Hero of the Middle East: The Israeli Messenger by Bassam Tawil
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5408/israeli-messenger
In its apparent, inexplicable eagerness to sign just about any deal with Iran to allow it nuclear weapons capability, the U.S. State Department has removed Iran and its proxy, Hezbollah — two of the world most undisguised promoters of terror — from its Foreign Terrorist Organizations List.
Iran’s President, Hassan Rouhani, has even openly admitted that Iran’s diplomacy with the U.S. is an active “jihad.” How much plainer does a message have to get?
The Islamists have nothing but contempt for Europe’s weakness.
The West needs to paralyze Iran, rather than appease it.
A series of significant defeats to Islamist organizations will counter the effects of their efforts to entice young people to join them, especially ISIS.
In these terrible times, critical for the future of our region, Netanyahu spoke in the U.S. despite the objections of Israelis and Americans, willing to accept personal, political and diplomatic setbacks for himself and his country, in order to look after his people’s security.
We are all also hoping that that the government of Israel will focus even more on bringing the Arabs of Israel into the Israeli fold. Otherwise a “fifth column” could form and harden that will drive them into the open and waiting arms of Hamas and other terrorist groups.
Arab-Israeli politicians might also focus more on helping such an effort, rather than, as many Arab politicians do, strike out and blame others for what is wrong — a lazy, destructive substitute for actually helping improve the lives of their people.
Ever since Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, came back from his recent visit to the United States, it has repeatedly been shown that he was right to stand before Congress and issue his warnings. Tehran’s Ayatollahs have not only clung to their desire for a naval exercise in the Strait of Hormuz, where they targeted a simulated a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, they also displayed a new series of intercontinental ballistic missiles [ICBMs] that could paralyze all the shipping in the Gulf.
Iran has already surrounded the oilfields of the Middle East, and is openly increasing its efforts to bring down the “Big Satan,” North America. Iran’s President, Hassan Rouhani, has even openly admitted that Iran’s diplomacy with the U.S. is an active “jihad.” How much plainer does a message have to get?
Iran has not only taken over Yemen, Lebanon and Syria It is also in the process of taking over — presumably with the help its negotiations with the U.S. — Bahrain, Iraq, Libya and parts of South America, especially Venezuela, with its vast reserves of uranium, and Bolivia, now with a suspected nuclear installation.
In its evident, inexplicable eagerness to sign just about any deal with Iran to allow it to achieve nuclear capability, presumably at Iran’s request, Iran and its proxy, Hezbollah – two of the world’s most undisguised promoters of terror — have just as been removed from the U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Terrorist Organizations List.
While the Republicans sent a letter to Iran warning that any agreement with the U.S. would have to be endorsed by Congress, the Iranians now use it to show that the United States is so weak it is about to fall apart. The king of Saudi Arabia said that if the United States did not halt Iran’s nuclear program, Saudi Arabia would begin enriching its own uranium to acquire a nuclear potential equal to that of Iran.
Ashraf Ramelah, the representative of the Copts in America, asked House Speaker John Boehner to invite Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to address Congress as well, to warn America of the mistake it clearly intends to make. The members of the Arab League and the cooperative Gulf States also met in Riyadh to warn America of its approaching disaster.
America’s secretary of state recently hinted that the agreement with Iran was not particularly urgent, and claimed that should the talks fail, the United States had alternatives.
Apparently with the sole objective of embarrassing Netanyahu, no one in the U.S. administration was willing to admit that he was right, or that unfortunately there were many American individuals and organizations actively intervening in the elections in Israel to topple Netanyahu. The U.S. Administration clearly wanted to replace him with Yitzhak Herzog, who is weak — another link in the chain of American foreign policy failures, from Allende and the Shah of Iran to Mubarak, all victims of America’s ignorance and lack of political common sense.
The lesson American President Obama has not yet learned from his experience with Arabs is that anyone who deliberately ignores or applauds when his own fanatic Muslim nationals (or guests) kill “infidels” will eventually be repaid with the killing of his own non-extremist Muslims. That is exactly what is going to happen in Iran, Turkey, Qatar, Lebanon and other countries that support terrorism.
The Western world should be wary, and not be tempted into breathing a sigh of relief because the Muslim Brotherhood around the globe condemned the burning of the Jordanian pilot. The Muslim Brotherhood, which consistently preaches the murder of innocents of every stripe, is currently trying to cover its tracks regarding murder carried out in the name of Islam through the taqiyya, which permits Muslims to lie to “protect” Islam – in this case against the global wave of outrage against Islamist terrorism. Perhaps they condemn the burning alive of the pilot because, according to Islam, only Allah can burn someone to death. But behind their pious declarations they are overjoyed by his death, and continue inciting their followers to murder more of those they have designated as “infidels,” while every day designating still more.
That Hamas and ISIS identify with one another, collaborate and have almost identical goals was made clear a few days ago by the arrests Hamas operatives in the Palestinian Authority on the grounds that they vandalized the memorial set up in Ramallah for the murdered Jordanian pilot.
In their misguided, fumbling experiments, the officials of the EU along with the Arab League foreign ministers, are forming a united front to fight Islamist terrorism by including the very countries known consistently to support it. These include Turkey, which mainly supports ISIS, and Qatar, which supports the Islamist terrorist organizations in the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip.
Despite the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood and the other illegal Islamist terrorist organizations thrive in the Arab states — although in some they have been outlawed — the West, especially Obama’s United States, doggedly refuses to outlaw them and insists they are peace-loving religious organizations.
