Phares - The Hand of Iran and Syria in Gaza

NRO ^ | June 25, 2007 | W. Thomas Smith Jr. and Dr. Walid Phares

[AlbertoMG]

This report quoting Palestinian authorities accusing Iranian and Syrian intelligence of fomenting the "coup" in Gaza corroborates our analysis of last week putting the Hamas takeover in the framework of the Iranian offensive on the eastern Mediterranean. The PA [Palestinian Authority] intelligence branch is now exposing the emerging hand of Tehran and Damascus we were expecting to see.

[elhombrelibre]

Even the PLO gets Iran and Syria’s meddling ping.

[Abcdefg]

And behind Iran and Syria is China and Russia.

[Mo1]

Yep

[Marine_Uncle]

I can't help but think, that perhaps some deals have gone down with Fatah to keep them in the money, if they start to complain about Syria and Iranian terrorist funded groups being their real scourge.
Interesting. Some of us have kidded over the past year a bit about getting these clowns to start fighting each other.
Now in real time we see in various parts of the ME and FE, this very thing playing out.
Of course this all must make many of the Europeans, Russians, and Chinese a bit nervous. We got the whole damn Islamo world starting to kill each other.

[marron]

I’m embarrassed to say I haven’t been aware of Phares until now, I took some time to read some of his previous posts.

Since Fatah and Hamas are, to my eyes, both arab, both terrorists, both with buckets of blood on their hands, I have tended to take the position that it made little difference which one came out on top. While Fatah was billing itself lately as the more civilized of the two, they have never hesitated to commit mayhem when they had the monopoly on power.

Still, it seems Fatah is oriented more toward the Saudis and perhaps the Egyptians, while Hamas is under Syrian and Iranian influence and according to Phares under their direct command, similar to Hezbollah these days. So I suppose its a difference between Saudi-backed terrorist-mafia versus Tehran-backed terrorist-militia.

Neither one good news for Israel, but one clearly worse for Riyadh.

Maybe the Saudis saw it coming and knew what it meant from their point of view, you’ll remember that the Saudis were practically begging Israel to clean house, so maybe this is why.

If the Iranians and Syrians now have a base on Israel’s coast, I can’t see how they have any choice but to clean them out, but any fight in Gaza must now be coordinated with a similar fight in the north against Syria and her proxies there. The war in the middle east just shifted gears and the explosion will come very soon.

This is just me, but there will never be an independent Gaza or an independent west bank. The only choices that will bring relief from fighting are for the two mother countries to re-take control of the territories (Egypt and Jordan) or for Israel to clear them and annex them. Israeli administration of arab territories is a dead-letter, but so is a permanent outlaw enclave on your flank. The only question is how bad it will get before either of those two options starts to look politically feasible.

There will never be an independent arab west bank, and there will never be an independent gaza. Its just a con-game that keeps the fatcats fat, the war well-fed with arab cannon fodder, and generates a never-ending stream of dead Israeli innocents.

[TheMole]

I read Phares's book Future Jihad last year. Everything in it is still true. Al-Qaeda, Wahhabis, Baathists, Khomeinists, oil-money corrupted American academics -- he breaks it all down. Recommended.

[American in Israel]

It is all a sham, the Arab League backs both terror groups. Fatah handed over the weapons to HAMAS, after all they were the same unity government.

So now HAMAS is fully armed and Fatah is whining that America needs to send more guns and money. That way both groups get shiny new guns to kill Israel. The sad thing is we are stupid enough to buy it.

You know, I could put all those hundreds of millions of dollars to better use building hospitals in America, rather than making Arab fat cat killers fatter. I really hate to see my hard earned money flushed down the nearist terror toilet. After all, the Paleo-stiens do not need more explosives to blow up our troops in Iraq, they are doing just fine as it is.

Do we seriously think that this half a BILLION dollars is only going to kill Jews? We are called the “Great Satan” by these pukes, not the “Little Satan” they call Israel.

Most of this money will find its way back home. In suitcases of explosives carried by our newly wealthy “buddies”, PLO III.

