Inside a Terrorist's Mind

Prior to his assassination, Salah Shehadeh discussed the logistics of terror operations against Israelis.

On July 23, 2002, the IDF dropped a bomb on a Gaza apartment building, killing terrorist leader Salah Shehadeh, commander of the 'Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas.

The following interview with Shehadeh was published by Islam Online on May 29, 2002.

Aish.com presents the interview as a curious look into a terrorist's mind.

Q: How do you choose who will carry out a martyrdom operation?

Shehadeh: The choice is made according to four criteria: First, devout religious observance. Second, we verify that the young man complies with his parents' wishes and is loved by his family, and that his martyrdom will not [adversely] affect family life ? that is, he is not the head of the family and he has siblings, as we will not take an only child. Third, his ability to carry out the task assigned [to] him, and to understand its gravity; and fourth, his martyrdom should encourage others to carry out martyrdom operations and encourage Jihad in the hearts of people. We always prefer unmarried [men]. It is the regional leadership of the military apparatus of the Hamas movement that proposes his candidacy, and then decides whether to accept him.

Q: How do you account for the stream of youths [coming] to join the ranks of perpetrators of martyrdom operations? And does this attest to [mental] health, or to escape from the frustration and disappointment among the Palestinians?

Shehadeh: The stream of youths [who seek to] attain martyrdom shows [mental] health and the awareness of Palestinian society, and is not a mistake or an escape from a situation of despair or frustration. Many people come to Jihad, and they are willing to lay down their souls ? which is the most precious thing a man has. There is a vast difference between someone who sacrifices money or an offering, and someone who sacrifices his soul for the sake of Allah to bring happiness to the nation, and to remove its torment and distress.

Nevertheless, we cannot provide everyone with a martyrdom operation because the targets are limited and the enemy positions we want to reach are highly fortified. If some of the youths do not follow the military apparatus's instructions, and [set out on operations on their own] without being linked officially to this apparatus, this proves that the [entire] nation has become a nation of Jihad on the threshold of liberation, and that it rejects humiliation and submission.

Q: How does the military apparatus choose a target?

Shehadeh: We have surveillance groups whose role is to monitor Israeli and settler patrols and the movement of the enemy on the border. We utilize every breach we find in the enemy's security fence. Afterwards we define the target and the nature of the assault on it, whether it is a settlement, a military post, a military vehicle, or anything else. The target is filmed, and then [the video] is shown to a committee appointed by the General Staff of the Military Operations. After the target is approved, the martyrdom operation's perpetrator is trained... Then the operation is ready to go, after a group of experts approves the plan and determines the factors for its success or failure.

Q: What about killing Israeli citizens?

Shehadeh: We do not target children, the elderly, and places of worship, although these places of worship incite to murdering Muslims. Similarly, we have not targeted schools, because we do not give orders to kill children. The same goes for hospitals, although this is easy for us, and attainable. We act according to the principles of Jihad to which we adhere. Our motto is: “We are not fighting the Jews because they are Jews, but because they occupy our land.

We are not fighting them because of their religion but because they have usurped our land.” If we kill a child it is not intentional...

Q: How much does a martyrdom operation cost?

Shehadeh: The cost of an operation varies... Attack operations with automatic weapons cost the price of the weapon, which hold at least 250 rounds, and of the ammunition, and the price of about 10 hand grenades. But some of the operations cost much more and include transporting [the perpetrator]... buying a car, and bribing Jewish collaborators. There are operations that cost a great deal ? between $3,500-$50,000, in accordance with the target.

Q: How did you develop the weapons that the 'Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades have come to excel at manufacturing, such as the Al-Qassam 1 and Al-Qassam 2 and the and the Al-Bana [rockets]?

Shehadeh: ...We have scientists who specialize in weapons development, who are today studying and conducting experiments on the Al-Bana rocket, which is a combination of an RPG and a LAW [light anti-tank weapon], and differs from the Al-Qassam 2 because it is designed for moderately thick armor. Hand grenades are manufactured to meet the needs of the apparatus and its members, and they have proved their efficiency, and [even] the Zionist Defense Ministry attests that they are powerful grenades. All the grenades and rockets are locally manufactured, easily and simply. The explosives in the Al-Qassam 1 and 2 and the Al Bana are made from simple raw materials. [Even] the women can make them at home...

Q: What about the organizational structure of the 'Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades?

Shehadeh: In general, the brigades are a small army subject to political decisions, like any [other] army in the world. It has all the kinds of divisions and structures that an army has. We are soldiers. The political apparatus does not tell us, 'Do such and such' and 'Carry out this or that operation'; the political apparatus is sovereign over the military apparatus, and a decision of the political [echelon] takes precedence over the decision of the military [echelon], without intervening in military operations. The success of an operation is not defined by the number of enemy dead, but by the extent to which our Jihad fighters managed to reach the target, and by the operation's execution. Good planning is vital for the operation's success. The number of dead depends on the will of Allah.

Q: What are the obstacles that the Al-Qassam Brigades face?

Sh'hadeh: The most significant obstacles are the scarcity of good-quality weapons, such as anti-aircraft and long-range missiles. Another significant obstacle is the haze obscuring the political position of the National [Palestinian] Authority. This causes confusion in the military wing [because] it does not set a [clear] position regarding the military operations ― that is, whether it is for them or against them.

Is it an authority for national liberation, or an authority for autonomy?
This matter confuses many Jihad fighters. In addition, weapons prices have been raised by the bloodsucker arms dealers, so the price of an M-16 has reached $5,000, and each of its bullets now costs $1.50, and a Kalashnikov costs $2,000, and each of its bullets costs $4.00. The military apparatus has managed to meet the challenge of weapons scarcities by collecting donations from people who love supporting the path of Jihad for the sake of Allah.

Similarly, the movement has succeeded in manufacturing some of the intermediate weaponry, thus reducing costs. The cost of a rocket [made by the movement] is less than 1 percent of its cost if we had to buy it.

Read More: Aish.com

Lessons from 9/11? What Lessons?

by Dennis Prager

In attempting to understand 9/11, the first question asked by the world's elites -- as exemplified by leading media and academics -- was, "What did America do to provoke such hatred?"

Ten years later, the same people are still asking the same question. And it is as morally repulsive now as it was then. It was always on par with "What did the Jews do to antagonize the Germans?" or "What did blacks do to enrage lynch mobs?"

As long as people keep asking what America did to incite such hate, nothing will have been learned from 9/11.

The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks occurred because of a law of human life that has been true since Cain killed Abel: The worst hate the best (and the second best and the third best and so on). Evil hates good.

The United States of America is a flawed society. As it comprises human beings, it must be flawed. But in terms of the goodness achieved inside its borders and spread elsewhere in the world, it has been the finest country that ever existed. If you were to measure the moral gulf between America and those who despise it, the divide would have to be calculated in light-years.

If the academic and opinion elites of the world had moral courage, they would have asked the most obvious question provoked by 9/11: Were the mass murderers who flew those airplanes into American buildings an aberration or a product of their culture?

As far as those elites are concerned, only the first explanation exists. The 19 monsters of 9/11 were, for all intents and purposes, freaks. They were exceptions, no more representative of the Arab or Islamic worlds than serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was of America. According to the elites, the hijackers happened to be Muslim -- only in name, we have been constantly reassured -- but were not produced by anything within Arab or Islamic society. Even to ask whether anything in those worlds produced the 9/11 terrorists -- or Britain's 7/7 terrorists, or Madrid's March 2004 terrorists, or Palestinian terrorists, or the Taliban, or Hamas -- is to be a bigot, or an "Islamophobe," the ingenious post-9/11 label to describe anyone who merely asks such questions.

It can be said, therefore, that not only has the world learned nothing from 9/11; it has been prohibited from learning anything.

