 Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visits the Natanz
Uranium Enrichment Facility in an April 8, 2008 VIENNA — Iran is stonewalling the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency about "possible military dimensions" to its suspect nuclear program, officials said Friday, urging the regime to clarify the mysterious role of a foreign explosives expert and shed light on other issues. A senior Iranian envoy angrily denounced the assessment as "fabrication," insisting his country has gone out of its way to be transparent and cooperative. In its latest report, the International Atomic Energy Agency said it has pressed the Islamic Republic to clarify its uranium enrichment activities and reassure the world that it's not trying to build an atomic weapon. Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful and geared solely toward generating electricity. The United States and key allies contend the country is covertly trying to build an atomic weapon. Ahead of Sept. 2 six-power talks on Iran — and a key meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation board a week after that — the IAEA acknowledged that Tehran has been producing nuclear fuel at a slower rate and has allowed U.N. inspectors broader access to its main nuclear complex in the southern city of Natanz. Read more here ... Source: FoxNews
 "Work is nearly complete on a set of contracts on the delivery of Russian arms and military technology to Saudi Arabia, with a total value of around two billion dollars," the source told Interfax news agency. "For many of these contracts, all the technical and financial details have practically been agreed, for others work is still ongoing," he added. Riyadh may purchase up to 150 helicopters - 30 Mi-35 attack helicopters and up to 120 Mi-17 transport helicopters - more than 150 T-90S tanks, around 250 BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles and "several dozen" air defence systems, the source said. Contracts for the sale of the tanks and the helicopters "could be signed as soon as this year," he told Interfax. Spokespersons for Rosoboronexport, Russia's state-owned arms export monopoly, and for the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation, which oversees the arms trade, could not be reached for comment. Saudi Arabia - a close US ally - has long bought most of its arms from the US and Western Europe, but in recent years has been in talks on buying military equipment from Russia. Meanwhile Russia is keen to find new markets for its weapons exports, one of the few sectors of Russian manufacturing that has enjoyed international success. In 2008 Moscow and Riyadh signed a military cooperaton treaty, and this year Saudi King Abdullah received a delegation that included a top Kremlin adviser and an official from Rosoboronexport. Source: The Australian
LSE Law Professor Urged to Step Down from U.N Gaza Inquiry over Bias
GENEVA, August 20, 2009 The U.N. fact-finding mission into alleged violations in the recent Gaza conflict is being asked to disqualify London School of Economics law professor Christine Chinkin, over prior statements she made “categorically rejecting” Israel’s right to self-defence against Hamas rocket attacks, and accusing Israel of “aggression” and “prima facie war crimes.” A 28-page legal brief was filed today by the Geneva-based monitoring group UN Watch. (Click here to read UN Watch petition.) “International law and the rules of due process require fact-finders in the human rights field to be impartial,” said UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer, “and that means being free of any commitment to a preconceived outcome.” “The legal requirement for impartiality as developed by international tribunals, whose principles fully apply to quasi-judicial fact-finders, is absence of bias or even the appearance of bias,” said Neuer. “Christine Chinkin fails the legal test because, prior to seeing any evidence, she declared Israel guilty of the very charges that she is now supposed to impartially examine.” “How can Justice Goldstone claim that his fact-finders are operating with an open mind, when one of them has already made up her mind?” UN Watch demanded that Prof. Chinkin immediately step down from the inquiry, or that she be disqualified by the other fact-finders, or by the new UN Human Rights Council president, Ambasador Alex Van Meeuwen of Belgium.The petition cites authorities of international law, including a 2004 precedent of the international tribunal for Sierra Leone, in which Justice Geoffrey Robertson was disqualified by his fellow judges over the appearance of bias. In published comments made prior to that case, Robertson had alleged that various war crimes were committed by an organization connected to the defendants. By coincidence, one of the lawyers who helped win that precedent is now a researcher for the Goldstone fact-finding mission, whose report will be presented to the council in September. Click here for PDF of UN Watch Request to Disqualify Prof. Christine Chinkin from UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza ConflictThe summary of the request follows below. _____________
Summary of UN Watch Request to Disqualify Prof. Christine Chinkin from UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict
UN Watch requests that Prof. Christine Chinkin recuse herself from the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict on the grounds that she has already pronounced herself on the merits of the particular question to be decided by the Mission, thereby giving rise to actual bias or the appearance thereof, or that she be disqualified by the other Mission members or by the UN Human Rights Council president.Under international law, the minimal rules of due process require that fact-finders in the human rights field be impartial. The members of the Mission have themselves repeatedly emphasized that their terms of reference, as received from the president of the UN Human Rights Council, are impartial, in contrast to the original, one-sided Council mandate of 12 January 2009.
