* Impossible to return to talks with current Israeli gov’t Abbas says Palestinians have 7 options if talks fail, dismisses anything short of full freeze

* Zahar: Jews will soon be expelled from Palestine Hamas leader says Jews were kicked out by France, Britain, Russia and Germany “because they betrayed, stole and corrupted these countries.”

* Kuwaiti paper calls for unconditional talks with Israel ‘Arab Times’ editorial calls on PA president Abbas to follow in Anwar Sadat’s footsteps and “cause international embarrassment for Israel.”

* Yemen Muslim cleric al-Awlaki in US death threat video A radical US-born Yemeni Islamist cleric has called for the killing of Americans in a new video message posted on radical web sites.

* Another US Campus is Home to Medieval Anti-Semitism It would take a lot to shock a guy like Noam Bedein, who runs the Sderot Media Center.

* Obama backs India on permanent UN Security Council seat US President Barack Obama has backed India’s ambition for permanent membership of the UN Security Council.

* Iraqi leaders hold government power-sharing talks Leaders of Iraq’s main political blocs have met publicly for the first time since March elections in a bid to break the eight-month political deadlock.

* Jordanian Politicians Fear PA State at Home Anger at Israel expressed this week during Jordan’s parliamentary election campaign.

* Pope defends family as Spanish gays hold ‘kiss-in’ Pope Benedict XVI strongly defended traditional families and the rights of the unborn Sunday.

* Russia’s Putin races Formula One car in new stunt Prime Minister Vladimir Putin Sunday burned rubber on a racing circuit in a Formula One car.

Regional forces of subversion have linked up with local Islamists and are turning Yemen into a hub of instability.

The revelations this week of a sophisticated plot emanating from the Yemen-based al- Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula organization have belatedly refocused attention on this most backward and poverty stricken of Arab states. The sending of explosive packages to synagogues in Chicago is only the latest act of international terror to have emerged from Yemen in the last year.

Yemen today exemplifies the central malaise of the Arab world in particularly acute form. Throughout the Arabic-speaking world, failed development, a political culture in which extremist Islamist ideology thrives and Iranian interference and subversion from outside serve to create a breeding ground for political violence to grow and proliferate.

Only in areas where strong and shrewd (though unrepresentative) state regimes exist – such as Egypt, Jordan and, in a more problematic way, Saudi Arabia – is the lid uneasily kept on this boiling cauldron.

Yemen is one of the weakest of Arab state regimes.

As a result, regional forces of subversion have linked up with local Islamists and are turning the country into a hub of instability – playing host today to no fewer than three separate armed insurgencies.

Yemen is the poorest Arab country; 40 percent of its people live on less than $2 a day. The country’s steadily depleting oil reserves are unable to generate sufficient income for the government to maintain the tribal patronage system on which it depends. Gas exports are failing to make up the shortfall. Yemen’s water supplies are also dwindling.

The regime of President Ali Saleh is autocratic, inefficient and largely ineffectual. Its economic policies have failed to develop the country. It rules in name only over large areas of the country.

Poverty, illiteracy, extremism and discontent are salient aspects of today’s reality in Yemen. And like Afghanistan and Sudan before it, Yemen is becoming a key regional base for al-Qaida. Unlike in these other two countries, in Yemen this has come about not because of an agreement reached between the jihadis and the authorities; rather, the inability of the Yemeni authorities to impose their rule throughout their country, coupled with the close proximity of Yemen to Saudi Arabia – a key target for al-Qaida – has made the country a tempting prospect for the terrorists.

AL-QAIDA IN THE Arabian Peninsula is a relatively recent addition to the various networks laying claim to the name made famous by Osama bin Laden. It emerged at the beginning of last year, when the hitherto little-heard-of Yemeni franchise of al-Qaida merged with the Saudi franchise. The Saudi jihadis were facing an increasingly effective counterterror campaign by the authorities, and therefore decided to shift focus to lightly-governed Yemen.

