MFS - The Other News

                    Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity situation Japan 5.3 - 5.2  ; Papua New Guinea 5.2 ; greece 4.9 !More info here.

• "YES WE CAN AND WE WILL !" Minister Danny Ayalon- “We will never ask the Americans to go in to harm’s way for us. We can fight for ourselves.”(IsraelSurvivalUpd).“Today’s challenges demand that we defend our land from slander and battle the lies that are being thrown at us. As Israel endures constant delegitimization we must remember that we are powerful when we are united as one.”“The world tells us that our national mission in misguided and immoral and that we are illegal colonizers but nothing could be further from the truth. At the time of our redemption, the Third Jewish Commonwealth will not be destroyed. We must never give up on our ability to defend ourselves by ourselves. We will never ask the Americans to go in to harm’s way for us. We can fight for ourselves.”Hmmm.....Reminds me of these immortal words :"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few" ~ Winston Churchill.Read the full story here.

• Tehran residents fear imminent strike.(Ynet).Growing panic in Iran? International schools in Iran have shut their doors after hardline students stormed the British embassy last week, stoking ordinary Iranians' fears that foreigners are about to pull out of the Islamic Republic ahead of a US or Israeli-led attack. Protesters stormed and ransacked Britain's two diplomatic compounds in Tehran on Tuesday, prompting Britain to evacuate its staff from the country and expel Iranian diplomats from London.The French school in Tehran is located on British embassy grounds and children were in class when the mob swarmed through the compound gates. Windows at the German school nearby were shattered in the attack, but the British school escaped the worst of the chaos after teachers sent pupils home early.The schools have remained shut since, forcing hundreds of children to stay home. Foreign teachers and their families have left Iran, parents were told, though the French school hopes to resume lessons on Sunday, and Britain's in the New Year.Iran's isolation over its nuclear ambitions, its claim to have shot down a US spy drone in its airspace on Sunday and the British embassy attack are feeding ordinary Iranians' fears."Many foreigners are leaving Iran ... I suspect that there will be military action ... we will become another Iraq," said architect Mahsa Sedri, 35. "Obviously something is going on ... otherwise the foreigners would not leave Iran." "We are going to be attacked ... I sense it ... I am pulling out my money from the bank to have cash in hand in case of an attack," said government employee Hassan Vosughi. "I and all my friends have stockpiled goods at home."Washington and Israel have not ruled out military action against Iranian nuclear facilities should diplomacy fail to resolve the dispute over Iran's nuclear program, a position that has only hardened since the critical report by the International Atomic Energy Agency last month.Read the full story here.

• Racking up Obama's 'green vision', Navy’s Big Biofuel Bet: 450,000 Gallons at 8 Times the Price of Oil.(Wired).The Navy just signed deals to buy 450,000 gallons of biofuels — arguably the biggest purchase of its kind in U.S. government history. The purchase is a significant step for Navy Secretary Ray Mabus’ plans to transform the service into an energy efficient fleet. But at nearly $1,100 per barrel — eight times the price of traditional fuel — the new fuels won’t come cheap. The $12 million purchase, expected for months, will all be used this summer, off the the coast of Hawaii. There, supersonic F/A-18 jets will launch from the deck of an aircraft carrier, powered by fuels fermented from algae. A 9,000-ton destroyer and a cruiser will join it on a voyage across the Pacific, using fuel made from fats and greases. (The carrier itself runs on nuclear power.) It’ll be the first demonstration of the so-called “Great Green Fleet” — an entire aircraft carrier strike group, relying on alternative energy sources.If it works, the Green Fleet will not only be poised for a full alt-fuel deployment in 2016. Mabus will be much closer to his promise of obtaining half of the Navy’s fuel from alternative sources by 2020. And the often-struggling biofuels industry will be a lot closer to proving its viability.“It’s a way to show that this is not a fad, this is not a flavor of the day,” Mabus tells Danger Room. “This is serious. This is real. This is actually going to happen.”This is hardly the Navy — or the military’s — lone effort to find new fuel sources. A Marine company in Afghanistan cut its fuel consumption by up to 90 percent, thanks to portable solar panels and other alt-energy gear. The Navy recently commissioned its first hybrid ship, the amphibious assault ship U.S.S Makin Island. The service is now working to retrofit its destroyers with hybrid drives and mission planning software that should allow the ships to sail more efficiently.But biofuels in general — and the Green Fleet demo in particular — are considered tent poles in Mabus’ broader energy strategy. That’s why the Obama administration recently announced that the Navy, along the Departments of Agriculature and Energy, will spend as much as $510 million to develop the country’s biofuel production infrastructure, and to buy up more gas.Two companies will split the Navy order. Dynamic Fuels, half-owned by agribusiness giant Tyson Foods, converts fats and waste greases into biofuels. Solazyme uses algae as a means of fermenting everything from plant matter to municipal waste into fuel. Both are considered leaders in the next-gen biofuel industry – Dynamic is one of the first companies in the field to have a commercial-scale refinery up-and-running. Solazyme has already delivered 150,000 gallons of its fuels to the Navy.Substantial hurdles remain, however. The Navy paid about a thousand dollars for each barrel of biofuel it bought to test out in it jets. This new purchase will cost just as much: $26 per gallon, or $1092 per barrel. (In contrast, old school jet fuel is currently trading at $126 per barrel.)Mabus notes that this 450,000 gallon buy — while comparatively large for military biofuels — is still tiny compared to the amount of fuel the Navy and the commercial airline industries consume. He’s promised that, as the Navy buys more fuel, economies of scale will kick in, and prices will drop. But an MIT study of alternative jet fuels, conducted in association with the Navy, found that even under optimal conditions — with dozens of refineries up and running, and every drop of the nation’s vegetable oil stock converted to energy — the price of bio jet fuel would still be twice as high as the cost of the traditionally-made stuff.Clearly, the Navy wants to go green. Whether it can afford to do so — well, that’s still an unanswered question.Hmmmm....Automatic cuts in defence spending?....Yeah whatevah.If he really wanted to destroy America as a superpower would he do anything different?Read the full story here.

