One of the most astute, prolific critics of the growing threat posed by Islamism to the United Kingdom-and the West in general-is Douglas Murray. Some of you might remember him from the Intelligence Squared debate where he teamed up with human rights activist and apostate from Islam Ayaan Hirsi Ali to refute the proposition that Islam Is a Religion of Peace. Now he’s written a book that takes to task those-mostly on the left, but across the political spectrum-who would continue to defend the religious precepts animating the Woolwich butchers and those rampaging across Stockholm out of ideological solidarity. Islamophilia: A Very Metropolitan Malady is not only timely, but pivotal to understanding the incoherent thinking that is the ethos  of the illiberal consensus.

Read it, before it’s too late. 

Art Credit: Bosh Fawstin.

Video of Frank Gaffney’s speech can be found on Urban Infidel.

One of the unofficial mottos of the United States, this phrase-which is minted on this country’s coins and emblazoned upon our paper bills-embodies the common heritage of the American nation, which was created from the union of thirteen distinct, unique former British colonies. Over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it came to symbolize the melting pot forged from a collection of people who came to the United States from various European nations in order to reconstitute their lives.

It is a concept that, like many of its inhabitants, has become alien to contemporary America. We now live in a country comprised from a polyglot agglomeration of foreign tribes, individuals and extended families, many of whom would be unable to assimilate to American culture even if a coherent one still existed and they were encouraged to do so, both dubious propositions.

One of the most persistent questions raised by the September 11th attacks, and recurring periodically since, e.g. during the debate over the construction of Park 51, the debacle that the trial of Ft. Hood jihadist Nidal Malik Hasan has occasioned, and other terrorist attacks conceived by native or naturalized American citizens, has  revolved around whether Islam as it’s practiced today can be reconciled with traditional American values embodied in documents like the United States Constitution.

This question is what brought Frank Gaffney, the founder and president of the Center for Security Policy, to the Women’s National Republican Club last week, where he addressed the “civilizational jihad” he asserts Islamists are waging against the United States, as well as the West more broadly conceived. While the sight of Mr. Gaffney delivering a policy address is far from unusual, the fact that the event was hosted by Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies reflects a growing recognition among some conservatives-albeit, not all-that our nation’s immigration policy has a deep and profound influence upon national security and foreign policy concerns.

While some believe that the growing diminution of the traditional demographic profile of America will lead to a more pacific, non-interventionist foreign policy-analogizing it to the anti-war sentiment which prevailed in this country before its entry into World War I-it can be argued that the government’s embrace of heretofore foreign ethnic and religious groups will foster an even more aggressive, and in many ways detrimental, foreign policy, which might well endanger American diplomats, servicemen and civilians in the future-as it has in the recent past. What’s more, the union of multinational jihadist platforms with digital technology has given an entire generation of Arab, Asian and African Muslim young men who are essentially unmoored-having been transplanted to a foreign land at a young age-a distinct cultural and political identity; one which involves the replacement of Western norms and mores with a muscular, revanchist interpretation of Islam. The fact that the dominant legal, cultural, and political class have spent the past five decades attempting to minimize or nullify these very same values speeds their mission.

A perfect illustration of this dilemma was discussed by Frank Gaffney in relation to the Somali community within Minnesota, which now numbers in the tens of thousands. Resettled in previously homogeneous, tranquil parts of the United States at the urging of a United Nations bureaucracy and with the assistance of the U.S. State Department, these refugees have children who are now returning to the homeland of their parents and enlisting in battle against the Transitional Federal Government which our government helped to establish and killing African Union peacekeepers whose mission it ostensibly supports. Beyond the validity of their refugee claims-many of which are wholly fraudulent-there is the inescapable conclusion one must draw that the wealth confiscated from American citizens in the form of taxes-and lavished upon social welfare programs necessitated by the Somalis inability to support themselves or their families legally-is being used in some small measure to defray the cost of living of those who intend on blowing other people up.

In addition to the expense-born in our pocketbooks and  in the gradual erosion of American community-of this experiment, there is the the genuine threat posed by a large segment of migrants who dislike this country both because of specific foreign policy decisions and concrete Koranic injunctions. It beggars belief that the federal government would seek to import scores of foreigners from third world nations whose populations harbor significant hostility towards America while at the same time another branch of the state engages in nation-building experiments and military operations in those very same lands. The fact that this process is facilitated by the United Nations, a world body whose values are diametrically opposed to those cherished by most Americans, strains credulity.

