Rays of Light in the Darkness Dinner

Please Mark Your Calendars for June 18th for our Annual “Rays of Light in the Darkness” Dinner

EMET is pleased to announce that on June 18th, we will be hosting our annual “Rays of Light in the Darkness Dinner”, where we will be offering our “Speaker of the Truth” Awards to some of the greatest heroes in the struggle that is confronting all of Western civilization in our time, between the forces of darkness that radical Islam represents and the forces of democracy, pluralism and respect for human rights that we in the West all cherish. At this time, we will be honoring a few courageous voices who have risked everything, including their very lives to tell the truth about radical Islam and the Arab nations from which they hail.

Please make every effort to come out and to show some of these modern-day heroes the appreciation and honor that they so richly deserve. Our hope is that by doing this, not only will we be giving these courageous men and women the recognition that they so warrant, but we will be encouraging other, good Muslims who are sitting on the sidelines to come out, and join the path of the reformers.

Included among the honorees will be:

Wafa Sultan

Wafa Sultan is a Syrian born psychiatrist, who emigrated to the United States in 1989. Since September 11, 2001, Dr. Sultan has gained notoriety by her open, frank and courageous articles in Arabic, and television appearances on Al Jazeera and on CNN. The New York Times estimated that her controversial Al Jazeera appearances have spread throughout the world through emails and weblogs and has received at least one million hits. Dr. Sultan  describes her thesis as a “battle between modernity and barbarism that Islam will lose”. Dr. Sultan believes that Islam is “not only a religion, but a political ideology that teaches violence and that applies its agenda by force.”, adding, “No Jew has ever blown himself up in a German restaurant.” In 2006, Time Magazine named Dr. Sultan as one of the “one hundred influential people of the world,” whose, “power, talent or moral example is transforming the world”. Dr. Sultan has received hundreds of death threats and is currently in hiding, but has agreed to come out of hiding to accept this award.

Please view Wafa’s courageous words for yourself at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WLoasfOLpQ

Zeyno Baran

Ms. Baran is a renowned scholar of Islam and the Arab world, and is the Director of the Center for Eurasia Policy at the Hudson Institute Born in Turkey and educated at Stanford University, Ms. Baran, a practicing Muslim, has published many articles  and  has spoken  frequently and throughout the globe about the problems within the way mush of Islam is currently practiced. She is trying to create a reformation within Islam.  Her most recent articles have documented the lengthy reaches of the Muslim  Brotherhood within the United States. When she speaks before Muslim audiences, Zeyno is often accused of being a “Zionist” or a “Secret Jew”.

Farid Ghadry

Farid Ghadry was born in Aleppo, Syria and is the elected leader of the Reform Party of Syria. Farid has dedicated his entire life to reforms in the Arab world. Farid’s intimate knowledge of the people and politics of the region have been gained through firsthand experience. At the age of 17, Farid was arrested by the Syrian intelligence outside Damascus for civil disobedience. To this day, Farid is still pursued by Syrian intelligence, from this 1971 incident.  At the age of 24, Farid was beaten with a cane by the Saudi religious police because he refused to pray in a mosque in Riyadh. Farid has testifies before the US Congress on extremism and freedom, and spoken at Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, (SAIS),  among others, and before the European Parliament, and was the first Syrian to ever be invited to speak before the Israeli Knesset. He has written articles for many publications, such as The Washington Times, National Review and Jerusalem Post, with titles such as “Why I Admire Israel”. After testifying before the Knesset, Farid’s Syrian passport was permanently revoked.

Cal Thomas

Cal Thomas is the widest single syndicated columnist in the U.S. whose columns reach millions of readers a day.   Cal is known for being a strong advocate of Israel and has continuously demonstrated a healthy degree of skepticism towards the Oslo process and of the intentions of Israel’s  current negotiating partners and enemies. He is a frequent guest on radio and television talk shows, always defending the existence of Israel to its many detractors.

Also honored will be Rep. Jim Saxton, (Republican, New Jersey), and Representative Shelley Berkley, (Democrat, Nevada), for their long  and passionate history of pro-Israel advocacy, and the widely syndicated columnist, Cal Thomas.

Please make every effort to attend. For more information, you can contact us at info@emetonline.org, or call us at (202) 772-4275.

