Thanks to the ongoing incitement and indoctrination in the Palestinian and Arab media, the Palestinians have been radicalized to a point where any talk about making concessions to Israel is automatically associated with "high treason." Sadly, we have reached a point where many Palestinians and other Arabs are convinced that the only language that Israel understands is force, and that this is the only way to extract concessions from the Jewish state.
Fatah today is weaker than it it was a few years ago, largely thanks to Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's refusal to allow the party free and unlimited access to the Palestinian Authority coffers. Fayyad, in a move that has enraged many senior Fatah leaders, has also kept Fatah members away from high positions in the Palestinian cabinet in the West Bank. Some Fatah officials have even accused Fayyad of being part of a US-Israeli-European conspiracy to eliminate Fatah for once and for all so that he could have exclusive control over the affairs of the Palestinians.
Even if Mahmoud Abbas were to sign a peace agreement with Israel tomorrow, his chances of implementing it, or even marketing it, are almost non-existent. He has lost control over the Gaza Strip, and cannot even visit his home or office there. In the West Bank, he has limited control and a serious credibility problem. Add to this the fact that many Palestinians view him as a puppet in the hands of the US and Israel.
Moreover, Abbas himself knows that a majority of Palestinians would not accept, at least for now, anything less than 100% of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and eastern Jerusalem. Abbas's status today does not allow him it sign any agreement with Israel that would include any concessions. Abbas would not be able to accept anything less than what his predecessor, Yasser Arafat, rejected at the botched Camp David summit in the summer of 2000. If, back then, Arafat was offered, say, 95% of the territories and turned it down, who is Abbas to agree to anything less than that? In fact, no Palestinian leader would be able, at least not in the foreseeable future, to accept anything less than 100%.
Abbas had an opportunity to prove to everyone that he is a serious leader but he missed it: it was after he came to power in January 2005. Before the election, he promised that if he won, he would wage an all-out war on rampant corruption in the Palestinian Authority and that all those who had stolen public funds would be punished. But instead of fulfilling his pre-election platform, Abbas "surrounded himself with many of the same corrupt figures who had served under Arafat," according to Fahmi Shabaneh, a senior intelligence official who had been appointed by the Palestinian leader as head of the anti-corruption unit in the Palestinian security services.
Abbas and Fatah are responsible for Hamas's victory in the 2006 election: the movement ran under the banner of Change and Reform, promising voters to end to end financial and administrative corruption and establish good government. They had a chance to turn the Gaza Strip into the Hong Kong of the Middle East after the Israeli pullout in 2005, but did nothing substantial in this regard, driving frustrated and disenchanted Palestinians into the open arms of Hamas. After Fatah lost the parliamentary election in 2006, it tried, with the help of the Americans and Europeans, to topple the Hamas government - an attempt that backfired and even increased Hamas's popularity.
On the other hand, many Palestinians seem to have internalized the fact that no Israeli government would ever withdraw to the pre-1967 boundaries or allow Fatah or Hamas to control half of Jerusalem.
So why does Abbas appear inclined to return to the negotiating table? Because of the heavy pressure the Americans and the Europeans have been exerting on him in recent weeks, the Palestinian leader's aides in Ramallah have explained.
Abbas is a weak leader who, as some of his aides have admitted, "lacks charisma and is not liked by his own people." The question that many Palestinians are asking is not whether Mahmoud Abbas will return to the negotiating table, but if the talks will lead anywhere. And most are convinced that Abbas and Israel are simply wasting their time.
For all these reasons, those who are betting on Abbas and Fatah will sooner or later discover that they had made the wrong calculation.
This is not to say that Hamas is in any way a better alternative to Abbas, but those who think that Abbas and his Fatah party are reliable partners who can deliver something are living under an illusion. Fatah cannot deliver anything: The party does not have the power and credibility that would enable it to sell a peace agreement with Israel to a majority of Palestinians.
Fatah lost the January 2006 parliamentary election to Hamas, and has since failed to reform -- or even to draw the appropriate conclusions from its humiliating defeat.
]]>To view this clip on MEMRI TV, visit: MEMRI
For other recent statements by Mahmoud Al-Habbash, visit MEMRI and MEMRI.
"Jihad Means Exerting Mental, Physical, Financial, or Verbal Efforts to Elevate the Word of Allah"
Mahmoud Al-Habbash: "I will talk about one notion - the notion of resistance. Today, we are standing on the land of a village in Palestine, which may only be a small village, but is a village of resistance - resistance in the true sense of the word, which we want to understand...
"What is Jihad, and what is resistance? When people talk about Jihad, what do they mean? What is the meaning of Jihad in Islam? And what is the meaning of resistance in Islam? We must understand this. [...]
"The literal meaning of 'Jihad' is the exertion of efforts - exerting your efforts and investing your energy. Jihad for the sake of Allah means exerting your efforts in order to elevate the word of Allah - whether these efforts are mental, physical, financial, or verbal.
"In this, the words of the Prophet Muhammad are true: 'Wage Jihad against infidels or the polytheists with your money, your souls, and your tongues.' Wage Jihad against the polytheists with money. When you use your money for the sake of Allah, in defense of the religion of Allah, of the Muslims, of their countries, and of all that is sacred to them - you are a mujahid for the sake of Allah.
"When you sacrifice your soul and invest your energy in defense of the religion of Allah, the Muslims, their countries, their mosques, their holy places, and their honor - you are a mujahid for the sake of Allah." [...]
"In Our Resistance to the Enemy, We Must Choose the Means and Methods that Will Grant Us Victory, Benefit Us, and Minimize Our Losses"
"Some people believe that Jihad means nothing but bearing arms and fighting the enemy. This is indeed Jihad, but it is not the only Jihad. There is the Jihad of the word, the Jihad of money, the Jihad of resistance, and the Jihad of defense. This is what we need to understand about the meaning of 'resistance.'
"Resistance does not mean that we should bear arms, whether the time is right or not. It is wise to bear arms at a time when we should bear arms, and to lay down our weapons when we should lay down our weapons.
"We must choose... In our resistance to our enemy - to the Israeli settlement in our land, for example, and to the Israeli aggression against us - we must choose the means and the methods that will grant us victory, be to our benefit, and minimize our losses. [...]
"Brothers, we must understand that resistance assumes many forms, and that Jihad assumes many and varied forms. We have no right to reduce this notion into a single form, or into several forms, without the others. All forms of resistance are honorable and necessary.
