Copyright 2010 Middle East Forum Mon, 08 Feb 2010 03:43:17 -0500 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Middle East Forum :: Writings http://www.meforum.org webmaster@meforum.org (Middle East Forum) webmaster@meforum.org en-us http://www.meforum.org/2585/lure-of-jihadism Fri, 5 Feb 2010 01:10:16 EST According to a recent ABC report, "As many as three dozen criminals who converted to Islam in American prisons have moved to Yemen where they could pose a 'significant threat' to attack the U.S., according to a report on al-Qaeda from the Senate Foreign http://www.meforum.org/2582/iraq-watershed-election Mon, 1 Feb 2010 06:57:36 EST After the Iraqi parliament banned 500 candidates from contesting the March 7 national elections, Vice President Joseph Biden rushed to Baghdad to urge Iraqi political leaders to reconsider. While the ban has fueled U.S. cynicism about Iraqi democracy, http://www.meforum.org/2581/job-announcement-islamist-watch-director Mon, 1 Feb 2010 01:06:00 EST The Middle East Forum, a think-tank based in Philadelphia, seeks to hire a full-time director for Islamist Watch. Islamist Watch focuses on a threat too often overlooked in fighting terrorism, the ideas and institutions of non-violent and non-criminal http://www.meforum.org/2583/islamist-lawfare-defeated-in-texas Mon, 1 Feb 2010 12:10:25 EST [Published as: Islamists' New Weapon: Libel Law] Libel suits are not normally associated with national security, but a case the Texas Supreme Court ruled on January 15 carries just such implications. The suit against internet journalist Joe Kaufman is a http://www.meforum.org/blog/obama-mideast-monitor/2010/01/interesting-george-mitchell-interview Thu, 7 Jan 2010 11:04:02 EST Mideast Envoy George Mitchell made some interesting observations in an interview with Charlie Rose. Obama's Demand for a Settlement Freeze Charlie Rose: The New York Times editorial [says] that the past year has not been successful because the http://www.meforum.org/2586/who-rules-iran Mon, 8 Feb 2010 03:35:04 EST In the 30-year reign of Iran's Islamic Republic, there have been few controversies as serious as the one surrounding the 2009 elections. The votes that brought Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power for a second term have been challenged, not just on paper, but by http://www.meforum.org/2580/gulf-states-shadow-of-iran Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:48:41 EST The Obama administration is caught on the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand, it has welcomed the Gulf Security Dialogue (GSD) as a chance to further "mutual interests" with Persian Gulf states, but, on the other, it has sought pragmatic engagement with http://www.meforum.org/2579/syria-financial-support-jihad Wed, 20 Jan 2010 04:59:14 EST It costs a lot of money to run an insurgency. There are arms to buy, attacks to launch, bribes to pay. The local population has to be won over, and extensive networks have to be actively maintained, often involving members of various groups, criminal http://www.meforum.org/2578/steven-emerson-combating-radical-islam Wed, 13 Jan 2010 13:22:59 EST On Christmas afternoon in 1992, Steven Emerson, then a staff reporter for CNN, noticed a large group of men in traditional Arab clothes congregating outside the Oklahoma City Convention Center. At first, he thought they were extras for a movie—until he http://www.meforum.org/2538/taqiyya-islam-rules-of-war Tue, 5 Jan 2010 15:15:10 EST Islam must seem a paradoxical religion to non-Muslims. On the one hand, it is constantly being portrayed as the religion of peace; on the other, its adherents are responsible for the majority of terror attacks around the world. Apologists for Islam http://www.meforum.org/2513/syria-islamist-terrorism Mon, 23 Nov 2009 10:16:35 EST While the Obama administration and congressional leaders may justify renewed engagement with Syria with their desire to jumpstart the Middle East peace process, they ignore the very issue that lies at the heart of the Syrian threat to U.S. national http://www.meforum.org/blog/obama-mideast-monitor/2009/12/mitchell-on-parallel-israel-palestinian-talks Mon, 28 Dec 2009 15:21:43 EST Special Envoy George Mitchell, in an interview with the Center for American Progress published on December 1, 2009, raised the possibility of "parallel talks between the U.S. and Israel and the U.S. and the Palestinians on key issues ." Here are excerpts