• Obama Seeks Recovery Through China’s Now-Collapsing Economic Model.(BigPeace).The American left has long admired the European welfare state as a model for the “democratic socialism” it would like to introduce in the United States–despite high unemployment, ethnic segregation, growing bureaucratization, military dependence, and looming fiscal crisis.In the 2008 elections, and throughout his presidency, Barack Obama added a new model: that of communist China, whose “state capitalism” has led to staggering economic growth, rapid industrialization, and new financial power as lender to the developed world.But the emergence of Chinese “ghost cities,” plus rising inflation and unemployment, suggest that the virtue of the Chinese model–celebrated last week by former SEIU head Andy Stern as “superior” to the American free market ideal–have been vastly exaggerated.As the Wall Street Journal noted this weekend: China is a poster child for the Austrian school of economics’ theory of the business cycle. After undertaking the biggest stimulus program the world has ever seen in response to the global financial crisis, the country is drowning in unproductive investments financed with credit.The government spent 15% of GDP largely on public works projects in inland regions, financed with loans from the state-owned banks. Investment as a share of GDP soared to 48.5% in 2010, and the M2 measure of money supply ballooned to 140% that of the U.S.Now comes the hangover. The public works projects are winding down, unleashing a wave of unemployment and an uptick in social unrest. The banks’ nonperforming loans are rising, and local governments are insolvent. The country is littered with luxurious county government offices, ghost cities of empty apartment blocks, unsafe high-speed rail lines and crumbling highways to nowhere.Though admired by the left, the Chinese model, like the European welfare state–and Stalinism before both–is a false idol, because human nature remains unchanged. The real question is why the left continues, in each generation, to search for alternatives to freedom.Hmmm......you can spot a communist regime by it's wastefull spending?Read the full story here.

• The Ethics of Eric Holder.(AT).BY RonaldKolb.Looking back in history at the list of former attorneys general, two from the recent past seem to stand out. Robert F. Kennedy chose -- at some personal risk -- to take on not only organized crime, but the corrupt Teamsters union. John Mitchell became entangled in Richard Nixon's Watergate scandal and was convicted of multiple felonies.It's quite obvious which category Mr. Holder belongs in. Scandal seems to follow him wherever he goes, and now, either through incompetence or malfeasance, the road has led to Fast and Furious.Every day that Mr. Holder now remains attorney general further diminishes the office, and the Justice Department's reputation as well.Hmmmm...A must read.Read the full story here.

• ‘Fast and Furious’ Not Holder’s First Controversy Involving the Murder of an American Citizen.(Biggovernment).While some in the news media say Eric Holder’s involvement in the controversial ATF gun-running program known as Operation Fast and Furious is “only the tip of the iceberg,” Salt Lake City attorney Jesse Trentadue says he “was way ahead of the curve” in pointing out the attorney general’s involvement in shady activities. He points to a scathing 4-page letter (PDF) he sent to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) Dec. 19, 2008, as proof.In the letter, Trentadue told the chair of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee the following: You need to know that Eric Holder, now nominated to become Attorney General, played a key role in covering up the torture-murder of my brother, Kenneth Michael Trentadue. You also need to know that Mr. Holder did this while serving as Deputy Attorney General and Acting Attorney General from 1997-2001. This is not just my shocking opinion. It is also the opinion of many Americans. More importantly, it is supported by the Justice Department’s records and actions that came to light as a result of my family’s efforts to obtain a certain measure of justice for my brother’s murder.Kenneth was killed in Oklahoma City in August of 1995. My family has spent over 13 years investigating my brother’s gruesome murder, including bringing a wrongful death lawsuit in federal court in 1997. In that case, the Justice Department hid and destroyed evidence that would have exposed my brother’s murders, and we believe that Mr. Holder was directly involved in those acts of obstruction of justice.In a footnote appearing on page one of that letter, Trentadue noted the following:
Despite the destruction of evidence, the court awarded my family a $1 million judgment. We have used that money to offer a $250,000 reward for the people who killed Kenney. That offer is posted at: www.kmtreward.com. This site also contains the irrefutable evidence that my brother was murdered, which evidence was kept from us by the Justice Department.Trentadue’s letter continues: To this day, however, despite the efforts of my family, numerous journalists, and Congress, the Justice Department has been able to hide this terrible story — and its culpability in the death of my brother Kenneth. More importantly, then Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder was assigned to be the point man in blocking my family’s efforts to bring my brother Kenneth Trentadue’s murderers to justice. Now, President-elect Barack Obama has nominated Eric Holder to be the new Attorney General.The paper trail on Mr. Holder’s actions is scant. However, e-mails and handwritten notes by those working under Mr. Holder in the Justice Department have surfaced. These documents paint a clear picture of a wide-ranging and cynical scheme, run directly by Mr. Holder, to quash my family’s efforts to have my brother’s murder investigated, and to deflect congressional oversight and media attention from the shocking circumstances of his death.According to these documents, a significant part of this plan involved Mr. Holder convincing Congress not to inquire into my brother’s murder. The plan called for Mr. Holder to meet with Senator Hatch on October 9, 1997, just prior to the Justice Department’s issuance of a Press Release announcing that the federal grand jury supposedly “investigating” my brother’s murder had failed to charge anyone with this crime.The stated purpose of this meeting between Mr. Holder and Senator Hatch was to defuse Judiciary Committee oversight and media inquiry into the circumstances of my brother’s death. In fact, one e-mail states that “we ain’t looking for press on this. Hill takes priority.”But that meeting apparently did not go as planned by Mr. Holder, because the next day, October 10, 1997, Senator Hatch gave an exclusive interview to Fox News in which he spoke out against the results of the grand jury and the Justice Department’s handling of the case.Rather than share Trentadue’s summary of what Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), told Fox News during the interview Oct. 10, 1997, I offer video  of the interview itself.Hmmmm......"There she blows"?Read and see the full story here.