One of the points emphasized throughout Gaffney’s lecture was the global, multidimensional nature of the jihadist threat. He focused extensively on the case of a particular individual who was detained while he and his hijab-clad wife filmed the support structure of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, an incident which would ultimately lead to one of the most critical pieces of evidence introduced during the trial of the Holy Land Foundation, at the time the largest Islamic charity in the United States. The HLF was eventually revealed to be not only a financial conduit for Hamas but also part of a network of institutions within the United States which were created under the auspices of the Muslim Brotherhood in order to achieve their ideological goals on American soil.

Although it might seem absurd to believe that bedrock American institutions can be undermined by a small coterie of Islamic ideologues, you have to consider the havoc the institutional left has already inflicted upon our society. An Iraqi refugee-with prior criminal offenses-has been charged with maliciously damaging federal property for attempting to destroy a Social Security Administration office with an improvised explosive device! The systematic execution of over a dozen soldiers by Nidal Malik Hasan is deemed a case of  ‘workplace violence’ by our federal government. A premeditated jihadist assault on LAX’s El Al terminal is not even considered a hate crime, and the head of the Justice Department cannot even utter the name of the religion whose doctrines inspired the man who attempted to obliterate Times Square with an explosive device which dwarfed that used in the Oklahoma City bombing.

In this context, it’s not difficult to see how a machiavellian political apparatchik with an outsized influence over the conservative movement, or an influential Democratic congressmen popular among both leftists and militant Muslims, or a presidential advisor with dubious ties to apologists for the Muslim Brotherhood can do permanent harm, especially when constitutional rights like freedom of speech are being used as bargaining chips in relations with the Muslim world.

The fact that a would-be facilitator of regicide and terrorist financier was able to enter the good graces of a sitting president and establish a program for Muslim chaplains, which still exists, because of the oleaginous influence of someone who purports to represent American Muslims illustrates the toxic combination of  identity politics and K street lobbying. And while some maintain that establishing a pro-Arab/Muslim political infrastructure in this country is necessary to balance the existing pro-Israel bias among American lawmakers, it’s hard to imagine Israelis-regardless of the wisdom of their specific policy views-enacting violent revenge upon Americans for their government’s policy regarding the West Bank or votes on the UN Security Council.

Glenn Greenwald raises the question of whether Nidal Malik was engaged in an act of terrorism, since-from his perspective, at least-he was fighting those who had enlisted in an army which had attacked his coreligionists in the nation of Yemen. But a more pertinent question is why someone who places allegiance to a foreign religion or a terrorist group in the Persian Gulf above his oath to the U.S. Army, or even his  obligation not to slaughter unarmed Americans, is in the United States to begin with. Why must the cult of diversity take precedence over the lives of ordinary American citizens?

And the answer is not comforting. It’s because our immigration policy is not designed with the interests of Americans in mind. Our laws are built to satisfy the demand of  colleges and universities that need the tuition paid by tens of thousands of Saudi students. Of private and public institutions that demand the addition of Muslim chaplains, regardless of ideology. Of parasitical federal contractors which make a killing by resettling scores of refugees who are a drain on state coffers in towns and cities throughout the country.

The customary response from advocates of changing the cultural landscape of America is that we need to do these things in order to change the hearts and minds of those living in the Islamic world. We need to project an image of openness in order to change the negative image of the United States overseas. The problem is that it has not worked, and in all likelihood, will never work. Globalization, insofar as it facilitates the exchange of goods and services according to the law of supply and demand, is a good thing. However, importing the maladies, cultural neuroses and obscurantist religious dogmas of foreign cultures for the sake of appeasing the gods of diversity and multiculturalism, even as we engage in questionable foreign interventions urged on by figures whose interests are inimical to those of the United States, is madness.

The rotten fruit of the Arab Spring, like that from the most recent war in Iraq, is being brought to our shores, so this is as good a time as any to begin having a conversation about what we want our country’s future to look like. Like Frank Gaffney, I believe it’s time to discontinue the diversity lottery, stop issuing visas to imams for whom there is no demand, and begin to look out for the interests of Americans, first and foremost.

One of the chief distinctions between the anti-Israel rally and the slightly smaller, yet equally exuberant, pro-Israel counter-demonstration held in Times Square this weekend was the sentiments expressed by the participants. While the former vocalized their antipathy towards Israel and the United States and demanded ordinary Israelis be punished-through measures such as the BDS movement-and spent most of their time anathematizing Jews in the most historically inaccurate way possible, the latter concentrated mostly upon messages of solidarity with Israel.

