By: Hillel Fendel – Arutz Sheva

Shoaib Choudhury, a Muslim Zionist in Bangladesh, told IsraelNationalRadio’s Yishai Fleisher last week, “Political Islam and hate speech are our biggest enemies.”

Choudhury is the editor of the Weekly Blitz, which he calls “the only anti-jihadist newspaper in the Muslim world.” He is also an author, lyricist, movie director and peace activist – and was held in solitary confinement for 17 months because he wanted to visit Israel.

“I started this newspaper in ’03,” Choudhury told Fleisher, “and at the time, the Hebrew Writers Association in Tel Aviv invited me to take part in a symposium. On my way to Israel, I was stopped and arrested at the international airport in Dhaka. They labeled me a Zionist and an Israeli spy, interrogated me and tortured me for ten days, and then imprisoned me for 17 months in solitary confinement, until 2005.”

Choudhury’s latest book, Inside Madrassa, published in October 2009, gives extensive information on education in Muslim schools known as madrassahs, including material on Jihadist orientation, hate speech and other aspects of radical Islam taught there. He opened a branch of the Israel-based International Forum for Literature and Culture of Peace in Bangladesh, and has authored articles critical of anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic attitudes in Muslim countries.

Asked how he came to sympathize with Jews, Choudhury said, “My father used to tell me not to believe the weekly hate speeches against Christian and Jews that we would hear in the mosques. I tried to follow this advice, and later on I kept an open mind when I met Jews – and now I have thousands of Jewish friends.”

Among them he mentioned Dr. Richard Benkin, “who did not give up and worked to have me freed from jail… Many of my relatives abandoned me, but Benkin did not, and he got me out of jail.” Benkin is currently helping Bangladeshi Hindu refugees in West Bengal and elsewhere secure basic rights, especially protection from attempted genocide by Islamist radicals. He is a strong pro-Israel advocate who believes Jews and Hindus must unite to defeat radical Islam.

Choudhury described his newspaper as “the only paper in the Muslim world in which you can find untwisted news about Israel… We have tremendous adversity, though we have 37,000 readers of the print version… I believe that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, and as a Muslim, I believe that the only problem is political Islam and the hate speech, and if these can stop, then all Muslims will be like me…”

“We have been able to get an Islamic anti-Semitism group banned in Bangladesh, and there’s another group that’s on its way to being banned as well. The problem is political Islam, which is present in all Islamic countries and is now growing in the West, too. In the U.S. there are 600 congregations preaching jihad. We must raise our voices against the misinterpretation of the Quran.”

On an optimistic note, Choudhury noted that “changes have been made; there are voices now in favor of Israel in Bangladesh, which would have been impossible in 2003.” Bangladesh, a non-Arab Muslim country, is the third largest Muslim nation in the world.

For decades, Turkey has been told it was not ready to join the European Union — that it was too backward economically to qualify for membership in the now 27-nation club.

That argument may no longer hold.

Today, Turkey is a fast-rising economic power, with a core of internationally competitive companies turning the youthful nation into an entrepreneurial hub, tapping cash-rich export markets in Russia and the Middle East while attracting billions of investment dollars in return.

For many in aging and debt-weary Europe, which will be lucky to eke out a little more than 1 percent growth this year, Turkey’s economic renaissance — last week it reported a stunning 11.4 percent expansion for the first quarter, second only to China — poses a completely new question: who needs the other one more — Europe or Turkey?

“The old powers are losing power, both economically and intellectually,” said Vural Ak, 42, the founder and chief executive of Intercity, the largest car leasing company in Turkey. “And Turkey is now strong enough to stand by itself.”

It is an astonishing transformation for an economy that just 10 years ago had a budget deficit of 16 percent of gross domestic product and inflation of 72 percent. It is one that lies at the root of the rise to power of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has combined social conservatism with fiscally cautious economic policies to make his Justice and Development Party, or A.K.P., the most dominant political movement in Turkey since the early days of the republic.

So complete has this evolution been that Turkey is now closer to fulfilling the criteria for adopting the euro — if it ever does get into the European Union — than most of the troubled economies already in the euro zone. It is well under the 60 percent ceiling on government debt (49 percent of G.D.P.) and could well get its annual budget deficit below the 3 percent benchmark next year. That leaves the reduction of inflation, now running at 8 percent, as the only remaining major policy goal.

“This is a dream world,” said Husnu M. Ozyegin, who became the richest man in Turkey when he sold his bank, Finansbank, to the National Bank of Greece in 2006. Sitting on the rooftop of his five-star Swiss Hotel, he was looking at his BlackBerry, scrolling down the most recent credit-default spreads for euro zone countries. He still could not quite believe what he was seeing.