Through its organizing of the failed attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 in December 2009, AQAP made its bid for entry to the major leagues of the global jihad. Its guiding spirit, US born Islamist ideologue Anwar al-Awlaki, was in touch with US Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the officer who murdered a number of his fellow servicemen at Fort Hood, Texas, a year ago.

The latest bomb plot now confirms AQAP’s status as the most powerful “branch” of al-Qaida outside of Pakistan and Afghanistan. There are those who believe that the Yemen-based network has surpassed Bin Laden’s group as the primary terror threat to the West in general and the US in particular.

Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, however, is only one of the insurgencies to have taken root in blighted Yemen.

In addition to its hosting of the most active element of the global jihad, the country faces a separatist campaign in the south. Yemen was only reunified in 1990, and has since suffered a brief civil war in 1994.

The separatist insurgency led by Islamist tribal leader and former Bin Laden associate Tareq al-Fadhli grew in intensity during 2009 and has continued this year, with stormy demonstrations and armed confrontations leading to deaths on both sides.

Probably the most militarily significant of the three Islamist insurgencies was that of the Houthi rebels in the Saada district in the north. The Zaidi Shi’ite rebels of the al-Houthi clan have been engaged in an insurgency against the Yemeni authorities since 2004. Quelling the uprising proved beyond the capabilities of the Yemeni government.

In late 2009, the Shi’ite Houthis extended their activities across the border to Saudi Arabia. Their close proximity to the Saudi border made them a useful tool for Iran to pressure Riyadh. Responding to rebel attacks late last year, the Saudis struck back with aircraft and helicopter gunships. Iran was closely involved in this Shi’ite insurgency, sending regular arms shipments to the Houthis and continuing to stoke the flames of the rebellion.

Saudi involvement and Western pressure led to a cease-fire between the government and the Houthi rebels being reached in February. This was reaffirmed at the end of August, though the underlying causes for the violence remain unresolved.

So the situation in Yemen is one of a near-failed state, notionally aligned with the West but currently unable to effectively impose security throughout its territory. As elsewhere in the region, the resulting vacuum has rapidly been filled by the various, virulent malignancies that affect the regional body politic.

As for the solution, there is no magic formula.

But US President Barack Obama can ill afford yet another ground deployment, with its inevitable cost in American lives. So it is most likely that increased investment in building up Yemen’s security forces on the ground, increased deployment of intelligence assets in the country and the occasional use of targeted missile strikes on al-Qaida’s infrastructure will be the preferred path.

Saudi intelligence is reported to have played a vital role in intercepting the packages. Saudi involvement also helped to end the Houthi insurgency, at least for now. The lesson here is that for all the problematic nature of regional regimes, the dangers of Iran and the global jihad thrive best where, as in Yemen and elsewhere in the region, strong central government has broken down.

The Ethiopian Jewish community celebrated the holiday of Sigd this week. The holiday is observed in Israel with a fast and a gathering in Jerusalem, during which religious leaders read from the Torah in Gez Amharic. The fast is then broken and celebrations begin with food and dancing. In Ethiopia, the holiday was a day of longing for Israel for the Beta-Israel community. They would ascend to the highest spot in whaterver area they lived and face Jerusalem, the symbol of heavenly holiness and longing for Zion to them and pray for redemption. The holiday, which hails from the days of Ezra the Scribe in Ethiopian tradition takes place 49 days after Yom Kippur as they counted that period instead of the days from Passover to Shavuot as does the rest of world Jewry.

Rabbi Chaim Druckman of the Or Etzion yeshiva took part in a Sigd celebration at the Or M’Ofir academy, which prepares Ethiopian-Israeli young men for their military service and for academic life afterward.

“Nothing expresses the eternity of the Jewish people like Ethiopian Jewry does,” Rabbi Druckman said. “The aliyah [immigration] of Ethiopian Jewry to Israel is a miracle of miracles, and the connection Ethiopian Jews have to the land of Israel, which is expressed through this holiday, is supernatural.”

Addressing his young audience, the rabbi said, “We are proud of you and we love you. You have a great mission to fulfill in the Ethiopian community, which throughout the years was dedicated to Torah and holiness. You must continue that chain. That is your mission – to lead. To lead the community to move forward with faith.”

