the internet full of fun facts......

[Steven Gaal]

http://libyasos.blogspot.com/2011/11/abdel-hakim-belhadj-is-now-military.html

In November 2007, Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu al-Laith al-Liby announced LIFG’s merger with Al-Qaeda.

Abu al-Laith al-Liby was appointed deputy to Ayman al-Zawahiri, and in this capacity became Al-Qaeda’s No. 2 man, in the absence of news from Osama bin Laden. He was killed by a CIA drone in Waziristan in late January 2008.

During the period 2008-2010, Saif el-Islam Kadhafi negotiated a truce between the Libyan Jamahiriya and the LIFG. The latter published a lengthy document, The Corrective Studies, in which it acknowledged its error in having called for a jihad against fellow Muslims in a Muslim country. In three successive stages, all members of Al-Qaeda were pardoned and released on the sole condition that they renounce violence in writing. Of the 1800 jihadists, over one hundred rejected the agreement and preferred to remain in prison.

Upon his release, Abdel Hakim Belhadj left Libya and moved to Qatar.

In early 2011, Prince Bandar Bin Sultan made a series of trips with the aim of revitalizing Al-Qaeda by broadening recruitment, so far almost exclusively limited to Arabs and Muslims from Central and Southeast Asia. Recruitment offices were opened in Malaysia [4].

The best result was obtained in Mazar-i-Sharif, where more than 1,500 Afghans signed up for the jihad in Libya, Syria and Yemen [5]. Within weeks, Al-Qaeda evolved from a small dwindling group to a 10 000-man strong force. Such recruitment has been rendered even easier by the fact that jihadists are the cheapest mercenaries on the market.

On 17 February 2011, "National Libyan Opposition Conference" organized a "day of anger" in Benghazi, which sparked the beginning of the war.

On 23 February, Imam Abdelkarim al-Hasadi proclaimed the creation of an Islamic Emirate in Derna, the most fundamentalist city in Libya and home to the majority of jihadist who became suicide bombers in Iraq. Al-Hasadi is a long-standing member of the LIFG who was tortured by the United States at Guantanamo Bay [6].

The burqa was made mandatory and corporal punishment has been reinstated. Emir al-Hasidi has created his own army, starting out with a few dozen jihadists who currently number more than one thousand.

Tasked with coordinating the Allied operation in Libya, AFRICOM commander Gen. Carter Ham voiced his misgivings about the presence, among the rebels he was being asked to defend, of Al-Qaeda jihadists responsible for killing GIs in Afghanistan and Iraq. He was relieved of his mission, which was taken over by NATO.

All across "liberated" Cyrenaica, Al-Qaeda men have been spreading terror, resorting to massacre and torture; they have specialized in slitting the throats of Gaddafi sympathizers, eye-plucking and cutting off the breasts of immodest women.

The lawyer for the Libyan Jamahiriya, Marcel Ceccaldi, has accused NATO of "complicity in war crimes."

On 1 May 2011, Barack Obama announced that, in Abbottabad (Pakistan), the US Navy’s SEAL Team Six had taken out Osama bin Laden, about whom no reliable news had been heard for almost 10 years. The announcement padlocked the Al-Qaeda file and enabled the revamping of the jihadists into the renewed allies of the United States as in the good old days of the Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya and Kosovo wars. [7]

On 6 August, all the members of SEAL commando 6 perished in the crash of their helicopter.

All across "liberated" Cyrenaica, Al-Qaeda men have been spreading terror, resorting to massacre and torture; they have specialized in slitting the throats of Gaddafi sympathizers, eye-plucking and cutting off the breasts of immodest women.

Abdel Hakim Belhadj returned to his country in a Qatar military plane at the onset of the NATO intervention. He took command of the Al-Qaeda men in the Jebel Nefoussa mountains. According to the son of General Abdel Fattah Younes, it was Belhadj who sponsored the murder on 28 July 2011 of his old enemy, who had meanwhile become the military leader of the National Transition Council.

