Interfaith Strength

STATEMENT BY DR. RICHARD L. BENKIN, PRESIDENT, FORCEFIELD

PROTECTION FORUM FOR BENGALEE HINDUS OF ASSAM CONVENTION, GUWAHATI, ASSAM, INDIA, DECEMBER 4, 2010

Brothers and Sisters, Namaskar.

From the relative safety and comfort of the West, it is easy to pretend that we are not facing a deadly enemy in West Bengal and Assam.  We cannot afford to have that amnesia ourselves or to let others have it.  That is why I will be standing with you in February.

At the beginning of the last century, coal miners would carry a canary with them in to the mines.  It was not for the bird’s beautiful song.  There is danger in the mines:  poison gas.  But canaries are more sensitive to it than humans are, and if the bird passed out, the miners knew get out and fast.  That gave rise to the expression “a canary in a coal mine,” which refers to something that shows us how things will be for us if we do not act.  The Hindus of Northeast India and Bangladesh are like the canary in a coal mine.

There is danger in this world in the form of terrorists:  radical Islamists and radical communists.  Both aim to destroy what we have and they have joined forces to accomplish their designs.  Danger also exists in the form of those who let them do it:  people more concerned with the corruption money they can get; people who would rather help our enemies than be thought impolite; people who use their fear as an excuse for not acting.  But they are fooling themselves if they believe that cowards can survive this epic battle that is upon us.

What is happening to the Hindus of Northeast India and Bangladesh will happen to the rest of us if we do not make a stand now and stop this Red-Green Alliance (Red standing for Communists; Green for Islamists).  There are at least two ways to do this.  First, as an American, I believe that the United States offers the best chance of forcing change on those who still find it convenient to be silent while others die.  That is my challenge.  In the past few years, I have begun to make significant progress with the US House and Senate on this, as well as with others.  People are beginning to recognize that what is happening to the Hindus here is real, and that no decent person can ignore it.  There is an expression that “light is the best disinfectant.”  With every fiber of my being, I am working to shed light on this disease that is desecrating your great religion, raping your daughters, and eliminating your people—who I now consider my own, as well.

But what you do here is far more significant.  For often when I raise the issue in Washington and elsewhere, people ask me why, if this is so bad, they see nothing coming from the Hindus themselves.  When they see mass demonstrations, hear your outraged voice, and when or government sends up a cry against this crime; the people of the West will not be able to turn their heads.  It also will give the people here hope and more importantly, pride.

Several years ago, I was in a refugee camp for Bangladeshi Hindus near the Nepal border.  One young girl told me that it was her goal to become a schoolteacher so she could teach other Bengali Hindus to be proud of who they are and to know that they deserve better than the lives they have now.  What happened to that pride, to that strength?  Does anyone here believe that she was able to become a teacher?  It is unlikely.  So it is up to us to tap into her strength and the strength of so many others whom I have met in my travels here.

We can create self-help groups to keep the refugees from becoming victims of those who prey upon them.  There already are groups along the West Bengal-Bangladesh border that are teaching them trades and giving them food and medical care until they can become independent.  Why not in Assam?  We can offer them micro-credit programs as well to help them find shelter and a way to earn a living.  And we can make sure their children receive a good education whether in regular schools or outside programs.  Let it do what my young friend in that North Bengal camp wanted to do:  teach them to be proud and strong and to demand what is theirs in the world’s largest democracy, India.

And we can begin by fighting a most shameful order:  a government in the world’s largest Hindu country seeks to expel Hindu victims of Islamist violence back to their attackers where a terrible fate meets them.  Fight it in the courts; fight it in the press; fight it in the board rooms of companies that depend on your purchases to survive.  Take it to Delhi; take it to the UN, the US, and the EU if you have to; but fight it.  Do not let it take effect!

I know, I know.  Many of you are thinking that the people are afraid or too timid.  Well, perhaps they are.  But you will be surprised how the sight of your strength, and especially of your victory, will change that.  And each time it does, you will have more and more allies who join with you until the day when your enemies are defeated and Hindus will again feel safe.

Hope and Change: 2010

Originally published in the New English Review, November 7, 2010

Dr Richard Benkin

A big question on many minds the day after last week’s election was whether its results will bring cooperation among Democrats and Republicans to move America forward or gridlock and a lack of progress; but there is a more important question that must be answered first: Will House and Senate Tea Party activists and Republican moderates be able to find common ground and thereby provide an effective antidote to the Obama Administration’s program of big government and higher taxes?

The glimmer of an answer emerged at victory celebrations for two moderate Republicans outside Chicago on November 2: one for Mark Kirk, who won the US Senate seat once occupied by Barack Obama; the other for Robert Dold, who won Kirk’s former Congressional seat. Kirk’s record of compromising with Democrats on specifics has unleashed relentless efforts to label him a RINO (Republican in name only). But Kirk describes himself as “a fiscal conservative, a social moderate, and a national defense hawk,” a description that Dold also embraces. They—and the overwhelming majority of Illinois conservatives—reject the RINO moniker as little more than a demand for ideological purity. 

Like most 2010 campaigns, theirs became heated and vitriolic; and for Kirk, that included a nasty primary challenge from the Right that did not relent even during the very heated general election campaign. As Kirk announced his Senate victory and thanked those who helped make it possible, he made a point of singling out Patrick Hughes in the ebullient crowd and thanked him for his work in helping Kirk to victory. This was significant because Hughes was Kirk’s most credible primary challenge. Moreover, those challengers and their followers refused to support Kirk throughout the campaign. That Hughes ultimately did was a factor in many conservatives “coming home” in the campaign's final days, and helping to propel the Republican to victory. Is this an example of the Right reaching out to a moderate?

At Bob Dold’s celebration that night, his supporters gathered for hours before his Congressional race was called. They watched the election returns from across the United States: some to celebrate; some that disappointed. And while these largely moderate Republicans were cheered by so many successes that night, there was a special sense of excitement about Marco Rubio’s Florida triumph. Not only was Rubio one of the first lions backed by the Tea Party, but he also trounced a prominent “moderate” in Governor Charlie Crist. When Rubio’s election was called, there was a real buzz among Dold’s supporters for what they saw as “the future of the Republican party.” Is this an example of moderates reaching out to the Right?

Illinois—which now has a Republican majority in its Congressional delegation and a new Republican Senator—is a real test case for Republicans. Illinois is arguably the “bluest” state in the union, making it is impossible for an ideological conservative to win election, outside of a few small districts. This will challenge Republicans to master realities without abandoning the conservative principles that make them relevant. Success in Illinois will bode well for national success, and that process might already be underway.

Is the Hindu-American Community Coming into its Own?

Originally published on Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, October 29, 2010

Dr Richard Benkin

There are not that many more Muslims than Hindus in the United States:  2.454 million Muslims compared to 1.478 million Hindus, according to Pew Research, the US State Department, and others.  You would not know that judging by the tremendous imbalance in attention given the former over the latter; or the power and influence imbalance between the Council on Arab-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Hindu American Foundation (HAF).  During the height of Taliban expansion in 2009, for example, HAF failed to get Congress to pass even a non-binding resolution to condemn the Taliban for atrocities against Pakistani Hindus.  If you cannot get Americans to condemn the Taliban, you better take another look at the reality of your position.

We could suggest any number of theories for this disparity, but one thing is clear.  American Muslims have done a much better job of organizing as a relatively united US interest group than have US Hindus.  But that might be changing in this very tight and pivotal election year.

At least three candidates in the have made genuine outreach to the Hindu-American and Sikh-American communities a priority:  Congressman Mark Kirk, running for the US Senate seat from Illinois once held by President Barack Obama; Robert Dold, running for the suburban Chicago Congressional seat vacated by Kirk; and Joel Pollak, running for Congress from the adjacent District.  All three are in very tight races; all three genuinely consider the Hindu community’s concerns important; and all three are Republicans running in traditionally Democrat areas.  Hindu-Americans traditionally vote Democrat, especially in cities like Chicago, where Democrats maintain strong, “machine” power.

Activists attempting to create an independent Hindu power base recognized that.  As one of them told me, “we have to go around the traditional ‘leaders’ since they are tied to specific groups and will do their bidding in exchange for political crumbs.”  For years, community leaders reliably contributed to the Democrat machine and their media always endorsed its candidates.  Small businesses on Chicago’s Devon Avenue, dubbed Mahatma Gandhi Marg, knew that there would be consequences for displaying opposition candidates’ posters, something several of them told me.   This fall, that culture of corruption boiled over after numerous bad bank loans and foreclosures by the United Central Bank devastated many in the community.  The machine’s Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky—Pollak’s opponent—said she would help but intervened for only three wealthy businessmen—Mr. Amrit Patel, Mr. Balvinder Singh, and Mrs. Shahira Khan—who contributed to her political campaign.  That and a general rejection of Obama’s failed policies sparked anger and discontent within Chicago’s Hindu American community.

An early turning point came in August when Pollak and Dold marched down Devon on India’s Independence Day.  Their opponents were nowhere to be seen.  Pollak and his wife Julia came decked in traditional Indian garb and spent hours after the parade speaking with and listening to Indian-American residents and businessmen.  Dold marched even though the parade was not even in his District.  Dold later spent time at both Hindu and Sikh events; and Pollak spent hours with Shri Baba Brajraj Sharan learning about ecological and spiritual deterioration in India’s Braj region.  Kirk has reached out to Indians state wide, including physicians hurt by Obama’s health care plan.  He also has reiterated his support for persecuted Bengali and other Hindus.

While community members still fear machine reprisals, there have been clear signs that the effort has borne fruit.  A recent cover story in one major Indian paper about the Pollak-Schakowsky election, gave the political upstart and the six-term Congresswoman equal coverage, something that had not happened in previous years.  And at least one Indian TV station has openly supported Kirk, Dold, and Pollak, while also tying their candidacies to my pro-Hindu human rights work.  

As a Congressman, Mark Kirk worked extensively to aid my own human rights work and has labored long to strengthen US-India ties.  Dold and Pollak are first-time candidates who have pledged the same support in Congress and recognize that and translate it into a stronger US.  Each candidate has formed Indian-American advisory committees from which they seek advice and pledge to continue empowering after the election as well.  Pollak is actually a human rights attorney, familiar with anti-Hindu oppression, especially in the Northeast; and Dold, who has personal experience with atrocity victims, actively seeks out information about anti-Hindu activities to help shape his own policies.

Substantively, we need that support to launch effective opposition by the United States against efforts to destroy Hindu communities in Bangladesh and elsewhere.  Politically, the candidates have identified us as a critical constituency whose issues and concerns they will not ignore.  Should they be victorious on 2 November, one national political insider told me, others will recognize your critical role, too, and “you won’t see a repeat of the failed anti-Taliban resolution.”

Corruption and Neglect in West Bengal Dooms Bhadrakali Women’s Camp Refugees

Originally published on Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, October 23, 2010

Dr. Richard Benkin
A sign hanging over the entrance to the Bhadrakali Women’s Camp in West Bengal (WB) states that since 1969, the camp has been affiliated with the United Central Refugee Council, a wing of the ruling Communist Party (CPIM).  Yet, far from being treated as protected wards, camp residents are seen increasingly as inconveniences at best, interlopers at worst.  Earlier this year, my associate Bikash Halder visited the camp, which sits on land that once served as a World War II military installation but was later re-dedicated as a camp for widows “whose husbands were murdered brutally by the Muslim fundamentalists in what was then East Pakistan,” according to Halder.  Archana Das, of the camp’s “Integrated Child Development Scheme,” counts 38 female residents who live there as officially recognized refugees and receive government assistance.  Another 238 lifelong camp residents, however, are not accorded the same status—or aid—despite being descendants of the original war widows and having been stuck in the camp their entire lives.

It was not supposed to be that way.  According to Anusua Basu Roy Chaudhury and Ishita Dey, many of the East Bengali Hindu refugees were rehabilitated into Indian society.  Those who came with an education and professional credentials often chose to skip camp life entirely and, often with the help of relatives, build a new life in Kolkata.  The rest were to be integrated into normal society with the government’s help.  The East Bengal violence “ruptured the lives of these women” who did not possess those skills and “as women faced abduction, molestation or rape.”  The more difficult effort of their rehabilitating them eventually ended under the CPIM, replaced by an all too common pattern of neglect and abuse. Increasing numbers of East Bengal Hindu refugees, mostly women and children, find that they have no resources or official papers that might enable them to leave the camp squalor.  They become permanent wards of the state, subject to every whim of local officials who have life and death power over them.  This injustice hurts the India, as well as the refugees who are maintained as local pawns instead of being developed as productive citizens.

Recently, the situation in the Bhadrakali camp has gone from bad to worse.  Camp representatives notified Halder that the owners of the land recently sued the West Bengal government for non-payment of rent and received an unusually quick judgment from the Kolkata High Court.  Soon thereafter, an official notice signed by Ram Pur, Sub Divisional officer for Hooghly, was posted in the camp ordering the residents to leave.  Many residents panicked because they have nowhere else to go.  I saw the same thing in 2008, when I arrived at a settlement in Uttar Dinajpur to find the refugees packing their meager belongings, having been told to vacate only moments before because a buyer wanted the land.  They were not sure where they would settle but were hoping to find some neglected spot to encamp.

Some Bhadrakali residents decided to fight the order and formed a “movement committee.”  Its General Secretary, Nirmal Dhali, told Halder that the entire matter seemed contrived since the government had not paid rent since 1987, but no suit was filed until recently.  The speed of the judgment in an otherwise glacially slow system also raised suspicions.  Moreover, they allege that their investigation found that “under the direct but hidden patronization of ruling CPIM,” the entire matter had actually been decided in a 2008 meeting.  The meeting took place in theWB office of Binay Krishna Biswas, Minister for “Refugee Rehabilitation.”  We have obtained a copy of the sign-in sheet for that meeting that names WB officials, and S.K. Bhattacharjee and B. K. RAY, of RDB Enterprises, a large Kolkata-based company.  According to camp sources, RDB wants to build a multi-story building on the site.  There were no representatives from the camp.

Today, the Evacuation Notice that remains posted in the camp, hangs over the residents like a Sword of Damocles ready to strike at any moment.  The government has made no provision to re-locate or otherwise provide for their wards, and almost every resident of the camp fears being forced from their homes at a moment’s notice, according to Halder.  When that happens, the more than 400 people will be wandering the roads of West Bengal; left to their own devices in a land to which they escaped simply to live out their lives in peace.  Justice is still elusive for the residents of the Bhadrakali Women’s Camp.

Dr. Richard L. Benkin, http://www.interfaithstrength.com,is a human rights activist whose current mission is to stop the ethnic cleansing of Bangladeshi and other Hindus.  He is also President of the new Human Rights NGO, Forcefield, http://www.forcefieldnow.org.

Ill winds that blow through Deganga

Originally published on The Pioneer, October 21, 2010

A heady cocktail of minority appeasement and rank communalism has sent this West Bengal town on a spin, says Richard L Benkin

For three days in September, anti-Hindu violence wracked the Deganga area in North 24 Parganas, West Bengal. Though the violence has subsided, Hindu residents fear renewed attacks. West Bengal BJP member Tathagata Roy visited the area twice since the violence began and observed, “that no Hindu was physically hurt, and no Hindu woman was molested, a regular feature in all Muslim attacks. But destruction of property and threats were both rampant….This was a well-thought-out, well-executed pogrom whose objective was to terrorise the Hindus no end without committing any major crime beyond arson.” That the matter is now fodder for political bickering instead of effective counteraction only furthers the attackers’ objectives.

Mr Bimal Pramanik, Director of Kolkata’s Centre for Research in Indo-Bangladesh Relations, has tracked a decades-long effort to change Hindu-Muslim demographics in West Bengal. Since the emergence of an independent Bangladesh in 1971, East Bengal’s Hindus have fallen from under one in five persons to between seven and eight per cent today; while the proportion of West Bengal’s Muslims has risen by 25 per cent, exceeding Muslim growth in Bangladesh. Mr Pramanik attributes the population shifts to anti-Hindu attacks and “illegal immigration from Bangladesh”.

The political infighting over Deganga is reminiscent of similar wrangling in the US. Americans reacted to the 9/11 terror with a wave of patriotism, unity and a collective will to defeat those who attacked them. Over time, however, that fervour was replaced by the same political bickering now taking place in India. Democrats blamed the attacks on Republican President George W Bush; Republicans blamed his Democrat predecessor, President Bill Clinton. The result: Support for resolutely fighting the Islamists has been plagued by disunity and political jockeying.

Islamists, meanwhile, proceed in a united, resolute manner and Muslims get a free pass to express their anger however they wish. If Hindus do it, they are ‘Hindu fanatics’; Jews, ‘Zionist oppressors’; Christians, ‘Islamaphobic’. If they attack Muslims, it is their fault. If Muslims attack them, it is still their fault. Arab terror attacks that murdered over 1,000 innocent Israelis were justified as anger over the so-called occupation. The September 11 attacks were deemed expressions of Muslim anger for which Americans must atone; and when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad accused the US of orchestrating them, many at the UN applauded enthusiastically. And virtually every international body and media outlet determined that the 26/11 Islamist terror in Mumbai is insufficient cause to bring anyone to justice. As American author Michelle Malkin wrote, “The eternal flame of Muslim outrage was lit a long, long time ago.” Woe to any people it burns because the world’s elites will blame them for it.

The Deganga pogrom can be viewed parallel with another planned, jihadist event: The 2000 Palestinian intifada.

The Pretext 

Deganga Pogrom: Hindus stopped Muslims from tunneling between the Deganga Mosque and a nearby mandir.

Arab Intifada: Private citizen Ariel Sharon visited Jerusalem's Temple Mount.

Background

Deganga Pogrom: As the area's Muslim population has grown, it has tried to stop Durga Puja and claim the land for their mosque.

Arab Intifada: Muslims claim the Jewish Temples never existed, and claim the Mount as a holy site for Muslims only.

What happened

Deganga Pogrom: Angry Muslims gathered at the Mosque after iftar (giving it religious significance) and began attacking Hindus, their temples, homes and shops. When troops arrived, they attacked undefended Hindu villages in the interior.

Arab Intifada: Angry Muslims gathered on the Temple Mount by Al Aqsa mosque (giving it religious significance) and began attacking Jewish worshippers below. When troops restored calm, they launched a bloody terror war against Israel.

Government

Deganga Pogrom: Stopped the immediate violence, but made no arrests, defended Hindu religious sentiments, or defined Muslim actions or claims as illegitimate.

Arab Intifada: Defeated the uprising, but allowed enemy claims to be given legitimacy, until recently, did not press Jewish rights; even released terrorists as ‘goodwill gestures’.

Media

Deganga Pogrom: Events under reported domestically and blacked out internationally; no discussion of Hindu rights.

Arab Intifada: Took terrorists’ case as cause célèbre; no mention of Jewish rights.

The Result

Deganga Pogrom: The Muslim attackers and their instigators see they can attack Hindus in India without consequences. False Muslim claim to Hindu lands stronger.

Arab Intifada: Arab claims to Jewish land are given more legitimacy — that is, terror works. False Muslim claim about the Jewish Temples stronger.

The attackers and their backers object that identifying pogromists as Muslim and victims as Hindu unfairly smears an entire faith. While religion should not be an important issue, our enemies, not us, made it so. There were deliberate efforts to give the Deganga and Palestinian violence a religious overtone. In 2004, Yassir Arafat apologised to the father of a 20-year-old terror victim because he was Christian and they were gunning for Jews. In 2006, there were deadly riots worldwide over cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed. The rioters were not Hindus or Jews, but Muslims who called the cartoons blasphemous. Muslims, not their critics, have made this a religious fight. More frightening, few were Al Qaeda and most were just Muslims. Draw what conclusions you may, but the religious component injected by Muslims is a fact.

The Deganga riots are more significant than we might believe. The violence and the decades-long demographic change speak of a deliberate effort to reduce India piece by piece, no less so than Islamists’ effort to do the same to Israel. If Indians do not awaken soon, as Israelis have, they might find that international elites have defined Bengal as they have Kashmir.

Op Ed Calling India Pariah State odd Choice for Israeli Publication

Originally published on South Asia Forum, October 14, 2010

Dr. Richard Benkin

On September 19, 2010, the Jerusalem Post ran an Op Ed by Rob Brown, entitled “Why Isn’t India a Pariah State?”  The piece, in essence told Israelis that the Indian “occupation” of Kashmir was characterized by human rights abuses and is responsible for 70,000 deaths.  It also included a warning that if India was not taken to task for this, it would increase the animus toward Israel for its actions in the disputed territories.  Not only did I find the piece little more than an anti-India rant, but several members of the Indian-American community contacted me aghast that such a piece could appear in a major Israeli publication.  I defended the Israeli media’s adherence to free expression but also felt compelled to rebut Brown’s diatribe.  For whatever reason (and I am not second guessing it), the Jerusalem Post chose not to run it; but my Op Ed is re-produced here.

Ron Brown’s Op Ed, “Why Isn’t India a Pariah State,”should resonate with a lot of Israelis—not, however, because they find it compelling, but because the same sort of arguments have been used to justify Israel’s demonization.  It was an odd choice for JPost readers but quite strategic for Mr. Brown.  His focus, Kashmir, is India’s West Bank, and many would sacrifice both territories on the altar of realpolitik in land-for-peace formulae that few believe will bring genuine peace.  Others would do so for more sinister reasons.

Just as Judea and Samaria once had large Jewish populations, Kashmir was once home to large numbers of Hindus and Sikhs.  Over time, those peoples were violently uprooted, allowing advocates for Judenrien, Hindurein, and Sikhrein territories to claim that their position only reflects the will of the people and must be supported by any nation calling itself democratic.
The West Bank abuts Israel, is a terror hub and is otherwise surrounded by a Muslim ummah that has yet to show a willingness to stop its elements with maximalist designs; the same for India-abutting Kashmir.  Moreover, both sets of terrorists have a penchant for hiding among local Muslim populations and capitalizing on the collateral damage that insures.  Should the Indian army in Kashmir or the IDF in the West Bank be handcuffed in protecting their people from these deadly threats?

While Brown’s accusations are unattributed assertions, he does refer to “essayist” Pankaj Mishra and the International People’s Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Indian-Administered Kashmir (“People’s Tribunal”).  Brown’s reliance on these secondary sources seems odd for someone who claims to have “personally observed the situation in Kashmir.”  Was there no first-hand evidence for his anti-India rant?

Neither reference is objective or without an agenda.  Take Mishra.  On the eve of then-US President Bill Clinton’s 2000 visit to India, gunmen dressed in India army uniforms murdered 34 Sikh civilians in the Kashimiri village of Chattisinghpura.  Within hours, Mishra emerged from the village with a “report” blaming Indian soldiers for the cold-blooded killings.  The international press ate it up, and a flood of condemnations poured down on India.  When evidence later implicated Pakistan and local terrorists, who often masquerade as Indian troops, condemnations were withdrawn by all but committed ideologues like Mishra and the People’s Tribunal.  Israelis who recall the phantom “Jenin Massacre” and staged “murder” of Muhammed al-Dura are familiar with the pattern.

The People’s Tribunal is openly ideological.  A Kashmiri paper reported that it “roped in activists from India and abroad to be part of… its investigations.”  One People’s Tribunal Official, Khurram Parvez asserted, without offering a shred of evidence, that one in ten Kashmiris has been tortured—some 700,000 people.  So much for objectivity.  Tribunal founder and most active voice, Angana Chatterji, admits her research is intended to take an “advocacy position.” She and Brown both use the same disingenuous method of argumentation:  provide an effect that can be verified, then offer a reason that cannot.  So, he writes:  “The Indian occupation of Kashmir between 1989-2009 has resulted in more than 70,000 deaths.”  The deaths can be verified, but concluding that the “Indian occupation” caused them cannot.  Similarly, in September Chatterji wrote that “the occupation of Palestine has resulted in 10,148 dead.”

Why assume India is the culprit when there are others, including Pakistan, separatist groups, and terrorists like Lashkar e-Taibi with both motive and a history of mass murder?
 
