Krauthammer: "No peace in our time" - The Washington Post

Every once and a while, a writer completely nails a complex topic - succinctly, boldly, and accurately. This is one of those articles, on Israel and the Middle East, no less. Must read. - R.O.

"No peace in our time"

By: Charles Krauthammer - The Washington Post

March 20, 2015 

Of all the idiocies uttered in reaction to Benjamin Netanyahu’s stunning election victory, none is more ubiquitous than the idea that peace prospects are now dead because Netanyahu has declared that there will be no Palestinian state while he is Israel’s prime minister.

I have news for the lowing herds: There would be no peace and no Palestinian state if Isaac Herzog were prime minister either. Or Ehud Barak or Ehud Olmert for that matter. The latter two were (non-Likud) prime ministers who offered the Palestinians their own state — with its capital in Jerusalem and every Israeli settlement in the new Palestine uprooted — only to be rudely rejected.

This is not ancient history. This is 2000, 2001 and 2008 — three astonishingly concessionary peace offers within the past 15 years. Every one rejected.

The fundamental reality remains: This generation of Palestinian leadership — from Yasser Arafat to Mahmoud Abbas — has never and will never sign its name to a final peace settlement dividing the land with a Jewish state. And without that, no Israeli government of any kind will agree to a Palestinian state.

Today, however, there is a second reason a peace agreement is impossible: the supreme instability of the entire Middle East. For half a century, it was run by dictators no one liked but with whom you could do business. For example, the 1974 Israel-Syria disengagement agreement yielded more than four decades of near-total quiet on the border because the Assad dictatorships so decreed.

That authoritarian order is gone, overthrown by the Arab Spring. Syria is wracked by a multi-sided civil war that has killed 200,000 people and that has al-Qaeda allies, Hezbollah fighters, government troops and eventhe occasional Iranian general prowling the Israeli border. Who inherits? No one knows.

In the last four years, Egypt has had two revolutions and three radically different regimes. Yemen went from pro-American to Iranian client so quickly the United States had to evacuate its embassy in a panic. Libya has gone from Moammar Gaddafi’s crazy authoritarianism to jihadi-dominated civil war. On Wednesday, Tunisia, the one relative success of the Arab Spring, suffered a major terror attack that the prime minister said “targets the stability of the country.”

From Mali to Iraq, everything is in flux. Amid this mayhem, by what magic would the West Bank, riven by a bitter Fatah-Hamas rivalry, be an island of stability? What would give any Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement even a modicum of durability?

There was a time when Arafat commanded the Palestinian movement the way Gaddafi commanded Libya. Abbas commands no one. Why do you think he is in the 11th year of a four-year term, having refused to hold elections for the last five years? Because he’s afraid he would lose to Hamas.

With or without elections, the West Bank could fall to Hamas overnight. At which point fire rains down on Tel Aviv, Ben Gurion Airport and the entire Israeli urban heartland — just as it rains down on southern Israel from Gaza when it suits Hamas, which has turned that first Palestinian state into a terrorist fire base.

Any Arab-Israeli peace settlement would require Israel to make dangerous and inherently irreversible territorial concessions on the West Bank in return for promises and guarantees. Under current conditions, these would be written on sand.

Israel is ringed by jihadi terrorists in Sinai, Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Islamic State and Iranian proxies in Syria, and a friendly but highly fragile Jordan. Israelis have no idea who ends up running any of these places. Will the Islamic State advance to an Israeli border? Will Iranian Revolutionary Guards appear on the Golan Heights? No one knows.

Well, say the critics. Israel could be given outside guarantees. Guarantees? Like the 1994 Budapest Memorandum in which the United States, Britain and Russia guaranteed Ukraine’s “territorial integrity”? Like the red line in Syria? Like the unanimous U.N. resolutions declaring illegal any Iranian enrichment of uranium — now effectively rendered null?

Peace awaits three things. Eventual Palestinian acceptance of a Jewish state. A Palestinian leader willing to sign a deal based on that premise. A modicum of regional stability that allows Israel to risk the potentially fatal withdrawals such a deal would entail.

I believe such a day will come. But there is zero chance it comes now or even soon. That’s essentially what Netanyahu said Thursday in explaining — and softening — his no-Palestinian-state statement.

In the interim, I understand the crushing disappointment of the Obama administration and its media poodles at the spectacular success of the foreign leader they loathe more than any other on the planet. The consequent seething and sputtering are understandable, if unseemly. Blaming Netanyahu for banishing peace, however, is mindless.

"Islam and the West at War" - NY Times

Islam and the West at War

By: Roger Cohen – Feb. 16, 2015

After a Danish movie director at a seminar on “Art, Blasphemy and Freedom of Expression” and a Danish Jew guarding a synagogue were shot dead in Copenhagen, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the prime minister of Denmark, uttered a familiar trope:

“We are not in the middle of a battle between Islam and the West. It’s not a battle between Muslims and non-Muslims. It’s a battle between values based on the freedom of the individual and a dark ideology.”

This statement — with its echoes of President Obama’s vague references to “violent extremists” uncoupled from the fundamentalist Islam to which said throat-cutting extremists pledge allegiance — scarcely stands up to scrutiny. It is empty talk.

Across a wide swath of territory, in Iraq, in Syria, in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, in Yemen, the West has been or is at war, or near-war, with the Muslim world, in a failed bid to eradicate a metastasizing Islamist movement of murderous hatred toward Western civilization.

To call this movement, whose most potent recent manifestation is the Islamic State, a “dark ideology” is like calling Nazism a reaction to German humiliation in World War I: true but wholly inadequate. There is little point in Western politicians rehearsing lines about there being no battle between Islam and the West, when in all the above-mentioned countries tens of millions of Muslims, with much carnage as evidence, believe the contrary.

The Danish filmmaker Finn Norgaard was killed a little over a decade after another movie director, Theo van Gogh, was slain in Amsterdam for making a film critical of Islam’s treatment of women. The Islamists’ war is against freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, freedom of the press, freedom of blasphemy, sexual freedom — in short, core characteristics of democracies seen by the would-be rebuilders of the Caliphate as signs of Western debasement.

Do not provoke them with cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, some say, show respect for Islam, the peaceful faith of some 1.6 billion people. But what, pray, was the “provocation” of Dan Uzan, the Jewish security guard outside the Copenhagen synagogue?

Islam is a religion that has spawned multifaceted political movements whose goal is power. Islam, as such, is fair game for commentators, caricaturists and cartoonists, whose inclination to mock the depredations of theocracy and political Islam’s cynical uses of the Prophet cannot be cowed by fear.

Over the more than 13 years since Al Qaeda attacked America on 9/11, we have seen trains blown up in Madrid, the Tube and a bus bombed in London, Western journalists beheaded, the staff of Charlie Hebdo slaughtered, Jews killed in France and Belgium and now Denmark. This is not the work of a “dark ideology” but of jihadi terror.

On the right of Europe’s political spectrum, anger is rising against Islam, against marginalized Muslim communities, who in turn feel discriminated against and misrepresented, with cause. Several thousand young European Muslims troop off to join ISIS. Europe’s Jews are on edge, with cause. Israel calls them home. In the United States, three Muslim students were killed this month by a gunman in a possible hate crime denounced by Obama as “brutal and outrageous.” A tide of retaliatory menace rises.

Who or what is to blame? There are two schools. For the first, it is the West that is to blame through its support for Israel (seen as the latest iteration of Western imperialism in the Levant); its wars (Iraq); its brutality, (Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib); its killing of civilians (drones); its oil-driven hypocrisy (a jihadi-funding Saudi ally).