“Greece, 980. Italy, 194 and here is Turkey at 192,” he said with a grunt of satisfaction. “If you had told me 10 years ago that Turkey’s financial risk would equal that of Italy I would have said you were crazy.”

Having sold at the top to Greece, Mr. Ozyegin is now putting his money to work in the east. His new bank, Eurocredit, gets 35 percent of its profit from its Russian operations.

Mr. Ozyegin represents the old guard of Turkey’s business elite that has embraced the Erdogan government for its economic successes. Less well known but just as important to Turkey’s future development has been the rapid rise of socially conservative business leaders who, under the A.K.P., have seen their businesses thrive by tapping Turkey’s flourishing consumer and export markets.

Mr. Ak, the car leasing executive, exemplifies this new business elite of entrepreneurs. He drives a Ferrari to work, but he is also a practicing Muslim who does not drink and has no qualms in talking about his faith. He is not bound to the 20th-century secular consensus among the business, military and judicial elite that fought long and hard to keep Islam removed from public life.

On the wall behind his desk is a framed passage in Arabic from the Koran, and he recently financed an Islamic studies program just outside Washington at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., where Mr. Erdogan recently spoke.

Whether he is embracing Islam as a set of principles to govern his life or Israeli irrigation technology for his sideline almond and walnut growing business, Mr. Ak represents the flexible dynamism — both social and economic — that has allowed Turkey to expand the commercial ties with Israel, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria that now underpin its ambition to become the dominant political actor in the region.

Other prominent members of this newer group of business executives are Mustafa Latif Topbas, the chairman and a founder of the discount-shopping chain BIM, the country’s fastest-growing retail chain, and Murat Ulker, who runs the chocolate and cookie manufacturer Yildiz Holding. 

With around $11 billion in sales, Yildiz Holding supplies its branded food products not just to the Turkish market but to 110 markets globally. It has set up factories in Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Ukraine and now owns the Godiva brand.

The two billionaires have deep ties to the prime minister — Mr. Erdogan once owned a company that distributed Ulker-branded products, and Mr. Topbas is a close adviser — but the trade opportunities in this part of the world are plentiful enough that a boost from the government is now no longer needed.

In June, Turkish exports grew by 13 percent compared with the previous year, with much of the demand coming from countries on Turkey’s border or close to it, like Iraq, Iran and Russia. With their immature manufacturing bases, they are eager buyers of Turkish cookies, automobiles and flat-screen televisions.

This year, for example, the country’s flagship carrier, Turkish Airlines, will fly to as many cities in Iraq (three) as it does to France. Some of its fastest growing routes are to Libya, Syria and Russia, Turkey’s largest trading partner, where it flies to seven cities. That is second only to Germany, which has a large population of immigrant Turks.

In Iran, Turkish companies are building fertilizer plants, making diapers and female sanitary products. In Iraq, the Acarsan Group, based in the southeastern town of Gaziantep, just won a bid to build five hospitals. And Turkish construction companies have a collective order book of over $30 billion, second only to China.

On the flip side, the Azerbaijani government owns Turkey’s major petrochemicals company and Saudi Arabia has been a big investor in the country’s growing Islamic finance sector.

No one here disputes that these trends give Mr. Erdogan the legitimacy — both at home and abroad — to lash out at Israel and to cut deals with Iran over its nuclear energy, moves that have strained ties with its chief ally and longtime supporter, the United States. (Turkey has exported $1.6 billion worth of goods to Iran and Syria this year, $200 million more than to the United States.)

But some worry that the muscle flexing may have gone too far — perhaps the result of tightening election polls at home — and that the aggressive tone with Israel may jeopardize the defining tenet of Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk: peace at home, peace in the world.

“The foreign policy of Turkey is good if it brings self-pride,” said Ferda Yildiz, the chairman of Basari Holding, a conglomerate that itself is in negotiations with the Syrian government to set up a factory in Syria that would make electricity meters.

Even so, he warns that it would be a mistake to become too caught up in an eastward expansion if it comes at the expense of the country’s longstanding inclination to look to the West for innovation and inspiration.

“It takes centuries to make relations and minutes to destroy them,” he said.

Last month, students at a Southern California high school were caught playing a late-night on-campus game of tag called “Beat the Jew.” On the popular social networking site Facebook, a user named Alex Cookson launched an open invitation to an event called “Kill a Jew Day.” It was the fourth time that a call to murder Jews had been put on Facebook within recent days.

In D.C., White House press doyen Helen Thomas was captured on tape nonchalantly opining that all Jews should go back to Germany. Implicit in her statement was her assumption that everyone felt the same way, so what’s the big deal?

