29-Sep-15: In Germany, trying to deal with the "idiosyncrasies" of a million needy arrivals (in 2015 alone)

The caption on this published AFP photo reads: Policemen lead migrants to a temporary shelter as they arrive in Munich from Budapest on September 12, 2015 [AFP Photo/Sven Hoppe]

The Arab Spring, a relic of the distant past that

began on 18 December 2010 in Tunisia with the Tunisian Revolution, and spread throughout the countries of the Arab League and its surroundings [Wikipedia]

created a sense of optimism among ordinary Arabs that (as one source put it)

the people could, if they mobilized, win previously unheard-of freedoms.

As it's turned out, that "mobilization" and those "unheard of freedoms" turn out to be achievable, in the minds of a vast number of Arabs, only in Europe. Germany has become one of the prime destinations for the massive wave of mobilized Arabs and other largely Moslem migrants.

Germany's Deutsche Welle, under the title "Refugees don't leave their conflicts behind" has just published a startling piece about what the anticipated arrival on their doorsteps of a million people (the total expected to get to Germany before the end of 2015) describing themselves as refugees translates into in terms of challenges for the Germans.

Some extracts, all of them direct quotes:

• There are no official statistics, but aid organizations, social workers and volunteers note that ethnic, social, cultural and religious tensions are on the rise in Germany's overcrowded refugee shelters...
• The sudden surge in asylum demands this year has authorities scrambling for housing for refugees from war zones such as Syria, but also migrants from Albania and Kosovo. Often converted hotels, gyms, schools and tents are used as makeshift shelters. 
• Tempers flare easily at close quarters. In Leipzig last week, about 200 refugees wielding table legs and bed frames started a fight after they couldn't agree who got to use one of the few toilets first. It took a large police contingent to calm the situation...
• Other recent incidents include a riot at a refugee shelter in central Germany over a torn Koran and Muslim Chechens beating up Syrian Christians in a Berlin shelter...
• [I]nsults, threats, discrimination and blackmail against Christian asylum-seekers in particular are a regular occurrence, according to the Munich-based Central Council for Oriental [in German: ZOCD]... "I've heard so many reports from Christian refugees who were attacked by conservative Muslims," said Simon Jacob, of the [ZOCD]... But that's only the tip of the iceberg... "The number of unreported cases is much higher."
• Overcrowding isn't the main issue [he says]... it's merely the trigger: "People bring with them the conflicts that exist in their native countries, Christians and Muslims, Kurds and extremists, Shiites and Sunnis - they don't leave them behind at the border." These conflicts erupt when the refugees - often traumatized - are forced to live close together...
• Separating refugees according to religion is now being mentioned as an interim solution to help alleviate the problems.

The optimism expressed by the German politicians quoted in this article is uplifting, even if it sounds (to us) a little out of touch with reality:

• Islam is a part of Germany, but Islamism clearly isn't, said opposition Greens party leader Cem Özdemir, adding that tolerance must not be misinterpreted and exploited as weakness...
• The refugees are afraid and mistrustful of authorities, and worried about possible retribution against their families at home, so they rarely call the police, he explained. They have to learn that they have duties and rights in Germany, Jacob [of ZOCD] said... It's of the utmost importance that the refugees be integrated in the German system of values, otherwise, they will live in parallel societies, he warned.

Robed figure, plus German police at the site of the Berlin mosque raid
a week ago [Image Source]

Eventually, the legal and criminal aspects of this massive influx are likely to become a core issue. Signs of trouble ahead are already there (all verbatim quotes):

• "The police are at their limits," said Jörg Radek, deputy chief of Germany's police union GdP. Officers are tasked with registering newcomers, reconciling differences in the shelters and protecting them from far-right extremist attacks. "We have to do everything in our power to prevent further violence in the shelters," Radek said - and urged housing people of different religions separately. Different groups band together, and that can quickly turn into a major brawl, Radek said. "In that case, it's not enough to send a lone patrol car," Radek said...
• Private security firms already guard some refugee shelters, but according to the refugees, their staff usually stays out of religiously-motivated strife...
• Radek urged hiring even more private security offices to take the pressure off regular police officers. Ideally, the municipalities should hire security personnel experienced in intercultural affairs, he said: "Personnel that understands the various refugee groups' idiosyncrasies."

