Democracy is a goal, not a starting point

Praveen Swami in the UK Telegraph expresses pessimism that the anti-authoritarian protest movements in the Middle East will result in a blossoming of democracy in the region:

I’d like to believe that the rising tide of popular protest will sweep aside the region’s authoritarian kleptocracies, bring about democratisation and address the problems of its peoples.

The first of these possibilities might just be realised. The second is less likely. The third, I fear, is fantasy.

Referring to the self-immolation of a Tunisian man that set off the revolt in that country, Swami points out that the demise of authoritarian regimes is a necessary but wholly insufficient condition to create freedom and democracy:

Even if the fire Mr Bouaziz lit razes authoritarian regimes in the Middle East, though, it is unlikely to make a huge amount of difference. That’s because the real problem isn’t authoritarian or Islamism or any other -ism, which are but symptoms of a far deeper malaise: the lack of a functional political culture.

Political life in the Middle East has been narcotised by two powerful drugs: oil money and western aid. The powerful patronage networks this cash has engendered, have undermined the integrity of the polity itself. Regimes have been able to defer badly needed reforms. More important, civil society itself has had little incentive to negotiate the condition we call modernity, which demands fundamental changes of attitudes on everything from gender to knowledge.

The one thing Tunisia does have in common with other countries in the Middle East and North Africa is what demographers call a “youth bulge”. Tunisians aged between 15 and 24 made up 21 percent of the population in 2005. Elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa, the figures are even higher.

Each year, millions of young people seeking to build a life meet with frustration –the root of the rage we’re seeing on the streets. Youth unemployment ranges, across the region, at between 20 and 40 percent.

If the end of authoritarianism is necessary but insufficient, democratization in and of itself is not enough to make up the insufficiency:

The received wisdom is democracy will somehow solve the problem. This sounds good, but isn’t true. Democracy is a process, not an outcome in itself. Processes don’t guarantee outcomes.

Like people everywhere, residents of the Middle East seek peace and prosperity. But dealing with the problems confronting the region calls for cultural, political and economic transformation of an order that will dwarf Eastern Europe’s transition to a market economy. There there’s nothing to show the protest movements in the Middle East have a leadership with the vision to bring them about.

The democratic successors of today’s authoritarian regimes will find themselves hard-pressed to deliver change, for much the same reasons their predecessors did: the changes needed are too large, and the solutions too painful.

It's certainly true that processes don't guarantee outcomes. But where Swami says "democracy is a process, not an outcome in itself," I would characterize it a little differently:

The building of democracy is a process that leads ideally to the outcome of a stable and robust democracy. The process uses democracy as a tool, but it is not the most important tool nor the first tool that should be brought to bear.

Autocracies that allow the development of a middle class, a functioning economy with adequate employment opportunities, and a culture that values individual freedom can transition successfully to democracy: Taiwan, South Korea and Chile are examples. Most autocracies are prone to corruption, nepotism and suppression of individual freedom, and when they fall, they do not transition to stable democracies: they tend to fall to anarchy or to a replacement autocrat.

So I fully agree that stable democracies will not flourish in former autocracies unless and until they undergo cultural and economic transformations to match their political transformations.

Too bad I can't draw.

(image by buzzsawmonkey)

Being that it's Everybody Draw Mohammed Day.

However, I can repost.

It wasn't always haram to display images of Mohammed.

A Persian depiction of Mohammed preaching to his followers.



An Uzbek depiction of Mohammed on his flying steed Buraq on his Night Journey to (what has been interpreted as) Jerusalem. [Note: why would he have gone to the Temple in Jerusalem if, as modern Muslim fanatics suggest, there was no Temple in Jerusalem?]



But somehow we are now supposed to believe that Islam prohibits depictions of Mohammed on pain of death.

Screw that.

One of the Jyllands-Posten cartoons that set off the current assault on free speech.



And an image composed by one "tadpole" that pretty much illustrates the same idea of a religious figure being perverted into an excuse for murderous oppression.