For the second, it is rather the abject failure of the Arab world, its blocked societies where dictators face off against political Islam, its repression, its feeble institutions, its sectarianism precluding the practice of participatory citizenship, its wild conspiracy theories, its inability to provide jobs or hope for its youth, that gives the Islamic State its appeal.

I find the second view more persuasive. The rise of the Islamic State, and Obama’s new war, are a direct result of the failure of the Arab Spring, which had seemed to offer a path out of the deadlocked, jihadi-spawning societies of the Arab world.

Only Arabs can find the answer to this crisis. But history, I suspect, will not judge Obama kindly for having failed to foster the great liberation movement that rose up in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria and elsewhere. Inaction is also a policy: Nonintervention produced Syria today.

I hear the words of Chokri Belaid, the brave Tunisian lawyer, shortly before he was gunned down by Islamist fanatics on Feb. 6, 2013: “We can disagree in our diversity but within a civilian, peaceful and democratic framework. Disagree in our diversity, yes!”

To speak of a nonspecific “dark ideology,” to dismiss the reality of conflict between the West and Islam, is also to undermine the anti-Islamist struggle of brave Muslims like Belaid — and these Muslims are the only people, ultimately, who can defeat the black-flagged jihadi death merchants.

The Islamic State's Third Target - An Interview with Joel C. Rosenberg

This week I was honoured to interview New York Times bestselling author Joel C. Rosenberg about his new novel, The Third Target. As a longtime fan and follower of Rosenberg's work, I was intrigued at the opportunity to speak with him again, following my first interview with him back in June 2010 in an article later published in the Jerusalem Post.

Below is my latest interview with Rosenberg, published today in the Times of Israel. Read it here: http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-islamic-states-third-target/

The Islamic State's Third Target
By: Robert D. Onley - Times of Israel - January 17, 2015

With reports indicating that Islamic State militants are managing to gain territory in Iraq and Syria in spite of US and coalition air strikes, the world is witnessing a nightmare scenario unfold across the Middle East: what if the Islamic State simply cannot be stopped?

In New York Times bestselling author Joel C. Rosenberg’s latest novel, The Third Target, this troubling question is examined in serious, careful detail. Known for eerily prescient political thrillers whose plots accurately predicted hijacked airliners attacking the United States, the Iraq War, and the death of Yasser Arafat (among other major geopolitical events), Rosenberg and his books rocketed in popularity over the last fifteen years.

The Third Target

After writing extensively about radical Islam in both fiction and nonfiction, from Sunni jihadists with AK’s to Shia theocrats pursuing nuclear weapons, last year Rosenberg set out to examine whether a terror threat existed that he was not yet aware of, but ought to be.

Helping his investigative efforts, Rosenberg is a former advisor to Prime Minister Netanyahu with an extensive network of friends and officials whom he tapped to explore the question above. In researching The Third Target, Rosenberg met with two former heads of the CIA, R. James Woolsey and Porter Goss, and the former head of the Mossad, Danny Yatom, among many other intelligence officials. Months before the Islamic State, or ISIL, burst onto the international scene, the answers Rosenberg heard separately from these intelligence chiefs were both unanimous and chilling.

“They each were concerned that Al-Qaeda in Iraq was morphing into something new, something more dangerous,” Rosenberg says. In early 2014, while President Obama went on the record claiming that ISIL was merely a “jayvee team” and hardly worth worrying about, Rosenberg stated, “These officials warned me that what kept them up at night was the rise of this Al-Qaeda offshoot, ISIL, and the reality that an Islamist-led overthrow of Jordan was a genuine worst-case scenario and a possibility.”

Rosenberg meeting with Jordan’s Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour in Amman as part of the research for “The Third Target.”

These foreboding comments prompted Rosenberg to dig further. After more meetings in Washington, he traveled to Jordan, meeting with Jordan’s Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour, Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh, and Interior Minister Hussein Al-Majali to discuss regional threats. Mentioning potential plot ideas, including a chemical attack and the risk of an overthrow, Al-Majali responded to Rosenberg, “the King has appointed me to make sure the scenario that you are writing about will never happen in our country. But it is a plausible scenario, and that is the problem.”

“What if ISIL tries to set into motion attacks on a number of targets – and what if one of those targets was Jordan, Israel, or the United States?”

After digesting countless intensive interviews with Western and Middle Eastern officials, Rosenberg sat down to write The Third Target, which, soon after the first draft was finished and in light of ISIL’s rapid rise across the Middle East, had its release date pushed up by three months. Published early on January 6th of this year, The Third Target imagines a scenario in which ISIL captures a cache of chemical weapons in Syria, and threatens to deploy them against an unknown city. Rosenberg says,“The question I wanted to ask in this book was, what if ISIL tries to set into motion attacks on a number of targets – and what if one of those targets was Jordan, Israel, or the United States?”

As if the plot was ripped from the headlines and bringing the pages of The Third Target alive, Jordan’s King Abdullah recently stated publicly on CBS News that the battle against ISIL, is, in effect, “our generation’s Third World War.” But in order to stop ISIL and thwart any attempt to attack Jordan, Rosenberg believes that President Obama and the leaders of NATO must view ISIL as “such a significant threat to national security” that the US takes “decisive military action, with no more half measures.”

Rosenberg cites a long-list of realistic military actions that the US is not currently conducting to help destroy ISIL, including not allowing U.S. Special Forces on the ground to provide precise targeting for air strikes, and not permitting 24/7, 7-day a week airlifts of supplies to Kurdish troops fighting in northern Iraq, “even though the Kurds are the most aggressive fighters and the most immediately endangered by ISIL.”

Critiquing the Obama Administration, Rosenberg pulls no punches, saying of Obama’s half-hearted campaign against ISIL that, “This is not working. This is not decisive action. This is foreign policy by press release.” Arguably Obama’s failure to act decisively also lends credibility to the terrifying potential for the ISIL-led chemical weapons attack that is envisioned in The Third Target.

“Obama is also missing the greatest strategic alliance against radical Islam in history.”

But beyond the US not showing up in Paris to show solidarity following the Charlie Hebdo attacks, Rosenberg notes that, “Obama is also missing the greatest strategic alliance against radical Islam in history.” Rosenberg believes three men emerging who are the “Winston Churchill’s of our time, and none of them are in London, Paris or Washington. They are all in the Middle East.”

Rosenberg lists Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu, Jordan’s King Abdullah II, and Egypt’s President el-Sisi, as the only global leaders who truly see the existential threat posed to them and to their people by two different, but equally radical Islamic forces: the Shia radicals in Iran, and the Sunni radicals of ISIL. “President el-Sisi and King Abdullah have no qualms calling this a battle against radical Islam,” Rosenberg pointed out, “while President Obama and his Press Secretary refuse to use the term ‘radical Islam’ for fear of being ‘offensive.’” The difference in mentality could not be more stark.

Not only is Jordan committed to fighting radical Islam militarily, Rosenberg says King Abdullah II and his team are also committed to deconstructing radical Islam theologically, stating, “I sat with the King’s men, who explained how they are rallying support among hundreds of Islamic scholars all across the Middle East and the world to explain their version of moderate Islam, and to deconstruct what they call takfiri Islam, which is what the radicals believe.”

“President el-Sisi told the imams that they “must revolutionize and reform modern Islam”, with Rosenberg adding, “Sisi did so at a real risk to his own life in Egypt.”

Rosenberg further cited Egyptian President el-Sisi’s recent speech to Muslim clerics on New Years Day, where el-Sisi told the imams that they “must revolutionize and reform modern Islam,” with Rosenberg adding, “Sisi did so at a real risk to his own life in Egypt.” Netanyahu similarly has spoken out against the threat of radical Islam on numerous occasions. All the while, Rosenberg says, “These are allies at risk, and Obama simply won’t help these men win the battle.”

