November 2005 Archives

Al-Arian walk watch: I think the Rumpled Academic is very close to walking, and thereby handing the jihadists and their fellow travelers in the U.S. a decisive victory. Why? Well, if the jury can't make a decision in nine days, I don't think a conviction is imminent. On the other hand, maybe I will be proven wrong: the fact that the defense is still angling for a mistrial may indicate that they don't think good news is in the offing. From AP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

TAMPA, Fla. - As jurors in the terrorism conspiracy trial of former University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian deliberated for a ninth day Wednesday, the judge denied a defense motion for a mistrial filed last week.

The motion by attorneys for Al-Arian and three co-defendants stemmed from jurors inadvertently seeing the results of a reader's poll printed in the Tampa Tribune Nov. 17. The poll showed that 87 percent of the readers who responded thought the jury would convict Al-Arian of being a key figure in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Although the poll was not cut out of newspapers provided to jurors as other articles about the trial have been, U.S. District Judge James S. Moody Jr. said in an order that he didn't think the exposure "created unfair prejudice" to the defendants.

The jury of six men and six women is deciding whether Al-Arian and the others are guilty of raising money to support the mission of the PIJ, a terrorist group blamed for hundreds of deaths in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Scott Burgess at the Daily Ablution (thanks to LGF) has some extraordinarily important information (here and here) about a recently discovered document that contains "an outline for a strategy - most likely drawn up by the Muslim Brotherhood - to combine jihad, surveillance, infiltration and propaganda (among other techniques) in order to 'establish the reign of Allah throughout in the world' via the creation of the Caliphate and its subsequent dominance."

A few introductory highlights:

This report presents a global vision of a worldwide strategy for Islamic policy [or "political Islam"]. Local Islamic policies will be drawn up in the different regions in accordance with its guidelines. It acts, first of all, to define the points of departure of that policy, then to set up the components and the most important procedures linked to each point of departure; finally we suggest several missions, by way of example only, may Allah protect us.

The following are the principal points of departure of this policy:

[...]

Point of Departure 5: To be used to establish an Islamic State; parallel, progressive efforts targeted at controlling the local centres of power through institutional action.

Point of Departure 6: To work with loyalty alongside Islamic groups and institutions in multiple areas to agree on common ground, in order to "cooperate on the points of agreement and set aside the points of disagreement".

Point of Departure 7: To accept the principle of temporary cooperation between Islamic movements and nationalist movements in the broad sphere and on common ground such as the struggle against colonialism, preaching and the Jewish state, without however having to form alliances. This will require, on the other hand, limited contacts between certain leaders, on a case by case basis, as long as these contacts do not violate the [shariah?] law. Nevertheless, one must not give them allegiance or take them into confidence, bearing in mind that the Islamic movement must be the origin of the initiatives and orientations taken.

Point of Departure 8: To master the art of the possible on a temporary basis without abusing the basic principles, bearing in mind that Allah's teachings always apply. One must order the suitable and forbid that which is not, always providing a documented opinion [? "Il faut ordonner le convenable et interdire le blâmable, tout en donnant un avis documenté"]. But we should not look for confrontation with our adversaries, at the local or the global scale, which would be disproportionate and could lead to attacks against the dawa or its disciples.
Point of Departure 9: To construct a permanent force of the Islamic dawa and support movements engaged in jihad across the Muslim world, to varying degrees and insofar as possible.

[...]

Point of Departure 11: To adopt the Palestinian cause as part of a worldwide Islamic plan, with the policy plan and by means of jihad, since it acts as the keystone of the renaissance of the Arab world today.

I believe I just articulated that 11th point in reverse. Read it all.

He's got an "active fantasy life." Involving real guns. "Sentencing puzzle: family man or radical Muslim?," from AP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

TACOMA, Wash. -- Is Zaid Mu'min a mainstream Muslim with "an active fantasy life" or a radical preparing for holy war? Nearly five hours of testimony failed to clear up the mystery.

In the end, U.S. District Judge Ronald B. Leighton went with the sentence government lawyers proposed, four years and nine months in prison for being a felon in possession of guns.

"Clearly this case represents a picture in contrasts," Leighton said Tuesday. "I don't know who the real Mr. Mu'min is."...

Assistant U.S. attorney William H. Redkey Jr. recommended the low end of the standard range after Mu'min pleaded guilty in April to being a felon in possession of guns, asserting that prison time was justified because Mu'min hung out in a south Seattle barber shop where radical Muslims talked "jihad smack."

Federal agents raided Mu'min's house on Nov. 18, 2004, as part of an investigation by the Seattle Joint Terrorism Task Force and found an AK-47 rifle with a scope, a Ruger .22-caliber pistol, a Glock .45-caliber pistol, a Browning .38-caliber pistol, a CIA manual on explosives, an Army sniper manual and instruction booklets on urban combat and the use of poisons to kill.

Mu'min's wife Jacquelynn said the guns were hers.

Mu'min told the judge he was just curious about different reading materials and used some of the tactical guides in his work teaching children how to keep themselves safe.

"I don't find or conclude that Mr. Mu'min is a terrorist or someone with terrorist leanings," Leighton said. But he added that Mu'min's explanations about the reading material and the guns "didn't resonate" with him.

Peter Coleman, 44, a government informant who admitted to the court that he committed robberies and assaults to support "a jihad movement," testified that he met Mu'min at the barbershop and learned that Mu'min was providing violent literature to the shop owner and giving martial arts-type jihad readiness training in a Seattle apartment complex.

However, under High's questioning, Coleman said he had never seen Mu'min provide jihad training, didn't know Mu'min provided any literature and didn't know why Mu'min was there.

Mu'min, who converted to Islam in prison in the early 1990s, told the judge, "I am an American. I am not a terrorist. I just happen to be a Muslim." He didn't deny talking to men in the barbershop but said it was while he waited for his Arabic instructor to arrive to teach a class in the shopping complex.

Redkey told the judge Mu'min was either a radical Muslim preparing for jihad, a mainstream Muslim with idle fantasies or a "sleeper" terrorist.

"I'm inclined to think he's got an active fantasy life," Redkey said. "My view is that 57 months in prison will be enough to find out who the real Mr. Mu'min is, and to deter others from indulging in active fantasies."

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses the identity and plight of Arab Christians:

The notion that Arab Christians have a difficult time in Israel is belied by any number of telling facts. Christian sites are scrupulously taken care of, and available to all. It has not been the Israelis who took over the Church of the Nativity, used it as a place from which to fire, and vandalized it and defecated within it -- but the usual "Palestinians" (it hardly matters to discuss which group "claimed credit" for whatever it was doing). It has not been the Israelis who have been terrorizing Christians in Bethlehem, leading to a steady drop in their numbers. So terrorized are the local Christian Arabs that it had to be the new Franciscan Guardian of the Christian Sites to tell the truth about the matter -- for only he could, given his position and authority, escape Muslim Arab punishment. The current mayor of Bethlehem is a classic islamochristian, swearing up and down the land (and to a clearly skeptical BBC interviewer) that there is "no problem" for Christians in Bethlehem, and pooh-poohing that little business about a declining Christian population, and grandly asserting that "of course" (or was it the Arab "for sure") his own children, now studying in -- guess where? -- the United States, would be returning to good old, safe-for-Christians, Bethlehem. Right.

The whole business of Arab Christians, outside of those whose numbers have heretofore been sufficient to guarantee a certain security, and hence a certain confidence, and hence a certain ability to tell the truth about Islam, is discussed in two of Bat Ye'or's books, "Islam and Dhimmitude" and "The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam." These books should be read and thoroughly and assimilated by all those who wonder where they all went. Where did the Christians of North Africa go, the land where many of the early Fathers of the Church came from? What happened to that Christian civilization that produced Tertullian and then St. Augustine of Hippo? And what happened, over time, to the once-entirely Christian Coptic land of Egypt after the Muslim Arabs invaded? And what happened to the Nestorians of present-day Iraq, and the Christians of Syria, and even those of the Arabian Peninsula? What happened to them?

Eurabia Update from the TimesOnline, with thanks to Interested:

An eye specialist has accepted undisclosed damages after claiming that he was forced out of his job by Muslim colleagues.

Joseph Erian took the United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust to an employment tribunal, stating that he was made to resign from the ophthalmology department of Pilgrim Hospital, Boston, after staff there discovered that he was a Christian. The tribunal, which started earlier this month, ended when the trust offered an out-of-court settlement and admitted that the problems surrounding Dr Erian’s case “were not his fault”.

Dr Erian pursued his claim privately after the British Medical Association refused to back the case, Jane Jelly, his lawyer, said.

More news about this meeting from the New York Times, with thanks to Ruth King:

BARCELONA, Spain, Nov. 27 - In a summit meeting marked as much by who was not there as who was, the European Union opened a two-day conference here on Sunday aimed at renewing its commitment to developing and democratizing Muslim nations on the Mediterranean's southern rim.

Many of the North African and Middle Eastern leaders who had agreed to come to the meeting announced last week that they could not attend. Their absence weakens European claims that their approach to the Muslim world - based on economic development, dialogue, strengthening the rule of law, and other forms of soft power - has greater credibility with the region's leaders than what they see as the Bush administration's more aggressive approach.

The conference was intended to bring together heads of state and government and other senior officials from all 25 members of the European Union, Israel and a dozen Muslim countries, including Egypt, Syria, Algeria, Jordan and Morocco.

Bangladesh jihad escalating. From AFP, :

CHITTAGONG, Bangladesh (AFP) - Ten people were killed and 21 badly injured in what police said were Bangladesh's first suicide bombings and the latest in a string of attacks by Islamic extremists.

The government and police accused the hardline Jamayetul Mujahideen, which wants to introduce strict Islamic law in the Muslim-majority democracy, of staging the attacks targeting the legal system.

"Jamayetul Mujahideen is using Islam's name to kill people. The government has taken a hard stand and will now take an even harder stand," Prime Minister Khaleda Zia said during a visit to the south.

"This is the first suicide attack in Bangladesh," national police chief Abdul Kaiyum said after the blasts in the southeastern port city of Chittagong and in Gazipur near the capital Dhaka.

"These were powerful homemade bombs. It seems Jamayetul Mujahideen have stepped up their attacks after we arrested many of their members."

Brigitte Gabriel traces the resurgence of Hizballah in "Hezbollah Rising" in FrontPage:

Hezbollah - the organization that America failed to deal with back in 1983 after it blew up Marines in Lebanon - is now flexing its political muscle, positioning itself to take control over South Lebanon and parts of the Bekaa Valley beside the juncture of Syria and Israel’s northern border. And it is in these very territories that Hezbollah now trains the Syrian and al-Qaida terrorists who flood daily into Iraq.

Our enemies are strengthening, networking and uniting for our destruction, and Hezbollah has emerged as one of the major arteries that fuels the terror that threatens Israel and the West. With the attention of most Americans focused on the insurgency in Iraq and the rhetorical warfare being waged in the halls of the U.S. Congress, Hezbollah’s bombardment and invasion of northern Israel last week went almost unnoticed.

For six hours, mortar shells and Katyusha rockets rained down all along the Israel-Lebanon border and down into the Galilee, driving thousands of Israelis back down into their bomb shelters. Five Hezbollah raiders were killed and more than a dozen IDF soldiers were injured. To the extent that any Americans even heard about it, it was mostly dismissed as just another flare-up of the Israeli/Arab conflict. Most Americans think Hezbollah is a domestic Lebanese problem, or a problem for the Israelis. This is a critical and dangerous mistake. Everything that Hezbollah does is intended to eventually harm the United States.

Fruits of Multiculturalism Update from Aftenposten, :

The Norwegian Police Security Service (PST) has other persons linked to the 2004 terrorist attack in Madrid and recent terrorism arrests in Italy under surveillance.

The PST believes that Norway is used by 'freelance' terrorists as a place to lie low and plan activities, newspaper VG reports.

By using false identities and convincing cover stories these persons can stay hidden in Norway for long periods, posing as asylum seekers, tourists, or by arranging unfounded family reunions.

It looks as if Mubarak isn't going to be saguine about the Ikhwan's electoral gains. From Reuters, :

CAIRO - Egyptian police have detained 1,610 members of the Muslim Brotherhood in the two days before the last stage of voting in parliamentary elections, a Brotherhood spokesman said on Wednesday.

Most of the detentions were in provinces which will vote on Thursday, said Brotherhood spokesman Mohamed Osama. A statement on the arrest of 71 leaders in Dakahlia province said the aim was to thwart the Brotherhood’s election campaign.

The article doesn't say so, but it is of course probable that he is an Anglican, since as we all know Christianity is just as prone to violence as Islam. From AFP, :

LONDON - British police said on Wednesday they have arrested a man as part of an investigation into suspected plans to buy weapons for international terrorist attacks.

The 28-year-old was detained on Tuesday morning near a service station off the M25 motorway in South Mimms, Hertfordshire, north west of London.

“The man has been arrested in connection with an ongoing enquiry into the suspected attempted procurement of weapons linked to international terrorism,” London’s Metropolitan Police said in a statement.

“The arrest was made following an intelligence-led investigation involving police and the security service,” it added.

In reality, they're not spies; they're collaborators. From the Washington Times, :

BAGHDAD -- Al Jazeera television yesterday aired a video of four aid workers kidnapped over the weekend, apparently being held by a previously unknown terrorist group called the "Swords of Righteousness."

The four -- two Canadians, an American and a Briton, members of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) -- sat with their backs against a wall, and looked calm.

A taped statement by the terrorists accused the four of being "spies of the occupying forces." Previous hostages charged with being spies have been beheaded or shot.

Condoleeza Rice compelled the Israelis to give control of the Egypt-Gaza border to the Palestinians, and in the last few days there have been numerous self-congratulatory articles about the "freedom" the Palestinians have felt while crossing to and from Egypt without elaborate security checks. But Israel's main objection to giving up control of the crossing -- that jihad terrorists and war materiel would be able to cross unhindered -- has not been addressed. And the exclusion of the EU from the process takes away just one more check against that eventuality. From Middle East Newsline, with thanks to Gabrielle Goldwater:

TEL AVIV [MENL] -- The European Union has been denied enforcement authority at the Palestinian Authority terminal along the Egypt-Gaza border.

An agreement for the operation of the Rafah border crossing has limited the role of EU personnel to monitoring. Under a Nov. 23 accord, released on Monday by the privately-owned Independent Media Review & Analysis, the EU would not have the authority to either detain suspicious people or confiscate baggage at Rafah....

The accord said an EU monitor could require a PA security officer to re-examine baggage or vehicles deemed suspicious.

But the EU monitor could not order PA officers to block the passage of either suspicious people or baggage. The accord said that an EU monitor unhappy with the performance of PA security officers could register a complaint with their commanders.

Monday morning there was snow, ice, fog, flooding, locusts, flaming frogs, pestilence, sword, you name it here in Secure Undisclosed Locationville, and the planes weren't running. So I took the world's longest taxicab ride through several states so as not to miss what may have been the last public appearance of one of the heroes of our age, Oriana Fallaci. Then, after finding to my surprise that The City That Never Sleeps does so sleep and that a cup of coffee would be hard to come by, I holed up in a hotel room and wrote this report until 6:30AM Tuesday morning. Here it is, with apologies for any sleep-deprived delirium contained therein, from FrontPage:

“We are gathered here tonight,” announced David Horowitz, “to honor a warrior in the cause of human freedom.”

Oriana Fallaci, who received the Center for the Study of Popular Culture’s Annie Taylor Award in New York Monday evening, has been a warrior for human freedom ever since she joined the anti-fascist resistance in 1944, at age fourteen. For over six decades, she has fought against those she has labeled “the bastards who decide our lives,” opposing all forms of tyranny and oppression, from Mussolini and Hitler to Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. She amassed a fearsome reputation as an interviewer, recounting of Ariel Sharon: “‘I know you’ve come to add another scalp to your necklace,’ he murmured almost with sadness when I went to interview him in 1982.” Other scalps on her necklace include that of Henry Kissinger, who termed his interview with Fallaci “the most disastrous conversation I ever had with any member of the press.” While interviewing the Ayatollah Khomeini, Fallaci called him a “tyrant” and tore off the chador she had had to wear in order to be admitted to his presence. According to Daniel Pipes in his introduction of Fallaci Monday night, she is also apparently one of the few who ever made the irascible old man laugh.

Today, at seventy-five years old, Fallaci still stands for freedom. She is suffering from cancer. She stated with her usual directness at the Taylor Awards ceremony: “I shall not last long.” But she has dedicated the four years since 9/11 to trying to awaken her native Italy, Europe and the world to the magnitude global jihad threat, which most analysts continue, whether from willful blindness, ignorance, or a misplaced strategic imperative, to misapprehend. Pipes noted that “she has her differences with the President. When he says that Islam a ‘religion of peace,’ she has said, ‘each time he says it on TV? I’m there alone, and I watch it and say, “Shut up! Shut up, Bush!” But he doesn’t listen to me.’”

And it isn’t, of course, just Bush. Fallaci spoke fervently Monday evening about how Western nations are selling their own homelands and culture to their mortal enemies. “We seem to live in real democracies,” she said, “but we really live in weak democracies ruled by despotism and fear.” Western elites – government and media – are paralyzed by fear, afraid to speak out against the life-destroying aspects of the Sharia law that Islamic jihadists want to impose on the rest of the world. The risk of offending Muslims is, in their calculus, apparently greater than the risk of national or civilizational suicide. Alexis de Tocqueville, according to Fallaci, explained that in dictatorial regimes, despotism strikes the body: the dissenter is tortured into silence. But in democratic regimes that have succumbed to corruption, despotism ignores the body and strikes at the soul. One is not tortured for dissent; instead, one is discredited for it. To affirm the patent fact that Islam is not a religion of peace today renders one “unelectable,” or “bigoted,” or beyond the bounds of what is fit to print. In despotic democratic regimes, Fallaci observed, everything can be spread except truth.

That is indeed the present-day situation. Most of the liberal and conservative mainstream not only will not feature trenchant criticisms like Fallaci’s of the violent and supremacist impulse within Islam; they will not even discuss them. Those who, like Fallaci, speak the truth about the motives and goals of the jihadists are vilified and marginalized, while the purveyors of comforting half-truths, distortions and lies fill the nation’s airwaves and newsprint. Fallaci herself faces the most frivolous of frivolous lawsuits in Italy for defamation of Islam; a Muslim group tried to have banned her searing, passionate response to 9/11, The Rage and the Pride.

Why does all this happen? In her speech Fallaci explained that it was to a great degree because “truth inspires fear.” When one hears the truth, one can only be silent or join the cause. It is a call to a personal revolution, an upheaval, a departure – perhaps forever – from a life of ease and comfort. So most will prefer not to hear the truth -- in no small part because of the difficulty of living up to it. Yet the real heroes, she said, are “those who raise their voices against anathemas and persecution,” while most succumb -- “and with their silence give their approval to the civil death of those who spoke out.”

“This,” Fallaci declared, “is what I have experienced the last four years.” She described how, since 9/11, the whole of Europe has become a “Niagara Falls of McCarthyism” – with the new Grand Inquisitors of the Left persecuting and victimizing all others. “In Europe, we too have our Ward Churchills, our Noam Chomskys, our Michael Moores, our Lewis Farrakhans.” And they are doing immense damage to the unity, will and cultural identity of the people. In Europe as in America, the new thought police ban Christmas observances to avoid offending Muslims; history is rewritten to depict Islam as having built a civilization of peace and mercy (regardless of the preponderance of evidence to the contrary), while Europe’s own Judeo-Christian civilization is regarded as “a spark of a cigarette – gone.” A spent force. In Leftist-controlled municipalities, police stand idly by while Muslim hooligans demonstrate their contempt for European society and culture by urinating upon and otherwise desecrating churches. Fallaci: “This is considered ‘freedom of expression’ – unless the offense is committed against Muslims.”

Welcome to Europe's future -- as a source for jihadist recruits. We now have the first European female suicide bomber. And apparently her Muslim husband put her up to this, since evidently he "organized her trip." "Female Belgian suicide bomber hit Baghdad," from UPI, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

BRUSSELS, Nov. 29 (UPI) -- A woman who carried out a suicide attack in Iraq two weeks ago was identified Tuesday as the first European female suicide bomber.

The Belgian anti-terrorism unit has confirmed that the woman was a Belgian citizen who converted to Islam after her marriage to a Muslim fundamentalist, news service RTL reported Tuesday.

American military forces identified the woman at a combat scene in Baghdad. She was carrying recently issued Belgian identity papers which revealed she had traveled via Turkey. There are no traces of her radical husband who is believed to have organized her trip.

Threats, arson, and now kidnapping in the name of Islamic values. Oakland is getting to look like Baghdad. "Clerk Of Liquor Store Hit By Vandals Safe After Kidnapping," from ABC7News.com, with thanks to Alone:

Nov. 29 - BCN - Oakland Deputy Police Chief Howard Jordan said today that a clerk at a West Oakland liquor store was kidnapped at gunpoint shortly before the store was gutted in an arson fire.

Jordan said police believe that Abdeo Hamden was forced from inside the New York Market at 3446 Market St. and into the trunk of a car just before the store was reported on fire about 1:20 a.m. Monday.

Hamden was found by a passing citizen who heard Hamden's screams from inside the trunk of a car in the parking lot of a Safeway store on San Pablo Avenue in El Cerrito about 1:40 p.m. Monday, Jordan said.

Jordan said the kidnapping suspects drove Hamden around for a number of hours before leaving him in the grocery store parking lot.

Hamden was unharmed and is being "cooperative" with police, Jordan said.

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses some prevailing misperceptions of Shi'ite Islam, and their sources:

The "typical representatives" of "Shi'a Islam" known to the editors of My Weekly Standard, and to the U.S. Government, have included such highly typical Shi'a (just the kind you find in SCIRI and DAWA and Moqtada al-Sadr's ranks, or the ranks of Hezbollah, or of the basiji) as these: Fouad Ajami, a Lebanese Shi'a who has been in the United States for 3-4 decades; Kanan Makiya, scion of a well-to-do Iraqi family, who has been out of Iraq for 2-3 decades; Ahmad Chalabi, scion of a very well-to-do Iraqi family who has been in the West for nearly fifty years; and Rend al-Rahim Francke, an American citizen since 1987, out of the Middle East for the past 30 years at least, a graduate of the Sorbonne and the University of Cambridge.

Ah yes, quite a collection of "representative" and "typical" Shi'a. That is why Reuel Gerecht and company can complacently place their hopes and dreams on the Shi'a without bothering too much about the Islamic Republic of Iran, taqiyya, or the fact that in Iraq it is (for some paradoxically) the Sunni Ba'athists who are in fact are less eager to return to the full-court press of Islam than the party leaders of DAWA and SCIRI -- although they are now forced to accept aid from non-Iraqi Sunni Muslims who want even more Islam than do the Shi'a, and hate the Shi'a for being "Rafidite dogs" (i.e. Infidels of the worst kind).

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses what might happen to Christian holy sites and other monuments in Israel if the Jewish State disappeared:

Israel's disappearance would have several consequences:

1) The Old City, all of Jerusalem, and all of the sites in the Holy Land that matter to the world's Christians (of course all Jewish sites, which should matter to the world's Christians) would be firmly in Muslim control. There might at first be noises about "allowing under the right conditions" some Christians to visit. But the islamization of the city would proceed. All synagogues and many churches would be razed, as they were in Muslim-ruled times past. The Western Wall would no doubt be fully incorporated into some grand new mosque. The remaining Christians and Jews would not at first be massacred -- those who had dared to stay. They might at first be treated simply the way, say, Copts are treated in Egypt. Tolerated, but under constant threat. Or as Maronites have come to be treated in their own country, Lebanon, where for more than a thousand years they withstood, in the mountains, the Muslim invaders. Or like Hindus in Pakistan and Bangladesh, under constant threat, fleeing when they can, enduring when they can.

2) The moral consequences to the Western psyche would be grave. All thinking people would realize, would come to realize, that after the entire history of the persecution and mass-murder of the Jews, that in the full light of history, a horrible injustice had been done. After two thousand years, the Jews had finally managed, after acts of fabulous, story-book heroism, to recreate their tiny state, their commonwealth, and managed to in-gather so many survivors of both European antisemitism at its murderous worst, and of Muslim anti-Infidel persecution at its cruelest – and now this.

Yet, despite these obvious facts, Europeans (and others as well) have permitted the growth of an entirely false narrative of the Arab Muslim Jihad (aided by Arab "islamochristians") against the inoffensive Jewish state. This narrative has been filled out with the steady daily drip of falsehoods in the press, the radio, and on television, by Arabs and Muslims, and by those who, out of diseased third-worldism or old-fashioned antisemitism -- further aided by the widespread ignorance of the most elementary facts of history – hope to benefit from it. Israel has become the permanent whipping-boy, and because the menace of Islam could not be faced, it was so much more comforting to believe that there was only the matter of Israel to set Muslim against Christian. So Israel was not recognized merely as one part of a Greater Jihad, but instead as the entire cause of whatever hostility Muslims felt toward Christians. And for obvious psychological reasons, for the mental stability of those who were engaged in this cruel abandonment, it made things easier for them if they could first convince themselves that the Israelis were the aggressors, the ones who were in the wrong. And, looking backward, it also allowed a new generation of Europeans to overcome any feelings of guilt that they might have experienced if they looked, steadily and whole, at the entire history of the Jews in Europe. Lacking the mental and emotional stamina, eager to flee from the truth, of course intent on accepting the Arab and Muslim presentation of events, they have never done so.

Jannati says that non-Muslims "cannot be called human beings but are animals who roam the earth and engage in corruption."

And you know what happens to those who roam the earth and engage in corruption: "The only reward of those who make war upon Allah and His messenger and strive after corruption in the land will be that they will be killed or crucified, or have their hands and feet on alternate sides cut off, or will be expelled out of the land" (Qur'an 5:33).

But when a Zoroastrian lawmaker (Iran's parliament reserves a few seats for religious minorities) protested being characterized as an animal, it was he who was charged with slander!

From AKI via Regime Change Iran, with thanks to Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi:

Tehran, 28 Nov. (AKI) - Iranian parlamentarian Kurosh Niknam, a member of Iran's Zoroastrian religious minority has been summoned to appear before the country's Revolutionary Tribunal after being accused of spreading false news and showing lack of respect for the authorities. The charges stem from comments Niknam made to protest against derogatory remarks against non-Muslims uttered by a close aide to Iran's Supreme Leader, Seyyed Ali Khamenei.

Non-Muslims "cannot be called human beings but are animals who roam the earth and engage in corruption." said Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati last week at a ceremony in north-eastern Iran to commemorate the 'martyrs' of the Revolutionary Guards and the war against Iraq (1980-88).

Nikam described the remarks as "an unprecedented slur against religious minorities."...

The Zoroastrian community in Iran is estimated to number some 22,000 - half the size of that in existence before the 1979 Islamic revolution.

This is the kind of thing that has happened to all the non-Muslim communities in the Muslim world, and explains why they are all so small.

The Thug-In-Chief of Iran imagines himself as an emissary of an apparently equally bullying deity. From Financial Times via Regime Change Iran, with thanks to Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi:

A leading website in Iran has published a transcript and video recording of President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad claiming to have felt “a light” while addressing world leaders at the United Nations in New York in September. Baztab.com – a website linked to Mohsen Rezaei, former commander of the Revolutionary Guards – said the recording was made in a meeting between the president and Ayatollah Abdollah Javadi-Amoli, one of Iran’s leading Shia Muslim clerics.

According to the transcript, Mr Ahmadi-Nejad said someone present at the UN, possibly from his entourage, subsequently told him: “When you began with the words ‘In the name of God’… I saw a light coming, surrounding you and protecting you to the end [of the speech].” Mr Ahmadi-Nejad said he sensed a similar presence.

“I felt it myself, too, that suddenly the atmosphere changed and for 27-28 minutes the leaders could not blink,” the transcript continues. “I am not exaggerating…because I was looking. All the leaders were puzzled, as if a hand held them and made them sit. They had their eyes and ears open for the message from the Islamic Republic.”

More anti-liquor jihad in Oakland. From AP, with thanks to Alone:

OAKLAND, Calif. - A liquor store was heavily damaged by an apparent arson fire Monday, just days after it was trashed by well-dressed vandals who told the owners to stop selling to black people, authorities said.

Police had no suspects in the fire, which was reported about 1 a.m. They refused to say whether they believed the blaze at New York Market was connected to vandalism last week at the store and the nearby San Pablo Market and Liquor in West Oakland....

Workers at both stores said that a group of about a dozen men dressed in suits and bow ties stormed into the shops, smashed liquor bottles and knocked over racks of food. At least one attack was captured on a video surveillance camera.

"In both incidents, the suspects entered the store and questioned why a Mulsim-owned store would sell alcoholic beverages when it is against the Muslim religion," police said in a statement.

The men, all of whom were black, told the owners to stop selling alcohol to black people, authorities said.

Investigators were looking into the incidents as hate crimes because the stores' owners are of Middle Eastern descent and are Muslims, Jordan said....

Minister Tony Muhammad, West Coast leader for the Nation of Islam, has spoken out against allegations the group was connected to the vandalism and condemned the acts. Oakland police said the group, known for wearing suits and bow ties, was not under investigation.

Police also said their investigation "concluded that the individuals responsible are not associated with the Nation of Islam, under the leadership of minister Louis Farrakhan, or its mosques and study groups."

From the UK's Sun tabloid (thanks to Twostellas):

MEDDLING cricket chiefs could ban the anthem Jerusalem from England’s home Test series against Pakistan next year in case it offends Muslims.

The English and Wales Cricket Board are worried about the words building the holy city "in England’s green and pleasant land”.

Why? Muslims should hardly be offended by the prospect of a "green" England. Look at, say, the flag of Saudi Arabia.

I am on the left, and the great human rights defender Natan Sharansky is on the right, in Jerusalem, November 20, 2005.

And what are the two books Sharansky is holding?

The EU has agreed to fight the jihad in tandem with Muslim Mediterranean states. Well, not exactly. They have agreed to fight "terrorism." But no one can quite agree on what that is. And no one dares ask how committed the Islamic countries will be to helping Europeans resist the jihad. All this will, I think, lead to not a little cognitive dissonance in the future -- unless, of course, it leads to the downfall of Europe first.

Tense? Sure. You try maintaining a posture of dhimmi subservience simultaneous with one of toughness on terrorism. You'd be tense, too.

From AFP, with thanks to JE:

BARCELONA, Spain (AFP) - Europe agreed a pact on fighting terrorism with its mostly Muslim southern neighbours, but clear strains remained after a tense Euro-Mediterranean summit clouded by the absence of most Arab leaders.

Discord over the definition of terrorism marked the two-day gathering, which was portrayed by the European Union as a bid to revitalize a 10-year-old partnership with its Mediterranean-rim partners.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, co-hosting the summit with his Spanish counterpart Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, hailed the accord on a Code of Conduct on fighting terrorism after extended wrangling over the wording.

"Terrorism can never be justified," Blair said addressing a news conference to close the summit. "This is a very important moment both for the European countries and for our other colleagues round the table."

For the EU states, terrorism can never be justified even as a means of winning self-determination, but the Arab states wanted the right to resist occupation.

So terrorism is OK against Israel?

And notice, again, that "jihad" isn't even on the radar screen. The Europeans are playing with fire with all their vague, namby-pamby, multiculturalist terminology. If they just called things by their right names, they wouldn't be in this fix.

I wonder if they will be making sure that every juror believes that Islam is a religion of peace. From AP, with thanks to Sheik Yer'mami:

WASHINGTON - Federal prosecutors want to know the religious beliefs and practices of potential jurors who will decide whether the only person charged in the United States in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks receives the death penalty or life in prison.

In a court filing Monday, the prosecutors listed 89 questions, many with multiple parts, designed to discern the views that prospective jurors have about Islam, the death penalty, the U.S. government and the defendant, Zacarias Moussaoui, 37, a French citizen of Moroccan descent.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema will decide which questions will be asked. She already has decided that 500 potential jurors will be summoned to the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Va., on Feb. 6 to begin what is expected to be a month-long jury selection process.

In FrontPage this morning I expand upon my initial observations on my recent trip to Israel:

Israel has become the world’s new South Africa: the villain du jour, the universal oppressor, the whipping-boy of the United Nations. Its foes have even applied the South African concept of apartheid to its policies. The global Left eagerly propagates the view that Israel, which has been repeatedly attacked by its neighbors, is by virtue of its very existence actually an aggressor state. The only free Western-style democracy in the Middle East (with the increasingly shaky exception of Turkey on the northern margins of the area) has received more world opprobrium than the brutal regimes of Assad, Ahmadinejad, and even the lamented (at least by Ramsey Clark) Saddam Hussein.

Boosters of the Palestinian cause routinely refer to Israelis and their supporters as Nazis. In January 2005, Iqbal Sacranie of the Muslim Council of Britain reached the apex of moral equivalence. He announced that his group would boycott a commemoration of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp: “we have now expressed our unwillingness to attend the ceremony because it excludes ongoing genocide and human rights abuses around the world and in the occupied territories of Palestine.”

Yet although Muslim spokesmen such as Sacranie, the international Left, and many others -- including some of the Arabic-speaking Christians with whom I am in daily contact -- believe fervently that Israel is the aggressor against an innocent and aggrieved Palestinian people, and that the conflict is wholly and solely about “stolen land,” the facts are otherwise. In reality, Israel is at the front line of the global jihad movement. Ever since the State of Israel was founded in 1948, and even before, it has faced jihadist opposition from groups adamant in their determination to destroy it utterly. Yet I expect that a poll of Americans would find only a tiny minority would affirm that Israel faces the same foe, with the same ideology, as the one the United States has faced since 9/11.

I was recently offered, and immediately seized, an opportunity to see for myself. Last week, I had the chance to:

• Explore the Muslim Quarter and other sections of Jerusalem’s Old City, the world’s holiest place and largest tourist trap. The ancient streets are barely passable, crowded as they are with tiny shops (all holding pretty much the same inventory, with a few minor variations) in which canny Muslim entrepreneurs sell Christian religious articles to eager Western visitors (“And because I love you like a brother, and see that you appreciate the finer things, I will give you a special price…”). One told me how happy he was to see tourists again, after years of intifada had driven them away.

• Visit and pray at the Western Wall, site of so much human longing.

• Peer into Syria from an Israeli bunker on the Golan Heights. The mountainous Golan is breathtakingly beautiful, although that beauty is broken here and there by the remnants of the 1967 and 1973 wars: bullet-riddled bunkers, rusted hulks of war machines. But most of this has been cleared away, for Israel has no room to spare; virtually every inch of land right up to the present border with Syria is cultivated. In stark contrast sits the Syrian ghost town of Quneitra, which the Syrians have left abandoned as a monument to Israeli atrocities ever since the Israelis withdrew from it in 1974. The international media has swallowed this tall tale as well, despite abundant evidence that Quneitra was in ruins before the Israelis ever got there.

Meet the new Europe, same as the old Europe. Note that this call was not just for destroying the Jewish State and rendering the Jews dhimmis. It was for killing them -- probably because they would be considered kuffar harbi: unbelievers at war with Islam.

And this cassette, containing the call, was not sold furtively by some greasy multi-pierced skinhead who would repulse all those who love home and family. This cassette was sold in a mosque in Stockholm, Sweden. And it was sold without any reported uprising from the Vast Majority of Moderate Muslims in that mosque, protesting against the demonization, vilification, and calls to murder their fellow People of the Book, for whom they have so much respect, the Jews. Instead, mosquegoers apparently let it all pass, perhaps due to long years of conditioning about the evil qualities of the Jews as shown in the Qur'an.

From Israel National News, with thanks to Twostellas:

(IsraelNN.com) Swedish Radio News (SRN) reported today that a Stockholm mosque is selling cassettes calling for a genocidal holy war against the Jews. According to SRN, the cover of one of the cassettes shows a picture of the Statue of Liberty draped in a burning American flag.

Sales of cassettes promoting genocide are illegal in Sweden. A spokesman for the mosque blamed volunteers for stocking the mosque bookstore with the cassettes.

Of course, we knew nothing, we never saw it before, etc. etc. etc.

1938 update from AP, with thanks to Mackie:

VIENNA, Austria — Top Iranian officials met less than two months ago to weigh whether to restart their country's uranium enrichment program -- a possible pathway to nuclear arms, according to a confidential report cited by diplomats Friday.

The diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information, referred to a report being circulated among the 35-board members of the International Atomic Energy Agency citing an Iranian government source on his country's plans for enrichment.

The four-page report cited the Iranian Foreign Ministry source as saying chief Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani met with members of the country's nuclear negotiating team in late October to discuss the timing of resuming the enrichment program, one of the envoys told The Associated Press.

"It wasn't a particular suggestion that they were ready to do it anytime soon," the diplomat said. Still, he said the meeting was yet another indication that the Iranians were intent on keeping control of the enrichment process -- at least before the prospect was floated several weeks ago of new negotiations with key European powers meant to keep the technology out of their hands.

I haven't wanted to do this, but I have been requested now to do so, as there is an ongoing partisan rumble in the comments field that detracts from what we are trying to do here as much as do the intemperate comments CAIR tried to hang me with (although I didn't write them) and the jihad apologists who also drop in from time to time.

The present conflict revolves around the assumption that because Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald's positions are not recognizably or currently of the "Right," they must be of the "Left." Or that if someone, anyone, is not part of the One, he must be part of the Other.

Beyond the question of Hugh's sense of direction, some are -- and have been for months -- continuing to try to make this site a forum for partisan wrangling, despite bans, threats to ban, mild entreaties, etc. This is as if I had set up a tent in which I could speak my mind, and others set themselves up at its entrance, pushing their own agendas. This is not a matter of free speech -- it is all happening on my nickel only.

In any case, please try to read without prejudice. Both Hugh and I -- Hugh much more eloquently and persistently than I -- have argued that the jihad threat demands a breaking and reconstruction of paradigms. The threat does not come from the "Left" or the "Right," and those hoary old methods of distinguishing the Good Guys from the Bad are now causing more confusion than illumination, more harm than good, more heat than light. They are not helpful. They are getting in the way.

Kerry was clueless. He wanted to give nuclear fuel to Iran. In saying that I must be a Republican, right? Bush is clueless. He continues to allow us to be dependent on the Saudis without making any move to free us from them. In saying that I must be a Democrat, right?

In March 2003, just before Operation Iraqi Freedom began, I wrote an article criticizing as unrealistic the President's plan to bring democracy to the Middle East. I have linked to it here many times. Alas, it seems to have been taken down, but here is a cached link.

I based my argument on the nature of Islam and the Sharia, saying that it was unlikely that Muslims in large numbers were going to forsake what they saw as the law of God for law based on human consensus.

Hugh has expanded on this point in many, many columns. Some have asked if I agree with them. I find the question astounding (which is why I have so far not answered it), since I gave him his position on the Board of this organization of which I am the founder, and I edit and post his columns myself. But from what I have seen, Hugh's position has been persistently misunderstood and misrepresented by those who cannot see out of the old Left/Right box.

Is the idea that the democratization of Iraq is the wrong way to go about defeating the global jihad a "liberal" position, since liberals oppose the ongoing Iraqi adventure for utterly different reasons? Only if your worldview is irremediably bipolar. Why? Speaking for myself, note that my March 2003 article touches on none of the contemporary Leftist concerns: no body counts, no quagmires, none of it. The war, you'll recall, hadn't even started when I wrote it. Yet it is not foursquare with the Republican program. Also, I have criticized Bush and Rice, and allowed them to be criticized in articles here, quite harshly for their persistent misapprehension of the problem we face.

So is all this "Leftist" or "Rightist"? If you answer one or the other, you're not paying attention. Is it possible? Could it be? Might a third alternative be possible -- even desirable? Might our survival as a nation and a civilization demand some new, courageous thinking, and a recognition that all -- all -- our parties and factions are threatened by this thing, threatened mortally, and that none of them -- none -- have yet come to grips with the implications of that? And that since none of them have done so, it is manifestly time for some new formulations?

Other issues? I refuse to discuss them. Are we going to argue about tax rates while the barbarians fly airplanes into our strongholds and use our own tolerance and good will to subvert us from within?

This is not to say, finally, that both sides are equivalent. While I have criticized Bush and Rice, I do believe that at this point the Right is generally less sold out to the jihad than the Left. This opinion is based on evidence, not emotion, and I make no apologies for it. The fact that my publishers are all of "the Right" is one indication of its being correct. I also devoted an entire chapter of my book Onward Muslim Soldiers to this fact. It was called "Everybody must get stoned: the strange alliance between radical Islam and the post-1960s Left." If, however, the Left began to see that its pet causes are mortally threatened by the jihad, and hence the value of defending Western civilization, no one would be happier than I.

Of course, all this will not sit well with partisans of either stripe. My negative reference to the Left in the above paragraph will no doubt soon induce some regular commentators to declaim, yet again, about the depredations of Bush, which supposedly outweigh 1,000 Leftist appeasers and fifth columnists. The fact that I have noted those depredations on many occasions will never be good enough.

All in all, Left, Right, and center, I am going to continue resisting the jihad, in the name of the equality of dignity of all people -- including the non-Muslims and women who would lose that equality in the Sharia states the jihadists want to establish.

And I ask you all to mute your partisanship and try to think of ways we can beat this thing instead of ways we can beat each other. Neither side of the American political divide has been or is perfect on this issue. So what? It is not time for recriminations. It is time for survival.

Fjordman profiles those who are asking this question and answering in the affirmative, arguing that criticism of Islam is equal to Nazi antisemitism, and then explains why the analogy is faulty on so many levels. A sampling:

If criticism of Islam causes Muslims to behave badly, then what has 2,000 years of persecution done to the Jews? Surely the Holocaust and other pogroms in Europe would have made Jews start their own Jihad? Then how come Jews don’t go on the rampage throughout Europe? The comparison between Muslims today and Jews 70 years ago is nonsense, and needs to be confronted and dismissed as such. It is an insult to the Buddhists who are beheaded in Thailand, the Christians who are persecuted in Indonesia, the Hindus who are killed in Pakistan and the Europeans who are no longer safe in their own cities. But above all, it is an insult to the memory of the millions of teachers, artists, writers and intellectuals who were murdered in Nazi-controlled Europe.

