Jihad Watch

Still more converts to Islam misunderstand their new, peaceful religion. And yet, despite the frequency of such instances, no one, anywhere, is calling upon Muslims to institute instruction classes for converts to Islam to help safeguard them from this curious misunderstanding. "German converts plead guilty to smuggling bomb instructions into Britain," by Duncan Gardham for the Telegraph, February 2:

Two German Islamic converts have pleaded guilty attempting to smuggle the same bomb-making instructions used by the London Stock Exchange bombers into Britain.

Christian Emde, 28, and Robert Baum, 24, from Solingen in Western Germany were stopped as they entered the country on a ferry to Dover in July.

Sources told the Daily Telegraph the men were on a watch list because they were active in extremist circles in Germany.

They eventually told police they were traveling to London and Birmingham to meet unnamed individuals.

A search of their rucksacks revealed a large quantity of extremist literature stored on a hard drive and a laptop computer, including an article called “How to make a bomb in the kitchen of your Mom,” from the al-Qaeda magazine, Inspire.

The same recipe for a pipe bomb was used by the four men who pleaded guilty this week to plotting to blow up the London Stock Exchange.

The men were said to have a “passion for guns” and their backpacks contained numerous gun manuals written in English, Arabic and German.

Other articles included “39 ways to support jihad” by Anwar al-Awlaki, one of the former leaders of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsular who was killed in a drone attacks last year.

Another article was entitled “The Ultimate Mowing Machine” and described how blades could be fixed to a truck to cut down pedestrians.

Emde had “vast quantities of Jihad and terrorism booklets and pamphlets” an earlier hearing was told and Baum had “similar but fewer articles.”

Both men are Islamic converts. Emde converted in 2003 and Baum two to three years ago.

Emde was the moderator of a website in Germany which opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He was said to have an “interest in terrorism” but claims he did not download the material to distribute it or for the purposes of terrorism.

Timothy Green, for Emde, said the material was "freely available" on the internet and was thought not to be illegal in Germany.

At their preliminary hearing, the men refused to stand up to face the charges.

Speaking through an interpreter Baum said: "To stand up would be an act of worship which is forbidden in Islam.”...

Sitting down in an Infidel court is an act of piety, as is murdering Infidels.

In my Crisis column this week I review Ibn Warraq's extraordinary new book, Why the West Is Best:

Why the West is Best: A Muslim Apostate’s Defense of Liberal Democracy. By Ibn Warraq, Encounter Books, 286 pages, $19.

One principal reason why the Islamic jihad is advancing with such confidence around the world today is because its chief competitor, the West, has lost its nerve. The iron and unquestionable dogma of multiculturalism has eaten away at its self-confidence and left only a relativism that walks to the brink of excusing genocide. Instead of defending its principles of liberal democracy and attempting to convince the Islamic world of their virtue and utility, the U.S. and Europe appear to stand for no principle more noble or compelling than majority rule. If, in any given country, a regime takes power dedicated to implementing a vision for society that is absolutely opposed to basic notions of human dignity and human rights, that’s fine with Washington and Brussels, as long as the majority voted for it.

And so the U.S. intervened military in Iraq and Afghanistan only to oversee the adoption of constitutions in both countries that enshrine Sharia as the highest law of the land. This was tantamount to tacit U.S. approval for stonings, amputations, restrictions on the freedom of speech and freedom of conscience, and the institutionalized discrimination against women and non-Muslims, since all of this is mandated under Sharia. Anything else, particularly any defense of the humane values of Judeo-Christian and/or Catholic civilization such as was once mounted against the Communist bloc on Radio Free Europe and the Voice of America, would have been seen as ethnocentric and parochial.

But now a man of the East who came to the West as a youth and gradually realized that it stood for a vision of the human person and human society that far surpassed anything in his native culture has written a courageous and insightful new book that shows that the West can and should stand for more than mere head-counting, and above all, should stand up for itself: Ibn Warraq’s Why the West is Best: A Muslim Apostate’s Defense of Liberal Democracy.

Ibn Warraq is a Pakistani ex-Muslim who writes under a pseudonym as a consequence of Islam’s death penalty for apostasy – and because his previous books have roused the ire of Islamic hardliners. His 1995 manifesto, Why I Am Not A Muslim, was a searing criticism of the brittleness, brutality, and barbarism of Islamic culture; he followed that with a series of scholarly collections that struck at the very foundations of Islamic faith, including The Quest for the Historical Muhammad, What the Koran Really Says, and The Origins of the Koran. His work, however, is not just about what he rejects, but what he accepts: his defense of the West and its values began with the brilliant Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said’s Orientalism and now continues with Why the West is Best.

Ibn Warraq writes with an unusual depth, elegance and breadth of erudition, enhanced by an extraordinarily perceptive eye; thus one of the most remarkable and winning chapters of a book that is remarkable and winning throughout is its first, an examination of how daily life in New York City, even in these anxious days, manifests some of Western civilization’s finest qualities: efficiency and sense of responsibility; a love for humanity and its best manifestations, such as music, humor, and intellectual curiosity; a genuine multiculturalism, and above all, a living respect for freedom. “The multifarious interests of free men and women,” he observes, “are mirrored in the extraordinary number of activities available for the enthusiast, the curious, the intellectually and culturally alert….New York stands as a concrete definition of Western civilization in its energy and creativity, its air of unlimited possibility.”

But Ibn Warraq’s notion of unlimited possibility is not mere libertinism. He notes that while “the origins of the modern West are often seen in the Enlightenment,” its cultural splendors and the habits of mind it encourages must also be traced to Athens, Rome, Jerusalem, and “Judeo-Christianity,” which “added a sense of conscience and charity, tempering justice with forgiveness, and the concept of linear rather than cyclical time, which allowed for the possibility of progress. The Middle Ages brought a deeper synthesis of Athens and Rome with Jerusalem, laying the foundations for the scientific revolution, the industrial revolution, the Enlightenment, and pluralistic liberal democracy.”...

There is more.

Now, remember, these are the "moderates." That is, of course, unless they have been taken over by ancient Aztecs, as this rhetoric would tend to imply. "Palestinian kids created as 'fertilizer,' to saturate the land with blood," by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik for Palestinian Media Watch, January 31:

Dying for the sake of "Palestine" as an ideal, even for Palestinian children and youth, remains part of Palestinian discourse.

This week, official Palestinian Authority TV reported from a Fatah celebration in a refugee camp in Lebanon and chose to focus on the following slide shown at the celebration. Fatah's message was that children are created so that their blood will be "fertilizer" to saturate the land:

"Our children are our glory and honor,
they were created to be fertilizer for the land of Palestine,
and for our pure land to be saturated with their blood."

Earlier this month, a PA-Fatah celebration in Ramallah featured a performance with the same message. In front of senior PA leaders, including Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, young children and youth performed a song that included the following words:

"My pure land, I shall saturate you with my blood...
redeem you with my life."

Palestinian Media Watch has reported extensively on the PA's teaching of children to die as Martyrs for "Palestine." During the PA's terror campaign (the "Intifada," 2000-2005), the PA encouraged children to aspire for Martyrdom death as a central part of its message to children. Today, the message that children should die for "Palestine" is less prominent, but still found in PA schoolbooks and is expressed in cultural settings through song and dance. [...]

PA TV narrator: "In the refugee camp Ein Al-Hilwe [in Lebanon], a rally was held in celebration of the [47th] anniversary [of Fatah]. A political symposium was also held on the occasion of the event."

Text on slide at event:
"Our children are our honor and glory,
they were created to be fertilizer for the land of Palestine,
and for our pure land to be saturated with their blood"
[PA TV (Fatah), Jan, 24, 2012]

The following is an excerpt of a song performed by children at an event marking the 47th anniversary of the Fatah movement. PA leaders applaud kids sing "I shall saturate you with my blood... redeem you with my life":

Present at the ceremony: Prime Minister Salam Fayyad; Secretary General of the Presidential Office, Al-Tayeb Abd Al-Rahim; Secretary of the PLO Executive Council, Yasser Abd Rabbo; District Governor of Ramallah and El-Bireh Laila Ghannam; Fatah spokesman Ahmed Assaf.

Song by the Raji'in group (children and youth):

"How beautiful you are, my country
The love in my heart for you is great
You have brought up and educated
generation after generation,
You waited patiently and discovered your heroic children
Oh, my pure land, I shall saturate you with my blood
I shall live and die upon your green ground
Your ground satiates us, your goodness satisfies us
I shall redeem you with my life, oh my land
Your embrace warms us
Your ground satiates us, your goodness satisfies us
I shall redeem you with my life, oh my land
Your embrace warms us"

Applause by PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, Secretary General of the President's office Tayeb Abd Al-Rahim and PLO Secretary General Yasser Abd Rabbo.
[Live PBC broadcast from Ramallah, PA TV (Fatah), Jan. 5, 2012]

Human shields, partly for strategic purposes, and partly for propaganda purposes. "Israel: 1 in 10 houses in south Lebanon used for arms storage," from the Daily Star, February 2:

BEIRUT: Israeli Intelligence estimates that one in every 10 houses in south Lebanon serves as a missile storage facility or a launch pad for destructive devices against the Jewish state, Israel’s chief of military intelligence, Gen. Aviv Kochavi, warned Thursday at a security conference. "One in every 10 houses in south Lebanon is a storage facility for missiles or rockets or a launch pad for devices that are increasingly accurate and destructive,” AFP quoted Kochavi as saying.

South Lebanon is a major stronghold for Hezbollah, which in 2006 fought Israel in a 34-day conflict that ended following the adoption of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 that called for an end to hostiles between Lebanon and Israel.

The resolution also calls for the establishment of a zone free of armed personnel between the Blue Line and the Litani river.

"From Lebanon, Syria and of course from Iran, they can hit the heart of our cities, and the whole region of Tel Aviv is within their reach," Kochavi told those participating in the conference.

Hezbollah was not available for comments.

The Israeli general also warned his country faces growing threats from more conventional weapons, including "some 200,000 rockets and missiles," in the hands of Israel’s enemies, the agency reported.

This is not Israel’s first claim that south Lebanon is being used for attacks against it. During the 2006 July-August war between Lebanon and Israel, the Jewish state accused Hezbollah of using southern residential neighborhoods as launching pads for attacks against its army.

It has also accused the resistance group, which declared victory in the aftermath of the July war, of using southerners as human shields.

