Palestinians killed in Syria receive little attention

From the Australia/Israel &; Jewish Affairs Council, 9 Nov 2012, by Sharyn Mittelman:

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad once painted himself and his father as the champion of the Palestinian cause. But now the situation appears to have changed, as Assad's army reportedly fired on the Palestinian refugee camp Yarmouk killing 20 on November 4, raided Hamas offices and there are fears of mass Palestinian deportations from Syria.
Over 400 Palestinians have been killed in the Syrian civil war, with little to no coverage by the ...media. The self-proclaimed Palestinian advocates have also been all-but silent.
On November 7, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas phoned the UN envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi and asked him to urgently intervene on behalf of Palestinian refugees living in the camps, the official WAFA news agency reported.
Despite Abbas' plea and reports that over 32,000 people have been killed in the Syrian conflict, one does not hear calls for boycotts. And where are the mass demonstrations?
...The conflict has also divided Palestinian loyalties with many Sunni Palestinians supporting their fellow Sunnis in the opposition and others backing Assad ....
...Attacks on Palestinian refugee camps in Syria should cause outrage across the world. But it seems the only time that Palestinian grievances receive significant attention by the media and Palestinian advocates is when the focus is on condemning Israel. Meanwhile, the death toll in Syria continues to rise, and the world, for the most part, continues to turn a blind eye.

For Palestinians refugees are a trump card to keep confronting Israel

From JCPA, Vol. 12, No. 25 5 November 2012, by Lt. Col. (ret.) Jonathan D. Halevi:

• Claims that Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas – in an interview with Israel’s Channel 2 TV on Nov. 2, 2012 – had apparently relinquished the “right of return” for Palestinian refugees are baseless in light of the clarifications provided by Abbas himself, in which he called the return a “sacred right” and affirmed his full commitment to the basic Palestinian positions.

• The gap between Israel and the Palestinians on the refugee question is unbridgeable. For the Palestinians, the right of return is a taboo matter that cannot be questioned. The formulation “a just and agreed solution based on Resolution 194″ does not imply a readiness for a possible Palestinian compromise. “Agreed” means compelling Israel to agree to implement the Palestinian demands for “justice.”

• The PLO and the Palestinian Authority (as well as the Hamas government in Gaza) continue to cultivate in Palestinian society the idea of the refugees’ return, to prevent any possibility of resettling the refugees outside of the camps, and to maintain the role of UNRWA as a symbolic and practical manifestation of the demand for return.

• According to the Palestinian consensus, the nonimplementation of the right of return will leave the doors of the conflict with Israel open, implying a justification to continue the armed struggle even after a Palestinian state is created. For the Palestinians, the refugee problem is a trump card with which they can keep confronting Israel.

• The Palestinian arena’s harsh reactions to Abbas’ remarks indicate the inability of the Palestinian leadership, even if it so desired, to present a compromise position on the refugee issue.

Claims that Palestinian Authority chairman has apparently relinquished the right of return are baseless in light of the clarifications provided by Abbas himself, in which he called the return a “sacred right” and affirmed his full commitment to the basic Palestinian positions....

 ... He said the refugee issue would be negotiated on the basis of Resolution 194, which mentions the principle of the right of return with compensation for those who do not choose to return. After an agreement is reached with Israel, Abbas said, it would be presented for approval in a popular referendum.

Nabil Abu Rudeineh, the Palestinian presidential spokesman, sharply rejected the claims by Hamas leaders that Abbas had expressed a relinquishment of the right of return. In an official announcement, Abu Rudeineh asserted: “The president and the Palestinian leadership will never agree to a state with temporary borders, since whoever agrees to a temporary state [hinting at Hamas] is the one who gives up the right of return, compromises the basic national principles, and brings about a catastrophe that will afflict the subsequent Palestinian generations.”

...Nabil Shaath, the Fatah official responsible for foreign relations, claimed in an interview to the raya.ps website that Abbas’ statements as quoted in the media were taken out of context, and that in the full interview Abbas had said that “every Palestinian person has the right to return to his homeland but it is his right to choose and he himself will decide if he wants to return to one country or another.”

Abbas also received backing from other Fatah leaders, and leaders of constituent organizations of Fatah, who underscored his fealty to the right of return.

