Latest Analysis and Commentary
by Khaled Abu Toameh • November 15, 2018 at 5:00 am
What the Hamas official is actually saying is that thanks to Iran's backing, Hamas continues to hold hostage the two million residents of the Gaza Strip, whose lives have been literally destroyed by the Hamas leaders' policies. The message that Hamas and PIJ are sounding is: How dare the US administration impose sanctions on Iran, the only country that is helping us in our effort to continue our terrorist attacks against Israel? The renewed US sanctions on Iran are good news, however, for many Arabs and Muslims who feel threatened by Tehran's actions and rhetoric. Iran has long been systematically working towards undermining moderate Arabs and Muslims in the region. The Palestinian Authority and Abbas are actually attacking a US administration that is seeking to undermine the enemies of Abbas: Hamas and Iran. The Palestinian Authority is, thus, aligning itself with its own enemies.
The US administration has decided to reinstate the sanctions against Tehran that were removed under the 2015 "nuclear deal." These sanctions are part of Washington's effort to curb Iran's missile and nuclear programs and diminish its influence in the Middle East. Pictured: US President Donald Trump holds up a memorandum that reinstates sanctions on Iran, at the White House on May 8, 2018. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
If the United States is worried about imposing harsher sanctions on Iran, it should not give those concerns a second thought. Being unpopular with people who do not wish you well is probably the price of true leadership. Those who are worried, and should be worried, are Iran and its Palestinian allies and friends. The US administration has decided to reinstate the sanctions against Tehran that were removed under the 2015 "nuclear deal." These sanctions are part of Washington's effort to curb Iran's missile and nuclear programs and diminish its influence in the Middle East. Iran has two major allies in the Palestinian arena: Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the Islamist groups that control the Gaza Strip and do not recognize Israel's right to exist. Were it not for Iran's financial and military support, these two Palestinian groups would long ago have lost their grip on Gaza.
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by Burak Bekdil • November 15, 2018 at 4:00 am
"Turkey remains the world's worst jailer for the second consecutive year, with 73 journalists behind bars, compared with 81 last year. Dozens more still face trial, and fresh arrests take place regularly." — The Committee to Protect Journalists, December 2017. For Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, apparently, as for the Saudis, there are "good journalists" and "bad journalists." He often refers to the latter group as "terrorists" and "traitors." Erdoğan has tried so hard to use the murder of the Saudi journalist, Khashoggi, for a charm offensive mission to polish his badly tarnished image in the Western world. He is still trying hard to play the game. Sorry, Mr. President: It just does not work.
In 2016, journalist Can Dündar (pictured), along with his colleague Erdem Gül, was sentenced to five years in prison in Turkey for "revealing state secrets" after a front-page story in Cumhuriyet detailed how Turkey's security services had sent arms shipments to radical jihadis fighting in Syria. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
For weeks after the October 2 disappearance of a Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, after he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has behaved like the leader of a Western democracy: He feared there might have been a murder of the Saudi journalist, which Saudi officials later admitted; speaking loud and louder, he asked the Saudi authorities to bring the journalist's killers to justice; he offered them a trial in Turkey, and asked for their extradition; he urged the House of Saud to find and hand over to justice those who may have ordered the murder. He also shared audio evidence of the murder with Western leaders. Yet Erdoğan's public image in the more civilized parts of the world looks closer to that of the Saudi royals than to any Western leader. For that, he has can only himself to blame.
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by Giulio Meotti • November 14, 2018 at 5:00 am
Asia Bibi is expected to remain in Pakistan until her case is once again "reviewed in an appeal process" ordered by the Prime Minister. Bibi's judicial process now looks infinite. Meanwhile, thousands of Islamists fill the Pakistani streets, calling for her execution. Many of the values that make the West "the West" are now at stake in her fate: freedom of expression, religious freedom, freedom of movement, the rule of law, human dignity, and the separation of church and state. If the West does not fight for Asia Bibi, for whom should it fight? "If Asia Bibi is denied asylum in the UK then what the heck is the point of the asylum system?" — Ayaan Hirsi Ali, refugee from Somalia, author and human rights campaigner. A London where an ISIS-supporting preacher of Pakistani descent, Anjem Choudary, is free and comfortable, while a Pakistani Christian woman, Asia Bibi, would be unsafe and threatened, is the end of the West as we know it.
