Latest Article from Soeren Kern

Austria Passes Reforms to 1912 Islam Law

February 27, 2015  •  Gatestone Institute

The Austrian parliament has approved controversial reforms to the country's century-old Islam Law (Islamgesetz), governing the status of Muslims in the country.

The new law, which was passed on February 25, is aimed at integrating Muslims and fighting Islamic radicalism by promoting an "Islam with an Austrian character."

Among other changes, the new law seeks to reduce outside meddling by prohibiting foreign funding for mosques, imams and Muslim organizations in Austria. It also stresses that Austrian law must take precedence over Islamic Sharia law for Muslims living in the country.

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Latest Article from Michael Freund

Is Obama stirring up anti-Semitism?

February 25, 2015  •  Jerusalem Post

Barack Obama is running scared.

In advance of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address to Congress next week about the growing threat of a nuclear Iran, the normally placid president of the United States is suddenly breaking out into a political sweat.

One by one, Obama has been dispatching his minions to deride, denounce and disparage a speech that hasn't even been given yet. Indeed, President Obama is doing everything in his power to attack the message and the messenger in an attempt to salvage a possible deal with the Iranian ayatollahs.

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Latest Article from Clifford May

Vladimir Putin's rule book

February 25, 2015  •  The Washington Times

Last week, two Russian long-range bombers skirted the southwest coast of England. British Typhoon warplanes scrambled from their base to "escort" the bombers away. Prime Minister David Cameron accused Moscow of "trying to make some sort a point."

Yes, probably so. Among other things, Vladimir Putin is reportedly angry over British Foreign Secretary Michael Fallon's warning that Russia now represents a "real and present danger." The Russian president, he fears, might do to one of NATO's Baltic members — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — what he has done to Ukraine.

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Latest Article from Jonathan Schanzer

Huge Verdict Is the Price the Palestinian Authority Pays for Not Controlling the PLO

February 24, 2015  •  New York Times, Room for Debate

The verdict on Monday revealed what we long knew: The Palestinian Authority's bureaucracy is terribly vulnerable to the corruption and violent whims of the Fatah faction and the Palestine Liberation Organization.

It was Yasir Arafat, along with his cronies within the P.L.O. and Fatah, who made the fateful decision to redirect Palestinian Authority money — including international donor funds — to finance irregular warfare against Israel during the second intifada, of 2000-2005.

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Latest Article from Tevi Troy

How Not to Bungle an ObamaCare Opening

February 5, 2015  •  The Wall Street Journal

Republican congressional leaders were wise to propose an alternative to the Affordable Care Act this week, as the Supreme Court may strike down a key provision of the law after hearing King v. Burwell next month. The case involves subsidies to individuals who purchase health insurance on federal exchanges. The plaintiffs—four individuals who don't want to be forced to buy ObamaCare—argue that under the explicit terms of the ACA, subsidies enabling that purchase can only be distributed in exchanges "established by the State." The court is expected to rule by the end of June, and the plaintiffs have a good chance of convincing a majority that the subsidies are unlawful.

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Latest Article from Michael Rubin

New SecDef Must Address Eastern Mediterranean

January 2, 2015  •  Commentary

Ashton Carter, President Obama's nominee to be defense secretary, is expected to cruise through his confirmation hearings early this year. Unlike the controversial and inarticulate Chuck Hagel, apparently chosen because Obama felt camaraderie with him on a congressional trip and wanted to poke his opponents, Carter has broad bipartisan respect and clear mastery of the issues at hand. This is important not only because of the Pentagon's budget crunch—cutbacks exacerbated by the inflexible mechanism of sequestration—but also because of the rise of new challenges the world over.

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Latest Article from Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi

State of war: The Iraqi Sunni actors taking on the Islamic State

November 2, 2014  •  IHS Jane's Terrorism & Insurgency Monitor

The security situation in Iraq rapidly deteriorated following the fall of Mosul in June 2014 during an insurgent offensive spearheaded by what was then the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), but has since been renamed the Islamic State. Since then, much discussion has arisen on how the group can either be contained or 'rolled back' by reducing its territorial holdings on a substantial scale and thus significantly weakening its power base within the country. However, for such an objective, a fundamental prerequisite is a local Sunni Muslim force on the ground that can contest the Islamic State's control of Sunni majority areas of Iraq, notably the provinces of Anbar, Ninawa, and Salaheddine, as well as parts of Babil, Diyala, and Kirkuk.

