Disappointed

Feb. 22, 2007 | The Pedestal Magazine

Dec. 22, 2006

Dear John–

I’m disappointed with TPM‘s interview of Naomi Shihab Nye, who on the one hand claims to have a secular Muslim father, a former Lutheran mother (both “ecumenical, open-minded people”) and to be herself “[r]especting all paths, rejecting fundamentalism of all stripes,” while on the other hand, in her previous thought, demonstrating Orthodox Palestinianism, a late 20th and 21st Century fundamentalism, which blames the Jewish people for daring to have their own state, and denies them the same right of self-determination and nationhood allowed and encouraged for every other people under the sun.

Palestinianism is neither secular, nor humanist. Ms. Nye calls for “mutual respect, autonomy and self-determination, for the Israeli and the Palestinian people…” Yet she also claims (falsely) that these have never been granted to Palestinians—and that the only way Palestinians can achieve such autonomy is by denying the same to the Jewish people.

The Palestinian Authority has for the better part of 13 years autonomously controlled the disputed territories—aka the West Bank and Gaza. The PA constitution [here, in Arabic] seeks to impose radical Islam and Shari’a law. Since 1993, moreover, PA leaders have wrought destruction—democratic, economic, educational and social—of Palestinian Arab potential to live peacefully and prosper. The PA has allowed Muslim terror to destroy the local Christian community: the PA Christian population, (20 percent after World War II), has plunged since 1993 to less than 1.7 percent.

Since 1967, Israel had built schools, universities, hospitals, water and electrical systems in those territories, in addition to covering health care for Palestinian Arabs. But since the Oslo Accords, Palestinian leadership invested foreign aid of at least $100 billion in arms, terror, graft and corruption, while filling the Swiss, private bank coffers of Yasser Arafat (and undoubtedly, many other Fatah leaders). Despite long pretense of enmity, the Fatah “political party” shares basic goals, and has cooperated completely, with Hamas since at least 1995. In addition to Fatah’s own terror campaign, Arafat’s “moderates” condone and support Hamas terror attacks on Jews and Israel, despite Oslo’s prohibitions against them.

Finally, 96% of the security “Wall” for which Ms. Nye blames Israel is a fence. Sadly, this has caused economic harm to Arabs on its eastern side. Happily, the fence has reduced by more than 75% the number of suicide bombings, shooting attacks, and other attempted terror targeting Jews and Arabs in Jerusalem and within Israel’s Green Line. That was the fence’s sole purpose. Palestinian Arabs can only blame themselves for the fence. But for their determination to destroy Jews and replace Israel with an Islamic Shari’a state “from the river to the sea,” the fence would have been unnecessary.

Even the politically correct mainstream media admit that Hamas seeks to destroy Israel. Mistakenly, they also regard Yasser Arafat’s Fatah “political party,” now headed by Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), as “moderate.” However, several articles of Fatah’s 1964 PLO Charter, rewritten in 1968, still incite Israel’s annihilation. Article 15, for example, invokes “liberation of Palestine” as a “national duty to repulse the Zionist…invasion from the great Arab homeland and to purge the Zionist presence….” That is, ethnic cleansing—or genocide.

The PLO never revised its Charter to recognize Israel, as Oslo required, according to former PA foreign minister Farouk Kadoumi (and many others). Moreover, Fatah developed its “staged plan” to conquer Israel in the mid 1970s. As Faysal al-Husseini admitted in 2001, PA “acceptance” of Oslo was all part of this long-planned Palestinian subterfuge. Again, contrary to Ms. Nye’s argument, Palestinians did have autonomy—which they used not as the intended precursor to their own state, but to sow terror and destruction.

Ms. Nye’s name recognition does not confer “secular humanist” sainthood upon her. On the contrary, she is a fundamentalist, who (inadvertently, or not) supports Shari’a (Islamic law) in the disputed territories—and by endorsing the “one state” theology (without objection to the above-cited PA government plans), apparently in Israel as well. For a true secular humanist, please interview the courageous Wafa Sultan.

Best regards–
Alyssa A. Lappen

All Articles, Poems & Commentaries Copyright © 1971-2021 Alyssa A. Lappen
All Rights Reserved.
Printing is allowed for personal use only | Commercial usage (For Profit) is a copyright violation and written permission must be granted first.