But here may be the most provocative image generated for Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, by Day-By-Day cartoonist Chris Muir. Do you see a man of peace, a religious fanatic, an object of idol worship, or perhaps the death struggle of Western freedoms against medieval religio-political values?

Happy Eid al-Adha

I wonder, now that Obama has pardoned our national Thanksgiving turkey, will he personally slaughter our national Eid al-Adha sacrifice?



Eid al-Adha: Muslims around the world choose animals for the Festival of Sacrifice

Note the caption at image #2 in the series: “Muslims around the world celebrate Eid al-Adha to commemorate the willingness of Ibrahim to sacrifice his son Ismael.” Observant readers of the Judaeo-Christian tradition may scratch their heads — surely they must mean “his son Isaac”?

No – the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) saw fit to rewrite the Old Testament to fit his propaganda purpose of making the Ishmaelites, not the Israelites, God’s chosen people. Is it any wonder that there is so little room for understanding between Islam and the Judaeo-Christian West? Anyone casting a critical eye over the text of the Koran is accused of the capital crime of insulting Islam; yet the Koran outright contradicts and rewrites the Old and New Testament. (And that’s nothing compared to Islam’s attitude toward people who are not “of the Book.”)

Obama's adviser on Muslim affairs: Women love Sharia law

I wonder what Obama's Women's Issues Czar will have to say about this? Daily Telegraph: Barack Obama adviser says Sharia Law is misunderstood.

President Barack Obama's adviser on Muslim affairs, Dalia Mogahed, has provoked controversy by appearing on a British television show hosted by a member of an extremist group to talk about Sharia Law.

Miss Mogahed, appointed to the President's Council on Faith-Based and Neighbourhood Partnerships, said the Western view of Sharia was "oversimplified" and the majority of women around the world associate it with "gender justice".

The White House adviser made the remarks on a London-based TV discussion programme hosted by Ibtihal Bsis, a member of the extremist Hizb ut Tahrir party.

The group believes in the non-violent destruction of Western democracy and the creation of an Islamic state under Sharia Law across the world.

Miss Mogahed appeared alongside Hizb ut Tahrir's national women's officer, Nazreen Nawaz.

During the 45-minute discussion, on the Islam Channel programme Muslimah Dilemma earlier this week, the two members of the group made repeated attacks on secular "man-made law" and the West's "lethal cocktail of liberty and capitalism".

They called for Sharia Law to be "the source of legislation" and said that women should not be "permitted to hold a position of leadership in government".

Miss Mogahed made no challenge to these demands and said that "promiscuity" and the "breakdown of traditional values" were what Muslims admired least about the West.

Nice litotes there: "what Muslims admired least about the West." Doesn't she mean, what Muslim extremists despise most, and what motivates them most to destroy the West?

Push hard enough, and the truth will emerge

The Arab and Muslim nations of the world have been working diligently to get the United Nations to craft an agreement whereby it would be a "crime" to disrespect or insult a religion. Guess what nation is throwing up a roadblock to the proposal?

Nope. Saudi Arabia. Turns out that they're worried that the proposal would protect religions other than Islam:

The Saudi Arabian parliament on Monday rejected a recommendation to adopt an international agreement that forbids insulting religions, prophets and clerics, the Saudi daily Al-Watan reported.

Seventy-seven members of parliament rejected the recommendation, claiming that if they adopted the agreement, they would have had to recognize the legitimacy of idolatrous religions, such as Buddhism.

The recommendation was put forward by MP Muhammad Al-Quweiha's. He wrote that the Saudi Foreign Ministry should cooperate with the Arab and Islamic bloc in the United Nations to adopt the agreement.

"The concept of religions varies from one country to the other and from one culture to the other. Buddhism and Bahaism are considered religions in some countries, but must Muslims respect these sects and not condemn them," said MP Khalil Al-Khalil, who rejected the recommendation.

Al-Quweiha explained that his incentive was to prevent the ongoing campaign of insulting Islam and Prophet Muhammad, in particular the cartoons and films which are shown in the US and Holland.