The Muslim regime of Iran violently represses its people and (along with the Muslims of Hamas and of Hezbollah) vows to exterminate the nation of Israel. Muslim mobs murdered innocent people because of cartoons in Denmark. The Muslims of the Taliban throw acid in the faces of girls who attend school. Muslim mobs kill Christians and burn churches in Iraq, Egypt, Nigeria and elsewhere. And we are told that the mere mention of these facts is an act of bigotry.

After 9/11, the normal and decent question that normal and decent people -- people who fully and happily recognize the existence of vast numbers of normal and decent Muslims in the world -- would have posed is this: What has happened in the Arab world and parts of the Muslim world?

But as this, the most obvious question that 9/11 prompted, has not been allowed to be asked, what lessons can possibly be learned?

The answer is, of course, none.

But that has not stopped our media and academic elites from drawing lessons.

And what are those lessons? One is that America -- not the Islamic world -- must engage in moral introspection. The other is that we must oppose all expressions of religious extremism -- Jewish and Christian as well as Muslim, since, according to the Left, America's conservative Christians are as much a threat to humanity as are extremist Muslims.

Perhaps the best-known exponent of these non-lessons has been Karen Armstrong, the widely read religious thinker and former nun. She was invited to give a presentation on compassion at the nation's religious memorial service this past Sunday. And what was her message?

"9/11 was a revelation of the dangerous polarization of our world; it revealed the deep suspicion, frustration and rage that existed in some quarters of the Muslim world and also the ignorance and prejudice about Islam and Middle Eastern affairs that existed in some quarters of the West ..."

There you have it: Muslims have rage and deep suspicion; the West has ignorance and prejudice.

If that's what the world learns from 9/11, those who died that day died in vain.



Town Hall

Islam's Stranglehold on Israel

by Benny Morris

"Israel will exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it [a reference to the Medieval Crusader kingdoms]," states the 1988 Charter or constitution of the fundamentalist Muslim Hamas, the organization that rules the Gaza Strip and may well command the support of the majority of Palestinians.

And, to be sure, Islam these past two weeks has definitely been closing in on the Jewish state, with Israel's ambassadors in the two major Middle Eastern states with which it had good relations, Turkey and Egypt, being sent packing.

Of course, the circumstances of each case were different (history has that ability to give us infinite variety). In Ankara , the government expelled the ambassador because of Israel's refusal to apologize for implementing its blockade of the Gaza Strip, from which, over the past decade, masses of rockets have been fired on the country's southern towns and villages; in Cairo, it was the mob, unleashed by the so-called “Arab Spring,” and uncurbed by the country's interim military government, which overran and vandalized the Israeli Embassy and forced Israel's diplomats and their families to flee for their lives.

But in both cases, it was Islam which gradually eroded secularism and brought down pragmatic, prudent governments in the region, which drove the diplomats from their posts—much as Islam, in Hamas's take, wishes to do, and will do, to Israel itself, the ultimate alien and other in "their" Middle East.

For months, captivated by the spectacle of falling dictators and English-proficient spokesmen avowing democracy,Westerners deluded themselves into believing that the popular uprisings sweeping the Arab world were presaging a new birth of freedom. And over the span of a century or two, who knows? maybe democracy will evolve in Cairo and Sana and Damascus (though I wouldn't bet on it). But in the short and medium terms, in our lifetimes, what this tumult is certainly delivering is the ruination of responsible government, chaos—as in the streets of Cairo on Friday night, when the mobs, apart from destroying the Israeli Embassy, ransacked the interior ministry and assorted police stations—and a surge in, and possibly, finally, a takeover by, radical Islamism. And, at the end of the tunnel, possibly a resumption of war.

After Friday night's events, Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu vowed that, despite the attack on its diplomatic mission, Israel would cleave to its peace with Egypt. (A few days earlier, he said something similar, wiping the spit from his face, about trying to maintain cordial relations with Ankara.)

But Israel's wishes may prove insufficient. For decades, the Islamists of Egypt, represented chiefly by the Muslim Brotherhood (the parent organization of the Palestinian Hamas) but also by more extreme Salafists (such as those that gave us Ayman al-Zawahiri, Bin Laden's successor as head of al-Qaeda), have preached the necessity of Israel's destruction and the annulment of the Israel-Egypt peace treaty of 1979, alongside the uprooting of all Western influence and values from the lands of Islam (vide the anti-Semitic, anti-Western rants of the late Said Qutb, the chief ideologue of the Brotherhood).

Peace between Egypt and Israel has been steadily unraveling these past few months. Last month, it was the attack by Islamist and Palestinian gunmen from Egyptian Sinai against Israeli traffic north of Eilat, which the Egyptian media almost uniformly (and mendaciously) described subsequently as an Israeli treaty-violating assault on Egyptians and Egyptian soil; this week, it was a weak and vacillating Egyptian regime (its head, General Tantawi, during Friday night's fiery events played possum, simply refusing to take calls from Israeli and American leaders) which bowed before the anger of the "Street" and gave the mob its head (though, at the last minute, under pressure from President Obama, the military at last sent in commandos and rescued the six Israeli guards from the embattled embassy premises).

The Israeli ambassador may yet return to Cairo and the embassy may yet resume normal operations—after all, Washington will exert pressure, and the Egyptian military is dependent on American grants and spare parts. But in a few months' time the army is due to step aside and the Egyptian populace—educated on the knees of Islam and, since 1948, on unremitting hatred of Israel—will go to the polls and elect a civilian government. The likely result will be the installation of an Islamist government or, at the the least, a coalition government with a major Islamist component. The peace treaty with Israel will then undergo a slow or abrupt death, and my guess is that much of Egypt's secular middle class will run for the hills (meaning will try to emigrate to North America and Europe). But Israel cannot emigrate, and it will have no choice but to hunker down and fortify its formerly peaceful border with Egypt.

Unfortunately, the events in Egypt are part of a wider pattern, one episode feeding the next. In large measure it was set in train in 1979 with the Islamist Revolution's victory in Teheran (ironically, the year Israel and Egypt signed their peace treaty). Since then, most of the anti-Israel fury and operations in the region have been orchestrated if not supported in one way or another by Teheran.

In Tahrir Square, during Friday's mass demonstration that ended with the "conquest" of the Israeli Embassy offices, one banner read: "Turkey, a model of manliness." The reference was to Ankara's diplomatic initiative of the previous week, the downgrading of relations with Israel to the level of second secretaries (effectively, the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador) and suspension of all defense contracts between the two countries.

The Turks presented this as a result of Israel's refusal to apologize for the armed seizure of the Gaza-blockade-running Turkish flotilla last year. In fact, the gradual dissolution of Turkey's ties with Israel has been in the cards since the Turkish Justice and Development Party under Recep Erdogan took power in 2002. But the Turks played a careful, slow game so as not to rile Washington and the EU. Now that Erdogan has cowed his internal opposition and the Turkish army brass and stabilized Turkey's international position (while taking the measure of President Obama's outreach to the Muslim world), Ankara's Islamists have let their deep anti-Israeli sentiments out of the bag. Last week Erdogan threatened to send Turkish warships to accompany a new blockade-running, Gaza-bound flotilla.

A complete severing of Turkish-Israeli and Egyptian-Israeli relations is only a matter of time. The processes may well be triggered by the coming weeks' prospective Palestinian unilateral declaration of independence and the violece that will inevitably accompany it. And the likelihood is that these events will not be restricted to Palestine, Egypt and Turkey: the thrust and weight of Islam and the Arab "Street" will likely lead to wider sanctions against Israel around the Middle East.