In “Kashmir: A Time for Freedom,” published less than a week after Brown’s JPost rant, Chatterji parallels Kashmiri and Arab militants and decries the Indian army response by stating, “Stone pelting does not seek to kill, and has not resulted in death.”  She also and refers to those who abet the violence as “pro-freedom leaders” and complains about Kashmiri Muslims having to live under a Hindu-majority India.  Sound familiar?  Then after cataloging what she charges are human rights violations by India, Chatterji notes, “Since 2002, the Government of India has procured 5 billion US dollars in weaponry from the Israeli state. Authoritarian alliances between once subjugated peoples mark another irony of history.”  A week later, “Israel and India Brothers in Occupation of Kashmir” appeared to accuse Israel or helping India “to obliterate the Kashmiri freedom struggle.”

And so we get to the crux of the matter.  The burgeoning relationship between India and Israel has set off Islamist alarm bells worldwide.  Both nations are almost synonymous with high-tech excellence, and both militaries have an almost unblemished record of success.  The religions most closely associated with them—Judaism and Hinduism—are an anathema to Islamists and top candidates for the chopping block should our enemies prevail.  Breaking up this growing relationship would be a real coup for them.  What better way than to demonize India in Israel in the same way that anti-Israel propaganda has proven so effective elsewhere?  Perhaps Brown’s Op Ed was the opening salvo in that war.

Dr. Richard L. Benkin is a Chicago-based human rights activist who freed Muslim Zionist and journalist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury from imprisonment and torture in Bangladesh and helped stop an anti-Israel “seminar” in Australia, among other accomplishments.  He currently is fighting to stop the ethnic cleansing of Bangladeshi Hindus and travels frequently to South Asia in that cause.

As if we needed more evidence…

Originally published in the New English Review, October 13, 2010

Dr. Richard Benkin

We all remember how liberals tried to justify their recent bailout to states and localities. It was going to do things like save teachers’ jobs and pay for all sorts of other “needed” services. But its real impact was to enable the ever-increasing out of control spending we have at the state and local levels. Right?   Little did we know, however, that Nanny State directives from DC were helping them spend those dollars so eagerly borrowed from China.

In another ridiculous misuse of our limited tax dollars, the Federal Highway Administration has ordered New York City to change “250,900 street signs… from the all-caps style used for more than a century to ones that capitalize only the first letters,” according to Jeremy Olshan in the New York Post.

Studies have shown that it is harder to read all-caps signs, and those extra milliseconds spent staring away from the road have been shown to increase the likelihood of accidents, particularly among older drivers, federal documents say.

(These must be the same sort of federal studies that said a disabled vet from Chicago’s North Shore could drive to the city’s West Side in half an hour—while anyone familiar with the area knows that the drive takes n hour even without traffic, which is almost never.)

“Safety is this department's top priority,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said last year, in support of the new guidelines. “These new and updated standards will help make our nation's roads and bridges safer for drivers, construction workers and pedestrians alike.”

Wow, what a guy! The Nanny State is so concerned about avoiding those potential accidents, that it even developed a special font, Clearview, for street signs—which means that numbered signs must be replaced, too. No doubt, LaHood had only the best intentions, but with local officials having to bust open their children’s piggy banks to make payroll, did he realize that the price tag for New York City alone would be $27.6 million!

And I did say “New York City alone,” because this is a nationwide initiative that will cost us an as yet incalculable amount—in the middle of a recession and the largest accumulation of debt in United States history. Get ready for another bailout when this money runs out because, as the Obama sycophants and cronies tell us, tax cuts not spending force us to borrow.

Congressional Candidate Pollak Focuses on Indian Americans

Originally published on NRI Today, October 2010

Joel Pollak is running for Congress from Illinois' Ninth District and has made the Indian-American community an integral part of his campaign; a role he pledges to carry with him to Washington if elected.  I sat with Pollak for over an hour one hot August afternoon near Chicago's Devon Avenue as Shri Baba Brajraj Sharan gave a presentation on the ecological and spiritual degradation of India's Braj Region, legendary home to Lord Krishna.   Though it overran another commitment of his, Pollak remained transfixed on Baba's presentation, later speaking emotionally about what he saw and his own experiences.  Pollak's biography suggests that his love for the Indian community is neither new nor political.  Rather, as one community member told me, "it is a good partnership."

He is running to represent the large NRI populations on Chicago's North Side and in many of its suburbs.  Despite the community's size and vibrancy it has been under served, he believes, by incumbent Congresswoman, Jan Schakowsky, who "has been in Washington for 12 years and never once took up any issue of importance to us, " according to a community member.  Pollak vows to change that and has empanelled an Indian-American Advisory Committee with significant influence in his campaign.  In the first of several interviews, Pollak spoke about foreign policy issues involving India and China.

RB:  In 2005, your opponent voted against legislation to deter arms sales to China.  Recent news suggests China's arms industry is now outpacing our own.  First, do you believe that China constitutes a threat to the United States and India; and second, if so, what would you as a member of Congress do to reduce or counter that threat?

JP:  China's military buildup and increased assertiveness around the world have raised the prospect of intensifying security competition both between China and the U.S., and between China and other countries in the Asia-Pacific.  I believe that China's foreign policy could be very destabilizing—unless, that is, the U.S. remains firm in defense of our allies overseas. In Congress, my policy towards China will involve commitments to defend loyal, democratic allies like India and strengthen diplomatic and security relations. India is a partner in the war against terrorism, and also in the global struggle for human rights.

RB: China has claimed the Indian State of Arunachal Pradesh and its hydro-electric resources, critical to both China's and India's burgeoning economies.  Having seen China's expansionist bent from Tibet to Hong Kong and other claims once thought ridiculous gain credence in the international arena; how would you prevent China from seizing Arunachal Pradesh and its critical resources?

JP:  Yes, China has increasingly disputed Indian sovereignty over Arunachal Pradesh and even increased operations along the border. The Obama Administration has ignored India's concerns, and gone so far as to make joint statements with Beijing promising to "work together" to promote security in South Asia. I think that is the wrong approach. The Administration should stop taking the friendliness of Beijing's intentions for granted, and instead develop a realistic, strategic plan to prevent the outbreak of conflict along the border.  We should deter China from further inflaming border tensions with India, or from launching an invasion, by projecting strength, defending our alliance with India, and passing a clear, unambiguous resolution promising that we will not stand by idly if China invades or destabilizes Arunachal Pradesh. As your representative in Congress, I will propose such a resolution, and I will encourage the House India Caucus and other members to sign on.

RB:  Former Indian Cabinet Minister Dr. Subramanian Swami has noted that the Chinese economy is dependent on importing semi-raw goods from other Asian nations and exporting them to the West.  He further suggested that convincing those nations to send their products through India instead would be an economic game changer.  What is your reaction to that?

JP:  America has become India's largest trading and investment partner. However, India still has many tariffs and non-tariff barriers that discourage countries from exporting to India. One goal of our economic partnership with India should be to encourage further domestic liberalization to boost Indian economic growth and market access for companies wishing to send their partially produced products to India. In exchange, we could offer Indian greater access to American labor markets by lifting the cap on H1B visas.

Schakowsky has coasted to victory in previous elections thanks to Chicago'slegendary machine; but this is no ordinary election year, and Pollak is running neck and neck with his powerful opponent in what is shaping up to be a real "David and Goliath" race.  Political newcomer Pollak (David) looks to be in position to upset Schakowsky (Goliath) in a race that mirrors events elsewhere around the country.  As Pollak himself noted, "We have taken a ‘safe' seat and turned it into a competitive race that is giving real power to the people of the 9th District."  And a big piece of that power pie is going to Indian-Americans with whom Pollack and his wife Julia have longstanding personal and cultural ties.

[ BY MADHU PATEL ]

The Bangladeshi Hindus and What we can do to Save Them.

Address to Jagriti by Dr. Richard L. Benkin, Cerritos, California October 2, 2010

Bangladesh’s Hindu population is dying. This is not opinion or the ravings of an ideologue: It is a fact. At the time of India’s partition in 1948, they made up a little less than a third of East Pakistan’s population. When East Pakistan became Bangladesh in 1971, Hindus were less than a fifth; thirty years later, less than one in ten; and reliable estimates put the Hindu population at less than eight percent today. Professor Sachi Dastidar of the State University of New York estimates that over 40 million Hindus are missing from the Bangladeshi census.[1]  Still having trouble wondering where this is going? Take a look at Pakistan where Hindus are down to one percent or Kashmir where they are almost gone. Take a look at the future of Bangladesh’s Hindus if we do not act.

Just to be clear, other Bangladeshi minorities are in distress, including the Amadiyya, Chakmas, and others, but my focus is the Bangladeshi Hindus for several reasons.  First, I am only one person and—as much as I wish I could—I am unable to take on every worthy human rights cause.  Second, Hindus are much more numerous than the other minorities, so there are many more people at risk.  Third, there are implications for India that are not there for the others, which makes this a more dangerous situation, while not more worthy of our attention.

That Bangladeshi Hindus are disappearing is one irrefutable fact.  Want another?  For years, we have received report after report documenting anti-Hindu incidents there; “incidents” including murder, gang rape, assault, forced conversion to Islam, child abduction, land grabs, and religious desecration. And while Bangladeshi officials might object that the perpetrators were non-state actors, government culpability rests, at the very least, on the fact that it pursues very few of these cases and punishes even fewer perpetrators. Their excuses have not stopped the killing. In fact, successive Bangladeshi governments—whether the openly Islamist BNP, the civilian or military caretaker, or the supposedly pro-minority Awami League—all have been passive bystanders, failing—or refusing—to exercise their sovereign responsibility to protect the life and security of all their citizens; and thus they have sent radical Islamists and common citizens alike a clear message that these acts can be undertaken with impunity.[2]

And yet, in this topsy-turvy world, it is WE who have to prove that there is something wrong. One would expect justice to demand that the BANGLADESHIS explain why they should not be charged with complicity in eliminating an entire people numbering in the tens of millions. That very presumption should tell us why we cannot rest until WE stop this atrocity—completely and forever!

Perhaps that is due in large part to the second irrefutable fact.  With all the documented incidents, with all the murders, rapes, and government tolerated attacks still going on, we have seen nothing about it in the mainstream media—which leads me to a question I ask a lot.  “Are my sources that much better than CNN’s?”  To be sure, many reports are exaggerated or contain inaccurate information—an occupational hazard in chasing down human rights violations.  But at the same time, my own sources on the ground often visit the scene of alleged atrocities and report back what can be verified and in some cases what cannot.  So, again, I ask “Are my resources that much better than CNN’s?”  Until CNNs of this world, or for that matter The Times of India stop their studied ignorance of this ongoing human rights travesty, governments in Bangladesh and elsewhere will deem that they can engage in these things without anyone caring. 

Why governments and not the radicals?  Because I have spoken with hundreds of Bangladeshi Hindu refugees living in largely illicit colonies throughout North and Northeast India. In describing the attacks that forced them to leave their ancestral homes, they made it very clear that their attackers were not necessarily radicals, but neighbors; common, everyday Muslims; not radicals or “bad” people. They also reported with near unanimity that when they went to the police and other officials for help, they were advised to drop the subject and “get out of Bangladesh.” In 2009, I interviewed a family that crossed into India only 22 days earlier. They told me about an uncle being killed, the father beaten, and their small farm invaded by a large number of “neighbors.” I also looked into the eyes of their 14-year-old daughter as she talked about being gang raped. Who did it? Not al Qaeda or even Jammat; but simply Muslims who lived in the area and knew they could have their way with the family, seize their land, and get away with it.[3]

And that is chilling because history has shown that the most “successful” cases of genocide and ethnic cleansing occur when a small cadre of true believers incites average citizens to engage in heinous acts against a targeted minority that they otherwise would not dream of committing. There might be no Gestapo or Janjaweed in Bangladesh, but its Hindu community is facing a similar process of destruction at the hands of the Bangladeshi majority.

In fact, it is even worse; because albeit too late, the civilized world eventually heard the cries coming out of Nazi Europe, Rwanda, and Darfur. As difficult as it was getting to that point, it is even more difficult getting the world to see an atrocity without concentration camps that has been going on for decades. When was the last time Amnesty International protested this; or the UN Human Rights Commission; or anyone else? What about the United States, or India? Never; and it is our responsibility to make sure they do. Because if we do not, no one else will, count on it, and we will see an end to the Bangladeshi Hindus in our lifetime!

So, how do we do it? First, recognize that the mere fact that our cause is just does not mean people will support us. They have not so far, and nothing lately has indicated that is changing. We have to change things ourselves. Second, understand that justice will not come because people finally “see the light,” but as the result of many small victories that make it impossible for the world to continue ignoring what we know is happening to the Hindus of Bangladesh. That means with all due respect that we do not need to hear from groups and individuals—me included—about how hard they have worked for this cause. Let us not confuse effort with results. Human lives hang in the balance! Whatever they have done, it has not stopped the murders, rapes, and expulsions; it has not stopped the progressive de-Hinduization of East Bengal and Islamization of West Bengal. We have to move forward with a new dynamic—one that is practical and action-oriented; and one that demands commitment from each of us.  As an American, I look first to my own country.

The Bangladeshis have at least four pressure points the United States can push: trade, economic cooperation, UN peacekeeping troops, and its image as a democratic and moderate Islamic nation. Let me give you two quick examples of what I mean. I was in Dhaka during the 2007 coup. Most people think it occurred because of unrest over the BNP’s rigging the elections; but that is not what happened. There was a lot of street violence when I arrived there, and every western democracy was calling for the elections to be postponed; but the military had no intention of moving until someone got the UN to weigh in and threaten to review Bangladesh’s participation in peacekeeping missions. Bangladesh contributes more UN peacekeeping troops than any other country—almost 11,000 at this moment, just a little more than Pakistan.me[4]  Besides losing the receipts vital to their economy if the program is cancelled, the very thought of 11,000 young, angry, unemployed, and armed men is enough to scare the pants off anyone—even enough to cause a coup. If anything, Bangladesh is more vulnerable now.

In another case, Bangladesh’s notorious Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) abducted a colleague of mine in Dhaka—and we know that RAB’s abductees often have a habit of “disappearing.” So, I called the Bangladeshi ambassador to remind him that I helped stop several attempts at awarding Bangladesh tariff relief and would do so again, then added that if my colleague was not released unharmed and soon, “there will be a shit storm that you cannot even imagine.” But, you see, right after that I called several Capitol Hill offices that have supported this cause and within the next 45 minutes, the embassy received angry inquiries from at least six of them, including some with responsibility for trade and appropriations. Needless to say, my colleague was freed unharmed after, as he told me, “higher ups” called the RAB commander.

Understand; this is not about me but about a good plan and organization and what they can do. In both instances, material interest not justice convinced the Bangladeshis to act, and if it worked then, it will work now to save Bangladesh’s Hindus.

Our problem is we lack focus.  People come to events like this, get excited, but leave not knowing quite what to do.  Here are examples of what each of us can do:

Support my efforts for Congressional hold hearings on the ethnic cleansing of Bangladesh’s Hindus. We have several interested parties and at least one verbal okay; but the key will be calling our representatives and Senators after the new Congress takes office in January.  If you can help, and even better, if you can be part of a call chain, give me your contact information. 

Using the same methods, help us continue to block attempts to award Bangladesh tariff relief or other trade benefits until that country observes decent human rights standards—and if any of you know the Bangladeshis, this time talk is not enough.   We have been doing this successfully for over five years, but it only takes one lapse for these victims to lose one of the most important tools for putting an end to the atrocities.  The same methods can be successful in other areas like appropriations.  Congressman Mark Kirk, now running for the US Senate from Illinois, inserted conditional language that can be used at any time to turn up the heat on Bangladesh.

Ask candidates for Congress and the Senate if they will support these efforts and cast your vote accordingly.  This is big now, and it will be bigger in two years.

And engage Bangladesh. The Bangladeshis are not bad people; their actions are not ideological.  Their leaders face the same—often competing—pressures that others do.  They can be part of the solution and not part of the problem.  But it will never happen if (1) we write them off as evil or (2) give them what they want from us without being tough on matters like this.

There is something else everyone can do. Last year, I helped found a human rights organization, Forcefield. Unlike Amnesty International and the rest, it is not “agenda-driven.” That is, we are not tied to any leftist ideology, network of supporters, or “flavor of the week” issues. And we specifically are NOT anti-Israel. We are recognized by the governments of the United States and India; and unlike the others, we are committed to stop the ethnic cleansing of Hindus in Bangladesh and hopefully help persecuted minorities from Kashmir, Pakistan, and elsewhere by bringing this to the world’s attention.

Our efforts include my human rights missions to South Asia; a documentary about the Bangladeshi Hindus that we expect to be a call for action; and an online newspaper to bring Americans and others solid information about what is happening in South Asia. We have various professionals ready to participate, victims ready to testify, and correspondents standing by in the key areas of India to bring Americans news that CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News never cover; news I never see it in my morning Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post or the New York Times; even though it is about theinternational jihad that threatens us all.

We need funds to do these things.  Donations are fully tax-deductable, and our credentials are available for inspection. There are envelopes in the back for donations, as well as forms for credit card donations. You can also help through our web site, http://www.forcefieldnow.org, and click the “Donate” button. Every penny you give will help stop the atrocities we know are happening.

Joseph Stalin[5] is said to have remarked, “One death is a tragedy, a million deaths a statistic.” That 14-year-old rape victim—that child—I met was no statistic, and God help us if we make her one!

[1] Population statistics taken from the census of Pakistan (1948), and Bangladesh (1974 and 2001). Also see Dastidar, Sachi G.; Empire’s Last Casualty: Indian Subcontinent’s Vanishing Hindu and other Minorities. (Kolkata: Firma KLM Private Limited, 2008.

[2] See for example, incidents in the monthly newsletter of the Bangladesh Hindu, Buddhist, Christian Unity Council available at http://www.bhbcuc-usa.org/index.html. The Hindu American Foundation has documented these atrocities in successive annual reports, entitled Hindus in South Asia and the Diaspora: A Survey of Human Rights [followed by a specific year]; copyright Hindu American Foundation. For instance, 2007, pages 5-21; 2008, pages 3-15. They also are available at the Hindu American Foundation web site, http://www.hafsite.org. Global Human Rights Defence investigates and reports on human rights violations against Bangladeshi Hindus at http://ghrd.org. Click “countries” and then “Bangladesh.” The first and third organizations have also worked with me in providing evidence of anti-Hindu activities in Bangladesh.

[3] This information came from recorded and unrecorded interviews I had with Bangladeshi Hindu refugees, living in mostly illegal colonies in the Indian states of West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarakhan, from 2008-2010. The 14-year old rape victim related the story to me in an encampment in North Dinajpur near the Bangladesh border in March 2009.

[4] Figures come from the United Nations itself, Contributors to United Nations Peacekeeping Operations, and the August figures can be found at http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/contributors/2010/aug10_1.pdf.

[5] Elizabeth Knowles, editor, Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 301. Attributed to Joseph Stalin.

Deganga Intifada?

Originally published on South Asia Forum, September 28, 2010

Dr. Richard Benkin

For three days in September, anti-Hindu violence wracked the Deganga area in North 24 Parganas, only 40 kilometers from the West Bengal capital of Kolkata.  Though the violence has subsided, Hindu residents fear renewed attacks, which could have been the attackers’ intention all along.  West Bengal BJP member Tathagata Roy visited the area twice since the violence began and noted, “What struck me about the pogrom (not riot, because no Hindu hit a Muslim) is that no Hindu was physically hurt, and no Hindu woman was molested, a regular feature in all Muslim attacks.  But destruction of property and threats were both rampant.”  From that Roy concludes that “this was a well-thought-out, well-executed pogrom whose objective was to terrorize the Hindus no end without committing any major crime beyond arson. The ultimate intention can only be to cleanse the area of Hindus with a view to totally Islamize the area.”  That the matter is now fodder for political bickering instead of effective counter action only furthers the attackers’ objectives.

Bimal Pramanik, Director of the Kolkata-based Centre for Research in Indo-Bangladesh Relations, has noted a steady and deliberate effort to change Hindu-Muslim demographics in West Bengal.  Since the emergence of Bangladesh (East Bengal) as an independent nation in 1971, Hindus in that country have fallen from a little less than one in five to between seven and eight percent today.  At the same time, the Muslim proportion of West Bengal’s population has risen by 25 percent compared to an almost nine percent decline in the proportion of its Hindu population.  Between 1981 and 1991, moreover, Muslim population growth in West Bengal was nearly 35 percent compared to only 25 percent in Bangladesh.  “How can there be such a wide difference in growth rates between the two countries?”  Pramanik asked South Asia Forum’s Amitabh Tripathi and me in his Kolkata office.  His conclusion:  “Illegal immigration from across the border.”

The current political infighting is reminiscent of similar wrangling in the United States.  America reacted to the September 11, 2001 terror attacks by radical Muslims with a wave of patriotism and unity, bringing with it a collective will to defeat those who attacked America.  Over time, however, the initial fervor died down and the same sort of political bickering now taking place in India replaced it.  Democrats blamed the attacks on Republican President George Bush; Republicans blamed his Democrat predecessor, President Bill Clinton.  That the widely praised “9/11 Commission” found largely equal fault with both did not stop the charges and counter charges.  As a result, support for resolutely fighting the Islamists has been plagued by disunity and political jockeying; which also muddies the signal Americans get about their enemies and their intention.  Is this happening in India?

Almost 2000 years ago, ancient Israel was at war with its Roman occupiers.  With most of the country in enemy hands and Roman legions approaching the gates of the Hebrew capital, Jerusalem; defenders holed up in the Jewish Temple, located on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.  But instead of forming a united front against the enemy, they fell into three factions and spent more time attacking one another than the Romans.  When they eventually united, it was too late and Jerusalem fell.  The Jewish state was destroyed, not to be re-established until 1948.  Is this happening in India?

While the victims of yesterday and today expend their resources fighting one another, their Islamist enemies proceed in a united, strategic, and resolute manner.  The Deganga pogrom makes sense when viewed in parallel with another planned, jihadist event with similar goals:  the 2000 Palestinian intifada.  It also helps to note that Muslims today are given a free pass to express their individual or collective anger however they wish.  If Hindus do it, they are Hindu fanatics; Jews, Zionist oppressors; Christians, Islamaphobic.  If any of these groups attack Muslims, it is their fault.  If Muslims attack them, it is still their fault.  Arab terror attacks on Israel murdered over 1000 Israelis in the first few years of this century but were justified as anger over the so-called occupation.  The September 11th attacks on the United States were deemed expressions of Muslim anger for which Americans must atone.  When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad recently accused the United States of being the real 9/11 killers, many at the UN applauded enthusiastically.  Finally, virtually every international body and media outlet has determined that the 26/11 terror in Mumbai is insufficient cause to bring anyone to justice.  As American author and analyst Michelle Malkin wrote, “The eternal flame of Muslim outrage was lit a long, long time ago.”  Woe to any people it burns because the world’s elites will blame them for it.  The pattern is tediously familiar.

   Deganga Pogrom   Arab Intifada

The Pretext  Hindus stopped Muslim activists Then private citizen Ariel Sharon
   from tunneling between the   visited Jerusalem’s Temple Mount
   Deganga Mosque and a nearby
   Hindu Temple.

Background  As the area’s Muslim population Although it is the site of Judaism’s
   has grown, they have tried to stop Ancient Temple, Muslims claim that
   Durga Puja there and claim the  the Temple did not exist and that
   land for their mosque.  the Mount is a holy site for Muslims
        only.

What happened Angry Muslims gathered at the  Angry Muslims gathered on the
   Mosque after Iftar (giving it  Temple Mount by al Aqsa mosque
   religious significance) and began (giving it religious significance) and
   attacking Hindus, their temples, began attacking Jewish worshippers
   homes and shops.  When troops below.  When troops responded to
   arrived to restore calm, they  restore calm, they launched a terror
   moved against defenseless Hindu war against Israel that included
   villages in the interior.  suicide bombings and other terror.

All Factions Need to Heed lessons from Delaware

Originally published in the American Thinking, September 17, 2010

Dr. Richard Benkin

There was a great deal of concern expressed earlier this week about reports that Delaware and national Republican leaders would not support GOP Senate nominee, Christine O'Donnell.  Fortunately, it seems that most of the Republican establishment is taking the lead of Texas Senator Jon Cornyn, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.  He offered her strong verbal and financial support, even though his group had supported Representative Mike Castle, whom the Tea Party backed O'Donnell defeated in the September 14 primary to determine who would vie for the Senate seat formerly held by Vice President Joe Biden.
 