Asia Bibi's family has struggled for eight years to save her life, first to get her off of death row in Pakistan, where she was falsely imprisoned for "blasphemy," and now that she has been released, to try to get asylum for her in the West. Pictured: Eisham Masih, one of Asia Bibi's daughters, is greeted by Pope Francis in 2015. (Image source: HazteOir/Wikimedia Commons)
Asia Bibi's case looks as if it is coming from "another, medieval world." Her "guilt," as an "unclean" Christian, was for drinking water from a communal well, used by Muslim neighbors. Two Muslim women alleged that because she, a Christian, had touched the water from the well, the entire well was now haram (forbidden by Islamic law). Bibi responded by saying "I think Jesus would see it differently from Mohammed," that Jesus had "died on the cross for the sins of mankind," and asked, "What did your Prophet Muhammad ever do to save mankind?" She was accused of insulting the Islamic prophet Muhammad and put on trial for "blasphemy." She was told to convert to Islam or die.
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by Ruthie Blum • November 14, 2018 at 4:00 am
David Littman, before his untimely death from leukemia in 2012, had intended this book on the Maghreb to be the first in a series that would cover the social condition of the Jews in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Yemen, Iran and Turkey -- an ambitious project that he was unable to tackle in its entirety. "To his credit, King Mohammad VI has made a point of preserving the Jewish heritage of Morocco, especially its cemeteries. He has better relations with Israel than other Muslim countries but still does not recognize Israel and have diplomatic relations with the nation state of the Jewish People." — Alan M. Dershowitz, "What Is a 'Refugee'?" "[T]he task of completing this exploration of the historical reality of Jewish existence under the Crescent rests upon future generations of researchers, to whom, it is hoped, our modest contribution will serve as an inspiration." — David Littman.
Exile in the Maghreb, co-authored by the great historian David G. Littman and Paul B. Fenton, is an ambitious tome contradicting the myth of how breezy it was for Jews to live in their homelands in the Middle East and North Africa when they came under Muslim rule. "Ever since the Middle Ages," the book jarringly illustrates, "anti-Jewish persecution has been endemic to Muslim North Africa." Littman, before his untimely death from leukemia in 2012, had intended this book on the Maghreb to be the first in a series that would cover the social condition of the Jews of Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Yemen, Iran and Turkey -- an ambitious project that he was unable to tackle in its entirety.
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by Bassam Tawil • November 13, 2018 at 5:00 am
The renewed Hamas attacks on Israel serve as a reminder that the terrorist group is not interested in a real truce. Hamas wants millions of dollars paid to its employees so that it can continue to prepare for war with Israel while not having to worry about the welfare of its people. Qatar's $15 million cash grant has failed to stop Hamas from launching hundreds of rockets into Israel. On the contrary, the money has only emboldened Hamas and increased its appetite to continue its jihad to eliminate Israel. All the money in the world will not convince Hamas to abandon its ideology or soften its position toward Israel. What the international mediators need to understand is that there is only one solution to the crisis in the Gaza Strip: removing Hamas from power and destroying its military capabilities. They also need to understand that there is only one language that Hamas understands: the language of force. The assumption that if you pay terrorists millions of dollars, they will stop attacking you -- rather than using the funds to build up their forces -- has proven to be false.
