Empowering our homegrown enemies

Disturbingly, the establishments in the two countries most actively targeted by the global jihad — the US and Israel — remain in deep denial about the challenges of homegrown jihadist fifth columnists. The US remains in denial even though the majority of recent jihadist attacks and attempted attacks against the US were carried out by American citizens.
This week we learned that Nazareth is an al Qaida hub. Sheikh Nazem Abu Salim Sahfe, the Israeli imam of the Shihab al-Din mosque in Nazareth was indicted on Sunday for promoting and recruiting for the global jihad and calling on his followers to harm non-Muslims. Among the other plots borne of Sahfe's sermons was the murder of cab driver Yefim Weinstein last November. Sahfe's followers also plotted to assassinate Pope Benedict XVI during his trip to Israel last year. They torched Christian tour buses. They abducted and stabbed a pizza delivery man. Two of his disciples were arrested in Kenya en route to joining the al Qaida forces in Somalia.
With his indictment, Sahfe joins a growing list of jihadists born and bred in Israel and in free societies around the world who have rejected their societies and embraced the cause of Islamic global domination. In the US the most prominent member of this group today is the American born Al Qaida leader Anwar Al-Awlaki.
US authorities describe Awlaki as the world's most dangerous man. His jihadist track record is staggering. It seems that there has been no major attack in the US or Britain —including the Sept. 11 attacks and the July 7 attacks in London -- in which Awlaki has not played a role. 
The US's denial of the nature of the jihadist threat was demonstrated in all of its politically correct glory this week with US President Barack Obama's address to Indian students at St. Xavier University in Mumbai. In response to a student's query about his view of jihad and jihadists, Obama praised Islam as "one of the world's great religions." He went on to claim that the overwhelming majority of Muslims view Islam as a religion of "peace, justice, fairness and tolerance."
Nearly a decade after the Sept. 11 attacks the global jihad remains the central threat to the West not because of its popularity in western Pakistan. It remains the central threat to the free world because of its popularity among the Muslims in the free world.
To remain free, free societies must shed our politically correct shackles and address this growing menace to everything we hold dear.