From the Washington Times:

In what could be the first spillover from France’s intervention in Mali …

assisted by the US, …

Islamist militants attacked and occupied a natural gas complex partly operated by energy company BP in southern Algeria on Wednesday. Two foreigners were killed and dozens of others, including Americans, were taken hostage.

Meanwhile, what’s happening in Mali?

The video and text are from DEBKAfile

On January 11, a few hundred French troops and a handful of fighter jets and gunships launched a campaign against Islamist terrorists in Mali, a West African desert vastness larger than Texas and California combined. This former French colony appealed to Paris for aid to throw back a mixed al Qaeda-rebel advance on the capital, Bamako.

But France, no more than the US, had learned from the Afghanistan War that Al Qaeda cannot be beaten by aerial warfare – certainly not when the jiahdists are highly trained in special forces tactics and backed by highly mobile, well-armed local militias, armed with advanced anti-aircraft weapons and knowledgeable about conditions in the forbidding Sahara.

Within 48 hours, this modest “crusader” intervention had united a host of pro-al Qaeda offshoots and allies, some of them castoffs from the army of Libya’s deposed Muammar Qaddafi.

They are led by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb – AQIM; the West African jihadist MUJAO; and the Somali al-Shabaab which is linked to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula – AQAP. Together, they are threatening to execute one by one the 10 or eleven French hostages they are holding as part of their revenge on France.

The French declared their mission to be to dislodge the Islamists from an area larger than Afghanistan in the north, including the principal towns of Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal. Without several thousand special forces’ troops on the ground, this is just a pipedream.

The disaffected Touareg tribes are supporting al Qaeda against the French as part of their drive for independence. Their added value is the training in special forces’ tactics some 1,500 Touareg fighting men and their three officers received from the US.

The US originally reserved them as the main spearhead of a Western Saharan multi-tribe campaign to eradicate al Qaeda in North and West Africa.

Instead, the Sahel tribesmen followed the Touareg in absconding to Mali with top-quality weapons for desert warfare and hundreds of vehicles from US and ex-Libyan military arsenals.

This major setback for US administration plans and counter-terror strategy in Africa tied in with Al Qaeda’s assassination of US Ambassador Chris Stevens and three of his staff in Benghazi last September. Because the United States held back from direct US military action in both cases, Qaeda has been allowed to go from strength to strength and draw into its fold recruits from Mali’s neighbors. They are tightening their grip on northern Mali and have imposed a brutal version of Islam on its inhabitants, putting hundreds to flight.

France stepped in when al Qaeda drove south to extend its rule to all parts of Mali and pose a terrorist threat to Europe.

Denis Allex, the video narrator, was executed by al-Shabaab, according to its own report which contradicts the reports put out by France claiming that he was killed during a botched rescue attempt in Somalia.

From The Long War Journal by Bill Roggio, 1/16/2013:

Shabaab, al Qaeda’s affiliate in Somalia and East Africa, announced today that it would execute a French intelligence operative who was captured in Mogadishu in 2009.

The hostage, Denis Allex, was the subject of a failed rescue attempt last week by French commandos. …

assisted by the US, …

Shabaab said he was killed after the group “reached a unanimous decision.” …

Shabaab pinned the blame for Allex’s death sentence on France, and denied the French claim that the hostage was killed during the rescue attempt. Shabaab has maintained this position since the first report of the raid, while French officials claimed that Allex was indeed killed during the rescue attempt.

“With the rescue attempt, France has voluntarily signed Allex’s death warrant. Following the failed operation, [French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian], aware that execution is the natural corollary of treachery, announced that the punishment had already been meted out, despite the fact that Allex was at the time alive and safe in another safe house,” the group said.

Shabaab said it would kill Allex after years of attempting to negotiate with France, and finally decided to kill him after the French commandos killed civilians during the rescue attempt. Two French commandos were killed; one of them was captured and subsequently died of his wounds, according to Shabaab. Two days ago, Shabaab released photographs of the captured French commando, who they claimed was the mission commander, and displayed his body with his weapons and gear.

But only announced yesterday that they “would execute” him?

“The death of the two French soldiers pales into insignificance besides the dozens of Muslim civilians senselessly killed by the French forces during the operation,” Shabaab stated.

Shabaab also claimed Allex was sentenced to death for France’s involvement in military operations in Afghanistan, Mali, and other “Muslim lands.” French troops have entered Mali to help the government retake the north from an Islamist alliance made up of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Ansar Dine, andthe Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa. Last week, the jihadist groups advanced southward to take control of Bamako, the capital. The three militant Islamist groups have controlled northern Mali since the spring of 2012.

“Avenging the deaths of these civilians and taking into consideration France’s increasing persecution of Muslims around the world, its oppressive anti-Islam policies at home, French military operations in the war against Islamic Shari’ah in Afghanistan and, most recently, in Mali, and its continued economic, political and military assistance towards the African invaders in Muslim lands, Harakat Al-Shabaab Al Mujahideen has reached a unanimous decision to execute the French intelligence officer, Denis Allex,” the terror group said.

Shabaab also provided some details on the “botched rescue operation,” which it described as “an abysmal failure; both in terms of intelligence and the ground operation.” The group claimed the French assault team landed outside of the Shabaab-held town of Bulo-Marer and killed “all the villagers that crossed their path.”

“But before the French forces could reach their destination, the Mujahideen in Bulo-Marer were alerted by HSM [al-Shabaab] intelligence teams who had information of the French movements,” Shabaab stated. The description of events roughly matches a report that was published by Shabelle [a Somali media network].

Allex and Marc Aubriere, two French intelligence agents, were captured in July 2009 at a hotel in Mogadishu. Both men were posing as journalists and trainers for the Somali military. Aubriere escaped under mysterious circumstances and it is rumored the French government paid a ransom for his release.

France launched the rescue mission to free Allex as it was feared he would be executed by Shabaab in retaliation for the French intervention in Mali.

