March 2008 Archives

"What a Shame on You so called ‘Humans,’" begins a hectoring message from the hackers who have taken over themoviefitna.com.

Well, I guess that proves it: Islam is a religion of peace!

Here is open bloodlust and Islamic supremacism, in a film produced by Muslims for Muslims -- indeed, for Muslim children. Will the OIC denounce this film? Will Ban Ki-Moon and Louise Arbour?

If not, why not?

Why exactly is Fitna worse than this?

"Child Stabs President Bush to Death and Turns the White House into a Mosque in a Hamas TV Puppet Show," from MEMRITV (thanks to all who sent this in):

Following is an excerpt from a puppet show, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on March 30, 2008.

Bush: Who are you? What brings you to my home? How did they let you in, boy? My guards! My soldiers! Get this boy out of here.

Child: Nobody will take me out of here.

Bush: Who are you to come here and threaten me?! You are on my own turf, you little child, you! Get out. My dear, bring your father, your grandfather, or your mother, so I can talk to them. Get somebody older and smarter than you. What, you came here on your own?

Child: You killed daddy in the Iraq war. It's true, you killed him in the Iraq war. As for my mom – you and the criminal Zionists killed her in Lebanon. You and the criminal Zionists also killed my younger and older brothers in the Gaza holocaust. I'm an orphan, you criminal!

Bush: What are you talking about? Where did you come from? Don't I have enough troubles already? Where did you come from?

Child: I have come to take revenge with this sword – revenge for my mother and my sisters. You are a criminal, Bush! You are despicable. You made me an orphan! You took everything from me, Bush! I must take revenge on you, with this sword of Islam, the Prophet's Al-Battar sword.

Bush: No... No, my dear. I give you my word that this is it. I repent, just don't kill me. Where are my guards? Where are my people? Help! Help! He wants to kill me. Help!

Child: There are no guards, and your people have surrendered, Bush. I have not come alone, Bush. I have brought thousands of thousands of children from Palestine, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Afghanistan. You have denied all these children their fathers and mothers. That's why I have come to take revenge on you and on all the criminal traitors who collaborated with you.

Bush: Okay, fine, that's enough. I will give you whatever you want from me.

Child: What can you give me? All I want is one thing. Bring back my father and mother. I don't want anything from you. I don't want anything from you, just bring back my father and mother. I place my trust in Allah. I need to kill you.

Bush: No, my dear. Enough. I will give you anything you want. I also... Enough with that. Come with all your friends to the White House. I will give you food and toys. We will sit in the White House and talk. You will get whatever you need.

Child: You are impure, Bush, so you are not allowed inside the White House.

Bush: What are you saying?! Why am I not allowed into the White House?

Child: Because it has been turned into a great mosque for the nation of Islam. I will kill you just like Mu'az killed Abu Lahab. I will kill you, Bush, because that is your fate.

Child stabs Bush repeatedly

Child: Ahhh, I killed him.

Abu Lahab is Muhammad's uncle, cursed in Qur'an 111.

But no, they have never taken this kind of action, never expressed this kind of indignation, against the violent Muslims depicted in the film.

"Islamic countries want Dutch to ban Wilders movie," by Sebastiaan Gottlieb for Radio Netherlands:

The ambassadors of 26 Islamic countries want the Netherlands to investigate whether the film Fitna made by Dutch right-wing populist MP Geert Wilders can be banned. They asked Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen whether it is possible to start legal proceedings against the anti-Islam film. The meeting at the ministry in The Hague was attended by ambassadors of countries including Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Mr Verhagen told the 26 ambassadors he was pleased that responses from the Muslim world up to now had been moderate. He said the public prosecutor was investigating whether any offence had been committed, and the Dutch government clearly distanced itself from the film.

At the same time he called on the ambassadors to ensure Dutch citizens and organisations abroad were protected. "Let's keep heads cool and relations warm," he added. "We know about the concerns and feelings about this film among the international Muslim community, but hurt feelings must never be an excuse for aggression and threats."

Too late!

Score one for freedom.

In an effort to calm things down, doncha know.

Death Of Free Speech Update: "Dutch minister tries to calm Muslims over 'anti-Koran' film," from RIA Novosti (thanks to Twostellas):

THE HAGUE, March 31 (RIA Novosti) - The Dutch prosecutor's office is preparing to take legal action against the maker of an 'anti-Koran' film in an attempt to ease tensions over the film's release, the Dutch foreign minister said on Monday.

Maxime Verhagen told ambassadors from 26 Muslim that he was happy with the relatively calm reaction he had witnessed since the short film was posted on sites Thursday by Dutch MP Geert Wilders, adding that the film in no way reflected the religious views of the Dutch government.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Monday that "Russia... fully condemns the showing of the film and considers it a provocation," warning of negative consequences similar to those that occurred, following the notorious Danish 'cartoon' episode in 2006....

I just completed a phone interview with a FoxNews reporter (whom I will not name at this point) about Fitna. It was a bit strange that I gave long replies to his questions and then only heard him typing very briefly as I was speaking, but maybe he is a fast typist. In any case, I will be watching closely for misquotes, half-quotes, distortions, etc. -- I've had plenty of experience of this from reporters in the past.

But in the course of the conversation he told me that LiveLeak had put Fitna back up. However, searching around LiveLeak just now, I can't find it. That means nothing, since I am generally hopeless with computer issues, but does anyone know anything about this? Is the film back up at LiveLeak?

UPDATE: It's true. See here.

SECOND UPDATE: I apologize for being over-suspicious, although given what I've seen reporters do in the past, I don't think the suspicions were completely groundless. In any case, here is the article (thanks to all who sent this in), and it is generally OK -- I am not misquoted.

Registering an objection to the education of girls. "Security forces find 58 bodies in Kohat: Girls’ primary school attacked in Darra," from the Daily Times (thanks to Twostellas):

...School attacked: Meanwhile, militants blew up the gate of a girls’ primary school in the semi-tribal Darra Adam Khel area late on Saturday, a Daily Times staff report quoted local sources as saying.

They said that the explosives were planted at the school’s gate and exploded at around 11pm on Saturday, damaging it. However, the school building remained safe and no causalities were reported.

Militants also blew up a checkpost near Tandi Kalai late on Saturday. The checkpost was unoccupied at the time.

Security forces also defused two bombs in the Sherakai area, which appeared intended to blow up a bridge.

See? Islam really is peaceful

"Geert Wilders is a Christian terrorist" -- here again is the equation of the depiction of violent acts by Muslims with the commission of those acts.

"Muslim hardliners in Indonesia rally over Dutch film," from Reuters (thanks to Chris):

JAKARTA (Reuters) - About 50 members of a hardline Indonesian Muslim group held a rowdy protest outside the Dutch embassy on Monday, calling for the death of a Dutch lawmaker behind a film accusing the Koran of inciting violence.

Geert Wilders, leader of the anti-immigration Freedom Party in the Netherlands, launched his short video on the Internet last week, drawing condemnation from Muslim nations.

Dozens of police, with two water cannon at the ready, did not intervene during the protest by white-clad members of the Islamic Defenders' Front, some of whom hurled eggs and plastic water bottles into the compound of the Dutch embassy in Jakarta.

"I call on Muslims around the world, if you run into the maker of the film, kill him," said one of the speakers at the rally, Awit Mashuri.

"Geert Wilders is a Christian terrorist," declared a placard held up by a protester. "Kill Geert Wilders," read another....

As I noted yesterday, the reactions of Muslim moderates to Fitna are illuminating in many ways. And so here is another, "The real Fitna," by the English convert to Islam Yusuf Smith ("Indigo Jo") at his blog (thanks to Jihad Watch reader Esther):

The flaws are not hard to spot. This is basically Jihad Watch or Little Green Footballs as a film, and is not intended to try and convince anyone not of that mindset.

Interesting. I didn't know that Yusuf Smith was a confidant of Geert Wilders. But how otherwise could he know what the film was "intended" to do?

For a start, only a small minority interpret the verses Wilders cites to justify the acts depicted; the majority of Muslims in the world simply do not behave like this and mainstream scholars reject such interpretations.

There is no doubt whatsoever that the majority of Muslims in the world simply do not behave like jihad terrorists. But how many of them actually and actively disapprove of those jihadist deeds? How many are working against the spread of the jihad ideology within Muslim communities?

And who are the "mainstream scholars" to which Yusuf Smith refers? Ali Eteraz offered a list of Muslims condemning terrorism that included Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who has endorsed suicide attacks against Israeli civilians; Sheikh Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi, who has also endorsed such attacks; Mohamed Elmasry, who has limited the legitimacy of such attacks to Israelis over the age of 18; CAIR, which has been named an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case and has had several of its officials convicted on various terror-related charges; and Siraj Wahhaj, who testified as a character witness for the jihadist Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, mastermind of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993.

Can Yusuf Smith do better than that? Or must we resign ourselves to the proposition that Muslims who condemn terrorism may be involved with it themselves, or approving of it in other contexts?

The context of the verses' revelation is simply not discussed in this film (there are no words, other than those written on the screen or those spoken by people in the footage). There are shots of demonstrations in London with offensive banners (behead those who insult Islam, etc) and similar shouted slogans, but the fact is that these demonstrations were tiny, organised by a well-known and disliked small group of Muslims, and widely condemned within the community.

Great. How nice. The demonstrations were condemned. Were the sentiments condemned?

Let's remember, after all, that Yusuf Smith is the gentleman with whom I had a memorable exchange here a few years ago. I said: "I would like nothing better than a flowering, a renaissance, in the Muslim world, including full equality of rights for women and non-Muslims in Islamic societies: freedom of conscience, equality in laws regarding legal testimony, equal employment opportunities, etc."

Yusuf Smith responded: "So, you would like to see us ditch much of our religion and, thereby, become non-Muslims."

In other words, he saw a call for equality of rights for women and non-Muslims in Islamic societies, including freedom of conscience, equality in laws regarding legal testimony, and equal employment opportunities, as a challenge to his religion. This makes me wonder whether his quibble with Fitna here is with the positions the demonstrators espoused, or simply with the demonstrators themselves.

In the "under the spell" section, the future of various groups such as women, children and gays are speculated on, and in the section on women there are images of girls who have just undergone genital mutilation, which most Muslims do not practise.

In short, it is a montage of the most violent stereotypes of Muslims.

But of course, women do undergo genital mutilation, by the millions, in countries in which the practise is justified by reference to Islam. Is it then simply a "stereotype" to call for an end to this barbarity? Should Yusuf Smith be directing his indignation toward Muslims who justify genital mutilation on Islamic grounds rather than against Geert Wilders, who is simply noting that some Muslims do this?

Here is another article I wrote on Fitna: "Geert Wilders' 'Fitna': Insightful and Inciteful," the featured piece at Human Events today:

Geert Wilders’ much-anticipated film on the Qur’an, Fitna, was released on LiveLeak.com on Thursday, pulled by LiveLeak on Friday after death threats, and by Saturday couldn’t be stopped: it had gone viral, having been posted in innumerable places all over the Internet. (You can watch it at my website Jihad Watch.)

But many, many people are still trying to make sure you don’t see it. Iran urged European leaders to block the film, and summoned the Slovenia representative in Tehran (Slovenia currently holds the EU presidency) to lodge an official protest, as Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini called it a “provocative and anti-Islamic movie,” revealing “continued enmity and deep hostility of such western nationals against Islam and Muslims.” The Pakistani government summoned the Dutch Ambassador in Islamabad to lodge a formal protest also. Malaysia’s former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad called on Muslims to boycott Dutch products in retaliation for the movie.

I discuss the fitna over Fitna today at Pajamas Media:

Fitna in Arabic means discord or upheaval; it is also the name of a new sixteen-minute film by Dutch politician Geert Wilders that appeared last Thursday, and has done nothing since then but…create fitna. The expected riots and violence did not materialize: in Karachi, a quixotic band of just over three dozen jihadists chanted “Death to the filmmaker,” but so far that has been about it on the street level.

Protests have instead been official. Iran and Pakistan lodged formal complaints - Iran with the European Union and Pakistan with the Dutch Ambassador to Islamabad - and as of this writing the anger is only growing. Other Islamic states and organizations also expressed outrage over the film. The multinational Islamic body and largest single voting bloc at the UN, the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference, condemned Fitna in “the strongest terms,” claiming that Wilders’s movie was “a deliberate act of discrimination against Muslims” intended only to “provoke unrest and intolerance.”

This is another Meccan sura. In the first part of Muhammad’s career, a group of Muslims migrated from Arabia to Abyssinia. One of the Muslims recited the material here about Mary and Jesus to the Christian ruler of Abyssinia, showing him that Muslims believed in Jesus, but not as the Son of God.

After the mysterious letters in v. 1, verses 2-40 retell the story told in Luke 1:5-80 – with some important differences, of course. Vv. 2-15 begin, as does Luke’s account, with the story of Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, encountering an angel (Luke 1:11; v. 9 of this chapter of the Qur’an establishes that Allah is not speaking directly with Zechariah). The angel tells him he will become a father despite his old age and his wife’s barrenness (v. 8). In the Qur’an, unlike in the Gospel, this comes as an answer to his prayer for a son (vv. 4-6). In both the Gospel (Luke 1:20) and the Qur’an (v. 10) he is unable to speak after this vision, although the Qur’an, unlike the Gospel, does not present this as punishment for his unbelief, but only as a sign of Allah’s power.

"'I equate evangelism with terrorism,' Religious Affairs Minister Ghoulamullah said in an article in L’Expression on February 12."

That's from "Algeria: Officials Order Closure Of 19 Protestant Congregations: Police in Muslim country detain Christians for carrying Bibles," from Compass Direct (thanks to DMartyr).

All right that does it. We need some people to infiltrate Islam with a Muslim version of the Glory and Praise hymnal ASAP.

(If you are not Catholic and don't get the joke, consider yourself...lucky).

From Reuters

The Vatican recently put the number of Catholics in the world at 1.13 billion people. It did not provide a figure for Muslims, generally estimated at around 1.3 billion.

Formenti said that while the number of Catholics as a proportion of the world's population was fairly stable, the percentage of Muslims was growing because of higher birth rates.

He said the data on Muslim populations had been compiled by individual countries and then released by the United Nations, adding the Vatican could only vouch for its own statistics.

Just imagine for a second if any of these MPs had gotten this angry at any one of the Islamic preachers and jihadists depicted in Wilders's film.

"Jordanian MPs want Dutch envoy dismissed over anti-Islam film," from DPA (thanks to Twostellas):

Amman - At least 53 deputies of Jordan's 110-member lower house of parliament on Sunday signed a memorandum urging the government to "dismiss" the Dutch ambassador to Amman following the screening by a Dutch lawmaker of a film deemed offensive to Muslims. "The memorandum calls on the government to sever diplomatic ties with the Netherlands and dismiss the Dutch ambassador," parliamentarians said....

Watch for the howls of protest to come, in which the possibility of Al-Qaeda's actually obtaining such viruses will be lost amid cries of "racism" and infringement of privacy, etc. "M15 in terrorist checks on 800 killer virus labs," by Jason Lewis in the Daily Mail (thanks to Sr. Soph):

MI5 and anti-terrorist police are carrying out secret background checks on thousands of scientists amid fears that Al Qaeda is trying to infiltrate British research laboratories to obtain deadly viruses.

The vetting, which includes checks on family backgrounds, political views and associates, is part of a review of some 800 laboratories in hospitals, universities and private firms where staff have access to incurable viruses such as ebola.

Last night, Whitehall sources confirmed the crackdown by MI5 and the police's National Counter Terrorism Security Office.

A series of spot checks and detailed inspections are also being led by experts from the Health and Safety Executive.

Last week one of the HSE's top inspectors revealed details of its investigation, which until now has been highly secret.

Dr Paul Logan, of its Biological Agents Unit, told a Commons sub-committee on biosecurity: "We work very closely with the security services. We advise them on toxins and pathogens.

"They are looking at very different things at the moment in terms of vetting of staff, looking at physical security and how easy it is to break into premises and the wider security issues."...

Yes, Mr. Smith! Geert Wilders made up that equation of Islam with violence all by himself! It isn't as if any Muslim ever quoted the Qur'an to justify violence! Oh, no! That has never happened!

"Australia denounces anti-Islam film," from The Age (thanks to all who sent this in):

Australia has added its voice to the international chorus of outrage over an anti-Islam film posted on the internet by a right wing Dutch politician.

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said Geert Wilders' film Fitna equated Islam with acts of terror and violence and was "highly offensive".

"It is an obvious attempt to generate discord between faith communities," Mr Smith said.

"Like leaders in the Muslim world and in Europe, I strongly reject the ideas contained in the film and deplore its release.

"In Australia we believe in the right to freedom of expression but we don't believe in abusing that right to incite racial hatred."...

What race is Islam again? I keep forgetting.

The reaction of Muslim moderates to Geert Wilders's film Fitna is in many ways just as illuminating as that of their fiercer coreligionists. In "The Fitna farce" in The Guardian's "Comment Is Free" blog, Ali Eteraz, with whom I've had several exchanges in the past, and whom I have not found to be a completely forthright or honest debater, yawns at the film, complains superciliously about "Islamophobia" and approvingly quotes a friend's conclusion that in the fifteen minutes it took to watch Fitna, he could have -- well, I've always thought that, at least in his interaction with me, Ali has been kind of a jerk, and now...this.

In The Guardian, he says:

...My initial reaction is a yawn. I blame production. The soundtrack is Tchaikovsky's mellow classical piece called "Arab Dance". Quick tip to future demagogues: when trying to incite riots, try not to use musical pieces that are based on Georgian lullabies. Quick tip to future Islamophobes: when trying to demonise Islam, try not to use elements of western culture that are inspired by Arabs and Muslims as that reveals that Muslims have contributed positively to the world.

Uh, maybe that was the point? I.e., look how far we have descended, from "Arab Dance" to the Twin Towers?

To his credit, unlike many other commentators -- indeed, virtually every other commentator on the film -- Eteraz doesn't pretend that the connection between the Qur'an and violence was invented ex nihilo by Wilders, and acknowledges that some Muslims have been responsible for this connection:

Anyone who has seen terrorist propaganda films is familiar with most of the scenes and most of the disgusting conflations of the Quran with acts of violence, murder, kidnapping and antisemitism. Such behaviour has been condemned resoundingly among Muslims. Those that use the Quran for illegitimate and criminal ends should be punished by the fullest extent of the law. [...]

But then a bit later on we get this:

One of the things the film did was to try and link some verses from the Quran to acts of violence. Most people familiar with the Quran, including Christian polemicists I've debated, accept that you can have the Quran say pretty much whatever you want. For example, there is among Muslims a pretty hefty industry of "scientists" who are constantly "proving" that various Quranic verses predicted the marvels of modern science. I once saw a presentation by one of these guys. It was, in a way, very similar to what Wilders has done. First there would be a slide with a Quranic verse. Then there would be a bunch of images of some modern scientific marvel. Apparently, everything from the space-time continuum, modern meteorology and congenital biology are supported by verses from the Quran. Like I said, when put into the hands of fanatics and fools, the Quran - like any book of religious scripture - can say anything. If suicide bombers wanted, they could even go into the Old Testament, cite to Sampson, and justify their heinous acts.

Yes, and if the moon were made of green cheese, I'd take a big bite, or if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. But in reality, suicide bombers aren't invoking Samson, but the Qur'an, and Wilders wasn't attempting to link the Qur'an to acts of violence, but was merely reporting on how the Qur'an has been linked to violence and supremacism by jihadists themselves. Eteraz says above that "those that use the Quran for illegitimate and criminal ends should be punished by the fullest extent of the law." If among those "illegitimate and criminal ends" he would include violence against non-Muslims and an openly supremacist agenda involving the imposition of Islamic law in the West, then why is he upset with Wilders for opposing these things?

Of course, his answer would be, "Because Wilders says these things come from Islam itself, whereas I myself am a Muslim and I oppose these things also." Very well. Eteraz then might more effectively discredit Wilders by directing his efforts within the Islamic community, against the jihadists and jihadism, rather than against those who hear the jihadists say repeatedly that they represent pure Islam, and don't see any large-scale significant countermovement opposing them among Muslims. It doesn't help that Eteraz links to a page entitled, "Muslims Condemn Terrorist Attacks," which features condemnations of terrorism by such luminaries as Sheikh Qaradawi, who has endorsed suicide attacks against Israeli civilians; Sheikh Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi, who has also endorsed such attacks; Mohamed Elmasry, who has limited the legitimacy of such attacks to Israelis over the age of 18; CAIR, which has been named an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case and has had several of its officials convicted on various terror-related charges; and Siraj Wahhaj, who testified as a character witness for the jihadist Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, mastermind of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993.

Is it too much to ask that Muslims who condemn terrorism not be involved with it themselves, or approving of it in other contexts?

What the film really shows to me is that Wilders doesn't know the difference between Islam and Islamism - and when it comes to the latter he is completely lost. This is his major attack against Islamism? He reminds me of those socially-awkward, marginalised, introverted children in a schoolyard whose solution to persecution at the hands of a bully is to write the bully's name in his notebook and then rip up the page.

Eteraz does not consider, characteristically enough, the possibility that -- as Hasan Al-Banna and others insisted -- "Islamism" was merely a reassertion of traditional political Islam. I would think that would be a point well worth exploring. But in Eteraz's world, who created "Islamism"? Why, the West, of course. Who else? But surprisingly enough, it wasn't the Zionists (that would be the "Islamist" line, and Ali Eteraz is not an "Islamist"), but the French and the Americans:

If Wilders really wanted to expose Islamism - the entire legacy of 20th century ideological Islam - he would start with how the French Suez Canal Company funded the Muslim Brotherhood's first mosque. That fact is casually mentioned in Hasan al-Banna's autobiography (which I am certain Wilders never bothered to consult). Or Wilders would have tried to begin some criminal proceeding in the international criminal courts against those men who came up with the genius idea of encouraging disaffected Arab youth into going into Afghanistan and then gave them $1 billion in machine guns, bombs and stinger missiles to play with. Or Wilders could have expressed some outrage over the drafters of the new Iraqi constitution - drafted in consultation with western lawyers - which makes sharia the law of the land (a fact bemoaned by Iraqi feminists, among others). Had he bothered to show some serious thinking he would have even found support among the millions of Muslims around the world who oppose Islamists.

About sharia in Iraq he is certainly right. Thanks, Noah Feldman!

Anyway, then comes Eteraz's inspiring peroration:

In terms of sheer originality, though, the best response to this film came from a friend of mine who watched the film - and calling it a film is to abuse both the English language and the legacy of cinema - on my computer with me:

"I could have masturbated in that time."

High level analysis indeed!

This was just posted at a jihadist website -- and here is a Google translation of that site.

"If there is no check on the freedom of your words, then let your hearts be open to the freedom of our actions," with a picture of Osama bin Laden (I gather this is a quote from him), and the World Trade Towers burning in the background.

Threat noted.

Now: Who in the West will respond appropriately? McAuliffe comes to mind.

UPDATE: Rusty Shackleford contends that the quote above refers to the Muhammad cartoons, not to Fitna. In either case, threat noted, robust response needed.