The U.N. has pressured Lebanon to disarm all non-state actors, particularly Hezbollah. In December U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon stressed the need for the implementation of U.N. resolutions that call for the disarmament of non-state actors, and said arms outside the jurisdiction of the state threaten the country’s stability.

It will take more than asking once. Hizballah is the only group from the Lebanese civil war that failed to disarm, in defiance of Resolution 1559.

Hezbollah has maintained that its arms are the only way to defend Lebanon against frequent Israeli aggression, citing the tripartite formula of the “army, the people, and the resistance” as the optimal defense strategy.

That's what the army is for -- defending Lebanon. Hizballah's arms are self-serving, also allowing them to defend themselves from the Lebanese army, if that became necessary.

This self-righteous instability will eventually impoverish the entire society, both materially, as angry mobs destroy what they will, and intellectually, as dissent becomes physically dangerous. An update on this story. "Calls to Behead Indonesian Atheist Alexander Aan," by Presi Mandari for the Jakarta Globe, February 2 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

Jakarta. A defiant declaration of atheism by an Indonesian civil servant has inflamed passions in the world’s most populous Muslim nation, pitting non-believers and believers against each other.

The trouble began when civil servant Alexander Aan posted a message on the Facebook page of Atheist Minang, a group of Indonesians with godless beliefs. It read: “God doesn’t exist.”

The post so enraged residents in Aan’s hometown of Pulau Punjung in West Sumatra province that an angry mob of dozens stormed his office and beat up the 30-year-old.

To add insult to injury, police then arrested him and now want to press blasphemy charges that could see him locked up for five years.

Muslim extremists have called for Aan to be beheaded but fellow atheists have rallied round, and urged him to stand by his convictions despite the pressure.

“Dear Alex, stick to your beliefs. This country has no right to restrict your faith,” Fahd Singa Diwirja wrote on the same Facebook page, where Aan is one of the administrators.

“You’re facing narrow-minded people, but this is the true Indonesia, a fertile ground for the spread of fundamentalism,” Diwirja added, advising Aan to escape persecution by seeking asylum in a European country.

Jakarta. A defiant declaration of atheism by an Indonesian civil servant has inflamed passions in the world’s most populous Muslim nation, pitting non-believers and believers against each other.

The trouble began when civil servant Alexander Aan posted a message on the Facebook page of Atheist Minang, a group of Indonesians with godless beliefs. It read: “God doesn’t exist.”

The post so enraged residents in Aan’s hometown of Pulau Punjung in West Sumatra province that an angry mob of dozens stormed his office and beat up the 30-year-old.

To add insult to injury, police then arrested him and now want to press blasphemy charges that could see him locked up for five years.

Muslim extremists have called for Aan to be beheaded but fellow atheists have rallied round, and urged him to stand by his convictions despite the pressure.

“Dear Alex, stick to your beliefs. This country has no right to restrict your faith,” Fahd Singa Diwirja wrote on the same Facebook page, where Aan is one of the administrators.

“You’re facing narrow-minded people, but this is the true Indonesia, a fertile ground for the spread of fundamentalism,” Diwirja added, advising Aan to escape persecution by seeking asylum in a European country.

Aan has also gained the support of the US-based International Atheist Alliance.

The group, together with Atheist Minang, has written to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, calling on him to ensure that the blasphemy allegations are dropped.

“This is a law that has been used to promote mob violence and intimidation against those who do not agree with ... vigilante groups,” said the letter, copies of which were also sent to the United Nations and Human Rights Watch.

Aan’s proclamation has been removed from the page, but the Facebook group has doubled to 2,000 since the controversy made local news reports.

Most of the postings, however, are diatribes against Aan and his supporters.

“These atheists should be beheaded, that’s what they deserve,” wrote a man who identified himself as Putra Tama, a Muslim from neighboring Jambi province. [...]

Local police chief Chairul Aziz said this week that Aan, who had written on his Facebook page that he was brought up as a Muslim, had expressed his willingness to revert to Islam but that it would not be enough to escape punishment.

“He expressed his intention to convert to Islam but he has not performed an Islamic declaration of faith. Even if he does so, he still can’t escape from justice due to his blaphemous act,” Aziz said.

He said Aan could face additional charges, including falsely declaring himself a Muslim when he applied for a civil service job years ago.

There's an interesting Catch-22, considering that atheism is not legally recognized, and openly stating his beliefs got him charged with blasphemy.

The Islamic Society Forum (FUI), an umbrella group for several hard-line groups, said that a five-year jail term for Aan would not suffice. “He deserves the death penalty, even if he decides to repent. What he has done cannot be tolerated,” said Muhammad al-Khaththath, FUI’s secretary-general....

All Israel settlements violate international law, said Ban Ki-moon. All of them. And for that he got stones and shoes thrown at his car. If he had said that some settlements were acceptable, I suppose his car would have been blown up.

Gratitude to the Infidels Alert: "All talk, no action as Israel's settlements remain a sore point," by Ruth Pollard in the Sydney Morning Herald, February 3:

...Ban was clear regarding the UN's position on settlements.

''All Israeli settlements are contrary to international law … and prejudice final status issues,'' he said.

Israel ''should refrain from further settlement for the sake of ongoing peace talks''.

"UN Chief Receives Shoeing in Gaza," by Gavriel Queenann for Israel National News, February 2:

An angry crowd hurled shoes and stones at United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's convoy as it entered Hamas-run Gaza on Thursday.

The crowd also struck the vehicles with signs bearing slogans accusing Ban of bias towards Israel, among others. No one was injured in the incident and the convoy simply pushed through the crowd and sped away. Ban is visiting the region to try to jumpstart the long-stalled peace process between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

His visit comes on the heels of a similar failed visit by European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton who said she feared the "window for talks" was "closing." Both demanded Israel make "goodwill gestures" to the PA and Hamas while making no similar demands on officials in Ramallah and Gaza City.

Israeli officials say they are willing to restart talks without preconditions from either side immediately. However, the growing sentiment among many Israelis is that there is no good faith partner for peace on the PA side and that any agreement signed will be worthless.

PA officials continue to demand Israel agree to the pre-1967 lines, release all Arab terrorists held in Israeli prisons, and freeze construction in the 'disputed territories' for a second time before talks begin. Many Israelis see such terms as little more than total surrender before talks - and even more concessions - are undertaken in the name of peace.

On Thursday, Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon responded to international pressure to restart talks and make "goodwill gestures" by saying that Israel would not make peace at the cost of its own existence....

Hizballah intends to ensure they serve their sentences in absentia as well, and there appears to be no political will in Lebanon to demand otherwise. One of those indicted has boasted that authorities know where he lives, but cannot arrest him. The track record so far calls into question whether "all reasonable steps" were really taken to bring them into custody.

"Hariri assassination suspects to be tried in absentia," from CNN, February 2:

(CNN) -- The special court investigating the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri announced Wednesday it will try the four accused killers in absentia.

The trial chamber of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, headquartered in the Netherlands near The Hague, said it concluded that "all reasonable steps have been taken to secure the appearance of the accused and to notify them of the charges against them."

The efforts included multiple attempts by Lebanese authorities to find the four men at homes and workplaces, the chamber said. It also noted that the identities of the four men and their indictments received "massive publicity" in Lebanon, making it clear the men were being sought.

The chamber did not announce a date for the trial, but it will be at least four months away.

The United Nations-backed tribunal indicted the four men in June 2011 and made their identities public in July.

Hariri was killed in February 2005 when a bomb struck his motorcade in Beirut. The blast ripped apart his armored car and destroyed the motorcade, killing 21 other people and wounding 231.

All four suspects are charged with conspiracy aimed at committing a terrorist act.

The indictment says the alleged ringleader was Mustafa Amine Badreddine, while another man, Salim Jamil Ayyash, allegedly headed the "assassination team," responsible for physically carrying out the attack.

They are also charged with committing a terrorist act by means of an explosive device; two counts of intentional homicide with premeditation by using explosives; and attempted intentional homicide with premeditation by using explosives.

Hussein Hassan Oneissi and Assad Hassan Sabra were responsible for preparing a false claim of responsibility, the indictment says. They are charged with being accomplices to the same four counts.

Investigators used mobile phone data to place Ayyash and other members of the assassination team near locations where Hariri was in the days prior to his death, the indictment says. Similar data placed the men near points along the route of Hariri's convoy on the day of the bombing...

At least 73 people were killed and hundreds injured. And of course we all know that Islam is a Religion of Peace, and therefore it simply isn't possible that its peaceful and moderate adherents would ever be moved to violence. It must therefore be the fault of...the Zionists!

"Egyptian MP Mustafa Bakri: America and Israel Are Responsible for Port Said Soccer Bloodbath," from MEMRI, February 2 (thanks to Wimpy):

Following are excerpts from a statement by Egyptian MP Mustafa Bakri, which aired on Sawt Al-Sha'b TV on February 2, 2012.

Mustafa Bakri: Our country is entering a state of anarchy. This anarchy is caused by America, Israel and the former regime. Look at the New Middle East scheme. Don't talk about all the minute details. What happened in Port Said is a continuation of what happened in Muhammad Mahmoud Street, in Al-Qasr Al-Ayni Street, across from the government, across from Maspero, and in the soccer match against Tunisia. They are all connected. It is an attempt to bring this country down.

Wherever Sharia experiences a resurgence, the observable effect is that tolerance decreases and harassment of all kinds increases. Muslims are certainly not immune, especially if they belong to sects at variance with the dominant practice of the country, such as Sufis, Ibadis (also facing persecution in Libya), Ahmadis, or Shi'ite minorities in Sunni countries and vice-versa.

Those who would go after Christians and Jews will eventually come for their fellow Muslims who for whatever reason are found ideologically impure. "Freed from Gaddafi, Libyan Sufis face violent Islamists," by Tom Heneghan for Reuters, February 1:

(Reuters) - Freed from Muammar Gaddafi's 42-year dictatorship, Libya's Sufi Muslims find themselves under renewed pressure from violent Islamists who have been attacking them and their beliefs as heretical. The desecration of graves belonging to Sufi saints and sages in recent months have put the peaceful Sufis on the defensive, prompting some to post armed guards at their mosques and lodges to ward off hardline thugs.

But the birthday of Islam's Prophet Mohammad, one of the highpoints in the Sufi calendar, is on Saturday and Libyan Sufis are determined to take their traditional processions through the streets to show they will not be cowed.

At a meeting of Sufi scholars to plan the celebrations, Sheikh Adl Al-Aref Al-Hadad said even being driven out of his zawiyah (Islamic school) late last year by Islamists known as Salafis would not deter him from marching.

