help of Minnesota's liberal Sec. of State Mark Ritchie, rewritten rules have allowed Franken to declare he has a "lead." Apparently Ritchie has taken votes that were clearly for Coleman and rejected them, putting them in a pile for the courts to decide at a later date. Meanwhile, Franken votes have been accepted, giving Franken an artificial lead.



During the recount supposed "errors" were corrected, almost always favoring Franken. Though this is statistically improbable, the votes were counted for Franken.



In one voting precinct that clearly benefitted Coleman, the Ritchie led Canvassing Board ruled that the recount will not include them - instead that one precinct will have to live with the final vote total as of election night.


The Ritchie led canvassing board admitted they are "not going to be entirely consistent" when reviewing challenged ballots and has ruled a number of votes as votes for Franken when his circle is marked and not so when the Coleman circle is identically marked.


The effort to subvert a fair vote is so obvious that even a Democrat election official in Minneapolis admitted votes are being counted twice. "I know it happened in several precincts," she said.


Is Franken about to become the new Huey Long? (See 5 below.)


No doubt the economic news is bad and will remain so for some time regardless of what 'stimulus' the incoming administration proposes and gets passed.


The irony is that we will never know how long it would take for the economy to improve on its own because doctor Obama is going to rely on modern medicine , ie stimulus to the tune of a trillion big ones.


Stimulus medicine, even taken with a good strong drink, will take quite a while. For math sake let's say it will take a year and let's assume no hangover effect from such a strong dose. That means we will be spending 80 plus billion a month to accomplish what might take 18 months at far lesser cost. Then we have the residual ongoing interest cost of all this new debt and maybe one day we are even called upon to pay it off through much higher taxes.

My impression of Obama's economic thinking, gleaned both from his sparse record of accomplishments but more from his finely tuned campaign rhetoric, is that he sincerely believes government solutions are preferable to free market ones. If truth be told, there is, and perhaps has not been for many decades, free markets because they have been politicizied and constrained by all various government interference, ambiguities and costly constraints. So expect the heavy hand of increased government to bail us out of the mess we are in.


Furthermore, I suspect Obama is singing doom and gloom probably for two reasons:


a) To provide a cover for quick fix action by Congress.


b) To set the expectation bar low so any positive results henceforth, will permit the Obama Adminsitration "spin rights."


Yes, Ayn Rand was right so go read 2 below again!



Dick



1) From: Myths and Facts
By Eli E. Hertz


This is dedicated to Mr. Tony Blair, the Quartet's envoy to the Middle East, and to Mr. Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister for the United Kingdom.

"Demolishing the homes of Arab civilians ... Shooting handcuffed prisoners... Forcing local Arabs to test areas where mines may have been planted..." These sound like the sort of accusations made by British and other European officials concerning Israel's recent actions in Jenin.


In fact, they are descriptions from official British documents concerning the methods used by the British authorities to combat Palestinian Arab terrorism in Jenin and elsewhere in 1938. The documents were declassified by London in 1989. They provide details of the British Mandatory government's response to the assassination of a British district commissioner by a Palestinian Arab terrorist in Jenin in the summer of 1938.Even after the suspected assassin was captured (and then shot dead while allegedly trying to escape), the British authorities decided that "a large portion of the town should be blown up" as punishment. On August 25 of that year, a British convoy brought 4,200 kilos of explosives to Jenin for that purpose. In the Jenin operation and on other occasions, local Arabs were forced to drive "mine-sweeping taxis" ahead of British vehicles in areas where Palestinian Arab terrorists were believed to have planted mines, in order "to reduce [British] landmine casualties."


