In this mailing:
- Soeren Kern: Italy: "Mosques Springing Up like Mushrooms"
- Guy Millière: Jihad in France Just Beginning
- Shoshana Bryen: "Targeted Assassination" by the U.S. Security Establishment?
- Mohshin Habib: J.F.R. Jacob: A Man of Honor for Bangladesh
Italy: "Mosques Springing Up like Mushrooms"
by Soeren Kern
April 2, 2012 at 5:00 am
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/2984/italy-mosques
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Donors are using alternative channels to ensure that their donations escape the control of the regular financial system.
More than 250 mosques across Italy have reached an agreement to create a new umbrella organization, the Italian Islamic Confederation (CII).
The CII will be controlled by Morocco, and will compete with an existing Muslim umbrella organization, the Union of Islamic Communities and Organizations in Italy (UCOII).
The UCOII, which is estimated to control 60% of the mosques in Italy, is closely tied to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Since its founding in 1990, the UCOII has used its virtual monopoly over the mosques in Italy to spread its Islamist ideology over the 1.5 million Muslims in the country. The UCOII has also worked to become the main interlocutor between the Muslim community and the Italian state.
But the Italian government has ruled out reaching an agreement with the UCOII because of its links to the Muslim Brotherhood. "There can be no accords with those like the UCOII, who de facto deny the existence of the state of Israel and hold ambiguous positions on terrorism at the national and local level," according to Andrea Ronchi, Italy's former Minister for Community Policy.
After it came to light that the majority of the mosques in Italy are controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood, Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni called for a moratorium on the building of new mosques until a new national law could be written to regulate the phenomenon.
According to Manes Bernardini, a politician with the Northern League in Bologna, "Mosques are springing up like mushrooms, and mayors can do nothing about it because there is no national law to regulate the proliferation of these structures."
In this context, the creation of the CII on March 22 is an attempt by the Moroccan government to establish a new Muslim umbrella organization that would represent a more "moderate" face of Islam vis-à-vis the Italian government.
CII's founding document states that it "respects the holiness of life" and "rejects every form of violence." The document also says the CII "respects the principles of moderation, tolerance and respect towards others," and will "promote and defend the rights of Muslim women in Italy."
The primary motive behind the creation of the CII, which is being run by a Moroccan named Fihri Wahid, appears to be an effort to persuade the Italian government to approve and subsidize the construction of more mosques in the country. CII's founding document states: "Creating the best conditions in order to guarantee dignity and freedom of worship, underlining the importance that places of worship reflect the creative genius and the splendor of Italian culture towards the prospect of integration and dialogue with the other religions present in the country."
According to Hassan Abouyoub, the Moroccan Ambassador to Italy, the establishment of the CII is "an historic achievement. It will finally allow the Muslim population in Italy to have a new voice." Abouyoub added: "The mosques which are taking part in this new confederation are only of the Maliki tradition, which respect a moderate Islam."
The Maliki tradition refers to a school of Islamic Sharia law that is practiced in Morocco and other parts of North Africa. In fact, the "moderate" Maliki school of Islam is the official state religion in Morocco, where Christians are frequently harassed and often expelled from the country without due process, allegedly for proselytizing.
With the creation of the CII, Morocco is attempting to export to Italy a religious control strategy that is working very well in neighboring Spain, where the Moroccan government has been using an umbrella organization called the Spanish Federation of Islamic Religious Entities (FEERI), to exert control over the religious and cultural beliefs and practices of the nearly one million Moroccan immigrants who reside in Spain.
According to a leaked secret report prepared by Spain's National Intelligence Center (CNI), excerpts of which have been published by the Madrid-based El País newspaper, the Moroccan government is aggressively implementing "a strategy of great magnitude" that involves establishing a parallel Muslim society in Spain by discouraging Moroccans from integrating into their host country, and by encouraging them instead to live an Islamic lifestyle isolated from Spanish society.
The document also states that Rabat is financing the construction of hundreds of mosques in Spain whose imams are directly appointed by the Moroccan government. Moreover, the North African country is attempting to impose Muslim religious instruction in Spanish public schools, and is pressuring Moroccan families to remove their children from those schools that fail to comply.
A separate CNI report about financing Jihad in Spain provides other examples of how the Moroccan government is using Islam for political ends. For example, in November 2008, "the Moroccan Minister of Islamic Affairs organized and paid for a meeting in Marrakesh which was attended by a considerable number of imams and leaders of the Islamic communities in Spain," according to the CNI.