The Mission has pledged to impartially assess “all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law that might have been committed” in the recent Israel-Gaza conflict. Yet prior to seeing any evidence, Prof. Chinkin publicly declared that one of the parties—Israel—was guilty of both charges. The Mission cannot claim to be operating with an open mind when one of its members has already made up her mind.The facts are straightforward and undisputed. On 11 January 2009, during the recent Israel-Gaza conflict, the Letters section of the Sunday Times published a joint statement signed by Prof. Chinkin (Exhibit A) that declared Israel to be the aggressor, and a perpetrator of war crimes.
The letter began by “categorically rejecting” Israel’s right to claim self-defence against Hamas rocket attacks, “deplorable as they are.” While the end of the statement includes one passing reference to crimes committed by Hamas, the entire rest of the statement is devoted to the thesis that Israel was guilty—of the very accusations that the Mission is meant to impartially examine.Asked about this during a May 2009 meeting with Geneva NGOs, Prof. Chinkin denied that her impartiality was compromised, saying that her statement only addressed jus ad bellum, and not jus in bellum. But this was untrue.
In fact, her statement not only determined that “Israel’s actions amount to aggression, not self-defence,” but additionally that they were “contrary to international humanitarian and human rights law,” and constituted “prima facie war crimes.”
The impartiality requirement under international law, as applicable to international human rights fact-finders, is unequivocal. Scholars of international law list impartiality as the first principle of fact-finding. Impartiality as a requirement is further set forth in Articles 3 and 25 of the UN Declaration on Fact-Finding.
Finally, precedents from analogous international tribunals are equally clear. In the 2004 case of Sesay, the Special Court for Sierra Leone disqualified a judge who had published statements on the culpability of an organization connected to the defendants. This precedent applies a fortiori to the case of Prof. Chinkin, whose prior determination of guilt directly concerned one of the parties under examination.The remedy applied in Sesay should apply here. Never in the history of international tribunals and fact-finding panels has there been a more overt case of actual bias in the form of an arbiter’s prior determination of the merits of a particular case in controversy.
Justice Goldstone has promised that the Mission would be impartial. Even if, somehow, one were to conceive of an argument as to how Prof. Chinkin has not demonstrated actual bias, there is nevertheless the objective appearance of bias. The reasonable person would consider Prof. Chinkin to be partial after she publicly declared the guilt of one of the concerned parties on the very case and controversy under consideration. Therefore, if justice is to be done—and to be seen to be done—the only remedy is Prof. Chinkin’s recusal, or her disqualification by the Mission or the Human Rights Council president. UN Watch is a Geneva-based human rights organization founded in 1993 to monitor UN compliance with the principles of its Charter. It is accredited as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) in Special Consultative Status to the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and as an Associate NGO to the UN Department of Public Information. _________________ Take Action Click here: Uphold Impartiality: Remove Chinkin from Gaza Inquiry Urge the UN fact-finding mission on Gaza to disqualify Christine Chinkin due to her prior statement declaring one side guilty. Source: UnWatch.org
Palestinian Prime Minister: We'll Build State Institutions in Two Years. What Have You Been Doing for the last 15? This will never lead anywhere, but that’s the point isn’t it? Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has a new peace plan: he’s just going to create a state without reaching a peace agreement with Israel. The goal, in his words, is “to establish a de facto state apparatus within the next two years." Coverage of this just sort of took his word for it: "We must confront the whole world with the reality that Palestinians are united and steadfast in their determination to remain on their homeland, end the occupation and achieve their freedom and independence," he said. "The world should also know that we are not prepared to continue living under a brutal occupation and siege that flouts not only the law, but also the principles of natural justice and human decency.” If you actually examine what he says, however, all sorts of interesting things emerge: Fayyad has been finance minister for about seven years and prime minister for two years. But the PA has been in