BRIEFING  BEFORE STAFFERS OF THE HOUSE FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

August 30, 2010

UNRWA:  PART OF THE SOLUTION OR PART OF THE PROBLEM?

INTRODUCTION: ALAN GOLDSMITH, PROFESSIONAL STAFF MEMBER, FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

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UNRWA: Part of the Solution or Part of the Problem?

 

The Endowment For Middle East Truth Presents a Briefing for Staff Members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Interested Staffers, and Selected Guests:

 

Monday, August 30th, 2010 

10: 30 AM- 12:00 PM

 

Please note that this event is for Capitol Hill staff, with only limited seating available for non-staff members. If you are not House or Senate Staff, and would like to attend, please contact Info@emetonline.org,  in order to register.

 

FEATURING:

 

Sarah Stern is the founder and president of the Endowment for Middle East Truth, a think tank and policy center based in Washington, DC. She has a lengthy history of advocacy for the state of Israel and the Jewish people. Sarah was formerly National Policy Coordinator for the Zionist Organization of America (1998-2004), and Director of the Office of Legislative and Governmental Affairs for the American Jewish Congress, (2004-2006). Sarah played a major role in the drafting and passage of many pieces of legislation, including the Syria Accountability Act, the Koby Mandell Act.  She has testified before the Senate Working Group on Religious Minorities and Human Rights about the treatment of Christians and other religious minorities by the Palestinian Authority, and has testified before the United States Commission on Civil Rights on anti-Semitism on our nation’s college campuses.

 

Sarah was one of a panel of three expert witnesses on the issue of anti-Semitism on our nation’s college campuses. As a result of their testimony, the US Commission on Civil Rights has determined that anti-Semitism on our nation’s campuses is a grave problem and that Jews are to be considered a protected minority. Sarah has written many articles, and has been published in The New Republic Online, FrontPageMag,com, InFocusMagazine,The Jerusalem Post, the Washington Jewish Week, and the Middle East Quarterly. She is the author of one novel, “Cherished Illusions”, (2005, Balfour Books), and has written a chapter in Frank Gaffney’s widely acclaimed book, “War Footing” (Naval Press. 2006). Sarah is also editor and an author of "Saudi Arabia and Global Terrorism," due out in early 2011, published by Palgrave Macmillan, an academic imprint of St. Martin's Press.

and

 

Asaf Romirowsky is a Senior Research Fellow for the Endowment for Middle East Truth.  Formerly Asaf held positions as the Manager of Israel and Middle East Affairs at the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia as well as an Adjunct Scholar at the Middle East Forum. Mr. Romirowsky got his start in the policy world as a research fellow at the Middle East Forum, a Philadelphia-based think tank headed by scholar Daniel Pipes. Mr. Romirowsky, is a former Israel Defense Force (IDF) International Relations liaison officer in the West Bank, currently serves as an IDF reserve liaison officer to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. He holds a B.A. in Middle East Affairs and Contemporary Jewish History and from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an M.A. in International Relations and Middle East Affairs from Villanova University, where he focused on the differences and similarities between the Mitchell Report in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland. In addition, he earned another M.A. in Holocaust and Genocide Studies from West Chester University.

 

Asaf is currently a PhD candidate at Kings College London, focusing on UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) documenting when and how they lost their humanitarian integrity as a UN agency. Mr. Romirowsky has published numerous scholarly journal articles, national newspaper editorials, and magazine features. Mr. Romirowsky has traveled widely in Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Tunisia, Israel, and the Palestinian Territories.

 

Rays of Light in the Darkness

How many of you have had the opportunity to meet a real hero? Please come out and support a truly remarkable individual and hero in the War on Terrorism who has risked his life to save those of others and someone who is condemned to remain in hiding because of his tremendous courage, his idealism and his convictions.

 Save the Date- June 23rd, 2010, 7PM*

Join us as we spend an evening with Mosab Hassan Yousef, Amil Imani, Senator Sam Brownback, Representative Doug Lamborn, and Representative Brad Sherman, as we celebrate these "Rays of Light in the Darkness."

Mosab Hassan Yousef is the son of a founder of Hamas, who went to work for Israeli security, in order to save the lives of Jews and Palestinians alike.  Now he is speaking out about the threat of Radical Islam. The Endowment for Middle East Truth is proud to be awarding Mosab Hassan Yousef our Speaker of Truth Award, at our annual Rays of Light in the Darkness Dinner, and we hope we can count on you to come and celebrate with us.

Mosab Hassan Yousef is the author of the recently published, “Son of Hamas,” which details his journey from the world of violence and terrorism, to working on behalf of Israeli intelligence, and his conversion to Christianity. Yousef’s transformation began when he was imprisoned by Israel, and saw the brutality carried out by Hamas on its own people, carrying out horrendous tortures against those it suspected of being informers.  

Yousef worked with the Israelis to disrupt suicide bombings and terror attacks, saving countless lives. One of the lives saved, his father’s, who was imprisoned, rather than killed, by Israeli authorities with Yousef’s help.

"I'd seen enough killing. I was a witness to lots of death,” he says, “Saving a human life was something really, really beautiful . . . no matter who they are.”  

Yousef recognizes the danger faced by Israel, and understands how implacable the enemy is,

“They do not hesitate to massacre people in a mosque or to throw people from the 15th or 17th floor of a building, as they did during the coup in Gaza. The Israelis would never do such things. I tell you with certainty that the Israelis care about the Palestinians far more than the Hamas or Fatah leadership does."”

 Yousef lives under constant threat because he has dared to speak out about violence in the Islamic world. His criticism of radical Islam has earned him numerous death threats from angry Islamists who want to shut him up.   "That [dying]'s not the worst thing that can happen to you. I'm OK with it, I'm not afraid.”

Also Featuring:

Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS)  Senator Sam Brownback has been has been a strong supporter of Democracy and Human Rights in the Middle East. Sen. Brownback has led the charge in the Senate against the genocide in the Sudan, and support for Iranian protestors, including the co-sponsoring in February (with Sen. John Cornyn) of S.3000 “The Iran Democratic Transition Act.” S.3000 would provide assistance, especially with broadcasting and censorship defeating technology, to Iranian dissident organizations. Sen. Brownback is also the lead sponsor of the “Jerusalem Embassy Relocation Act of 2009,” which would remove waiver authority of the executive branch which has been used in the past to prevent the relocation of the U.S Embassy to Jerusalem. Sen. Brownback has repeatedly called for a humanitarian focus to the Palestinian crisis, rather than remaining locked into the two-state paradigm.

 

Representative Doug Lamborn (R-CO) - Rep. Doug Lamborn is a member of the House Armed Services Committee, and House Committee on Veterans Affairs, and strong supporter of the American men and women fighting for democracy and freedom on the frontlines against radical jihadists in Iraq and Afghanistan. Rep. Lamborn is a member of the House Israel Caucus, and has written a letter with 23 co-signers, to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, reminding them of the annihilationist rhetoric of the Iranian leaders, and urging them to take steps to support Israel’s sovereign right to self-defense. Rep. Lamborn has also introduced H.R 1191, with 21 co-sponsors,  calling on the administration to implement the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act.

Representative Brad Sherman (D-CA) - Rep. Brad Sherman is Chairman of the vital U.S House Committee of Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Non-Proliferation, and Trade. He is the sponsor of numerous bills related to Iranian regime, including sanctions targeting the repressive Revolutionary Guards Corps (Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps Designation Implementation Act), Uranium mining and milling equipment (International Uranium Extraction and Milling Control Act of 2009). He has also been active in encouraging divestment from Iran. Rep. Sherman has been a tough, but effective spokesman in encouraging the Administration to fully utilize the tools made available to it in previous Iranian sanctions laws, already on the books.