"I'm worried but I'm not afraid," said Al-Hadad, whose Tripoli school was stormed by armed men who burned its library, destroyed office equipment and dug up graves of sages buried there. They turned the school into a Salafi mosque.

On January 13, extremists crashed a bulldozer through the walls of the old cemetery in the eastern city of Benghazi, destroyed its tombs and carried off 29 bodies of respected sages and scholars. They also demolished a nearby Sufi school.

Sheikh Khaled Mohammad Saidan, whose Dargut Pasha Mosque faces Tripoli's port, said most Islamists in post-Gaddafi Libya disagreed with Sufis, but peacefully. "But there are no police around and you never know what some people might do," he added.

Sufi lodges from around Tripoli will march on Saturday through narrow alleys of the walled old town, waving flags and chanting poems in praise of Mohammad to the beat of cymbals, drums and tambourines.

To the puritanical Salafis, these practices amount to bida (innovation) and shirk (idolatry), both grave sins that must be stopped, by force if necessary.

Sufism, a mystical strain in both Sunni and Shi'ite Islam, dates back to the early days of the faith. Apart from their prayers, Sufi devotions include singing hymns, chanting the names of God or dancing to heighten awareness of the divine.

Revered saints, scholars and holy people are buried in shrines and some are honored with annual pilgrimages. While many Islamic scholars say this is admissible, puritanical schools of Islam such as Saudi Arabia's Wahhabis or the Afghan Taliban consider it heretical. [...]

Libya's Sufis also worry they are being outflanked politically. Many new religious officials have Salafi leanings, they say, and are appointing Salafi imams to mosques vacated by pro-Gaddafi preachers. Salafi preaching is now widespread on Libyan television and radio, they say.

Salafis have also begun denouncing traditional imams to the authorities, prompting them to be replaced by hardliners. "About half the imams here have been replaced by Salafis," said one imam at a large Tripoli mosque where Salafis in the congregation are campaigning against celebrating Mawlid.

Political parties are starting to form, including the Muslim Brotherhood. Libyan Salafis have not yet announced if they plan to launch a party and contest elections, as in Egypt....

The new spokesman is reportedly the German convert Omar Scheister. "Nigeria arrests Boko Haram spokesman Abul Qaqa," from BBC News, February 1:

Police in Nigeria say they have arrested the spokesman of the Boko Haram militant group which has carried out scores of attacks recently.

A police official said the man, known by his nom de guerre Abul Qaqa, was arrested in the north-eastern city of Maiduguri, in Borno state.

The official told the Associated Press news agency the militant was captured after police tracked his mobile phone.

More than 150 people were killed by Boko Haram militants last month.

A series of co-ordinated explosions ripped apart police buildings, passport offices and immigration centres around the northern city of Kano.

It was one of the bloodiest attacks by the group so far.

Boko Haram has said it wants to overthrow the national government and install an Islamic state.

Its members have frequently attacked police stations and other symbols of state power, but the group has also bombed churches and killed hundreds of people - including many Muslim and Christian civilians.

Officials are trying to confirm the identity of the man arrested on Wednesday.

"We are still taking to him. Since 'Abu Qaqa' is a pseudonym for the Boko Haram spokesman, we want to be sure of who we have with us," an unnamed official told Reuters news agency.

Abul Qaqa has often spoken to journalists in the wake of militant attacks.

More glories of the Arab Spring -- and remember, this is the kind of anti-free speech law that the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), with the willing cooperation of the Obama Administration, is trying to bring West.

This man has had a 40-year career making fun of all sorts of people and things, but only now has he run afoul of the law.

"Egyptian film star sentenced for insulting Islam," from Reuters, February 2:

CAIRO - The Arab world's most famous comic actor, Adel Imam, has received a three-month jail sentence for insulting Islam in films and plays, a court document showed on Thursday.

Imam, who has frequently poked fun at authorities and politicians of all colors during a 40-year career, has one month to appeal the sentence and will remain out of jail until the appeal process is concluded.

The sentence Wednesday evening came weeks after Islamists swept most seats in a parliamentary election. The case was brought by Asran Mansour, a lawyer with ties to Islamist groups, and had languished in court for months, judicial sources said.

Mansour accused the actor of offending Islam and its symbols, including beards and the Jilbab, a loose-fitting garment worn by some Muslims, the Egyptian news portal Ahramonline reported.

Among films and plays targeted by the lawyer were the movie "Morgan Ahmed Morgan" and the play "Al-Zaeem" ("The Leader"), the report said.

Imam was also handed a fine of 1,000 Egyptian pounds ($170) in absentia, the court document showed. He could not immediately be reached for comment.

I tried to tell you. "Christians fear losing freedoms in Arab Spring," by Oren Dorell and Sarah Lynch for USA Today via the Tucson Citizen, January 30:

From her home in a labyrinth of stonewalled alleyways, Samia Ramsis holds a key chain bearing the face of the Virgin Mary as she sits in her yellow pajamas on the morning of Orthodox Christmas.

Sunlight pours in through a window. Outside, visitors come to look upon the spot where Egypt’s Christians — most known as Copts — believe the Holy Family found refuge after fleeing Bethlehem and assassins sent by King Herod to kill the baby Jesus.

Once crowded with Christians, Cairo’s Coptic quarter where Samia lives with her husband, Mounir, and two children is home to fewer than 50 Christian families.

“We know many Christians have left,” says Mounir Ramsis, speaking not only about this quarter but about all of Egypt. “But we love this country and will stay until death.”

The Arab Spring uprisings that have toppled secular dictatorships in the Middle East and North Africa have unleashed long-suppressed freedoms that have allowed Islamic parties to gain a share of political power they have been denied for decades. Their rise is creating near-panic among ancient Christian communities that dot the Muslim world and predate Islam by centuries.

•In Tunisia, where the regime of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was ousted last year after 32 years in power, the dominant political party, Ennahda, has worried some of Tunis’ 22,000 Catholics by vowing to tilt the country’s yet-to-be-written constitution toward sharia, or the detailed and often harsh system of Muslim theocratic laws.

•In Libya, Christians are uneasy as the powerful head of the Tripoli Military Council, Abdul Hakim Belhaj, who once led an Islamic militia with links to al-Qaeda, has said he plans to run for office in elections scheduled for April.

•In Afghanistan, no new building permits have been issued for churches, and the last church open to the public was demolished over the summer. In Iraq, the Christian community has decreased by two-thirds since 2003 amid bombings of churches and assassinations of priests.

•And Christians in Syria, where Muslims have risen up against President Bashar Assad, have been subjected to murder, rape and kidnappings in Damascus and rebellious towns, according to Christian rights groups, including Open Doors, which helps Christians facing persecution.

Many had hoped for better in an Arab movement that proponents said was about replacing tyrannies with democracies.

“The outlook is grim,” says John Eibner, CEO of the California-based human rights group Christian Solidarity International.

“If the current trajectory continues, it’s reasonable to think that within a generation these (Christian) communities will not look like functioning communities,” Eibner says. “They’ll look more like the once-flourishing Jewish communities” across the Arab world that are all but gone.

Nowhere is the irony more profound than in Egypt, where an estimated 8 million Christians live with more than 70 million Muslims.

Christians demonstrated alongside Muslims early last year to oust Hosni Mubarak. Before Mubarak’s overthrow, Christians had suffered from years of church burnings and murders at the hands of radical Muslims who want an Islamic state free of religious minorities. And after the ouster, the military regime that has been running the country has refused to make any arrests in attacks on Christians.

Mina Bouls, 25, a Copt who fled to Philadelphia, recalls cowering with his mother in 1997 as a mob stoned the family home and chanted anti-Christian slogans. But the difference then was that Mubarak ordered the military to protect Christian communities and jail extremists, Bouls says.

In October, Copts organized a protest in downtown Cairo over the authorities’ failure to investigate attacks, including the bombing of a church in Alexandria on New Year’s Day 2011 that killed 20 people. The military attacked the demonstrators and 17 Christians were run down and killed by military vehicles, according to Human Rights Watch.

Bouls wants to bring his family to the United States because he says he is petrified by the new society forming in Egypt. The first free elections in decades held in the past two months handed power not to moderates but to members of the Muslim Brotherhood and radical Salafi candidates, who combined took nearly 70% of seats.

“If people try to rule the country with the Koran, with sharia law, that means they look to us as second-class people,” Bouls says....

The exodus came amid 60 church bombings and the deaths of 900 Christians, says William Warda, chairman of the Hammurabi Human Rights Organization in Baghdad.

“We consider that genocide,” he says.

Malik says Western nations must stand up for the rights of Christians, who he says may be cleansed from lands where democratic elections are used to oppress minorities rather than empower them.

Malik says it must be done “in a way that is not misperceived on the other end.” However, “the West should not be cowed.”

Should not be, indeed. But probably it will be.

How many are the lies that Egypt’s military regime has forwarded concerning its role in attacking and killing Egyptian demonstrators since it usurped power a year ago?

There were, for instance, the lies concerning the Maspero massacre, where the military slaughtered Christian Copts who were protesting the constant attacks on their churches—including by running them over with armored-vehicles.

Despite all the video evidence [apparently now removed by YouTube], the military regime insisted that it would “never, never” run over civilians; that the very idea was “impossible, impossible!” It even showed a video of a military-vehicle running amuck, claiming it was hijacked by Coptic protesters (it was later revealed that an Egyptian soldier was, in fact, inside driving).

More recently, Mohamad Tantawi, the head of the military—and de facto head of Egypt—insisted that the widely circulated video of soldiers beating, stripping, and kicking a female protester is “entirely fake”—a ludicrous assertion, even if Jimmy Carter supports it.

Who is the latest victim to be scapegoated for the military’s crimes against its own citizenry? None other than the U.S.A.

Ongoing accusations that American officials were involved in killing Egyptian civilians have prompted the U.S. Embassy in Cairo to deny it through a January 27 press release:

As we have stated in previous press releases, there is absolutely no truth to reports that U.S. embassy employees or diplomats were involved in hit-and-run incidents using U.S. diplomatic vehicles, injuring or killing protestors in January 2011 in Cairo. There is also no truth to statements alleging that the keys inside U.S. diplomatic vehicles are coded and can only be used by U.S. Embassy employees. On January 28, 2011, however, a number of our U.S. Embassy vehicles were stolen. After these vehicles were stolen, we heard reports of their use in violent and criminal acts. If true, we deplore these acts and the perpetrators. Egyptian authorities have conducted an investigation that has led to the recovery of some of these stolen vehicles.