http://www.meforum.org/2535/islamist-doublespeak-hezbollah-manifesto Sun, 27 Dec 2009 03:01:35 EST "Al-Qaeda's Zawahiri Accuses Obama of Trying to 'Enslave' Arab World." So reads the headline of a recent Fox News report, which goes on to quote Zawahiri saying things such as "Obama's policy is nothing but another cycle in the Crusader and Zionist http://www.meforum.org/blog/obama-mideast-monitor/2009/12/abbas-i-could-have-reached-an-agreement-with Sun, 20 Dec 2009 12:30:32 EST Haaretz reports that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told Asharq Al-Awsat, "I negotiated with [Olmert] and felt we could have reached an agreement." Abbas said a meeting had been scheduled to take place between negotiators Shalom Turgeman and Saeb http://www.meforum.org/blog/obama-mideast-monitor/2009/12/netanyahus-new-agreement-with-mitchell Sat, 19 Dec 2009 11:15:25 EST Netanyahu's New Agreement with MitchellBY STEVEN J. ROSEN Foreign Policy DECEMBER 18, 2009 For a year or two at an early stage in his career, I commuted to and from our adjacent offices each morning and evening with Martin Indyk, later a top http://www.meforum.org/2530/mideast-peace-deal Sat, 19 Dec 2009 11:43:23 EST For a year or two at an early stage in his career, I commuted to and from our adjacent offices each morning and evening with Martin Indyk, later a top peace-process official of the Clinton administration at the Camp David negotiations and now vice http://www.meforum.org/2531/iran-syria-hezbollah-axis Sat, 19 Dec 2009 12:01:39 EST The 2006 war between Lebanon and Israel took not only outside observers by surprise, but also Israel and the government of Lebanon. A day after an operation in which Hezbollah killed five Israeli soldiers and captured two others, the Israel Defense http://www.meforum.org/blog/obama-mideast-monitor/2009/12/more-details-of-olmert-offer-disclosed Wed, 16 Dec 2009 23:33:00 EST Haaretz published more details about the specific terms former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Olmert offered Abbas land near Gaza as swap for settlements By Aluf Benn, Haaretz Correspondent Haaretz http://www.meforum.org/blog/obama-mideast-monitor/2009/12/63-of-americans-support-preemptive-attack-on-iran Fri, 4 Dec 2009 09:53:50 EST Pew Research Center December 3, 2009: "A majority of the public approves of using U.S. military forces in several international situations. More than six-in-ten (63%) approve of using U.S. forces if it were certain Iran had a produced a nuclear weapon http://www.meforum.org/blog/obama-mideast-monitor/2009/12/olmert-details-his-offer-to-abbas Tue, 1 Dec 2009 17:09:49 EST Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert provided the first detailed account of the offer he made to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on 2008, in an interview with the Australian newspaper published November 28. Here are the key excerpts: Ehud Olmert still http://www.meforum.org/2521/not-nearly-enough-on-afghanistan Tue, 1 Dec 2009 20:40:29 EST Announcing the results of his administration's first policy review on Afghanistan more than eight months ago, President Barack Obama declared, "I want the American people to understand that we have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and http://www.meforum.org/2512/nidal-hasan-fort-hood-muslim-doctrine Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:33:32 EST One of the difficulties in discussing Islam's more troubling doctrines is that they have an anachronistic, even otherworldly, feel to them; that is, unless actively and openly upheld by Muslims, non-Muslims, particularly of the Western variety, tend to http://www.meforum.org/2510/fort-hood-academic-apologists Sun, 15 Nov 2009 10:40:27 EST In the wake of the horrific attack at the Fort Hood military base in Texas earlier this month, and the mounting evidence that the shooter, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, was motivated by Islamist beliefs, the media has turned to Middle East studies "experts" http://www.meforum.org/2498/opposition-un-resolutions-banning-defamation-of-religion Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:47:57 EST PHILADELPHIA – The Legal Project has joined the Becket Fund for Religious Freedom and over 100 other non-governmental organizations from around the world, in a joint statement decrying the danger to free speech rights posed by a series of pending UN http://www.meforum.org/2496/islamist-perfidy-western-naivety Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:59:38 