•  Department of Energy was willing to grant $150 Million taxpayer money to Electric car maker that just closed the books.(Wired).Southern California electric vehicle startup Aptera Motors is out of time, out of money and out of luck. It announced today that it is shutting its doors, liquidating its assets and laying off its staff.The company, which first showed off its three-wheeler in 2007 and was working on a more conventional sedan, has long been struggling. Even as it unveiled the production model of the super-aerodynamic 2e electric car in April 2010, CEO Paul Wilbur all but pinned his company’s future on receiving a federal loan. Wilbur said in a statement today that Aptera came within spitting distance of turning things around but simply ran out of time and money.“After years of focused effort to bring our products to the market, Aptera Motors is closing its doors, effective today,” he said in the statement. “This is a difficult time for everyone connected with our company because we have never been closer to realizing our vision. Unfortunately, though, we are out of resources.”Wilbur said the company had been engaged in “exhaustive due diligence” with the Department of Energy and, having had its business plan “examined from top to bottom,” recently received a conditional commitment letter for $150 million under the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing loan program. That money would have underwritten development of a five-passenger, mid-sized electric sedan.“The last remaining hurdle was finding new funds to match the DOE loan,” Wilbur said. But the company, which had secured $40 million from private investors since 2007, was unable to even begin raising the $80 million needed to secure the loan, said Marques McCammon, Aptera’s chief marketing officer. However, the Energy Department told The New York Times that it was not conditionally committed to granting the loan.“I can confirm that Aptera did not receive a conditional commitment for a loan from the department,” Damien LaVera, an Energy Department spokesman, wrote in an e-mail to Times.Autopia Planes, Trains, Automobiles and the Future of Transportation Eventually, though, Wilbur realized the 2e would never be anything but a niche vehicle and switched gears, something potential investors made clear must happen. They wondered about the market demand for such a funky vehicle and the long-term viability of the company if it didn’t expand its product lineup. “Those were legitimate questions,” McCammon said. “And we heard them from the DOE as well.”So the company made the sedan — which McCammon said had always been part of the plan — its top priority and essentially mothballed the 2e after building a dozen prototypes. McCammon said Aptera had developed a composite manufacturing system that led to vehicles 30 percent lighter but three times stronger than conventional automobiles. The system also allowed for body panels to be manufactured with their finish already applied, eliminating the need for a paint shop. Aptera believed the process could save $750 million in manufacturing start-up costs.The company had built a styling model of the sedan and an engineering mule to test its drivetrain, and had in recent months begun looking into setting up shop in a mothballed auto factory in Ohio.In the end, though, it was too little, too late. Even with the DOE loan, Aptera simply couldn’t raise the money needed to go forward. So it is shutting its doors, liquidating its assets and laying off more than two dozen employees effective immediately.Read the full story here.

• Another Elderly Woman, 88-Year-Old Bubby Sherman, Says She Was Exposed At Kennedy Airport.(Matzav).Lenore Zimmerman, 85, was angry and embarrassed after what she claims was a strip search at Kennedy Airport Tuesday. Now another woman in her 80′s at the very same terminal says she was exposed one day before.From her home in Sunrise, Florida, 88-year-old Ruth Sherman says she knows for a fact senior citizens are being violated at a screening checkpoint at JFK.“I felt like I was invaded,” she told CBS 2′s Dave Carlin.Sherman says week-long Thanksgiving holiday with family in New York ended with an ordeal that started when the screeners wanted to check the bulge from Sherman’s colostomy bag.“This is private for me. It’s bad enough that I have it,” she said.“You don’t do that anybody,” she added. “I felt like I was invaded.”She says she initially complained to JetBlue and told her family, but is now going public after watching Zimmerman on television, recounting a frighteningly similar tale of what she says was her strip search, at the same JetBlue terminal at JFK, one day later.“They decide this 85-year-old lady needs to be strip searched,” Zimmerman said. “After they patted me down, they took me into a private room and they strip searched me. I said ‘why are you strip searching me? Do I like look a terrorist’?” she said.Zimmerman, who lives most of the year in Long Beach, Nassau County and spends the winters in South Florida, says she will sue the Transportation Security Agency. She said she wanted a patdown, that her defibrillator is why she cannot go through the machine, but that she never expected a strip search.The TSA released a statement Sunday, apologizing to Zimmerman but disputing her story.“TSA contacted the passenger to apologize that she feels she had an unpleasant screening experience; however, TSA does not include strip searches in its protocols and a strip search did not occur in this case,” the statement read.State Senator Michael Gianaris of Queens wonders how the TSA can be so sure. He says with no cameras in the private screening rooms, it is a screener’s word against the passenger’s.“It’s outrageous,” he said. “What they need to find out is exactly what happened and if someone crossed the line they need to be penalized.”“I missed my flight and I had to wait two and a half hours for the next one,” Zimmerman said.When she finally made it to her winter home in Coconut Creek, Florida, she called her son Bruce in Long Beach, Nassau County, who told CBS 2 the family plans to sue the TSA.“I do want them to have some sort of consequence. I think the two agents that escorted or initiated the strip search should be terminated,” Bruce Zimmerman said.Zimmerman will return to New York in early April, but admits that she is nervous after her experience.Both Sherman and Zimmerman say many times seniors are too cooperative and afraid to speak up when humiliated. Sherman wants that to change.CBS 2 contacted a TSA spokesman about Ruth Sherman’s alleged strip search and were told only that the TSA will research this new case.Hmmm...."Profiling Elderly Jewish women?"sounds so 1936 NAZI style.Read the full story here.

• Hypocrite? When Looking for Votes, Hillary Clinton Was Comfortable with Chareidi Traditions.(Matzav).Hillary Clinton is widely reported to have “expressed shock over growing discrimination against Israeli women. She mentioned cases of IDF soldiers leaving during performances of female singers and the fact that females sit in the back of buses in certain places in Israel.Clinton said that some of these phenomena reminded her of Iran.”Funny, that when looking for votes in her successful senate bid she was comfortable to visit the most gender separated and most secluded Hasidic Shtetl in the US (and very likely on earth), and during her primary campaign her surrogates marched in Williamsburg, with Satmar leaders, in a gender separated group.Haredi Jews have the rights to live their tradition in their neighborhoods. When campaigning for President Clinton understood it, as evident in the Jerusalem Post article “Clinton campaign marches to haredi Brooklyn beat .” According to the reporter, “female campaign staffers had to be sent to the back of the line of marchers so that there would not be any untoward mixing of the sexes. And then volunteers wearing Hebrew Hillary pins worked fast to remove the blue Stars of David stuck on their signs, lest they be confused with Israeli flags, a definite no-no in the anti-Zionist Satmar enclave.” This group included very hi-level Clinton supporters, like disgraced US Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-New York), who “shouted through a bullhorn.”BTW, it’s interesting to read in that piece that “Orthodox Assemblyman Dov Hikind, a longtime friend of Clinton’s, said that he supported her work in the Senate, he added he would not be taking time to return from Albany to cast a vote in the primary on her behalf. “I’m not that enthusiastic to rush back to vote for one or the other,” said Hikind. “With Clinton, it’s the old story. What does she really believe in? She is measuring how the wind is blowing.”He also said that many in the Orthodox community had not forgotten Clinton’s kissing Suha Arafat while she was first lady.“They can’t get over the kiss, which is ridiculous in my view.” Now, with the benefit of the hindsight and his outspokenness against Obama, should he have backed Clinton more strongly?It is also interesting that Simcha Felder said that he would be voting for Obama in “protest” of the racially-tinged tactics employed by the Clinton campaign in South Carolina last month.When vying for State and National office, Clinton understood that Haredim are entitled to live their life according to their traditions. Why are Jews in Israel any different? Why should they be forced to hear Kol B’Isha, or why shouldn’t they be entitled to voluntarily have separating seating arrangements on busses.The Secretary of State Clinton owes us an explanation, rather an apology.Read the full story here.