business for 15 years. That’s a long time. And what was the business of the PA? The first task was to negotiate a peace agreement with Israel, which it has refused to do and Fayyad appears disinterested in even today, given this new program. The second task was to—well, let’s use Fayyad’s own words here—“establish a de facto state apparatus.” So what’s it been doing all these years if the process of building that foundation hasn’t even begun? It’s been very busy: mobilizing warfare against Israel periodically, focusing on an international public relations’ campaign, stealing donor money (though Fayyad is competent and honest almost nobody else is), and raising a new generation to believe that the battle must continue until total victory. But establishing a de facto state apparatus? No. And that can’t be blamed on Israel. Well, they will blame Israel but there’s no basis for it.The next point, which is generally understood, is that the Palestinians are anything but united. Not only is there the battle of Hamas versus Fatah (with Gaza and the West Bank under separate regimes and no prospect of reunification) but also that of the establishment against the “Young Guard” (though I hate that term) opposition. Oh yes, and much of the establishment hates Fayyad and wants to get rid of him. A few months ago, they forced his temporary resignation. Next, if Palestinians are so steadfast in getting a state, why don’t they negotiate for one? If they are suffering under so much brutality doesn’t this give them an additional incentive to make a deal? But the suffering is just used as a public relations’ gimmick. Weird as it might sound in the West, this is how Palestinian politics work. If you simultaneously suffer and bleed--through violence and intransigence you yourself induce—and reject a compromise peace, this will hopefully bring international intervention to hand you everything you want with no cost on your part. If you truly understand the above paragraph you know everything you need to know about the Israel-Palestinian conflict and the failure to achieve peace. Finally, whatever sins can be put on Israel’s occupation, we should note that it is an involuntary and extremely partial one. There are no Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip and very few on the West Bank. The PA runs things there and if it prevented attacks on Israel there would be even less of a presence. Yes, there are settlements and roadblocks and an Israeli Jewish presence in Hebron. But the idea of some omnipotent occupation—certainly compared to the period before 1995 (when Palestinian towns were turned over to the PA) is largely fictional. And everyone likes to forget that the Israeli presence has been accepted by the PA itself in a number of agreements beginning with the Israel-PLO Oslo accord of 1993. Almost everything Israel does on the West Bank takes place in the context of things the PA has agreed to happen. This may sound counterintuitive but it is quite true and it is a point that needs emphasizing. By its own free agreement the PLO and PA accepted the existence of settlements in the West Bank until a peace agreement was signed. It is thus hypocritical to argue that the settlements are there in some "illegal" manner or against the will of the Palestinians. Detailed maps were agreed to by none other than Yasir Arafat and his then advisor, now head of the PA and PLO, Mahmoud Abbas about precisely which sections of the territory Israel would govern during the interim period.What’s the catch? The agreements say this will continue until a peace agreement is made which results in a two-state solution. So who’s responsible for the continuation of the “occupation”? Not Israel; the PA. And who can make all the settlements go away, at least within their own independent state? The PA. But the PA is not going to get what it wants: dismantlement of settlements, an independent state, and financial reparations unless it recognizes Israel, agrees to resettle Palestinian refugees within its own country, ends the conflict and all further claims on Israel, and provides security guarantees. That is what the Palestinian and "pro-Palestinian" campaign is about. To get a state without binding conditions that would truly end the conflict forever, leaving the PLO and PA free to continue the battle to destroy Israel completely.These are the issues which as many people throughout the world must be made to understand.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict, and Crisis (Palgrave Macmillan), Conflict and Insurgency in the Contemporary Middle East (Routledge), The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition) (Viking-Penguin), the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan), A Chronological History of Terrorism (Sharpe), and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley).
