April 2008 Archives

Hot on the heels of last year's program's smashing success at making the Iranian government look busy while doing nothing about issues of corruption and domestic economics. "Iran launches new crackdown on dress code offenders," from Reuters:

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian police will launch a crackdown next month on small companies which fail to enforce strict religious dress codes, Mehr News Agency reported on Wednesday.

The move indicates an expansion of a clampdown on "immoral" conduct launched last year against women flouting rules to cover their heads and disguise the shape of their bodies in public, in line with Iran's Islamic system.

"In the first stage, police will only confront companies ... that are active in small buildings or complexes," the head of the moral security police, Ahmad Rouzbehani, was quoted as saying.

Mehr said the move was "to prevent social damage" and the hijab, or veil, "should be respected". It said the campaign would start from around May 4.

Iran's religious codes require women to cover their hair and wear long, loose clothing to disguise their bodies in public, including offices where they may work with male colleagues.

Police sometimes check offices to ensure the codes are upheld and can shut them down. Some coffee shops have been closed after police said workers or customers were not meeting standards.

Restaurants and other public places often have signs asking customers to respect the Islamic Republic's dress requirements.

The enforcement of "hijab" has been a cornerstone of the Islamic system introduced after the 1979 revolution.

The crackdown against what clerics see as "corrupt" Western influence coincides with rising pressure on Iran by the West over its nuclear program. The United States and its allies say Iran wants to build an atomic bomb, which Tehran denies.

"Everybody, both women and men, just as they want financial and physical security, like to have moral security," Rouzbehani said, adding that police had urged people "to come forward with their reports".

In the past, crackdowns tended to be launched at the start of Iran's hot summers and petered out soon after. But last year's extended into winter and included a drive against tight women's trousers and even men with spiky "Western" hairstyles.

Those who violate dress codes are usually cautioned on a first offence, sometimes after a brief visit to a police station. But they can be held for longer, taken to court and required to have "guidance classes" after repeat offences.

Dress codes are most often flouted in wealthier, urban areas. Conservative dress is the norm in poorer, rural areas.

While we're on the subject of Palestinian myths, here's another.

"Palestinian groups shell Israeli areas near Gaza despite news of ceasefire," from the Ma'an News Agency (thanks to Sr. Soph):

Gaza – Ma'an – Palestinian military groups continued to launch homemade projectiles and mortar shells into Israel from the Gaza Strip despite news that the factions had agreed during talks in Egypt on a ceasefire.

The military wing of Islamic Jihad, the Al-Quds Brigades, and the military wing of the Popular Resistance Committees, the An-Nasser Salah Addin Brigades, said that their fighters fired barrages of projectiles and mortars at the Israeli cities of Sderot and Ashkelon in the western Negev.

It appears that Palestinian factions are awaiting for the official announcement of a ceasefire before holding their fire....

Yeah, sure, that's it.

In his "Fundamentally Freund" column "The myth of Palestinian moderation" in the Jerusalem Post, Michael Freund rightly skewers the Administration's fantasy-based policymaking regarding Israel:

Even for a president prone to misusing the English language, George W. Bush outdid himself last week.

Sitting next to Mahmoud Abbas at the White House, Bush gushed and swooned over the visiting Palestinian leader, describing him in terms usually reserved for heroes and saints.

"The president is a man of peace," Bush assured the gaggle of reporters who were present. "He's a man of vision. He rejects the idea of using violence to achieve objectives, which distinguishes him from other people in the region."

While Bush's grammar may have been uncommonly accurate that day, his description of Abbas was anything but. For even a cursory glance at some of the Palestinian president's outbursts in recent months reveal a man wholly undeserving of such praise.

On March 1, Abbas had the gall to insult the memory of the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis when he declared that Israel's counter-terror operations in Gaza were "worse than the Holocaust" (Jerusalem Post, March 2).

And in an interview with the Jordanian newspaper Al-Dustur on February 28, Abbas boasted that he had been the first Palestinian to fire a bullet at Israel after the birth of the PLO in 1965.

This ostensible "man of peace" then took pride in the fact that his Fatah movement had trained Hizbullah terrorists, and he did not rule out a return to the "armed struggle" against Israel in the future. And just two weeks ago, Abbas was planning to confer the Al-Quds Mark of Honor, the PLO's highest award, to two female Palestinian terrorists who took part in the killing of Israelis (Israel Radio, April 16). The event was cancelled only after it was publicized widely in the media. Need we also mention the Palestinian president's refusal late last year to recognize Israel as a "Jewish state"?

[...]

And let's cease calling Mahmoud Abbas a "moderate." Anyone who refuses to recognize Israel as a "Jewish state," makes a mockery of the Holocaust, and threatens a return to violence, is certainly not deserving of such a characterization. Instead, let's call Abbas what he really is. For if he looks like an extremist, sounds like an extremist, and acts like an extremist, chances are that he is one.

And more importantly, let's start treating him as such.

Indeed. Read it all.

What will they think of next?

A But-They-All-Really-Want-Peace Update -- details at Israel Matzav:

Jewish leaders planned the Holocaust to kill "disabled and handicapped" Jews to avoid having to care for them, according to a Hamas TV educational program. As much of the world prepared to commemorate Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, Hamas TV presented its latest sinister twist on Holocaust denial.

The Hamas TV educational program, broadcast last week, taught that the murder of Jews in the Holocaust was a Zionist plot with two goals:

1- To eliminate "disabled and handicapped" Jews by sending them to death camps, so they would not be a burden on the future state of Israel.

2- At the same time, the Holocaust served to make "the Jews seem persecuted" so they could "benefit from international sympathy."

That second goal -- making a group seem persecuted in order to benefit from international sympathy -- is one that Islamic groups in the U.S. and elsewhere have adopted for themselves, and they pursue it quite skillfully.

Read it all.

Why aren't Ibrahim Hooper and Edina Lekovic calling Zahar right now and telling him that suicide is forbidden in Islam? What's that? Because he would probably respond that Paradise is guaranteed to those who kill and are killed for Allah (Qur'an 9:111)? What are you, some kind of Islamophobe?

"Gaza groups agree in principle to truce," by Khaled Abu Toameh for the Jerusalem Post (thanks to Sr. Soph):

12 small Palestinian factions in Gaza have agreed in principle to an Egyptian-brokered truce with Israel, an Egyptian diplomat told The Jerusalem Post.

Egypt's proposed cease-fire agreement includes a six-month truce between Israel and the Gaza Strip, an exchange of prisoners and the opening of Gaza's border crossings.

[...]

On Tuesday, top Hamas official Mahmoud Zahar said that Israel may have 200 nuclear warheads, but Hamas has 200,000 people who want to blow themselves up inside Israel.

Zahar, who was speaking to supporters at the Islamic University in Gaza City, said Israel would pay if it rejected the Egyptian initiative for truce with the Palestinians.

"If Israel says no, it will pay a heavy price," he said. "We are a besieged people and we will have to use all our tools to defend ourselves against Israel."...

Oh, and about that truce: Hamas and Islamic Jihad pattern their activities around Islamic teaching and law. Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, once said: "By Allah, and Allah willing, if I take an oath and later find something else better than that, then I do what is better and expiate my oath." Is there any reason to believe that Hamas does not subscribe to this point of view?

Every man should think what he likes and say what he thinks – Spinoza

Report by David G. Littman:

On April 13, I was given the floor at the KIRCHE IN NOT – CHURCH IN DISTRESS
3rd International Congress of the World Church Meeting (Augsburg Germany, 11-13 April).
Theme: Europe’s Heritage, Europe’s Future / Where do we come from; where do we want to go?

An unfortunate mishap took place on this specific occasion – generating many complaints then and after. As the speaker has been asked by many persons for his full text, and also by the organisers – who were not responsible for what happened and expressed sincere regrets – he feels that it would be appropriate to provide a factual explanation which will permit readers to understand what actually occurred just before the closing panel at this distinguished Congress that was attended by over 1,000 persons. To present an exact record, the official video recording has been used, including moments of applause from the audience and the two interruptions by the moderator, including brief comments. See also note (*)

[The passages that were actually pronounced in full are in bold type. Those that could not be stated as a result of the interruptions – manifestly against the will of the vast majority of the audience – are in normal type. Passages in square brackets are those which the speaker did not intend to say, but were put in his edited text for documentation, and eventual publication. It was only prepared the day before, adapted from a text he delivered on 13 March 2008 at the European University in Rome: (Title: “Impact of Shariah-based Human Rights at the United Nations” in a Conference held on: Identity Crisis: Can European Civilization Survive); and for the Association for World Education at the Seventh Session of the UN Human Rights Council at the Palais des Nations, Geneva on 26 March 2008.

* * * * *

The United Nations versus Human Rights is my subject today.

“Will 2008 be the year when the United Nations celebrates the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and simultaneously destroys its own principles? There is, indeed, cause for great concern because the institution has lost its own way in recent years, becoming a caricature of itself?”

I am quoting from a statement by the Paris-based LICRA, the International League against Racism and Antisemitism, signed by thousands [including many eminent personalities such as Nobel Peace Laureate Elie Wiesel] that was published in the world press last month in Le Monde [Paris] and Le Temps [Geneva], and elsewhere.

Nothing to see here. Go back to sleep.

"Man charged over Golders Green stabbings," by Kevin Bradford for the Hendon Times (thanks to Jerusalem Posts):

A man has been charged following a double knife attack on two Orthodox Jews in Golders Green.

Mohamed Jama Ahmed, 37, of North Circular Road, Cricklewood, was arrested after two stabbings which happened just meters apart in roads off Golders Green Road on Friday.

A Metropolitan Police spokeswoman said the attacks, which happened at around 6pm, appear to have been random and unprovoked, but were not being treated as faith hate crimes....

Good. Wouldn't want to give the appearance of "Islamophobia."

Meanwhile, here is some background to suggest that just maybe, just maybe, there is more here than just a random stabbing, that is, two random stabbings, of two random people who just happened to be Orthodox Jews, by a man who just happened to be Muslim, who just happened to be feeling that way without warning.

Of course, Islamic Jihad and Hamas portray every jihad attack against Israel as a response to Israeli aggression. So to say this is to say that they will continue to attack Israel even during a truce, and Israel cannot legitimately defend itself -- which is how the jihad groups behave now in any case.

"Jihad sets truce conditions with Israel," from Iran PressTV (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):

Islamic Jihad says any possible truce with Israel would not restrict its right to respond to Israeli strikes against Palestinians.

Abu Emad al-Rifaie, a senior member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement, said the group told Egyptian mediators that it approved -- with qualifications -- a Hamas proposal for a truce with the Zionist regime that starts in the Gaza Strip.

"This approval is under the condition that in the event of any Israeli aggression against our fighters or people in the West Bank ... we reserve our right to respond to such massacres," he said in Cairo after talks with Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman.

Egypt invited 12 Palestinian groups for talks to form a consensus on Hamas' six-month ceasefire proposal last week between Palestinians and the Zionist regime.

Israel has dismissed the truce offer, vowing to continue raids on the Gaza Strip....

Not that much of anything will happen if they don't: the contract "will have no consequences from a legal point of view." And the principles and customs are not clearly defined. Still, this is a small step in the right direction.

"Spain: Valencia To Adopt Contract For Immigrants Integration, " from ANSAmed (thanks to Insubria):

(ANSAmed) - MADRID, APRIL 29 - The municipality of Valencia will impose an "integration contract" to the immigrants, inspired by the one proposed by Peoplés Party leader Mariano Rajoy in the latest election campaign, which however will have no consequences from a legal point of view. Announcing the initiative, published today by the media, sources from the regional government, headed by Francisco Camps from the Peoplés Party, admitted that in case of violation of the "chapters" of the contract there will be no consequences on the immigrants given the fact that the autonomous municipalities have no authority in ordering deportations or other types of coercive measures. By signing the contract, which will be part of a law on immigration that is being drafted by the regional government, the immigrant pledges "to respect the laws, the principles and the customs of Spain and Valencia", which are not specified any further. The announcement made by Rajoy during the election campaign triggered harsh criticism for the difficulties to identify the Spanish customs, which could include the bullfighting, the afternoon siesta or the flamenco. (ANSAmed).

Just a few months ago Omar bin Laden got a great deal of fawning publicity from the mainstream media for rejecting his father's methods. But we pointed out here that he was never even asked if he rejected his father's goals. And now it appears that he doesn't.

"Osama Bin Laden’s son Omar Ossama is banned from Britain," by David Brown in the Times (thanks to Cindy):

The son of Osama bin Laden has been banned from entering Britain to live with his new wife because of fears that his presence would cause “considerable public concern”.

Officials have told Omar Ossama bin Laden that there is evidence that he is still loyal to his father, who is held responsible for the deaths of 52 innocent people in the London bombings of July 7, 2005.

Mr bin Laden, 27, is appealing against the refusal to grant him a visa and says that it is wrong to ban him from Britain on the basis of his parentage and inaccurate media reports about his beliefs.

He wants to live in Cheshire with his British wife, Zaina Alsabah bin Laden, 52, formerly known as Jane Felix-Browne. The couple were married in Saudi Arabia last year after a holiday romance but have been living in Egypt while waiting for Mr bin Laden’s visa application to be processed.

His application was refused by an entry clearance officer at the British Embassy in Cairo. The embassy said that the decision had been made on the ground that “exclusion from the United Kingdom is conducive to the public good . . . in the light of the character, conduct or association of the person seeking leave to enter it is undesirable to give him leave to enter”.

The officer added: “I note that statements made during recent media interviews indicate evidence of continuing loyalty to your father, and your presence in the UK could, therefore, cause considerable public concern.” [...]

Mr bin Laden said: “Who can know 100 per cent that my father is behind 9/11 or 7/7? I am not a judge and jury. I do not know if my father is a terrorist or was involved in the attacks.

“I want to come to England with my wife so she can be close to her children and grandchildren and she should also be near her hospital. The English are nice people and I am sure they will welcome me. People will understand I am not my father. I want to stop war, stop bombing and stop the killing.”...

But does he want to stop the Islamization of the West?

Jihad Watch reader James kindly sent me this from Yahoo Answers:

Do you hate Robert Spencer?

In the news it stated that Spencer realesed a book that had negiative facts about Prophet Muhammad and about Qur'an.

Spencer is a citizen of Holland that i think wants Muslim people to convert to Christan,since there is more Muslim people than Christan people in the world. (Thank You Allah that people are converting.)

Basically i want your opinion about Spencer

Those negative facts can be tough! But facts are facts. And are more and more targets of the global jihad are discovering those facts, perhaps we'll be able to mount a successful defense against this threat.

UPDATE 7:30AM PDT: This Yahoo Answers thread has now been deleted, for reasons unstated. Perhaps it constituted another inconvenient "negative fact."

Europe continues to export jihadists. Imagine what it will be like when Eurabia is in full swing -- if that ever happens. And note also the strongly religious language -- the very language that State and DHS analysts are now forbidden to use in discussing this threat. Somehow these German jihadists didn't get the memo. "German Islamist Appears in Jihad Video," by Matthias Gebauer and Yassin Musharbash in Spiegel Online (thanks to all who sent this in):

Two short films have appeared on the Internet featuring the German Islamist Eric B. in which he calls his "brothers" to join the jihad. The authorities have been hunting him for weeks, fearful that he could be preparing a terrorist attack in Kabul. The video messages are fanning those fears.

The news spread like wildfire through the offices of Germany's intelligence agencies. Two new terrorist videos had turned up on the Turkish-language Web site "Time for Martyrdom," which has become an important mouthpiece for Islamist propaganda. And once again there were was a clear connection to Germany.

German terrorist investigators are alarmed at the new videos. After an initial assessment, it was clear that the two short films feature the German Islamist Eric B. from Neuenkirchen in Saarland. For the past few weeks, a publicity campaign in Kabul (more...) has focused on finding him and his presumed accomplice Houssain al-M.

The new images are militaristic. The 20-year-old German convert is seen in the first film standing in front of a mountain, with a machine gun thrown over his shoulder and wearing an ammunition belt. Abdul al-Gaffar, B.'s nom de guerre, addresses his audience in barely audible and unusually halting German. First of all he praises the suicide attack carried out by Cüneyt Ciftci (more...), the 28-year-old German-born Turk who blew himself up in the Afghan province of Khost at the beginning of March. B. describes this as a "good deed" which sent many infidels "to hell."

A masked man next to him asks him to send a message to his "brothers in Germany." B., who only converted to Islam in 2007, tells the camera: "When you love God and his messengers, then join the jihad, because that is the way to paradise." Those who aren't able to come and fight are asked to help with money or to support the jihadists at the front with prayers. No Muslim should stand by and watch while the "infidels shame our women in our countries and jail and torment our brothers," he says.

[...]

The video has spread worries that it's now just a matter of time before the two German Islamists mount an attack. Their pictures now hang at every EU entry point, and in all German airports. Officials are also taking steps to confiscate al-M.'s passport. But no one believes these measures will keep any of them from trying to carry out their plan.

Andrew Ibrahim Update: "Teenager facing terrorism charges," from the BBC (thanks to Davida):

A 19-year-old Bristol man has been charged with terrorist offences relating to explosive substances.

Andrew Ibrahim, of Westbury-on-Trym, was arrested on 17 April. Three controlled explosions were later carried out at his flat.

He has been charged with possession of an explosive substance, the intention to commit terrorism and the possession of articles for terrorist purposes.

He will appear at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court on Wednesday.

The student is a son of an NHS consultant and was educated at some of Bristol's top independent schools.

Speaking ahead of his appearance in the London court, Mr Ibrahim's family spoke of their "shock" at the charges.

In a statement, his relatives said: "As a family we have been shocked and deeply distressed by the events of the past fortnight.

"We are still coming to terms with the news and trying to deal with this shock as a family. We therefore would ask that the media respect our privacy at this extremely difficult time."...

ACC Roberts thanked the local Muslim community for its assistance.

Mr Ibrahim, who moved to the area just weeks prior to his arrest, is understood to have recently converted to Islam.

He was arrested after covert inquiries prompted by an intelligence tip-off from within the city's Muslim community....

That is good, at least. Now what are they doing to prevent converts like him imbibing jihadism? What's that? The question itself is "Islamophobic"? Great. All right, then: what are British authorities doing to prevent people from imbibing jihadism? Nothing, you say? Trusting the self-proclaimed "moderate" Muslim leaders, who are essentially doing nothing? Got it!

"The decision doesn't include men who spend their free time in public places without hurting anyone." Oh. All right, then.

"Saudi governor orders haircuts for men who hit on women," from AP (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - A governor in northern Saudi Arabia has ordered authorities to punish men who flirt with women in public places by cutting their hair, local media said Tuesday.

Prince Fahd bin Badr, governor of the northern al-Jof region, ordered police to carry out the punishment after seeing a group of men with long hair pestering female students as they left school in the northern al-Qurayat province, Al-Hayat newspaper said.

It said the prince told a gathering at his palace in the northern town of Skaka on Sunday he has instructed police to apply the punishment to all youths guilty of flirting, including "the sons of senior military and civil officials."

"The decision doesn't include men who spend their free time in public places without hurting anyone," the paper quoted the prince as saying.

Saudi Arabia has long imposed a strict Islamic lifestyle in which men and women are segregated in public. That lifestyle is enforced by the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, a government body that runs the country's powerful religious police.

Its members patrol public places to make sure women are covered and not wearing make up, the sexes don't mingle, shops close five times a day for Muslim prayers and men go to the mosque and worship.

Many clergymen in this conservative Gulf country say men should not have long hair because Islam prohibits the sexes from emulating each other....

Malaysian opposition leader gets death threats for saying that Malaysia should not become an Islamic state. "‘Killing me not going to solve problems,’" from ExpressIndia (thanks to Nicolei):

Kuala Lumpur, April 27: An ethnic-Indian Opposition leader has claimed that he has received a death threat for resisting calls to declare multi-ethnic Malaysia an Islamic state.

Karpal Singh, Democratic Action Party (DAP) national chairman, said he has not insulted Islam and he should not be ‘turned into a Salman Rushdie’.

Singh, who on Saturday filed a police complaint in Penang state against a death threat made against him on a web site, said he was just standing up for what was stated in the country's Constitution-- that Malaysia was a secular state.

"The person who made the threat had alleged that it was permissible under Islam to kill Singh because he allegedly opposed Malaysia being turned into an Islamic state," Bernama news agency reported.

"They should not turn me into a Salman Rushdie," Singh, who has been criticised in blogs, said....

"Killing me is not going to solve the problems faced by PAS," Singh said referring to the Islamic party.

"What I have been against and will continue to be against is attempts by Islamic party PAS to turn this country into an Islamic state," he was quoted as saying by local media....

In "No Jihadis Here!," today's featured article at Human Events, I examine the new State Department guidelines forbidding use of the word jihad. But hold your houses: Michelle Malkin reports that the President has just used the dreaded word himself! Will he apologize and retract? Stay tuned!

Break out the flowers and tie-dye t-shirts: the jihad is over -- if you want it. Or at least, if you’re listening to the Bush Administration.

Last week the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Counter Terrorism Center issued new guidelines forbidding personnel from using the words “jihad” or “jihadist” in reference to Islamic terrorism and its perpetrators.

A Homeland Security report tellingly entitled “Terminology to Define the Terrorists: Recommendations from American Muslims” explains that this initiative comes from a concern not to offend moderate Muslims. By calling the terrorists “jihadists,” American officials could be “unintentionally portraying terrorists, who lack moral and religious legitimacy, as brave fighters, legitimate soldiers or spokesmen for ordinary Muslims.”

"'Myrick's latest attempt at fighting terrorism is nothing more than a fear campaign,' said Jibril Hough, a spokesman for the Islamic Center of Charlotte. 'It is nothing more than a new McCarthyism, or Myrickism. As Muslims, we have become expendable as politicians like Myrick seek political gain.'

"Myrick said she wants the group to give a point-by-point rebuttal of her plan."

Yes, that would be most interesting. What could Jibril Hough say? Let's go through the Myrick Plan and see:

1. Investigate all military chaplains endorsed by Abdurahman Alamoudi, who was imprisoned for funding a terrorist organization.

Alamoudi is doing 23 years for funding jihad terrorism. Is it possible that some of the military chaplains he endorsed shared his jihadist views? Can Jibril Hough explain why not?

2. Investigate all prison chaplains endorsed by Alamoudi.

Same question as for #1.

3. Investigate the selection process of Arabic translators working for the Pentagon and the FBI.

An FBI whistleblower has reported that Arabic translators there cheered the 9/11 attacks. Can Jibril Hough explain why this should not be a cause for concern?

4. Examine the non-profit status of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations has had several of its officials convicted on jihad terror-related charges, and was named an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas funding case. Can Jibril Hough explain why its tax-exempt status should not at least be examined?

5. Make it an act of sedition or solicitation of treason to preach or publish materials that call for the deaths of Americans.

Objections, Mr. Hough?

6. Audit sovereign wealth funds in the United States.

If these funds may be used to conduct warfare against the U.S., what exactly is Mr. Hough's objection?

7. Cancel scholarship student visa program with Saudi Arabia until they reform their text books, which she claims preach hatred and violence against non-Muslims.

It is demonstrably true that they do. Does Mr. Hough endorse this?

8. Restrict religious visas for imams who come from countries that don't allow reciprocal visits by non-Muslim clergy.

This is simply in the interests of mutual tolerance and understanding, is it not, Mr. Hough?

9. Cancel contracts to train Saudi police and security in U.S. counterterrorism tactics.

Given ongoing Saudi financing of the global jihad, what exactly is Mr. Hough's objection?

10. Block the sale of sensitive military munitions to Saudi Arabia.

Same question as #9.

But I doubt that Hough will provide a point-by-point refutation, for the same reason that John Esposito will not debate me. What can they say?

"Muslim condemns Myrick plan: Senator says she welcomes dialogue on anti-terrorism proposal," by Jim Morrill for the Charlotte Observer (thanks to Twostellas):

A spokesman for a Charlotte-area Islamic group Monday accused U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick of leading a "fear campaign" with her proposal to curb the expansion of radical Islam.

Myrick, a Charlotte Republican, proposed a 10-point "Wake Up America" plan this month that, among other things, calls for investigations into the selection of the Pentagon's Arabic translators and some Muslim military and prison chaplains.

"Myrick's latest attempt at fighting terrorism is nothing more than a fear campaign," said Jibril Hough, a spokesman for the Islamic Center of Charlotte. "It is nothing more than a new McCarthyism, or Myrickism. As Muslims, we have become expendable as politicians like Myrick seek political gain."

Myrick said she wants the group to give a point-by-point rebuttal of her plan.

"I'd be glad to have a dialogue with them," she said. "The whole point is that we're trying to get people to work together."

Myrick's proposal has also drawn criticism from the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations. One of her proposals was to investigate the group's nonprofit status....

Yet another way it may be dangerous to your health

“This is a very serious homeland security issue, one that has gone unnoticed for far too long” -- unnoticed, that is, except at Jihad Watch.

"Cigarette Smugglers Funnel Money to Terror Groups, Report Finds," by Catherine Herridge for FoxNews:

WASHINGTON — Cigarette smuggling is generating millions of dollars every year that can be reaching terrorist groups, including Hezbollah, Hamas and Al Qaeda, according to law enforcement sources. In a single case, $100,000 was sent to Hezbollah.

A 15-page report congressional report, obtained by FOX News, includes intelligence from law enforcement as well as New York State’s Department of Taxation and Finance.

The report reads in part: Cigarette smuggling is generating millions of dollars every year that can be reaching terrorist groups, including Hezbollah, Hamas and Al Qaeda, according to law enforcement sources. In a single case, $100,000 was sent to Hezbollah.

“This is a very serious homeland security issue, one that has gone unnoticed for far too long,” said Rep. Peter King, (R-N.Y.), the ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, who called for the investigation.

“Cigarette smugglers are able to generate millions of dollars in illegal profits with a great deal of this wealth being sent to terrorist groups overseas – groups that would like nothing more than to inflict devastating harm on our country and its citizens.” [...]

According to the report, citing federal and New York state law enforcement sources, nearly 60 percent of all convenience retail outlets in New York City are now Arab-owned, primarily families of Lebanese, Yemeni, Jordanian and Palestinian descent. While the vast majority of retailers are operating above board, some are not.

The report says that these retailers can funnel their profits from the sale of cigarettes to terrorist groups in the Mideast. It claims this “tobacco and terror” relationship has been found in a handful of recent cases.

“…the infamous ‘Lackawanna Seven’ reportedly received funding from an individual named Aref Ahmed for their travel from Buffalo to Afghanistan to attend an al Qaeda training camp,” the report says, referring to a group of American-born men of Yemeni descent who pleaded guilty to terror training.

“The State is losing hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue; and given the current budget shortfall, this would seem to be more than enough reason to put the so-called policy of forebearance out of its misery,” King said.

“But this is more than just a matter of lost revenue. It is a matter of national security. Cigarette smuggling in New York State must be brought to an end immediately.”...

"There is...evidence that Tablighi Jamaat directly recruits for terrorist organizations." How dare you imply they're not moderate!

"BBC ‘censored Christian party broadcast,’" by Andrew Norfolk for the Times (thanks to all who sent this in):

The BBC is facing a High Court challenge over its decision to censor a party political broadcast in the run-up to Thursday’s local elections.

A Christian party has begun legal action after the corporation insisted on changes to a short film in which the party voiced opposition to the building of Europe’s biggest mosque next to the site of the 2012 Olympics.

Tablighi Jamaat, the Islamic missionary group behind the £75 million Abbey Mills mosque, opposes inter-faith dialogue and preaches that non-Muslims are an evil and corrupting influence. One of its British advocates has said that it aims to rescue Muslims from the culture and civilisation of Jews and Christians by creating “such hatred for their ways as human beings have for urine and excreta”.

The Christian Choice election broadcast would have described Tablighi Jamaat as “a separatist Islamic group” before welcoming that some “moderate Muslims” were opposed to the mosque complex.

Alan Craig, the party’s candidate in the London mayoral election, also on Thursday, said that he was forced to change the wording at the insistence of lawyers at the BBC and ITV, which will also feature in the court action.

The BBC refused to accept “separatist” — the corporation asked for “controversial” instead — and barred the use of “moderate Muslims” because the phrase implied that Tablighi Jamaat was less than moderate.

ITV went a step farther, demanding that the adjective “controversial” be used merely to describe the planned mosque and not the group itself....

As Israel contemplates giving up the Golan Heights to Syria, Syria contemplates the total destruction of Israel.

"Syrian Minister Riyad Na'san Al-Agha Justifies the Persecution of Syrian Intellectuals and Declares: I Am Optimistic that Israel Will Come to an End within 10 Years," from MEMRI (thanks to Joel):

Following are excerpts from an interview with Syrian Minister of Culture Riyad Na'san al-Agha, which aired on Al-Hiwar on April 19, 2008.

[...]

Interviewer: In five years, the government might call Israel and say: Let's put an end to this.

Riyad Na'san al-Agha: I will be the first they have to take to jail.

Interviewer: Will we be saying that the president maintained "dubious relations" with Israel?

Riyad Na'san al-Agha: Those who will want to do this, God forbid, will have to get rid of me and many others like me beforehand.

[...]

Imagine the Arab nation without those resistance fighters. By Allah, it is not worth being stepped on.

[...]

Blair is gone, Bush will be gone, and so on...

Interviewer: But in the meantime, people are dying, entire generations...

Riyad Na'san al-Agha: That's our fate. We are talking about an eternal conflict. I am not optimistic that it will be resolved any time soon, but by Allah, they suffer more than us. Here in Syria, the people are united. Sheik Hassan [Nasrallah] himself said that in 2006, the decision of whether Syria should join the war was left to him. It's not me who says this. He said so. We were ready to join the war. This does not mean tgat we will necessarily win. We might be defeated, but at least we will prove that we exist. I am optimistic that within ten years, Israel will come to its end.

Interviewer: But the pressure on Syria is continuously increasing, and the price you might pay is the economic exhaustion of your people.

Riyad Na'san al-Agha: So what if they get exhausted?...

More on this story. "Is an Iranian general pulling the strings in Iraq?," by Hannah Allam, Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel for McClatchy Newspapers:

BAGHDAD — One of the most powerful men in Iraq isn't an Iraqi government official, a militia leader, a senior cleric or a top U.S. military commander or diplomat.

He's an Iranian general, and at times he's more influential than all of them.

Brig. Gen. Qassem Suleimani commands the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force, an elite paramilitary and espionage organization whose mission is to expand Iran's influence in the Middle East.

As Tehran's point man on Iraq , he funnels military and financial support to various Iraqi factions, frustrating U.S. attempts to build a pro-Western democracy on the rubble of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship.

According to Iraqi and American officials, Suleimani has ensured the elections of pro-Iranian politicians, met frequently with senior Iraqi leaders and backed Shiite elements in the Iraqi security forces that are accused of torturing and killing minority Sunni Muslims.

"Whether we like him (Suleimani) or not, whether Americans like him or not, whether Iraqis like him or not, he is the focal point of Iranian policy in Iraq ," said a senior Iraqi official who asked not to be identified so he could speak freely. "The Quds Force have played it all, political, military, intelligence, economic. They are Iranian foreign policy in Iraq ."

McClatchy reported on March 30 that Suleimani intervened to halt the fighting between mostly Shiite Iraqi security forces and radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army militia in the southern city of Basra. Iraqi officials now confirm that in addition to that meeting, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani personally met Suleimani at a border crossing to make a direct appeal for help.

Iraqi and U.S. officials told McClatchy that Suleimani also has:

— Slipped into Baghdad's Green Zone, the heavily fortified seat of the U.S. occupation and the Iraqi government, in April 2006 to try to orchestrate the selection of a new Iraqi prime minister. Iraqi officials said that audacious visit was Suleimani's only foray into the Green Zone; American officials said he may have been there more than once.

— Built powerful networks that gather intelligence on American and Iraqi military operations. Suleimani's network includes every senior staffer in Iran's embassy in Baghdad , beginning with the ambassador, according to Iraqi and U.S. officials.

— Trained and directed Shiite Muslim militias and given them cash and arms, including mortars and rockets fired at the U.S. Embassy and explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, the sophisticated roadside bombs that have caused hundreds of U.S. and Iraqi casualties.

"I'm extremely concerned about what I believe to be an increasingly lethal and malign influence by ( Iran's ) government and the Quds Force, in particular in Iraq and throughout the Middle East ," Adm. Michael Mullen , the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Friday.

Read it all.

It's not difficult to see where Barbie and Harry Potter would be verboten in Iran. And Batman is the Caped Crusader, after all. But what about Spiderman? At any rate, he's an infidel. "Iran official sees 'destructive' Barbie influence," from Reuters:

TEHRAN - Imports of Barbie dolls and other Western toys will have destructive cultural and social consequences in Iran, the Islamic Republic's top prosecutor was quoted as saying on Monday.

Iran's conservative clerical establishment often rails against the perceived dangers of U.S.-inspired culture and consumerism, branding it "Westoxication."

But young Iranians are often keen consumers of such music, films and other goods from the West. Iconic toy brands can be bought in children's shops in the capital Tehran and elsewhere.

"The appearance of personalities such as Barbie, Batman, Spiderman and Harry Potter and ... computer games and movies are all a danger warning to the officials in the cultural arena," said Prosecutor General Ghorban Ali Dori Najafabadi in a letter to Vice President Parviz Davoudi published in the Mardom Salari daily.

Najafabadi, a high-ranking cleric, said Iran was the world's third biggest importer of toys and suggested this posed a threat to the "personality and identity" of the new generation.

"The unrestrained entry of this sort of imported toys ... will bring destructive cultural and social consequences in their wake," he wrote.

He added many toys were smuggled into Iran and accused importers of concentrating on profits at the expense of cultural values.

What a proud moment!

"UK centre of Islamist terror in Europe: Europol," from the Economic Times (thanks to Narain Kataria):

LONDON: Britain has emerged as the focal point of Islamist terror in Europe, according to Europol, the European police force.

A report on terrorism by Europol has claimed that the UK reported a 30 per cent increase in arrest of terror suspects last year.

Out of 203 persons arrested in 2007 in the UK, a majority were related to Islamist terrorism. In contrast, 201 were detained in the rest of Europe. French police made 91 arrests.

The number of suspects under investigation in Britain has risen from 500 in 2004 to 2,000 last year.

What is worrying is that the number of arrests involved young, radicalised British muslims, sparking fears that the threat of an attack is growing....

Hmmm. And where are those young, British Muslims getting their jihadist indoctrination?

Jihad Watch reader A. asked Saudi-funded dhimmi academic John Esposito about this post, in which I detail some of his unsavory associations. Esposito responded by sending his bio, along with this:

Robert Spencer has no credentials/training in the fields of Islamic studies, Middle East Studies, Muslim studies and runs a "madwatch" website. I attach my bio info. The fact that Spencer now criticizes Dinesh D'Souza shows his desperation.

Heh. I guess that means I've been desperate for some time now -- or rather, that Dinesh himself is desperate, since he started the whole thing between him and me with a gratuitous attack on my work in his farrago The Enemy At Home.

But in the real world, how exactly does the question of my academic credentials have anything to do with whether or not John Esposito has said these things about Sami Al-Arian and worked with Azzam Tamimi?

In other words, if I don't have a PhD, does that mean John Esposito hasn't been palling around with PIJ and Hamas operatives?

I will debate John Esposito on Islam and Jihad anytime or anyplace. Or Dinesh D'Souza, for that matter. Of course, I have already debated him, and I doubt he would be willing to repeat the experience.

If I am wrong in what I say, it should be easy for John Esposito to mop the floor with me and discredit me once and for all, ridding the world of my baneful influence.

But it's easier to deflect questions about one's associations and allegiances by casting aspersions on the one who asks the questions, isn't it?

I'm still waiting for John Esposito, for all his vaunted training in Islamic studies and Saudi millions, or anyone else to establish that even one thing I have ever said about Islam or jihad is false. This would require, of course, that he actually read what I say instead of relying on the venomous caricatures of his character-assassination-minded friends.

I won't be holding my breath. But I have written this to John Esposito himself.

The Ahmadis are also considered heretical because they do not embrace the idea of violent jihad. Anyway, here is yet another opportunity for all the self-professed Islamic pluralists in the West to denounce this atrocity, to reject the traditional Islamic death penalty for heretics, and to show in deed as well as word that they reject not only violent coercion in religious matters, but also any idea of Islamic supremacism and the subjugation of nonbelievers.

But don't hold your breath. And the silence of Hooper, al-Marayati, and all the rest will once again be indicative, but few in government, law enforcement or media will pick up on what exactly it indicates.

"Indonesians torch Muslim sect's mosque," by Niniek Karmini for Associated Press (thanks to all who sent this in):

Hundreds of protesters chanting "Kill, kill" set fire Monday to an Indonesian mosque belonging to a Muslim sect they claim is heretical, police said.

A policeman was wounded in the head when the crowd stoned the mosque in West Java province before setting it ablaze, said police spokesman Col. Dade Ahmad. Several suspects were taken in for questioning.

The attack was the latest targeting the Ahmadiyah sect in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation.

Most mainstream Muslims consider Ahmadiyah heretical because it does not consider Muhammad to be the final prophet. The sect was founded at the end of the 19th century in Pakistan.

Last week, a team of prosecutors, religious scholars and government officials said the sect "had deviated from Islamic principles" and recommended it be outlawed. There have been several acts of vandalism targeting Ahmadiyah since then.

About 300 people torched the mosque and destroyed an Islamic school building inside the Ahmadiyah compound in Sukabumi town just after midnight. Many sect members have since fled the area, seeking refuge with friends and relatives.

"We heard the attackers chanting 'Burn, burn' and 'Kill, kill,'" said Zaki Firdaus, one of the sect's members. "It was horrifying."..

Bruce Bawer, author of the essential While Europe Slept, has written an equally essential piece at City Journal (thanks to all who sent this in), "An Anatomy of Surrender": a comprehensive overview of the ongoing voluntary and self-imposed reduction of the West to dhimmi status.

Islam divides the world into two parts. The part governed by sharia, or Islamic law, is called the Dar al-Islam, or House of Submission. Everything else is the Dar al-Harb, or House of War, so called because it will take war—holy war, jihad—to bring it into the House of Submission. Over the centuries, this jihad has taken a variety of forms. Two centuries ago, for instance, Muslim pirates from North Africa captured ships and enslaved their crews, leading the U.S. to fight the Barbary Wars of 1801–05 and 1815. In recent decades, the jihadists’ weapon of choice has usually been the terrorist’s bomb; the use of planes as missiles on 9/11 was a variant of this method.

What has not been widely recognized is that the Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1989 fatwa against Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie introduced a new kind of jihad. Instead of assaulting Western ships or buildings, Kho­meini took aim at a fundamental Western freedom: freedom of speech. In recent years, other Islamists have joined this crusade, seeking to undermine Western societies’ basic liberties and extend sharia within those societies.

The cultural jihadists have enjoyed disturbing success. Two events in particular—the 2004 assassination in Amsterdam of Theo van Gogh in retaliation for his film about Islam’s oppression of women, and the global wave of riots, murders, and vandalism that followed a Danish newspaper’s 2005 publication of cartoons satirizing Mohammed—have had a massive ripple effect throughout the West. Motivated variously, and doubtless sometimes simultaneously, by fear, misguided sympathy, and multicultural ideology—which teaches us to belittle our freedoms and to genuflect to non-Western cultures, however repressive—people at every level of Western society, but especially elites, have allowed concerns about what fundamentalist Muslims will feel, think, or do to influence their actions and expressions. These Westerners have begun, in other words, to internalize the strictures of sharia, and thus implicitly to accept the deferential status of dhimmis—infidels living in Muslim societies.

Call it a cultural surrender. The House of War is slowly—or not so slowly, in Europe’s case—being absorbed into the House of Submission.

The Western media are in the driver’s seat on this road to sharia. Often their approach is to argue that we’re the bad guys. After the late Dutch sociologist-turned-politician Pim Fortuyn sounded the alarm about the danger that Europe’s Islamization posed to democracy, elite journalists labeled him a threat. A New York Times headline described him as marching the dutch to the right. Dutch newspapers Het Parool and De Volkskrant compared him with Mussolini; Trouw likened him to Hitler. The man (a multiculturalist, not a Muslim) who murdered him in May 2002 seemed to echo such verdicts when explaining his motive: Fortuyn’s views on Islam, the killer insisted, were “dangerous.”

Perhaps no Western media outlet has exhibited this habit of moral inversion more regularly than the BBC. In 2006, to take a typical example, Manchester’s top imam told psychotherapist John Casson that he supported the death penalty for homosexuality. Casson expressed shock—and the BBC, in a dispatch headlined imam accused of “gay death” slur, spun the controversy as an effort by Casson to discredit Islam. The BBC concluded its story with comments from an Islamic Human Rights Commission spokesman, who equated Muslim attitudes toward homosexuality with those of “other orthodox religions, such as Catholicism” and complained that focusing on the issue was “part of demonizing Muslims.”

In June 2005, the BBC aired the documentary Don’t Panic, I’m Islamic, which sought to portray concerns about Islamic radicalism as overblown. This “stunning whitewash of radical Islam,” as Little Green Footballs blogger Charles Johnson put it, “helped keep the British public fast asleep, a few weeks before the bombs went off in London subways and buses” in July 2005. In December 2007, it emerged that five of the documentary’s subjects, served up on the show as examples of innocuous Muslims-next-door, had been charged in those terrorist attacks—and that BBC producers, though aware of their involvement after the attacks took place, had not reported important information about them to the police.

Press acquiescence to Muslim demands and threats is endemic. When the Mohammed cartoons—published in September 2005 by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten to defy rising self-censorship after van Gogh’s murder—were answered by worldwide violence, only one major American newspaper, the Philadelphia Inquirer, joined such European dailies as Die Welt and El País in reprinting them as a gesture of free-speech solidarity. Editors who refused to run the images claimed that their motive was multicultural respect for Islam. Critic Christopher Hitchens believed otherwise, writing that he “knew quite a number of the editors concerned and can say for a certainty that the chief motive for ‘restraint’ was simple fear.” Exemplifying the new dhimmitude, whatever its motivation, was Norway’s leading cartoonist, Finn Graff, who had often depicted Israelis as Nazis, but who now vowed not to draw anything that might provoke Muslim wrath. (On a positive note, this February, over a dozen Danish newspapers, joined by a number of other papers around the world, reprinted one of the original cartoons as a free-speech gesture after the arrest of three people accused of plotting to kill the artist.)

Last year brought another cartoon crisis—this time over Swedish artist Lars Vilks’s drawings of Mohammed as a dog, which ambassadors from Muslim countries used as an excuse to demand speech limits in Sweden. CNN reporter Paula Newton suggested that perhaps “Vilks should have known better” because of the Jyllands-Posten incident—as if people who make art should naturally take their marching orders from people who make death threats. Meanwhile, The Economist depicted Vilks as an eccentric who shouldn’t be taken “too seriously” and noted approvingly that Sweden’s prime minister, unlike Denmark’s, invited the ambassadors “in for a chat.”

The elite media regularly underreport fundamentalist Muslim misbehavior or obfuscate its true nature. After the knighting of Rushdie in 2007 unleashed yet another wave of international Islamist mayhem, Tim Rutten wrote in the Los Angeles Times: “If you’re wondering why you haven’t been able to follow all the columns and editorials in the American press denouncing all this homicidal nonsense, it’s because there haven’t been any.” Or consider the riots that gripped immigrant suburbs in France in the autumn of 2005. These uprisings were largely assertions of Muslim authority over Muslim neighborhoods, and thus clearly jihadist in character. Yet weeks passed before many American press outlets mentioned them—and when they did, they de-emphasized the rioters’ Muslim identity (few cited the cries of “Allahu akbar,” for instance). Instead, they described the violence as an outburst of frustration over economic injustice.

When polls and studies of Muslims appear, the media often spin the results absurdly or drop them down the memory hole after a single news cycle. Journalists celebrated the results of a 2007 Pew poll showing that 80 percent of American Muslims aged 18 to 29 said that they opposed suicide bombing—even though the flip side, and the real story, was that a double-digit percentage of young American Muslims admitted that they supported it. u.s. muslims assimilated, opposed to extremism, the Washington Post rejoiced, echoing USA Today’s american muslims reject extremes. A 2006 Daily Telegraph survey showed that 40 percent of British Muslims wanted sharia in Britain—yet British reporters often write as though only a minuscule minority embraced such views.