The National Interest

Lieberman Associate: Turkey Should Compensate Israel

Defiant message: Apologizing to Turkey over flotilla incident would mark capitulation to terror, close associate of Foreign Minister Lieberman says; Turkey is the one that should apologize, pay compensation, he says.

A close associate of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Tuesday that "an apology to Turkey is like surrendering to terror," adding that Ankara should compensate Israel over the flotilla incident and not vice versa.

The remark was made in response to statements made earlier by Israeli officials that the aid offered by Turkey as part of the firefighting efforts in the Carmel opened the door for improvement of relations with Ankara.

According to the minister's close associates, from Lieberman's perspective an Israeli apology is out of the question.

"If anyone needs to apologize it's Turkey and it should pay compensation for the aid offered to terrorists and the IHH, which some European countries including Germany, consider as a terror organization," one source said.
On Monday, Turkish Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Feridun Sinirlioğlu and Yosef Ciechanover, the Israeli representative to the UN committee probing Israel’s deadly raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla met for the second time in two days in a bid to revive bilateral ties, the Turkish daily Hurriyet reported.
A Turkish diplomatic source told the newspaper, "If someone extends us a friendly hand for a solution to problems, we do not leave that hand in the air."

However, earlier Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan made it clear that Turkey’s decision to send two firefighting planes to Israel to assist in battling the Carmel blaze does not attest to improved ties with the Jewish state.

This step must not be confused with other problems we have with Israel,” the Turkish PM said, repeating his regular list of demands, uttered often in the wake of the Gaza-bound flotilla affair.

“Our demands of them are known by now,” he said. “The ties between us will not improve until they officially apologize and compensate us.”

Apology to Erdogan? Not anytime!

Ynet News

Israel slates missile shield for 2015

Eyeing Iran, Israel slates missile shield for 2015

Production schedule of defense network combining rocket interceptors, kamikaze satellites corresponds to Israel's assessment of when Iran might develop nuclear weaponry. Project director: We are talking about hermetic protection.

Israel's multi-layered air defense network will be fully deployed by 2015, combining short-range rocket interceptors with kamikaze satellites that blow up ballistic missiles in space, officials said on Monday.

Unveiled at a government-sponsored aerospace conference in Jerusalem, the production schedule corresponds to Israel's assessment of when Iran might develop nuclear weaponry.


Should the Islamic republic get the bomb, which could embolden allies Syria and Lebanese and Palestinian guerrillas in their own fights against the Jewish state.

"In the next two to five years, we will turn this vision into a reality," Colonel Zvika Haimovitch of the Israeli air defense corps said in a speech. "Within the coming five years, we will see this doctrine implemented."

Spurred by Hezbollah salvoes in the 2006 Lebanon war, Israel developed Iron Dome, which shoots down rockets with ranges of 5 to 70 km (3 to 45 miles). David's Sling, an interceptor for more powerful rockets, should be ready by 2013, Haimovitch said.

The next tier of the shield is Israel's Arrow interceptor, which has been operational for a decade and is designed to knock out Iranian or Syrian ballistic missiles at high altitudes.

An Arrow III upgrade will launch a booster-rigged satellite beyond Earth's atmosphere to collide with the missile, said project director Yoav Turgeman of state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI).

"We are talking about hermetic protection," Turgeman said. "Even if the new Arrow misses the incoming threat, it will be far enough from Israel's borders to allow for a secondary interception."

'Enemy has achieved aerial supremacy'
Turgeman said Arrow III, which like its predecessors is being underwritten by the United States, would be ready by 2014 or 2015. Its first live trial is expected in 2011. The projected cost of each interceptor missile is $2 million to $3 million.

Arrow III had previously been swathed in secrecy. Asked about the decision to go public with it at the International Aerospace Conference and Exhibition, an Israeli defense official said: "Everything was done with the full backing and initiative of the Defense Ministry, given the current state of affairs."

He appeared to be referring to Iran's uranium enrichment in defiance of international pressure to curb the process, which can produce fuel for bombs. Tehran says it is for energy only.

Though the Israelis have hinted they could attack Iran pre-emptively, there are big tactical and diplomatic hurdles.

The missile shield -- which officials envisage patching in, when needed, to US interceptors such as Aegis -- suggests Israel is weighing a more defensive posture, girded with the deterrence offered by its own assumed atomic arsenal.

Among the advantages of Arrow III cited by Turgeman was that its interception of a nuclear missile would not produce toxic debris, as this would burn up on re-entering Earth's atmosphere. Such planning is hard to reconcile with Israel's vow, dating back decades, to deny its enemies access to nuclear weaponry.

Arrow veteran Uzi Rubin raised another possible disincentive to a pre-emptive Israeli attack now: retaliation by Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas guerrillas from Gaza.

In the absence of reliable air defenses, Rubin said in a speech, Israeli cities can be hit by as many as 13,000 rockets and missiles, some accurate to within 500 meters (yards) and carrying warheads with as much as a half-ton of explosives.

The greater Tel Aviv area alone could expect to suffer 1,500 strikes -- enough to guarantee damage to military headquarters, paralyze the economy and gut morale. Dozens of Iraqi Scud missiles sowed chaos in Tel Aviv during the 1991 Gulf war.

Rubin said the face-off risked forcing a de facto parity on Israel, which has long relied on overwhelming force of arms to compensate for its geographical smallness and numerous foes.

"The enemy has achieved aerial supremacy without even having planes," Rubin said.





Ynet News

The Price of Arrogance

Just like in America, here too public will overcome, punish liberal elite in elections.

by Adi Mintz

So what did we learn from the midterm US elections? We learned that “Yes, we can” – a revolution is possible. We realized that when the damage caused by arrogant liberalism and members of the politically correct camp is great, it prompts a popular uprising. Suddenly it turned out that in America, the general public despised the elites that are trying to lead it and felt that it’s being deceived. At that point, the public demanded a return to America’s fundamental values, and the suitable people took the lead and defeated the arrogance and haughtiness.

For years now, Israel’s elites have been very successful in leading the nation through an ongoing attempt to undermine the fundamental values that brought the Jewish people back to its land after a 2,000-year exile. The liberal elites managed to marginalize Zionism’s constitutive national narrative and took over the legal system, academia, and other establishments.

As an example, look at the two figures who reflect the dramatic change undergone by the elite. Ehud Barak, the kibbutz member raised on socialist education and personal sacrifice, joined an elite army unit, and realize the value of personal sacrifice for the sake of society. Yet what does he represent today? Hedonism, capitalism, opportunism, and the willingness to sacrifice national assets for the sake of personal, short-term goals.

The second figure grew up in the Livni household, where her parents, former Irgun fighters, raised her on passionate love for the Land of Israel and willingness for personal sacrifice for the sake of salvaging and liberating the country. Yet now she “finally sobered up” from the Eretz Yisrael delusions, via the “thinking people’s elite.” At this time she is leading the effort to hand over Jerusalem and abandon the Land of Israel’s heart.

We’re not a normal people
The elite poisoned Israeli society with an illusion of normalcy. It forgot that we are not a normal people; we are a people that survived the horrors of the exile and preserved its uniqueness in Yemen, Germany, Morocco, and the Ural Mountains. Yet we are also a Jewish state within a hostile Arab-Muslims region. Those who create the illusion that we can live a life of European normalcy here, that we can rest and live here like all other nations, weaken our stamina and produce cracks in the wall built by Israeli society and the State of Israel in the face of the flood threatening to drown us. This flood is waiting for moments of weakness, and for the defensive wall to turn into a spider web, as Nasrallah characterized it.

The message from America last week was that the sober general public knows how to overcome and overstep the heads of the liberal elite. It was able to wake up on time and drive away the arrogance and haughtiness.

In Israel, the vast majority of the general public is deeply connected to its Jewish identity. Despite the poison being injected by creators of the illusion culture, and despite the constant tainting of the atmosphere and the boycott letters against Ariel’s cultural hall, the people of Israel remain loyal to their nation and country.

