Shame On Anyone Who Ever Thought Mohammad Morsi Was A Moderate

Were you surprised by Egypt's Mohammad Morsi promulgating dictatorial powers?  You should not have been.

As Eric Trager in New Republic points out,

Nobody should have been surprised when Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi issued a “constitutional declaration” on Thursday asserting total political power. This was, after all, the former Muslim Brotherhood leader’s second power grab since he took office in June, complementing his earlier seizure of legislative and constitution-writing authorities by now insulating himself from judicial oversight. Yet Washington was caught entirely off-guard: Morsi’s power play was at odds with the administration’s view that the Muslim Brotherhood is a “democratic party,” and his impressive handling of last week’s Gaza ceasefire created a modicum of trust between him and President Obama. So the State Department released a predictably confused statement, urging “all Egyptians to resolve their differences … peacefully and through democratic dialogue.”

To get Trager's take on the full story, read it here - Shame On Anyone Who Ever Thought Mohammad Morsi Was A Moderate  

As for me, a wolf in the sheep's clothing of a democratic movement, is still a wolf.  Perhaps the most dangerous kind of wolf.  

Glick on jpost.com, “The trap that Arik built”

Carolyn Glick on Israel, Hamas and Gaza, “The trap that Arik built” from jpost.com.  Israelis and their supporters do not have a lot to draw comfort from.

The cease-fire agreement that Israel accepted Wednesday night to end the current round of Palestinian rocket and missile attacks is not a good deal for Israel by any stretch of the imagination.

Supporters of Israel will not take comfort from the quiet from Gaza. Why?

At best, Israel and Hamas are placed on the same moral plane. The cease-fire erases the distinction between Israel, a peace-seeking liberal democracy that wants simply to defend its citizens, and Hamas, a genocidal jihadist terrorist outfit that seeks the eradication of the Jewish people and the destruction of Israel.

At worst, the cease-fire places Israel beneath Hamas. The first two clauses require both sides to end hostilities. The third suggests Israel is expected to make further concessions to Hamas after the firing stops.

Over the weekend, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood held what the media claimed was a stormy meeting. Its members were split over what to do about Israel. Half wanted to go to war with Israel immediately. The other half called for waiting until the Egyptian military is prepared for war. In the end, the voices calling for patient preparation for war won the day.

And for their patience, the Muslim Brothers received the plaudits of the US government. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her boss President Barack Obama were effusive in their praise of the Egyptian government, and joined Egypt in placing Israel on the same moral plane as a terrorist group.

Moreover, Obama and Clinton compelled Israel to accept wording in the cease-fire that arguably makes Egypt the arbiter of Israeli and Palestinian compliance with the agreement.
 

So what's left for Israelis to do?  Toss out the old and bring in a new group of politicians?

The full article is below.

November 25, 2012 Sunday 11 Kislev 5773 8:40 IST

By CAROLINE B. GLICK

Column One: The trap that Arik built

22/11/2012

The millions of Israelis who opposed the withdrawal from Gaza do not seek personal vindication for being right.

The cease-fire agreement that Israel accepted Wednesday night to end the current round of Palestinian rocket and missile attacks is not a good deal for Israel by any stretch of the imagination.

At best, Israel and Hamas are placed on the same moral plane. The cease-fire erases the distinction between Israel, a peace-seeking liberal democracy that wants simply to defend its citizens, and Hamas, a genocidal jihadist terrorist outfit that seeks the eradication of the Jewish people and the destruction of Israel.

Under international law, Israel is not just within its rights to defend itself from Hamas. It is required to. International law requires all states to treat Hamas terrorists as criminals and deny them safe haven and financing. But the cease-fire agreement requires both the Israeli policeman and the Hamas criminal to hold their fire.

At worst, the cease-fire places Israel beneath Hamas. The first two clauses require both sides to end hostilities. The third suggests Israel is expected to make further concessions to Hamas after the firing stops.

Then there is the cease-fire’s elevation of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood government to the role of responsible adult. Hamas is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Egyptian President Muhamad Morsi openly supports Hamas. Morsi sent his Prime Minister Hesham Kandil to Gaza to personally express the Egyptian government’s support for Hamas’s criminal assault against Israeli civilians.

