MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

Another Obama-supported official unable to separate fact from fiction.  Blaming Israel for anti-Semitism is like blaming Africa for slavery …

BY DANIEL HALPER – “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.

‘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.’

According to the account in the Israeli paper, ‘The legal experts at the event were visibly stunned by Gutman’s words, and the next speaker offered a scathing rebuttal to the envoy’s remarks.’

Gutman was a major fundraiser for President Obama’s 2008 election campaign. He bundled $500,000 for Obama, according to OpenSecrets.org, personally giving at least $2,300 to the campaign.

In 2009, Obama nominated Gutman, a Washington, D.C. attorney, to be ambassador to Belgium.” Source – The Weekly Standard.

So, what is really to blame here?  Let’s learn directly from the horse’s mouth …

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US Defense Secretary Panetta is a myopic, blind simpleton.  Someone who is unable to discern regional events and correctly associate its toxic root with a new Islamist reality has no business being America’s “Defense Secretary” …

Proverbs 29:9, “If a wise man contends with a foolish man, Whether the fool rages or laughs, there is no peace.”

“WASHINGTON – Defense Secretary Leon Panetta urged Israel on Friday to ‘reach out and mend fences’ with Turkey, Egypt and other security partners in the Middle East, saying he is troubled by the Jewish state’s growing isolation in the volatile region.

He also pressed Israeli leaders to do more to restart peace talks with the Palestinians — ‘Just get to the damned table’ — and underscored President Obama’s determination to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. He called Iran ‘a very grave threat to all of us’ and said any Iranian disruption of the free flow of commerce through the Persian Gulf is a ‘red line’ for the U.S.

In a speech at a Brookings Institution forum, Panetta said that while Israel is not solely responsible for its isolation, it could more actively attempt to reverse the trend.

‘For example, Israel can reach out and mend fences with those who share an interest in regional stability — countries like Turkey and Egypt, as well as Jordan,’ he said. ‘This is not impossible. If the gestures are rebuked, the world will see those rebukes for what they are. And that is exactly why Israel should pursue them.'” Read more.

Word to the unwise: All gestures have already been rebuked, time and time again. Islam is the fuel that rages this blazing fire. Remove the fuel, and the fire will die …

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“Muslim hardliners are set to push for strict religious laws in Egypt after their strong showing in the country’s elections.

A spokesman for an ultra-conservative Islamist party said that he was hoping to impose Sharia law on Egypt…

Islamists led by the Muslim Brotherhood and radical Salafists appear to have taken a majority of seats in the first round of the vote.

If this trend is confirmed, it would give the religious parties a popular mandate in the struggle to win control from the ruling military and ultimately reshape a key ally of the West.

Spokesman Yousseri Hamad says the Salafi Nour party expects to get 30 per cent of the vote.

The showing would put them in a strong position to influence policy, although it’s unclear how much power the new parliament will have with the ruling generals still in power.

Protests are still raging in the iconic Tahrir Square in an attempt to force the military to get out of politics…

The Nour Party is the main political arm of the hard-line Salafi movement, which unlike the more moderate Muslim Brotherhood is a new player on Egypt’s political scene.

Inspired by the Saudi-style Wahhabi school of thought, Salafists have long shunned the concept of democracy, saying it allows man’s law to override God’s.

But they formed parties and entered politics after Hosni Mubarak’s fall in order to make sure Sharia law is an integral part of Egypt’s new constitution.” Read more.

Rich Egyptians weigh emigration as Islamists surge – “For decades, Egypt’s Westernised elite kept the country’s growing religosity at arm’s length, but a projected Islamist surge in the first post-revolution polls has driven many to think of moving abroad. Sporting the latest fashions and mingling in upmarket country clubs, Egypt’s rich fear a victory for the Muslim Brotherhood and hardline Salafis in the first phase of parliamentary elections presages change ahead. ‘I hope they don’t impose the veil and ban women from driving like in Saudi Arabia,’ said coquettish fifty-something Naglaa Fahmi from her gym in the leafy neighbourhood of Zamalek.” Read more.

