Israeli satire troupe, LatmaTV, sends-up another hilarious musical parody of leftist culture and politics. Using music from "Fiddler on the Roof" they transform "If I Were a Rich Man" into "If I Wasn't Clueless" to remind us how Obama's foreign policies should be assuring global stability, instead of fomenting political instability.
(Audio switches from captions to English language at 1:44)
20110207
Watch Herzliya Policy Conference live from Israel Feb 6 - 9
“The Herzliya Conference is the grand summit on Israel’s national security and Middle East affairs; the Davos of the Middle East”
Mortimer Zuckerman, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, U.S. News and World Report
Video from: The Herzliya Debate: "Can the World Live with a Nuclear Iran?"
Speakers: Mr. Brian Katulis, Senior Fellow, Center of American Progress; Ms. Danielle Pletka, Vice Persident, Foreign and Defence Policy studies, American Enterprise Institute; Brig. Gen (res.) Dr. Ephraim Sneh, Former Deputy Minister of Defence, Chair S. Daniel Abraham Center for Stategic Dialogue, Netanya Academic College.
THE HERZLIYA CENTER STAGE: A GLOBAL POLICY AND MEDIA EVENT
Program Schedule Watch live video from the Conference
The Herzliya Conference is a center stage for policy assessment and analysis on Israeli, Middle Eastern and global affairs, and a catalyst for policy implementation.
The 11th Annual Herzliya Conference is held on February 6-9, 2011 during Tel Aviv business hours 10:00-21:00 (GMT-2, EST 3am-2pm, PST 12am-11am). Includes strategic directions of the key regional actors, the Middle East Peace Process, the future of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, domestic political stability in the Middle East, energy and natural resource security and geopolitics, regional and global economic governance, as well as new forms of cyber and missile warfare and the attempts to curb nuclear proliferation. Shaping regional and international policy debates, the deliberations at Herzliya will also address Israeli responses to these challenges and strategies to pro-actively confront the "soft war" launched against the legitimacy of Israel's right to self-defense, its inherent obligation to vigorously pursue its national interests, and even its very existence as a Jewish state.
The Conference provides an opportunity for leaders to launch initiatives and to deliver major public statements on the evolving policy approaches to global, regional and national affairs.
Ma'ariv newspaper editorialist, and university lecturer Ben-Dror Yemini speaks with DemoCast about what he terms "the industry of lies" perpetrated by the mainstream media vis a vis Palestine vs. Israel.
Mortimer Zuckerman, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, U.S. News and World Report
Video from: The Herzliya Debate: "Can the World Live with a Nuclear Iran?"
Speakers: Mr. Brian Katulis, Senior Fellow, Center of American Progress; Ms. Danielle Pletka, Vice Persident, Foreign and Defence Policy studies, American Enterprise Institute; Brig. Gen (res.) Dr. Ephraim Sneh, Former Deputy Minister of Defence, Chair S. Daniel Abraham Center for Stategic Dialogue, Netanya Academic College.
THE HERZLIYA CENTER STAGE: A GLOBAL POLICY AND MEDIA EVENT
Program Schedule Watch live video from the Conference
The Herzliya Conference is a center stage for policy assessment and analysis on Israeli, Middle Eastern and global affairs, and a catalyst for policy implementation.
The 11th Annual Herzliya Conference is held on February 6-9, 2011 during Tel Aviv business hours 10:00-21:00 (GMT-2, EST 3am-2pm, PST 12am-11am). Includes strategic directions of the key regional actors, the Middle East Peace Process, the future of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, domestic political stability in the Middle East, energy and natural resource security and geopolitics, regional and global economic governance, as well as new forms of cyber and missile warfare and the attempts to curb nuclear proliferation. Shaping regional and international policy debates, the deliberations at Herzliya will also address Israeli responses to these challenges and strategies to pro-actively confront the "soft war" launched against the legitimacy of Israel's right to self-defense, its inherent obligation to vigorously pursue its national interests, and even its very existence as a Jewish state.
