In this mailing:
- Yaakov Lappin: Syrian Rebels in Control of Border Area with Israel
- Raymond Ibrahim: "Whoever Fights Us, Fights Islam"
- Michael Curtis: The Unbearable Silence about the Jewish Refugees
Syrian Rebels in Control of Border Area with Israel
by Yaakov Lappin
December 14, 2012 at 5:00 am
December 14, 2012 at 5:00 am
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The threat
keeping defense officials up at night is what might happen to those weapons of
mass destruction after Assad's collapse.
Syrian rebels have taken control of the border with Israel, and are
consolidating their presence in the area, according to Israeli defense sources.One source said that the rebels managed to oust the Syrian military from the area after months of battles, which on occasion saw shells and bullets fired over the border into Israel.
The rebels, according to the source, have spent recent weeks consolidating their shaky control of the border.
The development is one of a growing number of signs that the Assad regime is on its last legs.
The IDF has been readying itself for a "changing of the guard" on the Syrian side of the border. As a result, from the IDF's standpoint, no operational changes are currently necessary.
The IDF is not resting on its laurels – quite the opposite. As another IDF source put it this week, "Our finger is on the pulse." In short, the IDF is ready to respond to any incident.
As some of the rebel groups are heavily armed radical Islamists, Israel must now be on high alert for terror attacks on the Golan Heights.
In addition, Israel remains deeply concerned by the danger of Hezbollah or Al-Qaeda-affiliated rebels trying to seize control of chemical weapons, ballistic missiles, or other strategic weapons.
Israel has adopted a "wait-and-see" policy, but has indicated it will not tolerate any attacks from the jihadi component of the Syrian rebel groups.
The Israeli defense community is not displaying overt concern about the scenario of a chemical attack directed by Assad at Israel as a desperate last-ditch move to ignite the region. The threat that is keeping defense officials up at night is what might happen to those weapons after the Assad regime's collapse.
As the former Israel Air Force commander Maj.-Gen. (res.) Ido Nehushtan said this week, the fact that the largest chemical weapons possessor in the Middle East – if not the world – is falling apart, creates a nightmarish security situation, not just for Israel or the Middle East, but rather, for the whole world.
With radical Sunni and Shi'ite [Hezbollah] forces freely running around in the country, a failure to secure or destroy the weapons could lead to terrorists getting hold of weapons of mass destruction.
Hence, it remains likely that the international community, or Israel, or both will have to activate contingency plans to secure – or destroy -- the chemical weapons upon Assad's collapse.
Israeli intelligence reports note the heavy and ongoing involvement of Hezbollah and Iran in propping up the dying Assad regime.
Iran provides training and arms to the regime's beleaguered forces, while Hezbollah provides highly trained combat forces to assist the Syrian army in its battles against the rebels, as well as its massacre of Syrian Sunni civilians.
Although the wider regional implications of Assad's pending collapse remain unknown, the fall of the Alawite regime will undoubtedly strike a major blow to Iran's strategic standing. Tehran will lose its main regional ally, and its link to its powerful Shi'ite proxy, Hezbollah, in southern Lebanon.
In Lebanon, Hezbollah has no choice but to prepare to face a new reality without its key ally in Damascus.
It will also have to face some serious domestic hurdles in the form of a Lebanese Sunni population (and other sectarian groups), emboldened by the success of Syrian Sunnis against Assad.
A growing number of Lebanese are finding the courage to voice their frustration with Hezbollah's monopoly of military power and its shadow state in southern Lebanon.
The growing sectarian tensions in Lebanon and their linkage to events in Syria are like a trail of gasoline between the two countries. Lebanon could easily be set alight by the flames in next-door Syria. Sparks have already been seen in Tripoli, where Sunni gunmen engage in lethal battles with Alawite supporters of Assad.
