From the Monsters in the Closet Department, via MEMRI, with thanks to Romy:
The April 1, 2005 issue of the online Saudi royal family weekly magazine Ain Al-Yaqeen included the transcript of a talk given by Arab League Ambassador Ali Muhsen Hamid to Britain before the Conservative Foreign and Commonwealth Council at the Houses of Parliament. In his talk, titled "Arabs and the West: Indispensable Relation," Hamid emphasized the cultural affinities between the Arab world and the West, and portrayed Israel as the major factor standing between them...."When Israel states that Arabs are terrorists the west quickly follows suit. When Israel says that democracy should be imposed on Arabs by force, echoes of this view begin to manifest [themselves] in some western media outlets and western think tanks. When Israel begins to demonize Iraq and Iran the west goes to war against the former and begins to issue threatening admonishments to the latter...
"What makes matters worse is that some people in the west see that the issues of democracy, good governance and the rule of law are inapplicable in the Arab world, because the absence of the foundations necessary for their implementation is an inherent part of the eastern psyche, and that 'eastern despotism' is the norm in the Arab political system...
"It is true that we do not yet have a Westminster style democracy, but we nevertheless have systems of government that are gradually opening out which do not close the doors to renewal and reinvigoration. It could have been the old Orientalist terminology which led the U.S. to adopt the initiative of 'democratizing' the Middle East from the outside, and to unofficially view Islam as an enemy of democracy.
"But Washington entered actively into the fray after the terrorist events perpetrated on its own soil in 9/11/01. This was not a good justification for its enmity towards Arabs and Muslims. Israel's hand in the matter is clear."...
"It is not my intention to intimidate anyone here, but I do not intend, either, to paint an imaginary rosy picture of Arab-western relations or fantasize about how wonderful these relations could soon be... Our pain and suffering is limitless. Now you, after having made Arabs and Islam your victims, are transferring your battle front to the Arab Muslim community [in the West]."
Read it all, if you have the stomach. Amazing that British MPs could have sat through this load of hogwash -- like good dhimmis, I suppose.
"When Israel states that Arabs are terrorists the west quickly follows suit."
Jewophoob? Americaopfoob? Or simply mad as a hatter? I do not need anybody to tell me that terrorists are often Islamists. The hand of Israel apparant in the WTC attack? The only hands apparant are those of the Islam and Saudi Arabie. Same goes for Madrid, for Darfur, for ...whatever, it is Islam all the way down.
It is the Islam and its followers that take terrorism to the west (en everywhere else the Islam goes, terror and terrorists follow it like flees a dog).
What I really find hard to digest is the fact that a men like this are allowed to adress the House of Parliament, this gives credebility undue to deranged views. Have they gone completely out of theirs minds in the UK?
Ernst: I think England is only just now awakening to their Muslum problem. Fear not, it's a "tight little island".
It amazes me how these Arabs can blame the Jews for virtually everything that is wrong in the Middle East.
And I love this "Our [Arab] pain and suffering is lmitless." And that's true, but not because we, in the west have had anything to say about how they govern Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, or any other Islamic state. They seem to do just fine on their own.
Considering that the speech was the official position of the Arab League, it's hard not to take this as a veiled threat of future bitterness to west. In fact it sounds premeditated. Is this Arab speak for an oil crisis?
If the US Congress had sat quiet and respectful thru one of these lie-fests I think we would have a whole batch of new guys in congress.
This was not a full scale address to Parliament in it's entireity (we don't do it like that) but a specialised talk to a small club of interested (or mightily bored) Conservative Party MP's of the Conservative Foreign and Commonwealth Council. http://www.cfcconline.org.uk/
Regretfully there are still a few old fools who continue to suffer from what is called Lawrence of Arabia syndrome. They fancy themselves riding a white horse into the desert sunset, burnous billowing in the wind. (Do burnouses billow, or have I got the wrong garment, anyway you get the idea)
We have many more Jewish MP's than Moslem, although after next month who knows.
BillR~ even if it isn't a threat of an 'oil shortage,' there is one in the works, as the oil fields start to decline in about another 20 years. Maybe by then we will have overcome resistance to nuclear power, the oil sands of Canada will be well under developement, and wind and solar will be producing more than a few % (however I think the latter work better with small communities, rather than state-covering wind farms that would only feed a single city).