"However, we must exercise wisdom and reason when we use the appropriate means, which are suited to our circumstances, our capabilities, and our needs, when it comes to resistance and Jihad.
"Jihad continues to Judgment Day. Brothers, nobody - whoever he may be - can ever abolish Jihad or say that it has come to an end. Jihad continues to Judgment Day. Someone once said in a political debate: 'I am ready to declare an end to Jihad.' This concept is wrong. Nobody has the right to declare an end to Jihad.
"However, Jihad assumes different forms, paths, and methods, in accordance with the circumstances, in accordance with the capabilities and needs of the nation, in accordance with the needs of the people, and in accordance with the reality of the Palestinian people today.
"Brothers, it is all resistance. We are all conducting resistance, but logic and reason require that we give priority to certain methods at certain times, while postponing other methods. Reason, national interests, and Islamic interests make this necessary for us. [...]
"There is not a single one of us who does not participate in the resistance. We all participate in resistance. Even a woman who sits at home, raising her children, is conducting resistance, because she is preparing the ammunition of the future, and the builders of the future - the future of this people and this country. [...]
"We have one enemy. All our arrows and all our efforts should be aimed in a single direction - to conduct resistance against the settlement and the occupation, and to repel the Israeli injustice done to our people."
"The Day Will Come When We Will Fly the Flag of Our Independent Palestinian State over Every Inch of Our Soil"
"Those who instigate problems and disputes here or there - disputes with Egypt, Jordan, or any other Arab country... This is not in the best interests of our Palestinian cause. Brothers, the only one who benefits from this nonsense is Israel and the Israeli occupation. Nobody benefits from the instigation of problems with Egypt except for Israel and the Israeli occupation.
"Therefore, any hand that is raised against any Palestinian, against any Arab, against Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, or any other Arab country, must be chopped off, because it violates the law, the national consensus, and the values of our religion, which says: 'Fight all the polytheists as they fight you all.'
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According to MPAC, “Executive Director Salam Al-Marayati traveled to Europe at the invitation of the State Department to speak about religious freedom and free speech. He spoke at UNESCO in Paris and at the U.S. mission to the United Nations in Geneva” (‘Al-Marayati Explores Religious Freedom & Free Speech in Paris & Geneva,’ MPAC News release, January 28, 2010).
MPAC was established initially in 1986 as the Political Action Committee of the Islamic Center of Southern California whose key leaders are believed to have had their origins in the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood has been a leading intellectual force behind the Islamist phenomenon and its leading figures, like Sayyid Qutb, inspired Al Qaeda figures like Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama Bin Laden’s second-in-command.
MPAC has opposed virtually every counter-terrorist initiative undertaken or proposed by the U.S. government, claiming often that U.S. counter-terror efforts were aimed at the U.S. Muslim community. MPAC has developed extensive relationships with the U.S. government which have included numerous meetings with the Department of Justice and the FBI.
Renowned terrorism expert Steven Emerson has published long essays about the deeply troubling statements and actions of MPAC and Al-Marayati himself. Salaam Al-Marayati’s record:
So extreme is Al-Marayati’s record that some of these statements caused Marayati’s 1999 appointment to a U.S. congressional committee on terrorism to be rescinded.
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “It is deeply disturbing and offensive that the Obama Administration and Hillary Clinton’s State Department would go out of its way to select a man with long record of Israel-bashing and apologetics for terrorism, who even called for Israel’s destruction and described its creation a “crime,” to go overseas speaking on behalf of the United States.
“Back in 1999, when the U.S. Congress become aware of Al-Marayati’s record, after reviewing information about him released by Steve Emerson and the ZOA, his appointment as a member of the U.S. Congress Committee on Terrorism was rescinded.
“Such an ill-conceived decision calls into question the Obama Administration’s commitment to combating Islamist extremists. Indeed, in the Administration’s refusal to even refer to Islamist extremists and its tendency to refer to terrorist acts perpetrated by Islamists as ‘man-made disasters,’ we see a deeply concerning blindness to the threat. In the invitation to Al-Marayati to speak overseas, we see further lack of seriousness about dealing with the problem. Such spokesmen and organizations should be shunned, not courted and never given the credibility of the imprimatur of the U.S. government.”
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The real target of Ahmadinejad, who rules at the pleasure of clerical controller Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is not outside the country, but within its borders. Ahmadinejad’s threats are directed against the massive and growing reform effort known as the Green Movement. The Green opposition has called a major protest demonstration for February 11. The rulers mean to answer the protest with violence, and the menacing idiom employed by the state is backed by force. The Iranian authorities have imposed the death penalty on demonstrators and called for more such sentences.
Ahmadinejad the executioner betrays his insecurity by his abusive vocabulary. But at the same time, he exposes the precariousness of his and his clique’s hold on power by claiming he will strike a deal with the West over processing of uranium. The bloodthirsty tyrants have no choice but to attempt conciliation with the same foreign states they accuse of inspiring their opposition.
The West and the Arab states worry that Ahmadinejad and Khamenei have another strategy afoot, seeking domination of the Gulf region. Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates have purchased Patriot missiles from the U.S., and American naval vessels with missile capacity will patrol the waters of the Gulf. To some, these actions appear to aggravate the confrontation between Iran and its neighbors. But the unresponsive, naïve, and foolish reactions to this development, by Ahmadinejad and his ally, parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani, support the concerns of the Arab countries. Larijani declares that any country contemplating ground, sea, or air actions against Iran will have to take responsibility for severe consequences.
Speaking in Kuwait on February 2, Larijani dismissed American military activities as a “puppet show” and “trickery,” repeating his use of this contemptuous manner in commenting on the Western discourse over nuclear enrichment, which he labeled as “deception.”
But the Iranian misrulers hope to impose their own deception on the world. They should fail in this: just as the protestors against the regime see their enemy at home, rather than abroad, Ahmadinejad and Khamenei know that the real challenge to them comes from among their own subjects, not any foreign capitals. The hangmen rant about war to divert the people from the cause of political change. They demand obedience in the name of patriotism, portraying the Green Movement as traitors worthy of death. They accuse the U.S.-armed Arab states of following on the path of Saddam in his war against Iran. Ahmadinejad and Khamenei have provided credibility for fear of Iran by their lack of rationality and wisdom on addressing the Green protests.