The British authorities frequently used these and similar methods to combat Palestinian Arab terrorism in the late 1930s. BRITISH forces responded to the presence of terrorists in the Arab village of Miar, north of Haifa, by blowing up house after house in October 1938."When the troops left, there was little else remaining of the once-busy village except a pile of mangled masonry," The New York Times reported. The declassified documents refer to an incident in Jaffa in which a handcuffed prisoner was shot by the British police. Under Emergency Regulation 19b, the British Mandate government could demolish any house located in a village where terrorists resided, even if that particular house had no direct connection to terrorist activity. Mandate official Hugh Foot later recalled: "When we thought that a village was harboring rebels, we'd go there and mark one of the large houses. Then, if an incident was traced to that village, we'd blow up the house we'd marked." The High Commissioner for Palestine, Harold MacMichael, defended the practice: "The provision is drastic, but the situation has demanded drastic powers." MacMichael was furious over what he called the "grossly exaggerated accusations" that England's critics were circulating concerning British anti-terror tactics in Palestine. Arab allegations that British soldiers gouged out the eyes of Arab prisoners were quoted prominently in the Nazi German press and elsewhere. The declassified documents also record discussions among officials of the Colonial Office concerning the rightness or wrongness of the anti-terror methods used in Palestine. Lord Dufferin remarked: "British lives are being lost and I don't think that we, from the security of Whitehall, can protest squeamishly about measures taken by the men in the frontline." Sir John Shuckburgh defended the tactics on the grounds that the British were confronted "not with a chivalrous opponent playing the game according to the rules, but with gangsters and murderers."There were many differences between British policy in the 1930s and Israeli policy today, but one stands out - the British, faced with a level of Palestinian Arab terrorism considerably less lethal than that which Israel faces today, utilized anti-terror methods considerably harsher than those used by Israeli forces.


2) 'Atlas Shrugged': From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years Article
By STEPHEN MOORE


Some years ago when I worked at the libertarian Cato Institute, we used to label any new hire who had not yet read "Atlas Shrugged" a "virgin." Being conversant in Ayn Rand's classic novel about the economic carnage caused by big government run amok was practically a job requirement. If only "Atlas" were required reading for every member of Congress and political appointee in the Obama administration. I'm confident that we'd get out of the current financial mess a lot faster.


Many of us who know Rand's work have noticed that with each passing week, and with each successive bailout plan and economic-stimulus scheme out of Washington, our current politicians are committing the very acts of economic lunacy that "Atlas Shrugged" parodied in 1957, when this 1,000-page novel was first published and became an instant hit.


Rand, who had come to America from Soviet Russia with striking insights into totalitarianism and the destructiveness of socialism, was already a celebrity. The left, naturally, hated her. But as recently as 1991, a survey by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club found that readers rated "Atlas" as the second-most influential book in their lives, behind only the Bible.


For the uninitiated, the moral of the story is simply this: Politicians invariably respond to crises -- that in most cases they themselves created -- by spawning new government programs, laws and regulations. These, in turn, generate more havoc and poverty, which inspires the politicians to create more programs . . . and the downward spiral repeats itself until the productive sectors of the economy collapse under the collective weight of taxes and other burdens imposed in the name of fairness, equality and do-goodism.


In the book, these relentless wealth redistributionists and their programs are disparaged as "the looters and their laws." Every new act of government futility and stupidity carries with it a benevolent-sounding title. These include the "Anti-Greed Act" to redistribute income (sounds like Charlie Rangel's promises soak-the-rich tax bill) and the "Equalization of Opportunity Act" to prevent people from starting more than one business (to give other people a chance). My personal favorite, the "Anti Dog-Eat-Dog Act," aims to restrict cut-throat competition between firms and thus slow the wave of business bankruptcies. Why didn't Hank Paulson think of that?
These acts and edicts sound farcical, yes, but no more so than the actual events in Washington, circa 2008. We already have been served up the $700 billion "Emergency Economic Stabilization Act" and the "Auto Industry Financing and Restructuring Act." Now that Barack Obama is in town, he will soon sign into law with great urgency the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan." This latest Hail Mary pass will increase the federal budget (which has already expanded by $1.5 trillion in eight years under George Bush) by an additional $1 trillion -- in roughly his first 100 days in office.


The current economic strategy is right out of "Atlas Shrugged": The more incompetent you are in business, the more handouts the politicians will bestow on you. That's the justification for the $2 trillion of subsidies doled out already to keep afloat distressed insurance companies, banks, Wall Street investment houses, and auto companies -- while standing next in line for their share of the booty are real-estate developers, the steel industry, chemical companies, airlines, ethanol producers, construction firms and even catfish farmers. With each successive bailout to "calm the markets," another trillion of national wealth is subsequently lost. Yet, as "Atlas" grimly foretold, we now treat the incompetent who wreck their companies as victims, while those resourceful business owners who manage to make a profit are portrayed as recipients of illegitimate "windfalls."