At that meeting, the Moroccan government promised "financing for all religious associations and mosques that are prepared to submit to the control of the [Moroccan] regime and to adhere to its instructions." The keynote speaker at the meeting was Mohamed Yassine Mansouri, head of the Moroccan Secret Service (DGED).
The CNI report also states: "The financing is having negative consequences for [multicultural] coexistence in Spain, such as the emergence of parallel societies and ghettos, Islamic courts and police that operate outside of Spanish jurisprudence, removing girls from schools, forced marriages, etc."
It continues: "There is insufficient control of financial flows involving grants and aid from other countries that are being funneled to the Islamic community in Spain. For the most part donors are using alternative channels to ensure that their donations escape the control of the regular Spanish financial system. Donors should be made fully aware of the risks associated with such financing."
Morocco also co-sponsored a weeklong seminar in Barcelona entitled "Muslims and European Values," during which it was proposed that the construction of big mosques would be "a useful formula" to fight Islamic fundamentalism in Spain.
A keynote speaker at the event, a Barcelona-based Moroccan imam named Noureddine Ziani, said it is absolutely necessary to accept Islamic values as European values and that from now on, Europeans should replace the term "Judeo-Christian" with term "Islamo-Christian" when describing Western Civilization.
Back in Italy, there are now an estimated 500 mosques in the country, in addition to thousands of informal Islamic prayer centers and Koranic schools, most of which are housed in basements, garages and warehouses.
Many of the mosque projects in Italy are being promoted by leftwing politicians, who are waging an ideological war with the Roman Catholic Church. As in many other European countries, multiculturalists in Italy hope that by promoting Islam, they will eventually succeed in destroying the country's Judeo-Christian heritage.
Now, with the creation of the CII, Italy may be one step closer to hosting yet another mosque, this time in the northern Italian city of Bologna.
Not coincidentally, Fihri Wahid, the new president of the CII, comes from the Moroccan community in Bologna, where the mayor postponed the construction of a mega-mosque (described as a "massive 6,000 square meter mosque inside a 52,000 square meter Islamic citadel" after it emerged that it was being financed by the UCOII.
Evidently, the Moroccans are hoping they can get permission to build the mega-mosque if it is sponsored by the new, more "moderate" CII.
Soeren Kern is Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook.
Related Topics: Soeren Kern
Jihad in France Just Beginning
by Guy Millière
April 2, 2012 at 4:30 am
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/2985/jihad-in-france
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The Obin Report showed a deep infiltration by radical Islam into the vast majority of French schools and a vitriolic hatred for Jews. What the Report showed was so alarming that the text was not initially disclosed. Nobody dares to say that more than thirty mosques all over the country broadcast incendiary remarks that have « nothing to do with the teachings of Islam, » and that the same remarks are received daily on television by tens of thousands of Muslims in France through the Arabic version of Al Jazeera.
The Congress of the French branch of the Muslim Brotherhood (UOIF) will take place in the city of Le Bourget, near Paris, from April 6-9. Over 100,000 participants are expected. Six anti-Semitic Islamic preachers who were invited to speak were denied entry into France. Other anti-Semitic Islamic preachers will speak anyway ; they are French, they cannot be expelled. They will not be condemned. The French government knows that if it condemned them, it might be confronted by riots in many suburbs. Every year, openly anti-Semitic books are on sale at the Congress of the UOIF, among them the fabricated « Protocols of the Elders of Zion. » This year will be no different.
Several radical Islamist organizations openly advocate -- without interference -- jihad on French territory. One of them, Forsane Alizza (Pride Riders), was banned by the French government at the end of February : it had started to form fighters on French soil. Although officially the organization disappeared, its members are still active. Eighteen of them were arrested on March 30 ; they will probably soon be released.
Also, as it is now widely known, on March 19, a man entered a Jewish school, Ozar Hatora, in Toulouse, France, where he killed a rabbi, his two children, then an eight years old little girl by shooting her three times in the head after dragging her by the hair to place her in front of the camera he was carrying. These were the worst anti-Semitic acts committed on French soil since the three-week kidnapping, torture and murder of Ilan Halimi in February 2006.
After the murders in Toulouse, like commentators and so many other people, the police initially followed the trail of the « extreme right. » A mobilization across the country was to be expected. The mobilization started quickly.
It was soon revealed that the killer who had just shot four Jews was the same man who had murdered three French soldiers, including two Muslims, the week before. All the commentators ferociously incriminated the « far right.» Anti-racist associations issued statements denouncing « fascist barbarity raising its ugly head again ».
It then emerged that the man was a French Muslim who had traveled to the mountains of Afghanistan in to train for jihad, Islamic holy war. The police found him, and shot him to death after a rough gunfight.