"We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately." - Benjamin Franklin

"Dutch businesses threaten to sue over anti-Islam film," from Agence France-Presse:

THE HAGUE (AFP) — Dutch businesses Saturday threatened to sue far-right lawmaker Geert Wilders if his anti-Islam film led to a commercial boycott, as several more Muslim countries condemned it.

"I don't know if Wilders is rich, or well-insured, but in the case of a boycott, we would look to see if we could make him bear responsibility," Bernard Wientjes, chairman of the Dutch employers' organisation VNO-NCW, told the newspaper Het Financieel Dagblad.

"A boycott would hurt Dutch exports. Businesses such as Shell, Philips and Unilever are easily identifiable as Dutch companies," he was quoted as saying.

Malaysia's former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad suggested a boycott on Saturday, echoing a similar call by media in Jordan.

"If we boycott Dutch products, they will have to close down their businesses," Mohamad told reporters. "If the world's 1.3 billion Muslims unite and say they won't buy, then it (the boycott) will be effective."

Since the release of the 17-minute documentary "Fitna" on the Internet on Thursday, Muslim nations including Malaysia and Singapore have condemned the film, as has UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Although there were no mass disturbances in the Netherlands, in Utrecht two cars were set ablaze overnight, with a slogan calling for the death of Wilders.

Proportional response.

Now, now. Didn't the Christianists do the same thing when The DaVinci Code came out? No? Uh, never mind. "Anti-Quran film sparks protests in Muslim world," from CNN-IBN:

New Delhi: Muslims in several countries are protesting a film by a Dutch lawmaker's film, saying it insults the Quran.

Hundreds of Islamists staged angry protests across Pakistan after the release of the film and a militant allegedly linked to al-Qaida's No 2 leader also warned that the film will spark reprisal attacks.

Small groups of demonstrators, mostly followers of hard-line religious groups, rallied in major cities, demanding Pakistan cut diplomatic relations with the Netherlands. A banner at one demonstration read, "We hate the uncivilized West."

You Occidentophobe.

The book has verses from the Quran against a background of violent images of terrorist attacks.

These include the 9/11 attacks in the US and the 2004 Madrid train bombings. The film starts and ends with the controversial Danish cartoons on Prophet Mohammad.

Religious activists in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Indonesia and several European countries took out protest rallies against the film and the Pakistan government said the film deeply offended the sentiments of Muslims all over the world.

The European Union too has made critical observations on the film. But it was defended by Salman Rushdie, who was himself under attack from Islamic fundamentalists after his book Satanic Verses.

AP adds: The 15-minute film by Geert Wilders, who heads a reactionary political party with seats in the Dutch parliament, was posted on a Web site yesterday. It sets verses of the Quran, Islam's holy book, against a background of images from terrorist attacks.

Pakistan's government condemned the " defamatory film, which deeply offended the sentiments of Muslims all over the world." It summoned the Dutch ambassador to lodge a " strong protest."

Protests have been simmering for weeks over the recent republication in Danish newspapers of cartoons of Prophet Muhammad, and authorities are concerned the Dutch film could spark the kind of violent unrest that the cartoons originally provoked two years ago.

A militant believed linked to al-Qaida's deputy chief Ayman al-Zawahri told The Associated Press in the northwestern city of Peshawar last week militants would mount revenge attacks against foreigners because of Wilders' film.

"Foreigners will be attacked. The situation will change, change, change," said Qari Mohammed Yusuf, whose also said his two brothers died fighting alongside al-Zawahri.

UPDATE: This story is false. The Sun has retracted it and apologized. I apologize also, for linking to it in the first place.

--------

Questions for Ms. Arbour: Is not being offended a human right? Should "appropriate restrictions" target the clear and present danger of possibly having one's feelings hurt? In that event, there will need to be a U.N. court on every elementary school playground. "Louise Arbour condemns the film 'Fitna'," from Kuwait News Agency:

GENEVA, March 28 (KUNA) -- The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said Friday that she joins in the condemnation, as expressed by the Secretary-General and the three UN Special Rapporteurs, of the tone and content of the film 'Fitna' by Dutch Geert Wilders.

Arbour urged all those who understandably feel profoundly offended by its provocative message to restrict themselves to denouncing its hateful content by peaceful means.

"There is a protective legal framework, and the resolution of the controversy that this film will generate should take place within it," she added.

She also urged lawmakers everywhere to discharge their responsibility under Articles 19 and 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

"They should offer strong protective measures to all forms of freedom of expression, while at the same time enacting appropriate restrictions, as necessary, to protect the rights of others," Arbour said.

She noted that equally, they should prohibit any advocacy of national, racial, or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.

Preeeeeee-cisely. The formerly UK-based jihadist hits the nail on the head: for all the rage from Muslims about how Fitna "links Islam with violence," that link has already been made by the jihadists, who never aroused any significant rage among their peaceful brethren. The jihadists quote Qur'an to justify their actions -- it wasn't Geert Wilders who had to go hunting in the Qur'an for verses that matched those actions.

Yet in all the furor over the film, from the EU, the UN, the OIC, and everyone else, no one seems to have picked up on that point.

"Muslim reaction to Dutch film is muted," by Michael Steen, Andrew Bounds, and Ferry Biederman in Financial Times (thanks to D):

The imam at Friday prayers in Amsterdam's El Tawheed mosque spoke of "enemies of Islam", but in spite of that clear nod to Geert Wilders, the Dutch anti-immigration politician, and his film, the mood was decidedly relaxed.

"Wilders is laughable, he just wants attention," said Mohamed, a Moroccan welder among the 300 worshippers at the mosque listening to a sermon urging Dutch Muslims not to play into the hands of those who insult their religion by breaking the law. [...]

Across the Arab world, reaction to the film was muted and the subject was largely avoided in Friday sermons. A coalition of Jordanian media organisations said it would sue Mr Wilders and urged the government to review ties with the Netherlands and Denmark.

Iran called the film part of a "vendetta" against Islam. Several hundred people took to the street in Pakistan and the government summoned the Dutch ambassador. Muslim Bangladesh said the film could have "grave consequences", while the Indonesian government called it "racist" and "an insult to Islam", yet called for calm.

Omar Bakri, the Libyan-based radical Muslim cleric who is barred from Britain, did not think the film was very offensive. "On the contrary, if we leave out the first images and the sound of the page being torn, it could be a film by the [Islamist] Mujahideen," he said. [...]

Qaradawi yet again indulges in extreme rhetoric that can only mean one thing to all too many of his followers, just as he did last week with Wafa Sultan. "Five Ways to Defend Qur'an: Qaradawi," by Mohammad Sabrah for IslamOnline (thanks to Sr. Soph):

CAIRO — Prominent Muslim scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi refuted allegations by a far-right Dutch lawmaker that the Noble Qur'an incites murder and hatred, outlining five ways to stand up to Islam offenders.

"What the Dutch politician did is tantamount to opening fire on the Qur'an," Qaradawi said in exclusive statements to IslamOnline.net.

"Calling the Qur'an a 'fascist book' is a groundless, fabricated allegation that can only come from an ignorant," added the president of the International Union for Muslim Scholars. [...]

Sheikh Qaradawi outlined five ways to respond to insults to Islam and Prophet Muhammad by Wilders and his alike.

"We need scholarly refutations to claims that Prophet Muhammad incited the killing of men and women," he stressed. [...]

That will be tough, given the evidence of the early Muslim sources on Asma bint Marwan, Ka'b bin Ashraf, Abu Afak, the Jews of Khaybar, the Banu Qurayzah Jews, etc. etc.

"Heavyweight Muslim countries should have a manly stance in defense of Islam and its prophet," he added.

"The peoples need to pressure their governments to take such a stand and prove to the world that the Muslim Ummah is still alive."

In other words, strongarm the West into dhimmi silence.

Sheikh Qaradawi also underlined the need for artistic and media responses.

"Movies and TV shows play an important role in clarifying the true image of a much-stereotyped Islam."

Two young Dutchmen, Ersin Kiris and Vincent van der Lem, have already released a counter film on Youtube and MTNL.nl (official website of the Multicultural Television in the Netherlands).

It seeks the borders of freedom of expression and attacks Wilders with his own weapons.

Sheikh Qaradawi said the response is boycotting the products of countries that allow its citizens to bash Islam. [...]

Sheikh Qaradawi, the president of the International Union for Muslim Scholars, regretted that many Muslims project a distorted image of their religion though their wrong understand of the Qur'an.

"We ask them to better understand the Islam's message of peace, mercy and human brotherhood," he added.

Yes, quite a few Misunderstanders of Islam running about, eh, Qaradawi? And do you really think that asking them to better understand Islam is enough?

So apparently if we all agree to ignore it, it will go away.

"A call for respect and calm," by Jorge Sampaio, UN High Representative for the Alliance of Civilizations:

At the core of this situation is a trend towards extremism in many of our societies. We should indeed beware of overemphasizing it, because extremism anywhere is extremism everywhere, thanks to new media technologies. Few people think of themselves as extremists, but many can be pushed towards an extreme point of view, almost without noticing it, when they feel that the behavior or language of others is extreme.

We therefore deeply regret this offensive film.

They say the film defamed and denigrated the Qur'an. Yet when the acts of violence it depicts were justified by their perpetrators by reference to the Qur'an, what did they say then?

"OIC condemns "in the strongest terms" release of anti-Islam film," from the Islamic Republic News Agency:

The Organization of the Islamic Conference added its voice to the growing criticism of a film released by a Dutch lawmaker, which features disturbing images of terrorist acts superimposed over verses from holy Quran.

OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu condemned "in the strongest terms the release of the film 'Fitna' by Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders."

The organization added that the film defamed and denigrated "the Holy Quran, causing insult to the sentiments of more than 1.3 billion Muslims in the world.

"The film was a deliberate act of discrimination against Muslims" that aimed to "provoke unrest and intolerance," the organization said.

A boycott, of course, is better than an outpouring of violent rage, but it is still misplaced in this case, because as Mahathir "The Jews Run The World By Proxy" Mohamad well knows, this film is not a production of the Dutch nation. Boycotting Dutch products is simply an attempt to strongarm the Dutch as a whole into dhimmitude.

"Mahathir calls on Muslims worldwide to boycott Dutch products," from Bernama:

KUALA LUMPUR, Sat: Former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad called upon Muslims worldwide to boycott Dutch products in protest of a film released Monday on the Internet which criticised Islam’s holy book, the Quran.

He said such a boycottt could result in The Netherlands having to “close shop”, as Muslims made up the wealthiest portion of the world’s population and were also the biggest importers.

However, in order to be effective, all 1.3 billion Muslims in the world must unite in the boycott and put the interest of Islam and Muslims over that of individual needs.

“We must not be afraid of losing trade with them. If we do, then we won’t be thinking as Muslims, but more for our own self intersts,” he told reporters after opening the Malaysian Islamic Welfare Organisation’s (Perkim) 46th annual general meeting at a hotel here, today....

Fitna Rage grows. "Muslim, UN outrage over Dutch MP's anti-Islam film," from AFP:

Muslim nations, the European Union and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Friday expressed outrage at an anti-Islam film posted on the Internet by a far-right Dutch MP. [...]

Morocco's Communications Minister Khalid Naciri said Wilders was "mentally retarded".

Iran said the 17-minute film showed Westerners were waging a "vendetta" against Islam, and warned of repercussions. A Jordanian media coalition said they would take Wilders to court and launch a campaign to boycott Dutch products.

In Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, about 40 supporters of the hardline Islamist party Jamaat-i-Islami staged a protest, chanting "Death to the filmmaker".

In an interview with AFP Friday Wilders rejected any responsibility for retaliation against Dutch nationals or interests abroad.

"I hope it doesn't happen but even if it does the people who commit such acts are responsible, not me," he said....

Precisely.

Balkenende however warned that people should not draw conclusions too quickly. "We are not past it yet ... Sometimes it can take months before the true repercussions are felt," he told journalists.

Yes. Or years, once Europe is fully Islamized, while Balkenende and his ilk spent their energy muzzling those who were trying to prevent it.

This afternoon I was on "The Gathering Storm Radio Show," hosted by WC and Always On Watch. You can listen here.

Nu in het Nederlands!

A hearty hello to our Dutch comrades-in-arms!

Thanks to a committed wooden-shoed JihadWatcher, we now have a full-length version of Islam: What the West Needs to Know up on Google Video with Dutch subtitles, here, just in time for all the excitement. Enjoy!

Or "We pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor"?

Here is LiveLeak's statement on why they pulled Fitna:

Following threats to our staff of a very serious nature, and some ill informed reports from certain corners of the British media that could directly lead to the harm of some of our staff, Liveleak.com has been left with no other choice but to remove Fitna from our servers.

This is a sad day for freedom of speech on the net but we have to place the safety and well being of our staff above all else. We would like to thank the thousands of people, from all backgrounds and religions, who gave us their support. They realised LiveLeak.com is a vehicle for many opinions and not just for the support of one.

Perhaps there is still hope that this situation may produce a discussion that could benefit and educate all of us as to how we can accept one anothers culture.

We stood for what we believe in, the ability to be heard, but in the end the price was too high.

"In the end the price was too high" could be the epitaph of the Free West.

I understand their concern for their employees -- sure. The employees didn't sign up for this. But if Americans and Westerners and all people who are threatened by the global jihad and Islamic supremacism aren't willing to give their lives for this cause, then all is lost. Because the jihadists certainly are willing to give their lives for their cause. For them, no price is too high. And if any price is too high for us, then ultimately all we will have to pay is jizya.

I don't know for how long this will be up, but here it is for now. And many thanks to all the very kind Jihad Watch readers who emailed me this link and others over the last two hours, while for some reason unknown to me I could not get inside the site to update it.

The predictable dhimmis fall into predictable lockstep. "U.N.'s Ban condemns Dutch film as anti-Islamic," from Reuters (thanks to Twostellas):

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday condemned as "offensively anti-Islamic" a Dutch lawmaker's film that accuses the Koran of inciting violence.

Ban acknowledged efforts by the government of the Netherlands to stop the broadcast of the film, which was launched by Islam critic Geert Wilders over the Internet, and appealed for calm to those "understandably offended by it."

"There is no justification for hate speech or incitement to violence," Ban said in a statement. "The right of free expression is not at stake here."

What exactly is "hate speech" about quoting Qur'an verses and then showing Muslim preachers using those verses to exhort people to commit acts of violence, as well as violent acts committed by Muslims inspired by those verses and others?

From our "Say Islam Is A Religion of Peace, Or We'll Kill You" Department comes this: click on the old Fitna link for the official LiveLeak statement.

And score another victory for thuggery and violent intimidation, and another defeat for freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and free inquiry.

Meanwhile, if anyone has, or can tell me where to get, the actual film, I will put it up again here, and the jihadist thugs can do what they're going to do, but I will not submit.

This is a joke, right?

I can't stop laughing!

A profile of the wicked Jihad Watch director who is "at-times soft-spoken," -- that is, when he ain't screamin' like a banshee. (Seriously, this is a very nice profile and I thank Mindy Belz for it.) "Islamo-ignorance: We can’t defeat an enemy when we don’t know why he’s fighting," by Mindy Belz in World Magazine:

Robert Spencer is used to being called an Islamophobe. And when the noted director of Jihad Watch travels to a speaking engagement, he has the bodyguards to prove that he takes his critics seriously. In 2006 lieutenants of Osama bin Laden named him in what amounted to a fatwa, calling on him, President Bush, and others to join Islam or die. Other death threats arrive by email, he told WORLD recently, and matter-of-factly.

But his most noted attacker of late is the now-dead former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. In her posthumous book Reconciliation, released last month, she spent a page venting against the popular blogger and author of seven books on Islam, who she said "uses the Internet to spread misinformation and hatred of Islam." This she said of an at-times soft-spoken Catholic whose grandparents were forced from Turkey for refusing to convert to Islam, in a book she completed just as her jihadist assassin was strapping on his bomb vest.

"You're kidding," Spencer said in an email when I asked him about her remarks. "I hadn't heard of this before." When Spencer looked up the passage, he discovered that where Bhutto had quoted him from one of his books, she quoted a passage that was actually written by Ibn Warraq (Spencer edited the book). Warraq, like Bhutto, is Pakistani and, like Spencer, is a noted (and also death-threatened) critic of Islamic teaching.

"Dear brothers, remember what happened to Ariel Sharon. Now let's hope that he (Wilders) ends up the same way."

"Islam: Al-Qaeda-linked sites post photo of Dutch MP behind anti-Koran film," from AKI (thanks to Insubria):

Dubai, 28 March (AKI) - A photo of Dutch right-wing politician Geert Wilders has been posted on several Islamist websites linked to al-Qaeda, after his anti-Koran film was released on a video-sharing website on Thursday.

Wilders' 17-minute film entitled Fitna, criticised Islam's holy book, the Koran.

The film sets verses of the Koran against a background of images from terrorist attacks.

"The Dutch, enemy of Allah, has done what he threatened to do and distributed his film," said a banner in an Islamist website.

The message is followed by dozens of posts by visitors of the site asking for Muslims to act against him.

"Dear brothers, remember what happened to Ariel Sharon. Now let's hope that he (Wilders) ends up the same way," says a member of the forum.

The growing Muslim indignation over Geert Wilders's movie Fitna manifests anew a phenomenon we have noted here many, many times: when non-Muslims point out that Islamic jihadists commit acts of violence and justify them by reference to the Qur'an, many non-Muslim and Muslim apologists for jihad, include many who are widely known as "moderates" respond by claiming that the one who is pointing out all this is committing an act of "hatred," "bigotry," "Islamophobia," and the like. They don't have a word to say about the actual acts of violence, hatred and supremacism committed by the jihadists -- no, the real villain is the one who reports on these actions.

This has only happened to me, let's see, about 50,000 times, but it never ceases to puzzle me. And now The Armchair Critic is doing the same thing to Kevin Weakley of The Amboy Times, for his celebrated "List of Things That Offend Muslims." The Critic, the illustrious Edroos Alsagoff, says:

You know how much I hate to wish that something really bad happen to anyone (though at times I have expressed my desire to have someone I truly hate suffer in death thanks to a speeding bullet train). But I think I have no excuse to pray that the author of this idiotic post have anything good for him or her.

This guy is a real muppet. I couldn't care to dig up his background or where he came from for that matter. Anyone who stirs shit like that deserved to be shot really. This is simply a case of asking for it. Don't even mention terrorists, this chap could be in real trouble even if he bumped into his Muslim neighbour, if he has any.

"Anyone who stirs shit like that deserved to be shot really." Never mind that everything on Weakley's list is linked, and based on actual events. It doesn't seem to occur to Edroos Alsagoff that it might be perfectly legitimate to point out the ridiculous rage-mongering that all too many Muslims engage in all too frequently, and to call them on it.

It doesn't seem to occur to Edroos Alsagoff that the ones who are actually stirring the s*** are the ones who fly into irrational rage at the sight of ice cream cones and sneakers, and that to say that someone who points out the silliness and irrationality of that rage deserves to be shot indicates that he has already surrendered to violent intimidation -- even as he engages in it himself.

Oh, and Kevin, if this Edroos Alsagoff character is right, it may be time for you to add "The List of Things That Offend Muslims" to..."The List of Things That Offend Muslims."

The offense deepens. "Pakistan protests over Islam film," from the BBC:

Pakistan has summoned the Dutch ambassador in Islamabad to lodge a protest over a controversial film on Islam, Fitna, published online.

The 15-minute film by Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders sets verses from the Koran against a background of violent images from terror attacks.

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said the film was defamatory and "deeply offended" Muslim sentiments.

Did Pakistan's Foreign Ministry ever say that about 9/11? 7/7? The Madrid train bombings? Any act of Islamic terror?

Funny how they never called the violence depicted in the film -- violence that the perpetrators justified with reference to the Qur'an -- "hateful, blasphemous, and un-Islamic."

"Iran, Indonesia angry over Dutch Koran film," by Niclas Mika for Reuters:

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Iran and Indonesia on Friday condemned a film by a Dutch lawmaker that accuses the Koran of inciting violence, while Dutch Muslim leaders urged restraint. [...]

Iran called the film heinous, blasphemous and anti-Islamic and called on European governments to block any further showing.

Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation and a former Dutch colony, also condemned the film.

"We are of the view that the film has a racist flavour and is an insult to Islam, hidden under the cover of freedom of expression," a foreign ministry spokesman said. "We call on Indonesian people not to be incited."

What race is Islam again?

Dutch Muslim leaders appealed for calm and called on Muslims worldwide not to target Dutch interests. The Netherlands is home to around 1 million Muslims out of a population of 16 million.

"Our call to Muslims abroad is follow our strategy and don't frustrate it with any violent incidents," Mohammed Rabbae, a senior Dutch Muslim leader, told a news conference in a mosque in an Amsterdam suburb that is home to many Muslims.

"Looking for conflict there is looking for conflict with us," he added before an imam made a similar appeal in Arabic.

"INFLAMING HATRED"

Dutch authorities reported a calm night in contrast to the unrest that swept the country after the murder by a militant Islamist in 2004 of Dutch director Theo van Gogh, who made a film accusing Islam of condoning violence against women.

Earlier this month, Dutch security officials raised the national risk level to "substantial" because of the forthcoming Wilders film and perceptions of an increased al Qaeda threat.

Wilders, who has been under heavy guard because of Islamist death threats since the murder of director Van Gogh, has seen support for his anti-immigration Freedom Party rise in anticipation of the film to about 10 percent of the vote.

The Dutch government has worked for months to distance itself from Wilders and try to prevent the kind of backlash Denmark suffered over the Prophet cartoons.

In a statement on live television on Thursday evening in both Dutch and English, Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said he rejected Wilders' views and was pleased by the initial restrained reactions of Dutch Muslim organisations.

The European Union supports the Dutch government's approach and believes the film serves no purpose other than "inflaming hatred", the Slovenian EU presidency said in a statement:

"The European Union and its member states apply the principle of the freedom of speech which is part of our values and traditions. However, it should be exercised in a spirit of respect for religious and other beliefs and convictions."

Mind you, the European Union has never, ever said anything like that regarding attacks on Christianity. The point is not just the double standard; it is that they are allowing violent intimidation to succeed, and that will only lead to more violent intimidation.

The predicted and predictable outrage begins -- over a film, mind you, that merely depicts how jihadists commit violence and justify it according to the Qur'an. Yet that fact itself has never aroused outrage among significant numbers of Muslims, such that they would be moved, say, to mount protests against it.

"Pakistanis protest Dutch film," from The Associated Press:

KARACHI, Pakistan -- Dozens of Islamists in Pakistan have staged a protest over an anti-Quran film made by a Dutch lawmaker....

Pakistan's largest Muslim party, Jamaat-e-Islami, organized Friday's protest outside a mosque in Karachi.

Some protesters demanded Pakistan cut diplomatic relations with the Netherlands over the film.

Stupidity and spinelessness at high levels. "EU condemns Dutch anti-Islam film," from CNN:

(CNN) -- The European Union on Friday condemned a new film by a Dutch lawmaker which is critical of Islam and features controversial images of the Prophet Mohammed.

Not "the Islamic Prophet." Just "the Prophet."