The gap between Israel and the Palestinians on the refugee question is unbridgeable.

For the Palestinians, the right of return is a taboo matter that cannot be questioned. As far as resolving the conflict is concerned, Palestinian representatives base their position on the question of “justice” and not “compromise,” as is clearly evident in the resolutions of all the Palestinian institutions.

From the Palestinian standpoint, “justice” means fulfilling the rights of the Palestinian refugees in accordance with all the resolutions of international institutions, most of all Resolution 194, which, in their view, sanctifies the refugees’ right to return and compensation.

...The PLO and the Palestinian Authority (as well as the Hamas government in Gaza) continue to cultivate in Palestinian society the idea of the refugees’ return, to prevent any possibility of resettling the refugees outside of the camps, and to maintain the role of UNRWA as a symbolic and practical manifestation of the demand for return.

...In the Palestinian view, which receives support from Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations, the right of return is a “private” right of each and every refugee, and hence the representatives of the Palestinian people (and the United Nations as well) have no authority to relinquish this right in the name of the refugees.

According to the Palestinian consensus, the nonimplementation of the right of return will leave the doors of the conflict with Israel open, implying a justification to continue the armed struggle even after a Palestinian state is created.

Any Palestinian leader who dares challenge this consensus and gives up the right of return in negotiations with Israel stands, at best, to be ostracized and removed from the stage or, worse, executed. The Palestinian arena’s harsh reactions to Abbas’ remarks to Channel 2 indicate the inability of the Palestinian leadership, even if it so desired, to present a compromise position on the refugee issue.

In sum, Abbas did not deviate from the established, familiar, basic Palestinian positions on the refugee issue, and he continues to regard the refugees’ return as a “sacred right” that is in the hands of the refugees themselves, with no one authorized to concede it in their name.

The Abbas-led Palestinian diplomatic effort, entailing a planned appeal to the United Nations later this month, centers on international recognition for a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders. Abbas thereby hopes to win greater legal and political validation for the Palestinian demand for a full Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, without the Palestinians having to give anything in return – let alone on the refugee issue.

The refugee problem is the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For the Palestinians it is a trump card with which they can keep confronting Israel even after the state of Palestine is established, overcoming Israel demographically and changing it, in the long term, into part of a single Palestine from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.

Arab Leader Urges full integration with Israel

From The Times of Israel, 30 Oct 2012, By Philippe Assouline

 

“THE PROBLEM IS NOT ISRAEL  - IT’S THE ARABS. All the bad things they say about Israel and its supposed ill-treatment of Arabs is a lie, a bald-faced lie. Arab members of Knesset are setting a fire. They feed off the politics of division and don’t represent the Arab public. The Arab Knesset members do nothing to educate them or advance their situation… But at present there is no alternative to the current leadership.”  Aatef Karinaoui
 

Bedouin Politician Aatef Karinaoui Launches a Knesset Bid, Slamming Arab MKs and Calling For An ‘Arab Spring’ to Provide a Fresh Direction For His Community

It is hard to envisage an Arab Knesset member declaring that “if something were to happen to Israel, this democracy that protects everyone, the whole Middle East would be doomed.”

But that is Aatef Karinaoui’s declared conviction, and it explains why he is forming the first pro-Israel Arab party, El Amal Lat’gir — “Hope for Change” in Arabic – to run in the Knesset elections on January 22, 2013.

Karinaoui gives the impression of a man who believes his time has come. A 42-year-old resident of the Bedouin city of Rahat in the Negev, he is a traditional Muslim but does not consider himself religious. Though involved in politics for nearly two decades, and exceedingly busy preparing his Knesset campaign, he is soft-spoken and patient. In fact, when we recently spoke, in a cafe at Ben Gurion Airport, he repeatedly extended our chat to accommodate my questions — despite the nudging of his staff. And his anger at Israeli Arab politicians, who he says cultivate the division between Jewish and Arab Israelis, clearly runs deep.

“All the bad things they say about Israel and its supposed ill-treatment of Arabs is a lie, a bald-faced lie,” he says intently, just moments after we’ve sat down. “Arab members of Knesset are setting a fire. They feed off of the politics of division and don’t represent the Arab public. The Arab Knesset members do nothing to educate them or advance their situation… But [at present] there is no alternative to the current leadership.”

