Monday, August 20, 2012

Gatestone Update :: Shoshana Bryen: Egypt Fully Rearming Sinai - with US Help, and more


Facebook  Twitter  RSS
Gatestone Institute
In this mailing:

Egypt Fully Rearming Sinai - with US Help

by Shoshana Bryen
August 20, 2012 at 5:00 am
Be the first of your friends to like this.
Secretary Panetta is talking about helping Egypt to do something forbidden by the Camp David Accords -- bring large-scale forces into Sinai. Israel's long term concern is whether Egypt will at some point remove the additional forces. Recent comments by Egyptian government officials suggest they will not.
Egypt has moved forces into the Sinai beyond what was agreed to in the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty. Getting them in wasn't that difficult – Israel agrees that security in the Sinai has deteriorated. Getting them out again later may be another matter. And how the U.S. positions itself to safeguard the treaty itself will be crucial.
One of the lesser-known American military deployments is as part of the Multinational Force & Observers in the Sinai (MFO), inserted in 1981. Its mission is to "supervise the implementation of the security provisions of the Egyptian-Israeli Treaty of Peace and employ best efforts to prevent violations of its terms." The MFO consists of 1,656 soldiers from 12 nations[1] and, according to its website, operates checkpoints, reconnaissance patrols and observation posts; verifies the continued implementation of various arms limitations in the Sinai; ensures freedom of navigation through the Strait of Tiran; and monitors the deployment of border guards along the Egyptian side of the Gaza/Egypt border to ensure that it meets the terms agreed to by Israel and Egypt in 2005.
The MFO, clearly, is not a fighting force; it is a peacekeeping force with an agreed-upon peace to keep.
So how odd it is that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has announced that the U.S. "is providing additional military assistance to peacekeeping forces in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula to strengthen security in the region."
Panetta said no additional troops had been sent to Sinai, but that the U.S. was working closely with Egyptian leaders "to determine what additional help they may need in order to ensure that the area is secured."
To change the mission of the MFO from monitoring the Israel-Egypt peace treaty to helping Egypt secure the Sinai from terrorists/jihadists/al Qaeda is a change that cannot be undertaken lightly – and should not be taken unilaterally. To change the force from the touchstone for both Israel and Egypt into an ally of Egypt in military operations will undermine its status in the future.
The MFO does need to secure itself in the face of rising violence and longtime Egypt-watcher David Schenker notes that it has already made adjustments.
The force has upgraded its vehicles in recent years, and many of them are fully or partially armored. Yet growing abduction fears have led to the cancellation of many patrols, and reconnaissance flights have reportedly been scaled back due to concerns about terrorists or other actors fielding man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS). Should the situation continue to deteriorate, the MFO might reduce its patrols even further.
He adds:
Over time, the MFO's mission will simply become untenable unless security improves in the Sinai -- or unless the rules of engagement are changed, which seems unlikely.
Changing the rules of engagement is much more likely now. Secretary Panetta is not talking about how the force protects itself while it does the job it was designed to do. He is talking about helping Egypt do something forbidden by the Camp David Accords – bring large-scale military forces into Sinai.
The fact is the U.S. and Israel have been somewhere between sanguine and cautiously happy regarding increased Egyptian concern about jihadists in the Sinai, and have accepted an Egyptian buildup that includes aircraft and helicopter gunships. Israel Radio reported Friday that the deployment includes anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles near the border. Israel's longer-term concern will be whether at some point Egypt removes the additional forces and returns to the agreed-upon restrictions and demilitarized zones.[2] Recent comments by Egyptian government officials suggest they will not.
Former presidential contender Abdel-Moneim Abolfotoh called for President Morsi to reject limitations on Egyptian forces, saying, "The blood that has been spilled should force Egypt to assume full control of Sinai without the restrictions and obligations stipulated by this inequitable treaty that prevents Egypt's armed forces from deploying on Egyptian territory."
Mohammed Gadallah, a legal advisor to Morsi, said the Egyptian government is considering "amending" the Camp David Accords "to ensure Egypt's full sovereignty and control over every inch of Sinai."
It is hard to imagine a circumstance in which the United States should support the restoration of "full sovereignty and control" of Sinai, including military control, to the Muslim Brotherhood government of Egypt. Israeli analyst Ehud Yaari said if the Egyptians want to go in that direction, "Israel should have its answer ready" and that the mechanism for negotiating change is the MFO.
But if the MFO mission changes by design or by mission creep, it may provide little support for Israel's position. Secretary Panetta should be extremely careful about the circumstances under which the U.S. will supply "additional help" to increase the long term staying power of the Egyptian military where Israel does not necessarily agree it should be.
Shoshana Bryen is Senior Director of The Jewish Policy Center. She was previously Senior Director of Security Policy at JINSA and author of JINSA Reports from 1995-2011.
[1] Australia, Canada, Colombia, the Czech Republic, the Republic of the Fiji Islands, France, Hungary, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, the United States and Uruguay
[2] Its second concern will have to be whether such weapons as the Stinger missiles reportedly given to Syrian rebels by the CIA will ultimately find their way to the Sinai via interlocking terrorist organizations.
Related Topics:  Egypt  |  Shoshana Bryen

