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

In "Myrick Aces, D.C. Flunks 'Jihadism 101,'" the ever-perceptive Diana West discusses Representative Sue Myrick's anti-jihad plan:

Reading U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick's "Wake Up America" agenda -- a 10-point plan targeting potential jihadist infiltration into this country's military, security, educational and financial institutions -- triggers mixed emotions.

First, relief. Finally, there is an elected official who understands the urgency of these festering national security threats. Virtually every other elected U.S. official, up to and including the president (and presidential candidates) has shockingly ignored these same threats. Which leads to a flash of panic: How could our leaders have allowed so many years go by without taking action? Then comes, for me at least, a sense of resolve to help Myrick accomplish her goals by trying to boost a much-needed national conversation about the jihadist threat at home.

The North Carolina Republican's plan warms up with two calls for investigations into those U.S. chaplains, in both the US military and the prison system, who were approved by Abdurahman Alamoudi, the convicted terrorist and Muslim Brotherhood (MB) member now serving 23 years in prison.

(Normal person's reaction: What do you mean an MB member later convicted of terrorism chose our Muslim military and prison chaplains? Tell me more. Government reaction: Zzzzz.)

In the early 1990s, back when he was something of a Washington power broker, Alamoudi helped set up the Pentagon's Muslim chaplain corps in conjunction with the Institute of Islamic and Arabic Sciences in America, a Saudi-funded operation that specializes in what you might call Jihadism 101. (Way to be awake, Pentagon.)

Alamoudi went to prison back in 2004, but no one since, in the military or the prisons, seems to have taken a second look at what his prodigies might be preaching (terrorism? treason? whatever?). Myrick plans to check into it herself.

[...]

Ambitious? You bet. Myrick deserves an "A" for effort for filling the leadership vacuum left by Republicans and Democrats alike regarding these and other home-front threats. Whether she can accomplish her goals, she will certainly help educate Americans on gravely important issues most of our politicians are too timid to talk about.

And not just politicians. Most liberal and conservative media types are afraid also. Both Myrick and West deserve our gratitude. Read it all.

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....

Andy Bostom has a terrific piece, "A Study in Contrasts: Benedict, Tantawi, and the Jews," in National Review, showing the stark contrast between Pope Benedict XVI, who is routinely called a "Nazi," and Al-Azhar's Grand Sheikh Tantawi, who is a lot closer to really being one:

Last Friday, Pope Benedict XVI stopped at the Park Street Synagogue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The 81-year-old pontiff — a native of Germany whose father had been anti-Nazi — was forcibly enrolled in the Hitler Youth, and conscripted into the German army during the final months of World War II, before deserting in the war’s concluding days. With fitting poignancy, Rabbi Arthur Schneier, the Holocaust survivor who leads the synagogue, greeted Pope Benedict. Schneier, 78, lost his family in the Nazis’ Auschwitz and Terezin concentration camps as a teenager. Schneier has headed the synagogue since 1962, while championing religious freedom and tolerance worldwide.

Monsignor David Malloy, general secretary of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, characterized the pope’s appearance — one day before Passover — thusly: “By this personal and informal visit, which is not part of his official program, His Holiness wishes to express his good will toward the local Jewish community as they prepare for Passover.”

Indeed this is the pope’s second visit to a synagogue as pontiff. On his initial papal trip abroad, in August 2005, Benedict visited a synagogue in Cologne, Germany, that had been destroyed by the Nazis. Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Wiesenthal Center, noted appositely, on that occasion, “The fact that in his very first foreign visit as Pope he went to the Cologne Synagogue is an indication of the importance that the Church attaches to its relationship with the Jews.” Within a year later, Benedict’s May 2006 address while visiting the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp included a blistering rebuke and condemnation of those who would persecute Jews, and a lucid presentation of the phenomenon of anti-Semitism, particularly as it was manifested in the unspeakable horrors of Auschwitz:

Deep down, those vicious criminals, by wiping out this people, wanted to kill the God who called Abraham, who spoke on Sinai and laid down principles to serve as a guide for mankind, principles that are eternally valid.