• Freedom Group Buying Large U.S. Firearms Companies.(NYT).LINED up in a gun rack beneath mounted deer heads is a Bushmaster Carbon 15, a matte-black semiautomatic rifle that looks as if it belongs to a SWAT team. On another rack rests a Teflon-coated Prairie Panther from DPMS Firearms, a supplier to the United States Border Patrol and security agencies in Iraq. On a third is a Remington 750 Woodsmaster, a popular hunting rifle.The variety of rifles and shotguns on sale here at Cabela’s, the national sporting goods chain, is a testament to America’s enduring gun culture. But, to a surprising degree, it is also a testament to something else: Wall Street deal-making.In recent years, many top-selling brands — including the 195-year-old Remington Arms, as well as Bushmaster Firearms and DPMS, leading makers of military-style semiautomatics — have quietly passed into the hands of a single private company. It is called the Freedom Group — and it is the most powerful and mysterious force in the American commercial gun industry today.Never heard of it?You’re not alone. Even within gun circles, the Freedom Group is something of an enigma. Its rise has been so swift that it has become the subject of wild speculation and grassy-knoll conspiracy theories. In the realm of consumer rifles and shotguns — long guns, in the trade — it is unrivaled in its size and reach. By its own count, the Freedom Group sold 1.2 million long guns and 2.6 billion rounds of ammunition in the 12 months ended March 2010, the most recent year for which figures are publicly available.Behind this giant is Cerberus Capital Management, the private investment company that first came to widespread attention when it acquired Chrysler in 2007. (Chrysler later had to be rescued by taxpayers). With far less fanfare, Cerberus, through the Freedom Group, has been buying big names in guns and ammo.After Bushmaster, the Freedom Group moved in on Remington, which traces its history to the days of flintlocks and today is supplying M24 sniper rifles to the government of Afghanistan and making handguns for the first time in decades. The group has also acquired Marlin Firearms, which turned out a special model for Annie Oakley, as well as Dakota Arms, a maker of high-end big-game rifles. It has bought DPMS Firearms, another maker of semiautomatic, military-style rifles, as well as manufacturers of ammunition and tactical clothing. “We believe our scale and product breadth are unmatched within the industry,” the Freedom Group said in a filing last year with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Here at Cabela’s, Mark Eliason, the vice president for sales and marketing at Windham Weaponry, a new competitor of Bushmaster that was established by Bushmaster’s founder, surveys the racks. He estimates that roughly 20 percent of the long guns for sale here are made by Freedom Group companies. In the aisles, he examines shelf upon shelf of ammunition. About a third of it comes from the Freedom Group, he says.“That’s a very large presence,” Mr. Eliason says. So large, in fact, that rumors about the Freedom Group — what it is, and who is behind it — have been circulating in the blogosphere. Some gun enthusiasts have claimed that the power behind the company is actually George Soros, the hedge-fund billionaire and liberal activist. Mr. Soros, these people have warned, is buying American gun companies so he can dismantle the industry, Second Amendment be damned. The chatter grew so loud that the National Rifle Association issued a statement in October denying the rumors. “N.R.A. has had contact with officials from Cerberus and Freedom Group for some time,” the N.R.A. assured its members. “The owners and investors involved are strong supporters of the Second Amendment and are avid hunters and shooters.” Mr. Soros isn’t behind the Freedom Group, but, ultimately, another financier is: Stephen A. Feinberg, the chief executive of Cerberus. Cerberus brings some connections to the table. The longtime chairman of its global investments group is Dan Quayle, the former vice president. The Freedom Group, meantime, has added two retired generals to its board. One is George A. Joulwan, who retired from the Army after serving as Supreme Allied Commander of Europe. The other is Michael W. Hagee, formerly commandant of the Marine Corps.Meantime, the Freedom Group, despite its place atop the industry, appears to be operating without an official chief executive of its own. Its most recent C.E.O., Theodore H. Torbeck, resigned in September 2010 and no replacement has been named. For the moment, a temporary office of the chief executive, led by Robert L. Nardelli, the Cerberus executive who oversaw Chrysler, is helping to lead the company “It’s a sensible strategy to roll up things,” says Gautam Khanna, an aerospace and military industry analyst at Cowen and Company. The issue is whether the Freedom Group, and Cerberus, can persuade more Americans to buy more guns. “That,” Mr. Khanna says, “is an open question.” Read the full story here.

• 'Israel could lose American Jewry'.(YNet).WASHINGTON – Before saying anything else about Jeffrey Goldberg you should know that he enlisted in the IDF during the first Intifada and served in the Military Police. He lived on Kibbutz Mishmar HaEmek for two years and spent another three years in Jerusalem. He speaks Hebrew like a native and understands life in Israel as only a local could. Which is why it is interesting to understand why Goldberg, one of the most respected columnists in the US on all things Middle East, decided to do battle against a campaign led by the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption.The campaign, encouraging Israelis who have left Israel to come back home so that their children will not lose contact with the Jewish State was one that American Jews found to be extremely offensive.A column he wrote for his blog on The Atlantic's website caused the wheels of Israeli diplomacy to turn swiftly until finally, Israel announced that it would be terminating the controversial campaign. Three videos produced by the Ministry depict "normal" scenarios from the daily lives of Israelis abroad, and urge them to "return home" before becoming "fully assimilated." One video suggests that Israelis should not marry non-Israeli partners, because they will never understand Israeli holidays such as the Soldiers and Victims of Terrorism Remembrance Day. A different ad shows a child trying to wake up his napping father by repeatedly calling out "daddy." However, the father only responds when the child finally calls him "aba" (Hebrew for "father")."The idea, communicated in these ads, that America is no place for a proper Jew," said Goldberg, who made aliyah and then left Israel five years later, so one might say that he knows both sides of the story.Goldberg noted that there are many Zionists in Israel and outside of it who think that Israel is the only place where Jews can prosper and flourish, no news there, but he adds that when he saw the ministry's ad campaign he found himself thinking Jews are afraid of Christmas – and laughed. He also noted the connection between the Israeli right and the Evangelist Christians in the US. Goldberg said that while understands the impulse behind the ads: "Israel wants as many of its citizens as possible to live in Israel. This is not an abnormal desire. But the way it is expressed, in wholly negative terms, is somewhat appalling. How about, 'Hey, come back to Israel, because our unemployment rate is half that of the US''? Or, 'It's always sunny in Israel?' Or, 'Hey, Shmulik, your mother misses you?'" Goldberg believes that American Jews are trying to understand Israeli far more than Israelis try to understand them. He states that the average American Jew reads that women in Jerusalem sit on the back of the bus and thinks to himself that he has no connection whatsoever with this country.He adds that young Israelis from Tel Aviv probably feel the same when they read that the right wing is making alliances with Evangelical Christians. Goldberg notes that it is obvious that there is a rift, when 80% of American Jews are culturally politically and religion-wise like 25% of Israelis, Jews in Washington can identify with what's happening in Tel Aviv but not Jerusalem or the settlements. He adds that there is a large gap between most Jews in the US and most Jews in Israel; Jews in the US are becoming more universal in their outlook while Israeli Jews are becoming more and more tribal in theirs. If the trend continues, he says, American Jews will see Israel as a far off foreign country. Goldberg also warned of the growing gulf between American Jews and their Israeli counterparts over issues related to democratic values. He said that the things happening in Israel today are like a mystery to the American Jews who scratch their heads and ask themselves what in the world is going on in Israel.Goldberg also spoke of the recent right-wing legislation, the exclusion of women from the public domain and the harm to freedom of expression. He noted that as American Jews, they were taught that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and that sadly, the recent legislation causes concerns – should Israel lose its democratic values, it will lose American Jewry. Read and see the full story here.