Who is behind these accusations? The military? As mentioned, it did make similar accusations against Coptic protesters, saying they hijacked and manned the military-vehicles that ran over fellow Copts at Maspero—only to be exposed as lying by Al Dalil.

While it is not altogether clear who is behind these accusations—this report indicates a lawyer of a former Egyptian official being tried, while older reports mention “communiqués”—it is, of course, the military regime that stands to gain by this latest case of blaming the other.

The message changes with the audience. When the Brotherhood's members are talking among themselves, or to Arab and Muslim audiences, there is a very firm, if not openly antisemitic, line against peace with Israel.

It is plausible, though, as part of the Ikhwan's gradualist approach, that the Camp David Accords will see an incremental erosion, and their contents will be used as leverage in attempts to blackmail Israel into concessions. The accords are, after all, a two-part package, tying conditions for "peace" in the broader Middle East to peace with Egypt.

"German FM: Brotherhood committed to peace with Israel," by Mohamed Abdel Salam for Bikya Masr, February 1:

CAIRO: German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle renewed on Tuesday his support for more openness and respect towards the new democratic Islamic forces in Egypt.

He said in statements during a visit to Cairo, where he met with the head of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, Prime Minister Kamal Ganzoury, Foreign Minister Amr Kamal, and the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) Mohamed Morsi.

He described his meeting with Morsi as “encouraging” and said that the latter stated clearly his belief in pluralism, and stressed that the FJP party is committed to maintaining peace with Israel.

Westerwelle met on the second day of his visit to Egypt, with Tantawi, who emphasized his commitment to the roadmap towards democracy.

His visit also came as thousands of anti-military protesters continue to demonstrate in central Cairo, demanding an end to the military junta’s rule over the country.

Westerwelle will next visit Israel as a part of his Middle East tour and the Palestinian territories on Wednesday.

Tensions between Egypt and Israel have been tense in recent months following the ousting of President Hosni Mubarak in February 2011. The natural gas pipeline to Israel has been attacked 10 times since the uprising, and protesters attacked and raided the Israeli Embassy in Egypt in September following a cross-border raid by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) killed at least four Egyptian soldiers.

Don't you hate it when your tensions are tense?

Still more misunderstanders of the Religion of Peace

Will the Islamophobia never end? "Terrorists admit plot to bomb London Stock Exchange and US Embassy," by Duncan Gardham for the Telegraph, February 1 (thanks to David):

Four al-Qaeda inspired terrorists have pleaded guilty to plotting a Christmas bomb attack on the London Stock Exchange, the American embassy and the home of London Mayor Boris Johnson.

Two of the men conducted a surveillance trip around central London and also talked about launching a Mumbai-style attack on Parliament.

A “target list” was found at the home of the ring-leader which listed the names and addresses of Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, as well as two Rabbis and the American Embassy. It had on it the letters ‘LXC’ for London Stock Exchange.

Torn pieces of paper showed a sketch of what is believed to be a car bomb.

Three other men met with the plotters and planned to travel abroad to get more training before returning to launch further attacks. Another two men pleaded guilty to associated charges.

The men, from London, Stoke and Cardiff, were inspired by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsular (AQAP) and used their English-language magazine Inspire as a guide.

In Stoke the gang talked about attacking local pubs and clubs but decided to travel abroad to get more training.

In East London, Mohammed Chowdhury, 21, the ring leader, and Shah Rahman, 29, were under surveillance as they toured central London sites for six hours between 3.30pm and 9.30pm on November 28 2010.

They got off a bus in Trafalgar Square and walked along Whitehall towards Westminster. They were observed looking at Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, the London Eye, Blackfriars Bridge and the Church of Scientology on Queen Victoria Street.

After visiting a McDonalds restaurant on Cannon Street in the City of London, the two men boarded a bus back towards East London.

In the bedroom at Chowdhury’s flat in the Isle of Dogs, police found a handwritten target list on a folded piece of A4 paper on the computer desk.

The Stoke group have their origins in Pakistan, while the London and Cardiff groups were originally from Bangladesh.

The three groups were inspired by Anwar al-Awlaki, one of the leaders of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsular, who died in a drone attack last year.

The defendants made contact with each other through dawah – proselytising - or by Paltalk or other internet messaging.

Meetings took place in November and December 2010 at which the defendants planned to use explosive devices to attack significant locations in London and around the country.

Their plans could be carried out without much preparation and were very difficult to intercept, sources said.

The London and Cardiff groups were keen to act quickly, at first talking about sending mail bombs through the Royal Mail and then deciding on a plan to set off bombs in the toilets of the stock exchange.

The Stoke group talked about persuading others to take bombs into pubs in their area so that they would explode.

Abdul Miah, 25, said to be at the centre of the Cardiff gang, and his brother Omar Latif, 28, pleaded guilty to taking part in the Stock Exchange plot. Gurukanth Desai, 30, pleaded guilty to attending meetings.

Mohibur Rahman, 27, from Stoke pleaded guilty to possession of a document containing information useful to a person preparing an act of terrorism.

The charges relate to two editions of al-Qaeda’s English language Inspire magazine.

Usman Khan, 20, Mohammed Shahjahan, 27, and Nazam Hussain, 26, all from Stoke pleaded guilty to preparing acts of terrorism....

If the Western intelligentsia takes notice of this at all, it will be to excoriate the "bigotry" and "provocation" by the Christians at the carnival, and to call for restrictions on the freedom of speech to guard against "denigration of religion." No one will call on the Muslim community to stop reacting with violence to mockery, but to accept the fact that in a pluralistic society, some people will do things to which they object, and the proper response is genuine tolerance, not arson and riots.

"Church set on fire after carnival," from the UKPA, January 31:

An Orthodox Christian church famed for its valuable icons was set alight in southern Macedonia overnight amid religious tension between Christians and minority Muslims over a carnival in which Orthodox Christian men dressed as women in burkas and mocked the Koran.

Firefighters extinguished the fire on Monday night in the two century-old Sveti Nikola church, near the town of Struga. The church's roof was destroyed but its icons were not damaged, the fire service said.

Hours before the fire, Muslim leaders had appealed for calm among community members.

The January 13 Vevcani festival prompted angry, sometimes violent demonstrations by Muslims, who are nearly all ethnic Albanian and make up 33% of the country's 2.1 million population and accuse the majority of stoking hatred against them.

Maybe if they cut back on the violent demonstrations and church burnings, they'd find the majority hating them less.

Ethnic tension has been simmering in this small Balkan country since the end of an armed rebellion in 2001, when ethnic Albanian rebels fought government forces for about eight months, seeking greater rights for their community. The conflict left 80 people dead, and ended with the intervention of Nato peacekeepers.

The Vevcani carnival, said to have been held for some 1,400 years, attracts thousands of visitors. Local residents traditionally wear elaborate, frequently sarcastic masks, with some of the most common costumes including devils and demons.

But this year's perceived mockery of the Koran and the burka costumes caused outrage.

On Saturday, protesters attacked an inter-city bus heading from Struga to Vevcani, throwing rocks at the vehicle but injuring nobody. They also defaced a Macedonian flag outside Struga's municipal building, replacing it with a green flag representing Islam. On the same day, perpetrators attacked a church in the nearby village of Labunista, destroying a cross standing outside.

Macedonian Muslim leaders called for restraint but also accused the government of promoting Islamophobia.

Deputy Prime Minister Musa Xhaferi said such incidents "create discord" and "violate mutual respect and trust."

When the uprising was useful to them, they did not hinder it, and they supported it. Now they've got a good thing going and the usefulness of the revolution and of public dissent as a means to an end has run its course, unless the Ikhwan decides to leverage it against the military in its own power struggle. "Egypt Islamists stop protesters on way to parliament," from Agence France Presse, January 31:

CAIRO — Hundreds of Egyptian protesters demanding the end of military rule were prevented on Tuesday from reaching parliament by backers of the Muslim Brotherhood, which holds the majority in the assembly.

"We are standing here as a human shield, because if the protesters go any further, they will clash with the police. They want to enter parliament, what do you expect me to do?" Muslim Brotherhood member Hamdy Adbdelsamad told AFP.

Behind him, anti-military protesters chanted against the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces that took power when Hosni Mubarak was ousted by a popular uprising last year.

Activists had called for a march from Cairo's Tahrir Square -- the symbolic heart of the Egyptian uprising -- to parliament to press the newly-elected MPs to implement the goals of the revolution.

They want the ouster of the military junta, an end to the military trials of civilians, the restructuring of the interior ministry and a guarantee of freedoms and social justice.
Islamist and secular protesters stood side by side in Tahrir Square during the 18 days of protests that toppled Mubarak in early 2011.

But tensions have risen between them since parliamentary elections propelled the long-banned Muslim Brotherhood to the centre stage of politics, with its Freedom and Justice Party now controling 47 percent of the assembly.

Secular protesters accuse the Islamists colluding with the ruling military to maintain their new-found power.

"Badie, you are selling the revolution!" the anti-military protesters chanted, in reference to Mohammed Badie, the Islamist movement's supreme guide.

"The Muslim Brotherhood youth are blocking all roads to the parliament, preventing the anti-military protesters... There are huge numbers of them standing in rows like militias," one anti military protester told AFP....

Muhammad said: "I will expel the Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsula and will not leave any but Muslim." - Sahih Muslim 19.4366.

Of course, it would be bad for business for the Saudis to say they're giving them the boot for daring to gather in prayer and worship, so they have invoked another rule, against the mingling of unrelated men and women. Not that they look any less ridiculous for it.

Once again, just for fun, someone should tell authorities that a man of Jewish background has slipped into the country and, according to local reports, is in the habit of joining these gatherings "wherever two or three" come together. It could make for a good all-points bulletin, not to mention the subsequent headline: "Saudis desperate to find Jesus."

An update on this story. "Ethiopian Christians to be deported from Saudi Arabia," from BBC News, January 31:

Some 35 Ethiopian Christians face deportation from Saudi Arabia for "illicit mingling", the global rights body Human Rights Watch (HRW) says.

Police arrested the group - including 29 women - after raiding a prayer meeting in the second city of Jeddah.

The women were subjected to strip searches and the men beaten and called "unbelievers", according to HRW.

In 2006, the Saudi government promised to stop interfering with private worship by non-Muslims.

The group was arrested in a private home as they gathered to pray during the run-up to Christmas, celebrated by Ethiopian Orthodox Christians on 7 January.