Read it all. Please.

Dutch dhimmitude galloping ahead. "Hague imam did no wrong, says OM," from Expatica, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

AMSTERDAM – The Public Prosecutor's Office (Openbaar Ministerie) is not taking legal action against Sheikh Fawaz, an imam at the 'As Soennah' mosque in The Hague, a spokesman said on Thursday.

MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali (VVD) had reported Fawaz to the police, complaining that she had been threatened when he wrote on an internet site that Hirsi Ali would be "blown away by the wind of the changing times'' and that "the curse of Allah" awaited her.

The public prosecutor in The Hague did not find anything criminally liable in these statements. Reacting on Wednesday, Hirsi Ali said that she totally disagreed the prosecutor’s decision.

Meanwhile the independent MP Geert Wilders has tabled questions to Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner about the affair, partly because Fawaz had added in an interview in the daily newspaper 'Algemeen Dagblad ' that he did indeed mean his letter as a threat.

Not that this should make anyone rethink the marvelous open borders of Western countries. Oh, no. That would be a violation of the natural human right everyone has to enter a modern Western pluralistic state, even if he wants to subvert it from within.

"Bin Laden WMD chief once lived in B.C.," from the National Post, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Osama bin Laden's chief weapons of mass destruction broker is a former resident of a Vancouver suburb, a Federal Court judge disclosed yesterday in ruling on a related case.

In a 105-page decision handed down in Ottawa, Judge Eleanor Dawson said Canadian intelligence investigators had determined that Mubarak Al Duri, an Iraqi, had once lived in Richmond, B.C.

The ruling does not say when Al Duri, whom the judge said was "reported to be Osama bin Laden's principal procurement agent for weapons of mass destruction," had lived in Canada.

But she said Al Duri had associated with Toronto-based terror suspect Mohamed Mahjoub after December, 1995, and may have also associated with terrorist Essam Marzouk, who lived in B.C. until 1998.

Silly Israeli dhimmitude from Israel Insider, with thanks to K.:

Red Cross partner organizations of Israel and the Palestinian Authority have reached an understanding on a proposed new symbol that could help pave the way for the Jewish state's entry into the Red Cross movement, officials said Friday.

The Israeli society known as the Magen David Adom, or Red Shield of David, will sign a deal with the Palestinian Red Crescent in Geneva on Monday securing acceptance of the "red crystal" - a new emblem the international aid agency is considering to recognize alongside the red cross and red crescent, the Swiss Foreign Ministry said.

The agreement will help pave the way for the acceptance of the new emblem by the 192 countries that have signed the Geneva Conventions on the conduct of warfare when they meet in special session Dec. 5-6 in Geneva, said the ministry, which is hosting the conference.

Israel has been denied membership in the humanitarian movement for nearly six decades because it rejects the red cross used in most countries and the red crescent preferred by Muslim countries. The Palestinian society only has observer status because it is not under the jurisdiction of a recognized state.

"The route is now open for the adoption of the 'red crystal'," Noam Iftah, president of Magen David Adom, said in an interview with the Geneva daily Le Temps. In return, he explained, the Magen David Adom would recognize the Palestinian group's unique capacity to operate in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Instead of a red Star of David that the Israeli society uses to identify ambulances and medical workers at home, Israel has proposed that the Magen David Adom could use the new emblem to protect medics in armed combat. The new emblem is called a red crystal by its proponents.

It is a square standing on one corner, with a blank white interior and a thick red border.

"Here we have the chance to rectify an injustice that has gone on for too long," said Itzhak Levanon, Israel's ambassador to the U.N.'s European headquarters.

Sure. By groveling.

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald decries the ongoing dhimmi calls to ignore the elements of Islam that incite violence and call for subjugation of infidels -- calls that are still eagerly heeded by liberals and conservatives alike:

The Pakistani Senate Chairman, Mohammedmian Soomro, “said Islam, like all other religions, stood for tolerance but is unfortunately being misunderstood in some quarters…” – from this news item

Misunderstood. In order to understand Islam properly, we are to ignore over a hundred passages in the Qur'an, including all of Sura 9. We are to ignore many hundreds of Hadith, as collected and winnowed and judged to be the most "authentic" by al-Bukhari and Muslim. We are to ignore all the events in Muhammad's life that preach hatred and violence, looting and killing and seizure and enslavement of Infidels, and violence as well against all those who dared to cross or mock or behave in an insufficiently submissive way to Muhammad.

We are to ignore reality. Infidels everywhere must not dare to read Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira -- or rather, they may read the Qur'an, but without comprehension, without any glosses, without any understanding of abrogation, without being able to figure out that the half-dozen phrases that sound nice on first reading ("There shall be no compulsion in religion") may have been abrogated (and will those organizations now mailing out free Qur'ans be sure to include a little sheet explaining "naskh" or abrogation to their innocent audiences?). Or they may mean, to Muslims, something quite different from what we may take them to mean. Simply ask yourself: does the inferior status, the at times unendurable status, of being a non-Muslim in a Muslim-ruled land itself not constitute "compulsion" which, over time, led those attempting to shed that status to become Muslims? And isn't that dhimmi status quite enough "compulsion" even without going into the real meaning of the phrase?

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald, ever ready to be helpful, offers a State of the Union Speech to the President, should he decide to reconfigure America's military posture to bring it more into line with the realities of the global jihad:

Leaving Iraq does not have to be accompanied by defeatist rhetoric, or by any language that will give the jihadists grounds to claim victory in the words of the President himself. Let's put it into a State of the Union Speech:

"Today is an important day in the history of America's war to make the world safer for freedom. In Iraq, the American people can be proud of their soldiers. In three weeks they took down a tyrant who had murdered hundreds of thousands of his fellow Iraqis, a man who had been in power for a quarter-century, and whose regime seemed prepared to rule for another quarter-century. And we did far more than remove a regime. Our soldiers built schools and hospitals. They helped build water-treatment plants, and build or rebuild electricity grids. We cleared, with our allies the British, Iraq's port of Umm Qasr. We did this, we did that. Here is the list of just some of the things our soldiers and civilians in Iraq managed to do (here the President can fill out his speech with some more details about American accomplishments in Iraq, ad libitum).

Befuddled multiculturalism once again displays the inequality and prejudice at its core. From the Los Angeles Times, with thanks to Paul:

WASHINGTON - At the U.S. prison for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, everyone gets a Quran, but no one gets a Bible.

Saifullah Paracha, a 58-year-old former Pakistani businessmen with reputed ties to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, has been in U.S. custody since 2003. Like the other inmates at Guantanamo, he has a copy of the Quran. But he also wants an English translation of the King James Version of the Bible.

That's a funny turn of phrase. Does that mean he wants a KJV, which is in English after all, or a KJV rendered into modern English? And why a KJV at all, rather than an Urdu or modern English translation? Has he somehow fallen under the influence of those Protestant groups who believe, in defiance of all the evidence (and please don't argue about it here) that the King James Bible is the only reliable English translation?

Paracha believes that because the Bible is one of the scriptures accepted in Islam, he is entitled to a copy to read in his small wire-mesh cell. But after his lawyer shipped him a Bible, along with two volumes of Shakespeare, prison officials confiscated the package. Paracha's American lawyer filed suit in U.S. District Court in Washington, demanding that Paracha be given the Bible and copies of Hamlet and Julius Caesar. The government responded that certain books are kept from prisoners because they could "incite" them....

Yes, the Bible is likely to incite him in a way that the Qur'an never could. That's why there are so many Bible-quoting terrorist groups around the world today, and not a single one that justifies violence using the Qur'an. Oh, wait...

A recent government lawsuit filed in response said none of the more than 500 prisoners is permitted any special treatment.

Does that mean that none can receive anything from outside? No other books? And his lawyer didn't know this?

And government lawyers said Paracha has not shown that the practice of his religion, Islam, has been "substantially burdened" because he does not have an accompanying copy of the Bible.

Certainly it's true that if Paracha did get his Bible, he would likely encounter numerous Muslim fellow inmates ready to explain to him, in line with traditional Islamic doctrine, that what he was reading was not the real thing, but an untrustworthy document thoroughly corrupted by Jews and Christians to reflect their false teachings.

They also argued that letting Paracha have a Bible would set off a "chain reaction" among the other 170 detainees.

Is it 500 or 170? Anyway, yes, they might all request Bibles, and where would we be then? They might turn into...(gasp)...Christian fundamentalists!

Europe, welcome to your future. Another Eurabia update: a group that has been characterized as an Al-Qaeda recruiting ground is planning to build a massive mosque in London for the 2012 Olympics. This mosque will be so big, it will hold more people than Fenway Park. With its surrounding buildings, it will be bigger than almost every American stadium. It doesn't look as if British Islam is on the defensive to the slightest degree since July 7, despite loud laments to the contrary. From the TimesOnline, with thanks to all who sent this in:

A MASSIVE mosque that will hold 40,000 worshippers is being proposed beside the Olympic complex in London to be opened in time for the 2012 Games.

The project’s backers hope the mosque and its surrounding buildings would hold a total of 70,000 people, only 10,000 fewer than the Olympic stadium.

Its futuristic design features wind turbines instead of the traditional minarets, while a translucent latticed roof would replace the domes seen on most mosques. The complex is designed to become the “Muslim quarter” for the Games, acting as a hub for Islamic competitors and spectators.

“It will be something never seen before in this country. It is a mosque for the future as part of the British landscape,” said Abdul Khalique, a senior member of Tablighi Jamaat, a worldwide Islamic missionary group that is proposing the mosque as its new UK headquarters.

Tablighi Jamaat has come under scrutiny from western security agencies since 9/11. Two years ago, according to The New York Times, a senior FBI anti-terrorism official claimed it was a recruiting ground for Al-Qaeda. British police investigated a report that Mohammad Sidique Khan, leader of the July 7 London bombers, had attended its present headquarters in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. In August, Bavaria expelled three members of the organisation on the grounds that it promoted Islamic extremism.

France, welcome to your future. At least at this point there are still protests. Eurabia update from The Telegraph, with thanks to P.E.:

The family and friends of an 18-year-old girl, doused with petrol and set alight in broad daylight by the man she refused to marry, led a silent march through a Parisian suburb yesterday.

Chahrazad Belayni is currently fighting for her life in intensive care after suffering severe burns on 60 per cent of her body. She is being kept in an artificial coma.

On the morning of Nov 13, the Moroccan teenager was attacked while walking near her home in Neuilly-sur-Marne in the north eastern Seine-Saint-Denis suburb.

She knew her assailant. He was a former workmate of Pakistani origin who was angry about her refusal to marry him. The man and a suspected accomplice are on the run.

"This man asked her to marry him three times. He didn't understand her refusals and wouldn't leave her alone," said Sonia, a classmate. "Chahrazad was a beautiful young girl, very soignée and coquettish. He hurt her more than most by physically damaging her."

Several hundred people marched to the town hall yesterday behind a smiling portrait of Chahrazad and a banner calling for "justice, liberty, respect".

"We are here to denounce this horrible act," said the girl's brother, Abdelaziz, who criticised the lack of public outcry following the attack.

"We are here, not to call for revenge but that justice is done. We are here to denounce all violence against women: women must be able to say No or Yes."

Yes.

Bangladesh jihad update. "One killed in Chuadanga bomb attack: Threat to blow up US, EU missions, kill SC judges," from The New Nation, with thanks to Nicolei:

Embassies of the USA and the European Union, including the UK in Dhaka received e-mail threat yesterday that members of the Al-Qaida would blow those [sic] up.

An e-mail was sent by one Manik Hossain to the UK Embassy from Faridganj, in Chandpur. The sender identified himself as a member of the Asia Al- Qaida suicide squad....

Meanwhile, in the capital outlawed Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) has threatened to kill Supreme Court judges and lawyers for what it said delivering judgement after taking bribes.

Meanwhile, one person was killed and five others were injured in a bomb attack at Alamdanga in Chuadanga district and three other journalists received death threats from JMB in Barisal yesterday.

Why do converts to Islam turn to violent jihad? Because they are misled by jihadists, or because they approach the Qur'an and Hadith without cultural baggage, and see its demands clearly? The Western world assumes the former. But on what evidence? Is this a safe assumption? Might not this matter bear investigation by authorities? Or would that violate multiculturalist dogma? "In Philippines, watchful eye on converts: Most are peaceful, but some former Christians help Islamic terrorists, slipping by police," from the Christian Science Monitor, with thanks to Nicolei:

MANILA, PHILIPPINES – Four years ago, Joey Ledesma went home and told his mother, a devout Roman Catholic, that he had "returned" to Islam.

Her reaction was shock and anger; they argued and fought. In the room where he prayed, she stuck pictures of the Virgin Mary to the wall facing Mecca. A cousin asked him, "Why are you acting so crazy? You're one of us."

Mr. Ledesma, who now calls himself Yousuf, has since separated from his Catholic wife after a tug-of-war over the religious upbringing of their young son.

As his family ties frayed, Ledesma found a stronger sense of community and purpose at the mosque. In particular, he bonded with other converts, known as 'Balik Islam,' or returnees to Islam. Their shared belief is that Filipinos were originally Muslims before Spanish colonizers imposed Catholicism, so they are returning to their faith.

Lesdesma is one of an estimated 200,000 Filipinos who have converted to Islam since the 1970s, joining about 4 million Muslims from the southern Philippines who are ethnically different from the heavily Christianized areas. At first, their numbers were too small to attract much notice from authorities. That is, until Philippine security forces began focusing on the role of Muslim converts in extremist violence.

What they found was a disturbing pattern: Islamic insurgents were using cells of militant converts as terrorist operatives to strike targets in Manila. Police say a detained Balik Islam militant has confessed to planting a bomb on a ferry that killed more than 100 people in February 2004. Other detainees are linked to a foiled truck bombing in Manila that targeted the US Embassy, say officials.

Investigators say that Islamic converts can evade ethnic profiling by police, opening up a new front for groups like Abu Sayyaf that are being squeezed by US-aided military offensives in the south. "This tactical alliance [between southern insurgents and Islamic converts] will emerge to challenge the government in new ways," warns Rodolfo Mendoza, a senior police official who tracks Islamic militants.

Read it all.

How far will they go? From AP, with thanks to Nicolei:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Page after page, self-appointed hate hunters underline passages in Pakistani schoolbooks.

They flag hard-edged Muslim views toward other faiths, such as those describing past efforts by Hindus and Christians to ''erase'' Muslims. They note sections that speak of martyrdom and the duty to battle perceived religious enemies.

So I guess they block out Qur'an 9:29, which commands that Muslims make war against Jews and Christians: "Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued."

I guess they will block out scores of ahadith supporting this passage as well.

''We are fighting for the future of Islam. Children are sometimes being force-fed a diet of hate, anger and intolerance,'' said Ahmad Salim, leader of a campaign to push Pakistan's education system to remove what activists consider extreme language and images from the curriculum....

In Jordan -- the target of triple suicide blasts Nov. 9 claimed by al-Qaida -- another overhaul is expected in next year's textbooks, part of a process that includes making clear distinctions between terrorism and what that nation sees as legitimate struggles, such as the Palestinian intifada, or uprising. Even Saudi Arabia has started to rewrite its highly conservative lessons after worries they were encouraging home-grown radicals.

Much of the concern among reformers is how students learn about jihad, or holy war -- a concept that encompasses all acts on behalf of Islam. It's clear some textbooks pay homage -- directly or indirectly -- to violence.

'Blood gladdens my soul'

''Recognize the importance of jihad in every sphere of life,'' say the curriculum guidelines for Pakistan's elementary schools. Critics claim the message is often interpreted in malignant ways: strong denunciations of Pakistan's historical Hindu rivals in India or sympathy for Islamic guerrillas in Kashmir and elsewhere.

In a Palestinian seventh-grade Arabic language book, a protest poem called "The Martyr" includes the lines: ''And the flow of blood gladdens my soul. ... And who asks for a noble death, here it is.''

The Palestinians' 11th grade Islamic Culture book has dozens of appeals for Islamic solidarity to confront ''enemies'' such as Israel, its allies and Western culture. ''The Islamic nation needs to spread the spirit of jihad and the love of self-sacrifice [martyrdom] among its sons,'' reads one passage.

So I guess Qur'an 9:111 will have to go also: "Allah hath purchased of the believers their persons and their goods; for theirs (in return) is the garden (of Paradise): they fight in His cause, and slay and are slain..."

And if we're red-lining passages that inculcate love for death, Qur'an 62:6 will have to be nixed: "Say (O Muhammad): O ye who are Jews! If ye claim that ye are favoured of Allah apart from (all) mankind, then long for death if ye are truthful."

Etc. etc. etc.

Jonathan Kuttab, a "Jerusalem-based Palestinian human rights lawyer and peace activist," argues in the Lebanese Daily Star that the West's conflict is and always has been with the Arab world, not with Islam, and that Arab Christians are the natural allies of Muslims in that struggle, "dreaming of a revival of a modern, relevant, vibrant, tolerant form of Islam."

A "revival" of a "modern, relevant" Islam? Let it pass. It's bad enough that he ignores persecution of Christians by Muslims, on Islamic grounds, in the Palestinian Authority, Iraq, and elsewhere -- as we have documented exhaustively here. It's bad enough that he whitewashes and glosses over the second-class status and enforced, institutionalized discrimination that Christians would most assuredly face under his "tolerant form of Islam."

If that is not so, let Jonathan Kuttab show me one Palestinian Muslim leader who has renounced the laws of the dhimma and declared that he will not enforce them if he gets the chance. Ahlan, Jonathan. Contact me at director@jihadwatch.org.

"Arab Christians are nationalists, not 'fifth-columnists,'" from the Daily Star, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

Those who expect or accuse Arab Christians of siding with the West, and of being a "fifth column" for outsiders, have been consistently proven wrong. To the contrary, the unique position of Arab Christians, with their knowledge and understanding of the West has always been used to promote the interests of the Arab world and press for its positions at every turn of the road. Even Christian institutions created by missionary funds and efforts, such as the American University of Beirut, turned out to be hot-beds of Arab nationalism and think tanks for creatively promoting the interests of the Arab world in confronting the West. Arab Christian institutions, such as schools, hospitals and non-governmental organizations, which are often funded by Christian churches in the West, continue in the same tradition to promote the interests of their people, especially in the face of invasion, occupation or aggression by the West.

Part of the reason for this, of course, is that there was nothing religious, or Christian, about the onslaught of the West. Arab Christians were cognizant from the beginning that they were facing colonial and imperial interests that threatened their societies and that wanted to dominate its resources and populations for purely secular gain. Therefore, they saw no more contradiction in fighting off these forces than the original Christian Arabs saw a need to fight the European Crusaders, who, incidentally, wreaked havoc with Arab churches and subjugated local Christians no less than their Muslim counterparts.

This history is well worth remembering in the current context when again the confrontation between the Arab world and the West uses religious terms and is presented as a struggle between Western Christianity and Islam. To be sure, much of the political effort of Arab Christians found expression in secular nationalism, for which they were early pioneers and zealous advocates. From publicists and writers such as George Antonious to Albert Hourani to Michel Aflaq to George Habash to Edward Said, Arab Christians have been prominent leaders in the Arab nationalist movement. One of the tenets of that movement has always been setting aside religion as a matter of personal choice and insisting on equal responsibility of Christians and Muslims in the national enterprise. Their slogan was "religion belongs to God, but the homeland belongs to all."

While Arab nationalism was not anti-religious in its secularism, it was always emphatic in acknowledging the equality of Christians and Muslims, and the need to leave religion to the spiritual sphere. Still, Arab Christians recognized that their societies were culturally and socially Muslim and participated in that culture, dreaming of a revival of a modern, relevant, vibrant, tolerant form of Islam.

This is what the great human rights activists of the Western world are supporting. This is where Palestinian Christians have placed their hope. All on a culture of dishonesty and murder. From The Independent, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

Millions of pounds donated by British and other European charities to help the Palestinian poor were unwittingly diverted to fund terror and support the families of suicide bombers, Israeli prosecutors claimed yesterday.

Ahmed Salatna, 43, a Hamas activist from the West Bank town of Jenin, was remanded in custody by a military court charged with distributing €9m (£6.2m) for such purposes over the past nine years. The recipients are alleged to have included the family of a young man who blew himself up at the Sbarro pizza restaurant in Jerusalem in August 2001, killing 15 people and wounding 107. Hamas and Islamic Jihad acknowledged responsibility.

The charge sheet names two British charities, Human Appeal International and Interpal. Human Appeal is a broadly based fundraising organisation, currently helping victims of the Pakistani earthquake. Interpal describes itself as "a non-political, non-profit-making charity that focuses solely on the provision of relief and development aid to the poor and needy of Palestine". No one was available for comment at its London office yesterday. Other charities mentioned were the French CBST, the Italian ABSPT and the Al-Aqsa Foundation, which operates in Austria, Belgium, Denmark and Sweden.

Mr Salatna, who has directed an Islamic charity in Jenin since Israel released him in 1996 after serving three years for Hamas activity, was arrested in September. Micky Rosenfeld, a police spokesman, said Mr Salatna directly transferred the European funds to Hamas cells, suicide bombers and their families.

Mr Rosenfeld said: "Jenin is known as the capital of the suicide bombers. There is no doubt in police minds that Mr Salatna's arrest will be a major blow to those who rely on economic support from Hamas in order to carry out terrorist acts and to give their families financial backing."

A series of emails I have received lately suggests to me that many of you don't know that Jihad Watch is not one, but two weblogs.

The other is called Dhimmi Watch. It covers the oppression of non-Muslims in Islamic societies, as mandated by Sharia law, as well as the oppression of women, since Sharia also mandates that, and the supine willingness of American academics and media types to parrot jihadist propaganda and whitewash Islamic teachings that inspire violence.

It too is updated daily. Find it here.

Palestinian Arab Christians are going to be in for a rude surprise when the Islamic state so many of them are abetting actually takes power, and they find life more difficult for them than it was in Israel. When I was in Jerusalem last week, I attended an address by Natan Sharansky, the great ex-Soviet dissident and human rights activist. Sharansky noted that Israel had again and again aided Christians -- at their own request -- against Islamic violence and injustice, most notably when the Church of the Nativity was occupied by jihadists in 2002 (as is reflected obliquely in the linked Fox article: "Israeli riot police later entered the compound and removed them by force, with the approval of exasperated priests"). Yet Christian leaders, he said, have not responded with similar gestures toward Israel.

This is unfortunate. Those leaders are leading their people into an oppression far greater than any they have ever experienced from Israel. "New patriarch: No land for Jews: Christian leader signs secret document nixing sale of key Jerusalem properties," from WorldNetDaily:

JERUSALEM - The man enthroned last week as Greek Orthodox patriarch of Jerusalem signed a secret document obliging him to nullify the recent sale to Jewish groups of land comprising much of a key entrance to Jerusalem's Old City, and has allegedly made statements against Jews living in certain parts of Jerusalem, WorldNetDaily has learned.

The newly installed Greek Orthodox leader, Theofilos III, was crowned in a ceremony Tuesday at Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre in spite of objections by Israel, which is currently debating whether to recognize him as the official Jerusalem patriarch – the religious leader of 100,000 Christians in the Holy Land.

Theofilos is attempting to succeed current patriarch Irineos, who church officials tried to oust in May by holding new patriarchal elections amid allegations Irineos leased church land in Jerusalem to Jewish groups. The leases, signed last year for a period of 98 years, include two hotels that comprise a large section of the Jaffa Gate, the principal entrance to the Old City of Jerusalem.

The property transfer enraged the church's significant Palestinian membership, who claim Jerusalem as the capital of a future state.

Irineos, still recognized as patriarch by Israel, has for now resisted World Orthodox leaders' calls to step aside, claiming a former aide signed the leases without his knowledge. Sources close to the lease negotiations told WND the deal was signed by the financial minister of the church's Israel bank accounts and that Irineos was directly involved with the property transfer.

WND has learned prior to the new patriarchal election, Theofilos, along with other candidates for patriarch, signed a secret church document stating if he was elected leader he would nullify all transactions made by Irineos, including the Jaffa Gate lease....

High placed sources close to the church said the document was drafted by a PA government minister with the cancellation of Irineos' lease of the Jaffa Gate hotels to the Jewish groups as the specific goal.

"The candidates were essentially blackmailed by the Palestinians that if they didn't sign the document and cancel the lease, they would not get approval of the PA as candidates and could not run in elections," a church source told WND. "This is an outright racist policy against the Jews. If peace proposals come through and Jerusalem is ever divided, the Palestinians want Jaffa's Gate, but Irineos' lease would give it to Israel."

A senior church leader close to Irineos told WND, "Theofilos has made statements about not providing Jerusalem land to Jews. He agrees with the Palestinians that they have the rights to eastern Jerusalem."...

Installation of a new patriarch requires the approval of Israel, Jordan and, traditionally, the Palestinian Authority. Both Jordan and the PA have approved Theofilos. But Israel says Theofilos failed to comply with official Israeli election procedures, and has established a committee comprised of senior government ministers to debate recognition of Theofilos.

Irineos continues to occupy the patriarch's quarters, and did not attend Theofilos' installation ceremony....

I'm sorry -- I walked right by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate inside the Jaffa Gate last week, and would have stopped in to say hello to Irineos if I had known he was there. Of course, he denies knowledge of the sale, as we can see above, but the Palestinian Arab faction evidently still sees him as enough of a threat to resort to blackmail and other pressures to remove him. At least by his own account:

"The electorate was blackmailed into supporting Theofilos. They were told by Fathers and Brotherhood members and others that if they didn't vote for Theofilos, they would be kicked out of the church. Documents were made to be signed, including a letter that said 'I will not stand with Irineos.'"

Irineos said he will not step down as patriarch, and is "eagerly awaiting" the Israeli committee decision.

A lobbyist involved in the patriarchal elections who spoke with WND on condition of anonymity - claiming that speaking on the record may place him in danger - said, "There were very clear indications Arab politics were at play in the Synod's deciding to elect Theophilos. There was direct blackmail involved."

The lobbyist continued: "The document Theofilos and the other candidates signed is racism, pure and simple. The church has a very large Palestinian and Jordanian Arab constituency. The only reason the church wants the Jaffa Gate lease nullified is because it signed over Jerusalem land to Jews."

Has the dissent in the camp manifested into a dissent on campus? A report from Iran Focus:

Tehran, Iran, Nov. 27 – Several anti-government student protests erupted in the Iranian capital on Sunday in response to an increasingly harsher government crackdown on campus activists.

Students at the University of Tehran refused to attend classes in the morning and gathered outside the campus library to demonstrate against the appointment of a cleric as the new chief of the university. Ayatollah Amid Zanjani, a notorious religious prosecutor in the 1980s, was installed on Sunday as the new university chancellor. His predecessor, an academic, expressed surprise at “the unprecedented haste over the transition”.

The students chanted, “Appointed head, resign now!” and “Even if we students die, we will not accept humiliation”.

As protests got heated several students pushed the ayatollah and threw his turban off his head.

Photos of the protest are available at the aforementioned link.

From the AFP:

A hardline Muslim cleric has been executed by firing squad in Yemen after being convicted of the murder three years ago of an official in the opposition socialist party.

Ali Ahmed Jarallah was executed on Sunday in the courtyard of the main Sanaa prison in the presence of his family, judges and lawyers, judicial sources said, after President Ali Abdallah Saleh upheld the death penalty against him.

Jarallah, an imam or prayer leader at a mosque in Sanaa, was convicted of the murder in 2002 of Jarallah Omar, the deputy leader of the Yemeni Socialist Party, and his sentence was upheld by an appeals court in April.

Jarallah said in a confession in July 2003 that he had acted alone in shooting Omar at a party conference in Sanaa the previous year.

He claimed that the killing was part of a jihad, or holy war, against converts to Christianity and infidels.

Six other people were jailed for between three and 10 years for belonging to a gang that the cleric allegedly created to murder socialists, Arab nationalists and converts to Christianity.

Jarallah had been a member of Yemen's Islamist Al-Islah Party, but quit the movement shortly before the killing, complaining that it had gone soft on Westerners and minority Islamic sects.

Is this the future of Europe once Turkey is allowed to join the "elite" club? From Iran Focus:

London, Nov. 27 – Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki will travel on Wednesday to Turkey, a country that once expelled him for his involvement in terrorism when he was the Islamic Republic’s ambassador to Ankara.

Mottaki, 52, has been accused of involvement in a series of terrorist attacks in Turkey in the late 1980s, according to Iranian exiles and defectors from the theocratic regime.

Turkish authorities had asked him to leave the country in 1989, when he was Iran’s ambassador in Ankara, after his role in several terrorist incidents in Turkey became known.

Abolhassan Mojtahedzadeh, chairman of the Brussels-based Association of Victims of the Iranian Regime’s Terrorism, said his group was consulting Turkish lawyers to find legal avenues to have Mottaki arrested in Turkey.

Mojtahedzadeh himself was abducted in Istanbul in 1988 and taken to the Iranian consulate, where he was tortured. Several days later, Turkish police miraculously found him in the boot of an official Iranian embassy vehicle only a few kilometres from the Iranian border, as Tehran’s diplomats were trying to smuggle him to Iran.

According to Simon Bailey of the London-based Gulf Intelligence Monitor, Ankara’s decision to host Mottaki will not help the government’s image as it tries to prove its democratic credentials to be admitted to the European Union.

“Ankara has been taking a very lenient approach to Iran’s excesses”, Bailey said. “Turkish police arrested an Iranian man, Masoud Amiri, in Istanbul back in July, because there was an international arrest warrant for him over his role in the bombing of the Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires in 1994. But when Iran made some threatening gestures, the Turks let him go”.

Mottaki is a former Deputy Foreign Minister and served as Iran’s ambassador to Japan.

As a radical Islamist in his student days in India’s Bangalore University, Mottaki was a fervent supporter of Ayatollah Khomeini. He returned to Iran during the revolution and joined the ranks of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) soon after the fall of the Shah’s regime in 1979. After taking part in the bloody campaign against Kurdish dissidents, Mottaki moved to the Foreign Ministry, where for some time he was the IRGC liaison officer.

Mottaki was appointed Iran’s ambassador to Turkey in 1985 and it was during his tenure in Ankara that the Revolutionary Guard-turned-diplomat became involved in a number of terror attacks and assassinations of dissidents, according to Iranian opposition figures and defectors. In the 1980s and the early 1990s, at least 50 Iranian dissidents were kidnapped or assassinated in Turkey by Iranian secret agents often working closely with diplomats from Iran’s embassy and consulates.

According to this report from the AP, all is not going well for Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

TEHRAN, Iran - Critics say the 1980s-style radicalism of ultraconservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is hurting Iran at home and abroad - to the point that even his natural allies in parliament have rejected his three choices to run the all-important oil ministry.

The Islamic hard-liner appears undeterred, but pragmatists in the ruling hierarchy are growing restless and looking for ways to contain him.

``Ahmadinejad's behavior has annoyed many fellow conservatives. That he doesn't like to consult with anybody outside his small circle of old friends is a reality,'' said Ghodratollah Rahmani, a conservative writer.

``He doesn't consult even with knowledgeable people in his own camp.''

Even extremists within the hard-line camp want Ahmadinejad to be more responsive to their advice.

``If he doesn't want to hear no for a fourth time, he has to consult with people outside his circle of friends,'' said Mohammad Nabi Habibi, leader of the Islamic Coalition Society.

Since taking office in August, Ahmadinejad has jettisoned Iran's moderation in foreign policy and pursued a purge in the government, replacing pragmatic veterans with former military commanders and inexperienced religious hard-liners.

The former Tehran mayor's aim is to install a new generation of rulers who will revive the radical fundamentalist goals pursued in the 1980s under the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, father of the 1979 revolution that toppled Iran's pro-Western shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

All pragmatists, including those seeking better ties with the West, have either lost their posts or likely will lose them soon, pushing the government toward an ever more radical stance in the already volatile Middle East and in the international dispute over Iran's nuclear program, which the United States believes is seeking to build weapons.

Read it all.

The chairman of the Saudi International Relations Committee (IRC), Mr. Amr Khashoggi, has asked members to "think of ways of training our youth on how to communicate, appreciate and project our country and culture." The committee came back with the following plan. From the Arab News:

Saudi Arabian Youth Ambassadors Program is dedicated to creating world-class ambassadorship. It has three basic strategies. One, to instill three identities: An understanding of the Saudi identity, an appreciation of the Arabian identity and the centrality of the Arabic language to it, and a deep admiration and respect for a tolerant global Islamic identity.

Two, to teach basic personal and interpersonal communication skills to guarantee maximum effectiveness of their communication with the world.

Three, to ensure that these programs will move the youths from the local to the global arena gradually and with wisdom (Hikmah).

The plans have three phases. The First Phase is entitled (Safwa) which means “select elite” in Arabic. It is also an acronym for the first letters of Saudi Arabian Future World Ambassadors.

The plan will find, recruit, and locally train Saudi youths to prepare them to become youth ambassadors to the world.

It will also select events that can become the building blocks for the first phase of the Saudi youth international empowerment program. The Second Phase is entitled (Safeer), which means ambassador in Arabic. Here, Saudi youths will be sent to selected parts of the world to participate in visits designed to link them with the world and help them understand how other countries work while also giving them the chance to represent Saudi Arabia to the world.

Selected youths will be sent to a country or two as samples of building blocks that can later become the foundation of Phase Two of the program.

The Third Phase (Majlis) which means “gathering” or “council” in Arabic is dedicated to creating a Saudi/International Youth Council.

The sponsors of such a plan will be ready to help Saudi youths host a first event in Saudi Arabia inviting youths from around the world (or selected countries) for dialogue, exchange, and understanding. If successful, we may choose to institutionalize this effort into a permanent Majlis: The Saudi Arabian Youth Ambassadors Council.

The Action Plan for the First Phase will prepare 30-40 Saudi males and females to be ambassadors. The goal is to instill the Saudi Arabian, Arab and Muslim identities in young Saudi participants by lectures, training, field trips and discussion forums.

Lectures will explore the history, geography, social, economic, and political system of Saudi Arabia. They will also provide brief historical and socioeconomic and political information about the targeted foreign country.

Training will focus on basic personal, interpersonal and diplomatic communication skills and languages.

Read it all.

On the heels of a crippling nationwide general strike waged by opposition groups determined to oust the ruling Islamist-allied government comes this high school bomb scare out of Dhaka. From The New Nation:

The students and teachers of city’s Khilgaon High School panicked Sunday afternoon at sight of a bomb-like device set under the table of the assistant headmistress in the teachers’ common room.

School sources said a guardian first saw an envelop, which contained a bunch of handwritten letters, lying at a corner of the guardians’ waiting-room at about 1:15PM.

Out of curiosity she picked one letter out of the open envelop that cautioned that a number of time bombs were planted at different places in the school, including the room of the assistant headmistress.

“If Islamic education as per the Quran and Hadith was not introduced in the school within two days, the bombs would be detonated with remote-control,” says the note of warning and ultimatum from the banned Islamic outfit Harkatul Jihad, Khilgaon unit.

Witnesses said the discovery sent all in the sprawling campus into panic, during the rush after the end of one-shift examination and the entry of examinees for the second-shift exam.

After a hectic search, a container wrapped with a red tape and fitted to circuit, batteries and wires was found under the table of Aloka Ghosh, the assistant headmistress. A small tin-pot—like one that holds explosives for a time bomb—was also set to the device.

Headmaster Jasimuddin Bhuiyan claimed it as a “hoax”, saying that someone did it “to create panic among the students and guardians”.

Certainly, the good headmaster must be aware that the "someone" who perpetrated this "hoax" was not joking. Or is he?

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald explores the dhimmi blindness of the current Iraqi nation-building policy, and asks some questions of policymakers:

“The Iraqi authorities say that they have arrested the leaders of three terror networks operating around Baghdad, two of which were headed by an interior ministry official.” -- From this news item

How many others have burrowed within the government? And into the army, which is now being trained by the Americans? Americans are allowing into that "Iraqi" army "Iraqis" -- i.e. Sunnis (of differing loyalties), Shi'a (of differing camps -- roughly, those of SCIRI, Da'wa, and Moqtada Al-Sadr), and Kurds -- whom the Americans can scarcely distinguish from one another. Nor can the Americans be much good at detecing any of the telltale signs that should arouse suspicions. Of course, even other "Iraqis" -- i.e. Shi'a Arabs or Kurds or even Sunnis, the least likely to be helpful -- might not always be able to detect them either, or if able to detect them, necessarily to point things out to the Americans. Nor can anyone be certain who, even within their own groups, has his chief loyalty to Islam, or to a particular brand of Islam, and not to the supposedly emerging nation-state. Even the Kurds, for example, have not been free from a group, Ansar al-Islam, more Muslim than Kurd in its desire to do in the Americans and all who collaborate with them. And there are Shi'a who, sharing the general Shi'a distaste for the American Infidels, cannot pretend to hide that distaste and totemporarily reconcile themselves to that American presence, so that those foreign Infidels can be kept around a bit longer, usefully employed killing (and being killed by) the main and permanent enemy of Shi'a dominance, the Sunnis, and as those same Americans will also continue to train Shi'a (who need that military training and experience far more than the Sunnis, who ran the army under Saddam Hussein), and are also hoping that the Americans will generously arm what they keep referring to as the "Iraqi" army. The Shi'a, who make up the bulk of that army and have even managed to replace the formerly almost entirely Sunni officer corps, know better.

The American military has not merely been asked to help a country. It has been asked to create a country where none exists, and none has existed since its modern creation, out of three former Ottoman vilayets, in the early 1920s by Percy Cox and Gertrude Bell. Ever since the betrayal of promises made to the Kurds after World War I, they have smarted and yearned to be free of the Arabs. Sometimes the Arab mistreatment has been endurable, sometimes not. More recently, with the massacre of 182,000 Kurds by Arabs -- not. And the Shi'a, under whose southern lands the major oil deposits lie (now that the oil in Kurdish areas has been so long exploited), have suffered from poverty. They are on the whole shorter, scrawnier, and always poorer than the self-assured Sunnis, who believe that they as the better Muslims, the real Muslims, have a perfect right to continue to rule over all non-Arabs (those Kurds) and non-Sunni Arabs as well.

It is wrong, it is cruel, to continue to have the American military take on a task that neither they, nor anyone else from the outside, can conceivably perform. Sooner or later the Shi'a and the Sunni will have to come to terms, and the Arabs and the Kurds will have to come to terms -- or not. It can be done after another year of fantastic expense and worry have passed for Americans. It can come after another year when, because of the perceived folly and expense and worry of continuing to remain in Iraq, Americans will fall away from the idea that anything much should be done about not "terror" but about the larger menace of Islam. That menace derives from an ideology. That ideology is borne by carriers who, right now, have settled deep within what they themselves, those carriers, describe as the lands still unsubmissive to Islam, and hence the Dar al-Harb, the Domain of War. And there, deep behind what they regard as enemy lines, through Da'wa and demographic conquest, and a mass campaign of disinformation about what Islam teaches, and what Muslims if they are good Muslims must believe, and about the history of Muslim conquest of non-Muslim lands and the subjugation of non-Muslim peoples, they advance the goals of the global jihad.

Charles Moore asks this pointed and crucially important question of dhimmi government officials and opinion-makers in the Telegraph:

Well, some will say, that is the way it is: Israel has abused power, and is reaping the whirlwind. I don't want to argue today about the rights and wrongs of Israel's actions, though I think, given its difficulties, it stands up better than most before the bar of history. All I want to ask my fellow Europeans is this: are you happy to help direct the world's fury at the only country in the Middle East whose civilisation even remotely resembles yours? And are you sure that the fate of Israel has no bearing on your own? In Iran, the new President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad makes the link. The battle over Palestine, he says, is "the prelude of the battle of Islam with the world of arrogance", the world of the West. He is busy building his country's nuclear bomb.

Do be certain to read it all.

Memo to Osama bin Laden, Al-Zarqawi, Abu Bakar Bashir, Omar Bakri, Abu Hamza, Fawaz Damra, Abdul Salam Mohammed Zoud, etc. etc. etc.: stop associating Islam with terror. Bahrain doesn't like it.

What's that? Bahrain's Al-Mousawi was telling Europeans and other Westerners, not jihadist Muslims, to stop associating Islam with terror? Oh, of course. How could it be otherwise? What are you, some kind of Islamophobe? From the GulfNews, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

Manama : Bahrain yesterday warned that associating Islam with terrorism would be a devastating blow to humanity and would deepen the abyss between civilisations.

"Islam is a tolerant and peaceful religion and it is the identity of many nations and peoples. Associating this religion with terrorism amounts to accusing whole nations of supporting it and, eventually, playing into the hands of radicals and extremists. Such a stance is a grave mistake that annihilates understanding between peoples," Shura (upper) Council Chairman Dr Faisal Al Mousawi said at the opening of the international conference in Manama between Bahrain's parliament and the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats.

"History has indicated that terrorism has used false ideologies and misused religious creeds to explain and perpetuate itself. We need to highlight that terrorism is not linked to religion and must not be associated with any particular civilisation, culture or traditions," Al Mousawi said.

The Muslim Brotherhood (Al-Ikhwan al-Muslimoon) was the first modern Islamic terrorist organization. Founded in 1928, it is the the direct forefather of both Hamas and Al-Qaeda. In its Egyptian homeland it has had a checkered history -- and is at present banned. Through it all, its goal has always remained the same: to reestablish Sharia rule in Egypt and elsewhere, whether by peaceful or violent means. And now, despite the best efforts of the Mubarak regime (which, like the Nasser and Sadat regimes before it, has tried to keep the Ikhwan at bay with a combination of force and concessions) to limit its influence, it is gaining strength in Egypt -- through elections.