The mobilization ceased as rapidly as it had begun. Commentators no longer spoke of anti-Semitism. Anti-racist associations became silent. All attention focused on the killer, Mohamed Merah. He was presented as a « nice young man » by his neighbors, then as a « petty criminal » who inexplicably drifted, and finally as a « lone wolf » without any connection with terrorist movements.
It was gradually revealed that his older brother, Abdelkader, now in prison, had links with Islamists in Belgium and the United Kingdom, and organized networks helping young French Muslims join jihadi organizations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
It appeared that the killer, Mohamed Merah had been imprisoned in Afghanistan for planting bombs in Kandahar, and had been placed on the list of dangerous people to be monitored closely by the security services of the United States.
It also appeared that he was under the supervision of the French Department of the Interior, a circumstance that did not prevent him from obtaining an impressive arsenal, and killing several times without arousing immediate suspicions.
More information will emerge. The French mainstream media will reveal it, with obvious reluctance. Every time journalists speak or write about the case, they constantly point out that Mohamed Merah is « not really a Muslim, » and that no one should forget that Islam is a « religion of peace ».
Anti-racist associations have broken their silence and call for vigilance against « racism » in general, and against the risk of « divisions ».
Nicolas Sarkozy has promised sanctions against French youths who go train in jihadi camps and those who visit websites praising jihad. Consequently, Sarkozy was immediately described by almost all other political leaders as a dangerous man.
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Graffiti praising Merah on the wall of a French house: "You were a valiant Knight of Islam! You fought the shit zionist and the false muslims. You died guns in hand... I salute you Mohamed my brother, my friend... Rest in peace !" |
The worst anti-Semitic crime committed on French soil for decades is no longer described as an anti-Semitic crime by anyone, except Jews, and even Jews choose their words carefully. Now the Jewish school that was attacked as well as other Jewish schools in France are receiving threatening emails, according to Agence France-Presse, Jewish cemeteries are being vandalized in Paris and Nice, and graffiti praising Merah has been appearing over the walls of homes.The assassin has justified his act by invoking the « suffering of Gaza's children, » a suffering described by a growing number of journalists as a « mitigating circumstance ». When Richard Prasquier, president of CRIF (Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France) wanted to say during a newscast that media should cease showing distorted images inciting hatred of Israel, the anchor immediately stopped him, saying, « This is a moment of meditation, not controversy. »
The point that the murderer is a young French Muslim who turned to radical Islam and killed Jewish children only because they were Jewish is no longer evoked. The only risk mentioned constantly on television, in newspapers, and in most political discourse is that fear could push people to « stigmatize Muslims, » who run « the risk of being discriminated against.» « The killer, » said Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the Great Mosque of Paris, « has nothing to do with the teachings of Islam. »
Nobody dares to say that dozens of young French Muslims go every year to jihadi training camps and follow exactly the same course as Mohamed Merah. How many of them are likely to act at one time or another?
Nobody dares to say that more than thirty mosques all over the country broadcast incendiary remarks which, according to Boubakeur, have « nothing to do with the teachings of Islam, » and that the same remarks are received daily on television by tens of thousands of Muslims in France through the Arabic version of Al Jazeera. How many Muslims are being indoctrinated with the same ideas as Mohamed Merah and will start to share his hatred of Jews and the West ?
According to the National Bureau of Vigilance against Anti-Semitism (BNVCA), nearly four hundred physical attacks against Jews occurred in France in 2011 -- more than one a day. Moreover, Sammy Ghozlan, President of BNVCA, states that the number of attacks that have not been the subject of legal complaints is much higher.
All the attacks recorded by BNVCA were committed by Muslims. Not one was due to a member of a far-right movement. French laws forbid publicly declaring who exactly assaults Jews on French soil; those who do risk heavy fines and prosecution.
In 2004, the government commissioned a report, called the Obin Report, on « the Signs and Manifestations of Religious Affiliation in Educational Establishments. » The Obin Report showed a deep infiltration by radical Islam into the vast majority of French schools, and a vitriolic hatred for Jews. What it described was so alarming that the text was not initially disclosed. As nothing was done to protest what the report showed, one can deduce that eight years later, the situation has not improved. Jewish families withdraw their children from public schools to place them in Jewish private schools, where they become potential targets of Islamic extremists. Each year, however, two thousand Jews leave France to settle in Israel, sometimes in Canada or the United States.
Jews in France number five hundred thousand, and that number is decreasing. Muslims total more than six million, and for the most part, they are French citizens who exercise their voting rights.
The question is not whether there will be another anti-Semitic murder in France, but rather, When ? Jihad in France is just beginning.