After each major terrorist act since 9/11, the press has dutifully published stories about Western Muslims fearing an “anti-Muslim backlash”—thus neatly shifting the focus from Islamists’ real acts of violence to non-Muslims’ imaginary ones. (These backlashes, of course, never materialize.) While books by Islam experts like Bat Ye’or and Robert Spencer, who tell difficult truths about jihad and sharia, go unreviewed in newspapers like the New York Times, the elite press legitimizes thinkers like Karen Armstrong and John Esposito, whose sugarcoated representations of Islam should have been discredited for all time by 9/11. The Times described Armstrong’s hagiography of Mohammed as “a good place to start” learning about Islam; in July 2007, the Washington Post headlined a piece by Esposito "Want to understand Islam? Start here."

Don't fail to read it all.

On Friday I commented here on a post at Dinesh D'Souza's blog, in which he praises Saudi-funded dhimmi academic John Esposito. Now D'Souza has repeated this praise in his Townhall column (thanks to Doc Washburn), so it's worth repeating some things D'Souza almost certainly doesn't know about this "respected" American "authority" on Islam.

Esposito has called Bernard Lewis, whom D'Souza has repeatedly cited and praised, "one of the Darth Vaders of the world."

Esposito has spoken at a Council on American-Islamic Relations fundraiser in order to "show solidarity not only with the Holy Land Fund [that is, the Holy Land Foundation], but also with CAIR." The Holy Land Foundation is accused of funneling money to the jihad terror group Hamas, and CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in the case.

Esposito has said of a man who is in prison for aiding the jihad terror group Palestinian Islamic Jihad that "Sami Al-Arian's a very good friend of mine."

Esposito has co-edited a book with Azzam Tamimi. Palestinian political scientist Muhammad Muslih calls Tamimi "a Hamas member." Tamimi has said: "I admire the Taliban; they are courageous." About 9/11, he has said: "In the Arab and Muslim countries, everyone jumped for joy." He has said: "I support Hamas."

At his Sandbox blog Martin Kramer neatly demolishes the smooth propaganda of this Saudi-financed pseudo-academic Islamic apologist and friend of jihadists, John Esposito. By falling for Esposito's propaganda, Dinesh D'Souza demonstrates definitively (as if there were really any doubt at this point) that when writing about Islam, jihad, and terrorism he is in way over his head. D'Souza shows that he has done no research, has no idea of the players involved or the territory, and is about as far from being the authority on Islam that he preens himself on being (he grew up in India!), and that the Hannitys of the world are eager to anoint him as being, as anyone can get.

I have been promising for awhile to comment when time permits on the doppelganger to my Blogging the Qur'an series, Ziauddin Sardar's Blogging the Qur'an series at The Guardian. Of course, time will never permit, but here are a few preliminary observations:

Why the lockdown on comments? Ironically enough for a "Comment Is Free" feature, comments on Sardar's work are not free. While I read the comments fields on my Blogging the Qur'an feature and answer every question, friendly or hostile, interested readers have to submit their questions to Sardar, and he only takes up the ones he wants to answer. If some angry commenter showed up and claimed that I was misrepresenting a passage of the Qur'an, I would deal directly with the objection. But not Sardar, unless he chose to do so. This gives the whole enterprise a sanitized, Potemkin-village aspect.

Also, Sardar rarely cites Islamic authorities as he explains the various Qur'anic passages he treats. In contrast, as a rule I don't offer my own judgments on the meaning of the Qur'an, but rather cite mainstream Islamic commentators on the passages, to show how Muslims generally have understood those passages. As a result, readers have no way of knowing the relationship of his interpretations to mainstream Islamic understandings.

So compare our two treatments of the last two verses of the Fatiha, the Qur'an's first sura and the most important prayer in Islam. First, Sardar:

The Qur'an is full of metaphors and allusions to travel and movement. Sharia, the term used for Islamic law, derives from a word signifying "the way to a watering hole". In the desert, water holes must be found among shifting sands and changing and often hazardous weather conditions. And to survive one has to keep on finding water holes along the route.

So, for me, the "straight path" is a navigational tool, a set of criteria to assess where we actually are and where we ought to be going in the course of life's journey. It functions like a lighthouse that guides vessels at sea, illuminates hazardous areas, and highlights safe passages. What is 'straight' in the 'straight path' is the manner of travel and not the road you see in front of you.

And so on. In his article on Qur'an 1:6-7, he deals solely with the implications of Islam being the "straight path," and doesn't deal at all with the contrasting paths mentioned in those verses, the path of those who have earned Allah's anger and the path of those who have gone astray. But I suspect that how Muslims understand those verses would be of particular interest to Sardar's readers. Here is my take on the same passage:

The final two verses of the Fatiha asks Allah: “Show us the straight path, the path of those whom Thou hast favoured; not the (path) of those who earn Thine anger nor of those who go astray.” The traditional Islamic understanding of this is that the “straight path” is Islam — cf. Islamic apologist John Esposito’s book Islam: The Straight Path. The path of those who have earned Allah’s anger are the Jews, and those who have gone astray are the Christians.

The classic Qur’anic commentator Ibn Kathir explains that “the two paths He described here are both misguided,” and that those “two paths are the paths of the Christians and Jews, a fact that the believer should beware of so that he avoids them. The path of the believers is knowledge of the truth and abiding by it. In comparison, the Jews abandoned practicing the religion, while the Christians lost the true knowledge. This is why ‘anger’ descended upon the Jews, while being described as ‘led astray’ is more appropriate of the Christians.”

Ibn Kathir’s understanding of this passage is not a lone “extremist” interpretation. In fact, most Muslim commentators believe that the Jews are those who have earned Allah’s wrath and the Christians are those who have gone astray. This is the view of Tabari, Zamakhshari, the Tafsir al-Jalalayn, the Tanwir al-Miqbas min Tafsir Ibn Abbas, and Ibn Arabi, as well as Ibn Kathir. One contrasting, but not majority view, is that of Nisaburi, who says that “those who have incurred Allah’s wrath are the people of negligence, and those who have gone astray are the people of immoderation.”

Wahhabis drew criticism a few years back for adding “such as the Jews” and “such as the Christians” into parenthetical glosses on this passage in Qur’ans printed in Saudi Arabia. Some Western commentators imagined that the Saudis originated this interpretation, and indeed the whole idea of Qur’anic hostility toward Jews and Christians. Muslims all over the world learn as a matter of course that the central prayer of their faith anathematizes Jews and Christians.

But unfortunately, this interpretation is venerable and mainstream in Islamic theology. The printing of the interpretation in parenthetical glosses into a translation would be unlikely to affect Muslim attitudes, since the Arabic text is always and everywhere normative in any case, and since so many mainstream commentaries contain the idea that the Jews and Christians are being criticized here. Seventeen times a day, by the pious.

Please note that I am not saying that the anti-Jewish and anti-Christian interpretation of the Fatiha is the “correct” one. While I don’t believe that religious texts are infinitely malleable and can be made to mean whatever the reader wants them to mean, as some apparently do, in this case Nisaburi’s reading has as much to commend it as the other: there is nothing in the text itself that absolutely compels one to believe that it is talking about Jews and Christians. And it is noteworthy that in his massive and evocatively named 30-volume commentary on the Qur’an, Fi Zilal al-Qur’an (In the Shade of the Qur’an), the twentieth-century jihad theorist Sayyid Qutb doesn’t mention Jews or Christians in connection with this passage. At the same time, however, the idea in Islam that Jews have earned Allah’s anger and Christians have gone astray doesn’t depend on this passage alone. The Jews have earned Allah’s anger by rejecting Muhammad (2:87-90), and the Christians have gone astray by holding to the divinity of Christ (5:72).

The Hadith, the traditions of the words and deeds of Muhammad and the early Muslims, also contains material linking Jews to Allah’s anger and Christians to his curse, which resulting from their straying from the true path. (The Jews are accursed also, according to Qur’an 2:89, and both are accursed according to 9:30). One hadith recounts that an early Muslim, Zaid bin ‘Amr bin Nufail, in his travels met with Jewish and Christian scholars. The Jewish scholar told him, “You will not embrace our religion unless you receive your share of Allah’s Anger,” and the Christian said, “You will not embrace our religion unless you get a share of Allah’s Curse.” Zaid, needless to say, became a Muslim.

In light of these and similar passages it shouldn’t be surprising that many Muslim commentators have understood the Fatiha to be encapsulating these views.

Sardar offers platitudes and generalities, and never even discusses the idea that Jews and Christians are referred to in this passage, even to refute it. In contrast, I cite numerous Islamic authorities on both sides of the issue of whether or not Jews and Christians are referred to here. I leave it to you to determine which one of us is telling you more about the traditional and mainstream Islamic views on this crucial passage.

A glimpse into the future -- and, in many areas, the present reality -- of Europe: polygamists living off the government dole, so that the demographic jihad proceeds at the expense of the government the jihadists hope to topple, and the taxpayers they hope to subjugate.

"'Polygamy doesn't work' says father of 77," by Aislinn Simpson for the Telegraph (thanks to Isabella the Crusader):

An Ethiopian man who has 77 children by 11 wives has urged others not to get married and has taken to dispensing advice on family planning to his neighbours.

Ayattu Nure, 56, says he used to be a wealthy man and married out of a desire to share his money around but claims he is now peniless because of the competing demands of his brood.

"I want my children to be farmers but I have no land, I want them to go to school but I have no money," he says.

Seven of Mr Ayattu's wives live in run-down huts around the compound while the other four live on the other side of the valley in Giwe Abossa village, 300 kilometres from the capital Addis Ababa.

In total, they have given birth to more than 100 children but 23 have died.

Mr Ayattu says he tries to share his time equally between his wives and children but is at a loss to keep them happy and often cannot feed them all.

"I feel like killing myself when I see my hungry children whom I cannot help," he says.

"People see me as a funny man, but there is no fun in my condition. I am a desperate man struggling to survive," he says.

He blames Ethiopia's government for failing to support him and his children.

The local authority of the school which 40 of his children attend is requesting photographs of each one for their files but Mr Attayu says he has not got the money.

"I know I have done wrong by marrying many wives and begetting many children but I think I deserve help from the government."...

This sura comes from the middle of Muhammad’s Meccan period, during the time of a famine in Mecca, which is referred to obliquely in vv. 75-6. Umar, the second caliph of the Muslims after Muhammad, reported: “This Surah was revealed in my presence and I myself observed the state of the Holy Prophet during its revelation. When the revelation ended, the Holy Prophet remarked, ‘On this occasion ten such verses have been sent down to me that the one who measures up to them, will most surely go to Paradise.’ Then he recited the initial verses of the surah.”

Those Paradise-enabling verses (verses 1-11) promise success to the believers (v. 1) – recalling the muezzin’s call to prayer from the minaret, which says in part: “Come to prayer, come to success.” Allah enumerates the characteristics of those who will go to Paradise: they pray humbly (v. 2) and faithfully (v. 9); they shun vain talk (v. 3); they’re charitable to the poor (v. 4); they keep their word and their covenants (v. 8); and they’re chaste (v. 5) – except with their wives and slave girls (v. 6). The Tafsir al-Jalalayn explains: “except from their spouses, that is, to their spouses, and what [slaves] their right hands possess, that is, concubines, for then they are not blameworthy, in having sexual intercourse with them.” Maududi asserts that “the fact that the people who have accepted the Message of the Holy Prophet have started acquiring such and such noble qualities of character is a practical proof of the truth of the Message.”

And they did nothing, while the house next door to the convert's was burned down. What kind of protection is Hussein receiving now, if any? British authorities should see the protection of this man and his family as a matter of national identity and national survival. But of course, they do not, and given the enveloping multiculturalist fog, they will not.

"British Muslim 'bullied' for converting to Christianity," by Ruth Gledhill for the Times (thanks to MFM):

A British citizen who converted to Christianity from Islam and then complained to police when locals threatened to burn his house down was told by officers to “stop being a crusader”, according to a new report.

Nissar Hussein, 43, from Bradford, West Yorkshire, who was born and raised in Britain, converted from Islam to Christianity with his wife, Qubra, in 1996. The report says that he was subjected to a number of attacks and, after being told that his house would be burnt down if he did not repent and return to Islam, reported the threat to the police. It says he was told that such threats were rarely carried out and the police officer told him to “stop being a crusader and move to another place”. A few days later the unoccupied house next door was set on fire.

Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a British human rights organisation whose president is the former Cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken, is calling on the UN and the international community to take action against nations and communities that punish apostasy.

Its report, No Place to Call Home, claims that apostates from Islam are subject to “gross and wideranging human rights abuses”. It adds that in countries such as Britain, with large Muslim populations in a Westernised culture, the demand to maintain a Muslim identity is intense. “When identities are precarious, their enforcement will take an aggressive form.”

Remember, this is the group Dhimmi Carter said must be "involved in any final peace agreement." "Hamas disrupts fuel supplies to Gaza," by Khaled Abu Toameh for the Jerusalem Post:

Hamas militiamen in the Gaza Strip on Sunday attacked fuel trucks headed toward the Nahal Oz border crossing, forcing them to turn back, sources in the Palestinian Petroleum Authority said.

The fuel was supposed to go to the UN Relief and Works Agency [UNRWA] and hospitals in the Gaza Strip, the sources said.

"Dozens of Hamas militiamen hurled stones and opened fire at the trucks," the sources added. "The trucks were on their way to receive fuel supplied by Israel. The drivers were forced to turn back. Some of them had their windshields smashed."

The Palestinian Petroleum Authority reached an agreement with Israel over the weekend to receive 250,000 liters of fuel after UNRWA complained that it did not have enough fuel to distribute food aid to more than 500,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The Palestinian Authority Ministry of Health also accused Hamas of blocking fuel supplies to hospitals and clinics in the Gaza Strip. The ministry said Hamas gunmen opened fire at a number of trucks that were trying to transfer fuel to the hospitals and clinics.

Eyewitnesses in Gaza City said that at least on four occasions over the past few weeks, Hamas militiamen confiscated trucks loaded with fuel shortly as they were on their way from Nahal Oz to the city.

They added that the fuel supplies were taken to Hamas-controlled security installations throughout the city. "Hamas is taking the fuel for it the vehicles of is leaders and security forces," the eyewitnesses said. "Because of Hamas's actions, some hospitals have been forced to stop the work of ambulances and generators."

PA officials in Ramallah said Hamas's measures were aimed at creating a crisis in the Gaza Strip with the hope that the international community would intervene and force Israel to reopen the border crossings.

"As far as we know, there is enough fuel reaching the Gaza Strip," the officials said. "But Hamas's measures are aimed at creating a crisis. Hamas is either stealing or blocking most of the fuel supplies."

They pointed out that last week Hamas dispatched hundreds of its supporters to Nahal Oz to block the fuel supplies from Israel. Hamas claimed that the protest was organized by farmers and fishermen who were demanding an end to the blockade on the Gaza Strip.

The officials also noted that the shortage in fuel supplies has created a black market for selling fuel to individuals and institutions at high prices.

UNRWA workers admitted over the weekend that Hamas had prevented some fuel trucks from entering the Gaza Strip.

Hamas has also been exerting pressure on the Gaza Petrol Station Owners Association to close down their businesses so as to aggravate the crisis. Some of the station owners and workers said they were afraid to return to work after receiving death threats from Hamas militiamen and ordinary residents desperate to purchase gas and diesel for their vehicles.

Come on. Take an educated guess. "Egypt charges 5 in Hamas attack plot," from the Associated Press:

Egypt charged two leaders of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood, two Sinai Beduins and a Palestinian with plotting a terrorist attack with Hamas, a security official said Sunday.

Brotherhood leaders Abdel-Hai al-Faramawy, a professor at Cairo's Al-Azhar university, and Mohammed Wahdan were charged with paying the equivalent of US$3,600 (€2,300) to two Beduins to buy 30 jerry cans of fuel, spare parts and a remote control for an unmanned aircraft.

Al-Faramawy denied the charges, while Hamas said the reports were completely false.

The security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, said Hamas was planning to build the unmanned aircraft but Media reports suggest that everyone from US and Israeli interests to rival Palestinian factions were to be hit.

Hamas does not possess any aircraft, but it has in the past attempted to load remote-controlled airplanes with explosives for attacks on Israeli targets. These attempts have never succeeded.

According to the police report, the Palestinian charged was a member of Hamas and was to collect the material purchased by the Beduin using Brotherhood money and use it in the attack.

A study in contrasts: U.S. soldiers continued to salute during the gunfire, which started during the national anthem."Reporter: Soldiers, police flee gunfire at Afghan ceremony," from the Associated Press:

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- The first shot sounded sharply. It was clear something was wrong.

I heard the second crack, and a third, fourth, fifth, and at that point all the journalists were on the ground, ducking from the whizzing bullets. The Taliban were attacking a ceremony led by Karzai.

"Get down! Get down!" people yelled to each other.

Karzai and hundreds of Afghan and foreign dignitaries had been preparing to take their seats across from Kabul's largest mosque. They were marking the 16th anniversary of the fall of the Soviet-backed communist regime in Afghanistan.

The gunfire broke out as a marching band was playing the national anthem.

Two U.S. soldiers who had been saluting in the bleachers near the president pointed to some nearby houses, from where the gunfire appeared to have come. They still put their hands back up to their caps in salute as the anthem ended. ...

I ran toward a 3-meter- (10-foot-) high wall with several other journalists clutching video cameras and tripods. To our surprise, uniformed soldiers and armed police followed us. Uniformed musicians of the marching band also ran away.

Well, no one wants to tackle gunfire armed only with a clarinet. But as for the armed police and regular Afghan soldiers: We can't want a free, stable country for you.

More information from "Karzai escapes deadly Taliban attack," from CNN:

KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Taliban militants opened fire at a military ceremony in the capital Sunday morning. A lawmaker, tribal leader and 10-year-old child were killed, but President Hamid Karzai escaped unhurt, according to an official and a statement from Karzai's office.

The attack also wounded more than 12 people, including a member of parliament, a Health Ministry official said.

The attack occurred at a Mujahedeen Victory Day ceremony, observing the 16th anniversary of Afghanistan mujahedeen fighters' overthrow of President Mohammad Najibullah's Soviet-backed regime.

Small arms fire erupted as a military band played the Afghan national anthem and as soldiers fired a 21-gun salute with artillery rounds.

The people standing did not react for several seconds, but security guards shielded Karzai and whisked him away from the reviewing stand. Other dignitaries quickly scrambled to safety.

Karzai appeared on state-run television fewer than two hours later and called on citizens to remain calm.

The Health Ministry official said lawmaker Fazel Rahman Samkanai died from injuries sustained in the attack. A presidential statement said Nasir Ahmad Latifi, a council head of the Qezelbashan ethnic group, and a 10-year-old child were killed.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mojahed issued a statement, claiming responsibility.

"Six of our Fedayeen martyrs entered to the stadium for the ceremony. They were heavily armed with mortars and machine guns. This was an organized attack. When the national anthem started they started the attack. Three were killed and three have survived," the statement said.

The Taliban also claimed its fighters got within 30 yards of the stand where Karzai and other dignitaries were standing. A diplomatic source said a mortar round landed near the stand.

"He also warned of an explosion of violence in Gaza if Israel rejected the truce."

In other words: Accept our plans to annihilate you more slowly, or we'll get back to trying to do it quickly. "Mashaal: Cease-fire is a 'tactic'," by Khaled Abu Toameh for the Jerusalem Post:

Hamas is still waiting for an official response from Israel to the group's readiness to declare a six-month truce, Hamas leaders said Saturday.

They said the Egyptian authorities, which have been mediating between Israel and Hamas, have yet to come back with an official response to the truce initiative.

In an interview on pan-Arab Al-Jazeera television Mashaal said that Hamas was ready to cooperate but added that "it is a tactic in conducting the struggle. ... It is normal for any resistance that operates in its people's interest ... to sometimes escalate, other times retreat a bit. ... The battle is to be run this way and Hamas is known for that."

He also warned of an explosion of violence in Gaza if Israel rejected the truce.

"Hamas has asked the Egyptians for a document containing Israel's commitment to abide by the truce," Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal told reporters in Qatar. "On the basis of this document, Hamas will decide whether to continue with the truce or reject it."

Mashaal said the truce was Egypt's idea and that Hamas would agree to it only if Israel complied with certain conditions. "Hamas did not initiate the period of calm," he said. "It came from the Egyptians."

According to Mashaal, the cease-fire proposal was presented after Israel's attempt to invade Gaza failed.

He said that "Hamas will accept the Egyptian offer of a period of calm as a strong move and not a weak one."

No, really.

"The passports were sold to a group of Thai and Burmese middlemen who then sold them to gangs engaged in prostitution, terrorism and smuggling, he said."

"Thai police seize more than 1,000 fake passports in raid," from Reuters (thanks to Sr. Soph):

BANGKOK - Thai authorities have seized more than a thousand fake Asian and Western passports and arrested a man in one of the biggest anti-counterfeiting operations in recent years, police said on Sunday.

Mohammed Karim, a 56-year-old from Bangladesh, was nabbed in a Bangkok townhouse late on Saturday where they found a sophisticated passport making operation and more than 1,000 finished and unfinished documents, Police Major-General Chaktip Chaichinda said.

"He admitted that he made fake passports," Chaktip told Reuters, adding that his partner, a Myanmar national, escaped arrest.

The passports were for several countries including the United States, New Zealand, France, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia and Malta. Police seized two computers, a scanner, three printers and rubber stamps for several countries.

"This guy is rich. He has a BMW. He said he made about 300,000-400,000 baht per month (around $10,000)," Chaktip said.

The passports were sold to a group of Thai and Burmese middlemen who then sold them to gangs engaged in prostitution, terrorism and smuggling, he said....

They will, too, once Sharia is in place.

"Hilali tells Christian women to wear veils," by Natalie O'Brien for The Australian (thanks to all who sent this in):

OUTSPOKEN Muslim cleric Taj al-Din al-Hilali says the Bible "mandates" the wearing of the veil by Christian women.

Writing in a new book, Sheik Hilali, who lost his job as mufti of Australia after comparing scantily clad women to uncovered meat, argues that the Bible and the Koran make similar demands of a woman's modesty.

Sheik Hilali, who remains the head of Australia's largest mosque, in the southwestern Sydney suburb of Lakemba, says the purpose of the book is to show the commonalities of Islam with the Jewish and Christian faiths when it comes to women's modesty and clothing.

In the soon to be published The Legitimacy of the Veil for Women of the Scripture - Evidence of the Veil in the Bible, the cleric points to references in the Old and New Testaments to women wearing a veil.

"Through this I hope to raise awareness and understanding and eliminate apprehensions and misunderstandings about the veil," he writes.

No, it won't, except among the terminally multicultural. Why is it that no Christian groups are calling upon women to wear a veil? They just haven't noticed this in the Bible until the Uncovered Meat Man came along to explain it all for them?

America needs you, Mr. Jefferson

Early in the history of the United States, the nation had to take on and defeat jihadist pirates. It is time to do it again.

"Al-Qaeda pirates target UK ships," from The Sun (thanks to Pamela):

BRITAIN’S 18,000 merchant sailors face a growing danger from pirates with links to al-Qaeda.

Attacks worldwide are up 20 per cent this year – and tourists on passenger liners are now feared to be at risk.

One of the most dangerous areas is the 1,800-mile coastline of east African country Somalia – where extremist militias with ties to Osama Bin Laden’s terror network operate unhindered.

A British skipper was seized in the area earlier this year and held hostage for 47 days by pirates demanding a £350,000 ransom.

And only this week the Japanese oil tanker Takayama came under fire from rocket-propelled grenades.

Around the world in the past year, 36 vessels have been boarded, with six crew kidnapped, three killed and one missing, presumed dead.

The modern-day pirates use high-powered motor-boats, grenade launchers and machine-guns.

British seamen’s union Nautilus wants the Government to review its policy on piracy.

Nautilus spokesman Andrew Linington said: “We are talking about sophisticated, organised, violent gangs, who jeopardise the lives of seafarers.

“The number of attacks and the level of violence are increasing.

“Sooner or later, there will be a major incident in the region.”

One notorious gang with terror links calls itself the “Somalia Coastguard”.

Mr Linington said: “Intelligence indicates gangs like the Somalia Coastguard have links to al-Qaeda.

“Unless there is action against these thugs, it amounts to a green light for a terrorist outrage.”

Yes.

From the Islamic Society of North America website:

Through a US State Department grant the Islamic Society of North America and the National Peace Foundation have co-sponsored a citizen exchange project between the United States and the Middle East. This program brings young professionals from the Middle East, specifically from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, to the United States. The goal of this project is to explore Islam, the functions of Islamic institutions in the United States, and the activities of interfaith work. In return American professionals from the three Abrahamic faiths; Christianity, Judaism and Islam, will visit these countries in the Middle East to explore Islam and interfaith work as it is done in the respective countries. This program will run through 2009, with several upcoming exchanges in progress.

From "Islamic Groups Named in Hamas Funding Case," by Josh Gerstein in the New York Sun, June 4, 2007:

Federal prosecutors have named three prominent Islamic organizations in America as participants in an alleged criminal conspiracy to support a Palestinian Arab terrorist group, Hamas.

Prosecutors applied the label of "unindicted co-conspirator" to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society of North America, and the North American Islamic Trust in connection with a trial planned in Texas next month for five officials of a defunct charity, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development.

While the foundation was charged in the case, which was filed in 2004, none of the other groups was. However, the co-conspirator designation could be a blow to the credibility of the national Islamic organizations, which often work hand-in-hand with government officials engaged in outreach to the Muslim community.

Apparently it isn't a blow to ISNA's credibility at all.

Madness.

Pipeline News and Andy McCarthy have more.

"I haven't heard any statement from clergy in the region to say honour killing is wrong."

"Honour killing's Aussie link," by Sian Powell in The Australian (thanks to all who sent this in):

MORTALLY wounded and bleeding profusely, Pela Atroshi covered her head with her hands, pleading "please don't shoot me, please don't shoot me". As her sister and her mother screamed, her uncle Rezkar Atroshi raised his gun and killed her. The family's honour had been cleansed.

Rezkar had already shot Pela twice in the back in the upstairs room. Helped downstairs by her mother and her younger sister, the 19-year-old Kurdish Swede was confronted by four resolute men - her father and his three brothers. The men pulled the women apart. Her youngest uncle then finished the job, shooting Pela in the head. The bullet went through one of her fingers and into her brain.

The decision to kill her was made by a council of male relatives, led by Pela's grandfather, Abdulmajid Atroshi - a Kurd who lived in Australia.

One of his sons, Shivan Atroshi, helped pull the women away from Pela so his younger brother could get a clean shot. Shivan, too, lived in Australia.

It is the first time an officially confirmed honour killing with a connection to Australia has ever publicly come to light, but it is likely there have been other Australian-connected honour crimes that have been kept hidden within the tight-lipped Australian Kurdish community. [...]

In Australia, Muhammad Kamal, a lecturer in philosophy at Melbourne University, remembers Pela's grandfather, Abdulmajid Atroshi - the patriarch.

In the early 1990s, Dr Kamal had been broadcasting a Kurdish program on SBS radio, and Atroshi was behind a campaign to have the program taken off air because he believed it was preaching immorality.

"He was a practising Muslim and a tribal man," Dr Kamal said, adding that religious leaders in Kurdistan never condemned honour crimes because they believed it was an essential bulwark against immorality. "I haven't heard any statement from clergy in the region to say honour killing is wrong," he said....

Keeping hate alive.

"4,000 women rally against anti-Islam film," from Agence France Presse (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):

KARACHI: Thousands of women rallied here Saturday to protest against reprinting of blasphemous cartoons in some 17 Danish newspapers and an anti-Islam Dutch film, witnesses said.

The women shouted "death to Denmark and death to Netherlands," as they marched about a kilometre on a busy street. Police said up to 4,000 women, mostly from the Jamaat-e-Islami, took part in the demonstration, venting anger against the Internet release of a 15-minute film last month by far-right Dutch MP Geert Wilders and publication of the blasphemous sketches. In a resolution, the rally urged the government to cease diplomatic ties with Denmark and the Netherlands and expel their envoys.

"We will defend the honour of our Prophet (Peace be upon him) and our religion at the cost of our lives," the Jamaat-e-Islami said. Pakistan's foreign ministry last month summoned the Dutch ambassador and lodged a "strong protest" over Wilders's film, which it said "deeply offended the sentiments of Muslims all over the world." The cartoons originally appeared in a Danish newspaper in September 2005, sparking anger and protests across the Muslim world. Five people died in Pakistan in February 2006 during violent protests against the drawings.

They didn't just keel over from the heat, mind you. They were innocent people who were murdered during this irrational outpouring of rage.

The hacker spoke about "Jews" and "Muslims," and said that Jerusalem (Al-Quds) belonged to the Muslims. Now why would he frame as a religious conflict something that everyone knows is a nationalist struggle over land?

"'Muslims' hack into Bank of Israel site," from the Jerusalem Post (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):

The Bank of Israel took down its Web site on Friday night after it was sabotaged by hackers, apparently from Algeria.

"Listen to me Jews - you are a nation whose fate has been decreed and sooner or later you will lose the war," read a message posted by the hackers on the bank's home page.

"The victory will come Inshallah, the Chechnya scenario will be repeated and we will kick you out," it continued. "Millions of young Muslims are ready to die for the sake of Al-Quds that belongs to us." (Al-Quds is Jerusalem in Arabic.)

The hacking constitutes a severe security breach, and it marks the first time in some time that an Israeli national information Web site has fallen victim to such a practice.

In addition, the hackers deleted Bank of Israel notices that were posted on the site up to last October. The hacker called himself "The Moorish," apparently in reference to the Islamic conquers of the Middle Ages....

"You are in a Muslim society and women should live under religious laws. The father has very good contacts inside the Basra government and it wasn't hard for him to be released and what he did to be forgotten."

"Girl, 17, killed in Iraq for loving a British soldier," by Sadie Gray in The Independent (thanks to Morgaan Sinclair):

A 17-year-old Iraqi girl was murdered by her father in an honour killing after falling in love with a British soldier she met while working on an aid programme in Basra, it has been claimed.

Rand Abdel-Qader was stamped upon, suffocated and stabbed by her father, then given an unceremonious burial to emphasise her disgrace. Police released her father without charge two hours after his arrest.

"Not much can be done when we have an honour killing case," said Sergeant Ali Jabbar of Basra police. "You are in a Muslim society and women should live under religious laws. The father has very good contacts inside the Basra government and it wasn't hard for him to be released and what he did to be forgotten."

A total of 47 young women died in honour killings in the city last year, Basra Security Committee told an investigation into Ms Abdel-Qader's case by The Observer. This is believed to be the only case of an honour killing involving a British soldier.

The MoD had no official advice for troops on how to behave with Iraqi women. The serviceman involved would not have been told that any relationship with her could put her life at risk, the paper said.

Ms Abdel-Qader, a student of English at Basra University, had struck up a friendship with a 22-year-old British infantryman known only as Paul five months before her murder in March.

She was believed to have last seen him in January, and the pair, whose relationship was innocent, only ever met while working at the aid station. The soldier was helping deliver relief to displaced families as part of his regimental duties. Ms Abdel-Qader was a volunteer worker....

"A U.S. official told The Washington Times on the condition of anonymity that weapons captured in Basra were Iranian-made and had 'recent manufacturing dates' on them."

1938 Alert. "Iranian arms aid 'visible' in Basra," by Sara A. Carter for The Washington Times:

The top U.S. military officer yesterday said Iranian aid to Iraqi insurgents became "very, very visible" during the recent unrest in Basra, in violation of earlier promises to reduce support for terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at a Pentagon press briefing that evidence collected in Iraq shows Iran's dismissive attitude toward U.S. requests to stop supplying weapons and training to terrorists and insurgents in Iraq.

"The Iranian government pledged to halt such activities some months ago. It's plainly obvious they have not. Indeed, they seem to have gone the other way," he said. "In these last couple years, you know, that tensions continue to rise, Iran does not respond, and in fact they seem to be ratcheting it up in terms of their support for terrorism."

The admiral said the fighting in Iraq's southern oil hub disclosed that Iran had a significant "level of involvement" in the insurgency.

"It became very, very visible in ways that we hadn't seen before," he said.

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq who was nominated this week to head Central Command and oversee the entire Middle East, is expected to give testimony in the upcoming weeks, at which he will reveal that Iran has not kept its word and continues to supply weapons to insurgent forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"In that regard, certainly there is an increasing amount of evidence that in fact [Iran] is going in the other direction," Adm. Mullen said.

A U.S. official told The Washington Times on the condition of anonymity that weapons captured in Basra were Iranian-made and had "recent manufacturing dates" on them.

The official also said it is "very well-known that Iran has direct ties to a number of groups operating in Basra" and noted that Iran's Shi'ite-led government has an obvious interest in seeing a Shi'ite-led government in Baghdad.

Forces led by anti-American cleric Sheik Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army fought Iraqi forces for days in Basra last month. There are an estimated 60,000 fighters in the Madhi Army, with at least 5,000 thought to be highly trained commandos. The group is said to be gaining strength after its strong fight in Basra and in Sadr City, a mainly Shi'ite neighborhood in Baghdad. The sheik himself is widely thought to be in Iran.

Adm. Mullen said that Iran's Revolutionary Guard, or Quds Forces, and the Iranian government present an "increasingly lethal and malign influence," about which he is "extremely concerned." Iran's Quds Forces were established in the 1980s and, contrary to Iran's long-standing claims that it is a volunteer force outside its control, actually reports directly to Iran's top leadership.

He also alluded to Iraqi Shi'ite militias receiving training across the border in Iran.

He said that while U.S. military officials don't have a "smoking gun" to prove Tehran's top leaders are involved, it's hardly likely that "there isn't knowledge there as well."

Adm. Mullen said that Iran continues "to train Iraqis in Iran to come back and fight Americans and the coalition" and that Iran continues "to broadly support terrorists in other parts of the region, whether it's Hezbollah or Hamas, and in fact, we're seeing some evidence that they're supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan."

The other night on his CNN TV show Glenn Beck had this exchange with the novelist Joel Rosenberg about the Hamas offer of a ten-year truce:

BECK: Nowhere. All right. Yesterday we talked a little bit about Jimmy Carter and, you know, his fun games with Hamas. And we ran out of time. And I want to come back to this, because you see it as significant in end-times prophecy. How?

ROSENBERG: I do potentially and this is why. Because Hamas -- what Carter came home with was a declaration from the Hamas leader, Khaled Meshaal, to say that Hamas, the terrorist organization, would consider a 10-year peace treaty, or a hudna. A truce, as it were, with Israel.

Why is that significant? Because in the Bible, Daniel, Chapter 9, it talks about a seven-year comprehensive peace deal between Israel and the many nations and enemies that surround it. Seven years.

Now, up until now, in the modern Arab-Israeli peace process, in the last 60 years, nobody has ever suggested a time frame for a comprehensive deal. You didn`t see that in the Camp David Accords in 1979. You didn`t see it in the peace treaty with Jordan in 1994. You didn`t see it in the Oslo Accords, this idea of a time-limited comprehensive treaty.

But now Hamas, with Jimmy Carter`s help, has just injected a ten-year time-limited treaty. And this is -- I don`t believe Hamas. I don`t believe they really want peace. But that`s not the point. The point is, this is the first time in the Arab-Israeli peace process where someone has said, "Let`s do a deal but for a limited period of time." In this case, only three years off the one the Bible said.

In the first place, it isn't true that "up until now, in the modern Arab-Israeli peace process, in the last 60 years, nobody has ever suggested a time frame for a comprehensive deal." In fact, this isn't even the first time Hamas has done it. We reported here at Jihad Watch on January 27, 2004 that Hamas offered Israel a 10-year truce at that time, in exchange for full withdrawal from West Bank and Gaza Strip.

And why the ten-year time limit? Not because they're getting close to fulfilling Biblical prophecy, but because that is the period stipulated for a truce in Islamic law. One manual of Muslim jurisprudence teaches that "if Muslims are weak, a truce may be made for ten years if necessary, for the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) made a truce with the Quraysh for that long, as is related by Abu Dawud" ('Umdat as-Salik, o9.16).

Note that this can only be done if "Muslims are weak." The same legal manual also quotes this verse of the Qur'an: "So do not be fainthearted and call for peace, when it is you who are the uppermost" (Sura 47:35). So it isn't likely that Hamas would be calling for a truce at all if it felt that it was in a position of strength. "Interests that justify making a truce are such things as Muslim weakness because of lack of numbers or materiel, or the hope of an enemy becoming Muslim . . ." ('Umdat as-Salik, o9.16).

The bottom line: Hamas is feeling the heat and wants a truce in order to regroup and emerge in a stronger position.

And how much simpler and clearer analysis of what they are doing would be if anyone had the guts to look at the content of the Islamic teachings that Hamas follows.

Free Speech Death Watch Update: "Senate condemns blasphemous cartoons, anti-Islam film," by Iftikhar A. Khan for Dawn (thanks to Twostellas):

ISLAMABAD, April 25: The Senate on Friday unanimously adopted a resolution condemning the publication of blasphemous cartoons in some European countries and the release of an anti-Islam documentary by a Dutch parliamentarian. It urged the United Nations to put an end to activities against Islam and ensure respect for all religions.

The resolution said that the sacrilegious acts had hurt the sentiments of Muslims and violated international laws, including the UN Charter, and also laws of the countries where the sacrilege had been committed.

The resolution said such sacrilegious acts had harmed the efforts of the Dutch and Danish governments to build bridges between religions and civilisations.

The resolution urged the UN to take “all necessary legal, political and administrative steps to curb this trend”....

The European essayist Fjordman, whose work we have featured many times here, contributes this new Jihad Watch exclusive essay exploring more of the differences between Western and Islamic culture:

First of all I'd like to encourage people to republish the essay The Funny Side of Islam: Muhammad and the Hadith, which I have published at the Gates of Vienna blog. As for this topic, I will start with quoting a book called Eccentric Culture: A Theory of Western Civilization by the French writer Rémi Brague.

According to Brague, Muslims did translate many Greek, Sanskrit and pre-Islamic Persian scientific works. However, one crucial difference between Muslims and Christian Europeans was that Muslims usually didn't preserve the original texts afterwards, since these were now seen as unnecessary. Here is how Ibn Khaldun explains this mentality in his Muqaddimah:

"(The Muslims) desired to learn the sciences of the (foreign) nations. They made them their own through translations. They pressed them into the mold of their own views. They peeled off these strange tongues [and made them pass] into their [own] idiom, and surpassed the achievements of (the non-Arabs) in them. The manuscripts in the non-Arabic languages were forgotten, abandoned, and scattered. All the sciences came to exist in Arabic. The systematic works on them were written in (Arabic) writing. Thus, students of the sciences needed a knowledge of the meaning of (Arabic) words and (Arabic) writing. They could dispense with all other languages, because they had been wiped out and there was no longer any interest in them."

As Brague says, the consequence of this disappearance of the original texts and the neglect of the original languages was that the Muslim world has not been able to return to what it translated and deepen their examination. "In doing this, the Islamized world made the phenomena of 'renaissances' impossible – that is, of a return to the original texts against the traditions that claimed to follow them." In European history, "one witnesses a constant effort to go back up toward the classical sources. One can thus describe the intellectual history of Europe as an almost uninterrupted train of renaissances."

Another crucial difference was that the Islamic world, in sharp contrast to Europe, hardly dreamed of using its knowledge of the foreign as an instrument that would permit it to understand itself better and more critically. According to Rémi Brague:

"It may be that its geographers made a eulogy of India and of China in order to address a discreet critique of the Islamic civilization of their time, often compensated in the last instance by an affirmation of the religious superiority of the latter. The examples that one could find of such a vision 'reflected' in the mirror are exceptional and come from marginal or heretical thinkers. Thus, the contact with the Brahmin Hindu thinkers whose religion does quite well without prophecy (which the Islamic religion declares on the contrary necessary to the happiness of man and to a good social order) posed a problem for the Muslim thinkers; the real or fictitious dialogue with the Brahmins was able to serve to mask a critique of the Islamic religion in a free thinker like Ibn al-Rawandi. The only incontestable exception is without doubt the astonishing work of Al-Biruni on India. This universal scholar (973-1048), astronomer, geographer, historian, mineralogist, pharmacologist etc., had taken the trouble to learn enough Sanskrit to be able to translate in both directions between this language and Arabic (for him also a learned language). He presented a tableau of Hindu society and beliefs with perfect impartiality."

John Keay in his book India: A History states that al-Biruni (Alberuni) owed much of his scientific celebrity in the Arab world to his mastery of Sanskrit and access to Indian scholarship. He also notes that in India, Muslims were initially viewed as just another group of foreigners, sometimes annoying, but essentially marginal: "There is no evidence of an Indian appreciation of the global threat which they represented; and the peculiar nature of their mission – to impose a new monotheist orthodoxy by military conquest and political dominion – was so alien to Indian tradition that it went uncomprehended."

Parts of northern India had been invaded by outsiders before, but Muslims represented a very different breed of conquerors. Keay again:

"Unlike Alexander's Greeks, Muslim invaders were well aware of India's immensity, and mightily excited by its resources. As well as exotic produce like spices, peacocks, pearls, diamonds, ivory and ebony, the 'Hindu country' was renowned for its skilled manufactures and its bustling commerce. India's economy was probably one of the most sophisticated in the world. Guilds regulated production and provided credit; the roads were safe, ports and markets carefully supervised, and tariffs low. Moreover capital was both plentiful and conspicuous. Since at least Roman times the subcontinent seems to have enjoyed a favourable balance of payments. Gold and silver had been accumulating long before the 'golden Guptas,' and they continued to do so. Figures in the Mamallapuram sculptures and the Ajanta frescoes are as strung about with jewellery as those in the Sanchi and Amaravati reliefs. Divine images of solid gold are well attested and royal temples were rapidly becoming royal treasuries as successful dynasts endowed them with the fruits of their conquests. The devout Muslim, although
ostensibly bent on converting the infidel, would find his zeal handsomely rewarded."

In his book Technology in World Civilization: A Thousand-Year History, Arnold Pacey writes that after Baghdad fell to the Mongols in 1258, Delhi became a haven for many Middle Eastern scholars who took refuge there and taught Greek mathematics. According to Irfan Habib, a historian of Indian technology, new techniques spread into the region, including the magnetic compass, which was probably used on Indian ships at this time. Centres for paper-making also developed, but it should be remembered that these inventions were Chinese.

Paper-like fabrics, some made from mulberry bark, were used for clothing and as wrapping material in East Asia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific islands (which were settled by people from Southeast Asia), and in this form paper may have originated as early as 200 BC in China. When it comes to paper used for writing, it definitely existed in China at about AD 100, and was used in Tibet by AD 650 and introduced into the Indian subcontinent by Buddhists at around AD 670, possibly imported from Tibet. However, apparently paper never did come into widespread use there before the Islamic conquests and the Delhi Sultanate. According to Arnold Pacey:

"Indian documents written on paper survive from before this time, but the number is much greater from the thirteenth century onwards. While Islamic domination of North India may have had these positive aspects, the initial conquest by Turkish–speaking armies in the 1190s did great damage to Indian learning, both technical and general. The conquest was particularly destructive in Bihar and Bengal, where Buddhist monasteries were sacked and many monks were killed. One consequence was the virtual elimination of Buddhism in the region, which is where it had originated seventeen centuries earlier. In 1194, the great centre of Indian learning at Benares was attacked, and numerous monuments as well as books, records and probably an astronomical observatory were destroyed. The scale of this vandalism was probably a
lasting setback for Indian science, and astronomy was not again seriously studied until the fifteenth century. The last celebrated Indian astronomer for a long time was Bhaskara, who was working in the 1150s, and whose writing had some influence in the West."

The knowledge of paper-making also spread west via the Middle East and North Africa and eventually reached the madrasas of Morocco. A paper mill was operating in southern Spain by 1151. Pacey again:

"Paper-making also came to Europe via Spain at this time. The paper was made from the same vegetable fibres as linen cloth, (and usually from linen rags), which first had to be pounded in water until a pulp was formed. The process had been invented in China long before, where it replaced an even older method of making paper-like material from mulberry bark. Knowledge of the technique entered the Islamic world in AD 751 after a battle in Central Asia between Chinese forces and an Arab-led army. Chinese prisoners-of-war skilled in paper-making set up a workshop in Samarqand, and from there other workmen went to Baghdad.

However, paper made by the Chinese method for scribes to write on with brushes was not so good for people who used pens. Thus paper-makers supplying the Baghdad market began sizing their product with starch to achieve a parchment-like surface. The manufacture of paper meant that books became more widely available."

According to Irving Fang in A History of Mass Communication, "If paper made printing effective, it was printing that introduced paper to most Europeans. Ultimately, the printing press won the day for paper. Parchment was too expensive for mass production. It was also not porous enough to absorb printing ink very well."

Paper was thus necessary for the invention of Gutenberg's printing press in Europe. Although it is probably historically accurate to say that Muslims helped spread the use of paper in Europe and India, it is highly doubtful whether this makes up for the lasting destruction they brought to the lands they conquered. It is also likely that this Chinese invention would eventually have been adopted anyway, and it should be mentioned that Islam slowed down the adoption of printing for more than a thousand years after it was initially invented in China, despite the fact that Persians and Arabs were in regular
contact with East Asia through trade.