Establishment Republicans have finished licking their wounds and are supporting O'Donnell and other successful candidates associated with the Tea Party Express such as Rand Paul in Kentucky, Sharon Angle in Nevada, and Joe Miller in Alaska.  The continued refusal by Castle and Senator Lisa Murkowski, who Miller defeated, to endorse their O'Donnell and Miller respectively, seems more and more petty and ultimately self-defeating.  The nasty statements Republican "icon" Karl Rove made about O'Donnell help no one except the Democrats; and increasing numbers of people are seeing that.

Agree with the candidate, disagree; it does not matter.  The people have spoken and we had better listen to them.  That's the message all of us should be getting.

While the Tea Party has scored some serious successes in this primary season, there is one race in which its candidates suffered nothing short of a humiliating defeat:  the GOP Senate primary in Illinois.  None of the five candidates who challenged Representative Mark Kirk from the right were able to win many votes.  The strongest among them, attorney Patrick Hughes received public endorsements from Conservative radio hosts Laura Ingraham and Mark Levin, got only 19 percent of the vote to Kirk's 57.  It seems that the people have spoken.

But in an ongoing fit of pique Kirk's former Tea Party backed rivals are acting no different than Castle and Murkowski.  Both they and many Illinois conservatives not only refuse to endorse Kirk, but keep up the drum beat of (in my opinion inaccurate) cries of RINO and spread misinformation that are helping no one but Kirk's Democrat foe, State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias.

The primaries are over; the people have spoken.  Whether we are Tea Party Conservatives or establishment Republicans, we need to respect the will of the people and not take the position that "we know better."  In doing so, Illinois Conservatives will help their state send a Senator to Washington who will work overtime to undo the tax and spend, big government Obama agenda-an agenda that Democrat Giannoulias will vote to support every chance he gets; count on it.

An appreciable act by a non-Hindu working for the cause of Hindus !

(Originally published August 2010 in Nation and Dharma)

Washington DC (USA) - A Hindu Dharmajaruti Sabha organised by ‘Forum for Hindu Awakening’ recently concluded in Chicago (USA). Dr. Richard Benkin, a famous Human Rights activist, known for his voice against atrocities being committed on Hindus in Bangladesh, spoke in the Sabha.

During his fiery speech, Dr. Benkin not only made the attendees aware of the plight of Bangladeshi Hindus clearly, but also shared practical aspects for everyone to do toward this cause. He shared how 9 million Jews had stopped the might of the Russian government. How all Jewish people had got together and collected donations, started protests, held rallies, etc. If 9 million Jews can do that, there are 900 million Hindus ! We should be able to do much more. It is our responsibility, no one else will do it. His practical tips included contacting our elected representatives regarding this situation; supporting his organisation in whatever way we can; awakening the Hindu community to the plight of Hindus everywhere; holding any protests we can, however small, in front of the Bangladeshi Consulate, etc. He shared that a few days prior to the Sabha, a Muslim, Khalid Azam sent 3 E-mails to Dr. Benkin dissuading him from attending the Sabha. Mr. Azam is connected with some organisations, namely ‘Indian Muslim Council, USA’ and ‘Indian Muslim Relief And Charity’. (This shows how promptly Muslims act to suppress the voice of pro-Hindus who bring to light the atrocities on Hindus. That day is not far when such Muslims who, today are dissuading the pro-Hindus from attending Hindu meets, will not fear to give direct threats and may even beat them if Hindus do not unite. When will Hindus understand this ? - Editor)

Dr. Benkin is a Jew. Therefore, Mr. Azam desperately tried to convince him about how Hindus are followers of Hitler, and tried to poison his mind against Hindus. (These are the cunning Muslims who are active in systematically discouraging supporters of Hindus ! - Editor)

Dr. Benkin gives a fitting reply to those trying to malign pro-Hindus !

Dr. Benkin sent an E-mail to Mr. Azam depicting the love of Arabic countries for Hitler with examples and asked him questions in return, when Mr. Azam was trying to prove the pro-Hitler attitudes of Sarsanghachalak Golwalkar Guruiji and freedom fighter Veer Savarkar

Democrats turning tail in the Land of Obama

Originally published in the New English Review, August 25, 2010

Dr Richard Benkin

For weeks, the Jewish community of Chicago’s North and Northwest suburbs had been looking forward to hearing their candidates for the US House and Senate debate one another in a “Candidates Forum” about Israel, the Middle East, and related security matters. While the community tends to vote Democratic, it elected Republican Mark Kirk to represent it in Congress five times and, before that, Kirk’s mentor, the GOP’s John Porter, eleven. So neither side should take their votes for granted. It appears, however, that one does.

Two weeks before the forum, Democrat Alexi Giannoulias who is running against Kirk for the US Senate seat once held by Barack Obama, abruptly pulled out citing “prior commitments.” The next day, Democrat Dan Seals, who opposes Republican Bob Dold for the House seat Kirk is vacating, announced that he, too, was withdrawing his commitment to attend. His reason was that without Giannoulias, the forum would be skewed in favor of the Republicans.

Neither man’s excuse rang true with the voters—and with good reason. The Giannoulias campaign’s story kept changing. It had confirmed their man’s availability back in March, and re-confirmed it more recently, according to forum organizers. When confronted with that fact, campaign manager David Spielfogel then claimed they never accepted the invitation and moreover that the hosting group, Protect Our Heritage PAC is partisan. Yet, the candidates’ appearance at the event had been heavily advertised for months and the Giannoulias campaign never once complained about it. According to Rabbi Victor Weissberg, the host for the event and a highly esteemed clergyman in the community, the Giannoulias campaign then told him they would attend only if he complied with several demeaning and ultimately impossible conditions. By the way, to be clear, these forums have been held for the past 25 years, and this is the first time a candidate has objected to them.

The Seals campaign explained their man’s abrupt pull-out by saying that without Giannoulias, the situation was heavily slanted in the Republicans’ favor and “had become inherently unfair and uniquely weighted against Dan.” That assertion gave many Jewish voters a good laugh. Even in a year when more Jews are expected to vote Republican than they have in decades, the community remains heavily Democratic. Current polls, for instance, show that Jewish support for Democrats has fallen this year—from three out of four to two out of three. In 2008, about 72 percent of Jewish voters cast their votes for Obama. Said Peggy Shapiro, one of the event organizers, “a majority of Jewish voters are still Democrats….And in fact Jewish voters voted for Seals last time.” Yet, neither Kirk nor any other Republican candidate used that as an excuse to avoid this or any other forum.

Speculation in the Jewish community is that the real reason the Dems pulled out were fear, arrogance, and strategy. As one member of the Jewish community noted to me, “If you were Giannoulias, would you want to debate Kirk,” who is widely acknowledged as one of Congress’s most knowledgeable and incisive members on foreign policy matters—and one of Israel’s best friends in Washington? Quite a number of people in the audience echoed that sentiment and also applied it to Dan Seals. “Seals really doesn’t know anything,” one man at the forum told me. “He spent 40 obligatory days in Israel before the last election and never even left the Jerusalem area.” Dold, on the other hand, spoke eloquently about his family’s long involvement with refusemik Lev Schrieber and other matters that clearly moved the largely Democrat-voting audience. Democratic strategists long have taken Jewish votes for granted, and for good reason. The overwhelming Obama vote was the rule rather than the exception. As former Bush White House staffer Jay Lefkowitz wrote in Commentary Magazine, “American Jews do not merely favor Democrats; they are the second most reliable bloc of Democratic voters in the country, exceeded only by African-Americans. One has to go all the way back to the election of Warren Harding in 1920 to find a Republican who gained more than 40 percent of the Jewish vote.” And as more than one strategist told me, “C’mon this is Illinois—one of the bluest states in the union.” The perception among many Democrat candidates in Illinois is that enough people will cast knee-jerk votes for a Democrat so long as he or she does not throw their incompetence in the voters’ faces—and Rod Blagojovich’s re-election in 2006 puts even that qualifier in jeopardy.

During the 2008 Presidential campaign, I attended a debate between the Republican Jewish Coalition’s Richard Baehr and the National Jewish Democratic Committee’s Ira Forman at a synagogue not far from the venue of this year’s forum. During the debate, Baehr raised several issues about then Senator Obama’s association with people like Rashid Khalidi and Bill Ayers and questioned how they might affect Obama’s actions toward Israel. These questions were becoming a real problem for the Obama campaign, and his advocates were working overtime trying to quiet them. Forman, like most of his Democrat colleagues, seemed to take offense at the very suggestion and emphatically said that Obama “would be as strongly pro-Israel as George Bush—more even.” The largely Democrat crowd took him at his word, and now express a good deal of buyer’s remorse for their Obama votes.

Both candidates made it clear that they would strongly oppose those policies and fight any pressure on Israel to make concessions for an ineffective and agreement. They also believe that Israel’s security and our own are intimately tied. Kirk told the audience of a post-9/11 Congressional task force on US aviation safety. Kirk asked the Israelis for some help, and they sent an entire team of their top security experts who gave input and information that is critical to the safety of “every American who flies” today. As one of the Israeli’s told Kirk, “for $3 billion where could you get such a deal.” Kirk also noted defiantly that “the political foundation of our alliance with Israel is not with the White House. It is with Congress”; and that the next Senator cannot simply be a pro-Israel vote, but leader, and that Congress’s “number one supporter of Israel… will be Senator Mark Kirk from the State of Illinois. Dold called Obama’s policies “dangerous for the United States, dangerous for Israel” to a rousing ovation.   He also talked about his recent trip to the Arizona border area where local officials directed him to look at the trash on the ground: “’Take a look at the candy wrappers.’ I did. They were all in Arabic….The United States had to protect its border.” 

The Democrats’ absence left the field wide open, and Kirk and Dold took advantage of it to introduce themselves to voter who would otherwise automatically vote Democrat. As one area couple told me, “We’re here to listen.” And listen they and others did. Most people knew Mark Kirk and his pro-Israel record, but few knew Dold that well. And according to a Dold staffer, the response went beyond the ovations. “We ran out of lawn signs,” he said, “so many people were taking them as they left.” Moreover, the Dems’ abrupt and disingenuous sounding pull-out angered quite a few Jewish voters who took their action as “a slap in the face,” according to more than one. The fact that 15 area synagogues and clergy co-sponsored the event, considering it crucial for Jewish voters, further exacerbated ill feelings. Even Rabbi Weissberg, who scrupulously maintains a non-partisan atmosphere, told the crowd not to judge Giannoulias and Seals, but not to “look for them in Profiles in Courage Part Two.”

Illinois Democrats Dare Jews to vote Republican

Originally published in the American Thinker, August 14, 2010

Dr. Richard Benkin

Citing "prior commitments," Democrat candidate for the US Senate from Illinois, Alexi Giannoulias, abruptly backed out of a debate with his Republican opponent about Israel and the Middle East.  Curious though, "Giannoulias, his Republican opponent, Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), and other local politicians had agreed to participate in the forum months ago" and the Giannoulias' campaign had confirmed the State Treasurer's availability, according to the Jewish Telegraph Agency (JTA).

The debate was arranged by the non-partisan Protect Our Heritage public action committee and 16 other Jewish organizations, including several Chicago area synagogues.  Besides debating, the candidates would also answer questions from voters about Israel and related matters.  Evidently, that was too scary for Giannoulias, whose opponent is known as one of the most knowledgeable House members on foreign policy, as well as arguably Israel's best friend in Congress.

"As Iran continues its pursuit of nuclear weapons and terrorists threaten Israel from Gaza and Lebanon, our next U.S. Senator should not be afraid to stand up for our strongest democratic ally in the Middle East," Kirk said in a statement.  Giannoulias did not respond to multiple phone calls from JTA.

No sooner had the Giannoulias campaign turned tail on Illinois' pro-Israel constituency than the Democrat running for Kirk's old seat did the same.  Dan Seals, who has run twice unsuccessfully for Congress from Illinois Tenth District, announced that he too would skip the forum and not debate his opponent, Bob Dold, or submit himself to voters' questions.  Seals said that Giannoulias' drop out gave the prospect of a forum "inherently weighted in favor of the Republican candidates."  Yet, the fact that the constituency and area tilts towards Democrats never stopped Kirk or Dold from meeting the voters.

While neither Democrat will tell us why they really dropped out, people familiar with the candidates have said all along that Kirk and Dold are far more knowledgeable and incisive, certainly about Israel and foreign policy, than their Democrat opponents.  Democratic campaign strategy hopes that Illinois has become such a blue state that Democrats start with an automatic advantage and voters will choose Democrat candidates no matter how unqualified, as long as they do not throw their lack of ability in their faces -- which seems to be what Giannoulias and Seals just did.

Durbin lucky he didn’t have Obamacare

Originally published in Canada Free Press, August 14, 2010

Dr. Richard Benkin

Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois is the Democrats’ Number Two guy in the Senate; and if Harry Reid goes down to defeat as many expect, he will be Number One.  As Majority Whip and one of President Barak Obama’s most vocal supporters, Durbin was also a leading exponent of Obamacare.  We might wonder, however, if he would hold the same position if he did not have the “special” health care policies he and his colleagues will continue to enjoy while we are left with their gift of Obamacare.

The Chicago Tribune reports that Durbin recently had a tumor removed from his stomach at the highly prestigious (and expensive) University of Chicago Hospital:  “a mostly benign growth that, while highly curable, can go undetected for years and become malignant.”  It turns out that his was detected during a routine medical exam; no doubt by a prestigious and costly Washington physician.  And just to make sure the doc did not err, Durbin had one of those very expensive CT scans.

All of that expensive medicine might be available to the political elite, but not to us peons who will live under the health care system Durbin and his colleagues have foisted on us, but refuse to take for themselves.  Now we know why.  Moreover, at age 65, Durbin is “about average” for such things as this, according to one medical expert quoted in the Tribune piece.  Some people (read: the rest of us) walk around with these tumors “for years,” that same expert said.  Lucky for Durbin he did not have Obamacare; not so lucky for Americans who will.

We are not as crass as New Hampshire Democrat Keith Halloran, who suggested that former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin should have been on a recent plane crash.  Instead, we wish the Senator well and, no doubt with him, praise an American system of medical care that is superior enough to save lives proactively—at least until it is replaced by the Obamanation Durbin and his Democrat colleagues have forced on America’s common folk.

Islamization of Northeast India no Coincidence

Originally published on South Asia Forum, July 5, 2010

Dr. Richard Benkin

On February 15, 2010, I sat in a cab while it made its way through a traffic-clogged Kolkata to the office of Bimal Pramanik director of the Kolkata-based Centre for Research in Indo-Bangladesh Relations. Pramanik expressed serious concerns about the decades-long pattern of demographic changes in West Bengal (and Assam), and we discussed the context in which we can better understand them. Amitabh Tripathi, founder of the South Asia forum and a tireless activist in the fight against radical Islam, arranged the meeting and was a key participant in it.

Pramanik in Bangladesh’s 1971 War of Independence and is familiar with traditional Bengali Hindus and Muslims relations and how much they have changed in recent decades. While “Muslim infiltration” and demographic change itself is an issue, Primanik is more concerned about the deliberate nature of that change. He called it “Bangladeshi infiltration with Pakistani ideas,” and that the key element to the conflict is that South Asian Muslims are abandoning their traditional culture for “Arabic” dominated culture. Tripathi also noted the growth of Wahabi influence in Bangladesh, something that our colleague Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury also has documented.

In 1905 then again in 1947, Bengal was divided into a Muslim-majority entities (Bangladesh, previously East Bengal and East Pakistan) and a Hindu-majority entity (West Bengal state within India). In the second half of the twentieth century, however, the Muslim proportion of West Bengal’s population rose by 25 percent and its Hindu population declined by almost nine. In the same period, the proportion of East Bengal’s Hindu population declined by almost three-fourths, its Muslim share rose by more than one-third. Those significant shifts do not happen as a result of natural demographic processes, and the trends have continued into the 21st century. Pramanik noted that while Muslim population growth in West Bengal was nearly 35 percent between 1981 and 1991, it was only 25 percent in the same period in Bangladesh. “How can there be such a wide difference in growth rates between the two countries?” He asks. “This can only be explained by the illegal immigration from across the border.”

The South Asia Research Society conducted an exhaustive demographic study of population trends in West Bengal since 1941 and found that before 1971, almost all East Bengali refugees in West Bengal were minorities. Since then, “there has been largescale voluntary infiltration” of Bangladeshi Muslims “as well as the forced migration” of minorities, mostly Hindu.

Pramanik’s own study of Bengal population changes examined changes that occurred between 1951 (after the major share of population transfers from 1947 had been completed) and 2001. The intervening 50 years saw the rise of radical Islam as a major international player and so also several decades of efforts by radical Muslims to implement their designs. Differential growth rates between Hindus and Muslims in Bengal are startling. In Bangladesh, the Hindu population grew from about nine to eleven million, or 23.16 percent; while the Muslim population grew from 32 to 111 million, or 244.68 percent. Apologists have attempted to dismiss this disparity as free decisions by Hindus for economic reasons, but decisions were not free and even if for economic reasons they were due to anti-Hindu actions: seizure of assets under the Vested Property Act, religious discrimination, persecution, and so forth. And if it was simple population transfer, population figures for the Indian state closest to Bangladesh with the same ethnic group would reflect that. So what do we see? West Bengal had about 19 million Hindus in 1951 and 58 million in 2001, an increase of 198.54 percent. Its 1951 Muslim population of approximately five million Muslims grew to more than 20 million in 2001 or by 310.13 percent. Muslim growth rate exceeded that of Hindus in all but one district. Primanik documented a situation of “unabated infiltration,” especially during the final two decades of his study and a pattern of increased crime in these districts as the Muslim infiltration became more prominent. His findings help quantify frequent testimony by Bangladeshi Hindu refugees of increased attacks on their ersatz colonies by combined forces of Bangladeshis and Muslim villages from the surrounding areas; and my own observation of formerly mixed Hindu-Muslim villages now almost all Muslim and the disappearance or abandonment of the once ubiquitous roadside Mandirs or Hindu temples.

The prolific Primanik suggest what awaits Hindus in West Bengal, as well as the darker motivations behind the phenomena noted in this book. “This continuous infiltration from across the border is slowly and steadily changing the demographic pattern in the border areas, especially in the States of West Bengal and Assam… which is threatening our secular polity and national security. This is a religio-cultural process taking place in a geographical space considered to be strategically important. Thus, the emergence of Bangladesh has created in the North-Eastern States of India certain conditions conducive to Islamisation.”

World silent as 12 Kurds die in Turkish bombings

Originally published in the American Thinker, July 20, 2010

Dr. Richard Benkin

Turkish forces carried out a deadly attack on Kurdish freedom fighters who have been trying to end Turkey's occupation of their ancestral homeland. "Turkish warplanes pounded" the region, according to The New York Times News Service," before Turkish occupation forces mounted a land invasion into occupied Kurdish territory. The Turkish attack was carried out as collective punishment against the Kurdish people after militants attacked a Turkish military base on occupied Kurdish territory, lightly wounding several soldiers. At least twelve Kurds were massacred in the Turkey's massive military operation against the Kurdish people.

According to The New York Times News Service, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his fundamentalist "Justice and Development Party" have "dismissed demands such as constitutional recognition of their ethnic identity and a general amnesty for militants." Kurds are a little under one-fifth of the entire population of Turkey and are denied these and other basic rights to self-determination.

The Kurdish people are now awaiting the international community to demand a full and impartial investigation of this massacre carried out under international auspices and a United Nations condemnation of this blatant attack on their territory and rights, as they have recently in other parts of the world.

Like anyone thinks Israel's decision will matter?

Originally published on Blitz, June 23, 2010

Dr. Richard Benkin

I happened to be visiting family in South Jersey on Friday and opened the Philadelphia Inquirer to read: "Israel Eases Gaza Blockade." Most observers of Middle East dynamics have expected that move ever since Quartet representative and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and word of it started leaking; and most felt that it would be a bad one. If there was any doubt of that, however, the first two paragraphs of the Inquirer'sarticle laid them to rest.

First paragraph:

An Israeli decision Thursday to ease its blockade of Gaza under intense international pressure could spell the beginning of the end of the chokehold that has hurt ordinary

Gazans far more that their Hamas rulers. (emphasis mine)

The article's unsupported assertion that Israel's actions hurt only "ordinary" Arabs and spare Hamas reflects much of our own media's complicity in promoting the anti-Israel narrative of the situation that ultimately seeks to legitimize the terror group and tie Israel's hands in its own self-defense. The article did not make a single mention of the ongoing Hamas missile attack on unarmed Israeli civilians—not even the usual perfunctory comment about it buried toward the final paragraph.

Second paragraph:

The order to allow in all foods and some desperately needed construction materials

brought calls for Israel to go much further and did little to quell the global outcry over its deadly May 31 raid on a flotilla of ships that tried to bust the embargo. (emphasis mine)

Let us first lay aside the Inquirer's patent bias in its choice of adjectives.

While I am not privy to the decision-making logic that drives moves like this, it was clear to even the most casual observer that this one would do nothing to help Israel and everything to help Hamas and their international panoply of allies. Even before the move was implemented, Israel's enemies were calling it insufficient and taking the action as a sign of Israeli weakness that they can exploit to force further concessions that empower the terror group in Gaza and its Iranian handlers. After negotiating the move Blair himself called it "a good start."

The action was taken in compliance with the dictates of Israel's "best friend," US president Barack Obama who recently called the blockade "unsustainable," and pressured the parties for this decision. Interestingly, neither the Philadelphia Inquirer nor the rest of the mainstream media seemed to notice that Israel was not the biggest losers. Rather, it was first their delusional peace process, which has even less chance of success with an empowered Hamas; and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas who is forced to watch passively as his talking head allies strengthen the very terror group that he has been trying to supplant with his own.

Left ignores real human rights victims

Originally published in New English Review, June 8, 2010

Dr. Richard Benkin

Whenever I tell people I “do human rights work,” they automatically assume I am some sort of leftist. People who know me find that hilarious; but it is rather tragic at the same time because it reflects the fact that the left has imposed its own definition of what does and does not constitute human rights. For several years, I have been working with activists on the ground in South Asia primarily; people like anti-jihadist Muslim Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, who was imprisoned and tortured by the Bangladeshis after exposing the rise of radical Islam in that self-styled “moderate Muslim country.” Most of these dedicated individuals have sacrificed their comfort, their relationships, their security, some even their lives to defend the victims, and when asked will tell you that they would do so again. Among the hundreds whom I work, we would be hard pressed to find any who are not politically conservative or who do not recognize the left as one of human rights’ two greatest opponents, the other being Islamists. Thus, the current international zeitgeist will not allow their efforts—or more important their causes—to be recognized as true human rights battles. Perhaps it is because they are openly pro-US and pro-Israel, perhaps because they are fighting the Red-Green alliance of leftists and Islamists. Perhaps it is because the left cares more about ideology than people—which is only one reason why conservatives are far better suited to advocate for the downtrodden.

Recently, they have seen this double standard on display with the manufactured furor over the Gaza terror flotilla. While the United Nations, European Union, Muslim world, and the talking heads in the mainstream media are up in arms over the killing of nine “activists,” with suspect ties and motivations, they have not wasted a single breath over the destruction of Hindu communities in Kashmir, Pakistan, and now Bangladesh by Islamists who have been allowed to operate freely by complicit governments and an uncaring world whose silence tells the perpetrators, “Go ahead, they’re only Hindus.”

Between 1941 and 2001, the Hindu population of Kashmir dropped from 15 to one percent, with the most precipitous drop coming around 1990 at the hands of Islamic militants. From about 1965 to 2001, Pakistan’s Hindu population went from almost one in five to one percent, and I saw many of them streaming into India recently ahead of the advancing Taliban. The Bangladeshi Hindu population fell from almost one third at the time of India’s partition to nine percent in 2001; and 13-15 million remaining Hindus face ongoing murder, gang rape, abduction, forced conversion (to Islam), assault, dispossession of their ancestral lands, and religious desecration—even under a new government that the left, the media, and the diplomatic corps have declared “pro-minority.”

Reports of these atrocities come to us daily, and we have developed a strong network of informants and investigators to confirm or refute the allegations. Our conclusions are made with caution, so we recognize that even what we can confirm is likely just the tip of the iceberg. During just the first two months of this new government’s tenure, we confirmed major anti-Hindu atrocities at the rate of one and a half per week; in Spring 2009, we confirmed an anti-Hindu pogrom behind a police station in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka; and in a 25 day period this March and April, we confirmed at least eight anti-Hindu incidents: rape (including child rape); abduction; forced conversion to Islam; beatings that sent critically injured victims to the hospital; attempted murder; and more. The government took no action in any of these cases with cover-ups reaching the ruling party’s upper echelons.