EST In a blog entry for Islamist Watch, David J. Rusin shows how the word "jihad" continues to be euphemized in the West. Despite Islamic law's unequivocal portrayal of it as a military endeavor to empower Islam, jihad is still being peddled as "nothing more http://www.meforum.org/2495/dont-take-netanyahu-to-the-woodshed Mon, 9 Nov 2009 13:54:34 EST Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to Washington on Sunday following weeks of speculation about whether he would be met by U.S. President Barack Obama during the visit. When his plane took off, there was still with no word from the White http://www.meforum.org/2493/daniel-huff-appointed-legal-project-director Tue, 3 Nov 2009 00:07:47 EST PHILADELPHIA – The Middle East Forum is pleased to announce the appointment of Daniel Huff as director of the Legal Project. Mr. Huff succeeds Brooke Goldstein who led the Project since 2007. Dedicated to providing legal aid for anti-Islamist researchers http://www.meforum.org/blog/obama-mideast-monitor/2009/11/j-street-allied-to-goldstone Mon, 2 Nov 2009 21:03:20 EST I haven't posted for a while, but this is remarkable. Michael Goldfarb at the Weekly Standard discovered ("J Street Adviser Morton Halperin Goes to Work for Goldstone") that a letter purportedly written by Judge Richard Goldstone to criticize a House of http://www.meforum.org/2490/dalia-mogahed-excuses Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:54:28 EST As reported last week by Campus Watch, Dalia Mogahed, appointee to President Obama's Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, executive director and senior analyst of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, and co-author, along with Georgetown http://www.meforum.org/2489/anti-americanism-muslim-world Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:07:54 EST I have always viewed push-up bras as false advertising, but does wearing one deserve a whipping because of their "deceptive" and "un-Islamic" nature? I don't know, but the controlling Islamist Shabaab party of Somalia seems to think so. And if our bras http://www.meforum.org/2485/sharia-law-promote-women-rights Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:20:02 EST In thinking about women's rights, sharia law, or Islamic law, doesn't typically come to mind. Yet, according to a survey conducted by Dalia Mogahed, executive director and senior analyst of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies and appointee to President http://www.meforum.org/2484/juan-cole-between-madison-and-the-mullahs Fri, 16 Oct 2009 08:19:41 EST Juan Cole, the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan, produces a steady stream of writings that downplays the threat radical Islam poses to America and the West. His opinions are at odds with the beliefs of http://www.meforum.org/2482/columbia-university-whitewashes-un-arab-states Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:15:52 EST With all the irony of President Richard Nixon's famous quip that, "there can be no whitewash at the White House," the ivory tower played host to a September 25 "debate" at Columbia University's Casa Italiano that exonerated the United Nations Relief http://www.meforum.org/2481/unrwa-at-60-better-alternatives Mon, 12 Oct 2009 10:58:26 EST Abstract The United Nations Relief and Work Agency for the Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) was established in 1948 as a temporary relief agency. In spite of its failure to solve the refugee problem, it has been renewed and expanded for 60 years, with http://www.meforum.org/2480/black-nationalism-african-american-islamist-movement Sun, 11 Oct 2009 12:10:28 EST "America needs to understand Islam, because this is the one religion that erases from its society the race problem," Malcolm X wrote in 1964 during his pilgrimage to Mecca. Though Malcolm's anti-white rhetoric was moderated after his conversion from the http://www.meforum.org/2479/question-to-osama-bin-laden-islamist Thu, 8 Oct 2009 13:12:21 EST Ever since 9/11, when Osama bin Laden was thrust into the spotlight, he has made it a point to occasionally submit questions to Americans — questions which he apparently thinks are unanswerable. In his last message "commemorating" 9/11, for instance, http://www.meforum.org/2477/dont-sacrifice-human-rights-for-iran-diplomacy Wed, 7 Oct 2009 09:10:38 EST Iranians who took to the streets this summer to protest electoral