The U.S., for its part, must deal with the Wahhabi terror offensive in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq, without needlessly enriching the corrupt Arab states. America must find a way to support the reform alternative in Iran without submitting to a new form of blackmail, whether in the form of a demand for arming of the Arab Gulf countries or of false promises of cooperation by Iran on nuclear issues.
]]>At this point Europe is not even halfway into its 100-day political “honeymoon” since the Treaty of Lisbon, which transformed the EU into a state in its own right, came into force. So far the honeymoon has been a nightmare. Since the beginning of the year, the EU's currency, the euro, is on the brink of collapse; Greece has been placed under EU financial supervision to prevent it from going bankrupt. Now U.S. President Barack Obama has announced that he will not attend next May's EU summit in Madrid. It was to have been Obama's first visit to post-Lisbon Europe - the consecration of the new political order.
Washington informed Brussels last week that Obama is not coming because it is not clear who is his European counterpart. Since the [CUTOFF] Lisbon Treaty came into force on January 1st, Europe has its own President, Herman Van Rompuy. This former Belgian politician chairs the European Council, the assembly of the heads of government of the 27 EU member states. However, there is also José Manuel Barroso, a former Portuguese politician, who is the president of the European Commission, which is the EU's executive body. And there is José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the Spanish Prime Minister, who is hosting the Madrid meeting and as such co-chairs the summit meeting of the EU heads of government with Mr. Van Rompuy.
Messrs. Van Rompuy, Barroso and Zapatero all want to be the first to shake Mr. Obama's hand and receive the deep bow which the American President is in the habit of making to foreign leaders. Because of the embarrassing intra-European squabble about who should have the honor, Obama has declined the invitation until the Europeans have figured out which of them is the most important.
Obama's decision has come as an unexpected blow to the European leadership. It has upset them so much that they are considering postponing the summit to the autumn. Meanwhile, they have begun quarreling about who is to blame for the present debacle. The Europeans generally agree that the vainglorious Zapatero is mostly to blame, but others are damaged more. “The Spanish have made a mess of the summit but Van Rompuy and the post-Lisbon EU institutions will carry the can in the long term. The squabbling has damaged the EU in the eyes of the most powerful nation in the world,” a senior EU official said.
Although Obama's snub hurts Europe's pride, the euro's monetary problems are far more serious. They not only affect Europe's finances and economy, but may also tear down the political EU framework. When the European Commission placed Athens under EU supervision last week, Greece was almost bankrupt. Brussels has forced the Greek government to present a plan to drastically reduce its budget deficit from 13% to 3% by the end of 2012. The plan will cost the Greeks blood, sweat and tears. It includes a freeze on civil service wages and the postponement of retirement. Brussels invoked new EU powers under Article 121 of the Lisbon Treaty, which allow it to reshape the structure of Greece's pensions, healthcare, labor market and private commerce.
“The envisaged correction of the deficit is feasible but subject to risks,” says EU Commission President Barroso -- an understatement. The Commission fears a backlash from the Greek unions, who might organize strikes and bring down the Greek government. Trade unions in other countries are nervous, too. They warn that it is unacceptable for the European Commission to intervene in setting national wages.
The EU's Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia declared that the Greek targets will be enforced strongly and that, if necessary, even more draconian measures will be taken. “Every time we see or perceive slippages, we will ask for additional measures to correct these slippages. Never before have we established so detailed and tough a system of surveillance,” Almunia said. He has demanded quarterly updates on progress towards reduction targets, as well as a first report on 16 March. “This is the first time,” he said, “we have established such an intense and quasi-permanent system of monitoring.”
Much is at stake. In the coming weeks, the strength of the euro will depend on whether the markets believe that the government in Athens is strong enough to implement the reforms, or trust that the other eurozone countries will bail out the Greeks. This year the eurozone governments have already borrowed a record €110bn from the markets, thereby forcing up the cost of borrowing for countries with the weakest public finances, such as Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland and Italy.
Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz warns that the plan to slash Greece's budget deficit could end up stifling the country's economic growth. He said that the whole eurozone should share responsibility for the Greek situation. This view is not shared by other economists. Otmar Issing, a German economist and a founding member of the European Central Bank (ECB), points out that successive Greek governments have for years falsified the Greek budget figures in an attempt to deceive Brussels and the eurozone monetary authorities, such as the ECB. What is happening today is the result of “years of violating rules, cheating on figures, financing consumption, public and private, by huge debts - this is a way which has to be stopped,” Issing told the BBC. “Any sign that help might come would undermine the efforts which are needed to reform the Greek economy.”
For political reasons, too, a bailout would be counterproductive. “German and French taxpayers cannot pay for Greece,” Rainer Brüderle, Germany's Economy Minister, said at the World Economic Forum in Davos. A bailout would mean that the taxpayers in one country are liable for the failures and mistakes of a government in another country. This will not be accepted in countries such as Germany, who will have to foot the bulk of the bill. Axel Weber, President of the German Bundesbank and a member of the ECB Executive Board, told the German financial paper Boersen Zeitung: “Politically, it would not be possible to tell voters that one country is being helped out so that it can avoid the painful savings that other countries have made.”
Bailing out the Greeks will lead to a surge of anti-EU feelings in other countries. The alternative is to allow Greece to default on its debts. This, too, would have devastating consequences for the euro and affect all the countries in the eurozone. Hence, there seems to be only one way out: Greece must leave the eurozone. Legally, however, a country cannot be thrown out of the eurozone. Nevertheless, the British economist, John Kay, wrote in the influential German financial newspaper Handelsblatt that “if there is political will, it [i.e. throwing the Greeks out] might happen. Bureaucrats, lawyers and bankers would solve the technical difficulties. Central bankers cannot afford not to have an emergency plan for that.”
Even if the situation in Greece can be stabilized, the EU's nightmare is far from over. The next eurozone dominos that might fall are Portugal and Spain. Portugal's deficit reached 9.3% of GDP last year, Spain's 11.4%.
Greece and Portugal are small countries. No matter what happens, they will not break the euro, writes Wolfgang Münchau, the associate editor of the Financial Times. The Greek situation may even be considered as something of a joke. “European farce descends into Greek tragedy” and “Spartan solutions from Brussels will be fought by Athens” are two titles of recent articles by Münchau. However, Spain, the eurozone's fourth-largest economy, is another kettle of fish. “The clear and present danger to the eurozone is Spain,” says Münchau. “Spain, like Greece, has suffered from an extreme loss of competitiveness during a period in which it relied on a housing bubble to generate prosperity. While the Greek government is at least beginning to recognise the need for reform, perhaps too late, Spain's political establishment remains in denial,” he writes.