By forming El Amal Lat’gir, which he says is loyal to Israel and concerned exclusively with social matters, Karinaoui aims to provide that alternative.

Karinaoui, who is married with five children (including a daughter currently on a national service program), is the chairman of the nonprofit organization Social Equality and National Service in the Arab Sector, which encourages Arabs to shoulder a share of the national service burden. He’s also in charge of operating computer centers in Arab cities throughout Israel as part of the Finance Ministry’s Lehava project, whose goal is to “narrow the digital gap” by providing access to the Internet in lower-income areas of the country.

“We don’t need the Arab members of Knesset to obsess over marginal matters and foreign affairs as they’ve been doing,” he declares. Arab MK Hanin Zoabi participated in the May 2010 Mavi Marmara bid to break Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza, for instance, while her colleague Ibrahim Saroor last year denounced the American “murder” of Osama bin Laden.

“We have real, pressing concerns -– 15 people living in a single house, land issues, education problems,” says Karinaoui. “We have plenty to deal with. But [Arab MKs] distance us from the mainstream and don’t want progress. Their leadership is the real failure.”

Karinaoui believes that given the chance, he can make a real difference. “Our leaders have defrauded us for 60 years. Give us a single Knesset mandate and we will do more for the people in four to five years than they have done in 60.”

His Knesset bid is just getting off the ground, he says, asserting that information from his canvassing indicates his list could win five to six seats — an ambitious estimate, since Arab parties mustered just 11 seats between them in the outgoing Knesset. He is working flat-out building up the party, all day every day, he says, and is putting together a team of volunteers to go door-to-door in Arab towns and villages, planning advertising in Arabic papers, arranging speeches in mosques and building a website.

Karinaoui is currently working out of the northern towns of Sakhnin, Arabe and Tamra — none of them Bedouin towns, he stresses, underlining the goal to galvanize the entire Israel Arab community. Coming from a clan estimated to number some 8,000 makes for a good basis, he says.

Star of David? No Problem!

But it’s not just the perceived failure of Arab politicians to deliver that drives him; Karinaoui also very much identifies with the State of Israel. He wants to see Arab Israelis fully engaged as citizens, and taking responsibility for the change that they can bring about.
“We want to prove that we are loyal and faithful citizens,” he says. “And we also need more attention and support from the state.… I’m a proud Arab and a proud Israeli too. I’m not Palestinian.… Look at Syria. Look at Egypt, look at Libya, look at Tunisia, and look at Bahrain: the problem is not Israel, it’s the Arabs.”
Karinaoui’s tack echos a recent, widely circulated op-ed in which Abdulateef Al-Mulhim, a retired commodore of the Royal Saudi Navy, asked Arabs to stop pointing the finger at Israel. But Al-Mulhim doesn’t live in Israel, a country where democracy comes hand in hand with Jewish symbols and mythology.
‘If there is more cooperation between Arabs and Jews in Israel, we will broadcast that and fight the libel in the Middle East to show the Arab public that we are part of Israel and proud of it and that we get what we deserve and this will bring immense benefits to Israel. And even the Iranians will have nothing to say’
“I have no problem with the Star of David on the flag or with the national anthem –- no problem at all,” he says. “Israel is a democracy, and I respect every country that is a democracy. Israel did not expel me. I kept my land. I have the right under the law to do whatever I want to do, even to become prime minister.
“We Arabs need to thank God that we live in this democratic country.”
Karinaoui volunteered for military service at the age of 26, and still completes his reserve duty whenever called, “because I am a citizen and I like it and this is what a citizen has to do.”
In order to give his community a voice in government, Karinaoui joined the Likud Central Committee in 1995. Within a year, he became an adviser in Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office, later advising Nathan Sharansky at the Ministry of the Interior and Tzachi Hanegbi at the Environmental Protection Ministry, under Ariel Sharon’s premiership. In the 2006 elections, he ran for Knesset in the utterly unrealistic 67th spot on the Likud list.
Why was he placed so low? Because the party ranks candidates on the basis of how many votes they’ll likely draw, he acknowledges, and the fact is that few Israeli Arabs will vote Likud. But he showed, he says, that there was room for him even within the “nationalist” Likud tent, underlining the capacity to build what he calls an Arab voice from within.