On Wednesday, April 30, 2008, Sarah Stern was invited to a small Round Table Discussion with  Michael Chertoff, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and Dorit Beinisch, the President of the Israeli Supreme Court, as well as Sallai Meridor, the Ambassador of the State of Israel. The discussion was centered around preserving democracy and human Rights, while under the constant threat of terrorism. Secretary Chertoff had mentioned that for all of Israel’s noble efforts to preserve the human rights and dignity of a potentially combative population, she gets “virtually no credit”. Judge Dorit Beinish, had noted that “because of our people’s history, as always being victims, we have got to be particularly conscious of the rights of the minorities”. Sarah Stern had brought up the fact that, since Israel is on the front lines of the war on terrorism, and that this is new to all of us, here in the United Sates, she is sure that there is a great deal that we can learn from Israel’s painful experience, but that under Article 21 of the United Nations Charter, it is the primary responsibility of each government to protect their civilian population.”

On March 25, 2008, EMET sponsored a luncheon and a showing of the award winning film, “Obsession” to a packed room of more than seventy house and staffers on Capitol Hill. “Obsession” is a riveting film that documents the constant incitement to hate and to kill the Jew, the Christian, the Israeli and the American, that is part of the fabric of Palestinian society today. It draws the chilling parallels between the propaganda that much of the Arab world, and particularly the Palestinians, are currently receiving and what the German population had received prior to World War II.

On Tuesday, March 25th, EMET hosted a luncheon and a screening of the award-winning film “Obsession” on Capitol Hill for congressional staffers. The riveting film depicts the threat that radical Islam poses towards all of Western civilization, and draws the chilling parallel between the steady diet of propaganda and incitement that the radical Islamists are teaching their children today, and that which the Nazis did during World War II.

On Friday, February 29th, the State Department and the Department of Justice issued a joint statement, saying that they would not intervene in the judgments that had already been rendered in favor of the American victims of Palestinian terrorism, who had been murdered or injured  by Fatah. This represents a decisive victory, and has been the result of an accumulation of a great deal of effort by EMET and the lawyers representing the families of the victims, as well as the  American victims of Palestinian terrorism, and their families, themselves.

On Sunday, February 24th, EMET’s Sarah Stern was on WABC radio on the “Religion on the Line” show which is broadcast to millions of listeners in the New York-New Jersey area. She spoke about the issue of the Americans who had been murdered by Palestinian terrorists, mostly at the hands of Fatah. She spoke about how they had used the 1990 anti-terrorism Act which enables the to use the American judicial process to argue their cases, and how, in many cases they have already won multi-million dollar judgments, but that attorneys representing the Palestinian Authority went to the State Department and  complained that these judgments would “bankrupt them.” The State Department stated that is was considering issuing a “Statement of Interest” to the Department of Justice and to the individual courts involved, nullifying these judgments for reasons based on “National Security Interests”. Ms. Stern spoke about the fallacies implicit in that statement. She described how that in order to secure our “national security interests” we should let these judgments stand. She described hoe Israel stands as the Eastern outpost of Western civilization protecting all of us from radical Islam, and about how in American foreign policy, we are always looking at today, and not tomorrow, how we built up Saddam Hussein as the lesser of the two evils against Khomeini, and how we built up Osama Bin Laden against the Soviet threat, and about how we are now building up Fatah against Hamas. Ms Stern explained how by nullifying these judgments, a toxic message, undermining American national security interests, would be sent through the netherworld of the internet, that America is not really all that clear in its resolve in the War on terror, and that the lives of certain of its citizens are more worthy of justice than others.

On Friday. February 22nd. Ms Stern spoke at the Stanton Coalition, a group of foreign policy hawks from the United States senate and congress and independent non-government-organizations about the issue of Americans who had been killed by Palestinian terrorists, and how by abrogating the judgments rendered in these cases, we will be reinforcing precisely those forces that use terrorism against innocent civilians.

On Wednesday, February 13th, Sarah Stern accompanied approximately twenty families of American victims of Palestinian terrorism to the Department of Justice and the Department of State, where there was a meeting. At this meeting, approximately a half a dozen attorneys representing the State Department and a half a dozen attorneys representing the Department of State were present, as well as two attorneys representing the families, the families, themselves, as well as Ms. Stern. At the meeting, Ms. Stern argued that if the Department of State and the Department Justice did as the attorneys for the Palestinian Authority had wanted, and nullified the judgments against the PA that have already been rendered through the United States Judicial Process, we will be sending a toxic, mixed signal to would-be terrorists around the globe about the moral clarity of our war on terrorism.

Throughout this time, Sarah has been working with members of Congress to write to President Bush, Secretary of State Rice and Attorney General Mukasey asking them to let justice stand, without political contamination from the State Department.

"The Perfect Storm"
By: Sarah N. Stern

With all due respect for the former Vice President, Al Gore got it entirely wrong. If there is anything that is of huge atmospheric concern, it is the global chilling in the air towards the survival of the Jewish state, and consequently the rest of the Western, free world, as far as I am concerned.

A huge conglomeration of factors have been coming together to create all of the elements of a perfect nuclear storm.

