Making Your Haj To Israel

The Palestinians are urging more Muslim pilgrims to come to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, which Arabs have avoided since Israel won the territory in the 1967 war.

Bin There, Done That

At the National Interest, published by the former Nixon Center, Paul Pillar discusses documents seized in the Abbottabad raid that reveal Osama bin Laden's Palestine preoccupation:

The Palestinian issue has the power it does not because individual terrorist leaders like bin Laden necessarily make it their first personal priority but instead because it has tremendous resonance among the Muslim populations to which they appeal. The reason that supporters and rank-and-file practitioners of anti-U.S. terrorism cite most frequently for their hatred of the United States is U.S. condoning of Israeli occupation of Palestinian-inhabited land and of other Israeli actions that involve the killing or subjugation of Muslims.

There are many good reasons not to let the Israeli-Palestinian issue fester. Its role as a readily exploitable extremist cause is one of them.

Pillar and others believe this is why Israel and the U.S. should do more. It's probably also one of the reasons the Palestinians keep doing less, because they think the support of fellow Muslims (not that all Palestinians are Muslim) will leverage a better settlement with Israel. But they're wrong. With each passing year, and each Israeli offer Palestinians spurn, the Israelis build more settlements, and the parameters of a future Palestine get smaller. Bin Laden was a tactical and political adviser the Palestinians are infinitely better off without, especially if it increases the chances they'll just say yes.

The Price Of A Nuclear-Free Iran

It's easy to make fun of Glenn Beck for associating Shi'ite Muslims' longed-for messianic 12th imam with the Antichrist. Indeed it's easy to make fun of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad for longing for the 12th imam.

Theology aside, it's not so funny if Iran really is embarked on an apocalyptic project that involves using a nuclear weapon against Israel or anyone else. And yet there's also evidence that, Iran's fanatical-sounding front man notwithstanding, the Iranian government is engaged in rational decision-making about whether to build nukes at all.

As Richard Nixon used to say about the U.S. and Soviets, we have irreconcilable ide0logical differences with Iran. But that doesn't mean we can't make a deal. Because of the uncertainty Iran sows about its ultimate aims, we obviously can't permit it to have nuclear weapons. I'd rather be open for business now than at war in five years.

The Whole World's Laughing

One of the 11 students charged yesterday with conspiracy to disrupt Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren's speech at UC Irvine in February 2010 allegedly posted on a message board:

We will be staging a University of Chicago Style disruption of the Ambassador’s speech.

UCI's freshman comp teachers should brush up on hyphenation and capitalization. There may also be an issue for the U.S. history curriculum, because I'm assuming the young man was talking not about the University of Chicago (whose famous style guide could help with the hyphenation and capitalization) but the 1968 demonstrations in Chicago against the Democratic National Convention.

Thanks to this poor decision by Orange County DA Tony Rackauckas, unless the kids plead out to avoid having to serve up to six months in jail, our community may enjoy a spectacle not unlike the notorious Chicago 7 trial now that U.S. government officials are appearing to single out Muslims for prosecution of campus tomfoolery.

Out Of The Courtroom And Back To Class

As Egyptians stand up to their authoritarian president on the streets of Cairo and Alexandria, 11 UC Irvine students may face criminal prosecution for disrupting an on-campus speech by the Israeli ambassador last February. At the Orange County DA's office yesterday, 50 people (some shown here) gathered to protest a grand jury investigation of the 11.

Ambassador Michael Oren finished his speech after the protesters were arrested. The university suspended the Muslim Student Union for a year, though the organization denied any involvement in the incident. As the Times reports this morning:

Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of UC Irvine's law school, said the issue is not about free speech or expression but about appropriate punishment.

"I don't think the D.A. should press charges, but what the students did wasn't freedom of expression," he said.

"I favor them being punished by the university because what they did was wrong," he said, adding that "university discipline is sufficient."

Chemerinsky is no enemy of free expression, so his nuance is important. You can't use your rights to deprive someone of his. That's the first irony of the Egypt comparison, since those who do enjoy the blessings of freedom must use it discerningly. A college or university campus is one place where a legitimate spokesman for a point of view -- the ambassador of a sovereign nation and vital U.S. ally definitely falls into that category -- is entitled to expect to find open minds and pointed but civil debate.

Instead, young people who may not fully appreciate the purposes of a liberal education nor the privilege of attending one of the greatest universities in the world at still-popular prices end up wasting their time and our money on street theater. When it comes to UCI, I'm not just talking about the anti-Israel club.

But criminal prosecution of student protesters sounds like a Mubarak move. Unless he has evidence that the students were up to something worse than being obnoxious, DA Tony Rackauckas and his grand jury should close the books on this case in the hope that the young people will open theirs and get back to class.

Flash: U.S. Muslims To Become Almost Noticeable

Writing about a Pew study predicting modest growth in the number of Muslims worldwide, USA Today runs this eye-catching headline --

Number Of U.S. Muslims To Double

-- and then explains exactly what that means:

[Y]ou are as likely to know a Muslim here in 20 years as you are to know someone Jewish or Episcopalian today.

All that many, you say.

Fox News And Newt Gingrich, That's Where

The much-feared Muslim population bomb is pretty much a wet firecracker:

“There’s this overwhelming assumption that Muslims are populating the earth, and not only are they growing at this exponential rate in the Muslim world, they’re going to be dominating Europe and, soon after, the United States,” [a Pew consultant] said. “But the figures don’t even come close. I’m looking at all this and wondering, where is all the hysteria coming from?”

Christian Heroes

Muslims offer themselves as human shields for Coptic Christians attending Christmas worship in Egypt.

Hat tip to Maarja Krusten

Tolerant Tirana

A fascinating article by Nathan Thrall about Albania, the Muslim world's most open-minded, pro-U.S. nation. It's even flirting with same-sex unions. Bad news: Nearly three-quarters of Albania's violent deaths are vendetta or revenge killings. As for Albanians' piety:

Perhaps not coincidentally, the Muslim world's most tolerant nation is also its most secular. A recent Gallup poll (free registration required) found that of every Balkan and Muslim-majority nation, Albania had the smallest proportion of people who said religion was an important part of their daily lives.

Bow Wow

Leon Wieseltier thinks Israel should dismantle the West Bank settlements to enable the nation of Palestine to form. But he doesn't appreciate the Obama administration fawning over Arab and Muslim dictators:

Obama’s great opening to the Muslim world, a strange blend of realism and multiculturalism, seems so far only to have imbued the Muslim world with the sense that in the cause of reconciliation with Israel it need exert itself no more, because it has at last been understood.

I am not one of those Jews who are maddened by American “pressure” on Israel, but I do not take kindly to it when it is accompanied by a bow to the Saudi king.

Beer Buddies

Valerie Taylor and Madees Khoury, both 24, in the brewery founded by Madees's father and uncle in the West Bank town of Taybeh in 1994, the year of the Oslo accords. An exceptionally tasty lager made from German and Polish hops, Taybeh isn't available in the U.S. because it's made without preservatives, which makes shipping complicated, and because it ships with a label that says "Palestine," ditto. If you want to learn more about the Middle East's only microbrewery, do a Google or Facebook search for "Taybeh Beer." While Taybeh is the West Bank's only 100% Christian town, Madees and her family also make a non-alcoholic brew that is gaining ground with abstemious Muslims.