HRW spoke to a man and two women by telephone from the prisons where they are being held.

They say they have been charged with mixing with unmarried persons of the opposite sex - even though HRW says Saudi Arabia has no law defining "illicit mingling".

Mixing of the sexes is not allowed in public - but normally permitted in private unless for "the purpose of corruption", according to the religious police.

The ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom bans the practice of any religion except Islam - but in recent years pledged to leave people of other faiths alone if they worshipped in private homes....

Talk is cheap, and "war is deceit."

It won't be the Afghan government that fills the security vacuum. As became the template for the decade to follow in other countries, the U.S. greatly underestimated the Afghan population's support for the Taliban, for Sharia, and for jihad for the sake of imposing it. That is in large part because the U.S. greatly underestimated the content of Sharia, accepting a sugar-coated, vapor-ware Sharia -- what is at best an academic, drawing-board conception of what Sharia, could, would, or should be according to agenda-driven apologists, and at worst an outright lie -- as what it really has been in practice all these centuries.

"Taliban "poised to retake Afghanistan" after NATO," by Hamid Shalizi and Mirwais Harooni for Reuters, February 1:

KABUL (Reuters) - The U.S. military said in a secret report that the Taliban, backed by Pakistan, are set to retake control of Afghanistan after NATO-led forces withdraw, raising the prospect of a major failure of Western policy after a costly war.

Lieutenant Colonel Jimmie Cummings, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, confirmed the existence of the document, reported on Wednesday by Britain's Times newspaper and the BBC.

But he said it was not a strategic study.

"The classified document in question is a compilation of Taliban detainee opinions," he said. "It's not an analysis, nor is it meant to be considered an analysis."

Nevertheless, it could be interpreted as a damning assessment of the war, dragging into its 11th year and aimed at blocking a Taliban return to power.

It could also be seen as an admission of defeat and could reinforce the view of Taliban hardliners that they should not negotiate with the United States and President Hamid Karzai's unpopular government while in a position of strength.

The U.S. military report could boost the Taliban's confidence and make its leaders less willing to make concessions on demands for a ceasefire, and for the insurgency to renounce violence and break ties to al Qaeda.

But Britain's Kabul Ambassador William Patey wrote on his Twitter feed that "if elements of the Taliban think that in 2015 they can take control of Afghanistan they will be in for a shock." He did not say if he was referring to the document.

Hours after the Times report, the Afghan Taliban said that no peace negotiation process had been agreed with the international community, "particularly the Americans."

More on this story.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement that prior to any negotiations, confidence building measures must be completed, putting pressure on Washington to meet demands for the release of five Taliban in U.S. custody.

The hardline Islamist movement also said it had no plans to hold preliminary peace talks with Afghanistan's government in Saudi Arabia, dismissing media reports of talks in the kingdom.

The U.S. military said in the document that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) security agency was assisting the Taliban in directing attacks against foreign forces.

Reasserting control over the country would be more difficult a second time for the
Taliban, however, with Afghan police and soldiers expected to number about 350,000 beyond 2014 and some foreign troops likely to remain, including elite forces.

It seems all but miraculous that no one has claimed "Pakistanophobia" as the root of these reports of Pakistan's double game. "Secret NATO Taliban report revives Pakistan fears," by Nick Paton Walsh for CNN, February 1:

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Pakistan continues to support the Taliban in Afghanistan, a secret NATO report says, according to a journalist who has read it, despite years of Pakistani denials and American pressure to stop backing the insurgency

The Taliban depend on Pakistan for support, even though they do not necessarily welcome it, Times of London reporter Jerome Starkey said Wednesday, citing the report.

The leaked NATO document revives the longstanding accusation that elements in Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency are aiding the insurgency in Afghanistan.

It says the ISI knows the whereabouts of all senior Taliban commanders, Starkey said.

"It is a marriage of convenience," he said. The Taliban see Pakistan as manipulative, but they see no alternative to accepting its support, he said.

The Taliban are absolutely confident of victory, he said the report found, based on 27,000 interviews with more than 4,000 detainees ranging from senior Taliban commanders to Afghan civilians.

They also include mid- and low-level Taliban, al Qaeda, and foreign fighters, he said.

NATO downplayed the importance of the report Wednesday, after it was leaked, while Pakistan rejected key conclusions entirely....

Pakistan's number-one export in 2011 was angry denials.

Just days ago, it had sounded like this plan had faltered when the Taliban refused to agree to a cease-fire before starting talks. These are no small fish, either; some are prominent detainees considered "high-risk." It is less clear from this report whether their release would be part of a quid-pro-quo exchange of actions for actions, or closer to earlier reports that spoke of nebulous "confidence building" measures and appeared to offer U.S. actions in exchange for pledges from the Taliban.

"US confirms possible release of Taliban from Gitmo," by Ann Gearan and Kimberly Dozier for the Associated Press, January 31:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. intelligence officials acknowledged Tuesday that the United States may release several Afghan Taliban prisoners from the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as an incentive to bring the Taliban to peace talks.

Meanwhile, Afghan officials told The Associated Press that a plan to give Afghanistan a form of legal custody over the men if they are released satisfied their earlier objection to sending the prisoners to a third country.

Director of National Intelligence Jim Clapper told Congress Tuesday that no decision had been made on whether to trade the five Taliban prisoners, now held at Guantanamo Bay as part of nascent peace talks with the Taliban. He and CIA Director David Petraeus did not dispute that the Obama administration is considering

transferring the five to a third country.

U.S. officials and others had previously spoken only vaguely, and usually anonymously, about the proposal to send the prisoners to Qatar, a Persian Gulf country that has asserted a central role in framing talks that might end the 10-year war in Afghanistan. The lead U.S. negotiator trying to coax the Taliban into talks had also publicly acknowledged the possibility of a release, but said there was no final decision.

The prisoners proposed for transfer include some of the detainees brought to Guantanamo during the initial days and weeks of the U.S. invasion that toppled the Taliban government in Afghanistan in 2001. At least one has been accused in the massacre of thousands of Shiite Muslims in Afghanistan, according to U.S. and other assessments, but none are accused of directly killing Americans.

"I don't think anybody harbors any illusions about it, but I think the position is to at least explore the potential for negotiating with them as a part of this overall resolution of the situation in Afghanistan," Clapper said during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing.

The Obama administration has recently embraced the possibility of negotiation with the Taliban much more openly, saying that although they remain cautious they are also encouraged that the militants may be ready to bargain. Peace talks, if they come to pass, would include the elected Afghan government and, at least at the outset, representatives of the U.S. government. With nearly 100,000 troops in Afghanistan and a war and development budget in the billions of dollars, the U.S. remains the largest power broker in Afghanistan.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai supports a prisoner release as a means to build confidence among the Taliban militants that talks are worthwhile, but he had balked at the U.S.-backed plan to send them to Qatar instead of home to Afghanistan. That plan appeared to undercut his authority and offend Afghan sovereignty, Afghan officials said. Karzai yanked his ambassador from Qatar, saying Qatar had not kept him properly informed....

Mohammmad Shafia murdered his daughters and his first wife and then raged about his daughters: "God's curse on them for generations....There can be no treachery, no violation more than this. They committed treason from beginning to end. They betrayed humankind. They betrayed Islam."

Midday Monday I got this email, with the subject line "URGENT: NBC Nightly News Request":

Message: Hi there—

My name is Shannon Urtnowski and I work with NBC Nightly News. We are working on a spot for tonight about honor killings, and I understand this is on the rise in American, among other countries. We were hoping to speak with an expert who can tell us more about this today. IF you can please reach out to me just as soon as possible, I would
appreciate it.

Many thanks--

Shannon Urtnowski
NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams

I emailed her back, and she responded: "We'd like to try to see if we might be able to set up a camera interview with you in a bit." We spoke on the phone, and I explained to her the information that you can find here: that Islamic law stipulates no penalty for a parent who kills his child, and several Muslim countries have relaxed penalties for honor killings, with Islamic clerics resisting attempts to stiffen those penalties. I also gave her information on other Islamic honor killings in the U.S. and Canada: Noor Almaleki, the Said sisters, Aqsa Parvez, Jessica Mokdad, etc.

Urtnowski took it all in and told me she would set up studio time for me to be interviewed on this. She even asked me for contact information for a nearby studio, which I gave her. But shortly thereafter, Urtnowski called me back and said that NBC had decided to go with an expert closer to the correspondent's Chicago location, and so I wouldn't be appearing after all.

I was not at all surprised by that, of course. Nor was I surprised when NBC's story aired and it contained no mention of Islam, despite Mohammad Shafia's own words, but instead spoke about "patriarchal societies" and the Shafias' "strict religious family," religion unspecified. See the Newsbusters report here.

There was nothing surprising in NBC's coverage of the Shafia murders at all. It was just another example of how the mainstream media routinely whitewashes Islamic violence, and essentially lies to the public about the nature, extent and magnitude of that violence. It is no wonder that the public is thereby rendered largely clueless and complacent, and that Islamic honor killings are occurring with increasing frequency in the West, with no one daring to challenge the Muslim community to work against the beliefs that give rise to them.

In FrontPage this morning, I discuss the Taliban's recent efforts to present a kinder, gentler face to the West:

Apparently the Taliban are softening, even allowing girls to get an education. Clearly this heralds an opening to the West, a heady indication that their most repressive days are past them, and that soon they will take their place among the free people of the earth. Soon they will be following the teachings of Naomi Wolf and Thomas Paine.

Yaroslav Trofimov, in a piece that ran Sunday in the Wall Street Journal, noted that Maulvi Qalamuddin, who headed the Committee to Protect Virtue and Prevent Vice back when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, has completely changed his tune regarding the education of girls. Where once he oversaw the shutting-down, sometimes violently, of girls’ schools, now he says: “Education for women is just as necessary as education for men. In Islam, men and women have the same duty to pray, to fast—and to seek learning.”

Anyone who believes this, or believes that Maulvi Qalamuddin believes it, should contact me, as I have a lovely bridge to sell you. “War is deceit,” said Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, according to a famous hadith, and the Taliban are listening. But the Taliban are to be forgiven for thinking that this sort of thing would play well in Washington, for it very likely will. After all, Joe Biden is still the Vice President – the amiable dunce who recently said: “Look, the Taliban per se is not our enemy. That’s critical. There is not a single statement that the president has ever made in any of our policy assertions that the Taliban is our enemy because it threatens U.S. interests. If, in fact, the Taliban is able to collapse the existing government, which is cooperating with us in keeping the bad guys from being able to do damage to us, then that becomes a problem for us.”