"Our pain and suffering are limitless..."
Isn't this a veiled blasphemy against Allah, the only "limitless" thing in creation?
I suggest that the imams, mullahs and ayatollahs get a fatwa going against this fathead post haste.
How dare he slander the Most High by ascribing one of His essential attributes to anything lesser!
It's anti-Koranic! Contra-Hadithic hate-speech!
It's even Islamophobic!
What gets me about these Arab cry-babies is that they play the 'colonialism' card. Sure I complain a lot about the impact of British colonialism on the Subcontinent, but hopefully an experience of three hundred of political manipulations and direct rule by European powers is a little bit more grounds for upset than the post-Ottoman/WWI protectorates.
Pakistan is a graver threat to India than Israel (which I admit is no threat unless provoked) to its Arab neighbours. But does India blame the West or even Pakistan for the (many) internal problems? I mean claiming that Israel (which I realise is code for all Jews) were responsible for 9/11 is like me saying that Pakistani agents are responsible for poverty, illiteracy and the caste sytem.
I think East Europeans should start complaining about the Islamic 'colonialism' in the Balkans which have left Bosnia and Albania as anti-European/anti-Christian enclaves. Oh wait the Serbs tried to do that but Europe and the US for some bizarre reason sided with Islamic extremeists.
"but not because we, in the west have had anything to say about how they govern Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, or any other Islamic state. They seem to do just fine on their own." BillR
We had something to say, luckily for them, just look on those countries where we had nothing to say: Aghanistan, Algeria, Iran, Sudan.
"even if it isn't a threat of an 'oil shortage,' there is one in the works, as the oil fields start to decline in about another 20 years. Maybe" Gary.
That is the extreme optimistic version of oil peak, The most extreme pessimist is 2008.
But peak oil is just one side of the coin, the growth in oil consumption will eat the rest OPEC`S spare capacity this year at worst, next year at best, unless consumption stop growing or almost stop growing.
Last year the consumption grew totally more than Iraq produce, 2.7 mio. Barrels per day.
Read this for a bit more information:
http://www.faithfreedom.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8337
Gary :
Our reserves in oil shales are believed to be more than the current Saudi oil reserves.
Canada has enough tar sand to feed the demands of North America for at least 50 years.
Granted the price will be high, but the OPEC seems to be helping us out there.
We'll have oil when the Saudis are begging for alms.
Granny Weatherwax
Please do not minimise the anti-Israeli and thinly disguised anti-Semitic sentiment which is quite institutionalised in British politics. Hamid's insane rant is only the most glaring example of the climate of hate and incrimination directed at Israel by dozens of Parliamentarians.
Do you not remember Tom Dalyell accusing Blair of being manipulated by a cabal of Jewish advisors?
Or Jenny Tonge sympathising with Palestinian suicide bombers?
Or Chris Patten's steadfast refusal to investigate in the face of evidence of EU money supporting Palestinian terrorism?
Or Jeremy Corbyn's incessant demonisation of Israel?
Or Michael Haseltine, Kenneth Clark, and Douglas Herd who have spearheaded a new think tank that -- taking a cue from Alistair Crooke -- argues for European acceptance and negotiation with "anti-Israeli" groups like Hezbollah and Hamas?
I'm not trying to minimalise it Charles but perhaps I have been lucky to have spent much of my life in less anti semitic circles. Please look at my comments on the incident when Oona King was pelted with eggs last week. As my father was at the anti Mosley demonstration in Cable Street in 1936, and my family are from Bethnal Green I viewed this incident with much sorrow.
My remark about more Jewish MPs than Moslem was prompted by my weekly visit to mpacuk.org where the angry young bruvverz were getting very hot under the collar about the amount of Jewish MPs. Now there is an anti semitic organisation if ever there was one. My point being that not withstanding anti jewish prejudice the UK still has the benefit of a formidable Jewish presence in public life.