As ISIL marches, the regular stream of their grotesque snuff films continues to inundate the mainstream news. On the surface, the incomprehensibly evil actions of ISIL seem to be the product of mass delusional hysteria – violence for the sake of violence. But Rosenberg hints at a deeper motive for ISIL and their ilk, one grounded in a strict interpretation of the Quran and hadiths.

“Both the radical Sunnis and Shias have an eschatology – or End Times belief system – that talks about establishing the Islamic Kingdom or Caliphate: the radical Shias are waiting for their Messiah while they build nuclear weapons, before picking an apocalyptic fight with the West or another nation in the region,” Rosenberg explains.

“ISIL…[is] building the Caliphate now, desperately trying to usher in End of Days by killing and enslaving those caught up in their apocalyptic, genocidal vision.”

However Rosenberg contrasts this belief with those of radical Sunnis, such as ISIL, who he says have decided not to wait: they are building the Caliphate now, “desperately trying to usher in End of Days by killing and enslaving those caught up in their apocalyptic, genocidal vision. I spoke to one Pastor in Iraq, who said to me: ‘Joel, this is demonic. When ISIL chops off someone’s head, this is not just terrorizing – these are blood sacrifices to the Islamic State’s ‘God’.’ These are the genocidal conditions emerging in Iraq and Syria.”

In writing The Third Target, Rosenberg hopes to bring readers into the ‘living room’ of the savage, barbaric mindset of ISIL, to help people see how urgent the threat is, and explore why we must act decisively to crush it, “When I started to write this book, I was thinking that the threat was 4 to 5 years away. It moved much faster than I expected.”

Underscoring the intensity of Joel Rosenberg as an author and advocate, and emphasizing his passion when speaking out about these issues, Rosenberg and his family recently made Aliyah to Israel after living their entire lives in the United States. As an evangelical Christian with a Jewish father, Rosenberg says that he wants to use his novels “to inform people in the West, generally, and Christians in particular, that now is the time to stand with Israel, Jordan, Egypt, and all people of good will who will fight against radical Islam.”

He says that he is honoured to stand with Israel in this fight, and notes that in due time his sons will be drafted to serve to protect Israel, “I believe that there is a great movement of Christians around the world who love Israel, who are standing with the Jewish People, and that my role and contribution to Israeli society is trying to educate and mobilize that Christian support for Israel, especially at this time, when the battle against radical Islam is so urgent.” The Third Target is his latest salvo in that fight.

Why Foreign Fighters are Joining ISIL (Part 3 of 3)

I invite you to read the conclusion of my three-part series on "Why Foreign Fighters are Joining ISIL", published today by The Huffington Post. Be sure to read Part 1 and read Part 2 first. - R.O.
==========================================================
Why Foreign Fighters are Joining ISIL (Part 3 of 3)
The Huffington Post
By: Robert D. Onley - October 16, 2014

Part 3 of 3 in a series. Read Part 1 and Part 2.

Defeating ISIL and its ideology
For peaceful democratic societies, the challenge is this: how do you stop a destructive force like ISIL, one which cherishes death? How do you convince the globe's Islamic radicals, and ISIL in particular, that life -- for its fighters, supporters, and its persecuted victims -- is in fact far better than death? Or is the only choice for Western and civilized societies one that grants these deranged men their wish, through laser-guided swift deaths which kill as many ISIL fighters as possible? As civilized nations which value the preservation of life, reaching this conclusion is as disturbing as recognizing the stark reality that it is in fact the only option.

Once more in fulfilling its role as the vanguard of global liberty, the United States has led air strikes against ISIL fighters in Iraq and Syria in support of advancing Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers. In spite of President Obama's reticence in doing so, the United States government understands that the only way to stop the physical military advance of ISIL fighters is to use military force in kind. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is one of the few American leaders to public comment on ISIL's End Times goals, when he acknowledged that:

"[The Islamic State] is an organization that has an apocalyptic, end-of-days strategic vision which will eventually have to be defeated."

Hagel further added that ISIL is:

"...beyond just a terrorist group. They marry ideology, a sophistication of ... military prowess... [that] is beyond anything we've seen."

As world leaders express their horror at ISIL's tactics, unrelenting oppression and brutality toward religious minorities, few leaders or media commentators have assessed why it is that such an evil group can recruit so many new soldiers -- and foreign fighters -- to begin with. Thus the need for a public discussion about Islamic End Times beliefs has never been greater.

Wake up to ISIL's End Times beliefs now
In attempting to understand this global enemy, Western leaders would be wise to consider the role that their governments must play in halting ISIL's End Times goals and in preventing the long-term survival of an "Islamic State."

ISIL fighters are under no illusion about what their ultimate objective is: to usher in the Islamic "End Times". Thus Western leaders and military planners must be equally convicted about their goals. President Obama's overdue assertion that ISIL "will be defeated" was a welcome show of Western resolve. ISIL territory cannot become a national safe haven for terrorists, and moreover the West cannot permit the theological notion that Caliph Ibrahim has in some way fulfilled the Qur'an's prophecies concerning the Islamic End Times. Indeed there is no doubt that the entire global Islamic community is watching to see whether ISIL will be defeated in Syria and Iraq.

It is ISIL's End Times beliefs and the urgency of their battlefield success which has inspired the growth of the terrorist organization. Unless stopped now, the terror group only has the potential to grow larger, fiercer, and more determined in achieving Allah's Judgment Day vision. Western foreign policy commentators must break out of their comfort zones and begin to speak publicly about the genuinely religious nature of the ISIL threat and against the beliefs which drive the movement.

Simply claiming that ISIL's acts are "un-Islamic" does nothing to respond to the deeply prophetic Islamic agenda that ISIL espouses. ISIL is an enemy clearly communicating its aims, blatantly using the Qur'an as its guiding doctrine. Rather than gloss over this fact, the foreign policy world needs its brightest lights to expose this doctrine and overpower its distorted message in response.

Providing proper analysis and with due regard for the sincere religious beliefs of hundreds of millions of Muslims who do not seek to create a revived Islamic Caliphate under the repressive purview of Sharia law, it is possible to initiate global dialogue about the reality of ISIL's End Times goal, with candor, clarity and objectivity. Millions of lives are at stake in a battle that has already claimed countless innocent human beings. After the call from the UN for a humanitarian aid mission in Iraq, the international community has admitted that what was perhaps at first a domestic Iraqi counter-terror operation is now a global religious freedom and a human rights crisis which threatens to envelop more people and draw in ever more militant forces.

With the civil war festering in Syria claiming 200,000 lives, the two-month conflict between Israel and Hamas still smoldering, worsening strife in Libya and Pakistan, and ISIL's rampage across Iraq and Syria, the world is steadily marching toward an Islamist-driven End Times nightmare with global ramifications.

Stop for a moment to consider the intellectual weight of ISIL's extreme belief system: potentially hundreds of thousands of otherwise normal men have become "foreign fighters" who are convinced that a martyr's death in the cause of Allah offers a ticket to Jannah (Islamic heaven), a ticket upon which they are granted permission by their God to perpetrate the most grotesque violence imaginable in order to expedite the Qur'an's prophesied "End Time". President Obama rightly condemned this horror when he stated at the UN General Assembly that "no God condones this terror."