Shabaab officially merged with al Qaeda in February 2012 after working closely with the global terror group for years.

Were the French lying about Denis Allex being killed in the botched rescue attempt? If so, why? And in connection with all this, what is the Obama administration keeping from the American people?

These Islamic fighting forces which the might of the Western world, half-heartedly engaged, is signally failing to subdue in Mali, Somalia, Libya, many other parts of Africa, and Afghanistan, and Yemen, can no longer be called “terrorists”. They are the armies of the jihad, unrelentingly mobilized – and winning.      

ABC News reports:

Rizana Nafeek, a young nanny from Sri Lanka, was beheaded by sword [in June, 2011] in Saudi Arabia, punishment for allegedly killing a baby in 2007 when she was believed to be just 17.

We are not told whose baby it was or how she killed it. Violently? Accidentally? By abandonment and neglect the way babies are routinely and lawfully killed in China and Britain?

The execution has spurred international outcry, given Nafeek’s age at the time of the incident and her limited access [or no access at all?] to a defense attorney. …

Few details of Nafeek’s execution have leaked from the country’s tightly controlled media, but the interior ministry said her head was severed from her body in public in Dawadmy, a dusty suburb of the capital Riyadh. …I

Some 82 executions were carried out in Saudi Arabia last year … It is unknown how many of them were women or carried out by sword, but the majority of the condemned were foreigners, like Nafeek.

Beheadings in Saudi Arabia are governed by certain rules.

They are conducted in public, typically in town squares or near prisons. The condemned, as well as the executioner, typically wear white. The convict is blindfolded, handcuffed and often given a sedative. A plastic tarp, several feet wide, is sometimes spread out around the convict to make cleaning up the blood and recovering her head easier.

The heads of the condemned can sometimes roll several feet from the body, said Saudi Arabia’s leading executioner in a rare 2003 interview with Saudi newspaper Arab News.

“The criminal was tied and blindfolded. With one stroke of the sword I severed his head. It rolled meters away,” said executioner Muhammad Saad al-Beshi, recalling his first beheading.

Al-Beshi said he has executed as many as 10 people in one day, by sword and by bullet.

“It depends what they ask me to use. Sometimes they ask me to use a sword and sometimes a gun. But most of the time I use the sword,” he said.

He said he keeps his sword razor sharp, and allows his children to help clean it. 

“People are amazed how fast it can separate the head from the body,” he said.

Executioners like Al-Beshi are trained professionals who also carry out amputations, severing the hands, feet and tongues, of convicted criminals.

The pain from the cutting of a tongue is extremely intense and persists for weeks or even months.

The executioner said it is not uncommon for spectators to pass out at a beheading.

“There are many people who faint when they witness an execution. I don’t know why they come and watch if they don’t have the stomach for it,” he said.

This video is from The Muslim Issue, via the Religion of Peace. Made in the 1960s, it is informative about the buying and selling of African slaves, and the farming of slaves – raising herds of slaves’ children to be slaves (but has an irrelevant striptease tacked on at the end.) There are still slaves in Muslim Africa, as another video at the same site proves.

Case One: An Islamic terrorist is kept at taxpayers’ expense in Britain, and protected by European judges from deportation to his homeland Jordan, where he has been convicted for terrorist crimes, on the grounds that Jordan uses torture. And even when the Jordanian authorities give assurances that the monster won’t be tortured, the judges still won’t let him go, just in case the evidence against him in a Jordanian court may be elicited by torture.

Case Two: In Spain, a genuine refugee who has committed no crime under Spanish law but only exercised his right of free speech by criticizing Islam, is to be returned to Pakistan where he will face the death penalty for apostasy.

*

Case One:

Abu Qatada, top al-Qaeda terrorist in Europe, lives in Britain at the expense of the taxpayer. Free rent, free education for his children, free health care, social security income – and the cost of his police surveillance alone comes to £100,000 ($150,000) per week.

The Examiner reports:

The man who was designated by the British media as England’s own “terror cleric,” Abu Qatada is now complaining, via his son, that the taxpayer subsidized London home is “small and filthy” …

The hate preacher’s son, Qatada Qatada, complained not only of the cramped and unsanitary digs they aren’t paying for, but also of:

“Racist pressure groups in Britain [who] hold demonstrations outside the house”… and would “scream and curse at us and at Islam.”

It’s good to hear that at least some of the British public are intolerant of the intolerable.

The rent-free Qatada home has been picketed by British citizens who question the government’s wisdom as to the insistence that taxpayer money is used to house, feed and care for the terrorist and his family.

The British government has been attempting to deport Abu Qatada back to his native Jordan since 2001, but has been continually stymied by both British courts and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) located in Strasbourg, France.

The upholding of human rights has largely replaced justice as the raison d’être of law courts in Europe.  

Qatada was found guilty in absentia by the Jordanian government on terrorism charges and was subsequently sentenced to life in prison at hard labor.

However, a British Special Immigration Appeals Commission agreed with the earlier ECHR ruling that if sent back to Jordan, Qatada’s human rights would be in jeopardy.

The following are key events in the years-long saga as the British people have attempted to rid themselves of the Jihadist terrorist.

September 16 1993 – The Jordanian father of five claims asylum when he arrives in Britain on a forged passport.

June 1994 – He is allowed to stay in Britain. [!]

March 1995 – Qatada issues a ‘fatwa’ justifying the killing of converts from Islam, their wives and children in Algeria.

May 1998 – He applies for indefinite leave to remain in Britain.

April 1999 – He is convicted in his absence on terror charges in Jordan and sentenced to life imprisonment.

October 1999 – The radical cleric speaks in London advocating the killing of Jews and praising attacks on Americans.

February 2001 – He is arrested by anti-terror police over involvement in a plot to bomb Strasbourg Christmas market. Officers find him in possession of £170,000 in cash, including £805 in an envelope marked ‘For the mujahedin in Chechnya’.