• Everything You Need to Know about Muslim Brotherhood.(DocsTalk).By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu.A former Muslim Brotherhood leader spells out its ideology: Muslims “are masters of the world” and Jihad should be waged against the “thieving gangs of Zion,” according to a Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) translation of the book by Mustafa Mashur, “Jihad is the Way."He was the official leader of the Muslim Brotherhood from 1996 until he died in 2002. The ideology in the book stands behind the “Freedom and Justice” party, the euphemism chosen by the Brotherhood as the name of its political party that won 40 percent of the votes in Egypt’s first-round legislative elections last week.Another Islamist party, representing the Salafists, won 20 percent, giving the Muslim fundamentalists a solid majority.Other choice quotes in the book: "The Islamic Ummah [nation]... [is] the most exalted nation among men;…you are the masters of the world, even if your enemies desire your degradation..." "Jihad and preparation towards Jihad are not only for the purpose of fending off assaults and attacks of Allah's enemies against Muslims, but are also for the purpose of realizing the great task of establishing an Islamic state and strengthening the religion and spreading it around the world..."...Jihad for Allah is not limited to the specific region of the Islamic countries, …and it shall continue to be raised, with the help of Allah, until every inch of the land of Islam will be liberated, the State of Islam will be established..."Then comes the power of arms and weapons,... and this is the role of Jihad…, a religious public duty... incumbent upon the Islamic nation, and is a personal duty to fend off the infidels' attack on the nation…“The problems of the Islamic world, such as Palestine, Afghanistan, Syria, Eritrea, or the Philippines,,…are problems of Islam and the Muslims, and they can be resolved neither by negotiation nor by recognizing the enemy's right to the Islamic land he stole. Rather, the only option is Jihad for Allah, and this is why Jihad is the way.”In light of the Obama administration’s recent overtures to the Muslim Brotherhood, such as opening dialogue with previously-shunned terrorist party, perhaps the most important comment in the book is an open statement of its strategy.“The Brotherhood is not rushed by youth's enthusiasm into immature and unplanned action which will not alter the bad reality and may even harm the Islamic activity, and will benefit the people of falsehood,” Mashur wrote in his book.He also advised every Muslim, “Prepare yourself and train in the art of warfare, and embrace the causes of power. You must learn the ways and manners and laws of war. You must learn them and embrace them and adhere to them, so that your Jihad will be the one accepted by Allah."Mashur not surprisingly preaches war against Israel. "Honorable brothers have achieved Shahada (Martyrdom) on the soil of beloved Palestine, during the years 47' and 48', in their Jihad against the criminal, thieving, gangs of Zion.”Hmmmm......Obama replaced Mubarak for these 'guys'.Read the full story here.

• Obama’s Muslim Brotherhood Favoritism Will Lead to War in the Middle East.(BigGovernment).By KeithDavies.Over the last year we have seen our government sell out Hosni Mubarak, the key leader who has brought relative peace and stability in the region. Instead, we have jumped on board with the “Arab Spring” which has led to Islamists taking power. My colleagues and I are not privy to CIA intelligence, but if we were able to predict such things based on common sense and our expertise in Middle East affairs, why could not our government see? Or maybe they can. It seems our government is infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood and, along with political correctness from politicians who choose reelection over common sense, has allowed the Middle East to become a powder keg ready to explode.President Obama chose military intervention to remove Qaddafi from power yet ignores Syria, and when the Iranian people were protesting, he ignored them as well. Why? It appears that the Muslim Brotherhood pulls the strings at the State Department. Many of Obama’s key advisers are Muslim Brotherhood operatives. The Muslim Brotherhood could not allow a secular free country to arise in Iran, which would be likely if the Mullahs were overthrown. Obama did their bidding, stood silent, and provided no aid.The situation in Syria is a little more complex, as military intervention could provoke Iran to war (being an Assad ally) as well as a major proxy war against Israel, but Turkey is ramping up pressure so the Muslim Brotherhood has already a key ally in the AKA party headed by Prime Minister Erdogan, who is part of the Muslim Brotherhood apparatus leveraging its power to undermine the Assad regime. Therefore, the Muslim Brotherhood does not need the USA to do its heavy lifting in Syria. It is only a matter of time before Assad is forced out. The mainstream media are so stupid with regards to the Middle East that they do not even know what they don’t know. “The Arab Spring is about freedom” is ridiculous. While the spark may have been about freedom, the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamists have used this spark to achieve their goals, which is the sixth Caliphate, and have almost succeeded with the finishing line in sight.Leon Panetta, adding to the complete folly of US policy in the Middle East, has criticized the United States’ so-called ally Israel for not reaching out to Turkey and Egypt. However, Israel is the only one that does the reaching out, and it appears the more reaching out it does, the bigger the black eye it gets. Ironically, when it was forced to use military force to defend itself in the past, the aftermath of those conflicts brought more stability and peace than when they “reached out.” Over sixty years of reaching out to the world, and still people like Leon Panetta seem to think that just one more time will make a difference and will sway world opinion. How many times have I heard that story over the last thirty years? One example for the doubters was the withdrawal from Gaza, which did not improve relations with the Arabs but instead caused thousands of rockets to rain down on Israel’s southern border.The policy of the USA from 1979 to the present has now made the whole of the Middle East an unstable war zone with Shia Mullahs in Iran and now from Turkey, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen, and soon, Syria and others will come under the influence of the Nazi-style Muslim Brotherhood. We contend that Obama has deliberately brought on this because of his radical agenda and has been allowed to succeed with a combination of infiltration, naivety and political correctness.Turkey is the key, and it will take over influence of the whole of the Sunni Middle East, using calls for peace to deceive, and when it achieves its goals of power it will then wage war against Israel. Iran will flex its muscles and will achieve its goal in gaining a nuclear weapon and will use that weapon against Saudi Arabia. After Saudi Arabia is destroyed, then all focus will be on Jerusalem.Hmmmm.....And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it…. ~ Zech. 12:3.Read the full story here.