 

Amil Imani-  Amil Imani is an Iranian-American pro-democracy activist, who works to educate the American people about the threat posed by radical Islam, and works on behalf of freeing Iran from its theocratic rules, and behalf of the civil rights of apostates from Islam throughout the world who often suffer violence and threats at the hands of Islamists. Mr. Imani is also a columnist, a poet, a literary translator, a novelist, an essayist, and a political analyst. He is a regular contributor to the New Medial Journal, the American Thinker, Faith Freedom International, and the Iranian Online magazine, Iranian.com.

Please Save the Date, June 23rd, 2010, at 7PM*, and be prepared to join us on Capitol Hill to meet and to honor Mosab Hassan Yousef,  Amil Imani, Sen. Sam Brownback, Rep. Doug Lamborn, Rep. Howard Berman,** and Rep. Brad Sherman.**  Help us celebrate these wonderful Rays of Light in the Darkness!

?*Please note due to the fluid nature of scheduling events on Capitol Hill, the date of the Rays of Light in the Darkness Dinner has been moved from the previously released date of June 16th, to June 23rd. We regret any inconvenience caused.

 

 

EMET, Iranian Dissidents speak to Congressional Members, Staff

On Tuesday, February 23rd, Endowment for Middle East Truth President and Founder Sarah Stern had the opportunity to speak to a select group, which included 3 members of Congress and numerous congressional staffers regarding the Iranian “Green” movement and the importance of supporting Iranian dissidents. The following are her remarks:

“Today, we are living in a time when the entire free Western world, as we know it, is being threatened by a brutal, tyrannical regime in Iran with nuclear and hegemonic ambitions. They have been THE destabilizing influence in the Middle East, responsible for the equipping, recruitment and training of Hezbollah and Hamas. Southern Lebanon has now become an Iranian proxy state through the terrorist group, Hezbollah, and Gaza has become an Iranian proxy state through the terrorist group, Hamas.

Ever since the 1979 revolution, the Iranian regime had declared war on America. Its first act was the taking hostage of 53 American embassy officials in 1979, In 1983, it bombed our marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 241 American servicemen. No one doubts that it was responsible for the first World Trade Center bombing, commanded by the Blind Sheik Omar-Abdul Al Rahman. This regime is like a hydra , a many-headed monster, stretching  its grasp into Iraq and Afghanistan, where they have been responsible for the manufacture and shipment of IEDs, heavy arms, and advanced roadside bombs, and where they have been responsible for supporting elements of the  Iraqi insurgency, both Sunni and Shiite, alike.

This past Friday, February 19th, a report just came out from the International Atomic Energy Agency that said it had discovered an additional 460 pounds of low enriched uranium, one-third more than Iran has previously disclosed. According to a report in this Saturday’s New York Times, the amount of enriched uranium that the mullahs now possess is sufficient-with added purification-to make an atomic bomb.

This crazed, theocratic regime thinks it will bring the coming of the twelfth Imam-the Messiah- by using these weapons against America and its allies. They have made their intentions perfectly clear.

Yet: there are beautiful, freedom loving dissidents in the street who are crying out for our support to overthrow the mullahs and to replace the regime with a Western styled democracy. Since the fraudulent result of the June 12th elections have been announced, they have bravely taken to the streets, risking everything, even their very lives. Many of these young freedom fighters are disappearing at the hands of the Basij, never to be heard from again. They are being tortured, raped and summarily executed.

Natan Sharansky has said that the basic lesson of his lifelong struggle for freedom was for the oppressed to find the inner strength to confront evil, and for those of us who are fortunate enough to live in freedom, it is our obligation to find the moral clarity to be able to see evil.

We feel that there we have a moral imperative for America, once again, to obtain the moral clarity it once had, when Ronald Reagan had called us “the shining  city on the Hill”, a beacon for freedom loving people everywhere. If we cannot be that, then we have simply forgotten everything that America stands for.”

Sarah also had the honor of introducing two Iranian dissidents who spoke to congressional staff about the many challenges currently faced by protestors, and what the U.S can do to further its supports for human rights and democracy in Iran.

 

Are 20th Century Rules of Warfare Germane to 21st Century Conflicts ?

David Benjamin Israel Defense Forces Lt. Col.	Hudson Institute scholar and international organizations expert John Fonte	Prominent Washington, DC attorney Nathan Lewin	Professor Jeremy Rabkin from George Mason University	Professor Amichai Cohen from American University and has a Ph.D. from law from Yale University

Are Twentieth Century Rules of Warfare Germaine for the Nature of Twenty-First Century Conflicts?  

By Sarah N. Stern

The Geneva Convention of 1949, and most of the corpus of legal protocols of international warfare, generally had come about in the wake of the vast humanitarian atrocities of World War II, committed at the hands of the state, and the shallowness of the Nuremberg defense.  The entire body of laws of warfare that Western liberal democracies are informed by, today, are essentially humanitarian laws that had been brought about to defend the innocent civilian in the wake of atrocities committed by the over-riding power of the state.

Today, however, we are faced primarily with the phenomena of non-uniformed, non-state actors who hide in densely populated urban centers, and use those civilians as human shields in which to launch attacks.  How is the state, any state, in this new age of warfare, supposed to defend their civilian population, which, according to Article 51 of the UN Charter is a vital responsibility of the nation state?

Western liberal democracies are now under assault, not only by these non state actors, but by an alliance and a congruency of forces between the non-state combatant  and  the institutions of international jurisdiction, such as the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice and the International Red Cross, who seem to be stuck in this old paradigm.  The twentieth century paradigm regards the state as the primary source of belligerency against the helpless civilian, but what about in  the case of many, if not most 21st century  conflicts today, when the person wearing civilian’s clothes is not necessarily so innocent, but is simply not wearing a uniform, and who claims allegiance to a greater cause, just not the state?

Are these institutions of international jurisdiction capable of rendering an objective and unbiased judgment ? Or are they stymied by an outdated paradigm, or by a certain zeitgeist, that looks at the machinery of the state as all-powerful against a hapless civilian, even when the civilian might be involved in lethal terrorist activity and has an allegiance to a higher calling with hegemonic aspirations? Have these institutions become political forums for assaulting Western liberal democracies, such as the United States and Israel, and the rule of law that exists within those liberal democracies, when they should be focusing, rather, on the  real human atrocities of Darfur, Rwanda or Yugoslavia?    

On January 26th, EMET held a riveting policy seminar discussing these highly critical issues.  Our  illustrious panel included  Lt. Col. David Benjamin , a specialist in international law for the Israeli Defense Forces Military Advocate General’s Corps, (ret), John Fonte of the Hudson Institute, and the Director of Hudson Institute’s Center for American Common Culture, Jeremy Rabkin, Professor of Law at George Mason University, Prominent Washington DC Attorney Nat Lewin, who is currently an Adjunct Professor  at Columbia University Law School, and Dr. Amichai Cohen, Visiting Professor at American University, and Professor of International Law at Ono Academic College, Kiryat Ono, Israel.

During the seminar, a lively discussion ensued about whether or not the entire corpus of international law is at all relevant for today’s conflicts. Nathan Lewin had actually expressed the view that virtually none of legal precedent of how to conduct warfare is relevant for today’s conflicts.