December 2001 – Qatada becomes one of Britain’s most wanted men after going on the run from his home in Acton, West London.

October 2002 – He is arrested by police in a council house in south London and detained in Belmarsh high-security jail.

March 2005 – He is freed on conditional bail and placed on a control order.

August 2005 – The preacher is arrested under immigration rules as the Government seeks to deport him to Jordan.

April 2008 – The Court of Appeal rules that deporting him would breach his human rights because evidence used against him in Jordan may have been obtained through torture.

Evidence against him may have been obtained through torture! Unlikely that he really is a terrorist? Are all British judges milquetoast? What happened to the roast beef of Olde England?

May 2008 – Qatada is granted bail by the immigration tribunal but told he must stay inside for 22 hours a day.

June 2008 – He is released from Long Lartin jail in Worcestershire and moves in to a four bedroomed £800,000 home in West London.

November 2008 – He is rearrested after the Home Office tells an immigration hearing of fears he plans to abscond.

December 2008 – Qatada’s bail is revoked by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) after hearing secret evidence that the risk of him absconding has increased.

February 18 2009 – In a landmark judgment, five Law Lords unanimously back the Government’s policy of removing terror suspects from Britain on the basis of assurances from foreign governments. It is ruled he can be deported to Jordan to face terror charges.

Ah, some roastbeef judges after all!

But not in the European Court of Human Rights. Get ready to be exasperated.

February 19 2009 – Qatada is awarded £2,500 compensation by the European Court of Human Rights after the judges rule that his detention without trial in the UK under anti-terrorism powers breached his human rights.

January 2012 – European judges rule the firebrand cleric can be sent back to Jordan with diplomatic assurances but he cannot be deported while ‘there remains a real risk that evidence obtained by torture will be used against him’.

February 6 2012 – SIAC rules he can be released on bail, despite posing a risk to national security.

February 9 2012 – David Cameron and King Abdullah of Jordan agree on the ‘importance of finding an effective resolution’ to his case, Downing Street says.

February 13 2012 – It emerges Qatada has been released on bail from Long Lartin prison.

April 17 2012 – The cleric is arrested as the Government prepares to deport him to Jordan.

April 18 2012 – Abu Qatada lodges an appeal – potentially delaying his deportation by months.

Since his illegal entry into the United Kingdom in 1993, Abu Qatada has been a multi-million Pound Sterling burden to the British people.

*

 Case Two:

In Spain an ex-Muslim refugee offends not his host nation but Islam, so the Spanish Government wants to deport him to Pakistan where he will face the death penalty. 

This report is from Cobourg Atheist, by John Draper:

Imran Firasat is from Pakistan but risked his life and left Islam – he is no longer a Muslim. To escape death, he moved to Spain where he runs a web site. Further, he is on a campaign to criticise Islam – he started with some cartoons …, created a web site which is in both Spanish and English and promoted the controversial movie Innocence of Muslims. The web site also lists 10 reasons why Muhammad was a false prophet … He co-produced a 70min movie The Innocent Prophet that described why he thought Islam to be wrong – why people would be crazy to believe what is in the Qur’an. But he is not a Spanish citizen – he was admitted into Spain as a refugee. So when he announced his plans to release the movie,he was told he could lose his status and be deported back to Pakistan where he would face a certain death penalty for openly leaving and criticizing Islam under Pakistan’s blasphemy Law.  He therefore withdrew his name from the movie …

You can find the movie here:

More of the story comes from Islam Watch, by M.A.Kahn:

Under pressure, Firasat withdrew from the movie, but his U.S. collaborator, controversial Pastor Terry Jones, who already had a copy, took Firasat’s name out of the movie and released it from the U.S. on the scheduled date.

Despite Imran Firasat’s best effort to distance himself from the movie by completely taking out his name, the Spanish authority decided to revoke his refugee status, serving him with a letter to the effect within days after the movie was released.

Mr. Firasat has been baffled by the manner his refugee status was revoked, because it usually takes 6 months to process the cancellation of refugee status.

He has been told by the Interior Ministry that he is a threat to Spain’s national security. He was inciting violence against Spain both at home and against Spanish diplomatic missions and interests abroad. …

Imran Firasat, who feels open examination of Islam is necessary for liberty and democracy to survive in the West amidst its burgeoning Muslim populations, says, he wants to criticize Islam, but without instigating violence among Muslims to avoid vandalism, destructions and deaths.

And his movie, despite being on Youtube for over two weeks and watched by tens of thousands of people, there hasn’t been any controversy, criticism or violence, whatsoever. Even then, the decision of the Spanish government to serve Imran Firasat with deportation papers clearly shows how much fear have Muslims stricken into the hearts of Western nations. This is nothing but Muslims’ perfect enactment of Allah’s divine commandment for striking terror into the heart of the unbelievers …

Imran Firasat, who has been struggling with financial difficulties, especially after making this movie – which not only ate up all of savings but he also had to take a loan – has one month to defend himself in Court, failing which he may be put on a plane to Pakistan. …

So is shortage of funds the reason why he isn’t appealing to the European Court of Human Rights where – just maybe – his case will be looked at with the same consideration applied in the case of Abu Qatada? If so, why aren’t Spanish taxpayers bearing that cost, as British taxpayers bore the cost of Abu Qatada’s appeal?

The solution to such puzzles is to be found in this new unwritten principle of European and American political philosophy: If you offend Muslims you are guilty; if Muslims offend you, you are guilty.

Last thought: “Mr. Firasat has been baffled by the manner his refugee status was revoked, because it usually takes 6 months to process the cancellation of refugee status.” Why do we suspect that Obama and Hillary Clinton – who are persecuting the maker of the video Innocence of Muslims, pretending it caused the murderous attack by Muslim terrorists on the US mission in Benghazi – have a couple of bloodstained hands in the perpetration of this injustice?

