| Iranian government websites give religious approval for destroying Israel Posted: 06 Feb 2012 01:20 PM PST From WND: The Iranian government, through a website proxy, has laid out the legal and religious justification for the destruction of Israel and the slaughter of its people.
The doctrine includes wiping out Israeli assets and Jewish people worldwide. [I did not see the part about "Jewish people worldwide" - EoZ.]
Calling Israel a danger to Islam, the conservative website Alef, with ties to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the opportunity must not be lost to remove "this corrupting material. It is a "'jurisprudential justification" to kill all the Jews [see above] and annihilate Israel, and in that, the Islamic government of Iran must take the helm."
The article, written by Alireza Forghani, an analyst and a strategy specialist in Khamenei's camp, now is being run on most state-owned sites, including the Revolutionary Guards' Fars News Agency, showing that the regime endorses this doctrine.
Because Israel is going to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, Iran is justified in launching a pre-emptive, cataclysmic attack against the Jewish state, the doctrine argues.
On Friday, in a major speech at prayers, Khamenei announced that Iran will support any nation or group that attacks the "cancerous tumor" of Israel. Though his statement was seen by some in the West as fluff, there is substance behind it.
Iran's Defense Ministry announced this weekend that it test-fired an advanced two-stage, solid-fuel ballistic missile and boasted about successfully putting a new satellite into orbit, reminding the West that its engineers have mastered the technology for intercontinental ballistic missiles even as the Islamic state pushes its nuclear weapons program. Google's Farsi translation is not quite as good as its Arabic, but this is what I could puzzle out. The article quotes Ayatollah Khomeini (possibly current leader Khamenei) saying that the destruction of Israel is necessary, as it is a cancer in the Middle East. All Muslims are obligated to fight Israel. It goes into a legal discussion of the difference between regular jihad and defensive jihad. While primary jihad may require the blessing of the Hidden Imam, defensive jihad does not. The author defines the obligation to fight Israel as defensive jihad because Israel controls Muslim holy places as well as because Israel instills fear in Muslims. If I am reading it right, he is saying that any Israeli action would be justification to destroy Israel. The article goes into detail as to which targets it would attack, from nuclear facilities to railways to airports and utilities, water and sanitation. After going through the various kinds of missiles Iran has, the article claims that Iran can destroy Israel in less than 9 minutes. It claims that one of its rockets can reach Israel in less than 14 minutes and that anti-missile batteries would be ineffective. The Alef article includes maps showing where they say Israeli airbases are, as well as the range of their rockets: Arutz-7 has what might be a more accurate representation of the article; I'm being pretty conservative. 
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| Israel is not turning into an Iranian-style theocracy (TNR) Posted: 06 Feb 2012 12:05 PM PST A nice article in TNR by Gil Troy that explains how "ultra-Orthodox" Jews fit into Israeli society, and it is not nearly as black and white as people like to think: The demonizing of Israel, dismissing the democratic Jewish state as a right-wing, religious, racist project, continues. The latest storyline describes ultra-Orthodox Israelis—known in Hebrew as haredim—as medieval Neanderthals rapidly converting Israel into an Iran-style theocracy. This popular caricature encourages those liberals seeking excuses to stop supporting Israel. The appalling images of bearded, black-hatted zealots spitting on eight-year-olds, forcing women to the back of public buses, and parading their children with yellow stars in protest, are all being read as tea leaves predicting Israel's imminent degeneration into Haredistan. But what if the opposite is true? Haredi rampages seem more like impotent attempts to build a firewall against modernity than harbingers of conquest.
Change is coming to a community defined by its rejection of change. Haredim are joining Israeli society. Haredi vocational programs are proliferating, as government generosity wanes. Over 3000 haredi soldiers have now served in Israel's army, including a combat-ready unit. Many haredi women, who increasingly are highly educated and working, are demanding more respect while continuing to maintain gender distinctions. The debate about television and internet usage is intensifying, as modern popular culture seeps into the society, which is not hermetically sealed.
While haredi triumphalists emphasize their high birthrate, the outflow of the last two centuries since the Enlightenment continues. Though statistics are elusive, communal anxiety abounds about the apostates. Most haredim, while denying the hemorrhaging, have close relatives who are no longer haredi. The deserters are numerous enough to have inspired a television drama series: Simanei She'eilah (question marks), which tracks the stories of haredi runaways living in a Tel Aviv halfway house, debuted last year.
