February 2006 Archives

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald surveys the situation in "tolerant," "progressive" Malaysia:

Malaysia is, quite incorrectly I'm afraid, always adduced as an example of a progressive, forward-looking, prosperous Muslim state. In fact its prosperity would be considerably diminished but for its Chinese and Hindu population. All Malays are required to be counted as Muslims, and all Muslims benefit from a disguised jizyah tax on non-Muslims which is called the "Bumiputra" or "Sons of the Soil" system. Most Westerners are unacquainted with the "Bumiputra." But anyone living in Malaysia who is unaware of the "Bumiputra" system has not yet sunk beneath the surface of Malaysian life. Although the word means "sons of the soil," it is not the indigenous Malaysian tribes that benefit from the "Bumiputra" policy, but Malay Muslims alone.

According to this "Bumiputra" idea, all economic undertakings, all examples of entrepreneurial flair, must have Muslim Malays as their full partners. Two Chinese who wish to open, for example, a computer consulting company, or an architectural firm, are required to take on a Muslim Malay (but not a Hindu, nor another Chinese) as a full partner, with an equal financial stake -- even though he need not contribute a thing. This is simply a way to ensure that the Muslims can continue to live on the backs of non-Muslims, which is part of the traditional status of dhimmi, including the payment of the jizya (and kharaj, or land-tax).

The real "Sons of the Soil" -- the real indigenous tribes of Malaysia -- in fact are almost entirely Christian, where they are not pagan. These tribes of course, benefit not at all from the Bumiputra system.

He invokes Seton Hall prof Bernard Freamon to argue that the cartoonists be prosecuted, in order to "cool down religious passions all over the Muslim world." As one might expect, he has no sense of responsibility for the Muslim violence over the cartoons.

"Mushwarat writes to the Danish Ambassador to India on the Cartoon Issue," from The Milli Gazette Online, with thanks to Olivia:

Letter from Syed Shahabuddin, President, AIMMM to Ambassador of Denmark

H.E. Mr. Michael Sternberg,
Ambassador of Denmark,
11, Aurangzeb Road,
New Delhi - 110 011.

27 February, 2006

Excellency,

May I draw your attention to our letter of 4 February, 2006 requesting you to convey the religious sentiments of the Muslim community on the publication of the defamatory and blasphemous cartoons in Denmark on 30 September, 2005.

We feel that had your Excellency’s Government and the editor of the paper expressed their regret when representations had been made by the Danish Muslim community, friendly governments like ours, the Ambassadors of the Muslim countries in Copenhagen, the agitation could have been avoided.

We take this opportunity to submit through Your Excellency for consideration by Your Excellency’s Government a constructive suggestion made by the American Jurist Prof. Bernard K. Freamon that the publisher of the cartoon may be prosecuted under Section 266b of the Danish Penal Code which provides for “criminal prosecution and conviction for dissemination of any communication by which a group of people is ‘threatened, insulted or degraded on account of their race, colour, national or ethnic origin or creed…” The initiative of the prosecution would serve to cool down religious passions all over the Muslim world.

Accept, Excellency, the assurances of our highest consideration,

Sincerely,

Syed Shahabuddin, President,
ALL INDIA MUSLIM MAJLIS-e-MUSHAWARAT

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald makes a proposal to Cairo and the dhimmis in Washington:

Foreign aid should be subject to return if the recipient fails to show that it has put that foreign aid to good use. That good use should include, in the first place, encouraging gratitude, and friendship, toward the giver of such aid. In Egypt's case, there has been none.

Egypt has failed to fulfill a single one of its solemn commitments, not one of which amounted to anything like the requirement on Israel to relinquish the entire Sinai, together with three new airfields, oil fields, and roads (not to mention St. Catherine's Monastery, which like all Christian sites can only be guaranteed by Israeli, and not Egyptian or other Muslim control). The carefully-controlled Egyptian press and television, instead of encouraging an end to hostilities with Israel, has instead whipped them up on every possible occasion -- a television series based on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion does not exactly fulfill the requirement of "ceasing to engage in hostile propaganda" that was imposed on Egypt by the Camp David Accords. The money that started to flow as a way to insure compliance with those Accords was given by the Americans and pocketed by the Egyptians, wrongly.

And since, further, the same Egyptian media that has whipped up more anti-Israel hatred has also managed to do the same with the American government, why should not the Americans ask the Egyptians to return the $60 billion?

Yet another 1938 Alert from Iran Focus, with thanks to Mackie:

Tehran, Iran, Feb. 28 – A senior Iranian cleric has approved attacks on foreign embassies in Tehran over the publication of insulting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in European dailies, a website belonging to the office of hard-line Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reported.

“Muslims must take the most ferocious stance against insults to Islamic sanctities”, the senior cleric told Ayatollah Dorri Najaf-Abadi, the country’s Chief State Prosecutor, according to the Persian-language website Khedmat.

“If setting fire to embassies of countries that insult the Prophet aims to show that these countries no longer have any place in Islamic countries then this act is permissible”, the senior ayatollah was quoted as saying.

The Malaysian Minister of International Trade and Industry says that real Qur'an-believing Muslims abhor violence and suicide bombers, and instead live in peaceful co-existence, mingling freely with peoples of other religions and races.

Well, that's a relief. But I do wish that Datuk Seri Rafidah Aziz would go farther. Here again the flat assertion is made. No attempt is made to refute the jihadist exegesis of the Qur'an and Sunnah. We are told again and again that the true Islam is peaceful. But the jihadists are the ones quoting chapter and verse of the Qur'an: 2:190-193; 3:139; 5:51; 9:5; 9:29; 22:39; 47:4; 61:9; 98:6; so many others. On the other side? 2:256 (with no indication of any awareness of the exegesis of Qutb and others) and 5:32 (without 5:33). What are we to think? Must we just ignore this because Rafidah is saying what we want to hear? Can we not ask for more -- some sign that she can actually convince Muslims to lay down their arms and stop waging jihad? Without that ability, her fine words are essentially meaningless.

"Wrong To Equate Terrorists With Fundamental Muslims," from Bernama, with thanks to Nicolei:

MILAN, Feb 28 (Bernama) -- The West, which is seen as being on a collision course with the Muslim world, is completely wrong in equating Muslim trouble-makers with fundamental Muslims, Malaysian Minister of International Trade and Industry Datuk Seri Rafidah Aziz, said.

Clarifying what is surely a common misconception among westerners, no thanks to terrorists and trouble-makers resorting to violence and killings in the name of the religion, Rafidah said "fundamental Muslims are those who follow closely the teachings of the Holy Quran."

Muslims who follow the fundamental teachings of the Quran abhor violence, suicide bombers, and instead live in peaceful co-existence, mingling freely with peoples of other religions and races, she said when touching on religious tolerance during a seminar on "Business Opportunities in Malaysia" here Monday....

Rafidah told the 300 participants at the seminar from Italy that "you are completely wrong in regarding Muslim trouble-makers as fundamental Muslims."

"Next time, you hear of a fundamental Muslim, think of me. I am a fundamental Muslim. I play golf, I dress this way (in a baju kurung), and go all over the world doing my work. Please do not equate fundamental Muslims and terrorists, there's a big difference," the minister said.

"I do not look like (Al-Qaeda leader) Osama bin Laden," she said to the obvious amusement of the audience.

CAIR again comes out against freedom of speech. "We believe that responsibility comes with freedom of speech." In other words, there is no freedom of speech at all when it comes to Islam. For if there is no right to speak what may offend this or any group, there is no right to speak about it at all except in the most laudatory manner. If these mild cartoons can provoke such a reaction, any criticism, most likely including any honest investigation of the causes of Islamic violence, would be ruled out.

From The Detroit News, with thanks to Nicolei:

Muslim groups sharply criticized the online publication of controversial caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad on Monday by a Michigan State University instructor and a group of students.

"We need to differentiate between freedom of speech and respect for each other," said Mahmoud Mousa, president of the Lansing chapter of the Muslim American Society.

"If it was about any of the great messengers of God, whether Moses, or Christ or the Prophet Muhammad, people would be offended at the same level."

The caricatures are published on spartanedge.com, an online newspaper published by journalism instructor Bonnie Bucqueroux.

In posting the controversial caricatures, Bucqueroux, said she perceives a clear difference between describing them and displaying them.

"The circumstance is that free speech really requires giving people information, and the information is to be able to look at the cartoons," she said....

"We believe that responsibility comes with freedom of speech," said Dawud Walid, the executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations-Michigan.

"The right to free speech and free speech does not give us the right to print things or say things that are intentionally provocative, distasteful and have the potential to provoke hatred for any group, be they Jewish, Christian, Muslim or otherwise."

A fresh steaming pile of taqiyya. These cartoons don't provoke hatred for Muslims. Some of them poke fun at the manifest connection between Islam and violence. If that is "hatred," and CAIR succeeds in ruling it out of court, our ability to resist that violence will be severely threatened.

Dhimmitude from the EU, throwing freedom of speech overboard. From the BBC, with thanks to Hutchrun:

EU foreign ministers have expressed regret that cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad published in European papers were found offensive by Muslims.

At a meeting in Brussels they also agreed on a common line of action to rebuild ties with Muslim nations.

Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik said the EU would seek dialogue and mutual understanding.

How can you have a dialogue when one of the partners is unilateral and absolutist?

However, the ministers also defended freedom of speech and condemned the violent response to the cartoons....

It adds: "The Council acknowledges and regrets that these cartoons were considered offensive and distressing by Muslims across the world."

Diplomats said that at least one country, the Netherlands, had at first opposed the decision to express "regret".

The Czech government was also reported to be concerned that apologising would undermine the freedom fo the media.

While they upheld freedom of expression as a fundamental right, the ministers said freedoms "come with responsibilities".

"Freedom of expression should be exercised in a spirit of respect for religious and other beliefs and convictions. Mutual tolerance and respect are universal values we should all uphold," they said.

In other words, there is no freedom of speech when it comes to what might offend Muslims.

"...illegal arms, alcohol, and unethical items..." Another 1938 Alert from Iran Focus (thanks to JE):

Tehran, Iran, Feb. 28 – The United States and Britain are illegally smuggling arms into the Islamic Republic via its western neighbour Iraq in a bid to destabilise the Islamic Republic, Iran’s police chief said on Tuesday.

“100 percent of all illegal arms, alcohol, and unethical items enter onto Iranian soil via Iraq”, Brigadier General Ismaeil Ahmadi-Moqaddam told reporters.

“The entry of illegal weapons into the country is a completely organised enterprise by the big powers based in Iraq”, Ahmadi-Moqaddam said.

1938 Alert: "Exclusive: Terrorist training camps in Iran," from Iran Focus, with thanks to JE:

London, Feb. 27 – Iran Focus has obtained a list of 20 terrorist camps and centres run by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

The names and details of the training centres were provided by a defector from the IRGC, who has recently left Iran and now lives in hiding in a neighbouring country. Iran Focus agreed to keep his identity secret for obvious security reasons.

The former IRGC officer said the camps and the training centres were under the control of the IRGC’s elite Qods Force, the extra-territorial arm of the Revolutionary Guards.

“The Qods Force has an extensive network that uses the facilities of Iranian embassies or cultural and economic missions or a number of religious institutions such as the Islamic Communications and Culture Organisation to recruit radical Islamists in Muslim countries or among the Muslims living in the West. After going through preliminary training and security checks in those countries, the recruits are then sent to Iran via third countries and end up in one of the Qods Force training camps”, the officer said.

A list follows at Iran Focus.

On Sunday I read with some amazement in the New York Times Magazine the story of Rahmatullah Hashemi, former Taliban spokesman and now a student at Yale. In Opinion Journal John Fund explains just what is so wrong with this -- which never seemed to occur to the New Duranty Times:

Never has an article made me blink with astonishment as much as when I read in yesterday's New York Times magazine that Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, former ambassador-at-large for the Taliban, is now studying at Yale on a U.S. student visa. This is taking the obsession that U.S. universities have with promoting diversity a bit too far.

Something is very wrong at our elite universities. Last week Larry Summers resigned as president of Harvard when it became clear he would lose a no-confidence vote held by politically correct faculty members furious at his efforts to allow ROTC on campus, his opposition to a drive to have Harvard divest itself of corporate investments in Israel, and his efforts to make professors work harder. Now Yale is giving a first-class education to an erstwhile high official in one of the most evil regimes of the latter half of the 20th century--the government that harbored the terrorists who attacked America on Sept. 11, 2001....

I don't believe Mr. Rahmatullah had direct knowledge of the 9/11 plot, and I don't think he has ever killed anyone. I can appreciate that he is trying to rebuild his life. But he willingly and cheerfully served an evil regime in a manner that would have made Goebbels proud. That he was 22 at the time is little of an excuse. There are many poor, bright students--American and foreign alike--who would jump at the opportunity to attend Yale. Why should Mr. Rahmatullah go to the line ahead of all of them? That's a question Yale alumni should ask when their alma mater comes looking for contributions.

More unsavory news about our friends and allies in the UAE. Why can't the President at least threaten to kill this deal unless the ports firm ends its boycott of what is an actual American ally? "Exclusive: Dubai firm boycotts Israel," from the Jerusalem Post, with thanks to all who sent this in:

The parent company of a Dubai-based firm at the center of a political storm in the US over the purchase of American ports participates in the Arab boycott against Israel, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

The firm, Dubai Ports World, is seeking control over six major US ports, including those in New York, Miami, Philadelphia and Baltimore. It is entirely owned by the Government of Dubai via a holding company called the Ports, Customs and Free Zone Corporation (PCZC), which consists of the Dubai Port Authority, the Dubai Customs Department and the Jebel Ali Free Zone Area.

"Yes, of course the boycott is still in place and is still enforced," Muhammad Rashid a-Din, a staff member of the Dubai Customs Department's Office for the Boycott of Israel, told the Post in a telephone interview.

"If a product contained even some components that were made in Israel, and you wanted to import it to Dubai, it would be a problem," he said.

"Imam's son embraces rap," from AFP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

London - The son of jailed radical Islamist imam Abu Hamza al-Masri is embracing rap music to sing the praises of Hezbollah and Hamas, the Sun newspaper reported on Tuesday.

The best-selling daily said it sent reporters under cover to meet Mohammed Kamel Mostafa - who goes by stage name Al-Ansary in the rap duo Lionz of Da Dezert - in a recording studio in north London.

"I want to put out an album for the mainstream market, then make a CD featuring hardcore lyrics," the British-born 24-year-old was quoted as saying, adding that he can "easily make more than a million" pounds.

In one of his songs, The Sun said, Mostafa raps: "I was born to be a soldier/Kalashnikov in my shoulder/peace to Hamasa and Hezbollah/that's the way of the lord Allah ... we're jihad through/defend my religion with the holy sword".

The Hillsborough County Board of Education initially made the dhimmi move of cancelling all religious holidays rather than add Muslim ones. Now the Baltimore Board is taking the more sensible line that there simply aren't enough Muslim students to justify these holidays. In this day and age, with pusillanimity and political correctness the reigning responses to such demands, this is a courageous stand. "Days off for Muslims unlikely," from the Washington Times, with thanks to Gnosis:

The Baltimore County Board of Education is expected tonight to reject calls from a Muslim group to add two Islamic holidays to the proposed 2006-07 school calendar.

The board is expected to adopt the recommendations of a subcommittee that found countywide attendance does not drop enough on Muslim holidays to justify closures. Instead, the subcommittee recommends that the district note the holidays on the calendar and teach students about their significance.

Muslims across the nation are pushing for public school closings on Islamic holy days, succeeding in Dearborn, Mich., and in four jurisdictions in New Jersey -- a handful of districts that are the exceptions to the rule.

School officials in Hillsborough County, Fla., ran afoul of practically every religious sect in October when they canceled days off for three Jewish and Christian holidays rather than close for any Muslim holidays.

Public outcry forced school board members to reverse their decision on the Jewish and Christian holidays, and the district remains open on Muslim holidays.

I believe that Zalmay Khalilzad is painting a bit overly rosy a picture, as other details in this article suggest. However, it is good to see that Abou al-Farouq was captured on a tip from residents. Muslim-on-Muslim violence always arouses a disgust with the mujahedin that violence against non-Muslims does not arouse, and it may be that he found his former protectors turning on him after the destruction of the Golden Mosque. From AP:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi security forces announced the capture of a senior al-Qaida in Iraq figure as they sought to deflect criticism of their handling of a surge of sectarian violence. The U.S. ambassador said the risk of civil war from last week's crisis was over.

Wow, that's terrific. Just like that, civil war averted. Ancient hostilities smoothed over. I feel so much better.

In Tikrit Tuesday, a bomb exploded at the mosque where Saddam Hussein's father is buried in northern Iraqi, police said....

Meanwhile, violence throughout Iraq killed 36 people Monday, as fierce fighting broke out between Iraqi commandos and insurgents southeast of the capital. But sectarian clashes have declined sharply since the bloodletting that followed the destruction of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra, and Baghdad residents returned to their jobs after three days of a government-imposed curfew....

"That crisis is over," U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad declared.

"I think the country came to the brink of a civil war, but the Iraqis decided that they didn't want to go down that path, and came together," the ambassador told CNN. "Clearly the terrorists who plotted that attack wanted to provoke a civil war. It looked quite dangerous in the initial 48 hours, but I believe that the Iraqis decided to come together."...

The captured al-Qaida figure was identified as Abou al-Farouq, a Syrian who financed and coordinated groups working for Iraq's most wanted terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi, according to an Interior Ministry officer who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to address the media.

Acting on a tip from residents, members of the Interior Ministry's Wolf Brigade captured al-Farouq with five other followers of al-Zarqawi near Bakr, about 100 miles west of Baghdad, the ministry officer said....

Sunni leaders accused the Shiite-dominated police and army of standing by as Shiite militiamen sprayed their mosques with machine-gun fire and took over some of them.

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that more than 1,300 Iraqis were killed in the violence following the Samarra shrine attack, according to Baghdad's main morgue, far higher than previously reported. Maj. Falah al-Mohammedawi, an official with the Interior Ministry, which collects statistics from police nationwide, put the figure Tuesday at 216.

The Defense Ministry said Monday that a curfew in Baghdad and three surrounding provinces curtailed the violence....

Interior Ministry commandos fought a three-hour gunbattle with Sunni-led insurgents near Nahrawan, about 15 miles southeast of Baghdad, after about 15 Shiite families were driven from their homes in the nearby village of Saidat, police said. At least eight commandos and five insurgents were killed in the fighting, which also injured six commandos and four civilians, police said.

The body of an official with Iraq's largest Sunni Muslim political group was delivered to the Health Ministry morgue Monday with signs of torture, his party said. Waad Jassim al-Ani, a member of the Iraqi Islamic Party, was seized from his home Saturday by an unspecified "security agency," the party said. Sunni leaders accuse Iraq's Shiite-led Interior Ministry of running death squads that target them — a charge denied by the ministry.

Internet Jihad Update from a Washington Times editorial today (thanks to Gnosis):

A troubling video of an insurgent sniper in Iraq known only as "Juba" is spreading across the Internet. As National Public Radio describes it, in the professional-quality video, "Juba" is quiet, efficient and ruthless as he trains his sights on American soldiers and pulls the trigger. Jihadist messages accompany the grisly footage -- in English. The video's colloquial American vernacular strongly suggests the video was either made in the United States or by people deeply familiar with this country -- and skilled in the use of the latest technologies.

"Juba" is just the latest indication of the frightening success of the Internet jihad. "Our enemies have skillfully adapted to fighting wars in today's media age, but... our country has not," Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said despondently earlier this month. Whether the United States is "losing" this high-technology war is debatable, but clearly we suffer critical losses the moment a "Juba" video in English comes into existence and spreads around the world.

Read it all.

A few days ago I wrote briefly about a Wall Street Journal article about Yenny Wahid, the daughter of the former President of Indonesia, who reasserted the familiar tropes that the true Islam is a religion of peace and that the global mujahedin are misusing it. Now Sheikh Qaradawi, who has been praised as a reformist by Saudi-funded Islamic "expert" John Esposito, asserts a very different view of Islam and the Qur'an. What would Yenny Wahid say to him? If she sincerely wants to spearhead Muslim reform, she should have some response to this.

"Leading Islamist Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi: We are Fighting in the Name of Islam...This Jihad is an Individual Duty of the Entire Muslim Nation...They Fight Us With the Torah...We Should Fight Them With the Koran: 'There is a Jew Behind Me, Come and Kill Him,'" from MEMRI:

The following are excerpts from a television program with Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, aired on Qatar TV on February 25, 2006. Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi is head of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, president of the International Association of Muslim Scholars (IAMS), and the spiritual guide of many other Islamist organizations across the world, including the Muslim Brotherhood. TO VIEW THIS CLIP, VISIT: http://www.memritv.org/search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=1052 .

[...]

"We are fighting them in the name of Islam, because Islam commands us to fight whoever plunders our land, and occupies our country. All the school of Islamic jurisprudence - the Sunni, the Shi'ite, the Ibadhiya – and all the ancient and modern schools of jurisprudence – agree that any invader who occupies even an inch of land of the Muslims must face resistance. The Muslims of that country must carry out the resistance, and the rest of the Muslims must help them. If the people of that country are incapable or reluctant, we must fight to defend the land of Islam, even if the local [Muslims] give it up.

"They must not allow anyone to take a single piece of land away from Islam. That is what we are fighting the Jews for. We are fighting them... Our religion commands us... We are fighting in the name of religion, in the name of Islam, which makes this Jihad an individual duty, in which the entire nation takes part, and whoever is killed in this [Jihad] is a martyr. This is why I ruled that martyrdom operations are permitted, because he commits martyrdom for the sake of Allah, and sacrifices his soul for the sake of Allah.

"We do not disassociate Islam from the war. On the contrary, disassociating Islam from the war is the reason for our defeat. We are fighting in the name of Islam."

[...]

"Everything will be on our side and against Jews on [Judgment Day]; at that time, even the stones and the trees will speak, with or without words, and say: 'Oh servant of Allah, oh Muslim, there's a Jew behind me, come and kill him.' They will point to the Jews. It says 'servant of Allah,' not 'servant of desires,' 'servant of women,' 'servant of the bottle,' 'servant of Marxism,' or 'servant of liberalism'... It said 'servant of Allah.'...

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses the need felt by so many Western politicians to court approval among Muslims by disclaiming any connection between Islam and terrorist violence:

There is no need to curry favor with those whose immutable holy text contains Quran 9.29, or indeed all of Sura 9, received as the last in time, and therefore the most authoritative Sura, nor a book which contains Quran 8.12, or 33.61, or 47.4 or 5.51, or 9.30, or 3.110. And of course there are hundreds of Hadith to quote, and the details of Muhammad's life.

Are the political leaders of the Western world going to continue to tip-toe around these texts? Are they going, by remaining silent about them, to let Muslims think that they never need address them, or that it is sufficient to reply that some texts of other religions are disturbing? To that transparent bit of Tu-Quoque one has to answer: 1) any passages that are to be found, say, in Leviticus, in which bloody battles are described, have no relevance and no authority today; they are historical or pseudo-historical descriptions and not considered to be models or tenets which have been faithfully followed. There is nothing like Jihad in Leviticus or elsewhere in the Jewish or Christian Scriptures -- that is, nothing like jihad in its truthful main meaning, not the meaning dragged up by apologists, relying in the main on a single "unauthentic" Hadith not even to be found in the collections of Al-Bukhari and Muslim.

Western leaders should take every occasion to ask Muslims to explain not only these texts, but the entire worldview that requires loyalty to the umma al-islamiyya alone. They should take every occasion to quote all of the many statements by Muslims expressing such solidarity, and denying the possibility of true (as opposed to feigned) loyalty to the Infidel nation-state, and to Infidels in that state. They should raise the issue of how one can be fully loyal to a Complete System that is far more than what we in the modern world mean when we use the word "religion" -- a religio-political system, in which the rituals of worship (the Five Pillars) do not begin to exhaust the duties of Believers in the task of spreading Islam everywhere. This is because "Islam is to dominate and is not to be dominated."

Jihad Watch Director Robert Spencer (left) with Douglas Murray at the Pim Fortuyn Memorial Conference in The Hague last week

The English writer Douglas Murray reports in The Times of London about the Pim Fortuyn Memorial Conference in The Hague, where I had the pleasure of meeting him and hearing his superb address last week. I stayed in the hotel under an assumed name also. Security was indeed very tight; how ironic that a conference on the defense of freedom had to be held under fortress-like conditions.

‘Would you write the name you’d like to use here, and your real name there?” asked the girl at reception. I had just been driven to a hotel in the Hague. An hour earlier I’d been greeted at Amsterdam airport by a man holding a sign with a pre-agreed cipher. I hadn’t known where I would be staying, or where I would be speaking. The secrecy was necessary: I had come to Holland to talk about Islam.
Last weekend, four years after his murder, Pim Fortuyn’s political party, Lijst Pim Fortuyn, held a conference in his memory on Islam and Europe. The organisers had assembled nearly all the writers most critical of Islam’s current manifestation in the West. The American scholars Daniel Pipes and Robert Spencer were present, as were the Egyptian-Jewish exile and scholar of dhimmitude, Bat Ye’or, and the great Muslim apostate Ibn Warraq.

Both Ye’or and Warraq write and speak under pseudonyms. Standing at the hotel desk I confessed to the girl that I didn’t have any other name, couldn’t think of a good one fast. I was given my key and made aware that the other person in the lobby, a tall figure in a dark suit, was my security detail. I was taken up to my room where I changed, unpacked and headed back out — the security guard now positioned outside my bedroom door.

I had been invited to deliver the closing speech to the memorial conference on what would have been Fortuyn’s 58th birthday. I said I would talk on the effects of Europe’s increasingly Islamicised population and advocate a tougher European counterterror strategy. There was no overriding political agenda to the occasion, simply a desire for frank discussion.

The event was scholarly, incisive and wide-ranging. There were no ranters or rabble-rousers, just an invited audience of academics, writers, politicians and sombre party members. As yet another example of Islam’s violent confrontation with the West (this time caused by cartoons) swept across the globe, we tried to discuss Islam as openly as we could. The Dutch security service in the Hague was among those who considered the threat to us for doing this as particularly high. The security status of the event was put at just one level below “national emergency”.

This may seem fantastic to people in Britain. But the story of Holland — which I have been charting for some years — should be noted by her allies. Where Holland has gone, Britain and the rest of Europe are following. The silencing happens bit by bit. A student paper in Britain that ran the Danish cartoons got pulped. A London magazine withdrew the cartoons from its website after the British police informed the editor they could not protect him, his staff, or his offices from attack. This happened only days before the police provided 500 officers to protect a “peaceful” Muslim protest in Trafalgar Square.

Read it all.

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses the increasingly common misapprehension that Hamas, once in power, will moderate:

This business that Bush has been repeating, of how the responsibilities of rule will likely lead to a "moderation" of Hamas’ views can only be uttered by someone ignorant of history, and ignorant of a Total System. Sane people, Western man for example, even Western Political Man, is used to the give-and-take of compromise. One says "No New Taxes" and we read his lips, but new taxes is what we get. Another says "we will transform Social Security," but fortunately, given that particular person's ideas, it does not happen. Horse-trading goes on. Those who are American, in particular, are used to the various limits on power -- the system of federalism that divides power among sovereignties (so that one school district may assign Great Expectations and the next one, Garfield the Cat), and the famous checks and balances that every schoolboy learns about. And compared to European societies, the role of ideological clash is limited -- both parties accept, a bit too readily, the Gospel of Economic Growth in a way that would do the author of "Acres of Diamonds" proud.

With this kind of background, how could Bush conceivably understand fanaticism? Or not fanaticism, but merely a belief-system that is both a Complete Regulation of Life and a Total Explanation of the Universe? How could he understand, given his limited understanding and experience, and his own comprehension of the word "religion" -- a word which evokes such automatic respect in so many -- could he begin to understand the "religion of Islam," for the word "religion" does not fit the case of what is in fact a religio-politico-geopolitical system for organizing all of life, invididual and collective? And the very idea of the "nation-state" means little to the Believer, for Islam is all about the collective, not the individual, but the collective is always the universal trans-national community of the Believers, the umma al-Islamiyya, to which one's exclusive loyalty as a Believer is owed. The world is divided between Believers and Infidels; the most distant Believer is owed a greater loyalty, by the good Muslim, than the Infidel next door.

How could he, Bush, or Rice, or all the others not fall for what they’re being told by so-called Muslim "reformers"? They’re being told that at least Hamas is not corrupt, so give it a chance, at least the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is not corrupt, so Egyptian "reformer" Saad Eddin Ibrahim reassures us (see David Brooks's recent column, not for his confused interpretation of facts, but for a few of those facts) and so he, Saad Eddin Ibhrahim, is sanguine about their rise. But Saad Eddin Ibrahim is a Muslim, and we are Infidels; our interests differ. He wants less corrupt government within Egypt. We want an Islam that is less of a threat to us, in our lands and around the world. He does not wish to divide and demoralize the camp of Islam. He does not wish to keep the Muslim presence in Infidel lands to a minimum. Why should he? But we do. Of course all those Muslim "reformers" never did mind Islam as much as they should, for if they did, they would have gone the route of the full apostates -- Ibn Warraq, Ali Sina, Azam Kamguian. And they haven't. In talking to Infidels, they continue to deny the tenets, the attitudes, the atmospherics of Islam. Some because they really dismiss the views of the primitive Muslims who are so unlike themselves -- but so much more numerous. Some out of embarrassment or filial piety. Some out of a fatal inability to cut the cord with Islam, and to think that the phrase "I'm a cultural Muslim" will be enough to cover their case, and to justify themselves to all concerned. But not any more. Infidels need the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about Islam.

Think of all those nice Iraqi exiles who assured us that we would be greeted as liberators and there would be no problem. Even Bernard Lewis, who relies for insight and inside dope upon all those nice, Westernized, attractive Muslim informants, could confidently predict in print (in 2002) that if the Americans were to liberate Baghdad, the joy that would be expressed would make the celebrations that had taken place previously in Kabul "look like a funeral procession."

Oh, Sir Trevor, you racist!

A welcome statement in the UK, echoing one that has already been made in Australia. Other non-Muslim states should follow suit.

"Muslims who want sharia law 'should leave,'" from The Guardian, with thanks to John:

Muslims who wish to live under a system of sharia law should leave Britain, the chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality suggested yesterday.

Speaking in the wake of demonstrations against Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad, Sir Trevor Phillips said those living in the UK had to accept that British values include a commitment to freedom of speech, even if that means offending people.

"What some minorities have to accept is that there are certain central things we all agree about, which are about the way we treat each other - that we have an attachment to democracy, that we sort things out by voting not by violence and intimidation, that we tolerate things that we don't like," he told ITV1's Jonathan Dimbleby programme. "Short of people menacing and threatening each other, we have freedom of expression. We allow people to offend each other."...

He rejected the idea that British Muslims should be allowed to live under sharia law in their communities. "I don't think that's conceivable," he said. "We have one set of laws ... and that's the end of the story. If you want to have laws decided in another way, you have to live somewhere else."...

As expected, the jizya from Eurabia will continue. From Reuters, with thanks to JE:

The European Union will release substantial aid to the Palestinians to stave off a looming financial crisis despite the appointment of a leader of the Islamist militant group Hamas as prime minister.

EU foreign ministers are gathering for talks on how to respond to the impending formation of a Palestinian government by the movement, which does not recognise Israel's right to exist.

"Today I will announce a very substantial package of assistance to meet basic needs," European External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said.

She says the package will total 120 million euros ($A192 million), including 40 million euros to pay electricity bills and 64 million euros channelled through the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees.

"In effect we will pay electricity bills for them, direct to the utilities concerned, including in Israel," she said.

The EU is the largest donor to the Palestinian Authority, but its funding has been thrown into doubt by the election of Hamas, which the bloc lists as a banned terrorist group.

No, it hasn't been thrown into doubt at all, really.

1938 Alert from AP, :

Several hundred hard-line students threw stones and firebombs at the British Embassy in Tehran on Sunday, blaming Britain and the United States for the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Iraq.

A few windows were broken in the embassy, and firebombs went off outside its walls during the two-hour protest, before Iranian police wielding sticks dispersed the students.

Nearly 1,000 students gathered outside the embassy in the morning and held a peaceful protest, chanting 'Death to America' and 'Death to Britain' and blaming the two countries in Wednesday's bombing of the shrine in the Iraqi town of Samarra.

'We hold the occupiers of Iraq responsible,' one banner read. They also held signs denouncing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad that were printed in European papers.

The larger demonstration ended without incident. But several hours later, around 400 students returned and attacked the embassy.

From our Bridge For Sale Department: Hamas, after insisting that it would not change or moderate one bit, is now suddenly, and for the first time in its history, singing a different tune. I would suggest that taking them at their word might be foolhardy at best, but I expect Western pols will be falling over themselves in their rush to do so. "Hamas plans for peace in stages," from The Australian, with thanks to JE:

HAMAS is prepared to establish a gradual peace with Israel under certain conditions, Palestinian prime minister-designate Ismail Haniyeh said in an interview yesterday.

Attempting to project a moderate image for the Islamic organisation, whose principal declared goal up until now has been the destruction of the Jewish state, the Hamas official told The Washington Post that Hamas did not harbour animosity towards Jews and did not wish to throw them into the sea.

"If Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders, then we will establish a peace in stages," he said, beginning with a long-term truce.

He declined, however, to commit himself when asked if Hamas would recognise Israel's right to exist, a commitment implying permanent peace rather than a period of truce followed by war.

"The answer," he said, "is to let Israel say it will recognise a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, release prisoners and recognise the rights of the refugees to return to Israel...."

The 1967 borders, of course, provide little or no military security. I crossed the Sea of Galilee on a boat in November and ate lunch at a restaurant in an area that used to be fired on regularly by Syrian troops in the Golan Heights. To retreat to those borders in the context of a truce offered by Hamas, particularly given the fact that Islamic law only allows for a truce in order to give the Muslims the chance to gather strength to fight again more effectively, would be the prelude to the total destruction of Israel.

This business about the war on terror not being a fight against Islam is repeated endlessly, but rarely examined closely. Of course, Downer and all the others who say this mean that the war on terror can and should be pursued without impinging on Muslim belief and practice, and that Muslims themselves should join it. On the other side, jihadists, because they argue that what they are doing is justified by and essential to Islamic belief and practice, routinely characterize the war on terror as a war on Islam.

That fact indicates that it is not non-Muslims like Downer, but actually Muslims in pluralistic societies who claim to be moderate, loyal citizens of the countries in which they reside, who need to establish that the war on terror is not a war on Islam. They can do this by joining it wholeheartedly, seeking out and exposing the jihadists among their ranks, and demonstrating through their deeds that they can oppose jihad violence and its goal of the imposition of the Islamic social order and the subjugation of infidels, while continuing to practice Islam in some fashion. The burden of proof is on them. Downer and other Western pols shouldn't waste one second reasurring Muslims that the war on terror is not a war on Islam; instead, they should be asking them: "Show us that the war on terror is not a war on Islam. We don't want to go to war with the Islamic world in general, but we cannot ignore or deny the fact that those who have determined to destroy us are operating according to Islamic principles. Show us that you do not hold to the advancement of those principles either by violent or peaceful means, and that you will join us in combatting them."

So far, Muslim organizations in America and Europe seem primarily concerned with obstructing anti-terror efforts. Nor have they done anything to formulate a non-jihadist, non-Sharia, pluralist Islam, although they continue to assert loudly and regularly that such a thing exists, and is in fact the Real Thing. Why is it beyond politicians like Downer to say, politely but firmly, Show me?

"Fighting terrorism is not a fight against Islam: Downer," from Australia's AFP, with thanks to JE:

Fighting terrorism must not be characterised as a fight against Islam or support for terrorists will be boosted, Federal Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer says.

Delivering a keynote address to an international seminar in Jakarta looking at ways of building cooperation against terrorism, and in particular suicide bombings, Mr Downer emphasised the damage extremists sought to wreck in Muslim nations.

"One of the greatest challenges of our age is to ensure that as we fight terrorism, extremism and intolerance, we do not at the same time trigger broader conflict between civilisations," he said.

"To characterise this fight against terrorism as a fight against Islam is to invite not just a clash of civilisations, but the broadening of support for terrorists," he said, adding that this was not a struggle of Islam versus Christianity either.

All of South-East Asia's suicide bombings have occurred in the world's most populous Muslim nation, beginning with the 2002 Bali bombings, which killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.

Tiny Minority of Extremists and Cartoon Rage Updates from AP :

KARACHI, Pakistan - About 25,000 people rallied in Karachi against Prophet Muhammad cartoons Sunday while authorities rounded up scores of Islamic hardliners to stop them from demonstrating in another Pakistani city.

Pakistan banned anti-cartoon rallies in Lahore after several demonstrations turned deadly, but protests were allowed to go ahead in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city and economic hub.

Protesters chanted “Down with the blasphemer,” “Death to America,” and “End diplomatic ties with European countries.”

About 25,000 people joined the rally organized by Tahafuz-e-Khatm-e-Nabuwat, a Sunni Muslim religious group, said Shaukat Shah, a Karachi police officer.

The protest was the biggest in the port city since 40,000 rallied there on Feb. 16 against the cartoons, which first appeared in a Danish newspaper.

In Lahore, police thwarted an illegal rally by arresting or detaining without charge some 150 people, including clerics, opposition lawmakers and religious school administrators on Saturday and Sunday, police official Amir Zulfiqar said....

Nearly 100 of Ahmed’s supporters stood near the police blockade chanting “Punishment for insulting the prophet is death.” There was no violence.

That is, no violence this time.

Another sign of how deeply jihad sentiments are embedded within Saudi society. From SIA News :

(Washington DC, February 25, 2006)... In a sign of weakening loyalties to the ruling tribe of Al-Saud, two Saudi suicide bombers who attacked the Abqaiq gas plant Friday, hail from two leading Saudi Najdi families with numerous members occupying leading official positions in the absolute monarchy.

The first suicide bomber Abdullah AbdulAziz AlTwaiajri's, is relative to AbdulAziz Al-Twaijri, King Abdullah's closest advisor for over 50 years, and among the most influential men in the country. Khalid and Abdul Mohsen Al-Twaijri are secretary and advisor for the King consecutively. Ahmed Othman Al-Twaijri is a member of the Shoura Council, and Major General Saad Al-Twaijri is the head of the Saudi Civil Defense. Numerous other members of Al-Twaijri family occupy political and security positions.