What makes it more chilling is that these attacks are not carried out by al Qaeda or other terror groups but by the victims’ neighbors, who acted knowing they could do so with impunity. Millions have been killed or otherwise violated; and State University of New York’s Professor Sachi Dastidar estimates that some 49 million Hindus are “missing” from the Bangladeshi census: the murdered, those forced to immigrate or convert to Islam, and those never born. While there has been no outrage about this atrocity—aside from those of us fighting it, the victims, and their families—the international left never tires of calling for strenuous action on behalf of Palestinians whose living conditions are like royalty’s compared to the squalor and illicit refugee camps in which most victims live. I know; I have seen both. 

History’s most successful cases of genocide and ethnic cleansing have occurred when a committed cadre of true believers convince masses of common people to commit heinous acts—that they otherwise might not even dream of committing—against a targeted minority. That is what is happening in Bangladesh where there might be no Gestapo or Janjaweed, but where the Hindu population will disappear, perhaps within our lifetime, without immediate action. Yet, when the left demands that we act with such immediacy, it is for nine people who purposely put themselves in harm’s way to support a terrorist entity that lobs missiles onto schools in Southern Israel.

Perhaps they would help us if we said “Zionists” are killing the Bangladeshi Hindus.

Israel Does the Impossible: Brings Peace between Greeks and Turks

Originally published in Canada Free Press, June 1, 2010

Dr. Richard Benkin

In singer-songwriter Tom Lehrer’s 1965 satire, “National Brotherhood Week,” we hear, “Oh the Protestants hate the Catholics, and the Catholics hate the Protestants, and the Hindus hate the Muslims, and everybody hates the Jews.”  He goes on about other groups hating one another, but left out one of the longest running national hate-fests in history:  Greeks and Turks. 

Their animosity goes back almost to ancient times and has resulted in dozens of wars, skirmishes and massacres, the most recent coming in 1974 replete with mutual recriminations of ethnic cleansing and other atrocities.  One would be hard pressed to find a conflict as deep-rooted as that between Greeks and Turks.

Yet, in the wake of the Turkish-inspired Gaza flotilla incident, Greece and Turkey for one of the only times in history found themselves in complete agreement to excoriate, you guessed it, the world’s only Jewish state, Israel.  The government of Greece responded by pulling out of scheduled joint military exercises with Israel in protest and then “summoned” the Israeli ambassador.  Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou called Israel’s actions “unacceptable.”  Turkey, of course, instigated the Gaza flotilla, and has called for Israel’s head in every international venue that would take its call since Israel stopped the attempt to break the blockade of Hamas-ruled Gaza, maintained jointly by Israel and Egypt.

One can only wonder how Greece—not to mention the UN, EU, and Arabs—would have reacted if the Turks stopped a group of international “activists” attempting to bring humanitarian aid to a truly suffering population in Turkish occupied Kurdistan.  We can bet it would be silence, which was the Greek reaction to repeated human rights violations by the Turks against the Kurds, which almost led to a cut-off of US aid under President Bush.

A coalition of the hard and soft left, in conjunction with Islamists

A coalition of the hard and soft left, in conjunction with Islamists, have determined to incrementally deprive the world’s only Jewish state of the right to defend itself against enemies dedicated to its destruction.  Their immediate target is Israel’s blockade of Gaza, which is in accordance with international law given the state of war that Gaza’s Islamist leaders maintain with Israel.  Had the Greeks, Turks, and others given Israel the same rights they accord every other sovereign state, they would have recognized the attempt to run the blockade as a provocation and demanded that Hamas’s supporters conduct an investigation of how they caused the loss of life.

Unfortunately, since Barack Obama took office, the United States no longer can be expected to fight the tide of nation to nation anti-Semitism, as was once the case.  Reaction to the incident conveyed by the State Department did not mention the international lynching of Israel but instead noted it “remains deeply concerned by the suffering of civilians in Gaza” and promising “to continue to engage the Israelis” on the matter.  Never once did it protest the international lynching of the world’s only Jewish state.

Islamic countries seeking to de-legitimize Israel

There are at least 38 countries with an official state religion (24 of them Islam).  All but a few of them have prominently joined the effort to de-legitimize Israel.  Do we really believe that it is a coincidence that they ignore each other and focus on the world’s single Jewish state?  Maybe “everybody” really does hate the Jews—and maybe it is time we called them out for what they are.

Ignore Indian Events at Our Own Peril

Originally published in the New English Review, April 2010

Dr. Richard Benkin

For the past year, I have been saying that the political center in India is collapsing. The re-election of the left-center Congress Party last year only masked this inevitable decline and had more to do with political dynamics in India and the fact that India has remained relatively unscathed from the recent world economic collapse. The finale might not come this year, or maybe even next; but it is coming, and when it does it will be with an explosion heard around the world. I was in India for just over two weeks in February, and during that time alone noted:

• Relations with fellow nuclear power Pakistan deteriorated in a hail of harsh rhetoric and threats such that the Obama administration sent Senator John Kerry to try and “calm” tensions.

• Pakistan first refused to join in scheduled talks with India about the former’s involvement in a 2008 terror attack that killed almost 200 Indians.

• A few days later, they agreed to talks only if they focused on Kashmir—a territorial dispute between the countries that has sparked skirmishes, continued terror and counter-terror operations, and all out wars between the two. Like the Muslim players in the Middle East, Pakistan refused to budge on its unreasonable demands about scheduled talks, and the Indian government ultimately caved, resulting in talks that were fruitless even before they began. The Obama administration urged the Indians to acquiesce to the Pakistani demands.
• While this was happening, Islamists launched another deadly terrorist attack, this time on Pune, a major Indian city of over 5,000,000 people, that at last count took 13 lives and left over five dozen injured.
• Initial investigations identified the terrorists as Indian citizens, known as Indian Mujahedeen who are committed to replacing India with an Islamic state.

• Subsequent investigations confirmed that fact and added that the operation likely was directed from Pakistan.

• The Indian government announced that American Islamist David Headley gave his captors information about the “Karachi Project” that was carried out by Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI. He said the ISI brought sympathetic Indian Muslims to Pakistan, trained them in terrorist techniques, and returned them to India where they were to await further instructions to carry out terrorist attacks.

• Communist insurgents, known as Naxalites, abducted a government official in the state of Bihar and refused to release him until the government caved into their demands, one of which was for the Indian government to end its, very effective, military crackdown on the Maoist revolutionaries.

• Naxalites carried out a half dozen military operations against the government and people of India. Among the many terror operations were at least two of particular note. They launched a particularly gruesome attack on an unarmed paramilitary camp in which more than two dozen soldiers were shot or burned alive; and an unknown number of wounded were seized and taken to undisclosed locations as hostages. They also attacked an unarmed village in the Jamui district of Bihar because its inhabitants refused cooperate with their insurgency. They murdered several villagers, including some who were burned alive when the Maoists torched homes in the village. 

• Islamists carried out several terror attacks, mostly in Kashmir, but in other areas of India, as well. The attacks killed both civilians and military personnel indiscriminately.

• The government’s anti-terror squad prevented another half dozen Islamist terror attacks, seizing 200 kilograms of ammonium nitrate, 600 detonators, and 200 gel sticks from known Muslim terrorists, in one raid in Gujurat (a state that has been a rallying cry for Islamists after violence there in 2002. The government also detained two British nationals caught at a hotel near the international airport with high-tech devices for monitoring and tracking air traffic.

• Students rioted—and as of the time I left were still rioting—at an Indian university in Hyderabad in the South of the country At the time I left India, one student was near death after self-immolating as part of the protest.
Imagine the media coverage if any one of those things occurred in the United States. Yet, from what I could glean from the Internet and other sources, it appears that our own media (except for a few journals that ran my articles) devoted far more ink to Tiger Woods than to all of these events combined. India is a nuclear power, as is the United States. India, like the US, is a major target of international jihadis. Its other primary adversary also has nuclear weapons as do many of the United States’ foes. Both countries are among the largest and most populous nations on earth. Both are among the world’s most important economic powers. And both countries are critical fighters if Islamist and communist imperialism and terror are to be defeated.

During my stays in South Asia, I have questioned current and former members of the military and intelligence services, as well as elected and appointed officials on all sides of the issues. I also have spent a great deal of time with anti-jihadi and anti-communist activists; and even took my camera into Delhi’s bustling Connaught Place to interview everyday Indian citizens. Americans should be troubled. More and more Indians—as well as anti-jihadi Muslims in places like Bangladesh—are questioning the United States' reliability as an ally in the war against radical Islam. Indians are especially troubled over our continuing aid to Pakistan--aid which even former Pakistani strongman Pervez Musharraf admitted had been channeled for use against India. Most Indians find it incomprehensible and cannot explain it without relying on cynicism about domestic and international politics. Moreover, the Obama administration's policies have led most anti-Islamists to conclude that his administration would sacrifice allies like Indian and Israel if it meant even a superficial friendship from America's worst enemies. On the other side, active Islamists and more importantly, Muslim leaders have concluded that they are far more likely to wring concessions from the current occupant of the White House than they are to face any consequences for tolerating—or even supporting—those groups that would “love” nothing more “than another 9/11.”

Finally, the Indian government’s embarrassingly weak actions in the crisis with Islamist Pakistan and the Bihari state government’s caving into communist Naxalite demands highlighted the growing gulf in the way Indians view their current crises. While there were those who praised the Indian government’s “statesmanship” and others who backed the Biharis because it meant the safe release of a hostage; many more Indians disagreed with these decisions. The latter sentiments seem to be gaining ground in India. For instance, when Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pledged to broker the crisis with Pakistan in an “Obama-like” fashion, it was met with little more than sarcasm and jeers. Even the mainstream media, which is much more openly leftist there than in the United States, treated the PM’s statement largely with contempt. (This is the same media that screamed angry headlines about Pakistan showing “its true colors,” during the immediate crisis, but turned its attention to cricket as it ended toIndia’s disadvantage.)

Many in the growing opposition expressed additional suspicion about what the government secretly agreed to give up out of weakness in its deal with the communists. Prior to these events, the Indian government had been conducting a harsh and rather successful offensive against the Naxalites, who had wrested control over several parts of the country. The communists in fact said it was the very reason for their stepped up terror and abduction. But since these events, the offensive has been notably absent; a situation not unlike the end to India’s successful anti-terror offensives against Islamists in Kashmir after heavy pressure from the Obama administration last spring.

For most Indians, it is no longer clear on which side the United States will be when the inevitable explosion comes. Nor is it clear to this American.

Murder and Jihad: The Destruction of Bangladesh’s Hindus

A speech by Dr. Richard L. Benkin on the occasion of his receiving the Vishwa Hindu Ratna Award, Hinduism Summit (Hindu Dharmasabha) Hindu Temple of Greater Chicago, Lemont, IL April 24, 2010

As a practicing Jew, I am struck regularly by the similarities our faiths share.  In February, I had the honor of taking part in the spiritually uplifting Kumbh Mela in the sacred city of Haridwar.  As I took my dip of purification in the holy Ganga, I could not help but recall the Jewish purification ritual I experience annually at Yom Kippur:  an acknowledgement that each of us does transgress in some way; and more importantly, that to become better people we must look inward.   When I looked inward, I saw the essence that joins Vedic and Judaic principles to guide me on my earthly journey.

But we also share a tragic link.  Less than two weeks ago, the Jewish people observed Yom HaShoah to remember the Nazi holocaust and its 6,000,000 Jewish victims.  That atrocity of atrocities taught us two things if nothing else:  one, that pretending things are not what we know them to be only delays the inevitable battles; and two, the phrase Never Again, by which we vowed to prevent future holocausts perpetrated against any people.  With Yom HaShoah’s memorial candles still blazing in our minds, it is time to put Never Again to the test.

Bangladesh’s Hindu population is dying.  This is not opinion or the ravings of an ideologue:  It is a fact.  At the time of India’s partition in 1948, they made up a little less than a third of East Pakistan’s population.  When East Pakistan became Bangladesh in 1971, Hindus were less than a fifth; thirty years later, less than one in ten; and several estimates put the Hindu population at less than eight percent today.  Professor Sachi Dastidar of the State University of New York estimates that about 40 million Hindus are missing from the Bangladeshi census.[1]  Still having trouble wondering where this is going?  Take a look at Pakistan where Hindus are down to one percent or Kashmir where they are almost gone.  Take a look at the future of Bangladesh’s Hindus if we do not act.

Meanwhile, we have seen a consistent torrent of reports documenting anti-Hindu incidents there; “incidents” including murder, gang rape, assault, forced conversion to Islam, child abduction, land grabs, and religious desecration.  And while Bangladeshi officials might object that the perpetrators were non-state actors, government culpability rests, at the very least, on the fact that it pursues very few of these cases and punishes even fewer perpetrators.  Their excuses have not stopped the killing.  In fact, successive Bangladeshi governments—whether the openly Islamist BNP, the civilian or military caretaker, or the supposedly pro-minority Awami League—allhave been passive bystanders, failing—or refusing—to exercise their sovereign responsibility to protect the life and security of all their citizens; and thus they have sent radical Islamists and common citizens alike a clear message that these acts can be undertaken with impunity.[2]

And yet, in this topsy-turvy world, it is WE who have to prove that there is something wrong.  One would expect justice to demand that the BANGLADESHIS explain why they should not be charged with complicity in eliminating an entire people numbering in the tens of millions.  That very presumption should tell us why we cannot rest until WE stop this atrocity—completely and forever!

I have spoken with hundreds of Bangladeshi Hindu refugees living in largely illicit colonies throughout North and Northeast India.  In describing the attacks that forced them to leave their ancestral homes, they made it very clear that their attackers were not necessarily radicals, but neighbors; common, everyday Muslims.  They also reported with near unanimity that when they went to the police and other officials for help, they were advised to drop the subject and “get out of Bangladesh.”  Last March, I interviewed a family that crossed into India only 22 days earlier.  They told me about an uncle being killed, the father beaten, and their small farm invaded by a large number of Muslims.  I also looked into the eyes of their 14-year-old daughter as she talked about being gang raped.  Who did it?  Not al Qaeda or even Jammat; but simply Muslims who lived in the area and knew they could have their way with the family, seize their land, and get away with it.[3]  And that is chilling because history has shown that the most “successful” cases of genocide and ethnic cleansing occur when a small cadre of true believers incites average citizens to engage in heinous acts against a targeted minority that they otherwise would not dream of committing.  There might be no Gestapo or Janjaweed in Bangladesh, but its Hindu community is facing a similar process of destruction at the hands of the Bangladeshi majority.

In fact, it is even worse; because albeit too late, the civilized world eventually heard the cries coming out of Nazi Europe, Rwanda, and Darfur.  As difficult as it was getting to that point, it is even more difficult getting the world to see an atrocity without concentration camps that has been going on for decades.  When was the last time Amnesty International protested this; or the UN Human Rights Commission; or anyone else?  What about the United States, or India?  Never; and it is our responsibility to make sure they do.  Because if we do not, no one else will, count on it, and we will see an end to the Bangladeshi Hindus in our lifetime!

So, how do we do it?  First, recognize that the mere fact that our cause is just does not mean people will support us.  They have not so far, and nothing lately has indicated that is changing.  We have to change things ourselves.  Second, understand that justice will not come because people finally “see the light,” but as the result of many small victories that make it impossible for the world to continue ignoring what we know is happening to the Hindus of Bangladesh.  That means with all due respect that we do not need to hear from groups and individuals about how hard they have worked for this cause.  Let us not confuse effort with results.  Human lives hang in the balance!  Whatever they have done, it has not stopped the murders, rapes, and expulsions; it has not stopped the progressive de-Hinduization of East Bengal and Islamization of West Bengal.[4]We have to move forward with a new dynamic—one that is practical and action-oriented; and one that demands commitment from each of us.

Appeals to right and wrong have not and will not work no matter how many times we try.  There is no internal dynamic for the Bangladeshi government to defend Hindus—or any other religious minority.  The only chance of it happening is for an outside power to “convince” Sheikh Hasina and her crowd that it is in their interests to do so.  As an American, I look first to my own country as the entity that should stand up and be that outside power.

The Bangladeshis have at least four pressure points the United States can push:  trade, economic cooperation, UN peacekeeping troops, and its image as a democratic and moderate Islamic nation.  If we have any measure of success on even one of them, the Bangladeshis are powerless.  Let me give you two quick examples of what I mean.  I was in Dhaka during the 2007 coup.  Most people think it occurred because of unrest over the BNP’s rigging the elections; but that is not what happened.  There was a lot of street violence when I arrived there, and every western democracy was calling for the elections to be postponed; but the military had no intention of moving until someone got the UN to weigh in and threaten to review Bangladesh’s participation in peacekeeping missions.  Bangladesh contributes more UN peacekeeping troops than any other country—almost 11,000 at this moment—and that economy depends on its receipts.[5]  Besides losing them if the program is cancelled, the very thought of 11,000 young, angry, unemployed, and armed men is enough to scare the pants off anyone—even enough to cause a coup.  If anything, Bangladesh is more vulnerable now.

In another case, Bangladesh’s notorious Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) abducted a colleague of mine in Dhaka—and we know that RAB’s abductees often have a habit of “disappearing.”  So, I called the Bangladeshi ambassador to remind him that I helped stop several attempts at awarding Bangladesh tariff relief and would do so again, then added that if my colleague was not released unharmed and soon, “there will be a shit storm that you cannot even imagine.”  But, you see, right after that I called several Capitol Hill offices that have supported this cause and within the next 45 minutes, the embassy received angry inquiries from at least six of them, including some with responsibility for trade and appropriations.  Needless to say, my colleague was freed unharmed after, as he told me, “higher ups” called the RAB commander.

Understand; this is not about me but about a good plan and organization and what they can do.  In both instances, material interest not justice convinced the Bangladeshis to act, and if it worked then, it will work now to save Bangladesh’s Hindus.

What has been lacking so far is focus.  Our goal, you will remember is to take this atrocity out of the shadows despite the absence of concentration camps and sustained outrage; and to do so in some goal-directed and purposeful way.  Congressman Mike Pence (R-IN) once said that a Representative who receives at least ten phone calls from constituents on an issue will take notice, call staff meetings, and likely vote in favor of it.  He is right, but something I have learned in Washington is that contacts have a better chance to succeed if organized.  You better know what you want the person to do, what he or she can do, and above all be focused and succinct.  Here are some things that Congress can do and which we can affect.

Hold hearings on the ethnic cleansing of Bangladesh’s Hindus.   Staff of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in the US House of Representatives (TLHRC) has said they would consider doing this.  We still have a way to go, but the TLHRC is unlike other Congressional committees.  It is non-partisan, and members are not appointed by party but by their interest in human rights.  No matter who is in power, there are two equal Democrat and Republican co-chairs.  We need to bombard the Congress about this.  Call your Representatives—especially the co-chairs, Frank Wolf (R-VA) and Jim McGovern (D-MA); and Chris Smith (R-NJ), who has been on the TLHRC for years and has a strong record of defending human rights.  Get others to do the same.  I have contact information and a script people on the back table that people can personalize and use.  Call or fax; do NOT send it by email or post.  It is something everyone can do, and if they are uncomfortable talking, they send the fax.  It is a great start; but only a start.  Once this happens, we can move to other committees with authority over specific matters, like appropriations and foreign policy, and can impact them.

Defeat attempts to award Bangladesh tariff relief or other trade benefits.   From the day former Bangladesh Ambassador Shamsher M. Chowdhury came to the United States in 2003, his number one goal was securing a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with our country.  Thanks to the resolute work of Congressman Mark Kirk (R-IL), currently running for Senator in Illinois, we were able to block its consideration until Bangladesh cleans up its human rights act.  There are those who claim that the clean-up occurred with the election of the Awami League at the end of 2008.  Fortunately, Kirk knows otherwise and continues to press for human rights in Bangladesh.  Beyond that, there have been at least six attempts since 2005 to pass legislation that would have awarded Bangladesh something less than an FTA in the form of tariff relief or other trade benefits.  In every case, we have been able to stop them and make sure the Bangladesh embassy knew it.  In the case of one Senate bill, they sent no lesser a light than Nobel laureate Mohammed Yunis to urge its passage; but despite the respect with which he was treated personally, the bill never got out of subcommittee.  The Bangladeshis try to portray this as simple obstructionism, but it is a positive defense of human rights.  This is how we must posture ourselves, because that, in fact is what it is.  Another example.   Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) co-sponsored of one of these bills, and while I am not a California voter, I work with people who are.  So I asked one of them to call her office and let her know that the bill threatens to undo months of human rights work, especially in our efforts to free anti-jihad Muslim journalist, Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury.  An aide took the message to the Senator who said she had “no idea that the bill could have that effect on the case.”  While she did not drop her co-sponsorship, she stopped supporting the bill; and it eventually died.  The bill seemed like a good thing to do—help people in a struggling country—but we had been telling the Bangladeshis that until they play ball on human rights, they would not get the trade benefits they covet.  No one connected the dots until we did it for them, and it worked.

Some other things that can be done.

·        The US can insert conditional human rights language into the myriad Bangladeshi appropriations.  Mark Kirk did that a few years ago, calling on Bangladesh to drop the false charges against Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury; language that can be used at any time to turn up the heat on Bangladesh

·        We can raise the issue when the Bangladeshis urge Americans to do business in Bangladesh.  I know American businesses.  If we have a significant presence, they will not find it in their interests to do business with a country that tolerates ethnic cleansing and religious persecution, especially if it could also drive away American consumrs.

·        In 2009, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom upgraded Bangladesh’s status for transitioning from military-backed rule.  I have been working with USCIRF to try and reverse that based on the ongoing persecution of Hindus, by providing objectively verified and verifiable information about these atrocities.

There are four things everyone can focus on right now.

·        Push for those Congressional hearings.  They will affect legislative issues and counter cynical attempt to portray Bangladesh as “moderate.” Everyone take a script, make the Congressional calls, and get as many people as you can to do it, too

·        Let’s not do this alone.  Hindus should join with others, starting with my own Jewish community, to increase chances of success.  We share both tragedies and uplifting principles that make our faiths great.  I have started initiatives in Texas, California, and here in the Chicago area.  See me after the program to participate

·        Recognize our friends in Washington and make sure they are re-elected.  Mark Kirk, running for the US Senate from Illinois, is our greatest champion.  Republican Whip Eric Cantor (VA) is also a tremendous ally.  Others include Steve Rothman and John Adler (D-NJ), Judy Biggert (R-IL), Trent Franks (R-AZ), Allyson Schwartz (D-PA), Nita Lowey (D-NY); and Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK).  By doing this, we can make our concerns as politically potent as those of any religious or ethnic group and will no longer be ignored.

I also want to extend my warmest thanks to Dr. Daniel Pipes and his Middle East Forum for extending continuous and tangible support; to the Forum for Hindu Awakening for this honor; to Prasadji [Yalamanchi] and the RSS for their never-ending strength and support; and to my wife Barbara whose sacrifice has been every bit as great as my own.

There is something else everyone can do.  Last year, I founded a human rights organization, Forcefield.  Unlike Amnesty International and the rest, it is not “agenda-driven.”  That is, we are not tied to any leftist ideology, network of supporters, or “flavor of the week” issues.  And we specifically are NOT anti-Israel.  We are recognized by the governments of the United States and India; and contrary to the other organizations, Forcefield is committed to stop the ethnic cleansing of Hindus in Bangladesh and hopefully help persecuted Hindus from Kashmir, Pakistan, and elsewhere by bringing this to the world’s attention.

Our efforts include my human rights missions to South Asia; a documentary about the Bangladeshi Hindus that we expect to be a call for action; and an online newspaper to bring Americans and others solid information about what is happening in South Asia.  We have various professionals ready to participate, victims ready to testify, and correspondents standing by in the key areas of India to bring Americans news that CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News never cover; news I never see it in my morning Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post or the New York Times; even though it is about the international jihad that threatens us all.

What is lacking is something that I am probably as uncomfortable talking about as you are hearing:  funds.  We are brand new and lack the large funding sources others have.  If every Hindu in the United States gave just one dollar to Forcefield, we could get these projects going and have an immediate impact on the Hindus’ fate.  Besides your own donations, you can help with organizations or individuals who can make grants to Forcefield to help us save Bangladeshi Hindu lives.