I would personally rank paper as one of China's greatest gifts to mankind. When the Chinese created the Great Wall of China, they spent enormous financial resources on something that was, in the end, not very effective. When the Chinese created paper and later the printing of books, they changed the course of human history.

What has he been preaching to those among whom he is "popular"? What effect has that preaching had on those people? What are they doing? Does anyone know? Does anyone care?

"Muslim cleric fighting deportation linked to terror group," from AP (thanks to Marked Manner):

NEWARK (AP) -- When he faces an immigration judge in two weeks, a popular Muslim cleric fighting deportation may have to counter claims that he confessed to being a member of a terrorist group.

According to Israeli military authorities, Imam Mohammad Qatanani admitted being a member of the militant Hamas organization during interrogation in 1993 in Israel.

"Imam Mohammed Katanani was convicted based on his own admission on charges of belonging to an unauthorized association and providing services to an unauthorized association, for being a member of Hamas and acting on its behalf," the Israeli army said in a statement faxed to The Associated Press.

The U.S. State Department includes Hamas on its list of "designated foreign terrorist organizations." Anyone identified as a member or a supporter of an organization on the list can be refused entry to the U.S., according to Lucille Cirillo, spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Border Patrol....

What about Hamas supporters who are already here?

Jimmy Carter has exhibited, and did exhibit at Camp David, an antipathy to Israel, a cruel indifference to the past that every Jewish Israeli carries around within him. These were dead giveaways of the classic antisemite. Yet some are now horrified by his meeting with Hamas, as if all this were something new.

Carter has not changed. He is just freer now, or thinks himself freer, to be more openly vicious. Anyone who failed to recognize that in 1979, or 1989, or 1999, should bethink himself.

"I think this is just criminality, fair and square. We should just call them criminals. You want to call them terrorist criminals, fine," he said. "But adding the word 'Muslim' or 'Islamic' certainly doesn't help our cause as Americans. It's counterproductive. It paints an entire community of believers, 1.2 billion in total, in a very negative way. And certainly that's not something that we want to do." -- from this article

Criminality is the work of individuals, who break the law because they feel like it. It is prompted not by ideology, but rather by what has prompted criminal activity since the beginning of time.

Terrorism by Muslims is quite different. It can be the act of a collective, of Muslims acting in concert, and supported financially and morally by other Muslims who may prefer to participate in violent Jihad indirectly -- the better, for example, to participate in other, non-violent, but just as dangerous and possibly more effective methods of Jihad to remove all obstacles to the spread, and dominance, of Islam. Where an individual Muslim may be acting, he is doing so not on his own behalf, not to enrich himself, but to further what he has learned -- and learned from the texts, not mistranslated and not misunderstood, of Islam itself: Quran, Hadith, and Sira.

"A prominent cleric, Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawy, said modern science had at last provided evidence that Mecca was the true centre of the Earth; proof, he said, of the greatness of the Muslim "qibla" - the Arabic word for the direction Muslims turn to when they pray....The meeting in Qatar is part of a popular trend in some Muslim societies of seeking to find Koranic precedents for modern science." -- from this article

Mecca is the center of the universe because it is the most important city on earth, because that is where Muhammad got his revelatory start, and -- there is no Muslim Galileo, just as there is no Muslim William Wilberforce or Muslim Mozart or Muslim Leonardo or Muslim Shakespeare -- the earth is the center of the universe.

It's the hometown of Muhammad, uswa hasana, al-insan al-kamil. It's where the uncreated and immutable text of Islam first began to be revealed to Muhammad, Mecca's most famous native son. It's the cynosure of all Muslim eyes, the center of all Muslim hopes and dreams. Now that the more than ten trillion dollars Muslim members of OPEC have received since 1973 alone, or a hundred billion of it at least, has been deployed as the Money Weapon, and now that millions of Muslims have been permitted to settle deep behind what they have taught to regard as enemy lines, within the countries of Western Europe, Muslims are busy making demands, putting pressure, and even uttering such outlandish nonsense as this, for one reason: because they feel strong enough to do so -- that is, because they can.

A Jihad Watch poster recently asked incredulously, “There's a mosque in The Hague?"

Yes, there is a mosque in The Hague. And all over Rotterdam, and Amsterdam, and in Paris and Marseilles and Lyons and Toulouse, in London and Manchester and Birmingham and Leeds, in Rome and in Milan, in Berlin and Hamburg and Frankfurt, and in thousands of other cities and even small towns all over Europe. The Saudis and other rich Arabs fund them, just as they pay for the land, and the construction, and the maintenance, of mosques all over this country, from Boston to sunny California. Most of the mosques in the Western world are not paid for by the locals, but by very rich foreign Muslims -- governments, institutions, individuals.

After all, not all of that ten trillion dollars in oil revenues that Muslim states have received since 1973 alone goes for arms purchases, and palaces for the boys, and wages for those millions of non-Muslim wage-slaves who keep Saudi Arabia and the smaller sheikdoms going, and gambling in London and Monte Carlo, and call girls (the Arabs especially contemptuous of the West for allowing "their women" to be bought and used in such a way, by their sworn enemies, the Arab Muslims), and endless shopping in the funfair-cum-brothel of Europe.

The U.N. official "called on religious, political, military and community leaders to send one clear message to Iraqi children: 'Stay out of violence and go back to school'." But another question comes to mind: Where are the parents, and what are they doing to encourage or hinder their children from following this path?

"Iraqi children recruited for suicide attacks: UN," from Agence France Presse:

AMMAN - Iraqi children are being recruited as suicide bombers by various militias and insurgent groups, a UN official said on Friday after a fact-finding visit to the country.

"Since 2004, an increasing number of children have been recruited into various militias and insurgent groups, including as suicide bombers," Radhika Coomaraswamy told a news conference in the Jordanian capital.

"It is an intolerable situation," said Coomaraswamy, special representative of the secretary general for children and armed conflict.

Winding up a week-long visit to Iraq, she said children there are the silent victims of the ongoing violence in the country, with approximately 1,500 "known to be held in detention facilities."

"Many of them no longer go to school, many are recruited for violent activities or detained in custody, they lack access to the most basic services and manifest a wide range of psychological symptoms from the violence in their everyday lives"

She said only 50 percent of primary school children are attending school, down from 80 percent in 2005. Only 40 percent have access to clean drinking water and there is a continuing possibility of outbreaks of cholera.

She called on religious, political, military and community leaders to send one clear message to Iraqi children: "Stay out of violence and go back to school."

Coomaraswamy strongly urged all parties to the conflict in Iraq "to strictly adhere to international humanitarian standards for the protection of children and to immediately release any children under the age of 18 years who are associated with their forces in any way".

Myra Morton Update. From the Associated Press:

NORRISTOWN, Penn. — A Muslim woman pleaded guilty Friday to third-degree murder for killing her bigamist husband in August, hours before he was to leave for Morocco to visit his new, second wife.

Myra Morton, 48, was upset about the marriage and her husband's plans to have children with the younger woman, authorities say. She admitted shooting her husband Jereleigh Morton, 47, twice in the head while he slept, and initially blamed an intruder.

She faces from five to 20 years in prison when she is sentenced, defense lawyer Brian McMonagle said.

"I don't think there's any question in anybody's mind that the act was intentional," McMonagle said. "We have always maintained that it was based on a lot of passion, and it was caused by the emotional turmoil that she was going through."

The Mortons converted to Islam about 20 years ago. Jereleigh Morton met his second wife, 37-year-old Zahra Toural, last year on the Internet, prosecutors said. Myra Morton traveled to Morocco to meet Toural and bless the marriage, but police say she grew to resent the arrangement.

And prior to converting, Morton surely heard how "Islam elevates women."

Dudley, we hardly knew ye

How did he get a visa? Have steps been taken to ensure that this kind of thing doesn't happen again? What do you think?

"Man linked to al-Qaeda able to get Canadian visa," from the CBC (thanks to Cindy):

CALGARY (CBC) - A man suspected of having links to al-Qaeda managed to secure a visa to live in Canada and was later arrested at Toronto's Pearson International Airport, CBC's French-language service Radio-Canada reported Thursday evening.

The man, who is of Pakistani descent, obtained a visa to temporarily reside in Canada from the High Commissioner in London, according to a secret document sent to federal Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day from Canada Border Services last July.

The note, obtained by Radio-Canada, does not reveal the identity of the man but says he is implicated in al-Qaeda's mass destruction weapons program.

CBSA agents arrested the man on July 12, 2007, when he arrived in Toronto from Newcastle, England. While verifying his passport, they determined he had been flagged by Canadian authorities.

Customs agents interrogated the man. He then requested to be returned to England while renouncing his visa, but the pilot wouldn't let him on the plane.

He spent one night in a Toronto detention centre before being deported back to England.

British authorities were alerted about his return, but it's unclear where he is now.

Even better!

1938 Alert. "Navy-Contracted Vessel Fires Warning Shots on Fast Boats in Persian Gulf," from FOXNews :

A vessel contracted by the Navy in the Persian Gulf fired warning shots Thursday on two fast boats believed to be of Iranian origin.

In a story first reported by FOX News, Navy officials said the Westward Venture fired upon two boats about 50 miles off the coast of Iran.

U.S. Navy Fifth Fleet spokeswoman Cmdr. Lydia Robertson said the boats were of unknown origin, but other Navy officials told FOX News that the markings of the boats and their behavior led them to believe they were Iranian and typical of those used by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

The Iranian Navy countered those claims Friday, saying on Iranian television station Al-Alam that they didn't have a confrontation with a U.S. ship and that the Westward Venture may have fired on a non-Iranian vessel, Reuters reported...

Given the number that deserted in earlier clashes between Iraqi government forces and Sadr's jihadists, there are all too likely some who will try to carry out this order. And this is Sadr trying to show his "peaceful" side. "Al-Sadr threatens 'open war' on 'occupiers,' not Iraq," from CNN:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr threatened "open war," against the American "occupiers" and not the Iraqi government, according to a letter read by a top aide during Friday prayers.

"When we threatened to declare an open war until the liberation, we meant war against the occupier," al-Sadr said in his letter. "There is no war between us and our Iraqi brothers -- no matter what their nationality, race or sect. The blood of Iraqis are forbidden on you."

He encouraged not only his Mehdi Army militia to fight U.S. troops, but also every Iraqi, including the nation's security forces which are in league with U.S. troops.

"I direct my speech to all government security forces and others, and all the religious and political forces, if this open war is between us and the occupier, you should not interfere in the favor of the occupier," the letter said. "We want to liberate you and your lands from the occupiers, so our government would be a full sovereign government."

On Saturday, al-Sadr issued what he called a "last warning" and told his followers in Sadr City to fight the "occupier" there.

Despite the threat, al-Sadr has a freeze on Mehdi Army military activities, said Saleh al-Ageili, a spokesman for Sadr's parliamentary bloc. Al-Sadr said earlier this month that if he called off the freeze, he would issue a separate statement, al-Ageili said.

Al-Sadr praised members of his Mehdi Army for obeying the freeze in his letter Friday.

"The enemy is waiting for the chance to attack you," al-Sadr said. "Damn the occupier and his work, which raised the hand of violence and death against your children, women, elders and your scholars."

He continued, "And you -- still patient -- you showed the clear, white face of al-Sadr and his family, and you have been the people of peace, the people of Islam."

"People of peace" just happens to be catchier than "people of a freeze in hostilities which I can call off at any moment."

Al-Sadr said he would not accept the long-term agreement which the U.S. and Iraqi governments are crafting to replace the current U.N. mandate for multi-national forces in Iraq. The U.N. mandate expires in December.

"There should be no long-term security agreement between the government and occupier, no matter how hard they fight us and no matter how much of our blood is spilled," he said. "We will not accept to divide Iraq and to steal its wealth."

Courtroom Jihad: he is tying up time, personnel, and resources by continuing to appeal this sentence. He got fifteen years the first time, now he has gotten fifteen years again, and probably he will get fifteen years the next time also. But the kuffar system will be that much more overburdened. "Man gets same prison term for role in 'jihad network,'" from the Associated Press (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):

...Ali Asad Chandia is one of a dozen men convicted in a network the government said used paintball games to train for holy war around the globe.

A federal appeals court earlier this year ordered a new sentencing hearing for Chandia, saying the judge needed to explain why he applied a so-called terrorism enhancement that more than doubled Chandia's prison time.

At a sentencing hearing Friday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Judge Claude Hilton explained that the enhancement was appropriate because Chandia was aware of the violent actions of the group he was helping.

Chandia's lawyer said he will again appeal Hilton's sentence.

“Wherever you see a man who gives someone else's corruption, someone else's prejudice as a reason for not taking action himself, you see a cog in The Machine that governs us.” -- John Jay Chapman

Thus far the conservative writer Dinesh D'Souza, who claims that American liberals provoked the 9/11 attacks by exporting decadent American pop culture into the Islamic world, has cited only one authority of Islam to buttress his peculiar and fact-free claims about the nature and magnitude of Islamic jihadism and Islamic supremacism: Bernard Lewis.

But now at last D'Souza is no longer an homo unius libri! In "What Muslims Really Think," he has found another authority who tells him what he wants to hear: the Saudi-funded dhimmi academic John Esposito, whom D'Souza says is "one of the most respected American authorities on Islam."

Does he know that his new hero Esposito has called his old hero, Lewis, "one of the Darth Vaders of the world"? Probably not.

Does he know that Esposito has spoken at a Council on American-Islamic Relations fundraiser in order to "show solidarity not only with the Holy Land Fund [that is, the Holy Land Foundation], but also with CAIR"? Does he know that the Holy Land Foundation is accused of funneling money to the jihad terror group Hamas, and that CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in the case? Unlikely.

Does D'Souza know that Esposito has said of a man who is in prison for aiding the jihad terror group Palestinian Islamic Jihad that "Sami Al-Arian's a very good friend of mine"? I doubt it.

Does D'Souza know that Esposito has co-edited a book with Azzam Tamimi? Palestinian political scientist Muhammad Muslih calls Tamimi "a Hamas member." Tamimi has said: "I admire the Taliban; they are courageous." About 9/11, he has said: "In the Arab and Muslim countries, everyone jumped for joy." He has said: "I support Hamas." I would be surprised if D'Souza knew any of this.

To be sure, Dinesh says he hasn't gotten too far into Esposito's book -- and before he does, he might be well advised to study this evisceration of it by Martin Kramer:

Professor John L. Esposito runs a slick operation at Georgetown with $20 million of funding from Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. The shared agenda of these two is to make us all feel guilty for having wondered, after 9/11, about Saudis, Muslims, and the contemporary teaching of Islam. Esposito now has a new book (with co-author Dalia Mogahed, who runs something called the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies), bearing the pretentious title Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think. It's based on gleanings from the Gallup World Poll.

The core argument of the book is that only 7% of Muslims are "politically radicalized," and that "about 9 in 10 Muslims are moderate." On what does this factoid rest? The authors explain (pp. 69-70):

According to the Gallup Poll, 7% of respondents think that the 9/11 attacks were "completely" justified and view the United States unfavorably.... the 7%, whom we'll call "the politically radicalized" because of their radical political orientation... are a potential source for recruitment or support for terrorist groups.

So an essential precondition for being "politically radicalized" is to believe that 9/11 was "completely" justified. The pool of support is only 7%. Don't you feel relieved?

Yet a year and a half ago, Esposito and Mogahed used a different definition of "radical," in interpreting respondents' answers to Gallup's 9/11 question. In November 2006, they gave this definition:

Respondents who said 9/11 was unjustified (1 or 2 on a 5-point scale, where 1 is totally unjustified and 5 is completely justified) are classified as moderates. Respondents who said 9/11 was justified (4 or 5 on the same scale) are classified as radicals.

Wait a minute.... In 2006, then, these same authors defined "radicals" not only as Muslims who thought 9/11 was "completely justified" (5 on their scale), but those who thought it was largely justified (4 on their scale).

So for their new book, they've drastically narrowed their own definition of "radical," to get to that 7% figure. And they've also spread the impression in the media that the other 93% are "moderates." In 2006, their "moderates" included only Muslims who thought 9/11 was "totally" or largely unjustified (who answered 1 or 2 on a 5-point scale, where 1 is "totally unjustified"). But what about Muslims who answered with 3 or 4? Well, they weren't "moderates" by 2006 standards. The 3's were neither "moderates" nor "radicals," and the 4's were "radicals." But this year, they've all been upgraded to "moderate" class, because they didn't "completely justify" 9/11. Whether they largely justified it, or half-justified it, they're all "moderates" now.

I feel better already! Read it all.

"The true enemies of Islam are the crusading Pope that Allah curses and the head of the crusading campaign, Bush."

Projection Alert: "Terrorism: Al-Qaeda attacks US and Pope in new video," from AKI :

Dubai, 25 April (AKI - By Hamza Boccolini ) - Al-Qaeda has released a new video attacking the US and Israel, as well as a photo display including an image ridiculing Pope Benedict XVI.

Both have been released on Islamic forums on the internet in response to the controversial short film Fitna produced by right-wing Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders .

The ten-minute video attacks the US and Israel and presents an historical review of what it claims their armies have done in the past 40 years.

The video opens with a platoon of American soldiers with a cross on one side with the inscription, 'Jesus camp', followed by a star of David and images of conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians.

In the background, a voice in Arabic, says "Israel wants to destroy us."

The film includes images of Napalm bomb attacks conducted by the US in Vietnam and video images of dead babies said to have been filmed by Iraqi al-Qaeda cells.

The video's main argument is that the wars conducted by the US and Israel in the Middle East signal the return of a new anti-Islamic crusade.

Apart from the al-Qaeda video, there are images and photos. The first shows a star of David with a cross and a white dove and an inscription that reads: "Christians and Jews are terrorists and their presence is proof of it."

"The true enemies of Islam are the crusading Pope that Allah curses and the head of the crusading campaign, Bush," reads one caption over photo....

"I want to find someone on the earth so intelligent that he welcomes opinions which he condemns." -- John Jay Chapman

Imam Fawaz Jneid says he won't debate him until he withdraws the film and apologizes -- in other words, "I won't debate you until you admit you're wrong about what we'd be debating," which is a neat trick if you get your opponent to agree. Wilders, however, shows no sign of being willing to play the dhimmi.

Anyway, this is no surprise. After all, Muslim spokesmen regularly claim that I'm wrong, and impugn my decency as a human being in all kinds of ways -- but they won't debate me to prove their point. I've had numerous illuminating exchanges in this regard: with the execrable Nadir Ahmed; CAIR's Ahmed Bedier (no, of course he never answered my questions); Islamic apologist Jamal Badawi (he didn't either); Islamic scholar Akbar Ahmed; academic propagandists Carl Ernst and Omid Safi; and many others. The pattern is consistent: instead of debating the substantive points, they hurl abuse and refuse to discuss matters further.

"Dutch Muslims reject debate with Islam critic Wilders," from DPA (thanks to Twostellas):

Amsterdam - Attempts by Dutch legislator Geert Wilders to engage in public debate with Muslims about his controversial film Fitna have so far not been successful, reports said Friday. Dutch media reported that Imam Fawaz Jneid from the As-Sunnah- mosque in The Hague demands that Wilders first remove his film from the internet and apologizes to all Muslims. Only if these conditions are met would Jneid consider a public debate with Wilders, the leader of the Dutch Freedom Party (PVV).

Mahmoud el Shershaby, from the El Tawheed mosque in Amsterdam said he is not interested debating with the Dutch politician, while Ahmed Salam from Tilburg has not responded to Geert Wilders' invitation to engage in a public debate with him.

Earlier this week a group of imams from the town of Gouda, east of The Hague, openly rejected Wilders' invitation to engage with him in a public debate.

On Friday May 16, the PVV leader starts his tour of public debates with Muslims in Gouda.

Wilders wants to meet common Muslims and imams to engage in public debates with them about what he sees as the problems of contemporary Islam....

The author of the book Alms for Jihad, about who is funding the jihadist movement, a book banned by its dhimmi publisher under Saudi pressure, has passed away.

"Robert O. Collins, 75; UC scholar's Bin Laden book was withdrawn by publisher," by Jocelyn Y. Stewart for the Los Angeles Times (thanks to Twostellas):

In a career devoted to the study of Africa's Upper Nile Valley, particularly Sudan, historian Robert O. Collins wrote books and articles that were considered required reading for scholars and students of Africa.

The U.S. government sought his insight on the conflict in Darfur and on Osama bin Laden. Hollywood filmmakers asked his advice in depicting the region on screen. A former president of Sudan presented Collins with a distinguished award for scholarship.

But when Collins and a colleague wrote the 2006 book "Alms for Jihad: Charity and Terrorism in the Islamic World," the two historians found themselves in the middle of what the New York Times called an international cause celebre.

To avoid a defamation lawsuit in British courts -- where the burden of proof is on the defendant -- the publisher of "Alms" apologized to a wealthy Saudi mentioned in the book, Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz, and paid a settlement. The publisher, Cambridge University Press, also destroyed all unsold copies of "Alms," an act of pure heresy to Collins and other scholars.

Until his death from cancer in Santa Barbara on April 11, the 75-year-old Collins maintained that he and J. Millard Burr had written a good book that deserved to exist.

"The Shaykh can burn the books in Britain, but he cannot prevent the recovery of the copyright by the authors nor their search for a U.S. publisher to reprint a new edition of 'Alms for Jihad,' " Collins said in an essay posted online at George Mason University's History News Network....

I am sorry that he did not live to see his struggle through to victory. That victory is now up to us.

May his memory be eternal.

"People who love soft methods and hate iniquity forget this, that reform consists in taking a bone from a dog. Philosophy will not do it." -- John Jay Chapman

(Thanks to Morgaan Sinclair.)

Representative Sue Myrick's plan to counter the jihad in the U.S. was unveiled six days ago. It should be being discussed on all national news and news feature shows, and Congress should be taking it up. Is that happening?

1. Investigate all military chaplains endorsed by Abdurahman Alamoudi, who was imprisoned for funding a terrorist organization.

2. Investigate all prison chaplains endorsed by Alamoudi.

3. Investigate the selection process of Arabic translators working for the Pentagon and the FBI.

4. Examine the non-profit status of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

5. Make it an act of sedition or solicitation of treason to preach or publish materials that call for the deaths of Americans.

6. Audit sovereign wealth funds in the United States.

7. Cancel scholarship student visa program with Saudi Arabia until they reform their text books, which she claims preach hatred and violence against non-Muslims.

8. Restrict religious visas for imams who come from countries that don't allow reciprocal visits by non-Muslim clergy.

9. Cancel contracts to train Saudi police and security in U.S. counterterrorism tactics.

10. Block the sale of sensitive military munitions to Saudi Arabia.

More needs to be done also. A few suggestions from the last chapter of my 2005 book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades):

• Tie foreign aid to the treatment of non-Muslims.

• Reconfigure our global alliances on the same basis. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the other exporters of jihad should be put on notice.

• Call on Muslim states to renounce Sharia’s expansionist imperative. To be a friend of the United States, each must renounce any intention to try to realize the Islamic goals enunciated by the Pakistani Islamic leader Syed Abul Ala Maududi, who declared that when Muslims are ruled by non-Muslims, “the believers would be under an obligation to do their utmost to dislodge them from political power and to make them live in subservience to the Islamic way of life.”

• Initiate a full-scale Manhattan Project to find new energy sources — so that the needed reconfiguration of our alliances can be more than just words.

• Report honestly about jihadist activity in the US and the West.

• Reclassify Muslim organizations. Any Muslim group in America that does not explicitly renounce, in transparent and manifest deed as well as word, any intention now or in the future to replace the Constitution of the United States with Islamic Sharia should be classified as a political rather than a religious organization, and should be subject to all the responsibilities and standards, which political organizations must adhere. Or -- closed.

• Take pride in Western culture. Recognize that Western culture and civilization are threatened in many, many particulars that we take for granted, and that they are worth defending.

There are many more things that need to be done, but to those I would add this above all, from my 2003 book Onward Muslim Soldiers:

• Begin to regard Muslim immigration as a national security issue, and take steps to limit it and end it if possible. (And of course all illegal aliens should be made to leave immediately.)

I discuss some of the difficulties involved in this point, and how they can be surmounted, in this post.

See also this question I posted to the presidential candidates in January:

What would you do to deal with the national security aspect of immigration? With plans afoot to bring large groups of Iraqis, including Iraqi Muslims, into the United States, what kind of screening will you implement to ensure that we are not importing jihad terrorists into the country? Will you reevaluate immigration levels from Muslim countries based on recognition of the fact that there is no reliable way to distinguish a peaceful Muslim from a jihadist sympathizer or potential jihadist?

And also, from a 2003 article:

• Monitor mosques and prosecute accordingly, closing down any that preach Islamic supremacism in the United States and deporting those involved.

There are many others also. But those would be a start. The problem is that most Americans do not recognize the need to do any of these things, because they still aren't aware of the problem. And that is why my focus here continues to be on trying to raise awareness of what exactly we are up against.

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." — George Orwell

(Thanks to R.)

Jihad Watch was the first to break this story, on Tuesday. I put in a FOIA request asking for this document, but haven't heard anything back from State about my request -- AP got it first.

By Matthew Lee for AP:

[...] Federal agencies, including the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Counter Terrorism Center, are telling their people not to describe Islamic extremists as "jihadists" or "mujahedeen," according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. Lingo like "Islamo-fascism" is out, too.

The reason: Such words may actually boost support for radicals among Arab and Muslim audiences by giving them a veneer of religious credibility or by causing offense to moderates.

Here again, the assumption is that people in the Muslim world will be influenced by what non-Muslim authorities say about Islam. There is no warrant whatsoever for this assumption.

For example, while Americans may understand "jihad" to mean "holy war," it is in fact a broader Islamic concept of the struggle to do good, says the guidance prepared for diplomats and other officials tasked with explaining the war on terror to the public. Similarly, "mujahedeen," which means those engaged in jihad, must be seen in its broader context.

Of course, one is probably no longer allowed to point out that Hasan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Abdullah Azzam, co-founder of Al-Qaeda, both criticized the idea that jihad was a spiritual struggle as based on a weak hadith, and argued that the primary meaning of jihad in the Qur'an and Sunnah was warfare against unbelievers. The problem here, in short, is that many Muslims believe that jihad essentially means holy war, and refusing to talk about it will not make it go away.

U.S. officials may be "unintentionally portraying terrorists, who lack moral and religious legitimacy, as brave fighters, legitimate soldiers or spokesmen for ordinary Muslims," says a Homeland Security report. It's entitled "Terminology to Define the Terrorists: Recommendations from American Muslims."

In reality, jihadists routinely claim "moral and religious legitimacy," and that has to be confronted, not ignored.

"Regarding 'jihad,' even if it is accurate to reference the term, it may not be strategic because it glamorizes terrorism, imbues terrorists with religious authority they do not have and damages relations with Muslims around the world," the report says.

Language is critical in the war on terror, says another document, an internal "official use only" memorandum circulating through Washington entitled "Words that Work and Words that Don't: A Guide for Counterterrorism Communication."

The memo, originally prepared in March by the Extremist Messaging Branch at the National Counter Terrorism Center, was approved for diplomatic use this week by the State Department, which plans to distribute a version to all U.S. embassies, officials said.

"It's not what you say but what they hear," the memo says in bold italic lettering, listing 14 points about how to better present the war on terrorism.

"Don't take the bait," it says, urging officials not to react when Osama bin Laden or al-Qaida affiliates speak. "We should offer only minimal, if any, response to their messages. When we respond loudly, we raise their prestige in the Muslim world."

"Don't compromise our credibility" by using words and phrases that may ascribe benign motives to terrorists.

Some other specifics:

_ "Never use the terms 'jihadist' or 'mujahedeen' in conversation to describe the terrorists. ... Calling our enemies 'jihadis' and their movement a global 'jihad' unintentionally legitimizes their actions."

_ "Use the terms 'violent extremist' or 'terrorist.' Both are widely understood terms that define our enemies appropriately and simultaneously deny them any level of legitimacy."

_ On the other hand, avoid ill-defined and offensive terminology: "We are communicating with, not confronting, our audiences. Don't insult or confuse them with pejorative terms such as 'Islamo-fascism,' which are considered offensive by many Muslims."

The memo says the advice is not binding and does not apply to official policy papers but should be used as a guide for conversations with Muslims and media.

At least at the top level, it appears to have made an impact. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who once frequently referred to "jihad" in her public remarks, does not appear to have used the word, except when talking about the name of a specific terrorist group, since last September.

The memo mirrors advice distributed to British and European Union diplomats last year to better explain the war on terrorism to Muslim communities there.

It also draws heavily on the Homeland Security report that examined the way American Muslims reacted to different phrases used by U.S. officials to describe terrorists and recommended ways to improve the message.

Because of religious connotations, that report, released in January and obtained by AP this week, counseled "caution in using terms such as, 'jihadist,' 'Islamic terrorist,' 'Islamist,' and 'holy warrior' as grandiose descriptions."

"We should not concede the terrorists' claim that they are legitimate adherents of Islam," the report said, adding that bin Laden and his adherents fear "irrelevance" more than anything else.

"We must carefully avoid giving bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders the legitimacy they crave, but do not possess, by characterizing them as religious figures, or in terms that may make them seem to be noble in the eyes of some," it said.

"We should not concede the terrorists' claim that they are legitimate adherents of Islam." If anyone could make a case that they are not, that would be helpful. But that case has never been made. Instead, it is being dogmatically forced upon State and DHS officials, which will only have the effect of making them hesitant to study the nature of the jihadist appeal within the Islamic world.

But of course Yemen can't, and Yemen won't, because Muhammad consummated his marriage with a nine-year-old when he was in his fifties, and he is the supreme example of conduct (Qur'an 33:21).

"Yemen 'should stop child marriages,'" by Nasser Arrabyee for GulfNews (thanks to Agnostichk):

Sana'a: Human rights activists and lawyers should put pressure on the government to ban marriage of young girls, said a Yemeni lawyer.

Lawyer Shatha Nasser, who defended an 8-year-old girl who was divorced last week in a Yemeni court, called all civil society organisations and human rights activist to form a coalition for amending the current law which allows marriage of children under 15.

"Our next step now is to do all that we can to make the minimum marriage age in Yemen 18 years," Shatha told Gulf News.

"But this cannot happen if there is no cooperation between lawyers and human right groups," she said.

Eight-year-old Nojoud was in the news last week after appearing in the court requesting a divorce from her 32-year-old husband after a two-month marriage. Shatha said there were a lot of child marriages in Yemen.

[...]

On April 15, with support from Shatha and judge Aboud Al Khaleq Ghowber, Nojoud paid her way out of marriage. The amount of 100,000 Yemeni riyals was given by an anonymous donor in the UAE, and Nojoud happily became an 8-year-old divorcee.

[...]

"I am so happy to be free and I will go back to school and will never think of getting married again," Nojoud said joyfully. "It is a good feeling to be rid of my husband and his bad treatment."

[...]

According to the International Centre for Research on Women's 2007 statistics, Yemen is one of 20 developing countries where child marriages are common. Nearly half of all Yemeni girls are married before the age of 18.

Most women have their first child immediately after their first menstruation cycle and are likely to have many more. Yemen's fertility rate is very high, with an average of 6.3 children per woman, and the country also has some of the highest mother and infant mortality rates worldwide.

According to research on early marriage in Yemen from Oxfam and the United Nations Population Fund, many girls like Nojoud develop irreparable psychological scarrings from early marriage and the forced sexual encounters that accompany it.

"I hated nights because they usually meant that my husband would come to my bed. I used to run from him and he would chase me and beat me and do his thing. I pray that my younger sisters do not face the same fate," said Nojoud. Now Nojoud is living with her uncle and his family in relative safety.

"He would chase me and beat me":

"Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them." (Qur'an 4:34)

How is it that so many Islamic scholars end up becoming Misunderstanders of Islam? Anyway, it will be interesting to see how this shakes out: will Sharia win or lose? I expect the smart money will be on another victory for the guardians of religious purity. "Algeria passport veil ban protest," from the BBC (thanks to Morgaan Sinclair):

Muslim Scholars in Algeria say a government ban on pictures of veiled women in passport photographs runs counter to Sharia law.

The Society of Algerian Muslim Scholars has denounced the ban which also applies to bearded men.

The organisation says the veil and beard are part of Muslim tradition which cannot be outlawed.

The society says it issued a fatwa against the ban after receiving hundreds of complaints.

Prime Minister Abdelazeez Belkhadem is reported to have received complaints from the public urging him to overturn the ban.

The BBC's Arab affairs analyst Magdi Abdelhardi says it is an example of a modern secular state coming under fire from a resurgent Islamism....

Wow! Really?

If Israel gives up the Golan Heights, this is what will happen: the promises of peace will immediately prove hollow. Syrian troops will again stand on the mountaintops and fire down on Israeli farmers below. It would be a political, military, and societal disaster for Israel, and for the larger resistance against the global jihad.

Not that any of that means that this report is false, or that Olmert hasn't said these things.

"Assad confirms: Israel says it ready for full withdrawal from the occupied Golan Heights," from Al-Bawaba:

Syrian President Bashar al Assad on Thursday confirmed for the first time reports in the Arab media claiming that Israel had agreed to implement full withdrawal from the occupied Golan Heights in exchange for peace with Syria. In an interview with the Qatari daily Al Watan the Syrian president conveyed that the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, had informed him that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had agreed to cede the Golan for peace.

The Syrian leader disclosed that Israel and Syria were exchanging messages since the end of the 2006 Lebanon War, adding that the flow of messages had intensified since Turkey became involved about a year ago, especially since April 2007. "The mediation between Damascus and Tel Aviv thoroughly increased since the end of the war in Lebanon and Hizbullah's victory," Assad said. "However, Turkey entering the picture in April of last year has precipitated the disclosure of new positive details as Olmert told the Turkish prime minister that he was willing to retreat from the Golan," Assad said.

Assad added that Olmert's willingness to cede the Golan was reiterated in interviews he has given recently. "We have heard a statement by Olmert in which he said: 'We know what Syria wants and they know what we want.'"

Good luck with that, Mr. Olmert.

Note again the religious foundation of his appeal. No matter how often Western authorities such as the EU and UN tell people like Geert Wilders to stop linking Islam with terrorism, that command will never make any sense as long as people like Al-Zawahri keep...linking Islam with terrorism.

"Al-Qaeda No. 2 calls for help in Iraq fight, slams Hamas," from Al-Bawaba (thanks to all who sent this in):

Al-Qaeda deputy leader Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri has urged Muslims to join the resistance in Iraq in a new audiotape posed on the Internet. "I call on all Muslims to hurry to the battlefields of Jihad, especially in Iraq," Zawahiri said in the message posted on the Internet on Tuesday.

"I call upon the Muslim nation to fear Allah's question (at judgment day) about its failure to support its brothers of the Mujahedeen (Jihad warriors), and (urge it) not to withhold men and money, which is the mainstay of a war," he added.

"The situation in Iraq heralds an imminent victory of Islam and the defeat of the crusaders and those who stand under their flag," he added.

This venture is getting an extraordinary amount of attention for a new group, suggesting that it has people with money and power behind it. I've been inundated over the last few days with links to enthusiastic press reports about it -- clearly a lot of people in the mainstream media and elsewhere have a great deal invested in its success. Unfortunately, however, this is yet another case of the Moderate Emperor's New Clothes.

"New Muslim think-tank aims to challenge extremist ideology," from Ekklesia (thanks to all who sent this in):

A new Muslim think-tank, which aims to bring together voices who oppose violence and extremism, and who want to explore Islam in a modern European setting, was launched at the British Museum yesterday.

Author Ed Husain, who charted his own journey away from what he calls "a dark place" in his controversial book 'The Islamist' is a prime mover in the venture, along with Essex-born Maajid Nawaz.

Ed Husain is the author of The Islamist, a book about how he entered and then left the jihadist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Last year he debated Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and subsequently wrote a piece in The Guardian, "Stop supporting Bin Laden," about how Hirsi Ali, my dear friend Ibn Warraq and I are playing into the hands of Osama bin Laden himself by noting the deep traditional foundations within Islam of the jihad ideology. I wrote about it here. You can see at that link that Ed Husain in his piece wrote disingenuously about Islamic teaching on apostasy and other matters, and ignored the deep scriptural, theological and legal foundations of Islamic violence and supremacism. Hardly a promising performance for a genuine reformer.

The Quilliam Foundation (named after a 19th century British convert) is being pitched as advancing the counter-argument to extremism.

The founders say Islam in its purest universal form, as what Muslims believe is the last global message of God to humankind, sits perfectly well in modern multicultural societies - providing that Muslims find the right way to express their faith.

If British Muslims rediscover the purity of the faith, they argue, they can cast off the political and cultural baggage that would see Islam as the enemy of the West.

These bland and reassuring statements stop short of actually saying that the supremacist tradition within Islam must be rejected and opposed by Muslims. All this pleasant tosh about Islam fitting in with multicultural societies and not being seen as the enemy of the West could easily come out of the mouth of the most committed, but clever, jihadist. He would not even be lying -- he'd be working from the proposition that Islam allows for something of a multicultural society, provided that non-Muslims stay in their place as dhimmis and do not aspire to rights equal to those of the Muslims. And he'd have in mind the idea that Islam is not the enemy of the West, but the friend of the West, the friend that wants to give the West a gift -- the gift of the law of Allah. I have seen jihadists say exactly these things. Thus it is not reassuring to see them come from a foundation supposedly dedicated to moderate Islam, and named, significantly enough, for an English convert to Islam.

The think-tank aims to develop its arguments out of the Islamic theological tradition, rather than simply use Western secular arguments against versions of political Islam which it regards as distorted and damaging.

Its founding statement says: "Western Muslims should be free from the cultural baggage of the Indian subcontinent, or the political burdens of the Arab world. We were born and raised in a milieu that is different from the Muslim East. As such, our future and progeny belong here.

"Just as Muslims across the globe have adopted from and adapted to local cultures and traditions, while remaining true to the essence of their faith, Western Muslims should pioneer new thinking for our new times. Here, Muslim scholastic giants, such as the noble Abdullah bin Bayyah and Shaikh Ali Goma (Mufti of Egypt), have provided ample guidance."

Not reassuring. Ali Gomaa is the statue-hatin', wife-beatin', Hizballah-supportin', Muhammad's-urine-drinkin' Mufti of Egypt, who not long ago denied reports that he had rejected the traditional Islamic death sentence for apostates. The delirious Dinesh D'Souza has praised him as a "traditional Muslim" with whom American conservatives should cultivate an alliance. I do not think Americans should be so naive, and do not think that the Quilliam Foundation's invocation of this man as a moderate bodes well for its own claims of moderation.

Let's see. He hindered a counterterrorism case, may have tipped off the jihadist more than once, and checked to see if his own name was on the terror watch list. For that he gets six months probation, from a judge who clearly has no idea whatsoever of the larger issues involved in the case. Will he retain his job with the police? Is anyone concerned that he may again aid jihadists who are waging war against the United States? Is anyone with any influence asking these questions at all?

"Probation For Sergeant Who Misused Databases," by Tom Jackman for the Washington Post (thanks to Cindy):

A Fairfax County police sergeant was sentenced yesterday in federal court in Alexandria to two years' probation for his admission that he checked police databases for someone who was the target of a federal terrorism case.

Sgt. Weiss Rasool, 31, initially faced up to six months in jail, but federal prosecutors urged U.S. Magistrate Judge Barry R. Poretz to consider as much as a year of jail time after Rasool took a lie-detector test last week and "was not fully compliant" with the test procedures. Prosecutors also said in a motion filed with the court that FBI agents "do not believe that he has been truthful."

Before sentencing, Rasool stood and wept as he admitted breaking the law.

"If I could turn back time, I would maybe do things different," he said. "It was an error in judgment. I never intended for things to turn out this way. I don't know what to say to you or anyone. . . . I admit I made errors of judgment. But I never intended to put anybody's life at risk."

The police sergeant said after the sentencing that he hopes to remain with the Fairfax department. A misdemeanor conviction does not automatically disqualify him from continuing with the force. Rasool remains on administrative leave with pay pending the outcome of an internal investigation, Fairfax police said.

In June 2005, when federal agents had a Fairfax man under surveillance, the man apparently asked Rasool to check the license plates of three vehicles he thought were following him. Rasool's lawyer described the man as a member of Rasool's mosque.

According to court records, Rasool checked the databases and left the following voice-mail message for the man:

"Umm, as I told you, I can only tell you if it comes back to a person or not a person, and all three vehicles did not come back to an individual person. So, I just wanted to give you that much."

The three vehicles were undercover FBI vehicles, according to a letter from the FBI filed in court yesterday, and Rasool's message "likely alerted the subject of the FBI investigation which had a disruptive effect on the pending counterterrorism case." Prosecutors said the vehicles were listed with a leasing company, which an experienced officer might have known was an indicator of law enforcement vehicles.

The target was arrested in November 2005, then convicted and deported, according to court filings in Rasool's case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeanine Linehan said that the target and his family were already dressed and destroying evidence at 6 a.m. when agents arrived to make the arrest, indicating that they had been tipped off. The target's name and the charges against him have not been disclosed.

In October 2007, the FBI confronted Rasool about his computer inquiries on the man's behalf. According to a brief written by Linehan, Rasool denied knowing the man. When presented with the recording of his message for the man, Rasool admitted checking the databases, Linehan wrote.

Linehan also noted that Rasool made computer inquiries about himself, through the National Crime Information Center system, about 17 times in 18 months, purportedly to see whether his name appeared on the terrorism watch list. His lawyer, James W. Hundley, said Rasool checked the database because of increased scrutiny of Muslims in the United States after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.[...]

Poretz told Rasool that some of his conduct "appears to strain credulity, to this court." But he declined to consider a sentencing range of six to 12 months in jail and gave Rasool credit for "acceptance of responsibility," a key factor in federal sentencing guidelines.

The magistrate judge then offered a stern analysis, saying: "What we have here is a defendant doing stupid things. What we have here is a credibility issue as to the defendant." But he found no evidence that Rasool intended to disrupt the federal investigation.

He placed the sergeant on two years of supervised probation and fined him $1,000.

Thousands of Christians trapped in churches as Muslims riot, looking for them.

"Nigeria: Muslim Rioters Attack Christians In Kano: Claim of ‘blasphemy’ in city market leads to looting, destruction," from Compass Direct News (thanks to Morgaan Sinclair):

KANO, Nigeria, April 23 (Compass Direct News) – Hundreds of Muslims took to the streets of this northern Nigerian city on Sunday (April 20), attacking Christians and their shops and setting vehicles on fire on claims that a Christian had blasphemed Muhammad, the prophet of Islam.

Thousands of Christians were trapped in churches until police dispersed rioters. Fearing that Muslims may attack again, many Christians have relocated to army and police barracks in the city.

An as yet unidentified Christian was said to have written an inscription on a shop wall that disparaged the prophet of Islam. Muslims at a market in the Sabon Garia area of the city reportedly attacked the Christian, whom police rescued and took to the area police station.

Muslims in large numbers soon trooped to the police station, threatening to set it ablaze unless officers released the Christian to be stoned to death in accordance with sharia (Islamic law), sources said. Police were able to disperse the mob.

“A Christian trader was accused of making some blasphemous inscriptions against Muhammad in his shop by his Muslim colleagues, who pounced on him,” Baba Mohammed, Kano police spokesman, said in a special radio broadcast.

He said the accused Christian escaped from being lynched and ran to the police station seeking protection, adding, “We had to move him to the police headquarters here in Kano for protection.”

Police have arrested some of the Muslim rioters, he said, adding that an investigation is underway.

“We have made several arrests of persons suspected of attempting to breach the peace while the suspect [accused Christian] is in our custody pending conclusion of the investigation,” Mohammed said.

Nnamdi Ike, a Christian who witnessed the disturbances, told Compass in Kano that Muslim claims that a Christian painted an inscription insulting Muhammad were false.

“Christians have always been attacked on false claims of blasphemy,” Ike said. “No Christian wrote anything against Muhammad or Islam. It is all a lie. They just made this up to find a reason to attack us.”..

Watch also for the 26-point plan for Islamization.

"Pakistan-Based Militant Group Lashkar-e-Islam Vows 'To Spread Islam Across the World,'" from MEMRI (thanks to Sr. Soph):

In Pakistan's tribal district of Khyber Agency, there is ongoing fighting for the control of the region – with occasional phases of truce – between the militant Islamic tribal group Lashkar-e-Islam and rival fighters from the Kukikhel tribe.