Speaking of European acceptance of Islamist groups:
"Has the time come for the EU to become more engaged with Islamic "faith-based" civil society in these countries?" the paper co-authored by EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and the bloc's Luxembourg presidency asked.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/565605.html
Gary this will surprise you but I'm with you on nuclear energy. Did you know, I'm sure you didn't, that the oil industry through it's foundations have actually been subsidizing the Green Movement's campaign against nuclear energy.
In fact corporations and their foundations are the major contributors to outfits like Green Peace.
It takes big bucks to buy, maintain and equip vessels like Rainbow Warrior, especially when they are equipped with the latest and most expensive high tech devices and Zodiacs, those millions don't come from college professors and activist students either.
However nuclear energy does produce it's own problems, as current events should demonstrate, besides lost plutonium (and there are enough "lost" plutonium fuel rods to make hundreds of nuclear weapons), there is no safe way to dispose of nuclear waste (Yucca mtn doesn't hack it, it sits astride a fragile fault), and nuclear power plants are extremely vulnerable to terrorist attack and sabotage.
Have you seen the latest 24 series, I don't know how accurate it is, but it raises issues and questions that need to be addressed. Imagine a "plane bombing" by a Cessna flying into Two Mile Island, Hanover, or any nuclear facility.
The Germans have recently developed a more effecient wind turbine, 17% of Europes electricity is produced by wind turbines, they have farms of the equipment in the North Sea and Baltic.
As regards Saudi Oil, I don't want to get into an argument about Peak Oil, and oil reserves, but something to think of, petroleum acts like a lubricant as plates slide beneath each other.
A debt is becoming due and payable for Saudi Arabia, it has already become payable and is being paid in Iran. Iran is experience increasing numbers of earthquakes and disastrous ones at that.
Saudi Arabia has another problem, water and a stressed water table. The Saudi Royals have subsidized farming, and the irrigation has so stressed the water table,that it is causing not only water shortage problems, but geological problems.
Most of Saudi Arabia's water is fossil water, over 10,000 years old, and there is no resupply to their aquifers, like oil Saudi Water is a non renewable resource.
Suggested reading (if you read anything besides Town Hall and Frontpage websites) is Sandra Mackey's, Saudis: Inside the Desert Kingdom.
In fact for those who want real insight into the mideast read all of her books, The Reckoning: Legacy of Saddam Hussein, The Iranians: Persia, Islam and the Soul of a Nation.
Ah yes, and consider among the supporters Sen Joseph Lieberman, and the neo cons. Strange is it not, that Jews, whom Muslims hate so much, would side with Muslim Bosnians? And Bosnia served primarily as a recruiting and training ground for mujahadeen (just as post invasion Iraq has become thanks of course to the neo cons).
Evan Kohlmann's book Al Qaida's Jihad in Europe: The Bosnian Afghan Network is scarey (this people left Bosnia and scattered all over Europe and America, one such is Todd Ismail Royer, a former assistant to Ibrahaim Hooper at CAIR, now a guest of the Federal Government.
Here is Evan's Homepage Global Terrorism Alert.
"Our pain and suffering is limitless. Now you, after having made Arabs and Islam your victims, are transferring your battle front to the Arab Muslim community [in the West]."
The Arabs have wrought their own "pain and suffering" by nurturing their pseudo-secular/theocratic despots and by tacitly approving their rule since they are Muslim. They may whine about their corruption but they secretly admire the power they weild. They are satisfied with a Muslim ruler that impliments sharia law and never admits to mistakes rather than a Western leader (who may or may not be Muslim, it matters very little) that impliments a European-style democracy but admits to its shortcomings. Sure, the literacy rates and living standard may be better under the Western ruler, but at what cost? Pride.
The Western ruler is weak (fallible) and he is an imperialist agent working for the Zionist-Crusader alliance. He is a cultural imperialist that is fomenting a fitna within the umma. By convincing the umma to emulate the kuffar, he is commanding the evil and forbidding the good. Islam is the best religion in the world, and as such, it must be the best political ideology in the world. This cannot be compromised. This is what Allah has ordered humanity to obey. Therefore, Islam, as a political ideology, cannot be truncated and it cannot be fused with other ideologies that come from the kuffar. To those who claim that Islam is compatible with democracy (Esposito), to those who try to synthesize it with Marxism (Qadaffi), they are all wrong. Changing the immutable words of Allah is shirk and it is an affront to the Muslim mind. The wealth that may come with imitating the kuffar is meaningless, but Islam is everything. No amount of money can save a Muslim from humiliation, but Islam can since it provides an outlet to release that frustration, on the kuffar.