The Syrian conflict has also seriously dented the alliance between Iran and Hamas, with Tehran diverting resources away from Hamas and towards the Islamic Jihad, its closest proxy in the Gaza Strip, in the wake of Hamas's backing of the Syrian rebels. Relations between the two have not, however, been terminally damaged, and Hamas continues to rely on Iranian rockets and logistical assistance.
If the Syrian civil war has had such a dramatic effect on the region before the collapse of Assad, it is possible to contemplate the enormous effect a headless Syria will have after Assad's fall.
The power vacuum in Syria, and the scramble by various groups to fill it, will send waves of instability and chaos throughout the area.
Syria's neighbors are bracing themselves.
Related Topics: Israel, Syria
| Yaakov
Lappin
"Whoever Fights Us, Fights Islam"
by Raymond Ibrahim
December 14, 2012 at 4:30 am
December 14, 2012 at 4:30 am
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Their more
radical brethren will always say, "True Muslims support Sharia: if you
reject this, you are no Muslim. You are an apostate, an infidel, an
enemy."
In the ongoing conflict between those Egyptians who strongly oppose a
Sharia-based constitution — moderates, secularists, non-Muslim minorities — and
those who are strongly pushing for it -- the "Islamists" -- are
currently evoking the one argument that has always, from the very beginnings of
Islam, empowered Islamists over moderates in the Muslim world: that anyone who
disagrees with them disagrees with Islam.Examples are many. According to a December 1 report from El Fagr, for example, Gamal Sabr, the former campaign coordinator for the anti-freedom Salafi presidential candidate Abu Ismail, made the division clear during an Al Jazeera interview, where he said: "Whoever disagrees with him, disagrees with Islam itself;" and that many Egyptians "are fighting Islam in the picture of President Muhammad Morsi and in the picture of the Islamists." He was clearly implying that they are one with Islam, and to fight them is to fight Islam.
The logic is simple: Sabr, as well as those millions of Egyptians who want Sharia, presumably only want what Allah wants: that Egypt should be governed under Sharia law. According to this position, any and all Muslims who disagree, who do not want to be governed by Sharia law, whatever their arguments, are showing that they are at odds with Islam itself.
Sabr is hardly the only Egyptian Muslim making use of this age-old argument. A Dostor report, which also appeared on December 1, quotes Tarek Zomar making the same point. Zomar, a former leader of the infamous Gam'a Islamiyya, was once imprisoned for his role in the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. Released with the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, he is a now a member of the Shura Council of Egypt's Parliament. According to Zomor, whoever votes against the Sharia-based constitution that Morsi is trying to enforce, "is an infidel"— an apostate enemy of Allah to be killed for the cause of Islam.
Even Ahmed Morsi, President Muhammad Morsi's son, accused the many demonstrators in Tahrir Square, who object to his father's attempts to impose Sharia on them, of belonging to the "former regime"—code for secularist-minded people, who are opposed to the totality of Sharia law. Writing on his Facebook account, he asserted that "all the people in Tahrir Square are remnants of the old regime." He added: "My father will eliminate them soon."
Such is the difficulty encountered by moderate Muslims, past and present: How can they justify their rejection of Islamic teachings, as captured in the Quran, hadith [the supposed teachings and actions of the Muslim prophet Muhammad, as reported 200 years after his death -- as if we were now just starting to write about George Washington], as well as the words of the Islamic scholars throughout the ages, all of which constitute the "Sharia" of Islam, a word that simply means the "Way" of Islam?
In history, a few decades after the Islamic prophet Muhammad died, during the First Fitna [ordeal, upheaval]—when the Sunni-Shia split emerged—a group of zealous Muslims, known as the Kharajites [based on a word that literally means "those who go out" (of the Islamic fold)], rejected both the Sunni and Shia leadership claims and deemed themselves the "truest" Muslims. Accordingly, they engaged in takfir -- that is, randomly accusing any Muslims who might be not upholding the totality of Islam's teachings of being infidels, and often killing them.
Today's Islamists are similar: in fact, that is the way the genuinely moderate Muslims portray them -- as takfiris, who themselves sin by judging fellow Muslims, when that is the prerogative of Allah alone.