Tiny Minority of Extremists Update: "Islamists Build Egyptian Parliamentary Bloc," from Reuters, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

CAIRO (Reuters) - The Muslim Brotherhood built its strength in Egypt's parliament this weekend, winning 29 seats in elections despite restrictions on voting and arrests of its supporters, official results showed on Sunday.

The Islamist group has now won 76 seats -- more than five times the number it held in the outgoing chamber. About a third of parliament's 444 elected places have still to be decided.

The officially banned Brotherhood is contesting only a third of the seats, not posing a challenge to control over parliament by the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), which won 75 places in voting on Saturday, bringing its total to about 195.

But the Brotherhood's wins have shown the weight of political Islam as the strongest opposition force in Egypt and caught the government and NDP off guard.

The authorities have curbed leeway given to the Islamists in the early stages of voting. Police restricted voting and detained 860 of the Brotherhood's activists on Saturday -- the fourth of six days of legislative elections.

Riot police cordoned off polling stations in Brotherhood strongholds, either preventing anybody from voting or allowing only a trickle of people to cast ballots.

``The aim was to prevent voters from reaching the ballot boxes and to affect the result,'' Brotherhood deputy leader Mohamed Habib told Reuters. ``But with perseverance the people and the Brotherhood were able to overcome the barriers.''

Here's one for the neocons who support the Chechen jihad because they prefer to see it as a plucky group of independence fighters poking the big bad Russian bear in the eye: welcome to your alliance with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Of course, the Russians themselves need to wake up, too. Across the board, the governing elites and media elites in non-Muslim countries need to realize that while they are playing at pseudo-sophisticated analyses of global conflicts, mostly involving economic and sociological perspectives and solutions, the jihadists see the world only as divided between Muslims and non-Muslims (including, possibly, those they regard as heretical pseudo-Muslims).

The sooner the non-Muslim nations reconfigure their defense postures accordingly, ruling out alliances with states like Iran (alliances which have many precedents and have usually been disastrous, as I establish in my book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)), the more effective those defense postures will be.

From the Telegraph, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Iran is secretly training Chechen rebels in sophisticated terror techniques to enable them to carry out more effective attacks against Russian forces, the Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

Teams of Chechen fighters are being trained at the Revolutionary Guards' Imam Ali training camp, located close to Tajrish Square in Teheran, according to Western intelligence reports.

In addition to receiving training in the latest terror techniques, the Chechen volunteers undergo ideological and political instruction by hardline Iranian mullahs at Qom.

The disclosure that Iran is training Chechen rebels will not go down well in Moscow, which regards itself as a close ally of the Iranian regime.

Russia has sided with Iran in the diplomatic stand-off over Teheran's controversial nuclear programme.

While government officials bicker amongst themselves on how to appease blatant rioters, an insidious infiltration is quietly occurring right under the authorities' noses. From the Los Angeles Times:

PARIS — Employees set up clandestine prayer areas on the grounds of the Euro Disney resort.

Workers for a cargo firm at Charles de Gaulle airport praise the Sept. 11 attacks.

A Brinks technician is charged with pulling off a million-dollar heist for a Moroccan terrorist group allegedly led by his brother. Female converts to Islam operate a day-care center that authorities eventually shut down because of its religious radicalism.

As France grapples with the rise of Islamic extremism abroad and at home, the line between legitimate religious expression and extremist subversion can be blurry. But a recent study by a think tank here paints a picture of rising fundamentalism in the workplace, ranging from proselytizing to pressure tactics to criminal activities.

In companies such as supermarket chains in immigrant-heavy areas, for instance, militant recruiters cause workplace tensions by imposing fundamentalist ideas on co-workers and pressuring managers to boycott certain products, the study says.

On a more sinister level, the study asserts that Islamic networks are trying to establish a presence in firms involved in sectors such as security, cargo, armored cars, courier services and transportation. Once they gain a foothold, operatives raise funds for militants via theft, embezzlement and robbery, the study alleges.

"Parallel to these sect-like risks, the spread of criminal practices has been detected in the heart of companies [with] two goals: crime using Islam as a pretext; and in addition, local financing of terrorism," concludes the study by the Center for Intelligence Research in Paris.

The report was issued before the recent riots that spread arson and violence nationwide and focused attention on France's immigrant neighborhoods, which are predominantly Muslim. Although intelligence officials detected only a few cases of extremists inciting unrest, authorities worry that the tense urban climate strengthens the hand of hard-core Islamic networks.

French anti-terrorism officials agree with some of the findings of the study of the private sector, though they say parts of the report exaggerate or simplify a complex issue. In any case, the concern is justified in a wider context, officials say: Extremism is rising in France, home to Europe's largest Muslim community, and intertwining with a foreign threat.

Recent arrests reveal that France has been targeted by an alliance teaming Abu Musab Zarqawi, leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, with an Algerian-dominated network, said a senior French law enforcement official, who asked to remain anonymous for security reasons.

Zarqawi operatives in Lebanon taught bomb-making to accused militants from the network who were arrested here, including French converts, the official said.

That underscores a development on the home front: a "significant increase" in converts, including women, said a French intelligence official, who also asked not to be identified.

There is much more so please read it all.

Three weeks of riots has prompted French prime minister Dominique de Villepin and interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy to fall over each other in an attempt help the "disaffected youths". From Reuters:

“Proclaiming equality before the law is no longer enough: henceforth we also need to promote equality by (using) the law,” Sarkozy wrote in an opinion piece for Le Figaro newspaper. “We cannot continue to accept that a growing number of individuals are allotted destinies written in advance.”

Sarkozy stuck to his guns despite opposition by Villepin, the person most likely to challenge him for the role of leading the centre-right into the presidential election.

Villepin told a radio interviewer yesterday that there was no place for positive discrimination in a state built on the notion of equal opportunities for everyone.

“We say that when there are inequalities, we put them right. But we must not fix them by renouncing our French model, a universal model under which each individual is respected for who he is, independent of colour,” Villepin told RTL radio. “We must correct the inequalities and fix handicaps ... but without taking into account ethnicity or religion – which is the nature of positive discrimination,” he said.

Apparently, the good minister does not consider this nor this nor this to be stark contradictions to his bold statement. But of course! Violations of Pakistan's notorious blasphemy laws are punishable just as violations of laws are in any other "democratic" nation. From the Online - International News Network:

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has underlined Islamabad’s participation in the Commonwealth platform after six-long years is a testimony that democracy in Pakistan has taken roots.

"In Pakistan there is complete freedom of speech and expression," Shaukat Aziz expressed these views while talking at a press conference at the occasion of heads of the Commonwealth states moot on Saturday.

"There should have no suspicion in one’s mind about democracy in Pakistan, press enjoy unprecedented freedom, opposition has the right of criticism and over 25 private TV channels are currently operational in Pakistan," he argued.

"We are desirous of cordial relations with neighbours, however Pakistan and India after resolving decade-old Kashmir saga can establish eternal peace in the region," he noted.

He expressed optimism that they could settle host of issues from the platform of Commonwealth and this forum was key to bolster the living standard of millions of people.

The Commonwealth states had acknowledged steps taken for establishment of democracy in Pakistan and after six long years Pakistan was present there, he recalled.

Yes, yes, it is they who are the aggrieved and oppressed. I keep forgetting. From SA, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Baghdad - The Iraqi army said on Thursday it had seized a number of booby-trapped children's dolls, accusing insurgents of using the explosive-filled toys to target children.

The dolls were found in a car, each one containing a grenade or other explosive, said an army statement....

"This is the same type of doll as that handed out on several occasions by US soldiers to children," said government spokesperson Leith Kubba....

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses the EU's thirst to destroy Israel in light of Bat Ye'or's predictions:

Bat Ye'or is a scholar of Islamic history, and her specialty has been the study of how non-Muslims -- Christians and Jews (she does not deal with those parts of Asia, beyond the Middle East, that succumbed to Muslim rule) -- have been treated in lands conquered by Islam.

She is also a student of current events, as in her recent Eurabia.

And she is also, one realizes, a scriptwriter: for Eurabia and her other books, especially Islam and Dhimmitude, provide a script for the behavior of those caught in a trap of their own making, which is what the Europeans are today. The trap consists of several parts.

There was the initial indifference to what Islam was all about, and an ignoring of the misgivings and fears of the real experts (such as Charles-Emmanuel Dufourcq) and instead, a heeding of the bought-and-paid for apologists, or the ideological children of this age, examples of whom can be found in Gilles Kepel and Olivier Roy. This indifference led to permitting millions of people who possess an ideology that teaches them to despise Infidels, and to wish to subjugate them as is only proper, and certainly not to accept or admire or wish to be anything like them, to settle deep behind what they themselves regard, essentially, as enemy lines -- in the Infidel lands that will someday, through Da'wa and demographic not military conquest, fall to them.

Barghouti update, Tiny Minority of Extremists alert, and Hitler watch: "Jailed Palestinian Leader Wins Primaries," from AP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

RAMALLAH, West Bank - Jailed Palestinian uprising leader Marwan Barghouti and other younger activists swept Fatah primaries, signaling a change of generations that could make the corruption-tainted ruling party more attractive to voters in Jan. 25 parliament elections, according to preliminary results released Saturday.

The Barghouti-led "young guard" had long pushed for a greater say, especially after last year's death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who founded Fatah and controlled it four decades....

Barghouti, 46, is seen as a potential successor to Abbas even though he is serving multiple life terms in an Israeli prison for involvement in shooting attacks that killed five Israelis....

"Barghouti was convicted in an Israeli court, a civilian court, I would stress, and sentenced to consecutive life sentences for his involvement in the murder of innocent civilians," said Mark Regev, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman....

Two fugitives from Fatah's violent offshoot, the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, also secured high positions. The Jenin winner, Jamal Abu Rob, who gave himself the nickname "Hitler," is wanted for killing several suspected informers with Israel. The Nablus candidate, Jamal Jumaa, is a leader of Al Aqsa in the West Bank's largest city.

More PC pandering from the U.S. military -- while no one seems concerned that those who mutilated corpses in Fallujah out of malice, not "hygienic concerns," not only were not punished, but were celebrated as heroes. From AP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Four U.S. soldiers face disciplinary action for burning the bodies of two Taliban rebels, but they will not be charged with crimes because their actions were motivated by hygienic concerns, the military said Saturday.

The military started its inquiry into the incident last month after TV footage showed U.S. soldiers using the cremation to taunt other Islamic militants — an act that sparked outrage in Afghanistan.

Islam bans cremation, and the video images were compared here to photographs of U.S. troops abusing prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

The U.S.-led coalition's operational commander, Maj. Gen. Jason Kamiya, said two junior officers who ordered the bodies burned would be officially reprimanded for showing a lack of cultural and religious understanding, but he said the men were unaware that what they were doing was wrong.

More demands and tirades are issued forth from the unobstructed mouth of Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. From The Scotsman:

Iran's hard-line president has called for the Bush administration to be tried on war crimes charges related to Iraq and denounced the West for its stance on Iran's controversial nuclear programme.

"You, who have used nuclear weapons against innocent people, who have used uranium ordnance in Iraq should be tried as war criminals in courts," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in an apparent reference to the US.

"Who in the world are you to accuse Iran of suspicious nuclear armed activity?" asked the Iranian president during a nationally televised ceremony marking the 36th anniversary of the establishment of the volunteer Basij paramilitary force.

Speaking of the Basij, Reuters reports,

Thousands of members of Iran’s volunteer militia, the basij, paraded and formed human chains in Iranian cities on Saturday as a show of force against international pressure on Iran’s atomic programme.

In Teheran, some 3,000 basij, clutching automatic rifles and wearing chequered headscarves, paraded before President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and chanted “God is the Greatest”.

Ahmadinejad told them their militia spirit would help thwart foreign powers in an international dispute over Iran’s atomic ambitions.

“Of course the (foreign powers) get angry when they see the power and spirit of the militia now governs our international policy, diplomatic relations and negotiations,” the president said. “In reply to their anger say: Go ahead, be angry but Die in your anger.”

Oh, for pete's sake. Suicide of the West Alert: this guy is worried about "intergalactic war" while the very real problem of Islamic jihadists operating under the radar screen in Canada and other Western countries is ignored or downplayed, and those who point it out are reviled as "bigots." Beam me up, Scotty. A press release:

(PRWEB) - OTTAWA, CANADA (PRWEB) November 24, 2005 -- A former Canadian Minister of Defence and Deputy Prime Minister under Pierre Trudeau has joined forces with three Non-governmental organizations to ask the Parliament of Canada to hold public hearings on Exopolitics -- relations with “ETs.”

By “ETs,” Mr. Hellyer and these organizations mean ethical, advanced extraterrestrial civilizations that may now be visiting Earth.

On September 25, 2005, in a startling speech at the University of Toronto that caught the attention of mainstream newspapers and magazines, Paul Hellyer, Canada’s Defence Minister from 1963-67 under Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Prime Minister Lester Pearson, publicly stated: "UFOs, are as real as the airplanes that fly over your head."

Mr. Hellyer went on to say, "I'm so concerned about what the consequences might be of starting an intergalactic war, that I just think I had to say something."

Fleeing war and government instability, many Yemeni immigrants arrived in the United States during the 60s and 70s. According to this report from The Yemen Times, those immigrant's dreams of prospering while maintaining their Arab-supreme identity have been dashed on the rocks of an overwhelming, yet inferior, culture.

Due to the lack of modern education, Yemeni Americans seem to be drowning in a sea of dreams and fairy tales, thinking that America is the land of opportunities while they give themselves no opportunity to achieve education or knowledge. Many work in gas stations, automobile companies, and restaurants to earn their living.

The American culture is so indusive and full with attractions, in most situations it is almost impossible to ignore the way of life in a country like America. Many issues that are unnoticeable in a Middle Eastern society such as adultery, drinking, usage of drugs and so on are practiced openly and freely in The United States. These issues are at the same time prohibited and contradict Islamic teachings and Arab values.

Lest the reader be fooled - "unnoticed issues" in Middle Eastern society does not necessarily mean that those issues do not exist.

Nowadays, and after the 3rd and 4th generations, many Yemeni Americans have completely lost their identity. The difference in culture, society, values, environment, and habits has tremendously changed the structure of the once great Yemeni American society. “My children don’t even speak Arabic; they think it’s not necessary. They just neglect to understand that we are Arabs and that Arabic is the language of the Quran”, said Ibrahim Al-Ba’dani, who has been living in the United States for over 40 years. “It’s really unimaginable. I can’t even imagine how their children will end up”, he added.

Its very common now to notice Yemeni Americans who don’t speak Arabic at all and only understand a little of the language when being spoke to. “I couldn’t believe a day would come when my children forget their mother tongue and give no importance to it whatsoever”, said a concerned father in America.

Many of the younger generations of Yemeni citizens do not understand the Yemeni values until they decide to visit Yemen. Moreover, the visit could be unforgettable and full of exciting memories. They experience a culture similar to the one their parents followed, and from there, many start to realize the importance of their original values and try to live it for as long as they can. “I don’t want to be the one responsible for them losing their identity. At least for the next generation, I will make sure my children stay safe from the strong influence of the American society”, said a U.S. born Yemeni American Hafez Ali. “Our prophet Mohammed (peace is upon him) once said: ‘time will come when holding on to the practice of Islam is in the same difficulty like holding a burning piece of charcoal’ and trust me we realize that every minute of our life in America”, he added.

The crux of the "problem" is that assimilation into an alien culture implies the negation of Islam. However, there is good news for these "suffering" ingrates. Read on.

A positive aspect for all of this is that even when going through hard situations, Yemeni Americans are probably still the most cultural people in the United States. Comparing Yemeni communities to other societies throughout America, Yemenis are known to have the Islamic centers and private schools there. Their mosques are very big and in some situations hold over 6,000 worshippers. They live in special societies where they are usually close to family and friends. Quranic classes are offered to youngsters in mosques and private schools.

Many good things are happening, but we have to keep in focus the problems that the younger generations are facing now, and the bigger problems the next generation of Yemeni Americans will surely have to deal with. Furthermore finding solutions for these issues.

Please read it all.

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald asks a series of pointed questions about the enormous, and yet almost completely ignored, immigration problem in the West:

We have a right to know: what is the INS doing about Muslim immigrants? Is it doing anything? Have any policies changed since 9/11/2001? What about since the seizure of the theatre in Moscow or the school in Beslan, with nearly 400 dead children and teachers? Have there been any changes since the killing, in Holland, of Pim Fortuyn? Of Theo van Gogh? Since the threats to kill Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Geert Wilders? What changes have been made in our immigration policies since the threats to the head of a Christian political party in Norway? Since the threats to a newspaper in Denmark? Since the virtual takeover of much of Malmo, Sweden, as a no-go for non-Muslims area? What changes in immigration policy have resulted from plans to bomb the Strasbourg Christmas market, or the Vatican, were foiled? What changes in immigration policy have followed upon the bombing of the subway in Madrid? The underground in London? What changes in immigration policy followed the three weeks of Muslim riots, in which a dozen churches were attacked and set ablaze, and tens of thousands of cars set on fire, and a Frenchman beaten to death, and others critically wounded, and cries of Allahu Akbar were heard all over the land?

Any changes? Any?

The Thug-In-Chief of Iran continues to rattle his saber. Note the reference to "pure Islam." How will the West convince Muslims that "American Islam" is preferable to "pure Islam"? This is a question that none of those who like to pretend that peaceful Islam is the real thing wish to confront. "Iran’s radical body calls for confrontation with U.S. over Iraq," from IranFocus, with thanks to Jihad Watch News Editor Eric Schwappach:

Tehran, Iran, Nov. 25 – Radical Islamists allied with hard-line Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called this week for Iran to confront United States forces in Iraq.

Ansar-e Hezbollah, an ultra-conservative government-run body fiercely loyal to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, wrote in the latest edition of its weekly paper Yatharat al-Hossein that Iran had a religious duty to defend the “occupied lands of Iraq”.

“Our strategy in the occupied lands of Iraq, taking into consideration the efforts by America to take complete control of the country with the second largest oil reserves of the world, make our duties for the region clear in the present circumstances”, the group wrote in its weekly publication.

The group said that the U.S. was introducing “American Islam” in Iraq in place of theocratic Islam, citing recent remarks by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani who visited Iran earlier this week, as a “negative example” of the effects of moderate Islam.

“Based on the teachings of pure Islam and without any moderate posturing, we must oppose deviant currents in this arena and fight off the aggressors in Islamic lands following the teachings of the Quran. Of course, we are ready to carry out the orders of the Supreme Leader as a priority”.

Now let me get this straight: a gang of Muslims in Britain sets off bombs that murder scores of British civilians, for avowedly Muslim purposes. Then another group of Muslims in Britain tells the British Prime Minister that they are losing confidence in him -- and he eagerly takes his medicine. Yet the assumption that prevailed in this peculiar meeting -- that the July 7 attacks and other instances of Islamic terrorism actually have nothing to do with Islam -- has never been established, either by large-scale Muslim opposition to such acts, or by a refutation, generally accepted among Muslims, of the Islamic justification for such acts.

From IslamOnline, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

CAIRO, November 18, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – Seeking a hands-on experience on challenges facing the Muslim minority in Britain, Prime Minister Tony Blair has met with a group of young British Muslims to discuss their views on extremism, Britishness and the role of religion.

"We're losing confidence and trust in you," Hayder Khan, a young British Muslim, told Blair during a meeting Thursday at a Leeds community center, The Independent said Friday, November 18.

Bright, entrepreneurial, sports-loving and a university student, Khan said that the British foreign policy and the Iraq war have been a main cause in fueling extremism among the Muslim minority.

"With this foreign policy Muslims feel you are attacking them. We all used to vote Labour but not any more. You need to row back and take us with you."

Blair, on his first visit to Leeds since the July 7 attacks, also discussed with the young British Muslims at a primary school in Chapeltown their views on education and what it meant to be British.

Waseem Naeem, 22, a business studies student at Huddersfield University, agreed with his colleague.

"The Government's foreign policy was a factor in many Muslims turning away from the Government."...

"Making Eid a public holiday for all would delight the non-Muslims and make them examine what the festival means", an optimistic young woman told Blair....

Aneela Mather, one of the few white faces in the room, said divorcing the concepts of terrorism and Islam would also be a step forward.

"Every time there is a picture of the suicide bombers on the television, it is followed by people praying at a mosque," she told the Prime Minister.

Her colleague further suggested that divorcing nationality from religion would also help.

"I'm Muslim but that has nothing to do with my Britishness, which is about being free to go out for a drink and to dance."

This is also part of the problem. Being British involves much more than being free to go out for a drink and to dance.

Delighted with the suggestions, Blair promised to attempt to convert some of these thoughts into practice.

"I'll need to set up a government committee to answer that," Blair replied.

Blair, on his part, said that the young Muslim group represented the real voice of the young British Muslims, according to the daily.

"The extremism that grows up within communities, the only way ultimately it can be tackled is when people like yourselves are going back in there and standing up to it."

He said that the media tended to give a platform only to the "loudest and most extreme" voices.

"I'm not blaming you guys, that's just the way it is," he said, turning to the press corps.

The EU wants to pressure Israel into giving up Jerusalem, but doesn't want anyone to know about it yet. That it has been revealed already is, well, "unfortunate."

"EU downplays leaked memo on east Jerusalem," from AFP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

BRUSSELS (AFP) - The European Commission downplayed the significance of the leaking of a report accusing Israel of seeking to prevent Jerusalem becoming the Palestinians' future capital, although admitting it was "unfortunate".

The European Union's executive arm pointed out that EU foreign ministers last week publicly announced that such a report is due to be published, and also publicly made such criticism of Israel at a meeting in Brussels.

"There is no wish to conceal a document. There's a public statement that a document is going to be made public," said Emma Udwin, spokeswoman for EU external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner.

The preliminary EU report -- it is unclear if it was the final version -- was leaked in Jerusalem by an Israeli group campaigning against demolitions of Palestinian houses in east Jerusalem.

"Israel's activities in Jerusalem are in violation of both its roadmap obligations and international law," said the document.

That is such palpable nonsense -- as if the Palestinian Arabs hadn't violated their "roadmap obligations" hundreds of times over. And as if the activities of Israel in Jerusalem weren't made necessary by ongoing, unstinting, relentless terrorist attacks against civilians.

Barghouthi will be running for Fatah -- his chief opposition will come from Hamas. It's the frying pan or the fire. Tiny Minority of Extremists Update: "Jailed man leads in early Fatah vote count," from Reuters, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Jailed Palestinian Marwan Barghouthi was emerging as one of the most popular candidates in a vote called to choose people to run for Fatah in Palestinian elections in January, an official said on Friday.

Barghouthi, who is serving five life terms in jail for attacks against Israel, had a very strong showing in an early count of the vote in the West Bank town of Ramallah where he was running from prison.

Targeting U.S. troops giving out toys to children. How heroic, how proud are these self-professed "lovers of death." From AP, with thanks to JE:

BAGHDAD -- A suicide car bomber targeted U.S. troops handing out toys to children at a hospital yesterday, killing 30 persons including four police guards, three women and two children, officials said.

Another 35 persons were wounded in the morning attack in Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, said Dawoud al-Taie, the director of the hospital.

An asylum-seeker in Northern Ireland was downloading bombmaking data. Does this give anyone the idea that asylum-seekers should be subjected to greater scrutiny before being allowed to stay in Western countries? Not yet. "Algerian guilty of downloading bomb data," from The Guardian, with thanks to JE:

A 27-year-old Algerian asylum seeker was yesterday found guilty of downloading information on bomb making from the internet in the first trial of an al-Qaida suspect in Northern Ireland's no-jury Diplock courts.

Abbas Boutrab had gathered instructions on how to construct explosives and smuggle them on an aircraft. He also learned how to make a silencer for an M16 or AK assault rifle from metal tubing and rubber door stops.

During the seven-week hearing in Belfast an FBI agent, Donald Schtleben, demonstrated that 25 computer disks found in Boutrab's possession could be used to build a bomb capable of bringing down an aircraft. He suggested the devices could have been disguised inside canisters of baby talcum powder.

I just dipped into my voluminous Hate Mail Bag and picked out this gem:

NAZIS NAZIS NAZIS

Hitler must be very very proud of you. You f**king fat kike.

However, in the real world those who actually admire and strive to emulate Hitler are not opponents of the global jihad, but its allies: witness the Aryan Nations' statement that "Islam is our ally, and the 1500 cults all claiming to be 'Christian' are our opposition." And now David Duke, the famous Louisiana racist, has turned up in Syria to provide more evidence of this.

"American White Supremacist David Duke Addressing Damacus Demonstration in Support of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad: My Country Is Also Occupied by the Zionists," from MEMRITV, with thanks to JE:

Following are excerpts from a speech by American white supremacist David Duke, aired on Syrian TV on November 24, 2005.

[...]

David Duke: It is only in America and around the world, it is only the Zionists who want war rather than peace.

Interpreter: All over the world... In America, and all over the world, it is only the Zionists who want war instead of peace.

David Duke: It hurts my heart to tell you that part of my country is occupied by Zionists, just as part of your country, the Golan Heights, is occupied by Zionists.

Interpreter: It saddens me and it hurts my heart to tell you that parts of my country are occupied, just as parts of your country, namely the occupied Golan, are occupied by the Zionists.

David Duke: The Zionists occupy must of the American media and now control much of American government.

Interpreter: The Zionists control most of the media outlets, and they also control the American government.

David Duke: It is not just the West Bank of Palestine, it is not just the Golan Heights that are occupied by the Zionists, but Washington DC, and New York, and London, and many other capitals in the world.

Interpreter: It is not just the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights that are occupied by the Zionists. Washington DC, New York, London, and other cities and capitals around the world are occupied by the Zionists.

David Duke: Your fight for freedom is the same as our fight for freedom.

Interpreter: Just as the Europeans are fighting for freedom, the Arabs are fighting for freedom.

David Duke: I bring you a message from many Americans, from many people in Britain, and around the Western world. We say in unison: No war for Israel.

Interpreter: I have brought you a message from most of the Western world, from America, from Britain. The message is: No to war, no to Israel.

Duke: No war for Israel!

Crowd chants along with David Duke

David Duke: No war for Israel, no war for Israel, no war for Israel, no war for Israel!

Interpreter: No to a war for the sake of Israel... No to a war for the sake of Israel... No to a war for the sake of Israel...

Moral equivalency alert: can you imagine any Christian cleric, under any circumstances, telling people to slaughter someone for Christmas? Can you imagine a Buddhist monk doing so? Yet statements like this from Muslim clerics are so numerous that the world hardly notices. From MEMRITV, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Following are excerpts from an interview given by Sunni Cleric, Abd Al-Karim Abd Al-Razzaq, the Imam of Omar Al Mukhtar Mosque in Baghdad that was broadcast on Al-Jazeera TV (Qatar) on November 22, 2005:

[...]

Razzaq: I say to the Iraqis whoever cannot slaughter (a sheep) on the Feast of Sacrifice, should take and American soldier and slaughter him.

Another example of the fact that there is no dividing line in the Islamic community between peaceful and violent Muslims, and that prominent "moderates" can easily become "radicals": remember that Imam Fawaz Damra was one of the signers of the CAIR-endorsed fatwa against terrorism issued some time ago by the Fiqh Council of North America. Fawaz Damra update from AP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Federal authorities arrested an Islamic religious leader Friday as they began the process of deporting him for lying about ties to terrorist groups.

Imam Fawaz Damra, the spiritual leader of Ohio's largest mosque, was convicted in June 2004 of concealing ties to three groups that the U.S. government classifies as terrorist organizations when he applied for U.S. citizenship in 1994.

That conviction was upheld in March, clearing the way for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to begin deportation proceedings.

Damra, 44, was arrested early Friday without incident, the immigration office said....

The Palestinian-born Damra, who is the imam, or spiritual leader, at the Islamic Center of Cleveland, immigrated to the United States in the mid-1980s.

In Damra's trial last year, prosecutors showed video footage of Damra and other Islamic leaders raising money for an arm of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which has been listed as a major terrorist group by the State Department since 1989.

Jurors also were shown footage in which Damra called Jews "the sons of monkeys and pigs" during a 1991 speech and said "terrorism and terrorism alone is the path to liberation" in a 1989 speech.

No publicity in recent weeks. No reviews beyond three that appeared online when the book first came out. Yet my book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) continues to attract interest.

For the week of December 4, it checks in at #22 on the New York Times Bestseller List (paperback nonfiction). This is its fourteenth week on the list.

Yet the liberal and conservative media continue to behave as if this book represents a marginal perspective, not worth paying attention to. They may be in for a surprise.

A Democracy On the March Update from AKI, emphasizing once again that Muslims worldwide have not separated into pro-jihad and anti-jihad camps, but that a "moderate" can turn into a "radical" at any time:

Baghdad, 25 Nov (AKI) - The Iraqi authorities say that they have arrested the leaders of three terror networks operating around Baghdad, two of which were headed by an interior ministry official. General Bassem al-Gharawy told the German newsagency DPA that the third network was headed by the manager of a private investment company.

The networks were based in the al-Ghazaliya and al-Jihad to the west of Baghdad. ''The arrests were carried out in a legal manner, the detainees confessed to have carried out robberies, murders and have set off bombs" al-Gharawy said. "The task of the interior ministry official was to provide weapons, equipment and official documents to facilitate their operations," he added.

Yes, yes, the Black Muslims are not orthodox Muslims. But there is nothing Islamically unorthodox about these attacks. Dhimmi laws forbid the subject peoples to display wine. We have seen similar attacks in Iraq. "Police say Black Muslims may have warned business owners not to sell alcohol to African Americans," from The Argus:

About a dozen African-American men wearing suits, white-collared shirts and bow ties — a trademark of the Nation of Islam — entered the store on San Pablo Avenue and West Street about 11:30 p.m.

One went behind the counter and swept dozens of shelved liquor bottles to the floor. Others smashed glass refrigerator doors with long, slim metal pipes, breaking beer and wine bottles inside the cases. The whole incident from start to finish was caught on surveillance tape.

The men warned the store clerks to stop selling alcohol to African Americans, but they also knocked over display racks containing bread and other food items. Then, almost as quickly as they arrived, they all filed out and headed to another West Oakland liquor store, New York Market at Market and 35th streets, where they did the same thing.

Although the men did not identify themselves as Black Muslims or members of the Nation of Islam, police suspect that's who was behind the attacks, based on the attackers' attire.

"There was no warning. They never came in before," Saleh said Thursday morning....

One owner, who did not want to be identified for fear of reprisal, said he was scared, and he compared what happened to a terrorist attack.

"It's worse than al-Qaida," he said. "They run into people's stores like that, anything can happen. Somebody is going to get hurt. When that happens, you don't know what your reaction is going to be. It's like somebody running into your house...."

Representatives from Oakland's Black Muslim community did not return a phone call about the incident....

Jordan said they are investigating the incidents as hate crimes because most of the stores are owned and operated by Arabs or Arab Americans, and the suspects are telling them not to sell liquor to African Americans.

According to another report, they asked the sellers if they are Muslim, and then asked how they could sell liquor.

I trust you remember the Beach Boys' classic hit "Surfin' Sephardi." Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that any web surfer can edit, has always been a haven for surfin' ideologues and nutcases. And now they have figured me out: "His Jewish background is cited the main reason for his ant-islamic thesis.He is originally of Sephardic Jewish background." I see that this deliciously ridiculous section, sent to me by Jihad Watch reader Moondog, has been taken down -- but it was too revealing, with its barely coherent paranoia and open antisemitism, to consign unremarked to the dustbin of e-history:

Critics have snubbed Spencer for his confused character which they say,is mirrored in his writings.He is considered psychologically impotent to be a scholar and his writings are mainly based on internet browsing.Most Arab and Western media personaal are even ignorant of his presence as a biased orientalist.The most common accusations he has to face are his zionist cause.His Jewish background is cited the main reason for his ant-islamic thesis.He is originally of Sephardic Jewish background.Publications in major US dailies of his works is mocked by critics as they are alreaddy know n to be Zionist tools.Furthermore neutral Political Scientists throughout the Western world consider his articles as ludicrous and laughable.His Jewish looks are evident of his cover as a catholic as to propagate and incite hatred towards Muslims.

What remains in the Wikipedia entry about me is not much more accurate or pertinent to my work than this, but it isn't nearly as funny. Seriously, however, it is worth noting that neither this section nor the rest of the Wikipedia entry can pinpoint anything I say about Muslims or Islam that is actually untrue. Whether it's CAIR or Omid Safi or Stephen Schwartz or anyone else, my critics can only issue blanket dismissals of my accuracy (without providing any examples), or mutter about my alleged true allegiances and dark motives, or try to smear me for statements I did not make.

These tactics doubtless impress the ignorant and credulous, but others are not so willing to be diverted from the real issues.

The U.S. Army War College has issued a report, Getting Ready for a Nuclear-Ready Iran (thanks to Kemaste). From the report synopsis:

To contain and deter Iran from posing such threats, the United States and its friends could take a number of steps:...encouraging Israel to set the pace of nuclear restraint in the region by freezing its large reactor at Dimona and calling on all other states that have large nuclear reactors to follow suit...

The stupidity of this is astounding, but not surprising. Will Ahmadinejad, after calling for Israel to be wiped off the map, be so chastened by an Israeli nuclear freeze that he will abandon Iran's own nuclear program? This recommendation is just another example of the apparently unkillable assumption in Washington that the jihadists will be appeased and pacified by concessions and manifestations of good faith by America and Israel. Although the evidence mounts every day that jihadists see such concessions only as signs of weakness, and jump to capitalize upon them as ruthlessly as they can, policymakers continue to ignore it -- and to churn out reports such as this that in essence counsel the non-Muslim world to consent to its own destruction.

From the Pigs Are Flying Department: "U.N. blames Hezbollah for Blue Line fights," from UPI, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 23 (UPI) -- The U.N. Security Council has expressed deep concern about hostilities along the Blue Line between Israel and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon earlier in the week.

In unusual specificity Wednesday, it said the Monday clashes "were initiated by Hezbollah from the Lebanese side, and which quickly spread along the entire Blue Line," and said it regretted the casualties on both sides.

An update to this modern-day slavery case. From the The Rocky Mountain News:

A Saudi woman accused of keeping an Indonesian nanny as a virtual slave in her Aurora home was ordered Tuesday to post $5,000 bail for violating a restraining order that forbade her from contacting the alleged victim. Prosecutors have said Sarah Khonaizan, 36, made contact with the nanny in October but haven't disclosed what the women may have discussed.

Khonaizan is scheduled to attend a preliminary hearing on her alleged violation of the restraining order in January.

Arapahoe County Judge Christine Chauche reminded Khonaizan through a translator Tuesday to have "no contact of any kind" with the alleged victim.

She ordered Khonaizan, whose face was concealed by a niqaab, or a Muslim face veil, to post bail upon leaving the courtroom or face immediate arrest.

Both Khonaizan and her husband, 37-year-old Homaidan Al-Turki, are accused of bringing the woman to the United States as their hired nanny and keeping her as a virtual prisoner in their home for several years.

Prosecutors say the couple underpaid the nanny and prevented her from returning to her homeland by withholding her passport.

Al-Turki faces additional state charges of sexually assaulting the nanny.

An update to this story. There is an upside to this bit of dhimmitude, and it isn't only that I am looking forward to the opening of the Giants Stadium Chapel, which I am sure will be an inspiring place for Christians to pray and meditate during lulls in the action on the field. It is also that the existence of this prayer area takes away any excuse any group of Muslims may have to congregate in restricted areas, as the men who provoked this were doing. One may presume, or at least hope, that such a group gathering in a restricted area, instead of in the Muslim prayer area, in the future will be regarded with the suspicion it deserves.

From AP, with thanks to all who sent this in:

NEWARK, N.J. -- The New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority says it will provide a special area for anyone who wants a place to pray while at Giants Stadium or the Continental Airlines Arena -- a reaction to Muslim groups' outcries after several fans who prayed at a New York Giants game were detained and questioned by the FBI in September.

Sohail Mohammed, the lawyer for the Totowa-based American Muslim Union, met Sunday with officials from the sports authority, the FBI and private companies that work at the Meadowlands to educate them about Islam and the cultural and religious practices of Muslims.

Five Muslim men attending the Sept. 19 Giants game against the New Orleans Saints were detained and questioned for about a half hour by the FBI after they were observed praying at the stadium. The men claimed they were singled out because of their faith, but the FBI said the men were flagged by stadium security because they were in a sensitive area near the stadium's main air intake duct.

Former President George H.W. Bush was on hand that night as part of a fundraising campaign he and former President Bill Clinton were leading for victims of Hurricane Katrina....

George Zoffinger, the sports authority president, said space will be set aside at the stadium and the arena for anyone of any faith who wishes to pray. The exact spots have not yet been designated, he said.

"I think we did this thing exactly right," Zoffinger said. "We took it seriously. We did not like the connotation that we were profiling. We weren't.

"With this agreement, we hope we've created an atmosphere where anyone can come to our facilities and feel comfortable," he said....

Mohammed said sports authority staff said they also may extend prayer areas to the Meadowlands Racetrack.

"I told them you won't get many Muslims using that area because gambling is forbidden in Islam, but I understand there is quite a bit of praying going on among the track patrons while the horses are running," he joked.

Haw haw.

Iranian leaders still haven't learned that when referring to non-Muslims, the politically correct term is "the other". From ADNKI:

Iran's religious minorities have slammed recent controversial remarks by a top aide to the country's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, describing non-Muslims as "sinful animals who roam the earth and engage in corruption." Kurosh Niknam, the Zoroastrian representative in the Iranian parliament, lashed out at the slur, saying it was "an unprecedented insult to religious minorities."

"Not only are non-Muslims not sinful animals, but if Iran has an illustrious past and civilisation to feel good about, it owes this to those who lived in Iran before the arrival of Islam," said Niknam, adding that animals were owed an apology, "because those who sin and besmirch the earth are men who have no respect for God's other creatures."

The inflammatory "sinful animal" remarks were made on Sunday by close advisor to Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati at a ceremony in north-eastern Iran to commemorate the 'martyrs' of the Revolutionary Guards and the (1980-1988) war against Iraq.

The ayatollah heads the powerful Guardian Council, a non-elected body made up of clerics and lawyers, which can veto legislation. As well as being a top aide to Khamenei, he is a mentor of Iran's hardline president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Western Resistance suggests that Jacko is doing this to cover himself after getting caught in a ladies' loo, headscarf and all, in Bahrain. "Jackson to build a mosque in Bahrain," from the Khaleej Times, with thanks to Fjordman:

MANAMA — World’s top pop singer Michael Jackson, who recently settled down in Manama has donated a huge amount of money, the figure was not disclosed, for building a state-of-the-art mosque near his luxury palace in the Bahraini capital, according to his spokesman. The proposed mosque would be designated for learning the principles and teachings of Islam, as well as teaching of English language, for which high-standard teachers would be brought from United States under his personal supervision, the spokesman said.

Jackson did so as a token of appreciation to the Bahraini people, who welcomed him and treated him as if he was one of the citizens of their country....

It is noteworthy that Germain Jackson, the brother of Michael had embraced Islam at the beginning of 1990s, and he was one of former Jackson Five band and the solo singer[.]

Germain had felt his brother Michael has great interest and study of Islamic books, the tolerance of Islam and his dealing with Arab and Muslim personalities since long years. The most prominent among those figures is Prince Al Waleed bin Talal and the Bahraini royal family.

Erik Arnold is a freelance columnist who writes on a variety of cultural and political topics. Here is his take on the refugee problem in the Middle East:

Arab aggression has created not one but two groups of refugees in the Middle East. The world has not been allowed to forget the first but has remained largely unaware of the second. The first group comprises those Arabs who abandoned their homes in Palestine during the 1947-1949 fighting. They numbered 587,000... The second group encompasses the Jews who, between 1947 and 1963, were uprooted from African and Middle Eastern countries where their ancestors had lived for generations and where they were full fledged citizens until they suddenly became anathema. They numbered about 650,000 [Note: The numbers are actually much higher than this, being closer to 800,000. E.A.]... The overwhelming majority were poor people, but they collectively left behind property valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars... The world has not overly concerned itself about the Jews who were constrained by forces beyond their control --discriminatory laws, persecutions, physical violence, and purposeful exclusion from Arab societies -- to flee "to a place of safety," thus meeting Webster's definition of refugees. Attention has been concentrated instead on the plight of the Arabs who left Palestine voluntarily -- persuaded by their own military commanders and politicians that the war against the Jews would be short and their victorious return would be sweet with booty -- hence might be categorized more properly as "fugitives" rather than as "refugees." (Frank Gervasi, The Case for Israel, Viking Press, New York, 1967, pgs. 108-109).

The above paragraph makes succinctly clear a problem long ignored by the world's governments: the history of the persecution and expulsion of the large Jewish population of the Middle East and North Africa. The story of the Arab refugees has occasioned much gnashing of teeth and beating of breasts among the collective court of international opinion, while the same sentiment has not been granted to their more numerous Jewish counterparts.

Contrary to popular opinion, Jews never had it better among the Sons of Ishmael than they did among the Christian peoples of Europe. The writer Albert Memmi, born in Tunisia, champion of anti-colonialism and self described "left-wing Zionist," once wrote the following:

... "the supposed "idyllic life" led by Jews in the Arab countries is all a myth! The truth... is that we were, first of all, a minority in hostile surroundings and, as such, we had all the fears of the overly weak, their constant feeling of precariousness... Never, I repeat, never... have the Jews lived in the Arab countries otherwise than as diminished people in an exposed position, periodically overcome and massacred so that they would be acutely conscious of their position." (Albert Memmi, Jews and Arabs, trans. Eleanor Levieux, J. Philip O'Hara Inc., Chicago, 1975, pgs. 20-22).

He further states: "But if we leave out the crematoria and the murders committed in Russia, from Kichinev to Stalin, the sum total of the Jewish victims of the Christian world is probably no greater than the total number of victims of the successive pogroms, both big and small, perpetrated in the Moslem countries." (ibid pg. 27).