It is starting with an earthquake coming out of the Middle East. If you are sensing tremors underfoot, it is  merely the ripple effect coming from the sounds of Ahmadinijad and his revolutionary guards laughing at the United States for issuing a National Intelligence Estimate report stating that Tehran has ceased its pursuit of a nuclear bomb in 2003. It is, unfortunately, now a known fact that human intelligence can sometimes get it wrong. This report, as Ken Timmerman documented very well in his Newsmax release of December 5th, is politically tainted, having a great deal to do with an internecine battle between the more dovish bureaucrats within the  State Department and the more hawkish neo-conservative elements within the administration, who resent the fact that for far too long there had been a shift in the center of gravity from State to Defense. These people want to believe that we got it all wrong in Iraq, contrary to what the recent reports indicate, and are almost anatomically allergic  to any military intervention, irrespective of whether or not the authentic need for such intervention exists.

Secretary of State Rice, unfortunately, has proven herself to be The Poster Child for American naïveté, representative of the illustrious institution for which she works. Last week, at the Annapolis summit, in an almost Kafkian metaphor,  she compared the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians at check points to her experiences as a black youth growing up in Birmingham, Alabama. She refuses to get that if there was not a well-documented habit of Palestinians fastening suicide belts around their waists and blowing up as many innocent Israeli civilians as they can in crowded markets and restaurants, there would simply be no need for Israeli check points, and according to Article 21 of the United Nations charter the first responsibility of every nation is to protect the lives of its own citizens.

The shaky  premise behind which the Annapolis summit was predicated (which I call Condi’s folly), was that the threat of an Iranian nuclear bomb would cause a thawing of relations between the Sunni Arab nations and Israel, and in State Department parlance would give us “a window of opportunity” to forge a final peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians thus securing a lasting legacy for President Bush and Condi Rice.  This entire premise was predicated along rather  unstable ground, to begin with. The Secretary of State has largely closed her eyes to many critical elements within the Arab culture, and one is the old adage “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

The treatment of the Israeli delegation within the Annapolis summit was very telling. As Caroline Glick wrote in the Jerusalem Post, no-one would deign to even shake the Israeli foreign minister, Tzippy Livni’s hand. The Syrians sent  only a third tier diplomat, and  the Saudi diplomats came in through a different door so that they would not have to condescend to having  physical contact with an Israeli. This gave  a tacit American approval for the systematic anti-Semitism of the Arab world.

What the NIE report, has, in fact done, is to further  elevate the power of Tehran throughout the Middle East, which had already been elevated by what the Arab world, and many other quarters around the globe perceive as the victory of Hezbollah over Israel, in the summer of 2006. What we in the West fail to understand  is that Tehran is supporting a huge phalanx including Hezbollah in Syria and Lebanon, and Sunni Hamas, even Fatah and Al Queda, which has a growing presence in the West Bank. After the disappointing performance of the Israeli Defense Forces in the war with Hezbollah, throughout the Arab world, Sheik Nisrallah of Hezbollah, (which, is of course, Shiite), has became somewhat of  a folk hero There are folk songs throughout the Arab world extolling his virtues.

The reason for all this is that many in the Arab world have been systemically programmed since the beginning of Oslo,  to resent and to despise the Westerner, the American the Christian and the Jew, through every means of communication possible, television, sermons from mosques, newspaper articles, lessons in schools  and summer camps. All of this can be readily seen on your computer screen if you simply go to Palestinian Media Watch www.pmw.org. In the days and weeks leading up to the summit, P.A. controlled Palestinian National Television broadcast several times a day, a rather emotional clip with military music in the background, showing cities in pre-1967 Israel, or the 1949 armistice lines, with the lyrics,”~ “Oh motherland, You are all Arab, and we will liberate all of you Another clip showed all of pre-1967 Israel being draped with a Palestinian flag.” These are still being aired today.

As President John F. Kennedy had said, “Peace does not exist in signed documents and charters alone, but it the hearts and minds of the people.”

 My friends, contrary to what Secretary of State Rice believes, we will not buy the love of the Arab world through whittling Israel down to the pre-1967 borders, which is what the former, Labor party UN ambassador had deemed “The Auschwitz lines”, which are only nine miles wide in Israel’s shortest waist. This is the Israeli coastal plane, where the bulk of Israel’s population resides, well within striking distance of the West Bank.

With what confidence can the Israelis believe that such a withdrawal will buy them peace?  Not a day has gone by, not an eighth of a day, to be more precise, according to the recent IDF reports, without a Qassam rocket bomb launched upon the Israelis living in the town of Sderot, which borders on the Gaza strip from which Israel painfully withdrew from on the altar of peace. Their reward for this has been one bomb every three hours, according to IDF reports. The people are simply terrorized, and are evacuating the town, if they have the wherewithal to. Yesterday, the Palestinians celebrated the fact that they have launched 2,000 Qassam rocket missiles into Sderot this year.