The Zaka organization provides the most dramatic—and inspiring—example of haredi engagement with Israeli society. Zaka became famous during the second intifada, dispatching ultra-Orthodox crews who cleaned up the spilled blood and pieces of flesh strewn about after bombings. Their reverence and thoroughness impressed normally hostile secular Israelis. Zaka's heroism, along with the suicide bombings in haredi neighborhoods, reminded all Israelis of their shared destiny. Today, more than 1500 Zaka volunteers nationwide serve in ambulances and participate in search and rescue operations. A Zaka team in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake worked through the Sabbath, saving lives.
... Noah Efron, a Bar Ilan University philosopher and historian, has explored the ingrained prejudice and popular revulsion against haredim. "The Jewish fight against ultra-Orthodoxy is part of a long-running struggle about what legitimately counts as Jewish," Professor Efron says. "The modern forms of Judaism have so won the day that this need to continue fighting the battle seems neurotic." Nevertheless, emphasizing the bad behavior of haredi Jews—who epitomize the stereotypical Jew—makes modern Jews and non-Jews feel better, less judged, suggesting that "these ostensibly superior Jews are actually inferior," Efron says. "We continually prove our own probity to ourselves by proving the depravity of those people."
More broadly, these stories provoke secular Westerners' condescension toward religious people. Reading many of the American and European blogs about the haredi tensions this winter, Efron has been "stunned" by "the depths of the hatred and the crassness of the arguments. The attacks reflect a toxic mix of old style anti-Semitism and contemporary anti-Zionism, with a new style modern anti-anything-that-is-not-secular-liberal-and-Western added."
Haredim—and their leaders—are, of course, partly responsible for the broad anger against them. Many lack civic spirit. Few serve in the army. The separation of women often entails inequality. Their politicians exploit Israel's fragmented coalition-governing system. A culture of lawlessness has grown in many communities, and their holier-than-thou attitude toward fellow citizens rankles.
Nevertheless, even in Bet Shemesh, the town where the haredi men spat on the eight-year-old schoolgirl, the true story is more complex than headlines suggest. "Haredi residents are furious at the recent developments and resent that they are being blamed for the acts of a tiny minority," the haredi paper, HaModia reported. This doesn't excuse haredi leaders: In a hierarchical community that grants rabbis so much power, the rabbis must do a better job of restraining the bullies. But as Rabbi Yeshaya Ehrenreich, a member of the Beit Shemesh City Council, told the newspaper, "The haredim who live in the same neighborhoods as these [fringe elements] suffer more than anyone else." This video from Aish, although a bit corny, seems appropriate: (h/t Seth Mandel, SwissYankee) 
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| The enemy of my enemy is sometimes anything but a friend Posted: 06 Feb 2012 10:55 AM PST From Now Lebanon: Russia, China and Iran are complicit in a "massacre" being carried out by regime forces in Syria, the Muslim Brotherhood charged on Monday.
"We consider Russia, China and Iran as direct accomplices to the horrible massacre being carried out against our people," the group, which is banned in Syria, said in a statement issued from London.
It accused the three countries of supplying weapons and equipment to the embattled regime in Damascus, which is seeking to put down an 11-month revolt.
By doing so, the Brotherhood said, they were "directly participating in the massacre of our defenseless people." The MB even called for a boycott of Russian and Chinese goods: A major Islamic Movement called for boycotting the Russian and Chinese goods in protest of their veto of a Security Council resolution on the Syria crisis, a statement issued on Sunday at the movement official website stated.
In Jordan , Muslim Brotherhood's leader Hammam Saeed accused Russia and China of participating in killing, and crackdown the Syrian people uprising.
"Russia and China decision should not pass without a popular action against their supportive policies with the Syrian regime against civilians" the statement stated. The Islamists knows that if Syria falls, they are the the ones to fill in the power vacuum, just as they did in Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere. And their strategy is to eventually link up into one large Islamist 'ummah that will drive Christians from the Middle East altogether. Things will get a lot messier in the coming years. 
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| Would Hezbollah attack Israel to aid Syria? Posted: 06 Feb 2012 09:45 AM PST From Naharnet: Lebanon must not hesitate in supporting the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, because backing it has major "strategic and fateful" repercussions, sources close to Hizbullah told the Kuwaiti al-Rai newspaper in remarks published on Sunday.