Similarly is the case of Mohamed Saleh Al-Ghaith, who is a relative of Wahhabi cleric Ibrahim Abdullah Al-Ghaith, the head of the Saudi religious police.

Of course, this is what many others in other parts of the world have been saying openly for years. From Israel National News, :

Sheikh Ismail Nawahda, preaching to Moslem masses on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem on Friday, has brought it out into the open: the call to restore the Moslem Khalifate, or, "Genuine Islamic Rule."

A plan for the "Return of the Khalifate" was published secretly in 2002 by a group called "The Guiding Helper Foundation." The group explained that it wished to "give direction to the educated Muslim populace in its increasing interest in the establishment of Islam as a practical system of rule."

This past Friday, Feb. 24, however, the plan went public. Sheikh Nawahda called publicly for the renewal of the Islamic Khalifate, which would "unite all the Moslems in the world against the infidels."

The Khalifate system features a leader, known as a Khalif, who heads worldwide Islam. Assisted by a ten-man council, his decisions are totally binding on all Moslems.

According to the Foundation's vision of the Khalifate, significant punishment can only be meted out for 14 crimes, including "accusing a chaste person of fornication," "not performing the formal prayer," and "not fasting during Ramadan."

This past week I have, more or less back to back, spoken at two conferences: the Pim Fortuyn Memorial Conference in The Hague, and the Center for the Study of Popular Culture's Restoration Weekend in Phoenix, Arizona. I hope to be writing a bit here about both as soon as time permits, but briefly: in my addresses at both conferences I emphasized the importance of realizing that the global jihad is not being advanced only by military means, and that the official refusal to acknowledge that many share the goals of the mujahedin but are pursuing them by peaceful means is hindering our defense against that particular line of attack.

To wit: in the course of these travels, which for various reasons involved stops in some other places as well, I took a cab in an American city. The driver was a Muslim who, after peering at me for awhile in the rearview mirror, advanced the theory that I was a Pakistani Muslim. I let him talk, and didn't hasten to reveal to him my true identity; I did tell him I was not a Muslim, but he then simply assumed that I had lapsed and began exhorting me to read the Qur'an and return to full observance of the faith. I took the opportunity to ask him about some matters that I told him I found troubling, such as the unreasonable violence of the global cartoon rage. He explained that it was true: innocent people should not have been killed. Only the cartoonists, he said, should be killed.

If he holds to Islamic blasphemy law, and the necessity of enforcing it on non-Muslims in a non-Muslim state, it is very likely that this man also holds to the same vision of Islamic law, Islamic supremacy, and the ultimate subjugation of the infidels, that motivates Osama bin Laden. Is anyone paying attention to the prevalence of this ideology among Muslims in America?

As for me, I'm hoping that strawberries will sprout through the snow on the pine tree out back. From The Australian, with thanks to JE:

US President George W. Bush suggested overnight that being in government might have "a moderating influence" on the radical group Hamas in the wake of its victory in Palestinian legislative elections.

"As democracy takes root, the responsibilities of governing will have a moderating influence on those who assume power in free elections. It's easier to be a martyr than a mayor or a cabinet minister," he said.

Since the President is so fond of postwar Germany as an historical model for present-day Iraq, perhaps he will pause to consider a point from German history of a few years earlier: the responsibilities of governing didn't have the slightest moderating influence on the National Socialist German Workers Party.

Writing about the Dubai ports fiasco, Larry Kudlow (thanks to Doc Washburn) endorses the politically motivated, trumped-up concept of "Islamophobia," and repeats the mantra that the jihadists represent a Tiny Minority of Extremists. Unfortunately, he offers no means by which we can with certainty and permanence distinguish that Tiny Minority from the Vast Majority of Peaceful, Law-Abiding Muslims Who Unhesitatingly Subscribe to Western Pluralism.

Make no mistake about it. What is going on right now on cable news channels, in the newspapers and over the Internet is simple Islamophobia. The Democrats who are vocally against the deal are assuredly motivated by political gain. But Republicans should know better. If we're to win the fight against the Islamofascists, a tiny minority of the Muslim community, we cannot afford to erect political, trade or commercial barriers against those Arab nations who have aligned themselves with the United States in the terror war and who wish to do business with us as part of that alliance.

Repulsing them is just plain stupid. Tearing down barriers to promote global connectivity is a much better strategy wherever it makes national-security sense.

Dubai has offered its help. We should take it.

Islamic Tolerance Alert from the Jerusalem Post, with thanks to JS:

Palestinian educator Dr. Maria Khoury geared up for the winter chill with what was at the time a meaningless purchase: a black silk scarf with silver stripes to drape around her neck.

But now, on her daily excursions from the West Bank's Taiba to nearby Ramallah, the scarf serves as a political symbol of the changing times.

"Since Hamas took over, I cover my head in Ramallah," she says. "I don't feel comfortable."

In the largely cosmopolitan Ramallah, though they comprise some 10 percent of the population, Christians are becoming less and less visible.

The first time that Khoury ran into her local parish priest there with her head covered, he raised his eyebrows and laughed.

"I see more and more women covered up," Khoury says, explaining that for now, it's preferable to play it safe and assimilate on the street, even if she would never choose to cover her head otherwise.

"Years ago I even used to go in short sleeves," she says. "You'd have to put a gun to my head to get me to wear short sleeves now."

With fear of government-supported religious coercion on the rise since Hamas's unexpected win in January's Palestinian elections, Christians across the West Bank and Gaza Strip are keeping a low profile, with eyes wide open.

Read it all.

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses the prospect of an independent Kosovo, now being bandied about:

Independence for a Muslim Kosovo? No. Without commenting in detail on the history of the Serbs in Kosovo, one can simply offer the following:

Ibrahim Rugova, recently deceased, was always presented as a "moderate" Albanian in Kosovo. Yet he never uttered a word about the destruction, in recent times, of Orthodox churches, or the harrying, and murder, of Serbian villagers. Nor did he ever note that Izetbegovic's plan to thoroughly islamize whatever area he controlled was set out long before there was any "in the heat of battle" to explain it away.

In World War II, the United States and Great Britain had to do whatever they could to stop Hitler. To this end, they made common cause with, and even gave aid to, a regime that was not exactly to the liking of either country, and certainly not to Winston Churchill or to Franklin Roosevelt: the Soviet Union. That aid, offloaded at Murmansk, was not only in tangible tanks and guns. It was also in diplomatic support, financial support, all other kinds of support. And there was no stopping, during that war, to tell the Soviet regime how badly it behaved, because all that mattered then was to stop Hitler and the Nazis.

Lackawanna, NY jihadist escapes from jail in Yemen. From Newsday, :

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A former Lackawanna resident has been placed on the FBI's list of 26 "most wanted" terrorist suspects.

Jaber A. Elbaneh, 39, is accused of training with the "Lackawanna Six" in 2001. He was among a group of 23 suspected terrorists who tunneled out of a prison in Yemen Feb. 3. He still has relatives in the city of Lackawanna, near Buffalo.

"He's an individual who has not only associated with al-Qaida, but has taken part in a prison breakout with al-Qaida," Buffalo FBI spokesman Paul Moskal said. The most wanted list is headed by al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses the Shi'a and their role in American policymaking toward the Middle East:

The only surprise -- and this is only a surprise to those who have not been paying attention -- about the attempted attack in Saudi Arabia is that it is being claimed by, and promptly attributed to, Al-Qaeda.

One would not have been surprised had the attack come from Shi'a living in al-Hasa province. For it is they, several hundred thousand of them, who for a very long time have had to endure Wahhabi malevolence, Wahhabi discrimination, Wahhabi contumely. They might have been inspired by the Shi'a ascendancy in Iraq, which they can hardly have remained unaware of, and the Shi'a ability to now fight back. Nor will the Shi'a in Bahrain, who make up 70% or more of the population, and are now chafing under Sunni rulers, fail to be inspired. Nor will the nearly half of the population in Yemen that is Shi'a, nor the Shi'a in Afghanistan, the Mongol-descended Hazaras, who were killed, or if women taken as sex slaves by the Sunnis of the Taliban. Nor will the Shi'a in Pakistan, whose professional class has long been a target of Sunni attacks, especially by members of two groups, Sipha-e-Sahaba and Lashkar-e-Jangvi, somehow remain immune to news of the Sunni-Shi'a conflict in Iraq. Even without fighting, these groups will be inspired by the endless hostility between Sunni and Shi’a, which phone calls from George Bush, and calls for "peace," will not have the slightest effect in diminishing, save temporarily, and only among some of the leaders, not the less malleable populace.

One would love to know when Bush, when Rice, when all the rest of them first began to realize that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein meant, inevitably, that the Shi'a would take power, either over all of Iraq or over the southern part with the major oil resources and the only port. When did it occur to them that perhaps the sectarian split would not be overcome in the general "joy at liberation" (the joy in Baghdad will make the celebrations in Kabul seem like a "funeral procession" -- Bernard Lewis, 2002)? When did they figure out that the Shi'a resentment of the Sunnis, and Sunni contempt for the Shi'a, long preceded the regime of Saddam Hussein and that those who kept assuring them otherwise had their own fish to fry -- especially all those thoroughly-westernized Shi’a exiles who either ignored, or simply forgot, what the real Iraq, and the real Iraqis, were really like? And while Allawi, Chalabi, and Kanan Makiya were secular Shi'a, who themselves may have wanted to downplay, for the Americans, the real nature of Iraq. And, in their long Western exiles, where some of them became, centaur-like, half-Western men, they may have forgotten as well the craziness and violence of their own countrymen, with the centuries-old resentments reinforced by the last few decades of Sunni despotism, and with that widespread susceptibility to rumor and conspiracy theories which come naturally to those raised up in a belief-system that discourages free and skeptical inquiry. And even that survivor, the Baghdadian Vicar of Bray, the Sunni manipulator described formulaically and much too charitably as an "elder stateman," the famously louche Adnan Pachachi (a member of the Sunni elite and member of even a pre-1958 government), who claimed the other day, in an interview in the Corriere della Sera, that there is not, and never will be, a "civil war" because the Sunnis and the Shi'a have always gotten along famously, and in fact Shi'a were prominent in Saddam Hussein's regime.

Toledo Jihad Update. "Documents from Muslim charity seized during terror arrests," from AP, :

TOLEDO, Ohio -- Documents seized by federal agents suggest that two of three Muslim men accused of plotting to kill American and allied soldiers may have ties to a Muslim charity suspected of funneling money to the militant organization Hamas.

Federal agents seized an invoice from the charity, known as KindHearts, from a travel agency where defendant Mohammad Zaki Amawi worked.

Agents also took a KindHearts binder from an address where defendant Marwan Othman El-Hindi lived.

Lists of items seized were filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Toledo.

The three suspects _ El-Hindi, Amawi and Wassim I. Mazloum _ were arrested last weekend. All have pleaded not guilty to charges including conspiring to kill Americans and conspiring to provide or conceal support to terrorists. They could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted of the most serious offenses.

U.S. Attorney Greg White said the investigations of KindHearts and the alleged terror plot are separate.

KindHearts has denied any terrorist connections and has said it is a humanitarian organization. But on Feb. 19, the Treasury Department ordered U.S. banks to freeze the assets of the Toledo-based charity.

Cleveland lawyer Jihad Smaili, who is also a KindHearts board member, said Saturday that items seized by federal agents during the terror arrests do not prove any link with his organization.

"There is no connection there," Smaili said. "Even if these men had KindHearts items in their possession, that does not mean that KindHearts supported them to do something illegal. That would be guilt by association."

Mazloum, 24, is Lebanese and came to the United States in 2000. He is a legal, permanent resident of the U.S.

El-Hindi, 43, is a U.S. citizen born in Jordan. Amawi, 26, is a citizen of both the U.S. and Jordan.

Other items seized by federal agents during the arrests included bank and phone records, computers, cell phones, knives, travel records and battle dress uniforms.

Yet more evidence of the involvement of state agents in the jihad. From DPA, :

BEIRUT - Lebanon has refused to extradite to the United States four suspected Shia Hezbollah members believed to have carried out attacks against Americans in Beirut during the 1980s, judicial sources said on Saturday.

They said Lebanese authorities refused to extradite four Lebanese: Imad Moughaniyeh, Hassan Ezzeddine, Ali Atwe and Mohammed ali Hamadeh....

Three of the four wanted Lebanese - Moughaniyeh, Ezzeddine and Atwe - are accused of participation in a 1983 attack on US Marines headquarter in Beirut in which more than 100 Marines were killed.

The fourth Mohammed Hamadeh, who returned to Lebanon in December after he finished serving his jail sentence in Germany for possessing explosives, is accused by the United States of the 1985 highjacking of a TWA airliner during which a US Navy diver was killed.

Authorities have also rejected a US request to hand over Wassef Hassoun, an American of Lebanese origin who deserted the Marines in 2004 and left Iraq for Lebanon and then left the southern port city of Tripoli for the US. It was reported later that Hassoun has left the US and headed back to Lebanon.

More evidence of the involvement of state agents in the jihad. From Haaretz, :

The Lebanese government publicly admitted recently, for the first time, that it had permitted the delivery of a convoy of arms from Syria to Hezbollah. The United Nations responded by issuing a condemnation.

According to Lebanese sources, Lebanese soldiers halted a convoy of arms-laden trucks from Syria at an army checkpoint in the Lebanon Valley on January 31. However, the Lebanese Defense Ministry ordered the soldiers to allow the convoy to proceed.

A report on this incident then reached the UN's special envoy to the Middle East, Terje Larsen, in New York, and Larsen instructed his staff to investigate. Eventually, the Lebanese government admitted both that it had allowed the convoy to pass, and that the arms had been destined for Hezbollah.

The UN then published a statement condemning the Lebanese government for having blatantly violated UN Security Council Resolution 1559, which, inter alia, calls for disarming the country's militias.

The arms in the convoy originated apparently from Iran. It is not known how many trucks were in the convoy or what arms they carried.

Well, sure, ok, Al-Qaeda has infiltrated their government, but not to worry: Americans will still be in charge of port security. And I expect they'll be quite busy once our friends and allies from Dubai take over port operations. "Qaeda Claim: We 'Infiltrated' UAE Gov't," from the New York Post, :

February 25, 2006 -- WASHINGTON — Al Qaeda warned the government of the United Arab Emirates more than three years ago that it "infiltrated" key government agencies, according to a disturbing document released by the U.S. military.

The warning was contained in a June 2002 message to UAE rulers, in which the terror network demanded the release of an unknown number of "mujahedeen detainees," who it said had been arrested during a government crackdown in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks....

Little is known about the origins or authorship of the message.

"You are well aware that we have infiltrated your security, censorship and monetary agencies, along with other agencies that should not be mentioned," the message said.

"Therefore, we warn of the continuation of practicing . . . policies which do not serve your interest and will only cost you many problems that will place you in an embarrassing state before your citizens.

"Your homeland is exposed to us. There are many vital interests that will hurt you if we decided to harm them."

Eurabia Update: "Anti-Semitic film cheered with cries of 'Allah is great': German authorities worried by audience reaction of Turkish movie goers to 'Valley of the Wolves,'" from WND, :

The raucous reception by some members of Germany's 2.5 million-strong Turkish community to "Valley of the Wolves," a movie depicting crazed U.S. troops in Iraq massacring a wedding party and a Jewish doctor removing organs from prisoners, has German politicians worried – so worried, Bavaria's interior minister sent intelligence service agents to theaters showing the film to "gauge" audience reaction and identify potential radicals.

The $10 million dollar film, by Turkish director Serdan Akar, has already been wildly successful in Turkey, where its debut was attended by the wife of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. "It is an extraordinary film that will go down in history," Turkish Parliament speaker Bulent Arinc, president of the Turkish National Assembly told the Anatolia press agency.

But that's not the way German officials see it.

Edmund Stoiber, Bavaria's conservative prime minister, asked theater owners to not show "this racist and anti-Western hate film." Bernd Neumann, Germany's expressed concern that the film "raises serious questions about the values of our society and our ability to instill them". This week, Cinemaxx, Germany's largest theater chain, announced the movie would be pulled from its offerings.

"These kinds of hate messages aren't what we need in a society filled with immigrants and mixed ethnic and religious groups," said Michael Kohlstruck, a political scientist at Berlin's Technical University. "All it takes is a few people mobilized by the film to become a danger by carrying out attacks."

The movie, which began showings in Germany three weeks ago, has played to sold out audiences since. Over 130,000 people, mostly young Muslims, saw the film in its first five days. The London Telegraph reports Berlin audiences, made up mostly of Turkish young men, clapping furiously when the building housing the U.S. military commander in northern Iraq is blown up and a standing ovation – accompanied by shouts of "Allah is great!" – when the movie's American antagonist, played by Billy Zane, is stabbed in the chest.

No, it isn't that Michael Moore. Notice also the heading at the top of the page: "Business Telegraph, in association with Emirates." Emirati corporations are popping up in the most interesting places, aren't they? "Dubai 'will not drop' £3.9bn bid for P&O," from the Telegraph (in association with Emirates), with thanks to Sr. Soph:

Dubai Ports World last night insisted that it would press on with its £3.9bn purchase of P&O despite three new court cases seeking to derail the deal following a political storm in America.

Michael Moore, DP World's senior vice president, told the Sunday Telegraph: "We are fully committed to closing this deal. There is absolutely no thinking along any other lines. The court cases don't throw anything into doubt."...

DP World has sought to defuse the outcry by promising to segregate the operation of the US ports in a trust until an agreement can be reached. Last night, de Verneuil Smith said that was "an absurd concept".

Cartoon Rage, and the assault on freedom of speech, continues. From AFP, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia has suspended the operations of another Chinese-language newspaper for publishing one of the controversial cartoons that have sparked global protests.

Publication of the Berita Petang Sarawak, a newspaper in the eastern states of Sarawak, Sabah and neighbouring Brunei, has been suspended for two weeks, the Internal Security Ministry said in a statement late Saturday.

It said the two-week suspension was effective from Sunday until March 11.

“The decision was made after Berita Petang Sarawak published an article: “We are prepared for the jihad war’, on February 4, which contained the caricature,” the ministry said....

Earlier this month the government suspended the Chinese-language Guangming Daily for two weeks for publishing a photograph of a person reading a newspaper carrying one of the cartoons.

It also shut down indefinitely the operations of The Sarawak Tribune, believed to be the first newspaper in the world to be closed for publishing the drawings, which have sparked a wave of protests that have left some two-dozen people dead.

But the official New Straits Times, which published a cartoon parodying the controversy over caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, escaped punishment after it issued a front page apology....

The Bangkok-based Southeast Asian Press Alliance said on Friday that the amount of government interference in the Malaysian media, particularly of late, was an indication of the country’s declining standards of democracy.

“The government has no place interfering with the press and upsetting this system of checks and balances,” it said in a statement.

Jihad Thomas Update: justice done in Australia. From the BBC, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

An Australian man who changed his name to Jihad Jack has been convicted of receiving funds from al-Qaeda.

Jack Thomas, a Muslim convert, was found guilty of accepting $3,500 (£2,000) and a plane ticket home from an al-Qaeda agent in Pakistan.

A Melbourne court heard that Thomas had visited al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan shortly before the 9/11 attacks.

He is the first Australian to be charged under laws on the funding of terrorism passed in 2002.

'No terrorist'

The 32-year-old former taxi driver could face up to 25 years in jail when he is sentenced by the Supreme Court in the next few days.

He was also found guilty of possessing a false passport, but he was found not guilty of intentionally providing resources for al-Qaeda.

The prosecution alleged that Thomas trained in al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan before moving to Pakistan.

...as those they have nurtured turn on them. "al-Qaida Threatens to Hit More Saudi Sites," from AP:

MANAMA, Bahrain - Al-Qaida suicide bombers will attack more Saudi oil facilities, the terror group purportedly threatened Saturday in an Internet statement that claimed responsibility for the foiled attack on the Abiqaiq plant in eastern Saudi Arabia.

Two suicide bombers tried to drive cars packed with explosives into Abiqaiq, the world's largest oil processing facility, on Friday afternoon, but security guards opened fire and the vehicles exploded outside the gates, killing the bombers and fatally wounding two guards....

A statement appeared on a militant Web site saying that Friday's attack was "part of a series of operations that al-Qaida is carrying out against the crusaders and the Jews to stop their plundering of Muslim wealth." It was signed "al-Qaida in the Arab Peninsula" — the name of the Saudi branch of the terror network.

The statement did not acknowledge that the attack was foiled. In fact, it claimed that the two "heroic holy warriors" managed to enter Abiqaiq.

"There are more like them who are racing toward martyrdom and eager to fight the enemies of god, the Jews, the crusaders and their stooges, the renegade rulers" of Arab countries, the posting said.

"You will see things that will make you happy, god willing," concluded the statement....

The al-Qaida Web posting said "these (oil) factories help to steal the wealth of Muslims" and claimed the attack was "part of al-Qaida's project to expel the infidels from the Arab peninsula."...

The posting said Friday's attack was dubbed "Operation Bin Laden Conquest."

The huge Abqaiq facility processes about two-thirds of Saudi Arabia's oil for export, removing hydrogen sulfide and reducing the vapor to make the crude safe for shipping. It lies 25 miles inland from the Gulf coast.

Of course it would never end. In fact, it hasn't ended, ever since the days of Ali. It has never ended, it has only fallen into abeyance now and again. Just as the jihad has never ended, but ebbs and flows with the resources and will of those who wish to pursue it. From Reuters:

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's defense minister warned on Saturday of the risk of a "civil war" that "will never end" as sectarian violence flared again despite a second day of curfew in Baghdad.

Extending a traffic ban in the capital to Monday after battles around Sunni mosques and a car bomb in a holy Shi'ite city, leaders scrambled to break a round of reprisals sparked by a suspected al Qaeda bombing of a Shi'ite shrine on Wednesday.

Sunni and Shi'ite clerics met to seek a joint approach at Baghdad's holiest Sunni mosque, site of one clash overnight.

The gravest crisis since the U.S. invasion in 2003 threatens Washington's hopes of withdrawing its 136,000 troops from Iraq.

"If there is a civil war in this country it will never end," Defense Minister Saadoun al-Dulaimi, a minority Sunni Muslim in the Shi'ite-led interim government, told a news conference.

"We are ready to fill the streets with armored vehicles."

Entrusting our future to the gentle ministrations of the UAE. From WND, with thanks to Gabrielle Goldwater:

Dubai Ports World is scheduled to take over operations at 22 U.S. ports, not six as previously reported by most major media.

According to the website of P&O Ports, the port-operations subsidiary of the London-based Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co. (P&O), DPW will pick up stevedore services at 12 East Coast ports including Portland, Maine; Boston; Davisville, R.I.; New York; Newark; Philadelphia; Camden, N.J.; Wilmington, Del.; Baltimore, Md.; and Virginia locations at Newport News, Norfolk, and Portsmouth.

Additionally, DPW will take over P&O stevedoring operations at nine ports along the Gulf of Mexico including the Texas ports of Beaumont, Port Arthur, Galveston, Houston, Freeport, and Corpus Christi, plus the Louisana ports of Lake Charles and New Orleans.

Previously reported have only been P&O Ports' container operations at New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Miami, and New Orleans. Stevedore services also typically involve the loading and unloading of containers on and off cargo ships, as well as moving and storing containers, though often in separate facilities from where containers are initially loaded and unloaded from the cargo ships. Thus, while DPW will be operating the container terminal operations of only the six ports initially disclosed, DPW will be managing stevedore services, handling containers at a total of 21 ports, located along the Eastern seaboard from Maine to Virginia, and across the Gulf of Mexico from Texas to Louisiana.

It looks as if Ibrahim Hooper will get his wish. "Palestine: US pledges continuation of aid to PNA," from Xinhuanet, with thanks to Mackie:

RAMALLAH, Feb. 25 (Xinhuanet) -- Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat Saturday said the U.S. pledged to continue financial support for the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) though the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) would lead a new Palestinian government.

Erekat told reporters following a meeting in Ramallah with visiting deputy US Secretary of State for Middle East Affairs David Welsh.

The meeting was the first high-level U.S.-Palestinian contact since Hamas, whose charter calls for destruction of Israel, scored a landslide victory in Palestinian Parliamentary elections last month.

My dear friend Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American Islamic Relations displays his Islamic moderation on PBS (thanks to Summiter):

ABERNETHY: What about aid to Hamas or the people in the Palestinian territories? What do you make of that?

Mr. HOOPER: Well, I think we need not to be seen as sabotaging a democratic election that was overwhelmingly in favor of a certain party. And I think we need to give any new government the opportunity to provide basic services to end corruption and to fulfill the national aspirations of the Palestinian people.

ABERNETHY: But isn't it against American law to give any foreign aid to a terrorist organization?

Mr. HOOPER: Yeah. It seems that it may be against the law to do that. But there are other avenues, through NGOs and other ways, to accomplish the goal. But right now we're going around the world saying strangle the new government. And I don't think that's the message we want to send.

So you are in support of the Hamas movement, which has celebrated its murders of Israeli civilians, Mr. Hooper? Is that the message you want to send?

I am on the road, as assiduous readers of the comments here already know, and so I don't have time to give this the evisceration it deserves, but a brief note. The Wall Street Journal has outdone itself, following up the piece of puffery it published in December by the former President of Indonesia, Abdurrahman Wahid, with a new piece of puffery about his daughter, Yenny Wahid.

She is active in the NU's political wing, the National Awakening Party, and an adviser to Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. The job most dear to her heart, however, is running the Wahid Foundation--named after her father--which works to promote, in the words of its Web site, "democratic reform, religious pluralism, multiculturalism and tolerance amongst Muslims" and reflects "a universal Islam [that] desires justice and prosperity for all."

That's wonderful. In effect I suppose she means that she wants to see the dhimma officially renounced and never revived. I would applaud that, and support her wholeheartedly. But there is also this:

Like her famous father and other influential clerics in Indonesia, Ms. Wahid is trying to hold the line against this trend. Their task, as she sees it, is to remind Indonesians of the true teachings of Islam and its sacred texts. "One thing for sure is that [radicals] have a very distorted view of what religion should be," she says. "Killing people meaning glory? It's lunacy. We do discuss these things, we hold conferences, for instance on the word 'jihad' and how it's been used and abused throughout history. The prophet Muhammad said the greatest jihad is against yourself, how to make yourself a better person. It's not . . . running to kill people."

When I read this sort of thing, crab that I am, I get the sneaking suspicion that this is framed more for Western non-Muslims than for Muslims. For when she says, "the prophet Muhammad said the greatest jihad is against yourself, how to make yourself a better person," she is referring to a tradition that does not appear in the collections of hadith considered most reliable by Muslims, and she takes no account of the polemics by Hasan Al-Banna, Abdullah Azzam and others that make exactly that point, and are influential among Muslims. Muslims in Indonesia who have been recruited into jihadist groups have very likely been taught that. Does Yenny Wahid think that blandly restating what they believe to be a weak hadith will disabuse them of the jihad ideology that is based on a strong foundation of Qur'an and Sunnah? Or is she just trying to reassure jittery Westerners that they have nothing to fear from Islam?

Whichever, it would be better just to tell the truth. She can fool people who don't know Qur'an and Sunnah into thinking they don't teach warfare against and the subjugation of unbelievers, but she can't fool Muslims who might be attracted to jihad groups. And those are the ones she really needs to convince.

I have written things like this many, many times before, and I have often been told that it is positively Luciferian of me to do so, for we need to support Muslims who teach peace and tolerance. The obvious answer I always give is that of course we need to support Muslims who teach peace and tolerance, but I don't think it is asking too much of them if I ask for a little honesty. If you are trying to create an Islam of peace and tolerance, I am all for you. But don't try to pull the wool over my eyes and tell me that Islam teaches peace and tolerance. I have read Qur'an innumerable times. I have read Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dawud, Ibn Majah, Muwatta Malik, and others. I have read the tafasir of Ibn Kathir, Tafsir al-Jalalayn, and the modern tafasir of Qutb and Maududi. I have studied the fiqh on jihad of all four major Sunni madhahib. I know what the teachings of the Islamic schools of thought are on jihad warfare. I didn't create this material myself. I obtained it from Islamic sources, Islamic publications. I have detailed some of this evidence in Onward Muslim Soldiers and my other books. So when I hear that the real Islam teaches peace, I have trouble believing that the one who is saying it is being fully honest, or is fully informed about the situation. I would be happy to support a reformer who acknowledges that the teachings on warfare exist, and rejects them. But someone who tells me they don't exist at all -- well, that just makes me suspicious.

Someone said to me after I wrote the piece about Andurrahman Wahid, linked above, that we had to support such people because the prospects for the future become just too bleak if we say the problem is within Islam itself. Here again, it's really very simple: if you won't admit it's broken, you'll never be able to fix it. Unfortunately, however, comforting fantasies are the rule not only at the Wall Street Journal, but in much of official Washington.

I am catching an early stagecoach back to Secure Undisclosed Locationville soon. Heavier blogging will resume upon my return.

Astounding short-sightedness alert. From AP:

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration said Friday it won't reconsider its approval for a United Arab Emirates company to take over significant operations at six U.S. ports. The former head of the Sept. 11 commission said the deal "never should have happened."

Opponents, including the agency that runs New York and New Jersey ports, took their case to court, while the company, Dubai Ports World, stepped up efforts to change the minds of congressional critics.

The president's national security adviser said the White House would keep trying to persuade lawmakers — there's more time since the company offered to delay its takeover — but the administration wouldn't reconsider its approval.

A small step in the direction of common sense, following up on this story. From The Register, with thanks to Richard:

Yahoo! has reversed its decision to stop people registering Yahoo! IDs which include the letters "allah".

The Reg was contacted yesterday by a reader - Ed Callahan - who was having trouble registering his mum - Linda Callahan - for a Verizon email address - provided through a Yahoo! portal.

But Yahoo! got in touch with us this morning to say it is now accepting Yahoo! identities which contain the letters "allah". The Callahans will be overjoyed.

Tiny Minority of Extremists and Cartoon Rage Updates. "Cartoon protesters defy rally ban," from AP, with thanks to Nicolei:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Thousands of Muslims defied a ban on rallies Friday in Pakistan's capital, joining protesters across the country in condemning the Prophet Muhammad cartoons printed by some Western newspapers.

The demonstrations after midday prayers also gave angry clerics a platform to criticize President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and his government's close relations with the United States.

"America is the killer of humanity, and we will keep raising our voice against it, and its supporter (Musharraf)," said Maulana Fazal-ur Rahman, a cleric and opposition leader who led the Islamabad protest, which drew 2,000 people.

He said protests would also be held on March 3, a day before the visit of U.S. President George W. Bush to Pakistan.

Thousands of people also rallied in the Pakistani tribal region of South Waziristan near the Afghan border. They burned imported products, and vowed not to sell Western products in future.

An unexpected move. The President should follow it up by releasing them from the deal altogether. From AP:

A United Arab Emirates company has volunteered to postpone its takeover of significant operations at six major U.S. seaports, giving the White House more time to convince skeptical lawmakers the deal poses no increased risks from terrorism.

The surprise concession late Thursday cools the standoff building between the Congress and President Bush over his administration's approval of the deal. Lawmakers praised the temporary hold. But some critics pressed anew for an intensive examination of the deal's risks.

Refreshing anti-dhimmitude. Or at least a first step. From Reuters, with thanks to all who sent this in:

PARIS (Reuters) - After backing calls by Muslims for respect for their religion in the Mohammad cartoons row, the Vatican is now urging Islamic countries to reciprocate by showing more tolerance toward their Christian minorities.

Roman Catholic leaders at first said Muslims were right to be outraged when Western newspapers reprinted Danish caricatures of the Prophet, including one with a bomb in his turban. Most Muslims consider any images of Mohammad to be blasphemous.

After criticizing both the cartoons and the violent protests in Muslim countries that followed, the Vatican this week linked the issue to its long-standing concern that the rights of other faiths are limited, sometimes severely, in Muslim countries.

Vatican prelates have been concerned by recent killings of two Catholic priests in Turkey and Nigeria. Turkish media linked the death there to the cartoons row. At least 146 Christians and Muslims have died in five days of religious riots in Nigeria.

"If we tell our people they have no right to offend, we have to tell the others they have no right to destroy us," Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican's Secretary of State (prime minister), told journalists in Rome.

"We must always stress our demand for reciprocity in political contacts with authorities in Islamic countries and, even more, in cultural contacts," Foreign Minister Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo told the daily Corriere della Sera.

Hamid Hayat update from AP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

SACRAMENTO — The FBI informant who befriended a Lodi man charged with attending an Al Qaeda training camp said Thursday that the defendant took an interest in terrorist groups and spoke admiringly about jihad.

A federal prosecutor asked the informant, Naseem Khan, how defendant Hamid Hayat saw himself in relation to the Taliban, Al Qaeda and other such groups.

"He never, ever considered himself American," said Khan, who was on the witness stand during the fourth day of testimony in Hayat's terrorism trial in U.S. District Court.

During long conversations at Hayat's home, Khan said, Hayat praised Al Qaeda, expressed support for religious governments in Pakistan and Afghanistan and talked about issues surrounding jihad.

Hayat, 23, is charged with three counts of making false statements to the FBI about attending an Al Qaeda camp in Pakistan in 2003 and with providing material support to terrorists. He faces up to 39 years in prison if convicted. His father, 48-year-old Umer Hayat, faces two counts of making false statements to the FBI about whether his son attended the camp. Both have pleaded not guilty.

From CNSNews.com, with thanks to all who sent this in:

(CNSNews.com) - A leading Serbian Orthodox bishop, visiting the U.S. on a mission of "peace and understanding," has warned the international community against granting independence to Kosovo, saying such a move would hand a victory to radical Muslims and their jihadist supporters.

Kosovo's independence from Serbia would also mean "a virtual sentence of extinction" for minority Serbs in the province, according to Dr. Artemije Radosavljevic, the bishop of the Serbian cities of Raska and Prizren.

"Somali Violence Spotlights Fundamentalists," from AP, with thanks to Mackie:

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - A recent upsurge in violence in Somalia's capital has focused attention anew on the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the chaotic Horn of Africa state. The violence had killed at least 22 people and wounded more than 140 since Saturday.

Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, said by the United States to be linked to al-Qaida, is prominent among the fundamentalists increasingly projecting themselves as an alternative to the numerous armed groups running the clan-based fiefdoms that comprise Somalia.

When they convict a man for insulting Christianity or Judaism, I'll acknowledge that they have a case. From Reuters, with thanks to Christopher Zentner:

DUESSELDORF, Germany (Reuters) - A German court on Thursday convicted a businessman of insulting Islam by printing the word "Koran" on toilet paper and offering it to mosques.

The 61-year-old man, identified only as Manfred van H., was given a one-year jail sentence, suspended for five years, and ordered to complete 300 hours of community service, a district court in the western German town of Luedinghausen ruled....

Manfred van H. printed out sheets of toilet paper bearing the word "Koran" shortly after a group of Muslims carried out a series of bomb attacks in London in July 2005. He sent the paper to German television stations, magazines and some 15 mosques.

Prosecutors said that in an accompanying letter Manfred van H. called Islam's holy book a "cookbook for terrorists."

He also offered his toilet paper for sale on the Internet at a price of 4 euros ($4.76) per roll, saying the proceeds would go toward a "memorial to all the victims of Islamic terrorism."

More saber-rattling from Iran. From Iran Focus, with thanks to Mackie:

Tehran, Iran, Feb. 23 – A fanatical group close to Iran’s hard-line rulers called Thursday on the Iraqi people to expel United States and British troops in Iraq following the attack on a holy Shiite Shrine in the Iraqi city of Samarra.

Iran’s Hezbollah issued a statement, announcing, “Undoubtedly this bitter incident reaffirms the continuation of the bad situation in Iraq under occupation. Insecurity in this country is in the end the consequence of the occupation of this country by occupational governments, in particular the world’s two bully governments – America and Britain”.

The group called on the Iraqi government to “create the groundwork as soon as possible for the departure of U.S. and British occupiers”.

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald explores further the limits of free speech, exploding some common misconceptions in the process of replying to a commenter here:

A poster here at Jihad Watch has made the following absurd assertions, which are, unfortunately, widely held:

1. Did publisher Rose [Flemming Rose of Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper in which that handful of anodyne cartoons appeared] have the right to publish those cartoons, as a matter of free speech? Absolutely.

2. Did he act responsibly in doing so, knowing that homicidal maniacs would probably go absolutely nuts if he did, destroying property and probably killing people? In no possible way.

3. Did he act responsibly in deliberately extending the middle finger to Sunni Muslims in general, and not merely to those who attempted to intimidate him? Was his decision to do so any more tolerant than Islam itself? Absolutely not.

My take on the Dubai port fiasco, from FrontPage (news links in the original):

It’s shaping up to be a major political battle: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and House Majority Leader John Boehner have all lined up against President Bush’s plan to turn over operation of six major American ports to a company based in the United Arab Emirates.

The President is threatening to veto any attempt to block the plan. Referring to the fact that the company in question, the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, has been British-owned up to its impending sale to Dubai Ports World, he said Tuesday: “I want those who are questioning it to step up and explain why all of a sudden a Middle Eastern company is held to a different standard than a Great British company. I am trying to conduct foreign policy now by saying to the people of the world, ‘We’ll treat you fairly.’”

This is staggeringly unrealistic, and reflects the dangers of the Administration’s continuing unwillingness or inability to come to grips with the full dimensions of the jihad threat. That Bush feels compelled to say “to the people of the world, ‘We’ll treat you fairly’” betrays a peculiar insecurity where he should display a robust and unapologetic self-confidence. He is trying to demonstrate to a world awash in anti-Americanism that America is not as bad as all that, but in doing so he only lends credence to the anti-American charges (for if there weren’t substance to them, after all, why would he feel the need for the gesture?) and manifests the mistaken belief that “they hate us” because of something we have done, which we can undo with the proper display of good will. In this he again shows complete unawareness of the jihad ideology which remains constant while the pretexts and grievances that fuel it shift. No amount of good will can possibly efface the jihad imperative to subjugate the world under the rule of Islamic law, which is the avowed program of jihadists everywhere.

Stop the Presses! Ahmadinejad blames the Zionists, of all people, for Sunni violence! From AP, with thanks to Teri:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blamed the United States and Israel on Thursday for the blowing up of a Shi'ite shrine's golden dome in Iraq, saying it was the work of "defeated Zionists and occupiers."...