Also last month: Egypt decided to revoke the citizenship of any Egyptians married to Israelis. In Amsterdam, anti-Semitism has become so commonplace that Dutch police are now using “decoy Jews” in an effort to to cut the number of verbal and physical attacks on Jews, amid fears that anti-Semitic “hate crime” is on the rise. And in Germany, a Jewish dance group was attacked with stones by a group of children and teenagers during a performance at a street festival in Hannover. The teenagers also used a megaphone to shout anti-Semitic slurs.

European Jewish Congress President Moshe Kantor last week gave a bleak evaluation of European Jewry. “Jews are afraid to walk the streets in Europe with Jewish symbols,” Kantor said. “Synagogues, Jewish schools and kindergartens require barbed-wire fences and security, and Jewish men, women and children are beaten up in broad daylight.”

Jews worldwide are again under attack. The Holocaust and 6 million slaughtered Jews have been forgotten. It now appears that history is on the way to repeating itself, aided and abetted by the world press.

During the much publicized clash between supposed peace activists and Israeli soldiers last month, Israel was roundly condemned when forced to board a ship that was trying to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza under the guise of delivering “humanitarian aid” to Palestinians. Reuters was caught, once again, photo shopping a knife out of the hand of a supposed “peace activist” in a blatant attempt to portray Israel as the aggressor.

The London Telegraph was also caught using a two-year-old photo in their quest to portray Palestinians as victims. A photo that was purposefully misleading, as is shown here.

When Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, Hamas launched 6,500 unprovoked rocket strikes on towns and schoolyards in Israel. The Israeli blockade of Gaza was a necessary self-defense measure to keep these bombs from reaching Gaza.

But world opinion as expressed in the media, sees it differently. Palestinians are the victims and Israel should atone. Period.

The communications firm best known for shaping the liberal Moveon.org into a national movement has tackled a new project: orchestrating an international anti-Israel campaign. And it appears to be working.

Even Israel’s good friend, the United States, is throwing it under the bus. According to Israel’s ambassador to Washington, relations between Israel and its staunchest ally, the U.S., have suffered a “tectonic rift.”

Under President Barack Obama, the United States no longer provides Israel with automatic support at the United Nations where the Jewish state faces a constant barrage of criticism and condemnation. American sentiment now increasingly favors the supposed Palestinian “victims.”

As Thomas Sowell says, “Just as the American left has adopted blacks as mascots, so the international left has adopted Palestinians as mascots. In both cases, the actual well-being of the mascots is not the point. Mascots exist to be symbols for others. In all the years when the Arab states controlled the area that Israel took over after the 1967 war, nobody cared what happened to the Palestinians, much less offered them a homeland.”

If you are one of the unsuspecting Americans who have bought into the “Palestinians as victims” hoax, I urge you, in the interest of fairness, to watch the short video below which You Tube has already placed off limits due no doubt to its infringement on PC propaganda. It is a must-see history lesson from David Horowitz, laying out the true history of Palestine
. The facts are incontrovertible.

No matter how thin the pancake, there are always two sides. If we allow the terrorist’s propaganda machine and the world press to continue presenting a false version of Israel and Palestine, it is possible that history could indeed, repeat itself. And we will become allies with murderous Islamic terrorists whose sole goal is to wipe Israel off the face of the earth.

Is it a plane? Is it a bird? No, it’s the V-22: American pilots in Iraq and Afghanistan have encountered Boeing’s V-22 plane-helicopter on several occasions, yet they too keep raving about what is considered the world’s most advance military aircraft.
The aircraft will not be heading to Israel just yet, but a quick flight in the unusual machine, which combines the features of a helicopter and plane, is sufficient in order to be impressed by its unique capabilities.
At first glance at a US Air Force Base in Boston, the V-22’s shape appears rather odd, as one would expect of the abilities it combines. The glimpse given to a group of Israeli reporters made clear the aircraft’s amazing features, as well as the way it can carry no less than 22 combatants in fairly convenient conditions.

The blades installed on the plane’s wings can change their angle on takeoff, allowing the aircraft to take off from anywhere on earth, including at sea. The V-22 can also accelerate quickly as it reaches its top speed of roughly 500 kilometers per hour, more than three times that of any other helicopter. Such features can greatly help in accelerating crucial operations such as the evacuation of wounded and the deployment of Special Forces at any point.

$40 million a piece
Our flight aboard the V-22 lasted about 75 minutes. The experience was reminiscent of flights aboard the Israeli Yasur helicopter and Hercules plane, yet IDF officials are aware that these aircraft had been in service for many years – and consider the V-22 as a future option.

So how much would such machine cost us? Quite a bit. One aircraft goes for $40 million, without considering the costs of integrating Israeli systems in it. A senior Boeing official said that the aircraft could greatly help Israel’s Air Force contend with its missions and estimated that Israeli interest in the V-22 is only a matter of time.