[Photo: Aatef Karinaoui (left) in front on a Menorah. He says Israel's Jewish symbols shouldn't be a problem for the country's Arab population.] (photo credit: Courtesy)

Cooperation, not corruption

Karinaoui’s straight talk can come across as refreshing in a political system that many in Israel consider steeped in excuses and evasions. And he sees in Israeli Arab politics the same pathologies –- corruption and demagoguery — that triggered the Arab Spring.
“The voter turnout in the Arab sector in Israel is a mere 47 percent… And of that 47%, the majority are fake votes!” he asserts. “I am absolutely certain that Arab Knesset members receive money from foreign agents — maybe Iran, Hamas, Nasrallah, for instance. The state needs to investigate this. Where do they get all their assets and funding? These people come into politics with nothing and suddenly they are driving fancy cars, they own land.
“It is exactly what is happening in the Palestinian Authority,” he states, alluding to stories of deep-seated corruption in the ruling Fatah party. “The people are hungry, and these politicians get rich.”
Noting my surprise at the fierce assertions, he adds: “I know this because I see it; I live it.”
To change the way things are done, Karinaoui proposes cooperation. “What I want is to solve our problems here, as part of Israeli society, hand in hand with the Jewish public,” he says.
Karinaoui has canvassed the Arab public’s reaction to his ideas and found, he says, that Arab Israelis, who “currently see no hope,” yearn for the kind of changes that he is proposing. He wants to embody that hope in the next Knesset. “In one month we can have a revolution, but we need help,” he says, referring to the professional public relations team and infrastructure needed to conduct an effective campaign.

The hand that feeds
Karinaoui’s call for cooperation with Israel is a departure from the rhetoric of current Arab Israeli politicians in Knesset, whose public identities are in large part Palestinian. “I am not Palestinian, that is nonsense,” he says dismissively. “These Israeli Arab politicians who hold Israeli IDs — let them try to run for office in the Palestinian Authority. Let them see if the Palestinians and Abu Mazen [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] receive their candidacy as ‘Palestinians.’ They could be dead the next day.”
Karinaoui is adamant about defending Israel’s record as a democratic state – and in doing so he aspires to speak for the entire Arab community.
‘The real terrorism is not outside. It is our leadership. It is the crime, the poverty, the drugs and arms that plague our communities. It is Arab leaders teaching our kids to hate’
“Israel is a wonderful place for Arabs,” he declares. “It is the only democracy in the Middle East. Look at what the Arabs are doing to each other all over the Middle East. We don’t want to focus on that anymore here. People want to advance within the State of Israel, where they were born, and, yes, under the Israeli flag.”
Karinaoui stresses his conviction that rapprochement between Jewish and Arab citizens here will lead to benefits abroad as well as at home.
“If there is more cooperation between Arabs and Jews in Israel, we will broadcast that and fight the libel in the Middle East, to show the Arab public that we are part of Israel and proud of it, and that we get what we deserve,” he argues. “This will bring immense benefits to Israel. And even the Iranians will have nothing to say.”
As for the key issue of land ownership — a subject that regularly finds Israel’s Bedouin, including those from his own home town of Rahat, at bitter odds with the Israeli government, he says simply that such disputes cannot be solved through protests and violence, and certainly not by a resort to the brandishing of Palestinian flags. Change has to be achieved via peaceful means, he says. “In war mode, someone always loses.”

Change starts at home

Aside from avowals of gratitude and loyalty to Israel, nationalistic issues don’t really concern Karinaoui. It’s the growing wealth gaps in Israel and what he sees as inadequate Israeli Arab leadership that most bother him. And he considers those problems to be urgent.