The ceaseless academia and media attacks on our nationality, the Zionist ethos and militarism merely served to reinforce the pride of Israelis nationwide. These efforts are prompting the healthy, powerful counter reaction of the proud, patriotic Jew who fully backs up the army and who believes in the State of Israel’s righteousness; the Jew who under no circumstances would give up our hold on Jerusalem, on King David’s city, and on the City of our Forefathers, Hebron.

Anyone who commissions polls today and is not biased realizes where the wind is blowing. He realizes that the residents of Kiryat Shmona, Ashdod and Sderot are slowly returning to their roots; to the values of Jewish solidarity and Zionist fulfillment. Politicians on the Right and Left would do well to grasp the people’s spirit and pride. The “enlightened” talk about “occupation” and “Palestinian narrative” failed to weaken the nation, and on the day of judgment the liberal arrogance that came back to haunt Obama will also haunt Israel’s liberals.





Ynet News

Self Hatred

What is 'self-hatred'?
There is little doubt that psychologically, racism is harmful to its victims. The most profound effect associated with situations of extreme degradation (such as is found under slavery or in concentration camps or in racist states like South Africa) is the acceptance by the oppressed group of the dominant group's definition of the situation. This is the phenomenon of self-hatred found, for example, in cases of Jewish anti-Semitism or in the acceptance by blacks of white aesthetic criteria of having straight hair or a light skin. Self-hatred is often accompanied by symptoms of apathy, anxiety, and depression or by forms of self-destructive escapist reactions such as alcoholism or drug addiction or, in extreme cases, by paranoid, schizophrenic or manic depressive psychoses. In such situations of extreme degradation then, the oppressed group frequently reacts in an 'intropunitive' fashion; that is, it turns its frustrations inwardly against the self or the 'in' group at large.

- from Racism And Its Effects, By Shreya Khatau, Bombay, India -

How is it possible to hate and reject oneself or one's own people?
Beginning with George Herbert Mead's idea of the "looking-glass self," social psychology has assumed that one's self-image derives in large part from how one is viewed by others -- family, school, and the broader society. When those views are negative, people may internalize them, resulting in lower self-esteem -- or self-hatred, as it has been called. This theory was first applied to the experience of Jews, by Sigmund Freud and Bruno Bettelheim, but it was also soon applied to the experience of African-Americans, by Gordon Allport, Frantz Fanon, Kenneth Clark, and others.

- in The Atlantic Monthly, August 1999, "Thin Ice" -

Self-hate arises when the minority-group member, who takes so many of his values from the majority group, learns to think of himself in its terms. Because his group is strange in their eyes, he comes to believe himself strange. Since they look down on him, he begins to look down on himself, particularly on that which differentiates him. So, among Jews it was truly a compliment not to "look Jewish." Similarly, in the black community until recent years, the lighter one's skin, the higher one's social status was likely to be.

- Eugene B. Borowitz, The Mask Jews Wear -- The Self-Deceptions of American Jewry, 1980 -

The term identity rejection is used here to denote a state of psychic imbalance in which an aspect of identity, namely the fact of one's Jewish background, is not fully integrated or accepted by the self. So defined, it may range in occurrence from apathy or total indifference to complete rejection and denial.

- Jerry V. Diller, "Identity Rejection and Reawakening in the Jewish Community", Journal of Psychology and Judaism, Vol. 5, No. 1, Fall/Winter 1980 -

How does one teach Jewish children that at a certain historical juncture their people were considered bacilli and eradicated like so much vermin? Can such a page of history be ingested without lacerating the Jewish self-image? No child willingly accepts membership in a community that has seemingly lost so radically. It is better to be the hero in history.

- Simon Wiesenthal Center Multimedia Learning Center Online -

How is the desire to assimilate related to 'self-hatred'?

Hannah Arendt (1970) described the Jews of Germany as having an unrequited love affair with German culture. The tragedy for such Jews was that the culture, which they embraced so passionately, was routinely anti-semitic. The same was true for the German speaking Jews of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Those, who were enthusiastic to be culturally German, adopted many of that culture's prejudices against things Jewish. The bourgeois, assimilating Jews directed these prejudices against the ghetto Jews of the eastern Europe, the Ostjuden, who displayed overt, and shameful, characteristics of Jewishness (Weitzmann, 1987). Jokes about Jewish dress, meanness and unclean habits were common: 'dirty-Jew' jokes were to find their way into Freud's Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious. A brittle and painful constellation of feelings was involved: the desire to be German, the separation from Jewishness, the association of Jewishness with despised traits, and a recognition that the true Germans would still see Jewishness in themselves, despite their all efforts. At its extreme, this constellation formed the basis of what has become known as 'self-hatred'

- from Freud and Dora: repressing an oppressed identity, by Michael Billig, Department of Social Sciences, University of Loughborough. Published in the British Journal of Social Psychology -

The insistence shown by so many Jews in wishing themselves other than they are, in refusing to see the reasons for their common misfortune, and in being blind to the difficult splendour of a Jewish vocation, is an indication of a deep-seated spiritual malaise. These Jews will remain prisoners of the resulting contradictions so long as they refuse to accept themselves for what they are. Self-awareness and political commitment must go hand-in-hand.

...I oppose assimilation as a policy because, contrary to what its champions believe or would have us believe, it in no way brings us nearer the advent of a world-wide republic; rather does it reinforce the ethnocentrism of other peoples to the detriment of the Jews alone. Throughout the ages, and especially since the events of this century, many Jews have dreamt of escaping from the cycle of persecution-toleration. This dream the assimilationist fails to see, or seeing, denies, and remains unmoved by a natural human reaction to an intolerable threat.

- Jacques Givet, "The Anti-Zionist Complex" -

How can we escape our Jewishness if we look Jewish?

"It was the thing to do," said Dr. H. George Brenna, who practices in Southern California. "You had your bat mitzvah and you got your nose done."
...[parents] wanted their own children spared discrimination. And to them, that meant fitting inconspicuously into the Protestant mainstream. "Jewish parents at that time didn't want their children to look Jewish," said Dr. James L. Baker Jr., who practices outside Orlando, Fla.

...The physical characteristic that most set Jews apart was their noses, and so legions of teen-agers, usually girls, had them fixed. The technology was primitive compared to today's and so the results, through the 1970s, had a cookie-cutter similarity -- littl ski-jump noses with the bony bridge scooped away.

But that was O.K. with the patients. "Everybody wanted to look like a shiksa," said Dr. Thomas D. Rees, a retired plastic surgeon who trained many of the high-priced doctors at work today along Park Ave.

The leading practitioner back then was Dr. Howard Diamond of Manhattan, renowned for standardizing what had been a hit-or-miss operation. "Every girl on Long Island had a Diamond nose," said Dr. George J. Beraka, who said he can still pick them out on women now deep into middle age.

- from As Ethnic Pride Rises, Rhinoplasty Takes a Nose Dive, by Jane Gross, New York Times -

Jacques Joseph, a surgeon trained in Leipzig and Berlin at the end of the nineteenth century, and the author of the textbook on rhinoplasty mentioned above, was dismissed in 1896 by his (Jewish) supervisor for performing an operation that was purely cosmetic; vanity, he was told, was not sufficient grounds for surgery. In Joseph's eyes, however, such surgery was an act of mercy. For patients of limited means who "suffered from a 'Jewish nose'" he is said to have provided his services pro bono.