Or M’Ofir, established in 1995, is part of the yeshiva system headed by Rabbi Druckman. The school teaches students Torah while preparing them for the army, and in addition, helps young men who have not completed their Bagrut (Matriculation) tests to do so, in order to prepare them for higher education after the army. Many other religious Zionist institutions, including youth villages, yeshivas and ulpenas as well as religious girls doing National Service in the area of absorption have taken an active part in Ethiopian Jewry’s integration into Israeli society.

Students at the pre-military academy put on a presentation in honor of Sigd in which they focused on the place Ethiopian immigrants hold in Israeli society. The presentation illustrated both the discrimination that many Ethiopian-Israelis face in the academic world and in the workplace, and the young students’ determination to overcome discrimination and take on leadership roles in society.

The central Sigd celebration took place in Jerusalem and INN reporter Ben Bresky photographed it for INN readers to see this ancient community celebrating the ingathering of the exiles.

Al-Qaida’s front group in Iraq has threatened more attacks on Christians after a siege on a Baghdad church that left 58 people dead, linking the warning to claims that Egypt’s Coptic Church is holding women captive for converting to Islam.

The Islamic State of Iraq, which has already claimed responsibility for Sunday’s assault on a Catholic church Mass in downtown Baghdad, said its deadline for Egypt’s Copts to release the women had expired and its fighters would attack Christians wherever they can be reached.

“We will open upon them the doors of destruction and rivers of blood,” the insurgent group said in a statement posted late Tuesday on militant websites.

The Islamic State of Iraq is an umbrella group that includes al-Qaida in Iraq and other allied Sunni insurgent factions. It is unclear exactly what led the group to seize on conversion disputes between Egypt’s Muslims and its minority Christians.

In announcing its reasons for Sunday’s attack, the group said it had given the Coptic Church 48 hours to release the women it says had converted to Islam. The group also demanded the release of al-Qaida-linked prisoners held in Iraq.

“All Christian centers, organizations and institutions, leaders and followers are legitimate targets for the muhajedeen (holy warriors) wherever they can reach them,” it said.

The group specifically mentioned two Egyptian women married to Coptic priests, whom some believe converted to Islam to leave their husbands as divorce is banned by the church.

Over the past few years in Egypt, arguments over these kinds of alleged conversions have exacerbated Muslim-Christian tensions already high over issues like the construction of new churches. The two communities generally live in peace, though clashes have taken place.

The conversion issue has become a rallying point for hard-line Islamists in Egypt.

The Baghdad church siege horrified Iraq’s Christian community, hundreds of whom gathered Tuesday for a memorial service in Baghdad. One of the officials read a letter from Pope Benedict XVI to the crowd.

“For years the violence hasn’t stopped hitting this country, and Christians are becoming the target of these cruel terrorist attacks,” the letter read.

Sunday’s attack was the deadliest ever recorded against Iraq’s Christians, whose numbers have plummeted since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion as the community has fled to other countries.

On Tuesday, it was Iraq’s Shiite Muslims who bore the brunt of violence after 13 attacks struck neighborhoods across the capital.

The death toll in that violence climbed to 91 people by Wednesday, according to Iraqi police and hospital officials. No breakdown of the new death toll was immediately available. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.

Those attacks evoked painful memories of the bloody sectarian war between Iraq’s Sunni and Shiite militias fought in 2006 and 2007, which killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians.

The bombings hit civilians at restaurants and cafes where many Iraqis gather to enjoy the balmy evenings. The attacks demonstrated the insurgents’ ability to still carry out coordinated strikes from one end of Baghdad to the other despite a network of police and army checkpoints and blast walls crisscrossing the capital.

Iraqi state TV aired footage Wednesday of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki visiting victims of the blasts in Baghdad’s hospitals. The televised trips to civilians injured in attacks were a first for al-Maliki since he took office in 2006 — the year the country broke down along sectarian lines, prompting tit-for-tat killings between Sunnis and Shiites, driving millions of Iraqis from their homes and the country.