After the fall of Tripoli, Abdel Hakim Belhadj opened the gates of the Abu Salim prison, liberating all the Al-Qaeda jihadists who were still detained. He was appointed military governor of Tripoli. He currently demands an apology from the CIA and MI6 for the treatment inflicted on him in the past [8].

The National Transitional Council has put him in charge of training the army of the new Libya.

Sources:

1. “David Shayler: ’I quit the British secret service when the MI6 decided to fund Osama bin Laden’s partners’”, Voltaire Network, 24 November 2005.

2. "Libya’s Powerful Islamist Leader", by Babak Dehghanpisheh, The Daily Beast, 2 September 2011.

3. “Once NATO enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan, now NATO allies in Libya ”, by Webster G. Tarpley, Voltaire Network, 24 May 2011.

4. “The Middle East counter-revolution ”, by Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network, 26 May 2011.

5. "CIA recruits 1,500 from Mazar-e-Sharif to fight in Libya", by Azhar Masood, The Nation, 31 August 2011

6. "Noi ribelli, islamici e tolleranti", a report by Roberto Bongiorni, Il Sole 24 Ore, 22 March 2011.

7. “Reflections on the official announcement of the death of Osama Bin Laden”, by Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network, 8 May 2011.

8. "Libyan commander demands apology over MI6 and CIA plot", by Martin Chulov, Nick Hopkins and Richard Norton-Taylor, The Guardian, 4 September 2011.

Original: http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/sociopol_waronterror54.htm

Read also:

Who is "OPPOSTION" in Libya (part I) - > http://libyasos.blogspot.com/2011/06/who-is-oppostion-in-libya-part-i.html

Who is "OPPOSTION" in Libya (part II) - > http://libyasos.blogspot.com/2011/06/who-is-opposition-in-libya-part-ii.html

Mustafa Abdul-Jalil and Mahmoud Jibril Have Been Paving the Way for NATO’s Conquest Since 2007 -> http://libyasos.blogspot.com/2011/11/mustafa-abdul-jalil-and-mahmoud-jibril.html

ABDELHAKIM BELHADJ, AKA HASIDI, AKA ABU ABDULLA AL-SADDIQ, AKA…عبد الحكيم بالحاج ‎ aka Abu Abdallah -> http://libyasos.blogspot.com/2011/09/abdelhakim-belhadj-aka-hasidi-aka-abu.html

Posted by . at 23:19 Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook

Labels: and now Libya, Bosnia, Chechnya, Iraq, Kosovo, September 11 US military and government Al-Qaeda Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen Abdel Hakim Belhadj Osama bin Laden

Location: Tripoli, Libya

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Edited November 21, 2011 by Steven Gaal

[William Kelly]

Just goes to show, if you believe everything you read on the internet, then President Obama is al Qaeda's #3 man.

[Steven Gaal]

Just goes to show, if you believe everything you read on the internet, then President Obama is al Qaeda's #3 man.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVoVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

==============================================================================+

So lets have some EDUCATION,the Murchison family had business dealings in the early 1950s with the Suez Canal Company. The Suez

Canal Company in 1929 gave money to the Muslim Brotherhood to build their own first mosque. The Murchisons had on their corporate board people that were

part of /connected to Empire Trust . Suez Canal Company and Empire Trust intertwined with elite banking of France and England. Bill please reread your Dallas Conspiracy.

I have read and reread said book over 60 times,probably more than any JFK researcher. I have done years of reseach on the leads of Dallas Conspiracy book.

---------------------------------------------oo--------------------------------------

Bill Kelly has worked with the leaders of the Gaddafi Charity Foundation. Said charity helped

in the release of muslim jihadists connected to the Madrid Bombing.

Golly,good work Bill !!!!!!! Please all reflect, jihadists becoming leaders in the Arab Spring countries will only help the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) So, lets look at it Steve's way. The IMF/Banks/oil elites of the west exploit ($$$$) "Arab Spring"

countries,while jihadists help the MIC ($$$$). Again good work Bill !!!

