The unbounded and timeless Muslim capacity for Islamic anti-Semitic blood lust and death is one of history's consistent certainties. They are incapable of moving off the dime --
U.S. State Department officials are conducting a secret operation to bring some of Yemen's last remaining Jews to America to escape rising anti-Semitic violence in their country. The State department ..... wow.
The State Department took something of a risk in removing the Yemenis to the
U.S., as it might be criticized for favoritism at a time when refugees elsewhere
are clamoring for haven. The U.S. calculated the operation would serve both a
humanitarian and a geopolitical purpose. In addition to rescuing a group
threatened because of its religion, Washington was seeking to prevent an
international embarrassment for an embattled Arab ally.
"Accused of favoritism by whom? The annihilationists? The world has lost any construct of a moral compass.
The Wall Street Journal has the whole thing. Read it.
Never discussed. Never criticized. Islamic persecution of non-believers worldwide is a pox on humanity. And the free world's refusal to speak of it is our great crime - accessory to genocide.
MONSEY, N.Y. -- In his new suburban American home, Shaker Yakub, a Yemeni Jew, folded a large scarf in half, wrapped it around his head and tucked in his spiraling side curls. "This is how I passed for a Muslim," said the 59-year-old father of seven, improvising a turban that hid his black skullcap.
The ploy enabled Mr. Yakub and half a dozen members of his family to slip undetected out of their native town of Raida, Yemen, and travel to the capital 50 miles to the south. There, they met U.S. State Department officials conducting a clandestine operation to bring some of Yemen's last remaining Jews to America to escape rising anti-Semitic violence in his country.
In all, about 60 Yemeni Jews have resettled in the U.S. since July; officials say another 100 could still come. There were an estimated 350 in Yemen before the operation began. Some of the remainder may go to Israel and some will stay behind, most in a government enclave.
Yemen was overshadowed in recent years by bigger trouble spots such as
Afghanistan. But it has re-emerged on Washington's radar as a potential source
of regional instability and a haven for terrorists.
The impoverished nation is struggling with a Shiite revolt in the north, a
secessionist movement in the south, and growing militancy among al-Qaeda
sympathizers, raising concern about the government's ability to control its
territory. Analysts believe al-Qaeda operatives are making alliances with local
tribes that could enable it to establish a stronghold in Yemen, as it did in
Afghanistan prior to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
The State Department took something of a risk in removing the Yemenis to the
U.S., as it might be criticized for favoritism at a time when refugees elsewhere
are clamoring for haven. The U.S. calculated the operation would serve both a
humanitarian and a geopolitical purpose. In addition to rescuing a group
threatened because of its religion, Washington was seeking to prevent an
international embarrassment for an embattled Arab ally.
"Accused of favoritism" by whom? The annihilationists?
President Saleh has been trying to protect the Jews, but his inability to
quell the rebellion in the country's north made it less likely he could do so,
prompting the U.S. to step in. The alternative -- risking broader attacks on the
Jews -- could well have undermined the Obama administration's efforts to rally
support for President Saleh in the U.S. and abroad.
"If we had not done anything, we feared there would be bloodshed," says Gregg
Rickman, former State Department Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat
Anti-Semitism.
Mr. Yakub says the operation saved his family from intimidation that had made
life in Yemen unbearable. Violence toward the country's small remaining Jewish
community began to intensify last year, when one of its most prominent members
was gunned down outside his house. But the mission also hastens the demise of
one of the oldest remaining Jewish communities in the Arab world.
Jews are believed to have reached what is now Yemen more than 2,500 years ago
as traders for King Solomon. They survived -- and at times thrived -- over
centuries of change, including the spread of Islam across the Arabian
Peninsula.
"They were one of the oldest exiled groups out of Israel," says Hayim Tawil,
a Yeshiva University professor who is an expert on Yemeni Jewry. "This is the
end of the Jewish Diaspora of Yemen. That's it."
Centuries of near total isolation make Yemeni Jews a living link with the
ancient world.
Many can recite passages of the Torah by heart and read Hebrew, but can't
read their native tongue of Arabic. They live in stone houses, often without
running water or electricity. One Yemeni woman showed up at the airport
expecting to board her flight with a live chicken.
Through the centuries, the Jews earned a living as merchants, craftsmen and
silversmiths known for designing djanbias, traditional daggers that
only Muslims are allowed to carry. Jewish musical compositions became part of
Yemeni culture, played at Muslim weddings and festivals.
"Yemeni Jews have always been a part of Yemeni society and have lived side by
side in peace with their Muslim brothers and sisters," said a spokeswoman for
the Embassy of Yemen in Washington.
In 1947, on the eve of the birth of the state of Israel, protests in the port
city of Aden resulted in the death of dozens of Jews and the destruction of
their homes and shops. In 1949 and 1950 about 49,000 people -- the majority of
Yemen's Jewish community -- were airlifted to Israel in "Operation Magic
Carpet."
About 2,000 Jews stayed in Yemen. Some trickled out until 1962, when civil
war erupted. After that, they were stuck there. "For three decades, there were
no telephone calls, no letters, no traveling overseas. The fact there were Jews
in Yemen was barely known outside Israel," says Prof. Tawil.
Salem Suleiman, a Yemeni who recently arrived in New York, says "They throw stones at us. They curse us. They want to kill us."
Mr. Nahari, far left, who was murdered in December 2008, and Said Ben Yisrael, second from left, whose house was firebombed, danced at a wedding celebration in Raida in 2007.
The Yemen Jewish community is one of the oldest remaining in the Arab world -- a fixture in the area for two millennia. At left, a Yemeni Jewish boy stands in front of his school bus.
