1. Islamic Civilization is Dying (followed by Brit-Am Comment).
A briefing by David P. Goldman
November 15, 2011
Extracts:
Rather than focus on Islamism and its conflict with modernity as chief culprit
for this instability, Mr. Goldman pointed to the massive decline in Muslim
birthrates attending the growing education of women. Iranian women, for example,
used to bear 7 children on average; now the rate has fallen to 1.5, with the
most highly educated subgroup approaching a fertility rate of 1.0. Such an
inverted population pyramid means that fewer and fewer young people will be
forced to support a growing but aging populace. This is not some pipe dream of
Western demographers; President Ahmadinejad himself has called the decision by
Iranian youth not to have children an act of genocide against the Iranian
nation.
Turkey, which also boasts a high literacy rate, including among its women, has
seen the fertility rate among ethnic Turks declining to 1.5 children per woman.
At the same time, Turkey's restive Kurdish population is now some 20% of the
citizenry, with Kurdish women averaging 4.5 children. If this trend continues,
and there seems to be no reason it will not, the inverting Turkish population
pyramid will be overwhelmed by the "normal" Kurdish one, in essence creating a
Kurdistan within the borders of Turkey, a situation fraught with the potential
for intensified conflict.
The population decline of these two Muslim countries is to be contrasted with
Egypt with its 45% illiteracy rate, and where two thirds of the population lives
in rural areas relatively untouched by education or opportunities for women.
Combine Egypt's burgeoning population with its diploma mill universities
(producing essentially unemployable graduates), its reliance on imports for half
its caloric consumption, and its drawn-down of hard currency reserves and one
has what can be viewed as a "perfect storm" for upheaval and potential chaos.
Besides bringing the Muslim Brotherhood to power, Tahrir Square has decimated
the tourist industry; the camels upon which vacationers used to ride around the
pyramids are now being slaughtered for meat. There has been massive capitol
flight and the generals seem to be stealing everything not nailed down. Egypt is
now facing economic collapse and is in danger of becoming another Somalia,
filled with starving people.
Does the impending collapse of the nation-states of the Middle East ruled by
plutocrats, dictators and mullahs offer an opportunity for the West'
Unfortunately not, according to Goldman.
The hard truth is that countries that feel they have no future will take extreme
steps because they have nothing to lose. Tehran does not behave rationally, at
least not in the Western sense, and poses an existential threat to Israel; it
will use its nuclear weapons once they are developed.
Goldman's advice then is to bomb Iran and take out its nuclear capability,
despite the collateral damage that will likely ensue. In countries roiled by the
Arab uprisings which are slipping into Islamist hands, hostile to U.S.
interests, American policy should be to destabilize them through various
measures.
Brit-Am Comment:
The comment of Goldman deals with only one aspect of the Islamic menace.
Islam has two heads:
a. Islamic States such Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Saudia, etc.
All of these are potentially unstable perhaps in stage of degeneration as
Goldman indicates but still dangerous, perhaps even more so for facing disaster
in the long run at all events.
b. Islam alongside Israel and the West.
The Palestinians in Judah and Samaria and in Israel itself as well as the
Muslims in the West, in France, and Holland, and Sweden, etc.
All these are increasing at the expense of their host countries. In every case
their birthrate is higher than that of the peoples they live amongst, some times
very much so.
Here their influence and the threat they pose are increasing.
2. Why There is No Peace Between Israel
and the Arabs
by Werner Cohn
http://www.ibegtodisagree.com/2012/
01/why-there-is-no-peace-
between-israel.html
Extracts:
...the Arab elites and the Arab "street" will not tolerate a
Jewish state, no matter how small, anywhere in what the prevailing Arab
view holds to be sacred Arab land, namely Israel.
In brief, I would accept what Professor Richard Landes has described as
the Honor/Shame-Jihad paradigm:
The [Honor/Shame-Jihad paradigm] understands the Arab-Israeli conflict
through the prism of honor-shame culture and Islamic jihad. These
elements of Arab culture are the main factors that have made it
impossible to reach a solution to the conflict. Arab leaders view any
compromise with Israel as losing face, since such an agreement would
mean recognizing as a worthy foe an inferior group that should be
subject. Such a blow to Arab honor cannot be tolerated for cultural
and political reasons: losing face means to feel utter humiliation, to
lose public credibility, and to lose power. In search of lost honor,
Arab (and Palestinian) elites, never particularly concerned with the
welfare of their masses...
The Arabs' total rejection of any kind of Jewish presence in the Middle
East is often hidden by a pervasive policy of forked tongue: peaceful
phrases in Western languages directed toward the West, violence of action
and incitement to violence in Arabic-language pronouncements.
The atmosphere of Jew-Hatred
"The Jews, sons of apes and pigs, destroy Al-Aqsa"
Source: Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas), Oct. 9, 2009
Friday prayer and sermon, unidentified Hamas speaker:
"Today we look at Al-Aqsa as it sighs beneath the yoke of the Jews,
beneath the yoke of the sons of apes and pigs, brothers of apes and
pigs. Destroy the Jews and their helpers."
In the territory of the Palestinian Authority, streets and other public
places are regularly named in honor of suicide-terrorists who have died,
thus honoring the deeds of Jew-killing as much as the terrorists who gave
their all to banish the Jews from the Middle East. The Palestinian Media
Watch (an absolutely indispensable resource) has documented this ongoing
PA practice. Israeli spokespeople have rightfully pointed out,
repeatedly, that the PA here incites to murder, that it thereby
contradicts its own verbal professions of non-violence.