Donations are fully tax-deductable, and our credentials are available for inspection.  There are envelopes in the back for donations, as well as forms to donate by credit card.  You can also donate by credit card through my own web site, http://www.interfaithstrength.com, and click the “Donate” button.  Every penny you give will help stop the atrocities we know are happening.

So, four specific things we can do now are (1) Take a script and get EVERYONE to call Congress about holding hearings; (2) See me about Hindu-Jewish outreach;  (3) Re-elect our friends and send them back to Washington, especially Mark Kirk here in Illinois.  (4) Support Forcefield with donations, and get others to do the same.

Joseph Stalin is said to have remarked, “One death is a tragedy, a million deaths a statistic.”[6]  That 14-year-old rape victim—that child—I met was no statistic, and God help us if we make her one!

Thank you for the honor you have bestowed upon me.

[1] Population statistics taken from the census of Pakistan (1948), and Bangladesh (1974 and 2001).  Also see Dastidar, Sachi G.; Empire’s Last Casualty: Indian Subcontinent’s Vanishing Hindu and other Minorities.  (Kolkata: Firma KLM Private Limited, 2008).

[2] See for example, incidents in the monthly newsletter of the Bangladesh Hindu, Buddhist, Christian Unity Council available at http://www.bhbcuc-usa.org/index.html.  The Hindu American Foundation has documented these atrocities in successive annual reports, entitled Hindus in South Asia and the Diaspora:  A Survey of Human Rights [followed by a specific year]; copyright Hindu American Foundation.  For instance, 2007, pages 5-21; 2008, pages 3-15.  They also are available at the Hindu American Foundation web site, http://www.hafsite.org.  Global Human Rights Defence investigates and reports on human rights violations against Bangladeshi Hindus at http://ghrd.org.  Click “countries” and then “Bangladesh.”  The first and third organizations have also worked with me in providing evidence of anti-Hindu activities in Bangladesh.

[3] This information came from recorded and unrecorded interviews I had with Bangladeshi Hindu refugees, living in mostly illegal colonies in the Indian states of West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarakhan, from 2008-2010.  The 14-year old rape victim related the story to me in an encampment in North Dinajpur near the Bangladesh border in March 2009.

[4] For the latter, see Bimal Primanik, Endangered Demography: Nature and Impact of Demographic Changes in West Bengal 1951-2001. (Kolkata:  G. C. Modak, 2005), as well as numerous articles by him subsequently.

[5] Figures come from the United Nations itself, Contributors to United Nations Peacekeeping Operations, and the February figures can be found at http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/contributors/2010/jan10_1.pdf. 

[6] Elizabeth Knowles, editor, Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 301.  Attributed to Joseph Stalin.

America's Future is with Asia, not Europe

Originally published on Blitz, April 24, 2010

Dr. Richard Benkin

Passage of President Barack Obama's health care bill has not lessened Americans' opposition to it. According to the latest Rasmussen poll, fully 56 percent not only oppose it but also want it repealed, and only 41 percent oppose repeal. Pundits have given a multitude of reasons for American opposition: it is unconstitutional; it will be disastrous for the US economy; its re-distributive nature is contrary to American values of free enterprise and individual responsibility; its deliberately depressive effect on profits will hamper new medical research and innovation that have benefitted people worldwide; and that is only the beginning of the criticism. Conservatives frequently accuse Obama of trying to re-make the United States along the lines of European socialism through the health care bill and the rest of his domestic and foreign agenda; and polls indicate that the charge rings true among most Americans. As columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote, "Just as the Depression created the political and psychological conditions for Franklin Roosevelt's transformation of America from laissez-faireism to the beginnings of the welfare state, the current crisis gives Obama the political space to move the still (relatively) modest American welfare state toward European-style social democracy."

A basic assumption embedded in Obama care and the rest of that agenda is that America's future is to become more like Europe; and that is a flawed assumption. America's real future lies in growing closer with Asia and more distant from an aged and failing Europe. Stripped of its rhetoric, the Obama agenda is essentially Euro-centric and, dare we say it, racially biased. In 2008, I wrote that the oft-made remark by partisans on the left (including then Senator Obama) that the US had lost the world's respect under President George W. Bush was based largely on their perceptions about European support and the same racial bias. Throughout Asia, on the other hand, our standing remained high, and people looked toward the United States for guidance and support. The accusation also failed to consider that Europe's disdain for the United States is endemic on the continent and long pre-dated Bush and his policies. Only its expression quieted at those times when American arms and blood saved Europe from autocracy in 1918 and fascism in 1945; when American generosity rebuilt the Continent after World War II; and the when the US nuclear umbrella prevented its takeover by an aggressive Soviet Union and communist totalitarianism. (Even so, as a young man traveling through Western Europe in the 1970s, I was urged to advertise myself as a Canadian due to high levels of anti-Americanism.) As we move further from these periods when Europe's very existence depended on the US, anti-Americanism is finding free expression there again. This is not dissimilar to European anti-Semitism retaking center stage after being muted only briefly after Europe's Holocaust sins. Jessica C. E. Gienow-Hecht of Germany's Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main wrote that "Anti-Americanism in Europe is a habitus, a syndrome, an ideological Versatzstück... a cultural phenomenon" that only "hides behind a political mask." According to Gienow-Hecht, it transcends historical periods, ideologies, and specific issues. She quotes political analyst David Kaspar who wrote, "You want to know what anti-Americanism is for most people? It's a German schoolteacher who vacations in America, who watches American movies, who was defended from the Soviets by America and then later met an Eastern German cousin she never knew because Reagan won the Cold War, who sneers at America in front of the kids she teaches every day."

Former British MP and Liberal leader, Lord Paddy Ashdown agrees. Five months after the 9/11 attacks, he told the BBC that they gave the transatlantic relationship "a new lease on life," but added, "That is more likely to prove a temporary reversal of an underlying trend, to which we will revert when all this is over." A year earlier in the prestigious journal, Foreign Affairs, C. Fred Bergstrom predicted that the US and Europe "are on the brink of a major trade and economic conflict," already manifest in mutual trade sanctions. The conflict, however, goes beyond governmental tussles over trade, interest rates, and the extent to which the economies should be regulated. There is growing competition between US and European firms as well over large contracts. Recently, for instance, European aerospace giant EADS shed its American partner and went head to head with America's Boeing to build an aerial refueling tanker for the United States Air Force. Complicating matters further, several US lawmakers decried the very thought of giving a European company that military contract over an American one. As markets continue to tighten in the international economy, look for European and American protectionist moves to grow.

We might also ask if Obama and his colleagues are backing the wrong horse with their agenda. When I was in India earlier this year, I noticed that my US dollar bought more Euros but fewer Rupees. The longer I was in South Asia, the more apparent it was that the region had escaped the worst ravages of the international economic crisis. There had been some job losses in the IT and export sectors, but the Indian economy and the country remained vibrant. Free enterprise is flourishing throughout South Asia, and even India's left-center government is largely staying out of its way. Once safe strongholds of India's communist party (CPIM) are weakening, and the CPIM is expected to be out of power by the next elections in West Bengal after ruling there for more than three decades. Indian and Asian economies are on the rise by adopting the same sort of laissez-faire capitalism that made the US an economic giant; Europe's on the other hand are declining under the banner of socialism.

America's founding fathers set out to build a nation premised on limited government and low taxes. While that has changed somewhat, as Krauthammer noted, it remains basic American philosophy. One indicator of that philosophy's strength is tax revenue as a percent of gross domestic product. Money taken out of the economy in the form of taxes reduces amounts available for economic development. The greater the amount, the more control government has over how resources are distributed. While running high at 28 percent, the US remains significantly below West European countries like the United Kingdom (38), Germany (40), France (46), and the Scandinavian countries (43-50). South Asian nations, on the other hand, run from eight percent in Bangladesh to 17 percent in India. Even communist China with extensive state control is only at 17 percent. Whether in South Asia or the Far East, there is a palpable vibrancy to these Asian economies unfettered by the large government programs that characterize the European Union. They resonate with traditional American values of self-reliance and government's small role in the economy.

The American population itself is changing, too, becoming more "Asian" and less "European." A study by the respected Pew Research Center projects the Asian-origin population in the United States to triple by 2050. According to US government figures, five of the top ten foreign countries for legal US immigrants and naturalized US citizens since 2000 are Asian; none are European. Asians represented over 38 percent of naturalized American citizens in that period; Europeans only 13 percent. Ironically, the lion's share of those Europeans immigrants is likely to want an American more like Asia today than Europe. Four of the five top European countries that contributed new American citizens in the past decade were formerly under communist rule. People fled those countries and Europe to escape the same big government programs that stifled freedom and initiative there and which the Obama administration is attempting, to their horror, to implement in the United States.

Israeli Diplomatic Offensive a No-Brainer

Originally published on Canada Free Press, April 4, 2010

Dr. Richard Benkin

In late March, according to the AP, “Britain took the extraordinary step Tuesday of expelling an Israeli diplomat for the first time in more than 20 years, after concluding there was compelling evidence that Israel was responsible for the use of forged British passports in the plot to slay a senior Hamas operative in Dubai.”

Ironically, the man behind the move, UK Foreign Minister David Milliband, justified the move by saying that the high-quality fakes were “almost certainly made by a state intelligence service.”  After taking such strong action, he also “insisted Britain has drawn no conclusions over who is responsible for the killing."  Is there any question that Britain’s move was political and nothing else?

In August, for instance, an international committee accused the UK of selling arms that “killed civilians” in Sri Lanka and that were used to make IEDs in Iraq.  The government responded by promising a “full review.”  That was eight months ago; the alleged Israel incident occurred in January.  Did the British expel diplomats from Saudi Arabia over any of its numerous human rights violations?  Or from Russia during any of the mini-wars, anti-terror operations, or crackdowns?  Even more shocking, did the British do anything to Iranian diplomats enjoying its hospitality during the recent murders of dissidents, government-led oppression of religious and ethnic minorities, or any other Iranian atrocities?  But it did it to Israel for something only alleged and far less deadly than the incidents noted above.  Now, it is “re-considering” any arms sales to Israel.  That should be the last straw.

How far have Israel and its friends have allowed this Israel’s international standing to fall?  The Dubai assassination took out a terrorist and Hamas arms trafficker; yet, the resulting furor was aimed exclusively at the assassins.  There was no expression of thanks to whoever took out this known terrorist, responsible for the death of many innocents.  What kind of topsy-turvy world it this?  Nor was there any acknowledgment that Israel—and for that matter, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority, because it is still not clear who arranged the hit—has a legitimate right to protect its citizens and its very existence.  Clearly, those who have sounded off on this incident have lost any semblance of a moral compass.

Israel has been rather passive in response to an international onslaught of vilification of which this is but the latest example, regardless of which party is in power—and it has not worked.  There is no shortage of otherwise impotent countries and groups lining up to take pot shots at the world’s only Jewish State.  Strategists should ask if they foresee a time when those nations will simply decide to stop doing that and treat Israel treated like other nations.  Unless they can come up with a “yes” to that, it clearly is time for a change.  Israel and America have allowed their enemies to take the initiative and set the agenda for their existential war on terror; doing little more than responding to the most recent provocation with the likelihood being that the enemy has anticipated the response.  Why do we think the Gaza weapons factories and smuggling tunnels are always empty when Israel bombs them after a terrorist attack?  When al Qaeda launched the 9/11 attack against the United States from its strongholds in Afghanistan it is highly unlikely that the US invasion of that South Asian nation surprised anyone.  When Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists stepped up their attacks on Israeli civilians and then captured Israelis from Israeli territory; did they not expect Israel to launch the 2006 Operation Defensive Shield?  And even if they suspected that the United States and Israel might have the resolve to finish the job, they knew they could count on the “international community” to lend a hand in preventing that.

Israel, however, is not a beggar nation without recourse.  It can use its strengths to force those whose main desire is placating Israel’s enemies to think twice before engaging in that sort of morally bankrupt diplomacy.  It can start with the current crisis.  Instead of engaging in an empty tit-for-tat move, expelling some marginal British diplomat in a move that will be forgotten and rectified in not too long, try hitting them where it hurts.  The British economy is still going through a difficult time, and quite a few British companies depend on the business they do in Israel:  British Gas, Apax Partners, Unilever, HSBC, British Airways, Lloyds of London, and Rolls Royce Aero Engines among others.  There is rather extensive evidence that one of them HSBC, has had a role in helping to fund anti-Israel terrorist groups.  The allegation first arose in 2004, when Washington attorney Allen Gerson targeted HSBC, Citigroup, and others for channeling funds through their Saudi subsidiaries to Palestinian terror groups.  Five years later, HSBC was accused of supporting “financial jihad” in the form of disruptive banking techniques also through its Saudi branch and “Sharia advisor.”  Also in 2009, HSBC (as well as a subsidiary of the Royal Bank of Scotland) was accused of funneling money to Hamas through a Gaza facility.  It would not be unreasonable for the Israeli government to restrict HSBC’s activities, suspend its license, levy fines, or launch a highly public government investigation of HSBC for supporting terrorism.  They can do this, moreover, without jeopardizing the benefits that the relationship brings to both countries, as it is in no one’s interest to escalate the crisis over Israel’s actions—unless Israel shows that its enemies in Britain can do what they wish without fear of meaningful action.

Similarly, Israeli longshoremen and other laborers can refuse to unload or otherwise handle goods that have been processed by members of the British unions who called for a boycott of the Jewish state.  They might even prevail upon their cohorts in the United States to do the same, as every major American union previously joined the Jewish Labor Unions denunciation of the Brits’ boycott call.  In almost every part of the world I travel or speak with people—the Middle East, South Asia, Ireland—the one thing that both sides agree on is that “the Brits really screwed things up here.”

Perhaps nothing enrages Israel and its supporters as much, however, as when governments like Britain take a holier-than-thou attitude toward Israel, condemning it for legitimate self-defense actions that pale in comparison to their own.  If Israel’s vaunted intelligence agency is as good as its reputation suggests, it would not be difficult for the Mossad to leak information about real torture, for instance, committed by British security forces in Ireland or atrocities in the Falklands. Have all the actions of British forces in Iraq and Afghanistan been beyond reproach.  Certainly, there are incidents that rise to the level of the accusations they hurl against Israel.  As The Economist noted, when commenting on the current Israel-British row, “Israel provides Britain with much needed intelligence on areas such as Iran which it will be reluctant to forfeit.”  So, Israel is not without assets it can marshal to forestall similar feigned outrage by governments in Britain and elsewhere.

When countries like the UK can take this sort of harsh actions far out of proportion to any alleged offense, knowing that it can do so with impunity; when the world’s worst human rights offenders feel free to lecture Israel about human rights with the only reaction pat on the back; it is time to change the dynamic that works only for the international “bad guys.”

Now, what about Barack Obama and his anti-Israel cohorts?

Key Democrat Breaks with Obama on South Asia

Originally published in the New English Review, March 15, 2010

Dr. Richard Benkin

Gary Ackerman is a 14-term Democratic Congressman, representing New York’s fifth district, which includes parts of Queens and Long Island. And as such, Ackerman holds the panoply of positions one would expect from a New York Democrat. He strongly supports current legislation that would result in a government takeover of the nation’s health care system. He has been given a 100 by NARAL Pro Choice America and even voted twice against bans on partial birth abortion. The NRA gives him an “F” for his votes on gun control. Immigration reform groups rate him as having an “open borders” stance.   Plus, Ackerman opposes the death penalty, school prayer, the Patriot Act, and, well, you can pretty much fill in the rest. Yes, there is no doubt that Congressman Gary Ackerman is an ideological liberal and an almost certain vote for the Democrats in Congress.

Ackerman, however, is also Chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia House Foreign Affairs Committee. While conservatives might have solid, even passionate, disagreements with Ackerman on many issues, there is no question that he is one of Congress’s most knowledgeable members when it comes to that part of the world. His sentiments in that regard are rather clear, too, as his web site notes that his subcommittee “has jurisdiction over United States policy towards all countries in the Middle East and South Asia, including important U.S. allies Israel and India”[emphasis mine]. That should not be passed over lightly. Ever since the 1950s when Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru allied his county with the Soviet Union, the US-India relationship has been a rocky one. More recently, President Obama dismissed Indian anti-terror efforts in Kashmir and increased aid to India’s enemy, Pakistan; even though former Pakistani Prime Minister Pervez Musharraf and others have admitted that much of that aid goes to building attacks against India. Nor is there any doubt that the Obama administration is at best ambiguous about how important an ally Israel is. In 2008, Ackerman co-sponsored a resolution with GOP Congressman Mike Pence declaring Iran to be a threat to “the vital national security interests of the United States" and demanding a full-scale naval, air and land blockade. Ackerman is also a fierce critic of the anti-Israel Goldstone Report.

My own path crossed with Ackerman’s briefly in 2007 when he was Democratic floor leader during debate on a resolution that called on Bangladesh to drop its false charges against Muslim Zionist and anti-Islamist journalist, Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury. The legislation was authored by Congressman Mark Kirk, Republican from suburban Chicago and currently a candidate for the Senate seat once held by Barack Obama. Kirk and I together have championed Choudhury’s cause and were able to free him from 17 months of imprisonment and torture.   Ackerman spoke passionately in support of Choudhury.

Ackerman, however, might have saved his strongest and most stunning remarks for a March 11 Subcommittee hearing entitled: “Bad Company: Lashkar e-Tayyiba and the Growing Ambition of Islamist Militancy in Pakistan”; a title that is at variance with Obama’s Af-Pak policy, which focuses almost exclusively on al Qaeda and the Taliban. Beyond that, in his March 2009 speech announcing that policy, Obama targeted al Qaeda and the Taliban as our enemies but also made it clear that he considers the rest of Pakistan our friends and allies. In his opening statement at that hearing, Ackerman identified a far more general problem, “Islamist Militancy in Pakistan,” that goes well beyond Obama’s narrow definition:

While U.S. attention has focused primarily on al-Qaida, and the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, the Lashkar e-Tayyiba (LeT) and other violent, Islamist extremist groups in Pakistan have been growing in both capability and ambition. As was demonstrated in the horrific Mumbai attack of November 2008, the al-Qaida model of perpetrating highly visible, mass-casualty attacks appears to have migrated, with enormous potential consequences for the United States.

But the New York Democrat was only getting started.

We need to take this threat very, very seriously. The LeT is a deadly serious group of fanatics.They are well financed, ambitious, and most disturbingly, both tolerated by, and connected to, the Pakistani military [emphasis mine].

While Pakistan’s longstanding support for Islamists is an open secret, this public statement was a stinging rebuke and rejection of the Obama administration's entire South Asia policy. In fact, he said, this terrorist group “was set up with help from the Pakistani military as a proxy weapon” to use against India. He also accused the Pakistani military of paying compensation to families of the terrorists who killed almost 200 people in the November 26, 2008, attack on Mumbai. “These are our allies in the war on terror,” he adds contemptuously.

Beyond excoriating Pakistan and the fantasy of considering it an ally, Ackerman makes it clear that he recognizes Islamist goals as going far beyond parochial issues tied to any particular piece of real estate: “The LeT's true goal is not Kashmir, it is India [and] to establish an Islamic state in all of South Asia. Neither does it hide or try to play down its declaration of war against all Hindus and Jews.” Indians and Israelis have been trying without success to get the Obama administration to understand that the conflicts are not about Kashmir, Jerusalem, or any other phony issues.

In that March speech, Obama called for “a regional solution” but otherwise dismissed India as a key ally. In fact, he could have mentioned that for the ten days proceeding that speech, Indians were engaged in heated battles with Lashkar and defeating them quite handily. But he did not, and US representatives including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, South Asia Czar Richard Holbrooke, and Senator John Kerry have assiduously avoided even a perception of supporting India’s anti-terrorist chops or its right to self-defense from relentless terrorists based in a neighboring country; which sounds disturbingly like its actions toward Israel.

So, what does Ackerman suggest we do? Plenty

This group of savages needs to be crushed. Not in a month. Not in a year. Not when the situation stabilizes in Afghanistan. Not when things are under control in Pakistan. Now. Today and everyday going forward. We’re not doing it, and we’re not effectively leading a global effort to do it.

Had a conservative Republican made that statement, the media would be publishing screeds that yelled, “War monger.” But the fact is that Ackerman is not a conservative Republican. He is a liberal Democrat and not even a consistent foreign policy hawk. For instance, in 2007 he voted to start deploying troops out of Iraq in 90 days; he opposed measures to restrict funds for the UN; he supports Congressional oversight of CIA interrogations; and way back when voted against SDI. That is one of the things that make last week’s strongly-worded statement so significant.

While chastising Israel, last week Vice President Joe Biden said, “Sometimes only a friend can deliver the hardest truth.” Perhaps the Obama administration needs not take its own advice and listen to what Congressman Ackerman is telling them. If not, he warned, “we’re going to regret this mistake. We’re going to regret it bitterly.”

And I'll thank you not to call me a RINO

Originally published in New English Review, March 14, 2010

Dr. Richard Benkin

Conservatives are at a crossroads, poised to do one of two things. We will take back our country and restore the values and policies that have made us great; or we will blow that historic obligation out of our own sense of hubris. One of the most devastating mistakes made by the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats has been to misread their electoral victory as a mandate to implement their leftwing ideological agenda. Voters might have been angry at the Bush Administration, worried about the failing economy, or personally attracted to Candidate Barack Obama; but they did not sign up to transform the United States into France. Similarly, voters today might be angry at Obama’s broken promises or ineffectiveness, far left policies and administration personnel, or worried about the failing economy; but that does not mean that they have signed up for this country to take a hard right turn. It has become a truism to say that we are a Center-Right nation; which means neither ideologically Left nor ideologically Right.

A particularly irksome manifestation of this hubris for many conservatives is the seemingly indiscriminate cat call, “RINO.” While the acronym stands for “Republican in name only,” it means for many conservatives, “Republicans who don’t agree with me.” Tea Partiers and others have done this nation a great service by fearlessly calling out those actions and individuals that are moving the United States away from its essential values; and in doing so, they also have given those values their rightful place again in public debates over our country’s direction. Yet, many of them have forgotten the words of perhaps the most revered—and most successful—conservative Republicans of our age. In 1972, then Governor Ronald Reagan famously said, “The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally — not a 20 percent traitor.” Or would those people who so glibly scream RINO today use it on Reagan himself? After all, non-military federal spending grew under Reagan; and during his presidency, the United States went from being the world’s largest creditor nation to its largest debtor nation. The conservative lion who waged war on the growth of the federal government enlarged it. What about Richard Nixon? Did he lose his cold warrior credentials when he opened relations with Communist China and cast aside the Nationalists? This same Republican president also imposed government wage and price controls, something more at home from a President Obama. Another conservative icon, Jack Kemp, actively lobbied for the 2006 attempt at “comprehensive immigration reform” that most conservatives opposed passionately.  And if what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, we might call John F. Kennedy a DINO, because he won the presidency by promising and then implementing tax cuts to stimulate the economy and increased defense spending to close the “missile gap” with the Soviets.

Even today, we can find divergent positions among our conservative heroes. Governor Sarah Palin, for instance, once vetoed a bill passed by the Alaskan legislature that would have denied benefits to gay partners of state employees. As governor, she sought a quarter billion dollars in earmarks and made sure her hometown of Wasilla (with only 6700 people) got $27 million of it.   She called global warming a “challenge,” and empanelled a Climate Change Sub-Cabinet at Alaskans’ expense. Governor Mike Huckabee pardoned ten times the number of criminals, including violent ones, than did previous Arkansas governor, Bill Clinton. He favors a cap and trade bill, supported a “conservation tax,” for Arkansas, and supported amnesty for illegal immigrants, saying they give more in taxes than they receive in benefits.

The point is not to tarnish the credentials of our conservative heroes. It is clear, however, that those who use the R-word will find themselves disappointed if they are consistent in their demands for ideological purity. More to the point, however, demands for ideological purity are more at home in the old Soviet Union, Communist China, and Islamist Iran than in the United States of America. It also has brought nothing but disaster for conservatives. For instance, the last time we had a populist running for President who espoused largely conservative values, we ended up with eight years of Bill Clinton. The late Barry Goldwater is acknowledged to be a man of vision who was ahead of his time. Yet, the conservative purity that made him the 1964 Republican presidential nominee—and catcalled Nelson Rockefeller off the convention podium—rewarded us with Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” and its huge government programs that are still picking our pockets.