In fact, during Islam's golden age Jews were restricted as to their choice of occupation, mode of dress, forms of worship, and even access to specific parts of some cities. These discriminatory attitudes were enshrined in the Pact of Omar, the name for the collective body of legislation directed at both Jew and Christian in the Islamic world. On certain occasions the followers of Mohammed even introduced prejudicial measures later adopted by the Christian West, such as the "Jewish badge," as a mark of identification for "unbelievers."

Just what we need. And what will American immigration authorities do about this? "5000 Islamic Clerics to be sent to the US: Iran's Ayatollah," from the Spirit of Man blog, with thanks to DC Watson:

According to BBC Persian and Persian service of IRNA, the hardline ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi has announced that the Iranians living in the US need 5000 Islamic clerics for their religious services.

Mesbah Yazdi asks the new Iranian government to finance their trainings!

This hardline ayatollah is known as the founder of the shiite version of Taliban in Iran.

A Let-Them-Into-the-EU Alert from AFP, with thanks to Fjordman:

Turkey's Islamist-rooted governing party has begun a crackdown on alcohol in the local districts it controls, in a move which has sparked heavy criticism in the majority Muslim, though strictly secular, EU candidate country.

Justice and Development Party (AKP) mayors in Ankara, the capital and symbol of the Turkish secular republic, have banned alcohol from local government cafes and restaurants citing a need to protect family values.

They are also refusing to issue new sales licences, while extensions to existing permits are getting bogged down in interminable bureaucratic delays.

Turkey is officially 99 percent Muslim and Islam forbids the consumption of alcohol. In general, however, Turks follow a more moderate interpretation of the Koran holy book and the sale and consumption of alcohol is legal under licence.

Can anything good come out of Canterbury? Apparently so. The way that these laws have been ignored by human rights advocates in the name of respect for other cultures is nothing short of criminal -- so bravo, Williams. That is, as far as he goes. From AFP, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

LONDON - Rowan Williams, the spiritual leader of the world’s Anglicans, has urged Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to review the country’s blasphemy laws, the BBC reported.

Archbishop of Canterbury Williams was in mainly Muslim Pakistan to see the aftermath of the massive South Asian earthquake.

The Church of England leader said he feared the law was being used to “settle private scores”.

Pakistan’s blasphemy law says that desecrating the Quran, the Muslim holy book, is punishable by death. Christians have argued that it is used as an excuse to attack them.

Earlier this month, a Muslim mob in eastern Pakistan burnt down churches and ransacked a school over allegations that a Christian had burnt the Quran.

Williams said the laws were a worry “not so much about the idea of a law against blasphemy as about a law whose penalty is so severe and whose practice gives so many loopholes to allow people to settle private scores by appealing to blasphemy laws”, the BBC reported Wednesday.

Ah: the expected dhimmitude returns. Williams is not so much upset by blasphemy laws, even if they target Christians, as he is that they are used to "settle private scores." And the Anglican rush into relativism and irrelevance continues.

More evidence of the absence of a dividing line within Islamic communities in the West between peaceful Muslims and jihadists -- and of the dangerous implications of that absence. Note that the burqa-clad women identified themselves as the "only true believers of the Koran." Yet official Washington, Western European authorities, and the media worldwide continue to ignore such assertions, and to pretend -- and call upon all people to pretend -- that within Islamic communities worldwide there is a clear and prevailing understanding that such people are not "true believers," but in fact heretics, excoriated by the majority of Muslims. We hear all the time how "Wahhabism" is a newly-minted, anti-traditional form of Islam. But where is the evidence for these assertions? The only thing untraditional about the Wahhabis is their extravagant taste for takfir, or the declaration of other Muslims as heretics and apostates. What no one wants to face is the fact that Wahhabism shares with all other Muslim groups the idea that Muslims must wage war against non-Muslims in order to establish the hegemony of Islamic law. This is not a tenet of "radical" Islam, but of traditional Islam.

"How a Town Became a Terror Hub: Belgian Haven Seen At Heart of Network," from the Washington Post, with thanks to Jerry Gordon:

MAASEIK, Belgium -- The phones at city hall began ringing nonstop one morning last year when several masked figures were spotted walking through the cobbled streets of this pastoral town. A small panic erupted when one of the figures, covered head to ankle in black fabric, appeared at a school and scared children to tears.

It turned out the people were not hooded criminals, but six female residents of Maaseik who were displaying their Muslim piety by wearing burqas, garments that veiled their faces, including their eyes. After calm was restored, a displeased Mayor Jan Creemers summoned the women to his office.

"I said, 'Ladies, you can be dressed all in Armani black for all I care, but please do not cover your faces,' " Creemers recalled. "I tried to talk to them about it, but it was impossible. They said, 'We are the only true believers of the Koran.' "

What the city elders did not know at the time was that the women came from households in which several men had embraced radical Islam and joined a terrorist network that was setting up sleeper cells across Europe, according to Belgian federal prosecutors and court documents from Italy, Spain and France.

Over the next nine months, Belgian federal police arrested five men in Maaseik, a town of 24,000 people tucked in the northeast corner of Belgium. Each was charged with membership in a terrorist organization, the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, a fast-growing network known by its French initials, GICM.

With each arrest, investigators uncovered fresh evidence that placed small-town Maaseik at the center of a terrorist network stretching across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. The town had served as a haven for suspects in the Madrid train explosions that killed 191 people in March 2004, for instance, as well as an important meeting place for the GICM's European leadership.

Read it all.

Christopher Marlowe, you Islamophobe! Over 400 years ago, without the slightest regard for the sensitivities of the Muslim Council of Britain, you put these words into the mouth of your character Tamburlaine the Great (which character bears only a glancing resemblance to the actual Tamerlane -- “Timur the Lame,” 1336-1405 -- the bloody conqueror of Central Asia, who was actually a member of the allegedly peaceful Naqshbandi Sufi sect of Islam):

Now, Casane, where's the Turkish Alcoran, And all the heaps of superstitious books Found in the temples of that Mahomet Whom I have thought a god? they shall be burnt.

USUMCASANE
Here they are, my lord.

TAMBURLAINE
Well said! let there be a fire presently.

[They light a fire.]

Now, Mahomet, if thou have any power,
Come down thyself and work a miracle:
Thou art not worthy to be worshipped
That suffer'st flames of fire to burn the writ
Wherein the sum of thy religion rests:
Why send'st thou not a furious whirlwind down,
To blow thy Alcoran up to thy throne,
Where men report thou sitt'st by God himself?
Or vengeance on the head of Tamburlaine
That shakes his sword against thy majesty,
And spurns the abstracts of thy foolish laws?--
Well, soldiers, Mahomet remains in hell;
He cannot hear the voice of Tamburlaine:
Seek out another godhead to adore;
The God that sits in heaven, if any god,
For he is God alone, and none but he.

But lie quiet, Christopher. A new London production of your play has ensured that it is multicultural enough to suit the new dhimmi Britain.

From the TimesOnline, with thanks to Interested:

IT WAS the surprise hit of the autumn season, selling out for its entire run and inspiring rave reviews. But now the producers of Tamburlaine the Great have come under fire for censoring Christopher Marlowe’s 1580s masterpiece to avoid upsetting Muslims.

Audiences at the Barbican in London did not see the Koran being burnt, as Marlowe intended, because David Farr, who directed and adapted the classic play, feared that it would inflame passions in the light of the London bombings.

Simon Reade, artistic director of the Bristol Old Vic, said that if they had not altered the original it “would have unnecessarily raised the hackles of a significant proportion of one of the world’s great religions”.

The burning of the Koran was “smoothed over”, he said, so that it became just the destruction of “a load of books” relating to any culture or religion. That made it more powerful, they claimed.

Members of the audience also reported that key references to Muhammad had been dropped, particularly in the passage where Tamburlaine says that he is “not worthy to be worshipped”. In the original Marlowe writes that Muhammad “remains in hell”...

A minor point: someone should tell these modern-day Bowdlers that Muhammad is not actually worshipped in Islam. More importantly, they should be reminded that changing old texts to suit modern sensibilities sets a dangerous precedent, not only one of bowing to the specter of violence from angry Muslims but also of rewriting history to suit the present -- a practice that supremacist jihadists who dismiss all that is not Islam as worthless "jahiliyya" will undoubtedly applaud.

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses the peculiar dhimmi attitude that black African states have up to now displayed toward Arab states, and why this must be changed:

Even though, under Western pressure, slavery has been officially abolished in Muslim countries (which cannot permanently reject slavery, as it is recognized in Islam) the blacks of sub-Saharan Africa are, whenever they come into contact with Arab or even local Muslims, still being exploited, massacred (as the Biafrans) or sold into slavery (as in the Sudan). This is happening most notably in the Sudan, which a hundred years ago was still mainly black and overwhelmingly non-Muslim, but thanks to steady Jihad encroachments has been taken over by the dominant northern Arabs.

It was not Muslims, but the British who suppressed the Arab slave trade in East Africa. That trade had supplied black slaves for many uses, but particularly sought were male children who were castrated on sight where they were seized. Those who survived the primitive operation (with of course no anesthetic) were then taken by slave coffle from the interior and marched either all the way up to the Muslim slave-markets of Egypt and North Africa from Tripolitania to Mauritania, or taken by dhow to the coast, often to Muscat, and from there to the slave-markets of Arabia, Riyadh and Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo, even as far as Constantinople and Smyrna. In “The Hideous Trade” Jan Hogedoorn has calculated that the mortality rate due to the castration and subsequent forced marches, ended with barely 10% of those initially taken actually managing to reach those slave markets alive.

This wreaked havoc all over East and Central Africa, and even had consequences in West Africa. V. S. Naipaul has noted that the Muslim conquest of Hindustan left the Indians with a “wounded civilization.” Similarly, in his short monograph on “The Wanderings of Peoples” the British historian A. C. Haddon notes that in Africa “the slave trade, as carried on under Arab influence...contributed powerfully to the dislocation of tribes."

Such dislocation followed upon the activities of the Arab slavers. Think of Tippoo Tib, whom Stanley writes about. His depredations have received little attention, though those of him and other Arab slavers were by far the worst of the calamities visited by outsiders upon black Africa. Unlike the European colonialists, the Arabs who use Islam as the vehicle for their own imperialism have never had to account for this. Yet they have never ceased to press forward, to make demands on black Africa. They helped encourage the “Jihad” – as Colonel Ojukwu called it in his Ahiara Declaration – that led the Christian Ibo in Nigeria to fight for their independence from the Muslim north; with Egyptian pilots strafing Ibo villages, and the entire Western world ignoring the Biafrans. Only Ghana and Israel recognized Biafra diplomatically. And with a million civilians massacred, the Muslims of the north, with that Egyptian help, managed to suppress the Biafran movement. They continue to this day to divert the oil wealth from the largely Christian south to support the Muslim-controlled army and the depressed, inshallah-fatalistic economy of the Muslim north.

Israel is at the front line of the global jihad movement. Ever since the State of Israel was founded in 1948, and even before, it has faced jihadist opposition from groups adamant in their determination to destroy it utterly. Yet I expect that a poll of Americans would find only a tiny minority would affirm that Israel faces the same foe, with the same ideology, as the one the United States has faced since 9/11. The Left, of course, and many others -- including some of the Arabic-speaking Christians with whom I am in daily contact -- believe fervently that Israel is the aggressor against an innocent and aggrieved Palestinian people, and that the conflict is wholly and solely about "stolen land."

I was recently offered, and immediately seized, an opportunity to see for myself. I arrived in Israel last Tuesday, November 15, and back home in Secure Undisclosed Locationville yesterday. Among many other things, in the last few days, I have:

• Explored the Muslim Quarter and other sections of Jerusalem's Old City;

• Peered into Syria from an Israeli bunker on the Golan Heights;

• Traveled by bulletproof bus through the West Bank, and inspected the security fence;

• Slept (fitfully) in a Bedouin tent in the desert, and savored the magnificence of the stark land;

• Walked through the 700-year-old streets of Safed, not far from where the Hizb'Allah rockets fell a few days ago near Kiryat Shmona and Metulla;

• Strolled around modern Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

I also had the honor of meeting Natan Sharansky (I gave him copies of my books The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and Onward Muslim Soldiers) and the Chief Sephardic Rabbi of Jerusalem, Shlomo Moshe Amar. I met a couple who had recently been evacuated by the Israeli government from their West Bank "settlement," where they had lived and worked for twelve years, and endured daily gunfire from Palestinians since the Al-Aqsa intifada began in September 2000. I met an American who now lives and works on a kibbutz in the Golan Heights, cultivating land just across the Syrian border, in defiance of the danger involved. Like so many other Israelis all over the country, he must carry a gun at all times. I photographed a large, confidently imposing, and clearly thriving mosque near my hotel in Tel Aviv, the very existence of which stands as poignant refutation of the charge that Muslims are oppressed in Israel -- especially in light of the glaring non-existence of synagogues in Muslim lands and the precarious existence of churches in them.

Israel is a country at war, a country under siege. Everywhere I went, even into a shopping mall in Tel Aviv, armed guards stood at the entry, searching everyone. Many Israelis with whom I spoke discussed the weariness of the people after decades and decades of war. They said that many, and maybe even a majority, are willing to cut any deal, even one involving giving up half of Jerusalem, in order to buy a peace that they themselves acknowledge will last only a few years.

But at the same time, there is a tremendous spirit among the people. I saw the greenhouses and agricultural projects making the desert bloom, and the determination of so many not to be intimidated, not to bow in the face of jihad violence. Long may they prosper.

Israel stands virtually alone in the world not only because of lingering antisemitism, but because Palestinian Arabs and their allies have succeeded in convincing opinion-makers that their land was taken illegitimately by Israel, and that they are oppressed there. The facts are otherwise, as I have discussed in a previous article here. The state was established legitimately and with the approval of the United Nations, and even the "occupied territories" were obtained according to what have been universally recognized throughout history as the rules of war. (Or should the United States give up the "occupied territories" of California, Texas, and other Western states? Should Russia withdraw from its "occupied territories" in Konigsberg, eastern Finland and eastern Poland? Should Muslims across North Africa, the Middle East, Iran, India and Southeast Asia withdraw from those "occupied territories" back to Arabia?) While I am sympathetic to genuine Palestinian Arab refugees, and with my friends from Ramallah and Jenin, I can't help but notice the role of the neighboring Arab states in exacerbating and prolonging the refugee problem for political reasons that are ultimately rooted in the jihad ideology. I can't help but notice that I was able to visit the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Mount Tabor, and other Christian holy sites in Israel, which mean a great deal to me personally, while Bethlehem, under Palestinian Authority control, has become a dangerous place from which Christians are fleeing as quickly as they can. I can't help but notice that there was no call to establish a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza between 1948 and 1967, when those territories were under Jordanian and Egyptian control respectively -- despite the alleged difference of nationality between Palestinians and Jordanians and Egyptians.

Ultimately, if the nations of the world are interested in defending universal human rights and the equality of dignity of all people, they need to stand with Israel. Misdiagnosis of the problem -- that is, the unwillingness or inability of Western governments to acknowledge the motives and goals of the jihadists who want above all to destroy them -- has largely prevented this.

Yet as Benjamin Franklin said long ago in a far different context, we must all hang together, or we will most assuredly all hang separately.

I returned to the U.S. yesterday and have been busy catching up on a mountain of calls and emails. My heartfelt thanks to Jihad Watch News Editors Anne Crockett, Rebecca Bynum, Eric Schwappach and Patrick Devenny for keeping you up-to-date on the latest news from the wonderful world of the global jihad. Unfortunately, there is never a shortage of acceptable material for both the Jihad Watch and Dhimmi Watch sides of this site. My fondest hope is that someday, like the state under Communism, this site would wither away, having nothing to report; however, the likelihood of that happening is about as probable as was that Marxist fantasy.

Anyway, today is Thanksgiving Day in the United States, and there is, despite the ever-gathering clouds, much for which to be thankful. I am grateful that:

1. Although there have been several notable attempts at another large-scale jihad terrorist attack in the United States, they have all so far been thwarted;

2. Attacks in Britain, France and elsewhere have resulted not solely in calls for dhimmi capitulation, but also in increased resolve in the face of a menace that is becoming increasingly clear;

3. As the wholly unexpected popularity of my latest book indicates, despite the ever-stifling politically correct lockstep in the mainstream media (both left and right) about Islamic terrorism, more and more people are awakening to the truth and speaking out -- like Solzhenitsyn's blades of grass poking through the concrete;

4. This site continues to gain readers, which encourages me, since I don't know of any other site that does exactly what we do: reports on jihad activity all over the world, against Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, and others, and explains the news stories in light of the larger goals of the jihad movement. In November we are averaging around 500,000 hits every day -- about 25,000 visitors daily, if I am reading these charts correctly -- and that is more than we have ever had. I have also been consulted in the past few months by a Senate committee, a Congressman, and reporters from the BBC, ABC, the Washington Post, and others.

5. As the jihadists continue their activity around the world, they daily make it more difficult for their Muslim and non-Muslim apologists to continue to deflect attention from the fact that we are engaged in a war to defend notions of universal rights and equality of dignity of all people, which rights the jihadists are determined to subvert.

And for what are you thankful?

"Iraq Insurgents Kill Senior Sunni Leader" But were they really "insurgents"? From AP via Interest Alert:

Gunmen wearing Iraqi army uniforms broke into the home of a senior Sunni leader on Wednesday and killed him, his three sons and his son-in-law on the outskirts of Baghdad, his brother and an interior ministry official said.

Khadim Sarhid al-Hemaiyem was the leader of the Sunni Batta tribe and the brother of a parliamentary candidate in the Dec. 15 election, the official Maj. Falah al-Mohammedawi said. Another of the slain man's brothers said the family has been attacked before.

'A group of gunmen with Iraqi army uniforms and vehicles broke into my brother's house in the Hurriyah area and sprayed them with machine gun fire, killing him along with three sons and his son-in law,' said his brother, Nima Sarhid Al-Hemaiyem. 'His eldest son was assassinated one month ago in the Taji area, northern Baghdad, when unidentified men shot and killed him.'

Al-Mohammedawi said government forces were not involved and the investigation was focused on insurgents.

'Surely, they are outlaw insurgents. As for the military uniform, they can be bought from many shops in Baghdad,' he said. 'Also, we have several police and army vehicles stolen and they can be used in the raids.'...

More than 160 Iraqis, most of them Shiites, have died in a wave of spectacular suicide operations across Iraq since Friday.

From AFX via Forbes:

TEHRAN - Iraqi President Jalal Talabani wrapped up a landmark visit to neighbouring Iran today, saying he had won promises of support for his bid to end the insurgency ravaging his country.

'Iran is interested in our security just as it is interested in its own security. We should use all means to establish security in Iraq,' Talabani said as he was seen off by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Talabani is the first Iraqi head of state to visit Iran since the late 1960s. He said he had received pledges of support in his closed-door talks with Ahmadinejad and Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Khamenei told Talabani that foreign troops were the cause of violence and that Iraqi authorities should demand a timetable for a pull-out.

'The Islamic Republic of Iran holds the American government responsible for the suffering of the Iraqi people and all the crimes and assassinations now being committed in Iraq,' Khamenei was quoted as saying by official media.

'The presence of foreign troops is damaging for the Iraqis, and the Iraqi government could ask for their departure by proposing a timetable,' Khamenei asserted, adding that 'the US and Britain will eventually have to leave Iraq with a bitter experience.'...

From VOA:

The United States has decided to resume the sale of lethal military hardware to Indonesia. The State Department announced Tuesday that in the interest of U.S. national security it has exercised its authority under a law passed earlier this month to waive conditions on U.S. military relations with Indonesia.

The State Department statement says "Indonesia has made significant progress in advancing its democratic institutions and practices in a relatively short time." As a result, the department has decided to waive conditions placed on the sale of lethal military equipment to Indonesia and on U.S. financing of Indonesian military purchases...

Congress was divided on the issue, with the House of Representatives voting to remove the restrictions, while the Senate voted to maintain them. The Senate's view was adopted as part of a broader compromise that enabled the law to be passed.

Tuesday's State Department statement notes that Indonesia is the world's most populous mostly Muslim nation, and praises the country as "a voice of moderation in the Islamic world." It also says Indonesia "plays a key role in guaranteeing security in the strategic sea lanes in Asia."

But Tony Blair talked him out of it. So says the Washington Post, also known affectionately as the "Bandar Beacon":

LONDON -- President Bush expressed interest in bombing the headquarters of the Arabic television network al-Jazeera during a White House conversation with Prime Minister Tony Blair in April 2004, a British newspaper reported Tuesday.

The Daily Mirror report was attributed to two anonymous sources describing a classified document they said contained a transcript of the two leaders' talk. One source is quoted as saying Bush's alleged remark concerning the network's headquarters in Qatar was "humorous, not serious," while the other said, "Bush was deadly serious."

In Washington, a senior diplomat said the Bush remark as recounted in the newspaper "sounds like one of the president's one-liners that is meant as a joke." But, the diplomat said, "it was foolish for someone to write it down, and now it will be a story for days."

"We are not interested in dignifying something so outlandish and inconceivable with a response," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told the Associated Press in an e-mail.

Al-Jazeera has frequently aired recorded statements from al Qaeda figures. Bush administration officials have contended that through that type of broadcasting the network often serves as a conduit for terrorist propaganda...

"Islam United to Stop Female Genital Mutilation" From AllAfrica.com with thanks to Eric.

Ministers, politicians and religious leaders from almost 50 Muslim states were gathered for two days in the Moroccan capital at the first Islamic childhood conference.

The resulting "Rabat Declaration" puts special emphasis on female genital mutilation and other harmful practices discriminating girls, underlining it is against Islam.

Female genital mutilation (FGM), which is also called female circumcision, is most widespread in sub-Saharan Muslim cultures, but Muslim scholars for decades have emphasised that there is no Islamic basis for the very harmful practice, which causes many deaths among young girls each year.

The growing number of anti-FGM activists today found solid support among the most important decision-makers in the united Islamic world, united in Rabat. The first Islamic Conference of Ministers in Charge of Childhood - organised by the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) and the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (ISESCO) - today issued a strong-worded declaration condemning FGM.

The Rabat Declaration called upon all Muslim states to "take the necessary measures to eliminate all forms of discrimination against girls and all harmful traditional or customary practices, such as child marriage and female genital mutilation." The protection of children "from all forms of exploitation, abuse, torture and violence" was high on the Ministers' agenda...

Bronwen Maddox says reining-in Iran's ambitions could also help others to explore alternative fuels in this article in TimesOnline, with thanks to Interested.

IN FOUR months of extravagantly bad-tempered diplomacy, Iran’s new President has pulled off one small success. He has sidestepped a fight with the rest of the world tomorrow over his country’s nuclear plans.

That shows a flicker of an instinct for self-preservation by President Ahmadinejad — one of the few compliments that it is possible to pay him since his election in June.

The reprieve, even if temporary, may have a wider benefit, too. It may sketch out an answer to a problem growing more obvious by the day: how to prevent the world’s renewed enthusiasm for nuclear power leading to the spread of nuclear weapons...

One senior European official said it was reassuring that there was "a great deal of common ground". All the countries agreed that there should be a "significant gap in the fuel cycle" — Iran should not be allowed to master all the techniques for making reactor fuel, which would also give it the expertise for making weapons. The plan for the moment, then, is to push Russia’s proposal of a fortnight ago. Iran would be allowed to prepare uranium in the form of gas, but enrichment of uranium into reactor fuel and reprocessing of fuel rods (another route to a bomb) would be done in Russia.

We’ll see. Iran has avoided rejecting this, a move one European official called "tactically sensible". But it also wants to press ahead with its enrichment plant at Natanz...

At worst the Russian proposal has taken the heat off Iran. But at best it will have pointed the way to a solution for other countries wanting an alternative to expensive gas and oil...

From Reuters:

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Afghan police on Wednesday found the decapitated body of an Indian man who Taliban insurgents said they kidnapped and executed, a provincial official said.

The body of the engineer, who had been working on a road project, was found on a dirt road in the southern province of Nimroz, said Mohammad Hashim, a district chief in the province.

"Police have found the body of the Indian national and I can confirm that he has been killed," Hashim told Reuters.

The young man had been beheaded, according to Amanullah Khan, chief of highway police in the province.

The head was placed with the body and a note, apparently written in English was also found, Khan said.

From NewIndPress:

LONDON: A large amount of cash intended for 'hawala' transactions in the Indian subcontinent was the main target of a burglary at a British travel agency in which one woman police officer was shot dead.

The killing of the officer, Sharon Beshenivsky, 38, last Friday has dominated media coverage here, including the coverage of a public outpouring of grief in Bradford and elsewhere in Britain.

Money-laundering expert Jeffrey Robinson told reporters: "Somebody obviously knew there was money there on Friday but the fact that a gun was involved says to me that this is not just ordinary guys looking for money to buy drugs."

D.C. Watson keeps Dennis Prager's debate going, telling C.A.I.R., "The purpose of this column is certainly not to berate every Muslim in the world, as many of them have been intimidated and threatened by their militant fellow believers. Nevertheless, many of these radical Islamic problem children are in the United States, and you're not helping matters. Until every one of you at C.A.I.R. understands that not everyone has been fooled, and you become part of the solution instead of part of the problem, the American people will continue to make sure that the road you're presently traveling down will be one that is cold and unforgiving."

On November 17th, 2005, Hussam Ayloush of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) responded to radio talk show host Dennis Prager's "Five questions non-Muslims would like answered" with a column entitled "A Muslim response to Prager's five questions." The full text of both articles can be viewed here: Prager: Ayloush: Mr. Ayloush, I have provided separate rebuttals, which are located below each of your answers to Prager's five questions. From the column, Mr. Ayloush remarked: "Prager said his questions were prompted in part by recent rioting in France "by primarily Muslim youths," despite the fact that neutral experts say the violence had little to do with Islam and it was Muslim leaders who ultimately helped quell the violence." "Faulty premise aside, here are answers to Prager's questions":

Faulty premise? So, Mr. Ayloush, can you provide for us a legitimate explanation for the rioting Muslims shouting "Allahu Akbar" as they burned churches, set fire to thousands of cars, and doused a handicapped woman with petrol, and then set her ablaze? And by the way, it was a substantial police crackdown and curfew that helped "quell the violence."

1) Prager: "Why are you so quiet"? (About condemning terrorism)
Ayloush: "One might argue that Muslims could do more to get their anti-terror message out. But to say Muslims have been quiet about their unequivocal condemnation of terrorism is a gross misrepresentation of the facts and reeks of Islamophobia." (See the provided link above for more of Ayloush's answer to this question.)

Islamophobia? There's that ridiculous word again. That fake, improvable description that you Truthophobes at CAIR throw out whenever anyone criticizes followers of the Islamic faith. Mr. Ayloush, buying ads in newspapers, issuing generalized condemnations, and facilitating useless "fatwas" aren't getting the job done. Muslims in the West should be turning their fanatic Muslim brothers, including Imams and clerics, in to the authorities. Where can we read that any of this is happening? What we do read, is that when Muslims are arrested, your organization questions the motives of the authorities, not the motives of those who are brought into custody.

2) Prager: "Why are none of the Palestinian terrorists Christian"?
Ayloush: "Robert Pape in his book, "Dying to Win - The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism," shows that between 1982 and 1986, 71 percent of the Lebanese suicide attackers were Christians and 21 percent Communists/Socialists. Suicide terrorism is not overwhelmingly a religious phenomenon. It is a response to occupation."

In that case, Mr. Ayloush, you may want to relay that to Omar Ahmad, who worked for CAIR when he said that suicide bombers "kill themselves for Islam."
Mr. Ayloush, is it not true that the detached heads of suicide bombers that have rolled down the streets in Israel after detonation, and in London for that matter, belonged to Muslims, not Christians?

And a suicide car bomb attack kills 18. From Pakistan's Daily Times:

TIKRIT: A mortar round landed on Tuesday during a ceremony attended by American ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad and other top officials in the north of the country.

Bodyguards formed a wall around the US envoy before rushing him away after the mortar shell was fired at a ceremony he and US commander General George Casey were attending near Tikrit, an AFP correspondent reported.

“One round did land several hundred yards away, but did not explode,” US military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Barry Johnson said. “There were no injuries,” he added. Casey, bent in half, was surrounded by a number of his officers, and other participants scrambled away for safety...

A suicide car bomb blast killed 18 people, including 10 police, and wounded 28 others in an attack in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk on Tuesday, police and doctors at Kirkuk’s main hospital said...

From MEMRI:

On October 20, 2005, the Lebanese press reported that a delegation from the Presbyterian Church USA, headed by Father Nihad Tu'meh and with Robert Worley as its spokesman, visited southern Lebanon at the invitation of Hizbullah, and met there with the terrorist organization's commander in southern Lebanon Nabil Qawuq...

A year previously, on October 17, 2004, a Presbyterian Church USA delegation visiting Lebanon also met with Qawuq. MEMRI TV translated excerpts from a report on the meeting that was aired by Hizbullah's Al-Manar TV. During the meeting, church elder Ronald Stone said, "We treasure the precious words of Hizbullah and your expression of goodwill towards the American people. Also, we praise your initiative for dialogue and mutual understanding. We cherish these statements that bring us closer to you. As an elder of our church, I'd like to say that according to my recent experience, relations and conversations with Islamic leaders are a lot easier than dealings and dialogue with Jewish leaders."...

It should also be noted that shortly after the October 20, 2005 meeting, a delegation of families of U.S. victims of 9/11 went to Lebanon met with Hizbullah Deputy Leader Sheikh Naim Qassem. The following are excerpts from reports in the Lebanese press on the October 20, 2005 meeting.

Hizbullah commander in south Lebanon Nabil Qawuq told the delegation: "Lebanon, like the other countries in the region, suffers from the [political] American storms that have hit the region and are threatening its stability. Any foreign patronage is a bad thing, and the American patronage over Lebanon is the worst, because it is pushing the region towards sectarian segregation. All Lebanese fear the chaos created by the American policy."...

Delegation spokesman Robert Worley said: "We do not wish to defend the U.S. administration. We all elected the Democratic Party against the Republican Party. Rest assured that we will return to the U.S. in order to continue our activity for peace, and we want to hear about the charity activities and the cultural and social activities organized by Hizbullah in south [Lebanon]. The Americans hear in the Western media that Hizbullah is a terrorist organization, and they do not hear any other opinion. They know nothing about the party's concern for the people of the south. We have suffered much pressure on the part of Jewish organizations in the U.S. because [of our help in] divesting corporations working with Israel. We want Jerusalem to be a united city, just as we encouraged the Palestinians and the Jews to work for peace, and we demanded that our administration adheres to this position."

Anthony Browne's round-up of how Muslim fanatics are transforming the Netherlands.

Islamist murders and threats have transformed the once-tolerant Netherlands into a place of armed bodyguards and fear...

More from Memri
Temple in Jerusalem? What Temple?

The Jews dug 40 meters into the ground, and found nothing. There is no indication that a temple existed there.

David and Solomon were among our ranks. If Solomon had a temple, we would be worshipping Allah in it.

'If we take the number of gas chambers and the maximal daily capacity of an oven, and multiply them by the period you Zionists, claim the Holocaust lasted - even if we multiply the number of ovens by the maximal [capacity], the figure is grossly exaggerated.

Everybody chant together now
"Columbus Did NOT Discover America;
Columbus Did NOT Discover America"
From Memri

The Arabic language, 200 years ago, was a universal language. It's interesting to note that when Christopher Columbus went to America, in what language did he speak with the Indians? It is said that the language they spoke with the Indians – and I have indisputable documentation of this at home... The intellectuals among the Indians spoke Arabic.

Can't get to the mosque for an earful of jihad? No problem. In Kuwait there are traveling preachers who'll bring it to your front door. From ADNKI:

Kuwait City, 22 Nov. (AKI) - Five extremist 'preachers' have been arrested for going door-to-door spreading the doctrine of the terror group al-Qaeda among the inhabitants of a Kuwaiti city. Local newspaper al-Seyassah said the five were detained on Monday morning as they went around the al-Farwaniya area, knocking on doors and stopping citizens to talk to them about the importance of the Jihad (holy war) and the need to re-establish Sharia Islamic law in the world.

The five preachers had effectively been holding impromptu religious lessons on the Jihad all morning, until the police were alerted and they were arrested. The group of fundamentalist preachers was made up of three Egyptians and two Indonesians. The security services are trying to discover how they entered the country and if they had direct contact with terror groups active in Iraq.

From AP

Jurors rejected a U.S. citizen's claim he was tortured by Saudi forces to extract a confession and found him guilty Tuesday of joining al-Qaida and plotting the assassination of President Bush.
Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, 24, could be sentenced to life in prison on charges that include conspiracy to assassinate the president, conspiracy to hijack aircraft and providing support to al-Qaida.

From AP

Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen held without charges for more than three years on suspicion of plotting a "dirty bomb" attack in this country, has been indicted on three counts alleging he conspired to "murder, maim and kidnap" people overseas.
The indictment naming Padilla and four others was unsealed Tuesday after being returned last week by a federal grand jury in Miami. While the charges allege Padilla was part of a U.S.-based terrorism conspiracy, they do not include the government's earlier allegations that he planned to carry out attacks in America.

Sharon has quit Likud to form a new centrist party ahead of elections in early spring. From the Christian Science Monitor:

JERUSALEM – Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, rarely one to wait for others to act first, made a series of preemptive political strikes Monday that laid the groundwork for a new centrist party and may cement his position as Israel's premier hawk-made-moderate.

After resigning from the hard-line Likud on Sunday and calling for early elections in March, Mr. Sharon Monday announced the formation of the National Responsibility Party. If successful, Sharon's new party could transcend Israel's right-left divide and claim a mandate for negotiating a settlement to the Israel-Palestinian conflict...

"The Likud in its present configuration cannot lead the nation to its goals," said Sharon - the first sitting Israeli prime minister to quit his party - at a press conference to announce the formation of National Responsibility. The Gaza pullout created a "historic opportunity," he said. "I will not allow anyone to squander it."...

"Sharon doesn't care if this is a one-term party," says Ethan Dor-Shav, a political analyst and associate fellow at Jerusalem's Shalem Center.

"He doesn't need to run again, and it's going to be stated quite clearly that this will be a last time for him," he says, "and that he will reach a final status agreement with the Palestinian Authority, one that will determine borders, within the next four years."

Jihad Watch News Editor, Eric Schwappach, examines a case of conspiracy theory vs. justice in Libya.

Benghazi is an old city lying on the Mediterranean in northeast Libya. It has seen its share of conquest, mainly by the Greek, Roman and Byzantium empires, but it was the conquest of 7th century Muslim Arabs that holds sway over the city to this day. The second capital after Tripoli, Benghazi’s current appellation was derived after a 15th century man named Seedi Ghazi; a charitable soul who contributed greatly to the city and its inhabitants. Almost six hundred years later it has become ironic that the residents of Benghazi, a city named after a person of philanthropy, would label an equally benevolent medical staff consisting of five nurses and one doctor as pariah worthy of execution.

It all began in 1998 when two Bulgarian nurses working at the Benghazi Children's Hospital were detained by Libyan authorities. By mid 2004, five Bulgarian nurses and one Palestinian doctor were delivered death sentences by the criminal court of Benghazi. According to the Libyan government, the medical staff had deliberately infecting more than 400 Libyan children with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

Conspiracy theories abound

In this day of instantaneous communication many have fallen prey to urban legends or revisionist history, but nowhere on the planet do conspiracy theories take root more than in the Arab world.

Arab and Muslim people are hurt, wronged and in turn feed conspiracy theories to the young minds it becomes easier for Muslims in general and Arabs in particular to explain our failure as a conspiracy against us; to blame others for all our problems.

From the BBC:

London suicide bomber Mohammed Sidique Khan's claim that UK foreign policy is "oppressing" Muslims was "rubbish", Prime Minister Tony Blair has said.

Mr Blair, citing Khan's video message broadcast after the July bombings, said grievances about UK policy in Iraq and elsewhere were "misplaced".

Such views must be "challenged at every level", he told a committee of MPs.

In his video, Khan criticised British foreign policy, saying he was a soldier fighting a war.

Giving evidence to the influential Commons liaison committee, Mr Blair said: "When I saw the video of one of the suicide bombers from 7 July talking about what had happened I looked at it and said 'this is someone brought up in this country, who has all the freedoms that they have in this country, who has got a good standard of life as a result of being in this country'.

"One of the things we have got to do is challenge the notion that he can stand up and say 'this is a country that is oppressing people of my religion'. It's rubbish."...

"There is a tendency for us to go into the community and say we kind of understand how you feel like you feel, but we disagree with your methods in dealing with it.

"I don't agree that there is a sense of grievance. People may disagree with this or that aspect of foreign policy but it's not merely that nothing justifies the act of terrorism, the actual grievance about foreign policy is misplaced.

"Whether America is right or wrong, or Britain is right or wrong in its foreign policy, it is not pursuing it because of the religion of the people concerned."

From the BBC:

Israeli warplanes have bombed southern Lebanon, a day after Lebanese guerrillas attacked Israeli soldiers in a border area. The planes fired rockets at a suspected outpost of the Hezbollah group.

Four Hezbollah fighters were killed in clashes on Monday, which came amid intense artillery fire from both sides.

Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz says Israel was conducting its most extensive response to Hezbollah attacks since its forces left Lebanon in 2000...

Eleven Israelis were wounded in Monday's clashes - the worst violence in the area since the Israeli pullout...

From the Denver Post

What began as a search for common ground between Congressman Tom Tancredo and Colorado interfaith leaders has disintegrated, with the two sides unable to agree on a joint statement about religion, terrorism and retaliation. For more than two months, the Colorado Republican and a group of Muslim, Christian and Jewish representatives tried to broker peace after Tancredo suggested it was acceptable to bomb Muslim holy sites in response to terrorist attacks.

What unacceptable demand did Tancredo have?

The rift opened over Tancredo's insistence on a section stating: "Places of worship which do not offer refuge or financial or political support to persons conducting or planning acts of violence deserve both respect and protection in any conflict that might erupt in combating terrorism."

And that was controversial in what way, please?

From Reuters:

BAGHDAD - Once a bitter enemy, Iran is emerging as a trade lifeline for Iraq as Baghdad seeks to rebuild an economy shattered by years of sanctions, neglect and corruption under Saddam Hussein and since his overthrow.

As Iraq picks up the pieces, it is becoming a key market for its neighbours, especially Iran which it fought from 1980-88. Many Iraqi business people say it is easier to get goods like vegetables from Iran than from some parts of Iraq itself, where insurgents sometimes target truck drivers.

"We import fruits and vegetables from Iran because we feel relieved about the safety of the roads our trucks are moving on," Iraqi trader Ali Shahatha said.

Helping to thaw and improve relations with Iran is new Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, an Islamist Shi'ite who has close ties to Shi'ite Iran, where he once lived in exile.

Iranian Commerce Ministry estimates say trade with Iraq could reach $1 billion in the year to March 2006 in everything from fruit and vegetables to refrigerators and building materials. Goods worth $650 million were exported to Iraq in the first 10 months of 2005, official figures show.

Trade ties are much simpler now that Saddam, a Sunni Arab aggressively at odds with his Persian neighbours, has gone...

Iran has long wanted to cooperate with Iraq -- a fellow member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) -- by swapping crude oil and possibly developing joint border oil fields.

Oil aside, Iran has established a $1 billion line of credit to get exports flowing into Iraq and also has a deal to export about 200,000 tonnes of flour to the U.S.-backed country...

Iraq and Iran are also beginning to rebuild trade along southern sea routes. This will become easier after the rebuilding of Iraq's battered port at Umm Qasr is complete...

From Reuters:

CAIRO - The Egyptian authorities have released more than half of some 460 Muslim Brotherhood activists arrested in legislative elections this week, a leading member of the Islamist group said on Tuesday.

The activists were rounded up before and during the elections in which the Muslim Brotherhood poses the strongest challenge to the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP).

"About 260 have got out and there are still about 200 (in prison)," Essam el-Erian told Reuters.

The Brotherhood, which is officially banned, has tripled its strength in parliament halfway through the elections with 47 seats. They had 15 places in the outgoing chamber, which was elected in 2000. The NDP has won about 120 seats so far.

The Brotherhood is contesting about one third of parliament's 444 elected seats, not posing a threat to the NDP's control. Brotherhood candidates stand as independents to sidestep the ban on the group...

100 Sunni, Shiite, Kurdish leaders reach agreement at end of Arab League meeting. From the New Duranty Times:

CAIRO - For the first time, Iraq's political factions on Monday collectively called for a timetable for withdrawal of foreign forces, in a moment of consensus that comes as the Bush administration battles pressure at home to commit itself to a pullout schedule.

The announcement, made at the conclusion of a reconciliation conference here backed by the Arab League, was a public reaching out by Shiites, who now dominate Iraq's government, to Sunni Arabs on the eve of parliamentary elections that have been put on shaky ground by weeks of sectarian violence.

About 100 Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish leaders, many of whom will run in the election on Dec. 15, signed a closing memorandum on Monday that "demands a withdrawal of foreign troops on a specified timetable, dependent on an immediate national program for rebuilding the security forces," the statement said.

"The Iraqi people are looking forward to the day when foreign forces will leave Iraq, when its armed and security forces will be rebuilt and when they can enjoy peace and stability and an end to terrorism," it continued.

The meeting was intended as preparation for a much larger conference in Iraq in late February. The recommendations made here are to be the starting ground for that meeting.

In Washington, Justin Higgins, a State Department spokesman, said, "The United States supports the basic foundation of the conference and we certainly support ongoing discussion among Iraq's various political and religious communities."

But regarding troop withdrawal, he said: "Multinational forces are present in Iraq under a mandate from the U.N. Security Council. As President Bush has said, the coalition remains committed to helping the Iraqi people achieve security and stability as they rebuild their country. We will stay as long as it takes to achieve those goals and no longer."

Shiite leaders have long maintained that a pullout should be done according to milestones, and not before Iraqi security forces are fully operational. The closing statement upheld a Sunni demand for a pullout, while preserving aspects of Shiite demands, but did not specify when a withdrawal should begin, making it more of a symbolic gesture than a concrete agenda item that could be followed up by the Iraqi government...