They said: "Hizbullah will not allow the fall of the Assad regime even if it means launching a war with Israel."
This position echoed Israeli fears that a war with the party may be ignited in order to divert attention from the current developments in Syria, said the newspaper.
The Israeli leadership is mulling "the need to issue an open threat to Hizbullah as part of a wider strategy adopted by the Israeli government."
"This strategy aims at deterring Hizbullah and Iran from carrying out any attack against Israeli targets," stated several sources, including the Jerusalem Post.
The Hizbullah sources did not rule out the possibility of "surprises emerging, aimed at turning attention away from the Syrian crisis."
"Should such a surprise take place, it would shift the international community's priorities in the region," they stressed. But Nasrallah has been more on the fence as Syria totters: On January 14, Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah said that Lebanon should disavow itself from developments in Syria as the crisis will have negative repercussions on the situation locally.
"We call on the Syrian opposition to abide by Assad's demands to engage in dialogue and cooperate with him to introduce reform that would resolve the country's problems," he stated.
During a speech in December, he voiced his support for the Syrian regime, while saying that his party backs reform and efforts to eradicate corruption in the neighboring country.
Nasrallah stressed, however, that "some people want to destroy Syria," they reject dialogue, and they seek to "compensate their loss in Iraq." In general, I don't trust Kuwaiti newspapers when they quote anonymous sources - they often simply make things up. I have no doubt that Hezbollah will work behind the scenes to ensure Assad's hold on power stays indefinitely. I also have no doubt that Nasrallah is trying to acquire whatever weapons he can get from Syria before it might fall. But Nasrallah is not stupid, and he knows that openly supporting Assad - or even launching an attack that is transparently meant to distract the world from Syria - would backfire on his own position in Lebanon. (h/t Dan) 
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| "Pearls Before Swine" takes on jihadists Posted: 06 Feb 2012 08:47 AM PST From last Friday's and Saturday's Pearls Before Swine comic, where the Rat character takes over Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood:
I have a feeling that the cartoonist will be getting some nasty emails. 
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| Egyptian "liberals" spin conspiracy theory around US medical research center Posted: 06 Feb 2012 07:35 AM PST MEMRI summarizes an article from Egyptian Al Wafd daily: On January 27, 2012, the Egyptian daily Al-Wafd published an investigative article on the Naval Medical Research Unit Three (NAMRU-3), a U.S. Navy biomedical research laboratory located in the Al-'Abbassia area in Cairo. The article, titled "NAMRU – The Pentagon's Unit for Killing Egyptians in Al-'Abbassia," claims that NAMRU handles pathogens that could "exterminate the entire Egyptian nation," and that it conducts research aimed at manipulating the Egyptians' genes in order to alter them and cause deformities. The article also alleges that NAMRU is conducting experiments on Egyptian children; that it might be responsible for an increase in infertility, impotence, retardation, and disabilities among the people; and that the data it collects is used to design harmful foods, seeds, and drugs that are developed in America and then sold cheaply to the Egyptians. The daily states that the unit operates freely in Egypt, with the approval of the authorities but without their supervision. NAMRU's mission statement is to "Study, monitor, and detect emerging and re-emerging disease threats of military and public health importance; develop mitigation strategies against these threats in partnership with host nations and international and U.S. agencies in CENTCOM, EUCOM, and AFRICOM areas of responsibility." Here are details from the Al Wafd article: 'Your health is in the hands of the American Department of Defense.' This is revealed by the following [facts], gathered from documents of the Pentagon's research unit NAMRU-3, which is the largest American military research unit in the Middle East.
Entering the NAMRU headquarters, you feel you have stepped into a horror film. The place is silent and shrouded in secrecy. Doctors and [other] employees [move about in] white robes, gloves, and caps, and sometimes also masks. The organisms they work with are a kind of bacterial biological weapon, which, if deployed, could exterminate the entire Egyptian nation, or any other nation.
Since the establishment of the NAMRU unit in Egypt, dozens of new and mutated viral diseases have been discovered. This indicates that these pathogens are imported. No research or medical [institute] has infiltrated Egypt to a greater extent than NAMRU, which controls the secrets of the viruses that are used in [weapons of] mass destruction and biological weapons...