Over the weekend, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood held what the media claimed was a stormy meeting. Its members were split over what to do about Israel. Half wanted to go to war with Israel immediately. The other half called for waiting until the Egyptian military is prepared for war. In the end, the voices calling for patient preparation for war won the day.

And for their patience, the Muslim Brothers received the plaudits of the US government. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her boss President Barack Obama were effusive in their praise of the Egyptian government, and joined Egypt in placing Israel on the same moral plane as a terrorist group.

Moreover, Obama and Clinton compelled Israel to accept wording in the cease-fire that arguably makes Egypt the arbiter of Israeli and Palestinian compliance with the agreement.

Aside from the administration’s de facto support for the Hamas regime in Gaza, it is hard to think of a greater humiliation than Israel being forced to submit complaints to its sworn enemy about the actions of the sworn enemy’s terrorist client.

And yet, for all of that, it isn’t clear that Israel had a better option than to sign on the dotted line. Israel might have gotten better results if Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak had ordered the ground forces poised at the border to take out a few Hamas ground installations. It certainly would make sense for Israel to end Gaza’s electricity supply.

But as it stands today, a full-blown ground invasion in the mold of the 2002 Defensive Shield Operation, where Israel seized control of Judea and Samaria from Palestinian terror groups and reasserted its security control over the Palestinian areas, so ending the Palestinian terror onslaught against Jerusalem and central Israel, was not in the cards.

Israel is in a strategic trap. And it is one of its own making. Starting with the Rabin-Peres government’s decision to embrace the PLO terrorist organization as a peace partner in 1993, Israel has been in strategic retreat. Each incremental retreat by Israel has empowered its worst enemies both militarily and diplomatically and weakened the Jewish state militarily and diplomatically.

In May 2000, following years of political agitation by the radical Left, then-premier Ehud Barak ordered the IDF to retreat from Israel’s security zone in south Lebanon. Hezbollah immediately seized control over the border area. Within months it kidnapped and killed three IDF soldiers and held them for ransom – hiding the fact that they had been murdered. The same Barak-led government that withdrew the IDF from south Lebanon was loath to acknowledge the failure of its policy and so did nothing when the three soldiers were kidnapped.

Within six years, Hezbollah was strong enough to launch an all-out missile war against Israel.

Facing them was the government that had just carried out the withdrawal from Gaza. The governing strategy of Ariel Sharon’s heirs, Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni, was based on surrendering land and demonizing as warmongers those who opposed surrendering land. When Hezbollah attacked Israel in July 2006, Olmert and Livni were in no position to order a serious ground invasion of Lebanon. And since that was the only way to win the war, Israel lost the war, paving the way for Hezbollah’s subsequent takeover of the Lebanese government.

As for that withdrawal from Gaza, just like the phony peace process with the PLO and the strategically demented withdrawal from south Lebanon, the withdrawal from Gaza was a self-evidently insane policy. It was obvious that it would lead to the strengthening of Palestinian terrorist groups and so put Israel’s population centers in striking range of their missiles.

After both the Oslo process and the withdrawal from Lebanon left Israel strategically and diplomatically weakened, with its politicians, generals and its very existence brought before international tribunals and targeted by diplomatic pogroms, there was no basis for the empty claim that by withdrawing from Gaza, Israel would gain international legitimacy to defend itself.

By leaving Gaza, Israel was saying – as it had in Lebanon – that it had no right to be there. And if it had no right to be there, it had no right to return.

To force this mad initiative through, Sharon had to explicitly disavow the platform he was elected to implement. Sharon won the 2003 elections by pledging never to surrender Gaza.

After he betrayed his voters, Sharon demonized and, when possible, fired everyone in positions of power and influence who opposed him.

He called a referendum of Likud members to vote on his plan, and when his opponents won the vote overwhelmingly, he ignored it. He fired Lt.-Gen. Moshe Ya’alon, then IDF chief of General Staff. He fired his cabinet ministers. He castigated as “rebels” his party members who opposed his plan.

