Marc Perelman reports in the Forward that “a recent flurry of signals from Al Qaeda leaders has fueled concerns among terrorism experts that Al Qaeda could be setting up to launch an attack on Israel.”

The worries about an impending attack actually grow out of the apparent struggles of the terrorist network, visible in mounting criticism from former members and leading Muslim theologians.

In recent weeks, the CIA chief has claimed that Al Qaeda had suffered setbacks in Saudi Arabia and Iraq, and lengthy exposés in The New Yorker and The New Republic have detailed the inner debates raging within Al Qaeda, especially due to resentment over its indiscriminate killing of Muslims.

This perceived weakening has some experts predicting that Al Qaeda leaders would seek to repair the group’s image — and prove the skeptics wrong — with a spectacular attack on Israel, the one target on which all Muslim extremists seem to be able to agree.

The New Republic and the New Yorker both have long articles about Al Qaida’s problems in the Muslim world.

In his memo-to-the-next-president column in Friday’s New York Times, David Brooks offers candidates Barack Obama and John McCain some advice about how to deal with Iran. Because it’s unrealistic to expect that the White House has the power to neutralize the Iranian threat, Brooks writes, all the next president really can do is contain and wait for the radical regime in Tehran to fall:

Your job is to restrain Iran’s momentum until the fundamental correlation of forces can shift. For amid all the doleful news, there is a hopeful tide. Opinion is turning slowly against extremism. The über-analyst Dennis Ross says that he has noted it among the Palestinians. Michael Young writes that opinion is shifting against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Peter Bergen, Paul Cruickshank and Lawrence Wright have in their different ways written about the intellectual crisis afflicting Al Qaeda. It may not happen over the next four years, but as Ross has noted, where Islamists rule, they wear out their welcome.

Your job may be to wage rear-guard political battles until the ideological tide can turn. It’s not glamorous work, but governing isn’t campaigning. You volunteered for this.

Unfortunately, this optimism is misplaced. I’m not sure where Brooks or these analysts see Islamism wearing out its welcome. In Lebanon, Hezbollah’s power and political support is growing. Whereas three years ago Gaza was ruled by the Israelis and two years ago by the Palestinian Authority, today it is ruled by an Islamic terrorist group, Hamas, that repeatedly has stymied Israeli and moderate Palestinian efforts to contain it (see: Hamas’ breach of Gaza-Egypt border, Israel’s inability to neutralize Gaza rocket threat, etc.). In Afghanistan, the Taliban is making a comeback. In Pakistan, the Islamists are gaining ground. And in the Middle East, every day sees Iran’s sphere of influence grow. Though Iran’s current president may be stumbling at home due to the country’s faltering economy, the unelected, fundamentalist Shiite clerics that really control things in Iran still have a stranglehold on the country.

Brooks’ analysis is more wishful thinking than “The Reality Situation,” as he calls his column. The Iranian regime may well fall on its own, but hoping that it will happen before Iran becomes a nuclear power is a callous gamble. Attacking Iran may not be the answer, but crossing one’s fingers and waiting for Islamism to recede, rather than actively confronting radical Islamists who seek to spread their brand of fundamentalism through the force of violence, is just plain foolhardy.

Huffington Post columnist Leora Tannenbaum attends a pre-Shabbat lecture at the local mosque and concludes that “devout Muslims and Jews are not altogether that different, particularly in the worship department.”

Just as when I attend my own Orthodox synagogue, located a half-mile away from the mosque, I was separated from the men. After we placed our shoes in cubbyholes, we women filed up the staircase to the cramped balcony above while the men found places in the majestic sanctuary downstairs. There appeared to be nearly a thousand men and perhaps sixty women in attendance for the congregational prayer.

Imam Ali delivered his khutba (sermon). He told the worshippers that Muslims need to reach out and live harmoniously with other people because all people are servants of Allah. If someone chooses another path, he said, Muslims have a responsibility to show them the right way. However, one may not force others to follow the Islamic way. “We must show respect and dignity to all children of Adam,” he said. “Everyone is dignified by Allah.” It is human nature, he continued, that different people have different opinions, and Allah knows this. “But this difference of opinions does not make us hate each other. This diversity is seen in Islam as good,” Imam Ali declared, and all of us must “make an effort to get to know one another.”

Although I tried, I could not see the imam at all during his sermon. He spoke from a platform that was obscured from all but a few choice seats in the women’s section. So I ran my gaze across the women listening to him. Their hijabs reminded me of the tichels common in Borough Park and other Hasidic neighborhoods. I craned my head to check out the men below. The several men from JTS blended in with the crowd, the kippot on their heads closely resembling the kufis. After the sermon, it was time to pray. The bowing and prostrating was not altogether different from the shuckling (rhythmic swaying) commonly done during Jewish prayer.

Here is the film by Dutch politician Geert Wilders in which he argues that Islam is a threat to the Western world (Muslims in Holland are suing him on the grounds that it falsely charges Islam with promoting violence)…

Wilders gave a lengthy interview to Fox News…

Shmuley Boteach wonders in the Jerusalem Post why Muslims aren’t speaking out against last week’s shooting attack at a yeshiva in Jerusalem: (more…)

Hamas bunny vows to eat the Jews (watch out, Kibbutz Gezer)…

The latest from the Arab-American bloggers behind KABOBFest, with Palestinian Canadian rapper Iron Sheik doing the voice-over…

Flash90

Miriam Shaviv, of London’s Jewish Chronicle, offers her take on a growing trend:

In the past few months, reports have emerged of more than 100 Orthodox Israelis who have taken to wearing a Muslim-style burka, in the belief this will bring about redemption. They can be seen in Orthodox areas of Tiberias, Safed and even Jerusalem, and are mostly followers of Rabbanit Bruria Keren, a mother of 10 from Ramat Beit Shemesh.

According to the newspaper Ha’aretz, she rarely leaves her home and speaks only for four hours a week to offer “alternative therapy” to her followers.

Some wear more than 10 layers of clothing, including dark socks, with the ends cut off, over their hands. They never wear heels, lest the noise attracts attention.

What to make of this?

(more…)