"They invade the shrine and bomb there because they oppose God and justice," Ahmadinejad said, referring to the US-led multinational force in Iraq.

Anti-dhimmitude in Australia. "Go elsewhere for sharia law: Costello," from AAP, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

ANYONE who believes Islamic sharia law can co-exist with Australian law should move to a country where they feel more comfortable, Treasurer Peter Costello said today.

All Australian citizens must adhere to the framework in society which maintains tolerance and protects the rights and liberties of all, he said. It is a pre-condition for citizenship of Australia.
Mr Costello was giving a speech on the meaning of Australian citizenship to the Sydney Institute.

"There is one law we are all expected to abide by," Mr Costello said.

"It is the law enacted by the Parliament under the Australian Constitution.

"If you can't accept that, then you don't accept the fundamentals of what Australia is and what it stands for."

Why do we have to bribe our putative allies to cooperate with investigations? And why any concessions at all? Port Jihad Update from AP:

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration secretly required a company in the United Arab Emirates to cooperate with future U.S. investigations before approving its takeover of operations at six American ports, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. It chose not to impose other, routine restrictions.

As part of the $6.8 billion purchase, state-owned Dubai Ports World agreed to reveal records on demand about "foreign operational direction" of its business at U.S. ports, the documents said. Those records broadly include details about the design, maintenance or operation of ports and equipment.

The administration did not require Dubai Ports to keep copies of business records on U.S. soil, where they would be subject to court orders. It also did not require the company to designate an American citizen to accommodate U.S. government requests. Outside legal experts said such obligations are routinely attached to U.S. approvals of foreign sales in other industries.

The concessions — described previously by the Homeland Security Department as unprecedented among maritime companies — reflect the close relationship between the United States and the United Arab Emirates....

Under the deal, the government asked Dubai Ports to operate American seaports with existing U.S. managers "to the extent possible." It promised to take "all reasonable steps" to assist the Homeland Security Department, and it pledged to continue participating in security programs to stop smuggling and detect illegal shipments of nuclear materials....

Bush faces a potential rebellion from leaders of his own party, as well as a fight from Democrats, over the sale. It puts Dubai Ports in charge of major terminal operations in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia....

In Saudi Arabia, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the agreement was thoroughly vetted. "We have to maintain a principle that it doesn't matter where in the world one of these purchases is coming from," Rice said Wednesday. She described the United Arab Emirates as "a good partner in the war on terrorism."...

Then why does it have to be offered a carrot to cooperate with U.S. investigations?

McClellan said Bush afterward asked the head of every U.S. department involved in approving the sale whether there were security concerns. "Each and every one expressed that they were comfortable with this transaction going forward," he said.

Nevertheless, there are security concerns. There is no avoiding them.

It was perhaps inevitable that it would come to this. Democratic elections will not heal this rift. Now: is it the responsibility of the U.S. government and military to try to heal it? Is it really in the best interests of the West to give the Shi'ites money to rebuild the Golden Mosque when the Shi'ite mullahocracy of Iran is spending its money trying to develop nuclear weapons with which to threaten the West and, ultimately, destroy it? Wouldn't it be a better defense against the global jihad to do nothing about this, compelling the Iranians, if they value the Golden Mosque, to divert time and energy to its rebuilding -- thereby buying us at least a little time to determine how best to disable their nuclear program?

From AP:

SAMARRA, Iraq - Insurgents posing as police destroyed the golden dome of one of Iraq's holiest Shiite shrines Wednesday, setting off an unprecedented spasm of sectarian violence. Angry crowds thronged the streets, militiamen attacked Sunni mosques, and at least 19 people were killed.

With the gleaming dome of the 1,200-year-old Askariya shrine reduced to rubble, some Shiites lashed out at the United States as partly to blame.

The violence — many of the 90 attacks on Sunni mosques were carried out by Shiite militias — seemed to push Iraq closer to all-out civil war than at any point in the three years since the U.S.-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

Many leaders called for calm. "We are facing a major conspiracy that is targeting Iraq's unity," said President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd. "We should all stand hand in hand to prevent the danger of a civil war."

President Bush pledged American help to restore the mosque after the bombing north of Baghdad, which dealt a severe blow to U.S. efforts to keep Iraq from falling deeper into sectarian violence.

"The terrorists in Iraq have again proven that they are enemies of all faiths and of all humanity," Bush said. "The world must stand united against them, and steadfast behind the people of Iraq."

British Prime Minister Tony Blair also condemned the bombing and pledged funds toward the shrine's reconstruction....

Some Shiite political leaders already were angry with the United States because it has urged them to form a government in which nonsectarian figures control the army and police. Khalilzad warned this week — in a statement clearly aimed at Shiite hard-liners — that America would not continue to support institutions run by sectarian groups with links to armed militias.

Of course, it was "ordinary Palestinians" who elected Hamas, but why should our friend and ally be expected to make such fine distinctions? From CNN, with thanks to Shinolite:

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (CNN) -- Saudi Arabia will continue supporting the Palestinian Authority despite the election of a government led by the Islamic militant group Hamas -- because it does not want to punish ordinary Palestinians, the kingdom's foreign minister said Wednesday.

He made the announcement after meeting U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is on a tour of the Middle East. She is trying to persuade Arab nations to increase pressure on Hamas, which refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist.

But Saudi officials told Rice that the kingdom will continue funding the Palestinian Authority and will encourage Hamas to accept the principle of a two-state solution with Israel, said Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal.

A press release from the United American Committee:

The United American Committee announces a protest rally on March 4 against the recent sale of the operations of our nation's ports to a United Arab Emirates-owned company. The protest will be held in New York by the port at West 42nd St. & West Side Hwy (Route 9A) in Manhattan on SATURDAY, March 4, 2006, at 12:00 Noon, with a protest on the West Coast as well on the same day, Saturday, March 4, at 11000 Wilshire in West Los Angeles, also at 12:00 Noon.

“Would we have allowed our ports to be operated by a Japanese Imperial owned or German Nazi owned company during WWII?” remarks United American Committee founder Jesse Petrilla. “We have heard from our politicians, now it's time that we hear from the people of America...We need to send a clear message to our president that Republicans and Democrats alike agree that this deal goes against the best interest of our nation and its people.”

The UAC believes that President Bush should reconsider his vow to veto any legislation that may pass through congress which would block the sale. The UAC stance is that President Bush needs to realize that neither Democrats or his Republican constituents want this sale to occur. The United Arab Emirates is a government which has been far from cooperative in the war on Islamic extremism.

The UAC urges anyone within distance to attend the rally in New York or Los Angeles and for those in middle America to gather their friends and hold their own rallies in their towns. The United American Committee asks that protesters send a united message against the sale of the ports. Rally details are subject to change and all updates will be on the UAC's website at www.UnitedAmericanCommittee.org.

“The people need to stand up and demand that the government address the will of the citizens to stand against our enemies before it's too late...before one of those cargo containers comes through with a nuclear bomb inside.” says Petrilla.

Media contact:
United American Committee
info@unitedamericancommittee.org

In "Stand up for Denmark! Why are we not defending our ally?," Christopher Hitchens calls for a show of support for the embattled Danes at the Danish Embassy in Washington:

Please be outside the Embassy of Denmark, 3200 Whitehaven Street (off Massachusetts Avenue) between noon and 1 p.m. this Friday, Feb. 24.

Read it all.

Convenience store jihad? From KNOE TV8, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

TV 8 News has learned FBI agents and local law enforcement authorities are conducting a raid of service stations and businesses owned by Middle Easterners in Northeast Louisiana. Agents executed search warrants today at 10 businesses in Tallulah, Delhi, Monroe and Ruston. The FBI says the raids are part of "an ongoing criminal investigation." Police sources tell TV 8 News the raids target possible money laundering and counterfeiting in connection with suspected domestic terrorist activity. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is said to be taking part in the investigation.

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald offers a cartoon controversy curriculum:

The cartoon controversy has created a teaching moment in American high schools and universities.

History teachers, civics teachers, government teachers, do the following:

Print out relevant sections from Milton's Areopagitica ("I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue" etc.), the trial of John Peter Zenger, the Virginia Remonstrances, and John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty."

Now print out the First Amendment of the Constitution (1791).

Now print out the French Declaration of the Rights of Man (1792).

Now print out the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Now print out the Muslim answer to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is to say the "Cairo Declaration of Human Rights.”

Xerox enough copies for every member of every class you teach.

Collate, and collect. Staple.

Now distribute to classes.

Now begin the discussion of how Freedom of Speech developed, in opposition to both political and religious censorship.

Now devote all of your attention to helping the students spot the differences between the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Muslim version, the so-called Cairo Declaration of Human Rights.

"Olmert: Hamas Not a Strategic Threat," from AP:

JERUSALEM - Acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Wednesday that Hamas is not a strategic threat to the Jewish state, signaling that he has no plans to take military action against the violent group, which swept Palestinian elections last month.

As Hamas worked to form a new Cabinet, the group struck a deal to receive financing from Iran, a virulent enemy of Israel. Israel threatened to block the money and warned the Palestinians against aligning themselves with an international "pariah."

Hamas, which has killed scores of Israelis in suicide bombings, has rejected international calls to moderate, despite Israel's efforts to isolate the group internationally and Western threats to cut off vital financial aid....

According to participants in the closed meeting, Olmert said the Palestinian Authority will be "contaminated with terror" once a Hamas Cabinet takes power.

However, "Hamas is not a strategic threat," he said.

Israeli Cabinet Minister Meir Sheetrit said the government did not fear Hamas and did not plan extreme measures that could be counterproductive.

"We're not afraid of the Hamas in any way. They do not threaten our existence," he told The Associated Press.

Sunni-Shi'ite Jihad Update from Iraq, via Associated Press:

SAMARRA, Iraq - Assailants wearing uniforms detonated two bombs inside one of Iraq's most revered Shiite shrines Wednesday, blowing the top off its landmark golden dome and spawning mass protests and reprisal attacks against dozens of Sunni mosques. The brazen assault — the third major attack against Shiite targets in as many days — threatened to enflame religious passions as talks among sectarian and ethnic parties on a new government have bogged down.

Voluntary dhimmitude in Minnesota. "The Art of Compromise," from the Pioneer Press, with thanks to all who sent this in:

As violent protests over caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad continue around the world, a St. Paul charter school is quietly negotiating the delicate question of how to teach art to Muslims.

Any depiction of God and his prophets is considered offensive under Islam, and disrespectful representations are even worse, as the recent worldwide outrage over the Danish cartoons has shown. But some Muslims also refrain from producing images of ordinary human beings and animals, citing Islamic teaching.

That presented a challenge for Higher Ground Academy, a K-12 school just west of Central High School on Marshall Avenue that has about 450 students. About 70 percent of them are Muslim immigrants from eastern Africa.

Executive Director Bill Wilson said he had concerns for some time about how to reconcile the school's art curriculum with the views of Muslim families, but the departure of the art teacher at the end of last school year gave him a window to act.

This fall, he hired ArtStart, a St. Paul-based nonprofit organization, to offer more options for about 150 kindergartners through second-graders, including visual arts and drumming. But parents were still upset that their children were drawing figures, Wilson said, and some pulled their children out of art class altogether.

Wilson then sat down with teacher and parent liaison Abdirahman Sheikh Omar Ahmad, who also is the imam at an Islamic center in Minneapolis, to work with ArtStart in determining how to meet state standards without running afoul of Muslim doctrine.

"We said, 'Look, we can do better than this,' " Wilson said.

NO HUMAN IMAGES

Out the window right away went masks, puppets and that classic of elementary school art class, the self-portrait, said Sara Langworthy, an artist with ArtStart. Revamping the curriculum "definitely requires stepping outside of the normal instincts that you fall back on," she said.

In their place came nature scenes and geometric forms and patterns, said Carol Sirrine, ArtStart's executive director. This week, the class was cutting out shapes to make into cardboard pouches. Another project involved taking photographs and mapping the neighborhood around the school.

The conversation about what is appropriate is still open.
In a meeting this week, Langworthy asked Ahmad whether the students can do silhouettes of hands. That's fine, he said.

Ahmad's involvement has put many parents' minds at ease, said Said Jama, father of kindergartner Suhyr Ali Jama. Wilson said Muslim enrollment in art has rebounded since the changes were introduced.

Langworthy said she and fellow teacher Katie Tuma don't police what the students draw, but they do have conversations with students who are drawing figures to make sure it's really OK.

Not that the children are always the most reliable sources.

Langworthy said early on a few told her it was all right to draw animals as long as they didn't give them noses.

Second-grader Hawi Muhammed said her parents don't mind if she draws people once in a while, but "God … doesn't like people to draw a lot," she said.

No, Allah doesn't seem to like art very much.

CAIR board member Mazhar Rishi maintains there is no right to defame religious figures -- in other words, no right to free speech at all, for if any person or group or idea is beyond criticism, then the society is no longer free. Note also the words of Rachel Lawton: "You cross the line when you threaten, intimidate or harass, and that is when free speech is limited." Very well; but the Muhammad cartoons do none of those things. By the standards of political cartooning they are tame. It has been Muslim groups worldwide who have threatened, intimidated, and harassed because of them.

"Panelists weigh in on cartoon controversy: Some express need for broader democracy; others say free speech is necessarily limited," from The Daily Pennsylvanian, with thanks to LGF:

Six local Islamic figures gathered Saturday for a panel to address the recent controversy over the Danish cartoons that negatively depict the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

The Philadelphia chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations sponsored the event, which took place in Houston Hall.

The discussion -- held in a town-hall style and followed by an audience Q & A -- covered a variety of topics, focusing largely on the alleged marginalization of minorities in Western media and culture.

"We need to analyze what democracy means and to recognize and represent not just the majorities but the growing minorities as well," Philadelphia CAIR vice-chairman Sofia Memon said. "In view of this, we need to ask how to broaden our democracy instead of narrow it."

During their introductory speeches, several panelists denounced the cartoons as slanderous while discussing limitations on free speech.

"People have every right to give an opinion on something," Rachel Lawton, executive director of the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations, said. "You cross the line when you threaten, intimidate or harass, and that is when free speech is limited."

CAIR board member Mazhar Rishi agreed.

"The right to free speech is not absolute," Rishi said. "It does not give a right to defame Prophet Muhammad or any other" religious figure.

Bernard K. Freamon, a Muslim and a professor of law at Seton Hall University, advocates that Denmark abandon freedom of speech in order to forestall future strife between Muslims and non-Muslims. From Jurist, with thanks to Mac:

In September, Danish prosecutors, acting on a complaint by Danish Muslim clerics, nonetheless refused to authorize a criminal prosecution of the newspaper editor under section 266b. In my view, this was a patent abuse of their discretion and a blatantly political decision. They ought to revisit it. The issue should be decided by a Danish court. Danish prosecutors certainly must know Denmark is becoming a hotbed of skinheadism and anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant violence. Do they want their newspapers to fan these flames? They should not wait until they have a situation like that in Rwanda before they act.

Dhimmitude in Helsinki, from Helsingen Sanomat, with thanks to Millo:

The Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) has decided to prohibit showing the Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in its entertainment programmes. The ban applies, for example, to popular quizzes such as SF-studio, to the animated political satire Itse valtiaat, and to Uutisvuoto (the Finnish version of "Have I Got News for You").

"There is reason to leave these cartoons and this discussion out of our entertainment programming", says YLE TV1 director of programmes Riitta Pihlajamäki.

The guidelines do not directly forbid discussing the subject, only the showing of the images first published in the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten, reported the Finnish newspaper Keskisuomalainen on Thursday.

No doubt the Palestinians would have dismantled this bomb factory anyway, since everyone knows they want peace, right? Right?

From Haaretz, with thanks to Twostellas:

An IDF force found a large bomb factory in the casbah area of the West Bank city of Nablus early on Tuesday, the third day of a broad IDF operation in the West Bank city and the neighboring Balata refugee camp.

The location of the factory, which held dozens of kilograms of materials used in the production of explosives, was revealed during the questioning of Islamic Jihad and Fatah Al Aqsa Martyrs suspects arrested the day before in Balata, Army Radio reported.

The troops are bracing for rock-throwing and other unrest expected later in the day, the radio said.

"We got there with a relatively large force," said Haruv battalion commander Lt. Col. Arik. We located the 'laboratory,' finding explosives intended for the production of bombs."

Port Jihad Update from Bill Gertz in the Washington Times, :

Several Bush-administration security officials expressed concerns yesterday that terrorists could infiltrate seaports through a United Arab Emirates company that is vying to manage six U.S. ports.

Intelligence and security officials opposed to the deal with Dubai Ports World said ports are vulnerable to the entry of terrorists or illicit weapons because of the large number of containers that enter U.S. territory, regardless of who manages them.

A Persian Gulf state such as the United Arab Emirates could provide an infrastructure for terrorists to penetrate U.S. security as part of a major terrorist operation, the officials said.

A press release from the March for Free Expression:

A Rally in support of Freedom of Expression will be held in Trafalgar Square, London, UK between 2:00pm and 4:00pm on March 25th 2006. A direct response to the Danish Cartoons controversy, this rally aims to send a message to British politicians of all parties demanding resolute action in the face of violence, threats and intolerance. The statement of principle for the campaign is as follows:

"The strength and survival of free society and the advance of human knowledge depend on the free exchange of ideas. All ideas are capable of giving offence, and some of the most powerful ideas in human history, such as those of Galileo and Darwin, have given profound religious offence in their time.

The free exchange of ideas depends on freedom of expression and this includes the right to criticise and mock.

We assert and uphold the right of freedom of expression and call on our elected representatives to do the same.

We abhor the fact that people throughout the world live under mortal threat simply for expressing ideas and we call on our elected representatives to protect them from attack and not to give comfort to the forces of intolerance that besiege them."

So far, individuals and organisations from all parts of the political spectrum and from many parts of the world have offered support and endorsements. Though based in Britain, we offer our support and solidarity to the people of Denmark and every other country that faces religious intolerance today, and ask that people in other countries consider organising their own rallies and marches for March 25th.

Let's march in March to show our governments that we expect our societies to be ones in which free and open debate and disagreement can take place without people being threatened, killed or imprisoned.

Peter Risdon
Patrick Vidaud

marchforfreespeech@googlemail.com

Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer (left) with archconspirator Daniel Pipes at the Pim Fortuyn Memorial Conference in The Hague last week

The Arab European League (thanks to BV) has discovered the culprit behind the Muhammad cartoons:

The mainstream media coverage of the anti-Islamic racist cartoons ignores the fact that the publication of the images was a "calculated offense" commissioned by a Zionist "Danish" colleague of the Zionist neo-con ideologue Daniel Pipes and was meant to incite violence and promote the Zionist "clash of civilizations" between Muslims and Christians.

Bad timing. On the same day the AEL's fanciful report was published, Pipes himself published a refutation of the assertion that he had anything to do with the cartoons at all:

Did you know that I had a hand in the Danish cartoons of Muhammad?

No? Well, neither did I until I found this out in early February on a conspiracist website. To clear the record, I’ll start with the facts, then outline the conspiracy theory.

What actually happened: Flemming Rose, cultural editor of Jyllands-Posten, a Danish newspaper, sent me an e-mail on September 29, 2004, introducing himself and requesting an in-person interview during his U.S. trip. I agreed and Rose came to my Philadelphia office on October 25, when he spent about half an hour asking me questions. His article on me, “Truslen fra islamismen” (or “The Threat of Islamism),” appeared on October 29. It is a standard journalistic piece in which Rose provided some biographical information about me and had me explain my views on radical Islam. (Both the Danish original and an English translation can be found on my website, www.DanielPipes.org.)

After that meeting, I had no further contact with Rose. To be more precise: we have since then not met, talked, or written to each other. I learned only from the press of his decision, nearly a year after our meeting, to commission and publish the cartoons.

The AEL, of course, says nothing of the violent and irrational worldwide Muslim reaction to the cartoons. They seem to take it for granted that such a reaction to the cartoons was justified. Perhaps this entire absurd conspiracy theory about Pipes and Rose is designed to deflect attention away from that reaction.

But will the EU be up to the challenge? "Cartoon Crisis is EU Fight," from AFP, with thanks to JE:

The Danish Prime Minister has said the unrest triggered by cartoons satirising the Prophet Mohammed now pits the entire European Union against the Muslim world.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that the next step in the crisis will by carried out at a European level in coordination with the EU.

"This affair is not just an issue between Denmark and the Muslim world. It has to a much greater degree evolved into an affair between the European Union and the Muslim world," Mr Rasmussen told reporters in Copenhagen....

The chief of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, rejected a fatwa or religious decree issued by an Islamic court in India that condemned the cartoonists to death.

"It is very dangerous, personal fatwas like this harm our cause," Mr Ihsanoglu said.

"This fatwa is a wrong fatwa. Nobody should adhere to it because it goes against the essence of Islam and the prophet's teachings. Nobody has the authority to kill anybody," he said.

In a separate incident a Pakistani cleric on Friday offered a one-million-dollar reward for the deaths of the artists....

AN IMPORTANT NOTE FROM FJORDMAN: "This may be the first time since I started using the pseodonym Fjordman that I have actually given factually wrong information. The commentary was awful, and I believe it was indeed illustrated with an image showing the Security Wall with the inscription "Arbeit macht frei". That's definitely bad enough. But it looks as if it was a photo, not a drawing, whih makes a big difference. I made the inexcusable mistake of not having the newspaper in front of me while I wrote this, and my memory was wrong. My apologies to Robert Spencer and Jihad Watch for this, as well as the innocent VG cartoonist Roar Hagen.

Please DO NOT send any emails complaining about the non-existent cartoon."

I have accordingly removed the email addresses. I apologize for this also.

A message from Fjordman, whom I had the pleasure of meeting while in Holland last week for the Pim Fortuyn Memorial Conference:

Norway's largest newspaper, VG, which has a higher circulation than Denmark's Jyllands-Posten, yesterday printed a cartoon on page two comparing Israel's policies to the Holocaust. In a page two commentary, journalist Svein Røhne compared Israel's decision to withhold money from the now Hamas-controlled Palestinian Authority to "the actions of a certain master race." A cartoonist illustrated the piece with a cartoon showing the Security Wall with the inscription: "Arbeit macht frei," the same as on the Auschwitz extermination camp during WW2. This happens at the same as Hamas is cooperating with Iran, whose president recently called for "wiping Israel off the map." A senior representative of the Norwegian Ministry for Foreign Affairs has just visited Tehran for "dialogue." Iranian authorities assured that they would increase security at the Norwegian embassy, which was attacked recently together with the Danish embassy because of the cartoon issue. Rumor has it that some of the guards were drinking coffee with the demonstrators following the attacks.

VG have not printed the Muhammad cartoons because this could "inflame the situation," but are brave enough to print this cartoon. They have also not voiced any opposition to the outrageous new Discrminination Act, which stipulates that Norwegians are guilty of discriminating against Mulim immigrants until proven otherwise , or to the huge spike in rape charges that has followed Muslim immigration to the country.

I'm sick and tired of this cowardice and Eurabian hypocrisy, and urge Norwegian readers not to buy VG or indeed ANY Norwegian newspapers until they have printed the Muhammad cartoons, too. Read news online, through blogs and Jihad Watch, or switch to Danish newspapers. It's time for a boycott of our media.

The good news is that the general populace is growing sick and tired of this appeasement diplayed by our elites. Mr. Carl I. Hagen's right-wing Progress Party, the only significant opposition to all of this and also the most pro-Israeli of the major parties, has surged ahead on opinion polls following the cartoon affair. It could soon be the country's largest party.

The cartoon is not available online; I read it in the print edition yesterday. But it is mentioned by Norway's largest independent blog today:

http://www.document.no/weblogg/#008962

How the master mujahid exploits Western media dhimmitude. From The Australian, with thanks to JE:

OSAMA bin Laden watches Larry King.

It may seem a rather trite observation considering the numbing frothiness of King's CNN talk show compared with the gravity of all that surrounds the world's most hunted terrorist.

But it may reveal much about the role al-Qa'ida's leader sees the Western media playing in his bloody war against the infidel.

In a new book by terrorism expert Peter Bergen, there is a passage in which Hamid Mir, bin Laden's Pakistani biographer, recalls seeing the September 11 mastermind, in his hideaway, glued to CNN.

"When I met him after 9/11, he said: 'I was watching you on the Larry King show a few days ago, and you told Larry King that when Osama bin Laden talks on religion, he is not convincing, but when he talks on politics, he is very much convincing. So today I will convince you on some religious issues'," Mir tells Bergen.

"So I said, 'OK, you watched the Larry King show?'.

"He said, 'Yes, I am fighting a big war, and I have to monitor the activities of my enemy through these TV channels'."

Remember, it was the CNN pictures of the corpses of US troops being brutally dragged through the streets of Mogadishu - and the subsequent retreat ordered by then president Bill Clinton - that gave bin Laden the belief that the US did not have the stomach for war.

And so when bin Laden speaks, like any media-savvy politician with an agenda, it is worth examining what might lie beyond his words.

Read it all.

Not that Abbas did either. There is no surprise here, except to those with their heads terminally planted in the sand. "Hamas Officially Appoints Palestinian PM," from AP, with thanks to JE:

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Ismail Haniyeh of the militant Islamic Hamas received his official appointment as the next Palestinian prime minister, but he refused to respond to a demand from the Palestinian leader to adhere to interim peace deals with Israel.

On Wednesday, Iran offered to help finance a Palestinian Authority run by the Hamas militant group, Iranian state radio reported....

Abbas has said the new government must accept the agreements previous governments made — including interim peace accords with Israel and the internationally backed "road map" plan for a Palestinian state.

Haniyeh was noncommittal. "We will study it, and God willing, we will answer soon to Abu Mazen (Abbas), God willing," he said.

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald explores the madness of the Dubai port deal:

Even if every reviewing committee that examines the Dubai port deal declares that there is "no security threat," there are nevertheless three considerations.

1) The Administration, and the government generally, no longer can be trusted to know what is best. The warnings before the 9/11 attack were clear; Condoleeza Rice's attempt to fudge all of that should not be forgotten. The Administration and the State Department suffer from the same myopia that, 30 years ago, led to an inability among their predecessors to figure out that Saudi Arabia was not our "staunch ally" -- and that an energy policy needed to be forged that would cause the price of oil to go up because we would tax ourselves, and not wait for the Saudis to raise prices. That could have saved, oh, about a trillion dollars (for more on this, google "Posted by Hugh" and "recover oligopolistic rents"). No "security threats" today does not mean that there will be no "security threats" tomorrow.

2) People living in New York and Baltimore will be made distinctly uneasy knowing that their ports are controlled by a company whose owners are Muslims from the United Arab Emirates, a collection of statelets -- Abu Dhabi and Dubai being the best known -- which are full of people who loathe us as Infidels. Some of them are distinctly unpleasant. All kinds of ruling families and the others who rule the economic and political roost in the constituent statelets of the U.A.E., for example, seemed to find nothing morally wrong, were in deed indifferent to, those thousands and thousands of tiny children, often under the age of 4, snatched from their Pakistani or Indian or Somali or Bangladeshi homes, brought to the U.A.E., trained under horrible conditions to be tied on the backs of camels, and during either the training, or in the actual races, were so often maimed or killed on the spot. (When the outside world began to notice, and to protest, and only then, did the U.A.E. begin to substitute robots for those tiny sacrificial slave-jockets). After all, who cared -- they were from Pakistan and Bangladesh and Somalia; they weren't Arabs, they were expendable, and camel races are such fun, after all. That is the level of moral development in the United Arab Emirates.

3) We now witness the spectacle of Bush using, for the first time, his power to veto, in order to protect the United Arab Emirates -- instead of agreeing that Americans are perfectly justified in mistrusting, and wishing to discourage, any Arab control of any sensitive business. We would not dare to sell the running of any airports to, say, an Algerian company, or a Saudi company, or any other Muslim-owned company, would we? Why are the ports different?

It's shaping up to be a major political battle, with Republicans lining up with Democrats against the President. "Bush Says Ports Deal Will Stand," from AP, with thanks to JE:

WASHINGTON - Lawmakers determined to capsize the pending sale of shipping operations at six major U.S. seaports to a state-owned business in the United Arab Emirates said President Bush's surprise veto threat won't deter them.

Bush on Tuesday brushed aside objections by leaders in the Senate and House that the $6.8 billion sale could raise risks of terrorism at American ports. In a forceful defense of his administration's earlier approval of the deal, he pledged to veto any bill Congress might approve to block the agreement.

The sale's harshest critics were not appeased.

"I will fight harder than ever for this legislation, and if it is vetoed I will fight as hard as I can to override it," said Rep. Pete King, R-N.Y., chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. King and Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer of New York said they will introduce emergency legislation to suspend the ports deal.

Another Democrat, Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, urged his colleagues to force Bush to wield his veto, which Bush — in his sixth year in office — has never done. "We should really test the resolve of the president on this one because what we're really doing is securing the safety of our people."

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald examines some of what would be involved in an American land invasion of Iran:

Many seem to think that with troops in Iran and Afghanistan, and with our “ally” Pakistan next door, the Americans "have Iran surrounded." Not at all. A land invasion of Iran would not make sense. Where would the American troops come from? Would they be dropped from planes? Would they be taken from the forces already pinned down by IEDs in Iraq? Would they come from Iraq, where American troops are threatened by any number of possible enemies every time they take a drive in a Humvee? But from where else can they come? How is Iran threatened by the handful of American troops in Pakistan? The 15,000 or so American troops in Afghanistan? And how many thousands of miles are those troops from Iran's nuclear facilities? And how many missiles and planes are available?

In Iran, even those who do not wish the regime well are, by and large, opposed to any tampering with the nuclear project -- nationalist pride trumps common sense. American equipment could not overnight be moved in, and the equipment in Iraq has been dangerously degraded by desert conditions. American forces in Iraq are now training the very Iraqis, especially the Shi'a, who could and would turn on the Americans in a New York minute if they were whipped up by Iran to avenge an attack on fellow Shi'a. Just a half-year ago, Jaafari was in Washington, oozing the most Uriah-Heepish at-your-feet sentiments about a new "Marshall Plan for Iraq" -- "let's call it the Bush Plan" -- that he thought he could squeeze out of the American taxpayers. Yesterday, however, he dared to denounce Zalmay Khalilzad for suggesting that Americans would be disinclined to pour more billions into an Iraqi government that was "sectarian."

How much do you trust Jaafari? Moqtada al-Sadr? The SCIRI Party? You don't trust them at all, do you? National Review's Nobel candidate Sistani is already funnelling money to Iran. And the Sunnis are already enemies, even if we were to suddenly turn our attention to suppressing Shi'a enemies in Iran or Iraq.

A magnificently courageous statement on the jihad violence in Nigeria from Anglican Archbishop Peter Akinola:

Reaction of the President of the Christian Association of Nigeria, The Most Revd Peter Akinola on recent events in Nigeria

1. Having watched with sadness and dismay the recent development in some States in the Northern part of this Country where many Christian Churches and other property have been wantonly destroyed by some Islamic fundamentalists, the Christian Association of Nigeria is compelled to issue the following statements:

a. From all indications, it is very clear now that the sacrifices of the Christians in this country for peaceful co-existence with people of other faiths has been sadly misunderstood to be weakness

b. We have for a long time now watched helplessly the killing, maiming and destruction of Christians and their property by Muslim fanatics and fundamentalists at the slightest or no provocation at all. We are not unaware of the fact that these religious extremists have the full backup and support of some influential Muslims who are yet to appreciate the value of peaceful co-existence.

And why not? Because Islamic law does not teach peaceful co-existence between Muslims and non-Muslims.

c. That an incident in far away Denmark which does not claim to be representing Christianity could elicit such an unfortunate reaction here in Nigeria, leading to the destruction of Christian Churches, is not only embarrassing, but also disturbing and unfortunate.

It is not only embarrassing, disturbing and unfortunate. It is mad.

d. It is no longer a hidden fact that a long standing agenda to make this Nigeria an Islamic nation is being surreptitiously pursued. The willingness of Muslim Youth to descend with violence on the innocent Christians from time to time is from all intents and purposes a design to actualize their dream.

2.
a. It is sad to note that all acts of hostility meted against Christians by Muslims in the past have remained unaddressed with nobody paying compensations or the culprits brought to justice.

b. We do appreciate the fact that at this stage of our national development, peace is absolutely necessary for realizing our dreams and aspirations. It is in view of this that Christians in Nigeria agreed to participate in the forthcoming National Census as sacrifice for the peace and progress of this nation, in spite of our protest over the non-inclusion of Religion and Ethnicity as necessary demographic data.

c. May we at this stage remind our Muslim brothers that they do not have the monopoly of violence in this nation. Nigeria belongs to all of us – Christians, Muslims and members of other faiths. No amount of intimidation can Change this time-honoured arrangement in this nation. C.A.N. may no longer be able to contain our restive youths should this ugly trend continue.

3.
a. We now demand that further destruction of Christian Churches and property in this nation be permanently put to an end.

b. All levels of Government in this country should take adequate steps to protect the lives and property of Christians everywhere in this land as no further destructions will be tolerated or ignored.

c. The Federal Government and those States where Christian Churches have been destroyed are hereby urged to take urgent steps at rebuilding those structures and paying adequate compensation while assuring Christians of adequate protection in this country. These governments should now show in practical terms that Nigeria belongs to all of us by going beyond mere promises of rebuilding destroyed Churches and property as in the past to actual reconstruction, which will help the victims to quickly put this unfortunate incident behind them. A stitch in time saves nine.

Signed
Most Revd. Peter J. Akinola (CON, DD.)
President, Christian Association of Nigeria

Port Jihad Update. Drudge has a siren up with this headline, as yet unconnected to any story: "BUSH ISSUES VETO THREAT; VOWS TO KEEP PORT DEAL."

Has Bush gone mad? The UAE may be the most reliable ally the United States has ever had (and of course it isn't remotely that) and there would still be no way for it to ensure that Dubai Ports World hires no one with jihadist sentiments. The situation in the Islamic world, compounded by the Administration's inability or unwillingness to come to grips with the reality of the jihad ideology, indeed make it quite likely that Dubai Ports World will be sending at least a few mujahedin to work in these American ports, and that they will be able to work there unhindered. After all, no one in Washington is yet even asking the right questions of self-proclaimed moderates about where they really stand on jihad and Sharia issues.

Why would Bush want to be so obstinate on this? Doesn't he realize that it does immense damage to his position as being, for all his faults, at least tougher on Islamic terrorism than his opponents? If this deal goes through, will the United States have the luxury of undoing it before it undoes us?

UPDATE: Drudge has just added this:

Bush called reports at about 2.30 aboard Air Force One to issue a very strong defense of port deal... MORE... He said he would veto any legislation to hold up deal and warned the United States was sending 'mixed signals' by going after a company from the Middle East when nothing was said when a British company was in charge... Lawmakers, he said, must 'step up and explain why a middle eastern company is held to a different standard.' Bush was very forceful when he delivered the statement... 'I don't view it as a political fight,' Bush said.... MORE... MORE...

I'll be happy to step up and explain why a middle eastern company is held to a different standard. It has to do with the prevalence of jihadists and jihad sympathizers in the population, the lack of any mechanism, on the government level or any other, to vet them properly, and the consequent likelihood that they will end up working in the American ports in question.

Is that so unreasonable?

SECOND UPDATE: Drudge has just added a link to this brief Reuters story.

Cartoon rage comes to Metrospy. If you value free speech, show your support by buying one of these shirts, and wearing it as you knock back a Carlsberg and enjoy a little Havarti. A press release (thanks to Sam):

(PRWEB) - (PRWEB) February 21, 2006 -- Conservative t-shirt maker MetroSpy set off a firestorm when their newest design depicted a caricature of the prophet Mohammed with a bomb wrapped in his turban. According to Islamic tradition, graphic depictions of the Prophet Mohammed are forbidden. MetroSpy's apparent disregard for this tradition has outraged many in the Muslim world, prompting some to voice their displeasure by sending the company hate-filled email, online viruses and even death threats.

Johnathan Alexander, MetroSpy's production manager, says he's never seen anything like it. “It's a silly little cartoon. We've sold designs far more offensive than this for years”, referring to a t shirt which reads, “My Jesus can beat up your Allah.”

“For people to become so enraged over a drawing that they resort to burning down buildings and threatening to kill people is something I'll never understand,” Alexander said.

In one email the person writes, “We kill you and burn your shop. I am Muslim with forces in the U.S.A.”

Another email claims to be from the terrorist group Al Qaeda. It reads, “You only have 5 days and your company will disappear. I promise!” The email is signed, Saalem Al Qahtani, Al Qaeda.

One of the more disturbing messages simply says, “In two days we kill your family."

Over the past few days, MetroSpy has begun posting some of the emails on their website (http://www.shopmetrospy.com/).

According to Alexander, “Ever since we started posting the messages along with the sender's return address, the volume of hate mail has slowed down and the tone has changed considerably. In fact, some of the more recent comments could be considered polite.”

In an email which was traced to Saudi Arabia, the writer asks, “Could you guys do a favor? Please eliminate this picture from your goods because it's very embarrassing to our religion. If you do that, it would be a greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot.”

Another says, “I am sending this e-mail and I hope that you understand that what you are doing is offending more than a billion people in the world. I hope that your sales with other stuff be billions but not for this one offending product.”

Altogether, MetroSpy has received more than five hundred hate emails and attempted virus attacks.

Donia Saber of Elk Grove, California is an Islamic activist who writes, “I am deeply offended at the t-shirt company MetroSpy. Selling shirts with a picture of the Prophet is unacceptable and I assure you the Muslim community will not tolerate this.”

Despite protests over their offending design, MetroSpy plans to continue selling the t-shirts. As a precautionary measure however, MetroSpy has increased its security, sought the advice of a private investigative agency and remain in close contact with federal and local authorities.

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald explains what must be done before the United States can deal adequately with the nuclear threat from Iran -- although at this point there may not be time:

As the situation in Iran grows more serious by the minute, American troops in Iraq now stand in the way of the only kind of advantage that can now be pulled from the tarbaby of Iraq. That advantage is the weakening of the global jihad through the exploitation of the sectarian (Sunni-Shi'a) and ethnic (Arab-Kurd) divisions that have existed since virtually the beginning of Islam, but have been exacerbated recently by the Sunni Arab rule of modern Iraq, and particularly the Sunni Arab murderous rule of Saddam Hussein.

Getting out of Iraq now is the very best thing the Administration can do in order to ensure political support for dealing with Iran. It is also the best thing to do so that attention and resources can be turned to another important matter, the islamization of Western Europe through Da'wa and demographic conquest.