Al-Maliki has been struggling to keep his job since his Shiite-dominated alliance was narrowly defeated by the Sunni-backed bloc of former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi in the March 7 parliamentary election.

Neither bloc won an outright majority, setting up a prolonged contentious fight for allies that has left the government stalemated and Iraq’s nascent political process deadlocked.

A new government still seems weeks, if not month away, though there was a glimmer of hope for progress when parliament’s acting speaker, Fouad Massoum, called the lawmakers to convene on Monday and elect his successor.

Last week, Iraq’s highest court ordered the 325 lawmakers back to work after a virtual eight-month recess. The parliament has met only once since the March 7 vote for just 20 minutes to allow more time to choose a new leadership.

Under the constitution, parliament was required to meet within 15 days of final court approval of election results and choose a speaker and then later a president.

The appointments had to be put off because they are part of the negotiations over the rest of the new leadership — including a prime minister and top Cabinet officials.

It is now clear that the West has no coherent strategies to cope with Iran and Turkey, the two important powers in the greater Middle East.

Iran and Turkey dominate this zone of the greater Middle East, which extends from the Caucasus and Central Asia to the Indian Ocean, and from the Pamir Mountains to the Mediterranean. It is a region which contains perhaps 70 percent of the world’s known oil and gas energy reserves, is a major center of religious and ethnic rivalry; and is home to the Arab-Israeli dispute, international terrorism, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

If the West is to cope with this reality, then it needs to better understand both of these powers, historically, and to understand the nature of the force which essentially drives them: political Islam.

Iran and the Ottoman Turks experienced conflict and occasional wars for almost 250 years, but there has been no serious war between Iran and Turkey since 1747 (the battle of Kars). Border disputes, however, have persisted between them.

After World War I, the Ottoman Empire disintegrated and the Turkish Republic came into existence in 1922. When Reza Khan came to power in Iran and founded the Pahlavi dynasty in 1925, and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk came to power in Turkey, relations and cooperation between the two countries improved and it continues to the present day. During the Cold War, both were allies of the U.S. and formed a line — or, indeed, a “Northern Tier” — against the USSR. In 1953, U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, during his trip to the Middle East, for the first time referred to the “Northern Tier” as a political/military concept aimed at a collective security region on the southern borders of the Soviet Union.

The situation changed, however, after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Now, Iran and Turkey keep their distance from the U.S. and are close to Russia and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Iran changed its direction in 1979 to the detriment of U.S. interests, and changed the balance of power in the region against the U.S. and the West.

This change also marked the beginning of the rise of political Islam and modern jihadist movement, often exemplified by international terrorism, and mostly as a result of the growing weakness and strategic miscalculations of several U.S. administrations.

Iranian history and Persian culture have been exemplified by tolerance and religious freedom, but the theocratic administration which emerged in 1979 in Iran was an aberration; it not only propagates radical Islam, but it also attempts to destroy and extirpate the roots of Persian history, civilization, and culture which, for three millennia, have been the strategic reserve and guardian of Iran. The theocratic administration continues to obliterate memories and appreciation of Iran’s past glories, and has consistently held a policy of indoctrinating students in schools and universities. Anti-democratic and anti-female behavior has become emphasized by the clerical leadership, as has enmity towards recognition of Iran’s non-Muslim past.

Ideological opposition to United States’ policy in the Middle East and toward Israel is fundamental. Clerical Iranian policies of support for militant groups, alliance with radical leaders, and denial of the Jewish Holocaust will not change since the clerical leaders are, by definition, religiously dogmatic, apocalyptic, and strategic in their approach to building their power base.

The key to change in Iran is not negotiation or intervention by external powers with the clerical leadership. International sanctions have been important and have great impact, but they may not be decisive. On the other hand, a war option — to change the Iranian political status quo — would merely catapult a volcanic region into chaos and balkanization. Clearly, a change of governance in Iran would transform the political landscape of the Middle East, and this is basically only feasible through the action of the Iranian people.

At present, it is important to stress that Iran and Turkey are the two most important players in the Greater Middle East, a region which has become — in many senses — the “center of political gravity” of the world.