The Conference provides an opportunity for leaders to launch initiatives and to deliver major public statements on the evolving policy approaches to global, regional and national affairs.
Ma'ariv newspaper editorialist, and university lecturer Ben-Dror Yemini speaks with DemoCast about what he terms "the industry of lies" perpetrated by the mainstream media vis a vis Palestine vs. Israel.
20110131
Dr. Zuhdi Jasser challenges mainstream media whitewashing Muslim Brotherhood-front groups who hijack American Islam
American Islamic Forum for Democracy ("A.I.F.D.") founder, Zuhdi Jasser, spoke with DemoCast about exposing global-caliphate movement, Muslim Brotherhood's crusade for dominating and radicalizing North American Muslims. He offers A.I.F.D. as an contra-balancing influence and seeks support from Muslim and non-Muslims.
Our World: Clueless in Washington
by Caroline Glick
Our World: Clueless in Washington
by Caroline Glick
Does the US fail to understand what will happen to its strategic interests in the region if the Muslim Brotherhood is the power behind the throne of the next regime?
The problem is the character of the protesters is not liberal. 84% of Egyptians support executing any Muslim who changes his religion.
Indeed, their character is a bigger problem than the character of the regime they seek to overthrow.
What all of this makes clear is that if the regime falls, the successor regime will not be a liberal democracy. Mubarak’s military authoritarianism will be replaced by Islamic totalitarianism. The US’s greatest Arab ally will become its greatest enemy. Israel’s peace partner will again become its gravest foe.
The US policy towards Egypt is dictated by the irrational narcissism of two opposing sides to a policy debate that has nothing to do with reality.
Add to that Obama’s electoral concern about looking like he is on the right side of justice and we have a US policy that is wholly antithetical to US interests.
This presents a daunting, perhaps insurmountable challenge for the US’s remaining authoritarian Arab allies. In Jordan and Saudi Arabia, until now restive publics have been fearful of opposing their leaders because the US supports them. Now that the US is abandoning its most important ally and siding with its worst enemies, the Hashemites and the Sauds don’t look so powerful to their Arab streets. The same can be said for the Kuwaiti leadership and the pro-American political forces in Iraq.
As for Israel, America’s behavior towards Egypt should put to rest the notion that Israel can make further territorial sacrifices in places like the Golan Heights and the Jordan Valley in exchange for US security guarantees. US behavior today – and the across-the-board nature of American rejection of Mubarak – is as clear a sign as one can find that US guarantees are not credible.
20110127
'Arab Muslim role in the Nazi Holocaust' -- International Holocaust Remembrance Day
On this week's special edition of Stakelbeck on Terror, CBN News sits down with bestselling author and investigative journalist Edwin Black to discuss his new book, The Farhud.
The book outlines the history of Islamic anti-Semitism in the Middle East, including the 1941 organized massacre of Iraqi Jews in Baghdad known as The Farhud, or "violent dispossession."
Watch as Mr. Black breaks down the larger Arab Muslim role in the Nazi Holocaust, which included an active alliance between the leader of the Palestinians and Adolf Hitler, and how this history still affects the Middle East today.
20110119
Investigative report finds Daniel Pearl was killed by confessed al-Qaeda mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who won't be charged
 |
| Investigative report faults Pearl murder investigation; says many culprits still free |
The four men imprisoned for killing Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl were not present during his beheading but were convicted of murder because Pakistani authorities knowingly relied on perjured testimony and ignored other leads, says a report released Thursday.
The results of the Pearl Project, an investigation carried out by a team of American journalists and students and spanning more than three years, raise troubling questions about Pakistan's dysfunctional criminal justice system and underscore the limits US officials face in relying on Pakistani authorities.
The four men convicted in the killing did help kidnap the American journalist, according to the investigation. But it says forensic evidence known as "vein-matching" bolsters the confession of al-Qaida No. 3 Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the professed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, to having killed Pearl.
The report says at least 14 of 27 people involved in abducting and murdered Pearl in 2002 are thought to remain free. And the four who have been convicted could be released if their appeal is ever heard because of false and contradictory evidence used in their trial.