It is madness for the American troops to remain in Iraq. There they are now hostage to possible Iranian retaliation for any attack on Iran's nuclear project. That retaliation could come from Iran itself, which shares a long and porous border with Iraq, or it could come from Iranian agents already in Iraq working with local Shi'a such as Moqtada al-Sadr -– who is so obviously malevolent, with his ansar al-mahdi or Mahdi's Army. Or alternatively, the retaliation could come from other Shi'a groups. The Shi’a in general have been perfectly content to watch the Americans inflict casualties on the Sunnis and suffer casualties in return, all the while attempting to extract the last bit of aid, training, and equipment that the long-suffering American military can be persuaded to offer. Those American generals are apparently unwilling or unable to push Bush to drop his messianic notions of Iraq the Model, Iraq the Light Unto the Muslim Nations. They have been relegated by Bush to letting him know only when "the Iraqis are ready for us to leave,” which is to say, when "the Iraqis can stand up so we can stand down." Oh my god.

Since when do foreigners tell us when they are "ready" to have us leave? We could be fighting the Sunnis on behalf of the Shi'a until the cows come home.

More Methodist extremism. "Toledo-Area Men Arrested for Terrorist Activity," from WTOL.com, with thanks to Erick Stakelbeck:

TOLEDO -- A federal grand jury has indicted three Toledo-area men for terrorist activities. Prosecutors say the three conspired to wage a "holy war" against the United States and coalition forces in the Middle East. The indictment was unsealed Monday....

According to the indictment from the US Attorney's office, the suspects are Mohammad Zaki Amawi, Marwan Othman El-Hindi, and Wassim Mazloum. The indictment says all three were living in the Toledo area. Amawi is a citizen of the US and also a citizen of Jordan. El-Hindi is a naturalized American citizen who was born in Jordan. Mazloum is a legal permanent resident of the US, who came here from Lebanon.

Mazloum also operated a car business in Toledo with his brother. The indictment accuses him of offering to use his dealership as a cover for traveling to and from Iraq so that he could learn how to build small explosives using household materials.

The indictment also names an unindicted co-conspiratory called "The Trainer," who has U.S. military backround in security, and bodyguard training.

In count 1 of the indictment, prosecutors say the three met together many times, going back as far as November 2004. The three reportedly conspired to recruit and train others for a violent jihad against United States forces and US allies in Iraq. They also reportedly put together the funding needed for the operation, and collected the equipment needed, and even travelled together to a local indoor shooting range for target practice.

It looks as if Khaled Masha'al's recent meeting with the Thug-In-Chief was most productive from the Iranian standpoint. Maybe Masha'al was just receiving his latest orders from his master. From the Jerusalem Post, with thanks to Yacob:

Details released by the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) on Tuesday revealed that graphics appearing on the Hamas website call for the destruction of Israel in a nuclear holocaust.

On the website, a red Star of David is encased in a black rectangle which is then obliterated in a nuclear explosion.

Arabic words then appear saying "The Az A-Din Al Qassam website exclusively tells the whole story of the most elusive squad [to be uncovered] in the history of the Entity [Israel], in the city of Ramallah." Every few seconds there are repeated images of a nuclear explosion destroying the Star of David.

Only in the fourth paragraph of "Anti-Muslim Riot in Nigeria Turns Deadly," an AP story (thanks to all who sent this in), are we told that these rampaging Christian mobs were responding to deadly attacks on Christians, which they had provoked in no way whatsoever except that they shared the religion that has been mostly cast off by the citizens of the country in which twelve cartoons of Muhammad were printed in a newspaper.

Only in the ninth paragraph of this story are we told that Muslim rioters in Nigeria have burned down 30 churches, and that in all 18 people have been murdered, "most of them Christians," and that "the Christian Association of Nigeria said at least 50 people were killed in the violence."

Note also that "anti-Christian" does not appear in the headline of this AP story reporting on the initial Muslim attacks.

I am not condoning the actions of rampaging mobs of any religion. I am condemning the biased AP coverage that, as it has so many times in the past, portrays unprovoked Muslim attacks against Christians and the Christian reaction to those attacks as "Christian-Muslim violence," as if both sides were equally responsible.

LAGOS, Nigeria - Christian mobs rampaged through a southern Nigerian city Tuesday, burning mosques and killing several people in an outbreak of anti-Muslim violence that followed deadly protests against caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad over the weekend.

Residents and witnesses in the southern, predominantly Christian city of Onitsha said several Muslims with origins in the north were beaten to death by mobs which also burned two mosques there.

"The mosque at the main market has been burnt and I've counted at least six dead bodies on the streets," Izzy Uzor, an Onitsha resident and businessman, told The Associated Press by telephone. "The whole town is in a frenzy and people are running in all directions."

The violence appeared to be in reprisal for anti-Christian violence Saturday in the mostly Muslim northern city of Maiduguri in which thousands of Muslims protesting caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad attacked Christians and burned churches, killing at least 18 people.

Another Onitsha resident, Isotonu Achor, said one badly beaten Muslim man ran into his office from the streets to escape the violence.

"There is blood all over him and I'm scared they'll come for him here. If he doesn't get urgent treatment he will die," Achor said.

Police and government officials were not immediately available for comment.

Nigeria, Africa's most populous country of more than 130 million people, is roughly divided between a predominantly Muslim north and a mainly Christian south. Thousands of people have died in religious violence in Nigeria since 2000.

Saturday's protest over the cartoons of Prophet Muhammad in Maiduguri marked the first violent demonstrations over the issue in Nigeria. Police say at least 18 people, most of them Christians, died, and 30 churches were burned down. The Christian Association of Nigeria said at least 50 people were killed in the violence.

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald offers some considerations for the currently hotly debated question of whether the Israelis and others should continue giving aid to the Palestinians and their new Hamas government:

Many take it as axiomatic that the Israelis "owe" it to the local Arabs to supply them with jobs. But why? Most of these local Arabs, far from being some kind of since-time-immemorial peasantry, in fact arrived between 1920 and 1940. They came mostly from Iraq and Egypt. Others are descended from troops of Mehmet Ali or of Abd el-Kader; they arrived in the 19th century. Still others are Muslims who were transplanted by the Ottoman government from Europe when the Ottomans left Bulgaria in the 1880s.

This whole business of a "Palestinian people" also ignores the demographic data. It is a post-1967 fabrication, but one which has become the central belief of the U.N. That august body has chosen over the past 30 years to devote more than one-quarter of its total time to the so-called "plight of the 'Palestinians." Poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, pollution, the exploitation of women, the enslavement of child workers, the changes in the earth's climate -- all of these subjects have been scanted by those within the U.N. bureaucracy, which is almost entirely now simply part of the Islamintern International. It is time to see that for what it is: a Jihad, using military means, economic boycotts and bribery, propaganda, and diplomatic pressure and maneuvering, to weaken and demoralize the Israelis and to force them to make concession after concession.

This strategy has worked. It has worked largely because the Israelis themselves have been unable to define what threatens them as a Jihad (the Lesser Jihad), because of their unwillingness to give up hope for better relations with some Muslim states. They were fooled by the temporary possibility of alliances with still-secular Turkey and with the Shah's regime in Iran into thinking that the problem was not Islam. But it was, and is -- and the only reasons that, for a while, both Turkey and Iran were not hostile to Israel was that both countries regarded the Arabs as a threat; both were still under secular regimes; and both were tied into the American system of defense.

Well, this explains a great deal. State Department diplomat extraordinaire Karen Hughes has been studying Islam via the notorious Saudi-funded dhimmi "scholar" and Islamic apologist John Esposito and Reza Aslan, the wunderkind who assures us that Muhammad was the ideal Rotarian and the jihad against the West is just a myth.

From "10 Questions For Karen Hughes" in Time magazine:

ARE THERE BOOKS BY SCHOLARS OF ISLAM THAT YOU FIND PARTICULARLY INSIGHTFUL? John Esposito at Georgetown has done a number of books. I've read excerpts of a lot of them. [Reza Aslan's] No God but God, I've read it. Here at the State Department, we've hosted several events, trying to educate our own employees. We've had three scholars and one cleric come and speak about Islamic culture and traditions, and we had a huge turnout.

I shudder to think who the cleric may have been.

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald offers Australian Prime Minister John Howard a few proposals for how he can escape the dhimmitude that seems to grip most Western leaders with vicelike strength:

"He [Howard] said a commitment to jihad and extreme attitudes towards women were two problems unique to Muslims that previous intakes of migrants from Europe did not have, and that Australia wanted people to assimilate and adopt Australian ways." -- from this article

Howard should in subsequent speeches define what a "commitment to Jihad" means. It means that "Islam is to dominate and is not to be dominated." A "commitment to Jihad" means a commitment to spreading Islam until it covers the globe. Attempts by non-Muslims to defend their own way of life, their laws, customs, manners, their free and skeptical inquiry, their art, their science, their right to mock and not to be respectful on demand, are all considered to be inadmissible ways of "blocking the spread of Islam" and hence "aggression" -- and hence can be opposed by violent Jihad.

A "commitment to Jihad" means a commitment to ending the rule of Infidels in Infidel lands and replacing it by the rule of Islam. Infidels may continue to exist here and there, but only as dhimmis -- for that is how, in every single land that Muslims conquered, for 1350 years, non-Muslims were treated, at best. In some places, as in India, they were initially killed by the millions and finally tens of millions, until the goose-that-laid-the-golden-egg consideration came into play, and it was realized that it was better, for the Muslim masters, not to kill off the Hindus but to treat them as much as Christians and Jews under Islam were treated, allowed to live but also forced to pay the Jizyah tax as protection money ("protected" from the Muslims themselves). Though guilty of shirk, outright polytheism, the Hindus could be treated terribly (far worse than any other group under Islam) but could stay alive so as to keep supporting the Muslim state through the Jizyah.

Politicians would find it much easier to promote the benefits of multiculturalism if Muslims would stop advocating and committing and violence in the name of Islam. But of course, everyone is too afraid to hold the Muslim community to account. "Multiculturalism needs better promotion: Democrats," from Australia's ABC News Online, with thanks to Brenda Walker:

The Australian Democrats say politicians need to promote the benefits of multiculturalism to reduce community fears about Muslim extremists.

Senator Andrew Bartlett is a speaker today at a multicultural symposium in Brisbane....

"There's always a risk of adding to community fears about extremism or about particular groups and Muslims are obviously the group where people have the fears at the moment.

Hmmm. Why is that?

"I think we need to recognise that some of those fears are based on an understandable reaction, but also recognise we have had muslims in Australia for over 100 years."

Irrelevant. The community's growth in numbers has been accompanied by a growth in overt jihadist expression. Again: why is that?

Meanwhile, an Islamic leader says Australia's politicians are not doing enough to embrace multiculturalism.

Keysar Trad, from the Islamic Friendship Association, says the Federal Government needs to be more pro-active about multiculturalism.

Keysar, has it ever occurred to you how no one -- except for the real racists on the fringe -- ever complains about Hindus or Buddhists or other groups immigrating to Western countries? Why is it just this one group that raises so much suspicion? Might that have something to do with the behavior of the members of the group?

Some, hearteningly enough, are opposing the plan to hand over operations at six US ports to a UAE company, which we reported here last week. From AP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

WASHINGTON - Two Republican governors are threatening legal action to block an Arab company from taking over operations in major U.S. ports and some GOP lawmakers say the deal should be closely examined.

In the uneasy climate after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration decision to allow the transaction is threatening to develop a major political headache for the White House.

New York Gov. George Pataki and Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich on Monday voiced doubts about the acquisition of a British company that has been running six U.S. ports by Dubai Ports World, a state-owned business in the United Arab Emirates.

Ah yes, but you see, the new Palestinian PM is a "pragmatic former university administrator." So he will no doubt contradict Ahmadinejad and work to bring the PA into the community of civilized nations, right? Right? What's that? He wants to destroy Israel too? What are you, some kind of Islamophobe?

From Iran Focus, with thanks to JE:

Tehran, Iran, Feb. 20 – Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday that the recent victory by the Islamist group Hamas in the Palestinian elections brushed aside the Oslo Peace Accord and the Roadmap to Peace in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and expressed hope that “soon all of Palestine will be liberated”, Iran’s official news agency reported.

Ahmadinejad told senior Hamas leaders visiting Tehran that the Islamist group must not “give in” to Western pressures, including the threatened cut-off of funds to the Palestinian Authority.

“Don’t worry about economic problems, because God’s treasures are endless and if you work for Him, He will meet your needs from where you had not foreseen”, Ahmadinejad told the Hamas delegation led by the group’s political bureau chief Khalid Mash’al.

Ahmadinejad repeated his stance on the need to liberate “all of Palestine” just a few hours after Iran’s foreign minister told reporters in Brussels that the Iranian president had been “misunderstood” when he said Israel should be “wiped off the map”.

"Nobody can remove a country from the map. This is a misunderstanding in Europe of what our president mentioned," Manouchehr Mottaki said. “We do not recognise legally this regime”.

In Tehran, Ahmadinejad struck a different tone.

“In this election, the people of Palestine voted for the liberation of all of Palestine through continuing the resistance”, Ahmadinejad said.

“The vote of the Palestinian people set aside the Oslo agreement, the Roadmap, and all the previous suggestions”, he said.

“The Zionist regime (Israel) was set up when Muslims were asleep. For 60 years, this regime was allowed to move forward to secure Western interests. But today, the wave of Islamic reawakening is eclipsing the Global Arrogance and the occupying regime (Israel) has no security and prosperity in the occupied lands”....

In January, while in Damascus, Ahmadinejad told Mash’al, “If the occupiers stay on even one inch of Palestinian soil, the goal of Palestine will not be realised”.

1938 Alert from Iran Focus, with thanks to JE:

Tehran, Iran, Feb. 20 – Iran said on Monday that Britain was behind a blast that had gone off in the south-western city of Ahwaz on Sunday night which was similar to several recent explosions in the volatile city.

State-run news agencies reported that there were no casualties when the sound bomb went off in Kian Pars district of Ahwaz.

Seyyed Nezzam Mollahoveizeh, the Majlis deputy for Dasht-Abad, told the news agency Fars that the Intelligence Ministry had been able to arrest a number of individuals behind Sunday’s bombing and accused them of having ties to London.

“The mother of all corruption Britain has become an opponent of Iran. Our opponents are supported and empowered in London”, he said....

London has repeatedly denied any involvement in the attacks.

Go back to sleep, everyone. Nothing to be concerned about here. The new PA PM is a "pragmatic former university administrator." Probably he's a gentle cuddly fellow, a lot like his fellow university prof and jihad supporter Sami Al-Arian. I'm sure that when he shouts "Death to America! Death to Israel!" he does it with the sweetest smile on his face.

Pragmatic? Haniyeh said after the Hamas victory that the Palestinians would "complete the liberation of other parts of Palestine." That means the destruction of Israel. Whether he means to accomplish this through the slow attrition of negotiated concessions, or violence, or both, the outcome is the same.

"Abbas Picks Hamas Leader to Form New Govt," from AP, with thanks to JE:

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Hamas presented its choice for Palestinian prime minister — a pragmatic former university administrator — and the Islamic militant group reached out to other factions, including Fatah, to join a broad-based Cabinet that might stand a chance of gaining international approval.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Ismail Haniyeh met for more than two hours late Monday, but the expected official designation of the Hamas leader as prime minister was put off until Tuesday, when the two are to speak again.

Haniyeh's appointment is just a formality, since Hamas won last month's election by a landslide and has an absolute majority in the new parliament.

The noxious article with the title above is here. Waiting for the Guardian's companion piece, entitled "Global Islamic violence, intimidation, and irrationality are feeding the cancer of Islamophobia"? Don't hold your breath. You see, that too is the fault of the democratic nations. In the Western press, as in the Muslim press, the Islamic world bears no responsibility for any of its actions, no matter how destructive or mad -- such as cartoon rage. They are forever passive reactors, perpetual victims lashing out in entirely understandable outrage against Western enormities.

What's that? A jihad ideology of global supremacism, totalitarianism, and subjugation? What are you, some kind of Islamophobe?

In Australia, evidently, the poor dhimmis can't even make the suggestion that there is a Tiny Minority of Extremists That Has Hijacked The Religion of Peace. One must accept, however mountainous the evidence to the contrary, that all Muslims in Australia can readily accept and have readily accepted the Australian way of life. If you bring up the high-profile jihadist converts to Islam from Australia, such as Jihad Thomas and Jack Roche, or the inflammatory statements and terrorist actions of Australian Muslim leaders, you must simply be an "Islamophobe." Roude's statement is particularly curious, since he does acknowledge the existence of such a "minority," which doesn't seem all that different from what Howard said -- yet he still maintains that Howard shouldn't have said it.

"Muslims condemn 'ignorant' Howard," from The Courier-Mail, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

PRIME Minister John Howard's suggestions that some Muslims are extremists who cannot embrace the Australian way of life are offensive and ignorant, the Islamic Council of New South Wales says.

Mr Howard said yesterday he stood by his comments, which were outlined in a book to mark his 10 years in power, claiming sections of Australia's Muslim population were antagonistic to Australian culture.

He said a commitment to jihad and extreme attitudes towards women were two problems unique to Muslims that previous intakes of migrants from Europe did not have, and that Australia wanted people to assimilate and adopt Australian ways.

Islamic Council of NSW spokesman Ali Roude said Mr Howard had a right to his personal view but that he should involve the entire Australian community if he was contemplating a change in Australia's policy of multiculturalism.

"If the PM has a personal preference for assimilation rather than the strategy of multiculturalism, which has been the strong bipartisan position in Australia since the days of the Fraser government, that is his personal right and he is entitled to it," Mr Roude said.

"I myself and our council will disagree with him, but we will take it no further."

Mr Roude said it was no surprise that Mr Howard had pointed to the radical and offensive views of a minority within the Muslim community....

Lebanese Muslims Association spokesman Keysar Trad said Mr Howard was "unfortunately just pandering to the Islamaphobia out there by making these comments".

I'll believe this when I see it, but I'm heartened to see the President actually appearing to take steps toward something I have been advocating for several years, and that should have begun many years ago, as soon as Washington began to receive evidence that the global jihad was being financed by oil money. But of course, it is difficult to find anyone in Washington willing to speak of "jihad," rather than "terrorism," even today. From AP, with thanks to JE:

MILWAUKEE - Saying the nation is on the verge of technological breakthroughs that would "startle" most Americans, President Bush on Monday outlined his energy proposals to help wean the country off foreign oil.

Less than half the crude oil used by refineries is produced in the United States, while 60 percent comes from foreign nations, Bush said during the first stop on a two-day trip to talk about energy.

Some of these foreign suppliers have "unstable" governments that have fundamental differences with America, he said.

"It creates a national security issue and we're held hostage for energy by foreign nations that may not like us," Bush said.

It's the one with a "stable" government that professes to "like us" right well that concerns me the most.

Great idea, Khamenei. After all, why should Infidels bear all the burden? From GulfNews, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

Tehran/Cairo: Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called yesterday on Muslims worldwide to provide money to the Palestinians during his talks with the Islamic radical Hamas movement, state television reported.

"We must make a plan so all Muslims will be able to supply the Palestinians with a yearly financial aid package," Khamenei told Hamas' political leader Khalid Masha'al.

"This voluntary gesture will create a spiritual bond among Muslims and the Palestinian cause and have a great impact on the world," Khamenei said.

He lauded Hamas for not moderating its fierce resistance to Israel after its upset victory in Palestinian elections last month. "The Hamas positions are fundamental and right," he said, praising Palestinians for electing the Islamic party. "The Palestinian people voted knowing it meant choosing resistance and fighting the Zionist regime."...

Masha'al knows what Western governments and media seem determined to deny.

In Cairo, the Muslim Brotherhood said it is launching a worldwide donation campaign for a Hamas-led Palestinian government.

The pledge by the Brotherhood comes as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice started yesterday a Middle East shuttle to caution regional powers against giving money to a Hamas-led government. The United States and Europe, the world's two largest donors to the Palestinians, said they will not provide funding directly to the Palestinian National Authority if Hamas heads the government....

Also yesterday foreign ministers from several Arab countries were to meet in Algiers to examine a plan to send about $50 million a month to PNA. A final decision is not expected until Arab summit next month in Khartoum.

But plenty of Westerners are still ready with the jizya:

Sweden's state-run aid group yesterday pledged more than five million euros in additional aid to the Palestinian territories.

I commend the courage of the Shams editors, but anyone could have foreseen this outcome. From GulfNews, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

Riyadh: A Saudi newspaper was shut down on Monday following the printing of some of the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) as part of a campaign for more action against Denmark, where the drawings first appeared.

The tabloid Shams (Sun) aimed at a youth audience in the Kingdom had printed the cartoons three weeks ago alongside an interview with Saudi cleric Salman Al Awdah who sought to widen a boycott of Denmark and other countries where the offending cartoons were printed.

This applies even if your name contains "Allah" within it, as in "Callahan."

"What's your name?"

"Harry Callahan."

"What??? Callahan???? You have insulted Islam!!! You must die!!!!!"

"Feel lucky, punk?"

"Yahoo!Mail bans Allah and Dirty Harry handles," from The Register, with thanks to Richard:

Yahoo! is banning the use of allah in email names - even if the letters are included within another name.

This was uncovered by Reg reader Ed Callahan whose mother Linda Callahan was trying to sign up for a Verizon email address. She could not get it to accept her surname.

Enquiries to Verizon revealed that a partnership with Yahoo! was to blame. Yahoo! will not accept any identies which include the letters "allah".

Nor will Yahoo! accept yahoo, osama or binladen. But it will accept god, messiah, jesus, jehova, buddah, satan and both priest and pedophile.

That's from Cameron Cardow in, of all places, the Ottawa Citizen (thanks to Laurent).

Speaking of the destruction of the Western artistic heritage, it is also useful to consider that little or nothing of what fills galleries and museums in the West would even have been produced in the first place if earlier jihads had succeeded in subjugating Europe.

"UN faults Israel for halt in funds to Palestinians," from Reuters, with thanks to Report:

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The U.N. envoy to the Middle East raised objections on Monday to Israel's decision to withhold tax funds from the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority after a Hamas-led parliament was sworn in.

Special Envoy Alvaro de Soto called the decision unhelpful and premature. Israel has long regarded the U.N. as a minor player in the Middle East peace process compared to the United States, which gave a low-key response to Israel's move.

"These are monies that belong to the Palestinians and should not be withheld," de Soto told Reuters one day after Israel's cabinet announced a permanent halt to the monthly transfer of about $50 million in tax revenues Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinians.

Israel's government made the decision after Washington, the Jewish state's biggest ally, asked the Palestinian Authority to return $50 million of its own aid to ensure it does not reach Hamas. The Islamic group is sworn to Israel's destruction.

But de Soto said Israel's decision to withhold the money ran counter to the position taken last month by the so-called Quartet of major peace mediators — the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia.

Bishop Fisichella really seems to understand the dimensions of this problem -- far better than most: "Not only is the destiny of Christian minorities living in the Muslim world at stake, but everyone's freedom..."

"Vatican: Leading Bishop Condemns Silence Over Anti-Christian Violence," from AKI, with thanks to Twostellas:

Rome, 20 Feb. (AKI) - A leading Italian bishop has slammed as "unacceptable" the silence of states and international organisations over the fate of Christian minorities in Muslim states in an interview published on Monday. Auxiliary bishop Rino Fisichella of Rome told Italy's best-selling daily Corriere della Sera that, "not only is the destiny of Christian minorities living in the Muslim world at stake, but everyone's freedom, the way they can exercise such freedom and the civility of international relations." Fisichella, who is also the dean of the Lateran Pontifical University, added that it was the duty of state governments and international organisation "to implement the principle of reciprocity."...

Commenting the demonstrations, Fisichella said that, "these episodes stress how difficult it is for Muslim socities to accept the principle of religious freedom which is for us a acquired right."

"It's hard to understand why these societies fear freedom and are afraid of Christians who preach fraternity and forgiveness," added the bishop.

In a reference to the murder on 5 February of an Italian priest, Andrea Santoro, in Turkey, allegedly killed by a Muslim radical, Fisichella also noted that, "it is impossible to put on the same level a cartoon and the murder of a priest."

Note the affirmations that this ruling is in accord with Islamic law and is binding on Muslims. Now would be a good time for the Muslim groups that have condemned cartoon violence to condemn this fatwa also. "Court issues fatwa on cartoonists," from AFP, with thanks to Twostellas:

AN Islamic court in India has issued a fatwa, or religious decree, condemning to death the 12 artists who drew the controversial images of the prophet Mohammed.

The decree was issued on behalf of the Idar-e-Sharia Darul Kaza Islamic court in northern Uttar Pradesh state by its religious head in the state capital, Lucknow.

"Death is the only penalty for the cartoonists who had drawn sacrilegious cartoons of the prophet," Maulana Mufti Abul Irfan, the religious head of the court, said overnight.

The court's ruling is binding on Muslims, but can be challenged under Indian law.

Mr Irfan said it was clearly written in the Muslim holy book, the Koran, that anyone who insulted the prophet deserved to be punished.

He said the fatwa was applicable wherever Muslims live.

Jaffaryab Zilany, a member of the authoritative national body of Muslim clerics, the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board, said however that although the fatwa was legitimate under Islamic law, it had no legal binding in India.

A newly revealed aspect of the Internet jihad. From the Tampa Tribune, with thanks to Twostellas:

When Stacey Turmel placed an order online with Davida, an English motorcycle accessory company, she was looking for protective gear with style and comfort.

But after plunking down $255 for a two-tone Deluxe Jet helmet, she found herself dragged into the shadowy world of global jihad.

Turmel, a St. Petersburg lawyer, has learned that she was among several Davida customers whose personal and credit information was placed on a public Web site - 3asfh.net. The site, hosted temporarily by a Tampa-based Web-hosting company, has been used to exchange information on hacking by people waging war in the name of Islam.

"It was scary to find out that jihadis had my personal information," Turmel said.

Her loss was modest. After checking records in the spring of 2002, she found several small charges she did not make - none more than $40, but other victims discovered attempts to charge more than $1,000.

Investigators and Internet security experts say much more is at stake.

Computer hackers - from wayward teens to organized crime syndicates to groups associated with al-Qaida - steal hundreds of billions of dollars every year. Hack attacks such as the one against Turmel are a key weapon of global jihad, experts say.

Read it all.

I am writing this from a stagecoach station in the Midwest, waiting for my connecting coach back to Secure Undisclosed Locationville; I've just arrived back in the United States by express transatlantic kayak from the Netherlands, where I have been for the last four days. I had the honor of being one of the speakers at the Pim Fortuyn Memorial Conference in The Hague, which was organized by the Dutch political party Lijst Pim Fortuyn, along with Ibn Warraq, Bat Ye'or, Daniel Pipes, Lars Hedegaard, David Littman, Douglas Murray, and others. The topic of my address, which will be published along with the others in a book, was "Do Moderate Muslims Exist?"

It was delightful to be in Holland in the company of so many interesting people, and I believe the Conference was a wonderful success. (I have a few photos and will post them upon return to the Jihad Watch Towers in Secure Undisclosed Locationville.) I arrived in The Hague on a misty and overcast Thursday morning and, as the activities connected to the Conference were not set to begin until that evening, I started off down the street to see what there was to see. As it happened, before too long I ran into Bat Ye'or, Ibn Warraq and David Littman. Ibn Warraq, with a keen eye for the street signs, presently led us to the Mauritshuis, a charming little museum full of works by Rubens, Rembrandt and other masters. The Mauritshaus houses Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring" and "View of Delft," which Ibn Warraq particularly wanted to see -- he noted its mention by Proust, who had called it "the most beautiful picture in the world."

I am not in the habit of telling personal anecdotes at Jihad Watch, but this is one with a point. The experience in the museum -- brief as it was as we had to hurry back for a reception at the American Embassy -- was overwhelming to me personally. For here was a part of our patrimony, our culture, our heritage, that is in imminent peril as Eurabia advances. I couldn't help but notice that while hijabbed women were common on the streets of The Hague -- I'd guess that one out of every 5 or so women I saw in the center of the city was wearing one -- there were absolutely none inside the museum. Of course, for a pious Muslim the works of the masters are so much jahiliyya -- the products of the society of unbelievers -- and hence worthless.

Of course, everyone is free not to go to a museum, but there is more to it than that. The ideological kin of those who blew up the Buddhas of Bamiyan have entered the Netherlands in large numbers. Ibn Warraq's Proust reference may before too long become sadly apposite; remembrance of things past indeed. But did the people moving through the Mauritshuis with Ibn Warraq, Bat Ye'or, David Littman and me realize how much that ideology imperils the paintings they were so coolly admiring, and the museum in which we were admiring them? I do not think they did. That ignorance, of course, was what our Conference was trying to address. There is a great deal more work that must be done on this. And about the Conference itself -- more to come. Watch this space.

From the American Thinker, more on the interconnectedness of jihad and terrorist organizations.

Here’s what the documents tell us:

On February 26th, 1993 the first world trade center was attacked by al-Qaeda and the EIJ[Egyptian Islamic Jihad] (really two organizations that cooperated in 1993 and eventually merged).

A month later an official from EIJ was meeting with Saddam in Baghdad.

We have a document showing Saddam authorizing the IIS to “provide technical support” to the EIJ, and by extension, al-Qaeda.

And then al-Qaeda and the EIJ attacked the U.S. on September 11th, 2001 led by an Egyptian Jihadist, Mohammed Atta.

Now you have proof Saddam provided support to the EIJ and by extension al-Qaeda, both of which attacked us on 9/11.

I am less interested in the questions about Saddam than that we all keep firmly in mind that our enemies are part of a global movement. The documents referenced in this article, as well as these give you a window into this movement, where mujahideen network across Iran, Syria, Palestine, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Europe and elsewhere. The cartoon riots have shown us how skillfully these instigators can find and manipulate fellow travelers among their coreligionists.

From Frontpage Magazine

I was ten years old when my home exploded around me, burying me under the rubble and leaving me to drink my blood to survive, as the perpetrators shouted “Allah Akbar!” My only crime was that I was a Christian living in a Christian town. At 10 years old, I learned the meaning of the word "infidel."

Tolerating evil is a crime. Appeasing murderers doesn't buy protection. It earns one disrespect and loathing in the enemy's eyes. Yet apathy is the weapon by which the West is committing suicide. Political correctness forms the shackles around our ankles, by which Islamists are leading us to our demise.

From the Washington Times:

Joint Chiefs of Staff planners have produced a 27-page briefing on the war on terror that seeks to explain how to win the "long war" and says Islamic extremists may be supported by 12 million Muslims worldwide.

Military planners worry that al Qaeda could win if "traditional allies prefer accommodation."

Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the document states, "is absolutely committed to his cause. His religious ideology successfully attracts recruits. He has sufficient population base from which to protract the conflict. ... Even support of 1 percent of the Muslim population would equate to over 12 million 'enemies.' "

The unclassified production, titled "Fighting the Long War -- Military Strategy for the War on Terrorism," is a component of the Pentagon's ongoing campaign to explain that a lengthy struggle requires patience from the American people and Congress...

"The United States cannot be defeated militarily," the briefing says, "the enemy knows this. But consider ... terror attacks weaken the world economy. Continued casualties weaken national resolve. Traditional allies prefer accommodation."

The enemy has "inherent weaknesses," including "no military capacity to expand their fight beyond terrorist tactics."

"Marginalizing an ideology requires patience and promoting reform from within," the briefing said.

Although it is similar to the Cold War, the war on terror has a distinction.

"We cannot discredit all of Islam as we did with communism," the document says. "It is a divine religion. We can only discredit the violent extremist."

"Americans will commit to a 'long war' if ... they are confident our leaders know what they are doing."

From AP:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistani security forces arrested hundreds of Islamic hard-liners, virtually sealed off the capital and used gunfire and tear gas Sunday to quell protests against caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.

Authorities in eastern Pakistan had banned protests after riots killed five people in two cities last week.

Elsewhere in the Muslim world on Sunday, demonstrators with wooden staves and stones tried unsuccessfully to storm the U.S. Embassy in Indonesia, while tens of thousands rallied in the Turkish city of Istanbul and complained about negative Western perceptions of Islam.

Troops patrolled the deserted streets of the northern Nigerian town of Maiduguri, where thousands of Muslims attacked Christians and burned churches Saturday, killing at least 15 people during a protest over the cartoons. Most of the victims were beaten to death by rioters.

In Saudi Arabia, newspapers ran full-page apologies by Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that first ran the caricatures in September. The newspaper's Web site said businesses placed the ad on their own initiative, using an apology issued by the newspaper late last month. It did not identify the companies or say if they were Danish...

From the Australian:

ISLAMIC leaders are disturbed Prime Minister John Howard has singled out the Muslim community as extremist and unwilling to becoming part of mainstream Australia.

Mr Howard believes some Muslims migrating to Australia are bringing problems such as jihadist views and conservative attitudes to women not encountered with other immigrant groups.

The Prime Minister's views, contained in a book to be published later this month, have drawn fire from Islamic leaders, who say every community has its bad elements.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has stressed it is a tiny minority of the Islamic community that is a concern.

"(Those) who have shown sympathy for, or enthusiasm for, the jihadism movement and obviously ... they have been a preoccupation and a concern for us," he said.

Mr Howard today stood by his comments, first made in December and before the Cronulla riot.

"There is a small section of the Islamic population in Australia that, because of its remarks about jihad, remarks which indicate an extremist view, that is a problem," he said.

"It is not a problem that we have ever faced with other immigrant communities who become easily absorbed by Australia's mainstream."

Mr Howard said the community at large wanted newcomers to adopt Australian ways.

"We don't ask them to forget the countries of their birth, we respect all religious points of views ... but there are certainly things that are not part of the Australian mainstream," he said.

The Prime Minister also expressed concern about Muslim attitudes to women.

"There is within some sections of the Islamic community an attitude towards women which is out of line with mainstream Australian society," he said...

Lebanese Muslims Association spokesman Keysar Trad said Mr Howard was pandering to the "Islamaphobia" in the community.

"I'm extremely disappointed that the PM would again single out the Muslim community still reeling from the spin out of the Cronulla riots," Mr Trad said.

Well, that works for me, too.
From AP

Osama bin Laden promised never to be captured alive and declared the U.S. had resorted to the same "repressive" tactics used by Saddam Hussein, according to an audiotape purportedly by the al-Qaida leader that was posted Monday on a militant Web site.
The tape appeared to be a complete version of one that was first broadcast Jan. 19 on Al-Jazeera, the pan-Arab satellite channel, in which bin Laden offered the United States a long-term truce but also said his al-Qaida terror network would soon launch a fresh attack on American soil.
"I have sworn to only live free. Even if I find bitter the taste of death, I don't want to die humiliated or deceived," bin Laden said.

Flemming Rose speaks

So, over two weeks we witnessed a half-dozen cases of self-censorship, pitting freedom of speech against the fear of confronting issues about Islam. This was a legitimate news story to cover, and Jyllands-Posten decided to do it by adopting the well-known journalistic principle: Show, don't tell. I wrote to members of the association of Danish cartoonists asking them "to draw Muhammad as you see him." We certainly did not ask them to make fun of the prophet. Twelve out of 25 active members responded.
We have a tradition of satire when dealing with the royal family and other public figures, and that was reflected in the cartoons. The cartoonists treated Islam the same way they treat Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and other religions. And by treating Muslims in Denmark as equals they made a point: We are integrating you into the Danish tradition of satire because you are part of our society, not strangers.

Two stories this weekend estimate the number of dead in cartoon violence at 45. Just stop and think about that for a minute. What an utter waste.

From the UK Independent:

A Muslim pop singer has been forced to hire bodyguards to protect her during a visit to Britain next month after she received a string of death threats from religious extremists.

US-based Deeyah is due in London next month to promote a new single and video, released tomorrow. But the track "What Will It Be?" has already outraged hardline Islamists here as it promotes women's rights.

Her performances with a clutch of male dancers and revealing outfits have also deeply offended many Muslims. In one scene in her latest video, the singer drops a burqa covering her body to reveal a bikini.

That has attracted vitriol from some quarters. The 28-year-old singer claims that in the past she has been spat upon in the street and told that her family would be in danger if she did not tone down her work. The situation is now so bad that Deeyah feels she cannot visit Britain without protection. "I can no longer walk around without specially assigned bodyguards," she told The Independent on Sunday. "I would be lying if I said abuse from religious fanatics didn't upset or scare me."...

Jeff Jacoby, in today's Boston Globe

The Phoenix is Boston's leading ''alternative" newspaper, the kind of brash, pull-no-punches weekly that might have been expected to print without hesitation the Mohammed cartoons that Islamists have been using to incite rage and riots across the Muslim world. Its willingness to push the envelope was memorably demonstrated in 2002, when it broke with most media to publish a grisly photograph of Daniel Pearl's severed head, and supplied a link on its website to the sickening video of the Wall Street Journal reporter's beheading.
But the Phoenix isn't publishing the Mohammed drawings, and in a brutally candid editorial it explained why.
''Our primary reason," the editors confessed, is ''fear of retaliation from . . . bloodthirsty Islamists who seek to impose their will on those who do not believe as they do . . . Simply stated, we are being terrorized, and . . . could not in good conscience place the men and women who work at the Phoenix and its related companies in physical jeopardy. As we feel forced, literally, to bend to maniacal pressure, this may be the darkest moment in our 40-year-publishing history."

From AFP

Hundreds of angry Muslims ransacked two churches in southern Pakistan before setting them on fire after allegations that a Christian had desecrated the Koran, police and officials said.

Cartoon rage continues.
From AP

Hundreds of Muslims protesting caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad tried to storm the U.S. Embassy on Sunday, smashing the windows of a guard post but failing to push through the gates. Several people were injured.

Yet another very funny piece by Mark Steyn in the Chicago Sun Times, with thanks to Yojimbo.

In an otherwise grim week -- at least on unimportant peripheral matters like Iranian nukes -- three things cheered me up. The first was the decision of Iran's bakers to rename Danish pastries "Roses of the Prophet Muhammed pastries.'' Has a ring to it, don't you think? If they're looking for a slogan, how about "Iranian pastry: There's nothing flakier. Except our president."

The second cheery sight was the destruction of a McDonald's in Lahore by the usual excitable young lads from the religion of pieces. Apparently the lively Pakistanis had burned every single Danish target in the city -- one early Victor Borge LP left behind by the last British governor -- and had been obliged to diversify. So they dragged Ronald McDonald out of the joint, torched him in the street and danced around his flaming remains shouting "Death to America! Death to Britain! Death to Tony Blair!"