===========================================================o=======================================+

Who is Abdul Hakim Belhadj, the leader of the Libyan rebels?

Below middleeastnmonitor.org

In March 2010, Al Jazeera broadcast a film of a meeting between Belhadj after his release from prison in Libya under the initiative of the Gaddafi Charity Foundation following the intervention of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi. More than 700 of the "leaders" of the Libyan Fighting Group have been released in stages, even though they were accused of joining Al-Qaeda; some were also accused of fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. In the film, Abdul Hakim Belhadj praises the mediation of Dr Saif al-Islam for his release.

==========================oooo=================+

------------------------------------------00000---------------------------+

Diplomacy after the Arab uprisings

Jewish Press International

By DORE GOLD

12/14/2011 22:24

Israel, West must see new regional Islamic leaderships as they really are, not as what they hope them to be

Writing for a CNBC website on December 8 about the Arab uprisings of 2011, former Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar of Spain made a stunning revelation about one of the key leaders who has risen in the Libyan power structure after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, Abdul Hakim Belhadj. According to Aznar, Belhadj was one of the suspects involved in the Madrid train bombing of 2004, that left 192 people dead and over 2,000 wounded.

Moreover, other noted Islamists were a part of the new Libyan leadership, like Sheikh Ali Salibi, whom the Washington Post this month labeled as "the likely architect of the new Libya." Salibi lived for many years in exile in Qatar, where he was a close associate of Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, the spiritual head of the global Muslim Brotherhood.

Did anyone know any of this earlier?

The story of Belhadj is only one item in a much broader trend in 2011 that publicists liked to call "the Arab spring." However, the fall of the old regimes in Tunisia, Libya, and in Egypt led to their replacement with Islamist parties associated in one way or another with the Muslim Brotherhood. According to his biographer, the Tunisian Islamist leader, Rached Ghannouchi acquired a world view, influenced by the writings of Muslim Brotherhood theorists like Sayyed Qutb. Looking at these developments, a Saudi commentator in al-Sharq al-Awsat renamed this region-wide revolution the "Muslim Brotherhood Spring."

One year of these historic changes began to occur, it is clear that they pose a number of challenges for Western diplomacy and perhaps even illustrate some of its most glaring flaws in the past year. They will have direct implications for Israeli diplomacy in 2012.

UNDERSTANDING THE NEW ELITES

Given that movements that were linked to the Muslim Brotherhood were on the ascendancy, the most fundamental question was whether leaders in the West understood what this organization represented. At the beginning of February 2011, the US Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, appeared before the Intelligence Committee of the US House of Representatives. Since the re-organization of America's intelligence structure over the last decade, Clapper is the one who briefs President Barack Obama about what the key intelligence agencies are thinking.

Asked about the threat that the Muslim Brotherhood posed, Clapper answered that in Egypt it was a "heterogeneous group" that was "largely secular," adding that it "eschewed violence." Yet less than three months earlier on December 23, 2010, its "Supreme Guide" in Egypt, Muhammad Badi, provided a clear sense of the organization's thinking when he issued one of his weekly messages, albeit in Arabic, on the Muslim Brotherhood website, Ikhwanonline. With respect to Israel, he wrote "the jihad for the return of the land is an obligatory commandment incumbent on the entire Arab and Islamic nation."

Clapper's spokesman later corrected his remarks on his website. But his answer nonetheless reflected a trend in the thinking on the part of part of the foreign policy establishments in the US and in Britain, which saw the Muslim Brotherhood as a moderating force and not as the militant movement, in which Khalid Shaikh Muhammad, the mastermind of 9/11 and Ayman al-Zawahiri, the current head of al- Qaeda, grew.