A member of the Saudi Shoura Council who voted against the resolution told The Media Line the question of whether it implied recognition of other religions was not the issue.

"To me, this resolution is in conflict with main principles like human rights, freedom of speech and freedom of opinion," he said.

Two years ago, the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), which Saudi Arabia is a member of, submitted a five-point action plan to the European Union, regarding the controversy over the anti-Muhammad cartoons. The plan included legislation by the European Parliament against the anti-Islam phenomenon in the West and exerting joint efforts by both the EU and the OIC to issue a UN resolution forbidding offenses against religions and prophets.

Look at it this way: you can believe that the Saudis are champions of human rights, freedom of speech and freedom of opinion when they allow a Gay Pride Day parade to march from a church in Medina to a synagogue in Mecca, and not a second sooner.

The diminishing value of racial profiling

The Scotsman newspaper reports that al-Qaeda is recruiting non-Asians to convert to Islam and carry out jihad in Britain: Al-Qaeda's white army of terror.

As many as 1,500 white Britons are believed to have converted to Islam for the purpose of funding, planning and carrying out surprise terror attacks inside the UK, according to one MI5 source.

Lord Carlile, the Government's independent reviewer of anti-terrorism legislation, said many of the converts had been targeted by radical Muslims while serving prison terms.

Security experts say the growing secret army of white terrorists poses a particularly serious threat as they are far less likely to be detected than members of the Asian community.

It appears that British law enforcement understands how the jihadist threat is evolving and is trying to adapt to match. It remains to be seen whether the public understands the issue, and whether the political class has the guts to back up law enforcement. A silver lining in this story is that it aligns with the political correctness of the political class: now law enforcement is saying that the color of a man's skin isn't the best predictor of his propensity to jihadist murder.

CAIR acts as a foreign agent, so it should register as one

Think about this for a moment: Foreign Agents Registration Act

The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) was enacted in 1938. FARA is a disclosure statute that requires persons acting as agents of foreign principals in a political or quasi-political capacity to make periodic public disclosure of their relationship with the foreign principal, as well as activities, receipts and disbursements in support of those activities. Disclosure of the required information facilitates evaluation by the government and the American people of the statements and activities of such persons in light of their function as foreign agents. The FARA Registration Unit of the Counterespionage Section (CES) in the National Security Division (NSD) is responsible for the administration and enforcement of the Act.

Is that clear in your mind? Good. Now keep it in mind as you read this press release from CAIR (with a tip-o'-th'-hat to Little Green Footballs):

WASHINGTON, Oct. 24 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A prominent national Islamic civil rights and advocacy group today called on Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani to drop a campaign advisor who offers rhetorical support to a group designated as "terrorist" by the U.S. government.

The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said Daniel Pipes, who recently signed on to Giuliani's campaign as a foreign policy advisor, is a vocal supporter of the terror group Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK). Earlier this year, Pipes even participated in a foreign rally for MEK leader Maryam Rajavi.

Shouldn't CAIR be required to register as a foreign agent under FARA?

The mace of social justice in Saudi Arabia

Brave women: Saudi woman sprays religious police agents with tearing irritant.

Two Saudi women called agents of the feared religious police terrorists and one sprayed the men with a tearing irritant after the agents stopped them because they did not conform to the kingdom's strict dress code, the religious police said Monday in a statement.

One of the women filmed the incident, which took place in the Eastern Province on Thursday, the statement quoted Muhammad bin Marshoud al-Marshoud, head of the Eastern Province branch of the Commission for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice as saying.

The commission employs the police unit that enforces the kingdom's strict Islamic lifestyle. The police patrol public places to ensure women are covered and not wearing make up, the sexes don't mingle, shops close five times a day for Muslim prayers and men go to the mosque and worship.

Wonder what their life expectancy has been adjusted down to.

The mantle of victimhood

Gary Kamiya writes in Salon of how ashamed he is of America. Ashamed, that is, in the same sense as Professor Carrington was ashamed of his fellow humans when trying to get The Thing from Another World to understand that humans are intelligent, rational beings, and not just gun-happy apes -- of course, Carrington didn't understand that to The Thing, humans were only fertilizer.