When Rand was writing in the 1950s, one of the pillars of American industrial might was the railroads. In her novel the railroad owner, Dagny Taggart, an enterprising industrialist, has a FedEx-like vision for expansion and first-rate service by rail. But she is continuously badgered, cajoled, taxed, ruled and regulated -- always in the public interest -- into bankruptcy. Sound far-fetched? On the day I sat down to write this ode to "Atlas," a Wall Street Journal headline blared: "Rail Shippers Ask Congress to Regulate Freight Prices."


In one chapter of the book, an entrepreneur invents a new miracle metal -- stronger but lighter than steel. The government immediately appropriates the invention in "the public good." The politicians demand that the metal inventor come to Washington and sign over ownership of his invention or lose everything.
The scene is eerily similar to an event late last year when six bank presidents were summoned by Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to Washington, and then shuttled into a conference room and told, in effect, that they could not leave until they collectively signed a document handing over percentages of their future profits to the government. The Treasury folks insisted that this shakedown, too, was all in "the public interest."


Ultimately, "Atlas Shrugged" is a celebration of the entrepreneur, the risk taker and the cultivator of wealth through human intellect. Critics dismissed the novel as simple-minded, and even some of Rand's political admirers complained that she lacked compassion. Yet one pertinent warning resounds throughout the book: When profits and wealth and creativity are denigrated in society, they start to disappear -- leaving everyone the poorer.


One memorable moment in "Atlas" occurs near the very end, when the economy has been rendered comatose by all the great economic minds in Washington. Finally, and out of desperation, the politicians come to the heroic businessman John Galt (who has resisted their assault on capitalism) and beg him to help them get the economy back on track. The discussion sounds much like what would happen today:
Galt: "You want me to be Economic Dictator?"
Mr. Thompson: "Yes!"
"And you'll obey any order I give?"
"Implicitly!"
"Then start by abolishing all income taxes."
"Oh no!" screamed Mr. Thompson, leaping to his feet. "We couldn't do that . . . How would we pay government employees?"
"Fire your government employees."
"Oh, no!"


Abolishing the income tax. Now that really would be a genuine economic stimulus. But Mr. Obama and the Democrats in Washington want to do the opposite: to raise the income tax "for purposes of fairness" as Barack Obama puts it.


David Kelley, the president of the Atlas Society, which is dedicated to promoting Rand's ideas, explains that "the older the book gets, the more timely its message." He tells me that there are plans to make "Atlas Shrugged" into a major motion picture -- it is the only classic novel of recent decades that was never made into a movie. "We don't need to make a movie out of the book," Mr. Kelley jokes. "We are living it right now."


3) Israel's Policy Is Perfectly 'Proportionate': Hamas are the real war criminals in this conflict.
By ALAN M. DERSHOWITZ

Israel's actions in Gaza are justified under international law, and Israel should be commended for its self-defense against terrorism. Article 51 of the United Nations Charter reserves to every nation the right to engage in self-defense against armed attacks. The only limitation international law places on a democracy is that its actions must satisfy the principle of proportionality.


Since Israel ended its occupation of Gaza, Hamas has fired thousands of rockets designed to kill civilians into southern Israel. The residents of Sderot -- which have borne the brunt of the attacks -- have approximately 15 seconds from launch time to run into a shelter. Although deliberately targeting civilians is a war crime, terrorists firing at Sderot are so proud of their actions that they sign their weapons.


When Barack Obama visited Sderot this summer and saw the remnants of these rockets, he reacted by saying that if his two daughters were exposed to rocket attacks in their home, he would do everything in his power to stop such attacks. He understands how the terrorists exploit the morality of democracies.
In a recent incident related to me by the former head of the Israeli air force, Israeli intelligence learned that a family's house in Gaza was being used to manufacture rockets. The Israeli military gave the residents 30 minutes to leave. Instead, the owner called Hamas, which sent mothers carrying babies to the house.


Hamas knew that Israel would never fire at a home with civilians in it. They also knew that if Israeli authorities did not learn there were civilians in the house and fired on it, Hamas would win a public relations victory by displaying the dead. Israel held its fire. The Hamas rockets that were protected by the human shields were then used against Israeli civilians.


These despicable tactics -- targeting Israeli civilians while hiding behind Palestinian civilians -- can only work against moral democracies that care deeply about minimizing civilian casualties. They never work against amoral nations such as Russia, whose military has few inhibitions against killing civilians among whom enemy combatants are hiding.