I'm not sure I even get that. Ronald and Tony seem kind of similar from a distance but even on the all-infidels-look-alike-to-me-especially-when-they're-alight thesis you'd think they weren't that easily confused...

Meanwhile, from Malaysia to Jordan to Scandinavia, it was a bad week for journalists increasingly constrained -- not to mention fired and otherwise humiliated -- in their ability to cover the big story of our time. If I had to pick a single moment to contrast with the hilariously parochial narcissist buffoons of the Washington press, it would be another press conference in another government building, this time in Oslo, called by Norway's minister of labor. Surrounded by cabinet ministers and a phalanx of imams, Velbjorn Selbekk, the editor of an obscure Christian publication called Magazinet, issued an abject public apology for reprinting the Danish Muhammed cartoons. He had initially stood firm in the face of Muslim death threats and the usual lack of support from Europe's political class, but in the end Mr. Selbekk was prevailed upon to recant and the head of Norway's Islamic Council, Mohammed Hamdan, graciously accepted the apology and assured the prostrate editor that he was now under his personal protection. As the American author Bruce Bawer commented, "It was a picture right out of a sharia courtroom."

In Canada, by contrast, the Western Standard (for which I also write) stood firm in its decision to publish the cartoons, and as a result is suffering legal harassment from Muslim lobby groups and has been banned from both Air Canada and two of the country's leading bookstore chains, Indigo-Chapters and McNally Robinson. Paul McNally of the latter defended his action this way: "We feel there is nothing to gain on the side of freedom of expression and much to lose on the side of hurting feelings." Not exactly Voltaire, is it? "I disagree strongly with what you say but I will fight to the death for your right to say it as long as it doesn't hurt anybody's feelings." Maybe it could be Canada's new national motto.

It's easy to be tough about nothing. The press corps that noisily champions "the public's right to know" about a minor hunting accident simultaneously assures the public that they've no need to see these Danish cartoons that have caused riots, arson and death around the world. On CNN, out of "sensitivity" to Islam, they show the cartoons but with the Prophet's face pixilated so that he looks as if Cheney's ventilated him with birdshot and it turned puffy and gangrenous. C'mon, guys, these are interesting times. Anyone can unload the umpteenth round of blanks into the bulletproof Chimpy Hallibushitler, but why not take a shot at something that matters?

Or perhaps it would just be easier to change the term ''free press'' to the ''Roses of the Prophet Muhammed press.''

Here is a typical example of how crimes of this nature, happening all across Europe, are being reported. The fact that Muslims are involved is not revealed until the last sentence in the interview with the family, long after most people have stopped reading. This is from Ynet, with thanks to Hugh.

The French police arrested 13 people on suspicion of kidnapping, torturing and murdering Ilan Halimi, a 23-year-old Parisian Jew.

Halimi was found on Monday tied to a tree, naked and wounded, with burns covering all parts of his body. He died on the way to the hospital.

Police officials said that the abduction and murder were apparently not motivated by anti-Semitism, but added that they have not yet discovered what led the group to commit the acts...

Then, way down at the end of the article:

Despite the police's doubts, Halimi's family believes that the act was motivated by anti-Semitism.

“We think there is anti-Semitism in this affair,” Rafi, Ilan’s brother-in-law, told the European Jewish Press. ”First because the killers tried to kidnap at least two other Jews, and secondly because of what they said on the phone."

”When we said we didn’t have Euro 500,000 to give them, they answered we should go to the synagogue and get it,” Rafi stressed.

“They also recited verses from the Koran. We didn’t know what they were saying but the police told us," he said.

From the TimesOnline:

LAWYERS are prepared to advise potential immigrants how to gain British citizenship by signing up for “gay marriages” even if they are heterosexual.

Undercover reporters were told by six different firms of solicitors how to exploit a loophole in the civil partnership rules to get passports.

Immigrants face less rigorous tests if they seek to gain British citizenship through a civil partnership than through a heterosexual marriage.

Under laws that took effect last December, gay people have the same immigration rights as married people — and may secure a full passport after two years in the country.

However, while marriages have to be consummated to qualify there is no such requirement on couples in a civil partnership. It is thus not illegal for two heterosexual friends to form a civil partnership and then to “divorce” after two years once the foreigner has gained British citizenship.

Last week register offices in London, Essex and Leeds recorded 27 foreigners out of a total of 217 people who had declared their intention to form a civil partnership. Six out of 14 recorded at Bristol involve a foreigner who could be eligible for British citizenship.

Several firms of immigration lawyers advertise their services in gay publications and some solicitors explain on their websites the immigration benefits of civil partnerships...

From the BBC:

Israel's cabinet has approved punitive sanctions on the Palestinian Authority, now led by militant group Hamas.

Israel will withhold an estimated $50m (£28m) in monthly customs revenues due to the PA, and will tighten borders for people and food crossing into Gaza.

Before the cabinet meeting, acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called the Hamas-led PA a "terrorist authority" and ruled out direct talks...

The newly-elected speaker of the Palestinian parliament, Aziz Duaik, said Israel's decision would prove counter-productive.

"This is a faulty decision, and the Israelis must reconsider their decision. It will only increase hatred."...

Veiled threats, blackmail and extortion have proven to be very effective diplomatic tools in the past, whether they were wielded by Arafat, Abbas, or now Hamas in an official capacity. Heavens, we wouldn't want to make an already volatile situation worse, now would we?

Mansoor Ijaz writes in the LA Times, with thanks to Andy McCarthy.

ANOTHER WEEK, another Muslim country burns in rage over months-old Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) in an unflattering light. On Friday it was Libya, and earlier in the week it was my father's homeland, Pakistan, where violent protests were scattered across the nation. Some Muslims have decided that burning cities in defense of a prophet's teachings, which none of them seem willing to practice, is preferable to participating in rational debate about the myths and realities of a religion whose worst enemies are increasingly its own adherents...

The first truth is that most Muslim ideologues are hypocrites. What has Osama bin Laden done for the victims of the 2004 tsunami or the shattered families who lost everything in the Pakistani earthquake last year? He did not build one school, offer one loaf of bread or pay for one vaccination. And yet he, not the devout Muslim doctors from California and Iowa who repair broken limbs and lives in the snowy peaks of Kashmir, speaks the loudest for what Muslims allegedly stand for. He has succeeded in presenting himself as the defender of Islam's poor, and the Western media has taken his jihadist message all the way to the bank.

Not to rain on Mr. Ijaz's parade, but I fail to see why a lack of charity on the part of radical Muslims proves hypocrisy on their part.

The second truth — one that the West needs to come to grips with — is that there is no such human persona as a "moderate Muslim." You either believe in the oneness of God or you don't. You either believe in the teachings of his prophet or you don't. You either learn those teachings and apply them to the circumstances of life in the country you have chosen to live in, or you shouldn't live there.

Excuse me, Mr. Ijaz, but belief if the "oneness of God" is so vague as to be incomprehensible, but belief in the teachings of Muhammad is definitely a clear cut issue of contention.

Haters of Islam use the simplicity and elegance of its black-and-white rigor for devious political advantage by classifying the Koran's religious edicts as the cult-like behavior of fanatics. The West would win a lot of hearts and minds if it only showed Islam as it really is — telling the story, for example, that the prophet Muhammad was one of the great commodity traders of all time because he based his dealings on uniquely Muslim values, or that the reason he had multiple wives was not for the sake of sex but to give proper homes to the children of women made widows during a time of war. The cartoon imbroglio offered Western media an opportunity to portray the prophet in his many dignified dimensions, not just the distorted ones; sadly, there were few takers.

Few takers? The entire western world has eagerly taken that apologetic line along with the hook and sinker at the highest levels of government.

But to look at angry Islam's reaction on television each night forces the question of what might be possible if all the lost energy of thousands of rioting Muslims went into the villages of Aceh to rebuild lost homes or into Kashmir to construct schools.

In fact, the most glaring truth is that Islam's mobsters fear the West has it right: that we have perfected the very system Islam's holy scriptures urged them to learn and practice. And having failed in their mission to lead their masses, they seek any excuse to demonize those of us in the West and to try to bring us down. They know they are losing the ideological struggle for hearts and minds, for life in all its different dimensions, and so they prepare themselves, and us, for Armageddon by starting fires everywhere in a display of Islamic unity intended to galvanize the masses they cannot feed, clothe, educate or house.

This is not Islam. And the faster its truest believers stand up and demonstrate its values and principles by actions, not words, the sooner a great religion will return to its rightful role as guide for nearly a quarter of humanity.

Well then, will the "real" Islam please stand up? We've been waiting a long time. Unfortunately, Mr. Ijaz seems to be a man between worlds; his loyalty subject to the claims of both. Eventually, I believe, he will be forced to choose; and it is that very choice he seeks to avoid by writing these kinds of pieces. However, is he not working to advance Islam by seeking to reassure the western world that he "knows" the "true" Islam and how all those Qur'an quoting clerics have it all wrong?

From the Telegraph:

Four out of 10 British Muslims want sharia law introduced into parts of the country, a survey reveals today.

The ICM opinion poll also indicates that a fifth have sympathy with the "feelings and motives" of the suicide bombers who attacked London last July 7, killing 52 people, although 99 per cent thought the bombers were wrong to carry out the atrocity.

Overall, the findings depict a Muslim community becoming more radical and feeling more alienated from mainstream society, even though 91 per cent still say they feel loyal to Britain...

Last night, Sadiq Khan, the Labour MP involved with the official task force set up after the July attacks, said the findings were "alarming". He added: "Vast numbers of Muslims feel disengaged and alienated from mainstream British society." Sir Iqbal Sacranie, the secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: "This poll confirms the widespread opposition among British Muslims to the so-called war on terror."...

Forty per cent of the British Muslims surveyed said they backed introducing sharia in parts of Britain, while 41 per cent opposed it. Twenty per cent felt sympathy with the July 7 bombers' motives, and 75 per cent did not. One per cent felt the attacks were "right"...

Sign held at a cartoon rage rally Wednesday in Pakistan.

More on this story from AP, with thanks to Mackie:

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- An Iranian group that claims its members are dedicated to becoming suicide bombers warned the United States and Britain on Saturday that they will strike coalition military bases in Iraq if Tehran's nuclear facilities are attacked.

Mohammad Ali Samadi, spokesman for Esteshadion, or Martyrdom Seekers, boasted of having hundreds of potential bombers in his talk at a seminar on suicide-bombings tactics at Tehran's Khajeh Nasir University.

"With more than 1,000 trained martyrdom-seekers, we are ready to attack the American and British sensitive points if they attack Iran's nuclear facilities," Samadi said.

"If they strike, we have a lot of volunteers. Their (U.S. and British) sensitive places are quiet close to Iranian borders," Samadi said.

Patrick Sookhdeo has some sobering words in the Telegraph (thanks to Sr. Soph):

For the past two weeks, Patrick Sookhdeo has been canvassing the opinions of Muslim clerics in Britain on the row over the cartoons featuring images of Mohammed that were first published in Denmark and then reprinted in several other European countries.

"They think they have won the debate," he says with a sigh. "They believe that the British Government has capitulated to them, because it feared the consequences if it did not.

"The cartoons, you see, have not been published in this country, and the Government has been very critical of those countries in which they were published. To many of the Islamic clerics, that's a clear victory.

"It's confirmation of what they believe to be a familiar pattern: if spokesmen for British Muslims threaten what they call 'adverse consequences' - violence to the rest of us - then the British Government will cave in. I think it is a very dangerous precedent."

Dr Sookhdeo adds that he believes that "in a decade, you will see parts of English cities which are controlled by Muslim clerics and which follow, not the common law, but aspects of Muslim sharia law.

"It is already starting to happen - and unless the Government changes the way it treats the so-called leaders of the Islamic community, it will continue."

Read it all.

All right, you shirkers. Enough about your cholesterol. Why aren't you having a bit of havarti on a cracker, or a nice warm roll with Lurpak butter?
Buy some today. If nothing else, you can donate it to the local homeless shelter.
From AP

Consumer boycotts of Danish goods in Muslim countries in protest of the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad are costing Denmark's companies millions, and have raised fears of irreparable damage to trade ties.
From Havarti cheese to Lego toys, Danish products have been yanked off the shelves of stores in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other countries around the Middle East as Muslims await an apology for the cartoons, which the Copenhagen government has said it cannot give. The boycotts have also spawned counter-boycott campaigns to "Buy Danish."

From AP

Nigerian Muslims protesting caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad attacked Christians and burned churches on Saturday in violence that left at least 15 people dead, police and a resident said.
Troops and police reinforcements have been deployed to restore order in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, where 15 Christian churches were burned, said Nigerian police spokesman Haz Iwendi.

Help Wanted: Must be skilled in firing light arms and have knowledge in using explosives. Must have sufficient religious knowledge to enable him carry-out his duties.

Via Austin Bay a treasure trove of reading at West Point. Check out the bylaws from which I extracted the above snippet. Find out what an al Qaeda operative makes, his vacation and medical benefits.

Alas, our love affair was short-lived. From our newly inaugurated "both sides missing the point" department and the Sydney Morning Herald:

THE United States lags dangerously behind al-Qaeda and other enemies in getting out information in the digital media age and must update its old-fashioned methods, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday.

Modernisation is crucial to winning the hearts and minds of Muslims worldwide who are bombarded with negative images of the West, Mr Rumsfeld told the Council on Foreign Relations.

The Pentagon chief said today's weapons of war included email, Blackberries, instant messaging, digital cameras and web logs, or blogs.

"Our enemies have skilfully adapted to fighting wars in today's media age, but . . . our country has not adapted," Mr Rumsfeld said. "For the most part, the US Government still functions as a five and dime store in an eBay world," Mr Rumsfeld said, comparing old-fashioned US retail stores and the online auction house.

Mr Rumsfeld said military public affairs officers must learn to anticipate news and respond faster, and good public affairs officers should be rewarded with promotions.

The military's information offices still operate mostly eight hours a day, five or six days a week while the challenges they face occur 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Mr Rumsfeld called that a "dangerous deficiency".

Democrat Senator Ted Kennedy immediately criticised Mr Rumsfeld as missing the point.

"Clearly, we need to improve our public diplomacy and information age communication in the Muslim world," Senator Kennedy said in a statement. "But nothing has done more to encourage increased al-Qaeda recruitment and made America less safe than the war in Iraq and the incompetent way it's been managed.

"Our greatest failure is our policy."...

No, Mr. Kennedy, so far our greatest failure is the non-comprehension of jihad warfare at the top levels of our government and among our policy making elite.

Lawrence Solomon writes in the Canadian National Post, with thanks to Stranger.

The Muslims refused to assimilate. They were expelled. This was the story in Europe 400 years ago. We are watching the sequel today.

Europeans are rarely welcoming to outsiders, even when the outsiders are blond and blue-eyed and come from the country next door. When the outsiders are un-European, swarthy and Muslim, they are tolerated at best. When some Muslims also insist that Europeans stop acting like Europeans, on pain of death, European tolerance comes to an end.

In the clash of cultures between secular Europeans and extremist Muslims, there can ultimately be no compatibility or compromise, only loss by one side or the other of the absolute values it holds dear. European capitulation on European soil, where they remain the dominant majority, is unlikely: Europeans revel in their liberty to mock religion, to poke fun at sacred cows, to be outrageous, even to offend...

Many Europeans fear their Muslim populations. In Switzerland, 25% consider Muslims a threat to their country. In Italy, half the population believes a "clash of civilizations" between Islam and the West is underway and that Islam is "a religion more fanatical than any other."

The fear debilitates but it also stiffens resolve. The President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, backs the Danish government's refusal to apologize for the cartoons, saying, "It's better to publish too much than not to have freedom." France's Sarkozy prefers "an excess of cartooning to an excess of censorship." Italy's Northern League Party, a member of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's coalition government, printed T-shirts sporting the cartoons in advance of elections in April. The U.K. this week passed legislation broadening the right of free speech, no matter how offensive, barring a specific intent to provoke hatred.

Europe's Muslims now know that they are expected to integrate or to depart. Four centuries ago, after decades of threats of expulsion, forced conversions and other failed attempts to assimilate Muslims, complaints about them -- their use of Arabic, their clothes, their rejection of Western culture -- were similar. "They marry among themselves and do not mix with Old Christians," complained one report of Spain's Moriscos (Muslims who had undergone forced conversions to Christianity). Riots by Muslims at offences perpetrated upon them added to tensions. In the end, still not assimilated, most were expelled.

From the Australian:

RUSSIA plunged deeper into the maelstrom of Middle Eastern politics yesterday, saying it might sell arms to the Palestinians after talks with Hamas in Moscow early next month.

The announcement by Russia's Chief of General Staff, Yuri Baluyevsky, will outrage Israel.

The move came as Israel prepared to impose sanctions on the Palestinians when Hamas forms a government today. Sources predicted Hamas leader Ismail Haniya, 43, would be appointed Palestinian prime minister at the inaugural session of parliament...

Behind the rhetoric, many Western and even some Israeli officials back the initiative.

"The strategy is to play an independent role in building a bridge between Hamas and the West," said Vitaly Naumkin, head of the Centre of Strategic and Political Studies.

"I'm sure the West and the Israelis are happy with what Russia is doing."...

The Palestinian Authority wants to buy two Mi-17 transport helicopters and 50 armoured personnel carriers, news agency Interfax has reported.

Western officials are sceptical Hamas will comply with the request to recognise Israel. But they admit Russia still offers the best hope for a breakthrough.

Hope for a breakthrough? I'm afraid, the old diplo-speak of the past does not apply no matter how much we might "hope."

From Brussels Journal:

Last Saturday’s riots in Antwerp, when Moroccan “youths” went on the rampage in Antwerp’s historical center, destroying cars and beating up reporters, has led to frustration among police officers because the authorities prevented them from stopping the violence. Officers complained in today’s papers that they had been given orders to watch passively while young, rowdy Muslims were allowed to take revenge over... drawings published more than four months ago in a Danish newspaper.

“We had to watch how they were ripping off car mirrors. We wanted to stop this vandalism but were ordered to withdraw,” an anonymous policeman says in today’s Flemish daily De Standaard. “An ambulance was told to switch off its siren because that might provoke the Moroccans.” Another anonymous officer told the press: “There you are watching this, while citizens can see that you are powerless.” According to an anonymous police chief the authorities decided, that “it was better to have a few cars vandalized than risk open war in the streets.” On Monday the city council, led by the Socialist mayor Patrick Janssens, decided that the city would compensate the damage to cars and property...

In Paris, France’s leading left-wing paper Le Monde criticised the EU’s failure to act in response to the series of attacks on European embassies in the Middle East. In today’s leading editorial it writes that Europe (the paper mentions Mr Solana) is not adequately defending freedom of speech. Europe “seems crippled, intimidated” by the reaction to the cartoons in the Middle East and the paper argues that this “can only encourage regimes like Syria and Iran to continue to manipulate this affair for political ends.” Le Monde also criticizes French President Jacques Chirac who condemned the “offensive character” of the cartoons but not the attack on the French embassy in Teheran...

From Frontpage Magazine more textbook interference recounted by Kalavai Venkat:

Muslim organizations have not only used California schools and textbooks to proselytize for Allah, but they now seek to portray other religions through an Islamic prism, claim the modern Jews do not have an historical connection to the nation of Israel, and reintroduce the charge of deicide to American textbooks.

"In describing the beliefs, the authors’ insistence on leaving the word Allah un-translated in some instances creates the impression that Allah is the distinct god of the Arabs, rather than the One God worshipped by Jews, Christians, Muslims and others."

"The Hebrew name for God is never pronounced by Jews, as it is considered too holy. God is represented by the Hebrew letters YHWH. As indicated, the references to 'Yahweh' should be changed to 'God,' just as the Arabic word 'Allah' should be introduced and then all subsequent references should be to 'God'."

"It is important to avoid treating the name “Israel” as the normative designation for territory whose boundaries and claimants have shifted throughout human history."

"The suggested passive construction 'Jesus was arrested' occludes the particular historical actors in the situation."

"Berlusconi Demands Minister's Resignation After Libyan Protests" from Bloomberg:

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi asked Reforms Minister Roberto Calderoli to resign late yesterday after a mob attacked an Italian consulate in Libya angered about the T-shirt worn by the minister on Feb. 14 depicting a Danish cartoon of the prophet Muhammad.

About 1,000 protesters staged two attacks on the consulate building in Benghazi, Libya, yesterday, the Italian foreign ministry said. While fire was set to the front of the building, the Libyan police stopped the protesters from harming the six Italian staff, according to the ministry. Eleven protesters were killed by police, Corriere della Sera newspaper reported.

``I respect all faiths and support dialogue between religions and civilizations,'' Berlusconi said in a statement published on the government's Web site early today. ``Senator Calderoli's position isn't that of the government and it's evidently incompatible with an institutional role, so he's invited to resign.''...

Calderoli, a member of the anti-immigration Northern League party, earlier this week had T-shirts made with the Danish cartoons stamped on them. Calderoli said the shirts weren't meant to provoke Muslims, but instead to invite ``real dialogue.''

``It's time to stop making up stories about looking for dialogue with these people,'' Calderoli said on Feb. 14. ``They only want to humiliate people, full stop.'' Calderoli said it was ``hypocritical'' to distinguish between ``terrorist Islam and pacifist Islam.''

Calderoli refused to resign last night, the minister said in an interview published today in la Repubblica newspaper that was confirmed by his spokeswoman, who asked not to be named.

``I may even be sorry for the victims, but what happened in Libya has nothing to do with my T-shirt,'' Calderoli said in la Repubblica. ``That's not what's at stake. What's at stake is Western civilization.''...

Update: Italian Minister Wearing Cartoon T-shirt Resigns

At the New York cartoon rage rally yesterday, a call for the suppression of free speech:

Death threats to, notably, Flemming Rose of Jyllands Posten, the newspaper that originally published the cartoons, and the great ex-Muslim Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali -- at the New York cartoon rage demonstration yesterday:

At the New York cartoon rally yesterday, a sign we have seen before:

Note again the black flag of jihad flying over the White House.

Apparently the Iranians believe that they are already in a position to assert their power in Iraq. From AP, with thanks to Mackie:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Iran's foreign minister demanded the immediate withdrawal of British forces from Basra on Friday, saying their presence had destabilized Iraq's second-largest city.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair rejected the demand and accused Iran of trying to divert attention from other issues, presumably its nuclear program. A Basra city spokesman said the departure of foreign troops "is not in Iraq's interest now" because of the security situation.

"We believe that the presence of British forces in Basra has destabilized security in this city and has had some negative effects in the form of threats against southern Iran recently," Foreign Minister Manushehr Mottaki said during a visit to Beirut, Lebanon.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran demands an immediate withdrawal of British forces from Basra," he added. Basra, where most of Britain's more than 8,000 troops in Iraq are based, is located about 20 miles west of the Iranian border.

Jyllands-Posten still seems to be one of the last bastions of clear thinking. From IslamOnline, with thanks to PRCS:

COPENHAGEN/WASHINGTON, February 16, 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The editor-in-chief of the Danish daily embroiled in the cartoons row claimed on Wednesday, February 15, that the press was giving Muslims a special treatment, as his cultural editor defended the decision to commission the lampooning drawings of Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him).

"It turned out that the freedom of the press crumbled much more quickly than I thought," Jyllands-Posten Editor-in-Chief Carsten Juste told the Danish Christian daily Kristelig Dagbladet, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"It seems to me that the freedom of the press the world over is being limited as Muslims are being given special treatment," he argued.

Yes, indeed.

This is a group that up until a few years ago celebrated on its website its murders of civilians on buses and in restaurants as jihad victories. Was that website designed by the Israelis? From AP, with thanks to Mackie:

ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) -- The exiled political leader of Hamas said Friday the world has the wrong image of the Islamic militant group and he urged the international community to stop viewing it through the eyes of Israel.

"We believe that most of the leaders in Europe, in the West, have ... a wrong image about Hamas, because this image doesn't reflect us. It reflects how some people, especially Israel, see Hamas," Khaled Mashaal told The Associated Press, surrounded by bodyguards on a commercial flight from Ankara to Istanbul.

"We want the world, and especially the countries in the West, to understand us, to understand Hamas well, to understand the will of the Palestinian people, the national goals of Hamas and the Palestinian people."

Yes, they're lovable fellows. Just ignore all those murders and keep the money flowing.

More cartoon madness from AP, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

TRIPOLI, Libya - Libyans angry over caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad rioted at the Italian consulate on Friday, storming the building and setting it on fire. A diplomat said at least 10 people were killed in clashes with police.

It was the deadliest demonstration yet against the cartoons, which have set off violent protests throughout the Muslim world. At least 29 people have been killed altogether.

"Group spokeswoman Tyseer Aboulnasr praised Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay for emphasizing responsible expression while condemning the violent reaction to the cartoons in other countries." In other words: good dhimmi! You have voluntarily come out against freedom of speech! Violence wasn't even necessary.

Also, why are the groups involved not named in this article? "Muslims praise Harper, MacKay," from CP, with thanks to Lost Budgie:

OTTAWA — A coalition of Muslim groups is congratulating Canadian leaders for their non-violent response to cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

The group says the Canadian response was unique in that it struck a balance between freedom of expression and protecting people from hate and racism.

Group spokeswoman Tyseer Aboulnasr praised Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay for emphasizing responsible expression while condemning the violent reaction to the cartoons in other countries.

Cartoon Madness Update from AFP, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

KARACHI (AFP) - Denmark temporarily shut its embassy in Islamabad and Pakistan recalled its envoy from Copenhagen, amid relentless protests over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. An Islamic cleric added fuel to the fire by offering a one-million-dollar reward for killing the artists of the 12 cartoons, first published in Denmark in September 2005 and widely reprinted across Europe.

Thousands of protestors took to the streets for a fifth straight day in Pakistan and clashed with police, who shot and wounded a boy.

Nearly 300 were arrested and a firebrand Islamic leader was put under house arrest in a bid to dampen unrest that has left five Pakistanis dead this week.

Bill Clinton shows an increasing hostility to the freedom of speech. From the Daily Times of Pakistan, with thanks to Olivia:

ISLAMABAD: Former US president Bill Clinton on Friday condemned the publication of Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) caricatures by European newspapers and urged countries concerned to convict the publishers.

Talking to reporters after meeting Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz in Islamabad, Clinton said he disagreed with the caricatures and that the publication was against religious and ethical norms. Clinton said he had no objection to peaceful demonstrations being held worldwide, but this was not the time for violence. He said it was the time to promote inter-faith harmony and stand together on the issue.

He said the people’s religious convictions should be respected at all costs and the media should be disallowed to play with the religious sentiments of other faiths. He said the media could criticise any issue including governments and people, but nobody had the right to play with the sentiments of other faiths.

Clinton said people in the US had also condemned the publication and were deeply concerned over it. He said they respected Islam, as it was the fastest growing religion in the US.

This follows the rewards offered by a Pakistani cleric. Which cartoonist is not specified, perhaps because Haji Yaqoob Qureishi is under the impression that the same person drew them all, or perhaps because only one offends him. "Rs 51-crore reward for Danish cartoonist’s head, says UP Minister," from Indian Express, with thanks to K.:

LUCKNOW, MEERUT, FEBRUARY 17: The Minister for Minority Welfare and Haj in the Mulayam Singh Yadav government, Haji Yaqoob Qureishi, has announced a cash reward of Rs 51 crore for anyone who beheads the Danish cartoonist who caricatured Prophet Mohammad.

While the state government has defended the Minister’s remark as the “voice of someone whose religious sentiments have been hurt,” a senior member of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board has slammed it calling the reward “anti-Islamic and anti-humanity.”

Well, I am glad someone seems to be keeping his head while others are calling for the cartoonists to lose theirs.

Outrageous Cartoon Whining Alert. Publishing twelve cartoons of Muhammad in the newspaper is equivalent to murdering 3,000 unsuspecting office workers as they went about their business on a sunny September morning. From zaman.com, with thanks to Romy:

The publication of cartoons ridiculing the Prophet Mohammed has had the effect of the September 11 attacks on the Islamic world, argued Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Conference.

Muslims are offended by the cartoons, Mr. Ihsanoglu told High Representative of the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union (EU) Javier Solana; currently on tour in the Middle East.

They are? Really??? I hadn't noticed. Actually, sarcasm aside, they aren't. If they really were, they would have been protesting just as violently in Egypt when the cartoons were printed there in October as they have been elsewhere more recently. If they really were, they would be calling for the executions of the Danish Muslims who added into a dossier circulated in the Muslim world three cartoons much more inflammatory than the 12 that were actually printed in the Danish newspaper. No, cartoon rage isn't really about offensive cartoons at all. It is an attempt to cow Western nations into adopting Islamic blasphemy laws, forbidding non-Muslims to insult the Prophet -- and making them take the first large step toward accepting other Sharia provisions, just as the jihadists are also fighting in their way to compel them to do.

"It is unfortunate that the Islamic world took the satirical drawings as a different version of the September 11 attacks against them," said Mr. Ihsanoglu. "I hope," he added, "the EU will adopt a new ruling to fight against Islamophobia."

In a sane world, Ihsanoglu would have said, "It is unfortunate that the Islamic world took the satirical drawings as a different version of the September 11 attacks against them. I hope the Islamic world will take a calmer, more rational, and less violent and manipulative path in the future." Instead, he just uses this irrational rage as a springboard to bring Islamic blasphemy laws West under the guise of "Islamophobia."

Solana, on the issue, assured Ihsanoglu of his determination to prevent the situation from escalating.

Why is this always the West's responsibility?

Solana said he asked senior EU officials to show respect to Muslims today, the same as they had done in the past.

"We never had the intention of harming. Please feel assured that we will do our best to preclude the cartoon crisis from re-occurring, because we need each other," said Solana, who will first meet King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia in the capital Riyadh, and later visit Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, and Israel as part of his Middle East tour.

We promise we'll never do it again. We're so so sorry we offended you. Just please, please don't hurt us.

Stirred up, evidently, by fiery khutaba in the mosques on Friday, Muslims go on a cartoon rampage in India. "Muslims go on rampage against controversial cartoon," from Newindpress.com, with thanks to Twostellas:

HYDERABAD: The controversial cartoon in a Danish newspaper had its echo in the Old City of Hyderabad with thousands of Muslims going on rampage after the prayers in Mecca Masjid in the afternoon.

Over a dozen persons were injured even as unruly mobs indulged in stone pelting and looting of shops in at least six police station limits of the Old City. As the day passed, protests spread to other parts of the city and the tension heightened with BJP activists taking out rallies condemning the violence and demanding action against the guilty.

The All India Majlis Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) called a meeting inside Mecca Masjid this afternoon to protest the Danish cartoons. MIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi, MLAs Akbaruddin Owaisi and others participated in the meeting.

After the prayers, a strong mob of about 10,000 came out of the mosque even as hundreds of police personnel including Rapid Action Force commandoes stood guard.

Taking the police by surprise, the agitators split into small groups and moved in different directions pelting stones at shops, RTC buses and vehicles. By the time the police reacted, it was a bit late and the mobs looted some shops and set ablaze a couple of vehicles.

They also burnt Denmark national flag raising slogans. Some of the miscreants even used acid bulbs indicating that the attacks were pre-planned.

Islamic Tolerance Alert from YnetNews, with thanks to PRCS:

Indian female tennis player Sania Mirza, 19, who is ranked 39th in the world, announced that she would not play with Israeli up and coming tennis star Shahar Pe’er in the doubles tournament of the Bangalore Open for fear of violent protests by India’s Islamic community.

The two friends were prevented from cooperating in last month’s Australian Open for the same reason.

Mirza initially agreed to play with Pe’er in Bangalore, but later retracted, telling Pe’er “It’s best that we don’t play together this
time to prevent protests against my cooperation with an Israeli. There is no reason to arouse their ire (Muslims).”

Yes, there is. If their ire is unjust and bullying, decent people have every reason to arouse it, and to do everything they can to combat that injustice and bullying. But nowadays, virtually the whole world seems willing instead just to play along, give them what they want, to buy a little spurious peace.

It's too bad they can't get the whole $1.5 billion back, but this is a good sign. It's also too bad that they didn't ask for this $50 million back right after it was given, when sermons carried on the official Palestinian media called for terror attacks against American soldiers. Still, better late than never. From Reuters, with thanks to Poboy:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has asked the Palestinian Authority to return $50 million in U.S. aid because Washington does not want a Hamas-led government to have the funds, the State Department said on Friday.

The money was demanded as part of a full review of all U.S. aid for the Palestinians that began soon after the militant group Hamas' surprise victory in elections last month. A Hamas-led parliament was set to be sworn in on Saturday but it could take several weeks for a Cabinet to be formed.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the caretaker government of President Mahmoud Abbas agreed to return the money, given last year for infrastructure projects after Israel's withdrawal from Gaza and parts of the West Bank.

"In the interests of seeing that these funds not potentially make their way into the coffers of a future Palestinian government (made up of Hamas) ... we have asked for it to be returned and the Palestinian Authority has agreed," McCormack told reporters.

A Palestinian official confirmed Washington had asked for $50 million in aid to be returned. "The Palestinian Authority promised to comply," the official said.

Over the past decade, the United States has given about $1.5 billion in aid to the Palestinians, mostly through aid groups.

Cartoon Rage Update: Egyptian Sandmonkey has the news that the Egyptian Ambassador to Denmark has been replaced and sent to South Africa. Sandmonkey comments:

I guess her job as ambassador got really hard after it was found out that the offending cartoons were printed in Egypt back in October. But that's just my guess. :)

That would be my guess, too. The hypocrisy of Egyptian cartoon outrage must have been difficult for her to sustain.

The Canadian Coalition for Democracies is sponsoring this email drive for people to voice support for Denmark:

Denmark is, at this moment, the proverbial "canary in the mine" of the Islamofascist war on Western democracy. We must not let history repeat itself. If Britain had heeded Churchill's warnings and stood firm against Hitler, World War II may not have occurred. The Danes have shown again, as they did in World War II, that they have the moral courage to stand up for what they believe. Please join us in a demonstration of solidarity and sign the postcard attached which will be sent to the Danish Government on your behalf.

(click on "email drive" above)

There's that word, "moderate" again. A terrorist elected by popular acclaim must perforce become a moderate, right? From the Bandar Beacon, also known as the Washington Post.

JERUSALEM -- Hamas leaders say they have agreed to nominate Ismail Haniyeh, a powerful party figure in the Gaza Strip, as prime minister when the Palestinian parliament convenes Saturday for the first time since the radical Islamic movement's electoral victory last month.

Several Hamas officials, including Haniyeh, said Thursday that an official position had not been reached regarding his nomination to lead the next Palestinian Cabinet. But a consensus has emerged around Haniyeh's candidacy since Hamas leaders traveled to Cairo this month to meet with government officials and party members in exile, who encouraged them to choose one of their own as prime minister -- rather than support an independent nominee who might be more appealing to international donors.

Mousa Abu Marzook, the deputy head of the Hamas political bureau, told the Dow Jones News Service on Thursday from the Syrian capital, Damascus, that Haniyeh would be nominated when the new parliament meets Saturday.

Haniyeh emerged from the Hamas student movement at the Islamic University in Gaza City. He survived a 2003 Israeli airstrike but is considered a relative moderate in the movement...

Please read Robert Spencer's excellent “We Have No Peace Process” for background on the Hamas electoral victory.

From AP:

MOSCOW, Russia -- Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Friday that next month's Moscow talks with Hamas leaders were aimed at bringing the militant Palestinian group into the Mideast peace process.

"We are counting on all this to foster progress toward a situation in which Hamas will be a legitimate, integral and useful part of the peace process in the Middle East," Lavrov told reporters...

President Vladimir Putin's invitation to the militant group, made at a news conference in Spain earlier this month, was the latest bid by Moscow to invigorate its role in Mideast peacemaking after years of taking a back seat to the United States. The invitation stunned Israel and other nations.

Hamas's parliamentary victory prompted threats from the United States and European Union to cut off massive aid to the Palestinians unless the group responsible for scores of suicide attacks and designated a terrorist organization by many Western nations recognizes Israel and renounces violence.

But Russia's ambassador to the United Nations, Andrei Denisov, told the Russian daily Izvestia earlier this week that cutting off international aid to the Palestinians would be "counterproductive."

"In history there are many examples of radicals coming to power and adopting a more realistic and constructive stance," Denisov was quoted as saying. "We all hope that Hamas will show sense."...

From Ireland Online:

A Pakistani cleric offered a 1.5 million rupee (€28,000) reward and a car for anyone who kills the cartoonist who drew Prophet Mohammed.

Another Islamist leader was put under house detention, amid fears of more deadly demonstrations today, officials said.

The cleric did not name the cartoonist, and several cartoonists submitted images to the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which first published them.

Russia continues its short-sighted power game. From AP, with thanks to Erick Stakelbeck:

Russia's top military chief on Thursday warned the United States against launching a military strike against Iran and a top diplomat voiced hope that close cooperation with China could help resolve the Tehran nuclear crisis.

With tension mounting over Iran's nuclear programs, Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, the chief of Russia's general staff, warned the United States against attacking Iran.

"A military scenario can't be ruled out," Baluyevsky was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.

He said that while Iran's military potential cannot compare to the United States', "it is hard to predict how the Muslim world will respond to the use of force against Iran."

"This may stir the whole world, and it is crucial to prevent anything like that," Baluyevsky was quoted as saying.

Yes, just allow Ahmadinejad to develop a nuclear bomb. That will certainly bring peace.

Israel National News (thanks to Cherokee Warrior) is reporting that Iran has tested a missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, with a 2,000 kilometer range. I haven't been able to find confirmation elsewhere at this point.

This is the disconfirming report to which I referred yesterday. From the Secular Blasphemy blog, with thanks to Penkill:

I now see that Bruce Bawer has since mailed in an update clarifying some points, but I still think it merits a clear response from a Norwegian.

First, there are no plans, in any political party, to introduce such a law in Norway, the government has explicitly stated nothing whatsoever will happen in parliament in reaction to the Muhammad cartoon row.

Second, Bawer quite correctly puts this in connection with an article in the penal code prohibiting religious discrimination and hate speech, but as Bjørn Stærk and others have pointed out earlier, that is a lot of fuss over very little. I'm not more happy about that law than anyone else is, but that is not because I fear it will be a clampdown on free expression. It is more because it annoys me that our elected representatives insist on making politically correct "laws" that are written to "send a signal", not to actually be enforced by the courts.