This tendency continues. For example, on December 7, Nicholas Kristof wrote an op-ed in the New York Times, entitled "Joining a Dinner in a Muslim Brotherhood Home." The article sought to reassure readers about the organization's intentions. Then, on December 10, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator John Kerry (DMass.) met with three leaders from the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party in Egypt. He was accompanied by the US ambassador to Egypt, Anne Paterson.

DID THE West understand the movement that was rising and that they were tip-toing to embrace? The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928 by an Egyptian schoolteacher, Hasan al-Banna, whose ideology still influences its adherents through his writings which appear on websites in multiple languages. Al-Banna wrote in the interwar period that the Islamic flag must again be raised in those lands that harbored Islam in the past: "Thus Andalusia (Spain), Sicily, the Balkans, the Italian coast, as well as the islands of the Mediterranean, are all Muslim colonies, and they must return to the embrace of Islam." He added that "It is our right to bring back the glories of the Islamic Empire."

It is noteworthy that Muhammad Badi' frequently cites al-Banna's ideas and asserted this year that his movement was dedicated to the views that he expressed. "without any doubt or obfuscation." Indeed, al-Banna's ideas were also echoed by Badie's predecessor, Muhammad Akef, who declared in 2004 "his complete faith that Islam will invade Europe and America" though he added the caveat that Westerners would join Islam by conviction. Prior to 9/11. The Muslim Brotherhood's Londonbased publication, Risalat al-Ikhwan, featured on its masthead the slogan: "Our mission: world domination."

THE PRACTICAL IMPACT OF THE NEW ISLAMIST REGIMES

What are the practical implications of the rise of regimes tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, which back these kinds of ideologies? The first time a Muslim Brotherhood regime ruled an Arab state was the early 1990's, when Sudan was led by Hasan Turabi. There were two features of Sudanese policy at the time. First, Sudan hosted some of the worst terrorist organizations, like Hamas, which was permitted to set up training camps on Sudanese soil. Prior to 1995, when he arrived in Afghanistan, Sudan was where Osama bin Laden set up his principle base of operations.

Second, Turabi created a strategic alliance with Iran, which dispatched its Revolutionary Guards to Port Sudan to establish a naval base along the Red Sea.

Today there are different views inside the Muslim Brotherhood about whether it should be tied to Iran. As a result of the 2006 Second Lebanon War, many members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt advocated improved ties with Iran. Today, with Iran supporting Bashar Assad's war on the Syrian opposition, which includes a large number of Muslim Brotherhood members, anti-Iranian sentiments have arisen, along with greater identification with Turkey. But should Iran militarily become the dominant power in the region during the years ahead then the Muslim Brotherhood will undoubtedly move in that direction.

THE CHALLENGE FOR THE WEST AND ISRAEL

Despite the ideological orientation of the Muslim Brotherhood, the new leaders taking power in the months ahead will seek cooperation with the West in the short term, given their first priority will be for their states to economically recover. Egypt, for example will need tourism and foreign investments.

This not only reduces the risks of armed conflict, but it also hands the US and Europe a great deal of leverage. Assuming the West will seek ties with many of these new regimes, it must not embrace them unconditionally.

Take the case of Hamas, which is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Quartet has insisted that before it agrees to talk to Hamas, the latter must renounce terrorism, accept all past agreements, and accept Israel's right to exist. In other words, Western diplomacy introduced certain standards that must be met by Hamas, before it can be accepted as a legitimate diplomatic interlocutor. These standards should equally be introduced when considering relations with regimes that have a Muslim Brotherhood component.

With respect to Israel, it must exercise extreme caution in the period ahead. No one can guarantee that half the regimes surrounding it will even be there in a few years. Traditional Israeli security interests since the days of Yitzhak Rabin, like preserving control of the Jordan Valley defense line, acquire greater importance when regimes cannot be relied upon in the future as in the past to stem the freedom of movement of terrorist organizations armed with the most advanced weapons that are now flooding the market. This is all the more the case when Iran is exploiting these regional vulnerabilities, to help its proxy forces around Israel.

