Thursday, May 31, 2012

Gatestone Update :: David P. Goldman: "SILEX": Iran's Undetectable Nuclear Enrichment Technology?, and more


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"SILEX": Iran's Undetectable Nuclear Enrichment Technology?

by David P. Goldman
May 31, 2012 at 5:00 am
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"Laser uranium enrichment is so attractive that that it will be implemented --- and Iran will become the test case. What must be demanded is the complete opening of the country to appropriate inspection. Anything else would be too little – much too little." Hans Ruhle
German nuclear weapons expert Hans Rühle warned in the daily Die Welt May 21 that Iran can enrich uranium using laser technology that is much harder to detect than centrifuges. Rühle headed the German Defense Ministry's policy planning staff during the 1980s. In a widely-discussed commentary last February 17, he argued that Israel has the capacity to cripple Iran's nuclear weapons program. He also presented evidence in Die Welt that Iran may have tested a nuclear weapon in North Korea.
"Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadihejad announced in 2010 the 'good nuclear news' that Iran then possessed laser technology for uranium enrichment. Iran would not use this technology immediately, Ahmadinejad insisted, but his extremely positive characterization of the new technological option casts strong doubt on Iran's intentions and suggests that Iran's voluntary restraint on enrichment is an attempt at diversion," Rühle wrote in his May 21 analysis.
"Laser enrichment is the silver bullet in this field," Rühle continues. "By the estimate of Australia's leading expert, laser enrichment is sixteen times more efficient than earlier enrichment technologies. This begs the question of why this sensational enrichment procedure was not put into effect earlier. The answer is that laser enrichment was long considered to be the technology of the future, too expensive and complicated for practical application."
As an alternative to mechanical separation of fissile uranium-235 through centrifuges, laser separation has been used experimentally since the 1960s, without bringing the new technique into industrial application. But the major nuclear powers had little incentive to invest in a new technology, Rühle argues, because their centrifuge installations could enrich uranium at comparatively low cost.
All that changed in 2006, Rühle adds, when an Australian laser enrichment technology, the "SILEX" method, began official tests. A billion-dollar laser enrichment facility is planned in the United States, large enough to provide enough fuel for 60 large reactors filling the energy needs of 60 million households. The facility could also produce enough highly-enriched uranium for 1,000 warheads per year.
Iran may have acquired laser enrichment technology from Russia, Rühle argues, starting with support for Iran's nuclear weapons program under agreements dating back to the Yeltsin administration. "It was no great surprise," Rühle argues, "that in the spring of 2000, America's spy services discovered a pilot program for laser enrichment between Iran and the D.V.-Efremov Institute in St. Petersburg. American diplomats at the time demanded that Russia cease this activity, on the stated grounds that "there can be no doubt that this installation can and will be turned to military nuclear applications in no time at all."
The project came up in talks between Presidents Clinton and Putin in September 2000, Rühle reports, and the Russians assured the American side that the project would be suspended pending an investigation: "That was a favorite Russian formula to remove controversial issues from current discussions and avoid potentially disadvantageous decisions, while shifting the project quietly to industrial and scientific institutes."
Ahmadinejad's boast that Iran possesses laser enrichment technology has a factual background, Rühle concludes. During the past year, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency has demanded on several occasions that Iran explain its laser enrichment program, with no response from the Iranian side.
If Iran has acquired this technology, it can enrich uranium far more cheaply and quickly, in inconspicuous facilities that are far harder to detect than centrifuge installations, Rühle warns. Laser enrichment requires a quarter of the physical space and much less energy than centrifuges. "For the international community's negotiations with Iran, this implies that what must be demanded is the complete opening of the country to appropriate inspection. Anything else would be too little—much too little."
Both in Germany and the United States, Rühle adds, the professional associations of nuclear physicists have warned about the consequences of uncontrolled dissemination of "SILEX" laser enrichment technology. "Despite all the experience of the preceding decades, this warning went heard," Rühle concludes. "Laser uranium enrichment is so attractive that it will be implemented—and Iran could become the test case."