The 15-minute film, titled "Fitna," was posted on a London-based Web site Thursday. It immediately drew criticism from the Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, who said the film equates Islam with violence.

"We reject this interpretation," Balkenende said in a statement. "The vast majority of Muslims reject extremism and violence. In fact, the victims are often also Muslims."

The film, as Balkenende well knows or should know, simply quotes Qur'anic passages, and then shows Muslims committing violent acts and justifying them with reference to those passages. That this happens, and has happened again and again, is simply a fact. The fact that other Muslims don't do this is nice, but that fact does nothing to mitigate the other fact. And in fact, it shows up the abysmal failure of peaceful Muslims to restrain their coreligionists.

Slovenia, which holds the rotating EU presidency, said it supported the Dutch government's position and believes the film does nothing to promote dialogue among religions.

"The European Union and its member states apply the principle of the freedom of speech which is part of our values and traditions. However, it should be exercised in a spirit of respect for religious and other beliefs and convictions," the Slovenian presidency said in a statement.

"Respect," i.e., pretending that black is white and white is black.

"Mutual tolerance and respect are universal values we should uphold. We believe that acts, such as the above-mentioned film, serve no other purpose than inflaming hatred."

No. The acts depicted in the film inflame hatred. The film just reports on this.

The U.S. government warned the film could spark protests and riots....

"It's not a provocation, but the harsh reality and a political conclusion," Wilders told reporters Thursday....

The film concludes with scrolling messages reading in part: "The government insists that you respect Islam, but Islam has no respect for you" and "In 1945, Nazism was defeated in Europe. In 1989, communism was defeated in Europe. Now the Islamic ideology has to be defeated."

LiveLeak issued a statement Thursday saying there was no legal reason not to allow Wilders to post the film. It said the site's policy is to remain unbiased and allow freedom of speech.

Some in the Muslim community rejected the film as nothing more than dangerous anti-Islamic propaganda.

"This film is a direct attempt to incite violence from Muslims and help fan the flames of Islamophobia," Arsalan Iftikhar, a contributor to Washington-based Islamica Magazine, told CNN on Thursday. "Any reasonable person can see this is meant to spit in the face of Muslims and insult our religion."

Mr. Iftikhar, if you want to put out the "flames of Islamophobia," then work to stop Muslims from committing the acts of violence shown in the film.

"Defamation." Wink, wink.

UN OKs Islamic text against defamation," by Elaine Engeler for the Associated Press:

GENEVA - The top U.N. rights body on Thursday passed a resolution proposed by Islamic countries saying it is deeply concerned about the defamation of religions and urging governments to prohibit it.

But of course, this doesn't include calling Jews and Christians "apes and pigs," or insisting that the Jews worship Ezra.

The European Union said the text was one-sided because it primarily focused on Islam.

The U.N. Human Rights Council, which is dominated by Arab and other Muslim countries, adopted the resolution on a 21-10 vote over the opposition of Europe and Canada.

EU countries, including France, Germany and Britain, voted against. Previously EU diplomats had said they wanted to stop the growing worldwide trend of using religious anti-defamation laws to limit free speech.

The document, which was put forward by the Organization of the Islamic Conference, "expresses deep concern at attempts to identify Islam with terrorism, violence and human rights violations."

We have no idea how that happened.

Although the text refers frequently to protecting all religions, the only religion specified as being attacked is Islam, to which eight paragraphs refer.

Speaking for the EU, Slovenian Ambassador Andrej Logar said the 27-nation body was committed to tolerance, nondiscrimination and freedom of religion. But instead of a one-sided approach, it would be better to engage in dialogue with mutual respect.

The resolution "urges states to take actions to prohibit the dissemination ... of racist and xenophobic ideas" and material that would incite to religious hatred. It also urges states to adopt laws that would protect against hatred and discrimination stemming from religious defamation.

Glass houses, guys. You've got 'em.

Working to create the sense that they can move and take territory at will, as the Somalia Jihad continues its recent escalation.

"Insurgents Briefly Capture Key Town in Show of Defiance," by Stephanie McCrummen for the Washington Post:

NAIROBI, March 26 -- Islamist insurgents battling for control of Somalia briefly seized a strategic town Wednesday, the latest sign of how feeble the country's internationally backed transitional government has become.

The takeover of Jowhar, about 55 miles north of Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, was the most recent in a series of advances by a radical Islamist faction of a broader insurgency against the transitional government and the Ethiopian military that installed it more than a year ago.

In the past month, the faction -- known as al-Shabab and recently designated a terrorist organization by the United States -- has briefly asserted control of at least six towns in southern Somalia, a show of force underlining the fact that the Somali government has little control over the Horn of Africa nation.

"They go in and expel whatever rudimentary authorities are there, then go back to the bush and go to another unassuming village or town," said Abdirizak Adam Hassan, an adviser to Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf. "To my mind, they are saying: 'Although you defeated u s, we are still a formidable force. We are undiminished, and we are here to stay.'

The film is accurate. Will Muslims rage against the truth?

The new FBI seal and motto?

It's time for a Jihad Watch contest! The FBI says they have ruled out terrorism. Still, I can't help but wonder what Iraqis would be doing with a bomb and a stolen car in New Mexico. I'll send a free autographed copy of one of my books (your choice) to the person who can solve this mystery for me, and come up with the best (most imaginative, most entertaining, loopiest, most outlandishly plausible) explanation.

Los Lunas, by the way, is just south of Albuquerque, slightly west of the center of the state. "Bomb, Iraqi currency lure FBI into stolen-car case," by Jeff Maher and Reed Upton at KOB.com (thanks to Mackie):

The FBI is now involved in the theft of a car after it was found in Los Lunas with an explosive device and Iraqi currency inside

FBI agents say that they have ruled out terrorism.

The car was reported stolen last week. After the theft, the car’s owner was fueling his motorcycle when he spotted his stolen car....

The car’s owner pulled the keys out of the ignition of his stolen car and the people in the car fled.

When police arrived, they found the explosive device and less than $1,000 worth of Iraqi cash.

“We don’t know what their intentions were,” said Nuanes. “We don’t know what they were planning on doing with any of this.”...

An Update on the Toronto Jihad Plot. Oh, and by the way, has the Muslim community in Canada gotten around to instituting transparent, inspectable programs in every school and mosque teaching against the jihad ideology and Islamic supremacism? No? So then how can we be sure that there won't be other such plots?

"Alleged Toronto terror plot detailed in court," by Isabel Teotonio in the Toronto Star (thanks to Kathy Shaidle):

The "shocking and sensational" inner workings of an alleged homegrown terror cell were unveiled yesterday in a Brampton court – and included the plotting of an attack "much greater" in scale than the London 2005 bombings that killed 52 people.

Here are some of the transcripts of the jihadists' conversations:

In a video, Person 1, shown sitting in the dark under what appears to be a tent, speaks to the group:

"We're here to kick it off man. We're here to get the rewards of everybody that's gonna come after us, God willing, if we don't (get) a victory, God willing, our kids will get it. If not them, their kids will get it, if not them, the(n) five generations down somebody will get it, God willing. This is the promise of Allah. . . .

Excerpts from a conversation in a car during

"Operation Badr," recorded covertly by police:

Person 3: "What happens, what happens at the Parliament?"

Person 1: "We go and kill everybody."

Person 3: "And then what?"

Informant: "And then read about it ..."

Person 1: "We get victory."

Informant: "And take, uh, Paul, um, what's his name ____. Paul loser."

Person 1: "Paul Martin."

Person 3: "Yeah."

Person 1: "Nah, I wish he had won guy."

Informant: "What you . . . what you talkin' about?"

Person 1: "Now it's the other guy, Harper."

Person 1 talks to the group:

"Rome has to be defeated. And we have to be the ones that do it, no holding back, whether it's one man that survives, you have to do it. This is what the Covenant's all about, you have to do it. And God willing, we will do it. God willing, we will get the victory."

"Rome has to be defeated" doesn't refer to an Italian plot, but to the necessity, as they see it, to take down the West, in accord with Muhammad's prophecy that Constantinople would fall to Islam first, and then Rome.

But he was really just trying to con the Al-Qaeda guy out of $50,000, doncha know.

Sears Tower Jihad Plot Update: "Prosecutor: War goal of terror plot," by Curt Anderson for Associated Press :

MIAMI - War with the U.S. government was at the heart of a terrorist plot to destroy Chicago's Sears Tower and bomb FBI offices, a prosecutor said Wednesday during closing arguments in the retrial for six Miami men accused of conspiring with al-Qaida.

Alleged ringleader Narseal Batiste and the others in the "Liberty City Seven" conspired with an FBI informant who pretended he was from al-Qaida with the hope of starting an anti-government war, Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Gregorie said.

"Narseal Batiste had a mission. His mission was to destroy the United States," Gregorie said. [...]

Batiste testified that he was never serious and only went along with the terrorism talk in hopes of conning the informant out of $50,000. His lawyers also claim he was entrapped by two FBI informants who orchestrated the entire plot.

But Gregorie said Batiste and the others would have pursued a terrorism attack no matter what, noting that they were captured on FBI videotapes taking an oath to al-Qaida in March 2006....

It could have led to having to allow their houses of worship to be buillt within the Kingdom, you see. "Of Fatwas and Infidels," by Abeer Mishkhas in Arab News (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):

The Shoura Council last week defeated a proposal to adopt a law promoting respect for other religions and religious symbols. The proposal that would have had the blessings of the Arab League was opposed by 77 members and supported by 33.

In his reason for voting against the proposal, one member told Al-Watan newspaper that the negative effects might outweigh the positive ones as it would give legality to nonmonotheistic religions and consequently it would allow the building of houses of worship for those religions in Muslim countries.

The proposal was surely influenced by the Danish cartoon crisis that recently resurfaced. If we look at the consequences of approving such a proposal, we will see that it would have been an important step forward. It simply proposes respect for other religions and tolerance for those who practice them. The proposal suggests simply that people in the world need to learn to live together and to accept each other for what they are and that people must also remember that respect and tolerance work both ways....

It's good at least to see a Saudi columnist supporting this.

Another YouTube jihadist. While YouTube continues to pull anti-jihad material, this guy's account (thanks to David for the heads-up) is just fine. And he is operating in the United States.

Well, we already knew it was a shoddy book.

"Suspect in Bhutto parade attack freed on bail," from Agence France Presse (AFP) (thanks to DFS):

KARACHI: An alleged Al-Qaeda militant detained over the bombing of Benazir Bhutto's homecoming parade which killed 139 people has been freed on bail, police in Pakistan said on Wednesday. A court freed Qari Saifullah Akhtar, accused by the former premier of plotting against her in a book published after her assassination in December, was released "after the police failed to produce evidence against him," police investigator Nawaz Ranjha said. The court ordered police to produce evidence as soon as possible, he added....

Incidentally, I wrote to Bhutto's ghostwriter, Mark Siegel, informing him that in the book he had attributed words to me that I did not say and positions that I do not hold. I got no answer. What a surprise.

I got an email this morning from Yahoo informing me that the delivery of the Jihad Watch Daily Digest was being held up or blocked altogether to 545 Yahoo.com addresses because of "user complaints."

User complaints?

The Daily Digest is a voluntary email service. If you subscribe using the box at the upper left, you will receive once a day an email with the headlines and clickable links to the new posts at Jihad Watch and Dhimmi Watch. Since no one gets the Digest without subscribing, this means that someone or some group of people subscribed to the Digest using Yahoo addresses and then complained to Yahoo about receiving it, so as to try to block it from being received by all Yahoo users.

Pathetic. The jihadists and their Muslim and non-Muslim allies and dupes can't refute what we say, even when they try, so all they can do, again and again, is try to shut us up.

The celebrated Italian journalist who was baptized on Easter by Pope Benedict XVI explained his conversion from Islam to Christianity in a letter to Corriere della Sera. Here are here and two slightly differing translations of that letter.

"The Madrid Police Department has stated that the murder took place a day after Farhangi had a dispute with a woman who had been putting up propaganda posters in defence of the Islamic Republic in the district of Alcobendas."

"Murder in Spanish capital by Iran’s Intelligence Ministry?" from Iran Focus:

London, Mar. 25 – Iran’s ultra-secretive Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) has once again found itself under the limelight after it was accused of involvement in the murder of an Iranian intellectual in Spain.

Manouchehr Farhangi, 82, was murdered in La Moraleja, a suburb of the Spanish capital Madrid, on 19 March.

Evidence from a Spanish female eye-witness suggests that an unidentified woman fatally stabbed Farhangi at his doorstep and quickly fled the scene.

Local Spanish press reported that an autopsy found that he had been stabbed three times in the stomach.

Police camera footage from the vicinity of the murder indicated that the female suspect was between the age of 28 and 30.

Spanish police believe that the murder might have been politically motivated, and there have been suggestions in the press that Iran’s notorious Intelligence Ministry might have orchestrated the attack.

The Madrid Police Department has stated that the murder took place a day after Farhangi had a dispute with a woman who had been putting up propaganda posters in defence of the Islamic Republic in the district of Alcobendas.

Farhangi was born into a Zoroastrian family in 1926 in the south-eastern Iranian province of Kerman. Prior to the 1979 Islamic revolution, he founded one of Iran’s biggest pharmaceutical companies. In 1980, in Spain he founded the International College Spain (ICS), and later won the European Council for International Schools (ECIS) prize for the Promotion of International Education. He has two children.

More on this jihadist, who openly glories in the deaths of Americans from his home in Brooklyn.

"U.S. Based Revolution Muslim Website Spreading Messages of Hate," from FoxNews (thanks to all who sent this in):

NEW YORK, N.Y. — On any given day, log on to RevolutionMuslim.com and a host of startling images appear:

— The Statue of Liberty, with an ax blade cutting through her side;

— Video mocking the beheading of American journalist Daniel Pearl, entitled "Daniel Pearl I am Happy Your Dead :) ";

— Video of a puppet show lampooning U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq;

— The latest speech from Sheikh Abdullah Faisal, an extremist Muslim cleric convicted in the UK and later deported for soliciting the murder of non-Muslims.

Even more surprising is that RevolutionMuslim.com isn't being maintained in some remote safe house in Pakistan. Instead, Yousef al-Khattab, the Web site creator, runs it from his home in the New York City Borough of Queens.

And, because al-Khattab enjoys the First Amendment right to freedom of speech, all the authorities can do is watch.

Formerly known as Joseph Cohen, al-Khattab is an American-born Jew who converted to Islam after attending an Orthodox Rabbinical school, which he later described as a “racist cult.”

The 39-year-old New York taxi driver launched RevolutionMuslim.com with the mission of “preserving Islamic culture,” “calling people to the oneness of God” and asking them to “support the beloved Sheik Abdullah Faisal, who’s preaching the religion of Islam and serving as a spiritual guide.”

In 2003 Faisal was convicted in the U.K. for spreading messages of racial hatred and urging his followers to kill Jews, Hindus and Westerners. In sermon recordings played at his trial, Faisal called on young, impressionable Muslims to use chemical weapons to “exterminate unbelievers” and “cut the throat of the Kaffars [nonbelievers] with [a] machete.”

Authorities believe Faisal’s sermons have influenced 2005 London transport bomber Germaine Lindsay and "shoe bomber" Richard Reid, who attended mosques where Faisal preached.

[...]

On his site al-Khattab appears to condemn the very democracy that guarantees him the freedom to express himself — a freedom he cites in a disclaimer on his homepage:

“We hereby declare and make absolute public declaration that revolutionmuslim.com operates under the first amendment right to freedom of religion and expression and that in no way, shape, or form do we call for war against the U.S. government or adhere to the enemies of the United States elsewhere.”...

But that is clearly false. There is no doubt that he adheres to the enemies of the United States.

Part 3 of this extraordinary series on CAIR. "Some CAIR Officials Convicted of Crimes, More Tied to Extremist Groups," by Steven Emerson for IPT News:

(note: The third installment of our CAIR dossier can be viewed in its entirety at http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/misc/111.pdf)

The questionable associations and actions by many of its leaders cast serious doubt on CAIR's claims of moderation and restraint. Some have committed criminal acts themselves; others have ties to organizations with connections to Islamic extremism.

Those convicted of direct criminal activity include Ghassan Elashi, a founding board member of CAIR-Texas; Randall (Ismail) Royer, once a communications specialist for the national group, and Bassam Khafagi, the organization's one-time director of community relations.

In the more egregious cases, the organization has tried to distance itself from the individuals, contorting both logic and the English language. As the IPT's series on CAIR's history and activities continues, we look at the suspect nature of these examples and others close to the organization.

· Ghassan Elashi, who attended a 1993 Philadelphia meeting called by Hamas to discuss derailing U.S. peace initiatives, was convicted in 2004 on six criminal counts, including making false statements, conspiracy to violate the Export Administration Regulations and the Libyan Sanctions Regulations, and conspiracy to file false shipper's export declaration forms. He was a defendant again in the 2007 Hamas-support trial of the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), where jurors were unable to reach unanimous verdicts on the charges against him.

Elashi served as HLF chairman and treasurer and vice president of Infocom, a computer export company. He was sentenced to 80 months in prison for making illegal computer shipments to Libya and Syria and conspiring to send money to Mousa Abu Marzook, an admitted Hamas leader.

Seeking to minimize Elashi's ties to CAIR, Executive Director Nihad Awad assured U.S. senators in 2003 testimony, "Mr. Elashi was never an employee or officer of our corporation. The fact that he was once associated with one of our almost twenty regional chapters has no legal significance…"

· Randall Royer, the former CAIR communications specialist, has a more colorful criminal history. Police who stopped his car for a traffic violation in 2001 found an AK-47-style rifle and 219 rounds of ammunition inside. Then, in 2003, he was indicted on charges stemming from participation in the ongoing jihad in Kashmir -- specifically, doing propaganda work for Lashkar-e Taiba, a Specially Designated Global Terrorist group, and personally firing at Indian positions in Kashmir.

Pleading guilty to weapons and explosives charges in 2004, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Again, CAIR reacted defensively, seeking to downplay both his ties to the organization and, indeed, the nature of his crimes. "Notwithstanding the fact that any criminal action to which he pleaded guilty was done when Royer was no longer employed with CAIR and not at CAIR's direction," the group said, "it is important to note that the only crimes that he pleaded guilty to were weapons charges, not charges of terrorism."

CAIR's timing point contradicts media reports indicating that Royer still worked for the group in October 2001; while the charges to which Royer pleaded guilty do not directly contain the word "terrorism," they involved his activities in support of the designated terrorist Lashkar-e Taiba.

Read it all.

Whence this suicidal impulse?

"Barak mulls weapons transfer to Fatah," by Yaakov Katz for the Jerusalem Post (thanks to all who sent this in):

Defense Minister Ehud Barak is considering approving a US plan to allow the transfer of weapons, protective gear and night-vision goggles for Palestinian security forces in the West Bank, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

The American request, which is expected to be officially submitted to the Defense Ministry by Lt.-Gen. Keith Dayton - the US security coordinator to Israel and the PA - in the coming days, will be one of the issues topping the agenda of Barak's meeting with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salaam Fayad on Wednesday.

Defense officials in Jerusalem said it was likely that Israel would approve the request, noting that it had allowed the transfer of weapons to the PA in the West Bank since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in June.

Next week, the officials said, the PA will finally receive the 25 armored vehicles from Russia that Israel approved for delivery in November....

Speaking of CAIR, here is part 2 of Steven Emerson's absorbing and all-important exposé of that sinister organization: "Funding Ties With HLF and Foreign Donors Show CAIR's True Agenda," from IPT News:

(Part II of our series on CAIR can be found here: http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/misc/110.pdf)

Summary: The Council on American-Islamic Relation (CAIR)'s financing over the years challenges its self-description as a benevolent group out to protect the civil rights of the Muslim community in the United States.

The clichéd admonition to "follow the money" gives a clear picture of the group's actual role as an enabler for organizations linked by the U.S. government to Islamic terrorism, prominently including the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF).

Indeed it shows a two-way flow of support both to and from HLF, which since has been named as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist Organization and indicted on charges of providing material support to Hamas. Our examination of CAIR focuses today on its finances.

· HLF made a $5,000 donation to the then-newly formed CAIR as early as 1994. Apparently sensitive to the impact public disclosure of their group's funding by HLF could have, CAIR's leaders repeatedly denied any such connection.

Asked during a 2003 civil deposition, "Did they [HLF] give you any money to help start CAIR?" Omar Ahmed, one of its incorporators, flatly responded, "No." CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad echoed that position in testimony prepared for a September 10, 2003 Senate hearing, declaring, "Our organization did not receive any seed money from HLFRD."

After IPT produced a copy of HLF's $5,000 check at the hearing, however, Awad acknowledged in supplemental testimony that CAIR had, indeed, received money from the group. Explaining, "CAIR is a nonprofit, grassroots organization. Our only source of income is through donations and the amount in question was a donation like any other," he added in mitigation that the "relatively small donation" had come seven years before the Justice Department froze HLF's assets.

· CAIR, in turn, repeatedly co-sponsored fundraisers for the Hamas-linked organization. Such funding appeals were made in 1999, ostensibly to help refugees forced to flee Kosovo, and again in 2000, at a time when the U.S. Agency for International Development already had announced plans to terminate HLF's USAID registration on grounds that it was "contrary to the national defense and foreign policy interest of the United States."

But those appeals were trumped by a further solicitation soon after the murderous attacks of 9/11. CAIR's website, advising readers "what you can do for the victims of the WTC (World Trade Center) and Pentagon attacks," urged them to donate to charities that included HLF....

CAIR gets Saudi cash, too. Read it all.

If you can stand all my coughin' and hackin', you may want to tune into last night's episode of Jawa Radio, for an hour I spent with Dr. Rusty, Jane, and friends.

Here is yet another episode of our sporadic series, "Why Can't Muslims Debate?" Jihad Watch reader Unknown sent me this yesterday, and since I just wrote about how Islamic apologists tend not to offer evidence for their views, but simply to indulge in ad hominem smears, I thought I should respond to this attempt to "expose" me, since it at least purports to show where and how I am wrong -- and I think a response is particularly called for since this comes from a representative of that bastion of integrity and fair dealing, the Council on American Islamic Relations. "Exposing Robert Spencer: Juvenlie [sic!] Hadith Interpretations," by Omer Subhani at his blog:

One very distinct similarity between Robert Spencer and modern day Salafis is their inability to distinguish between hadith and fiqh....

Yes, that's why I write things like this, in a post from May 2006: "This is a matter of fact, abundantly established by the texts not just of the Qur'an, but of Hadith and fiqh." Not that I know the difference between those last two. I'm just repetitive and redundant that way.

Anyway, there follows a paragraph stating commonplaces that I have never disputed, and so will not bother to reproduce here. And then:

One of the things that I have noticed about Robert Spencer is how similar he is in his interpretations of hadith to Salafis. [...]

I would guess that somewhere someone had a meeting and decided this was the line on me: I'm just like the Islamic extremists. Even that stooge who doesn't know that he is a stooge, Dinesh D'Souza, has picked up on this. I report on how jihadists use the Qur'an, Sunnah, and fiqh to justify their actions, so therefore I am validating their interpretation of Islam.