Due to the obsessively high standards the Kharajites set — to sin even once was to be deemed an apostate to be executed — mainstream Islam eventually rejected their approach, to the point that merely saying the Islamic profession of faith, the shehada — "there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet" — is usually enough to safeguard someone as a Muslim.
It is no longer that simple today. Whereas the Kharajites of the 7th century were truly extreme—ritually slaying even Muslim women and children for not being Islamic enough — the Islamists of today see themselves as merely insisting that Sharia law be enshrined in the constitution and enforced in Egypt. They do not regard this as an "extreme" position, and believe it only seems so to those "globalized" Muslims who espouse the values of science, pluralism, freedom of religion and freedom from religion.
That is why these secular, moderate or liberal Muslims—so long as they define themselves as Muslims—are destined to lose the debate with their more radical brethren, who will always say, "True Muslims support Sharia: if you reject this, then you are no Muslim, you are an apostate, an infidel, an enemy."
Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
Related Topics: Egypt
| Raymond
Ibrahim
The Unbearable Silence about the Jewish Refugees
by Michael Curtis
December 14, 2012 at 4:00 am
December 14, 2012 at 4:00 am
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The status
of those Jews as refugees has been found to be in accordance with the United
Nations Convention on the Status of Refugees. The UNHCR announced on two
occasions, in February 1957 and in July 1967, that Jews who fled from Arab
countries "may be considered prima facie within the mandate of this
office," thus regarding them, according to international law, as bona fide
refugees.
The Palestinian narrative of victimhood, emphasizing the pitiful condition
of Palestinian refugees, and portraying them as the world's major refugee
problem, has convinced many in the international community to accept this
version of their unfortunate plight and the injustices done to them.That narrative, however, essentially one of historical revisionism, denies the truth that the Jews who left, fled, or were expelled from Arab countries can really be regarded as refugees, as well.
The story of these Jewish refugees has been much less well known than that of the Palestinian refugees, about whose fate international resolutions have been passed, and on whose behalf thirteen UN agencies and organizations have provided aid. The issue of the legitimate rights of the Jewish refugees, and the individual and collective loss of their assets, have not yet been seriously addressed; nor have there been any real attempts in international forums at the restitution of their rights and assets.
The contrast is startling. Between 1949 and 2009 there were 163 resolutions passed in the UN General Assembly dealing with Palestinian refugees; there was not one on Jewish refugees. Similarly, since 1968, the UN Human Rights Council (formerly Commission) has adopted 132 resolutions dealing with the plight of the Palestinian refugees, but not one directed to the Jewish refugees from Arab countries.
Other specialized agencies of the UN have been specifically established, or charged, to pay attention to the Palestinian refugees. These refugees have benefited from international financial assistance; the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), since 1950, has provided over $13 billion (in 2007 prices). Jewish refugees have received nothing from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the international organization dealing with refugees all over the world except Palestinians, who have the UNRWA solely devoted to them.
The status of those Jews as refugees, although challenged, has been found to be in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Status of Refugees, which established the definition of "refugee," and which was adopted in July 1951, and entered into force in April 1954.
Jews had been living in what are today Arab countries for over more than 2,500 years, going back to the Babylonian captivity. In 1948, they still accounted for 3.6 per cent of the population in Libya, 2.8 per cent in Morocco, and 2.6 per cent in Iraq. Their social ranking varied in the different countries. In Iraq and Egypt some Jews were successful in occupations and professions, and played some role in their societies; in Yemen and Morocco they were generally uneducated and poor.
In general, Jews in Arab countries living under Islamic rule, were treated as dhimmis, barely tolerated second class citizens, often obliged to pay a tithe, or tax, called a jizya, to remain in the country. In some places, they were allowed limited religious, educational, and business, opportunities, but in other places, they were denied civil and human rights; suffered legal discrimination; had property taken, and were deprived of citizenship.