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Latest Article from Judith Miller

Was the 'Klinghoffer' Premiere an 'Operatic Kristallnacht'?

October 23, 2014  •  Tablet Magazine

You don't have to be Jewish or know anything about opera to have an opinion about whether Metropolitan Opera general manager Peter Gelb should have had his head examined for staging a new production of The Death of Klinghoffer. Judging by the outpouring of reaction to the opera's performance Monday night, few New Yorkers, Jewish or goyish, seemed indifferent to John Adams's 1991 opera about the 1985 hijacking, by Palestinians, of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro, and their murder of a 69-year old, wheel-chair-bound passenger.

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Latest Article from Jeff Stier

Calling for a different approach to tobacco and nicotine regulation

August 24, 2014  •  EuroActiv

Cigarette smoking is the most harmful form of tobacco use. Alternatives to smoking that supply users with, yes, addictive, but not particularly harmful nicotine, are significantly less dangerous.

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Latest Article from M. Zuhdi Jasser

I was bullied for criticizing Hamas

August 23, 2014  •  AZ Central

What happens in Syria, Egypt, Iraq or Gaza has an impact every day right here in the Valley.

Even in America, leading Muslim organizations and clerics bully with threats of ostracism those Muslims who dare to dissent. Old-guard ideologues, too, used to monopoly control, make it crystal clear to their Muslim critics: Take us on and we will make an example of you as a traitor to the Muslim community (the ummah).

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Latest Article from Timothy Spangler

Dictatorial dynasty in the making?

August 22, 2014  •  The Orange County Register

A dynasty is in the works in troubled Zimbabwe, rather than the comprehensive change that is much needed. This week, the wife of long-standing President Robert Mugabe was appointed to a high-profile, senior position in the ruling Zanu (PF) party. Grace Mugabe was appointed secretary of the party's Women's League, which entitles her to a seat on the party's governing politburo. The women's group also endorsed her husband, president since 1987, as their preferred candidate for the 2018 elections.

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Latest Article from Steven Emerson

The President's True Colors Finally Revealed

August 17, 2014  •  Jerusalem Online

When I first glanced at the headline on today's Jerusalem Online and reports in the Jerusalem Post and other Israeli newspapers, I thought they must have been a satire: "Washington officials have told Egypt that the US will guarantee Israel's commitment to any agreement signed." But it was not a satire. This was deadly serious, confirmed by other Israeli newspapers and sources in Cairo.

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Latest Article from Asaf Romirowsky

Gaza: How we got here and what next?

August 15, 2014  •  YNet News

Despite the conviction in Israel that its military actions against Hamas in Gaza are justified, the notion that this third Gaza war in the past six years has been a consequence of the failure to conclude a peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority is widely accepted across the globe.

For Palestinians, the argument continues, there is no choice but resistance and confrontation since diplomacy and non-violence have not ended the occupation. For that reason, many Palestinians claim that Hamas is fighting not simply to lift the blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip but also to give them their freedom.

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Latest Article from Ilan Berman

Cutting The Caliphate Down To Size

August 14, 2014  •  National Review Online

Is America headed back to Iraq? On August 7, President Obama took the first step in that direction when he authorized the use of air strikes to prevent the further advance of the militant Islamic group once known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams (ISIS) and now known as the Islamic State. Since then, the U.S. military has commenced a limited bombing campaign against Islamic State detachments in northern Iraq and added 130 military advisers to the 300 already stationed in the country. The decision reflects a stark reality. In recent weeks, the Islamic State has cut a bloody swath across Iraq, capturing and holding territory at an unprecedented rate. As a result, the Washington Post reports, the group "now controls resources and territory unmatched in the history of extremist organizations." The current effort, however, appears to be as far as the White House is willing to go — at least for the moment. Having staked its political legitimacy on an exit from Iraq, the Obama administration is leery of doing much more. As a result, a true strategy for rolling back the Islamic State's advance is still sorely lacking.

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