By Caroline Glick
The Jerusalem Post
December 5, 2011

With vote tallies in for Egypt’s first round of parliamentary elections in it is abundantly clear that Egypt is on the fast track to becoming a totalitarian Islamic state. The first round of voting took place in Egypt’s most liberal, cosmopolitan cities. And still the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists received more than 60 percent of the vote. Run-off elections for 52 seats will by all estimates increase their representation.

And then in the months to come, Egyptian voters in the far more Islamist Nile Delta and Sinai will undoubtedly provide the forces of jihadist Islam with an even greater margin of victory.

Until the US-supported overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, Egypt served as the anchor of the US alliance system in the Arab world. The Egyptian military is US-armed, US-trained and US-financed.

The Suez Canal is among the most vital waterways in the world for the US Navy and the global economy.

By Ambassador Yoram Ettinger
Second Thought, Israel Hayom, Newsletter
December 5, 2011

Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, has played a key role in the misreading of the Mid-East by the CIA and the Pentagon. Panetta's severe miscomprehension of the Mid-East, and oversimplified worldview, were reflected by his December 2, 2011 speech at the Brookings Institute in Washington, DC.

Panetta was a member of the 2006 Iraq Study Group, which recommended that Iran and Syria be coopted into the effort to stabilize Iraq. He was unfamiliar with a basic Mid-East truism: Iran and Syria have been the historical arch-enemies of Iraq, as well as two of the most ruthless, anti-US terrorist regimes in the world.

Marshaling his experience as a former Chairman of the House Budget Committee, Clinton's White House Chief-of-Staff and member of the board of the New York Stock Exchange, Panetta has praised the "Technological Youth Revolution” on the Arab Street.  He misperceives the eruption of the Islamic political lava, which consumes and destabilizes relatively pro-Western Arab regimes, as an "Arab awakening” and the "March of Democracy.”

By Barry Rubin
December 3, 2011

Charlie: “You coulda been another Billy Conn, and that skunk we got you for a manager, he brought you along too fast.”

Terry: “It wasn’t him, Charley, it was you. Remember that night in the Garden you came down to my dressing room and you said, 'Kid, this ain’t your night. We’re going for the price on Wilson.’….I coulda taken Wilson apart! So what happens? He gets the title shot outdoors on the ballpark and what do I get? A one-way ticket to Palooka-ville! You was my brother, Charley, you shoulda looked out for me a little bit. You shoulda taken care of me just a little bit….” –Budd Schulberg, On the Waterfront.

In a major address on U.S. Middle East policy to the Brookings Institution U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta gave us a clear picture of the Obama administration’s view of the region. When taken along with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent speech on the same subject, we now know the following regarding Obama’s policy:

By Daniel Halper
December 3, 2011

The U.S. ambassador to Belgium, Howard Gutman, recently told a conference hosted by the European Jewish Union that Israel is to blame for growing anti-Semitism harbored by people of Muslim faith.
Howard Gutman

Ambassador Howard Gutman

“A distinction should be made between traditional anti-Semitism, which should be condemned and Muslim hatred for Jews, which stems from the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians,” Gutman reportedly said, according to the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. “He also argued that an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty will significantly diminish Muslim anti-Semitism.”

By Sarah Honig 
December 2, 2011

Hysterical headlines and none-too-coincidentally promoted causes célèbres are more often than not revealed as having been much ado about nothing. But there are different sorts of superfluous fusses.

Some are grounded in crass sensationalism, motivated by pompous publicity-hounding, ratings-boosting and irrepressible rampant shallowness. The results can be dire even without malevolent premeditation.

Inevitably, however, the loudest screamers in any given media campaign are acutely aware of the underlying sham of their pose. They fabricate the fake with forethought aplenty. They intentionally orchestrate uproars against nonexistent provocations. Their much-ado-about-nothing isn’t born of vulgarity but by deliberate design.

By Jay Bushinsky
December 2, 2011

JERUSALEM -- The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was one of the turning points of World War II.

It was the first armed revolt by European civilians subjected to the brutality of Nazi Germany's occupation.  SS Chief Heinrich Himmler feared that it would generate more uprisings elsewhere in his previously-obedient domain.  Because of the courage and determination of the vastly-outnumbered and poorly-equipped Jewish fighters there indeed was a subsequent uprising by non-Jewish Poles outside the by-then destroyed ghetto.

There also were revolts in other occupied countries, but not on the same scale as those that  occurred in Warsaw. Himmler wanted the ghetto revolt to be crushed by April 20, 1943 (a day after it had gone into high gear), but his forces were unable to suppress it until May 16.

By Caroline B. Glick
December 2, 2011

Thankfully, Obama's abandonment of the traditional US role as the leader of the free world has not prevented Western governments and regional forces for freedom from acting in their common interests

Something is happening in Iran. Forces are in motion. But what is happening? And who are the forces that are on the move? Since this week's bombing in Isfahan, the world media is rife with speculation that the war with Iran over its nuclear weapons program has begun. But if the war has begun, who is fighting it? What are their aims? And what are their methods and means of attack?