Moreover, with the active collusion of the legal system, Sharon violently repressed his political opponents. Young girls were thrown into jail without trial for months for participating in anti-withdrawal demonstrations. Privately chartered buses en route to lawful demonstrations were interdicted by police and prevented from traveling.

Protest organizers were arrested in their homes at 3 a.m. And with the active collusion of the media, all debate on the merits of the withdrawal plan was stifled.

As bad as it was in Israel, the situation in the US was arguably even more devastating. Since Oslo, Israeli opponents of the Left’s strategic insanity were intellectually and politically buoyed by their conservative counterparts in America.

The latter helped legitimize political opposition and enabled the conceptualization and maintenance of alternative policies as viable options.

Despite government repression, some 45 percent of Israel’s Jewish population actively participated in anti-withdrawal protests. In the US, virtually no one supported them. The absence of opposition owed to the fact that in America withdrawal opponents were boycotted, demonized and blacklisted by the American Jewish community and the previously supportive conservative media.

During the years of the fake peace process, conservative US Jewish groups and conservative publications led by Commentary, The Weekly Standard and The Wall Street Journal forcefully opposed it. But when Sharon joined the radical Left by adopting its plan to withdraw from Gaza, these formidable outlets and institutions enthusiastically followed him.

Leading voices like former Jerusalem Post editor and Wall Street Journal editorial board member Bret Stephens, Commentary editors Norman Podhoretz and Neil Kozodoy, commentator Charles Krauthammer and Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol not only lined up to support the dangerous planned withdrawal. They barred all voices of opposition from the pages of their publications.

To greater and lesser degrees, their shunning of voices that warned against the Gaza withdrawal continues to this day.

So, too, with the exception of the Zionist Organization of America, every major American Jewish organization supported the withdrawal.

Like the editors of Commentary, the Weekly Standard and the Wall Street Journal, they barred voices of opposition from speaking to their groups.

All commentators who warned of the strategic calamity that would befall Israel in the aftermath of a withdrawal from Gaza were marginalized and demonized as extremists.

In a notable gesture, this week, Stephens along with Commentary’s Max Boot, acknowledged their error in supporting the withdrawal from Gaza. Their recantations are noteworthy because most of their colleagues who joined them in pushing Israel down the garden path and cheered Sharon’s “democracy” as 8,500 Israelis were thrown out of their homes and off their land in order to free it up for a terrorist takeover, continue to deny that they were wrong to do so.

But Stephens’s and Boot’s belated intellectual integrity on Gaza is not enough to make a difference for Israel today.

Israel has only two options for dealing with the ever-escalating threat from Gaza. It can try to coexist with Hamas. This option is doomed to failure since Hamas seeks the annihilation of the Jewish people and the eradication of Israel. Recognizing this state of affairs, in a public opinion survey taken on Wednesday for Channel 2, 88% of Israelis said that a cease-fire with Hamas will either not hold at all or hold for only a short time.

74% of Israelis opposed accepting a cease-fire.

The other choice is to destroy Hamas. To accomplish this Israel will need to invade Gaza and remain in place. It will have to kill or imprison thousands of terrorists, send thousands more packing for Sinai, and then spend years patrolling the streets of Gaza and arresting terrorists just as it does today in Judea and Samaria.

Whereas the first option is impossible, the latter option is not currently viable. It isn’t viable because not enough people making the argument have the opportunity to publish their thoughts in leading publications. Most of those who might have the courage to voice this view fear that if they do, they will be denied an audience, or discredited as warmongers or extremists.

So they remain silent or impotently say that Israel shouldn’t agree to a cease-fire without mentioning what Israel’s other option is.

The millions of Israelis who opposed the withdrawal from Gaza do not seek personal vindication for being right. They didn’t warn against the withdrawal to advance their careers or make their lives easier. Indeed, their careers were uniformly harmed.

They did it because they were patriots. They felt it was their duty to warn their countrymen of the danger, hoping to avert the disaster we now face. They should be listened to now. And their voices should be empowered by those who shunned them, because only by listening to them will we develop the arguments and the legitimacy to do what needs to be done and stop fighting to lose, again and again and again.

caroline@carolineglick.com

All rights reserved © 1995 - 2012 The Jerusalem Post.