The claim that Israel has violated the principle of proportionality -- by killing more Hamas terrorists than the number of Israeli civilians killed by Hamas rockets -- is absurd. First, there is no legal equivalence between the deliberate killing of innocent civilians and the deliberate killings of Hamas combatants. Under the laws of war, any number of combatants can be killed to prevent the killing of even one innocent civilian.


Second, proportionality is not measured by the number of civilians actually killed, but rather by the risk posed. This is illustrated by what happened on Tuesday, when a Hamas rocket hit a kindergarten in Beer Sheva, though no students were there at the time. Under international law, Israel is not required to allow Hamas to play Russian roulette with its children's lives.


While Israel installs warning systems and builds shelters, Hamas refuses to do so, precisely because it wants to maximize the number of Palestinian civilians inadvertently killed by Israel's military actions. Hamas knows from experience that even a small number of innocent Palestinian civilians killed inadvertently will result in bitter condemnation of Israel by many in the international community.
Israel understands this as well. It goes to enormous lengths to reduce the number of civilian casualties -- even to the point of foregoing legitimate targets that are too close to civilians.


Until the world recognizes that Hamas is committing three war crimes -- targeting Israeli civilians, using Palestinian civilians as human shields, and seeking the destruction of a member state of the United Nations -- and that Israel is acting in self-defense and out of military necessity, the conflict will continue.

3a) New York Times Attacks Israel on its Op-Ed Page

Given the New York Times' disgraceful history* of skewing its editorial and Op-Ed pages with anti-Israel opinion columns, it is unsurprising that on January 8, in the midst of Israel's war with Hamas, it loaded its Op-Ed page exclusively with columns condemning Israel.


Regular columnist Nicholas Kristof contributed "The Gaza Boomerang" faulting Israel with everything from "helping nurture" Hamas to undermining peace, while fellow Times/International Herald Tribune columnist Roger Cohen (in the online edition) repeatedly asserts in "The Dominion of the Dead," that he is "shamed by [Israel's] actions."


Instead of balancing these anti-Israel views with others presenting a different perspective, New York Times editors selected two guest columns — "Fighting to Preserve a Myth " by Gideon Lichfield and "What You Don't Know About Gaza" by Rashid Khalidi — which went even further in attacking Israel.


Lichfield. argues that Israel should not respond with military force to Hamas' attacks against civilians within Israeli sovereign territory, that Israel should accept whatever Hamas offers, even if it is only a temporary truce.


Rashid Khalidi, a well-known propagandist and a former PLO spokesman – a fact that the New York Times neglects to mention in its author blurb – presents a list of anti-Israel canards. Khalidi's column is full of glaring errors, including one that is contradicted in the news section of the same newspaper issue.


He contends that "nearly 700 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed since the conflict broke out at the end of last year." But according to news coverage on the same day:


The United Nations estimated a few days ago that a quarter of the dead were civilians.... But Palestinian residents and Israeli officials say that Hamas is tending its own wounded in separate medical centers, not in public hospitals, and that it is difficult to know the number of dead Hamas fighters, many of whom were not wearing uniforms. (Steven Erlanger, "As Gaza Battle Goes On, Israel Is Set to Negotiate With Egypt on Cease-Fire")


Khalidi trots out the usual canards about Israel's 1948 war, "occupation," "blockade", etc. For example, he claims that Gaza is still occupied by Israel even though it completely withdrew its troops and settlers more than three years ago:


Israel still controls access to the [Gaza] area, imports and exports, and the movement of people in and out.
Although Israel does, of course, control its own border with the Gaza Strip, the Gaza-Egypt border is controlled by Hamas and Egypt – not Israel. This has been made clear by Egypt's periodic opening of the crossing point without regard to Israel's wishes. (See: BACKGROUNDER: The Rafah Crossing and Restrictions on Cross-Border Movement for Gaza Palestinians)


The writer also contends that Israel is "choking" off "fuel, electricity, imports, exports and the movement of people in and out of the Strip" to "punish" Gaza's civilian population "for exercising its democratic rights." Surely Khalidi cannot mean to imply that it is a democratic right to rocket and shell Jewish civilians within Israel's sovereign territory?



Perhaps most egregious is Khalidi's conclusion of his column with a fabricated quote. He writes:



Far more revealing are the words of Moshe Yaalon, then the Israeli Defense Forces chief of staff, in 2002: "The Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people."