But not since Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf failed at establishing the Third Reich has the earth witnessed the murderous power of a single doctrine to unite tens of thousands of men toward executing terrifying plans of ideological and territorial conquest. It is imperative that the West understands the ideological threat posed by ISIL's End Times theology and knows how to stop both its fighters and the radicalized foreigners ready to join them. Otherwise these will indeed be the End Times for far too many people to come.
-------

Why Foreign Fighters are Joining ISIL (Part 2)

Part 2 of my three-part series on "Why Foreign Fighters are Joining ISIL" was published yesterday by The Huffington Post. Check out Part 1 here and read Part 2 below. - R.O.
==========================================================
Why Foreign Fighters are Joining ISIL

The Huffington Post

By: Robert D. Onley - October 13, 2014

Part 2 of 3 in a series. Read Part 1.

A Global Caliphate for Islam's messiah
Whether ISIL fighters are "brain-washed" or self-inculcated via the internet, the ISIL brand of radical Islam is turning men into remorseless killers. Western, African or Arab, these men are being deluded by End Times visions of reviving the Islamic Caliphate from which they believe that the Islamic messiah, the Mahdi, or "Guided One", will one day rule and eventually conquer the world.

To that end, as a sophisticated, modern jihadist enterprise, ISIL has released its 3rd issue of Dabiq digital magazine. Its title, "A Call to Hijrah", likens Muhammad's "emigration" from Mecca to Medina in 622 AD, which first established Islam as a militant state. As described in the Qur'an, it was in Mecca that Muhammad's message was shared as one of peace. However, in Medina, his message called for the violent overthrow of all non-Muslims. It is clear that ISIL is adhering to the call for the latter.

ISIL is further cognizant of Islamic prophecies found predominantly in the hadiths, which state that the Mahdi will return after a time of great turmoil and suffering upon the earth, and will establish justice and righteousness throughout the world by eradicating tyranny and oppression. The hadiths add that the Mahdi will lead a world revolution and establish a 'new world order' through military action against all those who oppose him. The fact that the hadiths also say that the Mahdi will rule the world from Jerusalem helps elucidate the perpetual fixation on conquering Israel which is espoused by nearly all global jihadist movements.

Comparatively, the prophetic emergence of the Mahdi would be to the majority of Muslims what the return of Jesus would be to Christians. These prophecies also state the Mahdi is the awaited final Caliph of the religion of Islam as a whole, and thus, of the "Islamic State". To date, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi has not referred to himself as the Mahdi, perhaps understanding that many Islamic prophecies have yet to be fulfilled and moreover that discerning Islamists are carefully watching ISIL's actions before potentially joining the movement.

Nonetheless, it is the very prospect of an emergent future leader with the theological and prophetic capacity to unite Sunni and Shi'a forces which may serve to most prominently "fulfill" Islamic prophecies concerning the End Times.

Can the "Islamic State" unite Sunni and Shi'a Islam?
Much like Biblical scholarship on the prophesied end of humanity, interpretative views on Islamic "End Times" differ sharply between Sunni and Shi'a Muslims.

As a Sunni Islamic movement, ISIL is committed to the restoration of the Islamic Caliphate with Jerusalem as the capital of the new global "Islamic Empire". Author Daniel Pipes, a recognized scholar on Islam and Islamic radicalism, has stated that while he does not expect ISIL to survive, it will "leave a legacy", adding:

No matter how calamitous the fate of Caliph Ibrahim [Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi] and his grim crew, they have successfully resurrected a central institution of Islam, making the caliphate again a vibrant reality. Islamists around the world will treasure its moment of brutal glory and be inspired by it.

It appears that Sunni Islamist militants are more than inspired; the total acceptance of these Islamic End Times views is geographically diverse and pervasive within radical Islamist groups. Islam's broader end of days themes have also been adopted by Israel's arch foes Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah (albeit a Shi'a Islamic interpretation of the End Times), along with Boko Haram in Nigeria (which has also declared an "Islamic State"), al-Shabaab in Somalia, and the terrorist stalwart al-Qaeda.

While opposed to ISIL and joining the fight against the group, the Ayatollah of the Islamic Republic of Iran's Shi'a Muslim theocracy has also publicly stated that the return of Shi'a Islam's 'Hidden' Imam, or Mahdi, is imminent, and that the Mahdiwill kill all infidels. Such proclamations add contrast to ISIL's apocalyptic narrative, and also frame the Sunni-Shi'a prophetic divide as one which contains common and intriguing threads.

Beyond prophecy, on a tactical military level, ISIL's success is also attracting potential alliances from other terrorist organizations, such as with the Taliban's ally Hezb-e-Islami. Under unified leadership, whether from the current Caliph, or perhaps one day from another leader from Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Turkey, ISIL could theoretically bridge internal Sunni divides while co-opting disparate jihadist and resistance factions under a common banner.

Unified leadership could also quiet the vocal opposition to ISIL which has percolated up from within numerous Islamist factions who believe that Al-Baghdadi is an illegitimate 'Caliph'. But as Caliph Ibrahim's ISIL army continues to march in the face of air strikes, such speculation is within the realm of possibility down the road.

ISIL's Longevity
The bigger picture of Islamic eschatology and prophecy includes the return of Isa (Jesus), the rise of the Dajjal (Islam's anti-Christ), and the reign of the Mahdi (Messiah), all of which will usher in Allah's 'Day of Judgment'. Thus, if ISIL maintains even partial military success and territorial control for the foreseeable future, the allure of ISIL's End Times ideology will only become more intoxicating for foreign fighters and ISIL adherents around the world. Moreover, despite a UN Security Council Resolution, it is improbable to think that Western legislative measures will definitively halt the growing number of foreign ISIL recruits in the immediate term. This poses a serious threat to regional and global stability.

Add into this mix the possibility that the US and its "core coalition" could fail to conclusively stop ISIL in Syria and Iraq through military action. What exactly is the West's plan if ISIL manages to maintain its territorial grip, first for a year, and then a second year? Why have President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry been quick to assess that this battle will not require "boots on the ground"? (Pay no attention to the boots of military "advisors" already on the ground.)

If ISIL manages to maintain the semblance of a mini Islamic Caliphate in Iraq and Syria, the complete picture of the Islamic End Times (set out above) would come into view for ISIL fighters and would-be ISIL members across the world. These fighters might perceive the continued expansion and existence of ISIL as the actual fulfillment of The Promise of Allah.

Policy planners must imagine and plan for the current or future ISIL Caliph calling for a Second Arab Spring of uprisings to overthrow the remaining dictators across the Middle East. Alternatively, the Caliph could call for these sitting leaders to form a military alliance with ISIL to wage war against Israel, or else face civil unrest stoked by ISIL provocateurs.

These possibilities may sound like a distant Islamist fantasy, but as the Western world struggles to agree on how to confront ISIL, let alone "defeat" it, the ISIL movement continues to grow more legitimate and capable of recruiting more supporters. Does comfortable Western civilization have the stomach to confront such a barbaric enemy?

Part 3 will be published soon.

Why Foreign Fighters are Joining ISIL

It has been a few months since any updates here, and so on this occasion I'm pleased to share my first feature article for The Huffington Post, titled: "Why Foreign Fighters are Joining ISIL". The article explores the underlying ideology of ISIL, examining the eschatological (study of the "End Times") roots of the conflict in Iraq and Syria today.
Enjoy. - R.O.

Why Foreign Fighters are Joining ISIL (Part 1 of 3)
The Huffington Post
By: Robert D. Onley - October 8, 2014

Part 1 in a 3 part series.

The beheading of American journalist James Foley by a British ISIL foreign fighter marked the first of several instances in which militant radical Islam appeared to defeat all precepts of Western civilization.

At the same moment, a revived "Islamic Caliphate" emerged as both a nascent "State" and a veritable threat to the free world. Even the president of the United States seemed caught off guard by ISIL's celebration of death, which is so counter-cultural and contrary to all that humanity has achieved and continues to achieve. Both Western governments and media outlets have been slow to acknowledge theabsolute threat posed by ISIL's belief system.