There were, of course, expressions of hostility towards the jihadists who have instigated the current wave of bloodshed, and who continued to barrage terrified Israeli civilians with Iranian-designed missiles even as this was being written.

However, I saw no generalized contempt for the Palestinian people, or even the bellicose Islamist leaders of neighboring countries who exhorted those currently entrusted with power in the Gaza Strip to stand their ground.

The overwhelming sentiment was one of resilience, not hatred, and was expressed through chants like “Am Yisrael Chai,” the people of Israel live, and the singing of the Hatikvah, the national anthem of Israel.

As well as an attempt to convey, in concrete terms, the intensity of the terror ordinary civilians, especially those living in southern Israel, experience on a daily basis.

And to connect the coercive violence aimed at Israel to the jihadist attacks carried out against similar Western nations throughout the globe.

Specifically, the United States, which has endured jihadist attacks for the past several decades, including lethal assaults initiated by the men currently in charge of the Palestinian Authority and the Gaza Strip.

Needless to say, there are legitimate critiques to be made of the methods Israel employed in responding to the rocket war waged by Hamas, as well as unaffiliated jihadist and Palestinian gangs. If nothing else, the fact that Hamas has been able to enchance its growing diplomatic standing in the Middle East-while preserving its vast, Iranian-supplied weapons arsenal-and was able to deter Israel from a ground invasion bodes ill for the security of Israeli citizens, to say nothing of those Palestinians who will be the unfortunate human shields in future military engagements.

Whether or not the result of this conflict constitutes a victory for Hamas, it is clear to all but the most deluded observers that it is a defeat for the adversaries of Hamas. Rather than Thing, a.k.a. Ben Grimm, Israel reacted to this assault in the dithering, indecisive manner of Shakespeare’s tragic hero, Hamlet. And as we all know, this strategy, if it can be called that, only leads to more bloodshed in the future.

Perhaps most disconcertingly, the inhumanity and barbarity of Islamic law was papered over by the persistently hostile mass media which reported on the Gaza conflict.

As these images from the public execution and dismemberment of suspected “collaborators,” which has drawn remarkably little attention from the fifth estate-with some notable exceptions-demonstrate.

Unfortunately, I don’t think the collective expression of support for Israel we’ve witnessed in New York City, whether from ordinary citizens or self-interested pols, is going to have much of an impact on public discourse. The sad truth is that the dominant media narrative, i.e. Palestinians as perpetual victim and Israel as eternal aggressor, is going to remain in place for the foreseeable future, and not even the most well crafted, factually accurate  publicity campaign is going to alter the status quo.

In fact, it could be argued that the appeal of the formulaic, anti-Israel meta narrative will only grow as those sympathetic to the Islamist cause gain an even surer foothold in the corporate world, within Congress and among influential media organs. The only way to counter this cresting tide is, to paraphrase the great Franz Kafka, take an axe to the frozen sea inside of us. Or in this case, the ice inside of those who willfully ignore the truth before them.

The truth, like life, is not pretty, but it must be told. Israel, like most of the West,  faces an existential struggle. Its preservation does not hinge upon a slick media relations campaign, or a superficially persuasive viral video, but upon disabusing spectators of the fallacies that underlie much of received wisdom about this conflict. And the only way to accomplish that goal is by telling the truth about jihadist dogma and how it informs the actions of  organizations like Hamas.

One image taken from the pro-Hamas rally held by Al-Awda NY, among other anti-Israel organizations, in Times Square this weekend. I wish I could say that it was anomalous in some way, but the inexorable truth is that the physically and intellectually etiolated creature you see above was probably as representative of the spirit of this demonstration as any of the participants. That a decrepit red diaper baby extolled the Marxist, Latin American despot Hugo Chavez  is not surprising, although neither should be his admiration for Chavez’s staunch ally Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. A man who shares with his equally anti-Semitic friend a history of manipulating election results.