His pessimism is shared by Professor Nouriel Roubini of the Stern School of Business at New York University. He says that Spain poses a looming and serious threat to the future of the eurozone. “If Greece goes under, that's a problem for the eurozone. If Spain goes under, it's a disaster,” he told the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos.
If Brussels puts Madrid under EU supervision or forces Spain out of the euro, the repercussions for Zapatero will be worse than missing a photo-op with his political hero, Barack Obama. However, in this matter, too, the man who is to blame most for the debacle, is not the one who will suffer most harm from it. It is unlikely that the euro can survive a Spanish catastrophe. It looks as if 2010, which should have been the year of its triumph, is going to be an annus horribilis for the EU.
]]>President Obama no longer refers to enemy combatants; they are now “isolated radicals.” This is a blinkered attempt to suggest that it isn’t jihadists we are opposed to, but the most radical elements within this category. Similarly, we are not in a war against terrorists; we are rather in overseas operations.
On the homefront the word “stimulus” has been expunged from public usage as it did not stimulate: it is now “spending.” “No new taxes” - a campaign pledge - has been converted into “new taxes.”. “Transparency,” as in all government action will be transparent and visible on C-Span, has been transmogrified into secrecy as in the Healthcare bill of 2000 pages that will not be made available for public review.
The redistribution of wealth - an apparent government objective - is understood as taking from Peter to give to Paul, a condition with which Paul rarely objects. Bonuses, even if built into iron clad contracts, are little more than manifestations of “exploitation.” -- an argument made by community organizers who, if there were truth in advertising, would be called “radical adherents.”
In an effort to appear conciliatory, almost every spokesmen refers to Islam as a “religion of peace,” even though it is a “religion of submission.” Moreover, it is also known, but rarely stated that not every Muslim is a terrorist, but almost every terrorist is a Muslim. In the same vein, jihad can be a source of spiritual fulfillment or an act of killing apostates in the name of Allah.
To put the best possible cast on any current government action the words “previous administration” are now a code for “its Bush’s fault.” If the president says “we’ve run out of money,” he means “we’ve run out of money for things I do not want to fund.” On the education front, the administration is keen on “a race to the top,” but if one were to consider results, it is really “a race to the middle,” with the “best” student category shrinking and the lowest scoring students improving slightly -- leading to a compression at the mean.
It is also instructive that the word “rights” is employed at least ten times more frequently than “duties.” Rights have become what others give or confer; duties, by contrast, have entered the realm of disuse. Another word is “privilege,” which based on K Street influence, is something you “buy,” comparable to the Middle age practice of buying Indulgencies to assure salvation.
There has also been a brouhaha over the Attorney General’s desire for civilian trials for those accused of terrorist activity. Whether one agrees with this stance or not - and I am in the “not” category - this decision means, in effect, that people all around the globe and in every circumstance, are protected by provisions of our Constitution.
I suspect that Americans may also be distressed to learn that “elections” are not the expressed will of the people, but instead the will of some of the people -- after Census manipulation and the intervention of ACORN operatives. Democracy becomes, then, not the will of the majority, but the will of a minority who know how to hold on to power.
For pragmatists who maintain “realpoilitc,” democracy itself is the casualty, as the goal becomes the staying in power at any price.
For the cynics, any time a politician says I believe in “honoring my commitments,” he really means “dishonoring my commitments.”
But then again is it really only cynics who smile at staying in power and believe in dishonoring committments?
]]>The filmmakers were later vindicated. But the message had been sent loud and clear: Shine a light on the growth of radical Islam, expose the extremists, and you - not they - will be prosecuted.
Britain’s police were not the only ones to defend the fanatics. Equally surreal, when MP George Galloway interviewed the producer of the documentary, David Henshaw, Galloway refused to mention the Koran by name, even though it was he who introduced it in defense of the hate preachers. When Henshaw brought up the subject of preachers inciting the murder of gays, exposed in Undercover Mosque, Galloway said [video]:
“Were they calling for killing or were they referring to a text - a remarkably similar text to that that you would find in the Old Testament.”
Which text? Galloway wouldn’t say, but continued: “The mere reading of the Old Testament [or “a remarkably similar text”] would be to make a pronouncement about the impermissibility of homosexuality, for example.” Galloway’s point, of course, was that this would be hate speech, at least, that is, if it were not now protected speech in Britain and continental Europe.
Ironically, if Galloway had used the word “Koran,” while suggesting that “the mere reading” of it might inspire the kind of hate on display in Undercover Mosque, he himself might well have stepped over the line into the realm of hate crime. Galloway, though, a friend of Islamic extremists everywhere, is perfectly happy to use this kind of Newspeak. And plenty of mainstream British and European politicians are only slightly less craven.
Dutch parliamentarian, and head of the Party for Freedom (PVV), Geert Wilders is one of those who is not. As you can imagine, this gets him into all kinds of trouble, from media trashing to death threats. This week he was back in court in Amsterdam to answer charges of violating articles 137c and 137d of the Dutch Penal Code, which prohibit “inciting hatred” or “discrimination” against anyone because of their religion, race, gender, etc., and which carry up to a two-year prison sentence.
Wilders has repeated ad nauseam that he has nothing against Muslims, but only against the ideology of Islam, and in the pre-hearing, once again reiterated that he was not “out to offend people. I have nothing against Muslims. I have a problem with Islam and the Islamization of our country because Islam is at odds with freedom.”
The transformation of Amsterdam from the world’s most liberal city to one where gays are now frequently attacked, is just one of the aspects of “Islamization” with which Wilders has a problem. And for this, the court apparently has a problem with Wilders. His statement, “Those Moroccan boys are really violent. They beat up people because of their sexual orientation,” is included in the summons, despite the fact that the rise in the number of attacks on gays, perpetrated largely by Moroccan youths, is well known to the Dutch, and has been widely reported, not least of all by Radio Netherlands and American author Bruce Bawer.
The summons also documents Wilders statements against Islam, including his call to ban the Koran, which he has described as a “fascist book.” Whatever one thinks of Wilders’s position here - and I am no fan of banning - it is worth remarking that his accusations are in line with Galloway’s defense of Islam, i.e., that “the mere reading” of the Koran - or “text,” to use the euphemism - should, or would, be a hate crime. If so, we might wonder why that would be protected speech under Dutch or any other law, while criticizing or even condemning it means running the risk of being dragged into court?