Both of the Israelis on the panel expressed  reverence for international legal precedent and felt that it is Israel’s obligation to wrestle with these weighty problems  every day with gravity and with care.  Or, as Lieutenant Colonel David Benjamin who for the last seventeen years has been literally in the trenches as part of Israel’s legal advocate corps had put it, “We have a moral obligation to fight in the most humane way possible, and still manage to survive and to win….And we have.”

(For a complete transcript of the proceedings, please click here.)

 

 

“ Ethics in the Field” A Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Policy Seminar in Response to the Goldstone Report

On Wednesday October 29th, The Endowment for Middle East Truth hosted IDF Reserve Colonel Bentzi Gruber, before a packed room of congressmen, staffers and community members. Col. Gruber is currently Vice–Commander of an armored division, a position that followed other significant posts of command in the course of more than 20 years in the IDF Reserves. He spoke about the moral purity of the decisions of the Israeli Defense Forces, Hamas’ use of urban population centers to harbor terrorists, their use of children as human shields, Red Crescent Ambulances to transport Hamas weapons and terrorists, and the elaborate system of tunnels between Egypt and Gaza which Hamas use to transport weapons and terrorists.

Col. Gruber began his presentation with an examination of the threat possed from Gaza which led directly to Operation Cast Lead, including the expansion of smuggling tunnels used by terrorists from Egypt to Gaza, and the more than 22,000 guns, 5.5 million rounds of ammunition, and 140,000 pounds of explosives. Col. Gruber also described the vast increase in rocket and mortar attacks suffered by Israel since the withdrawal from Gaza. In 2002, Israelis suffered from 661 rocket or mortar attacks a year. By 2008 that number had increased to 2,735 attacks per year leading directly to the necessity of Operation Cast Lead.

The colonel went into great deal in an effort to describe the ethical and practical constraints under which young IDF soldiers and reservists must operate while attempting to prevent terror attacks.  On average, he explained,  a young soldier loaded down with weight, and often exhausted, had only 8 seconds to make the determination of whether to fire upon a terrorist, and if so, with what weapon? How do IDF soldiers make those decisions?

First and foremost, Col. Gruber said, was the requirement of distinction, to prevent harm from coming to innocent people. Col. Gruber explained the great difficulty of in determining the terrorist enemy from the civilian population when terrorists disguise themselves as, and hide among, the general population. Secondly, was the importance of necessity. The IDF, Col. Gruber said, instructed its soldiers to only use the smallest amount of force necessary to complete its mission. In many cases this meant that soldiers must risk their own lives rather than utilize high-tech weaponry like artillery or helicopter-launched missiles.  Finally, and most controversially, is the requirement of proportion. Here, Col Gruber remarked, a soldier must weigh the potential for civilian casualties, against the danger posed by the terrorist being targeted. Col Gruber showed a number of aerial videos of terrorists running into buildings and among crowds the moment they hear an Israeli missile being launched, knowing that the Israeli pilots will steer the weapon away rather than strike the target surrounded by civilians. Colonel Gruber also explained that for the Israeli Defense Forces, their goal is to preserve life. “We are not a judge,” he told the audience, “we do not punish. We can only protect for the future.” That means, he explained, that when it came to making the decision to fire, they could not take into account previous attacks a terrorist had committed, only the imminent risk of future casualties.
Col. Gruber also discussed some of the War crimes violations conducted by Hamas and other terrorist organizations in the Operation Cast Lead campaign. He showed video of terrorists utilizing small children as human shields, snatching them up and dragging them across streets to avoid Israeli fire, before tossing them to the ground when they had reached safety. He also showed video of how Palestinian terrorists utilize UNRWA ambulances as terrorist troop carriers, and ammunition carriers, explaining that when Hamas took power in Gaza, they fired all the ambulance drivers, and replaced them with their own people in order to expand this tactic.

Col Gruber went into some detail, about the process by which the IDF announces and identifies its targets, including the dropping of leaflets days before the actual bombing, followed by phone calls and text messages sent to residents from a specially trained IDF unit minutes before the operation to give a last warning to residents and to insure that no one is home at the time of the strike. The goal, Gruber says, is to reduce the risk to civilians, by allowing them time to flee the area before a military operation.  Despite this, he explained, many times terrorists will put out a call and actually bring civilians to targets, placing them on the roof, knowing that the IDF will not bomb a target with civilians. For this reason, the Israelis have invented a practice known as “knocking on the roof,” where they are able to fire a relatively harmless projectile at the corner of the building, to show the seriousness of their intent and get civilians to flee the target area before an operation.

Col. Gruber also went through the actual statistics of Operation Cast Lead, by which 709 known and identified terrorists were killed as opposed to only 295 identified non-combatants, some of which, he said may have been Palestinians who died of natural causes, and were being included in statistics to vilify the IDF. He pointed to cases where Palestinians had announced the names of non-combatants who had been killed, and the IDF was able to verify that the person in question was in fact still alive. Col. Gruber compared the IDF’s successful efforts to limit civilian casualties to American combat action in Bosnia, where only one combatant target had been killed for every ten civilian casualties.
Speaking directly about the recently issued Goldstone report, Col. Gruber said he’d read the entire document and was left with the feeling that it did not in any way reflect the actual situation on the ground. “This was not the war which I fought,” he stated.

Taking questions, Col. Gruber was asked why the media had failed to report on these videos of terrorists using human shields, or of the great efforts the IDF had gone to prevent civilian casualties. Col. Gruber said that while getting the word out was important, particularly in the media, the real purpose for the ethical rules and requirements the IDF had was not about propaganda. “The value of the ethics code,” he told the audience,” is for us [the IDF], not for the media.”