In other words, the Taliban might win, so we have to surrender and act as if we’re just fine with that. And the alternative? Hamid Karzai, who got so annoyed with his American patrons last year that he threatened to join the Taliban himself. The Karzai government, that has been so helpful in “cooperating with us in keeping the bad guys from being able to do damage to us” that an increasing number of American and allied soldiers have recently fallen victim to surprise attacks from Afghan army forces that are supposed to be on our side....

Read it all.

Yesterday afternoon Human Events posted my piece about recent shameful events in New York:

The mainstream media, led by the New York Times, and the Islamic supremacist Hamas-linked hate group the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) are doing all they can to whip up a frenzy about the NYPD’s showing of a relatively tepid but accurate counter-terror film, The Third Jihad, to police officers.

Lost in the hysteria is the question of whether there is anything inaccurate or false in the film – yet those who are demanding apologies and reeducation from the NYPD have demonstrated not one inaccuracy in it. No one who is protesting against this film is going beyond the claim that it is “Islamophobic.”

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg immediately apologized, saying that showing the film to New York police officers manifested “terrible judgment.” Police commissioner Raymond Kelly apologized also: “I offer my apologies to members of the Muslim community, in particular, who would find the film inflammatory and its airing on department property, though unauthorized, to be inappropriate.”

In a sane world, Kelly and Bloomberg would not be apologizing at all. They’d be saying, “Yes, we showed the film, and we’re going to keep showing it, and what of it? If the Muslims in New York are upset about it being inaccurate, let them demonstrate its inaccuracy by taking positive steps to fight in their own community against the stealth jihad activity that the film documents.”

For the whole controversy is predicated on the assumption that The Third Jihad is whipping up hysteria about a non-existent threat. In reality, it covers much the same ground that I cover in my book Stealth Jihad, in which I show that the agenda of infiltration and subversion on the part of the Muslim Brotherhood and its allied groups is very real.

In a captured internal Muslim Brotherhood document, Brotherhood operatives in the U.S. are told that they “must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

And at a Muslim event in California in 1998, CAIR cofounder and longtime Board chairman Omar Ahmad was quoted as saying: “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth.”

Nor are these isolated statements. Yet the initial New York Times article about the showing of this film, as well as all the coverage that has followed, was based on the assumption that no Muslim in the U.S. believes or acts upon such ideas. And the Times deplored that “at least 1,489 police officers, from lieutenants to detectives to patrol officers, saw the film.” Apparently they will all need to be reeducated.

Instead of considering whether or not the film is accurate, the mainstream media has scolded Bloomberg and Kelly for their failure to reach out to New York’s Muslim community. But here again, in a sane world, the Mayor and the NYPD would not be expected to reach out to the Muslim community and prove their good will. The Muslim community would be reaching out to the Mayor and the NYPD, eager to prove its good will. And the Mayor and the NYPD would be telling Hamas-linked CAIR that its counterterror cooperation was not enough, instead of letting this execrable Islamic supremacist Hamas front dictate New York City’s counterterror operations.

But now CAIR smells blood, and is going in for the kill. They’ve announced that Kelly’s apology was not enough, and are calling for his resignation. They’ve already succeeded, courtesy of Barack Obama’s compliant Justice Department, in eliminating any truth about Islam and jihad from national FBI training, and are now trying to eliminate it everywhere.

The outcome will be a cadre of agents and police officers full of politically correct nonsense that will render them clueless, complacent, weak and supine in the face of jihad activity. And so the jihad in the U.S. will advance unimpeded.

And so New York, by means of this controversy, is on the verge of taking yet another decisive step toward completely banning the truth about jihad and Islamic supremacism, thereby rendering New Yorkers, and all Americans, more vulnerable than ever to that jihad.

I appeared tonight on the Michael Coren Show on Sun TV and discussed the Shafia honor killings and the media whitewash of Islam's role in them.

Video courtesy Blazing Cat Fur.

No doubt it never entered their mind that he was anything but a "moderate."

An update on this story. "US, UN Helped Colo. Man Now Accused of Terrorism," from the Associated Press, January 31 (thanks to Kenneth):

A man from Uzbekistan that the United States and the United Nations helped relocate to Colorado now faces a terrorism charge.

Jamshid Muhtorov opposed his home country's dictator following a 2005 massacre, endured a brutal detention, and saw his sister arrested on a false murder charge. The 35-year-old fled his country by night dressed as a woman, and the U.S. and the U.N. helped bring him to Aurora in 2007.

Now, he's accused of providing material support and attempting to provide material support to the Islamic Jihad Union. The violent group opposes the Uzbek government and has been designated a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department.

Authorities arrested Muhtorov in Chicago on Jan. 21, the Denver Post reported Tuesday ( http://bit.ly/yHsRIF ).

Federal authorities say the Islamic Jihad Union has claimed responsibility for attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan, including a March 2008 suicide attack on a U.S. base. The group is also blamed for carrying out simultaneous suicide bombings of the U.S. and Israeli embassies and a prosecutor's office in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

"It is a crime, and has been a crime for many years, to provide material support for a designated terrorist organization, the IJU," said Dean Boyd, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington. "Our job is to enforce the law."

The FBI said Muhtorov communicated with a contact with the IJU by email using code words, asking to be invited to the "wedding." He also told the contact that he was "ready for any task, even with the risk of dying," the FBI said.

Authorities said there was no evidence that Muhtorov planned any attacks within the U.S....

American officials had described Muhtorov as a human rights worker whose activism began while he was trying to make a living in his home city, Jizzak. He ran up against corrupt officials expecting payments, which is common in Uzbekistan, and spoke out....

During this time, he worked closely with Human Rights Watch....

Muhtorov and his family resettled in Aurora, a Denver suburb, and obtained a job as a truck driver....

Muhtorov's colleagues at the UZ Auto Trans company, where he hauled cars for dealers to destinations across the country, knew that he opposed the Uzbek regime.

"I knew him as a good guy. Praying. He never talked bad about the U.S. Maybe he was angry with the regime back in Uzbekistan," said Ishmael Abdubafour, a former truck driver with the company. "He had the long beard and stuff, but that doesn't mean anything. We see a lot of people who have the beard. He was very gentle."

A decent fellow.

Another defeat for the freedom of speech and another victory for Hamas-linked Islamic supremacist thugs -- courtesy the U.S. Military. "CAIR pressures retired general, critic of Islam, to back out of West Point event," by Caroline May for the Daily Caller, January 31 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

The Council on American-Islamic Relations announced Monday night that it had successfully prevented retired Lieutenant General William G. “Jerry” Boykin from speaking at an upcoming prayer breakfast at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

“We welcome Mr. Boykin’s withdrawal from this event and hope that the speaker who replaces him will offer cadets a spiritual message that promotes tolerance and mutual understanding,” said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad in a statement.

West Point initially balked at the calls to remove Boykin — a former military intelligence officer — from the event.

Lt. Col. Sherri Reed of West Point told The Associated Press that cadets are “purposefully exposed to different perspectives and cultures.”

“The National Prayer Breakfast Service will be pluralistic with Christians, Jewish, and Muslim cadets participating,” Reed said. “We are comfortable and confident that what retired Lt. Gen. Boykin will share about prayer, soldier care and selfless service, will be in keeping with the broad range of ideas normally considered by our cadets.”

Boykin backed out of the event on his own volition, according to a report from Fox News.

The retired lieutenant general has been on CAIR’s radar for casting Islam in a poor light, specifically in speeches in which he analogizing the War on Terror to a war against Satan....

I recently spoke at a conference sponsored by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), held at the Sheraton hotel in Framingham, Massachusetts. Titled “The Persecuted Church: Christian Believers in Peril in the Middle East,” Part 1 of my talk follows:

Click for Part 2 and Part 3.

I just received an email from a friend who lives in Egypt, which ends with the following anecdote:

I went to the veggies market last Friday, I usually go on Friday anyway, but this time for the first time the merchants stopped selling anything when they heard the call for prayer!!! Most of them left their young kids to watch over the goods and they went to pray. Most of the customers also disappeared and the few like me who were oblivious to the “New Misrstan” had to wander around aimlessly and wait for those idiots to return! It was unbelievable, suddenly we are living in Saudi or Afghanistan without the need for a passport or a visa.

“Misrstan” is a play on words meaning “Egyptistan” — as in, “Afghanistan,” “Pakistan” — you know, all those extra “pious” Muslim nations. And of course, where Muslim prayers are practiced with rigidity, you can rest assured any number of other “pious” practices — such as hatred for infidels, including in the prayers — are also being upheld. Anyway, this is but another subtle example, directly from the ground, of how Egypt continues to change.

This is about control, and maintaining dependence. Al Shabaab wants no challenges from any entity operating independently of its control that may in any way facilitate a challenge to its authority.

Hungry people can't fight back. "Somalia's al-Shabab militants ban Red Cross aid work," from BBC News, January 30 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

Somalia's al-Shabab militants have banned the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from operating in parts of the country it controls.

The Islamist group said the ICRC had falsely accused them of blocking aid and had been handing out unfit food.

Al-Shabab controls large parts of south and central Somalia, which is suffering its worst drought in decades.

The ICRC, one of the few aid agencies operating there, said it had not heard about the ban.

The agency had suspended food distribution earlier this month saying militants had blocked supply routes, but it was still providing emergency care and water programmes.

Al-Shabab had already halted the work of several aid agencies working in the famine-hit region, including some from the UN. It accused them of exaggerating the scale of the problems for political reasons, and trying to convert Muslims to Christianity.

In a statement, it said the ICRC had "repeatedly betrayed the trust conferred on it by the local population and, in recent weeks, falsely accused the mujahideen [al-Shabab fighters] of hindering food distribution".

The group said 70% of food it had inspected in ICRC warehouses was unfit for human consumption, and that it had since destroyed nearly 2,000 tonnes of "expired" rations.

Baloney. Aid work depends on non-perishable, shelf-stable rations. And even if this were the case, if you were starving, if the date said, say, "Best before November 2011," would you care? If Al-Shabaab were starving, would they care?

Somalia is said to be one of the world's most dangerous places for aid workers to operate. It has not had a functioning central government for more than 20 years and has been wracked by fighting between various militias.

The UN-backed government runs only a few areas, including the capital, Mogadishu, which al-Shabab withdrew from in August.

The UN says the areas worst affected by famine are in the southern and central areas, which are under the control of the al-Qaeda linked group.