fraud failed to win a new election. But they nevertheless returned concerns about the Islamic republic's human rights record to the international stage. On June 20, U.S. President Barack http://www.meforum.org/2476/bad-options-on-iran Mon, 5 Oct 2009 08:39:28 EST On October 1, President Barack Obama ascended the podium in the Diplomatic Reception Room at the White House and declared negotiations with Iran a tentative success. "The P5-plus-1 is united, and we have an international community that has reaffirmed its http://www.meforum.org/2474/more-than-talk-iran-stonewalling Wed, 30 Sep 2009 07:07:19 EST Tomorrow, U.S. diplomats and their Russian, Chinese and European counterparts will join Iranian officials to discuss the Islamic Republic's nuclear program. The meeting follows new Iranian missile tests and exposure of a second covert Iranian nuclear http://www.meforum.org/2467/stuck-in-the-middle-east Fri, 18 Sep 2009 03:04:43 EST Eight months into his presidency, Barack Obama is fast approaching his first real moment of truth on the Middle East. At the opening of the U.N. General Assembly session next week, the U.S. president will host a ceremonial summit between Israeli Prime http://www.meforum.org/2463/remembering-9-11-eight-years-later Sat, 12 Sep 2009 14:36:25 EST Eight years after the Islamic terrorist attacks of 9/11, it appears that America has largely drifted back into complacency. Certainly, many Americans still understand that the threat of repeated attacks remains real, but the sense of urgency has faded http://www.meforum.org/2456/british-government-lockerbie-bomber Wed, 2 Sep 2009 07:43:17 EST On Aug. 20, Scottish authorities freed Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the only man convicted in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie. Even though he was sentenced to life in prison, he served just over 11 days for each http://www.meforum.org/2517/aclu-takes-muslim-school-to-court Sat, 28 Nov 2009 16:16:28 EST Editors' preface: With some 150 Muslim schools, the United Kingdom leads the non-Muslim world in its provision for education within the confines of traditional and sometimes radical Islamic thought.[1] Other European countries have only a small handful http://www.meforum.org/2515/the-next-founders Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:20:32 EST On January 21, 2005, George W. Bush looked out over the crowds gathered in front of the U.S. Capitol for his second inaugural and declared, "It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in http://www.meforum.org/2514/a-saudi-view-of-orientalism Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:50:13 EST Mazin S. Motabbagani (or, in accurate transcription, al-Mutabaqani) is assistant professor of Orientalism at King Saud University in Riyadh, and head of the Occidental Studies Unit in the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, also in http://www.meforum.org/2509/brief-reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:35:20 EST http://www.meforum.org/2508/still-broken Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:30:49 EST Rossmiller dedicates the first half of Still Broken to his Iraq experience. Analysts worked 14-hour days, processing data and maintaining a database of questionable accuracy. Rossmiller describes catching obvious errors—Sunni insurgents with names like http://www.meforum.org/2507/reform-in-the-middle-east-oil-monarchies Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:28:07 EST The six Persian Gulf monarchies—Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman—have for decades been undergoing sustained economic development that was matched by little if any political reform. Reform in the Middle East Oil http://www.meforum.org/2506/the-quest-for-democracy-in-iran Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:25:56 EST The Western picture of Iran is of authoritarianism with clerical rule following centuries of shahs—punctuated by Mohammed Mossadegh, an eccentric, 1950s prime minister supported by pro-Soviet forces. Azimi, a history professor at the University of http://www.meforum.org/2505/persian-dreams Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:23:46 EST Each of us looks at the world through our own glasses. The same developments can appear quite differently when examined through a different set of eyes. Parker, a division chief at the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Intelligence and Research,