By Rabbi Abraham Cooper – “How would the media and politicians react if 5,000 ‘activists’ chanted ‘death to Jews’ outside a City Hall in your community?

How would European religious leaders react if neo-Nazis packed the Cologne Cathedral or Notre Dame to threaten Muslims, Jews and gays?

We all know the answer: Loud and sustained protests of ‘Not on our Watch’…

But last Friday, Egypt’s ascendant Muslim Brotherhood provided a foretaste of their definition religious tolerance during a rally convened at Cairo’s most prominent mosques. 5,000 people joined a rally where the chant ‘one day we shall kill all the Jews’ echoed time and again along with ‘Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv Judgment Day is coming.’

The world’s reaction? So far–stone cold silence. Not from the media, nor Interfaith talking heads, not the EU, and as far as we know nothing from the Obama administration.

If world leaders lacked the courage to protest those genocidal rants over the weekend, they are unlikely to utter a word now that Tuesday’s first round of democratic elections gives every indication that the next Egyptian government will be lead by the very same Muslim Brotherhood.

Unfortunately, weakness and wishful thinking seem to be the twin pillars of current U.S. and Western European thinking about Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, much as it was about Hitler’s Nazi Party during the pre-World War II era of European appeasement.

Formed in the late 1920s, the Muslim Brotherhood—an Egyptian organization with global affiliates in North Africa, Hamas-run Gaza, and even Europe and the U.S.—consistently opposed thedemocratic process until a few years ago when it cynically decided that “one man, one vote, one time” could be its ticket to power.

With an estimated 40% of the vote in this week’s Egyptian parliamentary elections—the first since the overthrow of the 30-year authoritarian rule of Hosni Mubarak—the Muslim Brotherhood now opportunistically denies for political advantage its longstanding opposition toward democracy and the rights of Egypt’s women and Coptic Christians.

But about one thing it’s unwaveringly consistent: its Read more…

It’s not ‘official’ yet, but it may as well be.  The Muslim Brotherhood (from which Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri began as activists) is set to win about 40% of the votes, and the more radical Salafi Islamists (similar in ideology to al-Qaeda) will be receiving about 20%.  Together, the Islamists will have a significant majority.  Welcome to Egypt’s new era of freedom …

By Jailan Zayan – “Egypt announced a second delay Thursday for results of its first election vote since its February revolution which are set to reveal hardline Salafi Islamists as important new powerbrokers.

Millions of Egyptians embraced their new democratic freedoms in the capital Cairo and second-city Alexandria earlier this week in an orderly and peaceful first phase of multi-stage parliamentary elections.

Egypt’s election commission chief Abdel Moez Ibrahim said a large turnout — forecast as high as 70 percent — meant the publication of results had to be pushed back another day to Friday.

‘The counting of votes is still going on in a number of districts because of the large number of voters who took part in these elections,’ he was quoted as saying by the official MENA news agency.

The results are expected to show the Muslim Brotherhood, a moderate Islamist movement banned for decades by Mubarak, as the dominant force after it said its party had taken at least 40 percent of the vote in preliminary counting.

The battle for second place had been seen as between secular liberals and hardline Islamists who follow the strict Salafi brand of Islam, but local media indicated the latter were poised to prevail with more than 20 percent.

‘Al-Nur, the surprise of the moment,’ headlined the independent Al-Shorouq daily on Thursday, referring to the main party of the Salafists, whose members follow a strict form of Islam dominant in Saudi Arabia.” Read more.

“Iran is planning to attack US armed forces stationed in Germany in the event of a US attack on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities, German daily Bild reported on Thursday.

According to the report, German authorities are investigating a German businessman suspected of espionage with intent to sabotage who they believe is in contact with the Iranian Embassy in Berlin.

Bild quoted German Attorney General Harald Range as saying ‘We have launched an investigation and taken operational measures.’

The report came amid diplomatic tensions between Germany and Iran in the aftermath of the storming of the British Embassy compound in Tehran earlier this week.” Read more.