From the conservative part of the German political spectrum (but not only), they're focused on something that gets little direct analysis in the Western media. Marcus Pretzell, an MEP and regional leader of the Alternative for Germany party ["German economy collapse inevitable, caused by migrant waves", RT, September 18, 2015] says. 

I think that German government doesn’t have any idea for solution of the problem, because, it will be one million, maybe even more, maybe 1.2 million people, but mostly it’s young men who come to Germany and they all get their families to Germany as well. If they live in Germany, it will not be one million - it will be 2-3, maybe even more people from Arab countries living in Germany, and that will change the country. I believe that German government has no answer for this big change in German society... [Source]

Hans-Georg Maassen is the head of Germany’s domestic security service, the BFV. He is quoted in the past week by a British paper saying 

"We are very concerned that Islamists in Germany are trying, under the cover of humanitarian assistance, to exploit the situation of the refugees for their own ends and to proselytise and recruit among asylum-seekers..." [Telegraph UK, September 22, 2015]

Being concerned is of course not a basis for taking people's freedom from them. The head of the BFV concedes there is "no reliable evidence" that "jihadists are infiltrating Germany masquerading as refugees." Still, the interview was published shortly after a series of police raids were carried out in Berlin, targeting suspected recruiters for ISIS. A mosque and several apartments were raided in the early hours, on the heels of warnings that Islamic extremists are recruiting the refugees flooding into Germany.

Meanwhile, back in the home of what used to be the Arab Spring, the absorption of what are commonly (though not so accurately) termed "Syrian refugees" has produced a result that we think speaks for itself,. In CNN's words:

[N]o Syrian refugees have been resettled in Persian Gulf nations like Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, countries with significant financial and political interest in Syria... Gulf citizens have much in common with Syrians. They speak Arabic, like most Syrians. And those states are wealthier than many countries, such as Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, that have accepted refugees. Some say Saudi Arabia and Qatar have an obligation to help victims of a war in which those nations have been involved through their financial support of rebel groups that have fought Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. ["Refugee crisis: Why aren't Gulf states taking them in?", CNN, September 8, 2015]

Some say, and some ask. But meanwhile the migrants keep pushing into Europe in their hundreds of thousands. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has made a magnanimous offer to address Germany's challenges by building 

200 mosques in the country for the 'spiritual needs' of the Syrian refugees arriving daily in their thousands [Source].

That should help.

9-Oct-13: Putting a dollar value on the past two years of neighborhood misery

Cairo this week [Image Source]

It's highly doubtful that there are still significant numbers of proponents for the view that the Middle East (leaving aside Israel, understandably) is undergoing an Arab Spring. If it ever had any substance, the claim is now thoroughly discredited. 

Today the Wall Street Journal comes to give it a proper funeral:

While the social and political costs of the Arab Spring have been carefully counted, the economic ones haven’t yet been explored quite as deeply. HSBC’s economists took a stab at it this week, estimating affected countries will have lost $800 billion of economic output by the end of next year. The premise is that GDP in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Bahrain – all of which have in some way felt the effects of revolution and unrest sweeping the region over the past two years – will come in 35% lower in 2014 than it would have been had that turmoil not taken hold. Between 2011 and 2014, the HSBC report says, lost output amounts to about $800 billion.
“In lost life, foregone economic output and weakened political institutions, the costs of the Arab Spring have been extraordinarily heavy and continue to mount,” the report says.

The full price to be paid in the very troubled places impacted by this process will not be confined to an economic one.

10-Jul-13: Hunger Games

Barghouti created a guitar case filled with explosives, bolts and nails to maximize the lethal devastation.
Screenshot from the documentary movie "Impact of Terror"

Trust us on this: being the parents of a child who was murdered changes the way you look at things.

Others might glance at a report quoting this political figure or that official, but that lens of bereavement and the immense frustration and anger that accompanies it tends to make you look a little more deeply than others do.

The secretary general of the Arab League probably makes headlines whenever he issues a public pronouncement. Without wanting to be unkind, we don't really care that much what he says or thinks under normal circumstances, and the feeling is probably mutual. Naturally, we  respect and defend his right to speak in the name of the people who appointed him, but Nabeel Elaraby's views are background noise so far as we're concerned. For the record, he's a professional diplomat who served as Egypt's Foreign Minister of Egypt for four months in 2011 and before that was his country's ambassador in New Delhi between 1981 and 1983. A lawyer, he has an Egyptian law school degree as well as a Masters in Law from NYU.