In our desperation to repair our standing within the Arab and Muslim world, Secretary of State Rice is simply making Israel into the Sudetenland of the struggle that confronts Western civilization in our time: that against radical Islamofacism. Serving up Israel to those who have shown, in almost every possible way, their determination to ultimately destroy the Jewish state, will not buy the love of the radical Islamic world any more than offering New York City to Osama after he attacked it, as a way of making peace with what he feels are his legitimate grievances.

 They perceive Israel simply as an eastern outpost of American, Western values of democracy. As the noted Princeton scholar, Bernard Lewis, frequently  writes: They resent the fact that they have not been the gravitational force  upon which the entire globe rotates. They perceive Israel and the United States as being wedded at the hip. America, in their words, is “The Great Satan” and Israel, “the Minor Satan.” Any concession  that Israel is urged to make, whether through prisoner releases of Arab prisoners with blood on their hands, or land withdrawals is regarded as a victory of Islam over the West in their quest for total Islamic hegemony.

Meanwhile, in  Sunni Arab capitals around the world,  who really recognize strength and love anyone who can humiliate the United States, this NIE report has further elevated Shiite Tehran’s influence. Tehran now feels further emboldened to increase its support for radical Islamic groups, irrespective of whether  they be Shiite or Sunni, strengthen its military, and increase its quest for nuclear capability.

Tehran is riding on a wave of triumphalism, feeling that now there is less of a likelihood of an American attack, and that the threat of international sanctions will be reduced.  Already Putin is saying that this lets Tehran off the hook, and is relishing in the fact that American intelligence got it wrong, again. The Islamic Republic of Iran feels safe  from international scrutiny and vindicated in their pursuit of nuclear weapons, and has called this report in Ahmadinajed’s own words , “ A Victory for Iran over the United States.”

 When one uses military words such as “Victory” it does not inspire confidence that  they are pursuing nuclear weaponry for peaceful purposes, but implies that they feel that they have successfully deceived and hoaxed the United States. In fact the very second  sentence of the NIE report, totally contradicts the first.  The opening line is “We judge with high confidence, that in the fall of 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program.” The second sentence reads, “We also access with moderate to high confidence that Tehran, at a minimum is keeping its option to develop its nuclear program.” This gives new meaning to that  deeply poetic term, “CYA”. However, the fix was n, at the opening sentence.

Monday, the same day that the NIE report was released, Ahmadinijad became the first Iranian president to attend a summit of the Gulf Corporation Council meeting in Doha, Qatar. This meeting has been perceived by many as a landmark in the thawing of relations between the Sunni dominated oil producing Gulf States and Shiite Iran.

Meanwhile, the Annapolis Conference has, once again, regionalized the bilateral nature of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which  has never worked, in the past. The parameters that are being used are the Clinton-Barak parameters. Of course, no Arab interlocutor could ever accept less than what Arafat  walked away from the negotiating table  with.

Jerusalem, of course, has been put, once again, on the negotiating table. This, of course, is anathema to the vast majority of the Jewish people worldwide.

Yesterday, a law was passed in the Palestinian Legislative Council that would make it illegal to make any concessions over the issue of Jerusalem, defining such concessions as a crime of treason. Although Jerusalem is not mentioned even once in the Koran, a top aide to Abbas, Tayeb Abdil Rahim, said  that as far as the Palestinian Authority is concerned, Jerusalem is a “red line that cannot be crossed.”

I have long argued that a peace conference is not always a sunny stroll down the park, but can be a treacherous walk down a mind infested field.

Unrealistic expectations are raised, therefore seeding the ground for a further explosion, and loss of innocent life on both sides, further down the road.

Getting back to meteorological metaphor, only the relations between the Sunni and Shiite world might be thawing, a bit. But if you sense a chill in the air, it is of Jerusalem trembling, because she feels, irrespective of what sort of concessions she would be willing to make to satisfy Uncle Sam, she ultimately will be left out in the cold, and will have to go it alone against Tehran.

Sarah Stern addresses a Group of Congressional Staffers on Capital Hill about the Annapolis Summit, November 27, 2007
                      
It is with a heavy heart that I come to speak with you today. I feel as though my people are asleep at the wheel of history. After 2,000 years of yearning for a return to Jerusalem, we have had a mere 40 years, a tiny nano-second, in historical terms, of a return to that ancient, sacred city, and today, it is once again placed on the negotiating table. This narrative of the return of an ancient people to its historic homeland with Jerusalem at its heart, has been the thread that has sustained my people throughout the darkest years of our Diaspora. Yet, today, because so many of my people suffer from collective amnesia we are, once again, putting the division of Jerusalem on the auction block.