Lashkar-e-Islam came into prominence in April 2008, when it tried to extend its control from the Bara area, where it is based, to the Jamrud region of Khyber Agency. The organization was formed three years previously, in response to the increase in crime such as gambling, drug trafficking, and kidnappings for ransom in the tribal district of Khyber Agency.

With the capture of the Jamrud region, Lashkar-e-Islam chief Mangal Bagh sought to extend his control to the entire tribal district. But after dozens of deaths in the fighting, a tenuous ceasefire has been temporarily reached between Mangal Bagh and the fighters from the Kukikhel tribe. [...]

Following are excerpts from the interview with Mangal Bagh, as published by Roznama Khabrain,(1) as well as from other reports.

"We Are Out to Spread Islam Throughout the Entire World; We Have 180,000 Mujahideen."

In the interview, the Lashkar-e-Islam chief said that his organization was formed to fight criminals in the area. However, he noted: "Before the formation of this organization, [I] used to sit in the company of the ulema; [then I] started serving madrassas and religious people... Along with my usual work, I also work for the religion [Islam]."

About the objectives of Lashkar-e-Islam, Mangal Bagh said: "Allah revealed the Koran, which was not sent for any one particular region of the world. It was revealed for all of humanity. We are out to spread Islam throughout the world."

According to the paper, he said: "Our objective is to impart the teachings of the Koran. There are 180,000 mujahideen in our organization, and all these people work fi sabilillah [for the sake of Allah]. They receive no pay. They manage on their own."

Mangal Bagh said that the Qaed-e-Azam (Great Leader) Muhammad Ali Jinnah liberated Pakistan from the British [under the banner of] "La ilaha illalah" [There is no god but Allah] – i.e. in the name of Islam. He added: "If Islamic laws were followed in Pakistan, we would have to accept it. [But] if the laws of the Jews were followed, we would not accept it."

According to the paper, the group does not force the local people to accept its beliefs and commands. Mangal Bagh said: "If you ask the Muslims and the followers of Sikhism in this region, they are all happy with the organization [Lashkar-e-Islam]. The reports that we force people to raise our flag [on their houses] are incorrect. The people raise the flag on their own."

He added, however, that people in the region are not permitted to sing and dance: "According to the local tradition, singing and dancing are not permitted. People are fined for listening to music because this is a habit of the English [Westerners]. Pakistan can progress only when the government and the people together work for the religion of Islam."

Also in the interview, Mangal Bagh denied any links with Al–Qaeda, but said that the U.S. presence in Pakistan is the "big reason for the lawlessness" in the country. He added: "People of the entire world should expel the Americans from their countries."

Lashkar-e-Islam's 26-Point Agenda for Khyber Agency

Other reports have been published on the details of the Lashkar-e-Islam agenda for the tribal district of Khyber Agency, where the organization acquired near-total control following its successful fight in recent years against another group, Ansar-ul-Islam, which has since disappeared from the scene.

According to a report in Roznama Khabrain published the same day as the interview, Lashkar-e-Islam's 26-point agenda for implementation in the Khyber Agency is as follows:(2)

1. Eradicating all shirk [polytheism/idolatry], bid'at [innovation in Islam] and all un-Islamic practices from Khyber Agency

2. Permitting only Islamic-style graves

3. Enforcing a total ban on the activities of local and foreign terrorists in Khyber Agency

4. Providing [only] justified assistance to the security forces [of Pakistan] deployed in the area

5. Banning any kind of bribe to and from the mujahideen of Lashkar-e-Islam

6. Punishing any activity disturbing the peace without Lashkar-e-Islam permission; punishment will be as per tribal norms

7. Committing to defend the geographical and ideological frontiers of Pakistan

8. Committing to prevent crime and punish criminals

9. Enforcing a total ban on the sale of wine, on gambling, on counterfeit currency, on heroin factories, etc.

10. Enforcing a total ban on paid killers and kidnappers in the region

11. Enforcing a ban on thieves, theft, and stolen cars

12. Abolishing interest/usury in business transactions

13. Forcing fugitives who reside in Khyber Agency to behave properly and to be accountable to the local residents

14. Rehabilitating all mosques in Khyber Agency

15. Committing to protect teachers, male and female students, doctors, and ulema

16. Committing to resolve land disputes and ensure no land goes uncultivated

17. Enforcing a total ban on non-shari'a practices such as magic, charms, etc.

18. Committing to ensure absolute peace

19. Committing to ensure that women are modestly dressed according to Islamic norms when attending school, and to spread education among the people

20. Committing to ensure collective prayers are offered after the azaan [call for prayer] is sounded

21. Protecting of women's rights and resolution of marriage-related matters as per shari'a or tribal practices

22. Committing to total eradication of un-Islamic practices during marriage ceremonies, such as music and celebratory firing into air

23. Banning women from going to mountains to collect wood for fuel; violators will be fined 10,000 rupees

24. Banning women from going to doctors or hospitals unaccompanied by a male relation

25. Enforcing the compulsory wearing of caps, according to tribal traditions

26. Banning the sheltering of rapists, and totally banning homosexuals, in Khyber Agency....

Proportionate response?

The efforts to make the dhimmis cower and fall into line continue. "Denmark evacuates embassies in Algeria, Afghanistan," from The Associated Press (thanks to Twostellas):

The Danish Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that it has evacuated its staff from embassies in Algeria and Afghanistan because of threats after newspapers reprinted a cartoon depicting the Muslim prophet Muhammad.

Embassy employees have been moved to secret locations in both countries' capitals but continue to work, Foreign Ministry spokesman Erik Laursen said.

The announcement comes after Danish intelligence officials warned of an "aggravated" terror threat against Denmark since newspapers in the country in February of a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

The warning specifically singled out North Africa, the Middle East, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The threat "is so concrete that we had to take this decision," Laursen told The Associated Press. "The decision is based on intelligence," he said, declining to elaborate....

They had Qur'an and Hadith? So what? It's not illegal to have Qur'an and Hadith. And in fact, the BBC story here doesn't say that that's what they had. But in fact, much of the incendiary material referred to in this article, albeit unattributed here, comes from Qur'an and Hadith -- a fact that, of course, neither the BBC nor the British legal establishment has any desire to acknowledge or examine as to its implications.

"Plot accused 'had jihad papers,'" from BBC News (thanks to Twostellas):

Material supporting jihad and martyrdom operations was found at the home of a man accused of plotting to blow up aircraft, a court has heard.

One document found at Abdulla Ahmed Ali's flat in Walthamstow, east London, said no deed would give "rewards" like an act of jihad, jurors were told.

Hmmm. Who could have said such a thing? Could it have been, let's see...maybe the Islamic prophet Muhammad?

"A man came to Allah's Apostle and said, 'Instruct me as to such a deed as equals Jihad (in reward).' He replied, 'I do not find such a deed.'" -- Bukhari 4.52.44

Another said defeating the enemy meant striking "terror into their hearts", Woolwich Crown Court heard.

Now who could have said a thing like that? Could it have come from...let's see...maybe the Qur'an?

"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

Eight men deny conspiring to murder and endangering planes in August 2006.

They are accused of planning to detonate home-made bombs disguised as soft drinks on several transatlantic flights.

'Psychology of war'

The court was shown photographs of the six-day search at the home of Mr Ali, 27, on 9 August 2006.

Jurors were told police found papers containing passages relating to jihad [holy war], martyrdom, references to the kuffar [non-believers] and achieving jannah [paradise].

One read: "No deed is better than jihad and no deed will give you such rewards and rectify you."

That's based on Muhammad's statement above.

Another said: "The psychology of war is that you can defeat your enemy if you take away that which they love the most and strike terror into their hearts.

"With martyrdom operations they achieve that as the most beloved thing is life and wealth. When your enemy is not scared to die it scares you."

Other material, including books on the life of the Prophet Mohammed, a guide on disabled access to sites in London, a chemistry textbook and banking documents, was also found, prosecutors said.

Not, of course, the "Islamic prophet Mohammed." Just "the Prophet Mohammed."

Prophethood: it's just not the growth industry it once was. Sharia Alert from modern, moderate Indonesia: "'Prophet' jailed for contempt of Islam," from Agence France-Presse (thanks to Twostellas):

THE leader of an Indonesian sect who had controversially claimed he was a prophet has been jailed for four years for contempt against Islam.

Ahmad Mushaddeq alias Abu Salam, 63, leader of the Al Qiyadah Al Islamiyah sect, was "guilty of showing contempt in public against a religion recognised by the state," Judge Zahrul Rabaid told a packed courtroom today.

The verdict was greeted by religious chanting by hundreds of followers who had crammed South Jakarta district court since early in the morning.

A police officer said 2000 people were at the venue.

Mushaddeq's claim violated a central Islamic tenet that the Prophet Muhammad is the last prophet and will not be followed by any other messengers from God.

His group was proscribed as "deviant" by the country's top clerics last year, echoing the same charge levelled against the Ahmadiya sect this year.

Mushaddeq, who told the court he will appeal, was whisked into a police detention car that left immediately for the state prison....

“A reliable source has informed me that Condoleeza Rice has approved a new lexicon for State Department usage, absolutely forbidding the use of the terms "jihad" and "jihadist" by any State Department official.” -- Robert Spencer

Without intelligent use of the word "Jihad," a word both accurate and useful (these qualities do not always coincide), a word that demands to be explained, and in that explanation -- the same kind of explanation that the word "dhimmi" calls for, Infidels will be forced to learn certain home truths about the meaning, and menace, of Islam.

By banning use of the word "Jihad," Rice makes much more difficult the intelligent dissemination of information about Islam. She makes more difficult the task of seeing the war of self-defense in all of its dimensions, and furthermore, far from encouraging peace, defined as the absence of open warfare through military means, makes such open warfare through such means more likely, by preventing the United States and other Infidel lands, from working to divide and demoralize the Camp of Islam and Jihad. That can only take place, it is clear, once the conflict is understood, and once the most effective instruments of Jihad are grasped, and the monomaniacal emphasis on "terrorism" has come, as it must, to an end. For that emphasis has served to divert attention from the Money Weapon, campaigns of Da'wa, and most important of all, demographic conquest that, in Western Europe, proceed without Infidel governments taking the kind of minimal measures that, at any other time in history, would long ago have been sensibly undertaken.

Whatever the peoples of the West may have lacked in the past -- cars and computers, say -- they did at least forthrightly, uninhibitedly, recognize the nature of Islam, its meaning, its menace. Rice wishes to prevent this, in order to curry favor with Arab states, and possibly in order to prevent having to begin the difficult work (but hardly too difficult) of figuring out the kinds of things that might best work to weaken the Camp of Islamic Jihad. Those ways have all been set out here, over the past few years -- often in great detail. But Rice hasn't time in her datebook. She hasn't space in her brain, to consider how best, how most effectively, how at the least cost, without all the squandering (of men, money, materiel, morale both civilian and military) that the Iraq folly continues to cause, to undo or hold in check the forces of Jihad.

Among the report's most worrying findings is the growth over the past three decades of uniquely Muslim roots to older European versions of anti-Semitism. Without discounting classical Christian Europe's canards regarding secret Jewish conspiracies, the ritual slaughter of non-Jewish children and other allegations of Jewish evil, anti-Semitism in the Muslim world increasingly finds its own, Islamic reasons for anti-Jewish hatred through new interpretations of Islamic history and scripture. -- from this article

Muslim antisemitism did not grow "uniquely Muslim roots" over the past three decades. Muslim antisemitism was always there, within Islam. It was not virulent, because the Jews were weak, despised, and unlike the Christians, had no possible strong outside powers that could pressure Muslims in order to protect their co-religionists within Dar al-Islam. But then the Jews re-established their ancient Jewish commonwealth, despite Arab terrorism that started early against Jews settling on land they had bought (Joseph Trumpeldor at Tel Hai). That Arab terrorism continued throughout the 1920s (a decade that begins with murderous mobs killing Jews in Jerusalem in 1920, and then massacring every last Jew Hebron in 1929) and then through the 1930s, especially during the so-called Arab Revolt.

During that revolt, the Mandatory Authority officials in Jerusalem expelled Captain Orde Wingate for the crime of having taught Jewish settlers how to defend themselves. Meanwhile, Arab terrorism continued. Then there was the attack on the nascent state of Israel by seven Arab armies, and the period of terrorism by Egyptian fedayin (and by Jordanians too, until terrorism from Jordan was ended by a retaliatory raid led by Colonel Ariel Sharon and his Unit 101).

Just two weeks ago I wrote about Sami Al-Arian for Human Events, but a laudatory article in the New Duranty Times has led me to revisit the Rumpled Academic this week:

Is jailed Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Sami Al-Arian the innocent victim of a government vendetta? That’s what the New York Times would have you believe: the Gray Lady reported Friday that the former University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian faces new charges, and stated that “the Justice Department and some independent terrorism investigators have long accused Mr. Al-Arian of being the main North America organizer for Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which has claimed responsibility for some of the more deadly suicide bombings against Israeli targets and which the United States has designated a terrorist organization.”

However, the Times will have none of it, and wants to make sure you don’t, either: “Mr. Al-Arian’s supporters, though, say that he is nothing more sinister than an outspoken Palestinian activist, and that the Justice Department has tried to exploit the post-Sept. 11 mood in the United States to punish him for that, using legal maneuvering to keep him behind bars.” Times reporter Neil MacFarquhar quotes Al-Arian’s defense attorney, Jonathan Turley, saying: “The government has shown a willingness to go to the most extreme lengths to prolong Mr. Al-Arian’s incarceration.”

Yet another hearts-and-minds initiative comes to naught. An update on this story. "Released cleric's son-in-law rules out truce," from AP (thanks to Morgaan Sinclair):

Peshawar: A fugitive militant leader yesterday welcomed the release of a prominent pro-Taliban cleric but vowed to continue an armed struggle to press for Islamic law in the country's northwest.

The cleric, Sufi Mohammad, was released on Monday after six years in jail.

The North West Frontier Province (NWFP) government said Mohammad's group had signed a pact renouncing violence in return for permission to pursue a peaceful campaign for Islamic law.

So in other words, they didn't ask him to renounce Sharia supremacism. They just asked him to go about it nicely.

It was the first major step by the new government to talk peace with militants and break with US-backed President Pervez Musharraf's policy of military force.

However, Muslim Khan, a spokesman for Mohammad's son-in-law Maulana Fazlullah, whose supporters battled security forces for control of the northwest's Swat Valley last year, said fighters allied with the wanted militant would not cease their battle.

"We welcome the release of Sufi Mohammad, but we will only lay down arms when the government would enforce Sharia," Khan said....

"We are fighting for the enforcement of Islam. If the government enforces Sharia today, we will stop our struggle," he said. "But we want to see practical steps from the government, and not just the promises."

"We are fighting for the enforcement of Islam." Uh oh, another Misunderstander. No doubt Khan will be hearing from the EU, the OIC, Ali Eteraz and Ibrahim Hooper forthwith.

That begs the question: Are there ever authorized promiscuous gatherings? Sharia Alert. "Iran: Police arrest 75 young people for 'immoral acts'," from Adnkronos International:

Tehran, 22 April (AKI) - Seventy-five young people accused of 'immoral acts' have been arrested by police at a birthday party in the city of Shiraz in southwestern Iran.

The young men and women were accused of "immoral acts" and of holding a "non-authorised promiscuous gathering" said the chief commander of the police forces, Ali Moayyedi.

"These young people were dancing, drinking alcohol and listening to forbidden western music," said Moayyedi.

It is not the first time police have raided private parties and arrested people.

While they may not approve of such behaviour at parties, some Muslim clerics consider these kinds of police raids unjustified and an intrusion into people's private lives.

But according to the Saudis, there isn't really a problem. But then again, there is. But there isn't. But there kind of is. But it doesn't have anything to do with the government, and nor does Islamic law or tradition, except where it, you know, "elevates women." So... yeah. Next question.

"Saudi guardianship key to women rights abuse," from Reuters:

RIYADH - Saudi Arabia's system of male "guardianship" or wide-ranging control over women lies at the heart of rights abuse in the conservative Islamic state, U.S.-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Monday.

But a government spokesman said Saudi Arabia was disappointed the report had failed to highlight efforts to improve women's status and confused tradition with state policy.

"We agree with some points and we are working on that as a commission for the government, but we don't agree with the generalisation," said Zoheir al-Harithi, spokesman for Saudi's Human Rights Commission.

Saudi Arabia is one of the most conservative countries in the world. Tradition and the Islamic clerical establishment restrict women's movement, preventing them from driving cars.

Saudi women must usually obtain permission from a "guardian" -- father, husband, or son -- to work, travel, study, marry, or get access to healthcare, HRW said in the study, "Perpetual Minors: Human Rights Abuses Stemming from Male Guardianship and Sex Segregation in Saudi Arabia".

"The Saudi government sacrifices basic human rights to maintain male control over women," Farida Deif, Human Rights Watch women's rights researcher for the Middle East, said in a statement sent to Reuters.

"Saudi women won't make any progress until the government ends the abuses that stem from these misguided policies."

Since King Abdullah came to power in 2005, the government has said it supports a reform agenda but that it cannot enforce changes if significant sections of society continue to resist.

Clerics of the state-sanctioned brand of Sunni Islam, a strict form often termed Wahhabism, see the "muhrim", or guardian of women's honour, as central to the system of social and moral control in the country.

The rules -- the subject of heated national debate -- are enforced by the judiciary and a morals police body, both of which are run by Wahhabi clerics.

The government has allowed Human Rights Watch unprecedented access over the past two years, and more women have been able to enter the workforce. This year new regulations allowed women to stay in hotels without a guardian.

"The authorities essentially treat adult women like legal minors who are not entitled to authority over their lives and well-being," the HRW report says, citing a list of complaints based on interviews with about 100 women.

It says women cannot open bank accounts for children, enroll them in school, obtain school files, or travel with their children without written permission from the child's father.

Women are also prevented from accessing government agencies that have not established female sections unless they have a male representative, and the need to establish separate office space discourages firms from hiring women, it said.

"We know some customs and traditions prevent women having their complete rights, but you cannot say they are 'legal minors'," said the Saudi HRC's Harithi. "They are doctors, teach in universities, are elected to the chambers of commerce."

The report can be accessed at www.hrw.org.

And one certainty is that there will be more.

"Fifteen terrorist attacks in Britain have been foiled since the 7/7 London bombings," from the Daily Mail (thanks to all who sent this in):

Fifteen planned terrorist attacks in Britain have been foiled since the 2005 London bombings, Met chiefs said today.

The revelation came as Met Commissioner Sir Ian Blair warned that the country was being threatened by dangerous extremists who were emerging from "left field" to attempt terrorist attacks.

Sir Ian added that some suspects were moving "very fast" to carry out their plots, forcing police to make pre-emptive arrests to protect the public.

The warning came as Sir Ian and the Met's most senior anti-terrorism officer, Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick, told a parliamentary committee scrutinising the Government's counter-terrorism Bill that they backed an extension of the pre-charge detention limit.

The Met Commissioner said he feared that the current 28-day limit, which the Government wants to extend to 42 days, would soon prove insufficient because of the growing complexities, scale and international scope of plots that police and the security service were detecting.

Sir Ian rejected suggestions from some MPs that suspects could be detained on lesser charges instead and warned that in many cases police were forced to act on the basis of intelligence when virtually no evidence that would be admissible in court existed.

He said this meant that prolonged investigations were needed to gather material to bring prosecutions and that it was a "pragmatic inference" that pre-charge detentions longer than 28 days would soon be required.

"Part of the problem that we have is the way in which individuals and groups go from what appears to be facilitating into active attack planning very fast. There are people who are emerging from left field about whom we know very little and about whom we become very concerned."

In his evidence, Mr Quick, who is also the Association of Chief Police Officers' spokesman on terrorism, said about 15 terrorist plots had been thwarted since the 7 July London bombings of 2005....

A reliable source has informed me that Condoleeza Rice has approved a new lexicon for State Department usage, absolutely forbidding the use of the terms "jihad" and "jihadist" by any State Department official.

The argument, of course, is the old Streusand/Guirard claim that by using the word jihad, we're validating the jihadist claim to be waging jihad. Of course, it's ridiculous to think that the U.S. State Department carries any validating authority within the Islamic world to determine what is Islam and what isn't. This would be the first time that unbelievers have set the meaning of Islamic theology for Muslims.

Also, the claim is that by using the word "jihad," we are insulting the peaceful Muslims who are waging the daily jihad of the struggle against sin, the struggle against the dirty dishes, etc. And that's great, if that's what any Muslim actually believes is the sum and substance of jihad, but it is an understanding of jihad that is at odds with the Qur'an, the Sunnah, and all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence. Will Muslims be insulted by a reference to other Muslims using the traditional primary meaning of jihad? Answer: probably. But that doesn't negate the traditional status of that meaning, or the influence of that traditional view in the Islamic world.

I will publish more information on this when possible.

Also, "al-Zawahri said it was against Islamic religious law for any Muslim to live permanently in a Western country 'under the laws of the infidels.'" Which means that those in the West who are taking that religious law seriously will eventually either have to move, or to work to Islamize the country that they're living in. Which option do you think they will choose?

"Al-Qaida No. 2 says group still targeting the West," by Maggie Michael for Associated Press (thanks to all who sent this in):

CAIRO, Egypt - Osama bin Laden's chief deputy warns that al-Qaida still has plans to target Western countries involved in the Iraq war in a new audiotape released Tuesday to answer questions posed by followers.

The voice in the lengthy file posted on an Islamic Web site, could not be immediately confirmed as al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri's. But it sounded like past audiotapes from the terror leader.

The tape is billed as the second installment of al-Zawahri's answers to more than 900 questions submitted on extremist Internet sites by al-Qaida supporters, critics and journalists in December.

Asked by one follower if the terror group still had plans to attack Western countries that participated in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and subsequent war, al-Zawahri said: "My answer is: Yes! We think that any country that has joined aggression on Muslims must be deterred."

Asked if there are any women in al-Qaida, the terror leader answered simply: "No."

In another answer, al-Zawahri said it was against Islamic religious law for any Muslim to live permanently in a Western country "under the laws of the infidels."...

There is an inconsistency at the heart of this report: Erlich asserts that "until about 10-15 years ago, anti-Semitism was imported into the Muslim Arab world from Europe," but we're also told that the Muslim antisemites are "using well-known Koranic texts" in order to map out "the Jews' 'innate negative attributes.'"

Now, the Qur'an has been in the Islamic world since the seventh century, and its canonical interpretation essentially fixed by the most influential Sunni tafasir (commentaries on the Qur'an): those by Ibn Kathir, the two Jalals, Qurtubi, Tabari, the Tanwir al-Miqbas, etc. While there is some disagreement over some aspects of the Qur'anic teaching on the Jews, it is peripheral -- it has to do with questions such as, Did the Jews whom Allah transformed into apes and pigs (Qur'an 2:62-65, 5:59-60, 7:166) have offspring or not? There is essentially agreement on the fact that the Jews are and will always be the Muslims' worst enemies (5:82) and that they're accursed (2:89, 3:112, 9:30).

In light of all that, which seems to be acknowledged at least in part in this report, it strains credulity that up until only ten or fifteen years ago, antisemitic material was imported into an otherwise non-antisemitic Islamic world. Whatever imports there were found an eager audience, already primed by Qur'anic antisemitism.

"Report analyzes Muslim anti-Semitism," by Haviv Rettig in the Jerusalem Post (thanks to all who sent this in):

Muslim anti-Semitism is growing in scope and extremism, to the point that it has become a credible strategic threat for Israel, according to a 180-page report produced for Israeli policymakers by the semi-official Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC) and obtained exclusively by The Jerusalem Post ahead of its Tuesday release.

According to the report, by educating generations of Muslims with a deep animus toward Israel and Jews, this anti-Semitism, actively promulgated by many states in the region, holds back the peace process and normalization efforts between Israel and Muslim countries. It also forms the intellectual justification for an eliminationist political program.

"This isn't ordinary prejudice," explained ITIC director Col. (res.) Dr. Reuven Erlich, formerly of the IDF's Intelligence Directorate, who heads the team of researchers that produced the report. "This prejudice is evil because it isn't theoretical. It is ideological incitement by states and organizations with the practical means of translating it into action."

Following on a similar study produced in 2004, the report is a comprehensive examination of anti-Semitism in the Muslim world, with emphasis on Iran and Arab states.

It is also an insight into the perception of the threat within the Israeli intelligence establishment. The ITIC operates under the aegis of the Israel Intelligence Heritage and Commemoration Center (IICC), the official commemoration agency for the fallen of Israel's intelligence services. The IICC is chaired by former Mossad head Efraim Halevy and maintains close contact with Israel's intelligence community. The ITIC's reports are widely read among Israeli policymakers.

Among the report's most worrying findings is the growth over the past three decades of uniquely Muslim roots to older European versions of anti-Semitism. Without discounting classical Christian Europe's canards regarding secret Jewish conspiracies, the ritual slaughter of non-Jewish children and other allegations of Jewish evil, anti-Semitism in the Muslim world increasingly finds its own, Islamic reasons for anti-Jewish hatred through new interpretations of Islamic history and scripture.

From the Koranic story of a Jewess who poisoned Muhammad, to the troubled relations between Muhammad and the Jewish tribes of Arabia, radical Islamist groups and thinkers have been using extreme anti-Semitic rhetoric that has grown increasingly popular with the Muslim public, particularly in Iran and the Arab states. Using well-known Koranic texts, these groups have been mapping out the Jews' "innate negative attributes" and teaching a paradigm of permanent struggle between Muslims and Jews.

The goal of this "Islamified" anti-Semitism, according to the report, is to transform the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from a national territorial contest which could be resolved through compromise to a "historic, cultural and existential struggle for the supremacy of Islam."

The study examined books, newspapers, television and radio broadcasts and Internet sites, along with studies of groups following anti-Jewish discourse in the Muslim world, such as MEMRI and the ADL.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, rising anti-Semitic sentiment in Europe was injected into Muslim lands through commercial and diplomatic ties. Spurred by opposition to Zionism and ideologically strengthened by Nazi rhetoric and support, Muslim anti-Semitism grew in the 20th century into a phenomenon so widespread that blatantly anti-Semitic texts can be purchased on street corners of Arab cities, even in countries where almost no Jews remain.

The research team did not deal with "anti-Israel incitement," according to Erlich, "only with anti-Semitism. But when you read an article or listen to a speech, the terminology is confused and intertwined. You can't distinguish the anti-Zionism from the anti-Semitism."

According to the report, the past decade has seen a veritable explosion of anti-Semitic literature in the Muslim world which intentionally confuses Israel and the Jewish people and is broadcast worldwide through books, radio, television, newspapers, caricatures and Internet forums. This discourse reaches outside Muslim lands to a large Muslim audience in the West.

"Until about 10-15 years ago, anti-Semitism was imported into the Muslim Arab world from Europe," says Erlich. "They translated The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Mein Kampf into Arabic. Over the past 10-15 years, there's been a deep change. Today it isn't an import, but an export. This needs more research, since we don't have access to European mosques, but we're convinced that the export of anti-Semitic myths and politics to Europe is having an effect on European Muslim communities."

The hundred-year-old Czarist forgery The Protocols, which accuses the Jews, among other "crimes," of fomenting liberalism by masterminding the American and French revolutions, is being published in new editions in Egypt, Syria, Iran and other countries.

The report finds little government action either in the Muslim world or in the West to curb this phenomenon, citing restrictions on viewing Hizbullah's Al-Manar television station as an exception that proves the rule....

Friend and Ally Update: "Pakistan orders release of pro-Taliban terror chief," from AP (thanks to Louis):

Pakistan has released a pro-Taliban leader who sent thousands of fighters against the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, officials said, in what appeared to be part of efforts to broker peace with Islamic militants.

There was no immediate comment from the government on the freeing Monday of Sufi Muhammad, who is the father-in-law of the current militant leader in Pakistan's Swat Valley.

Muhammad was jailed in 2002 and was shifted to a hospital in the northwestern city of Peshawar five months ago because of poor health.

Ajmal Khan, the deputy superintendent of Peshawar's main jail, said the government on Monday "issued an order for the release of Sufi Mohammad, and I have conveyed this order to him."

Shortly after, Muhammad left the hospital in a vehicle under police escort, accompanied by followers wearing black turbans, said Zafar Khan, a paramedic at the hospital.

Muhammad founded the Tehrik Nifaz-e-Sharia Mohammed - or Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Law - which sent thousands of volunteers to fight in Afghanistan against the US-led invasion that toppled the Taliban regime in 2001....

The group wants a Taliban-like system in Pakistan, including compulsory beards for men, mandatory veils for women and the outlawing of light entertainment including music and television....

Exteriores (thanks to Ignacio) has published a Spanish translation of my article "The Saudis: Which Side Are They On?"

Here is a useful new site bringing together many of the sites that are working in this great effort in various ways.

They want to replace Greenwich Mean Time with Mecca Time, since, after all, as everyone knows, Mecca is the center of the earth.

And then the noble mujahedin can sing this song to the dirty kuffar:

When it's time to relax
One thing stands clear:
If you've got the time
We've got the bier!

Cultural Supremacism Alert: "Muslim call to adopt Mecca time," by Magdi Abdelhadi for BBC News (thanks to all who sent this in):

Muslim scientists and clerics have called for the adoption of Mecca time to replace GMT, arguing that the Saudi city is the true centre of the Earth.

Mecca is the direction all Muslims face when they perform their daily prayers.

The call was issued at a conference held in the Gulf state of Qatar under the title: Mecca, the Centre of the Earth, Theory and Practice.

One geologist argued that unlike other longitudes, Mecca's was in perfect alignment to magnetic north.

He said the English had imposed GMT on the rest of the world by force when Britain was a big colonial power, and it was about time that changed.

Mecca watch

A prominent cleric, Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawy, said modern science had at last provided evidence that Mecca was the true centre of the Earth; proof, he said, of the greatness of the Muslim "qibla" - the Arabic word for the direction Muslims turn to when they pray....

The meeting in Qatar is part of a popular trend in some Muslim societies of seeking to find Koranic precedents for modern science.

It is called "Ijaz al-Koran", which roughly translates as the "miraculous nature of the holy text".

The underlying belief is that scientific truths were also revealed in the Muslim holy book, and it is the work of scholars to unearth and publicise the textual evidence.

But the movement is not without its critics, who say that the notion that modern science was revealed in the Koran confuses spiritual truth, which is constant, and empirical truth, which depends on the state of science at any given point in time.

Gee, ya think?

It has been brought to my attention (thanks, James) that several people are claiming a contradiction between these two statements I have made recently.

The first one is from here:

Many strange things have happened in history and I would never say that Islamic reform is absolutely impossible, but Westerners are extraordinarily foolish when they harbor any hopes of it actually happening on a large scale. We need instead to focus on efforts to defend ourselves both militarily and culturally from the jihadist challenge, and to continue to call the bluffs of pseudo-reformers who intend ultimately only to deceive Western non-Muslims--many of whom are quite anxious to be deceived.

And the second is from here:

Here again an increase of interest in and commitment to Islam apparently coincides with involvement with jihadist activity. The implications are many, and American and British Muslim groups that profess moderation ought to be the first to be examining them. But of course, instead they are still engaged in denying that any such correlation exists, despite a superabundance of evidence to the contrary.

The claim is being made that by saying that "American and British Muslim groups that profess moderation ought to be the first to be examining" the fact that "an increase of interest in and commitment to Islam apparently coincides with involvement with jihadist activity" I am contradicting my statement that "Westerners are extraordinarily foolish when they harbor any hopes of [Islamic reform] actually happening on a large scale." In other words, if I really believed that Islamic reform were virtually impossible, I wouldn't be asking American Muslim groups to face the facts about the connection between devoutness and attachment to jihadism.

Of course, if people want to find difficulties, inconsistencies, contradictions, they will find them no matter what, but there is not actually anything of the kind here. I spoke in the first statement above about calling the bluffs of pseudo-reformers, and in the second I was doing just that, by pointing out that the self-proclaimed moderate Muslim groups were doing nothing to deal with the connection between the seriousness of one's Islamic commitment and involvement in jihad activity.

And that is supposed to be evidence that I actually do believe, contrary to what I've said all along as well as in the first statement above, that Islamic reform is likely and that Western non-Muslims should count on it happening -- and, indeed, not defend themselves because the reformist Muslims are taking care of the problem for us! This preposterous farrago says a great deal about those who imagine it and pretend to analyze my writing -- but nothing at all about me or anything I've written.

What these critics apparently fail to realize is that most Americans continue to take at face value the claims to moderation of the most prominent American Muslim advocacy groups. Again and again these claims need to be challenged, by using their groups' own self-definition against them and pointing out the disparity between their stated mission and their actual behavior -- and by asking them questions, as above, about why they aren't doing what one would reasonably expect them to be doing if their claims to be benign, peaceful and moderate were genuine.

This both challenges those pseudo-moderate groups, and plants a question in the mind of any reasonably open-minded but uninformed people -- should any happen by -- about just why those groups aren't doing such things, and what that shows about where their sentiments really lie.

And I am going to keep doing this, as well as to keep insisting that the West needs to recover its self-confidence, its sense of its own identity, and defend itself. I am also going to keep pointing out the many virtually insuperable obstacles to Islamic reform, while encouraging any courageous individual Muslim who actually admits that there are elements of Islam that give rise to violence and supremacism, and that those elements need somehow to be rejected. Anyone who finds in this evidence of my inconsistency, dishonesty, or lack of a serious commitment to the defense of the West needs a basic course in reading comprehension, or logic. If you find yourself in a bar sitting next to one of these characters, move to another establishment and watch that the guy doesn't tag along after you, tugging at your sleeve and muttering bitterly about his unrecognized genius and crystalline, unimpeachable correctness.

An update on this story. "Hamas Leader Vows Not to Recognize Israel After Carter Trumpets Terror Group's Willingness to Be Good 'Neighbor'," from Fox News:

JERUSALEM — Just hours after former President Jimmy Carter trumpeted Hamas' agreement to let Israel "live as a neighbor," the same terrorist leader he met with face-to-face vowed not to recognize the Jewish state.

But Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal did offer Israel a 10-year truce if it withdraws from all lands it seized in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

Carter met twice with Mashaal over the weekend.

The former president also said Monday that he would never sit down with Al Qaeda because the terror network has no "redeeming features."

"[Al Qaeda] are not involved in any sort of a fruitful process. They are not recognized by their own people," Carter told FOX News in an interview Monday. "On the other hand, you have to remember Hamas in an honest and open and fair and transparent election were elected the leaders of the Palestinian government." [...]

When asked whether he'd ever meet with Al Qaeda, Carter replied, "No, of course not."

"I don't see any redeeming features of Al Qaeda at all," he said.

That begs the question of what "redeeming features" he thinks Hamas has, and if having sufficient public support to be elected into power makes them any less vicious and dangerous. More details on this highly unsurprising bit of backpedaling: "Hamas says would conditionally accept peace plan," by Khaled Yacoub Oweis for Reuters:

DAMASCUS (Reuters) - The Islamist Hamas group said on Monday it would accept the establishment of a Palestinian state on land occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, but it was not prepared to recognize the Jewish state.

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, in an apparent softening of the group's position, was confirming an account of his remarks given by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter after two meetings in Damascus over the weekend.

"We accept a state on the June 4 line with Jerusalem as capital, real sovereignty and full right of return for refugees but without recognizing Israel," Meshaal told reporters, referring to the borders as they stood before the 1967 war. [...]

An Israeli government spokesman also said the Jewish state was unimpressed by Meshaal's statement.

"Israel is targeted on a daily basis by rocket barrages from Hamas controlled territory in the Gaza Strip. Israel sees no change in Hamas's extremist positions," said David Baker, a spokesman in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office.

In a speech in Jerusalem, Carter said Hamas leaders had told him they would "accept a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders if approved by Palestinians." He was referring to the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip and a referendum on a deal Washington hopes to clinch this year.

"It means that Hamas will not undermine Abbas's efforts to negotiate an agreement and Hamas will accept an agreement if the Palestinians support it in a free vote," he said.

A handy loophole: Allege any unfavorable referendum results were rigged, and keep on fighting.

When they start calling for Al-Zawahiri and other Islamic jihadists to stop using Islamic texts and teachings to call for violence, maybe they'll have a case against McCain.

"Muslims press McCain on 'Islamic' terror label," by Rowan Scarborough for the Washington Times (thanks to all who sent this in):

A coalition of American Muslim groups is demanding that Sen. John McCain stop using the adjective "Islamic" to describe terrorists and extremist enemies of the United States.

Muneer Fareed, who heads the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), told The Washington Times that his group is beginning a campaign to persuade Mr. McCain to rephrase his descriptions of the enemy.

The Islamic Society of North America was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation jihad terror funding case last summer.

Also, in a Muslim Brotherhood memorandum outlining its strategic goals for the United States, ISNA was named as one of the groups participating in "a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions."

"We've tried to contact his office, contact his spokesperson to have them rethink word usage that is more acceptable to the Muslim community," Mr. Fareed said. "If it's not our intent to paint everyone with the same brush, then certainly we should think seriously about just characterizing them as criminals, because that is what they are."

An aide to Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee who is counting on his pro-Iraq war stance to attract conservative voters, said the senator from Arizona will not drop the word.

Steve Schmidt, a former Bush White House aide who is now a McCain media strategist, told The Times that the use of the word is appropriate and that the candidate will continue to define the enemy that way.

"Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda represent a perverted strain of Islam at odds with the great many peaceful Muslims who practice their great faith peacefully," Mr. Schmidt said. "But the reality is, the hateful ideology which underpins bin Ladenism is properly described as radical Islamic extremism. Senator McCain refers to it that way because that is what it is."

McCain in this, as inadequate and false as it is, comes closer to the truth than the present White House occupant or the other two aspirants to the throne.

Mr. McCain often uses the term "Islamic" to describe terrorist enemies. The two remaining Democrats in the presidential field, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, generally shun such word usage.

President Bush also avoids the term, prompting criticism from some conservative pundits, who say the White-House-coined phrase "war on terror" does not sufficiently identify the enemy. Mr. Bush used the term "Islamic fascists" several times in 2006 and was criticized by Muslims....

Mr. Fareed, who is ISNA's secretary-general, said such usages are wrong.

"My own take on this is that we tried and failed to stylize this particular onslaught against the United States as one that has religious connotations and regional connotations," said Mr. Fareed, a former associate professor of Islamic studies at Wayne State University.

"I think this is just criminality, fair and square. We should just call them criminals. You want to call them terrorist criminals, fine," he said. "But adding the word 'Muslim' or 'Islamic' certainly doesn't help our cause as Americans. It's counterproductive. It paints an entire community of believers, 1.2 billion in total, in a very negative way. And certainly that's not something that we want to do."...

Painting everyone with the same brush? Come on, Mr. Fareed. This is so specious it reeks. As I've said many times before, the phrase "Islamic terrorists" no more paints all Muslims as terrorists than the phrase "Italian fascists" paints all Italians as fascists or "Conservative Democrat" paints all conservatives as Democrats. Basic grammar, apparently, must go out the window for the cause of PC mau-mauing.

How does he know? Because they told him so. Have they amended their Charter, which calls forthrightly for the complete destruction of Israel? No. Have they ever acted as if they are ready to accept the existence of Israel? No. Is Dhimmi Carter a man who very much wants to believe what Hamas is ready to tell him? Yes.

"Carter: Hamas is willing to accept Israel as its neighbor," from AP (thanks to all who sent this in):

JERUSALEM (AP) - Hamas is prepared to accept the right of Israel to "live as a neighbor next door in peace," former President Jimmy Carter said Monday.

Carter said the group promised it wouldn't undermine Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' efforts to reach a peace deal with Israel, as long as the Palestinian people approved it in a referendum. In such a scenario, he said Hamas would not oppose a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.

Hamas, a militant Islamic group that both the U.S. and Israel consider a terrorist organization, calls in its charter for Israel's destruction. It has also traditionally opposed peace negotiations with the Jewish state.

Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, later said Carter's comments "do not mean that Hamas is going to accept the result of the referendum."...

On Saturday I took up the claim made by an Islamic apologist that the verses of the Qur'an quoted in Geert Wilders's film Fitna were "incorrectly translated." My post was narrowly focused: it didn't discuss the contexts of the verses or anything else about the Qur'an and the film. The claim was made that the translations of the verses were incorrect, which is not the same thing as saying they were ripped out of context. Accordingly, I took up that claim only, and simply presented 16 translations of the Qur'an, including all of those most commonly used in the English-speaking world, and showed that the versions of the verses presented in Fitna were accurate and consistent with the other translations.

In response came this post at the Pardon My Paradox blog (thanks to James), in which someone calling himself or herself "Lister" claims that my list of 16 translations actually did show that Wilders had misquoted at least one of the Qur'an verses in Fitna, 47:4:

This is about meeting unbelievers in battle. Yusuf Ali, Nooruddin, Dawood, Pickthall, Hilali-Khan, Shakir, Asad, Sher Ali and Muhammad Ali all mention battle directly in that particular line of 47:4

While other translators may not mention battle directly in their translation of that one sentence, I bet they do mention battle in a later line: “when the war lays down its burden”, which is included as part of 47:4 in the translation on WikiSource.

So the context makes it clear that this is about meeting in battle. Wilders gives no context. So there is no way to know that the context is battle. People could think that it includes meeting unbelievers for a cup of coffee. He gives no context as to the cause of battle.

Again, the original claim by apologist Ali Eteraz was that the verses were "incorrectly translated." So when Lister acknowledges that "other translators may not mention battle directly in their translation of that one sentence," he has destroyed his own argument: if even some of the Muslim translators (including Fakhry, whose translation is approved by no less an authority than Al-Azhar) leave "battle" out of that section, one cannot (at least if one has any interest in consistency or integrity) fault Wilders for doing so.

For the record, the Arabic doesn't mention battle in the first part of the verse. Here is Qur'an 47:4 in Arabic:

فَإِذَا لَقِيتُمُ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُواْ فَضَرۡبَ ٱلرِّقَابِ حَتَّىٰٓ إِذَآ أَثۡخَنتُمُوهُمۡ فَشُدُّواْ ٱلۡوَثَاقَ فَإِمَّا مَنَّۢا بَعۡدُ وَإِمَّا فِدَآءً حَتَّىٰ تَضَعَ ٱلۡحَرۡبُ أَوۡزَارَهَا‌ۚ ذَٲلِكَ وَلَوۡ يَشَآءُ ٱللَّهُ لَٱنتَصَرَ مِنۡہُمۡ وَلَـٰكِن لِّيَبۡلُوَاْ بَعۡضَڪُم بِبَعۡضٍ۬‌ۗ وَٱلَّذِينَ قُتِلُواْ فِى سَبِيلِ ٱللَّهِ فَلَن يُضِلَّ أَعۡمَـٰلَهُمۡ

I would translate فَإِذَا لَقِيتُمُ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُواْ as "When you meet those who are unbelievers," although I will readily grant that the context of the verse makes it clear that it's talking about a battle, not about beheading unbelievers over coffee. Still, that is a question of context, not of the correctness of the translation, which is the only thing my post was about. But don't believe me, since I am, according to jihad apologist myth, a venomous "Islamophobe" who knows no Arabic -- Fakhry, Daryabadi, Arberry, Palmer, Rodwell, and Sale agree that "battle" is not mentioned, while Yusuf Ali, Hilali and Khan, and Asad add it in brackets, which is also a tacit admission that it isn't in the Arabic.

And now -- about that context. In "Verses from Fitna (The Movie), in Historical Context," Rogster in his Telegraph blog (thanks to all who sent this in) takes it up at length. The only weakness of his post is that he doesn't provide Islamic sources for his assertions, but I challenge any Islamic apologist to show from the early Islamic texts that anything he has written here about the contexts of the Qur'an verses in Fitna is inaccurate.

Because Rogster says that his post might be taken down, and because of its value, I reproduce it all here, although if he asks me to, I will remove it in whole or part.

Disclaimer:

1. This article is not an act of spreading/stirring hatred, as many Muslims who use the logical fallacy ‘Argumentum ad Odium’ would argue.
2. This article is a report on the historical contexts behind the verses used in Fitna the movie, in response to those who dismissed the movie solely on the basis that the verses were being quoted ‘out of historical context’. In this article, I attempt to show that the historical contexts are in-line with the intended Fitna contexts.
3. This article is not an act of racism, since a) Islam is not a race and b) Muslims are not a race, and c) This article has nothing to do with discrimination, see (2).
4. This article is not glorification of Jihadism / Islamic terrorism.
5. This article is not recruitment for Jihadists / Islamic terrorists.
6. This article is not intended to cause offence, albeit this article will likely be considered by the permanently-offended, to be offensive.

The following verses are in order of appearance, with an explanation of the intended Fitna context, as well as associated historical context. I have also written a short explanation of the battle of Badr and battle of Uhud, in order to clarify the historical context surrounding the quoted revelations.