As noted, the pilots are no less excited. First Lieutenant Stewart, a Marines pilot, says the V-22’s combined capabilities grant it many significant advantages. Other pilots who flew the V-22 operationally in Iraq and Afghanistan also spoke highly of it.

Yet for the time being, officials in Israel are formulating their policy regarding new fighter jet F-35. The final decision on whether to acquire it has not yet been taken. The bone of contention at this time has to do with integrating Israeli systems into the stealth aircraft, as well as its high price.

* Turkey threatens diplomatic break with Israel over raid Turkey has for the first time threatened to break diplomatic ties with Israel over its raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla in May.

* US questions its unwavering support for Israel Consensus forming in Washington that Israeli government is abusing support with policies seen to be risking US lives.

* Egypt FM: Arab League will declare Palestinian state if peace talks fail Top Palestinian negotiator Erekat refutes reports claiming that Abbas had offered Israel a West Bank land swap as part of a final status peace agreement.

* Iran: World has not done enough to curb Zionist atrocities FM Mottaki says Israel would not have raided Gaza flotilla if the UN had taken a stronger stance against ‘Zionist crimes.’

* Hamas summer camps underway Group’s leaders in Gaza say camps convey non-violent messages of educational, moral nature.

* V-22: The future is here Ynet reporter gets glimpse into cutting edge aircraft that combines plane, helicopter capabilities.

* Assad: US administration is weak Syrian president disappointed with lack of progress on ME peace.

* PM may offer freeze extension Offer: Obama would accept Israeli control of large settlements.

* EU’s dream candidate wins Polish election The candidate from the ruling Civic Platform party, Bronislaw Komorowski, won Poland’s presidential election on Sunday (4 July) in a result set to bolster the country’s pro-European credentials.

* A Special Place in Hell / As Bibi faces Obama, settlers try radical shifts in tactics With the settlement movement caught between an unsympathetic White House and an Israeli public that is much more apathetic than supportive, how long can they depend on the Palestinians to keep them where they are?

Behind the rusty iron fence surrounding the archaeological work on Mount Gerizim lies one of Israel’s most impressive antiquities sites. But the Civil Administration is keeping the compound closed despite its huge tourism potential. It says planning at the site near Nablus in the West Bank is “too problematic.”

Over more than two decades, Yitzhak Magen, the administration’s chief archaeology officer, dug up a 2,000-year-old city, once home to 10,000 people. 

It was preserved in its entirety. The site consists of streets lined with houses, a marketplace and town center. Thousands of bones of sacrificial animals and tens of thousands of coins tell its story.

Mount Gerizim is sacred to the Samaritans who regard it, rather than Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, as the location chosen by God for a holy temple.
The mountain remains the center of the Samaritan religion to this day. In 1982, the Civil Administration started digging at the site and continued for 22 years, at an investment of tens of millions of shekels.

“Josephus writes that the Samaritans fell out with the Jews, moved their spiritual center to Mount Gerizim and built their temple in a compound identical to the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. That’s what all the archaeologists were looking for,” says Benny Katzover, former head of the Samaria Regional Council.

“They discovered that the destroyed temple began in the Hasmonean era and ended in the Byzantine era. The Byzantines built on its ruins an octagonal church, which has been dug up. The compound wall has remained almost entirely intact, as have parts of the central Samaritan city. The findings show a high living standard, with bathtubs, ceramics, a heating system and mosaics. You can see it was the capital of a kingdom.”

Initially the authorities set up an observation point overlooking Nablus and signs explaining the findings; they intended to open the site to the public. But after the second intifada they scrapped the plan. Now, during the lull in hostilities, the Samaria Regional Council and Samaritan community are demanding that it be opened to visitors.

‘This earth belongs to the community’

“Everyone wants to visit me and see what I believe in, what my history is – but I can’t let people in without a permit,” says Ovadia Cohen, secretary of the Samaritan community. “This earth belongs to the community, which received it from King Hussein. Every time I want to bring people in I need permits. We’re always begging the authorities to open it up. They keep making promises and and breaking them.

“We’re ready to run the place, we have the ability to run it. We’re losing a lot of money over this every year. Two or three tourist buses could be brought here every day. Multiply that by NIS 15 entrance fees, plus other expenses,” he says.

In May the Civil Administration held a meeting about the site and decided it was not interested in developing or running the compound. “Planning here is too problematic,” deputy Civil Administration head Ahvat Ben-Hur said at the meeting. “Some of the lands are private and some are owned by the Waqf [Muslim religious trust]. The existing master plan doesn’t allow for the construction of new access roads, parking spaces, as well as public and service structures.”