Prepared for the
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
in association with the Fairness Project
by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
If your email program has difficulty viewing this page, see web version: jcpa.org/daily

DAILY ALERT

December 2, 2002
To contact the Presidents Conference:
[email protected]

In-Depth Issue:

Qatar-Based Spiritual Head of Muslim Brotherhood Envisions Islamic Conquest of Europe (IDF)

    Sheikh Yussuf Kardawi is considered the spiritual head of the Muslim Brotherhood across the Middle East.
    Aside from being an authority on Islamic law (he provided religious authority for suicide bombings, including making it legal for women), he heads various social and financial organizations that raise funds for Hamas.
    Kardawi cites Islamic traditions which quote the prophet Muhammad as saying that one of the signs of salvation will be the conquest of Constantinople and after that, the conquest of Rome.
    At this point Kardawi continues and writes: "The city of Herkel (Constantinople) was conquered in 1453 by the 23yr old Ottaman Muhammad Ibn Morad, known to us as Muhammad the conqueror. Now we need only await the conquest of Italy, and in this we hope and believe."
    "Islam will once again return to Europe as a conqueror and it will triumph after having been expelled from it twice. It was expelled the first time from Andalusia (Spain) and the second from the East of Europe after trying to conquer Athens (Greece)."
    "I believe that this time we will succeed to conquer Europe not by the sword (combat), but by the spread of Islamic ideology. The conquest of Rome is but a step in the expansion of Islam, which will include the entire world, the East and the West."

"Suicide Bomber" Children Lead Capetown March - Elliott Sylvester (Argus - South Africa)

    The cynical use of two young boys dressed as suicide bombers with cardboard cut-out dynamite sticks strapped to their chests to lead a march in support of the Palestinian cause through the streets of Cape Town has sent shockwaves around the country.
    The boys, wearing Hizballah headbands and dressed in black, marched with military-style precision and were followed by eight others carrying cardboard AK-47s as they led a crowd of about 300 people, shouting, "Death to America, death to Israel," and "One American, one bullet."

Key Links

Media Contact Information

Back Issues

News Resources - North America and Europe:

  • UN's Arms Team Admits Warning Iraqis of Visits
    The effectiveness of the UN weapons inspection program was thrown into question Saturday after an admission by its spokesman that inspectors had given Iraqis advance knowledge of their visit to a suspected weapons site. Hiro Ueki said in Baghdad that the head of the plant had been "informed the day before [Friday] that the team was coming to remove an air sampler and install a new one." (Telegraph - UK)
  • Missile Attack in Kenya Raises Fears in U.S.
    The possibility of a missile attack is a major concern for commercial airlines operating abroad, especially in Asia and Africa, said Charlie LeBlanc, managing director of Air Security International, a Houston-based aviation security firm. Thousands of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles - an ideal weapon for terrorists targeting U.S. airliners - are circulating on the worldwide gray arms market. This spring, suspected al Qaeda operatives used an SA-7 to try to shoot an American plane taking off from Prince Sultan Air Base, south of Riyadh. (CNN)
        See also Al Qaeda's New Weapon
    "If they can do it in Kenya, they can do it anywhere they can get access," noted one intelligence official. "If you want to hit an American jet, why do it in the U.S.? You can try it other places, where it's easier." (Washington Post)
  • War-Wary Saudis Move to Increase Oil Market Clout
    The Saudis have boosted oil production by an estimated 1 million barrels a day above the quota set by OPEC. At the same time, the Saudi government has amassed a foreign exchange war chest in the range of $90-100 billion. If U.S. military action in Iraq goes awry, leading to higher-priced oil, within 30 days Saudi Arabia could flood the market with as much as 2 million barrels a day from wells it is not now using. (Washington Post)
  • U.S. Preparing Base in Qatar to Run Iraq War - Mark Lavie
    The U.S. military is installing a new command center at the heavily guarded As Sayliyah base in Qatar to serve as the main headquarters for a war on Iraq. Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the head of Central Command, is expected to arrive in about a week with 750 staff members to take part in a major American military exercise. Qatar, a tiny Persian Gulf nation of about 750,000, has been more receptive to cooperation with the U.S. military than neighboring Saudi Arabia, and it has spent more than $1 billion to build an air base, Al Udeid, to attract American forces here. Qatar's level of cooperation far outstrips what the Saudis have been prepared to offer. (New York Times)