[nuconvert]

Walid Phares pong

[Valin]

His latest book
Exposing the Hidden War (The War of Ideas: Jihadism against Democracy)
FSM ^ | 5/4/07 | Laurence Footer

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1828851/posts
Posted on 05/05/2007 9:45:33 AM CDT by Valin

What is the war of ideas? Is it a byproduct of the clash of civilizations proposed by Samuel Huntington? Is it the battle for the hearts and minds of the Arab street? In The War of Ideas: Jihadism against Democracy, Dr. Walid Phares exposes a very different war of ideas waged by Jihadist groups and authoritarian Arab states to obfuscate the West’s understanding of both Jihad itself as well as the core strategies utilized by the Jihadists to confront Western civilization.

____________________________________________

What is the war of ideas? Is it a byproduct of the clash of civilizations proposed by Samuel Huntington? Is it the battle for the hearts and minds of the Arab street? In The War of Ideas: Jihadism against Democracy, Dr. Walid Phares exposes a very different war of ideas waged by Jihadist groups and authoritarian Arab states to obfuscate the West’s understanding of both Jihad itself as well as the core strategies utilized by the Jihadists to confront Western civilization.

The author sizes up this war of ideas as a general would a battlefield. Central to this analysis are the answers to one critical series of questions: “what do [Jihadist] strategies aim at, what tactics and practices do they expect to see implemented, how do they read each other, and how do they react and reshape their arguments?” [1][1] By examining the objectives, strategies and tactics stated and utilized by Jihadists against democratic nations, The War of Ideas is uniquely positioned to suggest a course of action for Western governments (especially the United States) to counter such an ideological assault.

Phares defines the war of ideas as more than merely a conflict between al Qaeda and the United States, instead focusing upon the forces of democracy and those aligned against democracy - including both Jihadi groups as well as Arab dictators and monarchs. While The War of Ideas does not claim that these two groups have actively conspired with one another, it does highlight an alignment of interests in the desire of Arab states to retain power and the Jihadi objective of restoring the caliphate and confronting Western civilization.

Most significantly, the author exposes how this war of ideas is being waged within the very same halls from where the great ideas of Western civilization arose: the most prestigious universities of the civilized Western world. Specifically, The War of Ideas exposes how Arab governments, especially the Saudis, have funded Middle Eastern studies programs at hundreds of leading Western universities to both influence Western educators’ and elites’ opinions of the Arab world as well as prevent the West from understanding Jihadist objectives. It is from this base, within an infiltrated academia, that Phares explains the war of ideas has been waged: by influencing the West to believe that democracy wasn’t meant for the Middle East, thwarting Western understanding of Jihad and the violent nature of Jihadism, concealing the Jihadist vision of restoring the Islamic caliphate, deflecting Western attention to the Arab-Israeli conflict, and convincing the Muslim world that the West has been waging an ongoing war on Islam.
(snip)

THE WAR OF IDEAS
Jihadism against Democracy
Walid Phares

http://www.palgrave-usa.com/catalog/product.aspx?isbn=1403976392
Description
From Afghanistan and Iraq to Europe and the United States we are engaged in one of the most heated wars of all time. In this incisive new book, the man that has been called—the only one to understand the mind of the jihadist—shows that the most important battle is actually taking place in the hearts and minds of the world’s population. This is the war of ideas, where ideology is the most powerful weapon of all. Phares explores the beliefs of two opposing camps, one standing for democracy and human rights, and the other rejecting the idea of an international community and calling for jihad against the West. He reveals the strategies of both sides, explaining that new technologies and the growing media savvy of the jihadists have raised the stakes in the conflict. And most urgently, he warns that the West is in danger of losing the war, for whereas debate and theorizing rarely translate into action here, ideas and deeds are inextricably linked for the forces of jihad.

Author Bio
Walid Phares is a world-renowned terrorism and Middle East expert. He is a senior fellow at The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and a visiting fellow at the European Foundation for Democracy. He has testified before the State Department many times and led NGO delegations to discuss Middle East terrorism with the UN Security Council. He has appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show, CNN, MSNBC, C-SPAN, al Jazeera, al Hurra, Fox News, and Abu Dhabi TV, among others, and is a frequent contributor to U.S. and international radio programs. A professor of Middle East Studies at Florida Atlantic University, he holds a doctorate in international relations and strategic studies. He is the author of several books, including Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies against the West.

[Valin]

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