This morning, we noticed that he has some things to say that actually do intrude into matters about which we take a personal interest. Speaking about a group of convicted practitioners of terror who are serving long prison sentences in Israel, the jurist/politician is quoted yesterday (Tuesday) saying that he is

following with concern the suffering of the Palestinian prisoners who entered indefinite food strike under very serious health conditions, especially the captive, Abdullah Barghouti, who entered into a dangerous condition due to his continued food strike since last May... Elaraby called on the international community to put an end to arrogance of the Israelis who use violence against the Palestinian prisoners [Emirates News Agency/WAM]

In the name of the Arab League, this senior figure launches into an appeal to "the international community, particularly the United Nations, the International Committee of Red Cross and human rights organization [sic]" to get involved and to "save the lives" of the terrorists who are refusing to eat and "to stop the inhumane practices against them".

It's significant that the hungry terrorists are not named by Mr Elaraby except for one of them: Barghouti. (We have the other names here.)

Let's give him the benefit of the doubt: Mr Elaraby may have said the things he said because his Arab League secretariat aides failed to give him a proper briefing ahead of his speech. So we will try to help. And we plan to send this posting to his office by mail right after it goes up on our site.

We have written about this dedicated killer several times in this blog. Most people who speak about him seem to know next to nothing factual, so allow us to share some basics.

Start with this: the judges who sentenced him expressed regret that condemning Abdullah Barghouti to the death penalty was not an option available to them. 

If you have seen the award-winning CNN/CBC/Associated Producers documentary "Impact of Terror", you will recall that it opens with an extreme closeup of a musical instrument, while an explosives expert explains its diabolical character:

The uniqueness for me was the guitar. Nobody was thinking that inside there is a bomb. He put inside the guitar something like four or five kilogram of explosives, four kilogram or five kilogram of nuts and nails. That's enough. That's enough to kill tens of people [CNN transcript]

Among the fifteen people, mostly children, killed by the work of Barghouti's hands was Malki, our daughter. 130 others were maimed. The lives devastated by his evil amount to many times more than those awful numbers.

We noted here a week ago that Barghouti has done an oustanding job from his prison cell of highlighting the bestiality that underpins his psychopathic nature. 66 innocent people killed? Not enough, he says without blushing. In the intimate setting of a 2006 interview beamed throughout the world by CBS television's '60 Minutes' program, Barghouti clarifies things unambiguously:

"I feel bad because the number is only 66. This is the answer you want to hear? Yes, I feel bad because I want more." [Quoted on a CBS site]
Speaking in an Israeli court in 2010, he again reiterated his dedication to killing more Jews once he is freed again.

Do the people in the Arab League's leadership know these things? Perhaps we will be able to let our visitors know when our letter gets answered. (We recommend to stay busy in the meantime.)

The wheels of justice caught up with Barghouti a decade ago. Convicted for the murder of dozens of ordinary people, he is serving a longer custodial sentence than anyone else in the history of this country. Yet, when parts of the Arabic press write about him, they call him "administrative detainee" and "captive"; bitter experience tells us their readers largely believe such nonsense. 

Shrine to a confessed and proud mass murderer: The Abdullah Barghouti Facebook page this morning.
How can you fail to be sickened by what the growing swag of Likes seems to be saying?

The people who operate the world's most influential social media website allowed an Abdullah Barghouti page to go up, and have permitted it to stay up. Do they know the facts? We pointed this out two weeks ago [see "25-Jun-13: Dogs, psychopaths and the Internet"], when Barghouti's active Facebook page had gotten 6,805 Likes; that's more than a hundred for every one of the dead Israelis he murdered. Go visit his Facebook site this morning and notice that Barghoutti's savagery now has 7,266 Likes. And of course rising.

What does the Arab League leadership think about such things? Who do they say to questions like these?

• When you seek to put an end to what you call "arrogance of the Israelis", is this part of a larger anti-arrogance plan? Is it arrogance when Barghouti boasts willfully proudly, openly about how good it is to kill Jewish children? Is it arrogance for him (and the others like him, and who Like him) to come out in favour?
• How will the world know when the "arrogance of the Israelis" has come to an end? If Barghouti is allowed (heaven forbid) to leave his Israeli prison cell under pressure from you, would that be a sign in your value system that the Israeli arrogance is over? 
• When the woman who delivered Barghouti's bomb to the door of the pizza restaurant on that awful summer afternoon on August 9, 2001 was freed in a tragically misconceived deal with the terrorists two years ago, did that demonstrate reduced Israeli arrogance?
• When the proud, unrepentant Islamist murderers like Barghouti and Tamimi make speeches in public congratulating themselves on their great deeds, is that arrogant? Will you condemn it? Have you ever said one critical word in public - in Arabic - about the satanic hubris that it represents? Did any other Arab leader? Ever?