NOT A TWITTER REVOLUTION

The Arab uprisings initially appeared as a youthful and idealistic movement to defeat tyranny and spread democracy. But those who began these movements, armed with the latest social media, soon gave way to those who used far more effectively the main force for political mobilization: the mosque. It came as no surprise that the momentum against the old regimes of the Middle East gained strength on Fridays, when the mosques were full. This phenomenon led to the emergence of an Islamist winter.

Israel, like its allies, must gain an accurate picture of the new world that is arising around it. The fragmentation of neighboring states is a possibility that Israel will need to consider. Regardless, the West also needs to know who it is dealing with and not rely on broad-brushed characterizations about its new Middle Eastern partners that have not been thought through, but fit well into pre-conceived ideological positions that are simply untrue.

The writer is the president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and served as Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, 1997-1999.

Edited December 15, 2011 by Steven Gaal

[William Kelly]

Just goes to show, if you believe everything you read on the internet, then President Obama is al Qaeda's #3 man.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVoVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

==============================================================================+

So lets have some EDUCATION,the Murchison family had business dealings in the early 1950s with the Suez Canal Company. The Suez

Canal Company in 1929 gave money to the Muslim Brotherhood to build their own first mosque. The Murchisons had on their corporate board people that were

part of /connected to Empire Trust . Suez Canal Company and Empire Trust intertwined with elite banking of France and England.

Bill please reread your Dallas Conspiracy.

I have read and reread said book over 60 times,probably more than any JFK researcher. I have done years of reseach on the leads of Dallas Conspiracy book.

BK: Well Steven, you can memorize the Dallas Conspiracy book if you can, and it won't do any good, especially if you keep starting new threads saying the same thing.

There are a lot of connections between the Dallas oil men and the Libyan oil interests, and not just Murchison, but the Dallas White Russians who befriended Oswald when he returned from USSR, including George Bouhe and Paul Raoridosky, whose survey of Libya in early 1950s discovered the Libyan oil reserves - and is even mentioned in their Warren Commission testimony. In addition, Volkmar Schmidt, who organized a party so the Oswalds could meet the Paines, missed the first party held at his house because he was in Libya on oil business.

None of this is in Peter Dale Scott's book, and Peter takes the same perspective of the situation in Libya as you do - and most everyone who only took notice after NATO got involved, and I've tried to set him straight too, as the NATO effort was led by Canada and a Canadian general, not the USA

---------------------------------------------oo--------------------------------------

Bill Kelly has worked with the leaders of the Gaddafi Charity Foundation. Said charity

BK: Yes, I have been documenting US-Libya relations that go back over 200 years, when the Libyans were Barbary Pirates and marauding American ships and enslaving the crews - which led to the establishment of the US Navy that was sent over thee to fight them the first time - and I found Saif Gadhafi to be a very reasonable person - whose mentor - Prof. Benjamin Barber is a strong advocate of democratic institutions and persuaded Saif to implement reforms, but apparently not enough to prevent the revolution. Those who had previously supported Saif, including Barber, ended their support when Saif went on TV and endorsed his father's attempt to kill all the rats. For more info on the history of US-Libya relations and the effort to repatriate the remains of US Navy heroes from Tripoli - included in the recently passed 2012 Defense Authorization Act - see:

Remember the Intrepid

helped

in the release of muslim jihadists connected to the Madrid Bombing.

BK: I don't think Saif had anything to do with the release of Abdul Hakim Belhadj, who is not the "leader of the Libyan rebels." He was arrested by the CIA in Afghanistan and rennditioned to Libya for interrogation and torture. No doubt he was a bad guy fighting USA, and a terrorist, but after he was released by the Libyans and rehabilitated in Qatar - home of al Jezzera - he returned to Libya AFTER NATO began their bombing campaign, and led one brigade out of Benghazi - not the Berbers in the Nafusa Mountains - who were supplied by the French - not Qatar or USA. AHB did not take over the revolutionary army, or liberate the prison, his forces attacked Gadhafi's compound - and he assumed Command of the Military Garrison of Tripoli, not the entire Military of Tripoli, a cabinet position that was given to the commander of the Nafusa Mountain brigade that captured Saif.