Related Topics:  Iran  |  David P. Goldman

"Islam to Topple Man-made Democracy"

by Soeren Kern
May 31, 2012 at 4:45 am
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Leaders of the group say the purpose of Belgium's first Sharia Law court is to create a parallel legal system to challenge the state's authority as the enforcer of the civil law protections guaranteed by the Belgian constitution.
Police in Amsterdam have arrested the spokesperson of the Islamist group Sharia4Holland on charges of making death threats against the Dutch Freedom Party leader, Geert Wilders.
Abu Qasim was arrested after a speech he gave in Amsterdam's central Dam Square on May 25 (video in Dutch here), when he warned that Wilders would be "dealt with" once the Netherlands became an Islamic state.
Qasim also called Wilders "this dog of the Romans" and -- referring to the Dutch filmmaker and Islam critic who was murdered by a Dutch-Moroccan Muslim in 2004 -- warned that Wilders should learn lessons from "the case of Theo van Gogh."
Amsterdam's multiculturally-minded police initially refused to intervene in the case. Although making death threats is a criminal offense in Holland, police instead arrested a passer-by who tried to challenge the Sharia4Holland speaker.
Qasim was not arrested until three days after the event, after local politician Robert Flos, speaking on AT5 television, asked Amsterdam's left-wing mayor, Eberhard van der Laan, why city police did not intervene when Qasim threatened Wilders with death.
Qasim, a 29-year-old Islamist who lives in the central Dutch city of Woerden, is now scheduled to appear in court on July 11.
Sharia4Holland -- and its Siamese twin Sharia4Belgium -- is a radical Muslim movement that wants to impose Islamic Sharia law in the Netherlands, Belgium and the rest of Europe. Over the past several months, Sharia4Holland and Sharia4Belgium have become increasingly belligerent in their appeals to fellow Muslims to overthrow the democratic order in Europe.
Dutch Justice Minister Ivo Opstelten, in testimony to the Dutch Parliament on May 29, said that radical Muslims are becoming more provocative and activist and "there is a risk that Sharia4Holland supporters could cross the line and use violence."
In December 2011, the Dutch Intelligence Service AIVD said it was concerned about the rapid radicalization of Sharia4Holland. AIVD issued the advisory after Sharia4Belgium released a video in which the Belgian Islamist Sheik Abu Imran (aka Fouad Belkacem, who is Sharia4Belgium's main spokesman) declared that the black flag of Islamic Jihad will "soon be flying on top of all the palaces in Europe."
The December 11 video, which has been translated into English by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), shows Imran dressed in military camouflage calling for the destruction of the Atomium, a monument in Brussels that is the national symbol of Belgium.
Imran says: "This is a short message to the King of Belgium and specifically to the Muslims in Belgium. This is the flag [black flag of jihad] that, Allah willing, will soon be flying on top of that building over there [the Belgian royal palace]. There you see the flag [Belgian flag] of the Taghut [idolaters], the infidels, and soon the flag of 'there is no god but Allah' will be flying there, on top of that palace, and on top of all the other palaces in Europe, until Allah willing, we reach the White House…We will not rest, we will not stop, until this flag flies on top of that building [the royal palace]."
The video then continues from another location in Brussels -- directly in front of the Atomium. Imran says: "We can see nowadays how people are taking photos, and how people from all over Brussels and from all over Europe, come here for what is called 'tourism' and take photos of this monument. They hold on to this monument. On top, you can see the Belgian flag. This monument is a symbol of Belgium…Soon, Belgium will fall apart. May Allah disperse them and their country. Amen. Then this symbol will be useless to them."
In September, Sharia4Belgium established Belgium's first Islamic Sharia law court in Antwerp, the second-largest city in the country. Leaders of the group say the purpose of the court is to create a parallel Islamic legal system in Belgium to challenge the state's authority as the enforcer of the civil law protections guaranteed by the Belgian constitution.
The self-appointed Muslim judges running the Islamic Sharia court apply Islamic law, rather than the secular Belgian Family Law system, to resolve disputes involving questions of marriage and divorce, child custody and child support, as well as all inheritance-related matters.
Unlike Belgian civil law, Islamic Sharia law does not guarantee equal rights for men and women; critics of the Sharia court say it will undermine the rights of Muslim women in marriage and education. Sharia4Belgium says the court in Antwerp will eventually expand its remit and handle criminal cases as well.