- from Beauty Under the Knife, by Holly Brubach in The Atlantic Monthly, Feb 2000 -

In his earlier study of aesthetic surgery, Creating Beauty to Cure the Soul,1 Professor Sander L. Gilman gave a fascinating account of the origins of these ideas, tracing them back to Enlightenment philosophers' understanding of a beautiful body as the visible expression of human virtue. Conversely, ugly bodies signified unhealthy spirits. Follow through this argument and the Jew's nose comes to represent the Jew's permanently sick soul.

...In Creating Beauty to Cure the Soul Gilman concentrates on the complex relationship between aesthetic surgery and psychoanalysis in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which offered parallel possibilities of transformation, one of the body, the other of the mind...

...Central to Gilman's thesis is the notion of "passing." The reason for the popularity of plastic surgery (over 1.9 million operations in 1996 in the US alone) has been the way it helps people to "pass" into the social group with which they identify emotionally.

...New surgery was developed to turn noses regarded as racially inferior into socially desirable features.

- By FIONA MACCARTHY, in a book review of Making the body beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery, by Sander L. Gilman -

What if I don't want surgery? How can I shed my Jewish skin and become more acceptable to my peers, and myself?

Marry a blond shiksa, convert to their faith, become an anti-Zionist, deny the Holocaust, change your name to Noam Chomsky.

Why would certain Jews ally themselves with forces that openly express a hatred for the Jewish people, and act on that hatred.

I cannot imagine why a Jew would seek methods to push his nation over the cliff but, our history is replete with the sick, the aberrant, the suicidal. Perhaps, every so often we are cursed with an erratic gene which produces a twisted small child who becomes a sick twisted small adult. The Jewish people may need a gigantic Freudian couch on which to cure their distorted self esteem which has been engendered by the unremitting hostility and genocide committed by many nations of the world. They hated the people who accepted the Word of the one G-d. Even as Jews are being attacked daily by bullets, bombs and boulders, Israel's leaders buy another package of deceit from Arafat to cease his violence. How sad to see what could have been a great contributing nation march toward oblivion singing the praises of the man and his people who hate Israel with such a powerful killing passion.

- Emanuel A. Winston - Middle East Analyst & Commentator -

While moderate anti-Zionists can invoke the universal character of Judaism, Jews who join forces with the PLO in abominating everything to do with Israel - PLO fellow-travelers - have nothing similar to fall back on. They illustrate a form of self-negation and self-abasement fequently encountered among long persecuted minorities.
...The behavior of anti-Zionist Jews clearly reveals a rejection of themselves as Jews and an unconscious acquiescence to the image which their enemies seek to project of them. The process is psychologically understandable, but is a form of political defeatism. For if all oppressed peoples reacted in the same perverse way, seeking to identify themselves with a supposedly inflexible oppressor, national emancipation would be an imposibility.

...The anti-Zionists fail to understand that national liberation implies legitimate self-defence and the defence of Judaism. The vicissitudes of the Diaspora have brought about a state of affairs in which many marginal Jews are interested in neither the one nor the other. Some lose their sense of identity and any residual loyalty they might owe to other Jews and proclaim a shocking solidarity with those who bring death to their brethren. ...[T]o invite us to follow the lead of Jews such as these, who admit to being Jews onlly so that they may the more effectively oppose any expression of a national will, is like holding up strike-breakers as models for the working class.

...On the whole, historical ignorance and over-simplification are as much a characteristic of the extreme anti-Zionist as psychological tortuousness is of the moderate.

...It is nothing less than pathetic that Jews who have transferred their allegiance to the other camp believe that in attacking Israel and seeking to encompass its destruction they are, in their own fashion, combatting anti-Semitism - as if it were possible to advance the cause of freedom by choosing to remain unfree. Persecuted themselves, the would-be persecutors of others, they find their enemies, not in their self-styled well-wishers, but in those they are willing to betray.

It is pathetic that Israel, relentlessly criticized by these people, should in the long run be their only shield and refuge and, paradoxically, the only real guarantee of their right to speak out, even though what they say runs counter to their own interests.

Finally, it is pathetic (but Jewish history is full of such pathos) that these persons, whether they like it or not, and whether I like it or not (and God knows how earnestly, at times, I wish it were no so), remain my bretthren.

- Jacques Givet, "The Anti-Zionist Complex" -

Are 'Progressive Jews' indifferent to the fate of the Jewish people?

"No member of the Jewish race can renounce the incontestable and fundamental right of his people, without at the same time denying the history of the Jews and his own ancestors...[I therefore accuse the] so-called progressive Jews of indifference to the fate of the Jewish people; for whenever a project for the restoration of the Jewish state is being considered, they display towards it a naivete that neither does credit to their reasoning power nor to their heart. The explanations offered by them on such occasions are inadmissible both from a moral and from a political point of view."

- Ernest Laharanne, The New Eastern Question, France, 1852 -

Are 'Progressive Jews' ashamed of their Nationality?

"Judaism... is misconceived by our enlightened Jews. These legal and religious precepts and commandments, which permeate the whole life of the Jew, are condemned and mocked at by blockheads, who have not the least conception of the patriotic significance of these precepts and who consider themselves progressive only because they have turned their back on the traditions of their people.... The holy spirit, the creative genius of the people, out of which Jewish life and teaching arose, deserted Israel when its children began to feel ashamed of their nationality...."

- Moses Hess, Rome and Jerusalem, 1862 -

"I ask students what they are. If someone gets up and says, I'm a Catholic, I know that's a Catholic. If someone says, I'm a Protestant, I know that's a Protestant. If someone gets up and says, I'm just a human being, I know that's a Jew."

- Shlomo Carlebach, after a lifetime of visiting American university campuses, quoted in Love, Hate, and Jewish Identity, by Jonathan Sacks is Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth -

Do 'Progressive Jews' wish to escape from their Jewishness?

The simple truth is that under the facade of their "progressiveness" there is always a subconsciously hidden attempt to escape from their Jewishness. They use beautiful words and convincing arguments to prove the necessity of fighting for somebody else's abstract rights instead of proudly defending their own. They say that they ennoble the world community by defending the interests of other nations, while disregarding the fate of their brethren. They rush to a cosmopolitan universe, where all the uniqueness of the nations disappears and where they can call themselves citizens of the universe. In his recently published book Rubber Bullets one of the leading "Peace Now" Israeli intellectuals, professor of political science Yaron Ezrahi wrote about his visit to the Grand Canyon in Colorado: "I must have sought a retreat from Jewish history, a place where rocks and geological time humble us, not as Jews but simply as human beings." This involuntary confession explains a lot. The "progressive" Jews do not want to be Jews. They are Israelis, they say, therefore, there should not be difference between the Jewish and the Arab Israelis. They want a democratic, not a Jewish state; if they could choose, they would pick a democratic one. They believe that universal human values are preferable to Jewish values, not realizing that the former were derived from the later ones. Leah Rabin declared that, given the choice, she would prefer that her children be Arabs, rather than Orthodox Jews.

- Boris Shusteff -

Universalists who recognize the existence of Israel while claiming for themselves the right to hold aloof fail to grasp what recognition implies, namely, secure frontiers (without which such recognition is meaningless) and the right to be different (without which it is artificial). The universalist who is a Jew into the bargain, torn between several options, lacking roots himself - a victim of history - cannot admit that the search for roots is a legitimate activity and becomes hopelessly confused.

...There is clearly a sense in which it is easier to feel an affility with mankind at large than to espouse a particular national cause; indeed, nationalism may be experienced as a straitjacket. To aspire to be a citizen of the world is laudable, but to invoke this aspiration as a pretext for opposing self-determination or to support the continuance of abasement and humiliation demonstrates, if not bad faith, at least a grave political shortsightedness. More especially, to imagine that Jews do not have to follow the same path to freedom as other alienated peoples is an illusion peculiar to rootless Jews. In a world divided into nations, torn between nations, to demand of the Jews alone that they be citizens of the world is to condemn them to extinction. Six million perished because they had no country to give them refuge. They were all, whether they liked it or not, stateless "universalists" - but sufficiently Jewish not to escape a very Jewish fate.