Pearl, 38, was abducted from this southern port city on Jan. 23, 2002, while researching a story on Islamist militancy after the Sept. 11 attacks. On Feb. 21, 2002, a video of Pearl's killing was delivered to U.S. officials in Pakistan. His remains were found in a shallow grave on Karachi's outskirts three months later.
Within months of Pearl's disappearance, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a British national of Pakistani heritage, and three accomplices were caught, charged, and convicted of murder and kidnapping. Sheikh, called the kidnapping's mastermind, was sentenced to death in July 2002. The three others were given life terms, which in Pakistan usually means 25 years.
Since then, the men's appeals have gone nowhere in the courts, despite dozens of hearings. Both the defense and the prosecution blame each other for stalling tactics. And there is constant speculation that Sheikh is being protected, possibly by Pakistani intelligence agencies.
Defense attorney Rai Basheer said the prosecution knows it would lose on appeal and is delaying the process, but prosecutor Raja Qureshi dismissed those claims.
"I challenge the defense to come and attend the case properly and consistently, and they will themselves know whose case is weak," Qureshi told The Associated Press.
The Pearl Project's findings appear to strengthen the defense's hand.
For instance, it finds significant discrepancies between Pakistani police reports and later court testimonies, including that of a taxi driver whose account was considered crucial to the conviction.
Authorities apparently cajoled the driver to change his earlier story and, while testifying, place Sheikh with Pearl near the restaurant where the journalist was picked up by his abductors, the report says. But Sheikh is believed to have left Karachi before other men he had recruited carried out the kidnapping.
At the same time they were building their case against Sheikh and the three others, investigators did not pursue leads provided by another suspect in custody. That man, Fazal Karim, allegedly was one of the guards holding Pearl hostage and was there during his slaying. Karim also led investigators to Pearl's grave.
But his account differed from the taxi driver's, thus threatening the prosecution's case against the four on trial. US officials pushed the Pakistanis to restart the trial to include all the evidence, but the prosecutor argued that doing so would give the defense a huge advantage. So Karim's account didn't make it to court, and he was later set free.
The murder case against the four convicts also appears weakened by Mohammed's suspected role.
The al-Qaida No. 3 claimed after his capture that he beheaded Pearl. Mohammed is being held at the Guantanamo Bay US military prison, and the confession is believed to have come during interrogation that included waterboarding.
But the Pearl Project reports that US investigators also used a technique called "vein-matching" to compare a photo of Mohammed's hand with a photo of a hand shown on the video of Pearl's killing, and that it's a fit.
Vein-matching is not considered as reliable as methods such as fingerprinting, but the CIA and FBI do use it at times to identify suspects, the report says. It involves "extracting the information of the vascular structure of a hand or finger and converting it into a mathematical quantity."
One of the more gruesome findings of the report is that the videotaping of Pearl's beheading was initially bungled, and that the killing had to be re-enacted. Mohammed had already slashed Pearl's neck when the cameraman had to restart the taping. The second time, Mohammed fully severed the head.
Two of Mohammed's nephews may have been present during the killing, according to the report, which cites U.S. and Pakistani officials. One nephew, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, is also at Guantanamo and is believed to have been the al-Qaida facilitator in Karachi for Richard Reid, the shoebomber who tried to destroy a trans-Atlantic flight in 2001. Pearl was trying to research the Reid case and track down his facilitator when he was kidnapped.
The report notes that neither Mohammed nor the detained nephew is likely to be charged in Pearl's killing because that could complicate cases against them over the Sept. 11 attacks. The other nephew's whereabouts are unknown.
How exactly al-Qaida became involved in the Pearl plot remains a mystery. The report cites Mohammed's interviews with FBI agents, in which he said he was directed to Pearl by another al-Qaida leader,Saif al-Adel. It also says that Pearl's murder was "the first known operation in which Pakistani militants collaborated with al-Qaida."