On May 4, the Criminal Court of Antwerp convicted Imran/Belkacem to two years in prison (one of them suspended) on charges of inciting hatred against non-Muslims. Among other infractions, Belkacem was found guilty of harassing Frank Vanhecke, widower of the late Marie-Rose Morel, the former president of Vlaams Belang, a Belgian anti-immigration party. After she died of cancer in February 2011, Belkacem said her illness was "a punishment from Allah."
On May 5, the day on which the Netherlands celebrates its liberation from Nazi Germany in 1945, about 20 members of Sharia4Holland and its twin Sharia4Belgium gathered in front of the maximum security prison in the southern Dutch municipality of Vught to demand the "liberation" of Mohammed Bouyeri, the Muslim who murdered Theo van Gogh.
Sharia4Holland argued that Dutch Liberation Day is a "hypocritical festival" because the Dutch celebrate while countless "innocent" Muslims are held in their prisons. According to Sharia4Holland, these Muslims are robbed of their freedom, families and of any social contact.
Dutch prisons are, in fact, teeming with Muslim inmates. According to a recent report commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Interior, 40% of Moroccan immigrants in the Netherlands between the ages of 12 and 24 have been arrested, fined, charged or otherwise accused of committing a crime during the past five years.
In December 2011, a mob of some 20 members of Sharia4Belgium stormed a debate in Amsterdam that was featuring two Muslim liberals, the Canadian writer and Muslim feminist Irshad Manji and the Dutch-Moroccan Green Left MP Tofik Dibi.
The mob shouted "Allahu Akbar!" ("Allah is Greater!") and threatened to break Manji's neck. Waving an Islamist jihadist flag, they then demanded that Manji and Dibi be executed for apostasy.
The debate on how liberal Muslims can prevent Islam from being hijacked by Muslim extremists was held at the De Baile venue in downtown Amsterdam, and was sponsored by the Brussels-based European Foundation for Democracy. The event resumed after police arrested several of the Islamists.
In April 2010, 40 members of Sharia4Belgium disrupted a speech about Islam by the Dutch author Benno Barnard. The lecture, entitled "The Islam Debate: Long Live God, Down with Allah!," was part of a series of talks about the Enlightenment at Antwerp University.
According to Abu Qasim, the spokesman for Sharia4Holland: "Better times will come as promised. The Muslims will [confront] this cancer of man-made laws called democracy and eradicate it. Destroy it root and branch, as far as Islam allows us, or Islam orders us to. Sharia is by far the only solution, it is the only rival left to topple democracy. Now, the Westerners and the Dutch around us and who do not know their history, they think that Sharia is something foreign…Even if the disbelievers hate it, even if the pagans hate it. Even if democrats or secularists hate it. Sharia for Holland is a given: it is a given fact."
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

Evangelicals : Righteous Gentiles for Israel

by Michael Curtis
May 31, 2012 at 4:30 am
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Palestinians have used the falsehood that Israel is an apartheid state to gain sympathy for their cause, By doing so, they and their allies in the churches and elsewhere , purported concerned with "Palestinian suffering," are their own worst enemies. By maintaining the animosity against Israel, perhaps they are deliberately trying to prevent a peaceful process of negotiation to end the conflict.
Jews in democratic countries are disproportionately disposed more than other groups to prefer the left spectrum of political and cultural affairs -- a spectrum that is in general unfriendly to the evangelical Christian movement. It is therefore not surprising that only 20% of Jewish Americans hold a favorable opinion of the Christian right, the members of which tend to be favorable to the Republican Party. Yet it is strange when one considers that fact that Evangelical Christians have been strong supporters of Israel. A reasonable conclusion might be that for many American Jews, social and cultural values are more significant than support for Israel. Clearly, differences between many Jews and Christians, especially evangelicals, exist on social questions such as abortion, women's rights, gay and lesbian rights, and political issues, such as separation of church and state. Such differences, however, do not, and should not, prevent a cordial and supportive relationship between those churches and the state of Israel.