Khalidi uses the same fabricated quote in his book Resurrecting Empire, citing in the footnote an interview with Ari Shavit in Haaretz Magazine, August 30, 2002, as quoted in Arnaud de Borchegrave, "Road Map or Road Rage?" Washington Times, May 28, 2003.


But, in fact, Ya'alon said no such thing in the Shavit interview. On the contrary. He said that Palestinian Arabs must understand that terrorism would not make Israelis into a defeated people. Khalidi, in other words, reverses the meaning of Ya'alon's words with a fabricated quote. (Click here for the full interview: Part I and Part II )


Below is Shavit's question and Ya'alon's answer:


Shavit: "Do you have a definition of victory? Is it clear to you what Israel's goal in this war is?

Ya'alon: "I defined it from the beginning of the confrontation: the very deep internalization by the Palestinians that terrorism and violence will not defeat us, will not make us fold. If that deep internalization does not exist at the end of the confrontation, we will have a strategic problem with an existential threat to Israel. If that [lesson] is not burned into the Palestinian and Arab consciousness, there will be no end to their demands of us."
Ya'alon repeated in the same interview:


The facts that are being determined in this confrontation — in terms of what will be burned into the Palestinian consciousness — are fateful. If we end the confrontation in a way that makes it clear to every Palestinian that terrorism does not lead to agreements, that will improve our strategic position.
While the New York Times is more constrained on its news pages, its editors feel they have free reign to attack Israel on the Op-Ed pages. As Andrew Rosenthal, New York Times editorial page editor, acknowledged, "we do not feel the obligation to provide the kind of balance you find in news coverage – because it is opinion."


But although no journalistic code requires the Times to present a balanced picture on its opinion pages, one would expect a basic commitment to fair-play. Moreover, Times editors do have an obligation, according to the journalistic code of ethics, to fact-check the opinion columns they run — something they clearly have not done.


4) Yes, Israel Can Win in Gaza: Israel is significantly weakening Hamas – with Palestinian help.Article
By EDWARD N. LUTTWAK


It seems most of the West's news reporters and pundits agree with Islamists everywhere that an Israeli victory in Gaza is impossible. They decry Israel's defensive attack on Hamas, prophesying an inevitable strengthening of Islamism among Palestinians and a dark future for the Jewish state.


How do our commentators come to this conclusion? They point, most frequently, to Israel's war with Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006, and echo Hezbollah's claim that it won a great victory. Indeed, this narrative goes, in launching their rockets at Israel, Hamas leaders were imitating Hezbollah's winning strategy.


In fact, Hezbollah was thoroughly shocked by the Israeli bombing campaign, and its supporters, who mostly live in southern Lebanon, are not likely to tolerate another wave of destruction caused by another Hezbollah attack. Even the inconclusive Israeli ground actions in Lebanon, which never involved more than six companies (roughly 600 men), resulted in the loss of some 400 Hezbollah fighters in direct face-to-face combat while Israel suffered only 30 casualties.


Of course, none of this prevented the Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah from claiming that he had won a great victory for God. Had his victorious claims actually been true, Israel should have been deterred from attacking Hamas. And by his logic, Israel would have cowered in fear of thousands of more rockets from Hamas, and the even more powerful rockets that Hezbollah would launch in tandem. Nasrallah certainly encouraged Hamas to attack Israel in language that implied he would intervene if a war ensued -- a credible promise had he really won a victory in 2006.
But as soon as the fighting started in Gaza, Nasrallah reversed the terms of his declarations -- threatening Israel if it attacked Lebanon (which of course nobody in Israel would want to do). When three rockets were fired from inside Lebanon on Thursday, Hezbollah wasted no time assuring the Israelis that it had nothing to do with it, and that it did not even have that type of rocket in their inventory. This is a familiar trope of the Palestinian experience. There is always some extremist leader ready to instigate the Palestinians to fight, implicitly promising his valiant participation -- until the fighting begins and the promises are forgotten in fear of Israeli retaliation.


Another familiar Palestinian experience is that the extremists can always prevail politically over the moderates, but in so doing they split Palestinian society. A key metric of this disunity is, in fact, the success of Israel's current war against Hamas.


Consider: According to Gaza sources, until the ground fighting started some 25% of the 500 dead were innocent civilians. The Israelis claimed that 20% of the casualties from the aerial attack were civilians. Either way, this was an extremely accurate bombing campaign. (Even in the 1991 and 2003 U.S. air campaigns against Iraq, when most of the bombs were already precision-guided, gross targeting errors killed many civilians.)