...Treated as less than full citizens in their countries of adoption, vaguely aware of their lack of roots, they prefer to disappear into the mass by virtue of an airy abstraction rather than to reaffirm their Jewishness, an affirmation condemned by universalism as retrograde. Thus, the leaning towards universalism is largely attributable to the Jewish feeling of rootlessness and insecurity within an alien society.

- Jacques Givet, "The Anti-Zionist Complex" -

Who are these self-hating Jews? What are their stories?

History affords us numerous examples of Jewish people confused over their identities and even of those suffering from self-hatred. Perhaps the phenomenon began with those Jews who chose to remain in Babylon rather than return to Jerusalem under the leadership of Nehemiah. Maybe we can trace the origins of this malady to the Jews who accepted Hellenization and worshipped the graven images of the Greek gods.

The historian Flavius Josephus was a Jewish general who chose to join the side of the Romans rather than lay down his life on the side of the Jewish people. He later wrote Jewish history, or more accurately "anti-Jewish history," to please the Romans. Josephus is a "Benedict Arnold" of his generation, and he exemplifies disloyalty to Judaism.
Unfortunately, some of the most vehement self-professed haters of the Jewish people were so-called "converts to Christianity." Johannes Pfefferkorn was allegedly converted to Christianity by the Dominicans in 1504. Only three years later, he began writing anti-Jewish tracts which called for "the suppression of the Talmud; prohibition of usury; forced attendance at sermons to Jews...; expulsion of the Jews from the last German cities which had sizable Jewish communities...The name Pfefferkorn became proverbial for unprincipled denigrators of their own origin and faith."

There were also great Jewish philosophers who suffered from an aggravated confusion over their Jewish identities. Karl Marx is perhaps the most extreme example of this. It is curious to note that both his mother and father were the offspring of rabbis. Marx's father, who became a prominent Russian Jewish lawyer, converted to Protestantism because of an edict prohibiting Jews from being legal advocates. In Marx's own materialistic interpretation of the world, he found no place for a valid Jewish experience. In his essay "Zur Judenfrage" ("About the Jewish Question") he wrote:

What is the secular basis of Judaism?
Practical need, self-interest. What is the worldly cult of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly god? Money...Out of its entrails bourgeois society continually creates Jews. [Encyclopedia Judaica, Vol. 11, pp. 1071- 1074]

How ironic that Marx's view of his own Jewish people became a view of Hitler, who boasted of his anti-Communism.
Sigmund Freud also suffered from identity rejection, as Leon Vogel points out:

We can perhaps conclude that Freud, victim of his own inferiority complex, did not completely resolve his conflicts by self-analysis, and was ultimately unable quite to accept his own identity as a Jew. He proved unable to overcome his rejection by the world of German culture, whose spiritual son he was, which gave rise to immense feelings of frustration. It was to resolve that dilemma that Freud wrote his book on Moses and monotheism.[Leon Vogel, "Freud and Judaism: An Analysis in the Light of His Correspondence," Judaism, Issue 94, Vol. 24, No. 2]

In recent times, popular writers such as Philip Roth (Portnoy's Complaint) have parodied Jewishness by depicting Jews with all too human faults, yet with none of the divine nobility or redeeming traits which have characterized Jewish life through the ages. Marie Syrkin writes:

Roth's chief contribution to the Jewish mother routine is the picture of momma threatening her son with a long bread knife to make him eat. To make sure that this maniacal bit is viewed as characteristic of the type rather than as an individual aberration, the Jewish ladies who come to play mah-jongg applaud this technique in child care. [Marie Syrkin, "The Fun of Self-Abuse," Midstream, April 1969]

In order to unravel the psychology of self-deception, Furet makes a close study of the Hungarian philosopher Georg LukAcs. LukAcs was the son of a liberal Jewish businessman, and both his Judaism and his bourgeois origins became, for him, a source of shame. As Furet observes, intellectuals often find escape from self-hatred in the pursuit of the universal. For LukAcs, communism offered the grandest universalism there was, a science of History that would lift him above his Judaism and his bourgeois origins and associate his life with the redemptive and cleansing force of the proletariat.

- The New Republic -



Noam Chomsky intellectual snob, and self deluded darling of the Berkley, Harvard , M .I.T, axis was in Baghdad by the bay(Berkley California) on the weekend of March 16th 1991 surrounded by adoring allocates and other human worshipers who wallow in intellectual graffiti . The sad story of this insane worship as told by Mr. David Armstrong of the San Francisco Examiner is unfolded for all people to see. Like opening a fetid rancid rats nest the clear light of exposure is needed, Herr professor of The holy institute(M.I.T) gets the chance to lay his eggs of lies at the supreme altar of self hatred. There this maven of self pretentious intellect and deceit had the chance to rant and rave at his twin evils of the universe, the United States of America and Israel. There he received the allocades of an audience that revels in the debasement and slander of his crusade. Spouting outright lies and distortions(such the accusation that Israel has murdered hundreds and thousands of Arabs during the intifada), Chomsky fumigated and pouted that the press didn't attack Israel for the crimes of Iraq during the recent gulf war. he said of course Israel caused the gulf war , thereby parroting the butcher of Baghdad's line completely) He also criticized CNN's coverage (which other people thought was an organ for Iraqi propaganda)as being too pro U.S ! .. Wow this was astounding since Mr. Chomsky doesn't have cable T.V. and never even saw CNN's coverage himself !!

But this is consistent with Noamy boys total and regular disregard for facts. Facts are alien for this strange creature of self hatred for all Jewish institutions and ideas. Bronx born Grand concourse and all , this vile mench rebelled against his people early in life. At institutions of the far left he can meet people who appear to live for nothing but hatred for America and Israel. Here the far left meet in a circle with the neo Nazis of the far right. Together the ubber Mench noami can walk hand in hand with and reveal in an intellectual conspiracy theory of a Zionist dominated universe. To call noamy an intellectual is an oxy moron. He specializes in his chosen M.I.T. academic endeavor in something called "linguistics ". Note this is not "languages " as normal people know for it would be a standard to measure intellectual achievement . no noamy boy chose linguistics simply because in fact his specialty is based on LANGUAGES THAT CAN NEVER BE PROVED TO EXIST !! Its about prelanguages that may have existed but no record of which has ever been found. Perfect for a man who doesn't like FACTS getting in his way. This way he can make up his own rules as he goes along . Noamy boy is not stupid. As a former graduate of the renowned Bronx high school of Science he had to be smart. He is extremely clever in getting people to believe pure intellectual manure , of which he is the king of the hill.

- Ruth's Forum, Yuk Award -





Peace Faq

Obama - Politics or Ideology?

Following expected elections defeat, Obama will find himself at political crossroads.

by Yitzhak Benhorin

Part 2 of analysis

If all the other troubles are not enough for President Obama, he and the Democrats also lost the support of the business sector. The legislation he initiated in a bid to reinforce the monitoring of Wall Street, and his efforts to impose taxes on the rich and protect the middle class exacted a heavy price on his plan to rehabilitate America’s economy.

Despite the economic crisis, those who think there is no money available in America are gravely mistaken. Immense sums of money are currently frozen in the large banks and major corporations, which are hesitant to invest it and stimulate the economy as long as Obama threatens to impose legislation and taxes that may harm them. The bitter result is that the economy is on hold, while Obama and the Democrats pay the price in the November elections.