A bus burns near Kfar Aza, Israel, on November 12, 2018, after being hit by an anti-tank guided missile fired by Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip. (Image source: Hamas video screenshot)
Last week, as efforts were underway to achieve a new truce between Hamas and Israel, this author asked a legitimate and straightforward question: Can Hamas be trusted? The conclusion was that a real truce between Israel and Hamas can be achieved only after the Palestinian jihadi terrorists are removed from power, and not rewarded for violence and threats. Days later, Hamas itself provided proof as to why it cannot be trusted with any deal, including a truce. Since yesterday, Hamas and its allies in the Gaza Strip have been firing hundreds of rockets into Israel. The current barrage began hours after Hamas terrorists attacked Israeli commandos inside the Gaza Strip, killing an Israeli officer and moderately wounding a soldier. In response, the Israeli army killed seven terrorists, including a top Hamas military commander -- Sheikh Nur Baraka.
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by Khaled Abu Toameh • November 12, 2018 at 5:00 am
To date, Hamas and Fatah have not been able to agree on the interpretation of the "reconciliation" agreements already signed. Fatah claims that the agreements are supposed to allow its Ramallah-based government to assume full responsibility over the Gaza Strip. Hamas, for its part, remains vehemently opposed to relinquishing security control over the Gaza Strip. Abbas's official news agency, Wafa, issued a strongly worded statement accusing Hamas of being part of a "Zionist-American conspiracy" to detach the West Bank from the Gaza Strip. According to the statement, Hamas is now cooperating with the US and Israel to establish a separate Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip. "There will be no Palestinian state without the Gaza Strip, and there will be no [separate Palestinian] state in the Gaza Strip," the statement quoted Abbas as saying. Abbas can continue to present himself to the world as the "President of the State of Palestine" as much as he wants. He is only living in an illusion: it is obvious by now that he does not represent the two million Palestinians who are living in a separate Hamas-controlled entity in the Gaza Strip. Abbas has not been able to set foot in the Gaza Strip for the past 11 years, and his chances of ever returning there now seem to be zero.
For the past 11 years, a number of Arab countries have tried to end the power struggle between Hamas and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction, to no avail. Several "reconciliation" agreements previously signed between Fatah and Hamas have never been implemented. Pictured: Abbas (right) and Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal meet on November 24, 2011 in Cairo, Egypt, in one "reconciliation" attempt. (Photo by Mohammed al-Hams/Khaled Mashaal's Office via Getty Images)
Last week, Hamas began paying salaries to thousands of its employees after Qatar sent a $15 million grant in cash to the Gaza Strip. The money was brought to the Gaza Strip by senior Qatari envoy Mohammed El-Amadi through the Erez border crossing with Israel. The Qatari grant is in the context of efforts by Egypt, Qatar, and the United Nations to reach a long-term truce between Israel and Hamas. The payment was the first of a total of $90 million that the emirate has pledged to send to the Gaza Strip in the next six months, according to Palestinian sources. The Palestinian Authority (PA) and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, however, remain opposed to an agreement; reports say that one of the reasons they are opposed to a truce accord between Israel and Hamas is because such a deal will pave the way for the establishment of a separate Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip.
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November 12, 2018 at 4:00 am
Ceremonial US Air Force guardsmen during a Veterans Day ceremony at the Luxembourg American Military Cemetery, November 11, 2016. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Joe W. McFadden)
Endless thanks to all the courageous veterans who have sacrificed so much to keep our free world free.
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by Raymond Ibrahim • November 11, 2018 at 5:00 am
Seven pilgrims were shot to death, "just because they were Christian," said Pope Francis after the attack. "The pilgrims were killed in such a savage and sadistic way, as if they were enemy combatants, when they were just simple Christians come to get a blessing from a monastery." — Coptic Bishop Anba Makarios of Minya, Egypt. "The minimum response expected from president El-Sisi is to dismiss the head of State Security and the governor of Minya, as a clear sign of holding officials accountable. Furthermore, given the government's continued failure to protect the Copts, Coptic Solidarity vigorously calls for an independent inquiry by the UN to evaluate the Copts' situation and to recommend necessary measures to alleviate their increasingly perilous situation..." — Coptic Solidarity, Washington, DC.
