Publications

A week from today, a federal judge in San Diego has an opportunity to right a grievous wrong - to reverse last year's decision by the Department of Homeland Security to deny political asylum to a young Palestinian man who, over the course of a decade, prevented the deaths of potentially thousands of innocent people in Israel and the territories.

His name is Mosab Hassan Yousef and his life story, as recounted in his autobiographical Son of Hamas, reads like the best in historical fiction - though his extraordinary tale is true, confirmed by Israeli intelligence.

At the mouth of the sprawling plaza that houses Casablanca's magnificent Hassan II mosque overlooking the Atlantic Ocean lie two squat, ornate buildings. In these structures, flanked by neatly manicured gardens and largely unnoticed by the outside world, the Kingdom of Morocco is forging what could become one of the world's most potent weapons against Islamic extremism.

The buildings are the future site of a new Quranic school, which--once formally inaugurated in the coming year--will serve as a magnet educational institution for the country's religious students, as well as those from the rest of the region. Its objective, my guide told me, will be singular and unequivocal: "To promote Moroccan Islam. Tolerant Islam."