Iran and Turkey both have common interests in the region, even though they are rivals and compete with each other and have differences.

Common interests:

      1. Both countries follow Islamic ideology, whereas Turkey is moderate and Iran is radical, but the situation in Turkey will not continue on the same path which it trod for the last three-quarters of the 20th Century. Turkey will have to go back to either secular Kemalism or move further toward Islam since Islam and democracy cannot concur with each other, despite the claims in this transitional period that Turkey exemplifies “democratic Islam”. If there is such a path, then it is more attuned to the careful steps which the Kingdom of Morocco is taking.

      2. Both countries had very close strategic relations with the U.S. Iran, of course, has postured itself as the enemy of the U.S. since 1979, and Turkey is gradually changing its direction, as it did with its policy towards Israel in mid-2010, and the establishment in 2008 of its partnership with Russia.

      3. Both countries are working together and are becoming strategic partners.

      4. Trade and economic relations between Iran and Turkey have been improving tremendously, in spite of U.S. sanctions

      5. Both have common interests with Syria to check the Kurdish movement and prevent the creation of an independent Kurdish state. There are more than 20 million Kurds in Turkey and around eight million in Iran.

      6. Iran and Turkey both have interests in Iraq and in the stability (or otherwise) of Iraq.

Rivalries:

      1. While Iran and Turkey have predominantly Muslim populations, Iran is Shia and Turkey is Sunni. We need to remember that the two empires of Safavid Iran and the Ottoman Turks fought ideological wars for 250 years.

      2. Turkey is slowly and skillfully following a path of pan-Turkism/Ottomanism — even though pan-Turkism is, as most in modern Turkey forget, diametrically opposed to Ottomanism as it was originally expressed by Atatürk — and this new messianic pan-Turkist/Ottomanist set of goals will soon bring Turkey into conflict with Iran, which has Turkic speaking (Azari) populations in the North.

      3. Both claim leadership in the region.

      4. Turkey is concerned at the prospect of a military nuclear Iran which, with its resources and history and strong cultural identity, would at least attempt to be “lord paramount” of the region. For this reason alone, Turkey has begun steps to build its own nuclear energy and military nuclear options.

      5. Iran and Turkey compete in Central Asia and the Caucasus. This competition started after the downfall of the Soviet empire.

      6. Turkey is a member of NATO, whereas the theocracy of Iran and NATO are bêtes noires.

In a nutshell, in spite of differences, there are compatibilities in ideology, religion, economy, and geopolitics which bring Turkey and Iran closer.

This cooperation will continue with the present leaderships of the two countries, unless there is change in policy of Iran or Turkey.

Stephen Kinzer, who, in his new informative book, Reset, espouses a future partnership among U.S., Turkey, and Iran, misses an important point. Certainly, as he said, the geopolitical interests of Iran and Turkey in many respects are in accord with U.S. interests in the Middle East, but without change in Iran and a return of Turkey to secular Kemalism and real democracy, it will be difficult for Iran and Turkey (which is gradually tilting toward radical Islamism) to rebuild their relationships with the U.S.

Stability, in fact, does not mean anything in the Middle East. Democracy in the region similarly either does not exist or is artificial and ephemeral. Wherever the Muslim umma is, there are the polity of Islam and the abode of Islam. In the Islamic theory of international relations, dar-al-Islam is not defined by permanent territorial frontiers. Islam means submission without question.

Islam does not believe in equality between men and women. In Islam there is no right, but only duty for the people. The idea of democracy is alien to the mindset of Islam, which does not provide for the division of power or popular sovereignty. The goal of political Islam — Islamism — is to impose Islamic law or sharia on the whole world. That is why many Muslim (non-Islamist) thinkers believe that reform is necessary for Islam to exist alongside democracy, or popular government, in the same way that Christianity reformed to co-exist with secular government.