The fact is that in 2010, all Americans have clear choices. If, for instance, Charlie Christ defeats Marco Rubio for Florida’s Senate nomination, will ideological conservative support him or keep the seat in Democratic hands? Conservative Patrick Hughes challenged Mark Kirk for the US Senate nomination in Illinois. He lost. Kirk is no RINO. He repudiated his cap and trade vote, vowing to vote against the measure in the Senate, and consistently supports fiscally conservative bills. He is a foreign policy and security hawk; and is the first US Congressman since World War II to serve in forward combat areas, having just returned from his second tour of duty in Afghanistan. Kirk has a real chance to take the seemingly forever blue Illinois Senate seat, and conservatives can help make that happen. If they do not, the result will strengthen the Obama agenda with an Illinois senator who is an Obama protégé that will vote in favor of every Obama measure proposed. Count on it.

The events over the past year have placed the destiny of our country in our hands. Will we rise to the occasion or blow it?

US State Department affirms support for Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury

Originally published on Blitz, March 13, 2010

Dr. Richard Benkin

The US State Department has issued its report on the state of human rights in almost 200 individual countries. This is an annual report issued by the State Department, and its contents often reflect general and even specific positions of the US diplomatic corps and administration. For instance, much has been made of late about a new relationship between the Obama administration and the State of Israel. While that is patently correct, the report reflects some basic principles in the US-Israel relation even in difficult times such as these.

For instance, one the on hand, the report refers to "Israel and the occupied territories," while it is not at all clear that any territories are occupied. Since international borders have never been negotiated at any time between Israel and its Arab neighbors, the more accurate term is "disputed territories." It also stated that "Arab citizens of Israel continued to suffer various forms of discrimination in public and private life." It also included an annex with "reports" of torture but no substantiation. Yet—and again remember that this is a US administration considered the most hostile to Israel since the state's founding—it did not provide a long list of examples, as it did with regard to other matters. It was much harder on the Palestinian Authority section; and in almost every single category that it covers, the report exonerated the State of Israel. For instance, it noted "the government or its agents did not commit politically motivated killings" and "here were no reports of politically motivated disappearances during the year." The report reflected the ambiguity between the Obama administration's positions and the historical and still strong positions of the overwhelming number of US citizens and lawmakers.

Most significant was the report's statement on the 2008 war in Gaza, "Operation Defensive Shield," as well as the now notorious Goldstone Report—because here there was no ambiguity. In its description of the war, the State Department report began with a review of the increased Hamas rocket attacks and stated clearly that the Israeli action was in direct response to them. It also described the war as being waged against Hamas, never against Palestinians. It described the Goldstone Report briefly, but spent a great deal more time describing its flaws, which conforms to the US position rejecting its validity.

Although the report gave the Awami League government mixed reviews, it is clear that the State Department remains invested in its success. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom and other bodies recognized Bangladesh's move from a non-elected to an elected government in 2009. By the same token, its report noted a significant number of human rights abuses that remain. Most significant for the American and international supporters of Weekly Blitz publisher and editor Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury was the fact that the report made prominent mention of his case; that is, that it remains a human rights concern for even this less aggressive government of the United States. Moreover, while the mention was not extensive, the report made sure to communicate ongoing US concern by highlighting the mention as a separate paragraph. Most significantly, it noted Shoaib's case prominently under the heading of "Political Prisoners and Detainees." That is, despite the fact that Shoaib is not in custody at the moment, the United States does not consider him free from government harassment.

The report is highly significant for while the current administration has been far less aggressive in pursuing justice for Shoaib, it indicates that the US government has not abandoned its support for him. Moreover, Shoaib's supporters in the Congress and the Senate remain, and if anything, the political winds are changing in the United States and we can expect further gains for our supporters in the November midterm elections. The most important of those elections is that for US Senator from the state of Illinois. Shoaib's biggest congressional supporter, Mark Steven Kirk, is currently favored to win that seat, formerly held by Barack Obama.

Have we learned anything?

Originally published on Austrailian Islamist Monitor, February 11, 2010

Dr. Richard Benkin

It has been a year since the Maqsood Alshams scandal, which forced the cancellation of an anti-Israel conference that was to have been held in the New South Wales Parliament House.  It was a victory over the Israel-hating forces in Australia and one that many of us hoped would provide a template for future actions worldwide.  Unfortunately, we did not use our experience to fight on elsewhere; our foes, on the other hand, might have learned from their bloodied noses.

Alshams had become a darling of the Australian left and, like them, packaged his vitriol in human rights terms.  The conference he convened would “debate” the question of charging Israel with war crimes for its actions in Gaza during Operation Defensive Shield; though a look at the participants and their sentiments makes it clear that the results of this “debate” were pre-determined.  So having been fawned over by Australian academics and buoyed by the fact that he was holding his anti-Israel hate-fest in a government building, Alshams pressed his perceived advantage; but his hubris proved to be his own undoing.  I received one of Alshams’ anti-Israel emails about the conference, which also called for international intervention to save the poor, poor people of Gaza.  Normally, I do not respond to emails like that.  What’s the point, as the authors refuse to entertain anything that conflicts with their own worldview; especially when it comes to Israel.

This one was different, however.  First, it came from Australia, and Australians should know of the high regard in which most Americans hold them for their honesty, courage, and forthrightness.  Beyond that, the propaganda war over Israel is essentially lost in Western Europe and only in its early stages in the United States; but it is full-blown Down Under.  Second, this email was not sent to seemingly countless and random addresses, but targeted to a smaller audience, including media.  And third, Alshams cloaked his entire screed in disingenuous human rights terms; which as a real human rights activist I find insulting.  But far more important than that, the use of faux human rights language is a key element of the propaganda war against Israel and the Islamist war against civilization itself.

So, I replied, “Why didn´t these same people cry for ´international intervention´ when the Palestinians--and Hamas in particular--thanked Israel for leaving Gaza by making it a terrorist base to lob missiles onto civilian populations in Southern IsraelWhere were these same people when Israeli civilians were facing constant rocket attack from Hamas and its allies?”

And so did Alshams, “The simple answer is that you the Jews are real motherf****….you guys are simply assholes….Jews like you are the dirty scums.”

I noticed that he did not “reply to all,” and felt that such passion should be shared with the entire group; which I did.  Significantly, Alshams later tried to defend his remarks by saying his was “intoxicated and angry”; but his actions in sending them to me alone reveal that he knew exactly what he was doing.  (He also phoned me later and repeated them.)  He and his ilk try to fashion their positions exclusively in compassionate terms, avoiding their anti-Jewish motives.  This would have blown their cover.  Even the most elementary—honest—reading of history exposes their anti-Jewish vitriol as far more salient than any pro-Palestinian sentiments.  (How much sense does their demand to pre-1967 conditions make?  Does anyone remember there being peace before 1967?)  So after concerted effort with several Australians got the Sydney Morning Herald to pick up the story, the participants were forced to dissociate themselves from Alshams and his bigotry.  The conference was cancelled.

Following our success, I suggested to several Jewish groups that we use our experience as a model for further actions going forward.  Almost all of the anti-Israel rhetoric in academia, at human rights forums, and in public debate uses the language of human rights to intimidate those who might suggest that there is merit to a pro-Israel point of view; and they have been very successful in that.  They also have been proactive in denying any sort of anti-Semitic motives, even accusing their opponents of throwing out that label to any who criticize Israel.  Of course, we know that claim is equally disingenuous, since we are far more likely to hear accusations of Islamophobia hurled at anyone who is openly pro-Israel.  But, again, it has worked to summarily dismiss any suggestions that anti-Semitic motives underlie their positions.

What happened with the Alshams scandal was that we were able to expose those motives with the opposition’s own words.  As a result, the panoply of fellow travelers who identify themselves as nothing but uber compassionate—academics, self-styled human rights advocates, and leftists—had no choice but to dissociate themselves from the unmasked hatred of their erstwhile allies.  For all their bluster, harsh language, and fist shaking, that complex of individuals will turn tail and run if it appears they too might be painted as fellow bigots or condemned with their buddies’ own hateful words.  To be sure, in this case, Alshams might have handed us the tools of his own unmasking.  Nonetheless, conference backers at first tried to dissociate themselves while still contending that the conference itself was worthy.  It therefore took continued efforts to prevent them from slithering out of their own maze of contradictions.  Moreover, since anti-Semitism really is the fuel that drives the anti-Israel engine, similar evidence is available for the taking in other situations.  All it takes is commitment and a little bit of organized and concerted effort.

While we have not learned from that experience, our enemies apparently have, enlisting characters they believe are immune to charges of anti-Semitism.  Thus, they have organized the Washington group, J-Street, which embraces every anti-Israel position, warmly welcomes every “respectable” Israel hater, yet calls itself “pro-Israel.”  A recent J-Street event, openly intended to spread its message to more Jewish college students, is being hosted by the Jewish students’ association, Hillel, at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.  In addition to being a highly thought of Ivy League school, Penn also boasts of sizeable Jewish population.  When Aaron Klein broke the story, he identified the most passionate anti-Israel speakers who had names like Alpert (she compared Israel’s actions in Gaza to genocide in Darfur), Ratzman (who has accused Israel of ethnic cleansing), and Waskow (who has strongly defended the discredited Goldstone report that accuses Israel of war crimes).  Speaking of that terribly biased report, legal scholar Alan Dershowitz called Richard Goldstone, “a traitor using his Jewishness to malign Israel.”

Still, there is a wide berth between open Jew haters like Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and this rogue’s gallery of anti-Israel Jews; and their truly anti-Jewish motives are available to us.  All we need to do is use them and do so relentlessly to achieve the same results we did last year in Sydney.

Kerry Pushing Same Nonsense

Originally published in the New English Review, Februrary 16, 2010

Dr Richard Benkin

This is an amazing time to be in India. Last week, tensions here heated white hot when Pakistan refused to hold long overdue talks with India about the former’s role in the Mumbai terror attacks. At the same time, the government continued its offensive against communist rebels who have been terrorizing this country for decades; and the Maoists for the first time cried “Uncle.” Shortly after the Indo-Pak talks were on again (albeit with the two countries disagreeing on their content), terror struck

Indians awoke Sunday morning to read about a major Islamist terror attack in the West Indian city of Pune, and industrial hub of more than five million people, that killed nine and injured scores. Security here went on high alert—something I can testify to having taken a domestic flight here later that day. More importantly, security forces were able to foil two impending attacks; one communist, one Islamist. Then on Monday, terror struck again. Lashkar e Taibe, the Islamic terror group responsible for the Mumbai and other terror attacks here, carried out another operation, this time in the disputed region of Kashmir. Then, later that day, the communists, known here as Naxalites and perhaps desperate after being knocked back on their heels by the governments offensive, attacked an army camp in the state of West Bengal, where I am located at the moment. The last was a particularly gruesome surprise attack while the soldiers were at rest, and which saw several burned alive, many gunned down, and the wounded carted off as hostages.

Also on Monday, Indian-Pakistan tensions rose again as Indian officials investigating the Pune blasts continued gathering evidence from the scene. They tentatively concluded that while local terrorists, known as Indian Mujahedeen, carried out the attack, they did so with support and direction from elements in Pakistan. At the same time, American terrorist David Headley told his captors that Pakistani intelligence (ISI) has been engaged in a project to train jihadists for attacks in India. Known as the “Karachi Project,” after the city in Pakistan, the ISI would shuttle Indian allies to Pakistan, train them, and return them to India where they were to await further orders.

And the most dramatic events occurred over a period of only two days. But from an American’s point of view, the most amazing—and confounding—thing came from US Senator John Kerry. The Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee told The Wall Street Journal “’The right thing is to talk; you lose nothing by talking,’" Sen. Kerry (D., Mass.) said while on a visit to the Indian capital en route to Islamabad. If India finds a Pakistani link to the Pune attack, “’I hope India will have that conversation with Pakistan and, if they have evidence to that effect, that should be the first thing on the table and Pakistan has to deal with it,’” he added.

Kerry completely ignores the fact that the very attitude he counsels is in part responsible for the current rise in tensions and loss of life. There certainly is much to lose in talking as President Obama’s current “engagement” with Iran demonstrates. India has been demanding that Pakistan turn over Mumbai terrorists living in the Islamic Republic and come clean in the role Pakistanis played in those and other terror attacks. Talks, in fact, are all they have been able to get, and they have stood as a substitute for action, leaving the murderers of 166 people free.

India at this moment is facing terror from jihadists and radical communists; and today an Al Qaeda communiqué warned foreign sports teams that they would face terror attacks should they come to scheduled tournaments in India. Citizens here do not know when or where the next strike will be.

And Kerry says the solution is talks? No doubt representing the views of the Obama administration as well, Kerry is sending a message to the front lines of this war that appeasement is the way. His comments cement impressions that the US favors Pakistan in this conflict (sending it billions in aid) and cannot be relied on as an ally in the war against communists or jihadists. People are taking notice. 

Chicago Terror Suspect Cased Sites For Pune Attack

Originally published in the New English Review, February 14, 2010

Dr. Richard Benki

We know David Headley has been charged with helping to set up the Mumbai massacre. Now there is evidence he may have had a hand in the latest terror attack in India, though he has been behind bars in the U.S. since November. Richard L. Benkin sends us this report

Islamic terrorist struck India yesterday, bringing death and destruction in the western city of Pune, a financial hub 58 miles from Mumbai. According to the Indian Anti-Terror Squad (ATS), which has taken charge of the case, terrorists left an explosive-filled backpack under a counter at the “German Bakery,” an establishment that is very popular with tourists and locals in this city of over five million people.

The bakery was completely demolished. At this point, there are nine dead, all Indians, and 57 injured. One of the injured remains in critical condition, and 19 have been released from the hospital as of this writing several hours after the blast.

While the specific identity of the terrorists has not been established, the ATS and major Indian officials have said that the terrorists were “Indian Mujahadeen,” as opposed to the perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack who were based in Pakistan. Officials have called the bakery a “soft target,” and that the Islamists were really after “hard targets”: the nearby Osho Ashram and Pune’s Chabad House. The Ashram is a prominent institution in the city for religious Hindus, who are often targeted by Muslim terrorists; and the Chabad House is a center for religious Jews and was a primary target in the Mumbai attacks, as well as the site of the most gruesome incidents of torture by the terrorists.

The Indian government has also announced that American Islamist David Headley had scouted both the Osho Ashram and the Chabad House in preparation for terror attacks. Today’s blast, was related to Headley’s actions. David Headley faces federal charges in a Chicago federal court. According to the FBI, they include “six counts of conspiracy involving bombing public places in India, murdering and maiming persons in India and Denmark, providing material support to foreign terrorist plots, and providing material support to [Pakistani terrorist group] Lashkar [e Taibe], and six counts of aiding and abetting the murder of U.S. citizens in India.”

Security has become very tight all over India, and the ATS announced that it foiled one major terrorist attack only hours after the Pune blast. Police in the city of Vapi recovered 200 kilograms of ammonium nitrate, 600 detonators, and 200 gel sticks from known Muslim terrorists there. The state of Gujurat, where Vapi is located, has become a clarion cry for radical Muslims ever since communal violence there took the lives of over 1200 people.

Although it has not been suggested that Pakistan had a role in yesterday’s attack in Pune, the incident has placed the February 25 talks in jeopardy, with tensions again rising.

Pakistan agrees to talk, sort of

Originally published in the American Thinker, February 13, 2010

Dr. Richard Benkin

Pakistan has agreed to hold talks with India -- sort of.  The office of Pakistani Prime Minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani released the following statement.  "It was decided that foreign secretary-level talks between the two countries would be held on February 25 in New Delhi."  The statement came only three days after Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi angrily rejected talks with India and accused India of collaborating with the Taliban to de-stabilize Pakistan.  Sources here, however, are emphatic that "these will be fruitless talks."

The reason for their skepticism is this:  The request for talks came out of Pakistan's giving aid and support to the Islamists responsible for the 2008 terror attacks on Mumbai.  Surviving terrorists and numerous intelligence sources stated that Pakistan provided logistical and other forms of support for the attack and still provides them with a safe haven where they are immune from facing justice.  Like many other Islamic Republics, Pakistan has tolerated and even supported the growth and development of radical Islamist groups on its soil, including the very Taliban forces that now threaten its national existence. 

That is why President Obama's policy that identifies open Islamists as our target but assumes that the rest of the Pakistanis are our allies is, in the most generous terms, misguided.  The Pakistanis first promised to cooperate with India, but have become increasingly resistant to doing so.  Talks were to be the solution until Pakistan issued its provocative rebuke earlier in the week.  But Pakistan insisted that they cover a wide range of issue, especially Kashmir.  That was unacceptable to the Indians because the reason for the talks, the Mumbai attack, would get lost in such a wide-ranging agenda.  Moreover, the very notion of these talks grew out of Indo-Pak conflict over Mumbai. 

At the same time, standing alongside Palestine Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Galyani said that "People of Palestine and Occupied Kashmir are fighting for their just right of self-determination," a reference clearly targeted at the Indians to equate the two issues on international agendas.  In today's announcement, Pakistan agreed only to talks that cover "all core issues," especially Kashmir. Although Indian representatives indicated that they would be open to covering all issues," they are clear that they want Mumbai to be the focus.  In a backhanded compliment, not atypical of South Asian politics, Indian Defense Minister A K Anthony said he would even make sure the talks "would not be affected by increase in infiltration by militants from across the border or Pakistan's failure to dismantle terror groups operating from Pakistani soil."

Observers here also note that the Pakistanis made sure to fashion themselves as peacemakers when US National Security Advisor James Jones was in the capital of Islamabad.  "The United States," one well-informed Indian told me, "will do anything it can so Pakistan seems to be using all of its might against the Taliban-although India is their real target."  He noted that "phony talks" like this only make things worse because they give the Pakistanis the ability to pose as reasonable people without taking any concrete action, "like what is happening with the Iranians."  He then added, "This only increases {Indo-Pak] tensions because the issue of the [Mumbai] terrorists will not go away.  Even Indians who are always soft on Pakistan won't give on this one."

American Jewish activist in India

Originally published on Blitz, February 8, 2010

American activist, writer and author, Dr. Richard L. Benkin has arrived in India for talks with various individuals and groups on discrimination of Bangladeshi Hindus and other minorities, including the large numbers of Hindu refugees who have fled Islamist-inspired communal violence to India. During his stay in South Asia, Benkin will visit some of those illicit refugee colonies in several areas bordering Bangladesh. He also will be meeting with people about other issues, including commercial relations, the greater war to stop Islamist extremism, and the growing support for Israel in the region.

India has full diplomatic relations with Israel for decades. Both countries have excellent bi-lateral relations on diverdified fields.

Dr. Richard Benkin also applied for Bangladeshi visa for visiting religious minority groups as well leaders and officials in Bangladesh. But, Bangladeshi embassy in Washington repeatedly refused his visa, though he was allowed to visit the country in 2006, when BNP led government was in power.

Benkin: Pakistan breaks off India talks on Mumbai attacks

Originally published in the New English Review, February 8, 2010

Dr. Richard L. Benkin, reports  from Delhi about the abrupt breakoff in talks between Pakistan and India about the jihad against innocents in Mumbai in November 2008 perpetrated by terrorist group Lashkar e Taiba will allegations about logistical support from elements on Pakistan's intelligence service- the ISI.  This has thrown into serious doubt whether any joint talks will be productive. To the contrary, Pakistan may be in the dock of world opinion about being an enabler of islamic terrorism in south Asia.  What follows is Dr. Benkin's report.

_____________________________________________________________

(Delhi, February 8) “Pakistan Shows its True Colours,” screamed angry headlines here this morning after Pakistani Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi abruptly and defiantly refused to schedule talks with India about the 2008 terrorist attacks on Mumbai and the countries’ longstanding dispute over Kashmir. Those attacks left 173 people dead. The terrorist group, Lashkar e Taiba, has claimed responsibility for the attacks, which shook this nation of over a billion people.

It has also long been acknowledged that Lashkar e Taiba has been given safe haven in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan where they have been allowed to operate with relative impunity. All but one of the Mumbai attackers were Pakistani, and it is also suspected that Pakistani intelligence (ISI) provided them with logistical and other support on their trip by sea from Karachi, Pakistan, to Mumbai on India’s west coast. Although Pakistan charged several members of the terrorist group in the attack, they are seen as cosmetic, especially in light of Pakistan’s refusal to cooperate with India in bringing the terrorists to justice. There had been some positive movement in this crisis with the two nations agreeing to hold talks this month; but today’s heated rhetoric has heightened tensions again.

Pakistan issued an angry and defiant rebuke to India’s suggestion of talks on the 18th or 25th of February.   In refusing the offer, Queshi vowed that Pakistan “will never bow to India.” In a strident and rambling speech, Queshi laid blame for the growing crisis between these two nuclear powers entirely at India’s feet, re-writing recent history and claiming that Pakistan is the victim in this drama. He alleged that it was only Pakistan’s “bold stance” that brought India to the negotiating table after it, according to Qureshi threatened to cut relations between the two nuclear powers. He also made unsubstantiated and outrageous accusations that India orchestrated the high profile terrorist attacks on Sri Lankan cricketers in Pakistan last March and is cooperating with the Taliban to de-stabilize Pakistan. 

India responded through Foreign Minister P. Chidambaram that the refusal is a provocation that threatens dialogue between the two traditional rivals. He also referred to Lakshar e Taiba and other terror groups as “representatives of forces of darkness [that are] implacably opposed to India.” He also vowed that “India will defeat them” wherever they are. The media was even more strident, expressing outrage at Pakistan’s unexpected refusal of dialogue “after India bent over backwards” despite the Islamic country’s coddling of terrorists responsible for the loss of Indian life.

Sources here, both inside and outside of the intelligence community attribute Pakistan’s defiance in part on a “changed atmosphere… based in part on Obama’s policies.” The sources have said that the United States is now seen as “not having the stomach” to opposed Islamic terrorists or especially the countries that support them. “This,” more than one said, “is the result of your appeasement.”

At this point, the next steps by both India and Pakistan are unclear.

More Silence about Islamist Ethnic Cleansing

Originally published in the New English Review, February, 2010

Dr Richard Benkin
In a few weeks, I again will be with Bangladeshi Hindu refugees in a number of illicit camps throughout North and Northeast India. They fled to the world’s largest democracy and the country most closely identified with their faith, hoping for aid and comfort after being victimized next door by Islamic radicals, a government that supports minority oppression, and everyday Bangladeshi Muslims who are made to profit from attacks on their Hindu neighbors.

In several other visits to these camps, I have witnessed, seen evidence of, or heard from victims of

·        Gang rape, often ritualized, often perpetrated against multiple members of the same family

·        Murder

·        Abduction, especially of Hindu children and young women

·        Forced conversion to Islam

·        Religious desecration, including arson and the destruction of Hindu temples and dieties

·        Violent seizures of Hindu land, carried out under the protection of police, other officials, and even Bangladeshi law

·        Assaults on defenseless victims

·        Organized attacks by Muslim mobs

As heart wrenching as it is, however, to stare into the eyes of a young teen while she tells you of being gang raped, all of these atrocities are also symptoms of at least two far more insidious phenomena, which we have no choice but to fight and fight relentlessly. This organized attack on non-Muslims is part of the wider international jihad that threatens all civilized peoples, Bangladesh has become one giant Petri Dish for the Islamists, and what we do—or do not do—there will tell them how well their strategy will work elsewhere and how well-founded their assumptions about us are. Even beyond that existential threat, however, this is not about one or another sensationalistic event but about a system of legalized oppression and ethnic cleansing that has been proceeding almost without a break for more than three decades. That is the reality for Bangladesh’s 13-15,000,000 Hindus, and it places every one of them at risk. For despite the current Bangladeshi government’s protestations to the contrary—which they glibly issue in the face of opposing evidence—Hindus in Bangladesh live without equal protection under the law and are therefore subject to arbitrary actions by the Muslim majority.

Yet while events like the attempted terrorist bombing of Northwest flight 253 over Detroit on Christmas day remind us of that constant threat facing us; no one ever alerts us to this quiet case of ethnic cleansing and how it is just as dramatically a part of the same threat.

