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| Please take a moment to visit and log in at the subscriber area, and submit your city & country location. We will use this information in future to invite you to any events that we organize in your area. Why Chris Christie Will Never Be President of the United Statesby Daniel Pipes
http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2011/08/why-chris-christie-will-never-be-president
Chris Christie, the New Jersey governor since 2010, has qualities and achievements that appeal to mainstream conservatives, from his direct style to his impressive budget cutting. As a result, he has won impressive support to run as a Republican candidate for president of the United States.
But Christie has an Achilles Heel that gives one pause. He came under criticism from fellow conservatives for nominating Sohail Mohammed, an Islamist who aspires to apply Islamic law, the Shari'a, as a state superior court judge; for an outline of these concerns, see the Investigative Project on Terrorism, "Gov. Christie's Strange Relationship with Radical Islam." In response, Christie delivered a tirade on July 26, 2011, on the topic of Shari'a: Sharia law has nothing to do with this [i.e., the appointment of Sohail Mohammed] at all. It's crazy. It's crazy. … So, this Sharia law business is crap. It's just crazy. And I'm tired of dealing with the crazies. I mean, you know, it's just unnecessary to be accusing this guy of things just because of his religious background. [Excerpt from 2:43 on the video.] Comments: (1) These are fighting words against fellow conservatives that will not soon be forgotten: "this Sharia law business is crap. It's just crazy. And I'm tired of dealing with the crazies." (2) Calling critics of Mohammed "crazies" who are "accusing this guy of things just because of his religious background" reveals Christie to be a headstrong ignoramus; the IPT report on Mohammed is not about religious background but political activities. (3) Contrarily, Christie won the hearty endorsement today of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, whose New Jersey branch issued a statement thanking him, applauding him, and urging a note of gratitude be sent him via the "Contact Us" page at the governor's website. (4) Not a bad idea to contact Christie: if you live in New Jersey and wish to register your displeasure, go to http://www.state.nj.us/governor/contact/. (5) Although still a small issue, Shari'a has grown very fast since 9/11 as a concern to Americans and should continue to do so for many years and decades to come. (6) Conceivably, Christie could apologize for these remarks and undo much of the damage he's done himself. But, given his public persona, I doubt this will happen. (7) Therefore, I predict that Christie's unremitting Grover Norquist-like friendly attitude toward Islamists will turn conservatives against him and sink his possible candidacy of his for higher office. (August 5, 2011) Aug. 6, 2011 update: For a substantial reply to Christie's rant, answering him point by point, see the excellent 2,500-word analysis by Andrew C. McCarthy, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute. Excerpts from his article, "Christie's 'Crazies': Sharia is not a figment of our imagination": sharia concerns can't be dismissed as "crap." They help us sort out the pro-American Muslims we want to empower from the Islamists. When we dismiss these concerns, we end up building bridges to all the wrong people, as government has done, to its repeated embarrassment, for two decades. That is how we end up "partnering" with the likes of Abdurrahman Alamoudi and Sami al-Arian (both ultimately convicted, with their ties to terrorism duly exposed); Salam al-Marayati, the Muslim Public Affairs Committee leader who argued that Israel should be at the top of the 9/11 suspect list; and such Islamist organizations as CAIR and the Islamic Society of North America, which, though not indicted, were shown by the Justice Department to be co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism-financing case. Governor Christie would have you believe opposition to Mr. Mohammed was sheer bigotry: "It's just unnecessary to be accusing this guy of things just because of his religious background," he railed to reporters. It's a narrative Christie fans would like to help cement. It's not true. For the record, Sohail Mohammed is not just an attorney. He served as a board member for an Islamist organization, the American Muslim Union. McCarthy concludes: The questions about Governor Christie's appointment of Sohail Mohammed and his exertions on behalf of Mohammed's client, Mohammed Qatanani, have nothing to do with either sharia or the all-purpose smear of Islamophobia. They are about the governor's judgment. They are about a U.S. attorney with political ambitions pandering to a politically active constituency at the expense of national security and enforcement of the immigration laws. They are about his decision to award a state judgeship to an attorney who was an active and vocal board member of a very troubling Islamist organization — and who has a penchant for presuming that perfectly valid anti-terror prosecutions are, instead, anti-Muslim persecutions. Those questions are not answered by bluster. Related Topics: Islamic law (Shari'a), Muslims in the United States This text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral whole with complete information provided about its author, date, place of publication, and original URL. Declaring a Palestinian State, Yet Againby Daniel Pipes
http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2011/08/palestinian-state-yet-again
The Palestinian Authority's push to declare a Palestinian state is hardly a new idea. By my count, this is the fourth iteration. I described the first instance as follows: on October 1, 1948, Amin al-Husayni, the mufti of Jerusalem, stood before the Palestine National Council in Gaza and declared the existence of the All-Palestine Government (Hukumat 'Umum Filastin). In theory, this "state" already ruled Gaza and would soon control all of Palestine. Accordingly, it was born to lofty proclamations of Palestine's free, democratic, and sovereign nature, and with a full complement of ministers. But the whole undertaking was a sham, for Gaza was run by the Egyptian government of King Faruq, the ministers had nothing to do, and the All-Palestine Government never expanded to all of Palestine. Instead, this state quickly withered into insignificance, and for the next two decades, the goal of a Palestinian state virtually disappeared. And then: Almost exactly forty years after the first proclamation of a Palestinian state, a second one took place on November 15, 1988, again before a meeting of the Palestine National Council. This time, Yasir 'Arafat, head of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), declared the existence of a State of Palestine. In some ways, this exercise was even more futile than the first, for the new state was proclaimed in Algiers, almost 2,000 miles and four borders away from Palestine; this state controlled not an inch of the territory it claimed; and this one faced a powerful Israeli adversary. Those two instances are ancient history but the third attempt, in 1999, uncannily resembled today's situation. As I noted at the time: When a state is declared, the results will be severely adverse for Palestinians and Israelis alike. This flagrant breach of the Oslo accords will cause economic relations to diminish further and violence to increase. … The United States and Israel are more important in this case, as in so many others, than the other 180 nations. I hope they will not just refuse to recognize the Palestinian state by make it very clear to Arafat and the Palestinian Authority that a unilateral declaration will be costly to the Palestinians. Continued negotiations are the sensible alternative to a unilateral declaration of independence. The issues are difficult and the process protracted; there can be no arbitrary date for the conclusion of negotiations, for this merely invites Palestinian procrastination. For negotiations to succeed, the process must go on until its natural conclusion. And now September 2011. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. (August 3, 2011) Related Topics: Arab-Israel conflict & diplomacy, History This text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral whole with complete information provided about its author, date, place of publication, and original URL. | |||||||||
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