The domestic alliance between socialist and communist true believers and obscurantist, apocalyptic Islam is mirrored to a large degree in the Gaza Strip itself, where rejectionist strands of the PLO, such as the Marxist-Leninist PFLP, join forces with the Al-Qassam Brigades in shelling Israeli civilians. I’m not sure what end game the Trotskyites in the Spartacist League have in mind, but I have the nagging suspicion it doesn’t quite sync with the ultimate goals of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or the Al Qaeda-inspired salafists currently vying for control of the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

While useful idiots are pivotal to the success of any totalitarian revolution, once the despised tyrant is dethroned, they are more often than not treated to a dose of revolutionary justice. Perhaps some of these reactionary leftists should have a conversation with MEK exiles in order to learn about the pitfalls of yoking your cause to an ideology which relentlessly persecutes atheists, at its best.

Granted, it’s possible that militant Stalinists and those who want to eradicate any remnant of Judaism from the Jewish State might be able to co-exist, but it seems like those who would want to kill for the Al Aqsa Mosque might be of a different hue than those who would kill for dialectical materialism.

Although I doubt such discussions would prove fruitful, as the inclination for affinity groups and Marxist ideologues to view Arab-Muslims, particularly those living on the outskirts of Israel, as perpetually downtrodden and oppressed-the eternal underdog-is impenetrable to reason and empirical evidence. A sign of this enduring myth is the Puerto Rican flag seen above, probably held aloft by an independentista, who’ll no doubt have more time to demonize Israel in a few years, once that island’s ambiguous political status is permanently resolved.

One of the incongruities of this particular anti-Israel demonstration-although it must be said, leftists and their allies have never been known for their philosophical integrity or ideological coherency-was the strange, ritualistic incantations against “hate” followed immediately thereafter by the most noxious expressions of hatred and contempt.  For example, the repeated chant “Stop the violence, stop the hate,” which was quickly followed on the down beat by “Israel is a terrorist state!”

Pardon my impertinence, but isn’t categorizing a nation of nearly eight million distinct individuals as racist a bit hateful, not to mention insinuating that this country is perpetrating genocide? The latter charge is especially curious, considering the fact that casualties from Israeli weaponry-including the deaths of confirmed terrorists-during this conflict number fewer than the toll of Palestinians Hamas murdered during the 2007 putsch which resulted in its seizure of power from Fatah.

What’s more, the Palestinians killed during this conflict number less than a tenth of those “collaborators” murdered without trial during the first intifada.

Unfortunately, as you can see, this unique interpretation of justice is still avidly practiced by those in charge of the Gaza Strip.

If the concern trolls who detest Israel so much really want to see a state that perpetrates genocide, perhaps they should cast their eyes north.

It’s reassuring to imagine that a certain cognitive dissonance is at play when the most demagogic critics of Israel regurgitate their talking points and deploy some of their more eye-catching imagery-such as that seen on the placard above. Unfortunately, I don’t think they recognize the inherent disconnect between accusing Israel of slaughtering children while simultaneously standing behind a group which indoctrinates Palestinian children from the time they can walk into a culture of jihadist, exterminatory violence. To say nothing of the cynical exploitation of Palestinian women and children as human shields for terrorist leaders.

The sincerity of their denunciations of Israeli “hate” were called into question again when the mixed Palestinian fanatic/desiccated Marxist crowd began to shout “Yassin, Yassin, do not cry; Palestine will never die!” While it’s possible that they were referring to a controversial military engagement that occurred during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the fact that this was a pro-Hamas rally leads one to the ineluctable conclusion that they were celebrating the life of a man responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Israelis and Palestinians, including those who have died as a result of the current bloodshed.

As odd as it might seem, the most ideologically coherent contingent, aside from the keffiyeh and hijab-clad Palestinians echoing the historical demand that Israelis be pushed into the sea, was the cultish faction of Neturei Karta seen in the photograph above. Whether meeting with Holocaust enthusiast Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or breaking bread with Yasser Arafat, a protege of Adolf Hitler’s Middle Eastern Reichsführer, NK has made it abundantly clear that it despises the state of Israel as it currently exists.

Of course, this is a free country. You’re entitled to express your opinion, however loathsome, so long as it doesn’t trespass against the life and safety of another individual or group of citizens. That said, I have to say the pretense that most of the people gathered in Times Square care about the lives of ordinary Muslim women and children living in the Gaza Strip is hard to digest.

It’s especially difficult to conceive of a scenario where they would bemoan the fate of these particular Muslims if their suffering bore no relation to Israel. You need look no further than a perpetrator of actual genocide, the Baathist Assad dynasty, in order to apprehend this concept. More than three times as many Palestinians have been killed in Syria during its civil war than have perished in the current conflict, yet you see no comparable sense of outrage among these indignant, alleged supporters of the Palestinian cause.