Egyptian Tears Up the Quran on Camera

by Nonie Darwish
August 20, 2012 at 4:30 am
Be the first of your friends to like this.
Instead of giving religious visas to Islamists who come to America to preach hate, the US should immediately declare that anyone who leaves Islam and is threatened should get a priority visa to the US. American embassies should, in fact, stop giving religious visas to those who are obviously Islamists: by doing so we are only breeding our own homegrown terrorists inside America.
Could this be the real Arab Spring? The Muslim world does not have to blame Pastor Terry Jones any more for burning the Quran or non-Muslims for desecrating it. They are now in shock over seeing a YouTube post of a young Egyptian man doing the unthinkable on camera: tearing up the Quran and putting it in the trash.
This is the summery translation of what he said:
"There it is, Allah's book, this is the basic catastrophe. I don't know what day it is of this disgusting month of Ramadan! You are making the tearing of the Quran such a big and dangerous thing.. it is instinctive to tear this book, those sons of b----s- think they can threaten me and challenge me to tear the Quran, but I want to prove to them that they are nothing and what is the big deal in tearing this book?!! There it is (he starts tearing up the Quran) in the trash. Are you feeling better now?! You cannot touch a hair on my head! We keep blaming Hamas and Gaza, but it is not them, it is this son of a b ----h book that I am stepping on right now. That book is the source of all evil and the real catastrophe. There is nothing new here, it is not Omar Abdel Rahman, Abbud or all the others, it is this garbage that is causing us to run in a demonic circle that will never end."
Although the young man's worlds were very insulting, this is the same language that Muslims commentators use against him and against anyone who leaves Islam. The comments about this video are extremely violent, scary and vastly more insulting than anything this young man said in the video. This is the kind of language many Muslims use against any critique of Islam. I worry about this young man who seems to be living in Egypt. There have been hundreds of fatwas [religious edicts] calling for his death issued against him already: the responses to the video threaten him with, "I will kill you" and "I will cut your tongue, your ears, your arms and legs, as Mohammed would, and leave you for dead."
Instead of giving religious visas to Islamists who come to build mosques in America and preach hate, the US should immediately declare that anyone who leaves Islam and is threatened will get a priority visa to the US, ahead of Islamists. American embassies across the Muslim world should, in fact, stop giving religious visas especially to those who are obviously Islamists: by doing so we are breeding our own homegrown terrorists inside America.
Throughout the history of Islam, many people where tortured, beheaded, jailed, ostracized, or had their limbs cut off for as little as accidentally stepping on the Quran. The Sharia punishment for blasphemy of the Quran and Mohammed is death even if the perpetrator pleads it was an accident and they never meant to desecrate the Quran. There is a Filipina maid in the Arab Gulf who was jailed for accidentally sitting on the Quran which was on a sofa.
Now the Muslim world is starting to face the nightmare of a new kind of challenge from within: Muslims deliberately challenging this taboo and putting their lives on the line.
Islamic customs have elaborate rituals giving the highest esteem to the book itself and physically protecting the Quran from any disrespect. I remember as a child, placing a schoolbook on top of the Quran on a table; my grandparents harshly scolded me for doing that. The message was repeated over and over and over again never -- ever! -- to place anything visually or mentally on top of the Quran. In the same year the Arabs conquered the Christian city of Alexandria in Egypt, 639 AD, the Alexandria Library was burned down and the Quran became the one and only source of knowledge for the country.
The beginning of the end of Islam as we know it may just have begun: that will be the true Arab Spring.
The violence we are seeing today in the Arab world will accelerate when such confrontations to Islam increase and when the Muslim World wakes up from its 1400 year slumber.
In my book "The Devil We Don't Know", I predicted that Islam will fall like a house of cards, but the bloodshed will be huge and the world must leave the Muslim world to settle this on their own. The number one enemy of Islam is the truth and with today's technology, many Muslims are seeing the truth clearly on the internet, satellite dishes etc.
There is an awakening worldwide, not only about Islam, but also about other similar totalitarian ideologies. One hopes that next there will soon be the same awakening to the harm being done by Western liberalism and socialism, cousins and supporters of Islam and its tyranny. All such ideologies aim at covering up of the truth by using intimidation, fear-mongering and hatred, now so prevalent in American politics today.
It is not just the Muslim world that is changing and that needs change, but also America and Europe. We in America must also set aside books such as "Rules for Radicals" and other socialist propaganda of hatred. Whether Islamism or Socialism, both of these are ideologies based on lies, slander, hatred and control. America must protect itself from such corrosive ideologies by unapologetically reaffirming our Judeo-Christian culture and our Constitution of freedoms before they are taken away from us -- or, worse, we blindly give them away.
Nonie Darwish, born and raised in Egypt, is the author of "The Devil We Don't Know."
Related Topics:  Egypt  |  Nonie Darwish