Related Topics: Guy Millière
"Targeted Assassination" by the U.S. Security Establishment?
by Shoshana Bryen
April 2, 2012 at 4:00 am
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/2986/targeted-assassination
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Why are Israel's limited choices for alliances ridiculed, while the administration insists that Hamid Karzai – and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Vladimir Putin, for that matter – are legitimate rulers because the President wants to work with them? "The [administration's] aims are… to make it more difficult for… the IDF to carry out a strike, and… to erode the IDF's capacity to launch such a strike with minimal casualties."
When President Obama wants to impress Jewish audiences, such as AIPAC, he frequently casts U.S.-Israel relations in a military context. How much military aid Israel receives (although he had nothing to do with the level; President Bush set the level in a 10-year deal), how many exercises the two militaries do together (the last one was canceled; previous ones were on a regular multi-year schedule); provision of the X-Band radar to Israel (done single-handedly by now-Sen. Mark Kirk during the Bush Administration) and missile defense cooperation (for which the Administration has reduced its financial request for 2013). Intelligence cooperation is assumed. "I've got Israel's back," he says.
But how good is the Obama administration on security for Israel? And how does that impact upon American security interests in the Middle East and Southwest Asia?
There have been a series of media reports recently suggesting that intelligence cooperation has been reduced, in part because of a "trust gap" that developed when Israel became concerned that the U.S. did not share Israel's sense of urgency on Iran. A visit to Israel by National Security Advisor Tom Donilon and Donilon's subsequent report to Capitol Hill did not help. Testimony by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff called Israel's strategic security choices "imprudent" – a line repeated and expanded upon by other American military officers, both active and retired.
Last week, a Foreign Policy article by Mark Perry shows American military intelligence officials and diplomats being snide, cutting and condescending – both toward Israel and toward Azerbaijan, a country that sits on Iran's border and has its own serious problems with the Iranian style of radicalism exported to it.
Perry makes several points, each of which, if your assumption was that the President stands behind Israel, raises eyebrows:
1. Israeli military cooperation with Azerbaijan "complicates U.S. efforts to dampen Israeli-Iranian tensions." When did "dampening tensions" become the goal of U.S. policy toward Iran? The President did not say he wanted to "dampen tensions;" he said a nuclear Iran is unacceptable to the United States. But if lowering the volume were the goal, there were two ways to go about it – one by reassuring Israel, the other by reassuring Iran. Exposing Israeli defense choices and publicly mocking its capabilities (see below) just reassures Iran. Why would this be the Administration's choice?
2. Israeli-Azeri cooperation requires that U.S. military planners "must now plan not only for a war scenario that includes the Persian Gulf – but one that could include the Caucasus." What is true for American military planners is equally true for the Iranians – and there is something to be said for making your adversary worry that there is more than one avenue of attack. Through America's obvious irritation with Israel and the exposure of Israeli assets in a third country, the administration is choosing to provide Iran with information it can use, to the detriment of Israel. Why would this be the Administration's choice?
3. The US finds surveillance of both our adversaries and our friends irritating. "We're watching what Iran does closely… but we are now watching what Israel is doing in Azerbaijan. And we are not happy about it." How Iran must appreciate the conflation of the two countries: an Israel that makes its patron America unhappy is a country that can be harassed, boycotted, and delegitimized with less fear of an American response than a country that believes its patron is also its friend – a friend that "has its back." Why would the Administration want to give Iran this impression?
4. The Iranians do not have to worry about Israel's refueling capability, which was described as "pretty minimal." Israel is also, according to "military planners," "just not very good at it." That is true mainly because Israel's enemies are so close, but if the U.S. can quash Israeli-Azeri military cooperation, the Iranians will not have much to fear from an Israeli air strike. Why would the administration want to reassure the Iranians on this point?
5. Turkey's irritation with the Israeli-Azeri relationship has the ear of American "senior officials." The Turkish government threw over a long and bilaterally beneficial relationship with Israel to polish its pro-Arab and pro-Islamist bona fides. Its Prime Minister is a booster of Hamas, does big business with Iran and has offered blood libel against the IDF. Turkey also has plans for regional hegemony in Central Asia, hence its irritation with Azerbaijan for daring to have a relationship with Israel. It is unclear from the article how the U.S. government responds to Turkey's concerns, but PM Erdogan appears to be President Obama's "go to guy" in the region and the President was fawning over him in Seoul last week. Does this suggest an answer at Israel's expense?