This is from the Egyptian website Albawaba:

“An Islamist Egypt is a fascist Egypt. It is an Egypt that will use the faith people have in Islam as a religion to gain political power and to exclude and alienate all who are different,” says a former pious Muslim who now describes himself as “Godless and free.” …

While some Islamists widely attack liberals and Christians, describing them as “infidels” (some even going as far as justifying their killing), nonbelievers are not even acknowledged, let alone guaranteed rights in an Islamist Egypt.

“The Egyptian people are religious by nature, and there are no atheists,” said Yusuf al-Qaradawi, one of the most prominent Islamic scholars, if not the most, a few days ago.

The second article of the new constitution reads: “Islam is the religion of the state, Arabic is the official language and the principles of Islamic Sharia (law) is the main source of legislation.” …

“The Brotherhood themselves do not tolerate atheism. If there was another ruling party with the same constitution, they would not be as strict on atheists as the MB,” an aspiring Egyptian journalist who refers to herself as an “atheist” argues. “Nobody in Egypt made a decision to be an atheist without truly understanding and accepting the consequences.What I am actually worried about are the people who will be mistaken for atheists when all they did was crack a joke or disagree with a popular Muslim figure on a subject.” …

“I am afraid Egypt will slip into a period of ‘medieval Europe’ where the church was the main driving force behind the ignorance, intolerance and abuse to human integrity. History teaches us that there is no progress under religious, dogmatic ideology,” [an Egyptian-Canadian says] .

According to Article 60 of the new constitution, all citizens are required to take religion classes before they apply for university. This is not a new feature in Egyptian schools; religion classes (Islamic and Christian) were always mandatory in all national schools.

It remains to be seen how far the Muslim Brotherhood government will tolerate atheism in newly “democratic” Egypt. Our guess is – not far.

Christians are being severely persecuted in Islamic countries. The only country in the Middle East where they are completely safe from religious persecution is Israel, which is also the only country in the region where Muslims are protected in both law and practice from victimization by other Muslims. But Israel-haters – ie anti-Semites, including the Jewish ones – can and do enjoy transports of Schadenfreude as the Jews are blamed for the suffering of Christians and Muslims at the hands of Muslims.

This is an extract from an article by Bruce Bawer at Front Page:

Perusing these friends-of-Palestine websites, one discovers certain phenomena over and over again – among them a staggering naivete and sentimentality, a colossal ignorance of history (or a remarkable determination to block it out), and a reflexive, vicious hatred of Israel and, yes, Jews. On these sites, Palestine often seems less like a real place on the map, a place where real people live out their lives, than some perverse combination of a poverty-and-suffering theme park for idle, affluent Americans, a laboratory in which Peace Studies practitioners can carry out their experiments, and a destination for left-wing Christian pilgrims in search a virtue fix. On none of the websites I looked at was there so much as the slightest hint of awareness that more than a few Palestinians are in the grip of a self-destructive psychopathology that has been instilled in them by terrorist movements and on which they have brought up their children, almost surely guaranteeing that their people, however much “help” they may receive from all over the Western world, will not develop a normally functioning society or a productive economy in any of our lifetimes, but will continue to be fixated on murder and mayhem.

There’s one running theme in many of the accounts by the “friends of Palestine.” They’ve gone to the Holy Land to observe and get upset about Israel’s mistreatment of the Palestinians, and in one case after another, to judge by their own accounts, the only thing they actually find to get worked up about is the security procedures that Palestinians have to undergo when they cross from one side of the famous “wall” to the other. Overwrought accounts of what it is like to endure this purportedly insulting, arduous, and humiliating ritual are ubiquitous on these sites. They do not convince. Compared to any number of things that people are being put through in various parts of the world right now on a daily basis, the security procedures at the “wall” seem tame indeed. Virtually never, of course, do any of these websites even admit in passing that the reason for these procedures is the same reason why laborious security procedures have been instituted at international airports in countries around the world: in a word, jihad.

A final point. The websites of several of the Christian friends-of-Palestine organizations note the dramatic decline in the number of Christians in Palestine over the last couple of generations. A typical plaint: “Christians are the minority in this land where the faith was born*. Many Palestinian Christians are suffering and leaving the country.” The implication is always that Israel is at fault. At none of these sites is there any mention of the fact that the number of Christians is declining across the Muslim world, and for one reason only. “Christianity ‘close to extinction’ in Middle East,” read a December 23 headline in the Daily Telegraph. No religious group, theTelegraph noted, is more persecuted around the world than Christians, and their chief oppressors are Muslims, thanks to whom “between a half and two-thirds of Christians in the Middle East have left [the Muslim world] or been killed in the past century.” It’s a phenomenon on a massive scale – but one that the mainstream media rarely report on, and one that all the smug, self-satisfied Christians who profess to fret endlessly about the Palestinians don’t show any sign of giving a damn about.

*

*Footnote: Contrary to the fixed belief of an overwhelming majority, Christianity was not born in “the Holy Land”. It was born in St. Paul’s mind in Syria, and preached in Greek in the eastern lands of the Roman Empire. It’s extremely unlikely that there were any Pauline (Catholic) Christian communities in Judea until well into the  second century. The misnamed “Jewish Christians” (Nazarenes or Ebionites) – the followers of the crucified man Paul called “Jesus” – remained in Jerusalem as long as they could, but did not believe in the divine “Son of God”. Almost everything you read in the New Testament about “Jesus”, “James”, “Peter” and “John”  is Paul’s and his converts’ make-believe. (See our series on the birth and growth of Christianity:  A man named Jesus or something like that, September 23, 2011; The invention of Christianity, October 28, 2011; Tread on me: the making of Christian morality, December 22, 2011; St.Paul: portrait of a sick genius, January 7, 2012; Pauline Christianity: a mystical salad, February 26, 2012; Christian theology: “the Word made flesh”, December 25, 2012.)