For example, when I noted in connection with my Blogging the Qur'an series that traditional Islamic theology denies free will, Zahed Amanullah of Alt.Muslim responded not by refuting my evidence or even offering evidence for an opposing point of view, but merely by saying, "Robert allies himself with the extremists in their common interpretation of Islam being a religion of endless conflict."

Oh. That must mean the Islamic texts I quote don't say what they say!

I guess it really does it exist. And yes, I would still be glad to post it here at Jihad Watch.

"Wilders Sticks to Film Release before April," from NIS News (thanks to Fjordman):

THE HAGUE, 26/03/08 - MP Geert Wilders says he is continuing to try to release his anti-Koran film before 1 April. How he will do so is unclear, as the Internet provider that was to have broadcast the film has pulled out.

Wilders is refusing to say what possibilities he still has up his sleeve now that his website has been taken off the air by the large American provider Network Solutions. It is not possible to broadcast the film via a small provider because the site would then immediately crash as a result of the large number of visitors expected at the moment of its release.

Nonetheless, Wilders said yesterday he was continuing to try to broadcast the film before March ends. He repeated for the umpteenth time that the film entitled Fitna is not an April Fool's Day joke. [...]

Meanwhile, attempts to censor it pre-emptively continue:

The Netherlands Islamic Federation (NIF) is applying this Friday for a preventative ban on the film. NIF is asking the district court in The Hague to have an independent expert see the film and to judge whether it is blasphemous. In that case, it cannot be shown, according to the Muslim group. No preventative ban on any product whatsoever has ever been imposed in the Netherlands.

This is how jihad apologists have responded to my work, and it seems as if this is how they respond to everyone, including this heroic priest.

"Islam’s ‘Public Enemy #1’: Coptic priest Zakaria Botros fights fire with fire," by Raymond Ibrahim in National Review (thanks to all who sent this in):

Though he is little known in the West, Coptic priest Zakaria Botros — named Islam’s “Public Enemy #1” by the Arabic newspaper, al-Insan al-Jadid — has been making waves in the Islamic world. Along with fellow missionaries — mostly Muslim converts — he appears frequently on the Arabic channel al-Hayat (i.e., “Life TV”). There, he addresses controversial topics of theological significance — free from the censorship imposed by Islamic authorities or self-imposed through fear of the zealous mobs who fulminated against the infamous cartoons of Mohammed. Botros’s excurses on little-known but embarrassing aspects of Islamic law and tradition have become a thorn in the side of Islamic leaders throughout the Middle East.

Botros is an unusual figure onscreen: robed, with a huge cross around his neck, he sits with both the Koran and the Bible in easy reach. Egypt’s Copts — members of one of the oldest Christian communities in the Middle East — have in many respects come to personify the demeaning Islamic institution of “dhimmitude” (which demands submissiveness from non-Muslims, in accordance with Koran 9:29). But the fiery Botros does not submit, and minces no words. He has famously made of Islam “ten demands,” whose radical nature he uses to highlight Islam’s own radical demands on non-Muslims.

The result? Mass conversions to Christianity — if clandestine ones. The very public conversion of high-profile Italian journalist Magdi Allam — who was baptized by Pope Benedict in Rome on Saturday — is only the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, Islamic cleric Ahmad al-Qatani stated on al-Jazeera TV a while back that some six million Muslims convert to Christianity annually, many of them persuaded by Botros’s public ministry. More recently, al-Jazeera noted Life TV’s “unprecedented evangelical raid” on the Muslim world. Several factors account for the Botros phenomenon.

[...]

Typically, Botros’s presentation of the Islamic material is sufficiently detailed that the controversial topic is shown to be an airtight aspect of Islam. Yet, however convincing his proofs, Botros does not flatly conclude that, say, universal jihad or female inferiority are basic tenets of Islam. He treats the question as still open — and humbly invites the ulema, the revered articulators of sharia law, to respond and show the error in his methodology. He does demand, however, that their response be based on “al-dalil we al-burhan,” — “evidence and proof,” one of his frequent refrains — not shout-downs or sophistry.

More often than not, the response from the ulema is deafening silence — which has only made Botros and Life TV more enticing to Muslim viewers. The ulema who have publicly addressed Botros’s conclusions often find themselves forced to agree with him — which has led to some amusing (and embarrassing) moments on live Arabic TV.

[...]

Botros played the key role in exposing this obscure and embarrassing issue and forcing the ulema to respond. Another guest on Hala Sirhan’s show, Abd al-Fatah, slyly indicated that the entire controversy was instigated by Botros: “I know you all [fellow panelists] watch that channel and that priest and that none of you [pointing at Abd al-Muhdi] can ever respond to him, since he always documents his sources!”

Incapable of rebutting Botros, the only strategy left to the ulema (aside from a rumored $5-million bounty on his head) is to ignore him. When his name is brought up, they dismiss him as a troublemaking liar who is backed by — who else? — international “Jewry.” They could easily refute his points, they insist, but will not deign to do so. That strategy may satisfy some Muslims, but others are demanding straightforward responses from the ulema.

"They could easily refute his points, they insist, but will not deign to do so." Just this morning Jihad Watch reader James sent me this exchange from the Amazon.com page for my book The Truth About Muhammad. A reader review by "Fadi Alkhateeb" asserted: "This book is full of lies and mistakes. If you want to know the truth about Mohammad read the 'Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet' by Karen Armstrong."

To which a commenter, "Drumthwacket," replied: "Mr. Alkhateeb, over five dozen reviewers have given this book a one star reviews as of March 16, 2008. Substantially all of them charge that this book is 'full of lies and mistakes' or the like. None of those reviewers have been able to substantiate those charges. Why do you think that is the case, Mr. Alkhateeb? Say, while you are giving my question some thought Mr. Alkhateeb, why don't you list ten of those lies and mistakes. Describe each of those ten lies and mistakes clearly and give us the page and paragraph locations from Mr. Spencer's book, so we can look them up and check."

Bravo, "Drumthwacket," and thanks.

The most dramatic example of this occurred on another famous show on the international station, Iqra. The host, Basma — a conservative Muslim woman in full hijab — asked two prominent ulema, including Sheikh Gamal Qutb, one-time grand mufti of al-Azhar University, to explain the legality of the Koranic verse (4:24) that permits men to freely copulate with captive women. She repeatedly asked: “According to sharia, is slave-sex still applicable?” The two ulema would give no clear answer — dissembling here, going off on tangents there. Basma remained adamant: Muslim youth were confused, and needed a response, since “there is a certain channel and a certain man who has discussed this issue over twenty times and has received no response from you.”

The flustered Sheikh Qutb roared, “low-life people like that must be totally ignored!” and stormed off the set. He later returned, but refused to admit that Islam indeed permits sex-slaves, spending his time attacking Botros instead. When Basma said “Ninety percent of Muslims, including myself, do not understand the issue of concubinage in Islam and are having a hard time swallowing it,” the sheikh responded, “You don’t need to understand.” As for Muslims who watch and are influenced by Botros, he barked, “Too bad for them! If my son is sick and chooses to visit a mechanic, not a doctor — that’s his problem!”

But the ultimate reason for Botros’s success is that — unlike his Western counterparts who criticize Islam from a political standpoint — his primary interest is the salvation of souls. He often begins and concludes his programs by stating that he loves all Muslims as fellow humans and wants to steer them away from falsehood to Truth. To that end, he doesn’t just expose troubling aspects of Islam. Before concluding every program, he quotes pertinent biblical verses and invites all his viewers to come to Christ.

Botros’s motive is not to incite the West against Islam, promote “Israeli interests,” or “demonize” Muslims, but to draw Muslims away from the dead legalism of sharia to the spirituality of Christianity. Many Western critics fail to appreciate that, to disempower radical Islam, something theocentric and spiritually satisfying — not secularism, democracy, capitalism, materialism, feminism, etc. — must be offered in its place. The truths of one religion can only be challenged and supplanted by the truths of another. And so Father Zakaria Botros has been fighting fire with fire.

Excellent. Read it all.

Will riots follow?

"Italy: Islamist website attacks Vatican baptism," from AKI (thanks to Sr. Soph):

Rome, 26 March (AKI) - An Islamist website has condemned the controversial baptism of Italian Muslim journalist Magdi Allam and questioned the strength of his previous commitment to the Muslim faith.

The site, linked to the Islamist Hamas movement in the Palestinian territories says that Allam was nominally Muslim, and that he admitted to have never practised Islam and to have never prayed in his life.

The website also blasted the Western press for saying that Allam was "a prominent Muslim", and the "truth is that he was neither Muslim nor prominent."

"The problem lies in the vindictive atmosphere surrounding the conversion ceremony, including the anti-Islamic allusions and insinuations," says the article.

Allam was also quoted in a book that he wrote titled "Long Live Israel", saying that "the root of evil is innate in an Islam that is physiologically violent and historically conflictual."

The article then responded to Allam's quote and spoke of Christianity's 'conflictual history', by naming bible passages, crusades, holocausts, pogroms, inquisitions, world wars and ethnic cleansings, "committed in the name of Jesus".

Bible passages? A dangerous game, as there is no open-ended and universal command in the Bible to wage war against unbelievers, as there is in the Qur'an (9:29).

"As to the issue of violence, Allam is equally ignorant of historical facts," said the article.

"Because if a religion is to be judged solely by the behaviour of its followers, then Christianity stands out as the main candidate for being the most violent religion under the sun."

Sure, after one whitewashes Islam's bloody history, this is perfectly true.

The article, written by a Palestinian commentator, concludes by saying that Muslims and Christians are compatriots all over the world, and that each community must be sensitive to the sensibilities and feelings of the other.

That only seems to go one way, however.

Meanwhile yesterday, the Milanese imam Yahya Pallavicini, vice-president of the Islamic Religious Community in Italy, described Allam's baptism as an "honest intellectual mistake" that had been committed with the complicity of the Vatican....

“We have reason to believe the guards or inmates are punishing him for what he did and trying to cast terror into his heart.”

"Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into the hearts of the enemies, of Allah and your enemies..." (Qur'an 8:60)

From Compass Direct:

BANGKOK, March 18 (Compass Direct News) – Liu Huiwen, a Chinese Christian sentenced to 18 months imprisonment last November for distributing a gospel leaflet to Muslims in Gansu province, is suffering mistreatment in a Muslim-majority prison, local sources told Compass.

After a recent prison visit (allowed only twice a month), Liu’s wife Miao Hui Lian said that he was limping badly and looked very thin. Liu, unable to speak openly, told his wife that the prison was a “very bad place” and that he was being “bullied constantly.”

When Liu’s wife attempted to travel to Beijing to report the suspected abuse, police warned her to stay at home and make no complaint.

She is under heavy police surveillance, a Compass source confirmed.

After his wife’s recent prison visit, a local source told Compass that, “We have reason to believe the guards or inmates are punishing him for what he did and trying to cast terror into his heart.”...

Question answered.

"Scholar denounces Muslim baptism," from the BBC (thanks to all who sent this in):

A Muslim scholar involved in high-level dialogue with the Vatican has denounced the Pope's baptism on Saturday of a prominent Italian Muslim convert.

Aref Ali Nayed, the head of Jordan's Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre, called the baptism of journalist Magdi Allam a deliberate and provocative act.

The Vatican has not yet commented, but its official newspaper said the gesture aimed to promote religious freedom. [...]

In a stinging rebuke of Saturday's televised ceremony, Mr Nayed denounced what he called "the Vatican's deliberate and provocative act of baptising Allam on such a special occasion and in such a spectacular way".

"It is sad that the intimate and personal act of a religious conversion is made into a triumphalist tool for scoring points," he said in a written statement.

Mr Nayed said Pope Benedict XVI's actions came "at a most unfortunate time when sincere Muslims and Catholics are working very hard to mend ruptures between the two communities".

The Jordanian scholar has been at the forefront of an initiative gathering more than 130 Muslim scholars who recently wrote to the Pope and other Christian leaders calling for greater dialogue and good will between Muslims and Christians.

The Vatican has also been keen to repair relations with moderate Muslims, particularly after the crisis caused by a speech the Pope gave in Germany in 2006, in which he appeared to associate Islam with violence.

But Mr Nayed added that despite the Vatican's actions, the initiative for dialogue to improve relations would continue.

"Our basis for dialogue is not a tit-for-tat logic of 'reciprocity' but a compassionate theology of mending," he wrote.

Yes, of course there is no reciprocity. That would mean churches and full freedom for Christians in Islamic lands.

In National Review today I discuss the conversion of Magdi Allam:

Italy’s leading Muslim writer has become a Catholic. As Pope Benedict XVI baptized Magdi Allam during an Easter service at the Vatican, the glare of international publicity annoyed at least one Muslim, Yahya Sergio Yahe Pallavicini, vice president of Coreis, the Italian Islamic Religious Community. He told reporters: “What amazes me is the high profile the Vatican has given this conversion. Why could he have not done this in his local parish? . . . If Allam truly was compelled by a strong spiritual inspiration, perhaps it would have been better to do it delicately, maybe with a priest from Viterbo where he lives.”

Why should the exercise of a basic human right, the freedom of conscience, be a matter for delicacy? In voicing this complaint Pallavicini raised yet again the Islamic-supremacist specter that increasingly haunts Europe — for in traditional Islamic law, Christians in the Islamic state must be unobtrusive and submissive, eschewing bells, processions, and other public displays, and remaining private and unostentatious in their religious observances, so as to avoid offend the delicate sensibilities of Muslims. In suggesting that Allam would have done better to convert somewhere away from the flashbulbs and microphones, Pallavicini suggests that all this is part of his own mental baggage: In a perfect world, Christians may practice their faith, but they must do so out of sight.

The new convert himself, an editorial writer and deputy editor at the Italian daily Corriere della Sera and for years a vociferous critic of the jihad ideology and Islamic supremacism, might agree that this is indeed part of the attitude that Islamic sharia law can inculcate in its adherents. “Over the years,” he wrote trenchantly about Islam in a letter to Corriere della Sera, “my spirit has been freed from the obscurantism of an ideology that legitimizes lies and deception, violent death that leads to homicide and suicide, blind submission to tyranny.”

Read it all, over at NR.

Our friend D. C. Watson updates his master list.

Here is an incomplete list of Muslims in the United States who have been arrested and/or convicted for either planning or acting out their "jihad" against unsuspecting, innocent men, women and children. Will the Muslim organizations in America ever stand up for once and address the facts, or will they continue trying to mask what's really going on within their own community by accusing Americans of practicing the biases and double standards that they themselves practice in accordance with their own beliefs?

Step right up, place your bets.

Abdel Azim El Siddig: Financing Islamic terrorism (Missouri).

Abdelhaleem Ashqar: Criminal contempt and obstruction of justice for refusing to testify in 2003 before a grand jury investigating the Palestinian militant movement Hamas. Telephone records presented in the case records showed that Ashqar was in contact with Hamas leaders.

Abdul Hakim Murad: Conspiring and attempting to bomb 12 airliners.

Abdul Rauf Noormohamed: Providing false terrorism tips to federal agents.

Abdurahman Alamoudi: Financing Islamic terrorism.

Adam Gadahn, convert to Islam: Treason.

Adham Hassoun: Conspiracy to murder, kidnap and maim people in a foreign country.

Adnan el-Shukrijumah: Wanted in connection with possible threats against the United States.

Agron Abdullahu: Conspiring to provide weapons to illegal immigrants.

Ahmad Abdelmomen: Aggravated assault, for beating his younger sister, breaking her back, and leaving her wheelchair bound because he was upset about her relationship with a non-Muslim boy. Their parents did not immediately call for medical assistance, believing that the beating was justified. (Michigan)

Ahmad Saad Nasim: Filing a false 'anti-Muslim' hate crime (Arizona).

Ahmad Mustafa: Aiding Islamic terrorists (Missouri).

Ahmed Abdel Sattar: Assisting an Islamic militant imprisoned in the United States with communicating with his followers in Egypt (New York).

Ahmed Barodi: Smuggling bogus passports into Saudi Arabia for the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood.

Ahmed Mohamed: Teaching and demonstrating the making and use of an expolsive and destructive device, illegal transporting of explosive materials. (South Carolina)

Ahmed Omar Abu Ali: Terror-related charges, plotting to kill a U.S. President (Virginia).

Ahmed Ressam: Plotting to bomb the Los Angeles Airport on the eve of the new millennium.

Ali Abu Kamal: Shooting seven people on the Empire State Building's observation deck, killing one because he wanted to "punish America for supporting Israel."

Ali al-Timimi: Recruiting Islamic terrorists.

Ali bin Mussalim: Investing funds for Osama bin Laden and Al Qaida.

Ali Mohamed Bagegni: Financing Islamic terrorism (Missouri).

Ali Warrayat: Aggravated assault and arson. Warrayat, a Muslim and former student at Arizona State, with a Qur'an and a Palestinian flag in his trunk, rammed his car through the doors of an Arizona Home Depot store, drove through the store to the section that stocks the flammable liquids, and sets it ablaze. Why? He was unhappy with his raise. Also noted in police statements was that Warrayat had referred to his religion on several occasions, and that a Qur'an was hanging from the rearview mirror inside his vehicle.

Amir Abdelgani: Seditious conspiracy, bombing conspiracy and attempted bombing.

Amjad Abunar: Arson, reporting a false 'anti-Muslim' hate crime (Texas).

Basel Saleh Salem Kassem: Charged with making a threat on a public conveyance, screaming that he had a bomb in his bag after getting into an argument with someone on an Amtrak train (Virginia).

Basman Elashi: Conspiracy, money laundering and dealing in property of a terrorist (Texas).

Bayan Elashi: Conspiracy, money laundering and dealing in property of a terrorist (Texas).

Christopher Paul, aka Abdul Malek, or Abdul Malik: Providing material support to terrorists, conspiracy to provide support to terrorists, conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction. (Ohio)

Clement Hampton-El: Seditious conspiracy, bombing conspiracy and attempted bombing (New York).

Dawud Salahuddin, convert to Islam: Murder of a critic of Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini, saying the killing was "an act of war and a religious duty." Fled to Iran after the murder he committed (Bethesda, Maryland).

Derrick Shareef, aka Talib Abu Salam Ibn Shareef: Attempting to damage or destroy a building by fire or explosion, attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction against persons or property in the U.S.

Donald T. Surratt, convert to Islam: Conspiracy, terror support.

Dritan Duka: Conspiring to kill uniformed military personnel.

Ehsanul Islam Sadequee: Conspiring to provide and providing material support to terrorists. (Georgia)

El-Sayyid Nosair: Seditious conspiracy, murder in aid of racketeering, attempted murder in aid of racketeering, attempted murder of a postal police officer, use of a firearm in the commission of a murder.

Eljvir Duka: Conspiring to kill uniformed military personnel.

Emadeddin Z. Muntasser: Conspiracy to defraud the United States, tax violations, and making false statements by lying to the government to win tax-exempt status for Care International, an Islamic charity, and then using the nonprofit to distribute publications promoting jihad, and to support Muslim militants overseas. (Boston, Mass.)

Abdullah said: "With God's help we will meet our brethren from other religions, including those who believe in the Torah and in the Gospel, in order to find ways to defend humanity."

For lack of information, many people will look upon that statement and say, "Oh, how nice." The first question one should ask, however, is whether Abdullah is speaking of the Torah as it is understood and used by Jews today and in generations past, and of the Gospel as it is understood and used by Christians today and in generations past. Or, does he really mean the Taurat and Injil of which the Qur'an speaks -- Ur-Torah and Ur-Gospel books that preached Islamic monotheism before allegedly being corrupted by later generations?

Then, is this proposed "dialogue" to be with Judaism and Christianity as they are, or with the assumption that Jews and Christians, having corrupted their holy books, aren't even true Jews and Christians from an Islamic perspective? Moreover, what of the supersessionist attitude that Islam corrects, completes, and therefore overshadows Judaism and Christianity?

This issue -- "my" Torah or "your" Torah? "my" Gospel or "your" Gospel? -- and the resulting obfuscation and confusion partially underlies the frequent canard of "common values" on which interfaith discussions often proceed, and which Abdullah is again employing here. Yes, giving to charity is nice. Prayer is really nice, and believers tend to agree that God is great. But it's the differences that have a bearing on how a society functions, and they are the source of incompatibility between Islamic cultures and those with a Judeo-Christian basis: What is the nature of the deity? (And what does that deity have to say about any number of topics?) What is the nature of man's relationship to the deity, and to the rest of the human race? And what of the interaction of men and women? Believers and non-believers? What about revenge?

Civilized societies agree to disagree on differences of opinion that concern faith. The problem here is the imperative that Islam dominate and not be dominated, and Abdullah is indeed using the notion of "common values" to advance a very particular agenda: He calls it "respect among the religions." Once again, the uninformed reader might think that sounds wonderful. But we have already seen on many occasions that Islamic law is reciprocity-impaired when it comes to respect. It is not "respect" in the general sense; rather, Islam is to be respected, and will deal with other faiths according to what it believes is the divinely-ordained order of things (i.e., dhimmitude).

"Abdullah wants interfaith conference," from the Jerusalem Post:

Saudi King Abdullah's desire to convene a meeting between Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religious communities was reported Tuesday by the official Saudi Arabian News Agency.

"I invite representatives of all the monotheistic religions to meet with their brothers in faith," the king was quoted as saying. The theme of the expected conference was reported to be "respect among the religions."

The news agency reported that senior Muslim leaders authorized the idea and consultations would be made with Islamic religious authorities from other countries. The king went on to say that "with God's help we will meet our brethren from other religions, including those who believe in the Torah and in the Gospel, in order to find ways to defend humanity."

This, he said, comes after humanity has lost its morality, sincerity and steadfastness. Also, the religions were confronted by challenges such as dealing with the disintegration of the family and ever-expanding Atheism, he said.

King Abdullah revealed that he had been preparing the convention for two years and discussed it with the Pope when he visited the Vatican a year ago. Abdullah has not determined a specific date for the meeting.

Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger expressed his satisfaction over the announcement. "Our hands are extended to any peace initiative and to any dialogue that will bring about an end to terrorism and violence," he said in a statement. "I have said on numerous occasions that the true path to the peace that we long for is through interfaith dialogue."

More from "Saudi King calls for interfaith dialogue," by Donna Abu-Nasr and Abdullah Shihri for the Associated Press:

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - The Saudi king has made an impassioned plea for dialogue among Muslims, Christians and Jews — the first such proposal from a nation with no diplomatic ties to Israel and a ban on non-Muslim religious services and symbols.

The message from King Abdullah, which was welcomed by Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders, comes at a time of stalled peace initiatives and escalating tensions in the region.

Muslims have been angered by cartoons published in European papers seen as insulting the Prophet Muhammad and by the pope's baptizing on Easter of a Muslim journalist who had converted to Catholicism.

"The idea is to ask representatives of all monotheistic religions to sit together with their brothers in faith and sincerity to all religions as we all believe in the same God," the king told delegates Monday night at a seminar on "Culture and the Respect of Religions." [...]

The White House welcomed the king's gesture.