Bush's, and America's, response to 9/11 was fundamentally flawed for two reasons: It was atavistic and instinctive, and it was based on a distorted, ignorant and bigoted view of the Arab/Muslim world. These two founding errors are qualitatively different: The first involves emotions, the second ideas. But mixed together, they created a lethal cocktail. The grand justification of "spreading democracy in the Middle East" merely provided a palatable cover for vengeance and racism.

Bush's America responded to 9/11 by lashing out. We chose vigilantism over justice, instinct over reason. Bush demanded that America play the role of the angry, righteous avenger, and America followed him. But we were not taking vengeance on the guy who attacked us but on somebody standing on the corner. The war was like the massacre in Haditha on a global scale.

There's a reason why Americans responded to Bush's demand and why Democrats have been afraid to challenge it. It's biological hard-wiring -- after you're hit, your instinct is to hit back. For conservatives, this instinct is not only natural but necessary. Hence the endless right-wing denunciations of war critics as wimps, girly-men and appeasers.

Kamiya reveals in his 9/11 anniversary essay what it is that persuaded the Left to wave the American flag in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, and what they've since lost: the mantle of victimhood, the only source of moral authority the American Left recognizes.

This is made starkly plain in Kamiya's discussion of how Israel makes America do bad, stupid things:

The angry bigotry that drove the war rings out loud and clear in the right-wing battle cry: "They attacked us, so we had to attack them." The recent TV ads run by war supporters repeat this theme: "They attacked us," a narrator says as an image of the burning World Trade Center appears. "They won't stop in Iraq." The key word here, of course, is "they." Just who is "they"? For Bush's die-hard supporters, "they" simply means "Arabs and Muslims." Cretinous rabble-rousers like Ann Coulter and Michael Savage play to this crowd, demanding that we nuke the evil ragheads. For the establishment, "they" is not quite so explicitly racist. "They" refers not to all Arabs and Muslims, but only to the "bad" ones. The "bad" guys include al-Qaida, Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and the militant Palestinians. And, of course, it used to include Iraq (and may again). Anyone who makes this list is eligible for attack by the U.S.

What makes these wildly disparate entities so evil and so threatening that we're prepared to attack them without cause? Simply that they reject the U.S.-Israeli writ in the Middle East -- and that they're Arabs or Muslims. They are clearly not on our side, but they pose no significant military or economic threat to the U.S. In realpolitik terms, they are no more beyond the pale than many other dubious countries we do business with, from Venezuela to Nigeria to Russia to Saudi Arabia. No one would dream of suggesting that if Cuba attacked the U.S., we should respond by invading Venezuela. But we play by different rules in the Middle East.

America's anti-Arab, anti-Muslim prejudice has several causes. One of them derives from America's powerful identification with the one state that has always been at war with the Arab-Muslim world: Israel. For the establishment, it is axiomatic that America's and Israel's interests are identical, and that enemies of Israel must be enemies of the U.S. America has always identified more with Israel, the plucky underdog and home to Holocaust survivors, than with the Arabs and Muslims who threaten it. Since this view is held by right and left, Democrat and Republican alike, and criticizing it leads to accusations of anti-Semitism, it is difficult to challenge it. This is the reason why there has been almost no discussion in Congress over Bush's saber-rattling with Iran: Iran is Israel's most dangerous enemy, and that fact trumps all other considerations.

America's Israel-centric stance has helped determine the way we see the Arab-Muslim world, but it isn't the only factor. The rise of radical Islam, with its cult of martyrdom and terrifying terrorist attacks, exacerbated America's existing prejudices, flattening out the Arab-Muslim world into a monolithic entity. Our almost complete ignorance of Arabs and Islam, their history and the actual grievances that they have against the West, contributed to this flattening. Oil plays a role. But perhaps the most potent explanation of all is simply the fear of the Other: Islam is not in our cultural tradition, it stands apart, it's mysterious and ominous, and it is all too easy to project our fears on it.