U.S. Distorts Nigerian Jihad on Christians

by Raymond Ibrahim
August 20, 2012 at 4:00 am
Be the first of your friends to like this.
Boko Haram's terror campaign is motivated entirely by religion -- even as the Obama administration refuses to designate the group a terrorist organization, spends millions of U.S. tax dollars on superfluous initiatives to find out the "true causes," and pressures the Nigerian president to make concessions, including building more mosques, the very structures where Muslims are radicalized and converted to Boko Haram's jihad -- while the Boko Haram pressures the Nigerian president to "repent and forsake Christianity."
While the Obama administration continues to say that the Islamic group Boko Haram's jihad against Nigeria's Christians—which has seen countless churches destroyed, and thousand Christians killed— has nothing to do with religion, the group once again made clear that it is all about religion. According to a recent report:
In an online video released last week, the militant Muslim group Boko Haram demanded that Nigeria's Christian president either convert to Islam, or resign. [Boko] Haram head Abubakar Shekau told President Goodluck Jonathan to "repent and forsake Christianity," otherwise Shekau's followers would continue their violent campaign...
Indeed, despite the fact that the Obama administration has agreed to spend $600 million in an USAID initiative launched to ascertain the "true causes" behind Boko Haram's murderous bloodlust, the fact is it was clear from the very beginning that the group and other Muslims were enraged that Nigeria was being led by a Christian, President Goodluck Jonathan, even though he won elections "by a landslide."
Writing back in April 2011, Nigerian analyst Peter Run said:
The current wave of riots was triggered by the Independent National Election Commission's (INEC) announcement on Monday [April 18, 2011] that the incumbent President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, won in the initial round of ballot counts. That there were riots in the largely Muslim inhabited northern states where the defeat of the Muslim candidate Muhammadu Buhari was [deemed] intolerable was unsurprising…. Now they are angry despite experts and observers concurring that this is the fairest and most independent election in recent Nigerian history.
Once again, then, reality is easily ascertained—at root, Boko Haram's terror campaign is entirely motivated by religion—even as the Obama administration refuses to designate the group as a terrorist organization, spends millions of U.S. tax dollars on superfluous initiatives (or diversions), and pressures the Nigerian president to make concessions, including building more mosques, the very structures where Muslims are radicalized and recruited to Boko Haram's jihad.
Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum
Related Topics:  Nigeria  |  Raymond Ibrahim