"We think increased dialogue is a really good thing," presidential spokeswoman Dana Perino said Tuesday. "And, of course, when you have someone like the king of Saudi Arabia, and all of his stature, that is recommending such a dialogue, it can only give us hope that there would be further recognition of everyone's right to freedom and freedom of expression and religion. So we are encouraged by it."

Abdullah said he planned to hold conferences to get the opinion of Muslims from other parts of the world, and then meetings with "our brothers" in Christianity and Judaism "so we can agree on something that guarantees the preservation of humanity against those who tamper with ethics, family systems and honesty."

Abdullah, who said he discussed the idea with Pope Benedict XVI when they met at the Vatican in November, framed his appeal in strictly religious and ethical terms, aimed at addressing the weakening of the family, increasing atheism and "a lack of ethics, loyalty, and sincerity for our religions and humanity."

How can a society that stews in perpetual hatred be any kind of partner for peace, except through the "peace" achieved by annihilating those whom they hate? And how much interest in peace can there be, if there is such a receptive audience to this line of discourse, which cultivates hatred and violence through blood libel?

"Palestinian media incites hatred through Holocaust," by Megan Jacobs for the Jerusalem Post:

A new exhibit in Gaza portrays the Jewish state burning Palestinian children in ovens.

A group called the National Committee for Defense of Children from the Holocaust unveiled its premier exhibit last week, entitled "Gaza: An exhibit describing the suffering of the children of the Holocaust."

Rather than teach about the Nazi genocide of European Jewry, the exhibit portrays Israel as the perpetrators of the holocaust; Palestinian children are "burned" in a model crematorium by "Israelis."

According to the Ramallah-based Al-Ayyam daily, "The exhibit includes a large oven and inside it small children are being burned. The picture speaks for itself."

The Zionist Organization of America condemned the exhibit, saying in a statement that "there seems to be no limit to the depravity of Palestinian hate education and incitement."

"We have seen over the years every sort of perversity, including educating children to become suicide bombers and honoring mass murderers. Here, the Palestinians, both Hamas and Fatah, depict Israelis as exterminating-Nazis, while teaching nothing about the actual Holocaust in which the wartime Palestinian leadership of Haj Amin el-Husseini was in fact very active. Husseini not only orchestrated campaigns of murder against Jews in the British Mandate, but also became an ally of the Nazis and worked hard to speed up the work of deportation and murder," said ZOA President Morton Klein.

"The depiction of Israelis as exterminating-Nazis essentially sends the message that Jews are evil people who should, like the Nazi regime, be destroyed. It is a travesty that many nations, including the US, continue to fund the PA and thereby work to keep this conflict alive while speaking endlessly of working hard to end it. Until and unless the Palestinians are held to their commitments to end terrorism and the incitement to hatred and murder that feeds it, no peace can be expected to become even feasible," he said.

"This is different than anything else," said Palestinian Media Watch director Itamar Marcus. "In the past, Palestinians would compare what Israel is doing to them to the Holocaust."

Over the last few years, Palestinian Media Watch has documented a "tremendous increase" in the usage of the word "holocaust" in the Palestinian media. Marcus said it was now being used "regularly, a few times per week or per article," versus once a month, as it had been prior, causing concern on multiple levels.

"The use of the term 'Shoah' has no doubt permeated society," Marcus said. "It has been adopted as their term."

Once adopted, it serves to delegitimize Israelis, making them out to be liars and aggressors, he said.

Furthermore, the perversion of Shoah language is incitement to hatred that, though not a direct incitement to violence, is equally as dangerous, he said. Marcus compares the current dialogue and hatred promotion to that of 1996-2000, where "incessant hatred was pumped into [Palestinian] society." Once "hatred, fear and a feeling that revenge is legitimate" are instilled in the population, an eruption into violence is the next step in a terrorist cycle, he said.

"Our greatest danger for peace in the long term is promotion of hatred," said Marcus. "This is the worst kind. It will imprint hatred on those kids forever."

Plan for genocide.

"Hamas Cleric Wael Al-Zarad Calls for the Annihilation of Jews and States: If Each Arab Spat on the Jews, They Would Drown in Arab Spit," from MEMRI (thanks to Paparock):

Following are excerpts from a TV program featuring Palestinian cleric Wael Al-Zarad, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on February 28, 2008:

Wael Al-Zarad: In short, these are the Jews. As Muslims, our blood vengeance against them will only subside with their annihilation, Allah willing, because they tried to kill our Prophet several times.

[...]

What should we do with these people? What is the best solution for them? Should it be by shamelessly bestowing kisses, regardless of our religion and our morals, on satellite TV and in clear view of the whole world? Should it be through futile meetings, which are usually conducted on carpets red with the blood of martyrs? Or should it be through an exchange of despicable smiles and ugly handshakes?

[...]

What is the best solution for these people, who have perpetrated every possible thing against us? They have destroyed our homes, killed our children, taken our land, and plundered our resources. They have turned our mosques into pubs and bars, where they drink alcohol and get women drunk. From the dome of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, they proclaim that Ezra the Scribe is the son of God. [...]

No, they don't. No Jewish group has ever claimed this. But Muhammad somehow got the idea that they did, and so it is in the Qur'an (9:30).

By Allah, people, the Jews do not deserve such a fuss. They do not deserve to be feared. The Jews are not a terrorizing bogeyman. The Jews are nothing but human scum, who came as scattered gangs to occupy our land. By Allah, if each and every Arab spat on them, they would drown in Arab spit. By Allah, if each and every Muslim spat on them, they would drown in saliva. By Allah, if the Arabs and Muslims turned into flies, the Jews would die from their buzzing. Therefore, my dear brothers, the Jews do not deserve to be feared so much. Therefore, I ask with pain and sorrow: Isn't there a single reasonable man in any of the Arab air forces? Isn't there a single reasonable man among them, who will break through these aerial borders, and bomb the Jews deep in their own land? Where are all the Arabs and Muslims?

But Turkey is the model of a moderate Muslim state, so rest assured they did it moderately. "Turks praise jihad to protest Cheney visit," from the Jerusalem Post :

Thousands of Turks chanted anti-American and anti-Israel slogans, sang jihadist songs and pledged to follow the path of Hamas's Sheikh Ahmed Yassin at a rally held on Saturday to coincide with US Vice President Dick Cheney's visit to Turkey, according to the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

In a news release on Monday, MEMRI quoted the Turkish Islamist Web sites Velfecr.com and Kudusyolu.com as reporting that demonstrators carried hundreds of Hamas and Hizbullah flags and posters, as well as pictures of the movements' leaders.

Some of the banners read, "Israel Will Be Destroyed," "We Will Settle Accounts with the Murderer Israel," "If Every Muslim Pours Out a Bucket of Water, Israel Drowns," and "The Way of the Shahids is Our Way."

MEMRI said the demonstration, held in Sakarya, was organized by the Islamist Anatolia Youth Organization (AGD), with the support of other Islamist organizations.

During the demonstration, an Israeli flag with "Death to Israel" on it was burned and hateful speeches against Christian "Crusaders" and Jews, inciting the crowds to jihad, were delivered by Islamist activist Nureddin Sirin and by two AGD officials.

MEMRI noted that Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan headed the AGD prior to becoming Istanbul's mayor.

[...]

Sirin went on: "We say to the White House of America and to the Tel Aviv gang: Islamic lands are not only Palestine, Iraq or only Afghanistan. All the lands of Islam will become the grave of Crusaders and Zionists, and with the will of Allah, in all Islamic lands, the faces of Crusaders, occupiers and Zionists will taste the slaps and the fists of Muslims that will smash them. Quds [Jerusalem] is the cause of everyone who says he is a Muslim. When the political, cultural, economic and military unity of Islam is realized, none of them [the infidels] will dare raise a hand to the Muslims. The day is nearing, when the Zionist cancer virus, this tumor, will be eliminated."

Geert Wilders is not alone. I received this email this morning:

Dear Mr. Spencer,

Sagunto here, from the Netherlands with a censorship alert.

This morning, I received several messages from the YouTube "service-team" which stated that the videos featuring the documentary Islam, what the West needs to know (with my Dutch subtitles) were removed from my account, due to "inappropriate content" after they had been flagged by some users.

It can't be due to protests from the producers, because I got permission from Mr. Greg Davis to put the vid's with the Dutch subtitles on the YouTube channel.

So I asked them the following question (but up to this moment I received no answer):

"Dear people @ Youtube,

Today I received several messages about the hugely popular documentary "Islam, what the West needs to know", which was apparently removed from my account due to inappropriate content (I have to translate here from the message in Dutch which stated: "ongepast materiaal").

The documentary is almost exclusively based on well known Islamic sources themselves, so you might understand that I'm rather curious as to the reasons why these vid's were removed and what exactly was considered offensive or inappropriate material. Do the people at YouTube consider the Koran/Hadith to be offensive? I think the 44.000 people who saw this documentary would be well served if they knew the reasons behind this decision. I'd like to hear from you."

This is a serious set-back for free speech at YouTube. They apparently have succumbed to islamist pressuregroups.

Kindest regards from Amsterdam
Sagunto

"They apparently have succumbed to islamist pressuregroups." It certainly wouldn't be the first time.

And he knows about revolting

But only as a "second step."

"Shiite cleric Sadr calls for 'civil revolt' in Iraq," from Gulfnews (thanks to Sr. Soph):

Najaf: Shiite cleric Moqtada Al Sadr called on Iraqis to stage sit-ins and threatened a countrywide "civil revolt" if attacks by US and Iraqi security forces continue against his followers.

In a statement read out by senior aide Hazem Al Araji, Sadr said, "We call upon all Iraqis to stage sit-ins all over Iraq as a first step. And if the people's demands are not respected by the Iraqi government, the second step will be to declare civil revolt in Baghdad and all other provinces."

He also threatened a "third step", but said it was too early to announce what that would be.

Hmmm, now what could it be...

He said it.

"Libyan Liberal Muhammad Al-Houni on Statements by Archbishop of Canterbury: If Europe Adopts Shari'a, It Will Revert to Pre-Enlightenment Era," from MEMRI, with thanks to the Constantinoplitan Irredentist:

In a February 26, 2008 article in the Arab liberal e-journal Elaph, Libyan-European liberal thinker and entrepreneur Muhammad 'Abd Al-Muttalib Al-Houni wrote that the recent statements by Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams on implementing shari'a law in Britain constituted dangerous encouragement to fundamentalists in their war against the Enlightenment. He added that such statements could have very grave repercussions for the struggle for freedom in Muslim countries as well.

The following are excerpts from Al-Houni's article:

[...]

"Also, European countries seeking to implement shari'a would need to submit their reservations regarding any international conventions they may have signed. This is because they will have to:

"1) Permit polygamy for European Muslim citizens, and not punish them for it - [even though] this is considered criminal under European law;

"2) Permit European Muslim citizens to beat their wives to discipline them, as the Koran urges;

"3) Allow men to unilaterally decide to divorce without requiring any court proceedings, as this is a right guaranteed [to men] by shari'a;

"4) Give daughters [only] half the inheritance rights that sons have, while widows receive only an eighth of the inheritance;

"5) [Not] consider women's testimony the equal of men's in shari'a courts;

"6) Deprive a divorced woman of custody of her children if she remarries;

"7) Allow European Muslim citizens to marry in traditional marriages without the need to officially register these marriages;

"8) Eliminate adoption, since it is contrary to shari'a;

"9) Force a woman whose Muslim husband converts to another religion to divorce him, because he is an apostate;

"10) Prevent European Muslim women from marrying non-Muslims…"

Adopting Shari'a Would Undermine the Concept of Citizenship

"If [Archbishop Rowan's] intention is to introduce some or all of these laws from Islamic shari'a into Europe's legal systems, it would mean the following:

"1) The concept of citizenship in Europe will change. There will be [different] classes of citizenship and of citizens, with some citizens being exempt from having the general law applied to them because they belong to a particular religion or belief. There will be a Muslim [class of] citizen, a Christian [class of] citizen, a Buddhist [class of] citizen, a Confucian [class of] citizen, and so on. Each will apply his own laws... Thus, faith will not be an individual freedom or belief; it will [come to] have extremely serious public ramifications.

"2) If some or all of these laws were implemented and recognized by European legislative bodies, it would not only seriously damage human rights legislation - it would spell the end [of this legislation]. This is because everything I mentioned above is a negation of human rights principles.

"3) Recognizing all, or [even] some, of these laws would take European societies back to the age before the Enlightenment and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As a result, the West would revert to barbarism."

Is the Anglican Church a Partner in Fundamentalism?

"While I maintain that the European countries will never accede to these catastrophic demands - for reasons more practical than humanist - the fact that they were proposed by the British archbishop sends the wrong message to the Islamic world. The gist of this message is that there is no contradiction between Islamic shari'a and Western civilization if [shari'a] applies [only] for Muslim citizens.

[...]

"The Islamic world has been suffering from fundamentalist attacks on what is left of secular society in their countries. These fundamentalists want to implement a shari'a law that contravenes human rights, taking as their model and inspiration the seventh-century state [established by] the Prophet Muhammad in Medina.

"At present, these [fundamentalists] are picking fights with the secularists in Islamic countries, and their attitude is: 'How can you oppose shari'a law in your own countries when we see that the Anglican Church is seeking its implementation in Europe?

"This message is wrong, and it is detrimental to all pleas for modernism and secularism in the Islamic world. Such [pleas] are weak enough as it is, overpowered as they are by the tsunami of Islamist extremists who accuse [those who voice] them of subordination [to the West], treason, and heresy. Such statements by some Anglican clerics are nothing less than support for the ideas of Islamist extremists, and are also an attempt to make fundamentalist religious thought triumph over secular thought in the Islamic countries.

Courtesy Hot Air:

Thanks to our Hot Air volunteer video editor, we’ve got a new Jihad Watch show for you. JW’s Robert Spencer takes on the thuggish Organization of The Islamic Conference’s war on free speech.

In the featured article at FrontPage today I discuss the latest fulminations by the "reformist" Sheikh Qaradawi against the great Wafa Sultan:

Wafa Sultan appeared on Al-Jazeera again earlier this month, and the shock waves are still reverberating throughout the Islamic world. The day after her appearance Al-Jazeera issued a public apology for her “offensive” remarks, but did not specify what exactly she said that was so terrible. Last week, however, the influential Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi was not so circumspect. Qaradawi, whom Saudi-funded academic John Esposito has praised as a “reformist,” in 2006 exhorted Muslims to fight against Israel by invoking the notorious genocidal hadith in which Muhammad says that on the Day of Judgment “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.’” But now he has directed his rage against Sultan, a fifty-year-old Syrian-American psychologist: “She said unbearable, ghastly things that made my hair stand on end.” Specifically, “she had the audacity to publicly curse Allah, His Prophet, the Koran, the history of Islam, and the Islamic nation.” He repeated that she “leveled accusations against Islam and the Muslims, and cursed Allah, His Prophet, the Islamic nation, the shari’a, and the Islamic faith and culture.”

These are serious charges, and Qaradawi states them in terms that his jihadist minions will understand as meaning that she must be killed. Given that Qaradawi has justified suicide attacks against Israeli civilians and American soldiers in Iraq, it is clear that he has no distaste for violence, and thus law enforcement officials should take his latest fulminations against Wafa Sultan very seriously indeed.

The Truth hurts

In Human Events today I discuss the rage over my newly-discovered nearly two-year-old book:

The Al-Arabiya news channel last week discovered a sixteen-month-old promotion for my book The Truth About Muhammad, and worked itself into a fine lather of indignation – and the jihad terror group Hamas soon got into the act as well.

The Hamas website thundered that the book was part of a “campaign by Western extremists against the religion of Islam and values that are sacred to Moslems,” and was “another in a series of actions designed to distort the image of Islam in the public eye. This follows the re-publication of the Muhammad caricatures in Denmark and the intention of a Dutch Parliament Member to air a movie against Islam.”

Plan for genocide.

"Nasrallah: The Zionist entity can be wiped out of existence," by Yoav Stern for Haaretz (thanks to Sr. Soph):

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Monday told tens of thousands of supporters in Beirut that Israel could be eliminated and that the prowess of its army had been exaggerated by "Zionist-American propaganda."

"The Zionist entity can be wiped out of existence," Nasrallah said in his address via video link, referring to Israel. "Our nation is stronger now than ever before," he added.

Nasrallah's speech was broadcast live at a rally marking the end of the 40-day mourning period for slain Hezbollah military chief Imad Mughniyah, who was assassinated in a car bombing in Damascus last month.

The Lebanon-based guerilla group Hezbollah has repeatedly blamed Israel for the assassination of the group's second in command, but Israel has categorically denied any involvement.

"Zionist-American propaganda is aiming to harm our nation's consciousness. They, using their violent system, are trying to tell us that we are weak and powerless. They want to tell us that we don't have any hopes of winning," the Hezbollah leader continued. [...]

"There is a military political victory termed the withdrawal of the occupation army from southern Lebanon, but there is also an ideological victory in the battle of consciousness," he said.

However, he went on, in the summer of 2006 a powerful new answer became apparent. "In the July war we were attacked by the [Israeli] army and the resistance withstood the great attack, breaking and shattering the army. We found and we saw the true picture of Israel and its leaders, generals, officers, soldiers and the Israeli tank... the nation that isn't facing bombings and banishment, lived in bomb shelters for 33 days. Could Israel be wiped out of existence? Yes, and a thousand times yes."...

At last the whole truth is coming out about this malignant group.

"CAIR Exposed: Part 1: As IAP Offshoot, CAIR Followed Pro-Hamas Agenda From the Start," by Steven Emerson for IPT News (thanks to all who sent this in):

From the Hamas ties of its founders in 1994 to its solicitous stance toward accused terrorists today, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has demonstrated that its actual mission is far removed from the civil rights advocacy it claims to pursue.

Still standing as perhaps the clearest evidence of CAIR's insidious role, two key leaders of the group attended a 1993 meeting in Philadelphia called by Hamas members and supporters to devise a strategy for torpedoing the Oslo Accords aimed at Middle East peace.

An analysis of secret recordings of the meeting led the FBI to conclude that the gathering was held "to determine… [the participants'] course of action in support of Hamas' opposition to the [Oslo] peace plan and to decide how to conceal their activities from the scrutiny of the United States government."

Coupled with their support for the jihad in the Middle East, the attendees recognized the critical importance of domestic lobbying in the United States. One discussed encouraging the Islamic community "to be involved in the political life of this country," adding, "We should assist them in this task. This will be an entrance for us to put, through the Islamic community, pressure on the Congress and the decision makers in America."

That's where CAIR came in. Participants in that 1993 meeting discussed tailoring their message to an American audience, speaking of outright deception at times and of softening their rhetoric at others, as the following exchange between CAIR founders Omar Ahmad and Nihad Awad shows:

Awad: What is important is that the language of the address is there even for the American. But, the issue is how to use it.....

Omar Ahmad: There is a difference between you saying "I want to restore the '48 land" and when you say "I want to destroy Israel".....

Awad: Yes, there are different but parallel types of address. There shouldn't be contradiction. Address people according to their minds. When I speak with the American, I speak with someone who doesn't know anything. As for the Palestinian who has a martyr brother or something, I know how to address him, you see?

This context helps explain why federal authorities have tied the CAIR to Hamas in three separate court filings in the past year. Prosecutors place CAIR on the Muslim Brotherhood's "Palestine Committee." An internal Palestine Committee document in 1994 lists CAIR as one of its "working organizations" along with IAP. Other records show that committee was created to advance the Hamas agenda within the United States.

The Investigative Project on Terrorism has assembled a thorough dossier on CAIR's origins and activities which we present in installments during the next two weeks. You can read today's segment here.

Read it all.

"Kafir Alalazoo" writes at Jawa Report (thanks to Hot Air):

I just spent 30-40 minutes on the phone with Network Solutions (based in PA), complaining about their removal of the fitnathemovie.com website.

Ultimately, I was only able to get as high a woman named Shannon, the Assistant to the Executive Officer (his name is Roy Dunbar), who gave me a polite brush off, without actually answering any of my questions.

But I was making her very uncomfortable...I could actually hear her blanching over the phone!

I explained why I was contacting her (she was already aware of Fitna), and when I was done explaining my gripe (forcefully), she asked me if I had any specific questions for her.

So I asked her some specific questions, and informed her they were for an article I was writing for a popular conservative blog (where upon her voice became even gloomier)...

1. "Why did you remove a website for TOS violations when there was nothing but a parking page with the text "Coming Soon", and a photo of the Quran?"

She directed my attention to the notice on the page, saying "It is what it is."

2. "Why is an American based company willing to practice preemptive censorship, when there has not yet been any violation?"

Again, she had no answer.

[...]

5. I asked her why an American based hosting company is more concerned about disgruntled Muslims than protecting free speech on the Internet?

Dead silence.

[...]

I explained that, unlike radical Muslims, law abiding citizens did not have the option of issuing threats or becoming violent, thus our only recourse is to become such a pain in the ass that companies such as Network Solutions find offending Muslims preferable to the time and resources wasted dealing with us.

I told her I would be posting the gist of our conversation online, at a popular site, and that she was in for a bad week. I really hope I'm right.

Network Solutions
Roy Dunbar, CEO
10 Azalea Drive
Drums, PA 18222
800-333-7680
www.networksolutions.com

Give 'em hell Jawas!

Don't let yourselves be brushed off by the first few people you talk to... and don't waste a lot of your time talking to them. They are low level functionaries, and you are better off wasting the time of someone at a higher pay scale.

Just keep asking to speak with someone in the corporate offices until you are connected.

If you do this, be polite, respectful, and factual. Remember that anything you say can be used against you, and against the anti-jihad resistance, if at all possible.

Remember Nadir Ahmed? He was the subject of my post entitled "Why Can't Muslims Debate?"

From Alpha & Omega Ministries (thanks to PRCalDude):

I went to Norfolk Virginia to attend the debate between Dr. White and Nadir Ahmed on the topic, "Can We Trust What the New Testament Says about Jesus and the Gospel?" Mr. Ahmed was thoroughly unprofessional, acted completely unprepared, and had absolutely no ability to either present or defend any of his assertions in any coherent or persuasive fashion. In many instances throughout the interaction, Mr. Ahmed acted with belligerence and rudeness to Dr. White, the moderators, and the audience.

I would probably not be wrong in stating that even the Muslims present were embarrassed by his presentation. In fact, during the questions and answers segment, the Muslims that had the opportunity to comment expressed disapproval in Mr. Ahmed's presentation and behavior. [...]

It became obvious very quickly that Mr. Ahmed had no credentials or ability to call himself an apologist, nor should he have been given the opportunity to a moderated public debate.

By now the idea is spreading all over the place that there is no movie Fitna, and never will be -- that Geert Wilders simply announced that there would be to expose Islamic intolerance.

I have no direct knowledge either way, but I'm inclined to credit this idea at this point, since the film has not appeared now on several dates on which it had been announced to appear. Maybe it will finally burst upon the world, but I won't be surprised if it never does.

And look what we have seen: for the mere announcement that he was making a film quoting the Qur'an and showing Muslims acting violently in accord with its words, we have seen threats from several Muslim countries, threats from Al-Qaeda, demonstrations in the Netherlands and around the world, and quailing dhimmitude from the august leaders of Europe, as they cringed before the anticipated Islamic wrath, and from Network Solutions, as they pulled Wilders's site while it was almost entirely devoid of content.