The Washington Times reports:

Essam al-Erian, deputy head of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, called on Egyptian Jews to leave Israel to the Palestinians and return to their own homeland.

“Their presence in Palestine contributes to the Zionist occupation of Arab lands, and every Egyptian has the right to live in his country — nobody can deny that,” Erian said …

“Egyptian Jews should refuse to live under a brutal, bloody and racist occupation stained with war crimes against humanity,” Erian said.

How do such people say such things with a straight face? Are they cynical beyond all shame, or are they utterly without a sense of irony?

From the Jewish Virtual Library, a Division of the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise:

Between June and November 1948, bombs set off in the Jewish Quarter of Cairo killed more than 70 Jews and wounded nearly 200. In 1956, the Egyptian government used the Sinai Campaign as a pretext for expelling almost 25,000 Egyptian Jews and confiscating their property. Approximately 1,000 more Jews were sent to prisons and detention camps. On November 23, 1956, a proclamation signed by the Minister of Religious Affairs, and read aloud in mosques throughout Egypt, declared that “all Jews are Zionists and enemies of the state,” and promised that they would be soon expelled. Thousands of Jews were ordered to leave the country. They were allowed to take only one suitcase and a small sum of cash, and forced to sign declarations “donating” their property to the Egyptian government. Foreign observers reported that members of Jewish families were taken hostage, apparently to insure that those forced to leave did not speak out against the Egyptian government.

From the Historical Society of Jews from Egypt:

Egyptian Jews being expelled from Egypt in 1956 under the direction of President Gamal Abd El Nasser … had to sign a pledge of NEVER TO RETURN, leaving behind their possessions, amounting to billions of dollars. All their assets have been placed under sequestration and confiscated by the government of which no restitutions have been made. The policy of sequestration and confiscation was in effect from 1948-1967. During the war of 1967 many Jews were mistreated and placed in jails for no reason other than they are of the Jewish faith. Egypt has yet to apologize. Today, with a handful of Jews left in all of Egypt, our request to salvage and rescue our heritage and religious articles has been denied by Egypt stating it all has been placed under the auspices of the department of Antiquities, and therefore may not leave Egypt.

From The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs:

Why was the story of the Jewish refugees from Arab countries suppressed? How did it become a forgotten exodus? …

Although they exceed the numbers of the Palestinian refugees, the Jews who fled are a forgotten case. Whereas the former are at the very heart of the peace process with a huge UN bureaucratic machinery dedicated to keeping them in the camps, the nine hundred thousand Jews who were forced out of Arab countries have not been refugees for many years. Most of them, about 650,000, went to Israel because it was the only country that would admit them. Most of them resided in tents that after several years were replaced by wooden cabins, and stayed in what were actually refugee camps for up to twelve years. They never received any aid or even attention from the UN Relief And Works Agency (UNRWA), the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, or any other international agency. Although their plight was raised almost every year at the UN by Israeli representatives, there was never any other reference to their case at the world body. …

Arab statements in the UN General Assembly and the New York Times reports prove that the intention to expel these Jewish populations preceded the establishment of Israel and the plight of the Palestinian refugees. …

What, then, happened to the nine hundred thousand Jews of the Arab countries?

In a few years, Jewish communities that had existed in the Middle East for more than 2,500 years were brutally expelled or had to run for their lives. … Following the Partition Resolution of November 1947, and in some countries even earlier during World War II, Middle Eastern Jews were the targets of official and popular incitement, state-legislated discrimination, and pogroms – again, all this before the massive flight of the Arabs from Palestine. …

In a new book Saturday People, Sunday People: Israel Through the Eyes of a Christian Sojourner* by Lela Gilbert (an intelligently pro-Israel enthusiast), stories of the Jews’ expulsion from Egypt are related by individuals who were robbed of all their possessions and expelled from the country.

One recalls:

“Levana Zamir [now living in Tel Aviv] …  explains that she, her parents and her six brothers were …  part of an affluent community … Then the “catastrophe” struck.

“On May 14, 1948,” Levana recalls, “we were sleeping. All of a sudden, exactly at midnight, people were knocking very, very hard on our door. We woke up and I saw ten Egyptian officers in their black uniforms. I wasn’t afraid because my parents were there and my mother was smiling to comfort me. But the soldiers opened everything. They went through everything. They were searching for something, but we never knew what. The next day I went to school (Levana attended a Catholic elementary school). The headmaster of the nuns came to me and said, ‘They took your uncle to prison!’

“My uncle lived in a big villa. He, my father and another brother owned one of the largest printing businesses in Cairo. I rushed home and asked my mother, ‘Is it true? Is he a criminal?’ My mother told me, ‘He’s not a criminal. It’s only because we are Jews’.

“So then it was even more a trauma for me. I thought to myself, I am also a Jew! I too could go to prison!”

Eighteen months later, when her uncle was released from prison like many others — on the condition of permanent expulsion — Levana and her family fled Egypt, leaving behind their sequestrated assets and possessions.

And another:

Today, Joseph Abdel Wahed lives in California … He recalls:

“I was 12 years old in May 1948,” Joseph says, “living in Heliopolis (a Cairo suburb). I remember the words of Azzam Pasha, the head of the newly formed Arab League, talking about the founding of Israel. He said, ‘This will be a war of extermination that will be likened to the Mongolian massacre and the Crusades!’ The very next day, the Egyptian army (and four other Arab armies) headed towards the new state of Israel to ‘throw the Jews into the sea.’ It was supposed to be a slam dunk, but they lost.

“By then everything had begun to unravel and our previously secure lives in Egypt had fallen apart. The Jewish section of Cairo, the Haret el Yahud, was bombed every year until 1949 …

Many were killed by the bombs. Jewish establisments were attacked, and individuals assaulted.