The money that is changing hands within the economic elite is meant to deliver a grave blow to the ruling party. The Supreme Court contributed to this situation when it permitted companies and individuals to donate money to campaigns without revealing their identities. The ability to act discreetly and without financial limits enabled America’s wealthy, ranging from the air-conditioned office dwellers in Wall Street to the oil drillers in Texas to dramatically affect the current elections campaign; the same will apparently happen in the next presidential elections.

An astronomical sum of $3 billion had been poured into election ads in recent weeks. A quick glimpse at the TV set shows that the Republicans hold a major advantage over the Democrats. Just to illustrate, a group led by Karl Rove, former President George W. Bush’s senior advisor, easily poured $250 million into the campaign.

Jimmy or Bill?
In the first half of his term in office, Obama did things that many presidents before him did not: He successfully advanced revolutionary laws to stimulate the economy, approved a historical healthcare reform, and reinforced the monitoring of Wall Street’s dark corners.

The voters want to see immediate results, yet the fruits of Obama’s labor will only be evident years from now. Similarly, the healthcare reform is a complex process, whose achievements will only become apparent in the future.

On November 3rd, when America wakes up to a new Congress and new governors, the presidential election campaign shall in fact get underway. The great political question (with the answer to be provided only two years from now) is what kind of Obama will be sitting in the White House 11 days from now. Will he follow in the footsteps of Bill Clinton, who lost the Democratic majority in Congress and realized he has no choice but to shift to the Center? Or will he follow the example of Jimmy Carter, who insisted on promoting a liberal agenda?

Obama has already attempted to provide excuses for the expected November defeat, arguing that he was too busy with policy and abandoned politics. Indeed, this is the dilemma between the Clinton way and the Carter way: The former internalized the lessons of the Congress defeat in 1994, chose politics, and was elected for a second term in office. The latter stuck to his truth, chose to go ahead with his policy, and was kicked out of the White House after four years.


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Ynet News

Build This Mosque or Face the Wrath of Radical Islamists

TREATS, THREATS, THREATS and more THREATS and we run like chickens with their heads cut off to please them (The world upside down - I just had a glance at CNN is trashing the Loony Pastor; but CNN said nothing about the insensitivity of the NYC Cordoba house)

"If we move from that location, the story will be the radicals have taken over the discourse, the headlines in the Muslim world will be that Islam is under attack. Our national security now hinges on how we negotiate this, how we speak about it. The battlefront is between moderates of all sides... and the radicals on all sides," he said.

Moving the project to another location would strengthen Islamist radicals' ability to recruit followers and will likely increase violence against Americans, the imam said.

On CNN's "Larry King," Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf confirmed everything we've thought about him.

While the left continues to be romanced by his calm, even, and soothing tones, he personally raises the rhetoric to new and foreboding heights with every television appearance justifying his plan to build a 13-story mosque at ground zero.

In an interview with guest host Soledad O'Brien, the Imam laid out his latest argument for the American people and his words can have only one meaning: Build this mosque or face the wrath of radical Islamists. LOL LOL

The man who continues to talk about healing and building bridges has thrown down the gauntlet. He created this entire situation by demanding that his mega-mosque be built in this exact location, despite the legitimate concerns of families of lost heroes whom he claims to care about. And now that the opposition of this mosque has fully engaged and has successfully swayed a vast majority of Americans to their side, he tells an international audience that if his plans don't go forward, America's national security will be at risk.

It could be that the Imam's threats, delivered in calm even tones, might end up doing more for the case against his mosque than any rally in the streets could ever do. And given Mr. Rauf's knowledge of the irrational and violent nature of the most radical practitioners of his faith, one has to challenge his judgement in even proposing this project in the first place.

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Is Islam the Problem?
The Mosque of War

Islamic Trojan Horse at Ground Zero

By Sam Blumenfeld

Islamic Global Jihad declared war against America on September 11, 2001, in an attack that killed nearly 3000 Americans in the Twin Towers in Manhattan, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and in four hijacked airliners. Had the fourth airliner succeeded in reaching Washington, it might have crashed into the White House or the Capitol with even more loss of life. But, thanks to the brave passengers on the plane, the attack was thwarted and the plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.

Anyone who has watched videos of ordinary men and women jumping out of the Twin Towers to their deaths will never forget the horror perpetrated by Islamic jihadists on that day. The attack took months of intricate, detailed planning by the terrorists, but our government was simply too inept to prevent it from happening.

Meanwhile, Muslims around the world danced in the streets at their great victory over America and their spectacular advance in the war against the West. The goal of the Jihad is to impose the Islamic religion and Sharia law over the entire world, and the attack on 9/11 was just the visible tip of the iceberg in what has been and will be a very long war.

For example, there is an Islamic missionary organization active throughout the world in recruiting converts to Islam. It is called Tablighi Jamaat, and according to reliable sources, it is estimated that about 15,000 of its missionaries are active in the United States. It is particularly active among Black Muslims and criminals in our prisons.

And so, while American soldiers are fighting and dying in Afghanistan against the jihadist enemy, the enemy is quietly subverting the American homeland with virtually no resistance from the American people.

It should be reminded that Islam is a totalitarian, genocidal political movement operating under the guise of a peace-loving religion. It is intolerant of other religions and despises the governing principles of the United States. Islam does not believe in the separation of church and state, as clearly demonstrated by the regime in Iran. Yet President Obama refuses to acknowledge that we are at war against Global Jihad or even radical Islamic terrorism. Terrorism, by the way, is just one of the means the war is being fought against the West.

And this Global Jihad is being fought by bombing trains in Madrid, bombing subways and buses in London, bombing a night club in Bali, attempted airplane bombings by the shoe bomber and the Christmas underwear bomber, an attempted bombing in Times Square, the murder of 13 soldiers at Fort Hood by a jihadist in uniform, suicide bombings in Israel, the murder of a cinematographer in Holland, the beheading of an American journalist kidnapped in Pakistan, bombings and massacres in India, Indonesia and Uganda, the killing of Christians and burning of churches in Pakistan, Kenya, and elsewhere. There is no end to the atrocities being committed by jihadists. In the U.S. a Muslim father killed his daughter because she was becoming too Americanized.

So it should not take a political genius to figure out why the Muslims want to build a mosque at Ground Zero. They want to commemorate and honor those jihadists who died crashing those planes into the Twin Towers. Where better to honor them than at Ground Zero? And not just an ordinary mosque, but a 13-story, $100-million mosque. The developer of the project is Feisal Abdul Rauf, born in Kuwait of Egyptian parents with a known adherence to Islamic radicalism.

Rauf was brought to America at the age of 17 by his parents when his father moved from Malaysia to the U.S. to set up the Islamic Cultural Center in Washington, D.C. Rauf then got a BS in physics at Columbia University. In 1997, Rauf established the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA) with funding from Gloria Steinem’s Ms. Foundation, New York Carnegie Corporation, U.N. Population Fund, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and Hunt Alternatives Fund.

The project is significantly called the Cordoba Initiative, to commemorate the return of Islam to Spain where it was expelled in 1492. According to Raymond Ibrahim, the Christian city of Cordoba “was conquered by Muslims around 711, its inhabitants slaughtered or enslaved. The original mosque of Cordoba — the namesake of the Ground Zero mosque — was built atop, and partly from the materials of, a Christian church. Modern day Muslims are well aware of all this. Such is the true — and ominous — legacy of Cordoba. More pointedly, throughout Islam's history, whenever a region was conquered, one of the first signs of consolidation was/is the erection of a mosque atop the sacred sites of the vanquished.”

The Ground Zero mosque plan is akin to a project initiated by Rauf's late father in 1965. That year, Muhammad R. Abdul Rauf came to New York to plan the construction of an Islamic Cultural Center that took many years to complete.. He bought prime Manhattan real estate at 96th Street and 3rd Avenue, where a huge mosque was built, with funding from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Libya.