But offer no real Islamic alternative. From the Washington Times:

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Exploding buildings, booby-trapped cars and bloodied victims began appearing on Arab satellite television recently in daring dramas that deal with Islamic militancy in al Qaeda's main breeding ground.

The producers of the shows say they are another battleground in the war on homegrown religious zealotry, which many Middle East governments are confronting by crackdowns and media campaigns.

"Al Tareeq Al-Waer" ("The Rugged Path") and "Al-Hur Al-Ayn" ("The Beautiful Maidens") were aired during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, a time of peak viewing in the Middle East...

In one scene, a moderate cleric tells worshippers, including a would-be terrorist, that the goal of jihad is to protect society in the event of a clear threat against it.

Another character says jihad is not the killing of civilians, but the struggle to become a better Muslim.

The soaps have received acclaim from some viewers, but their content has raised anger among others. A Saudi newspaper reported that some actors in "The Beautiful Maidens" received death threats.

Last year, Mr. Hamdan's series "The Road to Kabul," which dealt with Afghanistan's ousted radical Taliban regime, was pulled off the air after militant threats. Channels at the time said the show was canceled for technical reasons.

Madeleine Bunting believes that if British Muslims would just listen to Tariq Ramadan all their problems could be solved. (Oh, and there's that little matter about infidel attachment to alcohol. It should be given up for the good of the community. It's so "exclusionary.") From the Guardian, with thanks to Interested.

A year on from the Guardian's first experiment in bringing together young Muslims for an evening of discussion, we did it again. The mood of the forum, held last week, had shifted in unexpected ways; there was less anger from the 60-odd participants from across the UK, but what had replaced it was, perhaps, even more worrying - a pervasive sense of frustration. Much of it is targeted at the government, but some is also directed at the Muslim community itself - why can't it make itself heard? Why can't it address its problems of poverty and educational underachievement? And the persistent questions about representation: who claims to speak for "the community" and why? The self-criticism among this group of largely university-educated Muslims is never far from the surface.

The problem is that the frustration - and its close relative, defensiveness - threaten to drown out all other discussions. It leaves little room these days for the outrage and horror one might have still expected in comments on the atrocities of 7/7. That's troubling. In one exchange, participants pondered the respective responsibilities of Tony Blair and the bombers for the July attacks: 50/50, said one; 80/20 Blair, said another; while the last concluded that the attacks were Blair's fault alone. The impulse to apportion blame very simply on Iraq and Blair has overwhelmed the soul searching widely apparent back in July; yes, Iraq was a major factor, but there were others. Some things, however repetitive, still need to be said; namely, that the July attacks were a terrible misuse of Islam. They were, as the Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan told the forum participants, not just "un-Islamic, they were anti-Islamic"...

And there are other causes of that defensiveness in the development of British Muslim identity, which we are still only beginning to grasp - some are well below the radar of headline news. As ever, eavesdropping on a community talking to itself, as we did last week, throws up new insights: for example, non-Muslim Britain hasn't begun to grasp how big an obstacle alcohol is to Muslims' participation. As alcohol consumption has soared in the past two decades, Muslims have been left to negotiate its centrality in British social life - at work, school or university, or as neighbours - with great difficulty. Alcohol is probably now one of the most effective and unquestioned forms of exclusion practised in the UK, affecting every kind of social network...

From AlJazeera.Net:

Iraqi politicians have saved a reconciliation conference in Cairo from collapse with compromise language saying all peoples have a right to resist, Sunni Arab politicians say.

On Monday, all parties to the three-day meeting called by the Cairo-based Arab League agreed to the formula: "Resistance is a legitimate right of all peoples", said Mezher al-Dulaimi, a Sunni Muslim from the defiant west of Iraq.

Shaikh Emad Mohammed Ali, an official of the Sunni Muslim Iraqi People's Gathering, confirmed the agreement.

The participants in the conference went outside for a group photograph in the grounds of the Arab League headquarters, the venue for the meeting.

The Iraqi government, which depends on US military support, has opposed any language that could be interpreted as support for armed groups that are opposed to the US presence in Iraq and have been fighting to drive US-led troops out of the country.

Sunni Muslims opposed to the government have argued that US occupation is the root cause of the violence in Iraq and US troops should leave as soon as possible.

According to Alireza Jafardazeh, a spokesman for an Iranian opposition group, Iran has built dozens of underground tunnels and facilities for the construction of nuclear-capable missiles. From ABC News:

Speaking this morning at the National Press Club, Jafarzadeh described an "extensive large-scale operation" for the development of nuclear-capable missiles "in the most sophisticated, hidden way" in tunnels in a mountain range east of Tehran. Jafarzadeh named several Iranian entities involved in Iran's missile program, overseen by the Hemmat Industries Group. He said that eyewitnesses describe the facilities, begun in 1989, as an "underground township." Jafarzadeh added that, in addition to work on the Shahab family of missiles, Hemmat is overseeing work on a new long-range missile, Ghadar, which is still in development and has a projected range of 1,300 to 1,900 miles.

Reports of North Korean cooperation with Iran on its nuclear and missile programs have surfaced previously. In July 2005, Reuters cited a three-page intelligence report charging that North Koreans were teaching secret graduate-level courses at Tehran's Polytechnic University in nuclear technology. The UK's Telegraph reported in June 2005 that North Korean specialists in underground construction had arrived in Tehran to help design their facilities that would better shield Iran's nuclear program from international scrutiny.

Jafarzadeh's allegations come on the heels of the latest report on Iran from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which reveals that Iran received a document from the A.Q. Khan network in 1987 describing the "casting and machining" uranium into "hemispherical forms," a process directly relevant to the design of a nuclear warhead.

A State Department official contacted by ABC News about Jafarzadeh's charges was unable to corroborate them but did confirm that the Hemmat Industries Group was sanctioned in May 2003 as the unlawful recipient of missile technology from Moldova. The Shahab-3 was flight-tested by Iran in 2004. It is known to be capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and has a range of 1,500 kilometers. Experts do not know how many such missiles Iran has produced or deployed.

MSNBC has an update on Zarqawi:

A Pentagon source said that the military did have intelligence that indicated al-Zarqawi was meeting in a Mosul home with high-level Iraq in al-Qaida lieutenants. As soldiers closed in on the site, there was an exchange of small arms fire, then it appears that three al-Qaida suspects blew themselves up to avoid capture.
The military is conducting DNA tests on flesh and blood recovered from the scene, but a Pentagon official said indications are that al-Zarqawi is not among those killed.
"The information was solid. We just missed him," said one Pentagon source.

From the Community Newswire, with thanks to DP111.

Shafeeq Sadiq, national co-ordinator of Islam Awareness Week, said: "We need to remember the positive spirit that embraced the nation, and especially the capital, after London won the Olympic bid.

"It is with such optimism and hope that we will defeat terrorism."

Now in its 12th year, the Islamic Society of Britain's initiative aims to bring Muslims and non-Muslims together through a host of events and activities being held in towns and cities across the country.

During the week, the capital will see an east London mosque throw open its doors to the public, the staging of Islam-themed exhibitions and lectures and the screening of a film exploring the life of a great Muslim philosopher.

This year's theme is "Past and Present: 1,000 years of Islam and Britain" and will highlight the relationship between Islam and Britain which stretches back more than a millennium to the eighth century CE when Muslim explorers and traders began to visit British shores and Anglo-Saxon sailors ventured to North Africa.

Mr Sadiq said: "For over a thousand years of Islam and Britain, one has given shape to the other, whether we call this the Islamic legacy of Britain or the British heritage of Islam.

"Amid all the negativity, our past actually shows a rich history of co-existence between Islam and the British Isles.

"We can choose to make the future. Let's learn from the past and make it bright."

Jihadists just need a good dialog to convince them of their errant ways. From the Gulf News:

The Saudi Ministry of Interior is carrying out a comprehensive orientation programme aimed at conducting dialogue with people arrested in connection with the security events and terrorist acts which took place recently in Saudi Arabia. The programme was announced yesterday by the Director-General of Relations and Guidance at the Interior Ministry, Dr Saud Bin Saud Al Musaibeeh, who is also chairman of the counselling committee formed by the ministry for this purpose.

The committee comprises Muslim scholars, propagators and philosophers specialising in Sharia, psychology and sociology.

In statements to the official Saudi news agency, Dr Al Musaibeeh said the plan was targeted towards those with deviated ideologies to outline to them the danger of their ideologies on Muslim society and to convince them to renounce these destructive thoughts.

Notice that nothing is said about the danger to non-Muslim societies.

"They will be provided with books and will attend orientation courses that will enable them to correct their false beliefs and conception through effective means," he added.

He said all those who benefited from the orientation programme and returned to the right path would be released gradually after confirmation from their families they would not allow them to return to their deviant thoughts.

Dr Al Musaibeeh added the government was extending all sorts of home comforts to the detainees and their families, saying that this may contribute positively to the efforts made to convince them to correct their beliefs.

He urged all people in the kingdom to cooperate with the authorities to protect Saudi youth against all thoughts that contradict Islamic teachings and values.

"Everyone has a responsibility, as much as they can to cooperate with the concerned bodies to fight this delinquency which affects the security and stability of the kingdom," he said.

Australian model's ploy is successful. From the AAP, with thanks to sheik yer'mami.

Australian model Michelle Leslie has used Islam to obtain a favourable outcome from the Indonesian courts and cannot continue to parade the catwalk in her underwear, an Islamic leader says.

Leslie, 24, is expected to return to Australia this week after serving three months in Bali's Kerobokan jail for possessing two ecstasy tablets.

The underwear model, who says she is a convert to Islam, wore Muslim dress during her trial but after her release switched to skintight jeans and a singlet top which exposed her stomach.

Australian Federation of Islamic Councils president Ameer Ali today accused Leslie of engaging in a "stunt" by wearing Islamic dress.

"It looks as though ... she used Islam as a stunt to get a judgment in her favour," he told AAP.

"If the judgment was skewed by her appearance in Muslim dress, it leaves a lot to be desired of the Indonesian justice system."

Isn't that the truth.

Dr Ali said Islam prohibited women from behaving in an immodest fashion, and Leslie could not continue to work as an underwear model.

There were no specific hard-and-fast rules about the extent to which Leslie had to cover her body, but Islamic beliefs prohibited her from being "semi-naked".

"There's an Islamic code of dressing which says women must be modest," he said.

"You can't go cat-walking with a semi-naked body.

"Michelle Leslie cannot do what she was doing before as a model for lingerie and underwear. That's not allowed in Islam."

Muslim models existed in countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia but they dressed modestly, Dr Ali said.

"She can do modelling, but it's a fine line and she has to be modest," he said.

Quit your whining Dr. Ali. It appears that Ms. Leslie WILL do what she pleases.

World Net Daily and Newt Gingrich take on Iran.

The threat posed to the national security of the United States by Iran was likened only to the one posed by Nazi Germany in the 1930s, by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who suggested Tehran could be planning for a pre-emptive nuclear electromagnetic pulse attack on America that would turn a third or more of the country "back to a 19th century level of development."
Gingrich made the stunning statements, which echo warning of other congressional leaders and national security experts, in testimony before a subcommittee of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee last week.

From AFX:

JAKARTA (AFX) - A terror group once led by bombmaker Azahari Husin is struggling for funds after cash from Saudi Arabia was cut off and now depends on selling cellphone vouchers to get by, Indonesia's police chief General Sutanto said.

Azahari was gunned down by anti-terror police at his hideout in East Java on Nov 9.

Sutanto told a parliamentary commission Azahari's group was short of cash.

'They are now in financial difficulties and their only funding comes from the sales of telephone vouchers, with a profit of about 5 mln rupiah per day,' Sutanto said.

He said the group had in the past received funding from Saudi Arabia but police had in 2003 arrested a man through which the funds were sent.

'With this, their source of funding was disrupted,' he said without giving details.

Azahari and his Malaysian compatriot Noordin Mohammed Top, who is still on the run, were leading members of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) regional extremist group, which has ties to the Al-Qaeda terror network...

A Book You’re Not Supposed to Read checked in at #21 on the NYT Bestseller list for November 27.

If you haven't yet read the excellent Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam, then you should know that it has many helpful lists of Books You’re Not Supposed to Read if you want to remain in your bubble of politically correct ignorance.

Do you have to spend this Thanksgiving with your moonbat relatives? Are they sure the War on Terror is just a ploy to keep the masses whipped up so Evil Men can prosper from War? Do they think that Christianity is just as violent as Islam? By all means, take this book with you when you visit this year. They may not read it, but at very least, you won't be invited back next year.

From the BBC:

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood says it won at least 13 seats in the second round of parliamentary elections on Sunday. The opposition group's gains have yet to be confirmed by official results after a day's voting marred by clashes.

The Brotherhood more than doubled its number of seats in the first round of balloting, gaining 34 seats.

The group is banned in Egypt but fields candidates as independents. An Islamist supporter was killed by a gang of thugs in Alexandria on Sunday, monitors said...

Islamist supporters say many were stopped from voting
"The success recorded by the Muslim Brotherhood during the first phase sparked fear in the regime, which cannot bear the presence of opposition in parliament," said group's deputy leader Mohammed Habib in an interview with AFP.

"The NDP could see it was going to lose and resorted to violence and thugs against the Muslim Brotherhood. All this was aimed at preventing people from voting," he added.

The interior ministry said most of the violence was started by supporters of Islamist candidates...

From the Vatican:

The Roman Work of Pilgrimages has announced plans to undertake events on the "paths of suffering and sorrow," including "the route of the slaves of Sudan."

"The Diocese of El Obeid touches part of Darfur and we will pass through these places that are literally forgotten, carrying the cross as Christ, who takes a message of peace and solidarity. If we can collect some aid, we will take it," Father Atuire explained.
The director general added that the pilgrimage will also serve to organize meetings in the local communities.
"When these places are forgotten, they become strongholds of radicalism," he said. "In fact, it is known that the spiritual teacher of Osama bin Laden's movement is in Sudan."

More "democracy in action" in Iran. From AP:

Parliament approved a bill Sunday requiring the government to block international inspections of its atomic facilities if the U.N. nuclear monitoring agency refers Iran to the Security Council for possible sanctions.

The bill was approved by 183 of the 197 lawmakers present at the session, which was broadcast live on state-run radio. The vote came four days before the International Atomic Energy Agency board meets to consider referring Tehran for violating a nuclear arms control treaty.

When the bill becomes law, as is expected, it will strengthen the government's hand in resisting international pressure to abandon uranium enrichment, a process that can be used to produce fuel for nuclear reactors or an atomic bomb.

The United States accuses Iran of trying to build a nuclear weapon. Iran says its program is for generating electricity.

The bill will go to the Guardian Council, a hard-line constitutional watchdog, for expected ratification.

"If Iran's nuclear file is referred or reported to the U.N. Security Council, the government will be required to cancel all voluntary measures it has taken and implement all scientific, research and executive programs to enable the rights of the nation under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty," lawmaker Kazem Jalali quoted the bill as saying...

The 35-member IAEA board of governors meets Thursday. In a preparatory report, the U.N. agency found that Iran received detailed nuclear designs from a black-market network run by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's atomic program. Diplomats say those designs appear to be blueprints for the core of a nuclear warhead...

From Fox News:

RABAT, Morocco — Moroccan police have dismantled a terrorist network, arresting 17 people, including two former prisoners at the U.S. base in Guantanamo, Cuba, the official MAP news agency reported Sunday. At least some of the suspects were linked to Al Qaeda in Iraq.

Brahim Benchekroun and Mohammed Mazouz -- among five Moroccans freed from Guantanamo in August 2004 -- were among the suspects.

They were arrested Nov. 11 at their homes in connection with a probe into Al Qaeda, a Moroccan security official said, among 17 implicated in the network. The official, not authorized to speak publicly, asked not to be identified by name...

The top two suspects, Khaled Azig and Mohamed R'ha, were recruiting extremists for their cause, MAP quoted police as saying. Members of the network had links with small groups on the Iraqi border and close ties to leading members of the Al Qaeda terror network, MAP reported.

Al Qaeda in Iraq is reportedly holding two Moroccan Embassy employees who disappeared Oct. 20 while driving to Baghdad from Jordan.

Richard Miniter writes in Front Page:

Dead men tell no tales, but luckily for intelligence analysts, live women do.

Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi was not able to detonate her bomb at the wedding party and fled with the guests as her husband exploded himself. Now, she is in the custody of the GID, Jordan's intelligence agency. By all accounts, the interrogation is going slowly. Still, enough information is emerging for us to draw some lessons for the triple bombings in Amman, Jordan, on November 9.

Mrs. al-Rishawi's family history reveals just how effective the U.S. military has proven to be in eliminating insurgents. Jordanian intelligence has learned that three of her brothers were killed by coalition forces in Iraq. Her brother, Thamir al-Rashawi, a member al-Zarqawi's inner circle, was killed in April 2004 in Fallujah, when a missile fired from a U.S. aircraft struck his pick-up truck. Jordanian Deputy Prime Minister Marwan al-Mu'ashir described her brother, Thamir, as "the emir [commander] of the Al-Anbar region [of the Iraqi insurgency] in the Al-Qa'idah of Jihad Organization in the Land of Two Rivers. He was the right hand of Abu-Mus'ab al-Zarqawi."

Her other two brothers, Ammar and Yassir, died in separate battles with U.S. forces in Ramadi, Iraq, in 2005.

Explosives Expert

Mrs. Al-Rishawi's sister had been married to a Jordanian explosives expert, Nidal Mohammed Arabiyat, also killed by U.S. forces in Iraq, according to Agence France Presse.

Though the American media is slow to report it, U.S. forces are relentlessly destroying Zarqawi's senior leadership. A November 2 air strike killed two senior al Qaeda operatives in Iraq: Abu Zahra, the so-called Emir of Husaybah, ran all insurgent operations in that Iraqi city, and Asadallah, Zarqawi's key recruiter. U.S. forces have now confirmed the identities of both dead terrorists...

Sunnis and Shiites are rapidly separating in areas that were once mixed towns and neighborhoods. From the International Herald Tribune:

Baghdad - Abu Noor's town had become so hostile to Shiites that his wife had not left the house in a month, his family could no longer go to the medical clinic and mortar shells had been lobbed at the houses of two of his religious leaders. "I couldn't open the door and stand in my yard," he said. So when Abu Noor, a Shiite from Tarmiyah, a heavily Sunni Arab town north of here, ran into an old friend, a Sunni who faced his own problems in a Shiite district in Baghdad, the two decided to switch houses. They even shared a moving van.

Two and a half years after the American invasion, deep divides that have long split Iraqi society have violently burst into full view. As the hatred between Sunni Arabs and Shiites hardens and the relentless toll of bombings and assassinations grows, families are leaving their mixed towns and cities for safer areas where they will not automatically be targets.

In doing so, they are creating increasingly polarized enclaves and redrawing the sectarian map of Iraq, especially in Baghdad and the cities around it.

The evidence is so far mostly anecdotal - the government is not tracking the moves. In a rough count, about 20 cities and towns around Baghdad are segregating, according to accounts by local sheiks, Iraqi nongovernmental organizations and military officials, and the families themselves.

Those areas are among the most mixed and the most violent in Iraq - according to the American military, 85 percent of attacks in the country are in four provinces including Baghdad, and two others to its north and west. The volatile sectarian mix is a holdover from the rule of Saddam Hussein, who gave favors to Sunni landowners in the lush farmland around Baghdad to reinforce loyalties and to protect against Shiites in the south. Shiites came to work the land, and sometimes to own it. Abu Noor moved to Tarmiyah in 1987 after the government gave land to his father.

"The most violent places are the towns and cities around Baghdad," said Sheik Jalal al-Dien al-Sagheer, a member of parliament from a religious Shiite party. "It was a circle. It was invented. It did not exist before."

The result has been carnage on a serious scale. In all, at least eight of Abu Noor's friends and close relatives, including a brother, have been killed since the beginning of 2004.

The motives for the attacks are often complicated. The complex webs of tribal affiliations and social status that rule everyday life in Iraq do not always line up as simply as Shiite against Sunni. But increasingly, despite the urging of some Shiite religious leaders and Sunni politicians, the attacks have been just that: A mostly Sunni Arab fringe is launching vicious attacks against civilians, often Shiites, while Shiite death squads are openly stalking Sunnis for revenge, and the Shiite-dominated government makes regular arrests in Sunni Arab neighborhoods...

From the Seattle Times:

BAGHDAD, Iraq — U.S. forces sealed off a house in the northern city of Mosul where eight suspected al-Qaida members died in a gunfight — some by their own hands to possibly avoid capture. The White House said Sunday that it was "highly unlikely" that the terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was among the dead.

Insurgents, meanwhile, killed a U.S. soldier and two Marines in attacks over the weekend, and a British soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in the south.

On Saturday, police Brig. Gen. Said Ahmed al-Jubouri said the raid was launched after a tip that top al-Qaida operatives, possibly including al-Zarqawi, were in the house. Al-Zarqawi heads the group calling itself al-Qaida in Iraq.

During the gunbattle that followed, three insurgents detonated explosives and killed themselves, Iraqi officials said. Eleven Americans were wounded, the U.S. military said. Such intense resistance often suggests an attempt to defend a high-value target. But Trent Duffy, a Bush spokesman, said reports of al-Zarqawi's death were "highly unlikely and not credible."...

An update to this Dhimmi Watch archive. Reported by the Boston.Com News:

The enraged mob had already started to scale the walls of the Catholic compound in Sangla Hill when the Rev. Samson Dilawar hurriedly ushered the nuns, teachers, and 23 teenage students to safety.

The group crammed into a small upstairs room of the convent in eastern Punjab Province. Out on the roof, Dilawar watched in horror as about 1,500 men swarmed across the mission, destroying everything in their path.

The Muslim crowd, incensed by rumors that a Christian had desecrated copies of the Koran, tore open the doors of the Holy Spirit church, smashed the marble altar, and shattered the stained-glass windows. They torched Dilawar's residence and the neighboring St. Anthony's Girls school. Within moments flames were licking the walls and black smoke filled the sky.

An hour later, Dilawar recalled, the mob crashed through the convent door and he retreated into the locked room where the nuns were praying.

''They tried to break the door down, but did not succeed. Otherwise, we could have all been killed," he said Thursday, sitting on a grassy patch outside the vandalized convent.

The violence that swept across Sangla Hill, a market town 140 miles south of the capital, Islamabad, on Nov. 12 has rocked Pakistan's small Christian community.

It has also highlighted the fragile position of religious minorities in this overwhelmingly Muslim country.

Read it all.

Well yes. Maybe he is and maybe he isn't. That pretty much covers it, doesn't it? Clearly AP's weekend headline writer is not first string.

U.S. forces sealed off a house in the northern city of Mosul where eight suspected al-Qaida members died in a gunfight — some by their own hand to avoid capture. A U.S. official said Sunday that efforts were under way to determine if terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was among the dead.

From UPI:

Christian students and parents cannot sue a school district because some seventh-graders pretended to be Muslims for a history course, a court has ruled.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the role-playing game was not a religious exercise that violated anybody's constitutional rights.
The court upheld a lower court ruling, saying only that the activities at the Byron, Calif., school weren't "overt religious exercises" that would raise concerns under the First Amendment prohibition of "establishment of religion."

The Thomas More Law Center says that for three weeks, "impressionable 12-year-old students" were, among other things, placed into Islamic city groups; took Islamic names; wore identification tags that displayed their new Islamic name and the star and crescent moon; handed materials that instructed them to 'Remember Allah always so that you may prosper'; completed the Islamic Five Pillars of Faith, including fasting; and memorized and recited the 'Bismillah' or 'In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate,' which students also wrote on banners hung on the classroom walls.

From Hindustan Times:

“Women require a balanced diet, rich in calcium and Vitamin D. Women, particularly after menopause, are at higher risk and should maintain a good diet. They should exercise regularly, or at least take to brisk walking, jogging, dancing or simple weightlifting exercises.”
“Along with vitamin-rich food, sunlight too plays an active role in maintaining the right balance. However, both burqa-clad women and those sitting indoors most of the time do not get the necessary sunlight and as a result, they suffer from osteoporosis,” he said.

Here's an update on the cartoon flap from Islam Online.

The Muslim minority in Denmark will send delegations to a number of Muslim countries to meet with senior officials and prominent scholars on the provocative caricatures of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) recently published by Denmark's main daily.

"We have fled our countries because we were denied freedom of expression so no one should play this tune with us.
"This is not a case of freedom of expression," averred Abu Laban.

So targeting a Muslim wedding in Jordan is a mistake, but hitting a funeral in Iraq is peachy keen, right Zarqawi?
In Baghdad:

A suicide bomber detonated his car in a crowd of Shiite mourners north of Baghdad on Saturday, killing at least 36 people and raising the death toll in two days of attacks against Shiites to more than 120. Five American soldiers died in roadside bombings.
Earlier Saturday, a car bomb exploded in a crowd of shoppers at an outdoor market in a mostly Shiite neighborhood on the southeast edge of Baghdad, killing 13 people and wounding about 20 others, police reported. Witnesses said they saw a man park the car and walk away shortly before the blast.

Another person who found Osama bin Laden "a very nice man."
From Newsday:

In his testimony before a military tribunal, Saifullah Paracha said he first met Osama bin Laden, somewhat by happenstance, on a charity mission to Afghanistan in 1999.
"He delivered the Koran and said he was a prophet. He said very nice things. Very impressive," said Paracha, a prominent Pakistani entrepreneur who split his time between Karachi and New York.
As Paracha tells it, he offered bin Laden his business card, explained that he was involved in television and asked whether he would consider appearing in a film to discuss "the terrorism program."
The project never panned out, but the meeting was one of a series of associations that led the U.S. government to declare Paracha an enemy combatant in 2003 and detain him at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

A moderate Muslim who lived in New York from 1971 to 1986 and owns a garment import business with a Jewish partner, Saifullah acknowledged doing business with men since identified as al-Qaida plotters but said he thought they were ordinary Pakistanis.

The 73-page report, "Paths to Radicalization of Home-Grown Islamic Extremists in Canada," reveals an increasing number of homegrown Canadian terrorists. From Canada's National Post:

A "secret" intelligence study obtained by the National Post says a "high percentage" of the Canadian Muslims involved in extremist activities were born in Canada, a marked shift from the past when they were mostly refugees and immigrants.

"Increasingly, we are learning of more and more extremists that are homegrown," says the Canadian Security Intelligence Service document, adding that the "Canadianness" of the new generation makes them more difficult to detect.

"These radicalized Canadians are involved in a wide range of extremist activities, including downloading and translating documents from the Internet that promote violence, networking and physically training for jihad," it says.

"Some undergo training abroad or in Canada, including commando-like paintball and extreme martial arts," says the report. "In a few cases, Canadian extremists have participated in jihad and a few have been killed in the process."

A handful of such terrorists have already emerged from Canada. Mohammed Jabarah of St. Catharines, Ont., joined al-Qaeda and tried to blow up the American and Israeli embassies in Southeast Asia. His brother Abdul Rahman, a member of a Saudi al-Qaeda cell, was killed in 2003.

Canadian-born Momin Khawaja was arrested in Ottawa last year on charges he was part of a British bombing plot and is awaiting trial. U.S. authorities recently charged Canadian-born Omar Khadr with joining an al-Qaeda faction in Afghanistan and killing a U.S. soldier.

"A small number of Muslims in Canada have adopted the path of violence and jihad in the pursuit of political and/or religious aims," the CSIS report says. "The reasons for this are varied, and include parental influence, the efforts of charismatic spiritual leaders with extremist views and a general sense of anger at what is seen as Muslim oppression.

"There does not appear to be a single process that leads to extremism; the transformation is highly individual. Once this change has taken place, such individuals move on to a series of activities, ranging from propaganda and recruiting, to terrorist training and participation in extremist operations."

Could Allah's injunction to Muslims to terrorize non-Muslims on his behalf - “Strike terror (into the hearts of) the enemies of Allah and your enemies” (Sura 8:60) - be the "single process that leads to extremism"?

Does a spider give control of her web to other arachnids that have contributed nothing towards its creation? The question is absurd for creatures in the insect world, but in the human domain it has become a topic of discussion. To be sure, it is not a controversy concerning the control of a spider’s web, but of the World Wide Web. For now, a decision was made in favor of the United States keeping control of the internet's technical and addressing systems. This is as it should be considering the Internet was invented and developed in the United States, but there are

nations including China, Cuba, Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia [which have and still are] pushing for the UN to be given control of the net.

Are we to turn over our technology to a bumbling and corrupt United Nations which would allow dictator and terror states to have a stake in how the Web is controlled? Nations like Iran whose stated goal is to follow

“the citizens from birth to death, ensuring their health, education, well-being and leisure. It will guide them as to what to read and write and what “cultural products” to consume so as not to be contaminated by Western ideas.”?

Or nations like Saudi Arabia which is a master state of censorship?

Of the estimated 2.2 million Internet users in the Kingdom, the majority regularly try to access forbidden or indecent material, Arab News has learned.

“Of those who log on to the Internet, 92.5 percent are trying to access a website that, for one reason or another, has been blocked,” said Dr. Mishaal Al-Kadhi, acting general manager of the King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology (KACST).

KACST is not only the Internet gateway for the Kingdom but also acts as a filter for unsuitable material. The official said that pornographic material was one of the main items on the city’s “black list” which also includes gambling, terrorism and politics as well as anything contrary to Islamic beliefs.

If the United Nations and its minion terror-states have their way, the spider will be booted out and the international community will assume control of her magnificent web. This is nothing more than a blatant attempt to hijack American ingenuity, an intrusion always to be resisted.

Let us remain vigilant of our rights.

**NOTE** This article contributed to this blog posting.

From The Telegraph:

A couple of weeks ago one of the nutters who runs al-Qa'eda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, delivered a ferocious denunciation of one of his and his movement's most bitter enemies: that well-known zealot and extremist Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Her Majesty is also, of course, by the Grace of God, Defender of the Faith, and this appears to be what cheesed off old Ayman. He pilloried her as one of the "severest enemies of Islam", and for being responsible for what he called (with a deliciously mediaeval turn of phrase) Britain's "crusader laws".
We should let pass for a moment the detailed knowledge of the British constitution that such remarks indicate Mr al-Zawahiri manifestly doesn't have. What is particularly wonderful about his words is that they appear, almost unprecedentedly, to have stirred our beloved Queen into one of those defences of the Faith that figure so prominently in her job description. Addressing her fellow extremists in the Synod on Tuesday, she celebrated the "uniqueness" of the Christian faith, and of her "conviction that all people, irrespective of race, background or circumstances, can find lasting significance and purpose in the Gospel of Jesus Christ".

Plan calls for troops to begin pulling out after December elections, from CNN:

WASHINGTON -- The top U.S. commander in Iraq has submitted a plan to the Pentagon for withdrawing troops in Iraq, according to a senior defense official.

Gen. George Casey submitted the plan to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. It includes numerous options and recommends that brigades -- usually made up of about 2,000 soldiers each -- begin pulling out of Iraq early next year...

House Republicans were looking for a showdown Friday after Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat and well-respected Vietnam veteran, presented a resolution that would force the president to withdraw the nearly 160,000 U.S. troops in Iraq "at the earliest predictable date."

Murtha on Thursday called the administration's management of the conflict "a flawed policy wrapped in illusion" that is "uniting the enemy against us."

"It's time to bring the troops home," he said...

The [Casey] plan, which would withdraw a limited amount of troops during 2006, requires that a host of milestones be reached before troops are withdrawn.

Top Pentagon officials have repeatedly discussed some of those milestones: Iraqi troops must demonstrate that they can handle security without U.S. help; the country's political process must be strong; and reconstruction and economic conditions must show signs of stability.

From Reuters, :

BEIJING - The United States and China hope to strengthen shared efforts to fight terrorism and "pirate" copying of goods, Washington's top justice official said on Saturday.

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told a news conference in Beijing he had discussed expanding cooperation with Chinese justice and police officials in talks before President George W. Bush arrives in Beijing later on Saturday for a three-day visit...

China says its biggest terrorist threat comes from separatist forces in its far-western region of Xinjiang, where most of the population is Muslim and belongs to the Uighur ethnic group. But international human rights groups and advocates of Xinjiang independence say China has exaggerated the threat in the region to suppress legitimate protest...

The United States is holding 15 prisoners from Xinjiang in the Guantanamo Bay detention center on Cuba. They were captured in Afghanistan, which neighbors Xinjiang, and China has asked for them to be repatriated...

Unfortunately, the broader jihad goal of dragging the US into a bloody civil war and thereby duplicating Vietnam conditions, as a prerequisite for a US defeat, is ignored by press and pundits alike. By never discussing the goals of the "greater jihad," we prevent ourselves from developing the strategic counter goals necessary to defeat it, or even to contain it. From the BBC, :

Thirteen people have died in a car bomb attack on a crowded market in southern Baghdad and a suicide bomber later attacked police in the city centre.

The market bomb was hidden in a parked car near Diyala Bridge, a largely Shia area of the Iraqi capital...

From AFP, :

DUBAI - Saudi Arabia, which has been battling a wave of violence, could put an end to homegrown terrorism in the next two years, Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz said in remarks aired on Saturday.

“I can assure you that the watchful eye of the security forces, the intelligence services and the Saudi people could lead ... in the next two years to the end of terrorism in Saudi Arabia,” he told Al Arabiya television.

The crown prince however admitted that “we cannot get rid of it (terrorism) 100 percent.”...

From AKI, :

Brescia and Naples - The three Algerians detained on Tuesday in the Italian cities of Brescia and Naples were planning a massive terror attack - "on a ship as big as the Titanic, packed with explosives" - that aimed to kill "at least 10,000 people", as well as an attack on "Italian citizens and interests" in Tunisia, according phone conversations between the three men, which Italian anti-terror police say they intercepted after al-Qaeda's deadly 7 July attacks on London and on the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh.

In their tapped phone conversations, Yamine Bouhrama, Mohamed Larbi and Khaled Serai described the 7 July London subway and bus bombings that killed over 50 and injured 700, and the 23 July Sharm El-Sheikh terror attacks that killed 90 people and injured over 150 as "highdays and holidays", according to police. The three also spoke of having "documents ready", "war on the infidel", and "a bigger party" than the London attacks.

They are suspected of being members of the al-Qaeda-linked Algerian militant formation, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC). Investigators allege they were not just in Italy to provide logistical support such as false passports and residency permits, but were actually "potential operatives" who were "ready to attack"...

Bourhama is thought to have undergone training at terrorist camps in Chechnya and Georgia and may be capable of making explosive belts used by suicide bombers. He allegedly had in his possession a bottle of "perfume" containing toxic substances, police said.

While under surveillance, Serai is believed to have been followed to Norway, where Mullah Krekar, an Iraqi Kurd who heads the radical Islamic militia group Ansar al-Islam, has lived since requesting political asylum in 1991, despite being wanted around the world. The US has accused Ansar al-Islam of offering sanctuary to al-Qaeda fighters fleeing Afghanistan, including the now leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi...

We take exception to the description of Vonnegut as "one of the greatest living US writers," but report his words nonetheless. From The Australian, :

ONE of the greatest living US writers has praised terrorists as "very brave people" and used drug culture slang to describe the "amazing high" suicide bombers must feel before blowing themselves up.

Kurt Vonnegut, author of the 1969 anti-war classic Slaughterhouse Five, made the provocative remarks during an interview in New York for his new book, Man Without a Country, a collection of writings critical of US President George W. Bush.

Vonnegut, 83, has been a strong opponent of Mr Bush and the US-led war in Iraq, but until now has stopped short of defending terrorism.

But in discussing his views with The Weekend Australian, Vonnegut said it was "sweet and honourable" to die for what you believe in, and rejected the idea that terrorists were motivated by twisted religious beliefs.

"They are dying for their own self-respect," he said. "It's a terrible thing to deprive someone of their self-respect. It's like your culture is nothing, your race is nothing, you're nothing."

Asked if he thought of terrorists as soldiers, Vonnegut, a decorated World War II veteran, said: "I regard them as very brave people, yes."

He equated the actions of suicide bombers with US president Harry Truman's 1945 decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

On the Iraq war, he said: "What George Bush and his gang did not realise was that people fight back."

Vonnegut suggested suicide bombers must feel an "amazing high". He said: "You would know death is going to be painless, so the anticipation - it must be an amazing high."

Vonnegut's comments are sharply at odds with his reputation as a peace activist and his distinguished war service. He served in the US 106th Division and was captured by German forces at the Battle of the Bulge.

...Vonnegut's latest comments are likely to make many people wonder if old age has finally caught up with a grand old man of American letters.

From Itar-Tass, :

KHANKALA - Russian secret services destroyed a senior al Qaeda representative in Chechnya, head of the regional headquarters in control of the anti-terrorist operation in the North Caucasus Col-Gen Arkady Yedelev told reporters here on Friday.

The operation was carried out by an army elite reconnaissance unit near the village of Avtury, Shali district, on November 11. The militant, identified as Jaber, was reportedly al Qaeda's mastermind and financier of recent high-profile terrorist attack in the republic, Yedelev said.

Jaber organized terrorist attacks in Znamenskoye and Grozny, and is behind the attack on the village of Roshni-Chu in August...

From IMRA, with thanks to Looney Tunes:

The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs is proud to offer the following link to Professor Justus Reid Weiner's new Monograph Human Rights of Christians in Palestinian Society. It is a 1.4 megabyte PDF file. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the file, but it is available online without charge.

www.jcpa.org/christian-persecution.htm

Following is a short thumbnail sketch of the Monograph:

On the heels of the Gaza disengagement, which was intended to empower the Palestinian Authority to improve the lives of its people, few journalists have reported on the acutely trying times facing the Christians residing in areas "governed" by the Palestinian Authority. In his book, Professor Weiner, Scholar in Residence at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, provides an in-depth look into the nearly uninterrupted persecution of Christians throughout the decade since the Oslo peace process began.

Living amidst a xenophobic Muslim population plagued by endemic violence bordering on anarchy, the Christians have shrunk to less than 1.7 percent of the population in the Palestinian areas. "Tens of thousands have abandoned their holy sites and ancestral properties to live abroad, while those who remain do so as a beleaguered and dwindling minority," Weiner said.

"Their plight is, in part, attributable to the adoption of Muslim religious law (sharia) in the constitution of the Palestinian Authority. Moreover, the Christians have been abandoned by their religious leaders who, instead of protecting them, have chosen to curry favor with the Palestinian leadership." Professor Weiner's book reveals and analyzes why this persecution - largely ignored by the international community, the media, and even the human rights organizations - has metastasized to the extent that it threatens the very existence of this 2000-year-old community.

Anthony Daniels, also known as Theodore Dalrymple, writes in National Review (subscription required):

For the last two weeks, the French have been watching the numbers of cars burnt the night before in the suburbs the way New Yorkers watch the Dow Jones index. Does 463 mean that the riots are now in recession, or is the reduction compared with the previous night merely what stockbrokers call a technical correction? Could the senior policeman be right who said that the downward trend was “the beginning of a classic mobilization at the weekend”? In other words, could les jeunes be conserving their energy for a further assault on French complacency?

Certainly, the police intercepted e-mails calling on les jeunes to assemble in the Champs-Elysées and under the Eiffel Tower, which would really set the matches among the gasoline. The French Social Model would then have no choice but to swing into action, and send in the Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité (the feared CRS), all batons flailing: the continuation of social work by other means.

It must be admitted that les jeunes have a strange way of trying to prove to the world that they are not what the outspoken interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, so perceptively (but unadvisedly) called scum. Having long pondered the delicately balanced question of whether it is more humiliating to be justly or unjustly accused, I suspect that les jeunes have reacted with such fury to M. Sarkozy’s epithet precisely because they knew themselves that it was accurate. For how else do you describe people who are prepared to burn the cars of 6,000 of their neighbors, and a bus with a 56-year-old handicapped woman in it who was unable to escape and was severely burned as a result; people who did not take this horrific incident as an indication to desist, and whose subculture is a transposition of that of the American underclass at its worst?

From Bloomberg:

Pakistan gained pledges of $5.4 billion from international donors and lenders, more than the south Asian nation was seeking, to rebuild cities and rehabilitate people devastated by last month's earthquake.

The magnitude 7.6 earthquake struck the northern Himalayan territory of Kashmir on Oct. 8, killing more than 74,000 people and leaving millions homeless. About 73,000 people died in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir and the North West Frontier province, and as many as 1,300 people in the Indian-run part of the region...

The Asian Development Bank approved $1 billion in aid, Haruhiko Kuroda, president of the bank, told the conference. ``The bank will help Pakistan construct special homes for destitute women and children and will also help set up a seismic center and construct roads,'' he said.

Other aid announced at the conference included $500 million from the U.S., $375 million from the International Monetary Fund, $170 million from the UK, $150 million from Turkey and $110 million from the European Union...

Which newspaper? Why the New Duranty Times, where else? This story comes from Reuters:

WASHINGTON - Iran on Friday took the highly unusual step of running a costly full-page ad in the New York Times defending its nuclear activities and accusing the United States and European allies of creating an "unnecessary crisis."

As U.S. and other key officials met in London to discuss efforts to force Tehran to abandon what they believe is a weapons-related program, Iran in its advertisement issued a detailed rebuttal of all charges and said it resumed uranium conversion this week because Britain, France and Germany, under U.S. pressure, violated a 2004 agreement.

But Iran also held out the possibility of resolving the dispute, saying "a diplomatic and negotiated framework is the desired approach for a successful outcome and Iran is ready to consider all constructive and effective proposals."

Central to Tehran's argument is the assertion that it is pursuing only peaceful nuclear energy -- not nuclear weapons -- despite concealing its activities for nearly two decades.

"In fact, the predominant view among Iranian decision-makers is that development, acquisition or possession of nuclear weapons would only undermine Iranian security," read the ad, headlined "An Unnecessary Crisis" and issued in the name of Iran's U.N. mission.