NY Times still calls them "militants"

Not that I truly expect the New York Times to change its ways with all things Israelis, but today's report on the cross border attack into Israel that took the life of an Israeli soldier continues the canard that the attackers and others like them are "militants."

An obscure militant group based in Egypt’s North Sinai region claimed responsibility over the weekend for a cross-border attack that killed an Israeli soldier last week. The claim called fresh attention to the uphill struggle the newly formed Egyptian government is facing to control the restive Sinai region.

If not terrorists, what are the members of "Supporters of the Holy Places" the group that has claimed credit for the attack? To claim that the attack was in retaliation for the idiotic anti-Islam movie just adds insult to the injury.

With condemnation of Jews a near daily occurrence in the Muslim world, killers like the Supporters of the Holy Place have a place, but it's in hell without the 72 virgins promised to them by their Islamist teachers.

Well, that's what I think.

You can read the full Times report here.
Alisa Flatow
Stephen M. Flatow

Israel and the double standard. Where's Alice Walker's outrage now?

Alisa Flatow Israel terrorism
The double standard employed by Israel's critics leads one to wonder just what goes through the minds of these self-styled do-gooders of all different stripes and colors.

In any event, there have been no cries of disproportionality of Egypt's response to last weeks terror attack in Sinai including use of the Egyptian air force to attack terror camps.

So, Alice Walker, what do you have to say?  I can't hear you.

That's what I have to say.  How about you?

Stephen M. Flatow

Israel’s ‘peace of paper’ with its neighbors - Frida Ghitis

This item was below my radar until it popped up in a second Google News Alert.  Anyway, here it is and the news is, well, not unexpected.

We have always known that the rare examples of peace between Arabs and Israelis were built on a fragile foundation. Now cracks in that foundation have started becoming more visible, and they are making ominous sounds as they grow.

And just how do those cracks sound when they happen?

Mursi is on record calling the Israelis “vampires.” As the top vote-getter in the first round, he has been careful not to antagonize Washington and its generous aid package by engaging in new anti-Israel rants. But his surrogates have had no such compunction.


During a campaign rally, Mursi watched and assented while the Islamist preacher Safwat Higazi told the crowd in a soccer stadium that Egypt under Mursi will usher in a new Islamic caliphate whose capital will be in Jerusalem, where Israel’s capital now stands. As Higazi cried out, “Our capital shall not be in Cairo, Mecca or Medina,” thousands chanted in unison, “Millions of martyrs march toward Jerusalem.” Over the loudspeaker Mursi supporters heard the call to “Banish the sleep from the eyes of the Jews.” The runner-up, who will face against Mursi in the runoff, is Gen. Ahmed Shafiq, former President Hosni Mubarak’s last prime minister. Shafiq has warned that the Muslim Brotherhood and Mursi would start a new war with Israel. But when voters have doubted Shafiq’s worthiness, his favorite achievement to cite is that he shot down two Israeli fighter jets. There could hardly be anything more heroic in the eyes of Egyptian.

And so goes the sad state of affairs in the enlightened Arab countries of the Middle East.  Read the full article Israel’s ‘peace of paper’ with its neighbors.

Stephen M. Flatow
Alisa Flatow

Christians dying in Egypt

We've written previously about the fate of Egypt's Coptic Christian community. Now that Mubarak is gone it seems that the Christians are now responding to violence with violence as this story from the Times relates - Clashes in Cairo Leave 11 Dead and Two Churches in Flames

Behind the violence may be a rumor.

Like many recent episodes of Muslim-Christian violence here, the strife began over rumors of an interfaith marriage. Muslims in the neighborhood said a former Christian had left the church and married a Muslim. They said they had heard that she had been abducted and detained inside the church of St. Minas against her will, reflecting a pattern of accusations that has recurred in several recent episodes of sectarian conflict.

So, let's see, Christians believed rumors that Jews kidnapped them to use their blood during Passover, so they murdered Jews. Today, Muslims believe rumors that a convert is held against her will, so they go after Christians. Christians stand up for themselves. Christians and Muslims die as a result. Churches are burned.