Simon Denyer, a Washington Post correspondent who followed my blog during the revolution, used some of the maps I posted, and exchanged emails and cell phone conversations with me from Tripoli, interviewed Hakim Belhadj, who acknowledged that the revolution was not an Islamic Jahid, but a democratic revolution, and that he was thinking of taking the CIA to court for turning him over to the Libyans to be tortured.

Revolutionary Program: Denyer interview w/ Abdul Hakim Belhadj

BK: As for the rest of this post by the Jewish Press - they should worry about the Arab Spring - Democratic Revolutions being co-opted by the hard core Islamics - who want to install a Sharia law - but they were only a small percentage of the revolutionaries in Libya, and women played a much larger role, and certainly won't accept being put in their place as the Sharia law would insist. While the Islamists in Tunisia and Egypt are a majority, most of them are a moderate Islamits who are basically secularists - as they are in Turkey, and do not impose their religion or law on everyone.

The revolutions in every country fell into a pattern - as is now the situation in Syria, Yemen and Bahrain - when the majority of demonstrations are held on Friday after prayers, a pattern that the security forces mobilized against - setting your "annonymous snipers" on rooftops to pick off the protesters as they emerged from the mosques, or in the case of Zawiya, Libya, totally destroying the mosque once they had regained the city from the rebels.

The Moslem Brotherhood, who you say Murchinsons helped finance - are not orthodox Islamists, - their motto in Egypt is "Freedom and Justice" - so they can't be all that bad, and while they are a majority of the organized voters in Egypt, they are more like American labor unions, did not support the revolution in Egypt until it was too late and Mubarak had resigned, so they can't take credit for that, or hijack the rational for the revolt. They can win elections however.

Golly,good work Bill !!!!!!! Please all reflect, jihadists becoming leaders in the Arab Spring countries will only help the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) So, lets look at it Steve's way. The IMF/Banks/oil elites of the west exploit ($) "Arab Spring"

countries,while jihadists help the MIC ($). Again good work Bill !!!

BK: Yea, let's look at it Steve's way - the CIA and MIC instigated Mohamid Bouazizi to kill himself, organized the spontaneous protests, fermented Islamic extremists to join the revolt and fostered a region wide democratic revolution against dictators who they controlled so they can exploit the oil they already had in their pockets? Yea, Steve, you keep reading Global Research, the Jewish press and the Russians propagandists who back Syria and Iran and maybe you'll come up with some real facts that indicate the CIA and the MIC is the secret force behind the Arab Spring.

===========================================================o=======================================+

Who is Abdul Hakim Belhadj, the leader of the Libyan rebels?

Below middleeastnmonitor.org

In March 2010, Al Jazeera broadcast a film of a meeting between Belhadj after his release from prison in Libya under the initiative of the Gaddafi Charity Foundation following the intervention of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi. More than 700 of the "leaders" of the Libyan Fighting Group have been released in stages, even though they were accused of joining Al-Qaeda; some were also accused of fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. In the film, Abdul Hakim Belhadj praises the mediation of Dr Saif al-Islam for his release.

==========================oooo=================+

------------------------------------------00000---------------------------+

Diplomacy after the Arab uprisings

Jewish Press International

By DORE GOLD

12/14/2011 22:24

Israel, West must see new regional Islamic leaderships as they really are, not as what they hope them to be

Writing for a CNBC website on December 8 about the Arab uprisings of 2011, former Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar of Spain made a stunning revelation about one of the key leaders who has risen in the Libyan power structure after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, Abdul Hakim Belhadj. According to Aznar, Belhadj was one of the suspects involved in the Madrid train bombing of 2004, that left 192 people dead and over 2,000 wounded.