(It's worth pointing out that in days when racism in America was truly rampant, like the 1920s, Americans embraced the image of Rudolph Valentino as 'The Sheik.' The Thief of Baghdad, Tales of the Arabian Nights, Kismet, even the adoption of the rituals of the Shriners showed that Americans didn't start regarding the Arab world as the "ominous Other" until the PLO started hijacking planes and killing Americans, and that was the work of secularists themselves opposed to Islam.)

The Left lost its love of Israel in the wake of the 1967 Six-Day War because Israel showed that it was no longer a precarious perch for Holocaust victims under constant threat from Arab armies that could wipe it off the map at will, but rather a military might that could defend itself against far more numerous but far less capable and motivated enemies. Those enemies showed that Soviet patronage, armaments and ideology were fairly useless in combat. The 1973 Yom Kippur War drove home the point even more effectively, as American support for Israel turned the tide of the war in its favor. Over the last four decades, the Left has come to see Israel as devoid of any moral authority because its struggle is merely to live without fear, as opposed to the struggle of its enemies to escape oppression. (That their oppression is essentially of their own making and of the making of their supposed allies and patrons is not significant to the Left’s thinking.)

Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, American Leftists could proudly stand up and say, “See? We’re victims, too!” (Of course, a lot of them went on to say, “Just like our Muslim brothers, we’re victims of American Imperialism, whose chickens have finally come home to roost.”) However, the military conquest of Afghanistan went too quickly, and the defeat of Saddam Hussein resulted in too few American casualties, and so the mantle of victimhood was destroyed as the Bush Administration and the American military proved that neither the Taliban, nor Saddam’s armies, nor al-Qaida could prevail in combat.

This is the vital distinction between the Left and the normal folks in America: normal folks take pride in America’s victory over its enemies, while Leftists see America’s victory as replacing their pride in victimhood with the shame of the oppressor.

Jimmy Carter: evil incarnate

Back in 1979, Jimmy Carter was the most dangerous man in the West:

We just don't get it. The Left in America is screaming to high heaven that the mess we are in in Iraq and the war on terrorism has been caused by the right-wing and that George W. Bush, the so-called "dim-witted cowboy," has created the entire mess.

The truth is the entire nightmare can be traced back to the liberal democratic policies of the leftist Jimmy Carter, who created a firestorm that destabilized our greatest ally in the Muslim world, the shah of Iran, in favor of a religious fanatic, the ayatollah Khomeini.

Carter viewed Khomeini as more of a religious holy man in a grassroots revolution than a founding father of modern terrorism. Carter's ambassador to the UN, Andrew Young, said "Khomeini will eventually be hailed as a saint." Carter's Iranian ambassador, William Sullivan, said, "Khomeini is a Gandhi-like figure." Carter adviser James Bill proclaimed in a Newsweek interview on February 12, 1979 that Khomeini was not a mad mujahid, but a man of "impeccable integrity and honesty."

The shah was terrified of Carter. He told his personal confidant, "Who knows what sort of calamity he [Carter] may unleash on the world?"

Let's look at the results of Carter's misguided liberal policies: the Islamic Revolution in Iran; the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (Carter's response was to boycott the 1980 Moscow Olympics); the birth of Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization; the Iran-Iraq War, which cost the lives of millions dead and wounded; and yes, the present war on terrorism and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Today he's just as evil and misguided, but thankfully less able to perpetrate his crimes upon the world.

During his speech to Ireland's eighth annual Forum on Human Rights, the 83-year-old former president said monitors from his Carter Center observed the 2006 election in which Hamas won 42 percent of the popular vote and a majority of parliamentary seats.

Carter said that election was "orderly and fair" and Hamas triumphed, in part, because it was "shrewd in selecting candidates," whereas a divided, corrupt Fatah ran multiple candidates for single seats.

Far from encouraging Hamas's move into parliamentary politics, Carter said the US and Israel, with European Union acquiescence, has sought to subvert the outcome by shunning Hamas and helping Abbas to keep the reins of political and military power.