While minority Muslims, Christians, Yazidis, Turkomen and Jews across the Middle East are physically hunted by ISIL fighters, it is mosques across the Western world which appear complicit in churning out radicalized foreign fighters. These fighters reject all notions of a pluralist, free Western life, in favor of the most regressive philosophy on earth. But much blame can also be laid at the feet of the West's modern lifeblood: the Internet. Witness this terrifying example of a Canadian who self-radicalized, joined ISIL and now threatens terrorist attacks on New York City.

At such a troubled time as this, appreciating the core theology of ISIL is a necessity for Western policymakers, military planners, and media personnel, who are now scrambling for means to collectively defeat this most barbaric enemy after the bombing stops.

Understanding Islamic Eschatology
When global progress, both social and technological, is greater than ever, how is it possible that ISIL is growing around the world? What exactly are young Canadians,Brits, Scots, Frenchmen and Germans being taught in their Western mosques and online before being convinced to fly off to carry out jihad abroad?

The nebulous answers to these questions are found in a religious term which the secular Western mind and media might scoff at: eschatology -- that is, the branch of Islamic theology concerned with the final events in the history of the world or of humankind. In other words, The Islamic End Times.

To understand why ISIL has so rapidly advanced -- both in its military and through its ideology - any serious observer of global affairs must explore the Islamic beliefs and statements about the "end of the world". This knowledge will facilitate a discerning perspective on the grave realities represented by the return of the"Islamic Caliphate" in Syria and Iraq, and will reveal the intellectual threat posed to the world by the ISIL ideology and its growing cadre of sympathetic followers globally.

Islamic Prophecies

On June 29, 2014, when Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi declared the creation of the "Islamic State", identifying himself as "Caliph Ibrahim," he was issuing a rallying cry to all Muslims, stating that the Qur'an's prophesied "Day of Resurrection", orYawm al-Qiyāmah will soon be upon humanity.

The gravity of the creation of ISIL is captured in the title of Caliph Ibrahim's manifesto: The Promise of Allah. Akin in spirit to the Charter of Hamas in its explicit hatred of Christians, Jews and non-Muslims, The Promise of Allah proclaims to the world:

Here the flag of the Islamic State, the flag of tawhīd (monotheism), rises and flutters... The Muslims are honored. The kuffār (infidels) are disgraced. Ahlus Sunnah (the Sunnis) are masters and are esteemed. The people of bid'ah (heresy) are humiliated. The hudūd (Sharia penalties) are implemented -- the hudūd of Allah -- all of them. The frontlines are defended. Crosses and graves are demolished... There only remained one matter, a wājib kifā'ī (collective obligation) that the ummah sins by abandoning. It is a forgotten obligation... It is the khilāfah (caliphate). It is the khilāfah -- the abandoned obligation of the era.

By speaking the "Islamic State" into existence, the Caliph asserted that the world's most powerful terrorist force believes that humanity, in 2014, will imminently face Allah's prophesied Judgment Day, Yawm ad-Dīn. Belief in Judgment Day is one of the six articles of faith in Islam, which underscores the theological importance of the revival of the Islamic Caliphate to the global ummah (Islamic community).

The appeal of the Caliph's simple end times narrative forms the foundation of an Islamist movement which is driving men to commit unthinkable acts of murder, genocide and suicide attacks against strangers with different religious beliefs. The Promise of Allah describes this disturbing, violent modus operandi in systematic detail, fuelling the expansion of the "Islamic State":

...We took it forcibly at the point of a blade.
We brought it back conquered and compelled.
We established it in defiance of many.
And the people's necks were violently struck,
With bombings, explosions, and destruction,
And soldiers that do not see hardship as being difficult,
And lions that are thirsty in battle,
Having greedily drunk the blood of kufr [infidel].
Our khilāfah has indeed returned with certainty
And likewise our state, becoming a firm structure.
And the breasts of the believers have been healed,
While the hearts of kufr have been filled with terror.

Through social media, internet forums and well produced promotional videos, ISIL's agenda is being broadcast to the world without hesitation. While Western powers recognize the terrorist threat posed by ISIL, aside from the United States and a few close allies, many Western European leaders remained convicted to avoid military action initially, lest they stir up unrest within their local Muslim communities.

But this is no problem for ISIL's growth. ISIL foreign fighters have already heeded the Caliph's call in The Promise of Allah that all Muslims must:

"disbelieve in democracy, secularism, nationalism, as well as all the other garbage and ideas from the West, and rush to your religion and creed, then by Allah, you will own the earth, and the east and west will submit to you."

What exactly are the implications of Muslims heeding this call? Part 2 of this series will examine this critical question.

Testing the Canada-Israel alliance

Here's my latest op-ed for the Times of Israel, titled: "Testing the Canada-Israel alliance". Enjoy. - R.O.
http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/testing-the-canada-israel-alliance/

----------------------------------------------------
"Testing the Canada-Israel alliance"

By: Robert D. Onley - 20 January 2014

The inaugural visit of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to Israel represents a significant moment for an Israeli government that is in vital need of dependable friends and reliable moral allies. Much has already been said about Prime Minister Harper’s unequivocal and unparalleled support of Israel since being elected in 2006.

Indeed because the governments of Canada and Israel see eye-to-eye on nearly every geopolitical issue facing the Jewish State, an important question must be asked about the long-term nature of this bilateral relationship, as the Canada-Israel alliance could soon be tested in both word and deed.

Though the United States remains Israel’s unquestioned military ally, many observers note the increasing willingness of the Obama Administration to publicly object to all of Israel’s policies – on the Palestinian peace process, on settlement construction, and most notably on the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

The latter is most troubling when coupled with the obvious intent of the United States to codify a questionable “final nuclear deal” with the Iranian government later this year and thus absolve the U.S. of any potential military response toward the issue.

Of course it is unsurprising that after two long wars in the Middle East, the United States is ready to step off the stage. Nonetheless the timing could not be worse, as Iran appears to be using present negotiations to buy time for the development of its Persian Bomb.

For example the delay between the announcement of the P5+1′s “interim deal” with Iran on November 24, 2013 in Geneva, and the final text of what then became the “preliminary deal” actually enacted on January 17, 2014, emphasizes Iran’s disconcerting abuse of process.

Accordingly under the Harper government, Canada has stated that it is “deeply skeptical” about the deal, which will hopefully see Iran scale back its nuclear work in exchange for the West easing multiple layers of sanctions which were painstakingly agreed upon by the largely disunited U.N. Security Council.

Canada shares Israel’s primal fear about whether or not the Iranian government can be trusted to live up to the terms of the deal. But aside from echoing Netanyahu’s pessimism about the trustworthiness of the radical theocratic regime in Tehran, it would appear that Canada can contribute little toward stopping Iran’s covert march toward nuclear weapons.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) seen with his Canadian counterpart Stephen Harper during a welcoming ceremony for Harper at Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem January 19, 2014.

To be sure, there is likely cooperation between Canada and Israel on the espionage and sabotage of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, just as there is with many Western powers.

However in the context of Canada and Israel’s growing alliance, consideration must be given to what might transpire between the nations if diplomacy with Iran ultimately fails. In such a scenario – one that has undoubtedly been war-gamed – Canada’s steadfast moral support of Israel, and Harper’s fundamental belief in Israel’s unique position within the Middle East, will be tested in the flesh.