Livingstone says that Al-Qaradawi doesn't support jihad against the West. Apparently the jihad against Israel, in the context of which this great reformist Sheikh has defended suicide attacks, is just fine with Red Ken. "Ken Livingstone defends his extremist backer," by Aislinn Simpson in the Telegraph (thanks to Sr. Soph):

Ken Livingstone defended his decision to share a platform with a homophobic Islamic preacher as he and his challenger, Boris Johnson, were neck and neck in the race for the capital yesterday.

Yusuf al-Qaradawi has described homosexuality as an "unnatural and evil practice" and said the Koran permitted wife-beating in certain circumstances.

The Qatar-based Egyptian cleric has also advocated the use of Palestinian children as suicide bombers and once claimed that Asian tsunami victims were punished by Allah because their countries were centres of perversion.

But speaking on BBC1's Politics Show yesterday, the London Mayor insisted he was right to welcome the cleric to City Hall as an "honoured guest" in July 2004. He said that while he did not agree with some of his views, al-Qaradawi did not support terrorism against the West. "He is a man who is prepared to say al-Qa'eda is wrong and to be very strong in that condemnation," he said....

Oh! Then everything is all right!

Remember this one the next time someone tells you that the Palestinians voted for Hamas because they were tired of the corruption of Fatah, and not because they support the jihad terror agenda that Hamas espouses.

Tiny Minority of Extremists™ Update: "Palestinians' backing for terror rises," by Khaled Abu Toameh in the Jerusalem Post (thanks to Sr. Soph):

The number of Palestinians who support attacks against Israelis continues to rise and more than half of them favor suicide bombings, according to a poll published this weekend.

The survey also showed that Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh is still more popular than Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

The percentage of Palestinians who support "resistance operations" against Israeli targets rose from 43.1 percent in September 2006 to 49.5% at present. Support for this option was highest in the Gaza Strip, at 58.1%, with 24.5% in the West Bank agreeing.

Palestinians who support bombing attacks against Israeli civilians rose from 44.8% in June 2006 to 48% in September 2006 and to 50.7% now.

Again, more Gazans support these operations (65.1%), compared with 42.3% of Palestinians in the West Bank.

The Palestinian public is divided on the rocket attacks on Israel: 39.3% said the firing of these rockets was "useful" to Palestinian national interests, while 35.7% said they were harmful....

Harmful to their interests. Not wrong. Not immoral.

Can't get elected unless you adhere to State Dogma. "Boris defends stance on Islam," from the Chronicle Live (thanks to Twostellas):

Tory London mayoral candidate Boris Johnson was forced to defend his stance on Islam, insisting he believed it was a "religion of peace".

Mr Johnson has been criticised for an article he wrote in the wake of the 7/7 London terror attacks in 2005 claiming "Islam is the problem".

But Mr Johnson said the problem was extremists taking the words of the Koran out of context.

He said: "The problem is people who wrench out of context quotes from the holy book of Islam, the Koran, and use it to inspire evil in men's hearts.

"That is a fact that few serious people would deny and we need to tackle the extremists."

Indeed, but few serious people also have noticed that this much-discussed true, peaceful context of the Qur'an's violent verses has never actually been produced, or that Islamic theological tradition tends to favor a more violent understanding.

Sharia Alert: "Saudi Arabia: Death, for taking God's name in vain," by Borzou Daragahi in the LA Times's Babylon and Beyond blog (thanks to Western Resistance, where there is much more on this):

Turkey's president and prime minister have stepped in to save the life of a Turkish man sentenced to die in Saudi Arabia.

The prisoner's capital offense: using God's name in vain during an argument with a neighbor, according to Turkish newspapers.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul has penned a letter to Saudi King Abdullah requesting a pardon for Sabri Bogday, a barber who moved to Jeddah from southeastern Turkey more than a decade ago. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has also reached out to Saudi officials on the barber's behalf.

Apparently, Bogday had an argument with an Egyptian neighbor in Jeddah. The neighbor told authorities that Bogday had "cursed the name of God."

Bogday was arrested, tried and sentenced to death, even though his accuser has apparently disappeared. [...]

We'll give the final word to the astute Fred Stopsky, at the Impudent Observer, who spotted the story:

Saudi Arabia stands with the United States in the fight against terrorism. Unfortunately, that fight against terrorism does not include the nation of Saudi Arabia.

Indeed not, and that is just one of the unfortunate results of our refusal to face the reality of what (and who) exactly we are fighting in this great conflict.

Here is yet another indication that, contrary to both the dominant mainstream and the race/ethnicity-based parties of Europe, the jihad is not a matter of race, but ideology. The dominant mainstream sees resistance to the jihad and Islamic supremacism as "racism," while the neo-fascist parties regard resistance to the jihad as required for the preservation of white Europe. But if it is all about whites and non-whites, what of a white convert to Islam like Suleyman Simon Keeler? The focus needs to be on the destructive ideology people like Keeler have embraced -- and the fact that he embraced it shows that talk of race and racism in this context is just a red herring. I've said it before, but like so many things in this struggle, I'm going to keep saying them until someone listens and probably after that as well. A race-based approach to the anti-jihad resistance is harmful in a number of ways:

1. It's the wrong way to fight the global jihad. The jihad is not a race, Islam is not a race, Muslims are not all of one race. The issues between the Islamic world and non-Muslims are not racial. They are about religious supremacism. Bringing in race just confuses the issue, and allows jihadists and their de facto allies among the Eurabian elites to claim that this whole thing is about racism.

2. To form one group for indigenous Europeans, as has been done in several countries, reduces virtually every issue to the one non-negotiable issue of race and ethnicity, discourages cooperation, and thus encourages Balkanization, works against the idea of representative government, and obscures the common values of Judeo-Christian civilization that are shared by people of many races and ethnicities.

3. This approach hamstrings and marginalizes the anti-jihad movement. Many people who oppose the Islamization of Europe will never join with a race-based party to do so. Hugh Fitzgerald and I have often commented here over the years about the tragedy in Europe: the mainstream political parties have completely abdicated any responsibility to deal with the Islamization of Europe, thus leaving the field open to groups that obscure the issue with racial politics.

4. Many, many people have written here, and will no doubt write again in response to this post, that the parties that speak of race are the only ones in Europe that are doing anything to resist Islamization, and thus they deserve the support of all those who believe there is something worth defending in Western non-Muslim civilization. I don't think that is any sounder an argument than the claim that we must support Hizballah because it builds schools and runs charities when not lobbing rockets at Israeli civilians.

Also, people I respect have pointed out that European culture is being overwhelmed and transformed by out-of-control Muslim immigration, and there is nothing wrong with defending it from that. I agree. But while culture has a racial component, culture and race are not identical. To reduce culture to race on a continent that has seen six million sacrificed to the idolatry of race and blood is not, in my view, the right way to defend European culture -- and there must be articulated a sane and moral alternative that is clearly distinct from that and rejects it utterly. Geert Wilders in the Netherlands has managed to mount a strong stance against Islamization while avoiding dalliance with racial groups. While I am not a European and am conscious that Europeans will probably charge me with naivete and ignorance (the last time I posted this I inspired not one, but two websites charging me with being a secret jihadist, so this time I'll probably be Satan himself), I still don't see why it can't be done elsewhere. Such dalliances inevitably raise the specter of neo-Nazism and white supremacism, and allow the mainstream parties to pretend that Europe faces a choice between becoming Eurabia and reviving the gas chamber. There are other ways, there have to be other ways, to deal with this.

The anti-jihad movement, if it is to become mainstream in Europe or the U.S., must articulate a positive vision of defense for the human rights of all people against the ways in which those human rights are contravened under Sharia, and avoid being diverted into side issues and non-issues, or formulating the problem incorrectly.

"My brother the white muslim terror recruit," by Justin Penrose for the Sunday Mirror (thanks to all who sent this in):

The first white British Muslim to be jailed for terrorism was flaunted at extremist rallies by hook-handed preacher Abu Hamza, his brother has revealed.

Colin Keeler, 34, told how his older brother Simon Keeler - jailed for four-and-a-half years on Friday for inciting British Muslims to kill allied troops - went from a dope-smoking layabout to an extremist disciple of Hamza.

Colin said he was horrified to witness Hamza and his 36-year-old brother together at a 2003 rally.

"I remember the look on Hamza's face, as if he had something he could put on show because he had a white convert who could convert others," he said.

"It was pretty terrifying watching Hamza in front of all those people, shouting at them to 'Join the cause'."

Colin, a former British Army soldier, said he and his brother, who changed his name to Sulayman, had a few Muslim friends - "but he never showed signs of seriously converting."

In 1999 the two brothers travelled around France, earning enough to pay for their lodging, alcohol and cannabis. But Simon suddenly flew to Morocco to "follow the word of Islam" and returned six months later with a full Muslim beard.

"When he came back he was a different person," says Colin. "It's sad. He was brainwashed to such a degree I'm not sure he even knew who he was anymore."...

Once again, devoutness in Muslim observance is correlated to jihadist sentiments, and the learned Western analysts neither notice nor care, nor do a single thing to examine the implications of this.

Islamic scholars are divided over whether this sura dates from the Meccan or Medinan period of Muhammad’s prophetic career. Ibn Kathir and Maulana Muhammad Ali say it’s Meccan, while the Tafsir Anwar ul-Bayan, Daryabadi and others say it’s Medinan. Maududi splits the difference by noting a stylistic change between verses 1-24 and verses 25-78, and postulating that the first part comes from Mecca and the second from Medina.

Verses 1-24 are another warning about the dreadful Day of Judgment (vv. 1-2, 4, 7) and excoriation of the perversity of the unbelievers (vv. 3, 5-6, 8-13). The righteous will be admitted to luxuriant Gardens (vv. 14, 23-24). Those who doubt that Allah will help Muhammad in this world and the next should hang themselves (v. 15). “This,” says Ibn Kathir, “was also the view of Mujahid, ‘Ikrimah, ‘Ata, Abu Al-Jawza, Qatadah and others. The meaning is: whoever thinks that Allah will not support Muhammad and His Book and His Religion, let him go and kill himself if it annoys him so much.” Allah has sent down clear signs – a reference to the verses (ayat, or signs) of the Qur’an – and guides to the truth those whom he wills to guide (v. 16). Jews, Christians, and others will all be judged (v. 17); “Allah will decide on the Dauy of Judgement between them,” says Maulana Bulandshahri in the Tafsir Anwar ul-Bayan, “and disclose to them that only the Muslims were guided aright.”

Even the sun, moon, stars, and all created beings worship Allah (v. 18). In fact, Muhammad was once asked where the sun went when it set. He replied: “It goes (i.e. travels) till it prostrates itself underneath the Throne and takes the permission to rise again, and it is permitted….”

He names Saudi Arabia and Pakistan as the ones facing this choice. And it is by no means clear which one they will choose. "Muslims are the victims of global jihad: K P S Gill," from Rediff (thanks to Twostellas):

The Institute for Conflict Management, the world's premier open source for research and data on terrorism in South Asia, on Sunday received the M L Sondhi Prize for International Politics, 2007.

The award, which includes a cash prize of Rs 1,00,000 and a plaque, has been instituted by the M L Sondhi Memorial Trust and the M L Sondhi Institute for Asia-Pacific Affairs.

Speaking at the award ceremony at the Habitat Centre in New Delhi, President of the Institute for Conflict Management and former Punjab top cop K P S Gill said that current assessments of international Islamist terrorism were afflicted by "gross imbalances of judgments and response".

He added that Islamist terrorism was, in fact, 'imploding'.

"The reality, across the world today is that while non-Muslims are the proclaimed targets of the Islamist extremists and the so-called global jihad, it is Muslims who are its principal victims," he said.

He further noted, "Many Muslim fundamentalist states -- including Saudi Arabia and Pakistan -- are being thrown into direct conflict with the Islamist extremists, and the imperatives of self-preservation are soon going to force their leaderships to make drastic choices between one of just two options: to throw in their lot with the jihadis and take their countries back into the 16th century, or to dismantle their own extremist Islamist agendas and embrace modernisation, democracy and the ideologies of freedom and religious coexistence."...

Sure, that's what it is that has the U.S. so concerned about Iran. Not the Iranian weapons that keep turning up in Iraq. Not the Revolutionary Guards' involvement there and elsewhere. Not the nuclear program, either, for that matter. "Iran says U.S. shows “Iranophobia” over Iraq," from Reuters:

TEHRAN - Iran accused U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice of “Iranophobia” on Sunday for trying to blame Tehran for Iraq’s security problems.

Rice said last week she would press Iraq’s Arab neighbours at a meeting on Tuesday in Kuwait to do more to support Baghdad’s government and shield it from Iran’s “nefarious influences”.

Iran, as a neighbour of Iraq, will also attend the gathering.

“Regarding Rice’s statements, these statements are not something new. American officials follow the policy of Iranophobia,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told reporters in a weekly news conference.

“We see the developments in Iraq today are the outcome of the U.S. administration’s illogical policies. The American officials want to externalise the problems they are facing inside Iraq,” he said, adding U.S. policies in Iraq had failed.

Washington accuses Tehran of funding, training and arming Iraqi militias, a charge Iran denies. Tehran says the presence of U.S. troops is behind Iraq’s problems and wants them out.

This spurious claim highlights the limitations of the term "terrorism." Since it describes a tactic, it is much too elastic and lends itself to diverse and even absurd applications. The term "jihadist," on the other hand, is both highly specific and addresses an ideology. And it would bypass silly exchanges like this.

"Hizbullah: Bush is a 'terrorist leader'," from the Jerusalem Post:

One week after US President George W. Bush condemned Hizbullah for its use of terrorism against civilians, the guerilla group lashed back on Sunday, calling the president a "terrorist leader" and welcoming his criticism.

"Every resistance movement in the world should be proud to take criticism from world terrorist leaders, like [US President George W. Bush] and his cadre," a statement issued by the organization read. "Bush's comments are proof that the Lebanese resistance movement is on the right track."

"The whole world knows that the United States poses the gravest threat to peace and world security," the statement added.

In a speech marking the 25th anniversary of the 1983 attack on the US Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, Bush blasted the Lebanese guerilla group for its use of terrorism against civilians, and urged the international community to follow suit.

"Since the Beirut attack, we and citizens of many countries have suffered more attacks at the hands of Hizbullah and other terrorists, backed by the regimes in Teheran and Damascus, which use terror and violence against innocent civilians," Bush said on April 17. "All nations should condemn such brutal attacks and recognize that the purposeful targeting of civilians is immoral and unjustifiable."

There are three points worth noting here: First, the clerics should not be accumulating wealth in this way to begin with, but is anyone looking at how is all this ill-gotten cash being spent?

Second, the story exemplifies a pattern of behavior that is seeping into the West, and must be resisted: The lack of outside oversight of various enterprises labeled as "Islamic" for fear of giving offense -- especially education, though usually for reasons different from these. And the result we so often see is the cruel exploitation of the most vulnerable members of society.

Third, what are Muslims in the region doing to stop this? The article below is not so much an update on this story as it is more of the same; it is more or less the same story from two years ago with new victims. "Boy flees Islamic school that makes beggars of African kids," by Rukmini Callimachi for the Associated Press:

DAKAR, Senegal - On the day he decided to run away, 9-year-old Coli awoke on a filthy mat.

Like a pup, he lay curled against the cold, pressed between dozens of other children sleeping head-to-toe on the concrete floor. His T-shirt was damp with the dew that seeped through the thin walls. The older boys had yanked away the square of cloth he used to protect himself from the draft. He shivered.

It was still dark as he set out for the mouth of a freeway with the other boys, a tribe of 7-, 8- and 9-year-old beggars.

Coli padded barefoot between the stopped cars, his head reaching only halfway up the windows. His scrawny body disappeared under a ragged T-shirt that grazed his knees. He held up an empty tomato paste can as his begging bowl.

There are 1.2 million Colis in the world today, children trafficked to work for the benefit of others. Those who lure them into servitude make $15 billion annually, according to the International Labor Organization.

It's big business in Senegal. In the capital of Dakar alone, at least 7,600 child beggars work the streets, according to a study released in February by the ILO, the United Nations Children's Fund and the World Bank. The children collect an average of 300 African francs a day, just 72 cents, reaping their keepers $2 million a year.

Most of the boys — 90 percent, the study found — are sent out to beg under the cover of Islam, placing the problem at the complicated intersection of greed and tradition. For among the cruelest facts of Coli's life is that he was not stolen from his family. He was brought to Dakar with their blessing to learn Islam's holy book.

In the name of religion, Coli spent two hours a day memorizing verses from the Quran and over nine hours begging to pad the pockets of the man he called his teacher.

It was getting dark. Coli had less than half the 72 cents he was told to bring back. He was afraid. He knew what happened to children who failed to meet their daily quotas.

They were stripped and doused in cold water. The older boys picked them up like hammocks by their ankles and wrists. Then the teacher whipped them with an electrical cord until the cord ate their skin.

Coli's head hurt with hunger. He could already feel the slice of the wire on his back.

He slipped away, losing himself in a tide of honking cars. He had 20 cents in his tomato can.

Three years ago, a man wearing a skullcap came to Coli's village in the neighboring country of Guinea-Bissau and asked for him.

Coli's parents immediately addressed the man as "Serigne," a term of respect for Muslim leaders on Africa's western coast. Many poor villagers believe that giving a Muslim holy man a child to educate will gain an entire family entrance to paradise.

Since the 11th century, families have sent their sons to study at the Quranic schools that flourished on Africa's western seaboard with the rise of Islam. It is forbidden to charge for an Islamic education, so the students, known as talibe, studied for free with their marabouts, or spiritual teachers. In return, the children worked in the marabout's fields.

The droughts of the late 1970s and '80s forced many schools to move to cities, where their income began to revolve around begging. Today, children continue to flock to the cities, as food and work in villages run short.

Not all Quranic boarding schools force their students to beg. But for the most part, what was once an esteemed form of education has degenerated into child trafficking. Nowadays, Quranic instructors net as many children as they can to increase their daily take.

"If you do the math, you'll find that these people are earning more than a government functionary," said Souleymane Bachir Diagne, an Islamic scholar at Columbia University. "It's why the phenomenon is so hard to eradicate."

Middle men trawl for children as far afield as the dunes of Mauritania and the grass-covered huts of Mali. It's become a booming, regional trade that ensnares children as young as 2, who don't know the name of their village or how to return home.

Read it all.

Al-Sadr made his ultimate goal clear on Al-Jazeera a few weeks ago: "What is more important is to make society, not just the government, Islamic." That bodes ill for women and non-Muslims in areas he controls.

"Iraqi Mosques Blare Call To Arms; 8 Dead Overnight," from AFP (thanks to Twostellas):

BAGHDAD (AFP)--Loudspeakers at mosques in Baghdad's Shiite bastion Sadr City blared out a call to arms soon after radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr warned of a new uprising by his militia, residents said Sunday.

Iraqi security and medical officials, meanwhile, reported another eight people killed overnight in clashes between militiamen and U.S. and Iraqi forces in the embattled township, where fighting has raged since late March.

"Fight the occupiers - get them out of your homes," the late-night loudspeaker messages said, according to residents. "They (U.S.) are calling for division...we demand that the siege of Sadr City be lifted."

The messages also urged the Iraqi army "not to fight your brothers."

Sadr Saturday threatened to declare "open war" if the crackdown by Iraqi and U.S. forces against his militiamen doesn't stop.

"I am giving my last warning and my word to the Iraqi government to take the path of peace and stop violence against its own people, otherwise it will be a government of destruction," he said in a statement issued by his office in the holy city of Najaf. "If it does not stop the militias that have infiltrated the government, then we will declare a war until liberation."

Sadr also lashed out at the Iraqi government's alliance with the U.S. military.

"The occupation has made us the target of its planes, tanks, air strikes and snipers," he said. "Without our support this government would not have been formed.

"But with its alliance with the occupier it is not independent and sovereign as we would like it to be," he said....

Watch for Michael van der Galien to charge Dr. Farrukh Saleem with dishonesty for failing to claim that, back in the seventh century, Muhammad improved the status of women, and that the hijab was borrowed from Christianity.

But in the real world, it is good to see this published in Pakistan.

"Women in Muslim world," by Dr Farrukh Saleem in The News International (thanks to Morgaan Sinclair):

Muslims do not treat women right. According to the Global Gender Gap (GGG) report, the planet's ten-worst offenders are: Yemen, Chad, Pakistan, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Benin, Morocco, Turkey, Egypt and Oman. Of the ten, nine are Muslim-majority states. At the other end of the spectrum, the planet's best countries for women to live in are: Sweden, Norway, Finland, Ireland, New Zealand, Philippines, Germany, Denmark, Ireland and Spain. Not even one of the top-ten is a Muslim-majority state.

GGG collected data from a total of 128 countries to develop a comprehensive, scientific index. The GGG Index is based on four different sub-indices -- namely, economic participation, educational attainment, political empowerment and health -- while each of the sub-indices has half a dozen components.

Under economic participation, five of the worst-offenders are: Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Oman and Bahrain. Under educational attainment, the worst-offenders are: Chad, Yemen, Benin and Pakistan. The best: Denmark, United Kingdom, Australia, France and Belgium. Under political empowerment the worst are: Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kuwait, Qatar, Egypt and Iran. The best: Sweden, Finland, Norway, Iceland and Spain.

For women, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan comes out as one the worst of countries to live in; there are only two other countries worse off than is Pakistan -- Yemen and Chad. Under economic participation, Pakistan is ranked 126 out of 128. Educational attainment, 123 out of 128. Health, 121 out of 128. Political empowerment, 43 out of 128. Surprisingly, Pakistani women are worse off this year than they were last year.

Al Mamlakah al Arabiyah as Suudiyah, or the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, is ranked really low, too. Under economic participation, Saudi Arabia is ranked 127 out of 128. Educational attainment, 87 out of 128. Health, 60 out of 128. Political empowerment, 128 out of 128.

Al Jumhuriyah al Yamaniyah, or the Republic of Yemen is worse than both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Under economic participation, Yemen is ranked 128 out of 128. Educational attainment, 127 out of 128. Political empowerment, 127 out of 128.

Intriguingly, there is a correlation between poverty and status of women. Some of the worst offenders are also the poorest of the poor (with the exception of oil wealth). Most of the Arab world is far below global averages and conditions, unfortunately, are actually deteriorating -- not improving. Yes, there are a few exceptions. The UAE, for instance, has invested massive resources into educating its women. Bahrain now has a woman parliamentarian....

A transformation worthy of Maher (Mike) Hawash. Here again an increase of interest in and commitment to Islam apparently coincides with involvement with jihadist activity. The implications are many, and American and British Muslim groups that profess moderation ought to be the first to be examining them. But of course, instead they are still engaged in denying that any such correlation exists, despite a superabundance of evidence to the contrary.

The Jihadist Next Door Update: "A spiky-haired techno fan: Bristol terror suspect before he donned his Muslim robes," from the Daily Mail (thanks to Cindy):

A terror suspect who dresses in Muslim robes was once a spikyhaired hardcore music fan with a pierced eyebrow.

Andrew Ibrahim, 19, was arrested by police on Thursday under the Terrorism Act.

Three controlled explosions have been carried out at his home in Westbury-on-Trym, Bristol.

And a source who once worked with him confirmed that our picture, right, from the website MySpace is of Ibrahim when he had dyed red hair and facial piercings.

His profile lists his favourite music as hardcore, trance and techno.

The source said: "I had no idea he was a Muslim until I saw him recently. He was dressed in robes and had a beard. He must have had a major identity change."...

Ibrahim has not visited his MySpace page since 2006 but lists his interests as DJing and singing in a band. He describes himself as a non-smoking, teetotal Muslim.

His neighbours who were evacuated when police swooped on his house were last night spending their third night away from home.

They said that Ibrahim wore traditional Islamic clothes and secured the door of his house with up to a dozen locks. One said: "We used to see him kicking a football around. His parents are very polite, professional types.

"We haven't seen Andrew for three years. Everyone assumed he was a student living away from home."...

Could just as well be a Methodist

Now that the EU has strongly denounced those venomous people who insist on linking Islam with terrorism and have made it European dogma that terrorism has nothing to do with Islam, I wonder if they will issue a condemnation of Al-Zawahri as an...Islamophobe.

Meanwhile, his call to do this will be heeded insofar as Muslims accept his claim to represent the truth of Islam. But that is the one element of the jihadist appeal that analysts almost uniformly ignore.

"Al-Zawahiri Calls On Muslims To Turn Mosques, Schools, Factories, Universities into 'Centers of Support for Jihad,'" from MEMRI (thanks to LGF):

On April 18, 2008, Al-Ikhlas and other Islamist websites posted an audio message by Al-Zawahiri, produced by Al-Sahab, titled "Five Years after the Invasion of Iraq; Decades of Oppression by the Tyrant." Al-Zawahiri states that the Democrats in the U.S. are deceiving their voters when they promise to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq by forming an understanding with Iran. This understanding, he says, is meant to allow the Americans to focus on fighting Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but will in fact only "only serve Iran's interests in the region and add fuel to the fire."

Al-Zawahiri also discusses what he calls the Muslims' longstanding economic crisis and political oppression at the hands of the Arab regimes, particularly the Egyptian government. He calls upon the Muslims to take matters into their own hands, saying: "Rights are not granted, but are claimed by force."

He concludes by urging Muslims to take to the streets, and to turn their mosques, schools, factories and universities into centers of support for jihad and resistance.

Eurabia Update: "France determined to help Morocco get advanced status in EU," from ANSAmed (thanks to Fjordman):

(ANSAmed) - RABAT, APRIL 18 - Visiting French Prime Minister, Francois Fillon pledged that his country is determined to help Morocco get an advanced status in its relations with the European Union. "We want to help Morocco to have the special status it seeks in the European Union," Fillon said on the sidelines of a dinner banquet held in his honor by his Moroccan counterpart, Abbas El Fassi, Map news agency reports. The French official, who started yesterday a two-day visit to Morocco to co-chair with El Fassi the 9th high-level Moroccan-French joint commission, added that "we seek to widen the cooperation with Morocco, given that the French government supports the wide-ranging orientations of the Moroccan policy in all fields". Recalling the various commitments taken by French President Sarkozy during his official visit to Morocco last October, during which the two countries signed agreements amounting to 3 billion euro on transport, justice, social security, mines and equipment, the minister stressed the importance of agreements to be concluded during the 9th high-level meeting. From his part, Abbas El Fassi said that the advanced status desired by Rabat is not only based on geographical proximity, but also on the adhesion to common values, namely the respect for human rights, individual and collective liberties, gender equality, justice and solidarity and the rule of law....

Uh huh.

She was afraid it would destabilize the region -- apparently in a way that a nuke in Tel Aviv wouldn't.

And after, the region is such a marvelous model of stability now.

"Condoleezza Rice opposed Israel’s attack on Syrian nuclear site," by Sarah Baxter in the Times (thanks to Pamela):

A MYSTERIOUS Israeli military strike on a suspected nuclear site in Syria last month was opposed by Condoleezza Rice, the American secretary of state, because she feared it would destabilise the region, according to a report this weekend.

Rice persuaded the Israelis to delay their operation, but not to call it off, after US officials were presented with “jaw-dropping” evidence of Syrian nuclear activity, the report said.

The Sunday Times revealed two weeks ago that Israeli commandos had seized samples of nuclear material, said to be of North Korean origin, during a daring raid on a Syrian military facility to prove to the Americans that an air attack was essential.

According to ABC News, Rice led the opposition inside the Bush administration to the Israeli strike, persuading them to shelve initial plans to hit the Syrian facility in the week of July 14.

The nuclear samples seized by ground commandos remain unidentified, but defence and intelligence sources in Washington believe they may have been connected to uranium enrichment.

Ilan Berman, a Middle East expert at the American Foreign Policy Council, said: “The consensus is that Israel struck a nuclear facility and the probability is that it was linked to enriching uranium.”...

In "Do Radicals Dominate Islam?" at Commentary's Contentions blog (thanks to all who sent this in), Max Boot says it doesn't, and discusses a debate held in New York recently. The debate thesis was "Islam is dominated by radicals."

Boot begins by saying he came into the debate on the fence:

I am seldom accused of being wishy-washy or noncommittal when it comes to major issues of foreign policy. But I was decidedly undecided when I showed up last night for the Intelligence Squared debate in Manhattan on the resolution “Islam is dominated by radicals.”

The pro side was argued by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a former Islamic fundamentalist turned Christian evangelical who is now at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies; Paul Marshall, formerly of Freedom House, now at the Hudson Institute; and Asra Normani [sic], a former Wall Street Journal reporter (and good friend of the late Daniel Pearl) who has chronicled her own battles against Muslim hardliners at her hometown mosque in Morgantown, West Virginia.

It's Asra Nomani, not Normani. Anyway, I was originally invited to be one of the participants in this debate, but the invitation was rescinded when one of the panelists arguing that Islam is not dominated by radicals objected to my presence. They were:

On the con side were Reza Aslan, a professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside; Richard Bulliet, a professor of history at Columbia; and Edina Lekovic, a Muslim of Bosnian descent who is director of communications at the Muslim Public Affairs Council (and who was wearing a head scarf).

I wasn't able to find out who got me dropped from this debate -- it could have been any or all of them, since I've written about the distortions of all three: Aslan here, Bulliet here, and Lekovic briefly several times, notably here and here. It doesn't matter, but it's interesting that the Intelligence Squared debate organizers had no problem featuring the notorious Lekovic, who, as Steve Emerson has documented, lied on national television about her editorial role in an Islamic publication that praised Osama bin Laden as a great mujahid in 1999. And here this mendacious woman is arguing that Islam is not dominated by radicals! Bravo for life's little ironies.

But Boot, apparently as unfamiliar with Lekovic's odious track record as were the debate organizers, doesn't pick up on this irony, and indeed, thinks that Lekovic's side won the debate.

Both sides threw out a lot of good arguments. Gartenstein-Ross and Aslan, in particular, engaged in some heated exchanges that entertained the audience. The problem is that neither side could really define the crucial terms in the debate—“dominated” and “radicals.”

I didn't see this debate, but it would indeed be crucial to define those terms. The lack of agreement on the meaning of those terms and others has severely hampered our ability to mount a comprehensively effective anti-jihad resistance.

Both agreed that radicals were certainly a big problem within Islam. The pro side pointed repeatedly to the Saudi and Iranian regimes as emblematic of the problem, and said that the Saudis are spreading their hateful Wahhabi doctrines. All true. But does Wahhabism dominate global Islam? The con side could point to convincing Pew opinion surveys showing that most Muslims reject Al Qaeda and its ideology of violence. They could also point to surveys (and election results in countries like Pakistan) that show most Muslims don’t want to be governed by hard-line Islamic parties.

Of course, I was not there, but this sounds as if, not surprisingly, neither side pointed out that Wahhabism is by no means the only source of Islamic "radicalism," but that violent jihad and the subjugation of non-Muslims are universally taught by all the orthodox sects of Islamic jurisprudence. Nor is Al-Qaeda the sole manifestation of this "radicalism." And as for those polls, actually Islamic hardliners have made significant electoral gains wherever remotely free elections have been held -- and the "moderates" elected in Iraq and Afghanistan made sure that Sharia was enshrined as the highest law of the land in the Iraqi and Afghan constitutions.

The pro side replied that the views of the majority were irrelevant: the radicals were able to dominate the institutions of Islam and intimidate the moderate majority into acquiescence. There seemed to be some truth to this. But the pro debaters were, I thought, confused: were they complaining about the dominance of theological conservatism or of violent radicalism?

Here Boot is apparently unaware, since he probably adheres to the Islam-Is-A-Religion-Of-Peace-Hijacked-By-A-Tiny-Minority-Of-Extremists Dogma, of how deeply theologically conservative the contemporary jihadist movement is. It is a revivalist movement, reasserting theological principles of jihad warfare enunciated in the Qur'an and the life of Muhammad, and codified very early on by all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence.

Normani [sic], in particular, complained that a “patriarchy” dominated Islam: she cannot become an imam preaching to men; in more and more mosques women and men have to sit separately. That may be true, but that’s very different—and much less alarming from my infidel perspective—than saying that more and more Muslims are lining up to practice terrorism in the name of jihad. In fact, most conservative Muslims (e.g., Ayatollah Sistani in Iraq) oppose radical calls for a religious war even while preaching a version of sharia that would be intolerable to Western liberals.

In this, of course, Boot once again demonstrates his apparent unawareness of the traditionalist character of Islamic jihadism, such that the institutionalized subjugation of women about which Nomani complained stems from the same wellsprings as the calls to wage jihad against infidels and subjugate them. And as for Sistani, it has never been demonstrated that his objection to Al-Sadr's jihad is principled rather than tactical, and his affirmation at his website of the unclean status of unbelievers (per Qur'an 9:28), on a level with pigs, blood, and feces, would be objectionable not just to Western liberals, but to anyone concerned with basic human rights and human decency.

In the end, I concluded that the pro side had not proven their case. They had certainly demonstrated that radicalism is a large and growing problem. But dominant? Not on the evidence presented last night. So I voted with the con side, notwithstanding my occasional annoyance at their leftist rhetorical tics. But I was in the decided minority. 46% of the audience voted “pro” before the debate, a figure that swelled to 73% after the debate.

While the debate was fascinating, the issue is not one that we should lose too much sleep over. Whether radicals actually dominate Islam or are simply trying to dominate it doesn’t really matter from a practical perspective. Either way, we need to do what we can do aid the forces of moderation if we are to prevail in the Long War.

And here's Boot's key statement: "Whether radicals actually dominate Islam or are simply trying to dominate it doesn’t really matter from a practical perspective." Instead, "we need to do what we can do aid the forces of moderation."

Really?

That sounds great, but consider that Boot would evidently consider Sistani among the forces of moderation, despite his Shi'ite orthodoxy that would subjugate the infidel, if in power, no less than Sunni orthodoxy would.

And it is, again, ironic to see him dismiss the importance of this issue as he watched Edina Lekovic herself arguing that the forces of radicalism do not dominate Islam. Did it ever occur to Max Boot that some people who support Islamic supremacism (not that Edina Lekovic is among them, of course!) might find it quite useful to deny that the forces of Islamic radicalism are a significant force, so that infidels will not get the idea that they need to spend too much of their time or energy investigating or trying to impede the activities of those radicals?

This in itself highlights the practical necessity of assessing realistically the provenance and popularity of Islamic supremacist notions among Muslims, so as to determine how best to resist it. In other words, it matters a great deal whether or not "radicals" dominate Islam. It also matters that the distinction on the ground between "moderates" and "radicals" -- that is, the Muslims who are not waging jihad against non-Muslims in any form, and those who are or will be -- is virtually impossible to determine. Whom we count as allies, what resources we devote to fighting that radicalism and in what ways -- all this and more hinges on the correct understanding of these questions.

But of course, most analysts aren't even asking this question, much less answering it correctly.

We keep hearing from Islamic spokesmen in the West how this practice has nothing to do with Islam -- and yet Yemen now votes down attempts to outlaw it. Jordan did the same thing a few years ago on another practice that is supposed to be solely cultural: the Parliament voted down attempts to stiffen penalties for it, on Islamic grounds. And here a Yemeni pol explains that since religious authorities haven't forbidden genital mutilation, they can't very well outlaw it.

"Yemen’s MPs debate female circumcision, pre-marriage tests," from the Yemen Times (thanks to Gateway Pundit):

SANA’A, April-13 — Preventing female circumcision and pre-marriage medical tests evoked turmoil and disagreement among Parliament members (MPs) in last week’s session.

The session ended with a unanimous agreement to cancel the term 3, which would prevent female circumcision, and delay the discussion of pre-marriage tests.

The two terms were part of a draft written by the Safe Motherhood Law Project, and introduced by the heath committee inside Parliament.

Najeb Ghanem, the Chairman of the Health Committee in Parliament, expressed his sorrow over the way Parliament discussed the two issues.

“These two topics are very important for guaranteeing women’s rights in Yemen,” he commented in a phone call to the Yemen Times after the session.

According to Ghanem, who belongs to the Islah party, most of the MPs who disagreed with the terms represent the conservative attitudes of most Yemeni citizens. “The committee is aware of the Yemeni conservative community’s positions on these issues. So we [the committee] suggested applying the law of emphasizing pre-marriage medical tests after ten years… that is after we carry out extensive awareness campaign to educate people about the importance of such tests.”

Zid Al-Shami, an MP who suggested delaying the approval of the two terms, confirmed that such topics are “sensitive and need more awareness.”

“I suggested canceling term number three, about preventing female circumcision, for many reasons. First, the term, which was written in the draft, included inappropriate and shameful sentences. Second, female circumcision exists in few regions in Yemen, like in Hodeidah and Hadramout, so it not common practice. And finally, there is still religious debate regarding the issue, so as we have no directives by the heads of religion to forbid female circumcision, we do not have the right to ban it,” Al-Shami explained....

So says Rooz (thanks to Gateway Pundit):

In reality, 2007 was one of the hardest years for Iranian homosexuals. According to Amnesty ‎International, Iran had the highest number of execution of homosexuals in that year. Several ‎cases of executions of homosexuals were cited in cities such as Shiraz, Esfahan, Tehran, Rasht, ‎Ahwaz, Tabriz, Kermanshah and Mashhad. ‎

At Columbia University last year, Iran's Thug-In-Chief said there were no homosexuals in Iran. This would explain why.

A Which-Side-Are-You-On Update from Patrick Poole of Central Ohioans Against Terrorism. The apologist in question is MPAC's Salam Al-Marayati, with whom, incidentally, I have had many extremely contentious exchanges on Radio Islam, the Alan Colmes radio show, and the Michael Medved show. Patrick has some extraordinarily illuminating information on him and on the Islamic Center that is hosting him. A segment:

In June 1999, Al-Marayati was selected by then-House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt to serve on a 10-member congressional commission on terrorism. But...this announcement was immediately followed by revelations that Al-Marayati had made numerous statements in support of terrorism and terrorist organizations. In fact, his appointment to the terrorism commission was revoked by Gephardt following these revelations. (See the Investigative Project's profile on Al-Marayati.)

Don't fail to...read it all.

Unveiled yesterday. Hats off to Sue Myrick (R-NC)!

From "N.C. congresswoman releases 10-point list to tackle radical Islam threats," by Lisa Zagaroli for the McClatchy Newspapers (thanks to Twostellas):

Here is Myrick's 10-point plan to tackle threats posed by radical elements of Islam:

1. Investigate all military chaplains endorsed by Abdurahman Alamoudi, who was imprisoned for funding a terrorist organization.

2. Investigate all prison chaplains endorsed by Alamoudi.

3. Investigate the selection process of Arabic translators working for the Pentagon and the FBI.

4. Examine the non-profit status of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

5. Make it an act of sedition or solicitation of treason to preach or publish materials that call for the deaths of Americans.

6. Audit sovereign wealth funds in the United States.

7. Cancel scholarship student visa program with Saudi Arabia until they reform their text books, which she claims preach hatred and violence against non-Muslims.

8. Restrict religious visas for imams who come from countries that don't allow reciprocal visits by non-Muslim clergy.

9. Cancel contracts to train Saudi police and security in U.S. counterterrorism tactics.

10. Block the sale of sensitive military munitions to Saudi Arabia.

So claims Ali Eteraz, who writes here that "Wilders' obfuscations are pernicious. He conceals his xenophobic nativism by waving (incorrectly translated and randomly picked) verses of the Quran."

If this is true, of course, it substantially buttresses Eteraz's claim that the film is simply a manifestation of xenophobic nativism. But if the verses are quoted correctly, it says something about those moderate Muslims in the West who seem desperate to make sure that non-Muslims do not know what is in the Qur'an and how jihadists are using those verses to make recruits among peaceful Muslims.

You remember Ali Eteraz. He's the Muslim reformist with whom I have had several exchanges in the past -- during which he several times manifested a disheartening disingenuousness rather than the honesty we have a right to expect from reformist Muslims. Anyway, in support of his claim that Geert Wilders's notorious film Fitna mistranslates the Qur'an, he links to none other than Michael van der Galien, the European blogger who has demonstrated a touching readiness to accept his distortions. But van der Galien, in his review of Fitna to which Eteraz links, doesn't actually say that the Qur'an verses quoted in Fitna are incorrectly translated. Rather, he spends a great deal time explaining (incorrectly, but that's another story) the context of Qur'an 8:60, by referring to the surrounding verses.

So let's look at the record ourselves. Here are the Qur'an verses quoted in Fitna, exactly as they're given in the film.

"Prepare for them whatever force and cavalry ye are able of gathering to strike terror, to strike terror into the hearts of the enemies, of Allah and your enemies." (8:60)

"Those who have disbelieved our signs, we shall roast them in fire. Whenever their skins are cooked to a turn, we shall substitute new skins for them, that they may feel the punishment; verily, Allah is sublime and wise." (4:56)

"Therefore, when ye meet the unbelievers, smite at their necks and when you have caused a bloodbath among them, bind a bond firmly on them." (47:4)

"They but wish that ye should reject faith as they do, and thus be on the same footing as they, so take not friends from their ranks until they flee in the way of Allah. But if they turn renegades, seize them and kill them wherever ye find them, and take no friends or helpers from their ranks." (4:89)

"Fight them until there is no dissension and the religion is entirely Allah's." (8:39)

Now let's look at common English translations of the Qur'an, made by Muslims as well as by non-Muslim Islamic scholars, and see if these were, as Eteraz says, "incorrectly translated." It appears that Wilders has mostly hewed closely to Abdullah Yusuf Ali's translation, but I'll consult 15 others also in search of these incorrect translations:

1. Fitna: "Prepare for them whatever force and cavalry ye are able of gathering to strike terror, to strike terror into the hearts of the enemies, of Allah and your enemies." (8:60)

Yusuf Ali: "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 God and your enemies."
Nooruddin: ("Believers! It is your duty also that you) keep prepared to meet them with whatever you can afford of armed force and of mounted pickets at the frontier, to strike terror thereby into the hearts of the enemies of Allah and your enemies."
Dawood: "Muster against them all the men and cavalry at your command, so that you may strike terror into the enemy of God and your enemy."
Fakhry: "And make ready for them whatever you can of fighting men and horses, to terrify thereby the enemies of Allah and your enemy."
Daryabadi: "And get ready against them whatever you can of force and well-fed horses with which you may overpower Allah's enemy and your enemy."
Pickthall: "Make ready for them all thou canst of (armed) force and of horses tethered, that thereby ye may dismay the enemy of Allah and your enemy."
Hilali-Khan: "And make ready against them all you can of power, including steeds of war (tanks, planes, missiles, artillery, etc.) to threaten the enemy of Allah and your enemy."
Shakir: "And prepare against them what force you can and horses tied at the frontier, to frighten thereby the enemy of Allah and your enemy."
Asad: "Hence, make ready against them whatever force and war mounts you are able to muster, so that you might deter thereby the enemies of God, who are your enemies as well."
Sher Ali: "And make ready for them who fight you whatever you can of armed force and of mounted pickets at the frontier, whereby you may frighten the enemy of ALLAH and your enemy."
Muhammad Ali: And make ready for them whatever force you can and horses tied at the frontier, to frighten thereby the enemy of Allah and your enemy."
Khalifa: "You shall prepare for them all the power you can muster, and all the equipment you can mobilize, that you may frighten the enemies of GOD, your enemies."
Arberry: "Make ready for them whatever force and strings of horses you can, to terrify thereby the enemy of God and your enemy."
Palmer: "Prepare ye against them what force and companies of horse ye can, to make the enemies of God, and your enemies."
Rodwell: "Make ready then against them what force ye can, and strong squadrons whereby ye may strike terror into the enemy of God and your enemy."
Sale: "Therefore prepare against them what force ye are able, and troops of horse, whereby ye may strike a terror into the enemy of God, and your enemy."

Incorrectly translated? Only if these 16 other English translations of the Qur'an, many of which were made by Muslims, are also incorrectly translated.

It's a slog, yes, but for the record, I'll go through the others also:

"Hamas' most ambitious attempt to target Israelis since Israel's pullout from Gaza in 2005."

What say you, Dhimmi Carter? By Yaniv Zohar for the Associated Press:

KEREM SHALOM, Israel - Hamas suicide bombers detonated two booby-trapped jeeps at an Israeli border crossing Saturday in what a top army commander said was Hamas' most ambitious attempt to target Israelis since Israel's pullout from Gaza in 2005.

Thirteen soldiers were wounded and four Hamas assailants killed in the attack on the Kerem Shalom crossing, just hours before the start of the Jewish Passover holiday, said the commander, Maj. Gen. Yoav Galant.

Hamas also dispatched an armored vehicle to another crossing, but that vehicle was struck by an Israeli tank shell.