Iran Steps Up Threats to Rub Out Israel

by Yaakov Lappin
August 20, 2012 at 3:30 am
Be the first of your friends to like this.
Jerusalem does not view these threats in isolation: it links them directly to the narrowing gap that separates Teheran from possession of nuclear weapons.
Iran has in recent days unleashed a flurry of genocidal threats signaling its intention to try and destroy the state of Israel.
The messages have come at the height of a domestic Israeli debate raging over the question of a potentially imminent strike on Iran's rapidly advancing nuclear weapons program.
While Tehran routinely sends out threats of wholesale destruction against the Jewish nation-state, the past few days have been unusual due to the scope, frequency, and audacity of the threats.
The Iranian leadership, headed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is guided by a hardline Shi'ite political-religious ideology which places non-acceptance of Israel's very existence at the top of its foreign policy agenda.
Through its commitment to this ideology, Iran remains the only state in the world that not only calls for genocide, in violation of the 1948 Convention Against Genocide to which it is a signatory, but calls for the destruction of another UN member state, in violation of the UN Charter to which it is also a signatory and which, if the UN ever implemented any of its own laws, should cause the ouster of Iran from that body.
These threats are a direct result of Iran's dark state ideology, although some of the most recent ones have been tailored to include an attempt to deter Israel from hitting Iranian nuclear sites. General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, for example, head of the Revolutionary Guard's air force, claimed he "welcomed" an Israeli strike because it would give Iran a reason to "get rid of Israel forever."
That speech was soon followed by a message from the head of Hezbollah, Iran's military proxy in Lebanon, armed with some 60,000 rockets pointed at Israel.
In a lengthy televised address, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said his organization could kill tens of thousands of Israeli civilians in a future war, by striking strategic Israeli sites with his rocket arsenal.
Alluding to sites such as plants containing hazardous chemicals, Nasrallah said, "Hitting these targets with a small number of rockets will turn ... the lives of hundreds of thousands of Zionists to real hell, and we can talk about tens of thousands of dead."
The main factor behind the upsurge in threats is the Iranian state-sponsored celebration of its annihilation policy towards Israel, which occurs on the fourth and last Friday of Ramadan every year.
The event is called "Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day," and involves mass rallies, speeches by Iranian leaders, chants of "Death to Israel," and placards bearing the same intent. Last week, Khamenei described Israel as a "cancerous tumor" and "the biggest problem confronting Muslim countries today," according to Iranian media reports.
"Many of the Islamic world's problems come from the existence of the sham Zionist regime," Khamenei added, in comments that are reminiscent of traditional anti-Semitic comments that could be heard everywhere before the Holocaust.
Khamenei also expressed hope that the "Arab spring" would hasten an Islamic "awakening" towards Iran's goal of obliterating Israel.
A few days before this, Khamenei called Israel a "bogus and fake Zionist outgrowth," adding that he was sure that "the fake Zionist (regime) will disappear from the landscape of geography."
President Mamoud Ahmaedinejad continued this threat by saying that "The Zionist regime and the Zionists are a cancerous tumor."
Also last week, Brig.- Gen. Gholamreza Jalali, who heads Iran's Passive Civil Defense Organization and is a former commander of the Revolutionary Guards, said there was "no other option but to destroy Israel."
"[Al-Quds Day] is a reflection of the fact that no other way exists apart from resolve and strength to completely eliminate the aggressive nature and to destroy Israel," Iranian state media outlets quoted Jalali as saying.
Even though Iran's menacing messages did not make many headlines in the international media, they did prompt a scattering of condemnations.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon described the threats as "offensive and inflammatory," although he did not announce any plans to cancel his attendance of a conference of non-aligned nations, scheduled to take place in Tehran later this month.
The EU's foreign policy and security chief Catherine Ashton also condemned Khamenei's comments as "outrageous and hateful."
What is critical in understanding the Israeli government's perception of the Iranian menace is that Jerusalem does not view these threats in isolation; it links them directly to the narrowing gap that separates Tehran from possession of nuclear warheads.
Some commentators have pointed out that Iran's regional influence in the Middle East is on the retreat, due to the impending loss of its Syrian ally, and the ascendency of the Sunnis.
But it is Sunni Islamists who are on the rise across the region, not subscribers to humanist liberalism. Once Iran goes nuclear, that breakout will trigger a regional arms race, and prompt Sunni states such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey to rush to get nuclear weapons, too.
A nuclear arms race in one of the world's most volatile regions, involving countries ruled by hardline Islamists – whether Sunnis or Shi'ites – would create an intolerably dangerous environment, both for Israel and for global security as a whole.
To comprehend how a future Middle East would look under a nuclear Iran, one need only imagine Khamenei using a future "Al-Quds day" once again to threaten Israel with destruction -- only this time, on the same day that Iran tests an atomic bomb.
Related Topics:  Iran, Israel  |  Yaakov Lappin

To subscribe to the this mailing list, go to http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/list_subscribe.php
Posted by solsticewitch13 at 10:39 AM

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)