Unlike in the US, Norway's Supreme Court doesn't "strike down" laws that are unconstitutional, it just ignores them. Thus we still have a blasphemy law on our books, paragraph 142 in the penal code, that was last used against the writer Arnulf Øverland after he held a strong, anti-Christian speech in 1931. The state lost the case against him spectacularly, and since then, despite some amendments to it, that law has been in deep coma. Norway is, after the current cartoon conflict, closer to finally abandoning it than ever before. The argument made against abandoning it the last time, was that it would send "a wrong signal." There was no intention to ever actually ever use it. Article 100 in our constitution trumps "signals" from the Storting every time.

Read it all.

This would certainly solve everyone's problem. No one wants to deal with a terrorist government? Voila! Hamas is not a terrorist group! Never mind all those murdered civilians. After all, we must play realpolitik...From AP, with thanks to Mackie:

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) -- A senior Hamas official called on the United States Thursday to remove the militant Islamic group from Washington's list of terrorist organizations and to open a dialogue without preconditions.

Moussa Abu Marzook, deputy head of Hamas' political bureau, told The Associated Press the U.S. should deal with Hamas "as it is, and later there could be a dialogue...but there should be no preconditions."

"Hamas is not the only side that wants peace. ...All the Palestinians want peace because they are the only people whose rights have been encroached upon and who have been expelled from their lands," Abu Marzouk said.

Abu Marzouk described as "absolutely unacceptable" Israel's call for Hamas to start an unconditional dialogue with the Jewish state, saying "Hamas...was chosen by the Palestinian people...this is democracy."

Sure, they want peace. The peace that will ensue when the last Israeli has been driven out of the land, subjugated to dhimmi status, or killed.

After these Milano judges have finished twisting in this particular knife, they can go over to the Galleria Luciano Inga-Pin and enjoy the painting of Fallaci beheaded.

From AP, with thanks to Ryan:

ROME - A panel of Italian judges upheld the November acquittals of three North Africans on international terror charges, ruling that recruiting suicide bombers to fight against U.S. soldiers is not terrorism, a lawyer said Thursday.

The verdict by the Milan judges, released Wednesday, echoes an earlier one in the case when a lower court judge ruled the actions of the three men were those of guerrillas, not terrorists.

Government officials condemned the latest ruling. Justice Minister Roberto Castell apologized to the victims of suicide attacks and their relatives, saying “there is in me a great feeling of shame, bitterness and powerlessness.”

You and me both, Robby.

An appalling story from Joel Mowbray in FrontPage (thanks to Mackie):

By the end of the month, Bureau of Prisons employee Joe Mansour faces what could well be a death sentence. His crime? After being ignored by BOP higher-ups, he warned Congress and the public about the spread of radical Islam in the federal prisons—and his employers’ inability to cope with the growing crisis.

During his disability leave—from which he is slated to return on February 27—Mansour has been informed of threats from Muslim inmates at the prison in Lee County, VA that he considers credible, which is why he has filed numerous transfer requests. Unfortunately for Mansour, his employer apparently does not feel the same. Though such requests are routinely granted, BOP has denied or ignored each one.

Mansour was interviewed on camera by NBC News last March, and he discussed his role in translating Arabic communications of inmates, including in terror-related cases. That was not all. Among other things, he was an acknowledged source for this journalist in a front-page Washington Times story last July on BOP’s lack of Arabic translators. Consequently, he says, many Muslim inmates who used to harbor less suspicion of him because he’s Muslim now view him as a traitor, someone who has attacked Islam.

Another Jihad Thomas Update from the Telegraph, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Osama bin Laden ordered a Muslim convert to help prepare a terrorist attack to topple the Australian government, Victoria supreme court was told yesterday.

Joseph Thomas, 32, a taxi driver who changed his name to Jihad, was told to act as a sleeper agent and spy on military installations, said Nicholas Robinson, prosecuting....

Mr Robinson said Thomas told police that he had seen bin Laden "at close quarters" several times and had trained for about three months at al-Qa'eda bases in Afghanistan before the September 11 attacks on America.

He was in Pakistan by July 2002, stayed in al-Qa'eda safe houses and allegedly overheard a plot to shoot down an aircraft carrying the Pakistani president, Pervez Musharraf, with a rocket launcher....

Thomas returned to Australia in June 2004 after being held in Pakistan for six months on suspicion of having terrorist connections. The court was told that bin Attash had given him £2,000 and booked a Qantas airline ticket for him.

Thomas's lawyer, Lex Lasry, said his client might be naive or even stupid but he was not a terrorist.

That's a distinction without a difference if I ever saw one.

If the existing laws were adequate to the problem, why did Abu Hamza preach unhindered for seven years? Obviously any law can go unenforced, as can this one, but clearly at very least a signal needs to be sent that enforcement must become a higher priority, and this new law can only help. Anti-dhimmitude in the Commons, from the New York Times, with thanks to Paul:

LONDON, Feb. 15 — After a series of bruising parliamentary duels, Prime Minister Tony Blair secured victory in the House of Commons on Wednesday in a vote to expand counterterrorism laws by making "glorification" of terrorism a criminal offense.

Legislators voted 315 to 277 in a ballot that pitted Mr. Blair's Labor Party against the Conservative and Liberal Democratic opposition. Seventeen Labor dissidents voted against the measure.

Mr. Blair's critics said the vote, one of three crucial parliamentary tests in as many days, was as much a display of political maneuvering as a strengthening of British laws, which already include prohibitions like those used last week to prosecute Abu Hamza al-Masri, a firebrand Muslim cleric. He was sentenced to seven years in prison for soliciting to murder and promoting racial hatred.

Opponents had said the term "glorification" was legally vague and unnecessary. "The existing law is quite adequate to the problem," said Sir Menzies Campbell, leader of the Liberal Democrats.

But hours before the vote, Mr. Blair insisted in Parliament that "if we take out the word glorification, we are sending a massive counterproductive signal."

Update on the Hamid Hayat case from the San Jose Mercury News:

SACRAMENTO - Vastly different pictures emerged today of a man charged with attending an al-Qaida camp in Pakistan, with government attorneys portraying Hamid Hayat as a trained terrorist intent on attacking Americans while his defense described him as a directionless young man prone to wild storytelling.

Prosecutors said they will show the 23-year-old Lodi man traveled to Pakistan in 2003 and 2004 to train at the camp. They also said he was awaiting information about potential targets after he returned to his family's home in the heart of California's farming region.

"Hamid Hayat talked about jihad before he even left the United States. He talked about acts of violence, he talked about training camps. He received weapons training while he was there," Assistant U.S. Attorney Laura Ferris said in opening statements, referring to the Arabic word for "holy war."

"He admitted he went to a jihadist training camp, not once but twice. ... He returned to the United States to commit jihad, and he was waiting for orders."

Hayat and his father are charged with lying about whether the younger man attended the training camp and have been in custody since their arrests last June...

Nor should he be.
From The Australian

When asked whether he regretted his decision to publish the Mohammed cartoons, in light of the firestorm they unleashed in the Islamic world and threats against him, Flemming said it was like asking a rape victim whether she regretted wearing a short skirt.

1938 Alert from MEMRI:

On February 16, 2006, the reformist Internet daily Rooz (www.roozonline.com) reported for the first time that extremist clerics from Qom had issued what the daily called "a new fatwa," which states that "the shari'a does not forbid the use of nuclear weapons." The following are excerpts from the Rooz report by Shahram Rafizadeh:(1)

"When the Entire World is Armed With Nuclear Weapons, it is Permissible to Use These Weapons as a Counter-[Measure]"

"The spiritual leaders of the ultra-conservatives [in Iran] have accepted the use of nuclear weapons as lawful in the eyes of the shari'a. Mohsen Gharavian, a disciple of [Ayatollah] Mesbah Yazdi [who is Iranian President Ahmadinejad's spiritual mentor], has spoken for the first time of using nuclear weapons as a counter-measure. He stated that 'in terms of the shari'a, it all depends on the goal.'

"The religious leadership of the Islamic Republic [of Iran], which has until now regarded the use of nuclear weapons as opposed to the Shari'a, and has repeated this point again and again, has so far kept silent about this. In spite of the fact that, in the last few weeks, some of the senior [leaders] of the Islamic Republic have tried to reduce the pressure [exerted by] the radical [conservatives], the radicals nevertheless seem to have complete control over the [political] arena.

"[Iranian National Security Council Secretary] Ali Larijani, who is in charge of the nuclear dossier, has spoken to reporters only once since the [IAEA] Board of Governors approved its resolution – and his silence is significant.(2) But yesterday, the IraNews news agency published recent remarks by Mohsen Gharavian regarding the nuclear issue. Gharavian is a lecturer at the religious schools of Qom, and is a disciple of [Ayatollah] Mesbah Yazdi. In his recent remarks, he said for the first time that the use of nuclear weapons may not constitute a problem according to shari'a. He further said that 'when the entire world is armed with nuclear weapons, it is permissible to use these weapons as a counter-[measure]. According to the shari'a, too, only the goal is important...'

Only the goal is important. As I explained in The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades).

Unfazed by the victory of the party that wants to "drink the blood of the Jews," Oxford presses forward with a ghastly display of the academic Left's myopia and taste for totalitarianism, which of course requires the defamation of genuine republics. From the Jerusalem Post, with thanks to Olivia:

Oxford University is this week holding an "Israeli Apartheid week." Hosted by the Palestinian Society, and sanctioned by the university's student union, flyers state it is to commemorate the "30th anniversary of the international convention on the suppression and punishment of the crime of apartheid."

Fliers show a caricature of two Israeli soldiers beating a Palestinian man with maps of Israel, stated as Palestine, and South Africa. The conference's themes are apartheid and Zionism, divestment and resistance.

Ilan Pappe from Haifa University, an advocate of a one-state solution and boycott of Israeli institutions, will speak on "Resisting Apartheid: Divestment and Solidarity" on Friday. Chairing the meeting is Prof. Steven Rose, a major supporter of an academic and cultural boycott of Israel.

Other speakers include Prof. Gabi Piterberg from University of California at Los Angeles, who spoke on Monday night on "Zionism and Apartheid." Piterberg, an Israeli anti-Zionist, added his signature to a petition in 2003 calling for divestment from Israel.

On Wednesday, Karma Nabulsi, a politics fellow at Oxford and former PLO representative, will talk about "Palestinian Resistance." In a recent article, Dr. Nabulsi's accused Britain and Europe of "funding Israel's occupation and expansion."

I'd rather have a plate of freedom fries, but to each his own. From Reuters, with thanks to MS:

TEHRAN, Iran - Not content with pelting European embassies with Molotov cocktails to protest against cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, Iranians have decided to rename the “Danish pastries” relished by this nation of cake lovers.

From now on, the sweet, flaky pastries which dominate the shelves in Iran’s cake shops will be known as “Roses of the Prophet Muhammad,” the official IRNA news agency reported as pressure on Denmark over the cartoons took on a new dimension.

“No one is allowed to make fun of our beloved and respected prophet,” Hassan Nasserzadeh, a cake shop owner in central Tehran, told Reuters.

Mr. Fitzgerald, call your office. As reported in the Jerusalem Post:

The US Congress is moving closer to banning financial aid and restricting ties with a Hamas-led Palestinian Authority. The House of Representatives approved a non-binding resolution on this issue Wednesday, and the process of passing a binding bill against ties with Hamas is gaining momentum.

The administration has not put any pressure to change the Palestine anti-terrorism act of 2006, but according to congressional sources, such pressure is expected, since the bill puts significant limitations on the ability of the executive branch to deal with the PA.

Apart from stopping direct aid to the PA, if it is led by Hamas, the bill, cosponsored by leading Republicans and Democrats, also restricts aid to non-governmental groups in the PA territories and limits ties with Palestinians affiliated with a Hamas government.

The bill does not include a waiver clause which would allow the president to bypass these restrictions in cases he sees as relating to the national interest. President George W. Bush has used existing waivers in the current law to funnel financial aid directly to the Mahmoud Abbas-led PA.

On Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed, by a 418 to 1 majority, the non-binding resolution on Hamas. The resolution, first introduced by Sen. John Thune (R-S. Dak.), gained unanimous support in a Senate vote on February 1. Though this resolution is non-binding, the support it enjoyed in both chambers can serve as an indication to the way members of Congress will vote when the binding bill is brought before them...

Mr. Orwell, call your office: the subtitle of this Zenit story (thanks to Christopher Zentner) is "Defamation Seen as Inconsistent With Freedom of Expression." That is, if your expression is really free, you won't insult us.

BEIRUT, Lebanon, FEB. 15, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Fifty-seven Muslim governments are pressing to include a ban on the mocking of religions in a planned new U.N. human rights body, AsiaNews reported.

The 57 governments previously had announced their intention to have the United Nations ban such mocking of religion, the news agency said.

According to the text of the Muslim countries' proposal, the new U.N. body should strive to "prevent instances of intolerance, discrimination, incitement of hatred and violence arising from any actions against religions, prophets and beliefs, which threaten the enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms."

In a clear reference to the Mohammed cartoons controversy, the proposal states that "defamation of religions and prophets is inconsistent with the right to freedom of expression."

To achieve this goal, Egypt, for example, is trying to persuade the European Union to support the ban. After talks with EU foreign affairs chief Javier Solana in Cairo, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Aboul Gheit said the proposal on banning defamation of religions was discussed.

Al-Azhar Sheikh Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, Sunni Islam's highest religious authority, told Solana that the resolution should include sanctions.

Solana refused to say whether a resolution would be presented to the General Assembly. He did note, however, that a mechanism is under study that would reconcile the principles of a common declaration made by the European Union, the United Nations and the Organization of the Islamic Conference.

From Expatica, with thanks to Sr. Soph.

BRUSSELS — Three Belgian coastal municipalities are moving to ban Muslim women from wearing a burka. The municipalities of De Panne, Koksijde and Nieuwpoort have drawn up a proposal that will be presented to town councils in the near future.

The proposal was drawn up on request from the police and will be part of a general ban on disguises.

The ban comes after several incidents in which residents raised alarm during end-of-school celebrations. Some youths had dressed up as gangsters.

The chief of the West Coast police zone, Johan Geeraert, said local officers had also complained about the Islamic burka.

He said police often encounter women dressed dressed in a burka, especially near tobacco shops in Adinkerke. The wearing of a burka makes it difficult for the women to be inspected.

"We want to give our police officers legal certainty with the new regulation. Everyone must be recognisable," Geeraert said...

The three coastal municipalities are not the first to impose a ban on the burka...

It's heartening to witness good and basic sense among the common people, however, I wonder if these local regulations won't soon come under greater scrutiny and mounting legal challenges as time goes on.

Bruce Bawer,the author of While Europe Slept, writes at his website:

In a 2005 book, Eurabia, a scholar who goes by the nom de plume Bat Ye’or wrote illuminatingly about what she called "dhimmitude" – the relegation of non-Muslims, in the Muslim world, to the subordinate social position of "dhimmis," individuals who have no rights and who are tolerated as long as they behave obsequiously and accept their inferior status. Ye’or warned that many European leaders were assuming an increasingly dhimmi-like posture in relation to radical Muslim leaders both in Europe and beyond, reflexively overlooking the more unpleasant aspects of Muslim culture and the widespread resistance to integration. Ye’or noted that if this dhimmitude persisted, and if present immigration and birth rates held up, Europe would soon fall under the sway of Koranic law – sharia.

To many, this sounded outrageous. But on February 10, in Oslo, came a dramatic capitulation that seemed a classic case of sharia in action. For days, Velbjørn Selbekk, editor of the tiny Christian periodical Magazinet – the first publication to reprint the now-famous Muhammed cartoons from the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten – had firmly resisted pressure by Muslim extremists (who made death threats) and by the Norwegian establishment (which urged him to give in). But then, on that morning – the day before a planned mass demonstration against the cartoons – Norway’s Minister of Labor and Social Inclusion, Bjarne Håkon Hanssen, hastily called a press conference at a major government office building in Oslo.

There, to the astonishment of his supporters, Selbekk issued an abject apology for reprinting the cartoons. At his side, accepting his act of contrition on behalf of 46 Muslim organizations and asking that all threats now be withdrawn, was Mohammed Hamdan, head of Norway’s Islamic Council. In attendance were members of the Norwegian cabinet and the largest assemblage of imams in Norway's history. It was a picture right out of a sharia courtroom: the dhimmi prostrating himself before the Muslim leader, and the leader pardoning him – and, for good measure, declaring Selbekk to be henceforth under his protection, as if it were he, Hamdan, and not the Norwegian police, that held in his hands the security of citizens in Norway...

In recent days, these acts of dhimmitude by Norway and Sweden have had their counterparts in the corridors of international power. On February 9, Franco Frattini, EU Commissioner of Justice, Freedom, and Security, promised to take steps to "regulate" speech (though he later denied this); Kofi Annan, in a February 12 interview on Danish TV, said "You don’t joke about other people’s religion, and you must respect what is holy for other people." Since when do the EU and UN tell supposedly free people what to respect and what not to respect? Since now, apparently.

Many Islamists do not hide the fact that their long-term goal is to turn Europe, step by step, into a Muslim caliphate ruled by sharia law. Alas, it looks at present as if the cartoon controversy may turn out to have been a significant step on the way to that goal. One thing is clear, at any rate: these have been the darkest days for European freedom in many a decade.

Read it all.

Who you gonna believe? Andrew McCarthy has some clear-eyed analysis over at National Review Online:

So here we are again, a dazed planet brushing ourselves off and surveying the wreckage from the worst spree of Islam-inspired rioting, bombing, murder, and mayhem since ... well, since the last one. And the one before that.

The ongoing one is over offensive cartoons published by an obscure Danish newspaper. That's a step down from the one over a tall tale about Koran-flushing in a Guantanamo Bay toilet. Not to mention the one over infidel troops stationed (to protect Muslims) in the Land of the Two Holy Mosques, the one over the Occupation, the one over the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the one over the Crusades, and the one over that time in 680 A.D. when some scion of monkeys and pigs allegedly spied a bare ankle under someone's sister's wind-swept chador.

You get the idea. The cartoon caper, though, has been singular — there hasn't been such an outpouring on the "Arab Street" since that heroic martyrdom operation against the Great Satan a little over four years ago...

Nonetheless, the contemporary vision of "moderate Islam" as a meaningful force for good is a mirage. Certainly there are moderate Muslim individuals. Large pockets of them, there and there, who have assimilated to the modern world and want only to live in ecumenical peace. But many of the people we call "moderates" are flat-out phonies, the bag-men who rise on the shoulders of the leg-breakers.

The authentic moderates, meanwhile, tarry in muted resistance to the domineering strain of their faith. The strain we like to tell ourselves is a mere fringe. The strain that has just managed, yet again, to unleash untold thousands (not handfuls of militants, but transcontinental thousands) to maraud over a trifling affront. The moderates must carry on by pretending, much like the State Department pretends, that the commands of their scriptures — toward brutality, beheading, conquest, death to unbelievers, eternal damnation to apostates, the subjugation of women, the dehumanizing of non-Muslims, and so on — either do not exist or have somehow been superseded (even though the Koran is said to reflect the words of Allah Himself, and even though much in it of a threatening nature actually comes later in time than the passages bespeaking moderation and tolerance).

Meanwhile, as we prepare to spend yet another $120 billion on a novel brand of democracy building — one which establishes Islam as Iraq's state religion and enshrines the inequities of sharia as a source and measure of its fundamental law — our wildly premature birthing of the nascent Palestinian "democracy" has just resulted in the rise to power of Hamas, an entity the U.S. officially designates as a terrorist organization. (To be fair, its competition was Fatah, an entity successive U.S. administrations spent the last dozen or so years deluding themselves was not a terrorist organization. In the event, these legatees of Yasser Arafat were, of course, the "moderates.") This result means that if American citizens did what our government is right now continuing to do — namely, contributing funds we well know Hamas will soon be controlling — they could be indicted under our antiterrorism laws. There are, as we speak, several defendants under such indictments in this country.

All of this intellectual and moral confusion — the disintegration of the Bush Doctrine, the compromising of our conception of democracy, the strange deference to charlatans spewing seventh-century venom, the pressure on our government to violate the very laws it enacted to choke off the funding that underwrites our enemies' butchery — all of it is based on a single conceit: That there is a flourishing moderate Islam. One worth looking beyond all the menacing verses and countless atrocities to find.

Okay, where is it?

Please read it all. This is an excellent piece.

From The Christian Science Monitor

When Afghan parliamentarians went to London earlier this month to participate in a major donor's conference, it was a milestone of sorts, with a presidency and Parliament working side by side to solve the nation's problems. But for Al-Hajj Abdul Jabbar Shalgarai, a conservative legislator, the trip was distinctly un-Islamic. He saw the participation of two Afghan women parliamentarians - who traveled without their husbands - as a breach of the law.

So while President Hamid Karzai and his delegation were securing promises of aid, Mr. Shalgarai told his fellow parliamentarians that they were all obliged to follow the Islamic sharia law, which forbids women - including women parliamentarians - from taking long journeys without being accompanied by a male member of the family.
"This country is the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, and the Constitution says that nothing can be done in Afghanistan that is against sharia law," says Shalgarai, recalling his statements in Parliament. "I don't want to pass a new law into the Constitution; we already have a law, and it is in sharia."

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald pleads for some common sense in our relationship with the new terrorists running the Palestinian Authority:

The Administration failed to predict the Hamas victory in the "Palestinian” election. Will it now compound the error by continuing the jizya? After the results were in, Cheney consoled himself with the misleading explanation that while everyone had been aware of the corruption of the Arafat years, loyally continued by the corrupt wolf-in-accountant's-clothing Abbas, they had not realized the depth of resentment at what Cheney too easily described as a "vote against corruption."

He still does not understand the whole point about "democracy" as mere vote-counting in the Muslim countries. It will always lead to Islam, for there are always far more primitive extreme Believers than there are Makiyas, Chalabis, and Allawis, who themselves may be "Muslims-for-identification-purposes-only" Muslims who wish that they could bottle Islam up. After all, didn't Ataturk do it? But Ataturk was a war hero, who came to power after the loss of the Ottoman Empire, at a time when Turkey had difficulty holding onto Antaolia, and he used the situation, and his own fame, to limit Islam as a political and social force. The westernized Iraqis who spent from 20 to 45 years in exile, must realize that they are in no position to limit Islam, and the blend of careerist calculation and filial or civliizational piety and most importantly, physical fear, that prevents so many non-believing Muslims from openly expressing the need to limit Islam for the sake of Muslims themselves, hobbles even the most intelligent secularists.

Yes, there was corruption in the "Palestinian" territories. And before that, there was corruption in the PLO ranks in Tunis, and before that in Beirut. And there is gigantic corruption in Egypt (what do you think happens to that American aid?), and in Saudi Arabia (how do you think the Saudi share of the $10 trillion received by OPEC states since 1973 have been spent?) and everywhere in the regimes run by despots in the Arab and Muslim world. In them, the entire universe is seen through the prism of Islam. There is Islam and only Islam. The good government party, the party of the disaffected, will always be Islamic. That is the point.

A little Euro anti-dhimmitude, but not too much. From GulfNews, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

The European Union backed Denmark yesterday in the row over cartoons, but leaders of its legislature differed over the limits of free speech.

Political leaders from all groups rallied behind Copenhagen in a special debate in the European Parliament, declaring that an attack on Denmark was an attack on all member states and condemning the resort to violence by some protesters. However, libertarians warned against any attempt to make the media adopt self-censorship.

"I want here today to send my solidarity to the people of Denmark," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said, calling Danes "a people who rightly enjoy the reputation as being amongst the most open and tolerant not just in Europe but in the world"....

European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso yesterday condemned violence against Danish and EU diplomatic missions and urged dialogue to cool tensions.

"The [European] Commission condemns, in the strongest possible terms, the violence perpetrated against our office in Gaza, and against the missions of the member states, in particular those of Denmark," he told EU lawmakers.

Maybe, just maybe, there could still be justice done in the case of the Rumpled Academic. From Baynews9, with thanks to Keithjoy:

Federal Judge James Moody has set a new trial date for former University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian and one of his codefendants.

The trial is scheduled to begin April 8. Al-Arian, 47, and three other men stood trial last year on charges relating to providing financial support to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Two of the men, Sameeh Hammoudeh and Ghassan Zayed Ballut, were acquitted on all of the counts in December. But the jury deadlocked on nine of the charges against Al-Arian and eight of the charges against codefendant Hatem Naji Fariz....

Though a trial date has been set, it's still possible the case may not make it to trial.

Now wait a minute. Dhimmitude at the BBC is certainly nothing new, but now they're afraid to depict Al-Qaeda in a bad light? But...I thought that the Vast Majority of Peaceful and Law-Abiding Muslims detested Al-Qaeda for hijacking their peaceful religion. Isn't this a tacit admission that that isn't true at all?

From the UK Sun tabloid, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

BBC bosses are ready to AXE a £1million episode of hit drama Spooks in which an al-Qaeda terrorist is shot dead — in case it upsets Muslims. Filming the assassination plot for the MI5 drama took four weeks.

But actor Shaun Dingwall who plays a renegade Christian gunman, fears he could become a target for fundamentalists if the scene is aired.

In the episode, due to be shown later this year, a religious nut played by Shaun, 35, guns down the fanatic on the steps of London’s High Court.

But production sources admitted it could be canned. One said: “In the climate of Muslim fury over cartoons, Shaun isn’t sure about it all.”

How many such sleeper agents are there in Western countries? From AAP, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

ACCUSED terrorist Joseph Terrence Thomas was told by an al-Qaeda operative that Osama bin Laden wanted him to act as a sleeper agent in Australia, a Victorian court has heard.

Opening the trial of Thomas in the Victorian Supreme Court today, Crown prosecutor Nicholas Robinson said Thomas told Australian Federal Police he had seen bin Laden in "close quarters" on several occasions.

The 32-year-old Werribee man has pleaded not guilty to one count of intentionally receiving funds from a terrorist organisation between November 2002 and January 2003....

Mr Robinson said Thomas told AFP officers he had trained for about three months at an al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan called Al Farooq around the middle of 2001.

"The accused told police ... that he saw Osama bin Laden in close quarters on a number of occasions," Mr Robinson told the court.
He said that after training at the camp, Thomas went to Pakistan where he stayed in safe houses frequented by al-Qaeda operatives.

Mr Robinson said one al-Qaeda member, Khaled Bin Attash, personally handed him $US3500 ($4745) and organised a plane ticket from Pakistan back to Australia.

When AFP agents asked Thomas why Attash wanted him to go back to Australia he said he was to surveil military installations.

"Osama bin Laden wanted an Australian to work for him and to carry out operations in Australia," Mr Robinson said Thomas told police.

A refreshing bit of anti-dhimmitude from José Manuel Barroso. Of course, he still repeats the tired cant about the vast majority of European Muslims accepting Western values, which has never been definitively established, but at least he is admitting that Europe's values are being challenged. And indeed, they already seem to be giving way. From the New York Times, with thanks to Abigail:

STRASBOURG, France, Feb. 15 — In the face of escalating attacks against foreigners in the Muslim world by violent critics of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, the European Union's chief executive said today that Europe had to fight for its core European values, including freedom of speech.

"We have to stick very much to these values," said José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission. "If not, we are accepting fear in this society."

Referring to his youth during a totalitarian regime in Portugal, Mr. Barroso, a former Portuguese prime minister, said in an interview that Europe had to defend its right to have in place a system that allowed the publication of the cartoons.

"I understand that it offended many people in the Muslim world, but is it better to have a system where some excesses are allowed or be in some countries where they don't even have the right to say this?" Mr. Barroso said. "This reminds me of my own country up to 1974. I defend the democratic system."

He said European society was based on principles that included equality of rights between men and women, freedom of speech and a clear distinction between politics and religion.

Mr. Barroso has faced criticism that he has not done enough to support Denmark, a member of the European Union, after threats and attacks over the cartoons, first published in a Danish newspaper.

But in the interview, he expressed solidarity with the Danish people and said, "What is not right is to put the blame on a single people or say the people of Denmark have to be blamed."

In order to avoid a clash of civilizations in Europe and help integration, Mr. Barroso said, European leaders have to be careful to make a "clear distinction" between nondemocratic Muslims in Europe and those who believe in European values, which "are the vast majority of Muslims," and to reach out to those.

"Islam is part of Europe," he said. "We have a very important Islamic heritage."

Yes, of being invaded, conquered and subjugated. A very important Islamic heritage in Europe.

When even the French start showing some spine, you know the situation must be very grave. 1938 Alert from the BBC, with thanks to T:

France has for the first time explicitly accused Iran of using its nuclear programme as a cover for clandestine military nuclear activity.

Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy told French TV no civilian programme could explain Iran's activity.

Iran says it resumed small-scale uranium enrichment work last week, after the UN nuclear watchdog reported it to the Security Council.

But Tehran insists the programme is solely for peaceful purposes.

They have a few bridges to sell us, too.

I have received reports suggesting that this is not as bad as it looks, but I am on the road right now and do not have access to them. More details asap. If true, of course, it is the abject surrender of Norway and the beginning of its Islamization. "Norway Criminalizes Blasphemy," from IslamOnline, with thanks to LL:

DOHA, February, 15 2006, (IslamOnline.net) – The Norwegian parliament has amended the Penal Code to criminalize blasphemy in the wake of the republication of Danish cartoons that lampooned Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) by a Norwegian magazine, Christian and Muslim leaders in Norway said on Tuesday, February 14.

"Law 150-A, which has been approved by parliament, criminalizes blasphemy and clearly prohibits despising others or lampooning religions in any form of expression, including the use of photographs," Norway's Deputy Archbishop Oliva Howika told reporters after a meeting in Doha with Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, the head of the International Union of Muslim Scholars.

Howika was among a Norwegian delegation that also included the chairman of the Supreme Islamic Council in Norway, Mohamed Hamdan.

"Under the new law, the crime of blasphemy will be punished either by a fine or imprisonment," Howika said, promising Qaradawi to fax him a copy of the law after being published in the country's official gazette.

What oppression he must feel in the Israeli apartheid state, that all he can do in life is run for the Knesset. Stories like these show vividly how hollow are the charges that Israel oppresses its Arab citizens. Strange that a man who is calling for what amounts to the destruction of the Jewish state and reduction of the Jews and Christians there to dhimmi status would be a candidate for the national parliament. Just a lone nut anyway? No: he is a leader of the Islamic Association of Israel. From Israel National News, with thanks to Romy:

(IsraelNN.com) Ibrahim Sarsur, head of the United Arab List, which is running for Knesset jointly with Ahmed Tibi's Ta'al party, said today in a press conference that his party believes in Islamic rule over Israel, in the form of a renewed Caliphate.

"We believe in Islam, we believe in the rule of the Caliphate and we do not support a separation between state and religion," Sarsur said. As such, he stated, the UAL-Ta'al list will fight what he called "Israelization and Zionization" through the Israeli Knesset. Sarsur is also a religious leader and a head of the Islamic Association of Israel.

A vampirean message from Hamas, via Palestinian Media Watch, with thanks to all who sent this in. You can view the video at the PMW site.

The Hamas website this week presented the parting video messages of two Hamas suicide terrorists. One message was for Jews, whose blood Hamas promises to drink until Jews "leave the Muslim countries," and the second to a mother, as she helps dress her son for battle prior to his suicide terror mission....

Each terrorist had a separate message for Jews. This first said,

"My message to the loathed Jews is that there is no god but Allah, we will chase you everywhere! We are a nation that drinks blood, and we know that there is no blood better than the blood of Jews. We will not leave you alone until we have quenched our thirst with your blood, and our children's thirst with your blood. We will not leave until you leave the Muslim countries."

The second terrorist said the following:

"In the name of Allah, we will destroy you, blow you up, take revenge against you, [and] purify the land of you, pigs that have defiled our country... This operation is revenge against the sons of monkeys and pigs."

"Sons of monkeys and pigs." Cf. Qur'an 2:62-65, 5:59-60, and 7:166.

Anti-dhimmitude in Canada? Only if he really follows through with a total cutoff, since there is not a snowball's chance on a sweltering July day in the most blistering realm of jahannum, where Allah will issue new skins to the damned so as to renew their tortures after their old skins have been utterly consumed by the flames (cf. Qur'an 4:56), that Hamas will ever actually come around to these terms.

"PM outlines terms for Palestinian aid," from the Globe and Mail, with thanks to Penkill:

Ottawa — Future Canadian aid to the Palestinian government will depend on its support for three key benchmarks, says Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

The government of President Mahmoud Abbas must renounce violence, recognize Israel and accept previous Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements, Harper told the Palestinian leader Tuesday during a telephone conversation.

“Future assistance to any new Palestinian government will be reviewed against that government's commitment to the principles of non-violence, recognition of Israel and acceptance of previous agreements and obligations,” Mr. Harper said in a statement released after the phone call.

The demands are in line with a UN Security Council call for the militant Islamic group Hamas to commit itself to a negotiated settlement of the Mideast conflict.

Or is it a jihad? From Phyllis Schlafly, with thanks to Mackie:

If you don't have access to Texas newspapers or the internet, you may not have heard the sensational news about the enormous cache of weapons just seized in Laredo, Texas. U.S. authorities grabbed two completed Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), materials for making 33 more, military-style grenades, 26 grenade triggers, large quantities of AK-47 and AR-15 assault rifles, 1,280 rounds of ammunition, silencers, machine gun assembly kits, 300 primers, bullet-proof vests, police scanners, sniper scopes, narcotics, and cash.

That sounds like a war is going on in Texas! If bomb-making factories and firearms assembly plants are ordinary day-to-day business in the drug war along our southern border, the American people need to know more about it.

The Val Verde County chief deputy warned that drug traffickers are helping terrorists with possible al Quaeda ties to cross the Texas-Mexico border into the United States.

A letter from a courageous Pakistani woman: "Pakistani viewpoint," in the Milpitas Post (thanks to Looney Tunes):

Dear Editor,

I was saddened to read the letter of Javed Altaf in the Milpitas Post dated Feb 2, "Text clashes extremist, moderate Hindus." As a woman from Pakistan who immigrated to the United States, I would like to tell everyone that there are people in Pakistan who do not show such hatred toward others.

I grew up in Pakistan and we were always taught to hate India, Israel and America. Our school books described Christians, Jews and Hindus as evil people, and unfortunately most Pakistanis exhibit a lot of hatred because of this. I was ashamed when Pakistanis celebrated on the streets after innocent people were killed in the Sept. 11 attacks. Even when I got my passport, I had to sign a statement on the application form that I consider the leader of Qadiani group of Muslims to be an imposter and his followers to be non-Muslim. I felt uncomfortable signing it as I somehow thought it is a hateful thing to do. To all Qadiani brothers and sisters, I wish to apologize on behalf of Pakistanis and say I am truly sorry I signed the statement.

Fortunately, I had the chance to leave Pakistan and find freedom in America. Now, I do not have to cover myself with a burqa.

I learned that one can be a good person even without being a Muslim and I got the confidence to question Islam. Islam is an artificial religion of medieval Arabs. Why should I accept any religion that forces me to wear a burqa and prevents my education?

Mr. Altaf's letter talks about caste system in India. I want to point out that the caste system is alive and well in Pakistan as well. It is hypocritical of Pakistanis to talk of a caste system.

The people of Pakistan are no different from the people of India except that we are born into Islam. This unfortunate difference gave birth to Pakistan, which has the dishonor of being created as the world's first religion-based country. We should never have left India because forming a country based on religion tells the world that we are hateful people. Please tell your readers that not all Pakistanis are hateful people.

Ironically, my own life has been one where the differences between Indians and Pakistanis have been buried. After leaving Islam, I searched for spiritual peace and met a wonderful man who is a Hindu from India. Today, he is my husband and I find that I have a lot of freedom. Women in Islam do not have any freedom and four women are considered to be equal to one man. I realize that I would not have had the opportunity to meet my husband had I not come to America and got my freedom. There are many women like me who long for freedom. I sincerely wish I could do something for my sisters or that America would liberate my sisters but without hurting the people.

Meher Unnisa

Upland, Calif.

Speaking of ticking time bombs, Paul Sperry in FrontPage shows that we have them right here in the U.S., courtesy our friends and allies the Saudis:

A former top Homeland Security official reveals in a forthcoming book that the FBI failed to examine "stacks of boxes" of potential evidence containing the applications of thousands of young Saudi men who had applied for and received visas to travel to the U.S. around the same time as the 15 Saudi hijackers.

While the FBI says it can find no evidence of al-Qaida cells here, the agency has not looked at all the Saudi-based evidence since 9/11, warns former Homeland Security Department Inspector General Clark Kent Ervin.

Ervin, who resigned early last year, says he discovered several unexamined boxes of Saudi visa applications in a storage room at the U.S. Embassy during a trip two years ago to Riyadh, the Saudi capital. He was told by consular officers there that FBI agents neglected to go through the boxes and pull the files to see if there might have been any connections -- tribes, families, villages, occupations, addresses, phone numbers and so on -- between those applicants and the hijackers.

An update on this story: Ezra Levant's courageous stand meets only dhimmitude in Saskatoon. They believe in freedom of speech, of course. Sure they do. Except when it matters. "Magazine pulled from Saskatoon store," from the StarPhoenix, with thanks to LGF:

The latest edition of the Western Standard will not reach magazine stands at any McNally Robinson Booksellers stores, owner Paul McNally confirmed Monday.

"We obviously are fervently in favour of freedom of expression but looking at this one, we don't see anything as being expressed except a kind of hurtfulness toward Muslims," he said in an interview from Winnipeg."I don't know if there is anything to be learned or communicated by publishing the cartoons."

The cartoons are offensive to many individuals, he added.

"We feel there is nothing to gain on the side of freedom of expression and much to lose on the side of hurting feelings," he said."We just thought we would take a pass on this."

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses the "image problem" for Islam posed by the ongoing cartoon rage:

The global cartoon rage, which continues to increase its death count every day -- a priest in Turkey, an Indian sailor in the U.A.E., a Danish lawyer in Moscow, plus protestors in Afghanistan and elsewhere -- points out a key problem for the world's Muslims. For them, Muhammad is even more important than Allah. Cartoon rage demonstrates that definitively. Muhammad is the center of the religion. His sayings, his acts, his silences, his everything, are essential to fleshing out the 80% of the Qur'an that is comprehensible. (The remaining 20% is susceptible of being understood, it seems, if one follows the advice of Christoph Luxenberg and reads parts of it as remnants of the Ur-Qur'an, a text in Aramaic, or Syro-Aramaic, or Syriac, the Aramaic of Edessa, which must have been the language employed for the first versions of the Qur'an since at that point Arabic was not yet a written language.)