Note, meanwhile, that hardly a day goes by on which some Muslims somewhere do not commit an act of violence that they deem to be justified by the words of the Qur'an. Jihadist leaders routinely invoke Qur'anic passages to explain their actions and make recruits among peaceful Muslims. In other words, we see the announced theme of Wilders's Fitna played out every day, not by non-Muslims but by Muslims -- and there is nary a peep of protest from anyone. Muslims in the West issue vague denunciations of "terrorism," but never specifically explain whom they actually believe to be a terrorist, and there are no protests, no threats, no nothing against those who have supposedly "hijacked" their religion.

Maybe that was Wilders's point all along, and it is a point well made, made again and again and again.

Wow! What was your first clue, Mr. Vice President? And when will you take any notice of the fact that Fatah has shown no sign of honoring any peace agreement, either?

"Cheney says Hamas torpedoes peace," by Deb Riechmann for Associated Press (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):

JERUSALEM - Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday that Hamas, with support from Syria and Iran, is trying to "torpedo" peace talks between the Palestinians and Israel.

Meeting reporters after having breakfast with the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Cheney said, "It is clearly a difficult situation, in part, because I think it's true, there's evidence, that Hamas is supported by Iran and Syria and that they're doing everything they can to torpedo the peace process."

Cheney said in his meeting with Palestinian leaders on Sunday they talked about efforts under way in Yemen to encourage reconciliation between moderate and militant Palestinians.

"My conclusion after talking about this with the Palestinians is that they have established some preconditions before they would ever consider a reconciliation, including a complete reversal of the Hamas takeover of Gaza," he said.

Good luck with that.

More threats from Al-Qaeda's #2 thug: "No one can say today that we should fight the Jews in Palestine only."

"Zawahri urges anti-Isreal [sic] attacks over Gaza," from Reuters :

DUBAI - Al Qaeda’s second-in-command Ayman Al Zawahri called for attacks on Israeli and Western targets to avenge Israel’s raids on the Gaza Strip, in an audio tape posted on the Internet on Monday.

‘O Muslims. Today is your day. Hit the interest of the Jews and the Americans and all those who participated in the aggression against Muslims,’ said the speaker on the tape who sounded like Zawahri.

‘Monitor the targets, collect the money, prepare the hardware, plan accurately and then attack,’ he added, without specifically naming any targets. ‘No one can say today that we should fight the Jews in Palestine only.’...

A Jihad Watch reader asked me: “If the Israel/Palestinian conflict were exactly the same as it is, only the roles of the two warring parties were exactly reversed, would you then switch allegiances to the Palestinian side?”

Let's see.

If there were 22 Jewish states, and only one tiny Arab state, and if in those 22 Jewish states every other group was denied anything like equality (see the various groups of Christians all over the Muslim Arab world, or for that matter see the various groups of non-Arab Muslims -- such as Kurds, Berbers, and black Africans in Darfur), and if those 22 Jewish states also possessed fantastic oil reserves and the one tiny Arab state possessed nothing but the intelligence of its populace, and if those 22 Jewish states were the size of the 22 members of the Arab League, with 14,000,000 square miles of territory, and the one tiny Arab state had less than 1/1,000th of that, or about 10,0000 square miles, and if those 22 Jewish states were possessed of an ideology that required them to move heaven and earth in order to eradicate that one tiny Arab state -- oh, and did I forget to mention all the other "not-quite Jewish states" that would be the correct analogue to the non-Arab Muslim states that the Arabs (and Islam) have convinced that they, too, have a stake in opposing Israel and wishing to see it destroyed? (See those frenzied mobs in Iran, or Pakistan.)

Alexander with horns

As we saw two weeks ago, verses 83-101 of sura 18 were revealed after a group of rabbis devised a test for Muhammad’s claim to be a prophet: “Ask him about a man who travelled a great deal and reached the east and the west of the earth. What was his story?” That man was Dhul-Qarnayn (v. 83) – “the one with two horns.” Ibn Kathir explains that he had “dominion over the east and the west, all countries and their kings submitted to him, and all the nations, Arab and non-Arab, served him.” He goes on to explain that Dhul-Qarnayn got his Qur’anic name “because he reached the two ‘Horns’ of the sun, east and west, where it rises and where it sets.”

But who was this great conqueror? The Tafsir al-Jalalayn says that “he was not a prophet” and that his “name was Alexander” – better known as Alexander the Great, who was depicted on coins with two ram’s horns on his head. Maududi notes that “early commentators on the Qur’an were generally inclined to believe” that Dhul-Qarnayn was Alexander. Muhammad Al-Ghazali says that Alexander the Great is “high on the list of possibilities.”

In my morning email many people are asking me if I will host Geert Wilders's Qur'an movie here at Jihad Watch.

I haven't had any contact with Geert Wilders. He has not asked me to host the film. But if given the opportunity, I certainly would, at least until we too were shut down.

I've noticed this morning also that many others are offering to host the film. That is a good thing -- Westerners refusing to be intimidated and silenced by thuggery and threats. I hope that ultimately the film appears in many, many places -- too many to shut them all down.

After an infusion of American cash. But don't be concerned: they're moderate cash grants. "Americans paying rent for terrorists? Militants complain they don't have enough money to cover their bills," by Aaron Klein for WorldNetDaily (thanks to Doc Washburn):

JERUSALEM – Just days after it was announced the U.S. would transfer $150 million directly to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' government, members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group, the declared military wing of Abbas' Fatah party, were told they would receive cash grants, WND has learned. According to Palestinian militant sources familiar with the issue, earlier this month, 20 members of the Brigades leadership in the West Bank city of Ramallah complained to PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad they did not have enough money to pay their bills, including, for many of them, rent for their apartments. Last week, according to the informed sources, Fayyad told the complaining Brigades leaders he would provide them with a one-time grant of $3,000 each, or $60,000 to the Ramallah-based Brigades leadership. The sources said after Brigades leaders in other West Bank cities, including Hebron and Nablus, heard of the grants, they also demanded pay increases. "Some of the other fighters accused Fayyad of favoring the Brigades leaders in Ramallah since that's where Fayyad lives," said a militant source. "So he gave grants also to other cells."

The sources estimate at least $350,000 in grants to Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades leaders were pledged by Fayyad since last week. Some of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades leaders serve in Fatah security forces while others only work in the Brigades.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades is responsible for scores of suicide bombings, deadly shootings and rocket attacks. It is listed by the State Department as a terrorist organization even though U.S. policy considers the Fatah party to be "moderate."

Many members of the Brigades openly serve in Fatah's official security forces....

Read it all.

No surprise there. More on Magdi Allam's conversion, in a story by Philip Pullella for Reuters (thanks to John):

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - A Muslim author and critic of Islamic fundamentalism who was baptized a Catholic by Pope Benedict said on Sunday Islam is "physiologically violent" and he is now in great danger because of his conversion.

"I realize what I am going up against but I will confront my fate with my head high, with my back straight and the interior strength of one who is certain about his faith," said Magdi Allam.

In a surprise move on Saturday night, the pope baptized the 55-year-old, Egyptian-born Allam at an Easter eve service in St Peter's Basilica that was broadcast around the world.

The conversion of Allam to Christianity -- he took the name "Christian" for his baptism -- was kept secret until the Vatican disclosed it in a statement less than an hour before it began.

Writing in Sunday's edition of the leading Corriere della Sera, the newspaper of which he is a deputy director, Allam said: "... the root of evil is innate in an Islam that is physiologically violent and historically conflictual."

Allam, who is a strong supporter of Israel and who an Israeli newspaper once called a "Muslim Zionist," has lived under police protection following threats against him, particularly after he criticized Iran's position on Israel.

He said before converting he had continually asked himself why someone who had struggled for what he called "moderate Islam" was then "condemned to death in the name of Islam and on the basis of a Koranic legitimization." [...]

A telling question.

The Vatican appeared to be at pains to head off criticism from the Islamic world about the conversion.

"Conversion is a private matter, a personal thing and we hope that the baptism will not be interpreted negatively by Islam," Cardinal Giovanni Re told an Italian newspaper.

Still, Allam's highly public baptism by the pope shocked Italy's Muslim community, with some leaders openly questioning why the Vatican chose to shine such a big spotlight it.

"What amazes me is the high profile the Vatican has given this conversion," Yaha Sergio Yahe Pallavicini, vice-president of the Italian Islamic Religious Community, told Reuters. "Why could he have not done this in his local parish?"

Why indeed? But the same question can be turned around: Magdi Allam is an internationally famous journalist. Why, then, shouldn't his conversion be high-profile? That Pallavicini would prefer it hidden away suggests that he carries in his mental baggage the Sharia-based assumption that Christians should be quiet and submissive, private and unostentatious in their religious observances, so as to avoid offend the delicate sensibilities of Muslims.

But they are now likely to be very, very offended:

ANOTHER DEATH SENTENCE

Allam, the author of numerous books, said he realized that his conversion would likely procure him "another death sentence for apostasy," or the abandoning of one's faith.

But he said he was willing to risk it because he had "finally seen the light, thanks to divine grace."

Allam defended the pope in 2006 when the pontiff made a speech in Regensburg, Germany, that many Muslims perceived as depicting Islam as a violent faith.

He said he made his decision to convert after years of deep soul searching and asserted that the Catholic Church has been "too prudent about conversions of Muslims."...

Jihad terrorists? Fine! A movie about the connection between the Qur'an and violent actions by Muslims? No way! In an update on this story, Jihad Watch reader CJN send me this:

Just a bit of infomation about Network Solutions that I have collected.

Here is the whois record for hizbollah.org:
http://whois.net/whois_new.cgi?d=hizbollah&tld=org

Domain ID:D849804-LROR
Domain Name:HIZBOLLAH.ORG
Created On:06-Feb-1998 05:00:00 UTC
Last Updated On:07-Dec-2006 06:17:10 UTC
Expiration Date:05-Feb-2009 05:00:00 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:Network Solutions LLC (R63-LROR)
Status:CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITED
Registrant ID:20739530-NSIV
Registrant Name:NO FIRST NAME NO LAST NAME
Registrant Organization:Hizbollah
Registrant Street1:ATTN insert domain name here
Registrant Street2:care of Network Solutions
Registrant Street3:
Registrant City:Herndon
Registrant State/Province:VA
Registrant Postal Code:20172
Registrant Country:US
Registrant Phone:+1.570708878
Registrant Phone Ext.:
Registrant FAX:
Registrant FAX Ext.:
Registrant Email:q75sv55u4aw@networksolutionsprivateregistration.com
Admin ID:16826304-NSIV
Admin Name:Hussein Beydoun
Admin Organization:Hadeelnet
Admin Street1:ATTN insert domain name here
Admin Street2:care of Network Solutions
Admin Street3:
Admin City:Herndon
Admin State/Province:VA
Admin Postal Code:20172
Admin Country:US
Admin Phone:+1.570708878
Admin Phone Ext.:
Admin FAX:
Admin FAX Ext.:
Admin Email:x97ex6ej4wg@networksolutionsprivateregistration.com
Tech ID:5358805-NSI
Tech Name:Network Solutions, LLC.
Tech Organization:Network Solutions, LLC.
Tech Street1:13200 Woodland Park Drive
Tech Street2:
Tech Street3:
Tech City:Herndon
Tech State/Province:VA
Tech Postal Code:20171-3025
Tech Country:US
Tech Phone:+1.188864296
Tech Phone Ext.:
Tech FAX:+1.5714344620
Tech FAX Ext.:
Tech Email:customerservice@networksolutions.com
Name Server:NS81.WORLDNIC.COM
Name Server:NS82.WORLDNIC.COM

Here is the present ip address for this domain: 82.137.205.243

Here is the reverse lookup for that IP:
http://www.db.ripe.net/whois?form_type=simple&full_query_string=&searchtext=82.137.205.243&submit.x=16&submit.y=4&submit=Search
% This is the RIPE Whois query server #3.
% The objects are in RPSL format.
%
% Rights restricted by copyright.
% See http://www.ripe.net/db/copyright.html
% Note: This output has been filtered.
% To receive output for a database update, use the "-B" flag.
% Information related to '82.137.200.0 - 82.137.207.255'
inetnum: 82.137.200.0 - 82.137.207.255
netname: STEPDNNET-1
descr: STE ISP Network 1
country: SY
admin-c: RAAA1-RIPE
tech-c: MS4418-RIPE
status: ASSIGNED PA
mnt-by: STEMNT-1
source: RIPE # Filtered
person: Rouda Al Amir Ali
address: Syrian Telecommunication Establishment
address: 1 Mazza Autostrad
address: P.O.BOX 11774 Damascus
address: Syria
phone: +963 11 373 9701
e-mail: sytld-tech@net.sy
nic-hdl: RAAA1-RIPE
source: RIPE # Filtered
person: Mostafa Sawan
address: Aleppo - Syria
phone: +963 93 2554647
e-mail: sawan@pdn.sy
nic-hdl: MS4418-RIPE
mnt-by: STEMNT-1
source: RIPE # Filtered
% Information related to '82.137.192.0/18AS29386'
route: 82.137.192.0/18
descr: STE Public Data Network Backbone and LIR
origin: AS29386
mnt-by: STEMNT-1
source: RIPE # Filtered
% Information related to '82.137.192.0/18AS29256'
route: 82.137.192.0/18

descr: STE Public Data Network Backbone and LIR
origin: AS29256
mnt-by: STEMNT-1
source: RIPE # Filtered

UPDATE: Allahpundit at Hot Air says it isn't actually hosted by Network Solutions. I have no way to evaluate all the technical issues here, but if this information above is inaccurate, I apologize.

Abu Bakar Bashir, the notorious Indonesian imam whose inflammatory statements and coddling by the Indonesian government we have featured here many times, is once again happily stirring up strife -- and doing so, nota bene, in the context of fidelity to the purity of Allah's law.

"Bashir urges attacks on 'infidel' Australians," by Natasha Robinson in The Australian (thanks to David):

ISLAMIC cleric Abu Bakar Bashir has returned to his hardline rhetoric with a call for followers to "beat up" Western tourists and for young Muslims to die as martyrs.

In the sermon, organised by an Islamic youth organisation and delivered a few kilometres from the home village of convicted Bali bombers Amrozi and Mukhlas, Bashir likened tourists in Bali to "worms, snakes, maggots", and specifically referred to the immorality of Australian infidels.

The address was caught on video by an Australian university student.

"The youth movement here must aspire to a martyrdom death," said the cleric, who was convicted of conspiracy over the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians, but was later cleared and released from prison.

"The young must be first at the front line - don't hide at the back. You must be at the front, die as martyrs and all your sins will be forgiven. This is how to achieve forgiveness." [...]

The sermon was organised by the youth group Persatuan Pemuda Islam Pantura (Java North Coast Islamic Youth Group) and delivered on October 22 last year. [...]

During the sermon, Bashir talked of a previous visit to Australia, claiming that he had wanted to see the "beauty of the ocean" but was told by a friend there was "one condition" of a visit to the beach.

"He said if you enter that area you must be completely naked," Bashir told the crowd of about 300 hearing his sermon.

Bashir likened non-Muslims to crawling animals. "Worms, snakes, maggots - those are animals that crawl. Take a look at Bali ... those infidel tourists. They are naked."

He called for signs to be erected across Indonesia warning tourists they were entering a Muslim area, and directing they cover up appropriately. But in east Java, he urged the Islamist youth to "beat up" foreigners.

"God willing, there are none here," Bashir said. "If there were infidels here, just beat them up. Do not tolerate them." [...]

Bashir's address contained many direct challenges to Indonesian secularism. The cleric urged his supporters to reject the laws of the nation's parliament and said following state laws that contradicted Islamic Shariah law was an act of "blasphemy".

"Don't be scared if you are called a hardliner Muslim," Bashir said. "It must be like that. We can't follow human law that is in conflict with Allah's law."

Noted.

I've had the honor of speaking at an event with John Lewis. He is a superb speaker with a meticulously reasoned and researched message. And when I read this piece about the kind of questioning he got at Georgia Tech, I had an overwhelming sense of deja vu -- this is exactly, in every detail, the kind of questioning I generally get when I speak on college campuses and in other venues also.

"Memoirs of a 'Criminal Mind': Georgia Tech, March 13, 2008," by John David Lewis at The Objective Standard (thanks to all who sent this in):

On March 13, I gave my talk “‘No Substitute for Victory’: The Defeat of Islamic Totalitarianism” to an audience of about forty at Georgia Institute of Technology. In the talk, based on my article in The Objective Standard, I rejected all forms of theocracy, but emphasized the danger posed by the Islamic state and argued for the destruction of its most obvious manifestation, the regime in Iran. I was prepared for opposition to the idea of war with Iran, and I acknowledged up front that those who recognize that religious law is wrong might disagree with my conclusion that a war against the Iranian state is necessary. But I was not prepared for the strident defense of Islamic law and jihad—and for the condemnation of me for even raising the issue of Islamic jihad—that was to come.

The onslaught began with the first “question,” actually a monologue that lasted nearly fifteen minutes. The monologist claimed that: (1) there is a long history of separation of church and state in Islam; (2) Islamic law is good; (3) whenever imposed, Islamic law has brought peace; (4) jihad is a “wonderful idea” and does not mean war; (5) Islamic Totalitarianism poses no threat, since 500 million Muslims reject terrorism; (6) the tax leveled against subjugated peoples is just, because they are protected by Muslims in return; (7) I am “ignorant of history” if I do not acknowledge the “truth” of these claims.

I listened to him without interrupting—and even asked a legitimately annoyed member of the audience to allow him to finish—so that he could fully reveal himself. In answer, I re-read a series of quotes in which Islamic leaders—as well as a young girl on Lebanese television—call for jihad, war, and death; and I pointed out to the monologist that he must be quite angry at these Muslims for their incorrect view of jihad. But instead of being angry at those who give his presumably peaceful religion a bad name, he condemned me for reading their quotes. This is evasion par excellence—to condemn those who raise Islam’s violent past and present rather than have to face the fact that the vision of idyllic peace that one associates with one’s religion has no basis in reality.

(I at least got a good laugh out of this exchange when I concretized the meaning of the tax on subjugated peoples. Suppose a Mafia thug came to your door, I said, and he offered to protect you for, say, $100 a month. You would ask the thug, “From whom do I need protection?” to which he would reply: “Us.”)

Following this was more of the same: combinations of Islamic apologizing and ad hominem attacks. I was told, for instance, that I could not possibly understand Iran if I had never been there myself. By this standard, history as such is impossible; no one today can know what it was like a decade, a century, or a millennium prior to his birth. But the apologists have no problem suspending this standard for themselves when it serves their purposes, in this case to glorify Mohammad (“a peaceful man”) and 7th-century Arabia.

But one “questioner” in particular stands out: After reading a sentence from my article Notes on the Near Eastern Roots of Islam, with no context or explanation for the audience to even understand what it meant, he attacked me by saying that I should remember “logic” and the fact that I was at a “scientific” school before making statements such as those that I had made. But rather than explain to me what was illogical or unscientific about my views—let alone ask a question in the question period—he continued his ad hominem attack by stating that my views were so obviously wrong that only a “criminal mind” (a phrase he repeated) could have come up with them. Again, he never stated what was wrong with my quote, never established any reasons for his conclusion, and never asked me to clarify my reasoning—he took his assertion of the “criminality” of my mind as a self-evident fact.

On the face of it, the “scientific logic” he employed was nothing more than arbitrary name-calling—obviously a cherished technique by his “method.” But what motivated his calling me a “criminal mind”—twice?

The topic of my talk was theocracy and Islamic law. Islamic governments, as ideological states founded on claims to divine revelation, must jail—or worse—those who speak out against the clerics. This was the thug’s ideal: In lieu of rationally demonstrating the “truth” of his beliefs, he would criminalize me, or jail me, or perhaps kill me, to stop the spread of ideas contrary to his. In Iran, this ideal has already been achieved; there I would have been arrested, condemned, and thrown into solitary confinement. But in America, the thug’s ideal is frustrated; without the power of the law to silence me he was reduced to name-calling....

Read it all.

"The Union of Islamic Communities in Italy — which Allam has frequently criticized as having links to Hamas — said the baptism was his own decision.

'He is an adult, free to make his personal choice,' the Apcom news agency quoted the group's spokesman, Issedin El Zir, as saying. [...]" -- from this article

My, my.

We are expected to believe that Muslims believe that he, Magdi Allam, or anyone else, for that matter, who is born into Islam and "is an adult" is therefore "free to make his personal choice."

This merely means that, for now, given the image problems Islam has been having, official Islamic groups in Italy are going to lie about what is permitted, for fear of alarming and angering the Infidels further. Magdi Allam is frequently on Italian television (the RAI), writes frequently in the most important paper, the Corriere della Sera, and furthermore, was baptised by the Pope himself, which puts the Vatican squarely front and center. If anyone still needed proof that Benedict has got Islam's number, whatever little pretend pieties about Interfaith-Healing may come out of the Vatican, this is surely it.

The most famous new convert from Islam to Christianity writes about, among other things, the vastly differerent ways that converts in one direction and the other are regarded: "Thousands of people in Italy have converted to Islam and practise their faith serenely. But there are also thousands of Muslims who have converted to Christianity who are forced to hide their new faith out of fear of being killed by Islamist terrorists."

"Islam intrinsically violent - convert," from Agence France-Presse (thanks to JE):

ITALIAN editor and critic of Islamic extremism Magdi Allam, who converted to Catholicism from Islam and was baptised by Pope Benedict XVI, today branded his former faith as intrinsically violent.

"I had to do this (abandon Islam)", Allam wrote in a long letter to the Italian daily Corriere della Sera.

"Beyond ... the phenomenon of extremists and Islamist terrorism at the global level, the root of evil is inherent to a physiologically violent and historically conflictual Islam," wrote the Egyptian-born journalist, who says he has received death threats and is under police protection.

One of seven adults baptised during an Easter vigil yesterday evening, Allam, 55, is an editorial writer and deputy editor at Corriere.

Regarding a combative tone that has made him famous in Italy, Allam wrote: "Over the years my spirit has been freed from the obscurantism of an ideology that legitimises lies and deception, violent death that leads to homicide and suicide, blind submission to tyranny."

He described Catholicism as "an authentic religion of Truth, Life and Freedom".

By baptising Allam in the public ceremony, the Pope "sent an explicit and revolutionary message to a church that until now has been too cautious in the conversion of Muslims ... because of the fear of being unable to protect the converted who are condemned to death for apostasy," Allam said.

"Thousands of people in Italy have converted to Islam and practise their faith serenely," he wrote.

"But there are also thousands of Muslims who have converted to Christianity who are forced to hide their new faith out of fear of being killed by Islamist terrorists."

Allam adopted the Christian name of Cristiano (Christian), not a common name in Italy....

An American convert to Islam in Dubai fights against the mistreatment of women in Dubai -- a mistreatment that most Muslim and non-Muslim Islamic apologists in the West have consistently ignored and denied, in Dubai and elsewhere. Few, if any, seem willing to consider the possibility that Qur'an 4:34 (the verse that counsels men to beat disobedient women) and other anti-woman material in Islamic texts and teachings might create a culture that institutionalizes discrimination against women and worse.