• Jewish teenagers in Belgium leave their schools because of anti-Semitism, Belgium autorities covering up.(Docstalk).Like every Friday, as part of the day school activities, 13-year-old Oceane Sluijzer goes to the sport training center in Neder-Over-Hembeek, a Brussels suburb, where she plays football. There she meets other girls from the same nearby secondary public school. Many of them are from Moroccan origin and Oceane feels sometimes difficult to be integrated and to be treated well. She was in fact excluded from the group because of her look, she is blond, and because she is not of Arab descent, she says.Two weeks ago, the shy Jewish girl came as usual at the center and found again the same situation. But this time she started a discussion. “Why don’t you respect me?,” she asked a group of four girls. “Is it because I am not Arab?”. Then, after the discussion heated up, one of the Muslim girl, the group leader, shouted at her: “Dirty Jew, shut up and return to your country,” words that she repeated.Oceane didn’t know how to react to the anti-Semitic insult but responded: "I will not shut up and I am already in my country."She then received two slaps in the face before being badly beaten by one of the girl for several minutes. It was only thanks to her Indian girlfriend that she could get out of the situation. "If she would not have been present, my daughther would maybe have been killed," explained her father, 44-year-old Dan Sluijzer.Suffering a head concussion and face injuries, she went to hospital. She talked on the phone to her father who told her to go straight to the police station to fill a complaint.Since then she didn’t return to her school and was so scared that she even didn’t went out of her home. But she decided to change of school. The Jewish school was one option, but she felt Hebrew and religion were “too much” for her in the middle of the year.In an joint interview with Israel’s daily newspaper Yediot Aharonot and European Jewish Press, last Thursday, along with her father, the girl said policemen told her that the four girls would be questioned, would be told that this was not permitted and that if they do it again the complaint would go further.Police reportedly asked the girl and her father not to say that this was an anti-Semitic act."I feel better today than when it happened but it is still difficult for me psychologically because I cannot understand this violence, that such things can happen. I would never imagine that things can go to that point.""The problem is that the other youths, who are not Muslims, are scared and don’t want to react or intervene," Dan Sluijzer, a professional actor, said.She even didn’t heard from her school after the aggression, not from the headmaster nor from teachers or classmates. "I only received support phone calls facebook messages from fellow comrades of the Hashomer Hatsair youth movement."Already before the event took place, the father went to see the school principal to make him understand that there was a problem of anti-Semitism in his school."He told me: Mr Sluijzer, they are kids. Don’t generalize what happens." Oceane and her 16-year-old sister Salome are the sole Jewish students of the “Athenee Les Pagodes”, a school in a quiet neighborhood of mixed social population.Oceane’s father believes that the new school, located in a different area of the city, will be able to protect her this time . "Jewish religion is teached. This didn’t exist in the other school." Oceane doesn’t feel that her attackers are the "winners" because she left. One of the girl was expelled definitively from the school and two others for three days. They were told to prepare a research work on the Holocaust and the deportation of Jews.The school principal declined any comment to Yediot Aharonot and EJP "because there is an appeal from the sanctioned girls still pending," said Faouzia Hariche, who is in charge of public instruction in the city of Brussels.Dan Sluijzer deplored the indifference of the Belgian authorities "like it was in 1940." . "They prefer to let people fight each other." Only Brussels Jewish parliamentarian Viviane Teitelbaum reacted and was to first to inform about the aggression. In the beginning Sluijzer felt "hatred towards the Muslims but also towards the authorities because nobody say or do something.""I would have expected from political parties to tell my daughter: we understand what happened and we will act so that this could not happen again." "Unfortunately nothing happened," deplored Dan Sluizer, whose father’s family members in Holland were deported to Auschwitz. Only two of them survived.Sluijzer thinks that Israel "doesn’t protect Jews in the world enough." and "that’s why Arabs attack Jews.""Jews in the world are fighting for Israel. When people attack Israel, it’s like they attack me. So when somebody attacks me I want also Israel to be next to me."” But he thinks that the responsibility to protect the Jews lies more in hands of the local authorities.Besides the aggression against Oceane Sluijzer, Jewish groups also reported the case of a 16-year-old Jewish student at the upscale European Brussels School where boys of the same age repeatedly called her “Dirty Jew” and harassed her because they disagree with Israel’s policy towards the Palestinians.Her mother complained to the school but the reaction was rather unsatisfactory. Camille left for the Ganenou Jewish secondary school."It is unfair, the victim must leave," commented the mother."Why are Jews in Belgium scared?," titled a Belgian magazine.Hmmm......How about Antisemitism?Read the full story here.