Source: http://www.gloria-center.org/blog/2009/08/state-institutions.html
 July 10, 2009: Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown, left, meets
Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi at the G8 Summit in L'Aquilla As questions swirl whether British Prime Minister Gordon Brown paid a dictator's ransom when he released the Lockerbie bomber last week, the Libyan strongman's son said it was "obvious" that efforts to free the convicted killer were tied to lucrative contracts with the oil-rich state. "Why be so angry?" asked Saif al-Islam al-Qaddafi in an interview with the Scottish Herald, responding to the international uproar ignited as Scotland freed Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the only man ever convicted in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which killed 270 people. Al-Megrahi, who is dying of prostate cancer, was sentenced to life in prison for the crime but served only 8 years of his sentence — just 11 days in prison for each of his victims. In the week since his release, pressure has been mounting on Brown to explain his government's role in securing the al-Megrahi's freedom, possibly as part of the so-called "deal in the desert" struck by Britain with Libya two years ago. Read more here ... Source: FoxNews
 The famous photo of Adolf Hitler sitting with Grand
Mufti Hajj Muhammad Amin al-HusseiniThe publicly funded Multicultural Center's (Werkstatt der Kulturen) decision to remove educational panels of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Muhammad Amin al-Husseini, who was an ally of Adolf Hitler, from a planned exhibit, sparked outrage on Thursday among a district mayor, the curator of the exhibit, and the Berlin Jewish community. The curator, Karl Rössler, told The Jerusalem Post that it is a "scandal" that the director of the Werkstatt, Philippa Ebéné, sought to censor the exhibit. "One must, of course, name that al-Husseini, a SS functionary, participated in the Holocaust," said Rössler. The exhibit covers the "The Third World during the Second World War" and three exhibit panels of 96 are devoted to the mufti's collaboration with the Nazis. The grand mufti delivered a talk to the imams of the Bosnian SS division in 1944, and was a key Islamic supporter of Nazi Germany's destruction of European Jewry. Ebéné denied that there was an "agreement " reached with the local German-Muslim community to shut down the exhibit. She termed media queries regarding an agreement as "Eurocentric." She told the Post that the exhibit was intended as a "homage to soldiers from African" countries who fought against the Nazis. When asked about her opposition to the inclusion of the mufti panels, she asked, "was there ever a commemoration event in Israel to honor the [African] soldiers?" Rössler was notified last Friday that Ebéné wanted to take out the panels dealing with the grand mufti, but he rejected her demand to remove them. Meanwhile, the exhibit in its uncensored version has been relocated to the UferHallen gallery. Read more here ... Source: JPost
 Senior US officials have told The Weekend Australian that military prosecutors lack the evidence to charge the Indonesian terror suspect over the bombings of the Sari Club and Paddy's Bar on October 12, 2002. The news will come as a blow to relatives of those who perished in the deadliest terrorist attacks ever perpetrated against Australians. It follows the execution in Indonesia last year of the three bombers, Imam Samudra and brothers Amrozi and Mukhlas. While authorities are confident they can tie Hambali to other terrorist attacks across the archipelago - ensuring he is almost certain to remain in custody - US officials say it is unlikely the 45-year-old will be charged over his role in the Bali bombings. A senior US official close to the investigation said the problem boiled down to a lack of admissible evidence. "As it stands now, the case against Hambali on Bali is weak," he said. "But the investigation has not stopped. It is ongoing." Despite the lack of evidence, there is a near universal consensus among experts, intelligence analysts and government officials that Hambali was involved in the twin blasts in the Kuta tourist strip. Read more here ... Source: The Australian
 ISRAELI Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces a revolt from within his own ranks over concessions he is prepared to make to enable the Middle East peace talks to resume. As an indication of the extraordinary political juggling act he will be required to perform in coming months, it was revealed yesterday that two rallies are planned for his return to Israel this week, to protest against any concession on Jewish settlements in the West Bank. It highlights Mr Netanyahu's dilemma - strong pressure from US President Barack Obama and European leaders on one side to halt all settlement activity, and pressure on the other side from a powerful constituency inside his own right-wing Likud party to allow the settlements to continue growing. The protests are likely to be attended by some of his own ministers. The Jerusalem Post reported yesterday that the first of the rallies, planned for Tel Aviv this Tuesday, was being organised by one of his ministers, Yossi Peled. The paper reported that while the rally was being presented as a "pro-Jerusalem event", members of the Knesset who attended were "expected to bash the deal the Prime Minister is negotiating with the Americans". The paper said three ministers - Gilad Erdan, Moshe Kahlon and Yuli Edelstein - had told the organisers they would attend, and organisers were still hoping to attract two others, Moshe Ya'alon and Bennie Begin. It quoted Pinchas Wallerstein from the the settlers' council as saying: "When Netanyahu talks of a Palestinian state, I hate it, but I'm not worried because there will be no peace deal. "When Netanyahu speaks about a settlement freeze, it's a death sentence for the settlement enterprise." Read more here ... Source: The Australian
 Every time I despair of the way women are treated in Muslim countries—and the few syllables Western leaders and op-ed columnists expend on their humiliations, mutilations, harassments, and, yes, murders—I turn to the Web site of Mona Eltahawy. Eltahawy spent her formative years in Egypt and Saudi Arabia:
A couple of years after I stopped visiting, a horrific fire broke out in a school in Mecca, home to the Muslim world’s holiest site. Fifteen girls burned to death because morality police standing outside the school wouldn’t let them out of the burning building. Why? Because they weren’t wearing headscarves and abayas, the black cloaks that girls and women must wear in public in Saudi Arabia.