“The real terrorism is not outside; it is our leadership,” he says. “It is the crime, the poverty, the drugs and arms that plague our communities. It is Arab leaders teaching our kids to hate. That is the real terrorism. It is inconceivable that a young wife living in the Negev is separated from her husband all week because his only job is up north and hers is there, and yet that happens all the time. There are up to 12,000 teachers that are out of work,” he continues, lamenting the joblessness rate even among the educated.
But despite his outrage, Karinaoui’s reflections on Israel’s economy remain nuanced. He is not, for instance, among those who unreservedly laud Israel’s high-tech boom. “Young people today all want to make it in high-tech, to create start-ups, to make money. Everyone is looking out for themselves; not nearly enough young people are thinking of careers that benefit society, like becoming doctors, or lawyers, something to help… the weak and elderly.”
He leans in to drive home the point. “Who will take care of you and me when we are old?” he asks, pointing to the white whiskers in my beard. “They don’t have gray hair like this at our age in Saudi Arabia. It’s stress that does this. People are suffering here.”
His desire for Arabs to face their own problems is why Karinaoui sees national service (in lieu of military service) as a potential boon for his community. Yet he regards this as a case in which the deeds of successive Israeli governments hardly match their words.

“National service for all is important,” he asserts. “You help your people: women, the elderly, and children… I encourage it every day. But regardless of what they say, the state doesn’t want it because setting up the infrastructure costs money.”
The logic strikes him as myopic. “It would bring in money, by building local authorities, the proper collection of taxes, people feeling that they have a stake and an interest. And it will contribute so much to the advancement of our community that people will embrace it.”
“We need to invest in local councils, infrastructure,” he says.

Politics of division
Because Karinaoui wants his community to throw in its lot with other Israelis, he sees anti-Israel rhetoric among Israeli Arabs not just as a problem for Israel’s security, but also as a clear and present danger to his own people.
‘The Arab leadership has failed and needs to resign and let the Arab public evolve. And the Arab public needs to wake up’
“[Arab Israeli leaders] are hurting the Arab public and bringing us to the brink of an abyss,” he warns. “There were celebrations in some northern Arab communities when Katyusha rockets were fired into Israel by Hezbollah [during the 2006 Second Lebanon War]. There was celebrating and the waving of foreign flags as the bombs fell. And then those bombs fell on Arabs too…. All you see is hatred. Even among Arabs, we hate each other. Why? We live in a democracy. The Arab leadership has failed and needs to resign and let the Arab public evolve. And the Arab public needs to wake up.”
He castigates Arab politicians at length for misleading their public with what he considers incendiary remarks and political games.
“They distance Arabs from the Jewish majority, and that helps them politically. And it helps parties like [Foreign Minister Avigdor] Liberman’s [Yisrael Beytenu] too. Liberman and [Arab Knesset Member Ahmad] Tibi help each other. We don’t want Israelis to hate us. We were born here; we live here; this is our country. The present Arab leadership is convincing the Arab public that the Jews are leaving this land, and will continue to leave out of despair if we continue to tire them.”
Karinaoui, by contrast, makes plain he wants the Jews to stay because, he says, “We want cooperation and the mixing of people and the development of businesses in our villages…. If we had the country that the present Arab leaders say that they want, we would have a situation like Syria here… Why are they doing so much damage to our relationship with Jewish Israelis?”
“We need an Arab Spring here in Israel,” he adds, “against our own Arab leaders.”

Romney: more cooperation and a lot more trust with Israel

From Commentary Magazine, 4 Nov 2012, by Jonathan S. Tobin:

...Let’s start with one clear fact. Israel’s survival does not depend on who is elected president of the United States.
As important as the U.S.-Israel alliance may be — and it is absolutely vital to the state of Israel’s well-being and security — the Jewish state will not collapse if Barack Obama is re-elected. Nor will it enter a new golden age if Mitt Romney wins. ...
...That said, there would be significant differences between a second Obama administration and a first one for Romney in terms of the impact on Israel.

The first and most obvious difference will be in terms of the tone of the relationship. Though Democrats have spent the last year trying to make the public forget about it, President Obama has spent most of his time in office feuding with the Israeli government ...
...Obama came into office determined to reverse what he thought was his predecessor’s mistake in being seen as too close to Israel. He succeeded in putting more daylight between the two allies, but that was about all he accomplished.