On November 2, heavily armed Islamic terrorists ambushed and massacred Christians returning home after visiting the ancient St. Samuel Monastery (pictured) in Minya, Egypt. (Image source: Roland Unger/Wikimedia Commons)
On November 2, heavily armed Islamic terrorists ambushed and massacred Christians returning home after visiting the ancient St. Samuel Monastery in Minya, Egypt. Seven pilgrims -- including a 12-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy -- were shot to death. More than 20 were left injured with bullet wounds or shards of broken glass from the buses' windows. "I pray for the victims, pilgrims killed just because they were Christian," said Pope Francis after the attack. Pictures posted on social media reveal "bodies soaked in blood and distorted faces of men and women." In one video posted, a man can be heard crying, "The gunshot got you in the head, my boy!" and repeating, "What a loss!"
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by Judith Bergman • November 10, 2018 at 5:00 am
It cannot be stressed enough that this agreement is not about refugees fleeing persecution, or their rights to protection under international law. Instead, the agreement propagates the radical idea that migration -- for any reason -- is something that needs to be promoted, enabled and protected. The UN has no interest in admitting that its agreement promotes migration as a human right; until recently, there has been little debate about it. More debate might risk jeopardizing the entire project. UN member states are not only supposed to open their borders for the migrants of the world, but should also help them pick and choose their future country by providing them with comprehensive information about each country they may wish to settle in.
A new UN agreement, which almost all member states plan to sign in December, propagates the radical idea that migration -- for any reason -- is something that needs to be promoted, enabled and protected. Pictured: Migrants walk through fields towards a holding camp in the village of Dobova, Slovenia on October 26, 2015. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)
The United Nations, in a non-binding agreement that almost all UN member states will sign at a ceremony in Morocco in early December, is making migration a human right. The finalized text of the agreement, the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, although officially non-binding, "puts migration firmly on the global agenda. It will be a point of reference for years to come and induce real change on the ground..." according to Jürg Lauber, the representative of Switzerland to the UN -- who led the work on the agreement together with the representative of Mexico. One immediate irony, of course, is that few countries have entry requirements as restrictive as Switzerland's. If one wishes to stay more than three months, not only is a "residence permit" required, but, "In an effort to limit immigration from non-EU/EFTA countries, Swiss authorities impose strict annual limitations on the number of residence and work permits granted to foreigners."
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by Soeren Kern • November 9, 2018 at 5:00 am
"Many commentators around the world have looked at the US election results as a chicken looks at a knife: not knowing exactly what to do with it.... It is now proven that Donald Trump's election was not an accident. The victory in the Senate, even if anticipated, shows for the first time in a great democracy that a populist can keep power after having begun to exercise it." — Les Échos. "...Trump is expected significantly to increase pressure on Europeans to invest the target of two percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on defense. Above all, Berlin will face pressure to spend billions and billions of euros, because the federal government is far from achieving this goal." — Die Welt. "Many in the country had hoped that the first full electoral verdict on the presidency of Donald Trump would deliver a decisive repudiation of Trumpism. The results do not bear this out." — Irish Times.
U.S. President Donald Trump arrives with Vice President Mike Pence to give remarks a day after the midterm elections on November 7, 2018 in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
The American midterm elections attracted intense interest in Europe, where much of the political and media establishment are hostile to U.S. President Donald J. Trump, and many had openly hoped that the vote on November 6 would weaken him and his legislative agenda. Newspapers and magazines across Europe provided saturation coverage of the elections. The overwhelming majority of commentaries and editorials, while customarily vitriolic in tone, grudgingly acknowledged that the midterm results did not amount to the total repudiation of the Trump Administration and may even help the president's chances for reelection in November 2020. In terms of transatlantic relations, many observers raised fears that if the Democrats, who won control of the House of Representatives, succeed in thwarting Trump's domestic initiatives, the president may place more focus on foreign policy and increase pressure on free-riding European allies to spend more for their own defense.