Now, I wouldn’t mind this quite so much, if we had empirical evidence that has proven that this “land” would buy Israel some “peace”. However, all the data points us exactly to the antithetical conclusion. After the heart-wrenching sacrifice of the disengagement from Gaza of 2005,  that threatened to separate the people of Israel in two, we now have the evidence in our hands. Israel has given the land. Now where is the peace? Fifty and sixty year old Israelis farmers had made it their life’s work to develop the  parched, arid soil  of Gaza and build communities there. And what was the result of this noble sacrifice on the alter of peace? As the IDF just reported  yesterday, November 26th,  hardly a day, hardly an eighth of a day to be more precise,  goes by, when the Israelis in the  neighboring town of Sderot have not been besieged with the constant onslaught of Qassam rocket missiles. The IDF reports the average to be one in every three hours.

What were to happen if Israel were to withdraw from all of the West Bank, leaving Israel just nine miles wide in its narrowest waist? With what confidence can we assure the Israeli people that there will not be a barrage of missiles on the Israel coastal plane, where the bulk of the Israeli population resides?

If I were a scientist, I would say we have a null hypothesis in this experiment of “land for peace”. Not at this time, not  at this place, not at this moment…Not  until the hearts and minds on the ground on both sides of the negotiating table share in that same exact objective of peace.

And what is the litmus test? The litmus test is how they are educating their children and it is  what that they are saying to their people in Arabic. Now, because of the advent of the modern computer, we have ample facts at our fingertips indicating to us that the Palestinian Authority is failing this test miserably. They have been using every means of communication possible to incite their people to hate and to kill.

Itamar Marcus of Palestinian Media Watch brings this footage into everyone’s home. The P.A.  has been airing a very emotional clip throughout these last several weeks on Palestinian Authority’s  National  controlled Television station,  showing beautiful pictures of cities within pre-1967 Israel, or Israel-proper, from Haifa to  Jerusalem to Beersheba with military music and emotional lyrics, saying  “Phalistine”, Palestine, you are entirely, all Arab.  Oh mother, Phalistine, we will liberate you.  “ Also shown is the entire map of pre-1967 Israel draped with a Palestinian flag.

As the noted scholar Bernard Lewis wrote in yesterday’s  Wall Street Journal, In order to know if you are able to solve the Israeli –Palestinian conflict the first question you must ask yourself should be, What is the conflict about? Is it about Israel’s borders or it about Israel’s existence? He concludes that if it is about Israel’s existence, which it appears to be, that is simply not negotiable.

Judging from the pictures that have been aired across the  television screens throughout Palestinian homes these last few weeks, he answer to that question, is unfortunately the latter . As they say, “One picture is worth a thousand words.”

One fundamental obligation of President Bush’s Roadmap to Peace in the Middle East which is THE most critical one  and that is being constantly overlooked ,is that The Palestinian Authority should refrain from incitement to violence.  I call it The most critical obligation because it deals with  what exists within the hearts and minds of generations  of  Palestinian people.  As President John F. Kennedy once said, “Peace does not exist in signed documents and charters alone, but within the hearts and minds of people.”

Yet, we willfully blind ourselves to this commitment, hoping that if no one mentions the obvious, it will simply disappear. It doesn’t. Like a cancer that no one treats, it metastasizes.

I have spoken to Ambassador Dennis Ross  regarding this, and he has told me, on numerous, separate occasions, that if he has one mistake that he regrets that he and the Clinton administration had made over the Oslo years is that he hadn’t paid enough attention to what was being said on the ground. Now, with the click of a computer mouse we have all of the evidence  at hand of what they are saying in Arabic to their own people.  
 Yet, we are like the three monkeys, hear no evil, see no evil. Yet, plenty of evil is afoot We are about to make that same mistake over and over again, as though we have learned absolutely NOTHING from the painful mistakes of  Oslo, and all of the innocent blood that was shed because of those mistakes, on both sides.

Expectations have been raised., and with them the possibility of  further bloodshed.  Ahmeid Quiri, , one of the chief Palestinian negotiators was quoted in the Israeli newspaper, Ha’aretz as saying on October 12th, that “if the talks in Annapolis are to fail, we can expect a third intifada, but much bigger than the last two.”

On October 11th, Adnan Husseini, a key advisor to Palestinian Authority President  Mahmoud Abbas, said that the Palestinian demand also included the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site. He said, “This is part of the Islamic heritage that cannot be given up”(Of course, Jerusalem is never mentioned in the Koran). Ceding the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest cite, is anathema to the vast majority of Jews throughout the world.