"That action was criminal," he said in a news conference after his speech.

"The United States and Israel decided to punish all the people in Palestine and did everything they could to deter a compromise between Hamas and Fatah," he said.

Carter said the United States and others supplied the Fatah-controlled security forces in Gaza with vastly superior weaponry in hopes they would "conquer Hamas in Gaza" - but Hamas this month routed Fatah because of its "superior skills and discipline."

"Superior skills and discipline." That's exactly what "qualified" the Nazi war machine to rule over Europe.

I'm here to help you kill Jews -- but first...

The old joke about the oxymoron, "I'm from the Government and I'm here to help," applies many-fold to the situation in Lebanon and Gaza. In January 2006, the Palestinians elected Hamas based on its reputation for cleanliness (from corruption), efficiency (in providing social services), and militancy (in resistance to Israel). By throwing out the corrupt Fatah regime, it was thought, the new Hamas government would be able to demonstrate that it knew how to run a country and put it on a solid footing for the struggle with the Zionist entity.

About six months later, a wanted terrorist named Shaker Youssef al-Absi showed up in Lebanon and offered to the Fatah leadership in the Palestinian refugee camps his services and those of his 60 or so followers to fight the Israelis, who at the time Fatah feared might attack the refugee camps to pressure the Palestinians in Gaza to release kidnapped IDF Corporal Gilad Shalit. The Fatah leaders welcomed al-Absi, not asking, if Syria viewed him as a dangerous terrorist, why he wasn't in a Syrian prison or extradited to Jordan to stand trial for murdering a U.S. diplomat. And soon al-Absi's cadres multiplied -- and started to worry their hosts.

Al-Absi, who is wanted in Jordan for involvement in a 2004 assassination of a U.S. diplomat there, spread out increasing numbers of recruits to several Palestinian camps - about 120 in Beirut's Bourj el-Barajneh, 60 in Beddawi in the north and 150 in Nahr el-Bared.

Abu Mohammed and another Fatah Uprising official, Mahmoud Doulla, told The Associated Press that their leaders were so impressed with al-Absi's selfless dedication to the Palestinian cause that, at first, they ignored warning signs of other trouble.

"We weren't of the same ideology," explained Abu Mohammed. "They followed a more puritan kind of Islam, you can say fanatic Islam. ... They were ready to kill disbelievers."

Abu Mohammed and Doulla said they were concerned when they noticed al-Absi and his men were hostile toward allies of Fatah Uprising, such as the Syrian government, Lebanon's Shiites and the militant Shiite group Hezbollah.

When Fatah Uprising officials in Lebanon alerted their superiors in Damascus that al-Absi's men "were behaving strangely," they were swiftly dismissed and told the group was in Lebanon for the "struggle" and to fight the "Zionist enemy," said Abu Mohammed.

Al-Absi's forces grew quickly. At the Shatilla camp, what started as 20 militants reached 100 during last summer's Hezbollah war with Israel, Abu Mohammed said.

Over time, it became clear that al-Absi wasn't going to fight Israel until he took on the Fatah leadership first.

Al-Absi's relationship with Fatah Uprising showed its first public sign of cracks last Nov. 23, when Palestinian and Lebanese security forces raided an apartment occupied by his gunmen in the Beddawi camp in northern Lebanon.

In the ensuing battles, a Palestinian security man was killed and two of al-Absi's militants were wounded and handed over to Lebanese security by the camp's Palestinian security. Al-Absi was angered that Fatah Uprising did not protect the men or protest their handover to Lebanese authorities.

On Dec. 5, Fatah Uprising leader Saeed Moussa ordered al-Absi and his fighters to leave his group's bases in the Shatilla and Bourj el-Barajneh camps. Al-Absi withdrew to the Beddawi camp.

In a new ultimatum three days later, Abu Moussa gave al-Absi 24 hours to leave Beddawi.

"Where am I going to take 400 men in 24 hours? Throw them in the sea?" Abu Mohammed quoted al-Absi as telling a Fatah Uprising official. Other Palestinians confirmed the remark.