The Militarization of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood

by Patrick Poole
American Thinker | Feb. 13, 2007

In late October, a series of exchanges here at American Thinker debated the extremism or moderation of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, the largest and oldest Islamist organization in the world and the de facto political opposition party in Egypt. Events a few weeks later in Cairo rendered much of that discussion moot.

The exchange was initiated by Alyssa Lappen’s article “Islam’s Useful Idiots”, which challenged the foreign policy realist view that the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt are political moderates and are committed to political reform in Egypt through peaceful means, notwithstanding their sometime-violent rhetoric and long history of using and supporting terrorism. In particular, Ms. Lappen took issue with statements delivered at a recent forum hosted by the NYU School of Law, where panelists represented the Muslim Brotherhood as “reformist” and “progressive”, and therefore, no threat to democracy in Egypt and a potential partner for peace for the US.

Later that week, Ms. Lappen’s article prompted strong responses from Nick Fielding and Alexis Debat – both of whom were panelists at the NYU forum noted by Lappen. Both accused her of misrepresenting their comments at that forum and reiterated that the Muslim Brotherhood was nothing to fear. In the spirit of fair debate, The American Thinker included detailed responses by Ms. Lappen to Fielding and Debat’s accusations.

In December, however, a militarized parade of Muslim Brotherhood youth cadres demonstrated with sticks, chains and martial arts displays at Cairo’s Al-Ahzar University, the most historic Islamic academic institution and one of the largest universities in the world, effectively putting the lie to contentions that the Muslim Brotherhood intends to pursue its goal of imposing shari’a law and instituting an Islamic government in Egypt through non-violent means (an almost ridiculous proposition on its face). Continue reading “The Militarization of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood” →

Response and rebuttal 2

AmericanThinker.com | October 26, 2006

AT has received yet another letter of complaint regarding Alyssa Lappen’s article “Islam’s Useful Idiots”, published on October 23, from one of the speakers at the meeting on which she reported and commented. Here follows the letter from Nick Fielding, formerly of the UK Sunday Times, and Ms Lappen’s response. Continue reading “Response and rebuttal 2” →

Rebuttal and response

AmericanThinker.com | October 25, 2006 [updated Sept. 26, 2007]
[Debat’s frequent misrepresentations have since been widely exposed. On Sept. 15, 2007 The New York Times reported that Debat never received a Ph.D., as he has long claimed.
Terror expert Jean Charles Brisard emailed on Sept. 26, 2007, that Agence France Presse had correctly reported in 2002, the Ministry never employed Debat in any capacity. Mother Jones elaborated at length on Debat’s frequent lies. Disgraced, he was forced to resign from his senior fellowship the Nixon Center, and was fired by ABC News. As of today, he has reportedly fled to the Dominican Republic, to avoid a civil suit in France, and ABC News’ pending case against him for fraud in the U.S. See also here and here and here.]
———————————————-
We received a rebuttal from Alexis Y. Debat to Alyssa Lappen’s article “Islam’s Useful Idiots”, published here two days ago. The rebuttal is presented below, along with Ms. Lappen’s response. Continue reading “Rebuttal and response” →

Islam’s Useful Idiots

By Alyssa A. Lappen
AmericanThinker.com | October 23, 2006

The international press cried foul on October 19 after the U.S. denied a visa to a senior Muslim Brotherhood leader. Newsweek, Reuters, ABC News, The National Interest and other media complained that the ‘moderate’ Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) founder Kamal Helbawy was barred from appearing at New York University’s Center for Law and Security. The U.S. also barred entry to Egyptian doctor and MB ‘guidance counsel’ Abd El Monem Abo El Fotouh, who was scheduled to speak in the same discussion on the Muslim Brotherhood.

Helbawy claims to be ‘moderate.’ The U.S. should not prevent ‘moderates from talking and discussing,’ Helbawy stated after being pulled off his flight. El Fotouh is purportedly also temperate.

‘At the end of the day, [Islam and the West] have a set of common humanist values: justice, freedom, human rights and democracy,’

he told The Economist in September 2003. Arabists consider El Fotouh ‘one of the brightest stars‘ of the MB’s so-called ‘middle generation.’