At the time of India’s Partition in 1948, Hindus accounted for about a third of the East Pakistani population. When East Pakistan became Bangladesh in 1971, they were about a fifth. Today, they are less than one tenth. There have been no UN resolutions condemning the perpetrators; no outraged world leaders speaking out about it; not a single protest from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, or the rest of the misnomered human rights industry. The Hindus of Bangladesh are being wiped out, and no one seems to care. Yet, if this was happening to the Muslims of India those same bodies would decry “Hindu extremism” and excuse Islamist attacks on India as justified outrage. But in fact, that is not what is happening, as South Asian Islamists are progressively changing Indian demographics. During roughly the same period, Indian’s Muslim population has actually grown, rising from about nine percent to perhaps 20. In West Bengal, the Indian state on Bangladesh’s western border, Muslims were at 25 percent at the start of this century, and many estimate them to be at least 30 percent today—thanks in part to a friendly communist state government.

Bangladeshi governments regardless of party have been complicit in the ethnic cleansing of Hindus. In almost every atrocity, they either allowed the perpetrators to act with impunity or actively participated in it with them. The country even has a law, the Vested Property Act that empowers the government to seize non-Muslim land and distribute it to Muslims of its choice. It has been in force for 35 years—and no arbiter of human rights has complained; no morally-outraged country has ever conditioned business or aid on its repeal. Their de juro bigotry is the economic fuel for destroying their Hindu communities, which in Pakistan is now down to one percent from 20—and I saw much of that remnant streaming into Indian Punjab in March ahead of the advancing Taliban.

The United Nations, which never tires of telling us in one way or another how it is the arbiter of right and wrong in the world, is actually a major supporter of ethnic cleansing in Bangladesh and Pakistan. Bangladesh and Pakistan (which has the same confiscatory law with a different name) supplies more UN peacekeeping troops than any other country. In November 2009, the last month for which figures are available, each had more than 10,000 of its citizens employed as peacekeeping forces on the UN payroll. The United States had 76, Australia 105, the UK 281. China—another pillar of democracy—had over 2000.  These peacekeeping jobs are critical to the Bangladeshi economy and polity, as we saw during the country’s 2007 military coup. According to the standard narrative, the coup occurred because impending elections were revealed as fraudulent, and there was a great deal of unrest in the streets. While that did happen, the coup came about for very different reasons.

When I arrived in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka three days before the coup, I was greeted with the bizarre spectacle of every single democracy urging the Bangladeshis not to hold elections—especially bizarre in retrospect since they since accepted rigged elections in Iran, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Bangladeshi freedom fighter and Muslim Zionist Shoaib Choudhury, who I was with at the time, and I were informed of the coup shortly before it happened. Our sources also told us that the military decided to move because its leaders believed that the UN was about to join the democracies and threaten its ability to supply peacekeeping troops—which makes sense. No one wants 10,000 unemployed, armed, and angry young men forced into the country. Clearly, the UN has the ability to influence the Bangladeshis by making participation in peacekeeping missions contingent on an end to minority oppression (both in law and in fact). It merely chooses not to do so.

Getting the UN to act is one way we can stop the march of Islamists and ethnic cleansing. Legal scholars can force a review based on the Vested Property Act. Others can focus on the numbers provided above: one third, one fifth, one tenth; a drop that does not occur through normal demographic processes. Making this reality something world leaders cannot ignore is another. Neither the international human rights industry nor the rogue’s gallery that populates the various UN human rights commissions will be any help. 

Under the auspices of a new NGO, Forcefield, several Indian colleagues and I are planning a no-holds-barred documentary about this human rights disaster. Forcefield is a non-agenda driven human rights organization—which means it is not anti-Israel or anti-US, and has no leftist agenda that drives its choice of issues. Neither will it ignore human rights abuses simply because they are carried out by Islamists. Through the documentary and other vehicles, Forcefield expects to educate publics and lawmakers to what is happening to the Hindus of Bangladesh. 

Trade is yet another critical area. The United States is a major importer of Bangladeshi goods, and over the past six years, I have helped stop several attempts to award Bangladesh tariff relief; this as part of our efforts on behalf of Shoaib Choudhury, whom the Bangladesh government continues to persecute. (Congressman and Senate candidate Mark Kirk has been and continues to be key ally in efforts to stopping these atrocities.)

The Bangladeshis will never stop these atrocities because of arguments about right and wrong; we tried that. Even the current government is no different than its predecessors; it has no internal dynamic for change. It continues to benefit from the Vested Property Act and does not want to anger potential voters by bucking the standard Islamist line. But we can identify and push on the many pressure points that Bangladeshis cannot ignore, such as those noted above. Those efforts are underway, and anyone wishing to join them, contribute to Forcefield, or become part of our call chain to contact members of the US Congress and Senate should email me at drrbenkin@comcast.net.

How serious is this? Throughout history, hardcore believers alone have never been sufficient for ethnic cleansing or genocide. Their success required a compliant authority and a large stable of everyday people to carry it out. That is exactly what they now have in Bangladesh as did others who led mass murders in Nazi Germany, Rwanda, Sudan, Sri Lanka, and elsewhere. Islamists will judge us by whether we stop this one or remain content to let it happen—when it will be too late for us, too.

FORCEFIELD - an NGO Force for GOOD

Originally published on Australian Islamist Monitor, January 25, 2010

We at AIM have frequently lamented the corruption of NGOs, which even if initially set up as a force for good, now mainly champion Islamic supremacist aspirations, while ignoring the oppression ofits many victims. Here's an example of two BAD NGOs:

1. Geoff Dickson wrote in UNRWA – the Really Wicked Agency - (24-02-09):

In 1948 neighboring Arab states urged Arabs living in Israel to leave because they were going to destroy Israel. As a result up to 600,000 Arabs moved into the Gaza area and were settled into “temporary” camps. The Gaza area is now home to some 4,200,000 “refugees”.

A video on UNRWA shows: 

        * 1.The UN Commissioner claiming that HAMAS did not violate the truce and a graph showing Hamas actually fired 120 rockets into Israel; 
        * 2.Young school kids, products of UNRWA schools, chanting Jihadi statements towards Israel
        * 3.an UNRWA official denying rockets were fired from a UNRWA building, and a video of a rocket firing from the base of the building; 
        * 4.HAMAS fighters using UN ambulances to transport their fighters
        * 5.Houses that Israel built in the early 1970’s to accommodate the refugees but which have been ignored by UNRWA and left vacant. 

The Palestinian education system is funded through the UNRWA, which employs some 18,000 Palestinians in over 250 schools it operates in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. 
But UNRWA-paid teachers in UNRWA-built schools are teaching from textbooks with anti-Semitic, anti-Israeli and anti-coexistence indoctrination. 

UNRWA was established over 60 years ago with a one year mandate to support refugees from Israel. Today it’s conduct suggests that it should be closed down as it has failed miserably in its objectives, and has openly promoted hate.

2. Another deplorable NGO is World Vision (see . Aussie Dhimwit of the Month (November 2009), whose Chief Executive in Australia, Rev. Tim Costello, champions Islamist causes, yet is seemingly indifferent to the suffering of their victims.

...World Vision and Tim are vehemently anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian: 

From NGO Monitor Digest (Vol. 2 No. 12), August 15, 2004: 

    …ignoring the terrorism that was responsible for the deaths of Israeli civilians, World Vision promotes an amoral equivalence between perpetrators and victims of terror, offering no context to the loss of life. Instead, Israeli security measures are described as a "policy of sealing entries and exits to cities, villages, and towns as a form of collective punishment of the Palestinian population." 
  
World Vision's response to Israel's security barrier displays almost no acknowledgment of its impact in preventing terror. Tim Costello described the barrier as "part of the problem, not part of the solution", evoking the highly politicized and inappropriate claim that the barrier is reminiscent of the Cold War and Eastern Bloc oppression. (His comparison reflects the Palestinian propaganda effort to compare the Berlin Wall, designed to keep citizens from fleeing, with Israel's security barrier, which saves the lives of its citizens.) 

This NGO is particularly active in promoting crude propaganda in the UN framework...in 2007, World Vision's Thomas Getman, continued this pattern in a speech in Geneva marking the 60th anniversary of UN Resolution 181, which called for the creation of two states, one Arab and one Jewish. His speech failed to mention ongoing Palestinian terrorist and missile attacks against Israel, and he used highly manipulative, emotionally charged rhetoric. 
...World Vision’s statement in the inaugural session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in June 2006, exploited the suffering of Palestinian children in order to launch a political attack on Israel.  

 

World Vision CEO Tim Costello

World Vision CEO Tim Costello

   * His devotion to child welfare doesn't extend to Israeli child victims: 

If it comes down to a conflict between the quality of life and the right to life, ethics would indicate the latter should take precedence. Yet neither Tim Costello ("For the children's sake, tear down this wall!" ) nor the International Court of Justice seem to think this elemental moral rule applies to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

... the failure of the court to even consider "Israel's legitimate right of self-defence, military necessity, and security needs, given the repeated deadly terrorist attacks in and upon Israel . . . cannot be justified as a matter of law". 

... Essentially, the argument of the court, and by implication Costello, is that Israel must turn the other cheek to the terrorists because practical steps to fight Hamas et al - groups that seek not self-determination but Israel's destruction - are all illegal.  (source)

But there's some good news on the horizon, with the founding of FORCEFIELD, an NGO dedicated to championing the cause of the oppressed rather than the oppressor.
In the words of its founder Dr. Richard Benkin:

Forcefield is a non-agenda driven human rights NGO. That means we are not anti-Israel, anti-US, anti-Conservative, etc., like the other human rights NGOs. It also means that we will take on the human rights violations those other organizations ignore, including those perpetrated by Islamists and those perpetrated against Jews, Hindus, and Christians. At our first Board Meeting, we agreed that the two issues we are taking up first are the ethnic cleansing of Bangladeshi Hindus and the ongoing persecution of Muslim Zionist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury in Bangladesh. As we gain strength, people, and resources, we will take on more.

Dr. Richard L. Benkin

Dr. Richard L. Benkin

FORCEFIELD's primary concern is to stop the ethnic cleansing of Bangladeshi Hindus, and on these trips I met with victims and victimizers (Islamists and Communists); and I gather solid evidence which I have been providing to members of the US Congress and Senate, as well as the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. We are making tremendous progress in Washington on that front. 

The trip also fulfills an important educative function in India, where we are increasing understanding among the people that the threat faced by India and Israel (as well as ultimately the rest of us) is the same. And we have made significant inroads in organizing pro-Israel and anti-Islamist groups there, especially among the youth and even on campuses with a notoriously leftist and anti-Israel orientation. Last year I spoke at the Supreme Court, several universities, and in numerous groups--as well as fighting for the Bangladeshi Hindus in the refugee camps along terrorist-infested borders. 

I have been working with several Indians to make a documentary film on the plight of Hindus in West Bengal, Assam, and Kashmir. We also will document how it is part of a wider jihad and threatens all of us, as well as being part of the jihad against Israel. 

And, of course, gathering the information and educating people in Washington about it also falls under Forcefield's mandate. We are always on the lookout for instances like the January conference in Australia... Since no one seems to be using that success as a template for similar successes, I am hoping that Forcefield will.

Sounds good to me, and no doubt to many of my fellow Aussies, who have long ago seen through the malevolence parading as human rights and are irritated with the supine and politically correct attitude of our leaders. 

What's more, there's an Aussie component to all this. In A Small Victory Down Under, Dr. Benkin explains:

An anti-Israel conference scheduled to be held in an official Australian state building was canceled after a small group of dedicated individuals revealed the conference leader’s anti-Semitic motives. Maqsood Alshams, an illegal immigrant from Bangladesh, planned the conference to debate the issue of charging Israel with war crimes for its recent actions in Gaza. Since arriving Down Under in the 1990s, Alshams had become a darling of the Australian left and became known as a “human rights” advocate. It is within that context that spews his relentless anti-Israel venom.

On December 30, I received one of Alshams’ emails, which quoted Malaysia’s Foreign Minister condemning Israel for “disproportionate, indiscriminate and excessive use of force in Gaza and… collective punishment imposed by the Occupying Power on the Palestinian people.” The email fell back on the usual illogical set of human rights accusation against the Jewish state, including the allegation that Israel’s defensive war was a “crime against humanity.” There was nothing remarkable about the email, and I normally do not bother responding to them. But this one came from Australia where the anti-Israel propaganda war–largely over in Europe and in its infancy in the United States—is in full swing. Moreover, email recipients included members of the Australian media who seemed to believe that Alshams’ pro-Palestinian passion was prompted by nothing more than a morally pure commitment to human rights. So I responded. What I sent was this.

      “Why didn’t these same people cry for ‘international intervention’ when the Palestinians–and Hamas in particular–thanked Israel for leaving Gaza by making it a terrorist base to lob missiles onto civilian populations in Southern Israel? Where were these same people when Israeli civilians were facing constant rocket attack from Hamas and its allies?”

What I got back was as much a surprise as it was a gift.

“The simple answer,” Alshams wrote, “is that you the Jews are real motherfucker bastards. In 1990 I myself entered in to the Jewish Consulate in Istanbul in Turkey as a law abiding citizen, met two Jewish Diplomats named Hayim Hosen and Eli Lev, I was stripped searched, sexually harassed, personally humiliated by Mohsad agents, you should keep your dirty mouth shut calling any Bangladeshi a brother, you guys are simply assholes. I don’t want to make this an international issue being secured in Australia. But simply Jews like you are the dirty scums… Stop playing the bloody victim games. You scums need to leave Palestine ASAP and give world a bit of peace… and keep your dirty mouth shut…I wonder why God himself hate the Jews…” (The dots are not of my doing. I have replicated Alshams’ email exactly as I received it.)

Not surprisingly, Alshams did not share these sentiments with the larger group; so I did. I also decided to find out more about him. Alshams has convinced Australians that he was a journalist in Bangladesh who had to flee for fear of his life. He alleges that he worked for a paper owned by one powerful party and was threatened by their political opponents. That would suggest he was pretty important. Yet, when Bangladeshi journalist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury investigated, he found no one who could say if Alshams “ever worked with any newspaper here.” He also said that nobody at the National Press Club ever heard of Maqsood Alshams. Choudhury, by the way, is the Bangladeshi who Alshams did not want me to call brother. But when he was imprisoned and tortured for writing pro-US, pro-Israel, and anti-Islamist articles, I led the campaign that freed him. Alshams and his ilk did nothing. So when he emerged from the hell of that confinement, it was Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury who said, “When my own people abandoned me, my Jewish brother protected me, stood with me.”

... the masquerade over on January 28 when the Herald ran the story. Reporter Erik Jensen noted that Alshams at first tried to defend the hate-speech as a “private argument.” He said he was “not an anti-Semite at all. I have many Jewish friends.” Well, when he saw that no one was buying his “some of my best friends” defense, he apologized for what he said, blaming it on being “intoxicated and angry.” While Jensen’s article said that backers were not pulling out of the conference, a follow up piece the next day told a different story. The conference had been canceled. The revelations spoiled its public façade of being fair and conducted out of the purest of motives.

Alshams’ “I was drunk” argument did not hold water. He clearly had the presence of mind not to send the offensive email to the wider group for fear of damaging his reputation; not indicative of being drunk. He also telephoned me about two hours later, and repeated the anti-Jewish remarks in a voice not at all marred by slurred speech or the sort of incoherence that marks someone intoxicate. More to the point, being drunk would explain the bad judgment of making the remarks and revealing his bias, but it would not explain away the bias itself. As they say, in vino veritas.

The significance of this small victory goes beyond the episode itself. For Israel’s enemies have successfully—and fallaciously—appropriated the human rights high ground. Talking heads in academia, the media, and government in several nations have allowed them to engage in the worst sort of illogic and hate speech by adopting their version of history and morality. No hyperbole is out of bounds for them. They love to compare Israelis to Nazis and Palestinians to Jewish holocaust victims, though there is no similarity between the two. They have so terribly skewed the ideological playing field that Hamas can use Arab civilians as human shields then accuse Israel of human rights violations when those civilians become casualties of war.

Incidents like this expose the real motivations of the anti-Israel movement and stripped away its cynical use of human rights language. And it must be done again and again and again until the truth finally wins back the day. (source)

One small victory maybe, but nonetheless it shows what just one determined person can do to expose the fraud that is being perpetrated on us. Actions like this by brave individuals serve as an inspiration to those of us who want to uphold ourdemocracy against the incipient threat oftotalitarian Islam.

I suspect we shall hear plenty more about FORCEFIELD in the near future and wish it success in its efforts to expose the hatred and lies behind faux human rights groups, who wish to destroy democracies like Australia, America, India and Israel.

Say NO to Sharia and its Marxist enablers!

More Proof of Jewish Historical Title to Israel

Originally published on Blitz, January 18, 2010

Dr. Richard Benkin

On October 3, 2009, Weekly Blitz published news about a discovery by Egyptian researchers that supports Jewish claims to the Land of Israel. The findings provided physical evidence of the biblical narrative about Joseph and the Israelites. According to the Bible, Joseph was a Hebrew who became second in command to Pharaoh and saved Egypt from a great famine by following God's prophecies. The Egyptian researchers uncovered ancient coins that were in use during Pharoaic times; coins that featured a likeness of Abrahams' great-grandson along with "his two names: Saba Sabani, the Egyptian name Pharaoh gave him when he became Egypt's treasurer; and his 'original name, Joseph.' That is, his Hebrew name, which reinforces the Torah's narrative that Joseph was a Hebrew and not an Egyptian or member of some other tribe. Thus, the coin establishes the Jewish people's presence in the Middle East in ancient times." Now, we have more physical proof of the Jewish presence in the ancient near east—this time in the Land of Israel itself.

A professor of Biblical studies at the University of Haifa in Israel has translated an inscription discovered a year and a half ago on a pottery shard. The inscription has been dated to be about three thousand years old—which would place it at the time which the Jewish Bible identifies as that when a great Israelite Kingdom reigned and had dominion throughout territories that include all or part of today's Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. It has long been a canon of faith among the anti-Israel crowd, and especially Arabs and Muslims, that no Hebrew kingdom ever existed in the Middle East; and that any kingdoms that did exist were those of any number of pre-Islamic tribes, but certainly not any that stand in a line that supports the contention of a Jewish claim to Israel and Jerusalem. King David is especially mentioned by them as having no historical reality.

The inscription, however, has been placed at the time and place where the Bible says David ruled, and Professor Gershon Galil has proven the inscription to be ancient Hebrew, thus making it the earliest known example of Hebrew writing. It was written in ink on a 15x16.5cm trapezoid pottery shard, was discovered a year and a half ago at excavations that were carried out by Professor Yosef Garfinkel near the Elah valley, south of Jerusalem, and west of Hevron; that is, in the heart of what was then David's Kingdom and what is today Judea and Samaria, the heart of the Middle East controversy.

While the previous researchers were able to date the shards, it was not until very recently that Professor Galil was able to decipher the inscription and prove that it was beyond a shadow of a doubt ancient Hebrew and not some other Semitic language.

"This text is a social statement," he said, "relating to slaves, widows and orphans. It uses verbs that were characteristic of Hebrew, such as "asah" (did) and "avad" (worked), which were rarely used in other regional languages. Particular words that appear in the text, such as "almana" (widow) are specific to Hebrew and are written differently in other local languages. The content itself was also unfamiliar to all the cultures in the region besides the Hebrew society: The present inscription provides social elements similar to those found in the Biblical prophecies and very different from prophecies written by other cultures postulating glorification of the gods and taking care of their physical needs"

Galil took note of the fact that the discovery was made not in an ancient urban Israelite center like Jerusalem or Hebron, but rather in a provincial Judean town. If there were scribes there, he said, like those responsible for the writing on the pottery shards, those urban centers would have been home to far more proficient scribes during "the reign of King David [capable of writing] literary texts and complex historiographies such as the [biblical] books of Judges and Samuel." Galil also noted that the text on the shards was rather complex, not simple, and that the fortifications uncovered at the excavation site were advanced and impressive. All of this, he said, was an even stronger refutation of those who try deny the existence of the Kingdom of Israel at that time.

Finally, the inscription on the pottery shard expresses a social ethic that simply was not found in any known inscriptions by other peoples of the time. It demands that the people take care of the weak and defenseless among them, as well as the stranger among them:

" you shall not do [it], but worship the [Lord].
Judge the sla[ve] and the wid[ow] / Judge the orph[an] [and] the stranger. [Pl]ead for the infant / plead for the po[or and] the widow. Rehabilitate [the poor] at the hands of the king.
Protect the po[or and] the slave / [supp]ort the stranger."

Now read the following from the Torah, the Jewish holy book:

"You shall not ill-treat any widow or orphan." (Exodus 22:21)

"And you are to love the stranger, for you yourselves were strangers in Egypt." (Deuteronomy 10:19)

"You shall not render an unfair decision: do not favor the poor or show deference to the rich." (Leviticus 19:17)

Thanks to Israel National News for some of the material used.

Will Bangladeshi Government Wake up in 2010?

Originally published on Blitz, January 18, 2010

Dr. Richard Benkin

New Year's Day 2010 marked the seventh straight year that began with the Bangladeshi government maintaining an admittedly false case against Weekly Blitz editor and publisher Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury. With a new decade beginning, we might ask what the Bangladeshi governments and people have gained by a case that has been maintained by BNP, civilian-backed caretaker, military-backed caretaker, and Awami League governments. The answer demonstrates that those groups have placed their own political well-being over that of the nation.

Criminologists often cite three purposes for any criminal justice proceeding: retribution (punishment), restitution (repayment of damages), and rehabilitation (preventing future crimes). With regard to retribution, the Bangladeshi government certainly has achieved its purpose. Shoaib Choudhury has been burdened with this persecution for years. It has suppressed his ability to further his professional standing, progress financially, and so forth, even lead a normal life. The prosecution has been financially and emotionally draining on him and his family even now with no end in sight. He has been attacked physically multiple times, abducted by the Rapid Action Battalion, imprisoned, and tortured; his newspaper offices bombed and occupied by hostile mobs; and the police have not done a thing about it. His life has not really been his own since November 2003. Even without formal, criminal sanctions, as one legal scholar told me, the Bangladeshi government has "made the process the punishment." What about restitution? That's hard to say because no one ever suggested that Shoaib took anything or established what, if anything needs to be restored. And rehabilitation? Laying aside the argument that Shoaib Choudhury has done nothing other than voice legitimate opinions, it is clear that he has not stopped voicing his opinions or pursuing the same principled journalism, including news and opinion favorable to Dhaka-Jerusalem relations. So, from either side's point of view, the only aspect of criminal justice that has been accomplished is retribution—and that has been accomplished thoroughly enough to justify the government declaring victory to itself in this matter.

On the other side, what has this cost the people of Bangladesh?

The amount of money that Bangladeshi politicians continue to expend on this hopelessly flawed case has in essence been food out of the mouths of Bangladeshi children, money that the government could have used to help its suffering citizens. The most concrete cost, however, has been in the area of trade. When I confronted Bangladesh's ambassador to the United States in 2003, Shamsher M. Chowdhury, it was clear that his top priority was bringing home a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States. He even raised the issue during a meeting he and I had with Congressman Mark Kirk about the Shoaib Choudhury situation. The US receives a significant percentage of Bangladeshi garment exports, and that was being threatened. Larger producers like India and China were under cutting competitors and grabbing an ever-growing share of the US market. Garment exporting nations from Central America, most notably Guatemala and Honduras, were starting to benefit from a regional free trade agreement (CAFTA), passed a few years earlier during the Clinton administration. Their market share was also growing at the expense of Bangladesh. So, the government recognized that maintaining the status quo in Bangladesh-US trade relations would be unsustainable in the future. And it was right. Even before the economic collapse of 2009, Bangladesh's share of the US market declined precipitously and steadily. In 2008, Walmart, Bangladesh's largest US customer, cut its imports from that country. (Congressman John Boozman, whose district includes Walmart's corporate headquarters, was the Republican floor leader of a Congressional discussion that condemned the Choudhury.)

With the Bangladeshis being told by US officials that a FTA was not in the cards, they lobbied for some sort of consolation prize in the form of tariff reduction. There have been at least six such attempts since 2003—and every one of them has been defeated. In one 2007 attempt, the Bangladeshis sent no less a light than Nobel laureate Mohammed Yunis to plead their case. While Mr. Yunis was greeted with the respect due an individual of his stature, the bill went down to defeat nevertheless without ever getting a committee hearing. US lawmakers from both political parties are well aware of Shoaib Choudhury's persecution and are quickly notified of anything that might reward the government that continues it.