This gives credence to the rumor currently making the rounds of the Middle East that Obama is a Muslim Brotherhood plant in the United States administration. For some intriguing reason, the leaders of the Western world find it impossible to see the relationship between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamist terrorist organizations it fosters. The U.S. Administration refuses to recognize the dangerous game Turkey is playing by ignoring the West’s sanctions on Iran. Despite the fact that Turkey is a member of NATO, it has, in fact, upgraded and improved its trade agreements with Iran.
Europe, in its cowardice and folly, has removed Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch, from its list of designated terrorist organizations. Europe refuses to change its stance, even though barely a week ago, Egypt designated the entire Hamas movement a terrorist organization. Hamas supports ISIS in the Sinai Peninsula and within Egypt itself, to attack government, security and civilian targets.
The Islamists have nothing but contempt for Europe’s weakness, and in the meantime, ISIS’s wave of success in Iraq and Syria and its brand as “powerful” encourage young, impressionable Muslims to join its ranks.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, who yesterday won an unprecedented fourth term, during hos visit to Paris — despite French requests to remain at home — was a warning and challenge to Europe’s increasing weakness.
In the meantime, in the wake of the escalation of Islamist sentiment in the Muslim communities of Europe and the United States, the imams and Islamist activists have been falling over themselves to reassure the public. They have opened the mosques to casual visitors in an effort to put their fears to rest and downplay the threat, as if a Westerner on a guided tour could possibly understand the degree of danger, propaganda and incitement churned out behind closed doors in their classrooms and libraries.
Odder still, in such a situation, are the deals Obama’s proxies are making with Iran — even including them in the fight against ISIS. The whore’s wage America pays in return for the questionable aid it may or may not receive from Iran only serves to strengthen the Ayatollahs and their collaborators: Russia, Syria, Hezbollah, and ease the sanctions against Iran to make it even stronger, enabling even further expansion. And that is before Iran achieves nuclear weapons capability. What about after?
Without a doubt, the saga will end with an agreement ending the sanctions on Iran, permitting it to build its nuclear bomb “for peaceful purposes,” while in the meantime Iran will have taken over Yemen, completed its new line of “defensive” missiles, of the sort that will be able to reach Europe and loaded onto submarines, and launched a spy satellite into space.
The soon-to-be-signed agreement between Iran and the United States not only abandons both the Sunni Arab states and Israel to their fate; it also paves the way for an inevitable nuclear arms race by the Sunni states, carried out in the vain hope that they will be able to contain the Shi’ites before they launch a nuclear Armageddon on the Middle East.
There is also the apparently nearing death of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Thus any agreement signed with the Iranians won’t be worth the paper it is printed on because no one knows who will replace him and if his replacement, or the next U.S. Administration, will agree to honor any commitments signed by the previous regime.
Instead of strengthening the moderate Sunni states, America has chosen to support the Muslim Brotherhood, which has fooled it into thinking it is not doing its upmost to weaken the Gulf States and Egypt, both of which are exploring an innovative, moderate, contemporary Islam.
What America is doing is driving wedges into the unity of the Sunni Arab world and weakening its efforts to deploy against Iran.
To deceive the American public and misrepresent the agreement with Iran, the United States enlisted the European countries to create a smokescreen and media white noise to target Israel’s refusal to reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians as the only important issue problem the Middle East.
They are using Europe to turn Israel into a leper, whose bound duty is to accept American dictates because of its dependence on American aid and the American veto in the UN. Even Susan Rice recently made the hostile statement that what Israel had to do now was resolve the Palestinian issue –instead of focusing on the catastrophically serious Iranian threat.
The efforts Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu has made to deter Congress from supporting the agreement with Iran was brutally blocked by the White House, which is apparently only open to hearing anything that agrees with it.
Despite reservations regarding Netanyahu’s too-hard line in Israel’s negotiations with Palestinians, many of us here are of the opinion that he is another real hero of the Middle East.
All of us here are also hoping that as the Arab Israeli vote was the third largest block in the yesterday’s election, perhaps now the government of Israel will focus more on bringing the Arabs of Israel even closer and more comfortably into the Israeli fold. Otherwise there is the serious possibility that a “fifth column” could form and harden, one that will drive the Arab Israelis into the open and waiting arms of Hamas and other terrorist groups.
We also hope that the Arab Israeli politicians will also focus more on such an effort, rather than, as many Arab politicians do, striking out and blaming others for what is wrong — a lazy, destructive substitute for actually helping the lives of their people.
In these terrible times, critical for the future of our region, Netanyahu spoke to the United States despite the objections of Israelis and Americans, willing to accept personal, political and diplomatic setbacks for himself and his country, look after his people and care for their security.
Throughout history, prophets have often been without honor in their own countries, and have been rejected by the very people who should pay attention to them. There is, it seems, in every culture, deep and real wish to kill the messenger.
The West would do well to understand that anyone really interested in fighting terrorism needs to outlaw the Muslim Brotherhood movement, all its branches wherever they are. Even more, it needs to paralyze Iran, rather than appease it.
The West’s dark, contradictory dealings with Turkey, Qatar, Iran and the other shadow countries serve the growth of the Islamist terrorist organizations. They destroy the chance for any success against radical Islam.
The fight against the Islamist organizations needs to be creative, deliberate and continuous to keep them from gaining even one victory either on the ground or in their propaganda campaign. The Muslim public must not view them as attractive, or see joining them a sign of success. A series of significant defeats will counter the effects of their efforts to entice young people to join them, especially ISIS.
It is sad that in the face of the coming catastrophe the West — either blind, naïve or malevolent — is going to make a deal and appease Iran, just as a deal was made to appease Hitler in 1938.
Bassam Tawil is a scholar based in the Middle East.
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