Apparently, their lives are not worth as much as the ones inserted into a meta-narrative designed by Hamas to manipulate international news media. In our next post, we’ll look at the other side of the coin.

The  Southern Poverty Law Center, as most of you already know, is one of the most heavily-cited media resources and noxious influences upon the body politic, especially as it pertains to  public debates over subjects such as immigration and the relationship between individual and state. When not inventing chimerical neo-Nazis and Klansman, defaming pro-Constitution critics of Islamic extremism,  waxing hysteric over patriotic sustainable immigration organizations and/or critics of feminism, engaging in blatant hypocrisy, or merely beclowning itself, it is busy making a mockery of its tax-exempt status as an ostensibly nonpartisan 501(c)(3) organization. Like many other left wing institutions, it uses its reservoir of dollars to bankroll political assaults against its ideological adversaries.

The Capital Research Center, an invaluable resource in exposing left wing philanthropy-which abounds in American society-has a fantastic analysis of the SPLC’s various grifting schemes and attempts to project a public image at complete variance with what it is, i.e. a well-funded organ of doctrinaire leftist thinking and crypto-socialist lies, which functions mostly as a cash trough for its founders and executive officers. It should be noted that despite its rhetoric advocating open borders and multiculturalism, the SPLC Board of Directors is conspicuously monochrome.

The irony of the SPLC is that it would probably fail its own litmus test for hate groups. A fact that I’m sure Morris Dees doesn’t dwell upon when luxuriating in his poverty palace.

Most New Yorkers-especially natives-are inured to the daily spectacle which makes their city something of a super-sized freak show. However, most of the time that sideshow is of the sort one normally expects to see in Coney Island, i.e. entertaining enough as a diversionary pursuit, but not so garish or mind-altering as to force you to reconsider your general opinion of humanity.

However, every year the United Nations General Assembly-the Mos Eisley Cantina of international diplomacy-convenes in Turtle Bay so that ostensible heads of state from around the world can make pompous, almost universally forgettable speeches before an assembled crowd of profligate diplomats, spies, Islamic terrorists,  despots and indicted war criminals, among other political luminaries you would expect to find addressing an institution that was once headed by a man complicit in Nazi Germany’s numerous war atrocities in the Balkans.

Of course, because this collection of malefactors great and small decides to make New York City the backdrop for political theater-bankrolled by American taxpayers, of course-it means that the normally colorful streets of New York are graced with an even more eclectic selection of humanity. Including, as you’ll notice by glancing at the photograph atop this page, fans of newly elected Egyptian pharaoh and fan of sharia law Mohammed Morsi.

The first sight that greeted me before arriving at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza was, oddly enough, a group of fervent devotees-including the group of veiled women seen above-of the Muslim Brotherhood, i.e. the organization that’s served as the intellectual seedbed of virtually every pan-Islamic jihadist and/or terrorist movement that’s arisen over the past century. I know what you must be thinking at this point: “Ain’t multiculturalism grand?”

This being a free country, where everyone is allowed to voice his or her opinion-for the most part, at least-there were two bold Egyptian Christians willing to counter the Islamic supremacist perspective espoused by Mohammed Morsi’s New York welcoming committee.

One of the interesting aspects of this small band of counter-protestors was their devotion to their native land. Like Ashraf Ramelah, they obviously consider themselves true Egyptians, even if their Muslim countrymen vigorously disagree with that assessment.

A slightly more baffling sight confronted me as I made my way deeper into the protest pen cordoned off by the NYPD. I’m not quite certain why the man above chose the United Nations for his platform-which seemed to focus upon the inerrancy of Biblical prophecy-although he undoubtedly could have had a feisty conversation about millenarianism with one of the UN’s featured speakers this week.

Needless to say, there were individuals and groups there with a much less eschatological message, one of the most prominent among them being exponents of Falun Gong, or Falun Dafa teachings. In addition to practicing their meditative exercises, these Chinese men and women-most of whom probably can’t return to their homeland, for obvious reasons-highlighted the torture-such as that depicted in the drawings above-experienced by Falun Gong practitioners at the hands of the Chinese regime.

In addition to the routine harassment and imprisonment experienced by anyone in the People’s Republic of China expressing political, philosophical or spiritual beliefs not sanctioned by the ruling Chinese Communist Party oligarchy, Falun Gong adherents have the misfortune of being perceived as an organized political opposition.