In Pakistan, all parts of the justice system — police, prosecuting agencies, defense lawyers and judges — are riddled with corruption and ineptitude. The conviction rate hovers between 5 and 10 percent, according to a report in December by the International Crisis Group. That report also noted that outsiders, including spy agencies, use intimidation to compromise the justice system.
Conspiracy theories have flourished in Pakistan about the relationship Pakistan's main spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, had with Sheikh.
As Pakistani officials were searching for him in 2002, Sheikh turned himself in to a former ISI official, Ejaz Shah, at the urging of his father and his uncle.
Yet it wasn't until a week later, on February 12, that US officials learned that police had him, the report says. US authorities told the Pearl Project that they have no idea what happened with Sheikh during those seven "lost days."
"Whether Sheikh sought refuge in Shah's custody because there was a family connection and would, therefore, provide a soft landing into the legal system, or whether it was because Sheikh had a long history with the ISI is still unresolved," the Pearl Project's report states.
The Pearl Project's sponsors include Georgetown University and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a program at the Center for Public Integrity in Washington, D.C. The lead writer of the report was journalist Asra Q. Nomani, with whom Pearl and his wife were staying in Karachi when he was kidnapped.
The results of the Pearl Project, an investigation carried out by a team of American journalists and students and spanning more than three years, raise troubling questions about Pakistan's dysfunctional criminal justice system and underscore the limits US officials face in relying on Pakistani authorities.
The four men convicted in the killing did help kidnap the American journalist, according to the investigation. But it says forensic evidence known as "vein-matching" bolsters the confession of al-Qaida No. 3 Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the professed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, to having killed Pearl.
The report says at least 14 of 27 people involved in abducting and murdered Pearl in 2002 are thought to remain free. And the four who have been convicted could be released if their appeal is ever heard because of false and contradictory evidence used in their trial.
Pearl, 38, was abducted from this southern port city on Jan. 23, 2002, while researching a story on Islamist militancy after the Sept. 11 attacks. On Feb. 21, 2002, a video of Pearl's killing was delivered to U.S. officials in Pakistan. His remains were found in a shallow grave on Karachi's outskirts three months later.
Within months of Pearl's disappearance, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a British national of Pakistani heritage, and three accomplices were caught, charged, and convicted of murder and kidnapping. Sheikh, called the kidnapping's mastermind, was sentenced to death in July 2002. The three others were given life terms, which in Pakistan usually means 25 years.
Since then, the men's appeals have gone nowhere in the courts, despite dozens of hearings. Both the defense and the prosecution blame each other for stalling tactics. And there is constant speculation that Sheikh is being protected, possibly by Pakistani intelligence agencies.
Defense attorney Rai Basheer said the prosecution knows it would lose on appeal and is delaying the process, but prosecutor Raja Qureshi dismissed those claims.
"I challenge the defense to come and attend the case properly and consistently, and they will themselves know whose case is weak," Qureshi told The Associated Press.
The Pearl Project's findings appear to strengthen the defense's hand.
For instance, it finds significant discrepancies between Pakistani police reports and later court testimonies, including that of a taxi driver whose account was considered crucial to the conviction.
Authorities apparently cajoled the driver to change his earlier story and, while testifying, place Sheikh with Pearl near the restaurant where the journalist was picked up by his abductors, the report says. But Sheikh is believed to have left Karachi before other men he had recruited carried out the kidnapping.
At the same time they were building their case against Sheikh and the three others, investigators did not pursue leads provided by another suspect in custody. That man, Fazal Karim, allegedly was one of the guards holding Pearl hostage and was there during his slaying. Karim also led investigators to Pearl's grave.
But his account differed from the taxi driver's, thus threatening the prosecution's case against the four on trial. US officials pushed the Pakistanis to restart the trial to include all the evidence, but the prosecutor argued that doing so would give the defense a huge advantage. So Karim's account didn't make it to court, and he was later set free.
The murder case against the four convicts also appears weakened by Mohammed's suspected role.
The al-Qaida No. 3 claimed after his capture that he beheaded Pearl. Mohammed is being held at the Guantanamo Bay US military prison, and the confession is believed to have come during interrogation that included waterboarding.