Last week, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat had said recognizing Israel as a Jewish state was impssible, because it is impossible to be both a state and have a religion, despite the fact that it says in the Palestinian National Charter that Islam shall be the official religion of Palestine. I suppose he has never heard of Saudi Arabia, or the Church of England for that matter.

The Palestinian National Covenant, Fatah’s Charter has never been revoked. 21 of its 22 articles call for the phased destruction of the state of Israel,, using whatever land  that has been conquered through negotiations.

The Palestinian Authority is NOT preparing its people and future generations for  the President’s vision of a two-state solution, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and democracy, but for its very antithesis.

Negotiations are not always a stroll down the park that we in the West would like to believe them to be, but can be a walk down a land-mind infested field.

This is painfully reminiscent of the international peace conference in Evian France in July of 1939.All of the world’s powers were gathered to talk about “the problem of Jewish refugees”, yet no-one would dare to bring up the reason for this problem: the incitement of the Nazi regime to hate and to kill Jews. The Nazis took this as world wide validation for their plans of genocide.

What we are doing today, by papering over the incitement of the Palestinian Authority, does  not buy the West peace  from the radical Islamic terrorists that despise both nations, any more than sacrificing Czechoslavakia to the Nazis bought the allies peace prior to World War II.

This feeling that there is a basic distinction between the terrorists that attack Londoners riding the underground on July 7th 2005, or New Yorkers going to work on September 11th  2001 and the terrorists who attack Israelis on their way to school or work or out eating pizza in restaurants with their families, is fundamentally wrong, bordering on the immoral.

We know that in the mind of the  the terrorists, America is the “Great Satan” and Israel is the “Minor Satan”.  In the perception of the radical Islamic terrorist, with whomwe are at war, Every territorial sacrifice that we encourage the Israelis to make, every concession, whether it be for releasing Palestinian Prisoners with blood on their hands, or easing up the roadblocks, (Ofcourse if there were no Palestinianian terrorism there would be no need for the road blocks), simply wets the appetite of the radical Islamic terrorist for more and more concessions, and feeds his  vision of total Islamic hegemony. They see Israel as an Eastern outpost of Western democracy, and they resent us all. They adore humiliating Israel, America and all of the West. It is their belief that they chased the Russians our of Afghnastan; The chased the US Marines out of Beirut Lebanon, that they chased the Israels out of southern Lebanon in May of 2000, and the Israeli out of Gaza in the summer of 2005; and that chasing the Americans out of Iraq today.

This land for peace at any price paradigm does not buy the good will of the Arab or Muslem world for which we, here in the States, seem to be so apparently hungry, but has the paradoxical effect of reinforcing their dreams of a global Islamic caliphate. It simply feeds the beast. And we all know the wise words of Sir Winston Churchill, “He who feeds the crocodile is only eaten last.”

When the Israelis evacuated Gaza, the Palestinian people there freely and of their own accord, went to the polls and elected Hamas in January of 2005. After a brief power sharing relationship with Fatah, Hamas overthrew Fatah in a violent coup, last summer. Yet Fatah is still paying the salaries of the Hamas “policeman” in Gaza, just as they are paying the salaries of their Fatah Tanzem terrorists in the West Bank. And according to Caroline Glick, both Fatah and Hamas are receiving much of its financial support from Tehran.

To call Abu Mazen of Fatah the Good Cop as opposed to Ishmaeil Haniyah of Hamas, the Bad Cop, is like having to choose between Al Capone and Jack the Ripper. Is he slicker? Perhaps? More calculating? Perhaps. But are his intentions actually more benevolent?

I repeat: The only litmus test to see whether or   not the Palestinians are ready for a two state solution is to listen what they are saying to their own people, in their own language. Are they raising a generation towards the President’s vision of two states living side by side for peace and democracy? Judging from an abundance of data, the answer is “hardly.”

 In a poll released yesterday, of  a radom sample of 12,000 Palestian adults taken by Dr. Nabil Kalkali of the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion, 68.2% said that would never waive the right of return to their homes inside Israel proper, or the pre-1967 borders. This ofcourse would be a demographic nightmare. Israel would cease to exist as a Jewish and democratic state.

The fact is that we are engaged in this mad, headlong rush towards Palestinian statehood, while it is obvious that the Palestinian leadership have not prepared their people for a true peace, or for one that that will last for generations.

 In this mad rush, we are observing  how certain, otherwise smart people,  in both our government and the current Israeli one, have become the “Spin Doctors” for Abu Mazen  just as they used to be for Yassir Arafat.  