“The authorities sometimes played a part in these assaults, especially the Muslim Brotherhood, which began in the late 1920s under the leadership of Hassan el Banna. In 1967, about 400 Egyptian Jews, including my uncle and other relatives were thrown in concentration camps. …

And one more:

Another man whose family fled Egypt, Yossi Ben Aharon, now lives in Jerusalem. A career Israeli diplomat, Ben Aharon served as Director General of the Prime Minister’s Office under Premier Yitzhak Shamir and represented the Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs for nearly a decade in the United States. In a recent interview, Ben Aharon made it abundantly clear that the explosive violence against Jews in the Arab world following May 14, 1948 was no coincidence. He has collected a number of statements of lethal intent made by Arab leaders, calling for the death and destruction of Jews in their Arab homelands in case of the UN Partition of Palestine. …

Ben Aharon explains, “Immediately after the UN approved the Partition resolution on November 29, 1947, Arabs attacked the Jews throughout the Middle East, including Palestine. Yet, since 1949, the Arab states, together with Palestinian organizations, have mounted an intensive propaganda campaign, based on a rewriting of history, in an attempt to shift responsibility for the Palestinian refugee issue on to Israel. They describe the events of 1948 – and the estimated 762,000 Arab refugees – as an ‘ethnic cleansing’ by Israel. The facts of history point to the opposite: ethnic cleansing was perpetrated by Arab governments against their Jews, as witnessed by the fact that 850,000 Jews were forced to leave the Arab countries, while more than 4 million Arabs continue to live in geographic Palestine, including more than a million in Israel. Now, sixty years after the events, the time has come for the historical facts to be recognized and for justice to be done.

“Jews who were ethnically cleansed from the Arab world did not get one penny from the UN, while the Palestinians have received over $50 billion (including funds from the European Union) since 1950. They still are receiving financial assistance.”

Lela Gilbert gives much the same  figures as most authoritative sources, according to which the number of Jews living in Egypt at the start of 1948 was estimated between 85,000 and 100,000, and today there are fewer than 50.

She also writes about the fate of the Coptic Christians since the so-called “Arab Spring” was sprung in Egypt.

A massacre took place on Sunday, January 30 [2011] at 3 PM in the village of Sharona near Maghagha, Minya province. Two Islamists groups, aided by the Muslim neighbors, descended on the roof of houses owned by Copts, killing eleven Copts, including children, and seriously injuring four others. The two families were staying in their homes with their doors locked when suddenly the Islamists descended on them, killing eleven and leaving for dead four other family members. In addition, they looted everything that was in the two Coptic houses, including money, furniture and electrical equipment. They also looted livestock and grain.”

There have been many more murderous attacks on Christians in Egypt since then. In particular, Lela Gilbert records this appalling event:

In September, 2011, thousands of Muslims were incited by a Salafi imam during Friday prayers to attack a nearby church. The church has constructed a dome on its 70-year-old building … with legal permission from Aswan’s governor. But the iman was offended, and the mob he stirred up ransacked and torched the church … The following month[October 9, 2011], when protestors (most of them Copts) gathered on Cairo’s Maspero District to complain of ongoing attacks against Copts, including the recent destruction of churches, they were ferociously assaulted by the Egyptian military. … At least 27 protestors were killed. The military has refused to take responsibility for the deaths, even though videos of the day’s atrocities circulated widely on the Internet – including a gruesome scene in which military vehicles mowed down and crushed protestors – along with volumes of eyewitness testimony.

See our post More acts of religion, October 15, 2011, which is about this massacre. It is accompanied by this picture:

Our account of the protest, its causes, and the killings ends with these words:

The “Arab Spring” is the same old everlasting Muslim season of misery and death.

In the light of all that, it doesn’t take dyed-in-the-wool skeptics (like us) to work out that Essam al-Erian’s invitation to Jews of Egyptian origin now living in Israel to return “to their homeland” is an invitation to come and be killed. 

 

Postscript: A new report brings no surprise. “The Islamic Jihad has called on the Muslim Brotherhood’s Essam el-Erian to resign from his role as adviser to Morsi and to apologize to the Egyptian people for his statement asking Egyptian Jews to leave Israel and reclaim their properties. … Reaction to El-Erian’s statements was furious. ‘We shall fight them vigorously if they return,’ said Mohamed Abou Samra, the leading figure in the Islamic Jihad movement. “Islamic Shariah says they deserve to be killed. … Their return will be over our dead bodies. We will continue fighting the Jews until the liberation of Palestine or Doomsday.”

 

*Saturday People, Sunday People: Israel Through the Eyes of a Christian Sojourner by Lela Gilbert, Encounter Books, New York, 2012

Pat Condell’s latest video. Unmissable.

The official (“unclassified”) report of the Accountability Review Board (ARB) on the Benghazi attack is out. It is only 39 short pages, and needs to be read in full.

It is a cover-up presented as an honest objective disclosure.

It is full of facts, but many vital facts are omitted. You will find no mention, for instance, of the fact made public by the father of one of the dead Americans, Tyrone Woods, that he and Glenn Doherty – praised in the report for what they did without being named – were twice told (by whom?) to stand down and not go to the aid of the ambassador, so when they did go it was against orders. And the report claims that there was not sufficient time to get effective military reinforcements to the mission, but there was. And it makes no comment on the fact that the two surveillance aircraft chosen to hover over the scene of carnage, arson, looting and murder were unarmed.

There is much to criticize, much to stir indignation in this wretched report. This above all provokes us to comment:

[Ambassador] Stevens’ mission was to serve as the liaison with the TNC [Transitional National Council, the temporary Libyan government) in preparation for a post-Qaddafi democratic government in Libya. By all accounts, he was extremely effective, earned the admiration of countless numbers of Libyans, and personified the U.S.  government commitment to a free and democratic Libya.

There you see it: the Big Fantasy, the substitute-reality, which Obama’s administration – in particular his State Department – fashioned out of thin air to fit his Arab dream.