The mosque at Ground Zero will contain a community center and will draw thousands of Muslims to worship at the very site where 3,000 innocent men and women were murdered by their brave, dedicated jihadist martyrs. It will have a swimming pool and a basketball court to attract the young, an auditorium and culinary school, a library, art studios, and meditation rooms. But it will still symbolize not only a glorious Islamic victory, but also the impending surrender of America to Islam. It will also have a “memorial” dedicated to the victims of the 9/11 attacks, which makes the project even more odious, hypocritical, and dangerous. After all, it will be easy enough to claim the perpetrators of the crime as “victims” of an unjust West.

That Americans are willing to permit this Trojan Horse to be built in what is now considered hallowed ground, where so many men and women lost their lives in the worst terrorist attack visited on America, should make us realize how weakened America has become in this life and death struggle under the Obama regime in Washington.

According to Salah Choudhury, a journalist and author, who has exposed the work and motives of Feisel Abdul Rauf: “Rauf's early UK education and familiarization with American popular culture and values made him an acutely adept practitioner of Islamic taqiyya — deceptive speech and action to advance the interests and supremacy of Islam…. Now, Imam Rauf is set to construct his dream project, wherefrom possibly the radical Islamists will start Islamization of America. This will not be a mere mosque, but a tower of terrorism to further flex the muscle of militant Islam right inside the heart of United States.”

Liberals like Mayor Bloomberg of New York, who seems to live in a fantasy world, use the argument of freedom of religion to approve the construction of the mosque at Ground Zero. They do not accept that we are at war with Global Jihad which is determined to destroy us. Somehow, they are not aware that the U.S. Constitution is not a suicide pact. But maybe Bloomberg believes that that Muslims have a Constitutional right to Islamicize America and destroy our Judeo-Christian heritage in the name of religious freedom. I wonder what he would say if Christians decided to erect a giant cross at Ground Zero or if Jews wanted to erect a giant Star of David or a replica of the Ten Commandments at Ground Zero.

There is no doubt that if the mosque is built, Ground Zero will become the center of daily religious and political conflict with competing demonstrations, speakers, pamphlet distributions, and even violence. The resentment against the mosque is so great among ordinary Americans that it may well inspire greater resistance to this blatant Islamic plan to conquer America.

Meanwhile, it is hoped that enough New Yorkers rise up against this evil project and kill it before it becomes the focus of hatred and dread, an arrogant, brutal affront to the men and women who died at Ground Zero.

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The New America

On Whose Side is Obama?

President Obama owes every American apology over handling of mosque affair
By: Moshe Dann

President Obama's defense of the right of Muslims to build a mosque and Islamic center in New York City turned the issue into one of religious freedom. That was wrong.

Obama's first priority - like that of every national leader - is to speak for his country and on its behalf. Obama's refusal to do so, his insinuation that questions raised about a proposed Islamic mega-center near the site of the 9/11 attacks are un-American, unconstitutional, and prejudiced have shamed every American, and the good name of America.

Obama could have defended America; instead, he apologized for it.

He could have said that 4,400 Americans have died in Iraq, 1,200 have died in Afghanistan, and hundreds of thousands of Americans have been wounded - to help those Muslim countries attain freedom. And of course, hundreds of billions of dollars were spent towards that effort. But he didn't.

Obama might have said that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the US; hundreds of thousands of Muslims have found a home in America since and despite 9/11. He could have said: America has and continues to stand for freedom and democracy. He did not.

He is probably the first American president to malign his own country.

Obama could have explained that American law and values do not support discrimination, certainly not against Muslims; our history proves that. There are about 2,000 mosques in the United States, serving about 8 million Muslims; NYC alone has a dozen mosques. And Muslims are doing well in America: 67% have higher degrees; their average income is over $42,000; 26% earn over $100,000; 67% buy a new car every 3 years.

President Obama could have also noted that most American Muslims don't attend prayer services; mosques are often political and social centers, some of which are problematic.

'Grave threat to non-Muslims’
According to FBI estimates, 10 % of the mosques in the United States are associated with radical Jihadist ideology. Others estimate that 80% of mosques are dominated by the extremist Wahhabi ideology promoted by Saudi Arabia. And they are allowed to practice, under American principles of freedom of religion.

Unlike houses of worship in America which are built and supported by the local population, most mosques receive funding from foreign countries, especially Saudi Arabia.

President Obama might have noted that the Muslim Brotherhood, a Nazi organization that is banned in Egypt, is associated with some American mosques.

A study by Freedom House concluded that American mosques offer a wide selection of Saudi publications that promote hateful ideology, with all materials found to have some connection to Saudi Arabia.

According to the study, these publications advanced a "dualistic worldview in which there exist two antagonistic realms or abodes that can never be reconciled. The study also concluded that these publications "pose a grave threat to non-Muslims and to the Muslim community itself."

President Obama could have explained that this is obviously not an issue of religious freedom. He could have championed America, its reputation, institutions and values. Instead, he reinforced the view that America is bigoted.

For that, President Obama owes every American an apology.


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Ground Zero Mosque is the SECOND Mosque Being Built on a 9/11 Site
Islamic Trojan Horse at Ground Zero
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Israel's End of Times

Question:"What is Israel's role in the end times?"




















Answer: Every time there is an explosion of conflict in or around Israel, many see it as a sure sign of the quickly approaching end times. The problem with this is that it creates a “boy that cried wolf” syndrome. We may eventually tire of the conflict in Israel, so much so that we will not recognize when true prophetically significant events occur. Conflict in Israel is not necessarily a sign of the end times.

Conflict in Israel has been a reality whenever Israel has existed as a nation. Whether it was the Egyptians, Amalekites, Midianites, Moabites, Ammonites, Amorites, Philistines, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, or Romans, the nation of Israel has always been surrounded by and persecuted by its neighbors. Why is this? According to the Bible, it is because God has a special plan for the nation of Israel, and Satan wants to defeat that plan. Satanically influenced hatred of Israel—and especially Israel’s God—is the reason Israel’s neighbors have always wanted to see Israel destroyed. Whether it is Sennacherib, king of Assyria; Haman, official of Persia; Hitler, leader of Nazi Germany; or Ahmadinejad, President of Iran, attempts to ultimately destroy Israel will always fail. The persecutors of Israel will come and go, but the persecution will remain until the coming of Messiah. As a result, conflict in Israel cannot be considered a reliable indicator of the soon arrival of the end times.

At the same time, there will be terrible conflict in Israel during the end times. That is why the time period is known as the Tribulation, the Great Tribulation, and the “time of Jacob’s trouble” (Jeremiah 30:7). Here is what the Bible does say about Israel in the end times:

There will be a mass return of Jews to the land of Israel (Deuteronomy 30:3; Isaiah 43:6; Ezekiel 34:11-13; 36:24; 37:1-14).

Israel's enemies will make a 7-year covenant of "peace" with Israel (Isaiah 28:18; Daniel 9:27).

The Temple will be rebuilt in Jerusalem (Daniel 9:27).

Israel's enemies will break his covenant with Israel, and worldwide persecution of Israel will result (Daniel 9:27; 12:1, 11; Zechariah 11:16). Israel will be invaded (Ezekiel chapters 38-39).

Israel will be regenerated, restored, and regathered (Jeremiah 33:8; Ezekiel 11:17).

There is much turmoil in Israel today. Israel is persecuted, surrounded by enemies—the Palestinians, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, etc. But this hatred and persecution of Israel is only a hint of what will happen in the end times.

The latest round of persecution began when Israel was reconstituted as a nation in 1948. Many Bible prophecy scholars believed the six-day Arab-Israeli war in 1967 was the "beginning of the end."

Could what is taking place in Israel today indicate that the end is near? Yes.

Does it necessarily mean the end is near? No.