NAMRU sees the Egyptian children as an opportunity to test new medicines. In its reports, it notes that the Egyptian children have the best immune systems, even in comparison with soldiers in the American army. NAMRU monitors our children when they are still fetuses by stationing American doctors and researchers in health centers in the [country's] villages, so they can come into contact with pregnant mothers, and the information [these doctors and researchers collect] is linked into NAMRU's network of databanks. [NAMRU] caused a stir when its doctors tried to conduct an experimental study on children in Al-Bahira, claiming they wished to develop a serum from diarrhea for a new vaccination. [As part of this effort,] gifts and money were handed out to the [children's] families in Farshut, Umm Al-Laban, Kum Al-Qanatir, and other villages in central Abu Homs, but the families adamantly refused to turn their children into lab rats...
This incident raised questions, which remained unanswered, over whether American hands in NAMRU were behind the increase in infertility, mental retardation, and disability among Egyptians born in recent years... as well as [instances of] impotence. [This, considering] the dangerous genetic information that NAMRU has collected on the Egyptians, especially patients in the Al-'Abbasia Hospital, and its ability to disrupt [the Egyptians'] natural genes and immune systems; [and also considering the fact] that it sends [Egypt] medicines, seeds, and fodder for animals, and is involved in all experiments [conducted in Egypt] in the fields of agriculture, livestock, water, food, etc.
NAMRU-3 controls the Egyptians' health, for better or worse, and has in its possession all the Egyptian genetic specifications and compounds and their hereditary traits, alongside an arsenal of components for lethal biological weapons, which it can hand over to Israel or any country hostile to Egypt if it ever becomes angry with the Egyptian people, in order to utterly destroy them. As Barry Rubin notes in an excellent article, this bizarre conspiracy theory is not coming from the Muslim Brotherhood - but from the people considered "liberal" in the Egyptian elections! These people are the ones that Westerners were hoping would win because they supposedly reflect Western values. In other words, the Egyptian "moderates" are almost as screwed up and anti-Western as the conservatives are. And this does not bode well for the future of Egypt. 
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| US threatens to withhold aid to Egypt over NGO charges Posted: 06 Feb 2012 06:11 AM PST From WaPo: Nineteen Americans will face criminal charges as part of a probe of the funding of pro-democracy groups, Egyptian officials announced Sunday, a provocative move that could deprive Egypt of crucial aid from the United States and upend one of Washington's most important bilateral relationships.
The development added pressure to an already strained relationship between Egypt's ruling generals and the Obama administration. The targets of the investigation include well-connected American groups, among them one led in Cairo by Sam LaHood, son of U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. Sam LaHood reportedly was among those facing charges.
U.S. officials have sternly warned Cairo in recent days that the roughly $1.5 billion in aid earmarked for Egypt this year could be withheld if the politically charged investigation isn't resolved quickly. But the tone of Sunday's announcement suggested the Egyptian government is doubling down on what has become a high-stakes diplomatic dispute.
Fayza Abul Naga, Egypt's minister for international cooperation, who is widely seen as the mastermind of the probe, said Sunday's announcement should leave no doubt about the "government's seriousness about discovering some of these groups' plans to destabilize Egypt," the state-owned newspaper al-Ahram reported on its Web site. The minister is among the few Mubarak loyalists who remain in the Egyptian cabinet.
Egypt has banned a number of non-government organizations' workers, including LaHood, country director for the International Republican Institute, from leaving the country. Fearing they could be arrested, at least three of the Americans under investigation have sought shelter at the U.S. Embassy.
In response to pressure from Washington, Egyptian officials have said in recent days that they were unable to meddle in a judicial matter.
Local news reports said that in addition to the 19 Americans, 14 Egyptians, five Serbs, two Germans and three Arabs will stand trial. Egyptian officials have not indicated when formal charges will be handed down, and no trial dates have been set.
Pro-democracy groups have worked openly in Egypt for years, although the government has long refused to grant them operating licenses. The groups were buoyed last year when the government allowed them to monitor parliamentary election, the first time foreign monitors were allowed to observe polls in the country.
Hopes that Mubarak's fall a year ago would be a boon for pro-democracy activists were dashed on Dec. 29 when Egyptian authorities raided the offices of 10 NGOs and seized files and computers. The current investigation, led by two investigative judges who were state prosecutors, is predicated on a 2002 law that bars organizations from accepting foreign funding if they are not licensed by the state.