The Department of Homeland Security didn’t explain their actions. One can only surmise–and applaud. Consider:

In 2005, Prime Minister Tony Blair denounced suicide bombings everywhere–even in Israel. ‘Well he is wrong,’ Helbawy replied. ‘He is not a Mufti,’ he told the Jamestown Foundation. In the same interview, Helbawy blamed ‘[T]he events in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine’ as ‘a factor’ behind the July 7, 2005 London bombing—along with U.K. participation in Iraq and its ‘policy toward the issue of Palestine.’

‘[T]he United States … invaded Iraq to divide Muslims,’ El Fotouh told the New York Times on August 3, 2006. It was ‘better to support a Hezbollah-Iranian agenda than an ‘American-Zionist’ one,’ he added.

Islam’s war against Israel is not ‘a conflict of borders and land only. It is not even a conflict over human ideology and not over peace,’ Helbawy told a December 1992 Muslim Arab Youth Association gathering, taped by terror expert Steve Emerson. ‘[I]t is an absolute clash of civilizations, between truth and falsehood. Between two conducts–one satanic, headed by Jews and their co-conspirators–and the other is religious, carried by Hamas, and the Islamic movement in particular and the Islamic people….’ Muslims should never befriend ‘Jews and Christians,’ who are only ‘allies to each other,’ he warned.

Islamic scholars had performed their ‘basic religious duty‘ in calling on Muslims to join jihad against the U.S., El Fotouh stated in March 2003. Al Azhar had rightly urged them to ‘defend themselves and their faith’ against an ‘enemy’ stepping ‘on Muslims’ land’–which the scholars called ‘a new Crusader battle targeting our land, honour, faith and nation.’ Al Azhar’s decree, El Fotouh stated, was ‘no more than an attempt on the part of its scholars to fulfill their duty before God.’ The U.S. had ‘plans to enslave the Arab nation,’ he also claimed.

The New York Post, Counterterrorismblog.org and New York Sun likewise saw through the MB facade.

Although the Muslim Brotherhood describes itself as a political and social revolutionary organization, the group is widely (and correctly) recognized as the parent of most Islamic terror groups. Indeed, U.S. authorities most worry about the MB defense of ‘the use of violence against civilians,’ said security and terrorism adviser Juan Zarate recently.

Founded in March 1928 by Hassan al-Banna, the MB rejected the West and sought return to the ‘original Islam.’ Its philosophical and ideological ideas should cause even academics serious concern. The recently exposed 1982 ‘Muslim Brotherhood ‘Project’‘ orders members worldwide

‘To channel thought, education and action in order to establish an Islamic power [government] on the earth.’

Today, the MB still calls for ‘Building the Muslim state…Building the Khilafa…Mastering the world with Islam.’

MB spiritual leader Yusuf Qaradawi, an Egyptian member of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, likewise calls for an Islamic conquest of Europe (starting with Rome and Italy). ‘[T]he patch of the Muslim state will expand to cover the whole earth….,’ he writes. Qaradawi also praises suicide bombing, readily accepts wife beating and calls upon Muslim women to detonate themselves in order to kill Jews.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, on Oct. 19, the Open Forum on The Muslim Brotherhood nevertheless praised Helbawy and El Fotouh as peaceful moderates, and their organization as a peaceful, just, and moderating influence on Middle East and global politics. Their absence was yet another strike against the Bush administration, executive director Karen Greenberg stated. ‘This center tries to educate one another, policy makers and the public,’ she added–a job Greenberg apparently considers more important than public security.

Former Sunday Times senior reporter Nick Fielding then took the floor. He denied the risks the MB poses to the West. Helbawy is ‘a wonderful human being,’ he stated, adding that the 2005 election of 22 Muslim Brothers to Egypt’s parliament–and the Hamas victory in the January 2006 Palestinian Authority vote–were cause for celebration. Fielding objected only to ‘the reward’ Muslims received for their free elections–‘the silence of the U.S. State Department in the face of Egyptian government abuse,’ and the U.S. and international boycott of the Hamas-controlled PA.

The MB is ‘reformist,’ according to Fielding. It provides ‘the best possibility in the Middle East of leaders who can make deals and stick to them,’ he stated, noting their solid political backing in Jordan, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria Kuwait and Yemen. The MB, he insisted, has ‘for the past 30 years…[consistently] followed a non violent’ path. The brotherhood’s only problem, Fielding claimed, is its ostracization by such analysts as ‘The Counterterrorism blog,’ whose data he derided.