    • News Resources - Israel, the Mideast, and Asia:

  • Emergency Production of Missile Defense System Underway
    An Israeli company has begun emergency production of an anti-missile system for civilian aircraft after a missile attack on an Israeli airline last week in Kenya, an official said Sunday. The government-owned Rafael military research and development firm has developed a device that senses an incoming heat-seeking missile automatically and sends a hot beam of light that distracts the missile away from the plane. (Jerusalem Post/AP)
  • Jordan Outlaws Anti-Israeli Groups - Sana Abdallah
    Jordanian Prime Minister Ali Abul Ragheb told the leaders of the 14 professional unions that their anti-normalization [with Israel] committee was illegal. Jordan's 130,000-member professional associations banned all normal relations with Israel soon the two nations signed a 1994 peace treaty. The government has often complained that the anti-normalization activities, which included boycotting Jordanian individuals and firms working with Israelis, was harming the national economy and scaring away investors. (UPI)

    • Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):

  • Mideast Peace? Let's Start with the Rule of Law - Robert L. Pollock
    In 1996, Mahmoud el Farra returned to the Gaza Strip after 30 years in Los Angeles and built the Palestinian Authority's first modern flour mill. PA officials pressured Farra to sell them shares and, led by Mohammed Rashid, Yasser Arafat's money man, they soon gained control of the company. Two days later they closed the market to Israeli flour.
        Hoping to cash in on the peace dividend, Mahmoud Hamdouni bought 30 acres near Jericho, built a gas station, and planned a housing development. He was then charged with the capital crime of treason, and freed only after signing over his land to the PA. The Oasis Casino now sits on the property.
        The poverty-causes-terrorism argument has little going for it. If it did, sub-Saharan Africa would be its greatest exporter. (Wall Street Journal)
  • The Havel Test For Iraq - Jackson Diehl
    At the recent NATO summit in Prague, Vaclav Havel, the outgoing Czech president, said, "Evil should be combated in its germinal stages rather than in its developed form." That, he pointed out, is the first great lesson of Czech history, because the country was a victim of Western Europe's decision to appease rather than confront Adolf Hitler. Intervention, Havel concluded, is justified - provided "an envisioned action would really be an act helping people against a criminal regime and protecting humankind against its weapons." By that standard, there should be little doubt where the overthrow of Saddam Hussein would fall. (Washington Post)
  • Kenya: Have We Become Canon Fodder? - Magesha Ngwiri
    How long shall our people be sacrificed for a cause that does not and cannot concern us? How much blood must be shed by the innocent to assuage a craving for gore by people who simply intend to make a point about events happening thousands of kilometers away in a foreign land? Now we understand why Israel acts the way it does, a country that is surrounded from all sides by enemies and which can never relax for even a single day, for to do so would mean its extermination. (The Nation - Nairobi, Kenya)

    • Talking Points:

    Nazis, Communists, and Radical Islamists - Yehuda Bauer (Jerusalem Post)

    • Islam is not a murderous religion, but in the last 50 years there arose a new interpretation of Islam, a radical theology that has been spreading like cancer among the 1.2 billion or so Muslim believers in the world.
    • Radical, totalitarian Islamists demand that the existing Arab national states should become Islamized, governed by religious (shari'a) law, not by constitutions, and certainly not by democratic institutions reflecting the will of a majority.
    • The aim is to conquer the world and make it Islamic, resulting in a utopia ruled by Islamic religious experts. If all U.S. troops were withdrawn from Saudi Arabia, and Israel defeated, with its Jewish population annihilated, the main target would still remain: world conquest.
    • National Socialism, Communism, and now totalitarian Islamism all aspired, or aspire, to rule over the entire world, and all three were, or are, genocidal. The radical Islamist attack on the Jews is a first, potentially genocidal step. Ultimately and explicitly, as in similar previous situations, it is directed against Western civilization as such.
    • If intellectual, economic, and political defense against radical Islamism, and not just a military response, is postponed because of weak-kneed Western attitudes, the price paid later will be very high indeed, as was the price the world paid for the rise of National Socialism and Soviet Communism.
    Professor Yehuda Bauer of Hebrew University, former Director of the International Research Institute at Yad Vashem, is one of Israel's most prominent Holocaust scholars.

    To subscribe to the Daily Alert, please send a blank email message to:
        [email protected]
    To unsubscribe to the Daily Alert, please send a blank email message to:
        [email protected]