Holocaust-denial, currently the most practiced of the anti-Semitic
propaganda tropes worldwide, is pervasive in the PA territory as it is in
the media of the Arab world. The PA President, Mahmoud Abbas, has a PhD
in Holocaust-denial, awarded by a Soviet university:
The Other Side: the Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism
(Arabic: al-Wajh al-Akhar: al-'Alaqat as-Sirriya bayna an-Naziya
wa's-Sihyuniya. Publisher: Dar Ibn Rushd, Amman, Jordan. 1984) is the
title of a book by Mahmoud Abbas,[1] published in Arabic.[1]
In the book, Abbas argues that the Nazi Holocaust had been exaggerated
and that Zionists created "the myth" of six million murdered Jews,
which he called a "fantastic lie".[3][4][5] He further claimed that
those Jews which were killed by the Nazis were actually the victims of
a Zionist-Nazi plot aimed to fuel vengeance against Jews and to expand
their mass extermination.[6] (Wikipedia)
One of the most symbolic actions of the Arab elites is the annual
observance of "Nakba Day" (Day of the Catastrophe) to mark the
establishment of Israel in 1948. Contrary to verbal declarations that PA
demands could be satisfied by a return to 1967 borders, the staging of the
annual Nakba event consitutes a rejection of Israel even if it were
confined to its most limited borders, i.e. those of 1948. These Nakba
observances send a powerful message to the Arab "street": the existence
of Israel itself is a crime, no matter how small Israel might be; and our
cause today is what it was in 1948, when the armies of Egypt, Jordan,
Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon invaded Israel, with material help from Saudi
Arabia, Yemen, and Lybia.
The rejection of Israel by the Arab elites is so extreme that sometimes it
appears comical. One case in point is the ritualistic denial by Arab
scholars, for propagandistic purposes, of any ancient Jewish connection to
Jerusalem. In brief, according to these professors and, in the case of
Jerusalem's Al-Quds University, of official University policy, there were
no Jews in Jerusalem before modern times, there was no King David, there
was no Jewish Temple. I have documented these pseudo-scholarly
distortions in a previous posting.
Violent Hatreds in the Muslim World
These Islamist manifestations of hatred against the Jews are very
disturbing, but they must be seen against the larger, equally disturbing
background of Islamist hatreds and violence that have nothing to do with
Israel or the Jews, but which nevertheless have a bearing on the conflict
between the Arabs and Israel. The point here is that if the Arabs (and
the Muslim world) behaves so violently in its internal conflicts, what
hope is there for more pacific behavior when it comes to the Jews?
3. Laying the Foundations for Future
Movement Overseas?
Wikipedia: The Arab Diaspora in
Latin America and Elsewhere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_diaspora
The Americas have long been a destination for Arab migration, with Arabs
arriving in some countries at least as early as the nineteenth century, but even
as early as 1492 with several Moors among Christopher Columbus' crew.[citation
needed] The largest concentration of Arabs outside the Arab World is in Brazil,
which has nearly 10 million Brazilians of Arab ancestry.[3] Of these 10 million
Arabs, seven million are of Lebanese ancestry,[18][not in citation given] making
Brazil's population of Lebanese greater than that of Lebanon itself. Most other
Brazilians of Arab descent are mainly Syrian. There are also large Arab
communities in Mexico (about 400,000 Mexicans of Lebanese descent), Argentina,
Chile, Colombia, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Trinidad & Tobago,
Ecuador, and Venezuela.[19] Palestinians cluster in Chile and Central America,
particularly El Salvador, and Honduras (between 150,000 and 200,000).[20] The
500,000 strong Palestinian community in Chile[21][22] is the fourth largest in
the world after those in Israel, Lebanon, and Jordan. Arab Haitians (a large
number of whom live in the capital) are more often than not, concentrated in
financial areas where the majority of them establish businesses. In the United
States, there are around 3.5 million people of Arab ancestry. Most Arabs of the
Americas are of either Lebanese, Syrian, or Palestinian ancestry. The Lebanese
minority in America are mostly Christian, with sizable Muslim, and Jewish
minorities.[23]
The Lebanese diaspora, while historically trade-related, has been linked more
recently to the Lebanese Civil War, and the 2006 Lebanon War. In October 2006,
shortly after the 2006 Second Lebanon War had concluded, the Edinburgh Middle
East Report ran an article covering the brain drain from Lebanon's
universities.[24] Increasing numbers of Lebanese students are travelling abroad
to further their education in safer environments.
As of June 21, 2007, the U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees estimated that over
2.2 million Iraqis had been displaced to neighboring countries, with up to
100,000 Iraqis fleeing to Syria and Jordan each month.[25][26][27] As a result
of growing international pressure, on June 1, 2007 the Bush administration said
it was ready to admit 7,000 Iraqi refugees who had helped the coalition since
the invasion. According to Washington based Refugees International the U.S. has
admitted fewer than 800 Iraqi refugees since the invasion, Sweden had accepted
18,000 and Australia had resettled almost 6,000.[28]
About 80,000 Iraqis live in Sweden, forming the country's second largest
immigrant group.[29] France is home to a now estimated 3 to 5 million Arabs and
of Arabic-speaking nationalities, esp. from North Africa.[citation
needed][dubious ' discuss] There is also a medium sized Arab community in
Australia (home to roughly 400,000 Arabs, mostly Lebanese), where Arabic is the
fourth most widely spoken second-language. The number of Muslim and Christian
Arab Australians are roughly equal with a slight Christian majority. |