And here is Eltahawy on a girl’s lot in Egypt:
When I was only four years old and still living in Cairo, a man exposed himself to me as I stood on a balcony at my family’s, and gestured for me to come down. At 15, I was groped as I was performing the rites of the hajj pilgrimage at Mecca, the holiest site for Muslims. Every part of my body was covered except for my face and hands. I’d never been groped before and burst into tears, but I was too ashamed to explain to my family what had happened.
To anyone who, like me, has lived in a Muslim nation, none of this behavior is either singular or surprising. It is the way men in most Islamic nations prefer things to be. We can talk forever about the nature of culture versus faith: how ancient rites and practices like the circumcision of girls (85 percent of all Egyptian girls have endured this procedure), or the tradition of keeping women ignorant and housebound, can corrupt a religion that never intended for these things to happen.
But it is no coincidence that women who must submit to Sharia law find themselves in a very bad place, wherever those women and those places happen to be.
This includes France, where only last year a court in Lille upheld the right of a Muslim man to hold fast to his faith and annul his marriage when he discovered his bride was not a virgin. And it includes Germany, where in Berlin in 2005 there were eight murders of young women of Turkish origin, executed by members of their own families. And Australia, where, after a group of unveiled Muslim women were raped, the succinct Mufti Taj al-Din al-Hilali explained away the crime as an attack on “uncovered meat.” And it includes the United Kingdom, where Scotland Yard has probed 109 suspicious deaths of women, also likely slaughtered by relatives. Islam is an easy rider: it travels everywhere and often brings with it a lot of baggage.
Bet let’s start with Islam as it affects women in their home countries. Last year, in a poll of 2,000 Egyptian men, 62 percent admitted harassing women: an activity most of those interviewed insisted was not really their fault as their advances, however intemperate and offensive to their victims, had after all been provoked by the women themselves. Read more here,,,, Source: World Affairs Journal
H/T: DF
 The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) engages in frequent interfaith programs with Jewish groups and has been embraced warmly by the Obama administration as a contact point for the American Muslim community. In those circles, ISNA presents an open and progressive face of Islam that is led by a woman, Ingrid Mattson. Literature available at ISNA's annual convention last month in Washington, however, offers a far different vision. Books and pamphlets obtained by the Investigative Project on Terrorism from ISNA's July national convention feature numerous attempts to portray U.S. prosecution of terrorists and terror supporters as anti-Muslim bigotry; dramatic revisionist history that denied attacks by Arab nations and Palestinian terrorists against Israel; anti-Semitic tracts and hyperbolic rants about a genocide and holocaust of Palestinians. Previously, the IPT exposed hate speech during a conference panel that featured a call for "more jihad" along with slurs against Jews and gays and a defense of the terrorist group Hizballah as an innocent player subject to incessant Israeli onslaught. Read more ...Source: IPT News
Saudi Rehabilitation Program for Terrorists Needs Re-evaluation
Tuesday, August 25, 2009 12:51 PM - By: Tawfik Hamid The rate of terror plots in Saudi Arabia in the last couple of years and the number of Saudi citizens involved in such plots deserve serious attention. In 2008 Saudi security forces have arrested 701 militants for allegedly plotting to carry out terrorist attacks on oil facilities and other vital installations across the kingdom.
On Aug. 19, 44 al-Qaida suspects were arrested. The suspects were planning attacks using remote electronic detonators and were attempting to recruit youths to finance their activities through charitable donations.
The ability of the Saudi intelligence to abort these attacks before manifesting must be applauded. However, this high number of Saudi citizens (many of them highly educated) who are involved in terror plots raises doubts about the effectiveness of the measures used to weaken Islamic radicalism.
Saudi Arabia has offered young terrorists rehabilitation from a life of violence in the name of jihad. Saudi authorities claim a rehabilitation success rate of 80 to 90 percent.
While this seems attractive to many, some fundamental points should be considered.
First, will the Saudi system also consider changing some traditional violent concepts in Shariah law such as dar al-harb (house of war) and dar al-Islam (house of Islam) that have created the mindset for violent jihad? In particular, the mainstream Islamic concept that Muslims have to declare or wage wars on non-Muslims to offer them a choice between three options: convert to Islam, pay jizia (humiliating tax), or be killed. This concept sets the basic foundations for violent jihad in the mind of many young Muslims, including myself at an earlier stage of my life.