And here he is, Muhammad, the model for all time, for all mankind. Uswa hasana, al-insan al-kamil -- as far as Muslims are concerned. It is for his “honor” that Muslims are ransacking KFC’s and setting Ronald McDonald afire.

But Muhammad is not the model for all mankind as far as Infidels are concerned. Those not completely brainwashed by the cult of personality par excellence that Muslims have built around Muhammad will make up their own minds about him, based on their own readings of the Hadith and Sira.

Tiny Minority of Extremists Update from The Telegraph, with thanks to JE:

Britain could be harbouring 20 more foreign radical imams like Abu Hamza, the Government's anti-terrorism watchdog said yesterday.

Lord Carlile QC, who carried out an official review of counter-terrorism laws, said radicals such as Hamza had been able to operate because not enough had been done to check the credentials of people arriving from abroad.

Hamza was jailed for seven years last week for inciting murder and preaching hatred.

Lord Carlile, a Liberal Democrat peer, said he feared that other extremists were continuing to radicalise young Muslim men in universities, prisons and young offenders' institutions.

"I would be amazed if there were more than 20 such clerics in the country, but that is a pure guess,'' he said. "My worry is that they are in places such as colleges and custodial institutions where there are larger numbers than elsewhere of impressionable young men.

"A small number can have a disproportionate effect if they are in the wrong place.

"Very little has been done in the past to look in detail at the past history of imams who have gone into some cities."

The country that has a "Lovers of Martyrdom Garrison" and numerous volunteers for suicide missions demands that Germany apologize for noticing. From The Guardian, with thanks to JE:

A German newspaper yesterday published a cartoon depicting the Iranian football team dressed as suicide bombers, opening up a new front in the row over caricatures of the prophet Muhammad.

Iran immediately demanded an apology from Der Tagesspiegel, which showed four Iranian players at this summer's World Cup in Germany with explosives attached to their chests. A caption read: "Why the German army should definitely be used during the football World Cup." The general secretary of Iran's sports press association yesterday described the latest caricature as a "black joke". The Iranian embassy in Berlin called for an apology, saying the cartoon was "an immoral act".

Dhimmitude in Urbana-Champaign. "School editors say they were suspended for running Islamic cartoons," from the Chicago Tribune, with thanks to Michelle Malkin:

The editor in chief of a student-led newspaper serving the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has been suspended for printing cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad that, when published in Europe, enraged Muslims and led to violent protests in the Middle East and Asia.

Editor Acton Gorton and his opinions editor, Chuck Prochaska, were relieved of their duties at The Daily Illini on Tuesday while a task force investigates "the internal decision-making and communication" that led to the publishing of the cartoons, according to a statement by the newspaper's publisher and general manager, Mary Cory.

Gorton said he expects to be fired at the conclusion of the investigation, which is expected to take two weeks....

"This is not a publicity stunt, and this wasn't an easy decision," said Gorton, who said he spent three years in the Army as a medic and paratrooper before college. "I was stressed and couldn't sleep at night. But I just felt it was an important issue to address in the newspaper."

Gorton's decision, however, caused an uproar in the local Muslim community and rankled other Illini staff members after the paper was deluged with negative letters and e-mails.

Gorton himself said he received 300 e-mails. Two-thirds of the e-mails were supportive and a third were hateful, he said.

U. of I. Chancellor Richard Herman also wrote a letter to the newspaper saying he was saddened by Gorton's decision.

The "moderate" Sheikh Qaradawi is not satisfied with the apology from the Norwegian editors who printed the Muhammad cartoons. He wants Norway to adopt Islamic blasphemy laws. And this, of course, is a key part of the overall agenda of cartoon rage, and is what links it to the global jihad: the goal of the jihad is to institute Islamic law over the entire world. Cartoon rage is an opportunity for jihadists to compel dhimmi Western states to begin to adopt Islamic law in this particular. A translation by Secular Blasphemy of a report from TV2 Nettavisen (thanks to Fjordman):

- The Norwegian government must make a new law that prohibits people and the media from attacking religions, whether it be Islam, Christianity or Judaism.

Qaradawi said that a prohibition is the only way he can accept the apology from the Norwegian side.

- It is important that Norway makes new rules.

- Al Qaradawi is very explicit that nobody must attack religion or the prophets, and that all media has to accept this, says the administrative manager for Al Qaradawi, Akram Kassab. to TV2 Nettavisen after the press conference.

More cartoon madness. What does a Hindu sailor in the UAE have to do with cartoons in Denmark? Unless, of course, the whole thing is a pretext to jump-start the global jihad. From PTI, with thanks to Satinder:

Dubai, Feb 15 (PTI) An Indian sailor was allegedly beaten to death by his colleagues on board a Norwegian oil tanker in the international waters off the coast of Fujairah in the UAE following an argument over the cartoon row.

A fight ensued among the seamen after an argument over the cartoon issue, causing the death of one sailor, a media report said.

Official sources confirmed the death of 31-year-old Sudheer Nonia Jagannathan, hailing from Mumbai, but refused to comment on the issue.

Egyptian Sandmonkey, who has done such important work during the entire cartoon rage episode, and was the first to reveal that the Egyptian paper Al Fagr printed the cartoons in October, now tells us that the editor responsible has left Egypt -- not surprising, since editors who printed the cartoons in Jordan and Algeria have been arrested.

Sandmonkey has the details at "Adel Hamouda can't take the heat."

More utter stark-raving cartoon madness. An update on this story from AP:

PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Gunfire and rioting erupted Wednesday as tens of thousands of people took to the streets in several Pakistani cities during the country's third consecutive day of violent protests over the Prophet Muhammad cartoons. Three people were killed, including an 8-year-old boy.

More than 70,000 people flooded the streets of the northwestern city of Peshawar, said Saeed Wazir, a senior police officer. The massive crowd went on a rampage, torching businesses and fighting police, who struck back with tear gas and batons. A bus terminal operated by South Korea's Sammi Corp. was torched, police said.

Protesters burned a KFC restaurant, three movie theaters and the offices of the main mobile phone company in the country. A Norwegian mobile phone company's offices were also ransacked. Gunfire was heard near the burning KFC, as police tried to clear people from a main street, witnesses said.

An 8-year-old boy died after being struck in the face by a bullet fired by a protester, police officer Shahid Khan said. A 25-year-old man was killed by an electric cable that was snapped by gunfire, said the man's cousin, Jehangir Khan.

At least 45 people were being treated for injuries in Peshawar's two state-run hospitals, Khan and witnesses said....

Demonstrations around Asia and the Middle East over the cartoons — which first appeared in a Danish newspaper in September and have been reprinted by other Western newspapers — have subsided in recent days, including in Afghanistan, where 11 people died in riots last week.

Many Muslims regard any depiction of the prophet as blasphemous. They reject the newspapers' explanations that the cartoons have news value and represent free speech....

Hundreds of Afghan refugees joined the protest in Peshawar, the capital of the conservative North West Frontier Province. Many chanted "Death to Denmark!" and "Hang those who drew the insulting cartoons!" Others burned Danish flags and effigies of the Danish prime minister.

Rioting also broke out Wednesday in the northwestern town of Tank, near the South Waziristan tribal region where security officials have said al-Qaida-linked foreign fighters are hiding. Protesters set fire to 30 shops selling CDs, DVDs, and videos, said Attiq Wazir, a local police official. Suspected Islamic militants had warned music shops to close, witnesses said.

One policeman was injured when a protester opened fire to resist arrest.

In the eastern city of Lahore, fighting flared up for the second straight day. A 30-year-old man was shot dead in a clash with police as about 1,500 students staged a rally outside a university, hospital and police officials said.

On Tuesday, thousands of protesters went on a rampage in Lahore, burning Western businesses including McDonald's, KFC and Pizza Hut restaurants. Two people died and police detained 125 people, a police official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Violent protests also erupted Tuesday in the capital, Islamabad. More than 1,000 students forced their way into a heavily guarded enclave housing foreign embassies. They damaged cars and a bank building, but were quickly expelled from the area with tear gas and water cannons.

Elsewhere in Asia, hundreds of Muslim protesters ripped apart and burned Danish flags Wednesday in a rally at the Danish honorary consulate in Manila, the Philippines.

In Muslim-majority Malaysia, the government ordered Guang Ming, the country's third largest Chinese-language newspaper, to halt publication of its evening edition for two weeks as punishment for printing a photograph in which the cartoons were visible.

A Reuters photo, via Michelle Malkin.

Story here.

Sistani for Nobel! Uh, wait a minute, Rich, you may want to hold off on printing those bumper stickers for a little while.

From the Wall Street Journal (subscription only), with thanks to Erick Stakelbeck:

Iraq's most prominent Shiite religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, maintained close ties with Tehran during Saddam Hussein's rule and today channels millions of dollars monthly into Islamic research centers and theological schools in Iran, according to his Web site, demonstrating the growing convergence of Iran's and Iraq's religious elite.

What are you in for, mac? Murder 1...How about you, buddy? Aggravated assault...And you, over there in the corner? Cartoons...

From Al Jazeera, with thanks to Robert:

Algeria and Yemen have arrested journalists working for newspapers that have reprinted cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that led to protests around the world.

On Sunday, Algeria closed two newspapers and arrested their editors for printing the images of the cartoons of the Prophet.

Kahel Bousaad and Berkane Bouderbala, respectively editors of the pro-Islamist weeklies, Errisala and Iqraa, were detained last week and will appear before an investigating judge in Algiers on Monday, staff of the two Arabic newspapers said.

A member of Iqraa's staff said: "The cartoons published in our weekly were [deliberately] fogged. They were accompanied by an article denouncing them."...

The Algerian authorities have condemned the cartoons and urged the Danish government to punish those behind their publication....

Yemen detained three journalists on Sunday and is seeking a fourth after closing three publications that printed the cartoons. Al-Hurriya, Yemen Observer and al-Rai al-Aam were shut and their case sent to prosecutors.

The officials said those detained are Mohammad al-Asaadi, the editor-in-chief of the English-language Yemen Observer, Akram Sabra, the managing editor of al-Hurriya weekly newspaper and reporter Yehiya al-Abed of Hurriya.

The prosecution has issued a warrant for Kamal al-Aalafi, the editor-in-chief of al-Rai al-Aam....

Also on Sunday, Turks pelted the French consulate in Istanbul with eggs as about 2500 demonstrators shouted "Down with America, Israel and Denmark," in the latest protests against the publication of the cartoons....

Muslims held a series of largely peaceful demonstrations in European cities, including London, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin and Berne.

The cartoons have now been published in Australia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Egypt, France, Fiji, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, the United States, Ukraine and Yemen.

Three cheers for Australia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Egypt, France, Fiji, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, the United States, Ukraine and Yemen.

Say Islam is peaceful, or we will kill you. From DPA, with thanks to Fjordman:

BERLIN - A sculpture depicting a mosque with missiles as minarets was pulled from a German art show Monday after threats were made, the director of Duesseldorf's art academy confirmed.

Titled "Aggression", the work by a Swiss art student was removed from the show at the request of the artist, said academy director Peter Lynen.

Lynen said there had been no pressure from the academy itself to pull the work and that every artist had to be given the freedom to address what he termed "contemporary themes".

The design of the mosque with rockets as its minarets was very "low-key", said Lynen.

He did not say what kinds of threats had led to removal of the sculpture.

Happy Valentines Day! As one cartoon rager recently lamented that if the Muslims had actually gotten Rushdie 17 years ago, Westerners wouldn't be so uppity today as to dare to draw cartoons of Muhammad, the Iranian mullahocracy has seen fit to reinforce the death fatwa against the author of The Satanic Verses on its 17th anniversary.

From Iran Focus, with thanks to Mackie:

Tehran, Iran, Feb. 14 – A religious edict issued by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini against the life of British author Salman Rushdie still stands, Iran’s official state news agency reported on the anniversary of the decree.

On February 14, 1989, Khomeini issued a fatwa calling on all Muslims to kill Rushdie for writing the controversial novel The Satanic Verses.

In a statement carried by the official news agency, the government-run body Martyrs Foundation announced, “The fatwa by Imam Khomeini in regards to the apostate Salman Rushdie will be in effect forever”.

“The book The Satanic Verses was the incarnation of the satanic plots of the World Arrogance (United States) and the occupying Zionists which appeared through the sleeves of this apostate”, the statement said.

One of Iran’s state “bonyads”, or foundations, has offered a $2.8 million bounty on Rushdie’s life.

Jihad Watch reader Max has alerted me to this story from The Guardian, which refers to this site in, well, in the way one would expect The Guardian to refer to it:

Since the cartoons were first published last year, all sorts of people with an axe to grind have muscled in on the row. A posting on the notoriously Islamophobic website, Jihadwatch, for instance, describes it portentously as "a struggle between exponents of a free society and organised thuggery". Meanwhile, several Arab governments - for their own political reasons - have busily fanned the flames in the opposite direction.

OK. So my observing that cartoon rage a struggle between the exponents of a free society and organized thuggery, which it most certainly is, is equivalent to Arab governments inciting their people to burn embassies, kill people, and issue murderous threats to just about every country in the West?

All right. Let's explore that question. How many Muslim cartoon ragers have been killed, or beaten up, or had their homes burned by angry Jihad Watchers?

"Notoriously Islamophobic"? Strictly speaking, "Islamophobia" would be defined as fear of Islam. Which is more fearful -- Jihad Watch, which published the Muhammad cartoons, or The Guardian, which succumbed to knee-knocking fear and didn't? Yes, that's right: I'm accusing the Guardian of Islamophobia.

What's that? Islamophobia doesn't mean fear of Islam, but hatred of Islam? Ill-chosen word, in that case. But anyway it's a false charge. To claim that those who oppose the ideology that led to 9/11, 7/7, 3/11, the Bali bombings, and hundreds of other terror attacks are just "haters" is to have the telescope the wrong way round; the real haters are those who are perpetrating such attacks, and planning new ones today, in the name of Islam. I am not going to be cowed by The Guardian or anyone else from exploring what motivates these attackers, and why they are doing what they are doing.

The resistance to jihad is a struggle to defend the human rights of those who would lose equality of rights under the kind of regime jihadists would like to establish -- particularly women, non-Muslims, and ex-Muslims. The Guardian wants to call that "Islamophobia"? More fool they.

An update to this story. "Two dead in Pakistan rioting," from AP, :

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) -- More than 1,000 protesters stormed into Islamabad's diplomatic district while thousands vandalized Western businesses and torched a government building in another city Tuesday, in Pakistan's worst wave of violence against the Prophet Mohammed cartoons, officials said.

At least two people were killed.

Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said two protesters died in the worst of the violence in the eastern city of Lahore, when a bank security guard opened fire to prevent demonstrators from forcing their way into a bank.

He said paramilitary troops were deployed in the city to restore order, after stone-throwing protesters ran amok.

Witnesses said rioters torched the provincial assembly building and targeted Western businesses, breaking windows at a Holiday Inn hotel and Pizza Hut, KFC and McDonald's restaurants.

They also damaged more than 200 cars, two banks, dozens of shops and a large portrait of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, witnesses said.

The protesters also looted the office of Telenor, a Norwegian mobile phone company, and people ran away with computers, mobile phones and other equipment, witnesses said....

The students had earlier marched to several universities in Peshawar and hurled stones at a Christian school, breaking windows and causing other damage. They also threw stones at shops in the city's main business district, chanting "Down with America" and "Down with Denmark."

President Gen. Pervez Musharraf told journalists in the capital Islamabad on Monday that newspapers that have printed the caricatures were "being totally oblivious to the consequences for the world, for world peace and harmony."

Come on, Musharraf. Why don't you have the guts to say that the protestors are mad, utterly mad, and that it is insane to get so worked up about a few cartoons, and that they have shamed Pakistan before the world?

"The most moderate Muslim will go to the street and talk against it because this hurts the sentiments of every Muslim," he said. "Whether an extremist or a moderate or an ultra moderate, we will condemn it."...

Fine. Condemn it all day. There are plenty of things printed in newspapers every day that I condemn. But I'm not killing anybody over it.

CNN is not showing the negative caricatures of the likeness of the Prophet Mohammed because the network believes its role is to cover the events surrounding the publication of the cartoons while not unnecessarily adding fuel to the controversy itself.

And also, CNN added under its breath, we don't want to get killed, and we value our sorry lives more than the freedoms for which our forefathers fought and died.

A loveless day in Malaysia. St. Valentine, you see, was an enemy of Islam; Muhammad Ramli Nuh thus demonstrates that he knows (or actually thinks he knows, since his information is completely incorrect) and cares a good deal more about St. Valentine than the overhwhelming majority of those who will actually be giving out roses and chocolate hearts today. From the Malaysian National News Agency Bernama, with thanks to Nicolei:

KUALA TERENGGANU, Feb 13 (Bernama) -- Muslims in the country, especially lovers, have been advised not to celebrate Valentine's Day tomorrow.

State Islam Hadhari Development Committee Deputy Chairman, Muhammad Ramli Nuh said celebrating the Day could be regarded as recognising the enemies of Islam because Valentine or Valentinus took part in planning and attacking Cordoba, once a well-known centre of Islam in Spain, causing its downfall....

Muhammad Ramli said although not many couples celebrate Valentine's Day in the state, the state government wished to remind that the celebration should not be held including in hotels.

Happy Valentines Day, everyone!

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald examines the lunacy of American foreign aid to Egypt:

Egypt is the center of anti-Americanism in the Arab and Muslim world. Its press is violently and hysterically anti-American and antisemitic (not just anti-Israel). The government claims it can "do nothing" about this, whenever questions are raised -- but just let a single item appear about the grooming of Mubarak's son for the presidency, or a hint of the stratokleptocracy (rule by corrupt and thieving military men), and that paper, and the writer, are read the riot act. Apparently anything that damages the standing of Mubarak can be controlled, but the same control is impossible when murderous hysteria and hatred are whipped up against America and Israel.

Why does Egypt receive military aid at all? Against whom will this aid be used? Is it mighty Libya, now mostly disarmed? Could it be that Egypt, outraged at the behavior of the northern Sudanese Arabs, will attack them? So far, Egypt has not shown the slightest indignation about the Jihad being conducted from Khartoum over the past 20 years, though it will, to "please the Americans," engage in some desultory attempts to persuade the Sudanese government to pretend to engage in pretend negotiations.

That weaponry can only be used in three ways. First, and obviously, against Israel -- either directly, or by funneling weapons to jihadists in Gaza or elsewhere. Second, it can be used by the Egypt decides to bully Ethiopia with the threat of military force, should that drought-and-famine afflicted African country dares to divert any of the Nile headwaters for its own desperate irrigation needs. Egypt believes it has a divine right to the Nile waters. No other countries need apply, especially not if they are black Christians, as Ethiopians are seen to be still -- despite the widespread and deliberate efforts from within Ethiopia by Muslims to carry out da'wa and overwhelm the Christians.

The failed German Chancellor, in Jeddah, shows his masters his eagerness to sacrifice freedom of speech on the altar of dhimmitude. From DPA, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

CAIRO - Former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder Saturday criticized the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed by several European newspapers.

In an address to an international audience at the Jeddah Economic Forum, Schroeder called the publication "a major mistake" and "we should return now to a reasonable and acceptable way to respect sanctities and beliefs".

He added: "I share with Muslims around the world the anger over the offensive cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, and we should turn to tolerance and respect of cultures and religions."

Tiny Minority of Extremists Update: 1,000 to 1,500 cartoon ragers riot in Pakistan. From AP, with thanks to JE:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Police fired tear gas Tuesday as they chased away more than 1,000 protesters — some brandishing sticks and throwing stones — who stormed into the heavily guarded diplomatic enclave in Pakistan's capital, demonstrating against the Prophet Muhammad cartoons.

The crowd — which briefly rallied outside the French and British embassies — entered the enclave through the main gate, guarded by about a dozen police who didn't resist the mob of mostly students.

Once inside the fenced-off enclave, they charged about a half kilometer (half mile) down the road to the British High Commission, or embassy, where police dispersed them with tear gas. They also gathered outside the French Embassy.

Some of the stick-wielding protesters damaged road signs and broke a bank's window in the enclave, which houses most of the embassies and some residential compounds for diplomats in Islamabad. The crowded totaled between 1,000 and 1,500 people.

Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa A. Lappen survey the treatment of children in the Palestinian Authority, which will ensure that the jihad continues into the next generation. From the Washington Times, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

What would you like to be when you growup?A Hamas children's magazine has a clear answer: a terrorist. A children's story it published calls upon small children and encourages them to commit terrorist acts and sacrifice their souls for Allah.

Western politicians who delude themselves in the belief that Hamas will change have only to consider what Hamas leaders say. On Feb. 3, Hamas chief Khaled Mash'al declared in Damascus: "Before Israel dies, it must be humiliated and degraded," according to the Middle East Media Research Institute.

Hamas gives this message to the present generation. But they also ensure that the next generation of Palestinians, now growing up, receives this message as early as possible. Hamas TV shows impart children with the jihad message when they are toddlers. And for kids who have learned to read, there are magazine comics.

The children's magazine named Fatah -- Arabic for the Muslim who conquers the Kufir States -- in its last two issues carried an illustrated story about the heroism of a very young but courageous Palestinian child, who is determined to be a jihad fighter like his older brothers.

The story demonstrates the indoctrination and "education" to which even the youngest of Palestinian children are exposed by Hamas in schools and publications.

Read it all.

Cartoon ragers issue a new threat, via Henry Payne.

It begins: the attempt to impose dhimmi laws forbidding non-Muslims to insult Islam or Muhammad upon the West, via multiculturalist hate speech laws. From CTV.ca, with thanks to all who sent this in:

The publisher of a Calgary-based magazine is defending his decision to reprint eight cartoon depictions of Islam's Prophet Muhammad today....

Western Standard publisher Ezra Levant called the caricatures "innocuous," and said he's "ashamed" that more Canadian media outlets, including CTV, have chosen not to run them....

On CTV Newsnet, Levant said although Islam forbids depictions of its Prophet, "I don't follow Muslim law, I follow Queen Elizabeth's law.

"I don't follow the Koran, I follow the Canadian Constitution and there are two key parts to the Canadian constitution I'm relying on: one is freedom of expression and the other is cultural diversity (enshrined in) the Constitution."

'What do they contribute?'

But Mohamed Elmasry, leader of the Canadian Islamic Congress, warned on Sunday that his organization will seek to have charges laid against Levant's publication under Canada's hate laws.

And Tarek Fatah, of the Muslim Canadian Congress, called Levant's decision to publish "totally unnecessary and provocative."

"If the contention of these folks is that people want to see these cartoons, they're available across the Web," Fatah told CTV Newsnet. "So the intention is not to inform the readers about the cartoons, but it is primarily to incite and add fuel to the fire."

Fatah said he believes newspapers have a democratic right to publish the cartoons, but said doing so would only add to the pain felt by Muslims around the world.

"All I ask them is, what do they contribute? What exactly are they trying to achieve out of that? Have they not seen the turmoil that has been caused by the repeated publication of these cartoons?"

Levant, meanwhile, asks why society finds it more acceptable to poke fun of the Christian faith, before pointing to a recent cover of Rolling Stone magazine which shows hip hop artist Kanye West made up to look like Jesus.

1938 and Islam Forbids Suicide Alerts from Iran Focus, with thanks to Mackie:

Tehran, Iran, Feb. 13 – A senior commander of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) vowed that following the printing of insulting cartoons of Islam’s prophet Muhammad in European dailies, the Islamic Republic’s suicide volunteers abroad were being placed on readiness alert to attack United States and Israeli interests.

Mohammad-Reza Jaafari, the commander of Iran’s “Lovers of Martyrdom Garrison” and a Brigadier General in the IRGC, said, “Now that America is after gaining allies against the righteous Islamic Republic and wants to attack our sanctities, members of the martyrdom-seeking garrisons across the world have been put on alert so that if the Islamic Republic of Iran receives the smallest threat, the American and Israeli strategic interests will be burnt down everywhere”.

He was speaking to a group of suicide volunteers in Shahr-Rey, on the outskirts of Tehran, on Saturday evening.

In FrontPage this morning I discuss an appalling art exhibit in Milan, and its implications (many news links in the original):

A disgraceful art exhibit in Milan has illustrated once again the deep affinity between the Left and the forces of the global jihad. In these days of Muslims the world over calling for the deaths of those who have “insulted Islam,” anyone who wants to see Oriana Fallaci beheaded need look no further than the Galleria Luciano Inga-Pin in Milan, which is exhibiting Giuseppe Veneziano’s “American Beauty” from January 19 through March 18. This is a series of paintings designed to highlight the “weakness and perversity of the ‘American way of life.’” It accordingly features straightforward, if somewhat lurid, portraits of Michael Jackson and Ronald McDonald, along with the distinctly non-American Harry Potter. Then comes a bizarre depiction of a nude man having sexual intercourse with the Pink Panther, five artistic renditions of the Abu Ghraib prison photos (each with “American Beauty” scrawled across the top), and — Oriana Fallaci’s decapitated head.

Although I find the picture of Fallaci decapitated deeply offensive, I have no plans to attack the Italian embassy, boycott Italian wine, phone in a bomb threat to the Galleria Luciano Inga-Pin, kill innocent people who had nothing to with the painting, or threaten to kill those who are actually responsible for it. Veneziano’s painting is the sort of obnoxiousness that has become commonplace on the Left, and is one of the prices of freedom of speech.

Veneziano’s painting is doubly offensive, however, in light of the fact that Fallaci herself has been driven out of Italy by frivolous charges that she has “defamed Islam.” Giuseppe Veneziano is not on trial for depicting Fallaci decapitated, but Fallaci faces trial for making a series of heated but largely true statements about Islam and Muslims. Veneziano’s painting is triply offensive in that it depicts exactly what the Muslim exponents of cartoon rage around the world would like to see done to Fallaci — and thus manifests the ever-closer empathy between the Western Left and Islamic jihad. “Behead those who insult Islam,” read a sign at a recent demonstration in London protesting the Danish cartoons of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. If Fallaci has insulted Islam with her monumental post-9/11 cries of freedom and resistance, The Rage and the Pride and The Force of Reason, Giuseppe Veneziano is happy to oblige the mujahedin, at least on canvas.

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses Amir Taheri's strange obfuscation of Islamic theology and history:

In a piece here yesterday, Robert Spencer made some devastating observations about some assertions Amir Taheri made in a New York Post article. I don't think Amir Taheri will have an answer. One wonders about Taheri.

Amir Taheri is another representative not only of the moderate Muslim, but of one who is practically a "Muslim-for-identification-purposes-only" Muslim. A gentleman of the old Iranian school, where classmates have such last names as Hoveyda and Tabatabai, and everyone names his children Cyrus and Darius, or possibly Kaveh, but never Mohammed, Taheri gets many things right. He is a truth-teller, up to a point, of the kind we are all so familiar with -- Fouad Ajami and Kanan Makiya come to mind. They despise Edward Said, and despise the vulgarity of Arab political life and its despots. But they just can't bring themselves to the point of adequately describing, truthfully describing, Islam. They have their own "dream palace" -- which is of a benign Islam, compounded of those memories of elderly pious relatives (a grandmother will do), and the smells of the Iftar dinner, and the quiet piety of Muslims they had known growing up, and of course, of collective memories of some fabulously wonderful mythical Golden Age.

This is the stuff of coffee-table books, a hodgepodge of mostly Ottoman visual memories, Sinanesque mosques, and Iznik tiles, and turbans on wise old scholars at the House of Philosophers (one Muslim, one Christian, one Jew). They are not about to let little things like the real history of the treatment of non-Muslims under Muslim rule, that led to many Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, Hindus, Buddhists to convert, not through the immediacy of forcible conversion but through the slow stillicide of the many legal, financial, political, and social disabilities of dhimmitude. They converted to escape the humiliation, degradation, and permanent physical insecurity (for failure to pay the Jizyah or to obey all the rules laid down could cause an entire community of non-Muslims to suffer) that was their lot as dhimmis under Muslim rule.

D.C. Watson discusses some implications of cartoon rage:

Congratulations to every Muslim around the world who has expressed his anger over the now famous Muhammad cartoon row by calling for the beheading of those who insult Islam, torching the embassies of the nations that published the cartoons, burning the national flags of these nations, pelting other people's property with rocks, and, of course, carrying out senseless attacks on people who had nothing to do with the publication of the cartoons.

These fanatical nuts have finally assisted in accomplishing a goal. Perhaps not a goal of theirs, or of their leaders, but certainly a goal of those who advocate human rights.

For several years, Robert Spencer, Hugh Fitzgerald, Ali Sina, Oriana Fallaci, Bat Ye'or, Ibn Warraq, Rebecca Bynum, Michael Savage, and a substantial number of other writers, radio talk show hosts, and website directors have been consistent with one simple message: That Muslims who do this kind of thing are simply following what has been ordered in the Qur'an.

It is true that not all Muslims in the world want to live under the rule of a dominant Islam. Nor do they want to live under Islamic law. Many Muslims have no beef with the West and love the freedoms that Western life brings. But Muslim rioters are showing the world that what the authors and speakers above, who have had the courage and foresight to point out to anyone who would look, listen, and learn about where these violent tendencies come from, were right all along. And now it seems that much more of the world, in particular the West, is having its eyes opened for them.

Nonie Darwish discusses cartoon rage within the larger context of the state of contemporary Muslim society. From the Telegraph, with thanks to Tom Syseskey:

The controversy regarding the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed completely misses the point. Of course, the cartoons are offensive to Muslims, but newspaper cartoons do not warrant the burning of buildings and the killing of innocent people. The cartoons did not cause the disease of hate that we are seeing in the Muslim world on our television screens at night - they are only a symptom of a far greater disease.

I was born and raised as a Muslim in Cairo, Egypt and in the Gaza Strip. In the 1950s, my father was sent by Egypt's President, Gamal Abdel Nasser, to head the Egyptian military intelligence in Gaza and the Sinai where he founded the Palestinian Fedayeen, or "armed resistance". They made cross-border attacks into Israel, killing 400 Israelis and wounding more than 900 others.

My father was killed as a result of the Fedayeen operations when I was eight years old. He was hailed by Nasser as a national hero and was considered a shaheed, or martyr. In his speech announcing the nationalisation of the Suez Canal, Nasser vowed that all of Egypt would take revenge for my father's death. My siblings and I were asked by Nasser: "Which one of you will avenge your father's death by killing Jews?" We looked at each other speechless, unable to answer.

In school in Gaza, I learned hate, vengeance and retaliation. Peace was never an option, as it was considered a sign of defeat and weakness. At school we sang songs with verses calling Jews "dogs" (in Arab culture, dogs are considered unclean).

Criticism and questioning were forbidden. When I did either of these, I was told: "Muslims cannot love the enemies of God, and those who do will get no mercy in hell." As a young woman, I visited a Christian friend in Cairo during Friday prayers, and we both heard the verbal attacks on Christians and Jews from the loudspeakers outside the mosque. They said: "May God destroy the infidels and the Jews, the enemies of God. We are not to befriend them or make treaties with them." We heard worshippers respond "Amen".

Read it all.

More indication of the grave difficulties Christians face in Pakistan -- which is why I keep insisting that any aid to this putative friend and ally should be predicated upon a complete ending of violence toward and discrimination against Christians. From Compass Direct, with thanks to Tom Syseskey:

February 8 (Compass) – A crowd of Muslim women and a few men attacked a Catholic church in Pakistan’s Punjab province last week, injuring two Christian women – one 70 years old – and vandalizing the building.

At least three men and 20 women attacked the Kawanlit village chapel on February 3, leaving 70-year-old Veero Mehnga Masih with broken legs and also injuring Saleema Mazir Masih, 50. The mob broke windows, smashed the altar and burned Bibles.

Despite prompt condemnation of the violence from church leaders across Punjab, police refused to file an official complaint. Kawanlit’s Christians told Compass today that they are powerless to pursue a court case and plan to seek extra-legal reconciliation.

On Monday (February 6), wealthy village landowner Mohammad Iqbal opened a case against eight of Kawanlit’s Christian’s for starting a fight that led to the church destruction. But according to Franciscan parish priest Bernard Bhatti, the eight accused “were not even there” at the time of the church attack. He said the incident stemmed from a property dispute with Iqbal, whose relatives were involved in the attack.

The veteran who complained because two flags shouldn't fly on the same pole may have a point. But the townspeople who were worried about attacks on the town because of the flying of a Danish flag should be ashamed of themselves, and grow some spine. Their pusillanimous reaction shows just how deep are the inroads that Islamic jihadists have already made into the Western psyche. And the idea that a "No Place for Hate Committee" should object to a show of solidarity with the Danes and support for freedom of speech shows just how absurd our age has become.

"Showing of Danish flag roils town," from the Boston Globe, with thanks to Shinolite:

As militant Muslims from Indonesia to the West Bank torched and trampled the Danish flag this past week to protest political cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed, Stoughton's Town Manager Mark Stankiewicz grew increasingly upset.

So in a small act of solidarity with Denmark and of support for free speech, Stankiewicz bought two Danish flags on Monday and raised one of the red-and-white banners outside the Town Hall that morning, flying it on the pole beneath the US flag.

The symbolic gesture was short-lived, as Stankiewicz lowered the flag the next afternoon after a local veteran complained that it was improper to fly the flags of two countries on one pole. He declined to release the name of the veteran.

But many people in town saw the foreign flag display as insensitive and inflammatory. Several town employees told Stankiewicz they did not agree with his decision and worried the flag could provoke violence against Town Hall in light of the attacks against Danish and other European embassies throughout the Middle East. Stankiewicz described their concerns as an ''overreaction."

The Stoughton No Place for Hate Committee, a local antidiscrimination group, plans to discuss the episode at its meeting tonight because of fears that residents might be hurt or insulted.

''There's always that chance that there will be people who are offended, and we want to guard against that," said Karon Skinner-Catrone, chairperson of the 10-person group, some of whom are town officials.

Catrone declined to give her personal views on the topic before meeting with Stankiewicz, but she said she was ''sure his intentions were good."

''I know Mark would not want to intentionally hurt the town," she said. ''I hope people don't take it the wrong way."...

''This was an extremely limited show of support for a country and its democratic institutions," said Stankiewicz, 48. ''Is religion going to trump free speech? If you don't stand up for certain rights, you risk losing them."...

Stankiewicz, who has visited Denmark and has friends there, said he worries that Western countries will cave in to terrorist threats unless they stick together.

''I thought people might be upset, but they need to understand what's at stake," he said. ''People are willing to sacrifice civil liberties to feel safe, and that's a slippery slope."

Yes it is.

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen has stood strongly for the freedom of speech, refusing to curtail it in accord with Muslim cartoon rage demands. However, he is surprised that all this has happened, given Danish support for the Palestinians, which he says will continue. It doesn't appear to occur to him that cartoon rage has been fueled by the same Islamic jihad ideology of which the Palestinians are the foremost contemporary exponent.

From Der Spiegel, with thanks to Erick Stakelbeck:

SPIEGEL: Your government launched an ambitious program two years ago to strengthen the dialogue and ties with Arab countries that has now failed. How are you going to revive this program?

Fogh Rasmussen: It is a paradox: we were one of the first countries to start such a partnership program and we are among the largest net contributors to, for example, the Palestinians. And now we have to watch as the Danish flag is burned and violent demonstrations against us are organized. The Arab initiative was supposed to accelerate economic and social reforms in the region so it's now a shock to be so severely criticized. At the time, we felt we were at the forefront of modernization.

SPIEGEL: Now some are calling for a drastic reduction in economic support to, for example, the Palestinian Authority.

Fogh Rasmussen: We won't change our policies. It's now time to calm the waters, not cut funds. In the long-term, it would be in our own best interest to rebuild our good relationship with the Arab world.

Internet jihad update from the Sydney Morning Herald, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Technology has created a virtual sanctuary that makes terrorist training camps obsolete, analysts tell Paul McGeough.

ABU Baraq and Abu Abdullah are insurgency foot soldiers on the front line in Iraq. But they are also becoming cyber warriors in a dot.com jihad. We meet in a private home in the suburbs of Baghdad. The fighters sit on an ornate sofa, explaining their cell leader's reluctant embrace of the insurgency's most sophisticated weapon - a powerful web-driven media campaign.

"Did you see us on Al-Jazeera two nights ago?" asks Abu Baraq. "We attacked an American Humvee."

Abu Abdullah outlines their late inclusion in the jihadis' burgeoning global propaganda drive: "Our leader used to object to taking the digicam on operations because he saw it as a security risk. But now we record everything because the media are captives of foreign governments. The camera lets us tell the world what we are doing."

But the recordings are not just for TV. In the 4½ years since the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US, there has been a global explosion in terrorism-associated websites, message boards and chat rooms, enabling terrorists and their sympathisers to bypass the filters of the mass media and to deliver their message direct to target audiences - unqualified and unadulterated.

When Gabriel Weimann, a professor of communications at Haifa University in Israel, decided to monitor the web in the late 1990s, he found a dozen terrorist-related sites. Now he monitors more than 4500.

Rita Katz, the director of the SITE (Search for International Terrorist Entities) Institute in Washington, says new websites pop up so fast that it is no longer possible to count them.

Loaded as much from caves as cafes around the world, these websites have become what Israeli analyst Reuven Paz describes as "an open university for jihad". They are used to inform, instruct and indoctrinate, which is why Paz is troubled by a new shift as the terrorists' cyber campaign goes multilingual. "Just two or three weeks ago about 150 announcements by al-Qaeda in Iraq were translated into French and now they are popping up more frequently in English and Italian too," he says.

What did Rice do? She said that Iran was fanning the flames of cartoon rage. Rice should apologize, says Hamid Reza Asefi, admirably impervious to self-examination, for such comments only enflame cartoon rage. Just like depicting Muhammad as violent evidently so enrages Muslims that they become...violent. "Update 8: Iran Rejects Charge of Inflaming Violence," from AP, with thanks to Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi:

Iran on Sunday rejected U.S. and Danish accusations that the government had inflamed and encouraged last week's violent protests against Western embassies in Tehran over caricatures of Islam's Prophet Muhammad and demanded an apology.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi singled out comments by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and said Denmark should apologize to help calm the furor that has erupted over the images that first appeared in a Danish newspaper four months ago.