Then there is the summons’s scene-by-scene breakdown of Wilders’ 17-minute movie Fitna. Similar to Undercover Mosque, Fitna is largely a compilation of documentary footage -- again of hate preachers inciting violence against non-Muslims, Jews, and so on -- as well as scenes of actual violence committed by Islamic militants and terrorists, and extracts of the Koran.
The suras shown in writing throughout the film are those such as surah 8, verse 60 (“Prepare for them whatever force and cavalry ye are able of gathering, to strike terror, to strike terror into the hearts of the enemies, of Allah and your enemies”) which are used by Islamic militants to justify, and indeed to inspire, terrorist attacks and other atrocities.
This is obvious to anyone who has spent even a few hours perusing extremist Muslim chat rooms (including those run by, and for, those living in the West), or who has the slightest knowledge of al-Qaeda or other terrorist networks, or who has read the Hamas charter, which so neatly sums up the Jihadist’s raison d’etre in article eight:
“Allah is its target, the Prophet is its model, the Koran its constitution: Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes.”
Because of the death threats Wilders received for claiming that Islam was a violent, intolerant religion, he has been forced to have 24-hour protection, and to sleep each night in a different location, including occasionally in prison cells. When he visited Britain recently to meet with Lord Pearson, head of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), inside the House of Lords, extremists gathered outside with placards proclaiming “Geert Wilders deserves Islamic punishment - sharia is coming.” In an interview with the press [video] one protestor even said that they were there to “warn him,” and that, “obviously he knows that in Islam the punishment for the one who insults the prophet is capital punishment, and he should take lessons from people like Theo van Gogh.”
Van Gogh was the Dutch filmmaker behind Submission [video], a movie critical of Islam’s treatment of women, released in 2004 and starring Ayaan Hirsi Ali. He was murdered later in the year by the Islamist Mohammed Bouyeri, who shot him eight times, slit his throat, and pinned a letter, threatening Hirsi Ali, to his chest with a dagger. She left for the US; Wilders carried on, with protection.
Wilders has so far escaped “Islamic punishment,” yet he is now forced to answer to a court in a supposedly liberal democracy for criticizing Islam. The court itself seems determined to stack the deck against Wilders, allowing him only three of the eighteen witnesses he had requested.
The Dutch authorities, however, like those of other European states, appear to have sided with the terrorists and extremists - not merely over non-Muslims, but over moderate and reformists Muslims as well. As Salim Mansur said in the Toronto Sun, “the Amsterdam Court of Appeal has conceded space to the Islamists by accommodating, in practical terms, their demand for acceptance of Shariah (Islamic law) within secular society.” Filip Dewinter, a leader of the Flemish political party Vlaams Belang put it rather more pithily, calling the trial, “an assassination attempt on a democratic party” - and, by extension, on democracy itself.
]]>It arises out of Kaufman's September 28, 2007 FrontPage Magazine article on the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), which sponsored a "Muslim Family Day" at Six Flags Over Texas. Kaufman vowed to protest the event citing, among other things, ICNA's alleged "physical ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and financial ties to Hamas."
Within days, Kaufman was sued, but not by ICNA. Rather, seven Dallas area Islamist organizations, none of them named in the article, sued Kaufman for defamation arguing they were implicated by inference since they too sponsored the event. In June 2009, a Texas appellate court dismissed the case before it could go to trial because "a reasonable reader who was acquainted with [plaintiffs] would not view Kaufman's statements as 'concerning' them."” Undeterred, the seven Islamist groups asked the Texas Supreme Court for review.
In what Kaufman termed a "victory for freedom", the Court rejected their petition and let the appeals court decision stand.
This result is important for two reasons. First, plaintiffs had argued that Kaufman, as an internet journalist, was not entitled to certain procedural protections afforded traditional media defendants that make it easier for them to get libel cases dismissed before they reach the costly trial phase. In a precedential ruling, the appellate court rejected this contention finding generally that "an internet communicator may qualify as a member of the media”."
Second, the lawsuit fits a growing pattern of Islamists exploiting libel law to silence critics. They file questionable suits knowing they need not win to intimidate, demoralize, and bankrupt opponents. For example, in 2006, a Saudi banker's mere threat to sue prompted Cambridge University Press to pulp unsold copies of a book on terror financing titled Alms for Jihad, and to request American libraries to remove their copies from circulation.
That this tactic of "lawfare" may have had a role in the Kaufman case, was suggested in a May 17, 2009 broadcast of Crescent Report hosted by Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Legal Society Freedom Foundation. After personally castigating Kaufman, Bray explained, "we've got to be willing to spend our money in a court of law … and not necessarily because we're going to look for money, but … to spend our money and make you spend your money."
The appellate court found the plaintiffs could not even meet the basic requirements for proceeding. However, as a bid to use legal fees to bleed Kaufman into submission the suit was much more promising. In fact, Kaufman would almost certainly have been bankrupt well before the case was dismissed were it not for the legal and financial aid of those dedicated to defending journalists from the threat of lawfare, including the Legal Project of the Middle East Forum and the Horowitz Freedom Center.
Kaufman explained that the plaintiffs' goal was to stop him from criticizing "those who wish to do harm to the United States, specifically those tied to the extremist Muslim Brotherhood."” Last Friday's decision has frustrated these Islamists designs.
A Texas tradition of vigorous commitment to free speech is evident in its founding documents. The 1836 Texas Independence Constitution went even further than the First Amendment by guaranteeing an affirmative "liberty to speak" rather than simply restricting governmental interference with debate. The Texas Supreme Court's decision preserves this legacy and we should applaud it.
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The battle for South Asia is not limited to the Afghan backwater. Extremist Islamist forces in the region aim at control of nuclear-armed Pakistan, seizure of the whole of Kashmir, further disruption in India, and penetration of Bangladesh. Destructive elements in this panorama include the clerical dictatorship in Iran as well as the fundamentalist Deobandi sect, represented by the Taliban, and aggressive Pakistani jihadist movements. Pakistani, Indian, and Bangladeshi Muslims, whose religious legacy was influenced by Persian more than Arabic Islam, are Sunnis, but the armed fanatics among them, although financed and encouraged by Saudi Wahhabism, are less fearful of Iran than are the Arab powers. The Pashtun ethnic group that comprises the main component of the Taliban speaks an Iranian language. Pashtuns and Tajiks, the main Afghan ethnic groups, although long-term rivals, are, at least in linguistic terms, cousins: Tajik is also an Iranian idiom.