Hamas said it would carry out more attacks to break the blockade of Gaza, imposed after Hamas' violent takeover of the territory nearly a year ago. Saturday's bombing at Kerem Shalom was the fifth attack on Israelis at Gaza passages since last week.

The attack on Kerem Shalom started at about 6 a.m. Saturday, Galant said. Hamas militants drove an armored personnel carrier and two jeeps — made to look like Israeli army vehicles — toward the crossing under the cover of morning fog and heavy Hamas mortar fire toward the border area.

The armored personnel carrier broke through the perimeter fence, enabling the two jeeps to enter the crossing. One jeep was detonated near an army watchtower and the second near a patrol, security officials said. Thirteen soldiers were wounded in the second blast, including eight who were hospitalized.

Galant said Hamas apparently tried to cause a large number of casualties and to kidnap soldiers.

"This is an attack the likes of which we have not seen since disengagement," Galant said, referring to Israel's pullout from Gaza in September 2005. "It (the attack) was orchestrated along the border."

Later Saturday, an Israeli aircraft fired a missile at a car near Kerem Shalom, killing a mechanic for the Hamas police and wounding four people, Palestinian security officials and medics said.

Hamas said three of its gunmen were killed Saturday, but released a farewell video of four attackers. One of the faces was blocked out, suggesting he is still at large.

The video showed the three vehicles, an armored personnel carrier, an military-style jeep and a small sedan. The video showed the three vehicles driving off into the morning fog. The assailants posed for the camera, smiling and toting rifles.

Comments on the attempts to muzzle NGOs at the 7th Session of the UN Human Rights Council (4–28 March 2008) by David G. Littman, NGO Representative in Geneva of the Association for World Education (AWE) & World Union for Progressive Judaism (WUPJ):

On March 13, Roy W. Brown, speaking on behalf of the International Humanist and Ethical Union and the Association for World Education on threats to ‘freedom of expression’, was stopped several times by member States of the Organization of the Islamic Conference on ‘points of order’. You can read his report here or here.

On March 25, the subject of Tibet was in the news, but every mention of Tibet during the general debate was challenged by China – on the spurious grounds that country situations were irrelevant to item 8, then being debated. The Association for World Education had accredited Mme. Claude B. Levenson – a world expert who had just published a book on Tibet – to speak on that ongoing tragedy. But the president of the HRC finally had no alternative, after almost 20 interruptions by China and other States, to ask all representatives – particularly NGOs – to keep off the subject of Tibet. The moment Mme. Levenson mentioned the word “Tibet” the president stopped her and gave the floor to the next speaker.

After the plenary meeting the President of the Council, Romanian Ambassador Doru Romulus Costea, called a meeting with NGOs (6:00–7:00pm) to explain these problems. There were many questions and warnings by very concerned key NGOs. Just before the close, we asked the president twice to be our ‘watchman’ (as in the Book of Ezechiel, ch. 33), and blow the trumpet loud and clear, so that such debilitating tactics would not become a precedent the next day, under item 9 (racism), when we would be speaking on certain taboo subjects. The president then made it very clear that he would do everything to protect the inherent ‘freedom of expression’ of all NGOs.

The next morning I spoke on behalf of the Association for World Education, under item 9: Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Forms of Intolerance. The attempts to muzzle me by the Egyptian, Palestinian and Iranian delegates were hilarious and the whole 12 minutes has been reproduced, with each ‘point of order’ reproduced as spoken in broken English. This farce may be viewed on the UN video. See: rtsp://webcast.un.org/ondemand/conferences/unhrc/seventh/hrc080326am-eng.rm?start=01:16:448 end=01:28:32. As can be seen and read below, President Costea kept his promise to protect NGO rights.

An hour later I spoke again for the World Union for Progressive Judaism on a similar theme under item 9. On that occasion, there were no interruptions from any Council member, using a ‘point of order’. See: rtsp://webcast.un.org/ondemand/conferences/unhrc/seventh/hrc080326am-eng.rm?start=01:57:338end= 02:01:14. Both texts are reproduced below as they were spoken – and with the verbatim interruptions.

Yesterday I posted about a panel discussion during which the female Muslim panelists said that the mistreatment of women in the Islamic world stems "largely from the culture that existed prior to Islam's spread throughout the world and the nuances of varied interpretations of the theology," and compared Islam's record on women's rights favorably to that of Christianity. They said that "ignorance causes people to misinterpret some of the external practices of Muslims that Westerners often cite as oppressive...such as the wearing of head scarves by women."

To that I responded with a series of quotations from the Qur'an that are harsh toward women -- intending to show that the mistreatment of women in the Islamic world today stems neither from pre-Islamic cultural practices nor from Christianity, and to highlight the denial and obfuscation that, as we have seen here many times, all too many Islamic spokesmen indulge in instead of engaging in the harder task of acknowledging that there are elements of Islam that are causing harm to women (and others) today, and working to find ways to limit that harm.

There is a great deal more that could be said on this topic -- see this pdf of a monograph on the treatment of women in the Islamic world that I wrote last year with Phyllis Chesler. In it, we show again and again how Islamic clerics quote the verses of the Qur'an that I quoted yesterday and others in order to justify the oppression of women.

But the European blogger Michael van der Galien of PoliGazette, with whom I had an exchange about "pure Islam" here and whose views of moderate Muslims I discussed here, thinks that I was being unfair -- and even worse, dishonest. Since his comment is illustrative of a common tendency, I thought it worthwhile to note it here:

Perhaps Robert should also - for a change - point out that the treatment of women in early Islam meant a considerable improvement for them at that point in time, that Mohammed was, in that regard and many others, quite progressive and forward thinking, and that the custom of women wearing headscarves / veils is something Muslims adopted from Christians living in the Middle East, some 4 or 5 generations after the creation of this third large monotheistic religion. It would also be worth pointing out that a man inherits twice as much as a women in early Islam, and still in some countries, because men were the ones who worked, who had to take care of their families. As such, he arrangement makes complete sense. O, and it would also be honest to point out that at that time, women did not inherit anything in the Christian world.

So in other words, van der Galien is saying that I would have been "honest" if I had done what Deiri had done -- compare Islam's record on women's rights favorably to that of Christianity -- rather than criticize her for doing so. It seems rather odd to charge one side of a disagreement with dishonesty simply for disagreeing, but if the facts in question are axiomatic, I suppose that's fair enough (although I am not granting that they are).

But remember: the article about which I was originally commenting was entitled, "Islam teaches respect for women." If it really is true that Muhammad improved the conditions of women and that the hijab is an import from Christianity, would that in itself mean that Islam teaches respect for women? Of course not. If true, those might be interesting historical sidelights, but their truth would do nothing either to explain or alleviate the mistreatment of women in the Islamic world today, or the justification of that mistreatment by Islamic clerics by means of references to the Qur'an and invoke Muhammad.

Yet Michael van der Galien is by no means alone in thinking that these arcane historical assertions somehow excuse the plight of women in Islamic societies -- and that's why I'm writing this. As for the truth of the assertions themselves, the idea that Muhammad improved the lot of women in his day seems to have escaped the notice of the women themselves. Even Aisha, Muhammad's beloved child bride, once complained to him: "I have not seen any woman suffering as much as the believing women" (Bukhari 7.72.715).

And what about the hijab coming from Christianity? This is a favorite trope of the notorious Karen Armstrong, who has never shown any intense regard for the truth. Even if true, it does nothing to explain why women in Muslim countries are threatened for not wearing the hijab, while this doesn't seem to happen in countries with majority Christian populations. More importantly, it ignores the strong foundations that the covering of women has in Islamic tradition. Aisha referred to the time when the veil was "made obligatory (for all the Muslims ladies) to observe the veil." (Bukhari 6.60.318). Some argue that this actually referred only to Muhammad's wives, but there is also material like this:

Narrated Aisha, Ummul Mu'minin [Mother of the Believers]: Asma, daughter of AbuBakr, entered upon the Apostle of Allah [Muhammad] (peace_be_upon_him) wearing thin clothes. The Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) turned his attention from her. He said: O Asma', when a woman reaches the age of menstruation, it does not suit her that she displays her parts of body except this and this, and he pointed to her face and hands. (Sunan Abu Dawud 32.4092).

But no, it all comes from Christianity, and if you don't say that, you're dishonest.

Right.

This episode is yet again indicative of an all too common pattern: Islamic spokesmen deny and obfuscate Islamic reality, and non-Muslims, full of wishful thinking and a desire to appear open-minded and not "Islamophobic," willingly abet their distortions.

The only result of this sort of thing will be that Muslim women will continue to suffer an oppression institutionalized by Islamic texts and teachings, and no one is speaking out in their defense at all.

"This (attack) was part of our operation against the Dutch. First it was because they have occupied our country and secondly it was in retaliation to the Dutch insult to our great prophet Mohammed."

"Dutch chief's son killed in Afghanistan for 'Fitna,'" from AFP (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):

The son of the Netherlands' new military chief was killed by a bomb in southern Afghanistan on Friday, in what Taliban militants said was retaliation to an anti-Islam film by a Dutch MP.

Lieutenant Dennis van Uhm, the son of General Peter van Uhm, was one of two Dutch NATO soldiers killed by the roadside attack, a day after a suicide blast took 25 Afghan lives.

General van Uhm was named top commander of the Dutch armed forces only on Thursday.

"We knew that the son of Dutch chief of staff was in the vehicle," rebel spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP, changing his account from an earlier statement that the militant group did not know who was in the car.

"This (attack) was part of our operation against the Dutch. First it was because they have occupied our country and secondly it was in retaliation to the Dutch insult to our great prophet Mohammed," Ahmadi said.

Ahmadi's claim could not be independently confirmed and the rebel spokesman has in the past made exaggerated claims....

"Girl irritated boy, boy pushed girl and told her to go away." But girl is a Muslim -- an "Asian" in British PC-speak -- and so boy is charged with racial assault and hounded. He has been cleared, but the whole thing is a travesty from beginning to end. Who made sure these charges were brought? What is being done about them to ensure this kind of thing will not happen again? Nothing, of course.

"How can my son be racist, asks mother of Down's boy charged after playground spat with Asian girl," by Natasha Courtenay-Smith for the Daily Mail:

Until recently, Fiona Bauld thought her 18-year-old son Jamie had not fully grasped the gravity of the situation he found himself in.

It brought her solace that her child, who has Down's syndrome and the mental age of a five-year-old, hadn't fully comprehended the charges of racism and assault against him, let alone begun to contemplate the consequences.

But one night shortly after Christmas, as the family watched TV, Fiona realised to her horror that Jamie was not as oblivious as she'd hoped.

A scene featuring a prison appeared on screen, at which point Jamie said quietly: "I don't want to go to jail, Mum. Please don't let them take me away." He then burst into tears.

"I rushed over, put my arms around him and told him everything was going to be fine," says Fiona.

"All through this nightmare I've done my best to put on a smile and act normally around Jamie, simply to protect him from everything that was happening. But that night, as he sobbed in my arms, I wasn't sure everything would be OK.

"My worst fear was that Jamie would be taken away somewhere that I wouldn't be able to protect him. I said: 'Jamie, you're not going to prison', but I found myself in tears, too."

When Fiona - who lives in Cumbernauld, Lanarkshire, with her husband James, 46, a telecommunications contractor, and their daughter Stephanie, 17 - uses the word "nightmare" she is making no understatement.

Hers is a situation so ridiculous it would be laughable, had the potential ramifications not been so serious.

Her story also serves as a disturbing example of how extreme political correctness can allow minor of incidents to be blown out of all proportion.

The events which have brought her such anguish in recent months begun with what was effectively a playground spat between two individuals with special needs.

It soon escalated into a seven-month criminal investigation that could have resulted in Fiona's son being hauled before a court and left with a criminal record.

Last September, Jamie - who is 18 but cannot even tie his own shoelaces, needs help on the lavatory, mustn't be left alone in the house and still relies on his mother to tuck him up in bed at night - had an altercation with an Asian girl of a similar age, also a pupil at the special needs department of Motherwell College in Lanarkshire, where Jamie is a student.

Put quite simply - girl irritated boy, boy pushed girl and told her to go away. Then, girl responded by telling her teacher.

The two were sent their separate ways and their parents informed about the falling out.

Given their mental ages, it was no more significant than a playground spat between two five-year-olds. That should have been the end of it.

Instead, a notice was placed in the local newspaper - it is not known by whom - asking for witnesses to a "racial assault" at the college on the day in question.

Whether this notice led to the police investigation, or whether the family of the girl contacted them directly is still not clear. Either way, just over a week later, Jamie was charged with racism and assault.

It was an insane example of overzealous political correctness; a local zero-tolerance policy on racism taken to its extremes without any common sense being applied, let alone consideration for the unusual circumstances of the individuals involved.

After months of stress and fear, the Baulds' ordeal came to an end yesterday when, in a remarkable climbdown, the Crown Office issued a formal apology to the family for any distress caused over the past seven months.

All charges have now been dropped, but this, says Fiona, is not enough.

Not only have they encountered confusion, red tape and a lack of compassion in their dealings with the Scottish legal system, they are left fearing that Jamie will forever have a blot on his reputation as a result of being charged at all.

"Our family has been put through a terrible ordeal over nothing," says Fiona. "It is utterly ridiculous that the authorities brought adult charges against our son, who was not only innocent, but clearly unable to comprehend why he was in trouble.

"For instance, when the police arrived to interview Jamie, he welcomed them with a big smile and a handshake. As they read him his rights, he said thank you for coming to see him, and agreed with everything they said."...

Longtime readers of Jihad Watch will know that Islamic spokesmen in the West routinely claim that non-Muslims are only suspicious of Muslim intentions out of "ignorance" of the true, peaceful Islam. This, of course, goes hand-in-hand with the idea that it is not Muslims, but non-Muslims (like Geert Wilders in Fitna), who are responsible for linking Islam with violence. This approach deftly shifts the focus away from acts of violence committed by Muslims in the name of Islam, and onto the alleged "Islamophobes" who are supposedly victimizing Muslims by connecting Islam with violence.

Anyway, today in The Ranger Online, a publication of San Antonio College and Alamo Community College, there is an article entitled "Islam teaches respect for women" by Martin R. Herrera. It reports on a lecture series held on women in the Islamic world.

Meneses and the other two women on the panel, Aurora Deiri and Narjis Pierre, acknowledged conditions for women vary from country to country but they stem largely from the culture that existed prior to Islam's spread throughout the world and the nuances of varied interpretations of the theology.

Deiri likened it to the subtleties of the many Christian faiths that exist today.

Except for extreme instances of disparity, which Meneses said is becoming more rare, Islam has pushed women's rights sooner and more significantly than Christianity. "If you ask me if there is any feminism in the Muslim world I say ... it is in the Muslim world," Pierre said.

It is difficult for the Western world to see this, Deiri said, because there is very limited understanding of the Islamic religion.

This ignorance causes people to misinterpret some of the external practices of Muslims that Westerners often cite as oppressive, she said, such as the wearing of head scarves by women.

When asked how Christianity and Islam can be so far apart today when they have so much they share in common ancestry, Deiri replied, "In some instances, ignorance allows you to retain power."

So any oppression of women in the Islamic world is simply a remnant of pre-Islamic culture, and Islam has been better for women than Christianity. It is doubtful that Deiri mentioned any of this:

Rather than regarding women as human beings equal to men, the Qur'an likens a woman to a field (tilth), to be used by a man as he wills: "Your women are a tilth for you (to cultivate) so go to your tilth as ye will" (2:223).

The Qur'an also declares that a woman's testimony is worth half that of a man: "Get two witnesses, out of your own men, and if there are not two men, then a man and two women, such as ye choose, for witnesses, so that if one of them errs, the other can remind her" (2:282).

It allows men to marry up to four wives, and have sex with slave girls also: "If ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly with the orphans, marry women of your choice, two or three or four; but if ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly (with them), then only one, or (a captive) that your right hands possess, that will be more suitable, to prevent you from doing injustice" (4:3).

It rules that a son's inheritance should be twice the size of that of a daughter: "Allah (thus) directs you as regards your children's (inheritance): to the male, a portion equal to that of two females" (4:11).

Worst of all, the Qur’an tells husbands to beat their disobedient wives: "Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them" (4:34).

It allows for marriage to pre-pubescent girls, stipulating that Islamic divorce procedures “shall apply to those who have not yet menstruated” (65:4).

None of that is cultural. Nor is reporting on it, or on how women still suffer from these and other Islamic teachings, a matter of "ignorance." In fact, paradoxically enough, it is Deiri and others like her who are spreading genuine ignorance by ignoring, denying, and downplaying all this. And indeed, ignorance allows you to retain power -- in light of that precise and apposite statement, it is important to ask: to what end is Deiri retailing these half-truths and distortions? What power are people who do this trying to retain?

Yet another Misunderstander of Islam thinks his religion has something to do with violence. I expect that the EU, having condemned any linkage of Islam with terrorism as "Islamophobic," will be condemning this young Muslim as an Islamophobe any minute now.

"Muslim convert, 19, held under Terror Act as police explode 'bomb factory,'" from the Daily Mail (thanks to all who sent this in):

A British teenager was being questioned today over a suspected terrorist bomb plot.

The 19-year-old — believed to be a Muslim convert — was being quizzed about a “significant” amount of alleged bombmaking materials found in his home.

Early this morning bomb squad officers used a robot to carry out a controlled explosion at the property in a quiet cul-de-sac in a Bristol suburb.

More than 30 people were evacuated before the blast this morning. Neighbours said the explosion sounded like a plane crash and “lit up the night sky”....

The street was absolutely covered in police. “I always thought he was a normal student.” Locals said the suspect had moved into the house about two months ago.

Most described him as polite and one said he was often seen wearing traditional Muslim dress and carrying a satchel.

Rachel Clifford, 32, and Douglas Tierney, 36, who were evacuated during the operation, told how they had banged on walls and knocked on his door because of “loud Asian music” and “chanting”.

Mr Tierney said: “The music was getting so loud I just kept banging on the door. It was very frustrating because I was getting no response. There was also chanting and we were worried it was going to carry on all night. When we eventually went round there [was the sound of] about 12 bolts being undone.”...

Yet again, oddly enough, the perps were not Islamophobes, but Islamic jihadists -- Misunderstanders of Islam, we are enjoined to believe by all the mainstream organs, but what Muslim groups are trying to straighten out their misunderstanding?

"Multiple suicide attacks in Afghani mosque," from the Irish Sun (thanks to Twostellas):

A suicide attack near a mosque in western Afghanistan has killed 23 people and wounded 31, mostly civilians, including several children.

The attack took place in Zarang city, the capital of Nimruz province, as civilians and police forces were attending an evening prayer.

The police chief of Khashroad district and the border police chief of the province were among the dead.

The attack was apparently carried out by suicide bombers, in an area that was very crowded at the time of the blast.

The local governor said there were probably multiple suicide bombers as "one person couldn't carry enough explosive to cause such a big explosion".

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but such attacks in the past have been carried out by Taliban insurgents, whose regime was ousted in late 2001 by the US-led invasion.

Ahmadi Muslims engage in aggressive da'wah, but reject jihad warfare. Therefore, they are heretical.

"Indonesia to ban Ahmadiyya Muslim sect," from ABC Radio Australia (thanks to Twostellas):

Indonesia is drafting a decree that will ban a Muslim sect that has been branded heretical by most Muslims.

The Ahmadiyya sect views itself as Muslim but it has been branded a heretical group by the Indonesian Ulema Council, the secular country's highest Muslim authority, which has issued a fatwa against it.

A team with officials from two government ministries and the attorney general's office has recommended the government ban the sect because its teachings deviate from the central tenets of Islam.

Freedom of Conscience Alert:

The team's deputy head Wisnu Subroto says the religious affairs ministry, the home affairs ministry and the attorney general's office are drafting a joint decree that will require Ahmadiyya followers to return to mainstream Islam....

Like Hamas, they know a new Carter when they see one. "Iran Avoids Support for US Presidential Hopefuls," from the Fars News Agency (thanks to Marina):

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran said on Monday that it does not back any of the US presidential candidates but does hope the election will bring a change in Washington's foreign policy. "Iran would not support any candidates in the US presidential campaign," Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyed Mohammad Ali Hosseini said during his weekly news briefing.

"But the nations of the world are fed up with America's warmongering policies and we demand these change."

Earlier in March, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the Spanish El Pais newspaper that the real circles of power in America would not allow Senator Barack Obama to enter the White House, adding that he would have no problems if the junior senator from Illinois were to be elected.

Both Democratic Party candidates have called for direct talks with Iran over its differences with the US including its nuclear program which Washington alleges is for military purposes, while Tehran vehemently denies the charge, saying the program is for peaceful purposes such as generating electricity....

Here is yet another one to remember when you hear Islamic spokesmen in the West insist that Aisha was 19 when she married Muhammad, not nine, and that his child marriage not only is not exemplary for all too many Muslims, but didn't even happen at all. Sharia Alert from the Land of the Two Holy Places, from AKI (thanks to Insubria):

Riyadh, 18 April (AKI) - A 23 year old girl, forced to marry at ten in Saudi Arabia was ordered to pay the equivalent of 16,750 euros to obtain a divorce from his husband, according to Saudi daily al-Watan.

The girl, deemed as a 'rebel' by a judge in the capital, Riyadh, was forced to marry a 67-year-old man due to her family's economic problems, in exchange for a dowry of 100,000 Saudi riyals (16,750 euros).

According to the judge, the girl does not have any grounds for divorce, but if she wants to divorce the husband, she must return the dowry given to the family 13 years ago.

The father of the girl, regrets having married her daughter so young, saying "I made a mistake by forcing my daughter to marry. If she wants to re-marry, it will be her decision who to do it with."...

Today at FrontPage a panel discusses the effort by the organization Muslims Against Sharia to create a new Qur'an with the violent verses removed, and other efforts to reform Islam. The participants are Khalim Massoud, president of Muslims Against Sharia; Edip Yuksel, a Kurdish-Turkish-American Islamic reformer; Thomas Haidon, a Muslim commentator on human rights, counter-terrorism and Islamic affairs who has often commented here at Jihad Watch; Abul Kasem, an ex-Muslim who is the author of hundreds of articles and several books on Islam including Women in Islam; Bill Warner, the director of the Center for the Study of Political Islam (CSPI) and spokesman for politicalislam.com; and me.

It's a lengthy, fascinating, and illuminating discussion. Read it all, but here are my concluding remarks, which give some hints of the tenor of the whole:

Spencer: Nothing I have read in this elephantine and contentious exchange has led me to modify my view that, as Mr. Haidon has said, “Muslims will never accept, on any level, removal of parts of the Qur’an.” Not only are large numbers of Muslims ever likely to accept a drastically edited Qur’an, but they are also unlikely ever to flock to a wholesale reevaluation of Islamic theology involving the dismissal of the Hadith and Sira as “hearsay stories.”

Mr. Warner is correct: “And there is no mechanism for reform. Our results--good, bad or indifferent—do not make any difference. There is no body or group that could vote or agree on any change.” Many strange things have happened in history and I would never say that Islamic reform is absolutely impossible, but Westerners are extraordinarily foolish when they harbor any hopes of it actually happening on a large scale. We need instead to focus on efforts to defend ourselves both militarily and culturally from the jihadist challenge, and to continue to call the bluffs of pseudo-reformers who intend ultimately only to deceive Western non-Muslims – many of whom are quite anxious to be deceived.

A terrific piece by FDD's Cliff May on Carter and appeasement:

[...] Those who attempt to appease tyrants are generally suspected of cowardice. More often, I suspect, lack of imagination is the cause. When Neville Chamberlain met with Hitler, he no doubt believed he could reason with him because he also no doubt believed that the Fuhrer - whatever his grievances or ambitions - was also a reasonable man.

What this leaves out is ideology. Hitler’s ideas - odious as they may now seem to you, me and Carter (though certainly not to Mashaal) - inspired millions to fight and die for the glory of the Third Reich. And Marxist/Leninist/Stalinist/Maoist ideology inspired millions to fight and die for the illusion of a communist utopia.

The ideology of Hamas derives from something more enduring than “Mein Kampf,” “Das Kapital” and the sayings of Chairman Mao. It is rooted in a 1,400-year-old religion. Hamas proudly proclaims that “the Koran is our constitution, Jihad is our way, and death for the sake of God is our highest aspiration.” Hamas leaders promise their followers not just rewards here on Earth but in the next world as well - a selling point neither Nazism nor communism could offer.

Surely, Carter is aware that, as a matter of religious conviction, Meshaal cannot accept Israel’s existence. Hamas believes every inch of Israel and, indeed, of any land ever ruled by Muslims is “an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgment Day,” the charter states. A Muslim can fight to reclaim this endowment or he can fail to fulfill the obligations his faith imposes. To Hamas, there is no third option.

The Hamas charter asserts, “There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad.”

Not only do Hamas members oppose a “two-state solution,” they believe that nation-states are un-Islamic. Instead, an Islamic caliphate is to be re-established, an empire that is to expand until the Dar al-Islam, the world ruled by Muslims, consumes the Dar al-Harb, the world in which infidels now hold sway.

“Rome will be conquered, just like Constantinople was, as was prophesized by our prophet Muhammad,” Hamas member and Palestinian parliamentarian Yunis al-Asal has pledged.

Does Carter sincerely think he can convince Mashaal to reject such ideas and embrace the Carter Center’s kumbaya mission of “waging peace and building hope?” Does he really believe he can change Mashaal’s mind, much less open his heart?

If so, Carter is as clueless now as he was almost 30 years ago when, on his watch as president, the Ayatollah Khomeini took power in Iran, seized America’s embassy, held our diplomats hostage and sat back to watch Carter do nothing effective in response....

Yes, he is just that clueless, if not more so.

That zebibah has nothing to do with Islam, you Islamophobe

In a happy coincidence, Zawahri's latest is sixteen minutes long -- roughly the same length as Geert Wilders's Fitna. And in it, he links Islam with terrorism by equating Islam's fortunes with those of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Yet the 57 Muslim governments of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, as angry as they are about Fitna, are likely to say nothing at all about this Zawahri audiotape. The EU, which has just strongly denounced -- in the wake of Fitna -- any attempt to link Islam with terrorism, is likely to say nothing at all about this.

And what's even more unconscionable, in light of our need to understand the threat in order to defend ourselves against it, is the fact that although Muslims like Zawahri link Islam with terrorism on a daily basis, the outrage is always reserved -- among non-Muslims as well as Muslims -- for the non-Muslims like Wilders who point this out, not for the Muslims who actually make the link.

"Zawahiri calls on Muslims to make Iraq 'fortress of Islam,'" from AFP:

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri said that building Iraq as a "fortress of Islam" is the "most important duty" for Muslims, in an audio message released Thursday according to the SITE monitoring service.

In a nearly 16 minute audio file posted on jihadist Internet forums marking the fifth anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq, Zawahiri, known as Al-Qaeda's ideological thinker, called on Muslims to fight for creating a greater Muslim state.

"We will only get our rights back with our own hands and not through beggary or fraudulent elections," he said, according to SITE's summary.

Zawahiri's talk, titled "Five years after the Invasion of Iraq and Decades of Injustice by the Tyrants," contains references to US Iraqi commander General David Petraeus's April 8 testimony to the US Congress, and to a textile worker strike in Egypt on April 6 as evidence that it was a recent recording, according to SITE.

The monitoring service said he called on Muslims to make Iraq a "fortress of Islam" and, underscoring the Sunni Muslim orientation of Al-Qaeda, he referred to a plot against Iraq by the United States together with Shiite Iran, which he said would lead to the Mideast region exploding. [...]

"The United Nations is an enemy of Islam and Muslims: it is the one which codified and legitimized the setting up of the state of Israel and its taking over of the Muslims' lands," Zawahiri said in that recorded talk.

Zawahri apparently doesn't realize what a great friend his cause has in the UN.

Tiny Minority of Extremists with nothing to do decides to hold yet another anti-Motoons rally. From AP:

Supporters of Pakistani religious parties rally against the republishing of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in Danish newspapers in Karachi, Pakistan on Thursday, April 17, 2008. The Netherlands has shifted its embassy in the Pakistani capital to a luxury hotel because of security worries following the release of a film criticizing Islam. (AP Photo/Shakil Adil)

A luxury hotel offers security that the Dutch embassy building doesn't?

"Terrorism" according to what definition? With what accountability?

"US offers Pakistan government $7bn in non-military aid to fight terrorism," by Julian Borger in The Guardian (thanks to all who sent this in):

The US has promised to curb air strikes by drones against suspected militants in Pakistan, as part of a joint counter-terrorism strategy agreed with the new civilian government in Islamabad, the Guardian has learned. That strategy will be supported by an aid package potentially worth more than $7bn (£3.55bn), which is due to go before Congress for approval in the next few months.

The package would triple the amount of American non-military aid to Pakistan, and is aimed at "redefining" the bilateral relationship, US officials say.

Pakistan will also be given a "democracy dividend" of up to $1bn, a reward for holding peaceful elections and forming a coalition government. Of that, $200m could be approved in the next few days.

The aid package, being put together by the Democratic senator Joseph Biden, will mark a decisive break in US policy on Pakistan, which for much of the past nine years focused on President Pervez Musharraf and the Pakistani military as Washington's primary partners in the "war on terror". Officials in Washington said yesterday that the shift had already been made.

"Senator Biden wants to show the relationship is much broader than a military one, and that we are willing to sustain it over time," one of the senator's senior aides said yesterday.

A US administration official said: "Each day Musharraf's influence becomes less and less. Civilians are in control. People aren't meeting with Musharraf any more ... we are very pleased with the new civilian government."

Pakistani officials say much of the new counter-terrorism aid will be spent on civilian law enforcement institutions, such as the interior ministry, the intelligence bureau and the federal investigation agency, rather than being channelled almost exclusively through the army and the military-run Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) organisation....

Naive kids with neato toys

Naive Kids Update: "New Charges Filed Against Egyptian Students Caught With Explosives," from AP (thanks to Davida):

...A grand jury issued a new indictment Wednesday charging former University of South Florida students Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed and Youssef Samir Megahed with an additional charge of possessing a destructive device, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Tampa said.

Deputies in South Carolina who stopped their car last August said they found items to build pipe bombs in the trunk.

Mohamed also faces new charges of providing material support to terrorists and possessing a pistol and a rifle in violation of visa guidelines.

The FBI said he made a video demonstrating how to convert a remote-control toy into a detonator for a bomb.

Oh, you kids!

Smell the coffee

For Abu Izzadeen's delightful encounter with John Reid, in which he essentially denied British sovereignty over predominantly Muslim areas of East London, see here. For his mocking of the victims of the London bombings, see here.

"Muslim fanatic who heckled John Reid faces life in prison for inciting and funding terrorism," from the Daily Mail (thanks to all who sent this in):

An Islamist who once praised the July 7 suicide attacks on London was today found guilty of fundraising for terrorists and inciting terrorism overseas.

Abu Izzadeen, 32, a former electrician who once heckled the former Home Secretary John Reid, was convicted at the end of a three-and-a-half month trial at Kingston Crown Court along with five other men who were also found guilty.

Sulayman Keeler, 35, who was born Simon Keeler to a Roman Catholic family in Crawley, West Sussex, was convicted of the same two charges as Izzadeen.

Abdul Saleem, 32, and Ibrahim Hassan, 25, were convicted of inciting terrorism but cleared of fundraising for terrorists.

Shah Jilal Hussain and Abdul Muhid, both 25, were found guilty of fundraising for terrorists.

Rajib Khan, 29, was cleared of the same charge. The jury failed to reach a verdict in respect of the charge of inciting terrorism overseas in his case.

They also failed to reach a verdict in respect of Omar Zaheer, 28, also charged with the same offence.

The jury did not return a verdict on a third offence of encouraging terrorism faced by Izzadeen, who was born in Hackney, east London and who changed his name from Trevor Brooks after converting to Islam.

Izzadeen described the 2005 suicide bomb attacks in London as "mujahideen activity" which would make people "wake up and smell the coffee"....

Oh, I smell the coffee just fine from here.

You see how quickly and easily demands for special consideration in the name of civil rights -- which are granted in the name of fostering assimilation -- become exclusionary and supremacist. "Father and son banned from council swimming pool for not being Muslims," from the Daily Mail (thanks to all who sent this in):

A stunned dad and his little boy were banned from swimming at a popular public sports centre - because they are not Muslims.

The man, known only as David T, and his 10-year-old son were stopped from going into the pool at Clissold Leisure Centre in Stoke Newington, east London.

Last night embarrassed management at the complex said staff were wrong to turn customers away from the designated 'men-only modesty session' on Sunday morning.

The council says the special early-morning get-togethers are aimed at community groups who have strict rules on segregation.

But the dad and his lad were prevented from swimming when they turned up at 9am on Sunday.

David T said: "I arrived at the pool to discover that they were holding what staff described to me as 'Muslim men-only swimming'.

"I asked whether my son and I could go as we were both male. I was told that the session was for Muslims only and that we could not be admitted.

"I asked to speak to the duty manager, who confirmed that this was the case."

He added: "I asked what would happen if I turned up and insisted I was Muslim.

"The manager suggested that they might ask the Muslims swimming if they minded my son and I swimming with them.

"If they didn't object, we might be allowed in."

The men-only modesty swimming sessions take place every Sunday from 8am to 9.30am.

Two websites have been advertising the sessions for Muslim men only....

I understand the pressure this man is under, but who is he kidding with a statement like that? Blasphemy leads to violence and hence undermines the war on terror? So are we to assume that if there is no blasphemy, there will be no jihad terrorism? Of course, that is absurd, unless the good cleric wishes to consider the very existence of non-Muslim polities and blasphemous. But in any case, not only is he a good dhimmi, but he is advocating that the free West play the dhimmi as well by adopting Islamic Sharia restrictions on free speech and free inquiry -- which would not be an act of tolerance or respect for religion, but an act that would begin the institutionalization of Islamic supremacism in the non-Muslim West by creating a protected class, sheltered from all criticism or any speech they disliked.

"Bishop condemns anti-Islam film and caricatures," from the Daily Times (thanks to Twostellas):

LAHORE: The Bishop of Iran and the Gulf, Azad Marshall, and the National Council of Churches in Pakistan (NCCP), have condemned the publication of the anti-Islam caricatures and a film by Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders.

According to a press release issued on Wednesday, the bishop and the NCCP expressed concerns over “the mischievous acts, maligning the Islamic faith in the name of modernisation, secularism and so-called freedom of expression”. They said the freedom of expression did not provide an open licence to hurt the religious sentiments of 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide.

Marshall called these acts “misconceived, malicious and politically motivated”. He said that these acts, especially in a society that propagated human rights, human dignity and tolerance, were against all decent norms and demonstrated a lack of respect for others religious feelings.

On one hand, the West seeks to bridge gap between different faiths and on the other it creates rift by such acts, Marshall said. “No religion, society or culture should be allowed such acts of blasphemy, which give rise to violence and undermine the global war on terror,” he said and demanded that the United Nations evolve a code of ethics that all religions be treated with same respect and dignity. The Muslim countries should use diplomatic means so that there should be no more instances in future, he added.

That bolded demand means that the UN should criminalize and prosecute those who violate Sharia norms about speaking of Allah, Muhammad, and Islam. In other words, it should become a Sharia-enforcing body.

Death of Free Speech Update: "Singaporeans charged with sedition over evangelical publication," from AFP (thanks to Abandon Skip):

SINGAPORE (AFP) - - A court has charged a Singaporean couple with sedition for distributing an evangelical Christian publication that cast Mohammed, the prophet of Islam, in a negative light, a newspaper reported Wednesday.

Ong Kian Cheong, 49, and Dorothy Chan Hien Leng, 44, had two charges lodged against them in court on Tuesday -- one under the Sedition Act and the other under the Undesirable Publications Act, The Straits Times reported.

Police declined to comment and court officials could not be reached.

The report did not provide details about the couple's alleged publication but said the couple had distributed it to two people, one in March last year and another in October.

A sedition charge for showing something to two people!

Singapore, a multi-racial island nation, clamps down hard on anyone seen to be inciting communal tensions.

In 2005, two ethnic Chinese men were jailed for anti-Muslim blogs.

The following year, a Singaporean blogger received a stern warning after posting cartoons mocking Jesus Christ on his online journal, police said at the time....

A stern warning for mocking Christ, a sedition charge for casting Muhammad in a negative light -- to two people.

Maybe there really were threats. If so, they're deplorable, as evil as they are idiotic. Above all, however, they're useful. The unindicted co-conspirator CAIR knows how to play the game: deflect attention away from anything Muslims are doing that might cause non-Muslims concern, and do everything possible to portray Muslims as victims who need a special protected status. Now the story about this school is not whether or not it is teaching Islam on public money, but how terrible it is that Muslims face "Islamophobia."

And note that what CAIR wants is a community meeting -- i.e., an indoctrination session in which the participants will be instructed about the evils of "Islamophobia" and the little matter of taking public funding for an Islamic school will go unmentioned.

Minnesota Public Madrasa Update: "Muslim civil liberties group seeks FBI probe of school threats," by Sarah Lemagie for the Star Tribune (thanks to all who sent this in):

The Minnesota chapter of a national Islamic civil liberties group has asked the FBI and local law enforcement officers to investigate reported threats against a Twin Cities charter school as possible hate crimes, while a Jewish organization deplored the threats.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) made the request Monday after the director of Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy in Inver Grove Heights told police that he and the school had received threatening and harassing phone messages and e-mails.

The group is concerned about the safety of the school's students, many of whom are Muslim, said CAIR chapter coordinator Chris Schumacher. Tagging the threats as possible hate crimes also makes it clear that prejudice could have prompted them, and "we wanted to bring that to light in case that wasn't already obvious to people," he said.

The Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas also condemned the alleged threats in a statement released Monday.

As of Monday, the charter school had not filed a complaint with the Minneapolis FBI office, but agents will reach out to the school and get more details about the messages, said Special Agent Paul McCabe. Identifying the messages as possible hate crimes would put them under the jurisdiction of federal as well as local law enforcement authorities, he said.

CAIR members are talking with the school about follow-up action that could include a community meeting along the lines of a town hall forum held in Blaine after arsonists set fire to a convenience store owned by a Muslim man in January, Schumacher said....

Marked Manner and Michelle Malkin have more.

No doubt the Danish authorities think they're getting a organization that will teach Moderate, Peaceful, Tolerant Islam in Denmark. But Al-Azhar? Al-Azhar's Grand Sheikh, Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, has endorsed suicide attacks against Israeli civilians and is the other of an elephantine dissertation on the Qur'an's Jew-hatred (of which he thoroughly approves). Al-Azhar once the professorial home of the blind Sheikh, Omar Abdel Rahman, who masterminded the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. And this Institute will teach Moderate, Peaceful, Tolerant Islam?

The language alone, about dispelling misconceptions of Islam, is reminiscent of the language employed by so many sly Islamic apologists in the West already: instead of acknowledging that the jihadists are working from longstanding traditions of how the Qur'an and Sunnah are to be interpreted, and offering proposals for reform, these apologists maintain that Islam is peaceful and that perceptions otherwise stem from ignorance or misunderstanding of the Islamic texts -- and of course, they ignore or deny the existence or authenticity of texts that make their claim too obviously shaky.

Note also that this is a reaction to the Motoon controversy -- henceforth the dhimmis will be kept in line.

"Egypt: Denmark Approves Setting Up of Azhar Institute," from ANSAmed (thanks to Wayne):

(ANSAmed) - CAIRO, APRIL 7 - Danish authorities have approved the establishment of an Azhar institute in Denmark to teach the Islamic religion, confront misconceptions about Islam and explain the true Islam to the European society. The Islamic community in Denmark received initial approvals from authorities for the establishment of the institute, said Al Azhar Undersecretary Sheikh Abdel-Fattah Allam. Similar institutes have been established in Britain and Austria, he added. The decision came after Danish newspaper the Jyllands-Posten published Muhammad cartoons on 30 September 2005. The newspaper claimed that this publication was an attempt to contribute to the debate regarding criticism of Islam and self-censorship. The published cartoons outraged numerous reactions in the Arab world starting with protests to boycotting Danish products and called for several initiatives for interfaith dialogue.

But they turned him down -- he was too pro-Israeli for them.

"Islamic Jihad: We Refused Carter’s Request for a Meeting," by Eric Trager at Commentary's Contentions blog:

Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) has announced that its leadership has refused former U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s request for a meeting. According to PIJ’s QudsNews website, Egyptian authorities contacted PIJ Secretary-General Dr. Ramadan Shallah on Carter’s behalf earlier this week, inviting Shallah to meet with Carter in Cairo. Shallah is listed on the FBI’s list of Most Wanted Terrorists, and the reward for information leading to his apprehension is $5 million.

He is also a former associate of Sami Al-Arian at the University of South Florida.

In turning down the request, Shallah declared that Carter is “carrying an American-Israeli agenda,” while PIJ spokesman Daoud Shahab blasted Carter’s criticism of Palestinian rocket attacks during the former president’s visit to Sderot. E-mails and phone calls to the Carter Center press office seeking confirmation of Carter’s outreach to PIJ have not been returned....

Yet Carter’s attempt to meet with PIJ is his most disturbing gambit to date. After all, PIJ is generally considered even more extreme than Hamas. While PIJ shares many of Hamas’ militant features–including its coordination of terrorist activities, calls for Israel’s destruction, and theocratic aims–PIJ lacks Hamas’ social and political significance. It does not have the social welfare network on which Hamas has built its popularity, while PIJ’s refusal to participate in the 2006 parliamentary elections points to its minimal public authority among Palestinians. Carter is therefore unable to argue that PIJ is somehow central to any Israeli-Palestinian peace process, which is the very argument he has used to defend his meetings with Hamas officials.

It seems likely that they recognize all the Dhimmi Carterism in his program, even as he himself condemns Carter's Appeasement Tour: "We must not negotiate with a terrorist group intent on Israel’s destruction. We should only sit down with Hamas if they renounce terrorism, recognize Israel’s right to exist, and abide by past agreements."

One would hope that by this Obama means to say "We should never sit down with Hamas," rather than "We should sit down with Hamas when they get a bit cleverer and start telling us what we want to hear while continuing to act in the same way they always did."

"A Hamas problem for Obama?," by Mosheh Oinounou for FoxNews (thanks to Ed at HotAir):

While Sen. Barack Obama sought to improve his relationship with the Jewish community today by meeting with leaders [in] Philadelphia, comments by a Hamas political adviser this weekend could potentially hurt the Democratic presidential candidate.

During an interview on WABC radio Sunday, top Hamas political adviser Ahmed Yousef said the terrorist group supports Obama’s foreign policy vision.

“We don’t mind–actually we like Mr. Obama. We hope he will (win) the election and I do believe he is like John Kennedy, great man with great principle, and he has a vision to change America to make it in a position to lead the world community but not with domination and arrogance,” Yousef said in response to a question about the group’s willingness to meet with either of the Democratic presidential candidates.

For his part, Obama criticized former President Jimmy Carter’s decision to meet with Hamas, telling Jewish leaders Wednesday that “Hamas is not a state, Hamas is a terrorist organization.”

“We must not negotiate with a terrorist group intent on Israel’s destruction,” Obama said. “We should only sit down with Hamas if they renounce terrorism, recognize Israel’s right to exist, and abide by past agreements.”

Obama in this sounds better than Condoleeza Rice.

Where will it stop? With Sharia enshrined in the constitution, there certainly isn't any protection against a steady stream of additional limitations on private behavior and civil liberties.

A five-alarm Sharia Alert. "Afghan parliament committee drafts Taliban-style moral law," from Agence France-Presse:

KABUL (AFP) - An Afghan legislative committee has drafted a bill seeking to introduce Taliban-style Islamic morality codes banning women from wearing make-up in public and forbidding young boys from wearing female fashions.

The draft, a copy of which was obtained by AFP, needs approval by both chambers of the Islamist-dominated parliament and President Hamid Karzai signature to become a law.

"Women and girls are obliged to not wear make-up, wear suitable dresses and observe hijab (veil) while at work or classrooms," said one article of the draft.

It also aims to ban women dancers performing during concerts and other public events as well as on television.

"The mass media including television and cable networks must avoid broadcasting programmes against Islamic morals," it said without giving details.

In a similar move the parliament, which is dominated by former anti-Soviet Islamist warlords, called earlier this month for a ban on dancing and Indian soap dramas on private television networks.

Men and young boys must avoid wearing bracelets, necklaces, "feminist dresses," and hair-bands, the draft reads.

The proposals also demand an end to dog and bird-fighting, pigeon-flying, billiards and video games, all past times favoured by many Afghans.

It demands separate halls for men and women during wedding parties, while loud music is banned at such gatherings. Afghans hold big and costly get-togethers for weddings, usually in a public hall with music.

If the proposals are passed, violators could be fined 500 Afghanis (10 dollars) to 5,000, according to the draft.