"What happened was a natural reaction. Rice and Danish officials should apologize. Such comments could worsen the situation and an apology could alleviate the tension," Asefi said.

The idea that Iran feels itself bound by this treaty in any way at this point is absurd. "Bracing for Penalties, Iran Threatens to Withdraw From Nuclear Treaty," from the New York Times, with thanks to Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi:

TEHRAN, Feb. 11 — Iran's president warned on Saturday that Iran could withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty if international pressure increased over its nuclear program.

His threat was a significant escalation of the government's previous position that it would only stop complying with spot inspections of military installations and sites it has not declared to be part of its nuclear program. The warning also raised the specter that Iran was considering following a strategy set by North Korea three years ago.

In a speech to tens of thousand of demonstrators who had gathered to mark the 27th anniversary of the Islamic revolution, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also staked out a broader path of resistance if penalties are imposed against Iran.

Evoking the possibility of penalties and international ostracism, he insisted that the country would continue its nuclear activities and urged Iranians to brace for tough times.

"The Islamic Republic has continued its program within the framework of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the nonproliferation treaty," he said in the speech, which was broadcast live on state television. "But if we see that you want to use the NPT regulations to deprive us of our rights, know that the people will revise their policy in this regard."

"I ask our dear people to prepare themselves for a great struggle," he added, evoking the possibility of international penalties. "Fasten your seat belts and pull up your sleeves."

Good advice for the entire world.

Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa A. Lappen examine Bush's dhimmi omission of Israel as a jihad terror target in FrontPage:

President George W. Bush’s most recent reminder that the U.S. needs to fight the worldwide terrorism of the Islamists, ignored a major target and victim of this terrorism – Israel.

In a February 9 speech at the National Guard Memorial Building, in Washington DC, the President noted many of the countries that have been the victims of Islamist terrorist attacks. As he had done repeatedly several times before, he mentioned: Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Indonesia, Turkey, Spain and England. Conspicuously absent from the list is Israel. Yet, Israel was the first target of the Islamist terrorism, decades before this war started. Moreover, Israel remains at the center of the Islamist Jihad.

The Israeli government official statistics put the number of deaths resulting from attacks by Palestinian terror groups at 1,084 since September 29, 2000, alone. The number of injured since then is 7,633 Israelis. And this is not all; thousands of Israeli casualties also suffered Palestinian terrorist attacks since the first Intifada in 1987. Yet, Israel’s plight seems to escape the President’s attention when he reminds Americans of the international atrocities committed by Islamist terrorists.

1938 Alert from AP, :

VIENNA, Austria — Iran has started small-scale enrichment of uranium — a process that can produce fuel for nuclear reactors or bombs, diplomats said Monday.

"Uranium gas has been fed into three machines," one senior diplomat familiar with Iran's nuclear file told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the matter.

Double Standard Alert from Der Spiegel, . Of course, this should really come as no surprise. Islamic law specifies that dhimmis must not insult Islam or Muhammad (cf. 'Umdat al-Salik o11.10(5)), but it nowhere forbids Muslims from insulting non-Muslims.

Even as the Muslim world protests against the Muhammad caricatures printed in the West, a number of Arab newspapers publish virulently anti-Semitic cartoons. But nobody's paying much attention. After all, Jew baiting in the Arab world has become the norm.

In the end, it was the image of the Prophet Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban with a lit fuse that proved perhaps most offensive. After all, as the Web site of the Arab-European League -- a group supporting the rights of Arab and Muslim communities in Europe -- pointed out: "The issue for us is not about depicting the prophet or any other theological consideration. It's about stigmatizing a whole population of more than 1 billion Muslims through portraying their symbol as being a terrorist, megalomaniac, misogynic (sic) and a psychopath. This is racist, xenophobic and calling for hatred against Muslims."

That's a valid point. But it would have been a lot more forceful had the Web site not published a political cartoon a few days earlier depicting Anne Frank in bed with Adolf Hitler, who is looking amorously appeased. As if that wasn't offensive enough, the illustrator throws in one of the worst crimes in recent European history by name dropping Marc Dutroux, the convicted Belgian killer infamous for kidnapping young girls, raping them and then starving them to death. Hitler is saying, "Write this one in your diary Anne!"

Read it all.

Is this because our friends and allies the Pakistanis are complicit, or because they are powerless? "Al Qaeda establish 'Islamic state' in Pak province," from the Times of India, :

NEW DELHI: After taking "virtual control" of the entire North Waziristan province of Pakistan, Taliban and Al Qaeda have recently "declared" the establishment of an 'Islamic State' in the area and gained a major base for their operations against the US-led forces in Afghanistan, media reports said.

"The Taliban recently declared the establishment of an 'Islamic State' in North Waziristan, and they now, through the brutal elimination of criminal elements who previously held sway, in effect rule in the rugged territory," a latest report in 'Asia Times' magazine said.

It said that by "taking control of virtually all of Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal area on the border with Afghanistan, the Taliban have gained a significant base from which to wage their resistance against US-led forces in Afghanistan.

Jihad Watch reader Mike has alerted me to a reader review of my book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) at Amazon.com. Because it is indicative of a common tendency, I decided to post this extract here:

I found this book to be one of the most bigoted, hateful, historically distorted, and twisted tracts that I have ever read. I will not take the time to go into detail as the book just is not worth it...

This reminded me of an email I received awhile back from a close associate of a prominent Islamic apologist who enjoys some influence among the ignorant and easily led in Washington:

You have no idea what's going on with any of this -- and you WON'T because nobody who DOES know will be wasting their time telling you.

It further reminded me of Amir Taheri's article in the New York Post yesterday, which expansively claims that the jihadists have hijacked Islam without actually specifying how exactly they have done it, or what obvious Islamic doctrines they are transgressing.

All this is as commonplace as the air we breathe. Every day we hear that the jihadists are out of the mainstream, are twisting Islamic teachings, and so on, but at most all we get as an explanation of exactly how are bland affirmations that Islam forbids killing innocents, forbids suicide, allows for war only in self-defense, etc. -- all of which have been refuted many times over by jihadists, with the refutations remaining unanswered by peaceful Muslims.

The Amazon reviewer above later adds: "It is clear that one of the author's thinly veiled agendas is to disparage the 'liberal establishment' for ignoring and even aiding the 'Mohammedan menace.'" I still have the Word document of this book on my hard drive, and I just searched: the words "liberal establishment" and "Mohammadan menace" appear nowhere in the book. This is the kind of analysis that passes for criticism of my work: outright fabrications. Just once, I'd like to see someone who really thinks that my books are inaccurate explain in detail how that is so, with copious references to the Qur'an, Sunnah, and fiqh -- instead of just saying it isn't worth bothering.

But this is a much larger question than just my books. Western governments have invested heavily in the proposition that mainstream, "true" Islam is peaceful, and that the overwhelming majority of Muslims in Western countries accept the core values of Western pluralism. Yet this has been blind trust. No one has yet formulated an Islamic theology and jurisprudence that actually provides for these things, and definitively refutes the jihadists using Islamic texts. I do not believe it can be done, and I think that official Washington needs to be cognizant of that fact. From those who claim that it has been done I have only received airy affirmations that it isn't worth bothering to show me.

All right. One more time I am asking for anyone of good will to show me. Send me examples of Islamic religious scholars rejecting, on Islamic grounds, jihad violence against non-Muslims; rejecting the idea that Sharia law should be instituted in the Muslim and non-Muslim world; and teaching the idea that non-Muslims and Muslims should live together indefinitely as equals. Send me rejections of the ideas that women should not enjoy full equality of rights with men. Send me information that shows that those who write such rejections are not lone voices crying in the wilderness, with the wolves of Islamic orthodoxy ready to pounce upon them, but that they represent broad traditions within Islam and have large followings.

I'll be right here, at director@jihadwatch.org.

There have been voices since 9/11 decrying the President's close friendship with the Saudis and declaring that had Al Gore or John Kerry been President, the U.S. would have stood up more firmly to the chief enablers of the global jihad, the House of Saud. We at Jihad Watch have frequently been critical of Bush's ties to the Saudis, but this article indicates that the alternative would have been no better in this regard (and of course, much worse in others). American politics needs a third response to Islamic jihad. It has not arisen yet.

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

JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia — Former Vice President Al Gore told a mainly Saudi audience on Sunday that the U.S. government committed "terrible abuses" against Arabs after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and that most Americans did not support such treatment.

Gore said Arabs had been "indiscriminately rounded up" and held in "unforgivable" conditions. The former vice president said the Bush administration was playing into Al Qaeda's hands by routinely blocking Saudi visa applications.

"The thoughtless way in which visas are now handled, that is a mistake," Gore said during the Jiddah Economic Forum. "The worst thing we can possibly do is to cut off the channels of friendship and mutual understanding between Saudi Arabia and the United States."

Gore told the largely Saudi audience, many of them educated at U.S. universities, that Arabs in the United States had been "indiscriminately rounded up, often on minor charges of overstaying a visa or not having a green card in proper order, and held in conditions that were just unforgivable."

Amir Taheri, as I have noted before, often does magnificent, invaluable work. Then he turns around and comes out with something absolutely breathtaking in its wrongheadedness and inaccuracy. A couple of years ago he did with an article, still widely reproduced, claiming that the headscarf was a modern Iranian invention not sanctioned by Islam -- as if Muslim women had all gone about with their heads gloriously uncovered until the advent of the Ayatollah Khomeini (an assertion that blithely ignores the evidence from the Qur'an -- 24:31 -- and Hadith -- Abu Dawud book 32, no. 4092 -- that the headcovering is firmly rooted in Islamic teaching).

Now he does the same sort of thing in "Hijacking Islam" in the New York Post. Here he is purveying the comforting but inaccurate notion that jihad theorists are dishonest, semi-literate idiots, the blind leading the blind, fabricating material from the Qur'an and attracting only semi-literates like themselves to their cause.

Would that it were so. Unfortunately, however, it isn't true -- and it does us no good to ignore or deny the truth. In fact, study after study has shown that jihadists today tend to be better educated than other Muslims. Nor is that all that is inaccurate and misleading here:

Here we have a religion without a theology, a secular wolf disguised as a religious lamb.

How did this neo-Islam — a political movement masquerading as religion — come into being, and how can those who know little about Islam distinguish it from the mainstream of the faith?

USING Islam as a vehicle for political ambitions is not new. The Umayyads used it after the Prophet's death to set up a dynastic rule. Three of the four caliphs who succeeded Muhammad were assassinated in the context of political power games presented as religious disputes.

Fast forward to the 19th century, and the Persian adventurer Jamaleddin Assadabadi, who disguised himself as an Afghan to hide his Shiite origin and set out to build a career in the mostly Sunni land of Egypt. Although a Freemason, Jamal (who dubbed himself Sayyed Gamal) concluded that the only way to win power among Muslims was by appealing to their religious sentiments. So he transformed himself into an Islamic scholar, grew an impressive beard and donned a huge black turban to underline his claim of being a descendant of the Prophet.

His partner was Mirza Malkam Khan, an Armenian who claimed to have converted to Islam. Together, they launched the idea of an "Islamic Renaissance" (An-Nahda) and promoted the concept of a "perfect Islamic government" under an "enlightened despot."

Malkam had a slogan of unrivaled cynicism: "Tell the Muslims something is in the Koran, and they will die for you."

This is a very powerful and evocative anecdote, but it loses all its force when one realizes that Taheri has not supplied, and cannot supply, a single instance of jihadists today actually telling their people that something is in the Qur'an when it is not. Osama, Zarqawi, Zawahiri and the rest -- including even the likes of Omar Bakri and Abu Hamza -- cite the Qur'an frequently. Their citations are readily located in the actual text. While Taheri is correct that in the days of Malkam as now, "the overwhelming majority of Muslims didn't know Arabic, and those who did had as much difficulty reading the Koran as an English speaker has with Chaucer," translations abound in all languages. Even though these do not have canonical status alongside the Arabic text, a Muslim leader in any Islamic land would have to be a fool to try to pass off something as in the Qur'an that isn't there.

LATER in the century, the campaigns of Sayyed Gamal and Mirza Malkam produce the Salafi movement. The term comes from the phrase aslaf al-salehin ("the worthy ancestors") and evokes the hope of reviving "the pure Islam of the early days under Muhammad."

Interesting that he makes no mention of the Wahhabis, the more common bogeymen accused of turning peaceful Islam violent, and who arose many decades before Sayyed Gamal.

The Salafi movement gave birth to the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan al-Moslemeen) led by Hassan al-Banna in Egypt (1928), and to an Iranian Shiite version, the Fedayeen of Islam, led by Muhammad Navab-Safavi (1941).

In the '40s the movement produced two other children. The first was a hybrid of Marxism and Islam concocted by a Pakistani journalist Abul-Ala al-Maudoodi, who saw himself as "the Lenin of Islam." The other was a hybrid of Nazism and Islam promoted by the Palestinian Mufti Haj Amin al-Hussaini and Rashid Ali al- Gilani, an Iraqi firebrand of Iranian origin....

In 1979, it won power in Iran under a semi-literate mullah named Ruhallah Khomeini.

This semi-literate was a well-respected religious teacher, an authority on Islamic theology and law, in the Shi'ite holy city of Qom. He won enough renown as an Islamic scholar to earn the title of Ayatollah. He wrote many books and treatises. Taheri, as his biographer, is well aware of all this.

In the 1980s, it dominated Pakistan through a group of army officers known as "the Koran Generals." In 1992 it came close to seizing power in Algeria through the Front for Islamic Salvation (FIS). In 1995, it seized power in Kabul under the banner of the Taliban. Most recently, it won the election in the West Bank and Gaza under the label of Hamas.

SALAFISM'S biggest successes, how ever, have come in the West — where the emergence of large communities of Muslims has created a space in which neo-Islam can thrive....

Once visual apartheid is achieved, the neo-Islamist moves to Phase Two: making his followers brain-dead. This is done by persuading them that there is a unique Islamic answer to all questions ever asked or ever to be asked.

And where does the answer come from? From "fatwa factories" set up by (often semi-literate) sheiks in some Muslim countries. The most complex issues of life, from banks charging interest to euthanasia, are often answered with a simple "yes" or "no."

Here again, it would be nice if this were true, but it is not. There may be some fatwa factories that resemble Taheri's description, but much more often Salafis, Wahhabis and others of the same ilk deal in quite carefully reasoned arguments, far beyond a simple "yes" or "no." Consider this extended examination from Ask-Imam.com of the question of whether a Muslim may nowadays own a slave girl for sex purposes -- as is sanctioned by the Qur'an (4:3, etc.).

For a Salafi/Wahhabi argument for violent jihad, carefully argued from the Qur'an, from a Chief Justice of Saudi Arabia, see here.

Taheri continues:

The idea is that, as Maudoodi (the "Lenin of Islam") believed, Islam was sent by God to turn men into robots obeying divine rules as spelled out by the sheiks....

To call Maududi the Lenin of Islam twice in a short piece obscures the fact that he was an indefatigable Islamic scholar himself. It is true that he appropriated the language of Marxism, and cleverly framed his Islamic appeal in that language, as I show in Onward Muslim Soldiers. He also wrote a multi-volume (the edition here in my office is seven volumes) commentary on the Qur'an that owes nothing to Lenin -- and in it, he argued from the Qur'an his central point that governments that do not implement Sharia have no legitimacy and must be fought by Muslims.

Are robots expected to have the patience and intellectual curiosity that is required to plow through a multi-volume tafsir? I am not saying that all who followed Maududi's ideas read and studied his books, but I am saying that this vision of programmed half-wits led by three-quarter wits simply doesn't tally with the facts.

NEO-ISLAM pursues its culture of apartheid by dividing the world into "Islam" and "un-Islam."

Wherever Muslims are a majority is designated as Dar al-Islam (House of Peace); the rest of the world is Dar al-Harb (House of War) or, at best, Dar al-Da'awah (House of Propagation). The claim is that it is enough to be a Muslim to be always right against non-Muslims.

Neo-Islam does this, eh? That's funny; a few years ago I was on Michael Coren's TV show in Toronto with Anis Shorrosh, author of Islam Revealed, and a couple of Muslim scholars. When Shorrosh brought up the dar al-Islam/dar al-Harb distinction, one of them looked aggrieved and said, "That is a concept from Medieval times" -- as if no Muslims today believed in such a division. And now Taheri tells us its not Medieval, it's modern.

In fact, of course, it's both. The huge, chasmic distinction between believers and unbelievers ("the vilest of creatures" according to Qur'an 98:6) runs through the Qur'an. Dar al-Islam/dar al-Harb is a very ancient formulation, and one dear to the heart of jihadists today. Taheri's implication that it is something new obscures its traditional roots, and reassures Western non-Muslims -- but on false pretenses.

This is not how Muhammad taught Islam. His biography is full of instances where he ruled against a Muslim in a dispute with a non-Muslim. For him, the world was divided between "right" and "wrong," and "good" and "evil," not Islam and non-Islam. It is possible to be a Muslim and do evil things, while a non-Muslim could also be an agent of good.

Sure, but this is beside the point. Ultimately Muhammad taught that Muslims should behave this way toward non-Muslims -- even good ones:

Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war…When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these, you also accept it and withhold yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them….If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya [the tax on non-Muslims specified in Qur’an 9:29]. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah’s help and fight them. (Sahih Muslim 4294)

Taheri says later: "Neo-Islam has as much right to operate in the political field as any other party in a democracy. But it does not have the right to pretend to be a religion — it is not."

Great. But with all this denial and obfuscation, I wonder if Taheri any longer has the right to pretend to be a trustworthy analyst. I still have great respect for his work -- most of the time. But articles like this one just peddle false reassurance, and are misleading. At best.

Foxes invited to guard henhouse. From AP, with thanks to all who sent this in:

WASHINGTON - A company in the United Arab Emirates is poised to take over significant operations at six American ports as part of a corporate sale, leaving a country with ties to the Sept. 11 hijackers with influence over a maritime industry considered vulnerable to terrorism.

The Bush administration considers the UAE an important ally in the fight against terrorism since the suicide hijackings and is not objecting to Dubai Ports World's purchase of London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co.

The $6.8 billion sale is expected to be approved Monday. The British company is the fourth largest ports company in the world and its sale would affect commercial U.S. port operations in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia.

Another indictment of official British dhimmitude in the face of jihadist activity on the Sceptered Isle. From The Telegraph, with thanks to Counterrevolution:

In the wake of the terrible terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Britain drafted UN resolution 1373 which called on all governments to "Deny safe haven to those who finance, plan, support or commit terrorist acts, or who provide safe havens; and to prevent those who finance, plan, facilitate or commit terrorist acts from using their respective territories for those purposes against other states."

That elementary measure was also a piece of blatant hypocrisy from the British government. For at least a decade, and possibly much longer, it had been covert British policy to provide, in Britain, a safe haven for radical Muslim terrorists to "finance, plan, support or commit terrorist acts".

That is why Abu Hamza - who was finally convicted of incitement to murder last week on the basis of evidence most of which was at least seven years old - was allowed to operate for so long from his mosque in Finsbury Park. It is also why the British government consistently refused requests to extradite known terrorists, not just from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Yemen and Jordan, but also from our neighbours in France. To the understandable fury of the French and many of the governments in the Middle East, Britain knowingly haboured and protected some of the most dangerous Islamic fundamentalists in the world.

To give just three examples: the plots to plant bombs on the Paris Metro in the 1980s and 1990s were hatched in London; so was the assassination of General Massoud in Afghanistan, days before the 9/11 outrages; and so was the kidnapping of Western tourists in Yemen. The government and security services knew what was happening: they were frequently alerted by pleas for action by increasingly desperate foreign governments. But they chose to allow the fanatics to continue their deadly activities.

It is difficult to understand the thinking behind this transparently self-destructive policy. The idea seems to have been that if we left Islamic fanatics free to plot terrorism here, they would reciprocate by not blowing up people in Britain. The short-sighted stupidity of that policy was definitively demonstrated by the deaths of more than 50 people on July 7 last year....

Read it all. The piece goes on to say that the government must isolate jihadists from "the peaceful majority of Muslims in Britain." This will be extraordinarily difficult, and indeed probably cannot be done without the open, full, and sincere cooperation of that "peaceful majority." If such cooperation is not forthcoming, lip service should no longer be paid to this notion, and official indulgence no longer extended to those who are identified as part of that "peaceful majority."

Since late January Jihad Watch has been getting well over a million hits a day, and averaging about 30,000 unique visitors daily. Most of the newcomers, I imagine, are looking around for the Muhammad cartoons. Some of them, both supporters and foes of the jihad, don't read enough here to figure out which side we're on, but do take the time to send me a note based on the assumption that I am a jihadist. Here is one of those that just came in from a supporter of cartoon rage, with the subject line "IRRISPONSIBLE DANISH EDITORS":

THESE BASTARDS ARE ABUSING THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH OF THE PRESS. THEY SHOULD BE HANGED FOR INSULTING THE PROPHET AND ISLAM, ONE GOOD THING ABOUT THIS PUBLISHING, IT HAS UNITED THE WHOLE ISLAMIC WORLD. GOD DAMN THOSE SWINES TO ETERNAL HELL. PEACE BE UPON YOU AND THE WORLD. SADRU JASANI

And upon your spirit, Sadru.

MESA Nostra's Juan Cole weighs in on the Cartoon controversy in this article from Reuters.

Juan Cole, a professor of history at the University of Michigan, said in a commentary on his Web site that the current controversy "must be understood in historical context."

"Most Muslim societies have spent the past two centuries either under European rule or heavy European influence and most colonial masters and their helpmates among the missionaries were not shy about letting local people know exactly how barbaric they thought the Muslim faith was," he wrote.

COLONIAL SCARS

"Indeed, the same themes of Aryan superiority and Semitic backwardness in the European 'scientific racism' of the 19th and early 20th centuries ... led to the Holocaust against the Jews. ... A caricature of a Semitic prophet like Mohammad with a bomb in his turban replicates these racist themes ...

"Semites were depicted as violent and irrational and therefore as needing a firm white colonial master for their own good," Cole wrote.

John Esposito, a professor at Georgetown University and author of "What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam and Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam," agrees that there is nothing in the faith that makes its adherents prone to reacting differently to ridicule.

Martin Luther King Jr., he said, once called riots the voice of the voiceless.

"From my point of view this is a lot more about the context in which this is occurring than about the blasphemy," he said in an interview.

"It's a European context in which you have a growing right wing that is anti-immigrant and a global situation in which mainstream Muslims feel there is a war against Islam," Esposito said.

At the same time many Muslims around the world feel "a sense of powerlessness both within their own countries and, as well, in the international community that exacerbates the situation," he said."

If this was indeed perpetrated by Israelis, rather than by Muslims seeking to exploit a fresh provocation, it is nothing more than irresponsible vandalism -- which leads to, you guessed it, yet more violent demonstrations on the part of Muslims. A peaceful response to anything just doesn't seem to be in the playbook. From CNN:

JERUSALEM -- Demonstrations broke out in three villages in the West Bank after graffiti insulting the Prophet Mohammed was sprayed on a mosque.

Palestinian security sources said seven people were wounded in Sunday's protests.

It was not known who sprayed the graffiti on the mosque in Nabi Eliyas, near the town of Qalqilya in the central West Bank.

Israeli military sources said the graffiti, in Hebrew, read: "Mohammed is a pig." The Israeli Civil Administration and army troops erased the graffiti.

Theodore Dalrymple muses how in regards to the cartoon controversy, it’s the French who’ve been courageous, the Americans and British spineless. In City Journal:

This time, the French have put the British and Americans to shame. From the outset of the crisis over the Danish caricatures, they have vigorously defended the right of free expression, unlike the British and Americans, whose pretence that they “understand” Muslim outrage has fooled no one and given the fanatics the (correct) impression of weakness and lack of conviction—and thus encouraged them.

Two French satirical weeklies with Voltairean aplomb, Le Canard Enchaîné and Charlie Hebdo, have published a series of cartoons mocking the Islamists and their beliefs as they deserve, with a courage and frankness almost entirely missing from the British and American media.

Charlie Hebdo’s front page, for example, has Muhammad, grimacing with his hands over his eyes, saying: “It’s hard being loved by all these idiots.” On the next page, Muhammad looks at the Danish cartoons and says, “It’s the first time the Danes have made me laugh.”...

A Muslim association tried in the French courts to have Charlie Hebdo banned, but the courts firmly rejected the request, and the edition sold out quickly. The two papers have inflicted a humiliation on the Islamists, in the best possible way, by exposing their intellectual nullity to withering scorn. No one can accuse the two papers, either, of racism, xenophobia, or any of the other crimes of lèse-PC, since they criticize and mock everyone (who deserves it) without fear or favor.

The French have emerged in this crisis as far stauncher and more fearless and unapologetic defenders of freedom than the Americans or the British. In this instance, they have stuck to an important principle without calculation of immediate interest or even short-term consequences. They find the equivocations of the Anglo-Saxons strange, spineless, and reprehensible, and in this instance they are absolutely right.

From the Philadelphia Daily News:

The FBI believes that the unemployed Wilkes-Barre man tried to conspire with al-Qaeda to wreck the American economy. Agents say Reynolds plotted to blow up the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, a Pennsylvania pipeline, and a New Jersey refinery.

The sensational allegations, disclosed in a federal transcript obtained by The Inquirer on Friday, reveal a convoluted plot that includes cyberspace intrigue, an elaborate FBI sting, and a clandestine money-drop on a deserted Idaho road.

The case also involves a municipal judge from Montana who has devoted the last four years to snaring would-be terrorists online.
Reynolds, 47, has not been publicly charged with terrorism. But a federal prosecutor leveled that accusation during a December court hearing, saying that Reynolds attempted to "provide material aid to al-Qaeda" and that the case "involves a federal offense of terrorism."

"He was doing it as a plan to disrupt governmental function, to change the government's actions in foreign countries, and to impact on the national debate about the war," Assistant U.S. Attorney John C. Gurganus Jr. said at the hearing in Wilkes-Barre.

Reynolds has been held without bail since Dec. 5 on unrelated weapons charges. A U.S. citizen, he is being detained in the Lackawanna County jail...

From Bloomberg:

Feb. 12 -- U.K. security forces have thwarted three terrorist attacks since the failed London bombings of July 21, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown will say in a speech tomorrow, as he seeks to raise his profile beyond financial matters in his bid to lead the nation after Tony Blair.

``The terrorist threat has not diminished and will not diminish until we defeat it,'' Brown is due to say, according to excerpts the speech released by his office. ``Let us be in no doubt that three attack plans threatening Britain have been thwarted since July 21,'' when four bombs placed on London subways and a bus failed to detonate.

He will pledge more money to combat terrorism and will call for a ``British solution'' to finding the right balance between security and liberty, according a Brown aide. He will speak in London to the Royal United Service Institute.

Brown, 54, is beginning to address topics such as national security and national identity that are the traditional terrain of the prime minister. While Blair has said he wants to serve a full third term, which could last until 2010, political analysts widely expect he will step down in the next 18 to 24 months, with Brown succeeding him...

From ABC News:

(02/10/06 -- CHAPEL HILL) - A political cartoon in a student newspaper is triggering protests on campus.

UNC-Chapel Hill's Muslim Students Association is demanding an apology after a cartoon of the prophet Mohammed appeared in the Daily Tar Heel newspaper.

"It's very disrespectful, and I find it racist," said student Rafsan Khan, a Muslim. "I find it discrimination, too."...

The Muslim Students Association's response to the cartoon was published in today's Daily Tar Heel. It says the paper was insensitive for running the depiction of Mohammad, but newspaper editor Ryan Tuck says he had a reason for printing the cartoon. He issued a statement on his blog, explaining his decision to run the cartoon, but offered no apology...

Tuck defends the cartoon and the freedom of expression, saying it is a newspaper's job to spark dialogue, to provoke, and to challenge. But Muslim students on campus like Aisha Saad feel that job could have been done without using such a controversial cartoon.

"That's what made it more of an injury, because there's no remorse or reasoning behind it," Saad said...

From the BBC:

The Shia bloc set to lead Iraq's first full-term government has picked PM Ibrahim Jaafari as its candidate for prime minister in the new cabinet. Mr Jaafari won by one vote over Vice-President Adel Abdel Mahdi.

Each was backed by two key factions in the United Iraqi Alliance, which fell just short of a majority in the poll...

But his appointment must first be confirmed by parliament, and formal negotiations with other groups about forming a coalition government have yet to begin.

It will be Iraq's first full-term government since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003.

The two previous governments - run by Iyad Allawi and Mr Jaafari - were interim administrations...

Sober political analysis from Herb Keinon at the Jerusalem Post:

...Putin's invitation to Hamas Thursday didn't come out of the blue. A week earlier at a mammoth press conference in the Kremlin, he made it clear that Moscow did not view Hamas the same way the US and Europe did.

His answer to a question about Hamas was extremely telling. Hamas's victory, he said, "is a big setback, an important setback for American efforts in the Middle East. A very serious setback."

And an American setback in the Middle East is good for Russia; it provides Russia with an opportunity.

Putin's invitation to Hamas was not a jab at Israel, although we will definitely feel the sting, as much as it was a swipe at US regional policies. Putin has identified a place where Russia can play a key position. If everyone else is boycotting Hamas and Russia talks with it, then Russia has just won itself a starring role...

Chris Elliot of the Enigma Report has created this helpful website for those of us whow want to support Denmark by purchasing Danish products.

...Because freedom of expression and freedom of speech are bedrock values in any true democracy. Because external forces that try to control what a Danish paper chooses to publish in Denmark are misguided. Because we all have a stake in protecting democratic freedoms.

What You Can Do

Support your favorite Danish company against boycotts. If you like food, beer, electronics, and toys (and most people do), then Danish companies should be on your list. Take a look at the consumer products page for more information.

An update on the Ashura bombing in Pakistan from VOA:

Rival Muslim groups in northwestern Pakistan have ended an armed standoff after two days of violence that killed 38 people and injured dozens more.

The police chief in Hangu said Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims reached a cease-fire agreement in talks Saturday.

The fighting began Thursday after a suicide bomber killed 23 Shi'ites observing the Ashura holy day.

After the bombing, Shi'ites retaliated by burning cars and shops. Army reinforcements were called in to restore order, but battles between the two groups continued.

Ashura marks the death in the seventh century of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson which led to the original schism between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims...

From AP:

JAKARTA Fearful Danish consular staff have fled their embassy, Indonesia's foreign minister said Sunday, after Denmark urged its citizens to leave the world's most populous Muslim nation citing security concerns amid anger over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

Danish Ambassador Niels Erik Anderson and embassy staff have temporarily relocated "to an unspecified location," Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda said...

Earlier, Denmark called on its citizens to leave Indonesia, warning it has credible information that Danes are at risk.

"There is concrete information that indicates that an extremist group actively will seek out Danes in protest of the publication of the Muhammad drawings," Denmark's Foreign Ministry said in a statement. It did not name the group...

CNN reports: The Danish government also removed envoys from its embassies in Syria and Iran.

If only the dissidents could topple the regime quickly...with strong U.S. help. From SMCCDI:

Millions of Iranians inflicted another heavy slap to the face of the shaky and unpopular Islamic regime by boycotting its "27th anniversary revolution celebration" by staying home, or far from the official gatherings.

The regime's desperate leadership was hoping to bring millions in the streets by playing their nationalistic or religious feelings. But in Tehran, which was supposed to become a show room, the regime was unable to muster more than 70 or 80 thousand professional demonstrators and government employees and schools' students. Many of them, such as most governmental employees, are known to be forced to participate in official gatherings and others are fanatics or paid demonstrators. Hundreds of buses had transferred thousands of such demonstrators to the Capital.

For reference purposes, there are more than 12-million inhabitants in Tehran, the capital of Iran.

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses the implications of Iranian bellicosity and the increasingly probable Western response:

Suppose you were an Iranian, an ethnic Persian and a Muslim, and were one of the thousands involved in the nuclear bomb project. And you were not a fanatical supporter of the Islamic Republic of Iran, but were rather disturbed by it. Yet you for some reason allowed your sense of national pride to take precedence, and liked the idea of Iran's refusing to abandon this project, even though you had plenty of evidence that not merely Ahmadinejad, but every Iranian leader in recent history, had made clear that such weapons, if acquired, would be used against Israel. Ahmadinejad does not say something new; he just says it more often and more directly, and with greater evident delight. And you have had your own experiences, or your relatives have, or your friends, with the sheer craziness of the people running Iran. But you wanted Iran to survive.

Perhaps you would guess that the Americans, or the Israelis, or several NATO countries together, would never attempt to destroy the nuclear bomb project. You might think that the various places that contributed to the project were too spread out, and some too well hidden, for any potential attacker to be successful. But what if it were not one attack, but many, doing as much damage as could be done, eliminating certain key contributing establishments, and their personnel. And then, of course, even as remnants of what remained of the Iranian government (which could also be attacked) tried to utter brave words of defiance, another attack, and then a day or week or month or three months later, another one. When Israel bombed the Osirak Reactor in 1981, it was blandly predicted that the Iraqis would have the whole project up and running again with a decade. Twenty-five years later -- and no such project, or one likely to be.

I am glad this is finally coming to light. But will that make it change? "Focus: How liberal Britain let hate flourish: A clash of civilisations or a failure of moderates to stand firm?" From the TimesOnline, with thanks to Caratacus:

WHEN Rachid Salama, a young Algerian, found himself homeless in London, salvation lay in a large mosque dominating a street corner in north London.

“The mosque was huge, clean and warm. Apart from the heavies on the door glaring and flashing their Afghanistan scars, everybody was extremely friendly and welcoming,” he said last week.

“Then I discovered how my brothers passed the day. Many were on benefits or living off charity so they could hang about discussing jihad all day. Whenever we were not praying, we were taken to watch TV. There were endless videos of mujaheddin activity around the globe.

“Jihadist nasheeds (songs) were played in the background, with medieval-style voice harmonies and deeply stirring lyrics about how brave mujhads are suffering for Allah and dying in order to defend Muslim lands. They sometimes climaxed with a question — are you going to stand by and watch Muslim civilians killed? “The atmosphere was intense. Any slight dissent was stamped on so quickly and aggressively that I realised that the best thing to do was nod and say ‘Inshallah’ with the rest of my brothers.”

Salama had found sanctuary in the Finsbury Park mosque under the regime imposed by Abu Hamza, the one-eyed, hook-handed Egyptian who had seized control of the building from moderates and turned it into a centre for incitement to murder.

The Algerian was never gulled by the talk of jihad and left the mosque to find work. But he, like other moderates, had failed to counter the extremism.

When Hamza was convicted of inciting his followers to murder non-Muslims last week, it became clear that the British authorities had also failed to counter the extremism — although they were only too well aware of what was going on....

Read it all. There is a great deal of important and revealing information here.

Another moderate Muslim. I wish those who take such hope from statements of condemnation like Ali's after the July 7 attacks will explain to us how we can distinguish sincere condemnations from insincere ones. From the TimesOnline, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

A LEADING imam in the mosque where the July 7 bombers worshipped has hailed their terrorist attack on London as a “good” act in a secretly taped conversation with an undercover reporter.

Hamid Ali, spiritual leader of the mosque in West Yorkshire, said it had forced people to take notice when peaceful meetings and conferences had no impact.

He also praised the bombers as the “children” of Abdullah al-Faisal, a firebrand Muslim cleric, who was convicted of inciting murder and racial hatred in 2003.

Ali revealed that the leader of the London suicide bombers had attended sermons in Yorkshire by al-Faisal and tapes of al-Faisal’s teachings were still circulating within his mosque.

Al-Faisal, who has branded non-Muslims as “cockroaches” ripe for extermination, is serving a seven-year prison sentence but is eligible for early release next week.

Evidence of continuing extremism and terrorist sympathisers in the bombers’ community has been exposed by a six-week investigation by The Sunday Times. It contrasts with the public statements of condemnation by community leaders — including Ali — in the immediate aftermath of the July 7 attacks.

1938 Alert from the Telegraph, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Strategists at the Pentagon are drawing up plans for devastating bombing raids backed by submarine-launched ballistic missile attacks against Iran's nuclear sites as a "last resort" to block Teheran's efforts to develop an atomic bomb.

Central Command and Strategic Command planners are identifying targets, assessing weapon-loads and working on logistics for an operation, the Sunday Telegraph has learnt.

They are reporting to the office of Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, as America updates plans for action if the diplomatic offensive fails to thwart the Islamic republic's nuclear bomb ambitions. Teheran claims that it is developing only a civilian energy programme.

"This is more than just the standard military contingency assessment," said a senior Pentagon adviser. "This has taken on much greater urgency in recent months."

Yes it has.

More threats from the Thug-In-Chief. Will anyone take him seriously before it's too late? From DPA, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Tehran (dpa) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Saturday that the Palestinians and “other nations” will eventually remove Israel from the region.

Addressing a mass demonstration in Tehran - one of many organized throughout Iran to commemorate the 27th anniversary of the Islamic revolution - he once again questioned the Holocaust “fairy tale”.

“We ask the West to remove what they created sixty years ago and if they do not listen to our recommendations, then the Palestinian nation and other nations will eventually do this for them,” Ahmadinejad said in a ceremony marking the 27th anniversary of the Islamic revolution.

“Do the removal of Israel before it is too late and save yourself from the fury of regional nations,” the ultra-conservative president said. He once again called the Holocaust a “fairy tale” and said Europeans have become hostages of “Zionists” in Israel....

The president said that the results of the parliamentary elections in Palestine and the victory of the Hamas group “clearly showed what the people really want.”

Yes it did. Although the world is still in denial.

To see the Muhammad cartoons, click here.

Big surprise here. From AP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, marking the 27th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, told tens of thousands of his countrymen Saturday that the United States and Europe should pay a heavy price for publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, saying the West had become a tool of "Zionism."

Denmark, where the cartoons first were published four months ago, said it was temporarily pulling its envoys from Tehran, Syria and Indonesia, where buildings housing Copenhagen's diplomatic missions have come under attacks from angry Muslim demonstrators....

"I ask everybody in the world not to let a group of Zionists who failed in Palestine (referring to the recent Hamas victory in Palestinian elections) to insult the prophet.

"Now in the West insulting the prophet is allowed, but questioning the Holocaust is considered a crime," he said. "We ask, why do you insult the prophet? The response is that it is a matter of freedom, while in fact they (who insult the founder of Islam) are hostages of the Zionists. And the people of the US and Europe should pay a heavy price for becoming hostages to Zionists," he declared.