"Voice for Abused Women Upsets Dubai Patriarchy," by Robert F. Worth for the New York Times (thanks to Sr. Soph):

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — For years, Sharla Musabih has fought a lonely battle to protect battered wives and victims of human trafficking here. She founded the Emirates’ first women’s shelter here and she became a familiar figure at police stations, relentlessly hounding officers to be tougher on abusive husbands.

She has also earned many enemies. Emiratis do not often take kindly to rights advocates drawing attention to the dark side of their fast-growing city-state on the Persian Gulf, better known for its gleaming office towers and artificial islands.

[...]

The ferocity of the dispute is unusual for Dubai, and underscores a major challenge facing this proudly apolitical business capital. The city’s few rights advocates have always been quietly shunted aside. But as the conservative Muslim ethos of Dubai’s native Arab minority rubs against the varied perspectives of a much larger foreign population, debates about how to approach taboo subjects like domestic violence and the city’s prevalent prostitution are getting louder.

Battling Tradition

Ms. Musabih, 47, a boisterous American transplant who was born and raised on Bainbridge Island, Wash., argues that confrontation is essential in fighting the patriarchal Arab traditions that allow men to beat their wives with impunity. She and her supporters also say the Emirates have not acknowledged the severity of their problem with human trafficking, the brutal business in which foreign women are lured here with promises of jobs and then forced into prostitution or servitude. Last year the United States State Department placed the Emirates and 31 other countries on a watch list for failing to effectively combat the illegal trade.

“When a woman has three broken bones in her back, and the police don’t take it seriously, yes, I get angry,” Ms. Musabih said.

Others say Ms. Musabih’s aggressive approach — which includes appeals to foreign news media as well as tough, face-to-face lobbying — is inappropriate in the Arab world, and has needlessly fueled the backlash she now faces. That assertiveness may also have made it easier to dismiss her as an outsider. Although she has lived here for 24 years, converted to Islam, is an Emirati citizen, wears a veil and has raised six children here with her Emirati husband, Ms. Musabih is still unmistakably American, from her moralistic zeal to her habit of calling the women in her shelter “darlin’.”

“I have told her sometimes I think she is wrong, she goes too far,” said Lt. Gen. Dahi al-Khalfan, the chief of the Dubai Police, who has supported Ms. Musabih in the past but now tends to criticize her work as divisive. “There is a case between husband and wife; let the court decide! Leave it.”...

"Leave it." And many do. After all, what's a few broken bones in a woman's back? And the only way this injustice will ever be corrected is if more and more people refuse to be cowed by charges that they are "divisive," and refuse to "leave it."

The original publisher of the dreaded Motoons is defiant in the face of Osama bin Laden's newly released threats. From Pajamas Media:

“What kind of civilization are we… if we refrain from mocking and ridiculing bin Laden and his followers?” Flemming Rose responds defiantly to the latest threat against freedom of expression in Europe.

Osama bin Laden has been celebrating the birthday of the prophet Mohammed by calling on Muslims to kill people like me, cartoonists and other “blasphemers” who have dared to publish and republish cartoons of a man who lived 1,400 years ago.

Actually, this is nothing new. Bin Laden addressed the cartoon issue two years ago, in a little-noticed speech, when he called the cartoons of Mohammed the worst possible attack on Islam.

“The response will be what you see and not what you hear and let our mothers bereave us if we do not make victorious our messenger of God,” said the voice from the cave in yesterday’s message.

“You went overboard in your unbelief and freed yourselves of the etiquettes of dispute and fighting and went to the extent of publishing these insulting drawings. This is the greatest tragedy and the reckoning for it will be more severe,” it added.

The man from the cave said that the republishing of Kurt Westergaard’s cartoon depicting Muhammed with a bomb in his turban was part of a crusade against Islam. And, according to bin Laden, Pope Benedict XVI is playing a key role in this confrontation, even though the Pope has denounced the publication and republication of the famous cartoon. [...]

Explaining his call for the killing of heretics and blasphemers, bin Laden cited the example of Mohammed himself who is supposed to be a role model for every Muslim. The prophet ordered the killing of Ka’b ibn Al-Ashraf because he had written critical poems about Mohammed.

The latest message from bin Laden has been analyzed by Walid Phares: [...]

Change your laws on liberties and freedom of expression or else. “If there is no check on the freedom of your words then let your hearts be open to the freedom of our hearts.” [...]

What should the response of Europe be? More cartoons or less cartoons? What kind of civilization are we, after all, if we refrain from mocking and ridiculing bin Laden and his followers?

A fearful, confused, and cowed one, and that is what we are.

Here's a good story for Holy Saturday as it edges into Easter for Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Eastern Catholics: Magdi Allam has been a trenchant critic of the jihad ideology and Islamic supremacism. Now he is exercising his freedom of conscience. Will he now have to live in fear for his life from those who take seriously Muhammad's dictum: "If somebody (a Muslim) discards his religion, kill him"?

The Italian government should be poised to protect Magdi Allam, as the Dutch should be standing by Geert Wilders and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. It is not about them. It is about defending Western civilization.

"Pope to baptize prominent Muslim," by Nicole Winfield for Associated Press (thanks to all who sent this in):

VATICAN CITY - Italy's most prominent Muslim commentator, a journalist with iconoclastic views such as support for Israel, converted to Roman Catholicism Saturday when the pope baptized him at an Easter service.

As a choir sang, Pope Benedict XVI poured holy water over Magdi Allam's head and said a brief prayer in Latin.

"We no longer stand alongside or in opposition to one another," Benedict said in a homily reflecting on the meaning of baptism. "Thus faith is a force for peace and reconciliation in the world: distances between people are overcome, in the Lord we have become close."

Vatican television zoomed in on Allam, who sat in the front row of the basilica along with six other candidates for baptism.

An Egyptian-born, non-practicing Muslim who is married to a Catholic, Allam often writes on Muslim and Arab affairs and has infuriated some Muslims with his criticism of extremism and support for the Jewish state.

The deputy editor of the Corriere della Sera newspaper, Allam, 55, told the Il Giornale newspaper in a December interview that his criticism of Palestinian suicide bombing generated threats on his life in 2003, prompting the Italian government to provide him with a sizable security detail. [...]

The Union of Islamic Communities in Italy — which Allam has frequently criticized as having links to Hamas — said the baptism was his own decision.

"He is an adult, free to make his personal choice," the Apcom news agency quoted the group's spokesman, Issedin El Zir, as saying. [...]

Allam also explained his decision to entitle a recent book "Viva Israel" or "Long Live Israel," saying he wrote it after he received death threats from Hamas.

"Having been condemned to death, I have reflected a long time on the value of life. And I discovered that behind the origin of the ideology of hatred, violence and death is the discrimination against Israel. Everyone has the right to exist except for the Jewish state and its inhabitants," he said. "Today, Israel is the paradigm of the right to life." [...]

Yes. Congratulations, Magdi, and Viva Israel.

There is no overarching Muslim law on conversion. But under a widespread interpretation of Islamic legal doctrine, converting from Islam is apostasy and punishable by death — though killings are rare.

Egypt's highest Islamic cleric, the Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa, wrote last year against the killing of apostates, saying there is no worldly retribution for Muslims who abandon their religion and that punishment would come in the afterlife....

Actually, all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence agree that apostates must be executed. But don't take my word for it. Here's the great Sheikh Al-Qaradawi, who has been praised by John Esposito as a "reformist":

That is why the Muslim jurists are unanimous that apostates must be punished, yet they differ as to determining the kind of punishment to be inflicted upon them. The majority of them, including the four main schools of jurisprudence (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi`i, and Hanbali) as well as the other four schools of jurisprudence (the four Shiite schools of Az-Zaidiyyah, Al-Ithna-`ashriyyah, Al-Ja`fariyyah, and Az-Zaheriyyah) agree that apostates must be executed...

And what of Ali Gomaa? He didn't say quite what AP says he said here. He actually denied saying that Muslims could leave Islam without punishment.

Bottom line: All free people should stand now with Magdi Allam.

Go to fitnathemovie.com and you get this (thanks to all who sent this in):

This site has been suspended while Network Solutions is investigating whether the site's content is in violation of the Network Solutions Acceptable Use Policy. Network Solutions has received a number of complaints regarding this site that are under investigation. For more information about Network Solutions Acceptable Use Policy visit the following URL: http://www.networksolutions.com/legal/aup.jsp

Now think about that for half a second. How is a site that said only "Geert Wilders presents Fitna, 23 March 2008" in conceivable violation of any acceptable use policy?

Because of what it might say tomorrow, of course. Because of what people are afraid it will say. It's pre-emptive censorship.

UPDATE: Several people have written in to say that the UK site is not a mirror site owned by Wilders, but is a hoax. I'm sorry to hear that.

SECOND UPDATE: I removed the link to the UK site, since its status is now clear.

2,000-3,000 out to protest against Geert Wilders's Qur'an film, which no one has yet seen, in the Netherlands.

"Dutch protest against Islam critic's Koran film: Officials fear movie could spark violence in Muslim countries," from AP (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):

AMSTERDAM - Thousands of demonstrators crowded Amsterdam's central square Saturday, braving wind and sleet to show their opposition to anti-immigration lawmaker Geert Wilders.

The protest, called "Netherlands Shows Its Colors," is primarily a reaction in advance to the short film Wilders said he will release later this month criticizing the Koran as a "fascist" book.

One protester carried a sign saying "standing together against the right wing populist witch-hunt."

"I'm very much against Geert Wilders and racism in general, but I think it's really important to show not only Holland but the rest of the world that there's a lot of people who do not agree with his ideas," Elisa Trepp said.

Wilders, who said he is not racist, heads a reactionary party with nine seats in the 150-member Dutch parliament, elected on an anti-immigration platform.

Gee, do you think AP believes that Wilders is not racist, with his "reactionary" party and its anti-immigration platform?

In any case, AP fails to explain why criticizing a book that is believed in by people of all races is a "racist" endeavor. From the evidence of his public statements so far, Wilders is focusing on the ideology of the Islamic jihadists and pointing out that it is derived from the Qur'an. This is an issue that has been clouded by questions of race, such that many Europeans and Americans cannot see past the fact that this ideology is held by many people of one race and those who do not hold it in Europe and America are of another.

But do you think that Geert Wilders would have no problem with the violent and supremacist aspects of the Qur'an if the only people who believed in it were blonde and blue-eyed?

While the exact contents of his 15-minute movie, due to be released by March 31, remain unknown, Wilders has said it will underscore his view that Islam's holy book is fascist.

Dutch officials fear the movie could spark violent protests in Muslim countries, similar to those two years ago after the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in a Danish newspaper.

But no prominent politicians were among the 2,000-3,000 people who police estimated turned up for the demonstration, to the frustration of some attendees.

"The government could really do something. That's in the interest of the country — stop him, just stop him," said Hassan Iaeti, who traveled hours from the far south of the country to attend.

Someone should explain to Hassan Iaeti that while it may be in the short-term interests of the country to stop Wilders, in the long term the shielding of one group and one ideology from criticism will establish it as a protected class in the Netherlands at precisely the time when that country is vulnerable, as are many other countries, to violence perpetrated by those who hold to that ideology, and to non-violent actions also perpetrated for the advancement of the same supremacist agenda held by those committing violence. Thus the one group that needs to be scrutinized the most, as a matter of national survival, will be shielded from that scrutiny. The only winners will be the Islamic jihadists.

And that's quite apart from the question of whether free Dutch society can survive the limiting of free inquiry that Hassan Iaeti would like to see.

He said he believed Wilders is abusing the right of freedom of speech, which he said has limits.

"You can criticize Muslims themselves, but not their religion and not our prophet — that's our belief."

But what about when Muslims themselves point to their religion and prophet in order to justify violence and supremacism? Does it then become off-limits for non-believers to resist that violence and supremacism, because to do so would be to speak against the Muslim religion and prophet?

Echoes of van Gogh

Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende has said that while he rejects Wilders' views, he supports his freedom of speech — but warns him the film may put Dutch national interests at risk. Protesters in Afghanistan burnt Wilders in effigy on Friday and demanded Dutch troops withdraw from the NATO mission there.

In November 2004, a Muslim radical killed Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh for perceived insults to Islam. Wilders, under constant police protection, said it is his duty to speak out against what he sees as a threat to Dutch culture posed by Islam.

Dutch anti-terrorism authorities have said the risk of an attack are "substantial" and requested all national politicians inform them of their upcoming travel plans due to security concerns.

A Dutch court will hear a complaint lodged by Muslim groups seeking to bar Wilders from releasing the film and punish him for earlier anti-Islam remarks under hate crime laws.

The case filed by the Dutch Islamic Federation will be heard March 28, but there is no legal barrier preventing Wilders from releasing his film before then....

The assailants may have thought that their victim was doing "mischief in the land."

"The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides..." (Qur'an 5:33)

"Limbs cut off for illicit relations," from Press Trust of India (thanks to Twostellas):

Islamabad, March 22: The hands and a foot of a man were chopped off by a group of seven men in eastern Pakistan on the suspicion that he had an illicit relationship with their sister.

Ishaq, Altaf, Abbas, Mushtaq, Sadiq, Sabir and Junaid allegedly chopped off the hands and the right foot of Allah Diwaya, a resident of Basti Gujj near Multan in Punjab province, for his alleged relations with their sister Irshad.

The incident occurred on Friday night. Mr Diwaya had allegedly kidnapped Irshad three months ago, the police said on Saturday. She is currently at a woman’s home in Bahawalpur. Mr Diwaya is a married man and has six children, officials said.

Two of the seven, Ishaq and Altaf, were arrested while raids are being conducted to nab the others. A case has also been registered against the seven. Doctors said Mr Diwaya is in a stable condition and had been given five pints of blood to save his life. (PTI)

The Rumpled Academic in a less academic setting

That's right, friends: It's time for what has become all too rare these days, a Rumpled Academic Update. And it comes courtesy an AP story riddled with the typical bias.

First, there's the headline: "Ex-prof with alleged terror ties refuses to testify in U.S. court," from The Associated Press (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist).

Alleged terror ties? There is nothing alleged about them. Read on.

A former professor is again refusing to testify to a federal grand jury in Alexandria investigating Muslim charities and businesses in northern Virginia.

Sami al-Arian's refusal to testify sets the stage for prosecutors to bring contempt of court charges for a third time against the former University of South Florida professor.

Al-Arian is in the 19th day of a hunger strike to protest his treatment.

Prosecutors have alleged that al-Arian was a leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. But his 2005 trial ended in an acquittal on some counts and a hung jury on others. He eventually pleaded guilty to lesser charges....

AP doesn't tell you what he pleaded guilty to. Hmmm. I wonder why not. In reality, he pleaded guilty to a charge of “conspiracy to make or receive contributions of funds to or for the benefit of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a Specially Designated Terrorist” organization. He agreed to accept deportation after a jail sentence.

What's more, the plea agreement specified: "Defendant is pleading guilty because defendant is in fact guilty. The defendant certifies that the defendant does hereby admit that the facts set forth below [in the plea agreement] are true, and were this case to go to trial, the United States would be able to prove those specific facts and others beyond a reasonable doubt.” What’s more, Al-Arian acknowledged that he was “pleading guilty freely and voluntarily…and without threats, force, intimidation, or coercion of any kind."

So that's alleged terror ties? Yes, as much as AP is an alleged news organization.

That is, a break to allow them to gather strength and fight again later, more effectively. That is what a truce is for, according to Islamic law, and these groups take Islamic law very seriously.

"'Hamas and Islamic Jihad discussing calm period in Egypt,'" from the Jerusalem Post (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):

Senior representatives of Hamas and Islamic Jihad are set to meet Egyptian officials on Saturday in order to discuss a truce, or calm period, with Israel, the Palestinian news agency Ma'an reported.

Meanwhile, talks between the rival Fatah and Hamas are continuing to take place in Yemen, after a crisis in talks occurred on Thursday in which Fatah representatives threatened to return to Ramallah.

"Hamas is not declining the Yemenite initiative which aims to resolve the rivalry between Hamas and Fatah," Ahmed Youssef, adviser to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, told the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi.

Youssef also said that Hamas is maintaining contacts with European representatives. "Most of the Europeans we maintain contact with are British, Swedish, Swiss and French. In most cases they were unofficial European representatives who are helping change the European attitude towards Hamas."

On Thursday, An attempt by the Yemeni government to mend fences between Fatah and Hamas failed after the Fatah delegation walked out of the talks.

They can't get together? What a surprise!

"Maxime Verhagen, the Dutch foreign minister, told a public television reporter that he found it 'irresponsible to broadcast this film.'

'That’s because Dutch companies, Dutch soldiers and Dutch residents could and will be in danger,' Mr. Verhagen said." -- from this Times article

But "Dutch companies, Dutch soldiers and Dutch residents" will always "be in danger" whenever there is an attempt to alert Dutch citizens, by such means as this 15-minute film, of the meaning, and menace, of Islamic Jihad.

The threat will never go away. If the Dutch do not make or see such films, how will they know about Islam, since the government policy is simply to chloroform them, permanently, and never to mention what Islam is all about? How can the citizens of the Netherlands, which had 15,000 Muslims resident in 1970 and now has more than a million, decide to halt, and reverse (and there are a thousand ways to do this) Muslim immigration, to end all the subsidizing and all the coddling of Muslim immigrants, and all the turning of the other cheek to Muslim demands for this or that change in the social arrangements and understandings, in the legal and political institutions, in anything and everything at all, that they, those aggressive Muslims, believe is not to their liking, or contradicts the Shari'a, or constitutes an obstacle to the spread, and dominance, of Islam?

The Israelis, or a majority of them, know their true situation. It is their government, from which so many Israelis are now so obviously disaffected, that refuses to know. But that government is wrong. Soberly recognizing the permanent meaning, and menace, of Islam, and acting and planning accordingly, and helping or insisting that other countries, including the United States, recognize the real nature of the threat that Israel faces, is not a counsel of despair. Nor is helping those other countries, including the United States, to understand that the Jihad against Israel is a Lesser Jihad, one of many whose sum is the worldwide Jihad, a "struggle" by Muslims, using various instruments that go beyond, and are more effective, than terrorism, to remove all obstacles to the spread and then to the dominance of Islam.

Everywhere Islam must triumph. Everywhere, eventually, Muslims must rule. It may take a century, or two. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if it never comes to be. What matters is the fact of the promptings, that will not go away unless the Qur'an, the Hadith, the Sira either disappear, or are modified, or interpreted away, or are received as texts from which one may pick and choose. Until then, the immutable and uncreated Qur'an remains, the literal Word of God, outside of history.

Geert Wilders is the Dutch MP who is producing a film on the Qur'an that has the Islamic world in a frenzy even before anyone has actually seen it. This New Duranty Times profile is, well, not as bad as it could have been, but contains several sly digs at Wilders, whom it treats with condescension throughout, and contains almost nothing about the fantastic disproportion of the Muslim reaction to his film, and the necessity of preserving free speech even when some may find it offensive.

"A Dutch Antagonist of Islam Waits for His Premiere," by Gregory Crouch for the New York Times (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):

[...] Days away from releasing a much-anticipated film critical of the Koran, Mr. Wilders recalled in an interview the advice he received years ago from political leaders about how to get ahead.

“First, you have to moderate your voice about Islam,” he remembered their telling him. “Second, change your stupid hair.”

He has refused to do either.

“If people push me, I do exactly the opposite,” he said.

There are two noteworthy aspects of this. One is that political leaders, presumably Dutch ones, try to mute or silence Islamocritical or Islamorealistic voices in the public sphere. The other is that that the Times is suggesting that Wilders's Qur'an film simply arises from his being a contrarian and an exhibitionist: look! He dyes his hair platinum blonde! And if that isn't enough to get attention, he criticizes the Qur'an! And it's all just because he's an immature fellow who won't do what sensible people tell him to do!

Mr. Wilders, 44, is in the news here these days for a 10-to-15-minute film he says he has made depicting the Koran as the inspiration for terrorist attacks and other violence. Having failed to persuade a single Dutch television network to broadcast the film in its entirety, he said he planned to release it on the Internet by the end of this month.

He routinely equates the Koran with Hitler’s “Mein Kampf,” saying it should be banned in the Netherlands, and he declared in an interview that the Prophet Muhammad could be compared to the German dictator.

“In his Medina time, if he would be alive today, Muhammad would be treated as a war criminal, being sent out of the country, being sent to jail,” he said.

Moderate Dutch Muslim leaders like Mohamed Rabbae, chairman of the Dutch Moroccan Council, are exasperated by Mr. Wilders’s standpoint on Islam and its prophet.

“Wilders is a little bit crazy, if I may say it in this way, because he is fighting against somebody who has been living in the sixth century, not in our time,” Mr. Rabbae said.

A highly disingenuous comment from Rabbae. I expect that he knows full well that the Qur’an and Islamic tradition are clear that Muhammad is the supreme example of behavior for Muslims to follow, not just in the seventh century (he died in 632) but for all time. He is “an excellent model of conduct” (Qur’an 33:21). He demonstrates “an exalted standard of character” (68:4), and indeed, “he who obeys the Messenger [Muhammad], obeys Allah” (4:80). The Qur’an frequently tells Muslims to obey Allah and Muhammad: while the Muslim holy book takes for granted that Muhammad is fallible (cf. 48:2; 80:1-12), it also instructs Muslims repeatedly to obey Muhammad (3:32; 3:132; 4:13; 4:59; 4:69; 5:92; 8:1; 8:20; 8:46; 9:71; 24:47; 24:51; 24:52; 24:54; 24:56; 33:33; 47:33; 49:14; 58:13; 64:12).

Any devout Muslim will take this seriously. Muqtedar Khan of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy explains: "No religious leader has as much influence on his followers as does Muhammad (Peace be upon him) the last Prophet of Islam….And Muhammad as the final messenger of God enjoys preeminence when it comes to revelation – the Qur’an – and traditions. So much so that the words, deeds and silences (that which he saw and did not forbid) of Muhammad became an independent source of Islamic law. Muslims, as a part of religious observance, not only obey, but also seek to emulate and imitate their Prophet in every aspect of life. Thus Muhammad is the medium as well as a source of the divine law."

But Rabbae, instead of explaining all this, implies that Muhammad is merely a historical figure, and that Wilders is indulging in anachronism.

Virtually no one knows exactly what is in Mr. Wilders’s film; even the Netherlands’ worried prime minister has not been granted a screening. But the simple fact that Mr. Wilders is its muse makes people here and in parts of the Islamic world nervous.

Mr. Wilders said he made the film to show that “Islam and the Koran are part of a fascist ideology that wants to kill everything we stand for in a modern Western democracy.”

Instead of explaining that, or allowing Wilders to do so, perhaps by pointing out how jihad terrorists repeatedly invoke the Qur'an to justify jihad violence and Islamic supremacism, the article follows that up by starting to talk about "hate crimes":

SOME here see Mr. Wilders’s film — titled “Fitna,” Arabic for civil strife — as a potential hate crime and have already filed police complaints in various Dutch cities, concerned that his past statements and the film will polarize religious groups and foster discrimination.