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by Gordon G. Chang • November 8, 2018 at 5:00 am
The main points of contact for Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA) chapters in the U.S. are often intelligence officers in the embassy and consulates. China's Ministry of State Security uses CSSA students to inform on other Chinese on campus. Let us get the FBI to round up Ministry of State Security agents who, up to now, have been given free rein to operate in America. Putting these agents behind bars or even just revoking their visas will end many of the activities that endanger American campuses. The Chinese kill CIA agents in China. The least Washington can do is declare China's agents personae non gratae. The Chinese feel emboldened to violate American sovereignty and break laws because American administrations have let them do these things -- sometimes openly -- since at least the early 1990s. This is as much a Washington problem as a Beijing one. Congress can also change laws to make life inhospitable for Confucius Institutes. Legislation should bar an educational institution from receiving any federal funds if it hosts a CI.
China's Communist Party has targeted institutions of higher learning as part of an intensive, multi-decade effort to influence American society. Chinese President Xi Jinping (pictured) has placed great emphasis on international propaganda efforts. (Photo by Thomas Peter-Pool/Getty Images)
Beijing, in seeking influence on American college and university campuses, has been infringing on academic freedoms, violating American sovereignty, and breaking U.S. law. U.S. officials, neglecting their responsibilities to the American people, have allowed this injurious behavior to continue, in some instances for decades. As an initial matter, some of this impermissible Chinese conduct is harmless, even amusing. As detailed by Anastasya Lloyd-Damnjanovic in a landmark study for the Wilson Center, Chinese officials in 2004 and 2007 threatened then Columbia University professor Robert Barnett, the prominent Tibet expert, that if he did not adopt a more favorable view of China's policies they would -- heavens! -- stop speaking to him.
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by A. Z. Mohamed • November 8, 2018 at 4:00 am
"I would like to pay tribute to the sincere scholars of Al-Azhar and the Ministry of Awqaf [Endowments] who are working to correct the misconceptions about the tolerant Islamic religion and its moderate middle approach, to address and counter extremism and deviant ideology and to uphold the human, moral and love values among all human kind." — Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, June 11, 2018. The Grand Imam conspicuously chose to ignore the fact that many Muslims hate and despise non-Muslims. These Muslims are acting in accordance with what the Quran and the Hadith tell them about the disbelievers.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi deserves to be universally commended for his words supporting an approach to "counter extremism and deviant ideology and to uphold the human, moral and love values among all human kind." Pictured: Sisi addresses the United Nations on September 25, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
Prominent Muslim scholars continue to argue that the Quran and Prophet Mohammed do not incite intolerance or killing Christians and Jews. Many scholars, however, seem prepared to do their utmost to hide this "inconvenient truth." Take, for example, Sheikh Ahmed El-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Egypt's preeminent Sunni university, who recently claimed that "there is no single verse in the Quran that calls for killing Jews or Christians." While it is true that the Quran does not specifically call for killing Christians and Jews, the Hadith — a record of the words, actions, and the silent approval of Prophet Mohammed — does refer to killing all Jews. The Quran, however does refer to Christians and Jews as disbelievers (for instance, Qur'an 98:6, 9:30, 4:46, 48:6, 2:88-89), and calls on Muslims to fight and kill disbelievers.
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by Khaled Abu Toameh • November 7, 2018 at 5:00 am
"There's no place for the [Israeli] enemy on the map." — Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas leader, October 29, 2018. A number of senior Fatah officials, including Munir al-Jaghoob and Mohammed Shtayyeh, have condemned Oman for hosting Netanyahu. They have also condemned the UAE for allowing Israelis to participate in the judo competition. So, Fatah and Hamas cannot agree to pay their workers, they cannot agree on supplying electricity to the Gaza Strip, and they cannot agree on providing medical supplies to hospitals there. They do agree, however, on inflicting more harm and damage on their people. If they go on like this, the day will come when the Palestinians will discover that their friends and brothers have become their biggest enemies.