Why do we write about matters like this? Because so many people are interested in hearing what we think? Think again. Because we are obsessive? No, though others think we are. Because we're vengeful? No; others have certainly told us we seek revenge, but we say and firmly believe this is about justice, and injustice, and about human rights in the original, honest, non-politicized sense of that term. And to be clear about this: it's not for lack of constructive things to do with our time. 

We are the parents of a child whose beautiful life, filled with constructive acts of goodness, was brutally ended by the guitar-case bomb engineered by Barghouti. Inside us, there is a burning sense of obligation - call it a hunger - to shake the apathy of people who fail to see that of the dozens of innocent victims of this despicable man, not a single one was caught in the crossfire. They were his target as Barghouti himself confessed. The same is true every time jihadists and other terrorists seek out civilian victims, as they invariably do.

His mission, his passion, was "to kill as many Israelis as possible". That ought to be on people's minds when the debate over how to think about the hunger-striking terrorist prisoners reaches the mainstream media's headlines as it soon will. The imperative to understand this needs to extend in all directions - even into the lofty heights of the executive leadership suite at the League of Arab States.

1-Jul-12: Latest scenes from the Arab "Spring"

From today's syndicated AFP report on the unbearable ordinariness of the ongoing daily massacres in al-Assad's Syria.

• At least 83 people were killed, mostly civilians, in violence across Syria on Saturday, and hundreds more were trapped in Douma as regime forces stormed the town in Damascus province, monitors said... The latest violence came amid fierce countrywide clashes and a day after 75 people were killed nationwide. More than 15,800 people have been killed in violence since an anti-regime uprising broke out in March 2011...
• In the single most serious incident, mortar fire killed 30 civilians who were attending a funeral in the town of Zamalka, six miles east of Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human rights said... The Observatory did not give any further details on the Zamalka incident but published two videos from people on the ground.
• "The security forces have seized control of the main hospital in Douma," the Observatory said. "There are no doctors in the town, though dozens of wounded need urgent care."
• The watchdog also reported fierce clashes in the capital itself and the suburbs of Damascus, with regime troops using helicopters to shell several neighbourhoods on Saturday.
• The army shelled Rastan in the central province of Homs, the watchdog said...

Meanwhile yet another little-noticed aspect of the Arab "Spring" from the UK Telegraph:

The Arab Spring has spawned a new generation of British-born terrorists after al-Qaeda lured dozens of would-be bombers abroad to train for possible attacks on the UK, the head of MI5 warned... British would-be jihadis are known to be receiving training in the likes of Libya and Egypt, mirroring what has already happened in the Yemen and Somalia. And they could return to attack the UK in what is a “new and worrying development”, he said.

6-Feb-12: Turkish delight

There was a time, not so long ago, when Israel's relations with Turkey were strikingly positive. The talk was all about regional and bilateral co-operation. Israeli tourism to Turkey was huge (not the other way round, though) and considerable numbers of students from each side (a member of our family among them) went off to study in the other country.

Today, not so much. Here's a Turkish report from January 20, 2012 on some of what lately brings pride to the Turkish breast.

Note that, although we reduced the length of the Hurriyet Daily News article below, we have not modified the original headline. Nor did we add or change a word of the text in the article.

Turkish missiles over Brussels, Paris, Berlin, Rome (and others)