But the Pearl Project reports that US investigators also used a technique called "vein-matching" to compare a photo of Mohammed's hand with a photo of a hand shown on the video of Pearl's killing, and that it's a fit.
Vein-matching is not considered as reliable as methods such as fingerprinting, but the CIA and FBI do use it at times to identify suspects, the report says. It involves "extracting the information of the vascular structure of a hand or finger and converting it into a mathematical quantity."
One of the more gruesome findings of the report is that the videotaping of Pearl's beheading was initially bungled, and that the killing had to be re-enacted. Mohammed had already slashed Pearl's neck when the cameraman had to restart the taping. The second time, Mohammed fully severed the head.
Two of Mohammed's nephews may have been present during the killing, according to the report, which cites U.S. and Pakistani officials. One nephew, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, is also at Guantanamo and is believed to have been the al-Qaida facilitator in Karachi for Richard Reid, the shoebomber who tried to destroy a trans-Atlantic flight in 2001. Pearl was trying to research the Reid case and track down his facilitator when he was kidnapped.
The report notes that neither Mohammed nor the detained nephew is likely to be charged in Pearl's killing because that could complicate cases against them over the Sept. 11 attacks. The other nephew's whereabouts are unknown.
How exactly al-Qaida became involved in the Pearl plot remains a mystery. The report cites Mohammed's interviews with FBI agents, in which he said he was directed to Pearl by another al-Qaida leader,Saif al-Adel. It also says that Pearl's murder was "the first known operation in which Pakistani militants collaborated with al-Qaida."
In Pakistan, all parts of the justice system — police, prosecuting agencies, defense lawyers and judges — are riddled with corruption and ineptitude. The conviction rate hovers between 5 and 10 percent, according to a report in December by the International Crisis Group. That report also noted that outsiders, including spy agencies, use intimidation to compromise the justice system.
Conspiracy theories have flourished in Pakistan about the relationship Pakistan's main spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, had with Sheikh.
As Pakistani officials were searching for him in 2002, Sheikh turned himself in to a former ISI official, Ejaz Shah, at the urging of his father and his uncle.
Yet it wasn't until a week later, on February 12, that US officials learned that police had him, the report says. US authorities told the Pearl Project that they have no idea what happened with Sheikh during those seven "lost days."
"Whether Sheikh sought refuge in Shah's custody because there was a family connection and would, therefore, provide a soft landing into the legal system, or whether it was because Sheikh had a long history with the ISI is still unresolved," the Pearl Project's report states.
The Pearl Project's sponsors include Georgetown University and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a program at the Center for Public Integrity in Washington, D.C. The lead writer of the report was journalist Asra Q. Nomani, with whom Pearl and his wife were staying in Karachi when he was kidnapped.
20110111
Muslim Brotherhood-related, Muslim Students Associations West Convention at UCLA Friday-Sunday to 'Take Back Our Narrative'
"Take back our narrative?" From who? Apologist liberal press? Academics? Obama Administration? Which dissenters will be there? Organized or independently?
MSA West is an organization comprised of Muslim Student Associations (MSAs) representing campuses across the west coast, and is a council of MSA National. It will hold its annual convention Friday 14 Jan -Sunday 16 Jan at UCLA's Ackerman Hall. The MSA was started by activists involved with the Muslim Brotherhood.
MSA West is an organization comprised of Muslim Student Associations (MSAs) representing campuses across the west coast, and is a council of MSA National. It will hold its annual convention Friday 14 Jan -Sunday 16 Jan at UCLA's Ackerman Hall. The MSA was started by activists involved with the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Muslim Students Association of the U.S. and Canada (MSA) has chapters at nearly 600 colleges and universities across North America. Treated by administrators and student governments alike as a respectable political organization, the MSA has, over the past few years, sponsored a series of vile expressions of Jew-hatred in a variety of campus and non-campus venues.  |
| Photo courtesy BareNakedIslam |
On Saturday evening from 5:50 - 6:50, Taher Herzallah will lead a panel about promoting American BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction) from Israel. Moshe Dann has written an excellent analysis of this movement for YNet: Jew-hatred's other face - BDS campaigns promote intentionally ugly, one-dimensional representation of Israel.