In the 20th century, both before and after the creation of Israel, in a number of Arab countries Jews were threatened -- physically, economically, and socially. Jews there experienced riots, mass arrests, confiscation of property, economic boycotts, and limits on employment in many occupations. They also endured limits on admission to colleges, and on personal movement, as well as pogroms which occurred in Libya, Syria, Morocco, and especially Iraq, where in the space of two days in June 1941, in Baghdad, a pogrom, known as the Farhud, took place: under the pro-Nazi regime of Rashid Ali al-Gaylani, 179 Jews were murdered and 600 injured by rioters.
In Libya, in 1945, rioters in Tripoli killed more than 140 Jews. A number of other Arab countries saw Jews murdered, kidnapped, and in general encounter discrimination, expulsion, and exclusion from citizenship.
The Arab League countries decided to take away the citizenship of their Jews. Iraq deprived its Jews of their citizenship in 1950, and of their property in 1951. Egypt and Libya issued laws that "Zionists" were not nationals. They disregarded Jews having lived in those countries for more than a thousand years before the birth of Muhammad in 570, and the emergence of Islam in the 7th century.
With the creation of Israel in 1948, Jews in Arab and Islamic Middle East countries experienced spoliation, organized discrimination, violence, attacks and pogroms.
Libya in 1961 deprived the less than 10% of the Jews who had remained there of their citizenship, as did Algeria in 1962. Iraq seized the property of Jews. As a result, Jews began leaving, were driven out, or were brought out. By the mid 1970s almost all Jews -- more than 850,000 -- had left those countries. According to figures and analysis provided by "Justice for Jews from Arab Countries," and by Stanley Urman, its executive vice president, the largest numbers came from Morocco (265,000); Algeria (140,000); Iraq (135,000), and Tunisia (105,000). Almost all of the 55,000 Jews living in Yemen were taken to Israel by the air operation, "Magic Carpet." About 130,000 Jews were airlifted from Iraq to Israel.
Today, fewer than 4,500 Jews remain in Arab countries. Israel absorbed and integrated 600,000 of the more than 850,000 who left.
It is high time to end the virtual silence and unwillingness to consider the question of Jewish refugees, and to recognize that they should be part of any final resolution of the Middle East refugee problem. The crucial United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 of November 22 1967 mentioned that a comprehensive peace settlement should include "a just settlement of the refugee problem." It was Arthur Goldberg, the U.S. representative to the UN largely responsible for drafting the Resolution, who clarified that the language referred "both to Arab and Jewish refugees, for about an equal number of each abandoned their homes as a result of the several wars." The implication was that any arrangements made would apply to all -- not only Arab -- refugees in the Middle East.
This point of view is reflected in both bilateral and multilateral agreements. The Camp David Framework for Peace in the Middle East of 1978, Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty of 1979, the Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty of 1994, the Madrid Conference of 1991-92, and the Israel-Palestinian Agreements beginning in 1993, including the Declaration of Principles of September 1993 and the Interim Agreement of September 1995, all articulated similar language.
Similarly, the UNHCR announced on two occasions, in February 1957 and in July 1967, that Jews who had fled from Arab countries "may be considered prima facie within the mandate of this office," thus regarding them, according to international law, as bona fide refugees.
In any settlement, the property abandoned by Jews would need to be taken into account. Calculation of this, although not easy, has been assessed as some $300 billion; and Jewish-owned real estate -- about four times the size of Israel -- at about $6 billion.
The international community is long overdue, in dealing with the Palestinian refugees, to see that equity prevails. It should be conscious of the rights of Jewish refugees, who, as a result of Arab and Islamic behavior, have suffered by being deprived of rights and property. The international community should also call for redress for these descendants. Some form of compensation is due the Jewish refugees; and discussion of it should be part of final status talks in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Michael Curtis is author of Should Israel Exist? A Sovereign Nation under Attack by the International Community.
Related Topics: Michael Curtis
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