If there is any government on earth that based on its public statements alone appears willing to ensure Iran never obtains a nuclear weapon, it is Canada; not France, not the U.K., not Italy and not Germany. None of these Western nations even come close to Canada in levying consistent condemnation of Iran’s rhetoric and in pronouncing warnings about the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

Moreover if there is one government on earth that would publicly and defiantly endorse an Israeli decision to conduct unilateral military strikes against Iran’s nuclear program, again it is Canada. This would be no small measure for a “middle power” like Canada, closely allied with the United States but fiercely carving its own identifiable policy in the Middle East apart from its natural Western allies.

The Netanyahu government’s recent criticism of the European Union‘s “hypocrisy” toward Israel bears out Canada’s policy independence on the myriad issues affecting Israel.

Canada’s nearly solitary voice of moral support for Israel is also reflected in comments made by Rafael Barak, Israel’s ambassador to Canada. Speaking to the Canadian media recently, Barak stated,

“We see Iran as a serious threat. Canadians have the same view. I feel that other countries have the same view, but the difference is that Canada is expressing their ideas in public.”

The biggest question for this alliance in early 2014 is whether the Harper government would back up its public expressions with tangible action, either to facilitate effective military strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites, or perhaps more reasonably to help protect the Jewish homeland against Iranian counter-strikes through cooperative defensive military manoeuvres.

The Canadian Forces gained invaluable counter-terrorism experience in over ten years of fighting in Afghanistan (where it bore a disproportionate number of combat losses compared to its ISAF partners) and is adept at assisting in disaster relief operations: might Israel call upon Canadian help if Iran unleashes Hezbollah against the Jewish State? Such a seemingly hyperbolic scenario cannot simply be ignored.

If Netanyahu is in fact preparing for unilateral military action against Iran, as is perennially reported, it is reasonable to suggest that amid all the other nations, Canada alone might be asked for even the smallest contribution on or after that fateful day. This suggestion is particularly probative if the Obama Administration refuses to give Netanyahu a “green light” for the mission. Harper may in fact be the only friend Netanyahu will have to call for help.

These are topics rarely explored in light of Canada’s relatively small military capacity, as some would immediately dismiss out of hand the idea of Canada providing military assistance to Israel.

Perhaps the Harper government would rather not publicly breach such a discussion for fear of unnerving its domestic audience, and this much is understandable. Nonetheless Canada’s unwavering moral alliance with Israel since 2006 clearly provokes legitimate inquiry in the event that Israel’s “D-Day” with Iran arrives.

There is no question that both Israel, Canada and the world desires a peaceful resolution to the stand-off with Iran over its illicit nuclear weapons program. Diplomacy, as it is occurring today, should indeed be given a chance. The unfortunate reality is that time is not on the side of those who seek to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

As Canada’s lonely stand with Israel makes clear, neither country operates in the realm of diplomatic wishful thinking. Rather, the Canada-Israel alliance recognizes the ruthless reality of the hate-filled, anti-Semitic dystopia that Israel’s enemies, like the Iranian regime, never cease to concoct and broadcast right next door. As Harper visits Netanyahu in Israel this week, this reality is surely on their agenda.

Read more: Testing the Canada-Israel Alliance | Robert David Onley | Ops & Blogs | The Times of Israel http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/testing-the-canada-israel-alliance/#ixzz2quL0Fkt0
Follow us: @timesofisrael on Twitter | timesofisrael on Facebook

Tags: Harper visits Israel, Canadian visit to Israel, Prime Minister visits Israel, Canadian delegation trip to Israel, Harper meets Netanyahu, Harper in Israel, Harper in Jerusalem, Prime Minister in Israel

Report: Israel bombs Syrian air defense base at Latakia

Did Israel just bomb a Syrian air defense base near the port city of Latakia? If so, this bombing would mark the first known Israeli strike inside Syria since last March, and if true, signifies Israel's unflinching resolve to defend itself against the Iranian Shi'ite axis. This attack could also represent a pre-emptive defensive strike on Hizbullah's long-range missile capability, one which would likely be utilized in an Iranian reprisal for any Israeli military strike on Iran's nuclear weapons facilities.  - R.O.
--------------
Reports: Syrian air base destroyed in missile attack from sea - Jerusalem Post
By YASSER OKBI  - LAST UPDATED: 10/31/2013 12:59
Unclear who is behind the attack on base located in stronghold of Assad's Alawites, but Syrian, Lebanese media accuse Israel; Channel 2 reports attack's target were S-125 surface-to-air missiles.

A Syrian air defense base near the port city of Latakia was completely destroyed on Thursday morning in a missile attack from the sea, Arab media reported.

According to reports emanating from the rebels seeking to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad, a large explosion occurred near the army base in Latakia on Wednesday night. Witness posted on Twitter that the explosion happened near coastal city Jableh, 30 kilometers south of Latakia, a stronghold of Assad's Alawites.

It is unclear who is behind the explosion or its purpose. There were no reports of casualties.

Members of the Syrian and Lebanese media have charged that Israel is behind the attack. Israel's defense establishment has not responded to the report.

Channel 2 News reported that the attack's target was a S-125 surface-to-air missiles battery.

Satellite images of the area obtained by Channel 2 show the Russian-made Neva missiles, as well as a SA-3 missile battery, that also includes a command center with a radar to track the missiles' targets and broadcasting anthenas to track the missiles as they are launched. The missiles have a range of 35km. and a 70k. warhead.

Lebanese media also reported that six Israel Air Force planes flew over Ayta ash Shab, Bint Jbeil and Marjayoun in southern Lebanon overnight. Such reports are common in the Lebanese media.

Last week, Kuwait newspaper Al-Jarida reported that IAF warplanes destroyed a shipment of missiles that were to be delivered to Hezbollah near the Lebanese-Syrian frontier.

The paper’s story, which quotes a senior Israeli official, has not been confirmed by any other news source. It was also unclear whether the attack took place on Lebanese or Syrian soil.

Israel has reportedly launched at least three attacks against convoys that were said to be delivering arms to the south Lebanon-based Shi’ite organization.

JPost.com staff contributed to this report.

Latest article: Religious Freedom on the Islamic Temple Mount

Here's my latest article for the Times of Israel, titled: "Religious Freedom on the Islamic Temple Mount". Based on my trip to Israel in July, I explore what it's like for non-Muslims who visit the Temple Mount and ask a number of serious questions about the Islamic faith and it's struggle with religious freedom and moderation. Enjoy. - R.O.

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/religious-freedom-on-the-islamic-temple-mount/

My visit to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem - A Tourist's Guide - July 2013

Below is the video I produced based on my visit to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem back in July of this year. I've included comments on all of the major sites on the Temple Mount and some of my thoughts on the experience, and packaged the clips as a tourist's guide. If you've never before been to Jerusalem, join me in the video on a journey to the most contested piece of real estate on earth. Enjoy! - R.O.

Visiting the Temple Mount in Jerusalem - A Tourist's Guide - July 2013

After Kenya, no more turning the other cheek to those who hate us

Profound, overdue unspoken truths for our post-modern, politically correct naive chattering class. It is time to confront radical Islamism for what it is: a crime against humanity. - R.O.

After Kenya, no more turning the other cheek to those who hate us
The Telegraph - Sept. 23, 2013
By: Allison Pearson

Where is the Muslim condemnation of the Nairobi massacre by maniacs in the name of their religion?

Picture the scene if you can bear to. A bustling shopping precinct where a group of men, women and children are surrounded by armed men. As one of the terrorists moves among them, he demands that the person quailing in front of him names the mother of Jesus or recites the Lord’s Prayer. “Our Father which art in Heaven,” says one woman. She is spared. Her neighbour, a Muslim boy, racks his brain for any line of the Bible, anything he has heard in school or on TV. But it’s too late. The boy is shot through the head; put to death for not being Christian.