The jihadists of our modern times have twisted this concept, which promotes violence at the nation or “ummah” level, to use at the individual level in the form of terror attacks. The distortion of the meaning of jihad in this case was not from a peaceful concept to a violent one, but rather from an originally violent concept to a barbaric one. Without changing the former rule of “dar al-harb and dar al-Islam,” it is very hard to have an effective end to individual jihad.
Second, it is vital in such programs to have proper peer review for the study. Political statements of the program’s success are not sufficient to consider it effective. Detailed statistical analyses and comparison to a control group in other Middle Eastern countries that do not use this approach are needed for further evaluation of the Saudi program. It may turn out that using other tactics is more effective or, that putting the terrorists in prison or under surveillance indefinitely may yield a better outcome. Releasing the terrorists may actually facilitate further spread of the radical ideology.
Third, the return of 10 percent of the released radicals to terrorism within just a few years of participating in the program -- while they are supposed to be under intensive follow-up by the intelligence -- could be considered a sign of failure rather than success. The Saudi Interior Ministry released a list of 85 suspected terrorists on Feb. 3 that included 11 graduates from its widely acclaimed jihadist rehabilitation program. If a known terror group member managed to join another after being released and reached a leadership level -- as already happened with some of the released jihadists -- then there is some weakness in the security apparatus that needs to be addressed. Furthermore, 10 percent failure out of hundreds of terrorists may be seen as very risky to world security, especially when we know that ONLY 19 radicals managed to conduct the attacks on Sept. 11.
Fourth, is the program’s success rate as perceived by the Saudis due to the rehabilitation program itself or other factors? The participants might have a psychological sense of defeat while in prison, or the feeling that they are under intensive intelligence surveillance after their release. This would probably make them delay the decision of rejoining radical groups until they feel safer to do so. In other words, are the figures presented to us by the Saudi system indicative of a long-term genuine trend, or a tactical delay in rejoining jihadi groups? More prolonged studies are needed to evaluate this point before judging the effectiveness of such programs.
Another vital question is why the Saudis are showing this soft approach toward the terrorists and the radicals while they do not apply the same principle to those who commit much lesser crimes. If the Saudis truly believed in the importance of re-education and rehabilitation to deal with criminals, then why not use this soft approach with “adulterers” instead of stoning them to death? Is the selective use of soft approaches with the radicals and the terrorists indicative of covert support to, or sympathy with, the jihadist cause among some elements in the Saudi system?
Finally, it is premature to regard the Saudi rehabilitation programs for the terrorists as effective. The Saudi system must prove that it is truly against violent jihad by changing the traditional mainstream Shariah principle of dar al-harb (house of war) and dar al-Islam (house of Islam). Islamic text can be interpreted in new ways to bring to an end to such violent Shariah principle. It is so hard to de-root the idea of terrorism while still teaching this violent concept as a fundamental part of Islam. Trying to change only a small group of radicals while continuing to teach violent principles to society is a primitive approach that only treats the symptoms rather than the disease itself. Dr. Tawfik Hamid is the author of "Inside Jihad." He was a former associate of Dr. al-Zawahiri (second in command of al-Qaida) and currently he is a reformer of Islam. To know more about Hamid please visit www.tawfikhamid.com. Hamid's writings in this blog represent only his thoughts and not the views of the institute where he works. © 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved. Source: http://www.newsmax.com/tawfik_hamid/saudi_jihad_terrorist/2009/08/25/252134.html
 Would you be happy, if a notorious terrorist-backer camped out in your neighborhood? Local New Jersey residents are furious as they see one coming to a field near them!By Michelle Malkin How much more suffering does the Obama administration want to inflict upon American relatives of the Lockerbie bombing murder victims? Watching Lockerbie terrorist Abdel Baset al-Megrahi walk free after serving a measly eight years of a life sentence was cruel enough. Next, Lockerbie families endured the despicable hero's welcome party thrown for Megrahi by Libyan thug Moammar Gadhafi. Soon after came reports that Megrahi, released by Scotland for "compassionate reasons" due to terminal prostate cancer diagnosed by a lone anonymous doctor, may not actually have less than three months to live. And now? Now, the Lockerbie families must prepare for the sight of Gadhafi jetting to New York City for a thug-of-the-month speech at the United Nations General Assembly in September -- topped off by a planned jaunt to Englewood, N.J., where the murder-stained jihadi financier wants to pitch a swank, air-conditioned Bedouin tent to greet well-wishers. Read more ... Source: FSM
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