Wednesday the Times of London published a much cited article about this week's blast in Isfahan. The article referred to the bombed installation as a "uranium enrichment facility." But there is no uranium enrichment facility at Isfahan. Rather there is a uranium conversion facility.

By REUTERS
December 1, 2011

Targets include Assad's brother, cousin; EU readies raft of economic sanctions against Syria.

BEIRUT - The Arab League put Syrian VIPs on a travel ban list on Thursday and European Union foreign ministers readied a raft of economic sanctions against President Bashar Assad to press him into stopping a military crackdown on popular protests.

Syria's crisis erupted in March with street unrest inspired by anti-authoritarian revolts elsewhere in the Arab world. But driven by Assad's iron fist policy towards civilian protesters, Syria may be sliding towards civil war as some soldiers and officers defect with their weapons to fight loyalist troops.
An Arab League committee meeting in Cairo listed 17 people banned from travel to Arab states, including Assad's brother Maher who commands the military's elite Republican Guard and is Syria's second most powerful man.

By Reuters
December 1, 2011

Speaking at N.Y. meeting of campaign donors, U.S. president says did more for Israel's security than previous administrations.

President Barack Obama defended his policy toward Israel at a political fundraiser on Wednesday, saying that Israel was the U.S.'s most important ally.

Obama, who has been criticized by some of Israel's U.S. supporters for being tough on a close ally and has had strained ties with Israeli Prime Benjamin Netanyahu, offered strong assurances of his commitment to Israel's security.

By Jonathan S. Tobin
Commentary Magazine
November 30, 2011

The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman made a rare concession to reality today when he wrote in his column that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was right to voice fears about the outcome of the Arab Spring earlier this year. In another astonishing divergence from his blame-Israel-at-all costs, he even noted that Israel’s refusal to cede more territory to the Palestinians at a time when they are fatally divided between Fatah and Hamas is “understandable” because, as Netanyahu noted in a speech to the Knesset yesterday, the Arab world is moving “backward” and turning into an “Islamic, anti-Western, anti-liberal, anti-Israeli, undemocratic wave.” Giving up more land now is senseless: “We can’t know who will end up with any piece of territory we give up.”

But later on in the piece, Friedman reverted to form by saying the best way for Israel to avert the Arab drift to radicalism was to further empower moderates such as Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. But as we noted here more than a week ago, PA leader Mahmoud Abbas​ has already conceded that Fayyad will be dumped when Fatah and Hamas conclude their unity pact. The fact that Fayyad’s time has already come and gone is apparently beneath the notice of one of the fixtures on the Times op-ed page.

In fact, Netanyahu and his predecessors have done all they can to help Fayyad during the last several years, as has the United States. Despite the Palestinians’ clear violations of the Oslo Accords by going to the UN, Israel even handed over tax funds this week to Fayyad, as Friedman demanded. But the problem with a thesis that sees “Fayyadism” as the answer to Israel’s problems is that despite all the aid he has gotten, he still has no political traction with his own people.

By Tawfik Hamid
November 30, 2011

Since September 11th, several intellectuals and political leaders in the West have advocated that 'democracy' represents the best solution for the problems that are brought upon by the Arab world, particularly Radical Islam. Unfortunately, democracy in Iraq was not incredibly successful and has thus resulted in discrimination against the Christian minority within the country. Similarly, the outcome of democracy in Gaza brought Hamas, a renowned terrorist group, to power. The so-called 'Arab Spring' is also likely to bring Islamist movements that will only end hopes for modernity amongst the Arab world.

Dreaming about democracy without setting its foundations is similar to dreaming about having a fruit without even implanting a tree.

In other words, it was better having the West use its influence in the Arab world to assist in establishing the foundations for democracy, such as respect for the rights of minorities and the acceptance of 'others', before focusing on establishing election-ballot systems. These foundations typically need educational and ideological reform before political reform can take place, as they are vital in making the process of democracy fruitful.

By Julian Borger and Saeed Kamali Dehghan
Guardian
November 30 2011

William Hague says diplomats must leave UK within 48 hours, saying storming of British embassy in Iran had backing of regime

The foreign secretary, William Hague, has ordered the expulsion of Iranian diplomats from the UK and announced that the UK is closing its embassy in Tehran, saying that the storming of the mission on Tuesday had the backing of the regime.

Hague said Iranian diplomats would have to leave Britain within 48 hours, and that all British embassy staff in Tehran had now left Iran.

He said that the move would not mean the severance of all ties, as the two countries could continue to have a dialogue at international meetings, as the US has done since the seizure and closure of its embassy in 1979, but the move marks a new low in relations, which have been growing increasingly strained.