Tehran suspended nuclear activities at its facility at Isfahan under a November 2004 deal with Britain, France and Germany -- the EU3 -- but resumed work at the plant in August, prompting the trio to suspend negotiations.

Iranian officials confirmed on Friday that it had resumed uranium conversion at the plant this week...

In a related story: "Iran admits to UN it bought designs for nuclear bomb," from the Telegraph with thanks to Interested.

Iran has admitted obtaining designs that could help it make a nuclear bomb, the United Nations nuclear watchdog said yesterday in a confidential report.

After more than two years of investigations, it is the closest that inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency have come to linking Teheran's electricity generation project with an alleged weapons programme.

The discovery will raise tensions before next week's meeting of the IAEA board of governors, which will debate whether to report Iran to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions.

The IAEA report said documents bought by Iran on the black market included designs "on the casting and machining of enriched, natural and depleted uranium into hemispherical forms". Experts said the casts are used in atomic weapons.

The IAEA said Iran had insisted it had not used the designs. But Gregory Schulte, the chief United States delegate to the IAEA, said the find "opens new concerns about weaponisation that Iran has failed to address"...

From AP:

WASHINGTON - House Republicans maneuvered for swift rejection Friday of any notion of immediately pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq, sparking a nasty, sometimes personal debate over the war and a Democratic lawmaker's own call for withdrawal.

Furious Democrats accused the GOP of orchestrating a political stunt, leaving little time for debate and changing the meaning of a withdrawal resolution offered by Democratic Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania.

For those reasons, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi sent word to rank-and-file Democrats to vote - with the Republicans - against immediate withdrawal of American troops.

Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said of the nonbinding resolution, "We want to make sure that we support our troops that are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. We will not retreat."

Democrats went to the floor to denounce the vote, being staged before Congress left Washington for a two week break. And they gave Murtha a standing ovation as he entered the chamber Friday during the Iraq debate and took his customary corner seat.

"This is a personal attack on one of the best members, one of the most respected members of this House and it is outrageous," said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, responded: "This is not a stunt. This is not an attack on an individual. This is a legitimate question."

GOP leaders decided to act little more than 24 hours after Murtha, a hawkish Democrat with close ties to the military, said the time had come to pull out the troops.

By forcing the issue to a vote, Republicans tried to place many Democrats in a politically unappealing position - whether to side with Murtha and expose themselves to criticism, or oppose him and risk angering the voters that polls show want an end to the conflict...

A growing number of House members and senators, looking ahead to off-year elections next November, are publicly worrying about a quagmire in Iraq. They have been staking out new positions on a war that is increasingly unpopular with the American public, has resulted in more than 2,000 U.S. military deaths and has cost more than $200 billion...

That didn't take long did it?
From the BBC

new group has been formed to replace radical Islamic cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed's al-Muhajiroun group, which was disbanded last year.
Ahl ul-Sunnah Wa al-Jamma was launched in a north London charity shop, with leading member, Simon Sulayman Keeler, calling the Queen "an enemy of Islam".

From AP:

An audiotape purportedly from the head of al-Qaida in Iraq said Friday the group's suicide bombers did not intend to bomb a Jordanian wedding party at an Amman hotel last week, killing about 30 people. The speaker on the tape, identified as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, also threatened to kill Jordan's King Abdullah II and bomb more hotels and tourist sites.

"Your star is fading. You will not escape your fate, you descendant of traitors. We will be able to reach your head and chop it off," al- Zarqawi said, referring to the king.

Al-Zarqawi told Jordanians to stay away from bases used by U.S. forces in Jordan; hotels and tourist sites in Amman, the Dead Sea and the southern resort of Aqaba; and embassies of governments participating in the war in Iraq _ saying those areas would be targeted.

Al-Zarqawi said the bomber who detonated his explosives in the Radisson SAS hotel on Nov. 9 was targeting a hall where he claimed Israeli and American intelligence officials were meeting.

That bomb caused part of the roof to fall in the wedding hall.

"We didn't target them. Our target was halls being used by Zionist intelligence who were meeting there at the time," he said. "Our brothers knew their targets with great precision."

Al-Zarqawi accused the Jordanian government of hiding casualties among Israeli and American intelligence agents, and he insisted al-Qaida in Iraq was not targeting fellow Muslims.

"We want to assure you that ... you are more beloved to us than ourselves," al-Zarqawi said, addressing Jordanians...

Showing how biology has social consequences and sociology has biological consequences: from the Telegraph, with thanks to Looney Tunes.

Marriages between cousins should be banned after research showed alarming rates in defective births among Asian communities in Britain, a Labour MP said last night.

The report, commissioned by Ann Cryer, revealed that the Pakistani community accounted for 30 per cent of all births with recessive disorders, despite representing 3.4 per cent of the birth rate nationwide...

It is estimated that more than 55 per cent of British Pakistanis are married to first cousins, resulting in an increasing rate of genetic defects and high rates of infant mortality. The likelihood of unrelated couples having the same variant genes that cause recessive disorders are estimated to be 100-1. Between first cousins, the odds increase to as much as one in eight.

In Bradford, more than three quarters of all Pakistani marriages are believed to be between first cousins. The city's Royal Infirmary Hospital has identified more than 140 different recessive disorders among local children, compared with the usual 20-30...

"You have an understanding, you have the same family history," said Neila Butt, who has had two children with her husband, Farooq, her first cousin. "It's just a nicer emotional feel."

The chilling words of two Italian-based Muslim extremists were released today as part of a 182 page indictment brought against them by Italian authorities, from The New Duranty Times:

MILAN - Playing an Internet video one evening last year, an Egyptian radical living in Milan reveled as the head of an American, Nicholas Berg, was sawed off by his Iraqi captors.

Yahia Ragheh, foreground, and Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed being led into a Milan court last month, charged with ties to a terror network.

Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed's computer had a picture of a briefcase bomb that could be set off by a cellphone.

"Go to hell, enemy of God!" shouted the man, Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed, as Mr. Berg's screams were broadcast. "Kill him! Kill him! Yes, like that! Cut his throat properly. Cut his head off! If I had been there, I would have burned him to make him already feel what hell was like. Cut off his head! God is great! God is great!"

Yahia Ragheh, the Egyptian would-be suicide bomber sitting by Mr. Ahmed's side, clearly felt uncomfortable.

"Isn't it a sin?" he asked.

"Who said that?" Mr. Ahmed shot back. "It is never a sin!" He added: "We hope that even their parents will come to the same end. Dogs, all of them, all of them. You simply need to be convinced when you make the decision."

Well, all's well that ends well!
From the BBC:

French police say levels of violence in France have returned to normal, following three weeks of unrest by urban youths across the country.
Police said 98 vehicles were torched on Wednesday night, marking a "return to a normal situation everywhere in France".

Anti-dhimmitude yes. But why is this listed under "Showbiz News?"

Leaflets showing a Muslim fighter holding a rocket launcher outside 10 Downing Street are being probed by detectives amid claims they are linked to exiled preacher of hate Sheikh Omar Bakri.
The sickening pamphlets shows a black Islamic flag flying over Parliament and invite people to a rally in east London.
But shocked council officials and police discovered that the hall booked for the meeting was made under a false name apparently to celebrate the religious festival of Eid.

From TimesOnline:

INDIA is accelerating the construction of a 2,500-mile fence to seal its border with Bangladesh amid growing fears that its Muslim neighbour could become “a new Afghanistan”. Indian officials and western diplomats have been alarmed by an increase in terrorist attacks by militant groups linked to Al-Qaeda and by the Dhaka government’s failure to crack down on them.

One group said to have links with the government claimed responsibility for 500 synchronised explosions in 63 of Bangladesh’s 64 districts in August.

India’s cabinet has decided to speed up work on the 8ft security fence, which is intended to keep out terrorists and arms smugglers. The fence, which cuts a swathe through some of India’s densest rainforests, will be finished by the end of next year and patrolled by a border security force. Key stretches are being electrified...

From AP:

Jurors in the terrorism-conspiracy trial of a former University of South Florida professor ended their third day of deliberations without a verdict and are breaking for the weekend.

The jury is deciding whether Sami Al-Arian and three other defendants are guilty of raising money to support the mission of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The PIJ is a terrorist group blamed for hundreds of deaths in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Lost Budgie alerts us to what happens to those who try to become more moderate Muslims- or perhaps just retire from jihad to spend more time with their families.
From Thailand:

A couple and their seven children were massacred yesterday in southern Thailand, where a Muslim insurgency has killed more than 1,000 people in two years.

Officials said around 30 Islamist militants surrounded a house in the village of Bo-Ngo, firing bullets and grenades before shooting those inside with handguns.

The victims were Luteng Arwarebueza, 44, his wife, and their seven children, aged from one to 20. Nine other people in nearby houses were injured.

The governor of Narathiwat province, Pracha Tearat, said that Mr Arwarebueza was a former rebel who quit the insurgency five months ago.

He "had received constant threats from militants and the massacre was to set a precedent for other defectors," said Mr Pracha.

So does Australia now have a Muslim Islamaphobe?

From ABC:

A Labor Member of the Victorian Parliament and Australia's only declared Muslim MP says some Muslim leaders need to be "weeded out".
Adem Somyurek says Muslims were not being targeted in the recent anti-terrorism raids in Melbourne and Sydney.

Intelligence sources say seaborne attack could wreak mayhem, cripple economy, from WND:

WASHINGTON – Most of the U.S. civilian population, military bases and nuclear-weapons assembly plants are within range of missile attacks by terrorists or rogue nations using merchant ships as launching platforms, warn counter-terror experts.

Both the U.S. military and foreign military forces – including Iran's – have tested missile launches from non-military vessels.

At the top of the risk list is the Russian-made Scud family of missiles, all too often found on the weapons' black market, and, according to counter-terror analysts, undoubtedly on the minds of terror organizations such as al-Qaida, which is known to have shown interest in the Scud maritime option.

A bird's eye view of U.S. coastlines reveals more than 75 percent of the nation’s population, about 290 million people, resides along thousands of miles of shores and up to 200 miles inland.

According to information from the Pentagon and from independent sources, three-quarters of U.S. military assets, from naval bases to nuclear-weapons assembly plants, are within these coastlines, posing highly tempting targets, not only for possibly enemy rogue nations such as North Korea and Iran, but also for global jihadi planners, G2 Bulletin reports...

Another even more terrifying component of the threat from the sea is the possibility of a rogue nation or terrorist group successfully firing a Scud armed with a nuclear weapon and timed for detonation above a U.S. population center.

As G2 Bulletin and WND reported exclusively earlier this year, government officials are increasingly concerned about the threat of this kind of an electro-magnetic pulse attack that could cripple cities and entire regions of the U.S. by knocking out electrical grids and computer technology.

EMP attacks are generated when a nuclear weapon is detonated at altitudes above a few dozen kilometers above the Earth's surface. The explosion, of even a small nuclear warhead, would produce a set of electromagnetic pulses that interact with the Earth's atmosphere and the Earth's magnetic field.

[Rep. Roscoe] Bartlett added: "Potential adversaries are aware of the EMP's strategic attack option. Ninety-nine percent of Americans may not know very much about EMP, but I will assure you ... that 100 percent of our potential enemies know all about EMP. I think that the American people need to know about EMP because they need to demand that their government do the prudent thing so that we will be less and less susceptible, less and less at risk to an EMP attack year by year. The threat is not adequately addressed in U.S. national and homeland security programs. Not only is it not adequately addressed; it is usually ignored, not even mentioned, and it certainly needs to be considered."...

Since the head-on assault on Vienna was repulsed in 1683, a new tactic, known as "whining" is employed at a conference, "Islam in a Pluralistic World."

A major international conference on Islam concluded in Vienna today with strong appeals from prominent Muslim leaders to recognize international terrorism as simply "terrorism." Political figures from Islamic countries, including the presidents of Iraq and Afghanistan, argued that it should never be labeled "Islamic" or "Muslim" terrorism because Islam is based on peace, dialogue, and tolerance.

But surely this human chain won't sing,"Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"
From New Zealand

Iran's volunteer Islamic militiamen are vowing to form a human chain along the length of the country's borders as a show of force against international pressure on Tehran's atomic programme.
Iran faces referral to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions after failing to convince the world its nuclear fuel programme is intended for power stations rather than warheads.

From the Timesonline:

At least 52 people were killed and dozens injured when suicide bombers blew themselves up inside two mosques in eastern Iraq during Friday prayers.

Witnesses described how the men walked into the Shia mosques in the town of Khanaqin, on the border with Iran, and detonated explosive belts. The buildings, packed with worshippers on the Muslim holy day, were destroyed.

The explosions came around two hours after a twin vehicle bomb attack on the Hamra, a hotel used by foreign journalists in central Baghdad. At least eight people were killed, including a woman and two children, and 40 more were hurt.

The blasts in the Jadriyah district of the capital were close to a government building at the centre of a new torture scandal, although this is not believed to have been the target.

The first blast - captured on surveillance video - knocked down the walls protecting the rear of the hotel at about 8.20am (0520GMT). A second, bigger explosion followed a minute later as a water truck attempted to drive through the breach but was blocked by the crater and rubble.

The blasts reverberated through the city centre, sending a mushroom cloud hundreds of feet into the air. A third vehicle packed with explosives was found near to another hotel less than a mile away. It was detonated in a controlled expolsion.

Several residential buildings near to the Hamra collapsed from the twin blasts, which gouged a large crater in the road outside. Water from the second vehicle flooded the street.

Firefighters joined neighbours to dig through the debris and under toppled blast barriers to pull victims from the rubble.

The deputy interior minister, Major General Hussein Kamal said the heavily fortified hotel appeared to be the target, with the first bomb designed to breach blast walls and the second to cause devastation...

From Xinhuanet:

CANBERRA -- Top officials of Australia and the United States on Friday agreed to boost counter-terrorism efforts in Southeast Asia as well as in Iraq.

The annual Australia-US Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN) were held in Adelaide, capital city of Australia's state of South Australia, amid tight security with the attendance of Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, Defense Minister Robert Hill and US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick.

In a joint communique released after the talks, the two countries emphasized the importance of encouraging governments and institutions that promote tolerance and work to counter extremism, but gave no details of the new measures to combat terrorism.

The consultations were held only days after a video tape was seized by Indonesian police showing a masked man warning that Australia will face more attacks unless it pulls its troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Australia, who maintains around 1,300 troops in and around Iraq, is the only one in core countries in the US-led coalition forces in the war-torn Middle East country which has never experienced a major attack on home soil.

The two countries pledged in the joint communique to pursue their efforts to defeat "terrorists and insurgents" in war-ravaged Iraq.

Rumsfeld dismissed growing calls for the United States to start withdrawing forces from Iraq, saying Iraq was several years behind Afghanistan as a secure country...

According to the Times Online, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi "has outstripped his mentor, Osama bin Laden" by building up "a formidable terrorist network that stretches from Britain to Afghanistan."

Al-Zarqawi commands more people, has access to greater funds and enjoys growing support among young Muslims drawn to his slick internet websites, which give lurid details of his latest attacks on “infidels”.

A recent study about Iraq’s insurgency by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington estimated that 3,000 foreign fighters had gone to Iraq to join the insurgency.

Now, battle-hardened, they form the vanguard of a “foreign legion” ready to take the jihad to their homelands in what US intelligence officials refer to as “bleed-out”.

The National Counterterrorism Centre in America believes that al-Zarqawi’s network extends to 40 countries and that he has developed links with 24 militant groups worldwide.

Already notorious in Iraq for committing the worst outrages of the insurgency, including personally beheading several foreign hostages and killing thousands of Shia Muslim civilians, al-Zarqawi carried out his first big operation abroad last week.

Iraqi suicide bombers attacked three hotels in Amman, the Jordanian capital, killing mainly Jordanian civilians, many of whom were attending a wedding reception. Hala al-Faroukah, the mother of the bride, died of her wounds while in a coma yesterday. Her death brought to 62 the number of people killed in the attacks on November 9.

“This is Zarqawi marking out his new territory,” an Arab intelligence source said. “I believe there’s a leadership struggle under way in al-Qaeda and he wants to establish himself as the new supremo.”

The evidence suggests that the 38-year-old, who grew up in the depressed Jordanian town of Zarqa, may already be well on his way to achieving his goal.

This year the Americans released a letter that they had intercepted from Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s No 2, to al-Zarqawi on their common goal of establishing an Islamic caliphate in the Arab world.

In the 6,000-word missive, al-Zawahiri told al-Zarqawi that after US forces were driven from Iraq the jihad must be waged against “secular countries neighbouring Iraq”. The attacks in Jordan suggest that such a phase may already be under way, as foreign fighters begin to return to their home countries.

Taking the "insurgency" home is documented in this Jihad Watch archive.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali has announced a sequel to Submission. From the BBC:

[Ms. Ali] has written a sequel, about Islam's attitude to gays.

The film will use anonymous actors and carry no credits in an effort to protect those involved in the project.

Ms. Ali told Dutch media that she had co-written the script with Van Gogh in the summer of 2004, months before he was killed last November.

"I examine the position of homosexuals in Islam in the film Submission II," she told the De Volkskrant newspaper.

"In the movie, they are called Allah's creatures," she added.

Mainstream Islamic thought treats Islam and homosexuality as incompatible, and hostility to homosexuals is widespread in many parts of the Muslim world.

Yusuf Islam (aka Cat Stevens) blames "Islamophobes" for thwarting his grandiose plans to construct an Islamic community center in London. From ContactMusic:

[Mr. Islam} has come under fire from residents in the Brent area of London for failing to follow through his plans to turn a 1906 Church into a modern centre comprising prayer rooms, a block of flats and a medical area.

But the one-time pop star is convinced local opposition stems wholly from prejudice and ignorance.

Islam's spokesman DANIEL GORDON says, "This is all about Islamophobia. They were even critical of the fact that the sketches for the plans showed people wearing hijabs.

"The delays are down to the fact that it has been hard to get funding following the 11 September attacks."

Is Mr. Ahmadinejad's fanatical devotion to a mystical religious figure the underlying motive for his defiance of the world and his call for the destruction of Israel? From Reuters:

According to Shi'ite Muslim teaching, Abul-Qassem Mohammad, the 12th leader whom Shi'ites consider descended from the Prophet Mohammed, disappeared in 941 but will return at the end of time to lead an era of Islamic justice.

"Our revolution's main mission is to pave the way for the reappearance of the 12th Imam, the Mahdi," Ahmadinejad said in the speech to Friday Prayers leaders from across the country.

"Therefore, Iran should become a powerful, developed and model Islamic society."

"Today, we should define our economic, cultural and political policies based on the policy of Imam Mahdi's return. We should avoid copying the West's policies and systems," he added, newspapers and local news agencies reported.

Ahmadinejad refers to the return of the 12th Imam, also known as the Mahdi, in almost all his major speeches since he took office in August.

A September address to the U.N. General Assembly contained long passages on the Mahdi which confused Western diplomats and irked those from Sunni Muslim countries who believe in a different line of succession from Mohammed.

This fascination has prompted wild stories to circulate.

Presidential aides have denied a popular rumor that he ordered his cabinet to write a letter to the 12th Imam and throw it down a well near the holy city of Qom where thousands of pilgrims come each week to pray and drop messages to the Imam.

But what really has tongues wagging is the possibility that Ahmadinejad's belief in the 12th Imam's return may be linked to the supposed growing influence of a secretive society devoted to the Mahdi which was banned in the early 1980s.

Founded in 1953 and used by the Shah of Iran to try to eradicate followers of the Bahai faith, the Hojjatieh Society is governed by the conviction that the 12th Imam's return will be hastened by the creation of chaos on earth.

Ahmadinejad, who is only the second non-cleric to become president since the revolution, has made clear his immense respect for Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi, a deeply conservative cleric with close ties to the Hojjatieh-founded Haqqani theological school in Qom.

Conspiracy theorists, never in short supply in Iran, allege that many members of Ahmadinejad's cabinet and other key appointees are Haqqani graduates and Hojjatieh followers.

"It seems that they (Hojjatieh members) have recently become more active and are spread through the government," said a political analyst who declined to be named.

"The president has repeatedly said his government will pave the way for the Imam's return."

It's contest time at Jihad Watch, with our TaqiyyaFest still open for entries, and now a new offer from the Vice President of our Board, Hugh Fitzgerald: The elevation of Juan Cole to the Presidency of MESA Nostra prompts the sudden re-opening of the celebrated MESA Nostra contest, announced here some months ago. Though the contest had been officially closed, at least in the minds of the judges, it is now officially open again. Entries will be accepted before Thanksgiving, and all will be as carefully considered as those sent in months ago. The prize remains as stated in the last line.

Rather than supplying only the laconic link to the original announcement at JW, so demanding because of its difficult-to-execute click, here it is again:

Readers of JihadWatch are aware that MESA Nostra is the professional organization in which, in order to become a uomo d'onore, or a donna d'onore for that matter, no kneecaps need be broken, no nightclubs broken up, no trucks hijacked, no girls put on the streets, no cocaine contraband prescribed by "los medicos" of Medellin be distributed. No, there are only two requirements to become a Made Man in MESA Nostra. The first is easy: you must view the entire Middle East through ideological blinkers, in which Islam scarcely matters, and in which, whatever happens, Jihad-conquest and dhimmitude will be ignored, so that contemporary expressions of millennium-old doctrines, attitudes, impulses will be interpreted without the slightest reference to those doctrines, attitudes, impulses. That is content.

There is also form.

What would Shakespeare have been like had he not forced himself to squeeze his dramatic verse into the Elizabethan doublet of iambic pentameter? Or Spenser, without the Spenserian stanza? It is not only writers in Elizabethan England who found such constraints productive. How impressive that 20th century French writer who managed to produce a novel without using the letter "e," or that other one who composed a series of works based on a single device: the beginning and the final sentences of whatever he wrote were phonetically identical, though semantically wildly different, and he assigned himself the writerly task of beating a plausible path through the overgrown jungle of language, a path that led ineluctably from that first sentence to the same-sounding, but different-meaning, last sentence.

Many of those in MESA Nostra may not realize it, but they are akin to Shakespeare and Spenser, Georges Perec and Raymond Roussel. For them it is not a question of verse-forms, or lipograms, or homophonic puns. Their self-imposed constraint consists in limiting their scholarly lexicon to fewer than fifty nouns, and two-dozen verbs. They harness these exhausted nouns, these over-worked verbs, and put them to work, no matter the subject. No matter the subject.

Thus the prose produced by one member of MESA Nostra will sound remarkably like that of another. Here we mean the enthusiastic, full-throated members of MESA Nostra, those whose interests do not stray very far from "Iraq" and "Palestine" and "colonialism" and "empire," and the obvious ring-changing variants: "occupied Iraq/Palestine," "Iraqi/Palestinian people," "Israeli colonialism," "American empire." Many members of MESA Nostra membership have a deep and abiding personal and professional interest in these matters, as they do in little else. They can do no other.

But a few members of MESA Nostra are members-in-name-only, who remain different in mental makeup, and distant from the bureaucratic intrigues, the political tendentiousness, the anti-American, anti-Israel, anti-Western themes and variations. These "non-member" members do not write about the "construction of Palestinian identity" nor the "(de)construction of Israeli identity." Rather, they write about "The Methods of the Mudaddithin," or "Ephraim of Edessa," or "Xavier de Planhol and Agricultural Desolation in the Berber Heartland," or "Yemeni Jews as Chattel Slaves" or "The Destruction of the Coptic Churches of Upper Egypt," or "Schacht, Jeffery, Gottheil: Three Masters of Morningside Heights" or "Arabic but not Qur'anic: The Evidence of Numismatics" or "Twelver-Shi'ism in Mevlevistan" or "Ibn Battuta, the Rihla, and the Destruction of Hindustan" or "Why There Was No Arab Copernicus or Vesalius: An Inquiry" or "Aisha and Marriage in the Islamic Republic of Iran" or "Quran'ic Memorization and Comparative I.Q. Levels in Post-Independence India" or "Sir William Jones and the Re-Discovery of India" or "The Role of Hadrami Traders in the Muslim Conquest of the East Indies" or "The Story of Thomas Pellow" or "Indo-Persian Miniatures of Jihad-Conquest in the British Museum Collections: A Catalogue Raisonee" or "Table-Talk of a Mesopotamian Judge: A Critical Edition" or "Book-Binding at the Abbasid Court" or "The Role of Hungarian Converts in Ottoman History" or "The War Within Islam: Universalist Claims, Arab Supremacist Doctrine" or "The Treaty of Al-Hudaibiyya and Pacta Sunt Servanda: Muhammad and Grotius on the Law of War and Peace" or …well, you get the idea. But these are not the people whom we have in mind when we discuss MESA Nostra at JihadWatch. We are talking about the other kind.

And it was with that other kind in mind – the card-carrying careerists, the blurb-and-reference swappers, the runners-for-office, the risers-high, the much-interviewed, the solemn dispensers of wisdom to the unwary, the True Believers – that we created the MESA Nostra Contest.

The contest is simple. Below is a single paragraph, itself consisting of a single sentence, transparently written in Mesanostran. Contestants are asked to identify the author.

"In conclusion, I feel that this work of analysis, by focusing on the implications of the phallic hegemony of Wehrmacht-helmeted Israeli troops and their supporters throughout the American empire, both equally unappeasable in their demonstrable need for "the Other," does what in a quasi-heuristic sense it was intended to do, as it manages to break away from all Eurocentric approaches to discourses of postcolonial subalternity, or even of meta-alterity, and comes so subversively close in its disjunctive interrogation of the counter- or, more exactly, anti-mimesis which is inherently essential to Mesopotamian or indeed to Cairene, Abbasid, Jordanian or Palestinian thought for, as a native of (Amman, Baghdad, Beirut, Cairo, Damascus, Islamabad, Ramallah, Teheran, etc. – choose one) and hence a non-European, I am of necessity self-assigned to that category of people best placed to perform such a mission of interrogating all postcolonialist as well as narrativised specificity, but of equal necessity, not as one obviously intent on de-undermining or rather meta-determining the poststructuralist or post-postmodern universalism, with its customary relativised discourse analysis which seldom lends itself to anticipatory prolepsis, but on the other hand my critique is quite meta-consciously deeply para-rooted within, as well as up-rooted out of, and obviously from, Western thought with its inalienably alien constructions of meta-identity and hypersexuality, which necessarily give rise to post-essentialism which, in a larger sense, serves merely to violate all the strategic critiques of hegemonic historiographical constructions of essences, whether of the Orient or of scholars who deny the self-referentiality of all postcolonialist essentializing."

The prize for the first correct entry emailed to director@jihadwatch.org will be a nicely framed copy of Professor Hamid Dabashi's celebrated Poem in Prose to Edward Said, which you may read now by googling "Hamid Dabashi" and "Edward Said." For many, that will be prize enough.

You now have nine days to send in your entries. Winners will be notified, and their names, in whatever form they wish, will understandably be announced only upon receipt of their express permission.

Fred is in the running for the correct answer at the Jihad Watch Mesa Nostra contest too. Irfan Khawaja writes in Campus Watch:

It can be amazing sometimes to discover the frequency with which appeals to academic expertise end up concealing utter nonsense. For a remarkable example of this, consider a letter from Fred M. Donner, professor of Near East Studies at the University of Chicago, in the Nov. 16 issue of Princeton Alumni Weekly, the alumni magazine of Princeton University. (To get to the Donner letter, click the preceding link, go to "current issue," and then go to "letters to the editor." The magazine typically goes by its abbreviation, PAW.)

For a few months now, a controversy has raged at Princeton over the possibility that Princeton might hire Columbia University's Rashid Khalidi to serve as its (Princeton's) Niehaus Chair of Near East Studies. Generally speaking, opinion on the matter falls into three relatively neat camps: (1) those opposed because of Khalidi's views on the Israel-Palestine issue, (2) those in favor for the same general reasons, and (3) the indifferent. For months, the controversy has consisted of partisans of camp (1) attacking partisans of camp (2) and vice versa. (Personally, I fall into camp (3).)

One opens the Nov. 15 issue of PAW with the pro-Khalidi camp responding to the anti-Khalidi's camp's claim that Khalidi is "a pseudo-academic," and "a person with a political agenda rather than a scholar…" The chief representative of the pro-Khalidi faction turns out to be Prof. Donner, a Princeton alum. The defense he offers of Khalidi is notable only for its astonishing illogic—illogic that does little to help Khalidi and less to enhance Donner's credibility as a witness in Khalidi's defense.

"I had the good fortune to be a colleague of Khalidi's for almost 20 years," Donner tells us. "I can assure [the reader] that Khalidi is truly a scholar of the first caliber, not a ‘pseudo'-anything."

Fair enough: being someone's colleague for 20 years can in principle give you a chance to get to know him well enough to comment on his capacities as a scholar. The trouble is, having been Khalidi's colleague for twenty years, Donner doesn't profess to know very much about Khalidi's scholarship: "I do not follow the Israel-Palestine debates, or Khalidi's writing, closely enough to know whether he has in fact declared his endorsement of a ‘one-state' solution" to the Israel-Palestine debate.

Too bad that Khalidi's scholarship is on…the Israel-Palestine debate.

Read it all.

That guy you saw leaving a note on a car in the parking lot? He's not leaving his phone number and insurance info.
From Arab News.

The car of a Hail-based journalist was vandalized yesterday by miscreants who were allegedly angered by his Internet postings

From the BBC

Britain's most powerful Islamic body is "in denial" about the prevalence of extreme views among its members, one of its founders has told the BBC.
The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) pledged to tackle extremism "head on" after the 7 July attacks in London.

But in a BBC Panorama special, Mehbood Kantharia and other prominent British Muslims question the MCB's commitment to meeting this challenge.

The MCB has branded the programme "deeply unfair" and a "witch-hunt".

Secretary general Sir Iqbal Sacranie said Panorama had used "deliberately garbled quotes in an attempt to malign the Muslim Council of Britain".

He said it had "the barely concealed goal of drawing British Muslims away from being inspired in their political beliefs and actions by the faith of Islam".

That's just why we were skeptical of Sir Iqbal in the first place.

"'God bless us every one!' said Tiny Tim, the last of all."

From Asia News with thanks to Nicolei:

Indonesian national police Chief General Sutanto has issued a nation-wide order to tighten security measures around public buildings and churches against possible terrorist attacks that might occur during the Christmas season. All local commanders should remain vigilant and not underestimate the danger that Islamist terrorists might plant bombs near churches and public buildings during the religious holiday.

Bruce Bawer writes in the Christian Science Monitor, with thanks to Looney Tunes.

OSLO – The recent rioting in Paris suburbs and elsewhere in Europe should not have surprised anyone. Europe's Muslim communities are powder kegs, brimming with an alienation born of both an assiduously inculcated antagonism toward infidel society and an infidel society whose integration policies - which should actually be called segregation policies - have perversely encouraged this ire. I first noticed the problem when I lived in Amsterdam in 1999. A visitor to that city might imagine that not one Muslim lived there. But to venture just a few blocks beyond the tourist-crowded streets was to learn otherwise. In my neighborhood, the sidewalks were crowded with hijab-clad women pushing baby carriages. There were as many signs in Arabic as in Dutch. Outside the "neighborhood center" waved a large Turkish flag.

Such districts, I learned, could be found across Europe. Muslims were a huge, rapidly growing - and highly segregated - minority. In city after city, downtown areas were almost 100 percent European, the outskirts increasingly Muslim.

Americans know about ghettos. For many of our families, they've been a stage in the transition from immigrant to native. Many ghetto residents are still, essentially, foreigners; integration takes place largely in the next generation, as the children of immigrants go to school, find jobs, and leave the ghetto behind.

Not in Europe. Officially, to be sure, France is less multicultural than most European countries - witness its rejection of religious labels in public documents and its ban on hijabs in schools. But enduring segregation is a fact of life in France as it is elsewhere on the continent. Millions of "French Muslims" don't consider themselves French. A government report leaked last March depicted an increasingly two-track educational system: More and more Muslim students refuse to sing, dance, participate in sports, sketch a face, or play an instrument. They won't draw a right angle (it looks like part of the Christian cross). They won't read Voltaire and Rousseau (too antireligion), Cyrano de Bergerac (too racy), Madame Bovary (too pro-women), or Chrétien de Troyes (too chrétien). One school has separate toilets for "Muslims" and "Frenchmen"; another obeyed a Muslim leader's call for separate locker rooms because "the circumcised should not have to undress alongside the impure."...

Read it all.

From the BBC:

A masked man - believed to be one of South East Asia's most wanted Islamic militants - has appeared in a video threatening attacks against the West.

The video singles out the US, the UK, Australia and Italy as targets.

Officials believed the man was Noordin Mohammad Top, a key figure in Jemaah Islamiah, the radical group blamed for bomb attacks on Bali and elsewhere.

Police found the video in a house they raided last week, when Noordin Top narrowly escaped being captured.

A near-simultaneous raid on another house, in East Java, ended in the death of his associate, Azahari Husin.

"As long as you keep your troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and intimidate Muslim people, you will feel our intimidation and our terror," the man in the video said.

Pointing at the camera, he said: "America, Australia, England and Italy. You will be the target of our next attack."...

"Especially for Australia, as long as its troops are in Afghanistan and Iraq and engage in intimidation there, you will also feel our intimidation," the man said....

British MP George Galloway at Damascus University: US Army Is Defeated in Iraq. US Will Not Dare to Attack Syria. Bashar Al-Assad Is the Last Arab Leader and Tony Blair Is A Slave of Slaves. From MemriTV, with thanks to Interested.

Galloway: Condoleezza Rice has been touring the Arab countries to speak about Syria, so I have come to Syria to speak about Condoleezza Rice.

You know, it never ceases to surprise me that Arab governments can allow a foreigner to come to their country and sit on their tables with their leaders to insult and attack another Arab country. This is the behavior of slave governments, and the Bahraini regime should have asked Condoleezza to leave when she insulted Syria in their presence, in their capital. In fact maybe it's the rulers who should leave. When she visited Cairo a few months ago, the Egyptian masses - who are still a part of the Arab world, by the way - raised the slogan about the Arab rulers: "Give them a visa ya Condoleezza," and I believe that this is a slogan which has not lost its meaning.[...]

I want to be very clear. I was clear in July, and what I said in July has followed me all over the world by the American and Israeli propaganda machine, so I want to be very clear again. All dignified people in the world, whether Arabs or Muslims or others with dignity, are very proud of the speech made by President Bashar Al-Assad a few days ago here in Damascus. [...]

For me he is the last Arab ruler, and Syria is the last Arab country. It is the fortress of the remaining dignity of the Arabs, and that's why I'm proud to be here and addressing you this evening. [...]

After July he (Blair) condemned me for what I said about President Bashar, but only two years before, he was taking the president to meet Her Majesty the queen. If President Bashar is so dangerous a man, why did he take him inside the royal palace in London? The truth is, Mr. Blair changed his policy towards Syria because President Bush ordered him to. Mr. Blair too is a slave of the slaves. [...]

The reason that Syria is facing this crisis is not because of any bad thing which Syria has done or any weaknesses within its democracy, or within its economy, or within its human rights record - and there are weaknesses in all three of these. The reason why Syria is being threatened is not because of anything bad which she did, but because of the good which she is doing. That's the reason why Syria is being threatened - because she will not betray the Palestinian resistance, because she will not betray the Lebanese resistance, Hizbullah, because she will not sign a shameful surrender-peace with General Sharon, and above all - more than any of these others - because Syria will not allow her country to be used as a military base for America to crush the resistance in Iraq. These are the reasons why Syria is being targeted by these imperial powers. [...]

Now I warned in July that Lebanon was being sharpened as a knife to be used in the back of Syria, and I warned the Lebanese people that those who care nothing for Lebanon are preparing to use you and your government to weaken the last Arab power. And I turned out to be right. This knife has been sharpened and now they are using it...

From the Financial Times:

Nicolas Sarkozy, French interior minister, will today call for a shake-up of immigration policy and propose tightening rules for granting visas to family members of immigrants living in France.

His comments, in an interview published in L'Express magazine today, came after an opinion poll showed that Mr Sarkozy, the early favourite for the 2007 presidential elections, had won plaudits among voters for his tough stance over the recent rioting. Analysts said his tough position on immigration highlighted how Mr Sarkozy was identifying himself with policies normally associated with far right, anti-immigration parties, like the National Front, to enhance his populist image.

The debate over immigration heated up yesterday after Gérard Larcher, employment minister, told the Financial Times that polygamy on Tuesday among immigrants was one of the social causes that helped lead to the rioting during the past three weeks...

Early in the rioting, Mr Sarkozy was widely criticised for inciting more violence by calling the protesters "scum". However, a poll in Le Point magazine showed 68 per cent of people approved his handling of the rioting, a jump of 11 points from a previous poll...

From the BBC:

Iran has begun to process a new batch of uranium to convert it to a gas that can be enriched into the material for nuclear bombs, diplomats say.

"Conversion has resumed," a diplomat close to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna said.

The move comes despite heavy pressure from the US and Europe for Iran to cease all nuclear activity.

Iran denies Western claims that it has a secret nuclear weapons programme, saying it just wants nuclear power...

"It's not good news, no, not at all. Because people were trying to arrange for new talks and now it's more difficult," said a senior European diplomat quoted by the AFP news agency...

Worried about the status of the talks? We should be worried about the status of Iran's nuclear program instead.

Post Cold War political realignments continue, from the Guardian:

SAMSUN, Turkey (AP) - During the Cold War, Turkey's Black Sea coast was the site of U.S. radar stations that looked across the sea into Russia to snoop on the Soviet fleet and nuclear missile tests.

Now, Russian gas warms the Turkish capital, and Moscow is this NATO ally's second largest trading partner.

Russian President Vladimir Putin visits Turkey's Black Sea coast Thursday for a ceremony to inaugurate a $3.2 billion pipeline, another sign of Russia's growing economic influence in Turkey, ties that are so strong that a Turkish general once proposed that Turkey consider an alliance with Russia instead of the European Union.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi will also attend the ceremony. Italy's Eni SpA was a key partner in the construction of the pipeline.

Washington had balked at proposals to build the pipeline and has warned Turkey about its dependence on Russia, which now supplies 60 percent of the country's gas and 20 percent of its oil.

But Turkish officials say that in a world of tight gas supplies they have little choice but to increase their dependence on Russia, which produces almost as much oil as Saudi Arabia...

The pipeline ceremony will also highlight growing business ties between the two countries and their burgeoning political relationship. Erdogan and Putin have met five times since Erdogan's party took control of parliament in 2002 and trade with Russia is expected to reach $15 billion this year...

Gen. Tuncer Kilinc - at the time head of the powerful National Security Council - said that Turkey needed new allies and it would be ``useful if Turkey engages in a search that would involve Russia and Iran.''...

Can the movie be far behind? "The world of bin Laden: no drinks, no gambling, no pictures of women," from the Telegraph with thanks to Interested.

Osama bin Laden wants the United States to convert to Islam, ditch its constitution, abolish banks, jail homosexuals and sign the Kyoto climate change treaty.

...in that order?

The first complete collection of the Saudi's statements published today portrays a world in which Islam's enemies will take the first steps towards salvation by embracing the "religion of all the Prophets".

Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden is billed as the first accurate compendium of the terrorist leader's words, threats and ruminations from 1994 to 2004.

Its editors have rooted out many statements which they identified as forgeries and retranslated to correct "horrendous" errors.

His terms for America's surrender appeared after the September 2001 suicide attacks and include demands that amount to the abandonment of much of western life.

Alcohol and gambling would be barred and there would be an end to women's photos in newspapers or advertising.

Any woman serving "passengers, visitors and strangers", presumably anyone from air stewardesses to waitresses, would also be out of a job.

The West must "stop your oppression, lies, immorality and debauchery that has spread among you" and has become the "worst civilisation witnessed in the history of mankind".

The publisher Verso said it expected criticism for releasing the thoughts of a terrorist but denied that the volume would be the jihadis' equivalent of Mein Kampf...

From CNN:

ROME, Italy -- Italy's military police have detained three Algerian nationals believed to be connected to a militant group with ties to al Qaeda, authorities said.

The men are being held on suspicion of association with the aim of international terrorism -- charges put in place after the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001.

According to a commander with Italy's Carabinieri, or military police, the arrests were made Tuesday night into Wednesday morning -- two in Brescia and one in Naples...

Italian media said the three were "potential operatives ready to carry out (suicide) attacks." Authorities would not confirm the report to CNN.

Media reports also linked the men to an Algerian militant organization known as the "Salafist Group for Call and Combat."...

The Sydney Morning Herald interviews a Muslim cleric who criticizes Abdul Nacer Benbrika. (Thanks to David for the link). Yet he does not show how his argument is better or stronger than Benbrika's. It is simply his assertion against Benbrika's about what Islam teaches.
And when I look at history and the world today- well, who am I going to believe, Sheik Fehmi Naji el-Imam or my own lyin' eyes? And what would anyone believe?

Referring to Benbrika's flight from Algeria and his life in Australia supported by the welfare system, Sheik Fehmi said he had shown a lack of gratitude to his adopted country.

"If it is true what is said about this man, then when he says he is calling for Islamic jihad, he is calling for his own, fabricated jihad. Islamic jihad does not call for killing innocent men, women and children and to think nothing of it," he said.

"Islamic jihad does not call for the destruction of monuments and to annihilate or kill whoever is inside…"

Why is it under Dhimmi Watch?

If you have to ask, you'll never know.

Delta Does Detroit 8pm 2005-11-16 ALL NEW! JT and his team face terrorism on our own soil.

JT (Benjamin Bratt) and a Special Ops team are dispatched to Detroit where a radical Christian group takes over a mosque and keeps its members hostage. JT must balance how much he is able to assist in saving lives with the law which requires that the FBI deal with the situation on their own. Also starring Dennis Hopper, Aunjanue Ellis, Kelly Rutherford.

After weeks of unrest, tough anti-immigrant stances are resounding with a broader section of French voters. From the Christian Science Monitor:

ST. CLOUD, FRANCE – Through the antique binoculars in the study of his mansion in this plush Parisian suburb, Jean Marie Le Pen could almost see the fires burning in less favored districts surrounding the French capital.