“The Saudi Infiltration into the American National Infrastructure”,  from the Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Policy Seminar Series On September 10th 2009, on the eve of that fateful day eight years ago when 3,000 Americans had lost their lives, and ever mindful of the fact that 15 out of the 19 pilots who had attempted to fly their planes into American landmarks were Saudi nationals, EMET once again hosted its annual seminar entitled: The Saudi Penetration into the American national Infrastructure. We would like to thank Representative Sue Myrick , Co-Chair of the Congressional Anti-Terrorism Caucus and Andy Polk, as well as the Adelson Family Foundation for enabling this to come about. Please click onto the recording below to be able to watch this extremely informative and important seminar: Our speakers included:   James Woolsey, Former Director of the CIA - Former director of Central Intelligence, former ambassador  to negotiations on conventional armed forces in Europe-Vienna, former undersecretary of the Navy, and presently a co-chairman of the Committee on the Present Danger, James Woolsey is a clear voice in the struggle against the totalitarian Islamist movements dedicated to the destruction of Western civilization. A strong activist of energy independence for America, Woolsey speaks the uncomfortable truth that America’s addiction to foreign oil funds the efforts of radical Islam.  Watch Speech         Steve Emerson, Investigative Project on Terrorism - Steven Emerson is considered one of the leadingauthorities on Islamic extremist networks, financing and operations. He serves as the Executive Director of The Investigative Project on Terrorism, one of the world's largest storehouses of archival data and intelligence on Islamic and Middle Eastern terrorist groups. Emerson and his staff frequently provide briefings to U.S. government and law enforcement agencies, members of Congress and congressional committees, and print and electronic media, both national and international. Since 9-11, Emerson has testified before and briefed Congress dozens of times on terrorist financing and operational networks of Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and the rest of the worldwide Islamic militant spectrum.            Frank Gaffney, The Center for Security Policy- Frank Gaffney is the Founder and President of the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C. The Center is a not-for-profit, non-partisan educational corporation established in 1988. Mr. Gaffney is the lead-author of War Footing: Ten Steps America Must Take to Prevail in the War for the Free World (Naval Institute Press, 2005). Mr. Gaffney also contributes actively to the security policy debate in his capacity as a weekly columnist for the Washington Times, TownHall.com, and JewishWorldReview.com.   Watch Speech         Ali Alyami,  the Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia- Dr. Ali Alyami is a native of Saudi Arabia. He has lived in the United States for many years and has been an avid advocate for political reforms in Saudi Arabia most of his life. He has worked for and with different groups and organizations, including the Arab Organization for Human Rights based in Cairo, Egypt, the Saudi Institute in Washington, DC, and the American Friends Service Committee in San Francisco, among others. Dr. Alyami provided expert testimony regarding human rights in Saudi Arabia before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus.  Watch Speech         Rachel Ehrenfeld, The American Center for Democracy- Dr. Ehrenfeld is the Director of the New York-based American Center for Democracy and the Center for the Study of Corruption & the Rule of Law. She is the author of FUNDING EVIL: HOW TERRORISM IS FINANCED - and HOW to STOP IT (Bonus Books, 2003, 2005); EVIL MONEY (HarperCollins, 1992, SPI, 1994) and NARCOTERRORISM (Basic Books, 1990, 1992). Dr. Ehrenfeld is an authority on the shadowy movement of funds through international banking and governments to fund terrorism.  She has a unique understanding of the challenges of international terrorism to democracy and freedom, and how money laundering and political corruption facilitates terror financing and economic terrorism. Watch Speech         Reed Rubinstein, of the law firm Greenberg and Trauig - Reed Rubinstein is a shareholder in Greenberg Traurig LLPs Washington, D.C. office, practicing environmental and administrative law. Mr. Rubinstein’s firm represented Andrew Whitehead of the Anti-CAIR website pro bono, against a Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) defamation lawsuit. He has since spoken to organizations in Arizona, the District of Columbia, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, and New York about domestic Islamic radicalization and terrorism.  Watch Speech         Sandra Stotsky, author of “The Stealth Curriculum”- Sandra Stotsky is a nationally-known advocate of standards-based reform and strong academic standards and assessments for students and teachers.  Her research ranges from the quality of state standards, teacher preparation programs, and teacher licensure tests to the strength of English curricula. She was appointed by Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings to serve on the National Mathematics Advisory Panel in 2006 and co-authored its final report as well as two of its task group reports.  Watch Speech           Kyle Shideler, Endowment for Middle East Truth- Kyle Shideler is the Senior Research Fellow at the Endowment for Middle East Truth. He has worked as a researcher, public relations officer and blogger for a number of non-profit organizations concerned with the rise of Radical Islam. He has also worked as a radio station News Director and briefly as an English teacher in Beijing, China. Kyle Shideler has a B.A in Politics and Literature from Boston University’s University Professors’ Program.  Watch Speech

 

 

On Wednesday, June 3rd, The Endowment for Middle East Truth, together with the Heritage Foundation, held a ground-breaking seminar :

“New Thinking for Old Problems: the Challenges of Middle East Peace-Making under the Shadow of the Iranian Threat.”

The four hour seminar featured a  keynote address by Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS), and was one of a series of seminars produced by EMET as part of the  Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Policy Seminar Series.

The Honorable Sam Brownback, Member United States Senate (Republican, Kansas) Watch Speech		The Honorable Eliot Engel, Member United States House of Representatives, (Democrat, New York)		The Honorable R. James Woolsey, Former Director of the United States Central Intelligence Agency, Co-Chairman, Committee on the Present Danger Watch Speech		The Honorable Doug Lamborn, United States House of Representatives, (Republican, Colorado)

Major General Giora Eiland, (Res). Former Head of the  Israeli National Security Council, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for National Security Studies Watch Speech		Major General (Res.) Yaakov Amidror, Former Commander of Israel’s National Defense College,  Program Director, Institute for Contemporary Affairs, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs Watch Speech		Brigadier General U.S. Army (Ret) James Hutchens, President and Chairman of the Board, Jerusalem Connection International Watch Speech

Daniel Pipes, Director, Middle East Forum, and Taube Distinguished Visiting Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University Watch Speech		Dan Diker, Senior Policy Analyst, The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and Director of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs of JCPA Watch Speech		Jonathan Schanzer, Deputy Executive Director, Jewish Policy Center and author of Hamas Vs. Fatah: The Struggle for Palestine Watch Speech

For a verbatim transcript of the event, click here

 

2009 Rays of Light Dinner

Senator Joseph Liberman, (I Conn Watch Speech		Senator Jon Kyl, (Republican, AZ), Minority Whip of the U.S. Senate Watch Speech

Dr. Walid Phares, formerly of Lebanon and the Director of the Future Terrorism Project at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies Watch Speech		Dr. Tawfik Hamid, a former member of Jamaa Islamiya, a terrorist organization, and now a Muslim reformer. Watch Speech	Former Director of the CIA, Ambassador James Woolsey Watch Speech
		Photos by Marc Engelhart

May 13th, 2009 “Profiles in Courage” Congressional Staffer Briefing

Wednesday, the Endowment for Middle East Truth held a staffer briefing, sponsored by the Adelson Family Foundation, as part of the Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Policy Seminar Series. She thanked the Adelson Family Foundation for enabling this to come about.

Sarah Stern introduced Farid Ghadry, Ali Alyami, and Walid Phares as three Profiles in Courage,  intellectuals and dissidents from the Arab world, “who have found the courage to speak out about the truth about the autocratic nature of most of the Arab and Muslim world from which they hail, “ and about “their proud struggle for freedom and democracy “.

 Stern than introduced Farid Ghadry, resident scholar of the Hudson Institute and author of several books on Syria, to speak.

Ghadry spoke on the importance of a project to reform Islam. Ghardy suggested a focus on “how do we feel about God, the prophet and the Koran, in the modern world.”  While praising individual reform scholars, Ghadry suggested that the reform movement needed central guidance, and discipline rather than a “fragmented” approach. Ghadry said that numerous scholars and reforms need to be encouraged to work together, “In one room,” on a reform project. A reform project would need to encompass a number of key points. In particular, Ghadry said, it should reform the way Islam treats women. Ghadry recommended that Islam model its treatment of woman comparable to Judaism treatment of women, which he suggested was responsible for much of the Jewish people’s success. Ghadry said, “I have 3 boys and a girl, and she’s my princess, and I would never treat her any different. Treatment of women is essential to our growth.” Ghadry also said that Islam must revise the way it treats “infidels” and said he was encouraged by EMET’s recent Speaker of the Truth honoree Tawfik Hamid’s work on the subject.

Ghadry closed by again calling for organization in the reform movement, and for its being supported by American legislators saying, “If that effort can be put together, can be funded, can be announced, by numerous scholars, that it will rock the extremists tremendously. “

Next, Sarah Stern introduced, Dr. Walid Phares, Director of the Future Terrorism Project of the Foundation of Defense of Democracies, who has been the architect of the UNSCR 1559 calling for Syria’s withdrawal from Lebanon and backing the democratic Cedars Revolution.

Phares began his talk with a focus on what he called, “the map of dissidents,” which he described as “stretching from Morocco to Pakistan,” but suffering under the weight of the “hard core Jihadist force within OPEC” which funded the regimes which suppressed them.  “If liberal democracies haven’t been able to confront OPEC on human rights and democracy,” he asked, “how heavy is the weight on dissidents?”