In recent weeks, al-Shabab has lost ground to both Kenyan and Ethiopian forces, which have moved onto Somali territory.

No one can claim this one was taken out of context. This is from Iran's own English-language propaganda outlet. "'ME nations battling Zionist autocracy'," from PressTV, January 30:

Ayatollah Khamenei said the Zionists, US, and Western powers feel weak in the face of Islamic Awakening and “this feeling of weakness and defeat will grow by the day.”

The Leader said humanity is standing at a critical juncture and is on the verge of a “grand development.”

“Humanity has passed all material and ideological schools such as Marxism, Liberal Democracy and Secular Nationalism and is at the beginning of a new era,” the Leader said.

Ayatollah Khamenei further urged the revolutionary youths to vigilantly guard the fruit of their efforts and not allow arrogant powers to “hijack” and “derail” their revolutions.

The Leader stressed that despite social, historical and geographical differences, Muslim nations are “everyone is against the satanic US and Israeli dominance and cannot tolerate the cancerous tumor of Israel.”

Ayatollah Khamenei made the remarks in a meeting with foreign guests participating in the "Islamic Awakening and Youth Conference" in Tehran. The two-day event kicked off on Sunday with some 15-hundred participants from 73 countries.

The conference mainly focuses on the pivotal role of the youth in the wave of Islamic Awakening that is sweeping through the Middle East and North Africa.

Probably. "Brotherhood would cancel Camp David Agreement, says Hezbollah official," by Haitham Dabbour for Al Masri Al Youm, January 30:

Tehran — Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood will eventually cancel the Camp David Agreement, despite the group’s announcement that it respects international agreements Egypt has signed, said Amin al-Sayed Ibrahim, head of Hezbollah’s political council.

Speaking to the “International Conference on Islamic Awakening and the Youths,” Ibrahim said that the Egyptian military, so as not to lose its clout, would never allow the Brotherhood to write the constitution or even form a constituent assembly to write the constitution.

Following their electoral victories in Parliament, Egypt's most organized political group has offered assurances that it would respect the 1979 peace treaty with Israel.

When asked early this month whether Washington believed that the Islamist party would uphold the treaty, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said that the party "has made commitments to us in this regard.”

That and 50 cents will get you... 50 cents. They may have noticed that the Ikhwan's message changes with its audience.

Ibrahim said that the current unrest in Syria is a conspiracy and not a revolution, as western media claims. The Egyptian delegation clashed with him over the remarks.

“The Syrians transfer arms to the Palestinian resistance,” he said.

Over 1,200 young people from Iran as well as 73 other countries are participating in the two-day conference, Iran’s Fars news agency reported on Monday.

The Islamic Spring is spreading its message. Translated from The World Today, January 23: "Iranian converts stabbed in Norway":

Two Iranians who converted from Islam to Christianity was stabbed by masked men in Norway Haugesund last week. The attackers shouted "kuffar" -- an Arabic invective for unbelievers -- during the attack. The attack occurred on Tuesday evening when the two Christian Iranians were out for a walk in Haugesund. They were attacked by three masked and knife-armed men, who reportedly shouted "kuffar" as they stabbed the two. ...

The two assaulted men want to be anonymous and have not spoken out afterwards. They have lived in Norway for several years. One of them has become a Christian in Norway, the other left Islam and became a Christian in Iran and fled to Norway a couple of years ago after being beaten and imprisoned for his Christian faith in Iran. Both are involved in a mission church in Haugesund.

"Dear Muslim Brotherhood. I think you're swell. I hate infidels. Do you? [ ] Yes [ ] No."

"Tehran in 'constant contact' with Brotherhood, says Iranian FM," by Gomaa Hamdala for Al Masri Al Youm, January 31:

Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood maintain close contact, Iran's foreign minister has said in an interview with Al-Masry Al-Youm.

"Tehran is in constant contact with the Muslim Brotherhood," said Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi.

He said Iran is ready to promote its diplomatic relations with Egypt to the ambassadorial level, paricularly in light of the Muslim Brotherhood's recent ascendancy to power. The group's party, the Freedom and Justice Party, controls 43 percent of parliamentary seats.

Salehi told the paper that Iran would immediately send an ambassador to Cairo if Egypt agreed.

Some countries "are not happy about improving relations between Egypt and Iran," he said, adding that if Egypt, Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia cooperated, all would benefit.

Egypt and Iran severed official ties in 1979, when Iran underwent an Islamic revolution and Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel. However, relations have improved since a popular uprising forced former President Hosni Mubarak from power early last year.

The West keeps trying wish into existence modern, moderate, model Islamic states in Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya. It keeps not working as advertised. "Iraqi bill to ban travels to Israel," by Roi Kais for YNet News, January 30:

The Iraqi parliament is planning to pass a new bill banning Iraqis from traveling to Israel, Al Jazeera online reported Monday.

The bill was proposed following a number of incidents at the Bagdad airport. A local security officer working there said the passport had caught a number of Iraqi officials carrying passports with Israeli entry visas. The officer, speaking on a condition of anonymity, reported that the passports of some nine high-profile Iraqi politicians were clearly marked with Ben-Gurion Airport stamps as well.

According to the source, the politicians made their first trips to Israel after the Iraqi elections, held on January 2010, until around October that same year. The officer claimed that during questioning of the Iraqis, it was discovered that they were operating as envoys to Israel on behalf of Iraqi politicians.

In response to the report, Iraqi Parliament Member from the National Iraqi Alliance Mohammad Redha al-Khafaji declared that some 50 parliament members have already put their John Hancock [Irony -ed.] to a bill proposing to ban such trips to Israel. Khafaji emphasized that in the past, Iraqi senior officials had visited Israel secretly.

Meanwhile, a member of the parliament's judicial committee said these signatures do not necessarily mean that such a law should be passed.

Forbidding a citizen from traveling is against the Iraqis' right to freedom, as written in the constitution. However banning travel to Israel has nothing to do with politics, she told Al Jazeera, explaining that Iraq has never had any diplomatic or political relations with Israel, nor has it acknowledged the State of Israel.

One may argue it is against the constitution's guarantees of personal freedom, but the same constitution holds that no law may contradict Sharia. The spirit of the latter provision overrules the former.

Israel classifies Iraq, as well as most Arab countries, as an "enemy state." However, over the years senior Israeli officials have hinted on numerous occasions that despite having no official diplomatic relations with such countries, many times there are economical and security ties.

Pamela Geller has background on this important free speech case in a piece that ran at the American Thinker yesterday: "The Civilized Man vs. the MTA Savages." As she says there, "The very idea that the MTA would censor free speech in defense of the blasphemy laws under the sharia speaks volumes as to the success of the stealth jihad in America. I hope the MTA is prepared to go to the Supreme Court, because we are."

From the American Freedom Law Center:

American Freedom Law Center (AFLC), on behalf of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), Pamela Geller, and Robert Spencer, filed a request today for a preliminary injunction in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), seeking to halt MTA’s censorship of AFDI’s pro-Israel / anti-Jihad bus advertisement.

AFLC Senior Counsel Robert Muise commented, “Here, the MTA would rather violate a law-abiding, private citizen’s right to freedom of speech than offend those who support violent jihad against Israel and others. The American Freedom Law Center is committed to fighting this pernicious form of civilization jihad that undermines our fundamental rights.”

At issue in the lawsuit is AFDI’s pro-Israel / anti-Jihad advertisement, which states, “In Any War Between the Civilized Man and the Savage, Support the Civilized Man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.” This advertisement was offered as a direct response to an anti-Israel advertisement that was run previously by a pro-Palestine group. The MTA approved the anti-Israel advertisement. However, it rejected AFDI’s advertisement, claiming that it violated its policy against displaying “images or information that demean an individual or group of individuals on account of race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, gender, age, disability or sexual orientation.”

AFLC Senior Counsel David Yerushalmi commented, “The MTA’s ‘demeaning speech’ policy is operating here as a viewpoint-based restriction on our clients’ speech. Viewpoint discrimination is the most egregious form of content discrimination under the First Amendment.”

According to the papers filed this morning in federal court, the MTA, by policy and practice, has intentionally dedicated its advertising space on its vehicles, including its public buses, to expressive conduct. Pursuant to this longstanding policy, MTA has permitted a wide variety of commercial, noncommercial, public-service, public-issue, political, and religious advertisements on the outside of its vehicles.

For example, MTA permitted a religious group, Muslims for Peace, to run an advertisement on 90 public buses. The advertisement stated, “Muslims for Peace, Love for All, Hatred for None . . . WHY ISLAM.” The MTA permitted an atheist group, the Big Apple Coalition of Reason, to display an advertisement stating, “A million New Yorkers are good without God. Are you?” Recently, and as noted previously, the MTA permitted the display of a pro-Palestine / anti-Israel advertisement which stated, “Be on our side. We are the side of peace and justice. End U.S. military aid to Israel.” This advertisement was displayed at MTA subway stations throughout the City.

This past September, AFDI submitted its proposed advertisement to CBS Outdoor, which acts as the advertising agent for MTA. AFDI’s pro-Israel advertisement is political speech that directly responds to the pro-Palestine / anti-Israel advertisement. The anti-Israeli advertisement suggests that Israel’s military is the impediment to peace between the Israelis and Palestinians and that U.S. military aid to Israel also acts as an impediment to peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. In other words, the anti-Israel advertisement blames Israel, its military, and U.S. military aid to Israel as the cause of Palestinian terror directed against innocent civilians in Israel and abroad.

AFDI’s advertisement presents the message that there is no comparison or equivalence between savage civilian-targeting violence and Israel’s civilized struggle for survival in a part of the world where civilized behavior is overshadowed by terrorism, despotism, and brutality.

On September 21, 2011, CBS Outdoor, acting on behalf of MTA, informed AFDI by email that MTA had rejected the advertisement on the grounds that it violated its demeaning speech policy. The MTA’s rejection concluded with an invitation to AFDI to modify its message in some way so as to be acceptable to MTA.

By email on September 22, 2011, AFDI, through legal counsel, rejected MTA’s invitation to censor its speech and requested a “formal and final determination.” AFDI’s response made clear that the pro-Israel advertisement did not violate MTA’s demeaning speech policy and that MTA’s use of the policy to prohibit AFDI’s message violated the First Amendment.

On September 23, 2011, CBS Outdoor, acting on behalf of MTA, informed AFDI that MTA had formally and finally rejected AFDI’s advertisement on the grounds that it violated MTA’s demeaning speech policy. AFDI promptly filed this civil rights lawsuit.