The pain and suffering isn't limitless, but the humiliation is. The West humiliates the Muslim world. They are well aware that the Muslim world is failing but they just _cannot_ admit that the kuffar may be right. That would be blasphemy. How can the kuffar possibly be able to live a better life than the Soldiers of Allah? Why is it that that Allah's umma doesn't have the best technology, the best medicine, the most education, and most importantly, the best military? Why is this so? Is it because of imperialism, "culture", or Islam itself? Maybe, I'm being a little triumphal in the accomplishments of the West, as our man, Omid Safi suggests. But here's a question for Omid. Why should the West be so indebted to Islam? Name 20 books or documents that come from dar-al-Islam that have profoundly affected the West and that are comparable to the works of Rousseau, Kant, Mills, Paine, Joyce, Shakespeare, Twain, Wilde, Barth, Rashi, and Luther? Better yet, name 1000 of the best Muslim thinkers in history, and we'll name 1000 of our best from the Western tradition. There's a catch though. They can't be Jewish or Christian. So you cannot claim Maimonides to be one of your own. If anythng, this list will prove that the real triumphalists are the Muslims themselves who overexaggerate their historic accomplishments in order to make themselves feel better.
The threat and the end of the quote above is very telling. He implies that the only way the West can attone for its onslaught of humiliation towards the umma is if we accomodate them and take up dhimmi status. No restrictions on immigration and no restrictions on jizya. We need to share with them the fruits of the decadent West such as good university education because they can't provide it themselves due to the "imperialism". Why they would want what we have is beyond me. Perhaps, they don't think such things are ours to begin with. Universities should be theirs because Muslims "invented" mathetmatics. Philosophy should be theirs because of the contributions Avicenna and Ibn Rushd made towards the Western tradition. Everything belongs to Allah and his ummma. And if we do not provide this to them, the umma will get angry and inshallah will take revenge by waging violent jihad in dar-al-harb. And when that happens, the apologists will remind us to look at the root causes and reach out to the umma. Sharia will shortly follow.
Just a bit of misguided(?), liberal compassion, I guess. And don't forget the media's role in whipping up support for U.S. intervention by calling the conflict a "genocide" and covering up all traces of Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic's Islamist leangings.
Liberal U.S. Jews were the strongest supporters of America's pro-Bosnian policy, despite the fact that Serbia is pretty pro-Israel (thanks to its history of oppression by Croat fascists during WWII), and the fact that kindness and empathy for Muslims is usually just so much pearls before swine. I'm not sure whether I admire this indifference to pratical outcomes as a sort of idealistic nobility of spirit, or just another example of bleeding heart foolishness...
http://kafirnation.com/portal/boxx/knowledgebase.asp?iid=157&Cat=1
""OXFORD UNIVERSITY IN ENGLAND. THE PATRON FOR
THE CENTER OF OXFORD ISLAMIC STUDIES IS THE HEIR TO THE THRONE OF ENGLAND,
PRINCE CHARLES. EVEN AFTER SEPTEMBER 11th, WE MEMBERS OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES
WERE INVITED TO HIS OFFICIAL RESIDENCE FOR DINNER WITH THE HEIR TO THE BRITISH
THRONE. THE MAIN DENOMINATIONS OF CHRISTIANITY HAVE BECOME MORE
MUSLIM-FRIENDLY, ALTHOUGH THE MARGINAL GROUPS OF CHRISTIANITY HAVE NEVER BEEN
MORE ISLAMOPHOBIC. IN THE DAYS OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, PRINCE CHARLES WILL
BECOME THE SECULAR HEAD OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND IF HE BECOMES KING, AND LAST
YEAR HE WAS AWARDED A SPECIAL ISLAMIC PRIZE BY THE SULTAN OF BRUNEI FOR HIS
CONTRIBUTION TO CIVILIZATION AND THE DIALOGUE BETWEEN THEM. AND PRINCE CHARLES
SAYS HIS OATH OF OFFICE, IF HE'S ALLOWED, WILL NOT BE DEFENDER OF "THE"
FAITH, NOT THE CHRISTIAN FAITH ANGLICAN STYLE, BUT THE DEFENDER OF FAITH AS A
HUMAN EXPERIENCE, WHICH WOULD BE MORE INCLUSIVE, ET CETERA.