6. Azerbaijan is not a sovereign country; it is simply a puppet of whoever comes with the money. "The Israelis have bought an airfield, and the airfield is called Azerbaijan," according to a "senior administration official." Iran and Azerbaijan have serious border and ethnic issues, and it is much to Iran's benefit to find that the U.S. does not think much of its northern neighbor. While Azerbaijan is certainly not a paragon of democracy, neither should it be the object of derision because it turns to Israel for support. The U.S. is supporting a wide variety of less-than-adorable governments, including the one in Afghanistan – which we are supporting with American blood. Why are Israel's limited choices for alliances ridiculed, while the administration insists that Hamid Karzai – and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Vladimir Putin for that matter – are legitimate rulers because the President wants to work with them?
And finally, one the administration gets almost right.
7. "Israel's main goal is to preserve Azerbaijan as an ally against Iran, a platform for reconnaissance of that country and as a market for military hardware." Israel's main goal is delaying or ending Iran's march toward nuclear weapons capability. But when a small country finds itself snubbed, denigrated and sniffed at by the one country that should share its goals for a variety of philosophical, historical, governmental and military reasons, it needs to find other allies. Azerbaijan – and Greece and Cyprus, among others – shares Israel's fundamental concerns about Iran. Why does the administration find this both problematic and worthy of contempt?
The next time the President or the Secretary of State laud Israel as a friend, an ally and a partner, it is worth considering the conclusion of longtime Israeli defense analyst Ron Ben-Yishai:
In recent weeks the administration shifted from persuasion efforts vis-à-vis decision-makers and Israel's public opinion to a practical, targeted assassination of potential Israeli operations in Iran… The campaign's aims are fully operational: To make it more difficult for Israeli decision-makers to order the IDF to carry out a strike, and what's even graver, to erode the IDF's capacity to launch such strike with minimal casualties.
Yes, it is possible that the U.S. is playing "good cop/bad cop" with Israel, but what kind of ally does that?
Shoshana Bryen is Senior Director of The Jewish Policy Center. She was previously Senior Director for Security Policy at JINSA and author of JINSA Reports from 1995-2011.
Related Topics: Shoshana Bryen
J.F.R. Jacob: A Man of Honor for Bangladesh
by Mohshin Habib
April 2, 2012 at 3:15 am
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/2983/jfr-jacob-bangladesh
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If Jacob had not been there, history would have been different.
Among the foreign friends whom Bangladesh awarded last week on the occasion of the 41st anniversary of its independence, for their leading role in liberating it in 1971, was a Jew, an Indian top ranking military official, Lt. Gen (ret.) Jack Farj Rafael Jacob, whom Bangladesh considers one of the most important friends of the nation.
Jacob never asked for any award, and told reporters simply, "It is a great honor. I am honored." The progressive and informed part of the country do not believe it would been possible to have achieved independence in nine months of a bloody war against Pakistan's powerful military without his diligence. If Jacob had not there, history would have been different. Jacob is admired wholeheartedly.
During the War of Bangladesh Liberation, Jacob was a major general and Chief of Staff of the Eastern Command. He "became more than famous for his successful military strategy while he ignored the incorrect idea of his superiors, Lt. Gen. (Later Field Marshall) Sam Manekshaw and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Manekshaw ordered him to capture part of what is of now Bangladesh, but not Dhaka, its capital. Jacob, however, concentrated on capturing the provincial city, Dhaka, then Decca. A cease-fire arrangement had nearly been conceded by both militaries, when, on December 16, Jacob forced Pakistani Army commander Lt. General A. A. K. Niazi to surrender in East Pakistan. Under his command, Major General (later Lt. General) Nagra rushed to arrive the enemy base. Jacob has written two books: Surrender at Dacca: Birth of a Nation, and An Odyssey in War and Peace.
Jacob was born in 1923 in Kolkatta, India. His family had moved from Iraq to India in the middle of the 18th century, when there was trend of Jewish families from what are now Iraq, Syria, Jordan to migrate to India, and why the Indian Jew community is known as Baghdadi Jews. Later, a large part of the Baghdadi Jews left for what is now Israel, a legitimate enclave for people who over the centuries had been dispersed from that land by force.
As a Major in Burma, Jacob met the famous General, Orde Wingate, who became morally a Zionist. Jacob served as governor of the province of Goa, and subsequently became the governor of the very sensitive state of Punjab. Since the establishment of diplomatic relations between India and Israel, the outspoken J.F.R. Jacob became strongest thread of the friendship between the two nations. He promotes the idea of dealing in arms, technology and cooperation in various fields such as agriculture and research.
The legendary general's health is failing; he may soon breathe his last, but he will ever remain an important part of the birth of a nation, Bangladesh. The people of Bangladesh consider him worthy of reverence in the days ahead.
Related Topics: Mohshin Habib
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