The plans mirror many of the laws introduced by the extremist Taliban regime, which ruled the country from 1996 to 2001 with strict Islamic Sharia law.

With good reason. More on this story. "Concerns over funding of Islamic studies," from the Guardian:

A confidential meeting called by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) about Islamic studies will take place today amid fears that Saudi and Muslim organisations exert too much influence over UK universities as a result of donations that dwarf government funding.

Private donations, mostly to Islamic study centres, are much greater than government funding for Islamic studies and academics are said to be nervous of the threat to their academic freedom.

The conference will discuss how to improve Islamic studies in UK universities after the government earmarked £1m in funding following the publication of Dr Ataullah Siddiqui's report last June.

Ministers labelled Islamic studies a "strategic subject" and said the "effective and accurate teaching" of it in universities could help community cohesion and counter extremism.

It is expected that the conference will hear calls for more Islamic study centres to be opened at or allied to British universities.

In 2006, Hefce and the Scottish funding council and the research councils for the arts and humanities and economic and social research earmarked £4.5m annually to support area studies and related languages.

This included setting up the Centre for the Advanced Study of the Arabic World - a collaboration between the universities of Edinburgh, Manchester and Durham.

Dr Denis MacEoin, Islam expert at Newcastle University, said academics were nervous about handling topics that might upset their sponsors.

"It's part of an overall belief that only Muslims can teach Islam, which in an academic context is entirely wrong. It would soon remove the possibility for genuine academic debate."

He said increasing numbers of students with Salafist - a more traditional form of Islam - backgrounds were taking Islamic studies and could be upset by "proper academic critical debate".

"It does threaten academic freedom and critical thinking," he warned.

But Dr Colin Turner, lecturer in Islamic studies and Persian at Durham University said there was no evidence that the subject was a "puppet in the hands of the extremists".

"There are certain departments in which, owing to the dynamics of their funding, one can find lecturers who avoid criticism of their (Arab) benefactors, but this is an exception rather than a rule; furthermore, if criticism is avoided, it is criticism of political rather than religious stances which is avoided," he said.

"It is usually anti-Wahhabi voices that dominate; the notion that Saudi money is turning Islamic Studies centres in the UK into hotbeds of Wahhabi extremism is completely unfounded," he said.

Prof Anthony Glees, director of Brunel University's Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, claims that eight universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, have accepted more than £233.5m from Saudi and Muslim sources since 1995, with much of the money going to Islamic study centres.

Glees' report, which is to be published by the Centre for Social Cohesion, part of rightwing thinktank Civitas, says this is 200 times the amount the government is putting into Islamic studies and will allow one-sided views of Islam and the Middle East, and anti-democratic propaganda to prosper.

Glees wants all university donations to be made public. He said any money coming into higher education from Islamic organisations should not be used for Islamic studies because of the "clear conflict of interest".

He alleges the government's plan to counter extremism would in fact create a Muslim apartheid in the UK, with Muslims being taught to think of themselves as Muslim first, British second.

Some may argue that the region isn't exactly teeming with great leaders, and only 26 percent of respondents expressed support for him. Nonetheless, the fact that Nasrallah is at the top of the heap speaks to a disturbing set of priorites for what these respondents seek in a leader. "Survey: Nasrallah is the most admired leader in the Arab world," from Haaretz:

Hezbollah chief Sheikh Nassan Nasrallah is the most admired leader in the Arab world, according to a poll released recently by the Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland.

Nasrallah seems to be gaining in popularity, with some 26 percent of respondents voicing support for him. Syrian President Bashar Assad also won an increase in popularity, according to the poll.

The survey also found that the majority of Arab public - in contrast to their governments - does not view Iran as a major threat.

Respondents said they believe Iran should be free to pursue its nuclear program and are opposed to international pressure to halt development. Some 44 percent of respondents said the outcome of a nuclear Iran would be beneficial for the region.

The poll found an increased interest within the Arab world regarding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, with some 86 percent of respondents calling it one of the top three most important issues facing the region.

A majority of respondents support a two-state solution based on 1967 borders but an increasing number voiced pessimism about its prospects.

Some 50 percent of respondents believe that the failure of a two-state solution would lead to continued conflict, 9 percent believe it would eventually lead to a one-state solution and 7 percent think the Palestinian will eventually surrender to Israel.

The survery also found that 18 percent of Arab respondents sympathize with Hamas over Fatah, while 38 percent voiced equal sympathy for the rival factions. Some 15 percent of respondents blame Hamas for the situation in Gaza, while 23 percent believe Fatah is to blame.

Some 83 percent of respondents, meanwhile, voiced an unfavorable view of the United States, while 70 percent express no confidence in the American government. Most Arabs, however, ranked the U.S. as among the leaders of freedom and democracy.

The poll found that 32 percent of Arabs believe that America's Middle East policy will remain the same regardless of who wins the coming elections. Some 18 percent of respondents think Barack Obama has the best chance of bringing peace to the region, while 13 percent favor Hillary Clinton. Another 4 percent think McCain is the best candidate to advance Middle East peace.

An update on this story. "Judge declares mistrial in 'Liberty City 7' terrorism case," from CNN:

MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- A judge has declared a mistrial in the retrial of six men accused of plotting terrorist acts with al Qaeda.

The decision comes after 13 days of deliberation and marks the second time government prosecutors have failed to convince a jury that the six defendants were guilty of terror-related charges.

It is unclear whether the government will pursue a third trial against the defendants.

The first trial ended in a mistrial last December after nine days of deliberations left a jury hopelessly deadlocked on the six defendants. A seventh was acquitted.

The defendants are known as the "Liberty City 7" because authorities say the men operated out of a warehouse in Miami's Liberty City housing project.

After their arrests in June 2006, federal officials said the homegrown terror plot may have included as its possible targets the 110-story Sears Tower in Chicago -- the tallest building in North America -- as well as the FBI's Miami offices and other sites

He may have been calm because he knew he was going to do a great act to serve Allah. (After all, it was he himself who mentioned that he was a Muslim in his first explanation of why he did it after the shooting.) "Officer: Haq calm when stopped 20 minutes before rampage," by Tracy Johnson for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (thanks to all who sent this in):

A Seattle police officer who pulled over Naveed Haq said everything about the encounter seemed routine, leaving no hint that in less than 20 minutes, the man would walk into the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle and open fire.

Officer Glen Cook told jurors Tuesday that he has since gone over that July 2006 traffic stop in his head over and over, "kind of second-guessing myself."

"Was there something I missed?" he wonders. "Should I have seen something?"

But what may be most important for jurors in Haq's ongoing King County Superior Court trial is the 32-year-old Tri-Cities man's demeanor during that brief run-in with police, which happened so close in time to the deadly shooting.

His attorneys contend that he was delusional when he forced his way into the federation's Seattle offices with two guns and a knife on that sunny Friday afternoon and shot six women, leaving one of them dead.

Prosecutors contend that he'd planned the attack and knew exactly what he was doing: Trying to make a political statement with his rant against Jews, U.S. foreign policy and the troops in Iraq....

From our Why We're In The Fix We're In Department: "Oops, she did it again! Rice calls Hamas 'resistance movement' during unscripted remarks," by Aaron Klein for WorldNetDaily:

JERUSALEM – For at least the fourth time in recent months, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice referred to the Hamas terrorist organization as a "resistance" movement during unscripted remarks with reporters, WND has learned.

This time, Rice was giving a free-ranging interview two weeks ago with the Washington Times when a reporter asked her about the wisdom of encouraging democracy in countries where radical Islamists could win elections, pointing as an example to Hamas, which won Palestinian elections two years ago.

Rice replied: "It's, I would say, still a story-in-progress on Hamas, in particular, because I think there's plenty of evidence now that one reason that Hamas went back to their bad old ways and took over the Gaza and overthrew the legitimate Palestinian Authority institutions is that actually they were failing at governance, and it's easier to be a resistance movement than to be a governing movement."

Her remarks are transcribed in full on the State Department website....

"Wilders is provocative in his comments on selective readings of the Quran and seeks to present a distorted portrayal of Islam as a violent religion." Predictably enough, there was nary a word from the august churchmen about the Islamic preachers depicted in the film, using the Qur'an to preach violence. No, it's all Geert Wilders's fault.

"Council of Churches: Fitna distorts Islam," from The Star (thanks to Twostellas):

KUALA LUMPUR: The Council of Churches Malaysia on Wednesday expressed concern over the release of the controversial movie Fitna made by Dutch Member of Parliament Geert Wilders.

“The film, which is now posted on the web, highly criticises Islam, setting verses from the Quran against a background of violent images from terrorist attacks. "Wilders is provocative in his comments on selective readings of the Quran and seeks to present a distorted portrayal of Islam as a violent religion," said CCM general secretary Rev Dr Hermen Shastri.

He said the CCM was in solidarity with the Council of Churches in Netherlands which had stated: “We strongly reject all contempt and slander aimed at the Quran and the Prophet Muhammed, just as we would not wish this with regard to the Bible and the Christian faith. We stress that Mr Wilders represents the vision of a small section of Dutch society. This vision is certainly not shared by the Dutch churches.”

Rev Dr Shastri said in a statement the 15-minute feature film had distorted the core spiritual values of Islam, which like Christianity did not advocate violence....

What a relief!

Jahiliyya Update: The artifacts of the pre-Islamic period or non-Islamic cultures are, to traditional Islam, worthless trash -- the society of unbelievers. "Iran: Seven historic synagogues in Tehran destroyed," from AKI (thanks to Sr. Soph):

Tehran, 15 April (AKI) - Seven ancient synagogues in the Iranian capital, Tehran, have been destroyed by local authorities.

The synagogues were in the Oudlajan suburb of Tehran, where many Iranian Jews used to live.

"These buildings, which were part of our cultural, artistic and architectural heritage were burnt to the ground," said Ahmad Mohit Tabatabaii, the director of the International Council of Museums’ (ICOM) office in Tehran.

"With the excuse of renovating this ancient quarter, they are erasing a part of our history," said Tabatabaii....

"Her lawyer compared the case to thousands of others in Yemen, which has no minimum age of marriage."

An update on this story. "Eight-Year-Old Girl Divorces Husband From Arranged Marriage," from FoxNews (thanks to all who sent this in):

An eight-year-old Yemeni girl was granted a divorce from an arranged marriage she was forced into in just the second grade.

Nojud Mohammed Ali said she was forced to marry under an agreement reached between her unemployed father and 28-year-old former husband, Faez Ali Thameur, earlier this year, AFP reported.

"They asked me to sign the marriage contract and remain in my father's house until I was 18," the girl told AFP. "But a week after signing, my father and my mother forced me to go live with him."

Thameur told a judge that he married Nojud with her consent and her parents', and that the marriage "was consummated, but I did not beat her." He did not object to the divorce petition.

Nojud's father said he married off his daughter with her consent out of fear that she might be kidnapped, as he claimed her two older sisters had been, AFP reported....

"I am happy that I am divorced now. I will be able to go back to school," Nojud told AFP.

Her lawyer compared the case to thousands of others in Yemen, which has no minimum age of marriage. She said advocates are pushing for laws that would make 18 the minimum age of marriage.

The hope is that the largely Pakistani Muslim population in Britain would be more receptive to messages of moderation from Pakistani clerics.

But this is ultimately rather useless as long as "moderation" is such an ill-defined term. What specific ideas and practices do these "moderate" imams reject? Or will authorities settle for a sense of moderation as simply not being as bad as the next guy? And, lacking a definition of moderation, how will they screen the people they do bring into the country for this project?

"Imported moderate imams 'will counter fundamentalists'," by Philip Johnston for the Telegraph:

Moderate Muslim clerics are to be brought in from Pakistan in an effort to combat extremism in British mosques, the Home Secretary will announce today.

Jacqui Smith struck a deal on a recent visit to Pakistan under which respected imams could be invited to help British Muslims counter the fundamentalists.

The move is part of Government efforts to step up its so-called prevent agenda, which is aimed at tackling jihadi propaganda in Muslim communities.

In a newspaper interview at the weekend, Miss Smith said: "The vast majority of British Muslims have a Pakistani heritage. If we work with the Government there we can win the arguments.

"We need to do more to tackle those places where radicalisation is developing - in prisons, schools, higher education - so that people are getting the right messages about what it means to be a British Muslim.

"We will also work to ensure we identify vulnerable people being groomed for terror - in the same way we protect young people from being dragged into crime and abuse."

During her talks in Pakistan, the two governments pledged to work closely with communities in Britain to tackle the underlying causes of radicalisation. Ministers believe that preventing young Muslims being radicalised is a central part of their counter-terrorism strategy.

However, the Home Office has been criticised for allowing fundamentalist clerics into the country to preach and attend rallies.

"Manzoor Qadir, the president of the Lahore Bar Association, said that the present government was not doing enough to rein in foreigners indulging in blasphemous acts."

"500 Pak lawyers protest against anti-Islam Dutch film," from Asian News International:

Lahore, Apr.15 : Hundreds of Pakistani lawyers on Tuesday staged a protest against a Dutch film that satirically depicted the Prophet Mohammad and accused the Koran of inciting violence.

The movie made by Dutch lawmarker Geert Wilders last month, interspersed caricatures of the prophet and the Koran with images of the 9/11 attacks and other Islamist bombings.

Titled "Fitna," a Koranic term sometimes translated as "strife", it also shows an image of the Prophet Mohammad primed to explode.

Reports said that 500 lawyers took part in the demonstration and shouted slogans like "Death is acceptable in the service of the prophet" and "God is greatest".

"Death is acceptable in the path of saving the sanctity of prophet", said a banner.

Cartoons and movies don't kill people. People overreacting to them do.

The protesters marched for about a kilometre from the high court building to the Data Darbar, the shrine of Lahore's patron saint.

Manzoor Qadir, the president of the Lahore Bar Association, said that the present government was not doing enough to rein in foreigners indulging in blasphemous acts.

He demanded the expulsion of the Danish envoy and called for a snapping of diplomatic ties with Denmark.

Not the first case of soccer jihad, either. An update on this story. "12 stand trial in Australia terror plot," from the Associated Press:

MELBOURNE, Australia - Twelve terror suspects planned to bomb a packed sports stadium during the grand final match of the Australian Football League in 2005, a witness testified Tuesday.

Izzydeen Atik, a former associate of the suspects, told Australia's Victorian Supreme Court that the stadium plot was postponed after police raided the suspects' homes and seized their assets in June 2005.

Atik said alleged terror cell leader Abdul Nacer Benbrika told him about the plot and subsequent plans to bomb Melbourne's Crown Casino during the Formula One Grand Prix and an AFL preseason match.

Benbrika, an Algerian immigrant to Australia, and 11 other men have pleaded not guilty to charges of being members of a terrorist group and related charges. Prosecutors say the 12 intended to undertake "violent jihad" in Australia, had discussed killing former Prime Minister John Howard, and identified railway stations and sports fields as likely targets.

Atik, a former religious student of cleric Benbrika, told the court he used stolen credit card numbers to buy airplane tickets and mobile phones for the accused men. He faces separate charges of credit card fraud.

The 12 terror suspects on trial in Melbourne were arrested in November 2005 and their trial began in February.

The suspects face a maximum penalty of life imprisonment if convicted of membership in a terrorist group.

Most of them are reportedly born or naturalized Australians with Muslim immigrant backgrounds.

UPDATE from Robert Spencer: Several Australians have emailed me to say that this is not another case of soccer jihad, because Australian Rules Football is not soccer. My apologies -- I don't even know what inning we're in.

Surprising? No. Appalling? Yes.

"Carter embraces Hamas official at West Bank meeting," by Josef Federman for the Associated Press:

JERUSALEM - Former President Carter angered Israel's government Tuesday by embracing a Hamas politician during a visit to the West Bank, ignoring Israeli and U.S. designation of the Islamic militants as a terror group. Israel accused Carter, the broker of the first Arab-Israeli peace accord, of "dignifying" extremists. But Carter vowed to meet Hamas' supreme leader this week in Syria.

Carter, a Nobel Peace laureate, also laid a wreath at Yasser Arafat's grave, another break with U.S. policy during a private peace mission to the Middle East that includes stops in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Syria — where the virulently anti-Israel Hamas movement has its headquarters. Carter returns to Israel on Monday.

Carter has been shunned by Israel this week, and the White House has criticized him for his willingness to meet with Hamas leaders. Carter says the U.S. and Israel should stop isolating the group, whose control of the Gaza Strip threatens to undermine Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.

"Since Syria and Hamas will have to be involved in a final peace agreement, they have to be involved in discussions that lead to final peace," Carter said in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

During the graveside ceremony, a two-man honor guard escorted the 83-year-old Carter and his wife, Rosalynn. Carter placed the wreath on the grave, then solemnly nodded before turning away. Later, a Palestinian host told Carter that Arafat's resting place was temporary, and the Palestinians hope to move his remains to Jerusalem one day. Carter did not react.

President Bush blamed Arafat for the breakdown of peace talks and subsequent wave of violence and cut off of contacts with the longtime Palestinian leader before he died in 2004. Bush did not visit Arafat's grave when he visited Ramallah this year.

Carter also attended a reception organized by his office for Palestinian dignitaries in Ramallah. At the gathering, Carter embraced Nasser Shaer, a senior Hamas politician, meeting participants said. Embraces between men are a common custom in Arab culture.

"We hugged each other, and it was a warm reception," Shaer said. "Carter asked what he can do to achieve peace between the Palestinians and Israel ... and I told him the possibility for peace is high."

Shaer, who served as deputy prime minister and education minister in the Hamas-led Palestinian government that unraveled last year, is considered a leading member of the Islamic militant group's pragmatic wing. After a stint in an Israeli prison last year, he is now a professor at a West Bank university, teaching comparative religion.

Palestinians say Shaer, an academic, was not involved in Hamas attacks against Israel, and Israel has never charged him with violent activity.

Bridge for Sale. Shaer is nonetheless still a member of an organization committed to the destruction of Israel.

More on this spectacle in "Carter kisses Hamas terrorist," by Aaron Klein for World Net Daily:

RAMALLAH, West Bank – Former President Jimmy Carter today warmly embraced a top Hamas terrorist and laid a wreath on the gravesite of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, whom Carter called a "peace fighter" and a "dear friend," according to Palestinian officials speaking to WND.

Visiting the West Bank city of Ramallah, Carter attended a reception with Nasser Shaer, a senior Hamas leader. The reception was closed to the media, but according to participants and the Hamas leader, Carter hugged Shaer and kissed him on each cheek, the customary greeting for good friends. Many U.S. diplomats refrain from kissing Palestinian officials.

Prior to embracing Shaer, Carter met with officials from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah organization at the Muqata, the main Fatah headquarters.

Carter paid a visit to the gravesite of Arafat, who is buried just outside the Muqata. Palestinian officials who escorted Carter told WND the former president paused for a moment of silence at Arafat's grave before laying a wreath there.

The Palestinian officials quoted Carter stating Arafat was a "peace fighter and a dear friend of mine."

They also quoted Carter calling Arafat a "partner in representing the question of justice in the world."

"Eight of Britain's leading universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, have accepted more than 236 million pounds sterling, about $460 million, in donations from Muslim organizations, 'many of which are known to have ties to extremist groups, some have links to terrorist organizations'."

"Saudis purchasing UK universities?" from World Net Daily:

LONDON – Jonathan Evans, the director-general of MI5, has warned the government that donations of hundreds of millions of pounds from Saudi Arabia and powerful Muslim organizations in Pakistan, Indonesia and the Gulf Straits have led to a "dangerous increase in the spread of extremism in leading university campuses," according to Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

Eight of Britain's leading universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, have accepted more than 236 million pounds sterling, about $460 million, in donations from Muslim organizations, "many of which are known to have ties to extremist groups, some have links to terrorist organizations."

The bulk of the donations have come in the past five years during a period when terrorist activities in Britain have increased. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced over the weekend that MI5 was now investigating "42 current terror threats and the possibility of attacks is increasingly real."

Universities that have accepted the money also include the London School of Economics, the City of London, Exeter and Dundee universities. All have a growing number of Muslim students.

A major donation has included 20 million pounds sterling from the late King Fahd of Saudi Arabia to help establish the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies, which will be affiliated to the university when it opens next year.

The MI5 claims follow a lengthy investigation that revealed 70 percent of political lectures at the Middle Eastern Center at St. Anthony’s College in Oxford were "implacably hostile to the West and Israel."

The MI5 claims are reinforced by Prof. Anthony Glees, the director of Brunel University's Center for Intelligence and Security Studies, a think-tank with close links to the Intelligence Services.

"Up to 48 universities in Britain have been infiltrated by fundamentalists financed by Muslim groups. The potential threat this poses is obvious to the security of the country," Glees said.

However, Prime Minister Gordon Brown insists it is strategically "important to study Islam." He has authorized one million pounds sterling to be spent at the campuses on a counter radicalization drive.

It certainly is strategically important to study Islam. But where one gets information, and the agenda of the party disseminating that information makes quite a difference.

An update on this story. "Brigitte Bardot on trial for Muslim slur," from Reuters:

French former film star Brigitte Bardot went on trial on Tuesday for insulting Muslims, the fifth time she has faced the charge of "inciting racial hatred" over her controversial remarks about Islam and its followers.

Prosecutors asked that the Paris court hand the 73-year-old former sex symbol a two-month suspended prison sentence and fine her 15,000 euros ($23,760) for saying the Muslim community was "destroying our country and imposing its acts."

Since retiring from the film industry in the 1970s, Bardot has become a prominent animal rights activist but she has also courted controversy by denouncing Muslim traditions and immigration from predominantly Muslim countries.

She has been fined four times for inciting racial hatred since 1997, at first 1,500 euros and most recently 5,000.

Prosecutor Anne de Fontette told the court she was seeking a tougher sentence than usual, adding, "I am a little tired of prosecuting Mrs. Bardot."

"Doctor, it hurts when I do this."

"Well, don't do that."

Bardot did not attend the trial because she said she was physically unable to. The verdict is expected in several weeks.

'France invaded by sheep-slaughtering Muslims'

French anti-racist groups complained last year about comments Bardot made about the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha in a letter to President Nicolas Sarkozy that was later published by her foundation.

Muslims traditionally mark Eid al-Adha by slaughtering a sheep or another animal to commemorate the Prophet Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son on God's orders.

France is home to 5 million Muslims, Europe's largest Muslim community, making up 8 percent of France's population.

"I am fed up with being under the thumb of this population which is destroying us, destroying our country and imposing its acts," the star of "And God created woman" and "Contempt" said.

Bardot has previously said France is being invaded by sheep-slaughtering Muslims and published a book attacking gays, immigrants and the unemployed, in which she also lamented the "Islamization of France."

And she's been aggressively prosecuted for which of those opinions?

Extreme Christian 2008
Yesterday's Wall Street Journal had a story on Pope Benedict's U.S. visit. Much of the analysis was about Iraq, but then came this:

A major theme of Pope Benedict's papacy has been the importance of reason and faith coexisting. Reason without faith, he has said, leads to empty materialism, while faith without reason leads to extremism, as in parts of the Middle East.

Pope Benedict also has spoken out against intolerance in the Islamic world, provoking a violent backlash in the Muslim world with a 2006 speech in Regensburg, Germany. On Easter he baptized a well-known Italian Muslim in a ceremony that drew renewed criticism from parts of the Middle East. "The pope understands the danger of radical Islam," said a former Bush administration aide.

They will push you onto your back, Jamal! Allah Akbar!

Of course, this sort of thing should not be discounted as a motivation for suicide bombers who want to take hold of the Qur'an's promise of Paradise to those who kill and are killed for Allah (9:111).

"Saudi Cleric Omar Al-Sweilem Extols the Breasts and Thighs of the Black-Eyed Virgins of Paradise," from MEMRITV (thanks to Sr. Soph):

Following are excerpts of a video-clip featuring Saudi cleric Omar Al-Sweilem, which was posted on the Internet. The video quality is low in the original.

Omar Al-Sweilem: Harith Ibn Al-Muhasibi told us what would happen when we meet the black-eyed virgin with her black hair and white face – praised be He who created night and day. What hair! What a chest! What a mouth! What cheeks! What a figure! What breasts! What thighs! What legs! What whiteness! What softness! Without any creams – no Nivea, no vaseline. No nothing! He said that faces would be soft that day. Even your own face will be soft without any powder or makeup. You yourself will be soflt, so how soft will a black-eyed virgin be, when she comes to you so tall and with her beautiful face, her black hair and white face - praised be He who created night and day. Just feel her palm, Sheik! He said: How soft will a fingertip be, after being softened in paradise for thousands of years! There is no god but Allah. He told us that if you entered one of the palaces, you would find ten black-eyed virgins sprawled on musk cushions. Where is Abu Khaled? Here, he has arrived! When they see you, they will get up and run to you. Lucky is the one who gets to put her thumb in your hand. When they get hold of you, they will push you onto your back, on the musk cushions. They will push you onto your back, Jamal! Allah Akbar! I wish this on all people present here. He said that one of them would place her mouth on yours. Do whatever you want. Another one would press her cheek against yours, yet another would press her chest against yours, and the others would await their turn. There is no god but Allah. He told us that one black-eyed virgin would give you a glass of wine. Wine in Paradise is a reward for your good deeds. The wine of this world is destructive, but not the wine of the world to come.

In Human Events today I discuss Muqtada Al-Sadr's recent adventures in Iran.

Muqtada al-Sadr has gone to Iran to hit the books -- and the consequences could reach far beyond the quiet halls of the Shi’ite theological schools of Qom, Iran.

Hopes were raised in Iraq last Monday when an aide to the portly leader of the Shi’ite jihad announced that the notorious anti-American leader would disband his army if Shi’ite authorities told him to do so. An aide, Hassan Zargani, announced: “If they order the Mehdi Army to disband, Moqtada al-Sadr and the Sadr movement will obey the orders of the religious leaders.”

Over at Atlas Shrugs, Fjordman reviews the great Ibn Warraq's essential new book, Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said's Orientalism. A couple of highlights:

Amidst the praise he gives the West, Ibn Warraq warns that the "golden threads" running through this civilization - rationalism, universalism and self-criticism – can sometimes turn into liabilities: Rationalism can lead to sterile scientism, universalism to the loss of one's sense of belonging and limitless self-criticism to self-hatred:

"US foreign policy has nothing to do with the deaths of 150,000 Algerians at the hands of Islamic fanatics. The root cause of Islamic fundamentalism is Islam. American foreign policy has nothing to do with the stoning to death of a woman for adultery in Nigeria. It has everything to do with Islam, and Islamic law. The theory and practice of jihad – bin Laden's foreign policy – was not concocted in the Pentagon; it is directly derived from the Koran and the hadith, Islamic tradition. But Western liberals and humanists find it hard to admit or accept or believe this. They simply lack the imagination to do so." [...]

Defending the West is a powerful tour de force through history. It is one of the sad facts of this age that intellectual frauds like Edward Said get so much attention, whereas true intellectuals such as Ibn Warraq do not get nearly as much as they deserve. If only more people read Ibn Warraq's books, we wouldn't be in as much trouble as we are.

That is absolutely true. Read it all.

Kafeel Ahmed is the jihadist who crashed his Jeep Cherokee into the Glasgow airport in the July 2007 jihad plot in Britain. There is a great deal of interest in this letter, but note especially the frequent references to Allah and Islam, which here again belies the common claim that terrorism has nothing to do with Islam. The terrorists themselves think it does, and that claim needs to be studied. If we do not study it, we certainly will never figure out how to counter it.

Note also the repeated instructions to his brother to feign ignorance, to lie, to appear shocked, to portray the jihadist as a law-abiding PhD student. And compare that to the reactions from relatives and friends of all jihadists whenever they are interviewed in the press.

From our Terrorism Has Nothing To Do With Islam Department: "The Jihad confession email," from the Sydney Morning Herald (thanks to Twostellas):

Jihad confession email from Kafeel Ahmed to his brother Sabeel Ahmed, 30 June 2007.

Inshallah, by the time you get this message I should have achieved one of the two goals by the will of Allah. I sincerely apologise and pray that you forgive me for keeping this from you. It was for your safety and for the sake of the project. And after much deliberation I have decided to write this message so that you are prepared to take the knock-on effects of my actions.

My sincere request that you do the following:

1. Pray to Allah for acceptance of my deeds.

2. Pray to Allah to give you calm and composure and strength (for you will need this).

3. Do not inform anyone about me or my deed (and I mean anyone).

4. If they figure out it was me (I have tried to clear up my tracks as much as possible) then go ahead and tell them whatever they ask of you (about my PhD and the project on global warming and my trip to Iceland and give them my comp if they ask).

And of course this is going to put you in trouble (Allah forbid). Say only that which is necessary. And please don't argue. Try to continue as normal but appear shocked. Try to put off telling Abbu-Ammi (mother and father) for as long as possible.

I am sorry for putting you in this situation. But it's about time that we give up our lives and families for the sake of Islam to please Allah. And you will, inshallah, get the reward for this....

6. If I am caught, then try to maintain calmness (and if asked, repeat my story of PhD and project on global warming) and don't try too hard to get me released, I am prepared for the long haul (may Allah save me from the dreaded prisons).

It will be your task to explain to people at home. I and the team are making maximum efforts to prevent this....

At any time, don't hold back from joining the Jihad, by money, words and actions. Allah makes it easy for those who do so...

This is the project that I was working on for some time now ... everything else was a lie. And I hope you can all forgive me for being such a good liar. It was necessary, just so that you know. Everything since last week was executed by me and my team. This is confidential on behalf of our Emir. (If you got a sms, then the plan was stalled mid-way)....

May Allah ... reward you for the troubles.

Your brother Abu Abdurahman

Alluding to the tactic of demographic conquest, while also speaking volumes about the value and role of women in the jihadist vision for society. "Mashaal Praises ‘Palestinian Reproductive Machine’," from Israel National News:

Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal made a speech in favor of the “Palestinian reproductive machine” at his daughter Fatima’s wedding over the weekend. The “machine” is constantly active, Mashaal said. He told his daughter and son-in-law that their children would one day live in the “48 territories,” that is, within Israel’s 1948 borders.

Mashaal took time from his speech to thank Syria for allowing him, Islamic Jihad head Ramadan Shallah, and other senior terrorists to live in Damascus. “We realize the pressures on Syria for housing Mashaal and Shallah,” he said. Shallah attended the wedding, as did PFLP head Mahir at-Tahir, Iranian ambassador Ahmed al-Musawi, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, and other Arab and Muslim diplomats.

An update on this story. "Teacher accuses Islamic school of racism," by Alexandra Frean for the Times Online:

A former teacher at an Islamic school, who alleged that it taught an offensive and racist view of non-Muslims, has been awarded £70,000 by an employment tribunal after winning his case for unfair dismissal.

Colin Cook told the tribunal in Watford that pupils were taught from Arabic books that likened Jews and Christians to “monkeys” and “pigs” at The King Fahad Academy, which is funded and run by the Saudi Arabian Government.

The tribunal ruled that Mr Cook, a British Muslim, was unfairly dismissed from his £36,000-a-year post at the school in Acton, West London, in December 2006 after blowing the whistle on systematic cheating at a GCSE exam.

The panel found that the school created a “smokescreen” to try to justify his dismissal after 18 years’ unblemished service.

It awarded Mr Cook £58,800 in compensation for loss of earnings and £10,500 for injury to feelings. But it rejected his claim that the school discriminated against him on racial grounds.

Mr Cook told the hearing that after leaving the school another member of staff gave him extracts from an Arabic textbook, which encouraged students to believe that all religions other than Islam were worthless.

The books referred to “the repugnant characteristics of the Jews”. Another passage said: “Those whom God has cursed and with whom he is angry, he has turned into monkeys and pigs. They worship Satan.”

Mr Cook alleged that the books were spreading race hatred. “They should not be brought into this country and they should not be used in this country,” he said.

The school denied ever teaching any form of racial hatred and insisted that the offending passages in the books were “misinterpreted” and were never used in class. But it later got rid of the books.

Not exactly.

"The terrorists were given amnesty on condition they disarm, refrain from attacks and spend three months in PA detention facilities and another three months confined to Nablus, the northern West Bank city in which they reside."

More on this story. "Pardoned terrorists tried to poison restaurant," by Aaron Klein for World Net Daily:

JERUSALEM – The terrorist cell that planned to poison an Israeli restaurant this month was led by jihadists who were recently granted amnesty by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, WND has learned.

The pardoned terrorists, were directly involved in orchestrating the foiled attack, according to defense sources. They were granted amnesty in October as a stated Israeli gesture to help bolster Palestinian Authority President and Fatah Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

The terrorists were given amnesty on condition they disarm, refrain from attacks and spend three months in PA detention facilities and another three months confined to Nablus, the northern West Bank city in which they reside.

Last week, it was released for publication Israel's Shin Bet Security Services arrested two Palestinians from Nablus who worked illegally at the Grill Express, a restaurant in the city of Ramat Gan, which is a sattelite city of Tel Aviv.

Upon interrogation, the two, Aham Rial and Anas Salum, both 21 years old, confessed they were planning to poison the restaurant food with a white, odorless, tasteless deadly poison they said takes effect about five hours after it is ingested.

The Palestinians said they were to receive the poison from the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades leadership in Nablus. They said they were also asked by the Brigades leadership to find ways to help infiltrate suicide bombers into Israel.

Security officials warned the Brigades leadership in Nablus is still seeking to use Palestinians working illegally inside Israel to perpetuate terrorist attacks. There are tens of thousands of illegal Palestinian workers inside Israel.

According to Israeli defense officials, there is specific information the foiled poison plot was planned by three terrorists from Nablus, two of whom are on Olmert's amnesty list, which restricted the Israel Defense Forces from acting against them.

Nablus is the main stronghold of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Fatah's military wing, which is listed by the State Department as a terrorist group. The Brigades took responsibility, along with the Islamic Jihad terror organization, for every suicide bombing in Israel in 2005 and 2006 and for thousands of shootings and rocket attacks.

Among the pardoned Brigades leaders involved in the foiled poisoning is Hani Caabe, a senior Brigades leader in the Old City of Nablus. The name of the other pardoned terrorist is being withheld by WND for security purposes at the request of defense officials.

In June, Olmert granted amnesty to 178 Fatah fugitives who pledged their resignation from any so-called paramilitary organizations. In spite of the amnesty deal, many Brigades members openly brandished weapons and were caught carrying out scores of attacks.

Nevertheless, in October Olmert issued amnesty documents to 43 more Fatah terrorists, who were also required to turn in their weapons, spend three months in a PA holding area and restrict their movements for another three months to one city.

Most of the 43 terrorists have yet to keep their side of the deal, defense officials said.

Gee. Didn't see that coming.

There go the glorious mujahedin, keeping pious believers safe from the hazards of education and a better life. "British headteacher shot dead in Somalia in raid on school by Islamist militia," by Xan Rice and Helen Pidd for The Guardian:

A British headteacher who was shot dead in Somalia by Islamist insurgents may have been targeted because he was a Christian convert, his wife said yesterday.

Daud Hassan Ali, 64, was killed outside the Hiran community education project English school in Beledweyne in central Somalia late on Sunday night, along with Rehana Ahmed, 33, a fellow British Somali teacher. She was reported to have been shot in the head.

Militiamen from the Shabab rebel group also killed two Kenyan teachers after forcing them out of their houses at the school, 190 miles north-west of the capital Mogadishu. A senior commander with the Shabab yesterday claimed the teachers had died in crossfire.

Ali, the school's headmaster and founder, moved to Britain in 1967, and worked as a teacher and later as an educational psychologist for Birmingham city council. He made regular trips back to Somalia and in 2004 returned to Beledweyne, where he was born, to establish the school for 110 pupils.

From her home in Birmingham yesterday, his wife, Margaret, 64, said that her husband might have been targeted because he had converted to Christianity. She said: "The school he established is run in a house which is also where he lives - there are various disgruntled factions running around and because he is a convert to Christianity from Islam then he is a target. They raided the house in the middle of the night and murdered all four people there."

She said establishing the school had been Ali's lifelong dream. "He always wanted to go back to Somalia and do something for his own people." She added: "He was a great optimist and saw good things in everything - I will continue to pray for the people of Somalia and eventually some good may come out of this."

Yesterday, one of Ali's two sons, Robleh Tinning, 32, said: "He wasn't trying to convert anyone, he was just trying to teach English. He always had a grand project on the go. If something needs doing, someone has to stand up and say they are going to do it and that is what he did. He was a doer, not a moaner." [...]

A local reporter in Beledweyne, who asked to remain anonymous, said Ethiopian soldiers who had normally been based in the town had moved out on Sunday to reinforce troops elsewhere, and that within hours the Shabab militia had taken over the town.

After burning the governor's house, and freeing prisoners from jail, the militiamen headed for the school compound, where they overpowered the three security guards and forced the foreign teachers outside, the reporter said.

Mukhtar Ali Robow, of the Shabab, told Reuters his men had attacked Beledweyne, but he claimed: "Their guards shot at us and we shot back."

Cultural Capitulation Update: never mind the possibility of deception, and the concomitant ease of committing crimes, made possible by the face veil. Self-defense does not trump multiculturalism.

"Muslim woman receives damages for headscarf slight," from The Local (thanks to Marked Manner):

A 20-year-old Malmö woman has been awarded damages after she was asked to leave a bus for wearing a veil.

The woman has received 25,000 kronor ($4,203) from public bus service operator Arriva after an agreement was reached with the Ombudsman against ethnic discrimination (DO), according to local newspaper Sydsvenskan.

The woman was instructed to leave the bus in the southern Swedish city when she refused to remove the niqab veil that she was wearing as part of her sartorial hijab headdress. The niqab covers the entire face except for eyes.

The bus driver had asked the woman to remove her niqab so that he could identify her, however the woman was using a buss pass that did not require identification.

"The bus driver has not acted according to Arriva's values. There is no doubt where the fault lies and this is most regrettable. We are happy to pay out the money to make up for it," said Jan Wildau at Arriva.

After several suras have recounted the message and reception of various prophets in strikingly similar terms, this sura, “The Prophets,” discusses the phenomenon of prophecy and the way it is received in general (usually with scoffing). It also touches on several prophets specifically, including Abraham, David, Solomon, Job, and Zechariah. Sura 21 is a late Meccan sura, and was revealed against the backdrop of the ongoing strife between Muhammad and the leaders of the pagan Quraysh tribe of Mecca – a tribe of which Muhammad was a member, but which had rejected his prophetic claim. This sura is full of both direct and implied references to their skepticism, as well as replies to their objections.

Verses 1-47 speak generally of how the unbelievers always scorn the signs of Allah’s creative power, and the messages of the prophets. We hear their dismissals of Muhammad’s prophetic pretensions, and in vv. 4, 24, 42 and 45 Allah tells Muhammad what to say to them. The unbelievers claim that Muhammad is bringing witchcraft, and assume that to be a prophet he would have to be “more than a man like yourselves” (v. 3). But the earlier prophets were just ordinary men, as the unbelievers can discover by asking the Jews and Christians (“those who possess the Message”) (vv. 7-8). The unbelievers say that Muhammad is a poet who has invented the Qur’an, and that if he were really a prophet he would work a miracle (v. 5). But Allah has destroyed entire populations in the past (v. 6) and has done what he promised to do, and saved “those whom We pleased, but We destroyed those who transgressed beyond bounds” (v. 9).

This man wants to conquer the world

As Jimmy Carter plans to meet with Hamas, this Hamas MP explains that it is an Islamic imperative to subjugate the world "thorough da'wa and military conquests."

As the EU President insists that there is no link between Islam and terrorism, this Islamic cleric explains that the conquests he dreams of are "Islamic," and that Muslims need to be prepared to carry out these conquests "by means of the mosques and the Koran books, and the history of our Prophets."

Has the world ever before witnessed cognitive dissonance on this grand a scale?

"Hamas MP and Cleric Yunis Al-Astal in a Friday Sermon: We Will Conquer Rome, and from There Continue to Conquer the Two Americas and Eastern Europe," from MEMRITV (thanks to Sr. Soph):

Following are excerpts from an address by Hamas MP and cleric Yunis Al-Astal, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on April 11, 2008.

Yunis Al-Astal: Allah has chosen you for Himself and for His religion, so that you will serve as the engine pulling this nation to the phase of succession, security, and consolidation of power, and even to conquests thorough da'wa and military conquests of the capitals of the entire world. Very soon, Allah willing, Rome will be conquered, just like Constantinople was, as was prophesized by our Prophet Muhammad. Today, Rome is the capital of the Catholics, or the Crusader capital, which has declared its hostility to Islam, and has planted the brothers of apes and pigs in Palestine in order to prevent the reawakening of Islam – this capital of theirs will be an advanced post for the Islamic conquests, which will spread through Europe in its entirety, and then will turn to the two Americas, and even Eastern Europe.

I believe that our children or our grandchildren will inherit our Jihad and our sacrifices, and Allah willing, the commanders of the conquest will come from among them. Today, we instill these good tidings in their souls, and by means of the mosques and the Koran books, and the history of our Prophets, his companions, and the great leaders, we prepare them for the mission of saving humanity from the hellfire on the brink of which they stand.

An update on this story. "Jimmy Carter says he likely will meet with Hamas," from Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said in remarks to air on Sunday that his upcoming visit to the Middle East probably would include a meeting in Syria with leaders of the militant group Hamas.

"I've not confirmed our itinerary yet for the Syrian visit, but it's likely that I will be meeting with the Hamas leaders," Carter said, according to a transcript of his interview on ABC News' "This Week."

The Bush administration and close U.S. ally Israel oppose the meeting, which would take place during Carter's nine-day trip to the Middle East that begins on Sunday.

U.S. policy has been to isolate Hamas, which seized control of Gaza last June, and to bolster pro-Western President Mahmoud Abbas, who rules the West Bank and is in U.S.-sponsored talks with the Israelis.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who sought Carter's counsel on his own previous Arab-Israeli peacemaking efforts ahead of a U.S.-hosted Middle East conference in Annapolis last November, called Hamas a "terrorist organization" on Friday.

"I think there's no doubt in anyone's mind that, if Israel is ever going to find peace with justice concerning the relationship with their next-door neighbors, the Palestinians, that Hamas will have to be included in the process," said Carter, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.

"I think someone should be meeting with Hamas to see what we can do to encourage them to be cooperative," he added.

Carter, who served one term as president from 1977 to 1981, would be one of the most prominent Americans to meet with the leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal.

"We'll be meeting with the Syrians, the Egyptians, the Jordanians, the Saudi Arabians, and with the whole gamut of people who might have to play a crucial role in any future peace agreement that involves the Middle East," Carter said of his trip.

The 83-year-old former president has a long history of being involved in the Middle East. In 1978 he succeeded in negotiating the Camp David Accords that paved the way for peace between Israel and Egypt, but he has increasingly taken positions critical of Israel.

In a 2006 book, he described Israeli policy in the occupied territories as "a system of apartheid."

"There are people who think the clash of civilizations is inevitable. But I reject this idea very strongly."

And apparently the way to avoid that clash is to pretend the differences don't exist, and surrender. "Islam, terrorism not linked, says top EU official," from The Peninsula:

Doha - The European Parliament is highly critical of those who equate Islam with terrorism, its President said here yesterday.

"I will not accept this and we in the European Parliament do not accept that Islam and terrorism are identified as the same thing. We don't believe in this idea and we reject this idea," Hans-Gert Pottering, who is here on an official visit to Qatar, told a news conference.

A sloppy statement on so many levels. Obviously, a belief system and a tactic (terrorism) are not the same thing. But that's not to say open-ended commands to wage war against unbelievers are not contained in that belief system, or don't pose a serious problem for Western nations and cultures. Then there's the imprecision of the term "terrorism," as opposed to armed jihad and all other forms of campaigns to overthrow non-Islamic govenments and subjugate non-believers. But we're not supposed to talk about that.

He said the European Parliament rejected statements, pictures or descriptions that identify violence and terrorism with Muslim beliefs.

Referring to the controversial Dutch MP Geert Wilders' anti-Islam film Fitna, Pottering said: "I express my opposition to this film and the same thing with the Danish cartoons."

"We in Europe are committed to the freedom of the press, on the one hand, but on the other the media should develop a sort of self responsibility. They should always know the consequences of what they publish about other cultures," he said.

"We should respect others' beliefs and our relations should be based on mutual tolerance."

He commended the opening of a church in Qatar, saying this is something he understands as tolerance.

Pottering said 2008 is the European Year of Inter-Cultural Dialogue. "I deeply believe that understanding between the Arab world and Europe is very important for our common future," he said.

"There are people who think the clash of civilizations is inevitable. But I reject this idea very strongly. I believe it is our moral and political obligation to work for partnership, peace and understanding."