Phares described the vast diversity of dissident movements in the Arab and Muslim world, ranging from the Communist Party of Iran, which had suffered some 50,000 or more deaths under the Islamist regime, to monarchists, minorities, feminists, “and everything in between.”

Phares blamed the extensive funding of Middle East Studies departments by illiberal Oil producing Arab regimes as the primary reason why America was not more aware of the dissident movements which exist. “That’s part of the reason it’s not on the government agenda,” Phares explained, “It’s not on the academic agenda.”

This dis-education, Dr. Phares said, resulted in a confused view of the Middle East by the American public. “When we began talking about the Lebanese resistance to Syrian occupation, they were talking about in 2006, when they moved into Lebanon in ‘76,” Phares said, “And we’re just hearing about it now. And every time we are faced with an issue, legislators say, ‘Oh we didn’t know.’”

“Part of the reason we fail to understand the rise of Jihadism is that we haven’t studied it,” Phares said.

Turning towards a program to engage the Middle East, Dr. Phares urged that Human rights and democracy be made primary to any “engagement” with Arab regimes,

“Any time the administration wants to reengage they have to put Human Rights at the top of the agenda. In the last Administration, they talked about Human Rights, and democracy, but it didn’t drip down to the bureaucracy. Even if Washington wants to engage, Human rights and democracy have to be on the table, not off the table. There is no more imminent issue than Human rights when we talk to the Iranians. It’s just one inch below the nukes.”

The third Profile in Courage introduced by Sarah Stern, was Dr. Ali Alyami, Director of the Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia. Stern described her first meeting with Dr. Alyami, where he challenged Middle East experts to delink the Israeli-Palestinian issue from the pursuit for democracy in the Middle East.

Dr. Alyami began his talk by mentioning that he had just come from a senate hearing, where Sen. John McCain was speaking out against the deplorable Human Rights conditions in Uzbekistan. Dr. Alyami said, “I was listening to John McCain, and I admire John McCain. And he was talking about Uzbekistan and I had to stay until I could ask a question, and I said, “what about human rights and democracies, in Saudi Arabia and Egypt.  And it raised a lot of eyebrows.”

Dr. Alyami stressed that the Saudi regime had been very clever in the way it has manipulated and befriended public officials, through showering them with gifts and financial largess.

Regarding Islamic reform, Dr. Alyami stressed that pushing forward with human rights and democracy should not wait for religious reform, but consist of real governmental reform, and the establishment of democratic constitutions, which protected “serious freedoms,” including freedom of religion. Dr. Alyami contended that Arab regimes were opposed to Jews and Christians because of their democratic values, adding, “That’s what they’re afraid of.”

Dr. Alyami added that it was America which was the first and foremost the target of Arab regimes, because of its democracy, “as I told John McCain, that if we compromise our democratic values, here at home, or abroad, we will lose it, here as well as abroad. Our greatest weapon is our values. And we can’t afford to lose that.”

Following the speeches, the three Profiles in Courage gave Hill staffers an opportunity to ask questions. Responding to a question regarding terrorist religious rehabilitation programs, such as one carried out by Singapore, Dr. Phares responded by calling Singapore’s successful program, “the exception rather than the rule.” Farid Ghadry said reformers must promote a modern brand of Islam which Muslims could be proud of. “What we need to do, is put it under a name, under a banner, to give moderates, something to say they are proud of. Right now, I can’t say I’m proud to be a Muslim.”

Asked about a concrete strategy for dealing with Radical Islam comparable to the Reagan Strategy to end the Cold War, Dr. Alyami said the U.S should use its influence and protection of Saudi Arabia to force the Kingdom to make changes. “I would tell them, you’re exporting of Wahabbism. We must tell them, that your exporting of Wahabbism is killing our citizens. You have two years, to shut all your extremist schools…” Alyami recommended, “You have 2 years to close it, or we will close it for you.  We protect you, so you do what we tell you. And they’ll do it, because they care more about their survival than anything else.”

Farid Ghadry said that the movement for a democratic Middle East needed individual stories, comparable to that of Natan Sharansky in the Soviet Union.  “This administration has to concentrate on dissidents, human rights, look for one or two people, get their release from prison. When they get out, they can become voices of freedom, and the people of Syria, Iran will rally around them. And that can be a spark for something big.”

Sarah Stern added instead of focusing on human rights and making models of brave dissidents such as those in the room,  the current administration appears to be linking engagement with Iran and the Palestinian-Israeli issue, which Stern described as  potentially dangerous, especially as recent polls indicated that Palestinians would support Hamas, an Iranian proxy, over Fatah, in governing a Palestinian state.  This, she said, would only serve to empower the autocratic theocracy in Tehran.

Remarks at the  “Rays of Light in the Darkness Dinner” May 6, 2009
By Sarah N. Stern

I often wonder, “What provokes a person to speak the truth when he knows that those very words, that are so necessary to be heard, might possibly result in a huge loss of precious political capitol,  social exclusion from one’s community, family and friends, or might even incur the risk of physical persecution or  of sentencing oneself to an early death?

From where does a person summon up the tremendous objectivity, intellectual honesty and integrity to be able to confront the forces of evil, suppression, totalitarianism, and  hatred ? Especially when it is sometimes comes wrapped within the sacrosanct cloth of one’s very own culture or religion? And when  he is aware that he is risking living under an Islamic death threat or Fatwa for speaking those very words ?

From where does one summon up the courage to defend a tiny, unpopular nation without oil reserves or much natural wealth to speak of, trying to survive and yet managing to thrive, in a very tough neighborhood, and protect that nation against the undo opprobrium that it is constantly being subjected to among the chattering classes in Europe, in academia, and in the international court of public opinion, such as  the United Nations or that carnival of hatred that was Durban II?

 And from where does the amazing leadership come, when the threats become more than just verbal but are to its sheer physical existence, and everyone else seems to be either just turning the other way or finding sophisticated euphemisms for just stalling for time?

I do not know, but I do know this: And that is that when I look at the Middle East, I see a place where a culture of  the deification of death, of martyrdom  and of hatred of the Christian and the Jew is far too rampant. We see this culture in the textbooks that the children learn from in the schools, in the press, on their  television screens and in sermons from the mosques and because of the advent of satellite telivision, this hatred has metastasized and has found a place in far too many hearts and homes within the Arab and Islamic world.

I see a place such as, our quote, “moderate Arab ally, Saudi Arabia”, where a young women who has been raped is murdered by her own family in an honor killing and religious and political minorities are subjugated, tortured, imprisoned and murdered.

 I see what was once the prospect of a beautiful free, independent Lebanon of the Cedars Revolution becoming more and more remote, under the suppressing and sophicating boot of Damascus.

I see an Iran that is governed by the fanatic mullahs of Qum, the Mei Sharim of Persia, which has an  eschatological, apocalyptic version of Islam. I see a leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who feels he will speed up the coming of the twelfth Imam by wiping Israel off the map, and with each passing day that his 6,000 cylinders are allowed to spin and enrich uranium, he comes closer and closer to making that threat a reality.

And I know that when Israel, the minor Satan, is at immediate risk, America, the Great Satan, could not be far behind, because our two nations are bound by the same Western values of liberty, which they resent and despise.

 I see a rising tide of the radical Islamist terrorist groups of Hamas and Hizballah and I know that their puppet master is Iran. I see Iran flexing its muscles for Islamic hegemony, and  I know that the gymnasium that it is doing this, right now in is the Palestinian territories, where the terrorists are receiving many of their orders directly from Tehran.