"a few old fools who continue to suffer from what is called Lawrence of Arabia syndrome...."
Lawrentian sympathies were based on a series of myths -- and at the end of his life, Lawrence himself did not believe those myths, but became scathing about the Arabs.
There were several strands to this: Man and Nature. There he was, Rousseau's Noble Savage, implausibly transferred to the Empty Quarter, or perhaps to the Wadi Sirhan, sunburnt skin despite the burnoose, and the gleeting camel, or a Rhadwanish Arab stallion, and the hospitality of the desert.
And there was the Romance of the Desert, and the Arabian Night Sky, and those stars low-hanging lush fruit in the bowl of night (oops, now we've mixed in worldly, funny, completely un-Arab Omar Khayyam), and the silence, and that blend of Freya Stark and St. John Philby.
A crock. But not of gold.
More Islamic oblivion to reality:
The Jews to this day worship a deity that explicitly stated in the 10 Commandments (inscripted in STONE) "THOU SHALT NOT KILL". The 10 COmmandments were issued to the Jews to pass onto the rest of humanity.
AS such there is no way they could have done such a thing as 9-11. Their religion ABSOLUTELY FORBIDS SUCH A THING...
I wonder, who would slay the 'infidels'?...
Could it be that Ousamah bin Looney Tunes who calls Americans 'infidels"? And who issued a fatwa for Muslims to kill Americans in every country where it is possible to do it???
Nah!!!!!!!!!!
"Our pain and suffering is limitless." He must be talking about the pain and suffering of the masses of non-Muslims that have been annihilated or changed from free men to slaves of dhimmis. Such hypocrisy and lack of consideration for non-Muslims.
Where are the financial and social leaders of Muslim lands? Are these lands existing under imperialist rule? Why aren't Muslim leaders creating educational as well as other opportunities for their peoples? The answer is obvious: they don't create, they just take.
Beagle-
Bullseye!
They think they know what pain and suffering are?
When U.S. and coalition forces do everything to behave and fight in a p.c. and transparent manner, they don't have a clue what a really infuriated America- and West- would do should they tempt fate and hit us harder than 9/11.
Which Muslim torure state (Syrian, Egypt, Pakistan, etc.) would even care what happened to prisoners at Abu Ghraib for a second, much less go into a year long mea culpa over some piles of nude guys, panties on their head 'humilation', a few (leashed) barking dogs, and other ultimately ineffective psychological warfare nonsense?
We screw up, we admit it, we correct it.
But, if the Islamic fanatics want to know the real meaning of 'a world of hurt', let them keep on going down the dismal path they plod.
To quote Baudelaire:
"One more step toward hell every day."
The West is patient to a fault.
But not suicidal after all.
Kali: Jai Hind!
This idiot Hammy Hamid is talking nonsense, and he knows it. Since when has either Israel or the West called all Arabs (and here, I thought it was supposed to be all muslims, anyway) terrorists? Can he prove anything he says?
Never mind. I'm clearing asking too much.
Geoff
Granny (or any other Brits):
If you are still minding this thread, where the hell was Michael Howard during this performance?
Waterdragon
The Council's mission statement is "The purpose of the Conservative Foreign & Commonwealth Council is to provide a forum for the discussion of international foreign relations to promote greater understanding and awareness. We hold monthly evening meetings in Westminster open to all members of the Conservative Party and friends. New members are warmly welcomed."
I cannot find a list of members of the Council, which is affiliated to the Conservative Party, but not actually part of it, or technically of Parliament itself.
Michael Howard is not listed as one of the officers or patrons (John Major and Lord Howe are) and he may not be a member.
You may be interested to know that the previous talk was by Timothy Spangler of the US Republican Party, on the subject of Understanding American Foreign Policy in a Second Bush Administration with particular reference to the appointment of Condoleezza Rice.