His supporters say he protects traditional Dutch values. His critics, and there are many, say he is an out-of-control, right-wing extremist risking his country’s good name for his own political gain. Others are even harsher; one former trade union leader called Mr. Wilders “evil.”

"His critics, and there are many, say he is an out-of-control, right-wing extremist risking his country’s good name for his own political gain." There you have it, Times readers. No need to take this guy seriously. Call someone "right-wing" in the Times, and faithful Times readers, like Pavlov's dogs, know exactly how to react.

And then the Times, whether out of some residual sense of decency or purely by accident, illustrates who the out-of-control, evil extremists really are by touching on the threats under which Wilders lives:

“Of course I am not evil,” Mr. Wilders responded, looking a little annoyed. “Do I look evil to you? Maybe I do, but I’m not.”

Mr. Wilders, who lives under constant police protection in an undisclosed location, is undeterred by threats from the Taliban to escalate attacks against Dutch soldiers in Afghanistan if the film is released.

But it's all because he is unrelenting and unreasonable, you see, and he -- not the lunatics who are poised to riot and kill because of his film -- is endangering Dutch interests:

Nor is he moved by Dutch expatriates abroad who, remembering the fallout from the Danish cartoons featuring the Prophet Muhammad, worry that the film may make their lives harder, or even dangerous.

Maxime Verhagen, the Dutch foreign minister, told a public television reporter that he found it “irresponsible to broadcast this film.”

“That’s because Dutch companies, Dutch soldiers and Dutch residents could and will be in danger,” Mr. Verhagen said.

Such statements spur Mr. Wilders on, and in his opinion unintentionally prove that Islam is a rigid, intolerant religion whose followers try to muffle criticism, often violently. Framing himself as a defender of free speech, Mr. Wilders said there would not be such a fuss about his film if it were about the Bible.

Can anyone dispute that?

“We can never allow people who use nondemocratic means, people who use violence instead of arguments, people who use knives instead of debates, we can never allow them to set the agenda,” he said.

Yes!

And in this part of the story the Times comes close to doing Wilders justice, and actually illustrates his statement, as it failed to do so above when he spoke about the Qur'an, with examples proving his point:

After the 2004 release of a short film here that graphically portrayed the abuse of women in the Islamic world, the director, Theo van Gogh, was killed by a Muslim extremist.

Mr. Wilders, already in the Dutch Parliament for six years at that point, was not associated with that film, but he went briefly into hiding when government security forces feared he might become the next target.

Two years later, memories of the van Gogh murder — coupled with concerns about Muslim immigration — helped Mr. Wilders and his newly formed Party for Freedom capture 6 percent of the seats in Parliament.

Of the Netherlands’ 16.5 million residents, a million are either Muslim or of Muslim descent. Many of them are so-called guest workers from Morocco, Turkey and other Islamic countries who came here decades ago to work in factories and stayed to raise families of their own.

But don't get the idea that Wilders is some sort of heroic figure. He is, like Bertrans de Born, just a stirrer-up of strife, a successful miner of unease:

Occasionally, conflicts arise between mainstream Dutch society — which supports gay marriage and legalized prostitution, for instance — and the often more conservative Muslim minority, and Mr. Wilders has successfully mined the unease between them.

Or worse:

“Ten to 15 percent of the Dutch voters more or less see him as a new leader, one who dares to say what he thinks,” said Hugo van der Parre, deputy editor of the Dutch television news program “Nova.” But “many people see him, as well, as a nut case.”

MR. WILDERS says he detests Islam but not Muslims. “I believe the Islamic ideology is a retarded, dangerous one, but I make a distinction,” he said. “I don’t hate people. I don’t hate Muslims.

He added: “I am not saying all Muslims are wrong or are terrorists or criminals. You will never hear me say that.”

One would think this is an elementary point, but it eludes the grasp of many on both sides of this issue. Many of those who regard any criticism of the jihad ideology and Islamic supremacism as "bigoted" and "racist," as well as those who well understand the violent and supremacist teachings contained within the Qur'an and Sunnah as they have been traditionally understood in Islamic theology, seem to have trouble distinguishing between belief and practice. Benazir Bhutto, and/or her ghostwriter Mark Siegel, did this when they accused me (on the basis of an Ibn Warraq quotation they falsely ascribed to me) of failing to "differentiate between moderate Muslims and violent Islamists." The quote meant to illustrate this only points out that the jihadists are acting on traditional and mainstream teachings of Islam, as they manifestly are.

But does this mean that all Muslims are acting upon them? That would be absurd. People who have no difficulty grasping that not everyone who identifies himself as a Christian loves his enemy or turns the other cheek, or even cares to, or even perhaps knows that he ought to or has ever thought about what it might mean to do so, seem to have trouble conceptualizing the possibility that huge numbers of Muslims -- and this is reinforced also by various cultural factors around the world -- have no interest in forwarding the Islamic supremacist program, and may in all sincerity not even be aware of it.

That doesn't mitigate the existence of that program one whit, or alter the fact that jihadists are recruiting among cultural Muslims by calling them back to what they present, often successfully, as the "pure" and "true" practice of Islam. Nor does it mean that non-Muslims should not have a healthy awareness of the possibility that they are being deceived, as per not just Shi'ite doctrine but Qur'an 3:28 as it has been understood by Sunnis also, or that they should sit by passively as the Islamic supremacist agenda is spread not by guns and bombs and terrorist attacks but through other, non-violent means. But it does mean, quite simply, that Wilders's distinction is perfectly legitimate -- as in Ibn Warraq's lucid phrase, there are moderate Muslims, but there is no moderate Islam.

Mr. Wilders, who is married and has no children, was raised Roman Catholic, but is no longer religious. The youngest of four children, he traveled and worked his way through the Middle East for two years after his high school graduation. Since then, he said, he has visited Israel at least 40 times and maintains close contacts there. But he has no real connections from his time in the rest of the region, admitting he does not have any Muslim friends.

Ah. So therefore, the Times is telling us, he must not know what he is talking about, or at very least must secretly hate Muslims despite his protestations to the contrary.

His claims to the contrary, some Muslims believe that Mr. Wilders’s animosity toward Islam extends to them.

“If you say the prophet is a war criminal, you say, I hate Muslims,” a Dutch newspaper columnist, Youssef Azghari, said in an interview. “Because the prophet is a symbol. He was the one who invented the Islam.”

Youssef Azghari, if he really wanted to blunt the forces of such charges about Muhammad, could take up the uncomfortable aspects of Muhammad's career (as that career is sketched out in texts accepted by Muslims) -- his battles, his assassinations of his enemies, his marriage to a nine-year-old, and the rest -- and rather than simply deny the existence of this material, as Islamic apologists in the West usually do, offer a way for Muslims to reject its literal application. That he does not do so, and probably cannot do so, only makes Wilders's charges ring truer. If Muslims today are going to be following Muhammad as a literal, transhistorical model for conduct, that will threaten the lives and security and civilizations of non-Muslims, and that needs to be said.

Since no one has actually seen Mr. Wilders’s film, some here have started wondering if it is as fake as his hair color, a clever publicity stunt devised to prove his point that Islam and freedom of speech cannot coexist.

Mr. Wilders insists the film is every bit as real as his long-held belief that Islam is a danger to Dutch and other Western societies.

“I get in so much trouble, both privately and politically, that if I would do it for publicity reasons, I would be a fool,” he said.

That is a sentence that applies to many more people than just Wilders himself.

"It is not up to them to dictate how to serve their sentence. I think we have to remember who's in charge." Uh, yeah.

In this Barot and Kayam cannily play on Westerners' fears of being seen as "racist," portray themselves as victims (which we have seen again and again is one of the staples of the jihadist rhetorical arsenal) and gain for themselves a chance to network and plot with other imprisoned jihadists.

"Two of Britain's most dangerous Islamic terrorists moved to new prison - because they complained fellow inmates were 'too white,'" by Gwyneth Rees for the Daily Mail (thanks to all who sent this in):

Two of Britain's most dangerous terrorists have been moved to different prisons after complaining their fellow inmates were "too white".

Dhiren Barot and Omar Khyam asked to be transferred from high-security Frankland prison near Durham.

Barot masterminded a radioactive bomb plot involving limousines packed with nails and explosives and Khyam plotted to blow up Bluewater shopping centre in Kent.

They said they were at risk from other inmates - who are predominantly white - and claimed the environment was "dangerous" to ethnic minority prisoners. It is thought they had received death threats and attacks.

Although their requests were initially turned down, Barot, who is serving a minium of 30 years, has since been moved to Belmarsh in south-east London.

Khyam has also been moved to Full Sutton near York.

But news of the transfers has sparked outrage, with the Prison Service being accused of caving into prisoners' demands. [...]

His solicitor Imran Khan said the move was a "victory for common sense". But Patrick Mercer, a Conservative MP, criticised the decision.

He said: "Prisons are not meant to be run for the convenience of the prisoner.

"It is not up to them to dictate how to serve their sentence.

"I think we have to remember who's in charge.

"These people have been convicted of hideous crimes."...

Another D.A.I.F. party: Death to America, It's Friday! (oh, and the Netherlands, too)

All in a day's work. "Afghans chant death to Danish, Dutch in protest," by Ahmad Masood for Reuters:

KABUL (Reuters) - Some 5,000 Afghans chanted "death to Denmark" and "death to the Netherlands" in Kabul on Friday, protesting against the reprinting of a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad in Danish newspapers and a Dutch film on the Koran.

Sporadic demonstrations have sprung up across the deeply conservative country in recent weeks against the cartoons and the film with protesters demanding Danish and Dutch troops be withdrawn from Afghanistan and their embassies shut down.

Protesters gathered around a mosque in the west of the Afghan capital after Friday prayers chanting "death to Denmark," "death to the Netherlands, "death to America" and "death to Jews."

Demonstrators burned Danish and Dutch flags and also an effigy of Dutch right-wing politician Geert Wilders, who is due to release a film thought to be critical of the Koran later this month. Wilders has given few details of the film, but in the past he has called Islam's holy text a "fascist" book that "incites violence."

One unidentified speaker addressing the angry crowd through a megaphone from the back of a truck said the Afghan government should expel Danish and Dutch troops and close their embassies within two days or "we will take action."

The Netherlands has some 1,650 troops, mainly in southern Afghanistan and 14 Dutch soldiers have been killed fighting Taliban militants. Denmark, meanwhile, has 550 troops in northern and southern Afghanistan and 11 of its soldiers have been killed.

Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden this week warned that Europe would be punished for the cartoons, first published by a Danish paper in September 2005. The images ignited violent protests across the world, including in Afghanistan, when newspapers around the world reprinted them the following year.

Last month, some Danish newspapers reprinted one of the cartoons in solidarity with the cartoonist after three men were arrested on suspicion of plans to kill him, sparking more anger.

Many Muslims consider any depiction of the Prophet as offensive.

Resentment is growing against the presence of more than 50,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan.

Many Afghan are frustrated at poor security and the slow pace of development more than six years after U.S.-led and Afghan forces toppled the Taliban after the hardline Islamist movement refused to hand over bin Laden in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the United States.

The witless Daily Mail headlines this piece "Whites 'must do more to help Muslims feel at home' says research group." But what about white Muslims in Britain, like my old pal Yusuf Smith? Who will make him feel at home?

This kind of stupid reporting just clouds the fact that Islam is not a race, and the problem of Muslim assimilation in Britain is not one of race, but of whether or not the Muslims there are willing to set aside Islamic supremacism, renounce all attempts to impose Sharia by violent or peaceful means, and work energetically to root jihadists out of their communities. But there is none of that in this report -- the onus is all on the "whites" to make them feel at home. The idea that many of them might not wish to feel at home, but to transform Britain into a place that is very like the place where they left, as many of them have openly avowed, never enters into the equation.

By Steve Doughty in the Daily Mail (thanks to all who sent this in):

Muslim immigrants face so much discrimination and hostility that they don't feel they belong here, according to a liberal research group.

As part of efforts to improve integration, it called for an improvement in public behaviour towards Muslims.

And it said other Britons are wrong to worry about segregation and Muslim-dominated enclaves, as there are benefits to "residential clustering".

A report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found white people must do more to make Muslims feel part of the community

The report, for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, is a strike for multiculturalism, the doctrine which encourages the development of minorities.

Multiculturalism fell out of favour in 2005, after the Government's equality chief Trevor Phillips warned that the country was "sleepwalking to segregation".

Ministers have since called for the encouragement of "cohesion", including more teaching of English and an end to grants being handed to organisations from single ethnic and religious groups.

The study, based on interviews with 319 men and women, including 229 Muslims, found that the majority of interviewees had not experienced unfair treatment because of their colour or ethnicity.

Fewer than 50 per cent of minority members interviewed had experienced race prejudice and just 30 per cent of recent Muslim immigrants had experienced religious discrimination.

The report, produced by researchers from the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society, at Oxford University, found that: "A sense of belonging in Britain for all migrants, recent and established, was negatively affected by their perception of lack of acceptance in the UK.

"It is this perception of being unwelcome and of discrimination rather than attachment to their country of origin that diminishes a sense of belonging in British society, and there is thus a need to address public attitudes towards Muslims and towards migrants as a key component of cohesion strategy."

On ethnic enclaves, it said findings "challenge the assumption that residential clustering of people from particular ethnic or religious backgrounds is necessarily a barrier to social interaction across those boundaries".

The report added that perception of religious prejudice contributing to unfairness over employment, housing and services, had deepened among Muslims since 2001.

Linking anti-terrorist campaigns with efforts to encourage cohesion, it added, "risks stigmatising and alienating law-abiding Muslim communities"....

"She said unbearable, ghastly things that made my hair stand on end" -- so now I have to wear this hat

Poor, fragile Qaradawi: "She said unbearable, ghastly things that made my hair stand on end." He is referring, of course, to Wafa Sultan's most recent appearance on Al-Jazeera, and he frames his frenzied denunciation here in terms that his jihadist minions will understand as meaning that she must be killed.

The American government should be rushing to protect her. Is that happening?

"Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi Accuses Arab-American Psychiatrist Wafa Sultan of 'Cursing Allah' on Al-Jazeera TV," from MEMRI (thanks to all who sent this in):

In a program on Al-Jazeera TV, Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi accused Arab-American psychiatrist Wafa Sultan of "publicly curs[ing] Allah, His Prophet, the Koran, the history of Islam, and the Islamic nation."

The following are excerpts from the program, which aired on March 16, 2008:

To view this clip on MEMRI TV, visit: http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1718.htm .

To view the MEMRI TV page for Sheikh Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi, visit: http://www.memritv.org/subject/en/589.htm.

To view the MEMRI TV page for Wafa Sultan, visit: http://www.memritv.org/subject/en/371.htm .

"She Said Unbearable, Ghastly Things That Made My Hair Stand On End"

Sheikh Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi: "Many brothers here and abroad – more from abroad than from here – have called to ask me about the 'Opposite Direction' [show on Al-Jazeera TV], and that woman [Wafa Sultan], who leveled accusations against Islam and the Muslims, and cursed Allah, His Prophet, the Islamic nation, the shari'a, and the Islamic faith and culture. She did not omit anything. She was insolent and stopped at nothing.

"I know that our colleague Dr. Faysal Al-Qassem apologized on the following show. I did not watch the [original] show, but I was given a recording. She said unbearable, ghastly things that made my hair stand on end. She had the audacity to publicly curse Allah, His Prophet, the Koran, the history of Islam, and the Islamic nation. She did not spare anything.

"It was all based on ignorance. If only she had some knowledge... But she doesn't have any knowledge. She doesn't know the Koran or the Sunna. When she cited a hadith to back up her statements, she used a hadith that scholars consider unreliable."

Ain't it always the way? I'll let you in on a little secret: any and every critic of Islamic jihad and Islamic supremacism is "ignorant." Any Hadith that someone like Wafa Sultan (or someone like me) quotes is ipso facto unreliable, just as any Qur'an quotation she might adduce would be ripped out of context.

In reality, a brief scan through the portion of the transcript that Marisol posted here on March 7 shows that Wafa referred to Qur'an 9:111 (which guarantees Paradise to those who "kill and are killed" for Allah) and Qur'an 5:33 (which directs Muslims to cut off the hands and feet on opposite sides of those who are enemies of Allah and Muhammad). Qaradawi doesn't mention this probably because he cannot dispute what she said about those verses.

"If She Had Read The Koran, She Would Have Known That It Forbids Killing People... She Should Read The Torah And Tell Us What It Says"

"The Prophet said: 'Allah has given me sustenance under the shadow of my sword.' This hadith is unreliable. The Prophet did not get sustenance by the sword. If she had read the Koran, she would have known that it forbids killing people: 'Anyone who kills another person for any reason other than manslaughter or spreading corruption in the land – it is as if he has killed all of mankind.' [...]

"Other than manslaughter or spreading corruption in the land [fasaad]." That's a big exception right there, particularly given the Islamic understanding of what constitutes fasaad. Qaradawi is quoting Qur'an 5:32, which, incidentally, immediately precedes the verse about amputation that Wafa quoted, 5:33.

And as for the unreliability of the Hadith about the shadow of Muhammad's sword, Qaradawi doesn't bother to tell us that the hadith in which Muhammad says "Know that Paradise is under the shades of swords" appears in Bukhari, the hadith collection that Muslims consider most reliable, and in which only a very few ahadith are considered unreliable by any Islamic scholars. Not only does it appear, but it appears in three different places in Bukhari and in two places in Sahih Muslim, the hadith collection considered second most reliable. This repetition is further attestation of its authenticity from a Muslim standpoint, since the multiple renderings are considered to have come from different narrators, indicating that many people heard Muhammad say this.

"In all the raids conducted by the Prophet Muhammad, he was the one attacked. If she knew anything about the Koran and the Sunna...

Actually, no. In my book The Truth About Muhammad, I show how the earliest Islamic sources about Muhammad have him participating in numerous battles, and almost all of them are offensive. I challenge Qaradawi or anyone else to show that I have misused this material.

"She should read the Torah and tell us what it says. With regard to distant cities, the Torah says: 'Slay all their males by the sword.' It does not exclude elderly men or children. As for the nearby cities of Palestine, which they call the Promised Land, the Torah says: 'When you enter them, annihilate everyone, and do not leave a breathing soul.' The concept of annihilation originated in the Torah. What does that woman have to say about this? This is the Torah in which Bush and the Christian Right believe.

Question for Qaradawi: where are the Jewish or Christian exegetes who take this passage, or have ever taken this passage, as being a command that believers should obey in other times and places? Where are the Jewish or Christian groups committing violence and justifying it by reference to this passage?

"This Woman Had The Audacity To Affront All That Is Sacred"

"What does that woman have to say about this? She defends the West and sanctions the killing of Muslims in Gaza and elsewhere, claiming that they deserve to be killed.

Here, he is simply lying. She didn't say anything like that, of course, but Qaradawi knows what will happen if Muslims believe that she did.

"I do not want to discuss this at length, but in my view, this woman had the audacity to affront all that is sacred – the entire Islamic nation, its past, its present, and its future. She had the audacity to affront the Prophet, the Koran, and Allah. She even said that Allah prattles in the Koran. She did not omit anything sacred....

I got this email about an hour ago from an IP address that traces to Dearborn, Michigan:

ISLAM WILL RULE THE WORLD SOON INSHALAH.

That's all it said.

I wonder what this gentleman is doing in Dearborn, Michigan in order to bring this about. Is he working in any way to subvert the U.S. Constitution? Is he engaged in illegal activity? Does any law enforcement or government official in Dearborn, Michigan know or care that there are people there who harbor such sentiments, or if they are aware of that (as they would almost certainly have to be) are they aware that this is not just a religious statement, but a political one?

"London gives investors the reassurance that the bond is worth buying as it is a mature, highly regulated market that gives credibility to a deal."

Eurabia Alert, and an update on this story, from the Financial Times:

The first government sukuk was listed on the London Stock Exchange as Britain reaffirmed its reputation as the main western centre for Islamic finance.

Bahrain chose London to list its second Islamic bond as it sought to encourage more European and conventional investors to buy the paper. The Gulf kingdom listed its first sukuk in Luxembourg in 2004.

Significantly, more than 50 per cent of the paper was bought by European investors with the rest mainly bought by banks based in the Middle East.

Rizwan Kanji, head of Middle Eastern capital markets at Norton Rose, the law firm that helped structure the transaction, said: "You can attract more investors, particularly in Europe, if you list in London.

"London gives investors the reassurance that the bond is worth buying as it is a mature, highly regulated market that gives credibility to a deal."

The $350m Bahrain bond, structured to avoid paying interest in line with religious laws, raises the amount of sukuk on the LSE to $11bn. Investors are paid rent from underlying assets, in this case Bahrain's dry docks, instead of interest.

"London gives investors the reassurance that the bond is worth buying as it is a mature, highly regulated market that gives credibility to a deal."

The $350m Bahrain bond, structured to avoid paying interest in line with religious laws, raises the amount of sukuk on the LSE to $11bn. Investors are paid rent from underlying assets, in this case Bahrain's dry docks, instead of interest.

Britain has led the way as a western centre for Islamic finance with government reforms designed to help level the playing field for fund-raising in the wholesale markets and moves to encourage Muslim home-owners to buy Sharia-compliant mortgages.

Ministers are also considering launching a UK government sukuk, which would be the first western sovereign Islamic bond.

The Bahrain deal is also a sign the sukuk market is still active in spite of the credit squeeze, although the issuing price was much wider than this time last year. The five-year bond was priced at 75 basis points above US Libor. A similar bond would have issued at a spread of about 35bp in March last year.

"A damning indictment of the part played by the country's Islamist dictatorship in the humanitarian catastrophe."

"United Nations: Sudan carried out mass-rapes in Darfur," by David Byers for the Times Online:

The United Nations today accused the Sudanese government of being directly involved in the mass-rape of girls and women in the crisis-hit region of Darfur — a damning indictment of the part played by the country's Islamist dictatorship in the humanitarian catastrophe.

A report by the UN high commissioner for human rights says it has evidence that the Sudanese Army was involved alongside Arab militia in looting at least three towns, raping girls and women and killing at least 115 people.

The attacks on Sirba, Sileia and Abu Suruj on February 8 by helicopter gunships and aircraft caused 30,000 to flee their homes, Louise Arbour, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said in her report.

The study is the latest authoritative UN report, based on eye-witness testimonies and evidence from aid workers, suggesting that President Omar al-Bashir's administration is providing help and support to the brutal Arab janjaweed militia, who have reportedly robbed villages and murdered, raped or displaced their residents.

Last year, a UN report produced photographic evidence that the Sudanese government was carrying out secret bombing raids by disguising its jets as United Nations aid planes. Sudan denies the claims.

The UN says that the crisis afflicting the wartorn Darfur region has so far killed up to 400,000 people, and displaced a further 2.3 million, and campaigners have called on governments worldwide to isolate Mr al-Bashir's regime for its involvement.

“The scale of destruction suggests that the damage was a deliberate and integral part of a military strategy,” the nine-page report on the rapes said.