I see that  the major Israeli population centers are within easy Kassam rocket reach of these territories. I see a Gaza that had an opportunity to be an economically vibrant independent Palestinian state, but squandered that opportunity when the people freely when to the polls and democratically selected the forces of hatred over those of life and made Gaza into a Hamasastan.  

I see recent polls indicating that in the West Bank, if given a free, independent election, the people will once again chose Hamas and that it is only the fine skills of the IDF that is keeping Fatah alive in the West Bank. Yet demands are being made for the IDF to withdraw prematurely.

 I see a nuclear arms race that is rapidly being built up in the Middle East, and I see their weapons are becoming increasingly sophisticated, light, portable and lethal. And I see people here, even within our own government who harbor the delusion that a Sunni bomb is far less lethal than a Shiite bomb, and are committing American resources, technology and know-how in order to enable that bomb to come about.

I see Islamists with a Messianic zeal establishing and rooting  themselves around the West. These are people who harbor the belief that wbere-ever a Muslim sets his foot onto will eventually become part of a Holy Islamic Caliphate. And there are some Islamists, even here, within the United States,   who would like to establish Shariah Law as the law of the land and a substitute ifor our Constitution.

It is a very dark picture, indeed.  But then I look around this room, and I see people who, each, in his  own way,  represent the very best of what humanity has to offer. They proudly and unabashedly appreciate what is so unique and beautiful about America, about Israel  and the West, and uphold our democratic values of respect for  diversity, tolerance pluralism, for the dignity and sanctity of human life, for Western liberalism, and for the civil institutions that foster the rule of law, intellectual diversity, free and open speech and debate.

 What makes these people so unique is simply that they are not afraid to tell the truth: These are  Senator Joseph, Lieberman, Senator Jon Kyl, Ambassador James Woolsey, Dr. Walid Phares and Dr. Tawfik Hamid, each have fought to preserve the West  from the dark forces of radical Islamism. They are “Rays of Light in the Darkness”

And I feel that an  integral part of who I am as one small, humble Jew and one very   proud American, is to being able to express my  Hakatarat HaTov, my gratitude, to you five remarkable individuals who represent who  the very best of what humanity has to offer. You have the courage, the intellectual honesty and integrity to  stand up for  and defend what is moral and for what is right. You are here to be celebrated, praised, saluted and feted. I am humbled in your presence.

And now I have the  honor of introducing one of my oldest and closest friends, a person who is the very embodiment  of those traits of courage, intellectual honesty and integrity, a friend, who I have shared many a political struggle with, going way back to the beginning days of Oslo, when we were trying to tell the truth of what Arafat was saying in his own language and how it differed from what he was saying to Western diplomats and journalists, my dear friend and colleague, the Founder and President of the Center for Security Policy, Frank Gaffney.

Annual “Ray’s of Light in the Darkness” Dinner

EMET is pleased to announce that May 6th, we will be once again hosting our annual “Rays of Light inthe Darkness” Dinner, where we will be offering our “Speaker of the Truth” Awards to those who have risked much in the struggle against radical Islam, while best representing the forces of democracy, pluralism and respect for human rights which form the core of our Western values. During this once a year event, we take time to honor a few outstanding voices who have risked much, including reputation, political standing, and sometimes their very lives, in order to tell the world the truth about radical Islam.

We urge you to make an effort to show these heroic individuals the appreciation and honor that they so richly deserve by joining us this May. We hope that we will be able to both recognize these courageous individuals in the manner they deeply deserve, while also providing encouragement for others, perhaps now in the shadows, to lend their voice to the cause of reform of the Arab and Muslim world.

Included among the honorees will be:

Hon. Senator Jon Kyl- Jon Kyl has served as Arizona’s senator since 1994, and is the ranking Republican member of the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security. Senator Kyl has successfully battled for tough new anti-terrorism tools for our nation’s law enforcement, including the vital “Lone Wolf” amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) which allows law enforcement to obtain warrants when targeted non-state supported terror-suspects. This year, Senator Kyl lent his powerful voice to expose the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ (CAIR) unsavory connections in a letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller and hosted embattled Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders, after Wilders was denied access to the United Kingdom because of his film, “Fitna.” Prior to entering the Senate, Kyl served in the House of Representatives from 1987 to 1995. Kyl was born in Oakland, Nebraska, and graduated from the University of Arizona with his law degree in 1966.

Hon. Senator Joseph Lieberman- Senator Lieberman is a four-term U.S Senator from the state of Connecticut, and 2000 Democratic candidate for Vice President, Senator Lieberman championed the creation of the Department of Homeland Security to protect the nation from terrorist attacks after 9/11, and has led his committee in an investigation of homegrown terror and the radicalization of young Muslims in the United States, and has looked into the dangerous growth of internet recruiting among Islamist terror organizations. Senator Lieberman and Senator Kyl worked together to author and push through Congress an amendment which designated the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist entity. In 2006, Senator Lieberman co-sponsored the “Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act,” aimed at preventing U.S aid to the Palestinian territories reaching terrorists. Senator Lieberman was born in Stamford, Connecticut, and graduated from Yale with a degree in Law in 1967.

Hon. R. James Woolsey- Former Director of Central Intelligence (1993-1995), former ambassador to negotiations on conventional armed forces in Europe-Vienna (1989-1991), former Undersecretary of the Navy (1977-1979) and presently a co-chairman of the Committee on the Present Danger, James Woolsey is a clear voice in the struggle against the totalitarian Islamist movements which have dedicated themselves to the destruction of Western Civilization. A strong activist of energy independence for America, Woolsey speaks the uncomfortable but necessary truth that America’s addiction to foreign oil funds the efforts of radical Islam and that America must stop paying the bills for those dedicated to our destruction. James Woosley was born Woolsey was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he graduated from Tulsa Central High School. In 1963 he received his BA from Stanford University and in 1965 his MA from Oxford University and an LLB from Yale Law School in 1968.

Dr. Walid Phares- Professor Walid Phares is a Senior Fellow and the director for Future Terrorism Project at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington (2001-2009). He is also a Visiting Fellow with the European Foundation for Democracies in Brussels (2006-2009). He is Fox News Terrorism and Middle East Expert since 2007 and has been MSNBC-NBC Terrorism Analyst from 2003 to the end of 2006. Professor Phares has been an advisor to the US House of Representatives Caucus on Counter Terrorism since 2007 and to the Trans Atlantic Legislative Group on Counter Terrorism since 2008. He has served as an analyst to Governments, International Organizations, NGOs and media of the ongoing world conflicts, including the War on Terrorism and the War of Ideas particularly since September 11, 2001 with regards to al Qaida and Hezbollah's ideologies and strategies, regional and local Jihadist groups, as well as Islamist strategies within the West.

Born and raised in Lebanon, Dr Walid Phares was educated at St Joseph and the Lebanese Universities of Beirut where he obtained degrees in Law and Political Science as well as a certificate in Sociology. He obtained a Masters in International Law from the Universite de Lyons in France and a Ph.D. in International Relations and Strategic Studies from the University of Miami.

Dr. Tawfik Hamid- Former Islamic extremist Tawfik Hamid knows all too well the danger posed by Radical Islam. Originally from Egypt, and a former member of Jamaa Islamiya. Breaking with radicalism, Dr. Hamid now seeks a reform of Islam based on modern peaceful interpretations of traditional classic Islamic texts. Dr. Hamid has spoken on the subject of the Jihadi mindset both in academia an government, including the Pentagon, National Counter Terrorism Centre and the Joint Counter-Terrorism Taskforce
for New York City. Dr. Hamid has a medical degree in internal medicine, in addition to a Master's degree in cognitive psychology and educational techniques. Currently Dr. Hamid is a Senior Fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies and President of Global Movement Against Radical Islam.