The usual suspects have now been rounded up by Egyptian authorities. What happens next is anyone's guess. But, if you are a Coptic Christian, I suggest you get out. Now.

From Jpost.com: The Region: Egypt gets its Khomeini

Barry Rubin writes in the Jerusalem Post, "Friday, February 18 may be a turning point in Egyptian history. On that day Yusuf al-Qaradawi spoke to a giant cheering crowd in Tahrir Square."

Al-Qaradawi, 84-years old, had been in self-imposed exile in Qatar for 50 years but his return to Egypt may mean that Egypt's Khomeini has entered the scene.

And The New York Times reports,

"Sheik Qaradawi, a popular television cleric whose program reaches an audience of tens of millions worldwide, addressed a rapt audience of more than a million Egyptians gathered in Tahrir Square to celebrate the uprising and honor those who died.

“Don’t fight history,” he urged his listeners in Egypt and across the Arab world, where his remarks were televised. “You can’t delay the day when it starts. The Arab world has changed.”

Rubin points out,

"IT WAS 32 years ago almost to the day when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned in triumph to Tehran to take over the leadership of that country. Qaradawi has a tougher job, but he’s up to the challenge if his health holds up. Up until now, the Egyptian revolution generally, and the Brotherhood in particular, has lacked a charismatic thinker, someone who could really mobilize the masses. Qaradawi is that man. Long resident in the Gulf, he is returning to his homeland in triumph."

Qaradawi has called attacks against Israelis and American soldiers legitimate resistance. And he is considered a terrorist by the US for his support of terror oganizations.

Giving Qaradawi access to Egyptians in the street is asking for trouble. So, in my opinion, the slide to another Islamist government in the Middle East begins.

Read Rubin's report: The Region: Egypt gets its Khomeini and The New York Times, After Long Exile, Sunni Cleric Takes Role in Egypt.

From JPost.com - Analysis: PA cabinet changes show Abbas is freaking out

The "freaking out" reference is from the article headline; I didn't make it up.

In any event, could the chickens be coming home to roost for Mr. Abbas, aka Abu Mazen, after all these years? Abbas, I was personally told by the late Yitzhak Rabin, was a terrorist, and he, therefore, most likely has the penchant as his comrade in arms Arafat had for pocketing cash intended for Palestinians on the street, and working to keep power rather than democratically share it.

The uproar in Tunisia and Egypt may hit the streets of Ramallah, then what? An Islamist government takeover (read here Hamas) or will the moderates in Palestinian society gain a voice they have been forced to suppress for so many years?

Read the full JPost.com article - Analysis: PA cabinet changes show Abbas is freaking out

Is Iran afraid of Egyptian uprising? Hanging dissidents is proof

From Frida Ghitis writing in the Miami Herald, Iran sees threat, promise, in Egyptian uprising

"When Arab leaders looked at the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, they saw the flames of revolution lapping at their own heels. To protect themselves, they rushed to make preemptive concessions, handing out cash, rolling back subsidy cuts, and promising new elections. Iranian leaders, on the other hand, chose to respond in precisely the opposite way. Instead of granting the people what they might demand, the government chose to protect itself by killing even more of its opponents, according to figures from human-rights organizations."

That's the Iranian approach- encourage change abroad but kill your opponents at home. The unasked question, for now, is what message President Obama will send to Iranians who are fighting, and dying, for change in their government.

Read more.

Whither Egypt - the Economist Debates

The Economist poses the following debate position:
This house believes that Egypt will become a democracy within a year

Defending the motion is Anoush Ehteshami, Professor, Durham University and Joint Director, Centre for the Advanced Study of the Arab World.

Against the motion is Daniel Pipes, Director, Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford.

I think Pipes is correct. Read the entire column, Economist Debates: Egypt: Statements

What do you think?

Egyptian Elections - What's next?

Read the column on: Egyptian Elections - the Dry Bones Blog

The Jews did it! Iranian says Mossad behind Egypt church blast

You might ask how long it would take for an Iranian to blame Israel and the Jews for the devastating terror attack in Egypt that left more than 20 people dead and scores injured. Well, we didn't have to wait long as Iran's Press TV has published an op-ed blaming Israel's Mossad and Zionists for the bomb attack.