• Afghanistan could become Obama's "Stalingrad Kessel".(StratRisks).With the Russian threat to cut land routes for supply to Nato troops in Afghanistan, the Afghan battleground may turn into a cold deathtrap for Nato, defence analysts believe. They say that Pakistan should utilise the opportunity for a peaceful and prosperous Pakistan by pulling it out of the American war.Russia has threatened to cut off Nato supply routes to Afghanistan if the alliance doesn’t compromise on its missile defence plans. “If Nato doesn’t give a serious response, we have to address matters in relations in other areas,” Russian news services reported. Russia’s cooperation on Afghanistan may be an area for review, the news services reported.Pakistan has already cut the Nato supply route after the Mohmand Agency attack by Nato troops that killed twenty-six Pakistani soldiers.Lieutenant General (r) Hameed Gul while talking to The News said that Russia would utilise every option to take revenge from the Americans and time has come for the Russians to do this. He said that Russia wants to join hands with Pakistan and Pakistan should reconsider its policy towards Russia. “Americans and Nato troops have been strangled in Afghanistan and time has come for Pakistan to avail the opportunity that it missed on 9/11 to regain the respect and sovereignty”, Gul said.He mentioned that Americans will have to leave Afghanistan and will ask for concessions and Pakistan should negotiate with them for their exit. If Russia cuts the supply then the route will be from Georgia to Baku and then to Azerbaijan, which means NATO will never get the supply, said Gul. “Now Nato troops will have to exit Vietnam style, and that too by using Pakistan’s airspace because Iran will never let USA use its airspace”, the retired general said. He mentioned that the war against terror that was started with our own people will come to an end at once and there will be peace in no time once the Americans leave Afghanistan. He said that Indian interests in Afghanistan were growing but India will get nothing from Afghanistan.Maria Sultan, defence analyst, while talking to this correspondent said that if the Russians also cut the supply line of Nato then it will turn out to be cold death for Nato troops. “They will literally be strangled in Afghanistan with 90,000 troops and as they admit that they have reserves for three months which actually means they have reserves for two months and then Nato will have to airlift the troops and during the airlift only 15 to 20 percent can be alive out of the 90,000 troops”, Maria said.She mentioned that in Afghanistan, everything comes from outside and the insurgency this year has been very high as 700 causalities have been reported. Therefore after the Russian decision, Afghanistan will turn into a reverse Kargil for Nato. “They will have weapons but no bullets to fire; and if Pakistan shuts the air corridors on Nato then it would be a cold death for them and America will have to renegotiate with Pakistan”, she said.Hmmmm.....A community agitator as 'Commander - in - Chief?The Germans at Stalingrad had a Corporal.Read the full story here.

• Israel, Egyptian Copts worry over majority Islamist win in Egypt’s election.(AlArabiya).Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called on Egypt’s future rulers to maintain a peace treaty with Israel after Islamists took a surging lead in the Arab country’s first round of elections.“We hope any future government in Egypt will recognize the importance of keeping the peace treaty with Israel in its own right and as a basis for regional security and economic stability,” Netanyahu said in his first public comments on the issue since the Egyptian vote.Earlier, the Israeli finance minister had also voiced concerns. “We are worried, I hope that democracy will prevail in Egypt and that the country won’t become an extremist Islamist state because that would put the whole region in danger,” Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz told Israel public radio.The reaction in the Israeli press was clear: “It’s even worse than expected,” one security agency official told the top-selling Yediot Aharonot.“What was once a danger has become a threat,” the newspaper itself commented.Meanwhile, Egyptian Copts, the Middle East’s biggest Christian community, voiced their concern about Egypt’s political future.“All Coptics are very worried. We didn’t expect this,” Girgis Szaki, a 42-year-old engineer with two children told AFP. “We wanted some liberals to be elected. In the other stages, maybe there’ll be a change.”“A lot of Christians are now saying that the Mubarak era was better than now, but I don’t agree,” Eman Seif, a 53-year-old doctor, told AFP as she left.“We were surprised but we are still optimistic. This is democracy now and this is the real opinion of Egyptians. The secular section is still fighting.”She expressed dismay, however, that relations between Christians and Muslims were tense, which she blamed on the increasing import of the ultra-conservative Salafi strain of Islam from the Gulf.A pharmacist in her 40s, who asked not to be named because it was “dangerous” to speak on the subject, repeated the widely expressed fear that the Islamists wanted to turn Egypt into Afghanistan.“All women will be veiled. They will wreck our tourism industry,” she said.George Wiza, a 44-year-old electrical engineer, called it a “black day.”The Muslim Brotherhood won 36.62 percent of the vote, followed by the hard-line Salafist al-Nur party with 24.36 and the moderate Al-Wasat with 4.27, according to a chart provided by elections committee secretary general Yusri Abdel Karim.Abdel Karim said that the committee would not provide percentages until the end of voting on January 10, but according to an official chart he provided the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party list won 3.56 million out of 9.73 million valid ballots.The al-Nur party won 2.37 million, and the Wasat party 415,590 votes.The liberal coalition the Egyptian Bloc received 13.35 percent, with 1.29 million votes. The percentages cannot be calculated into the number of seats each party list will receive until the final results for the whole country are in.Amr Moussa, a front-runner for Egypt’s presidency, said on Sunday the strong Islamist showing in the first parliamentary election since army generals replaced Hosni Mubarak in February had to be swallowed as democracy in action.The Muslim Brotherhood has also urged its rivals to “accept the will of the people” after a first-round vote set its party on course to take the most seats in parliament, with a hardline Salafi Islamist party thrusting liberals into third place.Overall election results suggest Islamist parties, while not united, may wield a two-thirds majority in parliament.“I believe the constitutional debate will be a very serious and tough one. I don’t think any party can impose its own language or principles,” Moussa said. “The constitution will have to be the outcome of consensus and general debate among the people. The liberal camp is also strong.”The Salafis are expected to demand that purist Islamist codes be reflected in the constitution and other legislation, forcing the Brotherhood to defend its own Islamist image.“The Salafis are certainly going to insert religion and identity into the political discourse like never before,” said Shadi Hamid, director of research at the Brookings Doha Center.“The Brotherhood is going to come under pressure from the right. It runs the risk of losing supporters to the Salafis if it is not seen to be authentically Islamist enough.”The constitution, to be written by a constituent assembly chosen by parliament, may go to a referendum before a presidential election in June, under an accelerated timetable for a handover to civilian rule.The generals, who had envisaged keeping power until end-2012 or beyond, agreed to a speedier transfer after last month’s bloody street protests against army rule killed 42 people.The man they appointed to lead a new interim cabinet was quoted on Saturday as saying he would not name his ministerial line-up until Wednesday, in the latest of several delays.Hmmmm....In the long run a 'separate' Coptic Egyptian state would be the best solution.Might be a great 'bufferstate' for Israel.Read the full story here.