And the leader of France's extreme-right National Front party says the recent wave of violence by mostly immigrant-descended youths has proved his antiforeigner stance right.

"We have won several thousand new members in the past two weeks," he exults. "People are saying, 'They said you were an extremist, but you were a visionary.' "

But Mr. Le Pen, who shocked the nation three years ago by winning second place in presidential elections on an anti-immigrant platform, should watch his flanks, says Alan Duhamel, one of France's foremost political commentators.

The conservative ruling Popular Union Movement (UMP), led by Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, is seeking to outmaneuver Le Pen by stealing his votes, says Mr. Duhamel. "Everybody is moving right," he argues. "The further right you go, the stronger you are."

As the conservative government has stumbled, while the opposition Socialist party appeared in disarray, the only political group to emerge from the crisis with its colors flying is the anti-immigration National Front, the provocative bugbear of the French political establishment...

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

Mohammed Sidique Khan, one of the four apparent suicide bombers who attacked London on July 7, condemned British Muslim leaders on a video aired for the first time on Tuesday.

In the clip shown on Britain's Channel 4 television, Khan urged British Muslims to take part in jihad - "holy war" or "spiritual struggle" - and accused "so-called community leaders" of being "content with their Toyotas and their semi-detached houses".

The money quote?

"They tell us ludicrous things like 'You must obey the law of the land.' How on earth did we conquer lands in the past if we were to obey this law? By Allah, these scholars will be brought to account.

I almost let this story go until an old familiar phrase, "misunderstanders of Islam," came to mind. Isn't it odd how the religion teachers are the ones who just don't get it?

The controversial case of Muhammad Al-Harbi, a Saudi high school teacher accused of mocking religion, came to a surprising end on Saturday. Al-Harbi was sentenced to three years in prison and 750 lashes — 50 lashes per week for 15 weeks. The lashes are to be given in the public market in the town of Al-Bikeriya in Al-Qassim.

The kids don't like him because they failed a chemistry test; the Islamic studies had another reason:

Deeply disturbed by the explosions at the Al-Hamra Compound in Riyadh in 2003, Al-Harbi felt it his duty as an educator to enlighten his students and warn them of terrorism and its consequences. He went to great lengths by talking to students, hanging anti-terrorism signs around the school and speaking against terrorism.

“The Ministry of Education has recently ordered all schools to lecture students on the dangers of extremism and terrorism in general, but I was a step ahead of their decision,” said Al-Harbi.

Apparently Al-Harbi’s actions and comments against terrorism upset a number of Islamic studies teachers known for their fundamentalist beliefs.

Pierre Rehov reviews the new Warner Bros. backed film "Paradise Now" for Front Page:

As a filmmaker of the new documentary Suicide Killers, I will tell you that Hany Abu-Assad’s film Paradise Now is an artistically fashioned fiction. A dangerous fiction about dangerous people in a dangerous world. As fiction, his film stages good and bad characters. And since the film is about the final days of life for two suicide bombers, the killers automatically become the heroes.

Hany Abu-Assad tries to portray his heroes as human beings. On this, I could not agree more. In his interview with Newsweek, he says the Palestinians “wanted to see these characters as superheroes, as almost inhuman in their great powers.” “Suicide Killers,” as I call them in my documentary, represent the saddest of human tragedies in their denial of life for death.

Depending on our point of view, we could justify anyone’s behaviour. The temptation would be great to make a film on Charles Manson or Jack the Ripper from an inside perspective that excuses their actions, just as we could rationalize Nazism by the poverty in which the Versailles Treaty emerged from Germany in the twenties. But in all cases—including suicide bombings—it’s important to identify the real causes and not make them up. Unfortunately, when we deal with the issues of Moslem expansion, the desire for Islamic world domination, the intolerance of Occidental culture, the Muslim extremists’ rejection of the modern world, their inferiority of women, and the glorification of jihad and shahada, the conclusion is always the same: to blame Israel or the United States.

Presented from the Palestinian point of view, moderate or otherwise, suicide bombings are the result of occupation, oppression, lack of freedom, and the desire for cultural pride. All of this reasoning is a lie. A myth. I spent hours speaking with would-be suicide bombers in Israeli jails and with their families in Gaza, Jordan, the West Bank and inside Nablus, where Paradise Now was filmed. And I am sorry to tell the Jury of the Amnesty International Award and the Best European Film Blue Angel Award and whoever is ecstatic about the courage and the sacrifice of these supposed heroes that they are just manipulated kids, victims of a system and a culture, or, as Dr. Boaz Ganor from the Hertzliya Center for Studies on Terrorism puts it, “stupid bombs and smart bombs at the same time.”...

Read it all.

"Democracy is on the march." From the San Jose Mercury News:

CAIRO, Egypt - The Muslim Brotherhood won 20 percent of the overall vote in the first round of Egypt's parliamentary elections, according to initial official results released Wednesday after a day of intense runoff balloting.

The Brotherhood, the country's largest opposition group, is officially banned as a political party in Egypt but fielded candidates as independents. It won 30 seats, while the ruling National Democratic Party won 50 seats, the semi-official Middle East News Agency reported, quoting judges in counting stations.

The results of Tuesday's runoffs and last week's polling - the first round in the four-week elections - mean the Brotherhood has already captured 34 seats in parliament, more than double the 15 it held in the outgoing assembly. This confirms its position as the biggest single opposition group to President Hosni Mubarak's government.

Scattered violence and rigging allegations marred the runoffs, called to decide the 133 seats where no candidate won more than half the vote on Nov. 9...

The ruling party is not expected to lose its long-held majority in the 454-seat parliament. The elections are seen as a gauge of how far Mubarak is prepared to open the political system. During the past two years, the United States has put increasing pressure on the president to liberalize his authoritarian administration...

The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights said it saw "increasing instances of election bribes ... collective voting, and in some cases assaults on voters for not supporting NDP candidates."...

"Raid on torture dungeon exposes Iraq's secret war," from the Independent:

The raid was at a building in central Baghdad. Men armed with automatic rifles burst in and made their way to a set of underground cells where they found 175 people huddled together. They had been captured by paramilitaries and tortured. The terrified, mainly Sunni, captives had been held in an office of the Iraqi interior ministry, and the rescue party were Iraqi police and American soldiers.

Yesterday, 24 hours later, the Prime Minister, Ibrahim Jaafari, promised an investigation after the shocking demonstration of how paramilitary units working for the government, and death squads allegedly linked to it, are waging a savage war in the shadows.

People are arrested and disappear for months. Bodies appear every week of men, and sometimes women, executed with their hands tied behind their backs. Some have been grotesquely mutilated with knives and electric drills before their deaths.

The paramilitaries are not held responsible for all the deaths - some are the work of insurgents murdering supposed informers or government officials, or killing for purely sectarian motives.

You very seldom see American soldiers on the streets of Baghdad now. The Iraqi police are in evidence outside, but so are increasing numbers of militias running their own checkpoints - men in balaclavas or wrap-around sunglasses and headbands, with leather mittens and an array of weapons. An American official acknowledged: "It is getting more and more like Mogadishu every day."...

Although the US forces had ridden to the rescue on this occasion, many of these units have been created, trained and armed by the Americans. According to reports, $3bn (£1.7bn) out of an $87bn Iraq appropriation that Congress approved last year was earmarked for the creation of paramilitary units to fight the insurgency. Vincent Cannistraro, the CIA's former head of counter-terrorism, said: "They set up little teams of [Navy] Seals and special forces with teams of Iraqis, working with people who were in senior intelligence under the Saddam regime."...

From Xinhuanet.com:

GAZA - The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and the Islamic Jihad (Holy War) rejected on Wednesday a US-brokered agreement reached between the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and Israel on Gaza border crossings.

The two groups said in two separate statements that the agreement reached under the sponsorship of the United States has harmed the Palestinian sovereignty and despised the Palestinian dignity.

Hamas condemned the PNA's approval of the agreement that was reached on Tuesday after intense mediation by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

"The Israelis have the ability to observe the Palestinians or any visitors via the Rafah crossing through cameras and through the joint control room," the Hamas statement said...

Jihad also rebuked the US for interfering into the Gaza border issue for the sake of Israel while neglecting other important issues such as the Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank and the building of a separation barrier.

Under the deal, the key Rafah crossing on the Gaza-Egypt borderwill be re-opened as of Nov. 25 under the presence of European Union security monitors. All Palestinian identification card holders can travel through the crossing in both directions.

The Rafah crossing is the only exit for Palestinians living in Gaza to travel abroad. The terminal has remained closed since Israel withdrew from the entire strip in September.

Fearing that the Rafah crossing might be used by Palestinian militants to smuggle weapons, Israel had insisted on monitoring goods and people through the terminal, but Palestinians asserted that no Israelis should be at Rafah.

The two sides finally reached a compromise that Israeli and Palestinian security officers will co-monitor the traffic at Rafah by remote-control cameras in a control room a few kilometers away from the crossing.

Meanwhile, the agreement says a seaport can be constructed in Gaza, the Karni crossing on the eastern Gaza border will be expanded and that Palestinians can travel between Gaza and the West Bank in bus and truck convoys within months.

From the New Duranty Times:

NEW DELHI - In the latest in a surge of violence over three days, a large car bomb exploded Wednesday morning in restive Indian-controlled Kashmir province, severely wounding dozens of people and leaving an uncertain death toll.

The bombing was the latest in a practically uninterrupted series of clashes since Monday between Indian authorities and militants fighting Indian rule in Kashmir, in which at least 8 people have been killed, roughly 70 injured and a fresh current of fear and mayhem has swept across a region still reeling from the devastating Oct. 8 earthquake.

A police officer at the scene said at least three people died in Wednesday's attack, in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-administered Kashmir. The attack appeared to have been directed at a former militant-turned-politician, Usman Majeed. He was injured.

The Kashmiri violence took a sharp upturn this week, after Indian police stepped up the search for suspects in a synchronized series of bombs in the Indian capital two weeks ago, in which more than 60 people died...

"Clarke to extradite Ahmad to US," from the BBC:

Charles Clarke has ordered the extradition of Babar Ahmad to the US to face trial on alleged terrorism offences, the Home Office has said.

It said the home secretary had "given full consideration" to representations made on Mr Ahmad's behalf.

Mr Ahmad, 31, a computer expert from Tooting, London, is accused of running websites that supported terrorists and urged Muslims to fight a holy war.

His family said they would appeal the extradition order in the High Court...

The jihad continues in southern Thailand. From the AP:

Suspected Muslim separatists have stormed two houses in a southern Thai village and opened fire on the families with assault rifles, killing nine people and injuring nine others.

About 10 armed men on Wednesday entered the homes in the Rangae district of Thailand's Narathiwat province and killed four men, one woman and four children.

The brave jihad warriors obviously perceived a threat to Islam from this woman and the four children.

From ADNKI:

Tehran, 15 Nov. (AKI) - A demonstration in front of the Italian embassy in Tehran, more than 100 university events marking the anniversary of his death and a 'documentary' about his life to be aired on Iranian state television. The subject of such obsessive interest in Iran is the late Edoardo Agnelli, heir to Italy's most famous industrial family, the Agnellis, who own the FIAT motoring empire. Under an Iranian urban myth, recently resuscitated and embellished, Edoardo Agnelli's suicide five years ago was 'a Zionist plot' to rob him of his inheritance because he had 'converted to Islam'. State television is broadcasting a 'documentary' which accredits the thesis of a "Zionist plot" to get their hands on FIAT wealth by killing Edoardo Agnelli. The programme is also being shown on the Sahar satellite channel, translated into Russian, English, Arabic, Urdu and Azeri.

For the record, Edoardo, 46, parked his car on a high bridge near Turin on 15 November 2000 and threw himself to his death. A sensitive and reclusive figure, with a keen interest in religion and some past problems with drug use and depression, Edoardo - only son of patriarch Giovanni Agnelli - had long been excluded from any business role in FIAT.

The attempt to make the late Agnelli a Muslim martyr and portray him as persecuted by Jewish business interests is also part of a wider campaign to discredit Italy - one of Iran's biggest trading partners - in a moment of tension betwen Iran and the international community over its nuclear ambitions.

For more intrigue, conspiracy and titillating mystery, please read the entire article.

From the Financial Times France’s employment minister finds an innovative way of creeping up on the problem without mentioning it. Polygamy, eh? And that is a feature of which world religion?

France’s employment minister on Tuesday fingered polygamy as one reason for the rioting in the country.

Gérard Larcher said multiple marriages among immigrants was one reason for the racial discrimination which ethnic minorities faced in the job market. Overly large polygamous families sometimes led to anti-social behaviour among youths who lacked a father figure, making employers wary of hiring ethnic minorities, he explained.

The minister, speaking to a group of foreign journalists as the government stepped up efforts to improve its image with the foreign media, said: “Since part of society displays this anti-social behaviour, it is not surprising that some of them have difficulties finding work ... Efforts must be made by both sides. If people are not employable, they will not be employed.”

From Iran Focus:

Tehran, Iran, Nov. 14 – An organisation set up by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) is holding a rally in a provincial centre in north-east Iran on Tuesday as part of a nationwide drive to recruit volunteers for “martyrdom-seeking” operations, Iran Focus has learnt.

The event, dubbed “Palestinian intifada and martyrdom-seeking”, will be staged on the campus of the Industrial University of Shahroud. The keynote speaker will be Mohammad-Ali Samadi, the spokesman for the “Headquarters to Commemorate the Martyrs of the Global Islamic Movement”.

And who says students aren't learning anything at university?

Samadi is a senior officer of the Revolutionary Guards and his organisation is run by the IRGC in an effort to recruit potential suicide bombers. Organisers of the rally said the representative of the militant Palestinian group, Hamas, in Iran, Abu Othmama, will also speak at the rally.

“This event is part of a series of events that we have named ‘Daughters of the Olive’, and in addition to Tehran, similar rallies have already been held in Tabriz and Bushehr”, a local organiser told Iran Focus.

A film on “martyrdom-seeking operations” is planned to be shown at the gathering and a debate will be held regarding the guidelines for suicide operations from both Sunni and Shiite Islam’s perspectives and their impact on “the enemy”, the source added.

Earlier this month, radical fanatics signed up for suicide operations in Tehran to mark the end of the month of Ramadan.

Samadi said that 40,000 volunteers for suicide bombing operations had already enlisted to attack targets on the orders of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Application forms for suicide volunteers to sign up were distributed at the gathering.

The group’s organisers previously said that their targets were three-fold; U.S.-led forces in Iraq, Jews in Israel, and Salman Rushdie, who still has a fatwa against his head issue by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Poor Salman. The guy just can't catch a break, can he?

But what Sydney courts fail to recognize, whether deliberately or not, is that jihad indoctrination is sanctioned by the Qur'an and is passed from generation to generation. It's a cultural thing, silly! Concerning a mother's accountability from The Age:

MOTHERS convicted of inciting their children to kill in the name of Allah may face life imprisonment, according to a terror law expert.

Secretly recorded conversations produced in evidence in a Sydney court this week showed that terror suspects were allegedly told by their spiritual leader to ask their mothers for permission to wage jihad.

"Some people claim to love jihad but don't respect their own parents," Abdul Nacer Benbrika is alleged to have told two of his co-accused, Mazen Touma and Omar Baladjam.

"You need permission from your parents to go to jihad. If your mother says no to jihad, then no jihad."

Two days later, Touma is alleged to have asked his mother for permission to wage jihad. Her response was not given by the police in evidence.

Barrister and terror law expert David Neal said parents convicted of inciting their children to kill could be jailed for life under Victorian law and for up to 10 years under Commonwealth law.

"Incitement to murder carries a maximum penalty of life under Victorian law. If it is believed that you are urging your child to commit a crime, then you have committed incitement," he said.

The Nation takes stock. Good. If left and right can unite against the external threat, we will have all the time we want to discuss amongst ourselves tax rates, spending, and the scope of government regulation.

"This is the beginning of the war!" a French Muslim boy called out in the middle of the recent riots in Le Blanc Mesnil, just north of Paris.

But is it? Or was the war really going on already?

Few Americans have heard of him, but in Europe, more and more are becoming familiar with the name--and the ideas--of Dyab Abou Jahjah, founder of the now-international Arab European League (AEL) and the Muslim Democratic Party. Handsome, charismatic, well-educated and multilingual, he has the perfect makings of a political leader, or perhaps better said, a man poised to lead a revolution. And he knows it.

More to the point: As the fury of Muslim youth explodes across the landscape of Western Europe, it's time that others know it, too.

The AEL, founded in Belgium in 2000--in other words, before September 2001--now has branches in the Netherlands and France, and intends to spread across the EU, with plans to participate in future European Parliamentary elections as the Muslim Democratic Party. With battle cries like "Whatever Means Necessary" and frequent condemnations of America, Jahjah--who called the 9/11 attacks "sweet revenge"-- recruits Muslim youth to spread his ideology, a vague series of ideas that occasionally appear moderate but, when added together, call for violent resistance, the destruction of Israel and the introduction of Sharia (Islamic) law in Europe.

Most recently, Jahjah issued a public statement supporting Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's declaration calling for Israel to be wiped off the map. "The foundation of Najad's reasoning is intellectually defendable," he writes in English (the statement in its entirety can be found here), "and despite the fact that his regime is no perfect example of political morality, I argue that his position on this matter is the only possible moral one." (Ironically, the man slain filmmaker Theo van Gogh once called "a pimp for Allah" continues his rant with mention of a "mythical racial-religious holy promise by some god in some religious book"--by which, of course, he means the Old Testament. Despite such statements, Jahjah repeatedly insists he has "nothing against the Jews.")

I've thought a lot about Jahjah in the past few days: Jahjah who never condemned the killing of van Gogh by a Dutch Muslim fundamentalist; Jahjah who finds the destruction of Israel "the only possible moral" option; Jahjah who has on several occasions incited riots on the streets of Antwerp and now defends the ongoing rioting of Muslim youth outside of Paris. I've thought of Jahjah as Muslim youths riot, too, in Arhus, Denmark, presumably in protest against the publication in a national newspaper of a cartoon drawing of Mohammed.

As they say, read it all.

Update: The link above disappeared. I have updated it.

Dennis Prager has questions; this fellow has answers, but the subject line says it all.

Subject: mr apepig
From: XXXX@XXXXX.com
Date: Mon, November 14, 2005 1:15 pm
To: director@jihadwatch.org

five questions:

1: the reason why muslims are so quite is because they dont own the media and when the anti terrorist march happened in london they didnt recieve any media coverage and remember there are more muslims killed by jews, christians and hindus than non muslims killed by the muslims so thequestion should really be why dont the 4 billion non muslims protest against the terrorism carried out by so called civilised nations?

So countries where Muslims do own the media such as Saudi Arabia and Iran will show us a different pciture?

As for the other assertion, well, I doubt it, but more to the point find me an open-ended command among Jews, Christians, and Hindus to fight against Muslims, until they are killed or submit.

question 2:
how many out of the palestinian population are resisting, the population of christians is even smaller, the christians arnt politically active in palestine and are not targeted like muslims, their churches arnt occupied and isnt there enough christian terrorism in ireland, iraq and afghanistan as was the case in the balkans.

If politically active means prone to blow yourself up in pizza parlours, than I can see why those who aren't politically active aren't targeted.
Would mentioning the standoff in the Church of the Nativity be shooting fish in a barrel?

question 3:
who put these leaders there in the muslim countries in the first place, i.e al saud, who supports them and the reality is that the west is the most occupied and unfree nation in the world.

Yes, that is why so many people flee the West for the more congenial Muslim world.

question 4: any "free" person knows that the real atrocities have been comitted by the non muslims and they exceed those commited by muslims possibly ten folds. I mean hilter was a christian wasnt he?

In a word, No. Hitler was not a Christian.

question 5: which country is governed by islamic law? its actually the non muslims like hiter, stalin, british empire, old rome, israel, the american empire that are the real persecuters.

your reverse physology is s___t man

Prager named the countries governed by Islamic law, the sun has set on the British empire, and Hitler, Stalin, and Ancient Rome are more famous for their persecution of Christians and Jews than the other way around, so let's not dredge up ancient history.

I have only scratched the surface of the fallacies here. Let the comments begin.

Alexander H. Joffe writes in Middle East Quarterly, brought to us via Front Page, with thanks to Gary.

When the Middle East Studies Association's annual conference ends on November 22, 2005, University of Michigan history professor Juan Cole is scheduled to become the organization's president. The association describes itself as: A non-political association that fosters the study of the Middle East, promotes high standards of scholarship and teaching, and encourages public understanding of the region and its peoples through programs, publications, and services that enhance education, further intellectual exchange, recognize professional distinction, and defend academic freedom. [2]

As president, Cole is the public face of Middle Eastern studies. His election marks an endorsement of his work by hundreds of professors in various fields of Middle Eastern studies in American universities. Cole has written four academic books but his prominence comes not from scholarship but from his commentary on history and current events. [3] As such, this commentary provides a mirror into the state of Middle Eastern studies and the widespread urge of its practioners to promote polemic over scholarship.

Israel as a Fascist Society

Juan Cole: The Likud coalition in Israel does contest elections. But it isn't morally superior in most respects to the Syrian Baath. The Likud brutally occupies 3 million Palestinians (who don't get to vote for their occupier) and is aggressively taking over their land. That is, it treats at least 3 million people no better than and possibly worse than the Syrian Baath treats its 17 million.—September 9, 2004 [4]

Middle East Quarterly: Freedom House gives Syria its lowest rating of "not free" for both political rights and civil liberties. [5] In contrast, Israel has a rating of "free." [6] The analogy between Likud and the Syrian Baath misunderstands the nature of comparative politics. The Likud has an active membership and contested leadership; the Baath is subordinate to Bashar al-Assad. Cole ignores the Syrian occupation of Lebanon, its massacres of perhaps 20,000 in Hama in 1982, and the imprisonment of at least 17,000 political prisoners. [7]

Cole: No American media will report the demonstrations in Israel [8] as fascist in nature, and no American politicians will dare criticize the Likud. But the fact is that the Israeli predations in the West Bank and Gaza are a key source of rage in the Muslim world against the United States (which toadies unbearably to whatever garbage comes out of Tel Aviv's political establishment), something that the 9-11 commission report stupidly denies.—July 26, 2004 [9]

MEQ: Cole's characterization of peaceful demonstrations as "fascist" is inaccurate. Fascism suggests an autocratic system that seeks to regiment and control every aspect of social, political, and economic life. This cannot apply to Israel, which has from its independence been fully democratic. Israelis often demonstrate against their government's policies. Cole also fails to acknowledge U.S. political criticism of various Israeli governments. In 1991, Secretary of State James Baker declared Sharon persona non grata in Washington [10] and President H.W. Bush opposed issuing loan guarantees to Israel. [11] More recently, the Pentagon blacklisted Israeli Defense Ministry director-general Amos Yaron because of a dispute over Israel's military relationship with China. [12] Lastly, Jerusalem—not Tel Aviv—is the capital of Israel.

Cole: Judaism has given us so much that is noble in ethical religion, and what the Likud is doing is an insult to that long and glorious tradition. Likud's real roots lie not in the Bible but in Zionist revisionism of the Jabotinsky sort, which is frankly a kind of fascism.—March 21, 2003....

Read it all.

Jihad Watch Director Robert Spencer writes in Front Page:

On Yom Kippur this year I had the honor of speaking at the Temple of the Arts in Los Angeles, and the Council on American Islamic Relations is not pleased. They distributed a press release stating that my Jihad Watch website is a “hate site” that is “notorious for its depiction of Islam as an inherently violent faith that is a threat to world peace.” The organization called on the Temple to feature a speaker of its own choosing. “We would be glad to suggest the names of credible Muslim scholars who can offer Temple Shalom’s congregation a perspective on Islam that is not tainted by hatred and bigotry,” CAIR-LA’s Hussam Ayloush said.

One would think that a statement charging someone with “hatred and bigotry” and protesting a talk he gave would be filled with bigoted statements from the talk. However, CAIR’s press release they don’t quote a single thing that I actually said at the Temple of the Arts. They couldn’t quote anything that I said there because I didn’t say anything hateful. Then they must have quoted what I said at my website, or in one of my books, or articles, right?

Wrong. There is not a word I wrote in all of CAIR’s press release. Hussam Ayloush has had plenty of chances to collect “hate speech” from me. I have debated him at FrontPage magazine. But he quotes not a word I wrote there. I have debated him on the Dennis Prager Show. But he refers to nothing I said there. I have written an article about a talk he gave. But he doesn’t quote a syllable of that.

I have written five books, seven monographs, and scores of articles about Islam and terrorism. Nary a quote from any of them...

Read it all.

In response to Muslim attacks on believers, destruction of churches, from WND:

Christian schools throughout Pakistan will go on strike Nov. 17 to protest the attacks on Christians in Sangla Hill, Punjab, this past weekend.

Christian Solidarity Worldwide, or CSW) says Hindu, Sikh and Muslim leaders have joined church leaders in condemning the outbreak of violence, and the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance, or APMA, has declared seven days of mourning. Church leaders are calling on the Pakistani authorities to bring the main instigators of the violence to justice.

CSW says: "In Pakistan's worst outbreak of anti-Christian violence since gunmen attacked a church on Christmas Day 2002, a mob destroyed the Roman Catholic, Salvation Army and United Presbyterian churches in Basti Asyia, Sangla Hill village, accusing a Christian man of desecrating the Quran."

The mob, estimated to number between 1,000 and 2,000, struck at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, destroying the three churches as well as a convent, St. Anthony's School, a girls' hostel and a Catholic priest's home.

They burned Bibles, Christian literature, crosses and other Christian materials, and set fire to Christian homes. According to APMA, which sent a team to the area, "within minutes, the Christian residential area was blazing. Christian residents fled to save their lives."

CSW says that according to eyewitnesses, the attack appeared to have been premeditated, as the mob was brought into the village in buses...

From the New Duranty Times:

WASHINGTON - In a sign of increasing unease among Congressional Republicans over the war in Iraq, the Senate is to consider on Tuesday a Republican proposal that calls for Iraqi forces to take the lead next year in securing the nation and for the Bush administration to lay out its strategy for ending the war...

The proposal on the Iraq war, from Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, and Senator John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, would require the administration to provide extensive new quarterly reports to Congress on subjects like progress in bringing in other countries to help stabilize Iraq. The other appeals related to Iraq are nonbinding and express the position of the Senate.

The plan stops short of a competing Democratic proposal that moves toward establishing dates for a phased withdrawal of troops from Iraq. But it is built upon the Democratic approach and makes it clear that senators of both parties are increasingly eager for Iraqis to take control of their country in coming months and open the door to removing American troops.

Mr. Warner said the underlying message was, "we really mean business, Iraqis, get on with it." The senator, an influential party voice on military issues, said he did not interpret the wording of his plan as critical of the administration, describing it as a "forward-looking" approach.

"It is not a question of satisfaction or dissatisfaction," he said. "This reflects what has to be done."

Democrats said the plan represented a shift in Republican sentiment on Iraq and was an acknowledgment of growing public unrest with the course of the war and the administration's frequent call for patience. "I think it signals the fact that the American people are demanding change, and the Republicans see that that's something that they have to follow," said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader.

Mr. Frist said an important reason for the Republican proposal was to offer an alternative to the Democratic call for a withdrawal timetable. "The real objective was to get out of this timeline of cutting and running that the Democrats have in their amendment," he said.

Mr. Warner said he decided to take the Democratic proposal and edit it to his satisfaction in an effort to find common ground between the parties on the issue.

Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, said he saw the proposal as a potential "turning point" in Congressional deliberation over Iraq and related issues.

The competing amendments include some of the most specific and expansive Congressional statements on the war in months and are being proposed for inclusion in a measure that also wrestles with the issues of treatment of terror detainees and their rights in American courts...

French president vows to continue curfews, and also start a jobs program for the disenfranchised 'daughters and sons of the republic.' From the LA Times:

PARIS — Confronting social and political devastation left by 18 days of riots, French President Jacques Chirac promised Monday to respond to a "profound malaise" behind the unrest with both tough policing and programs to fight youth unemployment, discrimination and blight.

After being criticized for his silence during the nationwide rampages, Chirac made his first formal speech on the subject as disturbances subsided in all but a few lingering trouble spots. Chirac's words and tone Monday night expressed the gravity of the situation.

In keeping with the law-and-order line his government has taken, he said he would ask legislators to extend by three months a state of emergency based on a little-used 1955 law that permits curfews and other extraordinary police powers.

But Chirac also announced the creation of a civilian service agency to provide employment and training to 50,000 young people by 2007. He acknowledged that an "identity crisis" afflicted many children and grandchildren of working-class immigrant families from North and sub-Saharan Africa, youths who feel mired in bleak, lawless neighborhoods and rejected by society.

"I want to say to the children of the difficult neighborhoods: Whatever their origin, they are all daughters and sons of the republic," Chirac said. "We will construct nothing durable without respect. We will construct nothing durable if we allow the growth, wherever they originate, of racism, insults, abuse. We will construct nothing if we do not combat the poison to society that is discrimination."...

Nicolas Baverez, a historian and economist, said increased spending would not be enough. Since 2000, he said, the government has already poured about $40 billion into the deprived neighborhoods that have erupted in arson and violence...

From AP:

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Suicide bombers rammed explosive-laden cars into NATO forces in two attacks yesterday.

A German soldier and an Afghan child were among eight people killed, and at least a dozen other people were wounded. A spokesman for NATO's peacekeeping force, Major Andrew Elmes, said the other six bodies were believed to be those of Afghans.

It was the first major assault on foreign troops in Kabul in more than a year.

Today, police blamed Al Qaeda for the bombings. Police commander General Mohammed Akbar said only Al Qaeda has the capability to pull off such a coordinated attack. ''Al Qaeda is definitely behind this attack," he said.

Troops appeared to have thwarted a third bombing by shooting to death three people in a car who reportedly had been racing toward the scene of the blasts.

The bombs went off within 90 minutes of each other on a 500-yard stretch of road, near the headquarters of Afghan-UN election organizers. In each case, the attackers rammed cars into NATO vehicles...

Our latest bombing (a non-suicide this time) is brought to us by Al Jazeera.com:

A car bomb hit a fast-food restaurant in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi early Tuesday, killing more than six people and wounding 15 others, medics said, according to BBC.

Police sources said the blast struck the front entrance of the KFC outlet and burned several cars on the street.

The car bomb went off in a crowded business area near two luxury hotels at about 0840 (0340 GMT), during morning rush hour.

Karachi police chief Mushtaq Shah said the bomb was concealed in a car parked outside the restaurant.

“It was a high-intensity explosion and its noise was heard in several parts of the city," he said.

"It appears that the KFC was the target."

Shah said the bomb was detonated by a remote control...

It was the second attack on Western fast-food chains in Karachi in recent months. Several people were wounded in bombs attacks on Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonald’s restaurants in September.

In May, six people died when protesters set fire to a KFC restaurant in the city...

From VOA:

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has brokered a broad agreement between Israel and the Palestinians on operating Gaza Strip border crossings. The deal, announced Tuesday, after marathon negotiations, would re-open the critical Rafah crossing - Gaza's international outlet for Palestinian trade and travel.

The Bush administration badly wanted the borders agreement to restore momentum in Middle East peace efforts that stalled amid violence after Israel's Gaza withdrawal in September.

Intent on keeping pressure on the parties, Ms. Rice postponed a scheduled Monday departure for South Korea and the Pacific region APEC economic summit to shepherd the talks.

She remained at her Jerusalem hotel, meeting alternately through the night and into Tuesday morning with Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams, while State Department aides constantly amended the draft agreement on a laptop computer.

Ms. Rice announced the completed agreement at a news briefing before leaving for Asia, saying the accord will give Palestinians control of their borders that they want and Israel that security it requires:

"It is a major step forward for the Palestinian people, in their own movement toward independence in this region, and that is that they have control on one side, the Egyptians on the other," she said. "It's an international border. It will need a third party and obviously nobody wants to have this to be a border that is unsafe, and so I expect that everybody will cooperate as much as they possibly can."

Israel retained control over the Gaza Strip's borders and air space after it removed settlements and troops from the coastal area. It closed down the Rafah border crossing at the time of the disengagement, concerned about lax security there by Palestinian police .

Under the accord, Israel would not have its own security presence at Rafah, which is to re-open by the end of the month. But new monitoring equipment would be installed, giving Israel real-time information on checkpoint activity. Palestinian and Egyptian border agents at Rafah would be augmented by European Union security personnel...

While the more overt acts of religious intolerance in Indonesia, say the beheadings of Christian schools girls, garner the most attention, the steady but covert campaign to intimidate Indonesia’s Christian population continues with very little fanfare. The latest incarnation, from Voice of America:

Christian groups in Indonesia say their right to worship freely is being hindered by conservative Muslim groups that have forced more than 30 churches to close this year. However, Muslim groups charge that Christians are violating the law by using shops and houses as places of worship.

As real estate it is not much. Wedged in beside a major highway, off a dirty little lane and behind a Muslim boarding school, it is hard to imagine that these two houses have become the focus of a dispute in the Jakarta suburb of Jatimulya.

Last month, a group of white-robed young men, wearing the peci caps of devout Muslims, arrived and blockaded the houses, which had been serving as the Jatimulya Protestant church.

A sign declares that the buildings were closed on behalf of local government, because nearby Muslim residents objected to the house being used as a place of worship. Under the law, religious groups must obtain permission from local residents before they can build a mosque or a church.

But Reverend Ana Nenoharan, the minister of the Jatimulya church, says it was not local residents, but students from a boarding school outside the suburb, who forced the church closed. She says that the closures are always done by outsiders, because her congregation knows all the Muslims in the area.

Christian groups say more than 30 churches have been forced to close in Indonesia over the past year. Most reportedly were intimidated by a group called the Anti-Apostasy Alliance. Their tactic is to accuse Christians of breaking the law by praying in unlicensed churches, and claiming that local Muslims object to the churches.

Australian authorities have been tightlipped concerning the target of the attack which was apparently thwarted by arrests made last week. Now, we may know, from Reuters:

Eight Sydney men arrested on terrorism charges may have been planning a bomb attack against the city's nuclear reactor, police said on Monday.

Their Islamic spiritual leader, also charged with terrorism offences, told the men if they wanted to die for jihad they should inflict "maximum damage," according to a 21-page police court document.

The document outlines how the men, arrested last week in the nation's biggest security swoop, bought chemicals used in the London July 7 bombs, had bomb-making instructions in Arabic and videos entitled "Sheikh Osama's Training Course" and "Are you ready to die?"
Under the heading "Targets," police said three of the men were stopped near Sydney's Lucas Heights nuclear reactor in December 2004. A security gate lock had recently been cut.

I am going to be "out of pocket" until November 23, starting today. I will look in here when I can, but I am not sure that I will be able to post daily.

The site, however, will go on as always. The Jihad Watch News Editors will be posting here, including a new addition, Anne Crockett.

The director@jihadwatch.org email will still be read, although not solely by me, and possibly not by me at all. So if you send me a personal email, I may not see it for awhile. But please continue to send news links to that address.

By the way, I get many hundreds of messages daily to that address, so I apologize to all whose messages I have overlooked; as Charles Johnson said of himself a while ago, my email situation has gotten so far out of control that it's scaring the neighbors. However, I am grateful for all the news links that all of you send in.

Upon return to full-time Jihad Watching I may have a few stories to tell.

UPDATE: Hugh says "out of pocket" means broke. I say no, that it means "out of reach" -- which is what I meant (support for that usage here). What do you think?

"Fight over cinemas kills at least 12," from Reuters, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

HEAVY fighting apparently sparked by an Islamic militia's moves to close cinemas and video stores in the lawless Somali capital has killed at least 12 people and wounded more than 21.

Clashes between gunmen loyal to Mogadishu's Islamic courts and local militia defending the densely populated Yaqshid district began yesterday and flared again today.

"The Islamic courts' militia are trying to close all entertainment centres of the district," one local resident Ahmed Dhuhulow said.

Three people died yesterday and another nine today in clashes that caused inhabitants to flee the area and shops to close, witnesses said....

Leaders of Mogadishu's influential Islamic courts oppose Western and Indian films which they say promote immorality in the mainly Muslim nation.

Killing 12 people at random isn't immoral?

Rachel Ehrenfeld discusses the hearings on the Saudi Arabia Accountability Act and what we should do next in FrontPage:

Responding to last week’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Saudi Arabia’s role in the war on terror, entitled “Saudi Arabia: Friend or Foe in the War on Terror?”, Riyadh’s ambassador to the U.S., Prince Turki al-Faisal, charged the committee members with ignorance. "Judging by the statements made at the hearing, it appears that the members of the Committee are not fully aware of the significant steps Saudi Arabia has taken in the war on terrorism and extremism.” Worse, according to the prince, U.S. senators “chose to ignore the realities for the sake of political expediency.”

Did they really? The U.S. National Intelligence Reform Act of December 2004 requires development of a Presidential strategy to confront Islamic extremism in collaboration with Saudi Arabia. So far, however, the level of Saudi cooperation has been difficult to gauge. In September, for instance, a Government Accounting Office (GAO) report noted that U.S. agencies have been unable to determine the extent of Saudi Arabia’s domestic and international cooperation.

Evidence further suggests that Saudi Arabia, far from cracking down on terror, is actively enabling it. Thus, testifying before the Committee, Daniel Glaser, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes at the Treasury Department, expressed concern that the Saudis are continuing to fund terror despite repeated promises to stop. Indeed, last August, Y'akub Abu Assab, a senior Hamas operative, was captured after he opened the Judea regional Hamas Communication Center in East Jerusalem. Assab transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars, as well as operational instructions from Hamas headquarters in Saudi Arabia to Hamas operatives in the West Bank and Gaza for terror attacks in Israel, as well as funds for the families of suicide bombers.

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald calls for an end to the foreign aid through which Western governments have ended up funding the global jihad:

Zarqawi has three brothers, seven sisters. A family of eleven children. No industry (in the older sense of that word -- work), no entrepreneurial activity, few resources. But as with the "Palestinians," as with the rest of the Arab and Muslim world, as with the Muslim migrants within Europe, families of 11, 12, 13 children are not rare. In Europe they are on the dole. In those places where Arabs and Muslims have happened not to strike it rich through oil, they do not limit their family sizes. They do not ask for, nor receive, money from all the rich Arabs and Muslims. They ask for, and receive, and then receive more -- no matter how the money is squandered or vanishes (as in the case of the billions that somehow evanesced when Arafat died, and not a single contributor to the "Palestinians" among those Europeans and the Americans has made a fuss, raised an eyebrow, asked for Abbas to find that money, or for Arafat's widow to please hand back some of those billions or perhaps in her case merely hundreds of millions, or even tens of millions. Who knows how much the boys in the "Palestinian" Authority back room were skimming off the top? Instead, these contributors promised another $9 billion over the next 3 years.

And the same is true with Egypt, with Jordan, with Pakistan -- countries that Saudi Arabia itself could fund entirely merely on the interest of the interest of the amount it takes in this year. Is the American government, the last guarantee of the personal safety of the princes and princelings of the House of Al-Saud, incapable of extracting $10-$20 billion -- a pitiful sum -- from the rich Arabs, and to have them give whatever is to be given to the Arabs and Muslims whom, the Americans continue blandly to believe, only need to be helped out of "poverty" to lessen or dampen their enthusiasm for "extremist" Islam? (Again, “extremist” Islam is not a complete fiction, but the word “extremism” itself implies that the problem only comes from an identifiable handful of "extremists." Yet if one believes a resident of Zarqawi's town, a mere "29 percent" of Jordanians would be practitioners of the good, true Islam, the kind Westerners like to call "extremist.")

And if the Saudis, the Kuwaitis, the people in the U.A.E., Bahrain, and elsewhere among the rich, extraordinarily rich, extraordinarily corrupt, extraordinarily decadent, extraordinarily mendacious and meretricious to the Infidels, extraordinarily vicious and indifferent to the mistreatment of non-Muslims and non-Arab Muslims as well, within their own domains -- if these people can be forced to share a tiny bit of their unearned and unmerited wealth with the poor Arabs and Muslims, that will have many good effects.

More detail on the riots in Pakistan from the Telegraph, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

The Christians of Sangla Hill in Pakistan were a community under siege last night after a Muslim mob rampaged through the town, burning churches and a Roman Catholic compound.

Father Samson Dilawar, parish priest of the Roman Catholic Church of Nazooli-i-Rooh, the Blessing of the Sacred Spirit, was still dressed in the cassock in which he fled when the mob knocked down the gate to the church compound on Saturday.

"I heard the mullahs had been telling people over loudspeakers, 'We are guardians of the Koran and it is our foremost duty to teach a lesson to those kafirs'," he said. "Then they came to my door."...

They shouted insults at the Christians, calling them "kafirs" and "chucha", the abusive term for non-Muslims and untouchables, and "kuta", which means dogs.

Local police and the Christian community agreed on how the violence began: a Christian man had spent several days gambling with Muslim men and had won a small fortune.

Embittered, his opponents spread the rumour that he had set fire to the koran mahal, a box for preserving torn pages of the Koran. Soon the alleged deed was broadcast by mullahs from mosques.

Fr Dilawar fled to the nearby convent where he hid with a group of nuns. "Ours was the only door that they did not try," he said. "It was luck. That is how our lives were saved."

His residence was doused in chemicals and set alight, gutting the building and destroying century-old documents.

In the same compound, St Anthony's Primary School, which has 1,500 Muslim and Christian pupils, was ransacked and burnt.

The same treatment was meted out to the church, convent, boarding house and medical centre. The feet were snapped off statues of Jesus, metal crucifixes were buckled and nuns' habits torched....

The beams of his parsonage were open to daylight yesterday. "Religious fanatics have stirred this up," said Mr Pervez, who has been in the area for 15 years.

The rampage extended to three other churches on the outskirts of Sanga Hill. "We told the authorities that there was going to be trouble," said Mr Pervez. "So they sent four policemen who did nothing to stop the mayhem."