We don’t doubt that some Libyans liked Mr Stevens. As the numbers cannot be counted, conjecture can run to there being very many, as the ARB report chooses to imply, or comparatively few, which the events described in the report strongly suggest. What really happened was an atrocity carried out for no reason but hatred of America and Americans. The Board has its eyes firmly shut against that obvious fact, and no motive whatsoever for the attack is ascribed to the attackers.

The attack was carried out by a mob of Libyans with the pre-knowledge and assistance of other Libyans who were paid to guard the mission, but left a gate unlocked for the mob and melted away as the attack began. The unlocked gate and the departure of the paid guards are recorded in the report. But the gate may have been unlocked by oversight, it implies. As to the stupidity of employing known Arab terrorists as guards, whose reason for existence is to kill Americans and American allies –  not a word. That they could have been better trained by their British employers is acknowledged. That they might have been more effective if they had been armed is dubiously implied.

If they had been armed. The report admits that the paid Libyan guards were not armed. Obama’s people,  wanting the Libyans to love them and be grateful to them for helping to overthrow Qaddafi, trusted a motley bunch of terrorists affiliated to various murderous groups to protect their ambassador and diplomatic staff. But they did not let them carry arms. Why not? Was it because they wouldn’t have it seem that they distrusted anyone in Libya, or suspected for a moment that some Libyans might attack the mission? In the fantasy, nice Mr Stevens had won their hearts, so they must not give the least sign of distrust? Or did they quietly fear that the guards might turn their arms on the Americans they were employed to protect? We are left to wonder about that. Without the Libyans knowing it, the Ambassador had been asking for months for more effective protection and it had been refused. That also the report records. Reality, after all, is reality, and Stevens himself was too close to it to ignore it entirely. But Obama’s people clung to the dream, and would hear no appeals. The report finds the refusal reprehensible, but lays some blame on Ambassador Stevens himself for not insisting more on getting better protection.

The paragraph we quote above ends with the only mention in the report of  U.S. government policy. There is otherwise no suggestion that a policy may have something to do with what happened to Americans in Benghazi; no glance upwards in the direction of someone whose decrees may have contributed to the disaster it is inquiring into.

But Ambassador Stevens is dead. He died a horrible death. One of the two men with him survived and was able to describe how it felt to have his lungs full of choking smoke, how he struggled to breathe clean air, how he vomited, how he fainted. The less robust Chris Stevens helplessly choked to death on the foul fumes. So if he “personified the U.S. Government commitment to a free and democratic Libya” as the report says, then that commitment is dead – or ought to be, if logic could touch the dream.

The reality that Libyans murdered Stevens should kill the dream. But we doubt it will. The report insists that nobody on the heights of government is to blame. The lesser beings in the hierarchy – “senior officials within two bureaus” – who, it concedes, should have done better, did not do so badly in the Board’s opinion that they deserve to be “disciplined”.

Nor have they been. Contrary to a new delusion created by the administration, no one has lost his or her job as punishment for losing the battle of Benghazi, for allowing America to be beaten and  humiliated. And after all, what did they do wrong? They were obeying their government, whether or not they were given orders directly on that night of terror – as they should have been, though the report does not tell us that they were.

The most vital fact is that the policy prepared the atrocity and the defeat. And no inquiry initiated by the administration itself will confess that truth.

 

The following scene is fictitious. Any resemblance between the characters, or the events they refer to, and real people or real events, is purely coincidental.

*

A stretch of wasteground, deserted but for two figures approaching each other from opposite sides. No buildings in sight.  No road, no passing traffic or pedestrians. Both figures, one elderly female (Hillary), one elderly male (Tom), are muffled up to the ears and have hats with brims pulled down over their faces. Both look nervously about them to make sure they’re not being followed or observed.

When they’re close to each other Tom speaks.

Tom: Hi Hillary. So what is it you need to see me urgently and secretly about?

Hillary: It’s the Benghazi thing. We managed to keep it off the front pages, but you know what happened. I got Susan to stick her neck out trying to spread the video story. Told her I’d definitely tell Barack that she was the one to have my job at State when I retire if she’d do that little thing for me. But then some people may they rot in hell let out part of the truth about what really happened, and we just didn’t manage to make the video story stick, and now the Republicans are trying to make a scandal of it.

Tom: So where do I come in?

Hillary: I told Barack we must set up an official inquiry that can take some weeks so it only comes out when we’re safely over the election, and while its going on we won’t have to answer any questions  – we can say we don’t want to anticipate the findings. With luck by the time the inquiry’s finished the whole thing will be forgotten or at least seem very stale news.

Tom: And you want me to head this inquiry – right?

Hillary: It has to be you, Tom. You know the area. You know the people. You know how Barack feels about them. The same way you do.

Tom: But why the secrecy? You’ll be making a public announcement that I’ll be heading it, won’t you?

Hillary:  Of course. But we have to talk about what your inquiry will find out.

Tom: I get you. Okay, tell me what you want me to hide.

Hillary: Well, its really, really important to Barack to have everyone believe he’s defeated al-Qaeda. You know?

Tom: Sure, I understand that. Though I personally always thought that bin Laden guy was a fine looking fellow. Good at what he did too. Bit of a shame that he had to go. I understand Valerie nearly got Barack to leave him be, but the navy people just wouldn’t stop pushing once they’d found out where he was and they knew they could do it.

Hillary:  Thing is, the vast right wing conspiracy has found out that there may have been some al-Qaeda people among the mob who killed Chris.

Tom: Chris?

Hillary: Stevens. Our ambassador to Libya.

Tom: And you want that kept that out of my findings?

Hillary: Well, it’s out now so you may not be able to. They’ve even picked up leads to our weapons transfers.

Tom: Weapons transfers?

Hillary: Yeah – guns and stuff. Stuff left over from when we supplied the rebels against Gaddafi. Stingers – whatever they are. Chris was organizing their transfer through Turkey to the rebels in Syria.