One Hassan Hanizadeh, an editorial writer at the Tehran Times but no apparent relation to Baghdad Bob, has written,

Although, at first glance, the finger is pointed at extremist Wahabi or Salafi groups, it goes without saying that no Muslim, whatever their political leanings may be, will ever commit such an inhumane act.

Attacks on churches in Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq and Tunisia can be analyzed in the context of a Zionist scenario aimed at driving a wedge between Muslims and Arab Christians.

The goal of the attack was "aimed at creating a rift between Muslims and Christians."

Read the full column, PressTV - Mossad behind Egypt church blast

The scary aspect of his column is actually found in the comments that follow. They tend to demonstrate that Hanizadeh is not alone in his let's point the finger at Jews world. Enough said.

Christians in Egypt are sitting ducks

I have written recently about the attack on Christianity in the Middle East. Now we have two stories this weekend point to the perilous lives led by Coptic Christians in Egypt.

From the New York Times comes the news of a bombing, a suicide attack, against

"worshipers outside of a Coptic Christian church in the port city of Alexandria, Egypt, early Saturday, killing at least 21 people in the worst attack against Egypt’s Christian minority in recent memory."

Read, Coptic Church in Egypt Is Hit by Fatal Bomb Attack.

The follow-up story is how the community responded.

Amid shattered glass and scenes of grief, congregants returned to the Saints Church early Sunday for the morning Mass, passing a chain of riot police who patrolled the streets nearby without incident after a bomb exploded here Saturday and killed at least 21 people in the worst attack against Egypt’s Christian minority in recent years.

So, what is the rest of Egypt doing? President Hosni Mubarak blames outside forces. Christians want to know what the reaction would have been if the victims were Muslims. One man whose "cousin was injured in the blast and would have his leg amputated. “'I don’t feel afraid,” he said. “The only thing that makes me scared is the police.'”

The bottom line is that a two thousand year old community in Egypt is on the verge of being forced from the country they call home. And the world remains silent. Where is the outrage on America's college campuses against this human rights abuse?

Well, that's what I have to say.

Stephen M. Flatow

Not all tidings are of great joy - Jeff Jacoby

The Boston Globe's Jeff Jacoby writes about the life of Egypt's Coptic Christians and Christians in Muslim countries.

On May 31, 2008, a band of Bedouin Muslims armed with automatic weapons stormed Abu Fana [an ancient monastery], destroying a small church and burning the monastery's farm. Nine monks and monastery employees were wounded, and four others were abducted.

What is most tragic about the plight of the Copts, however, is that they comprise only a fraction of the estimated 200 million Christians in 60 countries worldwide who face persecution because of their religion.

From Egypt to Iraq it's hard to be a Christian.

Read the full column.

Investments in Hamas Tunnels Collapse

No pun intended in the caption but it seems that our enterprising Palestinian brethren are victims of their collapsing investments in smuggling tunnels that the Israel Air Force has helped collapse physically this past year.

According to Jonathan Ferziger writing on Bloomberg.com,

Investment opportunities are rare in the Gaza Strip. So when Nabila Ghabin saw one last year, she pawned her car and jewelry and put $12,000 into a network of tunnels that brought in supplies smuggled from Egypt.

She was one of about 4,000 Gazans who gave cash to middlemen and tunnel operators in 2008 as Israel blocked the overland passage of goods. Then Israeli warplanes bombed the tunnels before and during the Dec. 27 to Jan. 18 Gaza offensive and the investments collapsed.

No, this isn't an April Fools' day story. It's legitimate.

The report continues,

Now investors, who lost as much as $500 million, want their money back from Hamas, which runs Gaza. Hamas Economics Minister Ziad Zaza says about 200 people were taken into custody in connection with the tunnel investments; most have been released. Hamas is offering a partial repayment of 16.5 cents on the dollar using money recovered from Ihab al-Kurd, the biggest tunnel operator.

And who is Hamas's Madoff? According to investment victim Nabila Ghabin,

“The imam told us that we wouldn’t regret joining this blessed business,” she said in her apartment in an unfinished 12-story high-rise overlooking the Mediterranean as her husband played the lute. “This happened in mosques all over Gaza.”