A targeting accuracy of 75% -- by the lowest estimate -- cannot have been merely obtained by overhead photography from satellites or reconnaissance aircraft, because few Hamas objectives were classic "high-contrast" targets such as bunkers or headquarters. Most targets were small groups of people in nondescript civilian vehicles that blend in with traffic, or inside unremarkable buildings. Nor could telephone intercepts have yielded much intelligence, because all Palestinians know that the Israelis have long combined voice recognition with cellular-grid location in order to aim missiles very accurately at single vehicles in traffic, or even at individuals standing about with their cellphones switched off.


So how did Israel do it? The only possible explanation is that people in Gaza have been informing the Israelis exactly where Hamas fighters and leaders are hiding, and where weapons are stored. No doubt some informers are merely corrupt, paid agents earning a living. But others must choose to provide intelligence because they oppose Hamas, whose extremism inflicts poverty, suffering and now death on the civilian population for the sake of launching mostly ineffectual rockets into Israel. Hamas completely disregards the day-to-day welfare of all Gazans in order to pursue its millenarian vision of an Islamic Palestine.


Some in Gaza must also resent Iran's role in instigating the barrage of rockets fired on Israel. And all must know that the longer-range rockets are supplied by Iran along with money for Hamas leaders, while ordinary Palestinians languish in poverty. Senior Hamas leader Nizar Rayan, killed on Jan. 1, was a poorly paid academic, yet he died with his four wives and 10 of his children in spacious quarters. He obviously had enough money to heed the Quranic injunction against marrying more wives than one can afford. That too must arouse bitter opposition among poor Palestinian civilians, inducing some to help Israel target Hamas. Perhaps these informers include Fatah members, further antagonized by persecution. Last week alone, some 50 were reportedly tortured by Hamas.


Hamas won the 2006 election because it was the only available alternative when a majority of voters were disgusted by Fatah's blatant corruption. Since then, many nonfundamentalist Palestinians have been oppressed by the puritanical prohibitions imposed by Hamas, while all Gazans have been greatly impoverished.


There is no evidence that support for Fatah has therefore increased, or that its surviving leaders could still rally their followers. This reality sets an upper limit on what Israel can achieve by ground combat -- it cannot change the regime.
What Israel can do is weaken Hamas further in its current ground operations by raiding targets that cannot be attacked from the air -- typically because they are in the basements of crowded apartment buildings -- and by engaging Hamas gunmen in direct combat. Simply reducing the combat strength of Hamas is crucial, as it was in 2006 against Hezbollah, because while many like to parade dressed in the robes of martyrs, when there is actual fighting enthusiasm rapidly wanes.


With few exceptions, Israeli ground forces are not advancing frontally but are instead mounting a multiplicity of raids. If their target intelligence remains as good as it was during the air attack, they will run out of targets in a matter of days. That is when a cease-fire with credible monitoring would be possible and desirable for both sides as the only alternative to renewed occupation.
Hamas will claim a win no matter what happens, but then so did Hezbollah in 2006. And yet, for the most part, Hezbollah remains immobile and the Israeli northern border with Lebanon remains quiet. If Israel can achieve the same with Hamas in Gaza, it would be a significant victory.



5) Message from Dick Morris


Al Franken is trying every trick in the book to get into the U.S. Senate.

Recently Franken was "certified" of the recent recount, but as the liberal Sec. of
State of Minnesota admitted, this does not mean he is the election winner.


In fact, the result is now open for legal challenge.


I believe a fair court ruling will negate Franken's phony victory and declare Norm Coleman the winner - who was ahead by hundred of votes on election night.


This week the Wall Street Journal came out with guns blazing for the out-and-out vote theft going on in Minnesota.


The Journal noted that shockingly almost every controversial dispute during the vote recount went in the favor of Al Franken.


The Journal said: "We can't recall a similar recount . . . in which nearly every crucial decision worked to the advantage of the same candidate (Franken). If the Canvassing Board certifies Mr. Franken as the winner based on the current count, it will be appointing a tainted and undeserving senator."



Exposing Al Franken's vote fraud won't be easy. Franken has gotten millions from George Soros and his liberal Hollywood friends.


Even Sen. Harry Reid relented and said he won't seat Al Franken yet.



If Democrats get Franken in the Senate they are just one vote shy of a filibuster proof Senate.

Dick Morris