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses the recurring and persistent problems of Islamic piracy and slavery, and the dhimmitude of France and Europe:

For centuries Muslim raiders went up and down the coasts of Europe, even as far as Ireland, and in one famous instance, Iceland. Rape and plunder were the intent. And the greatest wealth were the people themselves, the ones left alive after the raids and who were taken back to North Africa. There they were enslaved, set to work for their Muslim masters. A recent book, "White Gold," by Giles Milton, in telling the story of one Thomas Pellow of Cornwall, reminds us of the one million people from Western Europe seized over the centuries by Muslim raiders. No doubt with modern tools, those who are skilled in the analysis of DNA, were they allowed to test populations in North Africa and elsewhere in the Muslim countries, could find genetic markers for distant origins.

In eastern and central Europe, and in present-day Russia, men were seized as slaves (and then forcibly converted). In certain areas, the kidnapping of women, especially Circassian and Georgian and other women from the Caucasus region, helped fill the harems not only of the rulers, but of ordinary Muslims.

And then there was, to fill in the gaps -- the trade in black African slaves. Some were simply seized for the usual purposes -- work, sexual slaves. But the young black Africans taken by the millions had a special role to fill: that of the eunuchs who attended to, and guarded, the women in the harems. Most people appear to believe that the "harem" was enjoyed only by the most powerful. The word "harem," in fact, is often associated in the Western world only with the ruler -- the famous "hareem" of the Ottoman rulers, the Padishahin, the "hareem" of this or that local potentate. But there were "hareems" everywhere in the Muslim lands. Ordinary Muslim men would, if they could afford it, have their harem. Any male slave who might come near such women, much less guard or attend to them, should be free from any sexual urges -- that is, he should be castrated. In Jan Hogedoorn's scholarly study of the economics of this "hideous trade" (as he titles his article), he explains that the Arab slave-traders would castrate the kidnapped black African boys on site, in the bush, and then march them northwards or eastwards by slave coffle all the way to the slave-markets of Egypt and North Africa, or to the coast where they were then taken by dhow to Arab slave-markets in Arabia, in Riyadh and Baghdad and Damascus and Cairo, and Constantinople and Smyrna, and in all the smaller slave markets. Only 10% survived this trek.

Note that the violence was stoked by Islamic clerics. Update on this story. "Anti-Christian rampage features 2,000 Muslims," from WND, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

They came in buses to the small village of Sangla Hill in the Nankana district of Punjab in Pakistan.

Some 2,000 organized Muslims first vandalized three churches, a nuns' convent, two Catholic schools, the houses of a Protestant pastor and a Catholic priest, a girls' hostel and some Christian homes, according to Asia News.

Then they burned them to the ground, while about 450 Christian families fled yesterday. They have not returned.

The Justice and Peace Commission accuses the police of "criminal negligence" because they did not intervene.

Lawrence John Saldanha, archbishop of Lahore Archdiocese and chairman of the National Commission for Justice and Peace, said "the attack seems to have been planned and organized as the attackers were brought to the site in buses and instigated to commit violence and arson. It gave our people a lot of fear and anxiety but we hope the government will do something."

The violence began 10 a.m. Saturday and was apparently motivated by the latest blasphemy case. On Friday, a Christian, Yousaf Masih, allegedly burned some copies of the Quran and disappeared. One of his brothers, Salim Masih was arrested the day before. The Commission of Justice and Peace in Lahore ruled that the blasphemy accusations were false and stemmed from the accusers having a financial dispute with the families they accused.

Saqib Sohail Bhatti, a Christian in Sangla Hill, explained Masih is an illiterate who would not even be able to distinguish the Quran from any other book.

Muslim clerical leaders yesterday called their flocks to gather outside the Jamia Madni Masjid central mosque where they urged them to attack the Christians. In fiery speeches, the leaders provoked the mob to set to fire each and every Christian place of worship.

Read it all.

Islamic tolerance alert: 750 lashes and over three years in prison for discussing the Bible and praising Jews in the Holy Land of Islam. From Reuters, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) -- A court sentenced a teacher to 40 months in prison and 750 lashes for "mocking religion" after he discussed the Bible and praised Jews, a Saudi newspaper reported yesterday.

Al-Madina newspaper said secondary-school teacher Mohammad al-Harbi, who will be flogged in public, was taken to court by his colleagues and students.

He was charged with promoting a "dubious ideology, mocking religion, saying the Jews were right, discussing the Gospel and preventing students from leaving class to wash for prayer," the newspaper said.

It's a pity that only a Muslim-on-Muslim attack inside Jordan itself brought them to this. They haven't been all that concerned with attacks on non-Muslims outside Jordan. From Reuters, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

AMMAN, Jordan -- King Abdullah II called for a global fight against terrorism yesterday as Jordan acknowledged for the first time that al Qaeda in Iraq used foreign suicide bombers to attack Amman hotels, killing 57....

King Abdullah called Zarqawi a growing threat to the Middle East and put the international community on notice that it must cooperate to fight terrorists.

"Terrorism is a sick and cross-border phenomenon. Therefore, eradicating it is the whole world's responsibility," he told the state-run Petra news agency. "The body parts we saw in Amman we see every day in brotherly Iraq and have also seen in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and other countries around the world."

Uh, Yer Majesty, have we seen it in...Israel? Britain? Spain? The United States?

A frank statement of goals. "Islamic Radicals Plan World Revolution from Temple Mount," from Israel National News, with thanks to all who sent this in:

Islamic radicals have been using the Temple Mount as a focal point for planning and preaching the establishment of a world Islamic state with Jerusalem as its capital.

One of the radical groups operating on the Temple Mount is Hizab Altahrir (The Islamic Liberation Party), which espouses an ideology similar to Al Qaeda. Hizab Altahrir’s network spans most Western European countries. The party puts Islamic revolution and an uncompromising form of Jihad (holly war) at the top of its political agenda.

This group is more familiar to Jihad Watch readers as Hizb-ut-Tahrir.

The group advocates subjecting the entire world to Islamic law (Shariya), and destroying non-believing nations and religions.

The party has targeted Europe, specifically Denmark, for spreading its ideology, and providing a springboard for renewing Islamic conquests in Europe. A senior party activist in Jerusalem, Sheikh Issam Amira, expressed this philosophy in a recent speech which he made on the Temple Mount:

“Listeners! The Moslems in Denmark make up three percent [of the population], yet constitute a threat to the future of the Danish kingdom. It’s no surprise that in Bitrab (the ancient name of Medina, a city in Arabia to which Mohammed immigrated) they were fewer than three percent of the general population, but succeeded changing the regime in Bitrab.

“It’s no surprise that our brothers in Denmark have succeeded in bringing Islam to every home in that country. Allah will grant us victory in their land to establish the [Islamic] revolution in Denmark.”

After Denmark, the Sheikh said, the party will carry the revolution to Oslo and change its name to Medina. “They will fight against their Scandinavian neighbors in order to bring the country into the territory of the revolution,” he said. “In the next stage, they will fight a holy jihad to spread Islam to the rest of Europe, until it spreads to the original city of Medina where the two cities will unite under the Islamic flag.”

Sheikh Riyad Salah, head of the Islamic movement in Israel has also been active teaching the tenets of “Islamic revolution.”

“We are at the gates of the Islamic revolution,” he proclaims in his sermons to Arab citizens of Israel. “The global forces of evil will be eliminated from the world and the Islamic nation will remain in place in order to bring about the world Islamic revolution, with its capital, Jerusalem.”...

D. C. Watson explores the bullying attempts to limit freedom of speech and overall goals of some American Muslims:

Last week, accusations of “hate speech” and “Islamophobia” were levied against Robert Spencer and the Jihad Watch website by the “esteemed” Council on American Islamic Relations. http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/008906.php

Then CAIR claimed that the “growing level of Islamophobic rhetoric in American society prompts some individuals to turn their hate-filled views into violent actions.”
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/008931.php

That sounds familiar. Probably because they said it here too, when they went after National Review online for selling a book called “The life and religion of Mohammed.”
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&ie=UTF-8&q=The+Life+and+Religion+of+Mohammed

For some reason, likely because the book tells the truth about this raider, they don’t want people to read it.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=17523

Regarding these allegations, unless CAIR can produce evidence of Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer himself making verbal or written statements that can be construed as hateful or incitement to commit violent acts against Muslims, their shameful remarks, which can be added to their long list of shameful remarks, should be dismissed as utter nonsense.

Since we are addressing the issue, some of these so-called “hate filled views” and “violent actions” against Muslims that have been blamed on the American people were falsely reported to American law enforcement. Weren’t they now?

Here is a partial list of Muslims who have reported hate crimes that have turned out to be…nothing at all: Ahmad Nasim, Ahmed Jaffal, Amjad Abunar, Azad Abdullah, Mazhar Tabesh, Mirza Akram, Naveed Khan, Saleh Nawash, Zhaleh Sarabakhsh, Ahmad Saad Nasim, Mazhar Tabesh, Nezar Maad, Aqil Yassom Al-Timimi
http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/315
http://www.interfire.org/res_file/acb_kh.asp

Also last week, in a column entitled “Bigotry”, I quoted not only some of the employees of CAIR, but also Muslim leaders throughout the Islamic world. http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/008932.php

Yes, Jordanians say here, the bombings were wrong, but Jordan does indeed have to get back on the path of Islam. I.e., ditch the "moderation."

Again and again we see the Salafi appeal that they represent "pure Islam." Yet we are supposed to believe that the incorrectness and impurity of their Islam is self-evident to the vast majority of Muslims worldwide. I hope it is, but the evidence of that has not been available in abundance. From AFP, with thanks to Twostellas:

ZARQA, Jordan: Residents of the impoverished Jordanian town where fugitive extremist Abu Mussab Al -Zarqawi was born said yesterday that the hotel bombings in Amman occurred because Jordan had “strayed from Islam”.

One of Zarqawi’s brothers and his sisters living in Zarqa refused to comment on the possibility one of their own may have masterminded the bloodiest attack in the kingdom’s history that claimed the lives of at least 57 people and wounded about 100....

“Glory to God!” is scrawled in red on a wall near the family home of Zarqawi, who was born Fadel Nazzal Al Khalayleh before changing his name in 1991 when he joined the radical Salafist Islamic group. His brother Mohammed was not home and two of Zarqawi’s seven sisters speaking through an intercom system said they had nothing to say. “Please go away,” said one in a soft voice....

“Those who care about the country’s security and peace should strive to build the umma (Islamic nation) according to God’s tenets,” the mosque’s imam, or preacher, said in his sermon without once directly condemning the attacks. “What befell the umma happened because it strayed from Islam.”

He said Muslim blood should not be spilled and that Muslims “should instead direct their spears against God’s enemies” like America and Israel. Jordan, one of Washington’s staunchest allies in the region, is one of just three Arab countries to have diplomatic ties with its Jewish neighbour.

Many prayergoers condemned the attacks while lamenting what they perceived as the declining Islamic values in the country, whose 5.5 million population is almost 93 per cent Sunni Muslim. “Only 29 per cent of the people are true Muslims and the rest are just so by name,” said Mohammed Musa, 27, a school teacher. Jordan’s King Abdullah II has called for a more tolerant interpretation of Islam.

Further east in Zarqa’s Nuzha neighbourhood and past a courthouse and the Jihad (holy war) driving school is the home of Sayel Al Khalayleh, the eldest of Zarqawi’s three brothers. “I will say nothing, nothing, nothing!” said the craggy-faced man.

Outside his two-storey home a young bearded neighbour wearing a black skullcap and dark robes condemned the attacks but hoped his countrymen would be more pious. “Even though these hotels had bars and brothels, nothing justifies the killing of women and children,” said Ibrahim Baarat, 19, who works at a paint factory and studies Islam.

“We can preach change. This country needs reform and needs to get back on God’s path.”

Her brother was once Zarqawi's right-hand man. Another member of the clan is Iraq's defense minister. From AP, with thanks to all who sent this in:

An Iraqi woman confessed on Jordanian state television Sunday that she tried to blow herself up along with her husband during a hotel wedding reception last week, saying that the explosives concealed under her denim dress failed to detonate.

Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi, 35, made her statement hours after being arrested by authorities tipped off by an al-Qaida in Iraq claim that a husband-and-wife team participated in Wednesday's bombings at three U.S.-based hotels. The attackers killed 57 other people at the Radisson SAS, Grand Hyatt and Days Inn hotels.

Al-Rishawi's brother was once the right-hand man to Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, the Jordanian leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, said deputy premier Marwan Muasher. He said the brother, Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi, was killed in the former terrorist stronghold of Fallujah, Iraq.

Officials believe al-Rishawi, who entered Jordan from Iraq on Nov. 5, may provide significant information about the operations of al- Zarqawi's group, which claimed responsibility for the hotel bombings, Jordan's deadliest terrorist attacks. The group said the attacks were retaliation for Jordan supporting the United States and other Western powers.

Al-Rishawi was shown on state television wearing a white head scarf, a buttoned, body-length dark denim dress, and belts packed with TNT and ball bearings. Muasher told CNN the belts were captured with her.

Al-Rishawi said she and her husband, Ali Hussein Ali al-Shamari, 35, were wearing explosive-laden belts when they strolled into a Radisson ballroom where hundreds of guests, including children, were attending a Jordanian-Palestinian wedding reception.

"My husband wore a belt and put one on me. He taught me how to use it, how to pull the (primer cord) and operate it," she said, wringing her hands.

"My husband detonated (his bomb). I tried to explode (my belt) but it wouldn't. I left, people fled running and I left running with them."

Muasher said al-Rishawi's husband noticed her struggle and pushed her out of the ballroom in order not to attract attention before blowing himself up....

Residents of Iraq's Anbar province said al-Rishawi comes from a clan living mostly in Ramadi, an insurgent stronghold about 70 miles west of Baghdad.

Ironically, the clan, known variously as the Burishas and the Rishawis, is known for its good ties with the Americans. Its members include Iraq's defense minister, Saadoun al-Dulaimi, who visited Jordan on Sunday....

The wedding was targeted because the bombers wanted to "inflict the biggest number of casualties and victims," Muasher said. The security official said the Radisson also was targeted is because it is a favorite for Israeli tourists.

The bomb strapped to al-Rishawi's husband was packed with the powerful explosive RDX and ball bearings and designed to kill as many people as possible, Muasher said.

As I have noted, CAIR's press release attacking me did not quote a single thing I have ever said or written, but simply ascribed falsely to me things that I do not believe.

Now the Palestinian Information Center, a UK-based site, has gone farther. In an article entitled "Jewish synagogue in California hosts notorious Islamophobe," the Center asserts this:

Spencer reportedly attacked Islam and Muslims, ascribing to them virulent epithets, such as criminals and Nazis.

I said nothing of the kind at the synagogue. Nor have I ever said or written anything like this anywhere else. This is a wholly fabricated and libelous statement -- as anyone who was at the Temple of the Arts on Yom Kippur, and I expect the crowd was between 800 and 1,000 people, can attest.

Just so you know where they're coming from, the PIC adds this a bit farther down:

Some experts believe that Jewish circles are behind much of the present wave of Islamophobia in the West, especially in North America.

Some of these circles have found a common cause with evangelical Christians in the US in vilifying Islam and its religious symbols.

Well, I have news for them: I am neither a Jew nor an evangelical Christian. The international jihadists have offended more people than just those two groups. Nor am I going to take their lies lightly. I have written to the Palestinian Information Center asking for a retraction and an apology (no, I am not holding my breath). I am not so much concerned about my reputation, which will never rise high among jihadists and jihad-abetters. But I am concerned that they not get away with shamelessly misrepresenting the facts in order to smear those who oppose jihad violence.

Of course, who am I kidding -- shameless misrepresentation of the facts has been a weapon in the jihadist arsenal ever since Muhammad declared that "war is deceit."

Five superb and important questions formulated by radio host Dennis Prager. From the LA Times, with thanks to Brenda and Paul:

(1) Why are you so quiet?

Since the first Israelis were targeted for death by Muslim terrorists blowing themselves up in the name of your religion and Palestinian nationalism, I have been praying to see Muslim demonstrations against these atrocities. Last week's protests in Jordan against the bombings, while welcome, were a rarity. What I have seen more often is mainstream Muslim spokesmen implicitly defending this terror on the grounds that Israel occupies Palestinian lands. We see torture and murder in the name of Allah, but we see no anti-torture and anti-murder demonstrations in the name of Allah.

There are a billion Muslims in the world. How is it possible that essentially none have demonstrated against evils perpetrated by Muslims in the name of Islam? This is true even of the millions of Muslims living in free Western societies. What are non-Muslims of goodwill supposed to conclude? When the Israeli government did not stop a Lebanese massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps in Lebanon in 1982, great crowds of Israeli Jews gathered to protest their country's moral failing. Why has there been no comparable public demonstration by Palestinians or other Muslims to morally condemn Palestinian or other Muslim-committed terror?

(2) Why are none of the Palestinian terrorists Christian?

If Israeli occupation is the reason for Muslim terror in Israel, why do no Christian Palestinians engage in terror? They are just as nationalistic and just as occupied as Muslim Palestinians.

(3) Why is only one of the 47 Muslim-majority countries a free country?

According to Freedom House, a Washington-based group that promotes democracy, of the world's 47 Muslim countries, only Mali is free. Sixty percent are not free, and 38% are partly free. Muslim-majority states account for a majority of the world's "not free" states. And of the 10 "worst of the worst," seven are Islamic states. Why is this?

(4) Why are so many atrocities committed and threatened by Muslims in the name of Islam?

Young girls in Indonesia were recently beheaded by Muslim murderers. Last year, Muslims — in the name of Islam — murdered hundreds of schoolchildren in Russia. While reciting Muslim prayers, Islamic terrorists take foreigners working to make Iraq free and slaughter them. Muslim daughters are murdered by their own families in the thousands in "honor killings." And the Muslim government in Iran has publicly called for the extermination of Israel.

(5) Why do countries governed by religious Muslims persecute other religions?

No church or synagogue is allowed in Saudi Arabia. The Taliban destroyed some of the greatest sculptures of the ancient world because they were Buddhist. Sudan's Islamic regime has murdered great numbers of Christians.

Instead of confronting these problems, too many of you deny them. Muslims call my radio show to tell me that even speaking of Muslim or Islamic terrorists is wrong. After all, they argue, Timothy McVeigh is never labeled a "Christian terrorist." As if McVeigh committed his terror as a churchgoing Christian and in the name of Christ, and as if there were Christian-based terror groups around the world.

Neil Doyle (thanks to Judy) has a video, just released by Al-Qaeda, that contains footage of Mohammad Siddique Khan, one of the July 7 London suicide bombers.

Khan says to British Muslims: "By staying at home, you have turned your backs on jihad."

This is the kind of religious appeal that I have pointed out many times, and to which moderate Muslims have not yet formulated any effective response. Telling Western non-Muslims that Islam teaches peace and, at most, warfare only for self-defense will not induce young Muslims like Mohammad Siddique Khan to lay down their arms.

Bat Ye'or explains what is going on in France. From World Magazine (scroll down), with thanks to Ruth King:

Egyptian-born scholar Bat Ye'or has written extensively about the treatment of dhimmis, or non-Muslims, under Muslim domination. Her latest book, Eurabia (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2005), chronicles Arab determination to subdue Europe as a cultural appendage to the Muslim world—and Europe's willingness to be so subjugated. It is her first book to be published in English before French, a decision Bat Ye'or now says took into account U.S. terror threats but did not foresee the dramatic spike in Muslim-led violence in France. Its publication in French is soon due out.

WORLD: Have the intensity and longevity of the uprisings in France surprised you?

BAT YE'OR: Yes, I was surprised. I did not expect such violence for the accidental deaths of two youths, a tragedy that can happen at any moment in any city, including in Muslim countries; in fact, such a reaction in a Muslim country is not conceivable. Nor did I expect the lethargy and incapacity of parents and the people in the suburbs to control the youth. However, it is the state of total unpreparedness to deal rapidly with an intifada that is worrying.

WORLD: Please explain how its roots go back to the 1970s and even further.

BAT YE'OR: In the 1960s after decolonization, France and Great Britain wanted to establish good relations with their former Arab colonies, while the Arab League was trying to bring Europe to adopt an anti-Zionist and pro-Arab line. The nine countries of the European Community (EC) made a deal with the Arab League countries based on a strategy: the creation of a Mediterranean multicultural and united society. This Euro-Arab alliance was based on three pillars: anti-Zionism and the promotion and support by Europe of Arafat; anti-Americanism and a European policy contrary to that of America; the guaranty of oil supply to Europe. Within this framework, specialists set up numerous unofficial agreements. Muslim immigration is a part of these agreements with a view to create a multicultural Mediterranean society where Christians and Muslims would be reconciled—on the base of anti-Zionism and the delegitimation of Israel and its withering away.

WORLD: Is Europe's Muslim population seeking to be ghettoized?

BAT YE'OR: The radicalized youths of the suburbs of Paris and elsewhere want to control their "territory." [They see] state control as an occupation and an infringement on their rights.

WORLD: Muslim leaders are, according to press reports, working as mediators between angry youths and authorities. Can Islamic leaders come alongside a secular state?

BAT YE'OR: This would make of France an Islamic-type state, or two states: one ruled by French law, with extraterritorial entities ruled by Islamic laws.

WORLD: With these uprisings spreading through Europe, what can European leaders do to halt the violence?

BAT YE'OR: The first thing to do is to stop immigration, and this is not in the cards. Then they should reassess European laws, values, and identity. These have been depreciated by our leaders, fascinated by multiculturalism—the Andalusian utopia, the greatness of Islam—and business profits. We need to re-valorize Europe and stop making it a cheap souk open to anyone. Europe must stop its antisemitism and anti-Zionism, because the biblical values are at the root of Christianity and of Europe's civilization.

Read it all.

A message from the courageous and clear-thinking Andrew Whitehead of the Anti-Council on American-Islamic Relations (ACAIR) about the recent attacks on me by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR):

Since April of 2003, Anti-Council on American-Islamic Relations (ACAIR) has been bringing you the facts about America’s largest Islamic hate group: the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). CAIR is a well funded group that sympathizes with Hamas, a notorious Muslim terrorist group that claims a mandate from God to kill anyone not living up to a radical, repulsive, and perverted brand of Islam: Wahhabism. CAIR has had many senior officials tried, convicted, and sentenced to lengthy prison terms on terrorism and other charges.

Why do I restate what is common, public knowledge?

Several days ago, I received an e-mail from an interested reader calling my attention to comments made by CAIR about the founder of the web site Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer. Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and his latest book, “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)” appeared on the New York Times bestseller list. He has also authored several other books on Islam.

http://jihadwatch.org/spencer/

CAIR’s problem with Spencer? Let’s read what CAIR had to say:

[Then follows CAIR's press release, which you can read at one of the links above]

What’s wrong with CAIR’s anger at Spencer?

First, it’s misdirected. Read CAIR’s complaint carefully and you will not find one single statement attributed to Spencer. Not one. How can Spencer be held reponsible for something he didn’t say? Only CAIR has the temerity to ascribe blame to what doesn’t exist.

Secondly, CAIR faults Spencer for commentary made to the forums on the Jihad Watch web site. Again, how can Spencer be responsible for something he didn’t author? Is CAIR beginning to believe their own propaganda?

Finally, America is a free country -- we have what no Muslim country on Earth has ever had, or presently has: a constitution that guarantees the right to free speech. If CAIR doesn’t like what Spencer has to say and believes it to be “hate speech”, why doesn’t CAIR file a complaint with law enforcement?

CAIR-LA Executive Director Hussam Ayloush says that CAIR would be glad to suggest the names of “credible Muslim scholars” to speak about Islam.

Before anyone takes CAIR’s offer seriously, let’s read the words of CAIR’s own leadership:

Ibrahim Hooper, CAIR spokesperson: “CAIR does not support these groups publicly.” (Comments on CAIR’s record of supporting Hamas, Hezbullah and other Islamic terrorist groups.)

Hooper, again: "I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future...”

Omar Ahmad, CAIR Co-founder: "Those who stay in America should be open to society without melting, keeping Mosques open so anyone can come and learn about Islam. If you choose to live here, you have a responsibility to deliver the message of Islam ... Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faiths, but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth."

Ghazi Khankan, CAIR spokesperson: “I bring you salaams and greetings from the Mujahadeen at CAIR”.

There you have it, four very bigoted, hateful, repugnant, and anti-American statements by three of CAIR’s senior officials that are well-documented -- yet CAIR attacks Spencer and dares to suggest itself responsible enough to recommend speakers on Islam?

How dare they!

Has Spencer:

- Supported Christian groups calling for “jihad” against Muslims?

- Demanded that Christianity be the dominent religion in the United States?

- Defended Christians who have committed terrorist acts based on their faith?

No. But we can point to numerous instances where CAIR has lent moral support to Islamic terrorist groups -- and yet CAIR largely gets a pass from the American people. Why?

Our country is at war.

In the rush to respect the rights of those who deserve no respect, we have forgotten our obligation to the victims of Islamist terror.

Let us not forget the images of our citizens jumping from the twin towers or burning to death in the Pentagon.

What of the brave example of those who fought back, falling to their deaths in a field in Pennsylvania?

The victims deserve better.

Are we worthy of the legacy they’ve left us?

Andrew Whitehead
Director
Anti-CAIR (ACAIR)

Mr. Whitehead, I am grateful -- and proud to stand with you to defend the freedom and human rights of all people.

Chirac turns on his own men. From the Telegraph, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

After 16 nights battling urban violence by rioters, Jacques Chirac's government is confronting angry new protests - from the police themselves.

Officers at the forefront of attempts to control the wave of riots and arson attacks across France are furious at moves to prosecute policemen accused of assaulting a youth.

As officers were deployed in force in Paris yesterday following a call on weblogs for a mass demonstration, the police union described the jailing of one officer and the suspension of others as "incomprehensible and unacceptable".

Police officers, who have been targeted with stones, missiles and Molotov cocktails since the trouble broke out, said they were "stupefied" by the action taken against their colleagues. Alliance, the main police union, appealed to members for calm after the decision to take the first steps towards charging five police officers implicated in the assault on a youth.

State television showed images of two officers hitting and kicking a young man while six colleagues stood by watching in the northern Paris suburb of La Courneuve on Monday. One officer is being held in detention while four others are also under formal investigation.

The French interior ministry said the victim had suffered cuts to his face and right foot, but had been declared fit for work.

The case has brought to the surface growing police resentment at the failure by politicians to resolve the crisis, the most serious and protracted outbreak of violence in France since 1968.

Jean-Pierre Raymaud, the leader of another police union, told Le Figaro newspaper: "For 15 days we've been targeted constantly and under a lot of pressure. This isn't an excuse but it has to be taken into account. The police have done their work and I don't think finding one or two scapegoats just to demonstrate firmness is fair."

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald offers a few reading suggests for the military and others:

Anyone who has gone to Iraq and has not yet read the books of Robert Spencer, Bat Ye'or (I'd give someone The Dhimmi first, then Islam and Dhimmitude and The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam and then, if they have made it through those, Eurabia which is the most difficult read of all), Ibn Warraq, and The Legacy of Jihad -- should. Give them one or more. Send them to the base libraries.

Ibn Warraq's two books on the origins and early development of the Muslim holy book, The Origins of the Koran and What the Koran Really Says: Language, Text, & Commentary need to be read by anyone wishing to comment on when the Koran became finally more-or-less accepted in the form it is known today. Contrary to the contentions of the enthusiast and Believer, there is no evidence for this Koran (I will stick in this posting with this spelling) having jelled during the time of Muhammad (i.e., in the period when Believers think Muhammad existed), but very likely much later.

"SOS as pirate motherships take to the high seas seeking cargo and hostages," from the Sunday Herald, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

Global piracy is now one of the biggest threats to world shipping, far eclipsing the risk from terrorism, and Somalia – a war-torn realm in almost complete anarchy – has fast become one of the world’s pirate hot spots. Since March 15 this year, there have been 32 attacks off Somalia. In 2004, there were just two attacks, in 2003, three, and in 2002, six. In the first nine months of 2005, there were 205 pirate attacks worldwide. Murders by pirates are also rising. In 2004, 30 crew members were killed. In 2003, the figure was 21....

Another former British military intelligence officer who has travelled the world advising shipping lines on anti-piracy security measures said that the attacks off Somalia were not believed to be linked to terrorists. “Where there is an overlap between terrorism and piracy, it is in southeast Asia,” he said. He pinpointed the Mallaca Straits – the main shipping route between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean – as the key hot spot for acts of piracy linked to Islamist terrorists. “There’s an absolute double-up there,” he said. “Pirates and terrorists are getting into bed together in this part of the world in the same way that the IRA climbed into bed with criminals in Northern Ireland.”

The jihad intensifies in the Philippines. "Twenty slain as soldiers, Muslim extremists battle in Philippines," from AFP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

ZAMBOANGA, Philippines (AFP) - As many as 20 people are believed to have been killed as fighting between soldiers and members of an Al-Qaeda-linked Muslim militant group went into its third day in the southern Philippines on Sunday.

Heavy rains were hampering the military's pursuit of members of the Abu Sayyaf on the outskirts of the town of Indanan in the southern island of Jolo, said Brigadier General Alexander Aleo, who heads an anti-terror task force on the island.

Aleo said the total number of soldiers killed had risen to four, with 21 others wounded.

Intelligence reports and radio intercepts revealed that 16 Abu Sayyaf members had been killed, although soldiers had only recovered three bodies, Aleo said.

The Abu Sayyaf, a feared Muslim outlaw group, has also received extra support from additional armed guerrillas as the troops advanced, Aleo said.

Moderate Jordanians express their moderate indignation at Zarqawi for killing other Muslims in moderate terms. "Jordanians turn against al-Qa'eda leader over bombings," from the Telegraph, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Sympathy for al-Qa'eda's leader in Iraq turned to hatred in his home town yesterday as clan members and ex-neighbours dismissed the justification for the Amman bombings....

"I feel ashamed of what he did in the name of Islam," said Moussa Rashid Khalayleh, a senior member of Zarqawi's Khalayleh clan.

"I am not ashamed of what his group is doing fighting the US occupation of Iraq, but killing civilians, killing Muslims here in Jordan is shaming."...

In Zarqa, Munder Moomeni, a 38-year-old former soldier who lives next to Zarqawi's house, 13 Ramzi Street, described his former neighbour as "a bastard".

"By killing Jordanians here in Jordan, civilian Jordanians going to a wedding, they did something that not even a Jew would do," he said....

The Moomeni family said they had no dealings with the remnants of the Zarqawi family still living in the two-storey house at No 13. A woman answered the intercom although she politely but firmly told The Daily Telegraph to go away.

"Don't hang around here much longer", other neighbours advised. "They will start throwing stones at you." Some residents remembered the young man who was born there in the late 1960s but who did not immediately adopt religion.

He was known as Ahmed Fadel Nazal Khalayleh and some described him as a loutish teenager. "He was a bit of a thug, always walking around carrying knives," said Amer Hassoun, a 35-year-old man whose parents came to Zarqa as Palestinian refugees.

"But then he went away to Afghanistan and when he came back he had become very religious. If he came down the street today, people would want to see him because they are curious. But he is not regarded as a saint around here."

Interesting. He became very religious and simultaneously became violent. They are angry with him not because he killed civilians, but because he killed Muslim civilians. No one in the mainstream media seems to know or care why these things are so.

Joseph D'Hippolito in the Jerusalem Post explores the inexhautible topic of the moral bankruptcy of the Church of England -- in particular regarding the jihad against Israel and the jihad against the rest of the world:

The Church of England's latest opinion on Middle Eastern affairs ranks among its most bankrupt.

A recent report commissioned by the church's bishops endorsed apologizing to Muslim leaders for the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq.

That invasion removed a sadistic tyrant who bragged publicly about paying the families of Palestinian suicide bombers - who intimidated his people by tossing them into shredders, allowing his sons to rape their choice of women and gassing entire villages.

Yet to the authors of the report, "Countering Terrorism: Power, Violence and Democracy Post 9/11," none of that matters.

"We do believe that the church has a visionary role for reconciliation beyond that of any government," one of the authors, Bishop Richard Harries of Oxford, told BBC Radio.

That role involves what the report called "truth and reconciliation" meetings with Muslim leaders that would give Christian counterparts the opportunity to perform a "public act of institutional penance" for the West's "long litany of errors" in dealing with Iraq, including the 2003 war.

Read it all.

"Paris Stays Calm Despite Fears of Violence," from AP, with thanks to JE:

PARIS - The French capital was calm overnight, with authorities reporting on Sunday almost no urban violence despite fears of a rampage that had prompted thousands of police to fan out at high-profile targets such as the Eiffel Tower.

Across the country, the situation appeared calmer, with fewer car burnings — a barometer of the unrest.

National Police Chief Michel Gaudin said there had been a "major lull" in the rioting on the 17th night of urban violence. If the calm continues, "things could return to normal very quickly," he said at a news conference on Sunday.

The number of vehicles burned overnight across the country fell to 374 from 502 the night before and police detained 212 people.

The intensity of the unrest has waned since the government imposed a state of emergency Wednesday, empowering local authorities to invoke exceptional security measures such as curfews for minors.

A shameful story from Afghanistan. From the TimesOnline, with thanks to JE:

SHE risked torture, imprisonment, perhaps even death to study literature and write poetry in secret under the Taliban. Last week, when she should have been celebrating the success of her first book, Nadia Anjuman, was beaten to death in Herat, apparently murdered by her husband.

The 25-year-old Afghan had garnered wide praise in literary circles for the book Gule Dudi — Dark Flower — and was at work on a second volume.

Friends say her family was furious, believing that the publication of poetry by a woman about love and beauty had brought shame on it.

“She was a great poet and intellectual but, like so many Afghan women, she had to follow orders from her husband,” said Nahid Baqi, her best friend at Herat University.

Farid Ahmad Majid Mia, 29, Anjuman’s husband, is in police custody after confessing to having slapped her during a row. But he denies murder and claims that his wife committed suicide. The couple had a six-month-old son.

The death of the young writer has shocked a city which prides itself on its artistic heritage. It has also raised uncomfortable questions about how much the position of women in Afghanistan has improved since the fall of the Taliban to American-led forces four years ago.

Yes, indeed.

In an article last week I argued that "France has not neglected its sizable Muslim minority," and then detailed some official efforts to accommodate and pacify that minority. That is true, but it does not of course mean that racism does not exist in France, or that the French citizenry has in general been welcoming of the immigrants. The fundamental error of the mainstream media on this score, however, has been to take the beastliness of the French, sometimes wildly overstated, as the sole ignition for the riots, and to ignore or downplay the Islamic element of those riots.

Here is a piece from the TimesOnline (thanks to JE) that puts both the non-assimilation of the immigrants and the Islamic element in perspective. I don't think the French are solely responsible for this non-assimilation, since many Muslim immigrants have opposed it as well (such as the highly vocal Dyab Abou Jahjah of the Arab European League), but the points made here about "shamefully irresponsible immigration policies" are well taken -- as is the point about the response of Muslims to frustration, whether or not that frustration really is the fault of Westerners. As I explained in Islam Unveiled, the historical pattern in the Islamic world has been to reassert Islam at times of crisis and failure. That dynamic plays a role in what we are seeing in France.

What surprised us was the animosity that people in the village felt for the Arabs, as they called them when they didn’t use worse words. Nobody talked to them or played with their children. I think ours were the only children in the main square who did. In every shop there would be angry mutterings among indigenous people about them and us — how they were parasites, thieves and ignorant; they wouldn’t even have their children inoculated. You had to lock your doors. And there were so many of them.

Whatever righteous attitudes we tried to strike, we too became angry when our house was burgled. We had to start locking our door and our car wheels were slashed. Worst of all the benign neglect we had enjoyed for so long — nobody can accuse the French of being excessively welcoming even to white foreigners — changed subtly into something faintly unfriendly. It was as if the locals were suddenly sick of all foreigners, inoculated or not, of the changes they bring and the threats they represent to a nation undergoing a crisis of confidence. Then we began to hear of attacks on local synagogues, usually downplayed. Finally a synagogue in Montpellier was firebombed. We were glad to be out of there.

There is nothing new about the rage and resentment that have set France alight. Our part of France had been Le Pen country for years. La Haine, the celebrated film about a French ghetto just like those which have been ablaze for days, was made in 1995, 10 years ago. So it is odd that it has taken the French so long to wake up to the alarming failure of their much vaunted un-Anglo-Saxon society to accommodate its Muslims.

Perhaps it is unfair to single out the French. The multicultural social model has not worked either and all European countries have been unforgivably slow on the uptake. The riots have spread to Denmark, Belgium and Holland; we have already had riots in England and bombings in Madrid and London.

It is perhaps pointless to look back at the shamefully irresponsible immigration policies that have brought so many European countries to this explosive point. It is pointless to wonder how anyone in authority could have imagined that it would be a good idea to dump enormous numbers of poorly educated Third World immigrants from different societies into unprepared and unwilling, sometimes racist, European host cultures, into hellish high-rise suburbs from Seville to Rotterdam, in numbers so huge that integration became ever more unlikely and ghettos more inevitable. It is done now.

However, we might at least recognise the problem. As usual a great many people are deliberately avoiding it, in particular by editing the word Muslim out of their debates, as if Islam had nothing to do with the dangerous mood sweeping Europe. Poverty and rejection have played a significant part, but there is an unmistakable sense in which the riots are Muslim, consciously so.

Muslims vary and their beliefs vary. But the response of some Muslims to frustration — whether or not the fault of westerners — has been to retreat into more extreme forms of Islam and into the arms of fundamentalists. Yet although we know this, and despite the Salman Rushdie affair, despite the bombs and assassinations that led up to 9/11, despite the recent atrocities, we seem unwilling to recognise that what this can mean is deliberate separatism — apartheid.

Islam in the European ghetto can mean an unwillingness to integrate at all, a desire to practise the faith with as little interference from the geographical host country as possible. An internal security agency in France reported in 2004 that there were 300 communities across the country — roughly the number that rioted — which were “in retreat”, meaning communities marked by fundamentalism, anti-semitism and violence, coupled with hatred of France and the West. It is hardly surprising that there were effective no-go areas normally avoided by police in some of the French riot areas.

Even when Islamism does not aim at anything so extreme as striving for an Islamic caliphate in Europe, it can mean trying to impose Islamic practice and law. According to Amir Taheri, the Muslim writer, some French Muslims are calling for local religious autonomy, as in the Ottoman empire, and it already exists in some parts of France where radicals have imposed Islamic dress, chased away French shopkeepers selling alcohol and pork and shut down “places of sin” such as cinemas.

Even more startlingly, in Canada this year the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice proposed that sharia should take precedence over Canadian law in civil disputes between Muslims. There are sharia courts and councils operating informally in Britain. If Europeans lack the conviction to stand against apartheid and for integration, perhaps before long there will be one in our old village in France.

Evidently declaring that one will resist Sharia law is enough to draw the charge of hatemongering. The Lebanese Muslim Association of Australia knows well how to sound the mystic chords of manipulative political correctness. "Islamic preachers drive the poisoning of young minds," from the Sydney Morning Herald, with thanks to Amzi:

In the wake of last week's counter-terrorism raids, Treasurer Peter Costello declared: "We will never be an Islamic state. We will never observe sharia law . . . We will always be a democracy."

Islamic extremists should leave Australia if they oppose a "secular state with a democratic system and independent courts - and equality for women".

It seemed a reasonable, refreshingly unambiguous statement, echoing the sentiments of most Australians, Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Yet it was condemned as "unjustified, unacceptable and hatred-instigating" by the Lebanese Muslim Association.

How so? It should not instigate hatred to assert that the Australian democratic way of life is preferable to Australians than some form of rule alien to our culture and values.

But the reaction of the Lebanese Muslim Association reflects a worrying mindset, a sense of grievance and entitlement influenced by a hard-core generation of fundamentalist Muslim preachers, some of whom are associated with a number of the 18 men arrested last week.

There are groups much like the LMA here in the U.S.

The White House, the Capitol Building, the Pentagon, the British Parliament, George W. Bush, Tony Blair…all of these buildings and figures targeted for attack by Al-Qaeda seem to make some sort of strategic sense. But Her Majesty? From the AP:

Al-Qaida has named Queen Elizabeth II "one of the severest enemies of Islam," the Sunday Times newspaper reported, citing a video message allegedly obtained by Britain's security service.

Government officials were not immediately available Saturday night to confirm the report. A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman refused comment, saying it was a matter for the police.

In the video, Ayman al-Zawahiri, a leading lieutenant of Osama bin Laden, says the queen is responsible for what he terms Britain's "crusader laws" and calls her an enemy of Muslims, the paper said.

No doubt Prince Charles is currently en route to Pakistan in order to plead his mother’s case before the court of Bin Laden.

It appears that yet another Guantanamo Bay-alumnus has taken up arms following his release, this time in Russia, according to the Seattle-Post Intelligencer:

A man who was held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba has been detained on suspicion of involvement in attacks on police last month in southern Russia, a senior prosecutor said Friday.

Relatives and lawyers confirmed that Rasul Kudayev, a Russian who was released from Guantanamo last year, had been detained and insisted the charges have been fabricated.

Deputy Prosecutor General Nikolai Shepel said witnesses, along with Kudayev's own confessions, confirmed his involvement in preparing and carrying out the Oct. 13 attacks on government and law enforcement offices in Nalchik, the capital of the troubled Kabardino-Balkariya region.

At least 139 people died in the nearly simultaneous daytime assaults on law enforcement offices, including the 94 accused attackers, according to official tallies. Shepel said more than 40 people have been detained on suspicion of involvement.

Alexandra Zernova, a lawyer for Kudayev, said that her client was physically too weak to participate in the attacks and said he had been tortured into confessing.

Kudayev was imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay after being captured in Afghanistan and linked to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, a terror group with alleged ties to al-Qaida.

Kudayev must be one of those poor untried civilians being tortured at Guantanamo that Amnesty International and Jimmy Carter keep talking about.