The lack of any progress on this front not only hurts the exporters but also those Bangladeshis who otherwise might have jobs in the garment industry.

In 2003, the Bangladeshi embassy in Washington was at pains to convince American lawmakers that it was a "moderate Muslim country," and with Bangladesh having such a low profile in Washington, it was having some success. But Shoaib Choudhury's persecution put an end to that low profile and caused us to take another look at the embassy's assertion. As such, that "moderate" argument became ever more difficult to make when Bangladesh pursued an admittedly false prosecution against a journalist for writing against Islamist radicals and in favor of Dhaka-Jerusalem relations. The impact of the Shoaib Choudhury prosecution is particularly acute in this area since several Bangladeshi officials have admitted that the only reason governments are maintaining the false prosecution is "for fear of how the [Islamist] radicals would react" if they dropped it. Despite Bangladesh's critical location and its having the fourth largest Muslim population in the world, the seventh largest overall, it has seen essentially no significant cooperation or additional aid coming from the United States. With no movement to end this cause célèbre, Congressional gaze is being focused on other problematic aspects of Bangladesh, including the ongoing persecution of minorities and the government's failure to repeal the Vested Property Act.

At several points, Bangladesh was given the opportunity to strengthen the image of its jurisprudence by following basic rules of law and dropping this case that the government could not make. Yet, it did not and confirmed among many people worldwide that Bangladesh's judiciary remains subservient to the political leaders in Dhaka.

International condemnation is growing. Countries condemning Shoaib Choudhury's prosecution (as a body or through individuals) include the United States; the European Union and individual European countries; Canada; and Australia. International journalist societies worldwide also have condemned it—and the fact that the Awami League dropped similar charges against other Bangladeshi journalists but continued these only highlighted the Islamist hand behind them. Current efforts will ask the United Nations to re-examine its use of Bangladeshi peacekeeping troops in light of these human rights violations.

Perhaps the greatest cost and shame is that all the energy used in these negative efforts could have been used to pursue positive goals for Bangladesh—goals to rehabilitate its damaged image, enhance its ability to grow export markets, gain cooperative ventures, and so forth. Instead, the government's continued refusal to end Shoaib Choudhury's false prosecution has galvanized a strong international opposition to its policies; an opposition composed of many individuals who otherwise would work to see Bangladesh prosper.

So we again ask: Will the government wake up to this in 2010?

A phony peace process

Originally published on Blitz, January 7, 2010

Dr. Richard Benkin

If we were to demand honesty from our political leaders, media, and international groups, we would have long ago banned the phrase "the peace process" from all discussions of what has happened with regard to the Israel-Arab conflict to date. There is no Middle East peace process; never has been. The reason for that is not Israeli "settlements," not Hamas per se, not President Obama. The problem predates all of them. And there is no sillier notion with currency in the world today than that of the solution being an end to the so-called "occupation"; that is, Israeli hegemony over lands re-captured during the 1967 Six-Day War.

The idea of the occupation is perhaps the most damaging of them all because it has focused world attention on a goal that has nothing to do with peace between Israel and the Arabs. First of all, the lands in question were determined merely by troop positions at the end of Israel's 1948 War of Independence--where Israeli, Jordanian, Egyptian, and Syrian troops were at the moment an armistice was announced. That's it; there was no natural mandate, no historical consciousness, no nothing, just troops. Second, expecting peace from an end to that so-called occupation presumes that there was peace before 1967 when it came into existence. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. The Arabs were trying to "drive the Jews into the sea," as they put it since before the State of Israel came into existence. Their collective militaries invaded the new Jewish State at the moment of its birth with that goal in mind. The 1967 War itself was a defensive war, in which Israel struck Egypt only after the latter committed an act of war, according to international law, with a blockade and by massing troops on its border. Syria and Jordan went to war before being attacked--and Israeli leaders had frantically tried to convince Jordan to stay out of the war, but the latter invaded nonetheless.

Let's also remember that before 1967, the "West Bank," Gaza, and eastern Jerusalem was occupied continuously by Muslim powers: from 1948 by Jordan and Egypt and before then by Turkey. Yet, there was no cry for them to allow a "Palestinian State" to take shape on those lands. Never! In 1964--three years before Israel gained control of those lands, the Palestinian Liberation Organization was born and made no mention of an end to that Arab occupation; not a word for Jordan and Egypt to give up those lands. But it did call for Israel's destruction--all of Israel!

So if we really want peace, we need to give up the notion of a return to 1967. There was no peace then, so why would we want to return to it? The concept of "land for peace" was always an idiotic idea. The real issue in the Israel-Arab conflict is and always was the latter's refusal to accept a viable Jewish State of Israel in the Middle East. Until that is addressed head-on as the key, peace will remain elusive.

What, then, does peace require?

* That every Arab and Muslim leader commits themselves to defending the existence of a Jewish State of Israel among their people. Not every policy or action, but that State's legitimacy and very existence.

* That probably means cooperating with Israel--militarily if necessary--to defeat terror groups that refuse the peace.

* It means that all parties must defend equal Jewish and Muslim access and legitimacy to all holy sites, including Jerusalem's Temple Mount, Hebron's Cave of Machpelah, and so forth; regardless of which party has political hegemony.

* It means that the Arabs have to reform their educational system to eliminate all the negative and hate-filled lessons about Jews and their State.

* Arabs must give up the notion of flooding Israel with millions of Arabs under their so-called right of return; because it is just a disingenuous way of appearing to accept a Jewish State while working to destroy it. Let's stop pretending it is anything else.

* And it means that the rest of the world--which really has no skin in the game--has to commit to support this genuine peace process, no matter how many of their assumptions have to die.

Does that solve all the problems; does it provide the parties with mutual trust? No, but without them, peace will never come, and with them, there is no chance that it will not.

Ethnic Butchery and Genocidal Massacres: Perpetrators and Bystanders to the Islamist campaign to Get Rid of Bangladesh’s Hindus

(Originally published in Genocide Prevention Now)

by Dr. Richard Benkin

Bangladesh’s Hindu population is dying. That is an irrefutable fact, supported by decades of data. A consistent torrent of reports documenting anti-Hindu incidents in Bangladesh has bombarded anyone who had an interest in what is happening in the world’s seventh largest country. Those “incidents” included murder, gang rape, assault, forced conversion (to Islam), child abduction, land grabs, and religious desecration -- with government culpability.

Bangladesh’s Hindu population is dying. That is an irrefutable fact, supported by decades of data. At the time of India’s partition in 1948, they made up a little less than a third of East Pakistan’s population. When East Pakistan became Bangladesh in 1971, Hindus were less than a fifth of the new nation’s people. Thirty years later, they were less than one in ten; and while current statistics do not yet exist, several estimates put the Hindu population at less than eight percent. Using demographic and other calculations, Professor Sachi Dastidar of the State University of New York estimates that about 40 million Hindus are missing from the Bangladeshi census.1

During the same period of time, a consistent torrent of reports documenting anti-Hindu incidents in Bangladesh has bombarded anyone who had an interest in what is happening in the world’s seventh largest country. Those “incidents” included murder, gang rape, assault, forced conversion (to Islam), child abduction, land grabs, and religious desecration. And while Bangladeshi officials might assert—with only some justification—that the perpetrators were non-state actors, government culpability rests, at the very least, in the fact that it pursues very few of these cases and punishes even fewer perpetrators of these atrocities. Successive Bangladeshi governments appear to have been passive bystanders, failing to exercise their sovereign responsibility to protect the life and security of all their citizens; and thus they have sent radical Islamists and common citizens alike a clear message that these acts can be undertaken with impunity.

Additionally, I have interviewed dozens of Bangladeshi Hindu refugees living in largely illicit colonies throughout North and Northeast India. In describing the attacks that forced them to leave their ancestral homes, they made it very clear that their attackers were not necessarily members of radical Islamist groups. Instead, most were neighbors or otherwise everyday Muslims. They also reported with near unanimity that when they went to the police and other local officials for help, they were advised to drop the subject and “get out of Bangladesh.” Last February, I interviewed a family that just crossed in to India only 22 days before. They told me about an uncle being killed, the father being beaten, and their small farm invaded by a large number of Muslims. Local Muslims also raped their 14-year-old daughter. The perpetrators were simply Muslims who lived in the area and knew they could have their way with the family and seize their land.3

Often the most “successful” cases of genocide and genocidal massacres accompanied by mass expulsions occur when a small cadre of true believers incite average citizens to engage in heinous acts against a targeted minority that they otherwise would not dream of committing. At a 1996 public rally, for instance, former and future Prime Minister Khaleda Zia fanned anti-Hindu flames by warning Bangladeshis that Hindus threatened to take over the country; saying that the traditional Hindu wail, “uludhhwani,” would soon replace the traditional Muslim call to prayer.4 There might be no Janjaweed in Bangladesh, but its Hindu community is facing a slow motion and process of destruction at the hands of the Bangladeshi majority little known to the western world.

This is the fatal flaw in US and western policy in this region that provides an ideological basis for ignoring the ethnic massacres and expulsions of Bangladesh’s Hindus. The investment of outside actors, notably the United States, in the success of the current Awami League government in Dhaka rests on uncritically accepting its claim to be “prominority” and different from previous military-backed and BNP-led governments. Yet, fifteen months after taking office, the Awami League government has not been able to move Bangladesh away from its previous abuses. Anti-Hindu actions and the government’s complicity have continued unabated.

During the first two months of Awami rule, serious anti-Hindu occurred on the average off one and a half per week. They included religious desecration, land grabs, beatings, kidnapping, rape and murder. The crimes were religiously based; that is, the victims were targeted because they were Hindu; and the government did not prosecute them. 5 This passive role appears to signal that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her party would not interfere with the Hindu community’s destruction. The onslaught has continued throughout 2009, and last spring saw what can be described only as an antiHindu pogrom in the nation’s capital. Its western supporters in government, NGOs, and the media were champions in making sure that these abuses were not publicized.6 The Bangladesh Hindu, Buddhist, Christian Unity Council, for instance, reports a total of 13 similar incidents in March and April. Other NGOs, including Bangladesh Minority Watch and Global Human Rights Defence, as well as both vernacular and English-language newspapers, concur. Yet, media outside of Bangladesh did not pick up any of them.7

Let’s take as an example that anti-Hindu pogrom in Dhaka. In March and twice in April, a community of approximately 400 Hindus was reportedly going about its business when “hundreds of Muslims” suddenly descended on them and demanded they quit the homes where they and their families had lived for the past 150 years. Witnesses also report that police watched passively while attackers beat residents and destroyed a Hindu temple. The Bangladeshi Government said no anti-Hindu pogrom occurred, and the cover up moved from local police to the Dhaka police chief to an Awami League MP. Several human rights groups, as well as my own network, conducted extensive investigations and confirmed the attacks. Many residents remain homeless; and the Bangladeshi Government has not even bothered to deny that Hindus were beaten, some religious desecration occurred, or that police were present during the attacks. We also confirmed that the area attacked was located directly behind a police station and the Temple only about 18 m from it; yet, the police did nothing to stop its destruction. Police also justified the land grab under Bangladesh’s Vested Property Act, which has fueled the seizure of Hindu lands for over 35 years. Yet, except for some local Bangladeshi papers, The Daily Pioneer of India, and some blogs; the media ignored it.8

This is not about one terrible event, but about a system of legalized ethnic cleansing that has proceeded non-stop for decades and which places every one of Bangladesh’s 13,000,000-15,000,000 Hindus at risk. For despite Government protestations to the contrary, normal legal protections are suspended for Hindus and other minorities in Bangladesh who are often subject to arbitrary actions by the Muslim majority. Moreover, the nominal law enforcers have become enforcers of lawlessness, abetting crimes against minorities and sending a message that Bangladesh is a country where the law gives Muslims preferential treatment even if it means ignoring elementary standards of justice. (The Eighth Amendment to Bangladesh’s constitution declared Islam the official state religion and gave rise to numerous preferential policies and actions that has made Hindus and other minorities second class citizens.9 )

One would expect that the onus would fall on Bangladesh to convince the rest of the world that it is not guilty of ethnic cleansing and tolerating bigotry. Yet, the opposite seems to be the case. For no major human rights body has acknowledged the seriousness or even the existence of this quiet case of ethnic cleansing (as I have termed it because of the world’s silence). Whether it is Amnesty International or the United Nations Human Rights Commission, they have devoted far more energy and resources to criticizing the US detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, than they have to the plight of Hindus—whether in Bangladesh; Pakistan, where they have been reduced from almost a fifth in 1965 to one percent today; Malaysia, which is engaging in a particular vicious attack on Hindus and Hinduism; or even the smaller nations of Trinidad and Tobago, Fiji, or Bhutan. The latter has been expelling Hindus to refugee camps in neighboring Nepal since the 1980s.10 It is no wonder that several have suggested an anti-Hindu bias on the part of these rights groups.

There is no internal dynamic in successive Bangladeshi governments to put an end to the atrocities or even the Nuremburg-like laws of discrimination. University’s Professor Abul Barkat has demonstrated both major parties have benefited materially from them and used the spoils to strengthen their patronage base. 11 The only way things will change is when some outside force makes it clear that the negative consequences from continued ethnic cleansing are more painful than the political cowardice that keeps it going. So far, no one—not India, the United States, the United Nations, or anyone else—has stepped up to take a principled stand.

Conclusion

Genocidal scenarios result from human choice and bystander indifference. What we have in Bangladesh are genocidal massacres and expulsions resulting from incitement and actions of non-governmental perpetrators and inaction by governmental bystanders, and the indifference of the outside world. This essay states the case for setting in motion actions to hold the Bangladesh Government accountable for its Responsibility to Prevent and Protect, in accordance with international humanitarian law.

Richard Benkin PhD is a human rights activist, author, and speaker. Over the past five years, he has among other things freed a journalist from imprisonment and torture in Bangladesh, forced Bangladesh's notorious RAD to release an abductee unharmed, halted an anti-Israel conference in Australia, and raised the issue of Bangladesh's ethnic massacres and expulsions y publications on abuse of human rights in Bangladesh are listed on the website of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East. He recently returned from a trip to India where he won verbal support from several political and Lok Sabha officials, addressed universities and large public gatherings, and established a communication conduit with the highest echelons of the Bangladeshi government. Dr. Benkin has also received verbal support for US Congressional hearings about the Bangladeshi Hindus. In 2005, Benkin received a meritorious award from the US Congress for his work.

According to Benkin, after a trip to Bangladesh which capped his successful effort to free a political prisoner, a group of Bangladeshi Hindus contacted him and asked for his help. Although he knew something about their persecution, Benkin immersed himself in research about the subject and vowed to stop it. Since then, he has met with victims and victimizers, gathering information and getting it to US leaders, and working for action.

Benkin is President and a founder of Forcefield, a human rights NGO, described as "nonagenda driven," in contrast with other human rights organizations. Its first human rights case is that of Bangladesh’s Hindus.

Reference Notes

1 Population statistics taken from the census of Pakistan (1948), and Bangladesh (1974 and 2001). Also see Dastidar, Sachi G.; Empire’s Last Casualty: Indian Subcontinent’s Vanishing Hindu and other Minorities. (Kolkata: Firma KLM Private Limited, 2008).

2 See for example, incidents in the monthly newsletter of the Bangladesh Hindu, Buddhist, Christian Unity Council available at http://www.bhbcuc-usa.org/index.html. The Hindu American Foundation has documented these atrocities in successive annual reports, entitled Hindus in South Asia and the Diaspora: A Survey of Human Rights [followed by a specific year]; copyright Hindu American Foundation. For instance, 2007, pages 5-21; 2008, pages 3- 15. They also are available at the Hindu American Foundation web site, http://www.hafsite.org. Global Human Rights Defence investigates and reports on human rights violations against Bangladeshi Hindus at http://ghrd.org. Click “countries” and then “Bangladesh.” The first and third organizations have also worked with me in providing evidence of anti-Hindu activities in Bangladesh.

3 This information came from recorded and unrecorded interviews I had with Bangladeshi Hindu refugees, living in mostly illegal colonies in the Indian states of West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarakhan, from 2008-2010. The 14-year old rape victim related the story to me in an encampment in North Dinajpur near the Bangladesh border in March 2009.

4 "Bangladesh opposition leader accused of hurting religious sentiment,” Agence-France Press, November 18, 1996. Also see the following examples. Anwar Ali And Rafique Sarker, “Villagers see Rangpur arson as persecution,” The Daily Star of Dhaka, August 28, 2004; in which victims and victimizers cited police inaction with regard to antiHindu violence as incitement for individuals to engage in these criminal acts without fear or legal repercussions. Also see “Death threat to Indians,” Cape Argus, December 6, 2004, in which Hindu “crimes” in the Gujurat communal violence was cited as a reason to kill visiting Indian sportsmen.

5 See Appendix. The veracity of all incidents has been confirmed by multiple direct sources, noted in the appendix.

6 Richard L. Benkin, “A Terrifying Existence,” The Daily Pioneer [India], July 21, 2009. Also, ” Call to stop eviction of Dalit people,” The New Age of Dhaka, April 10, 2009. “Eviction of Dalits protested,” The Daily Star of Dhaka, April 10, 2009.

7 Sitangshu Guha, editor. Unity: A Monthly Newslettr of Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council. Vol.2 Issue 2, published March 31, 2009; Vol. 2 Issue 4, published April 30, 2009; Vol. 2 Issue 5, published May 31, 2009. “Lady lawyer assaulted,” The Independent (of Dhaka), March 24, 2009. “Two Hindu houses looted,” The Independent, March 24, 2009. Also see the following vernacular papers for articles throughout March and April 2009: Daily Prothom Alo, Daily Samakal, Daily Ittefa, Daily Jaijaidin, and others.

8 Ibid.

9 “Bangladesh Parliament Votes to make Islam State Religion,” New York Times, June 8, 1988. Shakhawat Liton, “After Fifth Amendment, Constitution lost basic character, The Daily Star of Dhaka, February 3, 2010. In October 2005, I spoke at a meeting of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, which focused on Bangladesh. In the course of the meeting, Hindus testified that this provision of the constitution makes them and their families second class citizens in many different ways, including government priorities. The Bangladeshi government has the text of the constitution as modified at http://www.pmo.gov.bd/constitution/contents.htm.

10 On multiple occasions, I combed Amnesty Internation’s web site and found precious little, if anything, about terrorism and anti-Hindu actions by radical Islamists. On one occasion, for instance, I found six items under the war on terror heading; five were about Guantanamo. Additionally, Amnesty International’s 2009 report on Bangladesh does not even mention oppression of Hindus. Also see previously cited reports by the Hindu American Foundation.

11 Abul Barkat, Azizur Rahman, Shafique uz Zaman, Avijit Poddar: Impact of vested property act on rural Bangladesh: an exploratory study. Prepared for Association for Land Reform and Development, Bangladesh. Dhaka: University Research Corporation. 1996. Abul Barkat (ed.): An inquiry into causes and consequences of deprivation of Hindu minorities in Bangladesh through the Vested Property Act: framework for a realistic solution. Dhaka: PRIP Trust. 2000.The text of the Vested Property Act is available at http://www.drishtipat.org/HRLaw/vestedprop.htm.

Another Victory for Strength over Appeasement

(Originally published Thursday, February 11, 2010 in Canada Free Press)

By Dr. Richard Benkin

When Islamists attacked Mumbai, India’s New York, many people called it that country’s 9/11.  Although it certainly was the most high profile attack, it was far from the first in this country of over a billion people.  India faces terrorist attacks of one sort or another multiple times each week.  The South Asia Terrorism Portal collects figures on terrorism here and calculated that 47,371 Indians have died in terrorist attacks since 1994.  Since 2006, about two-thirds of the fatalities occurred as a result of Islamist attacks; the rest came at the hands of radical communists.

Earlier this week, Indian officials said that the greatest threat to the nation’s security was the Maoist insurgency.  The Naxalite movement started in 1967, but only became a real insurgency during the past decade and a half.  The name comes from the village where the movement started, Naxalbari in West Bengal.  I slipped into Naxalbari last year to find, ironically enough, that the communist movement no longer exists there.  Different Indian governments have tried various methods to fight or appease the Naxalites, but nothing dulled the terrorist threat—until now.

As reported in The Times of India earlier this week, the Naxalites have for the first time cried “Uncle.”  Speaking through the banned Communist Party of India/Maoist (as distinguished from the non-insurgent Communist Party of India/Marxist, which still holds of power in three Indian states), the Naxalites said they were ready for peace talks with the government.  They ask only that the government release several of their leaders that it has captured in the recent and ferocious counterattack on Maoists throughout India.  As Mohua Chatterjee noted in the Times, “Though the ‘offer’ can be read as a bid to earn some respite from the ongoing crackdown, the bid for talks also marks a climbdown of sorts [for the communists]”  Previously, the Naxalites have scoffed at the very notion of talks with the government and consistently vowed to press “the revolution.”

The Indian government, however, recently ended its traditional policies of tough talk with little commensurate action, and has engaged in a massive offensive against Naxalite leaders and forces.  On the day of the Naxalites’ retreat, the government captured eight more of their leaders in the Northern state of Uttar Pradesh.  One of them earned a PhD from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi, long known as a hotbed of communism; where I recently became one of the first openly anti-Communist and anti-Islamist speakers.  Significant student movements indicate that there is a growing current among the student body decidedly to the Right.

The Maoists’ General Secretary admitted that the radical movement may be losing intellectual support it once enjoyed, because of “the enemy’s onslaught.”

“This (anti-Maoist operation) is a brutal campaign of repression aimed at the suppression of the political movement of people.”  The communist leader, neglected to mention that this ‘brutal campaign’ was undertaken only after years of appeasement and the resulting death of 3120 Indian citizens in the last five years alone.

For its part, the government seems to have recognized that and has said that it will entertain talks only if the Maoists lay down their weapons and stop “all violent actions.”  Assuming that this will not happen, sources told The Times of India that the government’s battle plan is “nothing short of a blitzkrieg.”

American Islamist Headley cased sites for Pune attack

(Originally published Thursday, February 14, 2010 in Canada Free Press)

By Dr. Richard Benkin

Islamist terrorists struck India today, bringing death and destruction in the western city of Pune, a financial hub 58 miles from Mumbai. According to the Indian Anti-Terror Squad (ATS), which has taken charge of the case, terrorists left an explosive-filled backpack under a counter at the “German Bakery,” an establishment that is very popular with tourists and locals in this city of over five million people.

The bakery was completely demolished. At this point, there are nine dead, all Indians, and 57 injured. One of the injured remains in critical condition, and 19 have been released from the hospital as of this writing several hours after the blast.

While the specific identity of the terrorists has not been established, the ATS and major Indian officials have said that the terrorists were “Indian Mujahadeen,” as opposed to the perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack who were based in Pakistan. Officials have called the bakery a “soft target,” adding that the Islamists were really after “hard targets”: the nearby Osho Ashram and Pune’s Chabad House. The Ashram is a prominent institution in the city for religious Hindus, who are often targeted by Islamists; and the Chabad House is a center for religious Jews and was a primary target in the Mumbai attacks, as well as the site of the most gruesome incidents of torture by the terrorists.

The Indian government has also announced that American Islamist David Headley had scouted both the Osho Ashram and the Chabad House in preparation for terror attacks. Today’s blast, was related to Headley’s actions. David Headley faces federal charges in a Chicago federal court. According to the FBI, they include “six counts of conspiracy involving bombing public places in India, murdering and maiming persons in India and Denmark, providing material support to foreign terrorist plots, and providing material support to [Pakistani terrorist group] Lashkar [e Taibe], and six counts of aiding and abetting the murder of U.S. citizens in India.”

Security has become very tight all over India, and the ATS announced that it foiled one major terrorist attack only hours after the Pune blast. Police in the city of Vapi recovered 200 kilograms of ammonium nitrate, 600 detonators, and 200 gel sticks from known Islamists there. The state of Gujurat, where Vapi is located, has become a clarion cry for Islamists ever since communal violence there took the lives of over 1,200 people.

Although it has not been suggested that Pakistan had a role in today’s attack in Pune, the incident has placed the February 25 talks in jeopardy, with tensions again rising.