Therefore, its followers are subject to a range of horrific penalties, such as the CCP’s penchant for organ-harvesting from those within China’s extensive laogai.

One need only glance at the starkness of contrast between the two photos seen above in order to grasp the horrors inflicted upon ordinary Chinese citizens who run afoul of the their government’s perverse political priorities.

While I don’t have enough information about the subject to state, without reservation, that Falun Gong is “good,” I do know enough to assert that the state which persecutes its followers-and is responsible for the tableau seen in the photograph below-is not.

And although Chinese dissidents were well represented on Wednesday, the vast majority of protestors were assembled to rally against the current Iranian regime, which most regard as criminal in nature, if not so ghastly as to invoke images of one of cinematic horror’s most reviled figures.

One of the more striking features of the anti-IRI activities this week was the artistic dimension of the protests. Some of the efforts seemed redolent of typical political agitprop, using a caricature of Ahmadinejad’s physical features while pointing out the bloody hands of the current president…

As well as his well-publicized Holocaust denial, which was tied into the Iranian regime’s somewhat implausible claims about its nuclear program.

That said, there were some clever, less obvious mockeries of Ahmadinejad, such as the “I’m with stupid” cut-out seen below.

As well as the doormat with the dictator’s face emblazoned upon it, created by United Against a Nuclear Iran, a nonpartisan organization founded by  former ambassador to the United Nations Mark Wallace, which is dedicated to preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

One of their campaigns, prior to Ahmadinejad’s arrival in New York, was a call to boycott the Warwick Hotel, which hosted the Iranian leader’s large entourage while he was staying in the Big Apple. Personally, I don’t find the Warwick’s decision nearly as objectionable as the one that allowed he and his cronies to set foot on American soil.

The “silent” partnership alluded to in the above poster is a reference to the unusual relationship between the Iranian regime and the leadership of Al Qaeda, much of which sought refuge in Iran after the September 11th attacks. Although the nature of this relationship is a matter of great dispute, the fact that Iran has been willing to support Afghan, Sunni insurgents-including the Taliban-with both tactics and weaponry is something to consider before dismissing the allegation out of hand.

One of the chief organizers of the protests against the clerical dictatorship of Iran was Iran 180. The UNwelcome campaign consisted of a combination of street theater and personal testimony from Iranian-Americans about the true nature of the Khomeinist regime.

FWIW, I felt some sympathy for the individual inside of the gigantic mock head, especially considering the unusually warm temperature that day. I do credit his enthusiasm-possibly the most entertaining part of this street theater being his pantomiming bass-playing on what I think was intended to be a machine gun as For Whom The Bell Tolls played in the background.

One of the costumed personages represented the real ruler of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei. Under velayat-e-faqih, he-along with an equally undemocratic clique of obscurantist Shiite clerics and politically connected hacks-determines the course of Iranian domestic and foreign affairs, as recent events demonstrate.

One of the main, if largely unspoken, themes of the rally was the incestuous relationship between the IRI and the blood-soaked Baathist regime which currently rules Syria. Although the alliance between the government of Iran and that of Syria has been in place for over three decades-virtually since the inception of the Islamic Republic-the imminent threat of Bashar al-Assad’s political demise has forced that blood pact into the open. In fact, the symbiotic nature of the relationship has become so transparent that even Iran’s leading officials have trouble denying it.

Even though foreign policy played a prominent role in Iran 180′s demonstration, there was also a lengthy exposition of the domestic crimes of the Iranian regime, especially with respect to religious, ethnic, and sexual minorities. Gigi Nikpour, the woman seen above, described how the clerical regime which controls Iran had institutionalized many of the canonical aspects of Islam, including Koranic injunctions against homosexuality. These religious proscriptions are not merely theoretical points of discussion, as the scores of gay men and lesbians executed by the theocratic regime in Tehran illustrate.

This is yet another reason why the ubiquitous creeping sharia the rest of the country has just become aware of poses such an ominous threat. It seeks not only to regulate and/or circumscribe our thoughts and speech, but dictate the most minute aspects of our private lives and daily behavior, and eliminate those activities its enforcers deem contrary to the tenets of Islam.

In our next post we’ll explore one of the groups that helped propel these Koran-thumping megalomaniacs to power in Iran, but who soon found that the enemies of Islam are manifold, and subject to arbitrary changes depending upon the needs and political whims of the revolution.