Fighting the Campus War against Israel and the Jews: the Muslim Students Association)
A few examples serve to illustrate the content of the MSA’s character:
In October 2000, the president of UCLA’s MSA led a crowd of demonstrators at the Israeli consulate in chants of "Death to Israel!" and "Death to the Jews!"
At UCLA's annual "Anti-Zionist Week" festivities, rank-and-file MSA members have raised money for Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists, who are solemnly sworn to the mass murder of Jews and the annihilation of Israel. (John Perazzo in FrontPage Magazine's
Big Peace published a serialization of Frank Gaffney's Center for Security Policy Report analyzing Shariah - The Threat to America"The self-proclaimed goal of the Muslim Brotherhood in the USA (according to court-submitted evidence) is:
"The process of settlement [of Islam in the United States] is a "Civilization-Jihadist" process with all the word means. The Ikhwan must understand that all their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" their miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all religions.
Without this level of understanding, we are not up to this challenge and have not prepared ourselves for Jihad yet. It is a Muslim's destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands until the final hour comes, and there is no escape from that destiny except for those who choose to slack."
In this Spring 2009 speech presented at University of California at Los Angeles, self-proclaimed ex-terrorist, Walid Shoebat, advocates for internal political reform of theocratized Moslem societies.
(Background for Mr. Shoebat's remarks are made during first 18 minutes. Please be patient with wireless microphone signal which strengthens after 18:30 minute point in 47 minute program. Thank you).
Know the Front Groups to Know the NetworksThe Center for Security Policy's Team B report ("Shariah- The Threat to America") shows that the ties of such groups to the Muslim Brotherhood can nonetheless be readily established by the involvement in their founding and/or operations of individuals associated with other Ikhwan fronts.
In this Spring 2009 speech presented at University of California at Los Angeles, self-proclaimed ex-terrorist, Walid Shoebat, advocates for internal political reform of theocratized Moslem societies.
(Background for Mr. Shoebat's remarks are made during first 18 minutes. Please be patient with wireless microphone signal which strengthens after 18:30 minute point in 47 minute program. Thank you).
Know the Front Groups to Know the Networks
In order to be considered by the Muslim Brotherhood to be one of “our organizations” or an “organization of our friends,” all of these entities had to have embraced the aforementioned Ikhwan creed: “Allah is our goal; the Messenger is our guide: the Koran is our law; Jihad is our means; and martyrdom in the way of Allah is our inspiration.”
As we have seen, the actualization of the Muslim Brotherhood creed demands the triumph of shariah globally and the re-establishing the caliphate on a global basis. This end-state will entail subordinating to shariah the governing system of non-Islamic nations like ours (and Muslim nations not currently adhering to Islamic law) and, in due course, the destruction of such alternatives.
Pre-violent Jihad
The inherently seditious nature of the Muslim Brotherhood’s agenda and its incompatibility with Western civilization and governments is typically obscured in the Free World by the assertion that the Ikhwan only seeks to achieve its objectives through non-violent means. As a result, the Brothers, their allies and proxies are all-too-often considered to be acceptable and reliable partners for governments seeking to counter violent jihad.
Such openness to the Ikhwan is astounding not only because of the toxic nature of the MB’s ambitions.
It also ignores the fact that Brotherhood doctrine recognizes that violence must be used when needed to achieve shariah’s supremacist objectives. For example, the Brotherhood bylaws call for Muslims to “fight the tyrants” when necessary to establish the Islamic State, indicating violence is approved when the time is appropriate.
Even more dispositive is the fact that the U.S. State Department-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, Hamas, was formed out of the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood. In addition, jihadi organizations such as al Qaeda sprang out of the Muslim Brotherhood and have among their leaders senior Muslim Brothers.
These realities underscore the inadvisability of any “outreach” to American Muslim organizations that espouse shariah, whether or not they acknowledge a tie to the Muslim Brotherhood.
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