Moreover, other noted Islamists were a part of the new Libyan leadership, like Sheikh Ali Salibi, whom the Washington Post this month labeled as "the likely architect of the new Libya." Salibi lived for many years in exile in Qatar, where he was a close associate of Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, the spiritual head of the global Muslim Brotherhood.

Did anyone know any of this earlier?

The story of Belhadj is only one item in a much broader trend in 2011 that publicists liked to call "the Arab spring." However, the fall of the old regimes in Tunisia, Libya, and in Egypt led to their replacement with Islamist parties associated in one way or another with the Muslim Brotherhood. According to his biographer, the Tunisian Islamist leader, Rached Ghannouchi acquired a world view, influenced by the writings of Muslim Brotherhood theorists like Sayyed Qutb. Looking at these developments, a Saudi commentator in al-Sharq al-Awsat renamed this region-wide revolution the "Muslim Brotherhood Spring."

One year of these historic changes began to occur, it is clear that they pose a number of challenges for Western diplomacy and perhaps even illustrate some of its most glaring flaws in the past year. They will have direct implications for Israeli diplomacy in 2012.

UNDERSTANDING THE NEW ELITES

Given that movements that were linked to the Muslim Brotherhood were on the ascendancy, the most fundamental question was whether leaders in the West understood what this organization represented. At the beginning of February 2011, the US Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, appeared before the Intelligence Committee of the US House of Representatives. Since the re-organization of America's intelligence structure over the last decade, Clapper is the one who briefs President Barack Obama about what the key intelligence agencies are thinking.

Asked about the threat that the Muslim Brotherhood posed, Clapper answered that in Egypt it was a "heterogeneous group" that was "largely secular," adding that it "eschewed violence." Yet less than three months earlier on December 23, 2010, its "Supreme Guide" in Egypt, Muhammad Badi, provided a clear sense of the organization's thinking when he issued one of his weekly messages, albeit in Arabic, on the Muslim Brotherhood website, Ikhwanonline. With respect to Israel, he wrote "the jihad for the return of the land is an obligatory commandment incumbent on the entire Arab and Islamic nation."

Clapper's spokesman later corrected his remarks on his website. But his answer nonetheless reflected a trend in the thinking on the part of part of the foreign policy establishments in the US and in Britain, which saw the Muslim Brotherhood as a moderating force and not as the militant movement, in which Khalid Shaikh Muhammad, the mastermind of 9/11 and Ayman al-Zawahiri, the current head of al- Qaeda, grew.

This tendency continues. For example, on December 7, Nicholas Kristof wrote an op-ed in the New York Times, entitled "Joining a Dinner in a Muslim Brotherhood Home." The article sought to reassure readers about the organization's intentions. Then, on December 10, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator John Kerry (DMass.) met with three leaders from the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party in Egypt. He was accompanied by the US ambassador to Egypt, Anne Paterson.

DID THE West understand the movement that was rising and that they were tip-toing to embrace? The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928 by an Egyptian schoolteacher, Hasan al-Banna, whose ideology still influences its adherents through his writings which appear on websites in multiple languages. Al-Banna wrote in the interwar period that the Islamic flag must again be raised in those lands that harbored Islam in the past: "Thus Andalusia (Spain), Sicily, the Balkans, the Italian coast, as well as the islands of the Mediterranean, are all Muslim colonies, and they must return to the embrace of Islam." He added that "It is our right to bring back the glories of the Islamic Empire."

It is noteworthy that Muhammad Badi' frequently cites al-Banna's ideas and asserted this year that his movement was dedicated to the views that he expressed. "without any doubt or obfuscation." Indeed, al-Banna's ideas were also echoed by Badie's predecessor, Muhammad Akef, who declared in 2004 "his complete faith that Islam will invade Europe and America" though he added the caveat that Westerners would join Islam by conviction. Prior to 9/11. The Muslim Brotherhood's Londonbased publication, Risalat al-Ikhwan, featured on its masthead the slogan: "Our mission: world domination."