The Islamist terror, now washing Afghanistan and Pakistan with blood and flooding India and Bangladesh with the money typically needed to recruit new jihadist cadres, has a Central Asian as well as a South Asian orientation. Prior to September 11, 2001, Al-Qaida supported the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), which sought to mobilize Uzbeks, a Turkic-speaking ethnic group widely distributed in the region, for Wahhabi-inspired jihad. Islamist ideology never attracted significant support among the populace within Uzbekistan, but IMU footsoldiers joined the combat to fortify the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Central Asian commentators and experts long emphasized the covetous eye Al-Qaida turned toward Uzbekistan and other former Soviet Central Asian republics, including Kazakhstan, which once had significant military nuclear resources. From 1992 to 1997, the IMU also intervened in a civil war in Tajikistan.
After 9/11, Uzbekistan, oppressed since 1990 with the post-Soviet dictatorship of former Communist functionary Islom Karimov, became an asset for the U.S.-led coalition that intervened in Afghanistan. For its supply train, the anti-terror alliance used the short common border and transport and communications facilities that link Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. Karimov bragged that he had been the first foreign leader to endorse America’s position after the 2001 assault on New York and Washington - within twenty minutes of the attacks themselves, he claimed - and also said that he had offered an airbase at Karshi-Khanabad in his country for permanent U.S. use, without asking for payment.
But the Karimov regime had never completely cut its ties with Moscow, and failed to alter its style of governance from that of an exceptionally repressive dictatorship. By early 2004, then-secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld privately declared his dissatisfaction with Karimov and said he wished to move American logistical operations out of Uzbekistan. The clarifying moment came in spring 2005 when Karimov’s police massacred at least 1,000 peaceful demonstrators in Andijon, a trading center in the Ferghana Valley. Like a finger penetrating Kyrgyz territory, the Ferghana Valley had grown comparatively rich on international commerce, much of it cheap Chinese consumer goods.
Karimov and his representatives claimed that the Andijon carnage was caused by Muslim radicals, but the allegation was not believed by local democratic dissidents and knowledgeable Westerners. Washington expressed its objection to free-handed mass murder by the Uzbek tyrant, who announced almost immediately that he wanted the U.S. out of the Karshi-Khanabad base. Additionally, for the facilities that had been offered ostensibly for free in perpetuity, Karimov presented America a bill. Eventually, even Karimov himself admitted that the Andijon bloodshed represented an incompetent state response to local discontent over lack of economic development. Rumsfeld’s instincts proved correct, and Uzbekistan tightened its relations with Moscow, under the rule of the antidemocratic Vladimir Putin, and China. Putin did not immediately seek the reabsorption of Uzbekistan into the Russian empire, as he has attempted to regain direct control over Georgia and Ukraine. Rather, Moscow aimed in Central Asia to block Western influence emanating from Afghanistan. The U.S. transferred its base to Kyrgyzstan, which slid from the euphoria of its pro-democracy Tulip Revolution of 2005 into Putin’s arms, and in 2009 the Kyrgyz government also asked the U.S. to depart.
Since the Andijon tragedy, the U.S. has kept Karimov and Uzbekistan at a distance. In December 2009, the Uzbek authorities held the latest in a series of manipulated “elections,” that, like preceding such affairs, resulted in a predictable victory for Karimov. But the Obama administration has begun attempts at conciliation with Karimov, impelled by the pretext of Uzbek strategic assistance in the Afghan war. These gestures toward a brutal dictatorship follow in line with Obama’s flirtations with Iran, even while Tehran faces an unprecedented mass upheaval against its clerical misrulers, as well as with Putin’s Russia.
Uzbekistan and Karimov are bloodstained exemplars of unreformed totalitarianism in the former Soviet empire and the Muslim lands. They are unfit allies for the U.S. The administration should turn away from any such compromise with evil in pursuit of victory in South Asia. If we need help from Uzbekistan, it should be predicated on a thorough political and human rights reform in that distant and scarred country.
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Only Hans Jansen, Simon Admiraal and Wafa Sultan were allowed to be heard as expert-witnesses. Their testimony will be heard in a session behind closed doors. Apparently the truth about Islam must remain a secret.
Geert Wilders: "This Court is not interested in the truth. This Court doesn’t want me to have a fair trial. I can’t have any respect for this. This Court would not be out of place in a dictatorship".
The Court also brushed aside the preliminary objections concerning its jurisdiction and the admissibility of the Public Prosecutor.
Nevertheless, Geert Wilders remains extremely motivated to seek justice: "I’m still counting on an acquittal".
Geert Wilders launched a website in English that will cover the trial:
]]>Wilders had sought three categories of witnesses: 5 free speech experts, 8 Islam experts, and 5 "experiential experts." This latter category consisted of various Islamists, including Theo van Gogh's murderer, a Dutch imam who had unsuccessfully tried to sue Wilders, and the Egyptian fundamentalist Yusuf al-Qaradawi.
The court decided to permit only the three Islam experts to testify: Johannes Jansen, Simon Admiraal and Wafa Sultan. In fairness, barring the Islamist witnesses is perhaps excusable. Presumably none would be willing to testify voluntarily, and only one resides freely in the Netherlands. What is much more troubling is the court's refusal to hear from any of Wilders' five free speech experts - all of whom would likely have appeared voluntarily.
The criminal case against Wilders revolves around freedom of speech and whether it may be abridged to serve other values such as social cohesion. Wilders' experts would have offered testimony directly on point: Professor Tom Zwart is a human rights expert, Professor Afshin Ellian teaches Social Cohesion, Citizenship and Multiculturalism, and Professor Andras Sajo sits on the European Court of Human Rights. The two remaining witnesses, Professors Henny Sackers and Theo De Roos are experts in criminal law and procedure.
Indeed, the Public Prosecutor, which is reluctantly pursuing this case at the order of an Amsterdam appellate court, expressed interest in hearing professors Zwart, Ellian and Sajo testify. That the court nevertheless refused to hear from any of these experts feeds the impression that that this is a results-driven exercise rather than a serious impartial attempt to wrestle with the profound issues presented.