"Hizb ut-Tahrir is a secretive organisation which promotes the destruction of Western civilisation and the overthrow of governments and their replacement by Islamic rule. The group is banned in much of Europe, China and Saudi Arabia but remains legal in Britain and Australia."

"Islamist group won't admit magazine role," by Natalie O'Brien and Sanna Trad for The Australian:

A RADICAL Islamist magazine pushing anti-Israeli sentiments is being sold on university campuses in Sydney, but the organisation believed to be behind the booklet, Hizb ut-Tahrir, is refusing to acknowledge its role in the publication.

The idialogue [sic], a 42-page glossy magazine, was yesterday being sold to students as they left Friday prayers at the University of Technology Sydney, the University of NSW and the University of Sydney.

But the young men peddling the magazine refused to say who or what organisation is behind the publication.

"Read it for yourself," was the only comment they would make.

The Sydney-based media officer for Hizb ut-Tahrir, Wassim Doureihi, is writing for the magazine, and other members of Hizb ut-Tahrir are involved in its production.

However Mr Doureihi has refused to return calls from The Weekend Australian.

The magazine is to be published quarterly and has a cover price of $3.50.

The first edition opens with a message from the editorial team which says in part "we launch this initiative at a time when strong political messages should not be shied away from by the Muslim community ... and the ideological onslaught against Islam is evident on every level of society".

The magazine pushes a strong anti-Israeli message focusing on the issue of the Palestinian territories, saying "the holiest of Islamic lands is in the hands of the unholiest - the illegal and illegitimate state of Israel".

It also reproduces a 1935 fatwa issued by the religious scholars of Palestine against the selling of lands to Zionists.

Hizb ut-Tahrir is a secretive organisation which promotes the destruction of Western civilisation and the overthrow of governments and their replacement by Islamic rule.

The group is banned in much of Europe, China and Saudi Arabia but remains legal in Britain and Australia.

Five years ago, most Western observers did not consider Hizb ut-Tahrir a serious threat, but its influence has grown and it now has branches in about 45 countries.

The group has twice been investigated by ASIO.

The role of Hizb ut-Tahrir in the radicalisation of young Muslims was revealed last year when four of the seven suspects in failed terror attacks on London and Glasgow were found to have had links to a Hizb ut-Tahrir cell in Cambridge.

A research paper produced last year in Australia warned the organisation was a conveyor belt for extremists.

"I don't know if they are Al Qaeda, but they think just like Al Qaeda," quoth one official, underscoring the often-overlooked fact that Al-Qaeda did not invent the ideology that drives them. And thus, the less-advertised, "generic" jihadist can be just as potent as the name brand.

"Islamic extremism returns to Sudan capital," by Edmund Sanders for the Los Angeles Times (When did it leave Khartoum?):

KHARTOUM, SUDAN -- The young assassins prowled Khartoum's streets for hours on New Year's Eve, looking for Westerners on the way home from parties.

They stopped a Land Cruiser but released it after seeing two children in the back seat. Another foreigner was let go because he was the "wrong" nationality, said Khartoum state Gov. Abdul Halim Mutaafi. "They wanted Americans or British," he said.

Their victim was John Granville, 33, a USAID official and former Peace Corps volunteer, who was shot to death along with his Sudanese driver early New Year's Day.

The assassination, the first of a foreigner in Khartoum since the 1970s, was the latest in a string of troubling signs that one of Africa's safest capitals faces a growing threat from home-grown Islamic extremists, part of a conservative sect that has doubled in size here in the last decade.

In August, Sudanese police broke up a suspected bomb plot involving young men who planned to attack the British and U.S. embassies. Instead, they accidentally blew up their own apartment, Sudanese and Western officials said.

In February, graffiti began appearing in several Khartoum neighborhoods with slogans claiming to be from "Al Qaeda Organization of Sudan." Although clear links to Al Qaeda have been difficult to prove, some officials fear that the terrorist network and its leader, Osama bin Laden, who were ejected from Sudan in 1996, are trying to reestablish a base.

Most alarming to Sudanese officials is that this new generation of extremists appears to be almost as hostile toward the Arab-dominated Sudanese government as they are to the West, despite Khartoum's efforts to bolster its Islamic credentials. In a high-profile case last year, the government prosecuted and briefly jailed a British grade-school teacher who allowed her students to name a class teddy bear after the prophet Muhammad.

Sudanese police have arrested more than 40 people in a crackdown during the last six months, including those believed to be responsible for Granville's killing, Mutaafi said. Many are students or recent university graduates.

"These are young people with very strong religious feelings and very strong feelings against the West," said Ali Sadiq, spokesman for Sudan's Foreign Ministry. [...]

American officials in Khartoum are expressing growing concern. In March, the U.S. Embassy issued a stark public warning, its second in a year, disclosing that "the U.S. government has received indications of terrorist threats aimed at American and Western interests in Sudan." The consulate advised Americans to avoid travel to the country and said it had beefed up security measures.

After the New Year's attack and the 2006 beheading of an outspoken Sudanese newspaper editor, two previously unknown groups, one claiming affiliation with Al Qaeda, took responsibility for the killings in messages published on Islamist websites. The claims could not be verified, and Sudanese officials questioned their veracity.

Nevertheless, Sudanese and Western officials said that the young men recently arrested in Sudan display similar goals and ideology. One diplomat called them "Al Qaeda wannabes."

"I don't know if they are Al Qaeda, but they think just like Al Qaeda," Mutaafi said [...]

But [Osman Khalid Mudawi, chairman of the foreign affairs committee in Sudan's parliament] said he doubted whether terrorist groups could gain a foothold in Sudan. "We don't have that brand of Islam here," he said.

Others in the government agreed, downplaying the terrorism risk and insisting that Khartoum remains safer than most other African capitals. In an apparent attempt to calm nerves after the Granville slaying, police at first circulated rumors that the attack was the result of a love triangle or gambling debt. Although government officials now confirm the shooting was the work of Islamic fundamentalists, they call the killing an isolated incident, not the start of a trend.

"These are really just lads," said Sadiq of the Foreign Ministry. "It's hard to even call them organized groups."

An update on this story. "200 hurt in Dhaka as Islamist bodies protest law for women," from Indo-Asian News Service:

Dhaka, April 12 (IANS) Bangladesh's top judge and an Indian jurist have come out strongly in support of a move to formulate a law to ensure equal rights for women even as Islamist bodies termed it 'anti-Quran' and clashed on the streets, leaving 200 wounded.

'Women are about a half of the total population. Hence, their demand for equal rights is logical. Then why are various incidents taking place now on the issue?' Chief Justice M. Ruhul Amin remarked at a seminar Friday as protests entered the second day.

He said: 'The demand for equal rights for women in every aspect of life is logical.'

Ombudsman of West Bengal, Samaresh Banerjee, who addressed the event as the guest of honour, said judicial systems in South Asian countries are not well equipped to deal with crimes on gender issues.

'Gender justice is a new jurisprudence all over the world,' Banerjee said, underscoring the need for initiating judicial education on gender issues in the eight member countries of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc).

Meanwhile, the police battled protestors in Dhaka and the Chittagong port city, the United News of Bangladesh (UNB) news agency said.

Bangladesh's Ismalist bodies that have forged a front are protesting the recently announced national women development policy.

The marchers outside Dhaka's Baitul Mukarram mosque chanted slogans demanding the resignation of Women and Children Affairs Adviser Rasheda K. Chowdhury and of the interim government of Chief Advisor Fakhruddin Ahmed.

Three members of Islamist outfits beat up a policeman after the cop fell behind his retreating colleagues who chased the agitators near the mosque, The Daily Star newspaper said Saturday.

The police used batons and fired rubber bullets and tear gas to break up the demonstrations. At least 52 policemen and five journalists were injured.

Hundreds of people who had gone to the mosque for Friday prayers were trapped inside.

Chief Adviser Ahmed, performing the prime ministerial functions, announced the National Women Development Policy-2008 on March 8, triggering protests from Islamist organisations.

Since then, some radical groups have been claiming that the policy gives equal inheritance rights to men and women, while the government maintained there is no such provision.

Can't have that!

In efforts to scotch the discontent, four advisers of the caretaker government met Islamist leaders on March 27 and formed a review committee headed by the acting Khatib of Baitul Mukarram Mosque.

Jihadists, that is. An update on this story. "Mauritanian authorities hunt for three suspected Islamists," from Agence France-Presse:

NOUAKCHOTT (AFP) - Law-and-order forces in Mauritania are searching for three more suspected Islamists whose pictures are plastered around the city, a security source said Saturday.

The names of the suspects -- Taghi Ould Youssef, Abderrahmane Ould Mohamed El-Hussein and Moctar Ould Sidi -- are included on the photos, along with a hotline number for tips leading to their arrest.

Meanwhile authorities continue to scour for the whereabouts of two other alleged Islamists who escaped during a shootout with police Monday night.

The escapees include Sidi Ould Sidna, one of the suspected assassins of two French tourists in December.

Another Islamist who was seriously wounded in the shootout died Saturday afternoon, a hospital source said.

"We're awaiting his parents to deliver the body," the source said of the man previously identified by a security official as an expert in explosives who was trained by an Algerian-based group linked to Al-Qaeda.

The source said the man was likely Abou Mouadh, a Salafist acquitted in 2007.

The former Salafist Group for preaching and Combat (GSPC) has since morphed into Al-Qaeda's north African branch, which officials believe has a presence in Mauritania.

The man's death brings to three -- two suspected Islamists and one police officer -- the number killed in Monday's shootout.

Authorities have televised photos of the latest Islamist suspects with a public warning by the state prosecutor that anyone harbouring "runaway terrorists" would be heavily punished.

It is unclear what the latest three are suspected of, but a security official said Thursday's arrest of Maarouf Ould Haiba, one of the three suspected killers of the French tourists, had "accelerated things."

Meanwhile on Friday, police uncovered a stash of hidden explosives in a posh part of Nouakchott.

Twice the size of France but with only three million inhabitants, Mauritania was not previously regarded as a haven for extremism.

But it has been the target of three Al-Qaeda attacks since December, which left four French tourists and three Mauritanian soldiers dead and forced the cancellation of the 2008 Dakar Rally.

I spoke Thursday in New York at an event hosted by The Foundation for Defense of Democracies' Center for Law and Counterterrorism and The New Criterion: "Libel Tourism, 'Hate Speech,' and Political Freedom." The intrepid Pamela was there -- and here is her film.

Here's the latest Jihad Watch video from Hot Air, in which I wonder why anyone should be upset about Geert Wilders's Qur'an film.

Qur'an class -- 9:00.
Teachings of Muhammad class -- 10:00
Explosives training class -- 11:00.

"Traces of explosives found in Islamic school," from the Bangkok Post (thanks to Cindy):

Officials yesterday found traces of bomb-making material in the Islam Burapa school in Muang district, which has been turned into a centre for insurgents to plan their moves since the state ordered it shut down last year.

The rebel group ignored last year's raid at the school when security officers rounded up seven suspected insurgents, and have continued to plot insurgent activities there by making bombs and supplying them to militants, according to a villager.

The officials, led by Khunying Porntip Rojanasunan, director of the Central Institute of Forensic Science, found traces of explosive materials on furniture, utensils and cloth in four shelters in the school. One of the shelters belongs to a man identified as Abdulaman Mauseng.

''These materials are found to be the same as those used in bomb blasts in the area,'' said Narathiwat governor Karan Supakijvilekka.

Teachers and more than 600 students were forced to study elsewhere after the school's licence was revoked following the raid in July last year....

Tiny Minority of Extremists™ Update: "Britain monitoring 30 terror plots," from The Australian (thanks to Sr. Soph):

BRITISH police and security agencies are monitoring 30 terrorism plots, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said in extracts of a newspaper interview released today. "We now face a threat level that is severe. It's not getting any less, it's actually growing,'' she said in an interview to be published tomorrow in News of the World.

"We task the police and the security agencies with protecting us ... There are 22,000 individuals they are monitoring. There are 200 networks. There are 30 active plots,'' she said....

Britain has seen a marked increase in militant Islamist plots since it joined the US in invading Iraq in 2003.

This reporter could just as easily, and more accurately, have written this: "Britain has seen a marked increase in militant Islamist plots since it embarked upon a policy of appeasement and see-no-evil, speak-no-evil, hear-no-evil regarding the Muslim community."

UPDATE: The story found at The Australian appears to have a typo. Other reports, including those from AP and Reuters, quote the number as 2000, not 22,000.

No sooner had I posted this story that I saw this one. And this just highlights the point I made there. When a bomb goes off at a Catholic church, no one thinks it was a bomb-making class gone awry, or a fumbled munitions exhibit, or an attack by Congregationalists. Everyone knows what it is. And when a bomb goes off inside a mosque, no one is surprised if it does turn out to be a bomb-making class gone awry, or a fumbled munitions exhibit, or an attack by rival sectarians. Yet the most common rejoinder to any exposition of the elements of the Qur'an and Sunnah that jihadists use to justify violence remains "Well, yeah, but the Bible is violent too." The simple reality that churches are hardly ever places of violence while mosques are all too frequently is dismissed without any examination of its implications. And those implications are a great many, up to and including the fact that, whether we are Christian or not, we have a culture and a civilization that are worth defending, and are not equivalent to the culture and civilization that the jihadists are fighting to impose upon us.

"Bomb explosions rock Catholic church, cafe in Philippines," from DPA (thanks to Sr. Soph):

Zamboanga City, Philippines - Two bomb explosions rocked a Catholic church and a coffee house in the southern Philippines before dawn Sunday, but no one was hurt in the attacks, police said. Authorities have not identified suspects in the attacks, which occurred in the wake of warnings by the United States and Australia of possible terrorist attacks in the southern Philippines.

The first explosion occurred near the right wing of the Immaculate Conception Metro Cathedral in Zamboanga City, 875 kilometres south of Manila, at 4:15 am.

Police Superintendent Jonathan Perez said the church was empty during the explosion since the first Mass was scheduled at 5 am.

The caretaker, who was preparing for the Mass, called police when he became suspicious about three men who entered the church compound but left immediately.

The explosion occurred while police were on the way to the cathedral.

Perez said a bomb was planted in one of two parked vehicles near the cathedral's right wing. The blast damaged both vehicles.

"The good news here is that no one was hurt," Perez said.

The second blast occurred just 10 minutes later in the front of a coffee shop located on the ground floor of a building that also houses the local office of the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Perez said the coffee shop's door and sign were destroyed.

Zamboanga City Archbishop Romulo Valles expressed alarm over the bombing at the cathedral, which he denounced as an "act of the forces of darkness" and "an evil act."

"We should all join together and stand up and try everything to stop any further activities like this," he added....

Yes, we should!

"...the initial investigation found remnants of ammunition from a military exhibition that was held recently at the mosque." Of course. This sort of thing could happen anywhere. Why, just last week at the big ammunition exhibition at the local Baptist church, I was a bit concerned myself.

"Iran dismisses sabotage in mosque blast," by Nasser Karimi for Associated Press (thanks to D. C. Watson):

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iranian officials on Sunday ruled out an attack as the cause of an explosion that killed 11 people inside a mosque in the southern city of Shiraz.

The explosion ripped through the mosque packed with hundreds of worshippers late Saturday as a cleric delivered his weekly speech against extremist Wahabi beliefs and the outlawed Bahai faith, the semiofficial Fars news agency said.

Authorities said besides the 11 killed, 191 people were wounded, some of them critically, the state IRNA news agency reported.

On Sunday, the deputy interior minister in charge of security, Abbas Mohataj, said the explosion was "the result of an incident." He didn't elaborate.

The police chief of the southern Fars Province, Gen. Ali Moayyedi, said he "rejects" the possibility of an intentional bombing and "any sort of insurgency" in the blast.

Moayyedi, in comments carried by state IRNA news agency, said the initial investigation found remnants of ammunition from a military exhibition that was held recently at the mosque.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said Sunday that no group has claimed responsibility for the explosion.

Earlier, the Fars agency quoted a local police official as saying a homemade bomb had caused the explosion and indicated the attack could been religiously motivated. But the agency backed off those speculations on Sunday....

This is likely to cause immense outrage among Muslims, but consider this: most of the time the party line is that the terrorists are hardly Muslims at all, but are perverting and twisting and hijacking a peaceful religion. I have seen many Muslim spokesmen in the West loudly say that they don't have to apologize for the deeds of the terrorists, because the terrorists aren't true Muslims. So if they aren't, why is this a big deal (as it almost certainly will be)? But I expect that there will be expressions of outrage that the Pope is praying for the conversion to Christianity of any Muslim -- suddenly, the terrorists will turn out to be Muslim after all.

"Pope will pray for terrorists at Ground Zero," by Malcolm Moore in the Telegraph (thanks to Zeus):

The Pope will pray for the redemption of Islamic terrorists when he visits the site of the September 11 attacks in New York next week. The pontiff will call for terrorists to convert to Christianity, saying: "Turn to Your way of love those whose hearts and minds are consumed with hatred.

"God of understanding, overwhelmed by the magnitude of this tragedy, we seek your light and guidance".

The prayer is likely to further incense the Muslim world, which has already attacked the Pope for publicly converting Magdi Allam, a journalist and one of Italy's most high-profile Muslims, at Easter.

Osama bin Laden accused the Pope of trying to provoke "a new crusade" against Islam.

Aref Ali Nayed, a leading scholar and proponent of peaceful relations between the Roman Catholic Church and Islam, said that there were "genuine questions about the motives, intentions and plans of some of the Pope's advisers on Islam".

He said that religious conversion should not be "made into a triumphalist tool for scoring points"....

When the head of the BBC says this, you know you've got a real problem. "BBC chief Mark Thompson warns of 'over-cautious' Islam coverage," by Dan Sabbagh in the Times (thanks to all who sent this in):

Mark Thompson, the Director General of the BBC, tonight warned broadcasters against becoming overly-cautious in their reporting on Islam for fear of causing offence to Muslims.

Speaking at Westminster Cathedral Mr Thompson, a practising Catholic, said there was “a growing nervousness about discussion about Islam and its relationship to the traditions and values of British and Western society as a whole”.

He said that the BBC and other major channels “have a special responsibility” to ensure that debates about “faith and society” and about any religion “should not be foreclosed or censored”.

In an effort to demonstrate that his remarks were not targeted solely at ensuring that Islam received journalistic scrutiny, Mr Thompson also referring to his decision to broadcast Jerry Springer, The Opera despite an avalanche of complaints from Christians unhappy at the depiction of Jesus in the satire.

“There is no point having a BBC which isn’t prepared to stand up and be counted; which will do everything it can to mitigate potential religious offence; but which will always be forthright in the defence of freedom of speech and of impartiality,” he said....

Indeed not.

Keep quiet, bow and scrape, and all will be well. But if you dare to behave as if you are not subservient, you are committing a hostile act. "Qaradawi flays Pope’s ‘hostile act,’" from Gulf Times (thanks to SMC):

PROMINENT scholar Sheikh Yousuf al-Qaradawi has denounced Pope Benedict’s baptism of a Muslim-born journalist during the last Easter Mass at the Vatican as a “provocative and hostile act against Muslims”.

Sheikh Qaradawi, who is the head of the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS) and the European Council for Fatwa and Research, said the public baptism of Majdi Allam has provoked Muslims around the world.

“We do not feel regret over the conversion of that person. He has been a Catholic for more than five years. He was always attacking Islam, the Qur’an and me. The problem is that he was baptised by the Pope in public and in front of satellite TV cameras. This is a hostile act against Islam,” he told Doha-based Al Jazeera television.

“It is not strange that Allam, who betrayed his country and supported Israel, left his religion. We know that he is an agent of Israel. He would not contribute to Islam if he were a Muslim,” he said.

Qaradawi said the public baptism has worsened relations between the Vatican and IUMS. “We were looking for a different approach from the Pope after his anti-Islam remarks two years ago. But the Pope’s baptism of a person who was known for his enmity to Islam and the Qur’an made us stick to our previous decision to suspend the IUMS relationship with the Vatican,” he told Al Jazeera.

The scholar also blamed the West for worsening relations with Islam. “We try to seek peace with the Vatican and the World Council of Churches but in vain. They keep provoking us by their hostility.”

Iranian filmmaker Nader Talebzadeh recently asserted "the fact that the West does not tolerate any criticism of Israel.”

Not only does "the West" tolerate constant criticism of Israel, but Israel also -- this mighty empire about the size of Connecticut, hard to discern on a map of the world -- about one-third to one-half of the total debates and resolutions at the U.N. and many of its subsidiary bodies. Whole conferences seem to veer inexorably into the subject of Israel's perfidy and the greatest tragedy in the history of the world, that of the "Palestinians" -- whether it be a conference on racism at Durban, or on women in Cairo. And the Western world not only tolerates it, but sometimes joins in. Israel has been left virtually alone, save for a handful of states.

There is no reason to do anything to appease Saudi Arabia. Yet the assumption that the West must do this is commonly made. In order to obtain oil from Saudi Arabia, or from any other oil producer, the only thing that any consumer need do is offer the market price. That's it. And if for some reason one producer -- let's say Venezuela -- decided it did not want to sell oil to the United States, or all the Arab countries decided that they would not sell oil to Israel, or to Denmark, or to the Netherlands, it doesn't matter. Oil is fungible. Oil can be obtained through dozens of possible sellers. If buyer X won't sell, buyers Y and Z will. It is actually easier for buyers to put pressure and organize boycotts of sellers of oil, than vice-versa.

The repetition of the phrase above, and the unexamined belief of so many that we need to placate or appease Saudi Arabia, a backward land that is totally dependent on the West for its professional and managerial class, and dependent on the West for advanced education, medical care, arms, and protection for the Al-Saud, needs to be held up for inspection, analysis, and ridicule.

A Jihad Watch reader recently referred to the “award-winning journalist Robert Fisk.”

Robert Fisk has been, for many decades, a stalwart, and a fan, of the PLO. He has also been, for at least as long, someone who repeats every conceivable canard and bit of viciousness that can be found in Arab or other propaganda against Israel. He is also, according to many journalists who know him, someone who sometimes claims eyewitness knowledge of things he could not possibly have seen because he was nowhere around at the time.

As for being "award winning" -- so what? There are so many awards being handed out like confetti, that some of them, many of them, most of them, surely go to entirely unworthy recipients. These awards mean nothing. Sometimes, in some fields -- what are called hard sciences --and at the highest level, they may mean something. But there are so many equally, or even more deserving, than some of the recipients, that even there one must not be surprised to find a Nobel Prize winner who is not up to expectations. Or in some cases one may reasonably conclude that others of equal or of greater merit in the same field were somehow overlooked.

The Netherlands and Denmark provide funding to a Palestinian news agency that glorifies terrorists, uses biased language and promotes hatred for Israel, Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook of Palestinian Media Watch allege in a report obtained exclusively by The Jerusalem Post ahead of its official release on Friday. […]

"We find it surprising and unfortunate that the governments of the Netherlands and Denmark continue to fund this hate journalism without demanding a change," Marcus and Crook wrote. "Hate incitement, including denial of Israel's existence and glorifying terror, is universally accepted as a paramount cause of continued Palestinian terror. These governments, together with governments who have blindly funded Palestinian schoolbooks, bear direct moral responsibility for the continued hatred that is being ingrained into future Palestinian generations, and bear a moral responsibility for the terror and its victims." -- from this news article

There is a direct connection between the fate of Israel and the fate of Western Europe. If Israel is forced back, and the Arabs sense that they can finally eliminate the humiliating -- to them, as Muslims -- fact of an Infidel nation-state in the heart of the Dar al-Islam, Muslim triumphalism will be fantastic.

And this will not sate, as some so devoutly and naively think, Arab Muslim appetites. Rather, it will do exactly the opposite. It will whet them for further triumphs, further conquests.

“Majlis Speaker, Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, on Sunday urged the Muslim World to boycott products from any country blaspheming Islam.” -- from this news article

Muslim societies and states are, despite being the recipients of the most fantastic transfer of wealth in human history -- some ten trillion dollars since 1973 alone -- economic failures, dependent still on oil and on the rentier economy of those whose rulers, and the well-connected courtiers of those rulers, have seized large amounts of that national wealth. Two generations have been raised with that vast wealth, and what has come of it? Saudi Arabia itself is still completely dependent on a vast and multifarious army of wage slaves. What art has come, what contributions to science, what signs of cultural life, other than the gold souk, and the jewelry souk, and the every-possible-kind-of-luxury car souk, and the Hediard-and-Fauchon deliveries of Parisian delicacies, and the private 747s, and the Maybachs in every other driveway of every other sheik? What? I keep quoting the observation of a Franco-Armenian architect who spent years in Saudi Arabia: "Money can buy everything, except civilization."

And they will not have to examine either the reasons for their economic failure, and cultural stasis, and penchant for despotism, if they are constantly allowed to find whatever they need -- medical care, access to education -- in the West.

Good luck with that. Will they re-block it once they realize that's rather impossible? Or are they feeling some heat over having taken such sweeping measures, and looking to make that go away while still appearing to do something about Fitna? At any rate, it's Peanut Butter Jelly Time in Indonesia again for the moment.

An update on this story. "Indonesia restores access to YouTube Web site," from Reuters:

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia's Internet service providers have restored access to YouTube and other Web sites that carried a Dutch lawmaker's film that accuses the Koran of inciting violence, an industry official said on Friday.

Isnawan, vice chairman of the Indonesian Internet Providers Association, said service providers would only block access to pages carrying the film by Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch anti-immigration Freedom Party, which alternates images of the September 11, 2001 attacks and other Islamist bombings with quotations from the Koran.

The move followed protests by web users who said they were disadvantaged by the banning of several sites including YouTube, Multiply and My Space.

"We don't need to block the sites but only links that broadcast the film. If the film is moved to another site, we will keep on chasing and block it," Isnawan said.

The Web sites were fully blocked on Monday and Tuesday.

Titled "Fitna," a Koranic term sometimes translated as "strife," the film also shows an image of the Prophet Mohammad primed to explode and says the rising number of Muslims in Europe threatens democratic values.

Would such attacks really please Allah? Western Muslim spokesmen would say no. But what are they doing to convince people like Kafeel Ahmed that their view of Islam is wrong? Nothing, of course -- and the question itself is "Islamophobic," now, isn't it?

"Muslim doctor plotted terror attacks in London and Glasgow," by Adam Fresco for the Times (thanks to all who sent this in):

A Muslim doctor who died after a failed terror attack on Glasgow airport had plotted a campaign of “spectacular” terrorist car bomb attacks designed to devastate Britain, a court heard today.

Kafeel Ahmed, 28, had targeted city nightclubs with explosives made at his home in Glasgow before turning his attention to the airport on its busiest day of the year.

Two car bombs left near nightclubs in the West End of London at the end of June last year had failed to explode when activated by mobile phone.

The next day, knowing the police were closing in, Ahmed launched the airport suicide mission and drove another car bomb into Glasgow Airport.

Driving a Jeep Cherokee he aimed for the entrance doors but crashed into the pillars to the right of them, the Old Bailey heard.

Jonathan Laidlaw, for the prosecution, said: “He then, having found himself from his perspective out of position, reversed the Jeep and made the first of a number of attempts to drive the vehicle through the airport door, repeatedly hitting pillars and the door frame.

“Despite his efforts, the vehicle became trapped. Those who witnessed him described a set and determined face as he stared forward.

“At that point, the vehicle was then 20ft from passengers queuing within the terminal building.

“His passenger lowered his window and threw a petrol bomb across the bonnet in the direction of the taxi rank and then threw a second of these devices in the opposite direction.

“At the same time the driver, the defendant’s brother, began to pour and splash fuel from a can on to the area outside the car window and appeared to throw a petrol bomb.

“He got out of the vehicle and was engulfed in flames that swept around the Jeep and terminal building. He appeared to try and prevent others from getting to him or the vehicle. He kicked out but eventually, he being on fire, he was extinguished, subdued, handcuffed and arrested.”

Full details of the terror plot emerged for the first time today after Kafeel’s brother Dr Sabeel Ahmed, 26, an NHS doctor, admitted failing to disclose information to police after the attacks.

He had received an e-mail about them from his brother but failed to go to police after hearing about the incident in Glasgow.

He was sentenced to 18 months in jail but will be released from custody and voluntarily deported back to India almost immediately because of time in jail he has already served, the court was told.

The e-mail, written two days before the failed Glasgow bomb attack, directed him to online documents containing his will and instructions on how to frustrate and mislead investigators.

Part of it read: “This is a project I was working on for some time now. Everything else was a lie and I hope you can forgive me for being such a good liar. It was necessary, just so that you know.

“Everything since last week was executed by me and my team. This is confidential on behalf of our Emir.”

He added: “It’s about time that we give up our lives and our families for the sake of Islam to please Allah.”...

He doesn't recognize the court's authority to try him, because he doesn't recognize any authority but that of Islamic law. Not that Reuters tells you that, of course.

"Guantanamo defendant praises bin Laden at hearing," by Jane Sutton for Reuters (thanks to Sr. Soph):

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - A suspected al Qaeda conspirator from Sudan praised Osama bin Laden and the September 11 attacks during a hearing in the Guantanamo war court on Thursday and said he did not recognize the court's authority to try him.

"I believe that Osama bin Laden has succeeded in a great way in attacking you militarily and economically," the prisoner, Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al Qosi, told the U.S. military court at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba.

In a courtroom speech often difficult to understand because of problems with Arabic-English interpretation, al Qosi said the attacks on New York and the Pentagon exposed a lack of justice and equality in the United States, which preached human rights to other countries.

"The whole world has a headache from your hypocrisy," said al Qosi, who is accused by the United States of helping bin Laden escape to the Tora Bora mountains of Afghanistan after the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.

He is the second prisoner this week to use his appearance to heap scorn on the court in a remote, U.S.-controlled corner of Cuba. On Wednesday, Saudi Arabian prisoner Ahmed al Darbi called the court "a scam" and "a scandal" and said he would not attend further sessions of his trial on charges of plotting with al Qaeda to blow up ships in the Middle East....

The would-be divorcee

Yes, child marriage, and hence child divorce, does happen. The Qur'an even envisions the prospect of divorce for prepubescent girls. It stipulates a waiting period to determine whether or not the wife being divorced is pregnant: "If you are in doubt concerning those of your wives who have ceased menstruating, know that their waiting period shall be three months.” Then it goes on: “The same shall apply to those who have not yet menstruated” (Qur'an 65:4).

It's good to know, however, that these men were arrested, although it is unclear on what grounds, and doubtful, I believe, that they will actually be prosecuted.

Sharia Alert: "8-year-old girl asks for divorce in court," by Hamed Thabet in the Yemen Times:

SANA’A, April 9 - An eight-year-old girl decided last week to go the Sana’a West Court to prosecute her father, who forced her to marry a 30-year-old man.

Nojoud Muhammed Nasser arrived at court by herself on Wednesday, April 2, looking for a judge to handle her case against her father, Muhammed Nasser, who forced her two months ago to marry Faez Ali Thamer, a man 22 years her senior. The child also asked for a divorce, accusing her husband of sexual and domestic abuse.

According to Yemeni law, Nojoud cannot prosecute, as she is underage. However, court judge Muhammed Al-Qathi heard her complaint and subsequently ordered the arrests of both her father and husband.

“My father beat me and told me that I must marry this man, and if I did not, I would be raped and no law and no sheikh in this country would help me. I refused but I couldn’t stop the marriage,” Nojoud Nasser told the Yemen Times. “I asked and begged my mother, father, and aunt to help me to get divorced. They answered, ‘We can do nothing. If you want you can go to court by yourself.’ So this is what I have done,” she said.

Nasser said that she was exposed to sexual abuse and domestic violence by her husband. “He used to do bad things to me, and I had no idea as to what a marriage is. I would run from one room to another in order to escape, but in the end he would catch me and beat me and then continued to do what he wanted. I cried so much but no one listened to me. One day I ran away from him and came to the court and talked to them.”

“Whenever I wanted to play in the yard he beat me and asked me to go to the bedroom with him. This lasted for two months," added Nasser. "He was too tough with me, and whenever I asked him for mercy, he beat me and slapped me and then used me. I just want to have a respectful life and divorce him.”...

Read it all.

A steep descent from Fellini and even Ed Wood

Finkelstein, Chomsky, LeVine, Carter. They must be so proud.

Loony Conspiracy Theory Alert: "Iranian Filmmaker Nader Talebzadeh Denies the Holocaust and States: Al-Qaeda and the Mossad Carried out 9/11 Together," from MEMRITV (thanks to all who sent this in):

Following are excerpts from a TV debate with Iranian filmmaker Nader Talebzadeh, which aired on Channel 2, Iranian TV on April 3, 2008.

Nader Talebzadeh: When Islam appeared on the scene... Islam was around even before, but the Islam that we have seen in the past three decades has generated reactions throughout the world and is growing. It is like a landlord returning to his property. Take a look at all the big cities in America. Thirty years ago, you could not find a single mosque there, but today, there are a In Los Angeles, there are hundreds of mosques, and the same goes for New York.

[...]

Host: If there really is freedom of expression, why are they so quick to respond whenever the issue of the Holocaust and the burning of the Jews in World War II arises, or whenever somebody tries to investigate this? Why is there no freedom of expression in this case?

Nader Talebzadeh: It has recently become clear that they are intolerant when it comes to this issue. In fact, the return of Islam to the scene has revealed how intolerant they are about discussing the Holocaust. They [imprison] their intellectuals, experts, and researchers, such as Roger Garaudy and Robert Faurisson. All they did was to investigate the figures and say that they were wrong - gas chambers and Zyklon B could not have killed so many people, and the figures regarding Dachau and Auschwitz cannot be true.

Therefore, when they cannot tolerate... The appearance of Islam on the scene has made it clear... Only now are they becoming aware of their intolerance. The fact that the West does not tolerate any criticism of Israel... Today, even the White House is aware of this. Last year, Jimmy Carter portrayed this clearly in his widely discussed book, in which he wrote that it is very strange that... It is just like in the story by Hans Christian Andersen, in which the Emperor has no clothes, and it is a child who exposes this. Jimmy Carter said that nobody in the American Congress dares to criticize Israel in any way. Isn't this strange in a country that purports to believe in liberty?

Today, in America, the only people who dare to criticize Israel are Jews - you must be a [Norman] Finkelstein, a [Noam] Chomsky, or a Mark LeVine. Nobody else dares to speak out about it even in the media, let alone in Congress. It is an unwritten law. It is very strange that there is silencing of voices in a country that purports to be free and liberal.

[...]

In my opinion, Al-Qaeda and the Mossad are a team. When 9/11 took place, the FBI arrested five or six Mossad agents who were filming the building, and they were sent back to Tel Aviv that same day.

If you want to become an apostate, go ahead -- heh heh, just kidding

Why are Islamic countries trying to destroy freedom of speech? Why, to protect Islam -- at least in the view of Sheikh Muhammad Al-Munajid.

"Saudi Cleric Muhammad Al-Munajid Warns: Freedom of Speech Might Lead to Freedom of Belief," from MEMRITV (thanks to all who sent this in):

Following are excerpts from an interview with Saudi cleric Muhammad Al-Munajid, which aired on Al-Majd TV on March 30, 2008.

[...]

The problem is that they want to open a debate on whether Islam is true or not, and on whether Judaism and Christianity are false or not. In other words, they want to open up everything for debate. Now they want to open up all issues for debate. That's it. It begins with freedom of thought, it continues with freedom of speech, and it ends up with freedom of belief. So where's the conspiracy? They say: Let's have freedom of thought in Islam. Well, what do they want? They say: I think, therefore I want to express my thoughts. I want to express myself, I want to talk and say, for example, that there are loopholes in Islam, or that Christianity is the truth. Then they will talk about freedom of belief, and say that anyone is entitled to believe in whatever he wants... If you want to become an apostate – go ahead. Fancy Buddhism? Leave Islam, and join Buddhism. No problem. That's what freedom of belief is all about. They want freedom of everything. What they want is very dangerous.

[...]

Freedom of thought, within some constraints, is blessed. Islam calls for thinking, for interpretation, and for the use of the mind. But as for freedom of heresy, which allows anyone to criticize whatever he wants in Islam, saying, for example, that he does not like the punishment for apostasy, that he doesn't like the punishment for drinking alcohol, or that he does not like the punishment of stoning adulterers – this is barbarism. They ask: Why should a thief have his hand chopped off? Some of them say that this is "too much." Two-three much on you and your rotten mind. If you abolish this punishment, you will see the rise in thefts. On the other hand, people feel their property is secure because of this punishment.

Many, many times Islamic apologists in the West have called me "Islamophobic" for pointing out that the traditions of Muhammad that Muslims consider most reliable say that Aisha was nine when Muhammad consummated his marriage with her. This matters because Muhammad is the supreme example for conduct for Muslims -- which leads to a situation in which child marriage is difficult to condemn and is even endorsed by Islamic jurists, such as this fellow. Will Ibrahim Hooper and Salam Al-Marayati and the rest descend upon Dr. Abd Al-Hamid Al-'Ubeidi and call him an "Islamophobe"?

"Iraqi Expert on Islamic Law Calls to Allow Young Girls to Get Married: In Islamic Countries, Girls Get Their Periods at the Age of 8-10. Westerners Criticize the Prophet Muhammad for Having Sex with His 9 Year Old Wife, But Allow Fornication with Underage Girls," from MEMRITV (thanks to all who sent this in):

Following are excerpts from an interview with Dr. Abd Al-Hamid Al-'Ubeidi, an Iraqi expert on Islamic law, which aired on Al-Rafidein TV on March 14, 2008:

Dr. Abd Al-Hamid Al-'Ubeidi: There is no minimum marriage age for either men or women in Islamic law. The law in many countries permits girls to marry only from the age of 18. This is arbitrary legislation, not Islamic law. Why? Because there might be cases in which it is impossible to keep the girl [single] until the age of maturity.

[...]

Most of the time we act according to what is acceptable to most people, and indeed, most men do not marry a girl until she is of age. In some Islamic countries, the age of maturity can be 8 or 10 years. In Yemen, a girl might get her period at the age of 8. In cold countries, such as Russia, Belarus, Scandinavia, New Zealand, Canada, and so on, a girl might not reach maturity until she is 22 years old. She might not get her period until then. Therefore, the greatness of Islamic law is manifest in the fact that marriage is not just for pleasure. True, it is the basic objective for marriage, but there are some cases that require solutions.

[...]

Many criminals, the enemies of Islam, ask: "How could the Prophet Muhammad, at 52 years of age, marry 'Aisha when she was only 8 years old, and consummate the marriage when she was 9 years old?" I say to them: People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Why do you permit your young girls to fornicate? They consider it one of their liberties. Therefore, in these stupid countries, you rarely find girls aged 10 or 12 who are still virgins. They permit this. They have even legislated laws stating that if a girl is under the age of 18, and her girlfriend [sic] or whatever has had sex with her, she has the right to have an abortion. How can you permit the outcome without accepting the cause? Why do you allow your girls to have sex and say this is an individual liberty? It is okay to fornicate with girls there or force them to have sex, and so on, and they have the right to have an abortion. If you permit all this before the age [of 18], without a marriage contract and without any legal grounds – how come you forbid marriage?

No more bacon

Sharia Alert from Occupied Constantinople, in modern, moderate, model-for-the-Islamic-world secular Turkey: "Istanbul's Last Pork Butcher Fights Islamist Crackdown on Swine," by Firat Kayakiran for Bloomberg (thanks to SMC):

April 10 (Bloomberg) -- Lazari Kozmaoglu, Istanbul's last pork butcher, takes a break from a two-hour backgammon session to recall the days he spent slicing bacon instead of rolling dice.

Eight workers used to rush in and out of the cutting room, placing wrapped meat in refrigerators, Kozmaoglu, 63, recalls in his store in central Istanbul. Today the shop is down to its last two months of stock and attracts only a handful of customers.

Turkey's Islamist-rooted government has clamped down on the pork industry since 2004, closing all but two of the country's 25 pig farms and revoking slaughterhouse licenses. Kozmaoglu, unable to add to his meat supplies, spends most of his time shuffling paperwork as he seeks permission to reopen his abattoir.

``I don't know what I can do if they don't give it to me; this business is my life,'' Kozmaoglu says as he watches a news bulletin on Greek television.

He's one of about 2,000 ethnic Greeks remaining in Istanbul. Most Greeks left the city after Turkish mobs attacked their homes and workplaces in 1955. Others were expelled in 1964 after fighting between Greeks and Turks on Cyprus.

Before the 2004 crackdown, Kozmaoglu was one of four pork butchers in Istanbul. All of his competitors quit handling pigs after losing their slaughterhouse permits. The state granted Kozmaoglu temporary licenses to let him kill the swine on outlawed farms, but those have now been cut off, he says.

In 2004, the Agriculture Ministry assumed the power to issue livestock handling permits previously controlled by local authorities. The ministry has refused applications for pig facilities, citing a failure to meet sanitary or other standards. [...]

The pork crackdown began in 2004 after 40 people contracted food poisoning at a restaurant in Izmir on the Aegean coast, said Zafer Ustundag, one of two remaining pig farmers in Turkey. Raw pork was found mixed with the raw beef and cracked wheat used to make the Turkish dish ``cig kofte.''

`Overzealous Officials'

The ministry used the food-poisoning scare as an excuse to shut down the pork industry, says Tahsin Yesildere, former head of the Turkish Veterinary Medical Association's Istanbul branch.

``The Islamic mentality within the government finished off the business after the public outcry following the incident in Izmir,'' he said. ``The prime minister probably doesn't even know about it, but that's what happens when you have overzealous officials.''

Erdogan's press spokesman, Akif Beki, didn't respond to phone calls seeking comment.

Ustundag, 43, keeps about 200 pigs at his farm in Kirklareli, near the Bulgarian border, and owns a nearby convenience store. At first, he was optimistic about the government's measures.

``We thought they would provide us with a properly regulated work environment,'' Ustundag says. ``But it turned out to be a plan to suffocate us.''

The pig farmers soon faced a Catch-22, Ustundag says. While a new rule required farmers to provide the address where their animals would be slaughtered, there were no abattoirs left.

``How can we provide that when they've revoked all the slaughterhouse licenses?'' says the goatee-wearing Ustundag, sitting in his half-empty food and alcohol store. [...]

Back in Istanbul, Kozmaoglu says sales have fallen to less than a 10th of the 50,000 liras ($39,000) a month he brought in four years ago. He employs just three workers.

The shop, next to a gas station in the Dolapdere neighborhood, doesn't have a sign out front because Kozmaoglu doesn't want to attract attention from ultra-nationalists.

Gee, I wonder who those "ultra-nationalists" who get upset about pork might be.

But just so you don't get a negative impression of Muslims, Bloomberg adds a bit of human-interest: this poor man whose livelihood has been taken away by Islamic supremacist officials still has backgammon to comfort him...and he plays with a pious Muslim! How magnificently moderate and multicultural! Not that it does a thing to relieve him from the government's Catch-22, but hey, it makes him feel better!

Gammon or Backgammon

His main customers are restaurants and well-paid businessmen from various ethnic groups. Kozmaoglu laments that there are fewer Greek Christian customers than there once were because the younger generation doesn't want to pay for high-quality food.

Less demand for gammon means more time for backgammon. Kozmaoglu smiles across the table at his friend, a pious Muslim man who lives nearby and visits the shop for their regular games.

``This man takes all my troubles away for a few hours every afternoon,'' Kozmaoglu says. ``This is the best part of my time in the shop.''

Capable of reaching targets in Europe.

"Spy photos reveal 'secret launch site' for Iran's long-range missiles," from the TimesOnline (thanks to JE):

The secret site where Iran is suspected of developing long-range ballistic missiles capable of reaching targets in Europe has been uncovered by new satellite photographs.

The imagery has pinpointed the facility from where the Iranians launched their Kavoshgar 1 “research rocket” on February 4, claiming that it was in connection with their space programme.

Analysis of the photographs taken by the Digital Globe QuickBird satellite four days after the launch has revealed a number of intriguing features that indicate to experts that it is the same site where Iran is focusing its efforts on developing a ballistic missile with a range of about 6,000km (4,000 miles).

A previously unknown missile location, the site, about 230km southeast of Tehran, and the link with Iran's long-range programme, was revealed by Jane's Intelligence Review after a study of the imagery by a former Iraq weapons inspector. A close examination of the photographs has indicated that the Iranians are following the same path as North Korea, pursuing a space programme that enables Tehran to acquire expertise in long-range missile technology.

Geoffrey Forden, a research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that there was a recently constructed building on the site, about 40 metres in length, which was similar in form and size to the Taepodong long-range missile assembly facility in North Korea....

"'The deputy secretary's office has thoroughly reviewed the issues of concern raised by a few members of Congress and the media and has concluded there is no reason to question Cmdr. Hesham Islam's credibility or his allegiance to his country,' Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell told Inside the Ring." -- from this article

No reason to question his [Islam's] credibil