Contrary to what Mr. Kinzer suggests, the governments of Iran and Turkey are Islamist and act against U.S. interests. They are trying, directly or indirectly, to proselytize and expand their political and religious influence in the region and elsewhere. If they bring Egypt and Saudi Arabia to their line, that could happen sooner or later. They are already having an historical impact on all Muslim states, and world politics. It is possible that they could form a United Islamic bloc like NATO, and, with a strategic alliance with the PRC — which is in the making — they could well have a great impact on global affairs and change the balance of power against the U.S. and NATO.

The real problem in the Northern Tier and the greater Middle East is that radical Islam is rising rapidly due to the lack of vision and grand strategy of the U.S., and because of the weakness of Europe. According to Eurasianet.org, even in the Central Asian republics the influence of Islam is growing rapidly. For example, in Tajikistan, instead of parents choosing Persian names for their children — names which mostly came from Shahname Ferdowsi — such as Jamshid, and Freidoon, they are instead choosing Arabic names. This represents a break with Tajik/Persian culture, identity, and the cultural past of the area.

If nothing dramatic happens — by which I mean major war (and that possibility is very high) — political Islam will definitely advance, and, in the mid-21st Century, Islam could be in control of Europe. This would lead inevitably to clashes with non-Islamic states and communities. We are living in the most unstable period of human history, with ever-increasing cancerous problems, seemingly without solutions. It is interesting to remember the medicine which Hippocrates, the Greek physician, recommended against the cancer: “What medicine cannot heal, steel heals, what steel does not heal, fire does”.

Political Islam, resorting to asymmetrical warfare and terrorism, has already intimidated a tired and perplexed Europe and has frightened the U.S. Even Queen Elizabeth II, during her visit to Turkey, through which she was wearing a headscarf, listened to a recitation of the Quran in the Green Mosque in Istanbul. It seems that the U.S. and the democratic West do not have a sound strategy to deal with political Islam. The West appears to have no strategy or will to prevent a shifting of power, or to guard Western culture, civilization, and democracy.

On the other hand, there are many in the Muslim world who believe that Islam needs to be adjusted to new realities of life in a modern world, and, indeed, to be liberated from literalist ayatollahs and imams. Much of the Muslim world is intimidated by the ferocity of the Islamists and does not speak. Indeed, Islam has been hijacked by radical Muslims who are ready to be killed for their ideology. I am of the opinion that going against a religion — especially a popular one — is the height of folly, but criticizing and fighting with extremism is necessary for the cause of peace.

For classical Muslim thinkers and philosophers who have studied Aristotle and Plato it is not difficult to interpret Islam and adjust it to modern times and a new life. But the present interpretation of Islam by dogmatic and even fanatical ayatollahs and imams has given a new and macabre face to Islam. I should like to emphasize that this engine of political Islam and jihad against infidels was first ignited by “Ayatollah” Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979, and continues at an ever-faster pace. On January 14, 1980, more than 120 Pakistani Army officers on a pilgrimage to the religious city of Qum met with Khomeini who said to them: “We are at war against infidels. Take this message with you. I ask all Islamic nations, all Islamic armies to join us. There are many enemies to be killed. Jihad must triumph”.

After the Iranian revolution and the establishment of the Shia system of Velayat-e-Faqih, the Wahhabi/salafi religious leaders — in order to not be left behind — introduced a Sunni version of radical Islam, re-stressing the export of the Quran, financing for madrasas, and building of new mosques worldwide. That race between Shia and Wahhabist/salafist proselytization continues, faster and faster. This competition led to the rise of Al Qaida, which attacked two centers of economic and military power of the United States on September 11, 2001, and created the present incarnation of international terrorism. Currently, the two important branches of Islam — Sunni and Shi’a — despite their differences, effectively undermine the democratic West. The West, instead of using the differences between Shi’ism and Sunnism, has lost its nerve and has been unable to devise a sound strategy to face political Islam.

In the Seventh Century, a small Muslim army defeated two superpowers of the time, the Persian and Roman Empires. History repeats itself, since it is made by humans, and human nature has not changed in the past several thousand years. It will not change. It would take a hero with a sense of history to change the equation. I see no sign of such a hero. As Niccolò Machiavelli said: “if you wish to see what is to be, you must consider what has been: all things of this world in every era have their counterparts in ancient times.”