I for one, hope the "collapse" of the tunnel market bankrupts every last one of these clowns.

Read the full story: Hamas Finds Gaza Tunnels' $500 Million Loss Worse Than Madoff.

Stephen M. Flatow

How to Handle Hamas - a new proposal

Yagil Henkin, an associate fellow at the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies at the Shalem Center, has some suggestions on how to deal effectively with Hamas.

While there is much discussion as to the continuation of sanctions against Hamas, Henkin asks, What sanctions should be applied and what can they achieve?

It is very unlikely that sanctions will cause the Hamas government to fall. Historically, embargoes have either failed to catalyze change, or were extremely slow in bringing it. In the best-case scenarios, sanctions have been helpful as part of a wider strategy.

After discussing the use of sanctions in the cases of Rhodesia and South Africa, Henkin turns to Israel's restrictions on building supplies and other materials going into Gaza (with the acquiescence of Egypt.)

SO, WHAT sanctions can be applied against Hamas? Apart from controlling the border and an arms embargo, the most effective way to apply pressure on Hamas is not to indirectly pressure them via their population, but rather pressure Hamas itself, as part of a wider strategy. The international community must act, if it is interested in the welfare of Gaza's residents and curbing radical Islam.

The steps to be taken?

First, Hamas leaders should be prevented from traveling abroad and being officially received - including the leadership based outside Gaza. Second, any organization affiliated with Hamas should be ignored, and, third, economic sanctions applied against individuals and businesses connected to Hamas.

Will this dissolve Hamas's obstinacy? Hopefully, but not certainly. Both Zimbabwe and Myanmar have survived government-targeted sanctions. But hopefully by focusing the sanctions and blame where they belong - on Hamas - while keeping civilians uninvolved, this will succeed. Sanctions may not catalyze change as effectively as we would like, but this neither renders them unnecessary nor suggests we should embargo lock, stock and barrel.

Read the full article, How to effectively sanction Hamas

Terror and Human Rights Violations, both begin with tyrants

"In 1948, the United Nations recognized the "inherent dignity" and "the equal and inalienable rights" of all human beings when it ratified the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Though this week's U.N. conference in Geneva claimed to stand for these noble values, the world's dictators were the real winners."

So says Professor Saad Eddin Ibrahim, a former guest of Hosni Mubarak's prisons and now a visiting professor at Harvard.

• Too many official country delegates didn't come to Geneva to stand up for the oppressed. They came to condemn the "colonial powers" of the West and Israel.
• The deep divide between those who seek to expose human-rights abuses and those who only use the language of human rights as a shield is not new.
• Rightly anticipating that the Geneva conference would be a forum for anti-Western and anti-Israel propaganda, the U.S. and a score of Western democracies boycotted the conference entirely.
• Unfortunately, lost in this circus were the real victims who suffer at the hands of autocratic and theocratic regimes.
• Though the decision to boycott the conference was understandable, I believe it was a mistake.
  

Read Professor Ibrahim's complete Op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal On-line, "Tyrants Get Another U.N. Platform."

NY Times Report on Tunnels is Out of Context

In "Fierce Focus on Tunnels, a Lifeline for Gazans," New York Times, January 10, 2009, reporter Stephen Farrell paints an heroic picture of Hamas terrorists using tunnels to smuggle goods and, dangerous, weapons into Gaza. The goods are sold on the black market, and the weapons are used to attack Israel.

The 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza regard the tunnels as a vital lifeline to the outside world, from which they are otherwise almost completely shut off by the Israeli military’s control of land, sea and air access to the north, east and west of Gaza. To the south, Gaza has been sealed off by Egypt.

No mention is made why Israel has that control. How about, Mr. Farrell, the need to stop terrorists from entering Israel proper from Gaza?

It's become obvious to the Israelis that the Egyptians, on whose side of the Gaza border the tunnels begin and where the smuggling starts, have done very little, if anything, to stop the smuggling of weapons, nor have they allowed food into Gaza through the crossing on their side.

Terrorists only let the press see what they want it to see. Glorification of their efforts will not bring peace.

Read the full article here.