• His foolish decision to push hard for another round of talks with the Palestinians just at the time that the latter had signaled their inability to negotiate a peace deal on any terms was his first misjudgment.
• He compounded that error by pushing the Israelis to make unilateral concessions on settlements that did nothing to appease Arab demands, but ironically put the Palestinian Authority in the position of having to sound as tough on Israel as the Americans. Even when Netanyahu agreed to a settlement freeze, the Palestinians balked at talking.
• Even worse, the president established a position on the status of Jerusalem in 2010 that did more to undermine Israel’s claim on its capital than that of any previous American administration. That led to unnecessary and quite bitter fights with Netanyahu that strengthened the Israeli at home and convinced the majority of his people that Obama wasn’t their friend.
• Then in 2011, Obama tried to push hard on Israel to agree to the 1967 lines as the starting point for future negotiations. This was a slight, though significant, alteration of previous American positions that was made worse by Obama’s repudiation of Bush’s promises to respect the changes on the ground since 1967 (i.e. the major settlement blocs and new Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem).
• Even the Iranian nuclear threat, an issue on which Obama has always paid lip service to Israeli concerns, the president managed to turn agreement into dispute by refusing to agree to Netanyahu’s request for “red lines” that would put some limits on the time allowed for diplomacy before action was contemplated. While there are genuine differences between the two allies on Iran, this was one point that could have been finessed had Obama wished to do so. But even after nearly a year of an election-year charm offensive, the president refused to meet with Netanyahu and produce even a limited consensus on the issue.

The irony is that Obama’s spats with Israel were completely unnecessary, as the Palestinians took no advantage of his attempts to tilt the diplomatic playing field in their direction. Nor have the Iranians used the time Obama has granted them, first by his engagement policy and then by a belated sanctions regime that has allowed them to get closer to a nuclear weapon, to come to an agreement that would remove the possibility of a conflict.
Since Netanyahu is the odds-on favorite to be re-elected in January and, barring an unforeseen development, be in office for all of the next four years, should Obama win, the one thing we can be certain of is that relations between the two countries will not be smooth. The variables involve how much Obama has learned from the failures of his policies over the past four years and how much they would differ from what Romney would do.
On the first point, there is room for debate.
It is entirely possible that Obama has learned his lesson, at least as far as the Palestinians are concerned.
Anyone who believes that Mahmoud Abbas has the will or the ability to actually negotiate or sign a peace accord hasn’t been paying attention to anything he’s done during the eight years of his four-year term as president of the Palestinian Authority.
There is even less reason to believe Abbas’s Hamas rivals will be willing to recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders are drawn. Would Obama really be so foolish as to risk another bruising battle with a re-elected Netanyahu for the sake of a peace process that even he must know is doomed?
Maybe. Given Obama’s loathing for Netanyahu and his lack of general sympathy for Israel (as Aaron David Miller memorably put it, he’s the only U.S. president in a generation “not in love with the idea of Israel”), it’s a certainty that he will be picking more fights with the Israeli if he is re-elected.
While, as we have seen, the alliance can survive even four years of near-constant tension, one shouldn’t underestimate the damage these battles do to Israel. They encourage, as they have in the past four years, Israel’s Palestinian antagonists to be even more intransigent. They also help isolate Israel at a time when a rising tide of anti-Semitism is causing Europe to be even more hostile to the Jewish state.
...a re-elected Obama will be inclined to be even more intolerant of Netanyahu and Israel’s insistence on standing up for its rights in the peace process and on the question of the Iran threat.
Though Romney’s relationship with Netanyahu is probably not as close as some Republicans imply, it is a given that there will, at least for a time, be more cooperation and a lot more trust between the two governments, even if the vital security relationship won’t be altered all that much....

Why Daniel Pipes votes Republican

From Daniel Pipes, 4 Nov 2012:

http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2012/11/why-i-am-voting-republican

...I vote Republican because I support the party's core message of individualism, patriotism, and respect for tradition, in contrast to the core Democratic message of dependence, self-criticism, and "progress." I am inspired by the original reading of the U.S. Constitution, by ideals of personal freedom and American exceptionalism. I vote for small government, for a return of power to the states, for a strong military, and an assertive pursuit of national interests.

And on my special issues, the Middle East and Islamism, Republicans consistently outperform Democrats. Extensive polling and many congressional actions establish this pattern for the Arab-Israeli conflict and a similar contrast exists also on other foreign policy issues, such as the Iranian nuclear buildup, energy policy, and the Arab upheavals. As for the new totalitarian ideology, Islamism, Democrats show a marked softness, just as they previously did vis-à-vis the communist one....