Update: My full live-tweet of the SION Conference is online! Read it here. 

Today marks the eleventh anniversary of the catastrophic attacks upon the Pentagon and World Trade Center, as well as the thwarted assault aimed at the U.S. Capitol, which led to the loss of thousands of lives and introduced millions of Americans to the apocalyptic ideology of Al Qaeda and assorted Sunni jihadists.

As the democidal tyrants in Tehran inch ever-closer to acquiring the second Islamic bomb, one which will be at the disposal of adherents to an apocalyptic, Shia millenarianism, it’s worth noting that violence is merely the chosen expedient for people who want to impose their dogma upon the entire globe. A much more existential, and efficacious, threat to our civilization is the campaign to erode, and eventually abolish altogether, the fundamental natural rights we exercise every day of our lives and which we have taken for granted for far too long. The foremost right among them being the freedom to debate issues such as this one without the fear of coercion and reprisal from those who disagree with our opinions.

That’s why the SION Freedom Conference, organized by my dear friend Pamela Geller and slated to take place later today, is such a watershed moment. It will serve as the chief forum from which to illuminate the dire threat posed by an ideology that wishes to permanently redact, to criminalize, any critical observations about it inside of nations where speaking your mind is enshrined as a bedrock constitutional principle.

In addition to Atlas, there will be a roster of courageous dissidents from across the globe showcased this afternoon, including Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who has experienced firsthand the animosity some Muslims feel towards those engaged in critical inquiries regarding the Religion of Peace. I will attempt to live-tweet both speeches-along with the rest of the proceedings-provided my not-so-smart phone doesn’t fail me-as it so often does.

You can follow my updates here, and ask questions of your own @OddLane. For those of you blessed to have some disposable income during the worst economic recession in recent memory, might I suggest putting some of it towards defraying the immense costs that events such as the SION Freedom Conference impose upon their sponsors? If inclined, you can do so by accessing this link.

Hopefully, tomorrow’s event will honor the memories of those thousands-from New York and elsewhere-who can no longer speak for themselves.

I wasn’t planning on discussing this issue today, but we do address important foreign policy issues on this site when the occasion demands it. Needless to say, President Obama’s insistence that the state of Israel, which has heretofore been our most trusted and reliable ally in the Middle East, return to annihilatory borders  is such an occasion.

Putting aside for a moment the observation that these borders are utterly indefensible, which has been made by experts much more well-versed in this subject than me, there are several issues with the President’s new “peace” proposals that pose even greater barriers to the adoption of what he seems to think will be a final resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. One of them being the fact that these new guidelines are an explicit repudiation of the ironclad guarantees enunciated by President Bush when he and former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon decided that Israel should unilaterally withdraw from the Gaza Strip.

Israel’s disengagement from Gaza required the heart-breaking removal of Israeli civilians from the homes in which they had lived for decades, not to mention the complete and utter destruction of a thriving economy that was in short order replaced by Hamas military bases from which rockets are now launched into Israeli territory. Israel withdrew from that territory based upon the promise that the United States government would not force it to retreat behind indefensible borders. Now, the President has not only shredded the pledges and agreements made by his predecessor in office, he has reneged on his own promise to the Jewish State, made not more than three years ago.

As if this were not enough, Barack Obama compounded this egregious insult with yet more superfluous, fawning outreach to the Arab-Muslim “street,” including a reaffirmation of the false sense of victimhood Palestinians use to batter Israel’s reputation on the international stage. As Democratic pollster and Fox News analyst Pat Cadell has said, this is simply yet another attempt to assuage the feelings of Muslims at the expense of our national security priorities overseas. If anything, it only emboldens the forces intent on doing us and our allies harm, as the recent pronouncements by Hamas, those charming fellows who belong to the Osama Bin Laden Fan Club, make clear. The more of the Palestinian/Islamic supremacist narrative you accept, the more they will demand of you, as Israel has learned to its regret. The “humiliation” of the Palestinians is not something that can be alleviated by giving Hamas and the PA-and possibly Al Qaeda-yet more territory, it can only be addressed by tangible achievements that do not involve murdering Jews and Americans.

