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In this mailing:
* Bassam Tawil: How a US Congresswoman Can Help Palestinians
* Lawrence A. Franklin: Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Afghanistan and an Opportunity for the West


** How a US Congresswoman Can Help Palestinians ([link removed])
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by Bassam Tawil • August 21, 2019 at 5:00 am
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* While Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib is using the controversy surrounding her visit as an excuse to launch scathing attacks on Israel, Palestinians seem to be more worried about failed leaders in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This concern is not something that Tlaib seems to share with Palestinians because for her the only wrong-doing is coming from Israel.
* "Praising suicide bombers and pushing blood libel is not 'criticizing Israeli policy.'" — Charles Sykes, The xxxxxx, August 19, 2019.
* As a Congresswoman, Tlaib should have been worried that a US Embassy was forced to cancel an event to help Palestinians because of threats and calls for a boycott.
* It would have been helpful had the Palestinian-American Congresswoman made an effort to persuade Palestinian Authority officials to resume their relations with the US administration and explore ways of boosting the Palestinian economy and improving living conditions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. As a Congresswoman, she should be working to build, and not destroy, bridges between her people and the US. Her fierce attacks on Israel and the US administration, however, embolden Palestinian hardliners and fuel hate against Israelis and Americans.
* If Tlaib really cared about the Palestinians, she should be campaigning against the PA and Hamas leaders engaged in a power struggle over money and power. Moreover, she should be calling for reforms and democracy under the PA and Hamas. The least she could do is demand an end to human rights violations by the PA and Hamas or demand that they hold long overdue presidential and parliamentary elections. She could also demand an end to crackdown on freedom of speech under the PA and Hamas.

As a Palestinian-American Congresswoman, Rashida Tlaib should be working to build, and not destroy, bridges between her people and the US. Her fierce attacks on Israel and the US administration, however, embolden Palestinian hardliners and fuel hate against Israelis and Americans. (Photo by Christ Chavez/Getty Images)

Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib is apparently upset because she was not able to agitate against Israel during a proposed visit to her grandmother there.

"I would like to request admittance to Israel," she had written, "in order to visit my relatives, and specifically my grandmother, who is in her 90s and lives in Beit Ur al-Fouqa. This could be my last opportunity to see her. I will respect any restrictions and will not promote boycotts against Israel during my visit. Thank you, Rashida Tlaib."

When her letter was leaked to the media, however, Tlaib quickly backtracked:

"Visiting my grandmother under these oppressive conditions meant to humiliate me would break my grandmother's heart."

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** Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Afghanistan and an Opportunity for the West ([link removed])
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by Lawrence A. Franklin • August 21, 2019 at 4:00 am
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* In the short term, al-Qaeda evidently wants to pressure the United States to withdraw from direct involvement in the Middle East. ISIS, on the other hand, wants to cleanse the region's Arab regimes of secular dictatorships, corrupt ruling elites and insufficiently devout Muslim intelligentsia.
* There is, however, a serious complication. The Taliban-al-Qaeda coalition is now being challenged by increasingly strong ISIS forces in several Afghan provinces. The United Nations recently estimated that ISIS still have roughly $300 million at their disposal. Moreover, some "disaffected" or hardline Taliban fighters opposed to ongoing negotiations with the U.S. are defecting to ISIS.
* The West should take no pleasure in the global competition between al-Qaeda and ISIS. It is a competition that incentivizes each terrorist network to upgrade its recruitment appeal for the next generation of jihadists.
* In its effort to sustain a pro-Western regime in Afghanistan, the United States might instead take advantage of an opportunity already in place. In an area of such unrest, and where it is still unclear what the word of those making promises is worth, it might be wise to keep a modest footprint rather than withdraw all troops. To abandon the area totally, as President Obama abandoned Syria and Iraq, and then find it overrun with terrorist groups, would be, as one saw, a catastrophic mistake.... Although admittedly less than ideal, it still be might be far less costly in life and treasure, as with the Middle East, to safeguard the area and gather intelligence, rather than to leave and then have to go back. It is an opportunity that would be foolhardy to give up.

In its effort to sustain a pro-Western regime in Afghanistan, the United States might instead take advantage of an opportunity already in place... it still be might be far less costly in life and treasure to safeguard the area and gather intelligence, rather than to leave and then have to go back. Pictured: U.S. soldiers on patrol near Kandahar, Afghanistan in 2014. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

While the world's two most prominent and competing jihadist networks, al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (ISIS), share the ultimate objective of establishing a global Islamic caliphate and ushering in the apocalyptic age of the Mahdi. Their intermediate goal seems to be replacing the liberal nation-state system with a worldwide Muslim Ummah. Their immediate aims are different.

In the short term, Al-Qaeda evidently wants to pressure the United States to withdraw from direct involvement in the Middle East. ISIS, on the other hand, wants to cleanse the region's Arab regimes of secular dictatorships, corrupt ruling elites and insufficiently devout Muslim intelligentsia.

Al-Qaeda and ISIS also differ in strategy, tactics, relations with fellow Muslims, treatment of non-Muslims and methods of proselytization.

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