True democracy would never take root in the Middle East, Fielding predicted. It’s ‘about as likely as Shari’a being adopted in Washington D.C.,’ he joked.

Despite Islam’s inherently political nature–‘Muslims want Islam to be a central part of life,’ Fielding stated–he dismissed concerns over calls for a global Islamic caliphate. ‘We shouldn’t terrify ourselves with this rather silly point,’ he said. ‘Refusing to recognize state Shar’ia law in Islamic [nations]’ is what has caused intensifying radicalism. ‘Countering the spread of jihadist organizations’ requires that the West ‘address the grievances–many of them legitimate–of the jihadist movement,’ Fielding concluded.

Sharing Fielding’s view is Nixon Center Senior Fellow and ABC news consultant Alexis Debat–a former adviser to the French transatlantic defense minister. [for new data on Debat’s credibility, 9/15/2007, see here and here] ‘Let’s stop hyperventilating about the Muslim Brotherhood,’ he said. ‘I hear the same things in a church as I hear in a mosque.’ Debat concluded, ‘Islam is a source of enlightenment.’

Debat also recognized Islam’s centrality–as both the Middle East’s ‘primary source of political action’ and ‘universal’–that is, encompassing every aspect of life. ‘We don’t know where it starts and where it ends,’ he observed. Strangely, however, Debat denied that the Muslim Brotherhood is ‘religious.’ It’s chiefly a ‘political movement, not a party,’–a ‘liberation’ movement. He admired the group’s ‘highly pragmatic’ approach to becoming ‘the leader in Egypt.’

Islamist cleric Yusuf Qaradawi, Debat allowed, ‘is the single most influential Islamic thinker today.’ He did not condemn Qaradawi’s views. Almost without missing a beat, Debat maintained that the Muslim Brotherhood is a ‘progressive’ movement, whose ultimate goal ‘is a better, more just society.’ He added, ‘Social justice is the cornerstone of Islam.’

Regarding the MB vision of a global Islamic caliphate, Debat insisted this ‘is completely absent from Muslim Brotherhood rhetoric,’ even that of Qaradawi.

‘I guarantee you that no serious official of the Egyptian ikhwan today would even mention the Caliphate as a program,’

he reiterated in a follow–up email, neglecting the worldwide Brotherhood, which claims membership in more than 70 countries.

Despite his assurances, Debat opened with a troubling disclaimer: He admitted ‘failing to understand the Middle East.’ His five-year ‘journey to understand the Muslim Brotherhood … will be lifelong,’ Debat stated. And ‘there’s a limit to what we [Westerners] can understand about the Middle East,’ he said.

Thank goodness Homeland Security does not take advice from those who admit their failure to understand the Middle East, believe Westerners incapable of comprehending it–and with such an obvious disregard for established facts.

Alyssa A. Lappen is a poet, Senior Fellow at the American Center for Democracy, and an occasional contributor to American Thinker.

Care International and misinformation

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Washington Times | October 20, 2006

One must read Susan Estrich and Harvey Silverglate’s letter in response to our Monday Op-Ed as being a product of their duty as attorneys to zealously advocate for their client, Emadeddin Z. Muntasser (“Financing jihad: did he or didn’t he?” Wednesday). They incorrectly accuse us of having “uncritically lifted” our arguments “out of the Department of Justice playbook” and accepting the U.S. government’s “deeply flawed misunderstanding of…fundamental Islamic principles,” but the narrow advocate’s view they themselves take ignores important aspects of those fundamental principles and betrays their own limited understanding.

Ms. Estrich and Mr. Silverglate contradict themselves. Their letter argues that jihad means “‘utmost effort’ or ‘struggle’ to promote and defend Islam.” Yet, in their motion to dismiss the federal indictment against Emadeddin Z. Muntasser and Muhamed Mubayyid, former directors of Boston’s Care International, they specifically reference certain warlike aspects of jihad. They (and their legal team) write, “the giving of zakat (alms) is required of all Muslims as one of the five pillars of Islam, and the Koran is commonly (but not universally) interpreted to include the mujahideen as one of the eight recipients of zakat.”

The Islamic religious obligation to conduct jihad is universally recognized. The authoritative 19th-century Dictionary of Islam, [available online, p. 243] defines jihad, as “The duty of religious war (…a duty extending to all time) [which] is laid down in the Qur’an.” Continue reading “Care International and misinformation” →