Recent statements issued by Hamas and Fatah have strongly condemned Arab countries for "rushing" to normalize relations with Israel before the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is resolved. Pictured: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shakes hands with Oman's Sultan Qaboos bin Said, during Netanyahu's official visit to Oman, October 26, 2018. (Image source: Israel PM's Office)
For more than 10 years now, Hamas and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's ruling Fatah faction have been at war with each other. Attempts by their Arab brothers, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, to solve the power struggle between the two rival Palestinian groups have thus far failed and are unlikely to succeed in the foreseeable future. The gap between Hamas and Fatah remains as wide as ever: the two parties despise each other. Fatah wants to return to the Gaza Strip; Hamas says it out loud: no. Fatah wants Hamas to disarm and cede control over the Gaza Strip; Hamas says no. On one particular issue, however, the two sides lay aside their differences and see eye to eye. When it comes to Israel, one would be hard-pressed to distinguish between Fatah and Hamas.
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by Raymond Ibrahim • November 7, 2018 at 4:00 am
Saudi funding of an American academic "doesn't mean that he's bought and paid for." Rather, "there is a kind of silencing effect. It's more about what doesn't get written about... there may be some self-censoring on certain topics you don't raise unnecessarily, topics that are sensitive to the Saudis." — from a Washington, DC "insider," quoted in Vox. "The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the heartland of Islam, the birthplace of its history, the site of the two holy mosques and the focus of Islamic devotion and prayer. Saudi Arabia is committed to preserving the Islamic tradition in all areas of government and society..... The Holy Qur'an is the constitution of the Kingdom and Shari'ah (Islamic law) is the basis of the Saudi legal system." — Website of the Saudi Arabian Embassy, Washington, DC. A Saudi fatwa — in Arabic only — entitled, "Duty to Hate Jews, Polytheists, and Other Infidels," was written by Sheikh Abd al-Aziz ibn Baz (d. 1999), former grand mufti and highest religious authority in the government. It comes from the fatwa wing of the government, meaning it has the full weight of the government behind it.
George Mason University and George Washington University (pictured) in the Washington, D.C. area, have each received tens of millions of dollars in Saudi-affiliated funding, according to a report in the Daily Caller. (Image source: Ingfbruno/Wikimedia Commons)
Why would the center of illiberalism, religious fanaticism, and misogyny ever sponsor the center of liberalism, secularism, and gender equality? This is the question that crops up when one considers the largesse that human-rights-abusing Saudi Arabia bestows on the leading universities — those putative bastions of progressive, free thinking — in the United States. According to a recent report in the Daily Caller: "... elite U.S. universities took more than half a billion dollars from the country [Saudi Arabia] and its affiliates between 2011 and 2017. Saudi Arabian interests paid $614 million to U.S. universities over a six-year period, more than every country but Qatar and the United Kingdom."
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by Soeren Kern • November 6, 2018 at 5:00 am
There were 140 new cases of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Birmingham between April and June 2018. "There remains a huge problem with professionals viewing forced marriage as a cultural issue rather than a crime. Many aren't even aware there is a law." — Jasvinder Sanghera, attacking the government's failure to tackle the problem of forced marriages. The Ministry of Justice blocked plans for an academic study into why prisoners convert to Islam and how it can lead to radicalization. "They will have been concerned about what this proposed project will discover," a source said.
A leaked letter showed that Britain's Home Secretary Sajid Javid agreed to hand evidence on two British jihadis to American authorities for a federal prosecution, but without assurances that the death penalty would not be used. (Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images)
October 1. So-called "cutters" are being flown into Britain to perform female genital mutilation (FGM) on young girls, according to The Independent. "The practicing community talk together, saying, 'My girl needs to be cut,' and pay the cutters to come into the UK and cut the girls here," said Hoda Ali, an FGM activist who works in West London. She added: "The reality is we need to open our eyes. We don't need to think just about faraway countries because right now we have girls who are in their late teens or even early twenties who were cut in this country. They are British girls who were born here and they were cut here."
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