The Ottoman siege of Vienna may have failed in 1683. But the Turks will soon be back at the gates (well, this time, the skies) of Europe. Much to the pride of millions of Turks, the state scientific research institute, TÜBITAK, recently reported that its scientists this year would finish an all-Turkish missile with a range of 1,500 km, and, in 2014, another with a range of 2,500 km (no typo here).
The head of TÜBITAK said the order for the missile program had come from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. I read daily Hürriyet quoting TÜBITAK’s president, Professor Yücel Altınbaşak, as saying that “this is a most realistic project.” And I watched an engineer from TÜBITAK’s missile project group, telling state television channel TRT that “the Turkish missiles were more advanced than the U.S. or German missiles.” I felt proud.
Yet I was curious and checked the world map. Put the country which claims to maintain zero problems with its neighbors and others at the epicenter of a circle with a diameter of 2,500 km, and here are some of the cities which may in the future see Turkish missiles over their skies: Athens, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Geneva, Algiers, Jeddah, Cairo, Copenhagen, Kiev, London, Milan, Moscow, Paris, Rome, Stockholm, Damascus, Tehran, Tel Aviv, Tripoli, Warsaw, Vienna, Zurich and Amman.
... The move is just another indication that Turkey does not see its future within the largely inter-operable NATO and European security structures... The big question here is why should Turkey, which boasts a modern air force with highly deterrent firepower, need ballistic or cruise missiles? With which countries within a diameter of 2,500 km does Turkey think it may, in the future, have to battle? Which targets within a range of 2,500 kilometers may it hope to hit which it cannot with a 1,000-km missile?
What justifies the earmarking of – possibly – hundreds of millions of dollars worth of taxpayer money for the Turkish missiles? Are biological, chemical or nuclear weapons in Turkey’s various contingency plans for future warfare? What’s the point of NATO membership, then? Does Turkey intend to leave the alliance? More importantly, what are the political deliberations behind this ambitious plan?
...For the moment, New York, Beijing, Seoul, Brasilia, Ottawa and Tokyo look safe and immune to future Turkish anger. But give Mr. Erdoğan another 10 years in power and Turkey might have another one with a range of 15,000 km by then...

TIME Magazine said of Turkish prime minister in December 2011 that

"No leader better personifies the dramatic changes in the Middle East over the past year than [he does]... He was hailed as a role model by ascendant Islamists in post-dictatorship Tunisia and Egypt, where he urged the building of secular democracies... Erdogan is likely to become even more central to events in the coming year with the unfolding of the Arab rebellion, the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and mounting international tension over Iran."

Source: NPR

A pity the current wave of interest in Erdogan's Turkey as an example for the countries of the badly misnamed Arab Spring does not offer a little more attention to the much darker side of the picture. NPR carried a report two weeks ago under the heading "For Turkish Journalists, Arrest Is A Real Danger". An excerpt:

In the wake of the Arab Spring, some Muslims in North Africa are looking across the Mediterranean to Turkey as a potential model of a state that can be modern, Islamic and democratic. But some analysts in the region say that model is flawed, and they are questioning Turkey's human-rights record and its dealings with the press. Critics say the government is using Turkey's slow-moving and sometimes opaque justice system to stifle dissent. Turkish media advocates are frustrated both with the government and international media groups who in their view understate the number of imprisoned journalists. Among them are Ahmet Sik and longtime investigative journalist Nedim Sener. Their arrests nearly a year ago provoked a large public outcry, but since then detentions of journalists have continued apace." 

Journalists in fear of being arrested? Turkish missiles that can reach every European city today? And beyond them tomorrow? Erdogan's way a model for the region?

Delightful.

22-Jan-12: Islamism and the Palestinian Arab "Spring"

Islamic Jihad: Their sense of what children are good far
makes them an excellent partner for Hamas

Hamas: Their sense of what children are good far
makes them an excellent partner for Islamic Jihad

If you have taken a look at our comment from a little earlier today about the emergence of radical Islamists in the new Egyptian political landscape, you will not need much persuading that Islamism is now riding a wave of unprecedented acceptance in the Arab world.

Hence, not so surprising to find that what binds Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad is more important than what (hitherto) has divided them. The report is Iranian, and given the extreme closeness of the Iranian regime to the Islamicist groups across the Middle East, we're persuaded they ought to be believed. Besides, it's almost always a mistake to dismiss the seriousness of threats when they're made by terrorists.

Palestinian Leader Calls Merger of Hamas, Islamic Jihad "Necessity"   Saturday, 21 January 2012 |  A senior Hamas official stressed on Saturday that merging Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the main Palestinian Islamic resistance movements, is a political and religious must. Mahmoud Al Zahar stated "Religion, politics and political developments in our surrounding necessitate closeness of Islamic movements". He said that integration of the two Palestinian movements in a single organizational structure can resolve many problems, including those related to elections since both groups can now take part in the elections in a single framework. In a recent a meeting with top officials from Islamic Jihad, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya called for rapid measures to merge the two movements. Islamic Jihad also confirmed that the merger talks were already underway. Spokesman Daud Shihab told AFP "An in-depth dialogue has actually begun, both internally and externally, with the aim of uniting".