We  watch as they  obfuscate  over the very conditions that we ourselves  have set out for the Palestinians in Phase One of the Roadmap. This only serves to weaken the credibility of the United States in the eyes of the very people with whom we are at war. We, after all, were the ones to spell out the conditions. What does that do to our international credibility, here in the United States?

My friends: In humor, in relationships, and in foreign policy timing is everything. I am hopeful that that day will someday arrive when there is a Palesinian leadership that is preparing its people for peace. But that day is not today.

“Peace at any price” will not last any longer now then it did in the days of Neville Chamberlain. In the words of Henry Kissinger, “When the pursuit of peace is the sole objective of foreign policy, it becomes a weapon in the hands of the most ruthless. It produces moral disarmament.” Or, in the words of President Ronald Reagan, “Trust, But verify.”

Thank You very much                                                                           

Sarah Stern appeared on the WABC nationally syndicated show of “Religion on the Line”

On Sunday morning, November 4th, Sarah Stern appeared on the WABC nationally syndicated show of “Religion on the Line” which is co-hosted by Rabbi Joseph Patasnik and Deacon Kevin McCormick.  She was interviewed about the upcoming Annapolis Israeli-Palestinian summit, scheduled for late November.

The first question was whether or not there is a real negotiating partner in the Palestinians.  Ms. Stern pointed out that Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President had proudly pointed to the fact that he was one of the Palestinian entourage to have discouraged Arafat from accepting the very generous offer that was made at Camp David II on July 25th 2000.  She pointed out that when Arafat had explained that he had been offered ninety five per cent of the West Bank, Mahmoud Abas’ response was “Ninety five per cent? Why not one hundred?”

The second question was “Is there any alternative to negotiations?” “Negotiations are not the panacea that we in the West often think they are”, said Ms. Stern, adding that she had a “ desolate sense of historic déjà vu,” about this conference, comparing it with the Evian Conference that was convened in July of 1938, at the request of President Franklin D. Roosevelt to discuss the problem of Jewish refugees. “The fact that there was no condemnation of the anti-Semitism of the Nazi regime further emboldened them. Today, like it or not, America is the world’s moral beacon and only superpower, and the fact that the constant incitement to hate and to kill using all means necessary by the Palestinians is being overlooked in much the same way.” “Today, unlike the 1930’s, it is easy for us to see the anti-Semitic, anti-Israeli and anti-American incitement, by simply clicking onto websites, such as MEMRI or Palestinian Media Watch. The lack of action against this incitement towards hatred further emboldened the Nazis in their march towards a final solution of European Jewry. Likewise, the incitement in the Palestinian media continues to this very day. Just last week, there was a program on Palestinian Authority National Television telling the Palestinians that all of Israel will eventually be in their hands.”

Ms Stern further pointed out that asking Israel to make further concessions only serves to embolden those terrorists with whom we are at war. “Like it or not, the radical Islamists see Israel as the minor Satan, and America as the great Satan. We are wedded at the hip. They perceive the withdrawal from Southern Lebanon in May of 2000 and the disengagement from the Gaza strip as a victory for radical Islam over the West. While we are thinking that we will win favor through a withdrawal process in the eyes of radical Islam, it has a paradoxical effect in their eyes: they actually perceive each land withdrawal as a victory for Islam over the West.”

Ms. Stern also pointed to the fact that the letter of understanding that President George W. Bush wrote to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on April 14, 2004 pointed to the fact “Israel must have secure and recognized borders”. “The jumping off point of the negotiations now, however, is based on the parameters of the Camp David II conference of July 2000. These were extraordinarily generous, going back to the 1949 armistice lines, which left Israel with a mere nine miles diameter in its narrowest waist.  Nobody can claim that these borders would be defensible.”

Sarah said, “the legacy that Clinton and Barak left in Cam David II is a framework that is almost impossible for any responsible Palestinian or Israeli interlocutor to match. The offer included: Shared sovereignty of Jerusalem, with Palestinian control of the Harrim al Sharrif, or Temple Mount,  a dismantling of the Jordan valley settlements, which have always been the eyes and ears to the West, and a return of ninety five per cent of the West Bank , which Israel captured in its defensive war of 1967. They bet the barn. How can any Palestinian interlocutor walk away from the negotiating table and save face with his people, and return with less than what Arafat, the icon, was able to secure from the Israelis, and how can any responsible Israeli interlocutor offer that much to the Palestinians, after the seven years of violence have ensued?”

 Ms Stern added, “Particularly in light of the fact that the Gaza withdrawal has been used as a radical Islamic beach head from which to launch a barrage of approximately 2,000 Qassam missiles into the neighboring Israeli town of Sederot. What guarantees do the Israelis have that any further withdrawals will not also become strongholds of radical Islamicism, and endanger America’s one democratic ally in the Middle East, and how can a  much weakened democratic ally be an asset to America’s strategic interests in the region?”