THE PRACTICAL IMPACT OF THE NEW ISLAMIST REGIMES

What are the practical implications of the rise of regimes tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, which back these kinds of ideologies? The first time a Muslim Brotherhood regime ruled an Arab state was the early 1990's, when Sudan was led by Hasan Turabi. There were two features of Sudanese policy at the time. First, Sudan hosted some of the worst terrorist organizations, like Hamas, which was permitted to set up training camps on Sudanese soil. Prior to 1995, when he arrived in Afghanistan, Sudan was where Osama bin Laden set up his principle base of operations.

Second, Turabi created a strategic alliance with Iran, which dispatched its Revolutionary Guards to Port Sudan to establish a naval base along the Red Sea.

Today there are different views inside the Muslim Brotherhood about whether it should be tied to Iran. As a result of the 2006 Second Lebanon War, many members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt advocated improved ties with Iran. Today, with Iran supporting Bashar Assad's war on the Syrian opposition, which includes a large number of Muslim Brotherhood members, anti-Iranian sentiments have arisen, along with greater identification with Turkey. But should Iran militarily become the dominant power in the region during the years ahead then the Muslim Brotherhood will undoubtedly move in that direction.

THE CHALLENGE FOR THE WEST AND ISRAEL

Despite the ideological orientation of the Muslim Brotherhood, the new leaders taking power in the months ahead will seek cooperation with the West in the short term, given their first priority will be for their states to economically recover. Egypt, for example will need tourism and foreign investments.

This not only reduces the risks of armed conflict, but it also hands the US and Europe a great deal of leverage. Assuming the West will seek ties with many of these new regimes, it must not embrace them unconditionally.

Take the case of Hamas, which is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Quartet has insisted that before it agrees to talk to Hamas, the latter must renounce terrorism, accept all past agreements, and accept Israel's right to exist. In other words, Western diplomacy introduced certain standards that must be met by Hamas, before it can be accepted as a legitimate diplomatic interlocutor. These standards should equally be introduced when considering relations with regimes that have a Muslim Brotherhood component.

With respect to Israel, it must exercise extreme caution in the period ahead. No one can guarantee that half the regimes surrounding it will even be there in a few years. Traditional Israeli security interests since the days of Yitzhak Rabin, like preserving control of the Jordan Valley defense line, acquire greater importance when regimes cannot be relied upon in the future as in the past to stem the freedom of movement of terrorist organizations armed with the most advanced weapons that are now flooding the market. This is all the more the case when Iran is exploiting these regional vulnerabilities, to help its proxy forces around Israel.

NOT A TWITTER REVOLUTION

The Arab uprisings initially appeared as a youthful and idealistic movement to defeat tyranny and spread democracy. But those who began these movements, armed with the latest social media, soon gave way to those who used far more effectively the main force for political mobilization: the mosque. It came as no surprise that the momentum against the old regimes of the Middle East gained strength on Fridays, when the mosques were full. This phenomenon led to the emergence of an Islamist winter.

Israel, like its allies, must gain an accurate picture of the new world that is arising around it. The fragmentation of neighboring states is a possibility that Israel will need to consider. Regardless, the West also needs to know who it is dealing with and not rely on broad-brushed characterizations about its new Middle Eastern partners that have not been thought through, but fit well into pre-conceived ideological positions that are simply untrue.

The writer is the president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and served as Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, 1997-1999.

Edited December 16, 2011 by William Kelly

[Len Colby]

LOL an article which not only makes false claim like “On 6 August, all the members of SEAL commando 6 perished in the crash of their helicopter”but also cites: a cross dresser who thinks he is the messiah (Shayler), the man behind the Kennebunkport Warning fraud (Tarpley) and a “researcher” who was unable find photos of airplane wreckage at the Pentagon (Meyssan).

What is this about BK working for the Gadaffis?