Imagine the uproar if that ethnic and religious cleansing had taken place this week. Picture the hollering human-rights activists, the emergency session at the United Nations, the promise of action against the perpetrators who had singled out non-Christians for execution.

Yet this is a hellish mirror image of what took place in the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi. Islamic fundamentalists murdered scores of innocent shoppers for failing to name the mother of the Prophet Mohammed or recite from the Koran – sufficient proof that they were despised “kafirs” or unbelievers.

Radio presenter Saadia Ahmed said she saw people say something in Arabic “and the gunmen let them go. A colleague of mine said he was Muslim and they let him go as well.” But she added: “I saw a lot of children and elderly people being shot dead. I don’t understand why you would shoot a five-year-old child.”

Roughly the same reason you would stroll down a street in Woolwich and behead a young squaddie wearing a Help for Heroes T-shirt – which is to say, no reason at all, unless blind ideological hatred counts as a reason.

“You’re a very bad man. Let us leave,” four-year-old Elliott Prior shouted at the gunman in Westgate mall who had just shot his mother, Amber, in the leg. The startled jihadist gave Elliott and his six-year-old sister, Amelie, a Mars bar and allowed mother and children to go after urging Amber to convert to Islam. As if.

There is a photograph of Elliott and Amelie standing next to a dead body, still clutching their unopened Mars bar. The children’s eyes are brimming with what they have seen, and can never un-see. Amid the carnage and inhumanity, an off-duty SAS man went back 12 times into the mall and was said to have personally rescued a hundred people. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil.

We have grown squeamish about using the word evil. We feel it’s a little black and white, a bit too judgmental for modern tastes; but what other description will do for the slaughter of Australian architect Ross Langdon and his partner, Elif Yavuz, a vaccine researcher? The couple was shopping for clothes for their first baby, who was due in a fortnight. The two humanitarians died with their arms around each other and the child they would never meet.

All of this may sound as if it’s taking place at a safe distance. In fact, it’s perilously close and could be coming to a mall near you. There are reports that British-born Somalians were among the gunmen and that Samantha Lewthwaite, aka the White Widow, was leading the attack.

Lewthwaite, who is already wanted for terrorist offences in Kenya, was married to Germaine Lindsay, the July 7 London bomber. She said her husband’s mind had been “poisoned by radicals”. A nervous Britain, bending over backwards to soothe Muslim fears in the wake of the attacks, actually gave Samantha Lewthwaite police protection before she did a runner on a false passport. All the while, it was us who needed protecting from her.

Because the killing of Christians and other “kafirs” took place in a shopping mall and because some of the victims were white, the Nairobi story has dominated the headlines. Another massacre in Pakistan on Sunday barely registered. Some 350 worshippers at All Saints in Peshawar were laying on a free lunch for the needy when two suicide bombers killed 80 people. The attack is part of a savage pattern of assaults on Christians, from Iraq to Egypt.

Why the embarrassed silence when it comes to Islamist persecution of Christians? In Pakistan, a bishop called John Joseph committed suicide in protest at the execution of a Christian man on “blasphemy” charges introduced by fundamentalists. In Germany this week, a Green Party MP of Turkish origin received death threats after urging her Muslim sisters to take off their headscarves and live like Germans.

Here in the UK, we tolerate the increasingly intolerant. It was revealed a few days ago that non-Muslim members of staff at the Al-Madinah School in Derbyshire had to sign contracts agreeing to wear the hijab and make girls sit at the back of the class while boys sat at the front.

Jesus wept. And so should we, quite frankly. Mohammed Shafiq, head of the Muslim Ramadan Foundation, condemned calls to ban the burka, but where is his denunciation of the Nairobi massacre? Where are the voices from Britain’s Somali community condemning the murder of innocents by maniacs acting in the name of their religion?

As a former Sunday schoolteacher, I sort of get the point of turning the other cheek. But, really, enough is enough. Time for a crackdown on fundamentalism in all its poisonous guises. Time to stop appeasing those who hate us and our way of life. Time, in fact, for the clear-eyed moral judgment of a four-year-old child.

“You’re a very bad man,” said Elliott Prior to the jihadist. And he was, and they are.

Time to Define Islamism as a Crime Against Humanity

"Time to Define Islamism as a Crime Against Humanity" - Jerusalem Post
By: Seth J. Frantzman
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Terra-Incognita-Its-time-to-define-Islamism-as-a-crime-against-humanity-326888

The attacks at Nairobi, Kenya’s Westgate shopping mall follow a familiar pattern to other attacks that occurred in the last few days: in Pakistan, where 81 were killed in the bombing of a church, and in Nigeria where 159 people were slaughtered by Islamists near Maiduguri.

The media and political reactions also follow a neatly crafted script we have all become accustomed to.

First Islamist terrorists attack civilians, attempting to sort out the Muslims from the non-Muslims so as to kill only one group. There are the condemnations of “senseless acts of violence” and appeals for “calm and unity.” Then all is forgotten.Those terrorists captured alive will be put on trial and perhaps executed. And life goes back to normal with the refrain, “terrorism will not prevail.”

The problem is that this script misses a central facet of Islamist terrorism: We must stop treating it as a simple isolated crime; even the word “terrorism” has begun to downplay its actual horror; rather it must be defined as a worldwide crime against humanity.

When the al-Shabaab attack began in Kenya, witnesses related that Muslims were permitted to leave. “They came and said: ‘If you are Muslim, stand up. We’ve come to rescue you,’” Elijah Lamau told the BBC.The Muslims put their hands up and walked past the gunmen. “One man with a Christian first name but a Muslim-sounding surname managed to escape the attackers by putting his thumb over his first name on his ID.

However an Indian man standing next to him who was asked for the name of the Prophet Muhammad’s mother was shot dead when he was unable to answer.”Similarly, in 2004, 17 al-Qaida terrorists attacked the Oasis compound housing oilcompany employees in Khobar, Saudi Arabia.Upon entering the compound, the terrorists waylaid the first Arab looking man they saw and said: “Are you Muslim or Christian? We don’t want to kill Muslims.Show us where the Americans and Westerners live.”

The killers then came upon a US citizen from Iraq named Abu Hashem. He later told reporters that the attackers were polite; “They gave me a lecture on Islam and said they were defending their country and ridding it of infidels.” “Don’t be afraid,” they told him, “we won’t kill Muslims, even if you are an American.”The murderers then proceeded to hunt down non-Muslims from the US, South Africa, Sri Lanka, India, the Philippines, Egypt and Sweden.

After a 24-hour siege, 22 of the residents were murdered and many others wounded. In another instance, on November 27, 2008, in the midst of the Mumbai terror attacks, the perpetrators received a call from their Pakistan-based masters, asking, “How many hostages do you have?” The terrorist responded that they had killed a Belgian hostage but had others.“I hope there is no Muslim among them.”“No, none,” replied the killer.

Later the Pakistani handlers called the terrorists at the Oberoi Trident Hotel and spoke to those located on the 10th floor. The intercepted conversation goes as follows: “Kill all the hostages, except the two Muslims, keep your phone switched on so we can hear the gunfire.”They reply, “We have three foreigners, including women from Singapore and China.”Then the terrorist can be heard telling the hostages to line up, asking the two Muslims to stand to one side. Gunfire reverberates, followed by cheering from the terrorists.

It is interesting how quickly reports of these attacks downplay the guilt of the attackers and filter references to the focus on non-Muslims and the allowing some Muslims to escape the carnage. In November 2009 Fareed Zakaria at CNN did a special on the Mumbai transcripts. Zakaria claims the men were sent from Pakistan with “instructions simply to kill.”