Staff Lunch Briefing: Profiles in Courage

The Endowment for Middle East Truth is pleased to invite senate and congressional staffers  to a luncheon briefing on May 13, 2009 where they will have a rare opportunity to meet some modern day “Profiles in Courage”  face-to face, and interact with them. These are among the individuals who have received the prestigious  EMET “Speaker  of the Truth Award” . They have been rewarded because they have risked everything, from social exclusion to their very lives in order to speak the truth about radical Islamism and much of the Arab and Muslim world today and the war that the radical Islamist is waging against the United States, Israel and all of Western civilization, as we know it. We would like to thank the Adelson Family Foundation for enabling this to happen.

Speakers include:

Dr. Tawfik Hamid, Author and Senior Fellow, the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies and President, The Global Movement Against Radical Islam, former member Jamma Islamiya
Dr. Walid Phares, Author and Senior Fellow and Director of the Future Terrorism project for the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies
Dr. Ali Alyami, Executive Director of the Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia
Zeyno Baran, Director and Senior Fellow, Center for Eurasian Policy, Hudson Institute
Farid Ghadry, co-founder and President, Reform Party of Syria.

 If you wish to attend, please contact us at info@emetonline.org. Thanks very much

THE MORAL LEGITIMACY OF THE WAR IN GAZA

WELCOME AND MODERATOR:

SARAH STERN, PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER, EMET

SPEAKERS:

NOAM BEDEIN,
DIRECTOR, SDEROT MEDIA CENTER

 AVI BELL,
PROFESSOR, BAR ILAN UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL,
SCHOLAR, JERUSALEM CENTER FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS

TUESDAY, MARCH 3, 2009

Transcript by : Federal News Service
Washington, D.C.

SARAH STERN:  It is my pleasure to welcome you to another Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Policy Seminar Series on Capitol Hill.  Last month in this same building, if I recall, in the same room, I was present at a briefing about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where I witnessed what could only be described as a Kafka-esque inversion of causality. 

Israel was summarily condemned for the conditions of the people living in Gaza, not just during the war, but after it and leading up to it.  I have to tell you that this was rather appalling.  I was in Israel the summer of 2005, when the government of Israel had made the decision to unilaterally withdraw from the Gaza Strip.  This was a soul-wrenching decision that ripped apart the people of Israel, pitting brother against brother.

We saw as young members of the IDF had been trained not to feel any emotion as they had to rip people from their homes and from their life’s work of building up the Gaza Strip.  There were rabbis who had said let’s leave the synagogues standing because we would like to have a place of worship for the Muslims that will occupy this territory.  After all, we all pray to the same God.  Many Jewish millionaires had spent millions and millions of dollars buying the greenhouses, so that there would be an economic infrastructure waiting for the Palestinian population there. 

We all know, however, what ensued.  When the last IDF soldier in September locked the gates, there was an atmosphere of chaos and frenzy and nihilistic anarchy.  The people living in the neighboring town of Sderot have hardly had a day’s peace ever since. 

It is my great pleasure here to have with us today Noam Bedein, who is the director of the Sderot Media Center.  The Sderot Media Center has been established to document and to remind us of the constant and daily suffering of the people that his community have undergone ever  since the Gaza withdrawal in the summer of 2005.  Noam has decided to put his life on the line there and he lives every day there and is constantly interrupted in his pursuits when he hears the siren of “tzeva adom,” code red. 

We also have with us today Dr. Avi Bell, professor of law at Bar Ilan Law School and scholar of international law from the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.  Avi has written and published many articles about this subject.  And it is my pleasure to turn away – turn over, rather, the podium to Noam Bedein.  Thanks.

(Applause.)

NOAM BEDEIN:  I’ll just talk like this.  It’s easier for me to be expressing myself.  Before anything, I would like to thank EMET for bringing me over here to be presenting this side of the story, especially Sarah Stern for making the effort to bring me out during these times down here to Capitol Hill.  And thank you all for being here.

read the entire transcript >

"Was the War in Gaza Justified?"

EMET is honored to invite you to a colloquium brought to you by the Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Policy Seminar Series at 2200 Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill, where this question will be discussed from the humanitarian perspective, as well as from the perspective of international law.

On March 3, 2009, from 11 A.M. to 1 P.M

Our speakers will include Dr. Avi Bell, noted scholar of the Bar Ilan Law School and the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Noam Bedein of the Sderot Media Center


Coffee and Danish and a light lunch will be provided. Business Attire.

Please RSVP to Katherine Anderson at Info@emetonline.org or (202) 772-4275.  

Dr. Miriam and Sheldon  G. Adelson Policy Seminar Series

Official transcript of the recent seminar that EMET held  on Capitol Hill regarding the Saudi penetration into our national infrastructures.

The Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Policy Seminar Series

SEPTEMBER 11TH MEMORIAL POLICY SEMINAR

WELCOME AND MODERATOR:
SARAH STERN,
PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER,
ENDOWMENT FOR MIDDLE EAST TRUTH

SPEAKERS:

ALI AL AHMED, DIRECTOR,
INSTITUTE FOR GULF AFFAIRS

E.J. KIMBALL,
THE INVESTIGATIVE PROJECT ON TERRORISM

REED RUBINSTEIN,
ATTORNEY, GREENBERG TRAURIG LAW FIRM

ILAN WEINGLASS,
EDITOR, TERROR FINANCE BLOG

FRANK GAFFNEY, JR.,
PRESIDENT, THE CENTER FOR SECURITY POLICY

WINFIELD MYERS,
DIRECTOR, CAMPUS WATCH

ANDREW COCHRAN,
CO-CHAIR, THE COUNTERTERRORISM FOUNDATION

SANDRA ALFONSI,
CHAIR, CURRICULUM WATCH

ANNE KORIN,
CO-DIRECTOR, INSTITUTE FOR ANALYSIS OF GLOBAL SECURITY

read more>

On Wednesday, September 10, 2008, EMET hosted the first Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Policy Seminar Series to a packed house on Capitol Hill.

In attendance were members of congress, staffers, members of the Washington policy establishment, and the public at larger. This seminar was devoted to the memory of the 2,974 Americans who had lost their lives on September 11, 2001, and explored the many subtle and pernicious ways that the Saudi, with their vast petro fortunes, have successfully penetrated into the American infrastructure and our national way of life.

Ali Ahmed, the Director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs, spoke about the Saudi culture of corruption and intimidation, and how it has made its way into the United States.

E.J. Kimball, of The Investigative Project on Terrorism, spoke about the so-called, "mainstream", U.S. Muslim organizations, such as the Council for American Islamic Relations,(CAIR), and how they are directly connected to the Muslim Brotherhood and the Saudi Royal Family.

Reed Rubenstein, of the law firm of Greenberg Traurig, presented the evidence that had linked CAIR to various terrorist groups in the Middle East, as well as the Saudi Royal Family and Muslim Brotherhood, and how that had successfully been used to prevent CAIR from suing the American intellectual and academic, Andrew Whitehead.

Ilan Weinglass, the editor of The Terror Finance Blog, spoke about Rachel Ehrenfeld's case, and how the Saudis have used foreign courts to suppress the freedom of speech of American writers and journalists.

Sarah Stern, Founder and President of EMET, spoke about Title VI of the Higher Education Act, and how the Saudis have been using a little-known loop-hole in the law, to educate, on American Middle Eastern Studies programs on college campuses, the teachers of American youngsters from Kindergarten through twelfth grade, and how the Saudi American oil conglomerate, ARAMCO, is funding the curriculum guides.