The following day, al-Absi seized Fatah Uprising positions and weapons in Nahr el-Bared, where he had regrouped his fighters - and he announced the creation of Fatah Islam.

Now Fatah al-Islam has called down the wrath of the Lebanese Army on the Palestinians, with thousands fleeing the Nahr el-Bared refugee camp and thousands more trapped there in the crossfire. The Islamic fundamentalists of Fatah al-Islam are clearly willing to defer the battle against the Zionist enemy until they remake the Palestinian refugee camps -- and possibly all of Lebanon -- in their Salafist image.

At the same time, Hamas in Gaza has been willing to launch Qassam rockets at Israeli civilians and stage sporadic attempts to kidnap more IDF soldiers. But they've also been willing to direct attacks at Fatah members in Gaza, on an escalating scale. It's rapidly reaching a point where the leadership of Fatah can no longer surf along above the turmoil: the attacks are aiming higher and higher in their eschelons.

After sundown Monday, gunmen, apparently from Hamas, laid siege to the house of Jamal Abu al-Jediyan, the senior Fatah official in northern Gaza. They then dragged him outside and killed him, security officials said. Medics said he was hit by 45 bullets.

Al-Jediyan was a top aide to Gaza Fatah strongman Mohammed Dahlan and al-Jediyan's brother was also killed, apparently in the same shootout.

Fatah spokesman Maher Mikdad harshly denounced the killing and pledged revenge.

"What is this, if not a war," he said.

Fatah called on its members to target all Hamas political and military leaders.

"What is this, if not a war?" What, indeed? How about a purge?

The Oslo Accords demonstrated that Fatah could not be trusted to maintain purity of ideology and purpose against Israel. Even though they never implemented their obligations toward peace, and perhaps only undertook those obligations to mask their intention to build a base for destroying Israel at a future date, still the fact remains that they did undertake those obligations. For the true believers of Hamas and of the Salafist movement, this indicated that Fatah was a more immediate danger to the struggle against Zionism than Israel itself. Only a Palestinian society purged of such wobbly pragmatists could find the unity and strength to take on Israel.

Thus the Palestinian communities in Gaza and in the refugee camps of Lebanon needed to be purged, to be brought under the complete control of orthodox and unwavering Islamists. Any accommodation with Fatah was tactical, a brand of taqqiya toward unbelievers in the West to attempt to free up frozen finances and toward unbelievers in Fatah to attempt to co-opt them.

The Palestinians must choose one path or another before there is any point in pursuing talks with Israel. If the Palestinians choose Hamas and Fatah al-Islam, then talks with Israel will be pointless in the first place; if they reject Hamas and Fatah al-Islam, there may be a chance for peace.

How to End 'Islamophobia' - WSJ opinion article

Brave man, this Tawfik Hamid:

It may seem bizarre, but Islamic reformers are not immune to the charge of "Islamophobia" either. For 20 years, I have preached a reformed interpretation of Islam that teaches peace and respects human rights. I have consistently spoken out -- with dozens of other Muslim and Arab reformers -- against the mistreatment of women, gays and religious minorities in the Islamic world. We have pointed out the violent teachings of Salafism and the imperative of Westerners to protect themselves against it.

Yet according to CAIR's Michigan spokeswoman, Zeinab Chami, I am "the latest weapon in the Islamophobe arsenal." If standing against the violent edicts of Shariah law is "Islamophobic," then I will treat her accusation as a badge of honor.

Muslims must ask what prompts this "phobia" in the first place. When we in the West examine the worldwide atrocities perpetrated daily in the name of Islam, it is vital to question if we -- Muslims -- should lay the blame on others for Islamophobia or if we should first look hard at ourselves.

He knows well that merely raising such questions is a very parlous enterprise.

But one question: would Dr. Hamid's "reformed interpretation of Islam," if put into practice, still be recognizable as Islam? Or would it fail to attract adherents from the current Muslim ummah because it was too far removed from Muslim tradition?