Many Christian Evangelicals have supported Israel politically and financially since its creation. Evangelicals may even be the strongest single group supporting Israel. Theologically, a considerable number of evangelicals believe that Jews must possess their historic right to the land before Jesus can return. With the return of Jew to the Holy Land, evangelicals await the coming of the apocalypse, the return of Christ, and the conversion of Jews. Specifically, Israel is seen as playing a key role in events that will lead to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Accordingly, the holders of this view support the existence of the state of Israel and believe it will play a role in world affairs. Among the groups holding this position are Eagle Wings, Christian Friends of Israel, Bridges for Peace, and Christians United for Israel, which claims a membership of over one million. They often quote and take literally, Genesis 12, in which the Lord is quoted as saying to Abraham, "And I will bless them that bless thee and curse him that curseth thee."
Evangelical supporters also sometimes refers to the Biblical passage in Ezekiel (36: 24); writing at the time of the Babylonian captivity, Ezekiel declared that God is speaking to the house of Israel: "I will gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land." Christians also seem to appreciate and support contemporary Israel as a democratic nation, exemplifying individual freedom, the rule of law and modernity in a geographical area otherwise devoid of these attributes. Endorsement also results from the realistic understanding that Israel has been subject to constant attack by modern Pharaohs in the Middle East and elsewhere who call, directly and indirectly, not only for boycott and divestment of the state but also repeatedly from Iran, for the genocidal elimination of Israel -- "Wiping it off the map" -- -- in violation of both Iran's obligation as a signatory to the United Nations Charter, which prohibits any member nation from declaring war on another member nation, and as a signatory to the 1948 Treaty Against Genocide.
For evangelicals, religious and political beliefs merge: God maintains the Biblical covenant with the Jewish people, even though they were and are not perfect; and further, the religious belief in Jewish sovereignty over the Holy Land is deeper than the geopolitical argument. However, some parts of that covenant are more controversial than others in concrete interpretation for evangelicals; in particular Genesis (15:18); "Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates." Public opinion surveys show that Evangelicals are likely to say that religious belief was the single biggest influence leading them to sympathize with Israel, to believe that God gave the land of Israel to the Jews, that Israel fulfills the biblical prophecy about the Second Coming of Jesus, and to declare they were more sympathetic to Israel than to the Palestinians.
Surveys also show that in the first decade of the 21st century the greatest increase in support for Israel of any religious group came from the Evangelicals. Although this support may partly result from the attempt to force the Second Coming, it is more likely to stem from a variety of factors: God's promise to bless those who bless the Jews; appreciation that Jews provided the basis of Christianity; remorse over the Holocaust and over the past animosity of Christian churches towards Jews; the belief that God will judge people on how they treat Jews; and the appreciation of the democratic and religious free society that exists in Israel.
Christian churches, as a result of international pressure organized by Palestinians and their allies, now have to consider resolutions calling for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel. Unlike the Evangelicals, mainstream Protestant churches have been sympathetic to Palestinian Christians and the Palestinian narrative for some time, and have sought to raise awareness of what they call persecution or oppression of the Palestinians. Increasingly they recommend economic action against Israel and those who do business with it.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America represented the Evangelical position when it rejected divestment proposals regarding Israel in 2007 and 2011. By contrast mainstream religious adherents have differed on this question. To its credit, the United Methodist Church, in spite of considerable pressure, on May 2, 2012 at its meeting in Tampa, rejected a resolution calling for the Church to join the Palestinian-inspired boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against three companies trading with Israel. The UMC had rejected similar resolutions at its previous General Conference in 2008. The UMC in 2012, by a vote of 2 to 1, opposed action against Caterpillar which supplies bulldozers to Israel; Hewlett-Packard, which provides advanced biometric technology; and Motorola Solutions which supplies surveillance equipment.
The UMC, however, spoke with an uncertain voice. By a 60 to 40 vote, it did adopt a resolution recommending nations should prohibit the import of products manufactured in "Israeli settlements on Palestinian land" --- perhaps a warning sign that members of the UMC in some geographical areas did support both boycott and divestment resolutions against Israel. Palestinian pressure is already building to influence the vote at the forthcoming general assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA that will vote on a divestment resolution in June 2012.