U.S. officials have long sought to make assistance to Egypt conditional on democratic reforms. Experts on the country said the ruling generals might be assuming that the latest threats from Washington will prove to be empty. Similar warnings linking reforms and aid, dating back at least two administrations, have not been pressed.
The Egyptian government has long seen its yearly aid package from Washington as payback for signing a treaty with Israel in 1978.
The generals don't "see this aid as being aid," said Shadi Hamid, an Egypt expert at the Brookings Doha Center. "They see it as their birthright. They see it as a bribe, and they feel they are undertaking their side of the pact."
But LaHood's involvement in the case could leave Washington little recourse, Hamid said. "Threatening to arrest and try the son of a top U.S. official is a red line, and they've crossed it," he said. Is it me, or is anyone else bothered by the idea that the US would only consider acting when one of those threatened is politically connected? 
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| Abbas declared "unity" prime minister, and what the NYT is missing Posted: 06 Feb 2012 03:12 AM PST From NYT: The leaders of the rival Palestinian movements Fatah and Hamas announced on Monday that they have broken a long political deadlock and formed an interim unity government led, at least at first, by Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority based in the West Bank.
The announcement at a news conference in Doha, Qatar, which was broadcast live across the region, signaled a significant step toward reconciling the two movements as they prepare for elections.
Mr. Abbas, the chief of Fatah, and Khaled Meshal, the political leader of Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement, met in Qatar at the weekend for talks on how to move forward with reconciliation efforts. Under an accord signed last May, the sides had agreed to form a government of independent technocrats to prepare for elections, but they had been unable to agree on a candidate for the post of prime minister.
News reports before the announcement said the two sides reached an agreement for Mr. Abbas to replace the incumbent, Salam Fayyad, as prime minister. It was not clear if Mr. Fayyad would also be a member of the new government. The newspaper didn't mention the details: 1. The PLO, which runs the PA, will continue to be restructured, presumably to include Hamas (and probably Islamic Jihad) at its highest levels. This is why Hamas agrees to having a Fatah member as the head of the PA - because while the West thinks that the PA is the government, in fact the PLO is what calls the shots, especially in foreign affairs. Abbas, as head of the PLO, is agreeing to admit unrepentant terrorists into that organization. 2. There will be a meeting on restructuring the PLO in Cairo on February 18. 3. Abbas will head the "national consensus" government but his main job will be to set up the presidential and legislative elections. It is unclear if he will run for president - he had promised not to - and there are no credible Fatah candidates for that position, so chances are very good that Hamas will win. 4. Some more committees to address detainees, passports, travel between the West Bank and Gaza, and other provisions of the agreement last May that were never implemented despite dozens of meetings. 5. Starting work on taking the Central Election Commission out of mothballs. The implication is that the promised May elections will be delayed. Hamas was against Abbas being the prime minister but relented under pressure from Qatar. Chances are that there was some unreported detail about the PLO restructuring that favors Hamas. Fayyad said he welcomed the announcement. Meanwhile, Gazans are complaining that they still cannot get passports, even after officials claimed that problem was solved. 
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| Simpsons products banned in Iran! Posted: 06 Feb 2012 02:40 AM PST What would Bart say? An Iranian government-affiliated agency has banned dolls of the Simpsons cartoon characters, who join Barbie and others on a toy blacklist, an independent newspaper reported on Monday.
The report said that the Simpsons were banned to avoid the promotion of Western culture. But Superman and Spiderman were allowed, because they helped the "oppressed."
"We do not want to promote this cartoon by importing the toys," Shargh daily quoted Mohammad Hossein Farjoo, secretary of policymaking at the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, as saying.
He did not elaborate on what was wrong with the Simpsons specifically. But he noted that any doll on which genitals are distinguishable, as well as dolls of adults, are banned. So were toys with speakers that blare out the voices of Western singers, or toy kitchen sets that include glasses for drinking alcoholic beverages.
Farjoo said however that dolls of Spiderman and Superman were authorized for sale. "They help oppressed people and they have a positive stance," he said.
The agency is the same that called Barbie dolls a "Trojan horse" in 1996. In January, police said they closed down dozens of toy shops for selling Barbies.  
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