• Iranian newspaper banned over ‘provocative’ content, journalists’ behavior.(AlArabiya).The Public Relations Division at Iran’s Ministry of Guidance and Islamic Culture announced it has banned a weekly newspaper for the “provocative” topics it discusses and the “indecent” behavior of its female journalists. A ban will was imposed on the weekly newspaper Sokhn Tazah, which is published in the central province of Kerman and specializes in culture, society, and the arts, for violating public morality, said the head of the ministry’s Public Relations Division, Ahmed Saeidi. “Throughout the past years, we have noticed that the paper is publishing provocative topics and we have warned them several times,” he said.According to Saeidi, the paper tackles issues that are not stated in its official papers and constantly criticizes government polices. This led the Revolutionary Court to issue an order to shut it down.“According to the complaint filed at the court, the paper’s editor-in-chief, Batoul Hashemi, is charged with spreading lies and inciting public opinion through publishing topics that promote the practice of corruption. She also published stories that threaten national security,” said Saeidi Hashemi, he added, also allows the publishing of stories and photographs that violate public decency.Another reason for banning the paper, Saeidi explained, was the behavior of the journalists working there.“The journalists in the paper are known for not abiding by the veil and for wearing too much makeup that exceed that permitted limit.” The conference was attended by the imam of the province’s capital, Kerman, who is the representative of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei in the province. His presence was seen as a clear sign of the supreme leader’s consent to the procedure of banning the paper.Hmmm....I can't help wondering what's the 'permitted limit"?Read the full story here.

• For Egypt’s gays, sexual harassment is an untold problem.(BikyaMasr).CAIRO: Though an ongoing societal problem, more and more women in Egypt have come forward in recent years to address the issue of sexual harassment and violence in their daily lives. Taboos have been tackled through grassroots activism, and women have worked to engage a constructive public discourse on the issue.However, another group– largely ignored and demonized in much of Egyptian society– suffers from untold instances of sexual abuse as well.For Egypt’s gay population, sexual harassment is a daily struggle that has gone largely unreported.“He started using really flirty language and started to touch my legs a lot. Then he asked me to take my shoes off,” says Karim, a 20-year-old university student at Misr University for Science and Technology, recounting the sexual assault he suffered at the hands of a taxi driver.“I cried a lot. I didn’t even know I was gay at the time,” he said. He was just 14 years old.Just as many women fail to report sexual assaults and rape in Egypt for fear or shame and embarrassment, the gay community in Egypt stands in the same predicament.However, Mostafa, an outgoing, lively, 20-year-old university student told Bikyamasr.com that he is not shy to talk about his experiences with sexual harassment.“It hasn’t happened just once. I’ve been stalked and grabbed. I’ve had guys on the Metro try and rub their crotches in my butt. When I would move, they would follow me.”“Taxis have driven by me, catcalling and asking me how much for the night. One even tried to show me his penis. Once, I broke the window of a taxi after the driver wouldn’t stop harassing me. I wear jeans and a t-shirt, just like everyone else,” he said.Both Mostafa and Karim share similar stories of cars driving by them with passengers inside trying to offer them money for sex, relentlessly harassing them.Sarah, a 24-year-old lesbian from Alexandria tell of similar abuses.“Many times as I walk alone, people harass me for simply being a woman. However, having short hair and being dressed in pants and shirts all the time adds something else to the daily problems,” she recounted.“I once was stalked for over 4 blocks by a group of young men, all talking about was which gender I was. One said I was a gay man and threw stones at me from the back before running away.”“Another time a man grabbed my ass in the street, telling his friend that he would prove that I am a woman if I have a ‘tender ass.’ Every time these things happen, I go home and I cry myself to sleep, wishing I lived in a different country, thinking about other girls who go through the same,” Sarah continued.“I am unlucky as I get double the harassment. Never mind of course are the urges from everyone to look more feminine and let my hair grow and dress more appropriately. I am even told that I will go to hell if I continue to look like a boy,” she said.Though Egypt is in a state of societal overhaul since the January 25 Revolution that toppled the regime of former President Hosni Mubarak, not much has changed for the nation’s gay community.A Facebook group was recently created to hold a National Day of Egyptian Gays march in Tahrir Square on January 1, 2012. However, the page was flooded with angry comments, promising protestors violence and death if the march went through. Even liberal activists failed to support the movement, questioning whether now is the right time or place for “such a thing.”Meanwhile, abuses against gays in Egypt continue under the barrier of fear and silence.Hassan, a gay 24-year-old recent university graduate recounts his shaking sexual assault in a Cairo hotel. After meeting an acquaintance for a drink at the hotel bar, he was invited up to the man’s room.The man gave him a mixed drink from what was seemingly a closed bottle. However, Hassan soon began to feel tired and dizzy. He expressed his discomfort and sat down to avoid fainting. Two other men came out from another part of the hotel room and started to try and undress Hassan.He fought and screamed, and with the little bit of consciousness and strength he had left, he was able to escape.The incident was an attempted rape– an attempted rape that will never be prosecuted nor reported because Hassan is gay.“They wouldn’t care,” Hassan said simply when he was asked if he called the police. “If I tell them what happened they will say it’s because I’m gay, and it’s my fault.”Gays in Egypt have no protection from the law in situations like Hassan’s. If they were to report a rape or a sexual assault, they themselves could even face imprisonment.In 2001, 52 allegedly gay men dubbed the “Cairo 52” were arrested on the Queen’s Boat, a floating nightclub in Cairo. The event became a highly publicized news story. The men were charged with “habitual debauchery” and “obscene behavior,” along with “contempt of religion.”While in detention, officials performed anal examinations on the men to “test” whether they were homosexual– but more so to further humiliate them.21 of the men were sentenced to three years in prison.The arrest of the Cairo 52 further stigmatized an already discriminated population in Egypt. It made many men who were beginning to feel as though they could live some sort of normal life lose all hope.Homosexual acts and acts of harassment and sodomy have been used as a deliberate act of torture practiced by Egyptian security officials.In 2006, a graphic video surfaced on the Internet of Imad Kabir, a mini-bus driver, being sodomized with a stick by police officers in an Egyptian police station as he pleaded for them to stop. The police officers took the video with the intention of showing it to Kabir’s co-workers to further his embarrassment.Kabir was later sentenced to jail time for resisting arrest.The latest case of such torture is that of Essam Atta, who died from internal bleeding after being repeatedly sodomized by prison guards who used water hoses to pump soap and water into his mouth and anus.Sexual harassment in Egypt is ostensibly aimed toward anyone who appears as if they cannot fight back– young teenage boys, foreign and Egyptian women alike, and even those in a cell.The longer society oppresses sexuality, the more hostile the society becomes.When a young man is told he cannot date, touch, or even see a woman because of the evils that will ferment, the more frustrated that young man is to become. With frustration comes aggression, and with aggression comes the surety that others will suffer.Under constant fear of persecution, arrest, and abandonment, Egypt’s gay community remains silent. There is no one to turn to, because when you have something to hide, you have that much more to fear.“It’s not about the government giving us our rights,” says Hassan. “It’s about the people themselves starting to accept us as normal people. I’ll deal with the harassment that will come from being out as long as I can live as I wish.”Read the full story here.