Albanian PM Sali Berisha: Iran and Ahmadinejad are ‘The New Nazis’, will join military strike against Iran – “Berisha’s visit, deemed a sterling success by Jerusalem sources, was capped by his telling Israel’s largest Hebrew-language newspaper Yediot Acharonot that Iran and its President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are ‘the new Nazis’, and the world must learn from the Holocaust and stop them before it’s too late. The Holocaust taught the free world’s conscience not to let such a scenario repeat itself. Berisha vowed that his country, as a member of NATO, would join any military strike against the nuclear facilities in Iran, ‘just like we supported the operation in Libya.’ A nuclear Iran, he said, remains the ‘biggest threat to peace in the Middle East and in the entire world.'” Read more.

Flashback: Iran allows pro-Nazi website to reopen – “An Iranian Internet site for devotees of Nazi Germany has been allowed to reopen after being blocked briefly by government censors, a news website reported, raising questions about the official attitude to anti-Semitism. The site, irannazi.ir, says it is the home of the ‘Historical Research Society for World War Two and the Third Reich.'” Read more.

By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu – “Egypt is becoming the new Iran, ‘whether you accept it or not,’ says a general in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

As the radical Islamic Muslim Brotherhood movement waits for an expected victory in the long and drawn-out legislative electins in Egypt, Iran is looking forward to Egypt being its next cog in the Islamic Empire that it hopes for and wants to head.

‘A number of major (new) Irans have been born in the region today. Egypt is a (new) Iran, whether you (the US-led West) accept it or not,’ reported the Iranian semi-official Fars News Agency, quoting Guards commander Major General Qassem Soleimani.

Speaking to a reported crowd of 50,000 Basij forces, he addressed the United States and added, ‘Know that today Libya, Yemen and Bahrain are also (new) Irans. [These] great nations will stand together against the threat’ of western powers, he said.

He also expressed his wish to die if enemies try to assassinate him, a suggestion posed by conservative experts testifying in the U.S. Congress. ‘To those who think threats will spread fear amongst us, I will say this: that I ask God to grant me martyrdom at the hands of the enemy,’ Soleimani said.” Read more.

Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood Takes Lead in Vote Count While An Even MORE Radical Islamist Party Takes Second Place – “The Muslim Brotherhood’s party appeared to be leading Egypt’s elections on Wednesday after 90 percent of the votes in a number of cities and provinces were counted, according to Al Jazeera. Egypt’s Al Nour party, considered a radical Islamic party, appeared to be in second place behind the Muslim Brotherhood, and the centrist party is only in third place… The results show that the Muslim Brotherhood have become the strongest political force in the country since the fall of Hosni Mubarak…” Read more.

‘Arab Spring’ Contagion Strikes Morocco: Islamist ‘Justice’ Party Wins Vote in Election – “Morocco’s moderate Islamist PJD party won the most seats in the country’s parliamentary election, final results showed Sunday, in the latest sign of a resurgence of faith-based movements since the Arab Spring uprisings. The victory for Morocco’s Justice and Development Party came a month after Tunisia handed power to a previously-banned party of moderate Islamists. Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood is also expected to do well in an election starting Monday.” Read more.

Flashback: Libya Heading Towards the Dominant Political Force in the Country: Islamism – “Amid all the debate as to what lies in store for Libya, it is becoming increasingly apparent that Islamism will be the dominant political force in the country. Indeed, this trend should already have been clear in the treatment of David Gerbi, a Libyan Jew residing in Italy who returned to his ancestral homeland in the summer to fight alongside the rebels against Gaddafi. Yet when he tried to rebuild and reopen the abandoned and desolate synagogue in Tripoli, he faced death threats, intimidation and protests, such that he was eventually deported.” Read more.

Flashback: ‘A New Cycle of Civilization’: Tunisia’s Islamists Hail Arrival of the ‘Sixth Caliphate’ – “The Islamist politician likely to become Tunisia’s first democratically elected prime minister has alarmed liberals and secularists by claiming the arrival of the ‘sixth caliphate’, a controversial term for a Muslim empire. Hamadi Jebeli, secretary-general of Ennahda, the moderate Islamist party which romped to victory in last month’s elections, told a rally in the city of Sousse: ‘My brothers, you are at a historic moment in a new cycle of civilisation, God willing. We are in sixth caliphate…” Read more.