Frank Gaffney, President of the Center for Security Policy, spoke about the Saudi penetration into our nation's financial infrastructure, and "Shariah Financing", or how the Saudis have made some of our financial houses compliant to Shariah law.

Winfield Myers, the Director of Campus Watch, discussed the Saudi funding of the American college campus, and its inhibitive effect on objective scholarship.

Andrew Cochran, Co-Chair, of the Counter-Terrorism Foundation discussed the Islamic Saudi Academy of Northern Virginia and how American Muslim students there are being incited to commit "jihad" on American soil, as well as the reluctance of certain American government officials to take the appropriate actions.

Dr. Sandra Alfonsi of Curriculum Watch discussed the Islamist revisionism in American textbooks, and how certain Muslim American groups have gotten involved in the "vetting process" of what American students study.

And finally, Anne Korin, Co-Director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, spoke about the REAL root cause of the problem, our dependence on foreign oil, and the state of alternative energy, research and development.

Because the extent of the Saudi tentacles on the American infrastructure are so vast and so deep, EMET has decided to continue our investigation and disclosure of this subject with Part II of the Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Policy Series on Capitol Hill, next month.

EMET – Taking Middle East Foreign Policy by Storm

The Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET) is an explicitly pro-Israel and pro-American think tank and policy institute in Washington, D.C. Our mission is to inspire an intellectual revolution. For years, policy makers in Washington have been operating on a "land for peace" foreign policy paradigm which has empirically proven to be fundamentally flawed. Sadly, very few other think tank or policy centers in Washington have the intellectual honesty and integrity to examine whether this paradigm has indeed brought us closer to the goal-post of 'peace,' or if in fact, it has endangered both Israel and the survival of the free, Western world, as we know it.

Despite the fact that EMET is only two years old, we managed to accomplish much more than many older and much wealthier organizations that have been around for decades. Day by day we are making a positive difference, standing up for Israel on the ‘front lines’ of foreign policy.

Recent Activities
Over the past few months we have been extremely busy. Our annual Rays of Light in the Darkness Dinner was held in June. This event honored those few Muslim and Arab intellectuals who have risked everything to speak out about their experiences regarding radical Islam. The efforts of these courageous individuals, some of whom have fatwas placed on their heads have been, up until now, wholly underappreciated. We are proud and humbled to take up the slack and give these heroes the recognition they deserve. This year’s event, held on Capitol Hill, was a resounding success. Over 200 people came to honor the nominees, Wafa Sultan, Zeyno Baran and Farid Ghadry. In addition, we honored three Americans for their service to the truth, syndicated columnist Cal Thomas, Representative Shelley Berkley (D- NV) and Representative Jim Saxton (R-NJ).

To see excerpts of the speeches given, click below:

1. Wafa Sultan
2. Farid Ghadry
3. Zeyno Baran

EMET also strives to influence policy as much as possible by writing articles relevant to Israel’s security. Our articles and letters are not only published on our website, but have been included in a host of publications, such as
The New Republic online
Commentary
The Jerusalem Post
Washington Jewish Week
Middle East Quarterly

As always, our articles deal with the most pressing issues facing Israel. Two of our latest pieces include dealing with Syria’s disingenuous peace overtures and a nuclear Iran.

In addition, we at EMET aim to educate as much as possible through direct discussions about security issues relevant to Israel, such as the peace process and the Iranian nuclear threat. Two of our fellows recently spoke to a group of Oxford and Cambridge students on these very issues, as well as defending Israel from attacks on college campuses.

Upcoming Events
On September 10th, on the eve of the seventh anniversary of 9/11, EMET is proud to host a seminar on the Saudi penetration in our nation’s financial and educational infrastructure. This seminar will take place on Capitol Hill, and will include a panel of experts such as Steve Emerson, Daniel Pipes, Nina Shea, Rachel Ehrenfeld, Frank Gaffney and Stanley Kurtz. We are delighted that such a distinguished variety of experts have agreed to join us.

This is the first of our ‘Miriam and Sheldon Adelson Foundation Seminar Series.’ We hope that this event will soon become a fixture on the Washington scene.

Despite Risks, Arab and Muslim Critics of Jihadism Accept EMET Awards

(WASHINGTON, D.C. – June 18, 2008) Emerging from hiding for one night, Wafa Sultan ignored the fatwas issued against her and came to Capitol Hill in order to receive the EMET Speaker of the Truth Award, an annual distinction presented to "those heroic Arabic and Islamic voices who speak out against the Jihadist worldview in order to bring change to their communities."

"The biggest pleasure in life is to have your worst enemy, who you were raised to hate with all your heart, become a dear, supportive friend," said Sultan, a Syrian-born psychiatrist who emigrated to the United States in 1989.  "I owe America my love. It gives me the right to express myself, unlike the repressive, Islamic society that suffocated me as a youth."

Speaker of the Truth Awards were also presented to the Syrian dissident Farid Ghadry and Istanbul-native Zeyno Baran.

"I am extremely gratified to be part of EMET's cause," said Ghadry, the elected leader in exile of Syria's Reform Party. Farid is a widely published critic of the current Syrian regime and an outspoken supporter of Israel. After his May 2007 speech to the Israeli Parliament – the first time a Syrian was invited to the Knesset – the Syrian government permanently revoked Ghadry's citizenship.

"I admire Israel because I love Syria," said Ghadry. "In Syria, I was taught to hate the Jewish people. But my 33 years in America have taught me to admire them. After all, has any other people overcome centuries of hatred and oppression to create a democratic country that, within a mere 60 years, has become renown as a center for science and medicine?  My dream is to see the people of Syria learn from Israel and, one day, have a real peace, where children cross borders to play and people share knowledge and ideas."

Zeyno Baran's life work is the promotion of a tolerant Islamic faith that is fused with critical thinking and a respect for democratic institutions.  As Director of the Center for Eurasian Policy at the Hudson Institute, the Stanford-educated scholar has published many articles and spoken frequently of the need to distinguish between Islam as a religion and Islam as a political ideology.  Baran is a strong supporter of close ties between Turkey and Israel and is working on strategies to thwart the spread of anti-American ideology in Europe, Eurasia, and elsewhere.

"Islamists are not mainstream Muslims," said Baran. "We must be vigilant against extreme versions of Islam that seek to deny millions of Muslims their aspirations to think and live freely."

Other honorees at the Second Annual EMET Gala Dinner included Rep. Jim Sexton (R-NJ) and Shelley Berkley (D-NV), who were recognized for years of steadfast support for Israel, and Cal Thomas, the most widely syndicated columnist in the U.S. They spoke before a record turnout of approximately two hundred people.

"These are all people at the forefront of the fight against Islamic extremism," said Sarah Stern, President and Founder of EMET. "Reps. Sexton and Berkley are the best friends Israel can have and true champions of freedom.  And Cal Thomas' well-known support of the Jewish State and Western civilization in the face of Islamic extremism deserves our recognition and appreciation," she said.

"But the highlight of the night for me is the courage and heroism of our three Muslim honorees," adds Stern. "They are literally risking their lives every day to speak out against Jihadism.  I am delighted that EMET is giving them these awards because they not only richly so richly deserve the recognition, but I hope that by doing so, we will be encouraging more open-minded Muslims to speak out against the hatred, tyranny and oppression within their own communities, and join among the path of the Reformers.

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 Sexton, (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.