After playing one clip in which any reference to letting Muslims live is absent, he notes that “they were told to go to Mumbai and kill as many people as they could.” Actually they were told to go to Mumbai to kill non-Muslims.

Zakaria emphasizes that the terrorists were poverty-stricken children. “These are peasant boys,” he says. To his credit, he does play a transcript from the terrorist attack at Nariman house, where the Chabad center was targeted. The CNN host mentions the “animus against Jews” but then claims, “in the ’60s and ’70s most Indian Muslims would not even know where Palestine was.” He compares the actions of the terrorists to “brainwashing... it’s sort of the Manchurian Candidate writ large.”

Later in the program the presenter again attempts to emphasize how young the terrorists were “these are peasant boys... these kids seem like teenagers... it [their action] seems almost mercenary.”Note how often Zakaria stresses that these were “boys” – he calls them “boys” twice, “kids” twice and “teenagers” once. The only terrorist captured alive, Ajmal Kasab, was 21 at the time of the attacks.The oldest attacker, Nasir Abu Umar, was 28, while the youngest was 20.

Why the conscious effort to redefine these men as children? Why the conscious decision not to include the part of the transcript including the instructions not to kill Muslims, and to paint the attack as indiscriminate? The real story was that these men set out to kill as many non-Muslims as possible.

The media seeks to hide this facet to foster the narrative of “unity,” yet presenting Muslims and non-Muslims as the victims of terror obscures the genocidal nature of the crime.

When the radical, right wing Golden Dawn party gained popularity last year, the media highlighted the “antiimmigrant violence” it was involved in.There was no downplaying the members as “peasant boys” or obscuring of who the violence was directed at.

These three examples – Mumbai, Khobar and Nairobi – are only the tip of the iceberg. From southern Thailand, to Mindanao in the Philippines, to Syria and beyond, the Islamist or jihadist mentality leads to the mass killing of either non- Muslims, or sometimes to the sectarian slaughter of Muslims, usually Shi’ites.Hundreds of Shi’ites are massacred every year in Pakistan by the Taliban, for instance.

In many cases the terrorists separate Shi’ites from non-Shi’ites, usually identifying them by their first names. For instance, on August 17, 2012, it was reported that “gunmen wearing army uniforms checked the identification cards of the passengers, lined up the Shi’ite passengers on the roadside, tied their hands and then opened fire on them.”

Sound familiar? Many over the years have identified Islamism as “Islamo-fascism” and argued that it champions a form of genocide. But it has not sunk in. We don’t prosecute terrorists as war criminals committing crimes against humanity. Instead, we often obfuscate the nature of terrorist attacks, pretending that terrorists are “misguided youth” who “set out to kill as many as possible.”

The genocidal nature of this type of terror is downplayed. The New York Times described the Nairobi perpetrators as “Shabaab militant attackers.” Really? When they killed 78-year-old Ghanian poet Kofi Awooner and Kenyan radio host Ruhila Adatia-Sood, was that part of a “military” operation? The scenes of piles of dead women sprawled on the floor of the mall; is that “militant?”

In a Times article on the anniversary of the Ku Klux Klan bombing of a church in 1963 the perpetrators are not called “militants.” Yet the objectives and methods of the KKK were no different than the Shabaab or Taliban: the killing of specific groups. No one pretends the KKK “set out to kill indiscriminately.”

The KKK is estimated to have killed 4,743 people between 1882 and 1968. The number of primarily sectariantargeted killings in Iraq in 2012 was 4,574.That’s just Iraq.Adding up the number of victims from attacks patterned along the lines of the one carried out in Kenya, or the ethnic cleansing of non-Muslims in places such as Egypt and Northern Nigeria, would bring the number up to tens of thousands in the past decade – millions in the past century.

This is a “soft” genocide, embodied by the firebombing of a church in Egypt or the shooting of Alawite truck drivers in Syria.It is time to stop hiding what connects Mumbai to Westgate and Khobar. It is a worldwide campaign of ethnic cleansing and murder, and the world community must define this as a crime against humanity and not just as “terrorism."

Report: US strike on Syria to be 'significantly larger than expected'

http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Report-US-strike-on-Syria-to-be-significantly-larger-than-expected-325389

Jerusalem Post - September 6, 2013

ABC News: US is planning an aerial strike in addition to a salvo of Tomahawk missiles from Navy destroyers; New York Times: Obama ordered expansion of list of targets following reports Assad moved troops, equipment.

Despite statements from both US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry that a US-led strike on Syria would be a "limited and tailored" military attack, ABC News reported on Thursday that the strike planned by Obama's national security team is "significantly larger" than most have anticipated.

According to ABC News, in additional to a salvo of 200 Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from four Navy destroyers stationed in the eastern Mediterranean, the US is also planning an aerial campaign that is expected to last two days.

This campaign potentially includes an aerial bombardment of missiles and long range bombs from US-based B-2 stealth bombers that carry satellite-guided bombs, B-52 bombers, that can carry air-launched cruise missiles and Qatar-based B-1s that carry long-range, air-to-surface missiles, both ABC News and The New York Times reported.

"This military strike will do more damage to [Syrian President Bashar] Assad's forces in 48 hours than the Syrian rebels have done in two years," a national security official told ABC News.

Meanwhile, Obama has directed the Pentagon to expand the list of potential targets in Syria following reports Assad's forces have moved troops and equipment used to employ chemical weapons in anticipation of the US-led strike against them, the Times reported on Thursday.

In order to degrade Assad's ability to use chemical weapons, the list of 50 or so major sites has to be expected, officials told the Times.

Targets include military units that have stored and prepared the chemical weapons, as well as headquarters who ordered the attacks and units who carried them out. Other targets include rockets and artillery that have launched the attacks, the Times quotes military officials as saying.

US military chief of staff Martin Dempsey said targets would also include equipment used to protect the chemicals - air defenses, long-range missiles and rockets.

The attack would not target the chemical stockpiles in fear that doing so could cause catastrophe.

Price tag

In Washington, US lawmakers questioned the possible price tag of a military operation in Syria.

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel told Congress on Wednesday the military operation is expected to cost "tens of millions" of dollars, according to AFP.

This estimate is based on the assumption the military intervention in Syria would only last a few days.

A single Tomahawk missile costs $1.5 million, while keeping some ships in the area would cost millions more, Navy chief Admiral Jonathan Greenert said on Thursday, but those numbers are "not extraordinary at this point."

In addition to the four destroyers the US Navy currently has stationed in the Mediterranean, aircraft carrier Nimitz and accompanying warships are ready at the Red Sea in case they are needed.

The carrier strike group costs up to $40 million a week if the aircraft on board are engaged in combat-related flights, while routine operations cost $25 million a week, Greenert said.

How US Actions are Seen in the Middle East

Top notch, albeit unfortunately true, commentary. Worthy read. - R.O.

How US Actions are Seen in the Middle East - Gatestone Institute
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3965/syria-us-actions

Did Vladimir Putin Bait a Trap for the United States in Damascus?

Utterly fascinating proposition. A must read.
 
Did Vladimir Putin Bait a Trap for the United States in Damascus? - Tablet Magazine
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/143492/samuels-syria-vladimir-putin

"By showing that Obama’s America is unable and unwilling to keep its promises, Putin has widened the leadership void in the Middle East—as a prelude to filling it himself. By helping to clear Iran’s path to a bomb, Putin positions himself as Iran’s most powerful ally—while paradoxically gaining greater leverage with Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States, who would much rather negotiate with Russia than with Iran, their sworn enemy."
 
Is Putin really that crafty? Hard to say. But I wouldn't put it past the Russian president. Putin has shown his willingness to stick it to Obama on numerous occasions. - R.O.