Fortunately, the trial is still in its early stages, so the court has time to salvage some legitimacy. Unfortunately, when a court indicates a lack of interest in the fundamental legal rights at issue, seeing the trial as anything other than a predetermined political exercise becomes increasingly difficult.
www.legal-project.org/blog/2010/02/stacking-the-deck-against-geert-wilders
]]>But not all are content to watch Christianity "go gentle into that good night" — and often they specify secular reasons. Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Anglican bishop of Rochester, has argued that many of the freedoms and institutions enjoyed in Europe have Christian roots — and thus are put at risk by sidelining Christianity. Likewise, he has hammered the UK's multicultural policies as unmitigated failures that serve only to undermine societal cohesion, even fostering Islamist-run "no-go areas" in major cities.
Two leading prelates recently have echoed Nazir-Ali. First, in an online interview, retiring Czech Cardinal Miloslav Vlk asserts that the spiritual vacuum is being filled by Islam — especially its most radical elements — and could result in the "fall of Europe." Second, George Carey, the ex-archbishop of Canterbury, uses an op-ed to contend that "tolerance, fair play, [and] pluralism" are not enough to define a nation, "so we must look also to language, institutions, and our shared history." Unfortunately, "some groups of migrants … are ambivalent about or even hostile to such institutions" and prefer to self-segregate in "ghettos" governed by Shari'a.
Stating that "there must be a willingness on their part to integrate with the rest of British society," he continues:
"Is there anything distinctly Christian about such a call? Some will say "no." Our values lie rather with the Enlightenment than with the Church. I believe that history is against them. It is my firm view that our society owes more to our Christian heritage than it realizes and to overlook this inheritance of faith will lead to the watering down of the very values of tolerance, openness, inclusion, and democracy that we claim are central to all we stand for."
What undergirds liberal democracy: the Enlightenment, Christianity, or some other factors? Furthermore, is the Islamic faith by nature compatible or incompatible with such a system? Detailed answers are beyond the scope of this blog, but please note that the Middle East Forum has worked to advance the debate on the latter question. What is absolutely undeniable, however, is that the Christian, Enlightenment-shaped West has produced the freest nations on the planet, while Muslim-majority states now rank among the lowest in terms of social and political rights.
Therefore, is it "Islamophobic" to worry about how Europe will be affected by the decline of Christianity, the ascent of anything-goes multiculturalism, and the expansion of unassimilated Muslim communities originating from oppressive lands? No. For lovers of freedom — believers and non-believers alike — these concerns are both reasonable and necessary.
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It follows of course from this fallacy that an argument should also not be accepted because of who offered it.
A close relative of the ad hominem fallacy is what I have called “the argument by ethnic identity,” which I have defined as follows: An anti-Israel argument is made stronger if offered by a Jew. (“See, even a Jews agrees that…)
These are precisely the fallacious arguments being offered in defense of the Goldstone report by Richard Goldstone and his supporters. Goldstone has even elicited his daughter’s help. This is what she has said: “Had Richard Goldstone not served as the head of the UN inquiry into the Gaza War, the accusations against Israel would have been harsher.” She continued. “My father took on the job, for peace, for everyone and also for Israel.” She told the Jerusalem Post, “My dad loves Israel and it wasn’t easy for him to see and hear what happened. I think he heard and saw things he didn’t expect to see and hear….”
The problem is not what Goldstone saw and heard. It’s what he willfully and deliberately refused to see and hear. He refused to watch videotapes, easily accessible on the internet, that show conclusively that Hamas terrorists routinely fired rockets from behind human shields. He refused to credit eye witness reports published by refutable newspapers and even admissions by Hamas leaders. He willfully refused to listen to the testimony of one of the world’s leading experts on how democratic militaries fight asymmetrical warfare against terrorists who hide behind civilians, who said:
“I don’t think there has ever been a time in the history of warfare when any army has made more efforts to reduce civilian casualties and deaths of innocent people than the IDF is doing today in Gaza.”
Instead of defending the report against the many substantive arguments offered against it, Goldstone has repeatedly cited his Jewishness as both a shield against the criticism and a sword with which to continue to attack Israeli actions.
Had Goldstone not been the author of the United Nations Human Rights Council report on Israel, it would be tossed in the trash barrel along with other one-sided and biased reports by this prejudice group which targets only Israel for human rights violations. But those seeking to defend this indefensible report point to Goldstone’s authorship as proof that it must have credibility because a Jew wrote it (“See, even a Jew….)
In a criminal trial, it is impermissible to attack the character of the defendant unless he has placed his character at issue. That is precisely what Goldstone has done in his campaign to lend credibility to his mendacious report by constantly invoking his Jewishness. The appropriate response to an ad hominem positive argument is an ad hominem negative argument. That is why, in addition to providing a 49 page substantive response to the arguments and methodology of the Goldstone report, I have raised questions about Goldstone’s motivations in accepting leadership of the mission and signing his name to a report which is so demonstrably false and one-sided.
In light of the hard evidence, that is easily accessible online and in the media, Goldstone cannot possibly believe that Hamas did not intentionally use human shields, have their fighters deliberately dress in civilian clothing and use mosques and hospitals to store rockets and other weapons. Videotapes conclusively prove these charges, and Hamas acknowledges—indeed boasts of—them. He cannot possibly believe that Israel used the thousands of rockets that Hamas directed against its children as an excuse, or a cover, for its real goal, namely to kill as many Palestinian civilians as possible. Nor could he possibly believe that the Israeli government made a policy decision, at the highest levels, to deliberately target Palestinian babies, young children, women and the elderly for murder. All the evidence points away from these wild charges. Yet he signed a report asserting that those demonstrably false conclusions were true. Shame on him. And even more shame on him for exploiting his Jewishness to get others to believe these defamations against the Jewish state.
The Goldstone report should be rejected on its demerits. The added fact that it was authored by a Jew—selected precisely because he is a Jew with aspirations to be honored by the international community—should diminish, rather than increase, its credibility.
I have challenged Goldstone to debate the substantive points in his report. I promise not make any ad hominem arguments against the report if he stops making ad hominem arguments in its favor., Or as Adlai Stevenson once promised a political opponent: “If you stop lying about me, I will stop telling the truth about you.”
]]>Recent political murders by “uncontrolled” radicals supporting the Iranian regime are a major element in the government’s response to public demands for political rights. The patron of terror against the people is Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who declared on the second day after the presidential election last year that he would “confront and deal violently with any opposition.”
This attitude has translated into selective assassinations, in the prisons and in the streets. But the regime has a varied inventory of repressive methods. First, members of state institutions like the Organization of Islamic Revolutionary Mujahidin, leaders of student unions, and prominent political personalities were jailed for less than a year. The government tried to force confessions out of them, but that scenario, borrowed from Russian Communism, failed.