Earlier, writing in December 2000, the future pope (then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) affirmed his close alignment with the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, and the ecumenical thought of his predecessor and dear friend, Pope John Paul II. Ratzinger’s statement reiterates this “new vision of Jewish-Christian relations,” and even acknowledges a role for Christian anti-Semitism in the Holocaust itself:

Down through the history of Christianity, already-strained relations deteriorated further, even giving birth in many cases to anti-Jewish attitudes, which throughout history have led to deplorable acts of violence. Even if the most recent, loathsome experience of the Shoah was perpetrated in the name of an anti-Christian ideology, which tried to strike the Christian faith at its Abrahamic roots in the people of Israel, it cannot be denied that a certain insufficient resistance to this atrocity on the part of Christians can be explained by an inherited anti-Judaism present in the hearts of not a few Christians.

He then implores that a new relationship be forged between the Church and Israel out of the tragic ashes of the Holocaust, based upon overcoming “every kind of anti-Judaism,” and engaging in sincere, meaningful dialogue.

As Pope Benedict, this commitment and its constructive impact were re-affirmed in a Passover greeting to the Jewish community, issued officially during his visit to Washington, D.C. last Thursday.

In contrast to the pope, consider Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, the current Grand Imam of Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt. For more than a thousand years, since its founding in 792 A.D., Al-Azhar, has served as the academic shrine — much as Mecca is the religious shrine — of the global Sunni Muslim community (Sunnis are about 90 percent of Muslims).

Tantawi’s Ph.D. thesis, Banu Israil fi al-Quran wa-al-Sunnah (Jews in the Koran and the Traditions), was published in 1968-69. In 1980 he became the head of the Tafsir (Koranic Commentary) Department of the University of Medina, Saudi Arabia — a position he held until 1984. Tantawi became Grand Mufti of Egypt in 1986, and a decade later he took his current post as Grand Imam.

My forthcoming book The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism includes extensive, first-time English translations of Jews in the Koran and the Traditions. In the 700-page treatise, Tantawi wrote these words:

[The] Koran describes the Jews with their own particular degenerate characteristics, i.e. killing the prophets of Allah [Koran 2:61/ 3:112], corrupting His words by putting them in the wrong places, consuming the people’s wealth frivolously, refusal to distance themselves from the evil they do, and other ugly characteristics caused by their deep-rooted lasciviousness. . . . Only a minority of the Jews keep their word [Koranic citations here]. . . . All Jews are not the same. The good ones become Muslims [Koran 3:113], the bad ones do not.

These are the expressed, “carefully researched” views on Jews held by the nearest Muslim equivalent to a pope. Tantawi has not mollified such hatemongering beliefs since becoming the Grand Imam, as his statements on “dialogue” with Jews (“I still believe in everything written in that dissertation”), the Jews as “enemies of Allah, descendants of apes and pigs,” and the legitimacy of homicide bombing of Jews make clear.

Unfortunately, Tantawi’s anti-Semitic formulations are well-grounded in classical, mainstream Islamic theology. The Koranic depiction of the Jews — their traits deemed both infallible and timeless — highlights, in verse 2:61 (repeated in verse 3:112), the centrality of the Jews “abasement and humiliation,” and being “laden with God’s anger.” Koranic verses 5:60 and 5:78 describe the Jews’ transformation into apes and swine (5:60), or apes alone (2:65 / 7:166), having been “cursed by the tongue of David, and Jesus, Mary’s son” (5:78). Moreover, forcing Jews, in particular, to pay the Koranic poll tax “tribute” (as per verse 9:29), “readily,” while “being brought low,” is consistent with their overall humiliation and abasement in accord with Koran 2:61, and its directly related verses.

An additional, much larger array of anti-Jewish Koranic motifs build to a denouement (as if part of a theological indictment, conviction, and sentencing process) concluding with an elaboration of the “ultimate sin” committed by the Jews (they are among the devil’s minions [Koran 4:60], accursed by God [Koran 4:47]), and their appropriate punishment: As per Koran 98:6, “The unbelievers among the People of the Book and the pagans shall burn forever in the fire of Hell. They are the vilest of all creatures.”

However, the Koranic origins of Islamic anti-Semitism are not a justification for the unreformed, unrepentant modern application of these hateful motifs pace Tantawi. Within days of the Netanya homicide bombing massacre on a Passover seder night in 2002, for example, Tantawi issued an abhorrent endorsement of so-called “martyrdom operations,” even when directed at Israeli civilians....

Read it all.

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 go