Through the lawsuit and the recently filed preliminary injunction motion, AFDI is challenging the constitutionality of MTA’s censorship, which is suppressing the viewpoint AFDI is attempting to express in its message. That viewpoint is that U.S. foreign policy supporting Israel in the face of savage violence is the correct moral, political, and strategic choice for the leader of the Free World.

Muise concluded, “The Constitution does not permit the government, in this case the MTA, to take sides on political issues by silencing one-side of the debate. Here, the MTA is siding with the savage and silencing the civilized man, in violation of the First Amendment.”

The American Freedom Law Center is a Judeo-Christian law firm that fights for faith and freedom. It accomplishes its mission through litigation, public policy initiatives, and related activities. It does not charge for its services. The Law Center is supported by contributions from individuals, corporations, and foundations, and is recognized by the IRS as a section 501(c)(3) organization. Visit us at www.americanfreedomlawcenter.org.

A pack of about 40 Muslims gathered in front of the Norwegian parliament, shouting "Allahu akbar" while the bearded speaker, a known criminal named Arfan Qadeer Bhatti, in perfect Norwegian told the Norwegians:

We therefore demand that Norway immediately decide to withdraw her forces from Afghanistan before the war comes back to Norway. ... The Norwegian people should also know that their security will continue to be threatened as long as the Norwegian government continues its aggression against the Muslim people, and takes part in the occupation of Muslim countries. If security is dear to you, dear Norwegians, you should collectively demand that the Norwegian government withdraw Norwegian forces. And I stress: this is not a threat; it is a warning for your own good. (Crowd cheering 'Allahu akbar').

This is an extremely important case, as it touches on the nature of Sharia and the U.S. Government's role in promoting it, which gallops ahead in other areas today. I was one of the experts who testified for the plaintiff. "AFLC Attorneys to Argue Before Federal Appellate Court that AIG Bailout Was Unconstitutional," from the American Freedom Law Center, January 30:

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has announced that it will hear oral argument in Cincinnati, Ohio on April 20, 2012, in an appeal challenging the AIG bailout.  The case, which is captioned Murray v. United States Department of Treasury, et al., was brought by American Freedom Law Center attorneys David Yerushalmi and Robert Muise, representing the plaintiff, Kevin Murray, a taxpayer and former combat Marine who served in Iraq.  The federal lawsuit alleges that the U.S. government’s takeover and financial bailout of AIG was in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

Specifically, at the time of the government bailout (beginning in September 2008 and continuing to the present), AIG was (and still is) the world leader in promoting sharia-compliant insurance products.  Sharia is Islamic law, and it is the identical legal doctrine that demands capital punishment for apostasy and blasphemy and provides the legal and political mandates for global jihad followed religiously by the world’s Muslim terrorists.  By propping up AIG with taxpayer funds, the U.S. government is directly and indirectly promoting Islam and, more troubling, sharia.

In May 2009, U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence Zatkoff, who presides in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, rejected a motion to dismiss the lawsuit brought by the Obama administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ) and later rebuffed their efforts to stay the proceeding so they could avoid discovery and take an extraordinary appeal to the Sixth Circuit.

After a year of document requests, depositions of current and former government witnesses, and three separate subpoenas issued to AIG and the New York Federal Reserve Bank, Yerushalmi and Muise filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing that the undisputed facts demonstrate that the government, through its absolute control and ownership of AIG, and with tens of billions of taxpayer dollars, has directly and indirectly promoted and supported sharia as a religious legal doctrine in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

What makes this case all the more egregious is that this doctrine — sharia — also happens to be the underlying legal and military doctrine animating jihad against the West by Muslims from the Middle East, Asia, Russia, Africa, and even right here at home, as evidenced by the tragic Fort Hood massacre.  Each and every one of the domestic and foreign jihad terrorists has proclaimed allegiance to sharia and its call for “jihad against apostates and infidels.”

Two experts on sharia, sharia-compliant finance, and jihad testified at length through affidavits in support of the plaintiff’s case.  The government could not — and did not — oppose this expert testimony with any contrary evidence....

Read it all.

Be sure to listen in tonight: "Fired For Islamophobia — on The Jamie Glazov Show," and hear about how and why the Daily Kos said, "So long, Eric":

Join the Jamie Glazov Show on Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 8-9 pm Pacific (11-12 pm EST) on Blog Talk Radio. This week’s guests are:

Eric Allen Bell, a regular blogger for the “Daily Kos” — where he was recently banned for the crime of writing three articles that ran afoul of the mindset there, specifically naming “Loonwatch.com” as a “terrorist spin control network.” He is currently producing a documentary entitled “Not Welcome” that is about the backlash against construction of a 53,000 square foot mega mosque in America’s Bible Belt.

and

Dr. Tim Furnish, an author and Muslim world analyst who holds a PhD in Islamic history from Ohio State and who learned Arabic in the US Army; his areas of expertise are Islamic eschatology, Mahdism, sects and transnational movements. He has lectured at Joint Special Operations University, the Army War College, Ben Gurion University and the annual Mahdism Conference in Iran.

To read Robert Spencer’s report on the developments surrounding Eric Bell’s firing at the Daily Kos, click here.

To listen to the program, click here.

Or go to: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/radio-jihad/2012/02/01/the-jamie-glazov-show

Phone in #: (347) 857-1380

See you Tuesday night!

The superb Kamala has an excellent piece about a drearily typical whitewash of Islam and jihad that is going on today at the Santa Clara County Office of Education Library Materials Fair, and in all sorts of other places these days as well. "Silicon Valley Reads...a book of lies," by Kamala, January 22:

About three years ago, I stumbled upon a book called The Muslim Next Door. Written by Sumbul Ali-Karamali, an American-raised, Stanford-educated Muslim woman, this book aims to "clear away the misconceptions about Islam." The back cover effuses: “What if you could sit down at a kitchen table with an American Muslim mom and ask anything you wanted about her faith and religious practice?”

After reading the book, I was left with only more questions. The Muslim Next Door is filled with patently false, wildly misleading, and fully unsubstantiated claims about the very concerns many Americans have about Islam. Taking her at her word, that she would be open to answering questions about Islam, I prepared ten detailed questions regarding problematic aspects of her book. Perhaps, I thought, these were honest mistakes or omissions. Perhaps she would acknowledge and address the flaws in her book. The ten questions can be read here. They cover a wide range of topics, including:

• Ali-Karamali’s claim that Muhammad had sex with his favorite wife Aisha only when “she was well past puberty … somewhere between twelve and sixteen,” even though the most respected scholars of Islam – including one that she herself calls a “highly respected luminary” – quote Aisha as having said that her marriage was consummated at age nine.

• Her claim without citation that Muslims make up 3% of the US population, a grossly inflated figure in comparison to even the most optimistic credible estimates.

• Her explanation that one of Islam’s definitions is “peace,” a falsehood that even the Muslim Student Association of the University of Southern California labeled the “#1 Misconception” about Islam.

• Her argument that female genital mutilation and honor killings are antithetical to Islam, despite mountains of contradictory evidence, including rulings in an Islamic manual of law certified by Al-Azhar University in Egypt, which Ali-Karamali herself calls “one of the great centers for Islamic studies.”
  

At the time, author Robert Spencer was kind enough to post a link to these questions at his web site, Jihad Watch.

I politely asked Ms. Ali-Karamali several times – via both her publisher and another mutual contact who assured me that the message was personally delivered – to respond to the questions. Each time, I got no response. One person who had read my questions and also wanted some answers went to one of Ali-Karamali’s numerous promotional San Francisco Bay Area appearances and asked her, face-to-face, to address these questions: "I spoke with Karamali following her Commonwealth Club speech yesterday. She said she's familiar with this article but that it's affiliated with Jihad Watch, which is a hateful organization, so she won't answer the questions."

So much for getting the questions answered. At least, I thought at the time, Ali-Karamali didn’t seem to be getting increasing levels of exposure – unlike some other truth-challenged apologists for Islam.

Fast forward to 2012.

Sumbul Ali-Karamali’s book is about to become the centerpiece of a four-month-long, government-sponsored initiative called “Silicon Valley Reads.” An annual program in the San Francisco Bay Area, 2012 is the 10th anniversary, and its sponsors “are celebrating with an outstanding selection of books and events focused on the theme, 'Muslim and American: Two Perspectives.’” Ali-Karamali’s three-year-old book is featured as (ostensibly) one of those perspectives.

(The second “perspective” is delivered from another American Muslim woman, Willow Wilson, who converted to Islam and wrote a book called The Butterfly Mosque. While not even an attempt to address non-Muslim concerns about Islam, Butterfly Mosque’s view of Islam is hardly inconsistent with Ali-Karamali’s or those of other contemporary apologists for Islam. For Wilson, the “parts of Shari’a law that were premodern and problematic” were “no more so than the Old Testament. Islam had all the hang-ups, along with all the potential for resolution, of any ancient faith.” Wilson pins any negative impressions of Sharia on the Wahhabis, a common response from apologists unwilling to admit to the vast agreement among Muslim scholars (and Islamic schools of jurisprudence) about the most despicable aspects of Sharia. Wilson also dishes out disdain for “self-righteous” apostates who risk death to leave Islam, denigrating “the Ayaan Hirsi Alis and Wafaa Sultans who had made their fortunes by rejecting Islam.")

Back to Ms. Ali-Karamali, just look at the publicity and exposure that this program will bring her:

• January 25: On-stage interview with columnist Mike Cassidy (mcassidy@mercurynews.com) of the San Jose Mercury News, to be recorded and broadcast on KLIV Radio February 1

• January 31: Guest of the Santa Clara County Office of Education (a government organization) Materials Fair, open to all teachers and school librarians

• February 2: Discussion of her book at the Saratoga Library

• February 12: Discussion of her book at the India Community Center

• February 22: Television interview on CreaTV Channel 30 in San Jose with Janice Edwards (janice@creatvsj.org)

• March 3: On-stage interview with De Anza College President Brian Murphy (murphybrian@deanza.edu)

• March 10: Discussion of her book at the Morgan Hill Library

• March 16: Interview with Dale Bryant (dbryant@svcn.com), Executive Editor of Silicon Valley Community Newspapers, at the History Club of Los Gatos
  

• March 29: Presenting “What I’d like Teachers to Know about Islam and Muslims” at the Santa Clara County Office of Education

• April 29: On-stage interview with columnist Sal Pizarro of the San Jose Mercury News (spizarro@mercurynews.com)

Read it all.