That is why Prime Minister Natanyahu’s bracing response to the President’s speech was so welcome, at least to those of us who have been waiting for a foreign leader who will resist the ill-conceived foreign policy decisions of the current adminstration. It seems like he has taken the advice of Caroline Glick and decided to assert an independent foreign policy based upon the best interests of Israel. Even though I’m not a huge Ron Paul enthusiast-especially after his recent embrace  of the worst of open borders dogma-I have to admit that his suggestion, i.e. that we disengage from the “peace process” altogether-instead of trying to impose a solution that will be disastrous for both the United States and Israel-makes a lot of sense. At the very least, we will not be forced to have endless discussions over what our obligations are to the participants in the current conflict. Our obligations should be to protect American lives and American interests abroad, which means letting Israel defend itself in the manner she sees fit. Her enemies are our enemies, which is as true now as it was decades ago.

A satirical article published by the website Big Peace  illustrates the absurdity of President Obama’s plan for “peace,” but it also highlights the disregard he has shown for national sovereignty as a general principle. Just as he wants to erase the borders of Israel by ceding territory to a terrorist entity, he desires the erasure of our borders through the wholesale adoption of amnesty. American land, which couldn’t be conquered militarily, must be relinquished through the force of law-that’s essentially the guiding principle of the Obama presidency, and it’s one that should be rejected by American voters, regardless of what position they hold on the Arab-Israeli peace process.

On Wednesday, smack in the middle of a working week, 1200 of us from the Northeast flew, drove or were bussed into Washington DC to strengthen the congressional commitment to help sustain Israel in this difficult time, amid the embroilment of so many Islamic Middle Eastern and North African states. We had not only given up a working day, but had paid between $120 and $150 for the privilege of doing so. This covered transportation, breakfast, lunch and supper en route or in DC. This 1200 represented a 20% rise over 2010 figures of 1,000, and that in turn represented a gain over the prior year of some 20%.
 
We saw 535  members of Congress, speaking with them about the perils facing Israel, and the indissoluble bond between our two nations, the US and Israel, as well as the non-transparency of the Palestinian Arabs and their odd reception of the annual US gift of  400 million dollars: Take the money, and poof! It is gone. It immediately disappears without a trace of aiding its intended recipients, only to pop up in new media, materials and textbooks that fan the flames of hatred against Jews and Israel’s existence in TV, radio and schools throughout the territory. These gilded-by-foreign-aid ingots of hate rouse the populace not to economic productivity or innovative entrepreneurship, but to repeated ransacking of opportunity—encouraging attacks against neighboring Israel by any means possible. 
 
This past fortnight, this hate-fueled violence resulted in the shocking brutality of butchering a family of five in the town of Itamar—two parents and three young children knifed in the middle of the night, stabbed for no other reason than the celebration of butchery. Candy and sweets were handed out by the Palestinian Arabs to their children and passersby when the ugly news of the five murdered Jewish victims of hate emerged.
 
We 1,200 were notably successful, judging by the warm reception accorded us by the men and women into whose offices we went in teams of 6 to 8 NORPAC members. This reporter alone visited Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer, neither of whom was free, as they had a full roster of visitors on the days we visited, and the scheduler could not shoehorn in any more minutes into a  sausage-bursting day. The major affect one noted in all the senators and representatives, in fact, was one of exhaustion. They take meeting after meeting, without a break, all day for the months from February until late May, and they barely have time to scan the news tickers running at the foot of the muted TVs in their offices.
 
Events come at a rapid pace in that part of the world, the Middle East, and the recent discussions of ex cathedra fiat statehood for the disputed minority makes these delegations all the more important. People do not necessarily all read the papers or follow Drudge for the latest scoop. For those who feel that Israel is outnumbered and outspent, on weapons as well as PR, our day’s work was an imperative that sees results every time we hear the headlines.

After the delegation returned, we wrote follow-up notes to the senatorial aides and assistants with whom we interacted, reminding them that they had pledged to sign the Iranian transparency agreement, HR 740, and planned to continue their support of embattled Israel.

marion ds dreyfus                        .    .    .                 13 April 20©11

In light of Senator Gregory Ball’s “controversial” hearings into the homeland security dilemmas currently facing our state, I thought I’d provide you with some footage of Frank Gaffney’s testimony. 

The best argument on behalf of Senator Ball’s hearings is that they were condemned by the Council on American Islamic Relations, an off-shoot of the Islamic terror organization-and Muslim Brotherhood franchise-Hamas, and an unindicted co-conspirator in one of the largest terrorism-financing trials in this nation’s history.

 With friends like those, do we really need enemies?