What They Are Saying About the "Rays of Light" Dinner

Speaking truth to glower
Death-defying anti-Islamist activists honored

Washington Jewish Week, June 28, 2007

by Richard Greenberg, Associate Editor

Political correctness, moral relativism and institutional cowardice are emboldening Islamic extremists and ultimately imperiling the United States, Israel and the rest of the Western world.

That was the central message emanating from a crowded meeting room on Wednesday of last week at the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill.

The forum for that outpouring, however, was not a congressional hearing dominated by testimony from right-leaning witnesses and addresses by similarly inclined lawmakers.

Rather, it was an awards dinner the first ever for an organization whose founder billed it as "the first exclusively and unabashedly pro-Israel think tank in our nation's capital."

The think tank is Emet: Endowment for Middle East Truth, which was launched in April 2006 by longtime pro-Israel activist Sarah Stern of Silver Spring.

The Rays of Light in the Darkness Dinner, as Wednesday's event was called, was organized to honor eight individuals who have promoted democratic ideals and fought Islamic radicalism, some at grave personal risk.

Several of the honorees were Muslims and/or Arabs, and as a whole, the group features "some of the most beautiful specimens of humanity alive today," Stern told an enthusiastic crowd of some 200 attendees, who repeatedly responded to the speakers with standing ovations.

One of the honorees each was a recipient of Emet's Speaker of the Truth Award was Brigitte Gabriel, a Lebanese American journalist, author and activist.

"Many of us here tonight ... know that every time we open our mouths, there is a bullet out there with our name on it," she said, "yet we are still willing to pay the price to defend our freedoms and our Western civilization."

In contrast, she added, many people today "have lost their spine to political correctness" and are unwilling to "take the risk ... and recognize people like me who believe that we need to take political correctness and throw it in the garbage where it belongs and start defending our country."

She did not offer details.

Award recipient Emilio Karim Dabul told the listeners that he was "one of millions of Arab Americans who did the unspeakable on 9/11: nothing."

The only time he spoke out against terrorism, he said, was "behind closed doors, among the safety of family and friends."  

Dabul said he once wrote a "vitriolic essay" condemning the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks, "but fear of becoming another Salman Rushdie kept me from ever trying to publish it."

He continued: "Well, I'm sick of saying the truth only in private that Arabs around the world, including Arab Americans like myself, need to start holding our own culture accountable for the insane, violent actions that our extremists have perpetrated on the world at large."

Dabul, who lives in northern New Jersey, comes from a Syrian family, but he is married to a Jewish woman and they are raising their daughter as a Jew.

Honoree Nonie Darwish was born in Cairo and grew up in Gaza. She immigrated to the United States in 1978, thus leaving behind what she called a "culture of jihad, tribalism and terror."

Although she was born and raised a Muslim, Darwish said in a subsequent interview that she no longer considers herself one and instead attends a nondenominational evangelical church in Los Angeles.

During her speech, she called on government decision-makers to "put political correctness aside" in order to ban immigrants to the United States who want to live under sharia law, a traditionalist legal framework that stems from Islam. Darwish said in a subsequent interview that she considers sharia a violent, misogynistic "totalitarian system" that will inevitably lead to civil strife, or worse, if it is allowed to be practiced here.

Darwish's proposal did not sit well with Terri Schroeder, the senior lobbyist for First Amendment issues with the national office of the American Civil Liberties Union. "In this country," she said in an interview, "we do not penalize people based on their beliefs, but on their actions and behavior."

Unlike Darwish, M. Zuhdi Jasser remains a devout Muslim, however, he said he has spent decades "spiritually struggling against political Islam and the theocrats who have usurped the domain of spiritual Islam for control of the Muslim community and control of organized Islam."

Jasser who was born in Ohio, grew up in Wisconsin and now lives in Phoenix has co-founded a Muslim-Jewish dialogue group as well as the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, which he said seeks to separate "our beautiful faith from the vise-grip of the Islamists and their transnational political agenda."

The other award recipients were Reps. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.); investigative journalist and terrorism expert Steve Emerson; and Saudi-born human rights activist Ali Alyami.

Ros-Lehtinen who declared that no U.S. tax funds should go to any Palestinian governing body that includes terrorists in its leadership conceded in her remarks that she was "preaching to the choir."

But that apparently didn't diminish the impact her speech and the others had on many attendees.

One of them was Barbara Ciment of Silver Spring. "I'm overwhelmed," she said immediately following the event. "It was so inspiring that these people are putting their lives on the line. They are very brave people."