Odd that among the "many problems" to be solved by the merger of two of the most active terrorist entities in the world, there's no mention here of their ongoing war against Israel, the Jews and the whole spectrum of non-Moslems. Clearly there has been no change of heart: when it comes to hatred of the adherents of other religions in general, and to Jews in particular, both of these entities are populated by the genuine article. They are violent, racist, mysogynist barbarians capable of the most cold-blooded acts of cruelty against their perceived enemies (us) no less than against their own brothers and sisters.

If already we're speaking of lethal Islamist threats against "the whole spectrum of non-Moslems", let's put actual words in actual people's actual mouths.

One of this week's most prominent news personalities, in view of the election results in Egypt, is Mohammad Badie - a name worth remembering. In September 2010, this Badie - a man who bears the exalted title General Guide (and in some sources Supreme Guide) of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood - delivered a how-to-do-it sermon under the title “How Islam Confronts the Oppression and Tyranny”. (It was posted the same month on his party's website.) He exhorted his audience to have faith in the Koran's promise that, even if they are temporarily weak, their god will deliver the infidels into their hands. Three highlights:

• "Moslems desperately need a mentality of honor and means of power to confront global Zionism [which] knows nothing but the language of force. [Moslems] must meet iron with iron, and winds with storms." 
• "Resistance" is the only solution against the Zionist-American arrogance and tyranny. All we need is for the Arab and Muslim peoples to stand behind it and support it.
• “The U.S. is now experiencing the beginning of its end. It is heading towards its demise.”

Presumably intending to prove that last point, Madie is pictured below. The beaming woman next to him [source] is Anne W. Patterson, ambassador of the United States to Egypt.

While she gripped the hand of the Supreme Guide (to give Badie the title accorded to him in this Egyptian source), Ms Patterson, a career diplomat, was quoted saying that "US administrations have committed some mistakes" but "called for overcoming them and to learn from them to avoid their recurrence in the future. She pointed out that democracy always brings stable partners."

They are words worthy of being engraved in stone. 

30-Aug-11: Dark clouds over Israel's south - hard to see from most newspapers, TVs and web pages

Sinai terrorist weapon deployment is now out of control [Source]

At this hour, the following headlines dominate the news in Israel:

Haaretz: Home Front Minister: Sinai-based cell may try to attack Israel in coming days / Israel has been warned that a Islamic Jihad-linked cell comprising at least 10 militants may may use Eid al-Fitr as 'right time' to carry out their attacks, says Vilnai; Cairo has deployed more than 1,500 soldiers in peninsula, according to Arab media reports.

Jerusalem Post: Vilnai: 10-man terror cell planning attack from Sinai / Home front defense minister says cell wants to attack Israel on border with Egypt during Id al-Fitr, and adds that the defense establishment has "concrete evidence." / Vilnai said that the IDF and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) were working in close cooperation to thwart the attack and that Israel was also coordinating with Egypt.

Yediot Aharonot/Ynet: Report: Egyptian forces raid Jihad cells in Sinai / Minister Matan Vilnai says Israel received warning that a cell comprised of more than 10 terrorists may carry out attack on Eid al-Fitr as some 1,500 Egyptian troops reportedly mount large-scale operation in Sinai against Jihad operatives / Large Egyptian army forces are fighting Jihad operatives in the Sinai Peninsula Tuesday as Israel maintains its high alertness level on the southern border following an alert on a cell said to be comprised of more than 10 terrorists.

As for non-Israeli news channels, the story is a non-starter: check for yourself. A quick but comprehensive review of the online editions of BBC World, the New York Times and other opinion formers during the past hour shows not a word of recognition of this developing crisis.

Greg Sheridan, the foreign editor of the influential national newspaper The Australian has an insightful piece today under the heading "Freedom for extremists could make Sinai the new Somalia":

"There is still much cause for hope in the Arab Spring, but we ought not to look away from the many unpleasant facts staring us in the face. Australia's best friend and closest ally in the Middle East is Israel. In many ways, Israel is the only expression in the Middle East, apart perhaps from some segments of Lebanon, of Western civilisation and values. In the long run, Israel would benefit immeasurably from more representative, democratic and successful Arab societies around it... Although, with Israel's agreement, Egypt has sent more troops into Sinai to try to restore order, it has essentially lost control of Sinai, where non-integrated Bedouin tribes are happy to co-operate with Islamist terrorists."