Tom: Good. I mean – bad if anyone found out about that, eh?  By the way, who are these Syrian rebels, d’you know?

Hillary: Well, that could be even more embarrassing. Some of them are also al-Qaeda.

Tom: Okay. Okay. Sure. Fine.

Hillary: We don’t want that to come out in the inquiry. And certain other things that you’ll come across will have to be …. you get me?

Tom: Suppressed. Of course. So let me ask you this. What can come out in my report?

Hillary: You can find that Chris didn’t get enough protection. Everyone knows that much by now. But you mustn’t blame me or Barack. You mustn’t find his policies at fault. And Barack himself mustn’t  come into it at all. Or me.

Tom:  Okay. I see. Fine.

Hillary: Without actually naming names you can hold some of my underlings responsible for refusing protection. I mean, everyone knows we refused more protection when Chris asked for it so there’s no point in trying to hush that up.

Tom: You want anyone in particular named?

Hillary: No. No names. You can say that nothing anyone did is a firing offense. I mean, I might fire a few people anyway just to make it look as if I’m so angry with them that I’m ready to go beyond your recommendations.  Zeal.  I’ll show zeal.

Tom: And what about Chris himself? Can we put some of the blame on him?

Hillary: Sure.

Tom:  He asked  for too much?

Hillary: Er – rather  he didn’t make his needs clear enough.

Tom: They might call that “blaming the victim”.

Hillary: Well don’t make too much of that. What you can make as much as you like of is the Republicans in the House not voting us enough money for the proper protection of our embassies and diplomats.

Tom: Is it true?

Hillary: True enough. There’s a grain of truth …  and it’s  something people will believe. Above all, keep me out of the picture. Me and Barack.

Tom: Didn’t you make a public statement that you accepted responsibility?

Hillary: Yep. I thought that was a good move. Made me sound courageous. And honest. Didn’t it?

Tom: Sure it did.

Hillary: I was rather hoping it would  be enough and I wouldn’t have to do anything more.

Tom: Doesn’t the House want you to answer some questions?

Hillary: Yep.  That’s bad. They’ve got film of me saying it was all because of the video when Barack and I met the coffins coming home. I even told one of the dead guys’ father that we would punish the disgusting little man who made the video. But I think I can get out of having to testify. I have important engagements abroad. A wine-tasting in Australia, as a matter of fact. And after that – well maybe I’ll fall sick or something. Bang my head and lose my memory if the worst comes to the worst. I’ll think of something.

Tom: Is there anything else you should tell me now? I mean, what other cats are already out of the bag?

Hillary: Let me see. They may make a lot of noise about us paying local militias to guard our installations.

Tom: You hired Arabs to guard them? Armed?

Hillary:  Of course armed.

Tom: Trained to use arms?

Hllary: They knew how to use them. They were militants. No point in …

Tom: Hold it right there a moment. Let me get this straight. You’re saying that you hired terrorists to guard our people in Libya?

Hillary: Don’t use that word!  You know Barack won’t allow it.

Tom: (Whistles) I didn’t realize he’d gone as far as that. Didn’t you tell him it would be dangerous? I mean, I know what he’s aiming at, but I thought he was better at the art of throwing dust in people’s eyes than that.  I think we should suppress that.

Hillary: It’s already known.

Tom: Already known? (Whistles again)

Hillary: Stop doing that, Tom. It’s not that bad. I don’t want it to be that bad.

Tom: This ain’t gonna be easy, sister. Anything else that could be an impeachable offense? Better you tell me now …

Hillary: Well, there was a secret CIA operation going on. Taking prisoners. Interrogations.

Tom: (Taking a deep breath) I don’t know if I can do this, Hillary. An illegal operation?

Hillary: I don’t know. Honestly, Tom, I don’t know anything about that.  I – I – . It wasn’t  my idea. I’ll have to get Petraeus to fill you in about that.

Tom: Speaking of Petraeus – he seems to resent Susan putting the blame on the info his people gave her. He seems to be wanting to tell the truth – I mean the real truth. Out loud. In public.

Hillary: Don’t worry about him. I promise you, we’ve got him where we want him.

Tom:  You have? I see. I see. But now tell me. What’s the real story why we didn’t send anyone to help them. Our people in Benghazi. Why didn’t we? Don’t worry, you know what you tell me here will go no further. But to satisfy my own curisity. After all, we could have, couldn’t we? We even got a plane from Italy to within a couple of hours from Benghazi. What happened then?

Hillary: I told them … I mean we told them … I mean, Barack said … At least, Valerie said … Jeez Tom, you expect me to know? You can ask Leon. But whatever he tells you, remember what I’m telling you now. Nothing that would be bad for Barack – or me  …

Tom: So let me be clear what you want from me. Bottom line – you’re asking for a whitewash?

Hillary: Well yes, of course. But it mustn’t seem like a whitewash. You know?   You must make it seem really, really tough. I want them to use words like “scathing”.

Tom: A scathing report. Yep. Sounds right.

Hillary: And make recommendations for how we should  get our act together and improve the way we deal with protecting our people abroad. That sort of thing. A whole lot of recommendations. And make them sound … draconian. Make it sound as though we take the whole thing to be a teaching moment and we really want to learn from it going forward.

Tom: Draconian.

Hillary: Yes. But  not so draconian that I can’t say I accept them. I need to say I accept them all. It will make me sound …

Tom: You’re setting me quite a challenge here.

Hillary: I know you’re up to it, Tom. Will you do it? For the cause. You know what I mean?

Tom: Okay, Hillary. I’ll do it. I’ll do my best … but  you understand it might not work?

Hillary: Just do it. We’ll make it work. Me and Barack. Between the two of us we can’t fail. I’m very experienced, you know, in getting out of tight corners. And Barack is incredibly –

Both together: LUCKY.

They laugh.

End