In the second phase, the government aggravated its brutality and torture, imprisoning representatives of Non-Governmental Organizations, journalists, human rights activists, and labor leaders. Families of prisoners have been left uninformed of their fate, and prisoners have died under torture. The latest instance is the death of Alborz Ghasemi, a political detainee at the notorious Evin Prison. His case has not been reported in global media.
The third stage has involved open terror in the streets, and more assassinations of opposition activisits. During the student demonstrations and street protests in Tehran, dozens of marchers were killed by “unidentified” shooters. The regime tries to deny the killings occurred or blames reports of them on U.S. and British “spies” in media.
The personnel at Iran's state television surpassed their bosses when they reported on the murder of the young female martyr Neda Soltanagha, whose image was transmitted around the world. Iranian State TV alleged she was killed by foreigners or by her boyfriend, the main witness to her death. Perhaps next they will assert she was slain in a so-called “honor” murder. But Neda the beloved “Iranian angel,” as she is called by the people, was killed by people without honor, who occupy the seats of power. To deny this is to deny that the sun shines during the day. The same day Neda was killed, at least 28 other protesters were massacred in Tehran according to the government’s own statements.
The Iranian leaders have lost any sense of Iran’s need for stability. A stable Iran is necessary for the security of the whole world, as well as for the defeat of Wahhabism and other radical influences in Islam. The Shia government in Iran has betrayed the ideals of Imam Husayn, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, and martyr for freedom and justice, killed at Kerbala more than 1,300 years ago in a tragedy Shias never forget.
The rulers of Iran have taken the road of the evil Yezid, who ordered the slaying of Husayn and whose spirit kills Islam.
Ayatollah Khamenei, in his latest speech on “Quds Day,” which is supposedly dedicated to the defense of the Palestinians, repeated his earlier attacks on the Iranian reformists, who march for a peaceful change in the government and a new confidence in the people. Instead, Khamenei called for more hatred of Israel and America, blaming the West for Iran’s upheaval. The real message of his rhetoric against Israel and America is marginalization of the opposition, who are described as foreign agents. This propaganda is a green light for the complete liquidation of the reformists.
The Iranian people have begun answering these claims in their own, new way. In demonstrations on November 4, 2009, the 30th anniversary of the occupation of the U.S. Embassy in 1979, demonstrators chanted “Death to Russia and China !” Both countries are allies and totalitarian models for the Iranian dictatorship. Official Iranian TV claimed that in the Ashura demonstrations on December 27, young boys and girls with covered faces carried a banner reading “Down With the Taliban Ruling Iran.” This appears to have been a fabrication intended to undermine the reform movement. The government’s thugs have their own slogan: “Obedience to religious governance is required by Islam.”
Seyyed Muhammad Khatami, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s predecessor in the presidency, has reacted to claims that the opposition represents a foreign conspiracy by warning that an extreme reaction to the protests will worsen, not improve, the situation. Muhammad Rafsanjani, younger brother of Khamenei’s rival, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, has declared, “dialogue and discussion are better than street fighting, and people should try to find a rational course.”
Ayatollah Khamenei, the cleric as a face of Leviathan, is increasingly alone in his fantasy world of conspiracy theories.
]]>Shabaneh, who lives in Jerusalem with his wife and five children, is now willing to speak out because, he explains, he has reached the conclusion that Abbas and his authority are not serious about ending the corruption.
The international community, particularly the donor countries, need to ask themselves: How come Hamas’s chances of extending its control from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank remain so high after all the billions of dollars in financial aid that has been poured on Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad?
The Palestinian intelligence official has a clear answer to this question. "But," he continues, “The Americans and the Europeans don’t want to listen to people like me.”
His advice to the US and the EU: “Please don’t give money unconditionally. Yes, the Palestinians need your financial assistance and thanks for your willingness to help, but you must follow up to see where the money ends up.”
Shabaneh says he has evidence that huge sums have been stolen by senior Palestinian officials. “The money hasn’t been going to the right hands and places,” he charged. “Had some of this money been invested for the welfare and prosperity of the Palestinians, we would be in a much better situation today."
"Will the international community ever wake up and start presssing for reform, accountability and democracy in the Palestinian territories," he said, "or will they continue to fund corrupt regimes and liars, thus empowering Hamas and other Muslim fundamentalist groups. It's not about suspending or halting the financial aid, but about insisting that US and EU taxpayers' money does not end up in secret Swiss Bank accounts."
Shabaneh’s remarks, which were first published in The Jerusalem Post last week, should be taken seriously by decision-makers in Washington and European capitals who are deeply involved in efforts to bring about peace in the Middle East.
Shabaneh actually refutes claims by Washington and some EU countries that the Palestinian Authority and the ruling Fatah party have taken real measures to combat corruption and anarchy.
“Today you won’t find one person in the West Bank who supports or believes in Abbas’s authority. That’s why one day Hamas will take over, whether through violence or a free election. Fatah lost the Gaza Strip because of the rampant corruption and thuggery of its representatives there. The people in the Gaza Strip were fed up with Fatah’s corruption and abuse of power and human rights.” “Abbas has surrounded himself by many of the corrupt officials who used to serve under Yasser Arafat,” he noted. “When you have the same guys running the show, how can one expect transparency and accountability?”
Shabaneh revealed that in his capacity as head of the anti-corruption unit in the Palestinian Authority’s General Intelligence Service, he managed to expose many cases of financial corruption and returned millions of dollars to the Palestinian Ministry of Finance. However, he is quick to clarify that not a single corrupt official involved in the theft was brought to trial.
Ironically, Shabaneh feels free to express himself because he lives under Israeli rule in Jerusalem. He even noted that many journalists are afraid to publish his accusations out of fear of being targeted or boycotted by the Palestinian Authority leadership in the West Bank. There’s no doubt that had similar charges been made by an Israeli intelligence official against the Israeli government, the international media would have jumped on the opportunity and covered the story from all possible angels.
The intelligence official also pointed out that Abbas himself never did much to fulfill his pre-election promise to root out corruption and establish good government. “It’s all talk and he didn’t do much in this regard,” Shabaneh added.
But the most serious warning sounded by Shabaneh is the likelihood that Hamas would one day take control over the West Bank due to Abbas’s failure to end financial and administrative corruption.
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