Mainstream American missionaries in the past, fostering Arab nationalism for religious reasons, promoted anti-Zionism, if not always anti-Semitism. The existence of Israel as a legitimate state is now being challenged in a number of ways and by a variety of media: by a Palestinian-initiated offensive to portray Palestinians as suffering from human rights abuses and colonial crimes committed by Israel; by the Electronic Intifada, an online Internet news website; by the United Methodist Kairos Response; by individuals and groups, such as the writers and academics Grace Halsell, Timothy Weber, Tony Campolo, and Gary Burge, (Wheaton College), as well as attendees, especially Stephen Sizer, the anti-Zionist Church of England priest, at the Christ at the Checkpoint Conferences organized by the Bethlehem Bible College.
Now, however, a shift in attitude is observable among some Evangelicals. In the past, more extreme figures, such as Campolo, Burge, or Jim Wallis (Sojourners) always championed the Palestinian cause. More recently, however, major leaders such as Rick Warren have seemed to be sympathetic to Muslims; Hank Hanegraaff (The Bible Answer Man), who has been critical of Israel for some time, attended a symposium at Tehran University; Lynne Hybels, wife of the mega-pastor Bill Hybels; and popular speakers such as Shane Claiborne have tended to echo the Palestinian agenda and narrative in speaking to new and younger audiences within Evangelicalism.
Their argument is more based on a number of political factors stemming from acceptance of the fallacious Palestinian narrative of victimhood and unending Israeli oppression of Palestinians -- helpful for the Palestinian government to instruct its citizens not to look at it and the corruption and wretched governance as the source of the misery, but instead at Israel and the Jews -- less on theological grounds than on politically expedient ones, such as the refusal to agree to be ruled over by anyone non-Muslim. Further, there are no adverse consequences to demonizing Israel as there would be, for example, if if one were to demonize Russia. They minimize the existence of anti-Semitism, and brush aside or totally ignore Islamist attacks on Israel. They openly refuse to accept Israel with a dominant Jewish population , now in existence for 64 years, as an independent, self-governing entity. Instead they advocate the creation of a Palestinian state, sometimes alongside the state of Israel, but often in place of it.
It is therefore heartening to learn of these Evangelicals, such as the members of the Pentecostal-Charismatic Faith Church in Hungary, the largest evangelical church in Europe, who are opposing this attempt to disparage and to delegitimize the state of Israel.
An exceptional individual who has been an important counterweight to the disparagers of Israel is Dr. Kenneth Meshoe, a member of the South African Parliament, president of the African Christian Democratic Party, and pastor of a South African Church. What is particularly significant about pastor Meshoe is that he, as a black South African, on a number of occasions, has put paid to the lie spread by the Palestinian narrative, that Israel is an apartheid state. At the international conference of legislators from around the world held in Budapest on October 31, 2011, Pastor Meshoe replied to the kind of fulminations published by the Electronic Intifada that Israeli actions are "the epitome of apartheid" and aim at the systematic destruction of Palestinian society. He describes those who promulgate the lie of Israel-as-apartheid as ignorant individuals who are not aware of, or who deliberately disregard, the true nature of the negative impact of apartheid on black South Africans -- an experience quite different from that of Palestinians in nature and intensity. South African blacks were treated as second-class citizens and were denied basic human rights. By contrast, he points out that in Israel there are no laws discriminating against people on the basis of their color or on the basis of their religion. Palestinians have not suffered the pain of apartheid experienced by black South Africans.
Pastor Meshoe amplifies his general remarks by specific examples. He calls attention to the fact that in South Africa there were separate modes of transport for blacks and whites; there were coaches in trains only for black people, and others only for whites. Segregation was present in schools, hospitals, public places, city parks, benches, chairs, beaches. No such segregation exists in Israel.
In view of this empirical evidence why do members of some Churches and their leaders argue Israel is an apartheid state? Palestinians have used this falsehood to gain sympathy for their cause. By doing so they, and their allies in the churches as elsewhere, purportedly concerned with "Palestinian suffering," are their own worst enemies. By maintaining the animosity against Israel, perhaps they are deliberately trying to prevent a peaceful process of negotiation to resolve the conflict.
Michael Curtis is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Rutgers University and author of Should Israel Exist? A Sovereign Nation under attack by the International Community.
Related Topics:  Israel  |  Michael Curtis
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